Unto Dawn, Part 1: I Need You
Date: 16 October 2007, 4:33 am
AUTHOR'S NOTE; SPOILERS - This fiction contains massive spoilers; do not read if you have not viewed the complete ending to Halo 3. This is a preview or prologue of what I hope will become a series based on events that take place after those of Halo 3. I post this as a way of getting some feedback from the community here at HBOFF. Please be constructive with your criticism. I know everyone has a different theory about what happens after Halo 3, and this is mine. Enjoy.
SPARTAN-117's eyes opened. Every centimeter of his skin seemed to be inflamed, and cold nausea rushed upwards in his throat. He winced as his suit reacted to his discomfort by secreting a layer of bio-foam on his skin. Ironically, the foam was even more painful; it was like salt to John's burns.
Seconds passed, and with a combination of psychological tolerance and the bio-foam's numbing effect, John regained his bearings. He blinked several times. Past his visor, glass slightly glared the room. John didn't bother adjusting the polarization inside his helmet, because he was all too familiar with what came next.
He heard muffled hissing and saw steam cloud either side of the tube's glass window. A mild pucker heralded the release of the tube's seal, and the door swung open above John's head.
Not an instant after the tube opened did the lights on the pedestal a meter in front of the tube dance and flare. A small purple figure a centimeter above the center of the pedestal flickered several times then shone like a beacon in the unlit room. John's favorite person appeared to smile at him.
She wasn't a person, though, of course. She was UNSC AI number 0452-9. Cortana. Sapphire, violet, and coral lines of code glided about the ten centimeter-tall, statuesque frame of the construct's holographic representation.
John managed to sit up. He panned around the room. Darkness loomed in the cryo-bay, save several vague yellow lights on the pedestal. Several soft clicks brought fluorescent light to the room. The bulbs overhead flickered shortly.
Cortana's holograph put a hand on either hip and cocked its head at John.
Her voice came out clearly from the pedestal's speaker. The familiar, amiable voice of a woman of about thirty-five years spoke to John. "I missed you."
John nodded and stepped from the tube.. His legs felt like jelly, and he stabilized himself with a hand on the cryo-tube's frame. He flexed every muscle in his body in sequence. He felt light as a feather; this common symptom of cryo-sleep always seemed to take advantage of him.
Having regained his posture, John looked around the bay. Several unused cryo-tubes sat like coffins in a row next to his tube. A computer panel next to each tube displayed buttons and empty screens. Adjacent to Cortana's pedestal on the wall hung an equipment rack bearing John's MA5C ICWS Assault Rifle, a tool almost as crucial as his MJOLNIR Armor. It reminded him of how useless he was out here in the severed remains of a spaceship.
Cortana pretended to clear a nonexistent throat. John turned to face the pedestal on which the purple holograph ran a hand through its shoulder-length hair.
"I've been broadcasting on the E-BAND every hour for two weeks."
"Anything?" John asked. His voice was raspy and grave.
"A few bits of chatter here and there, all time stamped years ago. Wherever we are, the speed of sound doesn't agree with it." Cortana shuffled her feet dismally. "However, several minutes before I woke you, I picked up a signal on an open COM frequency, dated seventeen hours ago. I traced it to its origin, and after some encryption-breaking, I got in. It's a SQUADCOM channel. Very strange. Those normally only have a range of about a thirty kilometer radius."
"Anyone on the other end?" John replied with genuine curiosity.
Cortana shook her head. "No response to my SOS yet. Give it time. There's no telling what space-time does here. Judging by the dimensions present in this plane, I'm not certain we're in Slipspace or normal space."
John looked at the floor in thought. He looked back up at the row of cryo-tubes and wished they were full of his team. His SPARTANs. He then looked back to Cortana.
"Why did you wake me?"
"Because," she said, almost sardonically, "I found someone else on the ship."
|
