Halo Fan Fiction
When You Need Me
By Kraven Ergeist
Chapter 2
"Chief?"
The Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra John Spartan 117 had been only momentarily distracted by the spectacular view the ruined Ark presented him through the view screen. Most ships in the UNSC relied on triple thick Plexiglas to offer their occupants a view of the world outside their hull. The Covenant Parliamentary Eminent-class ship Caretaker that the Master Chief stood on had a different, and for the situation, much more appreciable means of viewing the scenery – namely, that it could render sections of the entire hull completely transparent.
Surrounding the Master Chief, the Arbiter, and the few other elites that manned their stations on the bridge, was a panoramic view of such wide scale wreckage that their deep space sensors were actually unable to reach some of the more far flung bits of debris.
The Arbiter had just been pointing out to his crew the residual data readings. Already, Covenant scout ships and transports were extracting bits and pieces of relevant material for study. The largest hunk of the Ark, a segment of what looked like one of its long outstretching arms, drifted in ruin beneath the Caretaker, its once luscious ocean and grasslands a charred black and gray.
"Hmm?" Chief mused after about a moment more of looking. It felt like only yesterday that they had been running across the Ark's too-wide plains, fighting for their lives and the life of the Galaxy itself. By his hand, the single greatest known artifact of the Forerunners had been hit at point blank range by a blast capable of sundering all life in a twenty thousand light-year radius from one of the second greatest known artifacts of the Forerunners, the nearly reconstructed Installation 04 - the first Halo to have been destroyed by his hands.
"There's nothing here," said UNSC Smart AI construct serial number CTN 0452-9 Cortana. While the Chief couldn't see her while she resided in the architecture of his helmet, he could imagine the purse of her lips as she surveyed the scene that he saw through his visor. "This is just a Covenant milk run. They just want to pick the wreckage clean of any valuable data. They can take care of any surviving flood, though I doubt anything's made it off that wreck…"
The Chief had to agree, but it didn't really matter to him if they were delayed all too much longer in getting home. After all, it had been all but a lost cause a scant few hours ago. At least, getting home together had been a lost cause.
"Why are we here, Chief?" Cortana's line of thought concluded in a query.
The Spartan patted the back of his helmet. Cortana's processes halted for just a nano-second, before continuing.
"There are worse fates…" he mused, his eyes scanning the areas along the surface of the Ark arm that look traversable. The Caretaker was looming ever closer to the fragment. They must be planning to land on it. "We shouldn't be delayed too long. They haven't uncovered everything, and they might need our help Cortana. We owe it to them."
Cortana said nothing in response. Her personality had been cloned from the eccentric Doctor Halsey, and the esteemed doctor was not one to take things lying down. As a matter of fact, in the span of time it would take to reply, Cortana had come up with over a hundred witty retorts to come back at what the Chief had said. But for some reason she didn't feel like debating with him at that moment. Perhaps a part of her agreed with the Chief's logic. If running an errand with the Covenant was the price for their rescue effort, it was more than tolerable. Maybe it was that gesture that was almost certainly aimed at her. It's not like she could 'feel' it the way humans could feel touch…but her sensors picked it up as easily as any other of the Chief's motions, and miniscule impacts to the surface of the Mjolnir armor, not to mention the slight variances in the electrical impulses in his brain…
Whatever was going on in his head for that moment of time that he had touched the back of his helmet…Cortana wanted to devote her entire cranial capacity to the task of deducing it.
"Is there any atmosphere left on that thing?" The Chief asked the Arbiter. He had already focused his attention elsewhere, Cortana noticed with slight disdain.
The 'small' fragment they had been approaching was revealed to still be nearly a thousand miles across length wise, and over three hundred miles at its narrowest point. It filled nearly the entire field of view on the ship, and it still looked like they had hundreds of miles left to descend.
"We will be equipped with space suits," the Arbiter said, distracted, as his alien hands moved over the controls with practiced fluidity. "Be sure to replenish your suit's oxygen reserves. We could be on the surface for an extended period of time."
The charred surface of the fragment of the Ark loomed ever closer. The entire landscape now filled the transparent window of the Caretaker's hull. Details of what now looked to be hills and valleys, but blackened as though having gone through a rain of fire, its blues and greens gone.
"What exactly are you hoping to find?" The Chief wondered out loud.
Cortana sighed. Hadn't she, in other words, been asking just that? Sometimes, it just didn't pay to not be a real person.
"Anything," the Arbiter finally turned to face the Chief. "Despite the fact that my people have all but abandoned the dogmatic practices of the prophets, the fact remains that the artifacts left by the Forerunners offer a vast wealth of knowledge. It would behoove us to discover all that we can from what's been left behind."
The Chief idly checked his weapon. "I don't be mean to presumptuous…but you don't strike me as the scientific type."
"Nor you," the Arbiter offered a bitter expression that looked almost like a smile. "Our presence here is merely that of security."
Cortana felt the Chief's heart rate drop a few beats slower. "You think there's a chance that any of the Flood survived?"
"You and I both know how robust they are," the Arbiter said, off hand, taking the controls. The screen blanked back into the opaque walls of the hull as they entered what little remained of the atmosphere. "There was a preserved sample of Flood spores on Installation 04 as well. It's logical to assume there are other such samples on the remaining rings. In any case, I am almost certain the galaxy is not yet rid of their pestilence."
Cortana simply listened and watched the conversation silently – or as silently as she ever did, with her internal system constantly processing whatever data she could get her sensors on. After the fiasco that took place after the first Halo, she wasn't too keen on jumping into any Covenant processors if she could help it, but she still had access to a wide range of things even while inside the Chief's Mjolnir armor. It didn't cost over a billion dollars just for being tough, after all.
Nothing more was exchanged between them as the Caretaker descended and landed on the surface of the Ark fragment and the Chief followed the Arbiter as he filed out along with the ground force, which seemed about three parts plasma rifle toting Elites and one part scientific research engineer Huragoks, floating purple creatures with long tails and tentacle appendages. Cortana did not particularly care to observe them.
"This way," the Ariter gestured, indicating a platoon of marching Elites headed off away from the ship. The gravity was more or less Earth-normal; the ground below them looked to be almost solid rock, all blacks and grays. In front of them, something that looked like it might have once been a building loomed, mostly intact, but with no signs of activity. As Master Chief kept pace, he had to watch his footing, as the ground below him crumbled into ash under his weight at seemingly random intervals.
"There is a residual energy reading in this structure up ahead," the Arbiter explained as they marched, weapons sidled under arm. A habit left over from the war that had kept them alive thus far.
Cortana attempted to make sense of the energy readings the Arbiter was getting. It was a practically universal signature, it could have been anything from a terminal to a vehicle to a cache of plasma munitions, or any other type of Covenant or Forerunner technology.
They marched up the shallow incline and stepped from worn, colorless rocky terrain to worn, colorless artificial terrain, though that in itself was a misconception, as the natural terrain was grown artificially in all likelihood so as not to risk Flood contamination.
The passageway led downward, into a veritable catacomb of ruined sentinels and charred decaying corpses of Brutes and Flood. The Elites quickly double checked for any signs of life, just to be on the safe side, before the Engineers moved in to collect sample data.
"The energy reading is further in," the Arbiter announced, viewing his heads up display. "This way…"
"You always did take me to the nicest vacation spots," Cortana muttered as the Chief stepped over a dead body. He didn't comment.
They stepped through the clutter of mangled bodies and twisted metal, down a causeway into one of the many wide open drops in the Ark's infrastructure, a single narrow cracked translucent bridge the only accessible passage.
"Let me guess…" Chief sighed, looking across the precarious walkway. "We need to get across."
The Arbiter could only nod his alien head.
Chief inspected the web of cracks lining almost the entire length of the bridge. Below, a sheer drop that lead seemingly nowhere, the walls of the precipice scorched and unlit.
"I'd be careful Chief," Cortana said, analyzing the data she could collect. "I'm not sure what that bridge is made of, but while it may be able to support the Elites, you're not exactly Mister lightweight."
"You all go first," Chief said to the Arbiter, weighing the options in his head. "I'm heavier than each of you."
"I think rather you should go first," the Arbiter countered. "If it should hold your weight, the rest of us can pass without fear."
"Alright…" Chief muttered, holstering his weapon.
"Great…" Cortana complained. "We get to be the crash test dummies…"
Cautiously, the Chief stepped out onto the overpass, his legs bent and his arms outstretched for balance should he need to make a sudden leap. He took one careful step. Then another. Slowly, he crept his way across the structure, ready to jump at the sound of the slightest crack.
When he made it across unencumbered, the rest of the Elites walked across, slowly, but assuredly, the Arbiter holding up the rear. When all the Elites were across, he stepped across himself, almost casually.
"Arbiter! Look out!" one of the Elites barked suddenly.
A sound echoed from up above, as all eyes rose to see a piece of the wall crumble and fall, sending an enormous hunk of metal hurdling towards them.
"Run for it!" the Chief barked, poising to leap after the Arbiter if necessary.
The Arbiter put on a burst of speed that allowed him to clear the bridge in no time. Seconds later, the scrap of debris hit the bridge, shattering it seemingly without so much as slowing down. The entire bridge disappeared in a matter of milliseconds, reduced to tumbling ruble that disappeared into the darkness below.
"Well, there goes our way out…" Cortana noted cryptically as the Chief peered down the precipice.
"Our ships will peel the roof from this facility if they must," the Arbiter assured the others, turning his attention forward. "Onward. The readings are near."
The statement proved true, as at last, they came across the only substance of color the team had observed for the entire duration of the mission – a functioning terminal. Though 'functioning' was perhaps too generous a term, as it sparked and crackled erratically, its screen displaying only static.
As they approached, the Arbiter looked at Master Chief with an unspoken request.
"Care to take a look?" Chief asked Cortana, who hummed in confirmation. Though she had been designed for this, she was reluctant to relinquish her home inside of the Chief's helmet having returned it so recently after such a prolonged absence. But she had her duty to fulfill. It seemed that's all anyone ever wanted her for anyway…
The Chief yanked the chip from the back of his helmet, and pressed it against the terminal. When nothing happened, he tried another outlet. It took several attempts to find a working port, but eventually, the chip flickered off, indicating Cortana had found a place to anchor herself.
Cortana's holographic image appeared on the terminal, and although it was fragmented from a malfunctioning projector, the Chief still found his eyes locked on Cortana's feminine visage.
"There's barely anything here…" Cortana reported, looking down at the terminal. "Just some structural data and…hold on…I think I found a recording…"
Without preamble, the hologram shifted to display the Brutes locked in combat with the Flood, the bodies falling and reanimating as the Flood took over their facilities and started to fight anew. As the tide of the battle turned in favor of the Brutes, a scrap of a voice was heard that sounded eerily familiar to the Arbiter and the Chief.
"…is but a small part of the Galaxy. So long as the rings do not fire…"
The recording flickered off, and Cortana's image reappeared, this time even more disjointed.
"This terminal is almost out of power, Chief. Get me out."
Quickly, Master Chief pressed the chip to the outlet port, and was relieved to see it glowing blue once more. He returned it to his helmet and felt the cool rush as Cortana's nanosensors reintegrated with his neutral net.
"Worried?" Cortana said, mockingly.
"Not at all," John said. She could tell he was lying.
"I still had about 14.8 seconds before the system shut down," she assured him. "And even then, all you'd have to do is extract the terminal and replace the energy source. I would have been fine."
Chief said nothing. But Cortana could detect a slight decrease in his pulse as the adrenaline left his system and he calmed slightly. She pondered.
"Shipmaster," the Arbiter spoke through his communicator. "We've completed our task, but we require extraction. Lock onto my position and arm the precision cutters."
The Elites relaxed formation as they waited for the Caretaker to dig them out. While they did, Cortana finally decided to ask the Spartan a question that had been on her mind since her rescue.
"Chief…what if I hadn't had the index?" she asked, rather bluntly.
Master Chief, who had been checking the surrounding nooks and crannies of the chamber for anything that stood out, halted his search.
"Then we wouldn't be having this conversation right now," he answered, just as bluntly.
"But…" for once, he noted, she didn't hit him back with a witty retort. "Would you still have recovered me?"
'Recovered' she said, not 'rescued' as she felt it had been.
Master Chief remained silent for a moment, considering his response. Cortana swore that the time she spent waiting outside his cryo-tube wasn't as long as the pause he took.
"The index was…" he said, slowly. "…a convenient excuse."
While he couldn't see her, he imagined her blink with something like surprised.
"Chief?"
The Spartan actually had to stop himself from laughing. "Sorry I took so long."
Cortana's processes nearly hiccupped. His meaning could not have been clearer. He had gone in there for her and her alone! The index had just been the icing on the cake for him!
Cortana's sensors registered the roof vaporizing and the lift beam activate and carry them up into the belly of the Caretaker, but she barely noticed it. All she could think about at the moment was that it was finally over.
"We're finally going home…" she sighed. It had been seven months, eighteen days, seventeen hours, forty-two minutes, and eighteen seconds since the Ark had been destroyed. And now, at last…
"Arbiter…something you should see…"
As the Chief and the Arbiter reached the bridge, the Shipmaster motioned them over to a panel readout. Both the Chief and Cortana watched the Arbiter's face as he read the alien language. Despite the gap between their species, the Arbiter's expression was still easily read as one of shock.
"It appears our task is not quite over…" he said, resigned.
The Master Chief actually felt Cortana's mood fall.
"Me and my big mouth…"
