Changes: RP:Kingdom of Broken Hearts

Revision as of 16:45, 11 September 2007

This fanfiction article, Kingdom of Broken Hearts, was written by Demakhis and Spartan G-23. Please do not edit this fiction without the writers' permission.

All people enlisting in PROJECT: KOBH must be approved by Demakhis at his talk page or Spartan G-23 at his talk page. You may apply for an invitation there. All uninvited guests to this page that post comments will have their comments deleted. Thank you, and have fun.

We were Lost and now we have been Found

Notices

You may add a Force but they must be UNSC, Covenant Separatists, Covenant Loyalists, Forerunner, or Arctic IV Alliance.
You may not kill any Main Characters of other people in the fanon.
All Nakai forces fall under the control and jursdiction of Spartan G-23. Anyone wishing to use one of them must ask him for permission.
Repairs on a ship must take several hours not several minutes.
Rapheals gaurd are under the control of Demakhis only so ask permission to use them.
You must spell words correctly in order to make it easier for everyone else to read your posts.
All posts must be at least 1 paragraph long.
Demakhis is the primary UNSC Fleet Commander.
All ODST leaders fall under the jurisdiction of Spartan G-23.
Always sign after posting
Do not act out other people's characters unless there is expressed permission from the owner.
If you are posting and you have a post immediately above it simply add on to the existing post
Call elites be their last name example: 'Vordyee pulled out his Carbine
A new Force has been added by Demakhis the Unkown Allegiance section is for people who are allied to no one

Those who Brave the Cold

Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions[CHIEF MODERATOR]
Captain James G-23 ^Talk • Contributions[CHIEF MODERATOR]
Dubtiger
MIL AI 2430
SPARTAN-091 ^HelmetComm^||^Juliet[ASSISTANT MODERATOR]
117649AnnihilativeRepentance[ASSISTANT MODERATOR]
Captain 077, ready for duty^{(Frequencies are clear, go ahead sir)} 04:54
halonerd
Chief frank 001
Spartan 501
MasterGreen999
ChurchReborn
SPARTAN-089
Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me"
Spartan-010:Stryker ^{My Comm} _{My Battles} 23:06, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Introduction

I remember the Artic IV Campaign. The cold, unforgiving wasteland that we battled for. The merciless blizzards that hit us. We fought, and died for that planet. We had originally treated it as a disobedient child, and paid for it in blood.

In deep space there lies a planet. Frozen from years of neglect. There is some life a lone outpost of the UNSC and a small mining town, an oasis in a world of cold. There is more life on its way. Violent life, Savage life, Murdering life. The Planet will become thawed from for the fight and below the crust it will awake and consume. The Planet will be shaken and hurt to the core. More then one life will be lost these days. More then one heart will be broken.

The Arctic IV Campaign I remember that, It was one of the most ill-prepared battles I have ever fought. We weren't ready for that kind of blood-shed. We treated the forces that opposed us like a shark would treat minos, but it was the other way round. We payed for that mistake.... dearly

Beneath the Frozen ground lies a ancient Forerunner installation hold thousands of sentinels waiting in stasis. A Alliance that has being in effect for severel years who will fight to the death for their Planet. A bunch of UNSC fighting for survival. One of these forces must fall or all shall fall Frozen to the secrets the planet holds.

Force Composition

UNSC

Primary Commanders: Captain Ferris, Vice Admiral William Falconi, ~~Second Lieutenant Vince~~

Artic IV UNSC Outpost

~~Second Lieutenant Vince~~- K.I.A
Master Sergeant Riza Holden (part of UNSC Base garrison)
- 50 Marines
- 20 ODST
- 20 Warthogs of both classes

UNSC Battlegroup Kings Hearts

1 Cancer-class Heavy Battleship
- UNSC Bizmark
  - Captain Ferris
  - MIL AI 2430
  - 1000 Marines
  - 800 ODST
  - Fireteam Zulu
  - SPARTAN-064
  - Iota Seven
  - SPARTAN-077
  - 50 MK II Ferris Combat Bikes
  - Thunder Squad

1 Marathon-Class Cruiser
- UNSC Hatter
  - 4500 Marines
  - 1200 ODST
  - Lambda Squad
    - Erebus (AI)
  - 1st Lieutenant Shian Quak

2 Destroyers
- UNSC East Berlin
- UNSC Oslow

4 Frigates
- UNSC Germer
- UNSC Congo
- UNSC Gathon
- UNSC Hazer

UNSC Second Assault Fleet Battlegroup Passchendaele - Vice Admiral William Falconi

1 UNSC Battle Cruiser
- UNSC Passchendaele - Vice Admiral William Falconi
1 Marathon-Class Cruiser
- UNSC Sherman - Captain Jonathan Robichard
  - 501^st ODST Battalion
  - Team Murmillo
  - Cloud Squad
2 Destroyers
- UNSC Ypres
- UNSC Omaha
3 Frigates
- UNSC Kaiser
- UNSC Somme
- UNSC Batoche

Gray Team, Squad 6

1 UNSC Corvette
- UNSC Valiant Triumph Heavily Damaged/Repairs Vital
  - SPARTAN-091
  - SPARTAN-095
  - MIL AI 8011/JL-021 "Juliet"

UNSC 14th Nomad Fleet-Battlegroup Montgomery

25 Ships of various class

1 UNSC Battle Cruiser

UNSC Duality
troops:80,000 Marines

10 Halcyon MKIII Including the

UNSC Star Dust
troops:8,000 Marines

6 Frigate MKII Including the

UNSC Hiroshima
UNSC Human Fist
troops:2,400 Marines

7 Destroyers MKII

12 Broadsword Heavy Fighters (112th Naval Squadron)
troops:3,000 Marines

4th squad, UNSC Quick Response Team QRT

1st Lieutenant CJ Patterson
Sgt. Jimmy Mendez
Sgt. Alan McCully
Cpl. Ricky Garcia
Pfc. Lopez Mencia
Pfc. Thomas Pratt
Pvt. Arnie P. Jones
Pvt. Duncan Booker
Corpsman Bud Winchester
Pilot Janette Kemp

Battlegroup Alamo

UNSC Annihilator - Captain Jim Wilson
- 1000 Longsword Fighters
- Dragon Squadron
- 5000 Marines
- 100 Mongooses
- 50 M850 B Warthogs
- 50 Gauss Warthogs
- 25 Scorpions
- 10 Turtles
- 20 Pelicans
- 15 Albatrosses
- UNSC Thermopylae
  - Team Alpha, Original team
    - Edwin D.
    - Lisa D.
    - Kymberli W.
    - Jerry P.
    - Marshall B.
    - Roy C.
    - Amy B.
    - Clyde (AI)
  - 120 marines
  - 5 Turtles
  - 10 Scorpions
  - 20 M850 B Warthogs
10 Marathon-class Cruisers
- 2000 Marines each
- 25 Warthogs each
- 20 Scorpions each
- 10 Turtles each
- 40 Pelicans each
- 100 Longsword Fighters each
- 100 Shortsword Fighters each

Battlegroup Bird

UNSC Eagle- Gail Garrison, Paul Ustice

- 4000 marines
- 200 Warthogs
- 50 Scorpions
- 20 Pelicans
- 100 Mongooses
- 30 Hornets
Lead Gamma 2
- SPARTAN-G089
- SPARTAN-078 Linnea

UNSC Falcon- Rose Reddicker

- 3950 marines
- 180 Warthogs
- 45 Scorpions
- 20 Pelicans
- 46 Mongooses
Rest of Gamma 2
- SPARTAN-031
- SPARTAN-T023
- SPARTAN-S015
- SPARTAN-G000
- SPARTAN-F012
- SPARTAN-231

UNSC Raptor- Steven Caples

- 4000 marines
- 200 Warthogs
- 50 Scorpions
- 20 Pelicans
- 100 Mongooses
- 30 Hornets

Covenant Separatists

Rapheals Guard

Primary Commander: Rapheal

1 CCS-class Battlecruiser
- Golden Sanction
  - Rapheal/Sakura
  - Sin 'Vordyee
  - Res 'Konoyee
  - Goh 'Ughmaee
  - 5000 Sangheili of all classes
  - Several Humaniod robots
  - 50 Lekeglo pairs
  - 500 Taurus-class Biosuits
1 Destoryers
- Gokuzen
2 Frigates
- Sendo
- Ukesalvia

Artic IV Alliance

Primary Commander: Ark'her Nest Queen, Nakai Supreme Commander, Jumenga Supreme Council Represenitive

Ark'her

1 Ark'her Nest Queen
15000+ Workers
8000 Soliders
4000 Juggernuats
1000 Elite guards

Nakai

10 000 Surface Corps Members
500 Honour Guard Corps Members
100,000 Konako ground forces

Jumenga Armour Column

1000 Spider Mobile Suits
1500 Gelgorg Mobile Suits

Lupin Spezielle Angriff Kraft

Erste Angriff Sätze
- 5 Lupin Commandant
- 9000 Lupin Soldat

Forerunner

Primary Commander: Decrepit Valor

Unending supply of various Sentinel varieties
Constantly learning Sentinel Minds

Covenant Loyalists

Primary Commander:Brute Chieftain Destromath

Fleet of Undying Vengeance

2 Supercruisers
- Predatorial Vigor
  - Destromath
- Malevolent Pride

3 Assault Carriers
- Rejuvinated Blight
- Waning Darkness
- Illuminated Path

5 Destroyers
- Twilight Bliss
- Undying
- Hallowed
- Revival
- Ponderous

Flood

Primary Commander: Dualmind

Near limitless Flood Forms
- Infection Forms
- Combat Forms
- Aerial Forms
- Watcher Forms
- Brain Forms
- Carrier Forms
- Juggernaught Forms

Unknown Allegiance

Kinoshi

Status

Demakhis

Role: Captain Ferris
- Location: Onboard the UNSC Bizmark
- Status:Active

Role:SPARTAN-064
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Iota Seven
- Location:Varies
- Status: Active

Role:SPARTAN-147
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:SPARTAN-114
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:SPARTAN-125
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:SPARTAN-145
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Rapheal/Sakura
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Res 'Konoyee
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Sin 'Vordyee
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Goh 'Ughmaee
- Location: Varies
- Status: Active

Role:First Lieutenant Shian Quak
- Location:Varies
- Status: Active

Role: Blade Yamato
- Location:In F-17 Mustang
- Status: Active

Role: Oreo Yamato
- Location: In F-17 Mustang
- Status: Active

Role: Kinoshi
- Location: On Planets Surface
- Status: Active

Spartan G-23

Role: Nakai Supreme Commander
- Location: Wasteland Isle
- Status: Active
- Other: Leader of all Nakai forces
Role: Captain Jonathan Robichard
- Location: UNSC Sherman
- Status: Active
- Other: N/A
Role: Major Michael Peterson
- Location: Varies
- Status: Active
- Other: N/A
Role: Corporal Michael Harrison
- Location: Varies
- Status: Active
- Other: N/A
Role: Team Murmillo
- Location: Varies
- Status: Active
- Other: N/A

Dubtiger

Role:Lambda Squad
- Location: Broke Back Mountain
- Status:Classified Information
- Other:None
Role:Erebus
- Location: Flood Underground (U.G.) Network
- Status:Classified Information
- Other:Lambda Squad's AI currently under the command of Master Sergeant Riza.

UNSC AI

Role: MIL AI 2430 -- Will
- Location: UNSC Bizmark
- Status: Active
- Other: Tactical Advisor

Spartan-091

Role: SPARTAN-091, Jared
- Location: Planet's surface, with Lambda Squad
- Status: Active
- Other: MIL AI 8011/JL-021 "Juliet" (Jared's AI)

Role: SPARTAN-095, Nicole
- Location: Planet's surface, with Lambda Squad
- Status: Active
- Other: No Artificial Intelligence

117649AnnihilativeRepentance

Role:Decrepit Valor
- Location: Deep beneath the icy surface, within the massive Forerunner machinework
- Status: Active
- Other: Controller of all Forerunner forces in the Sector

Role: Brute Chieftain Destromath
- Location: Onboard the Predatorial Vigor
- Status: Active
- Other: Fleet Master of the Fleet of Undying Vengeance

Role: Dualmind
- Location: The Frozen Blight
- Status: Active
- Other: Command Form of Arctic IV. In control of all Flood.

SPARTAN-077

Role: Riza Holden
- Location: UNSC Military base on Arctic IV
- Status: Active
- Other: Master Sergeant

Role: SPARTAN-077 (Edward)
- Location: UNSC Bizmark
- Status: Active
- Other: Petty Officer First Class, Spartan supersoldier

User:Chief frank 001

Role:Rear Admiral Brendon Cole
- Location: UNSC Duality
- Statue: active

Spartan 501

Role:Jace Williams
- Location:Varies
- Status: active

MasterGreen999

Role:CJ Patterson
- Location: UNSC Resupply Station
- Status: Active

SPARTAN-089

Role:SPARTAN-G089
- Location: UNSC Eagle
- Status: Active

Role:SPARTAN-078 Linnea
- Location: UNSC Eagle
- Status: Active

Role:Admiral Garrison
- Location: UNSC Eagle
- Status: Active

Role:Admiral Ustice
- Location: UNSC Eagle
- Status: Active

Role:SPARTAN-031
- Location: UNSC Falcon
- Status: Active

Role:SPARTAN-T023
- Location: UNSC Falcon
- Status: Active

Role:SPARTAN-S015
- Location: UNSC Falcon
- Status: Active

Role:SPARTAN-G000
- Location: UNSC Falcon
- Status: Active

Role:SPARTAN-F012
- Location: UNSC Falcon
- Status: Active

Role:SPARTAN-231
- Location: UNSC Falcon
- Status: Active

Lordofmonsterisland

Role:Captain Jim Wilson
- Location:UNSC Annihilator
- Status:Active

Role:Roy C.
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active
- Other:He carries Team Alpha's personal AI, Clyde, with him

Role:Edwin D.
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Lisa D.
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Kymberli W.
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Jerry P.
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Marshall B.
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Amy B.
- Location:Varies
- Status:Active

Role:Dragon Leader
- Location:In the cockpit of a Broadsword Fighter
- Status:Active

Role:Dragon-01
- Location:In the cockpit of a Longsword Fighter
- Status:Active

Role:Dragon-02
- Location:In the cockpit of a Longsword Fighter
- Status:Active

Role:Dragon-03
- Location:In the cockpit of a Longsword Fighter
- Status:Active

Role:Dragon-04
- Location:In the cockpit of a Shortsword Fighter
- Status:Active

Role:Dragon-05
- Location:In the cockpit of a Shortsword Fighter
- Status:Active

Role:Dragon-06
- Location:In the cockpit of a Shortsword Fighter
- Status:Active

Stryker

Role:Lieutenant Stryker
- Location:UNSC Anaconda
- Status:Active

Role:Spartan-V004
- Location:UNSC Anaconda
- Status:Active

Role:Spartan-V335
- Location:UNSC Anaconda
- Status:Active

Roleplaying

1

Iota Seven rolled around in her hard cot waiting to fall asleep. It had been 2 weeks since they left port at a little planet which they had recently defended. She enjoyed battle the adreniline pounding through her veins the cries of her enemies as they fell to her power. She did not like the goodbyes at the end of battle though, the fallen comrades the cold of a scorched and bloodied battlefield, the cries of lost and dying soldiers. It hauted her, the fact that she could die one day. She eventually fell asleep and slept like a log as usual, until her roomate a female ODST came in and sat down.

"What are you doing here, I thought you were eating dinner, you left only 20 minutes ago," said Iota Seven still with her eyes closed, Her speaking startled the young ODST. "Iota Seven I left an hour ago you must of been sleeping," She repiled with small voice.
"Well I must of dozed off again, you should sleep more too, well then again you need to be awake while I sleep to make sure I don't miss anything important right?" she said with a slight hint of a yawn.
"Yes I do, I think you should stay awake more," she answered, She then put her hand over her small mouth and coughed into it, she used to not chough that much until the last battle that is now she coughs almost every 3 minutes.
"You should get that checked you didn't have that before" siad Iota Seven as she rolled out of bed and started to put on her clothes.
"Yes i think i will, will you come with me?" she asked getting up and heading over to the door.
"Sure i'll come i was shot in the leg and i've had a slight bit of pain in it," Iota Seven said twiching a bit as she put on her rough tan cargo pants.
They duo walked out the door and headed down the large metal corridor looking around at the passing troops. They saw several SPARTANs on board the ship. 5 to be exact, as they neared the medical hall more and more soldiers walked of with crutchs or in a wheelchair. As they entered Iota Sevens roomate started to cough more intensley then before. She then jerked her hand back to reveal that the hand was covered in crimson blood. She was rushed to a doctor, still coughing up globs blood all over the egg white floor. As she layed down on the bed and started to over the side of the bed. Iota Seven was rushed out to the waiting area. She waited there for a hour until she fell asleep. Several hours passed as she slept. In her sleep she had a dream, a white covered planet, a wasteland island, a fire burning, her brothers body lying on the blood cover rock missing a hand, a foot then his body was replaced with that of a pile of full armour clad pure white people. She then saw in space many suit of gigantic armour fireing at the ship using gigantic laser. The ship wa destoryed and the suits moved on shooting down longswords into firey balls crashing back into ships. A steel door opening endless streams of sentinals killing anything that they saw. Then her own body lying onthe Frozen planet in the wreckage of a Crusier surounded by the dead bodies of marines and ODST all burned and motionless.

"Iota Seven i'm afaird that your roomate has died, there was severe plasma burns on the inside of her body mostly around her lungs," the doctor reported as he woke up Iota Seven. "Thank you for telling me doctor..... so do i hav a new roomate," she asked as she wiped a tear from her eye.
"Yes we have a report, Lets see hummmm yes a SPARTAN, SPARTAN-064," said the doctor wiping his brow with a hankercheif.
"Thank you," said Iota Seven as she got up and walked ou of the Medical hall.

She walked back to her room her head hung low and the marines looking at her. As she arrived at her room she walked in to find a man sitting in her friends cot a bag of clothing in his hand. "And you are SPARTAN-064 I presume," she said to the man sitting on the bed.
"Yes i am so you must be Iota Seven, I met your brother before," said SPARTAN-064 standing up and holding out his hand.
Iota Seven took the hand and shoke it then turned around and layed down on her own cold, stiff cot, " This room feels colder now then it did a couple hours ago......."

Fireteam Zulu sat in one of the lounges of the ship waiting for something to happen. Hayate was making coffee which was a rarity since the war started, it was lucky they had recently saved a planet similar to earth. Hayate poured the coffee into a cup and started to drink the black liquid. She then poured a cup for each of the SPARTANs in turn then handed them out to the almost emotionless girls.

"Thanks" they all said after she gave the plastic cup to the rough hands of the girls. "Your welcome," she said as she sat down and started to consume the liquid again. They sat like that for awhile before they finished the coffee. They headed off their spearite ways two to the firng range and two of to sleep. Several hours passed until a announcement came over the intercomm.

"We will be making a small slipspace jump over to a planet that emitted a S.O.S several hours ago, all crew prepare for a slipspace jump," the voice of Captain Ferris boomed over the intercomm. The ship heaved as they started the slipspace jump little did they know this battle would be harder to escape then going into.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 23:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

2

Corporal Williams looked over the cold, desolate wasteland. A marine patrol had disappeared in the area. It was not called Wasteland Isle for nothing. The area was the most hazardous on the surface of the planet. He would be surprised if he found any of the marines at all. He moved forward when he felt a metallic object beneath him. He dug through the snow and was shocked at what he found. Both marines from the patrol. Dead. Small holes were blasted right through their armour. He looked through his scope just in time to see another creature fire its rifle.

The UNSC Sherman exited slipspace with the battlegroup that it leaded. There were reports that some mysterious enemy attacked a small mining town on the surface of Arctic IV. The marines managed to fight them back but received heavy casualties. Admiral Chow would have his ass if he didn’t deal with this. Not only that but a marine patrol disappeared along with the marine sent to find them. Things were not looking good. “Major Peterson. I don’t give a damn whether your men would prefer being on the UNSC Spitfire than here but I am going to have you make an Orbital Drop near a small mining town on the surface of the planet.” Said Captain Jonathan Robichard. “Yes sir.” Replied the major. All one thousand ODSTs of the 501^st ODST Battalion sped to the surface of the planet in their HEVs unaware of the horrors that lurked beneath its surface.

The HEVs smashed into the surface. "All right people lets move out!" Ordered Major Peterson. A small shard very similar to a needler flew past Corporal Michael Harrison's head, hit his HEV, and exploded. He turned around an saw what looked to be a group of Ultra Grunt wielding M6D pistols and needlers. His squad opened fire with their Battle Rifles easily taking down the group. he heard other squads do the same and several ODSTs had flatlined biosigns. "Well boys looks like we have encountered hostiles." Cpl. Harrison said to his sqaud.

--Staff Sergeant-G023 ^{Comm Channel} _{Mission History} 19:12, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

3

The Bizmark left slipspace folloowed by the battlegroup it lead. They had been through a tough fight, they had lost their Rear Admiral in a explosion that crippled the UNSC Harpcon the former leader of the battlegroup. So Captain Ferris had taken command and now lead the battlegroup with the UNSC Bizmark while the Harpcon was in repair. Captain Ferris looked through his bushy blue hair to see the totally white planet below them. Beside them was the other battlegroup that had already sent some of their troops down.

"Prepare the some of the 432nd ODST Battalion for Orbital drop" said Captain Ferris in his monotone voice. "Yes Sir anything else?" said one of the crewmen as sent the message to the ODST and prepared the HEV pods.
"Yes make sure the bridge is ready to be shielded just incase of space battle and make sure the marines are ready to go at any minute," Ferris said while typing commands into his own keyboard.
The message he sent was a incoded message to the SPARTANs onboard and Iota Seven telling them that they should be ready for anything.

Iota Seven awoke as the communicator on her wrist started to virbrate, SPARTAN-064 started to vibrate also. It was a encoded message tell them to be ready. At this command Iota Seven put on her Iota armour and started to prepare her weaponary. SPARTAN-064 went to the armoury and put on his MJOLNIR armour with the help of some crew there. He then armed him self with what he wanted, something really caught his eye. A sniper sitting in the corner two of them infact. It was the PSG-05 Sniper Rifle he grabed it and a BR55 battle rifle a couple of grenades and then left. As he was walking back he went through the hanger and saw about 100 HEV pods being perpared for planetary drop.

1st Lieutenant Shian Quak looked around, "Dam i hate it here already, why can't i be stationed somewhere warm like Australia II geez." he thought to himself. As he was walking he triped over something small and fleshy, it was one of those new aliens others had incountered. The snow behind him turned into water, a laser had flied over his head. "S@#&! what was that,crap" he thougth as he rolled around. The ground under Shian opened up and he fell thourgh. As he hit the bottom of the hole he hit his head and blacked out.

The Soldier that fired the laser turned on his radio, "Sir we have a outsider in the tunnels," "We will send Honour Gaurd to dispach the intruder, hold tight their until they get there," said the voice on the otherside.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 18:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

4

Decrepit Valor awoke to the sounds of war; much had most likely happened in his slumber, although the Sentinel Minds seemed like nothing important had happened.

Valor was quick to run sweeps of the endless tundra, and found not much; what was it that had awakened him in the first place?

"Has anything of importance transpired in my dormancy?" he asked one of the Minds, but it simply replied no and was off to work once again; mysterious indeed...

"Send out the Sentinels. It is time to reclaim the entirety of the structure..." Decrepit Valor ordered, and the icy land erupted into a hell of exploding ground, and swarms of Sentinels.

At the exact same moment, a creature frozen in time stirred; the ballistic blasts of force caused by the rising Sentinels thawed the ice, and the creature spread its tentacles wide.

"Free?" asked one head, "Freed from the icy chamber meant to be our grave..." the other answered, and both laughed in a weezy voice, unleashing billions upon billions of spores into the cold air.

--117649AnnihilativeRepentance 15:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

5

Marine Sergeant Riza Holden looked across at what little of the twilight sun showed and sighed. 4 years of Arctic IV, thats how long she had been here, there was hardly ever any fighting, which didn't bother Riza, but it was always the same, just walking around in the snow which continued to fall every day. She breathed and watched as the cloud of breath blew off into the distance, then pulled her face mask closer to her face and walked back to Warthog which she had parked a few feet away. The UNSC's numbers had dwindled ever since their first contact with the Arctic IV Alliance, an Alliance of species united in their want to control the planet, just like the Covenant, she told herself. That was another thing, the UNSC hardly even needed this planet, and they needed every man and woman to fight, so why were they here?

--Captain 077, ready for duty^{(Frequencies are clear, go ahead sir)} 22:59, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

6

"Sergeant Riza command is sending down troops to the mining town i need you to go there with 20 men and meet them to make sure they have a casulaties free drop," Vince said over the radio to Riza as she drove her warthog back to base. "Great just came back from the cold now i'm going back to the cold," she thought to herself as she muttered a quick Yes sir into the radio.
She changed course to suit her new mission, a couple of minutes later she met up with the troop that was sent to deafened the city. "Mam the men are ready for some action," yelled one of the marines.
She didn't responed to his remark so he decided to just shut up. When they reached the town they sent the signal to Vince to tell them to begin orbital drop.

"Iota Seven its time to go down," said SPARTAN-064 as he ran over to the hanger. "Sure SPARTAN, lets run" yelled Iota Seven as she got up and grabed her gun.
They ran as the HEV pods were perpared and jumped in one each. Before Iota Seven jumped in she noticed a faint outline in space. She discarded this preception as a small trick of the mind, stuff like this always happened right before a battle. As each of the pods were launched Iota Seven felt more excited then she had in the past few days. The pod shot out of the ship and she felt it rumble as she entered the atmosphere. The stopper shot out and slowed her down before she hit the ground. She opened the pod to find a massive battle going on right ouside her pod. She pulled out her BR55 Battle Rifle and shot a small creature smiliar to a grunt. Then a red beam passed right in front of her face. She jumped down and shot a tottaly white human through the heart and head. then she tossed a grenade into a crowd of the small grunt like creatures. Her adrenaline shot through her veins and she jumped down and hit one more of those full white humans.

As she ran behind a wall a couple of Crystals shot infront of her exploding she came around the wall and shot the confused Grunt like creatures in the back with her pistol. A laser then scorched her arm completely tearing right thourgh her layers of armour and leaveing a bad burn and a slight decreasment of flesh. "Dam that hurt," she thought to her self as she jumped out and shot a couple of rounds towards the rifleman that shot at her.
She hit him a couple of times and then ducked behind cover again.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 02:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

7

"Warning! Hostile life-forms encountered; classification, Jumenga" the Sentinel Mind reported, and Decrepit Valor pondered for a small time. Old age was certainly affecting him; he was afterall, an old model.

"Sentinel Colossi, I would think. Send several; their launchers will supply more than enough reinforcements. Are there other hostiles?" Valor replied.

"Indeed; there are also Reclaimers and multiple Covenant as well" the Sentinel Mind answered. "They may present a greater threat... still. Send more Colossi, with Medics" Valor said.

"Affirmative" the Sentinel Mind replied, and the Communication channel broke. "A wonder such primitive races would survive this long... our creators were the most intelligent... and they were overcome by the Flood..." Decrepit Valor thought in his mind, but then the obvious realization came.

"The Flood!" he suddenly burst out, and he called back his Sentinel Mind.

The spores filled the air, and the infection spread swiftly, constantly consuming more victims. Far away, the Command Form laughed; the Flood infestation was going to return to Arctic IV, and he would orchestrate it himself.

--117649AnnihilativeRepentance 04:16, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

8

With the orbital pods safely secured and the Marines and ODST's preparing to return to base, Riza walked away from the crowd and knelt down in the snow. Maybe she was just being paranoid, but she sensed something was amis on Arctic IV, she looked off into the growing darkness and sighed, its just your paranoia she told herself then got back up and walked back to the Marines and ODST's. "Ready to get out of the cold for a change?" she asked them. "Yes ma'am!" they shouted in unison. Riza smiled, "mount up," she ordered in her voice which she rarely ever yelled in. The Marines and ODST's fell out and got into their assigned vehicles. She flicked her COM on, "Vince, their all safe, no injuries," "good, get them back to base, the mining town has informed me that the attack force was relatively small, the militia beat it back" that was some good news for a change, "Yes sir," she answered. She got into the drivers' seat of one of the Warthogs and keyed the ignition. It was oddly quiet on the journey back, with only the sound of the Warthog blazing a trail through the snow. When they finally approached Base, she was greeted with a sight which she has never seen before. Base was under attack. Columns of smoke rose from what she could only assume was fire, rifle fire resonated from behind the bases walls. The Marines and ODST's were speechless. Riza fumbled for the COM, she clicked it, "Vince, Base is under attack, I don't know who the hell is, but it is," she waited, "roger that, I'll try to get some troops from the flee-" The COM crackled and static took over. "Vince?" No answer. The Marine in the side seat looked at her, "course of action, ma'am?" "We're going in, lives are being taken in there," she answered. She understood at once. She was in charge of these men now.

Riza had seen particularly firce combat before, but what was going on inside Base was totally different from what she had seen. Small creatures that looked like little more then bloated sacs held up my tentacles rampaged through the base. They latched onto people and then after a while the person would be seem to be under their control. It fascinated and both horrified Riza at the same time. The courtyard of Base was in the most chaos, the Marine defenders had drove Warthogs into the courtyard and tried to set up barricades, but the creatures were everywhere and no tactics seemed to be working against them. But as Riza led the Marines and ODST's against them, one thing puzzled her the most, what were they? The UNSC had done little recon of the planet, but they had already documented some 50+ species, interesting for such a cold planet. Putting her wonderings at the back of her mind, Riza turned to the task at hand. Getting to the long-range COM in the Command Center would be their only chance of getting reinforcements down here. She radioed her plan to the other Marines and ODST's, they all approved. "Good," she said, "Stick together."

--Captain 077, ready for duty^{(Frequencies are clear, go ahead sir)} 06:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

9

The ODSTs led by Major Peterson began to move on towards the retreating enemies. Where did they come from? Why did they attack us? These questions would have to be answered before they could gain any information. As his forces moved they saw a new enemy. This one was massive and covered in hair. It had 2 massive arms which it used to swipe ODSTs away. Battle Rifle fire rang out as the rounds impacted the creature's flesh. After a while the creature fell down dead. "Great! More enemies!" He muttered to himself. The ODST advance was brought to a halt in order to tend to the wounded. Marine forces from Battlegroup Sherman began to create a makeshift base. Machine gun nests and artillery was placed all around it. They would be ready for any attack.

Team Murmillo continued the chase. Even though the ODSTs were retreatind did not mean that they would have to. Their Mk. II SPI Armour kept them camoflauged from the hostile, alien species. James-G023 checked his MA5K's ammo count. Full. "Tuan, george, Will! Check your ammo supplies!" He said over the comm. "Full." His squadmates said at the same time. As they followed the retreating forces they went through a cave. Inside or underneath the cave there was a huge city with many new, alien species patrolling its streets. "Everyone! Stay down so that we can gain more info." He said. He checked the vidoe feed and it was working. With any luck this information would be sent to the UNSC Sherman and it could be used to counter this new menance.

--Staff Sergeant-G023 ^{Comm Channel} _{Mission History} 20:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

10

"Rapheal we have scaned the planet for hostiles, we found them. The ship is still in active camoflauge and we have sent scouts down to further see the enemy," said Field Master 'Vordyee to Rapheal. "Good keep the ship hidden, we will wait till the right time to attack, also send a minor to get my armour," said Rapheal still looking at the UNSC ships outside the front of the ship.
"May I ask why are we getting your armour," asked 'Vordyee tentatively.
"A warrior must have armour to go into battle, plus i don't trust everyone on this ship I must retrive the piece myself," said Rapheal as he got up and holded out his arm and pointed to the planet," That is where we will make our triumph, that is where we will prove we are a threat,"

Jumenga suits were being launched from Hangers 1-10. Hundreds of Spider Suits and Hundrededs of Gelgorg suits were launched. They flew to several locations across the planet. The mining town was surrounded be spider suits ready to fire at any moment. In the council room of the Arctic IV Alliance some of the Members were not happy.

"Why have you deployed so little of your troops Nakai, we cannot only send Kanako to fight our battles, i myself have sent some of my available pilots to fight but that will not do it," said the Jumenga Supreme Commander to the council. He then got up and left for a break from the other species. He was tired of dealing with the Nakai thinking since they had the greatest miliatary force they would be the leaders. "Sir Union City is divided the Nakai and the Jumenga are in a dispute over who really is fighting, It has not escalated to violence but there are high tensions," said a Jumenga Civilian.
"Then I must go, tell the Supreme Commander to come as well I cannot settle this myself," yelled the Supreme Council Representative.

Dam creatures Vince thought as he put down his shotgun. The COM station had been attacked while he was talking to Riza, he looked over to his helmet which was broken in half on the floor. He picked it up seeing if the radio was broken, of course it was. He threw the helmet over to the side and looked at his dead staff. I served with these people for a long time now i'm the only one left, he thought. He looked at the COM station most of the equipment ruined., but some of it still useable enough to maybe send a signal to the fleet in space.... He started over to the COM equipment that was workin when a small creature jumped on his back and circled to his chest cavity slowly embedding its self into his chest. He grabed his shotgun from the wall beside him Oh no little green you not getting me he thought putting the shotgun to his chest and shooting the little green sack. it had hit him too putting a hole where his heart used to be. In the seconds before he died he pulled the pin of a grenade compelety incinerating his body but not damaging any of the equipment.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 23:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

11

"Open Fire!" the Chieftain, Destromath, roared, and 5 lances of concentrated energy shot out and destroyed a nearby Human ship. "Continue the advance! Leave nothing alive!" he roared a few seconds afterward, and he retreated to his inner sanctum as the ships in his fleet began decimating enemy forces.

Within his massive chamber, there lay his Gravity Hammer, and a few feet away, suspended in the air by small gravitational devices, lay his ornate green armor, the names of all the Prophets etched in ancient Covenant calligraphy on the armor's surface.

His eyes wandered to a name in particular, Gol Bekt; the name of the Prophet of Vengeance; his most favored master. It was a regret that he had been assimilated by the loathesome Flood. Regret... another Prophet... he was also assimilated from what Destromath had gathered.

"Chieftain!" a voice called out, echoing in the large chamber, "What is it..." Destromath replied, turning around; there was a Brute Major kneeling before him. "More ships have arrived. Should we bring them into our fleet?" the Major asked; the answer could not be more obvious...

Destromath drew out a Brute Shot and decapitated the Major, hanging his corpse on the ceiling, where many others lay; meaningless interruptions were punishable by death. The Chieftain spoke through the ship's COM, and told the crew to bring in the new ships.

"What a wonderful symphony you are conducting..." a head of the Dualmind announced, "Wonderful screams..." the other replied as they watched the endless flow of Infection Forms move forward on the snow.

The moaning corpses of the Combat Forms limped throughout the UNSC base, oblivious to the wounds adorning their bodies. A group of marines panicked and ran into a sealed room. There was a pause, gunfire, then screams, and finally, the doors broke down to reveal a group of new Combat Forms.

In unison, the Dualmind's heads began to sing a long and deathly poem, their voices rasping and croaking the lines, distorting the words to the uttermost extent. As the never-ending verses echoed throughout the tundra, Sentinels rushed towards the Flood, trying to stem the flow of the Dualmind's grand composition.

--117649AnnihilativeRepentance 00:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

12

A tidal wave of sac creatures leaped at Riza and the Marines which she had brought with her. She was the first respond, with a lightning quick movement she had raised her Assault Rifle and fired. Dozens of sac creatures popped and splattered green slime onto the floor of the command center. She sighed and lowered her gun just as something screamed behind her. She spun around. One of the sac creatures had avoided her gunfire and latched onto one of the Marines, it crawled and seemed to absorb itself into his chest. Riza and the Marines backed away. The Marine transformed before ther very eyes, his skin turned a sickly yellow, his head lolled back and forth, and one of his hands has become a claw. The remaining Marines opened fire in unison. Bullets tore through flesh and sickly green slime spattered the walls behind, the creature collapsed onto the floor in a a twisted heap. There was no need for orders, all the Marines simply walked away and kept their eyes on their ammo counters and what was ahead of them. When they finally reached the Command Center, it was blatantly evident that the heaviest fighting had took place here.

--Captain 077, ready for duty^{(Frequencies are clear, go ahead sir)} 20:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

13

Crap, he thought as the ship plummeted towards the icy orb beneath. It just had to happen now, didn't it? The Slipspace coils had burnt out, thankfully, after the battered corvette had emerged from Slipspace. But now, the engines had died as well. Right while they were over this hellhole, too. He glanced at the woman to his right, and patted her shoulder to reassure her. He hadn't seen her in... forever, really. They had been best friends for a time, but assignments had gotten in the way of personal matters. Well, he thought, at least we'll all die together.

"I don't know about that!" the voice in his head shrilled. "Don't be so defeatist. I was able to reroute the controls to the emergency thrusters to the engine panel on the left. Either you put me down, or risk doing it yourself."

He shook his head and smiled, glad that no-one could see. "I'll do it myself. Don't want to risk you here." Cracking his knuckles unprofessionally (something he had learned from Mendez), he reached his armored hands to the panel and toggled the three switches that controlled the powerful chem thrusters. A rumbling like thunder shook the corvette and shrieks of the metal armor tearing away pierced his sensitive ears.

He closed his eyes tight and prayed that what he did might actually save them.

With a heavy whump, the ship tore across the icy surface of the planet, gouging holes in the permafrost as it went. Two kilometers later, it finally slowed to a grinding halt. He got out of his seat, helped her out as well; then he stood aside as she kicked the escape pod hatch open. It was a short drop to the ground, one easily absorbed by their MJOLNIR armor.

He looked around. Nothing. For miles on miles on miles. Just ice and snow and... smoke? He pointed and said, "There. Let's move."

Nicole flashed her acknowledgement light and activated her emergency E-BAND transponder. Hopefully someone would pick them up.

SPARTAN-091, SPARTAN-095, and the artificial intelligence known as Juliet had arrived. And things weren't looking any better than where they'd left from.

SPARTAN-091 ^HelmetComm^||^Juliet 23:42, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

14

'Ughmaee looked down at his armour, he and these pieces of hardened metal and energy have been through hell and back. But now he was not sure if his armour would fit him anymore, the thoughts and questions that were coursing thourgh his body had made his body grow. He was interupted by a new body aura entering his room.

"'I would think you died by now, you and your crazy tatices of running straight into battle without a second thought, also throwing your self in the line of exterme fire to save a small minor," said 'Konoyee as he walked in with his armour already firmly on his body, two plasma rifles and a energy sword straped to his belt and a carbine tied to his back.

"I do that because i'm a loyal soldier and not a coward like you," said 'Ughmaee with a slight smile on his face as he started to put on his armour. He felt a hand then connect with his head and he fell to the ground stunned. A Plasma rifle was then put to his head and words were whispered into his ear, "You are no more powerful then me do not push me."

'Konoyee then put the rifle back in his belt and walked out of the room. 'Ughmaee then got up and put on his armour, his head hurt. Damn that guy has some nerves he thought, he walked out of his room and off to the hanger. The door swished open and 1500 elites and 30 hunter pairs stood there looking up at a stage where 'Vordyee, 'Hertnee another zealot, 'Sedgee zealot and Rapheal stood waiting to address the crowd of warriors infront of them.

"Our finest day, more enemies surrond us but we will prevail, This is our hour, this is where we will fight to the death, This is where they die!!" yelled Rapheal to the crowd apparently he had already given them a rousing speech already. The elites and hunters ran onto the Phantoms and some ran to Biosuits. They launched and some of the biosuits were equiped with the heavy weapons for ship combat. The phantoms soared down to the planet each elite itching for a fight.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 01:01, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

15

Waiting for the Spartans, and Juliet, are four other Spartans. One is armed with a BR55 Rifle, covered in Covenant blood, another armed with assault rifle, a third with a sniper rifle, and the last holding two M7s (SMG) loosely in his armored hands. Both Spartans know who he is from reputation alone. The Spartan with the Magnums gives his greetings.

"Spartan-Group Lambda gives their... Warmest greetings," says the Spartan.

The Spartan is not wrong to hesitate in finishing that sentence. All four members have obvious signs of close-quarter combat with Covenant soldiers. Their armor, especially their boots, have smudges of the Covenant's signature blue blood. Also their weapons, too, have blood stains. The appearance of the squad does not seem very warm at all.

--Dubtiger 14:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

16

Iota Seven dived out of the burning warthog, a large green fuel rod shot flew by her head and hit the warthog killing the marines inside. She pulled out her BR55 and pluged two brusts into the head of a elite. Dam didn't we have a alliance with these guys she thought as she pluged three more rounds into the elite killing it. A metal needle then flew right by her head and a small girl stood infront of her, another needle flew into her left knee. She tried to move her left leg but below her knee would not move, a needle then left the girls hand and went into her right elbow. That arm wouldn't move either she then felt many other needles fly into her body and then she couldn't move.

"What did you do to me!" she yelled as elites grabbed her and moved her to a spectre side seat. "Take her back to a Phantom and shut her up," said the girl in a slightly lower voice then a girl should sound like.

She tried to struggle but to no avail, the elites threw her onto the phantom and she was brought to the Golden Sanction.

SPARTAN-064 woke up What the hell happened last thing i remeber was landing in the HEV pod he thought has he got up. He whiped the snow from his armour, and looked around. Nothing but snow around here great, again perfect war conditions, he smiled he loved the smell of war. He looked around to see his Battle Rifle lying three feet away, he went over to grab it to find a cliff. Also on the cliff was his sniper, he picked that up and looked over the edge of the cliff. My god he thought as he looked over the edge to see the UNSC outpost in flames. It was a short jump from the the cliff to the top tower then he could climb into the tower and find what the base was under attack from. He jumped and landed rolling on impact, then climbed through the window. As he slipped in he saw a combat form straight infront of him, he pulled out he gladius and stabbed right thourgh the chest twisting the handle which made the blade spin killing the infection form instantly.

"Boy this is going to be a long night"

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 20:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

17

"This is Master Sergeant Riza Holden of the UNSC Base on Arctic IV requesting assistance from Battlegroup Kings Hearts, can anyone hear me, over?" The long-range COM crackled and spit more static, then a voice came through, scratchy but goood enough to hear what they were saying "conirmed Sergeant, reinforcements are on their way, if you don't mind my asking Sergeant, exaclty what is attacking the base?" Riza paused for a bit, she looked back at the Human barricade of Marines defending the door. She continued, "an undocumented species has attacked the base, they're small sacs that are held up by a few tentacles, they can latch themselves onto a different creature and after a while the sac-thing takes control of it, sorry sir, thats all we can basically tell you about at the moment.""I see," the voice said, "all our available reinforcements will be sent down, give 'em hell, Marines." The voice ceased and the static took over again. Riza sighed and looked out the window of the command center that showed the courtyard. Complete chaos was a word that best described it now. Several Marines had refused to be "taken over" and had promptly shot themselves. It hadn't mattered though, the sac-things just burrowed into their bodies and gained control. "We can't just sit in here and watch," she said to the Marines, "we have to fight 'em off until the reinforcements arrive." Riza actually saw a smile flicker across their faces, we were wondering when you were gonna give us that order."

SPARTAN-077, Edward, found the planet they were descending to had some strange beauty in it. Strange, as he had read all available databanks on this planet and had found out that almost all the documented species on it were savage and had attacked both the other animals and the Humans on it. But yet, Edward did find the planet peaceful looking, the COM in his helmet spit some static and then came through clearly, "ETA 10 minutes, I recommend you guys get your gear packed up and ready," Edward didn't need too, so he took the time to look at one of the viewports to look at what else the Fleet has sent as reinforcements. It was impressive. 50 other Pelicans with troops attachments jammed full of troops. Edward did math figures in his head. Whatever had attacked the UNSC Base definately wouldn't have a chance against this. But, he reminded himself, I've beeen wrong.

--Captain 077, ready for duty^{(Frequencies are clear, go ahead sir)}^{( Ops completed)} 14:34, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

18

Tuan looked as the phantom flew away. 2 more started to come to the surface. "Great! More hostiles! Better take care of this fast." He muttered to himself. Tuan pulled out a surface-to-air missile and fired it at the first phantom. The dropship flew out of control and crashed into the surface before exploding killing everyone inside. The second phantom dropped several Minor elites and a single major elite. Tuan pulled out his MA5K and fired AP rounds at the elites. Even though his Mk II SPI armour offered slight invisibility the elites knew his location and opened fire with plasma rifle. "James! The cave entrance is hot! Repeat the cave entreance is hot! Find out whatever you needed to know down there then lets get out of here! I don't know how much longer I can hold these guys off." He broadcasted on the Team's comm. "Roger that Tuan! We are getting out of here. Admiral. Mind giving us some help?" Said Will over fleetcomm. The slight shadows of the others in their SPI armour came from the cave. A pelican landed and the team boarded it. "Take us to the UNSC Passchendaele! We have some information that Admiral Falconi might like."

--Staff Sergeant-G023 ^{Comm Channel} _{Mission History} 20:59, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

19

"This is Battlegroup Montgomery we are exiting the slipspace. Request order mission to the admiral Falconi."

The Battlegroup Montgomery was a large battlegroup assigned to the UNSC 14th nomad fleet. "We have 4 full division of marines for you!."

The 80,000 marines of the Montgomery battlegroup are make contact with the groud deploying Scorpion thank, Cougar,hornet and Sparrowhawk, dresiing a perimeter for evacution of prisonner and dead the 4th armored division is now deploying a large front line. User:Chief frank 001

20

"This is 'Vordyee calling Rapheal we have found the objective we are now sending recon lances down into the tunnels," said 'Vordyee into the radio comm. He repeated this message 3 times then gathered his own lance, he looked into the tunnel with the large Forerunner symbols carved right into the stone. The big metal door with large door handle, 'Vordyee put his hand on the metal door and turned the handle, pushed and walked into the dark.

"Keep your head up, be ready for anything," Cautioned 'Vordyee as he drew his carbine and turned on a light. The rest of his lance did the same except some drew plasma rifles. As they continued walking their lights and the lights of other lances pierced the darkness the blue glow of the plasma rifles shadowing the split in the elites face. Then all hell broke loose, red beams shoot everywhere hitting the elites in the back of the group. They fell down dead as a doornail, the elites started firing destorying the sentinels in seconds.

"Casualties report," said 'Vordyee as he reloaded his carbine. "2 elites dead, 3 wounded," said the minor beside him.

"We are going back to the entrance and getting medical care for the wounded, then we will wait for Rapheal to come then we will get farther without triggering the defensive precautions" said 'Vordyee as they retreated back to the entrance.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 21:30, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

21

Sentinels swarmed from every crevice; large clouds of them could be seen in the sky. Almost around the whole planet the Flood Infection had spread, and Decrepit Valor was annoyed. "Initiate Protocol... inform the Monitors; the Installations should be put on standby" Valor muttered.

The Dualmind continued the unending death poem, unthinkingly destroyed millions of Sentinels with its massive tentacles. "Forever... on and on... death is infinite..." the poem dragged on. It could now be heard from all points on the Planet, echoing through the ice.

--117649AnnihilativeRepentance 00:18, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

22

Aww shit...

Flight Officer Third Class Jace Williams looked out the cockpit of his Broadsword Heavy Fighter, and felt his stomach plunge as more Loyalist ships burst from slipspace, and formed up with the main groupen. He looked out his port viewport, and spotted the two other flights of his squadron flying barely sixty meters off his wing. Suddenly, a voice yelled over his comm.

“Contact! Three Tarzan squadrons heading our way!” Came the voice of Juan Diego, the comm, thick with his accent even with the distortion they put on it to fool eavesdroppers. Jace glanced down at his screen, and saw that Juan was indeed right; thirty six Brute Fighters were headed for them.

“All right Demons set the table! Arm ASGM-11 missiles! Load Cannons and power up your Anti-Shield Rays! Set them to maximum spread!” Said their squadron leader, William Stort. Jake Complied, flicked a switch, and keyed in the arm code for the ASGM-11s. He peered up at his readouts, and saw that the enemy fighters were at three thousand klicks and closing.

“Hold firm and fire on my mark!” ordered Stort, but Jace was barely listening. His eyes were glued to his readouts, and as he watched the numbers scroll down, his hands tightened around his pilot yoke. The range dropped to a thousand meters, and he felt the yoke get slippery with sweat. Silently he cursed himself. He was a veteran of dozens of fighter battles, why was this one scaring him so much? He couldn’t figure out why, but he had an odd feeling in his pit of his stomach.

“Steady…steady….Fire!” Yelled Stort and Jace pulled the trigger on his firing stud. Four ASGM-11 missiles streaked out from each fighter in the squad; forty-eight trails of fire. The missiles closed to two hundred meters with the enemy, and Stort called out:

“Anti-Shield Rays away!” Jace slammed down on the ESDWR stud, and watched as a dozen golden beam lanced out to meet the oncoming Tarzans. The ESDWR fired at velocities incredibly high, so it reached the enemy ships in milliseconds. Each shot struck its mark, guided by reverse-engineered Covenant plasma guiding technology. The Tarzans shields flickered and went out, and half a second later the missiles impacted. The missiles shredded the enemy formation. Fireballs, eerily silent in the void of space, expanded and engulfed enemy fighters.

“Break formation and engage!” came Stort’s command, and Jace rolled away from his squad mates. He zeroed in on one of the Tarzans, and pushed the engine to redline to get there. He streaked in, and opened up with his 180mm superheated rotary cannons, and red flashes zoomed towards the Tarzan. They slammed into the Tarzan’s unshielded form. Superheated metal punctured the Tarzan’s armor, and it twisted off course as it oxygen vented into space. Jace looked around the battlefield, and saw his wingmate Jamie Merrill being pursued by a Tarzan. Slamming the stick forward, he shot towards Jamie like a bullet fired from a gun, and unleashed a hail of red hot metal. The shots tore into the heavy rear armor of the Tarzan, and had almost no effect. He continued to fire, but kept a close eye on his readouts, and saw that his 180mms were dangerously close to overheating and exploding.

Cursing, he did not lay off the 180mms, but switched them down to normal bullets instead of superheated ones. He continued to fire, but the weaker bullets did even less than the heated ones had. Cursing, he opened up a tight beam channel to Jamie.

“Jamie, put all your power to rear shields and decelerate into this guy, I can’t get him from back here.” Jamie’s voice came back full static but understandable. “Roger that, diverting power to shields.” Jace was glad that it was Jamie piloting. He was not good at all at making strategies, but he could keep his head on straight in combat and trusted Jace with his life.

God I hope this works...

Jamie cut all power to engines and slammed his reverse thruster to full power. Jace was impressed at how fast he transitioned. The Tarzan slammed into Jamie's ship, and there was a bright gold flash as Jamie's shields went out, and then he was spinning. Jace put on his afterburners, and shot after the careening Tarzans, and fired a single superheated shot straight into the fuel tank. The thing detonated beuatifully, and Jace soared past, it and looped around, then took a moment to glance at his sensors. It was all clear. Smiling, he listened as Major Stort's voice came over the comm.

"Form it up on my wing Demons, reverse wedge formation." Jace nodded inside his cockpit, voiced his compliment, then settled into his place in the formation.

Spartan 501 00:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

23

"Sir Taurus-Class Biosuits are ready to launch, we can intercept the oncoming UNSC ships," a Major Domo said as he pulled out the last fuel line connecting to the biosuits.

"Good launch at my command, get the normal armed ones on the fighters and the heavy suits in the back, make a heavy fire attack on one of the Loyalist Destoryers attack till it's sheilds are down then radio us," said 'Konoyee to the pilots. The Biosuits turned on their engines and 80 of them launched in the first wave then another 80 launched. They stayed around the ship till all were launched and then headed of in the direction of the last known coordinates of the UNSC fighters. The ones with normal weapons sped up, targeting the Broadswords as they came down on them like hawks.

Lines of Pelicns streamed down on the UNSC outpost dropping soldiers, warthogs, ammo and most importantly 4 SPARTANS and 25 MK II Ferris Combat Bike. The SPARTANS dismounted the pelicans and grabed a Combat Bike one for each, they looked at each other a nodded. If you looked hard enough you could almost see the SPARTANs smiling. They reaved up their engines and sped of into the base, the corridors were just large enough to hold one bike at a time. As they progressed farther and farther into the base their encounters with Combat Forms got closer and closer together, but they would always just fire their machine guns and blow the forms apart, there isn't much organic creatures .45 rounds can't blow apart. As they drove along the corridors they heard gunfire coming from a room off to their right. They made a sharp turn and found Sergeant Riza and some marines in a battle with some flood. They turned the corner and fired 8 round burst from the front mounted machine guns ripping apart the surprised flood.

"Good to see we have our reinforcements," said Riza as she shot a dead combat form again to make sure it was dead. "Sorry to disappoint you, but we were sent here before you radioed in that message," answered the apparent leader of the group.
"Well any help is better then none," said Riza as the SPARTANs dismouted.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 12:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

24

Looking around, Edward could clearly see the destruction the recent battle for the UNSC base had caused. Marines were busy dousing fires and elping wounded while others piled the dead into heaps. He turned in time to see a Marine with the Master Sergeant medal stride towards him. He snapped a crisp salute, she returned it. "At ease, soldier," she answered and he lowered his hand, "I guess our call for reinforcements came through?""Yes ma'am, we're what they sent down."She nodded, satisfied, then seemed to remember something, "I'm Riza, by the way, Riza Holden." She stuck out a white gloved hand, he accepted it. "Edward," he said. He looked over at one of the corpse heaps, Riza stepped up next to him "alot of brave men died here today, but I think we actually got something out of this," she said. "Whats that?" Edward asked. "This was one of the first victories in a long string of losses, I think everyone at least has some hope now." Edward heard the crunching of snow under boot and turned, a Marine Corporal ran towards them. "Ma'am!" the corporal shouted and saluted, "at ease, soldier," Riza answered, then she asked "what is it?" The corporal regained his breath then spoke up "these creatures," he kicked a nearby dead one "didn't only attack us, they've gone elsewhere, they've gained control all the local species, and their spreading."

--Captain 077, ready for duty^{(Frequencies are clear, go ahead sir)}^{( Ops completed)} 23:04, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

25

The 112th, now flying in a pyramid formation, sped towards Artic IV, and on his scanners, Jace found one thing between them and it. A shitload of enemies. However, these were like no combatants he had fought before. The were humanoid machines, with a vague similarity to elites, but unhunched. They were approaching the 112th and were several klicks ahead...and energy signatures from their area were getting stronger. So strong in fact, it could only mean one thing.

"Break!" Yelled Major Stort as the enemies open fired, and lances of plasma shot towards the 112ths position.

But they were no longer there. Over 25 Years of fighting in the cockpit had honed their reflexes, and familuarized themselves so much with each of eachothers individual nuances of speech so that they were able to know Major Stort's full command before the word was halfway out of his mouth. They broke formation instantly and in unision, shifting from orderly squadron, to swarm of ships.

Their orientation was such that the enemies were "down", but Jace quickly killed that orientation. During training, they had learned that orientation was but a state of mind, and to constanly change yours around to give you an edge over your opponents. He changed so that the enemies were now "above" him, and attacked with lightning speed. The rest of the squadron were doing the same thing, and flashes of red, white vapor trails, and golden flashes erupted from the ships, and slammed into the enemy group.

The suit-like enemies struck back, and launched a cloud of plasma into the 112th's loose swarm formation. Jace flipped and Juked around wildly, but even dodging 99% of the shots, the shear volume and skill of the gunners paid off, and several shots struck his Broadsword. Cursing, he heard insistent beeping, the the lights in the cockpit change to a red color and began pulsating. His shields had held, but just barely, and they were at two percent. Flipping several switches, he accelerated straight towards one of the suits, which was now barely 500 meters infront of him. He jammed down the firing stud, and sent several bursts of 180mm superheated shots soaring towards the enemy ship. Then seconds before impact, he fired his ESDWR, and with a golden flash, the suitlike ship was gone. He smiled.

The 180mm slugs slashed through the biosuits armor, melted critical components, and fused the pilot to the ship in a sticky gooey mess. The ship finally exploded, sending flaming shrapnel everywhere. Suddenly, a lance of plasma soared past his viewport, and he looked behind him and saw one of the suitlike ships had dropped onto his tail. Cursing wildly, he flipped onto his belly, and reoriented once again. The enemy ship was now above him, and he was going down. He twisted madly, jerked, faked, and swerved, but the determined ship stayed with him. Another shot flashed past, and he realized time was running out.

He slammed his foot down on the thruster peddle, flicked a switch, and sent his engines into redline. He gained 500 meters, then the ship started to gain again, so, as warning indicators flashed across his screen telling him of an iminenent engine meltdown, he twisted, rolled, and spiraled so that he now faced his pursuer. Unconsiouslly, he once again adjusted his orientation, so that he was now on a level plain with the enemy fighter. As they both charged, firing their cannons, he remembered an old fact. 50% of Stafigther Casualties occur on head on battles. Pushing the thought from his mind, he continued to fire, twisted, jerking and juking all the way. Superheated slugs slammed into the alien ship, causing semi-transparent ripples on the armor, but the lunatic just kept coming.

Funny coming from me, I don't even have shields right now.

Seconds from impact, he continued to fire, and wondered why the ship hadn't broken off yet. Then he realized, this guy was alot more expendable than he was. However, even expendable soldiers valued their own lives. Only those with crazy senses of honor were this suicidal--suddenly it all clicked. It was an elite piloting, not a brute, and must be some kind of power suit--no a bio suit. Cursing, he tried to break off but it was to late. Suddenly, a golden light flashed from the corner of his eye, blinding him, then suddenly, heat surrounded him, and then...it was over.

He shot out of the cloud of heat that the bio suit had left behind when it detonated and heard cursing in his ear.

"Jace you lously bastard, you almost got yourself killed." said Lisa Mill over the comm.

He smiled, then answered: "Thanks for the save, now please stop screaming in my ear."

She didn't stop, in fact her cursing intensified, until Major Stort put an end to it. Pipe down, you can settle this after the mission is done with. I just got a transmission from a corporal down on the ground. They said that a huge army is on its way to their position. We're going to thin it out a little bit."

Jace silently thanked the Major for saving his ass from Lisa, then signaled he had received and understood the order. Then, the bad feeling finally gone, he follow the major down into the atmosphere, leaving the bio suits far behind.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

26

Night had fallen by the time Lambda and G/06 Squads stumbled into the firefight along the UNSC firebase's perimeter. It had been a long hike from the downed Valiant Triumph to the smoky battlefield, but the SPARTANs still performed at peak condition. The Covenant attackers truly did not stand a chance in hell, as the supersoldiers ripped them apart with sniper fire, shredder rounds, and fragmentation grenades. Jared finished bashing in the skull of a Grunt and trudged through the blasted outer perimeter. He saw the Flood corpses and the piles of dead Marines and swore quietly. This would be another long fight in the string of long fights that made up his CSV. He hated Flood with a vengeance. Moving onwards, his weary eyes fell on Master Sergeant Holden. He flipped on his outer speakers. "Master Sergeant. What's your situation here? I've got five SPARTANs here that are waiting to help, and since I don't particularly want to take charge here, I'll just follow your suggestions."

SPARTAN-091 ^HelmetComm^||^Juliet 17:55, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

27

"Leave the humans, we must consentrat on the Brutes," yelled 'Konoyee over the radio as the heavy units started to take fire from the Brute Tarzans. Almost instantly the other bio-suits turned and started to fire on the Tarzans knocking serveral out of commision. The more bulky and slow moving bio-suits then opened fire on one of the Brute Destoryers as the more agile suits kept the Tarzans occupied. Streaks of brilliant, white-hot plasma pounded the side of the Destoryer, the sheilds started to flicker but did not die. Then another brust of plasma exited the nozzle of the heavy guns hitting the shield and further lowering the shields. They suits fired again this time nocking the shields completly out.

"Sir the shields are out," said one of the Heavy Bio-suits through his comm.

"Good we will now fire Plasma Torpedoes so get out of the way," 'Kenoyee said through the comm and turned around signaling to the crewmen to start loading the torpedoes. This was going to punch a hole right through those head strong Brutes.

"SPARTANs I have a mission for you," said the small holo image of Captain Ferris. Captain Ferris was talking to Fireteam Zulu on the holo emmiter which was standered issue for any SPARTAN in his fleet. The strange little device had been found by Captain Ferris after a large battle with the Covenant. He had given it to his father who ran Ferris Manufacturers, they had copied the technology almost perfectly now thsi was the way he commincated with his most covert soldiers.

"I need you to find Iota Seven she hasn't reported back since she left the city, if the worst has happened as i fear then bring back the body if you can, that is all," and with that the image of Captain Ferris dissappeared. The SPARTANs got on their bike and drove as fast as they could right off the hill the base was built on straight down to the city, they would start the search there.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 21:01, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

28

As the 112th approached the planet, Jace's scanners began to pick up bio signs towards the equator of the planet. He also picked up CNI Transponders from troops down on the surface, and noted the positions of highest density. Jace kept in formation, which was a loose spread formation, with two rows of six, and watched as the bio signs grew stronger and stronger. Finally, they peaked so high that Jace literally could not detect anything else. They descended through the atmosphere, and once they reached the Troposphere, they found a very low fog front had descended to only two thousand meters above the ground, but completly eclipesd a nearly 30 mile area. They kept their course, and entered the thick fog. Switching off the bio sensors, as they were now overloaded, Jace switched to CNI Guidance, and kept a careful eye on the position of his wingmates. Finally, with a poof of the fog, they cleared it, and were in open sky. Then he saw them. There were hundreds of them, thousands, millions, pherhaps billions, a huge mass of sickly green forms, mutilated behond all belief. They swirled below him, their numbers dazzling and horrorifing. They moved slowly, and stretched on for over a thousand miles, marching towards the highest densities of CNI signals.

"Oh my god..." sputtered Daniel Thorp.

"The flood." said Jace.

"They must have ravaged the local animals...they must have consumed every biomass on the continent...and they probaly had a feeding ground here..." said Juliett Wagner.

They technically weren't supposed to know about the flood, but the squadron had contacts in admirality that let them know about classified things. They knew about dozens of things: The Spartan IVs, and their untimely demise, the Spartan II Class IVs, the Spartan IIIs, the forerunners, and many more. Top that off with several different ops where the flood got involved, they would have to be stupid not to recognize them imediatly. Jace sat still, unsure what to do next. But Major Stort did.

"One flight, on me, take the farthest south triquant, two flight take the fartheset east triquant, three flight, take the rest, use the Plasma Saturation Bombs, and lets wipe these bloaks out!"

The squadron split, and began dropping experimental plasma saturation bombs. These weapons completely ininerated everything within a mile and a half radius, and each of them carried 32 in their bomb bays. They were the most powerful non-nuclear bombing weapon the UNSC had, but they didn't have enough of them to get them into regular serivce. Fire rained from the heavens as the 112th dropped their payloads, and below, it showed. The bombs detonated, kiling thousands of flood, literally incinerating them in milliseconds. Mushroom clouds of plasma ballooned upwards, and superheated plasma melted the ice below, leaving craters miles deep in the ice. Each bomb killed millions, if not more, flood on impact, but the sheer numbers astounded Jace. How had they gotten so much bio-mass so quickly? He concluded that there must have been a huge population of underground animals.

It took twenty five minutes for them to finish bombing and regroup, and even after devasating around 576 miles of ground, there were still thousands of flood. This was way out of hand, they'd either have to meet the flood head on, or nuke the entire place from orbit. They continued to fly over the flood cloud, and took hundreds of sensor readings, feeding all the data back up to the fleet in orbit.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

29

"So, Janette, what's the situation?"

As the UNSC's Quick Response Team's 4th squad slowly descended towards the surface in their Pelican, CJ began to wonder why in particular they were being sent.

The UNSC had been throwing everything they had into battle, including the QRTs. They were the elites. The best soldiers in the Corps, and your best choice for an op short of a team of SPARTANs. But, the Spartans were already here. Why did they need his team?

He looked to his left and right. These nine men, and woman, of his had been through a lot. Something, however, worried him. Something seemed desperate about the message sent by the commander of the fleet. He wondered what the problem was.

"Oh."

He looked out the viewport of the Pelican to see a wasteland covered in snow and blood. However, that and the bodies didn't catch his eye; it was the massive Covenant army. He saw aliens of every shape and size marching towards 4th squad's destination: The UNSC Resupply station.

"Janette, you might want to step on it."

...

About a half hour later the team landed, with the Covenant mere minutes away.

"Ok, Janette, we're good to go. I suggest you get out here."

"Aye, sir!"

The Pelican slowly lifted off and turned, ready to leave...

It didn't. Without warning, Seraph and Banshee fighters from every direction appeared, and began launching plasma torpedoes at Janette, unable to fire back. In less than a second, her Pelican exploded in a ball of fire.

"Janette? Janette! Soldier, respond! I gave you an order!"

But he knew it was hopeless. She wasn't going to answer. She was gone. He turned to face his team.

"Soldiers, what say we get a little payback?" He said as he hefted his MA5C Assault Rifle.

"Ooh-rah, sir!" The entire team replied simultaneously.

"Well, then, lock and load. We've got a job to do, soldiers, and those Covenant won't just blow themselves up, now will they?"

MasterGreen999

30

"Itis good to see you here Rapheal," said 'Vordyee as he stepped back from the etrance to the cave. They had made a base camp around the entrance, and three hundred elites stood gaurd in and around the camp most majors.

"Where is 'Ughmaee, he will be part of my lance also call up 30 majors to come in with us," said Rapheal as he pulled out his jin. The 30 majors gathered, 'Ughmaee came with red blood splashed over his armour and already supporting some new wounds.

"We will go in and always stay behind me when we reach the Vault set the explosives to max damage then if that does not break it open work away at it with you energy sword, is everyoen clear," yelled Rapheal as he put his hand on the door. A general roar told him they understood so he push. The door opened to reveal darkness yet again, put this time atleast 40 sentinels came out fireing. Rapheal jumped up and cleaved 2 of the straight thourgh be slahing the first one with her jin the useing the momentum to spin around and cleave the next one. 'Vordyee drew his enery sword and chucked it as hard a he could at a sentinel it hit it deactiving the sentinel instanly then jumoed up grabed the sword and pulled out his carbine and emptied a clip into the ones around them. 'Ughmaee pulled out two carbines and began to shoot both of them, he down maybe 4 in 2 clips. The rest were finished off be the 30 majors around them now 29. Dam a casualtie already and were not even inside thought 'Vordyee as the went inside to find the object the came here to look for. This Planet will hold many surprises yet to be discovered thought Rapheal as he walked down the metal catwalk looking down into a tunnel that held thousands and thousands of catwalks, the tunnel might go straight down to the core.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 13:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

31

The odd collection of Spartans, Marines, and ODST's in what remained of the Command Center briefing room was the perhaps the strangest Riza had seen. Amazingly, everyone seemed to be getting along well, the Spartans and ODST's and the ODST's and Marines. Good, they'd all need cooperation if they were gonna win this war against these creatures which some of the Spartans said were called "Flood."The name certainly fit their tactic all right. Finally she laid down the map she had been carrying. "Gentlemen, this meeting has been called to determine a strategy to defeat these "Flood", if anyone can find one, the time is now." No one spoke, She went on "does anyone here actually know where they came from?" One of the Marine Sergeants spoke up "a couple bomber and fighter squadrons were kind enough to do recon for us, they reported a large....hole had opened up, sending Flood out in intelligible numbers." Riza considered this information, one of these Spartans said, "ma'am, perhaps a strike against the hole would be the right tactic, staying on defense will just give them time to muster more forces, but its your call." Another soldier, an ODST, said "ma'am, we've also had reports of thousands, perhaps millions of small and large flying robots in the immediate vicinity," "are they hostile in any way?" Riza asked him. "No ma'am, at least not to us, but I believe recon said they were fighting the Flood." Riza didn't know what the robots were or who had made them, but she was definately thankful for the help they were giving them. She decided for a few minutes on her course of action, then finally said "very well, were assaulting the Flood hole, get all the vehicles and soldiers we can, if the armory has an FURY Tac nukes, bring those too, we're leaving in half an hour, fall out!""Yes ma'am!" they all shouted. Riza rolled up the map and tucked it under her arm and strode out of the briefing room. "Nice speech," said a voice behind her, she looked around, Edward stood there, arms crossed, helmet off. Riza nodded, "when your the commander of a bunch of Marines, speech-making is something you gotta know.""I can see." Edward answered.

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 14:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

32

QRT 4th squad had hastily set up a defensive perimiter around the base with the 2 dozen or so Marines stationed at the base.

The Covenant were approaching from the east, so a barricade was made of several dozen Warthogs, and every non-flammable material they could use to keep the Covenant out.

Of course, this was a temporary defense. It was only a matter of minutes at best before the Covenant broke through. But when they did, Duncan and McCully would use two MGs to mow down the first hundred or so through the door. Once they ran out of ammo, the Marines and the rest of the QRT would charge and face the Covenant close up. Meanwhile, CJ and Ricky, the only two efficient snipers on the team, would keep the rest of the team's backs covered, and pick off any high-ranking Covenant they could spot in the group.

...

10 minutes passed, and the barricade began to blow red. They'd be through any second. CJ just hoped his team was ready for the thousands of Brutes, Hunters, and who-knows-what else coming through that barricade.

The metal erupted in flame as an incendiary grenade burst through, and countless Grunts came streaming in. Duncan and McCully opened fire, cutting down hundreds, maybe thousands of them. As the last Grunt fell, the two Marines ran out of ammo. The Covenant knew this, and the Brutes began trickling in along with even more Grunts.

The entire group charged, tearing the first few ranks to shreds, and wounding those as far back as 40 feet past the barricade. It was an unending hail of bullets, and even the Brutes could only take so much. Then, Hunters came. They soaked up the bullets like sponges, without so much as flinching. They just kept coming, until they got so close nothing could dodge them.

Over 20 Fuel Rod Beams fired at once, killing 15 Marines, and Lopez, on the spot. CJ took aim and began firing, and along with Ricky, downed the Hunters in under a minute.

However, the Marines had taken a brutal blow from the Hunters, and the Covenant attacked with renewed vigor. The Marines fought valiantly, but were slowly pushed back. Soon enough, they found themselves trapped in the station's HQ, desperately holding off the Covenant army.

They had killed most likely thousands, and there were still thousands left.

CJ made a quick head count: 7 Marines, and his team, Minus Lopez and McCully.

Damn. I've gotta think of a way to get out of here. There's no way we can win this.

As he was still pondering, the Covenant broke down the door to the Station, and came pouring in...

-MasterGreen999

33

"112th, break off and return to base!"

Major Stort's command came through slightly staticky over the comm, and Jace pulled up away from the flood horde and turned off his scanners. Settling into parade formation, Jace followed Major Stort as they headed back to base. Jace's Broadsword buffered and swayed in the harsh climate, despite it's powerful engine's and stabilizers, and Jace hoped with all his heart he would not have to dogfight in this snowstorm. Sighing, he clicked on his thermal scannners, and watched as the red blob that was command began to get ever closer. Several minutes later, he began to see the base's outline dimly through the heavy snowfall. The outline steadily became more visible, and then Jace took in his fighter. Swooping low over the base, the 112th soared in a lazy circle, signaling the base for permission to land.

"112th, you are clear to land." said a tired broadcaster on the other side, and Jace settled his fighter onto the landing pads, which were really not much more than elevated strips of metal. The pad was covered with ice, and as Jace settled down, his powerful stabilizer thrusters melted it to sludge. Flicking a switch to put the landing gear heaters on maximum thaw, so that the ice wouldn't reform, he made his way to the cramped back of the ship. Passing the weapons locker, he selected and MA5K Assault Rifle, his favorite weapon, and slung it over his shoulder. His had been modified for this mission with a snow white paint job, as had his AV suit and the rest of the 112th's AV suits. He reached the back, and pressed down the opening stud.

Cold frigid air flooded the Broadsword as the hatch opened and the ramp descended, and Jace shivered, and turned his Pilot AV suit up to maximum heating. Still cold, he descended the ramp and looked around. The 12 Broadswords of the 112th rested in a circle on elevated pads like Jace's. It was snowing as far as the eye could see, and the snow reached his knees. Thankful for the spacetight slightsuit, Jace cruched his way to the middle, where the others were gathering.

"...and the seal said, you sure all snowy!" said Matt Jacobs and Jack Moran simultaneously, and all the chatter stopped at the horrible joke. Sam Herrin gave a tiny chuckle, and the chatter continued. Jace looked around, and noted what everyone was doing. Lisa Mill, Juliett Wagner, Griff Dedman, and Daniel Thorp were gathered around a table playing cards, Jamie Merril and Jenson Cramer were observing and placing bets, Matt Jacobs and Jack Moran were joking amongst themsevles, and Major Stort and Juan Diego were looking over a holographic repersenatation of the flood horde and what appeared to be a giant hole. Walking over to join them, he listend to Major Stort speak.

"...where the flood appear to be coming from, and the source of our big herd of enemies. The ones we took down were feasting on an annual migration of animals to the equator, but most of them came from underground, where the vast majority of the animals live. An assault is going to be spearheaded in about fifteen minutes. I've had technicians replace our ordance with high yeild Moray Atmospheric Bombs, which cover about 200 square meters. We'll be providing air support and...oh, hello Jace."

Jace walked up and looked over the holo more carefully, and Major Stort pressed a button on it. A simulated assault appeared, with the UNSC forces attacking the hole, and the 112th doing there best as air cover. Jace watched for several more seconds, then turned to Major Stort.

"What's our role sir?"

Major Stort grunted low in his throat, then spoke. "We'll be providing air cover and nuking the site if we have to. We all have a Shiva onboard, as you know, but we need authroization to use it. The target of the assault, as you may have gathered, is this hole."

Major Stort pointed to the simulation, and Jace nodded.

"I have sir." he responded.

"Good," said Major Stort. "Go and inform your flight about what's happening, Juan, you do the same. Get into your fighters and do some flight simulations of the battle, you'll need them."

With that, the Major turned and began typing on a small datapad he had with him, and Jace walked off and informed his flight of what he had learned.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

34

SPARTAN-064 jumped down onto his warthog, he had all the essentials for this mission shotgun, sniper rifle, assualt rifle, smgs, rocket launcher, battle rifle and his sword. Most of these weapons were stored in his bike in the weapon slots with a hell lot of grenades, if the time came when he would need to destory the bike it could go out with a bang, he put one more thing in 15 pounds of C12. Dam this was going to be one hard battle. He was to do recon that was his job, he drove off leaving the rest of the attacking force behind. He drove fast as he could, the Emergence Hole was only 80 miles away. As he sped along the ground under him began to shake, oh crap why didn't i just take the squad of marines with me, he thought to himself as a 5 meters wide, 10 meter long gaint flood worm blew itself out of the ground. He pulled out a magnum and shot were he thought the infection form would be. AS he shot pieces of green goo came out of the place he shot and a dead infection form fell out but the beast did not stop instead it reared up and tried to crush SPARTAN-064, the bike and the 15 pounds of C12 inside the bike. He just swerved out of the way before the beast fell. as he drove past this huge flood creature, he saw we killing only one was not enough. All over its body were little holes where infection forms had buried themselves, he pulled out a smg from one of the weapon slots on his bike and began to fill the creature with lead. This isn't helping I think i might need to pour boxes of bullets into this thing before it dies, he thought as he emptied his first clip into the thing. his second didn't do anything to slow it down ethier he just kept circling it puouring more and more lead it the colossal thing. After fireing 5 clips of smg ammo into the thing, he decided to switch tatics. He put the smg away and drove off away from the flood worm. He parked the bike and straped a rocket launcher to his back and took a assualt rifle, the procced to take as much ammo as possible. By this time the worm had figured ot what had happened, as he raced towards his soon would-be comrade lots of FMJ rounds pierced its thick layer of outer skin and hit the little flood inside him. He was not hurt by this but insted enraged and moved even faster towards the human. SPARTAN-064 pulled out his rocket launcher and took aim, firing it and jumping to the side at the same time. The worm sped full speed into the rocket, which proceed to zoom down it's throat, hitting the stomach and detonating. Part of the worms body exploded and the infection forms were at a minimal. SPARTAN-064 finally fired his assualt rifle killing the rest of the infecion forms, he walked back to the bike and put his weapons away. Lets just hope i don't run into another one of those he thought as he drove on to his objective.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 03:21, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

35

The sheer metal tide of UNSC vehicles pressed forward through the snow, all of them intent on getting to the obejctive, The Hole. Progress was slow, and looking around, Riza realized just how few troops they had. With luck, their firepower would be enough to halt the Flood. At least she hoped so. Shaking a small buildup of snow off her shoulder, she opened the Warthogs glove compartment and pulled the map of the region out, along with a pen. The situation was getting as stable as she could make it, A Spartan had gone on recon, A ship squadron called the 112th would provide support and might nuke the Hole if the Ground forces couldn't close it. She made a mental note to thank the 112ths squadron leader. She started to mark a couple places on the map, specifically the Hole and their current position. They were surprisingly closer than she had thought. So their progress hadn't been so slow. She patted the MA5B beside her for reassurance, the trek continued for another hour or so, then a small voice beside her "Master Sergeant?" She looked over, the driver had stopped the Warthog and pointed to the rest of the strike force, everyone had stopped and formed a perimeter around the Hole. She disembarked and called all the other high-rankers over. "We'll set up our perimeter here," she waited for the soldiers to nod, then continued "Set up all our artillery, machine gun emplacements, everything, along here," she pointed with a white gloved finger, the others nodded, "now lets move out," she said calmly, and nodded, "yes, Master Sergeant," the Marines and answered and ran off to give her orders. She sighed and looked at the Hole, a sickly green light emanated from it. She looked up to see a number of Broadswords swoop low over the ground. They had all the forces they could get, now it was time to win this war.

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 14:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

36

Jace let out a small whoop as he brought his flight down low over the convoy, so close that on his underbelly camera, which Jace could view directly in his mind like a kind of third eye thanks to an advanced neural interface, he could see several drivers yell out or point at the matte black broadswords.

"Three Flight tighten it up!" yelled Jace, and thw formation became closer and closer until their wings were nearly touching.

Swooping down over the white snow, Jace saw his tacmap refresh, showing where the UNSC perimeter would be. Looping back up into the sky, Jace hovered for a moment and watched the convoy continue to chug forward. He smiled, and looked out at the plain of snow, which was finally visible now that it had stopped actively snowing. Jace wondered why, but he guessed it had something to do with the flood. Sighing, Jace clicked his comm once again, and resumed his patrol.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

37

The ear-shattering roar of the artillery barrage on the hole continued for roughly 15 minutes until Riza had COMmed them and ordered a halt. She brought her binoculars to her eyes and scanned the hole, the sickly green light continued to emanate, their main tactic, clog the hole, didn't seem to be working well. She lowered her binoculars and pointed forward, the artillery began to fire again, after 10 more minutes there was a slight cascade of rock, but the sound of it was soon lost as it fell down. She turned to see a Marine standing there, saluting, "at ease," she said, then she asked "how much did recon get outta this area?" Apparently, that was what the Marine had come to report, "Master Sergeant, when Spartan-064 got here, he reported that the hole looked....at least half mile long," "I'll be goddamned..." she whispered to herself, she looked at the Marine, "would that depth get us near the core?" the Marine nodded, she sighed and looked at the hole, a slight movement caught her eyes...."Red Alert!" she shouted, all the UNSC forces jumped at the sudden break of silence and scrambled to their places, tanks and turrets were manned, artillery batteries were given new shells, and rifles were leveled at the Hole, Riza looked up to see the Broadswords swerve to look down at the Hole. The small movement grew into a figure, and gradually the figure grew into... "Hundreds," Riza mumbled to herself. This was going to be a long night...

Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 18:12, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

38

"Two Flight, break it down and strafe!" Yelled Jace as hundreds of the flood came pouring out, and their ear piercing shrieks filled the night, hearable even through the Broadswords armor.

Jace rolled downward, firing his 180mms at the columns of flood streaming up, slicing and boiling into their pulpy green flesh. The stream of superheated gunfire continued, and Jace's swept low over the snow, where the flood were charging with horrifying speed at the marine line. His cannons continued to fire, spilling hundreds of shots out per second, and as he strafed barely twenty feet above the flood, dozens-no hundreds exploded into boiling pieces. Jace banked and climbed over the marine line, then swept around and surveyed the battlefield. The flood were five hundred meters from the marine line, and had already covered twice that distance. The marines fire shot out, and hundreds fell under MG fire and artillery. But the supply seemed endless, and more continued to charge out of the hole, as if sensing how close food was.

"Two flight, use ASGM-11s, blow holes in those zombie bastards!" bellowed Jace, and the three others of the flight swooped low behind him, and each of them fired off ASGMs.

Mushroom clouds of superheated water and mutilated flesh shot upwards as the missiles impacting, gouging huge holes in the swarms of flood. Swooping down and firing a burst with his 180mms, Jace pitched onto his side and blasted upwards. Rolling in the sky, he executed a lazy roll back towards the battle. Jace watched as the flood charged on, seemingly oblivious to the missiles raining from the sky and the wall of lead that the marines were laying down. Just single minded hunger for flesh. The others of the 112th swooped and rolled, pitched and climbed, strafed and bombed, killing hundreds and the marines kept up their walls of lead; huge shells blew holes into the oncoming hordes, and gunners cut flood bodies to mutilated ribbons.

Jace glanced downward, and saw dozens of flood make it within fifty meters of the marines. Looking again into the swirling mass of sickly green flesh, he wondered how long they could keep their defense up. Not much longer by his calculations. Jace looked down at his bio scanners and swore colorfully. There was enough bio mass down that hole to keep this up for days, long after the UNSC expended all the ammunition they had. Closing his eyes, he accelerated skyward after another strafing run, and clicked his comm.

"This is Flight Officer Third Class Jace Williams to ground forces, come in, repeat, this is Demon Five in command of Flight Two, I'm reading huge bio signs inside that hole, enough to keep this up for days. I'm recommending aggressive action; repeat, I recommend a direct attack on the hole to plant a Shiva nuke and seal it. Be advised, I am carrying a Shiva on my ship, and are trained on how to convert it to a tactical device that can be carried by ground forces."

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

39

Jared let the clip fall from his MA5C's chamber, then slammed a fresh one home. He hated the Flood with a vengeance, and wondered why in the whole wide universe they had to be everywhere. The infection forms had overwhelmed the advance UNSC force, and Master Segeant Holden had asked his squad to punch up the right flank.

So many. All over. They just kept pouring out, bouncing, pirouetting, leaping to attack. Nicole let a grenade fall in the middle of a group of about one hundred and, with a black puff of smoke, the obscene balls of flesh vanished, only to be replaced by more.

"This isn't working," she grunted, blasting another cluster of charging infections. "They're not stopping. And they don't ever seem to run out!"

Jared, hand pressed to the side of his helmet, replied to the all-frequency broadcast that Demon Five had made.

"Demon Five, Demon Five, this is SPARTAN-091. My team can rendezvous with you at any location to pick up your converted Shiva. Recommend that you land in grid Charlie 4-9, northwest of the Hole for easiest access. My team will carry the nuke in. Confirm, over."

Flipping the channel, he radioed in to MSGT. Holden.

"Master Sergeant, recommend that you withdraw all troops from the Hole. This situation just got a lot more interesting."

SPARTAN-091 ^HelmetComm^||^Juliet 01:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

40

A flood combat form leaped up, catching Riza off guard, she leveled her MA5B and fired a 30 round burst into it, it fell limp and fell to the ground. She clicked her COM, "Roger that, Demon Five, I'm authorizing the usage of the nuke, drop it at at the easiest access point, have a team bring it in and drop it down into the Hole, with luck, the Hole will cave in and the bastards will be stuck under it." She listened as Demon Five gave an affirmative, another frequency came in, it was coming from a "SPARTAN-091", she listened. "Master Sergeant, recommend that you withdraw all troops from the Hole." "Affirmative 091, are you gonna bring that nuke in?" "Affirmative," the Spartan answered, Riza detected determination and anticipation in his voice. She clicked her COM again, establishing a frequency for all the UNSC in the area. "We are abandoning our assault on the Flood Hole, all forces withdraw, a tactical nuke is being deployed, all forces withdraw!" The Marines all acknowledged her message and fired a final salvo of their weapons, tearing hundreds of Flood to shreds. She raised a COM frequency with Spartan-091, "looks like this is gonna depend on you."

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 03:51, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

41

"What are these things!" Yelled the Nakai Sergeant as the nakai unit fought off the flood. A wave of concentrated purple lasers flew through air cutting down a wave of combat and infection forms. "There is no falling back! These creatures choose to battle the Alliance and they will be slain." Yelled the nakai captain The constant stream of lasers kept the flod at bay. Even though they were outnumbered they would fight to the end.

Vice Admiral Falconi look at the covenant ships from the bridge of the UNSC Passchendaele. The massive UNSC Battle Cruiser opened fire with its MAC guns. It was one of the most powerful ship class ever made. It was probably even more poerful than a Super carrier. It had much more MAC guns though. "Sir! Team Murmillo is returning from the surface of the planet. They have some news that they say you might want to hear." Said the Ensign on the comm stations. "Okay bring them in." Replied the Admiral.

--Master Sergeant-G023 ^{Comm Channel} _{Mission History}^{Ghost lead} 15:23, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

42

"Hold this position we need to protect Union City" said Pilot Leader Vermon to his group of 10 Jumenga pilots. They were all equiped with spider suits and were holding the flood as best the could. They fired another salvo of explosives at the combat and infection forms coming at them.

"Sir we need reinforcement asap," yelled one of the pilots through the comm.

"I now we sent out a message for Ark'her they seem to not be effected by these things," Pilot Leader Vermon to the rest of his squad as the y fired the laser protruding out of the bottom of the suit. They fired another explosive salvo, but the flood where still gaining. Then something horrible happened, a flood infection form jumped onto the suit and went into one of the exhaust pipes. It crawled all the way to the fuel line then went into the engine and popped out infront of the pilot. The pilot and 5 seconds to think at the most, he pulled out his pistol and fired burning a hole straight through the infection form but also into the fuel deposit. With an enormous explosion the suit flew ten feet then dropped down crushing some flood.

"Dammit don't let those things near you," yelled Pilot Leader Vermon to his squad as they backed furher towards the train station that lead to Union City and all other cities that the Alliance had built.

Rapheal stared at what looked like hundreds fo Sentinels that were deactived, strange thoght Rapheal as he picked one up. He threw in down and continued on, they needed to get to the Vault no matter what. They had lost only 2 elites so far and had ventured made 6000 kilometers into the planet. They had walked down to many catwalks to counted, riding dozens of elevators. Soon Rapheal thought as they entered another elevator. This elevator was different, it didn't take them down a couple kilometers like the rest. This one looked like it went down hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Right to the core thought Rapheal as he called for a ammo check this elevator ride would take awile. They sat there in silence till a sentinel flew right beside the elevator, it stoped and the glass planels on each side opened up. Then swarms of sentinels came, the elites didn't need promtining, they pulled out their carbines and began fireing, chucking the occasional grenade into the swarms. After useing abot 3 clips each they could she the sentinels startign to thin out and the elevator started to move again. Apparently after most of the sentinels where ogne the security thoguht the inturders where dead. To make sure this didn't happen again Rapheal stuck out his arm to the floor select, I can't believe I forgot about this Thought Rapheal as the elevator stuck a needle into his arm draining a little bit of blood. It was silient for a second then beeped to confirm identification accepted. This body was useful for something after all then.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 16:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

43

The Remains of the 4th QRT trudged through the snow, starving, and bleeding. They had escaped the massive Covenant force, but at a terrible price.

They had found a nuke among the supplies, and had decided to use it. Arnie and Jimmy volunteered to stay behind and arm the nuke. 5 Marines also stayed to hold off the Covenant while the nuke was being armed.

Less than 20 minutes later, a massive explosion had knocked the escaping team off of their feet.

It had been nearly a day since that moment, and CJ was beginning to worry they might never see another UNSC base again. As these thoughts crossed his mind, he heard something up ahead. As the Team crossed over the hill, they looked upon probably the most horrific site they had ever seen.

A gigantic hole had ripped open in the ground, and thousands of sickly, green creatures were coming out. Coming towards them.

Ricky commented first.

"Goddamn, I wish Janette was still alive."

MasterGreen999

44

"Demon Five, Demon Five, this is SPARTAN-091. My team can rendezvous with you at any location to pick up your converted Shiva. Recommend that you land in grid Charlie 4-9, northwest of the Hole for easiest access. My team will carry the nuke in. Confirm, over."

"Roger that 091. This is Demon 5, I am landing at grid Charlie 4-9. Over."

Jace took his Broadsword in down low, skimming so close over the snow that his jetstream through it off to the side of the ship in huge heaps, and that his powerful engines left rivers of water in his wake, which froze barely seconds after he passed. Not bothering to look out his cockpit, he brought up his tacmap to view the battle, as it would give a more consistent picture. As he studied it so meticously, he rolled past an outcropping in the snow and looped into the air, searching for Grid Charlie 4-9. Suddenly, he found it, and he closed the tacmap and rolled downward. Skimming once again, he located it and landed, and the ship sank deep into the snow. Frowning, he set the stabilizers on low, and the ship rose, until it looked like it was a boat floating on water. With a smile, Jace made his way aft and pocketed two dozen clips of ammmunition into pockets on his snow white AV suit, and grabbed his MA5K and a M6G pistol. Just in case, he also grabbed a couple frags.

Now feeling more like a marine than a pilot, Jace moved into the side compartment housing the nuke and typed in a code to release it unarmed outiside the door out onto the snow. Then, ungrafetul he would once again have to leave his cockpit, Jace opened the hatch and walked out into the snow. The sounds of war hit his ears like gunshots. Artillery fire, MGs, and other things against thr floods ear curtling screams. Jace walked around to the front of the ship and found a group of Spartans standing ahead of him, looking at the uncoverted Shiva.

Staring up at their titanlike forms, Jace found himself in awe. He had seen spartans before, sometimes even in action, but never up close. Even while he admired them, he walked over to the Shiva and began to convert it to the tactical handheld device they needed. Jace removed the outer sheathing, punched in the authorization code, removed the core detonator and the core itself. Removed the extra atmospheric enhancer, filtered the core into the handheld core, punched in another code, sealed it, and placed the detonator on it. The process took five minutes of excruiatingly close attention to detail, and even while still paying close attention to the Spartans. Sighing at last, he lifted himself up on to his feet and grabbed the Shiva TacNuke and walked over to the Spartans.

"You 091?" asked Jace

But before the Spartan could answer. The world turned upside down. A tidal wave of snow and ice fragments exploded from the ground, glittering in the sunlight, and Jace was thrown to the side by the force of the impact, and he dropped the Shiva. Buried under a thin layer of snow, Jace kicked and broke the surface, and rolled out of his snowy haven, and autmomatically reaching for his MA5K, he caught his first glimpse of his attacker. It was giant and wormlike, and Jace guessed it was what the recon Spartan had said attacked him, or at least close. Leveling his MA5K, Jace fired on full auto, and Armor Peircing Rounds tore into the creature's tough hide. The Spartans opened fired as well with MA5C Assault Rifles, and shots tore into the huge worm.

Dead infection forms fell by the dozens, but Jace was after something different, the Shiva. Looking around, he spotted a metal glint out of the corner of his eye, and rolled forward and sprinted. Then, just feet away from the box, he heard a rumble, and the ground began to shake. Jace lost his footing and fell in front of the Shiva, cursing colorfully. Jace looked up, his face covered in cold wet snow, and looked out towards the falling back marine line.

Huge flood worms burst from the ground, some smaller, some larger, and attacked. Marines and infantry fell by the dozens, falling to the ground as the huge flood worms swiped huge tails across them or being swallowed whole by wormy maws. The marines, now distracted by the flood worm assault, could no longer hold back the flood, and mismatched mutilated animal forms and billions of infection forms broke through, killing many. Suddenly, a hundred successive boom!s exploded behind Jace, and he looked back and saw a Broadsword strafe the worm attacking Jace. 180mm superheated rounds tore into the great worm's flesh, burning huge holes into it, and peircing it through a dozen times. The Spartans ran and ducked into a snowy trench that Jace's landing had made, and Jace did the same and flattened himself in the snow. The huge worm roared and twisted its mutilated form around and Jace watched in horror as the worm, in its death throes, went limp and crushed his Broadsword.

"Shit!" exclaimed Jace, and he ran to the Broadsword to find the engine assembly crushed and the thing snowed in.

He looked up into the sky and saw other members of the 112th fighting back the worms with their 180mms, and saw that the marines were organizing and making a stand. Jace twisted to see the ship that had saved them, and saw that Major Storts personalized marks to his ship were vaguely visible on the back. Jace watched as Major Stort descended, and then felt the ground shake once more...and saw another huge worm crawl out of the hole, barely fitting. It dragged itself out, and was almost a mile long when it reached it's full extension. It reared its ugly head at Major Stort, and with a sound that sounded like a burp on a loudspeaker, spit hundreds of carrier forms at his longsword. It continued to crawl forward, and it fully cleared the hole. Major Stort was in trouble though. The carrier forms exploded unmericlesly against the Broadswords armor and shields, damaging the engines. Major Stort rapidly lost altitude, and with a scream, Jace saw his fighter fly down into the hole, flaming. But no explosion followed. Jace felt his insides grow cold, and he felt his mouth go dry. Major Stort...he couldn't be dead....wasn't dead... The 112th had never lost a man in its history, and Jace had never been close to anyone but them and his family...he had never experienced death...and in the rush of different emotions, he knew what he had to do.

"This is Acting Squadron Leader Jace Williams of the 112th Naval Squardon, all 112th members, focus firepower on those worms, specifically the big one, and to Master Sargent Riza, may I have permission to lead a search and rescue effort into the hole?"

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

45

It was a risky plan, it could be considered suicidal, but Demon 5 seemed to sound genuinely sound concerned in the missing pilots' fate. Also, they definately needed every man they could use for fighting, "Demon Five, permission granted on a search and rescue, the UNSC battle force will keep its perimeter along the hole and keep those worms away." Demon Five gave her an affirmative. Riza jumped down from her position on the back of a Warthog and hit her COM, opening another frequency to the Marines "look alive people!" she barked, "we're giving one of our flyboys and a squad of Spartans some cover from those worms!" The UNSC line, which had begun to settle down, suddenly scrambled back into action, Guns manned, Artillery and vehicles prepared, the fight wasn't over yet, in fact, it seemed to be just beginning. More worms burst from the ground, screeching and growling, then began to make their way towards the UNSC battle force. The line of Marines opened fire, artillery shells sailed through the air, a couple even beheading some of the worms. Machine gun fire chattered and tracers connected with the worms flesh, cutting it to pieces. After a while, no more worms rose. The Battle Force sighed a large breath of relief. It was short lived though. With a rumble in a crash, something rose from the snow. It was a worm, but it was far larger than the others. Riza couldn't estimate its length. "Shit," she muttered and hefted her Assault Rifle.

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 00:32, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

46

The 4th QRT watched in shock and awe as what could be described as billions of Flood marched out of the hole, and charged off in all directions. The team put their training to good use, and dug a hole into the snow to hide in and get away from the rapidly approaching Flood.

They kept digging, but suddenly the ground broke beneath them and they fell into a large cavern. They followed a series of tunnels, until they came upon a very large chamber. Inside, was probably the most disgusting two-headed plant you'd ever see.

"Command? We found something. Something big."

But that was all he could say. In less than a second, the creature began chanting in some demonic, ancient tongue, and everything went black.

-MasterGreen999

47

One of the Dualmind's heads turned to face the Humans, and knocked them unconcious with a large tentacle. The chanting continued, growing louder and louder, and Sentinels could still be seen attempting to kill the Command Form. While the other recited the poem, a head laughed coldly, the floor strewn with fallen Sentinels, and the endless flood continuing.

"Activate protocol 4523-7. Purge the planet. Leave nothing alive..." Decrepit Valor muttered, and he finished; "including the Reclaimers"

--Monitor of Installation-07^{Communications}_{Contributions}

48

Edward rolled, barely escaping the Giant Worm as it crashed itself into the ground. He hefted his Assault Rifle and fired the whole clip into the Worms' head. No visible effect showed. Edward swore silently and pulled out a Frag grenade, but realized there was no use for it. The Worm had reared up and pulled itself out of the ground, It gave a screech which made Edwards ears ring. He ran through the line of UNSC, which had grown into complete chaos, looking for some heavier weapons. He finally found a Spnkr, with only 4 rockets left. Edward took aim, he found something which he could only assume was the Worms' face, he targeted it. He squeezed the trigger twice. Twin plumes of fire raced through the air, impacting on the Worms' face. It reared back and growled, then launched itself at the battle force.

The Giant Worm reared back and growled. Holding her MA5B with one hand, Riza cupped the other one over one of her ears, drowning out some of the sound. She looked back up at the Worm, it had launched itself at the battle force. At her. Riza froze on the spot. Even if she tried to move, the Worm was so fat it would crush her anyway. She stayed where she was, ready to put some damage into it before it killed her, she raised her Assault Rifle, ready to fire, when something heavy hit her, she tumbled through the snow and heard the crash as the Worm collided with the ground. She opened her eyes, whatever had hit her had gone. She looked around. An armor-clad figure stood there, a Rocket Launcher in hand. She looked at the number tag on his armor: 077. He nodded to her "wasn't about to let you get crushed, would've been a real hassle if we had to appoint a new leader of the ground forces," Riza could almost see his grin through the armor. She smiled and nodded, then keyed her COM. "112th? is it possible an airstrike could be carried out on the Worm? ground forces are ineffective."

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 01:17, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

49

"112th? is it possible an airstrike could be carried out on the Worm? ground forces are ineffective."

Flight Officer Second Class Lisa Mill, the acting commander of her flight after Major Stort's crash heard the radio clearly over her comm.

"Roger that Riza, Flight One, form on me and launched levins on my mark!" yelled Lisa, her voice soft but determined.

"Fire!" she yelled, and golden plumes of flame shot forward into the worm, burrowing several feet into its rotting flesh before detonating.

Huge chunks of rotted, steaming meat rained down apon the groundforces, who cheered nontheless. Lisa mentally transmitted the order to pull up through her Neural Lace; she was the best in the squadron at sending battle orders through the interface. As her flight broke apart and headed off to seperate targets, she raked her 180mms across the flood lines, shredding their disgusting bodies bodies to smoking pieces. She would've gagged in revulsion, if she was a different woman. Her face grim, she looped around and repeated the process.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

50

The four Spartans emptied an entire round of their fastest firing weapons at the billions of Flood forms, to no visible effect. Lambda Leader quickly got on the comm, only to find it has been scattered by some jamming device.

"Erebus, bypass the scrambler and ask for an orbital strike at the Flood origin coordinates," said Lambda Leader, motioning his comrades to retreat.

"Copy that. It will take a minute to tight-beam a request. Bypass commencing."

Yoshi turned around and fired upon what appears to be a Flood battle form - a ODST whose battle armor has been ripped open at the torso for a Flood form to squeeze into and to use as a puppet. The BR-55 rounds quickly downed the former ODST, ending the puppet performance for that particular Flood. Another down... Billions to go. In the distance, the Flood worm could be heard bellowing as UNSC forces attempt to destroy it.

--Dubtiger 15:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

51

A strange rain of Giant Worm parts fell down onto the UNSC battle force, who were cheering their heads off at their victory. It had come at a cost though. Edward walked through the snow casting looks at the dead soldiers and wrecked vehicles. He bent down and inspected a Giant Worm part that had fallen in front of him. The flesh was rotting and looked mutated, not the normal characteristics of a Arctic IV Worm. Had it gotten taken down by the Flood? It must've taken a lot of them to do it. He gazed at the sky, a couple Broadswords swooped over. Edward looked over at the Hole, a few wisps of sickly green mist still rose, someone had crashed into there and the UNSC leaders were starting to doubt his survival. Still, they weren't giving up. He walked for a while, continuing to look over the destruction. Something nagged at his mind, something he couldn't quite explain, when he had seen Riza about to get crushed by the Worm, a...impulse had told him to immediatly save her. This impulse had happened several times to him, but this one seemed...different, stronger, more...Enough, he told himself. He'd ponder that later, for now, he'd just keep walking.

"Which is why I believe a strike of the Flood tunnels should be out priority," Riza tapped the spot on the map which represented the tunnels with her Combat Knife. One of the Marine Staff Sergeants spoke up "but, Master Sergeant, what if they turn out to be too much for our force, you can't load vehicles into their, and without that support, fighting the Flood is futile!" "But perhaps its not, Riza tapped where the Hole was on the map, a number of tunnels lead into the Hole, and a number lead out, recon teams report their big enough for 3 Scorpions to drive in, side by side." The Marine Staff Sergeant spoke up again, "but getting them down would definately be a hassle," Riza countered it "our Warthogs and Mongooses show enough strength in their structure to survive the drop into the Hole, our tanks and artillery will stay out here, thats where you come in, Sergeant," the Staff Sergeant looked surprised, "your staying out here and making sure nothing gets into the Hole, any enemies that approach are to be eliminated on sight, the rest of us are entering the Hole and attacking the Flood Hives, we're going to hit them where it hurts, just like they did to Base, we're leaving in 30 minutes, gear up and suit up, lets move!" she barked, "yes Master Sergeant!" they all answered.

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 16:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

52

The UNSC forces continued to cheer. They had won against the ugly worm.SPARTAN-064 heard the cheer of his comrades, but he was not happy himself. No he had found something worse happening.

"Command this is SPARTAN-064 we have a problem," said SPARTAN-064 into the comm while still staring at the ground.

"We are kinda busy right now SPARTAN-064," said Riza into the comm with sounds of talking in the background.

"I found something important, the start of another Emergence Hole," said SPARTAN-064 into the comm staring at the slowly falling away ground, but flood did not come out of this hole instead hundreds of thousands of sentinels began streaming out the ground unable to keep them any longer.

Iota Seven wondered how long she would be on this god-damned planet before they took her to the ship. Well maybe it was lucky that they haven't taken her yet so that a rescue party could still locate her. As she thought that she heard the familiar sounds of BR55 battle rifle fire and several of the elites fell down dead with bullets through their brains. The Lekgolo pair charged at the three SPARTANs standing there they tried to melee them but they quickly side steped and got behind the hunters. The hunters quickly turned to face them but one was shot in the back with a sniper rifle. The other inraged jumped at the three SPARTANs standing there, smashing its large cannon into the ground it roared. Then two more shots hit it in the fleshy part of it back. The sniper had hit it while it was jumping making it fall forward sliding to right infront of the three SPARTANs.

"Who are you?" asked Iota Seven as the SPARTANs began to pull out the needles in her joints.

"We are Fireteam Zulu and we has tracked you down from the city, but we can't talk now we have to go help the effort at the Emergence Hole," said SPARTAN-147 as she ran back to her bike. Iota Seven assumed to get on the back of that bike and they drove off from the dead Covenant bodies. They met up later with the sniper that had killed the Hunters, she was a SPARTAN too. As they neared the Hole they saw that it wasn't just flood anymore.

"Holy Crap," said Iota Seven as she looked at the slaughter.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 16:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

53

Where in the hell am I?

The thought that came to him was one that he had thought many times before, and as he layed on the crumped metal wreckage, he opened his eyes, looked out, and saw the ugliest thing he had ever seen. He knew what it was of course, had seen them before, but always from high above, and always with a fighter full of firepower at his despsosal. Then suddenly it all came back to him, and he rolled out of the way as glass shattered around him, hand instinctively going for his sidearm, and opening up with a hail of bullets...

Jace wondered what in the hell had come over him, but figured it was to late to stop now. Riding in the sideseat of the warthog with his MA5K at his side, a M90 Shotgun slung over his back, and an M6G Pistol in the holster at his side, the frigid cold air not penetrating his suit now that his helmet was on, he sighed, and looked back at the back of the 'Hog.

A four man squad of special snow cold assault troops that were coming with him sat in the turret's troop bay of the outdated M850 B Snow 'Hog, prepping weaponry and looking ready to begin their deadly clash with the flood. Jace thought back to his intensive training years ago, and unconsciously his Neural Interface highented those memories, enhanced those muscle memories. Smiling, he checked the MA5K one last time, and secured the drop-line attached to his waist, and watched as the ETA timer counted down to deployment. Outside the enclosed hatch, Jace watched other 'Hogs driving forward as the vanguard of the assault.

At five seconds,he racked a round into the MA5K chamber, and unbuckled his safety restraints. The timer hit zero and the door to his side opened, and Jace ducked out, his MA5K shouldered an in prime position. He heard gunfire as SCAT troops poored out of Snow Hogs, and loud thumps as Jace's squadron swooped by overhead, 180mms cutting down flood hordes as they poored out. Jace watched a combat form jump out of the hole and land behind him, and he swung around and fired a burst straight into it's chest, turning it into a cloud of rotted meat. Suddenly, Jace felt a strong and sudden urge to duck, and as his traing kicked in, he did, narrowly evading the flashing tentacle wips of a combat form.

Flattening himself into the snow, Jace looked up at it's huge mass and let loose an auto burst shredding the form to literal peices. Slinging the MA5K over his shoulder and cocking the M90, Jace fired a shell straight into a combat form, cocked it, and fired again, cutting down another. Jace, with adrenaline pumping through him and the Mk. 3 interface pumping in muscle strenghing steroids, swung the butt the M90 around-and though he did not kill the combat form, he pushed it off the edge and into the abyss below.

Jace switched to the MA5K, and firing it one handed, threw the drop-line's holder into the near the edge of the hole, where it dug into the ground and burrowed safely inside. Switching to both hands and reloading the MA5K, Jace watched as dozens of SCAT troops jumped into the hole, drop lines twanging as above marines clashed and fought in a deadly battle that looked more like a brawl than an organized fight. Jace took a deep breath and jumped down into the hole, plunging into the darkness, where only flashes of gunfire lit the area...

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

54

Jared was surprised that the pilot, what was his name? Jace- that was it..., actually wanted to venture down into the hellhole of a pit. The nuke, safe in his armor's backpack/container, felt heavy, like the burden it should be. He stood, Nicole at his side, at the rim of the pit, staring into the abyss below. That's where they were going. An old husk of poetry, one that Déja had taught him, rattled around his consciousness.

Half a league, half a league, half a league onward...

Into the Valley of Death...

Without any more pause, the SPARTAN leapt into the hole, the hazy fog of the Flood nest encompassing his body. With a thump, he landed on the pit's floor, his armor and reinforced bones absorbing the shock of the fall.

"Ease off there, hotshot," Juliet whined, "We're both sharing this body, remember?"

The noxious smells of death and decay, rot and disease, flooded his helmet. A lesser man would have gagged, but the supersoldier had been exposed this stench before. Flipping on his helmet atmosphere scrubbers, he played the beam of his helmet light around the area. There was Jace, along with a small squad of Marines. The SPARTAN, sensing the pilot's nervousness, gave the younger man a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Letting out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Jared turned to Nicole. "Are you ready for this?"

"Never been more ready for anything else in my life. Let's do this."

Together they turned and moved cautiously into the tunnel before them, the firefight raging behind. This is what every SPARTAN lived for.

SPARTAN-091|Admin| ^HelmetComm 21:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

55

"Dammit can't we kill a Giant Worm and have at least a couple hours before we gotta fight again!?" A Marine corporal beside Edward said. The metal cloud of floating robots surged out of the second Hole, gliding as one. Bigger ones came out too, ones with enourmous shields that blocked the entire front of them. A voice came through on the COM, it was Riza. "Hold your fire, Marines, as of yet, we don't know if their hostile or not, best to let them decide which alliance their on," Edward knew Riza's point and understood it well. Don't attack an enemy until you know who they are. He glanced back at the Flood Hole, a team had went into its depths to cave some of the Flood tunnels in, a couple others were going to be left open to let the UNSC invade them. A good plan considering the limited resources they had. Edward turned his head back to the second Hole, robots continued to glide out, then suddenly, all of them turned to look at the Humans. Everything was silent. Then, they fired, thousands upon thousands of lances of golden fire surged towards the UNSC force. The UNSC did the only thing they could in their current state. They fired. The two seperate forces' weapons collided with one another. Then, everything was chaos.

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 23:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

56

Lisa Mill looked out and saw the robots open fire on the humans, and she groaned. She mentally sent her thoughts to her flight, but then to her surprise, several dozen of the sentinels gained altitude and headed straight for her flight, firing all the way. They didn't need any orders. They broke formation and began dogfighting the robots, cutting them to melted peices with their superheated 180s, but the sheer numbers were overwhelming. Dozens after dozens of the robots poured out of the hole, and other holes began emerging in the snow. Gritting her teeth, Lisa kept up the fight, silenetly wondering what would happen next.

Deep inside the tunnels, his eyes working fine in the darkness and fog due to his Neural Interface interfacing with his AV suit's sensors, Jace crept forward, his M90 shouldered, his senses alert for even a flicker of movement. Behind him, he could sense the SCATs moving forward, and uncosciously using his sensors, he found the Spartans were in a seperate passageway several feet below them. Jace peered out into the darkness, eyes scanning for movement. In front of him, the tunnels abruptly seperated and sloped downward steeply. Activating his comm with a thought, Jace transmitted to 091.

"091, do you read? Flight Officer Third Class Jace Williams transmitting. Is it deep enough to deposit the nuke at your location?"

Jace got no response almost a minute later, so he tried again.

"I repeat, 0-9-1, is it deep enough to deposit the NUKE, do you read?"

Again no answer, but this time, Jace listened deeply, and heard a faint One-Two-One-Three-Two-Four tapping pattern, UNSC code for negative.

"Understood." said Jace.

Jace straightened up, and crunched his boots into the cold hard ground, and one of the SCATs yelled at him.

"Quiet! Listen..." said the trooper.

Jace listened...and heard a faint sound...something getting steadily sronger. Kind of like...thousands of running feet. Jace scanned the faces of the SCATs and saw them erupt in surprise.

"RUN!" yelled one, and the five of them took off at a dead run. Jace felt adrenaline course through his veins, and with it steroids, enhancing his muscle's strengh. Running at full speed, Jace sprinted forward, and tripped on and outcropping. Jace tried to get up, but abruptly, he found he was sliding downward as a 90 degree angle. The M90 slipped from his hand, and Jace lost track of it in the darkness. He began to pick up speed, and felt friction gathering on his suit, heating it up. Jace rolled around through the tunnel, which got siginificantly smaller, now not much more than a chute. The chute twisted and turned, and a non pilot would have thrown up, something that would not have been pleasant, considering he was wearing a helmet.

Finally coming to a halt at the bottom of the chute, where it emerged into a huge cavern like area, Jace looked up the chute and listened. He heard one of the SCATs scream, and began moving away from the entrance. He saw the man come to a halt like he had, and just as he was about to ask about the others, the SCAT held up three dog tags. Sighing, Jace helped the man up, helped him check his BR55, then checked his own MA5K. Then, looking forward, and realizing that visibility was limited to barely 100 meters, Jace checked his radar, and began moving forward into the darkness.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

57

"Fall back!!!!" the order was always the same, and the UNSC kept answering it. The robots were pushing them farther and farther away, they had destroyed them in the hundreds, but nothing, not even air support, was going to stop them. There were simply too many. Riza hit her COM, rasing a frequency with the pilot and his team of SCATs that had gone into the Hole. "Jace, theres been a change of plans, we're bringing the nuke onto the ground, and the UNSC is going down the Hole, there were sounds in the background, then, "affirmative Master Sergeant, the situation looks pretty remiscent of hell up there from what we can tell, but why are you getting into the Hole?" Riza dodged a beam of golden light and returned fire with her Assault Rifle, the robot chasing her exploded. "We're coming down and hoping the space will be too small for the robots to chase in large numbers, then, we're attacking the Flood Hives and taking down the Flood threat, after that, we'll deal with the robots." "Affirmative, Master Sergeant, if you don't mind my asking...where will the 112th go?" Riza knew that question had been coming, "they'll return to the battlegroup in space and make more bombing runs on the robots.""Roger that..Master Sergeant, but theres a situation down here too. Flood. alot of 'em.""We'll tend to that when we get down there," Riza reassured him, and tried to reassure herself, unless someone with a rank higher than Master Sergeant came down here, these men were hers to command. She would've taken any other job beside that, she was a terrible leader at times, in fact, she considered herself a terrible soldier at times too. She clicked her COM, raising a different frequency, "everyone! into the Hole, don't ask any questions, just move!" Rize ran to Hole along with the assortment of Marines and vehicles, the Marines latched grappling hooks into the snow and jumped into the abyss, while the vehicles drove straight over. The tanks remained out of the Hole, firing volley after volley of shells, destroying dozens of tightly packed robots. Rize looked down at the black, cast a look at the tanks which were still defiantly firing at the robots, then jumped.

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 19:09, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

58

Cloud 9 tucked and rolled to avoid the beams of plasma flaming towards him.

"This is Cloud 9, our mission is to take out all Covenant Loyalists fighters in the area then uses the bombs to destory a destoryer are we clear?" said Oreo as he spun out of the way of another beam of plasma. He then fired his machine guns at the Tarzan weaken its shields then fliped over spinning and ending up behind the Tarzan. The rotary missile launchers then started up firing 4 rockets straight at the Tarzan blowing the rest of its shields and most of the armour. It was sent flaming for around 50 feet then exploded, Cloud 9 then fliped over to see his brother Thunder 4 in the cockpit beside him. Clouud 9 noded his head and slauted, Thunder 4 slauted back then fliped over and brought his F-17 Mustang straight over a Tarzan he then increased volciety and pulled up. As he went vertical he pulled back down and fired all his machine guns and his rotarey missile launchers as well, hiting the cockpit takeing out the shields and the glass. The pilot inside suffered the same fate, Thunder 4 did a loop to face the new threat a bunch more Tarzans. Cloud Squad and Thunder Squad both flew almost wing to wing, they had done this hundreds of times before. The Tarzans did almost the same thing except not so close, Cloud Squad and Thunder Squad fired all their weapons at the incomeing fighters. The Tarzans began to charge their plasma guns, but the two Squads fired first and flurry of of missiles and superheated rounds hit the Tarzans headed on blowing up most of them. Then the last three damaged Tarzans were cut down by the F-17 Mustangs rotarey missile launchers.

SPARTAN-064 and Fireteam Zulu were repeling down the wall of the pit and still fireing up at the sentinels coming into the hole. SPARTAN-064 then threw a frag grenade into the cloud of sentinels. It missed the first ones then got caught in the cloud of sentinels, it detonated leaving a large gap in their ranks. As they continued to repel down the wall, they saw gunfire at the bottom. The SPARTANs nodded to each other and let go of the lines, they grabed the rock wall and tried to slow their fall. Their hands dug straight into the wall and they stoped right before the ground, they made the small drop to the ground and looked around at what the saw was well nothing. The sentinels had bloked out all the sunlight comeing in into the hole. It was pitch black, the SPARTANs turned on their night vision to see Flood a bunch of them and surprisingly their bikes. They jumped onto their bikes and the SPARTANs opened fire into the Flood.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 15:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

59

Jared, barely recieving through all of the static that clogged his channels, heard Master Sergeant Holden transmit the order that sent all UNSC forces into the hole.

What was she thinking? he raged to himself. Why send forces into the place a Shiva was to be detonated?

He tried to call back, to protest the order's foolishness, but the Flood chose that moment to attack. Swarms of the worm-like things charged, and white noise strangled the comm.

SPARTAN-091|Admin| ^HelmetComm 00:35, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

60

The Flood that had charged the UNSC forces inside the Hole lay dead, strewn out along the enourmous pit. "Someone, hit the lights," there were a number clicks, then the headlights of almost a dozen Warthogs came on, shining onto the UNSC Marines, giving them somewhat ominous shadows behind them. Riza chose her words carefully, "I know most of you are questioning my decisioning...but theres been a change of plans," there were exclamations from some Marines, but their comrades silenced them. Riza went on, "there are dozens of Hives strung throughout Arctic IV, but the central Hive is what supplies them, we also believe that a certain entity may hold sway over all the Flood, that this one entity may control every last Flood, and we believe killing it may kill every Flood, therefore, I've decided to save our nuke for the Main Flood Hive, if any anyone has objections, speak now,"

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 01:15, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

61

The elevator hit lava and went in sinking deeper into molten rock. As it sunk deeper the metal parts of the walls started to glow red hot, it finnaly came to a stop at the bottom of the track and opened up into a rock cavern with a massive metal door with another needle, retina scanner and a fingerprint scanner. Rapheal went up to the door and stuck out her arm the needle took his blood, then he scanned his retina and then his fingerprint. The door started to open to reveal the bounty inside, what was inside was an arm. A human looking arm that if you looked straight into the arm you could see it was mechanical.

"This is what we came for, soon my wrath will be known across this galaxey," yelled Rapheal to his gaurds and they cheered.

"You might want to rethink that plan Master Sergeant, " said a voice out of the darkness. A man walked from where the voice came from, he was a ODST and had the symbol of a First Lieutenant on his torn armour. His leg was torn almost through and you could see the bone, He had his arm in a makeshif sling, and half of his helmet was blown off. He had several small holes in his legs and one near his naval. He had also lost a hand on the arm with the sling.

"And who are you," asked Master Sergeant Riza to the man.

"First Lieutenant Shian Quak, I was Orbitaly dropped then fell through the ground and landed in some tunnels, Then these white-humans attacked me, i manged to escape from them but then i ran into flood, i got away from them to, then i found the hivemind, it was almost impossible to get away from there, the ones you faced were the tip of the iceberg,"

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 15:43, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

62

The UNSC Annihilator led Battlegroup Alamo through slipspace. It had been called upon to check on the status of the Artic IV outpost and the battlegroups that were orbiting the planet. It had been several hours since they had last checked in.

"Status report", said Captain Jim Wilson.

"All forces in the battlegroup report back that everythings as it should be", said the COM officer.

Something's not right, thought Jim, we should have heard something from them by now, anything. "Double the battlegroup's speed and unthaw Team Alpha. We're gonna need them ready, just in case we run into any trouble"

"Yes, sir", said the COM officer. "All ships, double speeds". Changing to the Cryobay channel he said, "Unthaw Team Alpha, captain's orders".

"I'm going to go down to meet them", announced the captain, "alert me if anything important happens".

---

In the cryobay, the engineers began to unthaw the members of Team Alpha. As always, Roy managed to get out first and waited on the others to climb out.

"How can they stand all that pain they must be in?", asked one of the engineers, "I wear my lightest clothes and come out iching like crazy. He just came out in a full suit of Mark VI MJOLNIR armor?!"

"Who knows", said the other, "I hear they have a different pain tolerance than regular people"

As the others began to thaw out, Roy heard a voice in his head.

"Finally awake, aye?"

"Yes, Clyde. How was your time.", asked Roy.

"Boring as usual. You don't have any good memories to look at", said Clyde. Clyde was a slightly annoying AI. He meant well, but things didn't always turn out that way. He liked to be mischevious for one, looking at the memories of the person who's neural interface he stayed in.

"Sorry, but the discussion needs to end: the others are waking up"

Out climbed the other members of Team Alpha: Kymberli, the assassin/sniper; Edwin, the strategist; Lisa, the support expert; Jerry, the vehicular man; Marshall, the heavy weapons specialist; and of course, Amy the heavy-hitter.

"Welcome back, team", said Roy.

"Yes, welcome back", said Captain Jim, "Sleep well?"

"As best as you can expect", said Edwin.

"Sarcastic as ever, I see. We're nearing the Artic IV system. It hasn't reported back for several hours. I fear the worst: we may have lost the system to either the Covenant or the Artic IV Alliance."

He was interrupted by an emergency call from the bridge. "Captain, we just came out of slipspace and the battlegroups are under attack by these... robot-things. We scanned the surface of the planet and there is a small resistance of humans fighting the robots in tunnels. Further scanning shows there's a huge amount of biomass down below the resistance fighters. That's all we can make out right now sir. Orders?"

Captain Jim turned on a battlegroup wide frequency, "All personnel, man your battle stations. All ships in Battlegroup Alamo to engage the enemy, whatever it may be. I want all forces assisting those ships A.S.A.P., understood? All marine infantry prepare for an orbital drop that will be followed by Pelicans and Albatross' bearing vehicles. Now move, people." He turned to Team Alpha, "Roy, I need you and your team to disengage the Thermopylae and land on the surface. Bring about 100 hundred marines with you and load on the new Turtles. This is their test run so be as careful as battle allows. Load up the Scopions and Snow Hogs too, as you'll need them in the snow. Now go!!"

With that, Team Alpha began one of the toughest battle of their carriers.

Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me"

63

After Team Murmillo gave Vice Admiral falconi the information they once again descended to the surface of the planet. It was time for them to check out that place where they saw all of the hostiles run to. It was a base of some-kind. They would have to check it out. "Approaching the LZ! Multiple hostiles assaulting the ODST camp! It's gonna be a rough landing!" Yelled the pilot. Team Murmillo jumped out of the pelican. James-G023 shot the nearest grunt-like creature known as the Konako with hims MA5K."This is major Peterson! I am pinned down by multiple hostiles! Requesting assistance!" Yelled Major Peterson over the comm. "Will! Go help the major! We will aid in the defense of the camp!" Yelled James. As he turned around he came face-to-face with a new creature. It was roughly human-sized and was wearing white-coloured armour. It raised its rifle and fired.

--Master Sergeant-G023 ^{Comm Channel} _{Mission History}^{Ghost lead} 21:10, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

64

"Vice Admiral Falconi, this is Captain Jim Wilson of Battlegroup Alamo. Requesting engage the enemies on both fronts."

"Permission granted, captain."

"Sir, yes sir." Captain Wilson changed to the Battlegroup frequency. "All troopers, prepare for orbital drop. Pilots, bring the vehicles behind them. Fighter pilots, get in your Longswords and engage the enemies A.S.A.P. Everyone else, man your battle stations. And give the Thermopylae some support fire."

The members of Team Alpha climb into HEV's on board the Thermopylae. Jerry climbed into an Albatross. He liked to see the vehicles down personally, since they were his speciality. Roy assumed his status as the captain of the ship once again.

"OK, detach", said Roy. The Thermopylae moved away from the Annihilator, HEV's raining down around it and Pelicans and Albatross's in tow. All appeared to be going smoothly until the sensors locked onto thousands of incoming targets.

"All forces, open fire!", ordered Roy. Missiles and bullets flew at the enemies, strange robots of unknown origin. They all looked the same, though there were different types: some were small, some were larger and some were really large. But still they continued down. Then there was an explosion.

"Sir, the engines have been hit. We're going down."

"Everyone, brace yourself."

The craft went down at an alarming rate and crash-landed not far from the gaping holes. All that remained as evidence of human activity were a few bodies and totalled vehicles.

"What could have done this?", asked one of the privates onboard

"I can think of one think.", said Roy. "Its' classified though, son. Move out."

The marines battled thousands, if not tens of thousands of the robots. The vehicles helped, but they were already down to half of their original forces.

"I suggest that we move into the tunnels where the other UNSC forces went.", said Clyde.

"What about that huge biomass farther down? Did you think about that?", said Roy. Clyde never seemed to think things through.

"At least we know we can get and give reinforcements down there! Now get your butt down there before I make you. You know it's the smart thing, so do it."

He knew Clyde was right. He almost always ended up being right. Probably because he was an AI. Roy turned on the comm channel for all his forces.

"Alright everybody, move into the tunnels. All vehicles retreat into the hole. Turtles and a small force will stay outside and fight the robots. We're going in."

With that, most of the marine forces got into the tunnels and the few left stayed to fight the robots.

Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me"

65

"Jace, theres been-SHISSH!-of plans, we're bringing the-SCREECH-ground, and the UNSC is-SHREE-the Hole."

Jace listened as Riza's order came across the comm unit in his helmet, badly distorted by static, and managed to make out the gist of what she was saying.

Is she crazy? was the first thought that came to Jace's mind, but he shoved it away and thought of an answer.

Suddenly, a loud crash resonated from the surface and into his foggy tunnel, and dust fell from the ceiling, raining down on Jace's AV suit.

"Affirmative Master Sergeant, the situation looks pretty remiscent of hell up there from what we can tell, but why are you getting into the Hole?" asked Jace, still concerned about the UNSC coming into the hole.

The sound of an explosion and the stopping of Assault Rifle fire was heard over the comm, then Riza answered quickly.

"We're coming down and hoping the space will be too small for the robots to chase in large numbers, then, we're attacking the Flood Hives and taking down the Flood threat, after that, we'll deal with the robots."

Jace frowned at the mention of robots.

What robots? he wondered.

Then another question came to mind, and figured that he might as well ask it while he still had her on the channel.

"Affirmative, Master Sergeant, if you don't mind my asking...where will the 112th go?" asked Jace, his concern for his squadmates urging him on.

"They'll return to the battlegroup in space and make more bombing runs on the robots." said Riza, and Jace once again wondered what the Robots where that she was talking about, but he declined asking. Instead he slowly answered, informing her of the situation.

"Roger that..Master Sergeant, but theres a situation down here too. Flood. alot of 'em."

"We'll tend to that when we get down there." She said with a tone of finality in her voice, but Jace's attention was elseware. Just ahead of him, something had just moved...

Then he saw it, and he swore and brought his MA5K to bear.

"Attack pattern Charlie Sierra!"

Lisa swerved her Broadsword out of the way of a fully powered plasma torpedo and yelled out her order, and replied to the Covenant Tarzan's attack with a hail of 180mm red hot slugs. The spray hit the Tarzan dead center, gutting it from end to end, as it's sheilds were already down from a concentrated ESDRW salvos. The Tarzan rolled lazily to port, sucked into Artic IV's gravity well, where it would most likely burn up on reentry.

Lisa looked out her cockpit, and saw the 10 remaining Broadswords flying in a perfect formation. Six ships were at the front, flying in two horizontal rows, each with three ships. Four more, Lisa herself included, were flying at top speed behind this defensive grid in a box formation, eighty meters away from each other.

"Tighten it up Juan!" said Lisa into her cockpit mike, and Juan Diego, one of the flight leaders of the squadron and undoubtbly the most pompous pilot in the 112th, slid even neater into the formation. Ahdead of them, a swarm of at least fifty Tarzans gazed out at the squadron four hundred meters out, and Lisa could detect massive reactor emissions as they charged their weapons.

As the 112th closed to 200 meters with the Tarzan's Lisa began making out the boiling plasma hanging on their guns. At 100 meters, she exclaimed: "Proceed with the gambit!"

The six fighters in front exploded forward with a boost of speed from their afterburners. They blazed forward at nearly 150%, crossing the distance between themselves and the Brute fighters. Their engine emissions completely blocked out the remaing four, lingering for almost fifteen seconds. But the six did not attack, instead, they swerved straight through the Tarzan cloud and blew right past them, slowing down and bringing their Aft shields to greater strengh. The Tarzans manuvered sharply around, and were about to chase after the six...when the four attacked. ESDRW shots calculated to maximum spread exploded inside their formation, confusing the dumb apes for a few seconds...

But that wasn't all that exploded inside their formation. A dozen ASGM-11 Missiles exploded inside the Covenant formation, shredding them instantly with huge gouts of flame and shrapnell. The survivors turned tail and fled, but to no avail. The six that had blown past them just seconds ago pounced, and the stragglers exploded under a hail of 180mms.

The squadron's chears ringing in her ears, Lisa regrouped with the six, and they streaked off to rejoin the rest of the battlegroup for resupply.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

66

"Hey Lisa what's up," yelled out Thunder 4 over the comm as he swerved over Lisa and stared down into her cockpit. As Thunder 4 talked to Lisa, Cloud Squad began to engage more of those robot things. Cloud 9 tucked and rolled to avoid the robots and met up with his squad. As the 10 Virgo Pilots began to charge at these robot things, the longswords fired 2 missiles each destorying 40 robots. The F-17 turned on his it's rotary missile launchers to destory even more. As they neared the wall of robots the pilots began to increase speed, when they neared the wall of robots the all pushed the small blue button neared the ignition key. The pilots frormed up into two lines of 5 adn increased speed even more. As were about to hit the wall of robots the full front of the longswords began to glow red hot. The longswords and F-17 Mustang cut clean through the wall like a hot knife through butter. The exited the cloud of robots to find that Heartly wasn't there. Dammit now this is personnal thought Oreo wiping a small tear from the side of his eye. Cloud Squad fliped over and fired thousands of bullets into the clouds of robots.

Jarok had found them, Jarok had clothed them and Jarok armed them, so he should have the right to keep them secert. The Lupin's would serve there purpose in this time of need, they will be let loose against the enemy. The strongest will be their commanders and the weak will be sent first. Armed with laser swords, laser assualt rifle and their own claws. When they bite they spread a virus that will kill in 48 hours, when they kill their eyes go red with blood lust. They are the ultimate killing machines and they will prospere in this dark age. They are the Lupins and they will help us win this war against all odds,

Taken from the 14th verse of the 2583th section of the Great Tome

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 04:48, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

67

Edward crept through the darkness, not making a sound, the team of ODSTs behind him just walked with their rifles slung over their shoulders. Riza had sent them off to find the missing SCATs and bring them back to the camp they had set up on the far side of the Hole. The silence had evolved into a small chatter, most of it coming from the ODST's. "Yeah its bullshit having to wait on those ships up their having to wait to get in the action, I mean, why'd they keep us onboard? we're just extra weight on the ship!" Another ODST cut in, "yeah...but, isn't it better having a meter of armor between you and the enemy rather than this bodysuit?" "This bodysuit? your bodysuit just isn't some armor you strap on! its your home, soldier! After the battlef-" he was cut off as Edward held up his hand as a stop signal. They listened, curses and gunshots sounded in the distance. "They're this way," Edward said pointing to small flashes in the distance. "Well then, we wouldn't want to postpone our party with these Flood bastards, lock n' load, Helljumpers! Edward cycled the bolt in his Assault Rifle and aimed towards the flashes of light. Hoping he wouldn't hit any friendlies, he fired. -- SPARTAN-077

68

Jace swore and hit the ground as the white combat form slashed it's tentacles at head level. He landed and rolled out of the way of another strike, rolled upwards and let loose a burst of fire into the things chest. It fell in a heap, twichting, a large hole in it's chest.

"Ahh! Get it off me!"

Jace swore and saw a grim sight:a combat form hoisting the SCAT up, and four dozen infection forms squriming their way towards him. They attacked, and the man was covered in infection forms. He let out a wet scream, and began cursing feverishly. Jace narrowed his eyes, picked up the man's sidearm, an M7 Caseless Sub Machine Gun, and pointed it behind him. He fired, and a combat form that had been about to strike fell. Jace didn't even think about it;his limbs began moving on autopilot, using muscle memory and the Mk. 3 interface. Grabbing the M7 in one hand and the MA5K in the other, Jace unloaded, and the combat form's body shredded in the tidal wave of lead. It dropped the SCAT, who was now wimpering feebly under the flood tide. Jace walked over to his side, saw the man's eyes, and knew it was too late.

Pulling a HE-DP Fragmentation grenade from his belt, he pressed the button and rolled in towards the body. A deafoning roar echoed throughout the cavern, but Jace did not have time to look for the remains of the SCAT. A huge swarm of combat forms were charging, and Jace swore colorfully. Holding both the MA5K and the M7, he unloaded, sending a tidal wave of lead downrange. But it wasn't enough. It reminded him eerily of the flood charge at the marine lines, but on a vastly smaller scale. He continued to fire, and the floor was soon littered with mutilated flood corpses...yet more still came. Hands becoming numb from using both weapons in a single handed grip, he continued cursing as the flood pushed him farther and farther back...

"...wouldn't want to postpone our party with these Flood bastards, lock n' load, Helljumpers!"

The voice echoed through the cavern, and though Jace couldn't see them through the thick fog, his heart jumped. A swathe of gunfire cut through the flood ranks, with accuracy that made Jace think that it was possible a Spartan was among them. Jace dropped the M7—it was out of ammo—and shouldered the MA5K still firing. Cursing vehemently, he primed a frag and through it, and the explosion blew away a dozen flood, and splattered thick green goo on the visor of Jace's AV suit. In moments, the battle was over, and nearly a hundred fifty flood corspes littered the ground. Walking over to the remains of the SCAT, he picked up all four dog tags, then straightened up, and stood his ground while the ODSTs and the Spartan came ever closer...

The darkness was too much...the shapes outside to disgusting. The pistol's grip was tightening in his hands, and he knew he would soon be making a move. He reloaded it out of habit, aimed at the glass, and fired....and fired....and fired....and fired....

"112 Lead, come in, I repeat, 112th Leader, please respond."

Lisa clicked her comm unit as she darted past a Tarzan, and looped around at it, rolling past it's plasma torpedo and cutting it to ribbons with her 180mms.

"Temporary Squadron Leader Lisa Mill here sir, I'm engaging Loyalist fighters, what's your orders?"

Lisa swerved past a Tarzan and dropped an unguided ASGM-11, blowing the ship to atomized particles.

"Their is a loyalist destroyer headed your way...you need to disable it and find a way to disarm it, so that EAATs can board it and take it over. Are your order's clear?"

Lisa cut power to her engines as a Tarzan dropped on her tail, used her thrusters to roll around in a dizzy loop, so that she faced her attacker. They charged head on, neither manuvering, both taking fire, and in the end, the Broadsword's superior sheilding paid off, the Tarzan's had given way ealrier and had been destroyed.

"Understood command, Mill out."

Lisa slashed towards a group of eight covies milling around, and let loose a flash of ESDRW and a ASGM-11 Missile. Before they could react, she was already past, and they were floating piles of debris.

"Demons, we got a change of plans, it seems command wants to nab a loyalist destroyer, but can't get close enough to do it. And so we come in! I've marked the target on your hud's, sort it to your neural lace if you like, now move in, and disable and disarm this bastard, remember to focus on those Pulse Lasers, and manuver!"

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

69

"Hayate you take point," said Saka-147 to her squadmates as they continued down the tunnels. The bikes went faster down the slippery tunnel floor, they were to meet the people who went down first. They were to assit them in finding their lost comrade and move them further into the tunnels useing their bikes. Then the nuke would be planted and they would get out simple as that, maybe but the SPARTANs had doubts. What that ODST said, that the resistence would be even greater near the Flood command. As they continued down the hole, they saw something through a crack in the tunnel wall. A train it looked like, but then it was gone in a instant, so the SPARTANs just kept on going. As they neared the pilot's position they ran over alot of flood bodies.

"So where you want to go,"

'Konoyee looked through the battle plans one more time, his heavy biosuits would take out the Destoryers shields just like the last one. Then they would fire more plasma torpedoes at the unshielded ship, destorying it. His Biosuits were already on that, but the humans had come back into space. Maybe we should help them, yes 'Konoyee thought they would be great allies in this time.

"Commander of the biosuits," said 'Konoyee into the comm.

"Yes sir," he replied back.

"Go near the Human spacefighters and asked if they would accept our help,"

"But sir they are pitful humans, we could kill them in a instant,"

"I know but if they are allied with us we could destory the Loyalists much faster and then leave much faster,"

"Ahh now i understand, you want to be temporaly allied not forever,"

" Yes also if the time came we could destory them much easier to,"

" Carring out your order sir." said the Commander of the biosuits then flew away to talk to the apparent leader of the humans. As the heay biosuits began a new attack on the Destoryer. Everything will tick into place and then i will be seen more competent then 'Vordyee thought 'Konoyee as he began to plan out his next move.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 15:44, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

70

-On board the UNSC Eagle after responding to distress call from Arctic IV-

Admiral Garrison walks back and forth in the UNSC Eagle's bridge. He looks at the schematics of the now surrounded planet of Arctic IV.

" Admiral Garrison what can you tell from the SOS you received from Arctic IV's UNSC station? Admiral Ustice asked.

Garrison turned with arms back behind his hips and sighed briefly.

" From what we got the units down on the surface are facing hostiles outmatching them by the thousands. And are relaying this to any allying ships Elites or UNSC." Garrison replied as he turned to go to a crew member at one of the monitors.

"Alright awaken SPARTAN-G089 and SPARTAN-078 they're going down there to help" Garrison says to the crew member as he looks back at the frozen planet.

The crew member then pressed a com and spoke into the mike in front of him. "Alright Tim release the two spartans" The nervous engineer said as he let go the intercom.

-Down in the Cryo chamber-

"Alright let'em loose." Tim said as he points to the engineer up in the cryo lead. The engineer gave a thumbs up back to Tim.

Both spartans awaken from their slumber as the groan from the slipspace aftermath awakening. They got out of tubes and didn't even bother going through the diagnostic tests. Soon Linnea and Gary start a conversation as they walk to the bridge of the cruiser.

" So what do you think our mission is today?" Linnea asks as she moved her Mark 6 glove around. Gary didn't answer as he walked by other UNSC marines, ODSTs and engineers he soon grabbed a BR55 Battle rifle and some ammo and packed it in his ammo bags. Linnea did the same as she looked at the once social Gamma 2 squad's leader.

"Do you miss the squad?" Linnea says as she puts her hand on his MJLONIR armor's shoulder. " Of course I do Linnea but Eagle chose us for the distress mission. So we must do it" He says as he looks to her and puts his thumb on her visor on her helmet mapping out her lips.

Grabbing a M6G pistol as his secondary weapon as Linnea grabs the M7 caseless submachine gun. They finally reach the bridge to find Garrison and Ustice waiting for them. They all salute each other and then proceed to the briefing.

"We have received distress call from a UNSC base on Arctic IV. We're sending you with some ODSTs to check the planet." Ustice says as he looked towards the planet.

"If I may speak sir I feel something very very familiar on this planet" Gary says. "Something lost in my memory"

SPARTAN-089 Gary 03:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

71

Keeping his Assault Rifle raised, Edward slowly approached the mass of Flood bodies. He spotted the pilot, an MA5K in hand, looking over at them. Edward looked for any SCAT's. He found none. He looked at the ODST's behind him, they had their rifles casually slung over their shoulders and were walking. They neared the pilot, "you the retrieval team?" he asked. Edward nodded, "heh, theres not much to retrieve, just me." And then Edward saw it, among the dozens of Flood corpses were dozens of UNSC SCATs. They had been too late. "So the Master Sergeant wants our nuke, huh?" Edward nodded again, he didn't feel much like talking. He, a Spartan, had failed his mission. But had he? he had retrieved some part of the team. "Oh man... the ell-tees gonna have our asses for not saving any of these guys!" one of the ODST's said. Edward remembered the Lt back at camp, he had come in gravely wounded and it was a miracle he was living. "Well I'm ready to leave, we got what we came for," one of the ODST's said. The pilot held up a mass of Dog Tags, "I got all the SCAT's covered," Edward spied the pilots Dog Tag: Jace. "Alright then, we're moving out." Edward was just about to set off when he spied something in the distance. Headlights. He scrutinized the things, they had the outline of MK II Ferris Combat Bike, something that was used extensively by Fireteam Zulu, a SPARTAN-II team. "Who the hell are they?" one of the ODST's asked. "More Spartans," Edward replied. "Great," the ODST muttered. But who had sent them? Edward guessed he would find out when they got here. The bikes pulled up.

-- Heeeeeres Johny!^{(Whats that you say?)}^{( My...Accomplishments)} 12:42, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

72

Golden beams and blue beams shot all around. Small red needle like projectiles and rockets fired as well and exploded with devastating force. The Turtles and Snow Hogs did the best they could, but it wasn't going to be enough. I just had to stay with the vehicles, didn't I?, thought Jerry. For once he actually hated his love for vehicles. Why didn't I just go with the others. Of course, I'll probably have to in a minute. Almost as an answer to his statement, several Sentinel Enforcers appeared and blew up half of the vehicles. That's it, he thought, Time to pull out.

"All forces, pull back. It's hopeless up here. There's to many of the foes. Pull back into the hole." He switched to Team Alpha's personal comm. "Roy, I'm bringing the forces down. There's no hope for us up here. The Turtles will hold them off up here as long as they can."

"Roger that Jerry.", said Roy, "It ain't a picnic down here either, though. Bring them boys down to help clean up this mess."

"Yes, sir!". He switched comms once again. "Captain Wilson, it's not looking good down here. We're having to pull all forces into the largest hole. Send a distress signal A.S.A.P."

"Understood, soldier", said Captain Wilson, "I'll get right on it. Hold on down there."

Jerry silently prayed that they could last until they got major reinforcements.

Things didn't look much better in orbit either. The Sentinels had followed some of the Longswords back into space and they had found the UNSC warships. Now they were engaging them and the fighters.

A voice broke through the comm. "This is Dragon Squadron, we're awaiting orders". It was Dragon Leader. Dragon Squadron was one of the best trained fighter squads in the UNSC.

"Dragon Squadron, this is Captain Wilson. Engage the enemy Sentinels."

"Sentinels, sir?". He didn't quite understand.

"The robots", said Captain Wilson, "engage all robot forces."

"Roger that sir"

Dragon Squadron streaked off into the battle in orbit. Captain Wilson watched them go. I wonder what the ground battle looks like, he thought, can't be much better, probably worse.

Once again the comm opened up directly for the captain. It was Jerry. "Captain Wilson, it's not looking good down here. We're having to pull all forces into the largest hole. Send a distress signal A.S.A.P."

"Understood, soldier", said Captain Wilson, "I'll get right on it. Hold on down there."

He turned to the comm officer. "Tell Admiral Falconi to send a distress signal. Things are turning sour fast."

Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me"

73

Jace watched the Spartans pull up on their bikes with mild interest, and dug through his memory about them, trying to remeber if they were among the black projects he had heard about...Then he rememberred, and quit thinking about them. For a moment his mind drifted over other projects that were all top secret, and most high ranking UNSC officers didn't know about...S-III, S-IV, S-II-IV, Iota...then he banished the thoughts and went back to the mission.

"I'f you don't mind, I'm moving out, still gotta complete my mission." said Jace to the gathered group of Spartans and ODSTs, and without a second look back, he spun on his heel, picked up the M7, along with another one in the dead SCAT's holster, and walked off.

It was now dark once again...all of the creatures had gone, and he lay shaking on the ground, cold, bloody, and exhausted. He rolled over, and at once, a dozen shards of glass sliced open his cheek, and he let out a small yelp. Sore in every part of his body, he reached for the pistol once again, and dragged himself and his limp, stub of a leg over to a jagged piece of metal, where he rested for a moment.

Then instinct kicked in, and he began to bandage the wound, and slowly, things became clearer, less blurry. But the blur was replaced by darkness, and he couldn't see anything at all....

"Two Roll to your left!"

Lisa slammed the stick of her Broadsword to the side before the words were even out of Matt Jacob's mouth. A boiling blue flash slashed angrily past where she had just been a second ago, a pulse laser. Lisa keyed her comm, and spoke clearly into it.

"Thanks three, still got my wing?"

Lisa heard a laugh through the comm, and a moment later Matt said. "You know it babe!"

Lisa surppressed a small laugh, for once Matt's jokes seemed a little bit funny. But the feeling didn't last long. Her thoughts drifted to Major Stort crashed in the hole, and Jace trying to find him...

She shook the feeling out of her head, and resumed her attack on the destroyer. All around them, the BioSuits that had contacted a few moments ago were buzzing around, firing their cannons. However, the destroyer apparently had put all power to sheilds and pulse lasers, and was taking a hell of a beating. In addition, a nearby carrier had launched a screen of fighters, which were buzzing around, blasting BioSuits.

"One flight, gather on me, two flight give us a distraction at vector three-two-sixty, three flight, engage the enemy fighter support and give those BioSuits some cover!"

Her face going stone cold and her eyes narrowing, Lisa let her mind open up to the entirety of the Neural Lace, something she didn't do lightly, something that was not an enjoyable feeling. Her own thoughts now were shared by those of her two flightmates, and she sent subconsius messages to them, ordering them to form up and keep on her tail. Streaking towards the Destroyer, blue flashes filled the sky as the gunners of the pulse lasers zeroed in on them, letting loose blue flashes. However, as they had discovered during some of their first battles, the pulse lasers let out a magentic echo before firing, easily detectable, allowing the pilots to avoid them. Her neural lace automatically projected these echos into her mind, and Lisa avoided them with ease from over 25 years of experience fighting the covenant from the cockpit.

"Move it!" she bellowed into the comm, and let out a ESDRW, which hit the destroyers shield, washing it with brilliant gold for a moment before it disappeared, doing heavy damage. Lisa swooped over the things hull, barely above the shields, swaying side to side as Pulse Laser targeted her. She rolled up on her wing, and in the distance, within definite firing range, she spotted a UNSC Destroyer, which she identified as the Golden Stallion

"This is Flight Officer Second Class Lisa Mill to UNSC Golden Stallion, requesting Archer missile assualt on Covenant Destroyer Twelve-Seven-Zee, at quadrant Oh-Eight-Zero on my mark." Lisa spoke clearly into the comm, and a moment later the voice of a human captain came over the comm. "Roger that FOSC Lisa Mill, missile pods A through F are hot and ready for the go, we have the target.

"Roger Stallion, one moment please."

Lisa swooped past an outcropping on the hull of the ship, cut a pulse laser to ribbons as it opened it's shields to fire, and dodged around the wreckage of a BioSuit.

"Demons, get me a golden shower at Oh-Eight-Zero, now!"

The 112th swooped in on the target, switching completely over to ESDRWs, and the sheilds fell quickly under the unmerciless barrage of sheild draining streaks.

"Mark!" Lisa screamed, and a moment later, Lisa's cockpit autodimmed as the space around the Golden Stallion exploded into light. Dozens of Archer missiles streaked towards the destroyer's open spot, and the destroyer, confused and with over half it's pulse lasers knocked out, was barely able to take out an eighth of the missiles.

The fireball bathed the ship in red golden light, and when it cleard, a hole large enough to fit three squadrons of Longswords gaped out, a perfect place to board. Lisa knew that the oppurtune moment had come.

"Demons, engage that bastard while their confused and distroy it's weapons, plasma torpedos first!"

Lisa looped away from the ship, and found it's shields were down; somehow, they must have struck something inside the ship. Zeroing her sights on a plasma turret, she let loose an ASGM-11, an pulled up as an explosion lit up beneath her. Swerving up, she swore as a Pulse Cannon shot flashed past her, and opened up with her eighties on it, blowing it to peices effortlessly. Smiling grimly, she let loose another ASGM-11, and watched the fireworks.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

74

-In launch pod bay- SPARTAN-G089 sets himself in the launch pod to land on the surface of Arctic IV. He places his weapons in the slots within the pod. As Linnea does the same. Both slide the doors down.

"Alright we're ready for launch just punch us when your ready admiral" Linnea said as she waited. Soon the all 20 pods with the 2 spartans and 18 ODSTs were launched as the pod plummeted to Arctiv IV's atmosphere.

"Watch out it's gonna be bumpy!" Garrison said over the STARCOM. Gary and Linnea could feel the heat start to approach their feet. Gary could here ray like noises as he fell towards the planet.

"Whats that noise?" Gary asked. He put his finger on the battle rifle's scope and tapped. No response from Garrison or Ustice on the unfamiliar sound. He forgot the question when Linnea's voice went on the COM.

"Landing in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4......" Gary turned off his COM. He didn't want to know when he landed. Soon the collision hit as the pod hit soft cold snow. The doors busted out as Gary looked for the other landing pods. More were landing. Gary turned on his COM and spoke in to the team.

"Alright meet up to my position men and we'll radio in to any surviving units in our area." Gary said as he spoke into his inside microphone. He grabbed his pistol and rifle as he flipped them on. Reloading both just incase the previous clip was damaged in the landing. Soon ODSTs came up to him one after the other as they kneed down in the snow surrounding him.

"Sir were waiting for your orders" One of the helljumpers said as he kneed down with the others. Linnea finally reached Gary as he begun to speak the plan.

" Alright team we received a distress call from the outpost here on Arctic IV that they were in trouble. We do not know if it is covenant loyalists or if its something else. But we must reach the outpost and search. We're also receiving a scorpion from UNSC Falcon coming soon from Geer. But for now we must search for the survivors." Gary said as he leaned up against the pod.

"Burrrr it's F-in cold here" One of the younger ODSTs said as he shook off the snow on he armor. Gary listened to coordinates of the distress call and pointed northeast of their position.

"Alright lets go" Linnea said as she turned to walk in that direction. Gary caught up with her as they ran through the blinding blizzard. Gary changed his vision to thermal as almost everything was dark dark blue. But soon notices weird heat movements. Gary tapped Linnea's shoulder and told her to switch on thermal. She did and also saw the weird disfigured bodies move infront of them.

"We've got movement" Gary said as he went into battle stance as he continued to creep forward. Pointing his battle rifle at the opfor he yelled to see if they were covenant seperatists or surviving UNSC soldiers. Yet no response.

Soon something small and squid like moved towards them. ---

-On board the UNSC Eagle in side the armory-

Vice Admiral Ustice grabbed a M6G pistol and 3 clips. As he was walking out on the intercom Garrison's voice called out to him for immediate help. Ustice ran to the bridge as he saw that UNSC longswords and shortswords were fighting it out with weird robots around Arctic IV's orbit.

"What is that Garrison?" Ustice asked as he catched his breath he was old so he wasn't that fast.

"Thats the Dragon Squadron and it seems they're fighting things called setinels...... And they are having a hell of a time killing them." Garrison said as he looked to Ustice.

"Should we send some hornets to help?" Garrison asked Ustice. As he looked serious and worried. Ustice still out of breath nodded as clenched his chest.

"Hornet pilots go and see if you can help the Dragon squadron." Garrison said as he released the intercom button. He placed both hands on the main computer desk. Grabbed a cigarette and lit it. Garrison pointed to an engineer implying to move closer to the planet. They could see the 12 hornets fly towards the battle to help the sword fighters. But cut their attention off to see a covenant seperatist ships also floating above Arctic IV.

"Send a message to that ship and ask why they are in UNSC space" Garrison said to the radio engineer. The engineer nodded and turned on the intership com and said his message. The engineer closed then sent to the seperatists' ship in hopes for a reply.

SPARTAN-089

75

The Sentinels beams were all around Dragon Squadron. They had other Longswords and Shortswords assisting them, but most were fitted with new recruits that were taken down easily.

"We're losing men, fast!", Dragon Leader yelled over the comm. "Requesting more fighters."

"We're sending out all we have Dragon Leader", said Captain Wilson, "but we're beginning to run out of fighters. And the situation just got more complicated: Covenant Separatists ships have been spotted orbiting the planet, and whether they're friend or foe is unknown. Vice Admiral Falconi is doing all he can, but that may not be enough. We sent a distress signal, but it could be hours before anyone comes....SKKREESSSKKHHHHRRR" The comm became drowned with static.

"Captain? CAPTAIN? What happened? Can you hear me?" It was no good; the battle comm was completely down, only short ranged squad based comm was working anymore. "Dragon Squadron, battle comm is down. We're on our own now." 6 "Roger that, sir"'s came across Dragon Squadron's personal comm. Just then, Hornets zipped in to assist.

"Where are you from?", asked Dragon-05.

"We're from Battlegroup Bird; we just entered the system after answering a distress signal. We saw you needed some assistance so we came to give it."

"Well you should have got here sooner", said Dragon-03, "the party started without you"

The Hornets gave a little bit of much needed relief, and as Captain Wilson watched, he smiled. Better congratulate Garrison and Ustice after this, he thought, they're doing pretty good. Pretty good indeed. But then he returned his attention to his duties as captain. "Move the ship closer to the battle", he ordered, "let's give those boys some cover fire."

Down and down the tunnels went.

"Do they ever quit", asked Marshall. He was claustrophobic and this wasn't helping him any.

"I wish they would", said Edwin. He was claustrophobic too, more so than Marshall, and he also hated the dark.

The marines and other members of Team Alpha slowly followed Roy down the deep tunnel. Aside from the ground quaking from the explosions above and the dust and rocks falling from the ceiling when it happened, it was deathly quite. Soon though, the group heard movement up ahead.

"Lights off, engines silent", said Roy. The vehicles lights went dim and the engines died. "Everyone else wait here", he said. He crept forward and around a curve in the wall so no one could see what happened. As he crept around Roy saw a large, large cavern. He looked up and saw a small dim dot in the sky. But on the far side of the cavern, he saw lights. Dozens, maybe hundreds of them. He slowly crept forward to investigate what it was. And then he saw a welcome sight. All of the UNSC forces that had retreated into the hole earlier were gathered there, for the moment.

Riza Holden looked up as she heard a noise on one of the mounds of dirt and bodies. She saw a figure up there. "Lights, up there" she said, pointing to the figure. Then she could see it was a human, wearing some variant of MJOLNIR armor. He jumped down and introduced himself.

"Ma'am, I'm Master Chief Petty Officer Roy C. I'm leader of Team Alpha and the UNSC forces from Battlegroup Alamo. We were also pushed back into the hole. But that does mean you have some reinforcements down here now."

"I'm Master Sergeant Riza Holden. Nice to meet you, though I wish it were under better circumstances. You can call your forces in without fear."

"OK, all forces, you are clear to enter the cavern. UNSC forces are the far side, repeat UNSC forces are on the far side, so don't shoot"

With that, the two forces joined together.

Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me"

76

"We told you already humans we are allied with you," yelled 'Sedgee from the Bridge of the Golden Sanction, he was incharge when Rapheal was gone. He started out the window watching as the humans took out the Loyalists shields, He then sent a message to 'Konoyee telling him to order the Biosuits into sequence Revter Oligu. 'Konoyee talked into the comm to the Biosuits.

"Get started on sequence Revter Oligu," he said into the comm and a general yes sir was replied back. The Biosuits then gathere in clusters of around 10 and began to charge up their cannons to full power. As the cannons charge, the Golden Sanction began to load plasma torpedoes into their launch bays. As the Biosuits fired the all shot at one spot, hitting their mark the combined force of the blast, hit the ship and blasted it's way into the engine room. The beams of white hot plasma hit the fuel deposits and detonated increaseing the blast radius to around half the ship. The plasma torpedoes then fired, hitting their mark, which was pretty hard not to. Blasting throught the hull of the remaining ship making the ship not inhabitible bey anything that need air. This also made the ship not useful for anything and killing all those brutes and loyalists dead as meat. 'Konoyee laughed everthign according to plan,

Iota Seven looked back at the UNSC base, she would probably never see the god forsaken strech of flood covered ground again. Her mission was to find the source of the robots and report back to the Master Sergeant when she found it and then they would think of something. She mounted up on the Mongoose and her teamate SPARTAN-064 sitting on the back with a rocket launcher in hand.

"Don't worry we will make it through this battle," said the reassuring voice of SPARTAN-064 from the back of the Mongoose.

"I hope, or i'll never be able to sleep on a god damn cot again," remarked Iota Seven. Of course if it had been a normal soldier he would have probably laughed at this remark, but not a SPARTAN. Iota Seven was begining to like this guy, maybe he was going to stick around after the battle, if there was going to be an after. The bike sped on makeing good time, of course this was no use because they didn't now where the hell they were going.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 01:52, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

77

-Near the UNSC outpost on Arctic IV-

The team still slowly approaching their unknown movement up ahead. Soon seeing blue plasma flying by there noses they turn left to see a covenant loyalist grunt trying to shoot a plasma rifle. A ODST puts a bullet in the methane tank as they walk by as it suffocates. They reach the base and see the base covered in non covenant or human blood or fluid. It was yellow and smelt disgusting.

"God what the fuck is that smell" a ODST exclaimed as he moved his hands left and right in front of his face.

"Thats the flood....I knew I felt something fimiliar here" Gary replies as he continues on through the base. He opens a door to see marines slaughtered and shredded flood combat forms laying against the walls and on the floors. He signals each ODST into a room to check for survivors or mid infected. As Gary is ravages through paper work and bodies he spots a mid infected marine barely struggling still to fight the infection form off his back. Gary walked up squished the flood with his hand and held the marine's shoulder.

"Do you know what happened to the soldiers here?" Gary asked the dieing marine.

The marine coughed blood out of his mouth as he muttered on a couple words.

"They went cough they went into the flood hole ugghhhh" marine died after his statement. Linnea came up to Gary as she leaned over him and shut the marine's eyes. She then walked back to the doorway and looked back at Gary.

"Lets go find ourselves some survivors." She said as she gave a thumbs up as she walked out. Gary followed out with her. He found her looking at a giant hole out about 20 meters in front of the base.

"Wo!... How come we didn't see that before?" Gary asked as he looked in awe at the gaping hole in the snow. Linnea didn't answer as she continued to walk toawrds it. The ODSTs followed as the gathered around the edge of it. One kicked snow in to see if he could follow it down.

"Well they went down there we're going to have to as well." Linnea said as she patted an ODST's shoulder. But soon as they were looking at the hole some unknown motions were picked up on the radar. To their left they saw 4 flying robotic objects look at them. The creatures were speaking in a alien like language. An ODST walked forward and proclaimed to destroy it. The 4 robots shook a little and then spoke in english. You are invading on forerunner holy ground are you infected with the flood? The front golden one asked.

"No we are not" Gary said, but his helmet disrupted the word he spoke as the creatures did not understand.

Subjects did not respond therefore are flood lifeforms The leader said as it started to charge it's beam.

"Oh shit!" Linnea said as she pushed Gary and some ODSTs into the hole. She followed as did the rest of the group. The setinels followed floating down through the murky depths of the flood hole. The minor setinels were distracted by flood fluid and started to burn it. The leader followed and start to shoot the setinel beam. The group still running down the hole started to look back to see if their asailents. Only the leader was following them as Gary turned around and started firing off his battle rifle while running backwards. The bullets hit a shield.

So thats where the covenant gained the magnetic shield technology Gary thought to himself as he turned back to join the group once more. A ODST found a plasma grenade that wasn't used and tried to stick it to the setinel but missed at it went off.

"Got any ideas Gary?" Linnea asked as they continued down the tunnel. She looked at him for a second and knew he was conjuring up something.

"We both shoot at it at the same time my M6G and your M7!" Gary said. But Linnea thought up something better and asked for his M6G he threw it over to her as she dual wielded and started to unload on the lifeform. The shield parished and the bullets shattered the setinel to pieces.

-On board the UNSC Eagle-

An engineer proclaimed to Garrison a message was sent back as they received it. And as usual it wasn't that friendly but friendly none the less.

"Alright Ustice get connected to the UNSC Falcon and get a slipspace message sent to them saying we need more vehicles and fighters!" Garrison said as he rushed to the main control table and watched the hornets fight the setinels.

"Garrison I want to know what we're up against from covenant to the flood I want a full sitrep on all ongoing movements on that god damn planet!!" Ustice replied with more thrust. A engineer brought a card and slipped it into the hologram. A AI showed up on the circular table. The AI had only a crew cut hair cut and a UNSC like uniform design. His voice was a british mix with scottish accent. "Hello admiral and vice admiral I'm AI Gluttony I will be your eyes and ears of this campaign." He said as he did a mime like posture and leaned on nothing.

"Alright Gluttony whats happening and what are we facing!?" Garrison said as he moved closer to the projected man. Gluttony shrugged off Garrison and replied " It seems Arctic IV is a forerunner installation. And yet the UNSC dug into the findings of the flood and their exterminators the setinels. It seems the setinels here are thinking you and all humans are infected with the flood." Gluttony said turning to the planet with his palm towards it.

" Wait wait what is the flood or setinels? Whats all this nonsense!?" Garrison asked in anger and confusion.

"Typical human nature no politeness only ruthlessness and anger. It seems you two are the only ones who have received the reports on halo and it's secrets it is fascinating really how the forerunners after building so many things just left it all behind for us to release it's awesome power" Gluttony said as he giggled. Soon a STARCOM shattering the radio silence came up. It was SPARTAN-G089 you could here his pants as he ran down what sounded like a empty mausoleum.

We have gained contact with the locals of Arctic IV and they're not happy! Gary said as you could hear battle rifle shots go off.

"SPARTAN-G089 where are you we have no skycam of you on the surface of the planet" Ustice asked as he stepped closer to the main controls.

We're under...ungghh... We're inside what the setinels and marines call a flood hole supposedly the survivors went down this long tunnel. I just don't know what the hell created such a large hole Gary said

" Oh thats Arctic IV's giant worm species it inhabits." Gluttony answered.

Well then this thing has been infected by the flood because the walls are covered in flood goo! SPARTAN-078's voice said.

When the hell is the Falcon arriving through slipspace!? Gary asked urgently No reply was heard they had gone out of range of STARCOM.

SPARTAN-089

78

Captain Ferris sat in his chair, I'm supposed ot protect everone in my jurisdiction but i'm can't do anything in space, maybe we should send more troops, thought Captain Ferris. He wanted to send troops down to the surface, but he had no idea where they were.

"Charile try to make contactwith the gorund troops," he said to the comm officer as he ran his hand through his navy color hair.

"Roger that," said Charile as he began to type on his keyboard. They sat there for a minute watching the space battle before them, a slight rumble woke Captain Ferris from his 3 minute nap.

"Sir this would be much easier if Will was here to help," said Charile as he continued typing.

"Right," said Captain Ferris as he called out Will.

"Sir nevermind calling him out, i've managed a connection strong enough for a short text message to the Master Sergeant, what do you want to say,"

"Tell her that we are send vehicles and troops and to put up some type of sign to sho where to drop them, shortened of course,"

"Roger that" said Charile going back to his keyboard.

The Ark'her were working, that would tear the Flood to pieces and the flood would helplessly try to infect them but to no avail. Soon all Flood attacking Union City were dead and the forces protecting the city rejocied at the victory. The Ark'her moved on to protect the rest of the cities and left a small garrision with the other defenders. The Ark'her were the ultamite weapon against the Flood and the Lpins would kill the humans no problem. Soon their planet would be clean again, then they coud rebuild and build further into the planet. Making this planet a utopia, then they would steal the inturders technology and move to the next planet and then the next. This is a glorius age for the Arctic IV Alliance.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 23:08, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

79

Where could the retrieval team possibly be? Riza asked herself, meanwhile, the extra reinforcements behind her milled about. They were putting their force estimates at somewhere from 400-500, hopefully that would be enough to detonate a nuke inside a Flood Hive. "Master Sergeant!" a voice called behind her, she turned around, a Marine corporal ran towards her, saluting all the way. "At ease," she said, then asked, "what is it?" "Sergeant Mcall at the COM station needs you, he says its important." "Alright then," Riza walked over to the COM station with the corporal, Sergeant Mcall, the man in charge of the COM, saluted as she approached, she saluted back. "Ok, whats the situation?" she asked, "Master Sergeant, we have a message from the battlegroup ahead, its a text message, look on the screen." She bent over the screen, text scrolled by "MASTER SERGEANT, REINFORCEMENTS ARE BEING SENT TO GRID KILO-BRAVO NINE-FOUR, THE FLEET IS CURRENTLY ENGAGED WITH ENEMY FORCES, THESE REINFORCEMENTS ARE ALL THAT WE WILL BE ABLE TO SEND FOR THE TIME.""Where is grid kilo-bravo 9-4, Sergeant?" Riza asked Mcall. "Ummm," he tapped some controls, "grid kilo-bravo 9-4 falls just 20 meters from the Hole," "Master Sergeant, i don't believe it! the robots over the Hole, their pulling away, only a couple are staying behind!" a nearby Marine shouted. "Good timing," Riza muttered. "Ma'am, we have someone entering the Hole, from the look of it, their coming in through an alternate route, some kind of tunnel." a nearby soldier called. Riza was gone in a flash, she unslung her MA5B, gathered a squad of Marines, and ran to the location the soldier has mentioned. Sure enough, a tunnel with light spilling out of it showed a figure encased in armor approaching them. Everyone centered their weapons on it, "Show yourself!" Riza called to it.

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law!)}^{( The State Alchemists we've enlisted (a reason not to mess with us))}

16:05, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

80

The armored figure was wielding two Magnum pistols, which he promptly slings over his fingers in a safety position at the sight of all of the aimed weaponry.

"This is Lambda Leader, hold your fire," he said.

When he finished that sentence, three more armored figures appears, weapons held in a safety stance - the larger rifles were stuffed under their arms, small side-arms hanging by their hand-guards on the lightly armored fingers. It is Lambda Squad, who apparently went ahead of the UNSC to take a look at the tunnel.

"If you need reinforcements, we're all that you need," Lambda Leader continues.

--Dubtiger 22:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

81

The squad of Spartans, who were apparently called Lambda, walked past the small squad of Marines and joined the throng of other UNSC forces. "Master Sergeant?" a Marine private began, then looked at Riza, "mmm?" she said. "Theres more contacts down this tunnel, 5-10 of them, I can't be sure." Riza walked into the tunnel and looked into the darkness that shrouded most of it. Lights were spaced every 15 feet or so and gave little lighting. But she heard whatever was coming, it sounded like metal hitting stone. She borrowed a nearby Marines' Battle Rifle and peered down the scope, The Marine was right. A squad (or perhaps two) was running down the hallway, Riza was just having trouble figurng out what they were. Blasted darkness she said to herself. She scrutinized the figures some more, some had the outlines of ODST armor while some had outlines of Spartan armor. More Spartans? she asked herself, she was thankful for the elite soldier support, but she had heard that when large groups of Spartans were together some....conflicts arose. She handed the Marine his Battle Rifle back, "their friendlies, lets just wait here and be the welcoming committee." The Marines nodded and took up positions, within a few moments the Spartans and ODSTs were standing right in front of them.

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law!)}^{( The State Alchemists we've enlisted (a reason not to mess with us))} 14:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

82

As they finally found the UNSC forces in the tunnel still several marines were pointing the weapons. Out of breath Gary did a hand waving down motion implying to lower your weapons. The marines did as the team recharged with the UNSC team.

"What happened to you guys?" A ODST said as he placed his MA5C assault rifle down on its barrel. No marine wanted to talk about what happened and didn't reply to the ODST. Gary finally gaining his breath back. Walked in front of the UNSC forces. He took his helmet off to see if he could breath even more. "Alright I'am SPARTAN-G089 and my friend here is SPARTAN-078 the rest is a ODST recon squad. We were sent to investigate what happened to you men from a distress call." Gary said as he wiped off the steam on his helmet's visor.

"We don't know whats happening right now and want to know what the hells going on so we can inform Admiral Garrison and Vice admiral Ustice about the situation so they can call for more reinforcements against whoever is doing this." Gary said as he placed his helmet back on once again. He looked around the tunnel looking at all these frightened soldiers and smiled inside his helmet. But soon heard a very very strange echo from both sides of the tunnel.

SPARTAN-089

83

Dragon Squadron streaked through the void of space. Except right now, it wasn't a void. It was an intense battleground. The Sentinels hadn't let up on their offensive, so neither had the UNSC and Covenant forces. The Sentinels would go down soon enough. But how long could they survive up here? And what about the ground battle?, thought Dragon Leader. But with golden beams, blue beams, rockets and red needles flying everywhere, he didn't have time to think on that. All he had time to do was fight. And fight he did.

Roy stood in front of the rest of Team Alpha. Several more reinforcements had joined them at the bottom of the pit, many of them more Spartans. Well, we'll need all the help we can get, he thought. "You know it. But I know that you don't want it either.", said Clyde. "Why do you always have to read my thoughts? Why can't you just do your job?", asked Roy. "It fun to read your thoughts. Besides you know you shouldn't be thinking that. Not in a battle like this." "Why you...", Roy began. But he was cut short. He stared to the sides of the pit as more forces rappelled down. He knew they were friendlies though, and gave his forces the signal to put their weapons down. Some didn't though, but they weren't his responsibility. As the friendly forces reached the bottom though, they didn't have any time to get comfortable. Almost immediately, they heard a familiar sound resonate through the pit. A Flood warcry....

Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me"

84

"We got incoming!" someone screamed, Riza whirled around, Flood surged out of one of the tunnels leading to the Hole, growling and screeching for Humans to infect. "aw, dammit!" Riza yelled to herself, then she began directing. She clicked her COM, "vehicles, form a perimeter around those Flood, don't let them spread to much. Soldiers, lay down covering support. Spartans, I need you to get by those Flood, plant an explosive in that tunnel, and detonate it to clog it up!" "Affirmative," a dozen or more voices said in unison.

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law!)}^{( The State Alchemists we've enlisted (a reason not to mess with us))} 22:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

85

Team Alpha rushed to fulfill their objective. Of course, it wasn't as simple as setting off an explosive. The Flood were coming from several, different tunnels and they had brought Juggernaught forms. But the team rushed to do it anyways.
Their target had Flood forms spewing out of it. Roy lead the charge with Edwin and Amy following in suit. Lisa provided support fire with a Machine gun from a distance and Kymberli used Combat knives to decapitate her enemies. Jerry drove a Mongoose with Marshall riding shotgun with a Rocket Launcher. All in all, the Flood didn't stand a chance.
Jerry broke the lines of the Flood and Marshall quickly jumped off and placed several already set mines. It would blow any second now so he got back on the Mongoose and they quickly drove away. The mines detonated, collapsing that tunnel. Now Team Alpha began to provide cover fire for the other Spartans as they blew their tunnels.

Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me"

86

Gary and Linnea swiftly ran left up the side of the wall with their spped soon firing blankly into the blood horde that seemed to magically appear in the tunnel. Linnea jumped right into the middle of the group and grabbed another M7 and unloaded into a oncoming juggernaut's tentacles dropping it. She then ran back to Gary's position shouldering any combat form. As they continued to clear pathes for the other spartans a marine combat form clenched on Gary's chest plate. Shoving away from him and then kicking the creature. The kick so strong slip the creature into halves. Then shooting it in the chest to put the fallen marine's misery to an end. Plasma hit Gary in the side as his shield held up for a while. But soon his shield fell as more bolts came at him a plasma rifle's bolt hit him in the side as he yelled in pain as his flesh melted and burnt. Gary fell to a knee as he helt the wound with one hand and shot with a pistol in the other. Marines with a warthog ran over a few oncoming flood infection forms as they helped the 2 spartans onto the vehicle.

Ustice getting even more impatient started to itch his head which was his upset or nervous posture he did noticing that almost every hornet was damaged by now.

"Gluttony have you gotten any communication to any UNSC force other than the ones that are fighting above orbit with these setinels?" Ustice asked.

"No I haven't yet sir but if you wish to try and call off all forces away from the setinels to see if we can take them out with our MAC gun you can" Gluttony replied to help relieve the Vice Admiral's stress.

"It's too risky and maybe those robots are blocking our frequencies so that some of the pilots won't hear the order." Ustice said as he walked back to an engineer as he looked at the man's screen. Just too risky He thought as he wandered around the bridge. Soon a engineer spoke and replied with good news. " Sir the UNSC Falcon has arrived from slipspace on the other side of the planet." the engineer said in relief.

"On the other side?" Ustice asked to himself. "Shit their either going to have to wait for the coordinates reaches them or they catch up with the drop zone on the planet" Garrison said as he showed him self after walking out of the shows.

Gary now resting is handed a new version of the battle rifle the BR55HB GL. A grenade launching version of its sister. Now with some serious fire power Gary stood back up and started run at the horde. He then switched the firing mode to grenade and lobbed 2 grenades into the fray.

SPARTAN-089

87

The debris flew as the tunnels were collapsed one by one. Jerry drove his Mongoose around the Flood forces like a maniac with Marshall on the back, firing Rocket Launcher and throwing grenades. Lisa was standing back, using a Machine Gun and a Missile Pod in conjunction to take out more Flood than one could alone. Edwin stood by his wife's side and gave her support fire, keeping the Flood away from her. Amy covered her father and Jerry, back to back with Roy, who was firing at three Juggernaught forms that had walked out of the tunnel. The more tunnels they clogged up, the more concentrated the Flood became and the harder it was to blow more tunnels.
The Mongoose blew out from under Jerry and Marshall as the Juggernaught's tentacle hit it. They rolled over quickly and opened fire, taking out both 3 of the tentacles quickly. Amy gave support fire as they got back up and backed away.
"Somebody, hurry up and blow those final holes!", yelled Marshall, "We're almost dead over here!"
They continued to hold off the Flood forces as they waited for someone to take the final hole out.

Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me" 01:57, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

88

Riza unloaded a full clip of MA5B into a Combat Form, it dropped in a puddle of sickly dark green goo. She hastily reloaded the weapon and selected another target. It was a very easy thing to do. They had clogged all the tunnels except one, the UNSC forces were fightning through hordes of Flood to get to it. She cats a look at the Spartans, they fought ferociously, killing hundreds of Floods in mere minutes. It fascinated and terrified her at the same time. An Infection Form leaped at her, she sidestepped, missing it by inches. She smashed it with her boot. A Combat Form ran towards her, gaining more momentum by the second. It swung at her, she rolled, the claw sliced the air she had been a moment before. She fired a burst of ammo into the Infection Form hanging out of the Combat Forms chest. The Flood dropped to the ground. A Marine fell a few feet from her, his M90 Shotgun rolled through the snow towards her, deciding its' ammo should be put to good use, she slung the MA5B over her back and grabbed the Shotgun, and loaded it to full capacity. A Combat Form leaped at her, she fired, a hole appeared in the Forms' chest, it flopped to the ground. She noticed another thing the Marine had dropped. A C7 Foaming Charge, she snatched it and ran towards the remaining Flood Tunnel, blasting all the Flood who got in her way. Finally she reached it, she emptied the whole Charge into the entrance. She clicked her COM, "All UNSC forces, a C7 Foaming Charge is set in the one remaining Flood Tunnel, fall back to the base!" she picked up the detonator and ran with the rest of the Marines. She cast a final look at the Flood horde, then clicked the button on the detonator. A flash lit the Tunnel, and then it collapsed, a shockwave swept out, mowing down the Flood with it.

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law!)}^{( The State Alchemists we've enlisted (a reason not to mess with us))} 02:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

89

Although Lambda Squad eliminated hundreds of Flood, hundreds more pursued. Unfortunately, the tunnel that they're supposed to collapse is so flooded with... Flood, that they were having difficulty holding them off long enough so that they could plant an explosive safely. Master Sergeant Riza solved that problem with her C7 foaming charge. Lambda Squad monitors the collapse, bracing from the shock wave it created. Wasn't overly difficult - just a shifting of weight was enough for all four Spartans to endure the wave. When the tunnel seems to be finished with its deadly course, the Lambdas went back into the tunnel, checking for any possible breaches in the handiwork. There were none. The group is safe, for now.

"Erebus, give a sonic scan of the tunnel network, and relay it to the UNSC ground forces labeled Flood U.G. Network," said Lambda Leader, checking the ammunition status of his Magnums (which he emptied 4 entire clips, 2 per gun, in the previous fight).

"Copy, Lambda Leader. Scan commencing now," said the AI.

--Dubtiger 16:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

90

Jace had lost any sense of direction he had once had. Beaten and battered, he wandered through the narrow corridors and tunnels, his dual M7s held high, chambers full of caseless bullets, MA5K slung over his back, and several fragmentation and plasma grenades he had liberated from dead combat forms at his side in his grenade belt. Jace swung around as a rustling noise echoed from behind him, automatically firing the M7s. The flood creature went down, ripe with bullet holes, and Jace turned and continued down the path.

Jace wandered for what seemed like hours, finally, he emerged into a tall caveren, were a huge hole off to the side went upward. A hole the size of a Broadsword.

Jace exploded forward, heart racing, and heard gunshots up ahead. The fog was heavy, but he could see flashes of light. He emerged from the fog with M7s held high, and to a horrofic sight. Before him lay the crumpled metal wreck of the Broadsword; it had been utterly destroyed, but the cockpit was still mostly intact, aside from the shattered glass of the panels. Jace hurried over to it, shoving his M7s into their holsters and drawing his M6G, which he had almost forgotten about. Jace walked over the cockpit cautiously, weapon ready, when he heard rustling inside. Fearing the worst, Jace ducked inside, leveled the M6G...and came face to face with Major Stort.

"Major Stort!" yelled Jace hurrying over to him.

Major Stort was a mess. A dozen peices of shrapnell and glass were inbedded in his suit, and blood was seeping from them. His leg was gone from the knee down; it was bandaged heavily but Jace assumed Major Stort himself, but is was still oozing blood from small holes in it. Major Stort looked pale, the normal air of control and responsibility gone from him, he looked small and weak. He held and M6G in one hand, and a spool of bandages in the other.

"J-Jace...is t-that y-you?" he asked, his voice feeble and cracking, thick with tiredness and pain.

"Its me Major, I'm gonna get you outaa here. We got to get up to the surface..." he said, and his sentence trailed off. There was movement near by.

And then through the shadows, he saw them coming from nearly a mile away.

"Major Stort, we have to go now!" he yelled, grabbing Major Stort and hoisting him over his shoulder. He leveld the M6G at the now charging flood, then turned and ran through a tunnel, firing behind him, with Major Stort over his shoulder. Every sense Jace had was tingling. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins, mixed with steroids and other things, and his body was doing a backflip as it pushed harder and harder. A warcry echoed behind him, and he ran faster. Up ahead a light shone brightly and clearly...he ran faster and faster up the tunnel, intent on the light——and he rolled out of the tunnel, into the searing cold, and out of reflex chucked a frag into the hole.

With a boom that resounded over the plains, the frag detonated, and the small tunnel caved in. Jace looked out at the snowy white expanse, realizing he was nowhere near the huge hole where he had entered. The only hole here was the small tunnel barely big enough for him that he had blocked. Jace let out a long sigh and fell into the snow, and lay on his back. Major Stort had fallen unconscious, and Jace was feeling drowsy himself. Mentaly cursing himself, he looked out on the horrizon and spotted a huge storm coming, swirling in a vortex of cold.

Shivering automatically, Jace looked down at Major Stort, and decided that he needed to make a shelter. Using his hands to shape bricks, Jace built a small igloo big enough to contain him and Major Stort. He dragged Major Stort inside, and withdrew a thermal blanket and heat absorbing pad from his belt, and placed Major Stort on top of the pad with the thermal blanket on top of it. With his AV suit and the thermal blanket, he should be fine. Jace was carrying enough rationd for a week of both of them. Struggling onto a wall of the igloo, Jace drew all his weapons and laid them out. He began to clean and repair them, and when he was done, they all sparkled and were fully loaded. Jace sighed again, ungratefull for the loss of something to do so quickly, and settled down to think...

Lisa rolled to her right as a pulse laser shot slashed behind her, bright blue and angry. Cursing, she rolled up on her wing, and let loose a stream of gunfire, and the turret before her erupted into flames. Skimming across the hull, she kept up her firing and ASGM-11 bombardment, downing several more turrets. The covenant destroyer had been disarmed of all large scale firepower; it's plasma torpedos were gone, and nearly 3/4s of the pulse lasers had been destroyed.

"Attention 112th Naval Squadron, sensors read twenty three——correction, twenty two loyalist fighters inbound." came the voice of the comm operator on the Golden Stalllion.

"Roger that Stallion, 112th over and out." Lisa clicked her comm to the private squadron channel, and spoke again, "All right people, twenty twoo Tarzans are inbound, I want one and two flights to intercept. Three flight, continue taking down those pulse lasers!"

Lisa swerved away from the covie destroyer, he Broadsword's engines straining, and charged straight towards the cluster of Tarzans. Behind her, one and two flights flew in a similar cloud, and at two hundred meters, the shit started flying.

180mm bullets, plasma shots, ASGM-11 missiles, and ESDRW beams filled the sky, and both sides took damage. Lisa's shields took a blow and drained to a half charge, and ahead of her, a fourth of the Tarzans were destroyed. Then they were upon each other.

The two groups swarmed and battled in a huge melee of a battle, fighting everywhere, and Lisa manuvered expertly through it. A tarzan dropped on her tail, but she rolled to the side, and slammed him into one of his companions. Blasting forward and rolling, Lisa let her rotary cannons work, and several Tarzans detonated in plumes of flame. Rolling to the side, Lisa reversed her thrusters and dove, cutting down another two tarzans. Within seconds, the skirmish was over, and everyone of the 112th was still fine.

"Good job people, lets get on to that destroyer." congratulated Lisa over the comm, and she looped lazily back to the destroyer.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

91

Jared, mind numb from hours of fighting the Flood infections that swarmed the tunnels, didn't notice when the tunnel caved in behind him.

Nicole, did, however, and said simply, "Uh oh."

When the weary supersoldier turned to look, his heart sank. So they were trapped, cut off from the main group of UNSC forces, and running very low on ammo. He checked his MA5C's rounds-remaining readout.

32. No back-up clips, even. Too tired to swear, he just closed his eyes. Opening them, he talked to his AI.

"Juliet, can you cut through the distortion in the tunnels?"

The AI sounded on the verge of electronic tears when she replied that she couldn't. "Not with the tunnel caved in, Jared."

"Nicole, do you still have those--"

"No, I dropped them in favor of carrying more ammo. I didn't think I'd neet C6-X on an iceball!" She frowned. Jared could tell that she was frowning because of the slight change in her voice. "We'll make it out, though. We're Spartans, after all."

A noise sharpened Jared's hearing and reflexes with a burst of adrenaline. It was wet, heavy, and dull. Flood.

"Get ready, Nik..."

She nodded and racked her BR-55X's action back.

As the Flood form came around the corner, Jared's eyes widened. God, help us! he screamed in his head.

Before he could fire, the thing spoke. Welllcome, it said, voice ringing in the Spartans' minds. You who seek to challenge me.

SPARTAN-091|Admin| ^HelmetComm 20:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

92

"Ist es eins von unseren" said a Lupin to Schwarz-Rückseite.

"Kein beenden das, Mittel sie" Schwarz-Rückseite said back to the Lupin. Through the heavy billizard you could still see the Lupin soldier smiling. Schwarz-Rückseite and his pack started to advance on the small structure made of snow and drew their laser swords. Schwarz-Rückseite drew his special sword, it was chainsaw sword and the lasers coated the teeth of the chainsaw. The Lupins approched the small igloo silently, then 15 laser swords plunged into the igloomelting most of the walls. The Lupins did not kill the people inside, no they liked to kill their prey face to face.

Iota Seven looked at the tunnel exit or was it entrance. Well it didn't matter because what ever it was the most amazing thing was inside. It must be near the end of the crust because the path infront of them went from 0º to 70º angle, it had been a hour since that had happened and now the were deep.

"I don't belive this," said SPARTAN-064 as he stepped of the Mongoose and looked to where the tunnel lead to.

"I know it's amazing," replied Iota Seven still looking into the tunnel.

"We should make a report," said SPARTAN-064.

"One problem how do we get back up it's a 70º angle and I don't think the Mongoose can fly," said Iota Seven as she looked back from where they came.

"Well we could take the elevator," said SPARTAN-064 as he pointed to a metal door which had three Forerunner symbols above the door.

"Right," said Iota Seven as she pushed the button beside the door. The elevator came quickly and as the got in they heard some faint music.

"Great elevator music," said SPARTAN-064 as the doors closed to the elevator.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 21:39, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

93

"Come in, Come in, repeat, Demon Five, come in." But Jaces COM remained silent. "Where was Flight Officer Williams last known position?" Riza asked Sergeant Mcall, the COM officer. Mcall searched the records, finally, he found it, "at 1723 he walks from Fireteam Zulu and the retrieval team, by 1900 he's gone completely," Riza considered this info, "where can a COM thats inside this Hole not reach?" she asked Mcall, "if someone is to go into the tunnels or to the surface, they are completely unreachable." Riza racked her mind, wondering why Jace would go to the tunnels, then a conversation entered her mind, a conversation that had been said hours ago: Jace's plea for a search and rescue. "He's not in the tunnels," she said, "he's on the surface." She cocked her MA5B, "and I'm going on a search and rescue for him, have Fireteam Zulu and the retrieval team return to base.""Then here," Mcall said and tossed her something, she looked at it, "its a long-range COM system," he explained, she nodded. She walked through the base, selecting Marines and ODST's along the way. Finally, she had a force of 15 or 20 people. Secretly, she wished Edward was on the team, but Ed wasn't here at the moment, so she'd be content with the force she had.

Ah, fresh air, not the stuff you get in a Flood infested pit Riza said to herself as an ODST helped her out of the Hole. She looked over the vast expanse of white, "Master Sergeant," Mcalls voice crackled through the long-range COM, "bad news, SPARTAN-091 and his team have disappeared from the radar, a search is being organized." "Good," she answered, they needed all the Spartan assistance they could get. She pressed her binoculars to her eyes, switched on the night vision, and looked over the expanse. For the first few minutes she saw nothing, then two figures appeared. She scrutinized them, they were too far away for her to get a decent look. Then they both drew weapons and attacked something, what the? She put the binoculars down and turned to the Marines and ODSTs and pointed to the location of the two figures. "I've found something, we're gonna check it, their armed, so be ready."

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law!)}^{( The State Alchemists we've enlisted (a reason not to mess with us))} 00:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

94

Why? I don't know.

Who? Jared-091, Spartan-II, Serial Number J091-S/2P05Q

Give it to us! Never.

The low drones increased to a high-pitched scream, piercing the supersoldier's temple like a shard of titanium.

He winced, feeling his bleeding ears ring.

GIVE! GIVE! Hunger we are, hunger! Go to hell.

The pressure increased, tightening around his armored chest. GivegivegivegiveGIveGIVE!

A warming touch filled his mind, and the pain fell away for a moment.

"Get a-WAY!" A crackle, a screech, and the pressure slipped away. Then a deafening roar overloaded his outer auditory inputs, and spasming light created a strobe effect in the must cave.

"Don't touch him again, you scum," a cool, clipped tone hissed. Nicole... what was she doing...? He tried to speak up, but the words stuck in his parched throat. How long had he been here?

The Flood Brain gabbled, in pain from its wounds, and lashed out at Nicole with its tentacles, a whipping, vine-like attack. A grunt, then another screech, this time louder and more sharp.

Jared blacked out for what seemed like a minute, and woke up to a dull light. It was greenish tinged, bioluminescent lichen on the steamy cavern walls. He blinked, and Nicole's face appeared before him. She looked concerned; blood trickled from her mouth.

"Are you all right?"

"Not... sure. Where...?"

"The main Hive. I think. Flood everywhere. You are lucky to be alive." She smiled, almost relieved. "I thought I'd lost you there for a moment."

A peppy voice interrupted Nicole. "So am I! I was worried for both of us. Niki and I barely got you out of that Brain's reach."

"Brain...? Wh-"

"A minor Flood controller," Nicole filled in, "It's dead."

"Nicole killed it," Juliet said.

Jared looked surprised, and Nicole waved it away. Not the main brain, she explained.

The supersoldier got up, reaching for his helmet and finding it.

"Thanks," he said to the two women. "I owe you girls one."

"And I expect you to repay it," Nicole winked.

He grinned and sealed his helmet. "We've gotta set up that nuke. Here's where we need to make our stand."

SPARTAN-091|Admin| ^HelmetComm 23:42, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

95

"Clear!" the demolitions officer yelled, everyone ducked. The tunnel that would lead them to the Main Flood Hive was suddenly clouded with dust, rocks flew out and pinged on Edwards shield. When the dust cleared, the tunnel was completely unclogged. "Good work, soldier," a Sergeant Major said and clapped the young Marine on the back. The plan was then put into action, Marines, ODST's, and Spartans all ran to their assigned vehicles, though they left a few behind so Riza and her team could follow them when they got back. Wherever they had went. Fireteam Zulu had brought them back less tahn an hour ago, they had spoke little. Edward took up a position in a Warthog with two other Spartans. The driver stuck his hand out to Edward, "Gary", he said and Edward though he saw a smile for a split second through the visor. "Edward," he replied and shook the hand. Then, the convoy set off, with the intent of nuking a Flood Hive in mind.

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law!)}^{( The State Alchemists we've enlisted (a reason not to mess with us))} 23:51, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

96

"Gehen Sie, setzen Sie Zeit fest zu beenden" yelled Rot-Rückseite as Lupins jumped for the upper tunnels onto the human forces. Ark'her lunged from the ground as the workers broke through the ground. Some of the warthogs were trapped in the holes that the Ark'her had made. The Lupins eyes burned with bloodlust as the pulled out their guns fireing burst of red laser from the weapons, some pulled out laser swords and began hacking away at the soldiers on the ground. The Ark'her soldiers began to fire there Slugg Projectors at the human forces as well, the Juggarnaut's began to bite and slash with all the weapons they could. They would have the humans on the run soon, very soon. Rot-Rückseite began to smile as the blood of the infidels slahed pon his face, Him and his troops would fight to the death to preserve their planet's greatness,.

Rapheal shivered from the cold the blizzard caused, soon him and is forces would leave and find the next piece of this great puzzle. First though he would have to get back to his ship, the Forerunners gaurdians were getting very annoying and would have to be turned off. His soldiers in space would deal with that and then they would leave. 'Vordyee had proven his worth in this battle and would prove his worth in many battles to come.

"See if the humans have found a way to get back into space," yelled Rapheal to his troops as the scrambled to do his order. Everything just as it's suppose to be.

Kinoshi looked from the top of the hill and pulled out her two large Semi-auto pistols and turned on the effects of her Exo-skeleton. She would end this fighting on her sactuary once and for all. She peered through the built in binoculars in the exo-skeleton, what she saw was a bunch of humans like her running towards two things she couldn't make out clearly. She was wearing her school uniform under her see through exo-skeleton. It was quite warm under those 500 pounds of titanium that made her exo-skeleton (which felt like 50 pounds of armour). She began to run towards the humans first, the other figures might be those nasty wolf things. They humans pulled out their weapons and started to walk towards the other figures. She would kill the humans then ask the leader where the rest of the humans were. Then she would probably kill the last human or just let her live for the heck of it. Yes this is all fun and games until someone turns up dead then it's a sport she thought as she began to run at 20 kph a fraction of what she could.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 01:52, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

97

"Open fire!" the Marine force had been intercepted by Ark'her. This wasn't good. Edward jumped from his position in the Warthog and slammed the butt of his gun in a nearby Ark'her, it dropped dead. He fired a trio of shots into another one, it met a similar fate. The Marines were killing dozens, Spartans were slaughtering hundreds, but they kept coming. Finally, the acting head of the UNSC forces called a retreat, everyone followed his orders and found a working vehicle to escape in.

The newcomer moved with surprising speed for moving around in such large armor, Riza dodged another attack from the strange thing and returned fire. It showed no visible effect. She swore and watched in horror as two ODST's were mercilessly beat down by the thing, she shuddered and tossed a Frag at the hulking mass of metal. An explosion dazed the enemy for a few seconds, then it shook it off. The Marines fought especially valiantly, but in a matter of minutes, only Riza remained. The metal thing stepped towards her and raised its weapons, Riza backed away. There was a gunshot, a hot pain stabbed through Riza, she fell into the snow. "Where are the other Humans?" the thing asked with a hint of malice. Riza said nothing.

"You make this difficult..." the thing growled.

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law!)}^{( The State Alchemists we've enlisted)} 02:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

98

Inside the small igloo structure, Jace shivered against the cold as the AV suit's heaters began to fail. The weather was getting worse. Outside of the small entrance, all Jace could see was a billowing snow storm. White expanse beyond all he could see, he had been waiting here for three very long, cold hours. Beyond the billowing snow, Jace knew nothing, and with the cold slowly seeping into the igloo, Jace was at a genuine loss on what to do next. Cursing absentmindedly, Jace glanced over at Major Stort. He was fine, the AV suit and thermal blanket together were keeping him plenty warm, and Jace wasn't too worried about him. Jace turned to the small radio he had taken from his belt. It hadn't made a single noise in all the time they had been here, and Jace thought it might well be broken.

Then, with a suddenness that startled Jace, it started sputtering out words, obscured slightly by static. "...turret two-fiv—screech!—down, starting my run on tur—screech!—look out! He's on your si—Screech!—fire, don't let 'em get through, cut 'e—Screech!—own! Take that destroyer out—Screech!—ckly!"

Jace turned around and swore colorfully. That was Lisa's voice on the comm, and by the sound of things, they were still fighting the enemy in space. If they were out in space, then that meant they were still fighting, and that the battle was probably still raging on the surface as well.

"Goddammit! I swear I'm gonna retire when this is all over!" yelled Jace in frustration, and quite suddenly, he heard a very strange noise. It sounded like a military conversation, the kind someone would use when approaching a hostile structure...only in a different language, a language quite different than the Covenant...

Jace's head swam, and he reached for his MA5K—and then a blast of heat washed over Jace, and he fell to the ground, vision black around the edges. Everything around Jace sounded muffled, as though someone was talking to him through a pane of glass. But Jace didn't have any intention of dying there.

Rolling onto his back and off his stomach, Jace looked out at the wall of the igloo through his AV visor. A huge hole easily five feet across and four up stood gaping in the wall, and cold, dry wind was coming through it. The packed snow that Jace had made it of had melted and vaporized instantly, and no water was left. There was a small area above the ground maybe two feet high where the snow was untouched, but Jace had bigger worries than how this had happened. In fact, he had a reasonable guess how.

Four figures clad in white armor, one with blue shoulder pads and streaks on the helmet, were wearing what Jace deducted to be Thermal Imaging Visors by the way they moved, and were all carrying weapons that vaguely reminded Jace of the ancient Lee-Enfield Rifle on Earth...

Then one of the things fired again, and Jace realized how very different these weapons were from the Lee-Enfield. A red beam lanced out and slashed past Jace, melting a hole into the wall of the igloo behind him, but smaller this time. Jace guessed multiple members had fired at him last time, and took a mental note of this new information.

Grabbing the MA5K fully up from the ground, Jace ducked out of the igloo entrance, hoping to lead them away from Major Stort, and tossed a short-range distress beacon near it so he would be able to find it again if he somehow managed to survive. Cursing wildly, Jace ran for his life, M7s rattling in their holsters and MA5K clutched tightly in his hands. Red beams flashed past him, and up ahead, a great mound of snow that was rose up on all four sides but had a large hole in the middle, which looked eerily like a bunker caught Jace's eye.

Changing course, Jace ran towards it, threw his MA5K over the walls and drew and M7 and jumped. The drugs in the Neural Interface that enhanced his muscle strength kicked in as the adrenaline flowed, and Jace took a great leap that would make a Spartan proud and scrambled over the wall, where he found that the ground was significantly higher up, giving him around three and a half feet of cover from the strange white-faced humanoids.

They muttered something Jace assumed to be cursing, and strangely, Jace understood one particularly nasty curse, and realized he had said it in English. Flopping down on the wall, and leaning up against it, Jace's stomach did a somersault as he realized how much trouble he was in. The four creatures were attacking, and had surrounded the bunker/mound on all sides. They were firing relentlessly into the walls, and doing what appeared to be reloading often, but the walls were melting quickly as the red beams bombarded them. Then, without warning, three of them suddenly grouped together at the apparent order of the one with blue stripes, and began pummeling the wall with renewed ferocity. The hail of red beams began melting the wall at alarming rate, and it would be mere minutes before it was gone, and Jace knew he had to do some thing fast; grabbing the MA5K up from the ground where it had been and jabbing the M7 into his holster, Jace moved.

In a single fluid motion, Jace bounded over the wall and slid down its outer surface. Red beams shot past Jace as he skidded down the icy slope, firing his MA5K dutifully. Bullets panged off the Blue striped one's armor, not killing him, but apparently bruising him up. The thing keeled over on the ground clutching his stomach , where Jace had fired the majority of his shots. The alien threw away its weapon and began retching. The ground was coming up fast as Jace skidded down, and the clip of his MA5K was getting slim. Jace let one hand supporting the front of the MA5K slide to his grenade pouch, and grabbed out a frag moments before he hit the ground.

Instinct kicked in, and Jace put his weight forward as he slammed into the ground and rolled, deflecting the impact. Smiling wildly under his helmet, Jace emerged from his roll and let the frag fly, button already pushed. The grenade flew and impacted into the snow inches from the clump of creatures, and with a small poof it sent a small billow of snow around its impact crater. And then, with a resounding blast, the grenade detonated, and all three figures were flung by the force of the blast, missing limbs, bleeding profusely, and with ragged tears were bits of shrapnel had cut into their armor. They were dead before they hit the snow again.

The fourth turned to Jace and continued to fire, and red beam flew past Jace, missing him by millimeters. Jace rolled forward, and reloaded the weapon quickly, shoving the 45 round magazine into the gun with a click that was muffled by Jace's body rolling through the cold snow. Emerging from his roll, Jace open fired, sending a hail of lead at the strange alien. Bullets slammed into the things weapon, and apparently hit something special, because a spark issued from it and the alien stopped firing. And then they were upon each other, engaged in furious close combat.

The alien lashed out with the butt of his weapon, knocking Jace's MA5K out of his hand and into the snow below. The alien lashed out again, sweeping the butt at head level with Jace, and he ducked under the blow and drew his combat knife. Jace slashed the metal blade into the alien's armor, aiming for the point where it looked weakest, and it sliced easily into the thing's whitish flesh, drawing blood, which spurted out and splattered across the snow below. The alien cried out in pain, and swung at Jace who rolled to the side, and came up behind it. Slashing at it twice with the knife, the blade connected, and two bloody streaks cut through the alien’s armor. The alien stumbled forward, clutching at its back, and Jace took his chance. It turned to face Jace, and as it did, Jace drew an M7 and put a storm of bullets into its helmeted head. It collapsed on the ground, twitched once, then lay still.

Jace stood their for a moment, M7 smoking, bloody combat knife in one hand, soaking with alien gore, watching the snow slowly stain as the body seeped blood. Then, as though he had received an electric shock, Jace bolted, quickly cleaning the Combat Knife and shoving it into its case, holstering the M7, and retrieving his MA5K, which he was relieved to see was not damaged.

Then, interested in the strange enemy weapons, he slung the MA5K over his back and retrieved the one that the blue striped one had been using until he flung it away. It appeared undamaged; no shrapnel had hit it, and Jace had not fired a clip of MA5K bullets into it. It appeared in perfect working order. The other ones were not so lucky; they had been utterly destroyed in the blast. However, Jace was able to loot several magazines from the dead corpses of the four aliens, which had been somehow undamaged in the blast. He figured out how to work the weapon vaguely, but determined that it was most likely designed to be able to link with HUDs of these enemy soldiers, which would limit Jace's use of it. Still it was one more weapon that could help him, and Jace gladly accepted. Then, holding the weapon in two hands, he set out in what he assumed was the direction of the igloo, though he quietly admitted to himself that he may have gotten his directions mixed up.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

99

The Nakai had failed in their mission to kill the human, but now the Lupin would take his comrade as a hostage of some sorts. If the human tried to take him back the Lupins would kill the wounded human then deal with the other human. It was so much easier just to kill the human as he tried to make deal to get his comrade back the to kill him in a fight. It would save them so much energy and ammo.

"Der Mensch wird schwer, nimmt ihn eine Weile" said one of the Lupins to another as they walked to where the human had killed the Nakai. Schwarz-Rückseite was getting tired of the constent bickering of those two Lupins, but they were some of his best fighters so they would have to learn to work together.

"Sie aufzuhören, hier er zu reden, kommt," said Schwarz-Rückseite as a shadow apporached for the blizzard.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 01:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

100

Team Alpha had loaded up into the still working vehicles that the UNSC forces had and then they had followed the rest. Their mission was to take down the main Flood hive-mind. It wouldn't be easy, even with all the marines, ODST's, vehicles and Spartan's they had, but it was their duty. They would carry it out, to the end if necessary.
Marshall and Jerry rode on one Mongoose near the front of the group. They tended to stay together due to their intertwining specialties, and their claustrophobia. Edwin, Lisa and Kymberli were manning a Gauss Hog, Kymberli riding shotgun and Lisa manning the turret. Roy and Amy were in another Warthog, with a ODST driving them. All of them were a little anxious and edgy though. They had been taking down Flood in droves, but they hadn't encountered any for a while now. And of course, nothing stayed perfect forever...
Out of the blue, a Flood warcry was heard and they jumped down out of previously unseen holes. The combat forms took down several of the Warthogs and Mongooses and the infection forms took the fallen bodies for their own. Team Alpha opened fire with the vehicles and weapons they had, but it was pointless. There was just too many of the Flood for that to do much good, and they would take out friendlies with the Flood.
"All forces, form a defensive line with the vehicles", yelled Roy, "Stay on our side at all costs. All Spartans, let's move in and take down these Flood, close-range style."
A whoop of delight went up from Amy as she pulled out two heavy sub-machines guns, readied them and rushed in. She was quickly followed by Team Alpha and the other Spartans.
The fighting wasn't too tough, for a Spartan at least. The Flood got packed pretty tight, so a slash from a good knife or a shot from a shotgun could take out a half-dozen Flood in one attack. But that still didn't mean it was going to be easy. Amy nearly got her head chopped off twice, barely rolling out of the way both times. Marshall and Jerry covered each others backs, using M90's and MA5B's to take out both forms of the Flood
While most of Team Alpha went straight into the thick of the fight, Edwin, Lisa and Kymberli held the line near the vehicles. As Kymberli ducked to get out of the way of incoming fire though, she was hit by the shrapnel. Lisa and Edwin ran towards her, providing covering fire and blowing up several dozen Flood, and then grabbed her and got her behind the blockade.
"Stay here, both of you", ordered Edwin said with a pleading look at Lisa.
"Don't worry, I'll take care of her", said Lisa, "you get back there and make sure they don't do anything stupid"
With that, Edwin returned to battle. It would be a long fight.

Lordofmonsterisland "Roar to me" 19:02, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

101

More shots slashed the air above and beside Riza as she tried to make her escape from the metal thing. She cast a look behind her, it was gaining, fast. "Dammit," she muttered and sped up. The vast expanse of blackness that was the Flood Hole stretched before her. She fumbled in her pack, searching for her grappling hook, she found it. She looked behind her, the enemy was running towards her on a perfect trajectory, if it fired, it would not miss. She stabbed the grappling hook into the snow as far as she could and jumped. Just in time too. The thing roared with rage as Riza descended into the blackness. She landed with a thud, she flicked on the flashlight and looked down at her leg, she had stemmed the flow of blood with a little biofoam and "taped" herself up. She shined the light onto the group of Warthogs and troop carriers that had been left behind for her team. Only one was going to be used today. She climbed into a 'Hog and situtated herself with the controls, then revved the engine. The headlights pierced the darkness and gave Riza a clear view of what was in front of her.

A tunnel had been opened to bring the UNSC to the Main Hive, she drove into it and looked around, it was lit by something, what that was, Riza couldn't fathom. Dead Ark'her and their gore littered the tunnel floor, clearly the UNSC had met some trouble. Edward popped into her mind again, was he among the dead Ark'her? the floor was so choked with corpses in some places it was hard to distinguish what was what, No, she told herself, Edward's a Spartan, they can't die, can they? But doubt was still in her head as she drove on.

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law)}^{(The State Alchemists we've enlisted)} 22:38, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

102

Jared, feeling better after a stimpack and an adrenal spike, typed in the last few digits of the Shiva's arming code, then palmed the remote detonator and gave a signal to Nicole. She sent out a wide-range broadcast to all UNSC forces.

"This is Gray Team, Squad 6 to any UNSC forces inside the Hole. Pull back and evacuate. Repeat, pull back and evacuate. The Shiva nuclear warhead has been armed and will be detonated in ten minutes. All UNSC forces, Code Medusa. Repeat, Code Medusa."

SPARTAN-091 nodded, and murmered. "Alright, let's get out of here. I'll cover you." Leaning out from behind the rock face, he opened up with the MA5C, allowing Nicole to slip past the prowling Flood forms. The combat forms squealed and threw themselves towards the super-soldier, tentacles whirling. Drawing the sword he had recieved from the rogue Omega Company, Jared slashed at the nearest form. It fell, neatly sliced in half by the two-foot titanium blade. Confused, the others gabbled at each other, than fell to the sword's reach.

Rolling, Jared slid down the embankment, then ran to join Nicole at the entrance to one of the myriad tunnels leading from the Hive. Together, they moved into the dark and dank passageway, splattering the infection forms that swarmed the walls and floors. Breaking into a run, Nicole re-issued her evacuation message over the E-Band, SMG blazing at full-auto.

Five minutes later, the two Spartans crawled out of the tiny tunnel space and into the desolate ice fields of the planet. Jared caught Nicole as she fell, exhausted, and eased her arm over his shoulders. He didn't feel much better. He eyed the detonator, then asked Juliet, "How much left?"

"4 minutes, 35 seconds, 9 tenths."

"Thanks," he said, tiredly, and trudged further away from the tunnel leading to hell.

SPARTAN-091|Admin| ^HelmetComm 01:04, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

103

Kinoshi eyed the two humans in their exo-skeletons, it had been a nice run to this opening The last one got away from me but these two will fall, she thought as she began to walk towards the two SPARTANs.

"Hello can i help you with anything," she asked the two exhausted SPARTANs as she insterted the two overly large Pistols into their holsters which retractiedinto her armour. They would lead her straight to their base then she would stop this fighting once and for all.

Iota Seven and SPARTAN-064 drove over to the Master Sergeant on the Mongoose when they heared the warning, "ode Medusa," was one thing that really got them moving.

"Master Sergeant, we have some really important news," yelled out Iota Seven to the Master Sergeant as they began to move at the same speed as the warthog.

"What is it, if you didn't notice we are leaving a place where a nuke is going to be detonated," yelled back Riza over the constent rattle of the wheels and the machine gun fire sometimes heard of in the distants.

"When you sent us to investigate where the sentinels came from we found something," yelled SPARTAN-064 as he fired his Rocket back hitting a Flood Combat Form group.

"What just spit it out," yelled out Riza as they turned the corner getting ever closer to the fresh air and freedom from the most of the flood.

"The Planet, the planet is just a huge machine, all the stuff under a distance is machinary,"

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 03:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

104

A satisfying boom told Edward and the rest of the UNSC forces the nuke had been successfully detonated. Well, he said to himself, maybe that'll put a damper on Flood operations. The Warthog burst outt've a tunnel and into the snow, Edward looked around, dozens of other vehicles were driving out of similar tunnels are forming small circles of vehicles. The 'Hog pulled into a circle of troop carriers and stopped. Edward clambered out, looking for Riza and her team. After a few minutes, Edward only found her. "Wheres the rest?" he asked. Riza took a breath, then explained. "As soon as we climbed out of the Hole, something attacked us, it was a big metal thing, it killed the Marines and ODST's and only left me alive...I thinks its looking for the rest." Edward took this in. "Plus, theres another thing...the planets just a giant machine."

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law)}^{(The State Alchemists we've enlisted)} 03:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

105

Cold....

Every part of Jace was numb as he trudged through the unforgiving snowy wasteland. The heaters in his suit were slowly beginning to die from overuse, and Jace felt his fingers and toes begin to grow numb. Ahead of him, all he could see was billowing clouds of snow. The whiteness engulfed him, and as his world went white, Jace felt despair grip him, and icy fear, colder than the harsh climate around him, squirm unpleasantly in his stomach....

Get a grip! he told himself silently. He was done for yet.

Standing up and brushing snow off of his back, not quite sure when he had fallen, Jace peered out into the snowy blizzard, and caught sight of something dark moving up ahead. Anxiously, he raised the alien rifle to his shoulder, and sighted towards the figure. Biting his lip in strain, he fired.

The red laser shot out of the muzzle and flashed towards the strange shape, but seeming to anticipate Jace's attack a moment before it came, it moved with surprising speed and jumped out of the way, leaving Jace's laser to slash empty air. Glancing around frantically, his body and skin now hot and tingling with adrenaline, Jace gazed out into the snowy billowing landscape around him, mentally cursing himself for not acting faster. And then he heard it. The hearing, magnified by the sensors in his AV suit, picked up the fast crunching of snow directly behind him.

Jace grabbed the bolt at the top of the gun and pulled it back, releasing the spent battery from his last shot, turning on his heel and leveling the strange alien gun at his onrushing attacker. It looked eerily similar to the wolves of Earth, but it stood on its hind legs, and looked much more intelligent and ferocious. Cursing wildly, Jace fired, and a bright laser shot from the barrel and hit the thing dead on in the chest.

The alien crumpled to the ground, a smoking hole in its chest, and Jace heard indiscriminate sounds in the background that sounded similar to German of Earth...

Another creature burst out from the billowing snow clouds with a snarl, and Jace twisted as to avoid its claws and biting mouth. The thing flashed past him and rolled, and Jace released the bolt of his alien rifle and fired, but missed. Silently cursing, Jace dropped the rifle and grabbed the MA5K, and reveling in its automatic fire, let loose a wall of lead at the wolf-thing. The beast swerved away, but it still caught some of the bullets; its flank poured blood, and it fell down in the snow, whimpering.

Jace took off at a run through the snowy blizzard, his MA5K clutched tightly in his hand, listening for the sound of more of the creatures. The wind howled in his ears, and the snow slashed at his AV suit helmet, and Jace felt his body growing numb again. Then, with a start, he picked up a distress beacon signal; the one he had set earlier. Jace ran towards it, but as he neared and turned on his thermal imaging visor, he felt his stomach plunge. It was surrounded by the wolf-things, which were closing in and attacking with strange versions of what appeared to be assault rifle variants of the rifle Jace had procured from the white humans.

Raising the MA5K, Jace let loose and auto burst that caught the flank of one of the creatures. It fell to the ground howling in its German like language, and pressing the element of surprise, Jace fired another burst at yet another of the creatures, and it caught it in the head, which exploded in a rain of gore and bone. But the element of surprise was now gone; the wolf-creatures turned to Jace and attacked, and dozens of red lasers scorched by Jace, and he rolled to avoid them. The creatures took cover as Jace retaliated, and soon they were trading fire.

Two of the creatures were advancing around Jace's flank, and he knew that his cover wouldn't be good for long, so Jace moved to the side, and rolled up onto the snowy slope, sprinting towards the igloo as red beams filled the air around him. Jace felt a beam nick his side, and he cursed as the heat of it singed his skin. Jace ducked under a beam aimed for his head, and fired the MA5K blindly in the direction of the shooter. Jace heard a howl of pain ring through his ears, and knew instantly he had hit something. Jace rolled to the side as another beam flashed past, and he knew time was running out. Putting on another burst of speed, Jace sprinted to the igloo and ducked inside, dropping the MA5K and drawing his M7s.

Quelling his heavy breathing, Jace lay flat as possible in the igloo, barely obscured by the low wall that had been left by the hole in the igloo, the unconscious Major Stort behind him. On his TacMap, Jace saw the wolf creatures cautiously advancing, Laser Assault Rifles raised, and Jace felt his heart rate spike; he only had one chance. When they got near enough, he put his plan into action. Jumping through the hole with both M7s outstretched and blazing, Jace landed on the chest of one of the wolf creatures and drilled it into the ground, still firing. Jace fired off the remainder of his shots, and brought down another creature. Then, throwing aside the now empty M7s, Jace rolled forward and grabbed the laser assault rifle as he did, and open fired, cutting down one, two, three enemies with bright lasers.

One of the remaining two creatures gave a yelp of anger, and drew a longsword that had a laser going around the entire length of the blade. Howling, it charged, and Jace barely leapt out of the way in time as it slashed the air. Jace rolled as it stuck behind him, it's laser blade coming close enough to singe the armor panels of Jace's AV suit, and he raised his laser assault rifle, letting loose a stream of red shots into it's furry back.

The wolf-creature toppled over, clutching its chest, and Jace turned and saw a single remaining wolf creature waiting for him. The blizzard had subsided, and the snowy plains were now visible. The sun was shining and reflecting off of the icy ground, and Jace raised his rifle to fire. He pulled the trigger...and realized he was out of ammo. The thing smiled and charged.

Jace flipped to the side, and slipped on the icy turf. He rolled end over end, and out of the corner of his eye, Jace saw that the wolf-thing had done the same. Sliding to a halt, Jace jumped to his feet and drew the MA5K and open fired at the wolf-thing. Jace's aim was unsteady on the slippery terrain, and he was unable to get a good bead on the still sliding wolf-creature. Over half his bullets missed utterly, and only a few connected. The thing was wearing some sort of armor, so though a few of the bullets impacted, they only gave off a small trickle of blood.

It gave a small howl of blood, and then lunged at Jace, drawing another laser bladed longsword, this one with ornate carved markings. Giving of low growl of pleasure, it slashed at Jace, and cut clean through his MA5K. Jace cursed and through the melted pieces of metal to the ground, and he drew his combat knife. Jace aimed a chest level slash at the creature. The curved serrated blade cut lightly into the wolf things chest, but it barely drew a trickle of blood. Still, its eyes became cold with fury, and it let out a low snarl. It slashed the longsword at Jace's head, and Jace ducked, bringing up his combat knife to parry—and the laser blade melted straight through the knife.

Jace swore as he threw the melted knife to the ground, and rolled forward, past the creature, where another one carrying a longsword lay dead in the snow. It was easy to find; its metal hilt gleamed in the sunlight, and the laser on the blade shone like a beacon. Jace sprinted top speed for it, rolled forward, and grabbed it, twirling it in front of him to get a feel for the blade. The thing didn't give him much time however; it attacked with its own sword, and Jace parried quickly.

The blow knocked Jace back a few inches, but he kept his sword in his hand. Jace aimed a slash towards the things stomach, but it dodged aside and lunged at Jace's legs. Jace brought his sword down in a parallel ark and caught the blow, then twisted upward and sent the creature’s sword to the left, giving him several precious seconds, which he used to great advantage. Flicking his wrist, he sent his blade straight towards the creature’s thigh; and with a sickening hissing sound, it cut through, leaving a cauterized cut an inch thick. The creature cursed in the German like language, and Jace rolled to the side as the wolf-creature slashed blindly at Jace.

Coming up from his roll, Jace saw the creature charge at Jace, a snarl coming from its mouth and bloodlust in its eyes. Jace counted down inside his head, and then at the right moment struck. Jace's booted foot connected with the alien's head with a loud crack and the alien toppled over in front of Jace, who rolled to avoid the thing's incoming bulk. Jace held his sword high and advanced slowly to the alien.

When it did not stir, Jace figured it had been knocked out. Quickly looting it of its ammunition, Jace began moving from body to body, picking up ammunition for the laser assault rifle he had thrown aside. Sheathing the laser longsword, Jace retrieved a rucksack from the igloo, where Major Stort still slept, unconscious, and began putting the combined ammunition of all eight of the wolf creatures in it, gathering around sixty of the ammunition capsules, some of which he retrieved directly from the rifles. After testing using a full canister, Jace concluded they each carried thirty shots. Jace grabbed another assault rifle and loaded it, and using the salvaged strap from the MA5K, Jace slung it over his back.

Jace went back to the igloo and retrieved the rucksack, and slung it over his shoulder. Major Stort was still unconscious, but Jace knew he had to move; more of the creatures could be on the way. Inflating a portable stretcher that Jace had stashed in his survival kit, he hefted Major Stort into it, grabbed the rope, and began making his way across the ice, dragging the stretcher with one hand, holding the assault rifle in the other. Flicking on his thermal imaging scanner, Jace found a huge heat mass, and began heading towards it.

CAF Corporal Spartan 501

106

"Flight Officer Williams' transponder is still giving off a signal, Master Sergeant, and he is walking towards...dang, the computer can't quite get that, but judging by the available evidence, I think he's coming to us," Riza stared at the screen, then pointed to a second mass that seem to be on top of Jace, "whats that?" she asked. A nearby soldier tapped a few controls on his keyboard then looked back at his screen, "the transponder reads as a 'Major Stort', he's the head of the 112th." 112th, Riza remembered the Battle for the Hole and the bombing runs the 112th had undertaken, so this was the man Jace had gone on the search-and-rescue for. "Send a team of Spartans and some Marines to pick them up, those men have gone through hell and back."

Once again Edward was on a retrieval mission, and once again it was for Jace. He peered through the pair of UNSC binoculars at where they were headed, Jace was a barely visible shape against the white background, he hefted something on his back, the Major. "ETA?" Edward asked the driver, a female Marine whose face seemed to show no expression. "3 minutes at normal speed," she answered, keeping her eyes on the road all the while. "Oh geez, I got contacts in the distance," the gunner called from the back, Edward put the binoculars back to his eyes, it was true, shapes, Edward couldn't distinguish them, were headed straight for them. Edward hit his COM, "we got trouble, all teams, speed up and form a defense around the pilot and the Major, lets go!"

-- The State^{(Our Decrees and Law)}^{(The State Alchemists we've enlisted)} 23:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

107

The two humans had directed her to where the remaining UNSC forces had popped up and she had began to run there. Soon she would reach the forces and then she would kill them all. Her foot slipped on a ice patch and she slid for 100 feet till she came to a full stop. Kinoshi activated her binocaulars and saw her objective, the people stood there mulling around just wating to be killed like pigs at a slaughter.

The Hydrolics in her legs then went to full power and she ran as fast as she could jumping up around 10 feet before she would meet the humans. HEr suit then injected the battle drugs and her heart rate and adreniline spiked as she brought her spiked boot up to hit the marine. The boot made contact with the marine and his chest bones collasped on contact, and the heart of the marine was flattened. His body flew about 20 feet the came to a stop snow melting around the blood that was seeping out of his broken chest.

Kinoshi then turned around grabing a black-armoured human, churshing his neck and throwing him into another human. Extending three of her claws she shoved that into the nerarest marine ripped up and cutting him from the stomach to his chin. Turning pulling one of her pistols out and blowing through a marines skull sending blood, bone and gore onto the marine behind. The mairnes and ODST started to reliased the serverite of the situation now and began to aim their weapons. A ODST pulged three rounds from his BR55 Battle Rifle into the Suited figure, he hit his mark but his bullets simplely reflected off the curved surface. Kinoshi turned around sending two bullets into the ODST one hitting him in the navel and the other in the eye. Kinoshi then grabed the marine closest to her and slamed him against the ground, his head snapped back hitting his skull on the frozen ground ending his life instantly. 10 more bullets pinged off her suit going off in different directions as she finished 3 more marines lifes by putting a bullets through each of their hearts.

Kinoshi felt something hit her back and a grenade exploded throwing her into the crowd of soldiers. She quickly jumped up doing a downward kick smashing in a ODST's skull slpattering the soldiers brains inside his helmet. Grabing the fallen ODST's gun she held it level with 3 mairnes firing it full auto into their skulls. Quickly throwing the gun smashing a ODST's faceplate she then ran up thursting her 3 claws through the ODST's weakened faceplate cuting straight through his face. A bullet hit the back of her helmet embeding itself into the armour but not touching the person inside. Dam shields have failed, i have to be more careful, thought Kinoshi as seh grabed a marines face crushing it and having the blood blow out onto Kinoshi's hand. Still holding onto the mairnes discofigered face she heard a Shotgun cock behind her.

"Don't move," the voice on the other side said. She turned quickly getting a view of the person behind her, it was one of those humans which had a exo-skeleton just like her. She threw the dead marine at the armoured foe hitting his shotgun of course and fireing harmlessly into the ground. She then punched the dead marines body hitting the armoured man through the body of the marine knocking him out and cracking his helmet. As she turned she shot another bullet hitting a marine in the legs making him crumple down onto one knee. She proceed to kick him in the face sending him 3 feet backand shooting another bullet through his skull. She turned and was face to face with another marine with his combat knife drawn, she pulled the trigger finding that the clip was done. The marine smiled and lunged at her, she side stepped and back-handed the marine throwing him to the ground. Reloading her weapon she put the gun to a ODST's face making a perfect hole right through his faceplate where blood then started to seep out. She plucked a grenade out of the ODST's belt and throwing it in the middle of a group of 5 mairne exploding a injuring the 5 marines. As she turned she saw the one huiman who had escaped her, she raised her pistol and shot the 2 marines that stood beside her.

"So we meet again," yelled out Kinoshi as she lept towards the human with her 3 claws out streched. The human dogded the attack, but then Kinoshi turned trying to melee with her gun. She caught the women in the leg knocking out her stance and grabing her by the arm tossing her into the group of soldiers behind Kinoshi. Fireing her pistol into the fallen gorup of soldiers killing some and hitting the women in the arm knocking the firmly held gun out of her hand. As she walked to the fallen women, she held up her gun ready to shoot. At that moment several machine gun rounds hit Kinoshi in the back causing her to drop down for a moment. She turned and started to half run half limp away from the slaughter. She jumped down one of the holes as machine guns rattled above her.

I will be back she thought as she slid down the hole. Above the reinforcements had come just in time saving the last of the troops still alive.

"Looks like we cam just in the nick of time," said the Marine who jumped off the first pelican as the rest of his squad jumped out. Behind him a entire division with 2 tank division were dropped off into the freezing tundra got out of the pelicans, this was the reinforcements that Captain Ferris had sent.

--Spartan-064,Demakhis ^Reporting • Contributions 02:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

108

Gary got out of the warthog he was driving and grabbed his new battle rifle. He looked at the ammo and only 12 shots remain inside the bullpup clip. Looking around in the snow he soon remembered STARCOM radio was working. Linnea jumped off the turret and walked up to Gary.

"So are you going to alert the Eagle?" Linnea asked as she looked up to her 7 feet tall teammate. He nodded and pressed his microphone on.

For the past 5 hours Eagle and Falcon have been trying to gather together as they talk to each other. The needed reinforcements are on Falcon and Arctic IV's atmosphere is larger then many biosphere planets. Deciding if he needs to send in pelicans for marine drops Ustice looked at the dreaded planet again and again every time he grew more hatred for the damn thing. But soon STARCOM chatter was interrupted to what appeared to be SPARTAN-G089.

"Come in UNSC Cruiser Eagle does anyone respond this is SPARTAN-G089 calling in for a sitrep in the orbit of Arctic IV we have congested the flood hole that we were trapped in." The spartan's voice said. Ustice yelled for Garrison to come but no engineer could find the bastard.

"This is UNSC Eagle's Vice Admiral Ustice where the hell were you guys for the past hours?!" Ustice asked as he pulled his finger off the speaker button. Ustice looked back behind him looking around the bridge once more for Garrison yet he was still not found.

"We were dealing with a little infestation hole and almost became consumed in the damn motherfucker" The spartan said as he laughed a bit after his quick answer. Ustice pointed to Gluttony and asked the AI to show the coordinates of the team. The screen showed a red dot on the same area that they had been sent to.

"Well reinforcements from Falcon has arrived Gary don't worry the rest of Gamma 2 is on the ship." Ustice said as he smiled. But soon he looked in horror as a Covenant loyalist ship snuck up on the Falcon and started to shoot plasma at the Marathon class cruiser which was struggling to turn what seemed to be getting ready to escape slipspace!

-On board the UNSC Falcon-

The Falcon now was in alarm mode as the started to turn to fight their scared opponents who had the craziest idea to sneak up on the falcon!. SPARTAN-031 looked onward in the bridge as the UNSC Eagle drifted watching the Falcon being shot down! Josh rushed to the armory and grabbed his sniper rifle and its ammo and also snapped a Assault Rifle MA5B. He then rushed to the pods as the rest of Gamma 2 in their pods. Spyton being the youngest on Gamma 2 was anxious to land on the planet and find the 2 others who are apart of the squad. Spyton looked at J across the room as J gave a thumbs up and placed his helmet on. Whatever that was going to happen it was going to be a bumpy ride. Spyton's thoughts came true as a voice came up on the COM it was Major Bricks and he was telling all crew onboard the Falcon that the Falcon was going to crash land on Arctic IV and that the first mission was to save their asses first before the others.

"Ahhh shit" Adam said as he shook his head looking to the ground

"Ahhh shit is right" S015 said as he slid his door down.

SPARTAN-089

@@ Line 401: / Line 401: @@
 ===[[User:Dubtiger|Dubtiger]]===
 *Role:[[Lambda Squad]]
-**Location: Classified
+**Location: Broke Back Mountain
 **Status:Classified Information
 **Other:None
 *Role:[[Erebus]]
-**Location: Classified
+**Location: Flood Underground (U.G.) Network
 **Status:Classified Information
-**Other:Lambda Squad's personal AI
+**Other:Lambda Squad's AI currently under the command of Master Sergeant Riza.
 ===[[User:UNSC AI|UNSC AI]]===