"Where are you?" Cortana asked as she and Dana skimmed though the screens at lighting speed. "There you are," she smiled as she found the intruders.
The former AI thought that her new biological body would provide a restriction on her. Humans had to deal with a number of reactions from emotions, outside stimuli, random thoughts and more, while AI could just turn those things off and focus on their main goal. But it seemed that due to her old experience as an AI, she could ignore those parts and focus on her task. She assumed that it was due to her advanced brain. The doctors had said that they weren't sure how it worked, but it was made with high-capacity programming, memory retention and a form of parallel processing in mind.
Whoever made it, she planned to thank them before making their life a living hell as revenge for the past 15 years of torture.
"You see that?" Dana said as she sent Cortana a file.
She opened it and began to read the data from it. The frown on her face began to deepen as she looked to the witch.
"Is this accurate?" she asked.
Dana nodded. "I picked it up from a low frequency bandwidth. It's clever, I almost didn't notice it,"
Cortana nodded as she brought up another screen. This one divided into seven screens, each with an avatar of Chief, Parisa, Vadam, Six, Linda, Fred and Pack Marshal Gaige.
"Cortana what do you have for us?" John asked almost immediately as she saw her image.
"Me and Dana just managed to hack into their comm system," the former AI said. "We know where they are, what they are trying to do and who they are,"
"Cortana, please tell me I'm wrong," Parisa spoke, concern filling her voice. "Please tell me it's not the Reclamation Knights,"
"I'm sorry madam president, it is the Reclamation Knights," Cortana confirmed.
Both Six and Parisa cursed at that moment while the others just echoed a similar word: Who?
"This is bad," Six said. "If it's the Reclamation Knights, then this is just a probing attack or a one shot kill strike,"
Parisa's avatar nodded. "They aren't likely to give up. Shit," she took a deep breath before looking to Cortana. "Where are they?"
"Axillary control room Delta-bravo 49, deck 35, they joined up with their third team and have fortified the section," Cortana answered. "I'm not sure that they are trying to do outside of that. My connection to that section is blocked. I'll see what I can do to get you there faster,"
"Understood," the seven said as the screen closed.
Cortana and Dana looked to each other with an unspoken word before turning to their screens and getting to work. It was going to take time, but they needed to get both teams up to deck 35 as soon as they could.
OOOOO
As the lift doors opened, John threw a flashbang into the hall. Once it detonated, he moved in with Parisa and Vadam all of them with their weapons raised. The hall was clear, but filled with dead Mars Marines. Parisa moved to one and closed his eyes while claiming the ammo for his weapon. John did the same with another marine, while Vadam just took care not to step on the fallen human warriors.
The three moved carefully through the corridor, approaching the auxiliary control room. But as they approached John noticed something alone the walls. It was hard to notice them, as they were well camouflaged, but as soon as he did, his eyes turned to Parisa as she passed one.
"Look out!" he called as he jumped towards her.
One of the traps detonated covering the hall in fire forcing Vadam to find a room to hide in as he lacked the power armour of the Spartans. As soon as the fire died down, he exited and found his two partners on the floor, with John over the president. The former pushed himself up and looked down at the President, who was thankful for the helmet she wore hiding her beet red face.
"Are you ok?" he asked.
"Ahem," she coughed before speaking. "Do you mind? I know you are eager, but we still need time to get to know each other,"
John gave her a look before looking at his own position and released what she was talking about. "Sorry," he said getting up before helping her up.
Vadam joined the two and the three of them moved on. As they did, Parisa sent something to the AI's watching them with a slight smile on her face. If only she could see Cortana's face of the former AI after reading that message.
Gunfire echoed ahead of her as John and Vadam engaged the enemy. As they expected, the force had reinforced their position with Forerunner shields. The weapons they used were also of Forerunner origin making any move on the position hard if not impossible to do. The weapons were unlike the three had ever seen. John and Vadam were familiar with the sentinel beams that the sentinels used on the Halo instillations and Ark.
But these were more like field weapons that soldiers would use. Machine guns, semi-auto marksmen rifles and shotguns were all in use by the unidentified soldiers. And they weren't unskilled with them either as they had very good skill with the weapons. Not to mention they were powerful as they almost took down the three's shields before they found good cover. But the forerunner barrier shield was the main problem.
Their bullets couldn't get passed them, neither could plasma. Normally, the strategy would involve destroying the emitter. But that was next to impossible due to the emitter being on the other side. They also couldn't blow up one of the walls. While the station the enemy had set themselves in is an auxiliary control station, the problem was that they had unleashed worms into the Infinity's systems making the room the only place where the ship could be controlled from.
While Cortana and Dana worked on the problem Six and her team arrived. As they did Parisa petted one of the dog's head lovingly. The Spartan Dog wined and moaned in pleasure while wagging its tail.
"So, what's the plan?" Fred asked as he looked around.
"The vents," Parisa pointed. "They lead to the station without need to break the shields,"
Before anyone could say anything, Cortana cut in. "Madam President we have a problem, the worms have gotten control of the main reactor," she said worry clear in her voice. "Me and Dana are trying to eradicate them, but it's taking more than we can handle. It's like someone keeps pumping them into the system,"
Parisa looked from one Spartan to the other. "So, we need to take out the source?"
"That would be my best bet," Cortana said. "Whatever these things are, they are far more complex than human or Covenant tech,"
"Understood," the president said before kicking open one of the vents. "Go on girl, in you go,"
The Spartan dog pack moved into the vent. It was a tight squeeze for the dogs, but they managed to get in and make their way to the vents of the control room. The Spartans split up surrounding the control room. It didn't take long for screaming from the room to echo across the corridors. Soon one of the shields went down and the Spartans moved in finishing off the enemy. But it wasn't without casualties as three of the Spartan dogs were killed.
The sight of them saddened the Pack Marshal and Parisa. But it didn't stop them from removing any and all Forerunner teach from the controls. Seconds later, Cortana came in with a report.
"All the worms are gone and the reactor has stabilised," she reported. "And we haven't detected the unknown ship,"
"Good, make several jumps away from Zata," Parisa then said surprising all the Spartans and Elite around her. "Make it random, but clear that Zeta isn't out destination,"
"Understood," Cortana replied.
"What is the purpose of such a move?" Vadam asked.
"The people we faced, they are a faction who specialise in forerunner tech and believe that humans aren't ready to use it and attain the Mantel of Responsibility. They call themselves the Order of the Mantel," Parisa said. "And they aren't going to back down, until all of us, especially you John, are head,"
OOOOO
General Kol walked down the corridor of Unity Station. The biggest space station in GHR space. While most systems and world were controlled by their respective governors, this was an area that was strictly controlled by the GHR council. Which mean that he would come face to face with the freaks of nature, the Spartans. Or more accurately the Republican Guard. Originally, they were made up of former ODST regiments. But now, it was made up of the elite Spartan forces picked from the ODST forces.
Since the moniker was taken by the Spartans, the ODST renamed themselves as the Republican Rangers. Which was more propaganda appropriate. Unlike the regular forces, both the Republican Rangers and Republican Guard answered only to the Unity Council while regular forces answered to their Governors. It wasn't a perfect system, but each world was expected to be fully independent from each other. Which, as it turned out, was easier said than done.
Planets needed resources, especially the more advanced worlds. Every word needed something, food, material, workers, ice and other things. And given the distance between worlds, it wasn't easy keeping the worlds in line. Now more than ever, he understood some of the problems the UNSC was trying to deal with, even if they were heavy handed.
But now wasn't the time the reminisce on old times. He made his way to the council chambers. As he walked, he noticed the stoic stance of the Republican Guard and Rangers as they patrolled the halls of Unity Station. He did spy the odd uniform from one of the Primary worlds, but they were few and far between.
The GHR was divided into two camps. Primary worlds, and Minor worlds. Primary worlds were, as they sounded. Major population centres that had a high degree of production while Minor worlds were more like mining worlds. Little population, but high amounts of resources. But the former was a problem for them as it meant they couldn't defend their worlds. This forced them to rely on the Primary worlds for protection, which allowed a more than a few Governors to expand their little empire. Officially, this was banned by the council.
Unofficially, a blind eye was turned when this happened as it meant that the Governor could increase production for war materials on their new world. In fact, the unofficial rule was enforced more so than the official rule. In this war-torn age, few protested as they knew that they couldn't do anything other than get to work.
Kol entered the council chambers and took his seat at one of the big 5 council chairs and waited. Soon enough the others arrived. Empress Mei, Governor Caine, Arch Bishop Eugene and Governor Lord Warwood took their places. Not for the first time, Kol inwardly smiled at the misnomer about the 'Republic' part of GHR. Sure, they called themselves a republic, but there were plenty of realms in the alliance that weren't a republic.
Empress Mei was one such example. After ONI secrets came out, she was placed as the de-facto ruler of the world. Partly due to her military experience, and partly due to her political stance about the UNSC. Both of those allowed her to gain a foothold and become Empress. How she managed to convince several worlds to follow her with that title, he would never know. The same went with the others. But Kol at least knew how Arch Bishop Eugene manged to.
He went of a religious crusade purging all UNSC loyalist elements from the worlds he wanted as his own. Then he installed himself as a theocratic leader for those worlds. Saying it as 'God's will' that he was meant to rule. If it wasn't for the large number of planets under his command, he would have just have been another governor in the alliance. But because he held control over a number of planets and territories, just like the other big 5, he was a member of the Unity Council.
A place only meant for those with a set number of worlds as they had the political and military power to decide what to do over GHR. While they did have to confer with the others, it was agreed that if push came to shove, the Council would be the main leading element in any war.
As soon as Warwood took his seat on the rounded donut like table, Kol slammed his gavel down getting the attention of his fellow councillors.
"Now that we are all here, I call this council session to order," he declared. "First least move to the most major problem on hand," he typed in a few keys on his keyboard. "Zeta Halo,"