Halo 2: The Fallen Chp 5 Sect3- Innocent Flame
Posted By: Hikaru-119<hikaru119@email.com>
Date: 30 October 2003, 4:32 PM
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Chapter 5 Section 3: Innocent Flame
0149 Hours November 22, 2553 (Military Calendar)
Sector 0347.09, Within Forerunner Installation
The Chief reloaded his sub machine gun and policed the plasma grenades from the three dead Grunts he had just killed. After giving a quick check of the area behind him he continued down the corridor Cortana had led him to. The place was barely lit except for two horizontal aqua colored lines running along the sides of the hall and a dim white light at the end.
" Chief we are just six hundred meters from the target. Sensors show lots of movement ahead. " Cortana informed. He took her warning to heart and stayed close to the wall on his left slowly walking ahead. He went another fifty meters and stopped when he heard the sound of an Elite. Six radar signals appeared on his motion tracker after the Elite stopped talking a minute later.
The Chief was just ten meters away from the end of the hall. Several shadows danced acrossed the floor giving away the position of four of them. Slowly the Chief reached for his grenade sack and pulled out a frag. He primmed the explosive and lobbed it into the room. It bounced off a wall and disappeared from his sight. A sudden paniced scream came from a Grunt in the area. It was silenced a second later with an explosion.
The upper half of the body was thrown into the hall. Luminous blue blood and intestines stained the walls. He held his position with weapon at ready. A full ten seconds had passed until he moved forward. There were no more motion tracker signals when he reached the light. He paused and pulled out his fiber-optic probe connecting it to the port on his helmet.
After snaking the probe around the Chief activated it seeing what was left. The shattered remains of the Grunts were all to be seen. The place was a bloodied mess. He continued to look around and saw a crate as well as a mobile communications device. Behind it was a blue Elite in hiding. The Chief retracted the probe and put it away bringing the M7C back up to his shoulder.
Immediately he ran and turned to his right to meet the Elite. It stood, shields recharged, and fired at the Chief. Lances of blue fire zipped past the Spartan as he dodged the attack and fired his own weapon. They closed range and the Chief was hit twice. His shields had dropped to half power and his weapon went dry. The Elite got close enough and took a swing at the human. It missed by mere inches and was delivered a blow to the back.
It knealt forward from the sudden hard impact and didn't have time to recover. The Chief dealt two more punches breaking through the shields. He did not stop and continued puching the Covenant warrior. Bones broke, armor dented, and blood flew. After six hits the Chief stopped and walked to the front of the battered Elite.
He dropped his M7C and grabbed the top of the Covenant's helmet. Blackened blood and drool leaked out of the creature's mandibles. The alien's face was covered in bruises and one of its jaws were broken. The Chief brought the Elite so that their eyes met and forced a solid fist into the mouth and out the back end.
He pulled his armored glove out and wiped the blood off on the corpse. After retrieving the dropped weapon he reloaded and got himself reoriented. He was now down to the his last three magazines of ammuntion and was out of M9 HE-DP fragmentation grenades. The Elite and Grunts were worthless in the department of plasma grenades. He resumed his advance and was led to a ramp that spiraled downward.
The Chief continued downward until he reached a pressure door. When he approached it the door did not open. It was locked.
" Give me a second to access Chief. " Cortana said. The Master Chief watched as the door lights flickered and died out. A moment later they reappeared with a green hue. The door slid open. He stepped through and took notice of his surroundings. " Well isn't this a familiar sight. " Cortana commented.
She was right. The area he was in was on a corner. To the right was a walkway with a massive chasm that was thousands of meters deep. To his left was a dead end. It was nearly identical to the complex where the Silent Cartographer was held on Installation 04. He went to the path on the right already knowing his way around and snuck about. He checked his motion tracker for signals and found none. His search for the Covenant brought him down two levels with zero contacts. With this he pondered what could have been down here.
" Cortana what was the target you mentioned before? " the Chief asked stopping in a corner.
" Unknown. The only information I have is that the Covenant were after something here. Based on past experience I'm assuming it's this leads to Halo's map room. " she replied. He accepted that answer and continued until he entered a large room. The Chief jumped back as though his body had just been shocked. He did for good reason.
The area he had just entered was filled with over twenty dead bodies. Grunts, Jackals, and the like were scattered everywhere. He examined a few of the corpses and noticed burn markings. The bodies had several accurate cuts that looked like they were done by a pricision laser. He looked next to one of the bodies and found a piece of gray metal.
He picked it up and looked at the two foot long piece of scrap. It seemed oddly familiar. The Chief's investigation came to an end when he heard a noise not far from him. It was like a hum of a machine in the distance followed by what sounded like a quiet voice. He picked up a few of the words. It was enough to make the Chief's blood run cold.
" Cortana did you hear what- "
" Let's hope we were imagining things. " Cortana said interrupting. He readied his weapon and moved out slowly. He continued until he noticed a blue light. His heart beat began to race . The Chief continued despite his fear growing by the second. Suddenly he saw a pulse of red that continued pulsating at two second intervals. The Chief finally got enough strength and boldly jumped out from the wall he hid behind and was again in a bit of shock.
He had to look twice and forced himself not to fire. What he thought was there was not. The object that was pulsating red was examining a hologram of the ring when it noticed the Chief. The hologram faded and the orb floated over to the uneasy Spartan. An odd static like noise came from it as it gave the human a look over.
" Um, hello..." the Chief said trying to make contact.
" Langauge and physical analysis complete. English. Language of the Forerunner. From species 8472? My I guess humans have gotten a far way in the past 10,000 years. " the little orb said in a poor british accent. " Oh yes. I'm sorry. Hello to you as well. "
" You aren't 343 Guilty Spark. Are you? "
" No. I am the monitor of Installation 12. My name is 049 Inncoent Flame. 343 Guilty Spark is the monitor of Installation 04. And who might you be? "
The Chief contemplated how he should answer. He was unsure if this machine would back stab him or not. Cortana suggested just to use his real name. There would be many others with the same, so it didn't matter.
" Um, It's John. " he said rather nervously.
" John. Pleasure to meet you. Glad to see that at least one species is not so hostile towards my counterparts and I. " 049 said.
" Counterparts? " As the Chief asked this ten sentinels came floating in from above. Several of them had sparks coming out of them and lazillied floated about.
" It's a shame that they had to be hostile towards us. That is the species you seem to be battling with. Must of been scared of the secrets of the ring. Too bad. They would have made excellent allies, test subjects, and so on... " 049 said. The Chief ignored the monitor's sentiments on the Covenant. If anything it was good that he was becoming allies with it instead of the Covenant.
" Speaking of secrets of the ring. " the Chief asked cautiously, " Mind sharing some? " The Innocent Flame's voice was suddenly full of joy.
" You wish to know the secrets of Installation 12? That is excellent! " the Innocent Flame exclaimed. An orange beam then came out of the center of the little orb and gave the Chief a quick scan. " Your suit is rather low in technological level. Still your onboard computer looks like it should be able to handle the data. "
A sudden electrical wave of knowledge was forced into his suit and into Cortana's memory matrix. It had been so much that even he felt the electric surges pass around and through him. The beam had stopped and the connection was terminated.
" I hope you are happy. I've given everything that is permitted to hand over to outsiders. You should find it quite useful. I even included the location of every heavilly guarded position of this enemy of yours. You may also want to check out the research facility located on the fourth moon. There is much else to learn there. However I can only grant you limited access. The Forerunners would be very upset if I were to let you go about yourself in that facility. Perhaps I can accompany you later. "
" Thanks. " the Chief said unbelievably.
" You are most certainly welcome. Well then I must be going. I wish to observe one of your battles else where. It's has been nice meeting you John. " With that several bands of golden light encircled 049 and he disappeared along with the ten sentinels.
" That was convienent. " Cortana said. " But I don't trust him quite yet. "
" Same here. What all did he give you? " the Chief asked.
" I have a fully detailed map of the ring, information on its power matrix, and more things like that. Plus a star map of the entire galaxy. Not very well labeled, but we can deal with that later. " Cortana said. " Well then our business here is really done. We should return to the surface for extraction. " The Chief turned on his heel and made his way back towards the entrance.
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The Chief had almost made it to the entrance when he heard heavy gun fire. He ran towards the on going battle and ran acrossed Dollneaz who was carrying a wounded marine. The injured soldier's helmet was broken and a bloodied face was seen from beneath. Dollneaz stopped in front of the Chief.
" Thank God you got here Chief. " Dollneaz said slowly gasping for air.
" What happened sergeant? " Cortana asked. Dollneaz replied slowly checking back between the Chief and the three marines that were following him.
" Orbital shock troops. Elites. I'd say twenty of them. All veteran class. They hit most of the snipers and then got us. We called for evac, but the dropships were too far out to get here in time. "
" Understood. Get your men inside the facility and hold out. " Cortana said. Dollneaz nodded and continued his retreat. The Chief brought out his Covenant sniper rifle and watched as the few survivors made it back. Only six of the original seventeen had made it out alive. The last man to get in was a sniper with a squad of house guests hot on his trail. He fired four bullets taking down one of the Veteran class Elites before reloading and making a run for it.
Seven Elites advanced towards the humans with energy swords and plasma rifles at the ready. The Chief spotted the point man and fired a round from his new toy. The Elite stopped and fell to its knees. Its squad mates watched as their comrade fell to the floor dead. The Chief pulled the trigger once more and nothing came out. The weapon gave an odd sound and the clip fell out.
Realizing this he quickly slapped in a new one and fired another round. The Elites saw him and opened fire. Lances of blue fire zipped past him melting the metal walls and floor behind him. He fired again and another dropped dead. A tiny port near what would be the chamber of the rifle opened up and released a steady stream of excess heat. A sudden wave of heat struck him and he was hit.
The first bolt struck his shielding causing it to flare. Another bolt hit followed by another. He immediately ran away, back to the marines. The Chief's shields took another blast and fell to a sliver left of protection. One more shot and he would be screwed. The Elites followed him as he ran.
" Give that man some covering fire! " Dollneaz yelled as he saw the Chief running back. Four guns opened up and sent tracers past the CHief slowly chipping away at the Elites' shields. Their fire continued and did little to stop the oncoming threat. Their weapons were all aimed at different targets, a fatal move.
The Chief's shields finally recharged and came back to full power. He stopped at the marines and spun to face the Elites. He fired the sniper rifle back at the oncoming Covenant. He fired two shots as fast as the weapon would go and took out one of them. A grenade was thrown and a flash of smoke engulfed the severly angered veterans. Three of the remaining four Elites lost their shielding or came close to a complete failure. Another grenade was thrown and two more were taken out.
A moment had passed as the fire fight continued. The Elites were wiped out and another marine had died in the process. Several others were inflicted with more critical wounds. Another minute had passed and a radio transmission came in.
" This is Omega 74. We are inbound hot. Prepare for dust off. "
" Understood lieutenant. We are coming out now. " Cortana replied. " Marines time to leave. " They were all exhausted and it showed. Several of them even gave a long sigh. The two dropships came in and touched down.
They marines helped each other up to the Pelicans and loaded on. There weren't even enough to fill one transport. Even with the wounded. The Chief stood guard as the last of them took their spots. He took a look around seeing the scattered pods and single story buildings that were sealed tight. One of the buildings had been cracked open from a drop pod.
The Chief left the dropships and went over to the damaged building. He poked his head in taking a good look. He now understood what was going on. Inside were weapons, communications equipment, infantry gear, ghosts, and shade turrets. This was a supposed to become a firebase.
" Chief we should leave. " Cortana said. He agreed and got took his seat on Omega 74. The dropships then lifted off and headed off in the distance.
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