Halo: Remnants -Part 1-

Halo: Remnants -Part 1-

The human cruiser known as the Solstice rocked, her marines falling to the floor hard and fast as she took a direct hit from Covenant weaponry. The battle was as bad as bad could get; the humans were getting their asses handed to them. In an attempt to save the Solstice and her two sister ships-the Gunship "Devil's Fury" and the Cruiser "The Harbinger"-from falling to the covenant, Captain Christopher Dalson ordered his crew to put the three ships' reactors into overdrive, and, in accordance to UNSC standards, enter slipspace to a random set of coordiantes; this method kept the Covenant from following the humans back to Earth. The Solstice took another hit; if she took another blow like that, her now-overcharged fusion reactors could begin a chain reaction and kill everyone anywhere relatively near the ship in the blink of an eye. As he stared on into a charging Covenant cannon, he shielded himself with his arms as it fired. He saw the flash from the cannon firing through his covered eyes, and thought it was all over.

...but he was still alive? He opened and uncovered his eyes and looked about; the three ships had made it out in the last split second. WAY too damn close.
"Sir!" One of the female pilots, Karen Wellsley, shouted to Captain Dalson.
"Yes, Wellsley?"
"Due to the overcharged engines, we overshot our goal destination; however, we are, luckily, movng too fast for Covenant ships to catch up, and there are no obstacles thus far."
Captain Dalson smiled, then sighed. "Very good, Wellsley. Keep up the good work." After saluting and being saluted in return, Dalson retired to his quarters. He sat on his bed-which was more of a bench-and removed his cap, running his fingers through his white hair. "I'm getting too old for this," he thought to himself.

Within a mater of hours, the trio of human craft exited slipspace, and began to drift through the uncharted cosmos as the reactors cooled down. However, not everything was as planned; a cluster of hitch-hikers-Covenant stealth craft-uncloaked from the shock of leaving slipspace, but soon re-activated their camoflauge, following the human craft silently as their crews worked futilly to gain a connection to their armada.

The ships hadn't even been out of slipspace for one Earth day when they stumbled across a planet; a number of the crew on each ship gathered on the control decks to view the local sun rising over the planet before them and its many moons. They all marvelled in its beauty; this is, until Welsley spoke up once again. "Sir, what is....that?"
The whole crew on the Solstice then turned their attention to where Wellsley pointed, and then, after a moment of focusing, saw what she had seen; a large, ring-shaped structure floating between the planet-now named by the humans "Alpha"-and it's closest moon-named "Beta"-rotating slowly in it's fixed orbit.
After Captin Dalson punched in a code, a one-foot tall, green hologram of the ship's AI-a "female" named "Solstice" after the ship she was programmed to run-appearred on the control panels. Solstice turned towards the structure, having an idea of what Dalson wanted.
"So, you want me to tell you about THAT, hm?"
Dalson gave a nod. "Yes, Solstice; we've-"
"Never encountered anything like this before..." Solstice mumbled to herself, unintentionally finishing the Captain's sentence. "One-hundred thousand kilometers in diameter and twenty-two point three kilometers thick. It does not appear to be a Covenant installation, but does appear to have an atmosphere and gravitational pull similar to Earth's-your troops should be able to survive under those conditions, if that's what you had in mind."
"Well, no, actually..." Dalson began, but as interrupted as the Solstice shook again, and the Covenant ships uncloaked.
"But it seems like a damn good idea right about now."
"Affirmative." Solstice's body was covered in bits of information as she tapped into the comlinks of all three human ships. "This is Solstice; prepare your troops for landing on the artificial ring construct. Awaken the Spartans from Cryo-sleep, and watch out for boarding parties; this is not a drill!"
One the the Marines, Renito Vasquez, turned to one of his comrades. "'Artificial Ring Construct'," he said mockingly, "Why not something catchier, like 'Lord Ring' or 'Halo' or something..."
"Your second choice sounds better," Solstice began on the intercom. "It turns out that the Covenant actually refers to it as 'Halo'. Now cut the chatter and get to your stations!"
"...Lucky guess?" Renito asked his buddy as they marched for the docking bays.
Captain Dalson looked forward now from his seat on the bridge, gazing at Halo as they approached. Something seemed so serene, so peaceful about it...yet, for some reason, so disturbing and strange...