Disclaimer: I don't own this so can the black van standing outside my house please leave?
The Halo of the Hero.
Chapter 11- Stray soldiers.
Being the sole survivor from a battle can be the most traumatic experience for a soldier. Without the solace and understanding from others who have been through the same thing a man cannot deal with the transpired events and his dreams will be haunted by nightmares for years to come.
-Unknown-
A lone longsword fighter was slowly drifting through the huge debris field left from Halo's destruction. Both engines, lights, even most of the life-support systems were offline to conserve energy, the only source of light was coming from a single screen that cast an eerie green light over the cockpit, and its single human resident, the Master Chief.
One of the very few systems that was online was the scanners and of course the AI Cortana.
She finished another scan, but once again came up with nothing. She started another scan and then turned to more important matters, Halo.
Many things unsettled her about Halo, among them was the fact that Guilty Spark had spoken about the fact that it was installation Zero-Four, and that I meant that there could possibly exist others.
She began to sort through the different files she had found in the Halo mainframe, most were weapon schematics, designs and such, and would be extremely valuable to the UNSC-scientists, but right now that wasn't what she was looking for, she was looking for some kind of history or journal to explain what the hell had happened before the Pillar of Autumn and the Covenant arrived.
She knew that Halo was built by some alien race best translated as "the Forerunner" to destroy the Flood, but she didn't know what had happened besides that.
And why had Guilty Spark said that the Halo had been activated once before? That would mean that it had been activated before...
Cortana stopped what she was doing, she didn't like where her plane of thoughts were moving. Realisation began to dawn on her, if Halo had been fired once before as Guilty Spark had said, then Earth and all its life would have been wiped out, but it wasn't.
That meant that the Halo must have been activated long before there had appeared even the most basic form of life on Earth.
She continued to search her memory unit, working fast to go through all information from Halo.
She found what she was looking for, and began to open the folder.
She was hit with a flood of information, and she began to sort through it to find out what had happened....
Once the Flood had spread to such degree that it was impossible to hope for victory the Forerunner decided to leave through the dimension gates and then sterilize the entire sector using the Halos. Using some of the already existing ring shaped gates they reconstructed them to serve as weapon platforms.
But the Flood attacked one of them only hours before the generators would be brought online. Due to that both the shields and smaller defences were inactive the flood had an open way to the gateway and control room.
The flood was trying to use the gateway to spread to the other locations that the Forerunner had visited, but in a final moment of clarity the Reclaimer activated the count down timer to hit zero as soon as the generators were activated. He then took the Index, the key to both the gateway and primary weapon and sealed it inside the library. He then, not being protected with the reclaimer serum, succumbed from the wounds inflicted on him and died. The Flood sensing the activation of the ring hurried to the underground shelters for protection from the lethal blast.
The ring fired and whipped out an entire civilization on the blink of an eye, leaving the children to fight among themselves and the deadly Flood sealed beneath the ring's surface.
She sorted through additional files, containing various reports on the Forerunner war effort, strategies, tactics, weapon designs, troop movements and resources.
But in the end that had proved of little help when encountering the flood, the multiple special weapons programs that had been meant to fight had taken to long time or had been laid on ice, in the end the only alternative was to activate the Halos.
Cortana finished the various reports, but the reference to the gateway puzzled her. What was it? She went through the report again but didn't find anything concerning it.
She just shook her holographic head, there wasn't any meaning in digging into a war that had ended long before Earth even existed, not when she was in the middle of losing one right now.
Even though Ranma had said different she was pretty sure the Flood was a closed chapter, and she was thankful for that. The Forerunner report on the Flood had been anything but pleasant.
The Covenant was friendly and peaceful in comparison if she could trust the report.
Analyse on alien life form named "The Flood."
It is with grim news I write this report to you, the analyze has brought up numerous things and none of them good.
The dead specimen I have studied has revealed the danger the Flood is to us.
It is I highly adaptable life form, given time it could come up with natural resistance to almost anything, changing it's genetic structure in only a small amount of time.
When it came in contact with the dead forerunner tissue it absorbed it giving it the ability to assimilate any and all Forerunner life forms.
Our own immune systems doesn't work because of this and any attempt to cure an infected individual with either scientific or ki, chi, psi, ethereal, or elemental means has proved fruitless.
Not only is the Flood a lethal virus with 100 casualty rate, the virus will change the DNA structure of the victim, completely whipping out the mind that once inhabited the body. The soul will be completely destroyed beyond restoration.
Studying numerous reports from our military and naval departments I have been able to piece together how the Flood usually proceeds when conquering a world.
The first flood to land on a planet are usually small spores, easily killed when travelling in small numbers, but unfortunately they never travel in small numbers. These small spores will land in uninhabited areas to avoid detection, in this stage of development the flood are easily dealt with.
The spores will then infect isolated hosts and continue to grow their numbers. These hosts are turned into what could be described as combat forms, looking like rooting corpses. The flood combat forms are extremely hard to kill, reports of Flood with up till 50 tissue damage still attacking has been confirmed. The Flood DNA will increase the speed and strength of the hosts up to 400.
During the first 30 minutes after that the combat forms has appeared the death tolls will increase dramatically.
After some time the combat form will turn itself into a carrier form and spawn more spores.
Now that the flood has combat and carrier forms they will make their presence know to the world they had infested. The Flood will attack and destroy any signs of life they come across, gathering more hosts for infection.
The Flood are in this stage pretty mindless and savage, relying on superior numbers and not tactic to win their fights. They don't have any grasp of any of their energy abilities.
After the flood has assimilated enough genetic material their will be an increased understanding and the Flood will become smarter. This is the last stage of the floods lifecycle, the hosts that are now infected will be almost impossible to recognize from a normal individual, only a full medical scan would have any hope on revealing a flood and yet it isn't 100 reliable.
They have been able to hide their Flood genetics, their auras and magical signatures are completely identical with their hosts.
These Flood has the full understanding, memory, knowledge and powers that there hosts had, making them use their powers against us. A single such "doppelganger" has been known to infect entire ships, and turn our own weapons against us.
The first landing of the Flood and up to the infection of the last citizen of the planet may take between 2 weeks up till 4 months, depending on the amount of flood and hosts.
There are some cases where global infection has taken under 24 hours, but such events are rare.
This was the three lifecycles of a flood. The first time the flood went through this cycle it took longer to evolve to the third stage, about 30-60 years if my calculations are correct, and that is also the amount of time needed to assimilate any new genetic material.
As the things are looking now we are having only very little time to act upon this threat. Even though the High Elders different works are looking promising I think we should concentrate on a more realistic solution. Even though testing has shown the extreme potential in these programs we simply don't have the time to put pull them through.
The best choice would probably be the Recliamer or Halo projects, only a massive sterilisation will end this threat once and for all.
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Ranma gazed out on what remained of Halo, a huge debris field surrounding the single longsword fighter left from the pillar of autumn.
Bent and schorched metal, small drops of flash freezed water and dust were floating all around the ship, the only reminder of the thing that not longer than half an hour ago had been the worst threat to humanity, even more so then the Covenant.
The only thing seen from the longswords windows was the slowly floating debris.
Ranma had deactivated all the systems except for Cortana and the scanners, trying desperately to find any sign of other survivors.
While Cortana was busy working on that Ranma was trying to repair his Mjolnir armour. Concentrating mostly on the tear on the neck seal he managed to close it up, but it would only be temporally. The armour needed a full check through but right now it wasn't possible.
Placing the now repaired helmet on the seat next to him he flexed his shoulders to get the stiff and tired feeling out of him. Right now he was too tired to try and fix the rest of his armour, he was too tired and when one was tired one made mistakes. Mistakes on the Mjolnir armour almost always proved lethal on the wearer.
He contemplated the events tacking place on Halo, the loss of so many soldiers, so many deaths. Then there was the Flood... something he would like to forget. He clenched his fist and then calmed down, he couldn't let his emotions run rampant, that would only lead to his and others deaths on the battlefield.
But right now he didn't have time to think about it emotional state, worrying about it now served no useful purpose.
It had been only three weeks since they arrived in the system, three weeks since they had landed on Halo, and for him three weeks of almost non-stop fighting, he may have gotten 10 hours rest during his entire time on Halo. Even with his genetic enhancements and implants he had been pushed to his limits and beyond, the only thing keeping him on his feet was his stubbornness, the combat stims had lost their effect long ago.
He had been tired many times before, but nothing like this, his body was beyond exhaustion.
The battle of Halo had been the hardest and most traumatic in his entire military career and it was easily seen on his armour.
The once shining green surface had now a dull olive green colour, here and there littered with scratches and dents. There were some few patches from bullet impacts and scorch marks coming from Covenant plasma.
He looked out the window and was met with his own reflection. His eyes had round black rings and were bloodshot, showing clearly due to the lack of rest.
The adrenaline rush he had felt during the last minutes of his escape was disappearing quickly and was leaving his body not responding to his commands.
"Chief, the area is cleared from any hostiles, you should probably rest. The mission is over." Cortana's voice said over the speakers.
"Yes, I suppose so.... And Cortana." He said and looked out the window once again.
"Yes, Chief?" She asked.
"When off duty you can call me Ranma. All my friends do." He said tiredly, and remembered Reach and the rest of the Spartans. As things looked now Cortana would be the only one that knew his real name.
"Yes...Ranma." She said and tried to use the unfamiliar name. It felt strange, she had used "Master Chief" or "sir" the entire time when addressing him, sure she knew his real name but it just felt wrong using it.
He settled down in the pilots seat, his large frame being too bulky to fit into the seat properly. He closed his eyes and feel into a deep sleep, a MA5B assault rifle clutched tightly in his hands.
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"Report!" Nosolee yelled and stood up from where he had been thrown onto the deck.
A young elite who stood at one of the intact consoles began to type away to get the status on the ship.
"Your Excellency.... the ring.... It's gone. And the rest of the fleet went with it. 60 of the compartments are decompressed, most of the crew dead. The main core is not working and the power supply is badly damaged." He said and whispered a short prayer for the lives lost.
"The other ships under my command?" he asked.
The young elite typed in some commands and then turned towards his officer.
"The Resounding Justice and Unending Peace aren't answering any of my attempts to hail them, perhaps their communication relays are malfunctioning, without scanners I can't determine for sure. The Divine Prayer and Resolved Righteousness are answering, but they are in similar position as us, they are reporting badly damaged systems and malfunctioning equipment."
Nosolee nodded and turned towards the main engineer, who was working fast to get an accurate damage report and fix the faults that could be fixed. He had needed to dump the plasma core into space to avoid the engines going critical. The slip space engine would need extreme amounts of repairs before working, and the standard engine was almost completely fried in their fast escape.
"How long before we are capable of star flight again?" Nosolee asked the elite.
"Numerous cycles, maybe as much as one moon unit. I think we can decrease the time if we concentrate on the essential systems, like engines and life support and leave the weapon and shield systems for later repair once back in dry dock" He said and tried once again to asset the damage done.
Nosolee cursed one of the vilest curses of his species tongue.
"You're Excellency, we should thank the Ancients to be alive. The blast melted all our shield systems and damaged most of our hull. Had we left the atmosphere just a moment later we wouldn't be here." He said as he went through the readings again.
Nosolee nodded grumpily, the officer was trying his best to give him good news and for that he was thankful, it didn't help matters to be angry at his remaining crew.
"Begin the important repairs.... And send out two small teams to the Resounding Justice and Unending Peace to find out their current situation." He said and left the bridge, heading for his personal chambers. He could see the floating forms of some Covenant engineers working on the damaged places of the ship.
The Covenant were a collective of alien races, with the elites and prophets at the top in the Covenant hierarchy. Then there were the small grunts, who formed the bulk of the Covenant forces and the huge Hunters who used their mighty frame to carry heavy weapons to the battlefield, and the Jackals who with their more refined senses acted as scouts.
Then there was the engineers, squid-like beings with their bodies filled with pockets of gas, making them levitate a small bit over the ground. These creatures were something rare, having the ability to assemble and disassemble any kind of gear in the matter of seconds. They seemed totally indifferent to anything besides repairing things, paying no head to enemies near them whatsoever.
The door to his quarters closed with a hiss behind him, and he walked over to a simply matt lying on the floor.
Settling in a meditative stance, his gold helmet resting on the floor next to him he began a slow and calm hymn. He closed his eyes and fell into a deep trance, trying to clear his mind of the images of his brethren slaughtered by the horrifying Flood, the screams of anguish from dieing warriors, and then finally when the shells of once mighty warriors rose from death, their forms mutilated beyond recognition.
He tried, and failed miserably, the terror of the flood was haunting his dreams, and would continue to do it for years to come.
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"Cortana?" Ranma said and looked down on the single working console.
"I have already scanned it, there is nothing out there. Just dust, debris and radio echoes." She said once again.
Ranma sighed, they had been stuck almost two weeks at the debris field from Halo.
"Cortana, begin another scan." He said simply and turned towards his helmet. The HUD had stopped working a day ago and once he pulled it apart he found out why. The circuits had been fried, rendering the entire helmet almost useless. He couldn't repair it without some new parts. He was just thankful that the radio and AI slot still worked properly.
The rest of his armour wasn't in any better condition, the plating was dented in numerous places and restricted his movement somewhat, and the temperature regulator was offline, making the thing feel like oven.
Most of the faults he had managed to fix, but only temporally. The Flood and Covenant had busted his armour up pretty badly, he would need to change it as soon as possible.
"Sir, there is nothing out there. I have scanned the debris field for two weeks, and found nothing." The AI said a little irritated.
"Cortana, the longsword is too small to have slip-space engine or cryo tube, and the air, power, food, water and fuel reserves will only last so long. If we don't find anything soon we are dead." He said and turned towards Cortana's face on the console.
Cortana just shook her head, the cyborg was right of course but what chances would there be to find anything now? Following his orders she began to scan the area again.
Ranma meanwhile was working on his HUD, but to no avail, the thing was and would continue to be offline. The main information core was working, it was just the damned display that was busted.
He shook his head in dismay, and began to pull apart the entire helmet. He found what he was looking for, the audio and video cables. He began the long work of rerouting the cables from the HUD screen to the Neural Command Interface.
Taking out the small tool kit that was located in a small compartment of the armour he placed it in front of him and opened it.
Taking out some needles with wires attached to them, he pushed one of them into a slit on the longswords computer. The other end of the wire he pressed into a small similar slot on his Mjolnir helmet. He then used another wire to connect his fusion pack with the helmet to power it.
"What are you doing?" Cortana asked over the speakers.
Ranma looked on the face of the AI displayed on the console before answering.
"I am making a temporally solution to my damaged HUD." He answered and continued with his work.
The face of Cortana disappeared to be replaced by a screen filled with seemingly random numbers and letters. He entered a small command and a moment later the screen flashed green.
He then removed the needle from the helmet and brought it up to the back of his neck. Without hesitating he pushed the needle through the skin of his neck and into the Neural implant. He began to type in some commands but was interrupted by Cortana.
"You know that the fact that you have a bunch of wires sticking out of you head is creepy right?" He could hear Cortana say in morbid fascination.
"This is nothing unusual, the same thing happens each time I put my helmet on." He said and turned back to the keyboard.
The screen flashed green once again and he nodded to himself, and closed his eyes.
"But still... The way you sit there with the wires attached to your neck and type on the computer... It's just surreal. It makes you look... I don't know..." She said and trailed off.
"Inhuman perhaps?" He said, but there wasn't any sign of humour or amusement in his voice, it sounded like he stated a fact.
Inside the computer the projected image of Cortana jumped up into the air. As he had said it his lips hadn't moved at all, and the sound hadn't come from her external receivers but from somewhere behind her.
She turned around and came face to face with a holographic projection of the Chief. He was clad in his Mjolnir suit but without any damage. The helmet was hanging form his belt and he had a MA5B Assault Rifle slung over his shoulder, even though here the armour and weapon would be of no use.
The only difference from the real thing was the fact that he was ghostly transparent, with information scrolling across his body, his skin was changing colour, going from blue to red to purple. The only thing that had a constant colour was his eyes, which were ice blue.
Even though there weren't any real measurements here he would in real life have towered at least one and a half feet over her.
Her eyes widened in shook, there was no way in hell that a human could become digital.
"This is impossible, a human can't take an digital form?" Was the only thing she was able to get out.
"Well you are right, I cannot take a digital form. As you can see my form here isn't corporeal." He said and pushed his hand through her chest. His face took a look of concentration and he pushed her once again, but this time she could feel something best described as cold water passed through her.
"It takes extreme amounts of concentration to even make the smallest difference."
Cortana turned towards the projection of the Chief and tried to scan him, but could only feel emptiness were he was standing.
"But how?" She said.
"This was part of the Mjolnir suit. As you might now we Spartans are able, with the help of our Neural implants, to regulate our combat suits systems mentally. Doctor Hasley wanted us to be able to quickly access information and computer systems so the Implant works two ways. First we can take care of incoming information much like a normal Neural implant, and second we can also send information, which is something new" He said and looked interested on his hands and body.
"So how much can you do? Are you some kind of AI? She asked interested.
"No, think of this form as something like your holographic body in the physical world, I am limited to watch the events. I can do a few things, but not much, I simply have too many restrictions and boundaries. The reason for this is the incompatibility between an organic brain and an inorganic computer, it has to do with the sync ratio. The higher my sync ratio is, the higher the compatibility, and the higher my skill will be." He said unemotionally and walked over towards were a screen was flashing.
Cortana could see that he couldn't access the screen quite as quick as an AI or even programs, but he still managed to do it, despite human inaccuracy.
The stats on his helm came up and she could see the highlighted area on the back of its neck.
"How come you never have done this before, and how are you able to see me?" She asked as Ranma was surveying the information.
"The reason is that it simply isn't to any real use right now. The only real advantage we have is that we can't be deleted like a program or AI. Then there is the fact that any person who does this has the strange feeling of being in two places at the same time, something akin to split personality. I feel what my body feels, I see what my body feels and I see what my body sees, so it can't really be used in combat, it would decrease my awareness. As for how I can see you, well my optical implants makes that possible. And that's the reason I am here doing this, I am trying to reroute my HUD directly to my optical implants." He said and turned towards the screen once again.
"What are you doing exactly?" She asked and leaned to the side of him to see the screen.
"I am doing a small calibration of my HUD to be on the same frequency as my Neural implant." He said and looked down on the smaller AI.
Cortana had to admit that it was more impressive to actually stand in front of a Spartan than being inside the head of one. A looming giant that could rip a man apart with their bare hands, trained and had experience that could equal an entire squad of ODST, a killer out to his very fingertips, showing absolutely no mercy and would complete a mission at all costs.
She understood now why the Covenant feared the Spartans, Angle of Death indeed.
Ranma nodded and then vanished in mid air.
Left inside the longsword's computer systems was a confused AI. She shook her head and then began to go through the Spartan files once again, Ranma had done nothing but surprise her since the first time they met.
Ranma opened his eyes and shook his head to get rid of the nauseating felling. He slowly removed the needle and then picked up his helmet. Sliding it on he could feel a sharp stab of pain as the needle inside it connected with his implant.
He could see as his HUD flashed up, showing his vital and armour stats, the return of the HUD was accompanied by a burning feeling in his eyes, but he didn't even flinch. The burning slowly disappeared, the only thing remaining was a small stinging sensation.
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Nosolee stood upon the elevated platform of the bridge on the New Sight. The repairs on the vessel had gone without any major drawbacks. The holes in the hull had been mended, the power cables had been fixed and the reactor was about to be brought online.
As for the other four ships under his command, the Resounding Justice and Unending Peace had been damaged beyond repair and only a small amount of the crew survived. The Resolved Righteousness and Divine Prayer were in the same position as the New Sight, badly damaged but still operating.
His mind drifted away to the events that had led up to their current situation.
He couldn't understand how it was possible, in the end the humans had destroyed Halo, killing their own soldiers just to make sure that the Flood never would leave the installation.
How could that be? The Humans were supposed to be allies with the enemies of the ancients, but in the end it was the Humans actions that destroyed them.
Something wasn't right. The tales and stories he had been told as youngling seemed more and more illogical.
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"Sir, I think I found something. When I sorted through the numerous echoes I found one that hadn't gotten any weaker since the last scan. It was a Class 4 distress signal." She said interested.
"Where is it coming from?" He said, but didn't get his hope up to much, there was the chance it was just some left over UNSC-equipment.
"I am trying to pinpoint it now but all the other echoes are interfering with the scan." She said frustrated.
Ranma just leaned back in his chair, there was nothing he could do to help.
"There... The signal is coming from one of the larger wreckage pieces from Halo." She said and a nav-point appeared on the console.
"Affirmative." He said and brought the longsword's systems online. When the engines were brought online he began to change the course, using the thrusters to change the crafts angle.
He slowly accelerated the craft, but still kept a really low speed. There was a huge amount of debris in the area and he didn't want to hit some, and more importantly he didn't want to make himself a target for potential cloaked Covenant ships.
He kept his eyes on the radar and nav-point, the nav-point steadily decreasing the miles left.
When it was left then a hundred miles left he cut the engines and slowly drifted towards the area.
Keeping most of the systems offline he cut the engines and slowly moved towards the nav-point. This area was in almost complete darkness, but with his enhanced vision he could see the general shapes of the debris. He stopped looking out the window and began to concentrate on the short range radar. The thing marked the debris a bright green, but there wasn't a sign of any yellow dots indicating allies.
"Cortana, do a quick scan of the area, search for any object that could possibly have anything with the UNSC to do." He said in a commanding voice.
"Sure Chief." She said and activated the longswords short range scanners. Letting it sweep over the surrounding area she found only one thing of interest.
"I have a match, what appears to be two badly damaged pelicans, both docked at each other. I can see that one of them is without a cockpit, and the other lacks a wing. No power readings at all." She said and shook her head.
Ranma only nodded and then began to move the longsword closer to take a look.
Cortana was right, both pelicans were badly damaged, the front of one of them was filled with scorch marks, and the windows to the cockpit were gone, giving a clear view of the corpses of the pilots, their faces were badly burned.
The other one was, as Cortana had told him, lacking a wing and a good part of the starboard side.
How they had managed to dock at all was a mystery to Ranma. Using the crafts thrusters he manoeuvred the longsword to dock with the upper airlock of the pelican.
He could hear a loud clonk as the ships connected with each other and the magnetic clamps attached to the hull of the pelican.
He picked up his assault rifle and slung it over his shoulder, then he picked up his helmet and made sure to check the air-seals.
He walked down the ramp leading to the underside of the craft and to the left and right of him he could see the empty missile-bays. He pressed a quick combination on a small pad next to a rusty hatch. A green light flashed over the door and the hatch opened. Ranma dropped down the hatch into a small compartment and pressed another pad. The door closed and a red light flashed. He could hear the hiss as the airlock activated and then a green light flashed above another door opposite the first.
The door slid opened with a hiss and the only thing that greeted him was complete and utter darkness.
A small blip and a flashing red light on his modified HUD caught his attention. He could hear as his helmet air seals activated and closed off the outside air and triggered the internal air supply. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was hazardous.
The small red light from the airlock did little to illuminate the area so he activated his flashlight, and the first thing he saw was the business end of a MA5B Assault Rifle pressed against his visor.
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"Your Excelleny, something moved on the scanners." A young elite said and looked alerted on the console.
"What was it?" Nosolee asked as he stepped up next to the elite.
"I can't tell it only showed for a moment, not enough to get any kind of information on what and where it was." He said and looked up on his commanding officer.
"It could be some wreckage from the ring crashing against each other, or a radar echo, your Excellency." An elite next to him said in a humble voice.
"Perhaps... But keep your eyes open." Nosolee said and walked away to check on the repairs on the ship.
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She couldn't tell how long she had been stuck, there wasn't any time in the darkness and cold, just the smell of rotting flesh and moans from the wounded and dieing. But one after another the moans had disappeared, leaving her alone in the darkness. She was just so afraid, so alone, so cold. It took every inch of her willpower not to go insane.
She could hear the as something hit the hull of their derelict escape craft. Some time later, she couldn't tell if it was hours or just a few seconds, the hatch opened.
In the red light coming from the door she could see the silhouette of a tall armoured figure. Her focus was blurry and her movement sluggish but she managed to raise her rifle and point at the figure. The thing activated it's flashlight and the darkened space was flooded with light. The thing stopped as it came face to face with her assault rifle.
Her hands were visibly shaking, more from the cold and shock then from fear, her mind was simply too tired to be afraid.
Her mind didn't even have the time to register as the figure moved and snatched the weapon from out of her hands. She looked down shocked on her hands unbelievingly and pushed herself backwards, trying desperately to get away from the monster.
She couldn't help herself and cried, hoping against hope that her death would be quick.
She could feel darkness overwhelm her and she fell forwards, right into the arms of the armoured monster. He caught her with more softness then she expected from one who was wearing metal armour.
The last thing she saw was a bright golden eye looking down on her.
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Ranma looked down on the woman in his arms and then let his flashlight sweep over the rest of the interior. Marines were lying on the floor and sitting against the walls, he couldn't tell if they were alive or dead. The empty cans of bio-foam and bloody bandages littering the floor showed that a good deal of them were injured and needed medical attention.
Being reminded of the low amount of oxygen in the air he slammed his fist into the airlock pad. With two loud hisses both hatches opened, flooding the pelican with light and air.
He quickly made it back to the longswords cockpit, putting the unconscious woman down on the pilot-seat. He walked over to a locker that he knew contained first aid gear and ammunition. When the console didn't accept his ID he didn't give Cortana the time to hack the lock, he simply ripped the three inch solid titanium door of its hinges. He didn't have time to waste, every second was important now.
He pulled out three cases of first aid boxes and laid them on the floor and then picked up a grey military blanket and covered the unconscious woman with it.He could see that her arm was wounded but it wasn't life-threatening so he decided to wait with it until he had checked up on the rest of the marines. He picked up an additional kit with bio-foam, and placed the alien blade still hanging from his belt into the locker.
He grabbed the first aid boxes lying on the floor and a couple of more blankets and then hurried back to the pelican.
When he entered the pelican he pulled out a group of plastic sticks and broke them, they glowed green and illuminated the interior of the ship.
He removed his gauntlets and helmet to be able to work better. As the helmet fell to the floor he could feel the nauseating sweet stench of rotting flesh and the coppery smell of blood. The inside of the ship was cold, below zero at least. He could imagine the terror of being stuck inside this ship for weeks, feeling as the oxygen tanks began to empty, the feeling of dread as the power finally stopped working....
He shook his head and shifted his attention to the first marine. He could see that the wounds were serious but not life threatening so he began to threat them, filling them with bio-foam and putting on a clean bandage.
When he was sure that he would be able to move him without injuring him he wrapped him up in a blanket and carried him up to the longswords right missile bay. It wasn't perhaps the most comfortable, but it wasn't freezing and there wasn't the smell of dead.
Going back to the pelican he began the long work of going through the wounded. The ones who didn't have any critical injuries he moved up to the left missile bay for treatment later, there were does that needed the supplies and the time more. The dead he simply piled in one corner of the ship, taking their dog-tags.
He began to treat the marines with an expertise that any doctor would have envied. He had a lot of first hand experience with wounds, both from inflicting and receiving them so he could treat almost anything.
Small shrapnel wounds, nothing serious.
Dead.
Broken ribs, broken upper arm, nothing serious.
Dead.
Dead.
Third degree burns on arms, critical but not life threatening.
Unconscious, lack of oxygen.
Dead.
Internal bleeding, dieing.
He gave the young woman a painkiller and then continued on. He couldn't waste time with those who were beyond his help.
Dead....
He put the last one from the first pelican down, a young man, navy form the looks of his uniform.
He then walked back to the pelican and moved through it to stand at the second opened hatch.
Pulling out another pair of chemical flares he broke them and threw them down the hole.
He made sure there wasn't anyone lying down there and then jumped down.
The 700 kilo Spartan hit the floor with a loud bang of metal against metal. He heard a loud groan and walked over to the first person. All the others had been KO because of the lack of oxygen, but those without any major wounds would probably be recovering now.
"Fuck, the corps isn't paying me enough for this shit." The man said and groaned again.
Ranma walked over and kneeled besides him. The man was wearing standard UNSC-marines combat armour and helmet. The man was looking down on the floor and shacking his head as if to get rid of some dizziness.
Ranma reached down and reached down to help him up. The man nodded and took the outstretched hand.
Ranma pulled the man to his feet like he wasn't weighing anything, and then he took a closer look.
The shock only lasted a second, Ranma grabbed the collar of the man's uniform and slammed him into wall, one hand holding him to the wall and the other keeping a good grip around the mans throat.
"You are dead. I saw you die on Jenkins mission record. The Flood got you." Ranma said and increased the pressure on the man's throat, but still enough to let him talk.
The black man shook his head to clear it from the pain of being thrown into a wall by a Spartan.
"Hell, Chief, it will take more then some alien horror-show freaks to take out Sergeant Avery J Johnson." He said a little irritated.
Ranma's face didn't lose any of its coldness.
"Don't worry, I am not one of them. This is 100 grade-A UNSC-marine." He said and patted his chest.
"Explain. Now." Ranma said in a commanding voice.
"The Flood got as alright, those small murderous bastards ambushed us. They got Jenkins, Mendoza and Williams. So Keyes, I and Besenti did the only thing possible, we ran like hell and closed the door behind us, but not before leaving a couple of M9 HE-DP presents for them. We lost Besenti halfway through the complex, those bastards were everywhere. Me and the cap'n got stuck in a room filled with those things, one of them had a rocket launcher and made almost the entire ceiling cave in. That was the last I saw of the cap'n. After I dug myself out of the rubble I double timed it back to the surface and hooked up with a few survivors. We used a Covenant radio to call in an evac and then we were off to Alpha base.
When we arrived most of the men were either dead or wounded and we had gotten the order to pick, pack and get our asses off the ring. That's how we ended up in this situation, we ran into a couple of banshees when we took off. Hell, until you showed up I thought we were dead for sure." He said with a shrug.
"Give me your mission record." Ranma said and motioned at the helmet.
The sergeant just shrugged and handed it over to the Spartan. The Spartan placed it in a pocket on his belt and let go off the sergeant. He would have time to check it later, right now he had wounded to care about.
"I placed the wounded back in the longsword's missile bays. Go and see if you can help them." He ordered the sergeant who nodded in reply.
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He walked over to the last marine, a young woman, at most twenty five. Her chest was covered in dark-red bandages, her face an unnatural pale colour. Ranma carefully removed the bandage and could see scorched skin, small cracks showing the red flesh beneath.
Taking the pulse on the woman he confirmed what he already knew, she was dead.
"Just a kid..." He said and shook his head sadly, he hated it to see someone so young die.
When the war had begun some twenty years ago the average age of the UNSC-soldiers had been somewhere between thirty-thirty-five, but as the war progressed and the Covenant glassed more and more worlds and killed more and more people the experienced people died.
Now the age was somewhere in between twenty-twenty-five, if you were older you were a veteran. Even though it was a dangerous job it there was always people that signed up, people that had lost their families when a world was glassed, people who didn't know were to go after seeing their entire life destroyed by the merciless Covenant onslaught.
He closed the lifeless eyes of the woman with his hand and removed her dog-tag.
He silently wondered how many billions had died in the war... and how many would die.
Chronologically he was young, barely in the beginning of adulthood, but he'd had seen more then his fair share of war. And war always made one grow old fast.
Standing up he quickly searched for any useful gear but came up with nothing, the weapons locker was empty, the med-kits were all used and all emergency food was already eaten.
He climbed the small ladder up to the other pelican and activated the air-lock. The air lock closed and the air in both pelicans was sucked out, went through the filters to separate oxygen from carbon oxide and then went to the longsword's life support systems.
They were 44 people aboard the longsword, and every bit of air would be needed. Ranma had saved them from dieing from cold and lack of oxygen, but he was afraid he had only slowed down the inevitable. They still lacked any form of slip-space drive and without long range transmitters they wouldn't be able to call for a ride home.
-------------------------------------------------
"Your Excellency, the repair parties have been able to bring the main core online, but the plasma conducts are still not functional." A golden armoured elite said from his position.
Nosolee nodded at the new crew-member. He had been the ship-master on the destroyed Unending Peace. Most would have executed the ship-master from a downed craft because of their failure, but Nosolee needed every man possible and he knew the warrior was good.
The Unending Peace had left the ring atmosphere over half a minute later then the New Sight, due to the fact that the engineers weren't fast enough to bring the engines online, but the ship-master still had managed to bring them out in one piece more or less.
The warrior had been grateful for the mercy and had thanked the entire bride crew personally, which was strange. He had been cleared from the accusation and usually he would then proceed to consider all the lower ranking officers as trash, but he didn't.
Nosolee had the impression that it would be a good idea to have crew that trusted his judgement and was truthful to him, then the usual who feared execution for bringing bad news, failure was always punished with death.
And right now he needed a crew that stuck together, so he had given everyone on the downed crafts mercy.
The three remaining crafts were docked at each other to better repair their vessels, the engineers going through one ship at a time.
"Your Excellency, the repairs on the Divine Prayer's engines is almost completed, but all shield and weapon systems are still offline.
-------------------------------------------------
She groaned as she regained consciousness, pain assaulting her nerves on her arm. She tried to open her eyes but was only met with a blurry haze, only seeing the different colour of her surrounding, which were different shades of grey.
She closed and opened them again, this time the she could make out different shapes, but nothing that lifted the veil of confusion lying over her mind.
She closed her eyes again and tried to remember where she was, but came up with nothing.
Then she could hear something. It was the sound of metal against metal, and soon she realized it was footsteps.
She could hear as the heavily armoured boots moved towards her location with a steady purposeful pace. The clank, clank drawing closer by the second. She lay absolutely still trying not to make a single sound, she didn't want the thing to notice her.
The boots moved towards her and she could hear that it stopped a metre or to her left.
"She is awake, I think the painkillers have finally begun to wear off." A female voice said.
"How are you doing Major?" A deep baritone voice said, it reminded her somewhat of thunder, but still had smoothness to it. The voice didn't betray any emotion, but had a distinct coldness and sharpness to it that made a shiver go up her spine from fear.
She opened her eyes and looked around. She was lying curled up in a seat with a blanket around her body, in what appeared to be the cockpit of a longsword. Out the window the only thing seen was vast amount of debris, and a single red gas giant.
Sitting in the seat next to her was a green armoured giant, the reflective golden visor making it impossible to see the man's face. He stood up from the seat and began to move towards her, she began to slowly edge away from the armoured behemoth, the sedative still clouding her mind somewhat.
The Spartan seeing her moment stopped and moved his hand towards his head. With two soft clicks and a following hiss he pulled off his helmet and placed it on the seat. It wasn't the first time that UNSC personnel that had suffered trauma or was under the influence of painkillers mistook him for Covenant. The green armour and over seven feet of height made him look inhuman.
She stopped moving and looked on the face of the man in front of her, he was definitely no Covenant. His hair was cut short, barely half a centimetre, and was raven black. His facial features were rock hard and clearly defined and only showed bitterness and determination.
He looked young, perhaps twenty at most, but his eyes told a different story, they held experience beyond his years, showing complete determination and death and something more.... a deep pain. His deep blue eyes, which held so much bitterness, were as chunks of ice, having no warmth in them.
He would have been considered handsome if it wasn't for the fact that he looked like he had all the burdens of this world and the next on his shoulders.
After years spent in the Mjolnir combat suit his skin had become completely white because of the lack of sunlight. The dark tan he'd had gained during his youth, training to become a Spartan, had completely disappeared.
As she locked eyes with the Spartan she couldn't help but feel a shiver go up her spine, this wasn't a person you could hope to mess with and think you could remain alive. But there was more to the shiver then fear, she couldn't help but feel a little bit of attraction for him, but that feeling of attraction was drowned in the sea of watchfulness.
"Are you okay Major Silvia?" He asked and checked her bandaged arm.
As he said that her memories came crashing back, Halo, the Flood, her name and rank, the escape from Halo, the eternity in the cold dark hell.
"What happened?" She asked the Spartan, her head still buzzing uncomfortable.
"You fell unconscious due to lack of oxygen, as did most of the remaining survivors." He said while checking her arm. It had what remained of a nasty burn, but it was almost completely healed. He used some disinfection spray on the wound and then rewrapped the bandage.
He couldn't afford to use medical supplies in vain, not when there was a severe lack of them. The only reason Silvia had gotten one in the first place was because she was a commanding officer, and she was needed to keep order and moral high.
"Where are the rest of my men?" She asked and tried to sit up, but failed miserably.
"The remaining survivors are located in the missile bays due to lack of space." He said and turned towards the console.
"Cortana, anything new?" He asked the AI.
"No, Sir. Everything is as calm as could be." She said simply.
The Spartan shook his head. The AI's face on the screen turned towards Silvia.
"Ma'am, I have some good news and some bad new." Cortana said over the speakers.
"The good ones first." She said and rubber her temple with her uninjured hand.
"There is not a single sign of any Covenant forces out there." Cortana said.
"And the bad ones?" Silvia asked.
"The same goes for any UNSC-forces." Cortana said and sighed.
"We have air for about five days, then we are in the same position that you were in earlier." The Spartan said and looked out the window, he didn't seem scared, just stated a fact.
Silvia sighed, she didn't want to go through the same things once again, it was worse then facing the Covenant.
She tried to stand up again, but yet again she failed. The Spartan seeing the Major's struggle helped her to her feet. Unless you count the burns on her arm she was uninjured, perhaps a little tired but all in all good to go.
The Spartan made sure the Major didn't collapse, the sedatives still in her body would make her a little groggy.
Seeing that she could stand up without wobbling, he let her stand on her own. She walked out of the cockpit and headed down the ramp. Ranma just shook his head, he had seen the first signs of combat fatigue on the Major's face, he had seen it too many times during his military career not to notice. He also knew that she needed to be with her men to let her get a grip on her nerves, he wouldn't be of any use to console the woman.
With a last look on the back of the Major he turned back to matter at hand, he needed to find a way out of this situation. While the major was a higher ranking officer then him he knew that it was up to him to get them out of this mess.
All the Covenant ships had been destroyed on Halo, and there wasn't any hope to find any UNSC-ships. But he had the feeling he was forgetting something.
-----------------------------------------
Major Alex Silvia made her way from the cockpit and down the small ramp to the missile bay. The two empty missile bays were filled with wounded, but it was only a small part of the ninety-three people that had managed to get off Halo. She sadly shook her head at the loss of so many men.
To the right she could see a group of four marines and a navy ensign move around the wounded to see if they could help somehow. She looked straight ahead and by the airlock she could see five black body bags. The black plastic was reflecting the light, giving them a surreal lock. She let her head fall, and a single tear made its way down her cheek.
The bags were containing people that had given their life to protect others, and this was the gratitude given, their final rest would be a black plastic bag.
She didn't know who was in them, but right now it didn't matter, she was at the end of her nerves.
She felt so hopeless, in the end she hadn't been able to do anything to save the soldiers under her command.
Silvia was about to return to the cockpit when the voices of some of the marines caught her attention.
"So, how are we getting out of this one? We are almost out of food and water. We are as good as dead...." She heard a voice complain.
"Will you just shut it Jeremiah? I have had it with your constant bitching." A female voice said.
Jeremiah didn't even seem to notice, he just continued to ramble.
"I mean, we were as good as dead, and now we have to go through the entire thing again. Couldn't he have just let us die?" Jeremiah said.
"Just shut the fuck up!" The woman said pissed.
"Make me." Jeremiah said tauntingly.
Major Alex Silvia frowned and moved back towards the missile bay. She couldn't let things get out of control.
She entered and took in the situation, a marine without his helmet was standing in the middle of the room, and in front of him was a woman in navy blue. The tension in the air was so thick you probably could have cut it with a knife.
Before she could intervene Sergeant Johnson stepped up and jabbed a finger into the chest of the marine.
"What the hell is wrong with you? We have a goddamned Spartan pulling our asses out of the fire, and you are trying to fight him. This guy has more fucking experience then an entire division of ODST put together! Do you want to fucking die out here? Because if you do I can kick your sorry ass out of the airlock right now. If you don't then shut up, follow orders, and we might just get home in one piece." Johnson angrily yelled into the face of the marine.
Johnson always fixed so that it was order among the marines, even if he personally had to kick some ass.
It had been common knowledge on the Pillar of Autumn that if you pissed off Sergeant Johnson he would shove his boot so high up your ass that you would taste shoe-polish the rest of your life.
So she decided to interfere before Johnson actually kicked the man out, with him you could never be sure if he was joking or not.
"That's enough, Sergeant. Stand down." She barked out.
"Yes Ma'am." The sergeant said and nodded in affirmative. But he still had an angry look on his face.
Major Silvia turned towards the marine, a private.
"Private, I know you have frazzled nerves after all the events transpired, we all have, but if I hear you talk like that one more time, I will be the one to kick you out of this boat, and not the Sergeant here. Understood?"
The marine clenched his jaw and nodded.
"Do you understand?" Silvia asked again, this time with more determination.
"Yes Ma'am, I understand." He finally said.
"Good, now carry out, soldier." She said and turned and left the room.
As she left the room she leaned her head wall and groaned. She just hoped that there weren't many like Jeremiah. She could feel the cold metal of the wall against the forehead, a massive headache was starting to build up.
She just sighed and rubbed her temples, trying to come up with something. Even though she hated to admit it the private was right, there was no chance in hell that they would find a way out of here. She began to despair, she didn't want to die, not like this in any case.
A hand was placed on her shoulder and she quickly turned around.
Johnson was standing in front of her, and he had a tired smile.
"Thanks Major, I have had problems with Jeremiah for the past three days." Johnson said.
He was looking tired, he didn't have his usual carefree badass attitude, but he was still smiling a little.
"So, do you think we will make it out of here?" She asked the man.
The black mans smile faded, he closed his eyes, and then he sighed deeply.
"To be honest......" He said and trailed off.
"Yes?" She asked.
"I think we have a snowballs chance in hell." He said, eyes still closed.
"That bad, huh?" She said and shook her head.
"But on the other hand......."
"Yes?" She asked a little hopeful.
"We survived Halo, and I can't really say that the odds there were any better. I would just think it strange that our luck, or whatever you want to call it, would leave us now." He said and opened his eyes.
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The longsword was slowly moving away from the debris field, letting their momentum carry them on.
Ranma was sitting in the pilot seat and going through all the events leading up to Halo, the fall of Reach, the death of all the Spartans and the Pillar of Autumns last ditch effort to play decoy so the rest of the fleet could escape, in the end the Covenant fleet had been destroyed, but to a high price.
He knew that Reach had been one of the last colonies before Earth.
He just hoped that there was some way to get back in time.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, replaying the events in his head. The Autumns battle over the gas giant and finally as it went down on the ring-world....
He opened his eyes as he remembered something.
"Cortana..." He said and trailed off.
"Yes, sir?" Cortana said over the speakers.
"Couldn't we hitch a ride with the Covenant ships?" He said and turned towards the AI's face on the screen.
"I think you will have to fix those implants of yours. All Covenant ships were destroyed as Halo detonated." She said and shook her head.
"Only the ones in the atmosphere." He said simply.
"Yes, only the ones in the atmosphere. Unfortunately that was all Covenant ships, the Covenant leadership gave orders to all ships to hold a stationary orbit inside the ring atmosphere to avoid any Flood outbreak." She said as if talking to a small child.
Had it been possible for the Spartan to look smug he would have being doing just that.
"Yes, all ships were ordered to take up position, but that doesn't mean that all were able to do that." He said and began to type into the longswords flight records.
"What are you rambling about now?" She said and sighed.
"Do you remember when we first arrived in system?" He said and continued to type away on the computer.
"Yes, the Autumn was damaged when we arrived here, but we were still able to land on the ring. What are you going at?" She said and tapped her foot impatiently.
"We took out four Covenant ships, remember? They wouldn't have been able to follow the commands, not with the damage they sustained from you." He said and motioned towards the screen.
A small system map was on the display, it was six weeks out of date, with Halo still holding orbit around the gas-giant. A green arrow indicating the Autumn entered the system, and began to move towards Halo. It encountered numerous red arrows, indicating hostiles and yellow lines began to go back and forth between the Autumn and the Covenant ships.
As the green arrow disappeared at the ring there were four red dots with a cross over each indicating the destroyed vessels.
Cortana stopped for about three seconds to take in what the Spartan had said.
"Wait.... Processing new data. You are right, the four ships never made it to Halo." She said.
"So, do you think we can hijack a ship and return home?" He asked and looked out the window.
"It is our best plan yet. We will have to fly to the other side of the gas-giant first, because the crafts are in the planets shadow, and then we can see where we stand after that." She said.
Ranma nodded and brought the longswords engine online. Two flames erupted from the engines and shot the craft forward.
He could see the glistening remains of halo float in the distant, looking like nothing more then drops of water. The craft began to close the distance between itself and the sphere.
"ETA 18 hours, 32 minutes, 16 seconds" Cortana's voice said over the speakers.
"Roger that." Ranma said simply.
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Nosolee walked into the almost empty bridge, the only one except him there was the new pilot, Hakue.
About half the lights were turned off, to conserve the meagre amount of energy the reactors managed to create. Most of the crew was down in the lower compartments to fix the main plasma conducts, only Hakue left checking the status on the rest of the ship.
He walked up the ramp leading to the elevated platform, all the displays were shut off, the only one online was casting an eerie purple light over the bridge, making the shadows come alive. They were dancing across the walls and ceiling of the bridge.
Nosolee had to repress a shudder, the shadows were reminding him of the Flood. He stepped up next to the golden armoured elite, the marks of master pilot stencilled deep within the golden metal.
"Your Excellency, I everything is going as it should, no incidents except a small rise in reactor temperature, nothing serious." Hakue said and motioned towards the screen.
Nosolee nodded absentmindedly and looked on the screen without really paying attention.
Hakue shifted a little nervously while he looked at his commanding officer. Nosolee noticed this and looked on the warrior with an inquiring look.
"Your Excellency, may I ask a question?" Hakue said and looked nervous.
"You have my permission, warrior." He said simply.
"Why did you spare my life? I failed to command my vessel to safety, I failed the gods..." He said and trailed off.
Nosolee closed his eyes and placed his hand on the hilt of his plasma blade.
"Your Excellency, all others would have executed me for my failure, but you spared me... It makes no sense." He said and looked at his superior.
"In this place I have seen many things that don't make any sense, but as time will pass I am sure we will comprehend more of the transpired events, and find out if our choices were correct." He said to himself, completely forgetting the presence of the other elite.
The purple glow from the screen illuminated the face of the elite, he looked calm and serene.
"And I pray to the gods that our choices were correct, and if they weren't..... May the gods have mercy upon our souls." He said and sighed sadly.
"Your Excellency?" The elite asked, confusion evident in his voice.
I don't seem to make any sense, am I? I should perhaps say something more understandable." He said and opened his eyes and turned towards Hakue.
"The reason I didn't kill you.... You should always treat others like you self want to be treated." He said and looked on the screen.
"I have never heard those words before, but nevertheless they speak the truth and are filled with wisdom." Hakue said and considered the words carefully, they seemed filled with the promise of peace and happiness, and yet..... They also filled him with an indescribable feeling of guilt and dread of what was to come. Somehow those simple words seemed to be final, carrying a sentence, it was by these words they would be judged.
"I would be surprised if you had." Nosolee said simply and turned back to the screen.
He wouldn't tell Hakue that these were words coming from the mouths of humans.
Both Hakue and Nosolee turned back to the screen, both still in deep thought. The darkness around them was doing nothing to ease the unexplainable feeling of guilt that had fallen on both warriors.
A screen behind them beeped to gain there attention and they turned around. The screen beeped again and both walked over to it.
"Your Excellency, a human craft just left the shadow of the planet. Commencing full scan." Hakue said and began to type on the computer.
"Ship identified as a middle range light bomber, longsword class, 39 human life forms onboard. Orders?" Hakue asked.
Nosolee looked as the human longsword made its way around the planet. It didn't seem to have noticed them yet.
"Let it be, all our weapons, shields and engines are offline, there is nothing we can do." He heard himself say, but he knew that he could send out a Seraph fighter and deal with the human ship. He didn't, he just let it fly away.
"Your Excellency?" Hakue said confused.
"It is just one ship, it is not worth our time, we have more important matters to attend to." He said simply and looked down on the screen. The longsword would enter the planets shadow in less then a minute.
"Yes, your Excellency." Hakue said and didn't press the matter anymore. Hakue walked back to the other screen and fell into silence.
"Perhaps another time human, for another battle." Nosolee whispered so that only he could hear it.
Somehow he had the feeling he just condemned and saved his race in one action.
-------------------------------------------
"Major, I need to speak with you." Ranma said and looked around the room. Everyone's eyes were on him as he spoke.
"What is it about?"
"It is a solution to our current situation." He said and looked on the various marines, ODST and navy personnel littering the room.
"I think everyone should hear this, it concerns us all." She said and swept her hand indicating the entire room.
"I have found a ride home, there is only one problem" He said and looked on the marines.
"And that would be?" Silvia asked.
"If we want that particular piece of hardware we will need to take it from the Covenant first." He said and looked on the people's reaction. Some looked shocked, others looked afraid, and yet others looked relieved.
"Explain what this undertaking is all about." Silvia asked with a curious expression.
"We have located a Covenant frigate. If we capture the bridge Cortana can hack into the systems and take command over the vessel. The ship is damaged so if we are lucky their weapon systems will be offline."
"And if we aren't lucky?" Silvia asked.
"Then we died trying." Ranma answered simply.
Silvia looked down on the floor for a moment.
"It is all up to you Major, you are the highest ranking officer. If you tell me not to I will try to find another way out of this." He said and looked on the Major.
"What do you think of this plan, personally I mean? Can we make it?" She asked and looked at the Spartan, but could only see her reflection in the yellow visor.
"I think its going to be our only way out of this, our chances of survival is better then if we stay here. If we can make it? I wouldn't have suggested it if it wasn't possible." He said simply.
"What do you think of this Sergeant?" Silvia asked Johnson, who was standing to the side of her.
"A single longsword against a Covenant frigate? We are less then forty soldiers left, and more then half of them is severely wounded, and we should take on an entire Covenant crew? Without any intel on enemy strength, no maps, no backup, no evac. Everything that could possibly be to our disadvantage is it....." He said and trailed off.
"Sure, I'm in. This is the kind of odds that Marines life for to fight against." Johnson then added.
Major Alex Silvia then smiled an evil smile.
"Well then, it is settled. Ladies and gentlemen, buckle up, because we are going in the Marine way, with guns blazing."
"Ma'am, what about us?" The woman that had argued with Jeremiah said and motioned towards the group of Navy personnel.
"Can you handle a weapon?" Silvia asked.
"We all went through standard weapon training." She answered.
"Good, then grab some gear and form up with the rest of the eggheads." She said and motioned to the group of marines and ODST.
She saluted them and then followed the Chief out the hatch.
Johnson looked at the Major as she left and then turned to the various Marines lying and sitting on the floor.
"You heard the lady, move your lazy asses! You have slept enough already, because sleep you can do when you're dead....... Oh, and that reminds me, that everyone here is under the strict orders not to get killed, so no one and I do mean no one is allowed to die today. You don't get yourself killed, you hear that? Because if you do, I will personally fight my way down to hell to beat up your sorry asses. DO YOU GET ME, MARINES?"
"WE GET YOU SIR!" Came the roar form the mixed group of UNSC-marines, ODST and Navy personnel.
The ODST and Marines quickly grabbed their discarded weapons and gear, while the Navy borrowed some gear from the wounded.
Out of the thirty-nine people onboard the longsword, eighteen was so injured that they couldn't move themselves, and seven could move but had wounds that would only slow them down in combat. The rest, three ODST, four Navy and six marines were preparing for something that no sane, and most of the insane, would even consider, an assault on a Covenant frigate with a single longsword.
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Ranma accelerated the craft and began a slingshot manoeuvre around the gas-giant. He could feel the gravity press him down in the seat. He shifted the controls slightly and placed the craft in a perfect orbit around the gas-giant. He looked at the screen and then pushed the controls forward. The craft jumped out of its trajectory and headed straight for the last known position of the downed Covenant craft.
"Scanning........" The calm voice of Cortana came over the speakers.
Ranma was keeping his eyes on the radar and scanners, at this distance the frigate would be nothing more then a small piece of dust. The screen beeped once and showed a big green blob, and two small ones.
"A damaged D-Class Covenant frigate located, together with two E-Class Covenant corvettes, but the corvettes are nothing more the floating debris, I have no trace of the fourth ship." Cortana said over the speakers.
"Affirmative, I have an approach vector for the frigate." He said to the AI and used the small manoeuvre thrusters to change their course to intercept the frigate.
He kept his eyes glued to the screen to see if the Covenant reacted to their approach. He knew that if they did they wouldn't have a chance, the Covenants tracking systems were just to good.
The space between the Covenant ship and the longsword was steadily decreasing, and no sign of any incoming fire.
He could see that Major Silvia was sweating bullets, and was nervously taping her fingers on the armrest of the co-pilots seat.
As they flew closer to the ship he could see that there were no lights at all, it was running dark. As they slowly flew along the side of the ship he could see that the hull was intact, there was not a single trace of damage on the purple armour. As they moved towards the middle of the ship a gapping circular hole appeared in the structure. The edges were burnt and bent and as the lights from the longsword illuminated the gap Ranma could see that it went straight through the ship. Floating debris and a few corpses were seen, but not a single sign of life.
"Cortana, find me an access-point." Ranma ordered while keeping his eyes on the screen.
The ship had probably been hit with a MAC-round, because that was the only weapon that the UNSC had that could punch through an entire Covenant ship.
"There is a small airlock that would be adaptable with the longsword's two-hundred metres ahead." She said and a small Nav-point appeared on the screen.
Ranma nodded and adjusted the thrusters accordingly to get a better approach vector. The dull grey longsword connected with the bright purple teardrop shaped frigate. The screen flashed green to confirm the docking. He grabbed the MA5B assault rifle lying on the floor next to the seat and walked over to the locker on the far side missing a hatch. The interior was filled with ammunition, mostly just the standard 7,62 mm rounds for the MA5B.
He stopped as he spotted the sword lying in the compartment. For a second he thought if he should take it with him, but then quickly discarded the idea, it would take unnecessary space
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Johnson raised his MA5B Assault Rifle as the airlock seals hissed. The doors remained shut and the light over the hatch glowed red. Behind him the small rag-tag group of soldiers were waiting nervously. A few had closed their eyes and were whispering prayers, others were just fidgeting, and one was snapping his weapon safety on and off.
"Keep away from the door." A voice ordered from just behind him.
Johnson turned around and came face to face with the Spartan. Johnson looked strangely at the armoured behemoth, he was over seven feet and clad in metal combat armour, but he had still been able to sneak upon him without making a sound.
The Spartan seemed to look upon the gathered faces and then motioned towards a group of marines in the back. They were wounded but still able to fight.
"You keep the Covenants off this ship, don't let them get to the wounded." He said in a deep voice.
He then took a grenade from his belt and motioned to a marine to do the same. The marines took on each side of the door and then waited.
Ranma pressed the pad and the door opened with a hiss. Two bolts of green plasma flew through the door and hit the fair wall, at the same time Ranma and the marine flung the explosives around the edge through the door.
"Fire in the hole!" The marine yelled, and half a second later a loud wham and the screams of a couple of elites announced the arrival of the UNSC onboard the Covenant frigate.
Ranma leaned around the door to make himself as small target as possible and fired off a three round burst into the body of a grunt. To the right of him a marine was doing the same, leaning around the corner and firing from behind cover.
He pulled the pins on another grenade and threw it down the corridor. Another wham and the bolts of plasma stopped.
"Keep too the walls and cover each other." Ranma said and leaned around the corner to make sure there weren't any enemies. Letting the rifle sweep over the dark passageway, he walked forwards in a half crouch. The marines were doing the same, keeping their backs against the wall.
Most of the lights were down, the shadows were perfect to conceal the small group of marines.
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Johnson was impressed with how the Spartan dealt with the Covenant, he seemed to simply walk through the destruction of the small battle and with a precision that was frightening cut down the Covenant with his MA5B.
Johnson fired his rifle into the face of a Covenant grunt. The mask covering the grunt's face hissed violently and sprayed out white gas. The grunt clawed at his face and then went silent.
Johnson turned around and looked at the rest of marines. They had taken cover behind some cargo crates and were holding their own against the charging Covenant.
An elite fired at a marine taking cover behind a crate. The marine leaned out from his cover and fired ten rounds before returning behind the crate. She ejected the clip in her rifle and and quickly slammed a new one in. She leaned back around the crate and fired off the rifle again.
A plasma bolt screeched forward and hit the marine in her leg, burning away the skin and flesh. Without the leverage of her right foot she fell to the side, out from behind the cover of the crate, her rifle clattering to the floor some feet to her side. She screamed out in pain and clutched the burned limb, rolling around on the floor in anguish. The elite aimed again and fired off s single plasma bolt. The marine's screams went quiet.
Johnson turned towards the Chief, who was firing point blank into the head of an elite. The slug hit the shields of the elite and his head jerked backwards because of the impact. The Spartan fired off another five rounds before his rifle went dry and then he used the butt of the rifle as a club and slammed it into the head of the elite. The shields finally had enough and then disappeared, another hit with the rifle into the head of the elite was enough to snap his neck.
The Spartan hit the ejector on the clip and quickly inserted a new one. Johnson was about to turn back to the marines when a small blur moved across his vision.
"WATCH OUT!" He yelled.
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He had barely time enough to hear the warning before his instincts kicked in. Ranma threw himself to the floor on his stomach, a loud humming sound from precisely over his head told him that the cloaked elite with a plasma sword had missed him with only a couple of inches to spare.
Ranma turned around so that he was lying on his back and could face the elite. The form was blurry, but the burning blue plasma sword that seemed to hover in front of him told him that it really was an enemy. Slamming the rifle into the stomach of the elite he fired at point blank.
The air shimmered as the circuits on the cloaking field malfunctioned, then the form of the elite appeared standing over him.
Even though the elite had taken numerous hits to the stomach, the armour had stopped the brunt of them. He swung the blade and half of the MA5B assault rifle fell to the floor cut in half. The alien opened his mandibles and screamed in rage. He then attempted to stab the human in his head but the Spartan dodged, still lying on the floor.
Ranma flipped, so that he was standing on his hands, and then locked the elites head between his legs. He spun to the side, dragging the elite to the floor with him, and with a final twist snapped the alien's neck.
In less then a second he was back on his feet, with a policed Covenant plasma rifle in his right hand, and a Covenant plasma pistol in his left.
He hosed the few remaining Covenant grunts with burning plasma, blue, green and red bolts flying everywhere. Two well timed grenades from a marine dealt with the last of the Covenant who had taken cover behind a couple of crates.
He dropped the pistol and took the MA5B rifle from the corpse of the unfortunate marine. The enemy in the small bay had been defeated.
They didn't have time to rest however, the resistance to the bridge was becoming increasingly harder, and if they didn't move now they would never make it.
"Cover each others six." Johnson said as they moved towards the bridge.
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The door's light flashed and then opened. He turned around and raised his plasma rifle to make sure none of the humans entered. Nothing came out of the darkness in the hallway.
They waited and then lowered their weapons. He continued to walk back and forth on the bridge on his guard routine, casting disgusted looks on the sleeping grunts. The bridge was dark, only a few lights were functioning and the mood was eerie. All the combat teams sent to stop the humans hadn't reported back, and the moral was dropping.
A couple of small clink, clink's behind himbrought the warrior out of his thoughts. He turned around with his weapon raised but could see nothing. He walked forwards, rifle still raised, but could still not find the thing that had made the noise.
His foot hit something on the floor and he leaned down and picked it up. He couldn't see what it was, it was to dark. He steeped back into the light and then looked back to his hand.
It was a.....
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Wham, wham, wham was the sound coming from inside the room. The grenades had detonated, and then Ranma leaned his head from behind the door to take in the situation.
He quickly pulled back and looked back at the small group of marines.
Ranma raised three fingers, pulled the pin of an imaginary grenade and then motioned to the door.
Three marines nodded and pulled out their last couple of grenades and threw it through the door. Another three whams followed shortly thereafter.
The Covenant was now firing in all directions, but came nowhere near the door and the marines. They hadn't noticed them yet.
"Three men stay and give covering fire, the rest engage at will. Wait for when they must cycle their weapons. I will draw their fire" Ranma said and got the thumbs up in reply.
He silently and quickly slipped through the door unnoticed and looked around. He laid down on his stomach and crawled over to a pillar on the other side of the room. He stayed at the walls were the lights didn't reach and took cover behind the pillar. He quickly peeked around and could see a grunts standing with his back towards him and firing on the far wall.
Ranma silently placed the plasma rifle he had stolen earlier and reached out and grabbed the neck of the grunt and pulled him backwards into the shadows. A small wet snap was heard as he twisted the alien's neck. He policed the dead alien's grenades and then looked around the room once again.
Most of the aliens had stopped firing, but they didn't seem to notice the absence of the grunt.
Ranma activated two grenades and stuck them to the corpse. He then hurled the dead grunt across the room onto an elite who fell to the floor as the body hit him. The elite screamed in rage and pushed the body off him, not noticing the fact that the grenades of the alien were activated.
The grenades detonated in a storm of blue plasma and incinerated the elite.
All the remaining aliens turned around hastily and fired in the direction of the explosion, but coming nowhere near Ranma or the marines. He then raised the plasma rifle and fired of a small burst into a grunt. The plasma went unnoticed because everyone else was shooting.
He fired again and this time a jackal went down. Unfortunately the alien screamed and fired his rifle to the roof and that alerted the rest to Ranma's presence.
Ranma fired the plasma rifle on full automatic and when the sides opened and began the cooling sequence as not to overheat the weapon he threw it and picked up his MA5B rifle and began to spray metal death on the Covenant, aiming mostly at grunts and jackals which didn't have any shields.
Plasma was splashing around him, draining his shields fast. As the clip went dry he pulled back behind the pillar to reload his rifle and let his shields recharge.
Over the sound of screeching plasma he could hear the steady rattle of MA5B fire.
He pushed his arm around the pillar and fired the MA5B blindly, not meaning to kill but to draw the fire from the rest of the marines.
Once again the click, click of his empty rifle was heard. He pulled back behind the pillar, inserted his last clip and then picked up the grunt's plasma pistol.
Holding the trigger on the plasma pistol he over-charged the weapon. He stepped out from behind his cover, one weapon in each hand, and fired the pistol straight at an elite. The alien was flung to the floor at the impact and his shield circuits fried.
Ranma let the pistol go through the automatic cooling mode while firing the MA5B straight into the head of the elite. The alien jerked once and then went still.
He then fired a couple of rounds at some grunts that tried to flank him. The plasma pistol beeped once and he switched to it, firing at some jackals who were taking cover behind their hand held shields. An impact on the shield made the alien wobble for a second, but that was all Ranma needed.
He fired a three round burst with the MA5B that hit the alien in the side and made him fall to the floor screaming. He looked around and could see that the marines were holding their own. They moved from cover to cover, using the shadows and the bad light to full advantage.
He dodged behind a pillar as some grunts fired towards him and returned the gesture with the MA5B. The sixty round clip was down to thirty now.
He heard a roar from behind him and turned around, coming face to face with a golden armoured elite. With a quick flick of his wrist the alien activated his plasma sword, and then attacked.
Ranma brought both weapons up and fired a constant stream of 7,62 mm AP-rounds and plasma fire at the advancing alien.
The elite slashed towards him, but he dodged to the side and then slammed the rifle into the back of the alien, draining the last of his shields.
He fired off the last three rounds of his MA5B into the neck of the alien who slumped to the deck like a rag doll.
As the sound of his weapon stopped it became quiet, no sound of plasma or automatic weapons fire could be heard.
He pressed the ejection button on the side of his rifle and the empty clip fell to the floor with a clatter. He then dropped the depleted plasma pistol.
He turned around and could see that there wasn't a single Covenant left on the bridge, only the rag-tag assortment of marines.
Ranma began to walk towards the elevated platform that held the main control panels of the ship. He stepped over numerous corpses of Covenant soldiers, their blood was covering the entire floor in different colours of blue, purple and orange.
The marines had taken up position at the doors.
He stepped over the last corpse, a blue armoured elite missing an arm and his body badly burned and filled with shrapnel.
He picked out Cortana's chip from his helmet, she had been quiet almost the entire time.
He inserted the chip into one of the undamaged panels and her small holographic form appeared.
"Sealing all doors to the bridge........" She said, and half a second later the doors closed with a hiss.
"Override of the main security protocols commenced, this won't take long." Cortana said and looked up from her screen.
"The Covenant's security systems are a joke, any second grade AI could hack them if they just got access to the bridges computer."
"Perhaps they didn't suspect that a human assault group could capture one of their ships." Ranma said and gazed out on the gathered marines who were walking around and putting bullets into the heads of the aliens lying on the bridge to make sure that they really were dead.
"Probably....." She said but then something caught her attention
"I gained full access to all systems, I am venting the atmosphere as we speak." Cortana said and looked on the reflective golden visor of the Chief.
Throughout the ship all air-locks opened and blew the atmosphere right into space, sucking the remaining Covenant with them.
Ranma looked on the bloody interior of the bridge, corpses, MA5B shells, blood, and discarded weaponry was littering the floor. But miraculously there weren't any dead Marines.
"Cortana, what's our status?" Ranma asked the AI.
She brought her holographic hand to her temple and closed her eyes.
"Wait..... The main power conduits were damaged but the crew repaired it. The main control nexus on the other hand is still broken. I can access small systems, but the engines, shields, weapon, reactor and FTL systems are beyond my reach. We need to repair the nexus."
"Estimated time?" Ranma asked.
"18-20 hours." She answered.
"Well then, lets go to work."
---------------------------------
"Your Excellency, repair team four just reported that the main reactor is repaired. Power to all main systems will be back shortly." Hakue said and half a second latter the lights on the bridge flickered and then went online.
"Commencing full ship diagnostic....." Hakue said and tapped on the holo-panel.
Nosolee stepped up to the other elite and looked over his shoulder.
"We have sufficient power to make a jump." The elite said to his commanding officer.
"Tell the repair teams to return to their respective vessels, and then begin a jump with all security protocols activated."
"Your Excellency, that would take considerable time....." Hakue said and turned from his screen to the other elite.
"I am fully aware of that, but our ship is damaged and we hold vital information that must be delivered to the High Prophet of Truth, we will not take any risks." Nosolee said.
"I understand your Excellency." Hakue said and bowed.
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"Three, two, one.... Main control nexus is online, good work gentlemen."
Ranma could see the rest of the gathered crew smile at those words. He himself wore an unemotional expression concealed by his helmet.
The mission had been a success and the casualties minimal. They had counted 3 KIA's, but with an entire Covenant ship in their hands that was a good price. They had had managed to repair the nexus and get the crew remaining in the longsword to the bridge. The few remaining Navy personnel were commanding the bridge, trying their best to keep the damaged alien ship in one piece.
Now the only thing left was to punch the coordinates and go back to Earth for debriefing.
"I am diverting power to the engines." Cortana's voice came over the speakers.
Some of the Navy personnel from the Autumn were running checks on the ship. The panels were displaying information in passable English, thanks to Cortana's translation program. She had managed to gather quite a lot of information from her time in Halo and the Truth and Reconciliation, enough to keep the ghouls in Intelligence and ONI busy for years.
He could feel in his stomach that they were moving, but other then that there was no sign of any activity. Onboard an UNSC-ship there would have been a slight disorientation in the gravity fields when a ship accelerated.
He sat down at the top of the ramp leading to the elevated platform, and leaned his back against one of the pillars. He removed his helmet slowly and placed it on the deck next to him, and took a deep breath of air. He looked out on the main screen who displayed a calm sea of stars.
He smiled, but it wasn't a smile filled with joy, it was a sad smile from a man that seen too much, he always thought that nothing cold affect him, not emotionally at least. But he was wrong, so very wrong. He had nothing to do right know so he just sat and remembered, it was the only thing that he could do. The Fall of Reach, his family's death, Kelly, John, Sam, James, Linda, he went through every one, every name triggering a stab of pain and guilt in his heart.
Then the Pillar of Autumn's successful attempt to led away the Covenant from the rest of the retreating fleet, the bad wakeup onboard the Autumn, Halo..... The Flood. He closed his eyes and sighed sadly, he could probably handle one of those events, but all after another.... He was many things, but in the end he was only human, genetically enhanced but still only human.
He was feeling so hopeless, the sensation growing in his stomach. During the last few weeks he had lost everything and everyone that had ever mattered to him. He shook his head and looked out on the stars again, determined not to think about it anymore, to think of better times. He brushed his hand through his hair, and just looked out on the calm sea.
His mind drifted off to his childhood, the good times he remembered with his family, the smiling faces of the other children... That was how he wanted to remember them. He drifted longer backwards, to his real mother and father.
He didn't really remember his mother, she was just a blurry image before his inner eye, a fleeing sense of warmth and security was the only thing he still remembered. His father was just as blurry as his mother, but when he thought about his father he remembered only pain and suffering.
He wondered how they were doing, if they were still alive, or if their world had been glassed just like so many untold thousand others. He thought he remembered that he came from Earth, but that feeling was very vague and nothing concrete. He just dismissed it as it wasn't important, not anymore at least, and continued on with the thought of his past.
While he could remember nothing of his biological parents he could remember Chief Mendez and Doctor Halsey quite clearly. While Chief Mendez was a soldier and very stern he still cared for the Spartans in his own way, he was the sole father figure the Spartans had.
While his training was though, or more correctly impossible, it was only to give Spartans a better chance of survival.
If Chief Mendez was the father figure of the Spartans, Dr Catherine Halsey was definitely the mother figure. She always treated the Spartans when they got hurt, had consoled them in the beginning when they firstly had arrived to the training facility, and she had generally watched out for the Spartans wellbeing.
He drifted off to his childhood and the beginning of the training when they still didn't know what they were supposed to become. He looked out on the stars again and sadly smiled mentally, he had taken to the different fields of science, and especially physics and aeronautics, like a fish to water and had told Dr Halsey that he wanted to become a captain on a starship and explore space. He had always been fascinated by the stars, and once he found out about space travel he really wanted to see the galaxy.
The old saying "You should be careful what you wish for" fitted in here. He had gotten to see the galaxy, and parts of others, but it was always during some kind of military mission, seeing worlds go up in flames wasn't what he wanted to see. As he grew older and the threat of the Covenant became more profound the dreams of travelling the stars slowly diminished, being replaced with the sole duty to serve and protect mankind.
He shook his head to clear it of all thoughts and leaned backwards and closed his eyes to sleep.
"Ranma?"
"Yes Cortana" Ranma said with his eyes still closed.
"Are you okay? You seem bothered." She asked worriedly.
"No, just thinking about things." He answered simply with the same emotionless voice as ever.
"Like what?" She asked, now interested.
"Like..."Ranma began the sentence but didn't get the chance to finish it.
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"Your Excellency, the Burning Justice just left the shadow of the planet."
Nosolee turned around and walked straight to where Hakue was standing. He looked surprised at the news, the Burning Justice wasn't part of his battle group, and as far he knew they were the only ones who attempted to get away from Halo before its detonation.
As he looked on the screen he could see that the Burning Justice was a small frigate, so it wasn't strange he never heard of the ship before, especially when the force at Halo had consisted of hundreds of ships, a simple frigate would hardly be remembered, not when there were multiple assault carriers and three heavy battle ships in the fleet.
"Ship memory displays that the contact with the Burning Justice's bridge crew was lost during the human vessels initial approach of the ring, it was reported as destroyed after that." Hakue said as he was slowly reading the information from the screen.
"They crew may have repaired it." Nosolee said to the other officer.
"May be, or she wasn't that badly damaged to begin with...." Hakue said and began to scan the other ship.
"Scanners indicate that the ship got hit by a human MAC-round, in the middle near the main control system. Scanners show no other damage." Hakue said as he finished the scan.
"Hail them." Nosolee said simply as he looked on the ship, looking a little bit stressed.
Hakue nodded and moved to another screen.
The return of another ship would usually mean good news, but if they had heard over the comm.-channels that he broke a direct order from a prophet.... He and his crew would be killed at once. He knew that the crew wouldn't say a thing for fear of their lives, but a ship and crew that had nothing to do with the event at all would lose nothing, but gain much if telling the Prophets about their betrayal.
"The ship is not responding your Excellency." Hakue said and tapped some glowing glyphs on the screen.
"Try it again." Nosolee said and clicked his mandibles irritated. He must find out if they knew about it, and hopefully they wouldn't.
"They still aren't responding.... And the ship just changed course, going at full speed out of the system." Hakue said and motioned to the screen next to him.
"Your Excellency, what shall we do?" Hakue asked, he too, like rest of the crew, knew what would happen if that ship reached a Covenant controlled world.
"Tell the other ships to deploy fighters and engage the ship immediately." Nosolee said quickly. He just thought it strange that the ship hadn't hailed them once and tried to engage.... Usually that would be the normal course of action even if the enemy was stronger then you.
The alarms went off on the ship and soon the rest of the bridge crew was on their stations. They immediately recognized the danger they were in and began to power up the very few functional weapon-systems.
The three ships shoot forward after the small frigate, all charging up their weapons. The blue plasma forming spheres of superheated destruction.
"Pin-point laser turrets are targeting the ship now, plasma turrets 1-4 are still damaged." One of the young officers said to the rest of the bridge crew.
"Your Excellency, The Divine Prayer is charging up there single remaining plasma turret, and the Resolved Righteousness are deploying their fighters." One of the senior officers' said to the bridge-crew.
Nosolee's clicked his mandibles as he could see the ships close in on the small frigate.
"Hail them again and tell them that we will open fire if they don't decelerate now." He said and motioned to the elite standing over at the comm.-station.
"They aren't responding...." He said and shook his head frustrated.
"Then all ships fire at will." He said coldly.
He walked over to Hakue's post, he was the piloting the vessel with extreme skill, fully concentrated on his task. The three cruisers were moving fast and circling the smaller ship, it wouldn't take long before they were caught. He let his eyes trail over the different screens, but stopped as something caught his attention.
"Give me a scan on hull sector D4, right now." He said, but still had his eyes glued to the screen.
A second later the main view screen flickered and showed a section of the frigates hull. To it a small dull grey craft was attached, immediately recognised by everyone as a human longsword.
"I think we severely underestimated the humans' stubbornness." Nosolee said to the gathered crew. And it was true, they had battled their forces severely outnumbered and outgunned, and had still remained victorious. They had combated the flood and had in the end had stood triumphant, wounded, scarred, and decimated, but still triumphant.
They all looked up at their commander and nodded before returning to their tasks.
"Weapons charged, target solution finished." The weapon master said, and taped the controls to optimize the ships performance.
"Fire."
-------------------------------------------------------
"Ma'am, I have three Covenant ships on my scanners, a cruiser, two frigates." A young woman wearing the uniform of the Navy.
Cortana turned her attention to the scanners and quickly cursed.
"We are being hailed by the cruiser" She said and turned her attention to the bridge crew.
Ranma quickly put his helmet on and walked up to the command, but he knew that he wouldn't be of any use in this battle. Spartans were made for ground combat, and all attempts to take the Spartans successful fighting record into space had failed. He hated feeling useless.
"Keep us away for long enough to start the slip-space drive." Cortana said as she began to reroute power to the slip-space core.
"Aye, aye Ma'am." Came the reply.
Ranma could see that the entire group was tense, sweat was pouring down their faces.
The small frigate flew forwards and began to increase the space between them and the small fleet.
"The ships are beginning to accelerate, and I have an energy build-up... They are charging their weapons." Came the voice from the private manning the weapon-station.
The three ships began to move towards them, and where decreasing the space between them rapidly. Ranma could see on the view screen that the hulls of the enemy craft began to glow blue as they charged up their lasers and plasma torpedoes. Three balls of plasma ejected and flew towards the escaping craft.
The plasma struck them mid-ship, and the frigates shields flared up. Onboard the ship the crew was thrown to the floor and Ranma had to brace himself not to join them as the plasma struck.
Following the plasma where numerous beams of laser turrets that that didn't do much damage.
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Inside the computer Cortana was desperately trying to get the slip-space engines online, the blast damaged the engines slightly. Another problem they faced was where to go, they couldn't go to Earth because the Cole-protocol clearly stated that any UNSC craft engaged with the Covenant would have to use a course that was outside UNSC territory.
Cortana's line of thought was interrupted as another volley of plasma struck the craft. She could see that the shields were almost collapsing.
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"I can't take another one, keep us out of the fire." Cortana said over the speakers.
Corporal Emilia Maloy nodded grimly at that. She was the one flying the ship, she had the most experience, but that didn't say much, they where only fifteen from the Navy left. Onboard the Autumn she had been running maintenance checks, but never before had she been flying a UNSC-ship, much less an Covenant one.
If she got out of this one alive she could at least brag about the fact that she was the first human ever to fly a Covenant star-ship.
The ships charged up another volley of plasma and fired. Emilia tried everything to shake the torpedoes off, but the guidance systems always compensated for any change of course. She changed the ships course once again, but the torpedoes where still after her.
She could see as the much faster torpedoes closed the gap between the ship and them. The plasma would hit them on the starboard side, and would without any question destroy the ship. Sweat poured down her face as she looked for any way out of this.
Five seconds..... Four three... two...
She gasped and changed the engine flow, hoping that it would be enough to safe them. The ship's engines went from full speed forward to full speed backwards. The engines literally threw the ship backwards, and the internal gravity fields tried to compensate for the extreme change in gravity. The keywords was "tried", the sudden change threw the entire crew to the floor, and the ships substructure groaned and ruptured in numerous places, the atmosphere being sucked out in several compartments.
"Ma'am, we need the engines NOW! Emilia said and accelerated the craft again.
"Just give me a minute....." Cortana said over the speakers.
"That's a minute we don't have!" Emilia yelled back as she evaded a barrage of laser fire. The laser didn't change course at least.
"Initiating Cole-protocol..... There, slip-space engines online." Cortana said and the image on the view screen shifted. Reality seemed to fold around the ship and swallow it, and in a small flash the ship entered slip-stream.
----------------------------------------------------
Nosolee looked at the ship as it entered slip-space and only shook his head. They wouldn't continue the hunt, their ships were to badly damaged for that, and besides.... The humans deserved to win this fight. As long as the ship didn't contain Flood or other Covenant he was content.
He looked at the gathered crew, no one was doing anything that indicated that they wanted to pursue the fleeing craft. The battles on halo had thought them one fundamental thing, war shouldn't be pursued, it should be avoided.
"Deactivate the weapons, and prepare for a slip-jump." He said and looked out on the now calm sea of stars.
"Where are we going your Excellency?" Hakue asked as he began the preparations.
"Home." He answered simply.
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Ranma once again removed his helmet and placed it under his arm. The crew was busy working on the panels to see if they could do anything to repair the ship.
Cortana's hologram was slowly hovering over their heads, clearly deep in though.
Now it looked like the battle of Halo finally was finished, they had left the system, and the Covenant weren't following them as far as the ships sensors showed. Now they only had to go back to Earth and debrief. The news of Reach destruction would probably have made it by now.
"Cortana, where are we going?" Ranma asked the AI. They weren't going for any human controlled space if the Cole-protocol indicated anything.
"Reach, we can hide there and see if anyone is trailing us, and if no one is we can go to Earth." Cortana said as she shifted her gaze from the crew to the cyborg.
Ranma closed his eyes and nodded.
They were going to Reach....
They were going home...
Authors Notes:
Okay, I know that it has been a long while since I updated, but school's been keeping me busy, and besides some fellow authors suggested that I should make a rough sketch on my story to make it easier to write and plan the story. What from the beginning should have been a short description on the upcoming story ended up fifteen pages long, and it's still in progress. If any one had ideas and suggestions that they think could be interesting just review, and I will see what I can do.
Constructive criticism is very appreciated, as it points out what I should change and what I should keep.
Flames will be used as roadblocks to stop the oncoming Covenant Onslaught.
That's all from me.
Xerxez- High Lord of something-really-cool-and-important.
