Amid the inky blackness of space sat a green and blew jewel of a planet. Surrounded by swirling clouds and warmed by the rays of its parent star, the planet served as a bastion of life against the violent expanse of the stars.
Even so, this world was under siege by forces that would see life rendered extinct, it's broken moon served as a reminder of that fact. The people that called this planet home were locked in an unending struggle against their mortal enemies. The shadowy beasts that hunted them, and the defenders that culled them in turn. The world of Remnant was indeed a planet at war. Not a war between nations or peoples, but a war for the very survival of civilization. This is what had been for centuries, even millennia.
And so, it is not surprising that few looked up to the stars. Few looked up and saw what may await them out beyond the welcoming embrace of their homeworld. Fewer still would notice the derelict vessel hurtling towards them.
Yet this vessel was built for war. Cut into amidships, the vessel was largely harmless. Without power and lacking many of its weapons, it could not hope to face anything more than an errant space rock and win.
And yet it carried upon it the greatest soldier in the history of the galaxy.
Upon this ship slept the Hero of Humanity…
-[]-[]-[]-
The Master Chief stirred inside his cryo-pod. His mind was hazy, one of the immediate after-effects of spending time in cryo-sleep. He could vaguely here the voice of Cortana, though her words were muffled as his ears began to thaw. His arms and legs were sluggish, the muscles still half-frozen.
"Chief." The worried tone of Cortana suddenly registered, and he exploded into action. His once sluggish arms moved with lightning quickness as his palms slammed into the curved glass of the Cryo-pod. "Chief! Don't stress your body! You're still shaking off cryo!"
He knew this already. He'd spent decades frozen on ships moving from one deployment to the next. He knew the procedures for cryo, and he knew what his body could take. He would be fine. What he was worried about was the situation he was in.
He was still aboard the Forward unto Dawn. They hadn't been found, the fact that there were no Marines in the room was proof enough of that. They were still adrift in space on a half destroyed frigate.
So why was he waking up?
He spotted Cortana's holographic form sitting on a pedestal near the center of the room. He could see her concern on her face. He knew that she didn't feel emotions the same way he did, hers were simulated. But he couldn't help but see that she was worried. Truly worried.
There was a reason she'd woken him.
"Why did you wake me?" He asked the AI, letting his hands fall back to his sides.
"What? No hello?" Cortana quipped, trying to put on a brave face and a smile. Despite being able to process information thousands of times faster than an ordinary human, she wasn't quick enough to fool the Chief. "I would've thought you'd be happy to see an old friend!"
He said nothing. Cortana's shoulders sagged, realising that the Chief already knew something was up.
"I detected a gravitational disturbance on the ships sensors." She said as a control panel winked into existence in front of her. "…Or at least the sensors that aren't offline. My best guess for what I know is that we might be heading towards a gravitational body."
"You're not sure?"
"I did mention the missing sensors didn't I?" She stated. "Hold on Chief, I'm disengaging the locks on your pod. We're probably going to want to get off this ship…"
The Chief heard the locks disengage, and he quickly pushed the door open. The artificial gravity was inoperable as far as he could tell. He pushed himself out of the cryo-pod, floating over to Cortana on the pedestal.
Just as he was about to grab hold, the ship suddenly lurched with a mighty crash, sending the half-ton Spartan hurtling into the far wall. His shields took the brunt of the hit, draining down to about 50% from the impact. Didn't matter, he could take the hit.
"Chief!" Cortana's worried voice cut through the room.
"What happened?!" He barked, his mind already going through hundreds of scenarios. Were they under attack? Was it the Covenant? No, they had a truce with the Elites. Didn't discount the Brutes though, maybe it was them. Was the Dawn more damaged than they thought, and the ship was finally falling apart?
"I'm not sure. I think we just hit something big. I'm getting nothing from the starboard engines. They must have fallen off!" Cortana reported, the data streams running up and down her form frantically shifting and rearranging as she processed what information she was getting. "Chief, yank me! We need to get out of here."
The Spartan launched himself back at the pedestal. This wasn't a lazy drift over to Cortana, if he missed he'd find himself smacking into the wall on the other side. But a Spartan doesn't miss, and he grabbed hold of the pedestal, legs swinging around as he tried to stop his momentum. Without pausing, he pulled Cortana's data chip out as her form retreated, quickly slotting into the back of his helmet.
"Marking the nearest escape pods Chief! Go!" The AIs voice resounded in his head. He was already moving, kicking off the pedestal and out into the hallway. He could hear the Dawn groaning as its superstructure began to tear itself apart. The Impact had knocked the ship into a spin, and with no atmosphere to slow it down, there was a good chance the ship would keep spinning until it fragmented.
The Chief kept moving through the various corridors, avoiding damaged portions of the ship whenever he could. He didn't stop to catch his breath, he didn't need to. He rarely ever needed to. But more and more he kept running into dead ends, and more and more the interior of the ship began to show the damage the spin was beginning to inflict on the already damaged vessel.
Chunks of metal plating would shift and warp, sometimes even fall off and bounce around the corridors. Exposed wiring blocked off other paths, sparking with enough raw energy to completely fry his shields in an instant.
He was rapidly running out of time and he wasn't reaching the escape pods fast enough.
"Faster Chief! We need to get out of here!" Cortana ordered, frantically searching for alternate route to the escape pods. Even her efforts didn't amount to much, as by the time they reached the alternate route the ship had only suffered more damage, and they'd find it blocked.
And eventually, even the Master Chief's astounding luck failed him. A bulkhead suddenly ripped out of the wall just as he crossed in front of it. He had no warning, and not enough time to get out of the way. It crashed into him with enough force to stun him and drain his shields down to nothing. The bulkhead carried him along on its journey down the hallway, spinning end over end as it slammed into the walls along the way.
The Chief tried to recover, only to be met with a wall to the face as he tossed himself down and away from the tumbling piece of Titanium-A plating. He kept going, his own momentum carrying him after the bulkhead and dragging him clear off course from the escape pods. His chances for getting out of this ship alive had gotten considerably slimmer.
"Chief watch out!" Cortana shouted. He looked up in time to see a massive coolant pipe come tumbling after the bulkhead, right into the path of the Spartan. He barely had time to throw himself out of the way as it came spinning past.
"Chief we we're running out of time!" Screamed Cortana. "We need to be at those escape pods yesterday!"
"I know." He asserted as he began pushing himself back up the hallway towards the escape pods. He still had time. It would be close, but he could still make it.
And then the hallway collapsed as the ship fell apart around him. The corridor sheared itself in half, huge chunks of rent metal flinging themselves in all different directions as the ship itself screeched in agony. One of those chunks came hurtling at him, and by the time his mind registered it, it was far too late. It slammed into his helmet, and even though his shields had replenished, they didn't save him.
The momentum of the strike was enough to send him hurtling backwards as the hallway behind him fell apart. Exposed wires caught the Spartan and wrapped themselves around his arms and legs, somehow managing to pin him to what little of the walls remained.
"Move Chief!" Cortana was screaming at him. She could do nothing to help. It was all on him, and try as he might he just couldn't fee himself from the tangling cables. His own superior physique and powerful Mjolnir Armor were no match for the binds that now held him in place.
"CHIEF!"
-[]-[]-[]-
On the surface, no one was even aware of the chaos going on above their heads.
After all they weren't even aware of the small child lurking in the shadows. The child owned the night, this was where she was in her element. It didn't hurt that no one would spare her a second glance as she went about her work.
She let a small smile grace her lips as she eyed her prize. Sat in the displace case of a local shop was the nicest piece of kit that anyone on the frontier could hope to get their hands on. It would go a long way to improving her collection.
The tiny black square was far beyond her price range of course, but she had a cunning plan. One she'd perfected over years of business.
She glanced down both ends of the street, watching for anyone who might be out and about at this ungodly hour. No one, she was in the clear. She quickly skittered across the street, ducking into the alley next to the store. The shopkeeper had gone home, and had locked the place up tight.
Too bad she knew how to beat those locks. Few things on the frontier towns were high-tech.
She came to the back door of the shop, and began digging through her pack for her tools. Grabbing her lock-picks she settled down in front of the door, keeping her ears open for any sign of people or animals that could ruin her master plan.
She got through the locks without much difficulty and entered the store. This was the back room, where the shopkeep kept the inventory. She wouldn't find what she was looking for here. Something so rare would likely be the only one they had. So she kept going, stepping through the door that separated the store room from the back.
She spotted her prize, still sitting in the display window. She kept low to the floor, walking forward in a crouch to keep people from seeing her from the outside. It lessened her chances of being caught by a passing guard watch.
There it was, within arms reach. The small, grey half-sphere with a pane of glass on the top. She grabbed it, taking care not to disturb the rest of the display. With luck, most passersby would believe that the shopkeep had brought it into the back for safe-keeping during the night.
She shoved her quarry into her bag, and slipped back out the way she came, carefully shutting the doors behind her. Odds were that nobody would notice anything was missing until they realised they couldn't find the item in the display window.
She hurried through the various alleys between the small buildings of the village, trying to put some distance between her and the shop. You never truly knew if your plan had worked. She found one of the taller buildings of the village, and quickly clambered up the fire escape to the roof.
She pulled herself up over the lip of the building, reaching up and pulling the hood of her jacked down off her head. The small round ears on top of her head could now welcome the night, as her short, coarse black hair shuddering under the cool nighttime breeze.
"Heh, without a hitch." She congratulated herself as she pulled her prize from her bag. She gave it a quick once over as the cool metal glinted in the moonlight. She grinned, the prize she'd been eying for the past week was now in her hand.
She quickly placed it back in her bag and moved towards the back of the building. She came to the edge of the roof, and hopped down onto a lower level. There she found a small, cobbled-together structure that roughly approximated a shelter with the entrance obscured by a waterproof tarp. She entered it, pushing the tarp out of the way.
She flicked a switch, and the single light bolted to the roof flickered on. "Hey I'm home!" She muttered in greeting. There was no one else in the room. What was inside was a small crate, a well used and messily-kept sleeping bag, a small refrigerator and a collection of computer parts plugged into a set of Dust Cells.
Home sweet home for Grun Beldwann.
She sat down cross-legged in front of the pile of computer parts. They were connected all right, bound by wires without any rhyme or reason other than they eventually connected to an old keyboard, and a crappy monitor that for all intents should be found in a scrap pile.
Then again, maybe it kinda was.
Grun ulled her prise back out of her bag, placing it down on the crate that held the electronics and plugged two cables into the ports at the back. Then she shifted over to the keyboard, fingers gliding as her eyes focused on the command lines appearing on the monitor bolted to the wall.
Eventually the lens of the small half-sphere began to glow with a cool blue light. Now she knew it was working. She typed in a few more commands, and suddenly a small image sprang to life above the small projector.
It was a picture. It showed three people, a short kindly looking woman with long black hair, a tall broad-shouldered man with a playful smile on his face, and between the two of them stood a small girl looking positively cheerful in the summer daylight, what with her big goofy grin.
Grun gave the picture a small smile, leaning until the image encompassed her entire view. "Hey Mom, hey Dad." She said softly. "Been a while huh?"
A moment of silence passed in the room before she spoke again. "I've been good. Trying to stay out of trouble as best I can." She lied. "I remembered the stuff you guys taught me and I'm doing alright. Things aren't peachy, but when is anything perfect?"
Another pause.
"Yeah, I know, but you guys don't need to worry about me. I'm a big girl now! I can take care of myself! And I'm in one of the bigger villages now, so if the Grimm show up I've got people to watch my back."
She paused again.
"No mom, I didn't find other people to stay with… I couldn't do that to you guys." She chuckled, letting her gaze fall to her lap. "Well…I should probably get some sleep. It's kinda late and I got a big day ahead of me tomorrow."
She reached up to the power button for the projector. "Goodnight! Sleep Tight!..." She paused. "Yeah, don't let the bedbugs bite, I got it Dad." She pressed the button and the image vanished.
Grun quickly began to get ready for bed, kicking off her shoes and pulling the sleeping bag open so she could slip inside.
Her ears perked up as low rumbling booms rolled through the air. Those were explosions, somewhere off in the distance. Sometimes Huntsmen used explosive weapons, might be one just passing through the area and ran into a pack of Grimm on the way.
Then the room started to shake, and the air itself began to rumble.
That wasn't a Huntsman.
She dashed outside to see what was going on. Her jaw dropped as streaks of fire fell from the sky over the village. She could here panicked shouts as people down below ran outside much like she had and saw the fireballs roaring across the sky.
One of them broke apart on its way down a loud BANG slicing through the air and forcing Grun to cover her ears as best she could. She kept watching as they came down low over the forests outside the village, crashing into the earth with a series of booms that shook the very earth beneath the villager's feet. The balls of flame set the forest ablaze, the glow bright enough to rival that of the morning sun.
There village was left in stunned silence. After all that, Grun found the sudden quiet eerie. She couldn't take her eyes off the now burning forest in the distance. Meteor shower, that's what it was right? Some people thought that meteor showers were bad omens, especially out on the frontier. They say that they attracted the Grimm.
Blood curdling howls rolled through the air, adding to the effects the fireballs had caused. Grun froze. She knew those howls. She knew them all too well. Beowolves, and a lot of them by the sounds of it. The villagers down below began scrambling to and fro, trying to grab what they could in preparation to fend off an attack.
Apparently, the Grimm were attracted by meteor showers. Grun ducked back into her shelter and grabbed her shoes, slipping them back on before hurriedly grabbing whatever she could and stuffing it into her backpack. Food, tools, and her pile of electronics, all but ripping the old monitor out of its makeshift mounting. She didn't have a lot of time to get to the evacuation points before they started moving.
She'd have to book it to make it out with them.
