April 10th, 2553

0800

Outside Reach's Orbit

Epsilon Eridani glowed bright and vibrant in the view screen of the UNSC Incandescent Reason as it floated near the outer edges of Reach's atmosphere. The gas giant kept glowing even though everything it lit up was dead; destroyed by the monster known as the covenant. Everything seemed to be shadowed out by the light, almost as if, without it, Reach and all of its sister planets would be forgotten; lost in history.

Staring half heartedly at the star was Spartan II, class II, Master Chief Petty Officer Apollo-343. The visor of his Security Armor, Mark V (m), was polarized to allow Apollo to keep his light, green eyes fixed on the ball of gas that stood as a symbol of life in a dead system. If his face could have been viewed by someone living or perhaps even someone dead, one would have seen his expressionless features as he starred, unblinking and unmoving as a statue.

His right hand barely grasped an MA5B assault rifle, but as he let out all the air in his lungs he fell forward, letting go of the gun to grab a hold of the railing that was before him. It stopped his fall and brought him into a slouching stance, where his chest began to rise and lower at an alarming rate. His breath was ragged, as if smoke had clogged his lungs, and, if he remembered correctly, it had been.

The sun, that was all Apollo could recollect; the sun, and drowning in smoke. He remembered that he had been on his back, facing the sky, looking past one of the large satellites in Reach's orbit and into the sun. He couldn't quite remember why he had been on his back, but he did remember the smoke rolling over him, from an explosion most likely, and it filling his lungs.

That must have meant he had his helmet off at the time, which is odd for Apollo, because he never took his helmet off during combat. Something must have knocked it off, maybe another explosion…

Ow! A sharp pain jolted through his head and he clutched at his helmet, but since that wouldn't help anything, he jerked it off, allowing the full blaze of the sun to strike his chocolate-colored skin. When the light hit his eyes the jolt returned and he gripped at the area on his head with his gloved hand.

The armor felt cold on his shaved head, and when he returned it to his vision there was blood dripping from it, and a good deal of it. Normally, one would panic and react irrationally to a situation such as this, but, even though he couldn't remember what had happened, Apollo remembered how to bandage a wound. He wasn't sure how dire it was, but now he had a guess as to why he couldn't remember how he had gotten it, or even how he had gotten himself onto a UNSC cruiser in orbit of the planet he had been on when it was being glassed.

Trying to think about it brought the jolt back, so he dashed the thoughts from his head and pressed lightly on a compartment on the armor of his leg. It opened slowly with a hiss, and he pulled a roll of gauze from it, placing it on the bloody part of his head. The jolt returned and he clenched his eyes shut until it subsided.

Wrapping the gauze around the top half of his head and returning his helmet to its rightful place, he looked around at the bridge of the ship. The UNSC Incandescent Reason is a Marathon-class Cruiser, with one brilliant streak of yellow painted along the side to show that it has in fact, been through more combat than any other cruiser to date. Now it was out of commission, or at least appeared to be out of commission considering its warrant lack of a crew.

Only Apollo stood upon the bridge now, and he alone couldn't pilot an entire cruiser. He was a great pilot, but only and artificial intelligence could pilot a cruiser on its own, and Apollo, like all other humans, was very far from being as smart as an A.I.

"What happened?" Apollo's voice was scruffy, but soft, so much so, that you could almost hear the years of conflict in it.

"The Covenant happened." He recognized the voice. It made his eyes water just to hear it, forcing his brain to go back in time and think about things he didn't like to ponder on about for very long. The voice took him back to the times he spent on Reach, during his military training; back to her.

She wasn't a Spartan, she was an ONI agent, but she was always present during training exercises, watching him, like she was his guardian angel. She never saved him, but he saved her one time, and one time only.

She was almost killed by insurgents during a minor firefight, when a stray bullet hit her femoral artery and she was left bleeding on the ground. Apollo-343 saw her just in time, and used a ribbon she had tied in her hair to stop the bleeding and patch up the wound. Anytime she'd ask him, "How did you do it?", he'd simply respond with, "You don't want to know.", smiling at her with his almost-too-white teeth.

Later on, after he was assigned to his first off-planet-assignment, she tied that very same ribbon around his wrist, telling him that she'd find him if he were ever lost. Her name was Kate, and for some reason, he really wished she would find him now.

He snapped the thoughts from his head, turning around to face the source of the reply, disappointed with what he saw. It was a hologram, depicting a woman in her late teens, wearing capris, a tank-top, and a slightly-too-big leather jacket. Even through the blue shading that the hologram produced, Apollo could tell that she would have been pale, just like Kate.

"The Covenant glassed Reach, and you're one of the few survivors." The A.I. spoke in Kate's voice, and had Kate's look, so Apollo just assumed that, for one reason or another, they had used Kate's neural interface to create the internal matrix for this particular A.I.

"There are others?" Apollo asked, picking his MA5B up from the ground.

"Yes, but don't get your hopes up," The A.I. turned her eyes away from him to the sun that shined spectacularly behind him. "They've all left."

"Left? Where did they go? Why am I still here?"

"Yes, most made blind slip space jumps, and you were sleeping, if you consider a coma sleeping."

"How long was I out?" Apollo asked, keeping his gaze on the A.I.

"Seven months, three days, four hours, thirty-six minutes, and fifty-seven seconds." The A.I. looked Apollo directly in the eyes, which she could apparently see even through the polarized visor of his security helmet.

"What do we do now?" Apollo asked, turning towards the sun.

"Don't ask me. You're the Spartan." She looked at him, analyzing him for a moment before continuing. "Spartan 343, Apollo. Correct?"

He didn't answer; he only stared at the sun, almost hoping that it would burn him into oblivion.

"Well Apollo, I think we should start by making contact with any vessel that might be in the same position as we are."

Apollo, again, didn't say anything. He turned to face the A.I., who had data running all over her semi-transparent body, and awaited some form of an order; they worked much better than questions.

"Slip space rupture," The A.I. looked startled, or maybe puzzled; Apollo wasn't one for reading fake expressions. "It's a Covenant Stealth Corvette…but it's not cloaked."

Apollo waited for further information, gripping his assault rifle as if he was going to leap through space and take down the ship himself.

"It's hailing us," The A.I.'s face was definitely startled now, even Apollo could see that. "Should I respond?"

"Its covenant right?" Apollo's voice held obvious rhetorical sarcasm. The A.I. nodded her head in agreement, and Apollo swore he saw her blush a little, obviously embarrassed. "Open fire."

The Incandescent Reason fired upon the Stealth Cruiser with multiple archer pod missiles, but the ship cloaked and, using its defense systems, infrared the tracking systems of the missiles, sending them off in multiple different directions. After several moments of silence, waiting for a possible counter attack, the A.I. spoke up.

"It's gone, and it's not just because it's cloaked. It jumped again." The A.I.'s puzzled face returned, as if it didn't believe what had just happened; neither did Apollo

"My name's Sunny, by the way." As if to break the awkward nature of their circumstance, the A.I. spoke up in a cheery voice, which made Apollo feel a prick of pain behind his eyes. "So, Apollo, what should we do now?"