Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Unbreakable

Disclaimer: I do not in any way shape or form own Halo. It belongs to Bungie, 343 industries, and Microsoft.

I'm going to trying to answering your guy's comments in the previous chapter from now on.

edboy4926:- Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. To answer your question on whether or not Six saved Ghost and the prototype armor, I haven't decided yet.

Dr. Gale- Thanks for the advice. I'll try to cut down on sentences and flesh out the discussions more in future chapters.

Precursed- Thank you very much. I'm glad you found this story to be interesting and I'm happy you approve of the changes I've been making. As for whether or not Casper actually met 343 Guilty Spark or not, well, you'll find that out later. I appreciate all of the information you have given me and I'll do my best to incorporate as much as I can into this story.

So, that's all for now I hope you find this chapter to be enjoyable.

Chapter 8

The commandeered Phantom soared over the narrow valley below. Covenant were fiercely battling to survive against the Flood assault. It was all out war on the ring with the humans caught right in the middle of it. Banshees and Spirits patrolled the area as they bombarded Flood forces on the ground below, having more important things to worry about than one lone Phantom out of formation.

Casper was in the cockpit flying the dropship while the rest were in the drop area, observing the battle below.

"Charlie is really giving it everything they've got." Emile said as he observed a platoon sized Covenant force in danger of being overrun by a massive swarm of Flood combat and infection forms.

"Looks like they really don't want to let the Flood take control of Halo. That's one thing we can agree upon." Kat commented as she checked her gear once more.

Nobody seemed to disagree as no one said anything in opposition to the statement. After a few moments of silence, Cortana broke it. "So...do you want to continue our previous conversation back on the Truth and Reconciliation while we wait?"

Carter turned to face the Chief, where Cortana's voice was coming from. "What conversation?" He asked.

Before she has a chance to respond, Emile spoke up. "Cortana gets the feeling that there is something strange with the Lieutenant." He answered for her.

The Commander frowned behind his helmet. "What do you mean?"

"Well...I'm not quite sure what it is exactly but I just have this feeling that there is something off about him. Something that he is not telling us." Cortana replied.

"His file is almost entirely made up of black ink, I had to pull some strings to get access to most of it. Most likely just something from there." Carter chimed in.

"I looked through his file as well, well most of it anyway. But I don't think it's there, I think it's something more...personal." The AI retorted.

After a few seconds of silence, Chief turned to Noble two, "Kat, you said you were in training with him. You've knew him longer than any of us. Can you guess what it is?"

Kat pondered on it for a few seconds before replying. "Well, now that I think about it, he does seem to just...know things. Remember during Operation UPPERCUT? Jorge said that he brought a spare timer for the bomb."

"Yeah, but he said that he brought it with him just in case if they needed it. Which they did considering that the first one was fried." Emile defended.

"True. There was also the Phantom that he knew was targeting me when we were making our way to the fallout shelter." Kat said.

"Fallout shelter?" Chief asked.

"We were there when the Covenant glassed New Alexandria. Six pushed Kat out of the way before a Jackal sniper killed her." Carter explained

"He said that he heard the Phantom's engines and just assumed it was gunning for me. I'm still not entirely convinced but I cannot come up with any other explanations or theories." Kat explained further.

"There was also when he saved Shepard from the explosion after we woke up from cryo sleep. Pulled him out of the way just before he got burned. Said he had a gut feeling." John said.

"So, maybe he just has very good instincts." Emile replied.

Before anyone could say anything else, Carter interrupted. "Look, this is getting out of hand. If Six is hiding something it's his business unless it affects his combat effectiveness."

Before anyone could respond to the commander's declaration, they heard Casper's voice over their helmet radios. "Be advised, I have visual on the crash site. We'll be arriving momentarily." The Lieutenant announced over the comms as everyone started to make their way to the cockpit.

As soon as they entered, they saw it. The Pillar of Autumn, or what was left of it. It had left a giant crater in the earth when it had crashed and laid precariously over a large cliff. Its front half was hanging directly over the cliff, looking like it was in danger of falling off of it at any moment.

"Alright, Six, I want you to stay on the Phantom and get ready to extract us once we set the core to detonate. We're going to need pickup fast if we want to make it out of the blast radius. The rest of us are heading in with the Master Chief." Carter instructed.

"Wilco sir. Remember, do not underestimate and try to keep your distance. Those things are really dangerous in a swarm." Casper reminded them.

Everyone flashed their lights green in acknowledgement as Six slowed down the Phantom to scan for an entrance into the ship, he came across a few empty lifeboat bays. Six flew the dropship carefully as he hovered the dropship beside it to drop the others off. Soon as they stepped out, they immediately began securing the perimeter and glancing at their motion trackers for any signs of movement. Once they were all off, Casper closed the Phantom's doors and left the drop zone.

Cortana informed them of their objectives. "We need to get to the bridge. From there, we can start the destabilization of the ships' fusion engines by using the codes the Captain gave us. The resulting blast should be enough to destroy this ring and everything on it."

After a brief moment, she radioed in to Six. " / Once we're done, get ready to extract us at external junction 5A. Sending the location to you now, over. / "

" / Roger that, I'll rendezvous with you at the LZ when you're done, good hunting, out. / "

"We need to get to the bridge. From there, we can use the Captain's codes to initiate an overload of the ship's fusion reactors and engines. The resulting explosion should be enough to damage the power regular below and destroy Halo. " Cortana said to the Spartans.

All of them flashed their lights in acknowledgement and proceeded to move towards the airlock that led into the ship.

As soon as they stepped inside, a cacophony of signatures flashed over their motion sensors. Unknown if they were Covenant or Flood. Moving down the left corridor, they spotted what looked to be two machines hovering about as they fired laser beams at the Flood.

"What are those?" Kat asked.

"Sentinels. One of Halo's defenses." Cortana answered as the Spartans opened fired and the flying machines exploded. "If they're here than the Monitor knows where we are. The question is, does he know what we're up to?"

"Let's not wait around to find out." Chief said as he took point.

They moved down the corridor with many twists and turns, much of the remaining wreck had fire-damage, making the ship unrecognizable from what it was before.

"Cortana, could you bring up the ship schematics." Carter requested. Bringing it up, they saw that she highlighted the most direct route as well as the various passages, hallways, and corridors. Suddenly, Kat had an idea.

"How about we use the maintenance corridors, it looks like they'll help us to save time."

"That could work, but they're very narrow." Cortana replied.

"Let's give it a shot." Carter said as Emile moved towards and opened one of the hatches. Suddenly, their motion trackers became flooded with enemy signatures, and Chief pulled Emile out of the way just before the hatch blew open and a few infection forms came swarming out of it. Quickly being shot dead by Carter and Kat.

"Yeah...lets not do that." Emile deadpanned as he picked himself up.

Along the way they saw the Flood, Sentinels, and Covenant engaging in a three-way battle. The Spartans joined in, focusing their targets and bringing them down with deadly precision. Eventually, they all fell to their combined firepower. After a few more minutes of moving down corridors, they came across one of the entrances leading into the bridge where a small group of Elites and Grunts were stationed.

An Elite tossed a plasma grenade which nearly landed on Chief's helmet before the super-soldiers quickly moved into cover as the rest of them opened up with their weapons. Carter turned the corner and fired a 40mm H.E grenade round from his M310 underbarrel launcher, blowing some of them to pieces. Emile charged forward and put two rounds into an Elite, killing it as soon as it's shields were down. A golden Elite unsheathed its energy sword and came charging right at them, Chief used his SAW to drain its shields as Kat delivered the killing blow. Once they all laid dead, Kat opened the control panel to the bridge's door and began to work on it while everyone else provided her with security.

"Can you get it open?" Carter questioned as he continued to point his rifle down the hallway.

"Major components are damaged. But I should be able to. Just give me a second." She said while tinkering with a few wires.

Carter motioned for John and Emile to stack up against the door while he continued to monitor the hallway. Chief took the right side of the door while Emile took the left. John took out a flashbang and got ready to throw it in as soon as the door was open.

"Three...two...one...NOW!" The instant Kat had said that the doors to the bridge opened, prompting the Master Chief to throw in his flashbang.

Soon as it went off, the Spartans swiftly moved inside where they spotted four Spec-ops Elites, stunned by the flashbang. The first three did not stand a chance as they were quickly gunned down before they had a chance to recover. As soon as the fourth one got his vision back, he quickly dove behind a damaged console for cover as he fired his plasma rifle at the Spartans. Emile quickly flanked him and stabbed him in the neck with his Kukri before he even knew he was there. The Elite put up a struggle but was soon overpowered and killed by the CQC specialist.

As the last Elite laid dead, they took a final look around the bridge. Everywhere was a mess, bloodstained decks and walls, fried equipment and a broken viewport that provided a nice view of the valley about a kilometer below. A guaranteed death if you fell off. Far different from when they were last here.

John slid Cortana's AI chip into the slot as she appeared on the control panel that was miraculously still intact and functional, looking unhappy. "I leave home for a few days and look at what happens." Bringing a hand up to forehead in concentration. This shouldn't take long...there that should give us enough time to make it back to the phantom and put some distance between us and the Halo before detonation." She said as a countdown appeared on the view-screen which started at twenty minutes.

Suddenly, they heard a voice that none of the present Spartans had heard before. "I'm afraid that what you are about to do is out of the question."

The Super-soldiers immediately drew their weapons and searched for the source of the voice, but there was no sign of him anywhere. Cortana groaned aloud. "It's the Monitor. He's here!"

Guilty Spark's high pitched voice came back over the intercom. "This is such madness! How could you imbue your warship's ancilla with such a wealth of knowledge? Wouldn't you worry that it might be captured?"

Cortana spoke up with alarm. "He's in my data arrays, a local tap."

"You can't imagine how exciting this is." The Monitor said with joy. "To have a record of all of our long lost time. Human history, isn't it? Fascinating."

After a brief pause he spoke again. "Oh, how I will enjoy every moment of it's categorization. To think you would attempt to destroy this installation. As well as this record. I am shocked. Almost too shocked for words."

The timer on the view-screen stopped and then disappeared. "He's stopped the self-destruct sequence!" Cortana said incredulously.

"Please, do not continue to fight us reclaimers." Guilty Spark rambled on. "This installation will be activated, with or without your hel-"

His words abruptly stopped as the intercom was turned off. The Spartans looked at Cortana when she let out a small laugh. "At least I still have control over the intercom and comm channels."

"Good, was getting annoyed of hearing his voice anyway." Emile said with his M45 shotgun still raised, scanning the perimeter for any hostiles.

"Where is he?" Chief asked.

"I'm detecting taps and signatures all throughout the Autumn." Cortana responded. "The sentinels must be doing the dirty work for him. As for the Monitor, he's in Engineering. He must be trying to take the core off-line. Even if I could get the countdown restarted...I wouldn't know what else to do." She held up her hands to show that she really was at a loss.

However, Kat seemed to have an idea as she spoke up." Cortana. How much firepower would be needed to crack the engine shields. Causing the reactor itself to go critical?"

Cortana looked at Noble two with a confused expression. "Not much. A well-placed grenade or rocket perhaps. But why..."

The Chief caught on as he took out a frag grenade from one of his pouches and tossed it into the air a few times. The others caught on as well.

The AI nodded. "Don't know how I didn't think of that. Let's go."

She disappeared from the control panel as John pulled put her chip and inserted it back into her helmet. Suddenly, a couple of sentinels appeared from outside the view-port and opened fired on them. Chief used a well time grenade to destroy the bulk of them as the rest quickly made their way out of the bridge. Making their way down the maze of corridors and hallways. They made their way back into the mess hall before Carter spoke up.

"Let's check out the armory first. See if anything was left behind." Everyone agreed and entered the room, seeing many weapons still on the ground. Emile gathered as many shotgun shells as he could carry while Carter and Kat stocked up on various grenades and magazines for their M37 Assault rifles. Chief grabbed a few spare drum mags for his SAW and placed a few ammo boxes in his assault pack.

Moving back into the corridor, they continued to proceed towards the reactor when they came across the cryo bay. Seeing flood forms battling it out with sentinels. The Spartans allowed them to kill each other off as much as possible before they shouldered their weapons and opened fired.

As most as they were all dead, the group continued towards the engine room where they engaged a swarm of infection forms. A frag thrown by Carter managed to neutralized most of them before they could get too close. The rest were put down shortly after.

Soon as they reached the engine room, Cortana spoke up. "The Monitor has disabled all command access. We can't restart the countdown. We need to detonate the fusion reactors manually. It takes quite some time but I'll walk you through the procedures."

Kat popped open the first reactor as Emile threw a well placed grenade inside, destroying it. Two Sentinels suddenly appear and fired their laser beams directly at them. Chief opened up with his SAW and destroyed one while Carter destroyed the other with a few five round bursts from his M37 Assault rifle. Reducing them both to scrap metal, they moved on as there were still two more reactors to damage.

As soon as the grenade went off in the last reactor, the platform the Spartans were standing on began to shake. "That did it! The engines are going critical. We don't have much time. we need to get off this ship in ten minutes or we're going blow up with Halo!"

The super-soldiers ran to the nearest elevator and pressed the button for the third floor, taking advantage of the short lull in action to have a quick breather. When the elevator doors opened, a single Elite opened fired as the Spartans hit the sides for cover. Emile quickly tossed a frag inside which took down his shields as Chief put two rounds in his chest and one in his head. Soon as he was dead, they stepped into the lift and allowed it to take them up.

" / Cortana to November Six, I say again, come in Noble six! / " Cortana shouted through the radio.

" / Copy, send your traffic, over. /" Noble six responded instantly.

" / We have a wildcat destabilization of the ship's fusion reactor. The engines must have sustained more damaged than we initially thought. Requesting immediate extraction at the LZ on the double! OVER! / "

" / Roger that, I am oscar mike, out. / " Casper replied as the transmission was cut off by the service elevator shaking, causing the Spartans to stumble for a moment before regaining their balance.

Soon as the elevator stopped, everyone ran to one of the warthogs that thankfully still remained in the vehicle bay. Carter jumped into the driver's seat of a normal Warthog while Emile got on the chain gun. Chief went into the driver's seat of a rockethog as Kat got on the turret. Soon as they were all in, they drove away as fast as they could as explosions went off all around them.

"Analyzing." Cortana said. "We have exactly six minutes before the reactor melts down. We need to get to the landing zone NOW!" A six minute countdown appeared on all of their HUDs. "I'm activating final countdown timer. When it reaches zero, the engines will detonate and the explosion will generate a temperature of almost one hundred million degrees. Lets not be here when it goes off."

"Could you pull up the schematics of the service corridor and show us shortcuts that we can use to give us a little more time to get to Six." Carter asked.

"Done, sent it to you and Chief."

"Got it."

The two Warthogs drove as fast as they could, swerving left and right to avoid explosions and falling debris from what was left of the ship. Covenant, Flood, and Sentinels battled all around them. The ones that decided to engage them were met with .50 Caliber rounds from Emile or rockets from Noble two.

"Don't stop for anything!" Carter ordered as he ran over a spec-ops Elite, crushing it beneath the Warthog's wheels as Kat fired a few rockets at a group of Flood infected forms, wiping them all out.

Putting the pedal to the medal, they drove at the Warthogs top speed which allowed them to jump over a large gap. When Carter and Emile landed, they crushed a group of Jackals and Grunts. Chief and Kat drove through a couple of Elites and Flood combat forms when they touched down.

Soon, they passed through an open space and Cortana yelled at them through the coms," Stop! Stop! This is where the LZ is! / November Six, requesting exfil NOW! / "

" / Roger, be advised, I've got two Charlie fast-movers closing in on my vector. Can you provide assistance? Over. / " On cue, the Phantom appeared on the left as two Banshees fired at it while Six performed evasive maneuvers as best he could.

Kat aimed and started to lock on with the Warthog's rocket turret. As soon as she got a lock, she fired a volley of missiles at the Banshees, one of them attempted evasive maneuvers but it was no use before they were shot down, trailing smoke as they pummeled down to the earth below.

" / Thanks for the assist, landing now. / " Six said as the Phantom hovered by the junction and opened it's doors to let them in.

Everyone got out of the Warthogs and jumped on board just before an explosion caused the Phantom to momentarily .

"We're cutting it close!" Cortana warned as the doors closed and Casper gunned the engines to take them into space as fast as it could.

Four Covenant cruisers could be seen closing in rapidly on the crash site while the Flood were swarming towards it. As soon as the stolen Phantom exited the atmosphere, a bright light flashed behind them, signifying that the Pillar of Autumn had detonated. The Spartans could see explosions occurring all across the ring. A large part of it had been blown right off into its opposite part. Debris flew everywhere as the Halo broke into two. Many pieces could be seen on fire as they flew off in all directions.

It was a strangely beautiful sight.

The explosion had overheated the engines, prompting Casper to shut them down temporarily to prevent permanent damage.

"Cortana, did Captain Keyes and the others make it." Carter asked.

"Scanning." After a short pause, she spoke up. "Yes, the Truth and Reconciliation made it off before detonation. They're at the rendezvous point now."

Everyone nodded as John turned to Casper, who was still in the pilot's seat." How soon can we make it?"

"Engines should be good to go in about three mikes Chief. After that another seven to make it to the RV." He replied as he conducted a diagnostic of the Phantom.

Cortana spoke for all of them to hear. "We did what we had to do. For Earth. An entire Covenant Armada obliterated. The Flood, the Covenant, Halo, everything. It's over."

John pulled off his helmet along with the Spartans of Noble team, except for Casper who continued working.

"No...I have a feeling we're just getting started." He said as he placed it down on the console.

Unbeknownst to the rest of them, Casper knew exactly how correct that statement was and what else they were going to have to face in the near future.

They were indeed just getting started.