No! Chief!
The Didact lied to us.
If you weren't rampant you could have recognized the signs.
You should have known better.
This is your fault.
Stop! She gritted trying to maintain control. We've got to get out here.
"Chief!" She yelled in his ear.
"Get up! Please!"
He stirred.
"We have to go!"
Suddenly the Chief was awake and stood up. "What's happening?"
"The…Didact. He manipulated Infanity's signal to get us to release him. There's a portal 5 Kilometers up ahead. Grab a Ghost and I'll use your shields to increase the boost. We've got to get out of here before the interior collapses!"
Cortana drained the Chief's shields and even added what little she could from her own power matrix to give them maximum power.
This is perilous. The only way we're going to get out of here is with a lot of luck and perfect driving skills on the Chief's part.
She changed the settings on his HUD to account for changing terrain and falling rock. Then using her ability to access the suit she began to help the Chief move even faster than he normally would. It was something she only did on extreme occasions, but trying to get out of the planet's core definitely constituted as extreme.
"Cortana." From his tone the Chief was inquiring whether or not she could do anything else, but she was already doing too much as it was.
"What?" She said helplessly. "It's not like I can get out and push!"
Suddenly she saw the open portal up ahead. "There Chief!" He drove through the portal which opened to the surface.
"Woah!" Cortana exclaimed as she saw they were going to plummet over a large cliff face. Using the suit Cortana help him flip off the bike just before it crashed.
We made it.
So far.
There wasn't any time to recover. "Chief! There!" A large rumbling noise was coming from the sky which soon revealed itself to be Infinity. It's massive, Cortana thought. Instead of the ship moving like it was about to crash Infinity looked as if it was being gently pulled down to the planet's surface.
"Track it's decent," the Chief said.
"Marking," she said softly. If only we could have done more. "Impact predicted 77.8 kilometers due North." The Didact's ship rose out from the ground and shot straight for Infinity. "You know where he's headed."
"Same place we are."
After forty minutes of intense jogging through the jungle Cortana noticed the Chief was fatigued. Spartan's could go a lot longer than normal humans without sleep, but even he wasn't completely immune to his body's needs.
"Chief?"
"What is it Cortana?"
"I know you're not going to like this but…I think you need to sleep."
"I'll be fine," he grunted.
"When's the last time you actually slept? You know cryo doesn't rejuvenate your body. It just…freezes you in whatever state your body happens to be in."
He paused a long moment. "It was before the first attack on Earth."
"That's what I thought you'd say. Your body thinks it's been up for past 98 hours and all of it has been fighting or running."
"If we don't get to Infinity soon…."
"I know, Chief. But I think you'd be more effective if you rested, and something tells me this will be the last chance you'll get for a long while." He was silent. "Just sleep for one cycle and I promise I'll wake you up."
She saw his shoulders slump and Cortana knew he had relented.
"We need to find a secure location."
"Over there by that tree," Cortana suggested and put a waypoint up on this HUD.
The chief jogged over to the location and settled himself under some of the taller plants which would provide more than sufficient cover.
Cortana began to pull herself into the chip to allow John to sleep. She knew it would be difficult for his mind to relax with her pressing on every side.
"No Cortana. Stay." His offer surprised her. It felt…intimate somehow.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. We need to be ready to go at a moment's notice and you can more easily monitor our surroundings."
That wasn't completely true, but she let it go not wishing to press him further.
"Okay." Cortana slid herself back over his mind.
"Thank you."
"Of course," she whispered still surprised.
Almost immediately Cortana saw his brain patterns change as he drifted off. He had been even more tired than he had let on.
John. This would be the first time he had ever needed to sleep while she was in the suit with him and Cortana wasn't sure how to feel.
In an effort to understand human behavior better Cortana had ingested a lot of novels and music. Obviously love was a predominate theme among all of humankind's literature, but there was one particular book with one particular chapter which had always appealed to her. She recounted one of the books passages: Laying there under the tree with his head in her lap the Duke felt peaceful. More peaceful than he had in a long time. Perhaps all the problems the world would sort themselves out as he drifted off to sleep. He smiled as she ran her fingers through his hair and planted a small kiss on his brow. Her presence was soothing as the water of a cool lake and he never wished to leave.
Cortana shuttered at the similarity of her situation to that of the lovers under the tree. If only I could…no. Thinking that way would only bring her pain and despair. Instead she tried to focus on the Chief's brain patterns. She could tell he was entering REM sleep and that he was beginning to dream of something. Cortana wished she could know what the contents of his dream were, but it was impossible even for her to tell.
She wished that she could tell him what she felt, reveal the secret which she kept. But even now she dare not say it, for fear he would hear her. Instead she allowed herself to whisper, "As long as I'm here, I'll take care of you John."
He stirred slightly and sighed contently.
She wished she could bend down and kiss him.
Cortana stop. Do a perimeter scan. She did so but nothing showed up except a bird which sat perched in a nearby tree. She would wait and she would watch over her sleeping Spartan cherishing the moment for all it was worth. I may never experience this again, she thought sadly.