The Battle

(Chief's Perspective)

I was currently pinned down by an enemy Spectre that continued to harass us from the tight and confined alleyways and roadways of Mombasa. Plasma shots came from nowhere hit us or slowed us before the vehicle took off again. The constructs of the Veritas Imperium were too preoccupied with the main threats, the Wraith Tanks. The constructs were truly formidable as they tanked several hits from the Wraith and fired their weaponry into the hulls of said tanks. If i were to rank them from 1 to 10 I would say they were an 11. They were seemingly indestructible and had a lot of energy to fire outwards.

The Veritas Imperium soldiers were in the trenches with us and were sustaining their fire on the Covenant soldiers above, their weapons stripping the buildings of their molecular integrity.

"That weaponry is more advanced than what I have seen from the forerunners... Be careful John."

"I always am Cortana." My voice was muffled inside the helmet as a concentrated blast of crystalline projectiles slammed into the stone in front of me. The entire area was a rubble wasteland, metal piping, cement and steel jutting from the ground, buildings and sewers. I was starting to consider running up on the enemy Spectre to get us out of the horrible situation when a Veritas Imperium soldier stood up and began to run towards the enemy position. His eyes were red and spinning, i found it strange but considering this was a faction that could seemingly out power the Covenant I didn't take the weirdness too heavily. I was not going to let him suicidally charge though, I started to chase after him when I saw the Covenant soldiers all fall backwards, purple and red blood spilling down their faces as the Spectre alit in dark black and white fire.

I knew the fire would do nothing to the spectre due to the shielding so i grasped for one my grenades and sprinted for the Spectre. Before I knew however, the Spectre was melting into a molten slag heap. I ceased my sprint and jumped behind cover as I witnessed the man from earlier making some odd finger movements before he put them up to his face. Seconds later a mass of fire spewed out from seemingly nowhere and consumed the Covenant forces. Cheering could be heard from the Veritas Soldiers as they started to chant some lyrics, presumably from their nation's anthem.

"John, I could not analyse what that was... The most I know is that the surrounding molecules gained energy suddenly and gathered before his hand, projecting outwards as they achieved chemical heating points necessary for fire to be made."

"Magic..."

"I disagree with the idea of Magic existing, magic is just science we have not discovered yet."

"So it is fair to call it magic, seeing as how we can't explain it."

"I am not agreeing to that."

The surroundings became quiet as slowly the remnant Covenant forces died or ran away. The Veritas Soldiers were all checking their equipment before slowly working through maintenance checks on the constructs. Apparently the constructs were fine as their engineers snickered and started to laugh.

"The buggers couldn't even scratch the paint!"

"Hahahahaha!" The squads laughed out loud as they quickly secured the perimeter, taking out some small grunts here and there. Me and my squad were blown away by the casualness of these forces, this was a war, a rugged and hard fought battle... Not a laughing gallery. I had an urge to punch one of them but quickly reigned it in as I started to make sure my own Team was fine. I hadn't worked with this team long, my old team having to be reassigned as other Spartans died off or were injured. My new Team were a bunch of Spartan III's, arrogant and a little annoying but ultimately just as effective.

"We are close to the dig site, we need to clear the area of enemies and secure a beach head before going down into the dig."

"Understood Chief." One of the captains of the Veritas Imperium just nodded, the other smiling as my own squad was the one to respond. I couldn't blame the Veritas Troops, they existed within a different chain of command.

...

It had been a few hours since that battle earlier and we had now secured the dig site entryway. There were a few waves of enemies that tried to take back their site but they were easily repelled by the Veritas Troops who had been carrying portable shielding arrays, a fact I had only gotten to know about recently.

With the entry way secured and defended we descended down into the depths of the dig site. The environment around me turned from the heated, ashy wind of the surface to a chilly dampness as we slide down ropes into a large cavern below. Surrounding the rope were numerous barrels, UNSC in origin as the noises of grunts and some Elites resounded from up ahead.

My team acted quickly and efficiently as we snuck up on these forces and slit their throats before softly setting them down. I picked up some of their weaponry and gazed over the ammunition left in them. It was full and the weapon seemed unused as of the last hour, not enough heat on the barrels of components of the weapons. Signalling to my team we quickly started to clear the chambers ahead, one by one, until we had cleared out all threats that were not down another smaller hole. One after another we went down the hole, myself being the fist amongst my squad to go down as the entire subterranean tunnel shrunk to a standard Spartan size.

Gunfire sounded from up ahead as the cries of soldiers blithered out. I started to carefully but quickly move ahead, my squad slowly coming down the hole as i scouted. I traversed the tunnel and quickly found that it opened into a gargantuan chamber with a massive shining beacon of light in the centre. Underneath tis beacon was a large collection of Covenant forces and surprisingly, an elder. The being was old, wiry and was sitting on a floating chair of gold and white colouration.

The entire situation cried out something fishy, especially when he saw Dr Halsey being slowly tortured by the Covenant soldiers.

"You know of ancestral technology... You will tell us the use of this one."

"I'd rather die..." She spat some blood towards the Covenant soldier that was interrogating her, the elder looking on in anger and frustration. I didn't know what to make of it but when my squad mates began to move forwards I turned and ushered them into a secure spot. I would need to secure Dr Halsey and end the threat of the Covenant here.

"John, that tech is of Forerunner design. I do not know it specific intent or abilities but it seems similar to other slip space portal technologies."

The information was not helpful but seemed to add context to the desires of the Covenant forces. I gazed over at a dead human off to the side, one of the Dr's assistants, most likely they were used as a hostage against Halsey. 'Didn't seem to work on her. The importance of this artefact must be immense to the UNSC.'

I signed a few of my squad members and got them to slowly and carefully pan into the wider chamber.

"You are a very persistent human. I admire you for that stubbornness, however, we can annihilate your entire species if we wished to do so... Would you like to gamble with such a result?" The elder's words were laced in obvious malice and malevolence as he looked off towards a communications device.

"You wouldn't dare!"

"Of course we would, why would we not exterminate a nuisance?"

The rest of my team were in place and the snipers of my squad set up within their hidey-holes. They were all waiting for my signal, their nerves perfectly calm and settled as if this was merely another training exercise. One of the Elites began to slowly walk over to the Comms station as the Elder grinned madly and evilly.

"Cortana send them the message."

"And, its done..."

The room broke out into a cacophony of sundering gunshots as the high powered AP sniper rifle's rounds perforated the body of the Elder and Elite. I started to charge down the slope as the other more close range squad members took off after me. Halsey was surprised but seemed to relax on the metallic device she was strung up on. In mere moments the entire force of the Covenant were wiped out but us and Halsey was free... Whatever they had wanted, they did not get.

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Tadah!

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