ANVIL OF FATES

Halo

AvP

Starship Troopers

Chapter 1: The Warrior

Dreaming…

In this cool , light place where nothing hurt and nothing mattered…

Dreams…

So vivid and hopeful. Visions of a life never lived--a life he was never destined to live…

Memories…

Fade into the background, mere shadows cast behind him by the light into which he now gazed…

Peace…

He would never know… the light begins to fade….the shadows remain… growing in strength… snarling… hissing… hating…

WAR.

His only truth. A warrior born. A warrior bred. A warrior called:

"Master Chief?"

He stirred as Cortana's voice tugged at his consciousness, pulling him from the dream he had dreamed over and over again so many times. He couldn't move his body. His legs hit something close with no give in it, and for a second it felt like being buried alive. "I'm going to open your stasis module. You should stay still though, Chief; this environment isn't exactly what you can call stable."

The stasis module eased open, venting a little atmosphere which instantly froze into an icy fog. Master Chief felt the harness holding him in place tauten as his weightless body began to float in the zero-g environment. "Chief? Do you remember the last thing you said to me?" asked Cortana, for now a disembodied voice speaking to him through his armour's neural interface. For an AI construct she seemed remarkably human.

He tried to recall his last memories… they were still in there somewhere… fragmented by his time in suspension. It took a few moments to get his thoughts together.

He could remember the Battle for the Ark, teaming up with the wretched Parasite to stop the megalomaniac Prophet of truth from firing the six remaining rings; He remembered watching the birth of a new ring--a replacement for the first Halo he himself had destroyed in order to save humanity… in order to save all sentient life; Remembered 343 Guilty Spark--the Monitor of the first Halo he had destroyed--turning on him again, killing Major Johnson in the process when the Monitor realised the Warrior was about to blow the brand new ring and the Ark in order to destroy the infesting parasite Gravemind and its army; He remembered the desperate escape, fleeing towards the UNSC cruiser Forward unto Dawn as the Ark broke apart around him, leaving the bodies of Commander Keyes and Major Johnson and a thousand other good soldiers to perish forever with it; He remembered making it to the Dawn, punching the ship as hard as possible to escape the blast radius of the Halo detonation, trying to reach a fragile slip-space portal that would take him home; He remembered the portal collapsing around the Dawn before it had made it through--bitten in half by the collapsing portal; he remembered that he was stranded now, tumbling through the farthest edge of the galaxy in the aft of the Dawn. He remembered that it was over.

He had finished the fight.

And, Yes: He remembered what his last words to Cortana were as he had put himself into stasis, in for a probable long, long wait for rescue. "I said: 'If you need me, Wake me.' "

He could hear the edge of a chuckle in the AI's voice, which seemed endearingly human. "Light me up, Chief."

The Warrior reached to the interface in the back of his helmet and ejected Cortana's Holo-chip module. Holding it at arm's length, palm up, the chip bloomed to life with a small, but perfect holographic representation of a human female. Iridescent data streams ran through her semi-opaque form in letters, numbers and glyphs, giving her an ethereal presence, like a pocket-sized Goddess. "I don't suppose we've been rescued?" Asked The Spartan II Warrior, so named after the most loyal and fearsomely intractable warriors in history.

"I think we've been found, Chief…. I'm just not sure by who. Or What. I've been picking up seemingly random signals for the last eighty-nine hours. Since the Dawn's array was swallowed up by the slip-space portal I've only had the epsilon band in your armour's comm unit to play with."

"What was the signal?" Asked Master Chief.

"Well, that's the interesting part. Since you blew up the Ark and we got chewed up trying to escape, we've been tumbling through space with just blast debris and background radiation for company. But four days ago your suit's comm unit picked up a spike in the seven Googlehertz range. I replied the only way I could: sending your transponder signal, and since then…" Cortana paused for moment, which was a little concerning; She usually didn't have a problem spilling beans--Good or Bad.

"What happened?"

The Holographic figure in his hand looked up to him. He could have sworn she looked straight into his eyes, despite the reflective gold-tinted visor covering his face. "We changed course, Chief; Something is pulling us towards the signal."

The Chief popped the latch on the stasis module's harness and let himself float out into the cargo hold. Out of the massive breach where the ship was cut in half was blackness and the distant twinkle of far stars, that, from his perspective, seemed to tumble around the void. "How long since the Ark?" he asked when he reached the edge of the breach, grabbing a ragged edge of twisted metal to stop floating out into deep space.

"Seventy-four days." Answered Cortana. The Chief deactivated her Hologram and slotted the holo-chip into its interface; the last thing he needed was to accidentally lose Cortana to space. A magenta cloud rolled into view, looking like a small nebula. He guessed it was what was left of the Ark. "Why hasn't the Covenant come looking?" He asked.

"We have to hope that with the Prophets gone they've lost their nerve. If they did find us we'd be in serious trouble." She answered. It wasn't encouraging. The Prophet of Truth was the most driven and tenacious of the Prophets, and encouraged the same in his followers; somehow the Warrior couldn't see them quitting quite so easily. "Or…" she continued, interrupting his train of thought, "…If we're lucky, maybe the Arbiter and the Elites have subdued the Prophet ideology. He was in a pretty righteous mood the last time we saw him.. if he survived through the portal, that is."

The Arbiter had been an elite--the leaders of the Covenant armed forces and guards of the Prophets sanctum, with a reputation as precise and exacting strategists, as well as fierce warriors in their own right. They alone amongst the Covenant eventually saw the madness in the plans of the Prophets; saw truth where the Prophet of Truth saw only delusions of grandeur and self-idolatry. And, like the Human race, saw destruction, where the Covenant saw ascension. As Master Chief had been the spearhead of the Human counter-attack, so had the Arbiter been for the Elites. In their eyes, the Prophets had betrayed the Gods and the ideals that bound the Covenant together in their sacred contract. The Elites, in turn, became a separatist force, working against their former comrades, replaced as the leaders of the Covenant armies by the Brutes--dull rocks to the Elites fine blades. It had been a long hard fight since, but the Chief knew that the moment the Elites had turned, it was the beginning of the end for the Prophets plans. Human and Elite had become tentative allies and, in the end, had won the day.

…And the Chief's respect as warriors, though there was still too much human blood on their hands to ever forgive.

The aft of the Dawn continued its endless roll through space, making the view slightly nauseating after a while. The Chief looked out into the void--a cybernetically-enhanced super soldier, the last of his kind, whose emotions were suppressed by genetic engineering and years of intensive training. Somewhere in his hidden subconscious--like a firefly in a vast cave--an alien sensation flickered dimly. For the first time in his life, the Spartan Warrior designated John 117 felt lost, both spiritually and physically. He felt no purpose; his war was over, and he was far from… from… from what? Home? He had never had one; Whatever battleground he fought upon was his home, until it was time to move on to the next. He had fought the Covenant--and more recently, the Flood--hard over the years, not out of compassion for his fellow man, or a sense of duty to humanity, but from a deeply ingrained discompassion for anything deemed his enemy.

And now it was over… the war against the Covenant had been an epic battle that had lasted a century. While that had been a battle for survival, the struggle against the Flood had been a battle for the very existence of all sentient life. The worst thought was that the flood would surely still be out there somewhere, in some dark, hidden corner of the galaxy. And just one single flood infection form could destroy an entire planet. Their logic was brutally simple: Infest; assimilate; disseminate. Master Chief didn't know how many planets had fallen to the Parasite, but, were he a betting man, he would have wagered it was no slim figure.

"Hmm…" Murmured Cortana. "Chief, I've been analysing that signal since I received it, trying to figure it out. It was badly decayed when I received it, but it's not improving any as we get closer, so that suggests to me that the signal was corrupt at transmission--maybe a faulty transmitter array. But it's interesting… I've made out one complete word from the signal. It was broadcast as a micro pulse within a stacked packet, and it was as decayed as the rest of the signal, but I managed to put it together after a few cycles."

"You put it together like a puzzle?"

"Right."

"What is it?"

"One word, Chief: Portal. And there's more."

"It's Origin?" Asked the Warrior.

"Right, again." She said, continuing: "Chief, it's Forerunner. And it could be a way back to earth."

At that moment something large and metallic rolled by the breach. By its colour and distinctive curving design it was plainly a fragment of Covenant dreadnaught, probably from the space battle fought above the Ark. "Lots of this junk has been passing us. I think it's all being pulled towards the signal too."

"Then the source of the signal isn't a Halo." He said. It wasn't a question.

"No. Something different."

"If it's something the Forerunners left active, it's likely to be a weapon. "

"Going by their record so far, I'd say that's a fair assessment; it most likely is a weapon… or a way to reach one."

"The Portal…" Mused the Warrior. The possibility of an unknown Forerunner weapon was a daunting one. He hoped that somewhere in the galaxy the surviving Halo rings were being pounded to scrap metal.

"Ahh!! You have been revived. Very good!" exclaimed a voice out of the darkness--a voice so startlingly familiar that the Chief instantly reached for his sidearm and span to face the treacherous Monitor. As he took aim, he realised that what he was looking at was only a hologram. It was a Forerunner installation Monitor, a small metallic sphere--about the size of a soccer ball--with a stylised carapace and single glaring 'eye' that glowed blue. But it couldn't have been 343 Guilty Spark; The Chief had finished off that devious Monitor for good when he destroyed the replacement Halo aboard the Ark… but hadn't he thought he had done that before? And hadn't Spark found the Elites and told them of Halo's purpose, the very act that had begun their insurrection?

With his finger still firmly on the trigger, the holographic Monitor introduced itself with the amiable and dulcet tones that was their greatest trait. "Greetings, Near Human. I am 542 Pensive Storm, Monitor of installation Alpha."

The Chief kept his gun trained on the hologram, which flickered badly due to a poor signal. "I destroyed installation Alpha." He said.

The Monitor seemed nonplussed for a moment. "I assure you, Near Human, my installation has not been destroyed. However, it is possible you may be referring to Alpha Ring."

"Then it is something different." Said Cortana, audible only to the Chief. If the Monitor could somehow sense the AI it didn't show it.

"Then what is installation Alpha?" asked the Warrior, finally lowering his sidearm a little, but keeping it at hand, as if the Hologram could somehow become corporeal and do something dangerous.

"This is not the time for answers, Near Human; My power reserves are dwindling and this broadcast is a strain on them. You are being pulled towards installation Alpha as I address you. Had I the ability, I would open a portal and bring you here immediately, such is the urgency of the situation. However, the Makers deemed that only a living hand can open a portal, thus I must convey you here by different means. I have utilised installation Alpha's gravitic assembly to pull you here, though it will take some time. "

"How long is some time?"

"Seventeen point four-six years." The monitor said with the ease of an entity that measured time in half lives, not seconds, or days, or years. It would have sounded exactly the same if it had said 'Tommorow'. "May I ask if you expect to survive such a journey? I see you have a suspension chamber. Is it operable?"

"It works." Said the Chief, cagily. "But what if I don't want to cooperate?"

"You misunderstand, Near Human." Said the Monitor in its polite voice that--like all the Monitors he had met--seemed to mask some kind of malice or intent. "You have no choice; You are a child of the Makers; I must bring you here. Your answers must wait until then. " With those last words the hologram cut off. There seemed to be no appeal with this 542 Pensive Storm.

The Warrior holstered his side arm. "Shanghaied by a monitor. You know you can't trust it, Chief." said Cortana.

"I know. " He said, guiding himself towards his stasis module. "But I want answers."

"It's a long time to stay under." Said Cortana. He could hear that she didn't want him to cooperate, but the Monitor was right: What choice did he have, unless he was lucky enough for someone to stumble across him in his wreck, among a stream of wreckage? He swung himself into his stasis chamber and secured the harness.

"If you need me…" He said.

"I will, Chief. I will."

The Spartan II Warrior, designated John 117 closed his eyes as the stasis chamber closed around him.

They remained closed for the next Seventeen point four-six years.

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

The Aft of the Dawn had tumbled through space for nearly eighteen years, on an unknown course, to an unknown destination, for reasons that had yet to be disclosed. The Spartan warrior had been in stasis for all of this time, unaware and unknowing of the thousands of near misses his wreckage had encountered over the years, from fragments of Covenant ships, the Ark debris, to a close pass near a chain of comets which, as luck would have it, also changed course, pulled towards the mysterious installation.

The speed of the wreck's long journey along the very edge of the galaxy had been slowly increasing over the years, but even at its zenith of thirty-seven thousand metres per second, it was still a painfully slow crawl through the vastness of space. It also seemed the Monitor had done his calculations correctly, since the Master Chief's makeshift lifeboat would arrive on course and on time, as predicted.

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

"Chief! Get out, now!"

The words pierced into his consciousness like an arrow. His stasis tube was already open, and he became aware of a roaring in his ears and a violent shuddering that seemed to shake his very bones. One particularly violent jolt rocked his head to the left, where he could now see white hot flames streaking past the breach, and turning the ragged edges cherry red.

He popped the catch on the harness and tried to climb out of the tube. His bones and muscles, tired and unused for nearly two decades throbbed with the effort, and the G-force of the wreckage's fall only hindered him more.

"Chief, we're going to hit dirt in one-hundred and twenty-four seconds." Said Cortana. He could barely hear her through the roar of the flames, despite the fact she was interfaced with his neutral pathways.

Hand over hand, searching for purchase wherever he could, the Warrior pulled himself, like an insect clinging to a wall, closer to the breach. The raging flames would have consumed flesh in moments, rendering it to ash before one could muster a scream. But the exceptional engineering of the Mjolnir armour of the Spartan warrior had already allowed him to survive an atmospheric freefall and the subsequent hard landing once before, when he had destroyed a Prophet's ship above earth. He only hoped the gel layer in his armour was up for a repeat impact.

He hooked his hands over the edge of the breach, the flames swallowing his hands from sight, yet he felt nothing; his suit was so well insulated and regulated that the temperature within never raised more than a couple of degrees. As the wreckage plummeted through the upper atmosphere of wherever this place was, the Chief pulled himself bodily through the curtain of flames, still protected by his armour. With one more concerted effort he felt himself topple over the edge, his stomach lurching as it did when in freefall. And now he was a fireball, streaking through the atmosphere. The only thing left to worry about now was the landing impact. But should he survive it--as he had before--he would have to hope that Cortana survived intact, too, in order to release his armour's damping lock, which immobilised all of the joints of the armour to prevent the wearer suffering multiple fractures of any or all limbs in such a situation as the Chief now found himself in for the second time in his life.

The flames died away as he entered the lower atmosphere, the roar of the air whizzing by his armour's aural receptors remained. He found himself staring at a clear blue sky, blemished here and there by small feather-like clouds high above. Using his arms and legs like rudders, he manage to roll over and face the ground, which, oddly, was scarred with hundreds of impact craters, and was approaching fast…

"Thirty seconds, Chief." Warned Cortana. "There's a small lake to the east."

The Warrior turned his head in a full arc, from right to left, finally seeing the lake--if it could be called that; pond might have been more accurate. Using his limbs to correct the course of his plummet, he steered himself towards the small body of water.

That the installation was Forerunner was now beyond doubt; From his eagle eye vantage point he could see many rising spires with their distinctive geometric architecture that he had seen on every Forerunner installation he had set foot on. And like the Halo 'ringworlds' and the Ark, this place had topography and an atmosphere--remarkably like earth's.

If the Chief had any sense of irony he would surely have been amused at how many Christian beliefs had been thrust upon the Forerunners as a species by Humanity, which found it was not alone in the universe, and not as divine as it once held itself to be: Ark… Flood… Halo… Covenant…

The ground was rushing up to meet him, and it seemed that he wasn't going to splash down as he had hoped he would. He impacted into the boggy, sodden ground yards short of the pond, sinking deep into the quagmire with the force of the landing. It was like he had fallen from the sky into his very grave. He didn't know how deep he had sank, and had no bearings, unable to tell which way he now faced. Any attempts to move were futile; the quagmire had his whole body locked in a vacuum. "Cortana?" He asked, resisting the urge to struggle.

"Alive and well, Chief."

There was a sudden violent tremor that shuddered through the ground, loosening the hold the sodden soil had on him for just a moment, and at the moment he felt the slightest give, Master Chief managed to free his right arm a little.

"I think that was the wreckage of the Dawn hitting dirt." Said Cortana.

"Don't worry about the Dawn. Worry about how we're going to get out of this hole." Grumbled the Warrior.

"Right. If this installation is anything like Halo or the Ark, I can zero in on its gravity field and get you going." She said. After a few seconds pause she continued: "Okay… Chief, You're lying on your left side; your legs are elevated about a foot above your head. This stuff has got a hold on you like quicksand, so on my mark I need you to kick your right leg back and forth as hard as possible. I'm going to purge a little of the air from your suit to break the seal around you and give you a chance to move. Starting in three… two… one… mark."

The Warrior did as he was told, thrashing his leg as hard as he could as Cortana jettisoned some air from his armour's life support systems. The mud immediately released its grip around him as the sodden ground filled with a forced air bubble; however, within moments the bubble collapsed around him, locking him in again. "Again--right leg, right arm this time. Three… two… one… kick!"

The Warrior thrashed again, and felt the mud around him give again. The displaced mud oozed around and under him, and when the bubble collapsed again, he knew he'd made some progress. Whether it could be measure in inches or feet, he didn't know, although it didn't seem to matter; it was working, and that was the important thing.

Time seemed to draw out as Cortana and he repeated the process dozens of times, slowly, painstakingly working his way back towards the surface. For a brief moment he saw daylight above him as the bubble collapsed. With one final effort--the Warrior and AI in perfect synch with each other now--he punched through to the surface like the Undead from the grave.

He took a moment to rest. For now he was still on boggy ground, and any attempt to walk over the sodden ground would just result in him getting stuck in the mud again. Instead, after what felt like an hour--though in reality, it was less than half of that--the exhausted Warrior, caked in heavy, clotted mud began crawling for dry land. He couldn't remember ever feeling so tired in his life, and when he reached the rocky embankment that led to a lush meadow above, he rolled onto his back, only wishing to rest for a moment. Soon an all consuming darkness consumed him. Master Chief slept.

And dreamed…

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

His eyes fluttered for a moment, caught in that moment when the brain is wakened, but the body isn't. When they snapped open he realised that things had changed:

He was no longer outdoors. Someone or Something had brought him inside. The mud on his armour had dried, and broke away in clumps each time he moved.

He was in 542 Pensive Storm's installation--of that he had no doubt; the bare architectural designs of the Forerunners were everywhere: Strange geometric lines and flowing curves. It as almost as if the Forerunners considered the math of their designs as an art form in itself.

"Cortana?" he asked. His voice reverberated around the vast, dim chamber.

"Right here."

"Who brought me here?"

"I did." Answered a voice out of the gloom. Its pleasant timbre and meticulous enunciation still reminded him of the treacherous Guilty Spark. But now that they were meeting in person (as it were) for the first time, the Warrior could hear that 542 Pensive Storm's voice was slightly deeper. The way it rang around the vast chamber made it sound like a giant in a fairytale. "I need you on your feet, Near human; Time is short."

The central 'eye' of the Orb shaped Monitor emitted a blue energy beam that pulled Master Chief to his feet as a mother might a child after a trip. "Follow me, please." Said the Monitor, hovering beside the Spartan Warrior for a moment before leading the way into the complex. The Chief had to set off at a brisk pace to keep up.

"You said I would get answers when I got here." stated the Spartan.

"Correction: I stated in my communiqué that it was not a time for answers. Now, fortuitously, I may provide you with answers… If you have questions, of course." Said the Monitor, never breaking pace.

Master Chief knew this could get tiresome; Monitor's rarely divulged information until asked--and even then, only as much as they thought you should know. "What is this place?" Asked the Chief.

"This is Installation Alpha, Near Human. Also known as the Diadem." Answered the Monitor, slipping through a doorway and waiting for the Chief to follow.

The Spartan stepped into a huge corridor, brightly lit by the daylight that poured in through the vast windows that ran from the floor to the ceiling, forty feet high on both sides. After a few steps he realised he was on an enclosed bridge that ran to a tower adjacent to the one he had just left behind. The ground was hundreds of feet below him. The blue sky above, which was strangely sunless, was slashed with hundreds of small fireballs burning up in the atmosphere. There was a constant rain of debris from space, and the Warrior knew how the installation's surface was so pockmarked by impact craters.

"What is the Diadem? A weapon?" he asked.

"No." replied the Monitor.

"No?" the surprise in Master Chief's voice was plain.

"The Diadem was among the first installations built to combat the Flood; however, it cannot be considered a weapon, since the first tactic of the Maker's was never to annihilate the Parasite; merely to expel it."

"Probably some kind of trap, Chief." Said Cortana. Again, it appeared the Monitor couldn't sense the AI. The Chief repeated her assessment to 542 Pensive Storm.

"Correct." Said the Monitor. " A trap constructed for a Gravemind and its brood; However, there is a problem. That is why it was imperative that I brought you here, Near human.

"What kind of a problem?"

"When your biological signature was picked up by the Ark's perimeter arrays, the signal was sent out to all installations in readiness for activation. The moment I realised that the children of the Makers were near, I realised I had to bring you here to activate the Fold. However, to do so I had to deploy installation Alpha's Gravitic arrays on the lowest settings. Unfortunately, this not only pulled you towards the Diadem, but every stray comet and meteorite, every wreckage and general detritus from the sector--as you may see." Said the Pensive Storm, indicating the crisscrossing trails of the fireballs in the sky.

"Amongst the objects that crashed was a ship of a design of which I am not familiar. It crashed close by." The Monitor stopped and looked out of the window to where a river had carved a deep valley over the Eons since the construction of the Diadem. Master Chief saw it immediately, and knew it was bad news: A scorched section of Covenant Dreadnaught had crashed into the wall of the valley and fell into the river. "There was many dead beings aboard. " Continued the Monitor. "And many Flood infection forms; the ship must have been badly infested when it was destroyed. Strangely, Near Human, it came from the same region as you. Are you familiar with this ship's configuration?"

"Yes." Said the Warrior. "It's Covenant, and it's bad news. Were there any humanoid survivors--other species, not human?"

"The only surviving life forms were Flood; They quickly dispersed into the surrounding area."

"They can't do much harm out there, and they won't survive long without hosts." Said Master Chief, a little relieved; the last thing he wanted to see right now was another Flood outbreak.

"Correction, Near human: A simple herbivorous species has been evolving here for many hundreds of thousands of years. They were deposited here by a carnivorous race that had the audacity to use this installation as a place to raise the mammals for meat. I believe if one were to travel to the caves in the third quadrant, one would still find sufficient evidence of their butchery. I cannot--"

"How many of these herbivores are there?" asked the Warrior. A sudden sense of urgency seemed to be brewing in him.

"The Butchers have not returned for many thousands of years, thus the Herbivores, without any natural predators have increased in number exponentially. One can witness herds of up to seventy million moving through the meadows in the third quadrant."

Millions.

"Do you know what will happen if just one Infection form finds a herd?" urged the Chief.

"Of course." Said the Monitor, his tone still pleasant and relatively unperturbed. "But now that you are here, I can make preparations for the activation of the Diadem's portal. The Fold must be activated soon, Near Human; the debris pulled in with you is beginning to damage my installation."

"You want to get it done before you get smacked by a meteor, right?" said the Chief, somewhat dryly.

"Indeed."

The door to the next tower suddenly opened next to where the Warrior stood. His armour's life support systems, now set for terrestrial use, sucked up the stale air into the scrubbers, but Master Chief could still smell the smell of dust and decay and bad air.

Pensive Storm led the way into the complete darkness ahead. The Chief stayed close, activating the small lamps located under the visor of his helmet. Dust sparkled in the beams of light--thick, choking dust that obscured his vision. As he walked he kicked something small and brittle that skittled across the floor, lost to the darkness. The Warrior pressed on, swallowed by this place that felt like the biggest mausoleum in the galaxy. After a few careful strides something crunched underfoot. Master Chief picked up the object.

It was small--maybe about the length of his finger--chalky, and crumbled to dust within moments. Cortana spoke up: "Chief. That was a bone. Maybe a metatarsal--I'm not positive. But it's definitely humanoid"

The Warrior dusted off his hands and continued after Pensive Storm, stepping up his pace a little to catch up.

They arrived at another door, which the Monitor activated. It opened into a large circular elevator, lit by a large hexagonal skylight high above. A layer of fine white dust had coated everything. When Master Chief stepped into the elevator the dust broiled around his bootheels like miniature tempests. Here, too, were more chalky white bone fragments. At the foot of the elevator's holographic interface lay a small collection of bones. There was less than two dozen fragments all together, and no compete bones. The Chief guessed that this was the spot where a Forerunner had fallen eons ago in that distant epoch that marked the end--or at least the beginning of the end--for the Forerunners. "What happened here?" He asked.

"Containment" remarked the Monitor. "Somehow, a small Flood force managed to escape the Dyson field within the core and shutdown the Diadem's security measures and the Sentinel control unit. With its defences down and no prospect of evacuation during a Flood outbreak, the Makers were forced to take up arms to fight the Flood back into the Dyson field, while I re-established the security protocols and the Sentinels. Unfortunately, the last of the Makers fell before the Fold could be properly activated. Thus, a Flood Gravemind, and it's brood are still trapped within the Dyson field, where time itself is immaterial."

"And you need me to pull the plug and flush them away?" Asked the Chief.

"An ironic metaphor, Near Human, but comparable to your task."

"I don't trust him." Said Cortana. Master Chief silently agreed with her; Monitors had never proven trustworthy.

The elevator began to descend, sinking into a gloom. The Warrior suddenly felt naked without his weapons. He only had his sidearm, but didn't know how many bullets were left. Regardless; if there was Flood loose below, he was in serious trouble. Whether or not they were contained within their sub-space prison, it still seemed like a bad idea to get so close to them to activate the installation. It was then he realised that 542 Pensive Storm, like Guilty Spark aboard Halo, was being evasive about the true powers of the Diadem, and the last time he had taken the word of a Monitor for granted, he had nearly activated a weapon array so powerful it could eliminate all sentient life in the galaxy. "What does this place do? "He asked.

The Monitor didn't answer for a few seconds--whether deliberately ignoring him or gathering its thoughts, he didn't care; He was not going to let the wool be pulled over his eyes again, so asked once more.

"The Gravemind and the remaining trapped Flood would be isolated." Was Pensive Storm's reply. It was still no answer.

"They're already isolated." Said the Chief. "They're trapped in a sub-space bubble."

"Indeed." Said Storm. "But as I have said before: This installation's power source is beginning to fail. In a few hundred years it will not be able to sustain the Dyson field. And if the Gravemind escaped and the Flood take control of this installation it would be a catastrophe."

"The last Monitor that brought me to its installation secretly tried to trick me into activating the Halo network. How can I trust you?" Said Master Chief, plainly.

The Monitor's tone filled with affrontment. "Why… I never! I have only ever carried out my duties according to the parameters assigned by the Makers. My function is to facilitate the activation of the Fold by any means necessary. The failsafe renders me powerless. The fate of the Flood within this installation is in your hands--figuratively speaking--and always has been. I am capable of nothing more."

The Chief reached for the Monitor, hooking his fingers into the gaps in its carapace and pulling it close. He asked again: "What does the Diadem do? What is its ultimate purpose?"

"To dispose of the Flood by forcing the Sub-space bubble into temporal shift. The Gravemind would be transported as far into the future as possible. To the very end of time, if there is such a thing."

The Warrior let go of the Monitor, which drifted back a foot or so, but remained close. The purpose of the Diadem was, like the Halo network, typically Forerunner: Elegant, practical (for a race as advanced as they were, anyway), and brutally efficient. "You're just going to catapult them forwards in time… make them someone else's problem?"

"The ethics of the solution are not mine to contemplate, Near Human; I am simply here to effect the temporal shift. Beyond that, I have no purpose." Said Storm.

"And if I refuse?"

"You cannot. You must not. Without activation, the Diadem's power will eventually fail, and the Flood will escape."

Before the Master Chief could respond the elevator stopped and the doors parted. The Monitor once again led the Warrior into a vast chamber. A deep chasm plunged into dark hidden depths below, crossed only by an energy bridge, the white light from which illuminated the chamber, throwing long dark shadows behind the massive pillars which towered above, reaching all the way to the ceiling. In the centre of the room, right above the extremity of the bridge was a massive concave disk, supported by strong steel spars that angled upwards from the walls. At the focal point of this dish array something hung--some piece of Forerunner technology, that would concentrate whatever energy was used to force a temporal shift. It was aimed into the depths below. "This is the Fold, Near Human; the heart of the Diadem. Deep below us is the Dyson threshold where the Flood are contained."

The whole complex shuddered with a hard impact somewhere outside… somewhere close. "Come. Time is short." Said the Monitor as it began over the bridge of light, eventually coming to a console beneath the focal aerial. Holograms sprang into the air: thousands of numerical figures, all tumbling and changing--some in milliseconds, others at a more leisurely pace; what was sure was that they were keeping a track of time.

"The Makers worked on the mathematics of the Fold for five generations. And I have laboured on them since, making slight adjustments here and there… the Flood should be fired many billions of years into the future." Said Storm, busy scrutinising the numerical figures.

"Chief, get me in there; I still don't trust him." Said Cortana.

With the Monitor's back turned as he perused the holograms, the Chief surreptitiously ejected Cortana's module from his neural interface and placed it on the console, just a above a pad shaped like a human hand, which, he correctly assumed, was how the Fold was activated. Within moments the bluish glow of Cortana's module faded; She was in.

"Odd." Murmured the Monitor, more to himself than the Chief. "There was a sudden cache of invalid executions. It may be, Near Human, that the data is corrupted."

The whole of the Fold suddenly rocked, battered by another piece of falling space junk. The ceiling high above had buckled in, and the struts supporting the dish twisted, throwing the whole thing out of alignment by nearly a meter. "NO!" exclaimed the Monitor, and began racing through the data he was calculating at a rate the Chief couldn't keep up with.

The sound of stressed metals screeching echoed in the Fold as if it were a living thing in pain. "The ceiling is going to come down on top of us if you don't hurry." Urged the Chief.

"I have to make many adjustments!" wailed Pensive Storm. "Perhaps there is--" Before he could finish something punched though the roof of the Fold completely, smashing into the energy bridge. The meteorite shattered into thousands of pieces with the force of an explosion, and rocks, ranging in size from pennies to the size of a fist flew in all directions with the force of bullets. Master Chief was smacked by a torrent and knocked over the edge of the bridge. Only by blind luck did his hand manage to reach out and grasp the edge. He was left dangling over the precipice as everything above him was shredded to pieces by the exploding meteorite. The Monitor plunged into the chasm, sparking and lifeless, small holes punched clean through his tough carapace.

"Chief!?" Cortana's voice echoed through the chamber. "Chief?!"

The Warrior pulled himself over the edge of the bridge and crossed to the badly damaged console. Cortana had used the console's holo emitter to appear full-sized before him, though she flickered badly. More significant was the fact that her module was gone; she was trapped in the console.

"Chief, I don't know if the Fold is still operational, but you have to activate the portal right now!" She urged.

Just as he was about to reply, the energy bridge flickered, before the field collapsed completely. Master Chief instinctively reached out for something to grip again, his left arm taking his full weight hard. He was left dangling over the chasm once more… only this time there was no way back. He, too, was trapped.

"Do it, Chief! Before it's too late!"

"Where does it go?" He asked, pulling himself up the console, towards the activation pad.

"Anywhere but here." Replied Cortana.

"The Flood…" he uttered.

"You keep fighting them wherever and whenever find yourself, Chief--You fight them, do you hear me?"

"And you?" He asked, hand wavering over the activation pad.

"We both know what's going to happen to me…" She said.

Both paused, regarding each other for a moment--the Warrior and the Construct: a master and his servant, closer than any lovers in the world could ever hope to be, the very best of friends…

"Goodbye, John." She said.

The Warrior rested his hand on the pad…

The world went white, and all of the air seemed to be crushed out of his lungs, and for the briefest of moments, it felt just like dreaming…