I've decided to rework this story a little, mostly some grammar and story corrections. I've become a slightly better writer than I was when I first wrote this, so I hope you enjoy it.
Sword of change
Prologue
The Human Covenant war has been over for ten years, in that time the UNSC had rebuilt the former civilian government, which had been disbanded during the war with the Covenant. It was a time of healing for humanity. Most of the Outer-Colonies had been attacked and occupied by the Covenant. Sixty major Outer planets were glassed, and most of the six hundred colony worlds had their settlements and small outposts razed to the ground.
The Inner Colonies were mostly intact, having been bypassed when the location of Earth had been discovered. Refugees had flooded into the Inner-Colonies, stretching the planets individual resources to the limits. With the war over most were able to return to their original colonies to rebuild, but the worlds that had been glassed, including Reach, would take decades to terraform back into their former selves.
A peace treaty with the Covenant Separatists was signed in 2554, stating that they would help each other in their hour of need, which the Sangheili and their allies gave in the form of humanitarian aid and helped to rebuild civilian and military infrastructure. The UNSC began to implement the reformation of a civilian government, since the military was meant to serve the people in defence of the nation, not govern it.
The Unified Earth Government(UEG) had its civilian powers restored under an interim governing council led by President Ruth Charet. She later won the election six years later. In that time major political reforms took place. Every self-sufficient colony world had a voice in Parliament, and was granted sovereign rights to manage their own domestic affairs. This improved relations with the surviving Outer Colonies and strengthened ties between the Inner and Outer Colonies as well as Earth.
What everyone wanted to know was what happened to the Master Chief? Is he dead or is he still alive somewhere out there, trying to find his way home?
(((((((((SoC)))))))))
Ch.1
Space is a cold and mostly empty place, pockmarked with various star systems and punctuated by cold empty wastelands between stars. This little corner of the galaxy was occupied by a broken UNSC Frigate, the Forward Unto Dawn, split roughly in half when it got caught in mid-jump when the new Halo array activated. The Chief and Cortana have been slumbering in silence, waiting for rescue that would probably never come. The Dawn continued to drift slowly through space, its reactors still hot, but at low power levels. Many systems had been heavily damaged during the escape. It would however not be alone for long, for it was slowly drifting towards a large group of ships, two hundred in all, with six blocky engines, a hexagonal mid section and an overlapping bow. It didn't take the Dawn's remaining sensors long to detect the fleet, the computers sub-routines, programmed by Cortana before she went into standby mode, and brought the ships reactors to full power and environmental systems came online, though several sections of the ship had been exposed to vacuum. The Cryo-chambers began the process of reviving the Chief and Cortana came out of standby mode, slowly coming back to life.
The Chief awoke groggy, with a slight headache and his mouth tasted like sand paper. He looked around and saw no sign of Cortana. "Cortana?" he called out gruffly, yet still softly, for him.
At the nearby holo-pad Cortana appeared, slowly forming into her avatar. "Soooo looong," she said, her form coalescing into a beautiful woman, covered in numbers and equations flowing over her avatars purple and blue body. "Sorry about that, took a little while to get my equilibrium back, you have no idea what over ten years of Standby mode can do to an AI."
"Why did we wake up, is it an emergency or is it rescue?" the Chief asked.
"Can't tell, the ship's computer woke us up when sensors detected ships, over two hundred of them, apparently they're not moving at all under their own power. One of them could be our escape off this wreck," she said hopefully.
The Chief picked up his MA5C Assault Rifle, which he had placed right next to the cryotube and checked its magazine. It was only half full.
"An armoury two decks above us has survived intact, you can procure some ammo and weapons there," she said helpfully.
"Right." He reached for Cortana's crystal chip and slipped it out and took a second to just look at it, marvelling that something so small could house something or someone so powerful. He inserted into the base of his neck, the feeling of liquid nitrogen going down his back when Cortana accessed his suit and used parts of his brain and nervous system as storage.
"Phew, look at all the cobwebs in here, what a mess, how did you ever survive without me for so long?" she quipped.
"You'd be surprised," he retorted and made his way to the armoury, his magnetic boots making sure that he didn't float away. Even though most of the systems on the Dawn were intact, if you discount the missing forward section, artificial gravity was a complete write-off to get back online. He moved steadily forwards, reaching a sealed section where it was exposed to vacuum.
"Let me guess, this is where we have to go?" he asked Cortana.
"Yes, unfortunately," she said.
The Chief shook his head in frustration and thumbed the keypad on the side of the door, sealing the section he was in and depressurizing it. The door opened silently and he was greeted to a sight he had hoped he had seen the last of. Flood Infection forms. They scurried towards him, using whatever purchase they could find. The Chief raised his Assault Rifle and tore the three Infection forms to pieces with well placed shots.
"I thought we killed them all when we detonated the HALO," said the Chief angrily.
"We did, these must be stowaways when we escaped. I may be able to get internal scanners online and track them, but we'd need to get to a remote ops station. The bridge went with the rest of the forward section when the ship got cut in half."
"Ammo first," he said gruffly, not wanting to be caught out with a weapon out of ammo.
They made their way to the armoury without further incident, stopped only by the armoury's heavy door. The door had been hardened against attacks from small arms and explosives, but the designers had not factored in the strength of a Spartan II, whom could upright a Scorpion tank with very little effort, whom was now ripping off the door off its hinges and tossing it aside as if it was just a piece of cardboard. "And the Caveman lives up to his name." Cortana protested the unnecessary violence used to simply open a door.
"We should be thankful that this part of the ship was exposed to vacuum; the ammo should still be good," she said.
The Chief stocked up on munitions, a pair of M6D hand guns, another pair of M7 sub-machine guns and an M90 shotgun. He picked up a small duffel bag and loaded up with several clips for his weapons, then took a bandolier of shells for the shotgun and another one with frag grenades.
"You got enough there, big guy?" she asked.
"There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to the Flood," he said gravely.
He turned and left for the remote ops station on this deck, encountering two more Flood Infection forms and blasting them into oblivion with the M90. He loaded a pair of fresh cartridges as he went, not stopping or slowing down, knowing that with the internal scanners he would be able to track them down and exterminate every last one of the little bastards. He turned a corner and found the remote ops station, covered in more Infection forms.
"Great, just what I need," he said to himself.
Cortana, seeing the sight of so many, remembered briefly her experiences when she had been captured by the Gravemind, and filled with a rage she didn't know she could possibly possess. "Kill them John, exterminate the bastards," she said coldly.
"My sentiments exactly," he said, raised his shotgun and took aim, but in the back of his mind he hoped that Cortana's reaction wasn't one of the first signs of Rampancy. He pulled the trigger and all hell broke loose. He caught five Infection forms with the first shot, and kept firing, blasting more and more of them to hell, even as more came upon him, crawling across their dead. He soon ran out of shells and quickly reloaded. The Flood were closing in on him quickly, he managed to get eight out of a maximum of twelve shells into the shotgun, and continued shooting them, catching several at a time. More and more Flood came, living up to their name in the most terrifying way. The Chief just kept blasting away, pausing only to reload. A routine began to form, fire until he ran dry, and then pause to reload, and blast away, repeating the process as long as there were shells. He soon ran out of shotgun shells and switched to the M7s, dual wielding them he hit every time, each round was a delayed explosive round that would penetrate then detonate inside, not a single bullet was wasted. The ammo lasted a bit longer than the shotguns, bigger clips more ammo and reloading was also faster. Soon there were no more Infection forms in sight, and the Chief could finally relax somewhat and put the M7s back into their holsters.
"John behind you," Cortana called out as she saw, using the suits own sensors to track it, an Infection form was sneaking up behind him and had made a last desperate dash and jump. He pulled out one of the M6Ds and fired, hitting the Infection form square in the centre, exploding when the delayed explosive round blew.
"That was close John," she said in a relieved voice, happy that her partner wasn't going to become some Flood infected combat form.
"Too close, thanks Cortana, now how about we get those internal scanners back up and running, hmm," he replied and took out Cortana's chip and inserted it into the nearby console. She quickly found the problem and bypassed the damage; she got the location of every last one of the Flood. There weren't many left, but there was another problem.
"Looks like the Flood are heading for the Hangar Bay, trying to access a Pelican, I've locked them down so they can't take off, but they may find another way off the ship."
"Then I'll just have to get there before they go anywhere else, I will not allow a single Flood Infection form off this ship intact," he swore. He got up and went to the closest armoury. "Cortana, you stay here and monitor them, if they move towards you or go somewhere else on the ship I want you to inform me."
"You got it John, be careful." He silently nodded to her and went back to the armoury to restock on ammo, then took off at a dead run for the ships hangar. He soon reached the hangar, the Flood was all over one of the Pelicans, trying to gain access and having very little success. The Chief raised his Assault Rifle and let loose a series of controlled bursts, slaughtering the Flood. This seemed to piss them off as they came straight for him, braving the barrage of weapons fire that the Chief sent towards them. More and more Flood exploded into little more than indescribable piles of bio-matter. They continued to race towards the Chief across the Hangar bay as more and more of their numbers were gunned down, Cortana was feeling very smug as the Flood was no match for a Spartan on the hunt. Soon they were all dead. The Chief went back to the remote ops station, stopping by the armoury to restock again along the way.
"Anymore of the bastards?" he asked Cortana.
"No John, I can safely say that the Dawn has been successfully purged of its Flood infestation, nothing like a Spartan when you want to clean house," she replied smugly.
The Chief shook his head at the AIs comments. "Anymore intel on those ships out there?"
"None, they are all dead in the water just like we are, yet I detect no discernable damage, at least externally."
The Chief thought for a couple of seconds then said, "Unlock one of the Pelicans, I think it's time we did a proper investigation."
"Done," she said, and the Chief took out the Chip and reinserted it into his armour, the feeling of liquid nitrogen slipping down his spine again. He went back down to the hangar, got onboard the Pelican and got it ready for takeoff.
"Would you like me to drive John?" asked Cortana in her sweetest voice possible.
"No, I'll drive," he responded and flew the Pelican out of the Dawn, heading for the unknown fleet. He approached with caution, moving at low burn acceleration, the individual ships were coming into view, all but one of them were virtually identical at 600 meters long, but one of them was substantially bigger, about a kilometre in length and even more heavily armed with a few more communication antennae beside the main transceiver dishes. He guided the Dropship into what looked like a hangar bay, just behind the 'head' of what the Chief assumed to be the Flagship. He landed without incident or challenge, stepping out of the Pelican. The hangar bay housed twelve long nosed four engine fighters with a pair of cannons mounted on the wing tips.
He noticed that there were no lights or power on at all, so he walked, or rather attempted to walk, just to float off the deck when he stepped off the dropship. He activated the magnetic soles of his boots and gently landed back on the deck. He continued on to the aft section where he assumed engineering was. The corridors were equally spooky, no lights, no signs of life and still no pressurized sections. He discovered several floating bodies, all frozen and hanging in midair, and what surprised the Chief was that they appeared to be human, but due to the disfigurement that happened when they crew got exposed to hard vacuum it was hard to tell. He got to the engine room and started looking over the displays, which seemed to still have some power left. He reached for a nearby console and said, "Do your thing Cortana."
She seemingly flowed from his hand and once again swam in a veritable sea of numbers and equations, all representing different sub-systems. She soon hacked her way through the encryptions, translating the information directly from the binary code. She got control of the ships computer and initiated main power. A gentle hum sounded as the reactor came to life again, after five years of silent waiting. She also got more access to the ships logs and files, learning the fate of the crew through the security recordings and private notations from the ship's doctor.
She activated a nearby holo-pad and sprang forth. "Chief, you are not going to believe this." She told him everything that she had found in the database, about the Galactic Republic, about the humans that seemingly populate a vast amount of the galaxy. "I guess the Forerunners seeded more than just Earth with Human life. These people are from the other side of the Galaxy, and they have a history longer than human recorded history, about twenty five thousand years. I also found out what happened to the fleet's crew. They were all infected with something called a Hive Virus. It drove them mad and eventually killed them all."
She showed images of what happened on the nearby monitors, crewman going hand to hand, shooting people at random and opening sealed airlocks. "The Commanding Officer of this fleet, the Captain of the Katana, initiated a random Hyperspace jump then ordered a shut down and emergency venting of the entire fleet. It seems that this was an experimental fleet, trying out new systems, increased automation, but it seems that this fleet was doomed from the beginning."
"Explain," said the Chief coldly. Nothing got the Chief angrier than the deaths of innocents.
"It seems that their shipment of medical supplies, possibly the stores of a substance known as Carsunum Spice, was tainted with this virus and within a couple of weeks the entire crew went insane and then died," she said, the saddest look had come upon her face.
"What's the status of this ship?" he asked, concentrating on more immediate problems.
"All systems are fully operational, including their FTL drive, we can go home now," she said in absolute relish. "Oh, and since this is the Flagship I have total control of the entire Katana Fleet, and I just sent a signal to them to restart their reactors, they seem in pretty good shape for having been floating aimlessly through space for five years."
"What about supplies, are they still good?"
"The stuff aboard the Katana Fleet has definitely gone bad, but the stuff in the Dawn's secondary cargo bay should still be good."
The Chief set off back to the Katana's launch bay and took off in the Pelican back to the Dawn, cruising on full burn. He landed and headed towards the ship's cargo bay; inside he found ten fifty ton containers, each mounted within a latticework of bright yellow crossbeams, thruster pods at each corner, containing everything he needed to survive and plenty of spare ammunition and weapons. He opened the outer doors and with a great whoosh of depressurization the containers were ejected into space, thruster pods firing on a preset course for the Katana. They were then brought onboard using the Katana's tractor beams.
The Chief then went to the ship's armoury and prepared a little gift for any Flood still on the ship. He then returned to the Pelican at a dead run and red lined the engines, shooting out of the Dawn's launch bay like a bat out of hell. Seconds later the Forward Unto Dawn lit up the surrounding space like a small nova, buffeting the Pelican as the shrapnel and debris impacted the armoured hull. He managed to land the Pelican, despite the damage to it, and walked away.
"Welcome back John, just follow one of the mouse droids." A small black, boxy little droid on tiny wheels came up to the Chief. "It will show you to the ships bridge, I'll be waiting for you."
The Chief obediently followed the little droid. The lights were on now, and he noticed that the walls were coloured in flamboyant blue, something he didn't notice when the ship was in darkness. He also noticed that a large number of droids in various configurations were all over the place doing various tasks.
He soon arrived on the bridge, every station was up and running and Cortana's avatar was standing by a plotting table. "Hi John, all systems operational, but it will take a while for the rest of the Fleet to get ready. I'm only working with their onboard complement of droids, you know, not with a fully crewed fleet."
"How long?" he asked.
"Another hour and we'll be on our way home, and you'll be happy to know that, in galactic terms, we're not too far away from Harvest, and you can bet that if the UNSC and the Covenant Separatists won the UNSC may have a presence there."
"Good, how fast can we be there?"
"A weeks travel in Hyperspace, a slightly different dimension than Slipspace, but I can still navigate."
The Chief took the Captain's seat and sat down, it groaned in protest.
"I suggest that you get up until I can get that thing reinforced, or you could take your armour off," she said cheekily.
"I don't think so," he responded and got out of the Chair as a droid with a domed head trundled forward and started working on it.
An hour later the Katana Fleet was in formation again after five years of being dormant. They got the coordinates from the Flagship and as one they elongated and accelerated to speeds well beyond light speed. They would each be given a new purpose and each would serve with honour, acting as humanity's shield and sword.
TBC!