Battle of the Rubble

The Battle of the Rubble was an engagement fought between various factions of Covenant and human forces mainly for navigational data that led to Earth and other human population centers, as well as a large asteroid called Exodus. It took place at some point in 2535.

Background
While the Prophet of Regret was unable to find the human homeworld, the Prophet of Truth devised a plan to have a group of Kig-yar merchants ally themselves with humans in order to find its location. The Kig-yar found a human population around a group of asteroids called "The Rubble", trailing the gas giant Hesiod in the 23 Librae system. Originally, they pretended to be allies with the Insurrectionist and refugee citizens, and even made a trade agreement with the Insurrectionists that they would hand them Covenant weapons in exchange for slipspace drives whilst waiting for the opportunity to capture navigational data that led to Earth. Lead by Reth, the Kig-yar bided their time and waited for the right moment to strike.

The weapons the Insurrectionists were handed were modified and sent to other Insurrectionists across UNSC space. When Regret found some of the weapons on sale on High Charity, not knowing that they were part of Truth's plan, he sent some of the Covenant's top soldiers to silence the "rebels". Meanwhile, the UNSC sent the stealth-equipped light frigate to investigate the source of the Covenant weapons. Earlier, the SPARTAN-II Gray Team had been sent to the Rubble to eliminate all traces of navigational data with Earth's coordinates.

Battle
When Gray Team arrived at the Rubble, they immediately set about to prepare for a prolonged stay. They managed to steal a freighter, the Petya, and fitted it with a military-grade Slipspace drive.

Meanwhile, Ignatio Delgado was assigned by the Rubble Security Council to protect a data chip that contained the coordinates to Earth. However, he and his copilot, Melko Hollister, were attacked by some Kig-yar who wanted the data. Delgado managed to distract the Kig-yar long enough for Hollister to escape and board their ship, Distancia. Delgado however was wounded and was about to be killed when he was rescued by one of the Spartans of Gray Team, Adriana-111. She asked for the data in exchange for helping him. Delgado refused however. She performed first-aid on Delgado and gave him an emergency contact beacon, telling him that if the data chip was attacked again, he should activate the beacon. Unfortunately for Delgado, Hollister had died while escaping with the data, putting the skirmish at a Pyrrhic victory for the Rubble.

Meanwhile, the AI Juliana noticed Gray Team's movements and disabled the Petya. She gave them a compromise: she'll give them the location of any navigation data in the Rubble in exchange for helping her protect the Rubble.

The Kig-yar ship A Psalm Every Day attacked and disabled the Sangheili-held Covenant destroyer Retribution's Thunder as they arrived at the Rubble. Thel 'Vadamee and his crew were taken captive and stored within one of the habitats. The Midsummer Night arrived shortly after while stalking the Kestrel and was taken out with a mass driver round and missile fire from the Rubble Defense Force. Commander Dmitri Zheng was shot by Lieutenant Campbell but pushed himself to lock the arm codes for the Shiva-class Nuclear Missiles on board and fired them away to dispose of them. As Zheng died, Keyes was forced to take command of the ship. Keyes surrendered the ship to save the crew, resulting in them being imprisoned on the Rubble as well.

The Shiva missiles caused an EMP effect which shut down the lights and the antigravity generators inside the habitat where Thel 'Vadamee and the rest of his crew were imprisoned. This allowed the Sangheili to proceed with an escape plan. Using an improvised spear made out of a broken leg of a cot and tied to several coils of sheets, they managed to spear their Unggoy guard and steal his plasma rifle. Saal used the rifle to destroy the lock and open the door, which allowed the Sangheili to escape. They managed to board a Kig-Yar shuttle and take over a large Kig-Yar ship, which had a crew of Unggoy on it. The Sangheili then used the ship and information gathered from the Unggoy to launch a raid on Metisette and capture Reth. It was then that the Sangheili discovered that the Prophet of Truth had ordered Reth to observe the entire operation. After a lengthy interrogation and torture session, Reth managed to escape while unattended and arrived back at Metisette. He decided to begin the invasion of the Rubble.

Meanwhile, Delgado was imprisoned by one of the Rubble Security Council members, Peter Bonifacio, on the charges of failing to protect the navigation data. Fortunately, the Security Council pardoned him in exchange for giving back the data to them to move it to the Exodus habitat, an emergency evacuation habitat for the Rubble. Peter Bonifacio and Diego Esquival, another Council member and long time friend of Delgado, accompanied Delgado to his ship, the Distancia. However, when Delgado handed the chip to Esquival, Bonifacio quickly held the two at gunpoint and demanded that Diego handed the data to him. Diego refused and was shot. Bonifacio took the data and retreated while Delgado returned fire from his own pistol. He grabbed Diego and reentered the airlock. However, Bonifacio shut down the airlock and disabled the communications. He quickly undocked and flew away, leaving Delgado and Diego to die. Delgado, knowing he had no other option, activated the emergency beacon Adriana gave him.

Bonifacio contacted Reth, who he was working with, and informed him of the capture of the navigation data. Reth immediately began the preparations of the invasion of the Rubble while Bonifacio continued on his own route. Meanwhile, Gray Team pinpointed Delgado's position and quickly rescued him. Although Delgado survived, Diego did not and was put into cryogenic suspension in the ship.

The Rubble's resident AI construct, Juliana, discovered the movement of the Kig-yar vessels and prepared the proper forces to defend the Rubble from the Kig-yar assault. She collaborated with Gray Team and had Jai-006 rescue Keyes and his imprisoned crewmates while Adriana-111 and Mike-120 disabled the Distancia to retrieve the navigation data from Bonifacio. Although Adriana successfully entered the ship and dealt with the bodyguards, Bonifacio quickly escaped in an escape pod. She interrogated a surviving guard and contacted Bonifacio, who gave her the location of the data in exchange for letting him free. The two Spartans quickly moved out to help the others. Meanwhile, Jai, Keyes, and Juliana decided to take the Kig-yar ship the Infinite Spoils in order to confirm the possibility of a Kig-yar attack. The Mighty Sparrow, filled with ODSTs, latched onto the Infinite Spoils, allowing them to plug Juliana into the Kig-yar battle network, while another group of ODSTs assaulted the airlock outside the ship. This allowed them to gain data on the upcoming invasion by Reth from Metisette. During the infiltration the Sangheili under Thel attacked the Mighty Sparrow which was docked with the Kig-Yar raider. Delgado and the remaining ODSTs, including Faison, quickly escaped and boarded the Infinite Spoils. While Faison and Delgado navigated through the ship, Faison took fire from a surviving Kig-yar pirate. The shot hit a blood vessel, causing Faison to loss blood quickly. Delgado was forced to abandon him but called for backup to recover Faison. Aboard Infinite Spoils, Zhar and Thel followed the same path as the humans took. Zhar ran into Faison and took fire before killing him with his plasma rifle. While Zhar became curious and remained shaken, they encountered Jai-006 and Thel engaged in hand to hand combat with him, declaring him a demon in the struggle. The Spartan took a look at Faison and retreated back into the habitat. Thel and Zhar decided to abstain from the battle and took the ship for themselves.

Meanwhile, ODSTs and Kig-yar were fighting a hard battle in the habitat. After some hesitation, Delgado handed Jai-006 the AI chip containing Juliana in order to depressurize the habitat and kill the Kig-yar who weren't in a sealed suit. The resulting loss of atmosphere killed off a majority of the front line Kig-yar, allowing the ODSTs to kill the snipers and push back to the Petya to begin preparations for the Kig-yar naval assault.

Aftermath
The battle led to the Battle of Metisette in which Keyes used the Midsummer Night to attack a Kig-yar settlement known as the Redoubt. He entered the atmosphere and air braked while ejecting HEVs to destroy the anti-space defense to use the abandoned rubble as weapons. The Shiva nuclear warheads were used to destroy the defense system leaving Metisette open to the Rubble bombardment leaving nothing left of the Kig-yar city or Reth's forces. The human forces on Metisette were picked up by pelicans, and the Habitat Exodus was launched, jumping away to Falaknuma in the 18 Scorpii System. Lieutenant Keyes was briefed by none other than Admiral Cole himself. Afterward, Keyes was promoted to Lieutenant Commander for his protection of 1 million people.

Back on the Infinite Sacrifice, the Prophets of Truth and Regret met with Thel 'Vadamee personally. After some discussion on the very lives of the crew under Thel's control, Zhar entered the room, armed with his inactivated energy sword. After Zhar asked some heretical questions attacking the Hierarchs, Thel drew out his own sword. Zhar refused to stand down. Thel activated his sword and Zhar attacked, but Thel kills his old friend. This visibly shocked and frightened the Prophet of Regret, but the Prophet of Truth became interested and he allowed Thel 'Vadamee to live. Back on High Charity, the Prophets of Truth and Regret discussed the result of the "experiment." Although Regret was displeased that it did not produce anything except human-sympathizing Kig-yar and Unggoy, the Prophet of Truth seemed rather satisfied by the discovery of three new human worlds to attack. The Prophet of Regret resolved to follow Truth's plans for the time being.