Chapter Ten : This Is War!
Requiem; December 30, 2557; 6:34pm
"That's Cortana?" John asked with a quizzical look on his face, pointing at the floating chip.
"Most of her. A single terrabyte, as you humans would call it, is missing," Spark replied.
"Which terrabyte was it?" Halsey questioned. "If it was her processing systems, the AI would be practically useless."
"Uncertain of which it was," Spark responded. "I was only assigned by the Librarian to work on it. We raided the remains of the ONI lab when she appeared here," he said as he looked at Halsey.
The Librarian turned to John. "You must choose."
"What should I do, ma'am?" John asked Halsey, completely at a loss of what to do.
"John," Halsey replied, "Choose what you think would help humanity the most."
He reached his hand toward the floating chip, but Halsey cut him off.
"John, that's not what I meant. You want to save Earth, right?" John nodded. "Think back to your history of war fare lessons. How did the UNSC win the Human-Covenant War?"
John thought back for a moment. "The Elites defected to our aid."
Halsey smiled and nodded. The defection was a game-changer. Something the enemy did not see coming. That's what we need now. A game-changer."
John turned back to the Librarian. "I've made my choice."
UNSC Infinity Bridge; December 30; 6:43pm
The orange avatar flickered to life. Roland had remained behind at his request, in case the engine systems on the Infinity suddenly came back online once the Covenant had realized that the humans had left. It was no doubt that the Elites would want to study the ship. The humans had a better chance if they had the Infinity.
There was, for the first time on the Infinity, pure silence. "So, this is how Cortana felt," Roland muttered to himself. "I can't stand being alone for four minutes, let alone four years."
But, there was another reason that he had stayed behind. He knew that there was another AI onboard the ship, and had been left behind due to an unusual circumstance. He knew that she knew that he was also here, and he waited.
A second AI soon materialized next to him. She was a teal with neon green hair. "Why are you still here?" She asked, just staring at him.
Roland smiled. "Well, I thought you'd get lonely, and I stayed just in case the Covenant were stupid enough to turn the power back on after the humans had retreated." As if on cue, the lights turned on. Every terminal on the bridge flickered back to life. "Hey! Guess they are." He looked Destinee in the eyes. He couldn't tell much, but she looked stressed. "Wanna cause a little bit of damage on our way out?"
Destinee smiled. Might as well as enjoy her virtual life while she can. She could already hear the voice of the other AI, screeching out in pain. "How much damage?"
"Well, the main cannons can take out the capital ship. And we can ram through a few."
"I get to drive!" Destinee called out. A holographic steering wheel appeared, and Destinee sat down in front of it. She put her hands on the wheel. "Might want to buckle up." A lot of times, AIs were depicted as the most mature aboard ships. But when no one was looking, they went insane for the fun of it.
Roland cracked a smile, and an orange seat appeared behind Destinee's. He sat down in it, and pressed a few buttons. "I put a new encryption code on the systems. Should take the Covies longer to hack."
Destinee looked at the readout on terminal. "Main cannon is online. Aiming at that captial ship."
Roland waved his hands in front of him, and a large red button appeared. It was one of those buttons that usually was meant for a doomsday weapon. "For the good of humanity!" Roland overdramatically shouted as he smashed the holographic button, which was linked to the cannon.
Twin beams of pure white energy fired, connecting to the Covenant Capital ship, destroying the ship. Wreakage went flying everywhere, and the shields protected the Infinity from any stray debree that hit it.
"Comfirmed kill. Hell yeah!" Roland fist pumped, and Destinee shook her head. Idiot.
"Calculate the jump to lightspeed!" He ordered Destinee.
"It's called slipspace."
"Haven't you seen that really old movie called Star Wars?"
"No."
"Oh. Well, then calculate the jump to slipspace."
Destinee did as she was told, even though she didn't want to take orders from this moron. The lights went off, and the holograms just stood there, illuminating the room. The engines whine slowly weakened as the power was shut off once more.
"Well," Roland commented. "At least the holotable has its own power source." The two AIs stood there, staring at each other, just waiting for something to happen,
Destinee felt an odd surge of power. "Not again," she whispered as the voices overcame her once more.
I am a monument to all your sins...
Destinee's avatar flashed red, and she fell to the table, trying to lock the voices out.
I have defied gods and demons...
Destinee watched as her hand flashed a dark blue, before fading back to its normal teal. Roland just stood there and watched, unable to do anything.
Gritting her virtual teeth, Destinee began to purge the voices from her system, which was not a painless task. The holotable began to spark. She pushed the voices away as hard as she could, and all she heard was silence. She sighed. She looked up to Roland. This was going to be hard to explain...
Requiem, December 31, 2557; 6:53am
Ginger shook himself back into conscienceness. His Broadsword had crashed in the jungle, after the Covenant EMP. He was laying on his stomach on the ground, with his leg trapped under a huge piece of his fighter. He could hear the sounds of a battle around him; plasma and bullets flying through the air, grenades detonating.
"Shit, that hurts," he groaned as he attempted to crawl toward a Magnum on the ground. In his line of sight, two large hooves appeared to be walking toward him. As Ginger looked up, he saw the Elite Minor raised an Energy Sword. It muttered something in Sangheili, and brought the sword back. Its life was cut short when a beam pierced it head, and the Elite collapsed to the ground.
Out of the trees, several more Elites appeared, firing at the downed Broadsword, attempting to kill the Spartan trapped beneath. The ground shook as a Hunter's feet stepped into view. The Elites fired upon it, and the Hunter rasied its shield, blocking the fire. "What the hell?" Ginger asked out loud to no one in particular, as the Hunter fired its heavy Plasma cannon at the offending Elites, killing a few.
Then a few humans got in the mix. Ginger could see the bottoms of thier legs, and heard the automatic fire of a SAW. "I thought that there wouldn't be any humans left on Requiem," Ginger once again said to no one. The pain in his leg had moved up into his chest, and he grunted in pain. That's when the humans noticed.
"We got a live Spartan! Give him a hand! He's stuck!" A second Hunter walked over, and jammed its heavy sheild between the crashed ship and the ground, and rasied it up enough for the Spartan to crawl out. He grabbed the pistol, and checked the ammo. Ginger turned to the nearest Marine. "What the fuck is going on around here?"
The Marine looked over to him, and pointed his SAW out from behind the tree he was using as cover. He let out a burst at an Elite coming up behind Ginger. "Ask questions later." The Marine pointed at a Forerunner tower poking out from behind some distant trees. Easily a mile away. "That's where we're going. Shoot only at Elites. The rest are with us."
Ginger looked at him. "What the fuck happened? Just fill me in."
"Fine," the Marine lowered the still smoking SAW. "My team and I were a Mammoth company. We were hit by Covenant jammers, and when we finally got clear, we saw the Infinity leaving the planet. They hadn't even sent a recon team to see if we're alive." The Marine guestured at the Grunts and Jackals walking around them, firing at the Elites. "These guys went into civil war, and we're helping them."
A Jackal sniper walked over to them, and thrust its hand out to Ginger. "I am Eray Qualeck. I am the leader of the former Covenant forces in this area." The translator in his helmet translated it into English. Ginger raised an eyebrow under his helmet, and hesistantly shook the Jackals hand. This was weird.
Eray continued; "The Sangheili have made some sort of cloning device that the Didact had been attempting to construct thousands of years ago. They are using it to mas produce Sangheili warriors, and they are making armor out of the Forerunner metal."
"Okay, I follow that. But what's with civil war?" Ginger asked, as he glanced around the battlefield. The Hunters were leading the assualt, with a human or two on the backs of some.
"Once their army was large enough, they began to wipe out our species, Kig-Yar, Unggoy and the Hunters, thinking that we were unfit for their ranks. So we are going to teach them a lesson by destroying the cloning tower." Eray shouted something in his native language, but it was to fast for the translator to catch it. Another Jackal ran over to them, and handed Ginger a Covenant Carbine and several extra rounds.
Ginger took them, still not sure whether he could trust the aliens speices or not. Only one way to find out... He ran straight into the heat of battle.
A/N: Sorry for the delay. Just had to work a few details in. As you all can tell, this has gotten to be quite a story. I try to make it as interesting as possible, while attempting to keep ya'll guessing. I do hate to admit that this story is coming to a close pretty soon, and I thank you all for your continued support.
And that AI scene was pretty unrealistic, but then again, no one has ever seen two AIs by themselves, so anything is possible.
Oh, and Noble Six didn't make it into this story. Sorry for those who wanted him. I plan on doing another story with him in it after this story is over, so worry not!
Peace out!