Chapter I: Cairo Station
October 20, 2552/Cairo Defense Platform/Earth Orbit
Master Gunnery Sergeant Mike Hanes was not a particularly huge, imposing, or powerful figure, but he had that no-nonsense air about him that told anyone who entered his armory to shut up, listen, and do what the hell he told them to do. Thirty years in the UNSC Marine Corps had taught him a whole lot about killing, fighting, and discipline, and he understood implicitly the importance of proper discipline, especially when one was up to his ears in devices built for the sole, express purpose of making things bleed, scream, and die - usually, but not always, in that order.
It was this natural adherence to discipline and no-nonsense attitude that had landed him a position on the Cairo Defense Platform, the core command facility for Earth's orbital defense grid. If - or rather, when - the Covenant showed up, this particular station would be coordinating the massive orbital defense of the entire planet. Naturally, that would require a crack force of well-armed Marines to defend said station in the event of Covenant boarders, and therefore would require not only an expert in the maintenance and repair of every small arm in the UNSC arsenal, but one with the discipline and know-how to keep said armory secure and safe. Which was why Master Gunnery Sergeant Mike Hanes was stationed precisely in said armory, speaking with a man who was finishing the repairs on the most advanced piece of UNSC weaponry ever developed, fresh from field testing.
And by "field testing," Hanes meant "fucking up everything in the whole damn suit and making him spend seven hours on the line with some jackass in Songnam to get the replacement parts shipped up to the station."
Hanes sighed as he looked over the burnt-out gear on the table before him. He'd never dealt with this particular Spartan before, and while he seemed nice enough, the man just did not appreciate how rare this equipment was and the trouble a Marine supply officer had to go through to get replacements. At least Maria-062 didn't damn well destroy the gear before testing was finished.
"Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick," Hanes muttered as the Spartan calmly stretched out, the pitted iridescent plates in his armor doing little to reflect the dim light in the armory, despite the energy dispersing treatments. "What the hell did you do to this damn suit?" Hanes shook his head, looking at his datapad and the reports from the testers and the schematics of the powered armor that the man wore.
"The plating was about to fail, there's viscosity throughout the gel layer," he muttered, and scooped up one of the items on the table, the optical and external sensors mounted in the suit's helmet. "Optics, totally fried." He dropped the ruined sensors and scooped up the miniature fusion power source that went in the backpack just a day ago. "And let's not even talk about the power supply. Do you have any idea how expensive this gear is, son?"
He watched the man before him take the new suit's helmet in his black-gloved, green-armored hands. A fresh shave had shorn off most of his already-short brown hair, and his abnormally pale skin showed through the thinned buzz atop his head. The Spartan slowly slid the helmet over his head, the reflective visor covering up his face behind an impassive, reflective mask of death. The helmet touched the environment seal around the man's neck, and he twisted it slightly. The faintest hiss-click could be heard as the helmet and the seal connected perfectly, and the figure turned his visor toward Hanes.
"Tell that to the Covenant," remarked Master Chief SPARTAN-117.
As the helmet clicked into place, the MJOLNIR Mark VI's internal systems booted up. Data poured through the optical and crystal pathways within the half ton of ceramic and metal powered armor, and the interior of the Master Chief's visor lit up with an array of displays.
His eyes flicked over the data as if came onto his HUD. While he had been testing the Mark VI for the last few days, he was still somewhat unused to the new display inside the helmet, with everything rearranged. He attributed the discomfort to having spent twenty-seven years using the older models of the MJOLNIR armor and being accustomed to the previous displays, and dismissed it.
The new armor fit him as perfectly and naturally as his old armor had. That was partially due to the fact that much of the suit he had utilized over the last few months was still being worn, but that a large portion of the electronics, armor, and gear had been replaced and upgraded. Many of the enhancements to his armor had been field tested by either his fellow Spartans at Reach or by Maria in Songnam in the last few weeks. Overall, the improvements to the armor had been sufficient enough that the technicians had upgraded the armor's designation to "MJOLNIR Mark VI".
The Master Chief had gone over the list of improvements; aside from an array of small improvements to the various circuits and a retrofitting of the liquid crystal matrix - which provided an even greater strength enhancement than the Mark V had - the armor featured a vastly improved motion and threat tracker, enhanced targeting and image magnification systems, and a linear accelerator to the shield system. The shield tech itself had been dramatically improved, with UNSC engineers finally fabricating their own technology into the armor, and not relying on the rigged Covenant shield technology they had used in the older models. The improved human shields were not only much stronger, they also recharged a lot faster.
The neural connection between the Spartan and his armor was also enhanced, enabling him to perform and strategize complex actions visually against his display. While he had been able to do so before, coordinating his actions with fellow Spartans and Marines, he now had almost intuitive control over data displays and maps, enabling him to highlight and assign objectives, threats, and routes on the fly, as fast as his lightning-quick mind could process.
Hanes led the Master Chief through the necessary tests, ensuring his targeting and visual systems were calibrated properly, and moving on to the shield test station. Hanes brought the shields up and forcibly disabled them with a pulse of energy, and the Chief noted with a degree of satisfaction that the pulse used to disable them was a lot more powerful than it had been in previous tests. Additionally, the shields recharged within a couple of seconds, far faster than they had in his older armor. That would be much more useful against the Covenant . . . .
As the Master Chief watched his shield gauge recharge to full, the heavy cargo elevator leading out of Hanes' armory slid open, and out stepped a Marine clad in a spotless white dress uniform, his black mustache neatly trimmed and barely visible against his nearly as-dark skin. Sergeant Major Avery J. Johnson managed a grin as he stepped into the armory, his garrison cover resting atop his head and almost gleaming in the dim light.
"You almost done with my boy here, Master Guns?" Johnson called, and Hanes grunted. "I don't see any training wheels . . . ."
"His armor's workin' fine, Johnson, so shut your chili-hole," Hanes barked. He glanced back at the Chief and hit a few buttons on his terminal. "You're free to go, son. Just remember to take things slow. Don't want to blow out that damn fusion core again."
"Don't worry," Johnson added. "I'll hold his hand."
The Master Chief mentally checked the current time – and noted that his suit's internal clock was already synched up with UNSC standard time – and noted that they had less than ten minutes before the awards ceremony on the Cairo's command deck. Inwardly, John grunted unhappily. He'd attended dozens such ceremonies before, and in the last few years they'd become massive media events; ONI Section Two loved using Spartan medal ceremonies as huge morale boosters. The Chief would have preferred to sit them out; any medal they heaped upon him would simply be redundant, as he'd received all of them outside the Prisoner of War Medal. But humanity needed the morale boost, so he would have to go. At least Johnson had promised that there wouldn't be any cameras.
"So, Johnson," Hanes called behind the Chief as the pair boarded the lift. "When you gonna tell me how you got back home in one piece? I haven't heard the details about what happened after Reach."
"Sorry, Guns," Johnson replied. "It's classified. You know how it is."
"My ass!" Hanes barked angrily as the doors slid shut. "Go on, keep it to yourself! You can forget those adjustments to your A2's scope! And don't think I'll-" Whatever else Hanes was about to say was carried away as the elevator rose up to the next level, with Johnson chuckling to himself.
"Well, he's in a particularly fine mood," the Marine remarked to the Spartan beside him as the elevator stopped and opened up, revealing a station-wide tram terminal before them, with a tram car ready to move. "Maybe Lord Hood didn't give him an invitation."
The two soldiers walked forward, onto the tram car, and the doors slid shut behind them automatically. It started moving, but the Master Chief didn't pay any immediate attention to the sudden bit of motion. Rather, his eyes were fixed forward, out the other side of the tram car's windows, looking across the panoramic view of space, and the world that slowly drifted beneath the Cairo platform.
"Earth," Sergeant Johnson remarked. "Haven't seen it in years."
John said nothing at first, instead simply looking down upon the planet beneath him. He had seen sophisticated holograms of it before, had read numerous reports and stories, and understood the geography and history of the planet as well as any high-ranking officer in the UNSC, but that still didn't compare to actually seeing the planet beneath him. In the twenty-seven years he had been battling the Covenant, John had never actually been inside Earth's space, and had never seen the planet itself, in person, before a month ago. The first time he had ever viewed the world was after returning aboard the battered frigate Gettysburg.
A clever poet or writer would remark on the irony of a man who had spent most of his life fighting for the defense of a planet he had never seen, but John was neither. He simply looked down upon the planet, one of the few dozen UNSC worlds remaining, and reminded himself, once again, that this planet was what he was charged with the defense of. This world was humanity's homeworld, and it was his mission, and that of his team, to keep the Covenant from burning it just as they had burned every other human world.
"When I shipped out for Basic on Reach, the orbital defense grid was all theory and politics," Johnson was saying, and John turned, glancing at the Marine as the tram car passed into a short tunnel. The Marine turned and pointed out the other side of the car, as it exited the tunnel and a wide viewport exposed the main weapon of the Cairo Defense Platform for both men to see.
"Now look at it," Johnson stated, his voice filled with a mixture of pride, awe, and glee as he and the Spartan looked up at the tremendous magnetic accelerator cannon at the heart of the station, extending up past them by over a kilometer, directed into the depths of space. "The Cairo is just one of three hundred geo-sync platforms. That MAC gun can put a round clean through a Covenant capital ship." Johnson shook his head as he imagined the shocking power such a weapon would have.
The Master Chief remembered the battle over Reach well, and he understood the power that those cannons possessed. Just twenty of them, and a hundred and fifty UNSC warships, had battled and destroyed most of a Covenant fleet of over three hundred ships.
But even those MACs had been unable to completely stop the Covenant onslaught, and when the planet-side generators had been destroyed - generators that many of John's fellow Spartans had fallen defending - the MACs had been left helpless.
Humanity had learned from the mistake they had made that day; the UNSC's High Command had strategically stationed the MAC cannons to defend against an attack from any direction. A hundred three-MAC-station clusters were positioned across the space above the planet, offering interlocking fields of fire that would ensure no Covenant forces would slip past the stations and assault the surface. Or at least not without punching through a withering field of magnetically propelled projectiles moving at a fraction the speed of light.
"With coordinated fire from the Athens and the Malta," Johnson finished, "Nothing is getting past this battle cluster in one piece."
John nodded as the Marine spoke, and he agreed with Johnson's tactical assessment. With sufficient covering fire from other battle clusters and the close-range support of Earth's defense fleet, the MACs would be able to punish any Covenant force that moved at their position.
As the tram continued to move, it passed another station, where two Marines were standing, talking among themselves, each man clad in full body armor and with M7 caseless sub-machineguns slung over their shoulders, ready for combat. The Marines looked like they were trying to be nonchalant, but it was clear that they were feeling jittery, which was understandable. A five-hundred ship Covenant fleet had been prepared to assault Earth just a month ago, only stopped by the combined actions of the remaining Spartans and the valiant self-sacrifice of Vice Admiral Danforth Whitcomb and Lieutenant Elias Haverson. Yet, even with that victory, the fact remained that the Covenant seemed to have located Earth, and that fact had set the entire defense grid around the planet to constant alert. Every Marine, sailor, and civilian was aware of the danger, and they knew that sooner or later, the Covenant would come to finish the job they had begun with the Unyielding Hierophant.
A shadow cut across the station momentarily, and the Master Chief watched a massive warship, a powerful UNSC cruiser, cut past the station, a wedge of Longsword fighters moving ahead of it. A smaller frigate was in formation to the cruiser's port side, both ships moving in a patrol pattern past the battle cluster.
"Ships have been arriving all morning," Johnson commented as he saw the craft fly past. "Nobody's saying much, but I expect something big's about to happen." The Master Chief agreed with Johnson's assessment; the air was tinged with the excited nervousness that characterized those who were expecting an enemy to arrive at any moment.
The tram slid to a halt, and the doors behind the pair of soldiers slid open. The Chief turned, the sudden rush of cheers and clapping hands assaulting his ears, and saw a huge crowd of gathered Marines waiting in the station outside the car. Most of them were clad in armor and fatigues, but a pair in white dress uniform stood at the far end of the station, before the nondescript double door that led into the Cairo's command center.
The Marines gave way as the Chief and Johnson stepped out of the tram car, the Spartan peering across the cheering and smiling faces of his fellow soldiers. He had grown accustomed to the celebrity treatment he got from the rank and file enlisted forces of the UNSC; the few remaining Spartans were instantly recognizable among normally-equipped soldiers, and their actions had been blown up and expanded by ONI section Two until they were almost absurd. When encountered in the field, Marines reacted with awe and amazement, but when he appeared at functions like these, the Master Chief was mobbed as a hero.
John hated public functions. He just wanted to get back out into the field and do his job.
He caught something on his motion tracker, flitting overhead, and beneath the helmet, he frowned.
"You said there wouldn't be any cameras," John muttered quietly, and his eyes flicked to Johnson as the Marine Sergeant lifted his cover off his head and ran a gloved hand through his closely shaved black hair. The Chief caught a sardonic smile on Johnson's face as he did so, and one of several hovering drone cameras came in close, flitting over the assembled Marines' heads and helmets.
"And you said you were gonna wear something nice," the Marine shot back. John didn't respond as he and Johnson walked forward, through the Marine crowd, the cameras dogging their steps. As they moved toward the door and the Marines flanking it, Johnson continued.
"This thing is big, Chief," he explained. "We just lost Reach, and you know what that means. Folks need heroes, Chief, to give 'em hope. You know how close we all are right now to the edge. So, smile, would ya, while we still got something to smile about!"
The doors parted, and the pair of Marines flanking the entrance saluted sharply as the two heroes strode past them, into a cavalcade of additional cheers and clapping. Johnson seemed to be reveling in the treatment, but the Master Chief quietly accessed his suit's audio systems, isolated the incoming cheers and clapping, and muted them.
"Heretic! Heretic! Heretic!"
Squeaking Unggoy voices filled the air around the Supreme Commander as he strode down the stairs. Behind him, Tartarus' Brute lackeys followed him from the corridor leading to the Grand Council Chamber, and the white-furred Chieftain, chosen to be the 'neutral' administrator of the Prophets' justice, strode beside the condemned Sangheili. Flanking the wide platform that they walked down were hundreds of the lesser Covenant races: squat, fat Unggoy, clad in the environment suits they were required to wear outside their homes, and the taller, slender Kig-Yar, their glowing pink eyes staring unblinkingly as they screeched for vengeance. Separating the path the Commander walked from the masses of zealous, vicious lesser Covenant were the silent, orange and red-clad Honor Guards, staring ahead impassively as the doomed Commander walked before them.
He did not turn to meet the eyes of the lesser Covenant, but instead strode along the long platform, ignoring their shouts and jeers and taunts. Towering pillars rose up past him, hovering over anti-gravity platforms as he advanced toward the end of the huge balcony, one that overlooked the entirety of the interior of High Charity.
The crowds were left behind, and the loud, violent cheers and screeches were replaced by the general din of thousands upon thousands of Covenant screaming and milling about, their intermixed voices rapidly coagulating into a vast wall of noise. He strode to the edge of the platform, and stared out over the vast city stretching before him, occupying the interior of the vast structure of High Charity. Hundreds of square units of space extended out before him, far below the towers in the city's arbitrary "north" district.
"You've drawn quite a crowd," Tartarus remarked, and though the Brute tried to hide it, his own glee leaked into his voice, inciting growing anger in the Commander. The Jiralhanae and the Sangheili were ancient enemies, ever since the Brutes had been inducted into the Covenant, and Tartarus carried that grudge proudly.
"If they came to hear me beg," snarled the Commander, in an attempt to deflate Tartarus' pleasure, "they will be disappointed." Tartarus laughed quietly as his Brute lackeys grasped the Commander's wrists and ran them through a pair of glowing blue rings hovering several units above the purple floor.
"Are you sure?" the Chieftain replied as the Commander tugged against the restraints, and found them quite unyielding. Even a massive, armored Lekgolo could not escape the powerful gravity binders holding the Commander in place. The Brute glanced to the side, and nodded to one of his lackeys, who touched a shimmering light console, and as the creatures' finger touched the controls, a deep thrumming filled the air.
The finest, hair-thin tendrils of plasma flowed up into the binders, not enough to be lethal, but certainly enough to blaze flesh and inflict searing agony. The plasma flowed down from the Commander's wrists and over his armor, and he clenched his mandibles together, fighting off the pain as only one as disciplined as a Zealot could do. His eyes remained open as the heat dug into his skin, searing the chrome golden finish off his armor, and he cast his gaze over the crowds below, defying the torture, defying their cheers and taunts, and defying the curses of fate that had put him here.
The transparent canopy of Cairo Station's main bridge towered overhead, giving John an unimpeded view of the stars above Earth. The vast room itself was filled with consoles and work stations for the soldiers and sailors who crewed this room; it was far larger than the normal command center for a MAC station, due to the fact that it was the forward command center for the entire Earth space defense network.
Every platform was filled with Marines and Navy crewman in dress uniform, clapping and cheering as the two surviving heroes from the battle at Halo stepped to the front of the bridge, before the vast, transparent display screen that was normally used for combat operations. The gleaming UNSC military logo, of an eagle perched atop a globe, was shining on the screen instead of tactical information.
Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, clad in his Admiral's dress uniform, stood at the front of the display, and beside him was a line of officers. Among them, John noticed a young woman who couldn't have been out of her thirties, with short black hair: Commander Miranda Keyes, the daughter of Captain Jacob Keyes, who had been his commanding officer during the events at Halo. She was young, too young for her rank, but Miranda possessed the same fiery spirit and tactical brilliance of her father, and the military needed all the competent officers it could get.
"Gentlemen," Hood began with a nod. "We're lucky to have you back. Your actions at Halo have saved the entire human race from extinction; we all owe you our lives." As he spoke, a Lieutenant moved up to the platform and whispered something in the Admiral's ear. He paused, frowning, and glanced to the hologram tank next to the display screen. "Go ahead, Cortana."
The tank glowed for an instant, and a blue mist of light flashed into place above it, before resolving itself into the cool blue transparent form of a young woman, with data streaming up along her body.
"Another whisper, sir, near Io," the AI's holographic avatar replied in a nonchalant female voice. "I have probes en route." Hood nodded, and sighed quietly, before glancing back to Johnson and the Chief.
"I apologize, gentlemen, but we're going to have to make this quick." As he spoke, he moved toward one of the junior officers, who carried a tray draped with blue cloth, upon which were a series of medals. While Hood was retrieving the medals, Cortana glanced over the two soldiers standing at attention, and her avatar's lips curved into a smile.
"You look nice," she commented.
"Thanks," both Johnson and the Master Chief replied, and then glanced at each other, realizing they honestly weren't sure who she was speaking to.
"Sergeant Major," Admiral Hood stated as he moved in front of Johnson, and the Marine went back to attention. Hood lifted the medal in question and moved to pin it on the Marine's chest. "The Colonial Cross is awarded for singular acts of daring and devotion. For a soldier of the United Earth Space Corps -"
"-there can be no greater heresy!" Tartarus' voice echoed. "Let him be an example to all who would break our Covenant!" Tartarus' voice boomed across the city, amplified and resounding across all of High Charity.
Rtas 'Vadumee stared down at the display below from atop a balcony several levels above the scene. His black eyes did not blink as he observed his former leader burn under the heat of the searing plasma. There was almost no motion, except for the slight twitch of the two intact mandibles on the right side of his head.
He was a Special Operations Commander, and had seen his fair share of death, pain, and injustice as he had served the Prophets' will. Less than three weeks prior, he had lost an entire file of his best troops, along with his right pair of mandibles, to a Flood infestation, but the pain of that loss was nothing compared to the loss of Halo, and of his salvation. Even so, he did not share the fury that the Council had shown, and he knew his own Commander was being unfairly judged, but such things were the way of the Covenant.
"You disagree with this?" came a voice from behind Rtas, and he turned, lowering his head as the High Prophet of Truth drifted close.
"Yes, Holy One," he responded, and raised his head. "You and I both know that this is unfair."
"Though you were his subordinate, you were his friend," the Prophet mused, moving his throne to the edge of the platform, as the glows from the plasma shapers began to fade. Rtas did not miss the emphasis on "were."
"To destroy one as honored and as mighty as he for the failures of those on the surface and in the void is the height of injustice," Rtas asserted, shaking his head slowly. "Holy One, this is not heresy."
"Perhaps," replied the Prophet, nodding his small head slightly. He turned his black eyes toward Rtas. "But you and I both are aware of the difficulty in controlling a movement as vast as our own. The Unngoy in the methane tent, the Sangheili warrior in the training hall, and the Yanme'e in the hive cluster all desire blood and vengeance. They wish to see one pay for this blasphemy, and since the one true infidel responsible is not here, we must make do with the next best thing."
"The Demon will not escape our vengeance," snarled the Sangheili, clenching his fists, and the Prophet nodded.
"There is another matter that requires your attention, Commander," he stated, and Rtas turned back toward Truth. "We face another potential threat to our already fragile unity."
"Is it the Jiralhanae again?" Rtas demanded, to which Truth shook his head.
"Tartarus' Brutes are being unusually quiet," replied the Prophet. "But no, this has nothing to do with your blood feud, Commander. This has to do with true heresy, a traitor who threatens us all."
"Master Chief Petty Officer," Lord Hood stated as he stood before John. "You have already received this award countless times during your career, but I am pleased to bestow upon you the Colonial Cross once more. Through several of the most brutal battles we've fought in this war, you and your Spartans have shown impossible bravery and tenacity, and through your actions you have saved Earth and humanity three separate times. We all owe you and your fellow Spartans our lives, and it is my honest wish that we had an even greater honor to give you. This medal is for you and all of your fellow Spartans who have fought and bled for the UNSC."
There was no way to pin the medal onto John's impervious MJOLNIR armor, so instead, Admiral Hood had simply handed him the Colonial Cross he had earned. He took the medal in his hand and lowered it to his side, and said nothing.
This was not just for him, but for all of his fellow Spartans who had died in the war; James, Rene, Kirk, Grace, Anton, Lee, Kurt, and dozens more who had burned on Reach. His family.
As John finished receiving his medal, Commander Keyes broke away from her position and walked forward, to stand beside the Master Chief, before about-facing and coming to attention before Admiral Hood.
"Commander Miranda Keyes," he stated, and his voice was edged with a slight degree of sympathy as he reached forward and placed the Colonial Cross in her hands. "Your father's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service. His bravery in the face of impossible odds reflects great credit upon himself and the UNSC. The Navy has lost one of its best."
Miranda looked down to the medal and slowly nodded, stilling her expression and attempting to retain military discipline. John remained silent, remembering the last words he had heard from her father before he had been consumed by the Flood parasite, and recalling that final moment where he had to destroy Captain Keyes' remains to recover his neural lace. The man had won multiple battles against the Covenant despite insurmountable odds, and had died a hero.
Lord Hood was right; the Navy had lost one of the finest in its history.
The pain stretched across his body as he slumped in the unyielding grasp of the gravity binders. His legs had given out halfway through the torture, and the Brutes had gleefully begun to tear the armor off his body, the blackened metal clattering to the metal at their feet.
As his body drooped, the Commander looked up, hearing the hiss and click of a device sliding up into place. He recognized the sound, and knew what to expect from having seen this same treatment administered to others who had failed. Tartarus' meaty left arm reached down and grasped the haft of a long metal rod and pulled it out of a slot in the floor, the end angled toward the Commander. He looked down at the rod and the end of the device, upon which gleamed the yellow-hot insignia of the Mark of Shame, that which was branded onto the worst of the Covenant's criminals.
To think that he would bear such a mark . . . .
Tartarus stalked forward, grasping the rod in both hands, a dark smile spreading across his face as he reached back. The Commander steeled himself as the rod shot forward, the Mark stabbing into his chest and searing into his flesh. The blazing hot skin peeled away as the mark buried into his torso, and the sizzle of burning flesh filled the Commander's ears. Pain arced through his body as the mark cut and burned into his torso, and though he clenched his teeth and fought against it, he could not hold back the pain.
His head arced back, and single woeful cry of pain escaped his mandibles before darkness claimed his wrecked body.
Klaxons sounded across the bridge, and the ceremony came to an abrupt halt as the assembled officers looked up.
"Slipspace ruptures, directly off our battle cluster!" Cortana reported.
"Show me," Hood ordered grimly as the officers and soldiers immediately moved toward their stations, the awards ceremony completely forgotten. Cortana paused, concentrating, and the display shifted to show a map of the orbital defense network. A blob of red dots appeared on the screen, just outside the effective firing ranges of the MAC stations.
"Fifteen Covenant capital ships," Cortana reported. "Holding position just outside the killzone."
Fifteen? John frowned behind his visor. There were only fifteen Covenant ships? Even with their massive technological advantage, fifteen ships were far too many, especially if the Covenant were expecting to attack Earth.
On the display, a mass of UNSC ships, frigates and cruisers, shifted direction and started toward the vastly smaller Covenant fleet.
"Cairo Station, this is Fleet Admiral Harper," came a call over the bridge's radio. "We are moving to engage the enemy."
"Negative, Admiral!" Hood commanded, as he looked over the Covenant fleet. Cortana had begun to resolve the enemy formations, and it became clear that the Covenant fleet consisted of two heavy assault carriers and thirteen cruisers. Hood had seen cruisers in action before; at Sigma Octanus, a battered Covenant force of eight ships, four of them cruisers, had decimated a UNSC fleet of forty-eight fresh, battle-ready ships with crack crews. Their five plasma torpedo turrets, plasma projector cannons, point defense lasers, and energy shields allowed them to massacre much larger numbers of UNSC warships with ease. Though Harper's force had the overwhelming numerical advantage, he was not going to sacrifice thousands of crewmen needlessly.
"Pull your fleet back and form a defensive perimeter around the MAC cluster. I am not going to let these bastards undercut us and hit the MACs." It would be just like the Covenant to send a distraction force to draw out the fleet and then jump an armada of ships in close to the MAC stations. It had happened at Reach, and it could happen here too.
"Commander, get back to your ship," Hood added, glancing to Miranda. "Link up with the rest of the fleet."
"Aye sir!" she replied, saluting, and started to move off as Hood turned to Cortana's avatar.
"You have the MAC gun, Cortana," Hood continued. "As soon as they come in range, open up."
"Gladly," Cortana replied, and her image vanished. Hood turned his eyes back up toward the Covenant fleet, and frowned.
"Something's not right," he muttered. "The fleet that glassed Reach was fifty times this size." In his mind, this simply confirmed Hood's suspicions of a distraction force to draw them out.
"Additional contacts!" came a shout from one of the bridge officers. "Perimeter scouts have incoming boarding craft with Seraph escorts, and lots of them!"
"Patch me through to Admiral Harper!" Hood shouted. "I need him to vector all of his Longswords to engage those boarding craft!" He turned to the Master Chief and Johnson. "They're going to try to board us, take our MAC guns offline and give their capital ships a straight shot at Earth. Master Chief, Sergeant Major, defend this station!"
"Yes sir!" both the Spartan and Marine replied, and the Chief glanced to Johnson.
"I need a weapon," he stated, and the Marine flashed a white-toothed grin.
"Right this way," he replied. "Let's give those Covenant bastards something to pray about!"
The Master Chief wholeheartedly agreed, and he followed Johnson as they moved outside onto the entry platform, just as the tram car moved away, shuttling a squad of Marines to another part of the station. Another group of Marines could be heard moving down a nearby flight of stairs, and John's enhanced hearing could pick out the loading and cocking of rifles and sub-machineguns. Through the open transparisteel windows, John could spot multiple UNSC warships, cruisers and frigates, moving into position around the MAC cluster, angling themselves so that their point defense cannons could pick off approaching boarding craft, but he paid them no mind. He couldn't do anything in a space battle, but if the Covenant boarded this station . . . .
He moved down the stairs after the Marines, pausing at a weapons rack on the wall. Two M7 sub-machineguns and a pair of BR55 Battle Rifles were still mounted on the rack, and the device scanned his neural lace's IFF tag as he approached. Identifying him as a friendly, the locking bar over the weapons slid upward, and John quickly grabbed a sub-machinegun and battle rifle, and several magazines for each. He rapidly checked the two weapons as he moved the rest of the way down the stairs, even as his armor's systems synchronized with the embedded electronics in the weapons. A sight appeared on his HUD as he shouldered the battle rifle, and with a thought, a small compartment opened on his left thigh, revealing a compact holster for a sidearm. He slid the M7 into the holster and moved after Johnson and the Marines.
A full squad of armored soldiers awaited in the passage beneath the stairs, in an impromptu armory, the corridor filled with weapons crates and lined with freshly loaded and cleaned assault rifles, shotguns, and sub-machineguns. Several Marines and Naval crewmen, still in their dress whites, were hastily strapping on body armor and netting, and grabbing grenades and weapons. The Master Chief joined them, grabbing a standard-issue M6C magnum sidearm from atop an ammunition crate, and checking the weapon, before holstering it opposite his M7. Johnson, for his part, had slung a rifle over his back and was hefting a M247 light machinegun, complete with mount, on his right shoulder, and was using his other arm to affix a headset to his left ear. He tapped the side of the earpiece as flashes of light could be seen outside the station - Covenant boarding craft and their escorts were already in range of the fleet's point defense weapons.
"Cortana, patch us into FLEETCOM," he began, even as John did the same with his suit's radio. A moment later, his frequency lights lit up as he was linked up with the rest of the local fleet nearby. John called up a station schematic and overlaid it onto his HUD, mentally connecting to the Cairo's sensors - and by extension, Cortana. A moment later, a red flash of light appeared, marking a corridor junction outside Recreation One - just down the corridor from their position.
"Marines, boarding craft, docking just ahead," the Chief warned. Without hesitating, the assembled troops moved down the corridor, none of them needing orders to know what they needed to do.
"Cairo to Malta, how's it going?" Johnson called over FLEETCOM as they hurried down the passage.
"You've got multiple incoming, Cairo," came a response over the radio from one of Malta's communications officers. "We're already engaged over here!" There was a pause. "Stand by, Cairo, boarding craft inbound . . ."
A dull impact cut across the station, sending tremors through the deck beneath their feet.
"They're latched! Cairo, be advised, Covenant are in standard formation, little bastards up front, big ones in back. Good luck."
John nodded as his group moved into Recreation One. Standard Covenant military doctrine was to have Grunts lead any charge, absorbing bullets and setting off traps and ambushes, while Jackals followed, covering the Elites with their shields, with Hunters behind them and Drones flanking. They had seen it innumerable times before, and knew how to compensate.
Recreation One was a wide room, featuring several holographic consoles to allow crew to communicate and access the planetary Chatternet, as well as larger screens that displayed public broadcasts. Now, all images shown were of the station, as no less than fifteen of the spindly Covenant boarding craft moved and jockeyed into position around the station. Out one of the broad windows at the far end of the room, John could see one such craft in position, its extended boarding mechanism latched onto the corridor just outside this room.
Marines and crewmen took cover behind the displays as Johnson set and deployed his M247 at the back of the room, on a raised platform giving him a perfect view of the far end of the chamber, where a single locked door led to the compromised corridor. Marines and sailors leveled their weapons at this single door and thumbed off their safeties, fingers hovering over their triggers.
"Fields of fire on that bulkhead," Johnson growled as he crouched behind his machinegun. John scanned the room and spotted a side chamber that overlooked the rest of the room, and had several supporting girders that would provide ample cover and give him a perfect line of sight to set up a cross fire against any Covenant that breached the room. The discharge of plasma rifles could be heard beyond the door, along with the squeals of Grunts as they fought against an unseen enemy.
"Soon as that door opens," Johnson continued as the Chief crouched behind one of the pillars and shouldered his rifle. A gleaming white light began to erupt from the door as the Covenant on the other side started to cut through. "Let 'em have it!"
An instant later, the door shattered inward with a blazing explosion of metal and heat, and green and white globules of plasma poured through the entrance to Recreation One. John depressed his rifle's trigger at one source of incoming fire, and a Grunt was perforated by 9.5mm rounds through the torso as chaos turned Recreation One into a warzone.
Usso 'Poramee clenched his plasma rifle in hand as he moved toward the umbilical connecting his ship to the human station. The Sangheili Major stepped into the round passage and felt the gravity directors propel him forward, down the darkened corridor and toward the passageway beyond. He whispered a prayer to the Forerunners as he heard the blaze of plasma fire outside, and an instant later, he was out of the dark umbilical and his hooves hit the floor. He dropped into a crouch as he heard an Unggoy scream in pain, and shining blue blood splattered against the bulkhead beside him. The Sangheili looked up, and spotted a human soldier crouched behind an ammunition crate, firing one of their loud and primitive projectile rifles at the Covenant warriors in the passage.
Without hesitating, the Sangheili Major rose to his full height of two and a half meters, bellowed a war cry, and fired his plasma rifle. Three blue-white bolts of energy flashed down the corridor and into the human's upper torso, and he collapsed backward behind the crate.
With that taken care of, the corridor became momentarily silent. Usso stepped forward as more Unggoy and Sangheili came through the umbilical, and took a quick tally of the dead and wounded. Seven living Unggoy were in the passage, crouched or hiding behind cover, and three more were down. A single fallen Sangheili Minor was slumped against the wall next to Usso, purple blood leaking onto the deck. Three fallen humans were down the passage. Four Covenant for three human. Acceptable in a boarding action against dug-in enemy troops.
Several of the humans' crude metal doorways led off from this passage. Consulting the mental schematics he had memorized, Usso remembered that the humans' command center should be through the first doorway on the right and down the passage to the left. While not an absolutely essential target in this battle, eliminating it would stop the humans' defense coordination, making their task easier.
"Demolitions," Usso ordered, turning to the troops entering the passage behind him. One white-armored Unggoy looked up, and pulled a small plasma charge off his methane backpack as Usso pointed toward the door in question. "Destroy that obstruction." The Major turned toward the rest of his troops as they assembled in the passage. "'Entamee, 'Firamee, 'Kendavai, take your files down that passage ahead and ensure no enemy attacks us from the rear. The remainder will follow me to their command center."
The Unggoy demolitions worker finished arming his bomb and scampered back, drawing his plasma pistol as the three Sangheili Minors and their Unggoy cohorts moved up the corridor. The thirty remaining troops crouched and waited as the plasma charge heated up, sending a gout of fire into the human doorway. Usso steeled himself, raising his weapon, and closed his eyes an instant before the charge detonated, blasting the door apart in a shower of titanium and superheated matter.
"For the Covenant!" he declared, and the Unggoy surged forward, into the opening, their plasma pistols firing wildly, green bolts filling the smoky air. One died instantly, bullets stabbing through its chest, and the blazing reports of human projectiles drowned out the hiss of firing plasma. Usso dove through the passage, his rifle blazing blindly through the smoke and chaos. Unggoy blood splashed over his shields, and the energy barrier sparked as a burst of human gunfire smashed into it, and then he was through the smoke and diving behind a console. Usso dropped into a crouch as an Unggoy was hurled to the deck by human gunfire, his methane tank spewing gas and throwing the corpse through the air. The Major's ears ached under the roar of exchanging gunfire and plasma as he pointed his rifle around the console and fired a burst at a human in a white uniform. The clothes erupted as the blue-white bolts flashed through them and annihilated the skin underneath, and the human fell to the floor screaming and bleeding.
Out of the corner of his eye, Usso spotted movement, and turned, seeing a green-clad human firing a rifle at the doorway with casual, practiced ease. He started to raise his weapon at the human when he recognized the armor and faceless visor of the helmet, and sudden, irrational fear gripped the Sangheili as he recognized the cursed armor of the Demon.
Usso's hand fell to his left breastplate, and grasped his energy blade, and with a wild roar of anger and fear, he ignited the blade and rushed from his prone position, challenging the monster that had desecrated Halo.
A Grunt rushed through the doorway, and died as John sent a three-round burst through its skull. The small alien fell backward, propped up by its methane tank, and tripped up an Elite that followed. The oversized alien stumbled as it kicked aside the much smaller corpse, and in the instant that it was in the open, four Marines sighted and gunned it down in a hail of rifle and sub-machinegun fire. Bullets smashed into the Elite's shields, overwhelming them, and slashed through the alien's torso, sending the large alien to the deck.
Plasma fire continued to surge out the doorway as more Covenant rushed forward, and a Marine in dress whites went down screaming under a barrage of fire. A second Marine grabbed the wounded soldier and dragged him out of the line fire, even as John fired upon an Elite as it charged over the corpses littering the entrance, his rifle's bullets eating into the shield at its head. Even as the Elite realized where the shots were coming from, two bullets dove through the side of its head, and it dropped to the floor. A Grunt scrambled over the corpse, and took a single round to the neck, phosphorescent blood bursting from the wound.
A roar filled the air, drowning out some of the gunfire, and John's translation matrix interpreted the shout as a directed challenge. He looked down at where the roar had originated from, in time to see a red-armored Elite ignite an energy blade. A white, two-pronged flattened wedge of plasma surged around the Elite's wrist as it stared directly at John, eyes boring through his faceplate, and then rushed forward, plasma rifle blazing away wildly. The Spartan responded, firing his rifle directly into the charging Elite's face as white-hot energy cut past him. The weapon burst, the Elite's shields flashed, and then the rifle clicked empty as the magazine ran out. Without wasting a beat, John dropped the battle rifle and drew his M7, leveling it at the charging Elite and firing at full-auto with one hand. His shields flashed and brightened as plasma crashed into them, but they held as his sub-machinegun kicked and jumped, caseless bullets crashing into the Elite's shield as it leapt into the air.
The Master Chief hopped back as the Elite landed on the platform, its energy blade slashing down into the metal at his feet in an overhead cleave. It dug into the Titanium-A decking, and then was yanked free with a single flick of the alien's wrist. John continued firing, and the M7's magazine ran empty even as purple blood gushed from the Elite's torso, the rounds punching through its armor. The enraged alien surged forward, either not seriously injured or too angry to care, and slashed across with the sword.
John dropped the M7 and ducked, the blade passing over his head and blowing out his shields. His MJOLNIR's internal temperature spiked as the blade passed dangerously close. Instinctively recognizing his opponent's vulnerability, the human shot forward as the weapon arced past. The Spartan's left arm shot up, catching the Elite's sword-arm at the wrist and shoving it backward, even as his right balled into a fist and jabbed into the alien's wounded chest. It roared in pain as the Spartan's hand cracked near-unbreakable bones, and John shoved the alien backward against one of the support girders, his right hand shooting up and jabbing between the mandibles. He pushed backward viciously, smashing its head into the pillar and denting the Elite's helmet, dazing it for an instant. Not hesitating, the Chief snapped his right hand down to his waist, grabbed his combat knife, and stabbed upward into the Elite's mouth as it tried to come forward. The blade cut up into its skull and through the creature's brain, stopping its recovery cold.
The energy blade fell from the Elite's hand, flashing off as its safety systems engaged, and John let the corpse fall to the floor as he grabbed his battle rifle. His hands moved in quick, cutting motions as he reloaded the rifle, and he raised it, sighting the last remaining Covenant. There was no thought, no hesitation; he would have time to reflect on the knife's edge he had just danced later. The Marines and Johnson had killed most of the advancing enemy during John's brief battle with the red-armored Elite veteran, and all that remained were a few Grunts that were panicking under the combined human gunfire and the deaths of their leaders. Within a few seconds, the last surviving Covenant were gunned down, and Recreation One was secure.
"No time for nappin'!" Johnson shouted, hefting the M247. "There's more outside! Press forward!" The Marines and Navy crewmen rose from their defensive positions and moved ahead, Johnson in the lead, and John dropped down from his flanking position and moved toward the blasted doorway. A quick check of the station's sensors showed a pair of Elites and four Grunts in the passage outside, with many more corpses scattered elsewhere in the corridor. John flashed a series of hand signals to the Marines, warning them of the danger, and then stepped into the passage outside.
The Covenant were at an intersection to the right, among a series of ammunition crates, and were taking cover from incoming bullets pouring down another corridor as several human defenders pinned them down. The Chief primed and threw a grenade at the Covenant troops, and a panicked squeal from a Grunt heralded its arrival in their midst. The dull explosion filled the air around the aliens with flying shrapnel, and the onrushing humans pumped a river of gunfire into the Covenant survivors. Between the cross-fire and the grenade, the aliens were cut down before they'd had time to realize they were flanked.
A quick check of the station's internal sensors showed that the enemy in the immediate vicinity had been eliminated, and the bridge was secure. Dozens of contacts were popping up across the station, however, and the Covenant were rapidly outnumbering the human defenders. He quickly considered the options, and made a decision. He selected the highest ranking enlisted man, Sergeant Gimmers, a heavy-set, dark-skinned soldier.
"Sergeant Gimmers," John spoke quickly as the Marines policed the fallen aliens' weapons. The Marine glanced up, and the Master Chief nodded toward Recreation One, while using his suit's comms to highlight the Marines and crewmen who were surrounding them.
"Sergeant, I need you and everyone here to cover this approach to the bridge from Recreation One." Gimmers nodded.
"Aye, Chief," he replied, and turned to the surviving soldiers and sailors, and pointed back the way they had come. "You heard the Master Chief! Get back there and cover the Admiral's ass! Move it!"
"I know you're not leaving me out of this party, Chief," remarked Johnson, and the Spartan turned back toward the end of the corridor, leading deeper into the station. "What are you planning on doing?"
"We're going to sweep this station clear of anything not human, Sergeant Major," John responded with dead seriousness. Johnson flashed the Spartan a perfect white-toothed smile.
"Now that's my kinda thinking, Chief."
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A few notes on this chapter: I'm working on incorporating elements of the Halo Graphic Novel into this story, which is why I referenced both "Armor Testing" and "Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor" in this chapter. I'm also going to take a few steps to make the Cairo Station battle progress slightly more logically than it did in-game; for example, Johnson's accompanying the Master Chief.
Until next chapter...