Spartan, Meet Bounty Hunter

Chief tries, unsuccessfully, to fight a flash of panic when he wakes. As soon as his eyes open and his brain starts to register stimulus, he slams his hands into the glass before him. Cryosleep has that effect on a lot of soldiers, like an unplanned nap that can take months instead of hours. Waking up in a tube doesn't help either.

"Chief! Easy, you've been out for a while."

Cortana. He spots her to the left, her holographic form produced from a console outside of his sleeping chamber. A drifting box nearly passes through her head as she taps her foot, watching him.

"Where are we?" he asks calmly, getting control of himself.

"We're still adrift on the Dawn." She sounds more disappointed than anything. "Hang on, bringing your systems online now. I rewrote your suit's firmware while you were out."

Chief starts flexing his muscles, convincing them the time for sleep is over. His visor fills with an unfamiliar UI. His motion sensor and shield meter, once opaque symbols in the corner of his vision, have changed into larger transparent bars. They're now easier to see without obstructing his view: it's a welcome improvement. "You've been busy. Why did you wake me?"

"Activating the ship's gravity generators," Cortana says, ignoring the question. She types into a holographic interface only a slightly different blue than her.

The ship's PA cracks to life. "Partial system restoration. Initializing system diagnostics..."

Loose boxes and other junk crash to the floor as gravity kicks in. Chief feels his own weight start to pull him towards the bottom of the tube.

"You need to hit the manual release up above you," Cortana says with a pointed finger.

Chief's eyes go to the latch over his head, then his hands. He gives it a good tug, and the front glass gives way.

The AI smiles as he approaches. "Seems like old times."

"Ready to get back to work?" he asks. He has his own small grin hidden beneath his helmet.

"I thought you'd never ask."

She gives a small gesture towards the base her image is coming from. Chief grabs it and attaches her to his armor. Suddenly, she only appears as a face in the corner of his visor.

"We've got intrusion alerts on multiple decks above. Our best bet to figure out who's boarding us is the Observation deck, four floors up." Cortana still has the look of concern, enough that Chief can notice without any real effort.

"Any chance it's a rescue team?" Chief finds a pair of weapons beside the unoccupied sleep chambers. MA5D rifle, M6H sidearm, both loaded and with a few spare magazines he slips into his armor. Everything seems clean enough to work.

"I doubt it. The few sensors still working say one boarded alone, then the rest followed. The Dawn's systems are pretty damaged: I can hardly tell anything from here."

Chief nods and pushes forward down the corridor. He keeps the rifle loose against his shoulder as he jogs. Whatever's ahead, it's best to prepare for the worst. Cortana knows to fade out of his vision so he can see what he's shooting at.

The Forward Unto Dawn is in rougher shape than the last time he saw it. While the lights are still on and essentials seem to still be functioning, debris litters the ship. Out of the four hallways Chief passes, three of them are full with collapsed metal. It leaves him with only one real path to follow as he works his way toward the upper decks. He quietly hopes it'll take him where he needs to be.

"How long was I out?" he asks as he takes a staircase three steps at a time.

Cortana doesn't bother obstructing Chief's visor when she responds. "Four years, seven months, ten days."

"Someone should've found us by now," he thinks aloud. It makes him more concerned where they've ended up: if they've drifted for this long without finding any UNSC, they've ended up in the middle of nowhere.

Chief rounds a corner and finds a circular room with some kind of diagnostic console. The warning light means it's useless, even if there's no apparent damage on it. He quickly scans the area with his rifle, finding nothing else.

A transparent wall of orange energy pulses through the room, accompanied by a strange shrieking noise. His hands train his weapon on it, his mind already knowing it's pointless. It drifts through him without any noticeable effect, and then disappears past the far wall.

Chief watches the hallway it came from for anything else. "What's that?"

"Sensor scan, high intensity," Cortana says. She's on edge, but not panicked. "Doesn't match any known patterns."

"How close are we to the Observation deck?" He holds his rifle a little tighter as he moves forward. Getting pinged only makes him more anxious for answers.

"It's directly above us."

Coming into the next room, Chief's motion sensor and eyes catch something on the right. Yellow, fast, and trying to duck down a hallway. He lets out a quick burst from his rifle, all half dozen rounds missing their mark. Mentally, he lectures himself for shooting before identifying his target, and then for not even hitting it.

"That wasn't Covenant," Cortana says as her armored escort chases the stranger. "It didn't look human either."

His motion sensor says it's already through the hallway and in the next room. He follows quickly, rifle ready for it when he enters. That's the only reason he gets grazed by the orange energy ball shot at him, rather than catching it in the chest. He ducks left while firing another burst. The vaguely humanoid creature dodges by shrinking itself into a ball roughly waist height. As the bullets fly over, it rolls behind one of ship's support beams. Chief keeps moving until he finds his own cover and reloads.

He sighs in irritation. "Definitely not Covenant." The Spartan leans out of cover with his weapon ready.

The thing is standing still on the other side of the room, letting him get a good look at it as he lines up a shot. It's humanoid, wearing a kind of armor he's never seen before. Mostly gold with bright red shoulder pads and helmet, the thing is almost Spartan height. A green cannon that replaces the right hand and forearm seems to be its weapon. No part of the creature under the armor is visible, not even through the green facial visor. It's almost like a flashy imposter of his Mjolnir armor.

He pulls his trigger as the creature fires back. Instead of another orange sphere, a small missile flies across the room. This time, both of their hits land. Chief's shields take the explosion, not quite depleting, while his bullets bounce off of the thing's armor.

Neither one stays still long enough to land a second volley. He's already moving to the other side of the hallway and emptying his magazine at the thing's legs. Rather than forming into a ball again, it leaps backwards towards the wall. Its feet strike the steel, then push off towards the Spartan.

Chief switches to the pistol rather than reloading. His target only touches the floor once as it covers the thirty meters between the far wall and him. He gets off two rounds before its feet slam into his chest. It's slender legs kick damned hard.

But not hard enough. He slides back a meter, but his boots don't leave the ground. Rushing the thing, he catches it off-guard when he grapples it. Two knees hit his chest as it flails, making him grit his teeth. It tries a twist to flip him in a move almost out of a wrestling handbook. Chief leans into the spin and lands on his feet rather than his back. The thing doesn't have enough time to counter before he pins it to the wall.

He puts his pistol against the green visor, but stops just short of pulling the trigger. A rough shove into his chest tells him the thing managed to get the cannon against his ribs. His shields are useless at this range, and he doesn't like the odds of his armor taking that shot. The thing seems to be thinking the same about his pistol, because it doesn't fire either. The pair stay in their lethal stalemate for a few moments, quietly catching their breath.

"Would you mind getting that out of my face, Spartan?" it asks. Human voice, probably female, not particularly old. "Or are you going to keep shooting first, asking questions never?"

"Tough talk for someone with their back to the wall." Chief looks the armor up and down again. It's definitely a human under there, even with the ridiculous shoulder pads. The armor isn't standard issue for anything he can recognize. "Your gear's too expensive for a scavenger. Mercenary?"

"Bounty Hunter. Do you have a problem with that?"

"As long as there isn't a price on me, no. Are you alone?"

A small explosion sounds above them. The vibration isn't enough to change anyone's position, but it makes the pair look up. Neither one can read the other through their visors.

The female says with an icy calm, "No, but they're not my friends. I found your AI's distress signal and boarded a half-hour ago, looking for survivors. My guess is either they found the same message, or this scrap heap drifted into them."

"Uh, Chief," Cortana interjects, appearing in his vision. "I'm not telling you how to do your job, but I might suggest this is the wrong person to be pointing your gun at."

The Spartan grunts. And after a few seconds, he decides he agrees with her. "Where's your ship at?"

"Up. And from the sound of it, past all of the explosions."

"They'll be easier to get through if we're not shooting at each other."

"You're not wrong," she nods. Again, nothing but pure calm in her voice. "Federation Police will stand down for me, assuming that's them. If not, an extra gun will be helpful."

"As long as your ship can carry us both out of here," he says, releasing her and lowering the pistol. The questions he has, like what are the Federation Police, can wait for now.

She steps away from the wall, then does a quick check of her armor. There doesn't seem to be any damage. "What's your tag, Spartan?"

"117. Master Chief works too."

"You UNSC and your ranks," she quietly scoffs. "Samus."

He nods, feeding a fresh magazine into his rifle. "Ready?"

"Depends. Your AI have a map for us to follow?"

Cortana appears again in the visor, nodding. "One from when the Dawn was intact. Assuming there aren't many more explosions, we should be able to make good time."

Chief nods to both of his companions. "As long as you can keep up."

"Then lead the way, Chief."

He takes point, leading at a fast walk with his rifle ready. Samus stays at his 8 o'clock and distant enough to avoid bunching up. They work through the hallways quickly, not encountering anything, but thoroughly checking regardless. The explosions seem to be getting closer.

"There's an elevator shaft up ahead," Cortana says to Chief, marking the door at the end of their hallway with a hologram in his visor. "It should take you up to Observation."

"Right." As the trio reaches it, he slings the rifle over his shoulder. He looks to the Bounty Hunter while digging his fingers between the panels. "Can you climb with one hand?"

She faces the hallway they came from, arm cannon ready. "Almost as well as I can shoot."

"Be careful, Chief!" the AI shouts about a second too late.

He pries the doors apart, and the oxygen from the corridor tries sucking them into the shaft. The gust is manageable: the flying debris is not. Massive chunks of metal and storage containers slam into both humans with more than enough force to knock them in.

Chief and Samus both crash into the wall on the opposite side of the shaft. He finds his grip a little faster than her, but she barely falls a meter before clinging to a ledge.

"Because some areas might have lost pressure!" Cortana finishes.

"Right..." he grumbles. Against the buffeting wind, he gets both hands hooked into a protruding panel. "You alright down there?"

"I'll be better when you quit trying to get me killed. How many floors up are we going?" she asks. Her tone is best described as, 'mildly irritated.'

"Three." As he says that, Cortana nods in his visor for confirmation.

"I'll make sure the door is open. Try not to slip while I'm gone." Using a leap similar to the one from their fight, the Bounty Hunter jumps up towards the far wall. She doesn't even have to grab the next ledge as she spins and pushes off again. It only takes her two more leaps to reach the elevator door they're looking for.

"At least she doesn't need a babysitter," Cortana comments before disappearing from his view.

The Spartan continues working his way towards his objective, using small ledges in the wall for handholds. He has to get a little creative to keep climbing up, as well as to dodge the debris still coming his way. But much larger has tried to stop him before, without success.

Samus, meanwhile, is trying to use her cannon to get the exit open. With her hand holding her up, her options are limited. Chief is only one floor below her when she gives a surprised yelp and the door gives in. The blue flash of an energy sword sails past her head. She quickly points her cannon and fires. Roaring answers the shot.

He puts more speed into his climb as she scrambles out of the shaft. There's another small roar before an Elite Covenant flies in. Chief ducks his head while it bounces off the walls, falling down with the rest of the junk.

A moment later, his hands find the bottom of the elevator door. Samus offers to pull him up, and Chief ignores it. He pushes a button on the wall, closing the shaft behind him.

"I thought we had a truce with the Covenant," Chief says while returning his rifle to his grip.

"A lot can change in four years," is all Cortana has to offer.

Samus doesn't do much better with a shrug. "The Federation left the Covenant to the UNSC. They weren't picking another fight when they were still dealing with the Pirates."

Sighing and wondering exactly how complicated things got while he was asleep, he takes point again as they move down the hallway. The AI gives him another way point, leading him towards Observation while Samus follows silently.

Thankfully, the room they're looking for isn't much further. The mostly open area has a raised control platform in the center and minimal furniture. Chief's eyes and motion sensors quickly spot at least a half-dozen Grunts wandering around the ground level, while a single Elite is arguing with the controls. None of them have looked their way yet.

"I'll take the Elite, then help you finish the little ones," he says quietly, already training his rifle on his target.

Samus takes it as an invitation to cut loose. One of her missiles flies at a cluster of short aliens on the left while she charges those on the other side. When the explosion alerts them, Chief is already rushing the Elite with a hail of rifle fire. Its shields eat the first half of his magazine as it turns towards him, but is cut down by the remaining rounds before it can fight back.

The Spartan takes his position on the elevated platform, and starts shooting at the targets below. He only has to kill one, with Samus' energy shots having already vaporized the rest. It's really just target practice for the humans: when the Grunts realized how outmatched they were, they started running.

As Chief reloads his rifle, Samus prods a dead alien with her foot. She seems fascinated with the mottled brown creature. In her defense, they are odd looking with their short limbs and methane breathing tanks. "Are they always this cowardly?"

"Only when they realize they're losing. There's a reason they never fight without the bigger ones for support. They need the morale boost."

"I've heard there's some variety to the bigger ones. Any advice for those?" She wipes a bit of blood off her armor before checking the remaining bodies. This is less curiosity and more kill confirmation.

Chief collects a few spare magazines for both the pistol and the rifle. Provided the Dawn's old crew left more ammo around, he shouldn't have to start using Covenant weapons. "The bigger they are, the more distance you want. That applies to everything but jackals and their shields: you'll know them when you see them. Other than that, just keep shooting until they stay down."

"Good to know," she nods.

"That console should open the blast shield on the windows," Cortana says, appearing in Chief's visor. "Let's look and see what we're up against."

He nods, then waves Samus to come up to him. She makes it in a single leap, rather than taking the stairs. He grunts under his breath. "Show off."

Cortana materializes in front of both humans as her partner overrides the blast shield. "The good news is, these Covenant aren't outfitted like standard military. It's possible we just came across a rogue salvage ship."

Samus motions like she has a comment, but stops. All three of them look out the newly opened window to see their attackers. It's not one ship, or two, or even three plainly visible. At least a half dozen cruisers are holding position around the Dawn, along with several Ghosts and troop transports coming their way.

The AI's face changes to a look of concern. "Or we may have stumbled into an entire Covenant fleet."

Chief ignores that while scanning everything beyond the windows. Apart from the ton of Covenant circling and the massive damage the Forward Unto Dawn has taken, the only thing of note is a unique ship. Bright red, spherical, and very reminiscent of the Bounty Hunter's helmet. "Is that your ship?"

She points to the same craft. "That's it. It's not equipped to fight them off, but it can probably outrun them. We just need to get there before they destroy it."

The Covenant seem to take this statement as a challenge. One of the cruisers releases another salvo of fire on the Dawn, tearing what's left of that section to pieces. Though the gunship remains undamaged, without its anchor, it starts drifting away.

"Ah, there's my luck kicking in," she says in the same dry, vaguely sarcastic tone. "I knew I should've gotten everything off of there."

"I guess we're going to need a new ride out of here." Chief shifts his rifle from one hand to the other, obviously thinking. "Maybe the Covenant haven't recognized at us. If we can make them, maybe they'll at least stop shooting."

A pair of troop transports, obviously attracted by the movement of the blast shield, come over to investigate. The bright purple ships hover in front of the glass before flanking the room on either side.

Cortana shakes her head. "That's one possibility."

Both of the transports produce large tubes from their cargo bays. They crash through windows on either side of the room, sucking out most of the air before the shields kick in.

"The ground troops aren't going to listen to us, are they?" Samus asks, aiming her cannon at the boarding tube on her right.

The AI disappears as Chief puts his back to the Bounty Hunter's, facing his own targets. "Unless it comes from their leadership, they won't care."

"So keep shooting until we find someone in charge or a ride out of here." She nods seemingly to herself. "Simple enough."

"Does our deal still stand then?" the Spartan asks.

The first few troops come through both of their tubes as a coordinated strike. A frag grenade from Chief tears his enemies to pieces, while a pair of missiles vaporize Samus' targets. The quick deaths of their teammates makes the remaining boarding party pause.

The Bounty Hunter nods. "As long as you don't shoot at me again."

A brief message from the author:

First, to the guest who left me the longer review for this piece, thank you. That is the kind of feedback I value, a valid criticism that offers advice on something I should change, rather than a blanket "I love/hate it." Comments like this are always appreciated, and I'm thanking you here because I can't PM you to do so. But thank you for the constructive feedback.

Second, the edits I made here were just the quick corrections about Chief being referred to as a Marine. When I was commissioned for this piece, I clearly missed that bit in my research of Halo's and Metroid's lore. My bad, it's been fixed. I'll try to avoid little things like that in the future.

And finally, in case it was missed in the opening description, this was a commissioned piece. The user on DeviantArt mcxh-raildex commissioned me for this, as well as the following chapters I'm actively working on. Anyone interested on something similar from me, even from other fandoms/genres, may message me and we can discuss it. I'd like to think my rates are fair, and I'm always looking to broaden my writing experiences with fandoms other than Dishonored and Mass Effect (even if I love them dearly.)