Disclaimer: I do not own Halo or any associated name or item. They belong to Bungie (formerly), 343 Industries and Microsoft. Any other copyrighted item belongs to the respective owner(s). This is for pleasure and not profit.
A/N: I actually got this done pretty fast. Not a whole lot of plot advancement to be fair; it's all kinda just build-up in the moment. Still, some pretty interesting insights into the characters.
Halo 4: Reclaimer
Chapter 3 – Welcome to Requiem
UNKNOWN LOCATION IN THE REQUIEM INSTALLATION
ESTIMATED DATE: OCTOBER 2558
Cortana desperately studied her Spartan's bio-signs, hoping for a sign of consciousness. Heart-rate, blood pressure, neural activity all read at levels indicative of deep sleep or unconsciousness . The rest of his biometrics was worrying as well. There were signs of multiple bruised ribs, a mild concussion – that ruled out a wake-up stim; too much damage potential - , several sprained tendons, along with obvious indicators of malnutrition and extended stress periods, if the serotonin levels were anything to go by. John must've been fighting more or less non-stop since the Covenant invasion of Earth; then to Installation 05 and the Ark, and now the escape from the Ark. Cryo-sleep wouldn't have helped; he would've came out in the same state he had went tin. If it had been any other soldier, they would be dead. But then again, John wasn't just a soldier; he was a SPARTAN supersoldier: bred for combat, built for war; the master of any weapon and pilot of any vehicle. There was nothing that could hope to stop him, especially something as trivial as hunger or lack of sleep.
Like the others, you were strong, and swift and brave. A natural leader. But you had something they didn't; something no one else saw but me. Can you guess?
Luck.
But as she watched John continue to remain unconsciousness, she couldn't help but wonder…Was I wrong?
Realising there was little she could do but wait – the Achilles heel for any AI – she decided to split her runtime between monitoring John's vitals and analysing the surrounding environment; she regretted only having access to the MJOLNIR Mk. VI's sensor suite; the Dawn had far better equipment, even in its ruined state. The gravity was about .02 less than Earth standard; the atmosphere was a good 80-20 nitrogen/oxygen mix, with trace amounts of carbon dioxide and noble gases. Slightly problematic was the small level of ionising background radiation; she'd have to have the armour manufacture an anti-radiation vaccine. Overall, the world – it was a world, technically, one inside some kind of Dyson sphere construct – had pretty similar conditions to Earth. Evidently, the Forerunners were pretty biologically similar to humans.
Most of the data she had retrieved on the Forerunners wasn't particularly oriented towards their physiology; there had been a few read-outs, but in terms of nutritional data and chemical dependencies the data was rather lacking. And then there was the caste-based metamorphosis that they would go through in life…
In fact, for the most part, there was a surprising degree of biological similarity between the humans and Forerunners. Brain and neurological structures were largely the same, relatively similar circulatory and organ systems; although the Forerunners generally seemed to possess additional organs, like two hearts and livers. An xenogenetic biologist would probably be willing to bet that at some point the Forerunners and humans shared a common genetic ancestor. Now if that were true, that would raise some very interesting questions as to how human life – and indeed, life in the rest of the galaxy - came about.
Cortana would have smiled if she could have. The thinking kept her mind from wandering, from her thoughts breaking down into a thousand separate data trails and processes. It was keeping her focused, and keeping away the anger and sadness. Keeping away the onset of true Rampancy.
Thankfully, Cortana was protected from having to contemplate her mental state with the signal that her host was starting to wake up
The Chief was in pain. Quite a lot, in fact. Even with the protective carapace of MJOLNIR, he had still felt the total impact of his landing; and while SPARTANs were still tougher than the average marine, a sub-orbital landing was still a hard landing. Even the rock-solid ODSTs would have second thoughts at such an attempt. Even most other SPARTANs would hesitate. Every part of him felt bruised and battered, and he knew any attempt to move would amplify the pain tenfold. He opened his mouth – thankfully, he couldn't taste too much blood – and with difficultly managed to rasp: "Cortana?"
"John!" She cried happily. "You almost had me worried."
"It'll take more than a little fall to kill me."
Cortana chuckled. "I'll bet."
Chief tried to sit up; then realised that his armour had locked into position. His whole body lay spread-eagled, arms bent at awkward angles. "Can you unlock me?"
A second later, his arms and legs collapsed. His HUD flickered, then began to cycle through various systems. Shields, motion trackers and ammo counters were all slowly brought back online. A small rotating model of his armour and body appeared in the lower right corner, rotating and flashing red in damaged areas, before indicating the suit was still intact for service. The HUD back online – shield bar in the top centre, ammo and grenade counters to the left and right of it, TACMAP/Motion tracker in the lower left corner, and the lower right would be home to whatever miscellaneous feature was needed at the time, be it an armour readout, data and intel displays, or some kind of navigation aid. His suit – and his body, for the most part – were green. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it." Cortana snickered. "Mighty space-warrior needs someone to unlock his armour."
Chief snorted. "Don't make me run a magnet over you."
"But then who'll unlock your armour after your next big jump?"
Chief smiled to himself, then hoisted himself into a sitting position. As expected, every joint felt like it had glass rotating in it. He'd have to see about painkillers and proper medical attention. With a sigh, he looked around, taking in his surroundings for the first time. He saw that his impact had created a crater and torn up the ground around him; they were in what looked vaguely like a forest or perhaps jungle; they were surrounded by tall trees, the upper heights hidden in a canopy of thick green leaves, with a great many low hanging vines and shrubbery. They were surrounded by relative shadows, with streams of light cascading down through gaps in the leaves. The largest was from the hole they had torn in the tree canopy from the fall.
"Any idea where we are?" Chief asked.
"Other than an enormous alien Dyson sphere in the backend of space?" Cortana replied dryly. "Not really."
With an effort, the Spartan managed to force himself to his feet. Swaying slightly, he steadied as Cortana administered a potent cocktail of painkillers, relaxants and adrenaline without having to be asked. He nodded in gratitude, then checked his equipment. He had lost all the weapons he had been carrying except for his pistol; though he still had most of the ammunition for them, along with a pair of M9 Frag grenades. Great; he was in unknown territory, with potential hostiles and he was severely lacking in the guns and explosions department. He'd just need to be careful. To his pleasant surprise, the satchel he had found on the ship was still with him, contents intact.
"What's our situation?"
Cortana was quick to reply: "Atmosphere and gravity are about Earth normal; low-level background radiation but I've already got your suit working on that, you'll be fine. No sign of any Covenant or enemy constructs, and no sign of anything particularly predatorial. I've also managed to get a fix on the Dawn and the drop-pods; I'll mark them on the HUD when we move out."
Chief smiled at that. This was the Cortana he remembered, always looking out for him in a way few others could. On being awoken, he had been nervous about Cortana and the potential of Rampancy in her. One particularly eccentric tech back on Reach had warned him of the possibility of it.
"You couldn't pay me to keep an AI in my head. No way. Don't want her going all rampant and wackadoo and frying my brainstem."
"Rampant?"
"Yeah, AIs do this thing called Rampancy; basically go off the deep end. First they going into Mechanolia; Go all emo and depressed 'cause they're not alive. Then they get Rage; start PMSing all over the place – that's when most cases get noticed, 'cause the AI tries to piss in your coffee or something. Then there's Envy; although really Greed would be better 'cause that's the more important part: the AI tries to get more and more information, and then put itself in bigger networks; if they got into a planetary one they could take down the whole system. 'Course they just end up thinking themselves to death if they can't, so either they die 'cause we flick their killswitch or cause they run out of memory space."
Chief hadn't been particularly keen on the idea of having Cortana in his armour after that, but with everything that had been thrown their way, through every fire and storm they had weathered together, Cortana had transitioned from potential liability to valuable asset to friend and comrade in arms as much as any of his SPARTAN brethren. Hell, that was why he had stormed High Charity in a maelstrom of lean and plasma and shrapnel; not to retrieve the Index, but to rescue a friend. Not that he would admit that to the brass.
Cortana was fine. "Is it safe to take off my helmet?"
"Sure. Why?"
John smiled and raised one of the ration bars that had been inside it in his hand. "Fair enough. It's probably powder though."
He shrugged and pulled the wrapper off the civilian-grade MRE. A little bit crushed, but nonetheless edible. Even civilian MRE's had the well-deserved reputation of being able to last through practically anything. With his free hand, he thumbed the release catch for his helmet and pulled it off for the first time in what had technically been years, and sat down in a cross-legged position. The air had an almost fruity tang to it, but he ignored that and then scarfed the whole bar down in one go, followed quickly by the other one. Examining the flask revealed it to contain a liquid called Enex; basically water pumped full of energy inducers and sugar. It was perfect for washing down the MREs; the flask even kept the liquid purified and prevented it from going off.
He briefly wondered who James Wake had been. And whether he'd gotten off the Ark. John hoped he had.
Cortana had observed the meal in silence from the helmet. Her voice rang out from the speakers in a tone of dry amusement, although he thought he could hear an undertone of something else. "All better now?"
He gave a contented sigh – uncharacteristic of him. "Much."
She laughed. "Well, if the mighty supersoldier is all fed and watered now, can we get moving? It's daylight now but who knows what'll come out at night; and you've only got a pistol."
Chief nodded, and cast aside the crumpled wrappers and placed the half-empty flask back into the satchel, before replacing his helmet; the helmet's air scrubbers replaced the air's fruity tang with a mouthful of copper. For one brief, inane, insane instant, he wondered when the last time he had brushed his teeth was. Probably before being recruited for the SPARTAN-II program; many of the richer UNSC citizens could pay for specialised dental treatment to remove the need for brushing teeth. SPARTANs got it free with military service; all in the name of making them slightly more efficient as soldiers.
"Where are the pods?"
Seven red markers appeared in his HUD, pointing towards relative west in the distance. "And the ship?"
An eighth, slightly larger marker appeared, indicating roughly the same direction as the pods. A second later, the distances to them in kilometres appeared next to them; Pods 1, 3 and 5 had landed between them and the Dawn, while the others had landed further away. "We'll go for Pod One first; if we can't salvage anything we'll go for the other two close ones then the ship; try and salvage transport."
"Sounds good, Chief."
Chief drew his pistol, and checked the magazine. It held a full load of eight rounds of 12.7mm. Good; They weren't the HE rounds he'd come to love with the M6D model, but it would do. He hoped, at least. Wordlessly, he began to stalk through the foliage in the direction of the pods; in the distance he could hear the chitters of insects and the caws of what were presumably bird-analogues. No sign of predators.
His motion tracker was alive with dozens of miniscule white dots. Harmless insects. He briefly considered lowering the sensitivity but decided against it; he'd rather know too much about the lifeforms around him than too little, any one of the little critters could potentially be dangerous. After twelve minutes of straight forcing through the foliage, he saw the trees begin to thin out. Slowly, they were approaching the edge of the forest. It came closer and closer, and within minutes, Chief was at the foot of a bank where the forest ended. He clambered up the hill, and was greeted with his first real view of Requiem's landscape.
Long plains of stretching green greeted him, ending in snowcapped mountainscapes whose bases were obscured by the curvature of the planet. They had crashed in basically a giant bowl of land; the earth dipped here, surrounded on all sides by the mountains. His eyes caught the thick plume of smoke, and he was quickly able to trace its origin as the smouldering wreckage of the Forward Unto Dawn. Through the blue haze of the sky, he realised he could see a pattern of metalwork; the inside shell of the planet-construct. Of all that though, what really caught his attention was the collection of sliver spires and domes to the east, far from the ship's landing site.
A Forerunner city.
"Well, at least we've got somewhere to go." Chief reasoned.
"Yeah." Cortana muttered. "Reckon the locals speak English?"
"There might not even be locals." He pointed out. "It looks deserted from here."
"Well, there's only one way to find out."
"Agreed." Chief said, and began to make his way down to the plain proper, and was greeted with long blades of light-green grass. Cortana began in interested terms, noting the similarity of this grass to the species found back on Earth and human worlds. Chief didn't really know what to say. Grass was grass, wasn't it?
Pod One was identified as 1.4 kilometres away, with the Dawn being tagged as 2.1 kilometres away. Hopefully, they'd be able to get weapons from Pod One, secure the Dawn, then retrieve the rest of the pods and set up shop and see about checking out the city in the distance. Despite his exhaustion and injuries, the distance was meagre and they were able to make good time, closing in on the first pod in just shy of an hour and a half. Approaching cautiously – something may have come to investigate – he kept an eye on his tracker and scanned the area with his pistol; so far, nothing had approached the site save him, it appeared.
He forced open the pod to find that most of the contents had come through in a favourable state; his reliable MA5C had come through unscathed and the M90 shotgun was similarly well preserved. The M41 rocket launcher's launch tube had been bent of shape though; and with just the one set of rockets, there wasn't any point in taking it. The ALICE backpack was full of MREs and other equipment, so he shouldered it along with the M90, and set about loading the spare magazines and grenades into his suit. Overall, he now had quite a good haul of weapons and supplies. Assuming a similar level of success, even without the Dawn's surplus, he'd be relatively secure in the near-future; enough to establish a base of operations and work out how to survive and signal for rescue.
He pulled out the magazine from the MA5C and checked it; all good, he reinserted it back into the rifle with a snick, and watched the ammunition counter cycle back up to 32. The rifle had seen him through the Battle of Voi, the Ark, his raid of High Charity, and the Ark. It had fired well over seven thousand rounds in that time and had seen to the death of hundreds of enemies. It was a trusted, reliable tool. "Chief!"
"What?" He replied spinning around and raising the rifle. Not that he could see much in the tall grass.
"Movement incoming on your eleven." Cortana warned. "Looks big."
"Covenant, Forerunner or wildlife?"
The question was answered a second later as a giant creature flew from the grass, sending the remains of the pod and the Chief flying. The thing was about the size of an elephant, blood red, with too many arms and legs. It vaguely resembled a cross between a big cat and a rhinoceros.
Predator. Dangerous. That was all Chief needed. He raised the rifle and fired a burst of 7.5mm at the thing – he'd name it later – and watched with disappointment as the rounds bounced off thick hide. Of course bullets wouldn't work. All it did was enrage the thing; it reared its horned head and charged. This time, Chief raised the rifle and fired a single shot, aiming for the eyes. It hit, and the thing howled and veered to the left, and out of sight, suddenly no longer interested in him as prey.
That wasn't too bad. He supposed; checking his ammo counter to see he had 21 rounds left. Then he remembered something Mendez had said about wildlife: There's always a bigger fish. And chances are, it'll want to eat you.
"Well." Cortana mused. "I guess that was our welcome to Requiem."
"I'd have preferred a party."
Cortana gave a derisive snort. "You, party?"
"Beats being shot at."
"Point."
Without bothering to clear up the destroyed pod, he wordlessly began the last half-kilometre trek towards the Dawn. While Cortana busied herself with trying to establish an ecosystem trend, Chief briefly wondered what had happened to Mendez and the other SPARTANs. Were they still alive? Fred,Linda, Will – he had no idea what had become of Doctor Halsey or Kelly after the former kidnapped her. Were they alright? Still fighting the Elites? Or had each and everyone one of them fallen to the legend and been declared MIA? He hoped not. They had been the last of the Spartans; if they were now dead, he would be all that was left. The last of his kind.
The UNSC might've made more, he supposed, but then that would mean he was now technically obsolete as well. Redundant. A museum piece. The thought appealed to him even less than the possibility of being the last SPARTAN-II.
"Fascinating." Cortana murmured, deep in thought.
"What is it?" Chief asked absentmindedly.
"I've just been studying the environment; the whole place is being artificial maintained and controlled. The Forerunners have contained an entire solar system in this Dyson sphere, and they're capable of manipulating every aspect of it, apparently. The Covenant barely scratched the surface of what the Forerunners could do."
"Good." Chief grunted. Humanity had barely pulled through the war with the Covenant, and now they were apparently at it again. If the Covenant had been any more advanced, humanity would've been extinct decades ago. Besides, all the Forerunners seemed to have done was leave a galaxy's worth of problems to a race which had never been out of the solar system until a few hundred years ago- weapons of mass destruction which killed everything except the enemy it was designed for, their technology had been discovered by an alien collective bent on wiping out their apparent inheritor race…Humanity might have been full of violence and deceit and war, but the Forerunners were far from benevolent gods.
"Always a man of few words." Cortana sighed, with a hint of irritation at Chief's lack of interest. "Y'know, when you're alone with a girl, you're meant to at least pretend you're paying attention."
"Spartans weren't really taught about the birds and the bees." John replied mildly. It was a fact; Spartans were trained to kill, not date and do civilian things. It was also a largely moot point: the augmentation processes – namely the catalytic thyroid implant to stimulate growth – stunted the sex drive.
"Not even seen the movies?"
"Nope."
"We'll find you some on the Dawn. They're always smuggling in entertainment," Then as an afterthought: "Did you know that the Unggoy have a black market in human entertainment media?"
The thought amused Chief. "They do?"
He knew Cortana would be smiling now at having engaged him. "Yeah. They trade soaps, movies, television shows…I think they like us really."
He supposed there was an element of truth to that. War was waged by those in command, but only the soldiers fought it. Quite often in human history, armies had fought out of loyality to the government, rather than hatred of the enemy. At Christmas during a year in World War One; both sides had ceased fire for the day. They put down their weapons, their guns and blades and bullets, and for one day, just one day, the workers from Britain and the workers from Germany had been friends for the day. They traded stories, food, trinkets, even played football. Then once the commanders had found out, they refused anymore ceasefires. That would never had happened in the Covenant War, Chief reflected. The Elites, Brutes and Prophets had been to hellbent on their destruction.
John couldn't help but chuckle at the thought of Marines and Grunts existing peacefully on a frozen war-torn field, playing football.
In just over half an hour, they had reached the Forward Unto Dawn. Smoke, fire billowed up from the wreckage. The outer hull had been ripped open and split down like a lobster's shell. He could see that it had also landed a few degrees off truly-upright.
"I have to say, it's surprisingly good shape." Cortana offered. Chief nodded in agreement, before beginning to descend into the smoking wreck.
Inside was as could be expected. The whole place had been flung about end over end; the contents of every secure locker, cupboard and for a lot of the ship's flooring and wall panelling had been torn out and the wiring and electronics scattered.
"Where should we check first?" Chief asked thoughtfully. There were four armouries, two vehicle bays, along with all the supply holds. He wasn't sure where to start.
"Put me into the network." Cortana ordered. "I'll take stock of what we've got. You can look around, the speaker system should still be intact."
Chief nodded in agreement and pulled out the data crystal chip and uploaded Cortana back into the network. "Okay, have a look around. I'll call you when I'm ready."
Chief left her to it and began to make his way through the broken, dead and burning ship. He contemplated where to go first. Then a small smile graced his lips and he made his way through to the crew cabins. On reaching the cabin wing, he found the roster for cabin assignments torn down and on the floor amidst a pile of broken cabling. He decided to discard his shotgun and slung his assault rifle, then picked the roster.
Pvt. James Wake – Cabin 07
Chief nodded to himself and decided to wander into the cabin wing, in searching for Cabin 7. He found it, with the automatic door open half-way. With a little help from John, it was opened all the way. Inside were the standard UNSC cabin setup. Four beds; two bunks above the other two. A pair of locks at each set of beds. He found James Wake's locker, and with great curiosity and interest, opened it. Besides the usual toiletries and clothes, there was a single framed picture.
In it were two people; a man and a woman. Lovers, most likely. The man – James – was in UNSC blues, and the woman was smiling, reaching up on her toes to plant a kiss on his cheek. They looked happy, John decided. He turned the picture over, to see writing: So you know you have something to come back to.
John tucked the picture into the cover of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and placed it carefully back into the satchel. Hopefully he'd able to return them to him some day.
His next stop was the communal showers; his last real shower had been while en route to Installation 05, over a month in active-time; and five-plus years in real time. He was able to remove his bulky armour without too much difficulty – the techs had made some upgrades to his armour while preparing for the Ark campaign – and stood in just the coveralls he wore while in armour. Then he found a working shower with hot water and turned it on; digging up an unopened bar of soap, he stripped off and had his first real shower in nearly six years.
After finally feeling like he had washed away the blood and grime and sweat of three months of near-constant warfare, he stepped out and turned the shower off. Drying off, he was even able to find a heat-razor (uses heat to crystallise the hair molecules) and shaved off most of the facial hair he had grown, leaving only a thin layer of stubble. His hair was slightly longer than the regulations allowed, but decided to leave it.
Suiting up, he turned to the next order of business: Food.
Finding a mess hall – not the one that had been home to a firefight a few hours ago – and ravaged the store cupboards and pantry. He found a mass of dehydrated MREs; picking a spaghetti one, he added water and demolished the resulting food. MREs had never been well known for their taste, but when you're running on just a few ration bars, a full MRE was the food of kinds. Swallowing the last forkful of spaghetti he smiled nodded to himself.
Now he could get to work.
Cortana watched with interest as her Spartan first ventured to the cabins, then the showers, and finally the mess. What she focused on was the latter two. Cleansing and eating.
Two things she could never do…
SPIRIT OF FIRE BASE, INSIDE REQUIEM INSTALLATION
OCTOBER 2538 / OCTOBER 2558
Captain Cutter looked around at everyone in the War Room; His Red Team – Jerome, Douglas and Alice – stood in the corner, silently observing the holo-table in the centre of the room. Ellen Anders stood next to it, examining the display with interest. "And you're sure this is where they landed?"
"Yes." Serina's voice answered from the intercom, with a trace of irritation. "I am rather good, you know."
Serina had been tracking everything that was being pulled into Requiem. About a hundred ships in all, all of which with consistent with Covenant design. A hundred Covenant ships.
And one Human.
That was what they were discussing now, the landing ( or crash ) site of the human ship, apparently a Frigate class vessel. Naturally, all were interested in locating the ship – and hopefully, its FTL Drive.
Jerome was the first to answer: "Captain, permission to lead a search party?"
Captain Cutter nodded. "Granted. Take Delta and Sigma Teams. You roll out in seven hours."
A/N: Less action, but overall was a pretty good length. There's some good moments in it. As always, read, review and give feedback.
Cheers.