Spartan-II's are used to pain.
They had been trained to endure it, to thrive in it, to complete the mission no matter what.
But the feeling of dropping out of orbit was beginning to get old for the Master Chief, as he had already done it once in recent times, and more than once before that. His head was ringing this time, though that part was probably from the explosion. He opened his eyes slowly, revealing the beautiful but moonless sky above, filled with stars.
"Have a nice rest, Sleeping Beauty?" The voice of Cortana said, hearing that he had woken up when he groaned.
He didn't really bother answering as he got up, hauling himself to his feet, using the wreckage to prop himself up as his sense of balance rapidly returned. He groaned again and shook himself, returning back to full functionality.
He looked around. Besides the large chunks of hull and burned metal, he was completely surrounded by sand. For miles, there was only sand. It was like the kinds of deserts you found in movies, with large sand dunes and and endless expanse. Only this place was slightly more tan than an actual desert.
He groaned and shook his head. This was not good.
"Not really," he answered her dryly.
Her face appeared in the corner of his HUD, looking pleased to see him up. "You should have been more careful. If you wanted that Hornet so much, you should have just had me lower it down for you," she chastised him good-natriedly.
He rubbed his head. "There wasn't enough time."
That made his A.I. companion scoff and roll her eyes, but she seemed to drop the issue for the time being, although he could tell that she was still irked that he had almost gotten killed again. "So, how are you feeling?" She asked.
"Well enough, all things considered," he said, stretching. He rolled his neck, before reaching back and taking the pack full of weaponry off of his back. He opened the lid, and took inventory of the contents. One MA5D Assault Rifle, fully loaded. One Covenent Energy Sword, slightly scratched, but clean of Flood matter. Two M6's also fully loaded, and five packs of ammo for each type of gun. Not much ammo, he would have to be conservative. The sword would certainly come in handy when the ammo ran out.
He holstered the rifle to his back, and the pistols to his right hip, while the sword was attached to the left. He was once again fully armed and ready for combat... If there was much combat to be had in a desert. But it was always good to be prepared.
Chief sighed, shaking his head mournfully. It was going to be a long next few days.
It was time to get to work. And the first step was establishing location. He pulled Cortana from his helmet so that they could talk face-to-face. Her body appeared over her chip in a flash of blue light, smiling pleasantly with her hands folded in front of her.
"Did you manage to find out where we are?" He questioned.
"Come on, Chief," she said, opening a data window in front of her, just big enough so that he could see it. "Have I ever dissapointed you?" Not waiting for an answer, she moved several files onto the data window, bringing up the blue-tinted image of the planet, as well as several paragraphs of data.
"The language was a bit... Garbled, to say the least, but it was close enough to English that I could get some data out of it."
"Garbled?" He didn't like the sound of that.
She turned back to him with a very perplexed expression. "Yeah. It sounded like a very, very messed up version of English, with lots of older dialect and some other languages mixed in. I can patch together the sentences well enough, but some words are still out of my reach, and I couldn't get all of it."
She looked a bit embarrassed about that, before shaking herself and getting back on task. "As best I could figure out, we're on Tatooine. Some of the descriptions I managed to translate include 'backwater', 'Sparsely populated,' and 'waste of dust and bones.' The rest is... Well, it's all nonsense. Gibberish, more like. There are mentions of some kind of 'Tusken Riaders', and things called 'Jawas'. And I can't seem to find anything on any local UNSC outposts or bases."
She shook her head sadly. "I need a local terminal or computer to get you more. Your suit's not giving me a very good connection to the network."
He nodded in understanding. "We need to get to the nearest town."
"Yes, but...," she looked around, and bit her lip. "It doesn't look like its very near. We'll need transportation. Hopefully there's something intact in the wreckage. Plug me in, and I'll begin scanning for active vehicle signals."
He nodded, and her body vanished in a flash of blue light as he returned the chip to the slot in the back of his helmet. After a few seconds, a waypoint appeared on his HUD. "I'm reading a couple of Warthogs over there. From what I can tell, they're in good condition."
"Good," he said.
Over the next few minuets, he spent his time both making his way over to the Warthogs, and scavenging for supplies. He had found several extra guns, such as a shotgun, a par of SMG's, even a Spartan Laser, along with their corresponding ammo. He loaded the weapons and ammo into a bag, and took it with him.
He also recovered a few days worth of rations and water. That was good, he'd be able to survive in the desert for a while in case the nearest settlement was far away, and if he rationed it well, he could make it last for a good long while.
As he went about his tasks, Cortana kept his mind occupied by chatting. She seemed a bit more conversational than she had when he had gone under, which he considered to be both good and bad. Bad, because the Chief was not a social creature, but good because it showed that she had recovered from her ordeal with the Gravemind.
There was also a certain... Anxiousness in the Chief. And irrational sense that something was very wrong.
But he couldn't tell what. As far as he could assume, Tatooine was just some odd little desert planet colony with a unique internet that gave Cortana a headache. He had visited lots of places like this during his service, and so had she.
After a while, he finally came across the Warthog that she had mentioned. Like she said, it was in remarkably good shape for having just accompanied the Dawn out of orbit, in addition to becoming derilect for multiple years. There were even several tanks of hydrogen fuel attached to the back, and the turret seemed it be in order. All-in-all, a very fortunate find.
Chief loaded his supplies and armaments into the jeep, tieing them down to the turret platform with some cargo cables he had scavenged. After making sure the tank was full and that all things had been taken care of, he jumped into the driver's seat and was on his way.
For a while, Cortana fell silent, and the only sound was the rumbling of the engine, and the sound of tires on the sand. Arguably, it was the most peaceful time Chief had since he had been inducted into the Spartan-II program.
And he didn't like it one bit.
He had been in war or war-like settings since childhood, and in that time, silence had only ever been a prelude to chaos. He felt even more anxious as he drove, wondering what his companion was up to inside his helmet.
Cortana was usually quiet during missions, yes, wisely getting out of the way so he could focus in combat. However, off duty, like they were now, she was usually a chatterbox. However, at that moment, she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, something he thought she would have had enough of after all that time alone.
It was kind of... Creepy, how silent it was as he drove across the flat desert. The dunes had long-since flattened out, and now there seemed to be only an endless expandse of light tan stone all around him as the Warthog rumbled along the way, only occasionally hitting a bump or pothole in the ground.
After a while the twin suns of the planet began to poke back over the horizon, during the sky a deep red. Chief had no intention of admiring the sunrise, though, and ignored it as he kept going the direction Cortana had said the nearest settlement was in,
They had been driving for hours on end when Cortana finally spoke back up. "So... What do you think will happen when we get back?" She asked rather timidly, as if she was slightly scared to think about the subject.
It took Chief a moment to process the question. "What?"
"You know," she elaborated. "Now that the war is over. By now, the Covenant must be either in an alliance with Earth, or staying the hell away. Without the Prophets to guide them, they don't have a lot holding them together. And Arbiter probably disillusioned them pretty thoroughly by now. So... Now that there's no more war, what to you think will happen to us when we go back?"
That gave the Spartan a brief pause.
She was right. In all likelihood, Earth was experiencing its first dose of peace in nearly a lifetime.
And that meant the end of the life he has grown used to.
His entire pairing with Cortana was due to only two things: one, Cortana needed a protector and partner, and two, he needed something to aliviate his 'sociopathic tendencies'. Both reasons were due to the war, and now, without that conflict, he would likely now be put onto menial tasks, and his partner's considerable abilities would be needed elsewhere
In all likelyhood, he would be separated from his best friend.
He didn't want that, obviously. For him, it had only been a few days since recovering her from High Charity. The sense of guilt from leaving her to that horrible fate was still fresh. He still wanted to make it up to her. He wanted to keep the entity that he regarded as his little sister safe and protected, a task he couldn't do if they took her away. But... As long as it was for the best, he would have no other choice.
While he would never miss the war, and never look back at it fondly, he would miss the people he had fought beside. Both of the Keys, Johnson... Even the Arbiter. At first the gold-armored elite had been just another alien, albeit an alien with a shaky alliance bargain.
But he had proven himself a worthy ally. He had come back for Chief and Cortana on High Charity, he had offered condolences for the old Sargent Major's passing, and had tried to get them all out alive. All in all, he had made friends during the warm even if he would never admit it. And he still had a duty to go back to the UNSC.
And if it was to be that he would have Cortana taken away from him, he would most certainly miss her.
But by no means did that mean that he wasn't going to fight to keep her with him. If there was anything he could do to fight it, he would do it. She wouldn't go without a struggle. They had been through too much, relied on each other too much, to simply let go.
For a moment, he considered not returning to the UNSC. His job was done. He and Cortana could just fall away into history books, retire somehwhere nice.
But that notion only lasted a brief moment. He was a soldier. Good soldiers always returned to their armies. And even though surrendering Cortana back to the chain of command would likely be harder than chopping off all his limbs, he would have to. Even though it would mean becomeing a dusty war relic, he would have to go back. Even though most other Spartans were dead and his only friend would be ripped from him, he would have to go back.
It was the only thing he could do. The only option he knew how to consider. Any other method of thought had been scrubbed out when he became a Spartan, though he might be regaining some of it.
"I... Don't know," he said finally, with a bit of sorrow in his voice.
Cortana seemed to be having the same thoughts. "Me neither," she said, a bit dejected. She really didn't want to be re-assigned. The A.I. didn't think she could take being in someone else's head long-term. Chief's helmet had become something of a home to her during the war, and she had missed her place in his systems with an agonizing ache while aboard the Dawn.
It would be hell for both of them, to separate. Suddenly neither party was all to anxious to get home.
Chief noted her sorrow, and was quick to try and offer some form of comfort. "Whatever happens though, we will be all right."
"I know," Cortana responded neutrally, before they both noticed that the Warthog was reading the edges of a settlement were coming up soon.
"Enough of this," Cortana smiled, her face appearing on his HUD, forgetting the angst almost instantly. "It's about time to make our triumphant return, Chief! Let's just hope the galaxy has managed to stay saved while we were gone!"
Chief didn't respond as he accelerated the vehicle a bit, dust flying up behind them.
While he had apprehensions about returning to the UNSC, he wanted to get whatever was coming over with, and not live with the constant worry over his head. He wanted to know what his future would be, and he wanted to know soon.
He drove the Warthog over a dune, and the settlement came into view.
It was fairly large, made entirely of some sandstone-like substance. It was very esoteric and Arabic looking, with domes and sperical-roofed buildings alongside small, angular towers all covered in dust. Save for the space ships, it would look like something from a treasure-hunting movie set in Egypt.
There were strange ships of a design he didn't recognize flying around the place. Three years was a long time to be gone, but not enough for Earth to utterly re-design all their spaceships, and replace all the old ones with them.
His eyes narrowed from confusion about that. Something was definitely not right here.
A feeling of dread built up rapidly in Chief's chest as he drove the 'Hog closer and closer to the settlement. He could begin to make out shapes in the crowd, shapes that didn't seem quite right. At first, they looked like they could have been wearing headgear or body paint.
But as he approached, a good number of the crowd didn't look... Human. Not at all. He slammed his armored boot onto the brake as he squinted, trying to see the populace better.
He used his helmet's zoom feature to see it better,mans what he found out shocked him.
There were humans in the crowd. Yes. But there was also a generous ammount if aliens. None of them looked like Covenant. There were no Elites or Brutes or Grunts, no Jackals or Enginieers.
But there were lizard-like bug eyes people with lips that stuck out from their heads.
There was a fat blue... Thing with an elephant like nose and tusks that flapped about on tiny wings like a bee. He even spotted what looked like a walking rug wandering about, in a conversation with what looked like a human, save for the orange skin and large tail-like protrusions on the head.
Chief stared in absolute shock for a moment, wondering if his sanity had been affected in the crash. Even Cortana seemed to freeze from sheer confusion, her avatar on his HUD going completely still, with small 'error' messages flickering across the picture.
They were both like that for about a minuet, the Warthog still rumbling below them as they tried to wrap their heads around the situation,
"Um... Chief?" Cortana spoke up after a while, her picture on his HUD in-freezing.
"Yes?" He asked as if nothing was wrong,
"You... You see the weird looking, non-Covenant aliens interacting with humans like its the most natural thing ever, right?" She sounded hopeful.
"I do."
"Good. I thought I was going into rampancy." She frowned. "Now... What the hell is going on?"
The duo had stopped miles outside of the settlement Cortana had identified as 'Mos Eisley'.
As far as they could tell, it was a slum town. None of the inhabitants seemed to be particularly rich or well-off. Their clothes were sandy and tattered, and the people and aliens themselves were filthy.
Chief sat behind the vehicle, considering his next move.
"This makes no sense!" Cortana rambled from inside his helmet. She had slowly deteriorated into an infuriated state of disorientation when she saw the aliens in the village. "I mean, they are not Covenant. It would be easier to understand if they were-and I'm not saying I don't approve, it's just- URGH!"
He winced as her frustration caused a spike of feedback into his helmet.
"Calm down, Cortana," he said sternly, startling her.
He reached back and yanked her out, holding her chip out in front of himself so that he could speak to her face-to-face again.
When she appeared, she was holding her head in a mix of rage and confusion, and Chief almost swore for a moment that her body flickered red. It was less than a second though, and he dismissed it as just fatigue getting to him. "Look, I know you don't understand, but we need to keep our heads here."
She scowled, but clanged up at him, and slowly lowered her arms. She 'took a deep breath' though the visual was mostly for show, and a little mental re-enforcement. "You're... You're right, Chief." She folded her hands in front of her, bowed her head, and seemed to calm down after a few seconds.
"Tatooine is... A bit stranger than I expected. Though, it does explain a few things..."
"Like what?" Chief asked.
"Like most of the stuff I couldn't translate. It must have been stuff pertaining to... You know, all that," she waved her arms in the direction of Mos Espa. "I just... Didn't quite get what I was looking at, so it all kind of translated into nonsense."
He nodded in understanding.
"I mean, I hadn't really completed analyzing all of it yet... Though now most of my guesses are a bit more educated. Gimme about an hour, and I should be able to translate the local language into something you can understand."
"Good." He said neutrally.
Cortana looked down for a moment, before looking back up, a slightly hopeful smile on her face. "It should be an interesting next few hours, though," she offered. "If we play our cards right, we may be able to leave without shooting our way out for once." She teased, referencing their exchange when he rescued her from the Gravemind,
"I thought you liked that part," Chief teased slightly in return.
"Eh, a little variety's always nice. And you don't have the Arbiter to cover our ass this time." She folded her hands behind her back as she watched her caretaker shake his head goodnaturedly at her snark. He was slightly annoyed, but she knew he loved it and so did he. It was part of her charm.
She smirked as her body vanished in a flash of blue, and she was re-inserted into his helmet. Chief looked back at the town. A large, sleek silver ship, very shiny compared to the rest of its surroundings,maws lowering into what he assumed was a space doc. He watched it for a moment, and he couldn't help but feel like the craft held some significance.
He unloaded a sniper rifle he had found in the Dawn, and used it as a telescope to observe the town in front of them. "The aliens don't seem too hostile to the humans. At least, no more hostile than civilians are to their civilians," he observed as he spotted one of the bug-eyed long-lipped aliens, seemingly a merchant, arguing with human customer.
"It should be safe to go down there. Still, I think we need to keep our guard up," he concluded. "If we're to get a good grasp on the situation, we'll need to talk to the locals."
Cortana hummed in agreement as she continued translating, picking bits and pieces of information, data and dialouge from the local data net to help complete the full vocabulary. He shrugged and put the rifle back in the pack, and sat back in the driver's seat to wait for Cortana to complete her work.
He reclined against the uncomfortable leather seat. He didn't have much to do but wait for Cortana to finish, so he closed his eyes and resigned himself to his own thoughts.
He began to wonder what had changed while he was gone. What had become of the Covenant races after Truth's death. Wether the Arbiter had been true to his word hand upheld the alliance between the species, or had he taken the Chief's apparent demise as an all-clear signal to turn on humanity, now that their 'demon' wasn't around to protect them.
He sighed a bit depressed. That was why he had to go back. He wouldn't never be able to leave the UNSC behind. His drive to protect humanity rivaled his drive to protect Cortana. Even if it meant her being taken away, it would always be his instinct to return home.
Like a trained dog, he thought bitterly. But he would fit to keep her by his side as much as he could.
Suddenly the Spartan's movement tracker lit up with red dots, instantly gaining the Spartan's attention. He sat up, reaching back to grab his assault rifle from his back.
Cortana stopped her work, her functions shifting to combat mode. Chief looked around a bit, on guard as the red dots on his tracker shifted about, forming a circle around him on the rocks. He gritted his teeth and scowled.
Then a sound echoed from behind one of the structures. It sounded like a... Like a... For a moment, the sound itself both off guard.
"Was that a donkey?" Cortana asked.
It had honestly sounded like a donkey. Like a furiously braying donkey. He was started to get really pissed off at the planet. It was already looking like the strangest place he had ever been too, coming in close to tieing with Halo or the Ark.
He sighed and shook his head. At least it didn't have the blunt horror factor of his most recent visit to High Charity.
"I doubt it," he responded as he looked around, pointing towards the direction of each of the contacts one at a time. The donkey-like sound blared again as a beating bounded over one of rocks.
For all intents and purposes, the alien looked human. They wee covered from head-to-toe in sand-colored desert gear, their head completely wrapped in cloth, save for a strange looking breathing apparatus and a pair of large goggles. He had a few horn-like structures on the tip of his head, but Chief couldn't decide if they were actual horns or part of his headgear.
The thing was charging at him with a metal pole that Chief was sure was a weapon, making loud braying noises as he charged the Spartan like a berserker.
He raised his rifle in an instant, and fired, the still air suddenly penetrated by the sound of rifle fire as bullets sprayed from the barrel. The alien jerked and spasmed as he was shot, before falling to the ground, dead as a plank of wood.
"I'm assuming these are the Tusken Raiders you mentioned earlier," he asked Cortana.
"Most likely," she agreed as more began to pile out from behind the rock structures, either shooting at him or charging him like the first one had. Their shots were not bullets or plasma or heated spikes, all of which he was sued to. Instead they wielded rifles tha fired red lasers.
Nevertheless, his shields absorbed them as they hit, glowing gold as he ducked under the next couple of shots. As the charging ones neared, he holstered his rifle and grabbed the Energy Sword from his side, igniting it with a flick of his wrist. As the first one was in front of him, he thrust it through the Raider's chest, before ducking under the strike of the nest and cutting clean through its torso.
He grabbed one of his M6's, making a few shots at one of the riflemen. A few connected, and the gunner slumped over, dead, leaving only two making potshots at him as he cut and stabbed the ones trying to hit him up close.
He punched one in the chest, sending it flying back into the rock with a sickening crunch, before slicing through the nearest one's weapon to disarm it. He kicked the Raider in the knee, sending it kneeling to the ground, before stabbing it clear through the chest.
That left only the gunners left. He 'sheathed' the sword and drew his other pistol, duel-wielding them as he tried to hit the other two. They had better cover than their comrade, though, and he had a bit more trouble finding them off.
With a scowl of determination, he charged forwards, tanking the lasers as best he could, his sheilds lowering with every hit. They reminded him of Jackal snipers, and how much they managed to piss him off by damaging his sheilds so fast on the battlefield.
He quickly scaled up the rocks towards the one on the left. The alien began to panic, remembering what the Spartan had done to its comrades, and got up to run.
It was too late, however, as Chief grabbed his leg from the side of the rock face, and pulled him over. The creature brayed as it fell, and Chief delivered a swift end by a bullet to the head.
He looked at the last Raider, and it reacted with fear. The Tusken had never seen anything like this green-armored warrior. It wasn't a Jedi, that was for sure, but it wielded both guns and a glowing sword to defeat it's comrades.
It tried to follow the example of the other gunner and run, but the sound of an assault rifle being unloaded quickly halted that. The last raider fell to his need, blood leaking out the holes in his back, before finally collapsing.
Cheif didn't even acknowlage the kills as he jumped back down to the area with the Warthog, reloading his rifle as he did.
"How's the translation coming," he asked casually.
Cortana, who was also unperturbed by the assault and subsequent slaughter, having seen it done dozens of times to the Covenant, answered, "Just about done. Though, be warned, I might sometimes end up translating a word or two wrong. I'll need to assimilate the language a bit more, but for the most part, I can manage communications with them."
"Good," he said stoickly as he jumped into the driver's seat and started the engine.
The jeep rumbled to life, and soon they were on their way, the tires kicking up dust behind them. The corpses of the Raiders were left there to be forgotten, not even remembered significantly in the Chief's mind as he made his way to the little settlement.
Hey guys, just wanted to say sorry if this chapter was boring. It's mostly meant as a transition chapter, most of the interesting stuff will be in the next one. This story is set during Episode 4, when Luke and Obiwan are coming to get off of Tatooine.
Anyway, you guys did awesome with the fave and follows, but not as good as hoped with the reviews. Please tell me what you think or what you would like to happen in this story. Each good review makes each chapter come faster. Until next time, stay awesome, and have a good night or day everyone.
-WeAreTheMeta
