Aszod, Eposz, Planet Reach
August 30, 2552 22:00 Hours
Some Spartans have this knack for surviving extreme conditions when the going gets tough. They'll go missing after some perilous situation conceals them in smoke and then turn up back home sometime later all safe and sound. While everyone else is convinced they don't die, those who know better just call them 'lucky'. And those same people prefer to stay away from the lucky ones, convinced that these metaphorical lightning rods of luck unintentionally doom everyone around them with misfortune.
Some say their luck won't ever change. They've been wrong before.
The Spartan going by the callsign Noble Six is a very lucky woman. Even though the last evac route on the continent fled into slipspace over four hours ago, leaving Noble Six to her own devices, there was still a faint light of hope left for her.
It just so happens that the Covenant Cruiser that was downed by the Mass Driver still had its Slipspace Drive in tact, according to the information provided by the A.I. Auntie Dot. Noble Six conceived the plan that if she could activate the engine, there was an astronomical chance that she could escape the planet in one piece.
"But what will you do once you do manage to escape, Noble Six?" The question was raised by Dot, which never received an answer. Frankly, Noble Six would like to focus on the 'here-and-now.' Driving a cramped, rickety pickup truck head-on toward a fallen warship swarming with hundreds of angry aliens was a task that required as much focus as possible.
The truck's wheels whined under stress as it swerved to the left to avoid being struck with a plasma shell from the Phantom tailing it overhead. Six immediately jerked the wheel right to avoid a piece of debris from a UNSC frigate laying sticking out of the ground. The spartan's crushing grip was leaving an impression of her hands on the steering wheel. The little truck kicked up enough dust to make it's approach obvious as it stormed across the fields of dirt and scrap metal.
As the truck closed the distance between it and the colossal starship in front of it, Covenant Banshees began to join in the pursuit. The entire back canopy of the truck had melted off from all of the small arms plasma fire it was taking. The Spartan had to maneuver the truck that much more to avoid letting her armor's shields take too much stress.
"Noble Six, I am marking the location of a gravity lift positioned below the Covenant Cruiser. You may be able to board the vessel from there."
Deployments of poorly organized infantry around the base of the gravity lift were alerted to the incoming truck by the noise of the phantom's plasma shells pursuing it. Though they opened fire upon it as it approached, it continued to dash through their lines unhindered by small arms fire. An number of unfortunate jackals and grunt infantry caught in the path of the vehicle were punished indiscriminately as it powered through to the gravity lift.
A Sangheli officer lobbed a trio of plasma shells after the vehicle. They burst around the back end of the truck and it was sent spiraling into the aura of the gravity lift while still being torn to shreds with a hail plasma fire. As it ascended, it began to catch fire. The tires burned away, the body was reduced to cinders, the little hula girl on the dashboard had long since been melted into a smoldering blob of plastic. The steering wheel snapped off and Spartan tossed it out the window.
What remained of the truck was plopped unceremoniously out of the gravity lift and onto the floor of the loading bay of the ship, where Six was met with surprisingly little company. Half a dozen unarmed grunts that were in the middle of moving pieces of equipment around froze in place, legs shaking as they realized what had joined them in the loading bay.
The Spartan unbuckled the seat belt and opened the door of the truck to get out. As she rolled out a crick in her neck, the truck suddenly disintegrated into a pile of dust behind her. The figure of intimidation noted the number of grunts quaking with fear in the room with her.
"Boo." The soldier raised her hands just so.
The child-like grunts yelped and fled for their lives through various corridors. Not willing to gamble on which door would lead her in the right direction, Noble Six commanded directions from Auntie Dot.
"Marking relevant directions to the location of the Slip Stream Space device for you now, Noble."
Issue of direction handled, the soldier picked a corridor and began to hunt down the pair of grunts that had fled that way.
With such tight hallways there was nowhere for the enemy to run. As such, moving from point A to point B was more or less a cakewalk compared to the maneuver warfare that she had been accustomed to. In this corridor battlefield, the Spartan only needed to burn through ammo to make progress. That said, because there was an abundance of plasma weaponry, they became the weapons of choice over the Designated Marksman Rifle and Magnum, which were magnetically secured to her armor to be used sparingly. There wasn't going to be any resupplies where she was going.
Though the enemies fell with relative ease when subject to the firestorm of dual Plasma Repeaters, there was one particular Sangheli donned in dark gold plated armor with intricate symbols and high shield strength. This particularly interesting Elite was much more tactful and survival-oriented than his brethren. His shields would burst after a brief standoff, and he'd toss a plasma grenade and disappear, only to be encountered once again farther down the way for the same thing to occur. He was fast as well. Much too fast for the Spartan. Six would attempt to pursue him, only to be far outrun.
He was definitely going to be a problem to the Spartan.
At last, she had reached the Slip Space Drive room. The doors opened with a chime of greeting, and the Spartan strutted in with a Plasma Repeater resting on each shoulder.
In the center of the room, a ball of florescent energy warped and pulsed on a tall pedestal of complicated alien machinery. Surrounding the base were all sorts of holographic panels displaying miscellaneous energy levels. A concave cylinder in the design housed a kind of glowing fuel core that powered the machine.
Six's plan was to overload that fuel core with plasma, which would cause an overload in the machinery and trigger an abrupt entry into slipspace, and an exit point at a random vector.
To the untrained eye, there was nothing besides present in the room. But through the steely senses of a Spartan, there was clearly a stalker in her midst. A rapid glaze of Carbine fire began striking at her shields, and she dove behind cover, ditching one of the Repeaters for the sake of mobility.
When the strikes of Carbine rounds ceased for a brief moment, Six stole a glance and a few shots at the Sangheli as he replaced the canister. The plasma fire shredded his Carbine, and he threw the useless tool away. He dove behind cover, and Six took the opportunity to hit the fuel core of the Slip Space Drive. The light of the fuel core began to quake and stain blue with the onset of blue plasma.
The elite popped out of cover and charged on her position, an energy sword trailing behind him. Noble Six redirected her fire at the attacker, but her shots passed right through the flickering figure and he vanished. A blur to the left poised her to fire and maneuver away from it.
The elite's camouflage faded and his shields popped in the middle of his assault. He quickly hurdled a plasma grenade at the Spartan. The unstable flare of plasma stuck to Six's forward shoulder. Noble Six lunged toward the fuel core of the Slip Space Drive and upon exiting the roll, braced herself to engage the armor's lockdown.
As the superheated plasma grenade reacted into a blinding explosion, completely damaging the fuel core into instability, the shields of Noble Six's armor overcharged to safeguard her from the explosions. A blip on the Spartan's heads-up display indicated the detection of a Slipspace Rupture. Without a moment to spare, the ball of energy atop the pedestal of machinery pulsated and quickly expanded.
It grew to engulf the entirety of the ship, swallowing the numerous Phantoms, Spirits, and Banshees, and consuming many of the nearby decommissioned UNSC fleet ships, including the wreckage of a destroyed frigate that had fallen from orbit.
And then the devouring orb concentrated to a point and burst. All that remained of the Covenant Cruiser, the Spartan, and the downed Frigate was an immense crater of molten rock and ash. It was just another unrecognized blemish on the face of Reach.
Noble Six's armor lock burst, and she ducked under a broad swipe from an energy sword. The Spartan delivered a punishing left hook to the Elite's side and kicked him away to give herself a little breathing room. The Elite returned with another swing from the energy sword. Six side stepped the blade and took a stab at the Elite's throat.
The Elite backed away and went for a lunge with the speed of lightning. Six blocked the attack with her right forearm, and her shields burst. She tried to set up for another stab with the knife, but the elite delivered a kick that sent her onto her back. Before she could try to scramble to her feet, the Elite was poised over her with the energy sword poised to pierce her through.
A blip appeared on the Spartan's visor. Slipspace Rupture Detected.
Suddenly, a rumble tore through the room, throwing the elite off balance. Six took the opportunity to quickly stand and regain her combat posture, and her shields recharged to full capacity as well. As she was about to deliver a killing blow to the elite, the pulsing orb of the Slipspace Drive expanded once again.
When the orb returned, it burst and vanished. Suddenly, turbulence rocked the ship. Six and the Elite struggled to keep fighting under the intense shaking, but before either of them could strike at one another, the floor tore away from beneath them, and the vacuum created tore them out of the ship.
The roar of wind was deafening. Six found her self tumbling through the sky in concert with hundreds of other pieces of debris, Covenant, and even entire ships. The soldier spread her limbs to stabilize herself, and get a better look at where she was going.
It wasn't Reach. There weren't smoldering fields of molten plasma to replace the sea. The air wasn't choked and polluted with dust and radiation. The earth wasn't red with the blood of billions of innocent people. The sky wasn't bronzed in melancholy sadness of a dying planet. This place was different. A lush green planet under a deep blue sky. Green expanses of forest and wide mountain ranges and rolling fields and great bodies of water. All fit together to form the landscape of this world that she was falling to. It was like something out of a dream. It was such a beautiful, familiar place. And that's where the weary soldier was going.
She flew like a brick through the atmosphere of the planet. Her arms spread wide open to embrace the land rising up to meet her. Like a child falling into her mother's arms.
