Gray Team, chapter 1 Options

[Agent Griff]

I've studied all my options regarding a Halo story, and this seems the most unexplored and the most mysterious of all Halo stories. Even Eric Nylund, author of several Halo novels said that he considered the story of Gray Team a subject for a possible novel. Where I'm gonna be 1 step ahead of them and I'll try to express what I think happened to Gray Team. Most of this story will be fictional but I will add some things which are canon in the mix. I hope you enjoy this story.

~~~

The year was 2525. The UNSC frigate Commonwealth was in orbit over the planet Chi Ceti IV, in the fringes of UNSC space, more than 77 Light Years from Earth. The Commonwealth had just dropped all of the Spartan IIs which had survived the byo-augmentation process to test their new armour. This armour, dubbed the Mjolnir Mk IV by its creators, was a new type of special combat suit which was designed from the ground up especially for the Spartans, and especially for fighting the Covenant.

The MJOLNIR Mark IV was a radical redesign of the suit taking advantage of many technological leaps. This advanced battle suit was the first to fully integrate with the soldier's body. The suit plugged directly into the soldier's nervous system through a standard issue Neural Interface. The suit's many functions (communications, hydro-static gel levels, environmental systems, etc.) responded to commands issued by the soldier's thoughts.

This was also the first design to successfully utilize the reactive metal liquid crystal as a means of enhancing locomotion. It flawlessly enhanced the speed and power of the wearer, a sharp contrast to previous versions which required powered motors to allow the soldiers mobility. Because of this advancement, the design more closely resembled an actual suit of armor, as opposed to a powered exoskeleton. On one level the soldier moved the suit and in return the suit moved the soldier. This allowed for an incredibly compact design when compared to the previous incarnations.

The success of this version was also dependent upon the parallel development of the Spartan-II program, which produced soldiers with the physical prowess required to drive the system. Previous attempts to wear the prototype suit by unaugmented soldiers resulted in their deaths or severe injury due to the extreme reactivity of the system.

As soon as the Spartans equiped their new suits, they found it to perfectly suit them and their needs on the battlefield. The Spartans could now be assigned into military units and be sent to battle the Covenant. Before they would be officially sent into battle however, the Spartans were forced to undergo a baptism by fire when a Covenant frigate entered the system and engaged the Commonwealth. As soon as they could load up on weapons and ammo, all of the Spartans were ferried via Pelican dropships to the Commonwealth. It was going to need all the help it could get.

As soon as the Spartans boarded the ship they received tactical information regarding the situation of the battle, information on their enemies and their role in the battle which was going from bad to worse for the UNSC. There was only one option left for captain Wallace, commander of the Commonwealth: send the Spartans to board the enemy ship. Without a flinch, the Spartans did what they were told.

After being taken by a Pelican dropship to the very hull of the Covenant starship, the Spartans infiltrated the ship through a hole in the hull made by the Commonwealth's MAC gun. The MAC gun was an advanced weapon used by the UNSC, on par with Covenant Plasma torpedos. They were in short suply however when the war started and few ships had fully functional MAC guns. When they were fully functional however, they were a weapon to be feared by the Covenant. A well placed MAC gun shot could disable a Covenant ship by destroying its engines, or destroy it completely by destroying its fuel cells. Before the hull could be destroyed however, there was always the issue of Covenant shielding. All Covenant ships had shields, and the most resilient of shields could even resist a SHIVA Nuclear Missile. In this situation however, the shields of the Covenant ship were down, and both ships were exchanging body-blows between eachother. The Spartans would turn this situation however.

Only three Spartans, John-117, Kelly-087 and Sam-034 succesfully landed on the ship and entered through it's hole. They reached the ship's reactor, tossed their warheads inside, and escaped. Unfortunately, Sam got hit by plasma from a Jackal that breached his armor making it impossible for him to follow his friends out from the ship since he would die from decompression. He was forced to stay behind . He held off the Covenant while John and Kelly escaped. The warheads went off, and the Covenant ship was destroyed, taking Sam with it.

This battle was a victory for the UNSC, yet the Spartans had paid a price in this victory. One of their finest was killed by the Covenant on his first mission. He was the first of the Spartans to be deemed "Missing in Action" by the UNSC. It was part of a startegy to keep morale up by maintaining the myth that Spartans couldn't be killed. The reality however, was painfully different from what UNSC publicity made it appear to be.

After the battle, the testing facility on the planet's surface was abandoned in fear of a Covenant counter-attack. This attack featured only one ship, yet Covenant fleets often employed great numbers of ships, upwards of 30 capital ships with many more support ships.

The Spartan super-soldiers were divided into platoons, called teams, which were colour-coded. The team of Spartan John-117 was Blue Team. Out of all the Spartan teams, one stood out. Gray Team. Sent into a mysterious mission to a place held secret by the UNSC, being named only "too far away to be recalled", they were one of the last remaining Spartans by the end of the year 2552, when Earth was invaded. Many kept seeing them as possible reinforcements to join the battle to come. Yet many also questioned wheter they actually existed and if they weren't dead.

The task of Gray Team, when they set out from the UNSC HQ on Reach in 2551, was to try to focus Covenant ships and troops into a far away section of Human space, while keeping attention away from Reach and, ultimately, Earth. Hoping for a diversion, Gray Team was sent along with a task-force of 7 UNSC ships to the furthest reaches of UNSC space, even further than Chi Ceti IV. The planet which was their destination, Caleston, was a rocky planet, made up of several continents with wide surfaces of undrinkable liquid between them. This, coupled with the great heat of Caleston caused by the nearby star Fury 821, made the planet lightly inhabited. It wasn't one of the greatest places to set up but it was better than other planets nearby.

The task-force, dubbed task-force Atlas after the flagship of the battlegroup the carrier UNSC Atlas, stood in orbit over the planet as Pelican and Albatross dropships ferried troops and engineers over to the surface of the planet. The whole taskforce was commanded by captain Alexander Quinn, a promising UNSC naval commander who had seen action before in the battles of Paris IV and Jericho VII. This was first mission in command of an entire task-force and he was visibly nervous.

As he stood on the bridge of his flagship, the leader of Gray Team came up to him to talk about what his Spartans would have to do in this mission. Since he was thinking heavily, he barely noticed Spartan Randall-079 coming up behind him, even if Randall was in his Mjolnir Mk V armour specially given to him and his squad-mates for this asignment.

"Sir?" Randall quietly asked from behind captain Quinn.

"What...who...oh, Spartan-079. I wanted to speak to you. Good thing you received my message quickly." Quinn said in a slightly nervous voice. It was the second time he talked with a Spartan, and he knew about their famed skills in battle.

"You can call me Randall sir, I much prefer it when people call me by my name. Regarding a message, you never sent me one sir." Randall after a slight pause in which he tried to remember any message sent to him. Captain Quinn had only thought of a message, but since he was so stressed he didn't actually send one.

"Well, it's good you came anyway. I've been receiving preliminary reports from the planet's surface. It seems it's uninhabited. A barren wasteland...thankfully." Captain Quinn said, gathering his thoughts and trying to calm down. He felt a constant beat in his heart, a constant fear which always gnawed at him from the inside, too faint to really affect someone but too powerfull to dissapear. Quinn was feeling it fully.

"I have gathered my men sir, we are all suited-up and ready to go. What are our orders sir?" Randall asked. He was not impacient yet he did not appreciate staying away from the subject.

"Very well then...Randall. Go to the hangar bays and board Pelican dropship Alpha Kilo 17. It will take you to the surface of the planet, where it is no longer my jurisdiction to give you orders. General Blake will handle everything from there. I wish you luck on the surface Randall." Quinn said in a calm and collected voice. To an outside observer, only slight flickers of his voice would show how stressed he really was. Those that knew him closely however, could clearly see that he had changed since his promotion to captain. From the confident and outgoing commander he used to be, he was now a hollow shell of his former self, always seeming to fear something which was neither close but neither far.

"Yes sir. Good luck to you as well, I hope this all goes well for you." Randall said as he politely saluted his commanding officer. Randall wished the captain luck with a slightly ironic tone. He smiled slightly as the captain's face went pale. Randall always liked making these slight jokes on his colleagues. Little gags to personally amuse himself and ease off the stress of constantly being ready for battle.

As he left the bridge, he left the captain alone, staring blankly at the large viewport which showed the planet above which his ships orbited. His task-force was well-equiped as far as UNSC standards went. The oldest ship he had was his own flagship, the Atlas, which had served in the war since its very start, in 2525. The other 6 ships, the heavy Marathon-class cruiser Acheron, the 2 frigates Ebon Falcon and Surprise and the 3 destroyers Avenger, Achilles and Galahad were all relatively new ships, all equiped with modernized MAC guns, Archer misiles and Shiva Nuclear misiles.

The long trials and tribulations of Gray Team had just begun...
~~~
I hope you liked this first part of "Gray Team". Feedback and criticism is greatly appreciated.

This post has been edited by Agent Griff: May 11 2007, 07:12 PM

[Agent Griff]

Okay, this is the battle. I hope you like it.
~~~


Everything was ready for the battle ahead. Preparations had been done, formations had been put into effect and all weapon systems were online. All the UNSC ships had to do now, was wait for the Covenant fleet to appear. A grueling task which resembled waiting on the edge of a cliff for a fell wind to pull you down. As captain Quinn stood on the deck of his ship, preparing for the Covenant attack, he received a message on the COMM. system from captain Maywheater of the Acheron

"My men are all in position and all weapon systems are active, the Archer missile pods, the SHIVA nukes and all 3 MAC guns. Just say when and where." Maywheater said with a sign of desperation in his voice.

"Even with all our weapons combined, we still wouldn't be able to take down more than half of the Covenant fleet. But we aren't alone in this, we have a powerful ally." Quinn said, rather mysteriously.

"Who, the Spartans? They are but mere soldiers. They can, at most, destroy a single Covenant capital ship by themselves, but not a whole fleet." Maywheater said rather skeptically.

"Not the Spartans. This ally joined us when we reached the system, an added source of help from High Command back on Reach. Please welcome Captain Van Buren, commander of the UNSC Prowler Razor's Edge." Quinn said as he revealed their secret ally. Van Buren was the commander of a Prowler, a UNSC stealth-ship which used Covenant technology. Besides being an invaluable strategic and tactical addition to battles, Prowlers could also lay mine-fields. These mine-fields were very potent and any ships to cross their path would be destroyed instantly. The Razor's Edge had been doing just that this whole time.

"Greetings gentlemen, captain Edgar Van Buren of the UNSC Razor's Edge at your service." Van Buren suddenly joined the conversation between Quinn and Maywheater on the COMM. He was a relatively young man in his early 40s with a brisk moustache and black hair. His face did not show Van Buren's experience. His most noteworthy accomplishment was attaching a telemetric tracker onto a Covenant ship during the battle of New Harmony. This led to the discovery of a Covenant shipyard on an asteroid called KT-49. Shortly afterward, the shipyard was destroyed by a strike-force of 300 Spartan III super soldiers, the latest addition to the UNSC armed forces.

"Greetings...captain. My sensors did not detect your ship when you entered the system...odd." Maywheater said with a slight tone of envy in his voice. He was fiercely proud of his ship and its capabilities, and the fact that he couldn't detect Van Buren's Prowler hurt his ego immensely.

"Well, it wouldn't be a stealth-ship if it could be detected by simple things such as sensors, would it Captain?" Van Buren asked sarcastically as Maywheater was offended even more.

"Enough is enough you too. Your ship is great at blowing things up Justin, and yours is great at being undetected, Edgar. End of discussion. Did you accomplish the task I gave you when you entered the system?" Quinn asked with an authoritative tone. The only times Quinn shuddered was when he talked with his superior officers. He feared and hated them at the same time for what they had done to him before, and each and every time when he was angry at someone, more of his anger was directed against his commanding officers, than to who he was talking to.

"Yes...sir. I have placed a double mine-field all around our ships. It now depends on where the Covenant emerge from slipspace." Van Buren said.

"We will draw them in close to our ships, so the mine-field can do its job fully. As soon as the Covenant ships appear, I want you to get in as close as you can and inspect them Edgar. Find out their heading, their speed and their bearing. Meanwhile, I want you to try to aim for the fuel cells of the Covenant ships Justin. If you manage to get just 1 MAC round past their defenses and right into the fuel cells, it will rupture them and destroy the ship. As soon as the Covenant pass the mine-field, I want our ships to get as close as possible as to target the fuel cells. My ship will provide fighter support. Understood?" Quinn asked as soon as he was done detailing the tactical responsibilities of Maywheater and his ship.

They were all ready to do battle, both the Covenant and the humans. All that was to do now, was wait. Soon enough, with surgical slices into the very fabric of space, Covenant ships started appearing out of slipspace. They outnumbered the UNSC ships 3 to 1, a deadly ratio. The ships that stood out among the 18 ships of the Covenant fleet were the 4 CCS Battlecruisers, the 2 Carriers and Kusovai's own Reverence-class Cruiser, which was the biggest of them all. Besides these ships, there was an assortment of other capital ships which ranged from heavy CAR-class Cruisers to Covenant frigates and destroyers. A well balanced Wolf-pack overall.

Quinn's luck held out, the Covenant had emerged from slipspace very close to the mine-field. Too close to retreat but too far to properly engage. Kusovai immediately gave the order for all ships to advance and engage the UNSC ships as soon as they were in range. Quinn did nothing for the moment, waiting for the Covenant ships to pass the mine-field. As soon as they were past the mine-field, he would give the order to advance at full speed and engage the weakened Covenant ships. Quinn's reasoning was that it was better not to give the Covenant any reason to stall and wait for the UNSC ships to come to them.

Things played just as Quinn wished. The Covenant ships advanced unsuspectingly into a trap. All chaos had soon broken out, as a bright cascade of colours appeared before the UNSC ships. Explosions, coupled with Covenant shields overloading were a wonderful sight for any UNSC marine. As soon as the Covenant ships had passed the minefields, their numbers had lessened significantly. Starting off with an 18 ship force, the Covenant were now down to only 11 ships, out of which many were badly damaged or, at the least, had their shields overloaded by the blast.

The UNSC ships were now at equal odds with the Covenant ships, and they could fight them without the added advantage of incredibly resilient Covenant shields. A storm of MAC volleys combined with Archer missiles soon bombarded the weakened Covenant ships which, without their shields, were nothing more than sitting ducks. A volley of Plasma torpedoes however soon came in response. The well-aimed volley disabled 1 of the frigates and 1 of the remaining destroyers, almost destroying them. Quinn soon received information from Van Buren, telling him that the MAC gun and Archer missile volley had been extremely successful, destroying 5 already weakened Covenant ships. Van Buren also told Quinn that out of the 6 ships left, only 3 had shields at 50% capacity. These 6 ships were Kusovai's own ship, Sacred Promise, 3 CCS Battlecruisers, the Carrier Commitment and Patience and the CAR-class Cruiser Devotion.

By this time, Kusovai was desperately trying to coordinate his ships as to ensure a strong defence. Seeing that the 3 MAC guns of the Acheron were doing the most damage to his ships, he quickly sent boarding parties to disable the Acheron from the inside. Field Master Voro would lead these attacks. As soon as he sent out those orders, he ordered his crew to fire his ship's Energy Projector, an extremely potent ray of super-heated energy. His chosen target was the Atlas, which Kusovai noticed was giving fighter support to the Acheron.

The ray from the Energy Projector hit the Atlas on her starboard side, damaging the ship's hangar-bays. As an addition, Kusovai also ordered the Commitment and Patience to send Seraph-class fighters to defend the boarding parties. By this time, the UNSC ships had already closed the distance between the two fleets and had engaged in heavy fighting. At point-blank range however, the two fleets were fairly equal in power seeing as the Covenant shields had been severely weakened by the mines.

Captain Maywheater ordered targeting control to target the fuel cells of the Covenant carrier Commitment and Patience with all heavy ordinance the Acheron possessed. All 3 MAC guns of the Acheron soon fired, accompanied with hundreds of Archer missiles and 2 remote-controlled Longsword fighters bearing SHIVA nukes. He also ordered his point-defense turrets to focus fire on the incoming Covenant boarding parties.

Meanwhile, Captain Quinn back on the Atlas, seeing that the Acheron had been targeted by the Covenant ships, ordered his MAC guns to fire against the Sacred Promise, hoping to disable it. Quinn also ordered that all other ships focus fire on the Sacred Promise, seeing as it was the strongest remaining Covenant ship. Soon enough, the shields of the Sacred Promise started to weaken considerably. Kusovai by this time was starting to fear that his ships would lose this battle. All his hopes were now upon Field Master Voro who was sent to disable the Acheron from the inside.

Aboard the Acheron, Tom received orders to go and defend the hangar bays of the ship. The Covenant had sent scores of boarding ships to attack the hangar bays, seeing as it offered more space for troop deployment. By the time Tom reached the hangar bay doors, they had already been overrun by the Covenant. With a squad of Marines behind him, Tom ordered an advance. As soon as the door was open, Tom fired a wide, semi-circular burst from his Assault Rifle, making almost all Covenant seek cover. His burst was followed by covering fire offered by the Marines behind him.

Immediately after his first burst, Tom ran after a few crates so he wouldn't be in the open when the Covenant offered return fire. As soon as he got his bearings once more, he started taking shots from behind cover at Covenant forces throughout the hangar. Tom soon realized however that he had to disable the boarding ships if he wanted to cut the flow of Covenant reinforcements. For that purpose, he rose from behind the crates and fired his Assault Rifle in full auto-mode, bringing down several Grunts like reeds in the wind. Elites soon emerged from the tube of the boarding vessel, led by a golden-clad Elite wielding a Plasma Rifle and holding an Energy Sword in his off-hand.

The Elite soon targeted Tom. With a quick burst from his Plasma Rifle, the Elite shot Tom's Assault Rifle out of his own hands. Tom however quickly side-rolled behind a crate after losing his weapon. With a quick grunt of frustration, he revealed himself from behind his temporary cover with his M6G pistol in hand. With a quick shot, he shot the Plasma Rifle out of the Elite's hands before it could fire again.

"Touché!" Tom quickly said as he closed the distance between him and the Elite. The Elite didn't mind Tom getting closer, brandishing his Plasma Sword as soon as he lost his Plasma Rifle.

"Let me fight the Demon brothers!" the Elite, who turned out to be Voro, shouted as he charged into battle.

With one quick overhead chop, Voro tried to kill Tom, unsuccessfully however since Tom quickly dodged the blow by turning his shoulders and hips. Voro then tried a horizontal slash meant to behead Tom, yet Tom's quick reflexes once again saved him. Rising quickly after crouching to avoid the blow, Tom grabbed Voro by his hand, giving him an elbow to the face at the same. Disoriented by the blow, Voro dropped his Plasma Sword, letting it fall into Tom's hands. As soon as he got up, he gave a shout to the other Elites.

"Give me a Blade quickly!" Voro shouted as he prepared to fight Tom once more. He soon received one from his subordinates.

"Now we're even." Tom said as he approached Voro once more.

"We'll see about that Demon." Voro said as he did the same.

Tom quickly attacked with a quick diagonal slice meant to catch Voro by surprise. Voro however was an expert wielder of the Plasma Sword, and couldn't be fooled by such tricks. He quickly raised his blade to parry Tom's blow. Tom, seeing his strike fail, quickly raised his blade and attacked the same way once more. After Voro parried his second strike, Tom quickly drew his blade and attacked Voro in the opposite direction of his previous blow. Voro was quick to notice such strategies however. He raised his blade and caught Tom's blade while it was still in the air. After quickly turning it around, he gave Tom an elbow in the visor, just as Tom had done before. Tom staggered a few feet backed because of the blow.

"'Touché', as you humans say it." Voro said mockingly as he advanced to attack Tom. Tom was clearly inexperienced in the ways of the Plasma Sword when compared to Voro.

"You're starting to get on my nerves." Tom said, getting angry at the prospect of being defeated by Voro.

Voro attacked Tom with an overhead slash but Tom quickly raised his blade to parry the incoming blow. Right after parrying the blow, Tom kicked Voro in the belly with his boot, making him stagger back. After striking Voro in the stomach with his boot, Tom quickly advanced and swung his blade. Voro was quick on his feet and managed to dodge the blow, just as Tom had managed before. Voro then quickly lunged at Tom, trying to catch him off-guard. Where Tom's sword skills wouldn't help, his super-human reflexes came to the rescue however. Tom barely missed the lunge by slightly turning to the side.

As Voro was preparing for another strike, he received a message from Kusovai, telling him to retreat back to the Sacred Promise as soon as possible. Grudgingly, Voro followed the order leaving the fight to end in a draw.

"We'll finish this some other time Demon!" Voro said with hate in his voice as he boarded the ship which brought him and his troops to the ship. He had lost a lot of good warriors in the fight and the Covenant ships were being pummeled by the UNSC MAC guns, which were deadly accurate at close range. This was a fight the Covenant were unexpectedly losing.

Despite losing a great number of troops in the fight with the Marines led by Tom, Voro's men had managed to do one thing. They had planted a bomb inside the Acheron which was set to detonate in a few minutes, just enough time for the boarding ships to leave. As soon as Voro was back aboard the Sacred Promise, he waited a few more moments before a section of the Acheron exploded and was torn off completely. This was not before the Acheron fired its MAC guns once more though, crippling the Sacred Promise.

With his ship severely damaged, captain Maywheater gave a general order to abandon ship. Dozens of life-pods then started flying away from the heavily damaged ship, heading back towards Caleston. Soon after the life-pods flew away from the ship, it started plummeting towards the surface of Caleston with great speed, a flaming ruin in the vacuum of space.

Tom was now separated from his 2 companions and the rest of the UNSC battlegroup, stranded from the battle going on above him, his last sight of the battle being a fleeting glimpse of one of the Covenant ships exploding into billions of tiny pieces...
~~~
I hope you liked this action heavy part of Gray Team.

This post has been edited by Agent Griff: May 17 2007, 07:01 PM