VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE: This is a repost of a story's pilot chapter I deleted some time ago as I lost interest in, but as I am sometimes still receiving PMs telling me that people miss it, I am reposting it for those who are still interested in reading it and for posterity's sake. Be warned, though. I have no intention to work on this story any time soon; only if and when my interest for this story returns will I work on it, and that is a very big if.

In this story, the first contact between the Covenant and humanity didn't occur in the year 2525 thanks to as of yet unspecified reasons.

The Covenant, Flood and Forerunners do indeed exist in this reality, but this story, if I continue with it, will revolve primarily around the conflict and interactions between the UNSC and UEG, who are the Tau'ri in this universe, and some, if not all, of the bad guys and tertiary players of the Stargate SG-1 setting.

On a side note, the Halo side in this story will very much be Alternative Universe, with the Insurrection coming to an alternate end, and the UNSC being significantly more technologically advanced. Nothing crazy mind you, but what I think would be the logical conclusion and progression of Halo tech without pesky and often times deadly alien interference, plus a few extra surprise technologies for added diversity.

Disclaimer: I don't own Halo or Stargate. Only the original content is mine.

Enjoy.

Chapter 1: Opening Salvo

2100 HOURS, FEBRUARI 9, 2556 (MILITARY CALENDER) /
BETA SOLARIA SYSTEM, ON THE SURFACE OF AKETI, NEAR THE EQUATOR

Aketi, the second planet in a system that was 548.2 light years removed from the Sol System and far beyond the edge of human controlled space, was an unforgiving desert world. Despite the trace amount of Sulphur in the wind blasted golden sand that dominated its surface the atmosphere was breathable, barely. The planet had long, excruciatingly hot days and equally frigid nights, both about 32.8 Earth hours long, which would make living on the planet difficult.

As such the planet had mostly been over looked for colonization. It could be terraformed, the UEG had the technology and had been using it successfully since the beginning of the 22th century and had been improving on it ever since, but considering the sheer distance of the planet to Earth and the fact that a good chunk of the Outer Colonies had yet to be terraformed, it would probably be some time before Aketi saw any habitation.

Officially, at least.

John-117 peered through the thermal scope of his SRS99-S5 AM gas-operated, magazine-fed, semi-automatic Sniper Rifle, mentally tagging all visible targets. His neural interface automatically updated his Heads-Up Display, the yellow dots of unknowns turning red, signifying enemy combatants.

The inbuilt communication suite inside his Mark V MJOLNIR armor transmitted the intel he had just acquired to his teammates. All four blue dots on his HUD, dispersed in a wide arch around their target, blinked twice, confirming that they had received the data and that their own HUDs had been updated.

All five Spartans of Blue Team continued their reconnaissance, gathering and confirming intel as they shared their findings over their armors secured COM channels.

Unseen by anyone on the surface two dozen Clarion spy drones loitered in high atmosphere, making detailed scans of the surrounding area and transmitting all the data towards the dirtside Spartans. At the moment John and his team were merely confirming the intel the drones had acquired before deciding on their next course of action.

Nine men patrolled the small steel and concrete outbuilding, the only thing visible of the Innie base above ground. All of them wore modified EVA suits to deal with the desert's extreme heat. The thermal imaging of their scopes showed them that were three more men inside. All of them were armed, though the rifles they carried and the pistols attached to their hips were rather primitive compared to the state of the art weapons he and his team sported.

Seeing that everything checked out John ordered his team with a very specific combination of blinks to back away slowly from the enemy base and meet back up at the LZ. He followed his own orders and crawled backwards slowly from his stomach down position on top of the sand dune, his armors adaptive passive camouflage making him fade into his surroundings perfectly, just like a chameleon. His armor sported the exact same color and texture of the golden sand dune he had been on.

As he clambered down the dune he pressed a button at the butt end of his sniper rifle's grip. With an almost inaudible series of wiring and clicking noises the weapon collapsed in on itself within a span of two seconds into a much more compact form, now only taking up half the space it did before.

Without breaking his silent stride down the dune he attached the now much shorter weapon to the magnetic clamps on the left side of his upper back, right beside a MA5D ICWS assault rifle. On his lower back was the collapsed form of a M90 CAWS, the standard issue shotgun of the UNSC. Two M6H PDWS pistols were attached to his hips.

John smiled beneath his helmet. This new feature of the latest generation of small arms had been received with much enthusiasm by the UNSCs armed forces, the Spartans included.

Five minutes later all five Spartans of Blue Team linked back up behind a large golden sand dune some distance from the Innie base. Thanks to the lowered elevation of their current location compared to the enemy's location it would be nigh impossible for the Innies to spot them. And that wasn't even mentioning their armors camouflage.

If it wasn't for the fact that his eyes had been augmented just like the rest of his body through a rigorous series of biochemical and biomechanical manipulations John knew that he would have had trouble seeing his teammates even though they were standing a mere step or two away from him.

"Everything checks out," said Sam-034, by far the tallest and physically the strongest of all the Spartans. He towered an entire head over John, who himself stood more then seven feet tall in his armor. His friend was a giant, even compared to the other Spartans. "What's our plan of attack?"

"If we spread out our fields of fire and pick our targets well we could take out all the guards," offered Linda-058, by far the most persistent of all the Spartans and an artist with a sniper rifle. No one could match her at long range. "With our silencers the Innie's inside wouldn't even realize something is wrong until it's too late."

There were some murmurs of discussion, the highly experienced team of Spartans quickly and efficiently going through all possible options of attack, weighing them for advantages and disadvantages. John remained silent. He would rather hear their opinions first before making up his mind on a plan of attack.

"We could wait till nightfall," added Kelly-087, fastest of all the Spartans with reflexes to match and a mind that was quick to adept to any kind of situation. She was without a doubt the fastest human being alive by a wide margin. "Coupled with our armors camouflage ambushing them would be easy in the cover of darkness."

"I'm with Kelly," said Fred-104, a born leader and an exceptionally quick thinker. He was John's second in command. "Thermal scans by the Clarion drones have confirmed that the Innie base extends several levels below ground and houses at least several dozen men, but we can't know for certain how far the base extends underground or how many rebels are inside. I advise caution and a stealthy approach."

John remained silent for while longer before speaking his first words of the discussion. "How long before the sun sets?"

Linda looked at the position of the sun in the sky, doing mental calculations she had learned to do during survival training, taking into account the unique conditions on Aketi. It only took about ten seconds before she gave him the answer. "About one hour and forty-five minutes before the sun slips beneath the horizon, sir."

Once again John was silent, mentally going through all his options. "That's well within our operational window. We will wait till nightfall before we engage," he decided. "I want eyes on the Innie base at all times. Linda, you will take the first shift. Radio silence unless the situation changes. You will be relieved within an hours' time. As soon as the sun goes down we will make our move. Attack plan Alpha. No prisoners."

He could have relied on the Clarion drones to keep him posted, but his training with Chief Petty Officer Mendez had taught him many lessons. One of which was that machines break. Eyes don't. The decades he had spent fighting the Insurrection after completing his training had only reaffirmed that nugget of wisdom.

"Aye, sir," his team acknowledged the order. Linda took her SRS99-S5 AM sniper rifle of her back, pushing the button at butt end of the grip. The weapon unfolded, the barrel lengthening and the components shifting and clicking back into place. She then disappeared into the desert winds, setting out to do the job he had ordered her to do.

Having done that John ordered the rest of his team to hunker down and do a thorough examination of their equipment. It was mostly to keep his teammates busy in the meantime. They had secured their landing zone immediately after arrival, having scouted out the area and placed a sophisticated sensor net as a precaution. Intel and their own observations had confirmed that the Innies had no aerial or orbital support. Hidden as they were the rebels had no way to spot them.

Their plan of attack had been decided on, one they had discussed as a possibility before even stepping foot on Aketi. Preparations had been made and precautions had been taken, then worked out in great detail. Everything was as ready as it possibly could be.

Which meant that they had nothing to do till nightfall.

John sat down on an equipment and ammunitions crate hidden beneath an adaptive passive camouflage nanofiber tarp that made it appear as just another heap of sand. He reached behind his back and took out his MA5D ICWS assault rifle, unfolding it with a push of a button. Then with clear and practiced movements he began to methodically disassemble the weapon, first taking out the magazine and then removing the non-essential parts, inspecting them with experienced eyes, looking for faults. He found none.

Going further he completely stripped the gun down to its component parts, laying them down in an organized fashion in front of him on a folded survival blanket. He did another thorough inspection, taking each individual piece and turning them over in his hands as he examined them for any kind of defect.

To his expectations the pieces were spotless. Seeing that he took out a nanofiber cleaning cloth and started cleaning each individual piece, taking time and care to ensure that all the components of the state of the art weapon were in pristine condition.

Since he had nothing to do at the moment and knowing for a fact that he and his team were safe John allowed his mind to wander as he went through the familiar and soothing motions of cleaning his rifle.

So much had happened in his more then thirty years of active duty, but eventually his wandering mind took him all the way back to the beginning.

Ever since he had been conscripted at the age of six into the Spartan-II program his life had purpose. He been called upon to serve - to protect Earth and all her colonies. He had been trained and given the best education the UNSC could provide in order to forge him into the soldier humanity had needed him to be.

Then at the age of fourteen in the year 2525 he had been subjected and lived through the Spartan augmentation procedure. Thirty of his fellow Spartans died, their bodies rejecting the modifications. Another twelve were crippled, no longer capable of being soldiers. The procedure had been excruciating in spite of being unconscious at the time, but the pain of the augmentations was nothing compared to the pain of losing more then half his family in a single day.

It was without a doubt the most horrible experience of his life.

Shortly after all thirty-three surviving Spartans had acclimated themselves to their augmentations and had been given their Mark IV MJOLNIR armor. Preceding this they had gone through a gauntlet of tests and real life fire missions where in they performed far beyond expected parameters, blowing all expectations away. Then their performance enhancing armor had been given to them, augmenting their all ready super human capabilities even further.

After that, nothing had been capable of touching them.

Without further ado they had been unleashed on the enemy that threatened the stability of the UEG and the UNSC: The Insurrection.

By the time he and his fellow Spartans entered active duty the undeclared civil war between the Insurrectionists and the UEG had been raging for more then three decades. The Inner Colonies and the mid-range colonies were relatively peaceful during this time, terrorist attacks were rare and public opinion on those worlds was staunchly on the side of the UEG. On the flipside, the Outer Colonies were in chaos; terrorist attacks, nuclear bombings and even open engagements rising exponentially.

John shook his head as he thought back to the state of affairs that had led to the creation of him and his fellow Spartans, idly cleaning the titanium front pivot pin and clicking it back into place on the carbon nanotube weave ejection port dust cover.

The UNSCs previous efforts to quell the Insurrection through heavy handed military action had proven ineffectual and cost millions of innocents that were caught in the crossfire their lives. At first the aggressive response was widely accepted, however as the fighting dragged on and spread across the Outer Colonies, entire populations caught in said crossfire turned against the UEG. More and more colonists took up arms against their government, massively swelling the Insurrection's ranks.

Any further open military action would have most likely have resulted in open war between the Outer Colonies and humanities core worlds, starting a civil war the likes of which no one had ever seen. With a body count to match.

The SPARTAN/MJOLNIR project was to be the solution to the problem. They were envisioned as a series of surgical strike teams capable of dealing with rebellions quickly and efficiently, averting the use of large scale military force, and preventing the civil war, and tremendous loss of life, that would have inevitably ensued.

They succeeded with flying colors in their stated goal, accomplishing all their missions quickly and with the minimum amount of fuss.

In a three year time period the Spartans had dismantled the Eridanus Rebels, the Freedom and Liberation Party and the People's Occupation as well as a smattering of smaller Insurrectionist groups scattered across UEG space. They had also crippled the United Rebel Front, the largest and most powerful of all the rebel organizations.

Of course, the Spartans were but a single small piece of the much larger jigsaw puzzle that would be a true lasting solution to the Insurrection.

The UNSC now had the perfect weapon to take the fight to the Insurrectionists without instigating a civil war, and no matter how dangerous or suicidal the task given to them, John and his fellow Spartans always succeeded. The problem was that his Spartans were too few in number; they couldn't be everywhere at once and Slipspace was too slow, relative to the size of humanities interstellar empire, to get them to the hot spots scattered all over the Outer Colonies in a timely manner.

Luckily for the UNSC, Dr. Halsey, the creator of the Spartans, had anticipated that. John chuckled quietly to himself as he finished putting MA5D ICWS assault rifle back together, having finished cleaning it. Who could have possibly guessed that while he and his fellows were going through their basic training back on Reach that Dr. Halsey had been working on an entirely new method of faster then light travel? One that was faster, safer and far more accurate then Slipspace? Certainly not John.

According to what good doctor had told him she had been working on this other form of FTL for almost as long as she had been running the Spartan-II program. The drive in question had been theorized as a possible manner of breaking the light barrier even in the early 21th century. In essence, it used the superstring theory and the M-theory that folds all the superstring theories in one conclusive whole, which theoretically allows the very fabric of space and time to be folded up like pretzel, linking two locations of the universe together.

Creating an instant shortcut through space.

As John took the M90 CAWS of his back and started dismantling it he thought back to the moment he had been told of the marvelous new form of FTL.

He still remembered with crystal clarity when all the Spartans had all been gathered in a secure briefing room on Reach in 2532. It was the same room where he had been taken to after having been conscripted into the Spartan-II program and where he had graduated from said program. He acutely recalled his disbelieve as Dr. Halsey informed them of the Space-Time Fold drive and a small battlegroup that had been built equipped with said drive, solely for the Spartans use.

John and the rest of Blue Team had boarded one such vessel a bare hour later, a brand new Halberd-class Destroyer that sported an STF drive instead of a Slipspace drive. The Destroyer had barely left its berth in the orbit of Reach before it jumped, disappearing from the heart of human held territory in the blink of an eye, reappearing not even a nanosecond later more then 120 light-years away in the Epsilon Indi system in the orbit of Harvest, at the time the farthest colonized planet from Earth.

In that moment, as he looked down at blue/green orb of Harvest from the observation deck, his disbelieve vanished. He and his team had been deployed and started systematically dismantling the local insurgent group sinking its claws into Harvest's infrastructure with their typical incredibly brutal efficiency. They were done within three days and were back at Reach the same day, being sent back out again two days later to another isolated planet on the frontier where they repeated the cycle all over again.

It was then that he knew that the Insurrection's days were coming to an end, and seven years later it was finally dealt a death blow.

The UEG hadn't been idle in the years the UNSC, spearheaded by the Spartans, destroyed the Insurrection system by system. They had been working feverishly in the background, rewriting laws and policies that had inadvertently led to the widespread discontent in the Outer Colonies, which had finally turned into open rebellion in the year 2492.

It had taken decades of fighting through political gridlock to tear down the old system and replace it with a whole new way of governing an interstellar civilization, but they had finally done it.

First, all the restrictions on trade and travel between worlds were lifted, creating universal open borders in human held territory. Second, Earth and the Inner Colonies were stripped of their privileged position in the election process and the judicial system. Third, and the most important, was that all the colonies were given the right of limited self-governance, meaning that they could for the most part decide for themselves by what kind of laws they lived by so long as they paid their taxes and did their part in preventing any more rebellions, though the UEG held the right to strip any planet of their semi-independence if its people proved they were incapable of governing themselves or failed in upholding the laws and rights that the constitution of the UEG ensured for its citizens. The colonies of course weren't allowed to form their own militaries, making them reliant on the UNSC for protection, but that's something they had to cede if they wanted what many of them craved: Freedom.

There was a whole lot more political jargon to it that John didn't truly care for, but those were the three main points it came down to.

John smiled beneath his helmet, idly polishing the rear takedown pin. With the Spartans constantly disrupting Insurrection operations across human space, the UNSC now having the ability to respond in days at the longest instead of the weeks or even months prior to the invention of the STF drive, and with the very reason many of the rebels were fighting for ripped out from under them, the Insurrection movement slowly but surely ground to a halt and died, truly coming to an end somewhere in the year 2540.

Concluding one of the darkest periods in human history.

In the one and a half decades since the end of the undeclared civil war the Spartans had been tasked with taking out the last remaining rebel cells. Some of the Insurrectionists refused to lay down their arms even though for many of them their original goal of why they took up arms in the first place had been fulfilled. The lunatic fringe, the group of the Insurrectionists that had slowly but surely taken over the movement, would not be content with merely attaining nearly everything they had fought for.

They wanted nothing less then to scour the UEG and the UNSC from existence, a goal that John and his family would oppose every step of the way. A goal the Spartans had gladly and wholeheartedly committed their life to preventing, something they had without a doubt succeeded in.

After more then half a century the Insurrection was death, and the threat it had represented was a thing of the past. Society was no longer tearing at the seams, its people content with the current state of things. Humanity was at peace.

Of course, the cause of him being on Aketi certainly wasn't a peaceful one.

The Insurrection might have been over, but some rebels refused to stop after their long decades of fighting the UNSC. They weren't freedom fighters anymore, they were lowly terrorist fighting for the sake of fighting. Sometimes the Spartans were still called on to take care of them, though the amount of times that happened could be counted on one hand without the thumb.

And that's why they were here now, on this remote desert world. Two days ago on Chi Ceti IV the Damascus Testing Facility, the same place where he had gotten the first combat ready version of the MJOLNIR armor, had experienced an infiltration. A rebel team had somehow managed to find the highly classified remote science lab, work their way around all the protective measures, kill all the guards, and somehow made off with something ONI would dearly love to have back.

John had no idea what this 'something' was, all he knew that it was top heavy and needed heavy lifting gear to move, which added to the question how the Innies had managed to get away with it, and that it was rather tall and had a circular shape.

He and his team had been tasked to retrieve this object at the earliest opportunity. Luckily, the rebel team had forgotten to disable the Damascus Testing Facility's long range sensors, and when they made their getaway they used a craft with a STF drive to jump away. Such a jump had to be calculated first by onboard navigation systems and computers, and when the jump was performed it left telltale clues of said calculations behind, making it possible to deduce where such a ship has jumped to.

Whatever kind of craft the Innies had used its jump range wasn't all that large, so it had to hop its way from system to system in order to get to this remote planet. Luckily, the UNSC had long since perfected a method to pick up on the distortions in the space-time continuum caused by such a jump even if they were several days old. It had been tricky to follow the breadcrumbs left behind in space-time, but with the recourses that the Office of Naval Intelligence had at its disposal it had been relatively easy.

A team of ONI AIs had looked over the sensor data and extrapolated where the rebels had jumped to, tracking them all the way beyond the edge of human controlled space to this golden sandbox of a world. Prowlers had then scouted out Aketi, quickly finding this remote Innie base, the first John had seen in over nine years.

Blue Team had been called on and shipped to this system as fast as humanly possible, ordered to retrieve that which ONI so desperately wanted back, authorized to use any manner of means and firepower they deemed necessary to complete this mission with all due haste.

The intel on the enemy was sparse. They had no knowledge on their troop strength and composition, what kind of equipment they sported, not even their base's layout was known to them. To be short, they had nothing of substance on the enemy. All that they did know was that their objective was somewhere inside the Innie base.

It was not a lot of information to go on, but he was fine with that. He didn't like the prospect of going in blind, but he was a soldier. It wasn't his task to question his orders, he merely needed to carry them out.

Plus, he and his familie had been created with just these kind of missions in mind. And they had never failed a mission yet, and he wasn't about to start doing it now.

John smiled, looking at the three other members of Blue Team arrayed around him, Linda currently still scoping out the Innie base. Kelly was cleaning the scope of her SRS99-S5 AM sniper rifle. Sam sat still on the sand with his legs crossed, obviously going through an entire systems diagnostic check on his armors internal hardware. Fred had just finished cleaning his favorite combat knife and was idly twirling it around his fingers with incredible ease that spoke of long hours of practice.

They would succeed. And he'd make sure of all of them made it home in one piece. Just like they always did.

2300 HOURS, FEBRUARI 9, 2556 (MILITARY CALENDER) /
BETA SOLARIA SYSTEM, ON THE SURFACE OF AKETI, NEAR THE EQUATOR

John peaked his helmeted head up and over the smooth incline of the sand dune he was on, his visor having long since switched over to thermal vision in order to see the Innie base through the pitch black darkness that had settled over the desert. The Chief's HUD updated itself as he gazed towards the theater of operations.

Linda and after her Fred had reported multiple instances of changing guards, obviously a scheduled rotation. Nothing of importance had changed, though. Nine men still stood guard around the main level of the Innie base, all armed in a similar fashion. Another three were inside, clustered close together.

His HUD showed him that his teammates had arrived at their designated spots, their blue dots arriving at the green NAV markers scattered around the enemy base in a circle. Their current positions gave them the optimal firing range and line of sight on all nine guards if and when hard contact was made.

All blue dots blinked green, one after the other, his teammates all confirming that they were all in position and ready. He blinked his eyes, making his own dot on their shared HUD blink, and said a single word over their secured COM channel:

"Mark."

At his command the blue dots marked as Blue-1 and Blue-4, Kelly and Fred, quickly made their way from their positions and towards the Innie base. He followed suit, his passive adaptive camouflage making him fade into the night as he swiftly and silently made his way down the sand dune. Blue-2 and Blue-3, Linda and Sam, remained on their overwatch positions on either side of the base, their sniper rifles trained on the enemy guards down below.

John, Kelly and Fred quickly closed the distance, the rebel guards completely oblivious to the super soldiers a bare few feet away, hidden in the darkness.

"Engage," John whispered.

They struck. The fastest, Kelly, struck first. She slid behind her designated target and wrapped her arms around his head, one hand on his temple and the other over his mouth. He only managed to widen his eyes and a single muffled exclamation of surprise before she twisted and broke his neck, his body falling limp. Kelly quickly dragged the corpse away.

John and Fred hit simultaneously. John simply did the same as Kelly, breaking his targets neck while Fred withdrew his combat knife from his combat belt and threw it into and through the guards eye with a deft flick of his wrist, killing him instantly. John didn't even spare a glance at the corpses while Fred retrieved his favorite knife.

Just as Kelly had taken out the first guard two other corpses slumped to the ground, blood and brain matter splattered around them. The 12.7x99mm Armor-Piercing rounds shot from SRS99-S5 AM sniper rifles equipped with silencers had punched straight through their cranium and ripped their heads apart in a shower of gore, the only sound produced a barely audible crack. Their bodies and what remained of their heads thudded into the sand a second later.

One of the four remaining guards, the only one in visible range of the corpses, turned to look at the source of the noise. John's enhanced eyes could see the man's eyes widening and his body growing taut in preparation to move.

In one fluid movement John drew one of the M6H PDWS pistols attached to his hip, the silencer all ready screwed onto the muzzle, and lined it up with the guards head. A pulled trigger and another near inaudible crack later and the man followed his fellows in laying in the sand sans his head.

Without a seconds delay he continued moving, though it proved to be unnecessary. There was a sound of crack-crack-crack and the last three remaining red dots on the other side of outbuilding went black one after the other, showing that they had been disposed of.

John smiled. He recognized Linda's handiwork when he saw it.

The moment all nine red dots read black on their HUDs Blue-2 and Blue-3 double timed their way over to them. Before they arrived John, Kelly and Fred bounded into the outbuilding, quickly putting down three men sitting at a small table in the corner, taking them down with single shots from their silenced M6H PDWS pistols before they could even raise their heads from their card game. All three corpses slumped dead in their seats, holes blasted through vital areas, two of them still holding onto their cards even in death.

"Clear," said Fred, lowering his pistol.

Sam and Linda entered behind them, both still cradling their sniper rifles.

John took in the room with a single glance. The entry room had cinderblock walls and a steel door with a swipe-card lock. He saw no security cameras or listening devices, but in this modern age where such machines could be built to the size of a pinhead that meant little. Kelly stepped forward, retrieving a data pad from her armored thigh. She was already running a cracking program on the lock, and knowing her she would crack the encryption very quickly.

"Almost got it," whispered Kelly.

He, Sam, Linda and Fred trained their guns on the door, covering Kelly in case there were more surprises hidden behind it. Their thermal imaging showed them that there were no enemy combatants behind the vanadium steel door, but for all they knew they were about to walk into a slew of automated defenses.

The door slid open, showing a moment of darkness behind it before overhead lights sprung on, illuminating a long hallway. Multiple doors lined the hallway and at its end was a single elevator, obviously a path to the lower levels.

John signaled Sam and Kelly to move up, both forming up with him into a triangle formation as they walked through the door as a cohesive unit, guns at the ready and fingers on the triggers. Linda and Fred followed them a second later.

The hallway was empty and no automated defenses had triggered at their entrance. Blue Team scanned the surrounding rooms with their thermal vision, showing no heat signatures. Taking no chances John ordered his team to sweep each room one by one. Nothing turned up. The team quickly congregated at the elevator.

John glanced at the display above the double steel doors, noting that the elevator was currently on level -12. Behind his visor his eyes narrowed in thought, contemplating the best method of infiltrating deeper into the base without giving away their presence. The Spartan super soldier swiftly came to a decision and nodded his head.

He punched the button on the wall beside the elevator, watching as the number on the display quickly starting climbing. "We will cut open the floor of the elevator and rappel our way down to the lowest level. The High Priority Object is most likely there. We will sweep the entire floor, neutralizing all enemy combatants as we go. If the HPO is not on that level we will work our way up the base until we find it. Don't forget to disable the elevator. It will slow down the enemy's response time if we are discovered."

His team winked their acknowledgement lights and trained their weapons on the elevator doors as the display climbed all the way to 1, dinging as it arrived at ground level.

The lift doors slid open, showing no one inside. Fred walked up, depositing his rifle on his back and retrieved the canister of thermite paste from his hip. He stood in the entryway so that the doors didn't automatically slide closed and shook the canister before he sprayed a large square with the chemical compound into the bare steel floor of the elevator. Then he lighted a match John didn't know he had on him and flicked it onto the highly reactive thermite paste.

The iron oxide of the chemical compound immediately lit up as bright as an electric arc welder, great heat briefly flashing through the small car. When it finished, there was a angry red square burned into the floor of the elevator.

Sam and Fred took up positions on either side of the softened metal and dug their armored digits into it, tugging it lose with a great heave. They deposited the sheet of metal against the wall of the elevator as Linda ripped of the elevators control panel and destroyed the circuitry and wiring hidden behind it.

As Blue Team quickly affixed ropes John looked down into the hole. By his estimates it was at least a sixty feet drop. He could survive such a drop and come out no worse for wear, considering his augmentations and the protection his armor afforded, but such an act would undoubtedly compromise them and alert the rebels of their presence.

The Spartans rappelled down in pairs and swiftly descended. John reached the lowest level first, his team quickly and silently coming down and forming up behind him.

All five super soldiers spread out, overlapping their fields of fire as they aimed their MA5D ICWS assault rifles at the closed doors. John informed his teammates of his intentions over the COM and sent a mental command through his neural interface, causing a timer to appear on the inside of his team's visors. The timer quickly counted down from three, two, then one and then he and Sam silently pulled open the elevator doors.

Five heads turned towards them in unison, surprised. Three of the men were armed and clothed in a similar manner as the enemy combatants all ready encountered and the other two were dressed in white lab coats, gloves and micro fiber face masks. Sam, Kelly and Linda opened fire, splattering the workstations behind the men with blood and gore.

The team swiftly and silently advanced into the room, rifles raised and on high alert. As Fred policed the guards' weapons John quickly scanned the room.

It was a fairly large room, about twice the width of the outbuilding topside with the ceiling raised about ten feet over their heads, supported by thick concrete pillars. Fluorescent lighting lit up the room, though large shadows and blotches of darkness still crowded the room. Workstations dotted the concrete enclosed space in a haphazard affair, piles of papers and holographic keyboards cluttering the room. There was also a raised platform in the center of the room surrounded by workstations and holographic computer screens, and on top of it was something tall, thin and circular hidden underneath a simple white tarp.

John smiled a small smile underneath his helmet. High Priority Objective confirmed.

He signaled his team to fan out, then sent them to sweep their surroundings. As his team carried out the order he approached the covered object in the center of the room, his armored boots making a soft series of clangs as he walked up a grated metal ramp leading up to it.

Grasping the white tarp in his armored fingers, he tugged it loose and came upon a sight that would change his life all over again.

What lay before him looked like a giant stone ring, segregated in an inner and outer part. On the inner ring were what appeared to be 39 distinct glyphs that to John's eyes appeared maddingly familiar somehow, but he couldn't lay his finger on it, while on the outer ring held evenly apart were nine individual chevrons.

Taking a step back to get a better look at the strange object in front of him the Spartan super soldier noticed several more details. A set of four powerful looking rollers had been affixed to the stone ring, though he knew that they were rather crude compared to what the UNSC had access to. The audio receptors in his helmet also picked up the subtle hum of a D-T fusion reactor coming from somewhere in the Innie base, obviously meant to power whatever this device did.

Any further speculation was thrown to the wayside as his COM suddenly crackled to life. Fred's voice came over the secured channel.

"Sir, we have just finished sweeping the entire level and all the adjacent rooms attached to it. No enemy contact. We did find the central node for the base's ventilation system in one of the rooms and we found an old D78-TC Pelican dropship in a reinforced chamber all the way in the back. I believe that's the craft they used to make their escape from Chi Ceti IV and the way they managed to get the HPO all the way down here."

John grunted in understanding over the COM, not taking his eyes of the stone ring in front of him. The D78-TC model was the first Pelican dropship ever to be fitted with a STF drive, and at a little more then thirty meters long was the smallest craft to do so. And while this particular version of the Pelican had been retired two years ago, it, like all vessels equipped with an STF drive, was capable of making pinpoint jumps accurate down to the millimeter, provided they had the necessary precise navigational data/calculations.

With sufficiently powerful computers and navigation systems it would be child's play to jump from a planet's orbit and into a big enough chamber buried deep beneath its crust. The only reason that the chamber had been reinforced was to ensure that the structure would be capable of taking the incredible sonic boom produced by the ship forcing air particles out of the way in the nanosecond it took to jump from hard vacuum and into atmo.

It was quite clever, he had to admit.

Still, the other part of what Blue-4 had just relayed was far more mission critical.

"Blue-4," he responded over the COM channel. "Can you confirm that the ventilation system is wired into every section of the base?"

There was a moment of silence before Fred's voice came back.

"Affirmative."

"How much narcozine gas do you have on you?" he asked, and fell silent a moment as Fred responded. "Perfect. That should be more then enough to affect the entire base."

John smiled grimly beneath his helmet.

Narcozine gas was a deadly chemical substance that, when inhaled, quickly causes paralysis, and extended exposure causes swelling of fluid in the lungs, which can quickly become fatal if not treated immediately. Usually it was not used out in the field considering just how dangerous it was, but the Spartans had been given a lot of latitude to complete this mission in whatever manner they judged best, and considering their armor's vacuum rated EVA hard seal the risk to themselves was minimal.

"Introduce the gas into the system and then double back to me," he commanded. "If it doesn't work we'll have alerted the entire base to our presence. Safety in numbers."

As Fred's icon on his HUD blinked his understanding and the compliance to his orders he repeated the order to the rest of his team, commanding them to double time their way back towards the main chamber ASAP.

John waited, still on high alert and his MA5D ICWS assault rifle held at the ready in his hands. He tracked his teammates position with his HUD, noting that Blue-2, Blue-3 and Blue-5 were quickly making their way towards him while Blue-4 was still stationary in a small room at the back of the chamber, still working on introducing the deadly chemical substance into the base's ventilation system, which would hopefully neutralize all the enemy combatants.

"Sir," said Linda as she came into his field of view, Sam not far behind her, his large frame towering over her as he cradled a MA5D ICWS assault rifle in his arms.

Kelly arrived seconds later, coming around the raised platform, her eyes briefly lingering on the large stone construct resting on it. Then his COM once more crackled to life, Fred's voice coming over the channel and talking directly into his ears.

"I'm about to introduce the narcozine gas into the system, check if your armor's EVA hard seal is still intact."

John and the rest of Blue Team did just that, their icons on their HUDs blinking green one by one as a system diagnostics check confirmed that they were indeed safe.

The team leader activated his COM and sent the message. "Go ahead, Blue-4."

He received an acknowledgement from Fred and waited. Barely ten seconds later the several dozen exhaust shutters attached to the series of ducts that were fixed tight to the ceiling opened as one. Clear white gas spread in a bare few seconds, settling across the fast chamber like a heavy fog, a scene mirrored in all the levels above the Spartans. And unlike them the people inside those rooms had no protection against the gas, making them fall prey quickly to the highly poisonous compound.

John looked at the timer swiftly counting down the seconds in the corner of his visor. He knew that at approximately 7.7 seconds of direct exposure narcozine gas was nearly universally effective and deadly at 43.2 seconds, so he felt sure that waiting an entire minute would give the gas more then enough time to do its deadly work.

When the timer read zero he once more raised Fred on their secured channel. "That's more then enough, Blue-4. Shut down the gas and then put the ventilation system in reverse and suck out all the remaining toxins," he ordered, knowing that if they encountered any more armed resistance and their armor and the bodysuit underneath it got punctured they would fall prey to the gas as well. Like chief Mendez had taught them, there was no point in taking unnecessary risks if there were better options available.

"Aye, sir."

The overhead exhaust shutters made a wheezing noise as air, and the deadly gas along with it, got sucked into the ducts. Breathable oxygen quickly flooded the room as the ventilation system did its job and got rid of the toxic gas and circulated untainted air.

John nodded to himself, satisfied. He raised Fred over the COM. "Good job, Blue-4. Link back up with us an-"

He got cut of by the sudden noise of stone grinding unnaturally smooth against stone coupled with the loud blare of an alarm filling the room. The Master Chief's visor snapped towards the object in the middle of the room. The inner ring of the circular structure was spinning rapidly, the rollers powering the movement and the motion producing a loud and grating grinding noise. As the inner ring spun the chevrons on the outer ring would lock onto one of the 39 glyphs spinning by, until three of the nine were glowing and each were locked to an individual glyph. The concrete beneath his feet trembled and a loud hissing noise permeated the room, steam rising as the ring spun.

John had no idea what the purpose of this device was, but he was sure that what it was doing now could lead only to one thing: A snag.

For such a simple word, snag was charged with meaning for the Spartans. Getting caught in an ambush or a minefield, a teammate wounded, or aerial bombardments-those were all things they had trained for. Snags were things they didn't know how to handle. Complications that no one had planned for.

Still, while John as a regular rule of thumb feared such situations unusual or dangerous enough to be considered snags and tried to avoid them whenever possible, it did not slow him down one iota when faced with one.

"Get into cover!"

At his barked command Blue Team immediately snapped into action. Kelly blurred towards a nearby workstation on the right of the raised platform, crouching down low behind it and cradling a M7S Submachine Gun, a suppressed version of M7/Caseless Submachine Gun in her hands. Sam bolted behind a nearby pillar, one that was wide enough to cover his massive bulk while Linda retreated into the shadows near the elevator in the back of the room, her sniper rifle trained on the snag.

John followed suit, bounding away from the ramp and vaulting over another workstation to Linda's left. He edged the muzzle of his MA5D ICWS assault rifle around it, training it on the whirling structure. His helmeted head peaked just beyond the edge of the metal and concrete to maintain a line of sight on the sudden new danger.

The squad leader immediately raised Fred over the COM. "Blue-4, get back here immediately and be prepared for anything. We've hit a snag."

He didn't hear Fred's response because just at that very moment a seventh chevron locked. The second it did so plasma and exotic particles that humanity had yet to identify snapped into existence from inside the ring-like structure, exploding outwards once they had filled the once empty space in between its circular arch in an eruption of energy and noise, only to collapse back in on itself a hair's breadth later, forming a pool of what appeared to blue glowing and rippling water.

If Blue Team had been normal soldiers, they would have must likely dropped their guard as they took in the phenomenon, gawking at it in dumbstruck amazement. If they had been normal soldiers, it would have invited disaster. Luckily for the whole of humanity, Spartans were everything but ordinary in every sense that matters.

The pool of shimmering water suddenly rippled and a single silver booted foot stepped onto the grated metal ramp. A silver plated ankle and lower leg followed, after which a single figure emerged from the rippling mass of exotic energy particles.

The man was clothed in medieval looking silver chainmail while equally silver plate armor covered his chest, stomach, shoulders, forearms and wrists, a layer of silver fabrics covering the rest. His head was left exposed, showing a bald and hard-faced Caucasian man. In his left hand the man held a two meter long black staff with an elongated oval shaped and flattened head that ended in a sharp point. The butt end of it was planted into grated metal ramp, something paddle shaped with a glowing blue crystal in its center. What appeared to be some kind of pistol was holstered on the man's left forearm guard.

Several other figures followed after the first. They stepped through on either side of the man, walking in two disciplined lines until two dozen similarly clothed and armed men had emerged from the otherworldly pool of energy, the butt of their staffs in their hands coming down against the grated metal ramp in unison.

John narrowed his eyes behind his visor. These... unknowns had yet to spot the Spartans, hidden as they were by the shadows, the cover provided and scattered throughout the room and their passive adaptive camouflage that hadn't been turned off since the start of the mission. The question now was what he should do about this. Never had a situation such as this been presented to them during training, and, obviously, neither had they ever encounter people such as this in thirty years of active combat experience.

As the last of the unknowns finished appearing, the otherworldly energy they had stepped from suddenly disappeared, the ring falling silent.

All of the unknowns now all stood on the grated metal ramp, lined up in two neat lines with one standing in the center in the rear of the formation.

"Jaffa!" the man in the back boomed, the one that had first emerged. "Kree!"

In response to the man's words the others snapped to attention and pointed their staffs in all directions, forming what appeared to be some kind of firing line used in the 18e century American Civil War. The staffs tapered heads split open into four parts, previously invisible seams becoming visible as golden energy arced down the newly revealed gap.

The apparent leader of the unknowns spoke a string of words in a language neither John nor the translation software in his helmet's audio receptors could make heads or tails of. In response to the words the strangely dressed and armed men walked down the ramp and spread out. Walking individually they cautiously moved along the narrow spaces available in between the workstations, their eyes scanning the room, looking for threats.

John ordered his team to slowly fall back. He instinctively knew that, whoever these unknowns were, that they weren't friendly. It was a sixth sense he had developed after all his years of combat. Out in the field one can easily encounter people who you don't know the intent or allegiance of, and sometimes you had to go with your gut.

And his gut told him that these people represented a danger the likes of which he had never even imagined.

He quickly opened a link to Fred, informing him of the situation. It was clear sign of the unshakeable trust and bond that the Spartans shared with each other that Fred didn't even question the story he had just been told and followed the order to hang back for the moment without a question or complaint.

John, Kelly and Sam crept back, hidden by the shadows of the room and the adaptive passive camouflage of their armor. Linda, hidden in the darkness at the back of the room, had her sniper rifle trained on the nearest unknown while Fred hung back on the other side of the now inactive construct in the middle of the room.

The Spartans continued to edge their way back, keeping a complete view on the prospective battlefield and their potential enemies thanks to the aid of their shared HUD, which also showed that Fred was also slowly backing off from the unknowns approaching him on the other side of the construct.

Everything remained in tense silence. The Spartans continued making distance between themselves and the silver clad strangers while said silver clad strangers continued to spread out, staff weapons trained on their surroundings, their forward elements unknowingly closing the distance with the hidden UNSC super soldiers, heedless of the danger.

Finally, something happened that broke the stalemate.

John's eyes narrowed at one of the unknowns, one that had suddenly halted next to a dark corner besides a filing cabinet. He remembered with grimace that that's where Fred had hidden the bodies of the five men they had killed when they had first entered the room.

The silver clad dark skinned man called one of his fellows over with their unknown language, gesturing with his staff towards the five bloody messes that used to be people.

John watched the interaction, trying to gauge the reactions on the two men's faces at their discovery. It was not difficult, he had seen the look of contempt and the sneer of disgust stemming from a feeling superiority that was currently displayed on the men's faces often enough to recognize it on sight.

But it was at the moment that one of them lowered his staff towards the bodies that he knew that they were destined to be enemies.

The tapered front of the staff hovered menacingly over the dead bodies, golden energy visible through the seams and quickly gathering inside of it. Then with the sound of discharged power a bolt of golden energy, a projectile that John would bet his entire armor set over was some manner of plasma, erupted from between the slit running the length of the head and struck the chest of the nearest body, blowing a fist sized hole through it as well as coring an equally wide hole into the concrete behind it.

Beneath his helmet the Master Chief frowned. These unknowns were most definitely hostile.

In the end it didn't matter if they were hostile or not. His mission orders were explicit. He and his team had to secure the HPO ASAP. These unknowns, knowingly or not, were keeping them from doing just that, and from what he had just seen these strangers would probably fire first and ask questions later if they were to spot the Spartans.

There was only one solution: Force. A method he and the rest of his family were universally adept in.

"Okay, listen up," he began, trusting on his secured COM channel to keep their talk private. "We're going to engage. Attack plan theta. Shock and awe."

The words conveyed a simple, but effective strategy. They would attack with overwhelming fire power while remaining in stealth, quickly taking out their opposition without ever revealing their exact location and opening themselves up for a counter attack.

He, Sam and Kelly took up positions, hiding themselves in dark corners behind workstations and pillars, their passive adaptive camouflage making them all but invisible to the naked eye. In the back of the room Linda lined up her sniper rifle dead center of one of the unknowns center mass while on the other side of the room Fred readied himself to hit the unknowns in the back when the right opportunity presented itself.

John checked his HUD, making sure that his entire team was in position, then gave the order.

"Mark."

Blue Team opened fire as one. The front ranks of the unknowns were decimated before they even knew that they were in danger. Orange tracers fired from two MA5D ICWS assault rifle's, a M7S Submachine Gun and a SRS99-S5 AM sniper rifle, all silenced, tore through their formation as a hot knife would through butter.

The unknowns response was ineffective and bumbling. Caught completely off guard, those not killed in the first few seconds of the engagement shouted in alarm and quickly hid behind whatever cover was available. The thick concrete and steel of pillars and workstations protected them from murderous crossfire, but it did nothing to stop John from throwing two M9 High-Explosive Dual-Purpose Fragmentation grenades in the midst of their defensive line.

The Spartans gunfire came to abrupt halt as they quickly ducked behind whatever they were using for cover, taking the chance to reload their weapons.

"Jaffa!" one of the unknowns got out of cover, leveling his staff weapon towards where he believed the enemy fire had come from. "Kree!"

At the unknowns alien sounding command his companions quickly popped out of cover and leveled their staffs into the darkness ahead. Forming up into a straight firing line, they opened up one by one in a manner of ripple fire, golden bolt after golden bolt erupting from their staffs tapered heads, blowing holes through concrete and steel like it was tissue paper. Of course, their fire didn't even come close to the hidden Spartans, who were silently counting down the seconds.

The unknowns that had spread out on the other side of the construct, having heard the sounds of combat, had doubled back to reinforce their fellows. They fell into line with them and leveled their staff weapons, just about to add to the weight of the golden weapons fire being shot headlong in the darkness ahead and-

-And at exactly that moment the fragmentation grenades detonated. Just as they were designed to do, the two grenades hard metal outer casings were ripped apart in the explosion, peppering the surrounding area, and everyone in it, with hundreds of regularly shaped razor sharp supersonic bullet-sized fragments.

Half a dozen unknowns were ripped to pieces on the spot, their eviscerated remains laying strewn across the ground, staff weapons inert beside the bloody chunks. Many others were critically injured, unable to even lift their weapons from where they lay sprawled on the ground in a rapidly expanding pool of their own blood. Only about eight remained in fighting condition, the ones the farthest in the back, hidden by the thick pillars of concrete.

It was these last few survivors that had abandoned their staff weapons and had drawn the strange serpent shaped pistols that had been attached to their left forearm guards.

"Arik tree'ac te kek!" one of the remaining unknowns bellowed, opening fire along with his fellows.

Blue lances of electrical energy speared into the darkness in which the Spartans were hiding, but once again their camouflage and cover prevented the energy based attacks from even coming close to hitting their intended targets.

Said targets popped back out of cover and returned fire, cutting down two of the unknowns and forcing the remaining six back behind the pillars.

It was then that it went from bad to worse for the beleaguered unknowns. Fred had chosen that moment to hit them in their unguarded back. Having switched his MA5D ICWS assault rifle to full automatic fire he quickly stepped around a pillar, assault rifle raised and finger on the trigger.

The unknowns were heedless of the danger and kept on shooting into the darkness ahead, trying to flush out the Spartans with no appreciable results.

Fred needed no prompting and opened fire, laying down a brief but intense burst of devastating sustained fire, emptying his clip within two seconds. 36 highly deadly 7.62mm NATO rounds ripped straight through the primitive appearing chain mail and plate armor of the unknowns, pulping their insides and killing them instantly.

Six bodies fell to the ground, the pillars they had been hiding behind smeared with blood and viscera. All gun fire abruptly stopped, all red dots of enemy combatants now reading black on their shared HUDs. The ones that had initially survived the frag grenades had long since expired, having bled to death during the engagement.

"Clear," called Fred.

There was a moments pause before the other four Spartans of Blue Team emerged from their hiding places and linked back up with each other.

"Mission accomplished," John declared, looking at the carnage around him.

It certainly painted a grizzly picture. The concrete walls, pillars and floor of the chamber around them were smeared with blood and gore. Impact craters, both large, from the plasma weapons, and small, from bullets, dotted the concrete of every surface. Two dozen dead ripped apart silver clad bodies laid strewn around them, pockmarked with fist sized holes punched through them from high caliber rounds. It was nothing new to John, though. He had seen much worse in his long years of active duty.

He glanced at the now silent ring structure on the raised platform, the cause of this alteration. What he had just seen and experienced defied description.

Blue Team had just faced the strangest group of people they had ever encountered, who were armed with energy weapons, clothed in armor of old, and had appeared through some kind of gateway that wouldn't have looked out of place in some kind of fantasy novel.

Not that it mattered of course. He had done his duty and completed his mission, that was the only thing he should be concerned with.

"Search the area and police those weapons," John ordered, knowing that any self-respecting scientist would love to have a look at how they functioned. "Blue-4, radio the ship and confirm that we have completed our mission, and don't forget to tell them of the... interference we experienced."

He received a quick series of acknowledgements. John joined with the majority of his team scanning the room for threats. Fred had all ready opened a channel with the Halberd-class Destroyer Achilles that had brought them to this remote system, informing its Captain of what had occurred and requesting for a clean up crew. Meanwhile, he, Kelly, Sam and Linda patrolled the area, using their motion trackers and thermal imaging to make sure no one else but they were still alive in the chamber.

"The area is secure, sir," Kelly reported.

"Good," John said. "Gather the unknowns weapons and search the bodies to make sure that they don't have any more surprises for us."

"Right away, sir," Kelly saluted and set about to complete her orders, Sam and Linda quickly joining her in policing the weapons and doing a thorough search of the bodies.

Fred walked up to him, having just gotten of the COM. "Sir, a clean up crew and several platoons of marines are under way to secure the area. The Captain was rather... skeptical of my report on our last encounter. He ordered us to hold the fort for the time being and as soon as we return to the Achilles he wants to personally debrief us and review all the footage our helmet cameras recorded of the engagement with the unknown combatants."

John nodded, having expected that. Then, almost unbidden, his eyes turned towards the silent circular gateway.

He didn't know where the feeling was coming from, but his instincts, the intuitions that had gotten him through hundreds of engagements, were screaming at him, telling him that Pandora's box had just been opened, with all the horrors and wonders inside of it just waiting to spill forth and change everything irrevocably, for good or for ill.

The Master Chief smiled a small, grim smile underneath his helmet. One thing was for certain. He and his Spartans would be ready for it.

Note: I'm sure that some of you guys are thinking that the new STF drive of the UNSC seems to resemble the FTL drive of the Battlestar Galactica series an awful lot. Well, that's because they are technically the same. They have almost the exact same workings and function, the main difference being that the UNSC STF drive isn't powered by tylium, but by the ships own fusion reactor through a method I will further expand on if I continue with the story.

The STF drive also has several other advantages over the FTL drive shown in Battlestar Galactica, having far greater jump range, the jumps themselves being far more accurate and being capable of jumping far faster then even Cylon ships. This is mostly because of the highly advanced computers the Tau'ri have access too. The fact that they have AIs aboard ever military vessel to aid with the calculations needed for such a jump is also a huge help.