Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.
Chapter 28: Old Friends
January 28, 2558
0700 hours
Installation 00, The Ark
John-117 stood in silent shock as his eyes continued to read the name over and over again.
Spirit of Fire
It had been missing nearly thirty years; everyone in the UNSC had heard the name and the theories about its mysterious disappearance. John had only remembered it because three of his siblings had been on board.
Their loss had been personal to him, as was the loss of every Spartan II. Up to that point in the Human-Covenant War, it had been the largest loss of Spartans at a single time.
No one had ever expected it to be found, but it was here, on the Ark, of all places.
If the ship had made it, maybe Red Team had survived.
Mendicant Bias watched as he hovered next to him. The Spartan didn't really react on the surface; his body was tense but unmoving as he stared down at the vessel below.
"How did they get here?" He finally said.
Mendicant tilted upward and spoke. "The Portal."
The Chief's face twisted in confusion under the gold visor. "I thought it collapsed."
"It did, but once repairs began on the generator, it activated of its own accord. Without a receiving end, the portal opened at a random point inside the galaxy."
John gave a curt nod to indicate he understood.
"How long have they been here?"
"Sixty three of your days", Mendicant answered.
John zoomed in on the Forerunner device being attached under the ship's stern. "What are you doing to it?"
"They sacrificed their primitive slipspace drive to destroy an infected Shield World, preventing the alien conglomerate you called the Covenant from gaining control of a Forerunner fleet."
Master Chief's head lowered a few degrees as the reason for their disappearance became clear. "You're attaching a Slipspace drive."
Mendicant didn't see the need to answer what the Spartan had obviously worked out for himself and began moving down towards the Spirit of Fire.
Despite his original mission to save Cortana, John knew that he could not ignore this. He sighed and activated his IFF tag before following Mendicant down into the valley.
UNSC Spirit of Fire
Same time
Captain Cutter had just finished his daily tour of the ship, a time-consuming task, but one he'd always performed. He was halfway back to the bridge when he realized he hadn't checked in with Professor Ellen Anders, the 28-year-old genius and resident expert on the Forerunners.
Ever since she'd been assigned to the Spirit, she'd had her lab set up on the ship's glass-floored observation deck. As he entered the room, Cutter found himself stepping over optical cables and other miscellaneous equipment just to get to the raven-haired woman working furiously at one of her workstations.
She was so buried in her work that she didn't notice him standing right behind her. "Professor." He said as he gently touched her on the shoulder. She gasped in surprise and gave him a look of annoyance.
"Don't do that, please." She said before turning back around. "What can I do for you, Captain?" She asked as she began typing again.
"The daily status report." He replied gruffly. "How are we doing?" He asked in a more friendly tone.
"Well...I'm still trying to work out a way to interface with the Forerunner slipspace drive the Sentinels are attaching."
"Any progress?"
She let out a sigh before nodding. "Our systems are so different. It's not easy, but Serina and I should be ready to test the new components as soon it's bolted to the structure."
"Our floating friend told the engineers it would be done in two more days." He informed her as Anders took a sip of lukewarm tea.
"How are the other repairs, Captain?" She inquired after setting the cup on her lap.
"Serina said we should be 100% in a week at most." He said as he crossed his arms.
Anders nodded weakly, she was exhausted after working thirty-six hours straight. "You need to get some sleep." He told her and removed the tea from her hands.
"I'm fine."
"I'll order you if I have to." He said flatly and set the cup aside. She gave him a weary glare before standing up and nearly falling over in the process. He steadied her, but she shrugged off his fatherly gesture.
Just as they were about to leave, Serina erupted from one of the Professor's terminals. "Captain! You're not going to believe what just appeared on sensors!"
"What is it, Serina?" He asked as he strode over to the screen the AI had activated.
"I just picked up a friendly IFF tag five clicks out, and it's not one ours."
"What?" Anders ran over to the console, now fully awake from the news.
"We should have picked up a ship," Cutter said thoughtfully as he stared at the green dot moving towards their position.
"That's the kicker, I haven't detected any ships or drop craft." She responded, "Wait, I'm receiving an ID...the encryption's newer, hold on, I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way." She said as she pressed a finger to her temple, her eyes closed in concentration. "Oh my." She said after several seconds. "Captain, it's a Spartan, Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra-117."
Cutter's jaw was set in concentration as the news sank in. "Get Red Team on the horn, tell them to meet us at Alpha Base with two Warthogs ready to roll out in ten minutes."
"Should I tell them why, Captain?" She inquired as both he and the Professor turned to leave.
"No, I'll brief them when I arrive."
Ten minutes later
Jerome-092 stood stock still as the Captain briefed them on their situation.
He told them a Spartan IFF tag had been detected nearby and was heading towards them.
Sierra-117.
John.
Of all people, it would be him to find them beyond the edge of the galaxy.
"Saddle up Spartans", Cutter said, "Looks like you'll be getting the first family reunion."
"Sir?" Jerome asked in slight confusion before nodding. "Yes, sir. Red Team, move out."
Jerome drove with Cutter sitting beside him and Alice on the chain gun, while Douglas drove Anders and a marine in the other.
Not more than a click out did Jerome's motion sensor go off with two contacts. One he could easily see from a distance as being Mendicant Bias. The other was farther back, but he too was unmistakable.
Mendicant stopped to allow John to catch up as they got closer.
Jerome and Douglas parked their Warthogs in a V-formation in front of them and everyone got out.
Master Chief stood still as Captain Cutter approached him with Jerome and Anders on either side, only when he was within arm's reach did the Chief snap off a salute.
"Captain Cutter, sir."
The three Spartans knew it was John from his unique baritone alone.
"Master Chief." The Captain greeted with a salute. "How'd you find us?"
"I didn't know you were here, sir."
"Where's your ship? We didn't detect one." Cutter inquired with an eyebrow cocked in confusion.
John didn't really know how he'd been transported here, which is why he turned his head towards Mendicant for an explanation.
"Long-Range Compressed Slipspace Teleportation." He boomed. "Only three nodes ever existed, two remain."
"I was sent here by another Forerunner AI during a classified mission. I was the only one sent through." He explained simply, not really wanting to go into the details of his mission.
Sensing the Spartan wasn't going to be more forthcoming, Cutter asked a different question, one that had been on everyone's mind since waking up.
"What about the war?"
John shifted slightly as decades of memories came flooding back. "We won, at great cost." Even the non-Spartans heard the sad undertone. "Some of the colonies survived; Earth is still rebuilding some of its major cities."
Everyone present let out sighs of relief and the tension drained from a few.
Cutter looked immensely relieved at the news but was concerned about his family who lived on Reach, as did many of the crew members on the Spirit of Fire.
"What about Reach?" He asked cautiously, but the Master Chief didn't answer right away. John looked at each of the Spartans before turning back to the Captain.
"Reach is gone, sir."
One hour later
John had debriefed the Captain as much as he could without disclosing classified information. The entire time he could see anger and guilt in the Captain's expressions. He was never formally trained to read people, but he learned a lot over the last forty years.
Afterward, Professor Anders and the ship's AI, Serina, told him about their battles with the Covenant, the Flood, and what they'd learned about the Forerunners.
He'd been impressed by this crew's courage and willingness to sacrifice; he knew from his own experiences that they had delayed the Covenant's advance, giving Humanity a second chance.
Now he was walking through the massive ship to the small section that Red Team used as their loadout bay. He passed maintenance crews and even a few Sentinels, but he otherwise ignored them as his mind drifted back to his original mission.
Cortana.
He wasn't any closer to finding her than before other than confirming what he'd suspected. That was enough to keep going, besides, Mendicant had mentioned 'possibilities' he needed to consider before John had boarded the Spirit of Fire.
When he stepped into the room, he found Jerome, Alice, and Douglas helping each other take off their armor. Without the proper equipment, it wasn't easy, even for a Spartan, to remove it alone.
He stopped just inside the doorway, his mind getting used to their young faces. None of them were physically older than 20, and John was just over forty if you discounted his time in cryo-sleep.
Alice-130 had a pale complexion, green eyes, and honey blond hair. Her face was unmarred by battle or augmentation and was the shortest of the group at 6' 5" out of armor.
Jerome-092 had hazel eyes, jet black hair, and had several scars from augmentations on his pale, freckled face. He was the same height as John at 6' 10" out of armor.
Douglas-042 was the largest of the group standing seven feet tall with closely shorn brown hair and light blue eyes. He kept his head shaven and was free of scars save one on his lower lip.
The Chief stepped forward, allowing the automatic doors to close behind him. They glanced at him briefly as they continued removing their outdated, yet pristine, Mark IVs.
As they were finishing up, John stowed the Covenant plasma carbine and set aside his Magnum as he prepared to remove his own armor. After being exposed to the sand, it was considered routine maintenance to clean out the particles.
At this point, the Red team had removed the armor, leaving only their bodysuits. They all turned to watch him as he reached up and released the pressure seal on his helmet and removed it, revealing his aged face to the young Spartans.
If it hadn't hit home before now, it certainly did for Red Team when they saw just how old John looked compared to them.
"My God..." Alice whispered, her green eyes widened slightly seeing his face. The shock only lasted a second, they'd gotten over far more shocking revelations long ago.
The three young Spartans immediately grabbed nearby tools and began helping John disassemble his worn Mark VI. Douglas and Jerome removed the breastplate and backplate while Alice concentrated on the shoulder-plates and vambraces before moving onto the COD-piece and leg armor. Finally, they released the boots holding John's feet and he stepped out of them.
"Thanks." He said to them before addressing Jerome. "Do you have any repair resin?"
"Yes, sir," Jerome responded and quickly located the tool designed to repair cracks in ODST and Spartan visors. John took it from him and began working on the spider crack on the right side of the golden visor. The rest began maintenance on their own armor to clean out the sand that accumulated in the nooks and crannies.
Just as he was done repairing the visor, he noticed Alice getting antsy, or antsy for a Spartan-II at least.
"What's on your mind, Spartan?" He asked evenly.
"Sir," her raspy voice sounded almost soft, "how many of us are left?"
He flinched at her question, barely perceivable to a normal human, but to the three Spartans watching him like a hawk, it was plain as day.
"Besides us, twelve remain active, one retired," He explained as detached as he possibly could, "Most died on Reach."
The statement shocked them, and he could tell their morale had taken a beating, but they'd recover, given time. He answered their questions about who, what, and when as best he could, but some he was unable to elaborate on due to the classified nature of the ops they'd died on.
Despite not 'looking up' any of his teammates, he had certainly inquired about them after being debriefed by UNSC brass.
The trio that made up Gray team was still off causing their usual brand of mischief, though he was assured they were 'quite alive', as was the quartet that made up Black Team.
Blue team, his team, he knew for a fact was still alive as was Naomi-010.
Maria-062 was an oddball. She'd been critically injured early in the War. During her recovery, there had been complications that led to a loss of fine motor control, a dangerous thing if you were wearing MJOLNIR armor. She'd been offered a chance to retire and she took it, reluctantly. Strangely enough, she'd gotten married and started a family after living as a civilian for several years. Later on, though, her body fully healed and her fine motor control returned, but by that time, she'd had two children. Despite that, she remained in the reserves on Earth, just in case. In fact, she'd tested the very Mark VI he now wore just hours before he donned it at Cairo station.
After he'd finished explaining, the Spartans went about grieving for their lost comrades in their own way. They wouldn't cry, nor scream about how unfair life was, no, they'd sort it out silently as they worked on their armor.
If the Chief was honest with himself, bringing up his Spartan's deaths had impacted him more than he thought, but Cortana still overshadowed them.
Why he felt that way was something he continued to debate in his mind as he set about cleaning and repairing his armor as best he could.
He'd find her, dead or alive, and bring her home. Then maybe, just maybe, he'd find peace.
Bridge
January 28, 2558
1500 hours
Captain James Cutter stood silently as he watched his men and the Sentinels moved down below. Warthogs and other vehicles moved newly built machinery to the ship. Pelicans were lifting new sections of armor plating into place while Sentinels, and other Forerunner machines, continued their modifications to his ship.
It was a distraction though, for him, to keep his mind off his of his family. Reach had fallen, a good deal of its population was killed before they could be evacuated. Even if his wife and daughter somehow survived the war, they were thirty years older than when they'd last been together.
His daughter would be in her forties and his wife would be almost eighty.
Cutter let out a frustrated sigh and took off his hat as he ran his fingers through his graying hair.
"Captain?"
Cutter replaced his hat and turned to the light blue avatar of Serina. Her name was fitting, she was almost always calm and collected.
"What is it?" He asked, his voice tired and worn out.
"The Professor and I have examined the technology used in 117's Mark VI. The reverse-engineered Covenant tech has given us some ideas about how to better interface with Keyship's Slipspace drive."
"So good news, for a change." It wasn't like him to be cynical, but their luck had been pretty rotten as of late.
Sensing his mood, Serina tried to raise his spirits.
"We'll get through this, Captain. We always do." She said reassuringly, and he turned to her, a small smile of thanks on his face.
"I hope your right, Serina."
Elsewhere on the Ark
Mendicant Bias, or rather, the shard of him that possessed the Ark systems, was busy calculating the possible reasons for Mantle's Approach's-the Didact's battleship-black box for not arriving at Requiem.
So far, the odds were stacking up in the favor of a possibility that Mendicant didn't even want to consider the consequences.
Dimensional displacement was something that even the Flood was unwilling to do, and was something that the Forerunners shunned as worse than genocide. While Mendicant did not entirely agree with the level of severity the Forerunners assigned to D-displacement, he understood full well that it was a bad idea.
If that is what had happened to the device, then there was no telling where...wait... a memory, a relatively recent one at that, was triggered by this line of thought.
Five human years ago, when the unfinished Halo was fired above the Ark, there had been an anomalous reading on sensors. The Contender-class AI struggled to reconstitute the data, he had been recovering from eons of inactivity and rampancy at the time and the data had not been properly cataloged.
Finally, he had something.
A ship, of unknown origin, had exited the portal just two hours before Halo was fired, and interacted with the human vessel, Forward Unto Dawn, while it was there. The sleek grey ship had managed to escape the Halo blast not by going through the portal, but, if his sensors were correct, through time. The chrono-metric readings were off the chart, as was the tachyon count.
Forerunners had experimented in time travel eons ago but had abandoned it as unethical and dangerous. However, their research remained, and he was able to calculate the ship's temporal destination.
February 8, 2558
0800+-2 hours
That sent his processes into shock for a cycle before Mendicant began planning a welcoming party for the intruders. Once he had answers, he'd inform the Reclaimer of his findings. Until then, this was Mendicant's concern alone.
(Five Years Earlier)
September 4, 2552
1100 hours
USS Voyager
Death and destruction surrounded her, but the woman looking down on the nuked cityscape wasn't focused on the rubble or the bent steel skeletons of skyscrapers.
Her focus was solely on the shiny metal machines marching over bleached skulls and concrete chunks.
Grey armor blended nicely with the bleak surroundings, but she kept her reflective gold visor hidden in the shadows.
A tritanium knife slid silently from its sheath, the Spartan's only weapon, as she prepared her attack on the metal monsters below.
The blade was sterner than the alloy that protected their delicate chips, but it still required immense force for it to penetrate.
Four machines, T-888s, she noted. Fast, strong, smart.
Take out the rear, use it as a metal shield, then throw it forward to knock middle two down, and finish it off by throwing the knife into its skull. Pick up Skynet plasma rifle, torch the rest.
A simple enough plan.
The woman jumped, her knife held out as the four stories separating them quickly closed. Nearly 1000 pounds of armored Spartan-III sent the knife plunging into the skull of the T-888, bisecting its neural net processor. The other three turned their weapons towards her, but she'd already positioned the dead machine between them.
Blue bolts of plasma vaporized fist-sized chunks out of her shield before she even had time to throw it forward. The two nearest Terminators went down under their comrades' weight as the tritanium blade went arcing towards the lead machine.
Several plasma bolts made her shields flare as the knife closed the distance. Anticipating the knife to penetrate the endoskull, she moved forward, reaching for its plasma rifle so she could finish off the two machines scrambling to their feet.
The knife connected but stopped in the eye. It was disoriented long enough for her to wrestle the rifle from the machine and blow its head off. However, the extra two seconds required to remove the rifle from its steel grip and kill it allowed the two behind her to put the Spartan in their sights.
Shields flared and then failed, only by diving to the side did she survive the onslaught. Rolling to a crouched position, the Spartan put down one of the Terminators before having to roll away from the other's fire.
The shield alarm screamed in her helmet, but she knew that she'd have to wait for them to recharge before she could expose herself.
Finally, the shield bar filled, and then the Spartan acted.
Ten seconds later, the machine was a smoking heap on the ground.
"That wasn't so bad." Six said to herself and kicked the dead endo with her foot.
Suddenly, the ground rumbled, and then again, and again. She noise came from behind, and when Six turned around, she knew she'd spoken too soon.
Before her was a two-legged behemoth with four large claws and what appeared to be a large plasma cannon mounted on its shoulder.
It took only a second for it to lock onto its target before it unleashed a sphere of boiling-hot death at her. She dived to the side, but the resulting explosion knocked her shields down to half.
The few shots she managed to get off before the giant machine fired again had no effect on it. Keeping her cool, she rushed forward after the next discharge, her plasma rifle concentrating on a single joint in the knee.
Despite its size, the Harvester, as she would come to know it, was quicker than she thought and was swept aside by its massive arm. Six barely recovered before the concrete behind her was flash vaporized.
Gravel pinged off her shields as she sprinted away. The machine was by no means finished with her and it fired in front of her to halt her escape. The blast wave knocked her off balance, but she managed to save herself from face planting, but by the time she regained it, the machine was on her.
It grabbed her in its titan grip, and not ever her Spartan strength could free her. It slowly began to crush her in its steel hand, her shields strained and failed, and it became harder and harder to breathe.
She grunted and struggled, but to no avail, it had her dead to rights.
As the blackness was closing in, a gruff voice echoed from below.
"Computer, freeze program."
The squeezing stopped, but she could still barely breathe.
"Having fun yet?" Derek drawled as he walked out from a nearby alley.
With her breathing still restricted, she couldn't respond, but she definitely had a few choice words for him. He'd told her this was an 'introductory' training program.
Hearing her struggle, Derek sighed. "Computer, delete the Harvester."
The metal monstrosity vanished, leaving Nobel Six hanging four stories off the ground. Fortunately for her, the holodeck safeties were engaged.
Six caught her breath as the holodeck slowed her fall to the 'floor', the entire time thinking about how the giant machine had appeared out of nowhere. Her enhanced hearing should have warned her long before it had ever gotten close.
On her way down, Derek had closed the distance between them until he was only a few feet away, his expression neutral.
"Mr. Reese." She greeted evenly.
"Noble Six." He said back, neither of their ranks mattered since they were no longer apart of their respective organizations. "What went wrong?"
She could tell he already knew and had probably orchestrated the Harvester's mysterious arrival.
"It appeared out of nowhere, I would have heard it otherwise." She responded a little tersely, not exactly pleased with the monkey wrench he'd thrown in.
He clucked his tongue as if the answer were obvious. "Transporters, Skynet has them too."
Six closed her eyes as a wave of shame flooded over her, but in all fairness, she'd tried to cram a lot of new data in her head in the last few days.
"Computer, end program." She muttered and the post Apocalyptic future, the dead machines, and the MJOLNIR armor facade she was wearing, all faded away. Since she'd been wearing nothing underneath to allow the holodeck to recreate her armor, she was completely naked. Derek blinked once, having perfected his mask long ago, tossed her a grey jumpsuit, and then turned to give her some privacy.
Six didn't really care that he was there, yet she conscious of the fact that he had taken in her nude form. A strange feeling rippled throughout her at the idea that the scruffy Resistance soldier might find her attractive.
Derek noticed the look of confusion pass lingering on her face after she finished putting the jumpsuit on. "Something bothering you?"
"No." She said quickly.
"Good, cause John wants to talk to you, he's in the mess hall." He said as they both turned to exit the holodeck.
She acknowledged with a nod and they separated in the hallway. As they did, Derek took one last look back at her over his shoulder; he quickly shook his head and walked away. He wouldn't admit it to himself, but she was his type of woman.
Mess hall
John was going through various PADDs containing tactical data about the ship Skynet had sent after them. Cortana and Seven of Nine had gotten a pretty good sensor sweep of the vessel before they'd destroyed it and now it was his job to figure out its game plan.
Over the last few days though, his mind had been elsewhere. A lot had happened after he'd passed out, Ellison had been killed during the firefight on the surface, his mother, Kyle, and Savannah had been forced to escape to the Star Trek universe since the Flyer had only been able to transport two. Then they'd come here, to the Halo Universe, Cortana's native realm.
He hadn't been happy at first when he'd been informed that they were five years into Cortana's past instead of early 2558. After she explained her reasoning, he accepted that it had been a wise decision. Even though he thought that rescuing Kalmiya, Cortana's older 'sister', and Noble Six was risking the timeline's integrity, he again accepted that Cortana knew what she was doing.
He also had to admit that he'd seen a real improvement in Allison's attitude ever since the Spartan III had been brought aboard.
Speaking of said Spartan...
She hadn't been easy to convince, but once Cortana showed her everything from Voyager's impressive technology to John Henry's endoskeleton, she'd agreed to help after making a few conditions of her own.
Ever since then, she'd been studying none stop as her body continued to heal. She'd read through basic histories about future events in the Halo universe, a basic history of the War Against the Machines, and background info on Voyager and an intro to its technology.
Now she was in the holodeck fighting terminators in a decent facsimile of the future he'd escaped.
During the last few days for him, he'd spent them in meetings with Cortana, Derek, and Seven of Nine deciding the best course of action. It was still being debated about exactly how to proceed when the major repairs were finished, which is why he was trying to figure out Skynet's next move.
Just as he was finishing a report from John Henry, Noble Six walked through the mess hall double doors.
John stood as she approached and shook her hand.
"Heard you were in the holodeck." He said as he recycled his plate in the replicator.
Her pale blue eyes blinked before she responded. "I wanted to see what we were up against."
"And?"
"I like the Covenant better." She answered in a near growl. "Nutritional supplement 15." She directed at the machine and the 'meal in a glass' formed before her eyes. She reached for it tentatively, as if it were an illusion. Six shook her head and grabbed it finally.
John held back his amusement as the hyper-lethal Spartan cautiously took a sip.
"It won't kill ya, you know," John chuckled.
"Still..." She muttered. "This didn't even exist a second ago."
"Starfleet's pretty anal about safety, I'd trust it more than something from a grocery store."
Six said nothing and downed a little more of the shake-like drink. A small frown appeared for a brief moment before taking another.
"Taste bad?" He smiled jovially.
She looked back at him with a semi-blank look on her face. "I've had worse, and if it gets the job done..." She trailed off as she moved towards the windows.
They were still on Reach just east of CASTLE base and the remnants of the Menachite Mountain it was buried under. The Covenant continued to dig for their prize deep down below, but John and the rest of the crew knew future events, the Covenant wouldn't get their hands on the Forerunner relic below.
"I'm sorry," John said after seeing the pained look on her face as she stared out at the blackened clouds and the cruisers hovering in the distance.
"Don't be, " she said without turning back to him, "This isn't your war."
"I meant I wished we could have saved some of them." John sighed as he joined her at the window. "A lot of Spartan IIs died defending the generators powering the orbital platforms if we hadn't been in such bad shape..."
"You wouldn't be here at all." She countered, knowing exactly why Cortana had brought this ship into the past. She'd had a lot of time to read in the past few days. "I learned a long time ago that you can't save everyone, even if you want to."
"Yeah, but that doesn't make it any easier," John said as the deaths of people he'd known like Charlie, Riley, and his real uncle Derek came to mind.
After a few seconds of silence, John remembered why he'd asked her to come down here in the first place.
"I bet you wondering why you're here."
Her simply turning towards him indicated that she did.
"I need you to train Allison."
Her eyebrows furrowed momentarily. "Why? She already knows how to fight Terminators."
"As a Resistance soldier, but not as a Spartan."
Six's eyes widened in surprise. "I assume she'll be augmented into a Spartan-IV?" She had no problem with it, after all, Lucy-B091 had been shorter than Allison by three inches even after augmentations.
"Yeah." He breathed. "She wants revenge, for what Skynet made her do."
Revenge was something that Six, and every other Spartan III, knew all too well. "I'll do it."
John nodded and turned away from the window. "Good, train her how to fight like you do."
"I'm not exactly a team player."
"Then I guess she'll teach you something too," John smirked before leaving her alone with her thoughts.
Deflector Control
"Can I borrow your hyper-spanner?" Cortana asked Seven of Nine, "This stubborn EPS relay won't engage."
Seven wordlessly handed the hologram the bar-shaped tool as she continued to install a new fiber-optic relay.
Cortana sighed, doing tedious work like this bored her to death, and some conversation certainly helped pass the time. Since Seven wasn't one for idle chit-chat, she decided to bounce some ideas she had about what they were going to do after leaving Reach.
"So...I've been thinking..."
"All you do is think." Seven quipped and snapped an optical bundle in place.
Cortana rolled her eyes. "As I was saying, I've been thinking about our performance during the battle against Skynet."
The former Borg stayed silent being fully aware of their lack of the aforementioned performance.
"We need a ship commander."
Seven turned, her confused eyes meeting Cortana's blue glowing orbs. "Explain."
"Think about it. We have you and Weaver down in Engineering, The Doctor in sickbay, and I go where I'm needed. John, Cameron, Allison, Derek, and Nobel Six are primarily ground troopers. John Henry's focus is Skynet, and Kalmiya was designed to be a scientist's assistant, not a military ship AI."
"Who did you have in mind." Seven exhaled, she knew where this was going.
"Well, the only person I'd trust to run this ship outside of your old crew would be Commander Miranda Keyes," Cortana explained and transferred her service record to Seven's PADD.
The blonde took a moment to scroll through her rather short, yet impressive, list of achievements. Her parentage also intrigued her since she was the daughter of Catherine Halsey and the late Captain Jacob Keyes. Being born from two talented individuals had made her exceptional and had earned her own command by the age of 25.
Seven mused that she was the Halo equivalent to Captain James T. Kirk, minus the ladies-man part of course.
"Would she join us, and how long would it take for her to become familiar with Voyager's technology and abilities?"
"If she's anything like her mother and father, not long. Plus I'll be there to guide her." Cortana explained with a self-satisfied smile. Seven raised a metal eyebrow at her confidence and continued through the Commander's file. She did a double-take when she read about Miranda's cause of death. Five Spiker rounds to the back, one slicing her her lower vertebrae.
"How do you expect to save her from this? The Doctor's known to work miracles, but this is pushing it."
"You and the Doc were working on some medical nanites based off of Borg tech when John Henry brought you here, and they were almost ready for human testing." Cortana pointed out as they got back to work.
"Perhaps, but they need to be refined further. If you think she'll be capable, then I'll talk to the Doctor."
"Thanks." Cortana smiled, "And speaking of healing the impossible, did you read my report?"
Seven froze momentarily as she continued working, Cortana's statement obviously throwing her off.
"Yes."
"And..." Cortana prompted impatiently.
"I don't like it."
The AI rolled her eyes, "I figured that, but would you do it?"
Seven met Cortana's crystal blue eyes, her features even more serious than usual. "If it means me being able to do my job, you know I will do whatever is required." Her tone was resolute, as strong as any Cortana had heard.
"Then the Doctor and I will move forward then. We'll keep you updated."
They finished their work in silence, and once Cortana had left, Seven was left with her concerns and fears.
She'd once had the Doctor possess her body, and he hadn't been the best tenant, but he'd been ignorant. Kalmiya, having been conceived from a human mind, would not be, but she also might not be inclined to leave. Sentient holograms had senses of touch, sight, and sound, but not taste and smell.
Regaining these senses might prove to be too great a temptation for Kalmiya. Seven didn't want to be a spectator in her own body, not again.
After meeting with Six, Kalmiya had given John a holo-adapter she'd designed for Cameron. He'd wasted no time in returning to his quarters and inserting Cameron's chip into the holo-adapter.
One hundred twenty seconds later, a holographic Cameron appeared.
She looked disoriented at first, but it quickly faded when her eyes met his. "John?" She rushed over to him, giving him a quick looking over to make sure he was okay. He was momentarily lost for words seeing her again, but it passed as her hands touched his face.
"You alright?" His voice was husky from the lump in his throat; her only response was to smile at him tenderly.
"I'm fine, John." She told him, even though the loss of two senses was...unpleasant. However, she had gained one she didn't have before; She was now connected to the ship and its data logs.
Her brown eyes light up and her mouth parted slightly as recent events unfolded in her mind. "A lot's happened," she finally said.
John chuckled, "That would be an understatement, Cameron." That earned a wry smile from her before she placed a small kiss on his cheek.
"You were very brave, John. You handled the situation well." John knew that coming from her, those words were worth their weight in gold. She'd meant every single one.
He felt a blush burn across his cheeks and shrugged. "I did what I had to."
"That's what makes John Connor, John Connor.", she explained as her smile grew, "You do what is required to protect those you swore to protect, even if it hurts you."
"Sounds like someone else I know." He whispered as he cupped her face and kissed her. Hologram or cyborg, he loved her all the same.
As they broke apart, John took her by the hand and led her out of the room. "Where are we going?" She asked him as he dragged her along.
"You'll see."
A few minutes later, They entered cargo bay two were the other new member was working.
"Hello." She greeted the couple with a smile.
"Kalmiya, how're the preliminaries?" His anxiousness was obvious to her and her smile widened.
"They're going well. I've decided to start with the base TX-2 endo and began working up from there." She explained as a hologram of the machine appeared between them. "I've decided to include the improvements Cortana added before it was destroyed, including the zero-point reactor, the tricorder sensor array, and the data crystal chip interface."
John acknowledged with a nod as he examined the endo itself.
"What do you think, Cameron?"
She tilted her head and moved next to him. "The basic design seems sound." She commented evenly before her gaze returned to the tall, pink hologram.
Kalmiya met Cameron's stare as she explained what she'd changed. "The malleable crystalline ceramic battle plate is great against plasma and kinetic damage, but it is worthless against phasers and disruptors."
It was obvious to John and Cameron that sending such a machine against a Star Trek up-rated Skynet would be a horrible idea.
"What about shields?" Cameron inquired.
"I've considered it, but MJOLNIR shielding will be tricky to replicate in such a small frame." She explained with a holo-diagram of the Mark VI's shield components.
John nodded along with Cameron, keeping his face stoic despite his imagination picturing Cameron getting vaporized by a disruptor wielding endo.
"If you succeed, John Henry could use the same protection," Cameron added as her head tilted thoughtfully.
Kalmiya dipped her head in a graceful nod of acknowledgment.
"What about flight abilities? Will there be enough power left over?" He questioned, a little of his worry seeping through his mask.
A small smile curled her blood-red lips. She adored John and Cameron's relationship, even though she'd only seen it through Cortana's eyes up to this point. The thought of a human willing to go to such lengths for a machine built to kill him warmed her metaphorical heart.
"Unfortunately, no, but she could be equipped with a jet pack for short-range jumps." She told him, but upon seeing a small frown brush his face she decided to tell him the advantages of removing the flying capabilities. "Doing so will allow room for the shield components and strengthen her overall structural integrity."
John understood that strength and durability were critical in a fight with Terminators, especially if it came down to hand to hand.
"Will it still have the same sensory range the TX-2 had?" Cameron asked if there was one thing this endo had to have it was that.
"Of course."
"Good." He said as he shared a smile with his girlfriend. He was imagining the look on her face when Cameron woke up in the TX-3; a pleased, yet still reserved look fitted the picture nicely.
John listened silently as Cameron and Kalmiya went over a few more minor details before their conversation moved on.
"Is the interface suitable?" Kalmiya asked the displaced cyborg.
Cameron's frowned momentarily before answering. "Yes." She said confidently, though silently John knew she was missing the two senses she'd always had.
Kalmiya saw through it but didn't comment. "I'll tell you when I've made some progress integrating the shields. I'm sure you and your companion would like to spend some time together." She said coyly, causing Cameron to blush ever so slightly.
John did the best to hide his own before taking Cameron's hand and bidding Kalmiya goodbye.
As she watched the two leave, she wondered what Cortana and John-117 would be like together. Very different for sure, but still, it was something her vast mind pondered as she got back to work.
A/N: I have no excuse for the long wait save for a lack of muse, but unlike my other story, I already know where this story is going. It's just filling in the gaps that gets tedious.
Reviews do help the writing process, drop one by to voice comments, criticism, or questions.