Author's Note
Okay, I lied, there was one more chapter I was able to put together before the month ended, XD.
I really like this one, and I think everyone else will too. Can't believe I'm 29 chapters in, good lord. That being said, I'd done some research and I've discovered that this story is the second most popular Metroid/Halo crossover on the entire platform, with the one in first place all the way back from like, 2014 or something. That's wild to me, can't believe y'all got it to second place, thanks so much!
To everyone who's reviewed so far, thank you so much for contributing to the story with your suggestions, feedback, and ideas. Everyone who's reviewed and told me that they really enjoyed this story is kinda what continues to push me to finish it.
Uploaded
08/30/2023
LEGEND BELOW
"Chief, that's not a good idea..." = Normal speech.
''You're you, don't let it control you...'' = Normal thoughts/Receiving coms.
Chapter 29
Hell on Ivenoff Station
Rated-M
M rating for blood, and language.
Music of the day
Halo 4 - Awakening
There was a blinding light that fully encapsulated them, Del Rio's words fading into the void of nothingness as they were taken along for the ride inside the tear in slip-space.
It wasn't like other conventional space travel, and the Stiletto certainly wasn't rated for it at all.
For a long, long moment, neither of them knew nothing at all, seeming as if their atoms had been scattered into a trillion pieces in the blink of an eye, only to reappear on the other side of the galaxy.
Then everything came back into focus as they slipped through on the other side, the massive Forerunner ship towering over their tiny spec of a ship like an all powerful god.
"Where… are we?" Samus spoke up slowly, blinking away the tingling in her body as she tried to take stock of the situation.
The ship drift seemingly aimlessly as the Chief tried to make heads or tails of wherever they'd been sent. It only took a moment to notice the massive ring world in the background, a familiar sight for him and the blue A.I.
"A Halo?" The Spartan asked, bewildered.
Cortana studied it for a moment, before coming to a realization. "It's Instillation Zero T-Three, it's where the Infinity had found the c-coordinates for Requiem." She muttered quietly, learning just how far they'd been teleported.
Covenant ships all flew past, unaware of the Federation vessel hidden in the rubble that surrounded a nearby planet. After studying them for a moment, the Spartan came to a realization. "Wait, why aren't they landing on the ring?" He questioned, turning to follow the ships as they instead all moved to raid a nearby UNSC base built into a massive asteroid.
If they weren't after the Halo Ring, that meant…
"The C-C-Composer isn't on the Ring…" Cortana realized, reality dawning on her.
"They're going to tear that base apart looking for it." Samus muttered from somewhere beside him.
The statement felt obvious now.
"What are you waiting for? That station's not going to save itself…" Cortana mused, raising an eyebrow instead the Spartan's mind.
The man nodded, punching a few buttons into the console to open a two way communication window between him and the base. "This is UNSC Master Chief to base. Do you read?" He questioned to the base, anyone willing to listen.
The line was quiet for a moment, before the fuzzy video feed of an older woman came into view, her graying hair accentuated by the dull color of her lab coat. ''Y-Yes! I read you! This is Sandy Tilson of Ivanoff Station! We're under attack!'' She cried out desperately, voice hitching.
Without missing a beat, the man continued. "They're after a Forerunner artifact you took from the Halo Ring."
''H-How do you know about that?'' She questioned nervously, skeptical.
"Doctor! I need you to defend that artifact until we arrive to help, do whatever you need to until we get there!" He cut her off.
''O-Okay, but we're not ready to-''
"Doctor Tilson! Listen to me carefully. I want you to issue an evacuation order immediately, get your people out of there, now!" He stated gruffly, but calmly.
''I-I-I've been trying to, b-but the Covenant, t-they've already taken over the landing bays!'' She despaired, looking like she was on the verge of a heart attack, or a panic attack.
Whatever happened first.
"Doctor Tilson, please listen. We will handle the Covenant. You worry about getting your people to somewhere safe while you can, we will be with you shortly. Everything's going to be fine, I promise." Samus calmly drew her attention, her words echoing a familiar sense of ease and calmness.
The aged woman stared at her questioningly, eyes darting back and forth. But the Bounty Hunter's sincere words seemed to do the trick as the woman calmed down, raising her shaking hands to her glasses.
''O-Okay… Okay…'' Tilson breathed shakily, trying to calm her breathing. ''I'll… do my best to round up e-everyone to the nearest bunker.'' She said quietly, lips quivering.
Samus realized with a start that the older woman had probably been spared the sight of combat her entire life up until that point. Having her base, her life, everything suddenly upended with zero warning from anyone must've been far more than a bit startling.
She found the woman strong by the fact that she'd not broken down, and had instead tried her best to handle the situation.
"You'll do fine. We'll be there shortly." Samus said softly, her tone and words a sharp contrast to the gruff orderly manner that the Spartan tossed her around verbally with.
A moment later the feed cut out, leaving the two of them alone in the ship. The Chief had already made a flight path to the base, and was only moments away from landing inside the last remaining landing bay not yet taken over by the Covenant.
"What's the plan?" John asked as they approached, offering her a glance.
"I'll get the people to safety, secure their safety. You find Tilson and handle the Composer." Samus stated, seeing if he had any objections.
In response, he glanced to her wing. "You gonna be alright?" He asked.
She raised an eyebrow. "The wings are new. I've years under my belt in the field without them, I'll be fine." She muttered tersely, before relenting, the stress getting to her. "But, thank you…" She added after a moment of pause.
"Of course." He responded in kind, his gruff voice belying his caring side hidden underneath years of fighting and war. But she could pick up on the subtle differences, perhaps due to her exposure to war and death since an early age as well.
The ship shook as they landed, the landing gear kicking out to catch them as he carelessly landed the ship, not willing to waste time.
The moment they were down, she was already out of her seat, flying out the back of the ship. He was quick to disembark as well, taking up his magnum as he moved to track down Tilson and the controls for the entire facility…
The Spartan kicked down the doors to the landing bays adjacent to the one he'd landed in, just in time too as a soldier was about to get his neck ripped out by the jaws of a Jackal. He ran in, grabbing the Jackal by the head as he tore it off of the downed soldier, stuck it with a plasma grenade, and tossed it into the group it had come from.
There were shouts of pain as the other aliens were enveloped in a blast of plasma, all of them taken out of commission.
"Are you alright soldier?" He asked, reaching down to lend the man a hand.
"Y-Yeah… Thanks." The soldier sighed shakily, reaching up to take the hand of the one he quickly realized was none other then the Spartan himself, John one one seven. "H-Holy shit…" The young man breathed in shock. "Y-You're here."
"I'll get this hanger bay secured, you get to safety. Go protect your people until I've secured the area." Chief ordered quickly, patting the soldier on the shoulder as he offered him a plasma pistol dropped by the Jackal he'd brutalized.
"Yessir!" The man explained, saluting before he took off to help defend his people.
"Doctor Tilson, I've arrived at the evacuation bays. I'm going to clear them out now, once I'm done, send whoever you can here immediately!" He stated over his coms, having already moved to begin laying waste to the invaders on the station.
''O-Okay! B-But the path to the bays is blocked by Covenant, w-we can't get through!'' She responded in a panic.
"I'll worry about that, you just get ready for my signal." He stated, sliding to the ground as plasma fire soared overhead, slamming into the walls behind him. With the speed and dexterity of a man of his stature, he took down the three grunts that had fired at him in the span of a single second, one bullet per head.
This back and forth continued on for a short time, the man clearing out the shuttle bays with relative ease for one such as him, taking minimal damage in the process. It only helped that the Covenant that sided with the Didact were far less trained and organized than the original Covenant.
Gift horses, he realized dryly…
A moment later he'd inserted Cortana into the shuttle bay control tower, and she quickly activated the emergency bulkheads to shut out any more invaders.
"Doctor Tilson, b-bay seven is secure and we're moving towards your position now." Cortana alerted the doctor, Chief far too busy in avoiding plasma fire from a Phantom as it tried in vain to take him out.
Rocket launchers shot by the soldiers had the ship taken out of commission soon after. Somewhere in the background he could hear a distressed soldier calling out to someone, a Jesse that had gone missing in the chaos. He wished he could help, but there were far too many other important issues at hand then one missing soul.
''O-Oh really?! Oh- That's incredible!'' The older woman breathed in surprise. ''Thank you!'' She said after a moment.
The Spartan was quick to leave the shuttle bays behind, moving through the bleached white halls of the facility and towards the woman who ran the station.
Everyone he passed by he ushered back to the secured shuttle bay, ordering them to stay hidden and await further orders from either him or Samus.
After fighting his way through more halls, and passing by a research and development center, he came to a halt as a familiar red energy wave scanned through the walls of the facility.
He knew what it was, having seen it before. However, the fact that the Didact was resorting to using such a tactic meant something extremely critical.
And Cortana noticed it just the same. "The Didact doesn't know where the Composer is! H-He only knows that it's on the s-station!" She pointed out.
His eyes narrowed, rushing to clear a safe path to Tilson. If that was true, that meant that they had a chance to destroy the Composer before the Didact found it.
But that required him getting to the Doctor, and soon.
He only hoped that Samus had been lucky enough to both find the survivors, and rescue them before the Covenant got to them first.
Once they were out of harms way, everything would be far easier to deal with…
"O-Oh god…! They're coming!" A man's petrified voice echoed out, voice quivering with a bone deep sensation of horror.
"H-Hide! Everyone hide!" Someone else shouted, a woman in a lab coat, likely not even twenty five years old. "G-Get in the bunker!" She screamed quietly, ushering as many terrified scientists into a hardened bunker at the far side of the hall.
All around them were the sounds of battle, their Covenant invaders having appeared as if from nowhere to slaughter them all without mercy.
It wasn't fair!
This wasn't fair, she cried mentally.
She'd barely been here at the research lab for a week now, and then they were being invaded by a Covenant Convoy?!
She promised her mother this job would be safe, that they were so far away from the fighting that no one would even look their way. It's the only reason she could convince the woman to allow her to take this job.
If only she'd listened to her…
Then maybe…
Maybe she would be in this terrible situation right now.
She was jolted from her thoughts as the doors to the laboratory they'd all just been in barely a minute ago were busted down by the last thing she ever wished to see up close.
A pair of Hunter twins.
And they were out for blood.
Her blood, her lab companions blood, everyone's blood.
And there wasn't a damn person on this entire station who even had a chance at stopping them.
She pulled her legs up to her chest as she tried and failed to stifle her petrified sobs, her fellow lab workers all by her side, hidden in the last safe room this side of the facility.
They'd been running since the alarms went off, trying to gather as many as they could. Then the landing bays were taken over, and they fled to where they were now, in the basement of the facility, all two hundred of them that worked there. The only ones that had yet to flee were the soldiers and the higher ups that had stayed behind to try and salvage their work.
Whoever hadn't made it down to the bunker was likely already dead, either by the Covenant, or whatever that giant ship was that appeared from the depths of space.
Either way, what did it matter in the end.
They were all going to die anyway. No one was coming to save them. And even if they were, all they'd be saving were corpses.
"I-I'm sorry mom… I-I-I should've listened to you…" She wept hysterically, sucking in sharp gasped between her dainty fingers as she failed miserably at keeping quiet.
"H-Hey! I-It's going to b-be okay! I-I'm sure someone is coming to rescue us!" The man from before, Jesse, if she remembered correctly, whispered to her. He was shaking just as badly as she was, failing terribly to keep his cool in this situation they had all found themselves in.
He was always trying to make the best of situations, even when things were going terribly. That's what she liked about him.
But this was not one of those times…
They were all going to die, and she had a feeling her coworkers had come to the same conclusion as she had, all huddled together in the bunker, faces pale and clammy, eyes wide and shaking with fear.
It was only the tiniest inkling of hope that had prevented them all from breaking down into hysterics, hoping that if they kept quiet, that the Covenant would leave them be.
But the Hunter twins coming her way, slamming everything in their paths, slaughtering the soldiers, and destroying all their equipment told her otherwise.
This was the end of the road…
She found herself glancing at Jesse, finding herself wishing that she'd worked up the courage to propose to him before. Because now…
Now she'd never get the chance to tell him how she'd always felt…
She found the young scientist man hugging her from the side, shielding her with his body as his last act of defiance to the Covenant endearing. Or she would have, had the terror of death itself approaching not washed that feeling away entirely.
The doors to the bunker suddenly dented, the Hunters slamming into them loudly.
She screamed, finally incapable of holding back her paralyzing fear any longer.
She didn't want to die!
This wasn't fair!
This all wasn't fair!
They dented the door again, the heavy metal buckling from the attack. She screamed, crawling backwards as if putting any semblance of distance between her and the door would save her.
"I-I'll protect you!" She heard Jesse shout, having produced a magnum from somewhere in his lab coat. He aimed the heavy large pistol at the door, ready to unload it into whatever came their way.
There was a loud thunk again, the door buckled, and collapsed to the ground in a heap.
The Hunter stood there, towering over them as a twelve foot tall monster of wriggling worms and armor and weapons. She stared in horror as she locked eyes with its face, its glowing green eyes glowering down at her menacingly.
It seemed to laugh in a monstrous way, before it raised its weapon arm at them, ready to unleash an attack that would surely kill them all.
But before it could, another sound was heard
"H-Hey!! Hey punk! O-Over here!!" It was Jesse, shouting wildly to pull the attention to himself, away from her. The young man stood shaking in his boots, aiming his only weapon at the monster.
"Jesse, no!!" She screamed, eyes wide in horror as the man she loved stood in front of her, defending her till his last breath.
"You'll s-stay back if you know w-what's g-good for you!" He shouted defiantly, aiming the weapon right at the beast's face.
The monstrosity stared at him for a moment, before it began laughing as it instead took aim at him, slowly charging up its menacing green cannon.
Jesse's eyes widened, before he shot the gun into the barrel of the Hunter's cannon. The action actually caused the monster's weapon to detonate in its weapon, knocking the Hunter back slightly as it harmed itself.
The beast glanced at its own arm in confusion, before snapping back to the small human in a vicious rage. It stomped forward, raising its arm up high to cut him down in what would be a horrific display of gore and guts…
Or…
It would have, had the beast's arm not been stopped inches from his face.
He fell down to the ground in shock, breathing rapidly as he looked up at the arm of the Hunter, raised high in the air above itself. There was a beam of electrical energy latched onto the arm of the creature, stopping it dead.
The beast yanked and yanked, but it didn't seem physically strong enough to stop whatever force halted its progression. Then, before the eyes of everyone there, the unseen force yanked the Hunter out of the bunker and into the darkness of the halls, no lights available to illuminate what was happening.
There was the sounds of a scuffle, before the Hunter's screams were silenced in a flash of pink light.
Then silence reined supreme in the halls of the facility, the hushed whispers and the breaths of the terrified people going quiet as a pair of softer, more elegant footsteps was heard echoing towards the bunker.
She found the courage to peek out from underneath the desk she'd been hiding beneath, poking her head out into the open to see what the commotion was about.
Was it another monster coming for them?
Or…
Somehow…
Had help arrived to save them?
She held her breath, watching with wide eyes as a tall figure stepped into the room, green armor surely alien in design, a bright red visor staring down at her and the rest of the cowering people.
The figure looked like nothing she'd ever seen before, not even the super soldiers, the Spartans that she'd heard so much about from her friends.
Then, the figure turned to her, as she was the closest to the bunker's door. The mysterious figure took a knee and extended her hand out to her, palm facing up, claws open and unclenched. Her visor depolarized, allowing them a peek into the face of the person underneath.
"Are you alright?" A distinctively feminine voice asked, tone soft and caring. Like a mother who'd just stumbled upon her children having accidentally hurt themselves, and she was not wanting to spook them and make the situation any worse, she approached her gently so as to not startle anyone. "I'm here to help, I'm going to get all of you out of here, safely." She spoke, slowly turning to address everyone.
Two hundred.
There was roughly two hundred people in this bunker with her, all civilians, all unarmed, and scared out of their minds.
The girl finally gave way to tears as she threw herself at the strange green armored alien woman, wrapping her arms around her midsection as she cried hysterically.
They were going to be saved…
She…
She wasn't going to die here.
This stranger was going to save them, get them out of the hell that they'd all suddenly and inexplicably found themselves in.
Meanwhile, for Samus, she absentmindedly patted she short young brunette (Jennifer, her scan visor told her) on the head in an attempt to calm her down as she assessed the situation she found herself in, taking care to not harm her with her life ending touch.
Besides the few dead scientists she'd passed on the way here, nearly the entire staff had survived and made it to the bunker. If there was any more, they'd either died or was still with Doctor Tilson.
As for her survivors, they were all relatively unharmed, just scared to the bone.
She sighed.
Without missing a beat, still petting the short girl wrapped around her waist, she opened up a coms link with the Spartan.
Perhaps in a way to openly address who it was that had come to save them, and to further endear the people here to her, she addressed the man by his title. "Spartan one one seven Master Chief, this is Samus Aran, do you copy?" She called out, relaying her coms so as to allow the others access to the conversation.
The name drop alone had garnered the attention from most of the staff, having heard the legendary name many times before.
''Go ahead, Samus.'' The Spartan himself spoke in reply, his gruff and unmistakable voice sending waves of emotion throughout the crowd.
"I've encountered the survivors in the bunker. I'm going to get them to safety." Samus explained calmly, nodding to the people.
''Understood Samus, good luck.'' Chief grunted, before closing the line.
Samus turned to the people, gaining their attention. "Listen up everyone, I'm not going to lie to you, we are not in a good situation right now." She said slowly, making sure to have everybody paying attention. "However, I'm not going to let that stop me. Life or limb, I'm going to whatever it takes to get you all out alive. That's a promise." She stated seriously, tone carrying with it such a conviction that they couldn't help but find it in themselves to believe her.
They had to, after all, the only other option left was give into the dread of the situation and die.
And, if they were honest with themselves, that wasn't something they wanted.
This strange woman said that she was going to save them, so they planned on listening to her every word. It was their only chance they had at escaping…
Chapter
29
End