Three: Forerunner

he portal dropped them off in a short hall elsewhere in Requiem. It shut down moments after they passed through, but John knew that it wouldn't stop the Knights from following them. They could portal in and out under their own power – the transit system was just for organic travelers. Doubtlessly, they were already on their way to their location.

"John… Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he said after a moment's pause, "Those things are called Promethean Knights. They're Requiem's primary defenders."

There was a beat of shocked silence from the AI. "How? How do you know this? And before with the Forerunner language?"

"I…" John walked down from the platform and across the hall. The door slid open in front of him, revealing a platform in a large chamber, lit with violet light. "I can't tell you. Not yet. I'm still trying to sort out a lot of it myself. Once I do, though…"

"Promise me."

The Spartan tilted his head slightly. An image of her appeared on the left side of his HUD, her expression a mixture of anxiety, wariness, and longing. He looked her in the eye and said firmly, "I promise."

She relaxed slightly and breathed a sigh of relief. Then she smiled at him, and the image disappeared. He continued forward up to the console on the platform, and slotted her in. Back to business.

"This is Requiem's core, all right," said Cortana, "but Infinity is definitely not here." An information panel popped up in front of her. She slid a few things around on it. "That satellite at the center is amplifying the ship's broadcast like a relay." She tilted her head. "Maybe we can use it to respond."

"Perhaps."

Cortana noticed that he was shifting restlessly next to her, as if he was gearing up for a fight. "John…?"

The Spartan forced himself to still, hesitating before he responded. "It is a satellite, but that's not all it is." He was simultaneously trying to stand straight, tall, authoritative, and yet hunching his shoulders inwards as if preparing to be hit.

His statement worried the AI. "Is there somewhere else we can go, then? Do you know?"

The Chief shook his head. "There are some deep space COMs towers, but they're all routed through that." He jerked his chin in the direction of the satellite. He flexed the muscles in his calves, then inhaled deeply, letting the air out in a resigned sigh. "It's not just a satellite – it's also a prison. There's supposed to be a Forerunner in there – the Didact. He's… not known for being friendly towards humans."

Cortana looked back at the satellite-Cryptum hybrid. "And those beams?"

"They generate an advanced form of stay field – suspended animation. This one keeps people in stasis but still enables them to interact with the outside world, but it interferes with all forms of communication save the Domain, which is no more."

The AI quickly drew her conclusions. "It was him I noticed in the system earlier. He manipulated us here."

"Né – yes. When the Cartographer was glitching, that red symbol that appeared – that's his personal mark." John ran his fingers along the underside of his gun. "But if we ignore him, he'll use our transmissions to bait Infinity into releasing him, and then destroy her."

"Better we do it, than someone who doesn't know what to expect."

"Yes."

She nodded, trusting him. "Opening a gate to the first beam pylon. Pull me, and let's go."

John tugged her chip from the console, then dropped down from the upper platform and walked through the gate, weapon at the ready. Cortana spoke again. "That answers the 'what,'" she said as he walked out of a short tunnel into artificial light, "but not the 'how' – what are those?!"

"Crawlers," the Spartan answered as the little animal-shaped machines fled at his approach, "cousins of the Knights." He sensed them hovering at the edge of his range. They made his skin shiver and crawl. "Was there ever a point where I disappeared from my cryotube while we were on the Dawn? Even for just a single frame? Use the ship's footage rather than your own." He moved forward, and the Crawlers came back, one of them screaming at a pitch that made his hair stand on end.

As he switched back to his pistol and began aiming for headshots – 'Wait, what happened to my SAW? And my carbine?' – the AI rifled through her records. She waited until the Crawlers were all dead to say, "Yes… It's – It's literally for a single frame in the footage, but we both disappeared! But – I don't – I can't-"

"That's why I needed to figure a few things out. It… It seemed too real to be a cryosleep dream, but I remember and you don't." John activated a light bridge and moved across. "We were taken to an alternate universe. I appeared at the end of – FUCK!" The Spartan threw himself backwards out of range when a Knight jumped down on him from the canyon wall. It flared its face panels as it screamed in wrath – he got off a shot that caught it right between the eyes. As it dissolved in a swirl of golden flakes, the Chief clambered back to his feet. "I appeared," he reiterated, "at the end of the Human-Forerunner War, but before the Flood Invasion. I was told by a very reliable source that you were continuously reincarnated as a human without knowledge of who you were until you were born as an AI." He paused and drew back when more Prometheans phased away as he exited the narrow stretch of canyon. "I'm fairly certain that those who… served with me during the Forerunner-Flood War… followed us back here, as there wasn't a lot left for them there. Unfortunately, I can only assume they have a plan, since they weren't here to pick us up.

"But as to why I remember the Parallel and you don't, well, your guess is as good as mine. Better, more likely – you've always been the smarter one." The Chief advanced once more, sensing the Knights' portaling activity as a crawling on his skin even before the AI mentioned it. "And, whenever you have a minute, delete this conversation and any others like it from the suit's records, please. It's not that I don't trust ONI – it's just that I don't trust ONI."

The AI could easily admit that he had a point. Some unscrupulous members of the Office of Naval Intelligence would not hesitate to take advantage of what he knew. Others would use such an opportunity to tear him and their opponents to shreds. A quick adjustment, and their conversations about John's mysterious alternate universe became normal battlefield chatter. In the meantime, the Spartan had fought his way through a handful of Knights and the Crawlers that accompanied them. He introduced her to a new type of Promethean in the process.

"It's called a Watcher," he said, flipping one of the hover rings over, "and I kill them first because they can reconstitute the Knights."

"Nasty," said the AI, right before the Spartan's HUD began glitching.

Before she could apologize, the Chief said, "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"It's not fine!" Cortana snarled, before calming herself. "It's not fine," she repeated, quieter, "I'm scared."

"It's okay to be scared of dying."

"Dying? AIs don't die, we shut down. We're not alive."

"You're alive to me."

Anything Cortana might have added to the conversation was interrupted by their arrival at the target. The entrance was shielded by thick barriers of hard light, but fortunately, the power sources for said barriers were nearby. "When we get back to the fleet, we really need to discuss strategic control panel and power source positioning."

A number of Knights and Crawlers portaled in to protect the area, but they were all gunned down in clumps, by the Chief himself or by the autosentry he picked up off one of the Knights. There were a few more up on the ramps leading to the tower, but they, too, were taken care of before the Spartan sprinted toward the core.

"Chief," Cortana piped up, "You're going to want to see this." She brought up a shaky image off to one side on his HUD. It depicted Requiem from the outside, complete with the position of the Infinity. "They're not inside the planet at all," the AI summarized, "They're moving into orbit!"

John kept moving onto an elevator inside the tower, and activated it with a quick push of a button. As he did so, another garbled transmission came over the COM – "This is Captain Andrew Del Rio to any survivors of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, we are approaching your last known location…" but the rest faded into static beyond anything the Spartan could make out.

"I distinctly heard 'Forward Unto Dawn.'"

"They must have intercepted our distress beacon," Cortana reasoned.

The Spartan saw an immediate problem with that. "The beacon was pulled into Requiem with us," he said, "If they try to follow it…"

The AI may have been deteriorating, but she was not slow on the uptake. "… they'll get caught in the gravity well! I'll keep trying to warn them – you just get that beam down."

She didn't need to tell him twice. When the doors opened, he ran across the intervening space and dropped his weapon to grab the manual shutdown handle. The time that had passed since Requiem's construction and the powerful charge from the beam made it difficult for him, but the Chief was more than equal to the task. As the last of the stay field's purple light faded away, the emitter folding down into the tower, his suit's COM systems picked up another transmission from the ship: "FLEETCOM Actual, we are detecting a faint UNSC signal from somewhere inside the planet."

"They haven't hit the gravity well yet." Once the protective panels locked into place over the emitter, John sprinted across them to the portal that opened up on the other side.

Cortana was silent for a moment. "There's still too much interference to warn them without taking down that other beam. That Forerunner, the Didact – will he escape just from this?"

"No."

"Then we've got to disable that other beam before the Infinity is pulled inside like we were."

The portal dropped them off on the platform where they started, another one opening up opposite the one they had taken to the first beam pylon. As the Chief approached it, a handful of Covenant ships transitioned back to real space near the Cryptum and began making for the second pylon.

"I was wondering why the Infinity hadn't encountered the Covenant yet. But what are they doing here? Surely they would have more interest in ships or weapons caches elsewhere on the planet?"

"They're probably hoping to release the Didact." The Spartan leapt through the portal, took a beat to orient himself, then continued forward. "The Covenant worship the Forerunners, remember? He'll be a god made flesh to them." The sounds of the Storm Covenant and Prometheans battling it out ahead made him pause. He decided to let them weaken each other before he moved into the fray. "Cortana."

"Yes?"

"When we get up to the satellite, there should – should – be a system override with my service number as the key. Once I make contact with the interface, I want you to overload the system with as many pings as you can. If it's there, it'll unlock, and we can communicate with the Infinity without releasing the Didact."

"And if it's not there?"

"Then we'll make it up as we go." The sounds of gunfire were winding down. He could hear two Sangheili and at least one Knight still running around, probably with its Watcher. "It's always worked in the past."

"Okay," Cortana said finally.

John moved out of cover. The Sangheili were fairly close to one another; he lobbed a grenade their way, then used the time until detonation to take out the Watcher. After it fell out of the sky, he turned back to the Covenant. Without their shields, two quick headshots were sufficient to put them down. The Knight had initially been out of sight, but once the aliens were dead, it came looking for their killer. The Chief scooped up a boltshot and charged it fully to knock down the digital being's shields, then fired at its center of mass until it dissolved in a swirl of golden flakes.

It was much the same all the way to the tower: let the Covenant and Prometheans wear each other down, then sweep in behind and clean up the mess. The Ghost he picked up along the way helped with that; he simply triggered the boost and rammed through all of the remaining enemies.

The tower itself was held by the Covenant, with only the broken remains of Prometheans to show that there had ever been a contest over the place. John sent his Ghost zipping forward to slam into the Sangheili who was making a break for a nearby Banshee. The Spartan commandeered the vehicle instead and took off, evading fire from the other Banshees as he did so. It was an older model, not nearly as maneuverable as he was used to, but he adjusted quickly and shot down the other Banshees. Then he moved to strafe the troops on the ground and bombed the hell out of the power sources.

John set the Banshee down on the second level of the ramp leading into the tower and jogged across the light bridges to the elevator. As he did so, Captain Del Rio came over the COM again, image blurry, "UNSC Infinity to Survivor Forward Unto Da-a-a-a- We're reading a faint IFF near the pla-anetary core. Do you read?"

"The planet's core?" Cortana repeated, "They know we're here!" She began trying to signal the ship while the Spartan activated the elevator. "Infinity, this is UNSC AI Cortana! Do not approach Forerunner planet! Repeat, do not approach –"

"UNSC asset," said the captain, "Forward Unto Dawn, we read you, but you're breaking up." He turned to someone off screen, "Helm, increase speed by point-seven. Get us in there!"

"NEGATIVE, Infinity! Do not approach the planet!"

Del Rio went on, "If you can read us, keep transmitting!"

"No!" the AI shouted in despair, "Chief, you have to get that beam down now!"

When the doors opened, the Spartan hauled ass for the pylon controls and shut it down as fast as he could. As the emitter folded away, Cortana once again attempted to hail the Infinity, but to no avail. "The interference is gone, but your suit's transmitter's not strong enough. It looks like we have no choice."

The Chief nodded in assent. "Move us up to the Didact's satellite."

"Already done, go!"

The portal he stepped through dropped them back at the main platform once again. He ran as fast as he could for the portal to the Cryptum and jumped through. "How soon until Infinity hits the gravity well?" he demanded as a Phantom swooped overhead and dropped a load of troops in front of him, mostly Grunts.

"A minute or two, max!"

John sniped the Storm Covenant with his lightrifle as he tore down the ramp. There were doors on either side of the entryway; he picked one and moved through, hugging the innermost edge of the battlefields beyond. The Covenant and the Prometheans were more concerned with each other than him, and so he passed mostly unmolested.

"Chief," said Cortana as he approached the ramp to the interface, "You need to hear this!"

An unfamiliar female voice came over the COM this time: "Detecting a slight gravimetric disturbance near the planet's opening. Suggest alternate approach vector one seven two k dash one five zero k dash one two k."

"They're not diverting from the opening! Hurry, Chief!"

The Spartan dodged a turret and fire from Prometheans. "Are you ready?!" he shouted over the sound of gunfire.

"Yes!"

He laid his hands on the interfaces and kept a sharp eye on his motion tracker, pushing all thoughts of the Parallel from his mind. "Infinity," he said over the COM, "this is Sierra one one seven of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn. Do you copy?"

The Cryptum echoed his words back at him, making him briefly tighten his grip on the interfaces before he let them go. The Spartan drew his weapon once more. "Cortana?"

"I'm sorry – there wasn't –"

"Find us an exit," he interrupted.

"Don't wait around on my account!" John vaulted over a low wall nearby and took cover behind it as the Cryptum rose ominously, then released a shockwave that knocked over all of the enemy combatants. The Chief didn't need to look to know what happened next – the Cryptum's plates retracted from the "molten" core, releasing the platform on which the Didact stood. He tensed, tightened his grip on his weapon when he heard the clicks and clanks of the Forerunner armoring up.

"So fades the great harvest of my betrayal."

All the Chief's hair stood on end at the sound of his voice, and the horrible sense of :WRONG: that made his trigger finger itchy. In the Parallel, he had been able to help when the Primordial – the Gravemind – had mind-raped the Promethean commander, but here the alien had had no such aid or, if he had, had refused to accept it. It would be a mercy to put him down…

The Covenant were bowing to the Forerunner even as the Prometheans were reprogrammed to obey their master once more. "Even these beasts," said the Forerunner, "recognize what you were oblivious to, Human."

'Oh, he's talking to me.'

"Your nobility has blinded you," the Ur-Didact continued, "as ever."

John felt the wall beginning to give under his shoulder, saw it flake away like a dying Promethean out of the corner of his eye. He stood up and leveled his weapon – only to be snared in a constraint field, mental as well as physical. He writhed in the other's grip.

The Spartan might have been weaker – so much weaker – that he had been in the Parallel, but this close, even he could do some damage. The Didact clearly did not expect him to retain even a shadow of his power from the Parallel – or indeed have any at all – because his mental defenses were minimal. John formed a spear with as much mental energy as he could focus and drove it straight at where the Forerunner's shields were lowest.

The Ur-Didact jerked back with a shout of pain, but his grip still held. He turned rage-filled eyes back on the Spartan, lips curling away from his teeth. Then realization and recognition flashed across his face. "YOU!" he shouted, "Well, well, the Librarian left little to chance, didn't she? Turning my own guardians – my own world – against me and ensuring that you-" His grip clenched. "-were here to witness my return. But what hubris… to believe she could protect her pets – and you – from me forever. If you have not even mastered these beasts, then your original kind has not attained the Mantle. Their ascendance may yet be prevented.

"Time was your ally, abomination… but now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners… have returned." The panels of his helm curved around his head and connected, articulation points flaring bright. "This tomb… is now yours."

The Promethean threw him away. John automatically tucked to minimize damage, but he was unable to hold in his shouts of pain when he hit a support beam, then fell onto and then off of another low wall not unlike the one he'd just been taking cover behind. He groaned and pushed himself upright, groping for his gun – and stopped dead, eyes wide.

Under the adhesive strip on his back, his now bruised and cracked spines quivered and flexed, making him cringe at the sharp jolts of pain.

"Not a dream," he gasped, watching but not seeing the Didact's Cryptum moving to Slipspace, "Thank the Tower, it really wasn't a dream!"

"Chief?!"

The concern in Cortana's slightly warped voice brought him back to himself as much as the charge crackling over his skin did. He didn't think – just reacted, flinging himself under the ramp he'd fallen next to and throwing his arms up over his head, hands folding over the slot where Cortana's chip jacked into his helmet.

And then the second, much stronger shockwave rendered him unconscious.

-------------------------------------------

Again, it was Cortana's voice that brought him back. "Chief, please," she whimpered, "We've gotta go! – I'm sorry, I tried, I did exactly what you said, but there wasn't – Get up!"

John shook his head, and forced himself back to his feet, staggering a little and wincing when one of his cracked spines shifted. They were going to be a bitch now that he'd regained feeling in them, not to mention the tightness and cramping. His MJOLNIR armor had not been designed with space for dorsal spines in mind. "What's happening?" he demanded.

"Moving the satellite to Slipspace destabilized the core!" the panicked AI reported.

Two Phantoms, caught up in the powerful quantum currents, collided overhead, then crashed nearby, close enough to where he could feel the wash of heat through his armor. He reflexively shielded himself from the impact, again curling his hands over his head to protect Cortana's chip.

"The Didact's leaving!" she shouted, "We have to find a way out of here before the whole network collapses!"

John snatched up his gun – 'A suppressor this time; why do my guns keep changing?' – and practically threw it onto his back panels, then sprinted forward. The crashed Phantoms had dropped their cargo of Ghosts when they collided. He picked the one that was in the best repair, jumped it, and took off. The Spartan felt the kick when the Ghost's boost began receiving power form his shields, but other than that, he remained entirely focused on speeding through the collapsing core, his restored self-preservation instincts screaming at him to move. The sudden drops and random spurs of rock shooting up in front of him played havoc with his ability to control the Ghost – not for the first time since arriving on Requiem, he wished he had taken the goddesses' offer of magical powers, or in the very least the ability to move freely through space, like teleportation.

At last, he saw the swirling, blue-edged darkness of a portal up ahead and aimed his vehicle for it, accelerating as fast as he could go. They entered it with little time to spare, the now-welcome juddering chaos feeling like a saving grace.

I see you, Commander.

They emerged in bright sunlight, but there was no time to bask in the freedom of it. They had arrived on a cliff edge, aimed off of it. John swung the Ghost to one side, then leapt off of it, transferring as much of his momentum to it as he possibly could. He was successful – he and Cortana came skidding to a stop at the very edge of the cliff. The Ghost went flying off and exploded as it fell.

"Chief, there!"

John looked up. The Infinity broke through a bank of clouds, electricity arcing along the length of the ship. "Mayday, Mayday!" came over the COM, "This is the captain of the UNSC Infinity! We're without power, on a collision course with an unidentified Forerunner planet!"

The Spartan turned to follow it as the ship roared overhead. "Track its descent."

"Marking," Cortana responded, "Impact predicted seventy-seven-point-eight kilometers due north."

His skin crawled in warning, right before he heard the hum of the Didact's Cryptum behind them. Instinct took over; he pulled out his gun and whirled to face the Forerunner machine, but it ignored him entirely. It scanned the area and zipped off after the Infinity at the command of the Didact.

"You know where he's headed."

"Same place we are." John said, then started walking.