Section II: Where the truth lay hidden
0230 hours January 31, 2552 (Military Calendar)/ Procyon System, High orbit above Arcadia
John awoke to a blurry red light as his cryogenic tube opened its hatch and he stepped out after peeling his back off of the form fitting gel bed. Wisps of fog filled the large rectangular room that was lined with dozens of cryogenic tubes for the ship's crew. He doubled over and began coughing violently. Not long after he started coughing a clear string of liquid flowed from his mouth. The liquid was called cryo inhalant, it was meant to be swallowed after regurgitating, the liquid would replace any nutrients lost in cryogenic sleep.
It tasted horrible however and that was one of the few things that John would openly complain about. The first thing the captain noticed was the cold, refreshing air of the cryogenics bay over his bare body. Clothing and anything that would cover the skin was usually not recommended to be worn in cryo sleep for risk of being 'freezer burnt'.
John breathed steadily and with each breath he took, a small cloud of fog appeared and disappeared in front of his face. He then looked around to notice that all of the other pods were already open and thawed out. Soon after he made this realization he heard Saline's voice over the speaker to his right "sleep well captain?" she asked.
John smiled "yea if you like waking up to the taste of that god awful inhalant. Otherwise I feel great."
Saline was quick to reply "then you best get ready. We've arrived in orbit around Arcadia."
John then hung his head down low "yea…back to work" he whispered to himself.
"Something troubling you sir?" Saline asked with a slightly worried tone.
John quickly stood up and stretched "no, just wondering when this is going to be over." Despite being an artificial intelligence Saline was one of John's friends and found she was often concerned for his well-being with the pressure he was constantly under.
"Well you could always take a break and chat with me for a while," she said. John laughed "if I sat down to talk to a 'smart' A.I. like you 'for a while' my head would probably spin worse than having a hangover." He replied jokingly.
"Well don't worry captain I'm sure I can dumb things down for you," Saline replied sarcastically.
John just smirked as he made his way to the showers "I was joking but yea maybe sometime whenever we're not fighting aliens and insurrectionists then I'm sure we can find something to 'chat' about."
John was cleaned up and dressed in his Spartan matte black form fitting suit within ten minutes. The suit was what he wore underneath his armor, there are several magnets on various places to attach and seal his armor on to. He constantly wore it in case he needed to equip his armor in a hurry. John then strode on to the bridge and was much quieter since he didn't have his armor equipped "Status report Sarah," he said. The navigational officer jumped slightly because no one had really heard the captain step onto the bridge, the crew's focus was on Arcadia. She was also not used to being called by her first name however since there were two Hawkins' on the bridge John had taken to calling the twins by their first names.
"We are holding in geosynchronous orbit above Arcadia captain or rather what's left of it." John eyed out of the window and felt uneasy from looking at the glassy surface of a planet that was once home to millions of people before the covenant arrived.
Saline's ghostly image appeared next to the captain above the holo tank with her arms behind her back "Captain I have completed scans of the planet and have found no signs of life or covenant cruisers as of yet." John looked back down at his monitor that showed him the status of the ship. Hull integrity is at one-hundred percent, weapons systems fully operational and online, engines burning at sixty percent to conserve power, and all stations reporting on time. The Conviction was in the best condition as possible and John could only hope the crew was as well. The ship was equipped with experimental shielding technology which resembled the covenant shields that protected their ships. John did not however know how much punishment the shield would take before collapsing and he was in no hurry to test it.
He then spoke up, "pull us out of orbit Lieutenant."
"Aye sir" Sarah answered. She briskly typed away at her console and within moments everyone felt a slight pull as the ship shifted to port thus leaving orbit around Arcadia.
John spoke up once more, "Saline scan the system and look for any unusual activity, covenant or otherwise."
Numbers and data streams flowed across Saline's ghostly image as she began scanning "aye sir." Several moments passed and John waited with baited breath. Swiftly Saline turned to John with a slightly worried expression "captain, I've picked up several covenant cruisers orbiting an unknown planet nearby."
John then turned to her, intrigued "unknown?"
Saline continued her scans "according to the last record we have of this system, that specific planet was never here, at least not before we lost the system three years ago." John certainly wanted to know what was going on and how the planet just appeared in the system in the three years since he had last seen Arcadia. "Sarah plot a course towards the opposite side of the planet as the covenant and give me best speed, we're doing a fly by drop. Saline, send word to the Spartan teams to load up and get the pelicans prepped." John ordered. "I'll meet them there."
Saline began to glow slightly "already on it sir." John nodded before heading back out of the bulkhead door leaving the bridge. While on his way to the armor bay to suit up in his Mjolnir armor Saline called over the speaker closest to him in the corridor "fifteen minutes out captain." John picked up his pace into a break neck sprint "noted" he called out, there was no way he was going to miss out on a ground operation with his troops. He preferred fighting with his boots on the ground as did most Spartans. Thirteen minutes later John was clad in his crimson red armor with his assault rifle in hand. He was also equipped with an M90 shotgun attached to the magnets on the left side of his armored back. John packed extra small black pouches that adorned the lower part of his chest and his thighs. Each pack carried extra ammunition magazines and shells for his shotgun while the medium sized pack on his lower back carried several grenades and a LOTUS anti-tank mine. He was prepared for nearly anything on the surface of the planet.
His com made a popping sound in his ear as Saline opened his com channel and spoke "captain tee-minus sixty seconds."
John then pressed a button on his helmet and replied "roger that." Suddenly the ship began to shudder and shake violently and alarms flared all across the ship. "Saline what happened? Are we under attack?"
A moment passed before he got a reply "negative, we're caught in some sort of gravity well and are being pulled towards the planet!" she was definitely more than alarmed.
Gravity tethers maybe? Wait, what about the covenant on the other side of the planet?" John asked.
"They were on an intercept course before they were caught as well. I'm reading signatures from several small towers on the planet's surface. It appears they are some sort of gravity pylons and are the source of what is pulling towards the planet" she reported.
John thought for a moment "all right those towers are our top priority; I'm taking two teams to the surface to neutralize them."
Saline was quick to reply "sir I have already located all three of the pylons that I believe to be pulling us in. You might need explosives to take them out. I've already sent the coordinates to the docked pelicans."
John quickly grabbed a large backpack and stuffed it full of C-12, and mines along with the detonator. "Captain!" John turned to see the rest of his team including Alice running towards him, each of them already geared up in their armor with their weapons on their backs.
John tossed the explosives filled pack to Kane "take that , we might need it!" Kane inspected the pack before nodding and slinging it over his shoulder. "Spartan fire teams Echo and Foxtrot report to the hanger and gear up. Carry as much explosives as possible, we're going to need it. Get to pelicans zero-one, two, and three on the double! The pelicans are programmed with your assigned targets. This is a possible demo op, there's no time to waste. All hands to battle stations! We're going in for a hot drop!" John barked over the ship wide com systems.
Within ten minutes the other two teams of Spartans were loaded up and on their respective pelicans and the ship was bustling with activity. "Let's go Spartans!" John yelled over his helmet's com system to the other two teams. He took the pilot's seat of his pelican and strapped in with Alice in the co-pilots' seat just behind him. While he did this, the three pelican's four blocky engines roared to life and the back hatches closed.
When launch preparations were complete the floors beneath the pelicans opened swiftly and the drop ships fell through. The Spartans in the back compartments all felt a fast and violent jerk followed by intense shaking from the sudden free fall. Were it not for the reinforced harnesses that the Spartans were strapped into, the weight of their armor and the force of the pull would have ripped them clean from their seats. As soon as the pelicans left the hanger they quickly tilted downward towards the planet and the shaking eased up. John turned his head and yelled through the door that lead to the cockpit "Here we go Saber!" The pelicans flew at top speed in the direction of the planet's surface.
"John, multiple radar contacts, dead ahead!" Alice yelled. John noticed them soon enough as they were hard to miss. Dozens of metallic spheres emerged from the planet's atmosphere and were headed straight for John and his teams. The spheres had several glowing line patterns on them along with a circular red glowing lens that decorated the center of the sphere, it looked like an eye. The spheres all had three angular flat booms surrounding the spheres while being equal lengths apart. John reopened the com channel "pilots look out, incoming defense drones!"
A distinct male voice broke over the radio "Foxtrot one here, I copy team leader." Then a female voice filled the helmet's speakers soon after "Echo one confirms visual on intercept craft. Brace for evasive maneuvers!" The center red lens on the leading sphere glowed bright before a bright, red energy beam erupted from it and soon the other 'sentinels' followed. The pelicans shook violently as they maneuvered left and right dodging the beams of red hot energy. One hit from one of those beams could knock the drop ships right out of the sky.
"Return fire!" John barked as he fired the nose mounted chain gun of his pelican while the other two did the same. The hailstorm of bullets pinged and bounced off of the sentinels as they struck an invisible wall between then and the mechanical drones.
John then yelled over the com systems "hold fire! They have shields, bullets won't do a damn thing, switch to Anvil missiles!" Just as he said that two angled rectangular hatches popped open revealing eight paralleled holes in each wing of the pelican. As soon as he locked onto one of the sentinels John spoke quietly hoping the missiles would work "stop this you tin bastards." The pelican shook as it fired two missiles from its launchers. The missiles streaked through space leaving twin trails of exhaust in their wake. When the missiles struck the sentinel two large explosions engulfed the lone guardian along with several more that were surrounding it. The explosions shook the pelicans slightly but otherwise did no harm. When the smoke finally cleared there were bits and pieces of the metal drones that once stood in the pelican's way floating about.
The two other pelicans to the left and right of John's followed his example and released their ordnance as well. This time twice as many streaked through the blackness of space, more followed after and took out scores of the spall drones. When the sentinels began to scatter and fall back to the planet John spoke over the com systems once more. "The path is clear, gun it Spartans! Keep a sharp eye, those things could be back soon with sompany!" Just as he said this, the engines of the pelicans flared white hot as they were pushed to their limits. The pelicans began to become slightly red and equally red streaks following them as they entered the atmosphere of the unknown planet. The surface of the planet looked like it was covered in thick jungles with the occasional opened area near a large body of water.
The female voice returned over John's helmet speakers. "Echo team branching off." The pelican to John's left began to veer off far left towards the pylon they were supposed to destroy.
The male voice spoke right after "Fire team Foxtrot moving to target location." The right side pelican then took its leave and flew off towards the right. Saber team's pylon however was dead ahead only half a mile away.
The male voice soon returned to John's helmet with a slightly panicked tone "Foxtrot one here, those drones are back, they look a bit different though, smaller. Our bird is hit but no casualties. The right engine is dead, touching down half a click from the target LZ."
John quickly replied "roger that Foxtrot be careful down there, we'll rendezvous with you for evac after our target has been eliminated." The voice replied with a large amount of static breaking up the sentences into bits and pieces "….copy…ving…..target…..will…op...green…smo…..evac ….."
John checked his helmet…..everything was in working condition he then shouted over the open channel hoping that Foxtrot could hear him "Echo, Foxtrot, be aware, the jungle is possibly messing with our comms. I repeat the jungle is causing possible interference with com systems. Pop green smoke if your pelicans get fragged and you need an evac."
Echo team's leader replied "roger that captain, thanks for the heads up." Saber team then reached its destination and landed in front of a large yet thin pillar like structure that stuck out of the ground. The pillar looked like it was emitting a blue energy beam from the top of it that faded out the farther the beam went. 'The gravity beam' John thought. As the pelican's engines died down John and the rest of his team unlatched their harnesses and filed out the back of the drop ship as the hatch opened. Now John realized how the jungle was wreaking havoc with communications. It was enormous; the foliage easily stood half as tall as the large structure they had landed near. With all of the creatures that likely lived in the jungle that meant that motion sensors will probably be useless.
That assumption was spot on, John's motion sensor was filled with activity. Too many yellow dots moved to count the number of readings. 'Dam'n John thought, 'no way to tell when those drones will sneak up on us.' "Let's move it Saber!" he ordered. They approached a strange looking door with multiple glowing lines decorating it with a green pentagon shaped line at the center with several lines connecting to the middle. As John approached it the door split into three sections and retracted with a hiss. His team stepped inside and much to his surprise the interior of the structure looked very similar to the one they found on Eridanus III minus the ice and mountains.
John led his Spartans down a series of lighted ramps before coming across another door similar to the one at the surface. The door slid open as Saber team stepped through with their weapons drawn and scanning for targets….all clear. Wyatt noticed some sort of blue holographic terminal at the center of the structure; it was rounded and rectangular in shape. "Captain, look!" he said as he pointed towards the terminal.
John and his team cautiously approached it before he spoke "yeah, definitely forunner." He examined the terminal and noticed a blinking green 'button' at the center of it. He reached out and placed his hand on it. The light stopped flashing and the terminal turned red. Suddenly the entire structure shook lightly as lights went out and the beam shut down. Once the shaking stopped John turned back to his team "mission accomplished, now let's go assist foxtrot."
As the Spartans turned to leave however, four large hexagonal metal blocks emerged from left and right walls. The lids on the blocks parted and out came four more sentinels. These sentinels were different than the ones they encountered in orbit. They were not even half the size as the intercept craft and unlike the ones before, these sentinels were not large spheres with booms floating around them. These sentinels had two 'arms' with grapple like fixtures at the end of them and an undercarriage with what John had guessed to be a weapon. He was right as the undercarriage shone yellow before discharging a bright yellow beam. John and his team ducked and rolled in different directions.
One of the beams grazed John and the shield meter in his HUD dropped by almost a third. "Return fire!" he yelled as he leveled his assault rifle and squeezed the trigger in intervals, firing in short controlled bursts. The rounds pinged off the sentinel's shining blue shield but John did not let up his assault. Just before the sentinel started to charge its beam once more its shield gave way with a popping sound. As the shield dropped the remainder of John's bullets peppered the sentinel's center along with its undercarriage. The bullets had ripped the sentinel to pieces. The flurry of rounds hit its anti-gravity generator and sent it flying into one of its fellow drones causing them both to crash into one of the blocks they had emerged from in turn causing it to explode as well. Bits of metal and debris pinged and bounced off of John's armor along with the walls as he reloaded his weapon. By the time he was done his team had finished off the remaining two sentinels.
John noticed three of the blocks were still open and yelled to Kane "Kane, frag those holes!" John reached into his medium sized pouch and pulled out two grenades. He primed both before tossing one each into two of the holes as Kane through his into the third. Plumes of fire and smoke erupted from the 'pipe' like tubes as the explosions ripped them to pieces, preventing more sentinels from going through them. "Let's move Saber!" John ordered. Within a minute, the Spartans were back to their pelican and strapped in with no further resistance. The drop ship's engines roared to life as it took to the sky while the back hatch closed.
John then received a transmission from Saline "….captain? Do you read? You have two minutes before we impact the surface of the planet, please hurry!" worry was evident in the A.I.'s voice.
John replied quickly "Hold on Saline! I read you loud and clear. Our communication was cut off momentarily. The first pylon is down. I repeat, the first pylon is down, moving to the third."
Soon after he finished speaking, Echo team's leader's voice broke back over the speakers "Echo team reporting the target is neutralized. We ran into light resistance but no injuries or casualties to report." John replied quickly "Echo, form up on me, we need to head towards Foxtrot's objective to assist immediately." John then looked to the sky to notice the Righteous Conviction flying through the atmosphere with large red streaks trailing it. Echo team's pelican soon caught up with John's as they headed east towards the last pylon and where Foxtrot's pelican was located.
"Yes sir," Echo one replied. John soon spotted a trail of smoke not far ahead
"Echo, that smoke ahead must be Foxtrot's pelican. Touch down and look for anyone around there."
Echo team's pelican began to descend as the pilot replied "right away captain."
Saline's voice then broke out into a panic as she spoke "captain! We only have thirty seconds until impact!"
John then yelled "damn it!" the pelican was a mere one-hundred feet from the last pylon just before it was deactivated. John released a breath he didn't know he was holding. It fogged his gold visor slightly before clearing. "The last pylon is down, any effect?" he called out.
Saline immediately answered "negative effect, we're still heading for the planet! All hands brace for impact!" John looked up at his massive ship while slamming his palm against window, cracking it.
"No!" he called but Saline's voice broke back over the speaker, she sounded surprised. "Captain I don't know what you did but the planet it's….it's opening and we're being pulled inside." John was about to call back before he noticed his ship, the Righteous Conviction looked as if it was sinking into the planet from his view point.
Saline called back once more "captain I recommend you get back to conviction immediately before the planet closes again."
Just as she finished speaking John noticed a streak of green smoke emerge from near the pylon and immediately landed near it "roger that Saline." Just as he landed the back hatch to his pelican opened up and all six members of fire team Foxtrot piled in quickly. Each of them was clad in faint green Mjolnir Mark VI armor and wore Mjolnir Mark V helmets. The leader was obvious to make out due the twin darker green stripes that adorned his chest plate and the single dark stripe on top of his helmet.
"Thanks for the lift captain," The man said. John replied "no problem Jeremy glad you and your team made it out in one peace. Echo do you read? We have Foxtrot, all personal accounted for, rendezvous with and follow the Conviction immediately."
Echo team's leader soon replied "will do captain, give my compliments to Foxtrot for keeping their asses alive."
Jeremy laughed before replying "Thanks Amy, glad you and your team are safe too, see you back on the conviction."
Amy immediately called back "see you boys and girls there." John soon saw what Saline was talking about when his and Amy's pelican were on the starboard side of the Conviction. The planet had indeed opened up, much like the doors John had encounter at the pylon. The Conviction along with the pelicans were flying through a large dark hexagonal tunnel that lead deeper into the planet. It looked metallic and was covered in bright lines and glyphs, the tell-tale signs of it being forunner. The rest of the Spartans piled up to look out of the cockpit into the dark abyss.
Saline soon broke the silence "Captain I recommend returning to the Conviction immediately."
John answered back "agreed, heading back now."
Minutes later John's and Amy's pelican soon docked back inside the hanger through the starboard blast doors that opened to large spaces. The engines died down and the hanger filled with the sounds of footsteps as many marine technicians rushed towards the drop ships to inspect them. The back hatches opened up and all nineteen Spartans piled out.
John immediately called out "Alice! Amy! Jeremy! You're with me! Ops room! The rest of you get a breather but be ready to ship out at a moment's notice. " The Spartans scattered, most of them heading back to the armory while the rest stayed to help inspect the pelicans. Echo team's Spartans were the same color and had the same armor configuration as Foxtrot's but Amy, their team leader had blue lines instead of dark green. As the four Spartan leaders walked through the halls of the ship they turned right in a narrow passage and entered a room about thirty feet away from the bridge.
The room looked much like the briefing room back on Eridanus III. It was filled with computer monitors, screens and had a holo map table in the center of the room. The room however had several windows along the wall opposite to the door for observation. It was not as big as the bridge or the observation deck but this was where a lot of the planning occurred on board the ship. As they crowded around the holo map table the four Spartans took of their helmets.
Jeremy had flat topped dark brown hair, green eyes and a small scar on his lower lip. His skin was slightly tanned. Amy however had hazelnut brown hair which came down to her chin and framed her face was held farther back on one side by a small, red butterfly hair clip. It was a keepsake that she has held onto since she was a child which John allowed her to wear, despite it being against uniform regulations. Her skin was lightly tanned, the same as Jeremy. Both of the Spartans looked young.
Saline soon appeared above the holo tank next to the table. "Saline…" John said "…show us what we're dealing with." Saline waved her hand over the table and in an instant a holographic image of the planet they had entered appeared above the table. It began to play back the events that had happened.
"As you can see we were supposedly pulled into the surface of the planet from orbit by the three gravity tethers your teams deactivated." John watched the ship's descent closely as the pillars pulled it closer to the world, Saline continued. "But what we didn't know is that the planet itself was also pulling us into it and was using the tethers to amplify its gravitational pull. Acting more like targeting devices really."
John raised his hand slightly signaling a question "so let me get this straight, what we deactivated was not really tethers but gravity boosters instead?" Saline turned to him "no, they were both gravity tethers but were being double as enhancers for the planets gravity well. You were lucky they were focused on the Conviction, otherwise they would have aimed for you and pulled your pelicans straight into the ground, killing all of you." John felt a lump in his throat that he quickly swallowed. He and some of his Spartans had avoided a close brush with death because of his ship being a target.
In this case, lucky might be an accurate term for that event. Saline spoke once more "my scans indicate that the planet is several hundred kilometers deep and that there may be another world or base even hidden beneath the hollow surface. But as you've seen, this artificial world is indeed forunner."
John thought things over before speaking "we've never gotten reports of these forunner worlds before so how come one showed up at one of our systems? How could something this big move into another system?"
Saline for once took a second to think "actually reports show that the Spirit of Fire and its crew went missing in twenty-five, thirty-one and was declared 'lost with all hands' on February tenth, twenty-five, thirty-four. Maybe they stumbled upon a forunner world as well and couldn't find a way out of it."
John mulled it over but as he was about to speak Jeremy stepped forward "so what are you saying? We're stuck inside this planet with no way out?"
Saline turned to face the man "to be brutally honest that does seem to be the case."
"Stuck inside a giant ancient planet with god knows what inside of it and no way out….perfect," Jeremy replied sarcastically.
Amy then spoke up, "hey we made it in somehow so we just need to find a way to get out the same way we came in."
Saline then turned to Amy "an excellent idea Lieutenant. This planet has to have a control center. We just have to find it and deactivate the gravity well so we can escape."
John stepped forward, his eyes still studying the holographic image of the planet as it tracked the ship's descent through the large tunnel. "Not so fast, we're not going anywhere."
Jeremy couldn't believe what he was hearing "wait, why not?" he asked. Alice being John's wife and having spent so much time the young captain understood what he meant immediately and stepped forward to speak.
"John's right, we can't leave, not yet anyway. The covenant loyalists came here looking for something, something that could be a danger to the UNSC and all of our remaining worlds. That includes Earth. We need to find out what and either seize it for ourselves or destroy it."
John relaxed and was glad she caught that "exactly." He then smirked "I knew there was a reason I married you." He said while looking at Alice. Alice simply cocked an eyebrow "oh? I thought it was I who married you smart guy or did you forget who proposed first?" she said jokingly with a wide grin. John just stood there and chuckled slightly while his cheeks tinged slightly red.
John then got back to business and turned to Saline "how long until we reach the planet's core?" Saline replied "Unknown but we should-" She was cut off by the ships sudden shaking and rumbling and outside the window the Spartans noticed what looked to be an electric blue pulse that washed over the ship.
John was slightly worried "Saline what's the planet doing now?"
"Checking….it's….scanning us" Saline replied with a slight hint of confusion. John cocked an eye brow as he watched his ship passed through several rings with the blue current surging through them.
"Scanning? Scanning for what exactly?" he asked.
Saline was still trying to make sense of it herself "unknown but it seems as though we are nearing the end of the tunnel and should be approaching the core soon enough."
Alice spoke up "well that's at least some good news, I hope…."
John leaned closer to the window to get a better view "yeah I can see light up ahead. Saline tell the bridge crew to prepare the weapons systems immediately and tell the ODSTs to get prepped for their pods. Also tell all Spartan teams and marine forces to armor up and prepare for a fight."
Saline turned to him before replying "aye sir however, I already did that as a precaution just in case we would need them. I apologize for not notifying you sooner but as you said the jungle was disrupting communications so there was no way to reach you or the other ground teams. There was also no time to mention it when you got back on board." John smiled warmly at his A.I. who was also his friend before speaking "don't worry about it, just keep up the good work. I need people who can guess ahead of me. It keeps things…interesting for lack of a better word."
Saline returned John's smile "thank you captain. I'm just glad everyone made it back to the ship in one piece." John straightened up as the ship was bathed in warm light upon exiting the tunnel. He and the other Spartans covered their eyes for second until they could adjust to the new source of light which was in fact the planet's core. John then noticed something forming a sort of cone around the bright core. The cone pointed downward and only half of the core was visible at the top. The massive construct looked as if it had many levels to it.
"Whoa...Saline what is that around the core?" he said in astonishment.
Saline raised a hand to her temple before replying "scanning…..it… appears to be an ancient forunner city captain…" she stated. This earned a whistle from Alice as she and the rest of the Spartans admired the massive collection of structures surrounding the large, bright molten ball of energy.
Amy then spoke "this could be fun…and dangerous…"