Souls of Steel: Resurrection Chapter 3
As Samus floated through the open doorway onto the cryo bay, she felt a strange sense of elation. Unlike everything else she had done recently, this was actually interesting. A centuries-old ship, a frozen passenger… All it needed was a good firefight and suddenly it would be the perfect day out.
She looked around. The surroundings were… serene. Not a bad place to go to sleep for a few hundred years. Or forever. Tiny shards of glassy ice floated around in the zero gravity, bouncing softly off various bits of junk. An ancient pistol spun gently in the airless space. Samus plucked it from its place with her free hand, inspecting it and giving the trigger an experimental squeeze. She jumped as it jerked in her hand, vibrations of sound reverberating through her armour and a metal slug shooting off into the shadows. Say what you want about old ballistic weapons tech, it was certainly hardy.
She clipped the relic to her belt, and looked around for the supposedly active pod. However they were all frosted over, giving no clue to their occupancy. Who knows, maybe they held corpses, the power rerouted to survivors as the crew gradually dropped off their mortal coil. She took a breath. She hoped she didn't go out like that. In her sleep or in the middle of a battle, that how she wanted to go.
Wow, that was depressing. She thought. Better focus on the matter at hand. Adam piped up again in her ear.
"I can discern which pod is active if you can reactivate the main control panel." Samus nodded and pushed off another wall, grabbing on to a new panel. Once again, she discharged shield energy into the hidden circuitry, and the UNSC logo flared up on a screen.
She glanced nervously at her shield gauge. Over time, the tanks that the Power Suit ran off degraded, eventually becoming useless and requiring removal. Her shield was getting weak from the multiple discharges, now only a few well-placed shots away from disintegrating and leaving her defenceless in space.
The logo disappeared again, this time replaced by a series of blue panel menus, detailing the statistics of each pod. Efficiency, records of use, state of repair… They scrolled past as fast as Samus could read them, Adam working faster than any person could without any effort whatsoever.
"Aha." He finally said. Another screen appeared, showing the occupied pod. "It's the one directly behind you." Samus span around to face it, activating the X-ray visor. The thick reinforced glass of the pod obstructed the view somewhat, but a humanoid figure could be seen inside. Samus smiled.
"Okay, crack it open, I'm ready."
"As you wish. At least let me enable artificial gravity first." Samus felt the reassuring feeling of a solid floor take her, and bounced on her feet slightly before looking intently to the pod. Crates and icy shards dropped to the floor. A few jets of gas burst from the capsule's ports, dissipating into the vacuum, and the icy hatch began to slowly open. Samus peered inside, hoping to see more of its occupant.
Fully opened, the pod seemed to contain a suit of armour, worn and battered by years of war. In places the olive camouflage colouring had worn away, showing grey metal, and on the chestplate, there was something that looked like an impact dent on the right side. A frost-covered orange visor twinkled in the low light, slightly shadowed by a small eyeshade on the front of the helmet. It was efficient. It was functional. But above all, it was big. Samus, standing at six foot three, towered over most men, but the figure appeared at least seven feet tall, plated with chunks of steely protection.
It almost looked like a machine, rather than a person. Adam piped up in her ear.
"Scanning for life signs… Nothing, it appears. No pulse, no brain activity. We shouldn't really have gotten our hopes up." Samus sighed, her hopes of excitement dashed, and gave the inert body a long, hard look.
"Is there even a person in there? Or did they just throw a suit in a separate hatch?" She paused. "What exactly is it, anyway?"
"It appears biological on the inside, Samus, so yes, there was a live human inside. As to what it is, I am afraid my knowledge of this particular period of history's models of defensive warfare structures is somewhat lacking." There was an edge of sarcasm to his voice that turned the edge of her lip up a little. Good old Adam. "Now, shall I access the ship schematics?"
"Go ahead." Samus replied. At least some good would come of this. She turned to leave, but as she did, a tiny movement flickered in the corner of her eye. She span round again to face the dead suit, arm cannon half-raised.
"Samus? What is it?" Adam sounded slightly worried, knowing of his friend's emotional state of late.
"I could have sworn…" Samus muttered, taking slow steps towards the body in the capsule. It did not move. A quick flash of the scan visor showed up nothing. Leaning in closer, eyes flicking up and down the form, she mentally dared it to move. She raised a hand, balling it into a fist, and held it tentatively above the armoured chest.
"Be careful, Samus. We don't know what it might do." Adam's voice rang almost unheard in her ear. She bent back her wrist and rapped on the metallic plating.
Instantly, it moved.
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As he awoke, the Master Chief's first sensation was crippling, screaming pain. Whenever he left cryo-sleep before there had always been freezer burn, but nothing like this. Every muscle in his body felt like a block of solid ice, immobile and cold. He attempted to move an arm, a leg, anything, only to be met with lightning bolts of pain. He instinctively tried to cry out, only for more pain to assault his senses. He couldn't hear his own breathing, it was so shallow.
And so he did what he had always been taught to do. He held his tongue. He stayed still. He assessed the situation. Why was his freezer burn so bad? How long had he been asleep? Where was Cortana? Knowing her, she'd instantly be talking to him, explaining the situation, but not now. Where was she?
As the pain subsided, his mind cleared, and his thinking slowed. Slowly, feeling seeped back into his muscles. He tried to move again, a tiny movement in his forearm. Pain screeched across his nerves once more, but it was bearable. Just. As that subsided, he felt a surge of energy. His muscles seemed to regain vitality, and he opened his eyes. Simultaneously, there was a knock on his chest. Decades of military training kicked into gear, and the body of a super-soldier got back to its job.
He barely saw the person in front of him before he reacted.
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The body erupted from the pod so fast that Samus only realised what had happened after it had finished. She was slammed against a wall by her neck, her remaining shields dropping to critical levels under the colossal impact. A screeching alert rang in her ear, and Adam cried out in surprise in the other.
Quickly, she raised her cannon, only for that to be pinned to the wall too. The hand around her neck held her in a vicelike grip, her shields unable to keep the full force of the attack away, restricting her breathing. She gasped and thrashed to no avail. The orange visor stared at her through her own, remorselessly blank. As suddenly as it was applied, the grip loosened, still pinning her to the wall, but not preventing her from breathing. She took in a great gulp of air, her vision swimming, and Adam yelled in her ear:
"Samus! Are you all right?! What happened?!" A small radio signal piped up in the corner of her HUD, and Adam patched it through. Suddenly, a new voice, a deep, booming baritone, presumably the resurrected figure's, played inside her head.
"…entify yourself immediately. I repeat. I am Master Chief Petty Officer SPARTAN-117 of the UNSC Navy, identify yourself immediately." Samus struggled to form a reply, but her vocal chords seemed stunned into silence. All she managed were a few croaks. The metal behemoth leaned in further, repeating himself again, but stopped halfway through. Samus saw from over his shoulder a new source of light, a soft blue hue, illuminating the chamber. The 'Master Chief', if that was his real name, froze as he saw it reflect off the walls and her iridescent visor. The gentle yet firm pressure on her neck and arm relented, and the man tore away, turning to the light.
Samus collapsed, Adam still shouting in her ear, breathing heavily. Slowly, her vision righted and breathing returned to normal. Scowling through the opaque green glass of her visor, she silently stood and looked to the ancient hulk in front of her. He was hunched over a column by the computer terminal, lit by the strange blue light. She caught a glimpse of a small luminous figure, but it was gone as soon as she looked at it. Her attacker's helmeted head drooped, his fists balled and shaking, as if fighting back tears beneath the protective suit. Over the radio she heard him whisper a name:
"Cortana…" It was full of grief, the strong voice of a moment ago now broken. Weak. Vulnerable. But Samus barely cared. She raised her arm cannon level with his head, the weapon whining as a shot charged. The man stiffened, staying absolutely still. He knew whatever it was, it was a weapon, although he likely knew precious little else. Samus spoke, engaging her voice modulator to sound slightly more imposing.
"That was a rather rude welcome for the one who woke you up, wouldn't you say?" She stated, voice still managing to drip with disdain even through the genderless mechanical filter. He didn't move. Silence. Samus tried again.
"I don't appreciate you strangling me. But I understand reflexes and that you may be experiencing confusion after your time in stasis. Now, I must ask: are you friendly?" He raised his head. His voice returned to normal, a steely militaristic drone that betrayed nothing. A soldier's voice.
"I am friendly."
"Good. I will now step away from you, then lower my weapon. When I say so, you may turn around and face me, and ask any questions you may have."
His helmet bobbed: a nod. She completed her movements, and stated approval. He turned around, his helmet scanning quickly over her suit, before stopping and looking unblinkingly into hers. It was slightly unsettling. Did her suit have that effect on people? She gestured for him to ask questions. Clearly he rarely talked if not prompted.
The helmet turned slightly, looking back at the pillar where the light had come from, before returning to look at her. It was difficult to see what he was thinking, the suit bulked him out so that body language was unnoticeable. Either that, or he consciously suppressed it. He spoke, his voice invading Samus' head again.
"What year is it?" Samus stalled. Adam had said that they hadn't had the cosmic calendar at his time, so-
"Tell him it's approximately 2850." Adam sounded in her head, no longer yelling. She silently thanked him, and stated it to her lost compatriot. No reaction.
No visible reaction, anyway.
"Three hundred years… Where am I?"
"On your ship, drifting just outside an asteroid field on the eastern rim of the galaxy." Again, nothing.
"And who are you?" Samus was moderately surprised. She expected more shock and denial. And she certainly didn't expect to be analysed herself.
"I am Samus Aran, a bounty hunter who was in the process of scavenging artefacts from your wreck when I found you." He slowly nodded, taking a deep breath audible through the radio. He didn't speak again, his questions seemingly concluded. It felt a little awkward.
"So… Master Chief, was it?" She attempted. He stared her down once more, then nodded again. Adam's voice appeared, this time low and quick. His serious voice.
"Ask him why he's here."
"Why are you here?" He continued staring down at her, a process that was quickly becoming disturbing. The staring helmet would have been bad enough, but the fact that the man towered over everything, barely moved and was built like a living death machine made it even worse.
"I was trapped here after my ship was cut in half by a collapsing slipspace portal. I was fleeing an exploding Halo ring after attempting to use it against the local Flood infection. The ship was incapable of movement and so I went to sleep." Adam made a noise like a gasp, but Samus pressed on.
"Who put you in the pod? Surely you can't operate it by yourself?"
"It was… my AI." The pain was back, from after the light had disappeared. The man had previously seemed like a fortress. Now he sounded more like a ruin.
Before she could incise further, Adam spoke up, his voice serious, yet with a curious undercurrent of unusual excitement.
"Samus, this man is extremely valuable. If he is who he says he is, and that's almost a certainty, then he could be our ticket back into the Galactic Federation's good books-"
The Master Chief made a sudden movement, a small but quick turn of the head, and Samus' tightly coiled muscles sprang into action, her cannon pressed to his chest in a split second.
He looked down, then up to Samus with a look that almost seemed like slight jaded amusement. She retracted slowly, only for him to make the motion again.
"Do you have a motion tracker?" He asked, seemingly the first voluntary words he had spoken to her. Under her own helmet, she raised an eyebrow, still remaining passive to his eyes.
"I do."
"Expand the range, then check it." She called up the small radar-esque display previously stashed away for ease of perception, and her eyes widened at the sight of several hostile signals. Now it was her turn to sink into combat mode.
"Adam. SitRep. Now." The reply was instant.
"Bad news. Blood Moon Pack scavenging group. Heavily armed. If you recall, you killed their leader two months ago, so I doubt they'll be friendly, or willing to share."
"How many?"
"On board with you? Seven. More in their own ship. They haven't spotted me, and I've retreated to cover, preparing to ambush. As for the ground party, you're on your own."
"Got it. Hit them, scavenge and go. Quick and clean before reinforcements arrive."
"No, Samus. We hit them and we go. Forget the artefacts." Samus frowned.
"What? You said…"
"I know, Samus. I know what I said, but this man is too valuable to risk. I can't explain now, but you have to get him out. That armour's no good to him now, not against modern weapons. You need to protect him as best you can." Samus sighed, but didn't object. She trusted Adam.
"Fine." She looked back to the silent observer, sizing him up and down. "A bandit clan that doesn't particularly like me is on board, and I am told that for some reason you are extremely important. So if you want to have any chance at living longer than five minutes, stick with me." He nodded in affirmation, and Samus dashed out of the room.
The Master Chief turned on his heel, stomping back to his pod and retrieving his weapon: a standard issue MA5D assault rifle. He didn't think about it. It was simply instinct to have a weapon in his hands in a stressful situation. And, contrary to his outward appearance, inside he was in turmoil. In the last few minutes, he had woken from a three-century-long coma, had been almost shot and killed, was now about to fight his way through vicious bandits to escape the ship, with a bounty hunter of all people, and Cortana was…
Cortana was…
No. Don't think. Just do. Feel later. Feel when you have time.
But still… He stopped before the holographic pillar, pulling a small, empty data chip from its slot, pushing it into another in the back of his helmet. No voice sounded in his mind. There was no comforting, guiding presence.
He forced his mind blank, and followed Samus Aran, but could not fully suppress the heavy weight in his chest.