PLEASE PRIVATE MESSAGE ME WITH SUGGESTIONS, I’M TIRED OF GETTING EMAILS ABOUT REVIEWS IN SPANISH
The ‘unique’ MAC round the Chief uses in this chapter apparently originates from Havoc-Legionnaire's story "Halo: the Art of War"
“NOTE TO READERS- The abilities of the Master Chief and Spartans, especially Spartan II's , aside from the addition to the jet pack on the MJOLNIR, are all 100 % canon to Halo. If you think that I am making this up then read the Halo books, especially The Fall Of Reach. What you see in the video games is very toned down due to balancing issues, which stem mainly from having to make Multiplayer balanced, and the fact that because the first Halo game was an early game on the original Xbox, they were not able to make it too flashy and toned it down too. The resulting success of the game made the developers leave the highly lucrative and successful system in place, they had no reason to mess with what was working. Future Halo games WILL showcase the true abilities of Spartans as described in the books. You can also see Spartans (including John and Kelly) in TRUE action in the Halo Legends movie "The Package" (aside from a ridiculous Japanese school girl looking Dr. Halsey that is cannon) It was the whole reason they made that video was to let people see the true capabilities of Spartans.
Fanboys before you start bitching read that note above. If I get any flames saying that "You cannot dodge bullets and shit in the games" I WILL write you back telling you to both read the books and to screw off.”
- SpaceCowboy2013
Also as I’m revising this I now realize how much SC2013 didn’t know how to write MC and Cortana. I hope I did a better job in that regard.
UNSC Warhound
Admiral Gregory White
As Admiral White, Captain Haithum and MacArthur were going over slipspace calculations, they received an alert on the console.
EMERGENCY CODE: SCRATCHED RECORD
“What the hell? Did they take out our surface guns!?”
An officer spoke up. “It’s complicated sir, Fort Longston is still operating but it’s taken a lot of damage. It looks like they’re going to take their chances and try to brute force their way into the atmosphere!”
“Damnit, we’re going to have to get there ASAP. MacArthur, what’s our fleet’s status?”
“The fleet is in position, but if we jump now without a finalized destination solution, we run the risk of slipping right within their formation.”
Admiral White took a deep breath in and sighed. "Well, we have to make this jump anyway. Have the fleet execute on my mark. Captain Haithum, prepare the ship for slipspace.”
There was an eerie silence throughout the bridge. Everyone was firmly planted in their seats tending to their responsibilities, save for White, who pulled out another cigar and lit it by swiping the end against the metal frame of the holographic tactical map.
“The fleet is ready, Admiral.” MacArthur said.
“Alright.” He started a fleetwide broadcast. “All ships, jump on my mark… three… two… one… mark!”
Just as he said those words, the space in front of the surviving UNSC ships distorted and ripped open to show dazzling blue tunnels of transdimensional light. The fleet accelerated into the slipstream, the portals closed behind them and they all but disappeared.
The usual jolt of entering slipspace shook the bridge and almost caused Gregory to lose his footing but he grabbed a nearby handrail. Admiral White was always unnerved by slipspace. It was dark, perfectly black all around. He always felt as if he was being watched.
The otherwise calm that was present in slipspace travel was only going to last a second longer as the fantastic swirling white and blue particles that belonged to a whole different dimension began to bore a whole into real space.
The remaining 39 ships of the UNSC fleet emerged from the portals, giving Admiral White another jolt.
Looking at the displays and view screens, the Admiral was dismayed that a group of destroyers had come out a couple hundred thousand kilometers away from the main group, but there was still time for the rest of his fleet to intercept the Republic ships entering into Cienna’s mesosphere.
Almost immediately he heard Captain Haithum speak up. “The Master Chief is away.”
The Spartan-II Commando shot out from the Warhound on his booster frame, followed by 300 of the fleet’s remaining Fascines and two dozen Longswords, all of them pushing their engines past the redline and rocketing away from the fleet.
“Go get ‘em.” White murmured.
Turning to the avatar of MacArthur, he spoke. “Tell the ODSTs to mount up. Get them planetside to cut off the enemy withdrawal. Have all our Marines loaded onto Pelicans, and get them onboard our station. All of them. How far out are our reinforcements?"
The smart AI flashed red before answering, his code running down his avatar's body towards its pedestal, quickening for a second before returning to normal.
"The Punic Supercarrier battlegroup will be here anywhere between three to five hours from now.”
Muttering a silent curse, he looked at the deceptively calm atmosphere of the space surrounding Cienna, he watched the blue outlines of his fleet move across his screen.
"I don't think we’ll be able to hold them."
RNS Intrepid
"They did what?" Tarkin asked, looking at the sensor screens that showed the empty space where the UNSC fleet had been moments before.
"It appears that their FTL drives allow for safe intersystem jumps, they have jumped in right behind and are moving to intercept Captain Piett’s ships. They must be trying to cut off Commander Bly’s retreat." Tarkin’s flag captain observed.
“How complete is the withdrawal of our ground forces? And what of General Jax?”
“Commander Bly has loaded all of his critically wounded men aboard their assault ships and is halfway done with the rest of his men. Commander Jax is five minutes away, aboard his shuttle.”
"Turn the fleet around and move to re-engage.” Tarkin sternly commanded. “And what is our E.T.A.?”
"At our current burn, forty five minutes sir." Another officer replied.
Tarkin sat down in his seat with a huff, the first time he had done so for the battle.
"Sir, General Secura's fighter has been secured aboard and a medical team has removed her from the cockpit, her injuries are minimal and she was merely knocked unconscious. They said she would be up within the hour.” An officer informed
The fleet began to loop back around. The Republic ships were reorienting to regroup with Captain Piett, chasing after the Terrans they had once been moving to meet head on.
As the Intrepid took its position at the lead of the fleet alongside the three other remaining Imperators, an ensign called out. “Three hundred inbound starfighters! Time to contact twenty minutes!”
Tarkin’s flag captain turned towards him. “Shall I deploy our fighters?”
"Deploy a screening force, let none of them make it through.”
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
“Incoming enemy fighters! Pick your targets and clear a path for the Master Chief!” The Fascine pilot ‘Slayer 1’ said.
John quickly made the calculations in his head, he took one look at the Republic fleet, still around 50,000 kilometers away. It would be about another 2-3 minutes until he even got near them. The flight this far had taken almost 20 minutes due to the vast distances in space, no matter the speed of the booster frame or the Fascines, space would always be larger than they were fast.
The colony world looked like a marble from this distance. The Chief’s booster frame would be completely invisible to the naked eye at a similar distance.
"Once I’m onboard, disengage immediately.” Master Chief ordered.
“Roger that sir.” Slayer 1 acknowledged.
"They’ll be outnumbered over five to one." Cortana stated as the UNSC fighters accelerated past the Chief to engage the approaching Republic screen.
“They’ll make it.” The Master Chief said.
Master Chief brought his acceleration up to match them. The first barrage of guns and missiles signaled the start of the dogfights. Master Chief was able to slip through the first wave without drawing attention to himself, his craft was much smaller than the Fascines escorting him.
"Wait, ten of those fighters are moving to intercept us!" Cortana warned as 10 triangles oriented themselves towards him on his radar.
John twisted his head around to see 10 ARC-170 starfighters hot on his tail.
Master Chief weighed his options for a split second. He shut off his thrusters and flipped over, twisting his craft to face the incoming fighters. He was still accelerating towards his target, the Republic flagship, but now he could bring the entirety of his armament to bear.
"You aren’t even going to try to outrun them?" Cortana sighed.
“Then they’d go after our pilots or chase us down, it’s better if I take them on now.” Chief replied.
The Republic fighters closed the gap and furiously fired at the Master Chief with their blaster cannons, bolts of green plasma and energy flashed by him.
He let his adrenaline kick in, heightening the infamous ‘Spartan Time’ which took hold of Chief.
The world slowed down as his augmented eyesight and higher brain functions tracked, estimated, and calculated where the bolts were aimed at, allowing him to pilot the booster frame through the hail of plasma with a near sixth sense, a process made all the easier with the neural uplink that attached him to the fighter.
For the clones, the Master Chief could easily be mistaken for a Force sensitive.
The distance between the opposing sides closed in. The fighters started to catch up with John. At the last second, Master Chief jinked right into the path of the lead pilot with scant yards to spare.
The booster frame vibrated as the 80mm rotary guns opened fire. They tore the fighter in half as the frame and the stricken ARC-170 flashed by each other, the Master Chief pulled up just in time and flipped the craft over, turning his thrusters back on.
He had a wide open shot at the backs of the Republic fighters who were about to break apart and come about, their sobering experience with the UNSC fighters had taught them not to clump up.
It took John less than a second to line up a shot on one of the fighters while simultaneously activating his missile pods.
Master Chief pressed a firing stud and a beefy tube revealed itself from within the wings of the craft and shot away.
The pod burst open to reveal over a dozen missiles that closed the distance between Chief and the Republic fighters in seconds. Chief fired his cannons as the Republic fighters tried to evade.
Chief's fire ripped the port wing off of a 170 before a secondary explosion finished it off. The rest of the Republic fighters frantically tried to dodge the missiles, but only 3 made it out.
The fighters were once again coming at the Master Chief head on, a grave mistake.
He flew through the dissipating fireball and targeted a 170 before the pilot could evade or shoot at him. Chief fired a split second burst into the nose of the starfighter, dozens of rounds penetrated into the fuselage and killed its occupants.
The destroyed fighter's wingmen sent a flurry of cannon fire his way.
John expertly rolled out of the way and let them zoom past him. The tail gunners of the heavy fighters fired wildly at the Chief to no avail.
Master Chief spun around to track his targets and rendered one of them into a cloud of shrapnel. He began to give chase to the other one.
The second fighter, having seen its error and the pilot being quicker to react, dove ‘down’.
Master Chief dodged in and out of the tail gun's firing arc until he flew right beside the enemy fighter.
For almost 2 seconds, the men inside the ARC-170 stared at the Master Chief in awe and horror. Before they could do anything, Master Chief rotated his starboard cannon nearly 90 degrees and shredded the fighter.
Without admiring his handiwork, Master Chief turned and rocketed towards the Republic flagship.
"Was that really necessary?" Cortana asked.
“You can thank me later.” John said.
RNS Intrepid, Turbolift en route to the Bridge
"Your vitals-"
"I am fine." Aayla huffed, cutting the medical droid off. The thing had been pestering her all the way from the medbay. She rubbed the bacta patch hiding a nasty gash on her forehead.
She had been unconscious for nearly 5 hours.
Aayla could hear Quinlan Vos lecturing her in the back of her mind as the doors slid open to reveal the bridge.
She immediately noticed the toll the battle had taken on the crew, and nowhere was that more evident than in their emotions. Without even reaching out into the force she was able to see how distressed, worn out, and angry the crew, clone and non-clone alike, felt.
Aayla realized the gravity of the situation when she saw Admiral Tarkin.
He was hunched over the main holoscreen trying to sort out this mess of a battle, rubbing his chin and contemplating his moves.
Tarkin straightened up and turned around to face Aayla. "Ah, Aayla. It is good to see you are alright."
"Don't thank me, it was my duty, and I still failed." She sighed as her leeku twitched.
"Their deaths shall not be in vain. We will have our victory momentarily."
Aayla didn’t have time to ask him any questions before a crewman began to yell. "Sir! An unknown UNSC starfighter has just taken out ten of our ARCs! It’s heading straight for us!”
Tarkin cocked his eyebrow. "It took out ten fighters by itself that fast? Put it on screen."
"Yes sir."
Aayla and Tarkin diverted their attention towards the video feed that snapped onto the holoscreen.
What they saw was… surprising to say the least.
They simply stared at it. Tarkin was visibly unimpressed by the craft.
What Aayla saw could only be described as a giant swoop bike, or an armed pod racer.
However, it was what was seated at the controls of the fighter that grabbed her attention the most.
It was that armored being that was on the bridge of the UNSC flagship, the supposed super soldier.
The craft sped towards the fleet, its intentions clear.
"Take that fighter down!" Tarkin snarled as Shaak Ti and Jax entered the bridge.
"What did I miss?" Jax asked, oblivious, just as the fleet’s defense began to open fire.
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
"Here comes the fun part." John said, avoiding incoming fire.
"You know most people have a less crazy definition of the word fun." Cortana replied.
Master Chief easily dodged bolt after bolt of turbolaser fire from one of the lead ships, he slipped in and out of the streams coming at him, penetrating a seemingly solid wall of green plasma.
“Good thing you like crazy.” John reminded her.
The Spartan raced across the dorsal hull, avoiding the firing arcs of the ship’’s point defense guns. Although Chief could dodge them with ease, a single hit could spell the end of the legendary Spartan.
A flight of V-Wings attempted to take down the Master Chief, but failed. The fighters were sent to drift aimlessly in the cold void of space or explode as his cannons perforated the fighters all the while Cortana tried to come up with a sarcastic reply of her own.
She finally decided on a simple response. "You win that round, show off."
John grinned and flipped the craft over. He shot the fighter on a new course, directly into the path of the Republic flagship, which was now scant miles away.
As Master Chief dodged more incoming fire, Cortana brought up a layout of the Venator on his HUD.
“The main hangar bay opens up right along the dorsal spine of that cruiser. That will be our easiest point of entry. We’ll use the booster’s frame gauss cannon to breach their hull, but it’ll have to be fast.”
“Can you calculate what the round will do to the ship?” The Master Chief asked.
Cortana shook her head. "I’ll have to tune the proximity warhead just right. If there’s even a slight deviation in the detonation sequence it’ll be no better than a slug, and an ineffective one at that."
“Any unintended consequences?”
“Well of course there’s always the risk that a malfunction will turn us into a nuclear fireball.”
“How relaxing.” Chief said.
“Quite. Other than that, the reactor will be in our line of fire, a few bulkheads away from the hangar. The blast shouldn’t compromise that compartment, but the resulting EMP will knock out all power to the ship.” Cortana said as the Master Chief zipped below the Republic ships, orientating himself on a heading that angled himself towards the flagship’s hangar.
The munition that they were referring to was a coilgun round developed by ONI Section 3’s Materials Group.
To put it simply, it was a nuke with a magnetic casing. No nuclear weapon had been launched out of a coilgun the size of the measly gauss cannon mounted onto Chief’s booster frame before.
It had an explosive yield of 5 kilotons, less than half that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It was a small explosion compared to other UNSC ordnance, but the blast would be more than enough to decimate the blast doors of the ship from near point blank range.
The purpose of the round was to equip UNSC forces with a tactical nuclear weapon able to be delivered via coilgun from friendly lines.
"The gauss cannon is fully charged, I recommend you get within five kilometers for a perfect shot.”
Master Chief looked over his shoulder, a dozen V-Wing starfighters were blazing towards him.
“Let’s make this quick Chief.” Cortana urged.
Chief flipped over his booster frame, narrowly dodging a blaster bolt. Dozens of plasma streams darted past Chief, but before he could get a shot off, a lucky hit went right through his shields.
Alarms sounded off in his helmet: SECONDARY WEAPON SYSTEM DAMAGED: INOPERABLE.
John cursed and quickly reached for the back of his helmet. He yanked Cortana out and transferred her into the booster frame’s data port while unplugging his neural uplink and proceeded to pull what looked like a M395 DMR off of his back.
It was called the LAR, or Linear Assault Rifle, and it had yet to receive an official military designation. It was a pure coil rifle that fired 4mm slugs, a round much smaller than the 5.4mm the Stanchion used, but its compact package made it handy for boarding action.
The LAR was specially made for Spartan teams, the grip and handguard had areas where the rifle could interface with the suit’s power supply through the glove, allowing for quick charging and an expensive price point.
The scientists at ONI and Misriah Armories had claimed that this was the next step in firearm technology, though that claim was yet to be proven.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
John’s LAR was outfitted with an underslung M301 40mm grenade launcher, complimenting the 40 slugs in its bullpup magazine.
"What the hell are you doing?" Cortana yelled.
"You know what I’m doing. You have control."
Before Cortana could argue John pushed himself off of the booster frame.
The momentum of the frame carried Master Chief, meaning for a few seconds he kept up with the booster frame.
300 meters away, a Republic frigate went alongside the Master Chief. The weapon ports couldn’t fire on him, he was too close and too fast. Even if they got a shot off, since he was inside of the Republic formation, they would be more likely to create a friendly fire incident than to hit him.
Suddenly, the booster frame shot away, accelerating faster than humanly possible, even for a Spartan operator. Cortana was only limited by the materials used to make the craft, pulling off dazzling maneuvers would make the average person’s head spin.
"And I’m the show off?” John asked.
“There’s a fine line between ‘showing off’ and ‘preventing this spacecraft from blowing up into oblivion with me on it’.”
Master Chief’s reply was cut off by the incoming Republic fighters. The pilots were momentarily stunned, was Chief simply an ejected pilot, or was he a threat? The hesitation was all the Master Chief needed. By the time they realized they were in danger, it was too late.
Chief activated his booster pack in a final course correction, a mere hundred meters away from the lead fighter. Chief sighted the pilot with his coilgun, pulling the trigger once with the small recoil being countered by his suit's thrusters.
The 4mm rounds punched clean through the canopy of the V-Wing, decorating the interior shades of red. Chief was fortunate it was the cheap V-Wing model, and not the beefier ARC-170.
A second V-Wing began to fire wildly at him, the craft unable to achieve a lock due to the Spartan's small profile.
He dodged another burst and accelerated forward with his thrusters, cutting his speed as he ‘sprung forward’.
Warnings in his helmet blared as a blaster bolt nearly hit him. Had the bolt been a few inches closer, it would have wreaked havoc on his shields.
Chief closed within 50 meters of the fighter, quickly dispatching its pilot. The fighter spun away aimlessly until it impacted into a battle damaged Republic cruiser.
"Chief, a little help here." Cortana said as she came looping back around with the other two V-Wings behind her.
Chief attached the LAR onto his back and swapped it out for his M6 Laser. He quickly sighted the fighter and charged his weapon.
A blinding red beam of light obliterated the fighter, its wingman promptly throwing itself into evasive maneuvers to try and throw off his aim, but the Master Chief perfectly tracked it, hitting it with the entire beam and destroying the fighter.
Cortana sighed and accelerated to intercept the Chief. “Took you long enough.”
“You’re welcome.” Chief said as he retook the controls of the craft from the AI, transferring Cortana back into his suit.
“I’ve plotted your new course, hopefully with less distractions along the way.”
John looked to see the looming dagger form of the enemy flagship, anti aircraft plasma dotting his path. The Master Chief breathed in. He gripped the trigger of the gauss cannon, flicking the safety away.
RNS Intrepid
"What is that… thing?" Shaak Ti asked, referring to the holoscreen showing the armored behemoth. It had just taken out 4 V-Wings single handedly while dismounted from its craft.
The fire from an entire fleet of ships and flights of fighters had simply been brushed aside as the super soldier barreled towards the flagship.
"Do we have any idea what that is?" Tarkin asked.
"Sir, according to our limited intel, it appears to be a ‘Spartan’. Reports from the Terran-Covenant War show that these are UNSC supersoldiers, incredibly capable soldiers.” The officer answered.
"Looks like your instincts were right." Jax told Aayla as she merely nodded in response.
"Do we know anything in depth about their abilities?" Tarkin asked.
"Apparently, from what I can tell... these soldiers are one man armies." The man gulped.
Jax snorted. "Please, you're joking right?"
The officer glared at Jax before continuing. "According to the Sangheili delegation, ‘Spartans’ would face down thousands of the best warriors of the Covenant and win by themselves. One of them, called the Master Chief, was responsible for practically ending the war himself. Designation Sierra-117."
Tarkin looked at the tactical display showing the oncoming UNSC fleet. Suddenly, Aayla felt the Force nag at her, as if something important was right in front of her.
"Officer, can you please zoom in on the ‘Spartan’?” She asked. The officer quickly complied, bringing up a still image taken from one of the many video feeds in the fleet.
Her eyes snapped to the number painted on the soldier’s breastplate..
It matched.
“By the Force…” She said aloud as she took a step back, face pale, the eyes of the group following her.
She pointed her finger at the screen, as if accusing someone. "That is the Master Chief, 117..."
Tarkin raised his eyebrows as Jax and Shaak Ti leaned in close to see for themselves.
“Huh, well how about that." Jax said sarcastically.
Shaak Ti looked at him worriedly.
“Jax, I don't know if you can feel it in the Force, but we are in danger."
Aayla nodded in agreement as worry began to seep into her thoughts, though she pushed it away.
Jax snorted. "Really, what is the worst that one man can do? Besides we are Jedi, he hasn't faced us in battle yet. There is seriously no way that he can be worse than General Griev-."
"That fighter is firing on us!" An officer exclaimed before a massive blast threw them all to the deck.
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
"Well, we're not dead." Cortana said.
John breathed out as the nuclear fireball dissipated in front of them, revealing a blackened and ruptured hull, but more importantly, a ripped open hangar door.
"Go! Straight through that gap!" Cortana urged as the Booster Frame shot forward with every last bit of power being pumped into its afterburners.
Blast doors started to seal around the wound.
"Come on, come on Chief." The AI urged.
Master Chief’s booster frame shot through the closing gap, his wings clipping on the doors, sending him flying off of the frame and into the hangar.
Without hesitation and in one fluid movement Chief tucked into a roll while the booster frame crashed into a fuel line, creating an enveloping fire throughout the hangar..
Master Chief flew through the air before hitting the deck, rolling to his feet while simultaneously grabbing his rifle and throwing down a bubble shield.
Outside of the protective shield, fire consumed everything.
CT-2950 ‘Taqu’
"All troopers form up! We have unknown combatants on the other side of this door. Double check your breathing gear!" Taqu's squad leader ordered while the two platoons of clones charged their blasters. It was dark in the wide corridors leading to the hangar, something had knocked out the ship’s reactor. The only thing that seemed to be working were the red klaxons integrated into the wall panels.
With an exchange of nods, the clones entered into the hangar, the blast doors struggling to open.
The troopers passed through the energy field blocking off the rest of the ship from unexpected rapid decompression. Taqu felt lighter, prompting him and the rest of the clones to magnetize their boots.
It was far brighter in the hangar, thanks to the burning wreckage.
"What the hell’s that thing?" The trooper next to Taqu asked as the smoke revealed a glowing transparent globe where nothing should have been.
In the middle of the orb was an armored giant that stood at over 2 meters tall, dwarfing everyone aboard the Venator. The warrior was equipped with intimidating green armor and what looked like enough firepower to take on a corvette.
‘Just one against all of us?’ Taqu thought to himself. Taqu was almost relieved, but judging by how the fleet had done against the Terrans, this was no ordinary soldier.
The bubble suddenly seemed to burst into thin air, the beast encased within poised itself to strike with its rifle at the ready.
"Drop your weapon!" Taqu’s captain shouted while his platoon rushed to try and form a semicircle around the giant.
The captain got a reply he would never hear. Supersonic rounds ripped through the clone's head, shearing off chunks of the man’s face, before the giant took off towards the clones in a flash.
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
“You never were the talking type.” Cortana said while the Chief took off into a sprint.
The Master Chief had his work cut out for him. He dashed forward while letting loose slug after slug. He used the momentary shock to gain the initiative in the confrontation.
The first bolts of plasma raced towards him. Individually, Master Chief could dodge blaster bolts all day, but a whole platoon shooting at him was a challenge.
Chief leaped for cover behind a wrecked starfighter, taking out a few clones as he went.
While the enemy advanced onto his position, he dashed out from behind cover. The Spartan dodged bolt after bolt, mowing down more clones with a sweep of his reticule. Master Chief looked like a green blur, one moment a blaster bolt would seemingly be right on target, but the next moment it would pass through nothing.
Swaths of troopers were cut down by the Chief as he lunged from cover to cover, meeting quick ends by Chief’s precise aim.
Jumping onto a wrecked starfighter, Chief quickly switched over to his underslung grenade launcher, a trajectory readout briefly flashed over his HUD in the millisecond it took for him to disengage the safety and pull the trigger, mangling a squad of clones.
As fast as he jumped on the wreck, he had leapt off, bounding towards the entrance into the rest of the ship, running past dozens of clones while simultaneously gunning them down.
While holding his coilgun in his right, the Master Chief retrieved one of his SMGs with his left hand off his outer thigh, shooting down enemies while sprinting his way towards his exit, creating a corridor of chaos as he dodged, no, outran incoming plasma. The clones paid no attention to the crossfire they were creating, focusing their attention on killing the Chief before they themselves met a bloody end.
RNS Intrepid
Tarkin appeared to be fuming with anger as the Spartan cut down the last of the reaction force with shocking ease.
He turned to Jax and Shaak Ti, both of them unable to hide their looks of shock, the Admiral barked. "Get down there and deal with that thing. I have a battle to win!"
"As you wish, Admiral.” Shaak Ti replied while Jax immediately turned around and started towards the turbolift. He was impatient, he hadn’t been able to see much action against the Terrans.
Aayla tried to go with them before Shaak Ti stopped her. "I need you to stay here and protect the Admiral in case the super soldier gets through us." She spoke as she threw off her regal robes. “Besides, you’re in no real condition to fight.”
Aayla tried to argue but Shaak Ti cut her off, "Aayla, I have a strong feeling in the Force that this Master Chief may defeat us. If what they say about him is true, then he and others like him have more experience than any other person in the Republic military, a tougher opponent than Grievous."
Aayla shuddered at the thought, and nodded at her.
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
A Republic gunship zipped into the hangar from outer space, zooming in front of John and unloading its passengers, blocking him from easily reaching the entrance into the rest of the ship.
"So any ideas on how to get through them? Or are you just going to blast your way through again?" Cortana asked while John slid into cover behind a wrecked fighter.
John reloaded his rifle with a new magazine of slugs. He blasted a few more clones as he popped out of cover for a split second. The deep claps of hypersonic slugs being accelerated to more than 3000 meters a second would’ve sounded all the more alien to the clones against the hisses and whines of blaster bolts.
The gunship began to open fire at the Chief, whittling away at his already damaged cover.
"Give me a trajectory for one of my grenades, I’m going to take out that gunship’s engine." Master Chief commanded.
There was a microsecond pause before Cortana displayed it onto his HUD. The Master Chief took a grenade off his belt and armed it.
He threw it, the grenade got sucked right into the engine of the gunship. An explosion rocked the hangar and the craft violently crashed into an adjacent wall.
Master Chief dashed around his cover, pressing his trigger with razor sharp precision not a pound over pull as he shot three more troopers while the others dove for cover. Blaster bolts impacted all around him, a few making their mark by taking his shields down by a mere fraction.
He crouched behind the wreckage of the crashed gunship, dispatching the panicking pilots with his rifle.
"Behind you, they’re flanking us!" His AI companion warned while a squad of clones ran up behind the Chief. He pivoted around, the flanking enemies were stunned and slid to a halt, but not before the Master Chief blew a fist sized hole into each one of them.
In a swift motion John once again brought his left hand down to pull the M7 SMG off of his outer thigh and brought it to bear on the troopers to his front.
Although still loud enough to give the unprotected ear tinnitus, the report of his SMG sounded like a bucket of bolts getting dropped onto the floor in comparison to his rifle.
The Chief kept the clones suppressed with short bursts from his SMG while he ran up to their cover.
He peered over their cover and held his SMG down, the rounds came in at an angle, some of them ricocheting off the white armor of the clones, but the volume of fire was too intense, turning the suppressed troopers into a bloody mess.
He placed the SMG back onto his thigh and threw one of his grenades at a leaking fuel line roughly fifty meters away before immediately ducking behind the most solid piece of wreckage he could find.
Several shouts of shock from his enemies could be heard before the whump and thump of a fragmentation grenade went off, followed by the much larger explosion of the fuel which shook the deck, sending debris past his cover.
Chief waited for a few seconds in case any secondary explosions went off. Satisfied the area was now safe, he spun out of cover and charged into the burning wall of fire across a blackened and warped hangar deck.
"Six hundred meters to go until we hit the main turbolift to the bridge. There’s also a computer access panel in close proximity of it, from there I can take control of this ship and prevent any communications from reaching the enemy fleet, that just might be the edge Admiral White needs to win."
"Got it." He answered as he dashed through the flames. He cleared the thick smoke and fire in a split second, meeting the enemy head on.
On the far end of the large hangar bay was what seemed like an entire combat brigade, ready and waiting to greet him with a wall of plasma.
The Spartan surged forward and sidestepped several large bolts from E-Web heavy blasters on tripod mounts in a blur while he fired from the hip, cutting down several clones in the process.
John dove into what little cover existed in the areas relatively unscathed by the nuclear round and the carnage created by his own combat prowess. Sustained blaster fire whittled his cover down inch by inch.
John popped out and took out a squad of clones in quick succession with well placed three round bursts before diving back into cover. His shield nearly collapsed from the sheer amount of fire hitting him, sending his helmet into a frenzy of beeping, warning him that his shields were gone.
John knew he couldn't afford to be tied down in a shootout for long, especially with those mounted guns pinning him down.
He placed his LAR on his back and pulled out all but one of the remaining grenades from his belt, arming them and throwing them all at once, two plasma grenades and a frag.
His aim was straight as an arrow, the grenades all landed behind the crates that the Republic troopers were using as cover, one plasma grenade sticking an unfortunate clone in the arm while the frag bounced once and landed under the E-Web that was firing nonstop.
The explosions that followed thinned the number of enemies down and forced the rest to hug the ground, allowing the Spartan to pull out both of his M7 SMGs and charge.
The first clone to pop out of cover received a full six rounds to the face through his helmet as the remaining clones directly in front of him revealed themselves and opened fire.
Running at full speed, the super soldier covered the distance in under three seconds as he tried to avoid hundreds of blaster bolts.
His augmented senses made time slow to a crawl as he hung in space, a blue bolt of plasma sailing past him as he flipped himself upside down and over the heads of the clones.
The action was so fast that their brains simply couldn’t process it.
Spinning through the air, he cut loose with both weapons, sweeping them along the center mass of the clones, before promptly slamming into the hull beneath, upright on his feet.
The whole action lasted one and a half seconds and left almost a dozen Republic troopers riddled with golf ball sized holes and punctured armor.
While the remainder of the clones were still trying to figure out what was going on, the Master Chief saw his chance.
If he rushed to the main elevator of the ship, roughly 400 meters away, there was simply no way they’d be able to catch up. He prepared himself for a sprint, digging his heel into the floor plating, denting it as he took off.
He locked his SMGs to his hip and equipped his LAR as he sprinted, shooting whatever stray clone stood in his way. It seemed like a clear shot the rest of the way, nothing in his path for the rest of the 400 meters to the end of the hangar bay.
It was not to be.
"Three o’clock, coming up the aircraft lift!" Cortana warned. Chief snapped his head towards the threat. Nearly two dozen heavily armed clones, some with missile launchers, came up the lift and unleashed the full firepower of their weapons. An inconvenience in the mission, but not a snag.
Two missiles streaked towards John. The first hit ten yards behind him and the second seven yards to his left. The explosion rattled him and shrapnel pinged off his shields, draining them to a quarter charge.
He would have to deal with this newfound problem lest he be caught between the clones catching up with him and the heavy weapons squad near him. He may be fast, but outrunning two launchers with possible lock on capabilities was pushing his luck.
John slid towards the heavy weapons team with the assistance of his thruster pack. His speed and reduced profile allowed the blaster bolts to sail over him as he returned fire. Five clones slumped to the floor as he rolled and leapt out of the slide, safely behind cover. The clones ran forward.
His shields recharged while plasma pounded into his cover. John checked his motion sensors and radar. He counted around forty of them within a fifty meter radius. John needed to take out the rocket team first.
He bolted out of cover just as a rocket slammed into where he was a second prior.
Adrenaline poured through his body, John raised his LAR and he put one round clean through the visor of a clone, repeating the process with two more clones, coming close in with the group of clones.
It was a frame by frame movement that only the Spartan could see in full as he dodged a trio of blaster bolts at almost point blank, emptying two rounds into the guts of a charging duo. He pivoted to his right and unleashed a vicious kick to the knee of a clone, snapping it like a twig. In a fluid movement he grabbed the unlucky Republic soldier and spun him around in front of him, bending over at the same time to take the impacts of plasma aimed at him.
The shock of hitting one of their own gave John a second to leap the small distance towards the next two combatants. They hit his shields three times with their blasters before John struck one of the clones on the top of the head, his fist formed like a hammer. The plastoid armor gave in, John’s armoured gauntlet caved the man’s skull in.
The clone next to him tried to give him a brutal bash to the skull with his heavy blaster rifle, but the Chief blocked his attempt with his elbow, pounding the man's wrist in mid swing and snapping it, the clone dropped to the ground in pain, with John sending a round through his skull not a second later.
"Six o’clock!" Cortana chimed. John snapped his head to see a clone aiming a rocket launcher at him.
The launcher fired.
Time slowed for John, he sidestepped the missile, dodging it by mere millimeters. Had it been a proximity fuze, John would’ve been in rough shape.
He brought his rifle up, and hit the clone center mass three times for good measure, shooting the launcher once to take it out of action.
John peered at his motion tracker and turned to see four clones charging him, vibroblades drawn.
Without a thought he used the first clone's momentum and flung him into the path of the second clone with little effort. The trooper was unexpectedly hit with his wounded comrade, accidentally driving his blade into his brother’s skull.
John jammed his fist into another charging trooper, the punch hit the trooper straight on the visor, crushing his face into a bloody pulp. His armor flashed as the dead clone’s blade glanced off of his shields from the momentum of the swing.
By that point the other two were on him. The first swung at him. John dodged in a blur of superhuman speed and let loose a simple left hook, hitting the clone in the side of the face faster than a speeding car.
The unfortunate man's neck snapped, the bones in his face immediately gave in to the armored and super fast force of the Spartan II's fist. The man was limply thrown to the floor, blood pooling under him.
The second clone was right behind the first. His vibro blade was raised for a downward strike.
John used his momentum from his left hook and put the clone to the ground with a roundhouse kick. The Chief brought his foot down onto the hapless clone, caving his skull in instantly.
The remaining clones, now with a clear shot and only a scant ten yards away, let loose with their blasters.
John dodged as many as he could, but with how close he was, his speed and reflexes weren’t enough. His shields overloaded and winked out of existence with a flash of electricity. A trio of blaster bolts hit the armored shell of his chest plate, being easily stopped by the titanium superalloy. John nevertheless felt the impacts.
As he ran, he spotted the other rocket-wielding clone. He sighted in on the soldier and blew a chunk of his shoulder off, another shot landing on the launcher itself not a second later.
With the real threats neutralized, he took off toward the hangar’s main elevator.
"You cut it close, you could've done better." Cortana teased as blaster bolts tried to catch up with them. “Chestplate holding at 95% integrity. Shields recharging.”
"Status of the fleet?" John asked Cortana.
"We have approximately five minutes until they start firing." Cortana answered.
"Once you get into their systems-"
“I know, no need to remind me. Wreak havoc on their ship, gain control of their weapons and communications. Piece of cake really, just like old times.”
John smirked inside his helmet, it felt good for her to be back.
Before he inserted Cortana into the terminal, he glanced towards his motion tracker. To his dismay, two large contacts were coming up from what had to be a vehicle bay.
"Great..." He mumbled. He pulled out his Spartan Laser and activated it.
Out of the bay, on two opposite sides of the trashed hangar came two walkers. An AT-ST covered in guns that could tear him apart and a smaller AT-PT, itself not much larger than a Hunter, yet still dangerous, came out.
The AT-ST sighted him and fired its main cannons at John, who leapt away as his shields deflected the extreme heat.
He wouldn’t give the walker a chance to hit him. He fired his laser on the walker, amputating one of the walker’s legs and cutting clean through a part of the cockpit, causing it to tip over.
The AT-PT sent a stream of blaster cannon bolts towards John as he ran toward it.
His shields again dropped dangerously low. He jumped up and used his suit's built in jetpack to rocket above the walker.
John landed right behind it. He grabbed his last grenade, a plasma grenade, and slammed it into the drive unit of the vehicle before rolling away.
The AT-PT turned towards John, and then went up in a fantastic explosion, showering bits of debris all over the wrecked hangar.
John strode over to the data port and touched it, transferring Cortana into the system.
Her avatar appeared. "Good job, I'll do my worst..." She smirked.
John looked over to see the elevator doors open.
Hangar Bay, Exiting Turbo Lift
When the doors to the hangar opened, the first thing that Shaak Ti noticed was the putrid smell of gasses expelled by blasters and the fire raging throughout the hangar.
Jax, having managed to wait for her on the journey to the hangar bay, coughed as smoke wafted into the slowly opening turbo lift.
"By the For-” He didn't finish as the doors fully opened.
What Shaak Ti, the veteran Jedi Master, saw was carnage, pure and utter carnage.
She took in the sight before her, gazing down the hangar bay.
Halfway down the launch bay a starfighter was ablaze, an AT-ST on its side with most of its cockpit charred, and a smaller AT-PT was turned into a collection of burnt parts with the only discernible part a burnt out cockpit. Beyond that the deflector shields and blast doors at the bow of the ship were up to keep the air from escaping to vacuum, the area past that being exposed to space.
But what grabbed her attention were the bodies of Clone Troopers, their armor perforated and ripped open by a massive amount of force, their bodies torn open spilling blood and gore onto the deck.
The blood seemed to flow like a stream.
"There’s no way one man could..." Jax didn't finish his sentence as they looked to see the perpetrator.
It was standing twenty yards away from the lift, next to one of the computer terminals. It was a behemoth standing over 2 meters tall and covered in advanced looking green armor from head to toe complete with the white markings, ‘117’. It was the Spartan.
And his rifle was aimed directly at them.
"You!" Jax spat. He threw his outer robes away and called his lightsaber to himself using the Force.
Shaak Ti was more cautious. She reached out into the Force, activating her own saber too.
She searched the Force for the presence of the Terran.
It was true.
Instead of sensing the man's presence in the Force, she sensed an empty void, almost like static.
The supersoldier answered by entering into a more ready combat stance, taking a better hold on his weapon.
Jax’s frustration and short temper that always plagued him took over.
"You will pay for this!" He shouted, gesturing at the devastation. He recklessly charged forward, his lightsaber held low to his side.
Panic surged through Shaak Ti for a second. She shouted, "Wait Jax! You can't..."
She didn't get to finish her sentence. The supersoldier's weapon barked three times.
Ti watched Jax shift his grip on his lightsaber almost in anticipation to deflect blaster bolts, but it mattered not. Even if he was fast enough, he was finished either way.
In his haste he forgot that lightsabers were useless against projectiles, no less supersonic 4mm slugs, partially as he had actually yet to see combat against the UNSC during his tenure on the station.
As such Shaak Ti watched Jax's body wither and his torso have three fist sized chunks be taken out of his body, tearing most of his upper torso apart in a bloody spray of viscera.
Shaak Ti let loose a short gasp before he fell to the deck, limp.
She felt the Force warn her of danger as the Spartan began to shift its aim towards her.
Without a second's hesitation she extended her hand towards the armored combatant and knocked the weapon out of the soldier's grip with the Force, though it took a considerable amount of concentration to do so.
‘Force, give me strength.’
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117
‘What the hell?’ John was taken aback as he felt his rifle being torn away from his grip by some invisible force.
He focused back as he saw a shimmer of air burst from the alien woman's left hand. Before he could move, it hit him like a truck, throwing him through the air for 10 meters before he flipped over and landed on his feet with a thud. It reminded him of playing gravball all those years ago.
‘Is this the ‘Force’ that they speak of? How the hell is this possible?’ He thought as his mind ran through the possibilities and the ways to counter this new threat. This wasn’t some gravitational manipulation, it was entirely different.
The woman sent another ‘burst’ of almost invisible energy towards him.
However John was ready for it this time. He sidestepped the energy in a blur of superhuman speed, pulling out his energy sword from his belt and igniting it with a flash.
He wouldn’t be taken off guard again, not even by something outside of his scientific comprehension. He entered into a low combat stance, ready to pounce.