Chapter 7: The Beginning of the End
Disclaimer: Some ideas in this chapter were taken and altered from another fanfic author with permission.
Unknown Forerunner Flagship near Earth
8th Cycle, 5th Division, 3rd Stage, 9th Age of Reclamation (Covenant Holy Calendar)
1145 hours, October 27, 2552 (UNSC Military Calendar)
Master Chief John-117 woke up when he felt his stomach turn. He looked at his mission clock: four hours had passed since he fell asleep. Damn it, how can we be out of Slipspace already? He thought.
Moments before, the Spartan had traversed the winding hallways of the Covenant Holy City of High Charity trying to track down the Prophets of Truth and Mercy. He finally reached the dock they were at but was too late. But he was able to find out from the dying Prophet of Mercy where Truth was going. So the Master Chief made his way up to a power conduit running to the Forerunner ship at the center of the city. As he sped towards the ship through the conduit, the ship started to take off and the conduit disappeared causing John to free-fall the rest of the way. With a moment of luck, he made it into a cargo bay before the doors closed.
Not long after did he feel his stomach turn as the ship entered Slipspace. He knew he had to get to Truth as soon as he could, but he felt so exhausted. Since he arrived at Delta Halo five days ago, he had slept no more than eight hours. He noticed that his reaction speed had slowed slightly and decided he needed some rest. He figured that since they were in Slipspace now, it would be a good two days to reach Earth. Little did he know that the Forerunner ship he was on could traverse the alternate dimension at a much faster speed than the Covenant ship they hid in to get to Delta Halo.
Helooked around the large, empty, cylindrical cargo bay. The design along the wall was so intriguing he almost forgot his objective. It looked like a pattern but there were very minute differences with each repetition making each design unique. He shook his head. Stopping Truth. That's all that matters, Cortana's voice echoed in his mind. He hated leaving her at High Charity. He felt empty without her, as if a part of himself was missing. After he gathered himself together, he got up and started to cautiously walk towards a door to his right.
"We've got a new contact," John heard a voice over his radio, "Unknown classification!"
"It isn't one of ours. Take it out!" a different voice ordered. This new voice sounded like Sir Terrence Hood, a Fleet Admiral of the UNSC. Master Chief decided he'd better say something before his own military blows him to bits.
"This is Spartan one-one-seven!" he said over his helmet's radio. "Can anyone hear me? Over."
"Master Chief?" Admiral Hood replied. "Would you mind telling me what you're doing on that ship?"
"Sir. Finishing this fight," said the Spartan.
"Care to elaborate on that?" Hood had no time to mess around. "I don't work well with ambiguity."
"The Prophet of Truth is on this ship," Master Chief explained. "He is the last Prophet hierarch still alive. I need to find him and kill him."
"Alright," the Admiral said cautiously. "I'm giving you ten minutes to take him out, otherwise I'm sending a boarding party to get you out of there. That thing has destroyed three of our ships already, and I can't have that ship roaming around much longer. We'll try to keep it distracted as long as we can, but there are no guarantees."
"Roger that, sir" Master Chief acknowledged. "I'll radio you with my progress in ten minutes."
"Good luck, Chief. Hood out."
John wondered what he should do now. He somehow had to find a weapon, find his way to the bridge of an unfamiliar ship, get past hundreds of patrolling Brutes, and kill the Prophet of Truth all in ten minutes. Otherwise, he would face his first failure since he lost the race on his first day of training thirty-five years ago.
If Master Chief had Cortana with him, she could scan the ship and create a map of its hallways and rooms for him. But just like the time he had to find Captain Jacob Keyes and traverse the Library on Alpha Halo, he would have to find his way without the super-intelligent AI.
John wandered cautiously through the twisting hallways and stumbled upon an armory. He took his fiber optic probe and stuck it inside the open door. He linked it to his heads up display and saw a group of four jackals patrolling inside with a Brute supervising. The Brute was standing near the door with his back turned. When the Jackals were at the opposite end of the room the Spartan struck. He grabbed the Brute's head and twisted. After a muffled snap came from the Brute's neck, it limply fell to the ground. John quickly grabbed the dropped plasma rifle and a plasma grenade from the Brute's bandolier. He tossed the grenade into the group of Jackals. The Jackals, caught by surprise, dove away from the grenade but three of them were caught in the explosion. The last remaining Jackal hid behind his personal energy shield and fired at the Chief who returned fire with his new plasma rifle. The Chief fired at the Jackal until his shield overloaded and dissipated. The Jackal caught two plasma bolts in the chest and flopped to the ground dead.
Master Chief looked around the room for any weapons he could use. He found a few Brute Shot grenade launchers and picked one up along with some extra rounds. He discarded his used plasma rifle and replaced it with a new one. He clipped the plasma rifle to his magnetic holster and continued through the hallways with his Brute Shot in hand.
Every time the Master Chief encountered any Covenant resistance, he tried to figure how to surprise them and conserve his ammo. On his way to where he thought the bridge was he killed a considerable amount of Brutes, Jackals, and Drones. He was nearly out of ammo when he rounded a corner and came across four Brute Honor Guard by a closed door about twenty meters down the hallway. He quickly went back around the corner before the Brutes noticed him. That must be the bridge, John thought. Why else would it be so heavily guarded? There was no way he could sneak up on the guards and he didn't want to risk an all out firefight with very little ammo. He decided it was time to radio Admiral Hood.
"Admiral, this is Master Chief Spartan one-one-seven," John said as he crouched against the wall around the corner from the guards.
"You're early Chief," the Admiral chuckled. "Did you get the Prophet already?"
"No, sir. I'm right outside the bridge. Would it be possible to send that boarding party as reinforcements? If I had a few more men, I could kill, or even capture, the Prophet of Truth."
"Alright, Spartan. You've got the green light to go. I'll see what I can do in terms of reinforcements and send them ASAP. Make your way to the portside hangar to greet the troops."
"Thank you, sir. And could you have them bring some extra munitions for me, I'm out."
"Very well. Oh, and Chief?"
"Yes, sir?"
"I want that Prophet alive and kicking, you understand? And do it fast!"
"Aye, Admiral."
John quickly made his way back the way he came. The hangars had to be around that area of the ship. Luckily he had weakened the security force of the ship trying to find the Prophet. That would give the reinforcements a better chance of surviving.
---------------
Two Pelicans carrying twenty-four Orbital Drop Shock Troopers made their way from the geosync defense station Cairo to the strange beige, triangular ship. It looked nothing like the purple, bulbous ships that made up the entire Covenant fleet. That ship was obviously not Covenant.
The pilots of the Pelicans had a tough time trying to find a hangar to land in because they had no Intel about this ship. And no Intel meant no schematics. They finally found something that looked like a hangar from a Covenant ship. They approached the blue energy shield that covered the open hangar. The hangar was bustling with activity when the shield dissipated. Every Covenant creature working in the hangar was instantly sucked into the vacuum of space clutching their throats as they suffocated. The pilots flew their Pelicans into the Hangar and the energy shield reappeared as they landed.
Once the Pelicans set down, the ODSTs jumped out and secured the perimeter. They saw a figure moving toward them from the back of the hangar.
"Hold your fire men," the green armored figure walked towards them.
"Good to see you Master Chief," an ODST stepped forward and saluted the Chief who returned the gesture. "Staff Sergeant Jim Shank, sir. What's the situation?"
"Many of the Brute guards have been taken out already," the Chief explained. "So it should be easy to get to the bridge. That's where the Prophet of Truth is. We need to capture the prophet and get out, and we need to do it quick. But first I need a better rifle." He tossed away his spent plasma rifle and went to the back of one of the Pelicans and grabbed a few frag grenades and two submachine guns. Once he loaded up, he started to walk out of the hangar.
"Right," Sergeant Shank replied. "Let's get to it. ODSTs, quick strike formation. Chief has point."
The ODSTs fell into two lines of eight behind the Master Chief while the remaining eight guarded the Pelicans. They made their way through the hallways toward the bridge of the Forerunner ship. As they were jogging down a long hallway, they saw a group of four Brutes round a corner towards them up ahead.
"Spread out, find cover, and fire at will!" John yelled.
The ODSTs hid in doorframes and behind pillars against the wall and opened fire at the Brutes. One of the Brutes managed to get a few shots from his plasma rifle off before they were all riddled with bullet holes. An unlucky exposed ODST caught the plasma bolts in his chest and fell to the ground. Staff Sergeant Shank ran to his fallen comrade. The stench of burning flesh overwhelmed him.
"Private Roberts, Private Long, get him back to the Pelicans," Jim ordered. "The rest of you, form up!"
They continued down the hallway John signaled for the group to stop near the end. He snaked his fiber optic probe around the corner and saw the four Honor Guards exactly where were when he was there earlier. He turned to the ODSTs crouching behind him and held up four armored fingers. Then he pointed to the ground signifying that he'd lure them to their position. The ODSTs formed two lines across the hallway several meters away from the corner, one kneeling, one standing. The Chief threw a frag grenade around the corner to the middle of the Honor Guards and ran back to the crouching line of ODSTs. Only three of the Brutes rounded the corner and were met with a hail of bullets.
The ODSTs went around the corner and met six more Brutes coming out of the bridge to see what the noise was. The ODSTs took out two of the Brutes before they had to scatter from the returning fire. Many ran back around the corner but others took cover behind the massive bodies of the fallen Brutes. As they scattered, three more ODSTs fell to the bolts of superheated plasma. John threw a frag grenade in the middle of the Brutes taking out another two. The remaining Brutes fell quickly as another volley of bullets came from the Human soldiers.
"Leave the dead," the Staff Sergeant said. "We'll take care of them when we're done."
"We've got to be careful," John said to the Sergeant. "We need to grab hold of Truth as soon as we get in there. They won't fire at their leader."
John cautiously led the group to the door. When he got near, the door opened automatically and the squad rushed in. The Chief immediately saw the target in the middle of the room on a raised platform. He sprinted towards the Prophet, knocked him out of his floating throne, picked him up, and wrapped his arm around Truths throat. The ODSTs followed the Chief shooting everything that moved. They had caught the commanding crew by surprise, and Brutes don't like surprises. The Brutes at the holopanels jumped up and pulled out their plasma rifles. Chaos ensued as the Brutes shot in all directions, not knowing where they were taking fire from. The ODSTs took advantage of the confusion and took out as many Brutes as possible while John took care of the leftovers with Truth still in a headlock.
The Prophet of Truth struggled to free himself of John's grip, but the frail creature's struggle was all in vain. Staff Sergeant Shank walked up to the Master Chief with an ODST by his side. Jim searched the ODST's backpack and pulled out a syringe filled with a sedative. He injected it into the Prophet's long neck and the Prophet's struggling weakened. It took no more than a minute for the sedative to completely kick in and the Prophet went limp in the Chief's arm.
"Take him to the Pelicans, along with the others in the hall, and come right back here. Sergeant, go with them" Master Chief ordered.
"Yes, sir," the Sergeant took four other ODSTs and left while the other five remained in the bridge as security.
John clicked his radio on to check in with Lord Hood, "Admiral Hood, this is Spartan one-one-seven. The Prophet is in our custody and the bridge crew of the Forerunner ship has been eliminated."
"Good work, Spartan," Hood replied. The Admiral paused before he continued, "I just got an idea: do you think you can drive that thing, Chief?"
"I can try, sir," John had worked with Forerunner holopanels before and had gotten lucky. He wasn't sure if he could maneuver a space ship with unfamiliar runes and symbols, but he thought he'd give it a go anyways.
"See if you can get that thing to slow down and we'll send a few more boarding parties to wipe that ship clean of all Covenant. That ship will be an invaluable addition to our fleet once we learn how to control it."
"Aye, sir. Give me a few minutes to figure out the controls. And if all goes well, I should be able slow this thing down."
"Good. Reinforcements are en route, Master Chief. Hood out."
John looked around the bridge. It vaguely looked like the bridges of the few Covenant ships he had been on. But then again, this was a Forerunner ship, and all of the Covenant's technology was imitated after the Forerunners' technology. After all, the Covenant did worship the Forerunners as gods.
All of the control stations against the walls of the elliptical room. Unlike the Covenant ships, the raised platform in the middle had no control panels on it. The center platform must have been reserved for the commanding officer only. John wandered over to one of the control stations and looked it over. Something told him that he was looking at the wrong panel, and he moved on. He finally came to a panel that felt right and he perused the buttons. This would be a hell of a lot easier with Cortana, he thought. The Chief saw a purple vertical bar, touched his finger to the top and brought it down to the bottom. The ship rumbled as the engines reversed their thrust and the ship slowed down. John saw runes flashing on the panel and decreasing in number. He touched a symbol next to the purple bar when there were only a few runes left and the engines shut off. He had no idea why he picked the symbols he did, but for some reason they just felt like the right ones.
"Master Chief," Sergeant Shank's voice came over his radio, "We've got eight Pelicans inbound carrying two platoons of Marine reinforcements."
"Roger that," John replied. "Get that Prophet out of here and to the Cairo defense station. Lord Hood will take the Prophet from there. I'm coming to the hangar to welcome the Marines."