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Here is the second chapter from A sacred oath.

Four months and we're still alive

Cordially Imp45

Chapter 2:Four months and we're still alive

Four months…It has been four damn months since the slip space jump. And now Cortana was getting more disturbed by every nanosecond passing.

After being able to repair crudely some vitals system of the Forward into dawn, she began scanning for any kind transmissions to catch and communicate with. The first three week, she kept doing for every second of every day in hope of reaching any source of emitting faction to contact them for getting a ride back home.

It didn't matter if it was from UNSC, Independents human faction allied with the UEG, the covenant separatist led by the arbiter, or any form of life that didn't felled like shooting their ship at first sight.

Then it happened.

On the 26th day since the failed jump, she finally received it, a signal coming from a ship. Finally, someone could save her, and the strong caveman that served as her best friend and who was actually resting in a fridge.

They could finally get back home and hopefully save her from the rampancy stage who would surely come for her one day…

Instead, she cut down her beacon and ceased any transmission coming from their half of ship.

Something made her stop in trying to contact this unknown ship.

This reason was simple :

It was using a damn unknown language.

Cortana cursed her bad luck as it seemed that this damn portal, additionally of failing in bringing them back on earth made them jump into a unknown part of the galaxy where a undiscovered specie was living.

Her now tops priorities were now of avoiding capture.

After all, if she was captured by an enemy ship all of UNSC controlled space was in danger as the Human-Covenant-Flood war let mankind in a pretty weak situation.

So for two weeks she stopped emitting but kept her ears wide opens in search of any information on those newcomers.

Unfortunately for her, her range of spying was rather limited by the state of her ship, luckily for her, the Dawn did possess several scouting probe in working condition.

She quickly dispatched two of them in hope of gaining more DATA to analyze, and when the probe came back, she certainly was well rewarded.

And so, during a month she kept sending more probes, catching more and more information on this strange place.

The strange place being the good old Milky Way…But not the one she was used to.

She spend all of her time began to decipher every type of data transmissions that landed in her hands. Feat not as incredible as their inscription were so easy to break that any kind of AI or engineer of the UNSC could certainly break them. Practically an Unggoy game… No, maybe not that far.

What really disturbed her was the content of the data obtained, as according to them, Mankind did exist…But in according to those files, they were in 2185 instead of 2553.

Furthermore, apparently, Humanity was part of a coalition of alien's government, the Citadel council.

An council, formed by three top races, Asari ,Galarian and Turian. Those three were the head of this collectivity of species telling them what they had the right of doing, how and when.

That is until Mankind appeared and managed to get a seat in this council in less of fifty years, an unrecorded feat.

But as the checked every bit of the history of this humanity who had like any other species based their technology from a dead specie one, something came and saddened Cortana in this.

Those humans were…Push overs.

From where she and John come from, no humans would have kneeled to any aliens. Never the UNSC would have allowed a foreign power to rule over its citizens, it would have fought and found a way to win. But no, there, humans and many others species just obeyed to the council in hope of not being declared enemy of the citadel.

Even the recently acquired seat did little to improve the human's right in this galaxy. Hell, even the official human military had a quota of warship, dreadnaught that they aren't authorized to exceed under the threat of becoming an enemy of the citadel.

UNSC agreeing with a quota of cruiser…Never happening.

Speaking of ship she could see some drastic difference between the two humanity, those from the Alliance were faster and more manœvrable but the ones from UNSC a lot more powerful and harder to break.

And the more the read from this citadel council, the more she was disappointed in it.

But with nothing else to do for now, she kept reading, checking and analyzing in hope to find something in this sea of files that could help them in their journey to home.

It was on the 97th days since the jump that the legendary luck of her partner in crime seemed to have found them again this strange universe.

While that she was comparing the MA5C and the Avenger Mk1 in a virtual simulation one of her probe came back with a neck package of data, and it contained something of very interesting.

It seemed that the probe managed to pick in a distance, a slow moving large object. It seemed too big to be a spaceship coming from one of the know citadel council, but moved by necessity and curiosity, cortana send two of her probes back there.

And when they came back, they did found something of very interesting.

An abandoned shipyard.

The exotic architecture it certainly wasn't human made. After comparing with several outlines coming from different governments database and come to the conclusion that this station was from Quarian origin. Which greatly surprised her as the migrant fleet desperately needed such a shipyard to repair and maintain its ship.

A station like this would considerably help the Quarian people in their quest of survive, which planted the idea that this station could be older that it seemed. On the pictures taken by the probes, it seemed that it had took some damages caused by mass effect weapon.

"Maybe that it's from the Morning war." This war worried Cortana, as an AI she was branded as a menace to the galactic security according to the council. She could understand the Quarian aversion to the AIs as the Geths driven them out their homeworld, she knew herself that if her humans creators had lost their dear Earth, they would do anything to get it back, no matter how many colony they had.

But as the same time, she couldn't really put the blame on the Geths. They had become sapiens being and acted as it. And it seemed that they didn't want to die.

As she finished checking the newly acquired data, she elaborated a new course of action. If this shipyard was still functional, then they surely could use it to repair the Forward into dawn. Which who greatly help their percentage of survival.

But first, she needed the approval of the only true living being in this ship. Cortana checked the vitals of her favorite human being before sending the necessaries order to the giant ice cube box and was pleased as she saw it opening.

As the door opened, 117 quickly checked his surrounding, memories from before sleeping coming back to his awaking brain. He slowly got up and floated toward the nearest terminal where a holographic smiling Cortana stand waiting for him.

"Cortana? What going on? Did the USNC found us?"

"Well chief, I've got so many things to tell, so first you may would like to refill you air tank as it's going to take some time."

Sitting in his chair with a cigarette held in his fingers, the Illusive Man stared at the sun that was actually dying behind the observation windows of his office at the Cerberus headquarter, the station Cronus.

He brought a half empty glass of American bourbon to his lips and took two good sips. He was actually quite nervous, the last report that he got from Miranda Lawson indicated that the project Lazarus was almost over , which meant only one thing:

Jane Shephard was soon going back into the land of the livings and will fight against the galaxy number one threat…The Reapers.

The rapport from Miranda told him that the commander should wake up in a few days at most. There, once the mighty biotic would be awakened, Cerberus would give her every tool that she needed to accomplish her mission of finding out who is behind the abduction of the human's colonies and protect mankind against the reaper threat.

And now, even if every was going smoothly just like planned, TIM knew that they hadn't the right to make any mistakes .It has took Cerberus two years to bring Shepard back, and they was no way that if the finished in the same state that before, they could bring her again on time.

Jane Shephard was in his book Humanity best hope in this war that was surely coming, even if the Citadel Council and the Alliance did everything that they could to make believe that the Reapers were a fake threat.

Sovereign, just a Geth super-dreadnaught they said, they even had dared to say that Shepard was paranoid and under a lot of stress…At her own funeral.

And the Alliance did nothing to deny that, ready to sacrifice their best element so that the Council is happy with them and get a pat on their head.

The councilor Anderson him fought bravely in this nightmare called politics to protect his late protégé from her enemies, and did manage to protect her name to be furthermore soiled.

Cerberus Intel showed him too that several high ranking officers did take the Reaper seriously, however, each time that one of them did make too much noise, they were dishonorably discharged.

Some of them even had accidents in suspicious way.

But in the end he did manage to recruit some who were willing to fight for Humanity.

The Illusive Man sighed to this, but then he remembered the vow that he made to himself the day he founded Cerberus.

"I swear to protect Mankind against any threat, by any mean that I judge necessary."

And with the Reaper approaching, he would do anything in his power to protect the humans...Even if they didn't want to.

Cortana watched John-117 as he was standing near the end of the cut ship, before him, still the deep Infinite ocean that is space. Cortana was quite worried about what John might do, she told him everything that she learned while he was busy sleeping and had not said a single word since she finished.

She knew that he was strong, physically and mentally but still, he was a human being, and every human being could break, and now she feared that he was near the breaking point.

Her thoughts were stopped when the grave voice of the massive man finally reached her.

"Cortana."

"Yes, Chief?"

"Do we have any ship we could use here? Pelican and Longsword?"

"Yes, the hangar 3 and 4 are still here, the 3 contains four longsword in top condition, and the 4 has 9 Pelicans and eight of them in flying condition. The ninth is damaged but could be repaired if we have enough of resources."

The Spartan acknowledged her answers by a short nod, he began to move back toward his cryo-pod and stopped right before it.

There he grabbed the MA5C who was still waiting on the rack, the day it would be used again alien and put it on his back.

"I agree."

To this, Cortana gave him a confused look.

"I agree with your plan, we shall go to this shipyard. The repair of the Dawn must be our number one priority, and from what you told me, i don't think that the first owner will reclaim this station anytime soon, so let's use it."Cortana smiled to her partner resolution in this new jouney who seemed as uncertain that the previous ones.

"Ah, perfect, then, I will power the main reactor of the Dawn, we still have enough of power to take us there."

"How long until we get there?" The massive man began to go toward one of the storage room to get some equipments for the incoming mission.

"I calculated that we should be there in 9 days, 7 hours and 16 minutes if we don't meet any troubles. But by knowing how our luck works…"

As the Master Chief was opening a door that led to the armory Cortana spectral voice stopped him.

"Not so fast warrior, you didn't eat anything for a too long time, go to the mess grab some foods then follow me, there are some rooms in this ship that are still with pressure and you will be able to remove that helmet of yours."

End of the second chapter:Four months and we're still alive

Here it is the second chapter.

The real next one shall come before the end of the next week and our commander will get her begining in there^^.

I do know that it's still pretty short but the must we advance in the story, the more in length the chapter will get.

Thank you again for the reviews and the favorites and follows; it is what makes the story going on. ^^

And English is not my first language, if someone wanted to be my corrector, it would certainly help (I'm sure that this chapter is full of grammatical mistakes).

Thank you very much for reading this story

Imp45 out.

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