Reactor (Halo Wars level)

Reactor is the fourteenth level of the real-time strategy game, Halo Wars.

Summary
After rescuing Anders, the crew of the Spirit of Fire lay out a plan to destroy the Shield World and the Forerunner ships contained within it to prevent the Covenant from using them. They load the Spirit's FTL drive to two Pelicans, intending to use them to ferry the drive to the installation's star for detonation. After Victor 397 and another Pelican carrying the FTL drive core are shot down by Banshees, Captain Cutter changes the task to a ground operation and UNSC ground forces are tasked with getting the core to the top of the Apex base site where it can be teleported to the Apex site. After an Elephant is attached to the core, Sergeant John Forge and other UNSC forces including the Spartans from Red Team escort them from Covenant and Flood forces to top of the long slopes leading to the Apex teleporter pad with success.

Transcript
{I Doomed Humanity}

Two Pelicans are shown lowering the Spirit of Fire's slipspace drive.


 * Cutter: "Is this really going to work, Professor?"


 * Anders: "I believe this is our best hope. The overloaded FTL reactor will cause a chain reaction in the sun."


 * Cutter: "Enough to destroy all the ships here before the Covenant can get a chance to make anything of them."


 * Anders: "Well, put simply, Captain, our reactor will cause the sun to go supernova, leaving nothing here but dust."


 * Serina: "That's the weak part of this plan, if you ask me. We've no way home without that reactor."


 * Cutter: "One problem at a time, Serina. If the Covenant get their hands on these ships it will mean the end of the war. We'll take our chances here, to give humanity some hope."


 * Anders: "I know it's been a tough call, Captain, but it's the right one."

Forge appears on a monitor, in front of the FTL drive


 * Forge: "Spirit of Fire, this is Forge. She's buttoned up and ready to go!"


 * Cutter: "Deliver that package safely, Sergeant."

Forge points at the screen and shoulders his shotgun.


 * Forge: "Keep the coffee hot. I'll be back before you know it."


 * Anders: "I'll be monitoring you from here, Sergeant."

Captain Cutter leaves.


 * Serina: "Well, it'll be pretty obvious if he succeeds."

Anders looks down at the floor and shakes her head, with a worried and sad look on her face

{In-game Cutscene}

Two Pelicans, carrying the FTL drive, are being pursued by Banshees


 * Victor-397: This is Victor-397. Stabilizers out, we can't carry her! Going down!

A Banshee scores a fatal hit on one of the Pelicans


 * Victor-397: Clear the area, we're dropping cargo!

''The Pelicans drop the FTL drive at the last second, both crashing soon after. The FTL drive slides down the hill.''

{Gameplay}


 * Cutter: I don't want to take anymore chances flying that core in, we're changing this to a ground operation.


 * Forge: "The core is a heavy son of a bitch, use Elephants to drag it up those ramps. They're the only vehicle with enough torque to pull that damn thing."

After the Elephant is created:


 * Forge: "Alright, let's hitch the Elephant up to the FTL core and go from there."


 * Serina: "If that Elephant gets destroyed on the ramp, the core will roll all the way back down. It's not going to be pretty."


 * Serina: "Once the core reaches a flat area, it will no longer be in danger of rolling back down the hill. Get the core to level ground, and do try to avoid any unnecessary jostling."

After fighting up several ramps, against Flood units, Sentinels, and Covenant bases, the core finally reaches the top.


 * Forge: "Spirit, we've reached the target site. Orders?"

{In-game Cutscene}


 * Cutter: "Sergeant, engineers are on their way to rig the core. We're nearly there."

The Elephant backs the FTL drive onto a teleporter which is soon sent away.

Level ends.

Trivia

 * The site where you put the Reactor has the shape of a Marathon Symbol.
 * The Soundtrack, One Problem At A Time is a reference to Captain Cutter's line at the start of the mission: "One problem at a time, Serina."
 * An Elephant cannot be healed once it is attached to the Shaw-Fujikawa drive; the regeneration power has no effect.
 * Strangely, when the Reactor is standing on a Base Building Pad without an Elephant attached, and the player builds a building there, the Reactor will move out of the way itself. This is technically impossible, but is included for gameplay reasons.
 * In the beginning gameplay scene; after the pelicans crash and explode part of the bottom area of the reactor merges to the ground.