Authors note:
Disclaimer: I do not own Halo or any of its original characters, neither do I own the kikass books by Eric Nylund. I do however own the Envoy as well as its crew and I believe I also have rights to the maneuvers in the 3rd chapter.
Sorry I forgot about the disclaimer, anyway I'm gonna bring u up to speed on what I think the Covenant are doing now, and I still haven't figured out what Dr. Halsey might want with Kelly so u'll have to give me a break on that one for a while at least. And finally would u guys help me on names, u don't have to specify for who just first and last names for: Marines, Covenant, ONI employees, AIs, planets and ships human and Covenant .I'll use them wherever I need them and say whoever it is came up with it. And also words, Covenant words cause its harder than I thought and I want to name a few of their stuff (just mention the word I'll give it a meaning) Sorry I just really suk at coming up with names. That's about it so keep reading and thanx for reviewing. Btw I'm taking whoever it was' advice on making chapters longer, I just thought I'd make short chapters and update frequently but I'll just write more, summer just started so nothings holding me back
It Never Ends
Ninth Age of Reclamation, Step of Silence\Covenant Holy City "Privileged Society," Parting Grounds.
'Nuromee was standing upright with rapt attention. He held both his hands suspended close to his chest; he held them in a way that it seemed he was holding a fist sized orb. He held one hand perfectly over the other, one with his fingers going down and touching his wrist. The other was directly underneath it with the fingers facing upward connecting with the top hand's wrist. The Covenant symbol of a trapped soul.
It was unimaginable. Just weeks before he and 'Ptolemee had been working together searching for shards of another sacred Forerunner object.
Yet now here lay 'Ptolemee no more than two meters from him, dead.
Those wretched humans he thought. It was them who stole and then destroyed the holy light orb.
They were never able to determine the death of his comrade; they then turned to say it was the will of the gods.
He and 'Ptolemee had been side by side since they were youngsters. Yet now, days after his commendation for being one of the surviving pilots of the search, he was gone.
'Nuromee was one of the other few pilots who survived and felt a strange eeriness at the thought of the unexplained death of two of the other pilots who had survived and been rewarded as well.
He pushed the thought from his mind. In unison, he and everyone present at 'Ptolomee's parting, raised their oddly positioned hands toward the heavens and opened them.
Setting 'Ptolomee's soul free to enter his next adventure. This was a sacred tradition, anyone who did not receive this ritual would be trapped forever in the cell that is the body.
'Nuromee almost didn't open his hands. He felt by doing so he was now letting go of his greatest friend. Yet he did not think it fair to leave the soul of such a wonderful being trapped for eternity.
He waited a while, unmoving. The ceremony was over, and slowly everyone had begun to leave. After a few moments he was left alone. "Goodbye, my friend" he said in a soft voice. Without another word he turned on his heels and left. Not even imagining that a similar fate was trying to find its way to him.
1857 hours, September 13, 2552 (Military Calendar)\ONI Headquarters, The Millennium Tower, Earth.
"Sir, what of Halsey's mission?" asked Colonel McLees. He was sitting in a long rectangular shaped table, looking at the man sitting at the very end of it.
"What of it?" asked the man at the far end. "It was a failure, Colonel. I suggest you stop living in the past and join us for a discussion on actual possibilities." He said dismissingly.
"Actually" said a man not sitting far from him dressed as a ranking Admiral. "The mission never failed per say. It never took place."
The man at the end of the table gritted his teeth. "Then do you mind telling me why the record has the Pillar of Autumn on a slipspace transition at 0647 hours, August 30, 2552?
Fhajad smiled. "Simple. The first sign of the invasion was noted at August 30, 0447 hours. They stayed and battled for approximately two hours and when the destruction of Reach seemed imminent they made the jump."
"I also believe that several Covenant vessels left the fight in order to follow them through slipspace" he added.
"Nonetheless" he continued. "Correct me if I'm wrong Colonel but the approval as well as funding for this particular mission was funded by Section Four, meaning that you, as well as any other Section Three member, have no direct influence in this mission."
The Colonel looked livid. This freak, as he had become accustomed to referring to him as well as his division members, was a living example of what he had so desperately tried to destroy: The Spartan II project. It had been the reason that made ONI dispose of his proposition and instead take Halsey's.
"Ackerson?" asked Fhajad. He along with the other surviving Spartans assigned to ONI made up Section Four. They made up the smallest Division the Office of Naval Intelligence had ever seen. A mere eight members composed the Section which, according to ONI public data, didn't exist.
They had desperately tried to remain there existence secret, because of the fact that they had been the Spartan augmentation "accidents."
If the public ever found out about the horrible truth behind the Spartan II project, there would be a riot of epic proportions.
The public would question everything ONI had ever told them. And ONI would have to do something to regain the trust of the public to some level, and that could end up costing billions of dollars and time they just didn't have.
"As per ONI protocol, Section Four will continue along with any project it desires, as long as it does not compromise any Section Three project" said Admiral Fhajad in a confident voice.
"Mark my words Colonel" he said in a firm voice.
"So long as I am able to continue my service in the Office of Naval Intelligence I will do everything in my power to see this mission succeed"
Meanwhile thirty two floors below an ordinary slow day had been pressing on as another red LED light began to blink. The communications officer opened the newly arrived file. The sender appeared to have chosen the name Cortana. He needed only to read the file name, and suddenly found himself high tailing it to his commanding officers office. All the while thinking It's a hoax, it has to be.
Fhajad pushed through the oak double doors and accelerated into the hall in his motorized wheel chair.
He ignored everyone and everything on his path, just as he always did. As he neared the elevator he pulled out a small rectangular card from his chest pocket.
Once he was inside he pushed the button for floor seventy-six and inserted the card into a small slot.
There was a moment's pause and the elevator began to move upward for a few seconds and the doors slid open. He instinctively rushed forward into the room in front of him.
A retinal scan, voice recognition, ten digit password, finger print scan and a brainwave reading awaited him in the small room. He now thought of this as a little too much.
Though originally it had been he and his team who had chosen their own security measures and it had also been them who had redesigned them to an even more secure process.
It was very frustrating. If one reached lower than ninety-five percent accuracy, they'd have to go to even more extreme measures.
When he finished the huge metallic doors in front of him slid open. Revealing a wide corridor filled with doors on each side.
He entered the room with an unmatched authority, finally he was among family.
He passed through several doors, each one leading to a different project, computer, material or testing facility. They had an entire floor for their studies.
Each door had a label, all of which he knew by heart. Antimatter engines, Orbital Station layouts, Virtual Reality Simulations, MAC and MAP cannon Schematics, Shielding Systems, MJOLNIR…the list went on and on.
He reached a fork on the corridor and turned right. He reached the end of the corridor which opened into a large chamber with computer terminals and a circular table in the middle.
As he reached the table he saw a sight that he had not seen in what felt like ages. All seven of his comrades were at the table, all apparently waiting for his arrival.
He enjoyed these rare moments when they all sat together, it was then where they truly came up with the greatest ideas and solutions.
"Sir" said Joseph. He had been assigned to work at ONI at age fourteen just like all the others here. After the augmentation he was discovered to have Parkinson as a side effect.
"Communications just sent us a file, no more than three minutes ago" he said calmly.
Fhajad wondered what it could possibly be. ONI protocol stated that any file received must be forwarded to any Division that was even remotely related to the content of the file.
The problem was that since Section Four had such a large variety there was little that was not sent to them. The mere fact that they had all gathered to discuss it, implicated it was not any ordinary file.
One of them pushed a button and a 3-D image appeared in the middle of the table. It was a file which was displayed in a cleverly designed hologram which projected the image in a way that no matter where you stood it looked the same.
It had been a Section Four invention which was promptly patented. By making and patenting new invention Section Four was able to fund itself. Otherwise they would have been closed down long ago from lack of funding.
The Admiral read the title and was intrigued. It was indeed something that could have changed the tide of the war yet it was not clear to him why they had received the file.
He quickly scanned the file and was surprised to find that it had been Cortana who had sent the file. He felt better at knowing that she was well. Not only because they had been the ones that made her but because her survival meant the Chief must be alive as well.
Still puzzled that the team found this so intriguing he kept scanning it for anything suspicious. Then he saw it. A code he had not seen in years. A Spartan code put into numbers to cleverly disguise any hidden file or document.
He kept staring at it: 0005
The most known phrase among the Spartans put in words was without a doubt: Olly Olly Oxen Free. Which in an abbreviation would be OOOF. That turned into an entirely numerical sequence could be interpreted as 0005.
Normally most numbers in ONI document had hyperlinks indicating file numbers. So the fact that this number had a link to it would not cause any disturbance. But to them, it was just too much to be a coincidence.
He was sure this second document was not meant for Section Three. He knew they would still be too busy with the first file to even worry about this one.
He hesitated a moment and then opened the hidden subfile.
Brilliant he thought. Sheer brilliance.
Cleverly engineered so everyone received only what they should. Cortana truly was one of their greatest achievements. Section Four got the entire schematics for the Shielding systems in the Covenant vessels and Section Three got the file from Ascendant Justice which indicated every exact spot from which the ship had ever entered or exited a slipspace rupture, one of which lead to the very heart of the Covenant: The Prophets homeworld.
"Well then" said Fhajad. "Let's get to work."
1857 hours, September 13, 2552 (Military Calendar)\Aboard UNSC vessel Gettysburg, in Slipspace.
The Chief saw a flicker in the lighting system on the over head lights and on the computer screens all around him.
"What the hell was that?" he heard Johnson say from behind him.
"Sir that's what I tried to tell you" said Cortana. "Our transmission gear wasn't originally developed for slipspace transmissions. It's left our power source dangerously low."
John swore under his breath. He knew he should have listened to her before he ordered the transmission, but he couldn't just stand around here wondering what could have been. "How much power do we have left?"
"Not enough to make it home" she answered.
"Son of a bitch" said Johnson softly. "Well then, what do we do?"
"There's nothing I can do" she explained. "If I put in all the energy we have left into accelerating out of here, then by the laws of slipspace everything would expand" she knew how hard it must be to understand.
"And that in english would be?" asked the Sergeant.
"Slipspace is a highly compressed version of normal space. The amount of time that a trip in slipspace will take is determined by how the entry rupture is made" she went on.
"The amount of time it's going to take us to get there is predetermined. If I accelerate then slipspace will just expand, it will take the same time. We'd be traveling faster but in a longer path."
"How about you slow down instead?" asked Fred. "If you slow down the path will shorten, we'd still get there at the same time but we'll be consuming less energy."
Cortana smiled. "I tried that. That was that flicker in the light systems you saw. It's still not enough" she answered.
"Best case scenario we last twenty three hours" she answered. "Then every system would shut down, including me. Not that I wouldn't enjoy a little bit of rest for a change"
"I'm sorry I just can't make energy. It's against the law" she smiled. "Laws of physics that is."
The Chief was deep in thought. There has to be a way, there always is. He was thinking all wrong. They couldn't make energy, they could only transform it. He looked around him, as if there would be a sign pointing to some sort of endless energy source.
There was nothing there. He needed some sort of energy source. All he saw was several crates, chairs, posters, computers, but these were all matter. He couldn't change matter into energy.
He paused. He felt his heart thumping hard in his chest. Matter into energy. That was it. Their only hope. He was about to put Einstein's most famous theory to the test.