CHAPTER 17

JUNE 27, 2530, 0830 HOURS, UNSC LEVIATHAN

Margaret had always pictured MJOLNIR as a heavy suit of armour, like it's namesake, only those anointed with a certain power could wield it. Like Thor, the wielder of the hammer, Mjolnir in Norse Mythology, it was a perfect fit, he felt it being a lot lighter as the technicians slowly encased him inside of it, it was like a second skin, a hardened exoskeleton.

The helmet was lowered over her head, and snapped onto the neck seal, a blue tinted heads up display lit up the inside of the helmet, full of displays and readings. she hadn't time to list them all, as the power pack mounted on his back came to life, Coetzee appeared from the back chamber, arms folded.

Her arms were released from the securing clamps. And he moved them free, flexing and being sure not to snap a bone or pull a tendon from the Armor's sheer processing speed at mere thought.

"Spartans, you'll have full operation command on a Pelican. Delta 197 will tour you in and will be on standby for exfil. Report anything you find and take whatever you can find that is recoverable, ONI techs will have a field day with it."

"Copy that, Ma'am" she said through her helmet speaker, powerful and amplified.

Margaret gave a glance to the other Spartans, all assembled in bulky, dark steel. half greek, half robot rigs, visors polarised to mirror gold. They each looked akin to some mythological olympian.

Margaret nodded at them, "let's do it, Black" she said

Otto smirked, "yes ma'am!" he said, he, Roma and Victor began to inspect the other crates and retrieved a variety of equipment. Including medical and explosives

Margaret secured a rifle to the rear magnetic mount on his armour, newer from the MA5 Series he had used, this one had a rail mounted scope that was sync-capable to her heads up display, featuring auto zoom and fired purposefully made 9.5mm Armour Piercing rounds, a BR-55 Battle Rifle, while lacking the 60 round clip of the standard-issue MA5B, having a smaller magazine of 36 rounds via the ammo counter, had greater range and stopping power.

She also strapped two M6C Sidearms to either side of her Magnetic Holsters. She turned around to see Otto limbering an M19 Jackhammer Rocket Launcher, nodding approvingly.

The Jackhammer was a portable Rocket Launcher that was very unique from most RPGs that had been used. assembled in two parts, the launcher and twin barrels itself, the weapon was very unwieldy, but it's 105mm shaped rockets were devastatingly effective against Covenant Armour, Infantry and Aircraft. It quickly became a favourite to fighting the Covenant amongst the Marine Corps.

Otto then retrieved two M7 Sub-machine Guns, and placed them either one of the magnetic plates on his thighs.

Roma hefted an M90 Shotgun, an MA5B already secured to her own magnetic plate below her MJOLNIR Power Pack.

After weapons and equipment were tested, checked and safely stowed away on their new MJOLNIR Battle Armour, they moved on through and onto a lone pelican on the deployment bay. The dropship had been modified, covered in an ablative coating that resembled the same matte black paint that was over their armour. The pelican had clearly had parts and components removed and inserted for the mission, several chairs had been removed and replaced with various monitoring equipment, as well as racks LOTUS Tank Mines, C-12 explosives, and a FURY-Class Tactical Warhead encased in a hardened egg-case.

"Stanforth's not kidding" Otto said, "That's a nuke! Talk about escalation."

"Something tells me it's gonna get a lot more common in the months to come to throw these things out like snowballs at 'em , Roma said.

Victor unstowed an S2-AM in the upper compartment and slumped his armoured body near the drop-ship bulkhead, he began to fine-tune with the rifle-parts, he also had an M6D Handgun as backup, he'd also had taken the provisioned cleaning solution for each weapon.

A pilot was already seated in the cockpit, dressed in full EVA sealed flight suit, he turned to inspect the Spartans, and turned back, based on his body language he must have been surprised.

Margaret took her seat and eased her armoured form into the cockpit co-pilot seat. She nodded to the pilot who stared for a full second then silently nodded, turning to the controls. She sat back and watched the drop ship descend into the deployment bay, and fire off into space like a missile. Soon, the craft plummeted towards the atmosphere, blooming flowers of atmosphere wrapped around the hull of the craft. Eventually, the atmospheric bloom dimmed and Harvest, or what was Harvest came to the view of the view port. She stared out unto the smouldering canvas of the planet, ahead of the ice, the holographic displays the admiral had shown him had not been wrong. The ground looked as if it was made of glass. Cracks in the ground were brim with boiling magma, like an angry blister.