Hey folks, Grubkiller here.
This is my latest chapter, where we pick up where the Chief's story last left off. This is where Bungie intended to continue with Halo 2. This was supposed to be the third act of the story.
The Chief will be causing shenanigans aboard the Forerunner ship before he has to jump back into the action.
Hope you enjoy.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
UNSC Military Calendar, November 8th 2552, Covenant-controlled Forerunner Dreadnought entering Sol System.
The Master Chief braced himself as he felt the Dreadnought finally exit slipspace, threatening to toss him about. The warthog that he had used to board the ship in the first place rolled, inverted, and spun out of control. It tumbled and pitched, spilling its contents across the deck.
Weapons and Ammo.
The Chief grabbed a battle rifle and, for close use, a pair of submachine guns. He took a pair of silencers for the SMGs and hip holsters for the smaller weapons. He picked up a dozen frag grenades in their plastic ring carrier and slotted that into the left thigh section of his armor. He'd need ammunition, a lot of it, if things got hot. So he took extra clips for the SMGs and secured them onto his chest, arms, and right thigh with some duct tape that he found in the Warthog's glove box.
His luck was still holding out.
Just then, a hatch began to hiss open.
He turned rapidly and aimed his rifle and moved into position. John wasn't sure what kind of reception waited for him on the other side of those hatches, but one thing was certain—he'd have to face it head-on.
There was nowhere to hide inside the reinforced compartment that led to the outer hull. The hatch cracked and squeaked open.
A rubbery tentacle reached in along the seam of the drop-ship's hatch. John lowered his rifle and eased his stance. He recognized the alien limb—the splitting cilia feelers and globular sensory organs could belong only to a Covenant Engineer. The Engineer pushed open the hatch and entered the ship, floating past John as if he wasn't there.
It chittered and squawked as it ran its tentacles over the foreign vehicle wreckage nearby. Two more Engineers bolted through the open hatch and joined the first. As long as he left the single-minded aliens to their work, they wouldn't raise an alarm.
But what else was out there? John eased against the frame of the hatch moved down the corridor with his rifle raised again.
Eventually he stumbled upon what seemed like a large hanger bay.
There was a line of Seraph fighters, and some ground vehicles that stretched away into the shadows. A dozen Engineers hovered and drifted throughout the area. They moved parts, disassembled and reassembled sections of ship hulls, and plumbed plasma coils.
There was no trace of a welcome party of Brutes waiting for the Spartan, but there was a platoon-sized element of Grunts and some Jackals moving around. John used his HUD's magnification and its readouts to look over the area and saw a latticework deck overhead with tools, welders, and spotlights hanging like jungle vines. It was as good a place as any to get his bearings.
John grabbed the upper lip of the hatchway and flipped up onto the top of a supply crate. He grabbed a dangling cord and pulled himself up into the darkness above and onto the latticework deck and perched himself up top, watching the Covenant's every move.
From his shadowy overview John saw that this place was also a vehicle depot in addition to acting as a hanger bay, which had a large hatch that opened out into Space.
Apart from the flock of busy Engineers, and the security detail, John spotted only two Grunts wearing white methane-breather masks. It was a color designation he had seen before, but only once, aboard the Covenant mega-station Unyielding Hierophant. They pushed carts containing barrels of sloshing turquoise fluids.
They would be easy to avoid. One side of the bay had a series of sealed doors that he presumed led to air locks or deeper into the Dreadnought.
The opposite wall of the bay had a meter-thick window through which poured an intense blue light. Slip-space portals.
He could see several Covenant capital ships through the transparent glass, moving into formation alongside the Dreadnought. He needed to hurry. If they were exiting slipspace, that meant they were getting close to Earth.
It was time to make some noise.
He saw a pair of Grunts beneath him working on a Ghost, one level above the hanger. Then he saw the plasma coils, which were the size of Warthog LRVs.
Perfect.
He silently dropped to the deck, ran across the bay, and melted into the shadows behind a series of supply crates. John looked up and down and side to side across the bay, making sure no other Covenant were visible. He crossed and took cover behind another supply crate, and waited for the Grunts to move on.
John moved out of cover and went up to the Ghost, just as his helmet radio started to crackle.
"Sierra 117, this is Io Station, do you read? Over?"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Io Station, near Jupiter, Sol System, Nov. 8th 2552.
Ensign Robert McLees massaged his eyelids, yawned, and sat down at his duty station. The wrap around view screen warmed to his presence in front of him showed him everything in the system.
It had been weeks since the Ensign, or the rest of the crew, had been able to get any real sleep. His ability to enjoy a hot meal or a hot cup of coffee were the closest things he had gotten to some time off since the Covenant first entered the system.
He typed in the password of his computer to restart his duty shift.
L-O-R-R-A-I-N-E. Enter.
"Password Match." The Computer said in a cold female voice.
He scanned the system for anymore signs of Covenant ships entering the system.
Ever since the first Covenant wave was nearly wiped out, several more Covenant battle groups had trickled into the system and were laying siege to Mars and Luna, and several Covenant battle groups had punched holes in Earth's defenses. But while targets all over Earth were getting hit by the Covenant, most of the Covenant battle groups that made it through were all converging on the gap in the UNSC orbital line, and heading straight for Keyna, right where the first Covenant fleet was headed.
Maybe they were looking for something.
What precisely—a holy relic, a geological sample—no one knew, and it didn't matter. What mattered was when they got what they wanted, the Covenant then historically glassed the planet to remove any human "infestation." The UNSC Home Fleet was doing everything it could to keep that from happening, which was why, in the shadow of Sol's largest planet, the men and women aboard Io Station had the critically important role of warning Earth of any incoming Covenant reinforcements.
His scanning windows appeared on the view screen, full of spectroscopic tracers and radar—and lots of noise. Io station cycled three probes into and out of Slipstream space. Each probe sent out radar pings and analyzed the spectrum from radio to X rays, then reentered normal space and broadcast the data back to the station. The problem with Slipstream space was that the laws of physics never worked the way they were supposed to. Exact positions, times, velocities, even masses were impossible to measure with any real accuracy. Ships never knew exactly where they were, or exactly where there were going. Every time the probes returned from their two-second journey, they could appear exactly where they had left . . . or three million kilometers distant. Sometimes they never returned at all. Drones had to be sent after the probes before the process could be repeated. Because of this slipperiness in the inter-dimensional space, UNSC ships traveling between star systems might arrive half a billion kilometers off course.
Suddenly, his COM board contact alert pinged.
"Oh no," he whispered.
He quickly activated the controls and traced the contact signal back to the source—Alpha probe. The probe had detected an incoming mass, a slight arc to its trajectory pulled by the gravity of Jupiter.
It was large.
Beta probe cycled back. The mass was still there and as solid as before. It was the largest reading Ensign McLees had ever seen: thirteen thousand meters long, twelve thousand meters wide.
The silhouette was a triangular shape; it didn't match any of the Covenant ships in the database.
"Lieutenant. We've got a new contact. Unknown classification."
"It isn't one of our. Report it to FLEETCOM and let 'em know what's coming." Said the LT, Jason Jones.
But then, McLees got a new reading on his display. A UNSC IFF tag. Curious that they picked it up the moment the new contact was detected.
"Uhm, sir... you might want to take a look at this."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Forerunner Dreadnought, Sol System.
"Sierra One-One-Seven, do you read? Over? Sierra One-One-Seven, location and situation, over."
The Master Chief got into the Ghost's driver seat and powered it up. Symbols flashed across the Ghost's display. The UNSC software built into his armor worked only with some of the spoken Covenant languages—not their written words. Odd, curling characters scrolled across the display. John hit one of the response symbols. There was a pause, the display cleared, and the craft came to life.
The voice crackled in his radio again.
"Sierra One-One-Seven, we can't get a fix on your position. Do you read? Over?"
"Io Station," he replied as he hit the acceleration and glided toward the center of the hanger. "Silence. Out."
He had just achieved the maximum speed of his hover craft when he flew off of the ledge of the Hanger's upper floor. Grunts and Jackals on the level below craned their necks as the Spartan flashed over them.
As he felt every Covenant eye watching them, he dove out of the craft, which still sailed through the air towards his intended target: the plasma coils.
He tumbled across the hanger deck and heard dozens of voices screaming for blood, as Covenant troops aimed their plasma weapons at him.
Then the Ghost slammed into the Plasma coils and the hanger turned white.
The deck rumbled violently beneath their feet, and soon, Covenant response teams were converging on the hanger. Maintenance and fire control teams entered the hanger to see it completely engulfed in flames.
Blue-white plasma spat out of the wreckages of many destroyed Covenant vehicles and space craft, and dozens of bodies lay scattered across the deck, scorched beyond recognition.
As Grunts did their best to put out the fire, Jackals moved in to secure the hanger once the fires were under control.
It was a sea of flame. Dozens of fires dotted the hanger deck and shot into the ceiling. But then, something strange was happening. Out of the flames there appeared to be a dark figure emerging from the flames.
The lead fire-control grunt squinted to see what it was. An armored figure, raising two weapons at him, flames licking at his armor.
A Demon.
The last thing he saw was his own terrified reflection in the Demon's golden faceplate.
The Covenant troops - a mix of Grunts and Jackals - stood in front of him, all stunned at they looked at him. He raised his SMGs and worked from right to left, gunning down the gobsmacked aliens with 5×23mm M443 Caseless FMJ rounds.
A mixture of blue and purple blood sprayed up and out, splattering the alien metal all around them. He tossed several grenades at the hanger exit and waited for the resonating "WHOOM!" to register, as metal fragments blasted in several directions, as well as several alien body parts.
He spun around the corner and through the smoke-filled doorway.
Several dead grunts and jackals lay dead in the next hallway. One piece of the door had embedded itself, and a jackal, into the wall.
In this moment of silence, he allowed his thoughts to drift back to the crew of the In Amber Clad. He should have been with them when they went to the Library. He should've known they would have encountered the Flood, and he wasn't there to help them. Now the crew were mindless beasts, shuffling around High Charity and spreading the infection across the Covenant's holy city, and Miranda and Johnson were in the clutches of the Brutes, Halo was still active, and he had just left Cortana behind.
Was it fair that he was still alive and free, while everyone else was either dead or missing?
No, it wasn't. All he could do was accomplish what they would want him to do. Forge ahead, find the Prophet, and make their sacrifices count for something. With that thought in mind, the Master Chief moved through the corridors of the Forerunner dreadnought on foot, made his way through halls still slick with alien blood from his last visit, turned down ramps, proceeded to the lower level, and passed through another door suchlike the one he had entered through earlier.
The Master Chief moved into the bowels of the Ship's interior.
From outside, the Dreadnought stood over a dozen kilometers high, and about ten wide. It looked like a pyramid's frame with engines, which was misleading. The interior of the ship plunged deep beneath his feet.
He wound down a curving ramp. The air was still and slightly stale, and thick pillars of the first large chamber he moved through made the room feel like a crypt. He slipped through heavily shadowed rooms, padded down spiral ramps, passing through galleries filled with strange forms. The walls and floors were made of the same burnished, heavily engraved metal that he'd encountered elsewhere on the ring.
He clicked on his light and noticed new patterns in the metal, like the swirls in marble—as if the material were some kind of metal-stone hybrid. The tomblike silence was shattered by the squalling of several Grunts and Jackals.
There was opposition, plenty of it, as the Spartan was forced to deal with dozens of Grunts, Jackals, and Brutes.
It's as if they were tracking his movements through the dreadnought.
'I hope I reach the Prophet before I run out of ammo,' the Master Chief thought dryly as he shot another jackal in the face and stepped over the body.
He hoped that he would find a way to bypass whatever the Covenant had in store, but that wasn't to be. As the Spartan entered a large room, he saw that even more Covenant troops were blocking his way, as well as three Hunters pairs that had been assigned to patrol the far side of the chamber.
'Where's Cortana when you need her?' He thought as every Covenant soldier in the room opened fire.
Flashes of plasma fire washed over his shields, blinding him temporarily. He ignored it, and continued to squeeze the triggers.
Spent shell casings clattered to the floor. Grenades detonated. Bodies tumbled. Blood splattered across the deck.
Another volley of plasma struck, from the Hunters by the sounds of it, exploded all around him, and he was knocked back across the floor by the force of the plasma beams and explosions. His armor hit the deck with a loud metallic thud.
He tried to roll to the side and give his shields a moment to regenerate, but he couldn't move. As his suit's alarms pulsed insistently, he felt himself blacking out. He squinted through the glowing spots that swam in his vision and tried to see what was going on.
All the while, the Covenant were still firing on him through the smoke generated by the battle.
That's when his translation software picked up something.
A Brute was barking orders.
"Cease fire Unggoy!"
Plasma still flew through the air above him and landed near him.
"I said cease fire!"
The plasma stopped, and out of the fog of war, a crowd of alien warriors gathered around him, weapons pointed at the Chief's smoking armor.
Brutes, jackals, grunts, and the hunters from earlier.
In the center of the pack, a massive Brute with bronze armor and matching horned helmet walked up. He smiled and laughed.
"We have the demon! Glory is ours!" He bellowed out to the rest of his warriors. A roar of thunderous triumph burst from the gathered Covenant. Then it turned to the Chief, whose armor was still smoking.
The massive brute stepped on the Spartan's chest plate and pressed its massive two-toed foot down as hard as he could.
Even with his MJOLNIR armor, John was not as strong as the alien, and could feel his chest compressing against his ribs. He began to see red flashes, and his suit's alarm continued to sound.
"Demon," the creature bellowed and the translation filtered through his helmet's speaker. "Before you die, you will tell us what you and the other heathens know about the Ark."
The Brute leaned down and grabbed the Chief's faceplate.
"We'll start pulling parts off of you until you do."
John struggled against the Brute's weight. There was more pain than he'd ever felt, and his legs had turned to wet sand. His vision tunneled… He was beginning to black out.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Io Station, Sol System, November 8th 2552.
Even as the battle for Earth continued to rage around them, the crew of Io Station continued to work around the clock, trying everything they could to lock in on the Spartan's signal.
"Hurry it up." Ensign McLees called out. "FLEETCOM wants a lock on that signal, yesterday."
"I've got it!" One of the technicians, another Ensign named Joseph Staten said, as his computer terminal zoomed in on the Chief's transponder location, while Ensign Martin O'Donnell tuned up the computer's systems.
They all looked at the signal location with confusion.
"That can't be right."
It was coming from inside the massive alien ship, which was confirmed to be Covenant as several battlegroups were massed around it.
The station's 2nd Lieutenant, Jason Jones, hit the button on the comm panel.
"Sierra 117... can I get a radio check, over?"
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aboard Covenant-held Forerunner dreadnought, Anodyne Spirit.
The suit's alarms pulsed insistently.
John squinted at the damage report—the MJOLNIR's internal temperature had reached over sixty degrees Celsius, but thankfully it was starting to cool down.
He heard the whine of micro-compressors in his armor, trying to compensate. He rebooted the shield's software, and soon, it was starting to come back online.
But he still had a Brute war chieftain standing on him, surrounded by Covenant troops.
"Demon!" It bellowed. "Demon, can you hear me in there?!"
"Sierra 117, say again, over." Said the Chief's internal comm.
"Demon!" The Chieftain bellowed again. "The Ark. What do you know about the Ark?!"
The Covenant troops, especially the other Brutes, were getting agitated. They were ready to rip the Spartan limb from limb if he didn't give them what they wanted. But his armor had cooled down, and his shields were about to come back online.
He had to stall for time.
"I know..." The Chief started.
"What?" The Brute asked, intrigued.
"I know..." The Chief said again, as his shield software was finished rebooting.
"Speak up, useless worm..." The Brute ordered.
"I know that you should always strip your enemy of weapons before you interrogate him."
His shields began to recharge, and the surge of energy caused an electric shock to course through the Brute's foot, causing him to recoil in pain and surprise and lift his foot. The Chief sprung up, placed a primed plasma grenade on the Brute's midsection, and bolted, leaving a panicking brute behind inside of a crowd of Covenant warriors.
One plasma grenade was usually bad enough.
But among several dozen dead covenant, with plasma weapons, battery packs, and their own grenades, the chain reaction would be serious. Seconds later, they all went up in a blue-white flash of destructive energy.
When it was all over, only a few injured Covenant warriors with scorched armor remained standing.
Amidst the field of charred remains and pools of blood, they all looked around for the Demon.
"Any sign of the wretched human?" Asked a voice over the loudspeaker
Nothing.
"Any sign of the Demon?" the Brute over the loudspeaker asked again.
But the Demon was long gone.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
November 17th, 2552, Aboard Forerunner Dreadnought.
For several days Master Chief moved from corridor to corridor, ambushing or avoiding Covenant patrols and making sure he wasn't seen. With no UNSC weapons or ammo left, he had acquired a Covenant Carbine and pair of the strange Brute spike weapons, which were both magnetically clamped to his hips.
Working carefully, so as not to walk into another ambush, the Master Chief moved from room to room, and eventually found his way onto a downward slanting ramp.
A patrol of Covenant Grunts moved through the corridor at the bottom of the ramp.
He backed into a corner and waited for them to pass.
A few minutes later, satisfied that the area was reasonably secure, he disengaged the shoulder plates of the MJOLNIR armor, and popped the chest unit.
The wound was ragged, but the automatic bio-foam dispensers had done their job. The Chief could ignore the pain, but the blood loss would take its toll and jeopardize the mission. He made sure the motion sensor was still active, then slung his weapon. He dug into his equipment pack and drew out his med kit.
The Spartan had been wounded before, and had on several occasions performed first aid on injured comrades and himself. He quickly cleaned his wounds and applied a quick-adhesive dressing where it was needed, especially over the bio foam patches, which would only last for so long. In minutes, he had suited up, popped a wake-up stim, and moved on.
John shook his head.
He knew Cortana was gone. His helmet was absent of any companion; the AI chip inside it, abandoned, and yet...
Don't make a girl a promise if you know you can't keep it...
Cortana's last words to him echoed in his head.
The Master Chief ruminated on his time with her. Technically, he'd only known Cortana for a matter of months, but for almost all that time, she was his partner, his close accomplice. In the absence of Blue Team and the other Spartans, Cortana had been an ever-present voice of comfort and familiarity.
After leaving his Spartans on Reach, she'd served as a necessary distraction. She assisted him with every effort since.
Alpha Halo, the Fleet of Particular Justice and the Unyielding Hierophant could not have been destroyed without Cortana. Earth, Delta Halo and High Charity doubled John's debt to her. There was no doubt in his mind, he was here because of Cortana.
Always telling him to "go through that door," "cross that bridge," or "climb that pyramid." Annoying at times, but reassuring as well. He made his promise to her, and he intended to keep it, one way or another.
He shook himself out of his thoughts. It was time to get back to the mission.
"Io Station, this is Sierra 117, confirm receipt of Ark transmission, over." The Master Chief said as he stood at the edge of a massive chasm and monitored his allies' radio chatter. In the distance, he could barely see the twinkling of the luminescent panels that Halo's creators had left behind to illuminate these massive warrens.
Below him, the abyss yawned and appeared to be bottomless.
Then he received his reply.
"Confirmed! Ark transmission received. Stand-by. Relaying transmission to FLEETCOM and HIGHCOM Bravo-Six, over."
"Roger, standing by."
The Master Chief recognized the next voice as belonging to Lord Hood.
"Master Chief. Do you mind telling me what you are doing on that ship?" Lord Hood asked in his unshakably confidant voice.
"Sir," John answered, "Aboard Forerunner vessel. Destination Earth. Minimum one Prophet Hierarch on board. No estimate for remaining crew."
"Roger that. I'll have prowlers on standby for an ELO (Extremely Low Observable) extraction," Lord Hood said. "In the meantime, I want you to use any means necessary to eliminate the Prophet and take control of that ship. Over."
"Yes, sir." Master Chief replied, as he pushed his way down a ramp, through a pair of hatches, and into the gloomy spaces beyond. He marched over some transparent decking, and found himself looking over over a massive chamber below. Not a bottomless chasm, but some kind of hanging garden, much like the ones on High Charity.
There was a pack of Brute Honor Guards patrolling the garden.
They must have been guarding something important... or someone.
Low and behold, among the small ponds, trickling ravines, and plant-life was another pack of Brute Honor guards surrounding several decrepit looking creature in bright colorful robes.
One sat on a hover throne, wearing a golden crown.
The Chief crouched in the shadows and sighted up with his Carbine.
"Master Chief...?" Hood asked, noticing the Chief hadn't ended the transmission.
"More to follow," Chief said before he ended the transmission. "Radio silence."
Aiming down the sights, he allowed his HUD's smart-link hover the target reticle over the Prophet's crowned head. He took a deep breath, allowed the sight to turn red, and put his finger on the trigger.
CRACK!
Valley of Tears, Garden section of the Anodyne Spirit.
"We lost much," Zo Resken, the Prophet of Clarity said.
He was the Second Administrator to the High Prophet of Truth, who looked at his fellow Prophets. They sat in one of the gardens that was modeled after the Valley of Tears on High Charity, right down to the rock formations, the trees, and the wildlife, some of which was collected from the first Halo ring before it was destroyed.
"No." Truth said. "We purged the weak and those who might have caused trouble. And now the traitors have shown an inclination to work with humans. Only the strong remain. And thanks to the previous efforts of the Prophet of Regret, we will soon unlock the secrets of Halo, and begin the Great Journey.
"On Humanity's homeworld of all places.," Clarity grumbled.
"One final obstacle for the worthy to pass beyond," Truth said.
From this garden, high up in Anodyne Spirit, Truth looked out over his subjects. Other San'Shyuum scribes and ministers wobbled around the ship, barges of Unggoy flew from point to point, and the best battle-hardened warriors from all throughout the Covenant, having survived the Schism and the Parasite, thronged the hangers and chasms.
No Sangheili. Not anymore. Their so-called honor and nobility had gotten in the way of their orders, and now their place on the path was forfeit.
Truth glided away from the scene and into the heart of the garden, where several of his Jiralhanae Captains and War Chieftains were gathered to report to him on another pressing matter.
When he was within three meters, they all bowed.
"Lepidus, are we to believe the demon is still aboard this ship, alive and well?" Truth asked.
"Your Eminence, please accept my most humblest apologies." The Chieftain replied, bowing lower.
The Prophet held up one claw, indicating silence. "The Council demands an immediate explanation."
"Yes, Holy One." The Chieftain stammered. "We are fixing the situation."
CRACK!
Truth looked at the origin of the sound just in time to see a green energy projectile fizz past his head. He looked up in stunned awe as attempted sniper was fired upon from every conceivable angle.
"It's the Demon!"
The blow would have killed anyone else, but the armor saved him, and the Chief rolled and turned into the blow. The long-barreled Carbine wasn't well suited for close-in combat but that's what he had in his hands. There was no time to aim as the Jackal Sniper that snuck up on him fired, only time to fire, and that's what he did.
The radioactive round pierced the Jackals open beak and splattered purple gore out the back of its head.
Several more snipers fired back, and so did several brutes down below.
The Chief killed three aliens on the way down before he landed on top of a rock formation and tumbled down the side, until he landed with a loud splash in a pond surrounded by several snarling Brutes who formed a wall in front of their Hierarch and his entourage.
Wasting little time, the Chief got to work, expertly picking off more aliens that got in his way with precise headshots and a few well placed grenades.
One War Chieftain with a gravity hammer swung a vicious blow at the Master Chief. He ducked the attack and shoved the alien rifle into the beast's chest, emptying the clip into it until it dropped.
He went back to his grisly work. Several more Brutes fell, as well as three members of Truth's entourage that were caught in between. He charged forward, firing round after round into the Prophet of Truth, but ran into the same problems that he did with Regret. One: they both had powerful energy shields. Two: They could both teleport short distances.
The Chief and Truth locked eyes for a brief moment as the Prophet disappeared into a ball of golden light, and vanished completely.
'Damn!'
That's when a volley of Brute shot grenades hammered down all around him. One came so close that it pushed his shielding into the red and triggered the alarm.
He turned to face his attacker only to see Covenant reinforcements rushing into the garden from all around and all above.
Brutes of all ranks and specialties, Jackals with sniper rifles and shields, Grunts with plasma turrets and fuel rod cannons. All were raring for a go at the Spartan.
He tossed his empty Carbine aside and went with the two Spikers. The more ambitious members of the front ranks fell first under a barrage of energy spikes. He smashed one Brute that got too close in the face with his spiked rifle, and stabbed another one in the chest while pulling the trigger, impaling the weapon all the way through.
Soon, a dozen Brutes had fallen, along with who knows how many Jackals and Grunts. But the word had truly gone out, and the entire ship seemed poised to kill the lone Spartan. With Hunters and other heavy equipment being brought in to bombard his position, it became necessary to pull back.
And that's what the Spartan did.
He bolted for the nearest exit, thanked God that it was unlocked, and stormed up the ramps and stairs as quickly as he could, killing any Covenant straggler that got in his way.
Covenant troops tried to follow him upstairs, so he tossed a Frag grenade over his shoulder without looking, and listened to the chaos that ensued before the explosion.
There was a roar of outrage as Brutes fired up at where they last saw him from the blood-soaked, body strewn gardens below while some Grunts barked and gibbered.
But amidst the confusion, the Master Chief had evaded the Covenant once again.
The Master Chief paused just inside the hatch to ensure that he wasn't being followed, checked to make certain that his weapons were loaded, and wondered where the hell he was.
He opened up a com channel.
"This is Sierra 117. Over."
The response came a few seconds later, and their seemed to be some feedback, possibly from the Covenant trying to trace the signal.
"We read you, Sierra 117. Location and situation. Over?" Asked one of the comms officers aboard Cairo Station.
"I found the target, but was unable to eliminate him. His location is unknown. I've managed to evade Covenant forces. I think this ship is getting ready to make its final approach towards Earth. It's surrounded by an armada of Covenant ships."
"Roger that, stand by for new orders. Over."
The Chief waited.
Two minutes later, the Chief was about to signal the Cairo again, when a pack of Brutes came into view. Spiker rounds bounced from the bulkhead and angled right for him. His shields took the brunt of it, and he returned fire. With a well placed grenade and a volley of his own spiker fire, the entire group lay dead at his feet.
"Sierra 117, what was that? Over." Asked the Comms officer.
"Holding position. Over." Chief said.
There was a pause.
"Right. Stand by." Said the officer. A few seconds later, he finally had instructions. "Proceed to the Bridge. Your mission is to redirect that ship into the Sun and then signal for extraction."
The Chief nodded to himself as a waypoint appeared on his HUD. "Affirmative, out."
The Master Chief fought his way through a series of passageways and into the ship's bridge section, where a large contingent of Brutes and Grunts were waiting to have him for lunch. There were a lot of them, too many to handle with the Spiker weapon alone, so he served up a couple of grenades. One of the Brutes was blown to pieces by the overlapping explosions, another lost a leg, and a Grunt was thrown halfway across the room.
There was a survivor, however, a tough Brute who threw a spiked grenade of his own, and missed by a matter of centimeters. The Master Chief ran and was clear of the blast zone by the time the device went off. The Brute charged, took the better part of a full clip, and the Chief slammed his spiked weapon through the Brute's unarmored chest and sliced right through, and it finally slammed into the deck, dead.
It was a short distance to the bridge itself, where a Covenant security team was on duty. Word had been passed: They knew the human was on his way, and opened fire the moment they saw him. Once again the Spartan made use of a grenade to even the odds—then crushed the head of a Brute minor with his fist. The alien's snout was turned to pulp and its body collapsed like a puppet with no strings. The armor gave him enough strength to flip a Warthog over.
Then, just when he thought the battle was done, a Grunt shot him in the back with an overcharged shot. The audible went off as his armor sought to recharge itself. A second shot, delivered with sufficient speed, would kill him. Time seemed to slow as the Master Chief turned toward his right. The Grunt, who had been hiding inside an equipment cabinet, froze as the armored alien not only survived what should have been a fatal shot, but turned to face him. They were only an arm's length away from each other, which meant that the Master Chief could reach out, rip the breather off his assailant's face, and close the door on him. There was a loud click followed by wild hammering as the Chief made his way to the pilot's seat, where another Brute minor remained at its post.
The Chief aimed his rifle at the Alien's head.
"Turn the ship. Hard left, forty degrees. Now." He ordered.
The Brute snarled defiantly, before taking a burst of energy spikes to the back of the head, causing him to slump over in his seat. The Chief pushed the body out of the way, and tried to manipulate the controls himself.
The console didn't respond to his commands. The Brute must have done something to lock him out of the system, and he had no clue how to stop it.
"Sierra 117... Forerunner vessel is on a fixed course. Flight path cannot be altered, over."
"Understood. We'll just have to go to plan B to take out the target. Get yourself off of that Ship by whatever means available."
Prophet of Truth's private quarters, Anodyne Spirit.
The Prophet of Truth stood in front of a giant screen that showed his fleet assembled in the far distance: tiny specks of light waiting to be flung through space wherever he wished. He turned his chair about to regard the more pressing matter foremost on his mind.
"Commander, is the unholy one still on board?" He asked as he pressed the comm button on his throne.
"We're taking back control of the bridge." Said a hologram that emanated from his the projectors on his throne. "The Demon is not here. There is no sign of him."
"I want this situation taken care of. It is only one human. One Human!" The Prophet of Truth raised his voice.
The Honor Guards and Chieftains recoiled in fear. The Prophet had been under much stress since his near-death experience at the hands of the Spartan. Not to mention that the blood of several of his assistants had to be washed off.
That's when one of the Honor Guards stepped forward.
"Your excellence, word from the flight deck..." The guard said as he activated a screen that showed them what was happening. The Demon had commandeered a Ghost and was blasting his way through lances of Covenant forces. "He's commandeered a Ghost. He's heading out the airlock."
Truth stared at the screen, more relieved than he had been in days. "Illuminate him."
Moments later, several Anti-matter charges were detonated in that section of the ship, making sure that the entire section was devoid of life. Many of his warriors would fall, but it was a small price to pay on the path to godhood.
The ship shuddered beneath them and the screen cut to static after a flash of white and blue.
The Master Chief pushed the throttle forward, and pointed to the air-lock. Grunts and Jackals scattered as he approached, and John fired at them. He shifted to the side as he splashed though water falling from one side of the station to the other. Four Ghost riders fell in behind him. John weaved back and forth. Just then, a powerful explosion ripped apart this section f the ship. He risked a look over his shoulder and saw two of the Ghosts disappear in a flash of light.
Where they trying to scuttle the ship? Perfect.
The Master Chief accelerated his Ghost to its top speed. There was another explosion at the flight deck.
An Anti-matter charge. They must really want him dead.
He was coming up on the air-lock and braced for impact... but there was none.
Black space turned white as he found himself no longer aboard the dreadnought.
"Target destroyed?" Asked the Brute Chieftain. He lit up as he looked at the Hierarch. "Target destroyed."
Truth smiled for the first time in days.
"Most Holy. We have received word from Earth, from the continent they called Africa. The artifact is nearly fully uncovered."
"Excellent. Then it is time for us to go there," Truth said. And using the controls on his floating throne, he keyed in a channel to the ship's bridge and gave the order for the fleet to make the jump.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cairo Station, Nov. 17th, 2552, Low Earth orbit.
Lord Hood watched from the command deck of Cairo Station, ignoring the warbling emergency signals, sparkling consoles, and the cries of the injured.
Along the arc of Earth's orbit, distant sparks and lines of fire traced patterns of destruction. Long smoking trails plummeted to the ground, ending in thermal blooms of impacted ships and plasma bombardment. The broken hulls of UNSC and Covenant ships made a bone-yard of the thermosphere.
He watched as a new slip-space portal opened up, and the Forerunner vessel that Io Station had described had made a pinpoint jump inside the orbital line.
Lord Hood looked at an overlaid tactical map of the system on the main view screen. Tiny triangular red markers winked on the edges: Covenant ships—dozens of them—re-entered the system from Slipspace.
Another fleet of Covenant warships.
"Sir," Admiral Harper said, "when the guns around Earth go down. . . ."
"There will be nothing left to stop the Covenant," Hood finished. He turned to a Lieutenant, who had a bandage rapped around his head while a corpsmen attended to him. "Get in contact with our ground units around the excavation site," he said. "Tell them it's going to get very nasty around them very soon."
The Lt. nodded and carried out the order.
Spartan-117's plan had been inspired, yet in Lord Hood's seasoned opinion, suicidal. Dr. Catherine Halsey had once told him in confidence that Spartans considered it their duty to prove the impossible possible.
He watched as the Forerunner dreadnought and its escorts completely ignored the embattled UNSC Navy and went straight to the surface.
There was no sign of the Spartan's getaway transport. There was no way to know if he had succeeded and made it off the vessel or not. Lord Hood chose to believe he had done the impossible and whispered, "Godspeed, Spartan."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Well folks, I finally got it.
The Master Chief has returned to Earth, and is going to uncover Humanity's secret and Halo 2's lost ending.
Hope you enjoyed, and stick around for the next chapters.
Until next time, Grubkiller out.