22 September, 2552 – Installation 04, En route to Extraction
Leonidas-151 POV
We moved through the jungle like wraiths.
The firestorm from the Control Room still danced on the horizon behind us, the broken sky fractured by unnatural lightning and the aftershocks of Cortana's override. My legs burned from the sprint. My armor, dented and charred from hours of contact, hissed steam with every step.
But I couldn't stop. None of us could.
Cortana's voice broke through our helmet comms—clear, fast, professional.
"There is only one way to destroy this ring."
John slowed just enough to hear her. We were all listening. Kelly, Fred, and I formed a loose diamond around him, weapons at the ready.
"The Pillar of Autumn's fusion reactors. If we destabilize them, the ensuing detonation will be enough to shatter the ring's internal structure."
"We need codes for that," Fred said.
"Exactly. We need Captain Keyes."
"No time for heroics," I muttered, opening a wide-band encrypted channel to the UNSC FOB. "This is Leonidas-151, priority channel. Put me through to Captain Keyes."
Static. Then a voice—tired but sharp.
"Leonidas. I figured you'd call."
"Cortana has a plan to destroy the ring. We need your access codes to the Autumn's reactor failsafe."
There was a pause. I could hear the background noise of the FOB—hurrying boots, voices shouting orders, the whine of Pelicans prepped for evac.
"I'll forward the codes now," Keyes said. "They're encrypted with my biometrics, but Cortana should be able to bypass the safeguards."
I looked at John. He nodded. No time to ask if this was really the only option.
"Sir, the ring's going to blow sky high. I'm ordering full evacuation. Marines, Spartans, ODSTs, anyone not dead or flood-infected—get them off the surface."
Another pause.
Then, to my surprise: "Already underway. We've got twenty-six Pelicans heading to the rally point. Silva's leading ground defense until the last bird lifts off."
"How long until the fleet comes around the star?"
"Two hours. Maybe less. When they get here, they'll buy us a window for exfil. Foehammer's already standing by to ferry you in and out of the Autumn if she's still flying."
"She will be," John said, voice iron-flat.
Keyes gave a final sigh. "Make it count, Spartans. End this."
The comm line cut.
Above us, the ring's curve arced across the sky like a god's scythe. Beneath our boots, the ground trembled—the Flood was spreading fast, carving through Covenant and terrain alike.
Kelly took point. "What's the route?"
I checked BT-7274's tactical overlay—drawn from Cortana's survey of the ring.
"There's a canyon west of the Autumn's crash site. Covenant have set up killzones around it, and the Flood are thickest near the prow of the ship. We'll need to drop in from the aft access ramp. It's the only way into the engineering deck that's not completely infested."
Fred clicked a fresh battery into his plasma rifle. "Then let's move before they dig in deeper."
Cortana's voice was calm, but insistent. "If we're going to overload the reactor, you'll need to disable the safety interlocks manually. I'll walk you through it once we're inside."
The forest gave way to scorched hills. The sound of Pelican engines echoed in the distance as birds peeled off from the FOB toward orbit. The last of humanity's survivors were leaving. And we were going back in.
Smoke still curled from the Autumn's broken spine as we crested the final hill. What had once been a proud destroyer-class vessel now lay like a corpse—torn, cracked, embedded deep into the crust of the ring. Its aft section jutted into the air like a massive steel tombstone.
The Covenant hadn't fully pushed into the crash site. That should've been a red flag. Instead, their forces had encircled the wreckage, keeping distance—watching.
They knew what we were walking into.
"Visual on the aft service ramp," Kelly said. "Looks clear."
Fred didn't slow. "Too clear."
John raised his hand and we dropped into crouches. The ground beneath us was wet—moss and blackened soil, sticky from blood and oil. We were fifteen meters from the ramp when Cortana's voice lit up our HUDs again.
"I'm detecting biomass within the hull. Extensive. The Flood have control of several decks, including the engineering section."
"And the reactor?" John asked.
"Still intact, for now. But they're moving. Fast."
I caught movement—skittering along the torn hull plating. Not Covenant. Wrong silhouette. Low to the ground, too fast, and too erratic. Then more—five, ten…twenty.
Combat forms.
Their twisted bodies pulsed with purpose, wrapped in sinew and bone, wielding dead men's weapons. One sprinted straight across the ridge toward us, and Fred dropped it with a clean burst from his battle rifle.
No cry. No hesitation. Just limbs flailing as it tumbled down the hill.
They didn't scream. They didn't retreat.
Because they weren't alive.
"Up the ramp, now," John ordered.
We ascended in a staggered formation, keeping our backs to the walls of the torn hull. My HUD blinked red several times—motion trackers gone haywire.
"They're all around us," I muttered. "I'm reading signals through the damn walls."
"They've infested the crawlspaces," Cortana confirmed. "Stay above the lower decks as long as possible. Once we breach the engineering level, I can walk you through the reactor core override."
Inside the hull, the light vanished.
The corridors were bathed in sickly yellow emergency lighting, flickering behind cracked lenses. Blood was smeared in every direction—on bulkheads, across the floor, trailing in handprints that didn't end. What was left of the crew hadn't gone quietly.
We moved in pairs. Kelly with Fred. Me with John.
The sound of our boots on metal echoed through the empty ship, each step followed by the faint hiss of moisture in our suits and the faint ticking of our motion trackers spiking with unreadable blips.
One corridor ended in a collapsed bulkhead—too tight to crawl through even for us. We doubled back, only to hear them.
Not a voice. Not a scream.
Just the slap of wet feet against metal, the dragging of something heavy across grated steel. It reverberated down the halls like a warning.
Or a welcome.
"Left stairwell," I called. "We'll need to drop two decks to reach engineering."
We breached the stairwell in pairs, weapons raised. Blood dripped from the handrails, thick and slow. At the bottom, I saw the faint shimmer of movement behind a fire door. John knelt and planted a breach charge.
"Three seconds," he said.
We turned and braced.
The door exploded in a flash of sparks and smoke—and the Flood poured through the gap like water from a broken dam.
Combat forms, twisted with marine, elite, and grunt biomass. Their weapons opened up the second they saw us, but we were already moving. My jump kit launched me over their heads, and I spun in midair, emptying my plasma rifle into the mass.
Fred used his underslung grenade launcher to collapse the back line.
Kelly danced through the thick of them, two plasma swords she'd looted from a pair of Zealots slicing in fluid arcs that left burning corpses behind her.
John anchored the line, his MA5B barking in short, controlled bursts—firing only when he knew it would disable. Limbs scatter.
We cleared the hall in under a minute. Twenty-five dead Flood bodies.
"Reactor's another 200 meters down this corridor," Cortana said. "There's a maintenance lift ahead that will take you the rest of the way."
We advanced. The door at the end of the corridor was wide open—and I saw it.
The reactor chamber.
It still glowed faintly through the security windows, the core nestled in the heart of the ship like a heartbeat that hadn't stopped.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
Cortana was already interfacing. "I'm uploading Keyes' command codes now. Manual failsafes will still need to be disabled on-site. I'll walk you through the sequence."
A distant howl echoed through the corridors.
Then another.
And another.
They knew.
"They're coming," John said.
I raised my rifle. "Then let's end it."
The reactor chamber groaned as the magnetic locks disengaged one by one.
I could feel the heat—radiating from the heart of the Autumn like a dying star. Cortana's voice echoed in our helmets, rapid-fire and calm, guiding Fred and Kelly through the shutdown sequence while John and I stood watch at the blast doors.
The reactor was a monster—a clustered fusion engine stacked in rings and pipes and shielded conduits, all wrapped in the ribcage of a dying warship. Now, we were about to turn that monster into a funeral pyre.
"Primary failsafes disengaged," Cortana confirmed. "Manual override accepted. Core integrity will collapse in nine minutes, thirty-six seconds."
I turned back to the team. "We're done here."
"Then we run," John said.
And we did.
We stormed down the deck at a dead sprint. No attempt at stealth now. The Flood already knew. Their shrieks echoed behind us—above us—beneath the very floor. We could hear them in the pipes. They were chasing us through the walls.
By the time we reached the service corridor, the bulkheads were splitting open from the pressure of their numbers. Combat forms leapt out from a shattered ventilation grate—one lunged at Fred and was met mid-air with a full-powered knee to the sternum that snapped it in half.
Kelly dropped behind us to lay down suppressing fire. "Keep moving!"
"We're not going to make it back to the pelican bay in time," Fred growled, blasting a flood carrier apart. "Too far."
"There's a solution," I called, spotting a maintenance tunnel on the deck map. "Forward service shaft, leads to the dorsal hull."
John nodded. "Jump from the spine."
Kelly paused mid-run. "You want us to leap off a wrecked cruiser?"
"Only the top of it," I said, smirking despite myself.
We skidded around the corner and dropped into the shaft. It was narrow—single file—and partially collapsed. Sparks danced from severed conduits, and coolant hissed through cracked pipes.
We climbed with everything we had, burning our thrusters in short bursts, our jump kits whining from the effort. When we burst through the emergency hatch at the top, the stars opened before us.
Sky.
Night again, faint stars above and the broken curve of the Halo creeping over the horizon.
We were on the spine of the ship now, where dorsal armor had cracked and bent outward like the ribcage of some fossilized beast. Wind whipped across the wreck, and I could see the crater we'd gouged into the Halo's surface during the crash—kilometers of scorched terrain.
Cortana spoke up. "Foehammer inbound. One minute out. You'll need to leap for the rendezvous point."
John took point. "Mark it."
A waypoint blinked 300 meters ahead—past wreckage, past fire, past loose plating threatening to collapse under our boots.
We ran.
Carrier forms burst from broken hatches.
Fred vaulted a broken pipe and dropkicked a combat form mid-sprint, sending it cartwheeling off the edge.
Kelly leapfrogged debris, her shotgun barking in tight, deliberate bursts.
We moved as one—clearing the path, not looking back.
A roar echoed behind us. The Flood were no longer chasing. They were stampeding.
The reactor core would detonate in five minutes. And they knew.
I turned, flanked by John, and saw the glow building in the sky. A burning streak.
Foehammer.
Her pelican's bay doors were already open, swinging low across the landscape, tilted just enough to catch us mid-jump.
"Ten seconds!" Cortana called out. "Go now or get left behind."
No hesitation.
Fred leapt first, a wide-angled sprint followed by a blast of his jump kit that sent him flying across the gap.
Kelly followed, twisting midair like a dancer, landing with a roll into the bay.
I saw John's boots leave the deck—solid, decisive, unstoppable.
Then it was my turn.
I sprinted, every muscle burning, the edges of the wreck blurring as I poured every ounce of energy into the run. The deck dropped away beneath me, and I launched.
Freefall.
Below me, the terrain blurred. The Halo's horizon loomed wide and broken. In the far distance, I saw the streak of plasma lancing into the atmosphere—fleet reentry burns. The Covenant had returned.
I collided with the pelican's bay deck in a crunch of armor, tumbled, and slammed into the interior wall.
Hands pulled me up—John's.
"Still with us?" he asked.
"Wouldn't miss the end," I said.
Foehammer banked hard. "We're clear of the blast radius. Hang on."
Behind us, the Autumn pulsed once—then vanished in a blaze of light.
The shockwave lit the night.
The fire of a dead titan.
And the ring—the ancient relic, the forerunner of death—broke apart like shattering glass.
The ring died screaming.
A jagged halo of debris expanded outward where Installation 04 had once sat, torn apart from within by the fusion reactors of the Pillar of Autumn. Clouds of smoke spiraled into orbit as our Pelican raced away at full throttle. We banked through burning wreckage and shattered terrain, riding the razor-thin edge of the blast radius.
"Maximum speed," Foehammer said from the cockpit. Her voice was calm, tight—focused. "Hang on. I'm bringing us in fast."
The artificial gravity in the Pelican kicked and twisted as the inertial dampeners struggled to keep up. Beneath us, the shattered remnants of Halo burned like a dying sun.
Cortana piped into our helmets. "Our trajectory will intercept the Truth and Reconciliation in one minute, thirty seconds. Keep it tight. The hangar doors will only be open for six."
I glanced to the side. John, Kelly, and Fred were strapped in and silent. They didn't need to say anything. The mission was done, and we were still breathing.
Barely.
"Visual on the flagship," Foehammer said. "She's holding orbit in the shadow of Threshold."
The Truth and Reconciliation loomed into view like a ghost—wounded, scorched, but operational. Her massive hull bristled with salvaged MAC turrets, UNSC plate grafted onto her Covenant curves like armor stolen from a defeated god.
Cortana's data flooded our HUDs. She was already handshaking with the captured ship's systems, opening comms, guiding the Pelican into position.
"Clearance granted. Hangar doors opening. Transponder confirms identity."
The massive bay doors groaned apart. Artificial gravity shimmered inside as magnetic couplings aligned with the approaching dropship. Foehammer didn't slow—she flew like a demon possessed.
A final jolt, a snap of acceleration—and we were inside.
Landing struts slammed down, locking into place. The rear hatch dropped, steam hissing outward.
We stood and exited, weapons still drawn out of habit, but the hangar was clear. UNSC Marines saluted as we stepped off the ramp. I saw ODSTs assisting wounded. Techs were already running diagnostics on the Covenant systems.
Then Keyes' voice echoed over the internal comms.
"All cryo pods accounted for. Blue Team is aboard. Spartan Command confirmed present and operational. Final recon pickup complete."
I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. The rest of the cryo pods—Linda's included—had been recovered. We hadn't left anyone behind.
Cortana's voice followed: "Slipspace navigation ready. Projected reentry vector plotted along the same trajectory as our original escape route from Reach. Reacquisition of bearings required before Operation: RED FLAG resumes."
I moved toward the observation deck alongside John. From the starboard viewports, I could see the other ships assembling: eleven other UNSC warships, bruised but not broken, flanking the captured flagship like steel sentinels. Some of them bore burn scars from Halo's final death throes, but they still flew the UNSC banner proud.
The Iroquois was missing a third of her hull, but she'd made it. Commonwealth drifted in formation, her reactor purring like an old cat. Even Paris-Class frigates limped into the wake of the Truth and Reconciliation, rearmed and patched from onboard drones and engineers.
Keyes came back over comms: "Prepare for jump. All ships, align to the Truth and Reconciliation's slipspace wake. Synchronize to her FTL countdown. Jump in T-minus 30 seconds."
I keyed up BT-7274. "Titan status?"
"Online. Armaments replenished. Jump drive systems slaved to core jump matrix. Good to go, Pilot."
That voice never failed to ground me.
Fred stepped beside me. "Never thought I'd say this, but I'm glad we didn't scuttle this thing. Couldn't ask for a better flagship."
"Let's hope we don't have to test her in another orbital knife fight," I muttered.
"Wishful thinking," Kelly said flatly.
"Yeah," I admitted. "But sometimes, I like to lie to myself."
"Initiating slipspace," Cortana warned. "Brace for transition."
The stars stretched.
Reality thinned into a whisper.
And then we were gone.
The door hissed open as I entered Dr. Halsey's makeshift office aboard the Truth and Reconciliation. The walls were curved with strange lavender alloys—Covenant architecture still pulsing with low hums of residual energy—but Halsey had quickly made it feel like Reach again. Clinical. Cold. Controlled.
Johnson sat rigid in the corner, not at attention, but with the stiffness of a man who knew the next few minutes could decide his fate. His M6D was unholstered but resting on the table, as if that mattered. John stood beside him, arms crossed and helmet clipped to his belt. He gave me a nod as I stepped in.
Halsey didn't look up from the datapad she was tapping away at. "Leonidas."
"Halsey." I moved past Johnson and dropped into the seat across from her. "You called."
"I did," she said, fingers never stopping. "Sitrep on the sergeant."
Johnson rolled his eyes but kept quiet.
She finally looked up and dropped the pad onto the table. "He's clean. No cellular degradation. No neural rewrites. No parasitic spore remnants. The Flood couldn't infect him.."
That caught me off guard. "Couldn't? Meaning?"
"He's immune," she said bluntly. "A statistical impossibility. But the results are clear. His Neural waves have been distorted, likely from exposure to overuse of covenant plasma grenades."
"Got a hold of a crate of them. Put em to use." Johnson explains.
John frowned. "You sure?"
"I've run the analysis six times. Redundant scans. Molecular resonance. Immuno-resistance mapping. He fought off a Flood infection without augmentation, without MJOLNIR, without a neural inhibitor. Something in his biology resisted assimilation."
I glanced at Johnson. He just stared at the table like it owed him money.
"This is going to cause problems," I said.
"Yes," Halsey replied. "HighCom will want to study him. Tear him apart. See how many pieces they can understand before he's no longer breathing."
"Wonderful," Johnson muttered.
I shook my head. "There's no universe where we let that happen."
"Then we're left with two choices," Halsey said. "Say nothing, bury it. Or report it and hand him over."
I leaned back in the chair and folded my arms. "There's a third option."
John's brow raised slightly. Halsey narrowed her eyes. "Go on."
"We take jurisdiction," I said. "The Spartan Branch—officially—assumes responsibility for Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, per his exposure to the Flood and unique biological response. I inform Fleet Admiral Hood directly. That cuts Section III and ONI out of the equation before they even get wind of it."
"And when they come asking?" Halsey asked.
"They won't," I said. "Not if Hood signs off. He owes us—me and John both. And even if he didn't, he's the highest-ranking officer in the UEG right now with Earth under martial law. If we frame it as a strategic containment protocol under the Spartan Branch's biohazard authority, it sticks."
John glanced toward Johnson. "You okay with this?"
Johnson huffed. "What, getting dissected by the eggheads, or getting roped into more black ops with you cyborgs?"
"Option three," John said.
Johnson gave the faintest grin. "I like breathin'. So yeah. Let's go with that."
I nodded. "He becomes the Spartan Branch's Marine Corps liaison. Promoted if necessary. He keeps his post, leads his marines, reports to us directly. It keeps him protected and useful."
Halsey considered it, then slowly nodded. "Reasonable. Risky, but with Hood's backing... it's solid."
"I'll draft the order and send it up the chain," I said, standing. "We owe him that much."
Johnson rose with me, grabbing his sidearm and sliding it back into its holster. "Not used to people fighting to keep me alive," he said. "Appreciate it."
"Don't thank me yet," I muttered. "You're going to be neck-deep in black-level containment reports, immune system breakdowns, and more AI oversight than you'll be comfortable with."
He smirked. "So just like any other Monday."
John chuckled once. I looked over at him. "You on board with this?"
He nodded once. "He deserves better than a lab table."
"Then it's settled." I tapped the comm node on my collar. "Command, this is Leonidas-151. Route a secure message to Fleet Admiral Hood—level seven encryption. I need to speak with him. Priority Alpha-Black."
"Copy that, Commander," the comms tech replied.
Johnson glanced at me one last time. "Hey, uh… Leonidas."
"Yeah?"
"If I ever do end up on a slab, make sure I at least go out with a damn cigar in my mouth."
I grinned, my tone laced with nothing as light or frilly as friendship in his. Just understanding and respect. Johnson was a part of the first attempt to make super soldiers. Project Orion. "Only if I get to light it."