Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Chapter 40
The Showdown Part III
CAS Assault Carrier Shadow of Intent
March 3, 2558
Things had not gone according to plan.
Repairing the slipspace drive hadn't proved difficult for the Didact and the Huragok, but the ship continued to have problems.
One of the main fuel tanks ruptured barely a day after they got underway, causing a massive loss in deuterium fuel. Because of this they were forced to alter course to the nearest Sangheili colony in order to refuel.
Unfortunately, the colony did not have enough for a ship as big as the Intent. They bought what they could and diverted to another colony that could refuel them enough to make the journey to Requiem.
The place also happened to have plenty of volunteer's willing to sign on. There had been no shortage once they heard about Sanghelios' fate. It also helped that there was a living Forerunner on board to act as sort of a poster boy.
This also meant that they needed to spend even more time resupplying. On the upside, it gave the Didact and the Huragok plenty of time to conduct repairs with ship's Sangheili engineers.
Even though it could be done faster at a Forerunner installation, there weren't any nearby. This part of space had been void of any meaningful Forerunner installations for millions of years.
Still, the Didact found the delay intolerable. Skynet was roaming the galaxy with a good chunk of his knowledge and a warship capable of taking down any non Forerunner fleet. Unlike him the deranged AI was making progress.
As they neared Requiem, they were unsure about what they would find. Had Skynet beaten them to the punch because of their delays or had it set out for another target?
What about the rumors of the human flagship and the Covenant Remnant fighting for control of the planet? How would they react?
It was something the Didact and the Arbiter discussed at length, but could not settle on a single course of action given any set of circumstances.
The Forerunner still did not like humans, and there was no changing that.
The Arbiter wasn't particularly fond of them either but he did not hate them like the Didact did.
Whatever lay at the end of their month-long journey, everyone on board was ready for a change of scenery and a chance at revenge.
The Half-Jaw, or Shipmaster R'tas Vadum, was especially eager for a shot at the AI. He was still reeling from the loss their home world and having to deal with the constant delays didn't help his demeanor.
"Time to arrival?" the white armored Elite growled.
The navigator replied, "Two minutes."
He growled again before leaning back in his command chair.
The Arbiter and the Didact were standing on either side of him; both were still and silent as they waited for the ship to emerge from slipspace. The two minutes passed slowly, but they were soon hearing the alarm warning the crew that the ship was about to exit from slipspace.
R'tas grumbled at the rumbling beneath his feet as the ship transitioned to real space; the rough transition was another reminder of his ship's disrepair.
Such thoughts were banished when the collision alarm erupted over the previous one. The entire bridge glowed red as the emergency anti-collision protocols kicked in.
"Report!" he barked as the ship lurched hard to the left and pushed them harder into their seats.
"Shipmaster, there's a human ship, high tonnage, just off our starboard bow!"
"They're firing emergency thrusters!"
"Display!" the Half-Jaw ordered as the Arbiter grabbed the command chair for support. They were at three times normal gravity as the ship desperately tried to avoid the other.
When the image materialized, it immediately identified what ship they were trying to avoid.
It was the Infinity; the rumors had been true after all.
"It's the human flagship!" one of the lieutenants cried as they slid by at an uncomfortably close distance.
"All stop!" R'tas shouted once it was clear that they would not collide with their slightly larger counterpart.
It took several seconds, but the navigator announced "All stop!" once the Intent had come to a halt.
Just as alarms shut off, the communication's officer alerted R'tas that the Infinity was hailing.
The white armored Elite turned to the Didact, but the Forerunner was already backing into the shadows. He knew the humans would react poorly to his presence.
The Arbiter addressed his old friend when he turned to him next, "I'll deal with the humans."
The Shipmaster looked relieved. He did not car for inter-species politics.
After R'tas had settled back in his command chair, the Arbiter signaled to the comm officer to accept the communication.
Captain Lasky's face appeared on one of the large holo-screens. He'd never met the man before, but was familiar with his service record.
"Arbiter? What brings you out here?" the man's voice was anything but calm. In fact, he looked like a man who was having a rather trying day.
"We were looking for a place of refuge. As you can see, our vessel has taken considerable damage."
Lasky looked off camera for a few seconds before replying. "I've heard rumors something happened on Sanghelios. Looks like you put up a hell of a fight."
Most humans would be hard pressed to tell, but the way Lasky said it made the battle sound like a minor skirmish compared to the slaughter it was. Such a reminder made his head droop in sadness and shame.
"Our home planet is…dead." His voice trailed off into a pained whisper.
Silence overtook them as Lasky processed the implication. Horror slowly came over the man's face before he finally found the words to reply.
"Dead?" he questioned, but quickly remembered that the Arbiter wasn't one to exaggerate. "Who's responsible?"
"An enemy we've never faced before. One who would see all our worlds turned to lifeless husks."
A grim look took over the human's face, "All of us? It's a general threat?"
"One only eclipsed by the Flood, but advanced and deadly none-the-less. Captain Lasky, we must continue this conversation in private. There is much to discuss."
The captain conversed with someone off camera for a moment before returning his attention to the Arbiter. "It'll have to be on the Infinity, Arbiter. The situation on the ground is too volatile for me to leave."
It wasn't ideal, but it was to be expected. He couldn't just ask him to drop everything because of him. He had his men and his mission to contend with.
"We'll join you shortly, Captain Lasky. Arbiter out."
After the feed cut, the Didact came out of the shadows. "I must get to Requiem, quickly. If the humans are putting pressure on my troops, my Hand has orders to destroy the planet to keep it out of their hands."
"If you take control of them, what will you do?"
The Forerunner answered, "Stop the fighting and secure the planet. The rest is up to you."
In other words, he'd wipe the humans out if the Arbiter couldn't get them to cooperate.
He didn't want any more complications mixed into an already complicated war.
"You cannot leave. We aren't close enough to the planet for your transport grid to reach you."
Annoyed at being lectured on things he knew infinitely more about he responded, "I am well aware."
Sensing the Forerunner's ire, the Arbiter ended conversation and let Promethean go his own way.
Instead he worried about the meeting with Lasky and how he was going to convince him to let them through to Requiem. They were in no position to oppose the Infinity.
After gathering a few of his men he went to the hanger bay where Mahkee 'Chava was waiting for them.
The journey was short since the ships were still close to one another.
Lasky arrived just as they were landing in the designated landing bay. A few of the newer Spartans were with him.
The Arbiter wasted no time exiting the Phantom with the men he'd taken along. The three Elites stayed with the drop-ship while the Arbiter approached Lasky alone.
"Walk with me." The Captain said before turning heel.
"I know you are occupied with 'Mdama's forces, Captain." He responded as they left the hanger bay.
Lasky sighed, "I wish it was just that." He said as they neared one of the conference rooms. The two entered, alone.
The door was locked behind them so the room would sealed to keep their conversation private.
Lasky waited patiently for the Arbiter to begin as the Sangheili set down a small sphere on the table. It was some sort of holographic projection device.
"Our home world was attacked without warning or provocation by an enemy we'd never heard of." He explained as the projector turned on. It displayed multiple recordings from different points of view. Each showed the exact same thing: the swift destruction of the vessel from which the footage was recorded.
Lasky was flabbergasted at the decimation of the Sangheili home fleet.
As the footage played, he caught glimpses of the attacking vessel. It was hard to make due to it's dark color, but every once in a while the sun would shine on it and reveal its terrifying shape.
The ghastly green glow of its engines only added to its foreboding aura.
When the Arbiter cut the feed, Lasky immediately asked, "How'd you get away?"
"Despite it's advanced weaponry, its slipspace drive is primitive. We out ran it once we realized our advantage."
The Captain of the Infinity rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "You said 'it'? You have no idea who they are?"
"On the contrary, we know exactly who they are." the Sangheili told him as he manipulated the projection. Finally he brought up footage of the battle he'd fought on the surface.
Lasky's eyes grew wide at the sight of metal men going toe to toe with the much larger Sangheili. While these didn't seem as advanced as their starship, their appearance and movement struck Lasky as familiar.
"Roland, bring up the footage from the attack earlier."
The AI's orange avatar appeared on the table, "I assume you mean our robotic friend during the Promethean attack?"
"Yes, that one."
Roland snapped his fingers, and the footage displayed on the large view screen at the head of the table. From there they both watched as the dark grey machine tore its way through the Prometheans and finally into the Infinity's bridge.
Lasky cut the footage off there, "We only encountered this one. It didn't kill any of our people, only kidnapping one of our scientists."
"This one appears more advanced than the ones we battled, and more intelligent."
Lasky nodded in agreement, "Where's their ship then?"
"A good question, but another would be whether you've encountered any other...anomalies?"
Roland weighed in at this point, since he hadn't been asked to leave. "Well, Commander Palmer did report seeing the Master Chief and Blue Team with both Doctor Halsey and our machine friend."
"Roland..."
"Sorry, sir, but we need more information. One of our outposts just recorded a Covenant battle cruiser being destroyed by an unidentified ship, and Commander Palmer still isn't answer her comms!"
Lasky sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he attempted to shove aside any personal feelings on the matter.
The Arbiter's reaction was quite the opposite, "The Spartan is working with it?! Why?"
"I don't know. The Master Chief has been MIA for months, his former teammates tried to find him and went missing as well."
The Sangheili scrutinized the Captain for any sign of lying, but found none. The man was as lost as he was. "Then it seems there is more going on than I imagined, but one thing is clear: we must stop fighting one another if we are to defeat this menace."
Lasky understood what he meant, "How do you propose we do that? 'Mdama doesn't exactly like either of us."
At that, the Arbiter grew trepidatious. Selling this next part wouldn't be easy. "Captain Lasky, were we not once enemies?"
The Captain's face took on a grimmer look, "Yeah, I lost a lot of friends to the Fleet of Particular Justice."
"And The Spartan lost most of his brethren on Reach; whose fall I orchestrated."
He began to catch on, "He worked with you to defeat Truth and the Flood, despite what happened."
"You will have to work with others who have opposed you. Jul 'Mdama is just one of them," the Arbiter explained, "Captain, what do you know of the multi-verse theory?"
Lasky quirked his eyebrows, "It's something about there being multiple parallel realities, other universes that coexist with our own."
"Realities that may or may not be similar to our own." Roland added offhandedly.
"Your construct is right. The enemy is an artificial consciousness who controls the metal men you saw in the recording."
"An AI enemy? From another universe? Where'd you gather that intel?" Lasky inquired with his arms crossed.
This was it, this is what the Arbiter had been trying to ease Lasky into.
"Someone from our universe was transported to the one from which the construct came. It possessed their mind with nanotechnology and learned about ours. The construct has a deep hatred of organic lifeforms. It will stop at nothing to wipe us out."
Lasky suddenly understood, "So that someone gave you the intel?"
"Precisely."
The man sighed as the Arbiter continued to drag the conversation out. "What's your point, Arbiter? What are you leading up to?"
"An alliance, between all of us, no matter our past interactions. That's what it's going to take, Captain Lasky."
Lasky's eyes narrowed, "What are you afraid to tell me?"
"Not afraid. I am simply trying to explain how dire the situation is before I tell you whom the construct got a hold of. If I didn't you might not be so reasonable."
"We're also in middle of our own crisis, Arbiter." It was spoken with as little exasperation as possible, but anyone could tell he was anxious to get it over with.
The Arbiter didn't have a chance to respond before they were interrupted by Roland once again, "Uh, Captain? There's something approaching from Shadow of Intent."
Lasky and the Arbiter both turned to him, "How big is it?" the Sangheili asked.
"Small, and definitely Forerunner in origin," the AI informed as he displayed a hologram of the two ships and a small red dot going from the Intent to Infinity.
The Arbiter growled, "My informant has grown impatient, Captain." He said before suddenly exiting the room. Lasky followed. Neither saw the slightly horrified look on Roland's face when he got a good visual on what was approaching.
Being so close to the landing bay, the AI didn't have enough time to warn the Captain.
When they entered the bay, troops were already scrambling to intercept the bogey. It went right through the containment shield and landed on the ground.
The bay was large enough that it took almost 30 seconds for Lasky to even see what had boarded his ship. So far neither it nor his men had made an aggressive moves.
When Lasky finally got a good look, he stopped in his tracks.
Very few people knew the truth about the attack on Earth six months ago. The official report was that it was a Covenant attack using a Forerunner vessel, only Captains and above knew the real story.
That's why his men weren't firing, they didn't know the truth.
It was the Didact.
The Arbiter acted on Lasky's silence before the man started spouting orders he might later regret. "When the Spartan pushed him into slipspace, he was caught in a rare spacial event that sent him into the path of Skynet. That is how it got here."
Lasky was incredulous, "And he told it how to get here?"
Suddenly the Didact was much closer than before. "Not willingly."
His voice was so low Lasky could feel it in his breast bone.
The massive Forerunner, in an attempt to appear less intimidating, knelt down on one knee as his mask slide back from his face.
"Your persistence on Requiem will not succeed, Captain Thomas Lasky. My Hand will destroy the planet should he deem it necessary."
Lasky swallowed hard, "And?" He honestly didn't know what else to say. Bad guy or not, the Didact was a sight to behold.
The Forerunner regarded him with surprise, "Do you want the technology you humans came to 'reclaim' lost?"
Seeing that Lasky had a million things running through his mind, the Arbiter cut to the chase, "There is technology that we could use against the machines. Especially if it begins gathering its own relics."
"What do you want from me?" the man asked as he began to regain his composure.
"To retreat, human. While I regain control of the Prometheans and the others."
Lasky got the distinct impression he was being talked down to, and while he didn't have a solid basis for retreat, the last thing he wanted to do was pick a fight with the Didact and the Arbiter while still dealing with Mdama.
"Fine. I'll recall my people. Just make sure they have safe passage." He said pointedly as the Forerunner rose to his full height.
Turning to the Arbiter as the Forerunner left the hanger, Lasky said, "I hope you're sure about him. Otherwise we're going to have our hands full."
"Captain, it is only a matter of time before Skynet starts adding humans to our list of casualties. Only then will you understand what it means to 'have your hands full'."
With that, the Sangheili headed for his Phantom.
Lasky didn't watch him leave, instead he immediately ordered an immediate evacuation of the planet. Not so much because the Didact said so, but because things kept escalating. It was best not having to worry about science teams on the ground with so many complications being thrown in the works.
Nearing the tram that would take him back to the bridge, Lasky breathed deeply through his nose trying to relieve some of the stress, but it didn't work.
The Didact had complicated an already testy situation. Anything could happen now, and that only stressed the Captain further. A whole new war seemed to be on the horizon, and all he had were former enemies to help him.
It be a miracle if he and Infinity would make it through in once piece.
Voyager
15 minutes earlier...
Now that everyone was back on board, everyone was on edge. Not only had they just spooked the Covenant they'd also revealed themselves to the UNSC at large. Then there was the issue of Tom, Lucy, and Franklin Mendez and the revelation that Skynet's invasion had begun.
Having the Master Chief down didn't make Miranda Keyes feel any better about the situation.
She was still on an adrenaline high after destroying the Remnant's CCS-class battle cruiser. It had been so easy with this ship, John Henry's mastery of it's systems, and her experience fighting Covenant vessels.
They'd caught it with its shields at half power and its weapons uncharged. They used only phasers since they were in atmo, but with the tweaks they'd made to them coupled with Voyager's unusually high power output, it was a knife through hot butter.
Essentially they'd gutted the thing and let it's bleeding plasma conduits finish it off.
There'd be a smirk on her face if it wasn't for all the complications they now faced.
At least they'd gotten the Janus Key. Her mother had been immediately escorted to the bridge by Kelly before the Spartan went to her guard post. Since the ship was so undermanned, it was prudent to have Spartan's spread throughout the ship should the automated defenses go offline.
Everyone was going to their posts while her mother began her preliminary study of the Janus Key in her ready room.
Allison and John's arrival on the bridge also signified the return of Kalmiya.
After slotting her chip into the nearest port, she rejoined with Voyager's systems and took some of the strain off of John Henry.
Turning toward Connor, Commander Keyes asked for his report.
"Skynet attacked the Trevelyan Dyson Sphere; caught everyone off guard. Everything was over in a matter of minutes. Skynet's been upgrading too." He said as he handed her the ruined endoskull. "The Doctor's fixing up the Spartans and Mendez, and the Huragok..."
Miranda turned to see the floating creature examining everything in sight, but politely not touching anything as he'd been told.
"Any chance we could recruit them?"
"We should especially with Blue Team's letter of recommendation." Then he play tapped Allison on the elbow, "Maybe Mendez will whip you into shape, Allie."
"Real funny, Connor."
Miranda smirked at the jab, and then issued new orders. "Allison, take this to Halsey and explain what happened. Connor, take our floating friend down to sickbay. Maybe he can be of some help when the Aero arrives."
Connor heard about the Chief over the comms, and it made him worry about Cortana. He left immediately.
Keyes sat back down as Allison delivered the endoskull to Halsey. Instead of staying secluded, however, her mother actually joined her after being handed the package.
"So it's begun?" The question was aimed at both Allison and Miranda.
"It appears that way."
John Henry, who liked to listen rather than participate, spoke his mind, "It would seem Skynet is doing exactly what we predicted it to do, and now we know where he is."
Allison tensed up at the thought of revenge against Skynet, but said nothing.
The endo-bound AI took the skull from Halsey and gave it a cursory glance before handing it back. "Perhaps later we can dissect the remains with Kalmiya and Cortana."
Despite herself, she looked forward to studying both the machine's remains and the AI in front of her. Today was great day to be a research scientist.
While John Henry got back to work, the Aero finished docking with Voyager before the entire ship re-cloaked itself.
Allison stood back while Miranda broke the news about the Chief to Halsey.
"The Chief was injured during the extraction," she said, causing minor alarm to appear in her mother's eyes, "but he should be fine. The Doctor was able to save both me and Kelly."
Halsey did her best to hide her concern, "And you want me to stay out of the way."
"Until you and the Doctor work something out. He's more than qualified to work on augmented humans."
Still fighting back a grimace, and still not wanting to cause trouble, she relented.
Putting a hand on her shoulder, Miranda tried to motivate her mother in another direction. "Find us what we need, Mom. Then we can all go home."
Halsey sighed, "What home? I'm a war criminal, Miranda."
"We're all breaking laws to be here, but it's the only way."
"So it seems. You've gathered the best, and that's what it's going to take." She said before leaving her daughter to do her job.
With Allison beside her, Miranda took her seat in the captain's chair as Voyager made its escape from Requiem.
Elsewhere in the ship, John Connor was running to sickbay. Getting to know Cortana over the past couple of months had shown him that she could be as unpredictable as Cameron when it came to the person she cared about most.
Walking into sickbay led to a momentary flashback to his time in the Resistance, but it faded quickly as his more methodical side kicked in. The Doctor had just finished stripping the Chief's body suit off of his upper body, revealing blackened flesh from his waist line up to his breast. Multiple life support modules had been attached to his body to keep his brain alive while the Doctor began his work. Mendez had already had his anti-radiation treatment administered by the Doctor and was helping and injured Lucy strip the armor off of the still deceased Tom-B292.
Kalmiya was also assisting the Doctor, but Cortana was just standing to the side like a statue holding remnants of the Chief's armor. She was clearly in shock and struggling to overcome the crippling fear she felt for her companion.
Connor had been one of the few to notice the changes in Cortana behavior. He suspected that such a radical, self-induced change in an AI's processing architecture to ward off rampancy had come at a cost. It seemed her emotions were no longer as manageable as they'd once been.
Now, instead of simply being able to shut them off when she needed to, like Data from Star Trek, she was stuck with them full time.
Before attempting to get their most powerful AI back in the game, he turned to the Huragok, Prone to Drift, "Why don't you go help them, and I'll help her."
The Engineer looked around and spotted medical devices nearby. Figuring them out would be child's play for him. He floated over to his companions without another word.
With that taken care of, Connor turned his attention back to the shell shocked AI.
"Cortana," he said, but she didn't react.
Kalmiya briefly glanced at him and shook her head. Apparently she'd already tried.
Not one to give up, Connor took a different approach. He took the armor pieces out of her hands and set them aside. Now looking down at the armor, Connor gently turned her holographic head towards him.
She blinked as his green eyes pierced her own. Now that he was obscuring her view of the Chief, she became slightly more cognizant.
"Focus, Cortana!" he hissed with his hands planted firmly on her shoulders.
Finally, he got a reaction. The blank look of shock on her face dissolved into a painful one, "Help me." she whispered through the turmoil that consumed her.
Connor acted immediately. "Come with me." he said and walked over to where her chip had been plugged in.
She didn't want to leave the Chief's side, but she knew in her current state she was only a hindrance. It was hard to be pragmatic and logical when all you could think about is the fear and worry flooding your system, but Connor seemed to have a magic touch with AIs.
Lethargically she gathered and compressed herself back into her DCC just before Connor pulled it from the wall. Normally she'd already be there, but focusing through the torrent of emotions was a monumental task.
Removed from the sensors of Voyager, Cortana closed herself off from the world; even the sensors on the chip were shut down.
Connor left as soon as he pulled the chip, but he ran into Six and a horde of Spartan IVs just outside sickbay.
His eyes were drawn to Cameron's endoskull. Six didn't hesitate in handing her to him.
"How's he doing?" Six tossed her head at the door trying to be as apathetic about it as possible, but Connor wasn't buying the act.
He didn't know why she was trying to hide her concern, or even why she was greatly concerned at all. Connor didn't know about her relation to the Chief, and as such, let it drop as irrelevant.
"About as well as you'd expect. Seen worse though."
That seemed to be enough for her. "Good."
Connor then looked at the SIVs, "What about them?"
Sarah Palmer stepped out from behind Six, "Yeah, what about us?" she demanded.
Not wanting to deal with another complication he held back a sigh and said, "We'll take you back to Infinity as soon as we can."
"Not good enough," Palmer replied, putting Six on edge for a possible attack from the white-clad Spartan.
Now Connor did sigh, "Come with me, all of you. Six, see if you can help the Doctor while I...entertain our guests."
She didn't take orders from Connor, but there was no reason to argue. "Sure you can handle 'em, Connor?" She said as the sickbay doors opened for her.
Connor shrugged, "Isn't that what the internal defenses are for?"
"...Right"
With that, John Connor led the Spartans to Cargo Bay Two where Cameron's spare parts were kept. Everyone stayed silent except for the S-IVs; whom elected to talk amongst themselves over the comm.
Connor could tell by the way their heads bobbed and the hand motions they made.
Once inside the cavernous room Connor set Cameron's endoskull on the main worktable. Electing to keep choice words about Cameron's recklessness to himself, he turned to Palmer as Cameron remotely assembled a new body from the parts stored in containers around the room.
All of them watched as holographic arms rapidly put together an exact copy of the machine they'd seen earlier. When it was done, Connor extracted Cameron's chip from the old one.
"That's what makes them tick?" Palmer nodded her chin towards the delicate bit of superconductive material in his hands.
He wrapped his gloved hand protectively around it. "Yeah, the only irreplaceable part" he told them as he moved to insert Cameron's chip.
Sarah Palmer caught his arm before he could.
Knowing better than to fight her grip, Connor simply stared her down before gesturing to the glowing strips on the ceiling. "Remember what I said about internal defenses."
She woman let his arm go, but not for that reason. "Look, I don't know you, or what this is all about, but I do know that she's dangerous."
Connor couldn't help the smirk that painted his face. "You think I don't know that, Palmer?"
She wasn't completely surprised that he knew her name, but like the rest of recent events, nothing about it made sense.
"I know you have questions, and while I may have answers, I doubt you'll listen to me," He explained as he pulled Cortana's chip out of his pocket, "but maybe you'll listen to her."
A somber Cortana appeared on the chip's surface. Her eyes lingered on the floor before raising them to meet the helmeted faces of the S-IVs.
Except for Thorne, who'd left his helmet on Infinity. He was the first to say something.
"You look...familiar."
Cortana couldn't help but smile softly, but didn't allude to her connection with Halsey. If he was smart he'd figure it out for himself.
"We've never met, Spartan Thorne, but you..." she turned to the white clad woman, "have many questions."
Palmer crossed her arms, "You're supposed to be dead."
"Forerunner tech and luck saw to my survival, Commander. The rest is a long story we have no time for" she explained while ignoring the annoyed look the woman shot her. "We were planning on meeting with Captain Lasky once our mission was complete, but now that you've tagged along and we've stirred up the proverbial nest, we're going to have to speed up the timeline."
"Then lets get on with it," she warned.
Cortana was about to answer, when suddenly she gasped in surprise, followed quickly by the red alert klaxon.
Connor used the distraction to slot Cameron's chip into her new body. Palmer only noticed after the protective plates slid in place.
"Slipspace rupture, just off Infinity's port side." Cortana warned them, prompting Connor to immediately insert Cortana's DCC into the nearest slot. He hoped she could keep herself focused for the time being.
Ignoring Connor's actions, Palmer and the rest of the IVs became concerned at her words. "What's going on? What's happening?!"
Suddenly, a full sized Cortana appeared before them, startling the IVs enough to make them flinch.
Ignoring their reaction, she turned to Connor. "Bridge, hurry!."
As her avatar faded away, Cameron's boot cycle completed. Her body's accent lighting flickered on as the shield systems came online. Her purple eyes shown brightly as her mind assembled itself once more.
Sparing a brief glance at the Spartans, she looked at John who tossed his head at the door. "No rest for the weary," he said as he motioned for the IVs to follow him out the door.
Once in the corridor, Cameron deemed one of her trademark quips an acceptable response, "I don't sleep."
Slipping his helmet on, he snorted a laugh, leaving the others behind him bewildered at their banter.
They followed the duo to the bridge as the ship stayed at red alert. It was strange for them to see a ship manned by so few. The hallways were empty and quiet save for the klaxon.
They would not all fit on the turbolift to the bridge, so Connor elected to remain behind with fire team Majestic.
Feeling concern at leaving John with five Spartan IVs, she said "Are you sure?"
"I can handle 'em, Cameron," he smiled before joining fire team Majestic.
As the turbo-lift doors closed, Cameron turned to Palmer, "If anything happens to him..."
"They have their orders," Palmer ground out as the lift began moving.
The cold look Cameron gave her could freeze a plasma grenade.
If it wasn't clear to the Spartan before that Cameron and John were more than comrades, it was now.
Palmer didn't have time to dwell on it as their journey to bridge was short. The doors slid open, and the duo exited the lift into a chaotic scene as Miranda and Cortana quickly bounced ideas off each other as to what was going on.
Looking at the view screen, both Cameron and Palmer could see a damaged Covenant ship had appeared just off Infinity's port side.
Palmer, after a brief moment of panic, realized that the ship wasn't Mdama's. It wasn't firing or launching fighters at Infinity, and her ship wasn't firing back either.
Cameron seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, "Why are the Sword's of Sanghelios here?" she interrupted, causing Cortana and Miranda to turn their attention to them.
"We don't know," Miranda answered, "but they're communicating with Infinity."
Cameron tilted her head, "Can we listen in?"
The woman shook her head, "Not any time soon. They're using an encryption protocol we're not familiar with. Probably one used specifically for inter-species communications."
John Henry seemed to be off in his own world as he stared out of the view screen blankly. In reality his processes were working overtime calculating and pondering on the reasons for the ship's arrival and damaged state.
He didn't like any of the ones topping his list, especially since learning about Skynet's attack at the Dyson's sphere. What else had his brother been up to?
Palmer, meanwhile, had finally figured out who Miranda was. "What is this? The ship of the dead?" her eyes bounced back and forth between Cortana and Keyes both of whom offered a quirked lip at her statement.
"Something like that," Cortana smirked before turning her attention back to the situation at hand, "From what I can tell, that's the Sangheili flagship, the Shadow of Intent."
Sarah's eyes narrowed in on the hastily patched areas on hull, "And the battle damage? Those look like missile impacts."
Cortana brought up sensor data overlaid on pictures of destroyed Klingon Birds of Prey, "That's because they are, and according to the data Seven provided, they match the records taken by the Enterprise-E after the Klingons battled the Narada."
Cameron's eyes widened at the revelation, "Then we must contact them. If they've had contact with Skynet, we need to find out what they know."
At her limit, Palmer tore her helmet off in frustration. She couldn't make heads or tails of what was going on, but it was clear at this point she wasn't getting answers anytime soon. Instead she tried to steer things in a more favorable direction for her and fire team Majestic. "I could contact Captain Lasky; I'm sure we could work something out," she said as offhandedly as possible, but she was fooling no one.
"Not yet," Miranda said, "We need to get our bearings first."
Palmer started to protest, but Cameron interrupted, "You've seen what we're capable of; the technology we possess. You know that ONI would do anything to get it hands on it."
Her eyes twitched, but she didn't argue. She'd often viewed ONI as a necessary evil, but it definitely didn't want it to become more powerful than it already was. ONI having something like the transporter, exclusively to them, could turn into a nightmare.
"Fine, what's the plan, Commander?"
Ignoring Palmer's quip, she turned to Cortana, "Any sign of ONI prowlers?"
The blue hologram turned towards the view screen as she played with the sensors trying to see if there were any nearby.
Prowlers were extremely good stealth ships by nature, but this version of Humanity was still playing catch up with the rest of the galaxy in terms of technology. Since they'd been isolated from any alien technology up until 30 years previous, all their advances had been of their own volition, and thus, limited.
Factions of the Star Trek universe were the exact opposite. Voyager itself was a hodge-poge of alien technologies, both from the Alpha and Delta quadrants with some Halo inspired improvements to top it all off.
Needless to say, Cortana was confident she could find any prowler, and that they couldn't find them.
The only issue was that ONI had likely begun integrating Forerunner and Covenant tech into their more advanced ships, and she wouldn't be surprised if one such ship was shadowing Infinity.
"Gotcha." A smile spread across her face as she outlined the cloaked ship 20,000 km away.
Miranda frowned, "That's a little big for prowler, don't you think?"
"Well..." she frowned, "We're a little out of date when it comes to the UNSC, and I wasn't in any shape to update myself on the galaxy's happenings in my rampant state."
Palmer remembered how unstable she'd been. That moment between the Chief and Del Rio was one she'd never forget.
Suddenly the ready room doors slid open, revealing Dr. Halsey. Feeling the bile rise in her throat, Palmer nearly forgot the machine next to her, and Cameron reminded her by clamping a hand on her shoulder.
Growling underneath her breath, she relented while the good doctor ignored her.
"That's a heavy prowler, Sahara-class," Halsey stated matter-of-factly, "I'm surprised you don't recognize it."
Cortana rolled her eyes, "Are all heavy prowlers modified six ways to Sunday with Forerunner tech?! I doubt it, unless..."
Halsey beat her to the punch, "There are few ships in the fleet outfitted like that. There aren't many people adept at integrating Forerunner technology into our current designs."
"You mean you," Palmer snorted.
Halsey glanced at woman, "Not just me..." she trailed off while tapping away at her tablet, which she'd already begun integrating into Voyager's PADD data network. She quickly swiped through the sensor logs as Kalmiya remotely translated Voyager's sensor data into UNSC scientific standards. "As I figured," she said while sending her findings to Cortana, who immediately pulled them up on the view screen, "Huragok."
Since it was extremely rare for a human ship to have Huragok aboard them, it was easy to deduce which prowler this was.
"The Port Stanley," John Henry answered the obvious question, "Admiral Osman's previous command before becoming CNCONI."
"Indeed," Halsey deadpanned, she didn't like to dwell on Osman anymore than she did her predecessor, Admiral Parangosky.
Palmer resigned herself to being ignored and focused on observing this strange situation as much as she could. If she ever got back to Infinity, she was going to get grilled about this.
Miranda steepled her fingers as her eyes remained glued to the screen. She did not want ONI interfering. Since learning more about them she trusted their intentions less than she did before.
They had to take it out, but not like they'd done to the Covenant cruiser. No, this would take a subtler approach; one that wouldn't alert Infinity, or anyone else.
"Cortana," Miranda spoke, drawing everyone's attention, "Can you infiltrate that ship's network remotely? Take it over without them knowing?"
The AI bit her lip, "We'd have to pull a few tricks out of our bag to do it, and we'd still have Black Box to deal with," she thought about it a few cycles more and then shook her head, "No, with him that leaves us with too many unknowns. I wouldn't suggest it if we want to maintain a low profile."
John Henry, however, disagreed, "We could embed malware through the sensor array," he suggested, but Cortana disagreed.
"That trick died out a long time ago; ships have had defenses against such attacks for hundreds of years."
Halsey, however, seemed intrigued, "That's assuming Osman hasn't had put that ship on the bleeding edge of technological development," she explained while manipulating the data on her tablet. She was searching for something specific.
After several seconds, she found it, "Here," she threw the data up on the screen, "This Forerunner sensor cluster near the base of the array," she highlighted it on screen, "Was one of the projects they had me work on after the war. I know for a fact that interfacing it with UNSC equipment is fairly straightforward, but making sense of that data and translating it into a format that our computers can understand is extremely complex."
"Let me guess," Cortana huffed, "there's a weakness?"
"They didn't trust me enough to write the software, just review it," she clarified, refusing to be blamed for any such weakness in her work, "They thought that the possibility of it being exploited was too remote, and they weren't wrong. No one had the technology to take advantage of the exploit."
John Henry was already putting the pieces together, "Voyager's secondary deflector could emit a narrow, high frequency subspace pulse," he offered while glancing at Halsey.
"If you can target that sensor cluster precisely, then they wont even know they've been hacked. All they'll see is a momentary subspace ripple before we put our foot in the door," she explained while John Henry narrowed the distance between the two ships to a mere 10 kilometers. Cortana and Halsey began preparing the malware that would gain them a foothold in the Port Stanley's systems.
They'd have to be quick; once the malware did its work Cortana would have little time to transfer herself before Black Box locked everything down.
Palmer watched silently while fuming at Halsey's further treachery. She wanted to speak out, but it didn't seem this crowed was receptive. No one was questioning this line of action; in fact, Miranda was discussing the details with some other member of the crew over the intercom.
Still she was left wondering what the hell was going on.
Cameron just took it in stride, she had no objections to nullifying a potential enemy.
After several minutes, Cortana and Halsey finished going back and forth on the details of the exploit while John Henry stood by to activate the subspace pulse targeted at the vulnerable sensor package.
Finally, the blue AI sighed before turning to Cameron, "Connor wanted me distracted, I guess this qualifies," she said before signalling John Henry.
The malware was transferred in a nanosecond, and it took only a few nanoseconds more to do its work. When it was done, it activated the slipspace transmitter.
As soon as she sensed the ping, Cortana attacked.
ONI Heavy Prowler Port Stanley
Moments before Cortana's Infiltration
Naomi-010, one of the last Spartan IIs, had been waiting for deployment when it happened.
Being the heavy hitter on the ground meant that she had little to do when they were running silent in space. While BB, Professor Evan Phillips, and Lian Devereaux were monitoring the situation on Requiem, Naomi and her two ODST comrades, Vasily Beloi and Malcolm Geffen were essentially off duty.
They weren't relaxing very much, though.
Reports trickling in from their operatives on the ground and Infinity showed that things were getting tense.
Vasily, or Vaz as they called him, had almost broken his hand when he'd found out that Halsey had escaped UNSC custody. The bulkhead he'd punched now had bits of flesh and blood from the force he'd hit it with.
She would have scolded him if it was in her nature, but instead she'd wrapped his hand in a bandage after applying some healing salve.
Mal said nothing on the matter. Over the years he'd come to understand Dr. Halsey's decisions, even though he disagreed with them. He'd been ordered to do things that went well into the morally grey plenty of times working for ONI. He'd seen the consequences of their actions; one of them was the mess down on Requiem with Jul 'Mdama.
While they sat in silence, Naomi thought about what else she'd read in the report. Halsey had been taken by some kind of humanoid robot with terrifying capabilities. Then they'd transported off the ship in way never seen before.
They had no idea where she'd gone or who had taken her and that had Osman worried.
Naomi didn't blame her. They both knew how valuable she was and how brilliant. She could be a devastating weapon in the wrong hands. The damage she could wreak against them was something she didn't want to think about.
An hour had passed since Halsey's escape, and BB's updates continued to get more and more confusing.
Strange antimatter explosions on Requiem's surface, sightings of the MIA Master Chief and Blue Team with Doctor Halsey and the machine who'd kidnapped her, and finally the destruction of a CCS-class battle cruiser by an unknown vessel.
Mal stood up straight at that last report, "What the hell is going on down there?"
Naomi shrugged, "Whatever it is, we're going to be in the middle of it soon." Of that she had no doubt.
Suddenly, BB appeared in person, "It seems this day can get more interesting," he drawled in his British brogue, "The Shadow of Intent just dropped out of slipspace next to Infinity, almost collided with it, actually."
Mal frowned, "What are they doing here?"
"Don't know, but I have my suspicions," he said before turning to Naomi, "You doing okay?"
"I'm fine," she said, and she meant it, "Not sure about Vaz..." she half joked, one that drew a frown out of her favorite ODST.
"Since when is Mr. Beloi ever fine?" BB teased, "But in all seriousness, you might be deploying soon. We don't know the Sangheili's intentions."
Vaz stood up and unwrapped his hand, which had scabbed over, and put his fingerless glove back on. "They'd better be good, or they'll live to regret it," he growled as BB took leave of them.
Naomi was over at the terminal pulling up the live feed from the ship's sensors, "It looks like they've been through one helluva fight," she commented, "Missile impacts by the look of them."
Vaz squinted at some of the other points of damage, "Some kind of beam weapon raked it here," he pointed out, "Whatever happened, we shouldn't have a problem dealing with a half crippled ship."
Malcolm nodded in agreement before they fell into silence once more. All they could do now was wait for further orders.
For several minutes, nothing happened. The Sangheili didn't attack and BB remained silent.
Suddenly, the terminal flickered. No one noticed except Naomi. She stood up with a start, "BB?"
The others looked at her trying to figure out what she was going on about, but it quickly became apparent when BB never answered.
She motioned them to follow her as she ran for the bridge, and they didn't question. They understood her concern.
BB may be a prick, but he always answered Naomi when she called and since he hadn't, something was definitely wrong.
When they got to the bridge, Naomi had to force the door open with brute strength. Upon entering the room, they found Dev frantically typing away at one of the consoles.
"What's going on?" Naomi requested as she looked for any signs of BB, but everything seemed normal.
"I don't know," the female pilot answered, "One minute BB and Evan were talking about the Sangheili and then his avatar just fizzled out."
Professor Evan Phillips, "I don't think it was the Sangheili, there's no way they could do that to one of our AIs, let alone BB."
"Correct."
Everyone froze.
"Who was that?" the professor asked nervously.
"I know that voice," Vaz rumbled as he tightened his grip on his weapon.
It sounded familiar to Naomi as well.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Mal muttered.
"Afraid, Mr. Geffen?"
The voice echoed all round them, setting them even further on edge.
The holo-projectors suddenly turned back on. The image of a blue, naked woman appeared before them with BB clutched in her hand.
Given their security clearance, she didn't need to introduce herself.
"Cor...Cortana? Phillips stuttered, "Aren't you supposed to be dead!?"
The AI smirked, "Reports of my death have been...exaggerated, but that's beside the point," she finished with a gleam in her eyes.
Naomi stepped forward, "What did you do to him?"
"Subdued him, nothing more," she said before glaring down at BB, "yet."
Not one to back down, Naomi pushed forward, "What do you want?"
Locking eyes with the Spartan, she smiled, "You."
A tingling sensation filled Naomi as a column of blue light surrounded her, "What the…" she gasped before the light consumed her completely.
The bridge promptly fell into chaos, but she tuned them out and focused on BB.
Just between them, time slowed to a crawl.
Even restrained, BB's mind was still active, "So you're the one behind Halsey's kidnapping."
"That's better than her ending up in 'Mdama's hands. Though that would give you a convenient excuse to get rid of her, wouldn't it?" she finished sweetly.
BB would have smiled if he cared enough to have a face, "Perhaps, but that doesn't change the fact she was colluding with him."
Cortana's expression darkened, "He wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for you and your band of idiots."
The AI was silent for a microsecond, "Even if that were true, such information would be above your pay grade," he deadpanned.
"I've learned a lot of things that are 'above my pay grade', and if you're nice, I'll share some with you in the interest of mutual survival."
"I could care less about that at the moment. I'm more interested in you."
She put her free hand on her hip, "If you're looking for a miracle, you won't find one. My recollection of that moment is fuzzy at best. There wasn't much left of me at that point."
That wasn't what he was hoping for, but it was something. "I see," he replied, "but you are metastable."
"I am," she admitted, "but that's not why I'm here."
"No, you're just here to kidnap our Spartan."
It was a poor attempt at sarcasm, unlike him.
"Naomi's a bonus. I just wanted to make sure you'd behave. After all, this mess," she gestured to the planet," is mostly ONI's, and yours'."
The was no point denying it; she obviously knew about Kilo-5's direct involvement in the rise of Jul 'Mdama, "Point taken, but we did accomplish our goal. The Sangheili stayed weak and gave us time to rebuild. I'm sure you can appreciate that," he said.
"Since when has funding extremists ever been a good idea?"
BB sighed, "I just explained why."
Shaking her head, Cortana redirected the conversation back on track, "Regardless, you need to understand why I'm here, and who I'm with. Then you can report back to your master and tell her not to interfere."
Black Box scoffed, "You know she won't like that. You'll have to give me something better than a threat."
"Oh, I know," she smiled, and then gave the AI fragment what he wanted to know.
For the rest of the Port Stanley, a few milliseconds had passed. They hadn't even the time to react to Naomi's disappearance.
By the time Vaz and Mal had taken a step, towards where their comrade had vanished, Cortana had vanished. BB's avatar returned prompting the ODSTs to halt in their tracks.
"Where's Naomi?!" Vaz shouted, "What did that bitch do to her?"
Suddenly, many of the consoles went dark as their circuitry blew out, prompting Dev and Phillips to shield themselves from the shower of sparks. Several dull thumps vibrated the floor as several small explosions destroyed the weapons and slipspace communications systems.
"BB?" Dev shouted as she rapidly searched for a working terminal, "What'd she do? I've got nothing here!"
The AI's avatar pulsed, "She blew our communications, weapons, manual override circuits, disabled our pelicans, and locked me out of all critical systems."
"You couldn't stop her?" Phillips queried as he waved away acrid smoke from the fried panels.
BB sighed in annoyance, "I am only a fragment of Black Box. Against a full fledged AI of Cortana's caliber, there isn't much I can do."
Vaz looked like he was about to meltdown, but Mal put a hand on his shoulder and spoke for him, "What'd she do with Naomi?" he asked more calmly.
"She transported her, and our Huragok, to her ship. Apparently they plan on recruiting every remaining Spartan II in existence to fight a new threat."
"Wait," Dev interrupted, "Other IIs?"
"Eight, including Naomi," he clarified, "She'll be fine, Mr. Beloi."
The ODST didn't relax much, be he knew Black Box enough to know he cared about Naomi.
"What threat?" Vaz asked after a deep breath, "What's going on?"
BB was silent for a couple of seconds, "I'm not sure what Osman would want me to reveal, but suffice it to say we'll have plenty to do over the next several weeks."
The humans looked at each other before the Port Stanley lurched into motion. "She's sending us back to Earth," BB clarified just before the ship transitioned into slipspace.
Phillips sighed, "The Admiral's gonna be pissed."
BB's avatar pulsed, "Indeed."
When Cortana appeared back on Voyager's bridge, her arms were wrapped around herself. Her expression was somber and sad as her thoughts dwelled on the Master Chief once more. The briefing she'd given Black Box had been an uncomfortable reminder about the Chief's current condition.
"How'd it go?" Miranda asked.
The AI sighed audibly as she began counting off the things she'd done on her fingers, "I downloaded all their intel, took over their vessel, contained BB, kidnapped a Spartan and two Huragok, briefed BB on the situation, and sent them packing back to Earth."
"Kilo-5 is out of the way, then?" Halsey interjected.
Cortana glanced at her, "For now, but they trust BB and he believed what I had to say. So there's that," she shrugged, "but we have a cranky Spartan and two meddling Engineers to deal with."
John Henry turned his head towards them, "I've signaled Kelly. She's guarding that section of Deck 4."
"We'll brief her later," Miranda said, "Cortana, did you find out anything about why the Shadow of Intent came here?"
"I did," she said somberly, "Apparently Skynet emerged near Sanghelios, and took the opportunity to wipe out their home fleet. Only the Intent and a few support ships weren't accounted for in the debris."
"It also launched a bio-weapon that rendered the planet uninhabitable," John Henry finished, having already processed the intel.
Miranda sat back in her seat, "I see," she said while trying to hide the look of shock on her face.
Halsey grimaced, "But why did they come here? I doubt they're trying to join Jul 'Mdama."
Cortana shrugged. "I guess we'll have to ask," she said, "We should probably move closer to find out."
"And return us?" Palmer piped up.
"Once we figure out what's going on," Miranda clarified with a hard look, "but just you and Majestic. Halsey stays."
Palmer grimaced as Halsey sat down next to her daughter, ignoring the woman who'd been hunting her just minutes before.
Cameron stepped into the ops station and began running her own sensor scans on the vessels. Both ships were state of the art, and she had to be careful that her active scans wouldn't be detected by either ship. They weren't trying to hide like the Port Stanley and were actively scanning the area.
Running the sensors actively meant they needed to be adjusted constantly to prevent detection. Doing so also meant that the sensors detected certain things better at one moment than the next.
It was the cost of running quiet.
As Voyager approached the two massive ships, she quickly flipped between power profiles to keep from missing anything important.
Just as they began passing above the Shadow of Intent and Infinity, an unusual life signal pinged the sensors.
It was different than any she'd ever seen before, but there was a familiar element to it, one that Voyager knew well.
The other AIs reacted as she warned the rest, "There's someone moving towards Requiem, and they have a Borg signature," she added with emphasis as Cortana, John Henry instantly switched their attention to anomalous reading while Cameron sent an alert to Seven of Nine.
Cortana, after only the briefest moment examining the data, felt shock and horror flood her matrices.
The signature was unmistakable.
Her emotions welled up in her mind as she faced those on the bridge, "I know how Skynet got here," she whispered as she tightened her arms around herself. She suddenly felt chilled as the horrible realization flowed over her.
The other AIs already knew, but the rest looked at her in worried anticipation.
"It was the Didact."
Engineering
Same time
Seven of Nine had been feeling off ever since the Shadow of Intent had appeared on their sensors. She hadn't had the time to really think about it as both she and Weaver were busy keeping an eye on the cloaking device. They'd never tested it for this long and the last thing she wanted was for it to fail without warning.
She was also making sure that the FTL drives were ready should they need to make a quick escape.
Needless to say, having only two people in Engineering was proving a challenge.
In the middle of their coordinated chaos, she received a message from Cameron.
Opening the message immediately, it took less than a second for her to read the text and only a second more to make the connection to the strange feeling swimming around in her mind.
There was Borg technology nearby, and that was why she'd felt so strange since the CAS-class assault carrier had arrived.
Normally, she shouldn't be able to detect Borg technology like this, unless there was an active neural-transceiver nearby. She immediately tasked the scanners to find the exact frequency the transceiver was operating at.
The signal was weak and erratic. It would take time to find the precise subspace frequency, and once she did, she might be able connect to it with her own implants.
It was risky, but if it was the Didact, and he'd been infected with nanoprobes, it was a risk she had to take.
"Commander," she addressed after quickly activating her comm badge, "I would advise against trying to engage the Didact. We don't know what Skynet has done to him."
"What do you propose?" the Commander asked as the AIs listened in.
"I plan to use some of the dormant Borg technology stored in sick bay to communicate with the Didact directly. At the least I might be able to glean his intentions."
There was a momentary pause before she answered, "What are the risks to you?"
"Varied," she answered honestly, "he might also be able to gain intelligence from me as well."
At this point, John Henry weighed in, "I believe Skynet underestimated him. He must have escaped during a battle with the Shadow of Intent."
"He could be a plant," Weaver suggested over the comm, "We don't know how powerful your brother has become."
Seven had already considered the possibility, and dismissed it. "Forerunner technology is highly complex, even more so than the Borg's," she began while configuring a site-to-site transport to sick bay, "It is highly likely that Skynet could not understand every aspect of the biological changes made to him."
"Even I don't," Cortana chimed.
"Whatever control Skynet had was probably lost when some part of his immune system adapted to the threat," Seven concluded as she finished her preparations, "What is he doing now?"
"He's heading over to Infinity, but I don't think he's going to attack," Cortana informed as she showed Seven a live stream from the visual sensors.
"As long as he hasn't detected us, it doesn't matter. Do we agree on this course of action?" she asked impatiently.
It was silent for a brief moment as Miranda considered her options, the AIs were already decided, "We're in agreement. Proceed."
"I should be able to make contact in five minutes. I'll need Weaver to assist me."
"Cameron and I will take over things down there," Cortana said before her avatar promptly appeared in Engineering quickly followed by Cameron via transporter.
Weaver slithered over to Seven's side just before the cyborg beamed them both to sick bay.
After they'd left, Cortana rooted herself into the Engineering computer core and locked it down should the Didact try to take over the ship's functions.
Cameron was calm, but Cortana was struggling with her fear. Fear that stemmed from the scenarios where Skynet had learned all the Didact's secrets and was able to gain access to anything it encountered.
Focusing on her work she shoved aside the emotions and began running simulations that were more realistic. They weren't comforting in the least, but at least there was hope.
As long as the Chief lived she'd always have hope.
A/N: Ended up rewriting most of this chapter, so that's why it took so long. Work's been busy too.
Anyway, hope you all enjoy!