The escape pod shook violently on re-entry.

Dr. Hewlett retrieved some bandages from her lab coat and began applying one to the gash on Cortana's forehead.

"That'll probably need stitches but this is the best we've got right now." Hewlett said.

Cortana stared with visible concern at her hand, which was covered in blood from merely wiping off her forehead.

"Don't worry, it doesn't take much blood to look like a lot, you'll be fine." Hewlett said reassuringly.

There were nine people in the escape pod: Cortana, Dr. Hewlett, the pilot, four Marines and three officers.

"Guys, the only landing zone in range is on the station. You're gonna have to come out fighting." The pilot said.

A feeling of dread overcame the pod. Two of the Marines had MA5Bs, the other two had M6D sidearms, and one of the officers had a sidearm of his own. It certainly wouldn't last them long, and the rest of them didn't have anything.

Cortana, not used to feeling fear, was more frustrated with herself for not being able to come up with the odds of survival for this situation. Back on Halo she could have come up with a percentage down to hundreds of decimal places. John constantly defied those odds and proved her wrong, of course, which was always a source of quiet amusement.

That, of course, lead Cortana to think about John, somewhere down on UNSC-11 fighting the Flood. Surely he was defying those odds once again. Surely he had already seen the pods falling and was telling the remainder of his squad to go rescue them one by one…

"Cortana!" Hewlett yelled. "Brace for impact!"

The view from the cockpit was obstructed, so there was no way of telling when the impact would occur.

--

Cortana slowly opened her eyes, and was greeted by a bare bulb hanging from the concrete ceiling. Her expression was blank, and she wasn't thinking anything. The only noise was a high-pitched ringing.

"Good, you're up." Dr. Hewlett said, snapping Cortana out of it.

Cortana quickly became aware of her throbbing forehead, and now the aching rest of her body.

"What? How did we get here?" Cortana asked.

Hewlett responded by shining a small flashlight directly into Cortana's eye.

"Gah! Away with that!" Cortana yelled, smacking it away and sitting up.

"MA'AM!!" A Marine yelled, "…shut up!"

They were in a small concrete room. A single bare light bulb hung from the ceiling for illumination. A table, a desk, and five chairs were all jammed up against the door. Aside from Hewlett and Cortana, there was only a female Marine and a male Officer in the room. Respectively, the tags read Sgt. Novikova, and 2Lt. Resso.

"Keep quiet; we're pretty much trapped down here." Hewlett said. "The pod crashed, everyone survived, and then we had to fight our way down here. We're all that made it."

"James and Nash would have made it if they weren't so busy trying to keep HER safe!" Resso said angrily, pointing at Cortana.

Novikova responded by giving Resso a hard backhand, blood visibly escaping his mouth from the impact.

"Armor!" Hewlett protested, pointing out the Kevlar plating of the Marine armor covering most of the back of the hand.

"I didn't see you do anything up there, sir." Novikova spat, clearly only adding the title because 2nd Lieutenants had to be addressed as such. "If we leave anybody behind here it'll be you."

"Our priority right now is to radio for help, not kill ourselves babysitting Dr. Jacob's latest experiment!" Resso protested, rubbing his cheek.

"You know, I hear it's hard to grow a whole adult body in a lab, and he's more than willing to fix up the recently killed." Novikova replied. At over 6 feet, towering over Resso in a noticeable Russian accent with two MA5Bs and two M6Ds, she was rather imposing. Resso backed off, choosing to wander aimlessly around the room.

After a few moments of awkward silence, Hewlett spoke up.

"I noticed this on the wall beside one of the fire extinguishers as we came down here." Hewlett said, patting a small medical supply kit. "So now your forehead has been stitched up. Four stitches; I doubt it'll leave a scar."

Cortana rubbed her forehead, feeling the stitches there.

"So what do we do now?" Cortana asked.

"The AI doesn't know what to do, that's great, excellent, that's progress…" Resso muttered to himself.

"My idea is just to get out there, kill anything that gets in our way, and get to one of the radio towers for help." Novikova said.

"Gonna go with an assault rifle in each hand?" Hewlett asked with a smirk, motioning to Novikova's two MA5Bs.

"If it comes to that." Novikova replied.

Cortana smiled a little. This woman was very similar to John.

"Actually, we were hoping you'd retained enough know-how of UNSC security to get on that computer and do something useful." Hewlett said, motioning to a desktop computer sitting on the floor in the corner. That was where the desk pushed against the door came from.

"…I'll see what I can do." Cortana said, finally getting to her feet.

Cortana sat down in front of the computer.

"See, the computer is on UNSC-11's network, but everything has a security clearance on it." Novikova said. "Between us we got clearance to look at the schematics of the base, but that's nothing we didn't already know."

Cortana nodded, already knowing this would be the first roadblock. She had always felt that a big hindrance on the UNSC's efficiency was the security clearances blocking everything from everyone. All it did was make it harder for anyone to get anything done. Besides, as Commander Miranda Keyes once did, all anyone had to do was tell a Smart AI Construct "I don't care if I have the clearance or not," since such a violation of the rules was generally overlooked if the higher-ups realize that the situation depended on it. Since that was the case, why even have them? Any serious enemy could hack a security clearance with very little trouble. To the Covenant, hacking a UNSC security clearance was as easy as a minor clicking 'Yes, I am over 18' at the entrance to a porn site.

"Well… let's try to get access to the security cameras." Cortana said. She input the command and was greeted by a request for the security access code. "Damn it." She said.

"Remember that one?" Hewlett asked.

"Trying to." Cortana said, rubbing her temples.

"Right, meditate, that'll help." Resso muttered.

"Shut up!!" Novikova yelled.

"Listen, I am still the ranking officer down here, so-"

Suddenly, a scratching at the door. Everyone jumped and turned to face the door, Novikova raising an MA5B.

The scratching continued. It was quiet, seemingly determined but very weak. From where the scratching was coming from the door, it was a single Spore. Everyone stood motionless and silent, listening to the quiet scratching.

Then, a second set of claws joined in, at the same height. Novikova gritted her teeth. In this silence, along with the quiet scratching, the quiet gurgling of the Flood infestation all around them became painfully audible. For a moment they had forgotten where they were, but now it was crystal clear.

Finally, the scratching stopped. Nobody moved, still watching the door.

After a couple of minutes, everyone slowly relaxed.

"…from now on, you shut up." Novikova said, pointing at Resso.

Cortana, meanwhile, smiled. "Got it!" She said, entering an access code she finally remembered. A list of all the security cameras in UNSC-11 came on screen. Several of them had a red exclamation point listed beside them, indicating that either there was a severed connection or the camera was disabled, but most of them were still operational.

"Ok, bringing up a map of UNSC-11…" Cortana said, "…now let's see what the path is like between us and the nearest radio tower."