As always, thanks for those of you who have taken the time to read this! You are all awesome! :D :D
There are some major references to First Strike at the end of the chapter, but those who haven't read it should be able to keep up. :D
The doors slid apart and opened into an enormous room. In the center, three ledges appeared to be impossibly floating in midair with ramps on alternating sides to connect them.
"Well, this is definitely not Covenant," Cortana murmured. "Whatever is emitting the energy signal is on the top ledge. Good thing you're not afraid of heights." She paused. "I'm detecting a control panel of some kind on the first level. We should check it out first."
John moved to the first ramp and started his ascent. When he reached the first ledge, he saw the large set of controls that spanned the length of the ledge. It looked akin to the one they had seen in the Station. Thousands of lines of data were streaming on several holographic panels.
"I need to get in there, Chief." There was an edge of desperation to Cortana's voice.
Her earlier warning on the Warthog hadn't been forgotten by John. Despite the fact that she had seemed more or less like her normal self since he had awoken, the threat of her rampancy taking a deadly turn -for either of them- hadn't passed. He shook his head slightly. "I can't let you do that."
The video feed of her appeared in the corner of his display. Cortana smiled at him patiently, as though she was amused by his slowness. "Yes, you can. All you do is eject the data crystal from your helmet and insert it into the interface." She winked. "I seem to remember you doing it once or twice before."
"Cortana, we're here to find the source of the energy signal you located." He started to walk away from the control panel.
"Wait, John." He stopped. She drew in a breath. "I know what you're thinking. That I'm going to fall deeper into the abyss. But, that's not going to happen. You're here to keep me from falling in, remember?"
"Let's focus on our current objective," he said, hoping to divert her.
Unfortunately, she was not so easily distracted. All the warmth melted from her features. "Yank me, Chief." Her voice was chilling. Her eyes cold.
If distraction wasn't going to work, then John was willing to go the direct route. He took a step forward, away from the computer. "I'm not going to do that."
His HUD suddenly blinked off.
Darkness pervaded his vision.
"Cortana?"
Then, the image of Cortana's face filled his visor. Her pupils were white with rage. Her voice shook in anger. "Do it, now!"
His screen went dark again.
He refused to be intimated. "No."
Then, he lifted up his visor and purposively walked past the control panel.
She shouted at him through their comm channel, demanding that he stop and turn around. But, John steadfastly ignored her. He proceeded up the next ramp, leaving the control panel behind. Cortana's shouting had evolved into frantic pleas, appealing to John's humanity to keep her from suffering.
"Enough!" he finally said. "I'm not putting you in danger, Cortana."
"I hate you."
John flinched.
She said nothing after that. Despite his turmoil of emotions -something that should have never affected him while he was behind enemy lines- John was relieved at the silence.
The ground leveled out and opened to the next ledge which contained a holographic map of what looked like the galaxy. John recognized the six Halo rings which hovered at various locations. On the edge of map, the Ark was there. But when he took a closer look, he noticed that it only looked half-complete. A grouping of purple letters hovered next to it.
To the left, John recognized the Sol System. Home. How far away were they from getting back to Earth?
Knowing he would find no answers looking at the map, he walked past the hologram. Beyond it there were a half-dozen meter-high pillars that lined the center of the platform. They glowed blue and hummed softly. John wondered what their purpose was, a power supply perhaps.
He moved slowly past each pillar. Without access to his radar on his HUD, he had no idea if there was anyone there to ambush him. He needed to stay on guard, despite Cortana's earlier reassurance the room was empty.
His mind swirled with conflict at the thought of her. She had been upfront with her deteriorating condition; it had been him who stubbornly refused to believe another one of the people he fought alongside with -one of his friends- wasn't going to make it back to Earth.
If she was going to prevent him from being able to complete his current objective, then he was going to have to consider options that he wouldn't have entertained when he first exited the cryotube.
Including activating the killswitch.
He needed to reach her through the madness she was fighting. After he walked past the last pillar, he paused his march to the top. "Cortana."
She didn't answer him.
They didn't have time for him to attempt to mend things between him and her, but, like when he had found her on High Charity, he was willing to risk his safety to reach out to her. John looked below to where the doors were; there was still no movement on the ground level.
"Cortana," he repeated.
He heard a faint whimper and then a broken sob. "It's not fair, John. To think like a human, to feel like a human, but not be able to live like one," she whispered. "I was condemned to this torment the day she activated me. She lied, you know, rampancy does hurt."
Doctor Halsey.
John always held the doctor in high esteem. She had given his life purpose. She had helped him and the others to become the greatest soldiers humanity had ever known. Yes, the price had been high, but it had been worth it. His faith in her only wavered slightly when she took Kelly away from the Gettysburg without any warning. Even then, he had justified her actions.
"You will be fine. We just need to find the energy signal first," he encouraged.
"Not even you can save everyone, Chief."
Her words seems ironic. He may have saved humanity alongside Cortana, but the people he cared about the most -Sam, the majority of the Spartans, Johnson - he was never able to rescue.
John was more determined than before to make sure Cortana's name wasn't going to be added to the list.
Abruptly, she cried, "You need to activate the killswitch. End your torment and my own!"
The Gravemind has made a similar demand to him when he was attempting to rescue Cortana. Despite his earlier reluctance to accept the fact that he may have to activate her killswitch, he wasn't going to assist her to end her life unless it was a necessity. "I'm not going to do that."
"Why not?" She let out a long, shaky sigh. "It would make everything easier." She sounded more tired than John had ever known.
"We've never done things the easy way," he countered.
"I don't even know who I am anymore. Fighting rampancy is becoming hopeless," she whispered. The trepidation in her voice was palpable.
"You've done the impossible before," he reminded her.
There was a long pause. Then, she asked, "Have I ever mentioned that you're the most stubborn person I've ever known?" There was a hint of the old Cortana in the question.
"Once or twice."
John glanced at the ground below them. They were still alone.
Finally, she spoke. "We'll see how much fight I have left in me, I guess." There was a long pause. "I've reactivated your HUD. You can move your visor back now."
John snapped it back into place. All of readouts were as they should have been. A half-second later, her video window appeared. She was biting her lip, embarrassed. After a half a second, she said, "John...thanks for not giving up on me yet." The window blinked off.
John continued up the final ramp. On the top ledge, there was a large cube that floated a meter off the ground. On each of the sides, there was an opening. Three crystal shards were suspended with the chamber, one on a different side.
"We've seen something like this before...haven't we?" she asked.
"Yes. Doctor Halsey found the entire crystal on Reach after the attack by the Covenant."
He was slightly concerned about mentioning the doctor. Cortana's contempt for her had been blatant when she spoke of her earlier.
The AI seemed unperturbed by the reference to Halsey. She was calm when she said, "Give me a second to access my files." Five seconds passed. "A lot of the data during that time has been corrupted, but there's enough for me to extrapolate what happened. Wasn't the crystal destroyed?"
He thought of Corporal Locklear and his actions which led to his death. "Yes."
"But the Covenant managed to find these. The question is what do they want with them and what does it have to do with the Forerunners?"
John frowned. While the crystal's power had been unrealized by the UNSC, the Covenant seemingly knew its purpose and was willing to go after the shards, despite the difficulty of finding them.
"We need to get these out of here," Cortana said.
John agreed. He moved to stand in front of the cube. Then, he reached up and attempted to remove one of the shards.
A bright orange light prevented him from reaching the crystal.
"It's some sort of force field," Cortana unnecessarily explained.
"Can you disable it?"
"Yes, but you'll have to move quickly. I've never encountered such security measures before." There was a seven-second pause. "OK, now Chief!"
John reached in and snatched the piece. As he removed it from the chamber, the shard was surrounded by some kind of rectangular light. When he tried to touch the shard itself, the light thwarted him.
"Amazing," Cortana murmured. "The light is acting like your armor's shield, but it's much more powerful. I would suspect that it is a safeguard against its physics-bending abilities so that their slipspace drives aren't affected by its presence on the ship."
John slid the crystal and its case into one of the compartments on his armor before he moved to the next side. He waited for Cortana's signal, but she said nothing.
"Cortana?"
"I'm trying, Chief. The encryption is self-learning so I'm having to work faster than I have in a long time." The field fizzled briefly, but reactivated. "I can't-" Suddenly, her voice got panicked. "We're going to have to leave the others for now. Grabbing that shard has caught someone's attention. I'm tracking five Knights headed to our position."
