Chapter 95
Third POW
Some soldiers in black armor are moving through the hallways of the ship, arriving at a larger room where several more soldiers are present... some sitting, others checking their weapons or checking their companions' equipment giving final inspections, all of them seem nervous and wary.
"Hey, do you have any idea what's going on?" A young soldier asks his companion, the person you always go to if you want to find out something.
"Not this time Jimmy." The other soldier answers, but once he sees that no one is paying attention to them, he turns to Jimmy and begins to whisper. "I heard we're going to rescue a Spartan team."
"Wha-? Are you sure?" Jimmy answers with a whisper in surprise, knowing very well that if they are going to mount a rescue the situation is totally screwed.
"That's what my friend said... to tell the truth I'm not sure, we only know that one of the Spartans on board the ship reported it, after that they spoke..." The soldier falls silent when he sees the entrance, where a Spartan group is entering.
Entering the room are a very varied group of Spartans, one of the best teams that participated in the battle of Reach, the NOBLE team. For a moment they didn't attract much attention, until behind them the 7 remaining Spartans of Team Beta also entered, as well as the members of the White team and Red Team.
"What the hell? Where the hell are we going?" "Why are they going to deploy all the Spartans on the ship!?" The soldiers began to murmur among themselves, more nervous than before, there are practically more than 20 Spartans in the room, all of the available on the ship.
"Officer on deck!" Immediately all the murmuring ends and the soldiers stand up and salute, standing at attention.
"Okay boys and girls! Listen up! We received a request for help, according to our records there is no UNSC world or installation here, however, ONI has physical files that prove otherwise." One older man say as he enter the room with him comes a man in black ODST armor and a woman in a black uniform. "Lieutenant please." The captain turns to his side where a woman advances.
"Greetings, let's do this quickly since we don't have time, Tiberius if you can please" A little blue man in Roman armor appears in a corner of the room and the lights in the room go off and a monitor appears on the wall showing a planet. "About 15 minutes ago we received a distress call from this planet, we decided to call it Blood Gulch. According to the record, this world was found in 2345, the history of this world is firstly scientific since apparently in this world it is always daytime.
After the planet was studied, it became a training center for the UNSC thanks to the enormous variety of biomes it has, however something happened and these records were deleted, we still cannot determine when or why. Which brings us to the next question... Lieutenant."
The person who they called is a Spartan in white armor, who is not wearing a helmet, showing a handsome man with white hair, the soldiers begin to murmur when they see him, after all it is not common to see a living legend, one that has dominated the entire course of the war.
It is true that humanity has only been defeated by the Covenant one after another, but the damage received by the UNSC is really acceptable, in the recent battle of Reach the world was lost, but weeks before it has been evacuated and in the end they managed to surprise the Covenant and destroy half of their fleet before formally engaging in combat.
The ensuing war was over an abandoned and fully fortified world, where they bled the Covenant, and even more so when all the facilities were full of explosives. In the end the battle ended with two-thirds of the Covenant fleet destroyed, with only 10 ships of the UNSC fleet, the rest initiated the Cole Protocol and led their Covenant pursuers into planned ambushes where they continued to lose ships.
But the Covenant soon left this pointless chase, yet the mastermind behind the entire operation was Lieutenant Lucius, from before he was always achieving strategic victories for the UNSC in any battle where he participated, he was called the man who dominates the galaxy.
However, said man does not move and it seems that he did not hear the woman and everyone observes how he seems to be thinking about something very carefully. Seeing this another Spartan in blue armor advanced.
"I am Commander Carter of the NOBLE team, at 6600 standard hour, one of our members discovered a jerky signal in this planet, as far as we know the ship does not detect it, but the important thing is that this signal is entering through an exclusive channel to the Spartan armor." Carter observes the soldiers who are watching him carefully and he turns to see the woman again.
"Unfortunately we cannot communicate with them, something seems to be blocking our communications, but Tiberius managed to obtain visual images that apparently they are also transmitting. These images are live with some delay from the distance." A video plays on the screen.
On the screen you can see a Spartan in a warthog shooting at a gigantic crowd of creatures, while the person shoots with his shotgun, some creatures similar to the Yanme'e or Drones fly in the air... but these creatures are more than 3 meters long... although they are quickly shot down by sniper rifle shots from a Spartan in blue from a elevated position.
["Keep fighting! Grif give me more ammo for my shotgun! This is the Blood Angels of Blood Gulch Outpost Number One! Do you read me? Respond god dammit!"] The camera pans around and you can see some soldiers in the area, some marines, soldiers, ODSTs, forming a small shooting squad some with their faces covered by gas masks...
"As you can see, UNSC forces are fighting what appears to be another alien race or alliance composed mainly of what appear to be insectoid creatures as the Spartan in Red armor with the shotgun says, they really do not seem very strong however their numbers are overwhelming... " as she explains there is one man that stands out from the rest.
["We draw the line here! Sergeants, pass the word out, we give no ground, we stand and we die in the name of the Emperor! As the Emperor protects, so must we!"] In the middle of an area free of these creatures is a person wearing a very peculiar suit with a gas mask, carrying a type of flamethrower in his right hand burning everything that approaches him and with his left hand firing a very disproportionate pistol.
"A Nazi?" A voice is heard in the room while several whispers are heard, but it clearly says what everyone else thinks, what the hell is a Nazi doing fighting there and the way he fights he is practically on the level of the Spartans in the area.
"That person... is Colonel Leonhard Hauser a very... eccentric person, he disappeared during the battle of the planet Sargasso, apparently this is where he was, since one of the soldiers without mask there is Sergeant Cha Hae-In of the ODST leader of the Gamma-Six squad who was deployed to said planet too." Daisy quickly turns around to see the screen.
["The enemy is not the Covenant, I repeat, we are facing a new race of hostile forces!"] They can hear the Red Spartan's voice continuing to broadcast without knowing that their message was heard.
"We have identified several of the unmasked people in the area, all of them participated in the battle of the planet Sargasso, so we can assume that they are all survivors of this-." The explanation is interrupted as we see new events unfold on the screen.
More Spartans appear in the area, one in whitish metallic armor with yellow trim, another with bronze armor and silver trim, one more in blue armor and another in cyan and finally two more with purple armor and green trim.
["Listen you idiots! what the fuck is going on here? North you know something about what's going on" The one with yellow trims yell.
"If you don't remember, we came at the same time as you Wash... weren't we supposed to finish them off?" One of the purple Spartans responds.
"Without a doubt this will force the Director to come out..." The woman in the cyan armor start to fight against the alien forces, the rest of them look at each other and starts fighting too.]
"As you can see the situation is critical, the ship will enter orbit in approximately another 20 minutes, meanwhile you will all be deployed to the surface in the next 5 minutes. Questions?" None of those present pay much attention, since the image seems to have been frozen.
"Tiberius what happened?" The captain ask the AI.
"Apparently as we get closer to the planet the transmissions are updating faster, we estimate that the delay we had is between 5 to 10 minutes, this would be the actual current transmission with a delay of about 10 to 15 seconds..." The AI answers and show a new video.
["There is some kind of bright light to the north of our position and I can see more of these bugs coming out of there!" They hear a woman's voice and when the camera turns they can see a Marine on top of the windmill.
"We cannot hold them we need to retreat!" One of the Spartans yells as he continue shooting. "We don't have enough bullets to finish them off!"]
The video shows how even with more Spartans fighting the situation does not improve much, in addition to the fact that there are new types of bugs attacking them, a kind of scorpion, another giant brown bug with a blue horn.
["Retreating? RETREATING!? ..." You can see the person in the Nazi suit walk towards the Spartan who said that. "We never retreat. We fight and we die, that's the Emperor will." The man only walks to one side looking around.
"We are going to attack them, we need to get to that light that Randgris saw, it is surely the solution to this problem, take all the ammunition you can, we are leaving in 1! CABOOSE WE ARE LEAVING!!"]
All the people present are surprised by the tenacity of the man, few confront a Spartan face to face and fewer manage to make them obey without using their rank, they can see how everyone is taking as much as they can and a blue soldier that they had not seen comes out from among piles of bug corpses, along with two other women who carry some kind of energy swords.
["THAT WAS FUN! It's a shame they can't play with me much!" The blue Spartan says as he laughs with a bug's jaw in his hand attacking everything that crosses his path.
"That's good Caboose, prepare yourself, we will go to their home." They just watch as the Spartan shouts Okay as he moves towards the other blue Spartans.
"Hey Church! I have come back!" The camera moves again and the reds Spartans are seen taking ammunition and grenades from the warthog, after exactly one minute they alone advance towards the Colonel.
"Let's give them hell! PREPARE TO CHARGE! FOR HUMANITY! FOR THE EMPEROR!"]
The video shows how the man in a Nazi suit takes a sword with a chainsaw in his right hand and launches himself against the enemies, behind him the Blue and Red Spartans follow him with what look like lightsabers and firing their weapons, followed by the human soldiers... after some seconds the rest of the Spartans decide to follow them and the transmission is cut down.
"And that apparently is the last transmission received..." The AI says, as he shows a image of the planet again.
"Very well, Men you have your jobs, now go there and provide support. Everyone prepare to deploy!" The man in ODST armor standing next to the captain shouts, causing everyone to stand and move.
All the ODST and Spartans quickly move to their SOEIVs drop pods and prepare to be deployed to the surface, with the Spartan groups leaving 2 minutes before the rest to secure a deployment area. None of the soldiers speak on the way, they are all really nervous knowing that they will have to face a new alien race.
While they are launched into space they can see how two other ships launch their capsules as well, apparently this will be a complete deployment with all the surviving ODST teams on board. A minute later the ODSTs are also launched into space, accelerating towards the planet.
The minutes of waiting quickly become seconds as soon as they pass the layer of the atmosphere, until their pods falls heavily to the ground and opens, quickly entering into combat against those creatures, following the intelligence instructions to shoot them in the abdomen. The ODST should not face many, as the Spartan teams have given the area a quick sweep.
"We detected a huge energy overload in the city center, all teams be careful!" One of the ODST with a strange gear speaks to everyone through their transmitters, to tell the truth these enemies are not that strong, but there are too many of them.
Quickly all the ODST begin to join the defensive perimeter created by the Spartans, once the ODST secured the perimeter the Spartans began to advance although they are quickly stopped a few meters ahead, if this continue they will run out of ammunition before they can secure a route to the anomaly.
So the Spartans have no choice but to advance slowly, saving all the ammunition they can, at least until they can secure a supply route, although this is something that bothers them a lot, to think that they can wipe out entire armies and they are detained here simply because of enormous size difference.
So after more than 1 hour of combat they finally managed to reach the center of the city, where they found the Spartans from the video sitting on what can only be called the largest beetle that has ever existed.
"You're late to the party! We ran out of cake and confetti, but if you like you can still participate in the barbecue!" A Spartan in orange armor speaks to them, behind him they see a Spartan in pink armor throwing grenades at some beetles that exhale fire before dying in a explosion.
"Where is the Colonel!? You have seen him!?" Daisy quickly approaches the Spartans on the bug, being followed by Lucius, who wasted no time and took off his helmet.
"Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow! Hey I'm super hot from all the bug killing, so... who wants to help me out of this heavy armor?" Tucker says although Daisy doesn't even pay attention to him and moves towards Simmons.
"Are you looking at the Commissar? It disappeared when we closed the portal." Simmons answer.
"And he take all the girls with him! Bastard!" Tucker with his sword approaches Daisy and the rest of the new Spartans.
"So... who are you? Iowa? Kentucky? Arizona?" Church ask annoyed as he shoot his sniper at some flying bugs.
"Listen to me well! I am Lieutenant Lucius of the UNSC, not a member of their Freelancer program, so I want answers now." After Lucius says that, the red and blue present look at each other.
"I imagined it taller." Donut comment.
"Hey are you okay miss...?" Simmons says as he see Daisy going kneeling where she is.
"Daisy? What is wrong?" Cal walks up to Daisy and puts her hand on her shoulder.
"He... disappeared... although I wouldn't know what to say to him if I saw him..." Daisy sits on the floor and takes off her helmet, once again showing her feelings despite years of indoctrination.
"Who disappeared? The Coronel?" Lucius ask Daisy clearly concerned about it.
"Yes... he is my uncle, from my mother's side, I saw him a few times before... what happened, even so I remember very well how he treated me and how everyone in the family was proud of him..." Daisy stands up and shows an indifferent face again, although anyone who knew her would know it was a lie.
The rest of those present remain silent, only listening to the sound of continuous gunshots in the background, the reds and blues do not say much either, everyone was sad except for one Lucius. He shows a face of complete surprise upon hearing this.
'Is this... an unknown Halo story? No... I believe that this person is also someone who was transported too. But, if it must be, this world is now real, of course people are no longer just fictional characters, they all have their lives and pasts no... why the hell he was a Commisar of Krieg!? He has to be another reincarnated or transported!!' Lucius thinks while he cannot understand what is happening, but before he can continue thinking Donut approaches him.
"Hmm... Lucius sir, the Commissar told me to give this to you if I ever saw you, plus he also left this here... you might want to have it miss.".Donut says while giving a letter to Lucius and one of the lightsabers to Daisy. "The Commissar had say that I will know what to do with this and I think he wanted to give it to you."
Daisy does nothing more than take the lightsaber in her hands, observing it carefully, at first glance it looks like a laser weapon, but observing it closely it really does not have any sign that it is a technological product... it was clearly forged by hand...
For his part, Lucius sees the paper in his hand with a strange fear filling him, doubting whether he should open it now or later, he really didn't have any plan in case something like that happened, although in the end his pride overcomes his fear and he opens the paper and wishes he hadn't read it...
"What it says Lucius? Why does it seem like you saw a ghost?" A huge Spartan asks him and all the other Spartans are waiting for his answer. Seeing that Lucius really doesn't know what to tell them, Jorge takes the note from his hand and reads the content...
"Hmmm...." The huge Spartan just makes a noise and stares at the note.
"And well, what does it say? Why did he leave Lucius like this? Come on say it now." Another Spartan asks him.
"It doesn't really say anything Malcolm, it only has two words written on it, it's not that I don't understand them, but I really don't understand their meaning..." After saying this he shows the paper to Malcom and Joshua, who in turn passed the image to the rest of the Spartans and to the Ship in orbit...
"I really don't think I understand... maybe.... hey Daisy! Do you know what this means?" One of the Spartans turns to Daisy and asks. Daisy approaches and looks closely at the note. "Well?"
"I feel like I've heard it before... but at the moment I don't remember anything James... I was very small at that time..." James who asked him nods his head without much surprise, really all Spartans remember very little of their previous lives. "Are you okay Luc?" Daisy ask to a stunned Lucius.
But he didn't respond, he continue to think in the only two words are written on the paper, two words that really mean nothing, but for a person like Lucius, it really aroused enormous paranoia that he probably won't get out of anytime soon.... in the paper only it's written: Hydra Dominatus.