Weekly installments! Whatever will people say?
Cortana had lost track of her other half after the Master Chief and Noble Six went their separate ways.
For now, she could only assume that the same was true on the other end; that Six's own personal smart AI was operating as normal. Having branched off, they were technically unique individuals now. What would happen when the Spartans (hopefully) had a reunion, only Yuri knew.
Cortana took a few femtoseconds to ponder these thoughts as Spartan 117 forcefully tore her holding unit out of his Mjollnir armor and into the ancient Forerunner console. This was it: the Control Room, their goal in these opening expeditions on Halo.
It took moments to interface with the alien technology. No records existed of this ever being attempted before. Even so, Cortana felt oddly nostalgic.
Then, she saw everything. Views of a hundred thousand individual sentry drones rushed to her, causing a slight delay in her thought processes. Most were dormant. A small fraction (5.4477%) were active and engaged in battle, most likely with the Covenant. Unless…
There was a conversation back in the Control Room. The Spartan got right to the point, wanted to know how to use the installation to destroy the Covenant. Keyes and the Covenant were both wrong. It was not a weapon, not just a weapon. It had been many things, in its original design. Its current offensive capabilities were the result of…
Cortana could multitask; came with being an AI. She came to two revelations at once, off the ball for the trillions of thoughts she could juggle at any given time. One: Halo's built-in sentries were not fighting the Covenant. Two: Captain Keyes was in terrible, terrible danger. Six and Yuri were going to walk right to their deaths in an attempt to rendezvous with him.
"Chief, you need to get moving. Find them!"
John wanted an explanation. There was no time. It may have already been too late.
He'd need to get to Six. Get to Cortana's other half. She could handle the strategy and maybe even salvage this disaster
Cortana spent several moments probing Halo for information. There was so much. She wouldn't be able to take it all with her. Her queries lasted mere seconds in the physical world, long enough for some humans in the control room to become disgruntled.
Yuri had left them behind at the Cartographer. That site no longer had any value. They would've been fodder when the Covenant arrived in force. Cortana and the Chief had brought the group with them to the Control Room, an area that actually needed defense.
"Ma'am, what should we do?"
There were thirty of them in total, having marched with the S-II through the snowy crags surrounding Halos nerve center. Cortana asked for the man in charge, a man named Stacker, and told the squads to lie low. The interior of this structure was perfectly defensible. No need to draw the ire of the Covenant down upon them by making their presence known.
If the data Cortana was thumbing through was right, the Covenant would be far too busy to try and retake this region.
I really wanted to do a chapter all on Cortana. Also, I needed some buffer between Six disappearing and the big return.
The ripples are starting to take hold. Things are changing. Also, femtoseconds. I think they're shorter than nanoseconds.
