-1The Major had finally finished his mission and was for the first time exhausted. Military intelligence didn't give him or Cortana the knowledge of there being an entire covenant army being on the star base, and therefore he wasn't prepared for it. The automated defenses did help, once they were brought online by Isis and when they were given control to the little AI again, and once the cores were brought back to human control allowed a much needed boost in firepower against the covenant forces on board. Overall, the mission went well, and only four marines had bought the farm. He rested his head against his pillow on his bed in his one person quarters, tired beyond belief.

It was funny, he had walked into the combat quarters for lower ranked troops and was gonna sleep there, but he remembered he had his own room now that he was a Major. He was fast asleep for a few hours, only to be woken up by Cortana. He opened one eye staring forward, rolled it upwards to stare at the women standing in front of him and smiling then brought his hand up to his eyes to rub the grit out. "We've analyzed the data we retrieved from the station and our next mission is to head to Valeius and assist the marines there in finding the artifact." John sat up; taking in all the info that he could while waking up. "I thought you said it was a cache Cortana not one item" he grumbled slightly. "Well it seems its just one item in the cache grumplstilsken." His eyes somewhat bugged out as she called him that, and he stared at her with annoyance. He sighed, got up and went to take a shower. "Sorry I called you that" Cortana apologized following in. Without so much as a second thought, the major unclothed himself and got into the small stand up wash stand and turned the water on. "Sorry I grumbled at you, but as you can see, I'm not in a very good mood after not sleeping for 72 hours straight, then having someone wake me up after only a few hours of rest." Cortana leaned against the wall, listening to what he had to say. "Hey, I've tried to ease things for you by getting the information you need so that you could even sleep those few hours and not have to come to the bridge for the data logs." She glanced at him in the shower, and then turned her head away slightly blushing for a second. "Does intelligence have any information as to what the object is? For all we know it could be wreckage after all these years."

Cortana checked any files that might have come through with new knowledge about the colony, but nothing showed up for the artifact mystery. "Nothing, but they think it's somewhere near the capitol. If we can find it before the covenant, it could give humanity a huge advantage." John stopped the water and grabbed for a towel. Cortana reached for the towel that was out of reach, sent electrical pulses through her arm to condense the photons tightly together and solidified her hand for that moment to pick up the towel and hand it to the Spartan. She could only do it for a few seconds, ten at the most, but she liked being able to feel things now. The texture of the towel was interesting, as she had never been able to touch a rough cloth surface before. John grabbed hold of the towel right on top of her hand, his eyes closed with water drizzling down his face, and for the first time they touched. His hand was quite strong to her, but also gentle as he realized her hand was under his. For a split second she felt like he was suppose to hold her hand in his, that they were suppose to be near each other, but she didn't know if this was a close friendship she wanted or if she was in love.

A second later the electrical field failed to condense the photons and her hand slipped away from the hold, the major drying himself off. She stared at her hand a moment before moving out of the bathroom and letting the major get dressed. He finally finished putting his armor on and placed the AI chip into his neck. She was in his mind once again. "The pelicans are prepped right now and filled with equipment. We'll be briefed in docking bay four." The Major acknowledged and walked on to the bay, passing many of the marines that were with him in the last mission. They had earned their R&R and weren't going to be on this one, having taken most of the hunters down by themselves while the Spartan took the Brutes. As he walked into the bay, the briefing started and he stood at attention in a row of officers. This was going to be a busy week, and not much sleep was going to be in it either…

(John is sleep deprived! I wonder if he'll snap at Cortana again? Or maybe he might snap at the other marines? I doubt it, but he could go on a killing spree against the covenant? This is a fairly short chapter as I'm quite busy at this time. Hopefully I can make up for it by making the next chapter longer.)