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Ring Of The Forerunners Part V
Posted By: Locke<Locke1588@aol.com>
Date: 8 February 2003, 8:47 pm
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Author's Note: Unless I find something I need to squeeze in, I think that the next part will be the last for this series. And yes, this being my first series, I do plan to write more.
Halo
Forerunner held (?) Fortress/Lab ANIM
With a mere wave of Gazital's hand, the cutter turrets positioned around the top of ANIM hummed to life and rained down cutter beams upon the surviving Flood. Gazital had been informed that the ANIM power core was perfectly secure, and that the remaining Flood in the ANIM sector had retreated to attack the GARDUM power core.
ANIM was safe and entire regiments of Flood and Covenant had been wiped out in the previous battle of ANIM. Forerunner transports would soon arrive at ANIM, and relocate the Forerunner survivors to the GARDUM sector.
Yet Halo was far from safe. Billions of Flood still remained, the Ghost fleet was en-route to Halo and the Gazital had discovered that the Covenant had set up missile silos all over Halo and planned to bombard the structure with biological bombs, from the inside.
The Forerunner knew it. Guiltyspark knew it. Even the Flood knew it. Halo was doomed.
Later
ANIM control room
343guiltyspark approached Shang-Zaer, escorted by a group of sentinels. "Shang-Zaer, an unknown species has landed on Halo, and I believe they are preparing for an attack!"
Shang-Zaer sighed. <There is nothing more we can do, 343. We can't even control our own creation>. "I may be wrong, but I think you are mistaken. But I can't trust to you to know my secret..." <WHAT? DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DESTROY THEM? > "I control the Ghost fleet. Of course I can destroy them, with your order of course. If you agree to protect my secret of controlling the Ghost fleet, I will use it to destroy the humans on Halo and contain the Flood". <Can you use it to destroy the Covenant missile silos? > Shang-Zaer asked impatiently. "Sadly, no. They are protected by individual force fields. But once you order Gazital's forces to take care of the silos, I can do everything I just explained". <But he doesn't have enough troops to destroy the silos! There to many of them! > "That's not entirely true. Just as ANIM is controlled by a single, remote power core, the missile silos are controlled by a single power core onboard the mother ship. I can provide you with the boarding shuttles necessary to get on the mother ship, and the rest is up to Gazital". Shang-Zaer sighed again. <What would I be without you? Alert Gazital. Tell him to load his troops and attack right away, and get those boarding shuttles down here now!>
Later
The ANIM valley
Anar, Zaf, Gazital, and about 30 other Forerunner soldiers trudged through piles of dead Covenant and Flood to get to the place where the boarding shuttles had landed. Gazital took charge as soon as they reached the takeoff ground. <Alright men, your objective is to take out the power core generating the protective shields around the missile silos. It should be somewhere in the center of the ship>. <Thanks for being so specific> said Zaf sarcastically. Gazital ignored him. <Let's move out. I'll remain here with a smaller regiment, and the rest of you get on the boarding shuttles you were assigned earlier when you were briefed! > All 32 soldiers hopped into action, loading their weapons and jumping into one of the three boarding shuttles as they took off.
Later
Covenant cruiser, the Deliverer
Garsh sat in his throne, anger pulsing through every limb and joint of his body. The two sword elites standing guard at the door looked at him nervously as the huge, steel door slid open. Some Jackals and Elites were forcing Nahara into the throne room, ready for execution. It was time to avenge the death of Garsh's brother. Nahara did not fight back as he was forced into the room. He came in willingly. But he did, however, whack a few Jackals and Elites with his slug-like tail on the way in. Nahara stopped in front of Garsh's throne. Garsh waved his hand, and all his guards stumbled out of the room, looking back nervously. The steel door closed behind them, leaving Garsh alone with Nahara in the throne room.
"I'm glad you could join me, Nahara."
"Just get it over with Garsh".
Garsh looked surprised. "I thought you'd be impressed that I wanted to face you alone".
Nahara snarled. "I knew you'd want to play fair". He raised his tentacles mockingly.
"Fair?" said Garsh, confused. "I said alone, not fair! When you killed my brother, unsuspecting and unarmed, was that fair?"
Garsh pulled out a huge plasma weapon five times as thick as his own head. He fired a single shot. The front half of Nahara's body exploded into blobs of blue slime that splattered against the walls of the throne room. Nahara was killed instantly. Garsh dropped the weapon and walked up to what was left of the corpse. He kicked it. He kicked it again. He kicked it tens of thousands of times. Suddenly a Jackal walked in, interrupting. 'I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME ALONE!" He picked the weapon back up, leveling it at the Jackal's head, and prepared to fire. 'Wait!" The Jackal stammered. "A group of Forerunner soldiers have just boarded the Deliverer through the rear hangar. They're heading towards the shield power core!" Garsh began sweating again, shaking like a madman. He fired the weapon. The Jackal screamed, and where he once stood there was a crater on the floor. A group of elite captains heard the Jackal scream and came running. Garsh pointed a shaking finger at the captains, as he prepared to make the loudest yell ever heard in recorded covenant history. "KILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL THEMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!" The order echoed throughout the cruiser. "NOWWWWWWWWWWWWW!"
Anar and Zaf heard the yell as they took out a cloaked elite. <Someone knows we're home>. Zaf said. <All the more reason to move faster!> Anar barked. The troops moaned. Suddenly there was plasma fire all around them. Four men were shot and killed. <AMBUSH!> yelled Zaf. The Forerunner soldiers returned fire at the group of cloaked elites surrounding them. Anar and Zaf spotted a hall that seemed clear ahead, and ran toward it. Ten other soldiers followed, as the Elites shot down the rest. Zaf slammed his fist into a button on the wall and a steel door slammed shut behind him. The Elites started whacking the door with plasma swords, denting the steel. <Forward!> Anar barked. They turned a corner as a door nobody had seen slid open. Grunts flooded into the hall and opened fire instantly. Anar shot one and kicked the head of another in one swift, motion. The head knocked another over which he shot. Zaf glanced into the room the grunts had come from as the rest of the soldiers started open firing. It was a vehicle hangar of some sort, containing three Pigs and walls lined with Ghosts. He kicked his way through the grunts and into the room. Another group of Jackals and Grunts that were hiding in a corner spotted him and started shooting and tossing grenades. One stuck to one of the Ghosts and caused a chain reaction destroying other ghosts nearby. Zaf dodged the plasma fire and hopped into the gunner seat of a Pig, where a plasma turret waited for him. He started firing and swinging the turret back and fourth, taking out all the Covenant that were huddled in the corner, shooting at him. Zaf called to Anar and Anar and eight other soldiers ran into the hangar. They were still shooting at the Grunts
Anar slammed his fist on another door-close button. The steel door slammed shut, slicing two grunts in half and trapping all but one outside. Zaf quickly cut through the remaining grunt with the plasma turret. <Everyone get in a Pig or a Ghost!> Zaf yelled as the grunts began banging on the outside of the door and throwing plasma grenades at it. Soldiers started calling dibs on the Pigs gunner seats, and soon everyone was in a vehicle. The pigs were full and there were two empty ghosts left over. Everyone aimed their weapons at the door, and prepared for the impending attack. Suddenly the cloaked elites from earlier arrived and they started whacking the door with plasma swords. Weakened by the grenades, the door ripped open like a piece of paper being stabbed by scissors. Clouds of plasma grenades poured through the cracks and started sticking to pigs and ghosts. One of the Pigs lost it's gunner turret, and the gunner was thrown backwards into the wall at sonic speed, snapping all his backbone instantly. The remaining Pig gunners opened fire on the steel door, finishing it off. At least 30 Grunts, more than had been whacking the door before, swarmed into the room, followed by the cloaked sword Elites they had seen earlier and a plethora of Jackals with shields. <Ghosts! Move into defense and protect the Pig gunners!> Anar yelled to the surviving men. The Ghosts moved in a defensive position in front of the pigs, as the pig drivers activated the plasma cannons on the front of the pigs, taking down at least ten grunts at once. The ghosts opened fire on the Jackals, and the pig gunners took down most of the cloaked elites. Another wave moved in through the former door to assist the covenant survivors. Three Forerunner soldiers who had been riding shotgun in the pigs ran forward and dodged plasma fire as they started picking up Jackal shields and plasma weapons, tossing them to the other soldiers who where still in ghosts and pigs. They used the Jackal shields to protect themselves as they picked up more weapons, but one was shot down, as he was about to toss a pile of shields to Zaf. Zaf grabbed a shield from a fallen soldier who had been piloting a ghost before it was destroyed by a plasma grenade. The two soldiers ran back to the pigs, and hopped in shotgun, now with their own Jackal shields and plasma weapons. Finaly, the 2nd wave of Covenant was destroyed. <Bad idea to let them corner us in this hangar, but at least we got all these pigs and ghosts! > Said Zaf triumphantly. <We need to get to that power core before they send out another attack wave! > Yelled Anar. <The power core should be somewhere down the hall to our left, near the ship's main reactor>. He didn't have to tell anyone to "move out". The remaining three pigs and 4 ghosts moved out of the hangar door and turned left. The ghosts moved back in a defense position in front of the pigs, and they started moving forward as fast as possible.
At last, they encountered a door that was obviously the entrance to the power core chamber. A whole group of black armored elites stood guard at the entrance, and the door was probably strong enough to resist 1,000 plasma grenades. They took down the elite guards rather easily, that is, right after the guards took down 2 of the ghosts. Quickly, Anar devised a plan to get through the door. It was a sliding door, like all the other covenant doors they had encountered, and this one slid up and down to close or open. The ghosts remained motionless as the remaining 2 pig gunners started blasting away at the door, which of course, only singed it slightly. Quickly, the door slid open, and plasma grenades were tossed out at them as troops flocked out and the door started closing again. Quickly, Anar raised his stolen plasma weapon and "caught" the grenade. It stuck to the very tip of the gun, and he quickly jumped backward, and flung his arm over the back of the pig. The grenade remained stuck to the gun, but it also stuck to the back of the pig. Quickly, everyone in the pig jumped out as the grenade exploded and the pig flipped over, spinning forward in the air. It landed horizontally right beneath the closing door. The door screeched as the remaining 2 ghosts slipped under the door, which was now beginning to crush the pig. Anar, and 2 other soldiers darted under the door along with the pig Zaf was in. The last pig was crushed, as it slipped under the door right when the door managed to close. The door had squashed 2 pigs like aluminum cans in a trash compactor.
The door being the only entrance into the room, there was no escape for any of the soldiers now. They were armed and dangerous, nothing to lose. As soon as Anar ran into the room, he saw the power core; it was huge, and towered over everything as in the room. The room was about as wide and tall as a cathedral, and the power core went from floor to ceiling. At the top and bottom, were thick disks of gleaming, purple metal with computer chip patterns all over them. Other than that, the power core was a wide column of pulsing orange energy, waves of electricity zapping from top to bottom. But the most noticeable thing was that all around the foot of the power core was a wall of plasma turrets and stationary guns. The pigs took out a couple of them creating a gap between them and the power core. Anar was just begging to think of a possible way out of this, when a single Grunt, against his orders, jumped out of his stationary gun and ran forward, a plasma grenade in his hand. If it wasn't for this Grunt, halo would be controlled by the Covenant, the Humans would become wiped out, and the Halo story as we know it would never have taken place. What did the Grunt do that changed history? He threw a grenade. The grenade stuck to the helmet of a nameless Forerunner soldier, who instantly knew what he had to do. He ran forward, dodging the plasma fire, and ran right into the flowing energy of the power core. The grenade blew up, causing a chain reaction of plasma energy that spread to the top and bottom of the power core. The remains of the soldier disintegrated as 2 huge shockwaves traveled to both ends of the energy flow. The computers at the top and bottom of the power core deteriorated as the energy in between literally ripped apart. Blots of electricity and a series of shockwaves spread throughout the room along with a plethora of orange energy waves. The remaining pigs and ghosts were tossed backward by the first shockwave, and slammed against the wall just after the soldiers inside were swept out of them. The plasma turrets and stationary guns disintegrated into clouds of dust, and the Grunt, well, there was no trace of him.
Anar had seen the brave soldier run in to the power core, but he stopped thinking about that as he was knocked senseless by the first shockwave that swept him backwards 10 feet and slammed him against the wall. Half of a pig crashed down in front of him as he blacked out completely. * * * Anar woke up, and crawled up over the top of the crashed pig in front of him. He had a really bad headache, and his back was nearly broken. <Zaf? > he called out. There was no answer. But no, he would not call again. He cared about only one thing at the moment, and one thing only. He extended his hand, and it was very painful. Every bone in his body ached as he stretched his hand over the top of the crashed pig, and struggled to the top, glancing over the edge with his last bit of strength. Anar smiled weakly. There was no trace that the power core had ever existed.
Meanwhile
Throne Room
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
This cry, once more, echoed throughout the whole cruiser, but the Forerunner soldier's ears were to damaged to hear it. Had they heard it, they would have been pleased. Garsh collapsed to his knees at the foot of his own throne. "My brother..." he whispered silently. "I have failed you. I am unworthy to dwell with you in the afterlife. But while I remain here, I shall not fail you again. The Forerunner, The Flood, and the race of monsters the prophets call humans, they shall all die, in your name. My brother, I promise you, my loss here will not be in vain".
ANIM control room
343guiltyspark didn't need to be told of what had happened. His sentinels told him immediately, that all covenant force fields on Halo had been shut down. Laughing to himself, he ordered the ghost fleet to free the surviving Forerunner soldiers, and destroy all the covenant missile silos. He had changed his plans; he would not betray the Forerunner. No, not yet.
TO BE CONTINUED
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