Cassy jolted awake and sat up quickly. She didn't know how, but she knew they had jumped into Slip Space again. Yet, it felt wrong somehow.
The ship jerked and she almost fell back.
"Omegamon? Are you still out?" Cassy brought up her Digi-Bracelet, noting her main partner, Herissmon, was now just waking up on the screen. "What's going on?"
"Cassy?" the Royal Knight's voice came from the device. "We've jumped into Slip Space, but something's gone awry. Someone brought a foreign object onto the ship and it's taken us into a different version of Slip Space."
"Different how?" she quickly glanced around, noticing the Marines closest to her listening in and quietly getting the attention of their conscious comrades.
"The space outside the ship is bright and we have three Covenant battlecruisers unsuccessfully firing at us." The ship shook at the impact of a hit. "Mostly unsuccessful."
Cassy got up, balanced herself and quickly got to the nearest terminal. "Let's see what we can-"
She tried to jump, but got an 'ACESS DENIED' message on the terminal screen along with a familiar face.
"Barely rested up and already trying to get into trouble," Cortana's voice came from the terminal, clearly not at all surprised to see Cassy trying to dive in to the ships network. "The Captain has ordered for you to not dive into the network under any circumstances unless he gives the okay."
"Seriously?! I can help out now by-"
"Absolutely not!" Both Digimon and AI said firmly.
"You nearly died yesterday, Cassandra!" Omegamon continued. "Your heart stopped just eight hours ago! Lillithmon cried when she couldn't do more to help you and Seraphimon is stressed to his breaking point."
She froze at her partner's outburst. He sounded very, very upset and his claim over two mega Digimon that didn't get along on a normal day...
"Cassy, you've helped out more than enough," Cortana said, her tone now more gentle yet still firm, like a mother asserting a boundary with their child. "Now let us handle things. If a situation comes up where you are needed, then you'll get to do what you do best."
"What I do best? Dive into a network and get wrecked in the process you mean?"
"Hopefully it'll be you and Herissmon doing the wrecking. Now-"
Cassy felt her arm jerk forward and she nearly slammed into the terminal. She tried to pull back, noticed her device glowing and a blue digital portal begin to open up above the console as she was being pulled toward it.
"What the hell?!" a Marine said.
"I could use a little help over here!" She called, panicked and not wanting to have a repeat of her grand entrance onto the Pillar of Autumn. She heard a scramble of boots and three pairs of arms were wrapped around her, pulling her back away from the portal. Another Marine came up and tried to unlatch her device.
"I can't get it off!" He said as the orange light from her device solidified into a barrier around the wristband. Cassy shrieked in pain as a massive tug from the growing portal dragged them closer. The Marine that tried to remove the device gripped her wrist and pulled back in an effort to keep her arm intact.
"Come on!" another Marine shouted out as more soldiers able to get on their feet scrambled to help.
"Hang on, Cassy!" Omegamon called out.
"Hurry, Omegamon!" Cortana said over the cacophony of shouts. The Marine's managed to pull her back slowly and with tremendous effort. Then whatever was pulling her suddenly let go, causing the group to topple backwards just as a new body flew out of the portal and land with a heavy thud onto the metal floor. The light coming from her device exploded outwards, sending a digital shockwave throughout the ship and slamming them back into real space.
Captain Keyes picked himself up off the floor and took stock of the bridge crew. Thankfully, no one was injured severely and they were back in familiar, normal space after an odd sun-like symbol flashed on all screens.
"Report," he called out. "And what was that symbol?"
"Cassandra was nearly dragged out of the ship by an unknown entity," Cortana reported as the officers checked all systems. "Once Omegamon cut off whatever was pulling her, her device sent out a digital shockwave and forced us back into normal space. That symbol was the crest she found in the Halo's network."
"Sir, no signs of enemy ships in this star system," Ensign Lovell reported.
"We're in the Epsilon Eridanus system, sir." Lieutenant Hal likewise reported before he could ask where they dropped out. Engineering also reported some damage to the Truth-Gettysburg that would take time to repair properly, but the ships were intact.
"Captain, there's something else," Cortana continued and gave him the full details of what went down in the medical bay. "A body got tossed into the medical bay, and the person is a Spartan."