Battle of the Great Archive

The Battle of the Great Archive was a brief engagement that took place from 0400 to 1200 MST (4 AM to 12 PM) Military Standard Time on the 20th of February 2562 within the Forerunner facility known as the Great Archive.
== Background ==
The Great Archive was a facility constructed by the Forerunners not long after the conclusion of the Forerunner-Precursor war. The facility was intended to house the accumulated sum of all information that was of some degree of importance, and due to constant use across millions of years, the Great Archive had grown to be millions of times larger than almost every other major library or archive within the Ecumene by the time of the Forerunner-Flood War.
On the onset of the Forerunner-Flood War, the Archive was sent into deep space by Essence of Cosmic Infinity, who hoped to preserve it's information from the Flood. Essence of Cosmic Infinity created alongside his colleagues a specialised luminary that could only be activated by a non-infected being, which became the only way to locate the Great Archive following the firing of the Halo Array.
In December of 2560, S'southi and Galactic Alliance forces clashed on Installation 01 and eventually the Galactic Alliance came out on top. 001 Anguished Deliberation, the monitor of Installation 01, pledged to assist the Galactic Alliance in it's war by helping them locate and access Forerunner sites, ruins and facilities. In addition, he also told Colonel Devin Weeks of the existence of the fore-mentioned specialised luminary and how it would lead to information required to defeat the S'southi.
The Galactic Alliance used both the Krythenan Empire's intelligence organisations and the Office of Naval Intelligence to search for this luminary, and after two years of constant searches and setbacks, the luminary was finally located and the Alliance prepared a team to be deployed to the Great Archive and secure it ahead of science personnel. Unfortunately, the S'southi had infiltrated the search efforts early on, and were able to use this network of intelligence to also discover the location of the Great Archive. Cassandra, a highly complex AI and close ally and friend of Kayode Adetola, had also infiltrated the program and intended for Kayode Adetola to be the one to discover the information, believing that the Galactic Alliance and S'southi would bleed eachother out fighting for the Great Archive.
== The Battle ==
Kayode Adetola and Cassandra had used a Forerunner vessel to reach the facility ahead of both the Galactic Alliance and the S'southi, arriving at around 0400 hours. Once inside the archives, Adetola and Cassandra began their search.
S'southi forces arrived shortly after and stormed the Archives, however were constantly defeated by Adetola in guerrilla-esque skirmishes, leading them to believe that the Galactic Alliance had already deployed a force to the facility which hampered S'southi search efforts significantly. Adetola and Cassandra reached the central chamber at 0500.
Shortly before 0500, a Galactic Alliance Spartan Fireteam arrived and entered the far west of the facility, and almost immediately being locked in combat with the S'southi. Despite the S'southi having the numerical superiority, the strength and firepower of the Spartans allowed them to hold off the S'southi until their attacks eventually ceased. Both sides then began to properly search for their target, periodically engaging eachother with no real clear victor. 
Kayode Adetola would have Cassandra use her familiarity with Forerunner systems to locate and retrieve the information using the main connection terminal in the central chamber, and began to withdraw. Unknown to both sides, they had already failed their mission objective as a result. S'southi forces came into contact with the Spartan fireteam and the two would be locked in a small-scale firefight for the next two hours. Adetola and Cassandra were harassed constantly by a S'southi fireteam that had been trailing them since first contact, forcing them to make an immediate escape instead instead of continuing to study the Archive. The two would reach their docked vessel around the same time that the Spartan fireteam entered the docking facility, and all three parties entered a firefight in which Kayode Adetola was wounded severely but managed to escape. The firefight soon after ended in a S'southi victory with multiple Spartans being killed and the rest being forced to fall back.
At 1100 hours, 001 Anguished Deliberation reported to the Galactic Alliance that the system had been accessed by a highly advanced Forerunner AI construct and that the information they were sent to retrieve had been captured only hours beforehand. The monitor was able to identify the AI as 03-046 Everlasting Solitude, the construct assigned to the Society Catacombs which had long since been destroyed. Unknown to both 001 Anguished Deliberation and the GA, 03-046 was infact Cassandra, and this revelation of a Forerunner construct accessing the facility and Theo-783's prior experience with the Society Catacombs lead them to believe that the S'southi had somehow gotten to the information first, as the S'southi had captured the glassed remains of the planet of Society mere days beforehand.
The S'southi discovered that the Galactic Alliance had learned that the information was no longer present, and deemed the facility now worthless. Beginning their withdrawal, they activated the facility's Flood Countermeasures, and the facility began to fall into the system's star. The Spartan Fireteam was able to escape however they were forced to abandon all their wounded due to the continually unstable nature of the facility, and both remaining parties fled the area.
== Aftermath ==
After having failed to achieve their objective, the Galactic Alliance's intelligence division made the location and capture of 03-046 Everlasting Solitude a maximum priority, while the S'southi simply ignored the issue believing it to now be a non-threat. Cassandra and Kayode Adetola held on to the information gained and soon learned that the information contained the coordinates for Installation 06, Kappa Halo.
Category:Battles