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HALO 5 : The Darkest Hour

Chapter One - Back in the Saddle

"What happens to a hero after the battle? There is no happily ever after."

SKYFALL CITY, REACH
MAY 2558

For all the war, all the infighting and destruction and death, humanity had always survived. Had always rebuilt in the wake of disaster. Millions killed, cities bombed to hell and back, and the humans would slither in with the aftermath and begin the process of renewal. In the current time, though, the scale was so much bigger. Gone were the days were a simple city was considered an unimaginable scale. Now it was entire planets, with billions of lives extinguished in the heartbeat of an instant.

Oh, yes, humanity was no stranger to war.

And, John-117 contemplated as he looked over Skyfall from his perch in one of Eagle Watch's watchtowers, it was a fact that had been proven twice over. Humanity had once manned an empire that dwarfed the size and prosperity of the UNSC and UEG, more than a hundred thousand years ago when the Forerunners were in their prime. The Flood had come, and forced the ancient human empire to expand out, into Forerunner space. The war on two fronts had cost them, and in punishment broke humanity down, back to an age without advanced technology.

But, over time, in the wake of the Forerunner's demise, humanity had rebuilt – as they always did- and scoured the stars once more. Went to war once more.

Part of John wished that war would end forever. Another part, a voice in his head that reminded him of a long lost friend pointed out that he would then be out of a job.

Not that there's much more to be done here, he mused. Oh, forget that Reach had been an important military planet, and that it was good publicity to know that the Spartan that saved humanity was involved in the restoration project. John, despite his lack of understanding of deceit and trickery and politics in his younger years, was not a fool.

They didn't know what to do with him. After the Didact's attack on Earth, the UNSC had commended him, given him a new set of MJOLNIR GEN3 armour and then…what? There were no wars to fight, not really. Jul Mdama's remnant had gone underground, and the Insurrectionists had been placated for now with promise of government reforms. So what was a soldier needed to do?

And so, he was here, on a planet he didn't know anymore, with no friends, no other Spartans, and no else to speak to.

He hated it. Hated having nothing to do. More than anything, it meant he had to think about Cortana. The fact that she was gone. That brilliant voice in the back of his head, throwing quips and tactical information his way whenever he had needed it. They could give him another AI, maybe even another Cortana. But it wouldn't be her.

John took one last look over the city, watching as the sun began to set and bathed the horizon in fire and amber, before leaving.

/

After his return to Earth, plans had been made. Some had opposed them, wishing that John's return to be kept secret. Those voices ultimately fell on deaf ears, and he had been told that there would be a celebration in his honour. In the months that passed, the Master Chief took some much needed leave –or something like it- to fill himself in on the last few years he had missed in cryo. He was briefed on the newly-realised Spartan branch, which he declined to join, and found out the fates of his many brothers and sisters that had survived the war. John had also discovered that ONI had declassified many elements of the SPARTAN-II Program, including files on the families of the Spartans, and Doctor Halsey's supposed war crimes.

John had never understood the reasons why there was so much ceremony for him; there were many other soldiers out there who had given and lost more. John was simply stronger, faster…better. It didn't make him more deserving of praise. Just better at getting the mission done.

Tomorrow was the day those plans would culminate. There would be parades, and medals and speeches. Lots of military fanfare, and a lot of time sitting still for no reason. And it would be seen across human space, broadcast over the Galactic Web, for billions of humans to watch. Lord Hood would be in attendance to oversee the majority of it, along with a large amount of HIGHCOM.

It would be a security nightmare.

/

Tomorrow became today, and John was being driven into Skyfall City, in the back of an Armadillo APC flanked by local police on bikes. The city square had been taken over; a huge stage had been erected, with hundreds of seats placed in ordered rows. Cameras and recording equipment were abound. He didn't like it. Too little cover, too many places an assassin could hide a bomb or find a position to snipe from. There were a lot of guards about, admittedly; military and local police, with a few Mosquito drones for good measure.

The APC arrived, and the Chief exited, clad in his full MJOLNIR rig. He was greeted by a Spartan-IV, clad in grey scout armour sans the helmet. Sarah Palmer, commander of the Infinity's Spartan complement. She saluted briefly, which Chief returned, before addressing him. "Master Chief, I've been assigned security oversight."

Chief nodded in understanding. "Everything alright?"

Palmer sighed. "More or less. If you'd come this way, the theatrics monkey needs to run you through what's going to happen."

He followed her as she made her way across the stage. "What's the security situation?"

"Well, we shouldn't have to worry about Remnant forces." She began. "But there's always the chance of an Innie setting up shop in any of these apartment buildings that we can't spot."

"That bad?" Chief asked sympathetically.

"Nightmare. And we've got so much of the top brass here."

"One explosion could do a lot of damage." Chief agreed sagely, as they arrived at a point behind the main stage, where three men in formal attire were clustered around a table full of tablets and datapads.

"Master Chief has arrived, Mister Ramsey." Palmer informed them.

The three looked up, with a mixture of excitement and intimidation. Chief was a good seven feet tall, at least a head taller than the leader. Ramsey moved from the table to greet the Spartan. He was in his late fifties, and well-groomed without a hair out of place. "Hello, ah…"

"Master Chief will do." John said simply.

"Okay…Master Chief." Ramsey hesitated. "I'm Jack Ramsey, event co-ordinator for this whole ceremony."

He extended his hand, which Chief took, but didn't say anything. Ramsey seemed put off by his silence, but nonetheless carried on. He ended up explaining the whole schedule for the day. It took the best part of an hour for him to explain to Chief exactly where and how he was meant to stand, when he was meant to move…he paid attention as best he could, trying to turn it into an exercise in discipline, like the ones from Mendez back in training. The helmet served well to hide his discomfort.

"Now let's run through it a second time…"

It took a lot of willpower not to groan.

/

It had become a bloodbath.

Remnant Elites had snuck deep into the city, infiltrated the city square. The ceremony had been in full swing when they dropped their active camouflage cloaks and began to fire into the crowd. The civilians furthest away had managed to flee, but far too many human corpses littered the square. Half of the security detail had been wiped out in the opening wave, and the rest were now engaged in a full-on firefight with the Elites.

Chief was in cover behind the same Armadillo he had arrived in, now busted and broken and peppered with plasma fire. Palmer – the only other Spartan on-site – was similarly in cover on the other side of the plaza, protecting Lord Hood – one of the few remaining HIGHCOM members still alive.

His COM lit up as he leaned out of covered to fire a burst from his assault rifle at an Elite. "Palmer to Chief – we have to get Hood out of here. My signal to Infinity is jammed but local forces are enroute to extract Hood to secure bunker Whiskey; ETA seven minutes."

"Copy that. Camo Elite flanking on your two."

There was a spray of bullets from her position and an Elite exploded in a shower of blue sparks as his stealth module was overloaded. "Got him".

Chief assessed the situation. Two Spartans, one VIP. The twelve remaining members of the security detail. Sixteen Elites, with equipment and armour different to standard SpecOps. Not horrible odds, but the Elites kept relocating using their active camouflage.

The Spartan moved out of his cover and sprinted towards the stage. A few shots hit him, but the shields held and he made it to his new cover: the large marble podium that Hood had been speaking at earlier. The soldier in-charge of the Mosquito drones had gone down quicker, rendering the drones inert but still usable. His corpse was only five feet away from the podium, but Chief had attracted a lot of attention and most of the plasma fire was coming his way, wearing away at his cover.

"I need cover fire to retrieve the drone controls." He requested calmly over the COM, wearily observing his cover's erosion.

"Marines, suppressive fire in three…two…one- fire!"

Chief dove out of his cover and rolled over to the soldier's body. The TACPAD was thankfully intact, and he snatched it up before diving back into his cover. "Controls retrieved, slaving the drones to my HUD."

It only took a few seconds for the three remaining drones to reactive, but the quadrotors activated and rose quickly from the ground before buzzing around the battlefield. They provided a much needed distraction, and Chief had them concentrate on one Elite at a time, swarming it and bringing it down with the combined fire of their small machine guns. Chief would aim for a different enemy, as would the marines and Palmer. Within two minutes, the remaining Elites were down.

Palmer and Lord Hood were quickly by Chief's side, just as the reinforcements arrived. Marines piled out the back of one of the APCs.

The leader of the fireteam quickly marched over to the three. "Sergeant Blake, Lima Squad. We're your escort to Whiskey, sir."

"Then let's get out of here." Hood spoke, and they began to pile in to the APC. "What's the situation, Sergeant?"

"It's bad, Sir." Blake said hurriedly. "Communications are jammed, and we've got Covies deploying all over the city. Civilian casualties are low at the moment, but we've got word that there's a Corvette over ONI Base Bullhorn."

The APC pulled away, with an escort of two police bikes in front, and a pair of Warthogs taking up the rear. Cars reluctantly pulled to the side, but some roads were simply too blocked and choked up with fleeing traffic to allow them to pass, requiring them to constantly reroute and turn into other streets.

Chief moved to the driver's cabin of the vehicle. "How long to Whiskey, soldier?"

"Should be there in five, Chief, so long as we've got a clear route."

Bright blue light began to fill the sky, as the blue sheen of an energy shield criss-crossed overhead. "They're boxing us in with an energy dome." Blake confirmed.

Chief noticed a more immediate problem. "Driver, get us away from the Space Elevator."

"Why? Oh…shit."

The dome arced overhead, taller than most of the buildings apart from a single structure; a pillar of rings reaching high up into the sky. The shield sliced through the elevator like water; it twisted, buckled, began to collapse and fall. Everything above the shield crashed on top and slid away down the dome, but the section inside the dome came down hard, crashing into buildings and creating a cascade of buckled metal and concrete. A dust cloud was thrown up, and the driver slammed the brakes on and brought the APC to a halt.

One of the escort bikes stopped as well. The other went into a wall, blinded by the dust. The two Warthogs were able to skid to a halt. The road was empty apart from a few abandoned cars, luckily. It seemed like they had been the only ones actually heading deeper into the city.

"Everyone okay?" Palmer called out.

There was a round of groans and assertations. "All good."

"We need to get this shield down and COMs with the fleet back up." Hood asserted. "Do we have a location for the shield emitter or jammers?"

"Lord Hood, we still need to get you to Whiskey." Palmer reminded him.

"Suggestions?" Hood asked.

Chief spoke up. "Escort Hood to the bunker. I'll find the emitter and jammer."

Blake chimed in, and pulled out a datapad. "It's the one location, Sir."

He brought up a map of the city, and pointed out the specific area. "It was dropped in by the Corvette before it moved on to the ONI base. Seems to be the source of the COM interference as well."

Chief nodded. "Push the location to my HUD. I'll move on foot."

Blake reached over and palmed the rear door release, which then opened to reveal the street. "Get the platform down and we can get reinforcements from Infinity. Good hunting."

Chief nodded, and marched out. The ramp closed up behind him, and he raised his fist and banged on the door. The APC drove off, with the surviving escorts in tow. He briefly checked his TACMAP; the platform Blake had described was about two and a half miles east. He brought up an objective marker – Cortana normally did that for him – and checked his ammunition. Three spare clips for his MA5D, one spare clip for his pistol. No grenades or explosives. He'd need something to deal with the structure.

He set off in the direction of the spire. Most of the inhabitants had fled, though as he jogged through the streets he saw the occasional terrified face in a window. He could hear the sounds of battle in the distance, more to the western side of the city.

Least it means I'm less likely to run into enemies. He hoped, anyways.

The Chief emerged out into a small park, and immediately dived behind a low wall; a Covenant squad had taken up a position the square, setting up a plasma turret; currently manned by a single Grunt.

He activated his VISR mode, and the world became outlined in a slight tint of yellow. The Covenant were enveloped in red, but there was a lack of friendly green forces. Other objects – spare weapons, crates, vehicles were highlighted as well. He surveyed the area, looking for an opportunity. He needed to dispatch them quickly or sneak by.

The Chief cursed and shrank closer to the wall as the low hum of a Phantom filled the air, swinging into view from around the back of a building. It slowed, before coming to hang over the Covenant squad. An idea surfaced in Chief's mind.

He leapt from his cover and sprinted towards the dropship. He threw himself into the grav-lift that appeared and rose into the ship. The Jackal pilot turned in surprise but before it could do anything Chief had rammed his combat knife into its neck, before twisted and pulling it out sideways. Blood spattered over the console, and Chief found himself the winner of a shiny new Phantom.

He pulled the corpse free of the command chair, and accessed the forward-mounted plasma cannon. It swivelled and turned to face the squad outside, and unleashed the blue fire upon them, blasting them away. That done, he appropriated more of the controls, and set in a course to the platform Blake had tagged for him.

The Phantom rose, spun in the air, and flew shakily. The controls, thankfully, were not too dissimilar to a Pelican's and Chief was able to keep it on a steady course. He spied a lot of Covenant anti-air defences that had been rigged up on the many rooftops, and decided that the enemy was unaware of their craft's new pilot. That was good. It meant he would be able to approach the objective without resistance.

He lit up his COM. "This is Spartan-One-One-Seven to UNSCDF forces; I have commandeered an enemy Phantom and I am enroute to the site of the shield projector. Over."

A voice – whoever was overseeing the defense of the city – replied: "Copy that. Good hunting, Chief. I'll make sure my men don't shoot you down. Out."

The objective came into view. In a way, the structure reminded Chief of the Spires the Covenant had used during the war. It was a good five hundred feet tall and fifty wide, with three legs shaped like pincers which held up a central dome, all in the Covenant's trademark purple. A pillar of light extended from the highest point of the dome, powering the shield overhead.

The Phantom lacked the firepower to destroy it directly. So that left one other option. Chief tightened his grip around the control stick, and pushed the dropship into a faster speed. The Phantom picked up momentum, and soon it was racing towards the Spire; when he didn't divert his course, warning lights began to whine and flash across the dashboard and viewport. When he still didn't divert, confused alien speech blared from hidden speakers, demanding to know what the Phantom was doing. And then he was too close for any anti-air to take a shot at him; so he unbuckled the crash webbing and locked in the flight path, before leaving the cockpit and bracing himself in the Phantom's main hold.

The tower was in for a treat.

A/N: As always, please read and review. I hope you enjoyed it.