Chapter 4

'Liberation and Abandonment'

1100 hours, September 4 2552

Epsilon Eridani System.

'Hold tight!' shouted Thomas as the longsword sped towards the covenant frigate. They swayed left and right, dodging occasional debris form the numerous ships that had been destroyed in this section of the system.

Whoever had said that Thomas was the best pilot on the Minotaur was definitely correct. She dodged, rolled and weaved through the debris, speeding towards the enemy vessel.

'There's our target people,' shouted Lansir, pointing through the viewport at a small section of light in the now enormous ship. It was a docking bay.

'Roger that sir,' said Thomas quickly. 'Setting thrusters to 110.' The ship sped out of the debris field and into the large section of open space between it and the Frigate.

James turned his external speakers off before opening a private comm. channel.

'Preston, can you hear me?' asked the Spartan quietly.

'Yes James, what seems to be the problem?' replied the AI.

'We are about to enter a covenant ship, protocol requires…'

'I am aware of what protocol requires James, I will ask you to do it once we enter the ship, if we, if you don't make it on that ship then I wont be of much use to you will I?'

'True,' said the Spartan, lost in thought.

'Spartan!' shouted Lansir. 'Gear up and get ready for immediate boarding action.'

'Yes sir, I suggest we arm any explosives we have on this vessel. If we do not take the ship, we can at least blow it to pieces.'

'Negative Spartan, we don't have nearly enough explosives. The most we could do would be to blow up the longsword itself.'

'Well then we must do that, I will gear up and arm the explosives for remote detonation.' Replied James as he made his way to the storage bins at the back of the cockpit.

'Good work Spartan, get tactical marines, time to jack us a ride.'

The Longsword raced through space, the frigate now taking up the entire viewport. Everyone except Thomas strapped into a chair and prepared for their mission. This was the safest option as it could be a bumpy ride.

'Umm sir,' said Thomas. 'Their energy shields are online.'

'Hmm I figured as much.' Replied Lansir. 'Once we get closer, they will launch seraphs to counter us. Once the shields go down, set boosters to max power, I don't care if they blow. We need to be inside when that shield closes over.'

'Roger that sir, everyone hang on, this could be some tricky flying.'

Lansir strapped into the passenger seat and began ordering Thomas on what to do.

'Get closer, watch that debris, closer still, shield is powering down, get closer,' came Lansirs commentary. 'Ok the shield is down, get in there go go go.'

Thomas pushed the throttle to 115 as the ship jumped in speed and began to shake. The engines could be heard whining loudly through the titanium plated hull and warning signals began beeping and flashing on the control panel.

James clenched his fists into a tight ball and closed his eyes. He did not want to die like this, he wanted to die in battle, beside his fellow Spartans. He would have rather been on Reach, dead with his brothers and sisters then here, with nothing but a thin ray of hope to hold on to. The odds were stacked so highly against them that even he, a Spartan, who had overcome unsurmountable odds in numerous land campaigns, did not think they would make it.

'Ok people, were bringing it down inside a Seraph bay, once we hit the floor, the petty officer will then exit the ship and close the airlock to the bay. Once the doors are closed, I want everyone out of the pelican, no doubt they will put up a hell of a fight.' Lansir looked into the eyes of each and every member of the team. 'I know you people doubt this, you think we will die here. But if we do, were takin' them with us. Were gunna wipe out those critters till we can't lift the guns in our hands. Do I make myself clear marines?'

'SIR YES SIR!' shouted the Marines, full of hope. James could tell why Lansir was such a high ranked soldier. The engine noise outside slowed down and the Fighter flew no more then 10 metres from the enemy frigate. The Seraph bay was just ahead, no turning back now. He turned off his external speakers again and spoke to Preston for the last time.

'This is it Preston.' He said Solemnly

'It would appear so my friend, it has been an honour to serve with you James.' Replied Preston, a tremor of fear appearing in his normally confident voice.

'As it has with you. Goodbye Preston,' said James as he took Prestons data crystal from the slot in the longsword. He placed it on the ground and stamped down hard, twisting his armoured foot from side to side.

'Goodbye,' He whispered.

'Spartan,' called Lansir, snapping James out of his daydream. 'Get ready, were gunna be in there any second.'

James nodded and headed to the airlock at the back of the cockpit.

'Here we go,' he muttered to himself as the 1st airlock closed. He felt the small room slowly decompress around him.

The moment the landing gear touched down on the alien surface, James was out of the fighter and down the ramp, Battle Rifle in hand. He pushed off from the Longsword and floated on his side towards the switch, gunning down 2 unlucky Jackals in vacuum suits. He shot one more jackal long range before reaching the switch and hitting the door controls. An energy shield appeared over the gap in the wall and atmosphere was pumped into the hangar. James floated to the ground and sprinted to the ship as the hatch came down. The squad jumped out, all armed and ready, and moved to a corner of the docking bay, hidden by purple cargo modules. Alarms began to sound throughout the ship.

'What way is the bridge?' asked Lansir.

'It will most likely be near the centre of the ship.' Replied James.

'So which door do we take?' asked Pvt Moore.

'No idea,' said James. 'But in any case, we should take that one right there.' He said pointing to a door 10 metres away. 'We can hide behind those cargo modules, ambush the first wave of attackers and get through before it closes.'

'Sounds risky,' said Lansir. 'Lucky I like risky,' he grinned. 'You take the lead Spartan.'

'Roger that sir, everyone stay close, find a hiding spot.'

As James finished his sentence, the alarms got louder and movement was heard from the deck above. With his superhuman senses, James could hear a patrol running down the hallway on the other side of the door. He immediately gave the 'get ready' signal to the rest of the squad before ducking down behind a module. He held up his hand for the whole squad to see and began a countdown with his fingers.

3…

2…

1…

The squad jumped from behind the modules, showering the patrol with grenades and rifle fire. At least half of them dropped to the ground within the first 5 seconds, dead or too injured to fight on.

'Concentrate on the Elites!' Shouted Lansir over the heavy gunfire.

The last elite went down and the remaining Grunts and Jackals fleed, being gunned down by James BR55 as he chased them through the door.

'Quickly everyone get through,' he shouted at the group.

Once the last member of the Squad was through the door, it promptly closed leaving the Group with only one direction to go. So that was the way they headed, alertly sweeping each crossroad with rifles before quickly moving on. They did this for an almost an hour, taking right turn and left turns before they made it to another large room. It appeared to be some kind of religious chamber. James could see the bridge through the permanently open doors on the other side of the room.

'Ok people, this is it,' James began. 'The Bridge is on the other side of this room. We have to get there. We've had next to no resistance so far so expect there to be a lot now. Good luck'

And with the finish of his pep talk, he made his way slowly into the room, examining his surroundings as he went. The room was a landscape, full of purple leaved covenant plants and even a small pond. He crouched down and made his way through the foliage as the rest of his squad followed behind him.

He was just about to exit the bushes on the far side of the chamber when movement on his motion tracker caught his eye. Two blips in front of him, two blips behind him and two blips on his right. He poked his head slightly out of the bushes to see what was going on and his blood froze. 2 large, ape like creatures stood at each door, searching the room for signs of the humans. James looked left and saw a solid wall. The only way out was past these beasts, they had to fight them. As James spoke to his squad in signal, grunts began to group up behind the creatures, looking nervously past them into the room. James ordered his squad around using hand signals, and they crawled off into various parts of the foliage. Tis would be a hard battle to fight their ways out of, especially considering they had used the majority of their grenades in the previous battle.

James pulled the pin of his last frag grenade, the signal to start the attack, and threw it at the 2 Brutes guarding the door that connected to the bridge. They roared as they tried to escape the blast, but were not fast enough as the explosion consumed one brute and injured the other. Roars sounded around the chamber as brutes rushed to join the battle, their brethren falling to the fragmentation grenades. James jumped to his feet, levelled his battle rifle and began to gun down the brutes as the rest of his squad followed suit. James turned to gun down a brute charging at Lansir as he was caught off guard from behind and a brute hit him in the back of the head. He fell to his knees as his senses blurred, took another blow from the brute and fell to the ground. He saw, through blurred vision, as Lansir took a Carbine round to the shoulder and screamed with pain. He kept firing until 2 more rounds hit him in the chest and he fell to the ground, lifeless. James tried to scream but couldn't as he slowly gave way to the blackness.

Aboard Phantom dropship

En route to High Charity.

Ninth Age of Reclamation

'You think the chief is still alive Sergeant?' Asked Commander Keyes quietly. She had been quietly wondering this question since they had boarded the Arbiter's ship.

'With all due respect ma'am, have you seen his mission records? It'll take more then a few parasites to take him down.'

The Commander chuckled.

'Good to see you have faith sergeant,' she said grinning. 'But I'm just not sure anything could survive against odds like that.'

'I've fought alongside the chief on many occasions and trust me, he can handle it.' Replied Johnson, a smirk appearing on his face. The Commander seemed content with Johnson and asked no more questions on the trip to High Charity. The Phantom entered the atmosphere of the city and quickly flew for the nearest docking bay, weaving in and out of the pillars and building that held the roof of the city up. The phantoms weapons opened up on the flood in the docking bay and, after destroying them all, they descended to the platform. The strike quickly disembarked the vessel and set up a defensive perimeter around the landing pad before the Arbiter and the 2 humans followed suit, leaving the ship, which immediately took off in order for the next dropship to land. Soon, the docking bay was filled with several hundred troops, all commanded by the Arbiter. There was another group, roughly the same size, currently being dropped at a docking bay in a different section of high charity. Major Nekomaree would be in charge of this group.

'Get those doors open.' Shouted the Arbiter, pointing to the docking bay doors at the far end of the hangar. The strike teams quickly moved to secure the doors before the elite team of spec-ops Sangheili moved to open the door.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' said Cortana, her image appearing on the holo-panel next to the door as a hundred or so plasma rifles were aimed at her.

'Hold your damn fire!' Shouted Sergeant Johnson, quickly running to the front of the group.

'Wow, nice welcoming party you got here Sergeant.' Said Cortana sarcastically.

'What is going on here?' asked the Arbiter, as he made his way over to the holo-panel and stopped next to Johnson.

'Arbiter, this is Cortana, she is our man on the inside.'

'How did she get here?' asked the Arbiter, puzzled.

'I came with the Chief.' She replied. 'Enough of that, we have more important matters to discuss. On the other side of this door, there is an army of flood combat forms, if you are wishing to keep casualties minimal, I suggest you use an alternate route.'

'And what route would that be, construct?' asked the Arbiter, satisfied that he had outsmarted the AI. 'This is the only way in and out of the shuttle bay.'

'Funny, I thought an Elite of your status would be…informed on the architecture of your own city,' replied Cortana, wiping the expression she assumed was a smirk off the Arbiters face. 'You are incorrect Arbiter, there are several service corridors leading to and from this docking bay. Some are infested with flood, some aren't. There is no surveillance in these areas, making it impossible for me to keep track of whether the way is clear or not.'

'Good work Cortana,' said Commander Keyes as she joined the conversation. 'With your permission Arbiter, the Sergeant and myself will command a squad of your Elites each and head down separate corridors and spread out in search of survivors. I suggest that they be equipped with energy swords for the close quarter fighting in the service corridors.'

'Very good hu..' the Arbiter paused for a second. 'Commander. I will charge the rest of the troops with securing this docking bay and getting through the main doors. Start immediately, the parasite is spreading.'

'Affirmative.' Said Commander Keyes as she turned on her heel and began to follow the Arbiter to the squad she would be leading.

'Wait a second,' said Johnson, turning to Cortana's hologram. 'If you're here, where is the chief?'

'I lost him,' replied Cortana. 'He boarded the forerunner ship as Truth took off. It entered slipspace shortly afterwards.'

'So he's not here on high charity?' Asked Commander Keyes.

'Nope,' said Cortana. 'What on earth!' she said suddenly, turning in the other direction. 'I have to go, I will be keeping track of your progress.' She said quickly before her hologram faded away and the two humans were left staring at a blank pedestal.