Red In Tooth And Claw
Chapter 25: Fresh Starts

Time moved quickly; the haste with which New Caprica had been abandoned meant that families were spread out across the fleet. It was a herculean effort to sort out the mess and reunite love ones, and the Master Chief ended up pulling shifts piloting the Pelican from ship to ship, the troop bay full of civilians and their few, meagre possessions. It reminded him somewhat of the countless times he and his fellow Spartans had rescued survivors of a Covenant attack on some now long-gone Earth colony. Several trips took him to the Pegasus, and he was surprised at how quickly the once proud Battlestar had been stripped down and refitted as a space-going refuge camp. The recent discovery that the fleets food processing equipment had been damaged almost beyond repair during the escape from New Caprica didn't help matters; already meagre rations were cut to starvation levels.

Clad in his armour, he had stood and watched as a seemingly unending stream of civilians had made their way past from one of he docking bays. The Colonials looked at him with an odd mix of awe and fear; it had been impossible to avoid fleets press service totally, and some photos and even a short video clip of the Master Chief had leaked out. He was glad that none showed his face, as that was still a step he was unwilling to take. Still, to the bulk of the fleet he was a faceless, nameless defender, a literal knight in shining armour. A few young children stood and stared at him, mouths agape, until their parents dragged them away.

The recently demoted Major Adama walked over.

"Master Chief." He greeted him with a nod, "Everything in order?"

"We should have all of the civilians on-board by 1800 hours tomorrow." The Spartan remained unmoving, "The engineering crews should be finished on the Defender and the Odyssey. They will take up their positions on the flanks of the fleet as soon as they are ready."

Apollo waited to see if anything more was going to be forthcoming, but the Master Chief lived up to his well deserved reputation for using as few words as necessary. That wasn't to say that he was incapable of holding a regular conversation; he just didn't see the point in idle chit-chat while on duty.

"I have to report back to the Galactica." The Chief stated once the last of the civilians had passed by, "I have other duties to attend to, and the Pelican is already over due for maintenance."

"I need to speak to the Admiral myself." Apollo nodded, "Mind if I catch a lift?"

"Sir." The Spartan nodded, and led the way though the airlock.

Rather than take one of the empty seats in the back with a handful of techs and crewman also hitching a ride, Apollo made his way forward to the cockpit and settled into the co-pilots seat. He hadn't had the chance to examine the transport up close before, and he was surprised at how spacious it was compared to most Colonial military craft. The controls were logically laid out, and he was convinced that he could, at a push, handle the bird if needed. A dull thud reverberated through the hull as the airlock disengaged and retracted back into the hanger deck. The Master Chief checked the controls and called up flight ops for a departure vector, then slowly fed power to the Pelican's engines. It lifted off of the deck with a slight jerk, and the landing struts folded back into the hull as it made its way along the flight pod, slowly at first but with increasing speed. The moment they were clear of the Pegasus, the Master Chief pulled the ship round in a tight turn, pointing the nose towards the Galactica.

"There was something else I wanted to ask you." Apollo broke the silence once he was sure the hatch was secured, "About our, new friend."

The truth about Cortana was as closely guarded a secret as any in the fleet; only those who had known her as an A.I. new the truth. The story given to everyone else was that she was the only survive of a UNSC long-range scout ship that had suffered a catastrophic failure in its FTL drive and had been stranded in deep space, where the Cylons had found her. Starbuck claimed to have found on in a holding cell on New Caprica during her escape, and few people were willing to question the hot-headed pilot. Stories had been spread around that the Admiral wanted to keep her quarantined until he discovered just how much she had told the Cylon's about Earth, its location and defences. As it was, the press was clambering to interview her.

"And that is?" The Chief asked after a moments pause.

"What, exactly, is she?" Apollo felt like he was treading on thin ice, but he was committed, so continued, "Is she human? Cylon? Something else?"

"Physically, she is a Cylon, but she claims to have no connection to their shared conciousness or resurrection network." The Spartan explained, knowing that the Major was on the approved list, given that he knew the truth about Cortana's origins, "Mentally... that has yet to be determined. She seems to have the same personality and memories as she had before, her there are, signs, that she may be, mentally unstable."

Apollo sat dumbfounded, in part because of what he had been told, and because he had never known the Master Chief to hesitate some much before. If the super-soldier was picking his words so carefully, then there was the worry that he was keeping something back. They lapsed back into and uncomfortable silence that lasted until they landed on the Galactica.

The Agathon's were waiting for them when they docked, and Sharon walked up the the Chief and tried her bet to put her arms around the Spartan, despite their differences in hight and the somewhat bulky nature of his armour.

"Thank you." She whispered as she broke away, tears running down her face, "Thank you." She kissed the side of his helmet, then turned and ran off without explanation.

"The child you found on New Caprica, Doc Cottle finally got round to running a DNA scan to try and find living relatives in the fleet." Helo explained, "It's... it's Hera; she's alive."

"What?" Apollo blinked, "How?"

"Your father's looking into that for us." The CAG shrugged, "Gods only know what he's going to find, but he's letting us have her back."

"Interesting." The Master Chief stood stock still, remembering the Cylon in the red dress who had spoken to him when he found the infant; he was unsure what to make of her cryptic message concerning the halfbreed. But that was something neither he nor Cortana had mentioned to the Colonials.

"If you'll excuse me." He nodded to the two officer and made his exit.

Cortana sat on her bunk, watching Shaw like a cat watching a mouse, waiting for the moment to pounce. She had a faint smile on her face that Shaw found unnerving in a way she couldn't quite place a finger on. The Marines that had helped to move some furniture back into the cell had left, and Shaw was going over some of the paperwork the Presidents office had sent over.

"Okay, you need to chose a name." She looked up from the census form, "Preferable something that won't draw too much

"Cortana Catherine Halsey." The former A.I. smiled, "I am, in a manner of speaking, the child of Dr Halsey, so it seems only fitting that I take her name as my own."

"Okay." Shaw rolled her eyes; she had never, in her wildest dreams, ever imagined that she'd ever have a conversation like this when she applied to the Fleet Academy on Picon, "Date of birth? I guess you can pick one at random if you like."

"March 3rd, 2535, by the Earth calendar." Cortana folded her legs up onto her bunk, "That would make me 28, if you don't take into account time spent in hibernation."

"Place of birth?" Shaw asked, her voice by now dripping with sarcasm.

"UNSC military hospital, Planet Reach, Epsilon Eridani system." Cortana tilted her head to one side, "You know, I could fill those in myself a lot quicker..."

"They have to be filled in by an official." Shaw glared at her charge, "You've got plenty of free time on your hands: you should read the Articles of Colonisation."

"You don't like me, do you." Cortana asked rhetorically, "You don't like what I am."

"It is a sad testament to how badly my career is going that this is the only job in the entire fraking fleet that the Admiral is willing to trust me with." Shaw snapped, having finally reached the end of her tether, " And we both know he's only willing to do that because I know the truth about you, and it saves him from having to bring anyone else in on the secret!"

"Lieutenant... Kendra, I understand how you must feel." Cortana's face softened to a smile, "This isn't exactly the way I saw my, life, working out either: I was created for a very specific mission, and I never really got to carry it out. Sure, in the end everything seemed to work out, but I never got to see if I could have fulfilled my life's purpose. As for my recent change in circumstance?" She shrugged, "Well, I doubt even Dr Halsey could have seen that one coming. But I saw an opportunity and I took it. You say the Admiral doesn't trust you to do anything else but play babysitter? Prove him wrong by doing to job better than anyone else. Starbuck hardly set the bar high before she went back to being a fighter jock."

"It's not going to be that easy." Shaw protested, but her voice had lost its icy edge, "After what I did on the Scylla..."

"Redemption isn't meant to be easy." Cortana made her way over to a supply crate that had originated on the Forward Unto Dawn and rummaged through the contents until she found a couple of self-heating beverage cups. A faint memory flashed through her mind, a remnant from the process that had created her, "Hum, now that's interesting." She turned to face Shaw, "Tell me, have you ever tried something called Hot Chocolate?"

The Master Chief was sat at his work bench, examining his armours shield generator; it had been taxed to breaking point on New Caprica, and he was trying to determine if it was worth trying to repair it, or if he should just swap it out for a replacement. The equipment pod from the Forward Unto Dawn had been designed to offer all the equipment an entire team of Spartans might need when operating away from a fully stocked and manned armoury. On top of and replacement suit of Mark-VI Mjolnir armour, he had all the equipment and reference material he needed to keep his equipment operational.

It wasn't as good as having an fully trained armoury tech on hand, but it was what he had.

The faint knock at the hatch would have gone unnoticed by anyone but a Spartan, and the Master Chief looked round, confused: he knew for a fact that Lieutenant Shaw was off duty, and that the Admiral always called ahead first. Few other people had reason, let alone clearance, to venture this far into the area of the starboard hanger deck that had been set aside for his personal use. Slipping his M6D side-arm into the waistband of the UNSC issue PT sweatpants he wore when out of his armour, he made his way over to the hatch and opened it.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Master Chief, but we've run into a little problem." Sharon Agathon stood outside, holding our a folder; it contained star charts and photos obviously taken by a recon-Raptor showing a massive star cluster, "Our astronomical sensors seem to indicate a star system on the other side, with, if our readings are correct, a planet in the habitable zone."

"You think there made be food there." The Spartan nodded, "Or at least something to processors can use as base material."

"It's the only chance we've got." Sharon nodded, "The only problem is getting there; the star cluster is putting out lethal levels of radiation that would also blind the navigation systems on the civilian ships, and it's just too big to jump around."

"You need a Pilot Fish." The Chief closed the file, "Inform the Admiral that there may be a way through the cluster, but he's not going to like it."

To Be Continued