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FICTION

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"But this shall be your battlefield!"

November 27 2525 - Hour 2054

CPL Logan 'Log' Sutton

Covenant CRS-Class Light Cruiser 'Unrelenting', Orbit over Planet Chi Ceti IV

The mission started great, but after roughly half-an-hour we were already experiencing a couple of issues.

Differently from the Destroyer Sif and I boarded on Harvest, this one was way bigger and packed more troops that were ready to handle an assault of these proportions. The spearheading approach worked for twenty solid minutes, with our pace (the one between the team I was leading and the one indirectly aiming for the second main objective) facing no slow downs and also retrieved a couple of personal shields from dead Kig-Yars, adding more chances of having Mk. V developed with shields even faster in canon with the retrieval.

I thought about also bringing in a couple of dead Elites' corpses, but then I realized the Pelicans wouldn't have survived the weight of the Spartans, myself and the corpses. It was all going great before the first real problems happened. Two of the Spartans had their armors pierced by plasma, with one having a modest burn forming around their left shoulder.

It was a wake up call I really didn't need as I was reminded of an erroneous assumption I made about the Mk. IV: This version of the MJOLNIR didn't have any shields on it. Still, the injury unfolded with the second group, and they quickly asked for directions on what to do. The order I gave was clear: if the injury could be handled on the field, then do so- but if the injury was beyond what they had on their first aid kits, then one of them was ordered to return the wounded in the hangar and wait there while we took care of this.

With the second team facing some losses, it was clear we had to run faster and the Spartan knew how to do that... while I couldn't. Not with my current lack of augmentation to match up theirs. Still, we proceeded as quickly as possible, eventually arriving at our respective destinations by following two radiation sources which were connected to the ship's core. The bombs were planted without distractions while the large contingent of Covenant troops hardly got any close hits on the combined firepower of the Spartans. Eventually a couple of them ran out of ammo since they hadn't packed enough to handle the shields, so they relied on the guns dropped by dead Covenants.

Grace retrieved one of the Needlers, and had first-hand experience with the gun to test its explosive nature. It wouldn't surprise me if she built a strong bond with this kind of gun as she took another one, dual-wielding the weapons and making use of the insane blast power presented by the combination. I think I heard her giggling- either her or Sif, or maybe both at the same time. Daisy surprised me by ignoring the Plasma pistol and actually retrieving a Type-51 Carbine. She seemed to like the rifle from the way she got a couple of Grunts' heads popping and she seemed to keep it from that point onward through the entire assault.

I would also end up hearing at the end of the mission that other Spartans, these from the second team had to rely heavily on Covenant-made weaponry due to their limited numbers leading to a quicker process of running out of ammunition for their equipment, with all of them bringing home new things to put in the list of known Covenant technology. Once the bombs were planted with a ten minutes timer, Sif quickly had all doors of those rooms closed, allowing just us to leave, and block any attempts from the defenders to disable the warheads and thus mess up our primary objective.

It was an opportunity that bought us some time as it allowed us to get back to the hangars without getting annoyed by some passing Covenant squads. The next aspect of the mission was getting out and getting back to the ship. The real issue was going to be avoiding detection now that evacuating fighters were going to try and intercept us. The Pelicans were given minimal anti-ground equipment which wouldn't work well in space. We reached the hangar back in seven minutes, with the full take off procedure taking almost a minute to conclude. We were out of the ship when it started to perceive the explosions influencing the core, overcharging it and sending it to a self-destructive process.

Just as I prepared to sigh in relief at the current good view of the situation, I heard the dropship we were in shaking. Seraphs moved to try and intercept the dropships we were in, but the arrival of a new flock of Longswords allowed us to make a safe retreat back to the Commonwealth. The Unrelenting exploded brilliantly, sending shakes across its surroundings and disabling some of the Covenant ships buzzing around. Any surviving ships from the hostile faction fled due to the approach of the frigate to allow us an easier time getting on board.

In the end, we managed to get a successful mission, and one that ended with me shaking hands with Captain Wallace while sharing a couple of odd looks with Dr. Halsey. The overall speech made by the captain actually made it clear why the woman was so irritated by the overall situation despite the aftermath. Captain Wallace was more keen to praise my efforts than those of the Spartans, which had the scientist seething at the circumstance. I had realized through my time in the BALMUNG project that this was the Navy and the Marine Corps raising twice the middle-fingers at ONI for creating Spartans without them having much of a say in it.

I knew I couldn't directly oppose the superior officer for 'doing his job', but I still tried to fix things by giving a genuine 'thank you' speech to the Spartans. Nothing too big but enough to make it clear I meant every single word, but what I got was just pushing Wallace to recognize the Spartans had done 'a fair amount of the work' but not adding more on the detail and making it appear like he was giving out praise against his own will. Still, I saw a few happy nods from the bunch of armored 'rookies', so I felt I had made the most of what I could do in that situation.

With the mission over and the facility on the planet receiving the newly acquired Covenant equipment for some extra studies, I was finally allowed to get back down on the planet and return to my room to think. Dr. Gerhardt was busy marveling over the pieces he got, mostly Jackals' shields to try his hand in adding shields. Nothing really possible at this stage of the armor, but he promised that he was going to find a way to solve the issues with that idea.

Alone, left to ponder about the next steps and also nervous about Halsey's reaction, I lied on my bed while still wearing the armor. The researcher had been so busy with the new toys to play with that he forgot to order me to let go of it. And I didn't know how to handle the disassembly machine despite Sif's 'kind' help in handling it.

She had developed a rather dark way to express amusement when it came to terrify me of the dangers of that machine. No matter how many times I tried to do it myself, she would find a way to make me back away with a degree of unease. Like, I really didn't want to die to a machine meant to remove armors. I lived through the First Contact and now saw the 'birth' of the Spartans within the UNSC. Of course my lack of silence caught the AI's attention and she was quick to inquire about it.

You're awfully quiet. We have no eyes watching right now.

"I was just thinking about... what happened with Halsey," I truthfully pointed out, sighing as I calmly removed my helmet. "She didn't look that happy."

She knows that she lost a good opportunity to do more when it became clear that you, as a non-augmented human, managed to hold yourself in that situation. Not only that, but the reports expressed by the Spartans were 'positive' in most part. The only visible flaw was your lack of initiative in some situations.

"I told them I was going to pull them all out alive," I remarked dryly. "I guess a couple didn't hear that. Either that, or I just backed away from trouble since I know how Plasma sucks..."

It still doesn't matter. Halsey might have lost a chance here, but she isn't vengeful to this kind of issues, and will definitely work on showing off her products with other missions. Definitely without you around.

I chuckled at the mental image of Halsey just dodging all kinds of missions where I was going to be deployed. Then again, considering all circumstances, I would see ONI being the ones to do that. If the Spartans grew too 'appreciative' of other branches, the chances of 'betrayal' would have been pretty high and all of that paranoid shit.

"Still, it's not her that worries me, but those that are betting a lot on the Spartan-II project."

Yes, I have to admit that ONI could be an issue. But worry not, we will fix that mess in due time. For now we have to... one moment.

"Uh... What?"

It's a message from Vice-Admiral Cole. It was forwarded also to Dr. Gerhardt. A request to come on his ship about a new mission.

This soon? I mean, sure the war was in full swing and timing was critical to protect the colonies from Covenant's rapid strikes, but I didn't expect to be pulled out of Chi Ceti this soon.

"Does he says why?"

From what I can see on the message? He is planning something big. Which would explain why the UNSC is allowing a large concentration of warships to form a fleet around his own group.

...Could it be that it is the beginning of the Second Battle of Harvest? Sure, we were off from that timing, but we had the means to assemble a strong enough fleet to retake the planet. I doubted the Covenants would have allowed another Superdestroyer to be sent to guard the planet, not when there were chances of another surprise or two destroying those.

So, I could tell Cole planned to retake Harvest and firmly establish a forward base of operation there. If the Covenant had struck there with that kind of ship-power, then perhaps there was a good enough reason to return there and search for anything important.

Hopefully, my push to the Halo Wars events earlier will work as intended.

AN

Complete UNSC victory. Next up? A change of POV. Thela faces her first engagement and... things go quite interesting for the Covenant.