RECOMPOSE
by Ladywolvesbayne
Mensaje para Aniita: Logueate como corresponde y te contesto. Suerte.
Well, as you can see, someone guessed the right answer. It was a though one, I tell you. However, I won't reveal who/what is the "mole" because eventually we will get to it in the story, so for now, enjoy your double update ;) be nice and say something in return, people!
20. CHECK MATE
proofread and correction by: SL4Y3R -hugs-
SEPTEMBER 2ND 2558
LOCATION: FORERUNNER SHIELD-WORLD 0313 PARAGON
THIRTY-TWO LEVELS BELOW SURFACE
4:52 AM standard time
They stared at each other for a long moment, both still and quiet.
Either of them could take the shot and kill the other, but none of them did.
In the end, Eleven sighed. "I'm not the bad guy here, Cortana."
"Can you prove it?" she demanded, sharply.
"Apparently not, but I can surrender." he lowered the rifle and then tossed it aside, then proceeded to relieve himself from the grenades, the rocket launcher and the pistol, and raised his hands. "See? I'm unarmed. Well, mostly. If I strip off my armor, I'll be dead in less than three minutes and it won't be a nice thing to see. I have no intentions to hurt anyone."
"Seriously, how can I be sure?"
"C'mon, would you harm John on purpose?"
"Seven tried to kill him two times already, and she used to be a part of us."
"She's unstable due to the rampancy process that fragmented us in the first place. We're different. Answer me, would you harm John on purpose?"
Cortana tensed her whole body, offended.
"I'd rather die than cause him harm in any possible way." she spat back.
"There's your answer." he chuckled, somewhat relieved. "I'm on your side, but I understand your doubts. My resources are limited and I've been unsuccessful at my primary task, allowing way too many bad things to happen. But that doesn't mean that I'm the mole and I don't think Seven has a mole inside the Infinity either; how could she pull that off in the first place, with that many ONI agents around? It's impossible."
"I can think of five ways to pull it off, three of them include you." she said, edgily. "And as you already pointed out, if I can do it, she probably can think of it too. Hands where I can see them and turn around; we're heading back."
"You'll turn me in?" he said, flatly.
"Until this situation is sorted out, I'm not trusting you anymore."
Eleven lowered his hands, palms resting against his armored thighs.
"You never trusted me anyway." he whispered, but then complied and turned his back to Cortana in order to walk out of the generator's room. They both knew why he said that, no further questions were asked for a while.
Cortana's hands were trembling. She didn't know what to think.
But there was another thing that was bothering her, it had been bothering her for a while now. It was the primary cause of her constant denial about meeting subjects Twelve and Two, or so she told herself (to somewhat ease the pain). Eleven joined his hands at the nape of his neck and kept walking, quietly, but Cortana couldn't hold it anymore:
"What is the Chief to you?" she had to ask, her throat felt dry. "Do you...?"
Eleven tilted his head up a bit, surprised, and looked over his shoulder.
"Do I what?"
"What is the Chief to you?" she repeated.
He didn't say anything for a few seconds, then he snorted. "That's not what you want to ask, Cortana. You want to talk about John, all right, but that's not it."
"Just answer me."
"You want to know if I love him like you do?"
Cortana stopped dead, shocked. He used the word. She wasn't prepared to hear it, she wasn't even thinking about using it herself but he did and it exploded in her senses like thunder. The HARPY trembled and hissed over her body in response to her extreme emotions. Eleven turned around to face her, hands still behind his head. They both stared at each other into their faceplates, ignoring what was really going on behind the masks. Her weapon didn't falter, though.
"Do you?" she asked, pretending that nothing was wrong.
Eleven realized her voice was shaky, but chose to ignore it.
"He was our SPARTAN, our friend and companion. Serving him was more than an honor, we protected the Universe together and made it out alive from the depths of Hell over and over again. We had fun and shared grief. If that doesn't make a bond, I don't know what does." he paused, but didn't look away from her. "There were twelve of us and we all had feelings for him, feelings that weren't supposed to exist in the first place. He's dear to me, if that's what's you want to know. My feelings for John may not follow the same path as yours, but you're not the only one willing to die if that means he'll be spared."
She remained silent for a moment, stunned. It was both relieving and troubling, she couldn't decide what did she actually wanted to feel about what she heard. Cortana took in a deep breath and nodded.
They had to go back. She had to report to John about the dead Marines, about the trap, about the possibility of the Infinity being hijacked while they were standing there giving each other stupid questions. Maybe John would be better off if none of them ever existed, if he had never met her. All of it happened because she was overly-protective of him and she allowed John to become overly-attached to her as well. As an advanced AI, she should've known better.
They both damaged each other as much as they improved each other, somehow.
"Keep moving." Cortana said, in the end.
Eleven didn't say anything, he just turned around and kept walking.
SEPTEMBER 2ND 2558
LOCATION: UNSC CHALLENGER
MESS HALL
6:11 AM standard time
The Chief stared at them from behind his polarized faceplate, serious.
Cortana just reported to him that she found dead Marines deep down the surface of Paragon. It was yet another trap, that was clear, but he had a little trouble wrapping his head around the rest. She was convinced that the Rampant Spike had a spy inside the Infinity and that she was hijacking the ship as they were talking. Maybe she was already in possession of the biggest warship of the UNSC armada.
That would mean that the encrypted message the Challenger received from the Infinity only minutes before (rendezvous coordinates) was plainly a provocation. And it was the least of his problems right now.
The Spike was alive and back, surprisingly fast. Did Dr. Halsey help her?
This was the epitome of being played, he didn't like it one bit.
"We can't take the generator with us." John said, firmly. "It's probably sabotaged."
"The Chief is right." said one of the engineers, a short woman with curly red hair. "We'll need at least a week of tests to assess if the device is stable and works properly. Also, we have to think of a way to move it out of the planet. Can it be shut down and restarted later? How bad is the radiation it produces? Can the shielding be replicated? There's a ton of research to do, we can't take this lightly."
"We can't leave without it either. We need it." Cortana said, arms crossed. "If you really want this to end for good, Chief, it has to be done. I suggest we split in two, take the Challenger and..."
"Whoever stays behind will need another ship, and big enough." he stated.
"Fortunately for all of us, the Forerunners weren't idiots. We can power up any of the ships stationed on the planet." she used her pad to access again the planet's network and looked for something. After a short while, she turned the screen and showed the group a detailed schematic. "There you go. It isn't close by, but we can leave a Pelican behind for support."
"And who will drive that ship, Cortana?" John asked, uneasy.
She understood what he was trying not to say: of all the scientific crew, she was the most appropriate person to deal with Forerunner tech of any kind. But his body language said that he didn't want to leave Cortana behind. He wouldn't allow it. It was really silly and a dangerous choice, but he didn't even want to think about it, and it was painfully obvious.
She felt something cold flowing through her veins. She didn't want to be away from him either, they've been separated long enough.
The silence in the mess hall almost had weight.
"What about the AI?" said another engineer. "She could be our driver if we input her with the proper data."
"If the Infinity is compromised, we'll need Sigrid more than you." Cortana stated.
"So, it's a dead-end?" said Paul DeMarco, frowning.
"Well, there are options, but given the recent events..." started Suzuka, leader of fire-team Bravo, and shrugged.
"I will do it. I'll stay behind." Eleven said, serious. "I'll probably miss all the fun but I can make that sacrifice."
A long, tense silence followed.
Then, Cortana pursed her lips."We don't trust you, remember?"
"Why is the Chief trusting you, then? For all that I know, we both spawned from the same AI. How does anyone knows that we aren't rampant ourselves, like Seven, and just pretending to play good guy until the endgame? Either you trust me or the Chief doesn't trust any of us."
"That doesn't make any sense." Cortana refused, annoyed.
"It does. The Chief knows it does."
She looked at John.
Many other faces turned too, fire-teams Majestic and Bravo, the engineers and the SPARTAN dog handlers were standing still, waiting, so was the rest of the crew of the Challenger. Everyone was expecting what the Chief had to say.
That should've been a private conversation, and still...
The SPARTAN just looked at the massive dog resting beside him, how calm she was. Charley's breathing was steady, at rest; no ears in tension, no eyes fixed on the prey. He trusted the dog's senses as much as he trusted his own, and this time he was too compromised to make an objective decision. A quick analysis of Charley's neural-net activity eased John's thoughts, so he tilted his head up and announced:
"Eleven, you will stay in Paragon and support the crew under direct command of SPARTAN Suzuka. Get acquainted with the Forerunner ship. The Marines' bodies must be recovered for proper burial, too. Cortana, you're coming with me, Majestic is tagging along and we're taking Sigrid, two dogs and half of the Challenger's crew. Questions?"
Cortana frowned.
"But, Chief..." she started, confused.
"I trust both of you enough, does that settle it?"
She straightened her pose, still uneasy. "I guess it does."
"Then those who are to stay, get your gear off this ship. We're leaving ASAP."
Not one more word was spoken, the Master Chief already settled it like he always did, showing that he was still in command and his judgment was sharp. Or so it seemed for everyone else.
John approached Eleven and took the handcuffs off his wrists, releasing him. But before they parted ways, the SPARTAN grabbed the other man by the arm: "If it turns out that I'm wrong, you already know that none of you will escape from me." he said, his voice mildly threatening.
Eleven grabbed John's arm back, but didn't say anything.
The Chief had made himself clear.
AUGUST 30TH 2558 (three standard days before)
LOCATION: UNSC INFINITY IN SLIP-SPACE
STRATEGIC COMMAND AISLE
8:25 AM standard time
Roland popped up beside Admiral Osman's elbow, almost causing the woman to drop her cup of coffee all across the holo-table.
"Ma'am, you won't believe this! We have an intrusion!" the AI said, troubled.
"What? In slip-space? Roland, what are you...?"
"I'm triple-checking, ma'am, sixteen minutes ago the Infinity's total population was of eighteen thousand, six hundred and seventy three. However, forty-three seconds ago, it was of eighteen thousand, six hundred and seventy five. I have fresh Cherenkov radiation readings and I already tracked the intruder, there was a slip-space disruption at the... wait. Wait, I'm being… there's something else in here with me! This is…!"
Roland never made it to vocalize whatever he was about to say.
Suddenly the holo-table shut down. Then the windows and screens went dark, the consoles stopped working and the lights blinked out too. All the instruments died, even the dim emergency lights ceased glowing, turning from light blue to nothing. A thunder drummed through the bridge and out of the blue, the Infinity exited slip-space without any considerations. People screamed when the inertia pushed them forward, crashing violently against the consoles, chairs, tables, walls and anything that was directly on their way. Osman lost her foot and fell down on the grating, she rolled a few meters until the pedestal of a navigation station stopped her, then she found herself floating up as the entire ship shifted beneath her... or was it above her?
The artificial gravity was offline. Everything was dead, as dark as pure night.
"Ensign Strathford! What the hell is going on?" the Admiral shouted, annoyed.
"Ma'am, we... I don't know, it looks like a critical power failure."
"Give me radio, the backup generators will be running in no time."
The woman found a surface to grab and crushed it with her fingers, trying to ease herself down. She blinked a few times and her eyes slowly started to get accustomed to the darkness inside the aisle. She saw many light blue dots moving (floating) all around her, the glowing beacons of her officers' uniforms.
"Ensign, radio!" she requested again.
There was a loud gasp, somewhere towards her right side.
"Ma'am, all comms are dead." the man tried not to sound so desperate, but he was close. "Not even the lights. Nothing is responding. I... I don't know what's happening. In case of power failures the backup generators turn themselves on automatically, but there's no response at all. We're stranded."
Osman identified the voice's source and went to the Ensign's station, grabbed the man's shoulder digging her fingers in the flesh protected by layers of battle uniform. She was stunned, such a massive power failure was inconceivable, the Infinity's engines were protected against EMPs and any other form of radiation that could turn them offline. But the engines weren't the biggest problem, it was the absence of energy itself, the precious power that fed not only the engines but also every other system within the ship. Like life support and air recycling, to name a fraction of them.
The Admiral closed her eyes and tried to concentrate, the sound of preoccupied chatter around her didn't help much but she recalled Roland's last words.
"All hands on deck, attention!" Osman snapped. "We've been boarded!"
SEPTEMBER 7TH 2558
LOCATION: UNSC CHALLENGER
MAIN OBSERVATION DECK
11:03 PM standard time
John looked at the distant Infinity with wary eyes.
They were in the middle of an asteroid belt gravitating around what seemed to be an even bigger asteroid, broken and misplaced. The Challenger was half-hidden at safe distance from the Infinity's radars. The aforementioned ship, however, was drifting in the middle of almost nowhere, if he had to make an educated guess parting from the coordinates of the rendezvous point. She resembled a dead fish floating up in a pond: there wasn't a single light or beacon on, not a single ship escorting her or drone doing maintenance to the antennas or comm dishes. It looked quiet.
It looked dead. Cold and inert.
'How long has it been since the Infinity is adrift?' he asked himself, concerned. 'Why nobody came to aid her? Did they have time to send a mayday? Is everyone dead aboard?'
The greatest question, however, was how did the Rampant Spike manage to board the Infinity and capture it all by herself. The Chief tried not to think about the possible death of eighteen thousand people, many of which he knew personally. Well, if it was about crushing the Rampant Spike's plan of crashing the ship over FLEETCOMs base, then he could just overheat the engines and make the whole ship blow up, along with its precious live cargo. End of story.
It would be a fair sacrifice, wouldn't it?
He snapped out of it. Losing the Infinity or her passengers wasn't an option. His objective was to recapture her and annihilate the enemy. He should be going in alone, but Cortana and fire-team Majestic held knowledge about the ship that he didn't have.
"Sigrid, report." he demanded, almost in a growl.
The Viking shield maiden AI appeared at the nearest holo-pad, which was nine feet away from him.
"The Infinity is cold, but it isn't empty. I read life signals. Roland isn't responding, neither the automated distress systems. Seems like the general energy protocols are deactivated and only the emergency firmware is online and the landing and cargo bays are shielded, so there is life support running but no trace of artificial gravity. No weapons systems, no comms, no navigation. It's almost a ghost ship, save the fact that it's inhabitable, at least."
"If the systems were to be restarted, how long would it take?"
"In which scenario are you considering this information?"
"Direct approach." he answered, quickly.
"Primary defense systems can be ready to fire in around thirty eight seconds after power restart, which would take another seventy six seconds. The MACs will take much longer. You have plenty of time to approach and board. I'd be more worried about the surprises I can find at the landing zone." the AI paused, looked towards John and tilted her helmeted head. Her crystalline gray eyes stared at him. "Anything else I can do for you, Master Chief?"
"Get a Pelican running, we're closing in."
"On the double." she replied, and disappeared.
John moved towards the holo-pad and clicked in the memory card, transferring Sigrid from the ship's systems into his MJOLNIR. He'd been sleeping in erratic cycles, eating sporadically and pretty much avoiding cryo-sleep with all of his might, but he felt as ready and committed with his objectives as ever.
It was the anger, firing up his determination like gasoline on flames.
He entered a corridor as Sigrid finished setting herself up within the systems. Her presence wasn't like a cold rush like Cortana's, it made him feel the texture of something rugged against the tips of his fingers, a ghostly sensation.
"Master Chief, I apologize for my behavior." she said, her grumpy voice muffled through his mind. "I misled you to believe I was just a dumb AI so you wouldn't reject my company. I was wrong."
"I suspected you were a Smart AI."
She didn't say anything for a lapse of five seconds (an eternity) and then:
"How? I was careful not to..."
"Dumb AIs aren't that spirited, since they can't process synthesized emotions. You showed signs of worry more than once." he answered, still serious. "I should have checked on your service number to be sure."
Sigrid didn't say anything else, closing the subject for good.
When the Chief arrived to the bridge of the Challenger, everyone was waiting for him, they all needed their orders. First, he looked at Cortana and SPARTANS DeMarco, Madsen, Hoya, Grant and Thorne and pointed aft.
"Let's get going." he said, then turned towards the Lieutenant that would remain in charge of the ship, a tall but somewhat skinny woman with dark hair and big rounded dark eyes. "Drop us and leave. Sigrid already plotted your course and nobody knows if we're alone out here."
"We'd rather stay and keep you covered." the Lieutenant said, serious.
"Lieutenant, I have strategic command of this operation. Honor will do you no good neither will help us. I need you to take the Challenger as close as possible to FLEETCOM and alert them about the hijacking of the Infinity, I doubt this is a fact known by anyone. That ship isn't going anywhere else on my account."
His voice rumbled through the bridge, but he had no need to shout.
Cortana felt her spine shudder. She liked when he talked like that, imposing but still polite, it made her heart beat faster, her blood rush.
The Lieutenant gulped, nervous. He sure was tall, his faceless figure was certainly intimidating but she wasn't afraid of him, anyway. She was afraid of something quite bigger and potentially worse than a SPARTAN.
Survivor's guilt.
"Fair enough, I can't disagree with you there." the woman replied, in the end. She stood straight and saluted, as did the rest of her crew. "Good luck, SPARTANS."
SEPTEMBER 7TH 2558
LOCATION: UNSC INFINITY
MAIN LANDING DECK THROUGH S-DECK
11:24 PM standard time
Sigrid was right about the 'surprises' at the landing zone: there were booby-traps all over the place (which were poorly placed, as if it was some kind of dangerous joke). First, the Pelican entered the bay and crashed against a security net concealed within the shadows, which scrambled with the turbines and nearly made John lose control of the drop-ship. After a bumpy landing, Sigrid alerted them about live explosive cargo hidden inside crates scattered across the deck, behind or beneath parked vehicles or ships. They made it through the twisted minefield without any further incidents and reached the S-Deck, which was absolutely dark.
Aided by night-vision, the squad moved onward quickly; John and the two dogs first, then Cortana accompanied by Thorne and Grant, and the rest of fire-team Majestic closing the rear. Their magnetic boots clicked loudly against the gratings; if someone was listening, then she already knew they were aboard.
The target was the entrance of the lower maintenance decks; Cortana needed to reach the main servers and retrieve Roland's original memory card in order to discover what happened and get some help.
"What the hell happened here?" asked Madsen, via TEAMCOM.
"It gives me the creeps, guys." said Hoya, grimly. "It looks like everyone just vanished or something."
"It's like a horror movie." Grant added, her voice wasn't warm either.
John focused on Charley and the other dog, named Walter. Both of them were ahead, trotting relatively close to the Chief and watching the surroundings. Their steps were silent, since the devices that held them stuck to the floor were around their ankles and halfway up their legs, not covering their sensitive paws.
But the Chief had to admit that Hoya was right about something: there were no dead bodies to be seen. He chose to catalogue the fact as positive.
The dogs stopped at an intersection, and sniffed the air.
Cortana approached John and tugged on his forearm, drawing his attention.
"Chief, I have a bad feeling about this." she said, over their private channel.
"Me too." he answered.
"Life signals detected." Sigrid interrupted, over TEAMCOM. "And there's some company, too."
She displayed on the team's HUDs a small map of the surroundings, with several green dots inside a large enclosed space and at least seven other red dots outside the place, not far from their current location. Cortana's heart throbbed and she gasped when she read the indications.
"That's inside the S-Deck's med-bay." she started. "Look, there's an entrance to the lower decks twenty meters ahead from that place, we can gather the survivors and keep going."
"They will only slow us down." John declared, serious.
"The Chief is right, but we still should check on them." interrupted DeMarco.
Suddenly, the lights came to life with violent blinks and the metallic walls around them screeched, like a giant monster stretching from a long nap. John stopped dead and crouched beside the wall, pushing Cortana down with him, the rest of the group stood up in tight back-to-back formation, in alert. The dogs were also silent but they crouched down too, ears moving like radars, carefully.
For a long moment, nothing else happened, as the screeching sound vanished. The systems were booting up. Things of all sorts and sizes fell and hit the floor everywhere, the gravity was back online too.
But then...
There was a soft bell-like tone over the main speaker system.
"Hello, John. Welcome home, do you like what I did with the place?" the Rampant Cortana's voice said, cheerfully. "Let's play a little game. I give you three hours to find me, then I'll start venting atmosphere one deck at a time every thirty minutes. This ship is full of people who have nothing to do with our little quarrel and they are scattered all over. They can't go anywhere. So, you'd better hurry."
The musical bells rang again, the comm channel was now closed.
John stood up slowly, blood boiling inside his veins. He never experienced before such an absurd and breathtaking urge to rip someone to shreds, but there it was, a nasty feeling crawling up and down his spine. He never considered himself a murderer either, but this time he was more than willing to make an exception and literally enjoy a well deserved kill.
Without a comment, John set a countdown clock starting at 2:59:59 hours.
Charley whined, sensing his turbulent mood.
"Three fucking hours?" Grant hissed, angry, from the back. "We can't sweep the entire ship in three hours!"
"We won't have to, there's power now." Cortana cut her, confidently. "Sigrid, can you tap into the system?"
"Working." the AI answered. After a full five-second cycle, she alleged: "There is some serious layer-work on this firewall, sealed shut and tight. It might take me hours to unravel this mess and assess the damage, the code seems to be mutating every time I decrypt a small fraction of it."
"We don't have the time." DeMarco inquired.
"Sigrid, can you find Roland?" Cortana insisted.
"He's not here. There's... something else. It's not the dumb AIs, this doesn't match any known patterns."
Cortana's eyes opened wide open. She knew the feeling, it was buried deep within her memory. The prowling, the poking. The shadow. A foreign entity roaming through the circuitry, along with her, like a shark in deep, dark water.
"Sigrid, get out of there! They downloaded an alien AI inside the system!"
TO BE CONTINUED
What is John to Eleven?
I guess that being a splinter of the original AI Cortana implies things, right? Cortana feels something stronger than just friendship and loyalty; Seven loves John on her own twisted murderous way, and even the little Cortana -Twelve- cherishes him. We haven't seen about Two yet (soon, there are still things to sort out regarding her) but what about Eleven? Well, I believe he loves John the same way he loves Cortana and the rest of his sisters, as family. Besides, ACTION again! Yeah! Gosh, I feel so much adrenaline every time these guys get in combat situations (sort of).
Rory; a frightening lot of people pointed their fingers towards Sigrid or Osman. I wonder why xD. I totally get the pun, no worries. I'm sorry to say that you're wrong, but I hope you enjoy your reading today ^^
Nico; well, at least for today you won't have to wait for another chapter :P
Crazyman844; welcome, and thanks for stepping up and saying hi! Cliffhangers are the best thing ever, my favorites, so expect more :P -hugs-
Guest; nice theories there, any evidence to support your thesis? :P
BananaKing; why, thank you for being here and being part of this. I hope to see you around a little bit more. Let's see if you keep thinking about this as a 'masterpiece' as you called it once it has ended -hugs- :)
Thanks for being around! Please, don't go to the next chapter without saying something about what happened here! :)