July 17th, 2552 / Côte d'Azur, Sigma Octanus IV
John-117 POV
Civilians scream in the distance, the dull echo of fear bouncing off concrete and steel. The smell of smoke and plasma scorched the air—burnt ozone, broken earth, and blood.
We've been holding this civilian bunker for four hours now. Fred and Linda are at the rear access, watching the road from a collapsed transit line. Kelly's running a loop around the building, fast enough to cover the perimeter twice every thirty seconds. Leonidas is on overwatch, his rifle never dipping from the horizon. No wasted movements. No wasted rounds.
Then my comms ping.
INCOMING PRIORITY TRANSMISSION – UNSC Iroquois – Cpt. Jacob Keyes
"Blue Leader. Captain Keyes. Patch me through."
Keyes's voice cuts through the feed like a scalpel. Cold, clipped, focused. "Spartan 117. The three Covenant ships that attempted to breach the defense line… they were either bait or a retrieval attempt. The real insertion happened hours earlier. Stealth-dropped into Côte d'Azur while our orbital sensors were being recalibrated."
My stomach doesn't twist. It can't. Not anymore. But I know what's coming.
"The targets landed inside the city. Intelligence confirms movement toward the Côte d'Azur Museum of Natural History. You're being reassigned. Locate the stealth team. Stop whatever they're here for."
The line ends with a burst of static.
I open team comms.
"Update. The Covenant are after something specific. They hit the museum. We're moving."
Fred's already packing his gear. "What the hell are they looking for in a museum?"
Leonidas clicks in. "Doesn't matter. We deny them the prize."
Sam puts a fresh mag in his MA5B, "No consolation prize either."
Kelly skids to a halt beside me. "Then let's move. Before they vanish."
Linda doesn't say a word. Her rifle's already pointed toward the skyline—at the domed building barely visible through the smoke: the museum.
I check my HUD. Armor systems green. Ammo full. Heart rate baseline.
Target locked.
Time to find out what the Covenant want badly enough to sacrifice two cruisers.
The streets of Côte d'Azur are a graveyard of glass, steel, and smoldering plasma scars. Covenant patrols litter every avenue, but they're not prepared for Spartans.
We run low, fast, armor clanking softly on shattered pavement. Then we pick up speed. Wall to wall, ruin to ruin—Blue Team becomes a blur of motion.
Leonidas goes vertical first, kicking off a burned-out Warthog chassis into a collapsed wall, sprinting along its side like it was a solid path. His jump kit flares—sparks erupting in sharp, calculated bursts. "Line's clear. Fastest route's over the east tram."
Fred follows, planting a boot on a caved-in storefront and vaulting onto the tram's side rail. Jackals try to take aim. Too slow. Linda drops them with surgical precision mid-stride, every shot echoing in my helmet like a heartbeat.
I'm already moving before their bodies hit the ground.
We hit the wall together. Momentum builds. Step, push, jump—pulse. It becomes instinct. Legs driving, bodies flaring with burst-thrusters on every tight corner. This is what we trained for. No cover needed when you are the offensive.
Covenant patrol ahead—three Elites and a full lance of Grunts.
Fred hits the far wall and flips into a slide, spraying with his SMG. Grunts drop like dominos. Kelly comes from above and slams feet-first into one Elite's back. I charge center-line, shotgun ready. One blast drops an Elite's shields. Sam's MA5B burst makes swiss cheese of it.
Leonidas flips over the skirmish and hurls a plasma grenade scavenged from a dead Jackal—sticks it to the last Elite's face mid-air. "Catch."
The explosion rocks the alley. Silence follows.
We keep moving. Always forward. No one slows.
Then, the museum comes into view.
A domed building with half its facade collapsed, the once-pristine front steps littered with corpses—human and alien. Smoke drifts from the ceiling skylights. The main entrance is a jagged wound in the building's mouth.
I signal a halt with a closed fist.
No movement. No sound.
Blue Team regroups in the shadow of a destroyed fountain, breath steady. Armor glowing in the soft firelight of a dying city.
I check my HUD one last time.
"Entry phase begins. Weapons hot. Remember—stealth failed them. It won't fail us."
We breach in five.
We move through the remains of the museum with rifles up and fingers resting on triggers.
The air inside is hot, dry—no signs of immediate engagement. The Covenant are gone. Too clean, too fast.
Fred, Sam, and Linda sweep the east wing while Kelly and Leonidas head for the server core beneath the reception desk. I move through the shattered lobby alone, glass crunching under my boots. The ceiling dome hangs cracked overhead like a dying eye.
"Clear," I say over squad comms.
"Server intact," Leonidas replies. "I'll patch in."
He drops to one knee, pries off a damaged access panel, and links his armor's systems through a cord snaked from his wrist gauntlet. The rest of us take defensive positions.
Footage flickers onto a nearby holo-terminal.
Grainy, static-choked angles of museum corridors—infrared ghost trails where Covenant boots had moved.
"Rewind sixty seconds. There," Kelly says.
The image stabilizes. I lean closer.
A squad of Elites in ornate gold and violet armor—Zealots. Rare, high-command warriors. They move with purpose, precision. Not slaughter. Retrieval.
One of them raises a hand. A Grunt nervously scampers forward, holding something metallic and jagged, roughly the size of a human torso. It's ancient. The light catches it, and it reflects oddly—too perfect, too untouched. Lines on it shimmer with geometry that hurts to look at directly.
Leonidas zooms in and captures a still.
"Unknown alloy," he mutters. "Definitely not human. Museum scans didn't classify it. Covenant knew exactly where it was. Best guess from the geometric lines, related to whatever built zone 67."
I key open my comms to fleet.
"This is Blue Leader to UNSC Iroquois. Priority alert—confirming stealth strike team at the museum. They retrieved a non-classified artifact of unknown composition. Zealot squad. Artifact was intentionally targeted."
A moment later, my HUD flickers.
Vice Admiral Stanforth, Connected
Reinforcements had arrived.
"Blue Team," the Admiral says, voice gravel and thunder. "Captain Keyes updated me. You've confirmed his guess. That object—whatever it is—just got a flag planted in it the size of Earth's moon."
I stay silent. Let him speak.
"We've sealed the civilian bunkers. No evacuations. No time. I need you to retrieve that artifact before the Covenant do, and if they already have it—deny them anything else they want."
Leonidas looks at me and nods grimly.
Admiral Stanforth continues: "A HAVOK-class nuke's being sent to your location. You'll rig Côte d'Azur. Wipe it and all the covenant forces. That city doesn't survive today."
"Yes, sir," I say.
The line cuts out.
I step back from the terminal, check my rifle, and signal the others.
"Zealots are moving fast. We move faster."
The city is quiet in the wrong way.
A pelican destroys that silence dropping a rearmament canister just outside the museum.
The hatch pops off. I attach the football sized HAVOK nuke to my back.
We move through the alleyways and service tunnels beneath the museum, shadows pressed close against our armor. The heat is rising. Buildings burn in the distance, plasma scorches lining glass and ferrocrete like the signature of a godless arsonist.
Kelly marks the last known trajectory from the museum's security grid. We have a ten-minute head start to make up. The Zealot squad is headed northeast—toward the harbor, or what's left of it. Likely rendezvous for exfil.
We won't let them make it.
"Leonidas, route us through the fastest path. Keep us below street level as long as we can."
"On it." His voice is level, precise, like the machine minds he helped design. "Piping through sewer schematics and subway arteries now."
Fred shoulders his rifle and steps to my side.
"Covenant stealth unit moving in an occupied city, evac suspended. That artifact's more important than anything we've seen them chase."
"They're panicked," Sam murmurs over comms. "Covenant don't normally panic. They have no chance to evac now."
Leonidas signals, and we enter a utility access point behind a collapsed parking structure. The walls are scorched but dry. Blood trails—human—lead in the opposite direction. We move against them.
Descend. Move. Clear. Watch corners.
Time ticks like gunmetal in the back of my skull.
We move in silence for six minutes.
Then we hear it.
Not footsteps. Not vehicles.
A hum. Mechanical. Organic.
Phantom dropship. Low altitude. Holding pattern.
I raise my hand—halt signal. We stack up against the concrete wall of a derelict underpass. I peer over the rim of a busted vent grate and see it: the silhouette of a Phantom in low hover above the eastern port road.
Five figures sprint beneath it, golden shimmer across their backs—the Zealots.
I mark them.
"Target sighted. Harbor road, 400 meters. Linda, mark the lead with your tag laser."
"Marked." She exhales. "They're fast. But not fast enough."
We can't risk open engagement yet.
We pursue.
Blue Team vaults over the barrier, hits the pavement, and melts into pursuit like the ghosts they trained to be.
There's no need for further words.
We are the knife behind the veil.
And we just found the target.
The Zealots are fast.
But we're Spartans.
We ghost them through smoke and broken concrete, darting through shattered buildings and alleyways soaked in plasma scars. The sun's low now—amber light filtering through the haze and turning bloodstains into smears of rust. I can feel the weight of the city pressing in.
They're heading toward the marina.
Leonidas marks their trail—disrupted soil from active camo generators, spike depressions in the street where hooved feet hit too hard. We're closing the gap.
"Sixty meters," Linda whispers over comms, crouched on a crumbled fire escape. She sights through her scope, eyes sharp behind her custom visor suite. "Target two broke right into a shipping yard."
"Marking." I bring up my HUD and overlay routes. "Fred, Kelly—cut them off."
"Leonidas, Sam—route them east and corner them."
Fred and Kelly break left, sprinting through a collapsed department store—glass crunches, shelves shatter. Fred's DMR barks, and I hear a scream—not human.
"One shield popped!" Fred calls. "Pursuing."
The Zealots fire back. Blue plasma bolts splash off support pillars as Kelly shoulder-charges through an overturned cargo hauler and tosses a grenade.
Boom.
A golden shimmer fades—their active camo failing. The first Zealot drops to one knee, clutching at a scorched midsection. Kelly puts a round through its skull before it can even cry out.
One down. Four to go.
I keep on the main trail—Leonidas, Sam, and I sticking close as we follow the signal on the artifact's presumed container. Its resonance signature is odd—subharmonic pulses, almost like it's singing in deep space.
This isn't just a cultural relic. It's something else.
Another shimmer darts across my peripheral. I pivot, bring up my rifle, and tag two shots through the shimmer. The first causes the cloak to fail. The second makes the energy shield flare. More rounds fly. The shield pops.
An Elite roars—high, defiant—and swings a plasma blade.
I roll under the arc, feel the heat pass above me.
Too slow, monster.
I drive my boot into the inside of its knee, drop it, and put the rest of the magazine through its chest before it hits the pavement.
Linda drops the third one from across the street.
Fred and Kelly tag the fourth together—two shots from opposite angles as the Zealot tries to scale a rooftop and escape.
That leaves one.
The carrier.
He's heading for the waterline, for a transport that's just uncloaking beneath the marina's ruined docks.
Leonidas growls through my earpiece. "They've got a stealth evac in progress. That Zealot's about to board with the package."
Not happening.
"Converge. Cut him off."
All five of us sprint. Feet thunder against ferrocrete. Every second counts now.
The Zealot spots the Phantom and breaks into a dead run—vaulting over crates, smashing through debris.
He's fast. Faster than the others.
But I'm faster.
I draw my sidearm and take aim.
The rounds hits his legs, the shield pops. Rounds pierce his legs—he stumbles, nearly drops the artifact. He turns to fire, but the package slows him. Too much mass, too little cover.
Kelly and Sam crash into him from the right.
Fred sweeps the artifact away.
Leonidas pins the Zealot with his knee and buries his blade into the Elite's throat.
Target down. Package secure.
The Phantom fires up its cannons, but Linda's already sighted in—two SPNKR rockets into the port engine.
It spins out, hits the dock, and erupts into blue plasma fire. Before tumbling into the water.
We pull back into cover, breathing steady, HUDs lighting up with confirmed kill markers and updated orders.
Mission complete.
But something's wrong. The artifact…
It's glowing.
The artifact pulses in Fred's arms—steady, bright. Like it's alive. Like it knows.
We don't get long to think about it.
The skyline lights up purple. A Covenant Phantom barrels over the city ruins we just fought through. Then another. Then six more. Drop bays split open like metallic mouths vomiting troops—Elites, Jackals, Grunts by the dozen. They're flooding the streets like a damn tidal wave. Not allowing the artifact to be lost.
"Move!" I bark, hand-signal slicing down. Blue Team breaks into motion without hesitation. "Fred, secure the artifact. Kelly, Sam—rear."
Plasma bolts crack through the air like lightning. A building explodes behind us, sending a wall of dust and glass scattering like shrapnel. I feel the heat of a bolt near my shoulder as we leap over a broken barricade and duck behind a collapsed tram car.
"Too many," Linda calls from a corner rooftop. Her shots are precise, deliberate. "We're not holding this position."
She's right. We're not dying for a damn museum.
Leonidas slaps a blinking icon on our shared HUD—"SEWER ACCESS - 25 METERS"—then bolts for the alley.
"Go! Go!"
Fred jumps the storm grate first, hauling the cover aside and dropping in like a ghost. I follow, pushing Kelly down after him as a plasma grenade sticks the wall just above where she'd been standing. Sam and Linda drop in moments after. The blast sears the alleyway into molten wreckage. I feel the pressure wave shove me into the pit like a hand from God.
The hatch slams shut behind us. The darkness is immediate and complete. HUDs auto-switch to low-light and motion detection.
We're underground. Covenant hot on our tails.
The sewers of Côte d'Azur are massive—built for a growing colony that never made it past its boom phase. Old tunnels and maintenance walkways, wide enough for supply carts. The walls drip and echo with ancient water lines, but more than that…they're empty.
No civvies. No guards. Just us. Blue Team, and the strange metal box Fred cradles like it might explode.
"Report," I whisper.
Fred: "Artifact's intact. Still pulsing. Same wavelength."
Kelly: "We lost air support. Covenant Phantoms have air superiority now. UNSC forces are bugging out of the city."
Leonidas: "I backmapped city schematics. If we follow this tunnel, we can reach the industrial dockyards. That's our new exfil."
Linda: "Roads are filled with debris. Vehicle maneuverability compromised."
Sam: "There are two police stations above our route. Good locations for resupply."
"Acknowledged—Then we move. Fast."
I lead. The sewer tunnels smell like rust, old blood, and human waste. We pass a fallen civilian drone—scorched and melted—and more signs that the Covenant had forces here before the battle even started. That they were using the sewers. Maybe even dug in.
Damn it.
We move fast but quiet—no words, just signals. The occasional plasma scorch on the tunnel walls reminds us the covenant know about the sewers.
And up on the surface?
They're after us.
The artifact's pulse is faster now. Brighter.
I check our heading—Leonidas's navigation overlay pulses green on my HUD. The maintenance shaft to the east sewer hub. There's a lift platform there, rusted out and half-submerged, but the perfect place to set the package.
The HAVOK tactical nuclear device.
Twelve-point-five megatons of city-eraser. Standard denial protocol. Not my first time hauling one.
But every time… I feel it. Like holding the heart of a dead star.
We pass through a tight choke point—water dripping down on us from a crack in the street above. Kelly checks corners, Fred's behind me with the artifact in one arm and his MA5B in the other. Linda and Leonidas sweep the rear.
All clear. For now.
I drop the nuke on the old lift platform and tap into the arming console. The LCD readout flickers on:
INPUT AUTHORIZATION CODE.
I punch in the command. Red light goes green. Timer: OFF. Manual detonation only.
"Package armed. Trigger set to dead-man failsafe."
Fred steps beside me, sets the artifact gently down on the lift floor.
"Think it's worth all this?" he asks.
I glance at the artifact. The weird geometries. The inscriptions that don't match any Covenant script. The feeling in my spine every time I look at it too long.
"Yeah. I do."
Leonidas gives the all-clear ping on HUD—motion sensors negative ahead. Kelly double-checks our exit tunnel and nods.
We're ghosting through ancient pipes and half-collapsed catwalks when Linda suddenly raises her hand—motion spike.
"Six hostiles. Coming fast."
Elites.
They found us.
But it doesn't matter. The HAVOK is armed.
The city will burn.
And we will vanish into the smoke before they know what hit them.
The tunnel groans with the echoes of heavy footsteps.
Six Zealots. Full armor. Plasma rifles. Energy swords.
They aren't grunts. These are the Covenant's wolves—Elite field marshals bred for chaos.
Linda goes low, SRS-99 up. Fred slips left behind rusted pipes. Leonidas vanishes up into the shadows along the ceiling—mag-locked like a phantom. Kelly is already gone. Sam stands over Linda, ready to pop shields with his rifle.
I hold position behind the corner, counting heartbeats.
Then they're here.
Plasma washes the tunnel in flickering blue-green light.
I open fire—three-round burst into the lead Elite's shield. It flares and weakens. A split-second later, Linda's DMR punches through the weakened field and caves in his skull. His body folds without ceremony.
Fred barrels from the side, shotgun roaring.
One Elite down.
Sam spends a mag. A shield drops. Armor punctured. Blood sprays.
Second Elite eliminated.
Then one charges me with a sword.
I duck and twist under his guard. My left hand grabs his wrist—his strength slams into me like a sledgehammer, but I let it carry us both backward.
Leonidas drops from above, boots-first into the Elite's back. A sickening crunch. Sword clatters to the floor. Deactivated.
Three down.
The fourth one yanks Kelly out of cloak mid-air. She kicks him in the jaw before hitting the wall. Leonidas grabs his head from behind and twists—a snap like dry bone.
The fifth one, Linda tags his leg after popping the energy shield. He stumbles. Fred finishes it with a boot and a burst.
Six goes down. Blood. Muzzle flash. Burned flesh.
Tunnel clear.
We regroup, breath slow and steady. The nuke's location still shows green. Countdown untouched.
But it's time to go.
We blast open a rusted maintenance door, emerging into a forgotten industrial yard on the city's western edge. Dilapidated cranes, shattered containers, rebar forests poking from cracked pavement.
Leonidas pings NAV.
Evac point: ten blocks north. ETA: 4 minutes.
I check the rear.
The wolves are dead. The hunt continues.
We breach from the industrial yard at a dead sprint—Spartans in full tilt, armor humming, jump kits hissing short bursts of thrust to keep us high and fast over broken terrain. Above us, the storm clouds have finally broken. The downpour washes away blood, ash, and shattered glass as we barrel north through a hollowed-out city.
The NAV marker for evac pulses steady green in the upper-right corner of my HUD. Four minutes.
The artifact is secured. The nuke is armed.
The timer ticks.
2:47.
"Visual on evac," Leonidas calls over TEAMCOM.
A Pelican slides low between towers—hull scorched, but engines on low burn. Its pilot knows what's at stake. Linda marks a path through the rubble—Fred lays suppressive fire behind us just in case.
1:59.
The sewers are likely flooding now. I key the arming code into the nuke's remote trigger and flick the safety to red. Kelly scrambles up first, assisting Linda as she clambers in. Fred hauls Leonidas, then Sam through, and I slam onto the ramp last.
"GO!" I bark.
The pilot doesn't need a second order.
The Pelican roars skyward. It banks hard over the shattered city. Through the open ramp, I can still see the industrial yard, under which we stashed the nuke.
I raise the detonator.
"Blue Team clear," I confirm.
0:07.
The Pelican punches atmosphere.
0:03.
0:02.
0:01.
I squeeze the trigger.
A white sun blooms behind us. The shockwave screams across the cityscape, catching up to our bird with violent turbulence. Everyone clamps down on restraints as the blast shreds the remains of Côte d'Azur.
The Covenant aren't getting their relic.
Just ashes.
Nothing but ashes.
July 17th, 2552 / UNSC Destroyer Iroquois, Low Orbit, Sigma Octanus IV
Captain Jacob Keyes POV
The soft chime of an encrypted channel request flickers on my display. The identifier is immediate: ADMIRAL STANFORTH, FLEETCOM HIGHCOM, PRIORITY ALPHA.
I tap the command. His face appears on the comms panel, drawn tight and bathed in the cold blue light of a secure feed. He wastes no time.
"Captain Keyes. Got word Blue Team just docked, and the bomb was a success. Sigma Octanus IV's atmosphere is now host to the finest Covenant forces in recorded history."
I nod. "They made it out with the artifact. Minimal injuries, minimal casualties. For once."
Stanforth exhales hard. "We'll see what 'artifact' means soon enough." His tone hardens, professional steel under strain. "That's what this debrief is about."
I recount the timeline. The slipspace irregularity. Ensign Lovell's probe analysis. My decision to intercept the three ships. The maneuver my crew calls the Keyes Loop. The museum. The Zealots. The relic.
He listens in silence. A single nod marks the end of my report.
"I read your file again, Jacob," Stanforth says, tone softening slightly. "Damn glad I ignored the politicos and kept you out here. The Iroquois might be bruised, but you just put the Covenant on the back foot—and saved a hell of a lot of lives."
"Appreciate it, sir."
"Now for your next orders," he continues, tapping something on his end of the feed. "You'll return to Reach for drydock and overhaul. The Iroquois took a hell of a pounding. Not a guarantee you keep the ship."
I glance to the tactical readout. My girl's still limping, outer hull blackened and fractured, but her MAC's still warm. She held.
"And Captain," Stanforth adds, leaning forward into the display, "you're to personally escort the artifact. It's being handed over to ONI Section III, Castle Base."
My spine stiffens. "Castle?"
"Dr. Halsey requested it herself. Whatever that object is… it's not from the Covenant. And we're going to need every edge we can get."
The line goes dead a second later. No farewell. No signature.
I close the channel and glance toward the hangar deck's internal feed. Blue Team is disembarking, silent as statues, armor scarred but eyes forward. They're already debriefing themselves in that strange, wordless way Spartans do.
I don't envy them. But I do rely on them.
The hum of the Shaw-Fujikawa Drive wraps around the ship like a distant storm. Slipspace always had that subtle dissonance. No alarms. No red lighting. Just a gut-deep awareness that if something went wrong here, no one would ever find the bodies.
I lean against the observation panel in my quarters, watching the shifting black of the alternate dimension shimmer beyond reinforced glass. The Iroquois creaks around me—an old warhorse, held together with steel and stubborn pride. The hull groans faintly, the scars of the last engagement still fresh, unpatched.
Reach was a few hours away. I should have been reviewing crew reports. Coordinating repairs. Writing letters to the families of those who didn't make it back.
Instead, my thoughts drift backward.
Catherine Halsey.
It's strange how war makes time elastic. Days stretch. Years blur. But I remember her—razor wit, cold logic, a mind that never stopped calculating outcomes. She always saw five moves ahead. Hell, probably fifty.
When she said yes to a date, I didn't know what to think.
Then there was Miranda.
Smart. Unshakably moral. Her mother's brilliance, my... well, stubbornness. She made Captain two years ago, took command of the In Amber Clad. I haven't seen her in months.
I wonder if she's safe. No—I hope she's safe. Spartans like John and Leonidas are doing their part. So am I. But even that might not be enough.
I glance to the locked crate in the corner of my quarters. The artifact from the museum. It's inert now. No glow. No hum. Just a strange, etched surface of alien metal that even Blue Team hadn't been able to identify.
We'd buried it in a lead-lined Faraday cage, electromagnetic shielding layers stacked thicker than ONI's secrets.
And still it sat there like a loaded gun with no trigger.
But I didn't feel watched. Not yet.
Beneath the scarred dorsal plating, scorched black from plasma scoring and the proximity detonation of a Covenant plasma torpedo, a sliver of alien alloy clung to the ship's underbelly.
No bigger than a data pad, shaped like a tear, fused into the hull just before the Keyes Loop had ended in triumph.
It was smooth. Silent. Hidden.
And it was transmitting.
Coordinates. Velocity. Trajectory.
The Iroquois was being followed. Tracked by an enemy more patient than man, and more determined than any of them realized.