Haylo: A Spartan Discovery

Haylo: A Spartan Discovery

Prelude; chapter 1: past and present

It’s just another day on the U.N.S.C (phoenix-class colony ship REFIT) Winters Spite and Jacob is tinkering with his modified shotgun when he is disturbed by a voice behind him. Jacob turns to see Hannah his A.I using a robotic arm with a welding gun trying to fuse metal components together. Jacob shrugs his shoulders and returns to placing a more durable stock and handle onto his shotgun. A long while later his concentration is yet again disturbed when he looks around he sees his ghostly A.I in front of him with a heavily modified machine gun. He grunts and picks up his now fully modified shotgun they inspect each other’s work and after a while they both start arguing at who had done a better job at making a more durable weapon. “The shotgun has a new stock that can withstand and impact of three tonnes as well as the handle. This means that I can stop worrying about the stock being crushed by a tank, like last time!”

explained Jacob, rather enthusiastically.

“That wasn’t my fault! Besides I can’t drive a tank. My state of matter only allows me to take control of electronic items.”

“Like my armour for example”

“No I cannot control your armour. Besides by my calculations the machine gun can withstand 17.537 tonnes. That is enough to crash into a planet without getting deformed or broken. Also I built it from scratch so it should fire more rounds and should carry twice the amount of ammo.”

Jacob was about to make another comment when the speaker in his room spoke “spartan-088 to the briefing room! I repeat! Spartan-088 to the briefing room”

Jacob made a glance at Hannah and said “fine you win!”

whilst Throwing his arms in the air. He made his way to his bunk and pulled at a large wardrobe. The wardrobe contained his MJOLNIR mark VI power armour was and suited up. Finally he put his helmet on and he went over to a rounded hologram projector and looked at his A.I. Jacob thought for a moment about how glad he was that she couldn’t see his face when he ‘yanked’ her, he was grinning “well what are you waiting for? Pull me out already”

Hannah said folding her arms. Jacob pushed a button and a panel slid away. He then pushed a small chip in and pulled it out. Instantly Hannah phased out and disappeared. He studied it for a while “hello. Anybody home? We need to go remember?”

chided Hannah using the helmets inner speakers.

Jacob shook his head and inserted the chip into the back of his head and headed towards the door.

Two marines were having a conversation whilst waiting outside a door. Suddenly the door opened. The marines stopped talking. Out of the door came a seven foot Spartan, the marines instantly stood to attention. The marine hesitated and asked “Sir, are you Spartan-088”

the Spartan nodded “Sir we have orders to escort you to the briefing room”

Said one of the saluting officers. The other one just stood there with a blank expression trying not to look at the Spartan. “Lead the way”

replied the Spartan.

He followed them down a maze of corridors. Whilst thinking about the past events from his last mission on Cerberus IX.

He remembered the planets sentient species were under attack by covenant corvettes. He managed to assist defending the planet only to see a family to be instantly slaughtered in front of him by a plasma grenade. He remembered their faces as they died. Especially the youngest of them, the mixture of surprise, sadness and fear in that Childs face. He knew it would haunt him forever. He remembered going back to his ship, only to find a high ranking marine running towards him as he entered the firefly-class cruiser. The marine saluted at him and showed him a small microchip. “Captains orders sir! Protect this A.I with your life. Do not let the covvie’s get a hold of her. Even if it means destroying her. You got that”

he moved towards Jacob and stepped around him. He inserted the chip into the Spartans helmet and backed away.  “There’s no time left Spartan this thing is going to blow any second now and you two are my top priority. Follow me!”

he jogged towards a pelican and told the Spartan to get on. He then boarded the ship with a group of O.D.S.T’s and ordered the pilot to take off.  The pelican lurched and flew out of the hanger bay.

They flew for a minute before they felt a shockwave and a heard loud explosion. They knew that their ship was gone. There was silence in the pelican, no one, dared speak. No one could. Even the marine in charge had stopped giving orders and took his hat off in respect. The group entered a second ship and got out. This was their new ship. Winters Spite.

The spartan stopped thinking about his past when they got to the briefing room and stopped at the door. The marines saluted and went into their positions so as to guard the door. The Spartan entered. The room was small, almost an interrogation room. There was a small round table with two chairs, one of which was occupied by the ship’s captain. He was holding a folder. On it the words ‘read only’ was printed on the brown paper “sit”

Said the captain. The Spartan sat. “Jacob is it?”

The Spartan nodded, he was stunned, briefly, before reminding himself that a captain knew everything about everyone. He handed Jacob the folder. “My name is Captain Clark and I am this commanding officer of this ship. Now we have the pleasantries out of the way, this is your new mission Jacob. You are infiltrating a covenant super-carrier with a nuclear warhead. You are to meet up with a small band of heretics who are there to assist you with retrieving Intel on covenant plans and movement. They are also there to assist in planting the bomb and getting out of there. Once the ship has been destroyed and the Intel retrieved you are to send out a short range distress frequency with this device.”

He hands you a handheld device. “If you are to fail this mission and the super-carrier is not destroyed and the Intel is not retrieved. You are then assumed MIA. I’m sure you know what happens next?”

Jacob nodded and said “the ship won’t pursue me. Don’t worry I won’t let that happen”

“I hope not. Good luck Spartan you leave in 3 hours”

And with that the captain got up and left the room. Leaving Jacob to sit and think about what he had said. Jacob got up and left the room shaking his thoughts away. The marines in the doorway had left. Leaving him alone with his thoughts. He got to his room and picked up his gear including his new machine gun and his shotgun. “Hmm, so you do like it”

said a voice in his head. “Oh shut up!”

He replied smirking to himself. He looked at his makeshift workshop room. He sighed and left heading towards the armoury. He acquired a few grenades and plasma grenades and all the ammo he could carry. The armouries accountant looked at his stuff and admired his modified machine gun. He wrote down what he was taking and the Spartan was dismissed. Jacob walked to the hanger bay and found a marine waiting for him. He looked at his helmets clock. He had an hour and half left so he decided to sit down and get some rest.

He dreamed about sitting on an open field with nothing but his old friends around him. He recognised all of his squad; James, Clare, Simon, Geoff and Roland. He was back. But something felt wrong. He got up and stared in horror at the sight before him. James was impaled on a long iron bar. Clare had a needler shot to the heart. Simon was half melted due to plasma burns. Geoff had an energy sword through his chest and Roland was missing an arm and a leg and half of his face was blown off. He stood there unable to move and unable to cry. He felt an utter sadness from deep within. He wanted to throw up, to empty his stomach but he was unable to. He averted his eyes but when he did the sight was still before his eyes. He started to panic as he couldn’t get rid of the horrific sight before him. He heard a voice calling his name he blinked and the sight was gone. He blinked again and the ground was gone. He heard someone call his name again “Jacob!!” it was Hannah.  He felt an electric shock coursing through his spinal column and he jolted awake.

He took in his surroundings. He was still aboard the Winters Spite and there was a marine in front of him “sir!” the marine said saluting terrifically. “Your banshee is ready and the ship is exiting hyperspace now. Your banshee is located in hanger bay 2B”

The marine saluted again and marched of. Jacob got up and moved towards the elevator and made his was to hanger bay 2B.

Jacob’s A.I spoke before he could stop her “your old team?”

He sighed and nodded. “That makes it the 5 time this week. You really should forget about them. There is nothing you can do for them now.”

She sounded sad. Hannah had been programmed with a personality. She was originally the A.I of a firefly-class carrier. And one of the few successful A.I's able to be programmed with a partial personality. Other A.I's went rampant and had to be terminated.

They made their way to the awaiting specially modified banshee. he placed his machine gun on a small holder welded onto the side of it and then entered it. He heard the hanger bay being cleared and then the room depressurising. He heard a countdown “five… four… three…”

He tensed, preparing himself for the things to come. At first he was sad… then he was angry he could fell his rage rising. He wanted revenge on the covenant. For what they had done and what they were doing. “…two… one…hangar doors opening”

The bay doors opened exposing a dark and never-ending void that is space. A COMM channel opened and he heard the captain speaking to him “Spartan you are green to go. And good luck.”

The Spartan hit the boost and he sped out of the hanger leaving the Winters Spite behind.

Immediately he found the super-carrier in front of him orbiting a gaseous planet. He made his way towards it and entered by a hanger door to the left just as instructed. He landed his banshee and pulled out his shotgun and attached it to his back. Then he pulled out his machine gun and turned around to see a small group of elite’s grunts and a pair of hunters fully equipped with all the weapons they needed. Jacob nodded at them and they moved towards the centre of the ship. There was little to no resistance along the way and the corridors seemed completely empty. They found the ships memory storage room. The Spartan hooked himself to the computer core and extracted the relevant files to his suites memory storage.

He unplugged himself from the computer and got Hannah to pull up the ships map. They navigated their way through the ships interior killing a few grunts on the way. They managed to get to the core of the ship and they were setting up the bomb when they heard the ships alarm going off. They finished planting the bomb and they felt the ship jump to hyperspace. They waited until the super-carrier exited hyperspace before setting the timer to the nuclear warhead. They hit little resistance on their way to the hanger. However when they got to the hanger it was full of elites. “The prophet has ordered us to go down to the planet and find the holy relic! We must discover what this holy relic wants us to find and then we can continue on our path to enlightenment!”

This speech was followed by a load of enthusiastic growls. At this point our small group was unnoticed until a grunt came round the corner and surprised us shouting “bah! Heretics! Run for you lives!”

The entire room was now alerted of their presence so it was at this point Jacob yelled “open fire”

He stood up and planted his machine gun on the edge of the balcony and started mowing down elite after elite. The hunters and the elites jumped down and started massacring the enemy room. The grunts had started to open the doors and were now firing blindly into the midst of the elites killing everything that got into their way.

But soon things turned bad. The grunts had killed their own elites and were now milling around leaderless. The jackals had died in the initial attack the elites were being slaughtered and the only ones of the battle were 6 enemy elites and their leader and one rampaging hunter. Jacob had emptied his machine gun’s first cartridge and had finished loading a second when he heard the last of the hunters go down. He looked over the balcony to see the leader of the elites finish off the last of the grunts, whilst one other elite with a carbine had sniped one fleeing down a corridor. Jacob analysed the immediate situation, he could kill the leader then get shot by a carbine and get killed, or he could kill the other elite and get stabbed in the back and die instantly. He had made his decision. He ran to the other side of the room and jumped onto the unsuspecting elite knifing him in the neck as he went down. Without thinking he rolled to the side, which saved his life, until he was picked up and held at the neck by an angry elite leader. Jacob looked left and right, he could feel his life ebbing away in somebody else’s hands, until he felt a grenade drop into his hands he couldn’t care less where it came from but he looked up into the elites face as it drew back its energy sword to end the Spartans life. He laughs in the elites face. The elite looks puzzled until Jacob shouts “catch this!”

And he shoves a plasma grenade into the elite’s jaw. The elite drop’s the energy sword and the Spartan to try and pull out the grenade from the recesses of his mouth. The Spartan drops and picks up his machine gun and turn on his feet and sprints towards the hanger bay’s energy field. The Spartan doesn’t see the explosion of the elites head as he jumps out of the super carrier not knowing where he is going.

He waits for the timer to reach zero. 30 seconds… 20 seconds… 10… 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Nothing happens he looks at the timer and sees it at zero. He panics. Maybe he didn’t set the bomb up correctly. No he knew he set it up correctly but maybe there was a fault in the progr-

he was stopped in mid thought when there was a massive explosion. It was beautiful. First the explosion took out the ships core taking out some of the hull with it. Then the shields collapsed as dancing magnetic fields flew in all directions. Then there was a large brilliant explosion as entire ship was engulfed in sparks, flames, liquid metal and shrapnel. A large burning piece of a molten phantom threatens to collide with the Spartan. The phantom hit his left hip and the Spartan was spun round and round in a dizzying circle. Using his head he brings his machine gun round and fires off a couple of rounds. This seems to work as the Spartan slowly stops spinning. He glances around him and he notices for the first time a small planet just getting closer and closer.

The Spartan now begins to really panic. He notices the planet being orbited by a moon and sun of equal size. He cannot believe his eyes. He asks Hannah if she knew what he was seeing to be true. “Hannah. Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”

“This is fascinating…”

she exclaims. “Wait! Don’t forget to set off your distress beacon!”

The Spartan checks his side for the handheld device that can guarantee his ticket out of there. Then the penny drops. He looks at his side to see that the device has been ripped clean off of his hip. For the third time the Spartan begins to panic. Almost getting killed… twice. And now plummeting to his death as well as having no means to get a signal to the Winters Spite. This day was not going well for Jacob. He felt resistance as he began to enter the strange planet’s atmosphere. He instinctively went into armour lock up and he held his machine gun close. He felt the gel layer in his suit build up and his suit becoming locked up. He felt the blood flow in his extremities cutting off and he quickly felt very numb.  He heard someone in his ear talking to him “it has been an honour being with you Jacob Spartan.” Hannah said

“I wish I could say the same to you”

replied Jacob said obviously joking. This made Hannah laugh a little as he spoke again with cheerfulness in his voice “I’m glad I met you Hannah. I really am”

They both waited for the sudden death that awaited them on the ground below.

Twilight was near the ever-free forest collecting data samples of different plant life with the assistance of her friends when she noticed a yellow spark appear in the sky. She called out to her friends “hay! Girls! Are you seeing that thing in the sky?"

she yelled.

“yeah ah’ see it! And ah’ think it’s head’n towards that clearin’ over there!” exclaimed Applejack

“an comet in pure daylight! my that is strange” replied Rarity.

“ooh! lets check it out!”

exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

“Whoa there nelly!”

said Applejack grabbing a hold of rainbow’s tail before she could fly off.

“Ah think we should all go together. Yah know. Safety in numbers n’ all.”

“Good idea” replied twilight “all right ponies let’s see what all this is about.”

As if by an unspoken agreement they head towards the area they thing the object will land in. they all stand in awe as they saw a large meteorite collide with Equestria in the clearing Applejack suggested it would land in. “Hay Applejack! How did you know in that clearing over there huh?”

“sugar-cube if ah didn’t know where an apple would fall then most of the apples I give you would be bruised all over then wouldn’ they.”

“Point taken”

replied Rainbow Dash.

As they got nearer the clearing they could see dirt and leaves spread over a large area encompassing the newly formed crater. The entire group froze except for rainbow dash who had ignored the crater and was glaring at her friends for taking so long “We’ll what’re we waiting for? Let’s check it out”

Rainbow dash looked up to see a large object climbing out of the crater when it got out it stood to twice the height of pony. Only it looked like a large machine that only stood on two legs and had picked up a large metallic object and just stood there. The thing was practically encompassed in metal and it was very intimidating. Rainbow Dash looked at her friends who were trembling at the sight and then back at the machine. She was scared for her friends’ lives, she knew she had to protect them, so, just like Daring Doo, she charged at the large metallic thing head first.

Jacob was living the same nightmare he did every time he fell asleep. His friends faces as they died in his arms. He was crying in his sleep and he knew it. Only this time he knew he was dead. He had known himself to be a brave soldier; he had done great deeds in the face of terrible odds and had never failed to complete his objectives, ever. Suddenly he felt a small tingling sensation in his back for a split second. And then again, this time a little painfully. Then heard a voice “wake u… c’mon I need… there are some… six unknowns… WAKE UP!!!"

Another jolt of electricity down his spinal column sent him coughing and spluttering into wakefulness. He immediately took in his surroundings. He was in a crater and least 20 foot deep and 35 foot in diameter. “Thank goodness you awake. There are six unknown blips on our motion sensor and they’re heading towards us. You need to get out of the open Jacob otherwise your as good as dead.”

Jacob got up and looked for his machine gun. He found it half buried in the dirt. He uncovered it and slung it onto a hook on his back. He made his way to where the blips were closest, Hoping that he would be out of the crater before they got there. He made his way up the crater digging hand-sized holes into the side of the crater as he made his way up. He made it to the lip of the crater and pulled himself outs slinging his machine gun off of his back and onto the ground in front of him so he could climb out a little easier. He got out brushed himself down, pick up his machine gun and stood up to his full height. As he looked up he saw six quadrupeds in front of him. Two seemed to be ordinary earth ponies. Two were winged so he guessed that they were Pegasus’ and the other two were almost indefinitely unicorns, with their distinguishable long bones protruding on the top of their heads. They were slightly smaller than a horse, so Jacob guessed they were ponies. However the only thing that got him was the fact that they were all MULTICOLOURED!

Jacob was about to move forward when one of the Pegasus’ Dashed forward. He didn’t have enough time to react properly and he shifted his weight onto his back leg, big mistake. The Pegasus collided with him head on causing the ground beneath him to give way. They both tumbled into the crater. Jacob stops sliding and gets backup he drops his heavy machine gun and pulls out his magnum pistol. “Don’t kill it. It may be our only way to get off of this rock”

Whispered Hannah into his ear. He rolled to one side as the Pegasus flew at him again. This time missing him and burying its head into the side of the crater. Jacob flicks the safety on and points it towards the Pegasus. It pulls its head out of the ground and looks at the Spartan. “Freeze!”

yelled Jacob. Even though he knew it wouldn’t understand, him he knew he had to shout something at it to prevent it from charging him again. This seems to work as the Pegasus is now transfixed to the spot, staring at him in disbelief (Or so he thought would be disbelief if it were a human head).

As if on cue the other ponies had jumped down and were backing up their fellow pony standing in-between her and me. Jacob bent his elbows and pointed the gun upwards so as to not put the creature in harm’s way. He looked at the ponies and then at the way they came from assuming that the owners of these animals were somewhere in the direction they came from.  He walked over to his machine gun picked it up and walked over to the edge of the crater again. As he was just about to start climbing he heard a muffled conversation “what in tarnation is that?”

“I don’t know but it’s sure as hay hard to hit. I think I’ve got a headache” exclaimed Rainbow Dash

“It’s heading towards the village!”

said Fluttershy

“We have to stop it!”

said rarity

“How? We haven’t got anything that can work against something like that!”

said twilight

“How about asking politely”

“Pfft! As if that’ll work!”

Retorted Rainbow Dash

“You never know until you try”

“Wait a sec who said that?”

Asked Pinkie Pie

“I did”

The ponies looked around to see the metal monster standing right behind them. “AH! It can talk”

“I was about to say the same thing”

said the Spartan

“But how, you haven’t got a mouth!”

“I’m wearing a helmet”

The ponies and the Spartan studied each other for a while before twilight finally broke the silence “maybe we got off on the wrong foot. My name is Twilight Sparkle. And this is Rarity, Rainbow Dash, the one that flew into you, Fluttershy, Applejack and Pinkie Pie”

She pointed at each of the other ponies as they bowed their heads in response to their names. “I am Spartan-088”

replied the Spartan. “And don’t worry… Rainbow was it? I have had my fair share of rough and tumble and your little display is nothing compared to what I’ve seen others do.”

This didn’t go down too well with Rainbow Dash as she grumbled and turned her head away.

“Sorry about all this”

said twilight. “Why don’t you come with us? We need to get ourselves out of here before something really nasty gets us”

The Spartan nodded and followed the group out of the crater. “Hannah I think I’m going to need a lot of therapy after this”

“You and me both”

“Wait your seeing this too?”

“Yep, and I must say, you handled yourself pretty well back there considering you almost died”

“Hannah I want you to do a full system scan. Make sure all the downloaded files are safe and I want you to record all of the events that are about to happen. I think there is going to be a lot of things about to happen”

“Ay Ay captain!”

she replied. He could just visualise what she would have done if she was still a hologram on the Winters Spite. She would have done that silly salute that he hated so much. Worst still was she knew he hated it. He chuckled to himself and looked up to see the ponies in front of him stopped and staring at him. “Who were you talking to?!”

shouted Rainbow Dash flying right up into his face “Umm…”

“Well!”

she glared

Jacob gave up and replied “my A.I”

He looked at their confused expressions and explained “my artificial intelligence. She assists me in thinking about things and does all sorts of things. Normally she would be on a hologram emitter. But because of previous events she is on a small microchip inside my suit”

“Wait so there is two of you inside of that thing?”

“I suppose you could put it like that yes”

They stared at him for a while. He gave up and reached behind his helmet and pulled out a small black plate and showed it to them “c’mon Hannah show yourself”

Suddenly a blue ghost-like figure fazed in and the ponies jumped back in shock “it’s a ghost!!” yelled pinkie pie

"I’m not a ghost!

exclaimed Hannah “I am an artificial intelligence that is capable of thinking on my own and controlling numerous amounts of electronic devises and assisting this particular Spartan in his missions”

The ponies stared in disbelief at the sight before them. Jacob then pulled the chip away and placed it back into the back of his helmet. The ponies shook their heads and started babbling amongst themselves as they turned around and started walking in the direction they came from

“This day just keeps getting better and better”

Thought Jacob as they headed towards the edge of the clearing

This is my first story in a haylo series please take this story and give as much feedback as possible. Thank you

P.S be nice with the feedback from now on please