Chapter 7
Cutter was sleeping restlessly; his short nap riddled with dreams of guilt. He should never have let Anders go down to the planet to document it without a proper escort, otherwise they wouldn't have lost her and wouldn't have had to chase it to the Forerunner shield world and Forge wouldn't have had to sacrifice himself in order to save them all. Forge wasn't a bad soldier, or even a bad person in general, it was just that he was very opinionated and outwardly so. After Spartan Douglas-042 suggested destroying the Covenant ship that had captured Anders, Forge violently spoke out against the decision, resulting in a broken chair and a bulkhead door seal malfunction. Cutter recalled that memory within the dream in vivid detail. Even the ship's phone ringing-?
Cutter's eyes snapped open, the phone by his bed ringing loudly. He rolled over and picked it up.
"Hello? Who is this?"
"Captain? It's me Anders. I've just found something you need to see."
"Anders? How did you get this number?" asked Cutter, now fully awake and pulling on his captain's uniform.
"I pulled some strings it doesn't matter. What matters is that I need you to meet me somewhere safe."
"Alright. Meet me behind the bar near this apartment in an hour."
Cutter wondered what Anders wanted him for as he waited behind the bar for her to show up. Pondering this, he looked up at the morning sky, still clear blue with patches of clouds; the orbital platforms faintly visible from the ground.
"Captain!" Anders called from the end of the alley.
"Anders, what is so important that you came to me in such a roundabout way?" queried Cutter
"I would've told you on the comms, but I figured they'd be tapped. As I was investigating Covenant transmissions, I discovered that earth had narrowly dodged a huge Covenant attack force. I tried looking for any further communications and I discovered that there is a contingent of Covenant on their way to earth anyway."
"And why are you telling me this? Shouldn't you have called ONI?"
"I did, and the person I spoke to said I should try to contact anyone I knew who could help. They've gone into a full-blown panic about this. We dodged a bullet but it's like it hit us anyway."
"Alright. As it turns out, I have been reassigned to a new ship, but she's still in dry dock. We can get her up and running in about two hours."
"That'll have to do. I'll let ONI know about your involvement. They're organising a small counterattack force to intercept the scouting party I picked up on the deep space telemetry. They're going to make a quick jump into our system, get in close and analyse our defences then report back. That's all I could make out in the transmission I intercepted."
"Good work professor. Let's get up there." the pair of them made their way to the nearest shuttle to the orbital platform where Cutter's new vessel, the Fortuitous Penalty was awaiting his command.
