-Prologue (No Real POV)-

"Wake up, Chief," Cortana said, staring at the cryo tube, "I need you."

The tube's glass began to clear as the cryo tube slowly thawed, revealing the green helmet of the greatest soldier who ever lived.

-MC-

John-117 awoke slowly. He had always hated waking up from cryo sleep. It was similar to waking up on a stone slab, with an airhorn screaming in your face, and then getting kicked onto the ground by a mantis. He slowly woke up, beginning to sense the world around him.

"Chief! Can you hear me, Chief?" he heard the voice, but he still wasn't awake enough to respond. Suddenly, he felt a jolt of electricity go through his body, waking him up completely.

"Chief!"

He looked around, seeing the interior of the Dawn and Cortana on the AI pedestal. The cryo tube opened an instant later, and he stepped out.

"Why did you wake me?" he asked, shaking his head to clear it. As he did so, he noticed a new display on his HUD, showing various symbols including a running man, a crouching man and a man using a jet pack.

"And what does this new display mean?" Cortana answered the second question first.

"I managed to install all of the armour modifications used by the spartan-III's during the fall of Reach, including the covenant ones, permanently into your suit. Unfortunately, you can only use one at any time, and they all share a power source, so they recharge and expend together. I also managed to use the ship'a systems to create a backpack capable of storing a virtually infinite amount of ammunition for two weapons. It resembles the one worn by Spartan-052, again during the fall of Reach."

Chief noticed the large, backpack-like object sitting by the pedestal.

"Why did you wake me?" he asked again. Cortana looked slightly flustered.

"Right! Ok... I woke you because we're entering the gravitational pull of a planetary body." Chief was confused.

"The planet we're now in a decaying orbit around has the exact same gravitational pull as Earth." Chief was now stunned.

"You're saying we're orbiting Earth." Cortana nodded.

"but I can't find any UNSC ships in orbit, nor can I find any UNSC signal of any kind!" she finished, seeming exasperated.

"All I can find is a bunch of primitive satellites on decaying orbits with barely enough processing power on them to fly a ballistic missile!" Chief looked her in the eye, and she slowly calmed down.

"What century do the satellites say we're in?" he asked her calmly. She turned away from him before becoming a sphere of light and disappearing. She returned an instant later to make a single comment:

"Whatever century it is, the primitive satellites orbiting this planet have next to no security, so I'd say it's pretty long ago." Chief nodded, and turned to search the room for other useful items. The room held a few relatively undamaged vehicles, including a scorpion and a pelican, and from these Chief got an idea. First, though, he needed equipment. He crossed over to the far side of the room to search for weapons. There he found a large quantity of assault rifles, shotguns, magnums, and for some strange reason, energy swords. He grabbed the "ammo backpack" from next to the pedestal and emptied the assault rifles and shotguns into it, before throwing it on his back (it was surprisingly light) and attaching a shotgun to one side and an assault rifle to the other. As an afterthought, he grabbed two energy swords and attached them to the sides of his legs.

"Chief!" He turned to see Cortana waving at him from the pedestal. "I found the date! It took awhile - terrible file sorting on those things - but, Chief, it's the late twentieth century!" John-117 was stunned by this news, but he collected himself and moved over to the pedestal.

"The way I see the situation is like this," he told her. "We can sit here, waiting to fall into the atmosphere and probably get killed on impact, or we can take the pelican in the hangar - preferably with the scorpion attached - and fly down to the surface now." Cortana nodded.

"Let's see what twentieth century earth was really like."