Two: The Machine-Laden Kingdom

0130 hours (arbitrary ship time), September 19, 2552 (Military Calendar) / UNSC Pillar of Autumn, en-route to Installation Zero-Four, Threshold system.

They were all dreaming, they knew that much, but how they were all dreaming together across space and time was beyond them. Yet in that placid place between sleep - and cryosleep - and full waking, nothing seemed to faze any of the SPARTAN-IIs. Not even the sudden, absolutely sure knowledge that most of them shouldn't even have been alive, much less full-fledged SPARTANs on active duty.

They were on Reach in the dream, in the same auditorium where they had been told of first contact with the Covenant. But Doctor Halsey and the UNSC officers weren't present; the stage was empty save for two people.

The first was Cortana. She was sky-blue now, seated on the edge of the podium. She wasn't cold and distant like usual, instead relaxed and calm, and even smiling with unmistakable affection at the other occupant of the stage.

He was a SPARTAN like them, but his armor was alien and strange - mostly black and silver, spiky in some places, gauntlets clawed, yet clearly derived from the MJOLNIR armor none the less. His chest was marked in white: 117.

His helm segmented and retracted to reveal his face. He was about their age with the same unnaturally pale skin of a life lived almost entirely in armor, military-short brown hair just starting to go gray, and clear and focused electric blue eyes. When he spoke, they could hear his gravelly voice clearly, yet it also seemed to be layered with many thousands of others.

"Events have begun to spiral towards their inevitable center," said the Unknown Spartan, "but there is no need to fear. We, at least, have lived this once before, we know what is coming, and though we cannot truly walk the path beside you, we will do all we can to keep it stable - keep you safe.

"So arm yourselves. A storm is coming."

And then there was the hiss of their cryotubes as they unsealed, the unusual dream already fading from their conscious minds. The Spartans climbed from their cryotubes a few at a time, some of them shivering a little to shake off the cold.

The groups of techs led them through the rebooting of their armor's systems. Green Team was getting their weapons diagnostics done when the COM crackled. "Bridge to Cryo Two, this is Captain Keyes. Send Blue Team to the bridge immediately." When the chief technician protested, Keyes snapped, "On the double, crewman!"

"Aye, aye, sir." The technician turned to Blue Team, who had stepped forward when Keyes spoke. "We'll find you weapons later."

The four Spartans followed him out and down one hall to a sealed hatch - which exploded towards them right as the crewman reached it. Without the benefits of their armor and personal shields, the tech was killed instantly, the blast throwing what was left of him against the Spartans. Fred caught him and lowered him to the deck, but there was no time to do more than collect his dog tags and move on.

They doubled back and vaulted over a pair of power conduits into another hall. The hatch at the far end was green, and the Spartans moved quickly through, their armor and shields deflecting more explosions. They ducked one by one under a half-closed blast door; it wasn't moving, but they could still hear the gears grinding as it tried to close.

There were ODSTs in the hall beyond, and though they were needed on the bridge, the Spartans slowed their pace long enough to help the other soldiers corral the Covenant into another section of the ship, letting Cortana suck out the atmosphere and asphyxiate the aliens. Then they continued on - only to run right into an Elite in blue armor. Lightning-fast, Kelly lunged and body-slammed the alien into a bulkhead, snapping its neck while it lay stunned before claiming its plasma rifle for her own.

The Marines beyond moved to let the Spartans pass, and they emerged into the next open hall, reaching the bridge without further incident. Kelly stayed back to guard the entrance, leaving Fred, Sam, and Linda to meet with the captain.

The man in question was standing at his station before the viewport, through which the warriors could see a gas giant, its moon, and a ring-shaped construct suspended between them. That gave the Spartans pause for a moment - what was it? Who built it? - but they kept moving, taking note of the exhausted crew. The officers manning the Autumn's stations were doing everything from battling Seraphs to monitoring reactor output, and it was clear they had been doing so for some time. All of them looked dead on their feet, the captain most of all.

Fred stepped forward and saluted. "Captain Keyes."

He appeared not to have heard them arrive but turned to face them when the Spartan spoke. "Good to see you, Master Chief. Things aren't going well. Cortana's done better than I imagined, but we never really stood a chance."

"Twenty Covenant superior ships against a single Halcyon-class cruiser," the AI said as her hologram materialized on the pedestal nearby, "With those odds, I'm content with seven- make that eight kills." She nodded in satisfaction and turned to face the others, crossing her arms.

Before she could say anything more, a blast rocked the ship, sending people staggering. Fred almost lost his footing but regained it in time to catch Keyes before he hit the deck.

"Report!" the man barked, straightening and nodding his thanks to the Spartan.

Cortana's crimson form brightened with anger. "One of their boarding parties - residue indicates an antimatter charge. At least it took them with it, foolish flesh."

"And the MAC gun too!" one of the officers called, "Fire control is offline!" He was typing furiously at his station, directing repair crews to the damaged areas as fast as possible. Without the MAC, they had no hope of holding off the Covenant, and Cortana said as much.

"Captain, that gun was my last offensive option." The AI clenched her tiny fists.

"All right then. I'm initiating Cole Protocol Article Two. We're abandoning the Autumn. That means you too, Cortana."

"While you do what, go down with the ship?" She planted her hands on her hips.

"In a manner of speaking." Keyes gestured with his pipe. "The object we found, I want to try and land the Autumn on it."

"Sir, this war has enough dead heroes."

"I appreciate the concern, Cortana, but it's not up to me," the man responded, "Destruction or capture of a shipboard AI is unacceptable; that means you're leaving ASAP. Upload a selection of landing zones to my neural lace, then sort yourself for a hard transfer." He turned to the Spartans (even as one of her personality spikes hissed, "This is my ship, I will not leave it!"). "Which is where you come in. Get her off this ship and keep her out of enemy hands. If they capture her, they'll learn everything: weapons projects, troop deployments… Earth."

'Bold of you to assume they don't already know.' But she kept that thought to herself as she arranged things to her liking. Finally, she turned her avatar back on and said, "The Autumn will continue evasive maneuvers until you initiate a landing sequence. Not that you'll listen, but I suggest letting my subroutines handle the final approach."

"Excellent work, Cortana; thank you. Are you ready?"

Cortana looked at him for a moment. She knew about Keyes' history with Doctor Halsey, about their daughter Miranda, and wondered how he saw her. Was he just a cracked-mirror image of her creator, or something else? ("I'm just my mother's shadow!" one of the spikes gasped.) Another daughter?

Did it matter?

"Yank me."

There was a brief moment of suspension, almost like how people described zero-gravity. And then she was streaming into Fred's armor (not John's, never would be again), running the necessary diagnostics to ensure the transfer went smoothly and boosting the interface buffer between them.

After that, there wasn't much for her to do except watch as Blue Team fought their way through the ship, occasionally coming across Marines and the other Spartan teams engaged in a life-or-death game of castle defense. They were steadily losing the fight, however, the Covenant boarders pushing them back, pinning them down and slaughtering them in cold blood. One by one the teams were forced to leave the ship with the Marines and ODSTs, aiming for the ring beyond. Because Fred insisted that all his men leave before he did, Blue Team kept moving, weaving through the halls and maintenance access ways to find their own lifeboat and make good their escape.

Even though the walls seemed to grow aliens spouting plasma fire, they couldn't stop the Spartans. The very sight of them made the Grunts flee in terror, and the Elites were usually too busy with attempts to slay the Demons and claim glory to corral their minions. It was like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object, save the Sangheili were not as immovable as the Spartans were unstoppable.

Fred scooped up a Marine that had stumbled and fallen just before the entrance to the one remaining lifeboat they had managed to find. The warrior promptly dumped the other soldier into one of his buddies' lap, making room for the other three heavily armored super soldiers.

Remembering what happened before, Cortana opened a private channel. "You might want to hang on."

Disregarding her words, Fred waited until the others were onboard before he sealed the door and grabbed one of the support handles. "Punch it," he growled, and received an affirmative from the pilot.

They exploded out of the airlock and into space, skimming almost perilously close to the Autumn's hull in order to avoid being exposed in open space for as long as possible. Something like grief filled the Spartans at the sight of the Autumn accelerating toward the ring; there went their only hope of completing the Alpha Rendezvous and avenging Reach and their brothers and sisters.

After a moment Fred killed his external speakers but left the COM channel open. "What is that thing?"

"Covenant battle networks call it a 'Halo.' It seems to have some kind of religious significance to them; I'm getting a lot of references to a 'Great Journey.' Those who built this place knew what they wrought - destruction and death, dust and echoes! Do not mistake their intent, or all will perish, as they did before!" the AI answered before withdrawing.

The Spartans turned that over in their minds. Something about her statement - and that of the personality spike - seemed off in more ways than one (how did she know about its builders, its purpose? What was its purpose?), but none of them could figure out an answer, so they let it slide.

"This duty station really sucks," one of the Marines grunted. No one saw any reason to disagree.

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

Not too far away, the Spartan known to his own world as the Master Chief was taking a considerably more sedate trip down to the installation's surface via the Cryptic Whisper, a Forerunner stealth corvette. He stood on the ship's bridge, wearing Forerunner armor refitted to be an exact copy of a UNSC Marine's, examining the readouts the ship's ancilla put up for him. He could have done it all himself, but he liked to let the ancillae do the number-crunching; they were far faster and more fluid, had a more intuitive grasp of machinery and its capabilities than he did. "How're we doing, Winterspell?"

The ancilla's avatar appeared over the holographic console. She took the form of a vaguely female figure made of snow, surrounded by a swirl of slowly falling snowflakes, and she drifted over to him. "There are more survivors than anticipated," she answered, her voice like a sigh, "Sensors indicate there are six teams of Spartans present."

"Six? Which ones?"

"Red, Blue, Green, Black, Orange, and Silver, Commander." She listed their names. Most of them had already died in his timeline; he was glad to see that at least some of them had made it.

"All right, take us in. Find us a lifeboat where everyone died and drop us off, then start dropping off the others so they can infect the corpses. Once the Autumn lands, we'll start directing all the combat forms there."

"Aye, sir."

He still thought that Forerunner technology was amazing, even after a hundred thousand years; even though they were rocketting toward the ring at a speed that would have had him pressed flat against a wall, the internal dampeners made it so that he couldn't even tell they were moving. "Appraise me if anything unexpected comes up."

"Of course."

"Thanks, Winter." He headed off into the ship.

He wasn't the only one temporarily joining up, but it was still incredibly strange to see his alien crew in human form - especially Ferial, who was, effectively, a dragon. Ambience-of-Night was helping her pull her hair into a ponytail, since Gultanr didn't have anything that resembled hair - and neither did anyone else, for that matter, not like humans did. John was no help in that area, either; he kept his hair regulation-length even when changing styles and fashions decreed otherwise.

[Are we ready?]

'As we'll ever be, Commander.'

'This is exciting! I'm looking forward to meeting your other family, Commander. This version of them, at least.' Venera was bouncing on the balls of her feet.

[Just don't show it around them; they'll be wary of anyone who seems too friendly. And since we're going to get "killed" by the Flood.]

'What about Lady Cortana?'

[She'll be fine. Actually, once I tell her you're with me, she'll probably want to know absolutely everything.]

'Ah, good, maybe we can trade. I want to hear "little Chief" stories from your youth.'

[Mmm. Don't like that.]

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As before, the lifeboat suffered catastrophic airbrake failure as they entered Halo's atmosphere, and the crash landing itself killed all the occupants save the Spartans and the AI. The humans were knocked unconscious, and Cortana decided against disturbing them unless the Covenant patrols arrived early; such as it was, this was one of the few times the Spartans would get something resembling real rest while on Halo. Instead she dedicated her time to monitoring the Covenant battlenet; despite their superior technology, they were still idiots broadcasting tactical data on unencrypted channels, not knowing that the UNSC was listening in.

After a few minutes, the Spartans began to stir. Cortana turned to them and said, "Blue Team, can you hear me? Can you move? There are Covenant dropships on approach."

That made the four rocket back to full awareness and scramble for their weapons. They gathered their gear and darted across a metal conduit exposed by years of weathering by the waterfall. The conduit formed a handy bridge that let them take cover in the hills beyond the river as the first dropship landed near the crashed lifeboat.

Linda nailed the Sangheili with her sniper rifle right off the bat. The Grunts panicked almost immediately after and started running around screaming and flailing their arms, leaving the Spartans free to pick them off alongside the Jackals. None of them managed to make the warriors' shields so much as flicker before they died, leaving them free to advance.

"I'm reading another lifeboat beacon nearby," Cortana reported, "Head up along these cliffs and left around the bend up ahead."

Fred flashed an acknowledgement at her, and Blue Team moved through the trees, their motion trackers picking up enemy movement in the hills beyond. Two Elites and seven Grunts joined the Spartans' already obscene career body counts before they made the jump to lower ground. They rounded the bend as Cortana said and found a few squads of Marines under attack. The humans had taken shelter in an odd structure; the upper part was shaped like a U and launched balls of a plasma-like substance skyward at regular intervals.

The Spartans set that aside in favor of taking on the waves of Covenant harrying the Marines. With all four of them, it was easy enough, and it didn't take long before they were jogging over to greet the squad leader, one "Sergeant Johnson."

"What's your status, Sergeant?" Fred asked when they stopped in front of the man.

"We're scattered all over this valley," was the reply, "We called for evac, but until you all showed up, I thought we were goners."

"Don't worry, Sergeant," Cortana said over Fred's external speakers, "We'll stay here until evac arrives. Major Silva has dispatched someone to pick you up."

A cry went up from the upper level of the structure; one of the lookouts had spotted an inbound enemy dropship. But even with just one team of Spartans, it was almost child's play to hold the area against the Covenant, Linda up on the structure's one accessible floor and Fred, Kelly, and Sam circling below. They had just finished repelling a fifth assault when a friendly voice broke over the COM.

"This is Echo Four-Nineteen, anyone reading me? Repeat, any UNSC personnel respond!"

"Roger, Echo Four-Nineteen, we read you; this is Fireteam Charlie. Is that you, Foehammer?" Cortana seemed to be in a good mood now; she sounded almost perky over the radiowaves.

"Roger, Fireteam Charlie, good to hear from you." The Pelican swooped overhead and circled the structure. The Marines cheered - before being startled to silence by more lifeboats thundering past overhead.

"If those lifeboats make it down, the Covenant are going to be right on top of them. We should go after them, rescue all we can." Over the COM, the AI said, "Forehammer, we need you to disengage your Warthog. Blue Team and I are going to see if we can save some soldiers." Cortana put up a nav point as Rawley swung her bird around to drop the vehicle on a small rise a short distance away.

The Spartans made their way towards it, but there were only three seats for four soldiers. Sam volunteered to go with the Marines to help Major Silva. "Linda can pick off the Covies from a distance, Kelly's fast enough to take them out before they know she's there, and you need Cortana for tracking. I'll go."

So the remaining three set off with Linda in the passenger seat and Kelly manning the turret, and the construct flicked a nav point in the general direction of the tunnel. Cortana stayed quiet this time as Fred sent the Warthog down into the dry lakebed and spun the vehicle around to see the immense tunnel sprawled out before them, curving away into a dimly lit passage.

The Spartans proceeded carefully into the dark; there was no telling what kind of unpleasantness existed in the shadowy confines of the tunnel. The construct knew better, however; the danger was beyond a deactivated energy bridge that the Warthog would have to jump. "What are you waiting for?" she demanded impatiently, "The Covenant is further in; it's too exposed here. We're safe for now."

Fred nodded and gave it a little gas, speeding up through a series of tight turns before coming to the deactivated energy bridge. He checked to make sure the LRV would clear the gap before gunning the engine and making the jump. As the wheels thudded back to earth, Cortana said, "I'm picking up movement nearby."

No lifeboat could punch through that much earth and metal without killing itself and its occupants, so that most likely meant Covenant. As quickly and quietly as he possibly could, Fred guided the Warthog around the corner and down a short ramp to hover at the edge of the tunnel.

Beyond was a massive cavern, dimly lit by a blue glow coming from alien machinery. As their eyes adjusted to the greater darkness, the Spartans noticed what Cortana had already detected. There were Covenant soldiers, mostly Unggoy, patrolling on the near side of a gulf that bisected the floor of the chamber. The Jackals gave themselves away with their bright shields, and the glowing articulation points on the Grunts' and Elites' looked like little lights bobbing in the dark.

Fred glanced at Linda, who was already drawing a bead on the two Elite Minors patrolling to the right of the main path. Four shots later, the bodies hit the ground, the rifle reports echoing through the cavern. The Jackals immediately started looking for the shooter even as the Grunts tried to flee.

Fred gunned the engine and brought them out into the cavern proper, Kelly opening up the LAAG aiming for the Jackals; of the remaining aliens, they were the most dangerous. The sniper, meanwhile, switched to her assault rifle and started picking off the Grunts while they were at range, letting the driver mow them down when they got too close. They had to temporarily abandon the Warthog to flush out the remaining foes, but when they were dead, the Spartans gathered at the edge of the deep canyon that split the cavern floor.

"Cortana?" Fred asked, "Any ideas?"

"It looks like there's a control panel here," the AI replied, putting up one nav point, then another, "and a path up to it here."

"Thank you." Fred went to check while Linda brought the 'Hog around. As he walked up the ramp, he caught flickers of movement on his motion tracker. He paused, eyes flicking between the tracker on his HUD and the bend in the path. Then he pulled out a plasma grenade, activating it and hurling it around the corner.

There was a furious roar followed by an explosion, and he rounded the corner to find the bloody and headless corpse of an Elite Major on the floor. It seemed that the grenade had adhered to the Sangheili's helmet and destroyed its head and a fair bit of its upper body in spectacularly gory fashion when it went off.

Cortana let out a faintly amused hum, some of her personality spikes hissing out laughter at the alien's misfortune. Ignoring her, Fred continued past the corpse toward the end of the path, where the nav point was suspended over a holopanel, itself projected between two posts of an unknown makeup. The display itself was familiar in some undefinable way, and Fred cocked his head, then touched an aqua circle. After a moment, emitters extended from either side of the gulf, and a bridge made of nothing but light faded into view.

The Spartans looked dubiously at it, then exchanged glances. Fred tested the bridge, which seemed solid enough, before they piled back into the Warthog and gunned it across, all of them white-knuckling it until they were back on solid ground.

All told, the Spartans rescued more than a hundred Marines and naval personnel, as well as another squad of Spartans, and they climbed into Echo Four-Nineteen's Pelican as the sun was "setting" behind another part of the ring. Though the sunset was nowhere near as beautiful as those of actual planets, it was far stranger - more akin to a solar eclipse than an actual sunset. The Spartans largely ignored the sight, save for the fact that the cover of darkness would make it easier to sneak up on the Covenant.

"I've found Captain Keyes," Cortana said abruptly, "He's being held aboard a Covenant cruiser, the Truth and Reconciliation, a ship I disabled before we abandoned the Autumn. The Covenant put her down about three hundred kilometers up-spin."

"How soon can we organize a rescue team?"

"We'll have to talk to Major Silva about that. And hope he's not still holding a grudge."