Blue Team and the Amulet of Talos

Prologue

Planet Reach, 2558, UNSC Sword Base.

The noise was heard just after the sun rose in all its glory over the ice shelf near the base. It was a strange roaring sound akin to a great beast in terrible pain. PFC Chips Dubbo spat out his morning coffee and gazed out the window with an awestruck expression. The sky was a mix of vibrant colors. Aurora Borealis were not very common even here on the ice shelf but this one was during the day. Chips had never heard of this ever happening anywhere on Reach ever before. Then the explosion roared into the sky. Klaxons began to blare all over the base and a mechanical voice said over the intercoms "All combat personnel report to your stations immediately!" Chips scrambled to comply, almost knocking over the remains of his breakfast as he did so.

He got to the armory and saw Corporal William Jenkins yelling at the top of his lungs, "Delta Company!""Suit up and follow me!" Chips rushed into the armory and hastily donned his body armor. He then grabbed a MA5B rifle and a few spare clips. Finally he snagged a Frag grenade and clipped it to his combat belt. "Is it the Covenant?" yelled Private Vickers to Chips. He replied "I don't think so". "Maybe some kind of unauthorized weapons test?" They rest of the company formed up and marched outside the barracks. Then they got onto some of the base's M12 LRV Warthogs and drove out to the site of the explosion.

As they neared the site of the explosion they saw that the entire mountainside was torn away by a massive blast crater. They slowed down and stopped just outside the perimeter of the blast hole. "Let's go men!" yelled the Corporal and they all jumped out of their vehicles. The blast appeared to have been enormous and the crater was almost 500 meters across. "What could have done this?" asked Vickers "a nuke?" "Not a nuke" said Sergeant Peter Delgado. "The Geiger counter isn't picking up anything beyond the normal levels of radiation." Chips made his way towards the epicenter of the crater. He looked around the site but it didn't appear to have any debris around it. He sighed, "I guess this will be a job for the ONI boys instead." He was just about to walk away from the site when he caught the glint of metal in the corner of his eye. He stooped and brushed away the dirt from the area to reveal a strange amulet.

It was a very strange piece of jewelry and Chips had never seen its like before. He called to the rest of the company "Hey I found something!" The amulet seemed to glow with a strange light. Somehow Chips didn't think this would be an easy mystery to solve.