She was never going into hibernation again.
Cortana watched with a modicum of panic on the view-screen as the Dawn plummeted and tried making quicker work of waking the Master Chief.
Something had hit the Dawn with some kind of electromagnetic pulse that had resounded and acted like a cannon, stopping the Dawn in her tracks and sent her spiraling into the gravitational pull of a nearby planet. Cortana may be experiencing the beginning stages of rampancy in her current state, but from the diagnostics she ran, the planet's pull was extremely unusual for its size.
Had she not been so worried about securing what little of the broken ship she could, and waking the Chief, she would have noticed a lot more than just the planet's pull. "Chief, wake up. I need you!" Cortana's subroutines were checking through the Dawn's deteriorating systems and they were entering the atmosphere at an alarming and dangerous rate. She heard the ship's hull begin to crack under the sheer pressure.
The cryo-pod popped open and the hiss of released pressure was a relief to the A.I. Her Spartan groaned a little and shook his head as if he were groggy. They'd only been afloat for a year and five months approximately, but John needed a little time to adjust. "Cortana?" his voice sounded gravelly.
"Here, Chief. But not for long. I went into hibernation mode after you took your nap and the Dawn was hit by something. Whatever it was spun us off course and now we're about to get an up close and personal view of a planet I don't recognize." She spoke quickly and used a tone that brokered no tolerance for questions at the current time. The Chief understood and nodded once to show rudimentary understanding of their situation.
Cortana was downloading whatever she could from the Dawn – most of it was quick repair and diagnostic codes for herself and whatever other data the Dawn may have collected on her directionless flight.
Master Chief grunted and stepped down from the pod, grabbing an assault rifle from a nearby rack and a pistol to slip into a thigh holster. He adjusted himself and while his heads-up display was rebooting itself, he turned to Cortana. "Survivors?" he was nothing if not optimistic.
Cortana didn't look over at him although for a moment she stopped scrolling through data, "Just you Chief." She said it quietly before she was back to doing what she did best.
"And you," he acknowledged. The Master Chief yanked the empty data chip from his helmet and held it out to Cortana expectantly.
Cortana looked at it momentarily, seemingly distant while she finished her download. "Alright. Guess we have to get ready for impact now Chief." She transferred over to the chip and when it was a bright blue, Master Chief inserted her back into the slot of his helmet.
"Cortana, can you calculate the ship's landing trajectory?" he reloaded the assault gun and stocked up on ammo from a cargo crate.
"We can't stay here…the cryo-chamber looks like it's going to be ripped in half when we land. Try heading left down the corridor to the maintenance control room. We might have a better chance. The Dawn keeps flipping and we're about to lose our gravity. Free-falling won't work this time so we'll have to find somewhere to buckle up." She paused momentarily, "And remember to keep your head down Chief. I'm in here too."
"Yes ma'am," the Master Chief intoned, and started making his way down the corridor, having to find his balance continuously as the Dawn bucked her way down to the planet.
"Chief," Cortana warned, "the Dawn can't stabilize herself anymore. We're going to be landing in fifteen point nine seconds. Crash-course style. Hang on to something, Chief."
"Understood," he murmured back, strapping his assault rifle to his back and ducking into the maintenance room. Gravity-loss had finally kicked in and sent the Master Chief into a nearby wall, knocking his helmet.
"Careful!" she snapped, sounding slightly panicked.
Master Chief braced himself in a corner of the room, holding onto the bars and jamming his feet against a console to prevent flipping into the air again. With a free hand, he smacked the side of his helmet in retribution to Cortana's snippiness. "Not now Cortana." The Dawn seemed to somersault, flipping over her tail and tumbling sideways.
"Twelve point two seconds until impact," Cortana counted down, her voice small in his helmet while the Dawn groaned and screamed her way down to her final landing.
Master Chief gripped the bars behind him tightly, the metal bending in his grip.
"Start praying Chief," she said grimly.
Master Chief grunted, "Only praying I've ever done is 'spray and pray'."
He wasn't sure if Cortana laughed at that. The Dawn had landed and skidded, throwing her occupants from their secured place and gravity was in effect again. Master Chief collided with the roof and then the floor before being tossed into another wall.
And then there was nothing.
… … …
"Welcome Vault Hunt – oh wait. Awww. You're dead," a small box shaped yellow robot fitted with a large wheel for mobility stopped in front of the armored body before it. It sighed, static filling its speakers. "Well it would have been a pleasure to greet you newcomer, if you were not currently already on your way to fertilizing the planet. Good for you!" it continued on cheerfully as it went in search of a small shovel.
"Chief? John wake up. John!"
Master Chief's eyes snapped open and he stared up into a light blue sky, a sun shining overhead brightly. "Here," he answered before rolling to his feet. Cortana's image appeared in the corner of his HUD, frowning slightly. "Status report?" he looked around, an endless stretch of desert greeting him. Dust eddies swirled around him and he could spot large pieces of the Dawn littering the area. The maintenance room he had occupied was more or less intact and seemed to have taken most of the damage. If anything, it was likely that his MJOLNIR armor had sustained dents or scratches. His shield was down but starting to recharge.
"Chief, the readings I'm getting is that the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels of the planet are stable, no report of intelligent life nearby but I'm picking up a lot of satellite activity overhead. It's bouncing everywhere."
"What?" he cocked his head as if he were looking down at her.
She sighed, "Air is breathable. And someone has satellites, which means that communication is possible."
Whatever response Chief may have had was cut off by a jubilant cry: "You're alive! Hurray! I was not about to bury your body with this shovel I've coincidentally recovered!" Master Chief spun and brought up the assault rifle that had still remained attached to his back to stare a small yellow robot with one eye.
The yellow robot froze, thin metal arms raised with two pinchers at the end of each. The eye looked at the Chief's visor, then to the assault rifle pointed at it and then back to the Chief.
"Uh I don't really think it counts as a hostile Chief." Cortana murmured over their private comm.
Before Chief could lower the rifle, the robot flung the shovel into the air and wheeled around to flee, screaming as it flapping its arms over its head nonsensically. "Serpentine! Seeeerrrrpeeeennntiiinnnee!" it screamed as it sped away in distinctly loopy patterns.
Chief stared after it for a moment before relaxing his stance. "I can reconfirm my earlier evaluation of the area. No intelligent life-forms here Chief," Cortana muttered.
Master Chief grunted in agreement. "Any idea which way to go?" he asked. The area looked bleak and deserted, no sign that sentient beings had been in the area recently.
Cortana was silent for a moment before she sighed, a vocal signal equal to that of a shrug. "Which way does a Spartan ever go without map or directions?"
"North," Chief agreed and started walking, cataloguing what little of the environment he could.
"Cortana," the Chief began before she readjusted his grip on his rifle.
"Yeah Chief?"
"What did you mean you didn't recognize the planet?" he asked. That Cortana was rampant or forgetting things crossed his mind momentarily, but she wasn't rampant.
"I mean that I have no data on this planet, or even where the Dawn was near when she was hit. I'm flying in as blind as you Chief," Cortana sounded equal parts frustrated and apologetic.
Chief nodded once and tapped the back of his helmet with a quick hand. "Nothing we haven't done before."
Cortana laughed softly. "Seems to be a hobby we share." Her laughter cut off abruptly, "We have movement on your seven Chief, moving fast." Chief spun and lifted the rifle to his hip, "Vehicular movement, probability that there's more than one possible hostile is eighty-nine percent."
"Affirmative," he positioned himself at his ten for lack of cover and waited. He felt a spike of adrenaline and anticipation. After so long in the cryo-pods with little aside of nutrition fed to him via tubes, he was looking forward to action to get back in the groove.
"Easy there Chief, your testosterone is enough to make a girl blush," Cortana drawled. Master Chief felt a corner of his lips quirk.
"Weeeooooo!" it sounded like a human's cry, but the sound that followed war of more interest. It was the high roar of an engine, unmistakable albeit not quite as ferocious as a Warthog. Master Chief, from his crouched position watched as a shadow jumped into the sky. An elongated front with open sides and a cramped back that could seat two, Chief saw that it had a rocket launcher attached to its top.
The vehicle dropped heavily, hydraulics bouncing it and it spun in several circles, kicking up dust before it stopped. The rocket launcher was pointed in his general vicinity.
"Chief…" Cortana warned.
"I know."
The driver, wearing a white and red gas mask that didn't contain the dark blue Mohawk that rose behind it was outfitted in what looked more like a vintage leather jacket. "They've got shields, Chief," Cortana announced.
The one manning the launcher was bare-chested with only orange pants and a similar mask as his companion.
The driver swung out of the vehicle easily and the Master Chief saw the shotgun on his back and a revolver in his hands. Without warning, the rocket launcher went off and Chief rolled away just in time for it to create a small crater. The revolver began to shoot off rapidly, with fire flaring with each shot. Master Chief stood to his feet and turned away to find cover as he did not want to engage a rocket launcher on a face-to-face confrontation. He ran on a course leading to where large boulder was located at his four o'clock, about four hundred yards ahead. It would have to do temporarily until he could at least knock off the gunner or blow the launcher up.
Cortana sounded alarmed, "Chief, be careful of that gun!" another rocket flew past him. "It's – it's incendiary! It's shooting fire!" she added unnecessarily. Fire flared up at his left.
The revolver went off again and his shield abruptly dropped to thirty percent when a bullet hit him. His vision swam red while he looked down and realized that he was on fire. His shield continued to lower.
"Roll Chief, roll!"
Chief rolled again to miss another shot and was on his feet, banking hard to his right and rolling until he was behind the boulder. The fire had put itself out from all his rolling. He heard the whooping and hollering of them men behind him.
A projectile flew past his spot and embedded in the ground. It looked like a hatchet with a curving back not dissimilar to a pick.
Fire continued to reign down near him and he heard another rocket behind launched. He almost smiled. Cortana huffed exasperatedly. "You're smiling about this aren't you," she accused.
With one hand he swiped two fingers across his visor.
He ducked out of cover and returned fire. He managed to hit the shirtless one in the chest, knocking him off the gunner's position. The man groaned but got back up laughing.
Master Chief heard the revolver go off again and ducked back into cover.
The fire grazed past and knocked his shield down to seventy-five percent.
He heard the man snarl out and another hatchet flew past him. There was still maniacal laughter in the air. "Chief we've got two more vehicles heading this way. Looks like they're bringing the cavalry, lucky you," Cortana marked them on his HUD.
"Yeah, lucky me," he returned fire and looked over to see there were two more vehicles with similarly dressed men. Two had SMGs, one another pistol and the final one looked like he carried an assault rifle. They open fire, throwing insults at the Chief as well as each other.
"Welcome to Pandora!"