Disclaimer: All series portrayed within this fan-fic belongs to whoever owns them. I DON'T!

The Halo of the Hero

Chapter 10- Demons awakening.

"The last transmission from the captains dropship was from this area, and that was over twelve hours ago."

"I copy that." Ranma said over the comm.

"When you find the captain radio in and I will come pick you up."

Ranma jumped out of the back of the pelican, falling five metres before landing in water. He brushed some rotten vegetation from his armour and then proceeded towards the coordinates Foehammer had given him.

He was in the middle of a swamp, the muddy water reaching him to his waist. The fog was thick, you barely could see ten metres. The trees of the surrounding are reached up and disappeared in the darkness above.

He scanned the area for any potential hostiles and then continued to walk. Not even a hundred metres from the point where Foehammer had dropped him of he found the wreckage of Victor-931.

The fog and surrounding foliage had made it impossible for Foehammer to spot the crash site from the air.

Inside he found the bodies of the pilot and co-pilot, but no trace of any marines or the captain.

He checked the lockers in the back of the pelican, he had only ten rounds left in his assault rifle and a full clip in his M6D pistol, and that wasn't much when facing a horde of Covenant.

A couple of clips for both his rifle and pistol, some freeze-dried food, and a fully loaded shotgun and a case of shells for it.

Thinking that it might come in handy he slipped the sling of the shotgun over his right shoulder.

Scanning the area and keeping his eyes on his motion tracker he began to move once again. He followed a trail of portable work-lights indicating that Covenant was in the area. After another forty metres he found another wreck, a Covenant dropship this time.

It had its bow buried deep in the swamp muck. Bodies of dead Covenant littered the area, casualties in the crash. Around the dropship a couple of supply crates were lying around, but they didn't seem to come from the ship.

Once again he scanned the area for Covenant and once again he came up empty. He followed the trail of light that went from the crates and disappeared in the fog.

He jumped up on a fallen tree and climbed a small hill. He took cover as he saw a Covenant Jackal. He took aim and made sure it would hit a part that wasn't behind the handheld plasma shield.

A three round burst took the alien down. He crouched behind the rock and waited for the inevitable counter-attack, but it never came. With the crash-site, cargo crates and light he expected more opposition, a lot more. So where were they? Covenant never travelled alone.

It was another part in the growing mystery. The question was soon answered as a group of grunts walked through the foliage and stopped at the dead jackal. Ranma quickly changed to the shotgun which was better suited for close-up work.

Four loud BANGS each followed by the KA-CHUNK sound as Ranma loaded another shell into the chamber was heard over the swamp.

Making sure they were dead and keeping an eye on his motion tracker he moved up to the dead Covenant. At the top of the hill he could see a forerunner structure less then thirty metres away.

All the other forerunner structures had been graceful spires, but this one looked mostly like a bunker.

He quickly walked up to the entrance, and seeing some spent shotgun shell and cartridges from an assault rifle littering the ground decided to enter the structure.

The room was empty, and the only way to continue was through a lift.

He stepped up on the platform and tried a number of combinations on the nearby panel before the lift started to move.

The lift descended at least four hundred metres and soon a group of red dots appeared on his HUD.

He prepared for combat, shouldering his MA5B assault rifle. When the lift stopped he was surprised that the Covenant wasn't expecting him. Instead of charging him like he expected them to do the red dots remained stationary.

They had heard the lift many times before, Ranma reasoned, and figured the lift was carrying more of their troops.

That suggested Covenant, or more precisely stupid Covenant. It was his favourite kind, except for the dead kind.

The group of dots was standing at the only exit, the view was obscured by a wall. Even though he was wearing a five-hundred kilo armour he didn't make a sound as he moved towards the wall. He took a quick peek around the wall and he could see a group of jackals and grunts standing around a hatch.

He silently placed his rifle at the ground and pulled out a grenade in each hand. He pulled the pins using his thumbs and then held them in his hands and counted to two. He silently rolled the grenades on the ground so that they stopped at the middle of the group.

He leaned back around the corner and waited.

A loud wham was followed by the screams of the Covenant, and a storm of fire and shrapnel. He picked up his discarded rifle and leaned back around the corner. The walls were black from the explosion, only being interrupted by patches of alien blood.

He walked through the door, making sure not to trip on the corpses. The walls were all made of some strange metal or stone, he wasn't sure of which. When he was outside he had heard the constant sound of rain but in here it was totally silent. The corridors of this building were claustrophobic, and the dust he kicked up as he walked gave the place a tomblike feeling.

He could see a corpse of a marine, and as he moved closer he could see the woman's weapons and dog-tags missing, a sure evidence that the marines had pushed further down the building.

------------------------------------------------------------

Noselee couldn't believe it, the humans had fought harder then they thought, killing nine squads of their standard infantry, and even eight hunters.

He cursed the humans, ever since the humans had landed on the sacred ring they had fought bolder than he ever had seen before. First the massacre on Truth & Reconciliation, and then now here on the silent cartographer.

He mourned over his lost brethren, saying a ritual prayer to all the dead soldiers on the beach. It was not how it should be, the humans couldn't fight like this, they should have been victorious, even with the special human at their side they shouldn't have been able to win.

With the blessings of the prophets he would see to that the guilty was punished.

He felt something deep down in his stomach, it was doubt. He mentally shrugged it off, the close contact with the dead human vermin must be clouding his mind. Once he got back to his ship he would meditate to purify his mind from such blasphemy thoughts.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Ranma entered walked through the hatch and was greeted to the sight of a fear-crazed marine.

He was sitting with his back against the wall, eyes open wide and jerking from side to side like he was seeking something. His face was twisted into a horrible grimace. There was no sign of the soldier's assault weapon but he had a pistol gripped tightly in his hands, and he fired into the shadows in a corner.

"Stay back! You're not turning me into one of those things."

"Put the weapon down soldier, I am on your side." Ranma said as gently as he was capable. This wasn't the first time he encountered marines that had broken under the pressure of combat.

The marine didn't listen and fired a shot at Ranma that hit him square in the chest. He could feel as the 12,7 mm slug hit him in the chest, but his shields absorbed the bullet.

"Get away from me! Don't touch me you freak, I will die first!"

Ranma quickly snatched the weapon away from the marine. The marine just pressed his back against the wall, he was shacking uncontrollably.

"Where are Captain Keyes and the rest of your squad?" Ranma asked and placed an armoured gauntlet on the marines shoulder to calm him down.

"Go find your own hiding place, the monsters are everywhere!" The man screamed as he looked around the room.

"What monster, do you mean the Covenant?" Ranma asked the shacking soldier.

"No, not the Covenant! Them!" The soldier screamed and flayed his arm as in an attempt to fend of some invisible opponent.

"Where are the rest of the marines?" Ranma asked seriously.

"Gone! The monsters took them! Oh God, I can still hear them scream. The screams were everywhere!" The marines said and covered his ears as to block out the sound.

Ranma handed the pistol back to the man whit accepted it with shaking hands.

"Reload it and get topside, there will be a dust off later." Ranma said and began to walk away.

The man curled up into a fetal ball and continued to whimper.

As Ranma rounded a corner of the room he could hear the marine whisper.

"I will die first."

A single shot was fired and then the clatter of a pistol falling to the ground echoed over the empty room, half a second later the sound of cloth sliding against the wall and then a small thud as something hit the floor was heard.

Ranma just shock his head, it was a waste of life.

---------------------------------------------------

Major Alex Silvia cursed a two Covenant dropships where closing in. The fighting for alpha base had been going worse for every hour. The Covenant had sent numerous reinforcements and had taken about two thirds of the base.

Half of her men were dug down at the entrance and the rest was trying to put up a fight near the landing pads and the pelicans, unfortunately the pilots where with the other squad so the pelicans where useless.

The Covenant had split their forces in two and it was impossible to get to the others help. They were running out of places to pull back to.

She could see as the alien dropships were trying to land on two of the vacant pads.

The dropships where hovering about twenty metres off the ground and was going down slowly. She grinned an evil smile as an idea formed in her head. She took of in a mad sprint across the landing pads.

She began to fumble with some controls and then picked up a hose. A long stream of fuel to the pelicans erupted from the hose and sprayed the landing pads. The small plastic step that surrounded the pad that was used to stop any spill-oil from spreading effectively blocked the fuel.

When the fuel on the pad became ankle deep she shut the hose off. She took cover behind a Covenant supply crate and then waited for the ships to land.

She could see as the hatch opened and numerous blue armoured elites jumped out. She pulled the pin on a grenade and threw it at the pad. The resulting explosion made it look like someone had opened a gate straight to hell under the feet of the Covenant.

The grenade detonated and half a second later the fuel ignited, a huge column of blazing fire shot up in the air.

The two dropships which were caught in the fire tried to pull away, but the ships open hatches just led the fire inside.

Alex could see smoke pour out of the engine compartment and fire coming from the still open hatches, one of the crafts where leaning badly to the right.

As the badly damaged ships tried to fly away they made two tactical blunders.

First they flew in a close formation even when they where both damaged and could explode, and second they flew over their own troops.

Collin, one of her heavy weapon experts, shouldered his M19 SSM Rocket launcher.

The dropships flew extremely slowly, because of the damage done to them so Collin hit one of them easily.

The rocket exploded on the left of the most badly damaged ship and made it turn violently and ram the other ship.

The U-shaped ship exploded at the bottom, sending both of the troop modules crashing down on their troops.

The second ships exploded ten metres up in the air, sending shrapnel everywhere.

"Good work soldier!" Alex yelled to the man. He just gave her the thumbs up.

She could see a huge hole in the Covenants line of defence separating both UNSC-squads.

"This is Major Silvia, put up some heavy fire on the breach."

About a third of her troops changed aim while the rest was pouring bullets over the oncoming Covenant.

She could hear the roar of engines in the distance but it wasn't the sound of Covenant engines, it was coming from a pelican.

The pelican made a fly by and Alex could see that it was Echo-Four-Nineteen. She made a U-turn but this time she was going in low.

Two 50-mm chain guns sprayed metal death on the Covenant, ripping them to pieces. She made two additional strafing runs clearing out a good deal of Covenant.

The pelican hovered fifteen metres over the ground and two ropes were thrown out of the back.

Two marines began to rappel down followed by another two. The marines secured a perimeter and began to open fire on the Covenant.

After unloading twenty or so troops she took of again, disappearing at the horizon.

The fight for alpha base had just turned in the humans favour, but Alex didn't lie to herself, this fight would be though as hell.

---------------------------------------------------------

Ranma walked up the ramp slowly and with his rifle at ready. He had walked through a series of mysteriously empty rooms and galleries, finding no trace of neither Covenant nor human forces.

He turned around and looked down on the room. It was empty like all the others. He had learned to trust his instincts long ago and now they nagged him. Something felt wrong. He stopped to listen but nothing was heard. The dim light was falling over the grey walls, but no enemy was seen.

The room he entered was rectangular with two ramps that went down and met in the middle. He slowly walked down the ramp, scanning the cold walls fore any sign of anything. At the bottom he found a single hatch. He felt as is someone was watching him so he turned around but was met with an empty corridor.

He shrugged of the bad feeling and walked towards the door. The door sensed his presence and opened. A dead marine fell towards Ranma.

He felt his pulse quicken and his body tensed as he caught the man before the body crashed to the floor. He held the MA5B assault rifle in one hand as he scanned the room past the door. Finding nothing he turned around and scanned the open door he was coming from. The corridor was empty.

He backed away from the door and it slid shut. He lowered the body of the marine down to the floor carefully and then stepped back. His armoured boot hit some empty shell casings which rolled away. That's when he realized the floor was filled with thousands of empty shells, it was so many that they looked to carpet the floor.

He found numerous weapons lying on the floor and a single marine helmet. He picked it up and saw the name JENKINS stencilled at the back with white colour.

A vid-cam was attached, the kind wore by every combat team, so that they could critique missions afterwards, feed the ghouls in intelligence, and on occasion like this give people information regarding the circumstances surrounding a soldiers death.

He quickly picked out the chip and inserted it in the empty slot in his helmet, and watched the video on a window on his HUD.

The marine had his night-vision on and that made everything sickly green. The screen flashed and then began to play.

He was sitting in the compartment of a pelican, loud rock music was playing over the speakers.

"Why do we always have to listen to this old stuff sarge?" A marine sitting next to Jenkins said.

"Watch it son, this stuff is your history." Johnson said with a frown.

"Hey, if the Covenant wants to wipe out this particular part of my history its fine by me." A marine straight across the compartment said.

"Yeah, better it then us." Jenkins said and laughed.

"The view looks clear, I am going in" The pilot's voice said over the speakers and cut of the music.

It continued quite ordinary, they moved through the swamp and came upon the same structure he himself had entered.

"Mendoza, Jenkins move it up. Bisenti, wait here for the Captain and his squad and then get your ass inside." He could hear Johnson say over the comm.

They proceeded down the same halls he himself had walked, every single one was empty.

"Sure are many unlocked door in this place." He could hear Mendoza say.

"Mendoza put a sock in it will you." He could hear Johnson say as they walked through another door. The mood was tense.

The room was a mess, Covenant bodies was littering the floor and fires where burning in the corners. The marine secured the room and then Johnson and a few others walked up and stood around a body of a dead Covenant elite.

"What the hell happened, we haven't sent in any forces here, and still every Covenants dead."

"Which is weird right? I mean look at it... it looks like something scrambled the insides." A marine said as he prodded the body with his boot.

"What's that? Plasma scoring?" Johnson said and pointed to wall.

"Yeah, maybe they had an accident. You know friendly fire or something." A marine said but you could hear he wasn't convinced himself.

The doors opened and the marines raised their weapons. When Captain Keyes walked in followed by a couple of marines they lowered them again.

"What do we have sergeant?" He said and walked up to the body.

"Looks like a Covenant patrol, badass elite units, all KIA." Johnson said and pointed at the wounds on the elite.

"Real pretty, friend of yours?" Keyes said and tried to brighten the mood. Everyone could see the marines were extremely freaked out because of the dead Covenant. The Covenant may be trigger-happy, but not enough to kill their own men.

"No we just met." Mendoza said and that earned him a couple of laughs.

They moved deeper down the complex, and finally they came upon the door Ranma himself had opened only minutes before.

"Open that door soldier." Keyes said.

"It looks like the Covenant worked pretty hard to lock it down." A marine standing before the door and working on a panel said.

"Just do it son." Keyes said.

The marine nodded and a couple of minutes later the door slid open.

The marines and Captain Keyes entered the room rifles trained at everything that looked suspicious.

"I've got a bad felling about this." A marine said nervously.

"Kid you always got a bad felling about..."

"Captain, sarge we are under attack, but their not Covenant!" A marine yelled in the radio and gunfire was heard in the background

"Shit! Fire goddamn it! HELarggggggg." The transmission cut.

"Corporal? Corporal? Mendoza get your ass back to second squads position and find out what the hell is going on.

"But..." Mendoza said.

"We don't have time for you complaining soldier..." Johnson said but was interrupted.

"SARGE! Listen." Mendoza said and made gesture with his hand to quiet down everyone.

Loud dripping noises were heard, sounding like some huge slimy insects where crawling somewhere.

A hatch was ripped open and something moved out towards the marines. It was many something's, hundred pouring over the marines that where backing away and shooting at the oncoming hordes. The last thing seen was as one of those things attached to Jenkins face and everything went black.

Ranma threw away the vid-chip and began slowly to back away towards the door. It was closed and then he could hear the same dripping noise that was on the chip.

A loud banging was heard on the door he was standing with his back to. He turned around on his heels and aimed at the door. Huge dents began to appear on it and soon it was busted open.

The things that entered were roughly half a meter long and round. They had small black tentacles with which they moved around with. They had a sickly green-brown colour and they dripped a vile looking yellow slime on the ground.

They lunged for him and he opened fire in an instant. The 7,62 mm armour piercing rounds went right through the creatures and killed the ones behind. His sixty round clip went dry and he changed and began to open up on the second wave.

When he emptied his fourth clip no more entered the door. He looked around the room, hundred of the creature was lying dead on the floor, their blood forming a carpet of green.

With rifle trained on the door he began to move towards the room's only exit. When he was three metres from the door a marine jumped around the corner. Or rather the remains of a marine.

The body looked like it was rotting, the skin was a sickly yellow-green colour. The eyes where completely white and the mouth was open in a silent scream. The face was distorted in a grimace of anguish, and the left arm of the man was replaced with whip looking tentacles.

The flesh looked like it was partly liquefied, the flesh looking like it was falling off the bones of the man.

The creature jumped at him five metres through the air. Ranma opened fire immediately with short controlled bursts, he fired twenty round at the creature but it just continued to charge, like the blown off arm and head didn't bother him the least.

When it was two metres from him he opened fire on full automatic, putting it down with another twenty rounds.

He quickly changed a new clip, because more of those thing where already moving through the door.

This time he opened up on full automatic right away, aiming at the chest of the creature for best stopping effect.

When the thing fell the one right behind it leaped at him, his tentacle arm pulled back for a strike.

His rifle went dry and he brought it up to block the strike. The strike bent the rifle into a V-shape, making it completely useless.

Sidestepping he managed to grab the arm of the thing and he ripped hard. A wet snap was heard as he ripped the whole arm out of its socket. He threw the limb away and then punched hard into the back of the creature.

His hand went right through the rotten flesh and appeared out of the things chest. But even with that wound it tried to turn around and attack Ranma.

With his free hand he took a strong grip around the neck of the creature and ripped out the creature's spine.

He quickly picked up his shotgun he dropped in the fight and turned towards the door. At least ten of those thing where crowding at the door.

He quickly pinned a grenade and threw it at the monsters. A loud wham and a rain of rotting body parts announced he had taken care of a bunch of those things.

He charged and fired three shells into the first of the remaining things and put it down fast. It appeared that the shotgun was the most effective weapon against those things at close range.

He fired another seven rounds into the two remaining and hurried out of the door. He didn't like it down here and he wished he hadn't left Cortana. Right now he felt very alone and a small bit of dread gripped his heart.

Those things had looked like they had come from hell itself. He quickly crushed any emotion and then put all his focus on getting his sorry ass out of here.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Cortana frowned at the computer system. Even though she had been able to access a majority of the systems in Halo she was still not able to access the Alpha systems. She took some pride in the fact that she had been able hack into a computer system on this scale, a computer system that was built by the forerunners themselves, but the irritation of not being able to access all information overshadowed the pride by far.

She frowned even more as she saw what was happening in the real world. The Covenant had launched yet another attack on Alpha base, but this time the reinforcements couldn't do much.

They where in a stalemate.

She frowned even more as she saw what had happened with Keyes squad. She really hoped that Ranma would make it out of there alive, he was interesting... for a human. He would be facing hordes of flood. The things had been named "the flood" and Cortana thought that it was a fitting name, they attacked in superior numbers, drowning their enemies in flood of bodies.

She turned her attention to the Covenant, they had put every ship into orbit as soon as the word about the flood had spread.

The only two ships left were the Truth and Reconciliation, and the Pillar of Autumn. The Autumn was absolutely useless for any form of space travel, but the Truth & Reconciliation would be able to leave the systems with only minor repairs.

She began to go through the information she had gathered from the main-frame. As she did it she paused for three whole seconds and her eyes widened in horror.

The Covenant, Keyes and Ranma had only accessed the top layers of the compound, and all the deeper levels where still locked down. She began to put up additional security measures on the doors leading there, the flood they had released was nothing compared to the ones still in hibernation.

If they woke up she didn't know what to do.

----------------------------------------

Ranma ran up to the console and pressed a couple of combinations before hearing the machinery start. He turned around and opened fire on the oncoming horde of flood. The lift shoot upwards and soon yellow dots appeared on his HUD.

As the lift stopped he could see he was surrounded by marines, the living ones this time. Everyone had their rifle trained on him, but they didn't lower it when they saw who he was. When he was wearing his mjolnir armour they couldn't tell if he had been turned into one of the flood.

"I am not one of them." Ranma said simply over the speakers.

The marines sighed in relief and lowered their weapons.

"Thank god you showed up chief, sorry for the cold reception but we are rather safe then sorry."

"It is understandable. What happened here? I only got the basic idea."

"We split up into four teams. The first squad would enter the structure at the other entrance, second squad would hold position there. We where in the third and fourth squad, we were going to put up a field HQ here and guard the drop zone. We got some garbled messages from second squad and then awhile latter from first. We didn't get time to see what happened to them because those things attacked and took out both pelicans and destroyed most of our equipment, including the radios. We lost a good deal of men to drive those things back and then we put up a position here so we could wait for any rescue teams. We only have short range radios left so we couldn't get a message to Alpha base." The marine said and sighed.

He nodded and then put up a stable connection with E-419.

"Foehammer I have some survivors, can you come pick us up?" He said.

"Two hundred metres from your current position there is a tower. Get there and I can pick you up." She said.

Ranma turned towards the marines and looked at their weapons. Everyone had either an assault rifle or shotgun. He nodded in approval, the only way to kill the flood for good was to cause extreme amounts of damage. He had blown away a flood both legs and right arm and it still tried to drag itself towards him with its remaining arm.

The only thing missing was two marines carrying flamethrowers, but you couldn't have everything.

"You heard the lady, move it marines!" Ranma shouted as he took point. The marines were walking in a close formation, covering each other. Ranma had his eyes on the motion tracker, trying to any sign of flood.

A big cluster of red dots appeared to his right, but when he looked there he only saw calm swamp water.

He frowned and pinned a grenade and threw it into the water. A cascade of water and a downpour of dead infection forms announced the presence of the flood. A couple of the things jumped out of the water and began to attack, but didn't even get close with the fire coming from the marines and Ranma.

He looked out on the water and then at his motion tracker, red dots were everywhere.

"Avoid the water at all cost, they are just waiting for a chance to get an easy prey." He said over the comm.

The group began to run towards the tower, but still covering each other. They arrived at the tower, it was huge and the thing disappeared in the darkness above.

His entire motion tracker was covered by red dots surrounding the small group of yellow ones, and they where slowly closing in.

He threw his six remaining grenades into the water and then opened fire. The marines did the same, pillars of water shooting up into the air as they exploded, dead flood infection form falling out of the sky with the water.

Even with the constant fire coming from the marines' weapons the circle was becoming closer and closer.

"What the hell is happening down there? I am tracking movement all over the place."

"Get here now!" Ranma said into the comm.

A combat form jumped out of the water and lunged at a marine with its whip like tentacle. The man hadn't time to react, the wet snap as the man's neck was broken wasn't heard over the constant rattle of weapons firing.

The thing jumped another marine and this time hit a marine across her chest. Her armour took the brunt of the strike, but she still got a huge gash across her arm.

The thing was about to lash out again but was stopped as Ranma wielded his shotgun like a baseball bat and struck it across the chest. It wasn't fancy, it wasn't graceful, but that hardly mattered when you count in the fact he hit hard enough to stop a freight train dead in its track. The thing flew twenty metres through the air and landed in an ungraceful heap, and it didn't get up.

"Visitor team scores." He said and fired three shells into a charging flood that went down.

His last shell went into the chest of a charging flood and he was about to repeat his patented special swing technique with his shotgun.

He didn't get the chance, a beam of red light struck the flood in the chest. It staggered backwards and was hit once again, but this time from the side.

Ranma followed the beam and saw some kind of flying robot. It was about a meter long and fired a constant laser beam on the flood. Ranma looked around and could see that at least thirty of those thing where flying around and cutting the flood to pieces.

They hadn't fired on them yet so he didn't fire on them. The red dots began to disappear and soon the only thing remaining was fourteen yellow dots and thirty or so white ones indicating the robots.

The loud roar of pelican engines was heard and soon E-419 appeared out of the fog.

Ranma helped some of the wounded marines onboard the pelican and was about to jump in himself when he heard a voice from behind him.

"Greetings, I am 343 Guilty Spark, I am the monitor of installation Zero-Four. Someone has released the flood and I am here is to prevent them from leaving this installation. But I need your assistance Reclaimer." The thing that spoke was a flying metal ball that emitted a blue light.

Ranma looked at the marines and then at the Guilty Spark. He nodded and then turned towards the marines.

"Warn Alpha base about what happened here. See too it that they prepare."

"Yes sir" A marine yelled over the roar of the engines.

The marine unslung his rifle and threw it and a belt full of ammunition to Ranma

"Might need it." He said.

The pelican took of and disappeared into the fog.

"We must retrieve the Index so we can access high level systems and activate Halos defences." Guilty Spark said and began to float towards the tower.

"And where is it located?" Ranma asked as he walked next to Guilty Spark.

"On another part of the ring, in a protective barrier that will stop the flood from taking it." He said simply.

"And how will we get there?" Ranma asked.

Guilty Spark didn't answer, but instead Ranma was enveloped in yellow light and in a flash he was gone.

-----------------------------------------

Noselee exited the room, he was in shock, he had been appointed the title warmaster. He would be commanding the ground-troops onboard five of their warships.

It was an immense honour and he wouldn't fail like the one before him. The old warmaster had died fighting of the flood. He and a small band of elites had pushed them back and the prophets had heard that an appointed him as a replacement.

But one thing was nagging him, if the ancient enemies had been buried on the sacred ring then what was the human's part in the whole? They too had fought against the enemies of the sacred ones.

The doubt he had felt was growing stronger.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Ranma reappeared in a huge circular room. He shock his head to make the disorientation go away. The room was at least three hundred metres across and at least eight hundred metres high. In the middle a pillar of blue light pulsated and at the top he could see a platform that was appearing to float in the air.

"I couldn't get you closer then this, there is defensive systems hindering a teleportation to close to the Index. The Index is located at the top platform." Guilty Spark said turned to face Ranma.

"My scans indicate you are wearing a level two combat skin. It is inappropriate for this kind of work, I recommend you upgrade to a level twelve combat skin at least."

Ranma raised an eyebrow inside his helmet. There was an armour six times as good as the Mjolnir mark Five!? He would be the first to sign up for it.

-----------------------------------------------

Guilty Spark observed as the Reclaimer made his way through the complex, fighting the hordes attacking him.

He fought with an extreme precision, taking out the flood approaching with no mercy. It appeared that the Reclaimers fighting abilities had decreased since he last saw him, but he had gained something else.

Every step was well calculated, every move was efficient, every shoot was fired with such a cold merciless precision only beckoning an AI.

He only took cover when needed to, he only shoot when he was sure to hit.

He didn't panic, he didn't show any sign of fear or any emotion else for that matter. He was absolutely emotionless, he didn't hesitate to kill.

Guilty Spark appreciated the way he fought, it appeared he fought with his mind now and not with his skill.

He was moving through the complex faster then the last time, even though he had inappropriate armour and weapons.

He began to scan the weapon the Reclaimer was holding now, the assault rifle if his memory unit wasn't mistaking. Unlike the ones the Reclaimer had arrived with who used energy based plasma weaponry he found a weapon whose principle he was unfamiliar with. The principle for the weapon wasn't in his memory unit and then he made a cross reference in the archives but came up with nothing.

It used a chemical that was ignited in an enclosed space and the pressure would then propel a ballistic metal round. The round would generate kinetic energy and when it hit it would inflict damage on the target.

It was simply, almost crude, but it worked. It was so simply that he never would have discovered it. The mechanics was simply but extremely interesting so he began load them down into the archives as highly interesting material.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The last of the huge metal doors opened and Guilty Spark declared that no flood had been able to access this area.

He was at the top floor and he walked towards the platform, a small walkway led out to it.

In the middle of the platform the index floated. It was made out of what appeared red crystal and had a basic T-shape. As he walked towards him he noticed something lying on the ground next to it.

He kneeled by it and looked carefully at the object. It was what appeared to be a sword, having the shape of a katana. He pulled it out of the scabbard and inspected the blade.

The blade was about three feet and the hilt was perhaps a foot. The blade was thin and it reflected the light strangely, two small crystal stars was placed on each side at the beginning of the hilt. The crystal stars was surrounded by what appeared to a ring, but then he realised it was the Halo. At the beginning of the blade two small blue gems was attached, they seemed to glow.

There was something written on the hilt, but he couldn't read it. He placed it in the scabbard and laid it back on the ground. Even though it was a beautiful blade he couldn't take it with him, it would only be in the way.

He stood up and was about to take the Index when Guilty Spark butted in.

"You should probably take the blade, it is unwise to leave such a weapon for the Flood."

Ranma turned around and looked at Guilty Spark and then nodded. He picked it up and then walked over to the Index.

The blue light disappeared and he took a strong grip on the Index. A zap of lightning and the Index were in Guilty Sparks hands.

"I will take care of the Index for transport."

A bright flash once again surrounded the two and then they disappeared.

---------------------------------------------------------------

"What is our warriors' status?" Noselee asked the red armoured elite standing besides him.

Even though he wanted to be down there fighting along his brothers he wouldn't make the same mistake as the one before him had done.

He had fought on the ground and because of this the troops located on other locations couldn't get orders fast enough.

The defence against the ancient enemies would have worked better if they could have coordinated their attacks.

Noselee was standing aboard a cruiser under his personal command and he intended to win this battle.

"The containment teams have failed to fend of the ancients enemies." The soldier next to him said.

---------------------------------

Ranma and Guilty Spark appeared in the control room. They stopped at the main console.

"My role in this particular endeavour has come to an end. Protocol doesn't allow units of my classification to perform a task as important as the reunification of the Index with the core."

Guilty Spark turned towards Ranma.

"That final step is reserved for you, Reclaimer."

Ranma accepted the Index and then placed it in an empty slot. The console flashed and then went silent again.

"Strange, that wasn't supposed to happen." Guilty Spark sounded confused.

Cortanas hologram appeared, it was over a hundred feet.

Ranma knew directly that she was pissed, really pissed, the kind of pissed that made even a Spartan edge away.

"OH REALLY!" She made a gesture towards Guilty Spark and he flew through the air and hit the floor with a clatter.

The AI stood with her hand on her hips and frowned at the Spartan.

"I spent hours cooped up in here watching that thing prepare to slit our throats."

Guilty Spark hummed to life and was soon floating in the air again.

"Hold on, he's a friend." Ranma said to the enraged AI.

"Oh, I didn't realize, he's you pal is he? Your buddy? Do you have any idea what that bastard almost made you do!"

"Yes. Activate Halos defences and wipe out the Flood, which is why we brought the Index to the control room." Ranma said patiently.

Cortana held the Index in her hand.

"You mean this?" Cortana said.

"A construct in the core? That is totally unacceptable!" Guilty Spark said.

"Fuck off." Cortana said with a growl.

"What impertinence. I will purge you at once!"

"You're sure that's a good idea?" Cortana said as she waved the Index in front of Guilty Spark.

"How dare you? I will..."

"Do what? I have the Index, you can just float and sputter."

"ENOUGH!" Ranma yelled irritated. Both AIs attention turned towards the human cyborg.

"The flood is spreading, if we activate Halos defences we can wipe them out." Ranma continued.

"You have no idea how this ring works do you? Why the Forerunner built it? Halo doesn't kill Flood, it kills their food. Human, Covenant, whatever, we are all equally edible. The only way to kill the flood is to starve them to death. That is exactly what Halos designed to do, wipe the universe clean of all organic life. You don't believe me? Ask him." Cortana said and pointed towards Guilty Spark.

"Is it true?" Ranma asked and turned towards Guilty Spark.

"More or less. When activated this ring will have a maximum effective radius of twenty-five billion light years, but when the other follow suit this universe will be quite devoid of life, or at least any life with sufficient bio-mass to sustain the flood." Guilty Spark said.

"But you already knew that. I mean how couldn't you?" Guilty Spark asked genuinely puzzled.

"Forgot that little detail didn't you?" Cortana asked the other AI.

"We followed outbreak containment procedure to the letter. You were with me each step of the way as we handled this crisis."

"Chief, I am picking up movement."

A group of sentinels appeared and turned their aim towards Ranma. The robots were hovering silently over the walkway.

"Why would you hesitate to do what you already done?"

"We need to go, NOW!" Cortana said.

"The last time you asked me, if it was my choice would I do it? Having had considerable time to ponder your query, my answer is yes. There is no choice, we must activate the ring."

"Get us out of here." Cortana said.

"There is too much at stake, if you're unwilling to help... I must insist that you give me the Index." Guilty Spark said.

"That's not going to happen." Ranma said calmly.

"Reclaimer, I am afraid I will have to use force to take Index from you I you don't cooperate."

"I can't allow that." Ranma said and aimed his assault rifle towards Guilty Spark.

"So be it." Guilty Spark turned towards the sentinels.

"Dispose of him." He said and began to float away.

Ranma opened fire on Guilty Spark but when no damage appeared he turned towards the sentinels. Two went down before his rifle went dry.

The things had opened fire with their lasers and were draining his shield quickly. He quickly dove behind a holo-panel for cover. He quickly changed the clip in his rifle and opened fire again. Another three sentinels went down and he finished the last with his pistol. Cortanas hologram was still standing above the console and she looked thankful on Ranma.

Ranma walked up to the panel and located the AIs chip he then looked up at Cortana.

"Good to go?" He asked.

"Give me a moment to put up some security measures, I am going to put up some bugs for Guilty Spark."

"Bugs?" Ranma asked as he scanned the area for more sentinels.

"Nothing fatal unfortunately, but something he will remember us by." She answered the questions with an evil smile.

Cortana quickly downloaded all information in Halos mainframe and mentally clutched her head. That was more information then her processors could handle and she got an AIs version of a headache.

Shaking it off, she then put up the bobby traps on the important systems. Every time Guilty Spark would try and access them he would only get a flood of unusable data. Ranma stepped up and pulled out the chip and then inserted it into his helmet. The cold liquid feeling returned and soon he was hearing Cortana talk inside his head.

"We can't let the monitor activate Halo, and more importantly we can't let the flood leave it. The monitor can't activate the ring without the Index so as long as you are alive and keep it from him we are safe. Stopping the flood will be more difficult, the best course of action would be to destroy the ring. With the available data the best way to do that would be somewhat risky." She said.

"Of course, nothing on this ring is simple." He said with a shrug.

"An explosion of sufficient size would destabilize the ring, and cut through a number of primary systems. We need a nuclear scale detonation however."

"Well, that can become a problem... I can check but I don't think I have any nuclear warheads on me right now." Ranma said and the AI could pick up the faint trace of sarcasm.

"The Pillar of Autumns fusion reactor is still intact and it would be enough to destroy Halo. Unfortunately it has fail-safes even I can't override without the authorisation from the Captain or more precisely his neural implants."

"And how am I going to find him?" Ranma asked.

"That's were your favourite AI come in. During my time in Halo I tried to locate him to help you find him. I got a track from him about the time you reached the Index, he's aboard the Truth and Reconciliation, the bridge to be exact"

"Well then let's get a ride and go to him." Ranma said as he walked towards the control rooms exit.

"No that will take to long."

"You have a better idea?" Ranma asked.

"I can tap into halos teleportation grid. Unfortunately each jump requires a rather consequential amount of energy, and I can't reroute the energy needed from Halo. There may be another way however."

"Something tells me I'm not going to like this." Ranma said.

"I'm pretty sure I can pull the energy from your suit without permanently damaging your shield system and generator. Needles to say I only think we should try this once." She said.

"Agreed, but before you do it can you see if you can contact Alpha base and warn them?"

The AI fell silent for a couple of seconds.

"Warning sent. The base is under heavy Covenant attack, but they will have to make it alone. Our first priority is to stop the flood everything else is secondary." She said.

"Understood."

"One more thing Chief."

"Yes?" He asked.

"Why are you carrying a sword?"

Ranma looked down and saw the blade was still in its scabbard attached to his ammo-belt.

"Forgot about that thing. Guilty Spark said I should take it so it shouldn't fall into the hands of the flood for some reason." He said.

"Ok." Cortana said.

"Give me sec so I can make sure we land in the bridge."

A bright flash surrounded him and once again he disappeared in thin air.

------------------------------------------------

Ontomee, a black-ops elite hurried with the rest of his squad. He was one of the oldest soldiers from his ship, a veteran that had seen more battle then an entire combat unit put together. He had been one of the few survivors from the battle on the human world of Reach with the Angels of Death. Rumour among the troops told that one of the Angels had been aboard the human ship.

He had seen the glassing of the planet but didn't take pride in it, they had only killed unarmed civilians and had found little honour.

"Purity of Mind squad do you hear me?" His commanding officer Noselee asked over the comm.

"Yes your Excellency, we are moving towards the gravity lift to cut off the flood reinforcements."

His commanding officer was standing aboard the New Sight and coordinating the counter offence against the flood on the Truth and Reconciliation.

"You must stop the flood from leaving the ring at all cost. And if you don't then may the gods help us, because if one of those things gets out of there no one else would have the power to stop them." Noselee said

"Yes you Excellency."

He quickly followed the rest of his team and when they entered the room to the gravity lift they found that the lifts control panel was smashed and the lift was in motion. They couldn't turn it off.

"Purity of Body squad what is your status?"

"We are close to the reactor and engine room, but it's filled with those unclean vermin."

"Once you clear it shut the energy to the gravity lift down, the controls are damaged." He said.

The slight glow of the floor and silent whining alerted the Covenant that something was coming up through the gravity lift.

The squad's two hunters took position and began to charge up their fuel rod guns.

Ontomee raised the plasma pistol he had in the left hand and the hilt to his plasma blade in the other.

A thump was heard and then a horde of rotting flesh appeared and charged them. A hail of plasma greeted the flood and they where soon decimated at the loss of an elite and three grunts.

After the first wave came a second, and a third, and a fourth. Soon the constant thump was heard and a never ending stream of flood charged them.

"Hurry up!" He said into his comm.

Ontomme dropped the empty pistol and then with a flick of his wrist activated the blade. The blade seemed to come out of his knuckles. It looked like he was wielding a blue flame as he charged the flood, most of his team was dead by now.

One of the few remaining elites fired at a carrier form, the thing exploded and out of it a large number of the small infection forms appeared from the carcass and overwhelmed the unfortunate elite.

Ontomee slashed at the oncoming flood with desperation.

-------------------------------------------------

Ranma reappeared in what looked like the bridge of a Covenant cruiser, the yellow field of energy still surrounding him. Something was wrong, something as very wrong, and he was just starting to figure out what it was. He looked down to the ceiling and up to the floor, the inside of the ship seemed to be upside down.

The last trace of the yellow teleportation field disappeared and he flipped head over heels and crashed the five metres to the deck.

He had materialized with his feet firmly planted on the bridges ceiling.

"Oh! I see, the coordinate data needs to be...

Ranma slapped the random area of were Cortanas chip was inserted in his helmet.

"Right, sorry." She said a little sheepishly.

Ranma just grumbled a little before standing up to his feet. He searched the floor but couldn't find his assault rifle.

The interior of the ship was purple and it had an oily sheen, only a few lights remained intact. He just shook his head, whoever made a warship with purple interior? But who knew? Maybe the Covenant thought that grey was for wimps.

He quickly returned to the matter at hand, he was in the bridge of a ship. An enemy ship. Filled with Covenant who wanted nothing more then see him dead. And not to forget lots and lots of flood who wanted a piece of him, literary. And he didn't have a weapon.

"Chief, the Captains signals, its close." Cortana said eagerly.

He would have to find a weapon later, the Captain was more important. He walked around the elevated platform in the middle of the room and then began to walk up the ramp leading to it.

At the top he found something that resembled a huge carrier form. Tentacles went to the ceiling and holo-panels keeping the thing upright. It didn't react to Ranmas presence.

He noticed a bulge in the side of the monstrous flood and soon realized he was staring at the horribly distorted face of Jacob Keyes.

"The Captain..." Cortana said sadly and trailed of.

Ranma looked at the monstrous thing in distain and wondered how many of the men and women of the UNSC-had died at the hands of the flood.

"We can't let the flood get of this ring" You know what he'd expect... What he'd want us to do."

"Yes, I know my duty." He said simply and rammed his fist into the face of what was once Captain Jacob Keyes. He pulled out his hand and in it was the captain's neural implant.

He shook the rotting gore from the implant and then placed it inside an empty slot in his helmet.

"It's done. I have the code. Just give me a second to make sure the ship never leaves Halo. She said.

Ranma could see as some of the consoles flashed to life and then went silent again.

"I dumped the coolant-gel for the cooling systems out of their tanks, it will make the engines unusable for anything more then half a minute and then the fail-safes will shut them down for good." She said simply

"Okay, let's go to the hangar bay and get a ride." Ranma said as he moved to the door.

------------------------------------------------------------

Ontomee chopped one of the combat forms in half with his blade and then spun around and cleaved another from its head to toe.

His entire squad was dead, he was the only one left. A plasma bolt slammed into his chest but his shield took most of it. He turned around and slashed downwards at the same time the flood fired again.

The flood fell down to the floor dead and Ontomee clutched his stomach. A round coming from a rifle slammed into his chest and he fell down to the floor.

The flood thought him dead and continued, leaving the wounded Covenant behind.

He knew he was dying, the numbness in his body was telling him that. He grasped his radio and talked into it.

"Purity of Mind is dead, we can not hold them of any longer." He said.

"We cannot gain access to the engine room, we have failed." The elite in the other end said.

He let go of his radio, he prayed to the gods that there would be a warrior that would defeat the flood.

He could feel the slight vibration as the ships engines started up. He cursed, they couldn't let the flood leave the ring. He turned to the side and saw all his dead comrades, lifeless eyes staring back at him.

An image appeared in his mind of a burning golden eye on a warrior holding a sword of light, pearl white wings was slowly flapping behind him. A single feather fell to the ground, covered in blood. As the image became clearer he saw who it was.

It was the Angel of Death, the human in green-armour.

He could feel as the engines abruptly stopped and as the ship began to fall towards the surface of Halo.

He didn't know why but he had the feeling the human was responsible for this. He slowly picked up his radio again and managed to get one single message through before his breath left him. The radio clattered to the floor.

Darkness began to fill his vision. He knew that his final movement was here but he was calm and didn't feel any fear at all.

"If you make it human, if you defeat the ancient enemies you have proved yourself worthy. Worthy of entering paradise with all the other heroes... If you defeat them I would be honoured to call you battle brother." That was his last though before death embraced him.

Onboard the New Sight Noselee wondered what had happened onboard the Truth and Reconciliation. She had tried to lift of but then all her systems went offline and she crashed into Halos surface.

"I want a visual transmission with one of the ground teams, I want to see what's happening down their." Noselee said and turned back to the issue about the Truth and Reconciliation.

The most puzzling thing about the event was the last transmission he had received from the ship.

"The Angel of Death is the one, the hope for a new dawn lies within him."

--------------------------------------------------

The first thing seen was an eighteen kilometre long trench where the Autumn first had touched down. The lowest compartments were all crushed but all in all she seemed relatively intact.

"This thing is falling apart!" Cortana yelled.

"It will hold." Ranma said calmly.

"Were not gonna make it!" She yelled again.

"We will make it." Ranma said yet again calmly.

The banshee they had borrowed from the Covenant was badly damaged and a thick trail of smoke coming from the left side. They where approaching on of the empty lifeboat tubes.

"PULL UP!" She screamed.

Just before entering the tube the banshee made a steep dive and crashed into the side of the Pillar of Autumn. Ranma managed to grab onto and heave himself up to the tube.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you? Cortana said accusingly.

Ranma didn't answer, he didn't want to lie.

"We need to get to the bridge, from there I can initiate the self destruct sequence." Cortana said.

"Which way?" He asked as he looked down both ends of the corridor.

"Right." She said simply.

Making his way through the badly damaged ship he had to fight his way through the monitor's sentinels, the flood and naturally some Covenant.

He was moving towards the mess and from there it should be only a short walk to the bridge.

Taking care of the few flood in the corridor he walked towards the door. When he was about to open it the door was broken down. A Hunter in berserker-state had kicked the 10-centimeter solid titanium door down.

The thing fired but he was able to lean to the left and avoid it.The Hunter roared in rage and slammed his shield into Ranma.

Ranma didn't quite manage to avoid it and he flew ten metres through the air and slammed into a wall.

His shield had managed to take the brunt of that strike so he was soon up on his feet again. The Hunter formed his fist into a ball and then tried to smash Ranma.

Ranma caught the fists and groaned as his tried to stop them from turning him into pulp.

He remembered one of the lessons he had on Reach, never ever go melee with a hunter, but right now he didn't have much choice.

Both behemoths was locked in a desperate struggle and both where holding their ground, the floor under Ranma was beginning to buckle because of the amount of force. In a last attempt he leaned backwards and dragged the hunter with him.

Ranma and the Hunter began to wrestle raining blows on each other. The Hunter was hitting on the same spot on his armour on his chest and it was beginning to dent. Ranma in turn wasn't as lucky as he couldn't really hurt the heavily armoured giant.

Lying on his back on the floor with a Hunter over him and trying to kill him the odds didn't look good.

He managed to get a good grip on the front of the Hunters armour and with the help of his feet he threw the Hunter over his head.

A group of elites entered the corridor, drawn because of the commotion.

He ignored the pain flaring up in his chest and grabbed the nearest weapon, the blade he had been carrying with him. He took the hilt in both hands and the blade flared with blue plasma. He looked surprised at the sword but then shrugged it off and charged the elites.

A quick slash and the head of an elite fell to the deck. A downward slash and the chest of another of the aliens opened, the flesh sizzling. The last elite fell as Ranma stabbed the blade right through the neck of and killed him immediately.

He turned toward the Hunter who was about to stand up, and with a quick a swipe a huge gash appeared on the helmet of the giant.

As the last Covenant fell down to the floor he looked approvingly on the weapon, the only drawback was that he needed to get close to use it.

He checked his armour and saw that the damaged done was only superficial and nothing major. The blows from the Hunter had broken three of his ribs but he could feel his body already beginning to heal them. In an hour they would be healed and the only thing left would be a rather nasty bruise.

Ignoring the pain that flared up in his chest he re-sheathed the blade and picked up a functional assault rifle.

"That was close, please be more careful." She said and sighed in relief.

"You know me." He said simply.

Cortana fell silent for a second.

"Please be really careful." She said again.

Ranma didn't say anything.

He then continued on his way towards the bridge.

----------------------------------------------

Sergeant Harrison fired his rifle into the chest of one of those things, and after putting most of his clip into it the thing fell to the ground dead.

He and his team had been third squad with the captains mission but when they where attacked and lost contact with the rest of the squads they had been on their own.

They had managed to leave the swamp on foot and then came across an abandoned Covenant camp. Borrowing some of their vehicles they had managed to make their way back to Alpha base.

Unfortunately the entire base was more or less destroyed and everyone was dead. They had found traces after a battle, numerous corpses after human, Covenant and flood.

After searching through the base and picked up some remaining weapon they had decided to get to the Pillar of Autumn and search for a way of the ring.

Unfortunately the Flood attacked and they had to pull back towards the entrance of what remained of the Forerunner structure.

They had fought back numerous minor assaults from the Flood, but they had gotten stronger and stronger each time.

Two Covenant dropships had landed, to take care of the Flood Harrison had though and he was right.

As soon as the hatches had opened the Flood had attacked. Only a small group of Covenant survived the onslaught and they had taken cover behind a barricade of crates some fifty metres to his left.

Without a word being said between them, both groups hadn't fired a single shot at each other.

A new wave of Flood charged the two groups, mostly concentrated towards the Covenant.

The LAAG gun they had found on a wreck of a warthog filled the air with metal and dealt with the flood effectively.

The Covenant didn't have the same luck, they where being overrun.

The marine standing behind the LAAG took initiative and opened fire on the Flood, and the LAAG was soon followed by the rattle numerous MA5B rifles.

The round tore into the unprotected flank of the Flood and they fell in numbers. The flood turned their attention towards the humans and began to charge them but was cut down by plasma fire coming from the Covenant.

They didn't get time to celebrate their victory because a new wave of Flood attacked.

The LAAG thundered but it only slowed the inevitable. The Flood overwhelmed the Covenants position.

A red elite wielding a plasma blade slashed apart a Flood and then turned towards the humans.

He looked at them for a second and then lowered his blade and saluted in the Covenant fashion, holding his hand to his chest. He thanked the humans for the help rendered.

Harrison locked eyes with the alien and then saluted him. It was at that moment he wondered if the Covenant and Human was as different as everyone thought. He could see the elite make a last desperate charge into the thick of battle.

He soon fell to the unstoppable flood onslaught.

Every flood had turned their attention towards the humans and they where soon overrun. As Harrison saw the last of his men die he stopped backing away and then charged meeting the same and as the elite.

The human and alien had come to a silent agreement, they would met their end fighting, an agreement between the two enemies that they took with them to their grave.

Onboard the New Sight many of the elites that had seen the events transpire where fuming in anger, the elite had committed heresy by not attacking the human vermin.

Only one elite wasn't listening to the others rants about treachery and heresy. This event had increased the felling of doubt that was growing in Noselee stomach.

He quickly shock those thought out of his mind and turned to more important matters. The flood was still trying to get off the ring and they couldn't allow that.

------------------------------------

Ranma pulled out Cortana's chip out of his helmet and then inserted it into the control panel.

Her hologram appeared on the small pillar at the main view screen. She looked around on the bridge where Ranma had fought group of grunts.

"I leave home for a few days and look what happens."

She fell silent and it looked like she was thinking. The main view screen flashed to life and a count-down timer started.

"There, that should give us enough time to make it to a life boat and put some distance between ourselves and Halo before the detonation."

"I am afraid that's out of the question dear." Ranma could hear Guilty Sparks voice over the comm.

"Oh hell." Cortana said and groaned.

"Ridiculous that you imbue your warships AI with such a wealth of knowledge. Wouldn't you worry that it might be captured? Or destroyed?"

"He's in my data arrays, a local tap."

The Monitor was accessing some of the low level files and copying them down into his own memory unit.

"You can't imagine how exciting this is! To have a record of all of our lost time, human history is it? Fascinating. Oh, how I will enjoy every moment of its categorization. To think that you would destroy this installation as well as this record. I am shocked, almost to shocked for words."

The count down timer stopped.

"He stopped the self destruct sequence." Cortana warned.

"Why do you continue to fight us Reclaimer? You cannot win. Surrender the construct to me or I will be forced to take you offline permanently..."

Guilty Sparks voice was cut of.

"At least I still have control over the comm-channels." Cortana said.

"Where is he?" Ranma asked.

"I'm detecting taps throughout the ship, sentinels most likely. As for the Monitor, he's in engineering. He must be trying to take the core off-line. I can't get the count-down restarted... I don't know what to do." She said.

Ranma looked at the AI for a second and then asked.

"How much firepower would you need to crack one of the reactors shield?" He asked.

Cortana put her hand to her forehead and then closed her eyes and scanned her data base for information regarding the fusion core.

"Not much... A well placed grenade perhaps. But Why?" She asked and opened her eyes.

Ranma held a frag-grenade in his hand and then tossed it up in the air and caught it again.

The Ai's eyes widened in understanding.

"Okay let's go."

--------------------------------------------

Ranma pressed a quick combination on a panel and then a one of the huge exhaust pipes opened, giving him a view of the burning inside of the reactor.

"Step one complete! We have a straight shoot into the fusion reactor. We need a catalytic explosion to destabilize the magnetic containment field surrounding the fusion cell."

"Oh, and here I though I should just throw a grenade in a hole." He said.

"That's what I said."

Ranma just shrugged and threw two grenades, for good measure, into the open hatch, and quickly stepped away.

The grenades exploded and bit of shrapnel pinged off his armour.

"One down three to go!" Cortana yelled over the noise.

------------------------------------------

"Your Excellency, we have lost contact with four of the eight squads stationed on the human ship." A young elite said as he read the incoming data.

Noselee turned from where he was overlooking the reports on Flood activity. He walked over and looked down on the information displayed before him.

"Contact the other squads and make a scan of the ship." He ordered.

-----------------------------------------

"Now let's get outside and signal for evac!" Cortana yelled over the warning sirens wail.

Ranma had thrown a grenade into the last reactor.

"Which way?" Ranma asked.

"There is a service lift that will lead us to a class seven service corridor that runs along the ships structure, the hatch is right on your left." She said.

He quickly ran through the door and took care of the Covenant who was standing on the elevator.

He pressed the button and could fell as the lift began to shoot upwards.

"Cortana to Echo Four-Nineteen, come in Echo Four-Nineteen."

"I hear you Cortana." Ranma could hear Foehammers voice over the radio.

"The Autumns engines are going critical Foehammer, we need extraction now! Be ready to pick us up at external access junction Four-C as soon as you get my signal" Cortana said into the comm.

"Roger that. Cortana things are getting noisy down there, is everything okay!"

"Negative! We have a wild cat destabilization of the ships fusion core!"

The lift stopped and Ranma ran through the door.

"Chief, we have six minutes before the fusion drives detonate. We need to evacuate now! The explosion will generate a temperature of almost one hundred million degrees. Don't be there when it blows!"

He ran into a bay full of warthogs and quickly jumped in. He made a hard left and put the pedal to the metal and began to race through the massive corridor.

The timer on his HUD was counting down fast and he pressed the pedal even more in hope of bringing out a little more engine power.

A elite was sucked under the forwards tires and chunks of flesh were sprayed from behind the hog.

---------------------------------------

"Your Excellency, we have lost contact with the other teams aboard the vessel and scans indicate a high amount of energy activity, and heat signature is climbing."

Noselee looked on the display and his eyes widened.

"Get the ships out of the ring atmosphere immediately!" He said and turned towards the comm. Officer.

He nodded and then began to talk into the radio.

"Your Excellency, the Prophets wants to meet you in an audience to explain yourselves." The Elite said and turned towards his commanding officer

"There is no time! Order the other ships under my command to leave the ring immediately." Noselee couldn't believe the arrogance of the Prophets.

"Your Excellency..."

"Do it, I will take the full responsibility." He said calmly.

He nodded and soon the affirmative from the four other ships under his command was heard over the comm.

The flight officer turned towards Noselee.

"It will take the techs ten units bring the engines online, your Excellency."

"Tell them they will get relocated to the containment teams if they don't do it in two." He said.

-------------------------------------

"Wait, here is where Foehammer is going to pick us up. Hold position here.

To the left he could see E-419 fly towards their location, but something was wrong. Thick plumes of smoke were trailing behind the pelican and she was wobbling from side to side. Following the pelican was a Covenant banshee, firing twin trails of plasma towards the ship.

He could hear Foehammers frantic screams as the pelicans left engine exploded and the ship made a step dive. The ship slammed into the hull of the Pillar of Autumn and exploded in a fireball.

"Cortana, new plan NOW!" Ranma yelled as he jumped back into the jeep.

"Ships inventory shows that one longsword interceptor is still docked in launch bay seven. If we move now we can make it."

Ranma pressed the warthog to its limits to reach the ship in time. He had four minutes before the Autumn would explode and he had to travel one and a half kilometre and then leave the ring atmosphere.

Even though the Autumn with it's three point one kilometres was one of the smallest ships in the human fleet to Ranma it felt as it was the biggest thing in the universe.

The range on the nav-marker was decreasing and so was the count-down timer. Unfortunately to him it looked like the timer would hit zero first.

"Up ahead there is a gap in the structure, at top speed we should make it" Cortana said.

Ranma didn't disappoint and put in the highest gear and hit the pedal.

They travelled up a small ramp and was then in the air. They had cleared about half off the space when the warthog began to descend. The hog, Ranma and Cortana fell eight stories before crashing into a ledge. The front was totally demolished and Ranma's legs were stuck.

Cursing in every language he knew he tried to get out but failed. He looked around for anything useful and managed to grab the sword that he still was carrying.

He activated it and used the burning plasma to clear away the parts of the warthog that had him trapped.

He took off in a sprint towards the ship, running as fast as he could manage. Jumping over a three meter trench and going through a tunnel.

He jumped over a couple of supply crates and could see the longsword at the end of the hangar. Unfortunately the bay was covered in Flood and Covenant.

"HURRY, WE NEED TO GET ABOARD NOW!"

Throwing all caution out the window he ran right through the fire-fight and up the ramp leading to the craft.

He ran up the open ramp into the ship and slammed his fist into the close button. He turned around and could see that numerous Flood had been following him. The ramp closed and he ran up towards the cockpit. An explosion rocketed the Autumn and Ranma staggered. He jumped into the pilot's seat and began to bring the engines online.

He could hear the engines start up. Using the small jets on the underside of the ship, he turned the craft 180 degrees so that it was facing the open hangar bay doors.

"Here we go." He said seemingly calmly. She marvelled at the Spartans emotion or almost total lack thereof, she herself was almost hysteric by now.

He hit the throttle forward all the way and the pushed the engines to their limit. The gees forces pushed him back into the seat as the craft shoot out of the Autumn like a bullet.

A small compact sun bloomed on the surface of Halo as the Autumn's fusion reactor finally went critical. The thermonuclear sphere carved a 20 kilometre crater into the super dense material of the ringworld.

Ranma could see and hear as the longswords engines were beginning to overheat.

"Shut them down, we will need them later:" Cortana said.

He nodded and shut all major systems down.

"A last look on Halo?" She said with something in her voice, her voice was unsteady and silent.

The Spartan finally realized what it was, it was sorrow. He himself been unable to feel sorrow for years, so to him it was a foreign emotion.

He realized then that out him and Cortana, she was probably most human, she had emotions, she had feelings, something Ranma had turned down long ago to become a more efficient soldier. He and the rest of the Spartans didn't want feelings to interfere with their missions, so they kept them under strict control.

He looked out the window and could see the ball of light on the surface of Halo.

The ball expanded one final time and then exploded and sent powerful shockwaves rippling through the structure. Both up and down spin a compact wall of white light travelled and sterilized the surface, turning the seas and forests into black desert. All the light from the explosion disappeared and about half the lands on Halo had been turned into a wasteland.

The ring continued spinning, but with the forces exerted on the weak point that the explosion had left, the ring slowly tore itself apart. A 800 kilometre part broke away from the ring and slowly made its way towards the opposite side. The part slammed into what remained of the structure and shattered it into dozen of smaller pieces.

Explosions began to appear on the ring and soon the rings own reactors began to go critical.

One of the reactors exploded and turned a part of the ring into debris. Numerous secondary explosions followed and soon nothing more then molten metal and debris remained of Halo.

"Did anyone else make it?" He asked calmly.

"Scanning." She said her voice still had sorrow in it.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the cockpit.

"Just... just dust and echoes. We are all that's left." She said with strain, pain and sorrow in her voice.

The Spartan closed his eye and shock his head silently. Everyone was dead, just like the children he had been raised with, just like a part of himself.

He felt a stab of regret, but this time he didn't crush it.

"We did what we had to do... for Earth. An entire Covenant armada obliterated, and the flood... We had no choice. Halo, it's finished." She sounded like she was trying to justify what had happened and convince herself.

Ranma sat back into the seat and looked out the window, but this time at the sea of stars displayed before him. Even since he was a child he had taken comfort in looking at the stars, and now he was closer to them then ever.

It was ironic that the thing that gave him most comfort was also the thing that gave him most fear. Somewhere in the serene sea the Covenant was still present, and threatened to destroy the thing he had sworn to protect at all cost, mankind.

He removed his helm and looked down on the damaged seal at the neck, and then put a finger to the wound on the back of his neck. The wound was healing but it was still throbbing uncomfortably.

A flood infection form had attacked him when his shield had been down and had managed to get close enough to use one of it tentacles to penetrate the armour. He had barely been able to get the thing off. Hopefully the flood was a closed chapter, but he wasn't so sure, they were exceptionally hard to kill.

Ranma placed the helmet next to him and brushed his hands through the almost nonexistent hair.

He sunk down in the seat and allowed himself to let his emotions surface, the mission was over, he could allow himself that for a moment. He closed his eyes tightly and gripped the armrest with enough pressure to bend the metal. A deep sigh escaped his lips and he finally answered Cortana.

"No, I think were just getting started." He opened his eyes, cold blue orbs with a tinge of red looking out at the sea of stars like looking at an enemy far away. Not even Cortana's advanced sensors could manage to detect any sign of emotion in his voice.

Authors notes:

This became a little bit longer then expected.

The next chapter will be about what happened on Halo during the fall of the forerunner.