- Chapter I -
Touched By An Angel
In a deep, vast region of space, just outside the Solar System's meteor belt… the silence and tranquillity was ripped apart for a second, as a single Longsword Ship cruised the eternal silence, one of the smaller ships of the UNSC armada. Aboard the ship was a lone soldier, lying down in his chair, as though as resting after passing through dire trials, last surviving SPARTAN-II, John-117, known to most by the title of Master Chief. In front of him, over the ship's main computer, eyes shut with concentration was former Pillar of Autumn's AI, Cortana.
It had been seven years since this small ship had taken on a long and lonely journey through space, after they both escaped from Halo and eradicated both the threat of the Flood and the threat of 343 Guilty Spark, who Cortana almost failed to stop from destroying the galaxy. Because Halo wasn't, as they both learned, a simple artificial planet. Having been built by the Forerunners, it was a fortress world designed to contain the flood. More so, it had been designed with the means to, in conjunction with other Halo rings across the galaxy, wipe the galaxy clean of all sentient life, as a means to starve the flood to death. Even after destroying Halo and seemingly avoid both the threat of the flood and of Guilty Spark, Chief was restless. He knew that the Covenant threat was still present, and that it was quite possible that, despite Keyes' efforts, the Covenant might still have found Earth's location after the assault on Reach.
As this thoughts dwelled in his mind, Cortana finally opened her eyes, and spoke with a tone of rather deception on her voice. "Well, I'm not sure what to figure out of this Index thing. It's written in a code I can only partially decipher, and that portion I can makes absolutely no sense".
John rolled his eyes inside his helmet, taking little notice on her words. "Hey, are you even listening to me?", Cortana added, sounding annoyed, "You don't realise the importance of this, do you? This "Index" is the key to activating the Halo rings!". "So?", replied John. "Halo is destroyed, as you should remember, our objective now is to get to Earth. The covenant remain a serious threat. There is no need to worry about those things anymore."
Cortana, looking rather angry and exasperated at those words, "Have you forgot that we only destroyed ONE of the Halos? Plus, chances are that floating annoying little thin-…Guilty Spark has escaped and is now on it's way to activate the other Halos".. "which, and by the Monitor's words, are hundreds of light-years away from each other.", finished John.
"Oh, I don't know how you humans were able to create AI beings in the first place." Sighed Cortana, before disappearing again into bits of code, probably to study the Index more clearly.
"We will be reaching Earth in a few hours time, so do try to get some rest, you'll probably need it", echoed a voice through the ship's communication speakers, "after all, ONI will be no less than interested after they about our little escapade, and – whoa, Chief? We're receiving some transmission here."
John quickly got to his feet at those words and hurried to check on the ship's radar system. "Jammed.. who trying to communicate? What are they saying?"
"It's all very messy, wait a second, I'll put it on loud speak." As she did, a loud noise echoed through the ship, a strong female voice could be heard through all the interference, practically shouting so as to be heard through:
"IDENTIFY YOURSELF AT ONCE! THIS IS HALCYON WARSHIP AVENGING ANGEL'S CAPTAIN KREYSHA SPEAKING! ANY UNSC PERSONEL RESPOND! WHY ARE YOU IN RESTRICTED AREA? IDENTIFY YOURSELF OR WE WILL OPEN FIRE!"
"Looks as though as they mean business", commented Chief quietly, "Cortana, maybe we should let them know we're friends, just in case they decide to turn us into galactic dust?"
"One step ahead of you, as usual" replied Cortana, once again her purple translucent hologram self, smiling "this is a fortunate meeting, maybe this ship can take us to Earth… even though that message was quite obscure...". Before she could finish her line of thought, Kreysha's voice echoed once again, this time more clearly and calm:
"Welcome back Master Chief, we thought all crew of the Pillar of Autumn had been lost after the fall on Reach. I am sorry for the way we approached your ship, but it isn't normal to see one cruising this space these days that we do not know of. Nonetheless, t is most fortunate that we find you, your help will be of most importance considering… recent events. But you shall be informed fully once we reach Mars Command Central, we're pulling your ship towards the Avenging Angel at once."
No sooner after she finished that sentence, Chief felt a slight tremor rushing through the ship as it began heading towards the Avenging Angel's dock bays. Looking through his ship's cockpit, Chief saw the Avenging Angel for the first time. It was similar to the Pillar of Autumn, the last Halcyon-class ship he had travelled on, except this one looked slightly bulkier and even more heavily-armed. What was so surprising about the Avenging Angel that put him in charge of patrolling that area of space was that is was one of the first ships of the CP-1 line, which meant it's primary guns were equipped with Plasma capability, much like the standard Covenant cruiser. Cortana was surprised at this fact, when she pointed that out to John, "Chief, look… this ship is equipped with plasma weapons… how much can have things changed since…since Reach was destroyed?"
"From the looks of it, more than we can imagine", simply put John in is usually calm voice, even thought he was now more restless than ever before, and had the feeling much bad might have happened during their absence. But he was spared the chance to think about it much, because the ship was finally landing inside the Avenging Angel's dock.
"Ok, let's go, Cortana. Ready?"
"I'll miss being in a ship.. again.", sighed Cortana before disappearing. John pulled her chip out of the ship's main computer, inserted him into his helmet socket and headed out to the exit.
The cargo bay was very dark and dusty, with only a flicker of light seen from the Avenging Angel filtered through the bay's doors. Strangely, Chief felt that old familiar feeling of being watched closely. After all, he had not went down there since the ship departed... "But no," he thought, shaking his head "nobody entered this ship besides me, it would have been impossible."
Just as he put those feelings aside, he caught the green flicker of a plasma pistol, and dropped to the ground just in time to dodge the plasma bolt.
"Chief, to your right!" Shouted Cortana, just as John quickly got up to his feet and withdrew his Assault Rifle. When he lighted up his flashlight, he saw that the bay was filled with crates of various sizes. The mysterious attacker was gone.
"I thought you said no one survived", John asked Cortana, with only the slightest trace of annoyance in his tone.
"It doesn't make any sense… unless it was already inside the ship…but what could it be? A Covenant? Or maybe…","Shh. There will be time to talk later." Advised John, as he moved quietly through the crates. But there was no one to be seen. And then it happened. In less than a second, John felt a painful stinging feeling in his neck, as some low horrid inhuman grunts filled his ear. His smell was like that of a rotten corpse. It was a flood, and it had caught Chief off his guard and manage to get through a weak spot in the seemingly impenetrable MJOLNIR armour. But then suddenly, in the midst of his pain Chief saw light flooding the docking bay and hear several shots being fired in his direction. He felt the pain stop, the flood knocked dead on the ship's floor, heavily disfigured by the shot impacts on the soft body.
"CHIEF! Are you ok? It was.. how come…a flood.. and it.. managed to penetrate your battle suit…", said Cortana in a small voice, sounding as surprised as Chief, but couldn't finish her sentence.
Still rather stunned by the pain, John turned to the docking doors and saw, against the light of the Avenging Angel's docking bay, a group of Marines, lead by one just a few inches smaller than the rest. But what made her different was the armour she wore. Chief thought it was strangely familiar…like the one he wore, but different at the same time… but it couldn't be.
"Is that…MJOLNIR armour?" Cortana spoke slowly, as though as her eyes were deceiving her. "But, only…those like you can…wear them."
The mysterious woman removed her helmet, revealing a long wave of black her. As it made continence and then walked towards Chief she talked:
"We're sorry we took care of your little stowaway, but it looks as though as you weren't friends anyway. Welcome, Master Chief. I'm S-III Captain Kreysha-121 of the Avenging Angel."
*
Next Chapter will include:
A strange dream? A journey to Earth? A meeting with old 'friends'? A space action scene? All that and more in the next lengthier-than-the-first-chapter chapter 2 APOCALYPSE CAME YESTERDAY.