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The Second Ring (Part 1)
Date: 24 November 2003, 5:33 PM
This is going to be a story series I'm working on for a while, off and on as college permits. I want feedback, or no further installments.. I know it's rather action-lacking right now, but don't worry... once the Chief don's the MJOLNIR-MARK VI(hint hint), things will start getting exciting.
The Second Ring, Part 1
1400 Hours, July 15, 2561 / Unknown Installation in Sector 41.4.23, Gamma Quadrant
"What the hell is -that-?"
The young ensign was staring through the forward viewscreen, squinting his eyes in a sharp narrow as the Highline Class Slipstream Navigator, or HacSan, slipped from light speed back into the normal range of space.
What appeared as a small beacon in his neural implants gave off a faint silver glow as the sunlight touched it from millions of miles away. A strange structure, it was definitely not human, and likely not Covenant either.
Captain Michael Preston stood at the center of the deck, his uniform clean and straight pressed, not a whisker on his face. A true military man from the day he was born. Even he, however, lost that straight line of his lips as the viewscreen was increased in magnification, bringing the structure into scope.
Some twenty-eight thousand miles in diameter, a giant ring of strangely lucid metal drifted, slowly spinning on its axis as it rested in orbit of a massive iodium-core gas giant. Within the first structure, a grand metropolis of metal plating was seen, thin vents of blue vapor erupting at sustained intervals and meeting the outer structure of yet another ring.
The secondary ring in the center of the mass had large, fin-like structures on its outer surface, using the expelled vapor to continue its orbit, sustained at rhythmic bursts as it rotated on an entirely different axis.
Even still, within this ring rotated a third, expelled on the same geocentric force of the first two and spinning lucidly on what would be the 'z' axis... each ring rotating in a different angle and direction, reminding the Captain of the orbital g-force inducers he had seen astronauts use in ancient terran space training.
Within the center mass of it all, a smaller sphere rotated on its axis, steadily spinning in a single driven motion. Upon the surface, smatterings of light could be seen, covering the surface of the structure that could only be described as a metropolis, as it would be seen from above in space.
The younger crewman of the ship had never even heard of such a structure, but Captain Preston remembered a tale of something similar. Eight years prior he had been in command of a smaller Frigate, navigating on a path back toward Earth for defense from the Covenant. As they traveled through slipspace, however, a transmission had come through over encrypted UNI frequencies, priority alpha. It came, oddly enough, from a single lifeboat found floating in space, a great distance from Reach. Inside, the Captain unlocked a Pandora's Box.
The last of the remaining Spartans and the most highly developed AI ever constructed were sealed within the hushed casket. When the Captain rescued them, he and a few choice others outside of the UNI department came to know of a fantastic and amazing world... a ring world, known only as Halo... the story of the forerunners, the Covenant, and the flood. The story of sacrifice, and salvation. He heard everything from the Covenant assault on the Pillar of Autumn, all the way until the Master Chief stored himself into cryosleep.
Soon afterward, the Master Chief and the crew of the Captain's old ship, the Resistance, made their way to Earth. En route, the Master Chief and the AI, Cortana, were brought up to speed on the happenings-- the Covenant had found Earth. Undetectable probes that used the same cloaking technology as their Elites sometimes did, had attached to the hulls of numerous cargo-class refugee ships. The Covenant had followed them straight to Earth after Reach fell.
After watching rather astonished as the Master Chief had literally leapt out the door of the spacecraft, the Captain fought valiantly through the battle, and saw the Covenant defeated. Now, after three years without war or combat, he had found something that caused a sudden knot to form between his stomach and his heart.
"Ensign Reilly, stop ship now. Do not move any closer to the structure. We don't know what it is, yet, but we need to send word of it to Naval Command."
A high-range pulse had carried the message back to Earth, still rebuilding after the Covenant assault. The signal was received, encoded heavily, and directly sent to the head of UNI itself. Admiral Peter Sandecker looked over the documentation, and reviewed digital footage of the structure itself... turning to his personal AI named Pitt, he spoke rather clearly. "Be a good man, and bring up Master Chief SPARTAN-117's video recorded data of Ring structure classified "Halo"."
The dark-haired construct of a man in a Hawaiian shirt and cargo shorts gave a nod, "You got it boss," then using the first four words spoken as voice print activation protocol, and the rest being processed. A moment later, the viewscreen of the Admiral's desk was filled with an image of the original Halo.
Comparing the two, definite similarities were seen in the carved lines covering the outer rings. A call was made at once through encrypted channels, beamed to the military retirement facility known as Valhalla, and connected directly to the officer in command there. He then conveyed the message through the channels, and in the end, it came to a private line in room 112.
"Hello?" asked a quizzical, voice, the tone a bit flat... bored.
"Master Chief. It's good to hear your voice again."
The Chief stood upright in his seat looking out over the tropical paradise, his form straight and his shoulders square as he spoke in a sharper tone. "Admiral, Sir."
The admiral didn't even need to see the Master Chief to know what to say, "At ease, soldier."
"Sir, might I ask why you've called me? I've been retired from USNC Naval Operations."
"That's true, soldier, but that was your doing. I never expected a Spartan to withdraw from any form of duty, even if it was just teaching cadets."
The Chief closed his eyes, and the memories came flooding back to him...
~~~~
It was cool in the tech lab. Cool air was channeled through to keep the processors running. Before him, an image of Cortana flickered occasionally, silent for the first time in a while.
"Chief... I'm dying. I-.. I was not made to last forever. It's a part of my neural lacing."
The Chief knew all about it. The neural constructs inside Cortana were made before the adaptation of Covenant technology. Her memory matrix was operating too fast for her core programming, and essentially, she was simply thinking too much. It hurt the Chief to know that in exactly twelve minutes-- dictated by the countdown timer below the pedestal- Cortana would cease to be.
"Oh, don't make that face, John. These past years inside your mind have meant the world to me. I remember how bravely you fought, Chief. We beat the Covenant off this planet, and drove them out into deep space. We won!"
The Chief simply shook his head. "We won, but you lost. Cortana... you're all I have left." He stared at the ground, remembering, "The other Spartans, Chief Mendez, Docto-... everyone... they're all dead. Now I have to lose you too."
For the first time in all her years of knowing him, and being inside his mind, Cortana watched tears roll down the Chief's stone-cut cheeks. If the construct could join him, she'd be crying too.
The countdown timer beeped an alarm at thirty seconds, as a small light beacon at Cortana's 'feet' turned red.
"Chief... this is goodbye. I'm sorry I couldn't stick around, but it's time. Don't forget me, John. Keep yourself safe."
The Chief was about to say his goodbye, before the image of Cortana simply disbanded outward in a spiral of light her memory cube shuddering, and then sparking as it ruptured from overload.
~~~~~
The Chief remembered why he had left, alright. He was tired of watching everyone die. "I must ask again, Admiral, why have you called me?"
The Admiral's voice was short, then, but what he had to say spoke volumes to the Chief.
"We've found one, John. We've found another Halo."
To Be Continued...
The Second Ring (Part 2)
Date: 29 November 2003, 6:54 AM
Continuing in the epic of the Second Ring, the Master Chief unseals the hushed casket one last time, and meets up with an old friend.
~~~~
The phone almost fell out of his hand as a flood of emotion and memories struck Spartan-117. His grip tightened to the point where he almost broke the wireless handset, before he spoke with a serious, sharp tone.
"Sir, are we sure of this? It may be a Covenant attempt at luring us out into space for nothing."
"Yes, Master Chief that thought has come to mind. But, after numerous long range scans of the sector, it has showed completely clear of any Covenant activity. Apparently, we found this one before they did."
"I see, Admiral. I guess the Commanding Councilors would like me to offer input on the findings, since Cortana's no longer in commission."
The admiral could hear the pain in John's voice as he said it, and spoke frankly. "John, just get dressed and be on Shipdock 1 in two hours. Now, get moving Marine."
The Chief couldn't help but snap a salute at the order. "Yes, sir!" Enthusiastic as it sounded, the Chief was horrified. His hands were shaking as he picked up a stim-pack, injecting it into his neck and dropping it with the many other spent cartridges on the ground beside his chair. His breathing calmed slowly and the chief knew what he had to do.
The holding container had numerous SECRET postings all over its surface, warnings of court martials and firing squads seeming to radiate from it. However, John simply pressed a series of coded digits along the markless keypad, and stepped back as an audible hiss was heard. The door paneling fell forward, caving from the side of the case and sliding down and away, as segmented panels shifted up and away, letting the cool air jettison out of the storage container.
Standing on a pedestal of stainless steel was the last suit that Spartan 117 ever intended to see again. His special ops Mark VI modified MJOLNIR armor. The Mark V, its predecessor which saw him through Halo, was a thing of the past, and merely offered nostalgia of the old days compared to the newer, more fantastic armor.
A soft sheen covered the armor's surface, condensed more from the days of the old Mark V system. The fusion cells were now a net mesh beneath his skin with small nano-machine transistors that could cut off the flow of power before impact of any known weaponry including the UNSC's own specialty sniper rifles. This meant that his wearable battery couldn't pop if he wanted it to.
Further improvements were the presence of highly reactive electrostimuli ports within the fingertips and knuckle-guards of his heavy gauntlets. Quite simply put, the Chief could now pack a 20,000 volt knockout blow to any electrical system, mechanical tool, or yes-- even a Jackal's skull, scrambling the hollow space inside.
The standard shields had been beefed up in order to take a beating, of course, and the lab techs were quite proud of their latest innovation to add even more strength to the already hyper-endowed Spartan. Thin fibers of black, smooth cloth-like substance were knitted into the internal lining of the suit, hugging as quite literally a second skin. Where the Spartan had once been a fast and impressive super-soldier, he was now a God of War on the battlefield. Able to take a covenant Wraith in his steeled grip and throw it by hand a dozen meters with enough speed to destroy it on impact, or leap fifty feet in the air and tear a Banshee apart before landing on the ground with a few hard steps and a leering grin.
No tech assistants were present as they had been in the past. No one looking on, no Sergeants barking orders as the dropships prepared to depart. No, it was just the aging Spartan, his Mark VI, and his thoughts.
Shipdock 1 was more of a concrete and aluminum plateau in the middle of a North-Mediterranean seaport. No longer used for sailing vessels, instead ships of all kinds-- UNSC and civilian alike-- landed and departed from the busy region. The dock, however, was devoid of any ships aside from one. It was a single Pelican dropship, the front end painted in a haphazard way that the Chief knew was a breach of every code of camouflage and decency there could be-- but he still liked it. A scantily clad woman winked back at him from the side of the nose, her hand waving a red handkerchief as a shark's eye and teeth gleamed on the front end of the bird, numerous dings and marks covering the surface and a large off-color patch on the right wing. So, this bird's seen action, the Chief thought.
A moment later the rear hatch opened, and a soggy looking figure strolled down, a hand down the back of his blue slacks, scratching errantly as he squinted in the natural sunlight. It became agonizingly clear to the Chief that this was a civilian flight.
"You Johnny?" the man seemed beyond laid back, his head canted off to his side.
The Spartan simply shifted his large duffle, his helmet held under his arm as he nodded his head. "Are you my transport?"
The roughneck fellow gave a somber nod, looking the armor over once before chuckling. "Yeah, I'm your guy. Get your ass on board, we're late."
The man turned and hustled onboard, climbing into the pilot's position and flicking switches as the jet turbines powered up and the generators pumped fuel hot into the burners, feeding the blue vapor that lifted the pelican.
John had to rush and jump aboard the craft as it began to take off, making it just as the hatch closed. "Hey!" he shouted, as he steadied himself and strode toward the open cabin at the front.
"Oh, good, you did make it." The man gave a playful grin, then handed John a portfolio of information. Destinations, spatial reconnaissance, and photographs of the second ringworld. "These are compliments of the Admiral. He said not to take any crap from you about regulations or chain of command, so you'd better sit down read that over, or I'll pop a hatch and flush you like a turd."
Not waiting for a response, the man flicked another switch and music blasted over the PA system. John's nerves instantly rattled as he spoke with a slightly indignant tone. "What is this garbage?"
The pilot took a hurt look as he donned a pair of aviator-style shades, a smile wide on his face as he spoke. "Aww, c'mon man, don't you listen to classical music? This is Jimmy Buffett, one of the greatest musicians of the old world order."
The chief sat through a long rattle of Cheeseburger in Paradise and Margaritaville before he finally saw a dot of light flash on the view screen of the Pelican, the spot slowly growing in size as the small Corvette class runner came into view. The Pelican slid into docking sequence, was sealed in and pressurized as air flooded the lock, and rolled forward into the holding bay that barely fit the craft, just as the forward access ports to the rest of the ship opened. A man walked forward with a cane supporting his right leg, and his eyes squinting sharp on the Master Chief as he stepped down from the Pelican.
John froze in his steps as he saw the effects of age upon the man, but there was no mistaking who he was. The sharp details, the firm, graying features and seamless line of a mouth.
The Spartan snapped quickly to attention, and saluted with enough start that he snapped the air around his hand.
"Chief Mendez, Sir!"
~~~~~
Chief Mendez?! Didn't he die in Reach?! Why is he here on this mission?!
Find out this and more in a few days when I get enough energy to write another section of the story ^_^.
The Second Ring (Part 3)
Date: 30 November 2003, 3:57 AM
Continuing the story, Chief Mendez and the MC are now aboard a Corvette speeding through slipspace toward the mysterious second ring world, holding a planet within its rotating exo-skeleton of machinery and mysterious technology.
~~~~~
Chief Petty Officer Mendez. The man behind the machine that had single-handedly taken down the Covenant on Earth. If Dr. Halsey was the mothering mad scientist playing God with the Spartans, then CPO Mendez was most certainly the father and lord of the Spartan program's military manor.
In a matter of seconds, John was six years old all over again, staring up at the monster who would, in his earliest years of life, teach him everything that he had grown to value in his existence.
The tower, however, had taken some hits at its foundation. The man standing before the MC now used a cane in transport, his eyes half-closed and the right one glassed over with a cataract. His hair, shorn short as it had always been, was receding along his scalp, and turning deep shades of grey as it blended up into the jet black that still remained.
Some things, however, would never change. The sharp attitude, the overbearing sense of presence, and the unparalleled strength held in his frame would always stand out to John. Even the way the CPO walked seemed to have purpose and bend the tides of some important matter later to come.
Standing sharp at attention, the Spartan didn't even realize that in his age and armor, he now had a good two feet on Mendez. As the aging Marine approached, he gave a grunt of approval, before shooting a sharp salute to the Chief. "At ease, Master Chief. I'm no longer Marine Corps personnel. I was Double-D'd after the war on Earth, when those sorry-looking sons of bitches took my leg out of commission," his features softened for a bare moment, before he took up that stone visage again. "That does not mean I no longer live by the corps, though. You're late, son. Are you getting sloppy?"
The Chief lowered his arm, his 'ease' seeming sharper than most men on parade. Regardless, he now took a breath, before asking with a hushed voice. "Chief Mendez, what happened to you? I heard you were on Reach when it was taken by the Covenant." Saying those words seemed to come at a personal loss to the Chief.
Mendez stepped forward, a faint limp as he disregarded his cane, shaking his head. "I was. You forget that the Spartan program was thousands of feet under the surface. It got hot in the zone, but a few of us made it out. Not many, but a few." The CPO turned then, and started to pace toward the main whole of the ship. "C'mon, John. Walk with me."
The Master Chief was surprised to hear such a cordial name come from Mendez, but followed like an obedient son of the Corps should.
The aging teacher continued as he paced, his tone flat, "Only six of us made it out of that mess, John. The six hardest, toughest, meanest sons of bitches on the planet that had the luck to be underground at the time. We all managed to get into a high velocity pod along one of channels leading through the extra-coronal transit network that covered Reach for safe transport of nukes and the likes. We made it to the other side of the rock just as the Covenant started glassing the surface over HQ, and just escaped the atmospheric collapse in a transport vessel. We floated in the debris around Reach and watched it burn, John. I think that's what spurred me and my Spartans to survive."
The Master Chief stopped in half step, the words striking him deep. Questioning, his voice reached out to Mendez, "Sir, are you saying that my brothers and sisters made it o-"
The CPO cut him off, "No, John. They were in the HQ, defending it tooth and nail until the nukes fell. No, I'm talking about the next batch of warriors. There are only three of them left, now that the Terran Earth campaign is over, but they're the toughest kids you've ever seen, I promise you that."
To alliterate such, the pressure door before them slid open with a hiss, and three sharp reports came at once toward them. "Mr. Mendez, sir!"
The CPO turned to the Chief with a smirk. "Took me three months to get them to stop calling me 'Chief'."
Stepping in, he gave a sharp salute to the three young men standing before him, all of whom quickly eyed up John in his MJOLNIR armor. Likewise, the three of them were retrofitted with a similar suit. Each removed their helmets as they stared half in awe of the Master Chief, who returned their stares quite openly.
"Master Chief. Meet the Spartan-II second generation class. The three remaining soldiers of my special corps."
The first two struck John with the impression of double vision, before he realized he was staring at twins. Each quickly snapped a salute as the Chief looked to them, speaking in unison, "Master Chief, sir!"
The third, presented with dark brown skin almost touching at midnight and a smoothly shaved head, had a serious look on his face, but a powerful sense of pride in the way he sharply snapped to attention. "Master Chief, sir. I am Marine First Sergeant Spartan-204, squad commander of the Spartan-IIb unit." The sergeant gave a sharp turn to his right, facing the other, two, and spoke in a deep, baritone shout. "Sound off, marines!"
The first of the twins snapped to sharp attention, "Marine Gunnery Sergeant Spartan-223, Master Chief, sir!"
His brother followed suit quickly, "Marine Gunnery Sergeant Spartan-224, Master Chief, sir!"
The Chief gave a sharp salute to the men, and gave an abrupt order to go back to their business. The two brothers continued the hand to hand exercises they were doing, giving John's eye implants a work out as they blurred quickly. 204 went back to a weight bench, where presses were lifting seven hundred and forty pounds.
The MC looked to Mendez, furrowing his brows. "Chief, weren't the Spartan's under a Naval operation? Why are they Marines?"
Mendez gave a sigh, giving John's armor a firm slap on the shoulder. "Times change, and so does funding. The only branch that had the funding for five more suits of MJOLNIR was the Marine Corps, so that's where we went on Earth. Five suits were made and retrofitted with adaptive technology to upgrade them to Mark VI level. They aren't in the same armor, Chief, but they've got the same heart."
The Chief gave a nod of his head, before he asked with a frank tone, his voice sharp. "Pardon my forwardness, Chief, but what in the hell are we doing here?"
Mendez gave the sharp line of his brow a furrow once more, before he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with a grizzled hand. "We're going to this new Halo, John... and we don't know what we're going to find there."
~~~~~~~
So ends part three.
I know you all want action, so hold tight... a Covenant extremist religious cult might have their eyes on this new ring world, and the Chief won't lie down and let them take it... nor will the Spartan-IIb's.
The Second Ring (Part 4)
Date: 30 January 2004, 7:22 PM
The subtle, sharp hiss of a gas-valve was the first sign to John that someone was entering his compartment. He was standing; ready to salute by the time the pneumatic door slid aside. His hand, however, stopped mid-lift when he locked eyes with Spartan 204. The soldier gave his own fast salute, which John returned with a nod of his head.
"At ease," John said, settling down to rest on the side of his bed.
"Thank you, sir." The soldier's ease was more rigid than most enlisted men's attention, John noticed. "Mr. Mendez requested that I inform you we are 0100 hours from our rendezvous with the HacSan vessel Nautilus."
As the tall black man turned to leave, the Chief's hand went forward, grasping him by the wrist. The hold was not hard, but enough to keep him from leaving. "What's your name?"
The Spartan looked confused, looking down at the Chief in disbelief. "My name, sir?"
"Yes. Your name. What do they call you beyond a serial number?"
The younger man jutted his jaw to the side, looked away, then again caught eyes with the Chief. "I can barely remember anymore. I don't recall ever having a last name, sir. But, I know that Dr. Halsey always called me Seth."
The Chief gave a nod, and to completely blow the younger soldier away, a smile. "I'm John."
Seth looked down at the Chief, giving a nod, and turned toward him again. "The twins, they're Tim and Tom, Spartans 223 and 224, respectively. You can always tell its Tom because he has a scar on his forehead from a training exercise on Reach."
The Chief gave a nod, and rose to his feet... stretching out his shoulders, he snapped a salute to 204, and started putting his uniform on. "Dismissed, soldier. And thank you."
------
John continued along the hallway toward the docking seal of the small corvette, as the soft pang of the ship's slip-drives powering down rattled the hull. His feet felt funny for a moment as the ship slowed, and his stomach queased over. He hated ships, and always would. Two feet on the ground and a rod up your ass... that's how he preferred it to be, any day.
Turning toward the large, sealed panel, John gave salutes to the other three soldiers as they stepped forward, each towing a large cargo container similar to John's, containing their MJOLNIR suits. Mendez brought up the rear, limping on his cane as he came.
"Those damned slip-space drives do a number on this leg, that's for sure," the old corpsman said, hobbling along.
Standing before the sealed pressure gate and its following airlock, John watched through a meter of glass as the panel spiraled away on the other ship's radiation-proofed hull, and allowed the pressure on the two ships to mingle in the airlock. A green light and heavy thump of locking seals was heard, and the Corvette's door slid open silently, the Spartans quickly stepping through the portal. As John went through last, the captain of the vessel came down a narrow staircase, giving a sharp whistle. The same pilot of the Pelican was there, a grin on his shabby jaw as he offered up a data cube.
John stopped mid-track, looking down at it, then to the man. "What's this?"
The captain grinned, shrugging his shoulders. "Just a little classical music to live by..." The man lifted an arm, slapping the chief's bicep in a move that seemed to make his hand wince. "Give 'em hell, MC."
The Chief nodded, turning the cube over in his fingers and reading the side. 'Good Charlotte... Avril Lavigne... Simple Plan... ugh, it's worse than I thought...' The Chief was touched by the sentiment, but the cube happened to "slip" from his grip as he walked through the airlock, and into the HacSan Nautilus. As the ships separated with a parting kiss, the music was lost to oblivion in space (and with an author's note, Amen).
Once on board the ship, the Chief was shown to an intelligence and recon room, where a man sat smoking an ancient looking fat cigar, a small cloud of smoke surrounding him. The Chief cleared his throat, speaking with a firm tone. "Stow that smoke, soldier. You're in violation of UNSC Correctional Code 23.43-2---..."
"Good to see you too, John." The Admiral gave a grin, snuffing out his cigar on the old gold-inlay ashtray before him as he rose, stepping over and offering a large hand.
John, of course, was already at full attention and saluting by the time that happened, as were the small squad of Spartans behind him. Sandecker sighed, giving a salute, and then offering his hand again, which John promptly shook.
"It's good to see you too, sir," John said, before stepping behind a seat at the large black table.
"Have a seat, John." The Admiral was still bemused at the soldier's stern mannerism, despite all he had been through.
The next two hours were spent describing everything they knew about the ring-world, which was absolutely nothing. Every probe sent toward it had been swept into turbulence by the spinning rings and lost contact once beyond the first. However, the transponder signal was still strong, meaning they had survived to see the surface.
The largest of the rings, they realized after much analysis of previous recorded footage, was a duplication of the previous Halo they had found, only its inner lining was a metropolis of fusion generators and heavy machinery, a latticework of pipes extending thousands of feet into the air off their surfaces, small dimples along its surface from the view of space.
As their discussion of the proper approach for the ring continued, however, a sharp alarm trilled through the ship-- the proximity warning. A voice boomed over the loudspeaker throughout the ship, deep and serious. "This is Captain Preston! All hands to battle stations, Covenant Radicals incoming. We've got incoming plasma on the plane, be ready for impact."
The ship shuddered as the drives were fired too quickly for their good, but quick enough to swing the ship about. The reflexive coils on the MAC gun were charged off the fusion drive, and newly mounted electro-magnetic repulsor-rifles, or Gauss Guns, were brought to a hot hum that caused the entire ship to vibrate. Every view screen that wasn't dedicated to a combat station showed a quartet of Covenant ships appearing from Slipspace behind one that had already emerged, the front ship being a bit larger than the others. All bared the symbol of an unblinking vertical eye, roughly blasted into the surface of the ships with plasma scoring.
"Oh, Christ, it's the Seeing Eye. How could they have found out about this ring?"
John felt a tinge in the back of his neck-- the Seeing Eye were the only force the UNSC really feared since the days of the Covenant wars. The rest of the Covenant had surrendered at the death of their Alpha Prophet, but this fanatical and psychotic caste saw it as martyrdom, electing an insane Prophet disciple to their lead and committing genocide on the few human colonies that had begun to rebuild. Their weapons were feared, indeed, but more than that were their insane tactics. Their ships driven at full burn into UNSC docks, and then detonated by fanatical captains, despite the loss of thousands of their own men. They were dedicated, something that John both respected and feared in his enemy.
A hijacking frequency came over the band, and the image of the approaching ships flickered to the face of an Elite for a moment, his mandibles clicking as John's translating receptors picked up his garbled words.
"I am Captain Reb Hannahz. Make peace with your gods, humans. I send you to meet them in the great Holy Plains."
To Be Continued.
The Second Ring (Chapter 5)
Date: 5 June 2004, 11:43 PM
When we last left our intrepid Chief, the Seeing Eye had just appeared from Slipspace, a renegade band of Covenant radicals who would not admit their defeat in the previous years.
------------------------------------------------------------
A hijacking frequency came over the band, and the image of the approaching ships flickered to the face of an Elite for a moment, his mandibles clicking as John's translating receptors picked up his garbled words.
"I am Captain Reb Hannahz. Make peace with your gods, humans. I send you to meet them in the great Holy Plains."
The chief made a flat run that put him far above the Earth's best sprinters, reaching the bridge in a mere twenty seconds. That, however, was plenty of time for the incoming plasma to reach the critical level it needed. Captain Preston was gripping a guard-rail on the deck with a vice grip, his face red as if he felt the heat of the plasma blistering his ship's titanium coating. "Starboard thrusters give me ninety percent in emergency thrust. Antimatter dispersing mines covering removal routes. Get us out of their plasma field."
The ship lurched with a groan of metal and moving parts, the subtle thump and vibration of the glowing white canisters that ejected from its belly echoing off the walls in the bridge.
The starboard viewscreen showed the plasma burning brightly toward them before the white canisters erupted in a slow shockwave, rumbling out and then back in on themselves and pulling the massive bolts of plasma with them.
A young lieutenant on the bridge pushed his glasses up along the bridge of his sweat-soaked nose, "Firing solution achieved on their left flank, captain!"
Preston stared down past the view-screens to look beyond the protected lexan shielding of the forewindows, seeing the covenant ship on the left slowly start to pulse as it gathered plasma energy. "Wait."
The lieutenant appeared to tense along his spine, eyes a bit wide. Still, he obeyed, his fingers poised over his keypad as though a concert pianist waiting on his conductor.
The captain continued to watch for a moment longer until the silver shimmer of the covenant shields was seen. "Fire!"
As the Covenant vessel was about to launch it's deadly swarth of plasma across space, it seemed as though the UNSC ship simply reached across space and punched it cleanly in the face. A thin tracer appeared as a rope of exhaust, but it was in fact a round moving just below the speed of light. The gauss cannon had fired the shell as fast as physics allowed, stretching the image of the 30 inch wide spherical projectile into a rope, despite the fact it had already ricochetted off the covenant shields somewhere near four times by the time they could register they'd been hit. When the shields finally dropped, the sphere continued out of the ship and casually floated off into the vast emptiness of space. The ship left behind didn't spend much time to think of what had struck it, though. Instead, it dissintegrated into a burning wreck of plasma and alien metal. They never even got off a single shot.
"Well done. Reload." The captain was stern in his voice, but he knew he was nowhere near out of trouble yet. The Covenant still had four more ships.
As if to remind him of this threat, the other four ships all opened fire in unison, sending four bolts of hot plasma streaking toward their ship. More antimatter charges were released, but they managed to eat away only three of the bolts. The third made its presence known with a sudden flux in heat near the engine compartment of the UNSC ship. The plasma tore away the outer armor plates, but dispersed across the special plasma coating beneath it, an added benefit of the years of research during and after the war. However, as it was dispersed, it also destroyed this level. The Nautilus was now limping, and the enemy would target that weak-point like hungry dogs.
Preston turned toward the Chief, who through the whole battle had stood his ground, though a bit uneasily-- he never liked space battles. Too out of his hands.
The captain whipped his fingers down the corners of his lips, and then spoke in a firm tone. "Master Chief, get your men and supplies to the ship's docking bay immediately and prepare for departure."
The Chief did not need any coaxing. He activated the synaptic response for comms in his helmet and spoke in a firm tone. "Lets move, soldiers. I want Spartans in the loading dock at E2 and E3 right now." Three LEDs blinked on in his HUD, and the Chief turned toward Mendez. "Sir, it's time to go."
Mendez shifted his stance, holding the armrail for support as the MAC Guns both fired in unison, taking down one of the covenant ships resting to the right of their main vessel. "Chief, I won't be coming with you for obvious reasons, but take me in spirit. Good luck, soldier."
The Chief saluted with a stern arm, trying to keep his fingertips from shaking before he turned and ran down the cooridor, bursting through a bulkhead door labeled E2 and finding the other three Spartan soldiers already. A hand lowered almost without his knowledge, grasping an assault rifle and lifting it to his chest before he cocked the hammer back and let it snap forward.
"Spartans! It's time to move!"
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