Prologue:

Second Alpha Halo (Installation 04B), December 2552.

The sky was almost blood red. Almost, but not quite. The Warthog drove straight up the ramp and launched high into the air. The Chief spotted the Forward unto the Dawn on the other side of the wall of rock. The warthog slammed into the platforms that were acting as the floor. In the distance, a platform exploded upwards. The platforms to the left were gone. They couldn't use that to get to the Dawn directly. They'd have to go around on the path to the right.

A group of sentinels hovered above the platforms ahead. The Arbiter growled and spun the chain gun of the warthog towards these sentinels. The Chief slammed his foot into the gas pedal.

"80 percent!" Cortana warned.

A platform ahead of them exploded. It knocked the platform in front of that one upwards, so it now was a slope. They could go around. It would cost them a few seconds. Chief growled beneath his helmet. They would go up. The engine of the warthog roared and the vehicle few upwards. Straight into the group of sentinels ahead. The Arbiter fired the chain gun. Bullet casing flew off the warthog and bullets slammed into the nearest sentinel. Another one fired a beam. It slammed into the Chief. He hissed and turned the warthog to the right and headed up the slope. The Arbiter fired at the offending sentinel, knocking down its shield and peppering it with bullets.

The warthog reached the top of the slope and then flew through the air. They slammed into the platforms. Chief pulled the wheel to the right. They headed down towards a falling column. A group of flood ran from the pillar. They ran, but they didn't make it until the column crushed them and the platform. The Chief pulled the wheel to right again and narrowly skidded by the gap left by the column. The warthogs wheels spun for a sec, then caught, and then they accelerated forward. Another group of sentinels hovered ahead of them again.

"Arghal!"(A Sangheili swear that roughly translated means "Acidic Blood") Muttered the Arbiter.

The sentinels turned and fired at the warthog. Chief ducked forward and slammed the accelerator. The beams smashed through the remains of the windshield. The Arbiter roared and returned fire. Three sentinels fell from the sky. The Chief raised his head to see the platform in front of them exploded upwards. He slammed the wheel to the left and the warthog flew to the left, narrowly missing said hole.

"90 percent! Firing sequence initiated!" Cortana Yelled.

The Chief exhaled angrily and steadied the warthog. He took a quick glance back at the Arbiter. The Sangheili was busy searching for targets in the surrounding area. He didn't notice the Spartan staring at him. But at least he was still on the end of the warthog. That was all he needed to know. The Chief turned back just as they passed under a large stone archway. The Dawn was directly ahead. The warthog flew over a slope and slammed into the slope.

"Gun it, Spartan! Jump!" Cortana yelled urgently. "Moor it straight into the hangar!"

The Chief gave a faint smile in his helmet and shifted the gear to the highest level and floored the accelerator. The warthog flew down the slope and up the ramp at the end of said slope. The hangar of the Dawn was directly ahead of them. They were fifty meters away… forty… thirty… The warthog began to flip forward. Twenty… ten… the front of the warthog slammed into the floor of the hangar. It flipped upside down, bounced off the floor and slid halfway across the hangar. The Chief was thrown from the warthog and landed a few meters to the left of it.

The Arbiter was less lucky and was thrown to from the turret at the end of the warthog and slammed into the wall at the end of the hangar. The Chief stared at the ceiling for a few second before slowly pushing himself up, he glanced over at the Arbiter, who was up aswell, staring back at the Spartan.

There was an explosion below the ship. The Chief felt a strange sensation before he heard the warthog begin to scrape across the floor. He realised that the Dawn was beginning to tilt the right. The scraping noise increased beside him increased as the warthog began to slide towards the Chief. He reached upwards and, with a grunt, climbed over the warthog. He saw something grey flash across the end of the hangar. Something large followed it. The Chief jumped off the warthog as it slid across the rest of the hangar and slammed into the wall at the right of the hangar. He glanced to the end of hangar to see the scorpion tank slam into a wall of boxes near the door to the upper decks.

The Arbiter pushed his head through the pile of boxes. Him and the Spartan shared a quick glance, then they both nodded. The Sangheili turned and headed towards the forward decks of the frigate. The Chief turned and sprinted to the terminal in the hangar. He pulled Cortana's chip out of the back of his head. He inserted it into the terminal and Cortana's hologram appeared.

"Hang on!" She said, and fired up the Dawn's thrusters.

The Chief grabbed the terminal for support as the frigate accelerated.

"Couldn't you close the doors?" Asked the Chief.

Cortana paused. "Whoops."

She snapped her fingers and the hangar doors sealed. The g-force decreased slightly, but it was still strong enough to force the Chief to hold onto the terminal. The roar of the thrusters suddenly dropped and the g-force stopped.

"We've left the atmosphere of the Halo." Cortana noted.

"Has the Arbiter reached the bridge yet?" The Chief asked.

"He's nearly there. You'd better get there too." She responded blandly.

The Chief turned and left the hangar in a sprint, crashing through a the pile of boxes and heading down the hallway. He ascended a flight of stairs, taking him to the lowest deck of the Dawn. Another corridor extended before him, but ten meters to the left was a flight of spiral stairs that led to the Dawn's bridge. He ascended these with ease.

"Hurry Chief." Cortana said via the COM. "The Halo is at 98 percent!"

"I'm going as fast as I can." He replied, climbing three steps at once.

He reached the bridge about thirty seconds later. The Arbiter sat in the pilots chair. He glanced back at the Spartan and parted his jaws in what was the Sangheili equivalent of a smile.

"I have no Idea how to fly this thing, Spartan." He said, shrugging slightly.

The Chief stared for a second then sat in the other pilot's chair.

"Cortana, how far are we from the portal?" He asked urgently.

"Five hundred kilometres and closing." She replied.

The Chief sighed and relaxed in the chair. He turned to the Arbiter, who was staring at the back window of the bridge. The light of the Halo firing behind them cover the Arbiter's face. The Chief turned around and he too, was caught by the wonder of the ancient Forerunner machine activating. The ball of glowing light at the centre of the ring suddenly exploded outwards. The sphere of effect expanded outwards across space. The ring seemed to be on fire in places. The Chief knew he would never forget this sight.

The Dawn entered the slipspace portal. The Chief could do nothing now. For the last few days he'd kept them repressed as the battle for the Ark raged. Now that it was over and he had nothing left to do, he let his thoughts wander. His first though was of Johnson. The man who had been as much a warrior as any Spartan. Hell, maybe if he'd been born a few years later he could have been one. The Chief spared a though for the marines who had come back with Johnson. He reluctantly opened the log of the Dawn and listed everyone except him and the Arbiter as KIA.

Suddenly Klaxons blared.

"Cortana! What's happening?" The Chief yelled, getting to his feet, along with the Arbiter.

"What does that noise mean?" Asked the Sangheili. "Is it some kind of warning?"

Cortana appeared on the tactical map/table to left of the bridge. The Chief ran over and the Arbiter followed.

"It is a warning alright." She told them hurriedly. "The portal is collapsing."

"What?!" The two shouted.

Cortana displayed a hologram of a long cyclinder that reached from the Ark to the galaxy. A small sphere represented the space around the Dawn. She increased the size of it.

"I'm guessing the Halo's effect, or maybe it breaking up from the premature activation, has damaged the portal on the Ark's end." She showed the edges of the slipspace sphere around the Dawn dissolving at the rear and slowly consuming the entire ship."

"Can we do anything?" The Chief asked.

"No." Cortana announced firmly. "But there is a positive effect of this."

"And what might that be, Constuct?" The Arbiter asked.

Cortana zoomed out from the holographic sphere. It showed the cylinder that represented the slipspace tunnel to the Ark from Earth. It was slowly and steadily shrinking. After a few seconds it reached the ending at Earth and closed.

"The tunnel is comprolapsing." She explained.

The Chief was confused by her statement, having never heard "comprolapsing" before.

"What do you mean by comprolapsing?" He asked.

"Well…" She began, then hesitated. "It's a mostly theoretical term devised by physicist Navon Gunad in 2476. There's a complicated explanation for it, but the general term is this; If two points open a slipspace "tunnel", and then one point is destoyed while there is an object/ship in transit, then the tunnel will be compressed and attracted to the other gateway at great speed, faster than even Covenant ships can go." She said.

"And what is good is that to us, Construct? Surely we will be dissolved before we reach the other end?" The Arbiter questioned.

Cortana smiled and raised her finger.

"First off, call me Cortana, not "Construct". Second-off, the comprolapsing effect gives incredible speeds. Seeing as the slipspace field is being dissolved at 1.153 meters per fifteen seconds, it's possible that we can make it to the Earth Gateway before we are dissolved." She smiled.

"We're going that fast!?" Said the Chief, amazed.

"Yep." Cortana grinned. "You boys have a nap while we're waiting. I'll wake you if there's trouble."

The Chief was about to protest when Cortana finished with:

"It's not like you can actually do anything from here, anyway."

The Chief froze. He mentally searched his brain for something to respond with.

"I don't like it, Spartan, but your Cons- I mean Cortana is right. We cannot do anything from here." The Arbiter said, stepping forward behind the Chief.

The Chief sighed. He knew they were both right. But he needed something do, anything to do, to keep his mind off everything that had happened in the last 24 hours. The war was over, Truth was dead, Keyes' daughter, Miranda, was dead, Johnson was dead and the flood had been stopped the same way they had been a hundred thousand years previous. It was a bit much to take in, even for a Spartan. He wondered if the Arbiter felt the same way.

He sat down on the nearest chair, which sagged slightly under his weight. The Arbiter did likewise on a nearby chair. The Chief inhaled and exhaled deeply. The Arbiter relaxed and leaned back in the chair, all four of his mouth mandibles sagging slightly from exhaustion. The adrenaline from the escape from the Halo was fading fast, and the Chief too relaxed in exhaustion. His eyes began to close, however, before they did so, he heard Cortana say something:

"If we don't make it… It's been an honour serving with you both." She whispered.

The Spartan sank into unconsciousness.

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