The plot continues to develop, several things are happening or getting close to happening. Will be interesting to write out the details of the next few chapters.
Thank you again to everyone who's read, followed, and reviewed.
Standard copyright disclaimer: I do not own Halo or any associated media, characters, or settings which are properties of 343 or Bungie. This is a work of fanfiction written purely for entertainment and not for monetary gain.
0700, 18 August 2550
Archaeological Site A-03, Unknown Forerunner Installation, Iota Horologii System
The trio of Pelicans receded into the distance, skimming low over the waters of the lake below. Upon reaching the edge of the lake, they climbed slightly to clear a ridgeline, before dropping behind it and out of sight. The UNSC team investigating the mysterious Forerunner site, along with teams Yankee Five and Yankee Six, were left alone on their island.
Standing at the center of the island atop a mountain a few hundred meters high was a strange, three-pronged Forerunner structure. The prongs surrounded a parabolic depression roughly the size of two Pelicans, with several more structures set into the faces of the mountains below. Doubtlessly, the site extended underground a significant distance. The main team, consisting of Shaon Tol, half a dozen human scientists, and half a platoon of ODSTs, had been dropped here. Surrounding this site at about two kilometer's distance near the edge of the island and arranged in a triangular pattern were smaller buildings, resembling triangles split down the center. Though their footprint was narrower than the site at the top of the mountain, they were nearly as tall and still quite massive.
Oddly, shortly after the arrival of the UNSC, each of these shot a beam of energy into the sky toward the center of the ring. For what purpose, nobody knew. Since then, they had been silent.
Chac Lon and fire team Yankee Five were perched in cluster of small trees about halfway up the central mountain, overlooking one of the structures near the lakeshore. Yankee Six was on the opposite side of the mountain, looking over the other half of the lake. Their line of sight faced back toward Camp Scott several tens of kilometers away, while Yankee Five was positioned facing the most likely vector of a Covenant attack. Luckily, in the short time since Yankee Five arrived, there was no sign of them, and the kig-yar were able to settle in and get themselves comfortable and camouflaged.
Chac Lon leaned back against a moss covered rock wall, with his legs lazily splayed out in front of him and BR55 leaning against a rock within reach. Vak and Yath, two more of the four kig-yar in Yankee Five, sat a few meters away slighly downslope. Yath, an Ibie-shan, already dozed off, while Vak picked through a ration pack. Thac Vol, the team's last member and their designated sniper, was perched on a narrow ledge six or seven meters above Chac Lon. She was one of the few kig-yar assigned to BLACK FLAG that was using a Covenant weapon, her trusted beam rifle.
She had been scanning the area through her scope, looking for any indication of the Covenant, or the strange automatons that were said to haunt Forerunner sites like these. But at the moment, she sat bemused watching the kig-yar below her deal with their human rations.
"It's not my fault you grabbed the worst one! Any of the humans could have told you how terrible the 'three fingers of death' are." Yath said, laughing at Vak who held a pair of half-eaten sausages in front of him. Disgust was written on the other kig-yar's face.
"It's not the taste, it's the texture. It's... uneven. Gods!" Vak emphatically flung the rest of the sausages off the side of the hill. Chac Lon glared at him. If the Covenant found that later they'd know the UNSC had been here. "Yath, what do you want in trade for your main meal?"
Yath looked at his ration. "Hmmm. Beef strips in spicy sauce. Humans say that one is good, don't they boss?"
Chac Lon smiled. He knew where this was going. "That's what I heard."
"Then I'll need three sides. Including your pineapple cake." Yath grinned ferally. The sealed, prepackaged pineapple cake in some UNSC rations was a favorite of kig-yar since captured UNSC equipment first started appearing in the black markets of Eayn.
"You're insane! Only two if I give you that, and I'm still overpaying!"
"Squawk any louder and the humans are going to hear you, you idiot hatchlings!" Thac Vol yelled from her perch above. That was as good a cue as any. Chac Lon tore open one of his rations, dug out a package of candy, and threw it at Yath. "Here's the third thing, figure out the rest yourselves."
It quieted down after that, as Yankee Five settled in to watch for Covenant. Chac Lon looked across the lake through a monocular, staring at a few more structures faintly visible through the haze. It was growing cloudier and more humid. What had the Forerunners built here? And how did they control the weather? Chac Lon was no meteorologist, but he doubted a ring like this would naturally have clouds and seasons. And why were parts of it covered in ice? Not even a sixth of the way around the ring he saw a massive part of it frozen from one rim to the other.
He was back to staring across the lake when Thac Vol chirped at him. "Contacts. East north east." She gestured with her free hand as she held her beam rifle.
Immediately, Chac Lon turned to look, adjusting the focus on his optics. Through the haze, he saw seven indistinct purple objects approaching from a great distance. He strained his eyes, and they began to resolve themselves.
"I see them." Chac Lon said. "Covenant."
"Three Spirits, four Banshees." Thac Vol replied. Chac Lon looked again. Now the shapes had resolved themselves, and he confirmed what his sniper saw. "I'll call it in."
"Digger actual, this is Yankee Five. Seven inbound Covenant aircraft, bearing zero-seven-five. Four Banshees, three Spirits." Three Spirits could mean up to a platoon and a half of Covenant, not a trivial force by any means.
"Copy that, Yankee Five. Can you identify Banshee type?"
Chac Lon looked again. The Banshees looked 'normal' to him, matching the ones he'd seen countless times on Eayn, T'vao, and other Covenant worlds. He realized that the humans wanted to know if they had come from one of the Covenant ships or their base on the ring. "Normal, atmospheric type, Digger."
"Copy." This was a bit concerning. Either the Covenant craft had flown a great distance, or more likely they had established an outpost close to here. Which would put them closer to Camp Scott.
"Keep us posted Yankee Five, and wait for weapon release authorization."
"Understood, Digger. Yankee Five, out."
It would still be a few minutes before the Covenant arrived, but the humans wanted them to stay hidden. Hopefully, the Covenant did not realize the extent of the UNSC presence here.
The enemy craft continued their approach, and were soon well within visual range. The distinctive twin prongs of the Spirits were clearly visible as they began their descent toward the edge of the island; the Banshees maintained altitude. Chac Lon dutifully reported the new developments;
"Digger, Yankee Five reporting Spirits are descending, probable landing point near the easternmost structure. Banshees holding steady."
"Copy, Yankee Five. Yankee Five, Yankee Six, push to secondary frequency."
As requested, he changed frequencies. "Yankee Five, checking in."
"Yankee Six, here." There was the other kig-yar team.
"Kilo One, radio check." The voice was human; it must have been the commander of the ODSTs attached to the scientists.
"All units, this is Sierra-058. I have operational command of the defense of this site. Hold fire until I engage." A Spartan? That was unexpected, but welcome.
"Understood, 058." Chac Lon responded. Best not to get on a demon's bad side.
"Kilo, you have the Banshees. Yankee Six, you're with Kilo. Yankee Five, engage high value targets coming out of the first two Spirits, then fall back to the top of the hill."
Chac Lon acknoweldged, and pointed his team toward the first two Spirits. He wasn't sure how the demon would handle the third, but he'd trust her. Looking through the scope on his BR55, he tried to estimate the range to the Covenant's probable landing site. Five, six hundred meters? Hard to be precise at that range, but Chac Lon was still confident he could get hits on targets. Or at least make them easier for Thac Vol to hit. For her this would be nothing; she'd killed Sangheili at three times this distance.
The first Spirit landed, disgorging a mixed force of jiralhanae and T'vaoan skirmishers. For a fraction of a moment, Chac Lon felt guilty about the thought of killing other T'vaoans. It quickly passed. They would give him, a heretic, no mercy, so he would repay them in kind. Besides, it would be far from the first time he killed other kig-yar; at least these were nameless, faceless soldiers he knew nothing of. He rested the crosshairs of his rifle on the head of a gold-armored skirmisher. But he refrained from firing, even as the second of the Spirits slowed to a hover and began to open its doors.
"Sierra-058, engaging. Weapons free." As the Spartan announced her entry into the fight, a flash of light leapt from the Forerunner installation at the top of the mountain and slammed into the central area of the third Spirit, where the prongs met. The dropship wobbled momentarily. Two seconds later, another flash of light, and the same spot on the Spirit was hit again. Small fragments fell away, as the Spirit aborted its descent and angled upward, trailing a thin wisp of smoke. Chac Lon chuckled, thinking the Spartan must have scared the pilot of the dropship off, as he exhaled and squeezed the trigger of his rifle.
One of the rounds went low, narrowly missing the skirmisher and embedding itself into the dirt. The third barely clipped its back, tearing away feathers, skin, and a small bit of muscle but doing no serious damage. The second hit it just below the in the abdomen, tearing through the intestines and shattering the thoracic vertebrae. The enemy skirmisher collapsed to the ground, bleeding. Simultaneously, Thac Vol put a beam rifle shot into the side of a jiralhanae Ultra in violet-colored armor. Amazingly, the beast did not die, but staggered as its protective shield flared and abosrbed most of the beam rifle's energy. Shielded jiralhanae? Thac Vol reflected on this for the barest moment before she fired again, dispatching her target.
Hundreds of meters away, one of the ODSTs hefted a twin-tube rocket launcher and sighted in on the nearest Banshee. He had the newest model of the M41 SPNKr, capable of locking on to Covenant vehicles even at night and in the worst of weather. Quickly, he was rewarded with a growling tone as the rocket's upgraded seeker heat detected the Banshee's infrared and visual signature. A quick squeeze of the trigger, and a compressed gas charge launched the rocket 10 meters forward out of the tube before the motor ignited. The rocket corkscrewed toward its target, reaching near-supersonic speeds in only a few seconds.
The jiralhanae piloting the Banshee was aware that the UNSC might be present, but was unaware of the UNSC forces crouching amongs the Forerunner structures on the mountain. He barely realized he was under attack before the rocket slammed straight into the side of the Banshee, blowing it to pieces. As the fragments of the Banshee and Jiralhane fell toward the lake below, the ODST was already launching the second rocket from his magazine.
After their first precisely aimed shots, Chac Lon, Vak, and Yath were simply aiming their rifles at the center mass of the Covenant forces below and squeezing off bursts as fast as they could. Out of the corner of his right eye, Chac Lon caught sight of the second Banshee losing most of a wing to a human rocket. He turned to watch the Banshee spiral downward, and caught sight of the third Spirit; the one Sierra-058 had shot.
Unbeknownst to the kig-yar of Yankee Five, the 5.4mm rounds fired by the Spartan's gauss rifle did grievous damage to the Spirit. The first round spent its energy breaking through the starship-grade plating on the outside of the Spirit, dumping its energy into the internal structure and sending spall into the unfortunate pilot. The second round penetrated even deeper, boring straight through the weakened structure and obliterating the pilot's head and upper torso. Unpiloted and with destroyed controls, the Spirit pointed upward, ascended upward to a height of nearly a hundred meters, and ran out of momentum. It hung nearly vertical in midair for a few seconds, then, as Yankee Five and the Covenant below watched, swapped ends and dropped into a steep descent. Travelling almost straight down, the Spirit slammed into the surface of the lake and slipped beneath the water, taking all of the Covenant on board with it.
The jiralhanae piloting the second Spirit was intelligent enough to put the Forerunner structure in between the incoming fire and his craft. All two dozen of the jiralhanae and unggoy on that Spirit made it off, and started moving around the side of the structure to link up with the rest of the Covenant forces. The survivors from the first dropship were pushing forward as well, using the rocks and vegetation of the island as cover. It was slow going, even with the jiralhanae doing their best to provide suppressing fire against Yankee Five.
Chac Lon flattened himself against the dirt as one of the nearby rocks exploded, spraying him with hot gravel. Half a second later, the jiralhanae wielding the brute shot died when Thac Vol's beam rifle punched a hole straight through his forehead. Still, the Covenant's shots were getting closer, and it was only a matter of time before someone with a carbine or brute shot got lucky. He jogged over to Vak and Yath. "You two, go! I'll cover you!" Chac Lon pointed up the path toward the peak of the mountain. There was a secondary position they'd identified a few hundred meters up the path. It didn't have as good of a line of sight across the lake, but it was more protected.
Vak picked up his spare ammunition and went immediately; Yath followed after emptying his magazine in the general direction of the Covenant below. "You too, Thac! Any longer and they'll have shots on the path back!" The sniper paused for a second, before she muttered a profanity and jumped down from her perch. As she did, Chac Lon aimed his rifle at the Covenant below. Setting his sights on an unggoy out in the open, he squeezed the trigger and fired. He didn't see the other one nearby aiming its fuel rod cannon directly at the kig-yar.
The unggoy got off four rounds before a 5.4mm round from Sierra-058's coilgun atomized it. It was fortunate that the dead unggoy wasn't experienced enough to accurately aim his weapon at targets as far away as Yankee Five. None of the kig-yar were hit by the projectiles. If they had, it would have been certain death.
Instinctively, Chac Lon closed his eyes and covered his face when he saw the green projectile fly above and in front of him. He felt the heat from it, but it barely uncomfortable. The projectile that hit closer behind him did more damage. Thrown forward, Chac Lon stumbled and fell, landing awkwardly on his arms. The rocky ground dug gouges into his arms, and snapped off many of his feathers. Opening his eyes, Chac Lon flexed his hands. No permanent damage, but his bones would be sore for a bit. He could also feel that his back was a bit singed.
Thac Vol came off worse. When Chac Lon saw her, she was on the ground, sitting up and awake. But the skin on the left side of her face, neck, and torso was burned, and one of her legs was bent at an unnatural angle. The wreckage of her beam rifle lay on the ground, smoldering, a bit away. Dragging his rifle, Chac Lon stood up and ran toward her. Ahead, Yath had heard the sound of the fuel rods impacting, and turned around. Uninjured, he also sprinted back to where Thac Vol sat.
"Will you live?" Chac Lon asked her, as he crouched nearby.
Thac Vol squawked something incomprehensible, before grimacing. "Yes, just get me out of here." Stray bolts of plasma were still flying by; the Covenant didn't have a direct shot on the kig-yar as they crouched low, but another barrage of fuel rods would be catastrophic.
"I have her! Lift with me!" Yath looped his arm around Thac Vol and lifted her. Chac Lon did his best to help, but Yath was stronger than the T'vaoan even when he was uninjured. Thac Vol hissed loudly; Yath did his best not to touch her burns, but speed was more important than comfort.
"Kilo, Yankee Five has injured, we're coming to the top." Chac Lon called in to the UNSC forces at the top of the mountain; he didn't listen for their response. Evidently they heard him, because partway up they were met by a squad of ODSTs.
"This your casualty?" One of ODSTs, whose uniform was marked with a red armband, asked as he laid out a stretch.
"She's hurting pretty bad, be careful." Chac Lon said as he and Yath laid Thac Vol onto the strecher. She ruffled her feathers in annoyance, not liking being so helpless, but was smart enough not to complain.
"What about you, can you fight?" The other medic asked, gesturing to the blood stains covering Chac Lon's armor as his comrade sprayed some kind of gel onto Thac Vol's burns.
"Patch me up back at camp. I've hurt myself worse."
The ODST smiled and shot him a thumbs up. "Good! Go kill some Covenant for me."
0530, 21 August 2550
Near Camp Scott, Unknown Forerunner Installation, Iota Horologii System
UNSC medical technology truly was a marvel, Chac Lon realized not for the first time. Already, his arms were essentially healed, aside from his feathers. It would take those a bit longer to regrow. Thac Vol was still recovering, with her leg in a brace, but she was well enough to help defend the camp. Two years ago she would have been in pain for months after getting burned the way she was. Chac Lon remembered how long it took him to recover from the plasma burns after that mission on Persia IX. And even now he could still feel the scar tissue some days.
The battle at the Forerunner site had gone in the UNSC's favor, with the attacking Covenant force almost entirely wiped out. Only a pair of Spirits and a single Banshee escaped, fleeing once it became apparent the battle was lost. Not surprisingly, the Spartan present did much of the work; Sierra-058 accounted for a Spirit, a Banshee, and several Covenant foot soldiers. Losses to the UNSC were light; two ODSTs dead from a strafing attack, and a dozen humans and kig-yar injured. Half of those injuries were when the ODSTs moved down to the lakeside to clean up the unggoy and skirmishers after their jiralhanae leaders were dead.
Even so, they'd left the site as soon as they could get Pelicans to take them back to Camp Scott. Doubtlessly the Covenant would return in force once they realized the extent of the human presence (and the possibility to eliminate a Spartan), and the site had been of little value. Shaon Tol and the human scientists managed to get a bit of data from the mysterious systems in the Forerunner structure. Useful, but not worth risking the lives of a Spartan and a platoon of the UNSC's best soldiers.
Luckily, one of the other teams had been more successful the next day. Sierra-117 and a mixed force of ODSTs and kig-yar ambushed a single file of Covenant guarding an unassuming structure nestled in an arid alpine valley. The interior of the structure was small and sparse, consisting of four rooms guarded by twice as many sentinels. But the data within pointed to the existence of several other larger, more important installations spread throughout the ring. Installations that themselves contained detailed maps of the entire ring; marked as 'cartographers'. This was information that would give them real progress toward understanding this place.
Back at the camp, Colonel Gagne had known that he had to balance care with speed. The Covenant vessels in orbit had yet to move against the Targhee and Pillar of Autumn, but there was no telling how long that would stay true. Even with what help ONI's Prowlers could give, five on two was still terrible odds, especially given that this time the Covenant would be shooting to kill. Each day also meant another chance for the Covenant to muster all of their forces into a force large enough to wipe out the UNSC contingent on the ring. This Forerunner installation was a valuable prize, but they did not have the luxury of examining it in peace as if the Covenant was not here.
The nearest cartographer was a few hundred kilometers away, in a high alpine valley much like the previous installation. A brief consultation with Admiral Titus aboard the Targhee, and the Unimak scanned the area. The entrance to the installation that (presumably) contained the cartographer was set into the side of the valley. Data from the prowler also showed the Covenant was already present. A few defensive turrets, augmented by a small number of Ghosts and some unidentified vehicle roughly the size of a Warthog. The vast majority of their defenses were pointed up or down the valley; leaving the mountain above surprisingly undefended.
At the top of the mountain the ring's atmosphere would be thin, about the same as at an elevation of five or six kilometers on Earth. Did the Covenant guarding the site assume that was enough to prevent an attack from there? Or was their leader simply an idiot? Either way, it was an opening. Two Pelicans would drop a small, elite force upslope. All three Spartans, two fire teams of kig-yar, and two squads of ODSTs would land near the top of the mountain just out of sight of the Covenant, eliminate the Covenant defences, then enter the cartographer. A third Pelican would follow with the scientific team, to thoroughly document and analyze the structure. (As a backup, the ODSTs had been provided with data disks, and Colter split off a few of his subroutines to ride along with Sierra-117 and provide support on the fly.)
The day-night cycle on the ring was unusual; it orbited around a gas giant in the Iota Horologii system while also turning rotating on all three axes. Only a quarter of the time was spent in true "daylight", with much of the rest of it in night or a strange twilight bathed in the reflected orange light of the gas giant. Colonel Gagne decided the UNSC's attack would take place in one of these periods of twilight. Everyone knew from experience that the Covenant was more than capable of operating at night, but hopefully at least a few more of the detachment defending the cartographer would be asleep.
It was still dark when the pair of Pelicans left Camp Scott and departed low and fast along the ring's surface. The mission was meticulously designed to give the UNSC every advantage they could get. But everyone knew success truly rested on the shoulders of the three Spartans in the lead Pelican.
"And dispersing our forces piecemeal like this is foolishness! My packs are being bled by the humans and these constructs while we sit here arguing!"
Despite his devout belief in the Great Journey, Tartarus was still a jiralhanae. And the Prophet of Temperance knew that he did not command nearly as much respect as the hierarch Truth in the chieftain's eyes. He would have to choose his words carefully.
"Peace, Tartarus, peace. We both know that the first priority must be understanding this Holy Ring. And besides, this will soon give you the chance to rid us of that pesky sangheili. Do you think he has not been begging me to head to the surface of the ring and take command himself?"
"Why not let him do so now? My jiralhanae will ensure he never touches the surface of the ring." Tartarus smiled widely. He had no compunctions about shooting 'Vadamee in the back. Indeed, he knew of the sangheili's prowess; betraying him without warning was the safest option.
"As much as I would like to." Temperance sighed. "Truth was very clear of the timing of when this must be done. It cannot be until after Regret is removed, and our window still does not open for another daily cycle."
"And how long will it take word to reach us here once the deed is done?" Tartarus asked. The unspoken implication being that he would not consent to whittle away his jiralhanae for weeks on end.
"Truth only specified that 'Vadamaee was to be eliminated after the appointed time, not when we heard news of Regret's death. I do not wish to waste time either, the sooner the sangheili are out of the way the sooner we can remove the humans from here and examine the Ring in peace."
"The sangheili are fools, but not all of them are stupid. At least one of them will realize this was planned, not a spontaneous reaction to Regret's death."
"Then you must be certain that none of them are left alive to think about that."
343 Guilty Spark, the monitor of Installation 04, was not in the best of moods. 101,000 years of dutifully watching over this installation after the Array's activation, and the last several days threw it all into disarray.
According to protocol he should have fired upon the strange vessels when they arrived, but he had refrained. Partially due to the damage to the Installation's weapon systems, and partially because they had not been initially hostile. Indeed, to see that several species had survived and even thrived after the firing of the Array? The Librarian would have been pleased to see that the reseeding efforts had gone so well.
A cursory probe of the incoming vessel's computer systems revealed troubling information. This 'Covenant' completely misunderstood everything! The purpose of the Array, the nature of the Forerunners, everything! Spark immediately suspected the San'Shyuum. From his limited memories, he knew they had been accomplished manipulators and schemers even before the Array had fired. It looked like little had changed in the last 101,000 years. Even worse, the 'Covenant' immediately started breaking into sensitive areas of the Installation and engaging his Sentinels! He'd directed them to respond according to protocol, of course. It was fortunate they had not yet discovered anything truly sensitive. More thanks to their own incompetence than anything else.
Spark hoped that he could find a way to educate the Covenant on the true nature of Installation 04 before they broke something that matter. But the arrival of the human ships complicated things even further. When 343 Guilty Spark first scanned their systems, he was overjoyed. Reclaimers! Here! But the 'Covenant' was at war with them, and the Reclaimers looked like they were losing. Most unfortunate! Not only for the sake of the Reclaimers, but both factions had weaponry that (while weak by Forerunner standards) was more than capable of doing significant damage to the Installation. Thankfully they had enough restraint not to use them in close proximity to the Installation, but even so Spark had contingencies prepared to respond if they did. Spark had noticed several other things while scanning the Reclaimers systems, aside from that their computer systems were much better defended than the Covenant's. (Not that they were any challenge for a genius like him.) This clearly wasn't the first relic of his creators the humans had found, though it did not appear they had yet discovered any of the other installations of the Array. And the presence of one of the 'Covenant' species on the Reclaimer ships? He would have to devote a few low-priority processor cycles to looking at that.
Of greater importance, though, was finding some way of making sure neither the Covenant nor the Reclaimers meddled with anything they shouldn't. There must be some way to explain to them the true purpose of this installation, and the history behind it. Because as it was, it was only a matter of time before one of them stumbled into the Flood and released it. And if that happened, protocol dictated exactly what action he had to take.