I Know, I Know! sorry it took so long to get this chapter out. i said i should have it up in a week and it took over two. But, In my defense, it is twice as long as i originally thought it would be. so i hope i took long enough going over it with my fine-toothed comb. hope you all like it :)

"Our Legacy"

Part One: A Spartan?

Chapter 3

John's eyes memorized the entire scene in less than a second.

The Bridge of the Carrier was much like what every other ship in the Covenant fleet. There was a single chair on a raised platform where the CO of the ship gave commands to his underlings. Surrounding him was a flat expanse of about 12 meters, further circling this were three rows of holographic consoles that circled the outside of the room in a neat U-shape. In front of the chair at the top of the dais stood a Sangheili Fleet Master dressed in the expected red and blue heavy armor. Standing around him was a squad of 7 Jiralhanae, (known as Brutes to those that cannot pronounce their species name.). Two more Brutes stood on either side of the large door. They were armed and dressed for war. The other 20 people in the room were the Kig-Yar and Sangheili that sat at the consoles controlling the ship.

All of this information his mind devoured in a second, the very next second is when he made his move. In a motion to fast for Human eyes to follow John raised his pistols and fires 3 consecutive shots from both pistols at the Fleet Master. The shots were so close together that you only heard one. In the next movement he threw his arms to either side and fired 2 shots each into the heads of the Brutes at the door, their brains exploded out of the far sides of their heads as the rounds penetrated their thick skulls.

By the time the brutes in the room realized that someone had fired at them the Fleet Master was dead and the, literally, brainless bodies of the two guards at the door crumbled to the floor with a loud thump. Before the brutes in the center of the room had time to activate their shields John made two more kills. One kill shot through an eye, the other was three shots through the center of a young brutes face. By that time the remaining brutes in the room had activated their shields and were turning to the engage the large human.

In less than a second, the Military Order that existed on the bridge collapsed into the complete chaos of a war zone. John kept firing at the Brutes as he charged pulling the triggers so fast it looked like machine-gun fire. The moment he stepped through the door he dropped his Camouflage to draw any return fire away from the three blurs coming in behind him.

It was definitely working. Every single individual in the room with a weapon, which was most of them, reached for their weapons. The aliens in the room without weapons jumped from their chairs and ran as they Screamed "It's A Demon!", "Run for Your Lives!", and "We Can't Kill IT!"

No matter how many times I hear it, that just never gets old. John thought with a light smile.

After eight shots on a Brute he made a very important realization. The Covenant have upgraded their shields.

As he ran at the Brutes he fired another dozen shots off out of each weapon to test the abilities of their shields. After the twelfth shot each of the shields he was firing at flickered, but no burst.

That could be a problem.

With a flick of his arms he locked the two partially empty pistols on his thighs then closed both fists. The moment his fists closed he mentally activated both of the very rare weapons he had on either arm. From the armor on his left forearm sprang a 16 inch, razor sharp, silvery colored, inward curving blade. And forming around his right was a little toy that he had come to appreciate a great deal in the past several months, the Concussion Pulsar.

I hope these will still work.

The weapon looked like a science fiction toy, complete with a glowing circle of light that circled his right fist. He aimed it at a group of three Brutes that had finally managed to come to their senses and started shooting at him then pulled the trigger. From the circle of light around his fist a brilliant shock-wave of concussive force flew out just slow enough to be seen and grew till it slammed into all three Brutes. They went flying into the crowed of Frantic techies who were screaming and shoving to run away as grenades started going off in the back of the room Spraying the walls and consoles in blood and gore. Several of the flight crew were crushed as the Brutes landing.

In the next moment, the room erupted in fire as rounds of shrapnel from the three, still less than visible, humans behind him and the energy and plasma from over 20 different covenant weapons started firing, seemingly, all at once.

John knew that the techies would be enough trouble for the trained Marines. Those Brutes needed to be taken out before they figured out where his help was coming from. Brutes may be a little dense sometimes, but they were far from stupid.

John watched his shield gauge carefully as he charged the only two Brutes Currently standing. They lifted their guns and did likewise shooting all the while.

His shield hit 0 faster than he hoped they would, but he was ready for it none the less, the very moment it sparked out of existence he activated his third and final lifeline. In that instant and his body was bathed in a light green shimmer and a green 10 second countdown started on his HUD where, under normal circumstances, his blue shield bar would have been.

After that moment every round that met his body armor literally bounced off the green shimmer and John kept running. The moment he and the nearest Brute were 5 feet from each other, he turned his hips and spun under the Brute and, holding one thick handful of fur, he punched the full 16 inches of his arm mounted razor, which completely ignored the fact that the brute had plasma shields, into the brutes chest, twisted, then hurled the Brute up and over his body to land in a dead heap behind him.

John used the force of the throw to hurl his feet into the Gut of the second charging Brute sending them both flying backward toward his brothers that were just now regaining their feet. John followed through the air and landed straddling the beast's chest already bringing his blade down. In one clean swing he separated the brutes head from his body.

John smirked under his Helmet. Yep, still works.

For a moment, John took stock of the situation by Motion Tracker. All three of his people were still alive and, given the sounds of automatic weapons fire, shooting, that meant that they must have managed to seal the door. The Covenant side of this battle though was quite another story. Of the 30 covenant soldiers that started in the room, only 13 were left. 3 of which were the Brutes that had just made it to their feet at the front of the room.

He checked his timer. 6 seconds left.

Two of them rushed him dual wielding the far too famous Mauler, the other angled toward the right wall where what appeared to be a weapons locker rested. But he didn't have time to think about him at the moment.

Kill these two first, then I can deal with the other one.

He deftly jumped to his feet and met the Brutes head on.

They both came at him with their guns raised high to use the famous, sword-like, blades on the Maulers undersides to hack at the, only slightly smaller, Human. Seemed to John that they planned to use the now useless guns as bludgeoning weapons.

But John had other plans. With the fluid grace of an Asari dancer, john Dropped below their wild swings and swept their legs out from under them with a powerful and lightning-fast spin. They both left the ground and surprisingly let go of their Maulers. John snatched two of the weapons out of midair and before the two Brutes had fallen half way to the floor he jammed a barrel under each of their chins and pulled the triggers. The pulsar did it's job in overloading their shields otherwise they would have stopped the shots.

Both the Brute's eyes went dark as their brains were turned to soufflé by the shrapnel. 8 down and one to go. And not a moment to soon.

On his motion tracker he saw two red dots jump one of his men who seemed to be busy firing in the other direction.

Before they managed to grab the Marine, John swung to his left in a complete 180 and hurled a biotic push at the two Kig-Yar that had thought to surprise his men from the side. They hit the wall with a sickening splat. Whatever was left of them fell to the ground as a spike of pain drove its way through John's brain.

I hate biotics.

Then one of his teams vitals went blank.

Shit. John understood that in this mission, he would need some form of backup, and while humans were not exactly Spartans, they were all he had. And he needed every one of them.

He spun again to his right and slammed the floor with his fist and a blue shock-wave shot toward the remaining 7 of the covenant flight crew. Of which he hit three. The pain in his head intensified.

John had been keeping taps on the last Brute with his motion tracker. According to that, the Brute had found whatever it was he wanted in the Locker and was only a few meters to his right. Then, once more, took stock of his timer. .3 seconds…

He started turning to confront the last charging Brute But a quick glance out of the corner of his right eye was all he managed before he Felt more than heard the resounding 'WUPHOOM' of a gravity hammer strike.

Before John was properly able to gain a grasp on the situation he was hurled against the left wall of the Bridge his breath was driven out of him. His right side, the side the Brute hit, was screaming.

That's odd. He he opened his eyes he saw why he hurt so much. His Matrix had died right at the moment the brutes hammer impacted him, effectively dulling the full force of the blow. Otherwise he'd be dead. he had seen what the results of a gravity hammer strike looked like firsthand, even with full shielding, and it wasn't pretty

Though that may not be too far off by the look of things. John was the only true Result of the Spartan IX Project. What that did was make him the fastest, strongest, and toughest human in the Galaxy. But even with his super enhanced abilities, he still depended on Air to operate his muscles and organs just like every other human. Though the actual impact of the hammer was dulled by the Matrix, the shock-wave it generated was more than enough to throw him across the room and knock the air out of his lungs. The suit he wore, though incredibly advanced and heavily armored, was not built to withstand the full force of a gravity hammer, so all of his suits systems were offline, that included life support. This effectively left him trapped in a near vacuum.

And the Brute Knew it. John could tell by the ugly smirk on his face and by the way the Brute took his time to reach him to deliver the smash that would end his life.

Then he saw an Elite, over on the far side of the room, he must have been hiding behind some of the consoles. He must have managed to evade the firestorm that had killed everyone else in the room apart from the humans that had just managed to finish off the last four of the command crew and were now turning to help the Spartan.

The sneaky bastard was sneaking up on his crew.

That was all it took to get john moving again, air in his lungs or no.

Quick as a thought, and his body running purely on adrenalin and willpower, john was up and with hand and mind summoned a biotic pull that Hurled the elite through the air and right in between the massive Brutes shoulder, sending them both tumbling to the ground. John leapt up and yanked the flying hammer out of the air then he drew back, up, then over his head and brought it down into the tangled mass of the two aliens with a resounding "WHAM!" he swung again. Just to make certain the Brute was dead.

And the fight was over. All 21 seconds of it.

John's body heaved as he searched for air. Frantically he reached up and thumbed the release for his helmet. It snapped open and he gulped down the cool life giving O2 that flew in.

He pulled his helmet off and practically fell to the floor as he fought to steady his breathing. For almost a minute he sat there till his body stopped quivering from the overabundance of adrenaline and the extreme oxygen deprivation. As soon as it did he sat up and barked a laugh. He was happy to be alive but was not eager for the drop of adrenalin that was keeping his pain at bay. That hit was going to leave a mark for a while.

As he surveyed the room John was surprised to find that all three marines were alive. Daniel, the man whose vitals had flat lined, looked perfectly fine apart from the armor on the front of his chest that was melted.

All of them, even the Sangheili, Grall, looked spooked.

He looked right back and smiled. "Is it just me, or did their shields seemed a little tougher than usual?"

They didn't reply at first, but after a few moments, the young woman by the name of Callia, said "I've worked with a lot of people and I've never seen anyone, let alone a Spartan, survive a strike from a Gravity Hammer before even with full shielding." Her tone was suspicious.

John, looked at her face plate and could almost see her eyes behind it, they started to ask a question.

John smiled lightly and shook his head. "Don't think too much of it I just got lucky. Trust me, the green shield isn't exactly standard issue."

She didn't seem very happy with the answer but she dropped the issue and went to check on Daniel.

Time to set the bomb. John thought then stood, feeling a not to small amount of pain in his right side as he got up.

Brute must have broken a few ribs with that hit. He thought. unbreakable my ass. I wanna refund.

It is commonly believed among the general populous, and even most Spartans, that all Spartans have unbreakable bones. But alas, they are not. the Carbon reinforcement and cybernetic enhancements give Spartan bones and incredible level of yields strength and blunt resistance. But even those incredible limits are as null when on the receiving end of a gravity hammer.

Ignoring the pain, he walked over to the command console at the Fleet Masters Chair in less than a minute he had deactivated the ships communications array and set the self destruct. before he left the console he took a quick peek at the recent messages that were still on the screen. one message, in particular, caught his interest. it read; "Get it ready, i will inform you when it is time."

Well, that's cryptic.

he checked the time it was sent and found it was sent several seconds before they entered the room.

Interesting. i wonder what it means?. then he shook his head. it won't matter in twenty minutes.

He lifted his helmet and closed it up and clamped it into place as the power came back on. It had been off since the power overload caused by the matrix's shutdown.

Just in time to leave. He thought grimly. I'll just chalk that up to my damned luck.

His eyes turned to Daniel who was leaning against one of the consoles catching his breath. They still tried to keep a little distance between them. They had every right to be cautious. He just did what no other human in the galaxy should have been capable of doing. He killed nine brutes while sustaining enough enemy fire to boil a tank and survived a direct hit from a gravity hammer. They were right to be worried, that should be completely impossible. But he's used to doing the impossible.

Shepard looked at the melted plates on Daniels chest. "Are you ok?"

Daniel looked up when he spoke. "Just a little shook up, Sir. I'll be fine"

"Can you still activate your stealth field with you armor like that?"

He could hear the smile in the man's voice as he raised a wrist and answered. "Generators on my wrist, it should be fine. Every electronic in my chest plate is out though."

"Good, suit up, time to go. We'll make our way for the nearest hanger and keep going till we find one with a ship. Daniel here can't breathe outside anymore."

Without a word the marines sealed their suits and activated their stealth field generators and started walking toward the door.

He stood and quickly made the distance that separated himself and the marines. Stealthily, they worked their way back to the nearest hanger.

After five minute of walking through the halls they heard the chime of an opening door down the hall and out stepped a Sangheili Field Marshal trailed by a group of Four Honor guards. The guards were dressed as though they were ready for an assault. A Type-29 Direct Energy Rifle and a Type-31 Direct energy Pistol. The weapons were very similarly modeled after the more common type-27 versions that most covenant soldiers used but there were some major differences, like rate of fire, power per shot, and the new red color they always were. Of course, they wore their usual red and gold armor. As they walked past the alliance soldiers John also noticed each of the guards wore an energy sword at the small of their backs.

The Marshal was not much different. But they seemed to be walking with a purpose that was not lost on the Spartan.

If i were a betting man, I'd say that this is who that message was sent to.

Following an instant gut feeling, John followed them. His gut may not have been the most reliable source, but, as his dad always used to tell him. "John, whenever in doubt of which way is the right one, follow your gut instinct, it picks up things that your senses won't show you."

How true that was.

The three marines behind him followed.

John checked his countdown timer. He only had another 13 minutes before the ship went boom.

That gave them, at most, another 7 minutes to find a ride and liberate it.

Looks like their heading in the same general direction, if it takes to long we can just drop into any dock we pass and take a drop ship.

They tailed the Marshal and his posy for a good six minutes to a hanger bay on the same side of the ship their Panthers were parked on. When they entered the hanger they were faced with a very unusual ship, one that John had never seen or heard of before. This was greatly disturbing to the Spartan because he was intimately familiar with everything that the alliance new about the Covenant, that went from tactics, weapons tech, their ships designs, armor modification, their languages, everything they had on the Covenant. But this ship was new. And if there was one thing that the Covenant was, it was stubbornly predictable. They may have changed a little with the times but for the most part, the Covenant is exactly what it had been over 3 centuries ago.

Obviously, that's not entirely true anymore.

The ship they were walking toward was jet black and was shaped like a flat chicken egg about seventeen meters long, ten meters wide, and 5 meters tall. The Egg, which is what John decided he would call it, stood on five small legs that held it up off the floor. The metal that the ship was made of was dull and seemed like it didn't reflect light, at all.

He quickly scanned the room. And found that he couldn't "See" it in the scan. It was completely undetectable to his suit.

That's not good. John did not like this ship. Sure, the sensors in his suit weren't the best that the Alliance had, but they were very good. If he couldn't detect it, then most of the ships in the alliances navy wouldn't be able to either. With this ship the Covenant would be able to fly through most of the patrols that flew throughout Alliance space and remain unseen until they came near a core world, they accidentally entered a system with an awaiting fleet, or ran near a prowler or a Dreadnaught.

If a Field Marshal is about to leave in this thing, it's probably not good for us. I'll take it. At the very least, it should tell us a little bit of the Covenant's technological progress over the past century.

He quickly looked around the room and found it must have been an "authorized personnel only" room since there were no other crew in it apart from the five Elites.

He made a few quick hand signals to his team and they spread out to flank their targets that seemed to be prepping the ship.

In moments they were ready but before they could do anything two of the Sangheili walked over to storage door on a wall, opened the door and carried something out of it. when he saw it, John wasn't sure what the thing was. It was a thin oval about 4 feet long that glowed red. The two Sangheili carried it like an old treasure chest with handles that sat off either side of it.

Shepard figured it was important, otherwise the Marshal wouldn't have left the Egg to oversee it's movement. He figured this would be as good a time to act as any.

John stalked up to one of the elites and jammed his blade fist deep under the Elites left arm, driving his blade through both if it's hearts. It still ignored their shields. Before the second one realized that his partner behind him was dead John ran up behind him and took his head clean off his shoulders. his body and head hit the floor a moment later. The three Marines took the other two from behind at the same time; they died from a spray of bullets into their backs.

The Marshal who had been at the door to the vessel till now roared when he saw his men killed from behind and hit his own stealth field generator as he yanked his energy sword from his back.

John was already following the invisible Elite with his pistols as he heard the familiar Hiss of an energy sword activating. With the combined fire of the soldiers the Marshal dropped to the floor before he got a hit in, purple blood running from every orifice.

"Grab that thing." John told the three marines as he ran to the ship pointing at the strange oval. After stepping inside john swept his eyes over the area. The Room he had entered looked like nothing other than a simple airlock so he moved on to the only visible way out of the room, a door in the back. He didn't wait for the marines to follow as he ran to the back of the small entry room he turned left in the hall outside and ran for the cockpit. He passed several rooms on the way quickly clearing each of them as he did so he didn't have to worry about someone coming up to ambush him from behind.

Once in the cockpit he found the pilot seat and started up the ship. He was pleased and relieved to find the ship had been designed much like the many Seraph Fighters he had piloted in his military career. Inside of 30 seconds, about the time it took for the soldiers make their way to the cockpit, he had the ship backing out of the dock.

"This ship is… different…" the Sangheili, Grall said as he took a seat at the comm. Station.

"Amen to that, I had no idea that the Covenant built ships like this." Callia said as she took the Scanners.

"it looks like a stealth craft." that was Daniel

"Let's hope so, if we're going to live through this we need to be fast and quiet."

The new ship that John ordained the Egg covered the distance between the Assault carrier and the edge of the asteroid field in about 6 minutes and to their knowledge, they were completely unseen, otherwise someone would have hailed them. Once at the clearings edge he stopped the ship and waited.

The room was tense as they waited for the ships to blow. John kept checking his timer. It read 20 seconds.

10 seconds…

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

In a sudden bright flash of light the Assault carrier and two of the smaller carriers disappeared to be replaced with a giant fiery ball of super heated plasma and energy that was as bright as a sun that lasted for several long seconds. John could almost feel the blasts heat as it reached out into the rest of the Covenant fleet and completely filled the void in front of the Egg with it's blinding white light.

After a long moment the light faded and the four soldiers on the ship could see what their silent mission had done.

The fleet was brutalized. From what Shepard could see about two dozen ships survived the blast. Though those ships probably suffered major electronic failures due to the overload of the cores of the three that were jerry-rigged into bombs.

The rest of the ships were torn to shreds from having been too close to the carriers or from having a ship that was closer to the center hurled into it by the explosion.

Daniel jumped from his chair. "Hell Yah!" he whooped.

"Doesn't look like they will be much of a threat anymore." Callia happily deduced.

John allowed himself a grin. "No it doesn't."

Grall just shook his head and smiled and started working on his console. "I'll see if I can get a message out to the others. If they survived then they will hear us."

It took several attempts, but the other teams called in and gave their locations for pick up. Once he knew where to fly John turned the thrusters up to high burn and blasted his way to pick up the other survivors.

Galactic Codex: The Covenant

The Covenant Empire, also referred to the Covenant is a religious hegemony made up of several alien species that, up until the conclusion of the Schism, controlled a large portion of the Orion Arm in the Milky Way galaxy. Though it is realized that the Covenant are still a major threat the exact capacity it continues to operate in remains unknown.

Since their first meeting in 2325 The Covenant waged a genocidal campaign against Humanity until the destruction of the San 'Shyuum home world at the end of the "Second Covenant Incursion" of 2480. Since then the Covenant have retreated from explored space and little has been learned of how the San 'Shyuum or the Covenant have managed to survive or retain such a large naval force. of what little is known of them, it is certain that the Covenant will not stop until they are either destroyed or humanity if exterminated.

The Covenant are extremely hostile and are, under no circumstances, to be sought out or communicated with. any sighting of Covenant ships or personnel should be immediately directed to the nearest Alliance representative