The galaxy is a big place, truly it is. Many things go on in a place as big as space; which seems like a never ending black blanket with stains that represented planets and stars. But, the two species that practically controlled space and time have passed, each leaving their own legacy before disappearing from existence. Both had to destroy the two most epic parasites the galaxy has ever known. The first race kept the parasite down by creating a species that hunted them, while the other had to sacrifice their selves; including a temporary sacrifice of all the other organic species of half their galaxy.
They both actually knew and consorted with one another, they both thought of the ideas to destroy them. The second species survived a bit longer than their dear allies; who they wept and mourned over greatly, and went on to help many other species on their part of the galaxy; including keeping a portion of the human species alive and well in secret. But, soon they too went extinct and left behind possibly the greatest hunter in all of existence.
The first species left a legacy that spawned many years of warring between a single Covenant of different species that fought against a less advance part of the human species that lived on their side of the galaxy. Many losses have been taken against both factions of this war that has stretched across over twenty-eight years and cost over billions of human lives and countless soldiers in this covenant of species' armed forces. The winning of this war was responsible and capable only because of a new breed of humans. Super soldiers they called them at first, Spartans the next. But, there was one that was bred specially and eventually rose through the ranks to Master Chief, Petty Officer. He is the greatest of all the Spartans, even the newer models. His A.I. is the closest friend he has; one of his last surviving friends, and she is on the verge of going completely rampant. What could a simple super soldier do to save her...?
The two are about to collide, as the second species had predicted; just like how they predicted all their other exploits and adventures. They knew, the one who raised the Bounty Hunter knew... he knew and when he died, he died with a smile knowing what he knew...
Beep-Oop-Boop, went the holographic hand-print scanner as the Bounty hunter entered the coordinates for the nearest civilization claimed planet with a docking port of some kind. The Varia suit; the one she had recovered from the SA-X, made a ginger humming sound as it faded away and off of her body—leaving the Bounty hunter in her Zero suit. She leaned back into her chair; still exhausted from the narrow escape from the Biologic Space Laboratories as it was crashing down towards the previous Metroid home-world-before she massacred almost every Metroid there-SR388. It all felt like a blur now that she was looking back on it, it was all just so much chaos with the X and those baby Metroids that the Federation was trying to grow. What a strange serious of events she had found herself in, if it weren't for the SA-X's sacrifice... she would have never made it out alive- all with that Omega Metroid blocking her way.
The sound of chirping and deep inhaling that sounded a bit wet and organic noises were heard. Glancing over her shoulder, the Bounty Hunter smiled slightly seeing the several Etecoons and Dachori behind her. Getting up from her chair, Samus slowly sauntered up to the animals. She reached her hand out towards one of the Dachori, the baby looked up at her with large innocent eyes; they reminded her of an infant's eyes. 'A baby...' She thought.
Suddenly, the sensation of a feathery head rubbing into her hand. Peering down at the animals she saw that the infant Dachora had reached its neck out and nuzzled the top of its head against her hand. Its feathers; while it was hard to tell from the Zero suit's skin tight material, felt as soft as a silkworm's skin. It felt very crisp as her fingers gingerly rubbed up against the head; going against the feathers a bit. Samus smiled softly as she gazed at the infant with a feeling of relaxation. But, the moment did end as the mother Dachora made a sort of, "Puff, Puff, Bang", sound—it reminded me of the sound that the speed booster function of my suit makes when it starts to activate—to tell its child to stop now.
The infant replied with a slightly sad puff, puff, bang sound and returned to resting its head on the spot on its mother's body.
Samus smiled wearily and softly waved at the mother; who was looking at her intently with an almost grateful expression—if the Dachora were capable of doing. The Bounty Hunter would interact with the Etecoons, but they were hanging from a place on the roof of her ship, sleeping peacefully.
She sighed softly as she leisurely strolled back to her chair, sat down in it, and then leaned back in it tiredly. The events on the BSL station took a lot more out of her than she initially thought.
"Adam…?" Samus spoke to the computer of her new ship.
"Yes? Have you questions milady?" It replied.
"How long do you think it will take to get to that planet?"
"Well, approximately two weeks at the most. But, there is a planet that is considerably closer to our position right now… but, it is a Federation Outpost."
"In that case, I'll wait. After all the lying, deceiving, and illegal activities they've done, I'd soon become part Metroid and part X."
"Well, your half way to that at least, if it is any consolation."
"Very funny Adam. You said two weeks ri~"
Suddenly, the gunship's hazard detectors went off with loud volumes; startling the Etecoons and Dachori, as a mammoth sized chunk of obvious spaceship wreckage debris floated down in front of the ship. Bewildered, Samus grabbed a hold of the gunship's controls, deactivated the autopilot, and then jerked the controls up; jerking the ship straight up in a swiftly sharp motion, barely missing the chunk of wreckage that had appeared out of nowhere. Catching another chunk of debris—much smaller than the last—that had been following than the last one closely out of the corner of her eyes, Samus quickly slammed her curled up fist against the button that activated the weapons. The gunship's wings opened up horizontally down the middle, four missiles gradually obtruded out then rocketed outwards; accelerating like a speeding bullet, and plowed into the debris, completely decimating it to dust.
After she had cleared the debris that would have severely damage; if not destroy, her ship, the Bounty Hunter stopped the ship's movement entirely. She wanted to take a breather after the experience, but there was far too little time. Because she could now see what looked like a giant field of space debris, chunks of torn of ship, and other debris of a type of ship that she has never seen before. The source of debris and wreckage made itself known to her as she could see a slightly chilling sight.
It was a ship, a very strange ship. It kind of looked like the back part of the ship had been violently torn off by something with amazing power; as it looked like a practically clean cut. The part that remained kind of looked like a sort of rifle without its stock. [Seriously, I looked up pictures and I swear to god from a 2D view, that is exactly what it looks like for a frigate with its back on!] Its size was what confused her the most; not the unknown design and the strange, "UNSC Forward onto Dawn" emblem on it, as it kind of had the size of a Federation class ship, but it looked a lot smaller than one of their frigates.
The ship was rotating slowly—almost as slow as a man in slow motion while underwater—and drifting sluggishly forwards. It was like the Olympus, it was a sort of ghost ship that had been long since forgotten. It had a mysterious aura of death and destruction—she had this feeling that this ship had seen countless years of bloodshed and war. But, why wasn't the ship's automatic distress beacon or even a manual distress beacon; if it even had one, that was supposed to be activated when the ship was being attacked—or in this case… beenattacked.
The prospect of someone actually surviving the whole ordeal that this ship and its occupants must've endured crossed her mind. 'What if someone survived…?' She thought to herself. It was worth a look since the ship was neither in Federation of Space Pirate claimed sectors. Re-correcting her gunship's course to land on the ship and as the ship began to fly towards and find a safe landing spot; from the help of the computer, Samus spent time to calm down the animals.
The days in the Forward onto Dawn—Sargent Johnson's frigate, may he rest in peace—were very boring and fairly routine after the first year aboard it for Cortana. It was all the same thing really: it was just monitor the ship's course, monitor the frigate's hull integrity, and make sure the ships still attached systems were functioning correctly, and too keep an eye on John's vitals and make sure his slumber wasn't disturbed.
But, today was a bit different. Today Cortana was monitoring the long range scanners when she picked up what looked like the explosion from multiple missiles destroy a small chunk of the Dawn's hull. The AI took some precautionary measures, as the explosion signatures were not like regular UNSC missiles. It kind of mimicked a Covenant's explosive signatures.
But, as the thing that the long range scanners picked up the object that destroyed the chunk of debris, Cortana saw that it matched no known Covenant or UNSC; not even Flood or Forerunner, classes of ships in her database. It made her feel a bit strange; she guessed that if she could truly feel and comprehend emotions, this is probably what fear would be like. The AI flickered through the AI terminals in the ship until she reached the terminal in the Cryobay.
Looking at John in the pod, he seemed relaxed and at ease. It seemed like a heinous crime to rob him of a true relaxing leave of duty… but she had no choice, she needed him awake. Hesitantly Cortana pressed a holographic button she brought up; the words "Confirm reanimation?" appeared and flashed on the holo-screen. She took one long gaze at the pod with the most dedicated and loyalist and experienced and best and most lucky Spartan there ever was or will be.
"Please Chief…" she reached out and pressed the confirm button, the chamber started to reanimate Chief with streams of steam spewing inside of the pod, "I need you to wake up…"
The soldier's eyes opened with a sleepy annoyance that came with being awoken from such a nice, long, and peaceful sleep. He felt himself stumbled a little and had to shoot out his arms and steel his hands against the glass door of the crypod to catch himself—the effects of Cryogenic freeze having a short, but effective toll. Quickly he shook away the effects of the very long cryogenic induced slumber. Slowly; like a snail slugging towards its next meal, the effects wore off and his hyper-sensitive senses returned to their keen and crisp and pristine condition as they quickly worked to create a mental tactical map of the scene he found himself in right now; scrutinizing every detail of what he could see.
In his looking and assessing, he saw a slight bluish purple colored AI; female, standing… no projecting herself above an AI terminal. It was her.
He looked at Cortana, "Why did you wake me?"
"Nice to see you too, only been a few years. The long range scanners picked up something blowing up a chunk of debris from the frigate, had major firepower, one heck of a buck, you could say it was missiles, but it had no kind of explosion like any human missile I've ever seen, almost like a mixture of Covenant and Forerunner really. But, what shocked me is that it had no known identification. Didn't match a single UNSC, Covenant, or even Flood or Forerunner ship we've ever seen before."
The Chief nodded seriously, he understood the danger that this unknown variable presented them. It had a weapon that seemed to mimic a mix of Covenant and Forerunner power. Something like that had to be very powerful and extremely deadly. The question was, was whoever owned such a power friendly or hostile?
"Cortana, I need this thing opened now. I need to greet our unknown guest before they try going through the backdoor after getting no response from the front door." Ordered John.
The AI nodded slightly and seemed to cycle through the systems of the terminal she was uploaded to, "I... I'm sorry John, but... I-I can't seem to find the system to remotely open the pod..." her voice was almost bewildered by the fact.
Looking left and right, Chief hit his right curled hand against the chamber door, "How can I open it from this end then?"
"Well, there are two ways."
"They are...?"
"One, you can beat the pod door open. Two, you could try and find the manual release lever somewhere in the chamber of the pod... I can't seem to find exactly where it is..."
"Release lever huh...?" He murmured as he excruciatingly examined every inch of the inner pod chamber until he found a sort of large old style lever at the top of the pod's inner chamber, "found it!" He exclaimed.
"Good. Now flip it, it should reset the locks of the pod, give it about three seconds, then it should automatically open since the cryogenic process has ended."
Nodding, Chief pressed on to do just as she instructed. Flipping the lever, waiting as the system reset, then watching as the hatch opened up. Sauntering out of the pod, the soldier stretched a bit; waking up his muscles and armor from the prolonged slumber. As he did this, Cortana booted up his newly modified; done by none other than Cortana, armor.
"How long was I asleep...?" He asked as he approached the terminal Cortana's data chip had originally been hooked into.
"Four years, seven months, and ten days... but, hey," she looked up at John with a weary smile on her holographic face, "who's counting?"
The Master Chief grimly nodded as he yanked the chip out of the terminal; inserting it back into the slot on the back of his helmet.
"Still fits like a glove..." she murmured nostalgically.
"Yeah, brings back memories. But we don't have time for that. Where is the armory?" He asked as he trekked to the exit to the cryogenic hibernation section of the frigate.
Directing him to the armory of the Frigate, the two made great time; as they needed to hurry. The soldier quickly got the basic items; as he didn't need anything to extravagent for the moment. He got three M-16 fragmentation grenades, a magnum pistol, an MA5D ICWS variant assault rifle, and a M395 Designated Marksman Rifle, and full ammunition for all three guns.
Cortana asked, "Packing light?"
"Yes, we have little time and need to move fast. No telling when the unknown ship lands." He answered.
With the guidance of Cortana, John made it to the nearest airlock, went out onto the hull of the space ship; his boots producing a metallic droning hum as he entered the vacuum of space, and got into a position that allowed him to watch the descending unknown ship.