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Halo: Combat Re-evolved; Chapter One: Into the Void
Posted By: Steele<hoffmansteele@hotmail.com>
Date: 16 June 2003, 12:33 AM
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Halo: Combat Re-evolved; Into the Void
0350 Hours, December 1, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
UNSC Lark Of Dreams, close Earth orbit
"With respect, Cortana. What in the hell kind of reinforcements have you got?"
The feel of the handgrip through his MJOLNIR-II armor felt reassuring and fragile at the same time. He was about to do one of the most bravest or dumbest things in the history of human kind.
He slapped the access panel and the bay doors whooshed open. The bay's atmosphere was immediately sucked out into the void of space, taking anything not bolted down with it.
"What if you miss?"
"I won't."
And with that, the Master Chief let go of his grip on the hand-rail and leapt out into the void of space. He felt himself being sucked out and hoped he'd done his calculations correctly. Below him was Earth in its darkest hour.
A few angular UNSC cruisers—all that was left of a once impressive fleet—valiantly tried to keep the shark-like Covenant cruisers from getting to Earth. Unfortunately they were fighting a losing battle—and they knew it.
The Covenant ships were just too advanced, too tough, too fast. There was no stopping them. And in the midst of it all was the largest ship the Master Chief had ever laid eyes upon. Ten times as big as anything in the USNC fleet, it was a Covenant Assault Carrier.
No ship in the UNSC Navy had encountered one and lived to tell the tale. They packed massive firepower and a whole army of troops. In short, they were Earth's worst nightmare. Luckily, there was only one.
Earth's spacial defenses had been virtually wiped out. Ship after ship had been thrown at the Assault Carrier and not one of them had even managed to bring down her shields. And now the Carrier was about to drop all of its troops on Earth.
Looking down at Earth, the Master Chief felt his gut tighten. Multiple Covenant BattleCruiser's were gassing sections of the planet without interference. A few Covenant Destroyers were holding the remaining UNSC ships at bay.
"Do you have a plan?"
"Yes. Once I'm inside the Assault Carrier I'm going to detonate the Plasma Reactor."
"How do you plan to get inside the Carrier?"
The Master Chief—still flying through space toward the Assault Carrier—responded, "I don't know."
"Good Plan."
"I thought you'd agree."
"By the way, the Assault Carrier is named the Tranquility of Thoughts."
"It's going to be real tranquil in a moment." Below him the Carrier grew in size at an alarming rate. Suddenly a collision alarm sounded inside his helmet, but Cortana quickly shut it off. At the precise second the Carrier rushed up to meet him, Cortana boosted his shields to sustain the impact.
The Master Chief saw the Tranquility of Thought's hull four meters in front of him, and then everything went black.
The Chief awoke two seconds later and tried to grab the ship's hull. He couldn't. He had landed on the shields, which were four meters away from the hull.
The Master Chief closed his eyes and waited for some kind of weapon on the Carrier's hull to fire. When one did, the shields deactivated for a split second. That split second was enough time for the Chief to latch unto the hull.
"Okay, we're on the hull. What now?" Cortana asked.
The Spartan pulled out a shaped explosive-charge. "This."
He stuck it to the hull and backed away. Before he could press the firing button, Cortana said, "We're kind of in the blast-radius, don't you think?"
"No. Special charge, it explodes straight downward. It won't harm us."
Cortana sounded skeptical. "Okay, but this better work."
"It will." He pressed the button.
Fire, smoke, and armor panels seemed to geyser upward. "Hull penetrated, we can enter."
"Wait."
An uplink crate was sucked out by atmospheric decompression. It was followed by a Grunt who slammed into the inside of the shield, splattering it with blue blood.
"Now," the Chief said and pulled himself along the hull. All the atmosphere was gone now, so he didn't have to worry about being sucked back out. He found himself in a small square room with only one exit. He was the only one there.
The Chief flicked a button on his wrist and his shields deactivated, but his arms turned invisible followed by the rest of his body. His MOJLNIR-II armor had shield and active camouflage capability, but he couldn't use both at the same time for power reasons.
"Reactor room located. Nav marker...now!"
He nodded, lifted his MB6C Battle Rifle, and made his way toward the exit, a gray door that glowed and beeped when opened.
"Motion tracker shows next hallway empty."
The Chief stepped into the hallway and saw that it stretched the length on the ship. He was in the maintenance hallway of the ship. This put him in the perfect place to complete his mission. The maintenance corridor was scarcely used, especially in combat, and it lead to almost anywhere on the ship.
He grinned to himself and started sprinting down the hallway. At first he thought about being cautious, but then he realized he didn't have the time. He'd have to take the risk of running into an enemy—at least he was invisible.
He was half a kilometer down the corridor when Cortana said, "Take the next door to your left."
The Chief complied by slowing down and approaching the door cautiously. Before he got to it, it opened and a large beast walked out. It looked like a cross between an Elite and a gorilla. It was over eight feet tall and wore armor that looked a lot like a standard Marine's armor. In its arms it carried a Plasma Rife.
It paused and sniffed the air, and with a howl dropped into a defensive position, its eyes scanning the corridor. Somehow, the Chief knew, it knew he was here. It couldn't see him, but it had probably smelled him. The Chief knew he didn't smell quite like Covenant.
Knowing he'd have to get by this beast, but without making noise the Master Chief cocked back and brought his rifle-butt down on the alien's head with bone-shattering force. The thing collapsed to the floor, but the Chief knew he hadn't killed it and he also knew not to leave enemies in his rear.
He picked up its Plasma Rifle and slammed it down on top of the thing's head with every ounce of strength he possessed. It was like popping a ripe melon. The thing's brains splattered all over the deck and the Chief thought he heard the Plasma Rifle crack.
Leaning down and looking at the thing, the Chief said, "Brutish looking fellow, isn't he?"
"Well, Chief," Cortana replied. "You've just named a new Covenant species: The Brute. I've heard reports of them, but this is the first tangible proof we have of them."
"Glad I could be of help. Let's go."
The Chief entered the door and found himself in an elevator. It quickly started to descend. "Cortana, we are we going?"
"This is taking us directly to the reactor."
The Chief nodded and waited patiently for the elevator to stop. Above him, he heard a faint rhythmic sound. He smiled to himself. Covenant elevator music.
Abruptly the elevator stopped and a door in front of him opened, revealing a large square room with a slightly smaller square object in the middle. Around the room walked four Elites. They wore gold armor and carried Plasma Rifles.
"That's the reactor. I suggest taking care of the gaurds first."
"Good suggestion." The Chief moved forward until he was behind an Elite that didn't look too diligent. He stood right behind him and waited for the right moment. It came when the Elite shifted position and his left arm glanced the pouch containing Plasma Grenades. The Chief snaked his arm forward and activated a Plasma Grenade before diving out of the way.
The Elite's head snapped up and he looked down at his side at the glowing blue Plasma Grenade stuck to him. He did a comical dance and tried to beat it off him, and then he exploded. What was left of him thumped to the ground in pieces. The other Elites looked on placidly.
Cortana whispered, "Turning on translator."
An Elite on the Chief's left said, "Idiot. I knew he would get himself killed. How does one trigger his own grenade and then get it stuck to him?"
The Elite next to that one said, "Maybe he didn't. Before he died I saw something behind him."
"You're always seeing things."
While the Elites were discussing the other Elite's untimely end the Chief made his move. He snuck up behind one and whacked him on the back as hard as he could. To the other two Elites he looked just like he dropped dead.
One of them pointed at the other dead Elite, but before he could say anything, the Chief fired a silenced three-round burst from his rifle. The first two shots bounced off the Elite's shield, but the third pierced it and ripped the back of the Elite's head off.
One thing that UNSC scientists had improved upon on his suit was the active camo. Unlike an Elite who fired and became briefly visible, he was invisible—only what was fired was visible. There were only two ways he was visible in active camo mode. One was if his camo was deactivated, the other was if he took a direct hit.
The one remaining Elite turned to where the shot had been fired from, but already the Chief was moving around behind him. The Chief dropped him with a timely tap to the head and headed toward the reactor.
He quickly set a timed charge that would disrupt the Reactor's Plasma flow. Turning, he noticed a door on one side of the room. "Cortana, what's behind that door?"
"Dead end. Now come on, we have to get out of here, before this thing explodes."
"Hold on. I want to check that door."
He sprinted over there and opened the door. Behind it sat a Ghost.
"Hmmm. A treasure of a find. Now let's go," Cortana said.
The Chief ignored her sarcasm. "Wait. I have an idea." He walked over to the Ghost, hopped on, and activated it. It jumped up in the air as its anti-gravity pods came online.
"What are you doing?"
"You'll see."
The Chief gunned the Ghost's engine and shot toward the elevator. He parked the Ghost inside and rode back up to the maintenance corridor. "Where's the hangar?"
"Three kilometers forward and down."
"Good." The Chief turned the Ghost on the maintenance corridor and accelerated down it as the walls whipped by him. He checked his timer. He had ten minutes to get to the hangar, hijack a transport, and get off this Covenant dump. It was going to be close.
As he shot down the corridor, a door opened ahead and another Brute stepped out. A look of shock dawned on his face as he saw a Ghost without a driver barreling down at him.
The Chief gently squeezed the trigger, sending a trio of Plasma bolts at the Brute. They melted right through his chest armor and into his chest, instantly killing him. Violet blood stained the wall behind him. Then the Chief was past.
Eventually the corridor ended in another elevator. The Chief parked his Ghost on the elevator and rode it down to the Covenant hangar. When the doors beeped open he found himself looking upon a hangar bay just like the one in the Truth and Reconciliation, only bigger.
"We'll have to deactivate the Magnetic field—again," Cortana complained.
"Well, second time's the charm."
"No, it's third."
"For our sakes, it'd better be second." And with that the Chief gunned the Ghost's engine and shot into the hangar. A few Grunts were strolling about and when they saw the rider less Ghost they took off running, screaming Covenant obscenities.
The Master Chief jumped off the Ghost, letting it fly into the Magnetic Field, its nose crumpling like a tin can. He walked over to the centralized pillar and leapt up, grabbing the edge in the process. He pulled himself up and strolled over to the Magnetic Field controls. No Covenant in sight.
He deactivated the Field and jumped back down to ground level. As he sprinted over to a parked Phantom, a Covenant quick response team burst in. Leading the pack were two Hunters, shields held in front of their torsos.
"We should be leaving—Now!" Cortana sounded anxious.
"Maybe you're right." The Master Chief quickly got inside the Phantom and activated the Plasma Engines. Next on his to-do list was to bring the Plasma Cannons to bear on the Hunters.
Bright purple shots reached out and melted through the Hunter's battleplate-shields. The first one had his torso turned to vapor, but the second managed to get off a shot with its Fuel Rod Cannon. The blast arced over Phantom and exploded harmlessly. The second Hunter followed his bond-brother to never-never land.
Beyond the dead Hunters, the Chief could see more Covenant. It was time to go. "One minute, Chief."
The Phantom accelerated out of the launch bay and into space. Behind him, Covenant ran out and took pot shots at his fleeing ship. "All too familiar situation."
As they left the Tranquility of Thoughts behind, Cortana noted, "They are no shields around the launch bays. A weakness perhaps?"
"Time?"
"Five...four...three...two..."
The Phantom shook as it caught a shock wave. Behind it, the Covenant Assault Carrier transformed into a rolling, azure explosion. Nothing remained of the once mighty Covenant vessel.
"Admiral Stanforth?" Cortana inquired over the Command Net.
"Yes, Cortana?"
"That was my reinforcement."
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