FlashHalo: Reach

Prelode

August 30, 2552 - Reach

0447 Hours: Detection of a incoming Covenant fleet by the Outpost Fermion. Emergency message relayed to FLEETCOM. Self-destruct initiated, under Cole’s Protocol.

0500 Hours: 314 ships exit from Slipspace on the System edge.

0517 Hours: FLEETCOM Sector One Commander issues general order to all ships in Reach, Jericho and Tantalus systems. All ships and stations must initiate Cole Protocole and rush to rally point ZULU.

0534 Hours: Covenant vessels make pinpoint Slipspace jumps attempting to destroy any incoming or outgoing human vessels before they can regroup. A Covenant Carrier targets the UNSC Pillar of Autumn but is destroyed.

0545 Hours: The Covenant vessels begin a frontal assault. As the Covenant and Human fleets engage above Reach, it seems to be a stalemate, as Covenant ships take out UNSC ships, while the UNSC ships and MAC cannon take out an equal number. The first salvo by the UNSC vessels destroys a third of the remaining Covenant fleet. A previously unknown Covenant warship, called a Supercruiser by Captain Keyes, arrives and destroys several UNSC ships while outside human weapons range.

0616 Hours: The Spartan soldiers are dispatched from the Pillar of Autumn. SPARTAN-117, SPARTAN-058, and Spartan-James form Blue Team and go aboard the Dock to destroy the Circumference, while the remainder form Red Team and head to the surface of Reach to defend the power generators for the MAC guns. James goes MIA when a needler hits his T-PACK and propels him into space during combat. Blue Team continue through the station, rescuing Sergeant Johnson, Private O'Brien, Private Bisenti, and Private Jenkins from Jackals and Elites.

0620 Hours: The Covenant fleet retreats from the system after deploying dropships. The UNSC fleet fires on the ships. Hundreds of dropships land on Reach.

0621 Hours: The boarding craft are landed and the armory is overrun and the Covenant fleet returns to the system. The UNSC try to split their 50+ remaining forces to engage the Covenant, but there are too many platforms to cover and too many casualties. The Supercruiser continues to destroy UNSC ships, allowing the other ships to attack the MAC cannons.

Chapter 1 – Jump!
“Red Alert, Red Alert… Covenant Drop ship incoming” Said the Pillar of Autumn First Officer via the Comm. System… Four Spartans were walking on the corridors when the alarm went off… “Luckily” they were passing by their armory, where they got their weapons… Spartan-265 was focused in thinking…
“How the hell did they launch their drop ships? Reach orbital platforms would make them into smithereens before they even reach the upper atmosphere…”
- Hey, Jack, wake up… We must go! – Said Linda… - Now!
- Aye, ma’am… - Said him.
Suddenly, for him, cause he was “somewhat” distracted thinking on how beautiful was the Spartan under that gear… He always had a crush for her, since they entered on the program, but… He was in debt to John because he never revealed that, when he came to discover that… John started talking:
- Okay, guys, we only have one chance if we want to do this right! We’re going to each spot were a Covenant Cruiser was capable of land, and we will destroy them…
- Sir, yes, sir…
- Good luck, people… and try to return in one piece!
He entered to his Pelican, where he should board a station, which wasn’t “deactivated” under Cole’s Protocol… Linda and James went with him….
“Good luck” Said to himself… He entered the Pelican…
Several minutes later, he was again drawn in his mind, he wakes up… Two banshees…
- Pilot, watch out! Two banshees will appear from your front! – Screamed him to the pilot…
- What? You must be jok… - Two banshees appear in the front and shoot the pilot and co-pilot… Jack rises from his chair and sits on the pilot chair, after removing his body from there… In the meanwhile, one of the banshees hit the starboard engine of the Pelican… He start piloting the dropship…
- Okay, lets see, how does this thing fly? – He then dodges several plasma bolts, and the thing goes on for several minutes, when suddenly, the other engile blows up…
- Okay, you do believe me when I say for you to jump, right? – Asked him…
- Yes, why?
- Then Jump! – Screamed him, while he started running for the back end of the Pelican, where, him and all the other SPARTANS there jumped…

Chapter 2 – Stranded
They were walking through a corridor inside one of the several SPARTAN research facilities… There were seven facilities at total, spread around the planet, but that was the main one… After the basic training during childhood, the teenager Spartans come to this facility, were the final training was applied to them… also, inside it, was a large memory cell, carrying a lot of sensitive data, since things from the MJOLNIR program, to ship deployments of the entire sector, reports from previous missions, and, more important… Earth location…
At the end of that long, dark corridor, was an armored door, and behind it, the core room… They entered the room…
- Okay! Secure the perimeter! – Ordered the Spartan Sergeant…
Spartan after Spartan were giving confirmations about the room being clear of Covenant forces… or even Human survivors… Although this area was severely bombed by Banshees and Wraith’s, they still haven’t glassed the region, meaning… they are about the raiding this area, to recover the databanks…
- Hurry up deleting that thing Corporal! – Said the Sergeant…
- Can do, sir…! – Said the Corporal Micheal-199… - Okay, sir… computer virus is already doing it’s work… If they try to tap in… they will get a very nice surprise… Five minutes till the entire database is deleted… Can we…
- We’re sticking around, to make sure the database is fully deleted…
- Aye, sir…
Jack was paying attention to the entrance… no one knew why, but he was the one who worked around all stealth exercises… no one ever knew why… but he just knew when the guards were passing by…
“Too quiet for my taste…” was he thinking “Why do I always feel that, even when on these missions… Wait!...” He pulled out a grenade, triggered it up, waited a seconds and then throw it… One Elite and three Brutes appeared from nothing, and without noticing the grenade, passed by it right in the moment it exploded… Those were killed instantaneously… The Spartans, surprised by that, started running to the door… taking positions at the start of the corridor… Two groups appeared, and started firing on the Spartans…One was shot, but it’s force field protected him… The Covenant on the corner were quickly eradicated… Another group came in… this time including Jackals, armed with shields and plasma pistols… those were only overcome with and handful of grenades, which made them to pieces…
- Micheal! How about you hurried your big fat arse and hurried that up! – Said the Sergeant out loud…
- 5 seconds sir! – Said Micheal - Done sir!
- Great! Now hurry up exiting this filth!
They closed the entry door and head for the other access door, but badly as they arrived there, an Hunter appeared and charged his cannon, which prompted Jack to immediately close the blast door… but he was at twenty feet away of the switch… what happened?
- What tha? Said the Sergeant, perplex by the blast door… - How did that… happened?
- I think it was because of the two hunters that appeared… - Said Jack…
- But… Two Hunters? We only saw one…
- There were two… - Said Jack…
Suddenly two blasts hit in the blast doors…
- See? Two Hunters! – Said Jack…
- Yeah… anyway, how the hell do we exit… - Said the Sergeant…
- I don’t know…

Chapter 3 -Escape!


The door was getting pounded by the oil rods of those hunters... But was holding...Suddenly they stopped...

- They stopped! - Said one of the SPARTANS...
- Wow, we hadn’t noticed that! Now, why would they do it? - Asked the Sergeant...
“They will glass this place...” Thought Jack...

Right after he had that thought… the place started shaking from all places… The Covenantwere glassing the tower… 30 seconds later, it stopped.


- Sir,we should go… - Said Jack to the Sarge…
- I know… - Said Sergeant Mark-095 – Alright listen up! We’re leaving this place before they decide to glass this place again or those hunters return… Corporal Michael, what’s left?
- All levels below us are intact… Levels above us are pretty much destroyed…
- What do we have above us? – Asked the sergeant…
- That’s obvious, sir! A CCS Cruiser and several hundreds of troops…
- And below?
- Classified tech labs, sealing levels and our escape: a tunnel!
- Were it should take us?
- To the middle of the ocean…

After thinking in it… He decided, they would go through that tunnel…

- People, listen up! – Started the Sergeant. – We are going to make a small trip to hell so gear up and prepare yourselves!
- Aye, sir – Said all at the same time…

They went through the corridor and entered in the elevator… What they saw below what was there was beyond their wildest imagination… Grunts imprisoned, went mad… they were using them as lab rats… Lots of them were opened, seeing their vital organs… “Maybe they’re not the monsters, but we do…” As they exited the biological labs, they entered in the tech labs… They were working on replication technologies, robot mechanics and computer AI’s… Those labs continued until 7 levels below, were they found the future generation of gunships and fighter/bombers, and the future of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Antimatter compression warheads,
Graviton Bombs, all types of bio weapons… At the last level, there was a small tunnel… Small, but supposedly it had 1000 km’s length… They found themselves at an abandoned, underwater base; hundreds of feet’s under water…

- Sir! We are underwater – Said a soldier amazed…
- Yes, we’re private… Now, let’s move in and try to find the CIC of this thing… - Said the sergeant…
A few minutes of walking around that thing, they found a military CIC… There were 17 computer terminals there… The marine SPARTANS easily understood what that was: A flying base…