A Cold Touch 1 (Halo Marine!Insert in Honkai Star Rail)

Warning! This is an AU to a story of mine called 'Rough Human Touch'. You don't need to read it, but only know this is set after Chapter 3 - Private First Class Logan 'Log' Sutton of the UNSC Marine Corps has made a daring escape from Harvest following the Covenant's invasion of the planet. In the process, he has destroyed two big Covenant big ships by having them crash into each other and... he is supposed to make it back to the Reinforcement Fleet. Supposedly.

Sutton, I have a question.

"What about, Sif?"

My rampancy, it's... it should be curable at this stage. Do you believe that... Should I try?

"Try what? Getting fixed? Why not?"

I was trying to say... should I even try to live beyond what happened in these last weeks?

"What?"

I lost the planet I was mostly in charge of. I killed a fellow AI just to not die when protocol dictated it- I should be deactivated and-

"You also helped me set up a ship to cripple the bastards we are now at war with. And you're helping save my hide while we leave the planet. As far as I'm concerned, you should live."

Why?

"I think the real question right now, Sif, is 'Why not?'."

"Wait and Pray"
October 20 2525 - Hour 0831
PFC Logan 'Log' Sutton
Manning a Seraph Main-Fighter, Unknown Space

So... something went wrong. Like a fucking lot wrong.

One moment we were scurrying away from having the Covenant CPV-Class Destroyer 'Servitude' crash onto another big ship, causing havoc in the Covenant-dominated space to silently make it out of Harvest's orbit. And by we I mean myself and Sif, a Smart AI that had been on board of the Tiara Space Station when the invasion happened. We met in unlikely circumstances and... now we had no fucking clue where we were.

I know I took the right path. So... where's the rest of the fleet?

I believed in that. In fact, I could tell Sif had not done any mistake with the coordinates. I am quite sure that, even by a small margin of mistake we should have found something- anything. Even the Covenant. But no, we had been adrift for more than eight hours and we had no clue on where we were at.

Sif had even tried to look into the stars around us, but she recognized none of them. I gave a look at the content of my bag. I had just a single MRE bar on me after I had rationed the few stuff I carried through the 'mission' I had in Harvest. And this was growing more and more frustrating for me to ignore.

"Sif, in a hour from now... start looking into suitable planets to make a crashlanding."

...Understood, Logan.

"This... I don't blame you," I muttered, the last meaningful conversation having been when we had that big boom going, and I know that the lack of good news had not improved her mood. "This... this isn't your fault."

I appreciate your honesty, Logan. But this isn't the issue, isn't it?

I sighed loudly, knowing that the real main concern was getting back to 'solid ground'. "I fucking hate life at times."

Leaning back on my chair, I felt my butt had adapted to the alien shape that was the cushion of this seat. Not comfy for a human's ass, but definitely better than getting blown up, eaten up, or even go full hermit on Harvest.

At least I did something big before dying. I would have wanted this little 'adventure' to go for longer, but if this was how my second life was going to end then I guess I can die with that. I mean, how many hundreds I have exterminated by crashing two large Covenant ships together? I wasn't definitely a sore loser, so I guess I could retire with a high K/D ratio.

As I was planning to go through another short nap, I heard a small beep coming from the terminal. I stared at it, frowning and waited for Sif's comment but nothing else came from that. I shrugged and tried to-

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The terminal went apeshit crazy with the Beeping and I tensed up. "Sif?"

S-Sorry, was busy with communications- I found something, a distress call. It's... weird.

"Covenant Weird?"

No. But it's not UNSC.

Frowning, I tried to look over the screen as Sif filtered some fancy things for me to look at. Specifically a zoomed section that indicated some sort of intense fighting unfolding around one of the nearby planets. "What is it?"

I am trying to decipher it. Their language is similar to a Chinese dialect so... I am close to get that done.

I nodded, the ship changing its trajectory as we approached the fairly intense skirmish from the looks of it. One large ship against a fuckton of smaller 'yellow' ones. I don't know why, but the mere look of that color was giving me 'Flood' vibes. And I didn't like it at all. Then Sif chipped in to add some context.

I got a few scrambled messages translated. They speak of destroying the Abundance and 'Long Live the Hunt'.

"That says much and yet nothing."

They also mentioned something akin to 'they are resurrecting corpses faster than we kill them'.

"That does sound a bit spooky. But you know what I have to say to this?"

You want to go down there-

"There and destroy some zombies, yes," I remarked giddily. "Plus, we get the chance to make new friends, see where we are and-"

Kill more 'zombies', yes. I think I have your personality down to a T, Log.

I rolled my eyes. "Do you hate what you see?"

I have yet to find something worthy of complaint.

With that decision settled, Sif took care of sending the well-translated message of who we were, what we were offering and how we were coming in hot!

There was little fanfare in the process, but Sif relayed me some 'rule of conduct' to keep in mind. If they wore gray armor and blue clothes, those were allies- the opposite goes for 'plant-sprouting' hostile troops trying to 'convert me by the means of death'. With that simple plan in mind, the Seraph soon took the appropriate course and we briefly joined the orbital warfare.

There wasn't much there to fight considering that most of the heat came from the surface combat. And as I descended to 'tag along' a few boat-looking fighter-ships carrying on CAS operations, I saw a peculiar event occurring that got my attention.

"Is that an emoji?" I asked, looking at a small 'chat box' that opened up. Someone that went by the name 'FoxCrasher' had just sent me a 'hand wave' emoji, which was then followed by two boom emojis.

Seems so. You may have a flying buddy right now.

As Sif said that, I saw a particular ship getting highlighted in Green as the nickname 'FoxCrasher' flashed over the ship and I frowned.

"Turning this into a game? Really?"

Do you hate what you see?

I cracked a big grin at this comeback. "Nah. But do keep a count on the score. I have the Marines Corp's honor to carry in this strange situation."

To some, War is hell. To others, it is just another Wednesday Morning.

AN

Log is back! And he is already making friends!