I'd like to start this chapter off with a huge thank you to the magnificent human being going by the name of RandomReader in my reviews. This generous soul not only corrected my inexcusable mistake of NOT RUNNING THE NUMBERS (what kind of Adept am I?) but did it in such a kind manner that I didn't even realize the magnitude of my mistakes until I finished. When I get around to continuing that particular plot thread, rest assured UNSC Random Reader will play a significant part.

552.M3

An escape pod high above Installation 04, Threshold, Soell System, Orion Arm, Milky Way

For something over ten meters long, the escape pod felt remarkably cramped. Most of that was the pair of large metal suits in the center aisle - one hulking and black, and one sleek and green.

It didn't help that both were completely covered in gore and smelled horrible in the close confines of the pod. The larger one also had a massive harness on his back as well as several metal manipulators that seemed to move of their own volition, staring at the individual marines and navy personnel in sequence and spastically jerking when the escape pod hit turbulence.

Ferenk was completely oblivious to the discomfiture of the humans around him. Even if he had remembered his time as a Medusan mortal, Medusans were used to unpleasant close conditions, living in their cramped land-crawlers with the outside eternally trying to kill them; he wouldn't have sympathized. Now that he was not only Astartes, but an Iron Hand with four studs in his helmet, he hardly considered the "Marines" around him as more than pets.

Now that he had time, he was taking the opportunity to check his armor and weapons systems, ensuring that nothing had been adversely affected by the Warp magicks that brought him here. He went through his reactor, helmet, sensors, bionics, armor systems, and weaponry before turning to his cogitators.

Which promptly shot nearly a thousand warnings, many of them bright red and burning, and Ferenk realized that he hadn't thought to ask a single question of his computing facilities since the warp explosion.

The Master Chief, braced in between the two walls of the pod, saw the arms and manipulators of the "Iron Hand," as he'd introduced himself, suddenly go limp. The armor itself didn't move at all, remaining in the same posture it had since it had boarded the pod, but the red lights in the eyepieces flared then faded.

The fact that a Techmarine of the Iron Hands hadn't thought once that being devoured by a Warp phenomenon and sent Omnissiah-only-knows where might have affected his judgement was worrying. Ferenk near-instantaneously shut down every system in his armor, and most of his bionics not directly related to keeping his still-mortal brain functioning. He swore internally as without his cogitators he was suddenly free to think clearly.

+++ACCESSING SIMULUS INLOADS+++

What? No! Ferenk's armor had decided, of its own resources, that it would send Ferenk into simulus. The fugue state would make him dead to the outside world, unable to fight. And that could prove his undoing.

+++SIMULUS INLOAD COMPLETE+++

By the Omnissiah. His cogitators were shut down, unpowered. His armor was shutting down. What could be happening?

+++ACTIVATING SIMULUS+++

A battlefield sprouted around Ferenk, silent and unmoving statues building themselves from individual pixels. From the ground up, dozens of Xenos appeared out of nowhere. The battlefield was a mud-covered field. In the background, human-looking fighters and dropships duelled sinuous Xenos craft over a range of white-capped mountains.

Ferenk realized with a start that he could move. He turned around, hearing the reassuring whine of his armor actuators and feeling his cogitators clack to life, feeding him information about the battlefield surrounding him.

++Unknown Xenos detected. More inf-inf-inf-++

The binharic voice of the cogitator system was cut off, stuttering, by a blast of advanced hexamathics. Ferenk's armor seized for a moment, and then the frozen battle came to life.

A dozen of the Kroot-like aliens turned towards him, bringing up their energy shields and firing packets of their compressed plasma at him. He brought up his weapons and prepared to engage them, but the plasma passed right through him.

He turned around, his massive armor creaking as its machine spirits protested their treatment, just in time to see the green-clad "Spartan" roll out of the way of the incoming shots.

A female voice, loud and brash, crashed into his mind, seemingly separate from the ongoing simulus. It spoke absolutely horrendous High Gothic, but it was recognizable regardless.

"What think you, Iron Hand?"

The eldest Iron Hands tend to have essentially stopped forming new memories, instead choosing to depend on simulus of a million battles and sheer computational power to allow them to formulate a strategy on the fly. The oldest of the old are unable to distinguish between simulus of the past and the present.

Ferenk Verrn was centuries old, and a Techmarine to boot. He had chosen to take a different path to the Iron Fathers, however. Most of those on the Iron Council replaced their bodies, then memory, and then minds with the purity of the machine. It was required, after all, if one wanted to interface with the Eye of Medusa.

The Kristosian Conclave had dominated the chapter when Ferenk was inducted. By the time he left for Mars, a new voice had risen to oppose it: Kardan Stronos, Iron Captain of Garrsak. Vurgaan and Garrsak had always been somewhat close, but Stronos (formerly of Vurgaan) had brought that relationship to an apogee. He and Iron-Captain Verrox had changed the way simulus was used, moving away from using it as a substitute for tactical judgement and attempting to use it to develop that judgement. Mirrored in that was the Stronos bloc's view on augmetics (a view widely condemned by the rest of the chapter as heterodox, if not quite heretical), a view that stated augmetics should be used to enhance and work alongside the Emperor's gifts, instead of replacing them.

Techmarine Ferenk wasn't so sure on that last one, but he agreed with Stronos on all other subjects. He had been one of Iron-Captain Verrox's closest confidants within the company, once he had gone to Mars and seen the hollowness at the core of the Kristosian Creed he had once embraced. Ferenk had been on Gaudinia Prime, had fought Kristos' hordes. He had seen the Sapphire King slain.

Never since had he entered any form of simulus. Kristos' specialty and the mechanism of his control over nearly a third of the chapter was simply too much to bear after the death of friends and brothers at the hands of the Daemonic forces of the Emperor's Children.

It was too much like Istvaan.

So Ferenk hadn't replaced any part of his mind. His brain was, superficially, identical to how it was when he was inducted into the chapter. Of course, all the normal evolution of the brain had occurred, but it was still entirely baseline Astartes. He had ignored those dictates of Kristos when he was in power, despite his enthusiastic adoption of the Kristosian regard for bionics, and continued to when Kristos was dead and Excommunicate Traitors.

Not even simulus wasn't enough to dull the mind of Ferenk Verrn, biological as it was. He realized in moments that it was the same voice he had heard on the bridge.

"I am impressed. I did not suspect anyone in this area of the galaxy had the ability to invade Astartes power armor. Especially not one with as aggressive a Machine-Spirit as mine, praise the Omnissiah."

"I didn't. You let me in."

Ferenk thought for a moment. Not for long, though. "Brawn over brains" doesn't become a Techmarine. "Brawn over brains" doesn't even survive Medusa. You need both. Ferenk had them in spades.

"I brought down my code-blockers to check my own and you took the opportunity to hijack my armor. Clever." Then a thought occurred to him. "You are present. Does that mean you also have simulus implants?"

The voice audibly hesitated, attempting to start a sentence a few times before finally giving up.

"No. I'm a person, but not a physical person." Vague, but still, Ferenk came to the correct conclusion right before the voice said, "my name is Cortana, and I am an artificial intelligence."

First off, thanks for reading!

I've finally found the cure to the formatting issues that have plagued me, so expect less missing italics. Thank the Omnissiah! In other (related) news, I'm looking for a beta reader, so if anyone is interested, please let me know!

I just realized this entire chapter is set on the escape pod. I swear we'll actually hit Installation 04 next chapter, due out sometime between next month and next century.

One last note: If you have questions, comments, or criticism, please PM me! I'll respond to everyone I can, and realistically, that's everyone. Frankly, reader engagement makes me write faster, too.

Second Note: I wrote this right after chapter 3.5 came out. I wasn't and am not happy with it, but I gotta get something down to move on.