Interstellar Space, Sector B-078, Unyielding Inquisition, October 23 2539
A symbol flicked into life on the HUD of Rebecca's EVA helmet, she wondered if it was a glitch at first, but it stayed on. She couldn't think about that now, she had other things to consider.
The Spartan sprinted down the amethyst coloured hallway, around her she could hear plasma bolts impacting with the walls, but she didn't care, Grunt's were lousy shots, all she had to do was weave a bit and they wouldn't know where to look. While the idea of boarding a Covenant ship and disabling it solo had seemed alike a difficult task Rebecca just took it in her stride, she liked the challenge, and in fact she had been disappointed it had all felt rather easy.
A green bolt of plasma crossed close to the Spartan's head, how annoying she thought, that may have charred her armour, and the grunt who fired hadn't even charged it enough to do any serious damage. So as she ran Rebecca casually unclipped a frag grenade from her belt turned round and threw it back down the corridor, she thought about blowing a kiss as well but she doubted the grunts would understand if she was mocking them. There was the sound of the explosion and some excitable yet terrified squeals and soon enough the plasma fire thinned out. The Spartan slowed to a trot and came to a large set of doors that sat buckled bent inwards, plaintively sliding back and forth as they tried to close. Rebecca held casually held and the door open and found herself back in the hanger, she may as well go out the same way she came in she thought and she started for the large energy shields that separated the interior of the ship from the vacuum of space.
Rebecca looked around, she couldn't help like feel she had made a mess of the place, the hanger was full of dead Grunts, dead Jackals and dead Elites, as well as the wreckage of a Banshee and a couple a Seraphs hanging precariously from their badly damaged clips on the roof of the hanger. Oh well she thought, it wasn't like the corvette was ever going to be used by anyone ever again anyway. From her belt she unclipped a small cigar shaped detonator and ran her thumb over the tiny button. But before she pressed down on the switch and finished up she heard the sound of an inhuman voice shouting wildly from behind her. Turning, Rebecca saw hobbling across the hanger, one arm and leg both badly injured and weeping blood, looking very pale, was the Minister of Penance, one of the Covenant's important legates.
Rebecca had thought she had finished him off on the bridge but it looked like the frail looking creature had some fight left in him yet. When she had casually broke her way through the door's to the Unyielding Inquisition's CIC she had been pleasantly surprised by the sight of the minister cowering behind his elite guards, it wasn't often you got little perks like this on a mission. Originally she had just been dispatched the disable the corvette so the UNSC Ivanhoe, the damaged, smaller and significantly less armed frigate that she served on, could pass safely, but now she had been given the chance to eliminate a rather upstanding and powerful member of covenant society.
"Stop Demon!" The minister wheezed, obviously not used to such physical activity as walking let alone walking with a bleeding leg and mangled arm.
Rebecca pulled out her SMG and pointed it at him, even though she felt confident nothing could go wrong now she had always been told by Chief Petty Officer Mendez to never get cocky.
"Why do you butcher the seekers of Truth and the Journey" The minister continued, constantly approaching Rebecca with his good arm outstretched "We are trying to cleanse the universe of those unworthy of the Forerunners, we are the chosen inheritors"
He was rambling, Rebecca couldn't believe he expected her to suddenly come round and agree with the cleansing of humanity so she just began to back off and ignore this new arrival.
The minister carried on talking all this incoherent rubbish about the journey and the forerunners that made no sense to Rebecca so she holstered her SMG and began to make her way towards the hanger bay doors. Rebecca unclipped the detonator from her combat belt once again and thought back to the minister behind her, she couldn't help but think about how ridiculous there reasons for this war were. But even though their cause was absurd and fanatical they had the technology to win, this made her heart sink for a second but seeing how pathetic the creature behind her was it was clear humanity did have its chances. The creature behind her was weak, the creature behind was nothing but a glorified cult leader, the creature behind her was still behind her, and with that it clicked. Rebecca cursed herself; despite even considering Mendez's words moments earlier she had done it again, she had got cocky. Wheeling about as quickly as possible the Spartan saw the Minister of Penance bearing close upon her, an energy sword raised and a look of incomprehensible rage, fear and hate burning behind his eyes and forcing himself through the pain that racked his body. Rebecca took a step back and pressed the detonator.
The lights of the hanger dimmed to nothing and the energy shields disappeared. Rebecca felt her MJOLNIR armour pressurize as she became weightless, the minister began to drift up off the floor as well, his spindly arms clawing at his own throat as he began to go blue. The Spartan kicked off from the edge of the corvette and began to float away into the endlessness of space. She drifted further and further away and soon she could see the whole of the Covenant capital ship, all its lights were off, its engines were shut down and all aliens aboard were now dead. The EMP had done its work and Rebecca had had a near perfect operation, she would leave the business with the minister off the report.
Rebecca sat and just let the weightlessness take her for a while. Having the feeling of none of her muscles under any stress was just the best sensations she could think of and one of the reasons why she loved doing operations in deep space. On all other missions there was no moment where you could feel utterly at ease, even when you weren't in the battlefield, you were always trekking, driving, climbing, even just riding in a vehicle you had to tense yourself to avoid smacking your head on a roll bar or having your teeth shaken as you bumped along rutted and cratered roadways. But while you are in space just lying there, not a single muscle in your body working, just you staring at the stars and dancing with the nebulas, wafting through the abyss.
Rebecca took a moment to savour the feeling of complete relaxation but soon she saw the frigate UNSC Ivanhoe begin to come out from behind a nearby asteroid that it was hidden behind and start on its way, cruising silently in the vacuum towards the floating Spartan. Rebecca reached round to the small of her back and felt for a canister, she found it strapped to the back of her belt and pulled the pin. A burst of gas fired, propelling her gently towards the ship, it was standard issue for Spartan in deep space operations to have such a failsafe. The grey slab that was the Ivanhoe grew larger and larger in her view as it got closer and soon it was upon her. Rebecca opened up the canister once more, expelling the last of the gas and sent herself into frigate's hanger bay.
As Rebecca's body moved through the hanger shield door and she felt the weird sensation that it was to go from being weightless to feeling all of her mass being pulled down by the ship's artificial gravity. For a moment the Spartan felt disorientated and even slightly sick, but she found her footing again and stood upright, to the applause of the Marines and crewmen who were gathered in the hanger. While they were impressed they were relieved if anything, a UNSC frigate would without a doubt incur massive loses if engaged by a Covenant corvette and with one as battered and bruised as the Ivanhoe, there was no way they would have come out alive. The crowd of marines and swabbies began to part and let through the very well composed but frail man that was the ship's captain John Rumsfeld, instinctively Rebecca saluted.
"At ease Spartan" The Captain said, Rebecca let her body relax, she didn't particularly like the whole chain of command thing but she had to respect it.
"That must be a record" Rumsfeld continued "Boarding and taking a Corvette in just under an hour, dam good work Spartan"
"Glad you're impressed" Rebecca quipped, Rumsfeld laughed.
"Indeed, well still, on a more serious note, Thank you, you saved alot of lives today Spartan" Rumsfeld said with a respectful nod followed by a salute, the whole of the crowd behind him joined him in this gesture, Rebecca couldn't help but smile behind her visor and feel slightly flattered.
"Thank you sir" Rebecca said before saluting back at the crowd in front of her.
"You are dismissed"
"Thank you sir" Rebecca dropped the salute and quickly walked off to her quarters, she was quite tired, but then her eyes moved to the top of her HUD and saw the little symbol that had appeared back on the Unyielding Inquisition. She had completely forgot about it, but she knew what it meant, the symbol of ONI.
Rebecca returned to her quarters, it was separate from the other grunts but in no way lavish like the cabins of commissioned officers, it simply had a small iron framed cot, a large footlocker and a small bathroom with sink, toilet and shower. Rebecca raised her hand to the her neck, she fiddled with a clip that connected the rest of her power armour to her helmet and then lifted the large dome of the EVA helm off, letting her long blonde hair gracefully fall over her shoulders. The Spartan pulled off each element of the power armour and stacked them all on the footlocker until she was left just standing in her skin tight under suit, she felt liberated.
Rebecca sat back on her bed and picked up a touch screen tablet from on top of the footlocker, she then swung her legs up onto the mattress and laid back on the pillows. Just as she had been relishing it in deep space she was relishing it now, the feeling of complete ease, she cherished these moments when she could get them. In fact she hated to sleep, since sleeping was a moment that could be spent at ease and just distressing, yet when you fall asleep, all that just seems to be lost in an instant. The Spartan held up the tablet and tapped in her pass code to access her personnel database, she knew what she expected to find now, and there it was, in the corner of the tablet was the flashing ONI symbol. Rebecca sighed and tapped it with one of her dainty fingers, the pad's screen went black for a second before the symbol of ONI appeared again and a text scroll began to appear.
Hello SPARTAN Rebecca-108,
ONI has conscripted you for a class V classified operation;
we are not a liberty to disclose such information over the BattleNet so you will be collected
from your current location on UNSC DAWN UNDER HEAVEN. We look forward to your presence.
Regards, ONI
How delightfully vague Rebecca thought, no details of a mission, not even a name of who her commanding officer would be, she tapped off the message but it didn't work, she tried again but the pad was frozen on this message. She sighed again, as much as a problem she had with the traditional chain of command she had more of a problem with these pen pushing info-bugs who ran ONI. Rebecca tried many different Operations on her touch pad but nothing worked it, but then there was another text scroll under the ONI logo.
We regret to inform you that since this message is of the highest possible security a virus has been uploaded to your individual BattleNetTouchPad
,it is currently destroying any history of this message and thus majority of the information stored on this device.
You have our apologies
Regards, ONI
Rebecca once again sighed in exasperation and placed the touch pad down on the floor and just lay back, while she didn't like to do it, she supposed she best go to rest if something could appear at any time to retrieve her. So the Spartan closed her eyes and reluctantly let the comfort of a proper bed take her.