November 20th
2583
Outside Galactic Republic Senate Building
13:30 UNSC time
Corusant
3rd Person POV:
High into the skies, Republic Acclamators and Venators fly around in all directions to look for any surviving Separatist and Insurrection resistance.
Despite the victory they have achieved, they have also lost so much. The Senators are being interviewed about what happened on Corusant and how close they came to dying a violent death. The UNSC marines are helping the Corusant Guards keep order on the planet, since thousands of sentients are trying to protest against the insistence of continuing the Clone Wars, even after everything that has happened.
While the Jedi discusses the recent events, Sergeant Redfield is escorting President Peterson so he can come to terms with the deaths of his soldiers and the 2, along with Thel and the last of his Honor Guard are being publicly congratulated by Chancellor Palpatine for their heroic acts to save Corusant, Master Chief stands at the edge of the Senate Building. All he can do is stare at the vast city-planet, the destruction it endured and their re-building. While Chief won't show it on the outside since it is against protocol, he is deeply affected by the death of the Fleet Admiral he had served with since the Human-Covenant War. How many more people will die before this new war ends?
As Chief continues staring at Corusant, Sergeant Redfield walks up to the towering Spartan. "Chief, sorry to interrupt. We have got a situation that requires your presence."
Chief doesn't say a word, but simply follows the UNSC Sergeant as they briskly march past the tall statues that stand out front and make their way to Peterson, Thel and Palpatine who have grim faces as a red-armored clone is telling them a report. "What's the situation?" Chief asks bluntly.
"It's about the prisoners detained at the Republic Judiciary Central Detention Center. They all broke out while the Separatists sent that strange ring to our system."
Thel barely hold himself back from punching anything. "It was a trick. They split us up so your Separatists could gain new allies."
Peterson also looks deeply disturbed by what she heard. "I agree. Something's going on, and we need to be ready for whatever else is thrown at us."
November 21st
Midnight Facility
Asteroid Belt, Sothra Hakkor system
15:45 UNSC time
"Hey, Dennis."
"Yeah, Jerry?"
"Are we supposed to be doing something right now?"
For the last 10 minutes, the UNSC soldiers known simply as Dennis and Jerry are just standing around in the middle of a massive docking bay, with dozens of Pelicans docked and ready for quick deployment, over 200 UNSC on standby to secure the hundreds of prisoners trapped in their cubes. As if that wasn't enough, every single asteroid within a 10-klick radius has Super MAC cannons installed into them and probes are monitoring the system for any intruders. Needless to say, the Midnight Facility has been ready for large-scale invasions and attacks for centuries and has remained as formidable as ever over the years.
"Uh… I don't know." Dennis responds, just staring into face with a blank look on his face.
"While, we're waiting, I just want to let you know that I love you."
Dennis directs his attention towards his partner and stares at him in shock. "Um…OK? What does that have to do with anything?"
"It means that if you don't start telling me what our mission is in the next 10 seconds, I am going to kill someone!" Jerry shouts, an angry look on his face.
"Okay, okay. Geez. We are supposed to be waiting for a prison transport to drop off the new batch of prisoners."
"Oh. Well, where the fuck are they? I think my sandwich is starting to collect mold."
Just then, the sounds of a ship's engines can be heard and they look into the distance. Sure enough, a large prison transport similar in design to the infamous Tartarus starts flying through the vast emptiness of space to the asteroid where the Midnight Facility is. "There it is." Dennis says flatly.
After a considerable amount of time, the docking bay walls open up and the prison transport starts slowing down before setting down on the docking bay, the doors closing behind it. Dozens of marines with shock batons in their hands start walking out and towards the transport as the side doors start opening. "Um…Shouldn't we be helping them?" Dennis asks, staring at the doors as they continue to slide open, and the prisoners start walking out.
"Nah. Those guys have it covered. Although, I'm wondering who that dude is." Jerry says, gesturing to one of the prisoners. Dennis looks in that direction and sees one of the prisoners. He is wearing cobalt armor with an even lighter blue visor covering his face. "He looks like one of those sim troopers."
"Who?" Dennis asks.
"The sim troopers. You know, the Reds and Blues. The simulation troopers who have been dealing with ghosts, bounty hunters, agents for that evil organization, insane brutes and a civil war for over a decade." Jerry says, his voice starting to get higher in octave.
Dennis mulls over everything he heard for a second before responding. "Nah, never heard of them."
Jerry stares at his partner, dumbfounded. "What kind of shit are you high on, Dennis?"
"I'm not sure. What I do know is that I drink 4 or 5 Cokes every day."
"…Are you diabetic or something?"
"It sure sounds like it." A sadistic voice says behind them. They whirl around, guns raised and notice the light blue soldier standing mere feet from them. In the distance, several human prisoners are standing over the bodies of the defeated marines, holding the soldier's shock batons in their hands.
"…Son of a bitch." Jerry says, before the soldier grips Dennis's and Jerry's heads and slams them together, knocking them out.
"Captain Temple, the area's secure." Says a prisoner with short black hair and a dragon tattoo on the right side of his neck, grabbing a shotgun from one of the troops.
"Good. Sergeant Major Gecko, take half of your men and hold your position in here. The Shawshank is our only way to evacuate. The rest of you, you're with me. Secure the objectives." Temple says, then grabs a magnum and keycard from another marine's corpse before running to the closed door. Suddenly, alarms start blaring and the door slides open and a dozen fully-armed marines run out firing their assault rifles.
The Insurrectionists dodge to the sides, firing the weapons they pulled while Temple and his men sneak around the battle and run down the facility. Deeper and deeper into the facility they go, past rooms that are sealed shut by doors. They take a sharp right and come to 2 doors, 'Detainment' and 'Detainment Control' as even more marines start running to the docking bay. The squad of troops slip into the Detainment Control room so they can open every cell in the facility. Temple continues running down the corridor until he reaches a door at the far side of the hall, then pulls out the keycard before placing it against a holographic scanner on the left side of the wall.
The panel beeps before glowing green and the door slides open. On the other side is a large metal room with a single bench and a glass wall separating Temple from the man on the other side of the wall. "You took your time getting here." He says.
"We didn't have an easy time getting here, Malcolm Hargrove." Temple says as the glass wall lets out an audible hiss and the glass wall slides up. Malcolm sucks in a large breath and steps out of the cube. "I assume that you have a plan to escape."
"Please. Do you think we would orchestrate an escape plan without a way to leave?" Temple asks, trying to act as normal as he can. Just then, he starts receiving a transmission and he taps the side of his helmet. "Gecko, what's going on?"
"We have a major situation on our hands!" The Insurrectionist shouts, sounding panicked.
Temple growls. "I swear to God, if Buckey is slacking off because he has been downloading porn again, I am going to split his fucking head."
"Our pilot is not downloading porn, Captain. We have some unexpected guests. We need to pull the Shawshank out of the facility now if we are to secure our only way to escape. Sorry, Captain, you're on your own for now."
"What? No. Don't…Fuck!" Temple shouts as the transmission is cut off. Before he could rant any more, the sounds of guttural talking can be heard. Temple walks out and the door slides open. In the middle of the hallway are a dozen Brutes, wearing orange armor over their bodies and escorting a crouching Sangheili with green armor and blue trim. Temple and Hargrove stay in their place for several long moments before the Brutes continue walking down the hallway, arguing with each other in their native tongue.
Lifting up his magnum, Temple leads Malcolm through the corridors, occasionally hiding whenever another Brute walks by, searching for survivors. As they make their way back to the docking bay, Temple does everything in his power to not curse out loud.
The docking bay is under complete control of the aliens, all wearing orange armor and patrolling while several aliens not of the same color are boarding an orange Phantom. Absently, Temple notices that while there are several marine corpses lying around, the 2 soldiers he knocked out are gone along with a Pelican and the prison transport.
Looking over the scene before any of the aliens notice them, Temple raises his pistol and fires it at a Covenant weapons rack transporting nothing but plasma grenades. The crate explodes in a ball of blue fire, killing any nearby Jackals. While they are distracted, Temple and Malcolm start running to another Pelican. One of the Jackals gets back up and lifts an energy rifle at Temple before firing. It hits Temple in the head, but his armor's overshields protect him from any serious harm. "That fucking hurt!" Temple shouts as Malcolm holds his hands over his head to try and protect him from plasma blasts as they run onto the Pelican. After firing a shot at a Brute and missing horribly, Temple runs onboard and makes his way to the cockpit.
He immediately gets to work on closing the hatch, just as the aliens start firing on the Pelican at once, scorching its surface. As he lifts the Pelican a few feet off the ground, he slowly turns the Pelican in a 360 while also firing its chainguns. The barrage of bullets manages to tear through the aliens' armor and flesh, their blue blood splattering against the scorched ground.
"Alright. Malcolm, whatever you do, don't even think about moving." Temple says darkly as he puts the Pelican on auto-pilot before opening the hatch, jumping out and making his way to the panel on the left side of the swirling light that makes up the entrance to the docking bay. As Temple finishes configuring the panel so the emergency lockdown is overridden, the emergency shutters lift up to reveal a scene that makes Temple pause for a second. "…Woah." For floating in the middle of the atmosphere is an orange CCS-class battlecruiser, its side facing them and dozens of orange Phantoms are floating towards them. "Okay…Fuck this shit." With that, he runs back to the Pelican.
"The Covenant have returned, haven't they?" Malcolm asks, still sitting in his seat. Like many Insurrectionists and Separatists, they are starting to believe that the Covenant remnants have united into a new Covenant Empire, composed of outlaws, pirates, zealots, and rogue Grunts. Several of the Grunts are allied with the Swords of Sanghelios while the Unggoy on their homeworld of Balaho and several other key worlds are allies of Cortana's Created, and after years of technological advance, the Unggoy are far more advanced than they ever were as cannon fodder for the selfish Prophets.
"Yes. I never thought I'd see those assholes again." Temple says as the whirls the Pelican around and flies it out of the Midnight Facility. The second he flies out, he starts fires 2 HAVOK-class missiles at the Phantoms. The missiles, vastly stronger than the ones the UNSC Archer missiles used during the Human-Covenant War, punch through the Phantoms' personal energy shields and make them explode in balls of fire while the other Phantoms rain plasma on the Pelican. Temple, however, dodges the plasma as he makes his way towards the Covenant capitol ship. Pulling his controls up, Temple flies the Pelican over the capitol ship while launching another barrage of HAVOK missiles at the ship's energy shields. He continues rising higher and higher until he flies over the transport then nose dives into the asteroid belt.
Once he flies below the asteroid belt, he notices the Shawshank hanging below the asteroid belt, waiting for him.
"There you are, assholes." Temple mutters as he flies to the prison transport, while the doors on the back-side start opening up. The Pelican flies inside the docking bay, with several more Pelicans are inside and waiting for battle. Once the doors close, the prison transport immediately pushes forward, entering slipspace just as a blast from the capitol ship's energy projector obliterates several asteroids and the super MAC cannons start firing on the Covenant ship, severely damaging it and making it enter slipspace.
Temple and Malcolm step out, dozens of Insurrectionists and prisoners talking with each other. Three of the most notable prisoners are Irena Magnusson the infamous ONI scientist, Ben Giraud the reporter, wearing his small red sunglasses over his eyes and former Admiral Yularen, a cold look on his face and some old stitches on his hands and arms standing out.
After a few seconds, a holographic projection of Count Dooku appears in front of Temple. "Ah, Captain Temple. I assume you managed to succeed in your goals?"
"Yes, I did. We managed to liberate many prisoners, all eager against that stupid Republic and the fucking UNSC." Temple says darkly.
Dooku turns his attention away from the sim trooper and looks at Malcolm. "Malcolm Hargrove. I've heard many things about you."
"Thank you, Count. But I must warn you. If you make the mistake of double-crossing me or my men, I will make sure that you die."
Dooku smirks a little at the arrogance of Malcolm, but just nods. "Of course. I am sending you the coordinates to the Raxus system. Don't be late." His transmission cuts out and silence reigns.
Just then, Admiral Yularen walks to them and places his hands behind his back. "So, Captain Temple. What are your orders?"
Temple lets out a sigh then looks at the Admiral. "We are going to this Raxus system, Admiral. But I have one question: Do you feel like the Galactic Republic sold your life like a slave?"
Yularen nods without hesitation. "I had to endure months of torture at that facility, and the Republic replaced me without batting an eye. I want revenge against the entire Republic."
Temple laughs crazily, patting Yularen on the shoulder. "Good answer. Those assholes don't know what's coming for them."
AN: Again, this is more of a filler chapter that sets up some of the other arcs of the story. Again, I am clueless as to what the Midnight Facility's interior looks like, so I made some stuff up.
Since Temple is in the new RvB season, I decided to make him a part of this story as well. Maybe I'll throw in a few more RT references as well, just because I feel like it.
See you all next time when the Swords of Sanghelios (with assistance from the Republic) fight the Covenant on a Forerunner Shield World.