Jorge did not know why he wasn't dead. He recalled the moments leading up to this very clearly: him throwing away his helmet, which now lay against the pelican with him. He had thrown Six through the barrier that prevented the hangar's atmosphere from venting into space. He had waited for Six to be well and truly clear of the vessel and its makeshift weapon, then had activated it. Then, he had not died.

"Noble five?"

The drive itself, mangled and stripped first by those that had crafted it into a weapon and then by those who had attempted to UNmake the weapon, hummed in its welded cradle. It had not atomized the ship, nor had it killed him, and now appeared to be doing the job it was designed for, rather than the job that it had been modified to do. This was not to say that that was necessarily problematic: whether it had destroyed everything within range, or merely sent it all crashing into slipspace, it had all-but destroyed the Long Night of Solace, taking the larger ship's entire middle third with it. There was, of course, also the small bonus that Jorge quite liked being alive. It meant that, providing he could find a way back, he could finish the fight for his beloved Reach.

"Noble five."

This, of course, led him back to the fact that, taking everything he had been told about slipspace accidents such as these, he really should be dead now. A part of him wondered vaguely whether there actually was an afterlife -SPARTANS had no time or sense for such nonsense- and, if there was, what would happen to him if he went there. Another part wondered about whether a soul could get lost in slipspace and never find its way out. A third part wondered if there was a way of possibly smacking the other two parts over the head, preferably with a heavy blunt object.

"Noble five!"

"Mit? DOT? That you?"

"Affirmative, Noble five."

The voice, seemingly impossibly, was emanating from the Pelican's comms systems.

"How?"

"Transfer of software copy from UNSC heavy frigate Savannah just prior to detonation to local memory storage for Pelican dropship, Noble Five. This copy was assisting Savannah with firing solutions for local fire support."

Jorge grunted. Really, in a way, he was quite glad to have some piece of Reach, even if it was a "dumb" AI. He sat there a moment longer, considering whether or not he actually wanted to move anywhere: if this was the afterlife, if he had saved Reach, then there had best be armor-clad waitresses bringing all the alcoholic beverages that he could ever dream of right here. Glancing around a moment, and sadly confirming that refreshing beverages were not forthcoming, he grabbed his helmet with his right hand and, bracing himself against the Pelican with his left, hauled all his one thousand pounds of armored supersoldier up onto his feet. He paused for a moment, staring down at his helmet as he shifted it from one hand to two hands, before neatly fitting it over his head and locking it in place. After all, if he truly lived, then there was only one thing for it:

Return to Reach. Finish the fight.

"Dot, can you access the ship's systems?"

"A moment."

There was a several second pause, which Jorge used as a chance to gather up his favored weapon Etilka, the familiar weight of the .50 caliber HMG soothing in his hands. He checked the box.

Hm. He thought. Half full.

Dot, her synthesized British voice coming in clear through the helmet comms, spoke up. "Apologies, Noble Five. I appear to be unable to access the corvette's systems without a hard link."

Jorge grimaced. Never mind, he decided, it's half empty.

Bobs Occasionally burbled to itself. In truth, it was quite pleased: it had executed the contingency flawlessly, had brought the near-abandoned ship through quite well and in one piece. It was confident that few other Covenant-born Huragok, if any, could have pulled off that particular stunt successfully, especially not the second slipspace jump mere moments after the first, which had landed them right back in normal space. Of course, the fact that there appeared to be all of one living being aboard as according to the ship's sensors- not counting Bobs Occasionally itself- was rather a note of worry for the creature.

The ships logs stated that there had been a wave of evacuations to the drop pods around the rim of the vessel, as well as to any escape pods, while the rest of the onboard forces had gone to the hangar bay either to kick the boarders off the ship, or at least slow them down and hold them back. It appeared that they had all been killed.

This did not particularly bother the Huragok, outside of some vague concern over the few that it had known personally. Really, as long as it was allowed to continue repairing the ship and anything else that happened to break, Bobs Occasionally did not particularly care who was in charge of the ship. Bobs Occasionally was, after all, a Huragok: The Covenant could worship the Huragok's creators all they wanted; it was just happy as long as they gave him equipment to repair and fine tune.

As the floating creature wandered the halls of the ship, allowing accumulated sensor data to guide it to damage caused by either the two jumps that the ship had made in quick succession or the extended firefight that had raged between the rooms. The occasional body of a UNSC Marine or one of the many species of Covenant did little to hamper its work, though it did occasionally patch their armor and weapons. Sure, it was not as if they were going to be using them any time soon, but Bobs Occasionally needed no more excuse to fix something than "that's broken", and sometimes not even that.

Really, the thought occurred to it, I should be meeting with this newcomer. Surviving a firefight would mean that their armor and weapons may have taken damage themselves, and the firefight being in the main hangar bay may mean that the ships stored there might have taken rounds at some point.

Thoroughly enthused at the idea, Bobs Occasionally chirruped to itself. Yes, this was a very good day.