Chapter 9, in which Shepard reunites with an old friend and Cortana and the Chief struggle to survive aboard the Collector Cruiser.
~0~
Krogan DMZ
Aralakh System
SSV Normandy
Within turian culture, there was the notion of spirits. They did not physically interfere with the living, but they were the embodiment of certain concepts. There were no forces of good or forces of evil, for example, but there were forces of determination, spirits of war and essences of peace.
When Garrus Vakarian had been ready to die at Omega, exhausted and wounded after the many days of nonstop fighting, one such spirit had come for him. A magnificent force of war that rushed through the filthy corners of the slumps and swept aside all that dared to resist it. It was on that day that Jehanne Shepard had returned from the dead to save him once more and on that day, Garrus had understood that the turian spirit of peace and the human deities called 'angels' had to be the same things.
He did not consider himself a religious turian, but seeing the Commander appear before him like that…it had done something to him. It had definitely changed his perception of her. Before, she had been his closest friend. But now…well, it was difficult. She sure as hell wasn't a spirit, but to him, she remained something more than a mere human.
Perhaps that was why he felt so much for her. He had stood by her side as she ordered Kaidan to a certain death, watched the tears stream down her face as he told her not to worry about him.
And while Garrus couldn't see her right now -though he certainly could hear her, even through the thick doors of the Communications room- he could easily picture her face. Perhaps covered in tears, but no longer of grief. The Illusive Man had screwed them over and that was a very dangerous thing to do with Jehanne. She was forgiving, more so than Garrus could ever picture himself being, but even she had her limits.
As Vakarian stood with his back against the door of the Comm room, he wondered how the Illusive Man would talk his way out of this. The mission on that Collector ship hadn't gone exactly right. And because of that, she had lost another teammate. Another friend. One she hadn't even known for that long, certainly not as long as Kaidan. But that was just the way Jehanne lived her life. Making friends out of everyone with a nearly-supernatural charisma, even with the stoic and alien soldier from the wreckage.
Five minutes after having started telling the Illusive Man where to stuff it, Shepard finally seemed to calm down. Either she had managed to pull the Cerberus leader through the Quantum Entanglement Communications system to personally kick his ass, or the deceitful human had managed to talk his way out of her fury for a brief moment.
Garrus straightened up when the door suddenly slit open and revealed a flustered and tired-looking Jehanne.
"Shepard," Garrus softly spoke. He rarely called her by her first name, as he never managed to pronounce it right. "I uhh…so what did our mutual friend have to say?"
"Timmie said he needed the Collectors to think they were going to win," she quietly told him "Telling us would have tipped them off and the plan wouldn't have worked."
Garrus scowled. "That it? He risked your lives for better intel?"
He did not tell her that, in the turian Hierarchy, such decisions were generally approved of. He wasn't in the turian Hierarchy now.
Jehanne looked away. She didn't meet his eyes. "EDI found out that the Reapers and Collectors use some sort of advanced IFF system to get through the Omega Relay. If we can get such an IFF for ourselves, we can target the Collector base."
This wasn't Shepard. Garrus made sure to leave the mental state of his friend be and replied to the issue she rose. "Alright. How do we get that IFF?"
Shepard walked past him towards the armory. "We raid a Reaper."
At that, Garrus could not contain his surprise. A Reaper? Big, Sovereign-class laser-shooting monstrosities? "I haven't finished calibrating our guns yet, Shepard."
"Cerberus found a derelict," Shepard retorted without bothering to look at him over her shoulder. "When we built our team, we're going in."
As part of the original crew of the Normandy, Garrus knew that his Commander would have been absolutely giddy at the thought of raiding a dead Reaper. After all, she loved achieving victories with her crew. The spirit of war. To see her as indifferent as this was…disconcerting, to say the least. "Commander!'
This time, she did look at him. Well, she glared at him. It was progress. "It wasn't worth it, was it? Losing the Chief?"
Jehanne didn't answer him.
~0~
"Run Chief! Move to the exit!"
Explosions. Gunfire. The familiar whining of his fully depleted energy shielding. All was background noise to the Master Chief as he dashed through the interior of the room, avoiding the blue lasers that carved through the metal floor and buffeted him with fragments of molten metal. He jumped over a Collector when it suddenly started levitating a few inches above the floor, covered in yellow-orange lines and symbols. He then rolled over the floor to dodge the worst concussive waves of an explosion and caught a small burst of fire in his left flank, which the heavy plates of his MJOLNIR armor only barely managed to absorb.
The large door was almost sealed, but the Spartan managed to slide underneath it and emerge safely on the other end. Dozens of rounds impacted on the door and the floor underneath it, but the rapid rattle of the guns faded away when the bulkhead fully sealed itself.
"That was close. Way too close. Are you hurt?"
The Master Chief ran a hand across the thick gash that ran across the outer layer that protected his stomach. "I'm fine."
"I'm relieved. Take it easy; that thing shouldn't be able to cut through the door."
The damage to his suit wasn't that extensive and it felt a lot worse than it was, but the Chief couldn't help but feel somewhat cynical at that comment. "Shouldn't? It cut through the MJOLNIR as well."
"Point taken.."
The Master Chief took a few moments to reload his weapons, which he had fully depleted during the firefight. The two dozen or so Collectors had been manageable, until that thing had shown up. A giant, floating bug with enough firepower to obliterate entire walls of Collector alloys. Its shields had been tough enough to soak up an entire magazine of Assault Rifle fire and when they had finally been depleted, supposedly clearing him for an attempt to damage it through close-quarter combat, some sort of energy wave had exploded outwards from within the thing's core, knocking the Spartan straight off and nearly depleting his own battered shields in the process.
He wasn't sure when the husk-form had managed to scratch his stomach plates. Somewhere after it had attempted to crush his head with a razor-sharp appendage, he supposed.
"Shepard´s records indicated some Collector unit serving as a tank. Garrus Vakarian dubbed it the Praetorian. It took her and her squad about ten minutes of concentrated effort to take it out on the colony Horizon."
The Chief could figure out why. The husk was immensely well-protected and armed to its teeth. Or collective human skulls, seeing as it was made up out of human corpses. Getting in close to the thing had not worked out at all. "Why couldn't I hurt it? Its shields were down."
"It must have used several mass effect fields to overdrive its shielding, rendering it temporarily invulnerable. I calculated at least twenty-seven points of origin for its shield-system."
"Is that a lot?"
"The average Alliance soldier has five to seven field emitters."
The Chief grabbed his shotgun and scanned the hallway for more hostiles. "So, a lot."
Cortana sighed. "Let's just say that the only way Shepard would manage to kill hers quicker was by using a Cain."
Right. But he didn't have the luxury of a mini-nuke launcher right now. "Time for plan B?"
"That depends. Is it the Spartan plan B of, when in doubt, jump? Or is it the Spartan plan B of, when in doubt, blow it up?"
"The latter. That thing should still be vulnerable to explosions."
There was a burst of blue static across his screen, paired with a sharp audio malfunction. It sounded like a chorus of female voices, speaking in a language he didn't know. It sounded disturbingly like the Gravemind's tongue. "And you should still be vulnerable to a lack of oxygen. Your suit's supply is almost depleted, even with the emergency EVA port filters operating at 120 percent. The colonists' pods have tubes running through them to deliver oxygen-rich air, keeping them alive. I have tracked several points of origin for those tubes."
That meant no plan B then. John could work with that. He didn't want to admit it to Cortana, but he could use a clear goal. On their own, these Collectors weren't much of a threat, but their husks…they reminded him too much of the Flood. The Scions were one thing, but that Praetorian had really pushed him far. Sustained firepower would have taken it out, but with at least five Collector fireteams running around to keep him pinned down, such a task would be too daunting.
At any rate, they didn't use oxygen for their metabolism. Reaper tech must take care of providing the cells with an energetic compound. It had to be really potent if that were the case.
With no other choice, the Spartan started moving. If the hive-like structure was anything to go by, this ship had to be filled to capacity with Collector troops.
And filled with human captives. "We should try to free those colonists. The Collectors will kill them, or worse."
Cortana didn't reply. She had to be busy with something. Had she noticed the interface errors?
He continued nonetheless. "Try to locate the escape pods. We should bring them there one batch after another."
The blue static warped again, changing to a vision of contorting figures. They only lasted for a split-second, together with the audio malfunctions, but it still made him wonder what was going on. This could not be chalked up to hardware errors. "Chief, can you find me an access point?"
The Spartan raised an eyebrow at being brushed off like that, but he complied. What looked like computer mainframes were positioned every few set of chambers and though their access ports had to be completely alien, he only needed to bring Cortana's chip close for it to work.
He did not know the specifics of how she did what she did, but she had the ability to 'jump' from one access point to the other. It was an ability that had saved them a lot of time during time-sensitive operations.
The Master Chief carefully removed his partner's data chip and felt the now-familiar sensation of a stream of cold rush out of his head. Feeling her leave was, though familiar, not at all comforting.
Cortana's avatar appeared atop her 'home' and she crossed her arms. "This won't work. Insert me in their systems so I can open the door. I will remain in contact."
The Spartan did as she instructed him, bringing the data chip close to the access port and letting the micro-fabricating system on its edge do its work. Getting into alien systems meant being able to access those alien systems on a hardware-level first. The AI chip had, as the techs called it, a micro-crystal rearrangement-field, which basically meant that it could shift its own form to connect with most systems. Be it a Covenant nav-computer or a Forerunner console on a Halo, the system would find a way to make it work.
He hadn't really had the time to read up on the precise workings however. He was just glad it worked with these Collector systems as well.
"Alright," Cortana said as soon as the Chief placed her chip back in its rightful place. He would pick her up again when they were done. "I'm in. These systems are…different. Very different. Nothing like the Covenant's, really. More like…"
She trailed off. Was the influx of new information confusing her? Distracting? "Can you locate the lifeboats?"
"There are no lifeboats."
"Fighters?"
"VI-controlled drones."
No fighters either. Very well. "Can you take control of the ship's systems? Space the Collectors?"
"Not without killing the abductees as well."
Then this would last longer than he had expected. "We'll take manual control. Set a course to one of the human colonies."
"There is no oxygen for those humans, John." She called him by his name again. That meant bad news. "And this system is more complex than you think. It…I think I understand now."
Understand what? "Cortana…"
"John, there are more than ten-thousand Collector forms on this vessel. The humans won't stand a chance-"
He thought it odd that she would refer to the abductees as that.
"-and you won't last forever with those odds. We…I don't think we can rescue these people."
The Chief knew that he did not have enough ammo to deal with all these things, but there were other ways. Destroying parts of the ship…no, that would lead to human casualties as well. Pressure could fall away too.
He could steal their equipment, even arm the abductees-
-but they lacked training, and there was no guarantee they could use the Collector weapons.
In the back of his mind, he already knew what he had to do. What the Spartan inside of him should do. But the part of him that had seen Avery die, the part of him that grown weary of the needless deaths of many millions of people, just couldn't accept that. It made for a confusing and frustrating conflict within his priorities.
"We can't let these aliens take their victims," the Chief quietly said. His reservations against doing what had to be done faded away even as he said that, but he needed to be sure. He needed confirmation.
"We cannot and will not let this vessel escape. First, I need you to follow the navigation points. Refill your suit's air supply."
A loud noise behind him immediately shifted the super-soldier's gears and he spun around, shotgun at the ready.
Something had smashed itself against the door, putting a sizeable dent in it. A really noticeable one. The Chief was not about to test his strength against that thing again with his air supply so dangerously low. He'd kill that particular Husk when he was ready, not sooner.
So with that in mind, the Spartan moved out. It felt like he was back on the Truth and Reconciliation again for a certain part, though High Charity was more like it. Every door that Cortana opened for him led to him a room filled with hostiles. Every piece of cover held another freak ready to pounce him and every now and then, the telepathic leader of the horde of monstrosities personally addressed him.
"We will be the Harbinger of your destruction," the now-possessed Collector drone chanted with that booming, heavy voice that the Chief had come to associate trouble. He ducked underneath one of its pulsating biotic attacks and blasted another drone with his shotgun, after which he lashed out with his leg and kicked one of the Husks away as it charged for him.
The synthetically-altered corpse seemed to come apart under the force of his blow, smashing against a nearby wall in pieces. Whatever these Reapers did to humans to turn them into these machine-horrors, it did not make them much sturdier.
"Your Guardians are gone," The glowing drone continued. The magma-like lines that ran across its body brightened and it unleashed another series of what had to be biotic attacks. "Your kind stands alone."
The Master Chief had no clue what this Harbinger was talking about and neither did he care. He aimed down his sights and pulled the trigger of his Assault Rifle, ripping through the Collector's shields and shredding its armour-
-the counter rapidly dropped to zero and the magazine ran dry. The Chief immediately lowered his weapon and charged the wounded drone, slamming the butt of his rifle against its large head, which snapped back under the force and audibly cracked.
"Kill one and one hundred will replace it."
The form disintegrated, having been completely burned out by the odd possession. True to its word, more Collector drones flew in around the lone Spartan, taking up superior positions with good aim.
The Chief quickly snatched his last magazine from his hip and inserted it into his rifle. Cortana immediately placed a waypoint in his HUD and then designated the targets around him with blue highlights, showing him where they were hiding. "Chief, you are going to run out of air real soon. I suggest you move, now!"
He didn't need to hear that twice. As the Collectors rained down fire from above, he turned around and double-timed it to the heavy set of doors that Cortana had opened-
-only to run into another Scion with its arm-cannon raised.
Time slowed down as the Master Chief instinctively threw himself at the massive husk, foregoing the waste of time that opening fire would mean. It seemed to have been made by fusing several human bodies together around one massive cannon, which it could use to devastating effect. He could not effort to let this creature fire its weapon in close quarters.
With his armoured gauntlet, the Spartan smashed the Scion's head in. The metal frame of his fist easily tore through the machine-augmented skull and turned the leftovers of its brain into a fine paste. The Scion attempted to retaliate by swinging its lesser arm at him and grabbing his faceplate, but its movements were slow. Suspended underwater, never arriving at their destination.
The Chief took a large step to the side and tore the Scion's arm off. He immediately followed up with five punches to its center of mass to destabilize it and a heavy kick to one of the humps on its back to damage its organs.
The collective hunk of flesh and metal fell over backwards and the Chief jumped on top of it, resting hundreds of kilograms of MJOLNIR and soldier on what had to be its chest cavity, and drove his fist straight through the gaping hole that his previous attacks had caused.
He found himself panting from exertion, unable to get enough air into his lungs to stave off the ache in his chest.
"Chief, your air supply is running very low! If you move now, I can redirect the oxygen flow from the holding cells into the rest of the room."
"That will kill the abductees."
Cortana's reply went together with another flash of interference, green this time. "Don't QUESTION me!"
Now more than ever did John want to stop and call out Cortana on this problem of hers, but he knew that he had no time left. He had to bury his reservations about this topic, if only for a fleeting moment.
So he waited until the AI had cut off the air supply from the inhabitants of those Collector holding cells, sentencing them to a certain death which they had not deserved. If John had not been certain of his plight with Commander Shepard before, he was now.
As Cortana flooded the room with the precious oxygen that would allow him to go on for another hour and a half, the Master Chief addressed the problem that he should have addressed from the beginning. "Tell me what's wrong."
She didn't immediately reply to him. When the Chief moved towards the door on the other side of the room, where he hoped there would be less enemies waiting for him, she seemed to think she could redirect that question. "There… should be a way to get to this ship's reactor if we cross its cargo hold."
He knew her better than that. "Cortana…talk to me. If something is wrong…you should tell me."
"Chief, I…it asked, and I answered. I tried to fight it, but it wouldn't let me."
High Charity. "The Gravemind?"
"Do you know what a Gravemind does to AI's? What it can do?"
"I don't-"
"No AI was a match for it, ever. Even the most brilliant Forerunner AI's are swayed and brought low by its logic. It's like a plague, infecting everything it touches. And once you're infected…"
"You're not infected," John instantly retorted.
"Chief…"
"You're not a Forerunner AI. You're human."
"I…do you really think that?"
"Yes. You were created from a human brain. Cortana, you've helped me destroy the Gravemind and the Flood. You're currently making sure I won't choke to death in this ship. A corrupted AI wouldn't do that."
"Oh John, it's not that simple."
John knew that it couldn't be as simple as just stating it, but right now, he had no reason to believe that Cortana was a liability. She was an ally. In fact, she was much more than that. She was just as much family as the other Spartans were. "Even if you are infected, we can find a way to fix it. The Gravemind won't take you."
Cortana laughed. A hollow sound, devoid of humor. "And how do you know that?"
The Master Chief unslung his shotgun and said, "Because I won't let it."
A simple promise like that couldn't have been enough to silence Cortana, but somehow it did. She quietly opened the door ahead of him and placed a waypoint at the other end of the hallway that the opened door revealed.
Content and reassured, the Master Chief pressed on.
~0~
Krogan DMZ
Aralakh System
SSV Normandy
It wasn't worth it, was it?
Questions like those have plagued Jane for a long time now. It was easy to hold a grudge against herself in light of what she had done, the people who had died for her…but in reality, even that was a luxury she could not afford. She had to look out for the wellbeing of all under her command, while fighting an enemy that had conquered empires far greater than what the Citadel had going on.
And her team stood alone in that.
It was their duty to stand between the innocent and the monsters. To fight for the lost.
Jenkins had known that. Kaidan had known that. The Chief had known that. It was part of the course for a soldier to lay down their lives for the mission.
And it wasn't called a suicide mission for nothing.
Jane shook her head. She had to get above this; she was going to take a squad to Tuchanka damnit! The krogan homeworld had local wildlife that ate the big guys for breakfast. Staying sharp was the name of the game and she was not about to lose anyone else.
Krogan…yeah, knowing her luck, her team would be facing off against a group of those lumbering mountains. She would need some heavy firepower on Tuchanka. Maybe she could find something in the armory.
When she got there, she found that Jacob was still working, gathering rifles and sorting through the types of ammunition they had plucked from the derelict. It had really been an impressive armament for half a ship.
"Hello Commander," said Jacob. "Sorry about the Chief. He was a hell of a soldier."
Shepard ignored that remark. She deliberately avoided Jacob's eyes and asked, "Did we get the new SMG model yet?"
The armory officer shook his head. Perhaps he picked up on the subtle sign of changing the subject completely, because he didn't pursue that particular one. "Sorry Commander. We have yet to resupply."
Great. Then Mess Sergeant Gardner had some explaining to do. "You got anything else for me I can use? The Tempest doesn't pack enough punch for me."
Jacob glanced at the weapons locker, where several of the Chief's weapons had been stored for future use. "Hmm…I think I do. Take a look at this."
He then grabbed one of the smaller weapons and handed it to Jane, who hesitantly took it. At first, she felt like it wasn't right to use someone's equipment after their death, but the Chief was a soldier. It would be an insult to leave his weapons to gather dust instead of using them for their original purpose.
The weapon looked like a fully automatic SMG, but it was different from the ones she knew. It had a polymer handle and very noticeable buttstock, which looked like it could be collapsed. It had a folding fore-grip as well and while it was outfitted with iron sights, it didn't seem very hard to mount a scope on it. The body itself looked like titanium, which meant that this thing too could double as a club.
A handle was located to the right side of the SMG, used to chamber the first round. All in all, the weapon was about two feet long and didn't weigh a lot. Its munition couldn't be very impressive, but these weapons had a knock for being surprisingly powerful.
"What can you tell me about this thing?" She asked.
Jacob took the weapon from her and released the magazine by pressing a button. "It carries sixty rounds per mag, caseless munition. That means higher capacity and less weight. I found two types of ammo for this thing; normal magazines and high explosive armor piercing magazines. Both seem to have a knack for ripping through barriers, shields and armor relatively easy, though I haven't tested it on heavier armor models yet."
Then she would perform that particular experiment for him. "I'm convinced."
But mister Taylor wasn't finished yet. "This weapon can also be outfitted with several other modifications. I found several pieces of gear that seem to fit with these hardpoints. Flashlights, suppressors, various scopes."
"I'm not looking for a stealth weapon on the krogan homeworld, Jacob," Jane dryly commented. "You had me with the armor piercing ammo."
"Of course, Commander."
With her new SMG strapped to her waist, Jane made her way to the CIC. Right now, she had to focus on Mordin and Grunt. Mordin recently learned that the Blood Pack mercenaries on Tuchanka had captured his former student, Maelon. Maelon was a salarian, which on itself was already a problem with the krogan, but he had also helped Mordin with his work on the genophage project. It was a disaster waiting to happen, so it only made sense that Mordin was so worked up about this.
And Grunt…Jane had no clue what was wrong with him. He was pure krogan -people should be in awe- but that seemed to carry a problem on its own. He might be seriously ill, so he had requested a trip to tuchanka to get a diagnosis from one of those amazing krogan doctors.
Grunt was…special. He was a big, baby krogan. The Normandy's first giant baby krogan. So either he had some sort of juvenile disorder, or he had caught an infection on one of the missions she had taken him.
Jane had always wondered how that krogan regeneration even worked. A big, bleeding flesh wound that closed itself up with all the pathogens and other things still sealed inside? Bad stuff. And Grunt had taken some fire during his missions, so his regeneration might have gone wrong there.
She wasn't going to risk anything on Tuchanka, though. There was no saying who would be in charge there and after what had happened the last time, she would be taking extra firepower with her. She would take Garrus, Kasumi and Samara with her too. If things went right, she could split up the teams and tackle these two missions at the same time. Garrus was an excellent combatant and a capable leader, too.
Though he would never admit that to himself. Not after what had happened to him on Omega. He had not shared the complete story with her yet, and she could understand that, but she did know that it was deeply personal. A betrayal from someone he had never expected a betrayal from.
With quiet resignation, Shepard remembered that the loss of an entire team was much worse than the death of one soldier. Yet Garrus had shown her nothing but his loyalty and friendship throughout this operation. There would be time for grief later.
She just felt so tired.
The Commander returned to the Combat Information Centre and approached Joker, who was just bringing them into the krogan DMZ. Everybody was geared up and ready for action,
"There she is," said Joker. "Tuchanka. The krogan homeworld, where even the plants want to eat your guts. The Council Demilitarization Enforcement Mission has granted us access by the way."
"I would hate to overstay our krogan-welcome," Jane sarcastically replied. "Who is in charge down there?"
Joker turned around in his chair with such force that EDI had to be behind it. Shepard had seen turrets rotate slower. His nickname didn't do justice to the enormous grin that his face suddenly carried. "Three guesses."
Jane, not really in the mood for games, decided to play along nonetheless. Her problems weren't his problems and she was really fond of Joker. Too fond to let her sour mood spoil his. "Some biotic warlord?"
"Close. Second guess."
Why was he so happy? "A female?"
"Hah, if only. Third guess."
Jane, out of options, replied, "Alright, I'm out. Who's in charge down there?"
Joker's eyes were barely able to contain his joy at this new. He must have heard this very recently, too. "Urdnot Wrex."
Jane broke records getting to the dropship that day.
~0~
The Master Chief watched the double set of doors open several feet, enough for him to go through, before Cortana closed them again. He had run out of ammo a while ago, spending his last magazine to fight his way out of a long hallway without any cover. The Collectors had weapons that proved a serious threat to his MJOLNIR. At full shield strength, they were no problem, but they seemed to be very good at downing them when they were already damaged, as he had caught several glancing hits of some sort of beam weapon that had easily ripped through his weakened shields. It was a good thing that Cortana could repair the MJOLNIR after missions, because he had more than a few gashes in its outer shell now.
He was just glad that he wasn't full of holes as well.
"Chief, I am tracking multiple hostiles. Marking them now. I recommend you take this one quietly. Start with the one on the ledge." The link that she had with the MJOLNIR was stable enough to allow for immediate conversations even though she was currently neck-deep in the Collector systems.
The Master Chief had always admired how effective AI's could multitask.
"I know how to handle stealth operations, Cortana," he dryly remarked, making his way towards one of the larger rock outcroppings. This was another one of those tricky rooms filled with cover, pillars and piles of rock. Cortana had spotted at least nine Collector forms through his HUD and, in the time it took him to blink, tagged all of them in a blue outline.
"Oh really? Should I let your frontal lobe run the programs to predict their movements based on existing patterns and track them outside your field of view?"
The Chief jumped, grabbed a protruding piece of black rock and immediately pulled himself up, ending up behind the Collector with that beam weapon. It had a good vantage position; only a few locations in this particular room remained hidden from its view. "If you want to. We used to play games like these, without AI assistance."
"Let me guess? Capture the flag without being seen?" Cortana replied, working her magic to track several hostiles through the enormous pile of rock. They moved erratically, but that was to be expected. She likely needed more observatory data to perfect this particular strategy.
"On occasion." The Chief snaked his arm around the thin neck of the Collector, tightened his grip and then gave a jerk, easily ripping the bones that made up its frail neck apart. Its long, tapered head jerked oddly when it died, leading the Chief to wonder if he should have ripped it off instead. He wasn't sure if breaking the necks of these monstrosities actually killed them.
The Chief glanced at the fallen Collector and then crushed its skull for good measure. He was not risking the reworked Prothean getting up and blowing his cover. He had learnt that lesson in Halo.
"And I take it that the ones protecting the flag weren't fully armed humanoid insects stuffed with cybernetics?"
"No," the Chief calmly said, hunkering down on the rock and taking a good look at what was to be his next target. "Just fully armed marines."
"So it was true after all. Halsey didn't do things half, did she?"
The Master Chief thought he detected anger in her voice and he rapidly switched the subject. "Mendez didn't do things half either. What do you make of these Collector weapons?"
"Hmm…from what I gathered, it uses the same mechanics as the human weapons in this universe, those micro-scaled accelerators. However, when you cracked that weapon open a while back, it used an organic structure with biotic potential as a core. It is incompatible with the heat sinks."
"Affirmative." One of the Collectors wandered down below the vantage point, carefully scanning its surroundings with its rifle. These things weren't stupid; the death of the overwatcher had put them on alert regardless.
But they didn't take into regard that Spartans could come from all directions, like from above. The Chief silently leapt off the rock and landed with both of his boots on the alien's head. Its chitinous exoskeleton didn't protect its skull from the five-hundred kilograms of MJOLNIR that landed on top of it, subsequently splattering its contents all across the floor.
"I know they can't find the bodies," Cortana said when the Chief picked up its limp body and threw into one of those yellow cracks at the side of the hallway, "But what about the pool of blood and pieces of tissue?"
The Chief glanced down at the pool of gore and shrugged. "It won't point them to my direction."
"Then you better scrub those boots of yours before leaping anywhere."
As it turned out, there was no need to worry about the potential trail of blood that the super-soldier left in his wake, because the Collectors became aware of his presence regardless. One of the Collectors became the next source for Harbinger's ego and started patrolling the hallways, having foregone effective speed for a menacing gait. "Your time has come, human. You cannot deceive all."
The Spartan was not intimidated by the Harbinger. He took a deep breath of the newly-cycled oxygen that Cortana had resupplied his suit with and allowed his training to kick in. He made no sound as he leapt from the wall, collided with the possessed Collector and smashed it to the ground. He slammed his boot against its torso and shattered the sturdy armour that the form had been granted by Harbinger, before crushing its skull with his fist.
The Spartan immediately left the scene and climbed up a metal platform, evading the three armed Collectors that came rushing towards their fallen leader. They briefly observed the scorch mark on the floor and were about to fan out when the Chief jumped from his cover and landed in their midst, crouching low to swipe the legs out from underneath the form with the energy weapon.
The Collector was knocked in the air by the force that broke its legs, after which the Chief delivered a quick and crushing blow to its head with his elbow, slamming the mangled body to the ground. His left leg snapped out and broke the spine of the second Collector, sending it stumbling and allowing the Chief to easily destroy its brain with a well-placed hook.
Remaining as the only armed drone in that region, the third Collector didn't even manage to get off a shot before the Chief dove underneath its arm, shattered what to be the elbow joint with a simple arm-lock and brought its head down against his knee, hard.
More Collectors came rushing at him from around the corners and the Spartan kicked off. Traversing the five or more meters in a heartbeat, he took down the first drone with a spinning kick. He snatched its rifle from its twitching arms and aimed it at its patriots, downing two of them with precision headshots before the return fire splashed across his shields.
The Master Chief saw one Collector levitate in the air to be converted into the next Harbinger drone and intercepted it before it could finish. He lashed out with his leg and sent the drone flying off into the wall with enough force to shatter every piece of tech in its body, whereupon he grabbed its head and smashed it against the metal plating for good measure.
One less Harbinger to worry about. What was that thing, anyway? Shepard had told him that it was the Collector General, personally taking over the hivemind to direct matters on the battlefield.
"Nice job!" said Cortana. "Shows that thing not to run its mouth. Analyzing…the navigational computers indicate this vessel is heading for a different planet. I can't access its exact location, but it is located in the section called the Terminus Systems"
"A different planet? Is it colonized?" Asked the Chief. He shook some of the insectoid blood off his gauntlets and picked up one of the fallen rifles. It had proven powerful enough.
"I'm not sure…but seeing as these are the Collectors and the Terminus Systems aren't exactly kept safe…"
The Terminus Systems belonged to the section of space that the humans had colonized while under duress. Slavers and pirates were frequent visitors, as the Council had no jurisdiction there. "We need to stop them before they strike another colony."
"We're not even sure it's a human colony, Chief."
The Master Chief shook his head. "That is irrelevant. The Collectors should be stopped, at all fronts."
Cortana, realizing that he was being exceptionally stubborn about this, dropped her protests. "Well, obviously, we can't destroy this ship in the middle of nowhere. Without any way to actually leave it, we might be short on options."
The Master Chief walked through another opened door, contemplating said options. Without any means to fall back from the Collector ship, he could either ride it to a civilized world and find a way off there, or wait until the ship attacked another target. Both would require time he didn't have and lives he would not see lost. That left extravehicular action, which he really was not looking forward to. Repeat his actions from the Forerunner Keyship and jump. He could take that. Probably.
"I'm thinking we should jump," the Chief told his partner as he spotted another small army of Collectors. Another Praetorian was floating amidst their forces, too.
"From space?"
"It'll work. I've done it before."
"Yes, I read the reports. Not a very original idea."
"How are you going to disable this ship then?"
"Why, find its power core and overload it, causing a massive destruction powerful enough to destroy this vessel and its crew…ah. Point taken."
The Spartan moved into position, taking aim at the Collector furthest away.
"I take it you mean to actually land on something, right? In that case, we should wait until the Collector vessel lands on another planet which, I wager, is where their next target comes into play."
"The colony. If you can detonate this ship's core, there should be enough time to evacuate."
"And with evacuate, you really mean jump from atmosphere and hope for a soft landing? Do you have any ideas that don't involve a high probability of us dying in the process?"
The Chief didn't answer her, as he was busy shooting one of Collectors in the head to aggravate the entire group.
"Some things never change…let me see if I can't help out."
Cortana's last remark was lost to the Chief as he sprinted towards cover, the platform he had been standing off being completely annihilated by a Praetorian's heavy firepower. He leapt over its edge, took aim at a trio of Collectors that was rapidly flying his way and shot one of them out of the air. He landed on the solid rock floor, rolled with his momentum and leapt out of the way as the Praetorian unloaded another surge of firepower his way. His muscles burned with the exertion and he could feel his heart beating at a swift pace to keep up, but he felt oddly at peace. Perhaps somewhat weary, even. Every part of the galaxy seemed to contain enemies to mankind; monsters that were hell-bent on preying on the innocent.
And even here, he would stand in their way.
There was something else, too. Something he couldn't describe further than the feeling of his veins, burning hot.
As the Spartan moved his way deeper into the room, avoiding scorching hails of metal and dishing out death in every direction, time seemed to simultaneously move in slow-motion and a rapid pace. Reflexes superhumanly fast threw his shoulder back and a white-hot projectile slid past him, impacting harmlessly on a pillar he had long left behind him.
He leapt, and a flying Collector smashed into him, seeking to grapple him long enough for the Praetorian to vaporize him. The Spartan had other thoughts and, still in mid-air, drove his gauntlet through the Collector's chest and then threw it at one of the drones attempting to gun him down with that beam weapon. The two bodies slammed to the ground together and the Spartan ducked low to avoid two sweeping flares of blue light that melted through metal and rock alike.
The Praetorian was a platform of human corpses bristling with firepower. A force of destruction born out of death and defilement, just like the Flood.
Exactly like the Flood.
The burning in his veins worsened and the Chief had to stop himself from leaping at the floating abomination. Instead, he fired the Collector rifle until it ran dry, discarded it and ripped a fresh one from the clawing arms of another Collector form. A new Harbinger arose in the middle of the room, standing atop another metal platform, but the Chief paid it no mind. He took one of the few remaining frag grenades he had left and readied it, a new strategy already forming in his mind.
Throughout the firefight, the Praetorian had shown no signs of an augmented ability to process information. Nothing to suggest it had reflexes that could match even the most average soldier. As such, it needed time to bring those indestructible barriers up. Time that the Chief could use if he himself timed it perfectly.
Another of the Collectors opened fire on the Spartan, blasting his chest with another beam weapon. It didn't get to fire more than one burst before its target took two thundering steps and appeared in front of it, after which it found itself with a broken spine and a shattered skull.
The Spartan moved throughout the room, firing dry every weapon he could find. When he finally picked up the beam weapon, he used it to boil a hole through the Praetorian's lower armour.
The abomination, in turn, battered him with all the firepower it possessed. It forced the Chief to constantly seek cover, as the other Collector forces were using it as an artillery platform, trying to keep him pinned.
But like any Spartan, John wasn't nearly as dangerous on the defensive as he was on the offensive. When he struck, he struck like lightning, straying from the thunder. He leapt at the Praetorian as time slowed to a crawl, while his senses seemed to grow ever sharper. The gap in the husk's armour barely resisted his fist when the slammed down the grenade, minus its pin, into its depths.
The Master Chief pushed himself away from the floating insult to human lives that was the Praetorian and then watched it explode from the inside out, showering its surroundings with pieces of cybernetic, dried-up flesh and shards of armour.
Gore covered his MJOLNIR, but he did not mind. This time, it felt right
~0~
Terminus Systems.
Human Colony designation: New Canton.
Local time: 15:49
The little girl watched the other children run around the small patch of grass, kicking at a small red ball. As far as she got the game, the first boy to kick it against the metal pole in the center of the grass field won. When they started, they had asked her to play with them, but because the doctor said her left leg was bad, she had told them no.
It was sad, really. She wanted to play with them, but her parents had said that doctors were always right and that you had to listen to doctors. So, she would be a good girl and watch the others play. It wasn't as fun, but-
"Alice! Where are you?"
The voice of her mother shook her out of her thoughts and she missed one of the boys winning the game. "I'm here, mommy!"
Some moments later, her mother emerged from the treeline, looking flustered. Why did she look so worried? She hadn't been gone that long. "Alice, come on. Your father is worried about you!"
Alice pouted. "But mom! I wasn't even playing!"
Her mother reached down and grabbed her hand. Hard. Not painful, but it still scared her somewhat. "That's not -I mean, that's very good of you. But you know your dad, he's always worried. Let's go home, alright?"
The little girl sighed and told her friends goodbye. If daddy wanted her to come home, there wasn't anything else she could do but to go home. She did wonder what she had done wrong; after all, why would her mother and father be worried if she hadn't been playing?
Her mom was walking very fast and Alice had difficulty keeping up. For every step her mom took, she had to take two. "Mommy! What's wrong? Did something bad happen?"
Her words seemed to shake her mother up, because she suddenly stopped and looked down at Alice. "No honey, it´s just…you know how sometimes ships come and go and that daddy has to look which ones they are?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, daddy thinks we should go home now. Just to be sure."
Alice didn't understand why she couldn't keep playing with her friends, but her mother sound very worried and she didn't want to make her feel worse.
And it wasn't so bad, having to walk back to her home. New Canton was a beautiful world and walking past the bright flowers and huge trees always made her feel just like home. The buildings were small, there were very few soldiers and lots of nice people. Nothing ever happened here.
During the trip back home, Alice glanced up at the sky and saw something weird. A bright light that streaked across the sky, a flash of the brightest green she had ever seen in her life. It was so pretty and bright that she couldn't stop staring-
The light disappeared behind a hill and the whole world exploded. The ground shook, Alice fell to the ground and started screaming. The trees wobbled dangerously and several of them even fell to the ground, collapsing in large piles of groaning wood and fallen leaves.
"Alice!" Her mother yelled. "Alice, are you hurt?"
"Mommy!" Alice cried, her face wet with tears. "I'm scared!"
"I'm here, child." Her mother grabbed her hand and lifted her from. "Don't think about the bomb, just run!"
Bomb? What was a bomb? Was that what the light had been? Alice didn't know what any of this was supposed to be! New Canton was a quiet little world where nothing ever happened, so what was going on?
As her mother took her through the forest by her hand, the little girl caught more shapes in the sky. Large blots of various shapes that seemed to be coming closer than the light. They were heading towards the city, where the important buildings stood! Luckily everybody lived in houses in the forests, but the mall was in the city too!
A lot of people worked there, someone had to tell them!
The journey back to their house at the edge of the forest was long and tiring, but Alice felt too scared to feel tired. Her legs were trembling and her palm was sweating, but she didn't let go of her mother's hand even when she nearly stumbled over something small and hard.
She only stopped when she saw her house, which didn't look right. Something very large and very dark stood not too far from her house, with a large opening. The thing was as large as their house was, but there didn't seem to be anybody there. What was happening? Was this an alien, the thing that her classmates were always talking about? People who looked different yet spoke their language? If so, why was her mother so scared? Weren't aliens friends?
"Alice," her mother whispered, kneeling down in front of her. She had tears too. Was she scared? "Alice…mommy loves you very much. You need to stay here and don't let anyone see you, do you understand?"
She really didn't. "Like hide and seek? Mommy? Why do I need to hide? Are there bad people?"
"Yes…there might be very bad people. Mommy needs to find daddy. Promise her to stay hidden. Can you do that?"
Of course Alice could stay hidden! She was very good at hide and seek, but only when they were playing games. This wasn't a game. Who would be seeking her? "Is daddy alright?"
Loud sounds came from the house, together with shouts and screams. Mommy hastily looked over her shoulder and said, "Mommy needs to help daddy. Alice...don't show yourself, promise me."
"Okay-"
"No, I need to hear you say it. Promise."
Alice nodded. "I promise mommy."
Her mother tried to smile, but only her lower face smiled. Her eyes didn't join with the smile, because they were too sad. "Mommy loves you very much."
And with those last words, her mother ran towards the house, where Alice could now see that the front door had been opened before. That was weird, because they lived a few minutes away from the city and nobody was supposed to visit them today. Had daddy left the door open? Had the aliens opened the door?
Alice slowly started counting, praying that things would go quiet again. They didn't. She hadn't even reached twenty when more loud sounds came from her house, with more screams. One of the windows broke and somebody fell down, all the way from the top floor.
Thinking that her daddy had fallen out of the window, Alice couldn't stay hidden anymore and burst from her hiding spot. She ran towards the fallen body, hoping that she would not recognize its face. This was wrong, all wrong!
When the girl reached the fallen body, she immediately grabbed it by its waist and gave a desperate tug. It stirred and then groaned, but it did not sound like a lady. It sounded like a man.
"D-dad?" Alice mumbled nonetheless, as her young mind couldn't quite process that she was in fact shaking the body of an alien. How could she, when she had never seen an alien in her young life before? "Talk to me! Is that you?"
The body suddenly pushed itself up, leaking small trickles of red. It wasn't her dad; it wasn't even a man! This person had to be an alien, it had all sorts of weird bumps on its flat face and instead of a nose, it had a triangle with ridges. It also had four eyes, two big ones in the middle and two smaller ones above them.
The alien's eyes frightened Alice, not because there were so many of them -she didn't even know which eye to look at- but because they were so black. Where was the white? Shouldn't eyes be white too?
The alien growled and thrusted his arm at her, roughly pushing her to the ground. Pieces of glass stuck out of its body and its arms were leaking red stuff.
Blood, she realized.
It then started shouting at her, before it grabbed her by her arm and tried to pull her back up.
"No!" Alice screamed, scared out of her mind. She pulled and struggled and screamed just like her mother had told her to do when strangers grabbed her and when the terrifying alien grabbed her by her neck, she sank her teeth into its hand, deep.
The alien screamed and roughly jerked his hand back, allowing Alice to scramble back. For a split-second she hesitated; should she run into the forest to escape, or flee into her house to get her parents?
The choice was made for her when one of the walls from her house blew apart, sending large pieces of wood and stone everywhere. Alice could see her father, struggling with one of those alien monsters!
"Alice!" He shouted. He threw the alien against the wall, but was unable to stop another one, who leapt at him from behind and started beating him with something large. "Run!" He screamed something else, but Alice couldn't understand what it was. "The forest! Run!"
Alice didn't need to hear that twice. Before the alien could realize what was going on, Alice turned around and sprinted into the forest.
~0~
John found himself in a difficult position. He was onboard a ship with potentially thousands of civilian lives that all depended on his actions. Civilians, though confusing, frustrating and at times completely nonsensical, he would fight to the death for. And now, Cortana and him were plotting an operation where they would all die. Where success seemed to hinge on all of them dying. Innocent men, women and even children, all of whom had been torn form their daily lives by alien hostiles, all of whom would be killed not by said hostiles, but by him.
What did that make him? What did that make of the operation? He thought he had accepted the loss, but now, as he rampaged through the Collector vessel in search of their power core, he was starting to realize that yes, he was in fact going to end the lives of thousands of innocent humans. Humans he had sworn to protect -humans he had been made for to protect. Had he failed? Or was this another margin of victory?
And what did that mean for Cortana, who had been designed with the notion of rightly sacrificing him for the mission? Who didn't seem to care that her plan would end with the deaths of these people? Did it not confuse her, that the mission that would see their continued existence -their reason for existing- would fly against their reason for existing?
The Master Chief did not know. He postponed the moral issue of the choice by engaging and neutralizing dozens of Collector groups, constantly backing up and taking cover, constantly leaping and sprinting to avoid their fire, always staying on the move. He fired their weapons until they were dry, discarded them and acquired new ones from their fallen troops until those too would run empty. The process was, to him, nearly autonomous, and he spent most of those long conflicts under the thrall of his training, watching the world through grey colors and ever-warping streams of time.
But he could not keep avoiding the goal of this mission. Soon, Cortana found the power core and their plans were set in motion.
"Chief, I found the ship's Mass Effect core. It is based on the lower decks, near the front. There is no possibility of overloading it from a distance; you will need to manually destroy it."
"There are no Warthogs aboard this ship, I presume?" The Master Chief replied, gunning down a group of Husks.
"Correct. Once the core is sufficiently damaged, I will take over the systems and give its destruction an extra boost. The detonation will then destabilize key parts of the ship, rupturing the superstructure enough that it will not be able to withstand atmospheric insertion, let alone the gravitational forces."
The Chief shattered the spine of an attacking Husk and then punched its head it, sending its corpse skidding over the ground, broken and decapitated. "Meaning?"
"Once we destroy that Mass Effect core, the ship will fall apart when it enters atmosphere."
"The colony."
"They will try to abduct their citizens as well. That is our window of opportunity. "
That meant they had a very small window of opportunity before escaping. He could work with that.
The Master Chief pressed on, determined to put a stop to this ship before it could claim any more lives. Damaging its superstructure seemed like a difficult thing to do, as its metallic beams seemed to run everywhere throughout the ship. But he didn't know the quality of their construction, and all of this hollow space would only help this ship go up like a long series of firecrackers. He had seen it happen to UNSC and Covenant ships alike.
What kept the UNSC occupied? The Dawn hadn't been found yet, because it had ended up outside the Orion arm. The decades of fire and death that had been the Human-Covenant war had transpired in a small fraction of the galaxy, small and insignificant. A whole civilization had been built beyond humanity and the Covenant, spanning the width of the galaxy. How had they not picked up on mankind's plight? How had they failed to notice the entire Orion arm, where mankind had been dying by the billions? Even without Mass Relays, signals could be picked up and transmissions could be heard.
The only logical explanation for that was, as Cortana had proposed a while back, that they had somehow ended up in a different dimension. The other theory held no ground and was not supported by evidence either. The answer was not to be found in him having spent a prolonged tome in cryo-sleep. The year was 2186 and mankind was working together with aliens, and lots of them.
The Master Chief banished those thoughts, as well as his hesitations about the lives of the abductees. He had a mission to complete.
Cortana opened another room for him and once more, the Chief found himself underneath that massive circular room with the millions of pods hanging from the ceiling. As Shepard's team had so aptly put it, they were meant for the citizens of Earth. Yet another reason to stop them.
"Chief!" Cortana suddenly said, sounding alarmed. "You're not going to like this! Hostile platforms inbound, dozens of them!"
The Master Chief climbed atop one of the black, metal platforms and looked around. The same platforms that EDI had taken over during their raid on this vessel were now being piloted by Collector forces, coming from all directions. He counted fifty-three of them, with at least four Collector drones per platform and twenty-one Scions in addition. They were determined to stop him.
"You might want to take cover. I'm taking us directly to the core-entrance, but it will take time. There's something in the system."
The Collectors were organic lifeforms fused with cybernetics. The Reapers, as far as Shepard's knowledge went, were a race of hyper-advanced machines who had hunted the Protheans to extinction. If the Collectors were truly their slaves, it would only make sense for the Reapers to possess and incredibly-advanced system of Artificial Intelligence. In her current state, Cortana wouldn't be capable of beating something like that in her current state. "Is it a hostile AI? Can I do something?"
Cortana's reply coincided with the Collector forces opening fire and hundreds of rounds slammed into his platform, forcing the Chief to duck behind the protruding plates of metal. "Chief, unless you happen to trip over its storage device or matrix, you wouldn't do much good. Besides; battles between AI's last micro-seconds. You do your thing and I'll do mine."
The Chief could work with that. He leant out of his cover and took a few potshots at the enemy forces. For a Spartan, even potshots were lethal, but one rifle did nothing to lessen the sheer volume of rounds that the Collectors were pouring downrange. They filled the air, whittled down his cover and impacted on every visible inch of his armor that they could see.
"Cortana," the Chief said, crouching down even lower then one of the projectiles slammed against the back of his head, further depleting his shields. Soon, he would start taking hits. "Can you speed this thing up?"
"Negative. But there's something else I can do. Watch out!"
The Chief looked up just in time to see one of the platforms crash into his. The creaking metal frame wobbled dangerously underneath the sudden stress and the Chief did not hesitate to leap at the other one, where two Collectors with beam weapons were taking up positions. The gunfire from the dozens of other platforms did not cease and the Chief felt several rounds rip through his shields and impact on his flank. He gritted his teeth and tackled the first Collector, ripping the weapon from its arms and then slamming his boot against its chest, sending it flying off into the depths below. The second one didn't fare any better, as the Spartan broke the bones in one of its arms and then threw the drone over his hip, whereupon it rolled off the platform and went the same route as its partner had.
"Chief, jump, now!"
A waypoint appeared to his right and the Master Chief immediately did as instructed, ducking low to avoid more fire and then leaping off the edge. He fell several meters before he slammed into the frame of yet another platform, which Cortana had narrowly managed to bring up in time.
Grabbing his new weapon, the Spartan knelt down next to a thick hunk of metal and started picking off the other Collectors with beam weapons. His shields were fully depleted but slowly started to recharge again. That encounter had been too close, his escape too narrow.
"How much longer until this ship reaches the colony?" said the Chief.
Cortana's reply came with one of those bursts of static and screams that he came to associate with her illness. "Stop distracting me!" she screeched at him, before a worse burst of static cut her off and the Cortana he knew managed to overcome herself. "I'm sorry…I'm -we have t-twenty m-minutes before we make atmosphere."
According to their own nav stations. The Master Chief nodded and noticed another series of platforms floating his way, unoccupied and faster than the one the Collector forces had now nearly shot to pieces. "Is that you?"
"Y-y-y-y-yes!" She replied, though her voice seemed to…glitch. It fixed itself soon, but the distortion sounded disturbing on its own. "Get on! They will ferry you straight towards the core!"
The Chief immediately jumped upright and rushed towards the closest platform, several meters below and away. As he leapt towards its frame, the Collectors managed to get in close and several Scions opened fire at the same time, obliterating his previous platform.
Too late, thought the Chief. His boots skidded over the smooth surface of the new platform, barely touching its surface as he leapt for the next one. There were seven of those unoccupied platforms that Cortana had managed to control and she was moving them in perfect synchrony to support him. His reflexes went into overdrive as he moved from platform to platform, enhancing his perception of time. His reaction speed was keeping him alive and allowed him to execute movements that would otherwise be doomed to failure, as their complexity and precision pushed his dexterity to its limits. He ducked and weaved, jumping in erratic patterns and in one occasion risked a plummet into the depths of the ship to avoid a crossfire that would have ripped through his MJOLNIR with ease.
But soon, he reached the other side of the cavernous room and he could reap the benefits of his exploits. Cortana directed him towards the massive set of doors he had to pass through and as she did, the Master Chief jumped off the platform, spun in midair and emptied his beam weapon into the ranks of the Collectors that were still chasing after him. At the last moment, he tucked his arms in and let his momentum do the rest, flipping heads over heels and narrowly sticking the landing.
"Move, John!" Cortana implored him. "Hurry, the core!"
The super-soldier broke into a flat sprint and rushed towards the set of doors, which had been opened up far enough to allow him to pass through. The AI then closed them behind him and the Spartan came to a stop, still feeling the adrenaline course through his body. He leveled his weapon again and scanned the room for hostiles, as the massive Mass Effect core in the center of the room was hard to miss.
It had been a few minutes since Cortana had guessed their ETA, so he still had fifteen minutes to go. His suit was battered and dented, but still intact. Shields were still functioning too. "That is core. How do we shut it down?"
Cortana didn't respond.
"Cortana?"
"How do you do it?" she then quietly asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm the AI…you're organic. Yet you always stay calm. You always keep your cool."
John didn't like the way Cortana divided 'AI' and 'organic'. She was who she was and he was who he was. There was no line dividing them. "Cortana…we'll make it."
"You were always by my side…my carrier. My friend. John…we don't get to live your lives. Do you know what happens to smart AI's, after seven operational years? Do you know how we die?"
The Chief lowered his head. "Rampancy," he replied. A smart AI started feeling a wide range of uncontrollable emotions, it grew worse and worse until the AI started deteriorating in functions and abilities, until it could no longer discern reality from fantasy.
She would fall away from him.
"I'm falling apart, Chief. I don't want you to see that."
"That won't happen," the Chief said. He detected movement around him and immediately took aim, but they were just Husks. Blue and red variants, slow, shambling and harmless. "I'll find a way."
"I will hurt you. You know that, right? I won't be able to stop myself."
Unacceptable. Nonsensical. It would not happen. "That doesn't matter." Whatever Cortana would try to do in her sickness, he could take it all. He would bear it until he found a solution. "I need you now. Are you with me?"
"As long as there is blood pumping through your machine of a heart, I won't let you fall."
