Author's note: I'm not looking to commission any kind of artwork for this, so if you offer it know this: I think you're an illiterate scammer.

Chapter One

1533 hours, June 29, 2545 (military calendar)

Unknown location

Unknown system

Something was wrong.

According to the mission briefing given to Ryan, SPARTAN-B184, he should have been greeted by a lush green jungle typical of Gao, but on exiting his drop pod he found himself standing in a harsh looking desert landscape that had an elevated background radiation count to boot. Whilst it wasn't high enough to pose any serious threat to him, it was also something that shouldn't have been there because as far as he or anyone within the UNSC knew Gao had no radiological hotspots anywhere. That meant something had gone wrong. Seriously so.

Ryan's first thought was that somehow he had missed his drop zone by a wide margin, landing within Gao's polar deserts, which wasn't out of the question. For various political and security reasons ONI had been unable, or perhaps just unwilling to deploy him via more mundane methods like a prowler or Owl dropship, instead opting for a long range stealth orbital pod that had been launched from its mother ship whilst in slipspace. Given humanity still struggled to navigate that strange realm as accurately as the Covenant, some margin of error was to be expected when it came to landings of unguided craft like drop pods.

Except, the deserts of Gao were grey in tone whereas the ones Ryan found himself in had more of a dusty brown colouration, and there was still the issue of the elevated background radiation to contend with. About the only explanation he could come up with was that someone had royally screwed up when it came to his orders, accidentally sending him to some Outer Colony that had seen liberal use of nuclear weapons in an attempt to dislodge the Covenant. It wasn't entirely outside the realm of possibility but Ryan still had his doubts, knowing ONI rarely screwed up like this and especially not when it came to Spartan deployments.

Really, though, how he had come to find himself here mattered less than how he was going to get home. With any luck there would still be a UNSC presence on the planet and a link back to HIGHCOM, or at the very least a civilian ship he could gain passage on to a more developed colony that would suit his needs better. Of course, that depended on there still being humans to begin with, and that they had cordial relations with Earth. If the UNSC had pulled out of the system and left the colonists to their fate, that might have fostered a sense of resentment towards them and their personnel.

There was also the risk of Covenant holdouts still being present on the planet, as the alien hegemony wasn't quite as careful with evacuating its troops from lost battles as the UNSC was. Hundreds of them could remain, maybe thousands, and as much as Ryan relished the prospect of tackling them they had the advantage of knowing the terrain, and having had time to construct any number of defences. Better, then, to wait until he knew for certain their disposition, if any were on the planet, same for any humans who might still be here.

Part of that included waiting until nightfall before making any major movements beyond moving to a new spot to hide himself in, finding a little crevice partway up a nearby mountain range to his west. It was hardly the most comfortable of places but the avenues of approach were limited, and more importantly it gave Ryan enough elevation to expand his horizon beyond just a few kilometres. Almost immediately he saw signs of human habitation and development in the form of roads and the occasional building, albeit ones that were in poor repair typical of colonies hit by the Covenant.

There was even a radio station named after some place called New Vegas that broadcast a selection of music and news, advertisements too, giving Ryan some indication of what life was like in this region which, from what he could tell, was called the Mojave. Things seemed stable enough but mentions were made about an ongoing war between two groups, the New California Republic and Caesar's Legion, for control of the area and in particular a hydroelectric power plant called Hoover Dam, none of which he recognised.

Not that it surprised Ryan though, as there were hundreds of colonies across human controlled space he had never heard of, each with their own power blocs and landmarks. At the very least, he now had the names of two groups he could potentially side with in the hopes of getting home, assuming either had access to a ship capable of doing so, with it now becoming a question of who to go for. The NCR, probably, but history was too replete with examples of dictators and tyrants ruling over countries that had the word republic in the name, yet adhered to none of the tenets that might make them one.

Another case of taking things slowly until he could say for certain who might be of help and who might be hostile, which meant making contact with some form of humanity. Thankfully he had located what looked like a town maybe five kilometres to the south, spying a water tower atop a hill and several roofed buildings beyond it that still had powered lights attached to them. There might have even been people but the hills kept him from seeing more than just the roofs, with Ryan resolving to move into a position he could watch the town from more closely once it got dark.

He could have gotten into place now but he wanted the cover of darkness to make doubly sure nobody would spot him. An unnecessary precaution, maybe, though considering he had no idea where he was Ryan didn't want to leave anything to chance. So after listening to the radio for another hour or so and downing some of his rations, he bedded himself down into his little crevice and turned in to sleep.

2314 hours, June 29, 2545 (military calendar)

Outskirts of Goodsprings

Unknown system

Night came surprisingly late but when it did, the landscape was covered in total darkness, thanks in part to a waning moon which Ryan put to good effect as he stole across the desert towards the small town a rusted roadway sign claimed was called Goodsprings, the photoreactive panels of his SPI armour helping hide him from view even further. Not that it was apparently needed as he didn't see another living soul during his trek southward until he drew close to Goodsprings' water tower where he saw a collection of men standing beneath it, illuminated by a solitary lantern.

Ryan, his curiosity piqued, made for the crest of the next nearest hill to watch them, unslinging a set of binoculars that he trained on the group to see there were seven men in total. Five of them were dressed in roughly similar items of a leather vest paired to dark denim pants, one of them digging what appeared to be a shallow grave, as the sixth man, dressed in a black and white plaid suit, looked on whilst smoking a cigarette.

The seventh was lying on the floor with his hands bound before him, seemingly unconscious, and all at once Ryan guessed he was about to bear witness to an execution of some kind. Part of him wanted to intervene and save the bound man but he squashed that instinct, not knowing if he had done something to deserve this fate. He could be a serial killer or child molester for all he knew, and this was his fate after undergoing summary judgement before a panel of his peers.

Somehow, though, Ryan got the distinct impression this wasn't the case, as the five men in leather came across as a band of thugs or lowlifes rather than upstanding citizens, and even if they were why carry out an execution like this so late at night? Surely a vile criminal would be killed via firing squad, or hanging. Not like this.

Again, the urge to intervene arose and again, Ryan pushed it down as he kept the binoculars trained on the morbid scene unfolding before him, watching as the bound man regained consciousness with one of the thugs making some comment that made Plaid Suit turn around and address him. He either had the mind to say nothing back or was just still too woozy from whatever they had done to capture him to speak, and before long Plaid Suit was fishing something out from his inner suit pocket. First a chip or token of some kind, and then a pistol which he branded towards the captive.

A few words later and he fired, a quick double tap to the head that sent the captive tumbling backwards into the grave that had been dug for him. Plaid Suit casually holstered his pistol and lit another cigarette as the thugs began the process of burying the body which didn't take long. Soon, they were walking south towards town but, curiously, didn't go into it. Rather, they continued down along the road that ran through Goodsprings until they were lost behind a rocky cliff face.

So, probably not townsfolk meting out justice against someone that had run afoul of whatever passed for law and order around here, though Ryan had already guessed that part.

He waited a minute or two more then rose from his eyrie, making his way towards the scene where he found the lantern had been left behind, casting a sickly pallor across the area which, it turned out, was also a cemetery going by the abundance of graves scattered about. The one that interested him though was its most recent and Ryan turned towards it, noting the thugs had done a half-assed job of filling it in as one of their victim's hands was just barely poking out from the dirt.

They had also left some trash behind in the form of an inhaler-type device and a few cigarette butts, likely as not from Plaid Suit. Ryan ignored all that as he crouched down next to the grave, staring in particular at the hand sticking up from the dirt as he wondered what, if anything, the man had done to deserve this fate. Some kind of blood feud, maybe? Or did it have to do with that chip thing Plaid Suit had waved about? He certainly seemed to treat it with some degree of reverence, suggesting so, though Ryan couldn't imagine how something so small was worth killing a man over.

He gave a mental shrug and stood, giving the grave and its occupant one last look, then made a start towards the mountains outside of town to resume his observations. But as he did, his ears picked up on the crunch of dirt beneath something followed a few seconds later by the appearance of a blip on his motion tracker that was headed for his location. By that point Ryan was already moving in the opposite direction, falling prone once he was outside the lantern's reach to become one with the landscape as he drew his sidearm, an M6S, waiting to see who might be approaching at such a late hour to a place that had just witnessed an execution.

To his immense surprise it wasn't a person but a machine, a blocky T-shaped thing that moved about on a single wheel and had long, hose like arms that terminated in three-pronged claws, whilst a low resolution monitor served as a face and currently had the image of a smiling cartoon cowboy on it, complete with cigarette. It, like Ryan, went up to the newly dug grave and stared down at it for a moment or two before doing anything, though unlike the Spartan it chose to then begin digging the man out rather than stare at his exposed hand. Did that make it an ally of him? If so, why hadn't it intervened in his execution?

Insufficient or inadequate weapons perhaps, as Ryan couldn't see any visible on the machine, though that didn't explain why it was trying to dig the man out, other than maybe hoping to give him a more proper burial than the thugs had. When that thought crossed his mind Ryan felt more than a little bit of guilt, knowing he could have intervened and stopped it, which grew worse when he saw the machine's ineffectual attempts at removing the dirt from the body. The claws on its hands couldn't grab enough to make any noticable difference and the thugs had taken their shovel with them, meaning all the machine was doing was sprinkling dirt over everything.

Ryan winced at the sight and endured it for another minute before standing, deactivating his stealth systems and returning his sidearm to its holster, and walked up to the machine which remained seemingly oblivious to his presence.

'Was he a friend of yours?' Ryan said.

That the machine registered, jerking upright and spinning to face his direction though even then, it swept minutely from one side to the other as if trying to detect him which was understandable. Even with its photoreactive layers deactivated, SPI armour was difficult to detect by sensors which the machine was no doubt using. To further help, Ryan activated his helmet lights on a low enough setting that he wasn't painting himself as too much of a target for any nearby snipers. It did the trick as the machine stopped its sweeps and looked more or less in his direction.

'Nah,' it said in a twangy, drawling male voice. 'Just some stray I saw getting ambushed by a bunch of rustlers. Thought I'd come see if he made it. Just in case.'

Ryan glanced down at the machine's attempts to clear the grave which looked no different to how he had found it.

'Name's Victor, by the way,' the machine said before holding his clawed hand out in a surprisingly human fashion. 'What's your handle, partner?'

'SPARTAN-B184,' he said, before pausing and adding, 'Ryan,' as he accepted Victor's outstretched hand to shake.

'Howdy, Ryan,' Victor said. 'I'm guessing you were watching the whole thing, too.'

'I was,' Ryan said, gesturing down to the exposed hand. 'Do you know who he is? Or who they were?'

'Nope,' Victor said. 'Think he was some courier for the Mojave Express, headed north to Vegas. Only stopped in town long enough to fill his canteens and maybe have a drink in the old saloon. I'm not sure who the fancy pants in the suit was but his friends looked like they were from the Great Khans. Bad hombres, them.'

'Any idea why they killed him?' Ryan said.

'Nope,' Victor said again. 'Best guess is he got caught up in something big and wound up in Boot Hill for his trouble.'

Ryan nodded to that as he crouched down next to the body and placed a finger on the rest, feeling for a pulse on the off chance the bullets had failed to kill him and, amazingly, he actually felt one. It was weak and thready, but it was there.

'Maybe not,' Ryan said. 'He's alive, still.'

'Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit,' Victor said, rolling closer. 'I was sure he'd be a goner after taking two to the head.'

'He's not out of the woods yet,' Ryan said, turning to the machine. 'Does Goodsprings have a doctor? A skilled one?'

'Doc Mitchell's the only one,' Victor said, raising a claw to point towards one house in particular on top of a hill. 'Can't speak as to how good he is, seeing as I ain't exactly his kind of patient, but I ain't heard no grumblings from the people in town.'

'Better than nothing,' Ryan said. 'Go wake him up and let him know he has a patient. I'll dig him out.'

'You got it, partner.'

Victor span about on his wheel and made for town, moving his arms as though he were running, which struck Ryan as an odd thing to program into him but he figured it was probably part of an attempt to humanise him for whatever reason. Pushing the thought from his head, he turned to the grave and the still living person it contained, and his task of removing him from it. Like Victor he lacked a shovel or spade with which to remove the dirt but it was pretty loosely packed, and only a shallow layer was covering the man, meaning it was a simple job of putting his augmented strength to use to pull him out.

He came free easily enough and Ryan quickly gave him a once over, seeing no other obvious wounds beyond the two gunshots to his head. They looked bad but head wounds always tended to be, bleeding more profusely than others, with it being possible the courier's unconscious state was a result of both the force of the gunshots and his brief stint in an oxygen deprived environment. Whatever the reason, his eyes were unfixed and glazed whilst the rest of his body was limp, lolling to and fro as Ryan completed his examination ahead of scooping him up.

From there it was as simple as carrying him to the house Victor had pointed out, finding he was already there and accompanied by an old looking man Ryan took to be Doc Mitchell. He was a little bleary eyed but on seeing the Spartan approach with a limp form in his arms, he quickly perked up and motioned for him to come inside, into a makeshift surgical suite.

'Place him down here,' Mitchell said, pointing towards a gurney. 'What happened?'

'He was shot in the head from point blank range,' Ryan said as he did as instructed. 'Then buried in a shallow grave.'

'How long ago?' Mitchel said.

'Less than ten minutes,' Ryan said.

He stepped back as Mitchell began conducting his examination of the man, now a patient, the doctor murmuring on occasion.

'Pulse is a little on the weak side but not as bad as I'd feared,' he said. 'Breathing, too.'

'He gonna make it, doc?' Victor asked.

'Good chance of that,' Mitchell said. 'Looks like the bullets only grazed his brain rather than doing anything more serious. Still, not as if you'd wany anything to be touching that if you can help it. I'll know for certain in a couple of hours if he'll pull through.'

'Glad to hear it,' Victor said before turning and departing, leaving Ryan alone to stand somewhat awkwardly in a corner of the surgical suite as Mitchell began cleaning the man's wounds of dirt and other contaminants that might lead to an infection further down the line.

'Do you need any assistance, doctor?' he said.

'That depends,' Mitchell said. 'How much medical training do you have?'

'Just basic combat medicine,' Ryan said. 'Bullet wounds, plasma burns, lacerations. That sort of thing.'

'That's more than most people around here,' Mitchell said, gesturing to a tray of surgical tools and swatches of cloth. 'Think you could handle being my nurse?'

'Yes, doctor,' Ryan said.