Chapter 2 – Prelude
0916 Hours, October 19, 2552 (Military Calendar)
UNSC High Command (HighCom) Facility Bravo-6, Sydney, Australia, Earth
Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood folded his hands on the surface of the mahogany desk and took a deep, shuddering breath. He was dressed impeccably, his dress white uniform freshly cleaned and pressed. An assortment of decorations adorned his jacket: medals and campaign ribbons representing his long years of service to the UNSC. Golden insignia on the man's shoulder gleamed, clearly displaying his extreme rank.
In truth, Hood was not only one of the UNSC Navy's senior officers, but he was also the Chairman of the UNSC Security Council, the leaders of UNSC High Command and the group of which he was due to host a meeting with in under fifteen minutes time.
Along with his concurrent position of Chief of Naval Operations, Hood was effectively the de facto leader of the entire United Nations Space Command. Such an important position weighed heavily on the Admiral; he was responsible for the coordination of the defense of Earth from the Covenant threat that he knew was inevitable.
On the previous day, the damaged UNSC frigate Gettysburg had arrived at Earth, carrying several Spartan-II survivors from the fall of Reach as well as Staff Sergeant Avery Johnson. Hood had been extremely pleased to see these arrivals: he had thought that all the Spartans had perished during the battle on Reach.
Hood knew that the Pillar of Autumn had successfully escaped into slipspace during Reach's final moments thanks to Lieutenant Wagner's report that the Security Council had received over a month ago in this very room. Hood had held out hope that at least some of the Spartans had been onboard the cruiser during its departure. Although a long shot, Hood knew that if even a few Spartans still lived, humanity may yet have a fighting chance.
During that same meeting, Hood had butted heads with the newest member of the Security Council. The lead of several high-profile projects within the Office of Naval Intelligence, many of which were classified even to Hood, Colonel James Ackerson maintained a legendary rivalry with Dr Catherine Halsey, the brainchild of the Spartan-II program.
During the debriefing, Ackerson had demonstrated a considerable lack of respect for the Spartans and their sacrifices at Reach. Hood had nothing but respect for the Spartans and refused to allow the Colonel's bigotry to stand. He had disciplined Ackerson in front of the rest of the Council. Hood knew that Ackerson's apology had been insincere, but he had been unable to act further as he had to keep the meeting focused.
Despite this, Hood had established that such bigotry had no place on the Security Council. Ackerson had been "convinced" to give up his seat on the Council following this incident, and the man now served as a combat officer with the 47th Infantry Brigade garrisoned on Mars. Hood figured he could do little harm there.
Hood took a sip of water from the glass on the table in front of him and turned his mind to the report that Spartan-117 had delivered to the Council following his return the previous day. It had been extensive, and the enormity of it had taken Admiral Hood some time to process, but what it told did not bode well for Earth.
The Pillar of Autumn's discovery of the Halo construct, the crew's encounters with the terrifying Flood parasite and the subsequent destruction of the ringworld. Regretfully, Captain Jacob Keyes had perished during the final hours of combat – euthanized by Spartan-117 following his assimilation by the Flood. One of the UNSC's best Naval minds had been lost.
The report had continued, detailing the capture of a Covenant vessel by 117 and several other survivors from Halo, the return to Reach and extraction of several surviving Spartans as well as Hood's fellow councilman and Deputy Chief of Naval Operations Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb.
They had learned that the Covenant had located Earth and was amassing an enormous invasion fleet. In yet another unbelievable display of bravery and courage, the Spartans formulated a plan to stop this force that Hood knew the UNSC did not have a hope of defending against.
The Spartans had boarded the Covenant command-and-control station and sabotaged it by overloading its reactor. Admiral Whitcomb had sacrificed himself to lure the Covenant ships into range of the exploding station. The resulting detonation had destroyed most of the Covenant fleet, buying Earth more time to prepare.
Hood closed his eyes briefly, thanking his fellow councilman for his sacrifice.
While undoubtedly a serious blow to the Covenant, Admiral Hood knew more than anyone that once they set their sights on a planet, they would never stop until it had been conquered. The alien alliance had reduced countless colonies to glass during their inexorable advance through human space throughout the last three decades, and humanity were getting perilously close to extinction.
And now with the loss of Reach, the UNSC's military stronghold and final bastion before Earth, the situation was becoming desperate. Over the last month and a half following Reach's loss, Hood had marshalled all the UNSC's remaining assets to the defense of humanity's homeworld. All remaining naval assets had been consolidated into the UNSC Home Fleet and was placed at maximum combat readiness.
Despite the vast array of naval assets protecting Earth, including an extensive network of orbital defense platforms and reinforcements from outlying fleets as well as surviving vessels returning from Reach, Hood doubted that it would be enough to stand up to a full-scale Covenant assault. But as Chief of Naval Operations and the man responsible for ensuring that the UNSC was as prepared as they could be, he had to work with what he had.
Today's meeting would likely be the final one that would be held before the Covenant's arrival, and it was, in Hood's view, an unnecessary one. The Admiral spent most of his time onboard Cairo Station; the orbital platform had been selected to serve as flag headquarters following the fall of Reach. As a result, he did not have much cause to travel to "the Hive". However, it was pertinent to ensure that the senior brass was at maximum readiness. Admiral Hood had faith that they would be, as each officer on the Council had historically liaised effectively with their parent branches without issue.
The double doors leading into the room swung inward, and a figure entered. The newcomer was in his mid-50s, with receding dark brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Hood recognized the man as Major General Nicholas Strauss. Hood did not like the man; Strauss was notably brash in his assessments, certainly more so than Hood felt appropriate for a two-star officer. Strauss also had close ties to his junior officer, Ackerson, and was familiar with the details of some of the Colonel's special weapons programs. In fact, Ackerson seemed to exude some authority over Strauss, a breach in military protocol that Hood had observed during their meeting on September 4.
"Admiral Hood, sir!" Strauss snapped to attention.
"At ease, General. Please sit," Hood replied, doing his best to keep the fatigue out of his voice. In truth, Hood had gotten little sleep over the past month. Most of his time had been spent ensuring that the defenses of humanity's most valuable planet were as powerful as they could be.
He had run through countless combat scenarios with his senior brass, collating all their available knowledge on Covenant battle tactics and ensuring they were able to counter any threat. Even during the small moments of down-time he had, the Admiral's mind was plagued by the knowledge that it might ultimately not matter: if the Covenant attacked Earth with the same ferocity that they had Reach, he doubted that they would be able to hold the line. Humanity's extinction could be mere weeks away.
Over the next few minutes, the remaining members of the Security Council arrived in the room; representatives from all major service branches of the UNSC. Hood could not help but notice that the gathering was substantially smaller than it had been previously, due to the loss of many Council members during the battle of Reach. Soon, everyone had all taken their places and the meeting began in earnest.
"Get it out! Get it out!
"Hold still, hold still!"
"Let 'em have it!"
The rattle of desperate assault rifle fire filled his ears, along with the unmistakable droning of the hundreds of alien creatures that flooded the room.
He was there again. That damned facility on Halo where all hell had broken loose for him and his squad. Before he had even touched down in the murky water of that swamp, Sergeant Avery Johnson had a gut feeling that the mission was not going to be a milk run. It had sounded simple enough: infiltrate the facility and retrieve the Covenant weapons cache. The Elite they had interrogated had told them that he had been part of a group that had delivered weapons to the facility.
"Sergeant, we're surrounded!"
"God damnit, Jenkins! Fire your weapon!"
Realizing that they might be forced to fight a protracted guerilla war against the Covenant before they were able to leave the ring, Captain Keyes had decided to personally investigate the cache. The weapons held within could prove crucial to the continued survival of the Autumn's crew. Knowing the possibility that the cache could be a Covenant trap, Keyes ordered Avery and Fireteam Charlie to escort him to the facility.
Avery had been expecting at least some Covenant resistance, but there had been nothing. No guards outside the facility. Even as they made their way inside, passing through winding corridors and open galleries, there had been nothing. Only deathly silence.
This had lasted until they had arrived in a large room smeared with blood and littered with bodies… Covenant bodies. Elites. Their chests had been ripped open, like something had burrowed inside. No bullet wounds or plasma scoring on the corpses. Avery had never seen anything like it. Now convinced that something larger was at play, the Sergeant had ordered his fireteam to proceed with caution.
"There are too many, Sarge!"
"Don't even think about it, Marine!"
Upon arriving at a door that was locked down with unusual thoroughness by the Covenant, Keyes had ordered tech specialist Kappus to open it. It was not long before the team had emerged into a room lined with more locked doors: containment cells for the horrors that were about to attack the team.
The split-lipped bastard they had captured had been lying – there was no weapons cache in the structure, only the horrific tentacled monsters that had been sealed away… monsters that the team had unleashed. Within minutes, one of the doors in the room had broken apart, and a tidal wave of the small balloon-like infectors had come rolling out, swarming the fireteam. In moments, they had been overwhelmed.
Screams of pain echoed through the chamber as the monsters climbed all over the Marines, stabbing them with long, barbed tentacles. Blood began to coat the floor, now completely covered in spent shell casings as Marines began to fall, mutating into abominations before Johnson's eyes.
Avery had watched as Keyes and Jenkins went down; had been forced to flee, pursued by creatures that had, up to a moment ago, been members of Fireteam Charlie. For the first time in his long military career, Avery was scared. He had faced the Covenant during countless battles, witnessed the fall of many of humanity's worlds and slaughter of untold numbers of innocent people.
He had felt many emotions during these years, but never the raw fear that had filled his veins as he fled through the corridors of the facility, now teeming with obscene alien creatures. He could not remember how many of his infected comrades he had put down during his flight from the underground structure, but it was far too many.
BOOM!
He dove forward as the deafening report of a shotgun fired at point-blank range perforated his eardrums. The pellets impacted the wall inches from him, causing a shower of sparks to erupt from the strange, ancient architecture. Without hesitation, he opened fire with his MA5B into the twisted form standing a scant meter away from him. 7.62mm rounds ripped into the monster's upper torso, tearing its head from its body. But unlike any natural living creature, the mutated creature did not fall.
Click. His assault rifle's ammunition counter read 00.
Without pause, he dropped the rifle and raised his sidearm, unloading into the charging abomination. It finally fell, its tattered body now thoroughly torn apart. No time to linger, more of the creatures were coming.
Somehow, Avery had made it to an elevator platform; the same one he and his squad had used to enter this hellhole. Knowing that the parasitic organisms would not be far behind, he had wasted no time in activating the console, a prayer in his head as the platform ascended the shaft, transporting him away from this nightmare.
The putrid smell of rotting vegetation from the swamp that had previously nauseated him was now the most wonderful aroma ever to meet his nostrils. While the Sergeant had successfully escaped from the facility, contacted Warrant Officer Polaski and exfiltrated from the swamp on board her Pelican, he felt as though a part of him had died with the rest of his squad inside the facility.
Avery could still see their faces, every time he went to sleep. The wide-eyed, panicking expressions of the Marines of his fireteam as they were overwhelmed by unknown hostiles. Johnson loved his men. He had fought alongside members of Charlie for years, endured with them through vicious alien assaults, and fought alongside them against the Covenant on the surface of Halo.
Now they were all gone, consumed by the unstoppable, all-consuming parasitic lifeform that had been buried on the ring for god-knows how long.
Jenkins yelled as one of the infectious little bastards managed to find purchase on him, its tendrils gripping his armor plates. Before Avery could act, the man's face contorted in unimaginable pain as the pod stabbed him with its tentacles. As the Marine, who Avery had known since his days as a member of Harvest's colonial militia, mutated before him, his eyes locked with Avery's and his mouth moved.
"Don't let them get me, Sarge!"
Avery's eyes snapped open. He looked at the wristwatch lying on the nightstand next to him. 0524 hours. He had been asleep for a little over five hours: markedly more rest than was customary for him.
Only two days ago had he arrived back at Earth on board the Gettysburg, along with Spartan-117 and the other surviving members of Blue Team. So much had happened over the last month – it had proven to be the most eventful period of his military career. The fall of Reach, the battle on Halo, the Flood…
The daring raid on the Covenant flagship, returning to Reach and learning that the Covenant was assembling a massive force to assault Earth. Hell, he had been the one to suggest the mission to destroy the command-and-control station. No one else could accomplish the mission except for some honest-to-god Spartans, and Blue Team did not disappoint. Avery had even had a front row seat for the bang.
While he had not taken part directly in the operation, Avery had salvaged their captured Covenant ship's slipspace drive and transferred it to the Gettysburg. He had ensured that the team had the ability to escape once Admiral Whitcomb piloted the Covenant ship into the self-destructing space station.
Following their escape, they had made several randomized slipspace jumps rather than travelling directly for Earth, as per the Cole Protocol. Although Earth's location had clearly been discovered by the Covenant, there were other surviving human colonies that they could not risk compromising to the Covenant by neglecting the protocol.
During the intervening days, Avery had not slept much. The Covenant had their sights on Earth. Despite the crippling blow they had dealt the invasion fleet, he knew that the Covenant was impossibly vast and would undoubtedly muster more ships. All they had done was delay the inevitable.
But they had bought the UNSC time to prepare. The brass knew what was coming and already, the monumental task of evacuating as many of Earth's population to safety as possible was underway. For his part, Avery was ready. If the split-chins wanted Earth that badly, they were gonna have to go through him first.
Despite all this, Avery was constantly plagued by the horrors he had witnessed on the Halo ring. Whenever he did successfully manage to sleep, his mind always took him back to that containment facility. He had witnessed his squad's infection countless times.
While Avery took solace in knowing that that the Flood had been wiped out along with Halo, he would never be able to forget the terrifying parasitic creatures. The loss of his fireteam, defiled beyond death caused him to feel pangs of terror even now, a month later.
Avery did not even want to think about what would have happened had the Flood managed to escape from the Halo construct. Such a vile, unstoppable force would have been the end of life as they all knew it.
Now wide awake, Avery climbed out of his bunk. In a few hours he was due to attend an awards ceremony on the Cairo Station's bridge, presided over by Fleet Admiral Hood. Avery didn't envy the man's job - the coordination of the entire Earth defense force could only be managed by one as qualified as Hood.
And besides, Avery was most at home with his boots on the ground, a rifle in his hands and plenty of enemies downrange. Hell, he would more than likely be granted this wish soon enough. And the Chief himself would be there. Avery had personally mentored the Spartan way back when the war against the Covenant was just beginning, and they had covered each other's six on more than a few occasions.
Avery had even had a hand in the man's promotion to Master Chief Petty Officer, right back at the beginning of the war. In just in the last several months the Chief had saved his bacon three times: on board Gamma Station during Reach's final moments, and again from the Covenant following their initial touchdown on Halo. And finally, most importantly, he had saved both him, and the entire universe from the Flood by destroying Halo. There was truly no greater example of a perfect soldier in Avery's eyes than the Master Chief.
Within half an hour, Avery was showered. His face was freshly shaved save for the neatly trimmed mustache that he wore, and he was adorned in his dress whites. His uniform was free from all ornamentation save for the purple heart which he wore on the left side of his chest.
While not normally one for such spectacle, Avery knew that the people needed a morale boost. And the highly publicized awards ceremony would do wonders for that purpose. And if nothing else, the presence of the seven-foot-tall killing machine that was the Master Chief would be an impressive sight for the soldiers and sailors of the UNSC, not to mention the civilian population who would no doubt get to see the arrival of the Chief by way of the free-floating cameras that would undoubtedly be present.
Of course, Avery had told the Spartan that no cameras would be at the event… a small lie to tell to ensure that the man who had saved them all wouldn't shy away from the ceremony.
Avery grabbed a coffee from the machine near the door. Taking a sip from the small disposable cup, he closed his eyes for a moment as he swallowed the boiling liquid. It was no home-made brew, but that was a luxury one could not afford these days, and it was definitely not a meager substitute. And he had learned to enjoy the little things in life. Because in these uncertain times, who knew when he would next get the opportunity to enjoy a cup of coffee.
Not much to do now save for grabbing whatever he could to eat and then it would be time to meet the Chief and attend the ceremony.
He finished his coffee and threw the empty cup into the nearby waste receptacle. After one final assessment of his appearance, Avery left the room. Whatever the next twenty-four hours would hold; it would certainly be eventful.
Author's note: Whoo, another chapter done. Admittedly, I'd like to be getting these out quicker, but work has been kicking my rear all week and it's showing no sign of letting up so unfortunately my updates are gonna be a tad bit unpredictable. Basically, as and when I am able to devote the time to write.
Also, I must apologize if this fic seems to be moving slowly… just wanna get a bit of background detail in about some of our big players. We'll soon be moving onto some juicy action and I can't wait haha. Hopefully this wasn't too much of a slog for you guys :-D
