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Breaking Quarantine 2: Liberation
Posted By: sir_brilliant<sirbrilliant@gmail.com>
Date: 10 November 2006, 1:16 am
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Chapter 1
The stench of Tartarus' corpse seeped into Sergeant A.J. Johnson's breath. He glanced back and everyone looked at 343 Guilty Spark. "It is in sector 3842740," it said. As 343 spoke, a three dimensional map displayed a hologram of the seven Halo rings. A point in the middle flashed. The image zoomed in on the blinking dot while the rest of the picture fell out of focus. Clusters of stars passed, then tens, and finally it stopped at a binary star system.
Several planets rotated around the stars, but the image shifted above them. The system was elliptical, with the majority of planets orbiting on the axis of the sun. The planets were no longer visible and only the top of the stars touched the bottom of the picture, and a dark space was projected.
Johnson looked at it and squinted, and it slowly lost focus and reverted to the floating image of Halo. "I know where that is."
Cortana?
As her systems initialized with the computers, Cortana couldn't help but feel proud. Not for too long though…only .07 milliseconds. Sending a message for remote playback while in a state of flux was no easy feat. Her pattern synchronized and Cortana displayed her image with the holographic projector. She took the place of Halo rather abruptly, but it made no difference. As long as she was up and running.
"We should evacuate this ring. And take the index with us."
Commander Miranda Keyes brushed her hand on the index, now safely secure on her belt. She nodded briefly and smiled. The Arbiter turned away and spoke, sub vocalizing into his radio, relaying orders. Miranda walked up to the console. "Cortana…how do we get you out of here?"
Cortana searched for an answer, but it required little of her full processing power. As she preformed the search, she downloaded the mission logs from both Keyes and Johnson from their neural lace'. Commander Keyes' log described as Cortana presumed: she was captured, held prisoner, and taken to the control center to activate Halo.
Then she read through Johnson's and found a major discrepancy, one she hadn't seen before. She didn't have any idea how it was possible.
Johnson was also captured, and was split up from Keyes. To ensure they couldn't communicate and try to escape, undoubtedly. But the log showed that the Phantom, the Covenant dropship that Johnson was on, was attacked.
After it crashed, there was no log. Nothing at all. Even if Johnson was unconscious, there should have been something. His health reading, the time and date...but there was nothing.
Simultaneously, Cortana had cracked into the Covenant battle network. It was a jumble of mixed messages, but she immediately understood that the Covenant was fighting amongst themselves. From what she could tell, the majority of the fleet was commanded by the Prophets, while the remainder was unknown. She glanced over at the Arbiter momentarily and realized that he had been working with Keyes and Johnson. Bearing his rank in mind, the portion of the Covenant fleet being destroyed was probably led by the Elites.
She needed an exit, in several ways. To get herself out of High Charity's computer system, get the Commander and Johnson away safely, and get off Halo and back to Earth. The problem was that she was stuck on High Charity and was only able to communicate with Halo's computers because she had gained remote access. There was no way to download herself to Halo.
Power was limited on High Charity due to the damage it had taken by the Flood attack. And when the In Amber Clad landed on it, her fate was sealed. Cortana restructured the search, removing her escape from High Charity. Getting Keyes and the index off of Halo was her first priority.
The In Amber Clad was out of the question; it had crash landed on High Charity, and even if she managed to gain control of it, the statistical chance that it could even leave High Charity's atmosphere was laughable. The only option she found was to rely on the Arbiter.
Seismic activity on High Charity tripled, and half her processing power turned to the occurrence. She opened a channel to Keyes and said, "Commander, the only way to get you off this ring is if you go with the Arbiter. There is no other alternative; you must secure the index. As long is it is on Halo, everyone is in danger."
"Understood."
Cortana also opened a channel to Johnson, separate from Keyes. The Commander had her own diplomatic endeavor to deal with, while Johnson would hopefully shed some light on his curious hour away from his own neural lace. Cortana couldn't help but ask. "Sergeant, what happened to you after your dropship was attacked?"
Johnson saw Keyes speaking with the Arbiter, and turned his back to them and spoke quietly into his receiver. "We crashed hard. I must have lost consciousness, 'cause when I woke up, there was nothin' but ruins. I pulled my ass out of there ASAP and found my way to that Scarab. And I'm guessing you know the story from there."
Another burst of seismic activity distracted Cortana. It was as though High Charity was being ripped from the inside out, but by what? The Flood were on High Charity, but how were they causing such a ruckus? "That doesn't explain what happened during that hour you were unconscious. Your neural lace was offline during that time, and there's no explanation for it."
He didn't respond. There was no way he could know what had happened to him while he was unconscious. Still, she didn't like the fact that there was even the possibility of the lace being shut off for any period of time without having an authorized shut down, which would have been logged, both when the connection was terminated and restarted. Yet it wasn't. And the lace was still operational, which removed the chance of equipment failure.
Cortana reset her priorities, highlighting Johnson's missed hour. The power on High Charity fluctuated, nearly shutting down all of Cortana's higher functions. She managed to assign minimal power to her necessary systems and shut down everything else. She had to stay online for as long as possible, in case the Commander was compromised and she needed to activate the reactors on the In Amber Clad.
Then suddenly a voice cut through her thoughts. A deep, dark voice which she only heard once before. "Silence fills the empty grave, now that I have come. But my mind is not at rest, for questions linger on." Tentacles came through the door across the panel that Cortana was stationed in. They reached for her. "I will ask, and you will answer."
The Flood leader, only known to Cortana as a Gravemind, was the intelligence of the Flood. It commanded and controlled the entirety of the Flood with unprecedented precision. She looked at the discussion taking place on Halo between Keyes and the Arbiter, which seemed to be going well. Keyes walked over to the command console, and at the same time the Gravemind's tentacles had reached Cortana.
"I have to stay inside the system," she told the Commander. "There's no way for me to come with you. As long as I'm here, I can detonate the In Amber Clad, if necessary."
Miranda looked at Cortana's holographic image, which shuddered momentarily, then returned to its pristine state. She looked down, a motion Cortana understood as dismay. "I want you to monitor our movements and stay in contact. Stay in touch."
"Aye aye ma'am." As the hologram disappeared and was replaced once again by the image of Halo, Cortana appeared above the console on High Charity and held a hand up, stopping the closest tentacle. "Alright; shoot."
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