CHAPTER THREE
Marooned

"In life, we don't meet people by accident. They are meant to cross our path for a reason."

— Author unknown

The dream came again…

It was always the same young woman with long brunette hair. An aura of powerful raw sexuality and beauty flowed from her, but that wasn't only what drew his attention. The strength and purpose she radiated caught and mesmerized him…

As in the previous dreams, there were always the same strange creatures. He didn't recognize the strange aliens. Some of them looked almost human, except for their misshapen and deformed faces. In every dream, these creatures attacked the young woman…

Every time, the attacking swarm of creatures would surround her and try to overwhelm her. Michael wanted to call out and rush to help her. He found himself frozen in place, unable to move. He found himself a helpless bystander, watching her facing off against her attackers…

As she fought, he found himself drawn in and entranced by her. She fought with a grace, skill and strength he'd only seen in his brother and sister Spartans, but he knew she wasn't one of them. This woman was something different… something older and more primal. The moves and lightning fast reflexes she used to take on the bigger and stronger looking creatures gave off an energy he could feel…

There was no fear in her eyes. He recognized the look in them all too well… he saw it whenever he stared at himself in a mirror. In her eyes, he saw himself… that same haunted look of having seen too much death, pain and suffering. It lingered there in her eyes, but something else dwelled there…

There was hope, strength and sense of purpose he'd only seen in his fellow Spartans. Every time, as she fought, he wanted to go to her… to help her, but was helpless to move or even say anything. Every time, their eyes would meet. In that moment, what he gazed upon wasn't fear, pleading or anger. It was something different… something he wasn't used to. A part of him thought he should recognize it, but he couldn't place it or the strange emotions it invoked in him. He had no words to describe what he was going through. His heart beat faster as she gazed towards him and a fire exploded inside of him. All he knew is that he wanted to protect her. All that mattered is that he wanted…

oOoOo

"Michael… Time to wake up sleepy head. You had that dream again?"

"Huh? Sorry Adriana," Michael replied shaking the cobwebs from his mind. He stretched becoming more awake, "Yeah, the same dream eight nights in row. How did you know?"

"Your suit's bio monitors were showing elevated heart and brain activity," Adriana said trying to keep the concern from her voice, "How do you feel?"

"I would feel better if we could get off this mud ball."

Michael and Adriana were into week three of their stay in this vacation paradise. They were holding up in the Control Room located by the ONI research team.

The entrance for the Control Room was a well-hidden cave entrance located in a range of nondescript low rising hills. It hadn't taken Michael long to finish clearing away the debris that the research team had begun clearing before the inopportune arrival of the Covenant. He made sure the cleared away debris didn't give away that a new resident had moved in. When he first entered the Control Room, the design and layout of the room left no doubt that a highly advanced alien race was behind its creation.

A quick search yielded the discovery of another doorway that led further down underground into a labyrinth of corridors and more rooms. Neither the Spartan nor AI had any idea what the purpose or functions these rooms had. The corridors seemed to go on forever, further down into the planet. Despite the initial lack of knowledge of their surroundings, their location gave them an advantage. If the Covenant found them, they could retreat further inside the installation — buying space for time.

From Michael's viewpoint there was only one drawback with that plan. He was worried that once deep inside there would be no other way back out to the surface and that he would wander the seemingly endless corridors… forever. To avoid becoming the 'Flying Dutchman' of this planet, Michael did some limited exploration of the corridors and rooms, staying in the upper levels close to the surface. He mapped out potential fallback routes, and he got familiar with his surroundings. Due to the endless nature of the installation and that other priorities and needs came first, he had to limit his exploration.

As an AI, Adriana didn't have the same concerns or limitations placed on her. After the discovery of the Control Room, it didn't take her long to find a control interface panel. It took some urging and badgering on her part to get Michael to let her interface with the Forerunner systems. Her main selling point to him was by accessing the systems she might find something that could help their situation.

After connecting into the alien systems, to say Adriana was in the AI version of nirvana was a galactic understatement…

She was immediately talking — almost babbling — about all the information she was accessing and how it all could leap the human race's knowledge and technology by centuries. Several times, Michael had to remind Adriana to stay focused on mission and try to find information associated with their current situation and needs. She was adamant that as she accessed, deciphered and translated the streams of data, she would uncover something to help them.

While Adriana was busy doing her AI thing, Michael mapped out his survival strategy along with how he would strike back at the Covenant forces on the planet. After taking stock of his supplies, the first thing he did was to establish fall back caches in case his main base of operations got compromised.

To prevent the Covenant from getting access to this Forerunner technology, he wired the Control Room with all the explosives he had. If the Covenant discovered this location, he wanted to make sure he denied them this prize.

Michael also needed to get a lay of the land. He did recon sweeps of the area, getting to know the terrain better than his enemy. He would need that tactical advantage as the Covenant were building up their forces on the planet. It was becoming apparent that the Covenant were also exploring the planet in search of something. He would need to know their deployments and keep tabs on them to make sure they didn't locate him and the Control Room. He mapped out their base camps, vehicle areas and supply caches. To prevent from being tracked back to the Control Room and keep the enemy off balance, he planned to hit them further away from his base.

It didn't take long before he started his first raids. These initial raids were to steal weapons and other supplies to add to his existing supplies along with gathering Intel on the forces he was facing. He measured and studied the Covenant's responses and tactics during these early raids and adjusted his strategy and tactics to counter them.

He then upped the ante by blowing up their supply dumps and other equipment to harass and delay their plans and just be a big pain in their asses. When returning from these missions, he always ensured that he took long evasive routes back to the Control Room. On all these missions, he went out alone leaving Adriana behind to keep an eye on their base and continue her research.

oOoOo

It was at the two-week mark into their stay on the planet that Adriana informed Michael that she was getting a better sense and understanding of the Forerunner technology. She asked for his permission to re-activate some of the long dormant systems to continue her research and gather more information.

He hesitated, at first, expressing his concerns about accessing unknown alien technology and how the increase in ECOM activity could lead the Covenant to their position. Adriana brushed away his concerns. She expressed her confidence about being able to access the systems and maintain a low profile to avoid detection.

She tried, on many occasions, to explain to Michael about the exciting discoveries she had uncovered. By just scratching the surface of the data she'd accessed, she'd been able to expand her knowledge and understanding of Slipspace. It was a fact that the Covenant had better Slipspace engines than the UNSC. Her discoveries of what the Forerunners knew about Slipspace made that seem like pre-school stuff. She would go off, trying to explain to Michael, about how the Forerunners had a deeper knowledge and understanding of Slipspace. That understanding made it theoretically possible to access other types of space and potentially other dimensions. Many a night Michael fell to sleep listening as the AI would go on and on about the theories and math she'd uncovered.

It wasn't that Michael wasn't interested or not able to understand most of the core concepts and math Adriana babbled on about. The SPARTAN-II program had strict criteria which included mental and intelligence capacity along with specific physical and genetic traits. In fact, there was a highlighted notation in Michael's service record — added after several embarrassing incidents — that emphasized this…

"… Subject Michael-113 is highly intelligent and curious … NEVER leave subject alone with access to sensitive materials or unsecured terminals…"

This natural skill and curiosity had contributed to him gravitating to recon, infiltration and intelligence gathering.

As Adriana reactivated more of the Forerunner systems, Michael's strange dreams started occurring, becoming more frequent and more intense. At first, he chalked it up to coincidence and being stuck on a planet swarming with Covenant. After eight straight occurrences of the same dream, he couldn't dismiss that something was going on.

Each dream became more vivid… becoming more real. His emotions were being taken on an intense roller-coaster ride that seemed to bleed through to the conscious world. After the last dream, he had woken up to find his fists clenched so tightly that if he'd been holding anything, he would have crushed it.

Adriana noted Michael's behavior and tried to talk to him as her concern grew. She drew out some of the details about the dreams, but for some unknown reason he held back telling her how the dreams affected him. He saw she knew he was holding back, but he didn't have a reason to explain why he didn't tell her everything. He kept telling himself that he needed time to figure it out on his own.

As more time went by, he found the dreams becoming a distraction in the real world. Thoughts of the dreams intruded into his daily thoughts as he anticipated the next dream. He found his concentration and focus drifting and he struggled to maintain them. He knew distraction at the wrong time, especially when out on one of his raids against the Covenant, would end badly for him.

What really bothered him was that there was something so familiar about the dreams along with the intense emotions they brought out. With the dreams only getting stronger as each day passed, he found the young woman's face becoming more clearly etched into his conscious mind. He found himself unable to figure out what to do which was out of character for him.

There was no frame of reference he could draw upon to deal with what he was going through. He again considered talking to Adriana as she might figure out what was going on with him. He kept quiet. This was his burden to carry and find a solution to. He racked his mind, trying to recall any morsel of info he thought would apply to this situation, but he drew a blank. Other than the strange familiar feeling he had, there was nothing … not even a frame of reference, exercise, training or scenario he could draw upon to help him.

In those other moments, when he was not busy with his survival needs or planning his next raid against the Covenant, he became more introspective in his thoughts. For all his years as a Spartan, he had been on countless missions by himself… all alone as he was now. Until now he'd never given it much thought as it had always been his duty… his responsibility as a soldier and a Spartan.

For him there had been only the mission… nothing else mattered. For a soldier and especially for a Spartan, the mission always came first… no matter what the cost. Now in this place, with these dreams and how they were affecting him, this time it was different.

As each day passed, he started having thoughts he'd never had before as he became more aware of the loneliness pressing down on him. Sometimes he got the impression that the dreams were trying to tell him he was missing something important from his life.