Halo: The man from Pandora

Reach, UNSC airspace.

Trafalgar “Pixy” Pixys woke from cryogenic sleep just as his ship exited FTL. Finally, after years on Pandora, he was back in the civilized airspace of the UEG. His lust for adventure and exploration had caused him to drop out of the Luna Officer Academy back on Earth and plunge blindly into the dark void of space, right in the midst of the Human-Covenant War. That was almost eight years ago.

Pandora had been where things finally came to a head. It was supposed to be a simple refueling run, but Hyperion had taken offense to his mere presence and shot his ship down.

Stranded on a planet where everything is out to kill him, he had no choice but to rely on the training from his days at the military academy just to survive. Starting out as a lone mercenary, he quickly rose through the ranks, eventually commanding over 100 fellow mercenaries. After the Vault Hunters defeated Handsome Jack, he managed to scrounge up enough funds to buy a ship large enough to house all his men and resume his journey through the stars. At least, that had been the plan until he was summoned by the Firebird herself. Lilith, leader of the Crimson Raiders.

She had handed him an honest-to-God Vault key. Well, sort of. It was different from the keys to the larger Vaults smaller and with an entirely distinct feel.

“I want to hire you and your men to investigate the Vault,” she said after handing it to him. Normally, she would have asked the Vault Hunters, but Sanctuary was still vulnerable and they needed all the help they could get. Additionally, other factions already knew about the key and would never suspect the Raiders of handing it over to unaffiliated mercenaries. Most importantly, the Vault wasn’t on Pandora. It was on Reach.

Unlike most Vault Hunters, Pixy was originally a UEG core world citizen, allowing him to enter Reach much more easily than anyone else could have.

Now, logically, he shouldn’t have accepted the job. These Vaults usually housed extremely dangerous biological weapons like the Warrior and the Destroyer. And that wasn’t even the worst part the real danger lay in the myriad other groups hunting for the Vaults’ contents. Accepting the job meant constantly watching their backs until the Vault was opened.

Unfortunately, both he and his crew loved the danger, so they had said yes.

And now, here he was, on Reach. Part of him missed civilization walking around without a gun strapped to his side, with no fear of something hiding in a random bush trying to kill him.

But another part of him remembered what that security cost. The UEG had been a totalitarian military government even before the Human-Covenant War. They wanted control no matter the cost. Even now, as humanity faced extinction, they tightened their grip on the colonies, hunting for insurrectionists and anyone daring to challenge their authority. It was why he had left in the first place. He refused to be tied down and his fate left to the whims of a government stooge.

As the ship drew closer to hailing range, he began coordinating with his crew.

There were many stark differences between the fringe colonies around Pandora and the core space of the UEG. The tech disparity alone had been a massive culture shock even for Pixy when he first arrived on Pandora. Digitization technology was groundbreaking on its own, allowing someone to store an entire arsenal as raw data inside an ECHO device or teleport directly to designated stations. Then there was elemental weaponry fire, corrosive, shock, and slag which could have turned the tide dramatically against the Covenant. Even FTL travel differed; ships near Pandora rarely used Slipspace drives, favoring Implosion drives instead, which yielded similar output while taking up significantly less space and energy.

He had often wondered why these technologies never made it to the core worlds. The most logical answer always pointed back to the megacorporations: Hyperion, Dahl, Maliwan and their ilk. They kept their proprietary tech restricted to the fringe worlds, tightly controlled and far out of the UEG’s reach. Perhaps they were playing the long game, hoping the Covenant would weaken the UEG enough for the corps to swoop in and take control of human space. Or perhaps they simply wanted to build their own corporate empires out in the uncharted borderlands. Alternatively, maybe the UEG did know about the tech, but kept it classified and hoarded for themselves. He couldn’t say for certain.

Regardless of the reason, it left him with a critical problem.

To UNSC sensors, his ship was practically glowing with advanced, unfamiliar technology. A single cursory scan would expose everything, and Pixy would bet his entire life savings that it would end poorly. The UNSC would demand the ship be grounded for dissection. He and his crew would be confined, interrogated, and likely never see the light of day again once ONI got involved.

They needed a bulletproof cover plan.

Their onboard AI, CoRrine, had been working on a spoofing algorithm to mask the ship’s energy signatures and specs just enough to pass them off as a heavily modified civilian freighter. To back up the digital deception, they also needed legitimate credentials. Leveraging his corporate connections, Pixy had scrubbed their records, officially rebranding his mercenary company, The Red Line, into a registered private defense firm: Nidhogg Security Services.

Now, as the hailing frequencies began to ping, it was time to put their plan to the test.

“Unidentified transport, this is Reach Orbital Traffic Control, Station Vienna-Four. Identify yourselves and your designation.”

Pixy took a deep breath and spoke remembering his classes at the Academy “Traffic Control, this is Captain Pixys of the Nidhogg Private Security vessel ‘Jörmungandr’. Designation is Nidhogg One. We are returning from an extended escort contract and awaiting shore leave and supply run. Requesting permission to enter orbital holding pattern and clear customs.”

“Permission Granted Nidhogg One. Hold standard vector. Checking your credentials against the UEG Commercial & Defense Registry...”

“Data checks out, Captain. Nidhogg Private Security is cleared for inner-system transit. However, due to elevated defense readiness under NAVCOM Order 463, all non-UNSC military hulls are subject to physical inspection prior to surface departure.”

"Acknowledged Vienna-Four. Docking Bay E6 is ready to receive you."

A small troop carrier took flight from the orbital platform and began to match pace with the Jörmungandr. Pixy personally went down to the docking bay to receive the inspectors and to make sure his men were... behaving. They had essentially crammed the more damning pieces of technology into a secure section of the ship, hoping the inspectors wouldn’t find them.

Unfortunately, there were some things he couldn’t just shove out of sight namely, his crew.

Compared to the disciplined, stoic soldiers of the UNSC and UEG, his band of brothers was a bit... colorful. His crew consisted of reformed psychos, midgets, tamed skags, varkids, and several hacked Loaders that used to belong to Hyperion. Include a single Badass Loader.

Then there were his four lieutenants:

Krieg: A towering man with brain damage and a severe grudge against shirts. His condition caused his speech to come out as erratic rants vastly different from what he actually intended to say. Severely mutated by Pandora’s harsh environment, he could temporarily swell up to two meters tall, with his strength and durability increasing proportionately.

Gizmo: The tech specialist and officially Vice Leaderhe was the first comrade Pixy made on Pandora. Exceptional with machinery, Gizmo lacked a filter when discussing technology, making him the most likely to mock UNSC inspectors about their “outdated” gear and cause a scene. His specialty was designing custom Loader bot variants that were smarter, tougher, and far deadlier than standard models.

Renegade: The long-range specialist. Eagle-eyed with a sniper rifle and proficient with surveillance drones, his signature weapon was a railgun capable of literally punching through starships.

Melina Rosweiss (Rose): The resident Siren. She specialized in Phaseguard, manipulating Eridian energy to deploy barriers, heal nearby teammates, and empower their attacks.

And finally, there was Pixy himself a hit-and-run specialist equipped with a grappling hook, jetpack, and microthrusters that granted him unmatched mobility and cloaking capabilities.

Each of them stood out in their own way. Getting them to act normal was far harder than rebranding their company or spoofing the ship’s energy signatures. The more rambunctious crew members had been ordered to hide—or at least stay silent, for all the good it would do.

As the airlock opened and the inspectors boarded, Pixy couldn’t help but curse under his breath.

Leading the detail was Mallory Wiggins one of his former classmates from the Luna Officer Academy. Judging by the rather malicious smile on her face, she recognized him instantly, even after all these years.

“Captain Pixys?” she asked, accentuating the word Captain.

“Nice to meet you again, Ms. Wiggins.” It took every ounce of Pixy’s willpower to remain composed. The small UNSC security detail sensed the tension and exchanged uneasy glances, but remained silent.

The inspection proceeded as normal, though Mallory posed several pointed questions to Pixy throughout the tour. It was obvious she was far from thrilled to see him. On the bright side, her focus on him meant she paid little attention to the rather colorful personnel loitering nearby.

“Well, Captain. Everything appears to be in order. Enjoy your shore leave,” Mallory finally said, gesturing for her soldiers to disembark.

However, she stayed behind.

“Well?” she demanded, her tone hardening the moment the hatch closed.

Pixy feigned confusion.

“Do you seriously have nothing to say?” she hissed.

“Look, I admit” Pixy began, only to be cut off.

“You dropped out!” Mallory snapped, her voice dropping into a sharp, lethal whisper as the seal hissed tight. “No note. No transfer request. Just an empty bunk and a missing midshipman. We were two weeks from graduation, Pixy! Do you have any idea what ONI did to the rest of our class? The interrogations? They thought you defected to the Insurrectionists!”

Pixy held his tongue, though he couldn’t resist adjusting the strap of his sidearm. “Mallory”

“It’s Lieutenant Wiggins to you.” she cut in, taking a step forward and looking him up and down with absolute disdain. “Look at you. You look like you have been fist fighting a grunt. And where the hell were you? We searched everywhere used every connection. Not even ONI knew.. And what the hell is this?” She gestured broadly toward the corridor, where the faint, muffled whine of a skag echoed behind a sealed bulkhead, followed immediately by the mechanical clank-whir of Gizmo’s customized Loader bot on guard duty.

“Just renovations we have been thinking of expanding. And we have some biological cargo delivery for a client."

“I thought you said you were private security.” she countered, her eyes narrowing as she stepped dangerously close. “I saw the manifest logs, Pixy. You may have fooled some other shmuck but you can't fool me. There are discrepancies the size of a dreadnought. And don’t get me started on the giant in the cargo bay who was trying to eat a metal pipe when we walked past.”

“Oh. That's just Krieg. He's harmless, for the most part,” Pixy replied. The last part barely a whisper. “aI should probably take him for a check up.”

Mallory stared at him for a long, heavy moment. The tension in the airlock bay was thick enough to cut with a combat knife. For a second, Pixy genuinely wondered if she was going to pull her sidearm and signal the platform to lock down the Jörmungandr on the spot.

Instead, she let out a long, ragged sigh, her sharp posture cracking just enough to reveal the sheer exhaustion beneath.

“I should report the anomalies,” she murmured, looking past his shoulder at the dark viewport showing Reach’s vast, cloud-draped surface below. “I should hand this entire file directly to Naval Intelligence. They’d tear this bucket apart piece by piece until they found whatever it is you’re hiding.”

“So why haven’t you?” Pixy asked softly.

Mallory turned back to him, her eyes burning. “Because the Covenant is glassing outer colonies every single week, Pixy. The fleet is losing ships faster than the shipyards can build them. Unlike you, I don't have the luxury of acting on my whims.”

Her statement had hurt. Enough that he didn't point out he hypocrisy of her letting him go technically on a whim. Despite what his former friends might have thought, leaving had been hard and he had thought about it for months before finally acting on it.

Mallory reached into her uniform pocket, pulled out a digital data pad, and slapped it hard against his chest.

“Your temporary planetary clearance,” she said coldly. “Sector 4 landing zone. Keep your... business away from UNSC military installations, your guns holstered, and get off my station before I change my mind.”

She said before making her way out she then stopped and turned around with a smirk on her face.

"Oh and, I will be telling Miranda about this."

Pixy looked horrified at the last statement. It seems this job now had a deadline, being however long it took for Miranda to arrive at Reach.