1750 Hours, November 27 2525 / Crew Barracks, UNSC Frigate Commonwealth — Transit to Damascus Materials Testing Facility, Chi Ceti IV
Leonidas‑151 POV
Frigate ambience thrums through the deck plates—engine harmonics at 42 hertz, perfect lullaby for augmented nervous systems. Bunks are stacked triple‑high along the bulkheads; seventy‑six Spartans sprawl across them in varying states of semi‑idle: Sam and Fred playing speed‑chess with bottle caps, Linda cleaning an SRS bolt in silence, Kelly upside‑down on her rack flicking a flex‑ball at the ceiling just to watch it rebound on identical arcs.
I sit cross‑legged on the deck with a datapad, specs glowing across the surface like constellations:
MJOLNIR Mk.IV — Pilot revision
— Titan‑grade neuro‑reactive gel layer (AI integration–ready; Smart‑link patch deferred)
— Jump‑Kit v5.3 integrated at lumbar, dual‑vector thrusters rated 11 kN burst
— Full torsion‑sheath musculature rated to 2× previous servo torque
— Helmets uniform chassis, but visor arrays custom: John's wide‑field gold, Kelly's tapered blue, my own twin‑band fire‑orange keyed to BT‑7274's HUD overlays
BT is waiting—my personal Titan‑class AI, shackled for now, embedded in my suit's dorsal crystal stack. Finished code. Finished voice. No deployment until ONI clears "live Titan partnering," but he's there, dormant heartbeat behind the ceramic.
The hatch irises; John steps down the ladder well, armorless but standing like he's already wearing it. A bridge crewman at his six salutes. "Captain wants you on the command deck, Master Chief."
John nods once and ghosts away—no wasted muscle.
Kelly flips upright, drops to a crouch beside me. "You stare at schematics in your sleep, Leo."
"I don't sleep much." I thumb the pad dark. "And I want no surprises when we suit up."
She bumps my shoulder—gentlest Spartan nudge possible. "BT isn't going anywhere. Neither is the armor. Take a break before your brain cooks."
Suppression capsule mutes laughter, but a small exhale escapes. "Noted, Lieutenant."
She heads back to her rack; the flex‑ball starts its rhythm again. I slide onto my bunk, datapad dimmed beneath the pillow.
Space outside hums cold and dark, Commonwealth slicing it open toward Chi Ceti. Tomorrow holds titanium, thruster plasmids, and the first time BT‑7274 speaks with my actual nerves.
Tonight, I let engines and quiet rivalry lull me to rest.
The collision klaxon shredded sleep like shrapnel.
"Spartan‑Team to Combat Status One—bridge immediately!" The ship‑wide bark echoed down every passageway. Hammocks emptied; seventy‑six bodies hit the deck in near‑silence, grabbing Pilot‑ODST plates from lockers before the second tone even finished.
I sprinted for the ladder well, breastplate under one arm, helmet clipped to my belt. Red strips along the bulkheads pulsed us forward—clear lanes opened as crew stepped aside, wide‑eyed. Combat alert on a ferry run to Chi Ceti? Wrong time for drills.
Bridge hatch irised; I stepped through and locked at parade‑rest beside John. He was already armored—must have suited on the way. Mendez stood to port, hands clasped behind him, face carved from granite. Dr. Halsey leaned over a sensor console with Lieutenant Hall, eyes flicking data faster than my visor refresh could track.
Captain Wallace turned from the command chair. Stark‑white shipsuit sleeve ended in a neat cuff halfway down his forearm—no prosthetic. Rumor said he'd refused the clone regrow after Jericho VII; seeing it in person made the rumor fact.
"Spartan‑151," he acknowledged. "Your team is on five‑minute standby. Full kit."
"Aye, sir." I thumbed the internal net: "Suit‑up. Deck Bravo Seven."
Wallace gestured to the main tactical repeater. "Dr. Halsey?"
She expanded the scan: radial sweep lines overlaid a single violet contact—angling across our trajectory like a knife set against throat.
"There it is," she said, clinical calm slicing the air.
Icon flared ALIEN BATTLECRUISER.
Covenant.
My pulse didn't spike; the suppression pellet made sure of that. But everything behind my eyes focused to a singular point.
First contact—for us. Last contact, maybe, for the Commonwealth if we misstep.
Orders awaited, but instinct whispered louder:
Time to hunt.
Harvest. Glassed. First human world to vanish under Covenant plasma. Halsey's classified brief had burned the images into every Spartan cortex: bulbous, manta‑shaped cruisers plated in iridescent violet alloy; energy shells that shrugged off Mac‑rounds; pulse cannons liquefying titanium like candle wax. The lesson was simple—face them head‑on and die.
Captain Wallace understood that math. He planted his half‑arm on the tactical station, eyes hard.
"Chi Ceti IV is ten minutes burn at present velocity. We dive into the well, slingshot the planet, and dump our cargo." Cargo meant us, Halsey, Mendez.
The navigation holo painted a razor arc skimming upper atmosphere—orange warning bands everywhere. One mis‑calculation and Commonwealth would plow into bedrock.
"Archer pods Alpha through Delta, ripple‑fire," Wallace ordered. "Nuclear option in the spread. Detonate on my command; buy us thirty seconds."
Bridge crew echoed acknowledgments. Mendez snapped toward John and me.
"Spartans—hangar, now."
We sprinted—Kelly, Fred, Linda, Sam falling into step as alarms deepened to combat tone. Bulkhead hatches iris‑opened ahead, guided by ship‑wide clearance keyed to our IFFs. Within two minutes we were on Bravo‑Bay deck, clambering into twin Pelicans already warm. Flight crews vacated cockpits without a word—everybody knew who'd fly.
Halsey ascended the ramp, medical crate clenched. Mendez followed, securing tie‑downs. I strapped into copilot on Pelican One, visor feeding ship telemetry—grav‑well slide beginning, hull groaning under stress.
John's voice across cabin: "If Commonwealth dies, exfil route is surface‑to‑orbit jump after suit retrieval."
Understood. Without MJOLNIR, this asteroid outpost was a coffin.
Over comm we heard Wallace's calm countdown.
"Archer ripple in three… two… one—launch."
Twenty‑four missiles clawed into vacuum, eight of them nuclear tipped. Display flared white, then cut to static as the EMP bloom washed sensors. Planetary horizon swallowed our view—Commonwealth knifing into upper atmosphere, heat bloom roaring along hull.
Flight deck green‑lit. Hangar blast doors parted.
"Go," came Wallace's final word.
Turbines screamed; both Pelicans shot down the launch rails, into fire‑lit sky—the frigate already curving away, Covenant silhouette descending like a violet god behind us.
We had the planet, the suits, and maybe an hour before that god came to finish what it started.
The Pelican rattled as we breached atmosphere, clouds boiling past the canopy like shredded silk lit by reentry fire. The burn faded, gravity normalized, and our descent evened out—Chi Ceti IV's surface flattening into view. Snow‑capped ridgelines. Scorched granite plateaus. The Damascus Materials Testing Facility nestled between them like an old scar.
Captain Wallace's voice cut across encrypted comms—steady, resolved.
"Pelican One and Two, this is Commonwealth. We will complete the orbital slingshot and engage the Covenant vessel directly."
I glanced to the side panel, watched the trajectory plot crawl past the planet's terminator line.
"Once our arc brings us back around," Wallace continued, "I expect your cargo aboard for immediate system departure. Twenty‑minute window. No second passes."
Kelly's hand reflexively checked her seat harness. Fred nodded to himself, loading a fresh magazine into his SMG.
"If the enemy follows us to the surface," Wallace added, "we don't know what kind of firepower they can bring down. Ground engagement is not advisable. We know nothing about their infantry strength or atmospheric deployment protocols." A pause. "This is still a retrieval op. Not a war."
Tell that to Harvest, I thought. But didn't transmit.
Below, the black‑spined roof of the Damascus facility came into view—gunmetal gleaming under sunset light. Automated AA turrets twitched but held fire, IFF transponders already verifying our Pelican IDs.
Fred switched channels and transmitted the ONI codes Halsey had given us. Seconds later, a response pinged back—authorization cleared, landing pads primed.
Landing lights flicked on like runway flares.
John stood in the troop bay, one hand on the overhead rail. "T‑minus nineteen. Move fast. Move clean."
Pelican One and Two banked wide, flaps adjusting, speed bleeding off as the facility opened to receive us.
Behind us in the sky, Commonwealth turned back toward the monster waiting in orbit.
The air inside the Damascus facility was clean, artificially so. Cool, recycled, and still stinking of welders' grease and sterilization foam. The walls were pure function—no ceremony, no display. This wasn't a research lab anymore. It was a forge.
And we were the weapons.
The security doors slid open.
Seventy-six MJOLNIR suits stood in perfect lines. Polished. Waiting. Like armored ghosts paused mid-stride.
Mark IV, Pilot Revision—first of its kind. Not just armor, but symbiosis.
Each chassis identical in form: curved titanium-A plates over graphene composite, layered atop a non-Newtonian gel structure. The underlayer was ballistic weave, hex-grid thin and flexible, yet strong enough to halt most rifle rounds. Hydrogels sat between layers to regulate temperature and absorb impact—variable pressurization meant a Spartan could manually stiffen the suit against G-forces or blunt trauma.
The inner skinsuit adjusted automatically to our muscle profile and vital signs, syncing to the neural interface.
Each helmet was unique.
Linda's, with its extended optic array, built-in wind speed calculator, and variable-rangefinder. Sam's, extra thermal shielding and deep-scan sonar. Fred's was stripped and sleek—minimalist sensors but maximum field of vision. Kelly's visor was a narrowed split-band, optimized for velocity and tunnel focus.
Mine had twin vertical HUD bands tuned to BT-7274's OS. He waited in stasis inside the crystal matrix mounted in my neural interface slot—offline, but there. I felt him, like a thought just outside my reach.
No Smart AI compatibility yet—not with how fragile ONI still considered the Titan-Class integration project they barely greenlit. But everything was ready. And this suit would become more than armor. It would be an extension of two minds.
I let my hand trace across the chestplate's magnetic clasp. The fusion reactor—smallest ever made—was nestled inside the upper spine of the torso. A miracle of miniaturization courtesy of Dr. Halsey. The only part I hadn't touched. The only thing I couldn't improve. Her genius.
The chest had mod slots—room for ammo pouches, knives, or field tools. The legs, arms, and back were fitted with magnetic plates, allowing us to mount multiple weapons. Positioning could be manually adjusted; the armor remembered the preferred draw angle for each Spartan.
My gloves slid into place with a hiss, syncing with the weapon telemetry uplink. From now on, any gun I picked up would report ammo count, barrel heat, and internal condition straight to my HUD.
Boots locked next—double-sealed magnetics. We could walk on hulls in zero-G or clamp to a drop bay in turbulence. Traction calibration ran in the HUD corner, shifting based on surface material and incline. Fully adaptive.
And the jump kit…
This one was my design. Jump Kit v5.3, integrated at the lumbar, micro-gyro stabilization with dual thruster nozzles. Capable of full thrust-vector control, atmospheric course correction, and sustained wall-running at over 170kmh.
But the real innovation?
The Tungrahene-X alloy.
A graphene-tungsten fusion matrix I'd theorized after hearing the Covenant used plasma weaponry. If they could melt titanium-A, I needed something better. Tungrahene-X wouldn't be ready for this generation of armor—not yet. Too new. But Mark V would see it installed.
For now, Mark IV was the best humanity had ever built. Strong enough to tear apart a Scorpion Tank. Fast enough to outrun a Cheetah in full sprint. Precise enough to let Spartans walk tightrope-thin killzones with rifle raised.
Behind me, I heard Kelly let out a breath—barely audible.
"Looks like Christmas," she muttered.
John stepped forward, already helmeted, visor glowing amber. "This isn't a gift," he said flatly. "It's a promise."
I walked to my suit, keyed the release, and stepped inside.
Armor sealed. HUD booted. Neural sync complete.
And in the back of my mind, BT stirred.
Not awake. Not yet.
But almost.
Concrete cracked under my fist with a sound like bone snapping under pressure—only it wasn't my bones. It was the wall's.
Kelly blitzed past at 125kmh, faster than any human blur had the right to move. John caught up in three strides. Linda's form blurred past seconds later, only a soft whuff of her footfalls audible. Fred and Sam traded grappling throws, each of them punching the floor hard enough to leave indentations. Armor diagnostics remained green.
Every Spartan reported in the same way—same words. "Feels like a second skin."
No lag. No resistance. The armor didn't follow commands—it was the command.
I checked my HUD's biometric overlay. Heart rates at operational minimums, biofoam reserves full, armor coolant stable. The jump kits hadn't been stress-tested yet—no vertical test zone here, not in the underground bunker we stood in. That would come later. For now, the suit moved like a ghost around us—an extension of the body and the will.
And it was time.
I opened the neural interface and keyed in the activation sequence.
BT-7274—Run Program.
My HUD darkened for half a second.
Then lit with three glowing orders across the display:
PROTOCOL 1: Link to Pilot
PROTOCOL 2: Uphold the Mission
PROTOCOL 3: Protect the Pilot
The voice that followed was deep, steady, robotic—but unmistakably alive.
"BT-7274 operational. Spartan Leonidas-151 confirmed. Link established."
Heat prickled at the back of my skull as the neural co-processor linked. I could feel him. Not a voice in my head. Not just code. A presence—observant, calm, loyal.
A second later, the squad comms pulsed to life as other Spartans began their sync.
"TAI-117 linked."
"TAI-087 operational."
"TAI-104, mission parameters received."
"TAI-058 online."
"TAI-034 standing by."
Seventy-five variations, all formatted the same.
TAI—Titan Artificial Intelligence, nameplate locked to their Spartan number.
Except me.
BT-7274 wasn't cloned. He was original. Reconstructed from fragments, repurposed and perfected. The only one like him. Mine.
We marched back toward the open hangar where the Pelicans waited—two matte-gray birds warmed and prepped, engines idling like loyal dogs ready to run. The sun had just started to dip over the Chi Ceti horizon, casting long shadows behind us as we stepped into the light.
John stopped at the base of the ramp and looked back at us. Seventy-six Spartans in Mark IV MJOLNIR. All of us linked to AI minds as loyal as they were lethal.
He nodded.
We boarded.
The inertial dampeners kicked in hard as the Pelican burned skyward—plasma engines screaming as the blue horizon bent into the black. Atmosphere thinned. The stars sharpened. The Commonwealth's silhouette emerged from planetary shadow, gunmetal frame streaking across the void like a blade.
Inside the troop bay, Kelly and Fred stood locked in combat readiness, rifles prepped. I stood just behind the cockpit alongside John and Dr. Halsey. None of us spoke. There was only the hum of tension—and the targeting pings from Commonwealth's magnetic accelerator cannon ringing through the encrypted channel.
We watched through the forward canopy as the MAC cannon ignited.
The coil flare bloomed white and gold. The round punched through space in a blink—slamming into the Covenant cruiser's bow with enough force to visibly push the alien ship back.
But the shield held.
It shimmered like an ocean wave struck by lightning, soaking the brunt of the impact. The cruiser drifted slightly off course, its attitude thrusters overcorrecting. But it was still intact.
"MAC hit one hundred percent charge and barely did anything," I said aloud, mostly to myself.
"Captain Wallace is buying time," Halsey muttered, her eyes locked on the HUD readout. "He's not done yet."
Below, the Commonwealth charged again—but slower. Coil energy built steadily. Not fast enough.
The Covenant vessel turned.
Not to flee.
To broadside.
A glow surged along its spine—pulsing plasma building in the belly of its forward weapon. The bow lit up like a dying sun, and we all knew what was coming: a full broadside volley of plasma torpedoes. Ship‑killers.
"MAC ready—ninety‑seven percent," came the call over the channel.
"Firing," Wallace said, voice flat as a guillotine.
The second MAC round screamed through the black, angling for the cruiser's flank.
The Covenant ship tried to pivot—maneuvering thrusters flaring wide.
Too late.
The torpedoes launched, glowing spheres arcing toward the Commonwealth in a lethal spread.
And then the MAC round hit.
It slammed into the rear quarter of the Covenant ship, shearing through the energy shield—now weakened from the first hit. The barrier flickered, fractured… collapsed.
The impact tore through two decks, gouging armor and scattering debris, but the kinetic force had been mostly absorbed by what remained of the shield. The hull held. Barely.
But the cruiser's engines sputtered.
Then died.
Thrusters cut. Power flickered across its hull. Plasma torpedoes lost their guidance arcs, drifting and dissipating in the vacuum.
The cruiser went dark. Adrift.
The Commonwealth dove, thrusters firing in rapid pulses as it rolled hard to avoid the ghost wave of now‑directionless plasma. The blue-white globes smeared past, trailing off like stars without orbits.
John leaned forward slightly, studying the cruiser through the canopy glass. "Dead in the void."
"MAC's good for one miracle a day," I muttered.
Our Pelicans veered toward the Commonwealth, its hangar lights guiding us in. The assault was over. The boarding began.
The deck vibrated underfoot as our Pelican settled onto the hangar floor—metal plates still warm from atmospheric entry. We stepped off in full MJOLNIR, visors gleaming under floodlights. Seventy Spartans remained behind. Blue Team was on standby. Our job wasn't over.
The call came through moments later.
"Blue Team, report to briefing. Priority one."
John, Dr. Halsey, and Mendez disappeared into the command corridor.
We waited.
No one spoke.
Six Spartans in Titan-synced MJOLNIR armor didn't fidget. We observed.
Seventeen minutes later, John and Halsey returned—John's pace deliberate, jaw locked. Halsey had that look like she was already five moves ahead of us.
John didn't waste time. "New orders."
We circled up.
"Blue Team's going aboard the Covenant ship. Recon only—interior structure, crew composition, tech, whatever we can extract before the shield comes back online."
He looked at each of us, one by one. "First human boots on an alien vessel. We make it count."
Fred saluted. Sam mirrored. Kelly and Linda followed. I nodded and keyed the Pelican's rear hatch.
Inside, the AI systems chirped.
Mission Update: Recon Operation 'Frost Knife' Assigned
Objectives:
▸ Secure intel on Covenant biology, architecture, and systems
▸ Map interior sectors if possible
▸ Avoid prolonged engagement
▸ Exit before shield regeneration event
BT-7274's voice cut through my internal channel—calm, unwavering.
"Mission parameters received. Infiltration readiness: optimal."
The others chimed in over comms—
"TAI-117: Synced."
"TAI-104: Route projection active."
"TAI-034, 058, 087: On standby."
We boarded the Pelican—John, Fred, Sam, Kelly, Linda, and me. Blue Team.
I took the pilot seat. Instruments green. Systems synced.
Out the viewport, the enemy ship loomed in the black—drifting, breached, and bleeding from its aft quarter.
John leaned forward, eyes narrowing behind his golden visor.
"There. That's a hangar."
The aft bay was open—a ragged wound near the rear ventral section. Perfect for insertion. Or a trap.
I angled us in, throttling the Pelican into a smooth curve. Hull ambient lights painted the Covenant alloy in ghostly blue hues. No return fire. No movement.
But the unknown was layered thick.
We passed through the hangar threshold in silence—engines low, weapons hot.
And the hunt began.
The hangar was eerily empty. No bodies, no guards, no vehicles. Just dim purple‑hued metal stretching in geometric patterns across every surface—walls, floors, ceilings—like the inside of some ancient cathedral built by an alien god with no love for right angles.
John moved first, pace steady, MA5B raised. "Clear it," he ordered.
We fanned out, a perfect six‑man sweep formation. Footfalls muffled by pressure‑modulated armor, visors sweeping across motionless decks. No resistance. No movement.
Too quiet.
John knelt beside a recessed panel at the far wall and slid open a narrow crate—inside, the Fenrir warhead. UNSC's nuclear solution to inescapable missions. Halsey had smuggled it aboard as "cargo" in case this op went terminal.
He keyed the arming trigger—standby only. One thumbprint from doom.
We left the hangar with the warhead armed and our training whispering in our ears. Every corner is a kill box. Every silence is a trap.
Ahead stood a sealed bulkhead with a holographic control node pulsing softly on the right-hand side.
I stepped up and spoke aloud, "BT, I need a door."
His reply came immediately—robotic but calm.
"Hacking interface. Running multi-layered intrusion—192 attempts initiated. Compiling alien OS logic…"
Three seconds of silent waiting.
"Success. Entry granted."
The door chimed. Slid open. No hiss. Just silence.
We entered.
The corridor was wide, dimly lit with ambient bioluminescence woven into the walls themselves. Purples and deep blues shimmered faintly beneath our boots. A material like alloyed glass wrapped the surfaces, but it had no seams, no rivets. No signs of manufacture as we understood it.
Motion trackers stayed clear—only Blue Team pings returning. But we knew better.
"Tech can fail," I muttered.
Fred finished the quote over comms: "Eyes beat sensors. Always."
One of Mendez's favorite lessons. I kept my head on a swivel.
The armor recorded everything—video feed, spectrographic scans, structural layout. A hundred thousand data points streamed to my HUD and to BT. Every step mapped the unknown.
We passed three junctions.
Then the fourth—a T‑intersection.
We froze at the mouth. All six of us stacked along the left side, weapons trained forward.
That's when we heard it.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Distinct. From the right passage. Echoing slowly, confidently.
And they weren't ours.
They came around the corner like something pulled from a nightmare I'd never had.
Two of them. Tall, bird-like, with backward-jointed legs and sleek, scaly skin that shimmered violet under the corridor's ambient light. Their heads were raptor-like—beaked, narrow, crowned with feathers that twitched with motion. Their eyes glowed yellow, predatory and aware. And they weren't surprised.
They screeched, high-pitched and sharp enough to spike my audio dampeners.
Then their left arms snapped forward—and shields unfolded.
Translucent, curved blue energy fields bloomed out from their gauntlets—like a half-dome of condensed plasma. The barriers shimmered with intensity, distorting light behind them. Not solid, but they looked like they could stop a round if you weren't careful where you placed it.
Their right hands grabbed for sleek, C-shaped pistols clipped to their belts.
Hostiles. Unknown species. Unmistakable aggression.
But Spartans react faster.
Kelly moved before the first alien could aim. One blink she was in formation—next, her jump kit ignited and she was gone, a burst of speed and aggression in human form.
One of the creatures fired—green plasma hissing down the corridor, wild and wide.
Kelly slid between them, thrusters trailing sparks, MJOLNIR plating skimming the deck. Boom—boom. Two tight blasts from her M90 shotgun. The first tore through the side of the closest alien's torso, splattering blue-purple blood across the corridor. The second blast removed the other's head in a clean vaporized arc, its shield flickering and dying mid-fall.
Silence collapsed on us again—brief, tense, humming.
We were loud now.
Fred muttered through the squad channel: "So much for stealth."
John nodded once. "Doesn't matter. We move faster now."
I glanced down at the dead aliens. New species. Shielded. Armed. Intelligent.
And they were just the first.
I knelt beside the more intact of the two corpses while the rest of Blue Team secured the passage.
"BT, begin recording. File designation: Covenant_Biology_001."
"Recording. Synced."
The alien's skin was thin and scale-like, almost avian. Musculature was lean, but dense—built for speed and agility, not brute strength. Its legs were digitigrade, feet clawed for traction rather than stability. Its bones were lightweight, flexible—likely hollow or honeycombed. Adapted for short, powerful bursts of movement, not sustained force. The avian theory tracked.
It had a single heart, three lungs, no visible ears, and four fingers on each hand—one digit opposable. The shield generator was fused to the forearm via subdermal anchoring. Cybernetic integration, or a genetic graft?
I reached forward and carefully slid one of its weapons away from the body—a sleek, c-shaped pistol with no moving parts. Lightweight. No mag. Energy-based, possibly plasma. ONI would love picking this apart later.
"Unknown species. No armor, no vocal translator. But enhanced reaction speed, technological shielding, energy-based sidearms. Estimated pack-hunter instincts. Bipedal. Possibly a reconnaissance or skirmisher caste."
I stood.
"Observation complete. Resume mission."
John waved us forward.
We advanced quickly now, using overlapping fields of fire, rifles raised, shotguns angled tight over shoulders. Our footfalls were a whisper, jump kits primed to full thrust for evasive leaps or sudden vertical maneuvers. The corridor opened slowly—widening, the light intensifying.
Then we stepped into a cathedral of power.
The room was massive.
We stood on a suspended bridge of radiant cobalt alloy, barely wide enough for two Spartans to walk side by side. It led across an abyssal drop to a central platform, where the ship's reactor core stood like a spire of light.
It stretched from the floor below—so far down you'd never hear your own scream—to the ceiling above, which vanished into hazy violet luminescence. Rings of energy pulsed up and down the core's length like a living heartbeat.
One misstep. One fall. A normal human would die before they even realized they'd begun falling.
We crossed the bridge without a word, weapons up, senses burning with awareness. Motion trackers remained clear. For now.
John reached the reactor's central platform and knelt—removing the Fenrir warhead from his pack. His fingers moved quickly, calibrating the arm and placement parameters with mechanical precision.
That's when I felt it.
Not on sensors. Not on comms.
The air changed.
It became heavier. Quieter. Tighter.
Then BT whispered into my comms—his voice perfectly calm.
"Leonidas. We are not alone."
I looked up—and across the upper levels, in the shadows…
Movement.
Dozens of alien silhouettes. Some large. Some massive.
And they were watching.
The motion tracker blipped. A single spike. Gone as quickly as it appeared.
Could be static interference. Could be residual EM distortion from the reactor.
Could be something worse.
Never leave it to chance.
I spun left, sweeping my VK78 across the far bridge—a twin catwalk running parallel to ours across the reactor shaft.
There.
A shimmer, barely perceptible. Like light bending around the shape of a man. No—taller. Broader. Moving low and deliberate, as if it thought it was invisible.
I tapped my HUD's comm strobe—pinging the fireteam's motion tracker to my location, lighting them up with my vector.
No words. Just intent.
I sighted in and squeezed the trigger.
The VK78 cracked three times in rapid succession—high-velocity .308 Winchester rounds loaded with advanced UNSC propellant, custom-engineered for penetration and stability in zero-G. The rifle's recoil was minor. The impact, however, was not.
The rounds slammed into the shimmer mid-stride, and for a heartbeat the distortion glitched—like reality hiccuped.
Then the shield flared into view—a glowing, hexagonal energy barrier enveloping something massive.
The form within it was worse.
Over seven feet tall, armored from neck to toe in a segmented exosuit of alien alloy—blues and silvers rippling like oil. Four jaws framed a snarling mouth. Its head was reptilian, crested, and crowned with a pair of glaring, hate-filled eyes.
The Elite, though we had no name for it yet, turned to face me even as I continued firing. My rounds hammered its barrier—hex patterns flickering wildly until, with a final burst of heat, the shield collapsed.
I kept firing.
The next volley punched into its chestplate—cratering it, then splintering through. The creature staggered. I didn't stop. Another three rounds and the armor gave way, the round punching into what had to be lung or heart. It dropped to its knees.
Then fell over the railing.
I never heard it land.
Around us, the darkness came alive.
More shimmered into view—on the walkways, the ceilings, the reactor platforms.
John's voice barked across the channel: "Contact! Multiple!"
The Covenant weren't watching anymore.
They were attacking.
The deck shook as the reactor chamber erupted in chaos.
Elites emerged from cloaked positions—some charging with plasma rifles blazing, others crouched behind shimmering shields as they rained down bursts of sapphire energy. From the upper balconies, Jackals screamed their war cries, flinging green bolts of plasma from behind their wrist-mounted shields. Others hurled crystalline projectiles—purple needles that curved and tracked with uncanny precision.
"Fall back!" John barked, already throwing the Fenrir's failsafe trigger into standby. "We've got what we need! Move!"
We turned from the reactor platform, jump kits flaring in short bursts to clear the bridge. The catwalk lit up around us—plasma bolts searing through the air, sizzling past armor by centimeters.
Linda returned fire in precise, surgical shots—two Elites dropped with half their helmets gone. Fred flanked left, shotgun roaring as he vaporized a Jackal through its glowing shield. The alien tumbled back, skull a mist of violet gore.
I spun mid‑stride, pumping my VK78 as I laid suppressing fire across the upper balconies. My Titan AI, BT-7274, called out target tracking mid-burst:
"Two Elites advancing—elevation three. Jackal at elevation one—charging."
I didn't look. I trusted him. My rifle barked three more times—two headshots and a stumble. That was enough.
We made it through the corridor just as plasma scorched the wall behind us, melting it into slag. Sparks filled the hallway like fireflies on warpath.
"Right tunnel!" Kelly shouted. "Back to the hangar!"
We barreled through the junction—rounding the corner into a narrow causeway lined with what we now knew were weapon racks. Alien firearms sat in cradles glowing faintly, ignored.
"Movement—rear!" Linda snapped.
I turned—
—and saw the bolt.
A green plasma round tearing through the corridor, angled for John's back. He never saw it coming.
But Sam did.
He stepped between the bolt and the Chief like it was just another drill.
Impact. Center chest. The plasma sizzled against his torso, liquefying armor in a heartbeat.
The shot caved in his breastplate, burned through the ballistic gel, and blew out his magnetic chest mag with a hiss of fire and fluid.
Sam didn't scream.
Didn't fall.
He just kept firing—ripping rounds down the corridor with a controlled growl, tearing through two advancing Elites and a Jackal before he staggered.
My head snapped to him. Everyone's did.
"Sam—" I started, voice tight.
"Keep moving!" he shouted back. "I'm good!"
But I saw the seal. The crack along the collar of his neck ring—steam venting from under his armor. The hit ruptured his pressure seal. On a planet, fine. On a ship?
Death sentence in vacuum.
If we'd EVA'd to this cruiser, he'd be dead already.
We didn't stop. Couldn't.
John caught Sam's shoulder as we reached the final corridor. "Let's go!"
The hangar doors opened ahead—Pelican parked, ramp down, turbines hot.
Fred lobbed a frag back down the hall as we entered, purple needles detonating against the walls. Shrapnel rained off MJOLNIR plating.
We boarded fast—Linda and Kelly covering our six, Sam last up the ramp, blood soaking from under his chestplate.
"Seal this bird!" I called to the pilot.
The ramp closed with a hiss of pressurization.
And the Covenant cruiser fell away beneath us.
Sam slumped into the bay wall, helmet tilted forward.
Still breathing.
But barely.
The moment Sam's vitals read stable—barely—I gunned the Pelican's engines.
The entire bird shuddered as the twin thrust cones roared to life, gravity clawing at the hull. I pulled the stick hard, nosing us up and away from the drifting hulk of alien metal before inertia could catch up with the warhead we'd just left behind.
"Full burn," I muttered into the comms. "We hit minimum safe distance, we're green."
"Copy," John said. He was already back on his feet, bruised but unbroken. He pulled the remote detonator from his belt and flipped the armored cap.
A single button.
No countdown.
No ceremony.
Just mission completion.
He pressed it.
The Pelican didn't have a rear viewport. No cinematic fireball. No blinding light. Just—
RUMBLE.
A deep vibration rolled through the hull like an angry thunderclap, shaking the airframe and momentarily dropping our altitude by ten meters. The entire ship let out a low metallic groan.
That was it.
Covenant cruiser gone.
Mission accomplished.
The Commonwealth came into view, hangar lights blinking like a welcome home. I matched speed with the tractor field and let the bird coast the final approach—landing gear locking as we kissed the deck.
As soon as the ramp dropped, medics rushed in.
Sam didn't argue. He handed his weapon off to Linda, slid off the bench, and walked—walked—into the med bay with the kind of stubbornness that would've made Mendez proud.
The rest of us headed straight to debrief.
We stood in full armor before Halsey, Mendez, and Captain Wallace in a dim conference bay. No formalities. Just data.
I stepped forward and unlatched the magnetic clamps from my right thigh.
"Recovered weapons." I placed the first on the table: a green plasma pistol, still faintly warm. "Pulled from the first contact pair. Self-contained, no moving parts. Emits plasma bolts, variable charge based on trigger pressure."
I reached behind me, lifting the second.
A blue plasma rifle, longer and more advanced—ridges of alien alloy tracing down its flared barrel like veins.
"This one came from a weapon rack near the hangar. Likely standard issue for the taller elites. Integrated coolant coils, possibly two internal capacitors." I paused. "Recommend immediate materials analysis."
Halsey nodded once, but her eyes were on the weapon like it had just spoken her name.
Mendez didn't blink. "Intel?"
John answered, "Crew species identified—two. Unknown reptilian species, and avian-skinned support units with shielding. No signs of translators or attempts at communication. Fully hostile."
Captain Wallace exhaled slowly, the weight of the war hanging behind his single remaining hand.
"The Covenant," he said quietly, testing the word like a bitter taste.
He turned to us.
"You just gave humanity its first hard win."