Halo: Equestrian Campaign

“Solus, please report to the deck immediately. Captain Chambers wishes to speak with you.”

The voice of the ships A.I. buzzes off the intercom as quickly as it had come, leaving you to contemplate what the captain wanted. You decide it would be better to ask her than waste your time guessing.

You grunt as you stand, heading over to the small mirror in the corner of your room to make sure you look presentable.

The undamaged parts of your armor shine a bit when they catch the light from the fluorescent light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The other pieces were either burnt by plasma or smothered in dirt and ash from the firefights you just recently gotten into. You shudder slightly when you think back to those skirmishes, back to what you had just escaped.

Reach, the last remaining human stronghold besides Earth. It had taken less than two months for the battle to end, and it ended the same way every other one had. Covenant ships entered the planets atmosphere and blasted its surface with plasma, burning away everything. After the “glassing” all that remained was a chunk of floating rock devoid of any form of life.

You had just managed to get off world when the glassing had begun. By the time your ship, “The Thermopylae” was entering slip space you could see the silhouettes of entire continents bursting into flames, oceans evaporating, and the lights of cities going out permanently.

You are snapped out of your reflection by the sound of the intercom clicking on again.

“Solus, please report to the deck.”

“On my way, Leon.” you reply to the A.I.

________________________________________________________________________

By the way the ship was rocking you could make a pretty good guess as to what the captain was going to tell you. The elevator doors slide open and you walk onto the bridge where you are automatically greeted by a tall woman with long brown hair and glasses, Captain Marie Chambers.

“Evening Solus,” she begins “, I’m sure that by now you’ve already come up with some sort of idea as to why I requested your presence”

You shrug your shoulders, “We’ve cleared the random slip space jump and ended up in an enemy system?” Chambers gives an approving nod, and continues.

“Close, but not quite,” she starts “,We HAVE cleared our slip space jump, but, fortunately for us, we are NOT in Covenant territory. My pilots are telling me that we jumped further then we should’ve and ended up in uncharted space.”

“That doesn’t explain why you needed me.”

“I was getting to that. It turns out we were followed by a Covenant CAC ‘Class Assault Carrier’. It attacked us immediately upon arrival. We’ve been holding our own against it but that is subject to change.”

Suddenly a bright blue figure flickered to life next to you. It looked like a large man with a muscularly carved body and a hard face. He wore nothing more then a leather loin cloth and a cape. In his right hand he carried a short sword, while his left arm had a large bronze shield strapped to it.

“I have come to the conclusion that we are out gunned and out manned,” he began in a gruff voice “, and with the crew as it is we have a thirty-three point three continued percent chance of success.”

“That bad?” you ask.

The blue figure shrugs his broad shoulders, “Those are the statistics for the best case scenario Solus, the chances of our survival are most likely lower.”

“Thank you for the input, Leon,” Chambers quickly cuts in “, but I think its about time we told Solus what we're planning.”

________________________________________________________________________

All the inhabitants of Ponyville stood outside their houses, mouths agape and eyes turned towards the heavens. The normally dark blue night sky was replaced with two oddly colored clouds that swayed like tall grass around the edges, one purple the other orange. Surrounding the strange clouds were countless shooting stars, except they didn’t streak in a small line and disappear like normal ones. No, they flew around, looping in circles and zigzagging back and fourth until they exploded into a purple or orange ball of fire.

Everypony gazed in awe at the unexplained phenomenon, all but one.

Twilight Sparkle remained in her library, searching frantically for her book on astrology. She had looked through every one of her bookshelves labeled “A” a dozen times, yet her search bore no fruit. She Groaned in exasperation as she searched for, and failed to find, her book for the umpteenth time.

“Spike!” she shouted to her young assistant “Have you found the book yet?”

The purple dragon sprinted into the room, holding a thick book under his arm.

“Sorry Twilight, turns out that book was taken out an hour or so ago.” said Spike in an apologetic tone, as if it was his fault.

Twilight spun around and faced the dragon, “What? Who took it out?”

Spike held the large book out for twilight to see, “Whoever it was took it out without asking. She wrote her name down in the ledger, but I cant make it out.”

Twilight grabbed the brown leather bound book from the dragons hands with her magic, and levitated it in front of herself. Spike was right, the name was illegible. What did it say, Lyda, Tira? Whoever it was must have taken the book in a hurry, wanting to consume the knowledge it held as soon as they could.

“Perfect, just PERFECT,” the lavender unicorn shouted “, now what am I gonna do? I was hoping to figure out what’s going on, but now the last book on space we had is GONE!

“Settle down Twilight,” interjected spike, hoping to calm his friend “, maybe the princesses know what’s going on. We could send them a letter?”

Twilights body shrank down a bit, her muscles relaxing as she regained her composure. She gave an approving nod to Spike and he immediately began to write down a message to the sibling monarchs.

________________________________________________________________________

You leisurely walk towards the ships hangar, talking to Leon as you go.

“What can you tell me about the system we’re in?” you ask.

You hear your helmets com click on as he answers your question.

“Radar scans have shown three satellites: one sun, one planet, and one moon. I took the liberty of sending out probes to the surface of the later two. The planet is mostly made up of water, seventy-five percent is covered in it. The rest is covered by varying landscapes, from frigid mountains to scorching deserts. Like Earth, the atmosphere is mostly made up of oxygen. Coupled with the fact that familiar vegetation was detected, this planet is capable of supporting human life.”

“How is it that we haven’t found this place after hundreds of years of space travel?”

The super computer is quick to answer your question.

“There are still plenty of planets to be discovered, Solus. Remember that this was a random slip space jump, hundreds of planets have been found in ways similar to this.”

Before Leon can berate you even more you assault him with another question.

“Can you give me a quick run through of the captains plan again.”

“Certainly, you are to lead a small strike team into the Covenant fleet. While our fighters draw the enemies fire you and your team will land on the CAC and attempt to take it out from the inside with remote detonated charges. After the charges are set you will escape using the ships escape pods on the starboard side. Once out your drop ships will fly back around and pick you up.”

The mission was near impossible; you knew it, Leon knew it, Chambers knew it. It was more likely that you and your whole strike team would die on that ship, even if you set the charges you would probably have to detonate them while still inside.

You were getting closer to the hangar now, but one more question entered your mind.

“Who will be in my strike team?” you ask.

“You will be accompanied  by forty volunteers, they are made up of twenty-five standard military personnel, five special operatives, and the remaining ten are local militants we picked before we left.”

Suddenly your interest is piqued “what kind of special operatives?”

“All five are ODST’s,” continued Leon “, they’re OMEGA squad to be specific, led by a Sergeant Webber.”

Webber, that’s a name you haven’t heard in a long time. You smile behind your visor, and begin to run towards the hangar; eager to see your old friend.