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

[key490]

Location: inner Precursor space

Mark Dallo down upon the ancient relic from his captain's chair. It looked magnificent. In appearence, it looked similar to the Halo arrays but was somehow different. Mark smiled, that same slick smile he always used to give to women. This time though, it was used in confidence. Mark knew this mission was in the bag. He knew he probably shouldn't be over- confident, the statement was largely true. The ships scanners had picked up no life-forms and no defenses. Obviousley, these Precursors were very peaceful. All Mark had to do now was give the crew their orders. He walked over the communictaions operative on the bridge and said, " Call the troops to the briefing room. It's time." With an affirmative salute, the operative sent out the call. " All troops to the briefing room, all troops to briefing room," the message stated echoing down the halls of the Stormrunner. Mark began the walk down to the briefing room still with thoughts of confidence in his head.

[Tenyasyugan]

Crusoe listened in as the intercom blared the message. "Time to get movin'..." Grabbing his helmet and his equipment, he made his way to the Briefing room. The small, circular, windows of the Stormrunner gave small glimpses of the world outside. He sighed a little. Life in space was rather dreary when one was used to the rigorous stresses of missions that tasked both one's mind and body. At least they had better food on here then the stuff in the barracks' down below.

Finally reaching the wide open room, Crusoe stood in his assigned place and gave a salute to the captain of this ship. Even if he would just end up elsewhere, with other teams on other missions, at least he knew this place was normally open for recruits.

[King Wolfe]

Several oddly shaped pods of sorts ripped through the sky and landed, more like crashed, into the ground. The barren wasteland they were in seemed like a perfect opportunity for some stealthy reconnaissance right? Wrong, as soon as the pod doors flew open waves of Covenant came pouring from the blacken hill tops. The 20 ODSTs fought valiant, they were able to push the Covenant back. One man stood apart from the rest, a rather tall ODST wearing the jet black armor, aside from his comrades who wore the light gray one. He was doing the unthinkable, he grabbed his sniper rifle and ran towards the Covenant taking down whomever opposed him. And as soon as the ambush began, it ended. No causalities, however one ODST drop pod landed incorrectly and the poor man had his right arm broken. The ODST whom wore the black armor approached the injured man, switching his visor the dark shade disappeared revealing a young worried face. "Jennings, you all right?" He asked, Jennings merely nodded his head.

Sighing he switched his visor back on, another ODST approached him, "Sir, Covenant are approaching." He had stated in a brisk and formal fashion, "ETA?" Uttered the leader, "5 minutes, sir." Worried about this, he decided the best course of action was to take refuge about 10 kilometers East. However plans don't go as well as we'd hope. Covenant troops arrived in mere seconds, seems he miscalculated. Quickly and efficiently they surrounded them, in a hail of gun fire and dying cries the dark ODST cried out, "Cover Jennings!" Glancing back he noticed the man who was supposed to cover him had already abandoned the team. One by one, the ODSTs fell the leader survived by a hair, the jackal sniper who shot him missed by that much. If Jennings had survived a few more seconds, they would all be alive, after all Jennings had the emergency beacon.

Gasping a man quickly rose up from the bench he was sleeping on. Catching his breath, he realized it was only a dream. Wiping his forehead he was relieved and angered, those reoccurring dreams were ticking him off. As several people walked by him some looked at him with disgust, others who recognized him looked at him with awe. Averting his gaze to the intercom he sighed, So troublesome.. Standing from the bench he wiped his pants and proceeded to the briefing room. After about 5 minutes of long hallways and newbies approaching him in shock, he reached the room. Running his hand through his hair, he looked at the Spartan already there he smirked slightly because he was still standing. "Gotta love 'em, right off the assembly line.." He said jokingly. Ignoring the salutes he quickly sat down, feet propped on the table, they were killing him.

[Piercing Light]

Kaiade' was walking the halls of the Stormrunner. She was trying to familiarize herself with the ship and what made it tick. She had never been on a ship as advanced this one, each time she turned a corner there was another interesting aspect of the ship. Kaiade' was toying around with a control panel when a message sounded on the ship. "All troops to the briefing room, all troops to briefing room". Kaiade' frowned and closed the control panel. Brushing her hair back she walked to the briefing room. reaching the room the doors slid open with a whoosh. She took a seat and waited for the others. To past the time she started to sing a near ancient song by a band known as The Fray.

"Step one, you say, ?We need to talk?
He walks, you say, ?Sit down, it's just a talk?
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through

Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life".

[∞]

The eight-foot-tall man stood at the far end of the briefing room, arms crossed, with his back leaning on the wall and a single foot poised against it. He stared at those entering through a single large visor, reflective silver on the outside, perfectly transparent and with HUD overlays on the inside. As his vision wandered past people and specialised objects, they were outlined in white, and details of them flashed past his sight. He soon dismissed the displays as they became annoying, and a few seconds later, removed his helmet. It was perfectly crafted for him, but having it off was still more comfortable.

The Commander of the UNSC Stormrunner had short grey-brown hair, and blue eyes that sparked with wisdom and understanding. He took a single long breath of the air of the ship, super-fresh despite the confines of the entire thing. That said, it was nice to also breath air that wasn't more or less just a perfect balance of nitrogen and oxygen, it gave one the impression that the space had life in it and wasn't fully sterile. Thankfully, the filling room soon took care of the lack-of-smell problem. A single soldier, a specialised one of the ODST variety, walked into the room and greeted the commander in a joking but respectful manner. If he had been any lower in rank, the commander would have him repremanded or something, but the man, Tyler Kipp Riley, was also the Lieutenant of the ship. Apart from the captain, Mark Dallo, Kipp was the only other similarly-ranked military personnel on board, the rest were all privates, regardless as skill.

Rank, and the skill that came with it, didn't really worry the armour-clad super-soldier for this mission. There was likely minimal combat involved in this certain mission, it was more just a get-down-there-and-then-get-back-up kind of affair. As careless as that sounded, the getting-down-there part would mean the place would be safe for humans and elites for, well, until the artefact was once more inoperative. As more and more people filed in, so too did the captain, and salutes were given as he did so. When the room was finally full with all the important people, or at least the military personnel, the captain began a brief speech, before handing things over to the commander. "And now, I give the floor to commander Deus." He said, gesturing a hand to the at the back wall. He stepped forth out of the darkness, and lay a hand on a panel on the edge of a large table, two metres by five metres. The surface suddenly flared with blue light.

Then, out of the blue light, a three-dimensional shape appeared. At first, it appeared something like a compact disk from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. Further inspection, however, revealed that analogy to be somewhat incorrect. The whole in the middle, for starters, was far too large. Second, in that gap, was a perfectly spherical shape. Lastly, they were not looking at a magnification of some object, but a hugely-scaled down version of it. The real object was something like 1.6 billion kilometres in diameter, and a few thousand thick. What lay at its centre, Deus could guess, but he wasn't fully certain. Then, he began talking, in his firm but calm voice:

"If this were to be a gigastructure, what would be it's technical classification?" A voice from somewhere said "An Alderson disk?" Dues immediately lifted a hand and pointed to them. "Bingo. What you are staring at is called an Alderson Disk. Something like the Milky Way Installation 00, except a single consistent shape, double-sided and massively larger. The Ark is around seventy thousand kilometres in diameter, what you're looking at now is around one and a half billion k's." Deus had previously helped to inform the crew of what they were going in to, so now he was working on the specifics of it. They all new they were there under the capacity of a ship-job generally referred to as a sprinter. It was nowhere near as large as some ships, but the stealth that that provided, and the speed still attainable by it, meant all the difference. The Stormrunner was only one of hundreds of ships shooting off into Precursor Space, seeking artefacts to reactivate fully and claim in the name of humanity and the elites.

He gave the people a few seconds to absorb the numbers. They were all familiar with the idea of gigastructure artificial worlds built by the Precursors, but for all except Deus and the captain, this would be their first time. Then, he continued. "The internal gap is one hundred million kilometres in diameter. All up, the thing has - give or take a few hundred thousand k's - four quintillion square kilometres of surface area, that's a four followed by eighteen zeroes. Thankfully, we've already done our homework, and shouldn't need to cover anything larger than ten square kilometres. Now, on to what we'll actually be doing on the disk."

He waved a hand loosely towards the holographic representation of the disk, and it zoomed in to a height of what appeared to be about a thousand kilometres, and a small series of structures, near to the inner rim of the disk, were highlighted in red. Deus continued: "This series of buildings matches all the features of Precursor artefact activation stations. There's various ones around the inner rim, but that one is the closest to us, and so we'll take it. I'll be heading down with the Geeks-" A tech-specialised squad of ODST's under Deus' leadership "-and four other combat specialist to the surface of the world. Once at the activation and reclamation station, we'll go through the usual business. And this is where we do a little something extra. As per the other four shield worlds discovered, the gap in the middle is the perfect size for a star and the inhabitants to be safely apart. Unlike the others, this one's stasis field has yet to deactivate - hence the perfectly reflective, perfectly spherical shape around the suspected position of the star. The Geeks and I will put out know-how to the test and deactivate the field, bringing the world into full operational status. Soon after, the star will start bobbing up and down, simulating day and night for each side of the disk."

"I'm bringing the combat team along as per usual - We're never certain what we'll find on artefact worlds, nor other forces that might be there. On top of that, there's a small group of Covenant ships passing by us, within a light year or two, which is a bit close for comfort. As far as we can analyse, our weapons are superior, but their number of ships is greater. The ground troops are being deployed in the event that the Covenant manage to land their own forces on us. That's the gist of it, the very detailed stuff will be told to those who're actually landing with me. Before I start looking for nominations, are there any questions?"

[Gunmetal]

"Commander, a brief update, if I may."
The large hologram flickered and dissapeared, and was replaced by a much smaller one, a 1/4 scale human. Hydrozoa, an experimental AI that was accompanying the mission, capable of replicating itself. This mission, unbeknownst to al but the highest brass, had two objectives: One, activate and seize control of the artifact, and two, insert a proxy of Hydrozoa into the system, allowing ONI to observe not only the data structure of Precursor machines, but also their affect on AI's. They'd learnt perhaps too late that Forerunner data structures could be harmful to AI's, and lost several to data corruption. In fact, the only known AI to interface with a Forerunner AI and survive was 'Cortana', and she, unlike those they had lost, had been designed based on the neural network of a particular person: Her creator, Dr Halsey. It was theorised that this was what allowed her to retain her 'sanity' within the foreign virtual environments of Halo's operating systems.

Hydrozoa possesed a similar design. He'd been built based on an actual neural network, then had parts of his data replaced with programmed subsections, making him something of a hybrid between the two different types of artifical intelligence.

"Commander, I've been monitering the nearby Covenant fleet. They've been moving in an odd pattern, adjusting their course over and over. In fact, they're manuvering to keep themselves just outside our maximum scanning range. I can't pick them up, can't moniter their transmissions... in fact, the only way we know they're there at all is because I've been able to trace their drive emissions that have drifted into our range, but they've just reached the point where I won't be able to track even that."

Hydrazoa adjusted his glasses, a small circular pair, the lenses of which were alive with constantly scrolling code. Circular patterns moved unpredictably across his emerald green skin, glowing faintly.

"An ambush?" A nearby Major asked hesitantly, and he was met with the AI's blank gaze: "Hardly. It would seem like that, but if they were planning to ambush us, why let us detect their drive emission in the first place?"

"Maybe their navigator messed up. Plotted the wrong course?"

A warrent officer this time. Hydra shook his head.

"Warrent Officer, Covenant navigators are trained from birth to perform their specific role. They don't mess up, and to do so is considered heresy. Do you know the price for heresy within the Covenant? Surely you've seen pictures of the legendary Arbiter, the Elite who joined forces with Spartan 117? Ever wonder where he got those scars? He got off lightly."

An impaitent grunt from the eight-foot Commander Deus, in his gleaming combat armour, brought Hydrazoa back to the topic at hand. Matter-of-factly, he delivered his summary:

"Sir, I believe that this fleet is a distraction, ordered to act in a suspicious manner to divert our attention. I've taken the liberty of deploying half the Stormrunner's sensor drones around the artifact, though it will obviously take them some time to get into position, especially those on the other side of the structure. With this, our effective sensor range wil be expanded to three point two five light years around the artifact, which in itself takes up a considerable amount of space. If something's coming, we'll hear it long before we see it."

[∞]

"While I would have preferred if the captain or I were consulted first," Deus began, annoyed by the interuption of Hydrozoa, but keeping behind a civil façade; "that is the most logical course of action to take. Thank you, Hydrozoa. My squad will only be covering a small area, the addition of your probes should help a great deal, until more detailed scanning and research teams can come by in our wake. As for the Covenant threat, is it not possible their zealotry, combined with their hatred for humanity and the elites, has driven them to act irrationally? They've already made sacrilege of the Forerunners, disregarding them and instead joining the multi-galactic grab the the Precursor artefacts, what's to stop them from taking it a small step further?"

Deus stepped away from the access panel of the table as he continued speaking with the AI construct, the strange hybrid that Deus could never quite place his finger on. The combination of human and more artificial neural bases made him a sometimes difficult AI to read. Fortunately, when he would allow them to briefly integrate with Hyde's systems, Minerva and Athena could always be relied on to help. "Heh, if they continue, we might even have yet another civil war that once more cripples and divides the Covenant."

"While we wait for that to happen, I expect several members of those gathered here are already itching to go to surface? There's always something to be said for the human thirst for knowledge and exploration, especially when faced with the fantastical and the amazing. I'm surprised and hurt by your lack of incentive, I know I spend a bit much time with my own two AI's, but surely I'm not so hard to work with as to not have a single volunteer? I might have to start picking names from a hat.

[Gunmetal]

"-What's to stop them taking it a step further?"

"What indeed, Commander? For that matter, why did they attack humanity in the first place? It is always like this with Covenant, we can only be sure of what they are doing, not why they are doing it. I saw an action I percieved as deceptive, and acted to gather more information. Any number of alternatives could be responsible for their behaviour. The Covenant have never had what we'd call a stable loyalty, relying on fear to control multiple species."

The AI's blank face was as unreadable as his steady artifical voice, though those that had spent enough time with him were able to tell his mood by the correlating colour. As he spoke, the vibrant green of his skin changed to a glowing yellow, lighting him up. The Commander, on the other hand, equally as unreadable as the AI, though for his own reasons, had no way to know that Yellow indicated Hydrozoa was taking considerable pride in his perception and reaction.

"Heh, if they continue, we might even have yet another civil war that once more cripples and divides the Covenant."

The AI thought that this was wishful thinking, but kept this opinion to himself.

"There's also the small matter of transporting my hardware, Sir. An ODST would be my preference. I've always worked with Spartan's, and it would be nice to have a partner with more personality then me. No offence, Commander."

The 'Geek' team, a group of tech specialists, was already assembled in the rear hanger: Hyde had been monitering them by patching through the security cameras. According to his confidential personel file, Commander Deus was just as skilled as any of them, if not more so, which explained his role in the groundside team. This had to mean that the volunteers were only for the combat team. For all his strengths, the Commander was not a 'people' person, and hardly as skilled at motivating his men as a more military-minded officer may have been. The AI, however, couldn't understand why he'd left this as an elective squad. If only a small group were to escort such valuable assets, the logical choice would have been to hand-pick his best and order them to assist. Surely the man had his reasons, but they were beyond the AI's ability to fathom.

[key490]

Mark walked into the briefing room to see two of the Spartans, an ODST, and one of his officers Deus talking with the new AI Hydrozoa. Mark grimiced. He was wary of these AI types. He had heard about the temper-tantrum 343 Guilty Spark had on one of the Halo installations that caused the death of Sgt. Johnson. Mark would have to be careful. He gave a brief salute to the other troops in the room and went over to join Deus and Hydrozoa. " Everything almost set," Mark asked.

[Piercing Light]

Kaiade' was taking notes on a piece of paper. She looked over at what she had so far. They were going to land on the Alderson disk first of all. She had heard of the Megastructures, but this was out there. It was massive, The Precursors technology never ceased to amaze her. Whatever is down there must be worth it. She scanned the rest of her notes. The covenant. Kaiade just knew they would be here already. But what are they doing? How could they do something as stupid as giving away their position? Something is up. She didn't know what, but she could feel it. However that was to be dealt with later. Kaiade' raised her hand. "Commander, I would be glad to volunteer for this mission, prejudice AI aside". She gave a quick glare to Hydrazoa. Another AI with a personality qurick. why did it always seem to result in a glowing condescending quirk?

[King Wolfe]

After hearing the entire discussion Kipp was seen doodling on a crumbled up piece of paper, it isn't that he wasn't listening, he likes to draw. Looking at the piece of paper, he had drawn himself (naturally) dominating a large Covenant army. He was atop a pile of dead grunts with his sniper rifle held up in the sky. Then looking up he noted they were finished, and that someone had already volunteered. Crushing the paper into a ball and tossing it towards another officer there, earning him a baleful glare, he stood up "Aw, hell. I'm up for it.."

[Tenyasyugan]

Crusoe saw how laid back his comrades were. 'Not exactly a tight shift is it?'. Alot of things on the Stormrunner had a sense of calm to it. From their schedules to the way they spoke about missions. It was as if they were completely and utterly confident in themselves. Since he was already here for the aid of this mission, he saw no reason for him to hold his tongue. "I'll gladly accompany your forces on this mission, sir." Niceties, niceties... Such a hard habit to kick. He glanced casually at what was one person's focus. Ai's were a strange thing, even to a Sparten, yet they trusted them with their lives. Quirks aside, the things could be geniuses if they wanted to be. And they normally were.

[∞]

"Just a matter of rallying the troops, sir." Deus said as Mark Dallo moved about to stand near Deus and Hyde. "Something you're not always a genius with." The captain quipped, mimicking Hyde's own thoughts. The Spartan didn't care for the remark, because if he wanted a highly-skilled team in the first place, he wouldn't be choosing specifically from this bunch. They were all fair and above-average, but none of the type Deus would choose unless he had to, or the question of an all-Spartan team was out of the question. In this case, skill didn't really matter for those outside of Deus and the Geeks. Between the five of them, they had landed on and activated and claimed three precursors mega-sized artefacts for humanity.

Deus then brought his gaze back to Hyde. "None taken, unless that was an act of virtual insubordination, though I doubt it. We'll bring along a human-Forerunner-Precursor signal converter to make things easier on you, just in case. You have the pick of my team of who to host you."

Then the soldiers started volunteering themselves, and Deus smiled a little. "Much better! Three's enough for our insertion team to be not-too-small and not-too-large. Kipp, Kaiade and Crusoe, meet with the Geeks and I in the drop hangar in half an hour. Prepare your equipment in the meantime, and take the whole trip as a nice scenic tour. If all goes to plan, the only thing you'll have to use your scope on is the local landscape."

Unfortunately, it was very rare that everything went as planned.

[gene chaos]

"late, late late!!", he thought worried about the meeting," geez i always get lost on them big space ships( also whats the stormrunner class, or is it of ur desgin) being about 10 minutes late made him feel a bit bad". as he made a sharp turn around the corner he hit someone. both landed on the floor with a thud, taking a look at his victim he sized her up. 5'5 brunentte, hazel eyes slender build. judging from her uniform she was apart of the tech group. quickly picking up the dropped papers he handed her the messy pile."sorry!!" he yelled dashing off as if he hadn't bumped into any one in the first place. finally arriving at the meeting he just hoped that they wouldn't notice.

[∞]

Elizabeth reeled as Catena, a private in a great hurried, bumped into her and set the two tumbling to the ground. The impatient marine very quickly extracted himself, apologised, and headed off in the general of the briefing room. She sighed as she then got up, and made her way to the drop pad.

Technically speaking, it wasn't a pad. Rather, it was a ring around the ship that spun on its longitudinal axis, providing through centrifugal force the sensation of light gravity. The design was adopted as more varied methods of entry were required into certain areas. This specific design allowed for a ship to rest behind a barrier and fire troops, vehicles and supplies up and over the barrier and into enemy territory, which is what it was doing about now.

Elizabeth went through the dock to the launching ring, gave herself a second to get used to the weakened gravity, then made her way to a window. Out in the blackness of space were, of course, millions of stars that she could see, but a very distinct shape left a totally black space in her field of vision. It was the Alderson Disk they would be dropping on. She estimated the ship was around five billion kilometres from the edge of it. The only break in the inky blackness of its surface was a ring of lights at the inner rim, and eight lines that shot out radially from that, which stretched to the out rim.

The Stormrunner would come alongside the inner rim of the Alderson Disk and fire Deus, herself, the rest of the Geeks, and the chosen military specialist to the activation and reclamation facility. The frigate would then withdraw to a distance further than the radius of the disk, for safety reasons.

As she stared at its surface, a voice rang in her earpiece, which she acknowledged. Deus continued: "Elizabeth, I've done the explanations, and we've got a team of four. Kipp, Kaiade, Crusoe and Mathers, and they'll be there in half an- Hold on, someone on this end." Silence on Elizabeth's end of the communications, then Deus returned after a dozen or so seconds. "Small change of plans, we've had a late volunteer, Nelson. I'll keep lieutenant Kipp on the ship as a safety measure. I don't trust those nearby Covenant ships." Elizabeth then replied: "Affirmative, sir. I'm currently at the launch ring, waiting for the rest of the Geeks, the volunteers and yourself. I'll prep while they make their way here."

At the same time on his end, Deus brought Kipp up on his communicator, and relayed the change of roster.