Location: Uncharted Planet

Event: Operation Wildfire

Date: March 8th, 2558, 2247 hours

"Time to go! We need to get out of here, now!" Danny yelled out to Eric. Eric threw his rifle after it went dry and started to run towards the LZ.

With the Infinity lost, along with the complete and utter confusion as to what was happening on this uncharted planet, the only rational thing to do was to retreat. Jul 'Mdama was the very least of their worries. The Storm Covenant were a lost cause in this mess. The main major threats here were the Xenomorphs, the Yautja, and the Insurrectionist. The fact that the Insurrectionist decided to make appearance in this shit storm was beyond Eric's comprehension.

Eric drew his magnum and picked off a few innies, giving some covering fire to the retreating squad of marines and what was left of Fireteam Crimson. Danny continued hulling Dylan's unconscious body over his shoulder with a magnum in his other. Eric noticed that the timer on his HUD was rapidly approaching to an end.

"Crimson, we are running out of time! Captain is initiating slipspace sequence in three minutes! Get your ass to the pelican now or we are leaving you!"

"Roger that," he yelled over the coms network. He picked up his pace. Danny was slowing down for Eric.

"We are nearly there!" Danny cried out. They were only twenty yards away from the pelican. The end of the pelican opened up and marines piled out to give the fleeing Spartans some cover.

Eric got into the pelican first and turned around. Suddenly, Danny recoiled towards the pelican and dropped to the floor. Dylan flew into the pelican and rolled just under the first aid station. Eric couldn't believe his eyes. Both of his teammates were down.

"No!" He cried out as he pulled Danny on board. "No no no no, don't do this to me."

"Spartan, are you all aboard?" The pilot asked.

Eric put a finger to his ear. "Yes! Get your marines in here, time to go now. Both my Spartans are down!"

"Roger that, Spartan," the pilot replied. The marines came piling into the pelican and the drop ship departed off for evacuation.

Eric flipped Danny over to his back and took his helmet off. Danny was spitting blood out of his mouth and his hands were shaking. Eric looked at the wound. There was a giant hole in the center of his chest. Sniper round. Heavy armor piercing. Eric threw his helmet off and grasped Danny's hand.

"Stay with me Danny, we are almost there. We will get you to the H station asap, just stay with me. Keep your eyes on me," he said pointing at his eyes.

Danny spit some blood, but formed a slight smirk. "All th-those lil' fuckin' b-bugs n' Aliens, an' I-I'm shot by a f-fuckin' man. Fuckin ironic." He laughed and spat out more blood.

"Danny focus on me. That's a direct order!"

Danny shook his head. "N-nah, th-this is it." His whole body was shaking and his eyelids were half closed. He gasped for more air and his hands started to loosen their grip. "Eric, stretch out m-my legs f-flat."

Eric looked down and noticed that they already were stretched out. He paused and didn't know what else to say. "They are, Danny."

Danny gave an amused huff and attempted to look down. "Well, would you l-look at th-that."

"Danny, keep your eyes on me, now, dammit!" Eric ordered the Spartan.

"It's okay, man," Danny shakenly said. "It's a-ight." He stared into Eric's eyes and suddenly squeezed onto Eric's hand. "You ear-earned this," he whispered while nodding. Eric nodded back but couldn't find the words to say. "Earn this," he whispered once more. Danny's eyes started to dull out and his hand lost all of his grip. Danny's head fell back into Eric's lap, lifeless.

Eric took a moment to realize what just happened. And it was a long moment. He got to his feet with his helmet in his hand and glanced at the marines around him and at Dylan's motionless body. All he could feel was panic and rage. The rage especially. It was building at an exponential rate. He couldn't contain it any longer.

"Fuck!" He roared and chucked his helmet at the end of the pelican door. He took a deep breath and brought his hands to his head. He sat down and kept his mouth shut.

The marines pretty much kept their distance from the Spartan, but a few of them wanted to reassure him, somehow. One of the marines looked down at the other Spartan that was already unconscious under the first aid station. He crouched down and turned him over. He flinched at the sight before him. The Spartan's visor section exploded with blood all over it. The sight, in itself, was incomprehensible. The Spartan was shot in the head. The marine then looked back at the other fallen Spartan and started to think forensically.

The bullet killed both of the Spartans in one shot. Entering the standing Spartan's back, then exits the front just next to his heart, then immediately entering the unconscious Spartan's head. It was a perfect shot. True marksmanship. He had to report this to his commanding officer. These innies were no regular innies. Something huge was going on here.

…

9 months later: January 4th, 2559, 1930 Hours

Location: Kepler 186F, Jericho Region, Outpost Ottawa

Eric stood in front of the window in his "office" as he saw it which allowed him to oversee the entire outpost. A month ago, FLEETCOM gave him a debriefing on all of the results of Operation Wildfire and the current situation they were dealing with. The Insurrectionist were a much greater threat than what they use to be. They entered that battle on the uncharted planet with their best soldiers to extract many Xenomorph specimens as well as capture multiple Yautja. Intelligence speculated that there was a spy on board Infinity who gave away the Infinity location on the uncharted planet and notified the rogue militant cult on the current situation.

Apparently, the leader of whatever Insurrectionist Division thought it was necessary to make an appearance and capture many of the aliens for testing. The name of the Insurrectionist Division was called the Meta Division. The only intelligence they knew about this leader of the Division was his code name: Blackwater. Blackwater was in charge of this Meta Division which was to further their weapons research who would vie to ultimately bring the UNSC to their knees.

In retaliation, the UNSC developed a new Program within the Spartan IV Program called Project Omega. Project Omega was designed to create a special division of Spartan soldiers that would specialize in combatting Xenomorphs and Yautja, as well as take out the Meta Division and ultimately its leader, Blackwater. FLEETCOM was initially going to offer the commanding position of Omega Division to Spartan Sarah Palmer, however she declined the offer because she believed that she was too well known as a UNSC personnel and also admitted to be unfit for the secrecy of this division. She made a request that the leader of the project would be a relatively unknown, but experienced soldier of the UNSC who also has firsthand experience with the Xenomorphs and the Yautja. FLEETCOM pondered the suggestion for a while but they ultimately decided to agree to her request, then proceeded to place Spartan Eric G-015 in charge of the project. To somewhat protect his identity, FLEETCOM redacted his service tag and assigned him a last name, Spartan Eric Bame. Just like Commander Palmer, Eric was to report to Thomas Lasky on the progress of Project Omega. They then transferred many other experienced personnel into Omega Division to assist Spartan Bame.

These personnel consisted of Mario Snow, David Wolf, and Ivan Morales. These notable members were then placed into the Spartan IV Program and underwent physical augmentations. As expected, they all survived through the physical augmentations. From there, Mario Snow and David Wolf were in charge of recruiting many soldiers into Omega Division. Ivan Morales was in charge of obtaining all of the state of the art equipment that the Division was going to be supplied with. One of which was new Spartan armor.

Mario Snow and David Wolf were both ex-ODST that were stationed on Reach when the Covenant attacked. They were both part of the same unit so they have been close teammates for a long time. During the Battle of Reach, they both managed to lead many civilians to safety during the siege of New Alexandria. Afterwards, they managed to escape the civilian transport to Earth. Then when the Battle of Earth took place, they were in deployed in the Second Battle of New Mombasa where they assisted in taking down Covenant aircraft along with assisting the Sangheili in cleansing the Flood from Earth. After the Great War ended, they were honorary discharged from the ODST Branch and were assigned to be ambassadors for humanity and the Sangheili due to their previous relationship during the Battle of Earth. Then after Wildfire, they were assigned to high positions in Project Omega.

Ivan Morales was a veteran Marine officer that served way before the Battle of Reach took place. He was a young boy when the Battle of Harvest took place and swore to fight for humanity after the destruction of his home planet. After the Great War ended, he joined the Spartan IV Program and was present during the First Battle of Requiem. He assisted The Master Chief in retaking back the Infinity shortly after it crash landed. Unfortunately, he was wounded during the mission and was on leave of absence due to his health. After he regained his health, he volunteered to join the Spartan-IV program and train the new Spartans on Earth. After another physical evaluation, he was cleared to join Project Omega.

Omega Division was given their own ship and their own smart AI. The ship was a Vindication-Class Battleship named The Brigadier. The smart AI was named Magnus. Eric found the AI very annoying at times but knew his purpose. Magnus was a sarcastic AI, even more so than Roland. Much more actually. His personally matched to a fascist and he wasn't afraid to hide it, although it was obvious that the AI was doing it for the laughs. To sugar coat it, he modeled his avatar after a WWII German Armored Division soldier. Eric wondered why FLEETCOM even allowed him to have this personality, but for whatever reason, they didn't think it would be much of a problem.

Tomorrow was the first day of training for the new recruits and Eric took a moment to reflect on how far he has come. Boot camp on Reach, Battle of Reach, Battle of Earth, Second Battle of Requiem, and Operation Wildfire. There was just too much to reflect on. However, there was one thing he reflected on more than anything else and that was what Danny told him before he died.

Earn this.

He pondered on that statement since Danny has said it to him. It was one of the main reasons why he accepted his position in Project Omega. He wanted to honor Danny's plea. He reflected back to that moment several months ago in the frigate's bay where he promised himself and to his fallen teammates that he will bring the Meta Division to justice.

Suddenly, Eric's trance was interrupted when he heard a knock on his door. He shook his head and turned around. "Come in," he said. Ivan Morales entered Eric's office and stood at attention. "At ease, Ivan."

"Yes, Commander," he eased his stance and put his hands behind his back. "The armor shipment finally reached the hanger. Your new set is ready if you want to try it on, Sir."

Eric was curious as to how this new armor was more efficient than the already state of the art armor he's had since the Second Battle of Requiem. "Alright, let's go see what they gave us."

Eric and Ivan both started walking to the hanger bay. "So what do these new armor sets have that the other ones don't?"

Ivan brought up his data pad and opened up a file consisting of all the new information. "Well, where to start," he laughed. He scrolled around to the basic aspects first. "So, the energy shields are stronger than the other models. They are designed to withstand an SRS Sniper Rifle round. Only one round of course, the second will compromise the shield's integrity." He scrolled down a bit. "The HUD system was updated to assist the Spartan with his/her other new abilities. One of these new abilities is called Thrust. It's basically a more efficient way to evade. It's much more efficient than the prototype armor ability that we are more familiar with. This Thrust ability is fully integrated into each of these armor sets." He scrolled down again. "This one is more interesting. It's called the Ground-Pound."

"Ground-Pound?" Eric asked.

Ivan nodded. "It's exactly how you heard it. A Spartan in the air can initiate Ground-Pound that would launch them down at the ground with a tremendous amount of force. The result is, well, as you would expect. The force from this ability would damage a warthog easy. I would imagine that it would destroy a Ghost, easy."

Eric nodded. "Interesting. Continue."

Ivan scrolled a little lower on his data pad. "There was another update on the HUD that allowed Magnus to broadcast what any Spartan in Omega Division was seeing. It was more or less an update that encrypted the connection. Magnus will be able to broadcast the feed into whatever visual device in your possession."

"Which basically invades all of your Spartans' privacy. Even when they are jerking off," Magnus suddenly commented through Ivan's data pad. Eric rolled his eyes and kept walking.

"Alright, too far, Magnus," Ivan said in reply flatly.

Magnus then popped out a hologram out of the data pad of his avatar, showing his black primitive Nazi German outfit. "Nah, I'm serious. Imagine being able to see everyone in the entire division jerk off. It's disgusting," the AI said with a disgusted impression. "You humans are fucking weird with your urges."

"Watch your language around the Commander, Magnus," Ivan ordered the AI sternly. Eric only looked back at the AI.

Magnus opened up his arms and pointed at Eric. "What's he going to do? Purge me from the system?" He laughed. "Yeah, without me, Project Omega wouldn't be able to operate. You boys need me."

"You done yet, Magnus?" Eric finally said calmly.

Magnus turned his gaze at the Spartan Commander and laughed. "Calm down, I was only joking around." Eric gave a slight smirk and shook his head. Ivan glared at the AI.

"Stop being so stiff," he said with a smirk. There was a slight pause between the three. Finally, Magnus spoke up. "So do you want me to say the rest of the new armor aspects?"

"Go ahead, Magnus," Eric replied. They reached the elevator that went to the hanger.

"Well, the hovering ability was upgraded a little bit. The Spartan will be able to command his armor neurology to hover in air for about five seconds until they need to recharge. The recharge time is practically instant. That's pretty good. Let's see what else is more notable," he commented with a hand rubbing his chin. "Basically, the only armor variant that's in this manifest are modified variants of the Recruit design. R.I.P. That armor is ugly."

Both Spartans shook their heads. Eric spoke up. "Doesn't matter if the Flood have a better fashion design than this armor, they'll do just fine."

"To be fair, these new armor abilities will be pretty cool to see in action," the AI said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Finally, the elevator stopped and the doors opened up to the hanger. There were many containers stacked up next to a few Wasps. One of the small containers were opened on the ground and one of the shipment workers was working on his data pad.

"Ah, I failed to mention this bit, Commander," Magnus said with a smirk. Eric just glanced at the AI and continued walking towards the opened container. "This particular container has the armors for the officers and up, including yours."

A faint feeling of curiosity formed up in Eric's stomach. He still was very sentimental with his old Noble armor set he was issued while he was in Fireteam Crimson, but even so it was hard for him to say goodbye to his old Spartan-III armor he had many years ago even though it was practically primitive compared to the earlier versions of Spartan IV armor. Eric brought his hand to his chin. "Mind if I see it now, Magnus?"

"I guess, if you really want to," he replied. He suddenly disappeared from Ivan's data pad and then immediately appeared in the shipment worker's data pad, startling him. "Hey worker. Mind if you hull out that first armor box in that container? Commander Bame wants to see his new self."

The worker sheepishly nodded and got into the forklift next to the container. He drove in there and pulled out the first metallic crate containing the Commander's new set of armor. He drove next to the Spartans and dropped the crate carefully, then drove away.

Eric walked up to the crate and placed his hand on top of it. Even the crate was upgraded to protect the armor. It required a certain passcode to open. "Magnus, open it up."

The crate suddenly began to open up on its own very slowly. In the crate, he saw his new set of armor. It was very much different than what Eric was expecting. It was white with a little bit of a darker shade of yellow in other areas. It still maintained that sharp look that the Pathfinder helmet had, but this armor was much more interesting. It had a U-shaped symbol on its forehead and thin cyan colored slit visor over the eyes. It was much more detailed than the HAZOP armor and it reminded him of design that could have been based on an old Japanese architecture.

"Yeah, pretty cool, ain't it?" Magnus commented, looking at the armor from Ivan's data pad. He looked up at the Commander. "It's the new Shinobi variant. This particular one is the Shinobi Heartless armor set. It's pretty high tech."

"Wow, I'm impressed," Eric simply said.

"Good, I'm glad you liked it. 'Cause otherwise you'd be stuck with an armor set that you absolutely hate," Magnus joked. "Anyways, you'll be able to try it on tomorrow when the new recruits arrive."

Eric nodded. "Sounds good."

Date: January 5th, 2559, 0811 hours

Location: Kepler 186F, Jericho Region, Outpost Ottawa

The leaders of Omega Division gathered around the landing strip for the new recruits to arrive. Eric stood silently in his new Shinobi Heartless armor set. The other three Spartans also wore their new armor sets. They were all the same color which was dark grey as their primary and Cerulean-blue as a secondary. Ivan was wearing his new Deadeye armor set. Mario was wearing a brand new Enforcer variant armor set. Lastly, Dave was wearing a new Argonaut variant armor set. The three Spartans stood behind Eric patiently. The recruits were going to arrive in a few more minutes.

Ivan was holding the same data pad from the previous day. Suddenly, Magnus's avatar popped out of the data pad, looking at Dave. "Y'know, this little formation you guys have here would look so much better if your armor didn't looked like shit," the AI commented directed to Dave.

Dave turned his head towards the AI. "You know Magnus, this little formation here would look so much better if you didn't look like a fucking Nazi," he retorted with a grin. Both Ivan and Mario laughed at the burn. Eric didn't so much as to turn head, he just stood there patiently waiting for the transports to arrive.

"Nah, you're wrong there kiddo. I am the person here that's making you guys look awesome. Your armor is making me want to throw some cyanide in an oven of Jews," the AI replied. That comment gave him three angry glares from the three Spartans. Eric just shook his head.

"Magnus, it's funny how you see yourself as a person," Dave said with a smirk.

"Shut your traps, you idiots. The transport is here," Mario interrupted.

The other Spartans looked up and saw five pelicans arriving the outpost. Ivan and Dave started walking towards the landing zones. The five pelicans slowly landed on the landing zones and the rear entrances started to open up. Eric watched as Ivan and Dave yelled into the pelicans to get the recruits out. They were all in their dark Spartan under-armor layer outfits and were holding a large backpack of personal belongings. The only skin that was showing were their faces. Eric noticed that demographics behind these recruits was very diverse. Younger faces, older faces, different colored skin and hair. He also noticed that there was a young female among them. Eric rolled his eyes at the thought of the other recruits harassing here.

Dave pointed his hand at the recruits. "Drop your backpacks. You'll get them back after the commander makes a statement." The new recruits all dropped their backpacks. "Alright, now get into formation before the commander," he ordered them while pointing in a general area before Eric. The new recruits all obeyed Dave's command and quickly got into a five by five formation in front of Eric. They all stood at attention.

Eric looked back at Mario and shrugged. He then took a step towards the new recruits and removed his helmet, holding it under his left arm. He took one good look at all new recruits with a serious expression on his face. He finally decided to break the ice. "At ease, Spartans." The new recruits all eased their formation and looked at Eric. "Now, listen up. You were all recruited into a special division of Spartans called Project Omega. Is that right?"

"Yes sir," all the new recruits replied.

"Good. I am the commander of Project Omega, Eric Bame. I would like to ask if you kept the formalities simple with me." After hearing about how former Captain Del Rio treated his personnel while he was the captain of the Infinity and how much he demanded authority rather than commanding it, Eric wanted to approach his new division in a different way. "A few things about myself: I was formally enlisted into the Spartan-III program a few decades ago. I fought during the Fall of Reach, escaped to the forerunner shield world Onyx, then after rescued by the UNSC Port Stanley, the UNSC offered me a position in the Spartan IV, which I obviously took. As a Spartan IV, I fought in the Second Battle of Requiem, then during Operation Wildfire." He took a deep breath and looked to the ground. "As you all have probably heard, Operation Wildfire was a colossal failure. Two of the major losses in that operation were the UNSC flagship Infinity and over ninety percent of the Spartan personnel. It was a miracle in itself that I was able to escape that planet. Several months after the result of Operation Wildfire, FLEETCOM formed Project Omega and asked me to be in charge of the Spartan Division within the project."

He looked at all the new recruits with a very stern expression and started pacing back in forth in front of them. "Now, listen to me very carefully, because the things I am about to tell you are extremely important. Two new enemy sentient species were discovered during Operation Wildfire. They are much more dangerous than the Covenant Remnant. The first new species are called Xenomorphs. They are a parasitic species much like the Flood, but thankfully, not as threatening as the Flood. They operate much like bees in a hive or like ants in a colony. Ruled by a queen. They are mostly animalistic by nature, however the queen showed to have a much higher intelligence than her drones or warriors. They may just sound like bugs to all of you, but the situation is much more complicated than that." He took a deep breath and continued on.

"The second species are more intelligent than animalistic. They are called the Yautja. A species that is based around honor and hunting. They are a humanoid creature about the same height as a Sangheili, however they are much stronger than an average elite. They prefer hand-to-hand combat rather than an gunfight. They are extremely stealthy hunters and have mastered the art of active camouflage. They are spacefaring and most likely have a couple colonized planets. They are technologically more advanced than us, to a certain degree. Other than that, there is not much known about this species."

Eric stopped pacing in front of the new recruits and looked at them. "Now don't be thinking that this project is based around a bug hunt or a small war with a new species. It's much more than that. At the close of Operation Wildfire, the Insurrectionist showed up to battle, very randomly. It was confirmed that these soldiers were in fact allied with the Insurrectionist. During the battle, the soldiers were much more skilled than the average innie soldier. They were much better equipped with armor and artillery and were very skilled in their combat skills. I would imagine that their combat skills could even best yours, even in your armor." The new recruits glanced around at each other with very confused expressions. "Sounds strange, I know. I was more than surprised when they showed up during Wildfire. Now, ONI Intelligence released proof that these Insurrectionists were a special division of soldiers called the Meta Division, lead by a man that goes by the name Blackwater. From what we know, they are a secret weapons division and saw the Xenomorphs and the Yautja as assets for their research. Intelligence showed that they in fact were on that uncharted planet to capture both species. We have reason to believe that they are attempting to weaponize both species. This could single-handedly be a major threat to all of us."

"Which brings me to all of you. My job, as well as Spartan Snow, Wolf, and Morales, is to train you all to be the best of the best. You will all be the last line of defense of humanity and all our colonies. Our objective is to terminate the Meta Division and all their new 'pets'." He took one glance at all of the new recruits. "Sound good?"

"Yes sir!" They all yelled out.

"Good. Welcome to Omega, Spartans."