UNKNOWN ISLAND-CITY LANDMASS - DESERT REFUGIA
MODULE BRAVO/TWO
COMMAND DECK
Spartan Clarke slid to a stop in front of yet another damn wall, reaching out with his interface device and connecting with the mechanisms within the disguised barrier. Seven seconds later, the wall split into five sections and flowed outwards, granting access to the chamber beyond.
Eighteen minutes. Eighteen minutes of continuous doors, hatches, angled hallways, and false walls, broken up every now and again by annoying crawlspaces. Almost immediately after stepping beyond the threshold of the hidden doorway, the components swung back into place and the chamber was plunged into darkness.
The Spartan's VISR rapidly filled in highlights of various potential obstacles in the zero-light environment, before planting a navpoint on an object in the center of the room. Apex Lead cautiously approached the unknown device, raising his left arm and opening the Forerunner gauntlet's holographic menu. The subsequent emanation of light revealed the object's shape; a diamond-shaped assembly of Forerunner material, with the bottom half of the diamond slanting inwards sooner than the top half.
Outside of the adamantine diamond and a suspicious arrangement of chest-high decorations, the chamber was completely bare. Clarke circled around the diamond, taking note of the observation that the rear of the object was somewhat indented instead of stretching outwards like the other three sides, before coming to a halt at the front of the moderately-sized Forerunner mechanism.
"What now, Aeona?" Clarke queried the UNSC intelligence, holstering his sidearm and scrolling through the circular menu on the interface device's hardlight shield.
"Hm," the intelligence hummed, a holographic image of her avatar's head appearing above the interface device. "Oh. Right. I will handle the operation this time around. Just keep your arm outstretched and your attention focused on the screen. Control nodes such as these require a different set of commands to be entered."
The Spartan observed the hardlight display as eight different menus swept by, their relevant selection icons remaining highlighted for two seconds before the next menu opened up. The ninth menu remained inactive until Aeona hummed again.
"Oh. It would appear that I require your direct involvement with this one. Please select the icon shaped like a 'K'. It should trigger the control node's activation."
"Third row, fourth from the top?"
"That's the one."
The Spartan pressed down on the relevant icon. The interface device glowed brightly, forcing his VISR to darken to protect his eyesight.
The diamond-esque mechanism in front of him split apart into three distinct trapizoidal sections. Power surged through the trio of objects, now floating off of the ground and spreading open like the petals of a flower. Glittering cobalt bars began to flow down the sides of the three sections, the light forming patterns in the material as they descended towards the bottom of the object in question. Faint wisps of pale energy started to coalesce at the objects' bases, reaching out into the empty space between the floating shapes.
By the point that all three objects had reached a tilt of thirty degrees from their original positions, the energy channels had reached the very base of their respective sections. Blue light swiftly replaced the previously pallid, chalky emanations, surging into the center and swirling into a brilliant ball of sapphire-tinted energy. The three trapezoidals dropped to the floor, sliding into perfectly-molded receptacles that all but flashed into existence the moment that the orb had coalesced. Energy barriers swept over the objects as they gleamed within their respective grooves. The blue sphere began to rise upwards before releasing an energy pulse, pushing against SIV-311 and forcing the UNSC soldier nearly three feet backwards.
"AEONA?" the Spartan shouted, keeping the interface device pointed in the general direction of the mechanism while turning around and seeking cover behind one of the short walls near the module's control node. "What was that?"
"A safety mechanism," the intelligence replied, as the light in the room suddenly dropped considerably. "You were standing in the way of the node core's protective physical shielding. You can lower your arm now. Module Two has been realigned. Control deck lighting reactivation in three, two, one-"
The familiar ambient illumination iconic to Forerunner structures abruptly flooded the chamber, bathing the Spartan's surroundings in sapphire light. SIV-311 slowly raised back to his full height, dismissing the interface gauntlet's shield and looking around. The orb of energy that had released the pulse was now sheltered within a large, horizontally-rotating spherical assembly of adamantine, with a shower of energy emanating from the bottom of the metallic sphere and into a receptacle built into the floor below. Cobalt light swirled through floor-carved channels protected by transparent surfaces, flowing off to the walls and disappearing beyond them. With the exception of the now-decorated access hatch, there was little else to observe in the dome-shaped chamber.
"Apex Four, Module Two has been linked with Alpha Base. Sitrep on the Pelicans?"
METRU NUI - PO-METRU DISTRICT
A pair of figures watched as a seething column of Visorak pelted a formation of the mysterious flying constructs with spinner fire, obliterating nearly a third of their number. Orange beams lashed out in retaliation, raking the spiders' ranks and exacting considerable revenge for their fallen. The same scene repeated over a battle front nearly half a kio in width. Visorak struck, the robots retaliated, and the losses piled up. The Horde could afford to lose a lot more than the defending party, however, and the defenders were sure to fall within the hour. No more reinforcements approached from the direction of the foreign spire, whereas a fresh force of Roporak and Boggarak were well on their way.
And then there was the Kahgarak to consider. Roodaka was still out of the city on some unknowable but malevolent task, and Sidorak was unlikely to let the Horde's ultimate weapon out of its cage, but the very presence of a Kahgarak in the rearguard of the battle was troubling enough to not go without notice.
"They put up a fight," the being to the right said solemnly, clutching his staff in his right hand while holding a telescope to his eye, focusing on a bipedal figure in the rearguard of the defender formation. The figure in question was gesturing at various points in its defensive line, as well as every now and again raising a glowing angular weapon and discharging orange bolts of energy in the direction of the Horde, before flickering off to a different location, dashing across the terrain in a partially-disassembled state before fully reforming at its next position. It was obviously some form of commander unit for the new arrivals, and the Visorak had made it a priority to completely submerge its location in Rhotuka spinners the second it made itself known. Removing it from the field had limited effect on the defending forces, however, and it was rapidly replaced by a near-identical copy within less than a minute whenever it was successfully destroyed. "Within just this metru alone, they wiped out... eight, nine percent of the Horde?"
"Three days later, the Horde will be at full strength again, even with the other metru factored in," his assigned partner grumbled. "And we'll never succeed in driving the spiders out of that structure if they get inside. They'll have an unassailable position from where to breed."
"Le-Metru might be lost to us for now, but the Visorak have not attained victory here, Sarna. Not quite yet."
The prone figure seized her Kanoka launcher and waved it in the stooping figure's direction. "We followed your suggestion to not get involved in the conflict in Le-Metru, Rahaga. The Resistance might not have been able to change the end result, but we could have acquired samples of whatever weaponry these false-Rama are armed with. If we had their weapons, we could-"
"Any attempt to retrieve their tools from any battlefield would merely lead to your capture by the Horde. Roodaka is already aware of the threat your Resistance poses, and has likely ordered any samples to be destroyed or stored away inside their strongholds. Any tools you might come across will be a tr-"
Without warning, the spire lit up like the Coliseum on Naming Day, blindingly bright cobalt light blasting away the shadows and illuminating the whole canyon... and beyond. The Visorak screeched, the sudden change in light temporarily blinding them and shattering their cohesion. Almost like a solid mass, the constructs surged forward, capitalizing on their foes' weakness and carving straight through the Visorak vanguard, eight units in particular auguring in towards the massive brown-and-crimson spider in the very rear of the Horde's immediate army.
The spiders in the front lines broke and began to retreat, their number all but wiped out by the ferocious advance of the defenders. The main section of the assaulting force collided with them, preventing them from fleeing any further and temporarily jamming up the Horde's movement. Additional false-Rama units began to stream from the spire, flying high above the attacker force and dropping objects into the seething mass of spiders; objects that gave off a brilliant blue-white glow shortly after landing, before seeming to drag entire specimens of the corruptive Rahi inside glimmering, apparently self-excavated, pits.
The new constructs, upon releasing their cargo, dive-bombed into the morass of energy beams and Rhotuka spinners, engaging the Visorak with cobalt-colored beams of their own.
The Kahgarak chose this moment to engage, firing its own spinner at the chaos in front of it, striking false-Rama and Visorak alike. The eight inbound constructs were swiftly whittled down to four, then to two, then one remained, now within less than seven bio of the elite spider - and a Keelerak spinner turned it into a flying pile of slag, the remains of the metallic combatant striking the ground and sliding to a stop no less than an average Matoran's length away from the creature.
The elite Visorak strode forward, skewering the remaining portions of the construct with one of its front legs and tossing it to its side. It then began to charge up its launcher again, only for a bolt of red-orange energy to lance out across the battlefield and impact the top of the creature's abdomen. The spinner itself, fully-formed but awaiting release, discharged directly into the Kahgarak, which was immediately swallowed by a shadow and vanished from view.
Meanwhile, the spire itself began to shift its form. The peak slid downwards, becoming thicker and wider. Strands of material speared out from the sides, joining together to form bridges connecting the tower with its neighboring cliffs. What appeared to be balconies took shape, as bars of cobalt light pulsed from the top of the pyramid-esque structure, describing patterns in the surface on their way down into the ground. Finally, the very top of the pyramid structure slid open, though whatever it might have revealed was obscured due to the observers' viewing angle.
The Rahaga turned his attention back to the battle. Turrets had risen out of the pits in which some Visorak had fallen; of the unfortunate spiders, there was no sign. Visorak bodies and destroyed constructs laid over the battlefield, though unlike a few moments ago, it was the Horde that was in danger of breaking. It started as a trickle - one, three, seven Visorak in the rearguard turned away and began to scuttle in the opposite direction. Within the next half-minute, the entire formation seemed to fall apart, a quarter of their number in full retreat, with another half attempting a fighting withdrawal. The other quarter continued to fight, but were rapidly overwhelmed and all but scourged from existence by combined fire. More than seventy percent of the constructs vectored off after the fleeing Visorak, while another estimated twenty percent of their force split apart and began flying out over the metru. The remaining number busied themselves with collecting the remains of their fallen, often directed in their task by the bipedal command unit.
And then something happened that made the observers' blood run cold. The command unit stopped, turned to face them, and stared in their direction. Sarna sharply inhaled, as did the Rahaga. The construct's opticals narrowed, it tilted its head... and then it pointed directly at them. Seven of the new golden constructs dropped the components they were carrying and vectored in their direction.
Sarna was running before she fully processed the action, and the whirring of rotors indicated that the Rahaga was not far behind.
UNKNOWN LOCATION
GA-TL2 LONGSWORD - CALLSIGN DELTA-ONE-ONE
"-ready to land on... huh?"
Staff Sergeant Nathan Altfield blinked in confusion. He had gone from weaving around a Forerunner warship larger than any space station the UNSC had ever constructed to keep its bulk between the Longsword and a hostile Covenant destroyer, while his co-pilot was also searching out a place for the aerospacecraft to land and clamp down on the supercapital vessel, since all the hangars had either been sealed off or were full to capacity with comparatively smaller Forerunner naval assets or were occupied by Covenant.
And now there were in a Forerunner structure, unmoving and without power. The whiplash of the situation was... difficult to comprehend, at first.
"What just happened?" his co-pilot asked, both rubbing his organic eyelid and tapping on his synthetic eye. "Am I... are we dead?"
"I don't think the next life looks like this, Amundsen. At least, I hope not," Altfield nervously chuckled, getting up from his seat and walking out of the control cabin. Airman First Class Charles Amundsen followed suit, opening up a cabinet and drawing out a set of helmet-mounted flashlights, as well as a repair kit. "I figure we got teleported onboard that monster of a ship, though I don't remember landing. We ought to do a full systems check before turning anything on, no need to risk a short anywhere, especially since we're unlikely to find any replacement parts that are not already in storage. Then we can go explore outside... provided that our EVA suits are still intact."
A series of vibrations emanating from further aft on the inside of the fuselage drew the attention of both aviators, who shared a look of nervous apprehension before cracking open another locker and drawing their respective sidearms from inside.
"Covenant or Prometheans?" Charles nervously inquired, taking up position on one side of the hatch leading to the gunnery deployment section of the Longsword.
"Does it matter?"
Amundsen shrugged, clicking off the safety on his M6H and nodding to SSgt. Altfield. "Not really."
"We'll just take a peek. If it's a pack of Grunts, we can take them. If it's a squad of Elites... we shut the door and seal it up. On the count of three. One, two-"
Nathan slammed his empty fist on the button to open the two-part hatch. The metal barrier failed to move. The pilot hit it again, to the same effect.
"If we're without power, then..." Charles started, then trailed off.
"Then how," Altfield began to finish, "are we supposed to open a mechanically-sealed door?"
The pair of UNSCAF personnel stared at each other, before turning their attention to the Longsword's front dorsal hatch.
If they were going to leave, they would have to walk out the front door.
UNKNOWN ISLAND-CITY LANDMASS - DESERT REFUGIA
GA-TL2 LONGSWORD - CALLSIGN DELTA-ONE-ONE
DORSAL CANNON SERVICE BAY
"Hey, anybody in there?" Private Dolic Nordstrom shouted, pounding on the hatch that led into the foremost section of the Longsword's fuselage. "UNSC Army, open up!"
A minute passed with no reply from the other side. Shrugging, the enlisted trooper went back to the compartment he had climbed in through, and poked his head outside of the aeroframe. "There's no answer from the cockpit, and there's nobody in the other areas either. The door to that area is sealed up and the power's out. There's no emergency lever to open it, either."
"Martinez," the Spartan fireteam leader spoke over Zebra Squad's expeditionary comm channel, "go help Private Nordstrom get the door open."
The bulky armored figure in question turned and began to stride in Nordstrom's direction. The Private quickly skidded out of the way of the Spartan as the UNSC supersoldier reached the Longsword's fuselage and started to climb inside, only to freeze upon the sound of a heavy clunk. The sound repeated twice, each time preceded by the augmented soldier attempting to force his way further inside.
"Lead," the temporarily-immobilized walking tank growled over comms, "Entry point too small in current configuration. Cannot advance."
"We can't exactly cut open the service bay, Apex Four," the other Spartan replied. "Do you have an energy dagger on you or something?"
A pause. Then the Spartan sighed, extending his left arm into the bay and removing a section of the armor covering it. Dolic watched as the supersoldier continued to dismantle the vambrace, soon exposing the limb - the metallic limb - beneath.
Without any warning, the artificial arm split apart into several floating segments. The Spartan shifted through the array of components, his fingers eventually grasping a significantly sizable chunk of material near the wrist section and retreving it from the collection of pieces. The arm immediately re-assembled itself once the space to do so was clear, though the Spartan made no move to reattach the sections of his lower vambrace.
"Affirmative," Apex Four growled. "Energy bayonet." He motioned to Private Nordstrom to approach, holding the cylindrical device out for the enlisted soldier to take. "Blade does not extend far. Should still sever locking mechanism. Knock signals before cutting."
The private leaned down to acquire the weapon, taking the object in his hand before inquisitvely glancing at the Spartan. "So, how do I turn it on?"
UNKNOWN LOCATION
GA-TL2 LONGSWORD - CALLSIGN DELTA-ONE-ONE
"Definitely Covenant." Nathan grimaced as the thumping and discordant knocking increased substantially. "If they were Prometheans they would have teleported in with us already."
As if on cue, a crimson blade punctured through the seam of the hatch, cutting down its length in a fashion akin to a sizzle-blade through a slab of butter.
Both pilots took up their positions on either side of the cockpit access passage, Amundsen arming the explosives the duo had set up on and around the Longsword's control surfaces and conduits.
It took very little time for the blade to reach the bottom of the hatch before vanishing. Both UNSCAF personnel braced themselves for the door to be wrenched aside and the first Sangheili to emerge - only for the door to barely budge.
"UNSC Army, anybody alive inside?" A voice called out from beyond the hatch. Staff Sergeant Altfield blinked in surprise, as did his co-pilot.
"Covenant trick," Amundsen grumbled, positively shaking with tension. "What do you see, Sergeant?"
The blade reappeared again, this time carving a small hemispherical hole in one side of the hatch, just big enough to fit an average human hand. Seconds after the blade disappeared, the carved section slid out of the space it had formerly occupied, with the hole subsequently being filled by fingers.
The hatch once again shifted by bare inches, and the voice called out again. "Private Nordstrom, UNSC Army. Anybody awake in here?"
"Are you alone, Private?" Altfield finally replied, his sidearm still concentrated on the hatch.
"Nope," the voice shouted back, "There's a Spartan with me-"
"Bullshit," Amundsen snarled. "Why would a Spartan be here when the ship is downright infested with Covenant? Wouldn't they be busy doing their jobs?"
A flash of light behind the two made both of the pilots jump in shock. A floating orb hovered in the center of the cockpit, staring straight forward down the hall. "For what it's worth-"
Amundsen yelped, emptying the entire magazine of his M6H into the metallic sphere, Altfield following suit. Both aviators stared in horror as every bullet shot at the orb hung suspended in midair for a few seconds before all twenty rounds dropped to the floor at once.
"Was that necessary? Your sidearms remain one of our few weapons still capable of inflicting damage to the local wildlife. Wasting ammunition like this is not particularly approvable," the orb stated in a tone not unlike that of a woodchipper. "I am UNSC AI Aton, commander-intelligence of Bravo Base. It is true that SPARTAN-IV-322 is currently half-inside of your GA-TL2's gunnery maintenance bay."
Every explosive in the room abruptly took flight, attaching themselves to the construct's casing. The Longsword subsequently powered up, the airframe's sensors promptly revealing the full scope of the room and its contents.
"There is much to discuss, and very little time to do so. Your services are very much required at this critical junction. We must have your support if we are to capitalize on our enemy's current weakness."
UNKNOWN ISLAND-CITY LANDMASS - DESERT REFUGIA
ALPHA BASE
Aeona sighed. By the time the Sentinels reached the mysterious observers' location, they would be long gone. Aton might be an enlightened 'dumb' AI, spirited off of Commander Harry Faulk's PDA moments before they had left the Infinity, but the civilian-grade gambling AI was surprisingly effective at managing a battlefield, albeit a small-scale one. And its actions in the GA-TL2 had defused a potentially disruptive situation.
However, Aton's decision to point at the observers had alerted them to the issue that they had been detected. If the AI hadn't done so, Aeona could have sent an Initiator Sentinel, backed up by two Assaulters and a handful of Aggressors to make first contact with a potentially friendly native population.
Aton would remain an independent unit, of course. Though Aeona had total control of Module Two and all that it represented, Aton would continue on as a partial sub-commander, alleviating the stress of micromanaging Sentinels and structures across the entire refugia.
"Upon linking Module Two to the command module," another instance of her continued to explain to the biological UNSC service personnel in-theater, "I have picked up on the location of every Forerunner power node scattered around this particular refugia. Each one activated will allow me to construct additional buildings in its vicinity, as well as bring local structures back online. This city had some form of mass transit system before suffering severe damage from some form of immensly destructive event, likely a 9.5R-plus seismic disaster. If we can bring it back to even fifty-percent coverage, it would make ground-based travel over long distances significantly easier. Of course, Pelicans and other such aerial transport craft will always be available to travel between modules, so the reconstruction and reactivation of the transit network is completely optional. Since Module Two has been realigned, I can use the Sentinels to activate these energy nodes. However, for unlinked modules, you will have to activate the power nodes directly, if you come across any."
Throughout all of this, her primary instance was developing a suitable BDU for the unaugmented personnel in-theater. Using the specifications of Semi-Powered Infiltration armor as a baseline, she used an Aggressor Sentinel's power core to fill in for the normal UNSC battery cell; the Forerunner energy core possessing an output equivalent to that of the fusion reactor of a generic suit of GEN1 MJOLNIR MkVI. Upgrading the power management system to match the increased energy supply was easy enough to do. The tricky part was the shields.
Just like as during the Human-Covenant War, unshielded combatants were rendered combat-ineffective, or outright eliminated, if struck even once by the energy weapons integrated into the local apex superpredator species.
She had experimented with the shield strength on the Assaulter Sentinels during the counteroffensive in Module Two's vicinity, either turning them to minimal levels or sacrificing offensive power and overcharging the emitters instead. Even with overcharged shields, the Assaulters in question could only take two hits before unit loss; one to blow away the shield, and a second to finish the unit off.
With normal Aggressor shields being near-equal to the shielding systems of the average SPARTAN-IV, this boded ill for SIV-311 and SIV-322. However, there was also the results of the low-level shields to consider. Above a charge of ninteteen-percent, the shields were able to protect the unit underneath from one energy discharge before collapsing. This would imply that the solution to their defensive problem was not just one or two strong shields, but a concentric array of weaker, rapidly-regenerating defensive barriers.
Implementing such a shield design for Sentinel constructs was an easy task, one accomplished within three minutes and soon put into production for all new-construction standardized Aggressors and Assaulters. Specialized variants such as the aquatic Sentinel designed for use in the canal refugia would keep their single-layered shields, as would Constructor Sentinel designs.
Fitting the staggered shield design to biological infantry armor, however, was noticably more difficult.
A perfect design would have seven layers of shields, if not more. Every layer would be a quarter as strong as that of standard GEN2 MJOLNIR defensive barriers, thus still offering the wearer adequate protection against Covenant and Promethean weapons fire.
Aeona, however, was only able to cram three layers in. The scale of the shield emitters proved incapable of hosting more, and triple-level shields were already coming uncomfortably close to - but not yet incurring - the risk of destructive failure of the emitters if more than one shield layer were to fall at the same time. As it was, she had to double the amount of projection points to lessen the strain on the pre-existing components, and adding another layer would force yet another increase in the number of projection points.
Such issues could be solved in subsequent iterations, of course. At the moment, the unaugmented biological personnel in the local theater did not need a perfect standardized set of armor, just a functional one.
Thirty-eight minutes after the commencement of the design stage, the first suit of PROJECT HOPLITE armor was pulled out of of its construction alcove, custom-fit for UNSC Army Lieutenant Jonathan Sherman.