Escape (Halo Wars level)

Escape is the fifteenth and final level of the real-time strategy game, Halo Wars.

Overview
The remaining UNSC Spirit of Fire survivors have to open 6 interlocks to open the portal that the Spirit of Fire needs to go through to escape the Shield World before Sergeant Forge activates the FTL drive. There are forerunner symbols on each door. Serina discovers that doors marked with the same symbols must be opened after each other. Otherwise the door that is opened first will close. The forces, however only have 30 minutes to open the portal and yet have to deal with Covenant and Flood forces. With the help of the Spartans from Red Team, the Spirit of Fire successfully escapes the Shield World.

Primary

 * Clear out all enemies near the Interlock Tower.
 * Activate the Interlock.
 * Open the Portal.

Note that the interlocks which guard the portal must be released together in pairs, as indicated by the Forerunner glyphs near each interlock (when viewed from the same perspective relative to the center of the map, the glyphs of each interlock of the same pair will be identical). If the interlocks are released in any other order, it will be impossible to have all interlocks released at the same time.

Optional

 * Kill 3 Scarabs (This will unlock the level's skull).

The skull is located near the Flood base on the northeast of the map. The Black box is on the north part of the map between the Flood base and the Covenant base.

Plot
Sergeant Forge and Red Team are setting up the reactor to set into the Shield World's internal sun to destroy the planet, when they are attacked by a large force of Elites and the Arbiter Ripa 'Moramee. Red Team, easily defeats the massive Sangheili force, and Sergeant eventually kills the Arbiter by stabbing his neck with extreme force and stabbing him with his own Energy Sword. The reactor, by then, is already overheated and will have to be set off manually. Jerome, the leader of Red Team, offers to set it off manually at the expense of his life, but Sergeant Forge takes the responsibility, quoting that the humans will need every Spartan possible.

Meanwhile, the Spirit of Fire is trapped inside the Shield World. The ground forces eventually defeat massive forces of the Covenant, Flood, and Sentinels to open up a passage that will allow the Spirit to fly out. When the reactor is set off inside the sun, the gravitational forces pull the Spirit into it, but due to some careful maneuvering by Serina, the Spirit slingshots around the sun and out of the planet. The planet, the internal sun, and countless waves of Covenant, Flood, and Sentinels are destroyed from the resulting explosion.

After two weeks of no Covenant or Flood, the majority of the Spirit ' s crew is put into cryo-pods, along with a protesting Professor Anders. When Captain Cutter walks by an open pod, revealed to be that of the late Sergeant Forge he closes it, sighs, then walks off, presumably into his own pod.

After the credits, on Legendary, Serina's voice can be heard telling Cutter that "something has happened."

Trivia

 * Like Halo: CE and Halo 3, the final mission in Halo Wars involves escaping an explosion designed to destroy a Forerunner structure and to stop the antagonists.
 * There is a Mega Turret that seems to have been abandoned (much like the Scarab in Beachhead) near one of the Covenant Bases. It can help destroy the base if garrisoned.
 * This is the only level in campaign where you can have access to all the UNSC leader powers.
 * This is the only occasion in which you can have more than an army population of 40 playing as the UNSC, not counting Deathmatch or playing in Beasley's Plateau owning the Forerunner Life Support Pod.
 * If you were to purposely self-destruct your own base, or lose it due to being destroyed, the same thing would happen as if you ran out of time: no matter how much time you would have left, Sergeant Forge would detonate the reactor and you would fail the level.
 * The music in the final cinematic of the level is the only track not featured in the Halo Wars: Original Soundtrack.
 * This level has some objective references to Halo: Combat Evolved, for destroying a planet to prevent the end of humanity and Marathon: Durandal of putting a sun into an early supernova.