Chapter 1 - Ruina
July 2nd, 2544 (12:20 Hours – Military Calendar)
Aratus Sulfi System, Near former colony world of New Bara
In Route to Osiris-7
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The Paris Class Heavy Cruiser UNSC Spear of Odysseus javelined its way out of slipspace and into the local space of the Aratus Sulfi System. It was a system on the threshold between the inner and outer colonies that had been abandoned by the UNSC before the Human-Covenant War. Yet coincidentally it was about to be pulled into the heart of the conflict.
A month earlier, The Gaugamela, one of Epsilon Eridani's Long Range Relay Stations had detected a signal from deep space. It was an SOS. But it hadn't come from just any ship, not a human one. After hours of decryption the crew of the Gaugamela discovered its stellar origin in the Aratus Sulfi System, from a CCS Class Battlecruiser, a Covenant ship.
The information was quickly traveled up the chain of command and ended in Bravo Company being sent to the system via the Spear of Odysseus. As far as Duncan knew from the briefing, the job of the ODSTs would be to secure the cruiser so that UNSC Technical Specialists could study and extract its valuable technologies. The information gained from it could be used to further develop UNSC ships and begin bringing an end to the Covenant's technological superiority in naval warfare. A worthy goal. If they actually managed to pull this off then untold numbers of human lives could be saved. On the more radical note, perhaps it would even turn the tides of the war in mankind's favor.
However, despite the possibilities, there were three things that stuck out from this whole situation that didn't sit right with anyone. Firstly, it was too good to be true. None of the more veteran ODSTs in Bravo were convinced that such a victory could come about so easily. Duncan had thought they were simply too battle-hardened to believe their fortunes were so good until he remembered the second problem. It was clear to anyone and everyone who thought about it for longer than two minutes. If Relay Station Gaugamela had picked up on the CCS' signal from several dozen lightyears away, it was more than likely that the Covenant had also picked up on the signal and were on their way to investigate as well. Then there was the third problem that didn't sit well with the troopers just as it hadn't with Operation BAGMAN; this would be another ONI-supervised operation.
While Lieutenant Colonel Garrison would still be the man in charge of his company, Lieutenant Commander Cordova of the Office of Naval Intelligence would be coordinating with him to get the job done. The ODSTs still remembered her from their training drops aboard the Juno. While back then she was under the leadership of one Colonel Ackerson, this time she would be running the entire show by herself.
She had explained to them during the briefing at Falchion Base that their most immediate goal was to secure the source of the SOS signal. This way they would have a chance of stopping the Covenant from finding the ship. She had also offered them the consolation that the system where it had crashed was so remote that the Covenant's chances of reaching it first were astronomical. It wasn't the best analogy in an era where a person could travel between arms of the Milky Way Galaxy in less than a few days.
Their only chance lay in getting there before the enemy did. For over a month they were forced to endure the possibility that the Covenant, with far faster starships than the one they were travelling on, could have reached the system ahead of them. Duncan had a different concern, however. If they actually came across them, this would be his first run-in with the Covenant. The others gave him some half-hearted advice when he asked about it. Zack told him stories about how he bullied Grunts like the second graders he used to mess with as a kid. Hector recounted how he'd squared off with a Jackal once and won. But across the board everyone told him the same thing: If you see an Elite, call it out, don't fight it alone. Apparently, it was a common mistake made by rookie ODSTs to face one alone figuring they were just as easy to take down as in the simulations. Those rookies more often than not lived very short lives. It was rumored that in 1st platoon, only hardcore vets like the Staff, Harper and Joels could be counted on to tango with that class of enemy one-on-one.
"And if you see a Brute." Deaks had said. "Forget these bozos, you call me. Understood?"
That was about all he knew in terms of real, up-front experience. He decided taking the advice on the Elites was probably the most trustworthy option.
Today he was going to find out how good that advice was as the Spear of Odysseys left slipspace and entered the system. He had done his reading on this region of space before they came here. The Aratus Sulfi System was home to one former colony world. The planet of New Bara, initially known as AS-3, was the third of four planets orbiting the star after which it was named. New Bara had been founded in the early 2400s and thrived due to its participation as a middleman in the trade between the inner and outer colonies. Then it suffered a major economic downturn due to the rising Insurrection, so terrible in fact that the UEG decided to abandon the colony outright, evacuating its citizens from this region of space.
That made the Spear of Odysseus the sole human presence in the system. That didn't mean it was the only presence, however. As expected, they detected the SOS signal emanating from one of New Bara's two satellite moons. It was the largest of the two, Osiris-7. From what Duncan had learned, the UEG had made attempts to terraform Osiris-7 into an adjacent colony world in 2497 akin to what Earth had done with Luna centuries earlier. Those efforts were abandoned midway through when the colonists were evacuated from New Bara in 2520, leaving the satellite only partially habitable.
A quick scan by the Odysseus' bridge crew showed there were no other Covenant ships save the one that was the origin of the SOS. It had crashed on the moon, ripe for the picking, and they still had time.
Lieutenant Colonel Garrison ordered Bravo Company into their HEVs where they waited as the ship pulled in over Osiris-7's exosphere near the equatorial latitude.
The countdown started once they were in place. On three, the Company shot out of the open drop bay and rocketed towards the surface. Conditions on the ground would be survivable due to the remaining terraformation affects. They merely needed to get down there and get to work.
Duncan looked through his viewport at the surface of Osiris-7 which looked more like Earth than a barren moonscape. He maneuvered himself alongside Nova and the Staff in a wedge formation and arrowed down through the atmosphere. At 1 minute the veil of noontime clouds pulled away, bringing the main show into visibility.
The landscape below was carpeted in a thick layer of red and yellow Maple trees and towering green Pines with several lone mountains sprinkled far apart. The vast expanse of nature was uniformly wrapped to the farthest horizons save for a large scar running across the area. The scar had started at the midsection of a mountain where a large mass had slammed into its side. From there it descended the slope, cutting a deep furrow in the ground before stopping two kilometers away.
Duncan traced the scar to its end. The massive object lying there reminded him more of a beached whale than a crashed ship. The rounded sides, circular midsection and ornate surface of the alien vessel told him that it was their target.
The CCS Class Battlecruiser had crash-landed on the surface of Osiris-7 and was sitting on the forest floor like a dead animal carcass. The only question that remained now was who had killed it?
"Check your landing vectors people." Garrison said over comms. "We do this quick and clean."
With another kilometer left to reach the ground the ODSTs angled towards the opposite side of the mountain. The goal was to initially stay out of sight from any potential Covenant survivors hiding near the downed CCS. From there Bravo Company would advance across the two remaining kilometers to the ship and secure its immediate perimeter before an insertion team went in to investigate the SOS signal's source.
Since the Odysseus would remain in orbit it would subsequently be vulnerable the entire time. If Covenant forces arrived in system and took it out, they'd be stuck here. They had no choice but to move quickly.
Over 250 manned HEVs baptized the surface and pockmarked it in clouds of roiled earth. Duncan's pod crashed through several trees as his braking rockets screamed through the green and red foliage, causing birds to disperse in every direction. He ultimately slammed into a boulder that bumped his pod back and made it land on its side. While jostling inside his pod he was thankful the braking rockets had deactivated this time, and also that he had landed face up.
Duncan punched the explosive bolts and the hatch blew off a second later. Sunlight streamed in. A yellow tree gently swaying in the wind gave him overhead shade against the bulk of the noontime sunrays coming from Aratus Sulfi.
To his surprise, Rico was already standing over his pod. "You good, hermano? That landing looked pretty sucky."
Duncan shook his head, grabbed his MA5B from the pod's weapon socket and pulled himself out of his pod. "How'd you even get here so fast?"
Rico jabbed his thumb behind him. Duncan followed where he was pointing to the second HEV just a few meters away planted perfectly vertical in the ground. He sighed. "I need to get better at this."
"You better." Rico said. "Sticking the landing's just as important as surviving the drop, bro."
The two of them saw a NAV Marker from the Staff appear on the HUDs. "Come on, let's get moving." Rico said, and started jogging in that general direction. Duncan tagged along, flicking the safety off his rifle just in case.
The meeting point was in a grassy field at the base of the mountain left marred by the CCS. The natural beauty of its western face was left untouched unlike its eastern counterpart.
Duncan and Rico left the tree line and jogged towards the hundreds of other ODSTs heading towards the center. While there were others there sporting many different color accents on their BDU that marked off those with specialties, they already knew who they were looking for. The red-accented armor of the Staff didn't stand out to the normal person looking at the gathering, but Duncan was already used to recognizing it from afar. He and Rico passed through the knee-high grass until they reached him. The rest of the squad was already waiting. The Staff nodded off to them and turned his attention to the Lieutenant Colonel who had positioned himself near the slope of the mountain. An ODST wearing an armor set Duncan had never seen before stood beside him. The bulk of the armor was still ODST save for a few minor changes to the chest cavity. It was the helmet that was off, however, possessing the slit like visor of a Recon variant. That had to be the ONI Agent.
"I want 1st and 2nd Platoons running point on both sides of the furrow." Garrison said. "Once we secure the perimeter, Lieutenant Commander Cordova will take over and lead an insertion team inside. Watch your sectors and be prepared for a quick EVAC if necessary. Let's move out."
Duncan briefly wondered how Garrison felt about having to temporarily relinquish his command to someone who, according to Navy/Marine rank comparisons, was one head shorter than him on the authority totem pole. Still he focused on joining the rest of his squad as Bravo Company fanned out.
The Company broke into two, streaming around the mountain with 1st and 2nd platoon's leading either stream. Squad Epsilon moved slightly behind Eagle but in line with Echo. They spearheaded the movement across the forest, melding with the shadows of trees and dashing through the labyrinth of wooden stalks.
Duncan got a good view of the furrow along the way. It was 20 meters deep and several times that number wide. The bottom was dominated by the deep roots of the trees that likely stood there until they were crushed. The splintered, scorched husks of the decapitated Maples nearest to the furrow were bent away from the site of impact, suggesting it had been a hot landing.
They maneuvered through the torched vegetation for another two kilometers until the rear of the CCS loomed high over them. Where it lay, the battle-cruiser had created an area of open ground surrounded by trees that survived the last of the damage. Dozens of boulders and chunks of debris surrounded the outside of the cruiser. It would make good cover if anything happened. Right now, however, they were potential enemy holdouts.
1st Platoon met with 2nd at the stern then split up again. They carefully scoured through the debris field of boulders and rubble, checking for a possible enemy presence.
Duncan kept his rifle high as he circumvented a rock twice his size. Sweat drifted down his cheek. He turned to the other side and swept it clear. He breathed out in relief and carried on with the rest of Epsilon.
By then the rest of Bravo Company was coming up behind them. 1st platoon moved was about to pass the midsection when Echo-4 came in over comms. "Hey Echo-1. Found something."
The nervousness in her voice added fuel to Duncan's own worries. What had she found exactly?
"On my way." Joels said. Half a minute passed before he came back on, his concern mirroring his subordinate's. "Ugh, Echo-1 to 1-Actual?"
"What is it Echo-1?"
"I…can't send a feed. The camera won't do any justice here. You…might want to see this yourself." He planted a marker on his position about thirty meters into the forest near the ship's bow.
"Ep-1, we'll link up with Echo and finish the sweep there so we can check it out."
"Copy that." The Staff pointed to the rest of Epsilon then to the Marker. The troopers washed through the last of the debris field and slipped into the shadows of the forest again with Eagle coming in behind them. Strangely enough there was a trail leading through the tree line and heading further in. It was well trodden, so it couldn't have been made by Echo. And it definitely couldn't have been made by any colonists since Osiris-7 was never officially colonized. That left a single option. Duncan swallowed and hooked his finger around the trigger of his assault rifle.
They met squad Echo in a large opening in the dense forestry. They had their backs to them when they stepped in. At first Duncan had a hard time figuring out what they were looking at. Then he figured it out once he walked around them. A small stream snaked through the middle of the opening, partitioning it in two before forming a small pond inside the mouth of a large cave. But the cave itself wasn't of any interest. It was what lay inside.
They didn't look like what Duncan was expecting. They looked more like dead lizardmen up close. The flesh on their reverse-jointed legs and claws showed signs of decay. Their dark-gray leathery skin clung tightly to the frame of their humanoid skeletal structure. Then there were their four separate mandibles and snake-like heads whose dry exterior peeled away to reveal bare bones. The one fact Duncan found comfortable about the discovery was that they were all very much so dead.
The Staff and Harper came up beside Joels who nodded at the bodies. "Looks like there were a few survivors."
"Why didn't they bury them?" The Staff asked.
Harper got down into the cave and crouched down beside one, prompting everyone else to reflexively hold their weapons at the ready. Her being so close to it showed Duncan just how big the aliens were, at least twice his own size in comparison. She stared at its closed eyes as if daring them to open. Thankfully, they didn't, which was in the best interest of the alien unless it wanted to die twice over. "Who knows why, these things are the most confusing out of all the Covies, and that's saying something." She said, answering the Staff's earlier question. "The problem now is what it means that they're out here. Ep-4, start a feed and send it to Neptune-Actual."
"Yes mam." Hector said and started recording.
Harper comm'd the Lieutenant Colonel. "This is 1-Actual to Neptune-Actual, we found this about thirty meters out from the crash site. I'm thinking there may be more of them out here that aren't so dead, sir."
A moment later Garrison replied. "I see'em. This changes things…get back here ASAP. The Lieutenant Commander wants you."
"On our way, sir." Harper turned away from the cave and walked out to the others. "Come on people. We're needed elsewhere."
1st Platoon followed her back to the ship, though hesitantly. Duncan couldn't help peering back over his shoulder along the way. Finally seeing the enemy up close had shaken him. They weren't the unstoppable powerhouse he'd anticipated. Or at least they didn't seem like it. Their emaciated bodies matched the image of the civilians they had rescued on Epsilon Eridani IV months prior, not the extraterrestrial foe threatening to wipe out those same civilians. And one of their ships, said to be worth several UNSC frigates in battle, had run aground on the forest floor on a moon of an abandoned colony world, derelict. And they still didn't know why.
Nova must have noticed him worrying again. She had learned how to read him pretty well already over the last few months. She touched him on the shoulder and pointed to her visor. That was her way of saying not to focus on it. Duncan just shrugged. He managed to hide his unease through the gesture because she left him alone afterwards.
They came back out to the crash-site where the rest of Bravo had already taken up defensive positions behind the boulders, a platoon assigned to each sector.
1st Platoon, however, was meant for something else. They found the Lieutenant Colonel standing near the portside hanger bay that was left sealed away by emergency bulkhead doors. The ONI Agent was with him.
Once he saw the ODSTs, Garrison nodded to the Lieutenant Commander and moved off.
"You needed us mam?" Harper asked.
"Actually, I only need one of you." Cordova said, looking them over. "More specifically, I need one of your squads to follow me inside as the infiltration team. I already have 2nd platoon's Squad Hotep standing by on the starboard side. Can you lend me one of yours, Captain?"
Duncan hadn't expected her to be so cordial as to ask the captain for permission. She could've simply made it an order. Harper looked caught off guard by it as well and it took her a second to muster an answer.
She turned to the Staff, signaling him to step up and salute his superiors. "This is Staff Sergeant Atell, callsign Ep-1." Harper introduced. "He's in charge of Squad Epsilon. I guess now you're in charge of him."
The rest of Epsilon stepped up so she could see them. Cordova examined them and nodded, although she pointed to Deaks. "Your sharpshooter will have to stay behind. If there's any fighting inside it'll be close quarters. He'll be out of his depth."
Deaks' shoulders hunched slightly. Duncan could tell he didn't like the assessment too much. The Staff planted a hand on his shoulder and nodded. Deaks gave a reluctant nod back. "Good luck in there." The corporal said before stepping back. "Hey Ep-8, remember what I told you about the Brutes?"
"Yah." Duncan said.
Deaks gave him the thumbs up then stopped beside the Captain.
"Alright." Cordova said, turning to everyone. "Get ready people, we're about to head inside."
"How?" The Staff asked, looking out across the multi-story bulkhead doors. "We'd need a few hours with a blow-torch to get through something like this."
Cordova ignored him. She turned to the ship, raised her hand and started counting down her fingers from three. At one, there was a sound. The low grown of a giant slowly awakening. Whatever mechanisms that controlled the dead ship came to life all at one. The ODSTs backed up with weapons at the ready as the bulkhead doors split apart then slowly slid open.
The noon sunlight filtered into the dark interior of the hanger bay that yawned wide.
Cordova comm'd the other team. "Hotep-1, are you ready for infiltration?"
"Ready on your go." The squad-leader answered, sounding caught off guard.
"Good." She turned to Epsilon, held up her hand and gestured towards the hanger. The ODSTs were more than put off by the fact that the dead Covenant ship had seemingly just obeyed her command. Duncan felt a small shock of fear travel up his spine.
Despite their confusion, questions would have to come later. The ODSTs stacked up on either side of the hanger doors and walked along its lip, clearing the bottom floor. Visibility cutout at about 10 meters. They would have to use their VISRs for this one.
The Staff was the first in, pulling himself inside. He helped them in one after the other. When it was Cordova's turn, he briefly hesitated then grabbed her hand and pulled her up. He let her walk past and join the others heading deeper into the hanger. He stood off, watching her from behind. Duncan had noticed him however and asked, "Something wrong sir?"
The Staff slowly shook his head. "Actually." He turned around and went back to the doors. Duncan came up behind him to see what was wrong. The answer: Zack.
He was still outside, his back to the hanger doors. He was staring at an empty space further along the hull.
"Ep-7, get in here." The Staff whispered harshly. It got the radiomen's attention.
He ran over and held out his hands, allowing them to help pull him inside. It was a bit more of an effort thanks to his radio equipment.
"Sorry Staff." He apologized. "Thought I saw something."
"The only thing I need you to see is which way we're going." The Staff scolded and pushed him in the direction of the rest of the squad. While the Staff followed suit, Duncan felt a need to look back at the doors.
There was nothing there except the backs of 1st platoon setting up defensive postures around the perimeter. So why were his instincts screaming at him that there was someone standing there, at the doors, staring right back at him.
But there was nothing there.
"Ep-8, come on." The Staff called. They were already headed to the opposite side of the hanger. Duncan pushed the thought aside, dismissing it as his own fears, and ran after the rest of the squad.
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Paro Cassumee watched the humans pass within a few stretches of himself as they entered the ship. He held back his revulsion as they desecrated its interior with every step they took inside. He could have reached for the closest one, the human with the device on his back, grabbed him by the neck onehanded and snapped it before he even had a chance to scream. His Sangheili blood boiled with righteous indignation at watching the infidels go unchallenged, but he had to restrain his fervor. For the time being it was a necessary indignation. Afterall, he hadn't endured several cycles on this filthy human satellite to have his intentions foiled by his own impatience.
He waited, had been waiting.
Yet his chance was almost foiled by a second human. As he came up to the hanger doors, one of them had stood there, looking him right in the eyes. He briefly worried that the vermin had spotted him, then calmed himself once he remembered that his active camouflaging unit was still active.
In the end the detestable creature turned away and went after the others, allowing Paro to breathe a sigh of relief. He nodded to the two other shimmers on either side of him and entered the hanger bay in a single step. His two subordinates came in after him. Together they followed the humans, stalking them like shadows through the bowels of their stolen ship.
Ruina - Crash