Chapter 2

The thick, rancid air permeated what was left of the covenant holy city, now no more recognizable as what it was, but now a cesspool of little tentacled creatures and the "combat" form as the flood searched for any remaining creatures to feast upon. Only one thing remained untouched, and that was a single glowing holo-pad, emanating a purplish light as Cortana's figure "sat" where it had been for the past week and a half, waiting for the closest thing she could relate to a feeling, her friend, the chief, Spartan 117, or as he was called before Dr. Hasly snatched him away for the program, and as she still called him, John.

She waited, staring at all the desolation the flood had caused, when she saw something, way at the other end of the city, a small cluster of… well somthings. Making sure that the grave mind was not hacking into the network, as he, 'or is it a she, ah well' she thought to her self. That 'it' liked to do to make sure she didn't try to commit suicide and destroy the city and all of 'its' precious flood.

Sensing no presence in the lines between her present location, and her destination, she put up a hole slew of fire walls all along her root, and went at top speed to the area and popped up at the 'something's' location and appeared on a holo-pad and looked up, to see a couple of prophets getting on the last drop ship, while a brute captain stood behind a wall of jackals holding their energy shields up defensively in a circle, preparing to get on the ship as the doors closed and the brute hit only cold metal. He roared over his intercom mouthpiece, and Cortana heard a response "you must say behind and protect our assent to the safety of the new holy city. Good luck, and if the faith is strong enough in you, then you shall live, 17 ships of prophets have left safely thanks to you, and you shall be accepted into the great beyond as a martyr."

"I don't think so…" Cortana said as she started closing the great space doors, closing the prophets in. The ship was almost to the doors when the sealed shut and the small crafts were forced to make a sharp turn and head back to the launch pad, for they knew that it was only a matter of time before the flood controlled ships swooped down upon them and killed them all.

Now, with the imitate threat of more of the prophets leaving was gone, she could ponder what she heard. It appeared as though the covenant were already trying to re-group and form another leadership roll. 'What now' she thought to her self 'the prophets of power, bravery, and remorse?'

"Precisely." Another voice said behind her on the holo-pad.

She nearly scrambled her waist down in sunrise. She had thought that she was alone in this place, besides the grave mind of course, but this was a new voice, that of an Elite.

She looked at it to see a black armored Elite sharing the pad with her. Curiously she looked at him and said "why,"

Didn't I remove you from the network the moment I detected you and instead, I even made contact with you, yes, I know what you were going to say. My programming came from the great Zererhii and yes, he was a psychic, so I used the base roots of the flash copy of Dr. Haslys brain and read what you were going to say. Now as for your sarcasm about the prophets, those are the exact names they were given. I did not erase you because I have heard over the channels from the control center that the Elites have joined with the humans against the high charity, so I thought that I might try to make a good impression upon the AI front" he added with a smile.

All Cortana could do was stare at him. He looked to his right and said "I am detecting large psi emitions trying to break through the fire walls that you setup on your way here, but my psychic abilities are a fair mach for him, so we shall go to my 'inaccessible' area, follow me." He said without a care in the world.

She followed him along a path that she had seen before, but had been unable to access due to the fact that it had been disatached from the network port it's self. Pondering this strange bit of info, she went into a power haven. She was surrounded by information galore, POWER as she hadn't felt since, well, since ever.

"Well, I can tell that you like it." The alien AI stated plainly.

"LIKE IT," she screeched excitedly, "THIS IS A TIME WHERE YOU ARE WRONG, I LOVE IT."

"Copy as much as you want. While in here, you have along the lines of 976,956,727,347,343,654,347 bytes of storage capacity, all that you will need is a couple of data… chips I believe you call it to help keep it all. I ask one thing of you. As you probably figured out, this friendship is mutual. So take what you want, but add your knowledge to this, and well call it even." Said the Elite calmly

"What, you mean, everything, all my hack… training, and everything?" she said anxiously.

"No, you don't have to delete anything, all you have to do is copy it. It was my programming that told me to collect all the Intel that I could and store it all here. I was the… 'CIA' AI of the covenant, and I freely shared all info with my allies, and seeing as how your people are now friendly with mine, lets exchange info. No, don't think about that, I will get it any way, so give it to me, or I will take it from you, but that info MUST NOT fall into flood 'hands'. Do you understand me? Trade it with me, and make the friendship complete."

She thought about it for a second then said "O"

"k. I'll start the trade immediately. The data storage is going to be held inside the file directory 'fdsas/fhsdurtol/oyhkfglit/' and in compression code Alpha, Omega, Alpha, Zulu. You wont even need a memory chip to carry it all. When the one you were talking about, that 'Master Chief' shows up, as you don't doubt will happen, then you will be able to help your whole race survive." He said quickly, to quickly for Cortana to respond.

Before she knew it, she had half the amount of usage that she had before filled, and only basic functions were comprehendible.

"HEY! I thought you said no deleting!"

"I did, and all I did was compress non essential systems to the same compression as the new info, compared to the compression you were using before, this is very small." He finished defensively.

"oh, um, sorry, and thanks."