Star Wars meets Halo:Chapter 2

War of the Stars:  Chapter two:  Dropdown

Numerous creatures lined the trees, or would so appear from a distance to be mere trees.  Out of all, one species was the most anxious, every one of these creatures were covered from toe to head in shaggy like dark brown fur, where their heavily muscled bodies, tingled with anticipation to meet these new up comers.

Soft barks murmured from their mouths, as they watched a group of pods; fall to their planet, to their lands, and to their homes.   However, one out of all was the most interested in these invaders of their sacred planet.  His fur rippled with battle-hardened muscles, which bristled with anticipation, to test the battle skills of these possible new opponents.  He barked an order to two other so very different creatures, which were covered in brown fur as he was, but they were very similar in many ways, only this one creature would admit, or that was his belief in the very least.

They jumped off their perched branches and vanished into the forest below.

                                                       ***
"The rides down in pods were always a very bumpy ride, weren't they?"   A familiar feminine voice echoed inside of John-117's (otherwise known as The Chief, Master Chief, or John) helmet.

"Cortana, they always were, and you never stopped complaining about them."  John responded back, to the voice's question.

"I see you didn't miss these rides then, always up for a fight aren't you Chief?"  The voice laughed lightly in response to his answer.

"Get ready Cortana, we're about to land."  He said in response to her question.  "Oh and yes, I am always ready for a fight."  He couldn't help but add.

After all, they needed to be prepared to fight as soon as they landed, but he was not too happy with the weapons the UNSC had provided him with, standard UNSC combat weapons.  He would gladly take a rocket launcher over these weapons any day.  Nevertheless, it was what they gave him, and he would have to make due with these weapons, for the time being at least.

He took a quick glance on a screen that monitored the other pods that were rocketing down to the surface, some following his pod, some behind his pod.  The one closest to the right of his pod was carrying Garret Atkinson.  He was from the United States, where precisely in the states, the Chief wasn't exactly sure, but from what he had been told, he was a good soldier, Atkinson would serve as a Sergeant in this mission.  The pod that flew the furthest of the Chief's right pod, belonged to a feminine soldier; her name was Jane Emerson, she was from Middle East the Chief was relatively sure, she had strong relations with Atkinson, what those relations were or how strong the bond of the relation was, John wasn't sure, all he really knew that was an exact fact, was her rank and position on the team; she would be the team's medic.  Nor did he really have a desire to know, the Chief always had the notion that relationships in battle (or the military), often led to death, but this wasn't always true, he just didn't consider it a necessity to know the relationships of others, and he didn't personally want one either, at least not now, not during possible future wars.   The third character of their group would be a Lieutenant, who hailed from the U.S., but he was a battle-hardened soldier, his name was Eric Anderson.  He would be second in command, next to the Arbiter, the Chief, and the Elite commandoes, who would be joining them once the Covenant Drop ship, brought them to the rendezvous point, but the ranks of the Elites or their names were unknown to the Chief.  He checked his readings again:  the Arbiter's pod was following closely behind his own almost close enough that it would hit the top of the Chief's, but it was meant to seem that way, it was always designed to land next to the Chief's pod.  It was simply for extra protection against an enemy attack.

The pods finally slammed into the surface of the strange planet, then Emerson's pod, and almost simultaneously, the other two pods crashed beside the Chief's pod.  The Chief kicked his door out and held his gun up jumping out of the pod, watching his sites to be sure of any enemy presence, which was if the inhabitants were hostile.  Emerson walked out of her pod silently but with her assault, rifle ready and looked at the Chief, he noticed she was very dark skinned, but was not black skinned by any means.

"A bit eager for a fight aren't you?"  She said to him, with a frown that seemed plastered on her face.

Then Anderson's door was suddenly knocked down flat with a loud thud, he walked out and drilled Emerson with a hard stare.  "The Colonel said to be ready in case of the natives of this planet were hostile.  The Chief is just doing his job.   Besides, he has more experience in battle than just about anyone in our entire squad. So lay off him."

She scowled at him.  "Just shut up, it's not like you're in charge."

"Both of you stop bickering, we're here on a mission, not to fight, so just shut your mouths, and let's just do our work."  The Chief said to the both of them.  That shut them both up.  Emerson, glared at him and moved over to Atkinson's pod, and pried it open.

Atkinson was not moving; it appeared his arm was in a slump.

Emerson said to Carson in a low voice, but distressed voice, "Atkinson!  Are you alright?"

He responded with a low groan, and lifted his head; his eyes pierced her with dread.  She rushed over to him as he began to fall forward.  She caught him and pulled him out, and set him on the jungle like floor so he would not be putting pressure on his badly injured arm.  She began to inspect his arm as the Arbiter's pod door fell down and he walked out holding a Covenant Carbine, and he had been assigned a Plasma rifle, but it was out of sight for the time being.

"This isn't good.  We need to help him, quickly."  Emerson mumbled after finishing her examination.

A robotic voice called out from a distance, "Oh how tragic, one of your men is injured."  An odd machine that was in a shape of an orb was gliding above the ground by about a meter or so came into the distance and approached them.

The Chief turned to the machine and bolted his battle rifle up, aiming at the robotic creation.   He shouted at the robot.  "What the hell are you doing here?  And how did you get here?"

The robotic creation responded in a calm voice, or as calm as robots sounded which its voice seemed to emit from the same spot as a green light that seemed to radiate inside the robot.  "Do not fear Reclaimer, I am not here to harm you.  As you can plainly tell there are no Sentinels are not here with me, or they would try to kill you such as Guilty Spark and the Sentinels under his jurisdiction.  I was brought by men or what appeared to be known as men, in white suits to a planet far off from here."

Cortana's voice began speaking inside of the Chief's helmet speaking directly to him.  "Chief, he might be telling the truth, I don't detect any sentinels in this area, or on this planet.  You should listen to him."

The Chief lowered his weapon somewhat convinced.  "Then how did you get here?"
Emerson called to the Chief apparent that she could hear the conversation, despite still helping Carson, "Ok, what the hell is going on?  Someone fill me in on who this robot is.  In addition, what planet did you come from? Tell us!"

The machine chuckled lightly.  Emerson frowned annoyed how it apparently thought this was funny.  "You humans, always ask so many questions.  But I shall answer all of your questions."  The mechanical creation paused and directed its voice at Emerson.  "You, female, please continue attempting to bandage your friend's injuries, but keep in mind I will not repeat what I said, so do your best to pay attention."

She scowled lightly, but nodded.  "Whatever just tell us who you are.  And don't call me female, the name's Jane Emerson, but call me Emerson."

The orb laughed at her response.  "Of course, of course, but Emerson, to answer your first question:  I am called a Monitor, otherwise known as 747 Last Defense.  Moreover, for your other question, I was brought to a planet, where its entire population seemed to live in a vast city, which seemed to cover the entire planet.  There they siphoned all memory I had presently inside my memory banks.  I was only able to recover the information of the atrocity, by escaping and managing to recover this information from the system's Central computer.  The only other information I could recover was of the encounters that came from the main database of the Sentential Network.  This network recorded all of the information that Guilty Spark ever came across during the time of the war between the UNSC and the Covenant and other information that other Monitors may have stumbled upon.  But I knew I would need this in order to help you, but how I found you, I cannot say.  I fear these men, will come to the Halos and ignite the Halos' detonation sequence they most likely believe that is a super-weapon for mass destruction, but fortunately, this will take some time for them to acquire the correct information of the Halo ring locations and how to detonate them of course.   I also have reason to believe they have no indication of the flood's presence, and in thus release the flood into this galaxy.   All the same, I cannot allow this to happen.  That is my protocol after all, to contain the Flood from this galaxy.  Will you help me?"

The Chief looked at Anderson who wandered over and heard the entire explanation from the Monitor; the Arbiter silently followed him, as he watched them with a precautious sense unsure of the Monitor's claims.

The Arbiter spoke first.  "What word can you possibly give us to believe when our usefulness for protecting the rings becomes void, that you won't attempt to kill us?"

The Monitor responded once again, "I simply cannot give you my word, but without me, you cannot stop these men, for they have technology that surpasses Covenant and human technology.  Without my help they have the upper hand with better weaponry and superior numbers, but with my help, maybe you can save both of your organizations.  They may not want to kill us now, but I am sure they would be attacked by Covenant fleets and possibly provoke a war and-"

The Arbiter stopped him short, "Then let us go to the High Council of the

Covenant, we cant allow them to fight this enemy.  It could lead to the Covenant's downfall if we fought a organization that these men may be apart of."

Jane sat up looking at them.  "How the hell do we even know they are better than us?  I say we fight these bastards and kick their butts."

Anderson looked at Blood Spark then to the rest of the squad and back at the Monitor.  "I say we follow this robot thing's advice and trust him, we may get useful info out of this Monitor."

The Arbiter looked at Last Defense still not entirely convinced, he found it very surprising that it was not following another one of its protocols by simply killing the ones who still remained a threat to the Halos' and simply find a more "foolish" character to go to the ring and to activate it so that the Monitor fulfilled its duty.  None of this fit, after all the Sentinels had waged war with the Covenant and the UNSC.

Last Defense looked to all of them with what appeared to be his eye, "Very well then, let us move to a safe location and contact your allies so they can bring us to the High Council."

Emerson was still sitting up, and moved to Anderson, "What's the plan sir?"

The Arbiter answered for him.  "We are to move to a safe location so we can contact the UNSC and ask for evacuation.  Then we are going to the High Council to tell them of this new threat."

"High Council?"  Anderson said to Last Defense, he had apparently never heard of the High Council; even John-117 knew who they were.

The Arbiter stepped in to answer.  "They are the religious leaders of the Covenant.  If we hope to have any chance of preventing a possible future war, we need to talk to the Council as soon as possible.  Let's move."

The Monitor began floating ahead of them.  "Follow me."

All of them but Jane followed, who was busy with tending to Atkinson.

Jane crept back to Atkinson's unconscious body; he had slipped into unconsciousness by shock.  She picked his body up silently and started walking following the others.
                                                      ***

In the trees of the natives, the other fur-covered creatures were becoming impatient for the three that had left earlier to investigate these new "aliens".  One of the creatures stood up and barked an order to 5 others.  They all grabbed their weapons, and vanished into the forest.

                                                      ***

"Ugh."  Emerson groaned.  "How long have we been walking?"

"We have been walking for an hour, Emerson."  The Monitor responded to her question.  He stopped under a tree as everyone stopped in front of him. "This will do, I recommend you contact your allies quickly.  Time is now of the essence."
John looked at the Monitor and nodded.  He pulled out a radio and donned on the headphones (which were attached with a microphone).  He began to input the settings that would allow them to call for a UNSC drop ship to pick them up as the Monitor began to sound as if he was becoming frantic (or as frantic as machines sounded).

"Warning!  Warning!"  Last Defense repeated in a bit of a buzz.

"What's wrong?"  The Chief asked.

"A scan of the area indicates natives are approaching us at a very rapid pace."
The Chief turned to the squad as they all pulled out their weapons and began to set up defensive positions except for Emerson who still had the duty of watching over Atkinson.

A green beam of energy shot out from a bush behind Atkinson and scathing him, scorching his skin that put him into a low and agonized groan.  As just as multiple green beams came flying from different directions as Anderson opened fire in retaliation.  John-117 (otherwise known as Master Chief, or John) and the Arbiter remained fireless quietly.  They appeared to be scanning the skies; the Covenant Drop-ship hadn't come yet, why were the Elites not here yet?

Emerson picked up her battle rifle and shot off numerous rounds into the surroundings and looked to the Chief and Arbiter, "What the hell are you doing!  We need to save our skins!"

He responded, "We can't fight them, we're outnumbered, drop your weapons.  Don't forget, we are on their home planet, if we are not outnumbered now, then we will be soon."

Anderson turned his head John.  "He's right.  We're not here to fight.  We are here to find out if the natives are hostile or not; we set-up defensive positions and provoked whatever the hell lives here."

Emerson gaped at them she couldn't believe what she was hearing!

Last Defense responded before Emerson could muster a response.  "Yes, the Reclaimer is right; you cannot afford to lose all of your men.  After all one is already hurt, perhaps these natives can tend to his wounds."

He continued, "The only plausible solution to this dilemma with these natives is to surrender, and negotiate."

Emerson sighed, "If it's to help Atkinson, then I'll surrender, but I am not anybody's damn prisoner."

They all gave a silent pause, and dropped their weapons, except for the Monitor whom had no weapons he could surrender, and held out their arms, as six heavily-fur covered creatures emerged from the bushes wielding cross-bows, or what appeared to be cross-bows.
                                                        ***