Halo: And The Horse You Rode In On

by Barrobroadcaster

Boarding Party

There wasn't much left of the orbital shipyards over Mars but the UNSC was hard at work rebuilding the navy that the Covenant all but destroyed. Captain Chase realized something: he'd just been given command of a fully crewed ship only hours ago and immediately he'd been ordered to take the ship and crew out for shakedown. Things were happening far too quickly, as if someone had been planning this. Was the UNSC in that bad a shape? All the red tape had been cleared, all the rules had been bent. All the rules except the one Chase had broken.

His uneasiness of the situation only heightened as his Pelican dropship neared the end of the shipyards and he caught the first glimpse of his ship. "Hard to believe that thing's never seen combat huh?" the pilot remarked. Chase said nothing but frowned at his new posting. Season's Change looked like it had sat there for more than a few seasons. The hull was peppered with pock-marks and dents, black streaks crossed every surface in different angles of charcoal black and rust brown. Captain Chase's heart sank.

The Pelican sat down in the starboard hangar bay of the ship. Roughly twice the size of a four-car garage, the hangar had enough space to occupy the Pelican and not much else. The ramp dropped and Chase got his first taste of the ship's atmosphere. The air was stale but breathable. Considering how the outside of the ship looked, he was almost surprised there was enough oxygen. There was barely any illumination as he stepped onto the deck. There was no crew to greet him, no one standing at attention as the captain boarded his vessel. The pilot of the ship didn't say a word as the ramp raised and the maneuvering thrusters flared up, taking the dropship out of the hangar, passed the atmosphere containment field seperating the compartment from space and back into the night. Chase had turned around to watch it leave.

"Hey, are you here for the pizza party?", a voice behind him asked. Chase turned to see a man in a gray UNSC navy uniform, much like the one he was wearing. The man appeared to be eating some kind of candy out of a plastic bag as he peered in at Chase. "Where's the pizza?", the man asked, crunching on a mouthfull of hard-shelled candies.

"I wasn't aware there was a party.", Chase said, more than a little puzzled. He turned his head around to see the Pelican's thrusters fade out of view. He then turned back to the stranger in the doorway, his only indication of life on this ship and apparently a member of the ship's crew.

"What are you here for then?", the man asked after a long, crunchy pause.

"I'm Captain Chase. I'm supposed to be taking command of this vessel."

"Oh, so you're here to oversee the decomissioning?", the crewman asked.

"No, I've got orders from Admiral Daniels to take this ship out for shakedown and-",

The man's eyes went wide with fear and he choked on the candy he was about to swallow. He bent over, grabbed his knees and began coughing hard. He stammered back and gagged. Chase started towards the man to try and help him.

"Sh... shakedown? We're not being decomissioned?", the crewman asked in a gagged voice.

"Uh, no, I was told the ship was fully crewed and I-", Chase tried to explain again.

"This... this changes everything. I've got to tell the doctor!", the crewman shouted in a hoarse voice. He then turned around and ran off down the hallway behind him. Chase peered through the door after him in time to see the man run down the hallway, making random shouts that echoed off the bulkheads. He stepped through the doorway as the man disappeared down the dark corridor.Overhead rectangles casted faint white coloumns up and down the corridor, just enough illumination to see part of the walls on the side and where one was going but not the floor underneath them. Chase walked down the corridor and heard the floor squeak underneath him. "Hello? Is anyone there?", he called as he walked.

He was about halfway down the corridor when a door to the side opened and poured light into the hallway. Two men fell through the door and onto the ground as if one had tackled the other through the doorway. They scuffled with each other and fought on the ground. Chase realized he was witnessing some sort of fist fight and ran towards them intent on breaking up the fight.

"Hey! Stop that! What the hell is going on here- get off of him!", he shouted as he ran down the hall at the two brawlers. They both abruptly stopped fighting and turned to him. He slowed his pace as he got closer to them. They were both wearing the standard grey fatigues of navy crewman but... they were in tatters. Their faces were painted with colored stripes, green, red and black. They wore belts around their heads with various papers tucked underneath them. The cuffs of their sleaves were torn and moved around their wrists, their pant legs had been torn off completely and they wore boots that looked as if they'd been converted into sandals somehow. They stared at him for three silent seconds. Chase could hear his own hearbeat and his mouth hung open at the scene. He involuntarily took a step backward.

"Intruder!", the two men shouted simultaneously. They scrambled to their feet and rushed Chase, grabbing him and hauling him through the door. Chase shouted at them, tried to push them off but they yanked him through the door and into the light of the room they'd just came from. They continued shouting "Intruder!" and "Trespasser!" as they carried him through the door. Chase's nose wrinkled; the men smelled of B.O mixed with engineering chemicals, an oily stench. He was confused, frightened and helpless as he was apparently being taken hostage aboard his own ship and being carried into the engineering section by savages.

The engineering section was a massive chamber in the center of the ship, an almost building-sized structure occupied the center of it and ran from floor to ceiling, the fusion reactor. There were more 'crewman' inside, some walking, some standing, dozens of them in the cramped spaces near terminals and computer stations designed to monitor the ship's various delicate instruments, all of them dressed similarly to the ones who had just hauled him through the door. Small tribal-looking dwellings took up space in the corners of the room that appeared to be made of combat mesh, tents, crates and pieces of metal. Some of the savages were sitting around a fire and there were torches placed at either side of the entrance despite the fact that the cieling lights fully illuminated the room. The savages had all now noticed his presence and had began chanting the same things, "Intruder, Trespasser, Outsider". Chase was now convinced he was having a nightmare.

"What are you doing?! Please, someone help me!", Chase shouted at them. The savages now crowded around him and lifted him by his limbs into the air. Their chanting changed abruptly into another word, "volcano". They carried him through to the middle of the room. High above them, catwalks lined the cieling givng access to the higher areas of the fusion reactor. People stared down at him and shook fists as the mob carried him. The word "volcano" now echoed off the wall.

"What is happening? Put me down! Please someone!", Chase's pleas were drowned out and ignored by the crewmen around him. They carried him up a ramp that in the middle of the section and onto a large rectangular shaft connected to the fusion reactor, one of the power conduits that fed energy directly from the core to the rest of ship. The shaft shook as they approached the ship's reactor and pulled back, exposing the core of the ship directly in front of them. Heat from the core spilled into the room as the reactor's shielding was disabled. Chase looked up and at the mouth of the core in horro as it finally dawned on him what the "volcano" was.

Author's Note:

Sorry this one took so long but I've been a bit busy. This story's going to have a lot of ideas that I've had for a long time and I do hope you enjoy it.

Comments

[Darian Stephens]

I fear the outcome of these 'people' arriving at Equestria. Also, please don't turn them into ponies!

[Barrobroadcaster]

1964568 I have no intention of ponifying anyone in Halo at this time. As I said, this is a very different Halo crossover.

[Darian Stephens]

1964901
Well, thank