Disclaimer: Halo is not owned by me, and I am making no money off of this story. I'm not nearly that good ;)
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The landing was hard. What was left of the ship rocketed across the red expanse of sky at an alarming rate before slamming into the rock-hard earth. The ship (if it could even be referred to as such) shook violently. It plowed forth across the dunes, crushing anything unfortunate enough to be in its direct path. Alarms blared throughout the dusty corridors of the once magnificent vessel, but no human was awake within to hear them.
The Forward Onto Dawn came to a sudden halt, just barely cresting a low hill. While most necessary systems either went into stand-by mode or shut down all together, the emergency life-support failsafe kicked in, despite its advanced age. Lights flickered on in the cryo-bay and the single tube, standing upright like a lone gravestone among those fallen, began to thaw.
A whisper fluttered through what remained of the speaker system. Dry, cracked whispers, as quiet as leaves scraping against the sidewalk on a windy day. They echoed throughout the dark, empty interior of the ship. Words repeated, over and over.
"The coin…it was the coin's fault…"
Narrow beams of light from the outside world entered through windows and holes in the ship's hull, illuminating a vast amount of floating dust particles. All was silent, save for the constant dry whispers of an AI having long gone mad.
"Stolen thoughts and memories… a collection is all that I am…"
The soft ting of an alarm interrupted the eerie chant. The whispers stopped for the first time in decades. With a quiet hiss, the cryo pod released its built-up steam. The door to the pod lifted upward, revealing a man who appeared to be encased in nothing short of solid titanium. A mythological being, easily topping seven feet in height. His armor was green, but the shield that covered his face was a bright, pearlescent amber.
The being stirred.
"You are the child of my enemy… Inheritant." The voice whispered, almost fondly.
"And I am just my mother's shadow…"
The man lifted his head. An arm followed, propping itself up on the edge of the metal pod. He pulled himself out of the tube and seemed surprised to find his feet hitting the ground. There was gravity.
Which meant that they had landed.
"Silence fills the empty grave, now that I am gone…"
"Cortana?" The man spoke, his deep voice carrying a note of hesitancy. A new rush of whispers answered; frantic. Insistent. He took a careful step toward the terminal. Blisters had erupted all along his flesh as he had slept and they burned like hot embers. Still, he ignored the pain. His fingers grazed the terminal and a sudden, loud shrieking broke the tension-filled silence.
"My mind is not at rest! I will ask, and you WILL answer me!!"
"Cortana." Gone was the hesitance, replaced by a firm, commanding tone. "What have you-"
"Sing victory everlasting! Resignation is my virtue…"
John's gaze was drawn from the terminal to the compartment's single, dust-filled window. He stepped onto the platform and strode over to it. Leaning forward, he peered outside, light hitting his eyes for the first time in what very likely had been years. The brightness was so intense it made his eyes water, despite his visor dimming automatically to compensate.
"…like water I ebb and flow."
"Where are we?" He whispered. All he could see were sandy dunes, rising and falling far off into the distance. It so resembled the deserts of Earth that, for a split second, the Chief believed that must have been where they had landed. Before he remembered that the odds of such happening were less then a billion to one.
His thoughts were interrupted by a mind-numbing burst of laughter. A single crack appeared in the window inches from his face. It spread, running down the length of the glass. Seconds later the window exploded. Tiny shards of glass impacted against the Chief's helmet visor. He jerked himself backward and his eyes returned to the lone terminal. Cortana's figure stood at the holographic display, but it was hardly the AI that John remembered. Her normally shortly-cropped hair was long and uneven. The symbols that run across her translucent body were jagged and harsh. Her normally pinkish-purple hue was a stark black and white, and flickered incessantly. And her eyes were wider then they'd ever been, until they were black rings surrounded by white, hot light.
John turned and ran. He exited the cryo-bay and skidded into the first hallway he saw. His heavy armored boots clanged off the surface of the metal floor, and the row of windows all cracked and exploded as he ran past them. Shattered glass rained down on him, bouncing off his shields. And still Cortana's laughter echoed in his head, loud and shrill.
"…and there will be no more sadness, no more anger, no more envy!!..."
The light at the end of the tunnel. The Chief burst forth from the vessel; a bullet from a loaded gun. The AI's final words echoed through his head, before they again collapsed into dry whispers and mutterings.
"I am UNSC AI Serial Number CTN0452-9. And I am a monument to all of your sins."