Prologue: Winter Contingency
Hundreds of years from now, Earth's fledgling planetary empire had been drawn into a merciless war with a consortium of alien races known as the Covenant. Covenant technology was far beyond that of Earth, and the humans were losing. Whole planets were being destroyed. Billions had died. It was only a matter of time before the Covenant found Earth, and destroyed it.
The most recent human planet to be discovered by the Covenant fleet was Reach, population 700 million. On the planet Reach, the colonies were in ruins from its destruction by the Covenant after an invasion. Noble Team, a Special Forces Spartan Team dispatched to discover why a communications relay had gone offline, discoverd Covenant forces on Reach. Soon after, the team defended "Sword Base", an Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) installation, from a Covenant vessel. The team met Catherine Halsey, a scientist and the mastermind behind the Spartan program and their MJOLNIR powered armor. Halsey informed Noble Team that the Covenant forces at the relay were searching for important information.
Jun, the team's Marksman and Noble 4, and Noble Six, a Lieutenant new to the team, were dispatched on a covert mission to assess the Covenant's strength and discover an invasion force gathering on the planet. The following morning, Noble Team assisted U.N.S.C. forces in assaulting a Covenant ground base. When a massive Covenant super-carrier joined the fight, Jorge and Six took part in a plan to destroy the carrier using a makeshift bomb. The Spartans used starfighter Sabres to infiltrate a smaller Covenant corvette, prepare the bomb and set the corvette on a docking course with the carrier. The bomb's timer was damaged, and so Jorge stayed behind and sacrificed himself to destroy the carrier. Moments later, huge numbers of Covenant ships arrived at Reach and began a full-scale invasion.
Six returned to the surface and traveled to the city of New Alexandria. The Spartan aided the local military in fighting the Covenant and evacuating the city, reuniting with Noble Team along the way. They retreated to an underground bunker when the Covenant began to bombard the city with plasma, but Kat, Noble 2, was killed by a Covenant sniper before they reached it. Recalled to Sword Base, Noble Team was guided underground to an ancient artifact that Halsey believed was key to winning the war against the Covenant. Six, Noble Leader Carter, and Noble 3 Emile were entrusted with transporting the artificial intelligence Cortana, and the information she carried concerning the artifact, to the U.N.S.C. ship Pillar of Autumn. Jun left the team to escort Halsey to another base.
En route to the Autumn's dry dock, Carter was critically wounded piloting a Pelican dropship. He rammed his ship into a Covenant Scarab mobile assault platform, allowing Six and Emile to safely reach the shipyard. Emile used a mass driver emplacement to defend the Autumn while Six fought through Covenant ground forces to get Cortana to the Autumn's captain, Jacob Keyes. When Emile was slain by Elites, Six remained behind to control the gun, ensuring the Autumn's escape. The Autumn fled from Reach and discoverd the HALO ringworld.
After sustaining heavy damage, Six dropped his shattered helmet and was overwhelmed and killed. Years later, Six's helmet remained on the grassy plains of a then-restored Reach. Halsey eulogized Noble Team, who ultimately enabled humanity's victory over the Covenant.
The Covenant annihilated Reach utterly. As the Pillar of Autumn escaped the battle in a desperate attempt to lead the Covenant away from Earth, the ship charted a course for a distant unexplored system.
In a move that baffled the Commander and her crew, the entire Covenant fleet gave chase.
When the humans arrived at their destination, they found an alien artifact of enormous size in orbit between a gas giant and its moon. They had found HALO, a ring ten thousand kilometers in diameter, with a breathable atmosphere. On its inner surface, HALO had oceans, continents, varied climatic zones. It was esentially a habitat.
Pursued by Covenant warships to a massive and ancient ring construct deep in the void, the United Nations Space Command had improvised a guerilla war over land, sea and air, using the arsenals and vehicles of three distinct cultures. Using everything from composite swords to orbital bombardment, driving everything from giant tanks to agile combat aircraft, the U.N.S.C. waged intense warfare over and under the surface of the world.
The last surviving human ship from the fall of Reach, the Spirit of Fire, was sent to the ruined planet Harvest to investigate Covenant activity, where it's Captain, Captain Cutter, learned that the Covenant had excavated something at the planet's northern pole. When the U.N.S.C.'s main outpost on Harvest was captured, Cutter ordered Sergeant Forge to retake it. Soon after, Forge scouted a Covenant excavation and discovered that they, under the direction of the Arbiter, had discovered a Forerunner facility. Forge's troops defeated the Covenant forces before they could destroy the installation, and Professor Anders, a lead researcher aboard the Spirit, arrived. She determined that the facility was an interstellar map, and recognized a set of coordinates that pointed to the human colony of Arcadia.
After repelling a Covenant counterattack on the Forerunner facility, the Spirit of Fire traveled to Arcadia, where the Covenant had begun raiding local cities and slaughtering civilians. Forge contacted the local Spartan special forces, Spartan RED Team, and assisted with the evacuation process. The Covenant built a giant energy shield to hide the construction of a gigantic Scarab super-weapon on the planet, but the U.N.S.C. forces used experimental equipment, prototype-based Plasma Rhino mortars, to break through. The Scarab was destroyed, but the Arbiter kidnapped Anders while she was documenting among the wreckage and escaped the planet.
Forge and the Spartans returned to the Spirit of Fire and the crew followed Anders' signal to an uncharted planet in another star system. The planet's surface was infested by the parasitic Flood, an alien being that infected hosts and morphed them into grotesque drones, who attacked and assimilated any sentient life they encountered. The Spirit of Fire inadvertently activated a Forerunner docking station and entered the planet's interior. Flood boarded the ship, and very soon Forerunner Sentinels appeared to cleanse the Flood threat and also to destroy all U.N.S.C. forces in the process. The crew discovered the planet was actually hollow, with a habitable interior and a miniature sun. The Spirit of Fire escaped the enterior of the planet, and collided with a Covenant Corvette Warship. After breaking off from the warship and repairing the ship's reactor, the Spirit of Fire escaped, and discovered what the Covenant was up to. The Covenant's plan was to activate a dormant fleet of highly advanced Forerunner starships inside the planet using Anders to activate it, and use them to obliterate humanity.
While the Forerunner ships were being activated, Anders escaped through a teleportation device and was rescued by Sergeant Forge on the surface of the planet. Cutter decided to destroy the Forerunner fleet rather than allow the Covenant to use it. Anders formulated a plan to detonate the ship's faster-than-light drive in the planet's sun, as the explosion would cause a supernova, leaving nothing but dust. Before they could prepare the reactor, Forge and the Spartans were ambushed by the Arbiter and his Elites. The Spartans dispatched the aliens and Forge killed the Arbiter. The reactor was damaged during the fight, necessitating a manual detonation. Forge volunteered for the suicidal task, telling the Spartans that they would be needed in the coming fight. The Spirit of Fire escaped just as Forge overloaded the reactor, destroying the Forerunner fleet. Without its faster-than-light drive, the Spirit of Fire was left drifting in space.
That's when Shadow Fox came in.
Spartans Archer and Martyr, a Marksman Operator and a Demolition Engineer, were the Spartan team aboard the North Star, a U.N.S.C. warship. They were sent in to retrieve the Spirit of Fire, repair it with a new drive, and ally with it to destroy a Covenant threat. The Covenant had built a slip-space drive that would allow them to light-jump anywhere across the galaxies. Their job was to destroy it. That was when it all went haywire.
This is where their story begins.
Chapter 1: Mission Launch
Mission Launch
"Captain, I would much rather stay awake to monitor this area," Professor Andres protested.
"Professor, there's been no sign of the Covenant for almost two weeks." Captain Cutter settled Andres into her Cryo-Pod in Cryo Room 3 aboard the Spirit of Fire. "There is nothing left to do."
"But Captain!"
"But nothing, Professor. You got us all out of there alive." Cutter pressed a few buttons on Andres' Cryo-Pod, activating the Cryo-Sequence. "Get some rest."
"Not all of us, Captain." Andres said as the Cryo-Pod closed. "Not all of us..." The Cryo-Pod sealed shut, and Andres slipped comatose as the Cryo-Compression activated.
Cutter moved away from Andres' pod, and up to the last pod in the row. He hit a single button, and walked away as it closed. On the front of the empty pod was a label that read, "Sgt. J. Forge". Cutter left the Cryo-Room, leaving it in cold silence.
As the pressure door closed behind Cutter, he turned, and headed for the main deck.
"Captain Cutter, your presence is requested in the Observation Bay. We've got help en route." It had been three months since the Spirit of Fire had been left in space, and help was finally on the way. Captain Cutter entered the Observation Bay. The Observation Bay was a large room with two rows of three manned computers on the side walls closest to the entrance, a Digital Geographic Display table, and the forward half of the room had a large, floor-to-ceiling, paneled glass Observation window covered in desks and stands that were as well covered with wires and computers left over by Professor Andres.
"Officer on deck!" A U.N.S.C. Officer shouted near the Digital Geographic Display table. He saluted, standing at attention, while others turned in their seats from the computers, gave a salute, and turned back.
"At ease, Commander," Cutter dismissed the Officer. He stepped up to the Display table, and said, "Serena, give me the details."
A 3-D image of a young, thin woman with long hair, and white professor uniform tucked in at the waist, her entire body glowing a transparent blue, appeared in the center of the table.
"Commander," Serena greeted. "I think you'll be glad to hear we've got word that a U.N.S.C. warship is inbound with a new light-speed drive. And to think we were almost left drifting," she said in her slightly humorous voice.
"Activate the docking beacons, and open the drive bay," Cutter ordered.
"Aye, aye, Captain." Serena disappeared back into the mainframe.
"Sir," one of the men at the computers said. "We've got a request to transfer in a radio feed from U.N.S.C. North Star."
"Patch them through."
A man's voice sounded through a loudspeaker as the U.N.S.C. crest appeared on a monitor. "U.N.S.C. Spirit of Fire, this is the U.N.S.C. warship North Star. Requesting permission to dock for drive replacement, and get a Spartan Team to you."
"U.N.S.C. North Star, permission granted," Cutter responded. "We are opening the landing bay now."
"Copy. We are docking now."
A large U.N.S.C. frigate nearly identical to the Spirit of Fire pulled up parallel to the ship, landing up to the lower docking bay. Several engineers and Cyclops construction mechanics began their work of moving and installing the slip-space drive. Captain Cutter remained on the deck as the Observation door's red light flicked on with a buzzing noise.
"Captain," another man said from a computer. "The Spartans are here."
"Bring them in."
The doors slid open with a hiss, and two Spartans stood in the doorway.
One was a green Spartan with a blue-visored helmet equipped with a miniature operation floodlight above the visor and a small, box-shaped scanner on the side. He had a small, blue intel monitor and mounting deck on his left wrist. His body armor consisted of a blue-screen radio on his chest, along with a couple single-clip ammunition pouches and a pack on his lower back. His shoulders consisted of two half-sphere shoulder-covers, the left with a white, dotted symmetry pattern, and the right slightly bigger with a single white stripe. On the right side of his chestplate were two down-pointing Delta markers, the top a forest green and the bottom an olive green. The background symbol was the white shape of an up-pointed Delta wing. He carried a Designated Marksman Rifle and a Long-Range Thermal Sniper Rifle on his back.
The other was a black Spartan with red on his shoulders, forearms, and on his kneecaps and below. His helmet was a Mark V MJOLNIR helmet with a black visor. He had a copper-color GPS communication system and mounting deck on his left wrist. His body was covered in grenade launching capsules, and several impact capsules in his belt. His left shoulder was a red-white, curve-collar commando plate, and the right a red, bulk grenadier cover with a white stripe down the middle. Also on his chest was a symbol of a white skull with a red octagon background. He carried a 12-Gauge buckshot combat shotgun, and a mid-range grenade launcher on his back.
Captain Cutter turned around to the team. "Good to see you, Spartans. State your names and positions."
The first Spartan stepped forward. "Liutenant Archer. Field Marksman, and Delta Squad Technical Operator."
The second Spartan in the black and red armor stepped up next. "Spartan Officer Cross. Demolition Engineer, and Vehicular Pointman."
The team saluted slightly out of unison.
"At ease, Shadow Fox." The team lowered their hands, relaxing out of their erect stances. "It's comforting to know we've got friends out here to find us. But I'd like to know why your ship wants their five leading officers to visit me personally."
"Commander," Archer stepped forward. "The North Star's here to replace your drive, but also, we need a little help ourselves. We've got word that the Covenant are building another kind of super-weapon for some kind of backup plan after you destroyed their Forerunner fleet. Turned out to be a slipspace portal-something-or-other."
"Slipspace mass teleportation drive," Serena corrected.
"Exactly. That. Bottom line, they can use it to jump anywhere at anytime, kill anything there if they want, and we need your help to get there, shut it down, and be home in time for dinner."
Captain Cutter paused. "Very well. We'll help. We owe you that much for getting us moving again. We lost a good man today... It'll be good for us to hit them back."
"So this is our help?" A female voice came from behind the Spartans. The team turned to look, and then stepped aside for Professor Andres to enter. "Spartans. I take it it's bad."
"Shouldn't you be asleep, Professor?" Cutter asked.
"Well, I was, and decided to stretch my legs." She stepped over to the hologram table. "So, what're we dealing with?"
Captain Cutter began to speak, but Serena interrupted. "Our new friends here were just saying that the Covenant have a new toy. A jump drive with a one way ticket to anywhere." Serena projected an image of a large Covenant "Corvette" frigate. "They need us to, quote on quote," she set a playback of Archer's voice, "Get there, shut it down, and be home in time for dinner."
"Couldn't have said it better myself," Archer chuckled.
"Save it, Archer," Cross said. "So the question is, how're we gonna go about this?"
"I would suggest we MAC blast the entire ship," Serena suggested, "but we would risk triggering it, and sending us all to oblivion. So it would be much better for you to sneak in and shut it down safely without jumping us to another dimension."
"Sounds good to me." Cross replied.
"I guess it's a plan," Archer concluded. "But it's your call, Commander."
"Very well, Shadow Fox," Cutter replied. "I'm approving the mission. The Spirit of Fire will remain at a distance, as well as the fleet in the area for backup, if the Covenant decides to bring their friends. Give Serena the coordinates, and we'll be on our way."
"Harvest Division," Archer started. "Coordinates 75496."
"Thank you, gentlemen... We'll be on our way."
"Your team should head back to your ship," Professor Andres suggested. "We'll break off with the drive, and get going."
"Try to keep up," Serena added.
"Very well, Professor," Archer nodded and turned for the door.
"You might wanna get that A.I. checked out," Cross suggested. "Poor thing's a little twitchy." He exited the room.
"How charming..." Serena finished, and began to move the ship on course to the frigate.
End Of Chapter 1
