Spartans in the Wasteland
Chapter 2: When You Need Me
Year: 2553
Date: September 25
Location: Aft of Forward Unto Dawn, floating towards unkown planet.
"Chief wake up! I need you wake up!" yelled the A.I. Cortana. She had just begun the defreezing process in the Spartan's cryo tube. In a moment he would hear Cortana's voice ringing through his ears.
"What is it Cortana?" John said, a bit annoyed.
"Drifting towards a planet that we will fall into." said Cortana.
"What planet?"
"Don't know haven't scanned yet"
"What time is it? What YEAR is it?" asked the Master chief.
"The year is September 25, 2553. You've been in cryo for sometime Chief." replied Cortana.
"You can say that again." John's body ached, and he had somewhat of a headache, but he would be fine. He checked his Mjolnir Mark VI's systems. Everything checked so he let his shields recharge. John then floated out of the cryo tube to where his A.I. companion was. She was the same as when he left her. Short hair, light and dark blue human figure with data streaming through her body. Chief had been through almost the entire war with her. From his first mission at Reach to the destruction of the Ark. He could have sworn he would be dead if it were not for his A.I. companion. If there was anyone he could trust, it was Cortana. "Anything?"
"Yeah I think I've got something here. It's hard to do this with the little power left in the Dawn but…."
"But what?"
"Oh no, oh that can't be. Oh no no no no no."
"Hang on a minute, what's going on?" John said calmly.
"The planet, it's, it's Earth…." said Cortana in a low, shallow voice. The Chief looked outside the ship. At first glance he didn't recognize it, but looking deeper through the thick green clouds he could make out the outlines of the west coast of North America and the Eastern tip of Russia.
"What happened?" John asked amazed. "Where are all the stations and UNSC ships? Did they get destroyed? And if so how?"
"There's no trace of them Chief. No debris or anything, as if nothing ever went into space." John couldn't believe what he was hearing. "But it gets worse." Cortana said, "There are high levels of radiation in the atmosphere. And I'm getting no kind of signal or pick up of some sort of electronic. It's as if hundreds of nuclear bombs went off. In fact, I think that's exactly what happened. "
"The Covenant?"
"No, nuclear weapons are not their style, and there's no history of nuclear warfare of this scale in Earth's history. Chief, I think we may be at some different kind of Earth."
Different kind of Earth? Was that even possible? "Where is this bucket going to land?"
"Estimated trajectory is somewhere in Greenland. But there are some HEVs left. If we launch at just the right time, we could land somewhere in Washington D.C. Or what's left of it."
"Why there?"
"It's probably our best bet of finding humans and see what the hell did happen here." replied Cortana smartly. Washington had been one of the headquarters of the UNSC, specifically the Pentagon. There had to be someone down there who could tell them what's what. "Put me in, and then we'll gear up." John removed the chip and inserted it inside his helmet. The familiar icy feeling rippled through him. "Ahh, that's better. Nice and snug." John looked around for weapons. He found an MA5C along with several clips. He took the clips and then put the MA5C on his back. He also found two M7 sub-machine guns and took those with extra clips. Along with that he took four fragmentation grenades. Satisfied, John makes his way to the HEVs, picked one, put his MA5C to the side, and climbed in.
"You ready for a ride?" asked John.
"You betcha!"
"Just launch when you're ready." Within minutes Cortana started a countdown and then launched the HEV. The pod rushed down towards Earth. John could the silhouette of North America get closer. Then the HEV entered the atmosphere and fire rippled across the bottom. Heat blistered in the HEV. But John shrugged it off, Spartan-IIs were trained to ignore pain. Once the pod cleared the upper atmosphere it deployed its parachute and the HEV's descent was slowed down as the ground got ever closer. As it kept going John looked at the land before him. It was barren and deserted. A sea of brown coated with black trees and destruction. John sighed, it couldn't be possible he thought. In moments Cortana yelled,
"Touch down in three, two, one…." The HEV crashed to the ground.