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Legacy Part One
Date: 13 April 2003, 9:08 PM
It has been six months since I last saw the men in my platoon. I can only surmise that the whole division has pulled out and left HALO installation 006. I believe that I am the only human on this installation, and from all of my reconnoitering, the Covenant have left as well. I am stranded here alone on this desolate ring world, exerting all my energy on prying into its secrets.
The day is hot and dry, without any sign of rain. The last water hole I passed was almost two days ago. I can only guess as to where I am, but it seems as if I have almost reached the edge of this desert. In the distance, I can make out the ruins of an abandoned Human stronghold. I double my pace, and make it to the ruins in an hour. I stagger past the outer defenses of 50 mm chaingun and 5 inch turret emplacements. I reach the medical facility and collapse in a heap on a cot stained by blood spilled over half a year ago.
I wake from a sound sleep, feeling somewhat refreshed, footsore, and hungry. I amble on down to the cafeteria. In some cabinets I find field rations packaged to keep for decades. I sit down to a meal of granola bars, flash frozen turkey, dehydrated peas, and canned soup. After eating my fill, I wander around camp and gather supplies. In the maintenance garage I find an abandoned Warthog, up on blocks and in need of a replacement tire. I find the necessary tools and a spare tire and fix it up. I get six jerry cans of gasoline and set them in the back. From the medical building I find plenty of bandages, biofoam, morphine, and antibiotics. In the supply dump I get enough food to last me months, as well as some AP and shredder ammo for my MA5B, a dozen extra clips for my M6D, and a few blocks of C-12 and detonators. From the command tent I get several maps and binoculars.
As I turn to leave the command tent, a piece of paper on the ground catches my eye:
United Nations Space Command Emergency Priority Order 095567A-1
Encryption Code: Red
From: UNSC/CENTCOM
To: 6th Battlegroup/179th Armored Division
Subject: General Retreat Order 0988671A-5
Classification: Classified (BGX Directive)
General Retreat
Following the defeat at Sigmus Prime and the loss of the Draconis Shipyards, all HALO investigative deployments are suspended until further notice. All forces are ordered to make best speed to Epsilon Pegasi.
/end file/
I could see that all was definitely not well with the Covenant war. This order was issued more than six months ago. I could not even fathom what was happening in the war this moment. Maybe there is no more war. Maybe I am the sole surviving human.
I departed the base around noon, or whatever time HALO was on. The sun was in the middle of the sky, but then everything was different on HALO. I drove spinward and eventually came to the end of the desert. The landscape abruptly turned into a dense and humid jungle. I found a navigable path through the entanglement of vines and foliage. I set up camp next to a gigantic tree that looked remarkably like an oak tree native to earth. I ate a cold dinner of ham and crackers and fell into a fitful sleep next to the "old faithful" chaingun.
The next morning I got up and drove about an hour up a winding path that cut into the side of a very tall mountain. The road was very narrow and the going was slow. Presently I began to make out hints of Forerunner technology; the path seemed immaculately clean, and there was a soft blue glow of undeterminable origin lighting the path. I wound my way up the mountain for another hour or so and made a startling discovery. The dirt path abruptly ended. What lay beyond was an elevated pathway of light. I eased onto the light, which strangely held the warthog above the ground. I continued on at a cautious pace.
The light road continued on for another mile, where it ended at the mouth of an enormous archway. Beyond the archway there was an entrance built into the mountain. I drove up to the entrance and stepped from the Warthog. I got a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach as I looked at the entrance. There was a great blast door sealing the entrance. I doubted the C-12 I had brought along could make even a dent in it. I spotted a footpath softly glowing leading off a ways to the side of the entrance. I checked my pistol and cautiously made my way along the path.
The path led a small ways to a clearing in the trees. In the middle of the clearing there was a ring of tall columns with inscriptions that looked strikingly Aztec in origin. Inside the ring of columns there was a pedestal. As I approached, the columns started to glow in a soft blue pulse.
I stopped, uncertain if I should go further. But the columns seemed to beckon to me. I made my way forward and stepped into the circle of columns and to the pedestal. With each step I took, the columns pulsed faster. I saw that on the pedestal, there was a monitor that glowed red. In the center of the monitor was a handprint. A human handprint. I raised my left hand and slowly pressed it to the monitor. The columns now glowed a constant brilliant blue, and the monitor grew warm under my palm. The monitor pulsed three times and then darkened. As I watched, something began to appear on the monitor:
HANDPRINT IDENTIFICATION
CONFIRMED.
DEFENSE SYSTEMS DEACTIVATED.
My hands fell to my sides and my jaw dropped, seemingly no longer under my control. This was the confirmation that many had sought. It was widely believed that the Forerunner could possibly be of Terran origin, but we had almost completely no evidence to the contrary. That my handprint had opened up this mountain facility was stunning.
An opening appeared at the bottom of the monitor and a ring slid forth. A video appeared on the monitor, instructing how to wear the ring to deactivate defenses anywhere in the facility. I slid the ring onto my middle finger and slowly shuffled back to the main entryway. My mind was still recovering from five minutes ago.
As I neared the entrance, the ring on my hand glowed and the blast door silently spiraled open. I got in the warthog and drove slowly into the tunnel. The ring glowed again and recessed light crystals warmed and lit the pathway with a soft light.
The tunnel opened up into a cavernous room that apparently had once been a parking area. The room was empty, but there were berths where the Forerunner had once parked their vehicles. I pulled into a slot and turned off the engine. I hopped out and headed for the door at the end of the room. The door hissed and slid open, revealing an elevator. I stepped onto it and took a moment to look over the holographic pad. I reached out and pressed the middle button.
The elevator whirred and started its descent. I watched the walls slide past and wondered what I would find at the other end of this elevator ride. The elevator slowed to a halt and the door hissed open. I found myself in a hallway. I walked down the hall and entered the first door I came upon. I peered inside and the lights came on. It looked to be some sort of conference room, though I really had no idea. An oblong table sat in the center of the room, with six plush chairs situated around it. I approached the table and the nearest chair glided over to my side. I looked at it and after some hesitation took a seat.
The chair guided me back to the table, where a holographic image shimmered into existence in front of me. On the holograph, there were six icons, each with some lettering next to it. At first glance, they looked to all be the alien runic script I had seen countless times before. Upon closer inspection, however, I noticed that there were variations in the lettering from one icon to the next. The icon in the upper right hand side of the screen looked familiar to me. I leaned closer, and the icon glowed and a voice said: "English."
I sat back for a moment, startled and trying to gather my wits. I reached out and pressed on the icon.
The holograph blurred and a dozen new icons dotted the air. The lettering looked somewhat like English writing, but I couldn't read it with any accuracy, so I scanned the icons and leaned toward the one that looked like the word "research." The image glowed and the voice said, "Research." The holograph blurred again and when it came back into focus, there were pictures of research and development, pages of notes, reports, and evaluations. I saw the real purpose of HALO. The blood drained from my face, and I slumped back into the chair, finally understanding.
Legacy Part Two
Date: 15 April 2003, 9:22 PM
I saw the real purpose of HALO. The blood drained from my face, and I slumped back into the chair, finally understanding. In the pictures were Forerunner scientists, running tests in immaculate laboratories. The Forerunner were undoubtedly human. They were all tall, bronze skinned, and all had raven black hair. Their faces possessed high cheekbones, mystic brown eyes, and thin lips. They were undoubtedly of Aztec origin. An in all of the pictures that I saw, every face had a look of solemn sadness.
I knew the reason for their sadness. From the reports I had just seen, those scientists were dooming their entire civilization. I went back to the main screen, and chose the "history" icon. It was terrible, but I had to find out more.
The Forerunner did originate on Earth millennia ago. The exact date is not known, for their method for keeping time was so different from ours. They took to the stars with ambition and a boldness of any known event in their history. They traveled to the stars, and with them they took the curse of the universe.
Genetic engineering was not a new thing to the Forerunner, who for centuries had constantly improved upon their own genetic structure, the ultimate goal: to make themselves immortal. To make themselves more powerful than the gods they worshipped. Already much had been improved upon. The average Forerunner lifespan exploded from a conservative ninety seven years of age to almost two hundred. Sickness and disease was virtually unheard of, and by this time, their intelligence capacity had tripled. Technology progressed by mind blowing leaps and bounds. Eighty years after the first starship made it to the edge of the solar system; the Forerunner had engineered slipspace generators, and soon scrapped those in favor of gravity drives which, in a manner of speaking, folded space, making the departure point and the destination in the same point in space for a limited time. The Forerunner had discovered instantaneous space travel.
These huge jumps forward in their civilization were made possible by genetic engineering. The Forerunner had become more powerful than their gods. This was also the instrument of their destruction. The HALO installations were constructed for the sole purpose of genetic research. Despite the huge payoffs, there were many failures. A small percentage of the experiments were failures. Mutations in the Forerunner genetic sequence caused unexpected horrors. Decades before the HALO installations were constructed, several planets were lost to failed genetic experiments that wiped out all life on the planet. These planets had to be destroyed due to the threat they posed to the rest of the Forerunner civilization. The Forerunner surmised that the research would be safe on these special containment rings.
For all their intelligence and greatness, the Forerunner reached the end of their path. The flood, while a genetic offshoot of the Forerunner civilization, was not the cause of their demise. In all their fervor to make themselves immortal, the Forerunner genetically engineered themselves out of existence. The combined modifications to their genetic structure were putting too much strain on their DNA. Perhaps if their DNA had more base pairs to support these modifications, the Forerunner might have reached their goal.
I sat back in the chair and closed my eyes, in deep thought. The Forerunner wiped themselves off the face of the universe through their own selfishness and greed. However, they left a legacy of technology and history that is still unrivaled in the universe. The Covenant, have tried to seize this technology to gain their own ends and sit with the Forerunner at the head of history. The covenant see the human race as the Forerunner's children, and in their jealousy, they have chosen to wipe us out to have complete and unrivaled control of the universe.
I got up out of the chair, and as I did so, the hologram shimmered into nothingness. The chair slid out of my way as I left the conference room. I had to get to some sort of communications room to try to contact someone, any UNSC installation.
I made my way back to the elevator and scrutinized the holopanel again. I couldn't read the runic script, but as I concentrated on looking for a level where there might be a communications room, the ring on my finger glowed and the elevator started up.
The elevator stopped and I got out, and through the elevator door there was what could only be the command and control center for this facility. I concentrated again on how I could get a secure transmission to any UNSC ship or base or planet, anything. The ring glowed again and a hologram pulsed to life in front of me.
What is showed was devastating. It showed a landscape, a land that might have once been lush and full of life. All that remained now was a barren, glassy landscape. Grey clouds hung in the air, full of poison. There were the remnants of a city in the distance, broken buildings blackened and charred. It was earth. The covenant had come and gone, leaving only death and destruction. I broke down on the floor, in tears. What could the human race possibly have done to deserve this? I felt the rage boiling within me; I wanted to strike out at this terrible and merciless enemy. I wanted to kill every last one of them, to avenge my kind.
As this bubble of rage rose up inside me, the ring started pulsing a blood red light. I looked up as a large hologram rose up in front of me. What it showed froze my brain in mid thought. What it showed was a cavernous room, somewhere buried deep within the mountain. And in that room I found my tool of vengeance. In the hologram, in crystal clarity, I saw hundreds of thousands of beings, beings in olive green armor that shimmered with a light from within. Spartans.
"Spartans.... Mk XXIVs actually." A voice spoke from behind me. I whipped around, not knowing what to expect. "My name is Thor. I am the Monitor of this facility." The ball of brilliant white light said. "I have been following you for quite some time. I must say that you are quite an ideal representative of your race. Intelligent, intuitive, quick to improvise, physically fit. And all without any genetic enhancements."
The monitor floated towards the hologram. "These are but a fraction of the forces at your disposal. Held in suspended animation, they have survived the millennia, awaiting a commander. Their commander has arrived."
"Commander? Me? How?" I couldn't comprehend all of this.
"Just now, when you saw our beautiful home planet in ruins. The Forerunner originated from there too you know. You saw that desolated landscape and vowed to avenge humankind. Now is your chance. You must seize the moment. You have the technology and the firepower to achieve total domination." The monitor blazed brighter.
"I don't understand, but I will fight." I said with conviction.
"Excellent. Follow me please." The monitor said, then turned and headed for the elevator.
The armor felt strange at first. The MJOLNIR armor the UNSC Spartans had was primitive compared to the capabilities of this armor. An unaugmented human such as myself would have been crushed in the original armor. However, this armor fit me like a glove, and was a hundred times as capable as the original MJOLNIR. And unlike the men under my command, my armor was solid matte black.
I stood on the platform looking out as my soldiers. My Spartans. The feeling was indescribable. "I stand before you today, on the dawn of a new era. My civilization has been destroyed by the covenant onslaught. But in you I find the means to destroy out enemy. I have been named to command you in the war against the Covenant. We will prevail. We will CRUSH THEM!" my words resonated throughout the assembly and I watched as three hundred thousand armored fists were raised in the air in the Forerunner battle cry. The assembly shook with the power of their voices.
Legacy Part Three
Date: 18 April 2003, 4:19 PM
I stood on the bridge of the FSC Razorback, the flagship of my fleet. I looked out at the panoramic view of the stars. The black of night flashed with coherent light as the battle raged. The ships the Forerunner had presented me with were absolutely stunning. Their armor was virtually impenetrable, and their weapons were like nothing the covenant had ever seen. My flagship, the Razorback, was larger than six covenant cruisers. The covenant plasma torpedoes left mere scars on the impenetrable armor, and the Razorback's weapons were formidable. The ship wields six beam cannons, cannons that fire coherent laser energy in a controlled pulse that can core a ship with one shot.
The Covenant were coming out in force to meet our assault. The holotank projected a radar image of the hostile contacts. Four hundred seventy-five Covenant cruisers, frigates, destroyers, and carriers. And they were attempting to stonewall my fleet of nearly two thousand Forerunner warships. A force like this had never before been seen in one place at one time, and it probably would never be seen again. The overwhelming force was astoundingly unnecessary, but this first strike against the Covenant would strike fear into their alien hearts and minds.
I watched as the space battle played out. The Covenant always fought to the last ship, and I doubted this battle would be any different. My force was spread out over almost three million kilometers, and was circling in for the kill. The covenant ships' lateral lines built up with an ethereal ruby glow as they powered up their weapons once more. Before they could discharge their weapons, six hundred beam cannons scoured the Covenant fleet. Ships were seared in half, reactors flaring and fires burning. Shields burned pure white for an instant, and were holed through by the immense power of Forerunner technology.
The covenant fleet was completely decimated with the first volley. Then the Forerunner craft launched their fighters. They looked remarkably like Longsword interceptors, but were a hundred times as deadly. Each were capable of launching anti-capital ship missiles with the most volatile anti-matter warheads made.
The fighters, named Erinyes, fell upon the remaining Covenant ships with fierce decisiveness. Missiles streaked in toward their targets, and blue energy radiated away from the impact points, taking with it large pieces of the covenant ships.
The battle was over in a matter of minutes. The Razorback pulled ahead of the rest of the fleet, drawing nearer to the green planet. A covenant world. The ships could have bombarded the planet from orbit, but that would be just another charred world, utterly useless for their purposes. I left the command of the ship in the capable hands of Ankara, the Forerunner who had been assigned to teach me all there was to know about Forerunner technology. I took my leave of the bridge and took the elevator down to the lower decks of the great warship.
The elevator opened and I strode into the main hanger. The room was a good kilometer across, and every inch of space was taken over with Forerunner troopships. Swarming over the troopships with amazing speed were the ground forces that were going to take this planet. A Spartan near the elevator spotted me and snapped to attention.
"Commandant on the deck!" he barked through the com system.
Every Spartan in the hangar faced me and stood to attention.
I patched into the main com system with my helmet. "All right Spartans, listen up. As you no doubt have heard, we have decimated the covenant fleet defending Aires Prime. I am giving the green light or the invasion. You all know the battle plan, so let's get moving!"
The soldiers cheered and raced to finish loading the munitions onto the troopships. The war had begun.
The troopship accelerated toward the drop zone, nimbly dodging hills, strange looking trees, and the occasional winged creature. The troopship flared its engines and dropped to the ground. The rear hatch opened and a hundred Spartans poured out. As I hopped out, I scanned the air. The sky was swarming with troopships and support craft. The low rumbling of munitions detonating on enemy positions reverberated through my feet.
I called up a map with up-to-the-second tactical information. As according to plan, my ground forces had landed on both poles of the planet, and on several positions around the equator. In the bottom left corner of the map, the total number of ground troops committed so far was flashing. It read five hundred thousand and was steadily rising. The thirty troop transports assigned to this operation were almost fully unloaded, their troopships on their way to the surface. Enemy contact was sporadic; it looked as though we had caught them unawares.
My Spartans were engaged in several light skirmishes with Covenant, grunts, jackals, and elites. There was no word as yet on any hunters. Though they posed a moderate threat to my troops, the Spartans had the training and the equipment to dispatch them with ease.
The field commanders were meeting and sharing tactical information on the command channel. My suit patched me into the conversation as I thought about it, translating thought into action.
"...verything is going as planned and even exceeding projections. There is one area that I am concerned about. The South Pole seems to be a major military installation of theirs. I am requesting additional units to reinforce the southern pole contingent."
I interrupted their conversation. "Commander Imbu, I suggest you send in a recon team to scout the base. If their might be any information useful to us, then we will take the base. If there is no sign of any, then we should destroy it from the air and not risk any troops. Warfare in closed conditions is always costly, and I would like to avoid casualties as much as possible."
The Commander thought for a moment. "Yes commandant that would be a prudent choice. I will send the orders immediately."
I listened to some more of the conversation, and finally closed my end of the connection. The commanders were brilliant in their own fields, and my interjections would only slow things down. I strode over to where my mobile command post was being erected. I went inside and watched the main holoprojector displayed updated information on several fields of engagement.
Fierce fighting enveloped the Covenant world. There were three major population centers on the planet, and those were summarily destroyed by air and ground forces. I had a fleeting sadness for the doomed covenant on this planet. There was no information on whether the covenant had a civilian population, but looking back on how many hundreds of billions of humans that were slaughtered, Forerunner forces showed no mercy. After all, humans were the Forerunners' brothers, born of the same planet. The Covenant had committed a horrible crime, and now they would pay. The last opposition was rooted out and in seventy-two hours, the planet was under Forerunner control.
Legacy Part Three
Date: 24 April 2003, 10:39 PM
The troopship accelerated toward the drop zone, nimbly dodging hills, strange looking trees, and the occasional winged creature. The troopship flared its engines and dropped to the ground. The rear hatch opened and a hundred Spartans poured out. As I hopped out, I scanned the air. The sky was swarming with troopships and support craft. The low rumbling of munitions detonating on enemy positions reverberated through my feet.
I called up a map with up-to-the-second tactical information. As according to plan, my ground forces had landed on both poles of the planet, and on several positions around the equator. In the bottom left corner of the map, the total number of ground troops committed so far was flashing. It read five hundred thousand and was steadily rising. The thirty troop transports assigned to this operation were almost fully unloaded, their troopships on their way to the surface. Enemy contact was sporadic; it looked as though we had caught them unawares.
My Spartans were engaged in several light skirmishes with Covenant, grunts, jackals, and elites. There was no word as yet on any hunters. Though they posed a moderate threat to my troops, the Spartans had the training and the equipment to dispatch them with ease.
The field commanders were meeting and sharing tactical information on the command channel. My suit patched me into the conversation as I thought about it, translating thought into action.
"...verything is going as planned and even exceeding projections. There is one area that I am concerned about. The South Pole seems to be a major military installation of theirs. I am requesting additional units to reinforce the southern pole contingent."
I interrupted their conversation. "Commander Imbu, I suggest you send in a recon team to scout the base. If their might be any information useful to us, then we will take the base. If there is no sign of any, then we should destroy it from the air and not risk any troops. Warfare in closed conditions is always costly, and I would like to avoid casualties as much as possible."
The Commander thought for a moment. "Yes commandant that would be a prudent choice. I will send the orders immediately."
I listened to some more of the conversation, and finally closed the connection. The commanders were brilliant in their own fields, and my interjections would only slow things down. I strode over to where my mobile command post was being erected. I went inside and watched the main holoprojector displayed updated information on several fields of engagement.
Fierce fighting enveloped the Covenant world. There were three major population centers on the planet, and those were summarily destroyed by air and ground forces. I had a fleeting sadness for the doomed covenant on this planet. There was no information on whether the covenant had a civilian population, but looking back on how many hundreds of billions of humans that were slaughtered, Forerunner forces showed no mercy. After all, humans were the Forerunners' brothers, born of the same planet. The Covenant had committed a horrible crime, and now they would pay. The last opposition was rooted out and in seventy-two hours, the planet was under Forerunner control.
In the following months and years, the Covenant slowly disappeared. Planets were assaulted and captured, and in the covenant's place, Forerunner civilization sprung up. They built upon the ruins of the Covenant civilization, constructing glorious cities with spires that reached for the sun. System after system was assaulted by Forerunner warships under my command. Just as I had anticipated, the Covenant forces always fought to the last ship. It was almost as if they knew why we had come, and chose to die fighting instead of an alternative. The Covenant Empire, which stretched as far as the Human Empire once reached, was whittled down by the unstoppable force of Humankind's guardian, the Forerunner.
In the closing year of the Covenant-Forerunner war, my fleet, now a few ships less, closed in on one last planet. The Forerunner had built another civilization from the rubble of covenant worlds, but this world would not get that second chance. This planet was the only exception because this was the home of the Prophets. The Prophets had given and order of genocide, commencing the annihilation of the human civilization, and had glassed the birthplace of the Forerunner and Humankind. For this crime, their world would be completely and utterly destroyed. The Covenant armada defending their last planet was worn down to nothing, just as the human fleet guarding earth had been destroyed. Encircling the Prophet's homeworld was the Forerunner fleet, under the last human's command. With a trembling hand, I gave the order to fire.
The world began to blacken under the onslaught. Atmosphere was burned away under the torment of Forerunner weaponry. The surface of the planet began to bubble and expand. The world stretched and twisted and finally blasted into a billion red hot fragments that were hurled out into the black void of space. Humanity had been avenged.
Suddenly feeling very tired, I sat heavily into my commander's chair on the bridge in the midst of Forerunner jubilating at the victory. Very slowly, I took off my helmet, which had rarely left my head during the entire war. The matte black finish was worn and scuffed, faded from the light of many suns. I stared off into oblivion, into the void where the covenant planet had been moments before. Now there was only silence, and only silence there shall remain forever.
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