"Wake me, when you need me" Master Chief, Spartan 117-John said wearily, pushing a button to close the cryo tube. He leaned back and made himself as comfortable as possible, meeting the AI Cortana's longing gaze before closing his eyes and allowing the cold sleep of the cryo tube take him.
Cortana watched as her partner, no, her friend, leaned back into the slim cryo tube and slipped into unconsciousness. With that, she gave a virtual sigh and began making calculations and observations. The broken half of the Forward Unto Dawn did not possess adequate sensors and tools that she could use to enhance the odds that someone would find and rescue him, but she would make due with what she had. She slipped into what was left of the computer systems and made some observations on the planet she had noticed. Their half of the ship gently drifted towards the planet, falling into a geosynchronous orbit.
Her avatar narrowed its eyes, and puzzled over something she had spotted on the planets surface. The planet's crust seemed to be branded with a giant symbol. It looked familiar to her. She captured the image, and analyzed the image, comparing it with the dozens of Forerunner hieroglyphs stored in her database. Finally she found a direct match. The symbol was what her human masters had discerned as the term 'shield' when translated into the human tongues.
This confused her, why would the Forerunners build a 'shield' this close to the Ark. Did they want the Flood to infest what they had obviously built to protect them? Perhaps, it was a stretch, but perhaps there would be Forerunner ruins on the planet that could be salvaged. Vital information could be discerned, and the human/ Sangheili alliance could wipe out what remained of the Flood, then take on the Covenant loyalists that she knew would continue picking at the human worlds.
With the outline of a plan brought to the forefront of her central processing unit, she set to work analyzing what resources she had.
By a stroke of pure luck, which was almost expected with John around, the rear thrusters were intact and could function, though only at a fraction of their full capacity. Cortana wanted to reawaken John, but he had been fighting for months almost without rest. He deserved as long a break as she could give him.
With a figurative sigh, she rerouted as much power as she could muster from the rest of their half-a-ship towards the thrusters. She collected data from the sensors on the beacon she had dropped and discovered that the planet had an atmosphere nearly identical to that on the Halo rings.
Her first instinct was that this was another kind of Halo construct, and housed the Flood, but something else deep down told her that this was not the case. It was called a shield after all.
She calculated and recalculated their trajectory based on satellite images of the planet. With this information in hand, she plotted a course for a relatively grassy lowland nearby a structure that was obviously not organic.
The battered ship half choked to life and shuddered violently as the thrusters kicked the ship forward. Cortana tried to steer as best she could, but the best she could do was angle the stubby remnants of fins towards her intended path.
It killed her to be so out of control in this situation, she usually had everything calculated and directed to her will, but she had never felt so… so helpless. She contemplated the odds of their landing safely. It wasn't looking too good, but she knew that John had landed safely from these heights before. All she could do was pray that their luck would hold out long enough for them to arrive alive.
The ship's thrusters did the job Cortana intended, and the planet's gravity began to pull them into its atmosphere.
"Hang on Chief," she whispered, though she knew he couldn't hear her. Worst case scenario, she thawed him as best she could and ejected his pod onto the surface. She couldn't bear to dwell on that thought though.
Cortana had always been different somehow. She was unlike any other 'smart' AI. She experienced emotions that ran higher than any other smart AI she had encountered. Perhaps this was due to the fact that the woman she was based on was one of the most brilliant beings of their time. Dr. Catherine Halsey had had her brain flash cloned to become the basis for Cortana.
Cortana herself knew that Halsey harbored irrational feelings towards Spartan-117. He was a fine specimen both physically, and mentally. He was intellectual enough for both the doctor and Cortana to hold a decent conversation. If they didn't know themselves any better, they would have thought they were in love with the Spartan somehow.
It was strange, Cortana often found herself thinking about John, even when she knew she had to be focused elsewhere. When she was within the clutches of the Flood intelligence known as the Gravemind, she had pined for him irrationally, and feelings of pure elation had coursed through her processing units when he recovered her on the newest Halo construct.
She shook off the memories and returned to the work at hand. The planet's gravity dragged the remnants of the Dawn into the upper atmosphere and sent them into a freefall towards the crust.
Cortana began the thaw on John. He had only been frozen for several days, so it would not take long. Hopefully he would be nearly awake by the time they landed.
With that task done, she recalled her avatar and braced herself as best she could within her chip of memory crystal.