Chapter 1: Cats have nine lives.
Planet: Reach. Date: August 28th, 2552, 09:00.
Noble Six had just finished mopping up the rest of the Covenant forces, and helped the last transport fly off into space.
Several hadn't made it and crashed. Six felt an impending doom waiting for Reach. Just then, Kat had called him in, it was time for them all to regroup and head out. *Over comms* "Noble Six? That you?"
Six had activated his Falcon's communication speaker. "Go ahead Noble 2." He was relieved to hear her voice, after Jorge's death, he was certain that Reach could very well fall within a couple days.
"Just picked up your tracker, come home Six." Kat being somewhat friendly to him made him remember when she wasn't comfortable around him. Back at Visegrad, she had given him a nasty scowl when he entered the Mobile base. His Lonewolf days were behind him, although she didn't care at first. Now the two of them were battle buddies of sorts, she had to warm up to him for very personal reasons. Not even Jun would tell him.
He would finally be able to see his favorite people again, although Jorge dying, and in vain, had taken a huge mental tole on him. It had made him furious.
He landed his Falcon on the ONI tower where they were stationed, and headed in.
He hadn't slept for days, exhaustion almost took him over, he nearly fell. It felt like an hour just getting to their room. But after that, he had finally arrived. They were going to get some sleep for a couple hours, and then leave.
Maybe even leave Reach. Who knows? Maybe they would still need to do something.
Upon arriving, no one even noticed him. Kat was on her Tacpad, too focused on the task at hand. Carter was looking over the city's glassing, clearly affected by it. And Jun was keeping an eye out for Covenant patrols.
Emile silently acknowledged him.
It was raining, which just made the mood inside seem gloomier. Jun opened up a conversation with Carter. "Look at this place. Used to be the crown jewel... Hmph, Not anymore." He said, with a hint of sorrow.
Just then, he noticed Six standing at the door. Six was known for being quiet, he could kill Jun in his own sleep if he decided that he wanted to.
"Hey! You made it."
Emile looked over at Jun in annoyance from Jorge's absence. "It's a regular family reunion..." He said, it was almost never obvious that Emile could have feelings. Six grabbed the Dog tags, thinking Emile might want them.
Although he didn't. "Keep 'em. He gave 'em to you, I'll honor him my own way."
Kat finally noticed Six, she was so caught up with communicating with Satcom, they needed to desperately. She shifted her attention towards him, taking a small break from her work. "Hey..."
"Hey Kat." Six replied, ever grateful that he was able to see everyone, especially her again. Kat had changed her mind about him, he was a very impressive soldier and, an even better friend.
Although, Carter and Kat's relationship was strange, Emile and Jun said that they were a thing, when Jorge was still here, he said that something had happened, no one really no for sure what was going on between the two.
Jun had decided to lighten the mood... "Jorge always said he would never leave Reach." "Hahaha, the big man was sentimental." Emile replied with a psychotic laugh, also nodding to his own comment.
Everyone looked over at him in slight concern, it wasn't as if something like this hadn't happened before.
Kat made a slight glare. "He gave his life thinking he'd just saved the planet; we should all be so lucky." Carter walked back over to the window. Six had thought about this. Even Emile knew Reach was screwed.
Jun had something on his mind since Six came in, everyone could tell. "Sir, that true about Gauntlett, Red and Echo teams being assigned to civilian evac ops?"
Carter had a clear look of disapproval on his face. "Those are SENIOR-level communiques..." Carter had known Kat told Jun that, she was telling everyone absolutely everything, she was the last person to be told things as she wasn't good with secrets. "I hear what I hear, point is why put Spartans on defensive deployments?" Carter cut her off. "I need that link to SATCOM, Kat."
"CHASING it, but the Console has more shrapnel than Transceivers, Damnit. You still didn't answer my question." "You want to know if we're losing?" "I know we're losing. I want to know if we've lost."
Kat's question left Carter uncertain, and more had a cooler mood towards her, her asking impossible questions made Carter question his orders sometimes.
Just then, Kat got a little Ping on her Radio communications device. "Colonel Holland, hailing us! What's he doing on an open Channel?" Carter wanted to hear it, if Holland was on an open channel, it was important.
He knew damn well. [Holland, over radio.] "-In the southwest quadrant of the city, over? Sierra-259, if you are receiving, I am authorizing override of radio security protocols to link with this channel."
"This isn't safe Kat..." Six said. Kat slightly turned her head in his direction, she knew it wasn't, an open channel meant tracing would be easy as cutting through butter.
Jun looked over in astonishment. Everyone was packing their things up to get out. "How long for a secure link?" Kat was disappointed in herself, she wasn't able to do that. "I can't guarantee safe anymore."
"Could the Covenant trace it to us?"
"I could." [Holland] "Noble leader, this is a priority one hail. If you are receiving, acknowledge IMMEDIATELY."
She turned her head in disbelief. "Keep it brief."
Carter picked it out of her hand, not wanting to keep Holland waiting any longer. "Carter here... Yes sir." He kept it to a minimum, the sooner it was over, the faster they could get moving.
Jun saw something out of paranoia, he wanted to make sure it wasn't Covenant, so he sat up and glassed the city with his binoculars.
"I knew it! Multiple Covenant phantoms Vacating the area... And they're in a hurry."
Emile shifted his head towards Jun. "how often do you see Covenant retreat for no reason?" "Never." He replied cooly. The team was very paranoid now.
Kat saw something strange on her Tac-pad... Something deadly. "What th- Radiation flare! BIG! Forty-million roentgens..."
"Just lost Holland, what's going on?" Kat made a horrifying realization, the Covenant were glassing the main part of the city, not using it as a strategical advantage. "Atomic excitement is scrambling the signal! Ninety million now!"
"Source?" Kat was a genius, she knew exactly where it was coming from and could tell him basically anything he needed to know. Although this horrified her.
"Airborne... Close!" "How close?"
BOOOOM! A huge explosion not even that far from that erupted in chaos. "THAT CLOSE!" She yelled to everyone. The little chase began...
Jun and Carter went flying, crashing into the floor a few feet past where they were sitting. Emile got up and ran to the elevators, that were conveniently there. Kat fell over, the explosion let out a huge roar of light, nearly blinding both Jun and her. Six went flying as well, everyone was headed for the elevators. "KAT!" Six yelled, another huge flare would go off in a couple seconds.
"I'm fine!" "No, you're not!" BOOOM! Another flare went off. She couldn't see anything. Six ran back towards her to help her up...
Luckily, Six had covered his eyes before the Flares went off. And the second one, he was the only one able to fully see anything. Glass, dust, radiation and wind with a mix of rain flew in the building.
She had finally gotten up but had to get her things. Her Tacpad with valuable info was still lying on the floor. Rushing to get it, and barely being able to see anything was wasting time. "Got it." She said as she snatched it and ran to the elevators...
Emile, Carter and Jun had already started moving down the elevators.
Six grabbed her left hand so she could escape in time.
The two of them rushed to the elevator, Kat had somehow not been totally blinded by the explosion.
Six and Kat were finally in the elevator, and Kat had gotten her eyesight back. Kat and Six's HUD flickered on and off several times, the Radiation flare had disabled everyone's shields, and HUD.
Kat coughed; tiny shards of glass had gotten into her throat, she coughed. "First glassing? Me too." Kat said, clearly nervous about the situation. She hit the button on the elevator to go all the way down, they needed to get away from the glassing.
"You alright?" Six finally said something, he was too scared for Kat's life that he had hardly said anything. She sighed and coughed again.
"I'm ok, don't worry I'm on it." She ticked away at her Tac-pad, making an escape plan. "Alright, our best option is a fallout bunker on sub-level two, ninety six meters northeast.
We get any orders from Holland sir?" Carter wasn't aware she was behind them a couple of seconds; he regretted not helping her up. "We're being redeployed to sword base." Jun looked over at Carter in wild confusion.
"Sword?! Covenant own it now!" "Carter shifted his attention over to Jun. "Which is why they want us for a torch and burn Op, keep Halsey's excavation data from falling into enemy hands."
"If it hasn't already." Carter's elevator door opened, and they run for the bunker's entrance right across the room, they were below the surface now. A couple of seconds later, Kat and Six ran out.
"Probably, but according to Holland, the Covenant are still searching for something."
Kat was confused with Holland now, they were going to leave a few seconds later anyway, since the Phantoms were retreating. Jun noticed that a huge part of the ceiling had been blown up, just a few seconds before they got there, it was weird, something was off. And not to his surprise, a Phantom overhead was waiting it out for Six and Kat to run through the hole in the ceiling.
And a Zealot waiting in it with a Needler rifle...
"Where does he get off calling a demolition on prior-" "SNIPER!" Jun yelled. Six Pushed Kat to the side, just milliseconds after a Blamite round fired, right where Kat was running.
Before anyone else could say a word, Jun fired his SRS99 Sniper at the Zealot and groaned before falling down inside the Phantom's main body.
The Phantom was quickly fired at by Emile and Carter before it fled a couple seconds after...
"GET IN NOW!" Carter shouted. Emile and Jun did the same. "HURRY, GET IN!" Six helped Kat up and they both ran to the Bunker. Carter reloaded his Magazine for his Ma37 assault rifle, and put it down. Kat didn't say a word, she knew it was partially her fault that she hadn't noticed huge hole in the roof, even though no one else had, aside from Jun.
But she was certainly Grateful Six had pushed her out of harms way.
"You alright?" Kat took her helmet off. "I'm fine." Jorge had just died days before, and now she had almost went with him, if it wasn't for Jun, (And Six) she would've been dead.
"You're one lucky bastard, that's for sure." Emile said under his throat.
Emile normally tried to hide his emotions with jokes, or sarcasm so his team couldn't tell.
Just then, Six noticed a group of civilians in the corner of the Bunker, clearly interested and partially worried for Kat, an outsider seeing a site like that was a once in a lifetime opportunity, Jun got incredibly lucky with his attention.
The Bunker doors closed, and everyone got snuggly into place, they would be here for at least a couple hours, might as well sleep.
Six needed it the most, crashing onto the planet's surface from orbit, limping to New Alexandria and fighting for days was exhausting, even for a Spartan...
Kat was breathing slowly compared to when she got pushed out of danger, her paranoia in the elevators she had in secret seemed to foreshadow what had just happened a minute or so after.
"You got really lucky Kat." She forgot to tell them both thank you, doing that for her saved her life, even if it was by several milliseconds.
"Thanks. Both of you, I owe you two." "The only thing you owe me is a round of beer once we get back to command, haha." Jun snarked.
"I'll make sure to do that..."
"How'd you know there was a Phantom overhead?" Emile asked out of curiosity.
"On my way up, the Hole in the ceiling wasn't there. Well, that and the amount of inconsistencies there were."
Jun and Emile sat their things down once the doors closed, and lie back against the walls.
Everyone was exhausted.
Hello! I improved this chapter... Yet again. Tried to make it more grim and realistic, the whole love thing Between Kat and Six is going to develop over the course of the story rather than the two already making a lot of progress, stay tuned ! If you didn't already see I am updating every chapter, have decided to skip Halo 2 and 3's stories, and finish it off with 4-5 Banished chapters...