Chapter One

0837 Hours, July 23, 2554 (Military Calendar)

UNSC Rory

High orbit, Planet Demeter, Itami System

The view from the prowler's forward windows showed a planet not too dissimilar to Earth, a scene Morgan had seen plenty of times during his tenure in both the army and the Spartan-IV program, and like most of those he hadn't even been aware of the place until he saw its name on his latest deployment orders.

ONI had gotten wind of it a few months back during the course of another operation, with the chatter seeming to suggest the Innies had found the place and were looking to establish it as their new home, and from where they hoped to raise a fleet of ships powerful enough to challenge the still recovering UNSC Navy.

A troubling outcome, if it were true, so they had deployed Rory with Morgan aboard to investigate the matter with orders for the Spartan to deploy to the surface if the reports turned out to be true. It would be his job to conduct guerrilla warfare against any and all hostile targets he found on Demeter, ready for follow on forces to tackle when they arrived.

Though with how remote the system was, 'when they arrived' would be a good six to eight months away at best. A long time for him to survive, doubly so by himself. It was an important mission for certain, but the commanders of the supersoldier program were reluctant to send even a single Spartan away on such a long range, long duration mission, to say nothing of a whole fireteam.

Morgan hadn't even been given the luxury of getting paired with an AI, smart or otherwise, so as to minimise any losses that might ensue should he fail in his mission. Should he be sent to the surface, he would be working solo for the entirety of it.

'Take us in slow,' the prowler captain said. 'Just below the dark limit.'

'Aye, aye,' the navigation officer said.

There was an almost imperceptible hum as Rory's engines came alive and pushed the prowler along, though low enough to avoid compromising her stealth signature which, the captain had confided in Morgan during the slipspace journey here, was below what is should have been. As with everything else, the higher ups were doing their utmost to minimise losses should this mission go sideways, including sending a ship due an overhaul.

Morgan hadn't liked that bit of news and part of him wondered if the brass wasn't trying to scuttle this mission from the start, given the dearth of resources they were putting into the operation. There was trying to reduce losses from a failed mission, and then there was just being negligent.

'Picking up faint radar emissions,' the sensor officer said. 'Strength slowly increasing. Profile matches that of known civilian sets.'

One of the screens snapped on as the prowler's long range optical gear came alive, panning to the rough source of the radar signals. After a few moments the image stabilised to show a small fleet of civilian freighters clustered together in orbit over the planet, all of them bearing hastily grafted on weapon systems ripped from destroyed UNSC warships.

Then, on another screen, a second fleet of repurposed freighters appeared as more radar signals were detected. This fleet was sitting a few thousand kilometres away from the first and the prowler captain directed her navigational officer to take them right through the gap.

A bold manoeuvre given it had them moving through the highest concentration of radar signals, but they were civilian grade sets. Even with her degraded stealth countermeasures, Rory would still remain invisible to the ships. At least, Morgan hoped so. They had confirmed an Insurrectionist presence on the planet, so their next step was to get him to the surface without being detected.

They could still accomplish it even if they were, but it would be that much harder and preclude any possible reconnaissance of the surface to know exactly where to send him down. He could wind up tens of thousands of kilometres from his objective, and with just his feet to get him there.

'Cutting it close, aren't we?' he said.

'Maybe,' the captain said. 'But it'll also give us a chance to intercept any communiques they're sending between the fleets, maybe even between the ships.'

'So long as they don't detect us,' Morgan said.

'We're about to find out,' the captain said.

The air turned tense as Rory continued to drift silently along, her captain having thrust cut entirely so the small ship would present even less of a target to the ships now equidistant on her sides. The communications officer began calling out various transmissions being made by the two fleets, none of them particularly encrypted, and none of which made any mention of the prowler.

'Radar signals reaching peak strength,' the sensor officer said. 'Still not close to detection values.'

Even so, everyone on the bridge seemed to hold their breath until the ships began falling behind them and none appeared to make any move to follow, or even launch fighters. Morgan gave an almost audible sigh when that happened, the only thing now standing between them and Demeter being a lot of empty space.

'That's the hard part out the way, people,' the captain said. 'Ahead slow. Put us into orbit around the planet to begin surface scans. Let's find out where our friends are hiding.'

But even as her crew began to carry out her orders, the deck beneath their feet gave a sudden lurch scants seconds before the red strobing of an alarm filled the bridge.

'We have a hull breach in the reactor space,' the engineering officer said. 'Repeat, hull breach in the reactor space. Looks like the port compression coil blew, captain.'

'We're also no longer stealthy,' the sensor officer said. 'Picking up increased chatter from the enemy ships, and they are coming about towards us.'

'All ahead flank,' the captain said. 'Get us to the planet.'

She turned to Morgan and added, 'You'd better get to the deployment bay. We'll only have one shot at this.'

He nodded and left, making his way to a cramped room at the nose of the prowler where an airfoil carapace was waiting. It was stocked with all the equipment he would need on the ground, most important being a battle rifle, and Morgan was quick to strap himself into place having already donned his SOLDIER-class Mjolnir armour prior to Rory transitioning back to real space.

With the carapace in place he hooked it onto an electromagnetic launching system that would fire him out of the prowler and, hopefully, towards Demeter when the time came, the room's lights dimming to a deep red when it registered a secure connection. When they shifted to amber, a hatch at the far end of the room hissed open to reveal Demeter to the Spartan, the image spoiled briefly by a flash of vapour as the atmosphere quickly escaped into the vacuum of space.

It was a fleeting glance though as the launcher rotated him so his back was to the planet, ensuring the armoured surface of the carapace would be the only thing to endure the tremendous heat of re-entry.

'Launch in T-minus thirty-seven seconds,' the prowler captain said over the COM. 'Sorry we can't drop you somewhere we know they'll be but it's the best we can do. Good luck.'

'And you,' Morgan said but inwardly, he knew this would the last time he'd be seeing or hearing from any of the crew.

Prowlers were woefully ill equipped when it came to armour, weapons or speed, relying on their stealth countermeasures to avoid detection and harm, to the point even a Longsword could down them. So to have a veritable fleet of ad hoc warships chasing after it, all the captain could hope for was to transition to slipspace before they could get missile lock. Of course, that relied on the FTL engine being operational.

Morgan pushed that thought from his mind as the countdown in his head reached zero, the room's lights blinking green a heartbeat before the launch systems activated, catapulting him out the prowler at such a high rate of speed it seemed almost instantaneous, and for a brief moment he was ahead of Rory.

He looked up at the prowler and to the smoke trailing from her aft port quarter but before long, her underside was roaring over him as she continued to accelerate, and then she was gone, replaced by the inky void of space.

Several minutes later he watched the Insurrection ships fly by, the biggest of them appearing no larger than his thumb, before they too vanished from sight to leave only distant stars for Morgan to look at. He blinked then brought up a feed from a rear facing camera on the carapace to show Demeter, with a waypoint giving him a rough idea of where he'd be touching down.

It looked to be a verdant area thick with trees, judging by the greenery, and several large bodies of water were visible. Less appealing was the fact that in terms of landmass, the continent appeared to be on par with Europe for total surface covered, complete with innumerable mountains, valleys and who knew what else, and without a single clue as to where his foes might have made landfall.

With any luck there would be some manner of radio signal he could home in on, or maybe even a long range patrol with a vehicle. Exactly how he would go about accomplishing his mission would have to wait until he made landfall, and first he needed to endure the rigours of re-entry.

0950 Hours, July 23, 2554 (Military Calendar)

Unknown location

Tabah Region, Planet Demeter, Itami System

Punching through the atmosphere from orbit was not a pleasant experience, even with his suit providing as much of a cushioning as it could, and Morgan was relieved when he slowed enough for the outer plating of the carapace to jettison. In a previous life he had been a paratrooper and being in freefall was almost second nature by this point, even if he was falling towards a hostile planet with reinforcements being almost a year away.

Nevertheless, Morgan orientated himself into a facedown position and scanned the land below him, looking for anything that might provide a hint as to where he should go, or not go, once he was down on the ground. At first nothing stood out to him, the terrain just a vast expanse of greens, browns and the occasional splash of blue but as he fell closer to the surface, indistinct smudges began appearing that could have been towns and cities. A worryingly large amount.

Morgan counted at least a dozen such instances alone in his field of view with who knew how many more that were too small to see from high altitude, or hidden beyond the horizon, meaning this wasn't just a few thousand Innies who had settled here but hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, and likely with a fleet to match that may even include homegrown takes on frigates, destroyers and carriers.

Any battlegroup the UNSC could send would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers alone, even Infinity, meaning the crippling of them would be Morgan's first objective. A ground invasion, even against a force millions strong, would go much easier if the UNSC could claim supremacy in space, or at least parity with their Insurrectionist counterparts.

Of course, actually doing that was easier said than done. Any shipyards or the munitions needed to obliterate them would be under heavy guard and Morgan was keenly aware of just how alone he was. Spartans were good but even they had their limits.

He spent the rest of the fall scanning the terrain below and angling his body to bring him more towards a forested area, away from any visible settlements, deploying his parachute when he was just a scant kilometre from the ground in a letter-perfect high altitude, low opening insertion, breaking through the upper branches of the trees until his canopy got caught on a particularly stubborn one, jerking him to a halt.

Morgan hit the quick release and fell to the ground with a solid thump, pistol already to hand as he scanned the area for any signs of hostilities. There were none, the only things he could see being a veritable ocean of trees not dissimilar to the pines of Earth, whilst the air was filled with the sound of leaves rustling in the air and the occasional call of a far-off bird.

He lowered his pistol a moment later then holstered it, drawing his battle rifle as he began heading east towards a small hamlet or town he had seen during his descent. There was a much larger settlement he had seen to the southwest, but it was also much further away. Some two-hundred kilometres by Morgan's estimate, whereas this town was a scant fifteen or twenty kilometres from his current location. It might not be a place of any great importance, but it could present him with an opportunity to acquire a means of transport other than his feet.

1237 Hours, July 23, 2554 (Military Calendar)

Outskirts of unidentified town

Tabah Region, Planet Demeter, Itami System

Not for the first time, Morgan found himself annoyed with the fact HIGHCOM had been less than generous when it came to assigning resources to the operation, not least of which was the selection of a prowler in need of an overhaul. A decision, he knew, had contributed to its discovery by way of failed machinery and could have gotten the crew of ninety killed so very far from home.

Right now, his irritation was regarding their decision to not give him an AI partner.

If nothing else it would have helped stave off the loneliness he was undoubtedly going to be feeling until reinforcements arrived at Demeter, a friendly voice offering conversation and banter, even advice. More than that, he wanted one for their technical support they offered. Even the dumb ones.

On dropping low enough his suit began picking up numerous transmissions, dozens of them, spanning the spectrum of civilian broadcasts to encrypted military communiques, and while Morgan was quite capable of listening to them himself it would distract him from his other duties, and he could only listen to one signal at a time.

An AI would be able to handle all of them at once, leaving him free to divert his full attention to more practical matters of survival so deep within enemy territory.

But he didn't have one so it fell to him to handle the matter by himself, selecting one of the civilian transmissions at random as he settled into an observation post half a kilometre from the town he had seen. To his surprise it looked a far cry from the modern settlements he been on other planets, even the less developed Outer Colonies.

The buildings were made of wood and stone, not polycrete, and the roads he could see were just hard packed dirt rather than asphalt. Stranger still, the vehicles trundling along on them were horse drawn wagons with not a single modern vehicle visible anywhere. Neither did Morgan see much in the way of advanced technology outside of what looked like a radio antenna poking up above the roof of a larger building.

Then there were the people, all of whom looked like they had stepped out of the American southwest during the mid-1800s with their denim jeans, cotton shirts and leather dusters, complete with wide brimmed hats. Many were armed but not with contemporary weapons like the MA5 series of rifles. Instead they carried what looked to be revolvers with bone handles and level action rifles, complete with wooden furniture, further adding to the Old West feel of the place.

About the only thing ruining the image was the fact the town was sat in the middle of a forest, though fifty kilometres to their south it began thinning out to give way to a more appropriate arid landscape.

Morgan had forced himself to look away from the sight several times before turning back, just make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, but every time the image of a town that wouldn't have looked out of place in the ancient Spaghetti Westerns remained and his mind began racing to come up with a reason for this.

The problem was that nothing he could come up with made much sense. Why give up the comforts afforded by modern technology to live like frontiersmen from six-hundred years ago? Why carry weapons that had been obsolete for just as long? The pistol Morgan had carried more rounds than their lever actions, and he could reload it in the blink of an eye thanks to the detachable magazine. Surely that would be something of grave concern for a people who had to know that sooner or later, the UNSC was going to come knocking.

In fact, by now the word had to have gotten out that a prowler belonging to ONI had been found above the planet, and likely destroyed, which should serve as a warning the Marines wouldn't be too far behind. Yet, none of the stations Morgan had listened to ever spoke of it. Rather, they were concerned with more mundane topics like the weather or how well a local sports team faired against their bitter rivals.

The same was repeated in the military communications he had intercepted, most of which detailed routine troop movements between bases across their territory. About the only useful piece of information Morgan had picked up was that they referred to their armed forces as Rangers which, to him, just spoke of unoriginality. Too many military units had adopted the moniker throughout human history, hoping to give the impression they were tough, and it seemed the same held true here on Demeter.

He could only shake his head at the increasing absurdity of the situation he now found himself in. People who looked like extras from a Western walking around even as radio signals filled the airwaves and spaceships orbited overhead, carrying obsolete weapons that paled in comparison to modern examples, apparently unaware or unconcerned the UNSC had found their refuge.

Something strange was going on, Morgan knew. He just couldn't imagine what.