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The Beginning of the End by Wonga
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The Beginning of the End Part 1
Date: 24 August 2002, 6:50 pm
"Halo, its finished"
"No, I think were just getting started."
ÝÝÝÝÝÝIt had been hours since the Chief had uttered these words. He was now locked in a deep sleep, his head drooping slightly as he sat in the pilot's seat of the longsword. He had plugged Cortana into the longsword's computer before he had drifted off to sleep. She thought for many cycles about the events that had that had occured on Halo. She began to sort through the information she had flash transferred onto her memory cube. She had been forced to overwrite a considerable amount of her computer cracking programs, but was compensated as she found infiltration software hundreds of years ahead of Oni's newest software. The Cheif stirred, and Cortana noticed a consideable spike in his adrenaline levels. He must be having a bad dream. She didnt blame him, she even pitied him for having to sleep. She sometimes envied humans for the ability to sleep, but times like this made her happy of this inability. "NOOOOOO!!!!" The yell resounded through the cabin, and faster then Cortana's visual probes could track him, he was on his feet with his M-90 in hand. He slowly realized that their was no-one there. He sat down and looked at Cortana's image hovering over the panel. As she looked into his eyes, she saw a flash of the tortured soul inside of him, she saw the innocent child, the witness of a thousand deaths, but only for a breif moment. His eyes resumed the solid, steel blue look. "Cortana, are the engines ready to use again?" She was surprised by his resilience. He had only slept for six hours, and was ready to begin all over again. " Engines are T - minus 3 minutes till safe engine operation temperature." she replied. "Scan for any Covenant ships, then set a course for Reach." he said. "Cheif, while in Halo's computer, I learned how the covenant navigate slipspace so accurately. They actually stole the technique from the Forerunner. Instead of having both of the terminals in the Shaw-Fujikawa generators charged negatively, one is charged positively, and the other is charged negatively. Both terminals are charged to critical capacity, then are discharged at precisely the same moment. The resulting charge nuetralizes each other, along with the ship. In "Neutral Space", the laws of phisics are negated, and the ship is able to be in two places at once. This only lasts for a few moments, then the ship returns to normal space, in the new location. This requires a rather conseq-" He hit the terminal that Cortana's memory crystal resided in. "Sorry" she said, in an annoyed tone of voice. "Cortana, all I want to know is if we can do this in this ship." he demanded. "I'll need you to make a few modifications, but yes."
ÝÝÝÝÝÝ20 minutes later, they were ready. Cortana began charging the generator. The Cheif could feel the ship begin to vibrate, slowly at first, but then extremely fast. " Energy levels reaching critical ! " reported Cortana. All of a sudden, the ship became transparent. But then The Cheif realized, that he could see the inside and the outside. He could also see the different layers of Titanium - A around the ship. He could see everything, at every angle, in any way. Then, everything snapped back together. His perception was back to normal. "Cortana, did it work? Cortana? Cortana?!!" The ship was black. There were no lights, no humming of the terminal, no lights flashing. They were dead in space. The Cheif recognized what was happening. He remembered the ships in the battle for Reach when they came out of slipspace, they would also be dead in space. Suddenly, the ship came back to life. The artificial gravity came back on, causing the Cheif, who had been floating near the roof, to plummet down to the ground. He got up, rubbing his head. "Cortana, pinpoint the spot where CASTLE used to be." "Sheesh, I just came back online and you're already giving me jobs." she replied. "Alright, got it. It's on the main veiw screen." "Cortana, scan for any life underground." the Cheif said. His breath caught in his chest. The question that had been tormenting him every minute of every day since he left Reach was about to be answered. Cortana's hologram flickerd back to life in front of him. "Cheif, I've detected life - signs, but their faint and are buried under 300 meters of honeycomed glass." "Land us down there. I'm getting them out." "Cheif, I'm detecting less than 4 percent than thr regular amount of oxygen below the surface. Amazingly, there is still a breathable atmosphere down there, even after the covenant galssed the planet." "Cortana! Just land!!" The Cheif yelled. Cortana was surprised. She had never seen the Cheif get angry like this before. She didn't blame him though, he had been through alot. She brought the ship in, and the Cheif walked over and ripped the doors off the weapon's locker. Pure Titanium - A battle plate doors ripped off like paper. He got out an assualt rifle, full ammo, and got for ammo for his shotgun. "Cortana, how much armaments does this ship have left?" "None Cheif." she replied. "They didn't have time to restock her after the battle." "Damn!" He said. Before they had even landed, he kicked the back hatch off and jumped out. straight down 10 meters. He hit the ground, and smashed through a meter of the glass. He took out the MA5B he had grabbed an began firing at the ground. Then bullets pounded into the ground, foot after foot of the glass shattered as it was hit by the bullets. He exhausted the AR ammo, and threw it aside. He took out the shotgun, and fired round after round. He depleted that ammo source also. "Cortana, how much glass is left?" "100 meters" she replied. He threw aside the shotgun, and in his desperation, began smashing through the glass with his fists. Even with the armor, the Cheif's fists began to get bloody. After what seemed like eons had passed, he sruck something hard. 3 ft of Battle plate separated him from his goal. He ran up the shaft he had carved through the glass, and got all the grenades from the armory, along with the two pounds of C-12. He stuck all 18 of the grenades he had gotten into the C-12. He set a 10-second timer, and ran. Even from the end of the shaft, The Master Chief was thrown back, then, there was an intense suction coming from the hole as the atmospheres equalized. Then, there was silence.
The Beginning of the End, Part 2
Date: 28 August 2002, 4:22 am
The Chief got up, and staggered. The adrenaline in his system was wearing off, and he would soon pass out from near exhaustion. He staggered down the tunnel to the newly created opening, and walked inside. There, standing before him, were 3 Spartans. A great feeling of relief coursed through The Chief. At last, he thought, at last I'm home. And with that, he collapsed.
He awoke with bright light flooding into his eyes. He blinked, then coughed up the cryo inhalant, and gagged. He heard Cortana's voice tell him "Please swallow the cryo-inhala -" " I swear," The Chief interrupted "If you finish that sentence, I will take you offline, permanently." He climbed out of the cryo tube, and felt as though someone faced a Spartan. "We had to freeze you to keep you from going into anaphylactic shock. You had so much adrenaline in your system, that if you had continued functioning at that level for another five minutes, you would have killed yourself." she said. "Kelly? Is that you?" John said, hardly believing what he was seeing and hearing. "Yes, it's me. It's been so long,.." she said trailing off. She removed her helmet, revealing her blue hair, which she had grown down to shoulder length and currently had it tied in a ponytail. She snapped a salute, and he returned it. "How did you survive when those bastards glassed Reach?" he asked, a tone of awe in his voice. "We retreated into this facility, where they had installed a larger scale version of our shields, but it was barely enough. At the last second, it gave out and the entrance at the top fused shut. Those arrogant covenant bastards, thinking their all-powerful plasma would without a doubt kill everything on the planet, didn't scan for life forms. Two days in, our oxygen reserves ran out, and we began to weaken. By the time you found us, we had all fallen unconscious. We woke up, and found you lying there. We took you to the emergency cryo bay and froze you. The adrenaline in your body degraded in the cold. And, that pretty much brings us up to where we are now." The Chief sat down and took it all in. Then a question formed in his mind. "How did the others die?" he asked quietly. "What?" she said. "How did they die?" asked solemnly. The battle was going well. The auto defenses on the fusion reactors were being a big help. Even when the hunters showed up, we were okay, the mini - MAC guns went through them like butter. But then,.." she said, and a shadow passed over her face. "But then they showed up.
They were 20 feet tall. They had small fusion reactors on their backs that powered a shielding system. They walked on 6 legs and had two arms, and they had pulse lasers mounted. A few Spartans seeing these things, tried to play dead, but these things could sense they were there. We ran for CASTLE. Five of us were going to make it, but then Kyle got hit, he fell down and then James snapped, turned around, and started running at them. The last we heard from him was " Die, you dirty bas-" and then he dropped of the radar. We made it to CASTLE and the elevator was down at level 236, and there was no time. We ripped off the doors, and jumped down the shaft, we grabbed the cable, and slid down. We were almost there, but then we hit some sort of invisible wall. They had installed shielding in the 90th level of CASTLE. We thought we were finished. The covenant were clearing off the planet, so we knew that they were getting ready to glass the entire place In less than ten minutes that shaft we were in was going to be filled with plasma. But, then they destroyed the last MAC fusion reactor, which also powered the shield system around CASTLE. That caused a 2 second lapse in the shield as it transferred to internal power. When it disappeared out from under us we started falling again. We made it to the bottom floor and waited." She said. That sat for several minutes in silence. Then Cortana came on the loudspeaker. "Chief, we've found a downed Covenant cruiser about 200 kilometers from here. The reactor was taken offline by a MAC round, but the rest of the ship is intact. It's strange though, it seems to have been shot down after the planet was glassed, which is odd because 95 percent of the,.." "Okay," the Chief interrupted, " lets get moving." And suddenly sprung into action.
They walked into the main hanger where the Chief had come from. " Luke, Anna, arm up, were going after a downed covenant cruiser. Our mission to capture a Covenant leader still stands." They nodded, and went over to the armory, a large room, that held numerous weapons. In the case of ever having to hold off the covenant, the defenders would be well armed. The pulled many weapons off the rack, all of which The Chief recognized. Then, Luke pulled something off the rack he didn't recognize. "What's that?" The Chief asked. This is a new form of weapon, not only is it new, it uses a new form of weapons technology. It's like a MA5B, except with one major difference. The name should be enough to explain. The new name is the MAC5B." The Chief smiled inwardly. Just typical of the tall-fore headed types at Naval Weapons research, uncreative as ever. " It has about a fourth of the original's fire rate. But it as at least six times the power. It has the newest Capacitor/supercharger technology, so it only needs to recharge every 60 rounds, while you're reloading." The Chief grabbed one. He couldn't wait to get the chance to try it out. The all piled into the longsword, as their was only four of them, it was no tight squeeze. The longsword took off, and they flew towards the unknown, but at least they were together.
The Beginning of the End, Part 3
Date: 28 August 2002, 11:17 pm
They flew over the barren wasteland that was now Reach. The sensors in CASTLE were damaged in the glassing, so it turned out that the cruiser was almost one third of the way across the planet. "How did James make it down to the surface?" the Chief asked. "We downloaded his video record before he died, I'd tell you, but it would be easier to show you." She took a cable from the video panel of the longsword and linked it to her helmet. The video began playing, and the Chief transferred control over to Cortana and watched. As the recording blurred into view, he could see himself, on the platform as James spiraled away. James spiraled out of control for thirty seconds, passing around to the planet- side of the dock. He ripped off the jet-pack and it blasted away,did a loop, came back and rammed James right in the stomach. This set him hurtling towards the planet. As gravity took effect, he began to move faster and faster. Suddenly, something loomed up beside. It was a covenant cruiser, with a gaping MAC wound in its side. Thats my only hope, James thought. He tucked his arms to his sid and shot off towards the cruiser. As the ship started to lose power, the higher voltage functions began to lose power. The first of these was the shields. James flew up next to the ship right up to one of the docking bays. He was matching the ship second for second. Damn, he thought. The shields around the doors were still up. Suddenly , the shield dropped, and objects began flying out. One of these being a grunt. James, in spite of his imminent danger, couldn't help but smirk at the grunt as it flew by, screaming, "AIEEEE!!". Then, a larger, more dangerous item flew out. A wraith tank came out, and started flying straight towards him. If it did hit him, the difference in their speeds would kill him, hands down. He angled himself towards the ship, causing him to move towards it. He kicked out at he hull with all the strength, and in the process dented the hull. He flew away from the ship. Well, this is it, he thought. I'm finished. As he thought that, he could feel the heat of reentry forming around him. Then he saw something tumble out of the ship hat made his heart stand still. An empty banshee. But, due to to its aerodynamic shape, it had already accelerated to the same speed as him. "No, I won't give up this easily!" he screamed at himself. He made himself even straighter. Then, slowly, painfully, he began to gain on the banshee. Inch by inch, he gained on it. But there was a problem. He looked at his shields, and saw that the re-entry heat was wearing them down, at a shockingly fast rate. They reached the halfway point. Just three more feet. He thought. Every muscle in his body strained to go faster. One quarter left. 2 feet. An alarm went off in his helmet. No shields were left, and 1 more foot to go before his hand could reach the tail fin. Half of a foot. The sunshades on his helmet began to melt and curve back. Every, muscle screamed. "No more." Every last bit of his concentration, all of his training, all of his life came down to this last moment. He closed his hand,... And grabbed it. He almost didn't have enough strength to pull himself up into the banshee. He turned it on, and instantly went to full reverse. Suddenly, the ship, wraith, and runt went hurtling past him to the ground. He almost blew out the capacitors in the banshee's wingpods slowing himself. He started the slow decent towards the ground. The video turned off. The Chief wished he could have told James he was sorry that he didn't come after him. Then, Cortana came on and said, "Chief, were coming up on a life sign." That's impossible he thought. Then something clicked in his head. He turned on his tag identifier. He could see Luke, Anna, and Kelly all in the cockpit with him. Then the object came into view, and a friendly tag appeared above it. It took the computer a few seconds to identify the tag. It felt like eons had passed to the Chief. Then the name popped up. It read "James-281"
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