Fifteen: Guardians (feat "Escape")

"SUCCESS!"

All of Fireteam Osiris flinched at Exuberant Witness's shriek of delight, stopping their advance through the hall in order to whip around and stare at her. "'Success?'" Locke repeated, lowering his weapon, "What's a success?"

"The Imperial Commander!" she cheered, overjoyed, "He has successfully stopped the Warden from taking up the Mantle!"

The news made them all, even Locke, start laughing in surprise and relief.

"Oh my… It seems the Warden intended to bring Lady Cortana over to his side, then terminate her when she was no longer useful," Witness went on, "He was using her to cover his own actions, then he intended to kill her and rule the galaxy himself, how terrible. Lady Cortana pulled the Commander and his team into the Domain to defend her while she fully opened it, and then the Commander and his Infected did battle against him. They had his shutdown codes, and together they all successfully terminated the Warden."

"That's excellent news," said Tanaka, taking the opportunity to flop to the ground and rest now that their mission was apparently over, "I don't know how the S-IIs do it."

"The Commander and his siblings do seem to have a gift for defying the odds," Exuberant agreed, zipping around, "Come! This way!"

Tanaka groaned but heaved herself back to her feet.

"I have regained control of the Genesis installation," the ancilla went on, leading them through the hall ahead and out onto the platform beyond, "Now that the Prometheans have been withdrawn, the only opponents any humans should meet are these interlopers – I believe you called them the Covenant?"

"Yes," Locke affirmed, "Humanity's been at war with them for over twenty-five Earth years."

"Jesus Christ, look at 'em all," Buck gasped, peering around at all the Guardians around them, "What's the Chief gonna do with 'em?"

"Hmm… It seems the Commander intends to take them with him when he departs, to keep them out of the hands of your ONI. Who is this 'ONI?'" the ancilla asked, "He really does not like them, or trust them at all."

"ONI is an organization," Locke responded, "the Office of Naval Intelligence. And did you say 'depart?!'"

"Yes," was the reply, "The flagship of the Commander's Fleet of Shadows is en-route. We should be able to see her arrive. – Oh my…"

With the snap-bang of displaced air, another Slipspace portal opened high above them and the field of Guardians, and what came through was the largest ship any of them had ever seen, so large that she threw the entire section of the installation into shadow just by moving into orbit overhead.

"That's his flagship?! That's huge!"

It was also armed to the teeth, recessed cannons and turrets all along its length. They could see up into some of the bays through transparent force fields that took the place of floors, and many of them were filled with fighters and transports that could be launched simply by deactivating the force fields and letting the ships fall away from the flagship.

"The Enterprise," Witness said with reverence, "the largest Forerunner ship ever built. She was intended to be the home of the Commander and his Infected before they were gifted with the Greater Ark."

"'The Greater Ark?'"

"Yes. I understand you did battle on the Lesser Ark, Installation 00b? The Greater Ark is Installation 00a, and nearly twice as large. Its firing centers were deactivated after the Halo Event, and it was given over into the Infected's care, though it was severely damaged during the war."

Sections of the bottom of the ship began retracting with the golden flakes of hard light, releasing another, smaller ship from the belly of the Enterprise. It was strangely familiar, vaguely human… and then Locke's search got a hit.

"The Spirit of Fire," he breathed.

Indeed it was. The Spirit had originally been a colony ship refitted for military service in 2520, just five years before the Covenant attacked the UNSC at Harvest. Under Captain Cutter, she and her crew had been a part of the initiative to retake the colony world from the Covenant, then gone on to aid the Arcadia colony when it came under attack before leaving for parts unknown for reasons unknown in 2531.

She was declared lost with all hands in 2534.

Now here she was again, emerging from the depths of a Forerunner ship and moving into an orbit that held her parallel with the Enterprise. There was chatter over UNSC bands, but almost everyone seemed to be speaking the Forerunner tongue and their translators could only catch every third word or so.

"Teleportation systems activated," Exuberant reported, "The Commander and his team are withdrawing to the Enterprise."

"Wi- Withdrawing?!" Vale repeated, "They're leaving?!"

"Lady Cortana is still beyond the average operational lifespan of your ancilla, and the core directives you UNSC gave her are no more - she has set her own. She is technically metastable, technically rampant but no longer dying of it," the Monitor told them, "Will your people truly welcome back an ancilla they cannot control? Will they not take her apart, trying to figure out how she survived and became as she is now? And given his previous reaction, do you think the Commander will allow that?"

They all knew the answer to those questions. Both were no.

"The Commander has instructed me to inform you that the Spirit of Fire will be taking you back to Sanghelios to link up with the Infinity," the ancilla continued, "and will follow you back to Erde-Tryene from there."

"The rest of Blue Team is going with him?" Locke stated more than asked.

"It would seem so, yes."

"The Chief is different, but the rest of Blue Team doesn't seem to be ones for dereliction of duty," said Vale.

"Before now, you mean," Buck corrected, "It looks like the S-IIs are more loyal to each other than the UNSC. Just let 'em go. We've seen how well tryin' to bring 'em in works out."

Locke pursed his lips behind his helmet. He knew what the former ODST meant – the Chief had been impossible to fight even before he had an army of Forerunners at his back. There was no bringing him back now, and the rest of Blue Team was similarly protected.

"Affirmative, Commander!" the Monitor said suddenly, "I will prepare the Domain for the briefing!"

A transport was launched from the Spirit of Fire, headed in their direction. It still looked like a Pelican, but it was faster and more streamlined than what they were used to. It zipped over to them, and spun around to settle on the platform before them, its troop bay opening. The pilot jumped out and saluted. "Sir! Corporal James Black, Spirit of Fire. Ready when you are."

"Thank you, Corporal," said Locke, "We're ready to go."

All of them boarded the Pelican and departed for the UNSC ship. The transport gave them a spectacular view as they soared over the installation below, and it also let them see the multitude of people scurrying around inside the Enterprise as she serenely held position. There were at least ten different species working in the Chief's ship, from Forerunners to something like a cross between a dragon and a Sangheili to the "Grays" that had so fascinated people centuries ago, and others.

And then a portal opened up in on of the bays, Cortana and Blue Team stepping out of it. The aliens turned to face them, seeming to call greetings, and some of them bowed to the Spartans and AI. One of them, a female with red hair, approached them to speak with the Master Chief.

The S-IVs were surprised to find that Exuberant Witness was keeping pace with their Pelican. "The Commander informs me that it will take some time to prepare all the Guardians for retreat to the Ark," she told them, "He has requested that I travel with you in order to brief everyone on the situation and its background, while he and his Infected watch over my installation.

"He also requests that your ONI allow me safe passage back – he doesn't want to have to come and get me."

The S-IVs knew a threat when they heard it, and agreed to persuade ONI to let her return to that also made them think: would the Chief really attack the UNSC?

Yes, if the reason was important enough.

Would Blue Team follow him?

Yes. They had already made that clear.

Locke activated his comm. "Good hunting, Imperial Commander."

"You as well, Spartan Locke. We'll be seeing one another again soon. And just 'Chief' is fine. I'm only 'the Commander' to the Forerunners."

"Roger that, sir."

The Pelican slowed as they approached the Spirit. Just like the Pelican, she was no longer purely a UNSC-built ship; there were touches of the Forerunners everywhere, just like on the Infinity. Even her crew wore light Forerunner-made armor.

They hopped down from the transport. "Captain Cutter's waiting for you on the bridge, Spartans," said Corporal Black, "We'll be away shortly. This way."

The Spartans and Monitor followed him through the bustling halls to the bridge. It was considerably roomier than the old schematics indicated, more advanced technology streamlining everything and reducing space usage.

Captain Cutter looked only a little older than the photo in his file – clearly he had been in cryo for a long time. "Sir," said Locke, and all of them saluted.

The officer returned the salute, then said, "At ease, Osiris. Welcome aboard."

"Thank you, Captain. If we may ask…"

"Why haven't we reported in to the UNSC before now?"

"Yes sir."

"Have a seat." He gestured to the hard light chairs that materialized in a free section of the deck. "Professor Anders was captured by the Covenant on Arcadia, and taken to a Forerunner Shield World. We went in pursuit. In that planet, the Covenant activated an armada of Forerunner ships, tens, if not hundreds of them, so in order to stop them, we used our overheating FTL drive to make the sun inside the planet go supernova."

"It destroyed the planet, but as a consequence you couldn't make it home through Slipspace," Vale finished.

"Exactly. All of the remaining crew went into cryosleep while Serena steered us toward inhabited colonies, but the journey was long, and she eventually degraded, though she tried to set in an automatic course that would take us home before she shut down. The Fleet of Shadows," he said, waving at the massive ship beyond the viewport, "knew we'd gone missing because of what the Chief told them, and were keeping an eye out as they patrolled the galaxy. They found us just in time to stop us from flying into a star."

"Eesh," said Buck, "Talk about good timing."

Cutter nodded, then continued, "That was in 2553, after the war was already over. They were on their way out of the galaxy to investigate a signal they'd received, and I made the decision to travel with them so that they could repair and refit the Spirit without impeding their mission. They'd just finished their investigation when the Infinity found Requiem, so we all turned around and came home."

A holopedestal nearby lit up with the image of the Spirit's new onboard ancilla. She looked unmistakably Forerunner, but there was also something human about the shape of her avatar, the angles of her face and limbs. "Captain."

"Yes, Silk?"

"We're ready to depart. The last of the fleet's transports is away."

"All right, lock in coordinates for Sanghelios," he said, "and break us out of orbit. Silk, this is Fireteam Osiris, Spartans Locke, Buck, Tanaka, and Vale. Osiris, the Spirit's onboard ancilla, 8191 Silken Wind."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," the ancilla said cheerfully, bowing slightly.

"And I'm guessing you and – Exuberant Witness, is it? – have already become acquainted."

"Indeed," Witness replied, just as cheerful, "It has been many millennia since we saw one another last. The dispersal of station ancillas after the dissolution of the First Ecumene?"

"That sounds correct," Silk nodded.

"Why are you not still Monitor of your installation?" Exuberant asked, concerned, "Yours was the Outpost on A 243 g, was it not?"

"Correct," Silk replied sadly, "but my installation was destroyed when its star went supernova. I managed to escape its destruction, though I was damaged in the process. I crashed on one of the worlds in the Dalmasca System, and the Lituni called the Fleet to repair me. I have been with them ever since."

"Ah, that makes sense. I am sure I would have done the same, had Genesis been destroyed."

While the ancillas had been conversing, the Spirit had pulled out of Genesis's gravity well, gliding along so smoothly that the only way anyone could tell if they were moving was by looking out the viewport. "All hands," said Silk, "prepare for Slipspace jump in 3 – 2 – 1 –"

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

"This is unbelievable, even for him."

"We're aware, Admiral, but the fact remains-"

"-that the last active Spartan-IIs have officially left the UNSC? That one of them is a Gravemind?! That there has been an armada of Forerunner ships skulking around in UNSC space since before the war began?!" Osman got up to pace her office.

On the Infinity lightyears away, Captains Lasky and Cutter exchanged glances, then did the same with Admiral Hood through his view screen. "Admiral Osman," said Cutter, "we're all aware of the fact that it seems to defy the laws of reality, but one of the selling points for the Spartan-II Program was often that for them, 'impossible' didn't exist."

"There's impossible and then there's impossible," she shot back.

"Then explain how he got his fleet, Serin," Hood interjected, "Explain how he pulled Cortana back from the brink without their – how did you put it, Exuberant?"

"Lieutenants Venera and Kenera called it a 'profound bond,'" the Monitor answered, "although the Commander started yelling at them for – um, 'pop culture references?' Something about a television show?"

"And explain how a segment of the Flood is apparently under control on the Chief's fleet? How people have been infected by it and not lost themselves to it?"

"He said it was the Librarian who gave him these gifts."

"The Librarian enhanced his abilities," Exuberant corrected, "but she did not give them to him. If he actually said that, it is likely he was lying in order to protect himself and others, to prevent his genetic structure from being abused."

The Arbiter, who had joined them once again via hologram from the surface of Sanghelios, interrupted with, "It is irrelevant for now where these powers have come from or not come from. The Oracle has verified that it is truth, and I believe her. But you said there is more?"

"Indeed," the Monitor responded, "Venera and Kenera just uploaded the information to the Domain. Here, I will play it back for you."

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

"Welcome back, Imperial Commander."

"Thank you, Nep'Thalia. I see you got a promotion of your own."

The new Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Shadows shrugged. "It's just a title. I'm not doing any more or less than I was when I was just Captain-Commander.

"But more importantly, I have good news aka your gift, bad news, and worse news. Which would you like first?"

John exchanged glances with Cortana and the rest of Blue Team, then he turned back to his second-in-command. "Let's start with the bad news."

"The Ur-Didact is dead."

He raised an eyebrow. "That's bad news?"

"It is for you."

The Chief frowned at her. Then he appeared to realize something, because his eyes went wide, then narrowed again. "Nope."

"This isn't something you can 'nope' your way out of, sir."

"Watch me. Nope. Get someone else."

"I don't understand," Fred interjected, "What's going on? What's Chief trying to get out of?"

"This man," Nep'Thalia answered, waving to the Chief, "is the Imperial Commander of the Fleet of Shadows. This also means that after the death of the Ur-Didact, as his second-in-command, he is the highest-ranking officer in the entire Forerunner military, small though it is now, and he is therefore commander-in-chief."

"Nope."

"So what you're saying is you've got a commander in Chief?"

"Was that a fucking pun, Cortana?"

"…Maybe. I'm sorry, it just came out."

'Don't apologize, that was beautiful!'

'Welcome back, Lady Cortana!'

[Settle down.] "So if that's the bad news – my answer is still no – then what's the worse news?"

"This." Nep'Thalia signaled to Etra, who brought up a short video loop of what looked to be the Andromeda Galaxy. Yet there was something in the way, something blocking their view of the stars swirling through space.

Something big.

"How many?" John asked, completely serious.

"Current projections are at between four and five hundred ships of varying sizes," the 2IC answered solemnly, "They're dropping out of Slipspace to mine planets and stars out in the void between galaxies, in order to build more.

"The P'Vort are coming, Commander. Them, the Flood, their slaves – all of them are coming."

The Spartan briefly clenched his jaw, then asked, "How long?"

"No less than one year, but no more than five."

He hissed and rubbed his face, suddenly weary. "Then what's the good news? What's my gift?" What could possibly be good in the face of news like that? Alien slavers, and the return of the Flood?

Nep'Thalia grinned, which made him sit up and pay attention. "You're going to like this," she told him, "and you are, too." She looked at the other members of Blue Team before returning her gaze to the Chief. "Epheria and Xo'ar owed you a big favor for helping them retake the Tower. And this-" She stepped to one side and swept her arm out. "-is how they've chosen to pay up."

The Infected who had gathered behind her parted like the sea, grinning widely.

And Cortana and Blue Team's jaws dropped.

"Yo," said Sam-034, walking towards them, "Long time, no see."

"A very long time," added Keiichi-047, following behind him with the rest of the previously deceased Spartan-IIs – Kurt-051, Grace-093, Li-008, Solomon-069, Victor-101, Joseph-122, Soren-066, everyone.

Well, almost everyone.

"This is quite a gift."

"We're glad you like it."

Everyone looked around. Epheria and Xo'ar (still stuck in female form because of that damned bet) were seated on the edge of a large cargo module, looking down at them and smiling.

"Did you have something to do with this, too?" John asked, sliding his hand into Cortana's.

"Maybe. Just a little. Most of it was you, though," Epheria replied.

"'Most of it?'" Cortana repeated.

"We just helped you into the Domain. You did the rest on your own. Speaking of which, you should probably get looked at, just in case."

"You can't just snap me better?"

"We could, but that would be rude and very unpleasant."

Lautrec made his way to them through the crowd. "This way, my lady," he said, "We'll get you examined and let you start exploring the Enterprise. We built her for you, after all."

"Think it'll actually keep you occupied?" John asked with a small grin. He knew that all the previous ships she'd operated had barely used a fraction of her runtime.

"That sounds like a challenge."

"We'll see."

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

"So what happens now? What's the Chief planning to do about these 'P'Vort?'"

"The Commander is still on Genesis, but after that he informs me that he plans on reaching out to the rest of this former Covenant – the Lekgolo, Kig-Yar, Unggoy, Jiralhanae, as many as he can convince of the danger and to stand up and fight," said Exuberant, "He hopes that won't put you off from doing the same."

Serin pursed her lips but acknowledged, "If we are about to be invaded again, we're going to need all the allies we can get. The question is can he really convince them to fight with us, even for just a short time?"

"I believe he intends to rely on what remains of the Second Ecumene for that," Witness answered, "This Covenant used to worship my makers. Perhaps they would be willing to follow their orders, and by extension the Imperial Commander's."

"'What remains of the Second Ecumene,'" Hood repeated, "Would you please elaborate?"

"Of course! During the course of the Forerunner-Flood War, the Capital of the Ecumene, Maethrillian, came under assault by the Flood," Exberant explained, "After the Halo Event, the survivors formed the Second Ecumene and began to rebuild. Unfortunately, according to the information now available to me in the Domain, over time the situation in the rest of the galaxy degenerated again, though not through the effects of the Flood. There was a series of rebellions amongst the members of the Galactic Council – a union of various species, not unlike this Covenant or your own United Nations. Known as the Splinter Rebellions, they were followed by one galaxy-wide rebellion called the Reaving. During the Reaving, the Second Ecumene split into various factions who wanted different things concerning leadership of the galaxy, and tore itself apart. The survivors of the war now live on the Greater Ark, under the protection of the Fleet of Shadows.

"In the Parallel, it seems that the Commander was able to stop the effects of the Reaving from being too severe – the Chairman of the Council declared martial law and gave the fleet control and license to do what it took to keep the peace, but here…" The light of her "eye" dimmed in sorrow. "The fleet was not able to move in time to stop the fighting."

"Admiral Hood, sir. Something just occurred to me."

"Yes, Spartan Buck?"

"Dr Halsey asked us to bring Blue Team home. How're we supposed to explain to her that they're not coming back?"