Halo: The Interlopers

Nineteen hours later, UNSC forces had finally arrived, as Emmerich had promised.

Onboard a Falcon, the SPARTAN-IIIs of Dagger team prepared to reconnoiter the midtown area, specifically Canteral Park. Enemy resistance was expected, but their first priority was to gather intelligence on what the Covenant were doing, or more specifically, what they were digging up.

They wore the same MJOLNIR Mk V (B) armor as Knife team and most of the other SPARTAN-IIIs in the Eagle Sword fleet, and like Knife team, they had dual-core armor ability modules. Objectives scrolled down their visors.

Primary: Obtain visual contact of unknown object being excavated in Canteral Park.

Secondary: Search for signs of missing SPARTAN-III LTC Mark Thompson A-217, callsign “Raptor”.

Secondary: Search for signs of missing VIP Twilight Sparkle, last seen accompanied by LTC Mark Thompson A-217.

Secondary: Assist allied forces by eliminating targets of opportunity.

The Falcon carrying Dagger team descended until it was only a few meters above the street, and Dagger team disembarked.

“Standard positions,” The team’s leader, Major Alexander Tsoukalos A-041, callsign "Raider", ordered. He took the rear, using his DMR to cover his team, pistol holstered.

“Roger,” Captain Lukas Farber B-109, callsign "Archer", responded. He took the middle position, his sniper rifle slung on his back and his assault rifle ready.

The mute Lieutenant Svetlana Rosenkova B-124, callsign “Valkyrie” affirmed with a green acknowledgement light on her teammates' visors. She took point and used a pistol instead of her shotgun, opting to maintain the flexibility the M6G afforded her.

The streets were littered with the kinds of debris prevalent in urban warfare; buses, waste matter, rubble, bodies, etcetera.
Around three minutes after drop-off, Dagger team ran into a Royal Equestrian Army platoon pinned down by CM forces. They also happened to be in the path the team was taking, making it an even smarter move to assist them.

“Dagger,” Alexander began. “Drop ‘em like liquid.”

Before he finished, Lukas had already switched to his sniper rifle and gotten a double-kill, the high-velocity armor-piercing rounds penetrating through a pair of Mambas. He picked off a few more as the team moved up to the pinned unit’s position.

The ponies had never seen SPARTANs before, but recognized them as friendlies from the mission briefing. The deep blue of Alexander’s armor was a little gaudy to them, and Svetlana’s silver and red armor even more so. Lukas’ gray armor didn’t attract their attention as much.

Alexander rushed over to one of the positions, next to a group of pinned ponies

“Fuck it, I’m not gonna look a heavily armored gift horse in the mouth,” An earth pony staff sergeant clad in dirty Multi-Terrain Pattern fatigues began. “Staff Sergeant Reigner, I’m in charge here. Those CMs are throwin’ down a shitstorm of fire on us, and we can’t fuckin’ move until they’re taken out.”

“Major Tsoukalos, UNSC Army. What’s your objective, staff sergeant?”

A rocket flew over their heads, missing them. The ponies and SPARTANs returned fire, although because of how dug in both sides were, they didn’t get any kills either. The whole firefight was a mess of blind-firing from cover and tracers flying everywhere.

“There’s a group of civilians in the Stall Street Church, and our orders are to evac them; that’s just half a klick north of here and they’re stuck until we break through. I’d appreciate some help!”

“You’ll get it,” Alexander responded. “Dagger team; we’re gonna kill those assholes, and clear a path for these troopers to rescue a bunch of civvies half a klick north of this position.”

Dagger team hopped over the vehicle wrecks they were hiding behind and charged the Mambas. They ran in a serpentine pattern, dodging enough enemy fire to close the distance without their shields dropping.

Svetlana jumped over the contractors’ cover and rolled into position behind one of them. She followed by blasting him in the back with her M45 TS, sending him flying into his allies. One of those allies happened to have been throwing a grenade when he was knocked over, and the armed grenade exploded shortly after, killing the group.

Lukas threw a grenade of his own, which killed two enemies. He followed up by hosing a squad with armor-piercing rounds, taking them out of the equation. He spotted a rocket coming his way, and activated his armor lock. The rocket exploded, creating a small mushroom cloud as it did so. Lukas emerged from the smoke and loosed a burst of fire on the attacker.

Alexander vaulted over the enemies’ cover, delivering headshots with his DMR as he did so. He smashed a contractor’s face with the butt of the rifle, and shot her through the heart. The few stragglers were dispatched with a vicious flurry of hand-to-hand combat, shattering armor and bones alike.

“Achtung, Warthog!” Lukas yelled. He pointed to an unoccupied M12 FAV, and the team headed for it. They’d be able to reach their objective in no time if they commandeered it.

“Good eye, Archer,” Alexander said approvingly.

Lukas took the 12.7x99mm triple-barreled machinegun in the back, Alexander took the wheel, and Svetlana rode shotgun. They headed towards the designated observation point.

***

“Hold up, we’ve got company,” Mark whispered. He and Twilight stayed in the shadows of a back alley, waiting for the approaching vehicle to pass. They hid behind a dumpster, facing away from the street.

They had escaped Mamba forces almost a day earlier by a risky maneuver on Mark’s part. He had used his M6G to fire two shot upwards; one to blow off the service grate atop the elevator, and one to sever one of the cables suspending the elevator. The car had plummeted downwards, its descent slowed by near-constant collisions with the walls and the cable that still held it. Mark had pried open the doors and grabbed the dazed Twilight as he rushed out of the building.

They had been moving from place to place since then, stopping only to grab some food. They’d been awake for several hours when the invasion had begun the day before, and with no time to sleep, they’d been forced to rely on caffeinated soda and energy drinks to stay moving.

“I think they’re coming back!” Twilight whispered loudly.

The Warthog that had just passed them came back, and pulled into the alley. Three pairs of boots hit the ground, and Mark readied a grenade in his left hand, his pistol in his right.

“Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick!” Mark heard from the direction of the Warthog. He recognized the voice, and the sign of shock he’d come to know a signature of his friend.

“Alex?” Mark asked, still hiding.

“You know it!”

Mark popped out from behind cover, and pointed his pistol at him, just in case he was being held hostage, however unlikely that was. Seeing he was safe in the hands of fellow SPARTANs, he lowered his gun.

“Shit man, it’s real good to see a friendly face,” Mark said grinning ear to ear.

Twilight came out from hiding, and saw Mark clasp the blue and black figure’s hand. She smiled with relief that there were friendly soldiers here.

“Mark, what’s happening? I saw your IFF when we were driving by,” Alexander said as he looked over him. “You look like hammered shit!”

He was right, Mark looked worn out. His eyes were bloodshot, and filth caked his skin and fatigues. There was a little dirt in his hair, and he was covered in sweat from the constant motion he’d been in since the attack. He had cuts on his knuckles, arms and face from breaking and crawling through glass. His pistol was covered in grime, and the electroless nickel finish looked more like a light gray. His M52B body armor was covered in scratches and spots of filth, giving it an appearance to match the rest of him.

Twilight Sparkle was as almost as disheveled as Mark was; she certainly showed signs of wear-and-tear. Her mane and tail were messy and matted with dirt, and her coat was just as dirty. She was wearing what looked like the fatigues of a dead Royal Equestrian Army lieutenant. The uniform was torn in several places, and covered with grime and sweat. She wore no body armor.

“Yeah,” Mark said with a chuckle. “We’ve been running since the attack. I suppose it’d be too much to hope that you’re here to rescue us?”

“Unfortunately, yeah. Our job is to observe what’s going on in Canteral Park, specifically what the Covies are digging up. Our secondary objective was to figure out what happened to you guys, and it looks like we got that. But we got no way to evac you, so as much as I hate it you’re still on your own.”

“Well, fuck,” Mark swore.

“Look, there’s a significant friendly presence in Grand Canteral Station. If you can make it there, you should be able to get the fuck outta here. Now I gotta go, I’ll see you soon buddy.”

“Alright, see ya.”

Dagger team drove off.

“What was that?” Twilight asked.

“Well, that was a team of SPARTANs that’s being sent to observe whatever the hell’s going on in Canteral Park. They can’t get us outta here unfortunately, but they told me where we can go to do that.”

“And that’d be?”

“Grand Canteral Station. We get there, we’ll have one of the largest, if not the largest allied force in Manehattan protecting us, and our VIP status will speed up us getting evac’d.”

“That’s pretty far away from here,” Twilight moaned. “Heck, I don’t think I can make it a tenth of that distance.” She looked exhausted from the constant action. She wasn’t a soldier like Mark, and she was probably the least fit of her friends. She wouldn’t be able to take much more before she dropped.

“Hey,” Mark said soothingly, patting Twilight on the back. “We’ll find a place to camp out for the night soon, I promise.”
It was cloudy out, and it looked like rain. Mark looked forward to it; it had to be better than this October heat.

They walked for another block before they found a small townhouse. Outside of it was a dead UNSC Amy trooper. Mark scavenged ammunition from the body, and took the corpse’s MA37 assault rifle.

There were also a few ponies there too. The blood trail from their bodies indicated they had been moved from the house.
It started to rain, and it got very cold very quickly. The rain turned to hail in seconds, and thunder began to sound. It was real thunder, too.

The door was unlocked, and Mark proceeded in, the flashlight under his assault rifle activated. After Twilight crept in, he shut the door and turned all the locks. With the din of the hailstorm outside, neither of them heard the heavy breathing of their attacker.

A trio of pegasi tackled Mark and began to clobber him. Mark couldn’t move with all of the impacts.

Mark’s assault rifle was on the floor, and Twilight watched in horror as Mark was assaulted. Suddenly she realized what she had to do. Using her magic, she picked up the rifle, and fired it at the attackers. The armor piercing rounds devastated the crazed ponies, sending them tumbling off of Mark and into a wall. Mark pushed the bodies off of him, unlocked the door, and threw all three of them outside without a second thought.

That’ll keep their bodies from stinking up the place, and serve as a warning.

He shut the door and locked it again.

“If anypony else would like to take issue with me and my friend staying here, now’s the fucking time!”

Mark patrolled the house, making sure there were no other surprises for them. As luck would have it, there were none. The whole house was theirs.

When he returned, Twilight Sparkle was crying and vomiting on the floor. She was obviously disturbed by what she had just done, ending three lives in a mere second. She stopped regurgitating a few seconds after she saw Mark. He approached her, but she backed away, still crying.

“You-” She began, trying to articulate through her sobs. “You made me- Do this! I didn’t- Kill one alien, I killed three ponies! This could’ve been their- Home!”

“Hey,” Mark said, putting his hand out to touch her. She swatted it away with her hoof, rejecting his consolation. “If this was their house, they would’ve locked it. And those bodies out there had blood trails indicating they had been moved from in here.”

Mark got up and grabbed several pictures, presumably of the house’s residents, and showed them to Twilight. “See, these look like the bodies that were outside before we came in. And they’re earth ponies too, so you didn’t do anything more than kill ponies that had already killed the occupants of this house.”

Twilight looked at the picture, and accepted Mark’s explanation. She was still disturbed by what she did, and it showed.

“Come on, let’s find a place to sleep,” Mark said.

Because of the hail it had rapidly become freezing both outside the house and within it, and the heating unit didn’t work at all with the lack of electrical power. That meant that the bed upstairs would still be cold. Thankfully, there was a fireplace in the living room, and the owners had seen fit to prepare for fall and winter by purchasing firewood and putting it in a special room.

Mark gathered firewood and started a fire. He brought the whole mattress from the upstairs bed into the living room and set it by the fireplace; he made sure it was neat, with the sheets and blankets properly made. He motioned for Twilight to get in the bed. Twilight took off the uniform she’d been wearing and got in the bed, and Mark tucked her in.

“Aren’t you cold or tired?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, but I’ll manage.”

“Look, I’m willing to share this bed. No funny business, okay?” She said with a weak smile.

Mark smiled back. “Okay, deal.” He took off his boots, armor, equipment, and camouflage overshirt, placing them beside the bed so he could be ready in less than half a minute if he needed to. He crawled into bed still wearing pants, socks and a brown T-shirt.

They both fell asleep almost immediately, their shared body heat and the fire nearby keeping them warm underneath the blankets. The fire lasted all through the night, and the smoke coming from the chimney was indistinguishable from the smoke in the rest of the ruined city.

***

Dagger team had finally made it to the observation point when the hail started. Ascending the building via the elevator shafts, they reached the top floor within twenty minutes. When they reached the roof, they set up their equipment.

Lukas watched the excavation through the scope of his sniper rifle, and the feed from the scope linked directly to a small terminal Alexander set up. From there, the feed was broadcast live to command centers in several bases and ships.

Half of Canteral Park had been dug up, and a garantuan alien structure lay beneath it. The architecture was distinctly Forerunner, but parts of it looked vaguely Covenant as well.

The building’s subterranean nature could be explained by the age that would be necessary for it to be Forerunner at all. In the hundred thousand years since, it could easily have been overtaken by the ground. It was also possible that it had been built underground to begin with.

This was all speculation of course, as not a single human knew what the structure was intended for.

***

“This is gonna be so awesome!” Rainbow Dash said.

“I agree, but I think I’ll like the zoo better than the airshow,” Fluttershy responded.

They were on a Pelican headed to a joint human-pony military base, adjacent to where a Many-Worlds Fair was being held. There would be a zoo featuring animals from dozens of planets, food, entertainment, and much more. Princess Celestia was footing the bill for the trip, and the UNSC had no qualms about diverting a single Pelican if they weren’t paying for gas.

To top it all off, the Wonderbolts were performing, but not on their own; performing alongside them would be the UNSC Air Force’s Thunderbirds aerobatic team, and the UNSC Navy’s Blue Hornets aerobatic team. They were all to perform independently of each other for the most part, but the finale would include an integrated performance featuring all three teams.

Jason and Ethan had been offered a chance to see the show as well, but they had been told to bring their armor and weapons. They knew this whole fair was a giant public relations event for the UNSC, and they were part of it. Despite this, they were still excited to see the fair, having never seen one before they were orphaned and trained into SPARTANs.

Suddenly, the interior of the aircraft rang with the shrill warning of a missile lock. Before anyone could do so much as swear, the missile hit the rear of the Pelican, blowing off the bay door and disabling several the engine nacelles.

“Mayday, mayday! This is Tango two-two-zero, we are going down!”

Jason spoke up. “All right, we’re going down hard. If you want to get out of this alive, do what I say.”

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash nodded.

“Okay, on the count of three, Ethan and I are going to jump out of this bird, and we need you to follow us down. One, two, three!”

Jason and Ethan jumped out of the craft a few seconds apart, the erratic flight trajectory of the Pelican impeding their jumps. They locked their armor’s gel layer, which would allow them to survive the fall by freezing their motion. Rainbow Dash followed Ethan down, and Fluttershy followed Jason.

***

Ethan landed near a swamp, and crashed through several trees on the way down. After he hit the ground and his shields recharged, he unlocked his armor. Just as he did, he saw Rainbow Dash coming in through the hole he’d made and jumped out of the way. She crashed into the same place as Ethan, and dug a trench that stopped just short of the bog.

Her wing was twisted, possibly broken or sprained.

***

Jason landed more than two kilometers away. His landing was similar to Ethan’s, as was his descent. As Fluttershy followed him, she grazed a thorny tree, causing almost a dozen cuts across her right side.

She collapsed next to Jason.