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The Next Generation by GreenMJOLNIR
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The Next Generation
Date: 19 July 2005, 4:56 am
PROLOGUE
0137 Hours, July 4, 2547 (Military Calendar)/
Lambert System, Desert of Hope,
Dentlo Theater of Operations
The Master Chief unsheathed his combat knife as the Jackal recharged his plasma pistol. The Jackal's first shot melted the Spartan's weapon. Now the two were only a meter apart. Meaning that the plasma shot wouldn't miss . . . and would be fatal.
The Covenant pistol gave off a yellowish-green glow as it charged behind the orange shield the bird-like alien held to protect itself. Lucky for the Spartan, that shield didn't cover the entire creature, but was wielded like a medieval buckler. The augmented warrior took advantage of this imperfection by charging the foe, reaching around the shield, and slicing a hole in his armor from ear to ear, as if a crude lobotomy was being performed. Or what would have been where the Jackal's ears would be, if he were human.
The purple blood from the meter and half tall biped spilled onto its own energy shield, hung for a moment, and then finally fell to the ground when the failsafe on the device permanently shut the shield generator down. The plasma burst from the charged weapon landed on a wall of the canyon, turning the cool rock to glass.
"Clear." The Master Chief chimed over Red Team's COM channel as he surveyed the area. The ambush almost went off without a hitch, he thought, observing the damage to his assault rifle. It was practically a puddle of boiling metal.
That was close, a little too close for the Master Chief's liking. In an effort to save himself, the Chief had to block a plasma shot with his rifle. But unfortunately, he was now forced to use one of the unwieldy Covenant weapons that had been dropped.
The original plan was to ambush the patrol of fifteen Jackals and an Elite that guarded the eroded bottleneck pass to the hill overlooking the Covenant encampment. What the Spartans weren't expecting was the two Hunters hidden just on the other side of the pass.
The Spartans had made their way down the narrow canyon by moving on ledges sticking out of the canyon walls and hiding behind rocks that had fallen on the elevated paths. This was the first open space of the canyon since the DZ, five clicks away. The snipers, Red 2 and 5, set up camp among the rock outcroppings on either side of the canyon, along with the demolitions experts, Red 3 and 7. While the Master Chief, Red 4, Red 6, and Red 8 took positions behind three of the many wide boulders that lay within the ravine— and waited.
The Covenant patrol was in a rough "delta" formation. Ten of the Jackals were in a circle around the other five. The unwise, prideful Elite was ahead of the rest by a meter, not protected by the shields of the Jackals. But the Elite did carry personal full body shields. Even so, those were no match for a 12.7 mm sniper round to the head.
Red 2 and 5 moved to snipe the Elite first. Then they killed five of the Jackals before the simple-minded vultures realized what was happening, and overlapped their shields to protect themselves from the snipers. To add a complication to the ambush, the sounds of dying teammates attracted two thickly armored Hunters from behind the three-meter wide mouth of the canyon. But when they showed their faces . . . They got a 102-mm surprise.
Red 3 and 7, had already been briefed on Hunters, so when the car sized, thickly armored beasts entered the pass, they knew what to do. But by the time the rockets detonated on the behemoths, they had already fired a salvo of meter long plasma bursts from the fuel rod guns fused in their armor, disintegrating the rock the Master Chief was using for cover.
The explosions echoed in the canyon walls and attracted the attention of the Jackals. They wheeled around to fire on the unprotected Master Chief.
By the time the Jackals turned though, a grenade went off with a loud wump, shredding four of them into hamburger. Red 4 had tossed a grenade in anticipation of the Jackals' shift in positions.
Shredder rounds filled the air from flanking positions, and the Master Chief dodged the incoming plasma fire. The result was seventeen bodies, filled with bullets. One with its head carved open.
The Chief moved to check the other side of the pass for waiting foes. All clear. As he did, Red 6 policed the weapons, then handed the Chief a plasma rifle.
"Thanks." The Chief said, taking the weapon. "Red 4, 6, and 8, wait here and watch our six." He said in Red Team's COM. "Red 3 and 7, plant the Lotus antitank mines. Set them to the highest sensitivity. Red 2 and 5, take position in the pass to cover me. I'm going to do a little recon."
The Chief made his way up the hill through the jagged rocks. What ONI Intel had designated as a "hill," turned out to be a five hundred-meter long rising slope, ending with a one hundred-meter drop-off. Figures, he thought while examining the bouldery "hill". Then again, what should I expect from weather satellite photos?
He quickly asserted that his distrust in the Intel was from his training. The Chief and his Spartans had learned long ago to not completely trust any Intel given to them, except from fellow Spartans. And to prepare for the unexpected.
Yet the inaccurate Intel was no problem. The super strong and extremely fast MJOLNIR armor all the Spartans wore, along with their augmented bodies, could take any of the Spartans across the half-kilometer slope in thirty seconds. And the super fast reflexes of MJOLNIR would help them to easily navigate the rocky slope at unhuman speeds.
But despite his abilities, the Chief took his time and kept an eye out for traps among the rocks. On his way up the Master Chief took the time to mentally review his plan.
Blue team was currently infiltrating an evacuated Hdyogen refinery two clicks to the south of the Covenant ground forces. They would cut into the number thirteen Hydrogen pipeline that ran right underneath the massing enemy troops, and use it to plant a HAVOK fifty megaton tactical nuke right underneath the unsuspecting Covenant. But that was the Spartans' secondary objective.
After the Chief made sure the inclination was clear he made his way up to the cliff edge. Satellite photos indicated that the camp had no more than three thousand troops. Enough to overwhelm even his Spartans, if things got out of hand. The worry of stealth didn't weigh his team down however. They were the distraction.
After the Chief made it to the cliff, he saw it. "It" was a light source so bright that it turned the Covenant controlled box canyon from night to day and dimmed the Chief's HUD brightness to its lowest level.
The light source was the real reason the Spartans were here. Not the Brass's story to the public that this planet is strategic position that Humans must hold, for the planet had been abandoned since 2523, and until recently, only pirates and rebels ruled the desert world. The public didn't even know that Spartans were on the job. This mission was a Black OP— as all of their missions were— and they didn't have the option of failing. Perfect for the Spartans since they never failed. They always won.
The Chief's suit's radiation counter went off the charts and set off an alarm. Whatever that is, it sure is hot, the Master Chief conjectured while chinning the alarm off in his HUD. Fortunately, the Spartans' MJOLNIR armor would deflect ninety-nine percent of the radiation. Perfectly safe.
"Blue team move up," he directed over the COM while observing the curious looking black cliff walls. Then it hit him. The Intel wasn't wrong, or at least wasn't wrong when the photos were taken at 2030 hours. The markings all over walls weren't natural, but the cliff walls were black from laser burns.
He looked directly down over the edge and confirmed his theory. Hundreds of Covenant laser drills where burning away at ground, digging for something. Perhaps whatever was making that light was a part of it. All across the edges of the "dugout," kilometer wide ramps sloped down to the valley floor at kilometer long intervals. Hundreds of Covenant made the up lines of traffic on the inclines.
Stationary plasma cannons— or Shades, as the Jugheads called them— guarded each of the six dirt ramps. Each held such power that, all together, they posed a threat to even a whole battalion of Scorpion tanks. Those would have to be first priority. Not only that, but the valley had hundreds of Wraith tanks along with the stationary plasma cannons. That was definitely a problem that they would have to fix.
"What . . . What is that?" Red 3 murmured, staring at the light.
"I don't know, but lets clear the way so Green team can find out." The Chief responded with a great deal of coolness. He knew he couldn't be distracted with such conundrums. He and his team had to stay focused on the objective, and he had to set an example for them as their leader.
"Bring up the grenades," he ordered. Red 3 obeyed the order and brought up the modified grenades in an extra equipment sack. The explosives were really fragmentation grenades covered in an inch thick layer of C4. Each member of Red team each took two of the powerful grenades and prepared to prime them.
Suddenly, two patrols of Banshees screamed into the airspace over the digging site. Each patrol with six of the purple Covenant fighters. Red Team dove behind some nearby rocks in response, just in time for the Banshees to miss seeing them. Red 3 and 7 trained rocket launchers on the flyers and waited for the orders to fire. They never came.
"Red team, lose those grenades. Make sure those tanks and cannons find them. Red 3 and 7, launch two salvos of rockets on the defensive structures near Green team's Nav point, and give those cannons a proper greeting. Then everybody fire on the masses for thirty seconds and retreat to the fallback position. On my mark."
"Demolition crew waiting and ready." Red 2 said in acknowledgment before whispering over the line, "May God have mercy on their souls."
The Chief waited three heartbeats before giving the order.
"Mark!"
Eight grenades went over the edge simultaneously within a millisecond of the order. Each one landing silently near one of the ten tanks and exploding parallel to the rocket detonations on the distant Shades. But by that time, three more salvos of grenades and rockets were away and finishing off the remaining heavy weaponry.
The Chief himself however dropped his grenades on the mining equipment below in hopes of halting the mining temporarily, until the UNSC might be able to take this planet back.
Dazed and confused, the Covenant went into chaos and fired wildly in the air in hopes of killing the air attackers, but ironically, their fire was the Banshees' undoing.
Just as the pilots got their bearings, and turned their aircraft to fire on the origin of the rockets, seven of them lost control of their crafts. Thick black smoke billowed behind them while they plummeted into the masses. The five survivors of the friendly fire, dove at the Spartans with a sense of vengeance. Leaving slipstreams and clouds of dust in their wake, the violet flyers cycled their weapons and fired.
Ionized fire rained from the sky and burned fiercely toward its target. Smoldering rock was all that was left of the blast zone. The fliers turned in order to make another run on the area, for their first marks were off. But the moments it took for the fighters to get another shot was all that was needed for the Spartans to make their move.
The M19s were aimed from the opposite side of the rocks to finish any survivors as the foolish low flying Banshees erupted into flames. Red team not only planted mines in the canyon, but also on the hillside. There were no survivors.
"Anti-tank mines." Red 7 joked. "Not just for—" But Red7's joke was cut short by the explosion of a meter wide ball of plasma, ten meters away.
The Master Chief turned to see that his plan had worked. Nearly all of the Covenant had funneled their way through the nearest dirt ramp to counterattack the attackers. Now they were only one hundred meters from the Spartans, leaving only a hundred troops with three tanks, guarding the brightly lit items. Perfect for Green team's assault.
"Green Leader," the Chief said over a secure COM channel while transferring the tactical data to Green Team. "Move in." The only answer the Chief received were the explosions of the Covenant tanks.
The Chief was already firing at the stampede of Covenant, with his newly acquired plasma rifle before the last Banshee hit the ground. The rest of the Spartans took his lead. They mowed down the leading line of Jackals with left over modified grenades. The bodies of the line were blown back so far that they landed on the tanks in the rear. The harsh impact of one of the bodies caused a grenade his belt to go off upon landing and boiled the tank into a slag of indigo metal.
"Blue Leader reporting." The Chief's suit's speakers echoed. "Pandora's box delivered. Open on your order. Now moving out to LZ. See you there."
Sniper rounds left steam trails on their paths into the skulls of the order giving Elites. The colorfully armored Elites stuck out of the crowd like sore thumbs. They were the field as well as ship commanders. One of the highest castes in the Covenant society, they were the warrior leadership and needed to be put down first.
Plasma bolts flashed by and needles bounced off the human's armor. The wall of aliens was beginning to close in on the Spartans when the countdown timer on the Spartans' HUDs reached zero.
The Chief ran back down to the narrow canyon behind the rest of Red Team, as the explosions of the remaining hillside mines echoed through the crisp night air.
"Switch to thermal vision!" The Chief said, changing his own settings as Red team ran through the mouth of the canyon. As the Master Chief's HUD went to thermal, several dozen hot spots appeared on the ground before him.
Mines, he said to himself. Just have to step between them. He and the other members of Red team hopped through the minefield before finally reaching the end of the clearing. There was no time to celebrate the successful minefield maneuvering, though, for the Chief could hear the barks of nearby Grunts.
The Spartans sprinted single file through the narrow gorge until they reached the LZ and saw the safety of the dropship. Blue team was waiting for them inside.
"So, how did it go?" Blue 2 asked.
"Like throwing rocks at a beehive." The Chief replied as he buckled in. "Everybody in? All right, lets go."
The pilot feed fuel to the engines as the ship began to lift. They were seven meters in the air when the whine of plasma weapons overpowered the sound of the Pelican's engines.
"Strap in tight," the pilot warned. "Gotta do something that would get me killed in piloting school."
The dropship kicked back and went strait up past the narrow rock walls. Then upon going into a dead stall, the pilot shut off the engines and let the ship fall forward over the top of the canyon walls, before restarting the engine. Now, out of range, the pilot flew into the "dugout" to retrieve Green team.
Looking over the pilot's shoulder, the Master Chief could see that Green Team had destroyed the remaining tanks and killed most of the infantry around the lit up orbs. Now they were gunning down the last batch of Grunts and Jackals that were protecting the relics with their lives.
The pilot was about to put the Pelican into a dive and shoot down from behind, but the Chief stopped him.
"Hold on," he said grabbing the corporal's arm. The pilot was about to reply when the loud thunder of a grenade, followed by pieces of shrapnel, hit the cockpit's windshield. When the smoke cleared the only thing left were ripped corpses, and Green team standing over them.
The Pelican landed on the only flat ground, obviously a landing pad, twenty meters from Green team's location. The Chief watched as Green team carefully picked up the items of their objective and placed them inside of large lead suitcases. Not two seconds after the last orb was captured, the pilot reported trouble.
"The Circumference has picked up five Covenant cruisers that just exited Slipspace and are entering the atmosphere. Their trajectory shows that they are heading right for us. ETA is two minutes. I suggest we get outta here." The Corporal said with a tint of fear.
"Wait," the Chief said grimly. He pulled out a tiny fiber optic spy drone and threw it on the shine that once held the three orbs. "Okay. Now we can leave." Green team quickly strapped in themselves— and their cargo— as the dropship lifted into the night sky.
Suddenly, the lead cases turned a bright white, bulbed out, and cooled from white, to red, then finally to black. All of the Spartans eyes were now locked on the cases. As soon as they breached Dentlo's atmosphere, the Chief opened the suitcase nearest to him.
"Ashes. Nothing but ashes."
In his ears, the Master Chief heard a single beep. The Master Chief pulled out the detonators, and opened Pandora's box.
The Spartans were silent the rest of the trip back to the Circumference.
SECTION I
TITAN
CHAPTER ONE
0430 Hours, December 12, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
UNSC Cassuis en route to Secret Research Facility, Codename: TITAN
The Cassuis' bridge viewport held nothing, but the black emptiness of Slipspace in its grasp. Unlike most of the ships commissioned in the UNSC, the Cassuis' bridge was built in the center of the Stealth Corvette. Used for only the highest priority missions, the stealth ship was thickly armored for a ship of its type— enough to rival a destroyer— and was still stealthy enough to be able to hide in the shadows.
Despite the extra care that was being taken toward his safety and success, the Chief was still unsatisfied. As he pondered, the empty screen reminded him of a mirror . . . A youthful voice pulled him from his thoughts placed upon the dark void.
"We'll be entering Realspace in a few moments. Afterwards, the Captain says it will take about fifteen minutes before we can make a pass at the planet."
The Chief just nodded once in acceptance without turning. He recognized the voice as that of Major Scott Pendleton Collins, M.D. Ever since he met the doc, it struck the Chief as odd that despite the fact that the Doctor was military, regular protocols didn't seem to apply because of his medical specialty. And with that came the same undisciplined attitude of civilian life that Dr. Halsey had when he worked with her. There was no doubt that when to two had been working together that Dr. Halsey's way of thinking had rubbed off on the young doctor.
Chief Mendez wondered if he could go through it all over again. Yes, he knew that now this time these children might be the only thing that could give mankind salvation from a new powerful foe; but could he put them through all of the pain and hardship of the training and operations again?
Realistically, Mendez knew he didn't have the option to answer that question, nor ask it. He had his duty. Duty to protect mankind, like he taught his Spartans.
At least we can learn from the first Spartans, and reduce the operation casualties, Chief Mendez thought. Dr. Collins has the best medical hands in the UNSC, and along with his involvement in the Spartan Project, he would definitely help save lives . It's the best that can be done. Still he couldn't help but feel that it wasn't enough.
Thousands of stars appeared briefly on the screen before half were replaced with a sphere of blue and green. From the looks of the surface it wasn't a highly populated outpost. A closer scan of the surface would reveal no population at all. The gem of a planet was completely wild and untamed. The only man made structure was a small bunker that would easily be missed or ignored by scanners.
"You seem upset Chief," A disembodied voice spoke. "What seems to be the problem."
Mendez turned to find a hologram shimmer into view. The AI held its chosen shape as a Bengal Tiger and spoke with a warm female voice.
"Nothing that you could understand," he replied. He knew that only the smart AI's emotion matrix was what caused her concern. She couldn't begin to fathom human emotions.
"Well excuse me for showing a little compassion," she snapped. "We all can't be human."
"Right." The Chief looked back at the screen and sighed. "I'm sorry, Augustus. I'm just a little worried."
"Why worry? It doesn't do anybody any good or solve what your worried about. Its just a waste a time and energy."
"I hope you know that you can be a tad insensitive in your logic..." Mendez said while remembering an older AI from the last project. "...But you tell it like it is. For that, I envy you."
Mendez buckled into the seat of the extra armored Pelican and prepared for a fast plunge. ONI was being so cautious in keeping this planet's use a secret, that any landing dropships had to be launched from the waste storage location along with the other garbage. Then had to free float into the atmosphere as trash before they could activate their engines.
Mendez didn't know anything about the planet, why all of the precautions were being taken, or how the UNSC planed to defend the planet if pirates or... the Covenant, attacked. But he took a lesson from a computer matrix and swallowed his worries.
Jolting out of waste storage, the Chief watched as he began to drift into the atmosphere of this new world. He watched as other hunks of metal began to burn up on their descent in a man made meteor shower right in front of him. Other pieces of trash danced around him in a ballet of near-misses. Soon the Pelican too was engulfed in the atmospheric flames. That was Augustus' cue to ignite the engines.
"Engines are at full power, leveling descent." The AI's voice hummed out of the ship's speakers. "Descent leveled, we are currently at seventy-thousand feet, descending at sixty feet per second. ETA twenty minutes."
"Thank you Augustus. Now I know how the first astronauts felt. Damn, humans did some crazy stuff in the 20th century. Augustus, what Intel do you have on this place?"
"I haven't got much, Chief. This planet was discovered in 2267 and was codenamed: Titan."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, and frankly even that is highly classified. As for your need to be here, I don't have a clue."
"Well lets land this puppy and find out. Ready."
"As I will ever be."
The dropship slowed as it landed in front of a small metal bunker. The size of it was smaller than the Pelican, only big enough to hold two people. About the size of a field latrine. Mendez stepped out of the ship, Augustus' matrix chip in hand, with Major Collins and cautiously walked to the bunker.
The bunker was uniform concrete, with only a mote of green light coming from a slot in one of the walls. The Chief didn't even have to think, he just slid Augustus' chip into the slot. As soon as he did, the entire bunker lifted and exposed a steel elevator underneath it. The doors slid open at lighting fast speed and closed in the same fashion when the two men entered.
"Damn, humans did some crazy stuff in the 20th century. Augustus, what Intel do you have on this place?"
Augustus couldn't understand it. She was uploaded with the latest UNSC code breaking and hacking programs and even some improved upon by her AI "cousin" Cortana that she was given as a sort of gift. Yet, despite her best efforts to break the wall around the file, she couldn't break it.
She made an effort to overload it with pings, hoping the security emplacement would make an effort to track her or that she could over whelm it. 3000... 6000... 10000 . Nothing. Just a dead wall. If only she had the strength... That's it! She kept the ping going in a sub routine while she contacted an old AI friend.
"Cortana, I need some help cracking a ONI security. Could you oblige with extra pings."
No answer. Perhaps she was too busy to— 12000... 15000... 20000. Bingo, a crack in the wall and a chance to copy the file.
"Thanks Cortana."
"Now for me to see what ONI is trying to protect so much. Condor System, Codename: Titan, Discovered: 2267." And blank. No more file. "And Mendez said ONI was getting more paranoid."
"I haven't got much, Chief."
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