The Master Chief, with no helmet, sat in the pilot's seat of the Longsword attack craft. He didn't fit. Was he that fat?
John scratched his head. Everyone he met was dying! First Linda, then his Spartans, then Keyes and everyone on Halo. Was he bad luck?
"Scan it again," the Master Chief told Cortana.
"I told you, nothing survived. It's just us. Hopefully I don't die as well..." He felt Cortana go into the deep recesses of his mind. Was she afraid of him?
John's hand curled into a fist. Why did everyone he meet have to die? Could he return to Earth? Would it get destroyed too? Maybe the Covenant could accept him...
"Scan it again," he repeated.
Cortana sighed, irritated.
"Hey, we don't have a Slipspace drive or cryo. Plus we only have enough power, fuel, air, food and water for a few hours. So, scan again."
"It's not like your going to eat the entire stock of food in one day."
John felt sad. She was making fun of his weight again! That was a very sensitive topic.
"Just. Scan."
A few moments later, Cortana came back. "There's still nothing. Sounds like there is a wicked party on Halo's moon but still no transponder signals or distress calls."
"You're not doing an active scan?"
"That would take days considering all the crap that's out here."
"But what if someone doesn't want to be found?" The thought made John sad.
"But that's highly un-" Cortana stopped.
"What?"
"That noise from the moon, it's getting stronger."
"Meaning?"
"Someone is out there."
'But they don't want to be found by me...' John frowned.
Cortana's long range detectors detected something. "Uh-oh."
John looked at the scanner. On it was a silhouette of a Covenant cruiser.
"Kill the power! Now! NOW! Nooooooow-" Cortana shut down the power as well as John's oxygen supplies for a brief moment.
John gasped for air as he saw more Covenant vessels come.
"Status?" He choked out. "Have they found us?"
"Hmm... They're using the same scanning frequency as us... Strange..."
"Have they found us?"
"No one mentioned this phenomenon in any UNSC or ONI files."
"Have they found us?" John asked once again.
"Why do you suppose they use the same frequencies?"
"I don't know and don't care. Just tell me if they spot us."
"I can listen to the echos on the moon. Process active: analyzing Covenant signals. Piggybacking their scans. Diverting more runtime to the task. I'm building a multiplex filtering algorithm. Customizing the current shape-signature recognition software."
John blinked. "What?"
"I'm trying to make them not recognize us."
"I know but you said it way too fast." John coughed.
"Still scanning..." Several other ships appeared, including one gigantic one.
John stood stiffly and made his way to the back of the ship. He stood in front of where the cryo units were suppose to be at. Instead, there was a control panel. John knew it was a new Moray mine-laying system. He touched it and it exploded.
"..."
John forced open a weapons locker and looked inside. He needed ammo for his assault rifle.
'Let's see... frag grenades... useless... Jackhammer rocket launcher... useless... shotgun... useless... chainsaw... pfft, I don't want to get sued... Arrgg! I can't see past these energy swords and Brute shots... Hmm... Looks like there isn't any ammo. Oh well. Thirteen rounds are good enough.'
John closed the locker and walked towards the front of the ship.
"Chief!" Cortana screamed.
John panicked. "What?"
"Found something."
John's eye twitched. Of all the AIs to get stuck with... "Show me."
On screen was bullet shaped cone silhouettes. John struggled to fit in his seat again.
"It could be a cyrotube." Cortana began to whisper. "Maybe there are frozen TV dinners in there..."
"Alright! Let's go-" John stopped. She was making fun of him! "Stop that!"
Cortana laughed.
"Just move us towards it..."
"ETA twenty minutes. Considering the speed of the Covenant's scanning, I estimate they will make it in five minutes."
"We need to make it there faster."
"Alright."
"..."
"...Your not going to ask me how we're going to get there."
"No. I trust you."
Cortana felt slightly disturbed for some reason. "I mean, my method of getting there is likely to get both of us killed. You sure?"
"Yup!"
"If you insist." Cortana reached the cyrotubes in two seconds, using an unknown speed source that was clearly visible to the Covenant.
The Master Chief was thrown off his chair in the process. "What the hell?"
"The Covenant warship is turning towards us. I will attempt to jam their scanners to buy us more time."
The Master Chief saw that the one cyropod turned out to be three. There was the figure on the moon also in view. It was a Pelican.
"You see that ship? YOU SEE IT? It's gettin' ready to take off by its landing position. Har har!"
John blinked.
"Alright, now get ready to get those pods."
Cortana decompressed the ship, the chief got the pods, etc. etc. Then, as the Covenant warships were charging to fire, the Pelican on the moon took off!
They led off two of the Cruisers, got chased through a ice, rock field as they dodged their shots.
"Whoever is piloting sure knows their stuff." Cortana licked her lips. John felt disturbed again. Was she that lonely?
"We owe them a favor." John said.
"Indeed." He felt his mind go warm. What. The. Hell?
"Yeah, we owe them a favor." The Master Chief said quickly, before Cortana could fill his head with her sick ideas. He fired the weeny Longsword guns at the gigantic Covenant cruiser.
Cortana sighed. "You realize that isn't going to do any damage. Your just wasting our remaining energy."
The Covenant cruiser turned towards them, lasers charging.
"You. Dumbass."
"Shut up and get me a firing solution for the missiles." John pressed random buttons just to look smart. "I'll fire when they have their shields down to fire at us. It's genius!"
"Sure thing." Cortana did some random calculations like how fast they were going to die, how long it would take the lasers to reach them and how to get free cable. "Give me fire control."
John pressed a random button that made himself a cup of coffee.
"..." John pressed another button. It turned on loud, annoying pop music. The music, temporarily caused the Covenant lose their senses, making them fire without lowering their shields. This caused a whole lot of chaos and enabled John to escape unscathed!
"Let's go!" John put the ship into hyperdrive meaning it was going an incredible speed of 2 miles an hour. A plate narrowly missed them by ten light-years and was blown up by the Covenant.
"Let me drive!" Cortana slapped the controls out of his hand and began to drive. While John pondered on how this was possible, Cortana accelerated towards the rock field.
John wondered how he would get out of this situation. He couldn't escape this system and the Covenant knew. Strategy... John suddenly thought of a plan.
John keyed the COM system and hailed the Pelican. "This is Master Chief SPARTAN-One-One-Seven. Recognition code Tango Alpha Three Four Zero. Copy"
"Copy." A woman answered. She let out a soft moan. "This is Warrant Officer Polaski. Nice to hear you, Cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiifffff!" She let out several more moans here.
The MC ignored this. "Proceed to maximum speed at this point." John set a NAV pointer directly on the flagship.
"You sure are eager" John could just imagine her licking her lips now. "Alright. I copy. Hope you know what you doing." Long moan. "Polaski." Pause. "Out."
John thanked Halsey, for the first time ever, for getting rid of his sexual drive.
"Do you even know what you are doing?" Cortana asked, disappointed that the pilot was a woman. "We are going against possibly the strongest Covenant ship."
"I know what I'm doing."
"Oh, good." Cortana said sarcastically. She dodged many rocks and bitched even more when she found out all six cruisers were approaching them. "So what is your plan?"
"Something Keyes would approve of."
"The dead guy?"
"Yes."
"The one who turned into a flood monster?"
"Yes."
"The one you punched their brains out?"
"...Yes."
"Oh. Okay. That makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER!" She exclaimed.
"At least they stopped firing because we aligned with their flagship. ISN'T THAT NICE?" He asked loudy, trying to get the one up on Cortana. John nearly contacted Polaski but reconsidered it. "Get ready to intercept the Pelican."
" 'kay." Cortana did whatever an AI does.
Eventually they got near the flagship, where it was difficult to fire at them with the Pelican attached. John opened the access hatch and helped the hand that was reaching from the other side.
John felt surprised for a brief moment before he grabbed the man by the uniform and held him against the wall.
"YOU DIED! I saw you died!" John added after an afterthought, "So why aren't you dead?"
The man smiled. "Hell. It takes more than a bunch of super powered alien creatures capable of taking on the strongest race in the universe to kill Sargent A.J. Johnson."