Author note: Hallo everyone. I finally got through this chapter but now its finally here at last. Well hope you all like it and as always please comment so I can know what you think of it.
The war begins
Everything around her was burning, like hell itself had raised from the ground. Everywhere were burning skyscrapers falling apart, in the war torn street were the burned remains of corpses of humans, sangheilies and all the other races of the Covenant. Distant explosions, battle and cries of pain could be heard far away as thick pillars of smoke rose high into the sky from the human city Cortana was standing in.
She stood in the middle of a destroyed street, a few remains of cars, tanks even Wraiths could be seen down the long street. She was wearing her MJOLNIR Armor without her helmet but it was badly damaged, burn makes and scratches were all over it. She herself didn't look much better; her face was dirty from sweat, blood and dirt. In her right hand was her broken combat knife.
At the far end of the street was damaged tower extending high above the other building. For some reason she had a feeling that she needed to go there and fast. So she started moving down street of death as fast as he injured legs could carry her. Every time she came upon a crossroad would she look down the other ways just to see the same kind of death and destruction as the street she was currently walking down on. On rare occasions would she think that she saw some kind of dark red figure starring at her from the corner of an alley or peaking from behind a burned out tank or car. She stopped and released a heavy sigh and sucked in the smoke filled hot air and looked up at the sky. The sky was covered in thick red cloud, as if the clouds themselves were on fire. She could just make out the forms of both UNSC and Covenant ships but also a few types she had never seen before inside the cloud layers, probably locked in a bloody battle.
"Hurry… You must hurry… They need you..." Cortana gave a low yelp in freight when she heard the echoing of a thousand of whispering voices, each one seeming to fight for dominance. She tried to locate where they came from but it had sounded like it came from everywhere at the same time.
"W-who's there? Show yourself!" She yelled, her voice echoing in the silent streets of death.
"You need to hurry…" The whispers said again, this time from the direction of the tower. She didn't know why but something made her move again, like the whispers were pulling her that way. She limped forward as fast as her legs would take her and soon found herself inside the towers lobby.
The lobby was filled with large crudely piled bodies of humans and aliens, mixed colored blood sipping out beneath them, blocking all other ways than to an open lift. Most of all she wanted to puke by the sheer amount of gore in front of her and the rotten smell of decaying flesh that followed with piles of dead. But like before the whispers pushed her forward into the lift and made her push the only bottom on the display, the top floor.
The lift rose to the top of the tower giving her a great view over the ruined city. Here and there could fighting be seen as the dark streets were illuminated from the flashes of grenades, plasma rounds and other energy based weapons. Far away, near the outskirts of the large ruined city could an Infinity-class warship been seen cutting through the cloud layer and crashing down towards the ground, fires coming out of dozens of holes in it hull. The scene before her shook her, to see not only all of this death but also because of the Infinity-class warship, the mark of humanities skills to overcome anything, going down in flames.
"Come." Cortana turned around on her heels when she heard the whispers again and readied herself with her broken combat knife only to see that the lift and the surrounding wall had been replaced by a wall of broken glass windows with a set of glass doors, one of them fallen off its hinges and now lied smashed on the floor, leading out to large half circular balcony. At the far end of the balcony stood a muscular dark red humanoid figure, like it was covered from head to toe in old dried blood. A pair of large white eyes with no irises whatsoever stared her dead in the eyes were the only things decorating its face. Small tentacles appeared around its body and seemed to move a little at their own free will, like a tail on a cat or a dog. Its fingers and toes were replaced with razor sharp claws which looked like they could cut through armor plates with little to no effort. Where the mouth should have been began to crack and created a large mouth, as the dried blood colored slim-like skin moved either up or down, forming large sharp fangs. And it spook again, this time far louder, but still with thousands of different voices, than the whispers until now.
"You…you must hurry." The strange alien/monster said, with no emotions in its many voices. "You need to Choose."
"Choose?" Cortana asked in confusion, she shook her head. "Who and what are you anyway?" She demanded to know. The being didn't answer her questions and simply raised its right arm and pointed at something to the left of Cortana. She followed the pointing finger and gasped at what she saw. There on a metal beam fought her father, John-117, with an energy sword in hand against what looked like a large male human clad in an advanced jet black combat suit, this person had what looked like a katana made out of hardened dark blue light as his weapon. It was easy to see that her father was fighting a losing battle.
Cortana was about to rush to aid her father but stopped when she heard the strange being spoke once more.
"Or choose her." It lowered it right arm and lifted its left one and pointed in the opposite direction of her father and his losing dual.
To the left was her mother, Julia, fighting, yet again with an energy sword, what looked like a female human. This time the unknown human was clad in a white and deep sky blue armor with a shining steel colored crown with spikes attached to the top of her helmet. In her hands was what looked like a large halberd with the same kind of hardened colored light. Like her father, her mother was fighting a losing battle.
Cortana turned back at the dark red being in front of her. "So you want me to choose who of my parents live or die?" The being gave a small nodded.
"Choose quickly… Time is running out for both of them." The alien answered, coldly and without any hints of emotion.
Cortana weighted her options. There was no way she could save both of them; the chance of saving both of them was simply too small to make it possible for her to pull it off. Thoughts and calculations raced through her head at a speed that could rival modern slipspace travel. In the end she couldn't come to an outcome where she could save them both, no matter what she tried. She let go of the breath she had been holding the entire time before she gave her answer.
"I-I can't choose between my parents… I-I love them both too much choose between them." She said to the being. Its eyes narrowing, rage boiling in its grace as it glared at her with the power of a super MAC.
"Then… Everyone will die!" It yelled at the top of its lungs, just as both of Cortanas parents let out a scream of pain as they were cut down without mercy by their opponents. Cortana closed her eyes tight and pressed her hands against her ears, trying in vain block out their dying screams. When she opened her eyes again she stared straight into the face of the dark red being before it opened its mouth wide, revealing the long sharp fangs and rushed to bit her face clean off. Cortana could only scream in pure terror before the beings teeth cut its way into her flesh.
_Ω_
The 03/13/2581. Growth: UNSC and Separatists hideout.
Cortana awoke with a scream of terror, combat knife ripped out from under her pillow and clustered in her right hand, as she spotted a shadow moving in the corner of her view. She flung the knife at the shadow with another scream. The sound of metal against metal and after that, the sound of metal digging deep into rock and dirt was heard and the shadow stumbled back into the wall and down on the ground. Cortana panted heavily and waited, not moving a single muscle, in anxiety for the shadow to move again but became a bit confused when she heard the shadow groan a bit. Cortana shook her head and reached for a flashlight near her sleeping bag and turned it on and pointed it at the shadow. The shadow turned out to be one of the Special Operation Sangheilis from one of the teams under Rak Vadams command. Right now the poor Sangheili was sitting on its butt, its back and head resting on the rough dirt wall. It was massaging the back of its head, probably because it hit it when the Sangheili tried to get away from the lethal knife. The knife had nearly buried itself into its forehead. Luckily the knife had only left a scratch on its helmet. That would be the Twelfth scratch the helmet had received from flying knifes during the almost two months that the Sangheili and the Spartan had known each other.
"Oh shit!" Was the only thing Cortana could think of as she got out of her sleeping bag and rushed over to the groaning Sangheili. Luckily for her, she was still wearing her scaled under-suit that covered her body from the toes to her jaw. Being locked inside the same under-suit for the past two months without anything else to change into, not that she was allowed to anyway, didn't really suit her well. At least the under-suit had a few cool mechanisms that prevented her from smelling like a sweaty Jiralhanae and keeping her body more or else clear.
The dark red armored Sangheili was still on the floor when she reached him. He shook his head a few times before trying to back on his feet.
"I take it you had another bad dream again huh. If this keeps up then my head will soon be nailed to that wall" The Special ops Sangheili said, pointing at the hilt of combat knife sticking out of the dirt wall.
Cortana looked away to hide the red color forming on her cheeks. "W-well at least you get some training in dodging fly objects towards your head right? You have improved your reflexes."
The Special ops let out a small laugh before he headed for the opening into Cortanas 'quarters', the same entrance he had used when he went in while she slept. The Sangheili turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder.
"Today's briefing will begin in an hour at the debriefing hall, be there on time." It said rather cold but with no trace of true hostility before disappearing through the opening.
Cortana let out a sigh. She hated this place, this so called base of operations that she and her team and the other ODST teams shared with the Covenant Separatists under Raks command. The base itself had been, at least looked like, an old mining site near a lonely mountain in the planet wide jungle with a few tunnels digging a good two hundred meters into the planet. The Separatists had, with the help of some advanced mining and digging equipment, cut out living quarters, an armory, a mess hall, a debriefing hall and so on before their human allies had arrived. A small chamber had even been dug out for the machine that could fasten the Spartans armor or take it off of them when they weren't on missions.
Cortana went about her morning rituals before leaving her room and heading for the small chamber where she could get armor on. The walk was a brief tour and nothing really happen. She met a few spec Grunts that eagerly greeted her. Most of the grunts in the base had over the past two months taken a liking in their human allies and had been the first the different separatist races to truly open up the humans. Surprisingly, even for the other alien races, the second race to open up was the Hunters. The rumor was that after a successful mission where the 3 meter tall Reach 6, Second Lieutenant Lucas Esbjörnsson, and a pair of hunters, had fought together against some overwhelming odds and survived, had returned to base and sat down in a corner in the mess hall had discussed and written poetry together. The day after all the Hunters seem to be in a better mood around humans compared to the other races expect the Sangheilis of course.
Cortana finally reached the small chamber had Duke, her AI companion, appeared on a small holopad on the machine.
"Thank my creators you're finally here." He called out as soon as Cortana came close to the machine. "Get in so I can put on that armor of yours on you so I can get out of here, it's so boring here."
Cortana complied and stepped into the machine and Duke started the programs. The machine came to life and gathered the last set of MJOLNIR (GEN2) mark II armor and placed the pieces on her body in fast and accurate movements. Less than a minute last stepped a full armored and battle ready Cortana out of the machine. She took Dukes chip out of the machine and placed it in the slot in the back of her helmet, giving the AI access to all of the armors systems. The Spartan and AI left the machine and the small chamber behind them and headed for the debriefing hall.
The hall was almost filled to its limit when Cortana entered through its reinforced doors. Sangheilis and Grunts made up most of the beings inside the hall. After them were the human ODST teams and the almost full team of Spartans. Six pair of Hunters could also be seen scattered around in their representative pairs, one of them talking with Esbjörnsson. Special translators for the Lekgolos, the worms the hunters were made up of, had been develop over the years after the Human-Covenant war. The other Separatist races were in a dire need for a more effective way to communicate with their greatest and maybe their only advantages over the Loyalists. Having superior numbers of nearly 4 meter tall and 5 tons heavy infantry with big guns and near impenetrable armor and capable of fielding more Scarabs than your hated enemy was a great way to give the middle finger right in the face of prophets and their loyal dogs.
Cortana moved through the crowd of aliens towards where most of her team stood, Tay Adams, Reach 1 and team leader of her team, was nowhere to been seen. Warrant Officer Ashley Downhill, Reach 5 and the team's assault specialist, was bragging loudly to a few Elites about her role in the Battle for Janus Key while Major Nikolay Jackson, Reach 2 and second-in-command, was shaking his head because of Ashley overdramatizing everything. The last member of the group was Alex Bush, Reach 4 and the team's demolition expert, who was in the middle of checking a M319 Grenade Launcher, tried to look as bored as humanly possible, the same way he always looked, except when he was blowing things up.
Cortana could still remember the first time she was witness to one of his so called ambush demolitions. It had been a small operation here on Growth about a month back where her team had be ordered to terminate an important convoy of some sort and Alex had more or less rushed on ahead to plant lots of big roadside bombs before the unsuspecting Covenant Loyalists arrived. When the loyalist finally came by they were blown away before they could even blink an eye. Burning body parts and pieces of melted metal flew in every direction, those who survived screamed in agony all the while Alex Bush was smiling like he had seen an incredible beautiful sun down. It was a wonder that he didn't shed a single tear.
Cortana reached her team just in time to hear Tay call out over the chatter of the crowd for silence when he and Rak Vadam entered the hall together. The crowd fell silent and the two commanding officers walked up to the wall farthest from where Cortana and the rest of her team stood. A large holoscreen covered most of the wall and was large enough for everyone, even those who stood farthest away, to see what would happen on the screen. The screen turned on by a command from Rak, showing the Forerunner planet they current was fighting on, Growth, and the surrounding space around it. The three fleets, (the human, separatist and loyalist fleets) in orbit of the planet during nothing more than staring daggers at their foes at the time being. The ground was an entirely other thing. Information on the various frontlines popped up constantly. Information on movements, fortifications, reinforcements and supply lines on both sides were only a small part of the displayed information. Essentially all the kind of info an infiltration unit, like them self, could dream of to greatly ruin the day for the enemy commander.
"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, we got a mission today." Yelled Tay while he typed in a few commands, making the information streams disappear and zooming in on a specific area not too far from their hideout, a little under two days march. The area on the screen cleared to a better resolution and revealed a large forerunner complex pushed up the side of a small mountain, a small river running not far from the front of the complex.
"This Site became active half an hour ago. We don't really know what is happening over there but a slipspace signal is being transmitted to it somewhere deep inside the facility." Rak said, stepping forward taking over the speech while the screen changed again revealing the forerunner facility as a large underground maze stretching hundreds of kilometers into the planet.
"The signal is being received around here" Rak pointed at a small chamber somewhere near the bottom of the facility.
"However, we're not the only ones to have noticed this activity. The Loyalists are preparing to move in just like us but they will get there before us a day or a half at best." The screen changed to the surface and showed a loyalist outpost not far from complex and a few loyalist warships moving closer from orbit to drop off troop transports for planet fall.
"So we're going to launch an assault on the facility after we have observed our enemies positions and defenses around the structure. Other intels that we have gathered for the past half hour says that the enemy commander, Rulatus, is overseeing the fortifications himself. According to the records we have on him he's as smart as he's ruthless so stay look out for traps and other tricks. That's all. We move out in 2 hours, dismiss." Said Tay before all got up and headed out to the armories.
_Ω_
The 03/14/2581. Growth: Near the Forerunner facility
Cortana was sitting on one the highest branches on one of the tallest trees in the area, her back resting against the trees trunk. She observed the fortified entrance to the Forerunner complex through the scope of her sniper rifle. The loyalist had literally turned the place into a fortress with barricades, towers, long range jamming devices, mortar and anti-air Wraiths, a few Ghost, and lots and lots of Jiralhanae, Yanme'es and Kig-yars. Cortana let out a small whistle in impression.
"That Rulatus knows how to build a fort, that's for sure." Cortana said while is looked around a bit more.
"Have you found any weak points in their defenses?" Tay asked over the radio. He and the rest of her team were waiting for her not so far from the tree. The ODST teams and the separatist forces had taken cover in the dense vegetation in front of the river that separated the allied forces from the ancient complex.
"Hm looks like the Loyalists have heavier patrols to our right. I would recommend that we moved our forces a bit further to the left and crossed the river there sir." Cortana suggested while taking another look at the fortifications. But the river will grow slightly larger the further we go left."
"Roger that Cortana, you'll stay put and report on their movements while I inform our allies about moving further to left before crossing the river, Tay out" Tay called over radio before closing the link. If Cortana didn't already know that their stealthy forces were moving around of what signs to look for she wouldn't have noticed that there was a force of nearly 80 walking right below her. The Hunters were of course walking further behind her position so that they wouldn't attract any attention, something that they seemed to be rather unhappy about since they would be the last to enter the fight and get some reaping and tearing done.
"Alright everyone is in position. Prepare to cross the river on my signal… now!" Tay ordered over the force general channel and almost at the same time was a few chains of floats thrown out across the river. Each floater was supported by a large number of tiny repulsor engines, keeping the float over the water under the heavy weight of the Sangheilis. The allied stealth troops crossed the river soon after the chains of floats had reached the other shore by jumping from float to float. When the troops had all crossed the assault began. The sangheili and Spartans stormed out of the low vegetation, taking the loyalist forces by surprise and gunning down as many loyalist soldiers as possible. Following right behind them came an angry mob of special operation Unggoies. Rains of needle, plasma and Fuel Rod fire rained down upon the unlucky Loyalist forces that were in the Unggoies line of sight.
Meanwhile Cortana was busy emptying clip after clip with her sniper rifle, most shots making their way through the head of her target. She was soon out of bullets and the loyalists were still trying to push back the allied force with little luck.
Seeing no reason staying in the tree now that her sniper was out of ammo she swung the rifle over her back, the magnetic locks locking the rifle in place she began make her way over to the nearest float by jumping from tree to tree like she was the queen of the jungle.
Cortana landed heavily on the ground leaving two small craters where she had landed on her feet and ran to the floaters. Like the other soldiers she jumped from floater to floater. Up ahead she could hear the sound of fighting and the agonizing screams of the dying. Cortana jumped one last time and landed of the soft muddy ground, her heavy boots sinking a little into the wet ground. She drew her M6 pistol and move quickly through the vegetation and out into the open field in front of the Forerunner complex.
The Loyalist had been pushed back to the entrance of the complex, taking heavy casualties from the onslaught of the allied races. Cortana dodged a few stray shots and picked up an old brute plasma rifle from a dead Jiralhanae major. There were at least 60 shots left when her armor had completed analyzing the weapon.
She fired a few shot with the plasma rifle, killing two Kig-Yar minors before she threw herself in cover behind the ruins of what had once been the top platform of a watchtower. To her left was Rak taking a few bust shots over the cover with his storm rifle.
"So uhm commander how are you doing?" She asked not really knowing what to ask the young Sangheili and had simply spilled the first thing coming to her mind, much to her own frustration.
"What do you mean, little demon?" Rak looked back at her while a few plasma rounds smashed harmlessly against their cover. "What does it look like I'm doing?" He stood up again and let out a burst of plasma, a Jiralhanae minor falling dead to the ground with numerous bleeding holes and burns on its chest.
"Look pretty much to me like you're owning the battlefield and handing the loyalist their asses." A snort was all she received as an answer before Rak gave orders to push forward once again. The loyalist turned and fled to the Forerunner ruin they so desperately tried to defend. Many of the loyalists that turned and ran never got inside the ruin and simply ended up decorating the metal floor with their blood and dead bodies. Cortana teamed up her squad again before most of the allied forces headed into the ruin and deep into the ground.
_Ω_
Ca. an hour later
Siflion sat on the small stair watching as his troops took samples and scans of the dead aliens and their equipment that they slain when they had awoken after their trip through a Forerunner portal. The small hall was a complete mess. Blood and body parts were everywhere and it had been hard for him to find a clean spot to sit down and relax a bit.
"Hey Captain" No'el called from one of the halls corners. No'el stood over the golden clad ape thing that had spoken to them before Siflion had cut its left arm off and then followed up quickly with decapitating the ugly beast and kicking its body into the aliens behind it. "What is it No'el?" Siflion called back.
Siflion could almost see the stupid smile on No'els face when lifted the large hammer that the ape had used as its weapon. Holding it out in front of him like it was the pet he never got when he was a kid. "Can I keep it?"
"N… you know what just keep it for now. I think the eggheads back home still would like to have a look at that primitive type of weapon." No'el grinned like a small kid before he started searching for something among all the gore and let out an "ARH HA" and showed everyone the head of the hammers previous owner. No'el then proceed to fasten the head to the hammers blade with some wire he found from ancestors know where. How he got the head strapped on to the hammer with wire would Siflion not even go into details about only that it was messy and very bloody.
"There! All done." the head now dangling from the hammerhead before No'el placed the massive hammer on his back the gravity locks holding it in place right beside his rifle. Siflion shook his head.
"No'el have I ever told you that you're the craziest assassin I have ever met?" No'el nodded his head a few times. "657 times or 660 if we count that one time on Gul'dor Marloc. I keep count... It has become a bit of a hobby." No'el said as he inspected what was left of the upper has of a Yanme'e.
"Right." Siflion said and turned to Heloan. "Heloan I want someone to make a pulse scan of this facility. I don't want us running around in a Forerunner facility on an unknown planet without knowing if there could be more of those lunatics walking its halls." Heloan nodded and stepped into the middle of the room spread her arms out the sides. Her shield flared bright before it exploded and a shockwave of energy spread out in all dictations. She stood there for a few moments before she let her arms fall down again. She grabbed a holo cube from a pocket and threw it into the air. The hall was bathed in the light of the hologram. Slowly the corridors and halls of the Forerunner facility appeared as Heloans servitor processed the data from the energy pulse. Eleven green dots indicated the Night Lords position. They were deep down in the facility. Numerous yellow dots were spread throughout the facility. And then there were the red dots. Forerunners. The red dots along with a number of yellow dots were making their way down the facility.
"Well looks like we'll get to kill some Forerunners after." A sinister smile crossed Siflions face. "Alright folks let us go give those Forerunners a very warm welcome" he drew his rifle and activated it before heading for the doors out of the hall. His soldiers forming up behind him with evil smiles of their own. Forerunner blood would be spilled or so they thought.
_Ω_
Half an hour later
Cortana and her team, along with two ODST teams and some Separatist, were fighting in a large hallway to the next lift down. The battle was running smoothly, the loyalist forces were in complete disarray. At first when the allied forces had entered the ruin had their foes had thought with great tactic and had managed to kill several of the allied troops. Two of the original four ODST teams had been thought fully eliminated and a good handful of the Separatists had been killed too. But now… now the loyalist lacked both tactic and coordination. They were like headless chickens, running around not knowing where they were heading. Cortana was of course happy about the table had turned in their favor but something felt wrong with the sudden change. It was like their entire command structure had suddenly vanished in the thin air. Could it be because they had found what ever had been activated down here? It seemed unlikely it didn't explain why loyalist commanders would just abandon all coordination between their forces no matter what they had found.
"Cortana wake up!" Cortana shook her head and looked at Tay who was standing in the middle of the hallway, the battle had ended a few moments before. "Sorry sir" was all she could say as she got out of her cover.
"Yeah you better be. I don't need a soldier spacing out in the middle of a battle." He turned around and signaled for the rest of the force to move towards the lift at the end of the hallway.
"Sir the lift is coming up! Prepare for battle!" An ODST yelled. Everyone ran to cover and prepared themselves for another fight. The lift came to a stop and revealed its cargo. It was not more loyalist soldiers as allied had thought it would be but eleven human-like figures clad in piths black armor from top to toe. Pitch black armor that Cortana remembered from her nightmare. The one who had fought and killed her father.
No one fired their weapons and simply observed each other before one of the black armored beings spoke up.
"That's not Forerunners. I thought there would be Forerunner to kill." The one with a gravity hammer resting on right his shoulder.
"Isn't that the head of Rulatus, the loyalist commander?" Asked an ODST who was pointing at some hanging from the hammer and sure enough it was Rulatus' ugly head hanging from the hammerhead. "And what was that about killing Foreru-" Cortana couldn't hold it back anymore and with a scream at the top of her lung she flung a frag grenade at the eleven black beings. They reacted with incredible speed and threw themselves away the explosive, out of its destructive zone. And as quickly as they had reacted to the grenade so did they retaliate. A storm of Antimatter fire rained down at the allied forces with deadly accuracy. Unggoies were blown to pieces before they ever had the chance to understand that they were dead. A Snagheili got its head blown right off from a sniper round, sending blood and brain matter everywhere.
"Pull back! Pull back!" Yelled Tay as his cover was slow eaten away, turned into pure energy from the small antimatter rounds. They tried to pull back as quickly as possible, the Spartans and a few Sangheilis providing covering fire but not all got out safely. Numerous ODST troops were gunned down from unlucky shots or were blown away by larger antimatter round. Sometimes the soldier himself got turned into energy and send what was left of him everywhere in bloody bits.
The beings began to advance, hoping to close the distance and finishing off the Spartan team and the remaining Sangheilis in go.
"Lucas, give us covering fire! We'll cover your retreat everything we got when we're clear" Yelled Tay to the massive Swedish Spartan who just nodded before he threw himself out of cover and out in the middle of the hallway before fully unleashing the wrath of his machinegun. High caliber bullets sprayed out towards the eleven beings forcing them into cover as their shields were running low on power. The rest Reach team jumped out of cover and ran down to the other end of the hallway and began firing their weapons at the enemy. Lucas ceased his fire and turned and ran as fast as could back to his team, having complete faith in them to have his back. As soon as Lucas rounded the corner the team of Spartans sprinted towards the nearest lift up from this hell.
"Where the others?" yelled Cortana as sprinted beside Tay. He just shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe they have already taken the lift or they are somewhere else down here." Spartans and that were left of the Sangheilis soon reached the large circular lift hovering in the middle of a bottomless tunnel. They all on and Tay activated the control, the lift started to slowly rise.
"One of them is coming toward us!" One of the Sangheili called and pointed at the fast moving black figure, the one with the gravity hammer. Everyone raised their weapons and fired at it, forcing it into cover behind a pillar. Cortanas motion sensor flared up that something heading straight at them again.
"I got movement! It must have some kind of active cloaking or something!" yelled Cortana to the others. "Then shoot, shoot everywhere!" The wide hallway filled with bright lights as bullets and plasma smashed into it surface. A bullet it something in midair right above the lifts railing, sending ripples, from where the bullet had hit, over the invisible figures surface. An unlucky ODST was hit by a swing from the gravity hammer, launching him with great speed off the lift. The black figure landed near the middle of the platform, the Sangheilis grabbed their swords and charged the black human shaped monster. The Spartans switched to their combat knifes and joined in too. The black figure jumped into the air before it smashed the hammer into the platform, sending everyone within its blast radius flying over railing everyone expect Cortana managed to get a hold in the railing in the last minute. On top the platform stopped the black being in its tracks to the sound of something charging up. It turned around to see a plasma grenade not far from it. It didn't even have the time curse before the grenade went off and send it flying head first off the lift and back into the hallway from where it came from. Meanwhile Cortana could only watch as fell to what would most likely be her death.
_Ω_
Siflion didn't know make of the situation right now. According to the scan they should have been Forerunners but the dead body in front of him told him that it was some kind of human, maybe another species of human? Back before the war the Forerunners and Flood there had had been dozens of different kinds of subspecies of human. This one could most likely be one of them but that didn't explain why they had Forerunner genes encoded into their DNA. Granted according the data Siflion had access to at the moment the Forerunner genes didn't code for anything at all. It was just junk DNA. Siflion was ripped from his thoughts when he spotted No'el approaching him, dragging the gravity hammer behind him lazily. No'el seemed to limp a bit on his right leg and the entire front of his armor was covered in burn marks.
"Did you take care of them?" Siflion asked but didn't expect it to be the answer he was hoping for. No'el shook his before he dropped to the ground to rest a little. "No but I got two of them." Groaned No'el and mumbled something under his breath that Siflion didn't quite catch something about grenades and someone ass.
"Alright we go after them soon. We're just waiting for the last samples." Siflion said clapped No'el on the shoulder a few times and raised voice. "Everyone, form up on me. We need to go hunting a bit more. The other Sinners rose to their feet and followed their captain towards the lift.
_Ω_
Cortana woke up to a world of pain, instantly wising to return the blissful realm of unconsciousness but she knew she had get up those things was maybe not far away. With clenched teeth and pain grunts she got back on her feet, her entire body screaming in protest.
"D-Duke… Are you there?" a few moments went by before the image of the AI appeared a small smile on his lips.
"Good to see you're finally awake I was beginning to worry. How are you?" He asked. Cortana didn't answer straight away but drew her M6 pistol and started the painful walk down the corridor, away the small balcony she apparently had hit when she fell from the lift.
"I-I have seen better days thank you. Did I receive any critical injuries from the fall?" Duke shook his head but called up a screen showing her the condition of the insides of her entire body. A few bent ribs and minor internal bleeding in her lower left leg and bruises everywhere.
"No critical injuries detected I would advise seeking out a medic as soon as possible, I can however release some of the armors painkiller reserves if you would like that." Duke said as both the image of his avatar and screen of her body disappeared, allowing Cortana to see clearly once more.
"A little bit please just to take the tip of the iceberg how about the status of the suit?" Cortana took a deep breath as the painkillers injected into her system and almost immediately took effect.
"The shield projectors got badly damaged by the fall and have lowered its efficiency to 55 % so I would also advice against getting shot more than normal." Cortana let out a snort. "What's that support to mean?"
"Oh nothing really, just that you're getting shot at quite a lot compared to other Spartan snipers." Cortana would have hit him if he had a physical body. The end of the long corridor ended in an intersection. The corridor in front of her and to her right was seal tight by large blast doors only the doorway to her left was open and allowed her to move further into the facility. With no other choice she walked that way. The hallway ended with a single large door. The door opened up as soon as she got near it. The inside looked a lot like some kind of command center. Two or three Holotables was lined up with three or four meters in between, the gentle bluish light from the tables was all that light up the room. A large set of glass windows occupied the side opposite the entrance, showing nothing but complete darkness. Cortana walked slowly into the room, gun at the ready, and walked over to the table in the middle. Cortana was about to lower her gun when a small friendly laughter was head from above.
Cortana aimed her gun at the source of the laughter and almost fired before she saw what was laughing. The spherical form of a monitor slowly floated down from the celling to her eye level and invading her personal space. Its large blue 'eye' staring at her before it hovered back, putting some much needed distance between them.
"Splendid, splendid. Just in time for the final preparations." The monitor happily said more to itself than Cortana while it spun around itself as to physically express how happy it was. Cortana holstered her gun, clearly this monitor meant her no harm or else it would already have. Cortana coughed a few times to get the attention of the monitor.
"Just in time for what preparations?" She asked.
"The final preparations before launch of course." The monitor answered and commanded the three holotables show the status of five Forerunner ship apparently docked somewhere that either the allied or the loyalist could find. Duke made a note on the energy output on each of the five ships was high enough to power hundreds if not thousands of super MACs. "Didn't Janus Key explain that the Librarian had a gift for you Reclaimers?"
Cortana shook her head. "No it was destroyed before we got extracted much of the data."
"Hmm an unfortunate miscalculation from the Librarians side… That is very rare indeed." The monitor fell silent after that, as if pondering what it should do now. "Well I still have to carry out my task so let us proceed… Oh and how rude of me I haven't even introduced myself yet. The first living being to talk to in a hundred thousand years and I forget to introduce myself uhh the Librarian would have been so disappointed in my." The monitor swung wildly around in the air while it scolded at itself and finally turned back to face Cortana. It's eye once again invading her private space, staring straight into her eyes.
"I am 957 Tainted Vow and I'm the monitor of this facility." With that it pulled back and turned to a console and a shot a short energy beam from it eye. The second later the darkness behind the large set of windows was chased away from light sources that Cortana couldn't see. The Windows reveal a massive mechanical cave. It must have been dozens of kilometers long and just as tall. The celling leading up to an eleven kilometer wide tunnel that Cortana would guess went all the way up to the surface. In the middle of this massive hall was a slipspace bubble almost half a kilometer in diameter. "What's that?" Cortana heard herself ask out loud as she stood near the windows.
Tainted Vow chuckled "One of the five 100 kilometer long Fortress-Class Vessels that the Librarian had prepared for you, Reclaimer." As turned to her. "Fully armed and loaded to full capacity with weapons, attack vessels and other resources. Each of the five Fortress vessels can fight a small without any help." An arc of countless metal pieces suddenly formed at far end of the room to the left of Cortana and Tainted Vow. Probably Tainted Vows work. A vortex manifested inside the arc, making it look like reality itself was sucked to the swilling vortex.
"Where does that one lead to?" Cortana asked while she pointed at the vortex. Tainted Vow chuckled again. "I'll release the bubble surrounding this Fortress and teleport us unto the bridge and then release the other four and then get them into space." Just as Tainted Vow said the slipspace bubble burst and out of the small bubble came the biggest starship Cortana had ever seen. It was covered in hanger bays and massive energy canons. Cortana gasped at the scales of the ship before shook her head and slowly turned to face the portal and walked into it Tainted Vow right behind her.
_Ω_
Cortana and Tainted Vow appeared on the enormous bridge of the Fortress-class vessel in a flash of light. Cortana her head spin for a second, the aftereffects of the teleportation quickly disappearing. She had no time to react when the engines of the great ship started up after hundreds of thousands of years of slumber. She watched as the ship slowly accelerated through the large tunnel above it up toward the surface of the planet. The fortress was soon clear of the tunnel and raised high into the sky, aiming for outer space. The bridge seemed to disappear, like they were standing in nothing but air. Cortana could barely spot the other fortress vessels in the far distance, all of them also slowly making their way up into space.
She shook her head a few times; shaking herself out the awe stuck trance she caught herself in, and turned to Tainted Vow.
"My team… Can I somehow contact the rest of my team? You know amplify the signal or something?" Tainted Vow just bobbed a few times, a nod of some sort if Cortana should give a guess. The bridge reappeared and a console was created from hard light.
"Just place a hand on this console and the ship will broadcast your massage on the same frequency… I hope given your primitive technology." Cortana didn't comment on the last part and placed her right hand on the console.
"This is Reach 3 to Reach 1 do you copy?" A moment went by, no one answered. Cortana tried one more time and finally some answered but who she was expecting.
"This is Reach 2 what's your status? Last time we saw you, you were falling to death." Nikolai asked, his voice coming clearly through the channel.
"I'll live, though I could use a medic to take a look at my bent ribs. I'm currently onboard one of five Forerunner spacecraft's."
"I would recommend visiting the medical bay. It should have the necessary facilities to heal your injuries." Tainted Vow advised, a portal already forming behind her and Tainted Vow.
"Who was that?" Nikolai asked, hearing Tainted Vows voices through the com channel. Cortana turned to the portal and casted a back to the console.
"A forerunner monitor. He's the one who controls the Forerunner ships right now."
"Right a monitor… Anyway Reach team and the rest of the separatist forces are heading back to the fleet. Some Loyalist reinforcements were so kind to distract those black armored guys long enough for us to make it to the dropships and away from that facility. I'll tell command that the Forerunner ships aren't hostiles." With that Cortana entered the portal and appeared in a large medical bay full of advanced medical equipment that would be every doctor's paradise.
_Ω_
The five Fortress-Class vessels finally left the planets outer atmosphere close to the allied fleet. It looked like the loyalists was about to make a final attempt on an offensive. Throwing everything they got into it. But just before the first lines of ships were within firing range multiple slipspace ruptures were detected just behind the rear of loyalist fleet.
Three large slipspace portals opened up and a Titan-class fleet carrier emerged from each one of them with their own escort of Devoted-Class heavy cruisers, Loyalty-Class light cruisers, Wave-Class battleships and Warlock-Class frigates appeared from the portal forming into a terrifying fleet of conquest and destruction.
On the bridge of the middle titan fleet carrier, a Kronos subclass at that, stood Vice Admiral Ta'nul Gro'val and observed the large hologram of the two fleets facing each other not far from the Forerunner planet. He made a grimace as he spotted the massive Forerunner Fortress-class vessels heading into the fleet furthest away from his own. According to the records the Empire had on these vessels they should only had been around 50 kilometers but these were twice as big. The Forerunners must have upgraded since the Human-Forerunner war… That was of course to expected after more than 110.000 years.
"How many Forerunners?" He asked, not turning his eyes away from the hologram in front of him. The five massive ships now close to the center of the fleet it was heading into.
"Sir, we count 60 Forerunner ships… That is if we count those who are based on Forerunner tech too." An officer answered. The ships of interest turned a bright yellow on the hologram. "What primitive ships" Thought Gro'val to himself. His thought thick with venom. Gro'val turned his eyes on the officer his expression explaining everything. He wanted an explanation.
"U-uhm parts of the ships are based on Forerunner technology l-like those 5 kilometer long ships, their engines are of Forerunner design and the smaller ones shields resample Forerunner shield technology." The Gro'val just nodded and turned his eye back on the hologram. The fleet closest their own was beginning to turn their rear around to them.
"What about those other ships? What about them." The Officer just nodded. They too had small parts of Forerunner technology in them. Gro'val snorted this was unlike the Forerunners, they wouldn't have allowed other species to poke around with their technology… Not without approval at least. But that didn't matter right now he and his fleet had been dispatched by the Lord of Admiral himself to retrieve prince Siflion and his Night Lords not question how the Forerunners now treated their miserable slave races.
"Open up all channels I want to deliver a message to the Forerunners and our dear Sinner prince." The last two words was spoken disgust. A channel was opened up.
"This Vice Admiral Ta'nul Gro'val of the Human Empire I am here to retrieve a very important individual that is somewhere on this planet and everyone who stand in my way will be destroyed." The channel was closed and Gro'val turned to his crew on the bridge, a murderous spark in his eyes.
"All forces battle stations, destroy them all." Gro'val could hear as the canons on his ship powered up for battle, he smiled. The Reaper would be busy today.
The imperial fleet opened fire, almost all ships at once. The powerful rains of antimatter fire cut through the front of the ships of Covenant loyalist fleet like a hot knife through butter. The loyalist had been prepared however and quickly followed up with their own barrages of plasma and laser fire. Most of the counter attack bunched off on the powerful shields of the larger imperial vessels while smaller ones like light cruisers and frigates got torn apart with in minutes.
Swarms of fighters, bombers and gunboats soon crossed in between the huge ships on both sides and everything became chaos. But through all the chaos an imperial dropship escorted by two squadrons of Wing superiority fighters descended towards the planet to pick up a specific group of Sinners and their prince.
The Imperial fleet advanced into the Loyalists ranks who tried to put some distance to the quickly advancing fleet. The loyalist fleet was soon cut into two as the imperial pushed through the middle and gained access to the combined fleets of the Separatists and UNSC.
Plasma torpedoes, missiles and MAC rounds rained down on the Imperial forces, destroying countless crafts. That was until one of the massive Titan-Class fleet carriers pushed through up to the front and unleased a large volley fire at the weakened allied ships. Explosions erupted on dozen of ships as the antimatter tore through the hulls and into the vulnerable parts of the ships.
The allied fleet pulled back as fast as it could, taking advantage of the fight between the loyalist and the imperials, enabling them to escape from the battle and into slipspace, an Assault carrier and an Infinity-Class warship with what were left of their escort to fend off any pressures. First the Assault carrier succumbed under the constant fire from the larger fleet carrier, fires covering its surface and massive holes in its hull spitted out anything from air to the crew itself. The Assault carrier received one last volley of fire before it blew up in magnificent explosions. Scrap metal flying everywhere from the kinetic force generated from the explosions. Next fall pray before the might of the imperial fleet was the now lonely Infinity-Class warship. Already badly damaged from other opponents in didn't take long before it suffered the same fate as the assault carrier. It stuck down by a beam of antimatter from an Armageddon-Class Dreadnought. The beam digging its way deep into the warship before the antimatter was released, making the warship detonate from the inside out. With the rest of the allied fleet gone the imperial forces took their frustrations out on what remain of the loyalists that hadn't miraculously fled, been boarded or outright annihilated.
_Ω_
Several hours later
"Cortana… Cortana" Someone was calling her name. The voice sounded familiar but she couldn't put her finger on whose it was. She slowly opened her eyes, white light streaming in and blinding her. After a few moments after having closed her eyes again she tried to open them again. This time she could make out the silhouettes of a human form and a floating ball. Her blurry vision soon returned to normal and she saw that it was Tainted Vow and Tay Adams that was standing over her or floating over her in Tainted Vows case.
"Cortana, finally you woke up!" Tay said relieved that she was finally awake. Tainted Vow simply turned around and headed to parts unknown to Cortana right now without saying anything.
W-where am I? What h-happened back there?" Cortana asked as she sat straight up immediately regretting it as everything began to spin and dark dots appeared in vision. Tay quickly grabbed her shoulder and lied her gently down again on whatever she was laying on. Right now she didn't really care it was comfortable and that was all that mattered right now. That was when she saw it. Tay Adams was missing his left arm. Only a small stub was left. It was like someone had cut it off or blown it off.
"Y-your arm… What happened to it?" She managed to ask, her throat feeling as dry as sand. Tay grimaced at the question and looked away for a short time before he sighed heavily and looked back at her.
"It appears that those black armored guys make use of some kind antimatter based weaponry. I took three or four shots to the arm and they turned it into energy powerful enough to blow the rest that still hung together clean off" Tay turned around, having figured out that she something drink, and reached with his remaining hand at a bottle of water on a tray with some glasses on too not far from where Cortana lied. He filled a glass and held it under her mouth, allowing her to sip from the glass. The water did its work almost immediately. Cortana gave a small thank you to her leader and Tay placed the now empty glass back on the tray.
"So… You didn't answer my first question sir, where are we?" Cortana looked around from where she was laying. What she could see was some of the medical facilities onboard the Forerunner vessel. So she was still on the Forerunner Fortress vessel but where in the galaxy?
"We're orbiting Sanghelios right now. We made a few jumps to shake them off our trail. How do you feel?" Tay smiled. Cortana, feeling better now stood up slowly and stood on shaky legs but apart from feeling a little dizzy she felt great. Her chest didn't hurt anymore and it looked like the internal bleeding in her leg had been healed too.
She took a few deep breaths. "I'm fine now, thank you." Tay just nodded and turned toward the metal door at the far end of the medical bay.
"Good, Fleet Admiral Tomas Lasky wants to debrief us personally. Let's go." Cortana followed first a bit unsteady on her legs but soon walked normally again.
_Ω_
A few minutes later
Cortana, Tay Adams and Tainted Vow had boarded a Pelican dropship from one of the many hanger bays on the Fortress vessel towards the UNSC New Dawn. UNSC and Separatist personal had apparently boarded the Forerunner ship while Cortana had been unconscious and was now roaming trough the massive ships. The group of three soon made it to a communication room. The rest of Reach team along with Rak 'Vadam, his father, Thel 'Vadam, and a few other high ranking Sangheilies were already standing in the room. The large screen, active, was split between two humans, the left side showing Fleet Admiral Tomas Lasky and the right showing Admiral Serin Osman, An old Spartan-II and the chief of ONI.
"Ah finally here I see." The chief of ONI said rather annoyed that it had taken them so long to here, wasting her precious time. "So that's the monitor that controlled the Forerunner vessels." The old Spartan crossed her arms and looked indifferent at the monitor before eye once more scanned the room with eyes as cold as ice.
"I'm 957 Tainted Vow a pleasure to meet you all." The monitor said, Cortana would have guessed that it would be smiling if it had mouth. Tainted Vow only short nods from most and a hallo from Tomas Lasky.
"I can understand from the reports I have already received that some unknown enemy appeared at the final stage of the battle of Growth, any idea who they are?" Asked Lasky looking at the members of Reach team and then over to Rak, waiting for someone to answer. A light chuckled drew everyone's attention to Tainted Vow.
"Oh they're not an unknown to me. According to my databanks they're what my previous master, the Librarian, called purehumans although those individuals in my facility had undergone extensive genetic manipulations even compared to Forerunners." Serin Osman leaned forward in her chair, her curiosity awakened.
"What do you mean with purehumans exactly?" Tainted Vow shook itself side to side in midair, as if shaking its head.
"The term purehumans were given to the species of humanity that lived in the galaxy before and during the war between the Forerunners and the Flood. During the human-Forerunner war humanity was also known as the Human Empire. Those black armored beings some of you fought in my facility seems to be of purehuman descent. How that is possible is unknown to me as all of them were killed after the conclusion of the human-Forerunner war and that's not even taking into account the firing of the Halos."
"So what about us, what are we?" Lasky asked his face clearly showing his concern about another hostile human faction out there than the Insurrections. And this far more advanced than he liked it to be.
"Yes, I wanted to ask that too. One of those Purehumans thought we were Forerunners…Why?" asked Tay Adams, he rubbed the small hair stubs on his chin.
"That's because of the Forerunner DNA the Liberian inputted in your genetic codes. You're not humans but Reclaimers. That's why you can use Forerunner technology of course." Tainted Vow said happily. The others exchanged looks. They now had a force of super advanced humans that apparently had returned from who knows where to fight the Forerunners and said humans thought they, the Reclaimers, where some kind of Foreunners, Just what everyone needed right now.
_Ω_
Meanwhile back on in orbit of Forerunner planet: Growth.
It was nice being surrounded by imperials other than his squad again. . Not he had anything against the members of his squad he was after all the one who personally put assembled it but right now they were elsewhere. Probably helping containing the prisoners that had been captured onboard this vessel that Siflion was on. This ship and a few others had been boarded by Terror Minor droids, disgusting octopus like robots that excelled in terror tactics and armed with a bust laser six arms with razor sharp claws. They could somewhat be grouped together with the Forerunner sentinels but had a more offensive role rather than just guarding or maintaining a place. The Terror Minors had more or less overrun the ship's crew with sheer numbers, agility and brutal force and had ripped a little more than half of the crew to pieces. Some of the survivors were in shock after their encounter with the Terrors droids.
He stood on the bridge with a few other Imperial technicians and engineers who were trying to unlock retrieve whatever data that there was left after the ship's crew tried to destroy any data on their computers. Up on the celling rested a few Terror Minors keeping an eye on everything that happen and ready to rush down on anyone that appeared hostile to any of the imperials. The technicians had been able to gather a few pieces of information here and there. Like the data logs for the last few days of battle and other things like whom they were and stuff like that. Siflion shook his head. It was disturbing that the Covenant, as they called themselves, worshiped the Forerunners as their gods and how they had tried to destroy some heretics and humanity for many years. It felt somehow wrong that there should be another human nation out there between the stars who were using Forerunner technology but the more Siflion read the more convinced was he that those Forerunners or should he say humans that his squad had encountered inside the Forerunner facility really were humans.
"My lord, a moment please." A technician called from the other side of the room. "I got something here." Siflion walked over him. The technician had his equipment linked up to the Covenants computers, the hologram on the primitive computer showed a few points on a star map. The technician smiled. "I found some of their worlds, my lord." Siflion nodded his approval to the technician and looked at the hologram.
The hologram displayed the coordinates to three planets: Balaho, the homeworld of the Uggory, and Palamok, the homeworld of the Yanme'e and Harvest, a human colony. Harvest, those coordinates remind me of something.Siflion turned to the technician and asked him show him a map of the old human empires worlds. Siflion smiled to himself when he found out that the coordinates for Harvest was the same as an old imperial world. Looks like these human have taken a world from us. Siflion turned around on his heels and headed for the door out of the bridge. He needed to gather his team and report back to the Aldu Tasmor, the Lord of Admirals, he would like to hear what they had gathered of information.
Author note: Ok so I have be searching for while about how powerful a Monitor is in terms of controlling vessels as big as the Fortress vessels so I want to what you think on the matter. personally I don't think they can fully control five vessels of that size but I might be wrong and I don't think that a monitor monitoring a Halo is that much in control of it. Buuut well please prove me wrong if I am.