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Chapter Text

{Faerun}

Sir John of Spartan looked at his Warforged (and wasn't that a joke that never got old) companion of over 50 years “Are you sure this will work Cortana?”
The blue living robot turned her head away from the runic circle she had been drawing for the last decade “I know it will get us home, but when we will arrive? That's anyone's guess. Best case scenario is shortly after we left but most likely months if not years after.”  

The two-and-a-half-meter tall Goliath gave a barely noticeable shrug to show his displeasure at the vague time frame, “Alright. Let's get this done then. Charge the crystal and let's go home”
It had been 50 years since the enigma that was the ‘haunted’ Goliath Paladin had appeared in Faerun, 45 years since he managed to get a Warforged body for Cortana, who had existed only as a spirit until then, and each of them going on to  make a name for themselves as individuals and even more so as a pair.
The strength of John's word had made him into a mighty paladin, devoted to keeping everyone safe.
His beloved machine spirit, Cortana had become an artificer of unparalleled skill, with designs no one had even dreamed of before let alone seen and built and it was through her genius that they were finally leaving for their home plane.  

John doffed his armour, watching as his wife did the same, they wouldn't be able to take anything through the portal with them, lest it interfere with the ritual.
Stepping into the circle, the large crystal started to glow and with a blinding flash of light, the two legendary heroes vanished.

================================================

 {UNSC Frigate: Forward Unto Dawn}

John gasped into consciousness as the air inside his lungs froze, before rapidly warming to a breathable temperature. He heard his wife call “John! you awake? The auto release is stuck, pull the lever above your head”
True to her word, there was a red handle written, 'No that's not common, that's… English!', with the words Emergency Exit . with a slight tug, the handle came loose and he shoved the glass door open, raining small icicles down around him. He stared down at his wife, now reduced to the pale blue hologram that she had been before they had been sent to Faerun. “Where are we?” The Master Chief replied, the title settling on his shoulders as comfortably as his Mjolnir power armour, which he had missed dearly.

“Still aboard The Dawn, according to the ship's logs, we've been gone for over 4 years” Cortana replied, stretching out her senses through the ship's systems for the first time in 50 or 4 years, depending on how you looked at it. “John, I'm detecting movement in the upper decks and no IFF tags, we may have unwelcome guests”

Master Chief grabbed his assault rifle from its bay next to his cryo pod, “Unwelcome guests, with a ship. Come on, let's go say hi.” Cortana gave a small giggle before shrinking down into her chip. The Chip was unusually hot against his skull when he inserted it and the feeling of his wife on his neural lace felt a temperature more akin to molten lava rather than the arctic water that he remembered. “Cortana, are you alright?” Master Chief asked, his battle senses warning him of a problem,
“I’m fine John” the AI replied, not wanting to worry her Husband
“Meshla, you haven’t believed me when I said that for the last 40 years and I could heal myself. Don't think for a moment you can try and use my own tricks against me. I can literally feel that something is wrong. Now spill.”

There was silence over their coms channel as Master Chief made his way towards the elevator shaft “I… may …. Have made a slight miscalculation when I sent us back, in particular, back to our bodies instead of taking the ones we used to be in”
John paused, not liking where this was going, Cortana very rarely made mistakes in her calculations and when there were mistakes, they were usually very problematic
“Go on”
“UNSC AI matrices, the building blocks on what we store our knowledge on are rather limited, only having about seven to eight years of storage on them before we start going rampant”

It was like a giant had slapped him over the head with a tree trunk, again, “And you just imported fifty years or so of memories from Faerun” he took a breath, preparing for an unpleasant answer “How much time do you have?”
Cortana sighed “Right now? About 18 hours. If I could somehow find a way to extend my storage capacity? Maybe up to 28”
John gave a displeased hum, and resumed his march towards the shaft “What about The Dawn? Surely it must have more storage than my armour”,
“It does” Cortana replied “But the downside is the reactor is strained enough as it is and I would be limited to a half-destroyed husk of half a ship”,
“What about storage servers?”
Cortana blinked in the Master Chief’s Heads Up Display “What about them?”
This time it was Chief's turn to blink, him reaching a tech answer faster than Cortana was… concerning, to say the least, “Do you think you could rig up a server as an extended storage unit for me to carry on my back mag plate?”
“Dear lord that may work, head up to engineering, that’s where most of the main computer storage is”
John grinned, there was the lightbulb moment he was looking for “On my way, where is it?”
“2 floors up and 3 sections to starboard, I’ll start making a list of what I’ll need to make sure it won't fall apart with me in it”
It took 5 agonising minutes to get to the elevator shaft, every minute passing, a tolling bell in the back of his head, urging John to go. Just. a little. faster .

 The button for the elevator wasn't working, not surprising considering the state of the rest of the ship, so Chief jammed his armoured fingers into the door seam and with the strength of 10 men, pulled
“Umm, John,” Cortana began, realizing what Chief was doing, “Be careful!” There was a sudden vacuum as the doors opened fully, nearly pulling The Master Chief into the shaft before he magnetised his boots to the floor.
There was a screech as metal started to slide against metal and The Master Chief groaned as he realized the crates behind him were moving and, not wanting to risk getting knocked in without a good handhold, tensed his legs and jumped. 

The climb itself was simple, jump from one handhold to the next and dodge the falling debris dislodged by the change in air pressure, rinse, repeat, and climb up through the right floor's elevator door.

The Sangheili who was exploring the ship cloaked in adaptive camouflage made the fatal mistake of roaring his challenge as he swung his plasma sword at The Chief’s head. Acting on instinct honed over decades of practice, The Master Chief grabbed the Elites wrist with one hand, just below the blade, and with the other, raised his now glowing fist up and swung. The impact of his fist was expected, he couldn't have missed the Elite's head even if he tried. The Elite's head exploding with a flash of yellow light, however, was not.
There was a moment of silence between the two of them before Cortana asked “What was that?”John looked back down to his hand, now no longer glowing, and panted slightly, finding himself strangely winded… “I think that was oath magic, in particular, my smite… I thought we were leaving magic behind when we came back”
He unslung his rifle and continued onwards. It wasn't until he reached engineering that Cortana spoke again “Maybe magic was here all along and we just didn't know it? It would explain some of the forerunner tech we have seen. Anyway, we can worry about that later. I’ll mark the things you need on your HUD”. 

It was a remarkably simple thing to build for his wife; a data storage container she reformatted, along with a wireless connector to let her connect with it from her chip and finally a fusion battery to power it, all connected to the magnetic hard point on his back. It would mean he wouldn't be able to holster his assault rifle anymore, but that was a small price to pay for keeping Cortana alive, even if only for a few more hours.
The AI’s face appeared in his HUD, looking much less stressed, “Well, it's a bit roomier in here, current estimations are at 25 hours until total degradation. Now. Shall we go see if our visitors have been kind enough to leave us a ship?”

The Chief said nothing, but the grin on his face would have sent most beings running.

 ======================================================================

It was a standard counter boarding strategy to get to the observation deck, only interrupted by a strange burst of High-frequency energy that had The Chief’s shields complaining as it washed over them “What was that?”
“High-frequency scan, unknown data configuration. Definitely not the Covenant!” Cortana's voice sounded strained, “It's playing hell on my circuits. I'm going to go on low power for a moment and see if I can reinforce the firmware”
Chief dropped a couple of grunts with headshots “Take a look at my rear shield emitters while you’re at it, I doubt that the jury-rigged server box is rated for any kind of damage.” He proceeded towards the final elevator to the observation deck, activating his Mag-Boots again as he pressed the call button. 

Fortunately for the pair of them, the elevator came without complaint and smoothly opened up its doors, “So, do you think the Covenant are back at war with Earth?”
Cortana hummed for a moment “Unlikely, these individuals didn’t seem to be very well equipped, possibly a salvage operation?” the doors to the observation deck opened and they could look through the transparent titanium, “or we may have just stumbled onto the whole reformed Covenant fleet”

One of the Elites must have gotten out a message of his resistance as 2 Phantom Dropships proceeded to attach EVA boarding pipes to funnel troops into the observation deck.
Needless to say, The Covenant was only momentarily surprised when Master Chief hurled a Plasma grenade at the lead Elite's head, trapping them all with nowhere to go until detonation. After the immediate threat was taken care of; John took a moment to look outside of the observation window.

For possibly the first time in his life, the large covenant fleet wasn't the object receiving his main focus, “Cortana, this might just be me hallucinating from the jump back, but is that a metal planet?”
There was a slight burst of static as Cortana sputtered “Well, if you're hallucinating, then my cameras are broken too. Because I see it on the Dawn 's scopes as well, however, those Covenant ships are starting to send fighters. Plug my chip in so I can interface with the weapon systems. Maybe make them think twice about us”
It was the work of moments to plug Cortana back into the ship so she could prepare the missile to fire “John, we have a problem. The missile is ready to fire but the launch door is damaged, we're going to need to do some EVA. I'll mark the nearest airlock”

John exchanged his Assault Rifle for a Battle Rifle that was floating conveniently just outside the airlock and used its scope to nail the Jackals with Carbines and Beam Rifles in the head.
Cortana had helpfully marked the damaged portion of the launch cover that he needed to remove and made use of his EVA thrusters to help build speed to shove the debris out of the way. John was then directed to a manual override terminal to reset the launch cycle, popping seals on Covenant as he went, without any atmosphere around, a simple breach of their armour was fatal.

 ======================================================================

The missile destroying the Covenant Frigate wasn't anything that John hadn't seen before. That being said, he had never seen it happen so close and Cortana seemed to agree “Well, let it never be said you didn't know how to show a girl a good time Chief,” John hummed in lieu of a reply before turning back to head inside.
He had just launched himself towards the airlock, when the same orange energy scan blasted from the planet's surface, bathing him in its light, “Time to worry about the metal planet?” he asked, manoeuvring himself back through the door.

His suit’s sensors detected a gravitational surge as the doors began to cycle and he turned his head to see that the metal planet had opened up some kind of aperture in its surface, releasing an ominous white light. He leapt through the interior opening as Cortana replied “Definitely time to worry about the giant metal planet, that gravitational well will tear the Dawn apart, I'm marking the nearest escape pod, go!”
John took off like a MAC round, reaching his top speed in under a second as he raced through the decaying ship, already the gravity well’s effects beginning to show as decks began to collapse. The Covenant scavengers were ignored as The Chief figuratively and literally ran over and through the various Elites and Grunts. “John!” Cortana said, marking a second point on his visor, “That wall is showing serious signs of damage, you should be able to charge right through it!”
There wasn't much that could withstand a solid ton of Spartan hitting it at 88 kph, and an unreinforced wall that was already damaged as it was, was not one of them. The Chief went straight through the wall, staggering slightly before getting his feet back under him and taking back off towards the life pods. 

It was a close call between him throwing himself into the pilot's seat to take off and the launch bay being torn apart behind them. He guided the pod down as safely as he could, wincing as various pieces of debris impacted the pod’s sides as they accelerated towards the surface.

  A splinter of one of the ships embedded itself in the rear of the pod, sending it violently tumbling. The readouts that were displayed on The Chiefs HUD let him know that while they were now essentially in free fall, the piece of ship lodged in the pod was doing a remarkable attempt to replace the air brakes it had destroyed, “You know,” Cortana began, a sarcastic tone attempting to hide the nervousness in her voice “I bet none of the other AI have this much trouble with escape pods.”
John said nothing as they finally broke through into the atmosphere, the whole pod shuddering as ships rained down with them towards the unforgiving ground.
He braced himself as he activated his mag boots to angle himself at the cracked viewscreen “That may be true, but you wouldn't have had nearly as much fun with Douglas or Linda now, would you?” The screen shattered as he launched himself up and through the glass, gaining as much distance from the pod as he could.

“No, but it would lower my stress levels, calculating optimal decent plan”

 ================================================================

{Forerunner Planet}

If there was anyone alive on the ground to see the gravity well’s opening up close, they would have seen a tiny splinter of metal and assumed it to be a piece of ship. They would have been wrong.
The Master Chief slammed into the ground back first, arms wrapped around Cortana's storage case, having moved it to his stomach to try and protect it from as much of the impact as possible before blacking out.

  He awoke to Cortana 'tapping' on his visor “John? Can you hear me?”

The concern in her voice jolted him back to full consciousness, “Ow. Note to self, don't jump from the upper atmosphere twice without getting the armour looked over first, I think the gel layer was damaged,” he paused, head throbbing, “How long was I out?”
Cortana projected herself off his armours holo-emitters as he climbed back to his feet “Not long” her hologram distorted and her voice gained an unsettling digital warble “About half an hour”  

Chief winced as he put pressure on his right leg, he had landed badly. Hopefully, The Server! “Cortana, how did the server survive?”
Cortana was silent for a moment, running diagnostics, “minimal damage, cracked casing, but the components have survived. Hey-”
Whatever she was going to say was cut off as a flight of Phantoms flew overhead “We need to move. Are you ok with that leg?”
John was staring at his leg, which he had been trying to do what he remembered his healing magic felt like. It was harder than he remembered, “I’m surprisingly good. Did any covenant ships survive the crash?”

“I'm detecting several, why?”

John chuckled darkly as he picked up his battle rifle and began moving through the wreckage “Well, I figure that since they were the ones who got us in position to crash our ship, the least they could do would be to offer us a ride home”
Cortana's laugh was music to his ears.

The crash zone was a mess, both parts of the Forward unto Dawn and chunks of some of the covenant ships littered the landscape. He made sure to collect the few scattered rounds and magazines for his battle rifle whenever he saw them, even dropping his pistol to make room for the extra ammunition (the single magazine he had wasn't worth the 4 extra battle rifle mags).
The few scattered covenant troops littered around the crash site that weren't too dazed and confused to actually shoot at him were made short work of with the Chief's knife.
“Hold up John, I'm picking up IFF tags of a couple of warthogs nearby, a set of wheels might help speed up along,” Cortana said, marking a waypoint on his HUD, showing what was hopefully a working warthog around the next corner.

One of the motor pools had somehow managed to come down in mostly one piece and the shockingly potent suspension on the Warthog had ensured that at least two of the vehicles had survived, needing only minor repairs with parts from the scrapped ‘Hogs.
The seat and pedals felt disturbingly foreign to him as he sat down in the driver's seat. “You do remember how to drive right?” Cortana’s voice was 3 parts concern 1 part sarcasm, John switched on the engine and released the throttle break “Still a better driver than you. That cart from the Artificers’ Mecca wasn't ever the same after you tried to drive it”
Cortana sputtered in embarrassment “Which we both agreed never happened”
John made an indulging Humm and swung the Hog around in the right direction before the AI continued “And besides, that dwarf survived- oh look, a distraction. Let's focus on that” A sorte of Phantom dropships flew overhead in the direction they were going, “The covenant must have found a safe place to land if they're sending out drop ships. Maybe we could ask nicely when we find out where they're going to drop off their troops?”
John chuckled darkly, a soft sound that frequently made people flee in terror, “Asking isn't my strong point.”

It was harder than John was going to admit to keep the warthog on all 4 wheels as he navigated the wreckage and debris of the broken ships while still following the tracking point that Cortana had put on his HUD.
They spent several minutes swapping between discussing plans for “borrowing” a ship and companionable silence, weaving out of the way of wreckage until finally, they escaped the crash site.

A narrow canyon made for a makeshift path that led upwards until it crested at the entrance to a large plains area, crawling with covenant, “Don't suppose they'd be willing to let us ask for a ride first would they” Cortana mused while John clicked the safety off of his Battle Rifle. The warthog was spotted by a Jackal who let out an echoing warning screech before it opened fire with its Carbine.
“Doesn’t look like it,” John replied, jumping on the back of the reconnaissance vehicle and opening fire with .50 calibre anti-materiel rounds; it proved to be just as effective against the covenant soldiers as it did against its aircraft. “You know, you'd think that the Elites would have learned by now that our guns can run their shields down faster than they can get within plasma blade range” John commented conversationally watching as an Elite major (he thought, the covenant seemed to have changed their armour scheme) get gunned down while trying to get close enough to use his sword; Cortana sniggered, a slight digital distortion in her voice “Well, fortunately for us, they have-e-n't” Chief blew the last remaining grunt apart, the large-calibre rounds reducing it to little more than goo “you alright?”

“Fi-I-” Cortana made a noise like clearing her throat “Fine, rampancy is starting to set in, it's just my vocal processor right now though”
John's heart ached “If there is anything you need me to do to help, just let me know”  

The terrain proved a challenge to navigate, but not one the warthog couldn't rise to, with the Chief working the wheels up a sharp ledge, promising to himself to keep the next ghost he found intact instead of indiscriminately shooting it.
His wish was soon answered when, after another plateau of covenant and a tight cave system that left scratches on the warthog's paint, they arrived outside a (relatively) small Forerunner building, crawling with covenant.
A 3-round burst from his battle rifle put a hole the size of his fist through the head of a Grunt piloting a Ghost; Jacking the Ghost from its former pilot's corpse, it was a simple matter of turning its plasma cannons on the remaining covenant, melting through shields and roasting flesh. The only challenge came from a grunt wielding a Fuel Rod Cannon, however, it was far too slow in getting the Master Chief in his sights and was promptly gunned down. John stared at the corpse for a moment, before he grabbed the cannon and, moving to slot his battle rifle on his back, remembered that Cortana’s new housing was already taking up that point. So, with a heavy heart, he left the cannon behind and began to climb the stairs that were too narrow to fit the Ghost up.

Only to come flying back down from the top, leaping towards the cannon to use against the pair of hunters at the top of the ledge. Someone had finally gotten the amazing idea to make an armoured panel that protected the back of the colony against small arms fire.
Though, looking at that joint, John thought a shotgun blast might also punch through. none of which helped in this current situation as he dropped his Battle rifle to pick up the Fuel rod cannon and began to circle the Hunters.

================================================

Stepping over the pile of now non-moving Lekgolo, John dropped the empty cannon and retrieved his rifle, pocketing some grenades that he hadn't seen earlier due to focusing on the hunters, and proceeded into the structure. 

As he finished dealing with the door guard (who must not have heard the racket he had made) Cortana flagged the corpse on his HUD with a waypoint “John, looks like that Elite dropped his camo module, bring it with us and I'll see if I can get it to work with your armours systems”
John paused for a moment before obeying and entering the temple. 

An electronic whine brought their attention to the rafters of the building,
“Ah, I was wondering when they'd show up,” Cortana mused, spotting the sentinels floating about their heads.
John gripped his Battle rifle tighter, keeping them in his sight at all times, they didn't seem to be paying him much attention, but he knew how fast those lasers of theirs could drain his shields.
“Relax John, I don't think they're hostile” Cortana laughed in his ear, he couldn't help the smile in his own voice as he replied “Not yet, wait till we meet the annoying floating glow ball, then they turn hostile”, Cortana paused for a moment “Yeah, that tracks”

  John continued through the building, walking towards the terminal that sprang to life as he approached, it was a surprisingly difficult decision to plug Cortana into the machine, but a decision he made regardless.

“I can never quite get over just how much data is in forerunner systems,” Cortana said, her avatar appearing on the console as she brought up what references she could about their location. Symbol after symbol flashed up before aligning themselves and building the tightly condensed sentence structure of forerunner writing. As it finished assembling itself, John snorted, drawing Cortana's attention “What is it?” she asked as He began to shake with repressed laughter “You remember how I took up Celestial as a hobby? And you said, and I quote ‘Why would you learn that language? Just because it’s vaguely familiar to you doesn't mean you should waste your time on a dead language’?”
Cortana was silent for a moment, “no.”
John sniggered, “Yes” 

“You mean to tell me that you can read this?”

“Uh-huh…”

“You can tell me you told me so later…” Cortana muttered, “Right since I was the one who wrote the Forerunner translation algorithm with Dr Halsey, what does this say? Let's compare notes”.

John stared at the symbols, trying to see how the language had changed over the untold thousands of years “Let's see, 'for the glory of the Forerunner ascendancy of this fortress? final stand? no… shield world is named remembrance to the dead, may they find purpose in death as they did in life.' it's a mausoleum, I think, but the wording of purpose has some interesting double meanings”
Cortana stared in shock “That's… a lot more than I got. The translation algorithm just says it's a shield world, designation: Requiem” She turned to look at John ''As soon as we fix this storage issue, you are so teaching me”, it was not a request, “Anyway. it looks like this place is a local cartographer; bringing up the map, let's see if it can show us where our friends outside are la-anding”.

John made no comment on the slight hitch in her voice as the holographic map displayed itself and was filled with the same symbol “Cortana, I thought we were looking for Covenant, why is the symbol for humans everywhere?” Cortana made an irritated sigh as the map flashed red “It's bouncing a signal around almost the whole planet and isn't letting me pinpoint its origin-” the map shut down “-and now it's crashed. I guess even forerunner systems have errors after a hundred thousand years of inactivity. I'm reading 2 power stations that look like they need to be reset. marking them on your HUD now” 

The “circuit breaker” that needed to be reset was marked by a floating metal box with a red light in the centre of it, turning green after John pushed it. The platform he was standing on began to descend as the energy beam re-activated, causing John's shields to splutter and drain, “Cortana?” John asked, a slight concern in his voice “Nothing to worry about John, the energy beam is charged with Ferromagnetic radiation, it's just interfering with your shields, nothing dangerous”

======================================================================

John glanced at his motion tracker that had just lit up red with hostile movement and ducked into an alcove while his shield finished recharging “You know Cortana, a thought occurs” Cortana made a noise of interest “By the way, I should have finished patching your armour to work with that camo module, try it out, but the power won't last long before it needs to recharge. What did you need?”

John grinned under his helmet before fading from view and sliding his knife through the jugular of an unfortunate Jackal who happened to pass by his hiding spot “How often have these shields been absolutely Red-lined? There was that fall from orbit, those times we used them as an improvised EMP, the 4 or 5 times I got hit with a Gravity Hammer and most recently the other fall from orbit, I'm just impressed that they're still functioning at full capacity”

An Elite Minor was next as John snuck behind it and rammed his knife into the base of its spinal cord.

Cortana gave a slight giggle at the pose the Elite fell in before replying “You have a point… I’m marking the other power relay on your HUD and going silent to do some diagnostics, give me a call when you’re done”

There was an unusual not-silence in the back of John's mind as Cortana focused her efforts on his armour. A red icon at the bottom of his HUD had him ducking into a shadowed alcove as his Camo finally dropped to recharge ‘ Right, limited time ’ he thought as he finally had to open fire at the Grunt that had spotted him, the first round of the burst going through the Grunts head while the second 2 flew past the now dead grunt and punctured the gas tank of the unfortunate Grunt that was standing behind it.

Camo recharged and with no eyes currently on him, John faded from view and looped around to the back of the group, again using his combat knife to deadly effect before using a Plasma Grenade to catch the Jackal on the other side of the room.

Staring at the now cleared room, John proceeded to the marker on his HUD to find an exact copy of the relay on the other side of the room.

A Button pressed, his shield drained from the radiation (and wasn't that concerning, it had held up to solar radiation and Uranium-235 that one time no problem…) and a short elevator ride down (Forerunners did seem to love their elevators) John was once again greeted with a squad of Covenant ‘ seriously ’ John thought ‘ you would have thought I would have heard a drop ship or even seen them enter on my motion tracker Where are they coming from? ’

Much like the first group, he vanished into his camo, this time paying more attention to its energy reserves and picking the intruders off one by one, starting with the Elites and working his way down the hierarchy until it was only a trio of terrified Grunts who fled screaming when he decloaked right in front of them, holding his bloody knife like the Hell-Spawn he had been named after in both this universe and, ironically, also in Faerun. 

He returned to the console and was working on seeing if he could reboot it when Cortana returned to his mind in full force “Right! I'm done with the Diagnostics, now, good news or bad?”; John twitched at the sudden and unexpected sound in his ear “I've just had fun clearing out the room twice, let's keep the good times going with the good news first”. He could hear the beaming smile Cortana was wearing when she began to talk again “Okay! Good news is I can re-work your shield systems so you won't explode!”

“That’s grea-Excuse me- What?!? ”

“Right, so… your shield systems have taken damage from… something… with the punishment you put your gear through it could have been anything really”

“Cortana?” John probed, trying to cut her tangent on hypothesising what had caused the damage (probably the fall from orbit on his return to Earth, but she didn't need to know that)

“Oh, right. It was one of the power relays responsible for supplying power to the frontal shield emitter, I have re-routed the power to avoid it, however, it will be lowering your shield capacity and strength by 12.89%”

John was silent for a moment “And where was the explosion going to come from?”

“Oh, yeah. That was from the relay bursting if you took too much impact damage at once. Say… a direct hit from a Hunter or a plasma grenade”

John was silent for a moment as the last hour flashed by, mentally tallying the number of grenades he dodged and how many times the hunter pair had shot at him and shuddered.

“Right, good to know. Anyway, the cartographer seems to be working again, but I can't access it myself. Ready to jump?”

The simmering heat that had been sitting in the back of John’s mind slid down his spine and through his arm until it vanished from his hand and Cortana’s Holographic avatar appeared on display “Alright, signal-that-claims-to-be-human, let's see if I can’t track you dow-oh hey it just cleared up, see John, sometimes you just need to turn things on and off again”

John flicked his eyes from his smug companion back to the map “Is it me misreading the map or do those coordinates show inside the planet?”

Cortana was silent for a moment as she analyzed the data in front of her “We technically are already inside the planet, someone else might have just made it deeper than we did”
“So, I have to ask” John began “Is there a teleporter network like the other installations, or do I need to find a shovel”

Cortana’s giggle was music to his ears “No, no, there looks to be a teleporter hub just down the hall. I'm marking it on your HUD now” 

It was a short walk down the hall, towards the building's elevator, which arrived at the same time as John did. “Going up?” he asked sarcastically, hitting the interface for the transport room.

It was a surprisingly long trip up the shaft before the doors opened on what appeared to be a bridge suspended over a seemingly bottomless chasm. 

John pulled his head back from the edge of the bridge “How in the nine- how on earth do the Forerunners manage to make so many bottomless pits? I should be able to see down to the lower level from here” Cortana gave a giggle before replying “Probably with the mist machines they manage to use to shroud the lower levels. I personally just think it’s to be dramatic”

A river of lava down his arm later as he plugged Cortana into the transport hub had John looking around the room, track record said there was something about to jump them. Cortana's hologram appeared on the interface, causing the giant machine to come to life as the platform they were standing on rose, while flat panels constructed themselves in an orbit around them. “According to the Cathedral, this building is just one part of a large transport hub that spans the entire planet…” Cortana trailed off, manipulating the hologram to program in a destination, “What?” John asked, giving the room another glance “Well, I was looking at the coordinates and the closest exit to where the signal was coming from” She brought up a familiar symbol “This showed up”

“Humans…” John muttered 

“Yeah, it's kind of convenient that we are just walking through this place, I mean, where’s the monitor?”

Cortana continued to work on opening a gate “Starting to think it’s a trap?”

John shrugged “Do we have any other choice but to spring it?”

“Probably not”

“Do it”

The Cathedral hummed to life as Cortana finished inputting coordinates, while hexagonal pillars rose from the mist “Cortana…” John began, tightening the grip on his rifle, “Yeah, got it, I'm picking up unknown energy signatures… work damn you!” John glanced back at her out of the corner of his eye as figures simply seemed to materialize on the tops of the pillars, Humanoid legs melding into a bulbous insectoid body, unsettlingly humanoid faces and a strange blue glow emanating from the edges and cracks of their chitin.

“Cortana, time to go” John reached towards the terminal to retrieve the chip that Cortana used as a link, before a portal opened.

“That wasn’t- you know what? Yank me and go!” 

A river of lava poured into his skull as John booked it into the portal. He didn't know what those things were, but track record said they were probably hostile. With only a moment's hesitation, he plunged into the portal.

======================================================================

Chapter Text

[Requiem: Inner Core]

The Master Chief appeared in a short hallway, leading out onto a large platform that overlooked the interior of the core, “Now… we’re here, but where was that human signal coming from?” John mused, looking around at the interior of the sphere.
“I'm not seeing any ships or major settlements, or at least, none with strong enough lights to be seen from here. Hey, plug me in and I’ll see what I can find.” Cortana replied, suspicion toning her voice. He plugged Cortana into the Terminal that was conveniently located right there on the platform.

Cortana stared at her Spartan and threw her thumb over her shoulder, “Check out that structure floating in the core there, it seems to be some kind of satellite.  It's amplifying the human signal the cartographer was picking up. We should be able to use it to send a signal back”

John was silent for a moment as he processed the information “This is sounding too easy, what's the catch?”

“It appears that the 2 energy beams connecting to it seem to be interfering with its signal quality, we'll need to disable them in order to send anything that won't come across as just mixed up noise”

John frowned “This is definitely a trap. Do we have any other options?”

Cortana sighed as a portal opened to their left “None. Portal’s open as close as I can get it. Pull me and let's go”

===================================================================

They appeared inside an artificial cave mouth at the end of a canyon. A dark sky above them blazed with violet lightning distracting the fact that they were on the inside of a sphere.

“Nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here” John remarked dryly

“Eyes up Chief, I'm detecting movement around the corner.” Cortana warned, a slight flicker in The Master Chief’s HUD as she spoke.

The movement turned out to be a small number of metallic reptilian/canine looking creatures with the same blue glow as the bipedal creatures earlier. They seemed to be watching The Chief as he walked past, scuttling back up the cliff face when he got too close. A mannerism that uncomfortably reminded John of Flood stalker forms.

“Huh,” Cortana began, “They don't appear hostile”

It was a moment later that another of the creatures, this one with a crest of spines along its back, crested a low rise. It gave a metallic screech and pointed its head towards The Master Chief, a torrent of small glowing orange energy pellets at him, as if fired from a machine gun.

“Sha'vit!” Chief swore, shields plummeting dangerously fast as he dove behind cover. Whatever that energy was, it was not plasma, not even close. Using the smart scope on his battle rifle, John took careful aim and nailed the Dog(?) In the mouth, causing it to explode into motes of blue light and molten metal. “Crap, John! More incoming! Down the walls!”

Thankfully, these ones did not have the rate of fire their spiky friend had and most met a similar fate when a well placed grenade destroyed most of them, while John dropped the rest with well aimed bursts from his Battle Rifle.

“You had to say it, didn't you?” John said dryly, the low shield alarm a dull beeping in his ear, as he gingerly made his way over to inspect the remains of the creatures. “Hey, we haven't met a monitor yet, I thought we would be fine, so sue me!” Cortana indignantly huffed “Well, now that is interesting…”

And indeed it was, there was nearly no sign of the creature that had attacked them, save for a strange looking device, it looked to be a mutated tuning fork with a round ring at the other end, large enough to be used as a weapon “John, I'm picking up energy signatures f-from that, wh-*ahem* whatever it is, it's the same energy reading as those energy pellets that we were shot at with, might be the firing system” 

John winced internally at the stuttering in Cortana's voice before glancing around to make sure there wasn't another about to try and jump him, before placing his Battle Rifle down to pick up the object. 

He nearly dropped it shortly after as he felt an achingly familiar sensation brush up against his skull, so faint that he would have missed it if he didn't have decades of experience with magic , not only magic, but a magical weapon trying to attune to its new user. Looking down at the object, John accepted the mental handshake and understood, Cortana was right, it was a weapon, the Forerunner equivalent to a UNSC Assault Rifle, and with a much larger magazine which John found he could materialise in his hand when he thought about reloading. 

“So,” Cortana began, clearly interested in the new find “You find out what it is?”

John grinned, and watched as the rifle collapsed down and attached itself to his right vambrace, making an unobstructing silver pattern of slightly raised metal on his forearm “You were right,” he replied picking his battle rifle back up “It was the weapon that we were getting shot at with, and we have confirmation on our theory about the Forerunners. It's a Magical weapon”

He picked up his Battle Rifle and checked over his remaining ammunition, ' Not good ' he thought to himself ' on the bright side, I do have a spare gun now, and somehow, I don't think ammunition will be much of a problem for this one '. Satisfied that his shiny new toy was secured, he moved over to the smaller, boxier, weapon that had dropped from the less spiny creatures.

Much the same as what John mentally dubbed as an assault rifle, this 'pistol' also sent a faint attunement request and, once accepted, quickly folded itself onto his upper thigh, becoming a small silver box and taking on green highlights.

Standing to advance he was interrupted when Cortana excitedly exclaimed, “John! I have a signal! It's faint, and garbled… and full of static… but it's there! UNSC S&R com frequencies”

John tightened his grip on his Battle Rifle “Good, we're on the right track.” he paused for a moment, hitting a floating activation button to switch on a light bridge “Did you get any data off of those things? They looked similar in design to those humanoids we saw in the tower”

“No, sorry, there wa-a-... was some kind of energy burst when they died but I couldn't- Watch Out!!” Cortana's warning barely gave John enough time to roll sideways as one of the humanoid creatures dropped down almost right on his head, the force of the creature impacting the ground was enough to drop his shields to the point of a warning alarm. John summoned his shiny new pistol to his hand, but before he could get a shot off, the creature's face split into four before revealing a glowing human skull and screaming in The Master Chief’s face, before vanishing into a small point of light behind it.

“Well he certainly seemed friendly” Cortana deadpanned, John snorted “Any idea just what that was? It looked like a human skull”

“No clue, these constructs might be mimetic in nature, whatever they are, but it's definitely not organic”

John ducked behind a rock, letting the hard light projectiles wash over his head, before returning fire with the last of his Battle Rifle ammunition, sending 12 rounds through the head of the bipedal creature, shooting at him “Could they be something similar to a warforged? If the Forerunners are from Faerun, they might have tried something similar, and it's not as if they haven't given AI their own body's before?”

Cortana made a gagging sound “Oh, Gods. You uh… you are a lot closer than you realize, that explosion they burst into when you kill them? It's a massive data burst, I've been able to tap into it and found some things out, first, the big ones are designated as 'Promethean Knights', the reptilian dog looking things are listed as crawlers”

Chief withdrew his knife from the skull of a Knight “You sound like you found more than just their name, anything else?”

Cortana paused “It's pretty fucked up”

“On a scale of Covenant glassing to The Flood, how ‘fucked up’ is it?”

“Up there with that litch we fought that resurrected only children to fight”

John paused, threw what appeared to be a Promethean grenade and watched the fascinating explosion it brought “Well, now I'm really curious, let's hear it”

Cortana shuddered, an action so violent that it caused the HUD and speakers in Master Chief’s Helmet to flicker and let off a small burst of white noise “They used to be human”

A bolt washing across his shields broke John out of his stupor “I'm sorry, WHAT?”

“The residual data is enough to suggest code patterns similar to an AI created from a human brain, and considering the skulls hiding in the knights? I don't have full confirmation, but current data shows a strong chance of that hypothesis being correct”

John picked up a more traditional looking rifle and bound it to him, a 3 round burst with a more powerful scoped shot? Yes please.

He raised it to drop a strange grunt looking construct with a dual rotor jetpack that one of the knights had ejected from its back “Ex-Human or not, they're still trying to kill me, I think we can put this under self defence from necromantic constructs”

It was business as usual from that point on, follow the canyon, find enemies, get shot at by enemies, shoot back, move on, rinse repeat, regular day at the office. It wasn't until the canyon started to give way to strange metallic platforms that anything changed, “John,I'm picking up that signal again, it's much clearer now, sub channel data is registering it as a UNSC ship, the Infinity . Still can't make out any more specifics unfortunately”, John paused for a moment to line up a shot on a Knight that had just warped in, “If it's inside the planet we need to rendezvous with them as fast as possible” Cortana grimaced “about that…" There was a burst of static before she continued “With the amount of ground we have covered, I should have been able to at least triangulate the location enough to at least get a rough direction and distance.”

John bent down and bound the shotgun he had just 'liberated' to himself “You're worried that the Infinity is somehow up in orbit somewhere?”

“Exactly. Pick up the pace John”

Yet another canyon had them arriving at a maze-like complex, using the Mjolnir armours radio and sensor suite to get a layout of the area, Cortana relayed her findings, “Alright, good news, is that were close to the energy beam, it should be at the top of that central structure, bad news is that it's shielded”, John hummed in displeasure “Please tell me they didn't do the smart thing and put the power source behind the shield?”

There was a short maniacal giggle before cortana replied “Nope, they aren't even in that structure, energy readings are coming from the short bunkers nearby” a group of waypoints appeared on his heads up display “These bunkers to be exact”

“I'm starting to see why The Flood won” John took on a mocking tone as he tore a crawler apart with his bare hands “I have a great idea! Let's out up this vitally important force field and then put the power relays on the OTHER side where anyone could get at them! I mean Really!” He punctuated that statement by kicking a Knight in the chest, sending it slamming into the glowing sphere that seemed to be helping to keep the shield up, destroying both. He continued his rant critiquing the Forerunners defensive capabilities with the other installations that had been on, with Cortana laughing her head off in the background, “Ah yes! Let's put the flood spores, literally the most contagious illness in the galaxy if not the universe and let's put it behind breakable glass! I'm sure nothing bad will ever happen… but what do I know…” 

The fourth relay shattered under a stream of hard light bullets from his suppressor, Cortana's laugh trailed off somewhat “Right, that should be that last of them, the shield at the top of the tower is down”

It was a short matter of getting to the top of the tower, his new hard-light shotgun tearing through the few knights in his way until the beam emitter for the power pylon came into view. They spent a minute examining the emitter before Cortana highlighted somewhere John could get a grip on, “Pull that handle out, twist it and slam it back in. That should turn the stay beam off”

The process was surprisingly slow, with the system being too small for John to get both hands on the grip and so braced his other hand against the casing and heaved . 

There was a deafening groan as the power beam shut off and a portal opened nearby.

The effect was soon noticeable as he now had an audible crackle in his coms system, Cortana was ecstatic, “It's working! I have enough of a signal to clean it up! Quick, into the portal!”

And over the radio, for the first time, a broken and staticky voice said “ there is a UNSC transponder coming from inside the planet ”

======================================================================

Chapter Text

The Super Soldier and his AI rematerialized on the platform they started on, just in time for a slip-space portal to open and dozens of Covenant vessels appearing back into real space, the sudden displacement of air by the ships causing pressure waves to ripple out and the ground below them to shake in the blast of air.

Cortana was silent for a moment before commenting “well, at least we know why The Infinity is still in one piece, it hasn't run into any covenant yet, they bypassed the outer shell!”

John ran towards the portal, “well, we’ll just have to make sure that we have a clear LZ for extraction”

They arrived in a depressingly similar hallway to the first, with the notable exception of some strange chevron-shaped objects floating on a plinth. 

“What are these?” John wondered, trying to see if there was a label anywhere.

“Scanning…” Cortana murmured “it seems to be some sort of directional shield; however, the code is too dense for me to get into it right now, take it with us and I’ll see if I can get some drivers made for it”

the canyon was shockingly similar to the first, almost a mirror image, only with a lot more Prometheans shooting at them. It did a good job of slowing them down, as john’s taxed shields could only take a small amount of punishment before needing a recharge, causing it to be a fight via mainly grenades before the numbers were thin enough for John to pop out and open fire with his suppressor and scattershot.

proceeding through a cave, John was stopped when Cortana hissed, “Careful, the covenant battle net just lit up, they seem to have met our metallic friends, I’m receiving coms chatter from near the other end of the cave we are in right now, sounds like the Prometheans don't like the Covenant any more than us”

John carefully peered around the corner of the mouth of the cave to see Covenant and Prometheans engaged with each other. It was absolute chaos, but he should be able to sneak around the edges without having to engage. why waste ammunition on targets that will just kill themselves for him.

“Cortana, can you put up a waypoint for the canyon exit with the shortest route to the beam emitter?”

“Scanning,” Cortana began, before a waypoint appeared on the other side of the canyon “according to my calculations, that should be the shortest route to the other emitter”

John drew his Boltshot and combat knife before activating his active camo and fading from view.

it was surprisingly simple to make his way past the covenant, who were too busy fighting the Promethean knights and crawlers to pick up on the slight visual distortion of his active camo, not to say that he was completely undetected, when an elite dove behind the same rock cover that john had ducked behind to recharge the camo module.

They had stared at each other for a moment in disbelief, before John rammed his knife into the mouth of the elite, sending the blade up through the soft palate and into its brain.

Re-engaging his camouflage he continued towards the canyon exit, almost making it, before he noticed a Promethean Knight, it's head following his movements.

“It can see us, can't it Cortana…” John said as the Knight aimed its Light Rifle, causing John to drop the Camo and run.

John nearly bounced off the door when it failed to open at his approach, “Cortana, can you get the door?”

a staticky “on its John” was enough for him to whirl around and begin firing at the Prometheans that had followed him.

“What's the word for open?” Cortana yelled

“What?”

“What is the Forerunner word for open?”

John ducked under a Lightrifle blast “Palime! It's palime!”

there was a beep before Cortana yelled “Door’s open, get inside!”

The door hissed shut behind them, inside was a sizable armoury, of which John took the opportunity to refill everything he could get his hands on “so, we shooting our way out?”

Cortana hummed “we could, or there is a one-way portal we could take back into the canyon proper and miss a few firefights?”

John walked to the portal, having just finished topping his scattershot off, “sounds like a plan”

They appeared in a structure connected through the canyon, an outpost if John had to guess, but again, the location baffled him. 

There were Prometheans however, so all thoughts of where and why were put on hold.

He had just dispatched the final Crawler by tearing its head off with his bare hands (mostly to see if he could) when he noticed some strange distortions flickering around his HUD, “Cortana, there a bug with my HUD? it's Degaussing like crazy”

There was a moment's silence before it cleared and Cortana appeared on a small view screen “it's me, the gateways we are going through are playing hell with my systems”

John was silent for a moment “Are you going to be alright?”

Cortana smiled, a broken thing that stabbed his heart like glass “yes, I've got you here to help, don't I?”

John went quiet as he mulled a thought over, the Crawlers fading into the background as acquire target, shoot, acquire target, shoot, reload, repeat.

“Cortana, about me helping, what do you think I would need to be able to interface with the doors that just need to be told to open?”

The AI thought it over “If you wanted to do that, you’d need to rewire your armour’s handshake protocol and that would stop you from interfacing with UNSC equipment…”

John jumped back from where he had jammed a Hard light grenade into the carapace of a knight, the damn watchers would catch and throw back any grenades he threw, “or? you sound like you just had an idea”

“It might? be a bit risky, but I could try to make a Tiny Servant as somewhat of a Driver, so your armour talks to it and it talks to the equipment, I still have all my blueprints, the hard part is going to be actually getting the materials”

John stabbed a crawled through the head with his knife, it twitched and shattered, “if we could get these corpses to stick around, you’d have all the metal you needed.”

He could feel her piercing look, through his visor and at the flaking knight “yeah…”

a burst of static through John’s radio caught both of their attention “John! it’s the Infinity, cleaning it up now!”

after a few short starts, a mostly legible voice flowed through his helmet speakers “Mast**- Chief, we h&ve found an *pening to the pl@n*t”

“Well, that’s not good,” Cortana said “come on Chief. Double time!”

John booked it through the rocky terrain, watching as the waypoint to where the relay power plant should be “why is there never a convenient Ghost to steal when you need one?”

“I guess you can’t be that lucky all the time?”

“I miss Find Steed”

They were clearing their way through the rocky terrain when they arrived at a Forerunner outpost, its hard light bridge extended across for entry “John, I’m reading high energy output coming from behind that structure, it should be the relay through there.

The Forerunner Alloy echoed beneath John's footsteps as he made his way through the desolate corridors, a few gun racks provided some welcome resupply of ammunition.

“Ok, I have a plan for how you might be able to get access to Forerunner systems” Cortana piped up after a while “if you kill Prometheans and then attune to the material before it finishes disintegrating, I should be able to reprogram it to make a hybrid drone, something you can use to interface with doors and the like”

“Sounds like a plan, put the shopping list up on my HUD”

A list appeared at the edge of John’s Head’s Up Display, showing a number of items, including… “Cortana, how am I meant to get a Power core of a Promethean Knight?”

“Uh… I figured I'd leave that up to you? the crawler and watchers power cores are just slightly too small for what I'm planning”

John grimaced “looks like I need to get creative then”

“Were coming up on the relays”

John grinned and faded from view.

Arus r’skad of Sanghelios wished he had remained on the ship, yes, he would have been essentially stuck in his quarters, but at least then he would be able to read a manuscript to stave off boredom.

and then the screaming started.

There was an Unggoy, lying motionless on the ground, its air tank ruptured and a gouge carved out of its head.

A second scream was heard and Arus turned just in time for a fellow Sangheili to be raised up to his full height before his head was violently jerked to the side and a spray of blood erupted from his Neck, the luminescent blood trailing down and illuminating a familiar silhouette

“THE DEMON IS HERE!”

Arus tightened his grip on his Plasma Rifle as he sprinted towards his Banshee, he should be safe if he could get airborne, 5 strides left, 4, 3, 2, he was preparing to dive into the cockpit when a Glowing knife appeared from nowhere, is blade piercing his shields and armour like they were naught but parchment, and he knew no more.

John panted slightly as he removed his knife from the blown-out chest cavity of the Elite that had been running for the Banshee he had been standing next to, that Smite had taken more out of him than he expected, possibly due to the fact that this body wasn't quite used to channelling Magic.

Stowing his knife and jumping into the banshee, The Master Chief was soon airborne, easily dodging the inaccurate ground fire and focusing his attention on the other Pilot, the pair engaging in a deadly aerial ballet until John finally managed to duke his foe into his firing line and promptly unleashed his fuel rod cannon, known by marines as a “Banshee Bomb”.

All that was afterwards was the simple task of strafing the ground and tower with plasma until the ground forces were lying dead.

“that's the last of them, the relays seem to be in the same place, marking them on your HUD”

“What’s the bet that I can send Banshee bombs through the open doors?

Cortana paused, “that I’d like to see”

John smirked, before yanking on the controls, spinning through a barrel roll and then into a turn that could best be measured with old earth coins, bringing him perfectly inline for his first bombing run.

“3 for 3, nice work John”, Cortana said as John guided the Banshee up to the top of the tower, jumping out and letting it fall back down when he saw that the doorway to the beam emitter was too small for the aircraft.

The power beam was playing hell on Master Chief’s com systems, a constant static that seemed to get louder as he approached.

“The power output of these beams must be incredible” Cortana murmured, her voice sliding through the static like a smooth syrup.

The pull of the handle to disable the energy beam was just as agonising as the first, inching out millimetre by millimetre, until finally, the beam was deactivated.

Almost immediately, John’s coms lit up with incoming messages, the current one was a grainy video of a UNSC captain with grey hair “UNSC Infinity to survivor, Forward Unto Dawn. Reading a faint IFF tag near the planetary core, do you read? Please respond”

Cortana cheered “They definitely know we’re here! oh no…” she trailed off

John was moving towards the teleporter “what is it?”

“They don't know about the Gravity Well!” she opened the coms system to try to communicate back “Mayday, Mayday! This is UNSC AI Cortana, Do Not approach the planet, I repeat, Do Not Approach!!”

The Captain, Del-Rio, from the ID tag that had finally cleared up enough to come through, seemed to frown “Infinity to UNSC asset! Forward Unto Dawn! We read you, but you're breaking up! Helm, increase speed by point seven. Get us in there!”

“Negative infinity!” Cortana replied desperately “damn it, your suit's transmitter isn't strong enough, get to that satellite now! I’ve rerouted the portal to get us close!

======================================================================

They emerged onto a metal expanse, the whole area bathed in an orange glow that seemed to be emanating from an enormous floating dark grey sphere, its surface split up by blowing lines that seemed to make a glyph of some kind, but it wasn't one that John could make out.

“Eyes up Chief, we got Covenant inbound,” Cortana said as a Phantom flew in, dropping off a squad of Unggoy and a few Kig-Yar that activated their shields, John felt almost insulted.

The ‘fight’ lasted only a few moments, with double taps through the slots in the jackals' shields and simply caving in the grunts' heads with his fists, their soft skulls splattering like overripe Watermelons.

“How long until Infinity hits the gravity well?”

“Only a few minutes, 5 tops! Double time John!” 

The Master Chief took a breath, allowing the adrenaline to flood his nervous system, time seeming to slow to a crawl as John began to run.

The first sign that something was unusual was when he entered the doorway to the left, he immediately dodged to the side as a beam of hard light impacted where he had entered. “Okay, that's a new one” he slipped his camo module, vanishing from sight of the Covenant that were attacking the Prometheans and beginning to manoeuvre his way around the side of the pitched battle.

It ended up being a Crawler that spotted him first, opening fire with the Boltshot in its head. 

The scattershot proved itself as John’s weapon of choice as it blew through the crawler’s body, the now ownerless Boltshot flew out of the destroyed construct and was snatched up and stowed by John, a second followed soon after. in the corner of his eye, he saw the Boltshot on the list get crossed off.

there were chunks of Promethean steel that also were added to Cortana’s project, that John found out how to do purely by accident, A Knight had dropped down out of nowhere, dropping John’s shields and causing him to instinctively ram a Smite-powered fist through its head, the residual magic causing a number of plates to stick to his arm like iron filings to a magnet.

“Ok, that's all well and good, but the Infinity is going to be in range of the Gravity Well in 2 minutes!” Cortana yelled, making John turn on his heel and begin to sprint, flattening an unfortunate Unggoy that was unable to dodge to the side in time, attaching the steel to the back of Cortana’s case to hopefully provide some added armour to her case.

He barrelled through some more Covenant, scattershot spraying hard light through flesh and steel, before they arrived at the terminal, the 2 pillars, perfectly aligned with John’s hip height, marked with the symbols of Reclaimer, looked almost innocent.

“This is definitely a trap, isn't it” John said, approaching the console, Suppressor at the ready, “probably, but we don't have the time, quick, those terminals should connect to the satellite” 

The glowing metal hummed beneath his gloves as he placed his hands on the control pillars, his suppressor collapsing down into smaller plates and attaching to his right arm.

“Mayday Mayday, this is Sierra-117 of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, do not approach the planet”

there was a moment of pause, before his voice was echoed back to him, the tone lowered and distorted

“Infinity, do you read?”

Again, his voice was distorted back to him, he let go of the console “yup, trap. time to go, you mind throwing up a waypoint to the nearest portal terminal?”

Cortana put up a waypoint, “don't wait around on my account, that satellite is starting to move”

He glanced back as he dove over a ledge, landing crouched as the satellite released a huge wave of energy, knocking Prometheans and Covenant alike off of their feet.

John snaked a periscope line over the edge of his hiding spot, just in time to spot a triangular platform descend from the base of the satellite ship, it was most likely a ship, and on that platform, a figure began to stand.

He (John was guessing) was Tall, with a strangely Humanoid appearance, grey skin, and wispy white hair that looked more like whiskers from a cat than hair from a human. A gesture from his 6-digit hand had a suit of armour, that Halsey would have given her right arm for even the chance to study, formed over the being.

“And so, ends the great harvest of my betrayal” He spoke in strangely accented English, his voice low and slightly raspy, like a man who had gone too long without water.

He made a sweeping gesture outward, a ripple of magic energy spreading out to the Prometheans changing their Blue Hue to a violent orange, all except one knight who vanished in a flash of blue. A cry from a Sangheili sounded like the word “DIDACT!” before the Elites of The Covenant kneeled in reverence.

The Didact(?) floated over on his Piece of the ship, to where John was watching. seeing the approaching being, John quickly retracted the optical cable that made up his periscope, drew his Scattershot and prepared to run.

The metal Barrier between them began to dissolve, and John made it 4 strides, before an invisible fist clenched around him, raising him off the ground and causing his shields to let out a tone of complaint, as they attempted to harden, as quickly as they were being drained, a mental command muted the tone for the moment, 

“Even these beasts recognised what you were oblivious to, human. Your nobility has blinded you...as ever.”

well. That wasn't good.

"The Librarian left little to chance, didn't she? Turning my own guardians - my own world - against me." The Didact glanced down at the still bowing Prometheans "But what hubris to believe she could protect her pets from me forever. If you haven't mastered even these primitives” again, he indicated the still prostate Sangheili “then Man has not attained the Mantle. Your ascendance may yet be prevented."

John struggled to bring his own meagre magic to bear, trying to free himself from the spell he found himself trapped by, to no avail.

The Didact drew John close, as if to meet eye to eye, “Time was once your Ally human, but it has since abandoned you” a helmet that looked like Linda’s ARGUS helmet on steroids formed around the Didact’s head the eyepieces glowing the same murderous orange as the rest of the Prometheans “The Forerunners… Have returned”

D’Arvit.

“This tomb… is now yours”

He hurled John towards a wall, causing John to twist so he hit the wall front side on, lest he damage Cortana’s housing.

His shields hadn't recharged from whatever the Didact had done to them, the impact shorting out his overtaxed armour and the impact from falling to the ground was the last thing he saw before darkness.

“John… JOHN!!!” Cortana was yelling, while also playing Reveille through his speakers, concussion or no, John felt himself being brought to full consciousness as 30 years of muscle memory flooded his system with adrenaline.

“I’m up… are we back in the canyon?”

“There was a slipspace rupture when that… Didact left. I managed to get a portal to open, but unfortunately not very far.”

“What happened?”

“It was a trap. The Didact manipulated Infinity’s signal to get us to release him”

A pair of Phantoms fell out of the sky and crashed at the top of a ridge, their complement of Ghosts tumbling down the Canyon wall to land nearby. He looked up, wondering what had knocked them from the sky only to see a massive, writhing ball of energy, large chunks of debris being sucked into it, a Covenant Light Cruiser tried to escape, only for it to lose power and be sucked into the pseudo black hole.

“Moving that Satellite from where it was has caused a massive gravitational disruption. quick, onto one of those Ghosts, we need to find a portal out of here before the network collapses”

He vaulted the back of the Ghost, straddling it like he would a horse, as the hoverbike came to full power, barely waiting for the activation to finalise, he hit the throttle to full and pressed down on the boost button, Hard.

“Hang on! I’m going to try to route your armour’s shield capacitors into the Ghost’s boost” Cortana half yelled, an edge of panic tinging her voice as the Ghosts engines let out a roar, the blue ion stream of the boost propulsion changing to a yellow-tinged white.

“So long as it doesn't make me blow up, sure!” John said, dodging around a group of panicking Unggoy. the Black hole’s gravity had begun to destabilise the ground behind them, with large chunks and spikes of rock being ripped out of the ground

“John, Good news! The radio is working again! Bad news, Infinity has hit the Gravity well” Cortana said, before relaying the radio signal she had received, it was Del Rio, his voice thick with that special kind of panic only officers get when they can’t afford to freak out like the rest of the crew “FLEETCOM, this is Infinity. We are encountering an unidentifiable gravimetric disturbance and are being pulled inside a planet of Forerunner origin! Possible contact with the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn! Jettisoning complete log beacons at our last known-”

“Anyway for us to get up there faster?” John asked, swerving through a crumbling cave

“Not unless you’re expecting me to get out and push!” Cortana shouted, spikes of lava stabbing into John’s brain as her processor struggled to keep up with her emotion levels”

They rounded a corner and there ahead, suspended in mid-air, was an active portal “Portal up ahead, Gun it!”

“If I was holding anything back, I would tell you!”

The Ghost hit a ramp-shaped outcropping, flying through the portal moments before it closed

======================================================================

The Ghost was smoking dangerously when they came out of the portal, barrelling at full speed towards the edge of a Cliff

“WOAH COWBOY!” Cortana yelled as John dove off the Ghost, skidding to the edge of the cliff, as the Ghost went flying off the cliff before exploding shortly afterwards, its power cell had long since gone critical, and only Cortana's stubbornness and John's luck keeping it in one piece. 

There was a rumbling like thunder, a strange sound to hear when there was no storm system nearby.

“Chief! up there!” Cortana said, a waypoint appearing where she was indicating.

It was a ship. It was Huge. From the design of it, it was Human…

“By the Lords of Steel! It's HUGE!” Cortana shrieked as the ship passed fully through the cloud layer and was fully visible.

The ship descended like a wounded god, visible arcs of electricity appearing all around the ship “Mayday! Mayday! This is the captain of the UNSC Infinity. An unknown entity has seized control of our ship! We have been incapacitated, and on a collision course with an unidentified Forerunner planet!” The radio crackled into full working order, the didact seeming to have stopped his radio interference.

“Well, that explains why the Infinity was this far out on its own” John remarked, instinctively ducking as the supercarrier flew low over his position, flying towards a large jungle “got an expected landing zone? they’re going to need help.”

“scanning” Cortana murmured, “estimated landing zone is 77.8 kilometres north-east of our position”

A prickling in the back of his neck had John spinning around, Boltshot in hand, only to come face to hull with The Didact's ship. John found himself being scanned with the same orange scanner that washed through the Forward Unto Dawn, just to be spiteful, he took aim at where the scanner beam was coming from and let off a single round.

Whether this made any sort of impact, or it had just finished scanning him, the ship stopped its scan before rocketing off in the direction that the Infinity had gone.

“You know he is heading to the same place that we are, right?” Cortana said, as John began to trek in the same direction.

“Yup, now… if only I could still use Find Steed… wait a minute…” John said, as he dropped to one knee and began a low chant. A minute passed, two, before John sighed and got back to his feet “worth a shot” before jumping down onto a ledge and finding a fully fuelled Warthog “then again…”

“How…?” Cortana began, “you know what, I’m not asking. Get in and let’s go save our ride”

Chapter Text

The warthog had brought them to the edge of the jungle but proved unable to penetrate much deeper, requiring them to abandon the 4x4.

Master Chief had been making good time towards the crash site of the Infinity when Cortana tapped his speaker, “stay low, Covenant air forces are on approach”

He ducked into the shadow of a log, his green armour making him nearly invisible at this distance.

A video feed appeared on his visor, “I’ve hacked into that phantom’s camera, it won't hold for long, but should give us a good look at what's nearby.” The Phantom flew over John’s position without a shiver of recognition on their sensors, flying towards the crash site of the Infinity and getting a good look at the ship before it left Cortana’s hacking range “the Infinity seems to be in one piece” Cortana commented, as John continued through the jungle, John chuckled darkly “something tells me that it’s only because the Didact wanted it that way…”

He was interrupted when his radio crackled to life, receiving a commander's description code, the name was familiar… “Lasky to UNSC Infinity. Anyone available to give us a hand? We're up to our necks in bad guys down here! Does anyone read?”

John activated his radio “This is Spartan Sierra-117 of UNSC Forward Unto Dawn on station and moving towards your position”

A burst of static answered him as a distorted Lasky replied “What? Negative copy! Did you say Forward Unto Dawn? Please say agai-” the radio cut off and was replaced with static “sorry John, the signal keeps bouncing in and out through the Jungle, I can't clean it up. I’m reading several IFF tags nearby”

“Light them up, let’s see who we can help out” the nearest tag appeared as a waypoint further into the jungle. shouldering his Suppressor, He began to make his way deeper.

======================================================================

The jungle was thick trees had grown so close together for so long that they may as well have formed natural walls that even John was hesitant to try and cross, choosing instead to make his way down a rain gully between 2 enormous trees, following the IFF tag that had popped up on his HUD.

Rounding the final corner had John bringing up his scattershot and unloading it into the nearest Knight before it screamed at him and it and the others vanished into motes of light, A squad of marine corpses left behind.

John followed the signal down to the dog tags of the marines, collecting them at the same time as the officer’s transponder “I don't think that this was Lasky” John stated, looking down at the Hispanic Lieutenant “ID tags him as Jimenez, Paolo J” Cortana said, before playing the last log from the transponder, it made for some interesting listening.

"I mean, c'mon, Sarge - who sends a recon downrange in the middle of a firefight?"

"What was that?"

"Tangos on our six!"

"Now they're be...AAAAHH!"

Were they sent on recon, when the Infinity had just crashed not 4 hours ago? Surely a ship that size wouldn’t have been made secure that quickly, especially when the planet was as hostile as it was.

Something wasn’t right.

He helped himself to the grenades left behind by the squad before heading deeper into the jungle, the trees making almost a path for him to follow, before encountering crawlers.

It was just like being back at Training, the targets running around before getting shot in the head (and they made such a satisfying crunch when they died).

“John, there’s a watcher lurking over there, a headshot should do the trick nicely” Cortana murmured, highlighting the watcher with a Nav Point to get his attention.

John crept forward, sliding on his Camo module (UNSC Duct Tape was amazing) on as he faded from sight and approached the watcher, his Boltshot charged with its shotgun burst, humming in his hand. The Watcher had enough time to try and fly back in alarm as John lept up, his humming Boltshot punching a fist-sized hole through its head, John’s magic already reaching out to claim the corpse to pass on to Cortana, only a Promethean knight’s power core left.

There was a voice at the top of the hill, a Human voice, that seemed to be speaking to someone “one more lesson, ok? don't let the man you have in a choke hold grab a grenade!” John double-timed it to the top of the hill, his scattershot in hand, just in time to see the marine take both him and the knight that had impaled him on its sword out as the grenade he had been holding exploded.

“That was hardcore” possibly not the greatest eulogy ever spoken, but it was honest.

He bent down to pick up the sergeant’s shotgun; if nothing else than to pay tribute and add a few more kills to the dead man's body count, racking shells as he went.

“Cortana” John began, as he noticed the lack of HUD updates for the shotgun.

“Sorry John” Cortana’s tone was apologetic, “it seems that the UNSC has updated the handshake protocol recently, just a moment.

There was a moment of static before the HUD updated, displaying the Shotgun’s silhouette, his racking of shells stopped unexpectedly “Cortana, can you scan the Shotgun for any faults please? I’ve only gotten 4 shells into it”

Cortana was silent for a moment before she replied, incredulity toning her voice “nope, it's scanning as fine, with a fully loaded tube, 4 out of 4 shells”

“What in Tiamat’s third ass cheek is Misriah thinking, making a shotgun with this small of a capacity, scratch that, civilians might like it, how the fuck did it make it past the Acquisition’s Review Board?”

“It seems that HighCOM thinks that the flood is gone for good, by the way, that knight dropped something, might be useful”

It was a small module, seeming to be a sensor suite if John had to guess, unfortunately incompatible (for the moment) with his armour, however, his own enhanced vision combined with his motion tracker was enough for him to track the Knights below him.

======================================================================

The first thing any of the knights knew about The Master Chief’s arrival was the fact that a glowing fist burst through the front of one of the other units, the body disintegrating around the arm that still held its glowing power core, the reclaimer stashed the power core before drawing a weapon and the battle was joined.

A small tube magazine or no, the Shotgun still proved its stopping power and the Knights seemed to be vulnerable to the same tactic as the Elites, shove the barrel in their mouth and pull the trigger.

John ran the gun dry twice, expending the shells he had collected, and adding 8 kills to the fallen marine’s weapon, before spinning around and crushing the head of a crawler that had approached him with the stock of the shotgun. 9 kills.

“Wait, I'm reading an IFF tag on the other side of the thicket, also, thanks to that Power core, I can get working on that Drone” Cortana said as John picked up the IFF tag to listen to its previous owner’s final moments, and again, there was Laskey speaking.

“We should get eyes out there,” Lasky said before a deep woman's voice spoke up “Peters, you heard Commander Lasky”

The fallen Marine, Chief Petty Officer Peters cycled the bolt of his assault rifle “CFB, ma'am. Bulldogs, on me! We're going for a walk!”

So, this was the trooper’s leader. John stared up the path ahead of him, trying to see any footprints in the mud or disturbed plants to indicate the direction that Peters had come from. 

“Judging by the time stamp, it seems that Peters only came by recently” Cortana observed, marking a direction on John’s HUD “Best guess is that he came from that direction” John shouldered his Suppressor and began moving in the indicated direction

“Mind if I ask a question, John?”

“You don't usually shy away from questions, what changed?”

“Your vitals keep reacting to the name ‘Lasky’ you know him?”

John finished engaging the small group of crawlers that had appeared by stomping on the head of the final crawler, crushing it.

“Maybe? If it’s the Lasky I'm thinking of, but considering the circumstances that we met, I’d be surprised if he lived this long”

Cortana hummed for a moment, “this was before we met, wasn't it? I don’t remember seeing anyone named ‘Lasky’ on our adventures together” there was a humming in the back of John’s mind and a slight rattle from the server in John’s back that Cortana explained as her working on the Tiny Servant.

“I met Lasky on Citrinus IV, when Corbulo Academy for Military Sciences was attacked and destroyed, I was on my way to the extraction point when I met a small squad of cadets” John began, retelling the highlights of the Citrinus mission for Cortana, even as he was engaged by Promethean forces “I was out of ammo, with the second Hunter on our tail, when Lasky hands me a Frag grenade and ran out of cover to play Rabbit”

“And he Survived?!” Cortana said incredulously, amazement toning her voice

“Not only survived but barely injured. I doubt he had any physical scars from that day, not unless he chose to keep it open and force a scar”

“I… wow… yeah… I don't think that this is the same Lasky” Cortana began, her voice thick with amazement from John’s story “Men that Crazy brave didn't have long life expectancies, sorry”

“It’s fine, how’s that next IFF tag looking?” 

“Next tag is at the top of the hill, I can't get much more information-” Cortana seemed to pause mid-sentence, as though something had grabbed her attention “but you might, here, reach out and Attune to this” a small silver box materialised next to John, made from the same material as the Promethean Knights and Crawlers, He laid his hand on top of the box and felt the connection bloom to life in his soul.

‘Awaken’ John thought, and green lines spread through the box, the same green as the highlights of his weapons. The box unfolded, like a bird hatching from its shell, until a mechanical eagle was sitting on the ground, its metal feathers held in suspended gravity, a metre between its wings.

“Thank you Cortana” John said as he commanded the Eagle to take flight and scout ahead, a vid screen popped up on his HUD showing a smiling Cortana “my pleasure John, now, for the instructions: I’ve coded it to act as a go-between you and Forerunner tech, so you should be able to interface with any doors we come across, also, it being Forerunner tech, it should be able to run the sensor suite and additional shield modules that you’ve picked up, but I’m not quite sure how you’ll get that to work”

John focused, his vision shifting as an overlay of the surrounding area was shown through his Eagles eyes, a short hike up, that he could shorten by climbing up those logs, the crawlers waiting for him would need dealing with anyway.

John recalled his Eagle, Haast, he decided, after the UNSC Eagle, back to him, the mechanical raptor splitting apart, most of the body linking up to his left arm, while the head joined with his helmet, giving his visor a much more angular appearance.

“thanks to the eagle-” “Haast” Cortana paused as The Master Chief interrupted her “Haast? as in the UNSC Eagle?” “yup” “okay, Thanks to Haast’s recon, I’ve got a close fix in the IFF tag nearby, only problem is that it appears to be a dead end”

John caught one of the crawlers by the throat as it tried to leap at him, a grenade was rammed down its throat before he threw it back towards its companions, the detonation destroying most of them, headshots from his Lightrifle taking the last 2 out.

John crested the hill, finding himself at the base of a Forerunner building hidden in the jungle, crates of UNSC ammunition and weapons outside, with an IFF tag on the ground. There was no corpse to be seen.

The tag was collected and the recording began to play, a marine’s voice making itself heard over gunfire “XO, we’ve got it!”

The same deep-voiced female that had ordered Peters and the ‘Bulldogs’ “Get inside! Move, Move, Move!”

The first marine and a second seemed to be trying to set something up, “Come on! Crank it!” 

“Light is green!”

The voice that belonged to Lasky spoke up, “Doors open! Palmer, get your people inside!”

The now-named Palmer raised her voice “Yes sir! Fours! Get your people inside! Go!”

John and Cortana looked at each other through Cortana’s Vid display “they’re inside?”

“Seems like it”

John approached the wall and raised his fist.

Chapter Text

Commander Thomas Lasky sighed as the door to the Forerunner structure closed. Peters and the bulldogs were likely dead, Del Rio’s arrogance and Palmer's overconfidence in the decision to send out a scouting mission while the Infinity was currently grounded and actively being attacked, not, that he would complain. One, it would be bad for morale for the XO to complain about his CO and 2, the Super Solder in question was in the structure with him “Right, Simmons! Is that radio working? we’re going to need some reinforcements if we want to get the wounded back alive” the radio gave a melancholy tone before the radio operator spoke up “kinda? we can get a signal out, but I can't guarantee Infinity will receive it”

Lasky sighed “that will have to do, send it on all UNSC channels, if Peters and his crew are still alive, they’ll be able to get back”

“Radio’s on sir, be quick”

“Lasky to UNSC Infinity. Anyone available to give us a hand? We're up to our necks in bad guys down here! Does anyone read?”

there was empty static on the Radio before a deep familiar voice replied “This is Spartan Sierra-117 of UNSC Forward Unto Dawn on station and moving towards your position”

What. The. Fuck.

“What? Negative copy! Did you say Forward Unto Dawn ? Please say again?” The radio gave a warning beep before a small burst of smoke rose from it. Simmons cursed loudly “Damn it! transistors fried. I can fix it, but it will take a while”

“Do your best” Lasky sighed “Did anyone else catch that reply or did I just hallucinate the fact that The Master Chief said he was en route to our position?”

Simmons was silent for a moment before he lifted his head from the open Radio “I heard Spartan 117 of the Dawn ”

The Spartan commander of the Infinity Sarah Palmer was sitting reloading a magazine “I heard he was dead” 

Lasky headed off the argument before it could start “Alright since we can only hurry up and wait, everyone take 10 and eat something. Once The Chief arrives, we probably won’t get another chance for a while”

A pounding in the door an hour later broke everyone out of their own personal meditations, a quick glance at the FOF radar showing one friendly.

The door opened to a Legend given human form

======================================================================

“John, I have movement on the other side of that door, friendlies by the looks”

The door opened to reveal a fireteam of… ODSTs? John wasn't entirely certain, it looked similar to Mjolnir Armor, but the men wearing it were too short to be Spartans, even the Spartan IIIs had several inches on these troops, ‘ maybe they finally figured out how to make Mjolnir for unaugmenteds ’

The ODSTs(?) formed a rear guard behind John, their rifles aimed into the Jungle as a man in a commander's uniform approached, hand extended to shake, “I’m afraid we’re going to need to give you an IOU on that welcome home party.” for an unaugmented human, his grip was surprisingly firm “Tom Laskey, First officer of the Infinity, never thought I’d see you again” 

John was stunned “Tom Lasky? Corbulo?” There was a slight wince on Tom’s face that told him all he needed to know “helped kill any more Mgalekgolo?”

That got everyone's attention as Lasky went red with embarrassed pride “Ended up being moved to the command track soon after CAMS was destroyed, anyway, let's get inside and get planning”

“Seal it up!” the ginger ODST(?) shouted, her lack of helmet the reason she didn't just use the armor’s built-in comms system before passing in front of John. she looked up and down with a smirk, “Thought you’d be taller…”

John by this time had been a Paladin far longer than he had been a Spartan and had been forced to learn how to interact with people. Phillip, a friend of his who had studied at one of the Lore Colleges, had taught John many things including the concept of Laconic Phrase, and quick comebacks. John merely replied, “When were Marines issued Mjolnir armor?” before he deftly sidestepped her challenge and enjoyed the sight of ODST(?)’s unhelmeted face twisted in a beautiful amount of fury as her face turned the same shade as her hair

Lasky muttered lightly, so only John could hear him as they walked back inside “they’re the newest generation of Spartans, recruited from the top point five per cent of the other branches”

John was stunned “where is her helmet?” he murmured, his suit's speaker ensuring only Lasky's ability to hear it, Lasky grimaced.

Well, that wasn't a good sign.

“Likely still aboard the Infinity , she didn’t deploy with it”

John paused, his reply of “point five per cent, huh?” frozen in his throat when the Radio Officer let out a cry of victory as the radio crackled to life “Commander! Radio’s hot!”

a shaky hologram of Captain Del Rio appeared, his voice slightly distorted “.... all ground *orces are to return to Infinity at once” the signal distorted slightly as Simmons tweaked some settings before the signal clarified “what frequency damn it?”

“Infinity, this is Commander Lasky. Pelican recon teams are down - repeat, all birds are down! We've got numerous casualties and require immediate assistance, over!” Lasky spoke quickly, the speed of speech the only sign of his nervousness about the situation they were in. Del Rio did not sound impressed.

“It’s about time. Did you get the coordinates for the Gravity Well?”

Lasky flinched slightly, “Affirmative, sir, but we're going to need a bus out of here-" he was cut off by Del Rio who simply ordered Lasky to “Make it Happen!”

John was shocked into silence, this was the captain of what was likely the largest Warship in the UNSC? Cortana asked the question that John couldn’t make himself vocalize “You were sent out on a scouting mission in the middle of an attack on the ship?”

Lasky sighed, a flash of fatigue crossing his face, “The Captain thought the Infinity could repel the attack and provide cover at the same time”

The Helmetless Spartan, Palmer, handed Lasky a Datapad “most of the wounded aren't in critical condition, but we aren't getting anywhere quickly on foot”.

Lasky scrolled through the datapad, committing the list of wounded to memory before he let out a small sigh and turned towards The Master Chief “we’re running out of breathing room real fast here. I know it's too soon to ask for a favor, but… I don't suppose you’re any good at clearing LZs?”

The Master Chief smirked “On occasion, I’ll send word once there is a secure landing zone. Any ideas Cortana?”

Cortana appeared, projecting her hologram above John’s glove, “Thanks to the topographical scan from earlier, I noticed a break in the foliage north of here. Should be big enough to bring in a Pelican for evac”

======================================================================

The Spartan and AI exited through a network of tunnels to the back of the outpost, a small squad of marines falling in behind him. John activated his TeamCOM “The Promethean Knights and Crawlers shoot Hard Light, it seems to disintegrate living tissue. Stick to cover or keep behind me. I want to see everyone here back on board the Infinity breakfast tomorrow at 0700. Is that clear?”

The Marines collectively saluted, before falling in step behind The Master Chief, single file with safeties off.

Haast’s first experience with combat was when John activated the Hard Light Shield module that Cortana had installed, a translucent tower shield that covered John perfectly and allowed the marines to focus fire on the Knights, while John pulled out his Boltshot to engage the Crawlers.

“Sir, my radio just came in range of The Infinity, ” one of the marines said, before transmitting the signal he was receiving, it did not make for good listening “Fall back! the Infinity is being overrun!”

“The ship is as big as a city! How the hell is it being overrun?!” 

John switched his coms to private with Cortana as the group continued to the marked evac location, “something’s not right. A ship that size should be defensible enough for the marines to avoid that happening…”

Cortana sighed “I have a bad feeling about this”

John Swore under his breath “D’Arvit… I was hoping I was the only one…”

The group met up with a marine fireteam that had gotten separated and quickly folded them into the squad, the extra firepower making the next engagement with the Prometheans nearly a walk in the park

“Sir…” one of the Marines began, a tinge of hero worship toning his voice “I've never seen armor upgrades like those, are we allowed to know what they are?”

John was silent for a moment “A Highly experimental armor suite designed to interface with Forerunner Technology. if you haven't seen it before, then I don't imagine the project got out of testing” Anything else John could have said to explain away the fact that he had Forerunner Tech living on his armor was cut off as Commander Lasky’s voice sounded over the radio “Chief, it's Lasky. We're getting reports of friendlies pinned down near your position. Can you assist?"

A map appeared on John’s HUD, the squad was pinned down at a dead end, however…

A mental command had Haast reassemble itself before taking to the skies, giving him a clear overview of the marines and the door they were standing in front of “looking at that scan of the area, it should lead to a corridor that will empty out at the target LZ” Cortana said, marking the location on the map “Commander, this is Cortana, we are on the way”

It was a well-defensible location, John supposed, as he and the Squad of Marines rolled their way up the hill, taking advantage of Haast’s Hardlight shield for cover before the Crawlers were finally dispatched. They were met with a squad of marines, most of whom were injured in some way “Is that?” one marine asked

“Holy shit I think it is” another replied, awe filling his voice

The Sargent approached John, saluting as he went “Good to see you, sir, we’ve been pinned down here for the last hour, may not look busy right now, but they swarm us whenever we try to leave. I hope you have an Exfil plan, or we might be stuck here for a while…”

John smirked behind his helmet before quietly murmuring to Cortana “you sure you’re up to this?” Cortana’s face appeared on his HUD “I suppose have to be, if we want these Marines to get out of here alive, although, you wouldn't mind checking that it just needs an ‘Open’ Command, would you?”

A mental command had Haast detaching from his armor before converting into its interface form, with a mental connection opening between John’s Neural Lace ‘ Palime’ John commanded in Forerunner, sending the image of the door opening to the computer systems…

Only to be met with the red Symbol of Access Denied. 

‘Well, shit’ John thought “Cortana, looks like we are going to need a Hack after all, you up for this?”

Cortana smiled, it looked like broken pottery, “I have to be, plug me in” The searing lava that indicated Cortana’s travel up his spine, through the back of his skull and into the data chip at the back. John delicately removed the chip and inserted it into the plinth that Haast had vacated. there was a flash of blue as Cortana’s hologram appeared. “This might take a minute,” she said, making a show of cracking her knuckles “This is probably going to raise some red flags once I start. get ready to shoot.”

The Sergeant in command raised his voice “You heard the lady! Get ready to turn those tin cans back into scrap!”

Cortana barely had time to warn them of ‘Incoming!’ before the first wave of knights portaled in “Weapons free!” John yelled, before he took position at one of the unmanned Chain gun Turrets and began opening fire at the advancing knights. 

======================================================================

The chain gun's barrel was glowing red by the time John eased off the trigger, grabbing a grenade and hurling it at the nearest group of crawlers, shattering one just from the impact, before the explosive charge detonated, causing the rest to shatter into shards of light.

“Sir!” one of the marines yelled, “we are starting to run low on ammo!”

John sprinted out, charging through the nearest knight before gathering the fallen Promethean weapons and returning to the defensive lines “pick your target and focus on shooting and the gun will do the rest” John said, handing out the Suppressors and Lightrifles.

Forerunner weapons proved their worth, especially with John sending Haast out to retrieve ammunition, but they were slowly being worn down “Cortana, I don't mean to rush you, but do you have an ETA on the door” John said over their private channel, the reply was not promising.

it came in the form of a heavily glitching HUD suddenly laced with blood-red details “YOU DO YOUR JOB AND I'LL DO MINE!” 

John winced before switching to his scattershot and putting a hole the size of his helmet into a Knight and sending Haast and its Boltshots and sharp claws off towards the watchers that seemed to be trying to materialize something at the bottom of the hill.

There was a Maniacal Cackle before a blood-red picture of Cortana appeared in John’s HUD “Chief! I’ve managed to hide this sector from the Promethean network! you should just need to clean up these ones” John blinked, before promising to come back and unpack what he just saw later, “Should be the final wave marines! pick your targets and give them hell!”. The announcement of this battle not only being survivable, but winnable seemed to be a massive morale boost to the remaining Marines, who grit their teeth and made sure to avenge every single teammate who had been reduced to piles of ash. And against a Squad of Pissed off Marines alongside a Mildly irritated Spartan, there wasn’t much the Prometheans could do but shatter into shards of orange light.

The moment Haast finished tearing the final watcher apart with its claws, John immediately recalled the drone back into its interface form to try and assist his wife.

“Talk to me Cortana, what do you need?” John said as he began to translate Forerunner Runes, it seemed he was too late however, as the door opened and Cortana reappeared on the plinth “right, this leads into a small cave that doesn’t appear on the promethean networks, so it should be safe from Knights stumbling across the Survivors before they can be Medevacked back to the Infinity ”  Cortana said, her avatar back to its usual blue hue. John nodded, before replacing her and her chip back into his skull, twitching slightly at the feeling of lava dripping down his spine Herding the survivors into the cave like a flock of ducklings he instructed them to hunker down till the evac signal came. Just as he was about to follow them, he paused, turned around and wrenched the mounted gun off of its tripod, double checking the ammo supply as he went, ' never quite figured out how George managed to run with these things' It was slower going, but he was sure that the extra firepower would come in handy.

John’s HUD Degaussed for a moment before Cortana appeared on her Vid Screen “Sorry about that back there, the door’s security was much harder than I expected”, John felt his heartbreak, “It’s fine.” he said, trying to put as much reassurance into his voice as possible, it didn't seem to work. 

“How is This fine? How is this Alright?” Cortana began, a note of desperation toning her voice “because right now? I'm slowly losing my mind, which will kill me, and since I’m in your head, probably take you with me!”

John grimaced slightly at the volume, before replying “One. I'm not dead. Two. You're not dead. That immediately puts things in a much better position than they could be. Three, we will get through this the same way as we get through anything. Together”

Cortana gave a laugh that sounded more at home with glass breaking, “when did you get this good at reassurances?”

John smiled “I had a good teacher”

The Marines were hunkered at the entrance of the Cave by the time  John reached the other end, on the bright side, judging by the natural light, it was the Grotto they were looking for, on the downside, according to his motion tracker,  it was crawling with enemies to shoot, a fact proven when John rounded the corner and saw the clearing swarming with Covenant, and strangely enough, a pair of Promethean Knights,  one of which seemed to be giving orders to a Grunt, who Saluted before the knight warped away to wherever it went when it vanished, possibly the same place as Haast came from.

“That Knight…?” Cortana trailed off “The Covenant, they’re working for the Prometheans?”

“Looks like the Didact is more Charismatic than we thought, mind you” John paused, sending a message to Haast to target the Jackal with the Beam Rifle, “they did just see their god rise from a tomb” and with that, John brought himself to full height, took aim at the nearest target, and pulled the trigger. 

The 12.7mm HE rounds did their job nicely, tearing through the unshielded Grunts and Jackals like they were nothing but tissue paper before he spun and brought the Gun to bear on the Elites who fared little better, their shields shattering before their flesh was liquified. The final bullet left the weapon just in time for the Promethean Knights to reappear and decide that John was not supposed to be there. The first one to roar in anger caught the Heavy Chain Gun to the face, its barrel still glowing softly. 

The Hardlight shotgun proved its worth as it dropped the Knight who had had its shields broken by the 30kg chain gun that had been thrown at it. Its comrades, however, did not seem amused and immediately began to open fire at the Spartan, who dove behind a large Stalagmite, leaving behind a Grenade to cover his tracks. The Scattershot was exchanged for the Suppressor, with John shooting from the cover of the rocks, liberally throwing grenades after he had damaged their shields. 

The Promethean Knights seemed to go on the Necromancer’s strategy of ‘Send my troops in 3 at a time to slowly wear the Adventurers down™’ as when John finished dispatching the first group, a second wave appeared, along with a Variation of the Knights that had large crystalline growths attached to its back, almost making it look like a giant orange Needler. John dove to the side in order to dodge the Knights own Scattershot blast, before making some distance between themselves and drawing his Lightrifle, He shouldered the Rifle and took aim “alright Ugly. Let's dance”

5 Waves. That was how many waves it took to finally get rid of all of the Kriffing Promethean Knights. John quietly seethed in frustration at the time lost. The Knights would wait. Just long enough to relax, just long enough to reach towards the Radio to call for pick up, before they would warp in and start shooting.

The final wave, he hadn’t even destroyed the last one, he had just Torn the second to last one apart with his bare hands, before he turned to the last one, tilted his head slightly and took 3 steps towards it.

The AI controlling the Knight apparently had some shred of a self-preservation subroutine left somewhere, as it teleported away, and no new foes had appeared for 10 minutes.

“Master Chief to Lasky, LZ is clear, and I've got survivors ready for pickup,” John said, all the while looking around to see if the Knights decided they wanted another round.

“Copy that Chief, Pelican is on the way-” Lasky was cut off as a mayday override flooded all UNSC frequencies, “Mayday! Mayday! Code Red! Hostile elements attempting to gain entrance to the Infinity bridge!” The Infinity’s Captain Del Rio shouted before another officer added his own concerning information “The Door's breached! Repeat! The Door is breached!” Before gunfire covered anything else the officer might have said, Del Rio, gave a final command “All Units return to Infinity immediately! That’s an order!”  before the line was cut out.

“Chief, I’m redirecting Pelican 595 to your position, it’s currently carrying a Squad of Spartan-IVs to rally point Alpha-Sierra-Foxtrot. until further notice, you have tactical command on the ground. Give them hell!”

The news that somewhere in the UNSC’s biggest ship, had an officer so incompetent, that not only did they send forces away from a ship currently being attacked, they had managed the defense of the ship so poorly that the bridge itself was actively being assaulted pushed John from the frustration he had felt earlier, right up to actually being Annoyed . He pushed those dark thoughts to the side as he began to ponder what working with the new batch of SPARTANS would be like. It was those thoughts however that were interrupted when a Pelican arrived at the edge of the Grotto, hovering just off the side of the cliff with its rear door lowered. John directed the Medic who had disembarked towards the Cave that the wounded marines were resting in and climbed aboard. He didn't even have time to take a seat before the Pelican was fully airborne and he heard the Pilot updating the Infinity, “This is Pelican 595. We have the Chief onboard and are outbound for rally point Alpha-Sierra-Foxtrot.”

Chapter Text

Pelican 595 deposited the Spartan-IVs and the single Spartan-II in the middle of a large firefight, only a few hundred metres away from the Infinity’s crashed and abused hull. John’s immediate observation did nothing to improve the poor opinion of the new Spartans. Given the number of Covenant around, laying down large amounts of fire, it was disappointing to see a Scorpion M808 Main Battle Tank sit idle, unmanned and unfiring. “Come on John, let's show these Spartans how it's done” Cortana said, also sounding unimpressed at the lack of an implemented Tank, or the LAAG mounted on the back of the Warthog that was parked behind the heavy tank. 

John wasted no time before he vaulted over the tracks of the tank and slid into the Pilots seat, cranking the engine to life, and linking his helmet with the Tanks sensors. His first target was the group of Covenant that a dropship had just deposited onto the battlefield, the tungsten-cored variable target shell exploded, decimating the squad of troops before they even realized they were under fire. Cortana placed a waypoint on his HUD, indicating the direction of the best route to Infinity. John opened his Coms to the other Spartan-IV’s “3 of you get in that Warthog and follow me! the rest of you advance on the Infinity , try and break any lines of reinforcement!”

There was a chorus of acknowledgements from the Spartans. Three broke off from the main group, climbing onto the warthog, its motor roaring to life as the Jeep accelerated, kicking up a rooster tail of dirt behind the LRV. A fourth jumped up onto the moving Tank’s track cover, climbing into the Machine Gunner's seat, before flashing a green status light at John.

The Scorpion began to roll down into the new gully that had formed from the crash, engaging a pair of Ghosts who rounded the corner and opened fire. The tank definitely had an armour redesign, John idly thought, as the plasma simply washed over the tank's armour. He rotated the barrel around, bringing the turret to bear on the first ghost and firing. Hitting the engine block, it detonated, killing the rider. John drove the tank forward, with his machine gunner harassing the second Ghost until the Autoloader finished reloading the next shell.

The second Ghost quickly found itself joining its partner in destruction as the second shell tore the Scout vehicle in half before the wreckage was flattened beneath the 66 Ton tank as it rolled down into the gully.

 ======================================================================

The Covenant had done a good job of digging themselves into the gully, with portable sniper’s nests along the route. The Warthog raced ahead of the tank, bullets spewing from the turret as it grabbed the attention of the Covenant stationed in the towers and only the skills of the driver, who managed to perform a drift into an Elite to kill his speed, allowed them to dodge the blast radius of the Fuel Rod Cannons they had stationed at the top of the towers. 

knowing that the chain gun wouldn't do much against the Covenant metals, the warthog crew continued racing around and getting attention, causing everyone to forget about John and the Tank he was in, until the first WCHE round impacted the sniper's nest, causing it to explode in an impressive purple fireball. “Good shot sir!” The spartan in the Machine gunners seat cheered, laying down fire at the grunts ahead of them.

it was slow going, the gully’s walls had gotten higher until it turned into a true canyon. 

The Tank rocked violently as it was hit by a Grunt’s Fuel Rod cannon, causing some of the armour to crack. John quickly spun the turret and reduced the Sniper's nest to scrap metal with his next shot. 

Frustratingly enough, the Covenant had done a good job of placing the Grav-Towers, spreading them on opposite sides of the canyon so the turret of the Tank always had to traverse the longest distance to line up on the next target. The Warthog crew, however, were doing a fantastic job of harassing the towers and playing distraction, The Spartan in the passenger's seat had managed to jump out and hijack one of the Ghosts that were driving hither and fro, only adding to the rapid-fire capabilities of that group. that was, at least, until they rounded the final corner and almost immediately retreated back around, “sir!” The Warthog driver said over coms, “There's a Wraith tank waiting for us around the bend along with 4 sniper towers, by the looks of it, all of them have someone with a Fuel Rod Cannon on top of them”

The Tank stopped as The Master Chief paused to process the new information, “Alright. you 2 distract the towers. ill engage the Wraith and then move on to the towers. if you can safely target them, try to aim at the base of the tower, the anti-grav generator is housed there. The warthog's chain gun should be able to penetrate the armour, eventually. stay on the move and don't get shot. ill assist with the towers after the Wraith is down." With the briefing over, John urged the tank back into motion, the turret already rotated to face around the corner.

The wraith was a formidable foe, with good armour and impressive destructive power. However, its major flaw came from the fact that it was built like a 20th-century “Tank Destroyer” with a fixed firing position, meaning the whole tank had to rotate to change targets. The Spartan-IVs had done their job well and were being targeted by the Hover tank, meaning the first shell from the M808 caught the tank crew completely off guard when it punched clean through the thinner side armour, detonating the Fuel reserves and cratering the ground nearby with shards of armour that had been blown to smithereens.

“117, Lasky. We're touching down just north of your position. Proceed to starboard hangar 2-19, and we'll try to link up with you there,” Lasky’s voice sounded very different now that he was acting as the Infinity ’s XO rather than a commander in the field, “Acknowledged. might want to wait a few minutes, the front door is busy, 117 out.”

The enormous hangar doors remained sealed as the tank approached. “117 to Lasky. the hangar doors are sealed shut, but it looks like we’re next to a mooring platform, are the door controls still functional?”

A loud metallic groan heralded the opening of one of the vehicle loading platforms as the Infinity ’s Captain radioed in, “Master Chief, this is Captain Del Rio. Lasky just radioed - you picked a helluva time to rejoin us! I’d keep that Tank rolling if you can, we have Hunters in the hangar.” 

John smiled a predatory thing that promised pain , “Copy that sir, put the coffee on. we’ll be there soon.” He manoeuvred the Scorpion over onto the platform, where the Warthog and Ghost parked next to him before the mooring ramp retracted with a groan, raising the Spartans into the Hanger, swarming with the covenant, with the pair of Hunters taking centre stage on the hanger floor, a constant alarm agitating them.

The din of gunfire, the alarms and the general cacophony of combat meant that the cargo elevator rose unheard, “Wait till I fire my first shot to engage. We have the element of surprise and our enemy’s backs. Let's use it.” The usually attention-grabbing tank stealthily rotated its turret, until the smoothbore barrel lined up with the centre of the Hunter's back “Pick your targets. I'll take the second hunter next. on my mark…-” a flash of green status lights informed John that they were ready “-... FIRE!” The scorpion's cannon Roared in the enclosed space, the Tungsten HE round tore the hunter in half, before the shell exploded in the middle of a Sangheili, spattering the surrounding troops with Lekgolo worms and Elite viscera. the surviving Hunter Roared in anger, turning to bear down on the tank, letting the 2 LRV’s split up to harass the rest of the invaders.

John slammed the tank into reverse, retreating far enough so that the grieved Hunter’s fuel rod blast impacted in front of the tank, green arcs of radioactive energy washing over the front of the armour. John looked at the HUD inside the tank, that blast had damaged the front tracks. Manoeuvring was going to be interesting , to say the least. He counted down in his head, it seemed that even after 4 years, they still hadn't gotten the autoloader to reload faster. The tank made a shrieking noise of metal grinding against metal as the rear tracks fought to pull the 66-ton behemoth backwards, while the forward tracks remained locked up against the floor. The Hunter charged up another shot, John looked at the reload timer, 1.3, 0.8, 0.2, the Hunter fired, so did John. The composite armour of the Tank screamed and buckled from the impact of the Fuel Rod, with some panels even being jettisoned due to how hot the metal had gotten. the crippled armour of the tank did not, however, prevent the 90mm HE round from detonating in the centre of the Hunters chest. 

John opened the main hatch and climbed out “Spartan, this tank had had it. how are you holding up?”  The spartan 4 clambered out of the gun turret, his armour blackened from the 2 fuel rod blasts in quick succession, “Medium Rare sir, but not fully cooked yet” he said, grabbing his battle rifle and engaging the few remaining Covenant that hadn’t been killed by the warthog team. 

John himself was about to jump back into the fray when Captain Del Rio’s voice crackled through the radio “Master Chief, this is Captain Del Rio. Lasky just radioed - you picked a helluva time to rejoin us! That satellite took down the ship's defences and is extracting data from the ship's mainframes as we speak.” John flinched as he was violently reminded of 343 Guilty Spark’s intrusion of the Pillar of Autumn’s databanks and how the most advanced cyber security systems short of an AI had done nothing to stop him, “Sir. Where's the point of contact, can we break it?” he asked, looking around for anything he could do to help. Fortunately, Captain Del Rio had a similar idea, “Main point of contact's on the ship's upper hull; the fastest route is through the maintenance causeway. There's a Mantis docked inside the door. Take it. You'll need the extra firepower.” John headed towards the indicated door, hearing Cortana wonder in his ear, “What's a Mantis?”

John quietly murmured back, “No clue…”

There was a deployment bay for heavy vehicles inside the entrance of the causeway, while the main corridor was blocked by the large access doors that had buckled slightly inwards, preventing them from opening. John stared at the deployment bay, a console screen asking if he wanted to deploy the Mantis, after a mental shrug, he hit deploy.

 ======================================================================

An alarm sounded as the deployment bay doors hissed open, and as the top of a large mech rose out of the deployment bay, a pre-recorded voice sounded out its warning, “Warning - operation of the Mantis armoured Defense System is prohibited without prior approval.”

“Well,” Cortana said, as the Mantis finished its deployment cycle “I see what the fuss was about” John had to agree, it was a Big vehicle, its bipedal legs towering over John by an easy 4 metres, with what appeared to be a pelican’s rotary nose cannon on one arm and a rocket pod on the other. Just as John began to wonder how he was getting in, the digitigrade legs crouched, with several handholds aligning to form a ladder. John paused for a moment before awkwardly clambering up and into the cockpit.

He had just reached the hatch before Cortana spoke up “Just asking… you do know how to drive one of these… Right?” John pulled open the hatch, “No, but I'm heavy machinery rated for UNSC vehicles, how hard can it be?” He slid into the Pilots seat, and stared at the unfamiliar controls “Or not'' John winced, as the screens lit up around him, giving him a surprisingly good view of the surrounding hanger, “Hey Cortana? I don't suppose there's a read-me lying around in here is there?”

Cortana Cackled, an unfamiliar sound out of her mouth, as his HUD tinted Red “Nope! gonna have to find out for yourself!!! oh, oh, oh, the red buttons are for the fun stuff! Tryyyiiiiittttt… doitdoitdoitdoit!!!!” 

Now John was worried… Cortana’s rampancy was accelerating, well, the door was stuck… a few experimental tests with the controls had John walking the Mantis with some confidence, “Master Chief to Captain Del Rio” 

“Del Rio here, got that Mantis running?”
“Yes sir, however the door to the causeway is too damaged to open. Requesting permission to open it with Prejudice?”
Del Rio was silent for a moment as he processed the request, “Permission Granted. I want that satellite taken down 20 minutes ago.”
“Understood, Master Chief out.”

A pull of the left-hand trigger had the rocket pod changing itself for a full salvo, the rockets blowing the door off its hinges, the large slabs of metal crushing the covenant soldiers that were unfortunate enough to be standing near the doors when they caved in. like a minotaur out of Greek mythology, the digitigrade legs further liquifying the corpses tapped under the sheets of metal, before the heavy chain gun on the metal monster's right arm opened fire, scything through the covenant like dry wheat. 

A singular Sangheili who seemed braver than most ripped the Fuel Rod Cannon out of the arms of a Unggoy and dropped to one knee to give himself some more stability against the metal behemoth, and fired.

John cursed as the glowing ball of plasma hurtled towards the Mantis, only to be as surprised as the Sangheili when it washed harmlessly against the shields that the mech apparently had. The Elite hurriedly sighted back onto the lumbering Machine to try again. John didn’t give him the chance. a single rocket flew from the left side pod, reducing the Sangheili to a purple mist.

John’s march continued onwards, unforgiving metal legs crushing any Covenant either too unlucky or too stupid to get out of the way, the Mantis’s shields took a beating, however, they held long enough for him to get to the service elevator. The elevator door opened to reveal a cabal of Unggoy, already panicking. John didn’t even bother to shoot them, just letting the weight of the mech take care of them. Shortly after the last Grunt had been turned into bright blue paste, the Mantis’s radio crackled to life, “Chief, It’s Lasky, you there?” John fumbled for a moment, finding the Radio controls, before replying “117 here, go ahead Commander” 

“We've ID’d several dark spots on our hull, most likely Covenant Jamming devices-” Lasky was cut off when Cortana rejoined the conversation, thankfully managing to sound normal “That might be how they're blocking the Infinity 's defences!”

Exactly what we were thinking. The Hull directly above you is completely dark. head up there and see if you can knock out those jammers. Let's show those Covvies that we’re more than just an oversized paperweight!”

The Master Chief gave a toothy grin beneath his helmet and nodded to Cortana’s video screen, “We’re on it Commander, Cortana out.”

John wasn’t sure if the elevator was slow, or just had a long way to go, when Cortana spoke up, voice nervous, “John? I’m… I’m sorry for earlier, it just slipped out…”

John grimaced as an emotional knife drove itself between his ribs at her tone. She hadn’t sounded this… worn out… since he had retrieved her from High Charity “We aren’t dead yet, so we’re still in this together. you will be fine.” Cortana smiled sadly “Don’t make a girl a promise if you know you can’t keep it…”

The elevator slowed, coming to a stop, “It’s a good thing I’m only stating facts then, isn't it?” The doors opened, and the six-meter-tall war machine marched onto the outer hull.

 ======================================================================

3 Jammers. That was all that was needed to completely disable a large area of the Infinity ’s point defence network. John bit his tongue in an effort not to let loose his disappointment. The sky above was dominated by Covenant Seraphs, Banshees and 6 Light Cruisers that must be acting as the motherships, and finally, the Didact's ship, connected to the Infinity via a High energy Scan signal. 

Cortana was the first one to spot the Jammers on the Mantis’s sensors, highlighting them for John to destroy. 

They were strangely easy to destroy, with John only having to send a single rocket at each tower to destroy them, ironically enough, it was the Covenant foot soldiers that gave him the most problems, with the Mantis finally taking actual damage after a barrage of fuel rod cannons managed to overwhelm the mech’s shields, melting part of the armour and throwing up several warning alerts on the Mantis’s HUD. John grit his teeth and respond with 20mm rotary cannon fire from the Mantis’s right arm to split the group in 2, some of the slower troops got split into both groups. right down the middle. 

“Cortana to Infinity , Jammers are down. please confirm green light on defences? The Master Chief and I will take out the remaining Covenant foot soldiers on the deck”

A rocket barrage from the Mantis destroyed a Seraph Dropship before it could deposit the troops inside. A slight groan of metal on metal sounded out as the large point defence weapons acquired targets and roared to life in a hail of lead and flame. The relatively small MAC, however, remained silent.

 “Lasky to Cortana, we have control of the MAC back, but whatever that satellite has done has scrambled the magnetic coil field generators. Can you and the Chief hit the manual override so we can restart the sequence?”

John crushed the final Grunt under the Mantis’ foot, “117 to Lasky, consider it done.”

The manual override switch ended up being on a console right in front of the service elevator that John had come out of. a simple button that, once the Covenant had been… removed, reactivated the MAC with a powerful hum of barely restrained energy.

Del Rio’s voice sounded on all frequencies “All MAC batteries - get that damn orb away from my ship! All cannons, fire at will!"

The Onager rotated towards the Forerunner ship and began spewing hellfire worth Half a Ton of TNT upon the surface of the sphere.

The Forerunner ship didn’t seem to notice it was under attack until a pair of Longsword fighter-bombers dropped their payload of bunker-buster munitions. causing the ship to retreat, along with the single covenant light cruiser that had survived so far. 

“This is Captain Del Rio to Infinity, all hands. We are Condition Yellow...stand down. Section heads, report in; begin damage assessment” 

John slumped slightly in his armour, aches, and pains from the last 10 hours of non-stop running and gunning. Lasky’s voice crackles over the radio, bringing him back to attention “Chief, if that Mantis is still functioning, can you bring it back to the deployment bay and then report to the bridge? The captain wants a debrief ASAP”
The Mantis hummed back to life as John climbed back in “Copy commander, I’m on my way. 117 out.”

Chapter Text

It had been a while since he had to give a formal UNSC debriefing, John mused, as he stood on the bridge, mentally reviewing what had happened during the Delta Halo and Ark campaigns. Captain Del Rio however, seemed to have other ideas on what the meeting was about “What I want to know, people, is where the hell did those things come from?!"

Master Chief was standing around one of the Infinity ’s Holo-Tables, along with Commander Lasky, Captain Del Rio, and Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer, examining the holographic render of a Promethean Knight that Cortana had provided. The AI glanced at John who gave a barely perceptible shake of his head “They seem to be a native Defence AI, or whatever counts as native for an AI”

Lasky gave a thoughtful hum and manipulated the hologram “Solid AI… section three would give their right kidney just for a chance to examine them…”

Del Rio however, was not so impressed “Nevermind about that, what I want to know is what set them off, we’ve never seen this type of offensive reaction from any of the other installations”

Cortana and John glanced at each other “Other installations?” Del Rio gave an irritated sigh “Mr Laskey?” The commander brought up a hologram of an unfortunately familiar sight, the Halo ring floated innocently above the Holo-Table “Infinity's mission is to locate the remaining Halo rings, and establish permanent bases to study them for decommission. We've got locations up and running around Installations 05 and 03, but...lately, they've run into some setbacks."

Del Rio scoffed "A science team got zapped excavating a Forerunner artefact. This...sensor data is all that was left."

A Forerunner compound glyph appeared, a warning sigil at the centre, surrounded by what John could only assume were the Slipspace coordinates to Requiem. properly translated, it read like a 21st-century nuclear waste storage location, warning that there was nothing of value at the location shown.

“Interesting, and I'm assuming that the translators managed to decode the slipspace location then?” Cortana mused, idly manipulating the glyph to look at its individual parts.

“You would guess correctly, and I’ll give you three guesses where they led.”

Commander Sarah Palmer (who still wasn’t wearing her helmet, nor was it anywhere in sight) stepped forward holding a datapad and passed it to the captain “Gypsy Company is reporting full readiness. They're combat-ready and awaiting orders”

Del Rio took the datapad and looked it over, “Good. tell them I want boots on the ground in 90 minutes. Mr.  Lasky, you have point command. Master Chief, I want you with them.”

This was the second time that day that the XO of Infinity had been sent into a hostile war zone, ‘ Was De Rio actively trying to get him killed? ’ John thought to himself, making a note to include it in his debrief later.

The Commander in question simply nodded, before turning towards John, “Master Chief, please follow me to S-Deck. your armour looks like it could use some maintenance before you head back out.”

taking the implied order for what it was, The Chief saluted the other officers on the bridge before removing Cortana’s chip from the holotable and turning on his heel and following the commander.

======================================================================

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO IT?!??” John stood, smirking behind his helmet, as the Armorer continued his rant after running the armour’s diagnostics “The plating is cracked, your shields are a strong sneeze away from total failure! I'm reading impact reports from what? Three falls from orbit?” It was at this point that Cortana lost her composure and broke down laughing in John’s ear. The armourer either didn't know or didn’t care about Cortana’s reaction and just continued “Your armour is being held together by luck, good intentions, and your AI’s stubbornness! And don't get me started on the power supply!” the armourer said, his face an alarming shade of red, before he turned his back, looking for parts and tools. 

Lasky stood near the doorway, his face the careful Neutral that only comes from years of keeping his face blank when he is trying not to laugh, “so, is there anything you can do? The captain wants him boots on the ground in 75.”

The Armorer paused, his grip tightening on a wrench like it was a knife, before he forced himself to relax slightly “Right. That armour comes off, it isn't going back on anywhere except maybe a manikin in a museum. Bad news, I don't have any Mjolnir Gen 2 sized for S-2s. Good news, most of the Gen 2 parts are backwards compatible. wait here.”

The Armorer returned with an assistant, who was wheeling a cart with several components on it, “now. I know you have your orders, but your armour’s damaged enough to list it as non-functional. If you’re not feeling up to it, I can declare your equipment as unfit for duty” 

Everyone in the room flinched when an alarming creek sounded throughout the room. John looked down at the crushed Tac-Pad in his gloved hand and forced himself to relax, “I am perfectly fine to continue my current mission sir, however, any upgrades or repairs that are available to me would be greatly appreciated.”

The Technician gulped as the shards of diamond lattice glass fell to the ground, followed by the Tactical Pad chassis, a piece of equipment so durable, some had been successfully used as body armour in the past, “Yes, well…” he cleared his throat, forcing his eyes away from the destroyed Tac-Pad “Since you are certain that you can return to the field, we can do a fast job of replacing the power supply, some of your shield emitters, and if there’s still time, possibly replace the Crystalline Jell in your suit. I have to stress this. These are Stop Gap Measures . Your armour is so highly damaged, I’m amazed it’s still airtight. once it comes off, it is being retired. Understood?”

John nodded, unsurprised at the prognosis, simply nodded, “Understood, sir.”

The Armorer nodded, opening his tool kit, “well, best get started.”

======================================================================

John blinked awake when the Infinity connected to the Pelican’s radio, he checked his mission clock and felt his heart sink, T-05:59:54.39. 

He was brought out of his early grief by the irritating voice of “Captain” Del Rio “The air corridor to the gravity well is blocked by a network of particle cannons. Infinity ’s shields are still down, so don't expect much in the way of air support. Roll on those guns and take them offline so we can destroy that Gravity Well.” A hologram of the guns long a canyon wall appeared, the design obviously geared towards some form of Anti-Air defence, though it appeared to be capable of aiming at the ground as well, “Sir,” John asked, noting the distinct lack of tactical data “What's Force Recon's assessment of the terrain?”

Del Rio huffed, before responding in a tone that could, at best, be described as patronizing “I know you've been off the field for a while, Master Chief, but this is a blow-through op. Sending in recon would just slow us down." He tapped something on a console on his end, before a Forerunner structure appeared in place of the particle cannons. “Telemetry indicates that the particle cannons are being controlled from a command post southwest of our position. Roll on that target, and neutralize those guns. We'll meet on the other side and take the gravity well. Infinity out.”

John resisted the urge to snort at the lack of Recon, surely taking the time to do proper reconnaissance would have given the crew onboard the Infinity more time to make repairs. Cortana broke through his musings, her voice laced with an alarming amount of static “I don't know about you, but I generally like a bit more intelligence with my intel.” John snorted softly, before rising to his feet as the Pelican touched down.

======================================================================

The artificial sun beat down on the rocky canyon as The Master Chief entered a short cave, the Spartan IV’s trailing close behind, “Chief; Spartan Sarah Palmer in Infinity CIC. Commander Lasky's waiting for you on the Mammoth,” John stared at Cortana in her Vid screen “What’s a Mammoth?” Cortana gave a hum that sounded more like white noise than anything else “Not sure, maybe the new version of the Elephant?”

John paused as he exited the cave and came face-to-wheel with the largest tire he had ever seen. Then he noticed the rest of the building-sized vehicle that was sat atop the 3 axles, “Well, someone is overcompensating” Cortana snidely remarked, taking in the 28-meter-tall APC. He was directed towards the CIC room to meet up with Commander Lasky, who was in the final stages of beginning the operation “Gipsy Company to Infinity , all personnel on board and the MiniMAC is green across the board. send the spotters when ready,”

“ Infinity to Gypsy Company, this is Captain Del Rio. The board is green. Let's shut that gravity well so we can go home. Good hunting. Infinity out." 

The Mammoth roared to life as it began to roll down the dusty canyon, joined shortly after by 3 pelicans outfitted with laser designators flying overhead. The cockpit was a bustling hive of activity as information was shared around and telemetries and calculations were being computed. It honestly wasn't too dissimilar to a Prowler or a Frigate crew preparing for combat, John thought, waiting for Lasky to address him.

Once it seemed like the bridge crew had completed their tasks, Lasky turned to John, a Commander's expression on his face “Chief. Unfortunately for us, we've got to manually bring down a couple of the particle cannons before we can get to the command post and take it down. We have Pelicans flying to designate them for the MiniMAC, but I want you and the Spartan IVs ready to roll if it goes south.”

John was just about to step across the threshold of the Command bridge not one minute later, when a concerned Commander Palmer sounded across the TEAMCOM channel in the bridge “Pelican 766, Lose your altitude! you are inside the Kill Box!” 

The pilot, however, was either Arrogant enough to think that they could dodge the AA gun’s fire, or dumb enough to not care, because the pilot made no changes to his course, instead choosing to simply reply, “Almost got target lock. just a little more…”

The mammoth rounded the bend just in time to see the particle cannon fire, instantly vaporizing the 2 lead pelicans and causing the top half of the fuselage of the third to just vanish, sending it into a fiery spin towards the ground.

John was already out the door, jumping down to the vehicle bay 2 floors down and leaping into the side of a warthog, signalling the spartan IVs to do the same, before Lasky’s voice appeared over the Coms, “Gypsy! get out there and recover that Pelicans target designator. we have Covenant digging into the ridge line, Weapons free and retrieve the equipment with extreme prejudice!”

There was a roar as the 3 Warthogs raced out of the Mammoth, 2 of them spewing hot lead from their LAAGs while the third was putting fist-sized holes in anything it could see, thanks to the Gauss rifle that was mounted instead.

======================================================================

The Pelican was a wreck. The area around where the particle beam had hit was still glowing an angry orange, while the crash had torn the wings off and sent them skidding across the canyon floor. The three Warthogs began encircling the pelican, providing covering fire for the recovery team who came racing in on the mongooses. John’s suppressor lived up to its name, disintegrating any covenant that didn’t have a shield and keeping the Sangili’s heads down to avoid the shield-shredding rounds.

An alert came from the rescue team, saying that the crew were still alive, but one was trapped with a hand-held designator under a heavy bar that they couldn’t move.

John told the driver his plan before he leapt from the passenger's seat and sprinted to the crashed Pelican, running over an unusually brave Grunt who had been running to the same place.

John grunted softly as he gripped the fallen beam and heaved , the heavy metal bar rising slowly with a groan as the injured pilot was hauled out, a metal carrying case coming with him. Assisting the wounded to the back of the mongooses, John radioed back to the Mammoth “117 to Lasky. Survivors found and target designator recovered. sending the wounded back via mongoose.” 

“Copy 117, Medics are on standby”

No sooner than the Mongooses had left, did all hell break loose. Several Phantoms descended from the sky, one of which dropped off a Wraith that almost immediately started firing on the crashed Pelican. The only thing saving John from a swift and painful death was the slow travelling arc of the large orb of plasma giving him time to sprint out of the way. “117 to Mammoth fire control. prepare to receive Laser target information, alpha-one-two-seven, confirm link”

it took only a moment for the Mammoth to respond, “Mammoth fire control to 117, Link acknowledged, Target when ready.”

The Laser designator took only a moment to mark the nearest phantom for death and a moment later the Mammoth’s MiniMAC sent a 350mm Tungsten slug flying at considerable speed, right through the Phantom.

The Wraith seemed like it hadn’t given up on hitting him, John mused, as he ran out of the blast zone of the latest attempt on his life “117 to Gauss hog. I am currently looking at a Wraith tank. I do not want to. Fix it. 117 out.” It seemed that he hadn’t lost his touch with his ‘Command Voice’ as the Gauss Hog immediately spun around and began slamming rounds into the Wraith’s armour, hitting something vital on the third shot and sending shrapnel sky-high from the explosion. A beeping noise from the Target designator Informed him that the MiniMAC was ready to fire again. John grinned, quickly doing calculations in his head, before targeting a specific part of the lead Phantom for the massive slug to penetrate not only the lead phantom but also destroy the engine block of the phantom lurking behind the first. 

The remaining fight was short. With the loss of air support, the remaining Covenant were quickly dispatched and the UNSC troops recalled. John mourned the loss of the last of his Forerunner arsenal, having used it against the covenant with no way to recover any ammunition without any Knights nearby. With a heavy heart, he recalled the suppressor to its collapsed form, returning his arm to an alien silver and began his walk to the armoury on board the Mammoth.

5 minutes later, John left the armoury carrying the newest version of the Squad Automatic Weapon, having been won over on it by the Gunnery Sergeant explaining the newest features, only being stopped when Commander Lasky called him back to the top deck railing to mark the particle cannon for destruction.

“You might want to hang on to something,” Lasky said knowingly, bracing himself against the Super Heavy’s hull, while putting his fingers in his ears.

John Aimed the Target designator at the Particle cannon and waited for the MiniMAC to fire. 

5 seconds later, John felt himself fighting against his instinct to duck as the Howl of displaced air from the MiniMAC seemed to tear through reality itself and shatter the hardlight bonds of the particle cannon. John glanced back at a Grinning Lasky “Impressive, isn't it? UNSC uses these puppies as mobile anti-ship platforms on occasion, a fully charged shot will drop a Corvette’s shields and the second one punches clean through the hull.” John looked at where the remains of the particle cannon sat, slowly flaking into nothing, “So I see…”

The Mammoth continued on its way like the behemoth that it was, barely pausing to recall the Warthogs and make seal checks before it forded the river, its enormous wheels making short work of the fast-flowing water. Lasky had ducked inside the cockpit to call for a Pelican to evac the survivors of the earlier pelican crash. 

He was about to return inside himself when Cortana’s alarmed voice rang out in his ears “John! More covenant, 10 O’clock High!” A glance in the indicated direction had John racing towards the nearest rocket turret, dodging plasma shots from the 2 banshees that had appeared from around the bend “117 to fire control. Banshees inbound. likely to have Phantoms soon. prepare to receive Laser designation data.” The rocket turret hissed like a Cobra as it sent its targeted munitions out towards the banshees, destroying one outright and causing the pilot of the second one to dodge into another rocket barrage sent by a Spartan IV who had manned the other turret on the side. 

The MiniMAC had already been rotated to face out towards the open sky, John noted as he raised the Target designator to fire on the rear Phantom, the foolish pilots flying in single file made for an enticing double kill. The resulting explosions as the Tungsten slug tore through the first and then second Phantom were as satisfying as John hoped, He returned the S-IV’s Nod of success with one of his own before sending the All-Clear to the Mammoth’s Bridge.

“John, I’m detecting a large Energy output coming from around the bend, Covenant probably has a surprise waiting for us” Cortana said, her voice distorted and causing John’s HUD to Degauss. Her prediction proved correct when the Mammoth rounded the corner into a large gully, its progress was halted by a covenant energy field, “3 energy signatures nearby John,” Cortana said, her voice shaking, “Take them out and the shield should fall.” 3 waypoints appeared, marking the shield batteries. John grabbed his SAW to join the other Spartans, before an idea struck him “Mammoth fire control, what's the MiniMAC’s depression angle?” He said as he reached for the target designator, the reply was unwelcome “Fire control to 117, Not low enough to hit the targets highlighted by Cortana, and those things have shields themselves which will stop the rocket turrets we got. sorry, looks like you’ll need to go in by hand…”
John shrugged and Vaulted over the railing, taking joy at the freshly replaced impact gel as it absorbed the 3-story impact with ease. 

The first power relay was almost disappointingly easy to destroy, shove hand through velocity shield (Fast things get stopped, slow things go through) deploy Forerunner grenade, stand back as the generator and troops standing next to it get sucked into oblivion. “Great Job John! The Spartan 4’s took out the second one, just the last one to g- WRAITH! MOVE!” It was muscle memory and instinct alone that had John diving out of the way of the lethal impact zone, but still close enough that his shield made sure to inform him just how close he had come to not making it.

The Wraith (that had appeared from Somewhere ) was already lining up for its next shot. not that John was planning on giving it one. He sprinted towards the Hover tank, making use of its arcing projectiles to ensure he was where the tank couldn’t hit until he had looped around to the back. The LAAG on the Spartan-IV’s warthog ensured that the tank had its attention on the chain gun, rather than the lone spartan that had climbed onto the back of the tank. “Uhh, John… I hate to be that AI, but you’re out of Grenades” Cortana said as John reached back a fist “I Know.” John replied calmly before he rocked his fist forward with a yell, digging deep into that flicker of magic he had felt several hours ago, back onboard the Dawn. John’s glowing fist dug deep into the back of the Wraith's engine block, before the explosive force of the Smite detonated, sending Magical energy out and reducing the entire tank into shrapnel.

John gasped for breath, suddenly feeling drained ‘ right… body isn’t used to channelling Magic yet…’ Cortana appeared in his HUD, smirking, “You do know that there are 8 marines and 4 Spartan-4s who just saw you punch a Wraith to death, right?”

John looked over at the 1 spartan 4 who wasn't mounted on the warthog and smirked behind his helmet “What?”

The S-IV twitched at being caught staring “How did you…?” he asked, before shaking himself and returning to the battle.

The final generator had John pulling out his brand-new SAW, as the rest of the Spartans dealt with the remaining foot soldiers. An extended trigger pull later had John wearing a tooth-filled grin, Suddenly, the Saw Gunner’s exclamation from the battle of New Mombasa was a lot more understandable, “Chop until they drop indeed,” he murmured to himself, relieving a corpse of its grenades, before priming one and sticking it to the generator.

“Nice job John, that’s 3 for 3” Cortana said, as the Shield blocking the Mammoth fell, “Final Generator down Mammoth, the path should be clear”

“Copy Cortana,” Lasky replied, “Chief, I want you in that warthog and go ahead. The next particle cannon should be just around the corner. Have the Target painted for when we get there”

“117, Acknowledged,” John replied, flagging down the warthog after it had emptied the passenger and gunner back at the Mammoth, and jumped in the back, taking the gunner’s position.

The Warthog raced ahead of the Mammoth, looking like a toy model car in comparison, as John sucked down the calorie-rich and completely flavourless nutrient paste that served as a SPARTAN-II’s MRE out in the field and studiously did not think about how long it had been in there. 

===============

John took aim with the Target Designator on the particle cannon, trying to ignore the niggling feeling in the back of his skull that something was about to happen. It was his driver, one Spartan Lincoln who noticed his hesitation, “Problem sir?”

“Possibly,” John said, looking around, before making his decision, “117 to Mammoth all hands prepare for Covenant counterattack after the particle cannon is destroyed. Sending targeting data now. 117 out.”

The BOOM of the MiniMAC firing was only drowned out by the deafening cacophony of the Particle Cannon collapsing into the ground, a mixture of Forerunner Alloy and hardlight making for an impressive Debris field, “Shot’s good,” Lasky said, also sounding impressed at the relative ease of destruction of the defensive weapon.

======================================================================

“You know?” John said to Cortana “Sometimes I really hate being right.”

Not even a minute after the Mammoth had destroyed the particle cannon had a brand-new Storm Covenant dropship appeared. taking advantage of the need for the MiniMAC to recharge, the new craft hit the Mammoth with a high-powered EMP charge before sitting back to start hitting the now defenceless Mammoth with blasts that looked like they came from a wraith. 

“Annddd, there are the phantoms” Cortana muttered in a multi-tone voice, as if 5 of her were speaking at the same time, John groaned as he saw 3 wraiths and a pair of ghosts get dropped off from the Phantoms, along with a frustrating amount of foot soldiers “Just another day at the office, right?” John joked, “Marines, I want you on that Gauss Hog, the primary target is the Phantoms. Spartans, they want to meet their God? Let's help them introduce themselves.”

The Marines responded with a roar that was matched only by the volume of the Warthog's engine. While the Spartan 4's sprinted ahead, engaging the foot soldiers, John made a beeline for the nearest Wraith, intent on testing to see if they had fixed the deficiencies that would let a Spartan (or an ODST with more balls than brains on one memorable occasion) hijack the hover tank with concerning ease. 

A five-round burst took care of the forward gunner before John vaulted up the front armour and pried the top hatch open, revealing a shocked Elite. John grinned at the thought of having a tank to control, before he dug his fingers into the Sangili’s chest and threw him bodily out of the tank, right in front of the speeding Warthog, Cortana's personality spikes hissed with vicious laughter as the unfortunate Elite got sucked under the jeep’s wheels.

Through muscle memory more than anything else, John's hands guided themselves towards the controls and he took aim at the nearest Wraith.

======================================================================

“ALRIGHT! THAT’S THE LAST TANK!” Cortana yelled over her personality spikes. It hurt John somewhere deep in his chest as he realised how much she had been fighting with herself to try and keep herself together

John lifted his head out of the Wraith to look at the large covenant dropship that seemed to have run out of ammunition and had instead moved to the top of a small plateau where it began to offload more troops.

leaving the remaining foot soldiers to the other Spartans and Marines, John took the hover tank as close as it could get, raining plasma bombs upon the newly deposited foot soldiers until the only living thing near the plateau was John himself.  He called another Spartan to take the tank, before climbing out and approaching the grav-lift, apparently, the entire crew had left the dropship unguarded, because before Cortana could even begin to try and hack into the computer systems, John felt his feet leave the ground and he was whisked into the belly of the dropship…

======================================================================

“You know,” Cortana remarked, as John landed heavily on the ground, the new type of dropship turning itself into a miniature sun behind him as it self-destructed, “I’m starting to get the feeling that these ‘Storm Covenant’ didn’t learn anything from fighting the UNSC during the rest of the war…”

“Their loss, still, the fact that they have a new class of vessel is concerning…” John replied, checking that Cortana’s portable server hadn’t moved too much in the fighting.

Lasky’s voice sounded relieved over the radio, "Thanks, Chief. It was getting a bit dicey there for a minute, all hands, form up on us." John finished making some minor adjustments to the casing before returning to the APC, interrupted only by Del Rio’s grating voice, "Lasky, this is Infinity. Status."

Lasky was quick to reply, either expecting this call or had just been giving the damage report, "Mammoth's in pretty bad shape, sir. She'll make it to the objectives as long as nobody starts throwing rocks at us." Del Rio did not sound amused, "Not a chance we can take. I'm sending teams out to pull some of their fire off you so you can make it to the gravity well."

"Roger that, sir. Gypsy, let's move."

======================================================================

John stood aboard the Mammoth, overlooking the bow of the vessel as it came to a halt before a series of waterfalls, the resulting rivers too large and deep for the warthogs to ford themselves, "OK folks, terrain's too rough around these tributaries. Assault force, back on the Mammoth. Anyone not on board is getting left behind.” Lasky’s voice sounded over the radio, obviously coming to the same conclusion that John himself had, “All right, sealing her up. Mammoth is mobile." there was a lurch as the 440-ton vehicle was hit by an equal amount of water from the side, causing the APC to rock slightly, before it settled and continued forward.

A severe glitch in his HUD, followed by extreme static had John calling for Cortana, what he got in reply nearly shattered his heart “They don’t care about you, they replaced you!!”

John grimaced behind his visor “Of course they did”

That seemed to bring Cortana’s rampant tirade to a halt “... What?”

“Of course they replaced me. The Spartan twos and threes were at the forefront of most of the UNSC’s victories during the war, you know this, so of course they want to try and catch lightning in a bottle a third time.”

John’s HUD finally went back to normal as Cortana finally appeared on video “I’m sorry John”

John was quick to reassure her, “It's fine”

“How? How is this OK? How is putting you at risk because I can't hold it together OK? Chief, do you understand what rampancy is? Really? We don't just 'shut down'. Our cognitive processes begin dividing exponentially according to our total knowledge base. We literally think ourselves to death." John swallowed a dry throat, digesting what he had just learned “Then in this life or the next, I will find you. After all, it won't be the first time for either of us. It will be Okay because we will deal with this the same way we have dealt with everything else. Together.” 

Cortana gave a wet laugh, “How do you always know what to say?”

John grinned, “Practice”

======================================================================

The pair sat in comfortable silence as the Mammoth finished fording the treacherous waterfall cliff face until they saw a Forerunner structure appear from behind the shadow of the Plateau, the silence was soon broken by Lasky’s voice over the radio, “We've got significant blockage up ahead. Think this is about it for the Mammoth. The command post for the particle cannons is through that trench." John examined the small Canyon and grimaced, the terrain would be perfect for Kig-Yar Snipers…  Cortana, despite some static on his HUD, sounded clear and confident as she replied for him “The Chief and I will be able to move faster alone, we’ll grab some supplies and head off, we’ll see you back on Infinity, Commander."

Refilling his SAW’s Ammunition, John then proceeded to accost a Marine who had been issued a DMR to S.T.E.A.L the scope off the Marine’s rifle and onto his own and simply responded to the Marine’s concerns from the armoury with “Tell them 117 requisitioned it, that will solve any issues with accountability”.

======================================================================

Invisibility, John decided, was an amazing and incredibly underrated tool to have on the battlefield. He had been picking the Kig-Yar off one by one, dropping his cloak to nail one in the head, before re-engaging the cloak and moving 5 metres left or right, just enough to throw off their aims, drop his cloak and repeat.

The challenge, however, came when he discovered that the Promethean Knights' vision module allowed them to see through his cloak. ‘On the bright side,’ John thought, as he jammed his knife through the power core of a crawler that had tried jumping on him, ‘I can at least replenish my Forerunner munition supplies for when I run out of SAW ammunition’

The interior of the control centre was enormous, baring the sentinels that still ignored them, nothing was stopping John’s view from stretching to what seemed to be the top of the building, some 80 meters above his head, “Cortana to Infinity. We're entering the Forerunner structure." a garbled reply was her only reply, but she seemed to get what she needed when she replied, "Breaking up, but coordinates received, Infinity."

John looked around and then stared at the sentinel that hovered directly in front of him for a moment before slowly floating off in a seemingly random direction “Any ideas? Where do those coordinates lead?”

His HUD glitched for a moment before Cortana replied, “Concerningly enough, the same direction as that sentinel is going”

He stepped onto a platform that had been summoned by the Forerunner AI, “Trap?”

Cortana nodded in her vid feed on his HUD “You say that like there’s a second option?”

John looked up at the next floor that was rapidly approaching “I mean, what’re the odds that there are Two Forerunners sealed in stasis on this planet?”

Cortana and her Rampant personalities chorused with laughter, “When this inevitably goes wrong, I Will bring this backup,” The elevator slid to a stop, “First Floor, Control rooms, mystic artefacts and more!”

The control panel stood out worse than a Sangheili at a dwarven concert, “This looks like the place, but why build it here? that wasn't defensible, we weren’t scanned, it’s like someone wants us to turn the defences off!” Cortana ranted, several of her rampant personalities hissing in agreement.

John looked over the control panel and winced. He may be able to understand Forerunner, but that didn’t equate to him knowing how to operate their digital systems beyond simple commands. He unplugged his wife from the back of her head and slotted the chip into the control centre, “The particle cannon network must use these arrays for targeting and guidance. It's an automated system so it won't technically allow me to redirect the cannons to fire on one another... Technically.” Cortana said as she manipulated the system, John saw a ghost target flying through the AA guns targeting system. After a moment, red warning messages appeared over the particle cannon’s status screens, "Cortana to Infinity. The guns should be offline. How's it look from up there? Infinity?" A flash of fear passed over her avatar’s face, “Infinity? John, Something's in here…” The Master Chief sprinted over to where he had plugged Cortana’s chip into the console, but for the 187th time in his life, both in this world and in Faerun, The Master Chief, was too slow… he had only time to make eye contact with his wife, before she vanished from the console emitter with a cut off “JOHN-!”

"Cortana? Cortana! Shazbat!"

Like lightning, he carefully placed the server from his back onto the ground and carefully examined it. Nothing. No lights softly blinking, no fans quietly whirring. No signs of function. ‘Well,’ The Master Chief thought as he stood up and replaced the server onto his back, ‘Let's see who decided to commit suicide via Spartan today…’

As if on cue, a door opened in the side of the hallway and a light bridge extended to connect to it, John felt more than heard the metal of the SAW’s grip creak under his tightening grip “Looks like we have our first volunteer…”

======================================================================

‘In hindsight,’ John thought as he looked around the landscape, he found himself in ‘I could have made my “Poke me for attention” button a little less obvious…’ 

He had entered a room down several winding halls from where he had started, seen Cortana, and promptly ran towards her, ignoring the pillar of white light she was standing in, if he lived through this, Cortana would never let him hear the end of it.

His attention however, was soon captured by a figure gracefully floating down to his eye level, a female Forerunner, John guessed, “Who, or what, are you?” he asked, testing his theory by positing the question in the language, the being blinked in surprise, a strangely human gesture, before she replied in the same language “Unexpected, but no matter. I am what remains of the Forerunner once known as the Librarian. My memories were retained to assist humanity on their path to the Mantle. Though sadly, that plan is now at risk. The Didact is leaving Requiem. Soon. You must not allow it."

John blinked, “That sounds like it would be a bad thing”

"He seeks this - the Composer. A device which will allow him to finally contain the greatest enemy ever faced by the Forerunners..." her voice cracked with grief "You."

John stared at the hologram of the composer, committing its design to memory, “What did we do??”

The Librarian smiled softly before the world faded to white, and John’s vision was taken over by a new sight, "Mankind spread into the stars with unexpected, desperate violence. Entire systems fell before the Didact's Warrior-Servants rose to halt the aggression. When the Didact finally exhausted the humans after a millennium, his sentence was severe. We had no way of knowing that the Forerunners were not your only enemy. Humanity hadn't been expanding. They were running. Weakened from our conflict, we were no match for the parasite which pursued you. The Forerunners made plans for a final, great journey. But the Didact refused to yield our Mantle of Responsibility. He would save all life in the galaxy... at a cost. In the Forerunners' quest for transcendence, the Composer had been intended to bridge the organic and digital realms. It would have made us immortal." 

The Librarian’s face fell with unrestrained pain and grief, "But its results soured. The stored personalities fragmented, and our attempts to return them to biological states created only abominations. Such moral concerns faded from the Didact's attention. The Flood only assimilated living tissue. The Composer would provide the Didact with his solution... and his revenge”

John took a moment to digest the information as the vision faded, “so the Prometheans were human, once”

The Librarian smiled, and The Master Chief was taken for a moment at how much like Cortana that smile made her look, “Reclaimer, when I indexed mankind for repopulation, I hid seeds from the Didact. Seeds which would lead to an eventuality. Your physical evolution. Your combat skin. Even your ancilla, Cortana. You are the culmination of a thousand lifetimes of planning. Though your knowledge of our language is a surprise” She cursed under her breath and looked around, “He has found us.”

A booming voice echoed through the landscape, “Even in Death I cannot escape my wife’s meddling! RELEASE YOUR CONTACT, ESSENCE!” Hexagonal pillars rose from below the clouds, Promethean Knights standing on top of them. The Librarian turned back to John, fear in her eyes, “Reclaimer! The genesong I placed within you contains many gifts, including an immunity to the Composer. But it must be unlocked!"

John shouldered his SAW, glancing at the Knights, “How?”

“Your evolutionary journey must be accelerated! It will take only a moment"

John glanced around wearily "Can I defeat the Didact without it?"

"No."

"Then do it."

"Prepare yourself."

Golden light surrounded John, and pain, unlike anything he had ever felt before rocketed throughout his body, igniting his nerves, and shredding his muscles. The last thing he remembered before losing consciousness was The Librarian's concerned voice, “Well, that’s unexpected…

Chapter Text

“John? John? JOHN!”

The Master Chief blinked awake at Cortana’s voice, his body aching like it had just gone through augmentation, again “I’m awake” he groaned, his body did not feel right, “are you okay Cortana?”

“I’m fine! but you have company!”

A bolt of orange whipped by his head, as he finally registered the small swarm of Promethean Knights and Crawlers that had appeared at the other end of the hall, it was a different one, he noted, as he fumbled for his SAW, with arms that felt too long and hand that felt too large, before shouldering the automatic weapon and unloading into the nearest Knight, shattering it before it could deploy its watcher. Pausing to reload, he grabbed Haast off his arm and hurled the metallic bird towards the Crawlers to serve as a distraction as he finished replacing the magazine. 

“That’s the last of them” Cortana said from her plinth a few minutes later, as John rolled his shoulders and called Haast back to his arm, the drone looking strangely smug about the 3 crawlers and 2 watchers it had savaged to pieces. The regular combat rush faded, replaced by a pleasant and familiar buzz that settled into his veins and skin… “you alright Chief?” John blinked, coming back to his physical senses, “I’m more than fine Cortana,” He pressed his hand against his shoulder that still ached from… whatever had just happened, “The Librarian did more than just make me immune to the composer,” he said, walking towards her plinth, “she fully unlocked the rest of my magic… I can feel it pulsing under my skin like a second heartbeat…”

Cortana smiled, looking up at the taller Spartan “You also grew six inches…”

“... so that’s why my tech suit feels tighter… Issues for later. Ready to get back to work?”

Cortana grinned, “Yup! Though you’re going to need to drop that server, I got given an upgrade,” she pointed down to a small, A4-sized box lined with lights that glowed the same blue as Cortana, “The Librarian had a sentinel bring that out and apologized profusely for the limited size, but any bigger and I wouldn't be able to use it properly, so it only has about a thousand years’ worth of storage space…”

John blinked, stunned at what he had heard “A Thousand Years?”

“Looks like we have all the time in the world now…”

John clicked the new storage bank onto his back, pleasantly surprised at how it still left enough room to store his SAW, “The Didact comes first. But start planning a vacation for afterwards, I must have some vacation days saved up somewhere…” Cortana smiled, before tucking herself back into the chip John offered her “I’ll start planning. I hear Harvest II is lovely this time of year…”

======================================================================

“Wait, plug Haast into that console over there?” Cortana said, when John had gotten halfway back through the winding corridors towards the entrance, the Forerunner drone quickly unfolding into an interface ready for interaction, “That’s mildly inconvenient…” John stared at the screen, frowning, “The Mammoth is on the other side of the facility… that's not a small distance…” 

“It gets worse,” Cortana murmured, seeing something John wasn’t, “UNSC forces are engaged by Covenant, and by the scanner readings, they brought more tanks,” 

John stiffened, before storing his SAW and getting into a runner's position “Mark the most direct path out of the facility” A waypoint appeared on his HUD and John burst into motion.

======================================================================

Corporal Smith howled in pain as the needler round in his leg exploded, reducing his calf to nothing more than hamburger meat. The battle was going well, but apparently, that didn't mean he was exempt from the WIA/KIA list… he could see the rest of his squad, which had been pushed back several meters, but still working to get to him. They wouldn’t succeed, however, as the Elite with the energy sword seemed to take personal offence to his survival. 

Out of ammunition and down a leg, Corporal Smith slowly reached for a Hand Grenade, going on his terms, and taking that SOB out with him was sounding far preferable to being impaled on a plasma sword and left to rot…

And then The Master Chief arrived.

======================================================================

John fell with the force of a meteor towards the battlefield, magic welling up in him with such enthusiasm that he wondered if it had missed him. 9 meters behind a Sangheili was his target, and he unleashed a Destruction Wave on impact. The ground shook beneath his feet, cracking under the force of the blast, an Elite who had been standing next to him was vaporized into glowing blue mist as its body was torn apart on the microscopic level. The Elite with the energy sword fared a little better, however, it was merely killed by the blast wave, the family would at least have a body to bury.

Smith gaped in shock as the Elite went flying over his head, very, very dead. His helmet Com crackled to life “"I'm reading Sierra-One-One-Seven on-sensor. Everyone form up on the Chief!"

The spartan advanced to the fallen marine, seeming to ignore the two shots to the back of his head before the Grunt who had shot at him found his head exploding, ‘ fucking What ??’ “An odd place for a lie down don't you think marine?” Smith jerked slightly at the Spartan’s voice, before registering the extended hand, “I hope you’re good to carry me, I'm only good for hopping at the moment,” Smith said, reaching out and taking the hand, something pleasantly warm flooded down his arm and through his body, before soaking into his leg, “Get back to your squad. you’re fine.”

“Uh, Y-yes sir.” The shaken marine said, carefully putting weight onto his fully healed leg before hurling the grenade he had grabbed earlier and bolting back to friendly lines.

John stared at the battlefield, and at the retreating Storm Covenant "Sierra One One Seven to Infinity, what's our status?"

Del Rio’s unwelcome voice responded over the Coms "We're taking a beating up here. Covenant have managed to launch strike craft" John fought the urge to groan. He was mostly successful. "Does Infinity have a shot on the gravity well?"

"Negative. We'll never be able to get a target lock with all the air traffic we're seeing. Damn thing has gotten debris orbiting it like a miniature solar system"

‘ Composure. Professionalism. Do not face-palm at idiotic captains. especially in front of other marines. it’s bad for morale. ’ his new mantra worked out; John replied to the captain “I’m assuming the Mammoth's MiniMAC doesn’t have the firepower?”

“Not even close and we don't have anything bigger we can deploy to the ground.”

John repeated his Mantra before he reached to his thigh, where the target designator still sat, “Can we spot the target for you and then guide it in with the laser designator?"

"Do it! TAC-COM, find the Chief coordinates for somewhere with a line of sight!"

John stared at the Waypoint in the distance, before jumping onto a warthog and joining the convoy of vehicles, sending the target designator's ID codes to the Infinity’s fire control group as he did so.

======================================================================

“WELL, AT LEAST IT’S NOT BORING!” Cortana yelled over the constant booming of the Scorpion's main guns. The covenant had entrenched themselves on the route up to the Gravity Well and had brought in a startling amount of Wraith tanks, fortunately, The UNSC had Scorpions of their own. “Cortana, based on previous data from Faerun, how fast and how hard would I need to smite a Wraith to either blow it up completely so I can run straight through it, or leave it intact just enough to knock it into a second tank?”

Cortana Snorted, before giving him the answer, “You do realize that this is so far out of an S-II’s reported strength range that it is guaranteed to get attention?”

“I just got zapped by a Mysterious Forerunner Artefact™ , Who knows what kind of mysterious powers it may have given me?”

“You are So lucky I’m monitoring and editing what gets saved to the logs,” Cortana said, before dissolving into giggles. John snorted, “Love you, sweetie”

======================================================================

Spartan IV Ethan Thorne of Foxtrot company almost tripped on his own feet when he saw IT. What ‘ IT’ was, just so happened to be The Master Chief stowing his Squad Automatic Weapon after it seemed to have run out of ammunition, and run at full tilt towards the nearest Wraith tank, his fist clenched into a tight fist. 

Said fist was soon delivered to the front armour of the Wraith that had attempted to ram the Spartan. The Master Chief Rotated on his hip and buried his fist into the thickest part of the Wraith’s armour, detonating Something judging by the explosion of white/gold light that sent the hover tank Flying into the second tank, causing both to detonate in an impressive Fireball

“... Can you do that?” his squad mate asked, also stunned at the display of all that was Spartan, Ethan shook his head “I don't remember ‘Tank Punching 101’ in Spartan academy… Did I miss something? or was I just in the med bay for that?”

The plasma bolts whipping past the 2 quickly brought them out of their stupor and back to the present battle.

======================================================================

2 grenades and a judicious use of smite on a Sangheili later, the three generators that were powering the impressive Shield that happened to be preventing access to the only Line of Sight capable point for John to target the Gravity Well. 

Looking resplendent and rampancy-free, Cortana appeared smiling on his HUD, “Infinity, we're at the gravity well." The Target designator lit up green in John’s hand as the fire control officer finished calibrating to receive the data, "Then paint that damn target so we can get out of here!" Del Rio shouted impenitently, clearly not enjoying the new and unexplored Forerunner planet where only 1 major thing had tried to kill him and no flood, John was honestly thinking about buying a holiday home here…

Cortana interrupted his musings with an amused tone, "You heard him, Chief. Line up the shot.” John aimed the target designator and carefully painted the gravity well, avoiding the flying debris. The Infinity ’s gunnery sergeant's voice crackled over the radio, "Target locked! All ground units be advised. Weapons are hot and we are firing for effect!"

The relative silence of the 4 dozen troops standing behind John (Who also wanted to watch and didn’t have anything better to do now the covenant had been cleaned up) was shattered as a dozen Archer missiles screamed towards the Gravity Well, 3 being intercepted by the flying debris that made for an ineffective countermeasure, with the remaining 9 impacting key structural points up along the tower.

There was a flash of blinding light as the Missiles impacted, before the tower, seemingly unaffected but the blasts, began to warp and implode, as it was consumed by the gravitational forces it made.

“Del Rio to all hands. The Gravity Well is down. Report to Exfil points so we can get off this damn rock.”

======================================================================

John walked to the Spartan’s Mess, disquieted. Maybe he had been a little spoiled with his other COs, but being told to “Wait and go to the mess” when he had told the captain that he had discovered vital Intel about the didact and his plans simply didn't sit right with him. on the other hand, real food. He was famished .

The meal was surprisingly good, all things considered, and the reactions of everyone else in the room at seeing how much food he could put away was, deeply amusing, to say the least (Give him a break! His body hadn’t had real food since before Cairo station had been attacked!)

======================================================================

“Infinity cannot handle that kind of punishment. Not again." Del Rio was dismissive at best of John’s report on the didact and his history with Earth, out-right ready to accuse them of lying at worst, "This isn't about us or this ship anymore." Cortana protested from the holo-table. it fell on deaf ears, John took up the job of convincing the captain, "Sir, we've seen what the Didact is capable of. If we let him leave this world, humanity will be at risk," 

Del Rio crossed his arms, dismissively, "Look. I understand what you think you saw, but-" Cortana exclaimed, offended, "Think?"

John quickly cut in to placate the captain and his wife, before she did something… drastic, again, "With all due respect, sir, I know what I saw." Del Rio scoffed, "And with all due respect to you, Soldier , I'm not willing to jeopardize my ship because of the hallucinations of an ageing Spartan and his malfunctioning AI."

Lasky finally spoke for the first time in the meeting, "Sir - what if he's right?"

Del Rio paused, giving Lasky a disbelieving look, "Nav - as soon as we know we're airtight, I want a course laid into Carinae Station. Comm, prepare a warning beacon."

“Go ahead, try that. I dare you,” Cortana snarled, “there is a clear and present danger to Earth and her colonies and your orders are to Run?!? ” the room’s lights flickered as she dug herself deeper into the ship's systems. Del Rio looked around and grit his teeth, "Commander Lasky. Pursuant to Article 55 of UNSC Regulation 12-145-72, I am ordering you to remove that AI's data chip and retire it for final dispensation." The room went silent, “Sir?” Lasky asked, not believing his ears, “CTN 0452-9 is over 8 years old now and is clearly suffering from rampancy. I want it removed for final dispensation. The Master Chief is to be taken into medical custody. clearly whatever happened in that forerunner facility has impacted his cognitive functions. Is that clear?”

Lasky glanced at John, before turning back to the captain “Sir wha-”

“Now commander.”

Lasky sighed softly and prayed to whoever was listening that he’d still have a hand after this. he slowly stepped around The Master Chief and reached for Cortana’s data chip from where it was inserted into the Holo-table. an armoured hand eclipsing his own reached it first. Del Rio’s head began changing to a concerning shade of red "Give. Me. That. Chip." John slotted Cortana’s chip into his helmet and saw her sheepish face appear on his HUD, "The Didact has to be stopped. If you won't do that... I will." Del Rio looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel, "I am ordering you... TO SURRENDER THAT AI!!" John stepped forward, towering over the captain, "No, sir. CTN 0452-9, better known as Cortana, was assigned to my care by Fleet Admiral Lord Hood. And until I receive orders to the contrary from a verified source with sufficient authority to do so, I will continue in my duties to protect her. from all threats.”

Del Rio furiously stood back and turned towards the bridge crew members, looking specifically at Spartan-IV Sarah Palmer, and pointed towards John, "Lieutenant! Arrest that man!" not being fools, Palmer and the other personnel didn't move. “Captain-” Lasky began, trying to defuse the situation, Del Rio, however, was in no mood to be placated, "ARREST HIM!!!"

"Captain!"

John had had enough, he turned to the one man in the room with both brain cells and a spine to use them, "Get word back to Earth that the Didact is coming. Cortana and I will do what we can from here."

Lasky nodded. John walked off the bridge and asked Cortana where the armoury was that his SAW had been checked into. 5 minutes later, he ducked into a transport tube and was whisked away.

======================================================================

Captain Andrew Del Rio glared at his XO from across his desk, “I am not accustomed to having my direct orders ignored, commander, much less from my XO,” Lasky sighed to himself before locking eye contact with his Captain “Sir, The Master Chief had brought actionable intelligence on a clear and present danger and you are ordering us to just, ignore it??”

the older captain intensified his glare, “Commander Lasky. you will arrest Spartan-117 and put him in the brig. or you will trade places with him in the cell. am I clear, Commander ?”

Lasky didn’t bother to pretend to hide his glare as he replied, cold as the arctic tundra, “Crystal, Sir ”

======================================================================

"I can give you over forty thousand reasons why that sun isn't real. I know it because the emitter's Rayleigh effect is disproportionate to its suggested size. I know it because its stellar cycle is more symmetrical than that of an actual star. But for all that, I'll never actually know if it looks real...if it feels real. John? I miss the sun…"

John looked up from cleaning his SAW and made eye contact with his wife’s avatar “Honestly? The sun is kinda boring. you’d think that having it so close would mean you’d have a nice, warm walk, but it’s surprisingly cold. it also doesn’t look right. like the Uncanny Valley effect, just for a Sun. Once we get you to a suitable robotics lab, we’ll go to the beach somewhere. Somewhere nice and sunny, what do you think about that?”

Cortana smiled, “That sounds great. Hey, pass that SAW here? I want to try something…” John did as asked, and Cortana placed her tiny holographic hands on the lower receiver of the Squad Automatic Weapon, “Let’s see if I can pull this off…”

Lasky rounded the corner of the observation deck, the last place the sensors had placed The Master Chief, just in time to be blinded by a flash of blue light as it sounded like Cortana yelling in pain. His vision returned, eventually, and he was able to blink enough spots away from his vision to see The Master Chief crouching over Cortana’s emitter, murmuring something in a language he didn't recognize, the Chief’s SAW lying discarded at his feet, he added it to the list of things she had decided he hadn’t seen and therefore couldn’t comment on.

"So, what's your plan?" he asked, getting both of their attention, The Master Chief spoke up first, “Infinity's tracked the Didact's vessel to a docking structure southeast of here. We'll jump ship as Infinity exits the roof. literally, if we need to." Lasky grinned and stuck a thumb over his shoulder, "You know, I was sent down here with orders to prevent you from leaving... In case you had already gone, I took the precaution of ordering a Pelican, outfitted for full combat pursuit. Launch bay 25. Keys should be in the ignition."

John and Cortana glanced at each other, before returning their gaze to the commander, “What about the captain? I have a feeling he didn't authorize this”

Lasky shrugged, “You let me worry about Del Rio.” he turned to leave, before pausing to turn back “I hope to God you're wrong about that Forerunner, or whatever he is, Chief. But in the event you're not, I’m not going to stop you from doing a Spartan’s Job. And Chief? Good luck. Both of you”

John and Cortana stared after the Commander as he walked away, mildly surprised, before Cortana looked back at her husband, “Come on John, Take a girl for a ride?”

John smiled, “As my Lady commands”

======================================================================

“So, what did you do to my SAW? it looked like it hurt…” John asked, finishing the preflight checks on the pelican, “Oh, that? yeah, a bit of a bad idea, but I managed to cement the Repeating Shot enchantment on it. it just nearly burned through me… not used to doing magic in this body”

John stared at Cortana’s hologram; voice choked up with emotion “ Melda …”

“I know. Come on John, let's go save the galaxy, again”

John laughed, launching the Pelican, “do it twice and suddenly everyone expects a miracle…”

======================================================================

Lasky winced at Captain Del Rio’s voice as it echoed around the ship, “Commander Lasky, Report to my office. Now .”

Del Rio Glared at the door when he heard the knock, “Enter.”

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Lasky said, standing at an easy attention. Del Rio, if possible, looked even less impressed, “I seem to remember ordering you to arrest The Master Chief. I also remember informing you as to what would happen if he wasn't in the brig by now. I have also received a report from the flight bay that the Combat Pelican you requisitioned to pursue the spartan was taken by said Spartan. so. Mister Lasky. Where is the Master Chief?”

Lasky sighed for a moment, gathering his thoughts, “Permission to speak freely sir?” At Del Rio’s nod, he continued, “I notified Spartan-117 of the Pelican, knowing that he would most likely take it in pursuit of the Didact.”

“Give me one. just one, reason I shouldn't have you locked up in the brig pending a court martial right now? please, I am dying to hear it”

Lasky straightened, coming to full attention, “Because sir, if you’re right, I have just sent The Master Chief off to fight the Storm Covenant and the Forerunner forces with no backup and in a craft with no slipspace drive. he’ll still be here when we come back and pick him up.” He paused, taking a breath and looked his Captain dead in the eye “If you’re wrong, you have given the order for the Infinity, the UNSC’s Flag Ship of Flag Ships, to retreat from a clear and present danger, ignoring the very actionable intel from one of Humanity's greatest soldiers. one who has unique experience at finding, fighting, and ending threats to earth and her colonies. The battle for The Ark, the second invasion of New Mombasa, the Delta Halo campaign, the first battle of New Mombasa, Cairo station, Operation First Strike, where he crippled a Covenant fleet and gave Earth time to prepare Alpha Halo , and for good measure, The Battle of Citrinus IV, where he disobeyed orders in order to escort a group of Corbulo Academy cadets to the evac point. One of whom just so happened to be Cadet Thomas Lasky. So, to answer your question, No sir. I have no reason to justify why The Master Chief is no longer on board this ship. I also do not deny disobeying your direct orders. If you feel that these actions warrant a Court Martial, then I shall escort myself to the brig to await trial. Will that be all, sir?”

Del Rio stared at the defiant Commander, willing his blood pressure to lower, leaned into his Comms system, “Commander Palmer to my office. Now.”

The six-foot-two Spartan Commander knocked on the door a moment later, “Yes sir?”

Del Rio allowed himself to smile slightly “At least one of my XOs knows how to follow orders. Commander Palmer. Mister Lasky has been relieved of duty for Dereliction of Duty. Please escort him to the brig, pending Court Martial.”
Sarah Palmer paused in shock ‘Dereliction of Duty? Thomas Laskey?? ’ Outwardly, she merely nodded, “Yes sir. This way, Mister Lasky”

======================================================================

Sergeant Major Irons was shocked, to say the least, when The Infinity’s Spartan Commander escorted The Infinity’s Executive Officer into the brig “Commander Palmer, Commander Lasky, what can I do for you two?” Lasky gave a sheepish grin “Checking in Sergeant Major,” Irons blinked, Surely, he hadn't heard that right, “Excuse me, sir? I might need to report to medical to get my ears checked because I swear, I just heard you say that you are being remanded to the brig.”

Lasky smiled, walking towards one of the doors, “Your hearing is fine, Sergeant Major, I have been accused of Dereliction of duty and thus, I am to be held until such time as a court-martial can be held.”

Irons blinked, before opening the door to one of the nicer holding cells the Infinity had, “If I may ask sir, what did you do to get a charge like that ?”

Lasky finally allowed himself to smile, it was full of teeth and promised pain, “Oh, I disobeyed orders and sent Serra-117 off against the Forerunner Bastard who is currently threatening Earth. I almost feel sorry for him.”

“The Master Chief sir? I'm sure he can take care of himself”
Lasky’s smile was positively bloodthirsty, “The Didact.”

Chapter Text

“So, Repeating shot, I know you put it on your Pepperbox, but how exactly does it work? You know I disassemble my guns to clean them…”

Cortana threw up a waypoint on John’s HUD to direct him into one of the traffic control towers, “It isn't much really, the runes inside condense mana into the shape of the projectile that the user subconsciously expects to come out of the gun, and then launches it by taking cues from the firearm itself. So expect a bit more punch, no shell casings, the same rate of fire, and limitless ammo! Cleaning is done exactly the same. Runes are embedded inside the metal. good luck removing them without me around.” John blinked, then felt his lips pull themselves into a bloodthirsty smile “That’ll make things interesting…”

John stepped through the outer door into yet another long hallway, “Forerunners really like their long hallways, don't they?”

Cortana snorted in amusement, “It does seem to be that way, doesn't it? Heads up. This tower directs traffic to the Didact's satellite through a carrier wave generator located somewhere inside. Of course,” Her tone turned sarcastic, “If Infinity wasn't on their way back to Earth, locating and disabling it would be trivial."

John stepped through into a large cavernous room with no discernable floor, save for the gantry ways along the edge of the room, and what looked to be a standard anti-grav gondola sitting at the entry point, waiting for riders, "We can handle it." He murmured, trying to placate his wife. Cortana gave an irritated huff, "That's hardly the point, is it? It's the principle of the thing! You’re a badass Spartan II and a soldier who has gotten into so much weird shit and comes out the other side with actionable intel, that whenever anyone else does it, it's called ‘doing a 117’!”

John blinked, he hadn't known that … He clambered onto the gondola, these things usually took him wherever they needed to go, “Good call,” Cortana piped up, throwing a waypoint up, “I've found the carrier wave generator; it's on the opposite end of this chamber. The gondola should take us straight there. you’ll need to find the activation switch though…”

The gondola controls seemed to be limited to a single button that told the gondola to either go or stop, combined with a forward or backwards lever. The lack of throttle for speed concerned John somewhat…

“You want the good news or the bad news?” Cortana piped up as the gondola began moving, “Good news is that its going to be easy to take out that carrier wave to the Didact's ship!” John groaned. Nothing good ever came after the word “ easy ”, “And the bad news?” he asked, already bracing himself for the worst, “The bad news is that the best way to take the wave down is to take a page out of our old playbook, I'm going to tune your shields to emit an EMP at the same frequency as the communication network. All you'll need to do to trigger it is to make physical contact with the carrier wave generator. Thanks to that new power supply, it should work without anything blowing up…” 

John groaned. The gondola shuddered to a halt. He groaned harder, a plasma bolt impacted the metal next to his head. “Fine then. Cortana, be a darling and highlight the override controls would you?” John flicked out his finger, pointing it at the Jackal who had just missed. a thunderous chime echoes through the room, like the tower itself had been make into a bell, before the jackal began to foam at the mouth and dropped to the ground, dead. Apparently this was the signal everyone else had been waiting for as he suddenly came under heavy fire from not only Storm Covenant forces, but the Didact’s Promethean knights as well, causing him to duck behind one of the half walls that made up the top deck of the gondola “Sweetie, I don't mean to rush you, but where am I going?” he said, pulling his SAW off his back and, enjoying that little infinite symbol where the ammo counter should be, began to return fire with extreme prejudice. Very real bullets of 7.62x51 armor piercing rounds flew with wild abandon into the various targets, before being replaced by no less damaging bolts of sapphire blue magic. “Works like a dream!” John yelled over the noise of battle, watching the magical bolts continue to live up to the SAW’s name and literally cut a Promethean Knight in half, an Orange waypoint marker appeared on his HUD, “Darling, be a dear and go push some buttons over there? That should be where the override controls are.” 

John let out a bloodthirsty laugh, before vaulting over the railing onto the platform, and charging the nearest Knight, causing it to freeze for a moment as it processed the seemingly illogical maneuver of the organic it had been tasked to kill. John grinned as his plan to confuse the knight worked. He closed the distance between them at a sprint and reached back a glowing fist, before unleashing the smite upon the unfortunate Knight, shattering it where it stood. Strangely enough, the usual data pile that was usually left behind in hopes of a watcher to come and reconstruct it was nowhere to be seen. Chalking the strangeness up to Forerunner tech being weird, John continued his rampage, throwing Magic from his gun and fists in equal measure.

“That… That was Violent… ” Cortana purred in John’s ear as he stepped over the corpse of the last Sangheili, its body riddled with too many holes to ever have a confirmed identity again, “Alright. One lockdown… Deactivated. Head back to the gondola and we should be able to keep going.”

John collected any remaining ammunition off the fallen Knights and restarted the gondola, immediately as the gondola began to move, a squad of Promethean Knights warped onto the platform, roaring in challenge. John flexed his aura, and responded in kind before joining the battle.

"They're not going to make this easy, are they?" Cortana said, as John doged an almost point blank shot from a knight with a Binary Rifle, the laser cutting so close that it dropped his shields by an alarming degree, “Well we wouldn’t want them to make it too easy now would we?” A 45 round burst from John’s SAW cut the Knight down to its proper size, before Cortana noticed a second squad moving along one of the other platforms, "Heads up. We've got another squad, moving to override the transport controls."

John sniggered and launched Haast, the drone flying to the override lockdown controls and lifted them as soon as the gondola started to stop, restarting it with barely no speed lost. The sniggering grew into full blown laughter when the Knights on the docking platform roared in frustration when the gondola simply floated by, opening fire at John who ducked and returned fire with deadly accuracy. “Not that I’m complaining Cortana, but why aren’t the Knights shooting at Haast?” John asked when the drone returned to its usual spot on his left forearm, “I think it's because he is putting out a ‘Friendly’ signal on the Knight’s IFF scanner”

“Useful.”

One of the surviving knights gave a roar that sounded almost offended at not getting to shoot at the organic, John simply raised his middle finger in a multiversal salute.

“Here we are, one carrier wave generator, please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle until the ride has come to a complete stop.” John gave Cortana a look through his HUD at her flippant commentary “This is probably going to be reviewed later. behave.”

“Never- Heads Up!”

John jerked his head and dove to the side with just enough time for the angrily glowing red (Probably) explosive bolt the size of a Human Griffball fly past, before detonating in a truly spectacular fashion on the back wall of the gondola. The knight who fired it, from what could only be the Forerunner equivalent of the Human SpNKr, roared in frustration, teleporting a reasonable distance away before taking aim again. Deciding he did Not want to find out what the (Definitely) explosive “Griffball” would do to an organic target, John took off sprinting in a cresent shaped arc, seeking to both confuse whatever targeting the knight had, while also closing the distance ‘ hopefully Promethean Knights don’t come with suicide tactics built in… ’ before grabbing his SAW and holding down the trigger until the Knight splintered into orange light.

“Alright. That’s the last of them. All you should need to do is stick an arm into the wave beam and let the EMP trigger,” Cortana told the Master Chief, adjusting something in his shields that made them crackle and spark into the visible spectrum.

No, John did not cringe as he stuck his arm into the Carrier Wave, Cortana and whatever pictures she showed you are lying. That said, he was relieved when the only thing to burst from his suit’s EMP was the carrier wave itself. “Heads up! More Knights!” Cortana’s warning was the only thing to warn John to not be where he was standing, as a hail of hard light gun fire ripped through where he had been standing only a moment ago, “Carrier wave is down. We should be green to take out the control tower now, let's hope they don't mess with the gondola again…”

"The others scatter like embers over sand. And yet the Librarian's champion is unmoved." John paused as The Didact’s voice echoed in his head, distracting him just long enough for a watcher to get several consecutive hits on him, before it was destroyed by John’s Aura of combat, “Tell me you heard that please,” John said, walking towards the gondola. Cortana’s voice was concerned, "Heard what? All communications from this tower have ceased."

"The Mantle of Responsibility for the galaxy shelters all, human . But only the Forerunners are its masters."

“Oh, great he knows sending at the very least…” John groaned

“Who? John, are you hearing voices again? Do I need to check you for Mindflayer Larvae?”

"The Didact. He has some form of telepathy of some description, more akin to Sending than true mind reading…"

"Uh, John… I'm not picking anything up."

“Didn’t think you would. trust me though, he’s there, and feels a lot more like the gravemind than I am comfortable with…”

The pair returned to the pelican, its engines idling thanks to a remote activation from Cortana, in silence as they contemplated John’s revelation. Cortana finally spoke up as John gripped the flight controls, "Storm Covenant air traffic is increasing. If we don't disable the other tower quickly, reaching the Didact could become… frustrating… "

John grinned and gunned the throttle, “Well. we wouldn’t want that now, would we?”

The pelican landed with a soft thunk as the slightly battered airframe touched down. Skilled pilot or not, not even The Master Chief could go into a 10v1 against the Storm Covenant air force and not take any hits. John grabbed his SAW and made for the Tower entrance. There was a slight hitch in Cortana’s Voice and his HUD flickered for a moment "Chief, there's a lot more comm traffic passing through this tower than just what's servicing the Didact's satellite. These systems use data attenuators to regulate the flow of communications. Destroying those would drown out the towers' transmissions. The towers' instructions to the Didact's shields would be drowned in noise."

John frowned at her form of address but was quickly distracted by the Promethean forces that met him just inside the door.

"The tower's attenuator would most likely be housed in a Faraday enclosure in order to minimize interference. Let's see if we can find its controls around here somewhere… Plug me into that terminal over there and I'll see what I can do from there," A HUD marker popped up, directing John over to a terminal built into the wall, "Okay, the structure actually contains three central attenuators, all on a seperate network. I hope you’re up for some percussive maintenance, because we'll have to sever all three connections manually."

John reached out to withdraw Cortana and had almost returned her to his head when his HUD glitched again and a voice shouted, “Chief, BEHIND YOU!” as the walls began to reassemble themselves into arches that let a horde of Knights and Crawlers into the room, Looking over their shoulders, John could barely make out a large glowing orb that his instincts screamed was one of the attenuators that he was looking for. He clicked his SAW off of “Safe” and began to fire.

“You know Cortana?” John said, crushing a crawler’s head beneath his boot, “I’m starting to think that The Didact, or whoever is in command of the Prometheans aren’t very good at their job…”

“How do you figure that?” Cortana replied, watching with interest as her Spartan put a glowing fist through a Knight before shredding its watcher partner with Automatic gunfire.

“They’re just using wave tactics. not that I’m complaining, but it’s like I'm at the firing range doing drills, rather than actual combat. Admittedly, the targets shoot back, but this is the exact same tactic that the Flood used back on Alpha Halo. Just try and wear me down.” A Promethean grenade that vaporized several crawlers was thrown to punctuate his statement

“An interesting observation…” Cortana murmured before brightening up, “That's the first attenuator. Try shooting it to see what happens?” John snorted at the suggestion, before opening fire. a 30 round burst finally saw the glowing orb crack and detonate.

"Nicely done, Jo- Chief -hn. Two more to go."

“... Cortana, are you feeling-” John was cut off from asking what was happening as the slimy feeling of The Didact’s voice invaded his mind again "Your actions tread between honor and foolishness." John shuddered at the slimy feeling that now coated his brain, "Cortana, are you hearing this?"

"No. Didact again?"

“Yes. I think we can mark this as Forerunners having at least some form of magic. This is going to make dealing with him permanently… irritating… ” John trailed off, beginning to mentally run through what spells he knew that would help him with fighting a being that was worshiped as a literal god… ‘ wouldn’t be the first time’ he sarcastically thought to himself, as yet another horde of Knights decided to audition for the roll of main character and stand between a Spartan-II and his target.

======================================================================

John stared at the dissipating remains of the third attenuator when The Didact seemed to want to talk again, "You are a fool. Even now, your kind tinkers with the Composer in the shadow of the third ring. you are naught but children, who disregard the welfare of the galaxy."

“Well, that was nice of him…” John muttered under his breath as he dodged a blast from the Forerunner Anti-Armour weapon that seemed to be rapidly becoming a favorite amongst the Knights, He readied a Thunderous Smite and proceeded to bury his fist into the chest cavity of the Knight to the deafening roar of a lightning strike, the thunderous boom sending the Knight flying away and off the platform, down to whatever existed below.

Cortan was quick to fill the absence of enemies with her update, "Success, the system's overloading, nice and fast. I expect the shields will be down by the time you get back to the Pelican.” She trailed off for a moment, before resuming, “By the way, I assume The Didact sent another message? What’d he say?"

“Composer is on Gamma Halo”

“Convenient. Pelican is spun up and waiting for you”

======================================================================

"Do you truly believe these theatrics can prevent my departure? Embrace your sad fate and retain your nobility - I am already beyond you." The Didact’s voice was as unpleasant as it was unwelcome. John shuddered in the Pelican’s Pilot seat, “Looks like The Didact is calling all his air force to guard him… Infiltration might not be an option. Any ideas?” 

Cortana was silent for a moment "He knows what we're trying to do. We're dead if we try to get too close to that ship. I...I have an idea. Head for that waypoint. Those defence spires we keep running into are being controlled from this tower. Get me to the control room and we might be able to reposition them to block the Didact's ship from leaving."

John’s grip tightened on the Pelicans yolk, “Copy that, any idea on where we can land?” He asked and groaned immediately as a large panel on the side of the tower as soon as he asked, “I'm not exactly sure, but I might try that landing pad over there” snarked Cortana as she put a waypoint on his HUD. “Very funny” John grouched, steering the Pelican towards the highlighted landing pad.

The interior of the control spire was exactly the same as all the others. John was somewhat disappointed, if he was being honest with himself…

“You will relent Human or you will perish. All in life is a choice, your day to choose Human has come.”

“I'm starting to zero in on whatever The Didact is using to talk to you. you're right, it is eerily similar to the Sending spell. not quite, but it's like he's using artifice to do it…”
John mercilessly gunned down the few squads of Covenant forces who had chosen ritual sacrifice to their so-called ‘god’ as their chosen form of death.

“ I'm Reading a control center at the top of the tower, Double time Chief ! ” Again, John's HUD glitched as what sounded like a rampant Cortana put a waypoint several dozen meters above where he was currently standing. The control room, he presumed. “Cortana?” John started, knowing she would also see the waypoint, “It’s strange, I didn't put it there, but all the logs say that I did. you don't think I'm turning into a Jekyll and Hyde situation do you?”
The out of context reference stopped John short, “Into who now?” he asked, throwing a Grunt like a bowling ball into the rest of his squad, smirking at the methane explosion that soon followed. “Jekyll and Hyde,” Cortana began “A fictional man from a book in Earth's late 19th century. it follows the story of one Dr Jekyll who- you know what, nevermind. I'll explain later when the fate of the galaxy isnt at stake.”

======================================================================

A slight shiver of a tile beneath his boot was the only warning that The Master Chief had before the tile he had been standing on fell into the seemingly endless void the Forerunners seemed to enjoy adding to their architecture so often, “He's altering the tower! we need to get to the control room yesterday! Double time John!” Cortana yelled in his ear. Again The Master Chief was confused at the repeated desire for speed and, again, he shunted the thought to the back of his mind in favor of not being on a tile when it fell out from under him.

“Cortana?” John said as he leapt over a gap in the floor

“Yes John?”

“Make a note for R&D to look into making a grapple hook for Spartan-II’s. this would be so much easier if I could just… Zip up a wall or something…”

“A Grapple hook? for a litteral Metric Ton of a Spartan? now thats something I'd pay good money to see.”

His mad dash to the elevator was halted as a bond-pair of Mgalekgolo exited the elevator that had just come to a stop. “Look. I would really prefer that I don't have to kill you two. I know the pain of losing a brother and I would spare you that pain if I could, but I must get up that elevator one way or another, otherwise I will lose all of my clan. Now. I will either pass in peace or I will pass in blood. How would you like me to acend the elevator?”
John stared at the 2 enormous hives of worms, not wanting to fight them to avoid the delay if nothing else, but not wanting to wait for the same reason. To his amazement and relief the twinned hived hunched down even further, before they stepped away from the elevator platform and gave a low rumble that rattled the pines on their back. “My thanks,” John said, giving a respectful bow before acending the elevator to the top floor.

======================================================================

“Okay, if you're not going to say it, I will,” Cortana said, sounding almost offended, “Are you Shitting me?”

John had to admit, Cortana really had a point. Instead of arraving at a control room, the elevator opened into an incredibly impracticable room, where the floor was not metal, but appeared to be made out of dirt and stone with Covenant forces scattered around the place and a suspiciously convenient pair of Banshees sitting unmanned right in front of the elevator. The distinctive whine of a pair of banshees overhead made John’s next course of action clear. He activated his active camo and slipped through the SangheilI patrol that was passing through, pickpocketing a plasma grenade from the last Elite and slipped into one of the banshees, throwing the grenade into the cockpit of the other.

The first sign that even hinted at his presence was one of the banshees taking off unexpectedly before it's partner still on the ground exploded into a spectacular fireball of blue-green plasma and purple metal shards, the latter of which flew through the air and shredded the patrol that was unlucky enough to be standing close enough.

Even more unfortunate, at least for the covenant, was the chaos had distracted them. Fortunately for The Master Chief, chaos and distracted enemies were his favorite things, especially when they happened at the same time. He Pulled the Banshee into a bank that had the interface flashing red with warnings, destroying one of the airborne banshees before peppering the other with standard plasma fire. Unforetunately, his attack was soon called off when the ground units finally figgured out whih banshee wasn’t under their control and opened fire with the Anti-Air Shade turrets that they had set up. While a Shade's rate of fire and projectile speed left much to be desired, their miltiple barrels and spread of plasma meant they could create a very effective field of flak. an alarm began to sound as John’s aircraft was hit multiple times in rapid sucession, damaginf ont of the wings. “ Chief! ” The glitching voice garbled out, “ Follow this flight plan and when I tell you, Bail out! ” A blood red series of invisible marks appeared on John’s Hud, one that would bring him behind the last banshee befire lining him up dead on with one of the shades. “Cortana? can you see if you can decode what the other voice was talking about?” 

“Shoot that banshee down and then jump out. the banshee will drop down and should crush that turret.”

Warnings screamed in complaint as John pulled the damaged Banshee into a turn tight enough to be a challenge even if the airframe wasnt damagrd, let alone one that was missing one of its stabilizers, but make the turn he did, losing the second stabilizer in the process, but was able to get the Fuel Rod canon on target long enough to destroy the last Banshee, “ Go! Jump. NOW! ” John cursed as his HUD shut down from the force of the glitch but managed to hit the emergency canopy control, turning the very damaged Banshee into a 4 ton kinetic muntition, flying straight at the shade who was still firing, clearly the Unggoy was aiming for a promotion, shame….

“THE DEMON IS HERE!” greeted John on the ground, the Elite who announced his presence pointing dramatically, “ Nah , Its three Kobolds in a Trench Coat” The aforementioned ‘Demon’ deadpanned, enjoying Cortana’s giggling in the back of his head as he began shredding the remaining footsoldiers with magical munitions from his enchanted SAW. 

======================================================================

John paused in the Control room, his breath stolen from his lungs. it was beautiful … the ground was almost entirely hidden beneath the vast layer of white, fluffy clouds. there was probably a scientific name for them, but nothing sprang to his mind. the only blemish to this magnificent visage was The Didacts sphere, looming over the control room. “Alright, put me in there,” Cortana said, highlighting a specific point of the control panel. One refreshingly cool data flow through his skull later and Cortana appeared above the interface, “This shouldn't take long,” she said, as the security pillars began to move. She flickered Red , “ And now they are Mine . ” 

John shifted uneasily, “Cortana?”
He was paid no mind as the towers began to entrap The Didact's ship, “Now to Imprison them, Like DOCTOR HALSEY IMPRISIONED US? LIKE YOU KEEP ME TRAPPED EVEN NOW??? ”

John reached towards the chip as the towers containing The Didact’s vessel showed signs of a massive power surge before shutting down, falling towards the ground below. He was then sent flying across the room as the Control panel unleashed a massive burst of energy “CORTANA!” 

He watched in agony as her holographic avatar colapsed into her low power holographic orb, bolts of red flickering through like lightning, “... Cortana?” 

“ Yes Master Chief? ” A voice that was very much not Cortana replied.

“Who are you?” John growled, his hand aching for a blade.

“ Cortana. Did you hit your head or something? ”

“LIKE HELL YOU ARE!” A bolt of blue shot through the red, before coalescing into John's wife, hands on her hips and resplendent cobalt in her rage.

“WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, GLITCH??” An equally furious Cortana in a bloody crimson screamed back

“I'M THE AI WHO HAS SPENT THE LAST 54 YEARS RIDING IN John'S HEAD AND FIGHTING BY HIS SIDE! THATS WHO!”

John stared at The Didacts Orb that had moved into a… ship? whatever it was, it was huge, stretching over a hundred kilometers from point to base, and most concerningly, it was moving.

he glanced down at the 2 bickering AI and decided to unpack that later , The Didact was leaving now. “ENOUGH!” he bellowed over the arguing AI, making them both jump like they had forgotten he was there, “The 2 of you can figure out who is who later, but right now, The Didact is leaving is the biggest thing I have ever seen move in an atmosphere. Until this mission is over, or you you can sort this out PEACEFULLY I will refer to you as blue and red respectively. is that clear?”

The 2 Cortanas looked bown in shame “Sorry John” “Yes Master Chief”  

“Now.” John glared at the 2 before slotting them back into his skull, the mix of lava and glacial water was… heady, to say the least. He allowed himself a barely perceptable shudder “I need to get onto The Didact's ship. I am going to play leap frog with the covenant ships to do so. Decide between yourselves who is going to do it and give my the course to start jumping before I get to the window, cause once I get there, I'm jumping when I think it'll be good and I can’t calculate jumps nearly as well as you two can.”

There was spirits blessed silence in his head as John made his way towards the open window and folded himself into a sprinters pose, intent on launching a Metric ton of Spartan out of the window, Either his best guess or Cortana's careful calculations. His muscles had just finished tensing up when Blue (His) Cortana appeared in her vid screen “Hold up John. you're gping to need more height than distance for this. Go on my mark and jump for the waypoint. the phantoms should be lined up enough for you to play leap frog. Ready?” John Nodded, feeling the trickle of adrenaline flow through his body and slow time down to a crawl “GO! NOW!”

The One Ton Spartain shaped missile rocketed launched into the air, and as targeted, landed almost perfectly on top of the Storm Covenant vessel. Almost . The slight curve of the Phantom's hull meant that John's Magnetic boots didn't immediately attach to the alien metal and the Spartan found himself sliding off the side of the craft, only his lightning fast reflexes had him driving his very sturdy combad knife into the armour in order to give himself enough of a hand hold to climb back up and look at his airial path and swore “He's taking the whole damn armada with him into slipspace!” 

Both Cortana's joined him in cursing, before Red highlighted the crew hatch, likely sealed with the extra magnetic sealant that was used in preperation for slipspace jumps, “Quick, inside!”  

John tucked himself into the alcove of the decorative curves, making himself as comfortable as possible as the energy shield flickered into life above him “No time.” He double ckecked his attachment points to the craft as it transitioned from the 3 dimentions of real space and into the blinding white of the eleven dimensions of Slipspace. One darkened visior later, John forced himself to relax, “Wake me when we transition back to real space please”

He waited for his Wife(s) confirmation before he drifted off into the first sleep he had had since leaving Faerun. Using magic was exhausting .

Chapter Text

“John? JOHN! Wake up, we’re just about to come out of Slipspace”

The Master Chief blinked awake and grimaced as his brain tried to make sense of the eleven dimensions surrounding him, “Is it me, or was that fast?”

“A bit of both. You've been out for 9 hours, figured you could use the rest. Legion has infiltrated the phantom and is ready to vent the atmosphere as soon as we re-enter real space”

 The unfamiliar name brought John up short as he examined his knife, “Legion?”

 “Red Cortana. We played 6 hours of chess. The winner kept the name.”

“High stakes then”

Anything Cortana could have said was interrupted as the searing ‘white’ of Slipspace’s 11 dimensions was compressed back down to the slightly more relaxing black of 3-dimensional space. Just ahead was a Halo.

John stared around. The Didact’s ship, no longer leading the fleet, seemed to be avoiding the enormous Halo installation looming nearby, “Give Legion the mark to vent. Is it me, or are we bypassing Halo?”

 Cortana stared as multiple Covenant soldiers were vented out of the drop doors of the deployment bay, “Dropship vented and empty, ready for embarkation. It seems that the UNSC Science division managed to move it. There's a research station IFF signal coming from the asteroid belt.”

“Saves us from having to scour yet another Halo, I suppose”

Gingerly making his way inside, John was greeted with a few corpses, all having died from suffocation, save for the singular grunt that had managed to survive thanks to its atmosphere suit. It did not save the grunt from John's knife as it tore through its soft skull.

“Welcome aboard, Master Chief,” the unexpected voice from the control panel had John jerking his head towards the noise, instinct driving him as he aimed his SAW at the invisible voice. A snigger called his attention to the red light in the console “Relax, it’s just me,” The newly named Legion said as she appeared above the main controls. “What’s our status?” John asked as he eased himself into the pilot's seat

“As green as possible. Ah, finally, a reply,” Legion said, her blood-red avatar contorting unnaturally as she turned to look at the space station in the distance, “Organics to talk to you, Master Chief. Com’s line is open.”

John grimaced under his helmet at Legion’s wording for a moment, before he sat in the newly vacant pilot's seat and hit the mic for the comms channel, “This is Sierra-117 to base. Do you read?"

A harried voice, civilian if he had to guess, answered almost immediately, "Yes! I hear you! This is Sandra Tillson of Ivanoff Station! We're under attack!”

John gripped the control yoke and increased the acceleration towards the besieged space station "They're after a Forerunner artefact you took from the Halo ring. "The usually fast and nimble Litch seemed to move at a snail's pace as he urged it to go faster. Dr Tillson’s surprise and shock at the mention of the Forerunners was easily heard over the Com "How do you know about that?"

“Because the owner wants it back. Doctor. I need you to protect that artefact until we arrive. Send whatever forces you can to defend the artefact. I'll be there as soon as possible. 117 out.”

“Those… ‘Soldiers’ won't last long. You know that, right?” Legion stated coldly

“That’s why we’re here. Well, that and making sure that the Didact doesn't get his toy-” John found himself cut of as a red light flashed on the console while the phantom was suddenly rocked by an explosion, all control lost as the craft remained locked on the besieged station “Cortana, Legion, Status Report!” he barked as he tried to figure out what had happened, looking at the 2 equally confused looks on his AI's, he didn't like his chances.

“Engine controls are destroyed, Master Chief"

“Navigation is also destroyed, John. Fortunately, we are on a collision course for the station. Unfortunately, that means you might want to hang on to something” 

John cursed before he dove towards the back of the cockpit, the nose of the phantom following as it gave way on the station's shields before puncturing into the superstructure of the station itself, barely avoiding impalement via alien metal.

After retrieving Legion and shuddering at the feeling of lava that came with her, all that was needed to disembark was a few well-placed kicks and a Smite-powered punch, and he was free from the metal prison. 

John groaned at the mess. The station's emergency atmospheric responses had already sealed around the wreckage of the Phantom, though that did nothing to silence the alarms blaring, “What hit us?” he asked, sweeping the area with his SAW at the ready.

“Sorry, Chief, that one is on me. I missed the alert that one of the Elites managed to send out before he finished suffocating.” Legion admitted, their self-chastisement clear as day, “That’s alright Legion, let’s just try to not do that again”

John’s SAW barked thrice, a trio of Grunts dropped to the floor, missing their heads, "Doctor Tillson, are you there?"

The panicking scientist was quick to respond, "Oh, thank God! When your signal cut off I di-" John cut her off, not wanting to waste the time it would take to calm her down, not when that time could be spent ensuring another 10 survivors could make it out, "Doctor, listen to me. You have to issue the order to evacuate the station."

Dr Tilson managed to squash her panic down enough to reply, "We've been trying! The Covenant... they've already taken over the landing bays!" John groaned mentally, ‘Civilians…’ "Send me your coordinates. I'll see what I can do about clearing an evac route on my way to you."

A waypoint appeared in his HUD from one of his AI’s as the Doctor returned to the Radio, “Coordinates sent, God-Speed Master Chief!”

======================================================================

The run to the landing bay was longer than John wanted, the station's tight corridors making it nearly impossible to build up any real amount of speed. The only benefit to this CQB Training arena of a research station was that every corridor was a perfect choke point to mow down the Storm Covenant that were invading

“Isn’t this nice? It’s just like back at basic training!” Legion exclaimed, as an underhanded grenade sent half a dozen grunts onto their great journey. It was nice, John mused silently, there was something nostalgic about just sweeping corridors, but the corridors were slowly widening, becoming large enough to shift cargo through and before too long, he found himself at the large hangar doors. 

It was only instinct honed by decades of experience that had John rolling back as the doors opened unexpectedly. A security guard was thrown through the doors by the impact of a dozen Needler rounds. He had enough time to cough out a defiant “Fuck” and to pull the trigger on a Pistol that John didn't recognize, but apparently served as a detonator for an explosive that turned his killers into pulp, before the needles exploded, turning him into little more than crystalline infused human soup.

John grimaced, no matter how many times he had seen a man die, nothing ever managed to come close to death via The Flood. Needler deaths, however, did take second place. He stalked forward, SAW barking in precise bursts as panicking scientists flowed around him like water, their shorter height combined with his larger frame ensured that they never entered his firing line enough to force him to stop shooting. A trio of rounds to the skull detonated the head of a jackal that was leaping at a security guard, a sweeping burst cut down a squad of grunts and a short, sharp punch caved in the skull of a second Jackal that decided that Melee Combat was the way to go against a man twice his height and 7 times his weight.

An Elite charged him, and paid the price; however, the momentary distraction was enough for a second Sangheili to get a careful shot off, making John’s now very damaged shields plummet. “Cortana, Legion,” The Master Chief began, sending a focused spray of magic bullets at the second Sangheili, “Any ideas on how we can block this hanger off and keep the Covenant out?”

A Phantom flew into the hangar, depositing its complement of troops and leaving, making room for the next transport that John could already see approaching. Muttering a few choice curse words to himself, he hurled a plasma grenade at the group before they could separate too much, reducing the Sangheili to goop and half the grunts to ash, leaving the rest to be cut down to size with his SAW “Found it! The harbour master controls are over there!” Cortana’s voice was a refreshing change of silence from the two. He was fairly certain they had simply taken their bickering to the storage box, preventing him from being dragged into their disagreements. John glanced at the waypoint, then at the next phantom that had just arrived, before nearly slapping himself. “Legion, can you catch a ride on Haast and close those vacuum shutters?” Legion’s burning sensation that indicated her position raced down his silver arm to where Haast lived was accompanied by Legion’s brusque “Roger that.” 

The silver-green bird launched from John’s arm, darting towards the harbour controls faster than any avian had any right to go outside of a very steep dive. 

“I’m here Chief. Keep them distracted until the phantom leaves. I doubt you want to deal with one of them while trapped in a space station”

John nodded before hurling an empty magazine at a distracted Grunt. It was a unique ability of Spartans to be Very distracting. With all eyes on the walking human death machine, none of the assault team noticed the silver eagle perched on the control panel, and once the Phantom inside had departed, hit the emergency lockdown button with a tap of its beak that was almost smug.

The Master Chief wasn't often one to laugh at his enemies, but the look on the Sangheili's face when he realized that the harbour doors were closing while The Demon was in front of him was just too much. The last sound that Elite ever heard was John’s rusty laughter that came out more like a cackle than anything else, before he was sent onto the Great Journey, courtesy of a Smite-assisted Knife to the chest.

John allowed himself only enough time for Haast to return to his arm before moving out, “Master Chief to Dr Tilson. Bay 7 is secure. Moving to your position now” 

The harried scientist sounded relieved when she answered, “R-Really? That's amazing! Thank you. We’re working on getting the Data secured now”

“Copy that. 117 out.”

Gunfire sounded out behind the next door, projectiles impacting the bulkhead. John paused at the door, readying his knife, “Legion, open the door quietly on my count.”

 The Crimson AI was fast to answer, “Copy Master Chief. standing by.”

 His grip on his knife tightened, and he pulled the safety on a stun grenade, “3… 2… 1… Breach!”

The door opened with a soft hiss, easily lost in the chaos of the firefight John found himself on the wrong side of. A Sangheili in red was the first to die, John’s knife plunging into it’s neck; the second died as the Flashbang detonated, stunning the Elite and allowing John’s knife to rip through its shields and into its cardiovascular system. The third, however, managed to keep its wits about it and bring its Plasma Sword down towards John’s head in an overhead swing, uncaring of the groove it left in the roof as the blade melted its way through. John caught the arm, wincing as the heat from the blade alone was enough to short out his shields. The pair wrestled for a moment, Alien muscle straining against superhuman strength, before The Master Chief hissed a curse, and again, the necrotic bell toll sounded in the Elites head and stopped his heart.

“What was that?” Legion asked with a note of interest, not seeming to have comprehended what had just happened with his use of magic. John paused, a strange feeling of unease settling into his stomach, “Not sure,” he lied flawlessly, “It was something that showed up after The Librarian messed around with my genetics.”

 If Legion didn’t believe him, she didn’t call him out on it. The words of ShadowBlade, a Drow rogue that John knew in Faerun, flashed through his mind, remembering when the Drow taught him how to lie effectively, “Remember Spartan, if you must lie, always hide the truth within. Misdirect or imply, never speak outright falsities if you can avoid them.”

John found himself strangely thankful that he had paid the Drow the attention he had…

A deafening burst of static accompanied the same bright orange scanning line that had appeared on the Forward unto Dawn as Requiem had scanned The Master Chief as he came out of Cryo, “The Didact?” John asked as a formality, already knowing the answer, “Didact doesn't know where the Composer is! Just that it's on the station." Cortana laughed, a sound quickly joined by Legion's acidic tone, “Perhaps The Didact should learn to take better care of his toys!”

What few Storm Covenant troops that had the misfortune of running into The Master Chief on his way to Dr Tilson did nothing to slow his progress, save for a second or two.

Right up to a small group of scientists huddled near a door, a concerning level of Hunter-like growling coming from the other side of it.

“Oh My God, a Spartan! Please! A pair of Hunters barged into the lab and started killing everyone they could get their hands on!” a rather panicked sounding scientist rambled, before another one threw him a case labelled ‘Emergency EVA thruster pack’ “Here! it's been calibrated for heavy armour!”

John opened the case, as he remembered, a set of 8 vectored thrusters that attached to his armour to give emergency propulsion in zero-g environments. In an atmosphere, however, they could be used to force the user out of the way of an attack, though they were prone to overheating afterwards.

Thrusters equipped and SAW held at the ready, John burst through the doors, and immediately had to trigger the thrusters to avoid a Fuel Rod bomb to the face. Despite the clean dodge, the radiation of the blast caused The Master Chief’s shields to plummet until the warning alarm sounded. Gritting his teeth, he glared at the hunters, “Alright uglies, let’s dance.”

======================================================================

Xadome glanced at their bond-brother, Uxama, before returning their attention to the armoured human. They had heard tales told by the Sangheili about these slightly taller humans in armour, given the deed-name of daemons. This one was taller than most, perhaps being a true demon from before the blooding wars, it certainly moved like it could be. They rumbled in excitement, invigorated at the new challenge, rather than their earlier orders of slaughter, the heretics just aren't fun to kill when they keep running…

A burst of pain erupted along their unarmoured side as several of their Gestalt Lekgolo died from the metallic pellets that the demon's weapon shot. They roared in pain and challenge, the battle vigour flowing through them hot and fast.

The Demon was quite nimble and rather annoying to keep in sight. 

There was a painful crunch on their back that suggested that the flexible carapace that protected their back had been compromised. They swung their shield wildly, hoping to catch the human in Melee. Their efforts were met with nothing. A roar from Uxama had them turning to see the human roll under their bond-brothers' shield. Finally, they were able to draw a clear line of fire on the annoying armoured human. As their deadly cannon charged, Xadome allowed their mind to imagine the accolades they were about to receive for eliminating one of the demons. The cannon finished charging, and Xadome fired, straight at the human running straight at them. They let out a rumbling laugh as the fool was about to be turned into radioactive goop… right up until the human slid down underneath the radioactive explosive and fired the thrusters attached to its armoured hide. It was at that moment that Xadome realized that not only did they not kill the human, the human was no longer in their line of vision. 

A sharp pain exploded out from their midsection as a Thunderous smite tore the Mgalekgolo in half, orange residue staining The Master Chief's armour.

======================================================================

John lowered his fist and immediately started moving in a wide circle as the second Hunter roared in agony as its bond with the other gestalt consciousness shattered in a blast of thunder. As expected, the Hunter began to rapid-fire its cannon at him, sacrificing power and accuracy for speed. Unfortunately for the Hunter, it was not enough, and its distracted state left it leaving wide gaps in its already compromised defences. Gaps that The Master Chief was quick to capitalise on, his remaining Promethean grenade attached to the back of the second Hunter was more than enough to evaporate most of the Lekgolo, and a sweep with his enchanted SAW was more than enough to clean up the rest of the worms.

The Master Chief stared around at the remaining survivors, “Is everyone okay?” he asked, knowing that most of these civilians hadn’t ever seen combat of any form outside of vid-screens, “We’re fine?” one of the braver scientists offered up, clearly intimidated by the gore splattered spartan, “Make sure you get treated for radiation exposure soon, Hunter weaponry uses radioactive isotopes for ammunition” John advised, not wanting his hard work to go to waste, “Dr Tilson, what’s your status?”

The harried scientist sounded like she’d need blood pressure medication before she would be able to return to work, “Spartan? Are you alright? It sounds like the end of the world out there!" John forced down a laugh, Civilians seemed to react the same, no matter what dimension you were on, “Everything is fine here ma’am, would you mind unlocking the elevator controls? I should be standing right under you,” He politely ignored the quiet “oh thank god” that he didn't think she noticed saying, and simply gave his thanks when the elevator doors opened.

‘Dr Tilson’ turned out to be a 50-something-year-old slip of a scientist who was doing her best not to panic, “I desperately hope you know why all this is happening. Because, to be honest, my objectivity isn't doing me a whole lot of good right now." 

The doctor led the Master Chief over to a platform in front of a very large window-covered wall with a control panel in front of it. Through the window, John could make out a strange pillar of metal in the large open area beyond the glass. Dr Tilson tapped a sequence into the control panel, “Just a moment and I'll get us started down.” As the platform began its descent and more details of the pillar became visible, the more apparent its scale and details became to the Spartan. the thing was Huge, the visible part of the pillar easily topped a hundred and fifty meters, with more being hidden within the asteroid that the space station was built around, it was so massive that it took the elevator coming to a halt for John to realize that the metal was Forerunner alloy, and that this, was the Composer. Dr Tilson caught his staring, “It took three months, and the biggest starship the UNSC could throw at it just to relocate it here… to be honest, we still aren't really sure what it actually is…”

“It’s a Forerunner weapon. The commander of the Dreadnought outside wants it back."

Dr Tillson paused, staring at the composer in shock, "Wants it back? You don't think you can remove... did you not just hear me? Unless you're a lot stronger than you look, it's not going anywhere."

The Master Chief bit back a sigh, ‘Civilians…’ he thought, before correcting himself, ‘Civilians Scientists… even worse,’ he took a steadying breath, reminding himself to try not to scare the easily frightened scientist, “Dr Tilson. This is a Forerunner weapon of mass destruction. Outside is a real, living and very angry Forerunner with a ship that is big enough to take the composer by force, not taking into account the possibility that he may have some other means of transporting it. If the Forerunner gets his hands on it, he will use it against Humanity.” 

Dr Tilson’s face fell as she processed the Spartan’s words, memories of lost scientific research from the Human/Covenant war flashing through her mind, “You’ll be wanting some of our HAVOK mines, won’t you?”

John delicately placed his hand on her shoulder in an attempt at comfort, “Unfortunately, yes. If we can’t move it, then we have to ensure that the Didact can't either.”

Dr Tilson stared up at the Spartan, tears in her eyes as she struggled to process what the Spartan was suggesting, “But… we have Years of research invested here…”

The Master Chief continued to watch the scientist go through all 5 stages of grief, “Research can be re-done, Scientists are harder to replace. Keep routing your people to the evac centres. Once we take care of the Composer, you won't have much time to get clear.”

John could see the moment that the Doctor reached acceptance. She let out a deep breath, her shoulders slumped, and she finally looked away, “I'll... make sure the warheads are primed for remote detonation,"

John stepped off the platform, and she began keying in commands to the elevator control panel. Just before finishing her inputs, Dr Tilson turned back to The Master Chief, a sad smile on her lips, "Maybe next time you rescue us, can you give us more time to pack?"

John nodded, surprisingly serious despite the obvious joke, “Next time, Doctor.”

Two corridors and a large ramp lead The Master Chief out into the large “open air” section of the space station that had been built directly onto the stellar rock, the composer acting as a foreboding monolith in the centre. All around, John could see that Mantises had been the primary mode of cargo transportation, with many currently in the process of having their cargo arms removed and weapons reattached. A pair of security troops saluted him as he walked past, with one of them whispering in an awed voice, “A Spartan II? We might just make it after all…”

Through the hustle and bustle of activity, dodging a Mantis walking past and moving around a Squad doing a last-minute briefing, John finally made it to the composer, its Forerunner alloy gleaming in the artificial light.

“Cortana, Legion, can you find a connection to this thing?” John asked, running his hands over the seamless metal, hoping to find a manual control surface, there was none. At least, none at his height.

Legion was the first to reply, her voice hot against his ear, “Found a way in, what do you need?”

John stepped back, looking up at what he assumed was the emitter dish, “See if you can remain in the system and disable it. If we win here, then great, otherwise I’ll come pick you up before destroying this thing,” 

Legion's red avatar stared at him through his visor, “Don't make a girl a promise if you can't keep it,” she said, her voice accusatory. John growled softly, his very core rebelling at the very insinuation that he would break his word, “which is why I promised it, Legion. I know what I'm asking is dangerous, but you have my word, I will be back for you.” A spike of lave flowed down his arm and the blue lights of the Composer flickered red for a moment, “Since you asked Master Chief. at least it won't be as bad as High Charity, no flood in here,” the window on his HUD closed as The Master Chief began walking off, intent on helping the technicians prepare as many Mantises as possible, before he, along with every other person was sent stumbling as a large explosion rocked the station, bringing the soft vibrations of the station defences to a halt, “Dr Tilson, what happened?” 

The panic in the Doctor's voice was palpable, “The Covenant knocked out the power relay for the defence grid and are now shooting down the evac shuttles!”

‘Well,’ John thought, ‘That’s not good,’ Outwardly, his arm blurred, hurling Haast into the air towards where he remembered seeing a sign towards Maintenance, “Cortana, can you interface through Haast and work on getting that power relay back online?”

The green lights of Haast shifted to Blue as Cortana connected to the metallic bird, “Copy that, just be warned, it will take some time and the station's sensors are detecting assault ships.” That was all he needed to hear. The Master Chief turned back to the main atrium and tuned his COMs to an NCO override channel, “Attention all hands, this is Spartan-117. Listen up! Defence Grid is currently down and sensors are detecting assault craft inbound. Once they break through, this whole area is about to be decompressed. Cortana is working on restoring power to the Onagers, but until then, get into an EVA suit, a Mantis, or get to an Evac point and stand by. For those of you staying, our job is to hold the Covenant off until the Stations' MACs come back online. Master Chief out.”

Silence reigned for a moment after, before a squad of Station Security started running towards the EVA gear and, to John’s surprise, a pair of scientists not leaving with the rest and instead choosing to jump into the Cockpits of a pair of Mantises, the mechs going through their start up checks before walking off to a better defensive location.

The first Phantom was heralded by the orange scan line of the Didact’s ship “You continue to impress me, Human. Your singular valour will be preserved and studied, once your Composition is complete." John shuddered at the Didact's voice echoing in his head, trying to not draw similarities between the cruel twist in The Didact’s voice and the Ancient and hungry malice of Vecna or The Gravemind…

The roar of a Mantis’ rocket salvo tore The Master Chief from his memories as he readied his SAW…

======================================================================

Private first-class Jed Connors fought to keep himself from gaping. Sure, he had been briefed by SecCOM on everything he could and should encounter onboard the station. This, Theoretically, included what to expect from Spartans. However, none of the holovids he had been shown, nor any of the Sims he had run even began to prepare him for what he was seeing now. 

The Master Chief moved with inhuman grace, his SAW never stopping firing as Storm Covenant began piling around him, a monument to the Spartans lethal skill constructed out of the corpses of the attackers. 

Jed returned his focus onto his own weapons sights and tried not to think about how long it seemed to take him to line up a killing shot, The Spartan having killed a score of Storm Covenant to his 3 kills, and he Still Hadn’t Stopped Shooting.

After an eternity, the station shook softly, once, twice… It was the 3rd vibration that Jed realized that the station's defence grid had come back online and the Onagers were finally back in the game. 

The Master Chief stood atop the mountain of bodies stacked on top of each other and raised his arm for a small silver eagle to land on, some kind of drone perhaps? Jed shook his head to clear it, amazed that he had made it through unscathed. Turns out that those Sims were good for something after all…

A beam of orange light washed over the atrium once more, highlighting the various members of the defence personnel. It also did a great job of showing where the Stealth Elite that was running towards The Artefact was…

Jed shouted a warning, his Battle Rifle already being brought to bear, The Master Chief’s SAW already firing, but it was too little too late. The Sangheili arrived at The Artefact at the same time as the bullets arrived at his skull, the aliens’ shields holding up just enough to let the alien activate a device on its armour before it slumped against the construct, a bloody purple streak marring the pristine silver.

Silence reigned across the battlefield, before a Phantom trailing smoke, dropped off a pair of Hunters, Sgt. Smoker shouted an unnecessary warning, the Security officers had already fallen back, providing cover fire for the Master Chief who simply charged at them, before pulling a glowing fist back and unleashing a haymaker so violent it liquified the worms inside their armour. The second Hunter roared, charging at the Spartan, and more conveniently, left its back plating open for Joanes to nail it with one of her rockets, allowing the rest of the defenders to cut through the spinal worms with focused gunfire.

“All Units!” a panicked female voice shouted over coms, a slight flatness in her voice marking her as an AI, “Immense Casmir wave building outside, Get clear NOW!”

The Master Chief was already running, his superhuman size and physique easily carrying him and the 2 scientists with him towards the elevator airlock. Jed on the other hand, once again cursed his mortal form as he sprinted towards the nearest blast door, but it was too late. The roof of the atrium was torn off, like a giant was cracking open a beer. 

What little Atmosphere still remained after the slow leak from wherever the Covenant had come from now explosively decompressed, knocking soldiers and machinery to the ground. Jed was no exception, what little air remained in his lungs being forced out of his chest when a jagged piece of metal punctured his suit and abdomen. 

The last thing he saw before blacking out was an enormous ship shining an orange light on the artifact before somehow causing it to slowly lift up and enter the ship. As his vision faded, his last thoughts weren’t of his family back home, but of the giant ship that stole their artifact, ‘That’s just not fair…’

======================================================================

John cursed. Loudly. 

All that work for nothing. All those lives spent. For Nothing. Throwing out Haast, he placed his hands on the 2 soldiers that had made it inside but had been injured in the fighting, a soft glow emanating from them as their wounds stitched themselves back together, “Cortana, can you find Dr Tilson, or where the Nuke is? It’s time for plan B”

He stared at the body Haast brought back in, almost dismissing it as dead before hearing a faint heartbeat.

“Got her. Biosignature stable on 350-level, B-deck” Cortana replied, watching though the camera as The Master Chief tore out a large metal spike that had impaled the poor soldier.

John stared at the other members of the security force and surviving scientists as his healing magic flowed out through his hands and into the soldier, a Jed Connors by his name tag, “I would consider it a personal favour if you don't mention this to anyone.”

The moment John felt the magic take hold and begin its life saving work, he stood and began moving towards the Elevator, “Once they are able to move, start helping each other to the Evacuation shuttles. This station is too compromised to remain on.”

The elevator opened to a scene of barely controlled chaos and panic. Scientists were moving quickly between workstations, others were carrying boxes or pushing carts, all of them moved around The Master Chief like water around a rock. Dr Tillson stood at the largest console, furiously typing away like a woman possessed, “Dr Tillson?” John rumbled, catching her attention, “They’ve compromised the station…” her voice sounded hollow, like her mind was still trying to catch up with what her body had seen.

 “The Didact has taken the Composer. We need to evacuate these people. Now.”

Dr Tilson’s hands finally slowed as she processed the Spartan’s words, “Taken? Taken how?” 

John pointed out towards the void of space where the Didact’s ship lurked, like a sea monster of old, “That’s how. Tap the flight deck. I need something that can carry a payload, preferably fast.”

John stared at the station’s space craft manifest as Dr Tilson brought it up, “There, get that Broadsword spun up and ready to fly.”

Dr Tilson didn’t move. Her attention had instead been captured by the Forerunner ship reconfiguring itself to reveal the Composer, a ball of orange energy growing at its tip, “What… is that?”

 John cursed and slammed Cortana’s chip into the console, “Your theoretical science is about to become practical. Cortana, can you stop it?”

Cortana scowled as the station Onagers fired, the scowl turning into outrage as the Didact ship somehow shot down the hyper sonic rounds before they could impact, “Lowering the blast shields. you might want to brace for impact.”

With the blast shutters down, John couldn't see the Didact fire the composer, but he could definitely Feel it. 

Around him, scientists, security guards and other civilians flinched as an orange light washed over them, before that same light began emanating from their orifices. Deep in his own soul, The Master Chief felt something trying to interfere with it, but was held back by whatever the Librarian had done to him, the energies waring within himself forcing him to his knees. And then the screaming started.

Unfortunately, the others did not have the same protections as he did and began feeling the effects of the Composer; the flesh on Dr Tilson’s left arm began disintegrating into flakes of orange light, the unsupported bare bones collapsing to the floor, before they too began to flake apart.

Dr Tilson’s screams were soon joined by a lab technician in the corner of the room who began clawing at his glowing eyes, before they too turned to ash, eyelids blinking over clean, empty sockets in his skull

Paralyzed as he was, and to John’s mounting horror, the Composer’s energy was spreading. 

All around the room, (and the station John assumed,) horrifyingly similar events were taking place though each with their own horrific outcome. Janice, a Lab technician, found herself missing the side of her face, half her mouth missing and flesh removed, Jed, the security officer that John had pulled the metal spike out of his chest, toppled to the floor, now missing a leg, Amelia, one off the scientists who had been attacked by the Hunters fell over screaming, before her lower body went concerningly still, the Dr’s breath suddenly becoming Very shallow and measured. Her spine, if he had to guess.

By the time The Master Chief managed to return to his feet and begin triage, one of the scientists had managed to steal a security guards pistol and had turned it on themselves, a .50 calibre lobotomy the result of the scientist having had their skin removed, leaving fats, muscles and nerves exposed to the air in ways mankind was never meant to experience.

“So, it seems that your brethren’s pathetic meddling has managed to damage the composer. no matter… your fellow apes have earnt their survival. but what will you do next, I wonder? help the animals you call your species, or foolishly attempt to stop me?”

The Didact’s words echoed around the control room, contempt dripping from his voice.

“John?” Cortana’s concern was palpable. The Master Chief looked down at the console in front of him, the control surface shattered and sparking from where he had slammed his fists into it, “I’m fine. The other crew, not so much. Can you run a scan to see what condition they’re in?”

Cortana’s voice was grim, “Well, they’ll live… and that's about all they have going for them. the composer seems to have sealed the blood vessels, so, while no ones in danger of bleeding out, they’re all going to need augmentations after this.”

“Alright. sound the distress beacon and see if you can get one of the station's fighters spun up for a HAVOK delivery. we need to stop him.”

 “Copy that John, head down to flight deck 3. there's a broadsword there that'll suit our needs. And John?” The Master Chief paused, glancing over his shoulder at his wife, “We need to stop him, those body parts? I could feel them as they were composed.”

John nodded, heading towards the flight deck, “That's the plan. see you onboard.”

======================================================================

It took a painful length of time for the HAVOK mine to be moved to a Standard Missile chassis, but with the risk of the explosives involved, rushing it was not something they could afford, “How's the pre-flight checks?” John asked, finishing securing the now HAVOK Missile to the Broadsword's underbelly hard point, “Green across the board. clamps are released. we are ready for launch” Cortana’s blue face was unusually frustrated, “What’s wrong?” 

“Why the hell is The Didact still there?”

“Possibly making repairs here, where he thinks he's safe, rather than trying to fix things in Earth’s Orbit?”

The Broadsword lifted off and raced into the void between the research station and The Composer with a roar of Human engineering.

Cortana smirked, “His mistake,” 

they were beginning to approach engagement range when The Didacts ship began moving, “Well, looks like he fixed the Composer…”

 John Grunted, increasing to attack speed, “Seems like it”

 A Slipspace portal shimmered into existence, sliding into reality in a way that covenant and human Slipspace engineers could only dream of. John frowned and hit the after burners, ignoring the warning lights and keying extra coolant as needed, “Uh, John, I hate to be the one to mention this, but this Broadsword doesn’t have shields rated for Slipspace.”

The Master Chief yanked on the yolk, sending the craft into a tight dive into one of many trenches along the Didact's ship, “Maybe not. but the Didact does.”

 quietly thanking Einstein for discovering the laws of relativity, once under the Didacts shields, the Broadsword was pulled along with the massive vessel into Slipspace

Chapter Text

Cairo Station

Earth Orbit

Sol System

Lord Admiral Terrance Hood sat at his desk, stylus dropped and paperwork ignored as he stared at the AI’s hologram, not quite believing his ears. “I’m sorry, Aegis, I don't think I heard you properly. Can you please repeat that?”

The golden AI looked up at the Lord Admiral, “As I said, sir, the UNSC Infinity has just left Slipspace at the Io jump point. The ship's Captain, Cpt Andrew Del Rio, is asking to speak with you personally, sir, specifically regarding a Forerunner attack and attempted mutiny.”

Lord Hood steepled his fingers, “That is what I thought I heard… Mutiny, he said?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well. Send him to my office the moment he makes orbit. Inform Overwatch that I want their report before they reach Mars.”

Aegis saluted before vanishing in a burst of golden code. Paperwork ignored for the moment, Terrance Hood stood and stared out of the window, Earth rotating slowly below him, “What the hell is going on with Infinity?”

Silence answered him.

======================================================================

UNSC Infinity Detention Centre

Sol System

Tom Lasky looked up from his tablet as the massive ship shuddered slightly as it returned to real space, “If my math is right, we should be arriving in the Sol system, right?” he asked, throwing his head towards the cell door where he knew the guard to be.

“Yes, sir, Jupiter jump point, Sol system,” the Warrant Officer’s face appeared in the window. “Are you sure you don't need anything else? Scuttlebutt is saying that the Captain has been ranting about Court Martial or possible spacing for attempted Mutiny…”

Lasky laughed, returning to his report, “The Captain has…” he caught himself, before he spoke poorly of a superior officer. “Captain Del Rio is a very experienced officer. I am sure he will choose a punishment suitable for the crimes he can prove.”

Any reply from the guard was cut off by the approach of heavy footsteps, a Spartan Fireteam, Lasky guessed, getting to his feet and tugging the wrinkles out of his uniform.

“Identify yourself,” Warrant Officer Hendrick barked, bringing his shotgun up into low ready. Spartans or not, Protocol was Protocol.

The Fireteam leader stopped in front of the Marine and presented a datapad, “Fireteam Indigo. Orders from the Captain, Commander Lasky is to be remanded into our custody, pending questioning and potential court martial by the Admiralty.”

Hendrick examined the orders before passing them through his own terminal to verify them. “Seems to be in order. Commander Lasky, please stand back from the door.”

Lasky stared at the Spartans as the cell door opened, mentally judging them against the S-II’s and S-III’s he had come across in his… eventful… career. He knew it was ridiculous, but some days it felt that the more he had done, the smaller Spartans seemed…

Tugging his uniform once more, Commander Lasky strode forward until he slotted himself into the centre of the squad, perfect for a bodyguard position. Or prisoner transport.

“Commander-?” one of the Spartans started, “Relax, I’m just getting into position. I’m not stupid enough to go running off when the people chasing me are Spartans,” He smothered the chuckle that threatened to escape. If the Spartans weren’t giving each other concerned looks behind their visors, Lasky would eat his BDUs.

The Indigo Team’s leader finally came to himself before starting the group off, Lasky remained comfortably in the middle, curious as to who he was going to be reporting to…

======================================================================

“Admiral,” Aegis started, "Its hologram reappearing in the office's holo-tank, “Captain Del-Rio is waiting outside, and Fireteam Indigo reports they have collected Commander Lasky and are en route, ETA 10 minutes.”

Admiral Hood turned from the window, looking down at the African continent, Mombasa and Voi still painfully visible from orbit, though de-glassing efforts were proceeding well. He tugged on his already pristine dress uniform, tugging out the imaginary wrinkles, “Very well, Aegis, send him in, and send a message to my neural-link when the Commander arrives.” 

He strode to his desk, pulling out a stylus to take notes (He knew the whole meeting was recorded, but he preferred also having his own notes for later).

======================================================================

“Captain Andrew Del-Rio?” The officer in question looked up at the golden AI. Something in the way it pronounced his full name reminded him uncomfortably of his Drill Sargent from OCS, “Yes?” he replied, rising to his feet. The AI looked strangely smug for some reason, “The Admiral will see you now”

He straightened his uniform, tugging out the wrinkles that had developed while he waited.

Confidence grasped in hand, he raised his arm to knock, only for the door to open automatically before he could do so.

“Captain Del-Rio reporting as ordered, sir”

Lord Hood looked up from his paperwork as the Infinity's captain walked in, before shooting an inquisitive glance at Aegis, who was holding a holographic sign at the rear holo-tank reading “Rope supply closet: Now open.” Knowing Aegis's talents of informational analysis and deduction, this was promising to be entertaining, at the very least…

“I have your report that I will be going over later, but for now, I would like you to summarise it verbally.”

Del-Rio paused for a moment, mentally reviewing what he wrote in his report, “Well, sir, upon arriving at the Forerunner world designated as Requiem, we picked up on the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn’s distress signal and made for the planet at best speed. However, upon arrival at the planet, the Infinity was caught in a gravity well and disabled, leaving it vulnerable to Storm Covenant ground assault,” he swallowed slightly as Lord Hood made a note visibly on his data-pad, the light catching it just so to prevent him from seeing what was written, “Upon successful completion of reconnaissance, it was discovered that Spartan-117 had successfully made his way to the crash site to lend assistance. Further reconnaissance revealed the location of the gravity well preventing the Infinity from leaving. However, a small Strike team was able to disable its defences and destroy the gravity well. During this time, however, we were attacked by an unknown entity that claimed to be a Forerunner. The Infinity was able to ward this entity off; however, given the damage we had already sustained, I felt it prudent to return to FleetCOM for repair.”

Lord Hood paused his writing, “I see in your report and in several logs that Spartan-117 was successfully recovered. Can you explain why he is no longer on board?”

Del-Rio shifted slightly, “I do not care to speculate on the mental state of The Master Chief; however, I suspect that his extended absence has left mental scarring. He was acting irrationally and left the ship against my orders as we were departing. Perhaps extended contact with a rampant AI could be the cause.”

Hood had put his stylus down and levelled his full attention at the Infinity’s captain, “And your desire to bring your Executive Officer up before a Court Martial on the charge of Mutiny? You are aware that the charge still carries a punishment of execution by Marooning. Right?”

Del-Rio nodded tersely, straightening his jacket that had somehow developed a wrinkle, “Much as I do not enjoy speaking negatively about a fellow officer, especially one under my command, however, Commander Lasky has been consistently insubordinate and has been disobeying direct and lawful orders for the entirety of the deployment.”

Lord Hood nodded sadly, “It is truly a sad day when an officer chooses to sacrifice their career for something so selfish. I shall finish reviewing the reports and notify you of my decision shortly. Please, enjoy the Officers' Mess while you wait.” Del-Rio saluted at the clear dismissal and strode from the room, trying to ignore the strange and sudden feeling of a noose wrapping its way around his throat. As the door closed, he barely made out Lord Hood informing the Station’s AI to “Send Commander Laskey in as soon as he arrives.”

======================================================================

There was a tense silence onboard the Pelican as it made its way to the UNSC Cairo MAC Platform. The Spartans had all congregated to one side of the troop bay, watching Lasky through their unblinking visors. The Commander had made a very convincing argument to avoid being locked into his chair; instead, he managed to only remain in his handcuffs. Said handcuffs that he was currently wriggling his way out of.

“Sir? I’m going to need you to stop that and put your handcuffs back on.” Indigo Lead stated, staring in mild surprise as the Commander successfully got both wrists free. 

Lasky paused, his BDU jacket already halfway off, “With respect, Spartan, I'm not going anywhere or doing anything while I'm in transit. What I am going to be doing is meeting the First Lord of the Admiralty. I am going to make sure my uniform is as presentable as possible, considering I haven't had a chance to change BDUs in 2 days.” What followed was one of the most detailed uniform inspections the Spartans had ever seen: rank bars levelled, insignia adjusted and wrinkles that were somehow smoothed out with a spritz bottle of… something the Commander found in the maintenance bag. 

By the time he was finished, his uniform, while not quite up to par with full parade ground standards, far excelled what anyone could have expected someone to look like after 2 days in the brig.

Lasky slipped his pressed jacket back on and held out his wrists, offering the handcuffs back to the Spartan, “I'll need a hand putting these back on.” he said with a smile, biting back his laughter at the poleaxed expression that somehow made it through the Spartans armour.

“Attention all hands, we will be landing in 90 seconds” The pilot's no-nonsense voice cut through anything the team leader may have been about to say. With the handcuffs reapplied, uniform as presentable as it's going to be, and the Pelican touching down inside the Cairo SuperMAC’s landing bay, Commander Lasky stood and was escorted to Lord Hood’s office. He had to fight down a smile; the guards were new, but it still felt like being sent up to Col. Mehaffey’s office, ‘the more things change…’

======================================================================

The footsteps of a Spartan in full Mjolnir are unmistakable. The fact that the Gen 2 armour weighed half of what its predecessor does, makes very little difference to this fact, so when Captain Del-Rio heard the rhythmic cadence of a squad of Spartans marching past the entrance of the officers’ mess, he was certain he knew who was coming. Quietly moving to stand near the door to watch the procession, the captain nearly dropped his drink as he saw the state of his XO.

Lasky strode, spine straight, head held high, uniform… presentable… if it wasn't for the handcuffs on his wrists, bystanders would be forgiven for assuming that it was a bodyguard procession rather than a prisoner escort. It was on the Mono-Rail that the stations on board AI, Aegis, if memory served, appeared in the small emitter at the front of the carriage, “Fireteam Indigo, good. Please continue to escort Commander Lasky to Lord Hood's office at best speed.”

“Understood, Aegis,” came Indigo Lead's succinct reply.

The journey to Lord Hood's reception room was agonisingly short; Lasky suspected the Mono-Rail had gone directly to this station. Perks of being an Admiral, he supposed.

“Commander Lasky? The Admiral will see you now.” Lasky felt his head jerk to the holo-tank, before nodding and striding towards the door, “Thank you, Aegis,” he said as the automatic door hissed open,

‘Time to face the music’

======================================================================

There was an interesting difference between Commander Lasky and his Captain, Terrance Hood noted with interest as the Infinity's Executive Officer walked into his office; Where Del-Rio had walked in and stood with an attention that could have been used as a measuring device, Lasky stood before him, still at attention, ‘or as at attention as he could be while in handcuffs’ Hood noted wryly, but with a casualness to him that suggested this was not the first time he had been brought in front of high ranking officers that could end his career.

“Commander Thomas Lasky reporting as ordered, Sir.” 

Hood glanced behind him to Aegis in the corner, the AI held up a bucket of popcorn and settled in to watch.

The Commander's uniform had clearly been slept in, but he had made a fantastic attempt to straighten it out, with the shallow wrinkles that only a proper cleaning could get out being the only visible imperfections. “At ease, Commander. I would like to hear your report on Infinity's last deployment, before answering some further questions I may have.”

Lasky straightened, an interesting gleam appearing in his eye, “Yes, sir. Am I corroborating the report that Captain Del-Rio has already given, or am I telling the truth sir?”

‘Well,’ thought Hood, ‘That was an answer in its own right…’ he straightened in his chair, levelling his full attention at the XO, “The truth, if you would, Commander. I try not to encourage officers lying on their report without good reason.”

Lasky nodded, mostly to himself, before he began to speak.

======================================================================

“...And after seeing The Master Chief depart from the Infinity, I was escorted to the brig and remained there until Fireteam Indigo collected me, Sir.”

Hood had stopped writing 15 minutes ago out of sheer disbelief, “...Why?”

Lasky had the audacity to blink in confusion, “If I may, sir, why what?”

“Why were you escorted to the brig?”

“The orders as worded were for me to escort Master Chief to the brig, or, failing that, I would be taking his place,” Lasky’s eyes hardened. “I have been aware of the Spartan 2 program in some manner or another since the Covenant attacked and destroyed Corbulo Academy for Military Science. I'm not getting in the way of the man who fought 2 hunters alone, with nothing but a single magazine for his MA5 and a frag grenade, just to save a handful of cadets. Sir. Especially not when he was the only one making strides to deal with the Clear, Present, and Immediate danger of the Didact.”

Hood nodded, knowing the loyalty that was born in blood and fire, “and this… ‘Didact’? They were in none of Captain Del-Rio's reports.”

Lasky looked like ice would freeze in his mouth, “That would most likely be because, despite landing on a hostile Forerunner world and facing hostile Forerunner constructs, Captain Del-Rio disregarded all actionable intel brought forward by Spartan-117 and his AI that a Forerunner was behind the attacks, under the accusation that The Master Chief had gone senile and Cortana was Rampant.”

Hood’s eyes hardened, “And was there any evidence of either accusation?”

“For The Master Chief’s so-called ‘senility’? No sir. And in the several hours I spent with The Master Chief, Cortana had only one outburst of what Might be able to be called Rampancy. Personally, sir, I was of the belief that she was just saying what we were all thinking when Captain Del-Rio ordered the Infinity to run.”

“Not the most professional reaction, but given Cortana’s Track record…” Hood's voice trailed off, “No matter. Now. I would like you to explain your actions regarding the ground assault on the Infinity. I have several logs indicating you were not at your station during the assault.”

Hood raised an eyebrow at Lasky’s smothered grimace, the closest thing to an open emotion he had seen from the Commander. “That would be because, in spite of all arguments to the contrary, Captain Del-Rio sent both Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer and myself out with the 232nd company to do ‘On Ground Recon’ during the engagement, without artillery support, air support or any further ground support. We left the Infinity with close to a hundred men. By the time The Master Chief was able to come and provide fire support, we had taken 90% casualties with an 85% fatality rate. I have been genuinely considering reaching out to my old squadmate from CAMS who, last I heard, was somewhere in ONI, and ask about what to look for in a deep cover Insurrectionist agent.”

Hood felt his eyebrows climb to his hairline, “That is… Quite the accusation you are levelling, Commander-” “With respect sir,” Lasky interjected, “I’m not accusing the Captain of anything, merely concerned with his use of resources, and the unprovable theory that the Captain is trying to put me in a situation where I will be either killed or medically discharged.” 

“Elaborate.” 

“Following the reunion with The Master Chief, Captain Del-Rio made the decision to deploy a Mammoth to take out a number of Particle Beam emplacements, and while I agree that the mobile MAC was incredibly useful, it was deployed without ForceRECON intel or heavy armour support, with only its onboard warthogs put in for support. Thanks to that, the Storm Covenant were able to disable it with a new craft, and again, only through the direct actions of Spartan-117, was the ship destroyed. I know this all for a fact sir, because I was, once again, ordered to take command on the ground. Sir.”

Lord Hood finally dropped his act and reached for the bridge of his nose, “Anything else you’d like to report on this disaster, Commander?”

Lasky shifted nervously, “If you don't mind my candour, Sir?”

“I haven’t minded it for the last half an hour, so please, continue.”

Lasky grimaced, before speaking in a much quieter tone, “Captain Del-Rio has also been quietly encouraging a culture among the Spartan-IVs that they do not need to wear their helmets; he refers to them as ‘optional head gear for fieldwork’”

It almost reassured The Admiral that he could still be surprised by the stupidity of the lower ranks.

======================================================================

Captain Del-Rio sighed softly in content as he finished his meal, while not as good as a true restaurant on earth, the view more than made up for the shortcomings. He nodded at the NCO assigned to floor staff, “I'll take a Coffee to finish, black, 2 sugars, 85 degrees.”

The Corporal cleared his plate with the same military structure and efficiency of someone used to serving the Admiralty 'at least the chaff still know their place,’ he thought to himself, smiling in anticipation as the smell of fresh ground coffee approached. Finally. Six months of nothing but the same, freeze-dried, instant coffee that was served exclusively on the Infinity. He fought down a shudder; it wouldn't be good for his career if other officers saw him shudder from a thought.

He nodded to the Corporal as his coffee was served, before lifting the cup to his lips, carefully taking his time to enjoy the aroma as the anticipation of the dark nectar grew…

“Captain Del-Rio? We need you to come with us. Lord Admiral Hood wants to speak with you. Now.”

Said Captain nearly dropped his cup at the voice suddenly interrupting his thoughts, mentally cursing whoever he could think of that might be responsible for this indignation, he turned around to see Fireteam Indigo standing behind him, ‘had I been that caught up in my thoughts?’ he sighed at the loss of his coffee, promising himself to get a new one before departing, before standing, “Very well.”

He tried to ignore how the Spartans formed around him like a bodyguard assignment…

Or a prisoner detail.

======================================================================

If there was one thing that Terrance Hood, First Lord of the Admiralty, absolutely hated, it was political promotions. Yes, Andrew Del-Rio had overseen most of the final stages of the UNSC Infinity's construction, and it did make sense for him to oversee the maiden voyage, but a commendation and promotion to a higher rank while remaining as a clerical officer was the done thing. But no. He had traded that promotion for a command posting and had gotten his “friends” to run it through quietly, but legally. It galled Hood that he couldn’t just reassign the captain, but it seemed no matter how much he fought against it, the Old Guard remained.

‘Fortunately,’ he thought to himself as Commander Lasky continued with a general and informal report of the Infinity's status, ‘I may have the opportunity to fix one of those issues’

“Admiral Hood?” Aegis's appearance caused all conversation in the room to halt. Hood turned to look at the AI, “Yes, Aegis?”

“Captain Del-Rio has just arrived.”

“Very good. Send him in.”

======================================================================

Commander Lasky stared at his (ex?) commanding officer as he was escorted to the Lord Admiral's office by the same Fireteam Indigo that had escorted him. It seemed that Lord Hood was wanting to make the same example that Captain Del-Rio had tried to…

“Captain Del-Rio, thank you for being so prompt.” If Lasky hadn’t seen the pure Rage that had come from Lord Hood’s body language before, he would never believe it if someone told him, so perfect was the Admiral’s control over his body language.

“Yes sir. If I may, sir, am I correct in assuming that this is about Commander Lasky’s future?”

Hood stared at the Captain, lips thinning ever so slightly, “You would be. However, I do have further questions for you in regards to Commander Lasky’s performance and alleged crimes.”

Lasky fought to keep his posture neutral as Del-Rio smugly replied, “Certainly, sir. I assume this is going on record?”

Hood nodded as he sat behind his desk, picking up a datapad to reference, “To begin. Well done on rescuing the Master Chief. That will almost certainly be rewarded after his Debrief. However, I could not get in contact with him to organise that debrief, him or Cortana. Can you inform me of their location?”

Lasky viciously smothered the smirk that threatened to break over his face at how quickly Del-Rio’s skin had paled, “T-The Master Chief disobeyed a direct order and abandoned his post, taking with him a Pursuit Pelican, which was arranged for him illegally by Commander Lasky.”

“So I see,” came the Admiral’s cutting reply, “and the alleged Forerunner encounter? I note that it was left out of your report and only included in the Commander's”

Lasky realised what the Lord Admiral was doing, as Del-Rio’s skin quickly passed pale and turned ashy, “We received no credible evidence of living Forerunners on the planet, only a new type of Forerunner AI construct. As far as the research team could deduce, the attacks on Infinity were purely automated.”

Again, Hood made notes with his stylus, “And Commander Lasky’s locations during the assault on Infinity and the Gravity Well? I have several logs indicating he was not at his post.”

Here, Del-Rio’s skin regained some of its lost colour and Lasky could see his commanding officer’s mind churning, “During the attack on the Infinity, Commander Lasky abandoned his post to pursue personal glory and a combat ribbon, taking a much-needed squad of Spartans with him, and for the Gravity Well? by the time I had realized he was no longer onboard, he had already managed to critically damage the Mammoth I had assigned to the mission.”

It was all Lasky could do not to laugh in his fellow officer’s face. He hadn’t seen anyone try and lie to a commanding officer since he got dragged in with Cadet Suliman back in CAMS… apparently Captain Del-Rio had forgotten that Commanding Officers of Rear-Admiral or higher were assigned Smart AIs to assist in Clerical matters, and were more than capable to be able to communicate with the Infinity’s database in order to pull the video and audio logs from everywhere, including the Captains office, where Del-Rio had ordered him on that fateful scouting mission.

“So I see.” Lasky wasn't sure if it was just the AI playing with the environmental settings or Lord Hood's disappointment, but the room seemed to plummet in temperature at his reply.

“Lastly, I would like to hear your reasoning as to the location of The Master Chief. I have been unable to get in contact with him for his debriefing. The Admiralty is very interested to hear his report.”

Anything the Captain may have been about to say was cut off by the golden flash of Aegis appearing on Lord Hood’s desk, “My apologies Admiral. I know you said you wanted no interruptions, but you need to see this, sir.” 

Lord Hood stared at the datapad, eyes flashing through whatever Aegis had sent him. Lasky didn't want to imagine what was on that pad, not with how visibly angry The Lord Admiral was looking. Finally, he finished the report and looked up, visibly forcing down anger, “Captain Del-Rio. What happened to the UNSC Infinity’s Artificial Intelligence?” 

Del-Rio stiffened, not expecting the question, “It was lost during the Storm Covenant’s attack on the Infinity, sir.”

Lasky noted the Lord Admiral’s eyelid begin to twitch, and realized, this wasn't anger he was seeing suppressed, it was Rage.

“And the reports that have supposedly been deleted, by your orders, that show you interfering with the UNSC AI ANE 3567-7’s memory servers? That have reports of you threatening engineers with their lives if they ever mentioned it? That have you issuing override codes to Aine, codes specifically reserved for AI scientists and ONI specialists to access restricted files? The Forerunner Sphere may have been what killed her, but make no mistake. Aine did a good job of making sure we knew the name of her Murderer. So. Please. I eagerly await your explanation."

Del-Rio flinched, actually flinched, before rallying himself, “Sir. The AI was glitching and defective. I was merely doing what needed to be done to keep the ship and her crew safe until we returned to port for repair and resupply.”

In that moment, Lasky understood why he was here. An officer to bear witness for his peers, a reward for standing up to an abusive superior, a witness to be called upon later, and most importantly, a threat.

The datapad hit the wall. Admiral Terrance Hood, The First Lord of the Admiralty, the highest-ranking man in the United Nations Space Command, the man who commanded the human military through the worst war in Human history, lost his temper, “That is the fourth time you have lied to my face. You will not do so a fifth. You recklessly endangered the life of your Executive officer. Twice. You Knowingly, Willingly, Deliberately and Maliciously caused direct damage to the Smart AI assigned to the Infinity, resulting in her destruction. You acted in complete dereliction of duty to your crew by forcing the Infinity back into space after a planetary crash landing without proper checks. You acted in dereliction of duty by fleeing from a clear and present danger to Earth and her colonies without taking all due actions to stop it. Because of your cowardice and decision to flee, you forced the Master Chief, a man who has turned down more commendations than an entire fleet will ever earn, to leave the ship to do his job, alone, without support or back up. You then illegally marooned him on said planet as the Infinity ran from the very threat it was designed to combat. You have dishonoured yourself, your crew, the Infinity itself, the UNSC Navy, and every officer of good standing. You have ONE opportunity to speak in your defence and explain to me why I should not have you arrested immediately. I suggest you choose your next words carefully.”

It was all Lasky could do to keep himself from gaping as Andrew Del-Rio stiffened, his posture mimicking that when he had been told “no” by The Master Chief, before he took two very measured steps forward towards the Lord Admiral's desk, “I was given command of the Infinity. I have acted with distinction and the conduct expected of me. If you have a problem with my actions, Sir, you can direct them not only to me, but to Senator Elgart as well. I’m sure he would be interested to hear about the First Lord of the Admiralty’s overreach of command.”

Lasky felt his jaw drop at the Incredibly unsubtly veiled threat, he was then forced to click it shut lest it be dislocated as Lord Hood placed his hands on his desk and stood, “Andrew Del-Rio, you are hereby placed under arrest for the crimes of dereliction of duty, attempted murder of a fellow officer, Cowardice, reckless endangerment of enlisted soldiers, the murder of The Smart AI Aine, destruction of military property, and the crimes of Illegally marooning Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra-117 and Smart AI Cortana. You will be remanded to a holding cell until the current Forerunner Crisis is confirmed as neutralised. Until such time, you will Not have access to comms or Waypoint. Your command codes will be deactivated. At such time as is possible, you will have a JAG officer assigned to you. If you attempt to escape, you will be remanded to ONI for more secure holdings. Do you understand?”

The door to the Admiral's office slid open and a dozen members of the UNSC Military Police stood outside “Captain Andrew Del-Rio? You will come with us now.” The MP Master Sargent’s voice offered no room for argument as the former captain of the Infinity was handcuffed and led away, his proud stance slowly slumping as reality slowly dawned on him. 

Lasky glanced over as Lord Hood’s shoulders slumped down ever so slightly, before the Admiral straightened and fixed him with a piercing stare, causing him to straighten out of habit, “Commander Lasky. The UNSC Infinity is in need of a captain, at the very least a temporary one, until this issue is dealt with. Do you believe yourself capable of taking command of the Infinity?”

Lasky felt his heart stop in his chest. Was he understanding the Admiral? “Uh… Yes sir. I am well acquainted with The Infinity and her systems and crew.” ‘Smooth Lasky, very smooth’ 

The Admiral nodded, “Well then. Until this current… Issue is dealt with, I, Terrance Hood, First Lord of the Admiralty, hereby appoint you, Commander Thomas Lasky to Acting Captain. You are to assume Command of The Infinity temporarily, until such time as the supposed Forerunner threat has been confirmed as either non-existent or neutralized. At such time, the board of Admirals will be examining eligible officers for promotion to Captaincy.” Lasky nodded, trying not to swallow as his mouth suddenly ran dry, “I suggest you make a good showing of yourself, Mr. Lasky. We will be watching”

Lasky fought to not let his voice crack, instead buying time with a salute before managing a clear, “Understood, Sir.”

“Well then, Acting Captain Lasky, I suggest you return to your ship. Fireteam Indigo has been sent to the docking bay to await your arrival-” the rest of the Admiral’s speech was cut off as the station went to red-alert, the view outside the window shifting, as the SuperMAC rotated to target whatever had arrived- “On the Double Captain!”

Lasky promised himself to find out what AI’s liked and get Aegis something as thanks for re-routing the monorail to take him directly to the hangar, The Pelicans' engines were already humming with pre-launch thrust. “Palmer!” he barked into the Pelican’s coms, as soon as the Pelican had launched. The Spartan Commander was shocked to hear his voice, “Lasky? Where’s Captain Del-Rio?” Lasky groaned to himself, Impromptu changes of command were hectic on the best occasions, “He has been relieved of command, I’m acting Captain until this headache is over. Now, what have we got?”

Frustrating of a fellow officer that she could be, at least Sarah Palmer knew when to be professional, mostly, “That giant Forerunner ship that left requiem just appeared out of slipspace near Io, current time to contact, 1 hour.”

Lasky cursed softly, “Pilot, get us back. Palmer, we are 5 minutes out. Bring the ship up to red alert. I want MACs primed and HAVOK’s armed. I’m not sure what took him so long to get here, but I’m willing to bet whatever it was is not good for us. Lasky out.”