Like Riding a Hog

The Nyota ripped out of Slipspace after three weeks, emerging a safe distance from a colossal, ring-shaped construct that dominated the surrounding space.

Halo.

The legendary installation, once a figment of his late-night gaming sessions, was now a stark reality. One that Ken was about to step right into. 

"What do you see, Ellen" Ken asked as he stared out the viewport, a mix of awe and trepidation swirling in his gut.

"It seems the survivors are still working on regrouping while Master Chief is investigating what they call 'The Silent Cartographer', some kind of installation." Ken nodded. He had played this level so many times in his youth, the images would sometimes persist in his vision for hours after. If there was anything like home field advantage in this crazy adventure of his, this would be it.

"Interesting." Ellen's holographic figure appeared, her hair tied back and the top half of her jumpsuit tied around her waist revealing a simple, light t-shirt. Ken assumed it was white, but it was hard to be sure when Ellen was made up of purple hues.

She was looking down at a particular point on a projection of the Halo. With a graceful gesture of her hands, the projection zoomed in to a familiar scene. "There are multiple small engagements happening all over the ring, but the marine detachment that accompanied Chief seems to have garnered some outsized attention. Someone wants them gone in a hurry."

In the game, after certain checkpoints, the marines on the beach would disappear. He'd never given it much thought before, but maybe this is what happens to them. "What do you think, Echo?" This wasn't the objective but... "It seems we have some time before we must be in position, Ken 17" Echo said over bridge comms. "If we are careful, I see no reason why we cannot render aid and complete our mission."

The mission was a relatively simple one, in concept: secure Master Chief's exit by eliminating the Elite ambush that would be waiting for him as he came up from the map room. Saving marines wasn't a part of that, but Echo could feel his 'heart'. He needed to save lives in earnest this time and Echo had seen that. Ken smiled.

"Alright, that settles it. Echo and I will provide close air support to the forces on the island as long as we can. Ellen, you'll be overwatch. Maintain stealth and keep your distance, but feel free to provide relevant intel to UNSC forces on the ground, anonymously of course. If things get hot down there..."

"Don't worry Captain. Nyota is my Lucky Star. I'll keep her out of sight" Ellen had a growing ominous glint in her eye as she continued, "but if anyone needs a little extra oomph to get them unstuck, I have just the thing!" Ken felt a touch of sympathy for anyone unlucky enough to get on Ellen's bad side today. It looked like she needed something out of this mission too. 

___

My back pressed into the unforgiving sand, the rhythmic thump of plasma fire vibrated through my bones. Sweat and sand stung my eyes blurring the already chaotic scene. Three Covenant dropships had just descended upon our position, disgorging a tide of grunts and jackals.

We'd taken this position easily enough. When you have the Chief on your side, Covie bastards seem to just get out the way! I thought it would be a cake walk after Chief and a couple of the guys left to investigate that installation. Just hold position and eventually, we'd get picked up. What a joke! It's been a tidal wave of shit ever since! 

We are now pinned in a vice, grunts with glowing plasma turrets suppressing us from behind while the rest swarmed the front. Every inch of cover felt like it was taking fire. Morale was a flickering candle in a hurricane. Then, a glimmer caught the corner of my eye.

A sleek, matte black Pelican gunship coming in hot, swooped down from the heavens, its cannons spitting fire that carved swathes through the Covenant ranks at our backs. It was unlike any Pelican I'd ever seen. The familiar olive drab replaced with a menacing black, and the design seemed subtly different, but who cared about aesthetics when it was raining down salvation?

A cheer erupted from our guys, a spark had rekindled our defiance against encroaching darkness. But that didn't last long. Two wraiths lumbered onto the beach from the Covenant dropship hovering further up, their mortars raining hell on our position! Hot on their heels came a chilling sight - four lumbering Hunters dropped from the sky, their eyes scanning the battlefield for targets.

Someone called for us to spread out, but the jackals, emboldened by the new arrivals, upped their fire, snapping at us with their plasma rifles and pistols. It was all we could do to keep up return fire! I swear I felt my stomach drop when banshees, those twisted sirens of doom, shrieked into existence, diving towards our makeshift defences.

Our mysterious saviour, the black Pelican, made a stunning combat drop, coming in low to our rear with the ramp open, then angling up to let crate after crate slide out in a couple of seconds, then powering upwards to meet the aerial threat. From my vantage point, the dogfight was like a ballet of death.

The Pelican was a big ol' gal but she moved with an uncanny grace, its manoeuvrability surpassing anything I'd ever witnessed. It weaved through the banshees' plasma bolts, its own cannons unleashing a torrent of fire that turned the Covenant fighters into flaming wrecks. It was like watching a predator toying with its prey, using the very environment - the uneven terrain, the alien structures - to its advantage.

The skill of the pilot bordered on preternatural, as if the craft was an extension of their will, maximizing its lethality with every turn. Meanwhile, down range, the Covenant's renewed offensive was pushing us back. The wraith mortars pounded our positions with relentless fury. Jackal snipers found their mark with chilling precision, and the Hunters inched ever closer, their fuel rod cannons leaving craters in the sand where marines once stood.

The black Pelican, having dispatched the banshees with surgical precision, climbed high, its engines whining as it turned its attention to the wraiths. I said a prayer as it did, and a hail of heavy cannon fire erupted from its underbelly as if in answer, hammering the Covenant vehicles. But the wraiths' have thick skin. Their hulls shrugged off the punishment, their glowing mortars relentless in trying to end us! Despair clawed at my throat.

The Pelican seemed to falter, pulling away from the battle as the cheers of grunts occasionally reached my ears. Had it given up? Was this the end? Then, a miracle. From somewhere in the void above us, streaks of light slammed into the Covenant position! The wraiths crumpled under the onslaught, their explosions lighting up the battlefield like a macabre fireworks display.

The Hunters, caught in the open, were ripped apart by the unseen force. The jackals, deprived of their cover and support, fell to our renewed gunfire. It was a slaughter, swift and brutal. Looking up, I squinted, looking for the source of the devastation. It might have been my imagination, but I swear I saw a vanishing glint in the distance.

I looked again at the devastation. I'm no expert, but it looked to me like the handiwork of some kind of kinetic anti-material weapon, possibly a railgun floating in the middle of the Halo?

It defied logic, considering the Pillar of Autumn had been the only UNSC ship to make it here, and that ended up embedded in the ring itself. But who cared about logic in the face of such salvation?

The black Pelican reappeared, circling our decimated but victorious squad once before streaking off into the distance. The silence after the battle was deafening, broken only by the groans of the wounded being tended to using our freshly dropped supplies and the crackle of dying fires. I turned to my team leader, his face etched with a mixture of exhaustion and awe. I think I looked the same.

"Who… what was that?" I rasped, my voice barely a whisper. He shook his head, a humourless smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Beats me, Rylie. Maybe some hidden ONI puke that came with us on the Autumn. But whoever it was, they saved our asses. Let's just be grateful they were on our side." Together, we stood there, watching the trail of the black Pelican fade into the distance, a silent promise of hope hanging heavy in the air.

___

Ken and Echo put their limited time to good use while Ellen expertly orchestrated multiple battles with timely intel and the occasional liberal application of hyper kinetic rounds from her vantage point. When he wasn't providing close fire support, Ken and Echo guided the Marines he found to weapon caches and provided them the location of the troops on the beach so they could regroup. He also took every opportunity to soften up the Covenant forces still on the island. "I think it is time Ken 17." It was time to do the mission.

___

Echo put the Pelican into a wide and high holding pattern under Ellen's control. The Elites would be coming in on a heavy transport and the risk to the gunship was too high. Ken just took in the sight. This was the first time he was boots down on Halo since he'd arrived here, and he wasn't quite sure what to think of it.

'Sigh'. He pushed that aside and got to work. Looking around the alien platform, he spotted what he was looking for. A single battered Warthog. The very one the Master Chief had used to arrive here. There was no sign of the two marines that accompanied Chief here. They'd likely perished in the drive up and the fight to take the platform. Echo pulled him back before he went down that path again.

"Ken 17, how are we going to do this?" Ken hopped into the Warthog, his embedded knowledge kicking in as he drove into the platform backwards.

"Well, there isn't much to it. I'm going to use the passageway into the installation as a funnel, with the Hog providing the firepower I lack. The Elites will be cloaked, but it won't matter much with all the lead we'll be throwing downrange. I've done essentially that over a thousand times now so it'll probably work."

The 'probably' part had Echo worried. It had better work.

___

Ken was on alert when the low hum of a dropship vibrated through the passage. He could see a bit of it from his position right at the end. This was it. Four near-invisible figures materialised at the entrance, their forms shimmering and distorting faintly, confident in their first mover's advantage. 

Ken didn't give them a chance to realise their folly on their own. He pulled hard on the trigger of the M41 gun. The passage echoed with the drone of gunfire as the Elites scattered for cover. 

One didn't make it, taking several rounds to its chest. Adrenaline surged through Ken. He kept up the fire, spitting a stream of AP rounds into the maze of baffles that lined the entranceway. 

The chamber filled with the ricocheting whine of deflected bullets, punctuated by the Elites shouting to each other. One figure materialised briefly, spraying plasma back at Ken, not finding its mark before shields flickered before failing entirely. The chain gun chewed through him, leaving a smouldering corpse in its wake. 

A guttural roar echoed from behind another baffle. A third Elite fired from behind cover, its plasma rifle spitting emerald bolts that zipped past Ken's head. He gritted his teeth, laying down suppressing fire with the chain gun, forcing the Elite to stay down, while he used his right hand to prime a frag grenade. He tossed it, bouncing it off the wall behind the elite as it screamed out! 

'BOOOM!' 

Another one down. As he swept his gaze trying to find the last Elite he, too late, noticed a plasma grenade roll under the front lip of the Warthog and off to the right. A searing pain erupted in his shoulder as it detonated beside the Warthog. 

The blast sent the vehicle careening sideways, throwing Ken clear. He landed hard on the metallic floor, his vision swimming. Groaning, he fumbled for his SMG, willing himself to stay focused. 

A distorted figure materialised from the haze, its form wavering as it stalked towards him, plasma rifle raised. Ken was a little more hardened now, keeping his wits about him as he palmed a plasma grenade of his own. 

As the figure took another step, Ken hurled the grenade, having already anticipated the Elite would perform their famous dodge! The grenade made contact, sticking to the Elite's leg with a sickening thud. A roar of fury erupted as the grenade detonated, the Elite's shields flickering and dying. 

Seizing the opportunity, Ken emptied the magazine of his SMG into the sprawled Elite. The figure spasmed then stilled, lifeless. Silence descended once more, broken only by Ken's ragged gasps. 

Slapping in a fresh magazine, he dragged himself up and towards the remaining Elite, the one wounded by his fragmentation grenade. 

Carefully rounding the baffle the Elite had been hiding behind, he saw the warrior stirring weakly, reaching for its plasma rifle. Ken's heart pounded in his chest. He raised his SMG one last time, a single bullet ending the fight.

___

Master Chief ascended the passageway, his visor scanning the environment for threats. 

The air crackled with the acrid tang of burnt metal. He rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a smouldering Warthog carcass. Not far from it lay the riddled body of an Elite, the blue armour on its lower body fused and warped by a likely plasma grenade.

"Well, well," Cortana's voice rang out in his helmet with a hint of amusement woven into her tone. "That's certainly not how I remember leaving our ride." 

Chief grunted in acknowledgement, his grip tightening on his assault rifle. The plasma burns were fresh, the battle recent. A couple of minutes had passed at the most. 

"Looks like we just missed the party," Cortana continued. "Shame. I'd have liked to thank them in person for clearing the way." 

A hint of seriousness entered her voice. "According to intercepted Covenant and UNSC chatter, our 'Dark Knight,' has been causing havoc all over the island. The Covenant want them dead, and the brass want them detained and brought in. What will you do if you meet them?"

The whine of a Pelican engine filled the air as Foe Hammer banked into view, readying for extraction. Master Chief remained silent, casting a final gaze on the scene of carnage. 

He knew better than anyone the ephemeral nature of survival on the battlefield. Too many lives had been extinguished before his very eyes, too many comrades lost. It was not certain they would cross paths. 

Yet, this 'Dark Knight' stirred something within him - a flicker of respect for a kindred spirit battling the darkness on their own terms. Perhaps in the future, their paths will cross. But for now, the fight continues.

___

Going on a little real-life break, you know how it goes, but I should be back soon. 🖖🏾