19 September, 2552 / Location Unknown / UNSC Pillar of Autumn
Leonidas-151 POV
The first breath out of cryo always burns. Cold fire in the lungs. Joints pop. Muscles scream. But pain is familiar. Pain is welcome.
It means I'm still here.
The cryo pod hissed open, a thin fog trailing from its seams. I stepped out onto the steel deck barefoot, the freezing metal biting into my skin like teeth. Medical staff moved quickly between rows of stasis chambers, pulling diagnostics, shouting orders, ignoring the Spartans—because they knew we didn't need them.
The moment the deck officer's eyes locked with mine, he snapped to.
"Leonidas-151. Captain Keyes and Cortana have requested you on the bridge. Priority One."
I didn't respond. I didn't need to. I was already moving.
Across the bay, others were waking—Fred, Linda, Emile, Carter, and more. The thud of armor boots replaced the hiss of decompressing cryo pods. Spartans shook off the frost like it was a nuisance, not the subzero stasis it was. We'd been asleep for weeks. Maybe months. But adrenaline brings clarity faster than time ever could.
Kelly caught my eye as she pulled her undersuit tight beneath her armor frame.
"Where are we?"
"No one knows."
She frowned but nodded.
I crossed the threshold into the armory and pulled on the upper half of my MJOLNIR Mk V. The suit sealed with a familiar weight. Like slipping back into war. My neural interface linked up, and the HUD sprang to life.
[BT-7274 Online.]
[Vitals Stable. Environment: RED—Unidentified Slipspace Exit Vector.]
"On my way," I muttered.
I stepped into the lift. The door was halfway closed when the Chief slid in beside me, silent as death. He didn't look at me. Didn't need to.
He was already geared, helmet in one hand, magnum on his hip. Had been before cryo. His armor bore fresh scarring, probably from the battle on the station over Reach, where Linda was injured.
"Bridge?" he asked flatly.
I nodded. "Yeah."
We said nothing else.
The lift groaned upward as red emergency lighting strobed in the overhead ducts. Klaxons wailed faintly—battle stations were already manned. Somewhere in the hull, I could feel the subtle vibration of MAC capacitors charging.
Then came the sound.
A distant thump. Not an explosion—too soft for that. More like… pressure. The kind that comes when another ship fires a plasma round across your bow.
The lift doors hissed open.
Chaos.
The bridge crew was scrambling across consoles, calls pouring in, data streaming too fast to parse. The viewport stretched across the bow like a panoramic nightmare—and beyond it, a world hung in space.
No. Not a world.
A ring.
An artificial megastructure, wide as a planet's equator, curving up into the heavens and out of sight. Atmosphere. Terrain. Oceans. Clouds.
A ring with a soul.
"What the hell is that?" I breathed.
Cortana materialized next to the nav console, arms folded, expression razor-sharp.
"That… is what the Covenant call 'Halo."
It stretched across the void like a god's crown—immaculate, impossible.
The ring was miles wide, an unbroken band of land and sea that wrapped the cosmos in defiance of physics. Forests bloomed along its surface. Rivers carved winding paths through grasslands. Clouds curled against the sky with no planet beneath them. A world without a world.
Cortana stood next to the bridge holotable, her luminescent form cast in pale blue. Her expression was unreadable—half awe, half calculation.
"This construct is thousands of kilometers in diameter. Artificial gravity, climate stabilization systems, and an internal atmosphere. Preliminary scans suggest it's habitable. I've never seen anything like it."
Her eyes flicked to the viewport, then to the Chief.
"John. Looks like we'll be paired again. Good. The trial run back on Reach was... educational."
John gave a curt nod and stepped toward her.
"Wasn't bad."
She smirked faintly. "We'll have to do better than 'not bad' this time."
Before the moment could linger, the ship lurched violently. My feet staggered against the deck as warning klaxons shrieked overhead. The lights flickered—emergency power had kicked in.
"Multiple impacts across decks seven through fourteen!" a bridge officer shouted. "Plasma hits—damage control is failing!"
Captain Keyes, calm amid the chaos, barked orders from the command dais.
"Evasive maneuvers. Transfer all power to engines and shields. Begin Cole Protocol—jettison all navigation data. Get the rest of the fleet to the far side of the star. Now!"
The holo-screen flickered to life beside him—dozens of UNSC ships peeled away, engines flaring. Some had taken damage. Others were already listing. The Autumn had drawn the Covenant's eye.
"They're going to take us down with brute force," Keyes said grimly.
Then he looked to the cryo officer.
"Eject all frozen personnel. Get them clear of the ship. They're no good to us dead in the tubes."
The officer hesitated. "Sir—"
"Do it."
He turned to us—me, John, and Halsey.
"This ship's going down. I'm going to try and land her on that ring. You three—get to the lifeboats. Protect Cortana at all costs. If the Covenant get her, it's over."
The deck shuddered again. Sparks rained from an overhead conduit.
Cortana stepped away from the holotable, her form shifting as she prepared for transfer. She looked up at the Chief and gave a rare moment of softness.
"Ready when you are."
John removed his helmet with a hiss of vacuum seal. He turned it over, exposing the chip port, and Cortana digitized in a flash—gone from the bridge, now part of him. Literally.
[LINK ESTABLISHED—CORTANA ONLINE]
[Encryption Level: BLACK]
[Priority: Mission Preservation]
"Let's move," I muttered.
Dr. Halsey had already slung a data case over her shoulder—likely carrying her private research, or maybe another AI prototype. Her face was stone.
We exited the bridge together.
Behind us, Captain Keyes stood at his post, hands on the railing, the ring looming in the viewport like judgment day.
The first explosion hit somewhere below deck. My armor's auditory dampeners filtered out most of the ringing, but the floor beneath me kicked like a dying mule. Warning lights along the corridor pulsed red, and the stench of ozone burned in my nose.
We ran.
Halsey was between me and John, her white coat flaring like a banner. Plasma scorched the walls as we turned corner after corner, each hallway a gauntlet of flickering lights and collapsing steel.
Covenant had boarded. That much was clear. But they weren't wasting time—they weren't probing for intel or slowing to regroup. They were charging through Autumn like bloodhounds on a scent, and the scent was Cortana.
"Deck eleven, section B. Lifeboats still intact," John said over comms.
I adjusted the grip on my MA5K. One mag left in the current drum. Six mags on my hip. No time to think about ammo. Only time to kill.
We rounded a junction and met our first resistance. A pack of grunts scrambled from a ventilation shaft, barking in that high-pitched alien language they used—panicked, erratic. One threw a plasma grenade, the bright blue orb arcing too high.
I raised my rifle and fired in short bursts. The first went down before it could scream. The second tried to duck behind a pipe but caught a full burst in the chest. Its methane tank blew, painting the ceiling green.
The third—a jackal with a curving energy shield—ducked out with a plasma pistol charged. John didn't hesitate. He dashed forward, feinted left, then shoulder-checked it so hard into the bulkhead that its bones made a sound like wet twigs. The pistol clattered to the deck, still glowing.
"Go!" John barked.
Halsey didn't need telling twice.
We pushed on.
Every corridor between us and the lifeboat bays felt longer than the last. Burning systems spilled superheated air into the passageways. Crew bodies floated, weightless in sections where grav control had failed. The sound of distant gunfire echoed like a warzone through steel.
Then—voices.
Human.
We emerged into an intersection and found them.
A half-dozen Marines under heavy fire, boxed in by a wave of Covenant. Plasma bolts chewed through wall panels, and one of the troopers was pinned behind an overturned ammo crate, clutching a bleeding arm.
"Hold this position!" a voice shouted over the gunfire.
It was deep. Commanding. Coated in gravel and decades of experience.
Sergeant Major Avery Johnson. Retreated with John to the Autumn.
He ducked behind a half-melted blast door and popped off rounds from an M7 SMG. The weapon coughed fire as a grunt flailed backward, choking on its own blood.
"About damn time some Spartans showed up!" Johnson barked as he spotted us. "Thought you fancy bastards were sleeping this one out."
"Saving our strength," I shot back, opening fire and advancing with John on the left flank.
We moved in a perfect wedge—John up front, me covering high, Marines taking rear sectors. Halsey stayed low and behind cover, her eyes tracking everything with eerie calm.
Grenade out.
Flash of light.
Three grunts went flying.
John caught an elite mid-lunge with a melee strike that shattered its jaw and left it writhing on the floor, twitching. I stepped past and put a three-round burst into its skull for good measure.
Johnson stood as the last of the aliens fell. His SMG clicked empty.
"You kids want a ride?"
"We're headed for lifeboat bay Bravo," John said.
"Then let's haul ass."
We moved as one down the next corridor. Red strobes blinked over sealed blast doors. Automatic turrets panned overhead but stayed silent—no friendly targets in line of sight.
Lifeboat bay came into view.
So did the Covenant.
Another wave, this one heavier—two elites, more jackals, a scattering of grunts. John signaled left and vaulted over a barricade. I broke right and flanked through a side access panel. My HUD pulsed red, and my shields dropped as plasma grazed my shoulder.
I slid behind a storage crate, breathing hard. Then leapt up, threw a frag, and stormed in behind it.
The explosion ripped the enemy formation apart. An elite stumbled, dazed. I drove my boot into its leg, breaking the joint backward, then dropped it with a burst to the chest.
Clear.
"Halsey, move!" I called.
She sprinted across the deck, lab coat billowing, and dove into the open hatch of the nearest lifeboat. Johnson herded the surviving Marines in next.
"This one's ours!" he shouted. "You two—get to the next boat!"
John and I nodded once, then turned to sprint to the last pod on the line. Another explosion rocked the Autumn. The deck tilted. Gravity twisted in an odd way I'd never felt before. Like the ship was being pulled toward the ring.
The airlock ahead hissed open.
We ducked inside. Slammed the button.
[AUTOMATED LIFEPOD LAUNCH INITIATED]
[STAND CLEAR OF EXHAUST VENTS]
The pod shuddered.
Fell away from the ship.
The stars blurred.
I could see them all from the viewport—the massive ring world. A dead city of burning cruisers. A cold war god's forgotten playground.
Reach was lost.
But we were not.
Not yet.
The crash knocked every ounce of air from my lungs.
When the world stopped spinning, I was upside down, my boots against the ceiling of the twisted, half-submerged life pod, smoke and fire dancing around the edges of my HUD. A loud ringing fought with my breath for dominance in my ears. For a moment, I just lay there, unmoving.
Then a sharp exhale. I rolled to my side and kicked open the ruined hatch with a burst from my suit's leg actuators.
The halo world opened in front of me like a lie that was too beautiful to believe.
Blue sky. Rolling grass. Snowcapped mountains framed by high-altitude clouds. Not a scrap of industrial humanity in sight. And stretching out over everything… that ring. The Halo. It curved impossibly high above us, vanishing into the hazy blue, then circling back around from the opposite side of the sky. A looped god's crown, orbiting nothing.
Next to me, John pushed out of the lifepod wreckage, brushing a sparking wire from his shoulder.
"You good?" he asked.
I nodded. "Alive. No one else made it."
He looked inside the pod—smoke, sparks, still bodies slumped in crash harnesses.
Nothing more to say.
We moved.
The terrain ahead was rugged, highland scrub and steep rock. The crash had thrown us into a narrow canyon with steep cliffs on either side. To the east, a collapsed support structure—metallic and completely foreign—jutted from the wall and arched to the other side like a bridge made from the skeleton of something long dead. A massive metal strut.
John reached it first, tested the footing, then motioned me across.
We were halfway when the rumble started.
Covenant dropship.
"Down!" John hissed.
We ducked against the strut's inner edge just as the shadow of a Spirit dropship passed overhead. The deep warble of its anti-grav drives shook the bridge. Covenant patrols were hunting. Probably saw the wreckage. Maybe even saw the crash.
We waited. Ten seconds. Then twenty.
Then came the high-pitched screech of a Banshee. A patrol wing. Two of them, maybe three.
John looked at me. We both knew the answer before it left his helmet's speakers.
"Run."
We sprinted across the rest of the strut. Down the hill. Into a patch of rocks and trees, leapfrogging cover, keeping low. My shields flickered once—brief flash of red. A glancing pass. Close.
Then—silence again. Just birds. Wind. The crackle of static in my comms.
"Cortana," John said, "status?"
"I'm picking up a UNSC transponder. Several, actually. Down the next ridge. They're pinned down—transmitting distress beacons from within a narrow canyon basin. I'm detecting Covenant chatter as well. Multiple hostiles. Airborne and ground."
I peered over the ridge as we neared.
And there it was.
A strange structure dominated the clearing—a twisted, cathedral-like assembly of shining metal and stone. Towering, angular, and unmistakably alien. At its base, human forces—marines—had entrenched around the base of the structure, holding defensive positions.
Johnson was among them. I could see him through my visor's magnification—barking orders, tossing grenades, firing short bursts with his battle rifle.
And on the upper platform of the alien structure?
Halsey.
Alive.
She stood behind cover, pistol drawn, issuing commands through a comm link while scanning the strange glyphs etched into the structure behind her.
And surrounding all of them, assaulting from three directions: Covenant.
Elites, jackals, grunts, all advancing in tight squads. Plasma fire lit up the air like fireworks, blasting divots into the earth and melting rock. One Banshee screamed overhead, looping back for a second attack run.
I dropped flat beside John as a burst of needler fire tore across the ridge we'd just crested.
"They're dug in tight," I said.
John didn't speak. He was already moving.
We launched into the air, jumpjets firing in tandem, vaulting down the ridge and straight into the chaos.
Gravity didn't hit me until my boots slammed into the dirt.
The jump jet's final blast softened the landing, but I still dropped into a three-point brace, my M392 DMR raised before my back even straightened. John was already sprinting ahead of me, a green blur against the scorched rocks, moving with that unnatural precision that always set him apart.
The Covenant hadn't seen us coming.
A pair of Grunts at the edge of the formation looked up too late. My first round punched through one's methane tank—he went shrieking into the air like a balloon under pressure, trailing fire. The other turned to run. He made it five steps before a burst from John's MA5B lit up his back like a flare.
"Covenant rear line's exposed!" Johnson's voice cracked through my comms. "Whoever the hell that is—good timing!"
We pushed through.
Jackals turned next—two shield bearers shifting to intercept. I slid left, kept moving, and fired a pair of controlled bursts at the edges of their defenses. The first cracked his shield; the second sent a bullet through his eye. The other raised his plasma pistol to charge a shot, but John's grenade landed at his feet and cut off the effort with a violet splash of gore.
"Spartans!" one of the Marines shouted in the distance, voice full of awe and desperation. "They sent Spartans!"
We didn't slow down. Couldn't afford to.
A Banshee screamed overhead. Plasma bolts rained down, chewing into the base of the alien structure. Halsey ducked low, but stayed calm—already coordinating something over her data pad. Johnson waved his Marines toward better cover near the structure's base.
"Push forward!" he roared. "Don't let 'em take this site!"
I vaulted over a boulder and landed beside a squad of grunts attempting to set up a plasma cannon. They squealed as I came down, one raising a needler in panic. Too slow. My combat knife slid from its sheath in one fluid motion, drove through his throat, and twisted. The others scattered in disarray. A short burst from my rifle dropped two more before they could regroup.
"Leonidas," John said flatly through the squad channel, "northeast ridge—two Elites flanking."
I turned.
Two Sangheili zealots, gold-armored and fast.
One raised a plasma rifle, the other activated a sword with a shriek that echoed through the valley.
Time slowed.
My DMR clattered empty. I tossed it aside and sprinted toward them, jumping off a crate mid-stride and slamming into the sword-wielder with my shoulder. The shield absorbed the brunt, but the force staggered him. His sword missed my face by a foot.
The second elite fired wildly, bolts slamming against my shoulder shield, cracking it.
I reached down, pulled the dead grunt's plasma pistol from its hip holster, and squeezed the trigger until it glowed white-hot. Overcharge. I popped from cover and let it fly. The bolt smashed into the zealot's shield and popped it instantly. A second later, a single round from John's pistol cracked through his skull.
The sword elite recovered and lunged again. I grabbed the crate beside me with both hands and slammed it into his knees, toppling him. My boot found his throat a moment later. Crunch. He didn't get up.
Silence fell like a hammer.
The last of the grunts screamed and ran—cut down by Marine fire from below. The remaining Jackals were dead. The Banshee that had strafed us earlier lay smoldering in the dirt, a smoking hole through its cockpit courtesy of a Spartan grenade and an incredibly lucky angle.
"Clear!" John called out.
My breath rasped in my ears.
Across the field, Marines were regrouping. Some were wounded, a few dragged themselves behind makeshift barricades of debris and shattered Covenant gear. Johnson was helping one of them up with one hand, shotgun in the other. Typical.
I took a long breath, cracked my neck, and turned toward the structure.
Halsey stood just outside its central archway, cloak fluttering in the breeze, datapad still in hand. Her expression was unreadable behind the gleam of her glasses, but she was already walking toward us.
John fell in beside me, his armor scuffed and streaked with blood—none of it his.
We began to walk toward her.
Time to get answers.
The battlefield was quiet now, a strange hush rolling in after the storm. Covenant bodies littered the valley floor like twisted, broken toys. The Marines moved slowly, helping their wounded or gathering weapons from fallen enemies with practiced hands. The air still stank of scorched plasma and blood.
We regrouped inside the Forerunner-like structure's entry alcove—cool metal walls that shimmered faintly, almost humming beneath my boots. The architecture wasn't Covenant. And it sure as hell wasn't human.
Halsey stood before one of the walls, her gloved hands hovering over strange etched lines glowing faintly blue. She was absorbed, half-listening as Cortana's avatar flickered to life atop a field transmitter connected to her datapad.
Cortana nodded toward us. "You two certainly know how to make an entrance."
John merely nodded.
I knelt beside the ammo crates we'd dragged into cover, reloading with smooth, automatic motions. "What the hell is this place?"
Halsey responded without turning. "Unknown. But it's ancient. Not Covenant."
"Looks like Zone 67," I muttered.
That got her attention. She turned slowly, eyes narrowing behind her glasses. "Precisely what I was thinking. This entire structure predates both Covenant and human development. Which means someone else built it—and they built it well."
Cortana interjected. "As fascinating as this is, we have bigger problems. I'm picking up at least six lifeboat crash signals within a five-kilometer radius. And if we can detect them, so can the Covenant."
Johnson wiped the blood from his forehead, scowling. "Then we've got survivors out there, and they're sittin' ducks."
[COMMS — PELICAN INCOMING]
"This is Echo 419—Foehammer—reading UNSC transponders. I've got eyes on your position and inbound for pickup. Sit tight."
Cortana's image perked up. "Foehammer, this is Cortana aboard a field unit. We have Doctor Halsey, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, and twelve surviving Marines requesting evac."
"Copy that, Cortana. I've got room. ETA one minute—make some noise so I can find you in this brush."
John and I exchanged a look. He tapped the side of his helmet.
"Cortana, patch me to Echo 419."
"Go ahead, Chief."
"We'll hold position here for another minute to cover your approach. After evac, we'll continue on foot to secure the lifeboats."
"Acknowledged. Foehammer out."
Halsey stepped toward us. "You're both going alone?"
I nodded. "We're Spartans. Better we find the survivors before the Covenant do."
Johnson looked like he wanted to argue. But he stopped short, eyes narrowing. He nodded once. "You two keep your heads on straight. These ring-demons play dirty."
John turned toward Halsey. "Keep the civilians alive. Stay mobile."
She met his eyes, understanding the unspoken weight of that command. "I will."
A shadow passed over us. Echo 419 broke through the clouds and settled in a clearing just west of the structure, her engines stirring the dust and ash. The Marines loaded quickly, helping their wounded aboard as Johnson stood watch, shotgun at the ready. Halsey followed, pausing at the ramp to give us both one last glance.
"We'll regroup once the signal's strong enough," she said. "Find who we lost."
"We will," John promised.
The ramp closed, and the Pelican lifted with a roar, banking east toward the hills.
The moment the sound faded, I turned to John.
"You really think we'll find survivors?"
He checked his MA5B, eyes on the horizon. "We better."
We moved in silence, boots crunching over glassed soil and alien alloy. The ridge sloped upward ahead, the next lifeboat beacon already pulsing faintly on our HUDs.
One step at a time. One fire to put out at a time.
We moved quickly down the slope, our boots pounding the broken soil in unison. The light of the ringworld filtered through cloud-streaked skies overhead. Somewhere out there, more lifeboats had gone down—ours might've been the only one with Spartan survivors. The odds were rarely on our side. Didn't matter.
Cortana's voice crackled in over our encrypted channel. "Chief, Leonidas—I've breached the Covenant battle-net."
John gave a nod. "Anything useful?"
"Encrypted troop movements, regional maps, and a few primitive attempts to triangulate the lifeboats. But what's interesting is what's not there—no reference to this terrain. No idea what this place is. They're just as blind as we are."
"Not comforting," I muttered.
Cortana ignored the comment. "Up ahead, I'm picking up a subterranean facility—Forerunner by the look of it. One of the lifeboats went down past it. If we cut through the tunnels, we'll beat the Covenant to it."
John didn't hesitate. "Then we go through."
The entrance wasn't marked—not visibly. Just a sheer rock face at the base of a canyon wall. But Cortana pinged a nearby outcrop. "Hidden hatch. There's a narrow tunnel just behind it."
With a hiss of compressed air and a grind of alien servos, a door-sized slab of rock sank inward. We slipped in weapons raised, our visors adjusting immediately to the pitch black.
"Night vision on," I said.
My HUD bloomed into sharp contrast, and the tunnel stretched ahead—smooth walls, etched in unknown symbols, the floor eerily clean. This wasn't natural. It was old, ancient even. Unmistakable once you'd seen it before… like back on Onyx, Zone 67. This may be the best chance to study it, only covenant to deal with, not drones.
We hadn't gone twenty meters when I saw them—three red blips on the motion tracker. Close.
John raised his hand, and we both stopped.
Covenant.
Jackal patrol. Two with plasma pistols, one wielding a Type-25 needler. Poor weapons choice for close quarters. They hadn't seen us yet. John motioned to split left and right.
I moved low, silent.
At the mark, we struck.
My rifle barked once—one jackal went down mid-screech. John moved like a ghost, silent and brutal. The second jackal had time to blink before his skull was crushed under an armored boot. The third, the needler, tried to squeal a warning, but my knife found the space between its mandibles.
Three corpses. No alarm.
We pushed forward deeper into the tunnel. The walls became more structured, decorative in a way I didn't expect—arched supports, glowing blue seams embedded in the stone. Ahead, the corridor widened into a large hexagonal room.
And stopped.
A chasm bisected the room from wall to wall. No walkway, no railing. Just a sheer drop and the other side maybe twenty meters away.
"Dead end?" I asked, checking the HUD for alternate routes.
"Wait," Cortana whispered. "There's a terminal. Up ahead, to the right."
It stood on a pedestal near the edge of the chasm. Smooth, dark alloy with a faint holographic shimmer above it. John stepped up, placed his hand over the interface—and it pulsed to life.
The chamber lit up in a brilliant cascade of light.
From nowhere and everywhere at once, a shimmering bridge of solid blue-white light emerged—extending from our edge across the void to the far platform. Hexagonal panels flickered into place, hovering in perfect alignment. The glow refracted off the walls, casting ghostly shadows behind us.
Cortana's voice held a rare tone of awe. "Hard light… That's not Covenant tech."
"Looks stable," John said, stepping onto it without hesitation.
I followed. The bridge felt solid under my boots, humming faintly with each step. Not a sound below—just an endless fall into dark silence. My eyes traced the source emitters above us. No exposed projectors. Whatever powered this place, it was leagues beyond anything even the best ONI think-tanks had whispered about.
Cortana piped up again. "The precision, the energy control… even our best researchers haven't been able to crack the principles of stable hard-light constructs. Whoever built this place—they were playing with forces we barely understand."
I didn't need to be a scientist to understand the implications. "And the Covenant want it."
"They're here for a reason," John added grimly. "Same one we are now."
"The Covenant battle-net leads me to believe they didn't know this ring was here."
"We lead them right to it," I realize.
We crossed to the other side. Another door stood waiting. With a flicker of Cortana's code, it hissed open—and daylight poured in.
"Tunnel's clear," I said.
John nodded. "Let's move."
We stepped back into the alien sun beneath the arc of the ringworld's horizon. Time to find the next lifeboat. Time to save whoever we could.
The sun never shifted. That was the first thing I noticed.
We moved from canyon to plateau, from dense forest to open cliffside—but the arc of the Halo's horizon above us remained still, locked in position. It gave the world an uncanny, dreamlike feel. Like we were marching through a photograph… one that bit back with plasma and claw.
We found the first lifeboat half-embedded in the side of a hill, bent like a crushed can. Smoke rose in thick columns from the ruined thrusters. Covenant patrols were already on scene—elites and jackals combing the wreckage with the brutal efficiency of a surgical strike.
John didn't give the word. He didn't need to. We opened fire with perfect synchronicity—lethal bursts of precision across the tree line. I dropped a pair of jackals with armor-piercing rounds before they could even screech. John vaulted the slope and shouldered his battle rifle, dropping the elite with a burst to the shield, followed by a single armor-penetrating shot to the throat.
Three Army troopers were pinned behind the cracked bulkhead, one wounded and barely clinging to his rifle.
"Move!" I barked, grabbing the limp marine and pulling him behind cover while John laid down suppressive fire. A well-placed frag sent the remaining Covenant flying into pieces of blue armor and acrid vapor.
The survivors didn't need to be told twice. They fell in behind us and limped toward the treeline as we called in Foehammer for evac. Pelican Echo 419 touched down fast, guns sweeping the area as the troopers boarded. She gave us a brief nod over comms.
"More survivors spotted west. I'll ferry these ones and circle back."
We moved fast.
The second drop pod had fallen into a ravine, the emergency beacon half-submerged in a muddy creek. Plasma scoring covered the nearby trees—signs of resistance. But we found no bodies. Just blood.
A hunter pair stomped out from the treeline, emerald fuel rods already warming in their arms.
"Cover!" I yelled, diving right while John took left, separating their line of fire. A crater erupted where I'd just stood, dirt and debris raining around me as I skidded behind a boulder.
John didn't break stride. He hurled a plasma grenade—liberated from the last elite he killed—straight into the glowing belly of the first hunter. It wailed as the detonation flipped it backward into the creek, orange blood gushing from ruptured armor.
I took the opening and unloaded my MA5K into the second's exposed back. The third burst found the soft points. It dropped to its knees, spasmed once, and fell flat.
"Clear," I said.
We found four troopers cowering under the lifeboat's shell. One was rocking, muttering to himself. The others… just hollow-eyed. The war was different down here. Up in space, it's fire and distance. On the ground, it's blood and screams and cracked visors.
No words. Just motion. Get them up. Get them out.
We moved on.
By the time we found the final pod, the firefight was already underway.
A group of marines—some Army, some Navy techs—were holding a perimeter around the lifeboat. Makeshift barricades of rocks and scorched debris shielded them from incoming plasma fire. The Covenant had set up a mini-command post with active dropships hovering overhead.
It was a kill zone.
John pointed up to the ridge. I nodded.
We ascended the cliffside under cover of trees, cutting through a pair of Grunts on patrol. I dropped into prone and shouldered my sniper. One by one, I lined up the dropship gunners.
CRACK.
The first elite slumped over the controls.
CRACK.
Second one spun and fell limp.
John didn't wait. He activated his jump kit and launched off the ridge—his boots smashing into the closest Wraith gunner as he landed. He fired once into the driver compartment, then rolled and tossed a frag into a Grunt formation.
By the time I got down there, he'd cleared half the field.
I helped finish the rest.
A marine captain limped forward, saluting even as plasma scorched the wreckage behind him. "Sir… thought we were dead."
"Not today," John said, and turned to me. "That's the last group."
Cortana pinged our HUDs with the pickup coordinates. "Echo 419 inbound. Fifteen mikes."
We didn't speak as we waited. There was nothing to say.
We'd lost too many already.
But those we saved—dozens now—they were why we did this.
Even if this ringworld ended up being a tomb.