Battle of Installation 04

Summary
DATE: September 19-22, 2552

LOCATION: Installation 04, above planet Threshold

Involved: UNSC, Covenant, Flood, and Forerunner construct forces.

Synopsis: The Covenant and Humans both race to uncover the secrets of the mysterious ring, only to discover its horrible purpose. A huge melee ensues between four factions, and eventually the Halo itself is destroyed.

Outcome: The Halo is destroyed. Most Covenant, Humans, and all Flood perish. A handful of human survivors and 343 Guilty Spark escape.

UNSC
Commander: Captain Jacob Keyes

1 UNSC Cruiser: (The UNSC Pillar of Autumn)

1 Spartan II supersoldier: Master Chief "SPARTAN-117"

1 possible Spartan-I soldier: Sergeant AJ Johnson

1 Ship full of UNSC employed Men and Women (including Marines)

The Covenant
Commander: The Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Particular Justice (later promoted to Arbiter)

1 Covenant Fleet (The Fleet of Particular Justice)

The Forerunner Constructs
Commander: 343 Guilty Spark

Hundreds of Sentinels.

The Flood
Commander: None

At least 1 Brain Form

Hundreds of Combat Forms

Thousands of Infection Forms

Timeline
July 17, 2552: The Battle of Sigma Octanus IV. The Covenant recover a Forerunner artifact that contains coordinates to Installation 04. The UNSC recovers the coordinates also, but does not understand them.

August ??, 2552: The Covenant Fleet of Particular Justice arrives at Inststallation 04.

August 30, 2552: The Battle of Reach. A single UNSC AI named Cortana, hypothesizes that the data recovered from the artifact are coordinates. She sends her ship, the UNSC Pillar of Autumn into a slipspace jump towards the installation.

19/9/2552 20/9/2552
 * 0103 Hours: The Pillar of Autumn exits slipspace over Installation 04.
 * 0127 Hours: Covenant forces begin attacking the Pillar of Autumn. Though outnumbered a dozen to one, the vessel manages to destroy at least four Covenant ships and damage some others. One, the Truth and Reconciliation, retreats and descends to Halo's surface to make repairs.
 * The Master Chief is revived by Tech Chief Thom Shepard and Tech Officer Sam Marcus.
 * Sam is soon killed by an Elite and Thom is killed by an explosion caused by the Autumn's space combat with the Covenant.
 * The covenant attack and force the pillar of autumn’s crew to evacuate to the newly discovered ring world. Lieutenant Hall and Lieutenant Dominique are killed when it crashes.
 * Captain Jacob Keyes is captured by the Covenant, he is brought to the CCS class battle cruiser: the Truth and Reconciliation. Lieutenant Hikowa, Crewman Abiad, Crewman Singh, Crewman Wang, Ensign William Lovell, Corporal Wilkins, Ensign Ellen Dowski, and three unknown marines are killed when captured.
 * Chief rescues a large number of Marines, taking them on board the pelican: Echo 419.
 * 1038 Hours: SPARTAN-117 and the ODSTs launch an assault on the Truth and Reconciliation. The raid lasts through the night, but the Humans sucessfully rescue the captain and escape in a captured Covenant Dropship.
 * A pair of Pelican’s transport troops, containing Master Chief, to the Island where the ‘Silent Cartographer’ a map room that can show the location of the Control Room is.
 * After saving the new information into Cortana’s data-banks, the two take Echo 419 through a path of underground tunnels the the area where the Control room is.
 * Chief finds a group of Marines from Fireteam Zulu that were not ‘wiped-out’ like the rest of the other Marine groups in the area. They lend him their Scorpion main battle tank.
 * Chief brings the platoon, along with another he later finds, to a canyon, where Echo 419 is sent to rescue them.
 * Chief enters the Control room, he is warned that weapons cash that Keyes is looking for is actually a Forerunner base, and that Halo isn’t covenant.
 * He runs to Echo-419 for a lift.
 * Chief lands in a swampy area.
 * Whilst exploring around, he discovers the ‘Flood’.
 * Chief finally escapes from the labyrinth of the under-ground research facility via lift, he finds a team of soldiers scared half to death, waiting for Echo-419.
 * Chief takes control of the Platoon, when Echo-419 is almost at a tower that they chose to meet at, is almost there, Chief is captured by the ‘Monitor’ of installation 04, who uses the Halo network to teleport each other to the ‘Library’.

21/9/2552
 * Chief goes on a search to find the ‘Index’ a Key that can activate Halo’s firing sequence.Chief reaches the top-floor of the Library, after killing at least 200 ‘Flood’. As soon as he grabs hold of the key, 343 guilty spark teleports themselves to the Control room.
 * When Halo is mealy seconds away from firing, cortana, still inside the computer system’s, cancels the firing order. 343 guilty spark sends out a message of war to the sentinels.
 * Chief destroys the 3 pulse generators that create the energy used to activate halo.
 * Chief is then teleported with Cortana to a Covenant cruiser, where Keyes is being held.The Chief is to late, Keyes has been taken over by the ‘Flood’. Chief takes the neural interface out of Keyes by literally punching his brains out. The duo capture a Banshee, and lock on course for the Pillar of Autumn.

22/9/2552
 * The duo crash the banshee into the Pillar of Autumn, Chief gets inside, and heads to the bridge.
 * 343 guilty spark cancelles the auto-destruct on the Pillar of Autumn. Chief is forced to manually destroy the fusion reactors.
 * the Pillar of Autumn is destroyed, along with the ring itself.
 * The Master Chief and Cortana, onboard a Longsword in the debris field of the destroyed Halo, find one remaining Pelican containing Sgt. Johnson, Lieutenant Haverson, Warrant Officer Polaski, Corporal Locklear, and a set of cryotubes containing Spartan 058, Linda.