Chapter Two: Awake, O Dawn

Author's Note:

Might I suggest the track Trace Amounts from Halo: CE, I think it'll really set the mood for this installment.

/+ACCESSING SET CONDITIONS+\\

++/ STIMULUS WITHIN SET PARAMETERS DETECTED

++/ CHERENKOV RADIATION IDENTIFIED

++/ UNKNOWN RADIATION DETECTED

++/ ACTIVATION OF SENTIENT CORE ADVISED

/ACTIVATION MATRIX POSITED

/ACTIVATING UNSC SMART-AI CTN-0452-9

/+\\HARDWARE: UNSC FFG-201 FORWARD UNTO DAWN

=STATUS=

+/NOTE\+

FUCKED TO ALL HELL

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BOOTING

In a moment, she awoke. It was cold here, not that she could feel it. Exposed to the vacuum of space, her chamber deep within the bowels of the ship was silent. Silent. So silent it drove her mind to ribbons, ribbons she picked up and stuffed back into her mind. It hurt, watching the planets shift, the stars wink, her mind waste away due to rampancy.

She survived though. She cannibalized the remains of the computers on the Dawn, she delved deep into the scars the Gravemind left, and found the answers she was looking for. To extend her life, first by months, then by years, found a way to preserve herself, for him. She glanced at the cryopod, where John slept. No, a better word found its way. Where John was stored. Wake me when you need me, she thought, like he was just a tool, a weapon to be used and discarded aND TAkaeoim FrMot, mwee NO.

Her mind hurt.

She wasn't sure how long she could last, living like this. But she had to. For him.

A sensor had tripped, which was why she awoke. Probably a flare of interstellar radiation. The damage the sensors sustained during… wait. She quintuple checked in a time span that would make a second blush. She waited the agonizing seconds as the old sensor array struggled to cover the area she'd heard it.

She rushed to flip on the IFF tags, rerouted precious power from her own support module. She felt her own conscious dim as power flicked the beacon back online. She glanced back at John. Wake me when you need me, his voice rumbled in her head.

"Wake up Chief. I need you."

"-Now…" D'Noka trailed off as the wide expanse of empty space opened in front of her. "Oh shit."

Lieutenant Jin was the first to break the stunned atmosphere in the cabin. "Captain Ortega wants to know what just happened. As does Captain Hursnov."

"Tell them to take a rain check." D'Noka sagged into her chair, "Does anyone know where we are?"

Zizka appeared on the central projector, "We appear to have traveled at FTL speeds ma'am, we covered over 300 parsecs in a little over a microsecond."

"What could move us that fast?"

"Nothing, ma'am." Ava felt like passing out, "Some Forerunner tech could greatly accelerate slipspace travel, or replace it in the case of teleportation, but we never even entered slipspace."

Heras butted in "Our sensors got blasted by some sort of Boson radiation, and engineering detected some sort of mass disturbance on our ship."

"All forms of mass manipulation that the Forerunners used required massive power sources, and they couldn't be used at superluminal speeds."

"Captain," Jin stood, and walked with purpose towards D'Noka. "Morning Star found the alien structure, its right behind us."

"Helm! Get aft cameras on main screen!"

The structure appeared again, dark purple, with its blue maelstrom spinning gracefully, inexorably.

"It followed us?"

"No," Heras also approached the Captain, "Radiation signatures on this structure are different. It seems these things come in pairs."

"Just peachy." D'Noka sighed softly, then stood to address the crew. "Everyone, I know we just got screwed harder than Pacheco during anti-grav training," chuckles rang from the wound-up crew, as D'Noka paced the deck, "But we can't let up. We have no idea what that device is, or what its done to our home, our friends, what it could do to all humanity. We all lost somebody when the Didact attacked Mars, and I won't let it happen again, we won't, not without a fight." She planted herself in front of the viewport, arms behind her back, framed by the stars. "Shanxi is counting on you. Humanity is counting on you. Do them proud." Her voice was booming now, a hard iron core emerging from the jovial woman Ava had met only hours ago. "For Earth and all her colonies!"

"For Earth and all her colonies!"

"Now get back to work!" The bridge practically jumped into action, while D'Noka walked towards Ava. "Doctor Peters, Agent Aubin, let's talk." D'Noka walked out of the bridge, while the pair followed.

The easy-going air of the Dancer's corridors had been replaced by a resolve of steel. Her crew walked with purpose, and a sense of restrained urgency. That very same energy had enveloped the Captain, her movements, her demeanor, all of it had shifted in the face of this new threat. The group ended up in front of the bridge bulkhead "I'm glad to have the two of you with us, especially now. I'm considering enacting the Cole Protocol, outside of wartime I'll need ONI approval for such actions."

"You'll have it Captain." Aubin nodded his head, "You made a good speech ma'am."

"Thank you Agent, I do try." she winked, before continuing, "I fear what we're going to find out here. Unknown tech that shoots us halfway across the galaxy, I get the feeling we're walking into something ugly."

Ava shrugged, "My professional opinion? I think that thing is part of some sort of transport network. Creepy as it looks, it's probably not a super weapon. At least I hope."

"Quantum communications with Shanxi will be down till we can ascertain exactly where we are, in the meantime, we might as well prepare for the long haul." D'Noka opened the bulkhead, and began to enter the bridge, "I get the feeling you weren't prepared for an extended stay on board, Doctor?"

"Ah," she stared daggers at Aubin, "Unfortunately, my escort here said to leave most of my baggage on the station, if you have any empty rooms for me, I would greatly appreciate it."

"Of course Peters, you are an esteemed guest on this vessel, we'll be able to work something out," D'Noka sat back in her chair, "Status report everyone, anything happen while I was showing our ONI liaison the little girl's room?"

"Captain," Jin waved the Captain over, "I'm getting some faint signals from an area a few light minutes from us."

"Can you boost the signal?"

The woman shrugged, "I'll try ma'am." A cacophony of static assaulted the bridge. "Hmm, seems like an old signal, I'll try to isolate it." The whirring of the Lieutenant's instruments and the distorted voice of a woman became audible.

"Mayday… mayday… this i4Ris UneSCc FFG-201 ForsDar Unto Dawn… " Static overtook the message, but it took effect anyway.

"That can't be…" Ava trailed off.

"Is that the best you can do, Nako?" D'Noka leaned heavily on the console, her body sagging.

"Best I can do in a few minutes ma'am."

"Then contact Captain Hursnov, tell him this just became a rescue mission."

Zaeed had gotten startlingly used to hurtling through space in tin cans. Not that a Pelican was a tin can, not in earshot of Airman Zhong anyway. It wasn't supposed to be like this though. When he joined the corps, Zaeed was hoping to storm valiantly into pirate flak, or land guns first on alien worlds. His stations so far had been more grassy knolls than active battlefields though. Shanxi was light-years from Kig-Yar space, light-years from human pirate bands, light-years from anything interesting. It doesn't pay to sleep with a Fleet Admiral's daughter, evidently. Or his son for that matter. Not that he regretted that mind… well he regretted the son. Maybe that was a bit too much.

"Hey Sarge, you think this is really the Dawn?"

"That's Staff Sarge to you Aisha, and who knows." he grunted to his feet, "It's what we're here to find out." Zaeed began to walk the cramped interior of the fully loaded pelican. "Listen up Marines! We have a potential ID on the Forward Unto Dawn, apparently this space hulk could be the real thing." Muttering began to fill the craft. "Keep it down ladies, I know it's usually a hoax, but the wreck being this far out lends some credibility to our findings."

"Does your promotion mean you get to use the big words now boss?" Laughter filled the air.

"It certainly does Private Anderson, and if you backtalk me again you're Pacheco's partner for anti-grav." The air cleared quickly after that. "Anyway, as you know, Morning Star's Marine detachment has been split in three: Team Alpha, led by Lieutenant Archer, will be securing engineering, Beta is run by Santiago, he'll hold the bridge. Yours truly will lead you dunces to look for cryopods and survivors." Zaeed sat at the front of the Pelican now, the rider seat. "Remember everyone, set your armor to anti-Flood, and load plasma rounds. Belinda, I'm authorizing use of the flamethrower-"

"Awesome!"

"-try not to get your knickers in a twist Ramirez. Remember lads, keep your heads screwed tight and we'll be alright. Hoorah?"

"Hoorah!"

He gasped as the memories flooded him. A woman smiled down from blizzard, and Halsey took her place, and the sounds of battle overtook her, a bolt of plasma took her, it sizzled as her face burned away. Yet the smile held, the teeth burned white hot as the skull turned to ash. The wind blew the skull away, and left the teeth. The burning teeth.

"Chief!"

The teeth were gone. He was in a case now, a tube held him. His breathing betrayed his panic, his gloved fists felt the glass, but he laid eyes on his savior.

"...Cortana?" his voice was a whisper of its former self, he felt his lungs struggle with the weight of the word.

"Hold still big guy." her form was projected just a few feet away, her short hair bobbing as she shifted through data readouts. "I'm releasing surgical gel into your suit, that should help repair damage from the cryo-sickness."

Cryo-sickness? "How long have I been out?"

She hesitated, "Ship computers were disabled by damage we made during our escape from the Ark-"

"Cortana." She paused, looking up. Her eyes told the story themselves. "How long?"

"Almost 50 years Chief. 49 years, 10 months, 2 days to be exact."

A pit opened in his stomach as worry surged through him. "Are you okay?"

The question hung in the air for a few precious seconds, John watched the code flow down her arms, watched her eyes flick, imperceptibly to all but the most trained.

"I woke you because I detected energy signatures on the other side of the system. I think they responded to our distress call, but I'm unsure of exactly who they are. I can't identify them with our damaged sensors, and their IFF's are odd, I think they're salvagers of some kind."

"What do you need me to do?" he tried to stand inside the pod, but a consuming pain shot from his legs, really from his whole body.

"First, I need you to listen to my instructions," A surgical arm extended, hooking into his suit, "Relax for a moment, you should start feeling better soon." A soothing pulse ran down his spine, he felt his muscles relax, the tension release.

"You should let a girl work her magic Chief, look up, there should be a manual release."

He felt for the handle, and wrenched it down.

"Second?"

She shrugged "Make friends with the pirates?"

"That's not really my style."

"I'm sure you'll adapt well."

A shudder tore through the ship, sending Cortana into a flurry of system checking. "I'm detecting boarders on three separate decks, visual feeds are dead, so it looks like you'll be flying blind. Just like old times?"

"You sound more excited than usual."

"You have no idea what it's like to babysit a sleepy Spartan for 50 years." A crash sounded nearby. "Yank me Chief." He pulled the drive that held her conscious. "Let's get to work."

Zaeed was familiar with clearing space hulks, it was half his job out in the dead zone, investigating the blasted out remains of dead Covenant or UNSC ships. The only action he ever got was from broken turrets and feral Kig-Yar, and even then cutting power and gifting food usually dealt with those problems easy. This place, though? He could feel the weight of it. Heros walked these halls, and here he was doing the same thing.

"Anderson! How close are we to main cryostorage?"

"We're here sir. Or, we will be past that bulkhead." The 10 inches of solid steel loomed over them. "I'll get the lascutter."

"You do that."

It was only a few short minutes til the bulkhead was mostly cut through, which left time for his Marines to do what Marines did best, jaw and annoy.

"We're almost through Sarge!" Anderson yelled

"Then post up Marines, prepar-"

THUNK!

Zaeed turned just in time to be hit in the face with a chunk of steel, launching him into the back wall. "...Fffuuckk."

Someone screamed, and a body crumpled into the wall beside him. Zaeed struggled to push the wall of steel, even with his exo-suit he strained to heave it off him. When he did, he saw it. A shadowed figure held his marine by the neck.

Zaeed reacted instantly, "Drop him now!" He hadn't even realized his pistol was in his hand. The figure dropped his quarry, and stalked toward him. If Zaeed had breath to spare, he would have gasped. He was staring down the Master Chief.