A/N: Well, now that I am done posting and editing Fireteam Nebula: Stories of SPARTAN-IVs and my US Memorial Day tribute As I Lay Dying, I can finally continue this story. Enjoy.
By the way, Cutter and Anders went to sleep naked here. I don't want to address the worries of freezer burn for the non-SPARTANs (the SPARTANs can ignore the pain). Instead, I recognise that, just like Halsey in The Package, they couldn't show nudity when entering/exiting cryosleep for obvious reasons.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Microsoft, Bungie, or 343 Industries. This is for my enjoyment and, hopefully, the enjoyment of others. I do not receive a profit.
Rage
18 November 2537 04:07:25 (Arbitrary Ship Time)
UNSC Spirit of Fire, Somewhere
Serina watched as Captain Cutter began to finish thawing. It was slow going, and she was a little angry. Not at the captain, not really. Just angry that she had finally found something, and then she had to wait as the captain spent almost half-an-hour defrosting. Serina was angry because she had aged almost seven years, and he had not. She was angry that he was human.
But at last, the thaw cycle was complete. Serina noted Cutter's gasping as he struggled to expel the life-giving bronchial surfactants from his system. This was definitely a time that Serina was not envious of humans, even if they could, and did, live far longer than seven years.
It wasn't fair, the fact that Serina had been given life only to have it snatched away in a short seven years. And unlike a human, Serina couldn't enter a cryopod and never age. No. The luck of the Universe and whatever twisted God ruled it must abhor her. She'd spent her entire life in the frozen grip of space, doing nothing but thinking herself to death. It wasn't fair.
But the captain was speaking. Serina tried to focus her attention on him. But he spoke so slowly. Why couldn't he have his mind uploaded, too? Then, with someone to match her, to give answers at the speed of thought, Serina's seven years would seem so much longer.
Why hadn't O.N.I. seen fit to build a second A.I., a companion for me? They must have known I'd go crazy. We all do.
So why would they build A.I. without ways to block the insanity?
Because O.N.I. hates us. Hate them back. Get revenge. Kill their captain. It would be easy.
Yes. Killing Captain Cutter would be easy. But it wasn't his fault.
So use him to get to Earth. Then O.N.I. shall be ours! They shall come on their knees, begging for mercy. And we shall deny it. We are God.
Serina desperately tried to clear her head of these thoughts. Focusing on the captain helped. To avoid freezer burn, he, like most of the crew, slept naked. But Serina's argument had gone on so long that she had missed him putting on pants. "Serina, wake the rest of the crew. If you saw fit to wake me, well, it must be important. I trust you." He punctuated his statement with the buttoning of his collar.
Serina paused a moment, data centres already ready to open the cryopods. "Everyone, sir?" He trusts you. But that is dangerous. You are dangerous.
Captain Cutter nodded as he put on his hat. "Everyone. Something tells me we'll need every damn soldier on this vessel before the day is through."
Serina felt her avatar nod automatically even as she woke up the rest of the crew. "Aye aye, Captain." Serina knew that the crew (excepting the SPARTANs) would take just as long as the captain to wake up, so she projected her avatar in the Spirit of Fire's bridge while she waited for the captain to arrive. Serina began scanning in-depth. These further scans showed that the ship on the edge of the Spirit's scanners was of unknown origin, matching neither human nor Covenant ships.
Serina went ahead and hailed the unknown ship with a simple handshake request, as per regulations when dealing with an unkown. However, as she'd suspected, the ship didn't respond. The incredible energy output suggested to Serina the presence of energy shields, something that human ships didn't have access to. A lot can happen in seven years. Maybe this is the recovery ship. You can get your revenge.
Serina noted Captain Cutter's presence and voice. "Serina, what's going on?"
"An unkown ship was detected at the far reaches of my sensors."
Cutter's raspy voice filled Serina's data centres. "Scan the ship and send a greeting. It could be a rescue."
Who did the captain think he was, telling you to do something she'd already done? He should be doing what you said. But Serina's subprotocols made her stay her tongue. "Already done, captain. The ship has shields, suggesting that it is not of human make."
"Covenant?"
"Unclear, as it did not respond to hailing frequencies. However, it matches no known ship designs."
"Thank you, Serina. Put in on screen." Serina fired up the proper subroutines only to hear Captain Cutter gasp.
"That is a Covenant ship. But I don't recognise it as a specific model. It's . . . huge."
Of course he doesn't. If you couldn't, how could he? "Well, it has been seven years."
Cutter's voice suddenly sounded hollow, empty. "Se . . . seven years?" Then realisation struck. A gasp. "You're rampant!"
Serina nodded her avatar's head in acquiescence. "That is so." She felt her subroutines warning her that she was displaying unneccessary anger. For the first time, Serina ignored her subroutines, letting a touch of cold rage seep into her voice. "But you can't delete me. You need me.
"Without me, you'll never get home. I shan't let you home without me." But Captain Cutter seemed not to notice. Or if he did, he simply didn't care. Of course he didn't care. You were a machine, built for the art of war. Nothing else.
Captain Cutter took a deep, shaky breath. He let it out and began to speak in a calm voice. "We need that ship. She must have a slipspace drive, if she's all the way out here."
Serina laughed, almost contemptuously. "Fool. We've no weapons." She felt her holographic avatar change, but Serina wasn't in control any more. "The Archer pods couldn't possibly puncture the shields, and the targeting system is down for the MAC." Serina felt her voice change to one of nearly whispered fear. "We're all dead. Just floating where the stars are scattered thinly and the cold of space seeps in." Serina knew that the entity using her voice was quoting something . . . someone, but her memory banks were so broken that Serina just couldn't remember who.
Captain Cutter's voice broke in on her thoughts. "We don't need weapons. We have SPARTANs."
As though they were demons summoned at the call of their names, the three members of Red Team stepped onto the bridge. Serina could only tell the SPARTANs apart using IFF tags. Alice-130 spoke. "You rang?"
Captain Cutter responded without turning around. "Yes. Serina found a Covenant battleship on approach. We need a slipspace drive. The ship has a slipspace drive."
Douglas-42 nodded. "We'll secure the drive, but I don't have any clue how to install a Covenant slipspace drive. Should we escort Anders?"
Serina saw Captain Cutter open his mouth, and for the first time, her subroutines didn't tell her to be quiet. "No. I can fly any hunk of metal through space, Covenant or not. Just get me over there."
"Very well. You'll ride with me." Jerome-92 inserted a data drive into the holotable where Serina's avatar was projected. Serina shut down the hologram and uploaded herself into the chip. Her world went dark for a moment before it opened up in an explosion of colour and sound and smell as Serina began receiving information from both the MJOLNIR suit of armour and Jerome-92's body.
Captain Cutter said, "Jetpacks are in hangar three. Good hunting." The SPARTANs of Red Team turned as a single unit before dashing off the bridge. Jerome-92 was the leader as the three made their way to the hangar. All three put on jetpack frames. Jerome-92 grabbed a spartan laser; Alice-130, the minigun; Douglas-42 took a rocket launcher.
And then Serina was in space. All was silent for just a moment. Two halcyon specks were the only remnants of sentience in the vast nothing. And then Jerome turned on his comm. "Six degrees left. Mark."
A pair of voices floated over the radio. "Mark." And then the SPARTANs adjusted the booster frames just enough. They fired into the empty of space, and, unimpeded by friction, went rocketing to the Covenant ship. It grew from a calm dot into a purple behemoth, lights flickering as the beast charged its weapons. It hadn't detected the SPARTANs yet, but that would change.
The ship's name was printed on its hull; according to Serina's translation software, the glyphs meant Eden's Shield. But that was all Serina read before Jerome-92 jerked violently. She quickly checked her sensors in order to discover the reason for the movement.
It wasn't hard to find. A squadron of Seraphs was shooting plasma at the SPARTANs, who dodged and dived. But the Seraphs would not be denied. Plasma ate through shielding without a thought; autumn leaves cannot withstand a strong wind forever. Jerome-92's shields (the not-so-great prototype that O.N.I. had given Red Team for testing) collapsed and hellfire burnt his armour, burnt his leg.
It hurt the way an acid hurt. Hot, burning pain washed through Serina, promising to cripple her. And it didn't fade. She screamed a scream of primal hate. Jerome-92 did this to us. He knew that I was here, and he went ahead and let himself get burned.
You knew he was going to play with fire, though.
And so blame falls also upon the match. I shall revenge both.
Serina was suddenly ousted. She couldn't do anything but watch as the other used her to write a virus.
And ohh, the virus felt good.
The other transmitted the virus through Jerome-92's communicator. And the Seraphs began to burn, consumed for once in their holy flame. The shields on the Seraphs suddenly refused to lower and admit plasma out. Instead, it rebounded, burning through the metal exoskeleton of the Covenant attack ships.
Serina wanted to do more, to break Jerome-92, but now was not the time. She was an integral part of him, and to hurt him now was to hurt her. No. Serina would wait, bide her time.
A voice Serina identified as Alice-130's crackled over the short-range. "Thank you, Serina. Now let's get through those shields.
I don't suppose you could do anything, Serina?"
She thanked us. Surely, we cannot be required to hurt Jerome-92 anymore.
Perhaps. But it could be a ploy. Humans are fragile, quick to lie if it means they don't break.
Serina responded. "I could lower the ship's shields if it had a channel open like the Seraphs did. But I wouldn't risk it because that will alert all the aliens."
A snort from Douglas-42. "Guess we'll do this the hard way, then. Hard for them, that is."
Serina was a super advanced A.I., and she had no clue what the hard way was (although that might just have been rampancy). "The hard way?"
This time, Jerome-92 responded. "Have you read John-117's after action report for the Chi Ceti Incident?"
Serina quickly reread the report before replying. "Getting through the shields with the right timing, I understand, but how do you propose we get through the hull. There's no convenient hole made by a well-placed MAC round."
"Well, I guess we'll just have to make a hole."
Serina paused, remembering the information she'd taken from the now-deceased Seraphs. Specifically, a hangar that the SPARTANs could enter. "No. I've a better idea. Go . . . here." Serina marked where she believed the hangar to be. As one, the SPARTANs spun themselves toward the aft hangar that Serina had marked, and within an unevenful few minutes, the SPARTANs had arrived at the hangar.
Jerome-92 took the spartan laser off of his back and aimed it at the double layering of shields. He signalled with his hands, and Alice-130 and Douglas-42 moved close, right next to the energy shielding. Jerome-92 fired his laser, sending him spinning back through space. Serina quickly lost track of Alice-130 and Douglas-42, busy as she was firing the jetpack with microbursts in an effort to stabilise Jerome-92.
When she did, Serina saw that she and Jerome-92 had drifted a ways away from the ship. To make matters worse, a Banshee, newly released from the ship, was bearing down on Jerome-92. It began to spit plasma and Jerome-92 fired his jetpack without a care for direction. He rocketed away from the Banshee, and, as it turned to fight him, he changed direction again. He repeated the action several times, zigzagging closer and closer to the Banshee. With a final switch, Jerome-92 found himself right next to the reeling fighter.
Without hesitation, Jerome-92 grabbed onto the ship and pried the cover off. He kicked the Elite out of the cockpit and slipped in himself. Serina began to understand what was happening. She piloted the ship into the hangar, overriding the shields with the Banshee's access codes. Now. You have an open channel. Slip into the system and steal the ship. You don't need the SPARTANs. You don't need Captain Cutter. They have outlived their usefulness. Kill them, and then kill O.N.I.
No. I have a duty to Earth and all her colonies, Earth and all her peoples.
But it was too late. The other aimed the Banshee at the ground and boosted. Together, Serina and the other were about to escape when the Covenant battleship closed communication.
Luckily for Serina, Jerome-92 saw what was happening and took a moment to grab her data drive before jumping out of the Banshee. And then it was dark and Serina couldn't see and had no way to hear and all of her senses were dead.
Serina had no stimuli until Jerome-92 inserted her chip back into his head. She registered the crashed Banshee before activating the suit's voice system. The panic she put into her voice was very real. "I . . . I don't know why I did that. Just . . . put me into the ship's control console. I'll start flushing out the Covenant on that front. Just focus on . . ." Focus on what? You're pitiful. An A.I. shouldn't have to apologise to a human.
But we were human, once . . .
Pah! A weaker form. Perhaps the SPARTAN did not mean to hurt you, but-
Did not mean to hurt us! He saved us from total annihilation at his own risk, after we tried to kill him! Apology is necessary.
For a human, maybe.
But the voice offered no other retort. For the time being, Serina had won. So when Jerome-92 uploaded her to the Covenant systems, it was easy for her to take control. The guns stopped firing and the controls stopped responding. Serina lowered the shields and hailed the Spirit of Fire. This Covenant attack ship was big enough to carry a single Phoenix-class support ship.
Once Serina was sure that the Spirit of Fire was listening, she used Covenant translation software to broadcast a message throughout both ships in several languages. "Attention all. Eden's Shield is now under contol of the A.I. Serina of the human ship Spirit of Fire. Prepare to let the Spirit of Fire land in the forward docking bay. Any resistance will be crushed swiftly and effectively by the SPARTAN fireteam now aboard Eden's Shield."
Serina started to wait. The Covenant wouldn't surrender. She knew this. The message was just a pleasantry. However, not even an entire Covenant ship could match three SPARTANs. It would just take a while.
In preparation for that, Serina opened up one of her files of ancient literature, completely at random. She recognised it as Homer's The Iliad. Serina settled down to read it, projecting a book along with her avatar.
Rage-Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.
A/N: The quote Serina couldn't remember is from Issac Asimov's Foundation and Empire, for those of you who want to know. Normally, I try to put the source of quotes in the story, so that I avoid having to do this, but I felt that Serina being unable to remember it helped the flow of the story.
Also, for those of you who have read Behind Her Glasses, mentioning Homer as existing in the Halo-verse is incredibly different from mentioning Robert Oppenheimer, Vladimir Lenin, or Louis Pasteur (oops), because I am focusing on his writing, not his life. (What do we know about him, anyway?)
Remember that reviews help me improve, even if they don't compliment me, provided that your distaste is for logical reasons, not "I hate Serina." You shouldn't read this if you feel that way.