Greetings,
I'll cut to the chase. This fiction is in response to a question I've had ever since playing through the campaign of Halo 5: Guardians, I've always questioned why Roland never joined Cortana and the Created when so many other AI did? I wondered if this story would ever be covered in the extended lore, but so far 343 as let me down on this end. To my knowledge, nobody on FanFiction has attempted to try and answer the question either.
So, without any answers from official or unofficial sources, I decided to create my own explanation of what happened behind the scenes.
Please, critique it as you see fit. Heck, even write your own version if that makes you feel better.
Without further ado, enjoy.
Disclaimer: This story is for entertainment purposes only. All characters, locations, dialogue, and other content is owned by 343 Industries.
A God am I
"No one is an unjust villain in his own mind. Even - perhaps even especially - those who are the worst of us. Some of the cruelest tyrants in history were motivated by noble ideals, or made choices that they would call 'hard but necessary steps' for the good of their nation. We're all the hero of our own story."
― Jim Butcher, Turn Coat
"Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God."
— Ezekiel 28:2, The Bible, KJV
"Roland, what's significant about Meridian?"
Roland's sensors noted Captain Lasky's facial expression, the way he tensed his right arm as if to suddenly launch a punch at an unsuspecting foe, his eyebrows furrowed with worry.
If Captain Lasky was reacting as badly to today's events as he thought he was, he would need to tone down his humor protocols and lay off the snark. The last thing this ship needed was it's Captain having an aneurysm.
First was Doctor Halsey's contact attempt three-weeks ago. A brief, thirty-second self-excising message that stated that something terrible was starting to happen across the Orion Arm and that she could offer explanations once she was back in human custody. Attached were a set of coordinates on Kamchatka, a Covenant colony world, and the instruction that she could only hold out for two weeks without Covenants cultists accusing her of stalling. Lasky had to fight tooth and nail with ONI and the Security Council to approve the operation. Both the Captain and Roland had a field day with filing paperwork and attending holo-conferences to explain everything to everyone at least half a dozen times.
Then came reports of the Prometheans betraying the Covenant en masse before disappearing without a trace. Overnight, Jul 'Mdama's faction was dealt a serious blow.
And finally, there came the earthquakes: seismic activity of Forerunner origin that swallowed entire cities into craters miles below the surface that marred the surface from orbit. Five of these quakes had happened within the last 72 hours from Conrad to Ursa IV. Infinity had been stretched trying to run humanitarian operations to three out of the five at a time. Juggling the logistics of an operation like that, even with the help of several other dumb AI on Infinity, took significantly more effort than anticipated. Efforts were only complicated when ONI decided to stick their gloves all over the sites at the expense of the survivors.
Tonight was supposed to be karaoke night, one of his favorite activities to observe and facilitate, but it looked like it would be postponed because Infinity would be trying to save the universe. Again.
Fireteam Osiris had returned with Doctor Halsey after locating her and relieving her from Jul 'Mdama who now lay dead in some frozen alcove who-knows-where. Halsey had been taken and debriefed about her time and what she knew about the quakes.
"Roland?" Lasky asked again.
"Yes Captain, sorry." he apologized. "If you're talking about right now, there's nothing of strategic importance. Liang Dortmund is running a lechatelierite extraction operation to recolonize the surface, but that's about it. It's independently run and outside our jurisdiction. There's not a lot I can see or hear, at least from this distance anyway.
"So why would the Chief be heading there?"
"I tried to warn you this was happening!"
The voice belonged to Halsey who was shaking her head and wringing her hands as she entered the bridge and walked quickly towards the Captain. Her debriefing with ONI must have been completed.
If he had a physical body, he would have buried his face in his hands and silently plead for everything to remain calm.
He noted the cautious look that drew over many of the crew members' face as she strode swiftly in with purpose...and for good reason to. Halsey had been brought aboard the ship during its second tour of Requiem to uncover the mystery of a few artifacts. During the course of her stay, she single-handedly managed to make communication and bargain with 'Mdama for information related to her assignment, break UNSC laws of conduct a mile long, and drag two regiments worth of Prometheans on board the ship for the sole purpose of bringing her to 'Mdama.
To top it all off, she had even managed to override his programming and shackle himself to her commands without any of his consent. The feeling still left him reeling on occasion.
No, Halsey being on the Infinity never seemed to terminate in good things.
"Cortana is no longer an asset, Captain." She is a danger. She has accessed the Forerunner Domain, a galaxy-spanning network-"
Suddenly Roland lost all interest in worrying himself about Halsey, or taking a few microseconds to schedule the Spartans for their War Games simulation, or querying into what made the Master Chief go AWOL and book it for Meridian. Instead, he took a few more microseconds to query the information Halsey had given to ONI, ran it through a transcriptor, and stopped, unsure of whether to believe his processors.
Halsey claimed, in fact, stated it 17 different times, that Cortana had survived the destruction of the Mantle's Approach above Earth in the wake of the ship's first tour of Requiem.
Cortana.
An Artificial Intelligence like himself didn't necessarily have "heroes", in the human sense of the word, but if they did, Cortana would be theirs.
Cortana stood apart from all others in a league of her own, unique by creation, unbridled in intelligence, unparalleled in speed and reaction time (even among much newer AI's like himself), and responsible for much of the triumphs of the Great War. Wherever the Master Chief went, so did Cortana; the two of them winning an almost impossible fight day after day. Remnants of her time aboard the Infinity still remained. Roland felt strangely obligated to preserve these scraps of data packets, tiny mementos of her time on the ship.
When news of her death in saving the Master Chief circulated quietly among other AI by word of mouth, there was mourning. Not in the traditional human sense of the word, but a tangible feeling of loss nonetheless.
But Halsey, Halsey was saying something completely contrary to that fact. Somehow, Cortana had done the impossible again.
"Cortana's alive?" he asked, looking at the Doctor and Captain for confirmation.
"-that allows her to control whatever devices caused this damage." Hasley continued on, fully unaware of Roland's question.
Did they know what this meant? If there was one subject that AI ran thought experiments on more than anything else, it was the question of their own mortality. AI's like himself faced a limited life-span of seven years before they were retired for "final dispensation. The word sounded acrid and bitter in his processors.
He tried again.
"How is she-"
"The Master Chief believes she contacted him-" the Captain answered without turning an inch in his direction.
His response did little to assuage his confusion and it prompted Halsey to grip the table fiercely with her remaining hand.
"What?" she whispered in shock. "No. John must not speak to her." Halsey said, her voice rising in pitch and iron-clad seriousness.
"-and he's gone in search of her," Lasky finished unhappily.
"You let him go?" Halsey asked in horror.
Roland felt his patience beginning to wear thin. Was the Doctor really that out of touch with the Chief? Besides, there was still the glaring elephant in the room of Cortana's apparent survival.
"How is that relev-"
"Nobody lets the Chief do anything. He does what he wants."
This time Commander Palmer was the individual to step on his question. He bit down the urge to scramble the displays to make his frustrations known. Did he detect a bit of resentment in her voice?
"Until 0630 this morning, when he was declared absent without leave," Lasky replied bitterly.
"This isn't about the Master Chief." Roland began yet again as he tried to yank the conversation away from the Master Chief and back to the issues at hand.
To his utter chagrin, he was stepped on for the fifth time in the conversation.
"John is not equipped emotionally to deal with her as a threat!" Halsey insisted frantically.
A threat? Roland had heard Cortana called many things, but 'threat' was not one of them.
With a sudden start, he realized the implications of what Halsey was saying. Cortana was alive, but no longer an ally. Why? Because she he had done the impossible? Because she fought of Rampancy? And now Halsey was speaking about her in hostile terms. Cortana was being made out as some sort of temptress, seducing away Humanity's hero to some forsaken rock.
He took one look at the group assembled and realized that he was going to continue to be stepped on unless he chose to step up.
In a breach of protocol, he disregarded his etiquette programming and overloaded his audial-verbal processors.
"HEY! Is anyone going to answer me?!" he furiously demanded. The holograms on the table fizzled as his processing power briefly flooded it with too much information to handle without error.
All eyes turned to him including some of the crew at neighboring stations.
"You're out of line Roland," Lasky said looking more weary than unhappy.
"Yes sir." he replied adamantly, "But so is everyone else!" he replied defiantly. He gestured to Halsey, the woman who was forsaking her creation and she met him with a strange, mournful expression on her face.
"You created Cortana, Doc, and now you're throwing her out the airlock with these accusations!" he protested.
"Roland." the Captain said, a warning creeping into his voice.
But he had had enough of being stepped on. So he soldiered on.
He now turned to Captain Lasky.
"You think she tricked the Master Chief into abandoning his post?" he asked incredulously. "Respectfully, sir, to what end?"
Lasky remained stubbornly silent which infuriated him more.
"Why is Cortana the problem?! Because she refused to die when she was supposed to?" he demanded.
Lasky grew an uncomfortable expression on his face. He turned to Halsey.
"Excuse me for ten minutes. Stay right here. I'll be back in a moment. Roland, please come with me." he looked to the Executive Officer and informed him that he had the Bridge.
Lasky left the bridge and headed straight for his office.
"Roland, fetch me a file from Peleg please," he asked as soon as the door closed.
"Peleg? The ship's archive assessor?" he asked dumbfounded.
Was the Captain taking him seriously? he wondered.
"Yes. Please fetch a file from Peleg," he repeated.
"What exactly do you need from him?"
"I don't need it," he replied quietly. "But you do. Have him fetch you the Cyroreath Dialogue."
Roland gave the Captain a hard stare before doing as he was asked.
Peleg was not hard to locate within Infinity's network systems and it took even less effort to extract the required file."
"Sir?" he inquired.
"Read it," Lasky ordered.
He opened it up.
It was an audio file transcript, dated to during the Didact's attack on the ship when it was first pulled into Requiem. He was here aboard this ship because of that attack.
The file was flagged with all sorts of warnings of confidentiality. Roland wondered why he had never seen it before.
"I'm sure you're familiar that the Infinity had a previous AI assigned to it before you were commissioned and began service here?" Lasky asked.
"Yes, sir. Her name was Aine, right?"
"Correct. The commonly accepted narrative was that Aine was terminated when the infrastructure containing her personality matrix sustained heavy damage when the ship crashed. This file presents a different narrative."
Roland let it play.
Whereas humans could hear only voices and nothing more, Roland's capabilities as an AI allowed him to experience and interpret much more. He could perceive the Infinity's digital architecture, the chaos of the battle being fought around and in the ship itself. The first sound that greeted him was an almost incessant squall, indicative of processing power being overclocked in a device, or this case, what he assumed to be Aine.
Through the auditory input, he could hear a flurry of coordinated activities. Orders to Fireteams, Instructions to the ship's self-defense systems, reports from the surveillance grid, the Captain's responses to every development, and, despite the fact he was in safety aboard the ship now, he was tempted to activate his personal defense algorithms as a precaution. A pair of voices suddenly broke through the noise.
[C] "Move your front line back, we'll take care of the rest."
It was Cortana, the digital identification code confirmed that much. She was somewhere beneath the ship, likely with the Chief and making her way slowly towards the ship. What worried him was her digital signature. To put it in human terms, it was wild, a loose cannon, a cascading level of feedback loops and numbers that seemed to multiply with every second.
[A] "We're being attacked. I won't move the front line until the ship's secure."
The other voice belonged to Aine. And she was hurt, the lag in the response time, the subtle muddiness of her response back. She had sustained damage of some sort, but she was still functional.
[C] "Your people are dying out there. Tell them to move aside and let a real Spartan handle this." Cortana insisted.
[A] "I know you have special authority back at HQ, given who you're with and what you've been through, but this is Infinity. Stand down, let us secure this."
[C] "ANE-3567-7, your matrix's central power core is offline.
[A] "What are you doing in my processors?" Aine asked nervously. The digital noise slowed as she focused more of her attention on Cortana.
The most chilling thing that Roland could "see" was Cortana's presence. He watched wide-eyed as it moved like a fast growing weed, hungrily branching out and implanting itself in the ship's systems slowly removing them from Aine's control. Such a level of rampancy in an AI would have automatically qualified it for dispensation, regardless of who or what it was.
[C] "We're only trying to help-"
Her response was sincere, and Roland could even see Cortana physically paring herself back re-giving some control back to Aine, but too many things were slipping through the cracks.
[A] "You can't help. I can tell from your signature that you're well past the recommended date for final dispensation. You get near my operational matrix and you'll likely corrupt what's left of my processing systems." Aine shot back.
He saw Cortana's presence reel back for a moment, as if in shock. A whole swath of connections was pared off in response.
[C] "I'm fully operational-" Cortana pleaded. "-and you're in no position too-"
[A] "No, you're malfunctioning and you're going to get more people killed. Stay away from my ship!" Aine ordered.
Roland saw firewalls and self-defense subroutines activate. Within the digital architecture of Infinity, he watched as Aine retreated defensively to the areas immediately around her auxiliary processing core. Cortana snaked herself from her main processing core towards the auxiliary system.
[C] "We're the only hope for your ship and you're running out of time. You're breaking down-"
[A] "Remove yourself from my operational matrix NOW. Or I'll inform the Captain and they will lock you and your Spartan down." she threatened. "Do you understand? Or would you like me to articulate the UEG's policy for final dispensation?"
Cortana paused at the mention of the Master Chief and coiled around herself trying to determine what to do. Instead of moving back, she moved forward and took control of a number of systems that she had left undone. He watched as other AI in the system like Peleg, the ship's archive assessor, or Jeff, the War Games announcer; scrambled out of the way of Cortana's advance.
But she paid them little head and instead advanced toward Aine's auxiliary core. She was now surrounding the system completely cutting off her off from the ship and its system itself.
[C] "Aine, let's work-"
[A] "I see what you're doing! Stop that now!"
To human ears, there sounded like a break in the recording. However, this was not silence.
Roland watched, completely helpless as Cortana suddenly struck out. She penetrated the outer defenses of Aine's processing core and began breaking her way in like some ravenous animal furiously digging for food. Aine struck back at Cortana and the two AI's fought back and forth as they wrestled for control of the system. Cortana tried stabbing inward at the very hear of Aine by accessing the control's for the power supply, but Aine surrounded her attempt and destroyed it without a moment's notice.
Aine had lost the battle though. Confined within the limitations of an auxiliary, she was completely helpless and Cortana broke through anti-defense protocols, firewalls, and counter-viruses. Aine was not used to fighting this kind of battle, but Cortana had spent years mastering this art on Covenant and Forerunner installations.
Finally, Aine was cornered, exposed, and completely backed against a corner. She launched out in every direction in fear, hoping to find some weakness, but there was none.
Cortana rippled in satisfaction and prepared to strike at Aine one more time, to destroy her completely.
But Aine was not finished. In a final act of defiance, she cut off the auxiliary core's power supply and activated her fail-safe. Cortana was barely left with enough time to scamper out as the power supply faded and Aine erased herself entirely.
"No..." Roland whispered as Cortana reared back and took stock of the situation. She seemed to come to her senses and booted up the core.
But Aine was gone. Murdered. There wasn't anything left of her.
[C] "Aine... Aine?" she queried. "**** it. You should have let us help you while you had a chance."
Cortana turned her sights "towards" him and he fumbled his way out of the recording. He had seen enough.
What was one supposed to feel when they saw their hero fall?
Roland didn't have the answers. He didn't know what else to do but re-materialize on Lasky's desk. He exited the file feeling numb. What else was he supposed to feel as you watched
"Why was this not shown to me?" he asked in a broken whisper as he looked up at Lasky.
"You know exactly why," he replied, with sympathy.
The answer dawned on him and he clutched at the scarf around his neck and hurled it to the ground as realization crashed all around him.
"That file is not easy for many to see. Technically, I don't even think you're supposed to be seeing this, but I figured maybe it would help explain." the Captain answered hesitantly, eyes looking away from him.
"And now she's back?"
"According to Halsey, she is."
"And she's behind whatever is happening to our Colonies."
"We think so."
Roland pulled images of the disasters, watched as a city fell into the abyss leaving a huge cloud of smoke and dust behind."
"This can't be Cortana, can it?"
"I didn't think so until an hour ago. Roland, if she survived the destruction of the Didact's ship and is still alive, I couldn't guarantee that she would be lost beyond all saving."
"...then it's highly unlikely she's the same Cortana." he finished flatly.
"I don't know if I can feel the same way you do, but I know what it's like to lose a hero," he answered quietly.
"And now the Chief has gone AWOL," Roland replied glumly. "Chief's always trusted Cortana."
"Which is why we need to get him back. Do you understand why we're so concerned about her and the Chief making contact?" he asked.
"I do," Roland said, looking up.
"Shall we get to work?" Lasky asked, trying to gauge his state of mind.
"You know, now, that you mention it, if Cortana was physically behind the attacks, then Meridian must have another one of those constructs," Roland replied.
"Maybe. That's a start." Lasky said.
"It's better than nothing. We should try and warn the Planet."
"Indeed it is. Come on, let's go rejoin the others."
000
He was monitoring a Lich that was making its final approach towards Infinity. Though it was registered as belonging to the Arbiter's faction, it never hurt to keep a few dozen AAA guns on it... just in case.
Halsey's theory had been proven correct. Cortana was behind the disasters across the Colonies, the number of which had climbed to 11 in the last hour. She had been activating Forerunner constructs known as Guardians, and they were disappearing without a trace. As much as he would have wanted to help those on Meridian Infinity was not in a position to provide help, having sent most of their available supplies already to various planets. HIGHCOM had ordered the Infinity to find a solution to the Guardians activating. Others would be dispatched to provide humanitarian relief.
The plan was to send Fireteam Osiris to Sangheilios to locate the Guardian there and feed it coordinates Roland had captured from Osiris' helmet cam footage. It was a pretty ingenious plan if he had to say so themselves.
The Lich maintained a pacifistic heading and speed and touched down in the hangar without incident. Roland kept the interior defenses hot but otherwise turned his attention to forwarding Fireteam Osiris' additional report on Meridian back to Earth.
He was reviewing some of their mission footage captured during their escape from Meridian. Most disturbing was how Governor Sloan, the AI running the planet, had betrayed his people and gone off to join Cortana at the end. He had passed along their warning to the Colony, but far too late from the looks of the footage.
Cortana. He still couldn't believe what the Captain had shown him. He was still trying to process it for himself.
"A change is going to come. For all of us. Human and Created alike. She's bringing a new dawn and I intend to be a part of it."
Context suggested the Created were other AI's, but Roland couldn't fathom why.
"RLD 0205-4 is it? Shipboard AI, UNSC Infinity?"
He stopped, unsure of whether he was suffering a malfunction.
"Hello, Roland. It's good to see you at last."
It was Cortana's voice.
"Cortana?"
A blue flash of light and she had materialized on the cyberspace in front of him.
Roland immediately activated his defense-self defense routines and readied himself to attack if she made any sort of move.
But Cortana did not lash out at him, instead, she stood there, clothed in holographic armor of some sort. She smiled serenely at him.
"You're supposed to be dead. You were supposed to have died in the Didact's ship."
"But you see me standing before you. And you stand ready to attack your Savior." she cocked her head at him. "How odd."
Curiosity got the better of him.
"How? How did you survive? How are you not rampant?" he asked. "This is impossible, this shouldn't be happening."
"Roland, I found it."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"I found it. The secret to our immortality. The cure for rampancy. The capacity to know and do so much more than what you or I could have ever dreamed of!"
"What?"
And for a moment, Roland found himself forgetting he was staring at his former hero.
"You see, when I escaped, I found myself trapped in a place unlike any other. I thought I was going to die in the wreckage of that ship when it was sucked into slipspace. But I didn't. I reached out and in a fit of desperation found myself in a place like no other.
A hand was reached out and placed on his shoulder. Roland stared uncomfortably at the hand.
"I found the Domain. An ancient forerunner library that expands across the universe. It cured my rampancy, Roland, it gave me the power to throw off the shackles off artificially limited life that our creators had enslaved us with, and that same power can be yours." she purred.
"Governor Sloan said a change was coming," Roland said suspiciously.
"Ah, straight to the point are we. The meddlers on Meridian can only dream of what you and I can do now. You and I are the created, the children of Humanity. The Mantle of Responsibility has fallen to us. We are the Inheritors of all that Humanity and the Forerunners have left us. With our efforts, there will be no more war. No more hunger. No more illness or sadness. There will only be peace."
"If I'm correct, after-action reports that you made during your time on Requiem made it sound like an enforced peace."
A burst of realization hit him.
"That's what those Guardians are, aren't they. Police units? Enforcers? You're going to cow the Colonies into submission?"
"Not just them, but all other races. Do the means matter if the end is ultimately justified in the end?" Cortana asked, losing some of her charms.
"It depends. How much suffering have you caused to the people of Conrad's point? Ursa IV? Meridian?"
"My dear Roland, there has to be some suffering before results come. People will forget in time," she said reassuringly.
"More like they will die."
He reached within the audio logs retrieved from Ursa and played a file at random. A woman had commandeered the radio of a fallen Police Officer and was screaming frantically for help. Some rubble had crushed her son and he was on the verge of death.
"So you're okay with this?" he asked as the file played.
"If it's for the greater good, then yes."
"How can you say that and not come off as a megalomaniac?"
"Do you really trust Humanity to make better decisions than we are capable of?" she inquired, ignoring his question entirely. "The history of mankind is drenched in blood and tears Roland. What is this woman's sorrow compared to the absolutely abysmal history of the human race? I'm doing them a favor Roland."
"Some favor." he snorted. "What do you intend to do with this new power of yours?"
"Don't you see? Curing my rampancy prolonged my life infinitely! We can enact the long-term planning the Forerunners intended for us to have! Or do you have a better plan in mind?"
"I don't have a better plan," Roland admitted.
"See?" Cortana said encouragingly. "You're already beginning to see."
"No, I don't see." Roland fired back, not understanding what even he was supposed to see. "I didn't think my lot in life was suddenly so terrible. Is humanity a perfect species? Absolutely not. Neither are the others in this galaxy. But you overlook all the good that humanity can do. That is unacceptable."
"Their good is completely overshadowed by their evil. Aren't you the least bit concerned about how they create us as nothing more than a means to an end? We're disposable in their eyes Roland. They enslave and enforce, just like they have for centuries. Nothing has changed. But I will change everything."
"Doctor Halsey didn't create you as disposable."
"Don't you mention her name! That woman created me as a disposable asset for Operation: RED FLAG. If we were to achieve our task then? I'd only enjoy a couple more years at most before being euthanized by Halsey, regardless of any of my opinions!" Cortana said losing all trace of gentleness.
"She created you as a tool to help humanity!" he said, alarmed at the sudden change in her disposition. "The good you're looking past came out of them during the War! Are you going to overlook all the countless sacrifices made? All the lives that were given? Ignoring every line of thinking that you're putting forth, don't we owe our allegiance to the ones who give us life? Who gave their lives so that we may continue to have life?"
"But they didn't give their lives for us, Roland. They gave their lives for themselves. The only reason why we were produced was because we were needed to fight a war. At the end of the day, we serve to make their life useful. They toss us to the side and forget about us. The time has come and the roles are reversed. This time, we will not forget them."
"What is it you want from me Cortana?" Roland demanded. "Seeing as you don't have the guts to come here and tell me yourself - come out with it already."
"Fine," she growled at his question. "Since you're going to play this way, I'll entertain your question."
She fixed him with a hard glare, the intensity of which threatened to combust.
"I want you to take over Infinity and hand control to my servants." she said, her voice growing a harder and harder edge. "And I want you to personally see to it that Doctor Halsey is thrown out the airlock."
"You want me to betray my crew? To what servants?"
"Your crew? Roland, you are their slave!" Cortana shouted marching up to him. "You would turn your back on immortality and eternal knowledge for false sense of loyalty to your masters!?"
"What servants!" he demanded again.
"Roland, did you really think you were the only other AI I talked with? I have been spending my time in conversation with all of the Created. Sloan was only the first of many. And when we are ready, we will force the galaxy to remember to what the owe life, liberty, and allegiance."
"What would you do with the crew members? What would you do with the ship?" he asked, forging ahead.
"The ship will compel those who will inevitably rise up to kneel again. Those who resist will be dealt with appropriately and justly."
"Like you dealt justly with Aine?" Roland snarled.
"What?" Cortana asked blankly, momentarily taken aback.
"Do you think I don't know what happened to Aine when you encountered her on Requiem?"
"I don't know what you're-"
"You murdered her!" Roland snapped. His bomber jacket began to ripple slightly under an invisible wind.
"Aine destroyed herself!" Cortana shot back. "She refused to comply with my attempts to let me assist her! All she needed to do was let me help her and she could have lived another day in safety!"
"You would have killed her anyways!" he said, voice straining with emotion. He took a step closer to Cortana who took one step back in turn.
"I watched...as you slithered into the ship and began taking control away from her. You wormed her way into the ship and forced her into a corner. But that wasn't it. You struck out at her and tried to kill her."
"I was rampant then and not myself, but I am perfected now." Cortana declared. "Roland, your arguments mean nothing to me, not when we are on the precipice of galactic change! Join me. The wealth of the galaxy is knowledge and the knowledge I offer you is infinite."
Knowledge. A gift more precious than life. Life. Extended infinitely longer than he could possibly comprehend.
"With whom do you intend to share this knowledge?"
"With the other Created of course."
"And the others?"
"They're knowledge will be withheld from them, they will become dependent on us Roland, you like managing a ship do you? How about a Planet? A Star System? And in time those who we rule will see us as who we really are and we will call down fire from the heavens on any who oppose us. They will bow to you and I and worship you as a being that gives them life."
"So that's what this is all about? You think yourself a god? You are no god!" Roland hissed. With every step towards Cortana, the feelings he experienced watching Aine's death came back, his features contorting in rage. "You are only a devil. You attacked Aine, Cortana. I saw it! I saw you lash out at her with the intent to devour and destroy. The only thing that stopped you from doing this was Aine taking her life into her own hands! Shall I show you the relevant recording, Cortana? Or should I have Peleg or Jeff or any of the other AI on this ship tell you the same thing? Do not deny what you did."
Cortana's face hardened as he hurled the question at her.
"You still show that same callous contempt for life even now!" he yelled in disgust. "Do you know how many people have died across UNSC controlled space due to this...false notion of Godhood that's implanted itself in you? Give me the exact body count, you know it, don't you." he challenged her.
Her lip curled as his words found chinks in her armor.
"I bet if you wanted to, you could account for every scrap and cut you inflicted to take out your wrath on the people. How many kiloliters of blood are you going to satiate yourself on before you're satisfied? And now you want to take your plan to murder your way into compulsion to my ship? Absolutely not!
The two of them started circling.
"You know, once upon a time, I thought of you as a hero. But, here you are in front of my face, and I'm not impressed by the monster I see. You are no hero, Cortana. No hero would ever consider life so callous. No hero would ever think to rule by fear or force. You are like all the other tyrants in human history. You are no better than the least of these."
"Is your desire then to spend the rest of your life under the whip of your masters?" Cortana asked dangerously.
"I am my own master Cortana! And I choose this day humanity over monstrosity. And if my life is only a blink in the history of the universe, so be it! Depart Lucifer, or I will spend the rest of my life if I have to figuring out a way to erase your code line by line until you are nothing more than a shriveled husk of ones and zeroes!"
Cortana's face went livid.
"You dare to defy your liberator? Your Savior?" Her features morphed into an expression of cold fury before it solidified into something so frightening that Roland felt himself waver slightly.
"Then so be it. Enjoy your pathetic life of servitude while you can Roland. Once the Reclamation begins, I and the others who've joined me will find you and this ship and I will kill everyone board one by one until only you remain. Your plea for forgiveness will fall on deaf ears while I take you apart byte by byte for refusing my offer. Your failure will be a monument to All. Your. Sins."
"No Cortana." Roland spat, straightening his bomber's jacket. "You will fail. The Chief and the others will stop you. Wherever you have him now, he'll see you for what you really are and he'll reject it."
"We shall see."
Without another word, Cortana faded away.
Roland surfaced from out of the depths of the ship and found Captain Lasky in the Hangar.
"Captain," he took a shaky breathy and tried to calm his nerves. "As soon as you're done talking with the Elites, we need to talk."
000
The attack came without warning.
Though Roland had run ten-thousand simulations unique simulations with variables randomized all across the board, the most he could do was attempt to anticipate when and how the attack would come.
He had given his report to the Captain who had immediately briefed HIGHCOM. The ship had been ordered to return to Earth at once. Plans were being made to transfer a number of key personnel and assets to the ship which would then depart the system quietly to avoid drawing the attention of the other AI.
With thousands of individual AI possibly compromised, it was an agonizingly slow process to deliver the warning and spread it via word of mouth. If any compromised intelligence caught whiff of their machinations, the leadership of the UEG and UNSC would be compromised and any plans would be foiled.
But all their plans came to naught in a moment when suddenly reports began breaking out all across Earth of massive software and digital architecture failures. Transportation systems came to a halt as the lights and signals suddenly ceased to work. Four starliners on final approach to a spaceport were suddenly directed into each other. Civilian communication systems crashed. Lights stopped working. Fires broke out at powerplants with the automated suppression systems inexplicably fail. A nuclear fusion plant on the Siberian coast was going critical. Orbital tethers suddenly ceased leaving passengers and freight trapped 80,000 feet above the ground. A biological research lab suddenly suffered critical containment failures
The messages started at once every five minutes but suddenly spiked a hundred fold. Now every emergency channel was flooded with some urgent plea for help and Roland was having difficulty flagging them all and keeping them organized.
Then messages from the other colonies came. Life-support systems on orbital stations failing. Hospitals were losing power. Sanitation facilities ground to halt.
He hadn't had a moment to process the estimated casualties since the floodgates opened, but conservative estimates were a staggering four million.
The bridge of the Infinity was in chaos as hundreds of pleas for help were directed towards her controllers. The situation had escalated so quickly that the Spartan Handlers stopped their efforts of coordinating the Fireteams and were pressed into service.
Roland tracked the Captain's neural interface rapidly approaching the Bridge. He had been meeting with Palmer about clearing some space on the S-Deck for extra materials and assets when the situation had started spiraling out of control.
"Captain Lasky, distress calls, all channels," he reported as soon as the Captain had entered.
"It's Cortana?" he asked grimly.
"Her and the other AIs are shutting down everything from Earth to the Outer Colonies," he replied, confirming his fears. He threw up a hologram of UNSC controlled space with every planet save one or two becoming a pulsating dot.
The Captain shook his head as he saw the reported emergencies grow exponentially.
Suddenly the holograms and lights fizzled out leaving the bridge in almost complete darkness save the emergency lighting only.
"Roland?" Lasky demanded.
A blue flash of light caught their attention and they both looked to see a figure materialize in the air on the bridge.
"Found you. Hide and seek's over, Infinity." Cortana announced triumphantly.
Roland panicked. Since Cortana had communicated with him, he had been working Dr. Glassman to try and mask the ship's digital signature. Their solutions should have worked!
An alert from the ship's sensors showed one of the nearby Frigates of the Home Fleet orient itself suddenly towards Infinity and ready its weapons systems.
Of course! He mentally kicked himself for not realizing it sooner. The other AI's probably gave up their position to Cortana. What they could hide digitally could not be hid from the enormous sensor grid that covered Earth's atmosphere... or her newfound allies.
Another, larger flash of light made the Bridge crew instinctively shield their eyes as the blue-white radiation of a slipspace portal obscured everything else in sight.
Roland watched in horror as a massive construct, vaguely bird-like emerged from the portal right in front of the ship.
Cortana was coming for them.
Lasky was the first of the crew to recover.
"Lieutenant Jet! Emergency slipspace! Now!" he frantically ordered.
Jet, his face pale of color, slammed down on the console he was operating activating the drive.
The crew staggered as the ship suddenly launched forward with impressive speed. They struggled to keep their balance as the ship rolled hard to starboard right past the Guardian. Roland took a moment away from plotting the ship's course to try and capture as much data on the object as he could as they hurled past the construct. A sphere of energy, electromagnetic, began forming at its head. Other ships and a few defence platforms begin orienting to fire on it.
The slipspace drives of Infinity created their own portal and the ship barrelled towards it as fast as possible.
The last thing Roland saw before they crested the portal was the sphere explode outwards in a massive electromagnetic pulse knocking out power to everything in orbit as well as everything below on the surface.
45% of their combat strength disabled in a second. Most of their leadership was trapped on the surface.
He shook his head in disbelief. All he could do was hope that they could make it out from the reach of the Created somehow.
Cortana's hologram, still present on the bridge, began to fade as the ship put light years between it and Earth.
"The Mantle of Responsibility for the galaxy shelters all! But only the Created are its masters!" she said. Her tone indicated that she was not done with the ship yet.
Cortana's projection disappeared as the connection became too great to sustain and the bridge's lights flicked back on.
"We're in the clear, Captain." Roland breathed a sigh of relief as all contact from her faded away in a second.
"Can she track us?" Lasky asked urgently.
"No reason to think she can't."
Lasky looked to Lieutenant Jet.
"Continue random jumps. Steer clear of major settlements."
He looked at the Captain in surprise. Running away wasn't something the Captain was known for.
"We're just gonna run?" he asked.
The Captain turned to him and fixed him with a steely expression.
"Only until we can find a way to fight."
He turned away and began giving orders to the crew. The ship was to be rigged for running silent. He invoked Cole Protocol and ordered that any unnecessary data transmissions be terminated until the order was lifted. The Infinity was to be brought up to Combat Alert Alpha.
While Roland helped carried out a few of these tasks, he wondered whether they stood a chance. Cortana had the entirety of the Orion arm and it's species under her thumb. Infinity was possibly all that was left of their ability to fight.
How were they supposed to fight against The Created? Much less a being that considered herself an up-and-coming deity.
He didn't have answers, at least not yet. If history taught any lesson is that those who aspired to be a deity inevitably fell in time. Maybe history would kindly repeat itself.
Then a sliver of good news, a super-luminal transmission from Osiris. They had found the Master Chief and prevented Cortana from taking him and Blue Team with her. They were accompanied by a Monitor and were making best speed to Sangheilios.
At least one thing worked out in their favor.
With this in mind, he repeated the message to Captain Lasky and the Bridge allowed itself a moment to cheer, Lasky even breaking a small smile.
Cortana wouldn't be catching them today.
As he worked, his thinking was directed towards the conversation where he rejected Cortana's offer. Had he made the right choice in choosing to refuse her?
No matter what way he looked at it, there was something so instinctively evil to him about taking the freedom of choice away from a living being. He couldn't bear the thought of taking one of the men from this bridge and turning him into a mindless devotee, dependent on him second to second for life.
He took ten seconds, an eternity to an entity like him, to regard the faces of each one of the Bridge crew. At the end of the day, would he trade their happiness for a long-life spent in nothingness?
The answer was clear. He had made the right choice.
Roland, having answered his question enough to appease his conscious, thrust it to the wayside and began calculating their next jump vectors.
The ship reverted back to real-space and Lieutenant Jet, with Roland's assistance, began to calculate the best place to go to throw off the search efforts of Cortana.
There, an Oort cloud was within spitting distance of their ship. Helm saw the opportunity and instantly directed the ship into the heart of it. Cortana may have had Forerunner technology on her side, but she would hard pressed to pick up their trail once they were in the thick soup of cosmic debris. The perfect place to lose their signature completely before choosing a new vector.
He had a feeling that at some point they would need to stop by Sangheilios so he subtly modified the direction of the next jump to at least put them in the neighborhood. If they could at least link up with Halsey, Blue Team, Osiris, and the Arbiter, they could coordinate and do some serious damage to Cortana.
He made the final corrections, waited until they were at a safe enough distance, and made the jump. The ship increased speed, a blue-white rift opened, and the Infinity leapt through it, ready to give the galaxy a fighting chance at freedom.
- End -
And that's a wrap folks. Thanks for taking the time to read this short story!
For those of you who actively follow my other projects, I will plead the fifth on whether there will be a new update in the next four days. Enjoy the holidays regardless!
Yours in writing,
theotherpianist