Chapter Two; Awakening

"What if you had another chance?"

The voice was unexpected, and John had no idea where it had come from. As far as he could tell, it sounded like Cortana, or a younger Halsey. The two were practically the same. He was standing in the middle of a vast white void, with no boundaries that he could see.

"Could you change things that happened in the past, if you were given the chance?"

"What do you mean? This is only a dream in cyrosleep," John responded to the voice.

"If only you knew the truth."

"What truth?

"The UNSC Infinity went on its last mission while you were in cryosleep. The warship was ambushed by thousands of CCS Cruisers, all under the control of the Strom Covenant. You, humanity's savior, perished while asleep..."

"Wait...what?" John was baffled. None of this made sense. "If I'm dead, then how am I talking to you?"

"I have the power to bring you back. Back to the Forward Unto Dawn. But if I bring you back, in the past, then you would have to do something for me."

"What is it?"

"I want you to prevent humanity from discovering Requiem. If you make it back to Earth, wipe the coordinates from the ship you use. Promise me this."

John thought about it for a minute. He could relive the past, and perhaps change it, and the only thing that he had to do was stop humanity from finding Requiem. Avery Johnson, Miranda Keyes, her father Jacob Keyes were all gone. There was nothing he could do for them. But he had the chance to save Cortana...It was worth it.

"I'll do it."

"Excellent. You will awaken shortly. You mustn't tell anyone of me, not even your ancilla. I bid you farewell, and good luck. Don't forget what you promised me..."

"Wait. The Infinity already has the coordinates to Requiem. How would I stop them?"

"That is for you to decide. If you leave before they arrive, the ship will be destroyed by the Prometheans. But if you wish to spare them...you have little time..."

John heard the familiar hiss of the pod opening, and the stale air escaping the pod's frozen interior. His vision blurred as he awoke, and saw the cryo bay outside his pod. It looked nothing like the Infinity's. There was random objects floating by, and snow had covered some of the ground around the other pods. This looked more like the Dawn... The objects sank to the floor, indicating that gravity had been restored.

John looked up, and saw the manual release. He yanked the lever down, and kicked the door open. The terminal was emitting a small ball of blue energy, and John's heart skipped a beat. No way this was happening. He walked slowly over to the terminal, as the blue ball began to take a humanoid form.

"What's wrong John? You look like you've seen a ghost," Cortana said, folding her arms. John collasped to the floor in front of the terminal. His heart was pounding in his throat.

"It's been awhile. Want to catch me up?" he managed to say. Cortana chuckled.

"Cryo sleep made you forget, did it? We blew up the Ark, and on our way out the portal closed on us. We got lost in space, and you went into cryo sleep. But that was four-"

"Four years, seven months, and ten days ago," John finished. "And I already know all of that."

Cortana looked at him in surprise. "How'd you know?"

"This has already happened before. All of it." Cortana stared at him with a suspicious look. "I can tell you what's going to happen in the future, if you'd like."

"John," Cortana started, "Cryo sleep can cause dreams that seem real sometimes, which is what I betting happened to you. You think it has all happened, but it was a dream."

"That wasn't a dream. I'll prove it," John responded, keeping his promise to the mysterious voice, and not mentioning her. He grabbed his Assault Rifle from the slot he had put it in years ago. "You are currently in your eighth year of service, and fighting rampancy."

Cortana looked at him again. "This is getting kinda creepy. First you know how long you were asleep, and now you know something else."

"You woke me because you detected something aboard the Dawn, which turns out to be the Storm Covenant, a smaller group of Covenant still holding to their beliefs."

Cortana was speechless. She had detected some life forms come aboard, but she had to know if John was right. "Yank me, this I have to see."

John put the AI chip in his helmet, and then he noticed something. He was in his Mark VI armor. Not the Mark VII that he had woken up in the first time. Cortana looked the exact same as she did when they were on the Ark. Now that he thought about it, his Assualt Rifle looked like an older model than the others. Maybe it was a dream...

John slowly walked through the empty corridors, until he reached the room where the Requiem had scanned them. "Now, an orange sensor scan will scan the ship. Cortana scoffed, but as John stepped forward the orange light wall scanned the room.

"John, I think I'm willing to believe you now," Cortana stated.

They continued into the room with the sealed elevator doors. "You'll have to pry them open," Cortana pointed out. John put his hands between the doors, and pulled them apart with all his might. They slowly opened, and John dove to the side, as two crates flew by and into the shaft. "That was most likely caused by the pressure in the room."

John jumped into the shaft, and began to climb up the ladder-like rungs that were conveintly right there. He pulled himself up, and threw himself to the left. Pieces of the ship fell off, and down to where he had been hanging only seconds before.

John strained as he climbed up the wall. He still hadn't gotten used to his muscles after several years of cryosleep. His thoughts wandered to the voice. Had he really died? Now that he thought about it, it made more sense that it was a dream. Cortana couldn't have possibley changed his armor while he was in the cryotube.

John jerked out of his thoughts as more pieces fell, threatening to knock him off. "John, watch out!" Cortana cried as the Spartan jumped to the side. With a few more jumps he pulled himself up to where the stealth elite with the energy sword had been, seemingly like he was waiting for the Spartan.

But the elite wasn't there...In its place was a BR55 Battle Rifle. As expected, it was black, and less angular than the ones he had seen aboard the Infinity. He picked it up, not mentioning the elite that was supposed to be there to Cortana. He didn't know what to make of it. He was right on every thing, but the elite.

He aimed through the scope of the battle rifle, and into the bridge of the Dawn. Elites and grunts were standing around as they had been the first time John had experienced this. "Watch this," John told Cortana, as he picked up two frag grenades that were in the door to the bridge. He tossed one at the elite manning the controls of the blastsheild, and fell back to cover.

The grenade exploded, killing the elite, and throwing the grunts into a panic. The other elites remained calm, and aimed their Storm Rifles in every direction, trying to find the grenade thrower. John carefully set the crosshairs of the battle rifle on an unsuspecting elite, and squeezed the trigger.

The triple burst struck the elite, its sheilds held, but it scared the shit out of it. The Minor whipped around, and unleashed several rounds of plasma at John's postion. Another frag landed next to it. It exploded, shrapnel embedding into the poor Sangheili. Purple blood poured out from the wounds, and the elite died from the injuries.

John walked into the room, battle rifle popping the grunts dead. One headshot after another. "We might just have stumbled onto a rouge salvage fleet. They don't seem to be wearing standard combat gear," Cortana said. "But since you seem to know everything, am I right?"

John strode up the ramp that lead to the blast sheild controls. "Not really," he answered as he pushed the button. The blastshield slowly lifted up, revealing the Covenant fleet that was stationed outside of Requiem. "That cruiser is on a intercept course!" Cortana shouted to him.

"We let it do that," John said. He had plans to get everything right this time, and that would mean that they never touch down on the metal planet.

"I hope you know what you're doing," Cortana said, nervously.