She was drifting away, but she wasn't being taken. She was leaving. She was leaving me here in the void of space without that calming voice to keep me company. She was leaving me here to be picked up by a pelican sometime later on, without a trace of her. But I didn't care about how she was leaving. I cared about why, why she would risk her own body and mind to save me. I was no one important, no one special. Just another SPARTAN. I was just doing my job. And it was my job to take care of her…

I could see her face now, even as I floated here unaware of anything else's presence near me. They thought I was unconscious when they picked me up. I was far from it. I was thinking, thinking about the times I'd shared with her, the missions we'd faced, the things we'd done. All of it we did together. Now as I reached out to touch her face she wisped away from my hand, swirling around my fingers. Spilling over the edges. Right through my fingertips again. I could have saved her. I know I could have. Somewhere deep inside I feel it. I try to tell myself nothing more could have been done but I can't brush the feeling that if maybe I'd just been a little, more.

I could hear her voice, taunting me, asking why I didn't save her. Why I was so useless. Why I couldn't be the man everyone wished I was, the man I wished I was. I knew the Cortana that I had known would never say such things. I screamed at the voices in my head. Roared at the sadness they brought, the emotion that I had been trained not to feel, but so yet desired. But not like this. Never like this.

I snapped awake, still yelling with the ferocity that I had in battle, sweating, though I was really freezing on the ship. The door to my cabin flew open and there stood Thomas Lasky, magnum in hand.

Lasky lowered the magnum to his side, sighing, asked, "Nightmares huh Chief?"

I didn't feel the need to answer.

The Captain ran his hand over his face, looking down at me. He walked in and straddled the desk's chair as he sat down, facing me.

"I know how you feel." He said with a small smile and a throaty chuckle.

I threw my feet off the side of the much too small bed and clasped my hands in thought. I finally spoke.

"I feel like it's my fault." I didn't tell him what I thought was my fault but he already knew, knew me better than any other person alive. Other than Dr. Halsey of course.

Lasky sighed and rubbed his face once more looking at me with a solemn look of knowing. But how could he know, who could he have lost...A quick glance back into my memories gave me the answer. When I was 15, I went on a mission, a mission to stop an unknown force from completely tearing Corbulo Military Academy to pieces. Lasky was one of the only three I had known had made it out of there. Alive anyways. There was a girl, Chyler, Chyler Silva. Lasky's best friend. She unluckily wasn't one of the three that made it out. I hadn't noticed at the time but lasky must have felt responsible. Chyler was his Cortana, a calming voice in the most violent times, a supporter, and more importantly a friend when no one else was. He knew.

"It's not your fault, and you'll see that eventually. Trust me, I know." Thomas stated with a smile, breaking me from my thoughts.

I gave a curt nod in response, not really believing him but wishing that I did.

"I have something to tell you Chief, and you aren't gonna like it." He said giving a deep chuckle.

I straightened my back, looking at him, the bed creaking under my weight.

"You've been assigned to work as the leader of a squad of three other Spartans, Spartan IVs. Rookie Spartan IVs at that. They need a lot of work and we think you could be an avid leader to take command of the small Fireteam."

I gave a low grunt in response. Working with other SPARTANs was not my strong suit.

"You are to meet them in the morning, in the armoury. 0900." said Lasky, confirming what I had hoped might have not been true.

I simply sighed as Lasky left.

Standing in the armoury waiting for the new SPARTANS. The new, late SPARTANS might I add, I'd gotten bored, so I had picked up my assault rifle, and begun practicing on the targets in the firing range. Not that I needed it, it was calming for me. Soon I had gotten absorbed in the targets popping up and falling down. I'd rip one target to shred after another, swapping targets with trained precision, snapping in clip after clip and soon I wasn't seeing targets. I was seeing Covenant, Prometheans, Violence everywhere. I was back on Requiem with Cortana, fighting through the jungles after discovering promethean vision. As I snapped my rifle over to the next target I was on the purple, rocky mountains, where the covenant first appeared on Requiem. I gave a grunt as I leased off a burst from the MA5B Assault Rifle in my hands. Head on a swivel I turned my body around and shouldered the gun, hearing a noise.

I slowly took tension off of the trigger of the gun as I stared into the visor of a small SPARTAN. She was slightly cowered down hands up defensively as I stood there rifle still pointed at her forehead. I looked up above the bridge of my gun and found a magnum's barrel to greet me. A white and red SPARTAN of average height stood at the trigger, a bigger and more muscle bound one right behind him, aiming a SAW at me as well. My breathing calmed and my heart began to slow itself. I lowered my assault rifle and stood tall looking dead into the barrel of the high caliber pistol pointed at the bridge of my nose. The pale and crimson operator did not ease away from the trigger, keeping the gun trained on me.

I grabbed the gun from his hands spun it into my own palm and holstered it, leaving him with an empty hand pointed at me. he looked at his hand looked back at me, and began to laugh. As did the other two SPARTANs.

I found nothing amusing about the situation.

"And you are?" I asked through the golden shimmer of my visor, startling the group back into shape.

The magnum operator extended a blood red gloved hand towards me, "Sigma Squad at your service." he said.

I reluctantly took his hand and looked at the lot of them. Three SPARTANs, one of which looked as if she barely would meet the head level of normal humans, all in a squad with mismatched colors and armour, sporting all types of weapons and attitudes.I couldn't see how they'd made it through basic.

"Name's Ken, the girl you almost shot is Grace, and the guy with the big guns, is Luke." said the SPARTAN in front of me.

I looked at Grace who gave a shy wave, and then to Luke, who flicked me the bird. The temptation I had to teach him how SPARTAN II's handle issues was barely contained as I nodded at him. I noticed the Red Cross with a shattered bone covering it was painted onto Ken's shoulder and chestplate.

"Like the new insignia huh? Painted it myself. I'm the squad's medic, Grace is the Machines girl, warthogs, mongooses, falcons, pelicans. you name it, she can probably fix it. And Luke over there. Well, he's just stupid." said Ken getting a retort from Luke, "But he can come in handy, he's the heavy weapons and demolitions specialist of the squad, and as far as we've heard, you're the leader."

Now looking closer at each of their armours I noticed small giveaways to their favorite pastimes. Grace had oil smudges on her ice blue armour and a wrench and hammer insignia across the cobalt stripe running the length of both her arms and chest. Luke had what looked like soot and char on the sides and back of his armour. As well as a piece of C4 backed by two mounted turrets on his yellow trim, a high contrast to the dark brown of his primary coat.

I turned to face Ken, "Do you not have any A.I.s?" I asked with a slight confusion to my voice.

Ken responded, "Of course we do! All of us in fact." he stated with a proud look.

A small greenish blue figure appeared on the pedestal next to Ken.

"My name is Joyce." said the miniature woman, long dark green hair cascading down her shoulders, covered by a miniature set of armor to match. Not armor of a spartan, armor of a medieval knight, even a sword strapped to her waist, she disappeared being replaced with a small orange female.

"Name's Zulu, how's it going?" the small figure gave a smirk, her shoulder length hair bouncing along with her giggling. She wore no fashion of clothes, covered by lines of code in a similar fashion as Cortana.

I had a brief flashback of Cortana before the orange figure disappeared as well, a deep purple appearing on the pedestal, a man this time. His hair was shaved to military standard, though his face was soft, no more than 18 years of age had he been real. He gave a salute, standing at attention whilst facing me, I nodded at him, his projection going to parade rest.

"Johnson, at your service sir." the small man said, his voice not yet faltered by age, but quite accurately depicted the hardened voice of a soldier. I liked this A.I. the most so far.

I once again gave a small nod, his projection now disappearing, "Now who's A.I. is who's?" I asked, simply to make sure of their whereabouts.

Ken claimed Joyce, Luke with Zulu, and finally Grace with Johnson. I nodded a third time before nodding and motioning them to follow me.

We were heading to the briefing room.