Another new story? What's going on here!? At least this one had some warning behind it, what with all the author notes on my other stories. I'd like to start this story off with a promise, this story will take an entirely new direction to the Halo/Marvel crossover. There won't be any getting all buddy-buddy with the heroes, no great reveal, and certainly no word for word cut outs from other peoples work. Instead there will be tensions between the Spartans and heroes, secrets on both sides, and an entirely original plotline, or at least not entirely ripped off plotlines.

Don't be confused, however, the premise is the same. Halo encounters slipspace malfunction, ends up in Marvel, but I promise that is where the similarities end. This chapter will be Noble Team arriving in the Marvel universe, not really spoilers telling you that, it's fairly obvious.

As for pairings, send in your suggestions, but only for Kat, Jun, and Jorge. I already have pairings worked out for Carter, Emile, and Six, so please, no suggestions for them.

I feel as though I should warn you, I don't really know that much about Marvel storylines. I know plenty about the characters, their abilities, even their origins, no clue about previous Marvel storylines like M-day or anything like that. That said, I will be doing my best to make sure all of the characters are current. If you see me getting off track, tell me!

Well I got nothing else, make sure to leave a review and enjoy the story, or don't enjoy it, maybe just appreciate the text. I don't know why you people read these stories.

The first thing Jorge noticed about the afterlife was how it looked an awful lot like the interior of a Covenant corvette. The purple walls and smooth surfaces making the alien room somewhat pleasing to the eye, unless you stared at it too long, in which case your eyes began hurting. The Spartan II Commando was confused, why was he wearing his MJOLNIR in the afterlife? Why did this place smell so badly? Why were the floors so slick?

Jorge considered his fate, inside of a Covenant ship? Probably Hell. He looked down around his feet, dead Covenant everywhere? Starting to look like Heaven. His stomach grumbled and his eyes narrowed; no food? Definitely Hell.

Jorge turned around and was greeted by the sight of a beat up pelican. The seven and a half foot tall armored titan sighed, he wasn't dead, but he was in Hell. He walked around the pelican to take a look out of the hangar bay, and on the way got a look at the slipspace bomb he had detonated only a few minutes before. The large piece of equipment looked beat up, even more so than it had before he fired it. The normal smooth grey of the casing was charred black, sparks were flying from exposed circuitry, and the normally spinning centrifuge was no longer spinning, in fact it was no longer on the axle it spun on, but resting at the bottom of its cage.

The Spartan just shook his head as he turned to look out of the hangar. Though the thin blue line of plasma keeping the air in could have blocked out a few, it could not have blocked out all of the stars. Jorge looked out into the pitch black, straining to see something, anything, but came up empty.

So, we're still in slipspace, he thought to himself. Noble Five turned to his right and started heading for the bridge, hopefully to find someway out of this place, when his foot kicked something. Cocking his head as he saw what it was, Jorge leaned down and picked up the helmet he had discarded before tossing Noble Six off of the ship.

He picked the expensive piece of super dense titanium and incredibly advanced electronics. Jorge stared into the visor, looking over his own reflection. The thirty year veteran of war looked old. Not in the face, his face was still relatively smooth, excepting the scar across his eye, but it was his eyes that made him look old. Tired hazel eyes stared at their reflection in the maroon mirror.

Sighing once more, Jorge turned the helmet over and slid it over his head. He was immediately greeted by a series of flashing images, showing the Spartan that it was hooking up with his armor. As soon as the final diagnostic screen disappeared from Jorge's visor, a golden glow appeared around his armored figure, growing in intensity until finally disappearing from the visual spectrum. On his visor, a bar at the top filled up as the shields returned to full strength.

"Dot, you still there?" Jorge said, seemingly to no one.

Inside the helmet, a monotone, almost feminine voice responded, "Indeed, Noble Five."

The Spartan walked through the purple corridors, kicking the dead elites out of his way, "Any thoughts on the situation?"

"Situation, Noble Five?"

"Why are we in slipspace?" Jorge asked again, "Why weren't we atomized like we should have been?"

"Unknown at this time, however there are several theories available," Dot replied in its monotone.

"By all means, lay em on me."

Jorge passed another plasma window, this one directly behind three giant plasma turrets, probably the ones that took down the Savannah, "The most likely reason we are in slipspace is that the drive did, indeed, work perfectly."

Jorge reached a door, bridge on the other side, but it refused to open. He reached behind his back to the massive pack he always carried around, and grabbed a massive two foot titanium knife from the left side with his right hand. He slammed the knife into the crease of the door, and pried it open a few inches.

"What do you mean, 'worked perfectly'? It didn't work perfectly, it burned up as soon as it fired!" the Spartan asked. He put a hand on each side of the crease, on top and bottom, and started forcing the door back.

"Indeed, but it did send us into slipspace. However, due to the drive's failure, we are stuck, and cannot exit without the use of another slipspace drive."

Jorge grunted as he pushed harder, forcing the door all the way back into its recesses, and allowing him access to the bridge, "Can we use this ship's slipspace drive?"

"Unknown, but highly likely," Dot replied as her Spartan host moved through the corvette's bridge. The super soldier stopped and knelt down next to a body, though not just any body, this one was wearing green digital camouflage, and he was human.

Jorge reached down to the marine's eyes, closing them, "Rest in peace, trooper."

Looking around the bridge he saw the bodies of three other troopers. One was in relatively good shape, other than the plasma bolt that had burned straight through the BDU and the man's ribcage. Another trooper's face was next to her feet, having been cut in half at the waist with an energy sword. The last trooper's chest cavity had exploded outwards, the pink shards indicating a Type 33 Guided Munitions Launcher, otherwise known as a needler, as the cause of death.

Jorge hadn't questioned Noble Six when he returned alone, the Spartan II never expected the marines to survive the mission. Even ODST's wouldn't have been likely to survive the onslaught. Close quarters against elites, suicide grunts, even jackals, was something no one but a Spartan would have survived. Elites were too fast, agile, and strong, really strong, capable of overpowering even Spartan II Commandoes, excepting two.

Sam-034 was often hailed as the strongest Spartan to ever live, capable of lifting over a full ton even out of his armor, but he had never had time to grow into his capabilities, dying when he was only fourteen. Jorge, on the other hand, had had time to grow into his abilities. As the Spartan II's grew, their augmentations grew with them, making them stronger and faster, and Jorge had grown so much.

He lifted weights on a regular basis, even with the war going on. If he didn't sustain any injuries during a battle he would always seek out the ships weight room, near the gravity centrifuge and get a pre-cryo workout. The last time he was in one he was capable of lifting just over two tons without his armor. To put that into perspective, if he were to try lifting that much weight with a regular steel bar and lead weights, the bar would have to be two feet longer on each end, and would snap under the weight. The towering Hungarian was forced to find a titanium bar and use specialized osmium alloy weights just so he could actually fit it on a weight rack.

Of course, none of these marines could lift that much weight, and were easily overpowered by the elites. Standing up, Jorge shook his head at the gruesome spectacle. It wasn't just the marines that were brutalized. The four SpecOps elites were almost indistinguishable from each other, having been caught in a nasty trap involving two plasma grenades. The elite general was slumped over a console, except for his head, which was dangling from a few exposed fiber optic cables ripped from the ceiling. The rest of the bodies weren't nearly as bad, but grunts were easy to kill. With no shields, all it took was a couple of shots to the head.

"Alright Dot, how can we access the slipspace drive?"

"If you could integrate me with a console, I can provide you with an answer, Noble Five," came the monotonous answer.

The towering titan stepped over a grunts methane tank and towards the bridge's main control, hopefully the helm controls. Jorge supposed that if any set of controls could activate slipspace, it would be the helm. The Spartan held out his hand, pushing it through the 3D holographic controls, allowing the crystalline titanium gel layer to interact with the console, giving Dot the pathway she needed.

The glowing holographic controls along the entire bridge flickered as the UNSC AI entered the systems. Soon, however, the controls settled back to their constant soft white glow, and the screen above the console Jorge stood in front of began displaying a large diamond with two smaller diamonds in the middle, Dot's preferred avatar.

"Well?" Jorge asked.

"There has been a complication."

"Complication?" the Spartan asked, not liking the implications.

"This corvette has no slipspace drive, Noble Five," came the emotionless reply.

"What?" Jorge asked incredulously, "How the hell does this ship get from place to place?"

"It is likely that it traveled with the parent supercarrier," Dot answered, "but there are several other methods that could be used. Such as…"

"Dot," the human interrupted the AI's rambling, "Just stop and tell me what the status of the ship is. Are there any survivors?"

"Four engineers are currently attempting to repair the engines."

"Engineers?" Jorge asked, wishing he had grabbed his M247H Heavy Machine Gun. Engineers may not be the most dangerous Covenant, but they were still Covenant.

"Affirmative, Noble Five, internal sensors indicate these to be the only four surviving Covenant aboard this ship, and seven intruders, including yourself, Sierra 052."

Jorge perked up at the news, "Six others? Where?"

"Just underneath the dorsal landing pad, in the main comm. room."

The Spartan was already running through the same route he had taken to get to the bridge. Keying his comm. unit in his helmet he attempted to hail the six unknowns, hoping them to be the pilots and copilots from the saber teams.

"Noble Five to Echo One, do you copy? Noble Five to Echo Two, do you copy?" Jorge passed through the hangar, headed up a ramping hallway to the comm. room, "Noble Five to Echo Four, do you copy!?"

Jorge reached the final door to the primary comm. room, only for it to refuse to open. Rolling his eyes in exasperation, the Spartan once again reached for his massive blade.

"Breaching main entrance inadvisable, Noble Five," a monotonous voice warned him.

"Why?"

"Internal sensors indicate a vacuum environment in the main comm. relay."

"Then decompress my section and open the bloody doors!"

…

…

Jorge tilted his head, "What's taking so long?"

"In my current limited state, I am only capable of operating at 16.7% capacity, Noble Five."

Jorge shifted impatiently before the room was suddenly filled with a hissing sound that ended abruptly, followed by the dead bodies of several Covenant aliens to begin floating aimlessly. The Spartan grabbed a plasma repeater from the cold grasp of an elite ranger, he couldn't take the chance that these weren't UNSC personnel, before turning back to the door.

The door slid open without a sound, due to the vacuum it was currently operating in, and the super soldier stepped through, plasma repeater up. He was immediately met with a welcome sight, humans, six of them. All six of them pulled their weapons up at the sight of the massive Spartan, most of them heaved their shoulders in relief.

Jorge put down his plasma repeater as he neared the soldiers, "Why weren't you answering your comms?"

The lead trooper, Specialist Rodriguez on his EVA suit, tilted his head at the soldier before tapping the side of his helmet his radio was on and bringing his hand across his neck, signaling that his radio was dead. Jorge nodded and jerked his thumb backwards, telling the soldiers to head back. The Spartan didn't want to risk their lives over four Covenant he could take out with ease.

He picked his plasma repeater back up and held it ready before stalking into the comm. room. He stepped out into the arena like room, checking around both corners, finding only the floating corpses of several grunts and one elite ranger. Dot said the engineers were in the engine room, but he wasn't taking the chance that there were cloaked elites walking around. Moving up to the hollow center pillar, Jorge pushed off lightly and grabbed the sides of the floor of the second level, lest he float past the ledge and float off into slipspace for eternity.

Though that wasn't very likely, Jorge realized as he looked up to the dorsal landing pad, only to have his line of sight blocked by a YSS-1000 Sabre. There was plenty of obvious damage, plasma burns, shearing damage, even a hole that could only have been caused by one of Savannah's point defense guns.

He searched the Sabre up and down, looking for any indication of what happened to the fighter and why it was lodged in there like that. There were spots along the circular orifice that was not clogged with debris from the Sabre. Jorge wondered if the six men and women were ever up there, perhaps trying to get back to the Sabres and escape the corvette before the slipspace drive engaged, but dismissed the idea. If they went up there, then they would have died from the Savannah's attack on the corvette or even the Sabres that were rolling around up there.

Something moving on Jorge's motion tracker got his attention… Behind him!

Whirling around the Spartan leveled his plasma repeater at the threat, only to blink in confusion. In front of him was an Engineer, but rather than attacking, or even moving threateningly, it was prying the body of an elite ranger out from a comm. console. The seven and a half foot tall alien floated away from the console and the engineer, touched, the console. Jorge couldn't describe what it was doing but whatever it was, the pinkish purple metal of the console began warping back into place, and soon the comm. relay was working again.

"Noble Five, internal sensors are showing the comm. relay back online, please explain."

"Dot, I got an engineer in here, fixing up all the damaged circuits and it seems to be disposing of the bodies," Jorge told the AI, "What's it doing in here; I thought they were repairing the engines?"

"My apologies, Sierra 052, I underestimated their ability. The corvette has full engine capability."

"I thought Six trashed the engines?" Jorge asked, "Medusa missile pods should have been nothing left but scrap."

"By UNSC standards, perhaps, however it appears that to engineers these engines were easily repaired."

Flashing lights all around him alerted Jorge to the fact he was surrounded by the floating aliens. Flipping his plasma repeater to aim at the nearest one, he was once again stunned into inaction. The four gas inflated aliens fought the meager weight of the stuck Sabre in the low gravity, forcing it out of the hole and allowing the translucent line of plasma to reappear. The four engineers set the human made fighter down somewhere on the landing bay.

"Dot, do you have eyes on what they're doing?"

"They appear to be repairing the Sabres, all of them."

"How do they know how to repair a human fighter?"

"Unknown at this time, Noble Five, I will inform you as soon as a conclusion has been reached."

Jorge was confused at the behavior of the engineers. He had never actually fought engineers before. Six had mentioned one was in the main hangar when he took it, said it was giving off energy pulses that powered small but powerful energy shields on each and every Covenant within range, except itself. Apparently it had been the lieutenant's very first target, so Jorge's information on this particular species was still limited. Still, it was Covenant, shouldn't they have attacked him and the others? If anything, they seemed to just ignore him and the other UNSC personnel.

Tapping his finger to the side of his helmet, Jorge spoke, "Dot, can you get an atmosphere in here?"

"Affirmative, Noble Five."

"Do it."

"Gladly, Noble Five."

…

…

Jorge shook his head at the slow process, any whole AI would have been done by now, but since Jorge's armor only carried one sixth of her programming; he would have to be patient.

Streams of vapor built up in the corvette's air supply blasted into the room, creating white streams all around the Spartan. Soon the vacuum was replaced with a nitrogen oxygen mix, otherwise known as air.

Jorge looked around the arena like room, sighed, and pushed on deeper into the corvette, intent on rooting out any possible threats.

…

After checking the cavernous engine room, the tight aft launch bay, both spacious cargo bays, and finally the orbital insertion ring, Jorge concluded that he and Noble Six had indeed wiped out all of the Covenant here, excepting the engineers of course.

"Dot, you have an update on the engineers?"

The monotonous voice of the AI soon filled his helmet as he began moving back through the engine room towards the comm. relay, "They have finished repairing the Sabres, Noble Five, and have moved into the hangar bay."

Picking up his pace through the comm. room, Jorge yelled angrily at the AI, "Why didn't you tell me they were headed there?"

"Apologies, however my limited state has left me severely underpowered."

"Where are the others?"

"I have directed all UNSC personnel to the bridge," Dot replied.

"What about their comms? Can they get those fixed?"

"Attempting to find solution, Noble Five, I will notify you when one has been found."

"Yeah sure you will," Jorge muttered.

The Spartan finally reached the main hangar, storming down the ramp to look for the engineers. A slight trilling to his left brought his attention to the battered pelican, except it hardly looked battered anymore. The armor plating was still scorched in many areas, but the glass canopy had been entirely repaired, not even a smudge. The two forward mounted thruster gimbals had been trashed. Nothing left but fused together fuel lines and circuits, but now it looked brand new, other than the missing cover piece.

More humming and trilling came from behind the pelican, and Jorge moved to investigate, plasma repeater up. Rounding around a plasma battery, Jorge found himself stunned for a third time as he saw all four engineers pulling pieces off of the blackened slipspace drive, exposing the circuitry, and somehow repairing equipment that should be entirely useless.

The Spartan could see from his position the various tentacles of the engineers split apart at the ends. Splitting so many times that they might even get microscopic, which would explain why each metal plate they ripped off would soon be back to its shiny grey finish after only a few passes with one tentacle. The internal circuitry was also being repaired, and quickly. It wasn't long until one engineer lifted the disk like centrifuge, holding it in place as another quickly began hooking it back into the superstructure of the drive.

Jorge lowered his plasma repeater, as much as he did not want to admit it, these things were no threat. They might work for the Covenant, but Jorge wasn't sure it was out of free will, judging by the charges rigged to their backs and drilled into their bodies.

The Spartan approached the four aliens surrounding the slipspace drive, watching carefully as they put all the pieces back together. As soon as it was put together, the external LED's glowed and the centrifuge started spinning again.

"I'll be damned," Jorge muttered. They had fixed it, good as new if not better than before!

One turned to look at the Spartan, peering at him through the small hole in the confining helmet, and trilled lightly. He tilted his head, and to his surprise, so did the engineer. Rearing back, the engineer copied his move exactly, or exactly as a floating sea slug with six tentacles could.

Jorge leaned forward, the alien copying his movement, and peered into the glowing blue light centered on the confining helmet. He couldn't see anything past the blue light, but he could feel the eyes from the other side.

Far too fast for the engineer to react to the Spartan reached up and ripped the helmet off, revealing a head that was only distinguishable as a head by the six eyes staring back. As soon as the helmet had been removed, the alien reared back, frightened, and hissed. More hissing all around him, Jorge turned to find all of the engineers backing away from him, flushing up the metal plated petals surrounding their gas filled bladders and shuffling them back and forth all while backing off.

Holding up his arms in a surrendering posture, Jorge offered the helmet back to the engineer who hastily snatched it out of his hands, but rather that putting it back on, the alien held it up for its own inspection, before deconstructing it in the same way it had the pieces of the comm. console and the slipspace drive. Looking back up at the Spartan, the floating alien moved closer once again, humming and trilling to the other engineers.

Jorge backed away from the four aliens and started for the bridge, but immediately noticed that they were following him. He stopped to look back at the four floaters, curious as to what they were doing, and found that they stopped when he did. Realizing they were following him, Noble Five shrugged and continued towards the bridge with his new entourage.

As the five moved forward, Jorge took special notice of how each alien would pick up the dead crew members and pile them up. Obviously these creatures were very strong, able to lift heavy machinery and the gargantuan elites with ease, tossing them into piles like lumpy pillows. They would also repair minor damage along the way, patching up plasma burns left by errant shots, even undoing the dents and ripped away deck plating left by grenades, all within minutes. The Spartan watched all of their repairs with intent interest, fascinated with their speed and efficiency, as well as the pleasure they seemed to derive from the simple acts.

With the constant stops for repairs, it took nearly fifteen minutes to follow the port side pathway, past the guns, to reach the bridge, and when they reached the final door, Jorge held up a hand, hoping the alien's understood what he meant. Apparently they had some rudimentary understanding of human sign language, considering they stopped immediately.

Jorge turned and stepped through onto the bridge, and was immediately greeted by the six other UNSC personnel.

"Sierra!" the lead soldier exclaimed, Specialist Rodriguez, "Glad to see you made it back to us! Is the ship clear?"

"No hostiles are aboard, but there are four others on this ship with us."

Another member of the small group spoke up, Lieutenant Anderson, "Four others? We just picked up three bodies belonging to the marine team, who else was there?"

"I'll get them, but I need you to promise me something first," Jorge's tone was serious, imparting the importance of his request.

Rodriguez looked back at the others, before turning back and nodding, "Yeah sure, we get it, guns down."

Jorge nodded and turned back through the door without letting it close, waved the engineers through. As expected, the combat specialists immediately reached for their weapons at the sight of the floating aliens, prompting a response from Jorge.

"Guns down marines! Put your weapons down!"

"Sir, they're…"

"I know what they are, Specialist, I also know they're not dangerous. Put. Your. Weapons. Down." Jorge's tone carried with it a certain finality, a finality that the soldiers obeyed, albeit somewhat uncertainly.

Jorge waved the engineers in the rest of the way, "I've been watching these things. They fixed up this ships engines, the comm. relay, the Sabres, even the goddamn slipspace drive. These things are the only reason we'll be able to leave this place."

The three soldiers still looked unsure, standing between the engineers and the pilots, but they conceded to the Spartan's orders. Jorge looked the six up and down. Specialist Rodriguez was obviously in charge of the armed soldiers, and stood at just less than six feet tall with lightly tanned skin and brown hair and brown eyes. He was the kind of soldier who would follow orders, but only ones that made sense. The Spartan II's keen eyes could pick out a level of intelligence behind the transparent visor.

The soldier to Rodriguez's left with an MA37 ICWS was shorter than her commanding officer, about five eight, and held her assault rifle with a tight grip and steely determination in her baby blues. Jorge couldn't see much of her face beyond her eyes, due to the fact she was still wearing her helmet, but he didn't need to, Corporal Rayne will follow orders, and wouldn't easily break under pressure.

The other armed individual standing to Rodriguez's right was a little taller, but still shorter than his commander. Corporal Burgess was a thick, barrel chested man with shoulders that made one wonder if the darker skinned man actually had a neck. All of this combined with a devastating M90 CAWS shotgun and a machete running vertically on the left side of his chest plate led Jorge to believe this man loved to look his enemies in the eyes, even if they liked to stare right back. Actually, judging by the scars on his cheek, they've stared back more than a few times.

The three pilots had finally moved out from behind their protectors, allowing the Spartan II to get a good look at them. Like the other group of three present, this group comprised of two men and one woman. Unlike the other group, these three were lightly armed, M6C SOCOM pistols strapped to their thighs. Not an effective weapon against shielded targets like elites, but the smaller size and shocking accuracy no doubt made it a perfect weapon for a pilot in a cramped shuttle.

One of the pilots, Flight Lieutenant Anderson, walked up, arm extended, "Flight Lieutenant Kelly Anderson, glad to have you with us Spartan."

Jorge took the offered hand, surprised that it even was offered, considering he nearly doubled the short woman's height, "Ma'am."

Kelly shook her head at the title, "Please don't call me ma'am," Jorge moved to speak again but was interrupted by the LT, "or sir. I may have the higher rank but uh," she looked around the alien bridge, watching the engineers begin to pile bodies into the corners and repair the consoles with lightning speed, "I defer to you, Spartan."

Jorge nodded gratefully, glad he wouldn't have to deal with a less experienced officer making bad calls, and marched over to the console he had originally plugged Dot into.

"Dot, you still there?"

"Affirmative, Noble Five," the diamond pattern on the console replied.

"Status update on the ship."

Dot paused for a moment, its systems stretched thin with decrypting several systems, but eventually answered Jorge's request, "Internal sensors show all major damage repaired and we are now up to full capabilities. Hacking the controls of this entire ship is taking longer than expected, but external sensors will be online in three minutes, weapons systems in thirteen, and full use of the comm. relay in twenty three minutes."

Jorge nodded at the console before speaking, "Once you're done with the external sensors, I want you to pause your decryption of the other systems and work on a translator for those engineers."

"Ceasing all other decryption protocols at your request, Noble Five."

"SIR!"

The Spartan II whipped around at the man's voice, finding Warrant Officer Graves near the starboard side window, staring out at the vast black of slipspace, only it wasn't so black anymore.

Jogging up to his side, Jorge stared out the window and nearly lost his footing at what he saw. He should have expected this, if he, the soldiers, and the corvette were still stuck in slipspace, then of course they would be too. Noble Five shook his head in disbelief, hating the cruel facts of life as he stared out at one third of a Covenant CSO Supercarrier.

The eight kilometers of purple and silver was interrupted by great blue plasma flares, suggesting that the transition into slipspace was much harder on the massive ship than it was on the corvette. More bright blue plasma flares bloomed into existence as the ship deteriorated further, rocking the entire superstructure of the supercarrier's fragment.

"External sensors online, Noble Five," Dot's monotonous voice interrupted his and the other six's observation of the dying ship.

"Dot, can you scan that supercarrier?"

"The scan is already underway, Noble Five. Initial results suggest no life aboard."

"No one survived the transition?" Warrant Officer Mayweather, the third pilot, asked the AI.

"It is possible they survived, Warrant Officer, however any survivors would have been killed by the ambient Cherenkov radiation of slipspace that is slowly approaching this location."

All seven humans turned to stare at the monitor displaying the AI's avatar in shock.

Lieutenant Anderson spoke up, rising anger evident in her voice, "And you didn't think that should have been brought to our attention first?"

"Warrant Officer Mayweather's question interrupted the analysis of the supercarrier, but the information was delivered anyway," the UNSC AI defended itself.

Graves then decided to speak up, "Why haven't we been killed? Radiation that strong is pretty fast acting."

"It would appear that the slipspace drive has created a large electromagnetic field that is currently holding the radiation at bay. This would also explain why the fireteam's comms are out."

"Anything else you'd like to tell us?" the Spartan of the group asked.

"The translation matrix has been completed and your helmet can be programmed to converse quite easily with the engineers."

Jorge blinked, "That was fast, especially for your 'limited' state."

"It was quite simple. The frequency of the noise and flashes they make translate directly into binary. It would appear that these creatures quite literally speak directly to machines."

The Spartan huffed, at least something finally went right, but there was no way in hell he was allowing his helmet to be programmed to hum, "Corporal Rayne, do you have a data pad on you?"

"Yes sir," the young woman replied, the steely look in her eyes fading a bit looking up at the eight foot tall goliath. She set her rifle down, slinging her rucksack off her EVA suit, and setting it in front of her. After opening the canvas material, she quickly produced a tacpad, offering it up to the giant.

Jorge slid the data chip out of the pad, and started towards Dot's console. Finding a data port that would fit the adaptable technology, he slid the chip in, "Download the translation matrix to the pad, I want anyone to be able to speak to the engineer and the pad will translate, and I want the pad to translate anything it says to English, understand?"

"Completely, Noble Five," Dot replied.

The data chip popped out of the data port, prompting a massive hand to reach down and grab hold of it, before sliding it into the tacpad once again. As soon as it slid in, the blue screen flashed to life and soon enough the translation protocol appeared.

Holding up the data pad, Jorge spoke, "You, No Helmet, come here."

After he spoke, the pad took less than a second to begin trilling, humming, even producing the occasional flash, which immediately got the attention of the one engineer Jorge had actually touched.

Approaching the towering Spartan, the engineer trilled again as it approached, seemingly intrigued.

The pad translated, "ARE YOU SPEAKING TO ME?"

Jorge grimaced at the horribly scratchy monotone voice, "Yeah, that's pretty fucking annoying."

The bad began translating, "Ah fuck! You gotta be kidding me. I didn't mean you are annoying, No Helmet, this pad has an annoying voice."

As soon as the pad was done translating Jorge's voice, the engineer reached out and snatched the pad from him, quickly disassembling it, putting it back together in various configurations, then hand it back to him exactly as it had been before, but far different. On the pad's screen there was a line of text.

We understand your language now; this pad will translate ours into yours.

The Spartan blinked, "Alright, here's the situation…"

…

Warrant Officer Graves leaped out of the back of the pelican with a series of fiber optic cables in hand, and began sprinting as fast as he could towards the engine room of the corvette. He passed Corporal Burgess on his way there; the engineers must have sent him back to the pelican for some parts too.

Soon the tall pilot stepped into the engine room where they were installing the slipspace drive and skidded to a halt, or at least tried to. The engine room's gravity had been temporarily shut down by Dot so that the engineers could move the slipspace drive up to the ceiling, closer to the necessary power supply lines. But not close enough if the fiber optic cables Graves was holding meant anything.

The lighter skinned man put his feet up in front of him and hit the railing at the far side of the room. Good thing he did too, lest he get thrown into the massive two story plasma coils powering the ship.

"You alright down there?"

Walter Graves looked up from his horizontal position to see the Spartan hanging from the ceiling, holding several power lines in place for the engineers as they started wiring the slipspace drive into the ship's power supply. The slipspace drive has draped in power lines, the ceiling above it removed so the cables could be pulled down. Large, heavy boxes were bolted to the frame work, converting the power produced by the corvette to power usable from the slipspace drive.

"I'm fine! I've got the cables for you!"

Jorge nodded gratefully, "Toss em up! Then get to the bridge, I already sent Burgess up there!"

The lanky pilot tossed the cable bundle underhanded to the Spartan and made to leave. Before he reached the door, however, he turned and asked, "What about you!"

"I'll be joining you shortly, now move it!"

Walter Graves kicked it in gear at the Spartan's orders, pushing through the doors and into normal gravity, where he immediately fell on his face. He pushed up and ran the six hundred meters to the bridge.

Jorge watched the young pilot scramble out of the room before pushing himself over to the other end of the mounted slipspace drive and handed the bundle of cables to the engineer at that end. Lighter Than Air hummed in thanks as it unbundled the clear tubing and quickly set to work, connecting one end to the slipspace drive, the other end to the corvette's pre-existing fiber optics lines. The power signatures weren't compatible, but all machines ultimately spoke binary.

"Dot, how long till the radiation hits us?"

"Electromagnetic field weakening, total collapse in three minutes," Dots reply rang in his helmet.

"Lighter, we've got three minutes!"

The engineer turned away from the cables, showing the Spartan that it was done with his work, "Dot, do you have control of the drive?"

"Affirmative, Noble Five, recommend leaving the engine room before the drive is engaged, should it overload."

"This thing overloads we're all dead anyway, engage the drive!"

"Engaging in three…"

Jorge leapt from the ceiling, landing with his magnetic boots on the floor. Even if the thing didn't overload, it would still throw off a lot of power, enough to potentially kill the Spartan.

"Two…"

The four engineers floated down to the floor with him, all humming and trilling excitedly about something.

"One."

The centrifuge on the slipspace drive spun, picking up speed and throwing off blasts of blue energy. Suddenly the centrifuge stopped and massive shockwave of blue energy blasted through the power lines, racing through the corvette's superstructure and converging three hundred meters off the bow into a massive portal capable of swallowing the ship whole. Stars stared through the portal at the kilometer long Covenant vessel, beckoning the smooth purple ship through and back into real space.

Jorge lowered his hand, having used it to shield his eyes from the intense glare of the slipspace drive, "Dot… where are we?"

The monotonous voice of the AI responded quickly, "We are five hundred eighty eight thousand kilometers from Reach, Noble Five, in the exact same spatial coordinates as when we entered slipspace."

"We were in orbit over Reach when the drive went off!"

"That was twelve hours ago, Reach has since continued on its orbit, Noble Five."

Jorge rolled his eyes behind his maroon visor at Dot's unintentional sarcasm, "I'm on my way to the bridge."

...

"Six you need to neutralize those shade turrets!" an accented voice filled the room.

Catherine B320 stood over a short range comm. system, barking orders to the various assets she had been given for this mission, "Whiskey Three Five hold your position, Six is gonna clear those shades."

"We'll hold, Command, but not for much longer!"

"Understood Whiskey Three Five," Kat replied before cutting off the transmission.

The only female member of Noble Team looked over to the southwest window to another Spartan, Jun A266, who was looking out the window. The bald Spartan wasn't wearing his helmet, showing off a tattoo displaying a fist clenching three arrows over tan skin.

He held up two fingers and gave Kat a nod, "Whiskey Three Seven you are clear for evac."

"Copy, Command, much obliged."

"Six you still have four shade turrets to go," Noble Two reminded Six.

Kat looked out the window nearest her, looking at the two shade turrets blocking pelican Whiskey Three Six from leaving the ONI tower. A UH-144 Falcon swung by the window, thirty millimeter rounds lashed out in bursts, shredding through the armor of the long range shade turrets, leaving nothing but scrap.

One shade turret exploded as its small plasma generator destabilized from the trained fire. One down, one to go and Whiskey Three Six would be clear for take off, but suddenly the Falcon twisted in the air, pulling away from the tower and narrowly avoiding a green blob of guided incendiary gel burning as hot as plasma.

The Falcon spun around and ascended, twin rotors spinning faster and thrusters burning hotter to push the multi ton air craft upwards. The banshee that had fired the fuel rod cannon passed underneath the Falcon and was immediately shredded by one thirty millimeter cannon and two fifty caliber machine guns mounted on the sides. An explosion from the internal plasma batteries rocked the light Covenant air craft and sent pieces flying in dozens of different directions.

A second banshee flew past, attempting to break off and get away from the deadly aircraft, but the cockpit was riddled with bullet holes from the Falcon's main gun. Making sure the smaller fighter was down; Six pulled his Falcon back towards the fourth shade turret, destroying it with a single burst.

"Whiskey Three Six, you are clear for take off," Kat told the pelican's pilot, "Six you have two last shade turrets, take them down."

"Whiskey Three Five to Command, we're getting a little restless!"

Kat shook her head, "Just two shade turrets to go, Whiskey Three Five."

The female Spartan turned her blue eyed gaze on Jun who was at the other window, looking down on the final two shade turrets. Even from here Kat could hear the cannon roaring, the shades wouldn't last long.

A nod from Jun and Kat was back on the transmitter, "Whiskey Three Five you are clear for take off, have a nice day."

"Much obliged, Command," Whiskey Three Five responded. The Spartans' sensitive hearing could pick up the pelican's engines roaring to life. From the cracked window in front of her, Noble Two was able to watch the huge dropship rocket away from ONI HQ at near supersonic speeds.

"Noble Two to Noble Six, I'm extending the landing pad," Kat told the other Spartan, "Come home, Lieutenant."

The door at the far end of the room slid open, allowing Emile A239 and Carter A259 to enter the room with a small contingent of UNSC Army Troopers. Carter immediately slid his Commando helmet off, telling the troopers to go get some rest and some food before walking over to his group of Spartans.

Emile reached them first, sitting down next to a destroyed console after he flicked the purple blood of a few brutes off his visor. His right hip sported a new addition, a Type 25 Carbine, aka Spiker. The savage weapon fit Noble Four's fighting style perfectly. The massive super heated tungsten spike inspired fear within the enemy, and even if you ran out of ammo, the Spiker is far from useless with two thirty centimeter tungsten carbide blades capable of slicing through the toughest armor the Covenant could offer.

The Spartan's skull faced visor turned his attention to the kukri knife on his right shoulder pauldron, slipping it from his sheath and began sharpening it with only a nod to the other two Spartans in the room. Kat nodded back as she knelt down to work on the long range transceiver. Jun didn't even bother to acknowledge Noble Four other than to make eye contact through the visor, and simply set up underneath a suspended banshee with a pair of highly advanced binoculars, monitoring nearby Covenant forces.

Commander Carter walked over to his second in command, "Building's clear, what's the status of the comms?"

"Noble Six has destroyed all three long range jammers; I'm working on a way to get you a line to Command."

Carter nodded and moved off just as a pair of doors opened up from the opposite side of the room, near where the landing platform was. Noble Six and two troopers stepped through, the two troopers immediately joining their comrades while Noble Six began walking towards the rest of Noble Team.

Noble Six was typical for a Spartan of Noble Team, standing even with most Spartan II's at seven foot two inches in his MJOLNIR, conservative color scheme, olive and black highlights, and modified equipment. A Mark V [A] helmet with a gold visor, two Kevlar pouches on his chest, two padded leather soft cases on the small of his back and left thigh, two Paratrooper knee guards, and both shoulders covered up by modified ODST shoulder pauldrons.

"Hmph," Jun suddenly said, "This place used to be the crown jewel," the sniper shook his head, "Not anymore. Hey," he said as he finally noticed Noble Six, "You made it!"

"It's a regular family reunion," Emile muttered from his position seated on the floor. Six held out his hand, letting a pair of dogtags hang from his extended arm, "Keep em, he gave them to you; I'll honor him my own way."

Noble Six nodded and tucked the little pieces of metal back into one of the pouches on his chest.

"Jorge always said he'd never leave Reach," Jun said again, either trying to strike up a conversation, or just lamenting the apparent death of his friend in his own way.

"Ehehehe," Emile chuckled somewhat sadly, "the big man was sentimental."

Carter pushed himself off the pillar he had been leaning on, "He gave his life thinking he'd just saved the planet. We should all be so lucky."

Noble One settled next to Noble Three, looking down on several Covenant phantoms picking up troops from a lower rooftop.

Jun looked at Carter hesitantly before speaking again, "Sir, is it true about Gauntlet, Red, and Echo Teams being assigned to civilian evac ops?"

Carter turned on Noble Two, "Those are senior level communiqués!"

"I hear what I hear, but why assign Spartans on defensive deployments."

"I need that link to Command, Kat."

Kat smiled at Carter's weak evasion, "Working on it, but this console's got more shrapnel than transceivers… you didn't answer my question."

"You want to know if we're losing?"

"I know we're losing!" Kat said with a little more heat than intended, but her anger at the situation turned to melancholy, "I want to know if we've lost."

Carter turned away, answering Kat's question without saying anything. Having been serving with the Commander for years, Noble Two could read him like a book. Carter was like an older brother to the Lieutenant Commander, there for emotional support after the rest of the original Noble Team was killed, and allowing her leeway to grow as an officer.

Suddenly the console the Spartan had been working on sprang to life, crackling with static but a clear voice could be heard. A voice Kat recognized.

"It's Colonel Holland," she said, confused, "What's he doing on an open channel?"

"… in the southeast quadrant of the city," Urban Holland's voice came through more clearly, "Noble One, if you are receiving, I am authorizing radio safety override."

Carter leaned over Kat, "How long for a secure link?"

Kat shook her head, "Can't guarantee secure anymore."

"Could the Covenant trace it to us?"

Kat shrugged, "I could."

"Noble One, this is a Priority One hail, if you are receiving acknowledge immediately."

Noble Two's shoulders slumped at that. She picked up a small earpiece linked to the console and handed it to Noble One, "Keep it brief."

"Carter here… yes sir," Noble Team's leader moved off as Colonel Holland briefed him on new orders.

Jun watched Carter for a bit before turning back to watching the Covenant, only to find something interesting, "We've got movement. Multiple Covenant vehicles vacating the area… and their in a hurry."

Emile started to stand, using his shotgun as a handle, "How often you see Covvies retreating for no reason?"

Kat nodded in agreement before she saw a datapad flashing in warning. When she picked it up, her eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets, "Radiation flare! Big! Forty million roentgans!"

Carter turned, holding out the earpiece, "I just lost Holland, what's going on!"

"Atomic excitement scrambled the signal. Ninety million now!"

"Source?"

"Airborne, close."

"How close?"

A hellish red beam appeared outside the window, shattering the glass and blasting the room with hot wind.

"THAT CLOSE!"

"To the elevators Noble! Move, move!" Carter barked at this team. He, Jun, and Emile sprinted to the first of two lifts as the troopers had already piled into the main lift. Kat stumbled as she reached for her helmet, but a pair of strong hands helped her up and scooped her helmet off the floor.

Kat reached the second elevator a second before Noble Six. She turned around, snatching her helmet out of Six's hand as she hit the lift controls. Noble Two looked at the olive colored Spartan, noticing the same calm, cool poise he always displayed never cracked, she wasn't having the same ease about it.

"First glassing?" Kat asked, but never waited for an answer, "Me too."

The elevators descended at breakneck speed, the other lift a few meters ahead of theirs.

"Our best bet is a bunker at sublevel two," Kat suggested as she checked the building's schematics, "We get new orders from Holland sir?"

"We're being redeployed to Sword Base," Noble One answered.

Apparently these orders didn't sit well with everyone, though Jun was the most vocal, "Sword? Covenant own it now!"

"That's why Holland wants us for a torch and burn op, keep Dr. Halsey's excavation data from falling into enemy hands."

"If it hasn't already," Kat pointed out the obvious.

The first lift reached its destination, opening up a hundred meters from a heavy set of bunker doors that were still open, displaying the troopers from earlier having already reached safety.

"Maybe, but according to Holland, the Covenant are still searching for something," Carter told the team as he, Jun, and Emile sprinted towards the bunker.

The second lift's doors opened up, allowing Noble Two and Noble Six to exit. As they sprinted across the gap, Kat let her thoughts on the orders known.

"Where does Holland get off calling a demolition a priority one-"

…

Juran Rodanee aimed down the holographic scope of his Type 31 Rifle, finding the female demon's head in his crosshairs. Four mandibles covered in serrated teeth curled into a grin and started squeezing the trigger. Just as the trigger reached the firing point, however, the Phantom shook. The needle lashed out but missed the demon's head, instead finding the foul creature's neck, piercing the left side and showering the cement in a spray of blood.

Juran roared in anger, he may have killed the creature, but his shot was interrupted! The nine foot tall Field Marshal turned in anger towards the Kig-Yar pilot and let loose a deafening roar.

The Phantom shook again, and again. The Sangheili leaned out of the dropship, looking for the source of the shaking and found another Phantom, closing fast. Pinkish purple bolts flew from the other dropships main gun, striking the Phantom and causing it to shake.

The Field Marshal roared again before grabbing a fuel rod cannon, aiming it directly at a green colored demon who was dragging his kill into the bunker. The green blob of incendiary gel closed in on the two, flying directly towards the green one's chest. The demon skillfully leaped away from the explosive, but was forced to let go of the blue demon, and when the round hit the cement, the explosion threw the olive colored demon into the bunker just as the doors sealed, leaving the blue one outside.

Roaring again, the Sangheili told the pilot to get them out of there as even more plasma bolts struck the ship. One of the birdlike Kig-Yar looked up at the Zealot nervously, twitching for his Needle Rifle back. Juran looked down at him for a second, contemplating giving the gun back, but instead chose to grab the smaller alien and toss him out of the dropship straight down onto the boiling glass.

…

"Anderson, set us down by that hole!" Jorge yelled up to the cockpit. Noble Team's transponders were coming from that hole, unfortunately the glassing beam only seven hundred meters away was keeping Noble Five from contacting any of his teammates, but that wasn't why he wanted down there, that Zealot had been shooting at something, and he wanted to know what.

Nothing could have prepared himself for what he saw. A blue armored female Spartan, lying face down on the concrete and a slowly spreading pool of blood.

"Hold the Phantom steady! I'll be right back!"

Before any of the six others inside the Phantom could protest, the Spartan II leapt from the extended platforms and slammed into the cement, shattering it under his immense weight. The bunker doors were firmly closed, and no force short of a nuclear blast was going to open it up now, but that wasn't why Jorge was there, he was there for his teammate and superior officer Kat, who hadn't made it inside the bunker.

The much, much larger Spartan easily lifted Noble Two into his arms and leaned in closer, attempting to get a better look at the wound. Biofoam injectors had automatically kicked in, but Jorge couldn't tell if the round had punctured the jugular or the bronchial tube, both of which would be lethal. Of course there was a chance that the biofoam injectors had gone too far and was now crushing the bronchial tube.

Noble Five looked down at the pool of blood. There wasn't enough there to indicate a severed jugular, and it wasn't dark enough to indicate a severed jugular. If Kat hadn't passed out she could tell him herself but obviously the pain had been far too much.

"Spartan!" a voice from the Phantom shouted down to him, "the grounds getting a little hot!"

It was true, the glow from the glass forming around the particle beam was growing brighter, and would soon melt the ground underneath the ONI building itself. One leap to the roof of the bunker, and another to the Phantom's troop bay had Jorge and Kat inside the dropship.

"Lieutenant, get us the hell out of here," Jorge said as he set the female Spartan flat on the floor.

"Sure thing, Sierra, but where too?"

The armored titan leaned back from his position stooped over thinking. They had abandoned the corvette in a field of debris left by scuttled Halcyon cruisers. Some of them were still intact, a couple even had atmosphere in the interior, but a breach in one of the fusion reactors was throwing off too much electromagnetic interference for the corvette's sensors to identify any survivors, but it also meant that the corvette was much harder to detect by other Covenant ships.

"Head back to the corvette once you get me out of the city, until then, keep a low profile. No Helmet and the others were able to disable the transponders on these things, but I don't want to take the chance the Covenant are just gonna let an unmarked Phantom go."

"Sure thing, Sierra," Kelly chirped from the dropship's cockpit. Fortunately the Covenant craft was set up for piloting by a Jackal rather than an Elite, had it been reversed, Lieutenant Anderson may not have been able to reach the controls. It was rather fortunate, actually, that she had run a simulator on the Type 52 dropship beforehand, considering no UNSC craft was going to get around undetected.

The craft weaved through the forest of skyscrapers, avoiding other Covenant ships as it quickly dashed towards the outskirts of New Alexandria. Jorge continued to kneel over the prone form of his Lieutenant Commander, attempting to further assess the damage the needler round had caused to her neck.

Trying a new approach, Jorge pried off Kat's helmet, revealing her tanned face that held a few scars, but certainly didn't detract from her looks, as a certain whistling Corporal could attest to.

"Burgess, shut up," the Spartan II ordered, an order that was immediately obeyed. Jorge picked the helmet up and pressed two fingers to the slot in the back of her head, "Dot, are you still in there?"

"Affirmative Noble Five," two monotonous voices answered serendipitously. Both the AI in his suit, and the AI in Kat's helmet answered him at the same time.

"UNSC AI ADT 6849-9 assigned to Spartan Catherine 320 of Beta Company, I want to know how badly Kat's injuries are."

"A Type 31 Rifle round entered through the back of the neck and exited out of the front, however damage has been minimal for this kind of injury," the AI inside the blue Aviator helmet replied through the speakers.

"What kind of damage? Will she live?"

"Severe muscle damage on the left side of the neck, minor blood vessels have been severed, however both the jugular and bronchial tube are intact. It is unlikely she will survive without medical attention, but she her condition is not currently critical."

A voice cut into the conversation Jorge was having with the second of six fragments of Dot, "Sir, you gotta hear this!"

Setting the injured Noble Two against a closed bay door, the Spartan II moved up to the cockpit, "What is it Warrant Officer?"

Travis Mayweather hit a few glowing holographic controls, "We're just exiting the stratosphere and there's a heavily damaged Marathon above us. Looks like all of the escape pods have been launched, but someone's still alive up there, listen to this."

A new voice filled the small craft, "…in range, this is Doctor Elizabeth Sanders onboard the UNSC Saratoga. I… I think I'm the only one left aboard. I'm not a pilot, and all of the escape pods have been launched, please… I need help!"

Jorge blinked at this new revelation, a doctor exactly when he needed one? Perfect. Or maybe too good to be true, "Anyone else in range of that transmission, Mayweather?"

Travis twisted a few dials, punched a couple of controls, even twisted a holographic knob before he finally got a holographic projection of the space near the Saratoga, "Just what we feared, Spartan. Three Spirits already approaching the ship, they appear to have full compliments."

"Lieutenant, any chance we can get there first?"

"We won't beat the first two, but I can squeeze past that third one," Kelly replied.

"Do it, any chance to eliminate the Covenant before they can land is a chance worth taking," Noble Five ordered, "Then put us down inside a hull breach close to the medical wing."

"Sure thing Sierra," Kelly said as she pushed the Phantom to its limits, blasting it into high orbit and chasing after three Covenant dropships.

Jorge stepped back into the troop bay, "Graves, stay with Noble Two, if her condition changes in anyway, radio me immediately. Troopers, suit up, we're going inserting directly into a vacuum."

Sergeant Rodriguez spoke up, "Mission?"

"Rescue op. Doctor Elizabeth Sanders is on board a Marathon cruiser, the UNSC Saratoga and will soon be under attack by two, perhaps three Covenant dropships."

Marcus Rodriguez nodded, "We'll be ready sir."

Jorge turned back to the cockpit, "How we coming, Kelly?"

"The two lead Spirits are already landing in the troop bay, but the third Spirit is just now entering weapons range sir!"

"Take it out then get your helmets back on, it's about to get very hard to breathe in here."

The electronic pulsing sound of the Phantom's heavy plasma cannon filled the cockpit as Kelly opened up on the lagging Spirit. One reason Spirits were almost never seen on the battlefield anymore was its lack of maneuverability, meaning Lieutenant Anderson was having keeping with the Spirit and soon the dropship was nothing more than a rapidly expanding cloud of debris.

"Spirit's just a ghost of its former self, Spartan; we're heading in towards a hull breach two sections away from the medbay, about halfway between the Doctor and the Covenant."

Jorge pointed at Graves who was kneeling over Kat's unconscious body, "Remember, any change, anything at all…"

"You'll be the first to know, Sierra," the wiry pilot replied.

"Good, Sergeant, your group ready?"

"Ready and able, sir."

"Lieutenant… drop the door."

As soon as the order came out, the bay doors on each side of the Phantom opened up, revealing on one side a perfect view of Reach's western hemisphere and the other showed a gaping hull breach leading into a corridor with a door on each side that had slammed shut to contain the atmosphere.

Noble Five hefted his modified M247H and shrugged his shoulders, feeling the weight of all the extra ammunition he carried for it on his back, before stepping off the Phantom and floating across the small void and landing in the exposed corridor. Three slight tremors in the titanium deck plating told the Spartan that the others had made it.

Jorge pressed two fingers against a blinking console for a few seconds before asking, "Dot, you in?"

"Affirmative, Noble Five, depressurizing airlock."

The door slid open and the four soldiers stepped in, Jorge taking the lead. As the improvised airlock re-pressurized Jorge began laying down a plan of attack, "Dot find us a suitable location to make a stand and block off all alternate routes for the Covenant. Inform Kelly to go finish off the other two dropships and to do it quickly, I don't know if anymore Covenant are coming but I don't want our ride out of here hanging out in the open if they do."

The eight foot tall Spartan turned to the trio of UNSC Army Troopers, "I'll take point, Corporal Burgess I want you to find the Doctor and make sure she stays safe. Sergeant Rodriguez, Corporal Rayne, you two with me."

The group wasted no time, as soon as the airlock was open David Burgess split from the group, following Dot's waypoints to the Doctor and Jorge led his team of three through the wide corridors and hallways, intent on finding a good place to set up a defense.

"Spartan!" Burgess' voice flooded through the comm., "I've found the Doctor in the medbay. She's alright if a little shaken up."

"Keep her there, when we're done here she'll have a patient to take care of."

"Yes, sir!"

Jorge, Marcus, and Jessica rounded a corner finding a long, wide corridor that was littered with dead bodies, all human. The Spartan of the group was focusing on the junction they were in, if it could be well defended, but the other two were wrapped up in the bodies.

"How do you think they died?" Jessica asked her Sergeant, "I mean, there's still atmosphere in here."

Marcus shrugged, "I don't know, looks like a couple may have gotten their heads knocked around, but…"

The two were interrupted by Jorge ripping a door out of its recess and slamming it down into the deck plating, making a wall just big enough to crouch behind and take cover. He tore another door off, this time setting it up against the other end of the hallway.

After he was done he turned to the other two, "They didn't die due to lack of air, or getting their heads knocked around. They died from the heat."

"Heat, sir?" Rayne asked with some confusion.

Jorge pointed towards where they had come from, "Plasma torpedo must have landed a glancing hit, but it was enough to turn the temperature of this room up to nearly four hundred degrees at one point. Lucky for the Doc, medbay's are always buried deep inside the ship."

The other two looked at the bodies with a new found sense of sorrow, knowing that these Navy personnel had had their blood boiled while they were still alive.

"Dot's closing off all other routes, they'll be here soon," Jorge reminded the two troopers, "Sergeant, use your DMR to pick off the jackals and any elites we knock the shields off. Corporal, focus on the grunts, and remember, both of you, don't use your grenades, we don't need more hull breaches."

The two nodded and set up behind each barricade with the Spartan standing tall and strong in the middle of the hall, brandishing his M247H menacingly. The giant blast doors at the end of the hall suddenly began sparking up and down its middle seam as the Covenant on the other side began cutting their way through.

"Here they come," Noble Five said, "Hold fast!"

The doors split open and an elite major burst through the smoke, holding twin plasma rifles and bellowing at the trio at the end of the hall. 12.7 millimeter rounds sped down the hall, striking the hulking saurian's shields and finally breaking them.

Sergeant Rodriguez found the elite's head in his crosshairs and pulled the trigger, blowing the blue brain matter back into the cloud of rapidly clearing smoke. As soon as the lead alien fell the hallway filled with plasma bolts of various color. Green and blue bolts struck the heavy steel doorways Rayne and Rodriguez huddled behind.

Jorge's M247H roared in response to the Covenant fire. The elites smashed down the doors to crew quarters, allowing them to take cover in the rooms as six jackals formed a line across the hallway, shields up to block even the heavy machine gun fire and needlers poking around the shields sending the pink shards flying towards the trio of humans.

Four plasma bolts overloaded Jorge's personal shields, followed by two needler rounds shattering against the super dense titanium plates. The Spartan quickly ducked behind the steel door to his left, sitting down next to Corporal Rayne.

"Sergeant, hit those jackals! The Corporal and I will give you cover!"

Noble Five held his heavy machine gun over his head, upside down over the steel barricade and began firing, forcing the four elites back into their cover and the jackals turn their shields towards the massive gun. Jessica stood over the barricade next to the roaring machine gun, aiming at the ground in front of the jackals, hoping to strike their feet.

Rodriguez popped out of cover, finding a jackal not covering his head with his shield, and fired, dropping the bird like alien with ease. He shifted to the next target, then the next, and finally a fourth jackal dropped like a sack of potatoes before the grunts backing the flightless birds forced him back into cover.

Jorge lowered his machine gun and stood up, bringing the M247H to bear again, unleashing a hail of massive slugs into the Covenant and pushed forward. Corporal Rayne backed him up, firing accurate bursts of 7.62 millimeter armor piercing rounds into the head of any grunt she could find.

Marcus couldn't find a target on any of the jackals with the Spartan II blocking his view, but that wasn't a problem for long. Rearing back, Noble Five used the barrel of his massive machine gun as a broomstick, sweeping the two of the bird like aliens off their feet and sprawling onto their back. Jorge didn't waste time with the jackals, however, and charged the first elite to expose itself.

The huge slugs easily broke the minor's shields but the Spartan closed the distance too quickly for the gun to finish its work, but that's what fists were for. The elite roared as Jorge closed in quickly, and raised his plasma rifle, intent on breaking the 'demon's' skull, but found his wrist trapped in a powerful grip that nearly snapped its bones.

Noble Five dropped his machine gun, choosing instead to bring his left hand into the fray, grabbing the elite by its throat. He smashed the alien's back against his knee, stunning the alien further and shattering its shields, before raising his right elbow and driving it into the elite's exposed stomach. The saurian's breath left him in a rush and was able to provide no resistance when Jorge gripped its head with both hands and snapped its neck.

The experienced veteran grabbed the dead minor's body with both hands on its chest plate and held the body up, blocking the incoming blue plasma bolts with its body. Jorge was forced into the crew quarters the minor had been using for cover by the overwhelming fire, finally ditching the body as he disappeared behind the door.

"Alert, three heat signatures moving through decompressed sections, headed straight for Doctor Sanders," Dot suddenly informed the team.

…

Corporal David Burgess was watching the only entrance to the medbay that hadn't been barricaded with various busted medical equipment when Dot's alert rang through his helmet.

"Burgess, you copy that?" Sergeant Rodriguez asked.

"Copy that, Sarge, any intel on what the heat sigs are?"

"Relative size and temperature of the three signatures indicates Elite Rangers, Corporal," the AI Sierra had with him said.

"Shit!"

Elite Rangers weren't the toughest elites around, but certainly some of the best equipped, and certainly one of the more crafty classes of elites.

"What is it?" a British accent asked.

David looked to his right, finding a petite woman in a lab coat with a name tag reading Doctor Elizabeth Sanders. Elizabeth, or Beth as she preferred, was a shorter woman, standing around five foot three, with light skin and dark hair lined with silver streaks. The forty something Doctor's green eyes shone with intelligence, but also with a healthy amount of fear at the situation, as well they should.

"We got three elites incoming, Doc," Burgess told her, "Lets get one of these medical tables turned over, we can use it as cover."

David seriously doubted that a medical table would help any, especially when they could just pop a plasma grenade into the room. No amount of cover would help if that were the case. Of course the giant aliens could just pick the table up, fold it in half, and crush them using their superior strength, but thinking about the hundreds of ways three elites could kill one trooper and one unarmed doctor wouldn't help.

The Corporal would have to plan the battle carefully, try and take out at least one before any had a chance to shoot back. His eight gauge M90 CAWS should help with that, the weapon was designed to punch through shields and light armor in one shot, provided you were close, like, really close. Burgess smiled, he loved it when the enemy was in his personal space, it was why he always picked the shotguns, and why an eighteen inch carbon steel machete was vertically sheathed upside down next to his chest plate.

The medical table was set parallel to the door, on its side so the doctor could take cover behind it while Burgess would be taking cover behind an extending locker next to the door, allowing him the proper range to kill at least one elite as they walked through the door.

"Doc," David got Beth's attention, "You'll need this."

The dark skinned man held out an M6G PDWS handle first, much to the Doctor's shock.

"I… I'm a doctor, not a soldier!"

"You don't need to hit anything, Doc," Burgess assured her, "You don't even need to look where you're shooting, just distract them. I'll take care of the rest."

The small woman reluctantly grabbed the pistol and ducked down behind the overturned medical table.

"Warning, heat signatures just outside medical bay," Dot warned them.

"This is it Doc! Remember what I said!"

CLANG!

…

There were guttural murmurings from behind the heavy door as the elites decided what to do, and briefly Burgess wondered if the door was going to hold. But those hopes were quickly dashed.

CLANG!...SMASH!

The thick steel door slid along the ground and stopped a few feet from the Doctor's cover where a pistol appeared upside down and began barking.

The first elite stepped through, returning fire against the surprisingly accurate Doctor. That was probably why he never saw a short, stocky human male step out from behind an extruding locker with a shotgun.

BOOM!

Two positive hits by the Doctor had weakened the elite's already weaker than normal shields, making it easy for the eight gauge buckshot to rip through and turn the alien's head to confetti.

Burgess pumped the shotgun and knelt down. Just in time too as the second elite stepping through the doorway ignored the Doctor completely, turning towards the Corporal and unleashing a hail of plasma that simply sailed over his head.

BOOM!

The buckshot smashed the alien's shields, but only scratched the superior metal of the elite's combat harness. The huge saurian took advantage of the time it took David to pump his shotgun, lunging forward with an activated plasma dagger and an ear shattering roar.

Most people would try and lean away from a melee attack, but that almost always plays right into the hands of the elites' superior reach. Fortunately Burgess was an accomplished close quarters combatant, and instead of dodging, the trooper lunged.

His two hundred and twenty pound frame wrapped around the alien's massive thigh, causing the elite to stumble and causing it to miss. The creature roared again, grabbed the Corporal with its left hand and threw him away.

Meanwhile the third alien took cover behind the doorway, waiting for the Doctor to stop firing her pistol. As soon as the sound stopped, the seven and a half foot alien burst through the door, firing its plasma repeater at the medical table. The mattress stuffing vaporized on contact, but the tough steel underneath held out against the incredibly hot rounds, keeping the Doctor alive, but not for long.

The ranger that Burgess had been fighting charged him, plasma dagger out. David reacted on instinct, using a subconscious reaction basic training had honed into the trooper, he grabbed the eighteen inch carbon steel knife from its vertical sheath and held it out in front of him like a lance at the last second. It was too late for the alien to do anything, its considerable mass was already committed, and with no shields and weakened armor, it never stood a chance against the long knife.

Blue blood flowed over the Corporal's Kevlar covered hands as the alien buried the knife inside its vulnerable chest. The elite snarled silently at the trooper, but it didn't last long before it slumped and fell off the knife.

A not so silent snarl reminded Burgess he was not alone, and the Corporal snatched his shotgun from the ground nearby and rose to his feet as he pumped a new round into the chamber. David never fired, however, because as he found the elite, he found it holding a plasma dagger to the Doctor's neck, using her as a human shield.

"Funny," David panted, still a little out of breath from his brawl with the other elite, "I thought you guys had a sense of honor!"

"You have fought well, human," the elite surprised the two humans by speaking in very guttural English, "Surrender now and both of you will die quickly!"

"Holy shit!" David exclaimed, "You fuckers speak English? Well since you can understand me, put the lady down!"

The elite laughed at the human's gall, but because of this, he did not notice the Doctor move in his grip and grab a syringe out of her lab coat's pocket, "You are brave human! It is too bad you are also vermin- AGH!"

The giant alien dropped Beth when she plunged the syringe into his unshielded hands, and Doctor Sanders immediately curled into a ball on the floor, allowing Burgess a clear shot.

BOOM!

The hulking saurian was tossed back by the force of the shot, crashing against another medical bed, crushing it underneath its weight and drowning it in metallic blue blood.

Doctor Sanders looked up from the fetal position, sighing in relief when she found no one standing over her.

"Doc, you ok?"

"Quite alright, Corporal, no can someone please get me off this bloody ship!"

…

Three hours later the Phantom detached itself from the hull of the Marathon cruiser and blasted towards a field of debris, this time with an extra passenger.

"I'm still not comfortable with moving her this short after surgery, even if it was minor," Doctor Sanders said as she continued to hover over her patient.

"Don't worry, ma'am, Kat's a tough girl," Jorge assured her.

Beth smiled at the huge man's accent. It was difficult to tell if he was calling her ma'am, or mum, though from what she has observed from the huge man so far, she didn't think there was much of a difference. He had hovered over the smaller Spartan like a worrying father, or perhaps an older brother, fretting over any small detail that was out of order. His personality was a stark contrast to the man whom she had first seen, a massive eight foot tall armored titan holding a two foot long machete that was still dripping with blue blood.

"I know she's a tough one, the arm was all the evidence I needed," Doctor Sanders pointed towards the robotic arm, "but there is still the chance of infection, though I'd like to see any bacteria attack this immune system."

"We're approaching the corvette now so buckle up, cause I don't have any real clue as to how to land this thing," Kelly called from the cockpit.

Beth blanched, "What do you mean you can't land this thing?"

"Well I can pilot it around, perform complex maneuvers, but I've never had any reason to learn how to dock one, here we go!"

The corvette was exactly as the seven had left it, engines shut down, life support on minimal, and engineers happily at work repairing any and all damage. It appeared that they had even been repairing or replacing entire sections of the armor plating, considering the gashes left by Savannah's point defense guns were gone all along the hull.

The shield controls had never been turned back on after the Phantom had left, making it easy for the dropship to get back in, unfortunately Kelly still had to learn how to dock the ship. The Lieutenant skillfully turned the craft towards the cradle they had taken it from and slowly approached.

"Mayweather, see if there's anything on those controls that will initiate the docking clamps," Kelly asked her subordinate.

"Yes ma'am," the pilot replied as he reached forward to the controls. A few knobs, a few buttons, a few dials, finally the docking arms reached out and grabbed a hold of the Phantom, dragging it back into the cradle.

"Ladies and gentlemen I'd like to thank you for flying Skyjacked airlines, we know you have a choice in stolen Covenant vehicles and we thank you for your continued business," Anderson said over the comms.

Smirking at the pilot's joke, Jorge picked up his teammates still unconscious body and stepped out of the dropship onto the docking ramp that led down to one of the hangar's various platforms, "I'll find somewhere for Kat to lay down, then we'll figure out our next move."

"Hey, Spartan!" Rodriguez called from behind him. Noble Five turned around to regard the Sergeant, "What about the fleet?"

"Fleet's been smashed. Sure there are pockets of fighting, but there's almost no UNSC controlled space over Reach anymore, and the Covenant have already started glassing the planet. There's no way we'll get past the Covenant fleet, regardless of what we're riding around in, and even if we did, any UNSC ship would shoot us down on sight."

Jorge sighed before continuing, "Our best bet is to hold tight until Noble Two's alright, and then we'll figure out what to do. I'll integrate both fragments of Dot into the corvette, should be a little faster than last time."

Jorge turned away from the six soldiers, the Doctor following closely to keep an eye on her patient, well aware of the devastated looks on their faces, and knowing it was on his as well. Destroying that supercarrier meant nothing, other than it gave the Covenant the excuse to send their fleet in early. The Spartan thought that he had made a difference, and he had, but not for the better.

…

A full week later and the fires in New Alexandria had fully died, but Noble Team had long since abandoned the ruins. Halfway across the continent a small landing pad jutted out from a cliff face, holding two D77H-TC Pelican class dropships and five humans.

"Doctor Halsey, Jun will escort you to CASTLE Base," the blue armored Spartan, Noble One, said to the frail looking old woman.

"I require no escort, Commander," Doctor Halsey assured the Spartan, to no avail.

"Noble Three, make sure nothing falls into enemy hands."

The first of two olive colored Spartans nodded, "I'll do what's necessary sir! … Good luck."

"You too, rifleman," Carter told Jun before turning towards the Pelican Noble Four and Six were already sitting on. Placing his DMR on a weapons rack above his head he sat down at the Pelican's controls, "I need a heading Dot."

"At three kilometers north, turn right, heading zero-five-zero," the 'dumb' AI directed.

"Which leads to?"

"The ship breaking yards in Azsod. The only off-planet extraction site left on this continent. Small scale air strikes have destroyed multiple convoys en route. An armada of Covenant cruisers has hastened to the sight as well. UNSC cruiser, Pillar of Autumn, is awaiting your arrival."

"So around four Covenant cruisers, an unknown number of Covenant aircraft, and a standing army between us and the Pillar of Autumn?" Emile asked, "Shouldn't be a problem."

"Wouldn't be a Noble mission if it were easy," Carter agreed with Noble Four.

Six was reloading his SRS 99 Anti Materiel as he looked out of the troop bay towards the glacier that had covered the alien ruin. A series of explosives set in the ice pack detonated, cracking the two hundred meter thick ice and causing it to collapse under its own weight and allowing the nearby rivers to flood the cavern.

Across the cavern, another Pelican was speeding away from the site, heading in nearly the opposite direction. From this distance, Six's enhanced eyes could just make out a green helmet through the Pelican's canopy.

Turning to Emile, Six asked a quiet question, "Think he'll make it?"

Noble Four's intimidating skull turned to Noble Six's golden visor, "He's got a better chance than us. But I know what you mean, even if he is annoying; don't like splitting up Noble Team even more."

Six nodded, "He'll make it," he said with confidence, more for himself than anything. All of his career, Spartan B312 had been a Lone Wolf, but the past month of constant fighting with Noble Team had led to a certain, reliance, on his new teammates. He now found that having teammates of equal skill and ability to have a positive effect on him.

"I hope your right," Emile conceded, "I won't accept anyone killing that smug bastard before I get to wipe that arrogant look off his face."

…

Kat stood watching one of the engineers hovering over a console, tapping away at the controls. She was still somewhat distrustful of the floating snails, but if Jorge said they weren't hostile, Noble Two would consent to the Spartan II's superior experience.

"Commander!" one of the pilots of Echo Squadron grabbed her attention from the other side of the bridge, near the comm. console, "Dot's got the translation matrix figured out, and we're picking up chatter from all over the place but it looks like they're really interested in something over Azsod."

"Dot, what's in Azsod that they could be after?" Kat asked the AI that was currently plugged into the corvette.

"Scans indicate two factors for the increased attention," Dot replied, much faster than it had been only a week ago now that it was up to one third operating capacity, "The first is a Halcyon class cruiser registered UNSC Pillar of Autumn, and the other is three Noble Team transponders en route to its location."

Kat perked up at the sound of that, walking directly over to the three dimensional holographic representation of the planet, looking at the part of the planet that represented Azsod. She tried several different techniques to enlarge the area, but none of them worked, she was about to give up when an engineer approached, grabbed the highlighted section, and simply expanded it.

Noble Two narrowed her eyes at the engineer, a little angry with herself for not trying that, and a little jealous of the alien's incredible skill with technology.

"Dot which transponders am I looking at?" Kat asked as she stood next to the holograph. The advanced technology showed a series of canyons leading to the ship breaking yards, and a pelican flying among them while it was being chased by three Covenant aircraft.

"Noble One, Four, and Six are all aboard that pelican, Noble Two."

"What happened to Jun?"

"Noble Three is en route to Castle Base."

"What's going on?" a deep, accented voice rumbled through the bridge.

Kat turned around to face the newcomer, "Jorge, we've located the rest of Noble Team. Carter, Emile and Six are headed towards the ship breaking yards in Azsod, Jun's on his way to CASTLE Base."

"Why's he split from the rest of Noble Team?"

"Can't answer that, but he appears to be safe for the mom-"

An alarm klaxon blared through the bridge, cutting off Noble Two in the middle of her sentence. Dot quickly provided a reason for the alarm, "Alert, enemy vessel approaching debris field."

"Enemy vessel? What class?" Kat asked as she brought the holograph back to the full view of reach before zeroing in on their location in the debris field.

"Punitive heresy class vessel, three abominations aboard," Dot replied.

Every human on the vessel turned towards the holograph in confusion. Noble Two cocked her head, "Dot… give me a view of that vessel."

"Gladly, Noble Two."

The three dimensional holograph zoomed in on a speck maneuvering outside the debris field, apparently attempting to use it as a shield from other ships. The first thing Kat noticed about the vessel was that it most definitely was not Covenant, in fact it looked like a civilian transport vessel.

Kat worked her jaw in frustration, "Dot, stand down alert status," her robotic hand worked her temples, "And rewrite the damned database!"

Jorge leaned in closer, "Ma'am, that things FTL drive is busted and their leaking atmosphere."

"You think we should help them, Noble Five?"

Jorge nodded silently, the big man's hazel eyes held a certain worry for the civilians in the transport.

"Get Lieutenant Anderson in a pelican, go with her, and take Rayne too," Kat conceded.

"Thank you, ma'am."

"And Jorge," Noble Two added, "You have fifteen minutes, then we're taking this thing down to Reach and finding the rest of Noble."

…

"Civilian transport Zulu Niner Niner, this is Pelican Bravo O Two Niner, respond," Kelly radioed the civilian transport.

"Pelican Bravo O Two Niner!" a frantic voice flooded through the comm., "Thank God! We thought we were going to die out here!"

"You're lucky Zulu Niner Niner; we've got a ship hiding in the debris field, if you'd like to follow us through…"

"Uh, sure thing Bravo O Two Niner, what kind of ship is it?"

"You'll see soon enough, Zulu Niner Niner," Kelly smirked, knowing the civilians were in for one hell of a surprise, "Follow me in closely please."

The larger transport followed the pelican in to the debris field, avoiding the drifting chunks of titanium armor plating, but only barely. The ships thrusters were outdated and in desperate need of an overhaul, some of them were simply gone, forcing the ship to overload adjacent thrusters and making the transport a little sluggish. It took nearly seven minutes to traverse a little over four kilometers to the center of the debris field, where the corvette was holed up.

"What the hell is that thing doing in here?!"

"Zulu Niner Niner, calm down! That corvette is our ride!" Kelly shouted over the comms, trying to be heard over the sound of the other pilot's panicking.

"W-what do you mean that thing's your ship?"

"Trust me; there are no hostiles on that ship. Your transport should be able to fit inside the main hangar, but it'll be a tight fit, think you can do it?"

"Uh… sure Bravo O Two Niner, I can pull that off. Following you in then?"

Lieutenant Anderson nodded, though the other pilot couldn't see her, "That's right, nice and steady."

The Pelican entered the hangar first, leading the larger transport, and kept going through the hangar until reaching the opposite end. The transport wasn't far behind, bearing a striking resemblance to the old Concord style jets of the twentieth century, the nose fit in quite easily, it was the wings at the back that would have trouble fitting through the hangar doors. As the back wings approached the doors, there was a moment when an observing Noble Two thought for sure the wing mounted thrusters would be ripped off the ship but the pilot of the transport knew what he was doing, and skillfully slipped the rest of the ship into the hangar, bringing the heavily damaged ship to a graceful landing.

The hatch on the side popped open, letting forth a cloud of smoke that was quickly dissipated by the corvette's sophisticated ventilation systems. A dirty figure appeared in the open space and quickly climbed down the ladder welded onto the side of the transport, followed by another, and another, finally all three had reached the floor.

Kat observed the three civilians, one male, the other two were young women, and all three were dirty. The two women were of similar build, but that's where the similarities ended. One of them was wearing a Misriah Armory uniform, the coloration and configuration suggested she was a technician, of what Kat couldn't be sure, but she stood at five foot four, curly black hair, and skin that was dark for reasons other than ash.

The other woman was an inch taller, but with straighter and lighter hair and skin. Her clothing was indicative of an engineer on a civilian freighter. Both women seemed to still be in a state of shock, most likely the three had boarded the transport at the last possible second, Covenant only seconds behind. It was a miracle they had survived at all, a miracle that was no doubt supplemented with a little bit of ingenious piloting by the pilot.

Speaking of the pilot, the young man held a certain experience about him. The young Scott held himself with some confidence, but seemed a little deferent, especially when he noticed Kat standing there observing him. The man's green eyes seemed to go a little wide as soon as he saw the Lieutenant Commander, and he ran a hand through his fiery hair.

"Hello ma'am, uh, what do you need?"

Kat tilted her head at the man, "I need someone with experience piloting a thousand ton plus starship, and I want to know if that is that you?"

The man seemed taken aback but quickly adopted a smile, "Pilot this beauty? Aye, lass, I'm your man!"

"Don't call me lass," Kat warned the young man, "Jorge, lets get to the bridge! You too…"

"Patrick Bullock, ma'am!" the Scott replied, his accent becoming more pronounced as he became more comfortable. Jorge and Corporal Rayne were approaching when Patrick took notice of the young Jessica Rayne, "Can I call her lass?"

Noble Two shrugged, the Scott's behavior was rapidly becoming eccentric, much different from the nervous voice she had heard over the comms.

Patrick approached the Corporal at an angle as they were approaching the main path to the corvette's bridge, "Ay there lass, perhaps a pretty lady like you might escort me to the bridge?"

Rayne arched an eyebrow at the man, wishing she hadn't left her helmet back on the Pelican, maybe she wouldn't be getting the same attention from him. But, considering her MA37 held in her arms did little to dismay the self-confident Scott.

Jorge and Kat followed at a distance after Noble Two had ordered Lieutenant Kelly to escort the two women to Doctor Sanders. The two Spartans followed the pair at a fair distance, Jorge chuckling lightly at the brash attitude displayed by Patrick towards Jessica, while Kat just shook her head.

Jorge turned away from the pair in front of them and looked to Kat, "Ma'am, any update on Noble Team?"

"Carter, Emile, and Six are still being pursued by Covenant craft. The Covenant Battle Net has indicated a total of twelve banshees and two phantoms have been destroyed by them, and their sending more. Still, we should go after Jun first."

"What's happening to Three?" the giant Spartan asked, concerned for his chatty friend.

Kat sighed, "Two CRS light cruisers are zeroing in on his position. Looks like he's trying to get back to Noble Team."

"I thought he was headed to CASTLE Base?"

"He was, only spent five minutes there before leaving again," Kat told the larger Spartan, "I don't know why he went to CASTLE, but whatever the reason he's done there now and in serious trouble."

"How are we going to help him? We can't just swoop down and pick up his Pelican, the two cruisers will blow us to bits."

"We're not going to swoop in, we're going to destroy both cruisers before picking up Three," the brilliant tactician replied.

They entered the bridge, just in time to witness Patrick's reaction to the engineer present, Perfect Buoyancy.

"Bloody hell you're one ugly bastard!" Patrick Bullock yelped in surprise as Buoyancy floated up to him, "Or maybe you're very pretty for your kind but Jaysus man!" he turned to look at Corporal Rayne, "What the hell is he?"

"I don't actually know," Jessica admitted, "But they aren't hostile, or dangerous in any sense they just like to fix things and make stuff."

"Stuff? Things? Who are you, Rick Grimes?"

"I don't know who that is," Rayne admitted, "but the kind of stuff they like making is helm station that actually has a chair, and is actually looking out the window."

Bullock took notice of a rather uncomfortable looking chair made out of the same purple metal surrounding him sitting in front of a console lined with all sorts of controls, the most prominent of which was a two handed control stick.

Patrick slapped his hands together and rubbed them in anticipation, "Let's get this baby under way," he slid into the seat, finding it much more comfortable than he imagined, "So Miss, where would you like to go?"

…

Jun swerved his gunship, avoiding yet another plasma torpedo fired by the trailing cruiser. Noble Three had ditched the Pelican back at CASTLE once he had dropped off Doctor Halsey, choosing to go with the smaller AV-22 Sparrowhawk gunship in the hopes that the reduced profile would draw less attention. In all fairness he was right, he only had one ship chasing him, the problem was that the one ship chasing him happened to be a full fledged starship.

He didn't even have the good fortune of being chased by the larger and more sluggish CCS class of cruisers, instead he found himself being chased by its smaller cousin, the three hundred meter long RCS class cruiser. While it was much smaller, the RCS made up what it lacked in size by sheer maneuverability and speed in-atmosphere, and its ability to deploy troops quickly and efficiently all while taking a beating no corvette could possibly withstand.

At least the RCS didn't carry much in the way of fighters, not that the commander of the ship chasing him seemed intent on launching what aircraft he had. In fact the alien in charge seemed content just to follow the Sparrowhawk through the expansive set of canyons, raining down plasma torpedoes as it went.

Jun swerved the agile craft to the left, shooting down an offshoot of the canyon and causing the cruiser to miss yet again. Noble Three, like any Spartan III, was a capable pilot, but he was no Six, and it wasn't going to be long before that cruiser would destroy him. The Sparrowhawk had no shields, and its armor certainly wouldn't hold up against starship grade weapons.

Dual ducted air fans whined in protest as Jun coaxed a little more speed out of the craft. The Covenant were jamming all long range comms, but Noble Team's transponders were ahead of him, only forty miles away at this point. The gunship's engines were pushed to their limits, but the quick craft was soon travelling at over four hundred miles an hour down the straightaway.

The end of the canyon approached rapidly, and soon the Sparrowhawk burst out into a wide basin that was once filled with water, until the Covenant had destroyed the damn holding the reservoir anyway. The wide area would make it harder for the cruiser to anticipate his movements, but that hardly mattered. In front of Jun's gunship, another RCS class cruiser rose above the plateau, three lateral plasma turrets glowing brightly with power as they prepared to annihilate the Spartan.

Jun's helmeted head hit the cushion behind him as he resigned himself to his fate, but his eyes remained open, intent on greeting death fully alert. It was a good thing too, otherwise he might not have believed what happened next.

A thin blue beam lanced across the sky from a source above the cruiser, slashing through the shields and burrowing its way through the armor and finally striking the ground below. The particle beam only lasted for a few seconds, but the damage it caused would last forever as the cruiser was rocked by secondary explosions. The segmented hull broke apart under the stress of internal explosions and the ship finally fell from the sky.

Noble Three looked up through the canopy, wondering who his saviors could be, and was shocked to see a corvette class ship, belly still aglow after firing its energy projector. The glow only faded for a moment before gathering strength again, slashing out against the cruiser behind him.

Jun looked over his shoulder at the cruiser and found that the CRS had swerved at the last second, not enough to completely avoid the stream of ionized plasma, but enough to avoid total destruction. The shields of the cruiser popped, and the lance continued through the starboard 'wing' of the smaller ship, but the damage was too isolated to cripple the small cruiser. Fortunately the crew of the larger corvette was prepared for such a situation as the lateral plasma lines flared to life, glowing brighter and brighter until it finally launched three small plasma torpedoes.

The three spots of pure blue light accelerated from the ship somewhat sluggishly before suddenly rocketing towards the cruiser in somewhat random arcs. The first torpedo slammed into the cruisers own weapons, overloading the plasma collectors and rocking the ship with a devastating explosion, but the ship still hung in the air, wounded but alive. The second and third torpedoes would change that assessment, however, as the second slammed into the thinnest armor section, cutting a hole clean through, letting the third torpedo complete access to the ship's delicate innards.

The second cruiser fell from the skies without any semblance of grace, filling up the canyon it had been chasing Jun through. Noble Three looked up in awe at the corvette, what had possessed a Covenant ship to attack another two?

"Noble Two to Noble Three, you look like you could use some help."

Jun nodded in acceptance, if anyone or thing could defy death, hijack a Covenant ship, learn the controls, then shoot down two cruisers, it would be Kat, "And to think I was missing that smug attitude not twenty four hours ago."

A feminine chuckle filled the comms, "Mr. Bullock, bring the ship down a few hundred meters. Jun approach the port hangar bay, Jorge will let you in."

This time Jun actually looked shocked, "Did you say Jorge? Should have known you'd drag him from the Void with you."

"Other way around, Warrant Officer, see you in a few," Kat replied.

…

Jun stepped onto the corvette's bridge, Jorge directly behind him, "Kat, where'd you get this ship?"

Noble Two pointed to Jorge, "Ask him, but ask him later, something's happened, Dot?"

The AI's grid like avatar appeared above the main holograph on the bridge, "Fifteen minutes ago Noble One, Four, and Six's Pelican sustained damage. Transponder locations indicate Sierras 239 and 312 have exited the craft and are en route to the Pillar of Autumn on foot. Covenant Battle Net shows a Scarab class tank set to intercept in ten minutes."

"Mr. Bullock you think you can get this ship over to Azsod in ten minutes?"

"Do I like whiskey?"

Kat was about to respond when for the second time today the alarm klaxon's blared throughout the ship, "Dot that better not be another case of mistaken identity!"

"Negative, Noble Two," the emotionless voice replied, "The Covenant seem to have discerned our true allegiances. A CCS class battlecruiser is en route to intercept."

"Scratch that last order, Mr. Bullock," Kat said as she readjusted the holographic projector to show their incoming assailant, "Sergeant Rodriguez!"

Marcus quickly stood at attention, "Ma'am!"

"Do you know how to fly a pelican?"

The Sergeant cocked his head, "U-uh, yes ma'am!"

"Good, you will escort Noble Three and Noble Five to the rest of Noble Team," Kat ordered the trooper before keying her comm., "Lieutenant, get your team in flight gear and up to your Sabres, you will be escorting Pelican Bravo O Two Niner to the coordinates I'm sending you now."

"Yes, ma'am! You heard the Spartan! Get your ass in gear Echo!"

"Doctor! How are your patients?"

"Scared but all right, Commander," Doctor Sanders replied, "What's going on with the alarms?"

"It appears a Covenant battlecruiser has decided we're less than friendly."

Patrick spoke up, "Us? Not friendly? Ridiculous!"

Kat looked down at the fiery haired young man, "Well whatever the case they sure think we're interesting..."

"Now that I can believe!"

"… and I need all hands on deck. Get your patients up here Doc."

"Commander, I must protest, they are not in any condition to be running around an alien ship…"

"Your protest has been noted, Doctor, now get them up here now!"

"Sabres and Pelican have been launched, twelve minutes until they have rendezvoused with the rest of Noble Team."

"Thank you Dot, time until the battlecruiser gets here?"

"Four minutes to intercept."

Starboard bridge entrance opened up, admitting three women. The Doctor quickly ushered the two civilians over to the only Spartan left on the ship, "Well here they are, Spartan; just don't push them too hard."

"I'll do my best, Doctor," Kat promised before looking the two women over, "Your uniforms suggest you possess some technical expertise?"

The dark skinned one spoke up, "I-I am… was, a sensor technician for Misriah Armory. I built sensor suites for just about any kind of ship the UNSC produced right here on Reach."

The blonde woman found her voice next, "I used to be an engineer aboard a class Y freighter, damn thing was always breaking down, and I've gotten pretty good at improvising."

"Class Y, eh?" Patrick spoke up from his seat at the helm, "I used to pilot a class Y, pretty old ship, you certainly would have to be a resourceful lass to keep that bucket of bolts flying."

Kat sighed at yet another interruption from the, admittedly skilled, but thoroughly annoying pilot, "We're going to need both of your skills. We've got an incoming Covenant battlecruiser, and not enough firepower to even scratch those shields."

"What do we have?"

"That's a good question, Ms…"

"Hannah Johnson," the dark skinned woman said, "I have an uncle in the Marine Corps."

"Well Ms. Johnson, let's get an answer to your question, Dot bring up a list of supplies aboard this ship."

"Gladly, Noble Two."

A nearby holographic screen flared to life, and a list of different components appeared. Both women moved over to the screen, hovering over it and considering the various uses for each item. It didn't take long before Hannah approached Kat.

"Um, ma'am?"

"What is it, Ms. Johnson?"

Hannah looked over to her blonde companion before turning back to the Spartan, "This ship is carrying forty tons of pressurized methane."

Kat blinked, "And?"

The blonde spoke up, "Well it's linked into the ventilation system, we can eject the gas out of the ship, create a cloud of methane that could obscure us."

"Methane might not be transparent but a cloud of gas isn't going to fool Covenant sensors," the Spartan reminded her.

The Misriah sensor tech put in her two cents, "But if we ignited the gas cloud, the heat signature would obscure ours, so much so that we could escape!"

"… Good work, Ms. Johnson, Ms… I'm sorry I never asked for your name."

"Sarah Travers, ma'am."

"Well good work both of you, Dot can you get the methane ready for release?"

"Negative, manual release only," Dot's emotionless tone replied, "Warning, battlecruiser ninety seconds out."

"Damnit! Dot, show these women where to go, here take these," the Spartan held out a pair of small communicators, "and take two engineers. Buoyancy, No Helmet!"

The two floating aliens drifted over, and the two women shied away, "Don't worry their harmless. Tell them what you need to do, and they'll do it without fail. Go, GO!"

…

Carter swerved the Pelican, avoiding several plasma bolts, and fired the nose mounted chain gun, ripping apart a banshee with seventy millimeter rounds and putting another one up on his kill count. The Pelican's rear thrusters belched out more smoke, the right one was on fire, and the canopy was filled with holes. One of the holes led a straight line down into Noble One's chest, ending in a terrible scorch mark on the armor and third degree burns underneath.

The Pelican left a trail of smoke as it turned, slowing down as it did, letting the Phantom chasing it shoot by and bringing it straight into the Spartan's line of sight. The nose mounted chain gun belched again, shredding through the Phantom's tough armor and trashing the delicate plasma manifolds beneath. The dropship struggled to stay in the air before a second explosion blew it apart from the inside out, raining purple and pink debris all over the ground.

Peeking out the window, Carter surveyed a scarred battlefield below him. A Wraith down in the valley had been launching plasma mortars against his Spartans, had being the key word. Six rolled off of the purple tank, letting it boost by and crush a wayward grunt moments before the plasma grenade lodged inside the pilot's seat exploded, sending chunks of purple scrap metal flying.

Emile apparently had been assigned the arduous task of clearing out the brutes, a task only Noble Four would enjoy. Even from close in Emile's movements would be hard to follow, his reactions were unparalleled amongst Noble Team, and from Carter's height it was impossible, but whenever the massive simian's approached the battle happy warrior, the spray of purple blood could be seen from orbit.

The two Spartan's on the ground moved on, into the cave system ahead, so Noble One turned his attention to the horizon.

"Noble!" the Commander grunted out in pain as soon as he saw it, "You have a… situation!"

Apparently they saw it too, "Mutha… we can get past it sir!"

Carter shook his head, but this time felt no pain. Cumulative blood loss had finally caught up to him, "No you can't, not without help."

The Commander snatched his helmet from the floor as it rolled past him, sliding it over his own bloody face.

"Commander!" Emile continued to protest, "You don't have the firepower!"

"No," Carter said without pain, "But I have the mass."

The Pelican opened up with its guns, grabbing the Scarab's attention. The massive insect like tank powered down its main cannon, choosing instead to look up in annoyance at the wounded bird.

"Solid copy. Hit em hard boss."

Carter unbuckled the restraints, getting ready for one last ditch effort, but the chances of surviving were too slim. Someone would have to be looking for him to find him in time, "You're on your own Noble, Carter out."

Noble Team's leader turned away from the pilot's seat, the controls set for a suicide run at the Scarab, and used what was left of his strength to sprint out the back hatch. The Spartan leapt from the Pelican, holding himself spread eagle for a second, and curled into a ball, locking his armor.

Behind him, Carter heard the massive explosion brought on by a thirty ton ball of steel and titanium slamming into the Scarab. Chunks of metal flew past him, trailing streams of smoke. The Spartan plummeted straight down onto the rock face, slamming down onto the forty five degree slope and tumbling towards the sheer cliff.

Just as he was about to drop off the thousand foot cliff, the Spartan slammed into rock jutting upwards from the surface. Carter gasped in pain as his back jammed against the thick limestone slab. The Spartan stayed conscious just long enough to watch the wounded Scarab slide down the limestone slope, gouging great ruts through the stone. The massive head of the insectoid tank glared down at Carter, hanging on with its two front legs, gathering power in its main cannon, but the million ton body was too much, and gravity pulled it off the cliff, and sending it plummeting towards the plains below.

Carter's vision began to fade; grey was seeping into his vision, just as blood began seeping into the rest of his armor.

…

Echo One hammered the triggers of her Sabre, sending high explosive thirty millimeter rounds hurtling towards a squadron of banshees. Each Covenant craft exploded after only one hit, the thin armor providing no armor for the massive rounds.

Kelly tilted her fighter to chase off a banshee, "Watch yourself Bravo O Two Niner, you don't have shields like we do!"

"Copy that Echo One!" Marcus' voice sounded in her headset, "You guys have eyes on the Autumn yet?"

Kelly quickly looked up from her radar screen and looked towards the western horizon. The sun was already beginning to dip, making it somewhat difficult to keep a direct line of sight, but she certainly was able to pick out the massive hull of the a Halcyon class cruiser, but only just.

"Affirmative O Two Niner," Lieutenant Anderson replied, "We're probably thirty kilometers out, plenty of tangos between us and it. Echo Squad form up on me, O Two Niner take up the rear."

A chorus of affirmatives answered the Lieutenant, and she dove down to an altitude of three thousand meters. Echo Two, Travis Mayweather, and Echo Three, Walter Graves, formed up on her flanks, forming a wedge.

"Multiple contacts!" Rodriguez shouted over the comms, being the only pilot with an actual Radar Intercept Officer.

"I see them, fourteen Type 31 XMF's," Kelly radioed her wingmen, "Seraphs, too many to destroy in passing, we'll have to engage in a dogfight."

"A dogfight's gonna slow us down, we'll never reach the Autumn before she takes off!"

"Agreed, Echo Three, come with me, Mayweather! Keep on O Two Niner's tail and make sure nothing lays a single plasma bolt on that Pelican's hull, understood?"

Travis' Sabre broke formation, dropping to fifteen hundred meters, just behind the Pelican, "Copy Echo One, good luck ma'am!"

"To you as well, Echo Two," Kelly said.

The Lieutenant turned her head back to the incoming Seraphs, only seconds away from weapons range, "Weapons hot! … FIRE!"

Bullets and plasma streamed past each other, slamming into shields and streaming past fighters. The Sabres broke under superior numbers, splitting wide and high to the right at extreme enough angles for the Seraphs to follow. The alien fighters had speed on their side, closing in on the Sabres, but certainly not maneuverability, and certainly not in atmosphere.

Flaps extended on the wings of the human fighters, letting the four chasing Seraphs shoot by, and putting them right in their crosshairs. Thirty millimeter cannons opened up, ricocheting off shields before the finally breaching the electromagnetic barriers and gutting the alien craft. The Seraph had thick armor plating almost everywhere, but the single pulse engine had none, and the four fighters turned to four bright blue and purple stars against the darkening skies above Azsod province.

"Ten left, Echo Three, I'm going to lead them on a wild goose chase, pick off anyone who gets to close to the goose."

"Affirmative Echo One," Graves serious voice exuded confidence, he was a veteran pilot in the Sabre program, having been shoved into the top secret program as soon as he was done with flight school, the YSS-1000 was almost an extension of his body.

Tilting her fighter's nose towards the surface, Kelly slammed down the throttle, shooting past more of the alien craft, gathering three on her tail as she passed the sound barrier. Plasma bolts flew past her ship, a couple striking her shields but skillful maneuvers kept the aliens from acquiring a lock.

One blip on her radar disappeared, two, Graves was hard at work. The last blip was swarmed by six smaller blips, and quickly disappeared from her radar, "That's seven, we're halfway through, Warrant Officer."

"Copy that Lieutenant, we've got five bogeys making a push on our front, looks like the other two are trying to cut off our escape vectors."

"What's your gun count read, Echo Three?"

Walter flipped was silent for a second, the fighters had gathered quite a bit of distance between them, before answering, "One Medusa missile pod and three hundred rounds in the main gun."

"I've got two shots left with the Medusa but only a hundred and fifty rounds, Graves I want you to engage the flankers, I'll use my missile pods to scatter the main force, then come in, finish off what you can with what ammo you have, and I'll finish the rest."

"Aye ma'am, breaking off in three… two… one!"

The Sabre following Kelly to the port split off, high and wide, to meet the first flanking Seraph head on. Echo One held steady, staring down the formation of enemy fighters, thumb hovering over the missile controls. Anderson had set the missiles to detonate manually, rather than on impact, on the belief that the nearby explosions would be enough to severely weaken the shields of several fighters, if not all five.

As soon as the targets were within one thousand meters, Kelly double tapped the trigger, sending twelve missiles barreling out of their pods and streaking along the invisible radar beam straight towards the enemy fighters. The Seraphs didn't even bother with evasive maneuvers, the squid-head pilots knew that the missiles couldn't get a positive lock on their ships with the shields up, leading to a very nasty surprise.

Another double tap on the control and all twelve missiles detonated simultaneously. The results exceeded Echo One's expectations as two Seraphs dove out of the sky and smashed into the ground below and another simply ceased to exist.

Kelly pulled the trigger on her main gun, lighting up the purple craft to her left. Her shots, though accurate, simply bounced off the shielding of the fighter, but they did shatter them just as Graves acquired a missile lock. The last six missiles of Echo Three blew apart the Seraph from the inside out, leaving nothing but debris.

"Looks like the last one is making a run for it, Lieutenant."

Kelly smirked, "Oh that son of a bitch ain't goin far."

The two Sabres opened up simultaneously, shredding the alien fighter to pieces.

The pilots relaxed, their radar was clear of any other airborne craft, and checked their long range instruments, ie, their eyes. What they found was most disturbing.

"LT, is that cruiser?"

"'Fraid so, Graves, that thing is headed straight for…," Kelly paused at a new development, "Oh my God!"

A white streak of light erupted from nearby the pillar of Autumn, bright enough that even from their position over fifteen kilometers away it was visible, and slammed into the charging particle cannon of the CCS class battlecruiser that had been poised to glass the Autumn. The energy built up in the cannon now found itself with nowhere to go except up, and up it went, taking the entire midsection of the ship with it.

Kelly stared wide eyed at the battlecruiser falling from the sky. She stared so intently she almost missed the Pillar of Autumn lifting off of the ground, but she definitely heard Captain Keyes over the comms.

"This is the Pillar of Autumn," the authoritative voice was on every frequency, "we're away, and we have the Package."

…

"Now Corporal!" Kat yelled through the corvette's internal comm. system.

Jessica Rayne was standing in front of the middle starboard plasma turret, acquiring a lock on a most inconspicuous target, a cloud of green methane. As soon as she heard the order, the Corporal pressed the big red holographic button, firing a blob of plasma straight out from the ship that was soon caught in a controlled magnetic field and shot off towards the cloud of very flammable gas.

A CCS class battlecruiser was descending upon the corvette, having monitored its attack of the two CRS class cruisers and their subsequent destruction at its hands. The cruiser hadn't even bothered arming its weapons, feeling rather confident that the battle was already won, and considering all statistics, they had.

A typical SDV heavy corvette had no shields, no specific ship to ship weapons, and no slipspace drive. All it did have was the same compliment of battle plating as any other ship its size, a few siege torpedo launchers that certainly posed no threat to any properly shielded vessels, and one standard energy projector, but the corvette was below the cruiser, making the only viable offensive weapon they had equipped, useless, or so the cruiser thought.

As soon as the cloud of methane ignited the cruiser lost track of the corvette, the thermal signature lost amongst the rapidly expanding cloud of fire below. If only one had bothered to look out the window, the might have noticed a nine hundred meter vessel rapidly ascending off the cruiser's port side, but as it was, a CCS class battlecruiser's bridge had no windows, nor did the ship itself.

"That's it Mr. Bullock, put us right over top of them!" Kat ordered the young civilian pilot.

The only female member of Noble Team hovered over a console, the main weapons battery, and was calculating a firing solution on the cruiser below.

"Now remember people, one shot won't kill it, I need both Burgess and Rayne to keep finding solutions on that cruiser, find the softest spot and hit it hard as soon as those shields pop!"

Two affirmatives over the ships comm. array let Kat know the two troopers would do their best, just as was expected of them. Noble Two slammed her robotic right hand down on blue button that immediately turned red. Outside, a buzzing could be heard, a buzzing that soon turned into the low pitched whine of a particle beam gathering strength. That low pitched whine turned to a howling blast as the energy was released.

To Kat, the one tenth of a second it took for the concentrated stream of ionized plasma to strike the shields of the cruiser seemed to drag on for hours as the main holographic projector showed the progress of the beam. Finally the plasma struck the shields, boring into the powerful electromagnetic field relentlessly until it finally just popped, allowing the particle beam to slam into the battlecruiser's armor and melt a few meters of the thick material away.

As soon as the shields went down, both Jessica and David went to work, running back and forth between terminals, inputting coordinates and initiating the firing sequences. The small siege class plasma torpedoes weren't meant to burrow through thick starship grade armor, instead meant to cripple high value structures, and if used in salvos, completely obliterate enemy defenses. But all factors considered, the smaller plasma torpedoes were certainly effective.

The first targets had been the cruiser's weapons systems, destroying plasma turrets and pulse laser point defense systems, then they began burning their way through the thinner sections of the ships armor, intent on destroying the pulse engines so it couldn't get away.

The plasma coils at the bottom of the corvette gathered strength once again, glowing brighter and brighter until it lanced out in a devastating purple and blue blaze, completely coring the unfortunate cruiser.

Kat stood back in relief, "Dot, any other Covenant take notice?"

"Negative, Noble Two, the only other surviving Covenant ship in the area is headed towards the ship breaking yards in Azsod."

"Azsod!? Why is it headed there?"

"Most likely to prevent the Pillar of Autumn leaving the planet."

Kat turned to Patrick, "Mr. Bullock get us over there, Now!"

"Sure thing, ma'am," the Scott replied with ease as he pulled at the control sticks, "But I should warn you, gonna be forty minutes before we get there."

"Will that be enough time Dot?"

"Negative..."

Kat's shoulders slumped, feeling the weight of defeat pressing down on her. With all of the radiation from downed ships long range communications were down, so she couldn't even warn the rest of Noble Team to get out of there, they were likely all dead as soon as that cruiser began glassing the shipyards.

"… the cruiser has already been destroyed."

Patrick and Kat looked at each other, "What!?"

…

"Cruiser, inbound for the Autumn," Captain Jacob Keyes barked suddenly. Noble Six turned around, taking notice of the looming purple behemoth.

"Noble Four, I need fire on that cruiser or we're not getting out of here!"

Emile's tired voice came through the comms, he knew what that meant, there was no getting off the planet for him, "I have your window, sir."

Six looked up at the Mass Driver, watching it turn towards the cruiser, before stepping towards the Pelican full of marines. Two steps was all the further he made before noticing something to his left.

The second Pelican never stood a chance as a Phantom fired its heavy plasma cannon straight into the rear thruster gimbal, sending the dropship spiraling to the canyon floor. Six fired at the Phantom with his MA37, but the bullets just bounced off the superior metal of the Covenant craft as it made its way to the Mass Driver.

The troop bay doors opened up on the Phantom, revealing a menagerie of Covenant soldiers, all of the highest order. Two Zealots leapt from the craft, one landing on top of the Mass Driver's control booth with an activated sword. The massive alien reared its sword hand, preparing to strike, but it wasn't fast enough.

BOOM!

The glass shattered upwards, following the eight gauge buckshot straight into the alien's face, breaking the shields and cutting through the reptilian's scale-like skin. Emile pulled himself up through the shattered canopy, put his M45's barrel in the elite's mouth, and pulled the trigger.

Metallic blue blood sprayed the skull clad Spartan as the powerful BB's ripped through the alien's brain matter. Further stepping out of the control booth, Emile cocked his shotgun again, "WHO'S NEXT!?"

"Emile get down!"

Six was too late, the second Zealot's sword ripped through the MJOLNIR armor, punching through the right side of the Spartans chest. Emile's right lung burned away from the violent plasma.

An elbow smashed into the Zealot's face, forcing the alien to release its death grip on the Spartan and allowing the super soldier to slip off of the sword, spin around, and rip the knife from his shoulder pauldron.

"I'm ready!" the Spartan screamed in defiance, "HOW BOUT YOU!"

Seven times, Emile stabbed the Zealot seven times before finally stopping. Blue blood coated his armor and seeped into his open wound. With only one lung, Emile was rapidly losing his ability to breathe, and with half of his heart having burned away, his pulse was dropping rapidly. For the first time in the Spartan III's life, Noble Four wanted to give up, to lie down and die, but the sound of an MA37 brought him somewhat out of his haze.

He used what little strength he had to pull himself up onto the railing. Noble Six was engaging two Zealots down on the lower level of the warehouse. The first Zealot was a little small for his species, standing around seven and a half feet and seemed a little scrawny for a Covenant warrior, but with the fluidity and grace with which it dodged assault rifle fire, it was clear as to why the alien had reached the upper echelon of the Covenant military.

The second was bigger, around eight feet tall, and was heavily muscled. It may not have moved as fast as its comrade but it definitely would be no joke to take on this monster in hand to hand combat. Of course if Emile wasn't mortally wounded it would be a simple matter for the fastest member of Noble Team to simply dodge any attack and reply with razor sharp knives.

Six ducked in and out of cover, wearing down the shields of the smaller Zealot with quick bursts, until the alien's shields finally broke. Six ripped the empty clip from his MA37 and slapped a new one in. He rounded the corner on the smaller Zealot, aiming not at the monster's body, but at its knees, crippling its ability to leap away from the deadly force. As soon as the first three bullets tore through the alien's knee cap, Six turned the rifle on the rest of the alien, unloading the entire clip into the alien. 7.62 Armor Piercing NATO rounds tore through the Covenant warrior's body armor, ripping and tearing flesh on their way through, but elites are tough, and it took the entire clip to finally drop the alien to the floor.

A stream of high velocity plasma rounds erupted from underneath Emile's position as the second Zealot let loose with two plasma rifles. The muscular warrior laughed with a sense of superiority as it forced Noble Six back into cover, letting loose a hail of plasma on everything in sight. With Six pinned, Emile had to do something.

Grunting in pain, Emile brought his right hand across his body, slipping two grenades from the only surviving bandolier. He slipped one into his left hand and held them over the railing, ten meters above the laughing Zealot's head.

"Laugh it up, bitch," Emile panted with ragged breath, pulling the pins from each grenade and dropping them.

The Zealot was still firing his twin plasma rifles in sustained bursts when he heard two metallic pings. Looking down in alarm, the elite only had time to groan in annoyance before both grenades went off, completely annihilating the alien.

Emile collapsed, dropping off of the railing in a pool of blood. Not his blood, of course, any bleeding he might have had was stopped by the heat of the plasma sword that had slashed his lung, of course he was still missing quite a bit of blood, considering that nearly a full liter and a half had been boiled away.

More gunfire from down below kept Noble Four conscious, Noble Six still needed his help. Emile crawled along his stomach, his left hand pulling himself along the blood stained steel, his right hand gripped loosely around the Spiker he had stolen earlier. He finally reached the edge, looking down over the second level where Six had already disposed of one Zealot, and had a second one on the ropes.

The Type 50 Directed Energy Rifle in the standing Zealot's hands kept jumping, spewing condensed balls of plasma that rapidly expanded in an explosion whenever they hit their target. Of course Six never let the Concussion Rifle strike him, or even get close.

Six closed the distance quickly, sidestepping an incoming four fingered fist and using the butt of his rifle to crack the elite's shields. The Zealot responded by sweeping his Concussion rifle at the Spartan's head, a strike that Six easily ducked and delivered a left handed jab straight into the alien's abdominals, finally penetrating the shields.

Noble Six rolled backwards, avoiding a powerful stomp by a two pronged hoof, and came to his knees, rifle up and blazing. The NATO rounds tore through the alien, much as it had the other on the lower level, punching gaping holes through the scaly flesh and showering the concrete behind it with shiny blue blood.

Six swiveled on his knees, trying to get a bead on the last enemy left on the firing platform, but was too late. The gargantuan nine and a half foot tall saurian backhanded the Spartan to the ground, cracking the golden visor and snapping off a piece of the ceramic visor. Six was about to rise off of his stomach when a crushing stomp pounded him back into the concrete.

Above him, Sierra 312 could hear the Field Marshal laughing as it reached down, grabbing him by the back of the neck with its massive four fingered hand. The massive creature flung Six across the cement room, sending the Spartan crashing into massive crates containing various weapons, one of which slid out of its case.

Noble Six snatched the M90 CAWS from the ground, slipping three loose rounds into the chamber. He pumped a round into the firing position and fired, barely scratching the elite's shields. Another shot sent spider webs all over the energy shields, showing the stressed case of plasma. A third and final shot was put on hold, however, as the Field Marshal rushed forward, kicking the shotgun away from the Spartan and planting its massive hoof on his chest.

The elite snarled as it activated its energy sword, still standing with its hoof on the Spartan's chest. Its right arm reared back, sword glowing brightly in Azsod's twilight and shields fading back to invisibility as they regrouped power. It was about to lunge when a most unusual event occurred…

SLINKT!

SLINKT!

SLINKT!

SLINKT!

The shields suddenly snapped out of existence, followed up by a shower of blue blood and guts washing over Noble Six's armor. The Spartan wiped the blue blood away from his cracked golden visor, looking up into the open chest cavity of the Field Marshal. Above him, three glowing hot spikes protruded from a warped piece of steel.

The fifteen hundred pound Covenant warrior slumped to the ground, revealing to Six a wounded Spartan twenty meters away with a massive gash along the right side of his chest.

"Four!"

Noble Six rushed to Emile's side, stooping over the wounded Spartan who still clenched a Spiker as if it were his only life line, "Hang on Emile!"

Reaching into the leather pack on his lower back, Six produced two bottles of biofoam. The injectors in Emile's suit had been irreparably damaged by the sword, having never activated. The first canister was administered to the edges of the wound, the molecular miracle providing oxygen directly to the blood there and jumpstarting the regeneration process. The second canister filled the hole, providing more nutrients to the regenerating cells.

The process would only be temporary, and it certainly wouldn't permanently heal injuries this severe, but it would keep Emile alive for several more hours.

"Hang on Four," Six patted the skull carving, "I just need to destroy a massive battlecruiser."

Noble Six could have sworn he heard a weak chuckle coming from behind the skull and smiled in return before leaping up the ladder to the Mass Driver's control booth.

"Mass driver won't crack those shields," Keyes voice filled the olive helmet, "Steady Spartan!"

The Mass Driver smashed through the armor of an approaching Phantom, violently coring the dropship. The massive turret turned, finding another craft, and another, and another. Phantom after Banshee fell from the sky in pieces as the looming purple battlecruiser slowly approached the Autumn.

A final Phantom dropped from the sky, and the bottom of the cruiser lit up, energy building up, "Now Lieutenant, hit her in the gut!"

SHLANG…BOOM!

As soon as the massive slug struck the plasma conduit the built up energy expanded in every direction. Fires upwards of three thousand degrees vaporized nearby armor plating and destabilized more plasma conduits. Secondary explosions rocked the ship, shaking the entire cruiser and knocking it out of the sky.

As the cruiser sank into the bay, Keyes' voice came over the comm. for one last time, "This is the Pillar of Autumn, we're away, and we have the package."

…

"How's your Commander?" Marcus asked as they pulled the Pelican away from the cliff face.

"Carter will be fine," Jun assured the Sergeant, "He'll need a few replacement parts, but the biofoam will keep him alive until we get him back to the Doctor."

"That's good," Rodriguez admitted, finding it much easier to talk to the marksman than any of the other two Spartans he'd been around, "Can't really afford to lose any more of Spartans."

Jun nodded, "Humanity can hardly afford to lose anyone at all. Where are the last two transponders coming from?"

"Near the Mass Driver that knocked that cruiser out of the sky. Did you guys hear Keyes back there?"

"Sure did."

"What the hell is the Package?"

For the first time since Marcus met Noble Three, Jun clammed up, "Not a clue."

Marcus snorted a laugh, "Wow, that's convincing!"

Jun let a small chuckle escape his tan lips, "Just get us to the other Spartans, Sergeant."

Rodriguez let out an 'aye, sir' and turned back to the controls, rocketing towards the dock that the Autumn had vacated when the two transponders he had been chasing did something odd.

"Hey, Spartans! They're on the move!"

This time it wasn't Jun who answered, but Jorge, "What do you mean, Trooper?"

"The transponders! They're moving, and fast, too fast, even for you guys."

Jorge seemed to think something over, "Echo Two, get up high, see if you can find anything capable of carrying two Spartans."

"Copy that, Sierra!" Mayweather answered.

The Sabre peeled off of formation, rocketing upwards in an attempt to find any indication as to where the Spartans were, it didn't take long.

"Got a Falcon, moving at four hundred knots, headed east, looks like they're trying to get to CASTLE!"

"Can we get a signal to them?" Jun asked.

"Negative Noble Three, radiation still interfering with long range communications, we'll have to get within one kilometer to transmit a message," Mayweather answered.

"One point seven kilometers, Echo Two!" a new voice added.

"Lieutenant Anderson," Jorge rumbled, "Nice of you to join us, mind going to pick up Six? We've got to get the Commander to the Doc as soon as possible."

"Sure thing, Sierra, see you there!" the two new additions to the small fleet of aerial ships left as soon as they had arrived, engaging their after burners and blasting off at supersonic speeds.

"Marcus, get us back to the last known coordinates of the corvette, as fast as you can," Jorge ordered.

"Yes, sir."

…

Elizabeth Sanders stepped out of the makeshift medbay, blowing an exhausted breath as she did so and handing two blood soaked plastic gloves to her assistant, Heavier Than Nitrogen. The medbay behind her had been set up with equipment salvaged from the Halcyon cruisers. Organ cloners, surgical equipment, sterile field generators, anything needed to save two Spartans' lives she had set up in what must have been the second officer's quarters. Elite sized furniture had been vacated from the room to make way for the equipment, and the engineers had been instrumental them. It may have taken quite a bit of convincing on her part, but Beth was quite confident that Lieutenant Commander Kat was happy she had loaned her access to the alien's engineering skills four days ago.

"They'll live," Doctor Sanders told the anxious crowd, "Sierra 239's injuries were far more severe, but both had to have their lungs and hearts replaced. I have the tissue regenerator working on the muscle tissue. All in all, I'd say Sierra 259 will be ready for active duty tomorrow, Sierra 239 in four days."

The four Spartan's standing in front of her sighed in relief. Three of them had their helmets off, but for some reason the Lieutenant refused to take his damaged helmet off. The only other woman present seemed particularly relieved at the news. To the Doctor, it seemed as though this entire squad of augmented super soldiers was a family, and Kat was certainly the youngest, though she held the second highest rank.

Kat smiled faintly at the news and began issuing orders, "I don't want to draw any attention until both Noble One and Four…"

"Excuse me," Beth spoke up, waving her hands and grabbing the Spartan's attention, "I refuse to continue to acknowledge my patients as nothing more than a number, what are their names? And for that matter, what are yours? This crew has been busting their tails for you six and I think we deserve some thanks."

Kat seemed taken aback by the Doctor's sudden outburst before looking to her other Spartans. Jun of course had no problem, he was probably going to slip up anyway in one of his numerous soon to come conversations. Jorge was another Spartan who wouldn't have any problem with revealing his name, regardless of how intimidating his size was he was always the one to interact with civilians, and they almost always responded positively. Six was the one Kat couldn't be sure about, in fact, Kat couldn't even be sure what his name was, considering it was covered in black ink, and that fact was something the Lieutenant seemed reluctant to change.

"My name is Catherine, but I go by Kat," Noble Two started, "Noble One's name is Carter, your other patient is Emile."

"I'm Jun."

"Chief Warrant Officer Jorge, ma'am."

The Doctor turned to the final Spartan, the one who had been standing silently throughout the process, "Well?"

"I don't know."

"What does that mean?" Beth stood back in shock.

"It means I don't remember, nor do I want to, Noble Six or Sierra 312 will both suffice."

"How can you not remember? You can't be older than twenty five, that means you enlisted only seven years ago. You can't tell me that in seven years you managed to forget the name you wrote down on the enlistment form!"

Silence answered her, and as tired as she was it still didn't take long for her to reach a new, horrifying conclusion, "No, you can't be!" she turned to the others, "Did you know about what happened to him?"

The other Spartan's refused to make eye contact with her, "Oh… all of you? This is an outrage! When the people hear about this…"

"No, Doctor," Kat said vehemently, "The last thing the UNSC needs now is a scandal. Remember, if anyone asks, you don't know anything. You treated our wounds, slapped a band-aid over our scrapes and sent us on our way, understand? Because if you let anyone on to what you know, you won't wake up the next morning, ONI will make sure of that."

Doctor Sanders seemed upset with the order, but conceded, "Very well. I won't say a word."

"Good, that goes for you too Patrick!" Kat finished by raising her voice.

"Ah… Ah… Buoyancy! How could you! Eavesdropping on the Lieutenant Commander!? Oh she'll have you hanged! Or sank? However it works with you guys," a Scottish accent sounded from a nearby speaker.

Kat rolled her eyes, "Did anyone else hear that?"

"Um… no, and I wasn't eavesdropping, honest!" Bullock tried to assure her, "I was calling to let you know that we've entered another debris field as ordered but I heard you talking and… well… you know."

Kat and the other Spartan's shared a look, "It's all right, Mr. Bullock, just remember what we said."

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Good," Noble Two turned to her Spartans, "Settle in, we won't be going anywhere until Carter is up, even then, we probably won't leave orbit until Emile has recovered. Lieutenant, get an engineer to look at your armor, they're already looking at Emile and Carter's."

Six looked like he was going to protest, but Kat cut him off, "That's an order Lieutenant. Jorge I want you to arrange a few scouting parties, scavenge some of the ships for weapons, food, vehicles, the same things as last time, Jun I want an inventory on everything we already have, take the civilians with you."

"Yes ma'am," Jorge replied first, stepping past and slipping his helmet on and walking off in search of the troopers.

"Sure thing Kat," Jun said, then hesitated, "What are the civvies names?"

"Hannah Johnson and Sarah Travers, you'll probably find them in their quarters just around the corner, third and fourth on the left respectively."

Jun nodded, keeping his helmet under his arm as he walked past his superior officer and around the corner. Kat watched him turn the corner and then turned to Noble Six, "Lieutenant, what are you still doing here?"

"Are you sure about letting these… engineers, work on our armor?"

"They're just patching them up, Six," Kat assured him, "and if you're worried about them messing up your armor, don't. They fixed a ruined slipspace drive even though they'd never seen one made by humans before, trust me, they'll fix that crack in your visor. Then I want you back here, looks like those Zealots gave you a pounding."

Six struggled with the decision for a moment, but conceded, "Yes, ma'am."

Kat watched him go before turning down the hall, making her way to the bridge. The first set of doors let her out on the starboard side of the hangar bay. The civilian transport that had once taken up most of the hangar bay was down to a skeletal frame. Spare hydrogen fuel cells had been salvaged, hull plating was used to reinforce the Pelican's armor, and spare parts were being stored in the former bunks of the corvette's grunt compliment.

No Helmet and Lighter Than Most were still working on stripping the transport, pulling the frame apart and dropping the raw materials into grav lifts operated by Warrant Officers Travis Mayweather and Walter Graves. Kat stepped through the ship's skeleton, minding her head as she stepped underneath an i-beam carried by No Helmet. The Pelican at the far end of the hangar was already gone, meaning Jorge was already carrying out her orders. The Sparrowhawk and Falcon that had been brought in by Noble Three and Six were still sitting there, both in near perfect condition.

Kat continued through the hangar bay, continuing on to the bridge. When she got there she immediately took up her standard position, standing next to a console within full view of the main holographic projector.

"Update on Noble Five?"

Dot, now running at peak efficiency, having all six pieces of herself back together, answered, "Noble Five has taken the UNSC Army Troopers with him and they are currently boarding the UNSC Trafalgar"

"The supercarrier?"

"The very same, Noble Two."

"Patch me through to him," Kat ordered the AI.

The comm. system crackled with static, the debris field they hid in blocked any ship from detecting them from outside, but it also messed with the long range communication system of the corvette.

"Ma'am?"

"Jorge, what have you found so far?"

"Nothing much, ma'am, just boarded her…" Jorge was silent on the other end for a few moments before continuing, "I wonder if the Trafalgar took anyone down with her."

"She had two MAC guns and thousands of fighters, I'm sure it took an entire squadron of cruisers to put her down for the count, Jorge."

"I hope so… No survivors so far, and I don't expect to find any, most of this ship is a vacuum."

Kat nodded, listening in on his reports while surfing both the corvette's inventory and what Dot had logged in the Trafalgar's inventory. The UNSC supercarrier had thousand's of fighters, but it also had massive cargo bays, carrying hundreds of vehicles of varying makes and models and new and experimental weapons, one of which caught her eye.

"Noble Two to Noble Five, Trafalgar's inventory is showing a new weapon system located in a cargo bay one hundred meters ahead of you."

"What kind of weapon system?"

"It's called the M739 Light Machine Gun, manifest logs it under the name SAW. Check it out, if it meets up with your expectations grab it, and any ammunition you can find."

"Anything else interesting in there? Rayne, watch the door, Burgess you take point."

"Showing a crate of M6 Grindell/Galilean Nonlinear Rifles and plenty of the standard weaponry, MA37's, M392's, ooh, a couple of BR55's. Grab what you can, load them on the Pelican and have someone bring them back, I'm opening up the port side cargo bay doors."

…

Three days later and Commander Carter stood on the bridge of the corvette, standing next to his second in command, "What's the status of the ship, Noble Two?"

"We've taken aboard fourteen metric tons of arms and ammunition, including some new weapons systems," Kat rattled off, "And Jorge is just strapping down the last piece of salvage, an M808 Main Battle Tank."

"I know that already Kat, what's the status of the ship? How are the weapon systems? What's the status of the propulsion? Fuel, hull, slipspace drive," Carter elaborated.

Noble Two nodded, switching the holographic screen to display ship status, "Weapons are at full, engines nominal, engineers have repaired the last hull breach and we now have atmosphere in every part of the ship… Oh now this is interesting, we're low on fuel."

"That's not interesting, it's alarming Kat," Noble One turned on his second, "Options?"

"Oi! I got one, sir!"

Carter put an armored hand to his bare face, "Yes, Mr. Bullock?"

"Why don't we just refuel at that big ship?"

Kat looked up, "What big ship?"

"Have you guys not been paying attention?" Patrick asked as he got out of his seat and approached the main holograph, expanding it to show a view of a nearby Covenant fleet headed by a massive CAS class assault carrier. Ships may not be able to detect the corvette in the debris field, but the field had no effect on the corvette's long range sensors.

"Every hour, like clockwork, the little ships fly up to this big daddy and dock just underneath the front portion," the Scott explained, "Now the way I see it, why don't we just fly up and ask to be refueled?"

"They're going to need access codes, docking clearance, who's going to ask for those, you?"

"Well your AI managed to translate all of these consoles, right? I'm sure there are some audio logs from when this thing used to get refueled, just update the names!"

Kat pointed out a flaw in the plan, "The Covenant probably have this ship flagged as KIA, they're going to wonder what brings us back from the dead."

This time it was Carter who backed up the plan, "You're right, they would have this ship's transponder flagged as KIA, but those engineers disabled the transponder, and I might have an excuse as to why a silent corvette might be in the system."

The door opened up behind them, admitting a fully armored Noble Six and Noble Four. The former's visor had been repaired, thanks to the engineers, and the latter, though still sore from admittedly major surgery, was just now back into his fully repaired MJOLNIR.

Emile looked between the three people standing around the holographic projector, "What's happenin?"

"Get your gear ready, Four, and get everyone to the bridge," the Commander ordered, "We need some gas."

…

"Oh that daddy is way bigger up close!" Patrick whispered as he slipped the corvette in past a couple of CCS battlecruisers.

It was true, what Patrick had said, five kilometers sounds big on paper, but in real life, actually hanging in the monster's shadow, was another. This close the assault carrier took up all lines of sight, spanning from one end of the bridges one way mirrors to the other, and they weren't even inside the ship's shield layer yet.

Behind the pilot, two voices could be heard arguing.

"Why aren't you transmitting a transponder code? Perhaps you've forgotten to turn it on?" a translated guttural voice emitted from the command station.

Carter looked to the other people on the bridge, helmet under his arm, "Do you really think I would turn my ship's transponder codes on and let every ship in this system know we're carrying the Prophet of Guile aboard?"

Jun was standing across from the Commander, also wearing his helmet under his arm, and silently mouthed the question, 'Prophet of Guile?'

"Prophet of Guile? Never heard of any Prophet of Guile!"

"Nor have you or ever will! We are a part of covert operations, collecting new human weapons from each battlefield and studying them," Carter lied through his teeth, "Now you will forget you ever heard of us, assume we're another ship, and replace our empty fuel cells."

"… Yes, of course, we never meant to insult the Noble Hierarch, please proceed to the marker," the guttural voice on the other end almost sounded cowed.

Carter cut the transmission, "Dot, take over on the helm, put us exactly where they want us. Mr. Bullock get with the rest of the civilians and hunker down, don't open that door for anyone."

"Aye, aye Captain!" the Scott replied as he slid out of the chair.

Before he could reach the port side door, the Commander called out once more, "And Mr. Bullock!" Patrick turned to look at him, "Grab a shotgun from the port side cargo bay! Anyone makes it in, you're the last line of defense."

The pilot blanched slightly, "Aye, Captain." Patrick walked through the door and disappeared from sight, leaving just the six Spartans, three troopers, and three pilots.

"Forty three seconds to endpoint."

"Thank you Dot," Carter told the AI, then turned to the group in front of him, "Remember the plan. Six, you and Emile will take the grav lift from the comms array up into the carrier, according to this ship's database your objective will only be three hundred meters from your entry point. Get to the primary plasma conduit and place the charges, set the timer to ten minutes, five to get back, five for us to get out of here."

Noble Six and Noble Four nodded, each checking their weapons before sprinting for to their position. Noble One turned to the rest of his team, "Kat, take Jun and the pilots to the comms array, I'm guessing that grav lift isn't a one way trip. Jorge and the troopers are with me in the cargo bay. Yes Jorge?"

"Sir, what about the engineers?"

"The engineers will be the only reason the assault carrier won't be annihilating us in the meantime. No Helmet and Buoyancy are on the port side plasma turrets, Heavy and Lighter on the starboard. Dot will be keeping the fighters off our back with the corvette's point defense guns."

"Ten seconds to endpoint."

"You heard Dot, Move It!"

…

"You ready for this, Six?"

The olive Spartan turned towards the skulled Spartan, "Am I ready? I'm not the one who had major surgery three days ago."

"Ptchh! Please, I'm fine, new heart and lung feels great, almost as good as the old ones!"

"How bout your ribcage?"

"Sword couldn't cut the bone, and the plasma wasn't applied long enough to burn them away, so actually that part of me is still original, sort of."

Noble Six nodded, having experienced the wonders of owning unbreakable bones himself, and waited. The ship beneath them shuddered slightly as a docking clamp attached itself to the ship. From the Spartan's position, laying flat upside down against the dorsal arch of the corvette, they could see a massive pink tube descend upon the ships dorsal landing pad. Almost as soon as the tube made a seal on the ship, hissing could be heard all around as an atmosphere was pumped into the conduit and vertical streams of light began rising all around them.

Six and Four made eye contact through their visors, each counting down from three in perfect sync. When they both reached zero, the rolled out from under the arch and launched upwards, into the belly of the beast. The grav lift snatched the two thousand pound plus Spartans and pulled them one hundred meters in a manner of seconds, only slowing as they reached the end.

The room they found at the end of the lift was massive, at least fifty meters in diameter, and filled with elites, fifteen of them. The three minors standing near the edge stood back in shock as two Spartans emerged from the lift, and were punished for their inaction.

Emile, possessing reaction times surpassing most Spartan II's, was the first to act, slashing one minor's throat with his kukri and spinning the curved blade into the other's head, punching through the armor and gouging through brain matter.

Six was the next to act, providing a massive uppercut with his brand new assault weapon, an M739 LMG, and followed it off with a very, very loud burst of gunfire. The NATO rounds shredded the alien's supple flesh, and splattered blue blood over the unaware major's standing with their backs to the lift.

Two major's turned at the sound of the gunfire and the feeling of blood whetting their armor. Emile grabbed his new shotgun from his back, a brand new M45E, same look as his old M45, in fact there was only one major difference, this shotgun held twelve rounds, not six.

BOOM!

At twelve feet, the major never stood a chance, shields shattering and armor splintering under the force of the powerful buckshot. The major next to Emile's target reeled back from its comrade's demise, but not far enough as another powerful shot tore through it, dropping the alien to the floor.

Six lined up his new SAW with a stunned Ultra and fired. The light machine gun sounded off like a cavitating pump, each round almost indistinguishable from the others, and was absolutely devastating. Even after the Ultra fell from multiple wounds, Six didn't stop firing, taking advantage of the huge magazine and shifting from target to target, ripping apart elites trying to close in while Emile ravaged targets nearby.

It only took one minute and twelve seconds for all fifteen elites to drop to the ground. The room was a horror story, blood dripping from the ceiling and walls, pooling on the floor and dripping back down the grav lift towards the corvette.

A door on the far side of the circular room burst open, admitting a quartet of Ultras, the leader of which immediately roared and ignited an energy sword. Emile started to answer the elite's challenge when a strong hand gripped his shoulder, "He's not our concern, Four, let Kat have some fun with him."

Emile let a sadistic chuckle escape his mouth when he turned with Noble Six and pushed on towards the objective, "Oh man, I almost pity him now!"

…

Jorge watched from his hidden position as twenty four blue cylinders were set down in the hangar bay, "Oh, so that's what those were."

Commander Carter must have heard his remark, "You've seen them before, Five?"

"Affirmative, Commander," Jorge confirmed, "They were scattered all over the place when we arrived, until Six and I used them as explosive ordinance."

"Try not to this time; we need those to get out of here," Carter ordered, "Troopers, you ready?"

"Affirmative, Commander, I've got a perfect line of sight on both bay doors, Corporal Rayne is covering the starboard side, and Burgess has the port."

"Good work, Sergeant, now we just have to wait for…"

Red lights flashed on the surface of assault carrier outside, the faint sound of alarms reverberated throughout the corvette, and plasma turrets began spooling up along the massive hull.

"Looks like the party's just getting started," Carter said at the interruption, "Dot, now!"

Outside the hangar bay six large plasma attenuators built up energy at the direction of the normally peaceful engineers, and launched out into space, crippling the short range defensive weapons of the assault carrier. Smaller plasma turrets all around the ship lashed out at a squadron of banshees, shooting a two out of the air in the initial volley.

Marcus suddenly called out from his lookout position, "We've got Rangers! Jumpin in hot!"

"Light em up, Noble!" Carter barked.

As soon as the first of the white armored aliens landed Burgess rose from cover and took the head off of one of the elites. Marcus used his SRS99 Anti Materiel to strike another Ranger, center mass.

Across the hangar, more white armored aliens landed in the bay, jetpacks still hot from their brief flight. At first their view was obscured by the back end of a Pelican, and they approached cautiously, hoping to go unnoticed by any of the soldiers in the bay and use the dropship as cover. Their hopes were dashed, however, when the bay door of the Pelican swung open and gunfire ripped the lead alien apart.

Plasma repeater fire forced the Corporal back into the Pelican's troop bay, where she slapped a fresh magazine into her MA37. Jessica peaked back out of the bay door, finding an elite that was taking cover from Jorge's massive machine gun. At twenty feet, even on full auto the Corporal never missed a single bullet, all twelve rounds hitting their target and shredding the alien to pieces.

Carter focused on the field of fire provided by his Chief Warrant Officer, finding any alien's with their shields down and putting a NATO round through their skull with lethal efficiency, his M392 barking once every second. Jun may be the marksman on Noble Team, but Noble One would be more than adequate as a replacement. His shots almost always seemed to find their target, and each shot was expertly timed. As soon as one elite would lose its shields, a bullet would tear through its skull, a jackal shifts its shields to move to a different spot, it would suddenly find that it no longer possessed a head. In fact the only reason Carter wasn't taking the high position instead of Sergeant Rodriguez was because of the simple fact that he could survive the pure volume of high velocity plasma rounds his partner drew and he couldn't. The other two troopers, while much closer to the action, were both well behind cover, in perfect ambush spots.

Jorge turned the massive M247H from the starboard door to the port, laying down a field of suppressive fire on the Rangers entering the hangar. The 12.7 millimeter rounds were devastating to anything they struck, ripping through shields and armor alike, only the natural toughness of the elites managed to keep them alive after only a few shots, but their toughness was of little help when they were always being monitored by at least one accomplished marksmen, or markswoman in Jessica's case, let alone three.

Suddenly a voice cut through the din of combat, "I've got four elites closing in on my position! I could use some cover right about now!"

Marcus looked over to where Burgess was set up; sure enough four Rangers were advancing on his location with caution. Their caution was warranted, had Burgess been holding anything other than a devastating M90, an elite could easily cross the gap before its shields broke and struck him down, but as it was, a head on assault would result in at least two dead Rangers.

"I've got your back, Corporal!" sitting on the upper level of the hangar bay, Sergeant Rodriguez was kneeling on a platform directly above the two Spartans, and across the room from David, giving him a perfect line of sight on the four elites.

CRACK!

The 14.5 millimeter round easily punched through the alien's shielding and bore right through the elite's center mass, spraying blood out the Ranger's right side.

CRACK!

Another high velocity armor piercing bullet brought yet another Ranger to the floor without so much as a twitch of pain.

CRACK!

The round was just off, only gouging a deep slash across the alien's chest, but breaking the shields, allowing four ounces of buckshot to rip through its armor and dropping it to the floor.

Marcus moved to find the next target but curiously, it seemed to be missing, "Corporal Burgess, you have eyes on last tango?"

"Negative Sarge, I lost hi- AAAGH!"

To late did Rodriguez see the white blur of the elite slip out from behind a power conduit and slash through the back armor of the trooper with its energy dagger. The eight foot tall alien planted a massive hoof on the trooper's chest and reared back with his dagger, prepared to deliver the killing blow when a blue blur tackled it to the ground.

Carter slammed the Ranger into the deck plating, using skills he had picked up over the course of his combat career and daily sparring sessions with Noble Teams CQC expert Noble Four to keep his physically superior opponent off guard. Two left jabs to the jaw kept the alien dazed and from struggling to rise off the ground, allowing Noble One to slash its throat.

Carter looked over to the trooper, "Corporal, you alright?"

David Burgess groaned in pain, but stood up, "Suit was thick enough… bastard didn't cut anything too important. Ah shit!"

"Commander!"

"What is it Jorge?"

"Their retreating!"

Carter looked up, shocked at the tactical error of his enemies. They had the soldiers outnumbered, and they had just forced him to break rank to save one of the trooper's lives. If they had only pressed harder they would have forced Jorge to reload, at which time any and all suppressive fire would discontinue and they could swarm the hangar bay with minimal resistance.

"Dot?"

"Covenant Battle Net is currently ordering all available units to intercept two demons attempting to overload the primary plasma conduit."

"Looks like we owe Four and Six a favor," Carter commented.

"Me? Owe that punk a favor? We can't ever tell him!" Jorge insisted.

An explosion rocked the carrier above them, "We may never get the chance to…"

…

Jun held his M6G out to his right with one hand and fired. The Semi-Armor Piercing High Explosive round didn't hit any Covenant, but rather an angled wall, and ricocheted back into the center room of the comm. relay, punching through a jackal's ribcage and detonating internally. The birdlike alien that had been facing the Spartan had been hiding behind its shield, not letting the marksman see any of his body, but that had never stopped Noble Three before.

Spinning on his heel, Jun slapped the magnum back onto his magnetic thigh plate and swung the barrel of his sniper rifle downwards at an angle, sweeping a minor's leg. The alien fell to the ground with a thud, shields flaring at the contact, and moved to get back up but found itself pressed to the ground by a long sleek barrel.

CRACK!

Jun looked up from his kill and found another elite in his sights.

CRACK!

Noble Three pulled the empty magazine from underneath the bottom of his rifle. Before he could put in another, a red blip on his motion tracker closed in. The Major must have thought it was going to be an easy kill, sneaking up on a demon and cracking its skull, but it never could have accounted for the Spartan's total situational awareness, a trait belonging to all Spartan's, but mastered by Jun.

Using his rifle as a shield, Noble three pushed the Major past him, ripped the knife from his left shoulder, and flung it into the alien's neck.

Green plasma bolts struck his shields, efficiently draining them until Jun simply whipped out his magnum and delivered three perfect shots, all without looking. He stepped behind cover to allow his shields to recharge, reload his weapons, and check his motion tracker. Three gray blips rolled along the bridge leading to the main console, but those were just the twitching bodies of the three grunts he had just killed, four red blips surrounded a yellow blip on the far side of the room, but Kat had that well in hand. What worried Jun was the five red blips surrounding three yellow blips on the lower level.

"How's everyone doing out there?" Jun asked, his usual chattiness coming to life.

"It's quite the party out here, Jun," Kat replied with a little humor in her voice. From this distance it was easy for anyone to hear Noble Two's magnum barking, and the pained squeals and roars of the Covenant soldiers around her.

"Just wonderful, Spartan," Kelly's voice sounded slightly strained, probably because she was shouting over the sound of three M7 Caseless Sub-Machineguns, "Really having a blast… Concentrate fire on that red elite!"

"Good to hear," Jun remarked as he peaked around the corner, "Was getting worried that our guests were making a mess."

Noble Three found a Major's head in his crosshairs and pulled the trigger, ending its life with extraordinary ease.

"Oh no, Sierra," Kelly continued the joke, "We're the ones making a mess!"

"I say we make Kat pick the place up!" June replied, chuckling at his own joke. A minor above the comm. relay jumped down, but never reached the ground alive as a 14.5 millimeter round ripped its mandibled face apart.

Jun looked up towards the entrance, hoping to snipe any others that may be attempting to drop down, and find them he certainly did, though it really didn't do him any good to spot them coming. Two hunters smashed down onto the center pillar, squishing the bodies beneath them and splitting up, each going after a Spartan on opposite ends of the room.

"Kat we've got incoming!" Jun warned, popping a fresh magazine into his SRS99 and raising the rifle.

CRACK!

A direct hit, shredding the few visible worms along the hunter's neck, and the behemoth stopped in its tracks… and laughed. More worms slid in from the monster's body, filling in the gap, and pulled the helmet down to cover more of the vulnerable worms. Jun cursed, stepping back and pulled a grenade from his belt.

Jun pulled the pin and let the lever release, cooking the grenade before tossing it between the hunter's feet. The resulting bang shoved the behemoth forward, and pissed it off.

At the creatures massive roar, Jun smiled, "What, you don't like my cooking?"

Another growling roar, one that shook the walls and the deck plating emanated from the massive titan. The colony of worms surged forward, faster than what a five and a half ton monster should be able to, and swatted at the Spartan.

The marksman planted his left foot against the flat of the shield and pushed off, launching himself over the massive hunk of metal and dropping himself inside the monster's reach. Jun placed the barrel of his sniper rifle against the creature's helmet and fired, ripping the plate off of the extended worm colony.

"If you didn't like that last one, perhaps you'll enjoy this recipe!"

Jun slammed another fragmentation grenade into the hunter's 'head' and kicked off, putting distance between him and the monster.

BOOM!

Rather than slumping forward, or falling backwards, the hunter split apart at the seams, shooting heavy fragments of armor and spurts of orange blood in three hundred and sixty degrees.

"How bout that cooking?"

"Jun," Kat said sharply from the other end of the platform standing on top of her hunter like she had just slain a dragon, "shut up!"

Noble Three smiled at the female Spartan, and was about to respond when the carrier above them shook with an explosion, "What the hell was that?"

…

"Damn it Six! What the hell was that?"

The Lieutenant turned back, somewhat embarrassed of his actions, "In my defense it worked."

"You can't just go around blowing up plasma manifold!" Emile rebuked his superior officer, "What if the whole ship blows up?"

The floor beneath them shook again, "Well, actually it might be."

Another explosion is heard, this time significantly closer, but also significantly less powerful, "Doesn't look like the job'll get done with out us, let's go."

The two Spartans stepped over the charred bodies Six had created when he had fired on an exposed plasma manifold. Elites, brutes, jackals, even two hunters, nothing had been safe from the violent release of plasma.

Reaching the end of the hall, Emile set up in front of the door, pointing his shotgun at the door while Six popped another magazine into his SAW and moved towards the doors holographic controls. A nod from Four and the Lieutenant hit the control.

The door slid open to chaos, an elite major stepped out from a smoke filled room, hand held up to its mouth, coughing violently. Fortunately the elite didn't have to suffer too much longer, considering it no longer had a mouth with which to cough, nor a hand with which to cover its mouth.

Four and Six swept into the smoke filled room, advanced helmets easily adjusting to the low light level and high concentration of airborne particulates, even going so far as to outline figures in the smoke.

"Got a brute, three meters to your right," Six called out, a resounding boom answering him, and flinging the simian creature across the room.

"Two elites, ten o'clock!"

Noble Six answered Emile with a sustained burst from his SAW, ripping the aliens apart.

The two moved through the cloudy room with ease, picking off Covenant as they went, encountering little resistance from the aliens. Grunts, jackals, brutes, and elites were slaughtered in droves, most not even with bullets, but knives. Emile's kukri was dripping with a rainbow of colors, all slowly painting a trail behind him, and Six was clearing a little bit of purple brute blood from the corner of his visor.

Finally the two reached the end of the expansive and twisting room, this one opening up automatically and admitting the two into a much clearer room, one that escaped the destructive results of Six's 'improvising'. The door led to a small corridor, two doors, one directly to their right, and another directly in front.

"Schematics show the primary plasma conduit is just through the door on the right," Six stated robotically.

"Let's bring the boom!"

The door on their right opened up, admitting the two Spartans, but so did the one in front of them, allowing a massive furry ball to slam into Noble Four. The giant ape-like creature smashed Emile into the door frame and backhanded Six into the maintenance room containing the plasma conduit.

The huge Chieftain bent over the skulled Spartan and reared a fist back, preparing to slam it through the engraved visor. Any other Spartan would have been far to slow, but Emile wasn't just any other Spartan. The four fingered fist smashed through the deck plating, missing its target but delivering enough force to simply rip apart one of the strongest metals in the universe.

The Chieftain roared in anger, but before it could reacquire the super soldier below him, two size eighteen boots planted against the simian's chest, throwing it across the room.

"Set the charges Six! This ones mine!"

Before the Lieutenant could argue the door slammed shut, and leaving Six with only one reasonable choice.

Back in the corridor, Emile finally got a good look at his attacker, a brute War Chieftain, at least nine meters tall and weighing a good two thousand pounds. Most War Chieftains wore armor covering their entire bodies that were complete with energy shields, but this one was only wearing simple armor plates across its shoulders, upper arms, and thighs, thankfully covering up the crotch as well. Thick muscles bulged from underneath the armor and a thick grey beard flowed over the simian's chest and contrasted the short, well groomed fur covering its body.

In its hands was an ancient looking gravity hammer, the metal seemed purer, stronger, and the shape of the hammer's head was far smoother and crackled with an energy far surpassing that of any other Emile had ever seen. The blade mounted on the back of the hammer head was more pronounced, extending further out from the back of the hammer, making the weapon look more like a half hammer, half axe that hummed with destructive energy.

"The Mace of Grulkt will crush you!" the beast's guttural voice managed.

Emile cocked his head, his shotgun was firmly on the other side of the door with Six, but his twelve inch kukri was still in his grasp. Sliding the super dense titanium blade from its sheath, Noble Four uttered a retort, "Fifty creds says that the reverse is true."

An ear shattering roar reverberated through the short and wide corridor, deafening all other sounds, and heralding the Chieftain's charge. The massive hammer swung around from Emile's left, but passed harmlessly over his ducking head, shearing the purple metal from the wall and opening up the brute's midsection to a vicious stab from the kukri.

Sweeping to the side and bringing the knife with him, creating a nasty gash running along the beast's left side. Fortunately for the brute, its hide and muscles were so thick the knife was simply unable to reach the vital organs beneath.

Another bellowing roar echoed through the entire ship, but not in pain, in anger. The backend of the hammer swung towards the evading Spartan, only narrowly missing the evading Noble Four and burying the sharpened end in the wall. Emile came to his feet after his midair summersault, and turned to face the massive simian. A one two power punch to the Chieftain's ribs underneath its right shoulder served to do nothing other than shove the massive brute away, but due to the fact that the Mace of Grulkt was buried blade first into the incredibly strong metal, the simian had to let go to put distance between it and the Spartan, exactly what Emile wanted.

Noble Four flipped his razor sharp kukri into the beast's chest, burrowing through thick hide, muscle, and finally bone to bring about the first real indication that the monster actually felt pain, but it would also be its last.

The axe end of the Mace of Grulkt cleaved through the Chieftain's skull, ripping the top half of the brute's head clean off, and showering the room in purple gore.

The door slid open, revealing a much cleaner Noble Six holding Emile's M45E, "Having fun, Four?"

Emile looked down at the massive body, then at the hammer slung over his shoulder, "Just picking up a souvenir, charges set?"

"Affirmative."

Emile took the shotgun from Six's hands, sliding it onto the magnetic strips on his back and slapped the hammer into both hands, taking point on the return trip. The duo passed through the smoky room with ease, passing through the bodies and smoke at a quick pace, but the twisting pathways of the room kept them from achieving full speed, though the straight shot corridor leading back to the grav lift would allow them to let loose.

As the door leading to the hallway came into sight, so did the fact that the door was open, revealing an elite with a sword in its hands, using the glowing blade to try and peer through the smoke. Emile picked up speed as he spotted the swordsman, holding the hammer out wide. It must have been strange, for the Ultra, standing there, looking at billowing clouds of smoke that the damaged ventilation system couldn't clear and listening to the heavy pounding of footsteps growing ever closer, and ever more rapid. Of course Noble Four couldn't leave anyone in such a state of confusion, so he got rid of the problem, the Ultra's brain.

Emile jumped through the doorway, leaving the headless corpse behind him and charging into the corridor. He swept the first minor's legs with the haft of the hammer, dropping the elite to the floor, and finished by plunging the sharpened spear like end of the hammer into the alien's chest.

A burst of gunfire ripped a major to shreds leaving the last elite all by itself, facing down two Spartans, although not for long. The hammer's head smashed the side of the major's face and snapped the creature's neck.

"Six minutes and forty three seconds," Six said as he and Emile began sprinting down the hall.

"Race ya!"

Six watched as Noble Four gathered an impressive burst of speed, hitting seventy kilometers an hour in a matter of seconds, and pulled away from the Lieutenant. Six growled as the competitive nature instilled in all Spartans kicked in. both Spartans would have appeared as nothing but blurs to any passing Covenant as they raced down the two hundred meter corridor.

Ten seconds and a very upset Lieutenant later and both super soldiers rushed into the room containing their way back, "Get ready to jump!"

Four and Six leapt into the stream of rising hardlight, narrowing their bodies and avoiding as many of the streams of photons as possible, racing down the hundred meter shaft. Just before they each hit the dorsal arch of the corvette's, Emile and Six executed flawless flips, pointing their feet straight down and landing with a powerful thud on the purple hull.

The two flipped down into the comm. room, landing on top of the pile of corpses left by Noble Two, Three, and the pilots.

"Good to see you made it back, Six!" Jun yelled from his cover as he joined the two on their way to the bridge.

"What am I? Chopped liver?"

Kat was by the Spartan's side by the time they reached the hangar, "Always good to see you too, Four, nice hammer."

"I thought so, Commander!" Emile yelled, gathering the navy colored Spartan's attention.

"I take it the mission was a success?"

"Not a success yet sir, timer's at five minutes flat, sir," Six reported.

"Perfect, Dot, get Mr. Bullock up here, he's got a ship to pilot!" Carter barked at the AI.

"Gladly, Noble Leader."

"Four, Six, get on the plasma guns!" Carter continued ordering as he moved on towards the bridge, "We've got two docking arms holding us down and the engineers aren't exactly good shots. Knock em out, and we can get the hell out of here."

Two affirmatives answered the Commander, and so did one Scottish accent, "Oi! Captain, you need me?"

"Affirmative, Mr. Bullock," Carter told the young civilian, "Dot's good but she's not imaginative, I need your skill set to get us out of this mess. Dot what's the time?"

"Three minutes and twenty seven seconds, Noble Leader."

"Status on the docking arms?"

"Both port and starboard docking clamps have been severed, we are clear to leave the assault carrier."

The two men entered the bridge, "Take your seat Patrick, and get us the hell out of here!"

"Aye, aye Captain!" the fiery haired Scott replied, already sitting down in his chair.

"Dot, time?"

"Two minutes, fifty seven seconds, Noble Leader."

"Just enough time!" Patrick exclaimed excitedly, pushing hard on the controls. The tube attached to the dorsal landing pad shattered as the corvette's engines roared to life, accelerating the ship to incredible speeds.

"Dot, are we far enough away?"

"Negative, Noble Leader, we must gain another four hundred kilometers before we are beyond the blast radius."

"Just need to get past this cruiser!" Patrick stated, "Then we can hit the slipspace drive, that'll get us out of the blast!"

"Do it," Carter ordered.

"Then I recommend hanging on to something!"

The corvette lurched downwards, towards the planet below, and the CCS battlecruiser moved to block, lateral plasma lines glowing as the ship began targeting the smaller ship. Just as the cruiser was about to begin firing, the smaller ship turned on its back, slipping over the cruiser's shield barriers, scraping the dorsal shields with its back.

Inside the ship everyone launched forward, throwing them into a wall, sprawling along the floor, and gathering minor injuries. Patrick just managed to keep himself from swallowing the control sticks in front of him as he pulled the ship up, away from Reach.

"I'd recommend that slipspace jump now, NOW!"

A thousand kilometers behind them, the massive assault carrier exploded, vaporizing not only itself, but several ships around it. The shockwave accelerated alarmingly fast towards the corvette, smashing any ship in its path to pieces and bearing down on the small siege ship.

Just before the wave reached the ship, a portal opened up into inky blackness, pulling at the corvette. The purple ship was completely through by the time the wave reached it, but the portal had yet to close. Only a limited amount of the energy managed to impact the ship, but it was more than enough to toss the corvette, throwing it through the slipspace at an irregular vector.

The jump was only supposed to be a short one, and it only took a few seconds for another portal to open up in front of the ship, but this portal was strained, forced. The slipspace drive struggled to open up a rift to regular space after being thrown around. It attempted to open up a portal to the coordinates, but found that the corvette wasn't facing the right direction, wasn't in the right place, and so the drive gathered more and more power, ripping through the eleven dimensions of slipspace, and dragging the Covenant ship through.

Carter stood up from his position flat on his stomach, "Dot, where are we?"

"Unknown, Noble Leader."

Wow, that's a big chapter. Don't expect 30,000 word chapters from here on out. Maybe 10,000 to 15,000 word chapters, that I can do, but there is simply no way I'm going to put this much energy into each chapter, you bastards ain't worth that much work!

I hope you guys like this new story, as I've said I put a lot of work into this bad boy!

Now I don't want you guys getting all pissy on me about the Spartan III's seeming overpowered, especially in regards to how I said Emile is faster than Jorge. If you read up on Project CRYSANTHEMUM, you will find a paragraph explaining an exception to the II's superior to the III's rule. The superiority comes from their gene pool, II's are basically all children of members of the ORION project. Well, so are each member of Noble Team, the III's that is. That means the augmentations had the exact same effect on them as it would have had on each Spartan II. As for Emile's abilities in particular, I just figured that if he was Noble's CQC specialist, then he must have incredibly fast reflexes, even for a Spartan. Now I'm not saying that his reactions are as fast as Kelly 087's, but I'd like to think they're damn close! At least faster than most other Spartans, but maybe that's just my bias as Noble Four's number one fan. Now onto the question of why Jorge is so much bigger than the others, it's probably because Jorge is eight feet tall even in armor (yes, that is canon). As in, a foot taller than Master Chief. Jorge is just way taller than anyone!

Hope you don't mind the ridiculous number of OC's, but I figured that a ship would need a crew, and Dot sure as hell isn't powerful enough to operate an entire ship all by herself. And don't get on my back about the Huragok, there here, their floating snails, and they're helping the Spartans, get used to it.

I hope you guys don't mind me adding a few weapons that weren't in Reach to the story, but I just think that the UNSC was fully capable of making a SAW long before the war ended, so why not just throw it in? Also, I have a question, what should I do with the Mace of Grulkt? Should it just fade away? Should Jorge use his incredible strength to smash HYDRA mechs to pieces with it? You decide, leave me your thoughts in the reviews.

Speaking of comments and reviews, don't send me any suggestions on Six's name, or names for the ship, I have already reached decisions regarding those particular topics. But if you happen to have any idea's for story arcs or plots you'd like to see me explore, send them to me, I'll certainly think them through.