Twenty-Seven: Cortana

The Infected landed the transport where he'd stopped his Banshee in the Origin, and he traded out his prototype armor for another standard set, praying that the Huragok would be able to repair the holes while he ran through High Charity. The Spartan dropped down to the lower level after stocking up on as much ammo as he dared, and he shook off some of the organic material clinging to his boots, watching Infection pods swarm about on the bottom floor before he fired his assault rifle to take them out.

He jumped down just in time to see an escapee take over one of the Brute corpses lying about, and he switched his weapon in favor of his shotgun, blowing the combat form apart with a single, well-placed shot before sprinting though a short fleshy tunnel, moving further into the hive. In the cavern beyond, there were more Infection forms scurrying around, and a couple of recently-raised combat forms lurched towards him, even more dropping from up above. With his strength, speed, and agility improved by the infection - and the Infected pointing out things he didn't notice - it was a simple matter for him to simply beat them apart and move on.

The puckered sphincter of flesh slid open at his approach, and the Infected distinctly made disgusted noises in the back of his mind right before the Gravemind rumbled in his ears and in his mind, "Child of my enemy, why have you come? I offer no forgiveness; a father's sins passed to his son."

The room was empty of combat forms, exactly as expected, and he padded over to the sphincter in the floor, looking down into the room below before he jumped, shivering when he heard Cortana start to laugh and cry. "I tried to stay hidden," a warped copy gasped from the systems of a crashed Pelican, "but there was no escape! He cornered me, wrapped me tight... and brought me close."

I think back on the years we shared,

All the times you stood by me

All the pain you wiped away,

All the things you ever said.

I think back how you carried me,

And never once doubted me,

And you were my, my hero though it all.

A tight, vicious smile twitched his lips. He was here now; the enemy Gravemind wouldn't be able to hurt her for much longer.

He moved forward, listening to his AI whimpering softly in the back of his helmet as he attacked a nearby Stalker form that had its back mistakenly turned to him. Of course, that alerted the rest of the combat forms to his location, and they came at him in the waves that gave their species its name. The shotgun in his hands tore holes in the enemy, but he wished he had an extra pair of hands to speed up the reloading process.

The carrier forms that came down a short winding path released a flurry of Infection pods that revived the few combat forms he hadn't torn apart, forcing him to do battle with them a second time before moving up the way the carrier forms had come. He took cover next to the crashed Pelican and taking the dog tags from the deceased uninfected Marine lying out behind it, sticking them in the cockpit and sealing it from the enemy Flood before he turned to fight the others, hefting the flamethrower that the Marine had obviously been using to defend himself and lighting the gas right before a pair of Stalkers raced towards him, mutated into Tank forms, and attempted to take him down.

Needless to say, he set them on fire.

Unfortunately, other combat forms drove him back away from the corpses after they started making a God awful squealing noise, and for what felt like hours, he advanced and retreated, advanced and retreated, killing seemingly countless combat and pure forms before they finally stopped coming. The Spartan let out a long breath and continued forward, ducking under the beams of flesh that crisscrossed the room and sliding down the incredibly steep slope before lifting the flamethrower again, being extremely careful not to pop the pus balls attached to the walls and release the multitude of Infection pods within.

The next sphincter slid open at his approach, and he moved through it, barely repressing a shiver of disgust right before the other Gravemind began to speak. "Of course, you came for her. We exist together now; two corpses... in one grave."

John ignored him, turning the corner and striding out into the slits of light trickling inside through the rents in High Charity's hull.

"A collection of lies, that's all I am!" Cortana cried. In the Origin, she'd sounded amuse, laughing. Here she was desperate and scared, crying out for help. "Stolen thoughts and memories!"

I thank you for the moments of your life,

And never giving up on me…

"And yet, perhaps a part of her... remains." It laughed maniacally, its voice fading into hers.

The third fleshy door let him through, and he readied the flamethrower, :sensing: the Infection pods scurrying about in the room to his right, beginning the process on the recently deceased Brutes and Sangheili that had been fighting in that room. He turned another corner, saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and brought the flamethrower around - only to come face-to-mandibles with an Elite survivor. His eyebrows shot up behind his visor, but the combat forms caught his attention then, and he unleashed his own form of fire and brimstone on them, the terrified and slightly injured Sangheili helping as best he could when he could.

There were eleven combat forms to be dealt with, and the Spartan drained the flamethrower's fuel supply by half before they were well and truly dead, letting him tend to the Elite. "\Where are you injured?\" he murmured quietly in the language of the Covenant, having picked it up from those he had infected. It was similar to the Forerunner tongue, had a lot of the same base words, but they were just different enough to where the finer details were lost, forcing him to use the Covenant tongue rather than the Forerunner.

The Sangheili reluctantly presented his back to the Spartan; there was a long gouge perilously close to his spine, probably inflicted by a Brute spiker. John perform swift first aid, then told the Elite, "\There is a human transport back that way.\" He waved in the direction he'd come. "\Stock up on whatever you need, and I will join you shortly. Then we can both get out of this hell hole.\"

The Elite nodded resolutely and picked up his weapon and a few grenades, padding away and leaving John alone. The Spartan moved up the ramp of biomass into a short, fleshy tunnel before dropping down into a short hall just off High Charity's main bridge.

"May I speak with you, please?" Cortana asked, "What's your name? It's very nice to meet you! You like games? So do I."

The bridge was filled figuratively to the brim with combat and pure forms, but he moved forward anyway; the ambient temperature of the room jumped as the flamethrower burned a path through the enemy Flood, clearing the way across the transparent steel flooring that was already beginning to disappear beneath heaps of Flood biomass.

There was a terminal in a room under the central platform. "It was the coin's fault," Cortana begged him to understand, "I wanted to make you strong, keep you safe!" Then her voice went flat. "I'm sorry, I can't…"

And you held me through it all,

And you never let me fall,

And you let me fly away,

And you always believed...

He padded up the ramp leading away from the bridge and into a short hall, where there were two carrier forms virtually right on top of him. They popped, he fired, and the whole room was coated in Infection pods within a matter of seconds, forcing him to backpedal swiftly and make a circle of flame around himself to protect him from the Infection pods that leapt at him all at once. 'You're such a pyro, Commander,' Ursoen commented.

[In this line of work, you have to be, now please shut up and let me focus.]

The small cavern beyond had several Sangheili combat forms already rushing in his direction, and he swiftly torched them, leaping back under cover when one of the Ranged forms began to fire at him, prompting numerous others to do so, and John remained under cover until they stopped, temporarily dropping the flamethrower in favor of the spikers that he had picked up earlier. He turned on his active camo and peered around the corner.

There were two of them clinging to one of the walls and a third hanging upside down from one of the branching flesh beams spanning the room, and beyond them was a pair of Tank forms surrounded by combat forms and Infection Pods. 'He's getting desperate,' the Spartan thought, and the Infected murmured in assent in the back of his mind. John dropped his camo, primed and threw an incendiary grenade; it impacted solidly against the first of the Tank forms and provided enough of a distraction for him to fill one of the Ranged forms full of spikes and duck back under cover unscathed.

"I'm just my mother's shadow!" the AI cried, her distress so real that John involuntarily triggered a Flood shift, muscles bulking up in preparation for defensive fighting, "Don't look at me, don't listen! I'm not who I used to be…"

I think back how you overcame

All the times you could have slipped,

The way you fought the winds of change,

All the times your wings were clipped.

You taught me how to reach the stars;

You taught me how to heal my scars,

And you were my, my hero through it all...

The Gravemind sent the combat forms after him, but John was ready for them with a primed plasma grenade; even as the explosive detonated, he leapt up onto one of the wall protrusions that reminded him of a kind of fungus that grew on decaying wood. It provided a perfect ledge for him to move along one side without combat forms below noticing and firing on him first. He began quickly darting across the fleshy struts, shooting at the Ranged and Stalker forms as he went and evading the combat forms that leapt in his general direction.

Once he made sure that all of the pure forms in the area were dead, he turned to slaughtering the combat forms as they chased him through the biomass struts over the path. Had anyone been below him as he fought, they would have thought that it was raining Flood flesh; John cut them apart with a plasma sword that he'd taken from one of the corpses to replace the depleted spikers.

There was one last Tank form waiting for him, and he cut it apart at the "waist" before moving on. The Gravemind bellowed, "Time has taught me patience! But basking in new freedom, I will know all that I possess!" It was clearly pissed, now, and possibly the tiniest bit afraid; it knew that he was coming for Cortana and that he was going to annihilate it.

I thank you for the moments of your life,

And never giving up on me...

The cavernous space beyond was filled with enemies, and the Spartan sighed before charging into the fray, slicing and dicing as fast as he could. As he fought, he made his way across the cavern to a second plasma sword, igniting it and dual-wielding the twin blades.

'Cheater!'

[Quiet.]

Anything that came within range died in seconds, but it left him vulnerable to the Ranged forms and combat forms with mid-to-long-range weapons; he took cover inside small recessed tunnels to let his shields recharge before lunging out again and up the ramp on the far side of the cavern. Three combat forms jumped out at him, but they were no match for a Spartan that had both been trained by and infected some of the most skilled swordsmen and women the Forerunner Empire had in its arsenal.

And you held me through it all,

And you never let me fall,

And you let me fly away,

And you always believed in me...

He followed the ledge around behind a pillar that was steadily melding with the platform and flipped on his active camouflage, moving around and following the ridge to where more combat forms plugged the tunnel. He fully powered down his active camouflage and mowed through them with his dual blades, dropping one's charge down to zero. John threw the deactivated hilt at a distance combat form with enough force and accuracy to pop the infection pod in its chest, and he jumped across a gap to shorten the time it would take to reach his AI.

The door-sphincter slid closed behind him, and he sprinted forward.

"I have walked the edge of the Abyss! I have seen your future, and I have learned!"

"Submit! End her torment and my own!"

John snarled aloud as he splashed through a shallow pool of cloudy white water, and he slashed through the thin barrier of flesh into the reactor room just in time to see one of the four reactors explode. He tore around to one of the struts bridging the gap to the center platform and kicked a Tank form out of the way, the bony mass falling into the misty abyss below. 'I'll end your torment all right, just give me a few minutes...'

And you held me through it all,

And you never let me fall,

And you let me fly away,

And you always believed in me...

The Spartan jumped over a Stalker form when it tried to rush him and launched himself up onto one of the walls, the grippers in his boots and gloves enabling him to cling to the surface without needing to pierce the bulkhead to hold himself there. He swapped his plasma sword with the plasma rifle on his thigh and fired across the way at the Ranged forms that were trying to take him out; nothing else was really a threat at the moment because the combat forms wouldn't get a good angle or didn't have the right weapon to reach him.

One by one, the Ranged forms fell off the wall, Stalker forms leaping up to take their places then following them down; the Spartan began gunning down at the combat forms trying to kill him, and he finally was able to jump down and not risk getting slammed off the strut by an overzealous combat or Tank form. Unfortunately, there was still a single ranged form hiding below him, and he ducked behind a cargo module, chucking a plasma grenade in its general direction for a distraction. He lunged around on the opposite side and lashed out with his plasma sword, sprinting for the door. It slid open at his approach.

Cortana appeared on his HUD, her crimson form tinted dangerously green. "There will be no more Sadness, no more Anger, no more Envy!"

And you held me through it all,

And you never let me fall,

And you let me fly away,

And you always believed in me...

"You will show me what she hides!" the Gravemind roared, "Or I shall feast upon yourbones!" John ignored him and bolted through the subsequent doors, fighting through his armor's lag in an effort to reach Cortana because of the peripheral sense of urgency building outside of his mind.

[What the hell is going on?]

'The Gravemind is trying to take the Control Room, but all of the Spartans are here; we've got it covered. Ignore us; have your moment with Cortana.'

"This is UNSC AI serial number CTN 0452-9. I am a monument to all your sins."

John skidded to a stop before the door to the Sanctum of the Hierarchs, which refused to open, making him curl his lips in fury. He yanked open a wall panel and swiftly rewired the control panel; it finally hissed part of the way open, but it was enough. He slipped inside and slammed his plasma sword down on the stasis field, the magnetic fields overloading the containment field after the second strike.

"You found me..."

Instantly, the Spartan calmed from whatever strange fury had possessed him. Cortana was alright, she was safe, and he was getting her out of here. His AI's crimson form was limp against the surface of the holoprojector, the animated strings of code skittering across her skin gone; he didn't need to hear he say it to know that she was not all right, and she knew it.

"You know me," he said softly, kneeling at her side, "When I make a promise..."

A heart-rendingly beautiful smile, filled with joy and sadness at the same time, appeared on her face, letting the Infected see a new side of the woman their Commander realized he loved so many millennia ago. "You... keep it," she whispered, fresh equations beginning a slightly stuttering flow along her body before her processes settled into some semblance of normal operations, "I do know how to pick 'em."

"Lucky me," he murmured. Then, just to make sure, "Do you still have it?"

She pushed herself to her feet, then said, "The Activation Index from your Halo ring." She held out a hand, and it appeared over her palm, the key to a swift death for the unprepared. "A little souvenir I hung onto...just in case." She glanced away briefly at a noise from beyond the door. "Got an escape plan?"

John straightened. "Thought I'd try shooting my way out - mix things up a little."

The AI smiled as he pried a new Forerunner data chip from his helmet and held it out to her. It was much roomier than she was used to, but there was a reason behind it; a lot more of his brain was in use than the last time she'd been in there. "Just keep your head down..." she said exasperatedly, knowing that there was no way in hell he was going to do so, "There's two of us in here now, remember."

He smiled behind his visor, a few endorphins sliding out to let her know that he was happy to have her back, and he expertly ignored the multitudes of "AAWWWWW!" that were going on in the back of his mind as he reactivated his plasma blade. [Note to R&D: next MJOLNIR upgrade, integrated plasma swords and an automatic link to the main computers of the Fleet of Shadows.]

"I heard that," Cortana said, sounding surprised as he hacked the waiting Tank form in two the moment the door slid open.

The Spartan charged down the hall and ignored the Gravemind when he roared, "Now, at last I see! Her secret is revealed!"

"Did you?" John asked, ducking below the swipes of two combat forms and bashing the second to death with the hilt when the blade deactivated moments after he slew the first one. There was a weapons cache in range that had a fresh pair waiting for him, and he lunged for it, saying, "Well, you are presently integrated with my brain; it stands to reason that you'd be able to 'hear' me when I'm projecting."

She didn't have to tell him what to do about High Charity; this was going to be his second successful run-through, dammit, and nothing - not even the enemy Gravemind - was going to stop him. He sprinted across the fleshy beam to the reactor controls, flicking the necessary switches to expose the pylons, but when he spun around to switch his plasma rifle with the Brute shot lying six feet away, a trio of Tank forms lumbered his way, forcing him to back up, lips curling off his teeth in an instinctive display of rage.

"Do you trust me, Cortana?" he asked her, swiftly running through his slightly imperfect memories of the reactor room and building a three-dimensional model inside his head, trying to work out how he was going to pull this off...

"Yes." Her voice left no room for doubt; he had come for her not once, but twice, and proven that he was very much worth trusting.

"Good." The Spartan sprinted for the edge of the platform and gripped the edge as he passed, swinging himself around underneath it and hooking his ankles over an exposed coolant pipe for the reactor pylons. Just like the stupid gits that were inevitably born into every species, no matter how advanced, the Tank forms tried to chase him off the edge and wound up falling into the misty abyss below. Cortana snickered as he unhooked his ankles and used the downward and forward momentum given to him by gravity to swing himself back up onto the platform proper.

Cortana was laughing her head off as he picked up the Brute shot and used the bayonet on it to break apart a Jiralhanae combat form before it tried to kill him; the blade proved especially effective against the already soft Flood biomass, and in between attacks, he fired on the reactor pylons, taking them down one by one while evading the fire from the Ranged forms up on the walls.

The pylons exploded in quick succession, but the hybrid was already on the move, heading for the door that concealed his way out. He didn't even bother trying to gun down any of the Flood that ran after him; the Spartan only took care of what was in his way before dropping down the hole and spinning towards the exit, now flat out running. He headed back through the sniper alley and powered through the combat forms that tried to jump him from various hidey holes on either side of the path.

He made it into the bridge just in time to see a Tank form create a path for him to escape through, but there were what seemed like millions of combat forms flooding the area in a last-ditch attempt to prevent his escape - which failed miserably, needless to say. The Brute shot he still carried blew them apart in slightly oval-shaped explosions, and when he ran out of ammo for it, he switched to hacking them apart with his plasma sword right before he darted through the exit into the empty tunnel leading to the hole in the floor.

He dropped through it and into the room where he'd found the survivor, slaughtered the combat forms that had the brass to challenge him, and sprinted on. A lot of the combat forms were fleeing, too, but the carrier forms just kept on marching in his direction, turning to follow when he jumped over them and kept on running.

Blue-white explosions were going on all around him, providing the music for High Charity's final requiem, and he made it to the Pelican where the Elite survivor was proving that he very much deserved the bone-white SpecOps armor that he wore. He nodded to the Spartan as John charged up the slope to the bird, and both of them darted into the cockpit, sealing it behind them as the hybrid began a severely abbreviated preflight checklist after slotting Cortana into the holotank.

One of the Gravemind's tentacles tried to wrap around the dropship, but the heat from the engines forced it to retreat. The Pelican began to slide slightly to the right as it took off, smoke pouring from the left engine, and the tentacle came back to try and drag the transport back down, but they smoothly escaped its grip. High Charity exploded behind them as they soared up towards the waiting Halo.

**********

I am, [I am searching for you]

Waiting, [I am coming]

First Night, [I am coming for you]

Last stand.

I am, [I am searching for you]

Waiting, [I am coming]

Come and [I am coming for you]

Catch me if you can.

-"The Last Cowboy," In This Moment (A Star-Crossed Wasteland)