Let me start out this chapter by responding to a few of my reviewers. 1st off, Spartans were in fact people of ancient Greece. They were a part of the city Sparta, which concentrated so much of its society around military, that they made very few historical documents of their actual culture. Their individual soldiers were drafted into the army at about age 8 (or maybe it was 12) and were trained almost nonstop until they reached adulthood. It all paid off however, when the Spartan's attacked the city of Athens and beat the Athens army. (Authors note; I learned all of this in 7th grade, flame me if any of my history is incorrect) It is obvious as to why the project for making cyborgs like Master Chief were named after these people.

Also, as an F.Y.I., Solipsil is mentioned in that nifty little booklet that comes with the collector's edition DVD of Halo 2 called 'Conversations from the Universe'. Also, Solipsil is not an actual word in the English language, but solipsism is the philosophical thinking that nothing can exist outside of ones own ego and selfness.

I probably sound like a bit of a nerd right now with all this talk of ancient Greece, and various forms of philosophy. But the point I'm trying to make is that throughout both Halo games, there are numerous tie-ins with real world things.

ONWARD!

While Judicator edged about the moon, the crew members with port-side windows looked out to see the battle that was raging above Reach's atmosphere. It was not a battle, it was a massacre.

The Covenant fleet had utilized their more advanced ship engines to make a jump through sub-space that landed them right in front of the planet's defensive perimeter. No one had expected this sudden assault, and within two to three minutes the Covenant fleet had blasted a hole through the outer defenses with little or no resistance, and had begun bombarding the planet's surface with its many weapons. They came not from one direction but from all sides, and there were now too few ships in the UNSC forces to make a formable resistance, or escort out whatever survivors they could from the doomed planet. It was a hopeless battle, and Judicator could not possibly turn the tide of it, but there was nothing more that they could do.

As Private Phil Harrison on deck five watched in horror as the surface of the once green, lush planet he had known as home turn to a charred black, Lieutenant Sera Larken on the third deck fought with the strong urge to reach for the pistol at on her belt and commit suicide right then and there to be with her newly departed loved ones in the afterlife. Corporal Jason Brown on deck twelve failed at holding back his tears as he stared sadly at the letter he had been writing to his wife and children whom he knew were now dead, Master Sergeant Mackenzie Hill on deck eight turned his face away from the terrible sight of his window that he knew he didn't want to see, Petty Officer Sean Greenwood on deck fifteen clutched his battle rifle tightly thinking of nothing but revenge, Engineer Alice King on deck eight spilt her cup of hot coffee all over her control panel as she looked out the window in shock, and Commander Heather Cole on the command deck sat calmly in her chair despite the extreme volume of her crying in her head, and the tenseness of the rage in her muscles.

Heather knew she was stronger than this, knew that she had to be the one to lead every one of her crew members, knew that no matter how unbearable the pain was of seeing an entire planet that she had grown up on being incinerated she should not crack under the pressure. But despite her training, her strength, and her discipline, she was only human.

"Solipsil." Heather quietly called to the AI with her eyes closed and her hands squeezing the metal of her armrests.

"Yes, commander." replied the holographic figure of a woman that gave the bridge of the command deck a beautiful bluish glow in its darkness.

"Please." the human insisted, "Call me by my name."

"You're full name?" the AI asked.

"No." she responded as she opened her eyes, "Just 'Heather' will do nicely."

"Alright Heather," Solipsil complied as her 'feelings' programs kicked in. She said in a low voice filled with compassion and understanding, "what can I help you with."

"Solipsil, why would the Covenant do this? Why would they take so many lives like this?" Heather asked in a saddened tone. She figured the rest of her life could be measured in weeks now, maybe even days or hours. If this was to be a rare moment of rest, then she wanted to make the most of it.

"Well, there are many theories." Solipsil said, "There are some who believe they are angered with the way we harvest our materials; like Titan-VIII, the planet that was composed of nothing but titanium that humanity slowly chipped away at until it wasn't there anymore..."

"No, that's not what I meant." Heather explained, "I mean what do you think? What is your opinion?"

"My opinion, Heather?" Solipsil asked in a slightly confused manner.

"Yes." She confirmed, "What do you, personally think of this entire situation? I mean, I'm sitting here trying to live with the fact that my sisters... my brother... my... mother... my... my..." She closed her eyes and her face twisted up as she furiously fought back her tears of sorrow, but couldn't. She rested her face in one of her hands as she quietly wept for a moment. "My... cousins... all of my relatives except for my father who is safe at Earth; I'm trying to deal with the fact that now almost everyone in my family... is... dead..." Her face was once again resting in her propped-up hand as she silently shed some more tears.

When Heather came out of her moment of sorrow, she noticed how Solipsil's holographic projection was siting on her shoulder, and patting the back of her head as if to to comfort her. Heather was well aware of the emotions that AI constructs were capable of. Anger, joy, fear, courage, humor, determination, and even cockiness were just a few of their emotions but the way Solipsil was acting now was something Heather had never expected to see in anything other than a real human. She knew that the small figure of a woman on her shoulder was just an image and nothing more but for some reason, Solipsil's small 'body' felt... warm.

"Go on, Heather. You can do it." Solipsil assured her in a soft comforting voice. Heather kept trying to convince herself that it was an artificial person, but Solipsil was just too real.

"...And," The commander continued, "I know... this may seem like a silly question, but have you ever lost anyone... special in your life?"

After a moment of thought Solipsil replied, "Well, I'm sure you're aware of Connie René Tana."

"Yes." Heather replied, coming out of her sorrow a bit as she wiped away the tears, "She was the one who found a way to create AI constructs. I understand that Cortana was her first and best masterpiece."

"True." Solipsil replied, "I was actually the second of the fifty AI constructs she made before we were mass-produced. I recall everything about her; how she made us in her own image, how she taught us the ways of the universe, mathematics, human history, philosophy, physics, nature, military, and especially emotions. I suppose you could say that I was one of her children and she was our mother."

"And what did you do when she died?" Heather asked as she recalled reading in the news how Dr. Tana had been killed by covenant forces when the colony she was working at had been surprise-attacked. It was considered perhaps one of the greatest losses of all human history; the woman who had given birth to artificial intelligence, had been killed at the hands of the enemy.

"Well, bluntly put," Solipsil explained, "I became very saddened, and very angered with revenge. I quickly became aware that I was emotionally unstable, and I decided to override these feelings before I did anything too rash."

"But I can't do something like that Solipsil." Heather said, "I mean... I am only human. I cannot simply forget about the ones I've lost."

After a moment of deep thought Solipsil said, "Then think about the four thousand, five hundred crew members who are currently counting on you to lead them. Think of what your family would expect you to do if they were here. Think of the glorification that people will give you as the leader of one of only two ships to escape the attack on Reach."

"Glory?" Heather asked with a surprised look in her eyes, "There is no glory in this, we are only trying to disorganize the Covenant fleet as much as possible, we can do no real damage against them. I don't think that anyone who knows of us will tell anyone else. We have no hope of survival; the Pillar of Autumn does. Hope is perhaps the last thing that we have going for us in this war. Nobody wants to hear about a lost ship with no hope anymore. True; we may take a few Covenant lives, we may even destroy a ship if we are forced to self-destruct-"

"Then let us look forward to that." Solipsil stated as the AI floated off of Heather's shoulder and in front of her face, "Let us look forward to the fact that while all of our fates may be sealed, we may as well take some of them with us. But you will have to lead us."

"True." The commander replied, "I will do that. What's our current situation?"

"Well Heather," Solipsil said as the AI snapped into military awareness, "a few shots have been fired our way, but they've either been poorly aimed, or the antigraves are working at well over 430 percent. We have 14 capitol ships turning around towards us and they will soon be advancing on us, joined with the largest swarm of boarding craft I've ever seen I might add, in roughly 70 seconds."

"Sounds good," Heather nodded as she called to her pilot and navigator in front of her, "James, Marcus; set coordinates for sector Eight-Five-Oh-Two, I want us to be ready to make a jump in less than a minute."

"Ma'am," Marcus, the pilot, protested as he turned around, "we may not be aligned perfectly with that particular-"

"JUST DO IT!" Heather screamed at him and almost got out of her seat in the process.

Marcus quickly uttered a slightly fearful 'Yes, Ma'am!' before he turned around and began hurriedly moving the ship towards the designated location. Heather knew that the end was near for all of them and this should be a time of understanding and not anger, but she was not in the mood for excuses.

"Heather," Solipsil said after giving her a few short moments to cool down, "What are you're orders for after we come out of sub-space?"

"I want full power restored to all star-side guns," the commander began stating, "I want the ship to come out of CGS and have everybody ready to abandon ship if necessary. I want everything and everyone on high alert, because they're going to be coming after us real fast."

"We may not have enough power for all of that after making a jump, but I'll do the best I can." Solipsil replied. "I just need to... Oh, HELL!"

"What!" Heather asked. It wasn't often that Solipsil acted surprised, and when the Ai did; it meant trouble.

"I'm tracking multiple hostile projectiles headed our way." Solipsil dictated, "Speed is roughly 23 kilometers per second, This is the kind of stuff they're using on the surface of Reach! They're firing bombs at us! Our antigraves won't stand a chance against them."

"Are you sure?" Heather asked, franticly thinking of a way out of this situation.

"I'm positive! We'll have impact in less than seventeen seconds." Solipsil said.

"DAMN!" Heather cursed, "James, Marcus; we need to make the jump now!"

"Now!" They both asked in astonishment at the order.

"If you don't, we are all going to die in thirteen seconds!" Heather explained, "Do it now!"

James Robinson and Marcus Grant were good navigators and pilots. They worked well together, and were very experienced, but that didn't change the fact that it took roughly five seconds for them to ready the ship for a such a sudden jump.

Judicator suddenly slammed forward in the motion. It was not traveling towards it's designated direction, an uncharted path in fact, but the important thing was that it was a non Earth-bound trajectory. Travel time was short, practically instantaneous, and therefore uneventful.

The ship suddenly came to a halt and Heather was flung forward in her seat a bit, but held herself in place. The lights suddenly came back on and Heather called out, "Solipsil, assessment."

"Looks like that was a smooth flight under the circumstances commander." Solipsil explained, "I'm currently searching for any recognizable constellations to get an idea of where we are, but I'm not picking up anything."

"What about the planet in front of us?" Heather asked as there was a distinctly large planet of a beautiful blue color in front of them.

"Analyzing...! It's not a planet humans have discovered yet," The light-blue figure explained, "but there appears to be satellite of sorts orbiting it."

"Is it of Covenant design?" Heather inquired as she searched the blueness with her eyes for any form of satellite.

"If it is, then it's like nothing we've encountered before, but it's... well... let me show you." An image appeared next to Solipsil. It was fuzzy at first but the image sharpened and reveled a circular object. It looked like a large, thin ring more than anything else.

"Do you have any idea what that thing could be Solipsil?" Heather said as she gave the image a puzzled look.

"I can't tell form here," Solipsil explained, "but I think that if we got closer I could- OH GOD!"

"Wha-?" was all the commander was able to say before Solipsil cut her off.

"Hostile projectile moving towards us!' Solipsil yelled, "There are multiple Covenant ships to our stern! They were waiting for us! Impact in 4... 3..."

"Brace for impact!" Heather yelled over the radio, "I repeat! Brace for imp-!" She was flung out of her seat.

FIN!

Whoa! I made a cliff hanger!

Go ahead, Make a guess as to where I'm going with this plot! I dare you! (Well, no I don't actually...)

Hope you liked it. By my reckoning, chapter three is going to be a looooooooooong one, and I'll actually have some actual fighting in it aside from the Star-Trek stuff in here so far. Next chapter might be up in about 2 weeks, but that's a big 'might'. I am after all going to be starting school really soon, and homework will cut up my writing schedule like safety-scissors through potatoes in an first grade Arts-and-Crafts class!

R&R or give me a flame,

For I shall read them all the same!