A/N: Sorry for the long time since the last update, things got in the way and the computer that had this chapter and at least one more died and so I lost them forever and had no real desire to rewrite them. But seeing as someone has just started reading it and I've had writer's block in regards to another story I'm going to come back and finish this up. So if this chapter and the last seem…a little disjointed, I apologize but I cannot for the life of me remember where I was planning on taking the story for the next few chapters. Enjoy!

Chapter 17: Thermoplyae Rising

Running through the bright white hangar bay, the eight Spartans hurried to get suited up. Glancing back quickly, Will could see small portions of the planet burning red against the green and blue surroundings. Turning his head slowly back towards the hallway ahead of him he jogged behind the rest of his squad as they made their way throughout the ship. Every so often there would be a violent and stomach churning change in the artificial gravity as the ship made emergency maneuvers. Finally arriving at the locker room, Echo squad began changing into their armor. Leaning over to tighten his boots, an officer walked in completely calm.
"No need to hurry, we've got a change of plans. Testarossa has been attacked and is our new destination." Leaving just as calmly as he came, the Spartans stopped what they were doing. Leaning back on the bench he was sitting on, Will put his arm across his forehead, closed his eyes, and sighed loudly. The others all dealt with the news a different way, the only thing in common being the complete silence that had overcome the room. Going back to his armor, Will tightened up his boots the rest of the way before stopping once again.
"This was a ploy..." Will said quietly, "All this was was bait so that he could lure the fleet away from the other planets."
"Looks like it," Chris replied, locking his gauntlets into place. Just then the lights dimmed for a second before they returned to their normal brightness. They had made the jump into Slipspace. Getting up, Will walked out of the room, still only wearing his boots and black under suit. Moving through the hallways slowly, the attitude of the other crew members had changed drastically as they had been calmed by the safety of Slipspace. Letting the different, completely incoherent, thoughts that swarmed around his mind overcome him, Will finally found himself at one of the ports looking at the blackness that surrounded them. Touching his wet hair against the thick glass he rolled his head a little so that his forehead was pressed against the cold surface. Taking a deep breath he started to collect himself. His knowledge of the region they were operating in was less than stellar so he decided to head over to one of the briefing rooms and get acquainted. With a goal now set, he moved through the ship quickly and deliberately. Walking into the dark room he immediately warmed up the holo-projector and navigated around in the computer until he brought up the image of Testarossa. Situated in a relatively secluded area, it was easy to see why they would be a prime target to be attacked, the relatively "short" jump from Thandon would take nine hours. Sitting down in one of the plush chairs, Will put his arms over his head and leaned back, just absorbing everything he was looking at. Bathed in a blue glow, he sat for what seemed like hours before he zoomed out to bring the Sol system into view on the opposite edge, just barely visible. Returning to his former position he again began to analyze the situation. Still displaying the last known positions of the UNSC fleets, something began to emerge. By dragging most of the nearby fleets to Thandon, many of the other systems were completely exposed to enemy incursions. Assuming more of the defending ships as well as some of those engaged at Thandon jumped to Testarossa, all of the fleets within the range of assistance would be tied up with other things. Adding insult to injury, the Inner Colonies were almost completely empty save for a few small terrestrial defense fleets that would be easily pushed over by even a small Forerunner scout force. "Son of a bitch..." All of this flooded Will's mind forming one troubling image: John had successfully lured all UNSC fleets into traps, leaving Earth open for attack. Sitting in shock, he was finally snapped out of it a few seconds later when Linda walked in.
"What are you doing?" she asked, suspicion poking through ever so slightly.
"John...he's created a gap that's lured a large portion of the fleet into these two concentrated areas...Earth is in a bad spot if they make that run," he said motioning at the almost completely empty piece of space that extended all the way to the Sol system. Mimicking Will's reaction, she sat down on one of the benches silently. Leaning forward she scratched her forehead as her brown hair rolled forward.
"Are you going to tell anyone?" she asked, looking up while squinting a little.
"No...someone's had to have already noticed and seeing as a few hundred ships were setting jump vectors towards Testarossa, I doubt telling anyone would really help all that much. Our best hope is to finish what we need to when we arrive and free up what ships we can so we can try and jump to Earth." Scratching his forehead with his first two fingers and thumb, he then looked away as if he was no longer interested in what was going on.

"Operation Thermoplyae Rising will commence at 0600 hours. Following a secure corridor into the planet's atmosphere we will insert near one of the poles." Sitting in the same room as before but now with his armor on, helmet in his lap, Will listened to the briefing. The man in the front pointed towards the northern ice cap that extended almost a quarter of the way down the planet's surface. "The last report we got since we jumped seemed to show that the enemy is focusing on one of the larger cities right here, Rococo. Why this is or whether or not it was just the easiest point to make a planetside landing, we're not exactly sure but regardless, this city must be kept under human control." Looking around as the other officers took the last of their notes, Will lifted his wrist in the blue light of the hologram.
"Where are we going to be in the scheme of things?" A few of the soldiers looked over at him curiously while most others showed no response.
"As of right now your squad will be going in with the rest of the marine detachment to help secure the city. Any special situations will, undoubtedly, be referred to you." Somewhat disappointed in the response, he decided to not press the issue and got up when the meeting was dismissed.

Walking at a brisk pace, the Spartans entered into the main hangar bay that was, unlike the last time they were in it, buzzing with activity. Almost every single landing pad and platform was occupied by some sort of transport or fighter craft. Walking on the main deck they craned their necks to see Hawks rolling away from platforms and hovering in the air, pointed towards the airlocks and the completely black zone of Slipspace just on the other side of the energy fields. Heading to two Hawks, Will split off with his group towards one while Chris headed towards the other but not before they both made fists with their gauntlets and punched them together. Checking the straps on all of his gear, he climbed into the back of the transport. Already taking up a large amount of space, another marine squad repositioned themselves to give Will, JJ, and Kayla more space.
"Here, take these," one of the crew member said, handing them four small backpacks that had a one time use parachute folded up inside of it. Hoping he wouldn't have any use for it, Will pulled it over his other gear and locked the strained straps together across his chest. The rear door closed silently, replacing the bright white hangar with dull black titanium. A loud roar and violent shuddering reverberated through the hull as the engines wound up, pushing the craft off the hangar floor. Swaying a little bit, the Hawk got into the take off pattern and waited for the Tigre to drop out of Slipspace. Starting his mission timer, Will kept a close eye on it as a minute ticked away, followed by another, and then another. Beginning to get antsy he shifted his weight back and forth inside of the crowded and hot passenger compartment. Just as his emotions began to reach their pinnacle, there was a sudden burst of acceleration as the Hawk lurched out of the hangar. Gripping the overhead ring a little tighter, Will suddenly felt sick to his stomach as gravity completely disappeared. Coming off of the floor a little, he moved so that he could see out of one of the portholes. Instead a black plane filled with stars, blue ion rounds crisscrossed back and forth, intersected by missile trails and anti-matter bolts.
"Shiiit..." one of the marines remarked, face plastered against the clear material. There was a sudden rocking as the Hawk raised it's right wing and dipped the left to help avoid an explosion of flak nearby. The marines were beginning to become visibly distressed as their faces went pale and their vitals skyrocketed. Still completely calm, Will looked over his rifle to make sure nothing was noticeably out of place.
"Fun ride huh?" Chris chirped over the Spartans' comm channel.
"Yeah, but the marines don't like it too much," he responded with a slight laugh. Chris chuckled.
"One of ours threw up and now it's floating around the compartment."
"Ugh," Will said, disgusted. "When we hit the ground, I want to get everyone back together ASAP, no point in being split up."
"Affirmative," Chris responded, back to being one hundred percent serious. Riding out the rest of their journey, the co-pilot opened up the door for a split second and reported that they would be entering the atmosphere any second. Righting himself, Will hung onto the hand grip a little harder as the Hawk rocked back and forth, plasma and heat splashing across it's bow. Gravity slowly returned and his boots were firmly planted against the metal deck. As they slowly descended through the sky, the pilot lowered the rear door, blasting the compartment with cold air. Pulling down the ceiling mounted chain gun, Will planted his feet into small indentations in the deck and scanned back and forth through the thick clouds. Coming in behind them Will saw Chris's Hawk sweeping side to side in an almost identical pattern to that of his own. Just then dark purple bolts of energy lanced across the sky, barely missing the two Hawks. Grabbing onto the gun as tight as possible, he felt their dropship begin to take evasive maneuvers to try and avoid the AA fire they were taking. Breaking out of the cloud layer, there was a golden burst of light from within the clouds. Almost instantly streaks of burning metal tore through the clouds, trails of thick black smoke coming from behind. Following up was the crippled craft, it's starboard wing completely disintegrated. Tumbling around violently, it quickly dropped below their transport, down towards the frozen ground below.
"Hey! HEY! We need to get down there and help them!" Will radioed to the pilot. Getting down onto his knees he spotted a few large shapes leaving the rear of the dropship.
"No can do, we're on a set course into the city, if you wanna go save them you'll have to go get them yourselves." Pointing to JJ and Kayla, Will stepped to edge of the passenger compartment before pushing off. Aiming for maximum aerodynamic efficiency, Will kept his arms tight against his sides as he plummeted towards the wreckage below.
"Spartans, respond." Waiting for some kind of signal he straightened his back and could feel the last few ounces of speed available reach him.
"Yeah, we're okay," Linda finally said. Letting the relief of her words rush through his veins, Will let up a little bit and slowed down his descent. Noticing the small cluster of shapes that he was quickly approaching, Will rolled onto his stomach and put all of his limbs out to increase his drag and slow him down even more. Making small corrections to come in closer as Kayla and JJ reached them, Chris gave a thumbs up and they spread out a little so that each one could deploy their parachute. Kat going first jerked her body as she yanked her arm across her chest, a golden sail flying into the air before pulling taut. The rest repeated the maneuver and slowly floated down. Looking down between his legs, Will saw a large crater where the Hawk's wreckage had landed. Spreading out for another few hundred yards laid the wreckage of the craft, small black craters marking their landing spot. Pulling down on the cords at the last few feet Will came to the ground softly and ran for a few feet as he regained his footing and let the parachute flutter down the brilliant white snow. Crushing it beneath his heavy boots he noticed the armor slowly shift from the dark gray background that was the sky above to a much brighter white. Crumpling up the golden material into a fist sized ball he buried it under some snow along with the backpack it had come in. Shouldering his rifle he brought his squad up around him. Looking out over the white horizon, his order was clear and concise, "Let's get moving."