Captain Abigail Green sat in her quarters at her desk with her keyboard in front of her, the window to her side displaying the emptiness of space. She opened up one of the drawers that supported the desk and pulled out a bulging file with the word "Frost" on the tab. She opened it and placed the three files that were inside in front of her. One was very slim while the other two were almost as full as they could be. Each had the original name of the members of Fireteam Frost covered by a label with their callsign. Hopefully the good captain could get some context for these three that had been temporarily reassigned to her ship.
She started with the smallest of the three, Venom Echo's. Only a few pages, really. She had been average in the Spartan IV program save for a few categories. She took to the augmentations as well as most of the soldiers who didn't wash out. One stand out was her aggression. It made itself known quite frequently, almost to the point where one would mistake her for a Spartan III, the generation of Spartans that were made almost exclusively to be sent on suicide missions. Her repertoire of weaponry wasn't particularly standard. She didn't take well to marksmanship, but in close quarters she was among the best. Captain Green put the papers describing Venom back into her file and shut it before picking up Rex's.
Most of his previous assignments were covered in black ink, but he did have one designation that was rare among the super soldiers that were Spartans: he was a Headhunter. This was a specialization that saw the super soldiers dropped behind enemy lines to destroy as much as possible before they either die or get out. From how much information was covered up in this file, Rex had gotten out a lot. She flipped through many pages to the back of the file, to Rex's early career. He was in two different fireteams before Frost. The first one was decimated by an ambush by an alien species just as strong and fast as the Spartan super soldiers: the Sangheili. Rex was the only survivor of the fight and was found surrounded by the corpses of the extraterrestrials and his comrades.
The second was a two man Headhunter team with Eon Vortex. Captain Green furrowed her brow and opened Eon's file, seeing a similar amount of black ink covering his experience and showing his designation as a Headhunter. She flipped to the back and saw a very similar story to Rex's, Eon's first team all killed while he ended the ones who did it and then was paired with Rex to become a Headhunter. The two had an extensive but classified history together, enough to probably make into a novel if you knew all of it. They were paired with each other because of their almost polar opposite specializations: stealth and sniping for Eon, distractions and close quarters combat for Rex. Captain Abigail leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. This fireteam seemed to be a timebomb just waiting to go off. She hoped they were in a search and destroy op when it happened.
A few weeks later, the familiar three beeps sounded before the simulation began. The three figures behind their small metallic base rushed forward. The one in white armor that had light blue accents stood at the balcony of the base, looking through his black visor and sniper's scope at the opposing team's identical fortifications. He saw an enemy in similar armor to his own get sent out of the base, flying through the air thanks to the force of a man cannon. The white-armored Spartan fired his shot and caught the other super soldier through the quarter-sized piece of glass that was his visor.
Meanwhile, a suit of bright pink armor with flame designs on it worked her way towards the enemy base, using the many crevices in the area to her advantage. As she snuck closer, she threw a pair of grenades up and into the opposing base. The grenades bounced off the spire in the middle, landing in the fort. A shout was heard but was quickly drowned out at the sound of an explosion ripping them to pieces.
The third member of the fireteam was going along the edge of the much larger canyon they found themselves in. He saw that the others had successfully taken down two of the other squad already, and so jumped down from the high ridge he was standing on. Landing with a loud crash, this didn't stop him from getting to the other base incredibly quickly. Once he got in, he found one defender remaining in blue armor with a red visor. He quickly restrained her, and footsteps could be heard from behind him, moving around to his front. No one could be seen being the origin of these steps. That is, until the first soldier shimmered back into visibility from his active camo and smacked the girl across the face with the butt of his sniper rifle like he was wielding a bat. The force of the blow was so much that the reinforced glass of the visor cracked. The pink armor climbed the side of the base and a twin pronged punching blade made of glowing blue energy ignited in her hand. She lunged for the restrained simulation trooper with her weapon, getting either side of her left leg and twisting the blade, amputating that leg. The new amputee yelled out in pain, and in response her neck was held tighter by the large Spartan. The one in white used him sniper rifle once again to hit the caught soldier across the face, and a sickening crack was heard as the helmet of her armor was knocked off and brown hair fell in front of her eyes with the lulling head.
Both fireteams woke up in their seats. They sat up slowly and waited patiently for their neural implants to be unplugged from the simulator. The opposing team was out before the victors. A woman in a gray officer's uniform with a half-shaved head walked up to them clapping slowly.
"Well done, Fireteam Frost. You continue to prove why we keep you on this ship."
"Oh, well thanks, Captain." The white-armored one said graciously as he got up.
"Anyway, meet me in the bridge. You've got an assignment." She turned and walked back the way she came.
"You heard the lady, chop chop." The one in pink got up and moved quickly.
The large man in black armor got a hand up from the one in white and they soon followed suit. With the three of them there, the captain started the briefing. "Command lost contact with an outpost in one of the outer colonies approximately three weeks ago." She hit a button on the console in front of them all and a blue holographic map of a mountainous region glowed into existence on top of the console. "We are being trusted to find out what did it, and to bring the place back online if possible. Last transmission sent out was panicked screaming. You are going to be given a Pelican to fly down there and figure out what's going on. You will be cleared to use whatever gear you find down there as long as it does not pose a threat to yourselves or the crew of this ship."
"Do we know what took the base over?" The white armored soldier asked.
"No, we do not, Eon Vortex." The captain clarified. "As was stated, we only got panicked screaming. It is suspected to be insurrectionists."
"What kinds of equipment are still down there?" The man in black leaned forward.
"As far as the UNSC are aware, what is there is standard munitions for an outpost of this size. Anything else?"
"Nope. Come on guys, let's go." Eon got up and led everyone down to the hangar, where their small military green drop ship was waiting for them, fueled and packed with their preferred arsenal. They opened the hatch at the back of the Pelican and all got in. Eon got into the pilot's seat and flew them down to the planet's surface, following the coordinates that had been given to them. He locked the air ship's altitude and walked back to his team. He pressed the button to open the large hatch at the back, did a casual salute and hopped out, about fifty feet above the mountain side. He locked his armor as he fell to minimize the damage his body would take. Soon, the other two followed suit. The man in black slid down the mountain like a sled drawn by a mountain lion while the one in pink tumbled down like a boulder, her armor's energy shielding preventing the rocks from scraping her. When the team had reached the base, they noticed that the door to the helipad from the base was blown open from the inside and it looked like something had tried and failed to get into the hangar doors behind them. The two former head hunters unlocked their armor and got up, the one in black extending a helping hand the newer soldier in pink.
"Thanks, Rex." The pink one gratefully accepted the help to her feet. The next while was very quiet, except for the sound of their heavy boots on the stairs. As they went down, deeper and deeper a light brown grime started to appear and their armors' energy shielding was glowing bright as it burned something off that was invisible to their eyes. They heard a quiet roaring from farther in. The deeper they went, the more the grime appeared, covering the walls, and eventually the ceiling. They discover the armory that seemed to have been raided. All they could find that was untouched by the light brown substance was an unmounted turret gun. Eon picked it up and felt its heft. He looked over to Rex, who had a similar model hooked on his back. Eon smiled beneath his helmet and hooked his new weapon onto his back. After getting this new piece of equipment, They continued down until they got to a central room with tables scattered around it. The room was completely covered in the light brown substance. It was soft, like decayed flesh, it was possible to scoop some of this substance off the ground and walls. The roaring repeated, much louder as two forms emerged from an opposite doorway. Each seemed to have the base body shape of a soldier that was stationed here, but had growths on them of this brown substance, creating a bulging upper body with a tentacle arm on one side and sharp claws on the other. Rex charged forward to meet them, the pink soldier by his side as she activated her energy sword once again. The mountain of a man that was Rex fought these creatures with his fists, expertly flashing his hand held energy shield in front of himself whenever they would have struck a blow. The pink one weaving between the tentacle and the claw as best she could while slashing at it with her sword. Eon shimmered out of sight before moving to one of the creature's sides. He pulled his submachine gun from where it was mag-locked onto his hip and unloaded his clip into the monster, small explosions of green fluids popping up where the being was shot. Rex pulled his creature's feelers out of its face before slamming it into the ground and crushing its head.
"Venom Echo, do you need help?" He questioned her when he heard a sound similar to glass breaking, the sound of her shields breaking.
"No, I've got this." The pink armor grunted as she got up from the ground. The thing that used to be a soldier underestimated Venom as she swung her sword from left to right, cutting the creature in two. The shields glowed again as they recalibrated around her.
"This isn't good. The Flood are supposed to be wiped out." Eon voiced his concerns about the parasite.
"We need to leave and get the word out." Rex agreed. They turned and made for the way they went in, only to find it blocked by tentacles.
Venom walked forward with her sword and used it to carve a doorway through the tentacles. When they finished rushing up the stairs, they saw that there was a massive, rotten tentacle wrapped around their Pelican, and it threw the ship at them. Eon immediately grabbed onto the top of the entryway they had come out of and flipped himself up, while Rex went down to one knee and slammed his fist into the ground, locking his armor as he overcharged his shields. Venom stood behind him and the airship slammed into the large man, but he did not budge a single millimeter, keeping those behind him safe.
"Stay behind cover." He told Venom before looking up at Eon. Eon looked down at him and each seemed to understand the other without speaking, as they pulled their chain guns from their backs and shot at the tentacle, chopping through a section of it with just the sheer amount of bullets they were firing. The tentacle started to swing down on them, but Rex used his armor lock again to keep himself safe and Eon activated his camouflage once again before jumping out of the way. Venom ran up to the now on the ground tentacle and pulled her more powerful weapon from her back. A piece of alien technology, a large two handed hammer with a blade on one side that manipulated gravity to send out shockwaves, slamming it into the tentacle and blowing a hole through it. Without missing a beat, she pulled out her sword and cut through the last piece of tentacle that could reach the helipad, and the tentacle, now unable to do anything to them other than bleed green blood on their suits, shrunk back down into the crevice it came from. Rex hooked his gun back onto himself. "How do we get back?"
Eon thought for a few moments before a lightbulb going off. "We could take one of the vehicles in the hangar and use its radio to get a signal up to the Crimson." He explained how he planned to contact their ship.
Rex walked over to the hangar, forcing it open. Thankfully, the hangar was still full of smaller vehicles like Wasps, one person light air assault vehicles, and Falcons, attack choppers with machine gun turrets on either side for two gunners. Rex and Venom helped each other to push a Falcon out onto the helipad. Eon climbed into the single person cockpit and closed it as Rex and Venom strapped into the gun seats. Eon flew them up as high as the Falcon could go without freezing and tried the radio. "Calling the UNSC Crimson Ethos, this is Frost Two, Eon Vortex. Do you copy? Over." He released the button that let him speak and waited for a reply.
"Crimson Ethos to Frost Two, we copy. Where is the rest of your fireteam? We lost signal not too long ago with the Pelican we sent down, over."
"Frost One and Frost Three are with me. We are in a Falcon above our drop zone. Pelican was totalled by the Flood. I repeat, the Flood, over."
There was silence from the other end for a few minutes. "A Pelican has been prepped and it flying down to you now, you will have limited time to get out before we initiate containment protocol, over."
"Much appreciated. See you when we get home, Crimson Ethos, over and out." He put the radio mic back where it was clipped before and smiled at the good news. A matter of minutes later, they saw a Pelican heading for their position. First to jump was Rex. He leapt towards the pelican's open back hatch, but missed by a few feet. Luckily, Pelicans are outfitted with maglocks strong enough to carry tanks on their stern, which the pilot promptly activated, pulling Rex up to the back of the ship and making sure he didn't leave. Next was Venom, who jumped and started falling like a stone. Without wasting any time, Eon jumped through the cockpit's window to get down and save her. Once he let go of the control stick, the Falcon started plummeting as well. The Pelican's pilot didn't see Venom fall, so shot the cargo hook on the nose of the pelican straight down, hooking on Eon's chain gun. Eon disengaged the maglock on his chaingun, so he fell down towards the Falcon. He maneuvered himself into the gunner compartment, and used his boots maglock to run into the pilot's seat. He made the chopper's twin rotors go in opposite directions to make it spin so that Venom fell into the passenger's seating area, but didn't just fall straight through. She landed on the floor of the Falcon with a very loud thung. Eon, once again flew the Falcon up but Venom this time jumped onto the roof of the ship, maglocking her boots so she wouldn't fall off. Eon jammed the controls to stay how they were and inched onto the tiny nose of the Falcon. He leapt forward and nearly fell, but Rex grabbed his arm at the last second and flung him so hard he hit the Pelican's wall separating the pilot from everyone else. He hit the floor before getting up and taking a seat. He took off his helmet and set it in his lap, releasing a sigh of relief as his black hair fell around his head. They flew back and landed just in time to avoid get caught in the nuclear fallout that a Flood outbreak requires to be dealt with.