Chapter 1

"Captain, you're needed on the bridge." Captain James Gregory Cutter rubbed his eyes, attempting to drive away the sleep driving to keep his eyes shut. Only moments ago he had been unfrozen from cryogenic sleep by Serena, the Spirit of Fires AI.

"What is it Serena?" The grizzled veteran asked, still grabbing his stored clothes. While the captain had to sleep naked like the rest of the crew in cryo, he had his own quarters due to his rank as commanding officer.

"I suggest you arrive on the bridged captain, then I can brief you in full." Serena replied.

'She always has to be difficult.' Thought James. "Alright I'm on my way." Only minutes later Captain Cutter was standing in his proud and tidy uniform, his badges displayed proudly on his jacket. "What is it Serena? Have we reached Earth?" He asked, taking his seat. He looked around and noticed that his crew had been unfrozen too and were now taking their positions.

"Not exactly sir, take a look out of the window." The captain looked out of the window and then had to do a double take. Outside was what looked like a slip-space rupture, only...more violent. Slip-space itself involved tearing a hole in space and dropping out at some other point, the principle itself sounded ludicrously violent but it only ever looked like a purple blob in reality. This however, the purple blob was still their but the crackling purple tendrils were new, as was the the fact that it seemed to be blurring the light around it as well.

"What...is that Serena?"

"That captain, is a natural slip-space rupture." Serena's holographic form flickered into life on a terminal nearby.

"Natural? I didn't think that was possible...get Anders up here ASAP."

"I'm here captain." Came a female voice behind him. Professor Ellen Anders strode onto the deck, the sleepy signs of cryo sleep almost gone from her eyes. "While this has never been encountered before captain, wormhole theory has been around for centuries. Now that we've encountered this, it presents us with an interesting option."

"Option professor?"

"We go through it. Leading wormhole theories suggest that natural slip-space ruptures operate largely the same as manufactured ones."

"You're saying we could use this to travel to Earth? To Reach?"

"Potentially. Our slip-space functions work fine however we lack the power to activate slip-space when we removed the engine that powered it." The professor looked over a scan of the rupture displayed on a nearby terminal. "If we entered this rupture, there's a chance we could manipulate it to act like a manufactured slip-space rupture. If so, then we've got ourselves a ticket back home."

"And if not?" The captain was concerned, much of this hastily thrown together plan relied on guess work, educated guess work to be fair, but guessing all the same.

"I don't know. Like I said captain, we're the first known ship to come across a naturally occurring wormhole."

"Hmmm." It was a tough decision for the captain. Even tough than when they were on the shield world. There wasn't much of a choice back when they had removed the slip-space engine from the Spirit of Fire, there was no chance they were going to allow the covenant to control that armada. This however... "Serena, if we continued on our current course, what's the chances of being rescued?"

Serena flickered as she did a quick calculation. "Given that we are in uncharted waters, the state of the war and the overall unimportance of a single warship, even with three spartan 2's. Around 2.4%. Most likely we would either run out of power or run into a covenant patrol and die a messy cold death." She looked around at the captain. "Well, you people would."

Deciding to ignore Serena's attitude problem the captain sank deep into thought. Only a 2.4% chance that the crew of the Spirit of Fire would make it home. Or alternatively, try and hack the universe by controlling a wormhole. He took a glance at his deck crew who were looking at him expectedly. He looked each one of them in the eye and wordlessly asked for their opinion, they all gave a subtle nod. "Serena, plot a course for the rupture and begin the thawing process for all essential personal then give them a short de-brief."

"Aye captain, thawing the troops and setting course for the giant purple but-hole in space, we will arrive within the hour sir."

"Find yourself a seat by the computer professor, I want you monitoring this at all times." Ordered the captain, bringing up a status report on the ship. It was still in relatively good condition despite its heavy engagement. The slip-space engine was gone, several deck guns were gone as well as bombers, transports, vehicles and thousands of lives. The number of pod heavy drops hips had been halved when the warship had collided with a covenant destroyer and another had been shot down during the final battle on the shield world. This left only 4 pod heavy transports all carrying fire bases ready to deploy. All of Anders's Gremlin combat support vehicles had been destroyed, as well as all but one Vulture. Six hornet gunships still remained as well as two hawk gunships. Twelve pelicans remained onboard with two requiring repairs before they could fly. Several warthogs were still operational as well as a scorpion tank squadron with a grizzly taking the lead. Four cobra MBT's remained as well as seven wolverines. Only a few of the original thirty albatross drop ships had been lost since they had been out of the front lines, delivering supplies and troops to the ground. 27 ODST drop pods had been recovered and reloaded which left an...adequate response team for any potential ground offensives. This was far less than the 149 fighting fit ODST's who remained. Many ODST's had been wounded too badly to return to active duty but were no longer critical as they had been. At last count however, 2127 marines were still alive and combat ready, another 674 were wounded, 47 critically, the doctors had been cryo freezing the healthiest to operate on the worst before stabilising them and swapping the bodies out of the freezer. When the ship had left port for Harvest, there were 8,500 marines on the ship. 74.98% of the marines were now KIA after engaging on Harvest, Arcadia and the shield world. The ships personal armament wasn't bad though. While MAC reserves had been largely depleted, archer pods and point defence turrets were still at high capacity, and none of the three nukes had been launched.

"Captain, we're approaching the rupture now, I'd hold onto something if I were you." Serena's voice pulled the captain out of his thoughts. He'd already assessed the ship and crews status before, double checking it wouldn't do much good right now. Instead he buckled up his seat as the ships blast shields began to close.

"All officers sound of your stations." Ordered the captain.

"Co-ordinates for Earth are locked in sir." Reported a crew member.

"Engines are at 40% output sir and looking good."

"All personal are in position and awaiting orders sir."

"Weapons are offline but functional sir."

"Communications are online and working captain."

Anders finished strapping herself in and looked at the display next to her. "Entering rupture in 5...4...3...2...1...now!" A large shuddering rocked across the ship as it was pulled into the rupture. "Slip-space is locking onto the co-ordinates and...got it it! We should now be travelling to Earth." The shuddering stopped as the ship began to travel safely through the wormhole.

The captain let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding. "Alright then. Anders, how long until we reach Earth?"

The professor began to look through her estimated arrival time. "We should be arriving in...no that's not right..."

"What is it professor?"

"According to my scans, the wormhole will be dropping us off at Earth in just a few moments."

"What? Explain."

"This isn't right, slip-space travel isn't this fast! If we were this close we would have been able to identify the star patterns."

"So then, where the hell are we-" The shuddering of the ship came back with a vengeance as crew were being forced further into their seats by the g forces. The shaking of the ship seemed to build for a minute before it stopped completely with the ships crew all being jerked forwards. As the ship seemed to slow, everyone quickly took the chance to look themselves over.

"All crew sound off!" Barked Cutter, checking himself for any injuries.

"All crew on deck appear fine sir."

"I'm getting reports of a few minor injuries and a broken leg sir but that's all."

"Anders!" Cutter turned to her as she immediately looked over her data. "What the hell happened?"

"I'm...not sure captain. Serena, can you confirm this?" Serena's holographic figure flickered to life nearby.

"Sir, it appears we...might have arrived at Earth."

"Might?"

"I think you had better see for yourself. Opening blast doors." The blast doors which covered the front window opened up to reveal a murky brown and green planet. "I have an 87% match on Earth sir."

"What happened? Did the covenant get here?" Asked the captain, worry filling his head.

"Unlikely, there's no wreckage of either Covenant or UNSC, and the damage done to the surface of the planet does not match with the covenants 'glassing' technique. Here's where it gets interesting though. The radius of the planet and continental pattern, as well it's orbit around the sun and the appearance of the other planets in orbit, matches that of Earth, but...the stars match up with those of Earth in approximately 2281."

"So, what? We've gone back in time?" He asked, bewildered.

"Here's where it gets confusing again, the lunar base was already established at this point but, the base not only isn't there, there's no trace it ever existed."

"Then what the hell happened to Earth?"

"Hmmm...I'm detecting mild radiation across the surface of the planet, it looks to be the work of multiple low yield nuclear weapons." James slumped down in his seat, stunned by the information he had been given. They were at Earth but they weren't, they were back in time, but the facts down match up, and somehow the Earth had become irradiated. Something was definitely wrong.