It's been four and a half years since Master Chief and Cortana went MIA in space as half the UNSC Frigate Forward Unto Dawn was drifted through space waiting for help to arrive but no one came to save them, while Chief was still asleep in his pod the AI Cortana remains active waiting for her distress signal to go off meaning that help arrived.

During the quiet and boring long waiting game something would come and picked up on their signal but it was not human or Covenant it was something else, something that shouldn't find them but it's coming, it causes Cortana to turn to her humanoid form on the desk looking up frightened for the moment as she believes it's not the rescue team.

The half ship would start to shake for the moment knowing something is coming onboard of their ship causing her to quickly look at the display screen of the pod where John sleeps; she has to awaken him now before it's too late. She looks back to his pod looking at the Spartan sleeping in that pod waiting for him to wake up.

While John was slowly waking up an explosion goes off nearby causing Cortana to be worried looking at the door that stands between them and this unknown entity causing her to look back to John. "John... can you hear me... John you need to wake up now." She hears another explosion looking back at the door then back to him "Chief get up now!"

Soon finally chief woken his eyes hearing her voice calling out his name, he slowly moves to the side then place his hands on the pod looking at her. "John... come on, wait hold on let me help you out." She looks back trying to bring back gravity on the ship before opening the pod for him to get out.

"Are you alright Chief?" she said as he falls to the ground then slowly gets back up

"I'm fine whats going on?"

"There's something on this ship... quick wire me back up now."

Chief grabs the chip from the small case then Cortana vanishes and comes inside that chip, he places it on the back of his helmet then he looks down seeing his assault rifle on the ground, he grabs it and started to move.

A square screen was shown on the side of his helmet "I have been modifying your armour while you were asleep."

"You have been busy." He said as he looks at the door then he opens it up, he takes aim then looks around before pressing forward "How long was i out?"

"Ten years, six months and ten days right now."

"Someone should have found us by now." He said as he moves down the corridor to the next room

"I know... but something has found us."

Chief waits for the moment before the door opens up, as he walks forward he notices that the whole area was gone causing him to move backwards seeing some debris falling down. He looks down seeing space as this hole was blown through by something. Chief takes a few steps back then he makes a run then leaps over to grab a hold on something for him to start climbing to the next room, some more debris falls upon him so he quickly jumps to the side to avoid it before moving forward. Finally he makes it to a door that was blown off but the entrance to another room was still intact once he made it up there he crawls to that room but there was something in that room.

When he was halfway in that room something would come out of another room out of the shadows, it was a seven foot tall half human flesh and the rest mechanical, its right arm was a long metal spike while his other arm a mace, the front of the body, the knees and back were all stitched in flesh while the rest was robotic. This strange creature tried to stab John but he moves to the side and wraps one arm around the blade, punching this creature then he leans back to let the creature fall over him falling out through the hole down into space.

"What... was that?"

"Whatever it was... it wasn't Covenant."

"Well now we know who's on this ship." He holds his assault rifle ready and moves to the bridge there he will find more of them.

"Well we always knew there was more alien life forms out there... but that thing? It's like looking at a humanoid Sentinel gone badly wrong."

John moves to the bridge noticing another one of them standing by looking at the front window but the screens on the windows were covered up, Chief slowly walks over towards that thing then takes out a knife and stabs it from behind stabbing through its neck then stabs again to the chest where the bluish energy object before kicking it to the ground.

There was infantry standing by, they were in human size and naked but the legs were in mechanical and their arms were mechanical too along with a weapon attachment instead of an arm. Six of them were nearby shooting at him firing off bullets at him while he tries to shoot back to them taking out one of them before moving to a crate full of weapons, he decided to take out an SMG and place it on his waist while shooting the others and obtaining more ammo for his rifle, only one of these things remain he runs to the other side then gets it from behind, grabbing it's head and snapping its neck lets it fall to the ground.

"These things fight like Covenant... that 'thing' with the blade fights like an Elite while these guys..." she notices they started to dissolve like fade away in green energy until there is nothing left of it "Well that's new."

"There not covenant... something is up." He moves back to the top of the control room looking at the front of the windows being closed up, he tries to override it and slowly it would open up to see whats going on in space.

"They seem to be a search team so there could be a ship or two..." She said and then she notices there's almost ten ships out there "Or an entire fleet of ships."

These ships were large and the same, they were black and long like a blade; the smaller ones were nearby while this large ship was far away on orbit of this orange wasteland planet where they are heading to.

"Do we have any weapons to fight against the ships?"

"No we lost the weapon display on the other side of the ship that is gone... luckily we can do it manually."

"Then we need to head outside."

"Well you better do it now because i can see that ship is getting ready to fire." She notices one of the frigates the same size as a UNSC frigate started to move towards them knowing it's charging its weapons.

John turns back and started to make the run to the next room, heading to this curved corridor before heading to one more room where there he can get outside and fight in space, just when he leaves that corridor he notices two enemies standing by the opened door, it was like the one he first fought, seven foot tall but this one was different, the chest and the legs were all mechanical while the rest were flesh except for the mouth and arms, the right arms were a square like sort of weapon one of them loads something then fired towards him, a grenade hits near him and explodes hitting his shield while the other one started firing machine gun rounds towards him before firing a grenade

John started to open fire avoiding the grenade attacks they do then throws his own grenade at them, hitting in the middle of the two but they keep moving forward shooting at him but soon his shield goes down but he keeps shooting at the two finally taking one of them out then takes out the other while running towards it.

He reloads his weapon before heading outside, Cortana needs to release the air out of that room before going outside there he will see more of these things out there. The door opens when the air is gone noticing a Battle Rifle floating to the side of him noticing they got a drop ship coming, a fat transport ship like a Pelican but orange like dropping more of those infantry guards. John started using the battle rifle taking out a couple with a headshot while moving towards the display pad that was nearby for him to fire a warhead towards that ship.

"Chief we have to get there now that ship is ready to fire if it does fire we won't be able to survive the impact!"

"I'm on it." He said as he keeps moving avoiding the blasts and bullets, finally he spots another one of the ones with the blade running towards him, he fired the rest of his rounds at it with his assault rifle then it falls to the ground, he runs to the display case and arms the missile.

The missile comes out of the tube and fires it in the sky, it goes towards that ship and soon it takes a direct hit at the front of the ship causing it to explode the front of the ship and started to fly over Forward Unto Dawn before causing massive explosions that started to go off everywhere on that ship.

"You did it... oh no..." She notices that large ship in the far distance started to move turn its angle towards them "Chief... arm another nuke..."

"I don't think we can destroy that ship." He turns back and started to return back inside, heading through a door nearby

"Chief you need to get in an escape pod before that ship gets in range; we will be blown out in space if it gets here."

"I know." He closes the door then waits for the air to return back inside, he reloads his battle rifle then he runs through the front door heading to another room.

He did notice something strange just happen in his system by Cortana "What was that?"

"Don't worry about it just run!" her voice started to change a bit as she was having a malfunction or something but John kept running through the rooms ignoring the enemy, he punches down a door then makes it to an escape pod.

John manage to escape the UNSC ship Forward Unto Dawn before that large flagship got into position firing off this orange blasting shells towards the ship obliterating it quickly but the others nearby started to fire too to destroy any evidence. John looks up seeing the ship destroyed going past the flagship without getting detected then started to get into orbit of the planet and won't be long before he crashes hard onto the planet.

"I think we are about to get pulled into a meat grinder." Cortana said to him

"We will make it out of here."

"Are you sure about that John?"

"I am sure, we have to survive and escape before the UNSC find this planet."

"If the UNSC find this planet then they will get pulled back into another war."

"We won't let that happen."

"And if it happens John? What then?"

"Then we fight." He leans back waiting for the pod to crash land on the planet.

The pod would soon crash upon an empty wasteland close to a large mechanical factory, there were defensive turrets nearby but they didn't pick up the pod in time thought it was just an asteroid as there was thousands of them floating around the planet. After the crash Chief got out of the pod and looks forward aiming his battle rifle ready.

"We need a ship off this planet."

"I don't know much of..." He started to get more of Cortana's malfunction as she started to change her voice a bit and the screen started to get fuzzy

Chief pulls the chip out of his helmet then aims it in front of himself and Cortana appears in a small version of herself "What was that?"

"It... was nothing probably some problem of the crash."

"You were not fine on the ship... Cortana."

"It's my lifespan... it's been longer than it should have been..."

While she was talking about what happen elsewhere a high class UNSC ship called the Infinity was somewhere close from the range of the beacon but then the beacon went off but they were able to get the co ordinance of the ship Forward Unto Dawn. That ship was armed and ready to make the jump along with four more UNSC frigates by its side ready to finally search for the Master Chief and the AI Cortana, it's a matter of time before they get there and would be fighting another new race, the Strogg.