John aimed and fired in quick 5 round bursts from his assault rifle at the unknown attackers. The force that Parisa had assembled before the breach also maintained a good trigger discipline by only firing in bursts. The only problem was the cracking of shields indicating what kind of enemy they faced. What was before they had the appearance of Spartans, but something about them seemed off. Even with the few fights John had with other Spartans, this group seemed odd.

Their arms and legs had been removed giving them a robotic appearance. The second was that, while they had tactical sense, they seemed to be reckless as a few of them had tried charging in. But were cut down to the heavy emplacement fire that Parisa had set up. Caution seemed to be their main trait, but how long would that last? That answer soon came as a large combat robot walked up.

It was angular, walking on four legs with two side mounded weapons. Before John could react one of the side weapons opened up and fired a red mass at the barricade. It detonated turning several marines into ashes and frightening the others who backed up. But still fired at the machine. The other side opened up and John's eyes widened as four sentinel beams opened up cutting down even more marines.

He looked to Vadam who shared a similar look. The two looked toward the machine before moving. Both of them moved the marines out of the way as they advanced. Vadam dropped one of his plasma rifles replacing it with his orange glowing energy sword. John dropped a mag from his rifle before replacing it with a fresh one. As soon as the counter maxed out at full, he opened fire at the 'head' of the robot. While the rounds bounced off, it did cause it to focus attention on the Spartan.

That allowed Vadam to jump from the wall and slash at one of the weapons. But the blade bounced off the robot's shield surprising him. But he backed off as some of the enemy 'Spartans' fired at him. The machine turned to the elite and tried to fire at him with the sentinel beams on its right 'arm'. Vadam moved fast out of the way, but this attack opened up an opportunity.

Parisa moved up and as she got close moved up one of the walls. Just as she was about to pass the machine, she tossed a bandoleer of grenades into the opening. She then dived into a role as the bandoleer exploded taking out the 'arm'. The machine turned to look at her. As it did, she could have sworn it was looking at her with either anger or hate or both. But before it could do anything, John moved Parisa out of the way firing at the machine causing it to focus on him again. He dived into a roll over its wounded arm section and ran to the barricade. The machine advanced on him as he ripped the machinegun turret off its tripod and fired at the other arm.

The shield began to flicker before dying allowing Vadam to move up and cut the final arm into pieces. Now disarmed, in more ways than one the robot backed up before the top opened up bringing out two more weapons. The heavy plasma repeaters fired at John and Vadam who dived into cover. While Parisa moved to the back of it, either it didn't know or didn't care where she was. But she stopped looking at the boarding craft. The attackers weren't there. All that was left were their weapons and some of their gear.

Moving into the craft she looked around for anything of use and found several cubed objects to the side. Picking one up she felt the weight of it. It was lighter than she expected, but something about it told her 'Grenade'. She didn't know how; all she knew was that the thing she held in her hand was a weapon. Turning she looked to the upper part of the robot. Grabbing a few more she ran up to the machine and jumped onto the back. As soon as she did, the machine began to toss and turn trying to throw her off. She pulled herself to the opening and dropped a couple of the grenades before activating the final grenade and dropping that in. She then jumped away before the machine exploded from the inside.

Debris lodged into the walls, floor and ceiling. She sighed as she stood and walked up to the machine with the other two and looked at it.

"It's hybrid tech," John said flatly making Parisa look up to him.

"Hybrid?" she asked. "But that doesn't make sense, these guys aren't Atlas,"

"No, but this technology is a mix of Forerunner and Covenant," Vadam said as he crouched and looked at the remains. "Mostly Covenant,"

"So, whoever they are, they aren't Atlas," John muttered.

"I think I know," Parisa said as she removed her helmet. "And if I'm right, we are in trouble,"

OOOOO

Cortana awoke with a start and fell off the stretcher she was on with a thud onto the floor. One of the guards moved to her but her head was still buzzing as she stood. He helped her up and tried to speak but all she could see was his mouth moving. Her mind was still in a daze as she looked around. The world was fuzzy, was it always like that? Or was it just her? she shook her head as what she did came slowly back.

A wire, a terminal, something kicking her out, something old, familiar. Her head shook again, this time her vision clearing and her mind returning like a flood. She grabbed the nearest guard and pulled him close.

"I need to get to a terminal now," she practically yelled.

The guard looked to his friend who shrugged. "Ok, come on," he helped her up with his friend joining in, and the two took her into an empty room with a ship terminal at the far side.

They helped her over to the machine and eased her into a seat. "Keep an eye on that door," she indicated before grabbing a wire and connecting it to her head port.

As she did this her body slumped to one side, giving the impression that she was asleep. But to her, all she saw was a green scrolling text, to begin with before it changed into a large room with blue light and text scrolling everywhere. Looking down, she saw that she wasn't in her human body, but in her original AI form. She smiled before looking around wondering where to start. As she did so, Dana appeared before her.

"Hello Cortana, I wasn't expecting you to appear here," she said.

The AI was dressed like a witch, but her personality was more like a noble. "We need to hack their comms," Cortana said as she brought several screens in front of her. "See who these people are and what they want,"

"I have already attempted that," Dana said. "Their encryption is something I have never seen before,"

"Two AI are better than one," Cortana countered.

"Very well," the witch nodded. "Let's begin,"

OOOOO

She moved across the rafters with her pack in toe. Each one of them ready to pounce. This was her territory, her pack, she wouldn't let anyone harm them. The noise below annoyed her, but it helped in knowing where the enemy pack was. A hole in the floor overlooking the enemy pack approached them. The pack moved up surrounding the hole looking down.

"Let's get them," one of the younger hunters growled.

The leader shot him a look and growled back. "No, something is wrong about this prey,"

Another hunter sniffed the air. "They don't smell, no fear, no emotion," as he said that the others sniffed the air which was followed by low growls of annoyance.

It was true, both predators and prey had a smell about them. Confidence, arrogance, fear, and some emotion betrayed how they would react. Without that, there was little way to know what they would do. The leader looked to her pack, a group of 10 hunters. Despite the lack of emotion, they still drooled with the thrill of the hunt. Inwardly she was pleased with this. Hunters, like her and them, wouldn't let something like a lack of emotion stop them from attacking.

She bared her fangs. "Follow me," she said as she moved through the hole and onto a ledge that had a better look over the enemy.

As she did so she looked up to the rest of her pack who were using their noisy weapons. Looking for her master. She may be the leader of her hunters, but the pack-master was the leader of them all. He was kind, loving and generous to the pack. They were loyal to him and only him. There was nothing that made her prouder than following her pack master. He looked at her and nodded. The leader smiled before pouncing on the nearest enemy aiming for the neck.

The prey turned at the last minute and screamed as her mouth closed around his metal head. Her powerful jaws then closed crushing both the metal head and the real head underneath. The screaming from her prey stopped as did his heart. She let go before looking around for her next prey.

Six could only watch as the Spartan dogs dropped in from nowhere and pounced on the unidentified attackers. She smiled as the dogs wasted no time in taking out the enemy squad. But several marines didn't as at least two turned to vomit at the sight of broken limbs, ripped open guts and more. Not that she could blame them. Seeing what these augmented dogs could do was both fascinating and horrific.

Once the enemy was down, Six moved up and got a good look at the bodies of the enemy. Frowning, she moved from one to the other as Linda and Fred moved up.

"Something wrong?" Fred asked.

"They are mostly machine," Six said as she pulled open the armour of one of the soldiers and pointed at the ports in their body. "See, they're neuronally connected to their armour," she then pointed to another body. "And most of their internals are mechanical as well,"

The Spartan 2's looked at what Six was talking about. While she couldn't see their faces, their body language spoke volumes about what they thought. This concerned them, more so than it should.

"Six, Fred, Linda do you read?" John said as his voice came over the comm.

"We read," Six said. "We just took out one of the enemy squads. They're cyborgs chief,"

"Understood, we lost our squad and are currently tracking them. But be aware, they have hybrid tech," that made Six look at the bodies at her feet. "We have confirmed that they have access to Forerunner tech, keep an eye open,"

"Roger that, we will," she closed the connection and looked to Fred and Linda who shared a similar look to her. Concern.

"We have to track this other squad before they cause any more damage," Fred said.

"Agreed," Six said as she crouched down to the lead Spartan dog and began to pet her. "Who's a good dog? who's a good dog?" as she did that one of the Wolf Pack Spartans walked up to her.

"Commander, do you mind," he asked.

"Sorry Pack Marshal," she said standing and turning to face him. "But we need to find the other squad. John has lost track of them,"

The Pack Marshal nodded as he turned his wolf helmet to face his dogs. He then typed something onto his wrist pad and the dogs took off like a bullet towards something. The group of four Spartans followed them closely with another group closing behind them. Whoever these people were, if they had their hands on Forerunner tech, it could only be bad news.