Halo: The Greatest Journey(a key490 and ∞ collab.)

[Tenyasyugan]

Crusoe didn't exactly mind the fact that approximately thirty minutes of the descent would be spent with him unconscious. In fact, the thought normally had him grinning. It showed a person just how strange a word like 'time' could be. Entering the, albiet crowded, transport vehicle, E.G. sat in a rather slumped form. Falling was never what set him on edge, it was the landing. Despite the great technology the transport systems had nowadays, there was always the odds of some human error costing lives. He'd rather be dieing fighting then dieing getting to the fight.

A countdown, and then blackout.

All he knew of the landing was the sudden jolt of the anti-shock wings extending and softening the fall of the vehicle.
His leutenant on this mission was up and moving before him and had opened up one of the roofing panels to the outside. He spent a moment studying what must've been the Stormrunner and proceeded to cuss. What had he missed during the stasis setting? Evade fire... There was an attack in motion? Ah, so the Covenant had decided to give them a run for their money. Should've known that. Wait... He was expecting this!

Grabbing his rifle, Crusoe looked to Deus. "What are the suggested actions for this? Set up the Stormrunner a shield or save what we came for?" This was most certainly not going to be a hum-drum mission.

[XIII-Allan]

Allan

I heard the explosions and immediately sprinted in the direction. Thanks to the speed of my suit, I was able to make good time, but I had had to slow down so I wouldn't bowl anyone over. I arrived next to the Captain and an ODST soldier. I slipped my pistol out of it's hip holster and cocked it, "This should be fun." I muttered, looking over the scene. I saw some people dying, others fighting, and some still rushing to help.

[key490]

Mark began blindfireing from his location. There were too many Covenant to concentrate on whilst trying to get the transports out of the hangar. He looked over at the crew members trying to get the Seraph's blades out of the walls. They were losing too many people to be able to work efficently. Mark turned to Riley and said, "Lieutenant, I need you to get over there and cover those techs. Make sure they get their job done." After that, Mark turned his attention to the Covenant. They had to leave one member of each squad alive. mark took down a brute and a grunt, leaving just a jackal in one of the squads. Mark ducked as another wave of plasma fire headed his way. This was going to be tough.

[XIII-Allan]

Allan

I jumped, soaring over the field and began shooting at Covenants with surprising accuracy for a pistol. I landed and began running, so fast I almost seemed a blur. I reloaded a couple times, but I claimed a covenant with each bullet.

[∞]

The Warthog was the first of the things to land. Deus detached it from his chest as he swooped down low, then with a sharp upwards turn, he deactivated the photon-wings, and fell back the ground, landing with a thud as Crusoe stepped out of his drop-pod. The private approached him, and asked for the appropriate course of action. The Spartan replied quickly and surely: "I've already contacted the captain." He spoke as he then hopped into the Warthog, Crusoe jumping in the passenger seat. "I've told him to take evasive actions and minimise attacking the ships and getting attacked by them. They've already been boarded, and we've got Wraiths coming in on our position. We'll persist as we do, because when we activate the disc, its defences will soon be online, and we can then blast the Covenant ships out of the sky."

As Crusoe commented, he called up a contour map of the area around him, and around it were glowing dots, indicative of the other drop pods. Deus spun the wheel, and headed straight towards them. He didn't mention the current status of the ship to any of them until they were all gathered and could be told all in one go. Their reactions were far from positive, but it also galvanised in them the renewed importance of the mission.

After that, he called up Athena. "Are you in yet?" She responded calmly. "The system, because of my access attempt, has forced me into a containment partition. As soon as you put in place the signal converter though, I'll be more fully functional." Deus eyed the ridges around him, weary of the approaching Covenant threat. He approached the activation spire, and slowed down. "Nelson, Mathers. Hop off and act as sentry, stand just within the archway so you're covered but can both see out." The two soldiers gave their 'rogers' and jumped off as they coached past the entry point of the structure.

Deus proceeded at a slow roll, giving each person the opportunity to peer down the corridors that branched out from the large central one. Down each of them, Deus, when he took his eyes of the path ahead, easily spotted computer terminals at each. It seemed this disc could be an informational gold mine.

He drove further in, for perhaps five hundred metres, when the path split in two around a large ring, in the middle of it, a holographic representation of the disc, just like the displays of the Halos and The Ark within their own Installations. Deus stepped out and quickly ran over to a prominent computer console, large displays of translatable language that Deus didn't bother with. He demagnetised the signal converter from his hip, and slapped it onto the computer, which it then adhered to. "There you go, Athena. Full access?" Athena, calm as ever, replied in a voice magnified through speakers in the cavernous control room. "As much as we'll need for this. I'll prep the system for human recognition, you get yourself un-gloved to do the deed."

===================

Red Team and Blue Team had always been enemies. They had always been ridiculously incompetent. Each team had always been highly dysfunctional. Those three things melded together to make what was probably the greatest comic relief on the Stormrunner. Each team was all-male. Blue Team had Church, Tucker and Caboose. One cynical and angry, another lazy, and another stupid. The Red Team had Sarge (by nickname only), Grif, Simmons and Doughnut. They were demanding, lazy, stupidly loyal, and possibly homosexual, respectively. Between the two, always oscillating, was a purple-armoured marine known as DuFresne, a medical officer who was probably the most qualified of the lot.

As the Covenant spread through the ship, they still didn't waste time insulting each other and even shooting at each other. What made it even more hilarious was the fact that some of the stupidity actually got a large number of a Covenant squad killed. Caboose, incapable of perceiving true danger, greeted a Grunt as though it were a friend. The Grunt lowered its weapon as it cautiously approached Caboose, and Church, although being a horrible shot, squeezed off a lucky bullet with a sniper rifle, which penetrated the small alien's head. All Caboose did was lament he had fallen asleep before he could say hello.

Tucker's cowardice meant he was left running from the Covenant, but moved in a distinct loop. The Reds picked up on this, but in trying to take down Tucker, in fact took down several of the Covenant.

[Piercing Light]

Kaiade didn't mind being in a state of sleep for most of the trip to the disk. It spared her from being too bored. What she did mind however was that it was very cramped. There was barely enough room to do anything.

Kaiade awakened when the drop pod's anti-shock wings activated. As it landed The pod crumpled deforming it and making the space she had even smaller. It seemed the pod had landed on something that didn't agree with the pod's armour. "Ugh... of all the problems". Kaiade said in a annoyed soft voice. Reaching her bag she could cut through the door with a laser tool. That would take too long though. Kaiade pulled out her energy katana and turned it on. The silver saber light lit up the inside of the pod. She stuck the blade in the door and cut the hinges. She then put the blade back and swung a right punch sending the door flying off. Kaiade jumped out and stretched her back. She made her way over towards the team. She took a place in the Warthog and examined the scenery. The old structures seemed to be in working order, this was confirmed to be true as Deus used a nearby computer terminal. Kaiade paid attention to the surrounding area. Hoping a Covenant ambush didn't strike.

[gene chaos]

" dammit, don't let those seraph's get through !!, tighten the formation !!" he shouted over his radio. " roger that " said a voice. " captain i got an idea , i have two shiva warheads when the pulse turets fire the shield will momentarly drop when that happens i'll slide in and set the charges to blow and get out the blast radius, i need you to shield the computers so they don't fry. don't worry bout the blast the shield should hold that in, you know this so doesn't sound suicidal "

Dodging incoming fire from seraphs he came upon the massive covenant ship, he barrel rolled at the last second to avoid several pulse beams." there" he said looking at a turret powering up, speeding up he pulled up at the last second to avoid the hull. the top of his longsword was hitting the shield. setting the timer for 20 seconds he dropped them onto the ships hull. he moved toward the end off the ship in sight of a charging turret. spotting one on the lower half of the ship he slowed down to exit the same time as weapon fired. the beam shot off. he pushed his engines to the max as he raced to get out. 10 seconds. arcing upward he exited from the ships shield, he rocked in the cockpit" what?! shit lost my tail!!" his longsword became shaky from the loss of its tail. looking at his radar it showed 2 pings closing in on him, the seraphs speed up to match his longsword's speed.

"i need backup over here!!", he shouted. "i'm on it " a voice replied, two gauss beams hit the second ship it bust into flames. the other ship fired several rounds at Sersta's ship the longsword behind had just fired at the ship destroying it but not before Sersta's left wing had gotten ripped off. spiraling out of control toward the storm runners launch bay " i so hope i don't miss" he thought before blacking out...

[∞]

Hydrozoa detected Sertsa's loss of consciousness, and took remote control of the ship. With Sertsa unconscious and controlling the ship like it was an extension of his body, Hyde sent it barreling about, dodging shots as best as it was able, while returning the damaged Longsword to the Stormrunner. It took a round-about path, coming to the far side of the ship, the bays there undamaged. The Longsword was quietly landed, and Sertsa left there.

The Covenant ship that was struck by Sertsa's warheads was split right down the middle, the two halves gradually moving away from each other and rotating slowly. As the ship slowly failed, dozens of Covenant crew scrambled to various dropships. Some of them flew out of the remains of the ship towards the Stormrunner, intent on revenge, while others flew to the last remaining Covenant ship.

Hyde's voice came up on the ship-wide intercom: "Crew of the Stormrunner, I regretfully inform you that all of our turrets, missiles and other ship-board gun emplacements are either destroyed or empty. All external ships are to return to the Stormrunner immediately. As per Deus' command, I will then engage evasive maneouvres until the disc' defence system can come online and blast the last Covenant ship out of the sky."

==================

Deus waited anxiously for nearly a minute while Athena and Hydrozoa traversed the virtual space of the Precursor systems. He needed to activate the artefact as soon as possible, true, but he also needed to have its defences ready to fire as soon as possible, which would require preparations. "Are we good to go yet?" Deus asked for the third time. Several seconds passed, before both Hydrozoa and Athena responded. "Affirmative."

"Better late than never."

With a satisfying thud, Deus brought his bare hand down on the console, onto a specifically-outlined area. A low humming immediately began, that quickly grew in pitch and volume. Several seconds passed.

Fifty million kilometres away, the silver orb that contained the sun was immutable, and almost just as black as the rest of the disc. In the space of an instant, it vanished. A wave of light spread out from the sun, bathing the surface of the discworld in its pale yellow light.

For the first time in millions of years, it was dawn on the discworld.

Hyde's voice rang out in Deus' ear:
"Sir, Mathers and Nelson are dead."

[King Wolfe]

Running over to the techs avoiding fire as best as he could, unfortunitly a plasma shot seared across his leg. Rolling into cover, and soon regretted doing that, he held his leg in pain. "Damn it! What is this armor supposed to do? Oh yeah right, protect me from shit like this!" He yelled out, revealing his position to about half the room. Grabbing his sniper rifle he quickly rose up and shot a bullet that landed right between the brute's eyes. "Boo-yah mother-!" A loud plasma explosion prevented him from finishing that sentence.

Ducking avoiding another plasma grenade his mind began to race through thoughts just like a big-boned man at a McDonald's. "'Join the military' Pa says, 'It'll be good for you in the long run' he says, 'They'll pay for your college' he says." He mumbled to himself as he took down three grunts with his battle rifle. Then he was punched by what felt like a train, being slammed into the wall he looked up at his offender, a very angry brute. Growling and snarling at the downed ODST the brute angrily raised his hands and slammed at Kipp, only to find he was gone. Kipp jumped on the brute's back and hacked away at his neck with his knife, after 10 slashes the brute's neck was left stained purple with his own blood, he threw off Kipp and proceeded to stomp on his stomach.

"Oh, come on- Ugh! This isn't fu- Ugh!" He braced himself for the coup de grace but only heard a large bang from a sniper rifle. Looking up the brute fell dead. Sighing in relief he looked at his savior, one of the marines. Nodding acceptingly, he and many other people are on Kipp's 'List of People Who Saved My Ass'. Right above Sgt Avery Johnson.

[∞]

"Shit." Deus muttered. "We're sitting ducks in here!" He yelled out to his team. "They're blocking the way we came in. Maybe there's another way we can get out. Look for anything like an elevator, or other corridors. If nothing else, we can ambush them!" Deus then called up Athena and Hydrozoa. "Can you get us anywhere?"

"In fact, we can." Came Hydrozoa. "Immediately behind you is a large elevator unit, big enough to fit a phantom into. But there are other elevators, and I can already see the Covenant moving in on hover vehicles, banshees and ghosts, so they'll be on to you quickly. The line of lights you saw stretching from the inner rim to the outer rim are part of an underground relay system. You can ride it nearly all the way out, but you'll need to stop every two million kilometres or so to change the 'cart' you're on. Covenant are also moving to those positions, but it's your best bet right now." Deus relayed the information quickly to his team, and commanded them into the Warthog, which he then drove to the back wall of the control room. A single large panel lifted up, and behind it was indeed a large alcove, which Deus drove his team in to.

The lift began slowly, but quickly picked up speed. After a while, Deus came to the conclusion that gravity modifiers were being used, because they must have been travelling at thousands of kilometres an hour, but Deus felt as heavy as normal. The world seemed far to still and stationary when they had all finished the ten-minute descent in total silence.

And to greet them, far earlier than they should have been, was an emerging squad of Brutes.

[key490]

Mark slung the shotgun across his back, realizing he was out of shells. Mark threw another one of his frags right towards two brutes, sending them flying across the hangar bay. Suddenly, the AI Hydrozoa's voice came over the intercom, announcing that the turrets were gone. Shit, now we are defenseless against those ships Mark said to himself. He rolled over to a new cover position after seeing a Grunt toss a plasma grenade towards his location and quickly started thinking of a plan. Mark could see that the techs had finished their job and started retreating. The he had a bright idea. There was a button that would deactivate the hangar bay shield. Now that the blades had been cut off the transports, deactivating the shield would suck the ships into the vastness of space. Mark tossed one more grenade towards a group of Grunts and then shouted, "Alright, everybody get out of the hangar." Mark ran towards the airlock door where the energy shield button was. Once he was sure everybody was out of the hangar, Mark closed the airlock door and deactivated the shield. Both transports and the rest of the Covenant troops were sent into space. Mark reactivated the shield and opened the airlock door. Now, they just had to wait for the artifact to be activated.

[XIII-Allan]

Allan

"Why didn't we do that earlier?" I wondered aloud, looking at the now almost clean hangar.

[∞]

"No such victory yet, captain." Hydrozoa's voice came up on a speaker unit close to Mark Dallo. "The Covenant Seraphs are gone, but numerous squads are still present in the ship. While we need not worry about the detonation of miniature plasma warheads, said squads pose a very real risk to our ships systems." Mark Dallo growled at the AI's condescending tone. "I get the idea, can't you let me bask in a little bit of victory?" Hyde's response came quickly. "Once all Covenant threats have been repelled and extinguished, most certainly."

====================

Fuck was the one thought that came through Deus' mind as the Brutes came into his sight. They all carried their trademark handgun weapon, dubbed colloquially as Spikers. They could be worse than bullets, red-hot spikes of metal that would embed into armour and flesh more effectively than any shelled weapon. Deus had a split second decision, because he knew that once the Brutes realised the human force was in a vehicle, they would go straight for their Spike Grenades, a more chaotic version of their guns that would not only stick to a target, but explode and send molten shrapnel flying too.

Deus slammed his foot on the accelerator, and yelled out the one-world command: "Fire!" Straight after speaking, Deus abandoned his care for his fellow soldiers. It wasn't selfishness that did it, he just knew he had to get past the line of brutes no matter what. He heard the gentle whoosh of the firing of spikes, and the steady booms of his team mate's shelled ammunition. The turret too, loudest of all, was blaring away at six rounds a second, with Kaiade at the trigger. Then he heard exactly the sound he dreaded, two metres from the approaching enemies.

He looked around desperately for the Brute that had ignited the Spike Grenade, but a pack mentality shared among the relatively primitive beings meant that it was unlikely only one would be preparing to throw it. Right on the reckoning, it was two Brutes, equally left and right of the centre, who were prepping their grenades. Deus managed to mow down three Brutes as he broke through the line, and out of his peripheral vision, he could tell four more had fallen victim to his team. At the same moment, he also traced the incoming path of the two Spike Grenades. He forced Minerva into the data systems of the vehicle, to remotely control it, and force all wheels to act independently of each other.

The Warthog executed a slide, the back wheels sliding out to the right, and the vehicle came in-line with the grenades, one to the front, one to the back. The one at the front didn't matter, the bonnet of the vehicle was super-hardened, and the spikes wouldn't penetrate the glass of the windshield. The one on the back was far more problematic. Mind you, it could have been worse, the grenade could have landed right in the middle of all the soldiers gathering in the back, but in this case, it had landed on one of the supporting bars of the tray, right next to Maverick.

The male ODST turned his head as he probably shouldn't have done, as the grenade exploded. The majority of the spikes were sent away from the passengers, but three of them went straight for Maverick. Two lodged themselves in his helmet, but not deep enough to touch skin. They would be permanently melted there, the helmet would have to be scrapped. The last one, the third, however, went somewhere more dangerous, right towards Maverick's unprotected neck.

When Deus recognised the sound of a grenade fixing onto his vehicle, he turned to face it, and stared wide-eyes as Maverick turned. He began yelling even before the grenade had exploded, and slammed on the brakes. He turned to Aadyn in the passenger seat right next to him. "Get on to Maverick!" The doctor quickly complied, but also asked why they stopped. "I'm getting some revenge for Maverick. Kaiade', sniper rifle!" The female soldier quickly complied, chucking it down to Deus.

The Spartan immediately dropped down on one leg, and brought the rifle up to his shoulder, and peered down it's scope, the nose of the Brute already in his sights. Aiming slightly up, he fired, then with no waste of time, swept the rifle to the left, and with a similar shot, this time in the neck, ensured that whole Brute pack was dead. He handed the sniper rifle quickly back up to Kaiade'. "Crusoe, in shotgun with me." He too quickly complied to the voice of the now-angrier Spartan.

Deus was back in the driver's seat soon enough, and brought his foot straight down on the accelerator. They travelled about a kilometre before they found themselves on a massive hexagon plate, each side five kilometres in length. The tunnel the Deus could make out with his own eyes extended into infinity, but he knew there were still five or six more tunnels beyond this one. There was a single protrusion in the entirety of the flat plate, a small vertical post with a screen atop it. Deus moved to it, and placed his hand on it, knowing it just needed the confirmation of his species, and Athena would take care of the rest.

[key490]

Mark turned to the remainder of his crew and shouted, "Alright men, I want this ship cleaned of all alien presence. After you kill them, I want them tossed out into space. I don't want their stench stinking up my ship. Now move!" As his crew began moving to different parts of the ships with their goal in mind, Mark turned to Lt. Riley and said, "Lieutenant, I need you to take a few men and get down to the engines. More than likely, the aliens will try to sabotage them in order for us to remain a stationary target." Afterwards, Mark turned to leave and head for the bridge. They needed to keep moving to avoid being hit by the Covenant ships. After walking the long hallways back, Mark arrived at the bridge and sat down in his captain's chair. Pressing a button on the side of his chair, Mark was given full control of the Stormrunner. Mark kept dodging Covenant fire, waiting for the call from Deus.

[∞]

The platform moved at phenomenal speeds for all its size. The walls, kilometres away, whizzed by as total blurs. Every now and then, Deus saw a darker spot for the briefest instant, and, calling up Hydrozoa and Athena on it, realised that it was another off-shoot of the massive transport relays. They had been moving for about a minute now, and Aadyn had been able to stabilise Maverick's neck-wound. The flesh was a bit seared, and not to mention melted to the metal of the spike, but they both helped a lot, stopping a good deal of the bleeding. Nothing some nanorobots couldn't fix. Aadyn had applied some biofoam, and then placed a cushioned collar around Mavericks neck. The ODST had been sedated, because even if the wound was kept plugged, it also hurt a hell of a lot.

As their time on the platform passed into two minutes, he called up both Athena and Hydrozoa once more, to check up on their progress along the transportation platforms, along their journey to the outer rim. Athena came through: "The platforms must be using technologies highly similar to Disregard and Proportional Mass Acceleration Drives, because you're both travelling faster than the speed of light, and we've never been able to get something as small as that platform to move that fast. Either way, it doesn't matter. The faster you're back to the Stormrunner, the better. The ship's holding together, and finally moved into its evasive manoeuvres, but the final Covenant ship is still chasing it, and there are enemy squads still aboard. The charging of the defence system, a solar-plasma laser one, as expected, will be done charging in about three minutes, by which time you'll be at your next stop. It's not an on-off trip to the outside. Even this, the largest portion of the transport tunnels, only stretches a quarter of the way. You'll be having to get off four times and on three. There are Covenant at the next stop, but I can't identify exactly what they are, unusual quantum effects prevent me from doing so."

"The middle stop is empty, I guess the Covenant don't have the luxury of size and speed to get themselves there. The final stop is the only other one with Covenant, and it's a big squad. Some of the Seraphs that moved from the Covenant ships landed inside the docking bay at the end of this massive tunnel. If the Stormrunner is safe by then and able to, I'll have soldiers sent to hit the Covenant in a pincer attack and give you the time and space to make your way out." Deus was silent for several seconds, thinking to himself, before he replied. "Excellent news, Athena. I'll let the captain know, personally."

Deus did so, disengaging the AICs and bringing up Mark Dallo. "Captain, good news!" He said in a voice all-too-cheery, but one that did bring news better than the worse.

========================

Three minutes passed, and as the platform carrying the Warthog carrying the squad of seven was about to slow down for its destination, the defence system of the discworld was ready.

For about five seconds, the star at the centre lost all traces of darkness on its surface, sunspots disappeared, and for an instant, the entire thing was a single-colour glowing orb. At that moment, it flared white, and sent out a spherical pulse of massive solar winds that were visible as a faint cloud of dust. The winds quickly crossed the space between the sun and the inner rim, but instead of being allowed to flow out of the threshold of the inside, they were caught by an invisible and spherical force field. The particles flowed for as long as they did, smacking against the invisible surface and collecting on it. Once done, every single bit of the energised dust move 'upwards' to the north pole of the sun in perspective to Deus' team's position. The dust condensed into a single sphere of brilliant white light, as bright as a supernova, the size of a city.

Then, it was all released.

The beam, from some unknown quirk of the defence system itself, crossed the gap between the sun and the last Covenant ship in only a few seconds, despite exceeding the speed of light. The beam of light didn't even strike the Covenant ship. That is, there was no sign the ship was even physically hit.

One second, it was chasing down the Stormrunner, the next, a massive column of white light engulfed it, and after that it was totally gone.