1845 hours, July 17, 2554 (Military Calendar) \ Uncharted System, Aboard Rescue Vessel Vanguard of the Harvest, Following Last Known Trajectory of Forward Unto Dawn

Jack's eyelids fluttered as thawing gases flushed into his cryo pod, catalyzing the defrosting process that had kept him in stasis for well over a month. He squirmed uncomfortably as his inflexible muscles refused to take commands just yet. He'd been dreaming about something. Something from his past. An orchard, that was it. A great wide orchard spanning several miles in diameter stood in the midday sun, as a cool, gentle breeze rustled the pink, budding flowers. It was spring. The sun had felt pleasant on his face, natural. Much better than the harsh, artificial light that flooded his pod as the pressurized hatch swung open.

He'd never liked space travel all that much. It was too complicated, too uncomfortable. Jack would have rather walked the distance to the distress beacon they'd received two months ago than spend the time in a compartmentalized tin can, stuck inside an even smaller one for most of the trip. He couldn't stand the hostility of space, the number of factors required to sustain life aboard the Forager-Class Rescue Vessel making it perfectly clear that out in the cold expanse of space, man was alone.

Jack didn't like to complain, either, but he was a soldier. A UNSC Marine used to facing life-or-death situations on the ground. But somehow these instances held less fear for him. They were much simpler. There were no fleets, no fighters, and while a single man might go down on the battlefield, a whole crew perished with their ship. Down planetside, it was just him and the enemy. Fastest trigger finger wins.

But up in space, his life was in the hands of the captain and his crew, and although Jack had confidence in them, he preferred to operate on his own terms. Better to go down shooting on familiar earth, fighting for something he could see and feel, fighing for his home, than strap into a crash-seat and pray that the anti-air didn't fry him. He wanted to be in control of his own destiny.

But for the past thirty years, destiny hadn't been taking his orders. Not when he was a sixteen-year-old, green-behind-the-ears kid on Harvest. Not when the Covenant had first appeared over the peaceful farming world. Not when their hellfire had rained down on his home's surface, reducing the idealic fields and mountains and rivers to so much molten slag and glass. He'd barely escaped with his life when a refugee migration led away from the burning world. If it hadn't been for the heroism of a few militamen, he would have been burning with it.

And so he set out to join them. Not the milita, because after Harvest burned they had no home to defend. No, he would be a soldier. A member of the UNSC. He wouldn't fight for his home. He would fight for the homes of others, so that they wouldn't have to suffer as he had.

His parents hadn't taken too kindly to that, not with the war's devastating beginning years already taking their toll on humanity. It wasn't until three years later that Private Jack Harrison had officially signed up to take the fight to the Covenant.

For years he'd worked to fight them, watched as his friends laid down their lives for the mission, all in the vain hope that they might actually make a difference in the war effort. Madrigal, Hesiod, Reach, each world had fallen as the advancing Covenant juggernaut refused to falter, steadily sweeping through the Outer Colonies until their surfaces were but glass.

Somewhere along the way, Private Harrison died, that youthful naivete that he still managed to hold on to after Harvet's fall slowly died with the planets he saw burn. Smouldering badges of humanity's failure.

It had been a hopeless war. That was, until the SPARTANs arrived. With their aid, the human forces began to push back, until the discovery of the Halo construct. After that, well, everyone knew what happened after. Even a year later, people back on Earth were still talking about the heroic Marines who had ventured into the portal above New Mombasa. With the Elites by their side, they had pursued the Prophet of Truth to the Ark, and subsequently managed to kill him, light the new Halo, and destroy the Flood. Jack had been there, had fought alongside the Marines and Elites to save humanity, and they'd made it back home.

For all intents and purposes, it was almost a happy ending. It was the single greatest victory against the Covenant, and the war had ended, with whatever surviving hostiles standing down or fleeing at the death of their beloved Prophet.

Still, despite this, the tragedy of loosing so many good people shook humanity to its core. The Arbiter, now the chief diplomat between the Sangheili and humanity, had told of the brave actions of the three heroes who had made that victory possible.

Commander Miranda Keyes, who had died heroically trying to rescue a comrade from the clutches of the Covenant, and had become the last casualty of their war. A memorial stood in her memory at the Cairo Station, now an international heritage site.

Sergenat Major Avery Johnson, one of the first men to ever fight the Covenant, who had been around to witness the beginning of the conflict, and lived long enough to see its end. Sadly, he too had perished soon after, the Arbiter said, while attempting to light the Halo Array. Betrayed by the Forerunner AI, 343 Guilty Spark.

These two people were the best and brightest, their sacrifices honored and their names remembered in humanity's ever-growing history. Together, they had saved Earth, but there was one more. A man, no, a legend, who had fought on the first Halo, destroyed it, and lived to tell the tale. He braved the darkness of the Flood, defended Earth during the First and Second Battles, helped the Arbiter slay the Prophet of Truth, and fired the Array when Johnson could not. His name was SPARTAN-117, The Master Chief. He had battled thousands of Covenant, and killed them all.

Together, he and the Arbiter, the greatest warriors of their species, fled the Control Room, fighting past Flood and enemy constructs alike, to reach their escape Warthog. A vehicle meant to have taken Johnson with them. It would only ever transport two.

Fleeing to the Forward Unto Dawn, the Arbiter, with the aid of the AI Cortana, had piloted the frigate away from the massive explosion that was the Ark, as the light of Halo consumed it. The UNSC vessel made it into Slipspace, bringing back to Earth the news of their victory.

But the joy was short-lived. Rent in half, Forward Unto Dawn's rear section hadn't made it throught he closing portal. With it went the Master Chief. For almost a year humanity mourned his passing, erecting a statue in the grand courtyard of New Mombasa, which they had only begun to rebuild.

But two months ago, the Office of Naval Intelligence had received a distress beacon, a waypoint to indicate the location of a downed ship.

It had read as follows:

\\ .CTN 0452-9 UNSC OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE

\\ This is UNSC AI Cortana. UNSC Frigate Forward Unto Dawn disabled and in immediate need of assistance. SPARTAN John-117 onboard.

\\ Mission report:

Mission directive achieved. Firing of the Halo Construct and subsequent destruction of both it and the Forerunner "Ark" ensued. Mission operatives John-117 and Sgt. Major Avery Johnson, Service Number 48789-20114-AJ, reached Installation 04's Control Room, accompanied by Sangheili Arbiter. Johnson attempted to light the Array, and was promptly betrayed by the Forerunner construct 343 Guilty Spark (recommendation for the Colonial Cross enclosed). John-117 succeeded in destroying the rampant AI, and fired Halo. He and the Arbiter escaped in a UNSC-issue M12-LRV. Forward Unto Dawn carried them away from the Ark, but failed to transport the aft section. Status of aforedecks unknown to this construct at the present time.

Request extraction at the coordinates enclosed ASAP. Calculated trajectory leads into the gravity well of a nearby planet. Potential of crash-landing is high. John-117 remains in cryo-sleep.

Thank you, and please come quickly.//

That message was dated over a year ago. Two months prior, it was picked up by the Sangheili Carrier Resplendent Requital, and relayed to ONI. A mission was mounted to rescue the Spartan immediately after. If humanity's savior was alive, or even if they had a chance of recovering his body, then the Corps would be damned if they didn't die trying to get him back. Jack, by then a major, had been one of the first to jump at the prospect of rescuing the Master Chief. He owed him one. They all did.

And so Jack found himself clambering out of a cryo pod, stark naked, hacking and coughing as the antifrostbite gel in his lungs came up forcefully. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. He steadied himself against the pod's hatch while his knees threatened to buckle, spewing the congealed gel onto the titanium-plated deck.

All around Cryo Bay D, his fellow Marines did likewise, although with less composure. A brief chuckle interrupted Jack's raspy heaves as he watched a corporal fall flat on his face, but he regretted it immediatley after as he gagged violently.

Just when it seemd he might drown in the viscous stuff, a last, great cough racked his body, and he came up gasping for air. It tasted stale, recycled. The carbon scrubbers on board Vanguard probably needed a bit of work. But, then again, with humanity just recovering from their quarter-century battle with an alien empire, he supposed FLEETCOM was more concerned with keeping their ships up and running, rather than the luxuries afforded to rescue vessels.

It still felt great. Any air was better than no air at all. There was no need to breathe in cryo-sleep. That wasn't to say it wasn't in the freezer so long hadn't left him unscatched. His bones ached and he was dying for a few cycles of natural sleep, but if someone cracked his casket, it wasn't so he could take a nap. They must have been close.

Surely enough, even as the on-duty deckhand tossed him a crisp towel to wipe himself down, the deck shuddered as the ship's Shaw-Fujikawa Slipspace engine brought them into real space-time. The force of it jarred Jack's jaw, but with trade being established with the Sangheili, he figured it wouldn't be too long before that model became outdated.

Drawing the towel away from his face, now free from sweat left behind after his coughing fit, Jack accepted a freshly laundered uniform from another deckhand. Slipping into the starched jumpsuit, he fastened his major's clusters to his lapel, and did up his boots. Whatever was going on, he intended to be ship-shape when it hit.

Turning to face the officer on deck, an ensign named Davids, Jack parted his lips, chapped by cryostasis, to ask, "What's the situation, Ensign?"

The cadet snapped off a crisp salute before responding. "We've arrived at the designated coordinates, sir. Captain would like to see all officers on deck." He cast a glance at the others still reeling from their freezer experience. "Marines included, sir."

Jack nodded, clasping Davids on the shoulder for a moment, then stode off, freshly polished boots thundering down the hall as the entrance to Cryo D slid shut behind him with a pneumatic hiss.

The corridors were still relatively empty, the majority of the crew still stepping out of the freezer, so it took Jack only a few minutes to navigate his way to the bridge. He spent the time running his hands through his brown crew-cut, beginning to see streaks of gray. Jack's face was rather gaunt and underfed, but his green eyes emanated an inner, steely nature. He wasn't a man to be trifled with.

A pair of armed Marines flanked the entrance to the command center, eyes locked firmly ahead, weapons out but not raised. Their armored Titanium-A plated bodies stood at attention, a sense of unease about them. The war was still was on everyone's minds.

Jack walked past them unmolested, making his way into the bridge. Several operating stations stood in niches on both walls, bridge crew deftly operating their controls. On the far side of the bridge, before a transparisteel viewport, stood the captain, gazing out at the stars.

In the center of the room the floor sank into a deep recession, devoid of control or furnishing save for a single podium mounted on the deck. A silver column stood upright from the ground, a circular projector pad inlaid into the top. It glowed with an inner blue light, but remained empty otherwise. A single insertion slot was carved into the side, an inch or so in length. An AI unit. Of course, Vanguard didn't have a shipboard AI. It needed that podium for when, if, they recovered the lost AI, Cortana. She was to be immediately debriefed in full detail upon her recovery.

Of course, not by us military slumps, Jack mused to himself, noting the slight figure of another man beside the captain. He wore no identification, but the superior expression on his face and shady nature of his presence immediately gave him away for what he was: a spook. ONI couldn't leave well enough alone, could they? He was certain this agent was looking forward to extracting information from Cortana the moment they retrieved her.

But that wasn't his problem. As a Marine, it was his duty to make sure that the captain and whatever spook he employed were kept safe as they did their job, whatever that may be. Raising a hand in salute, the Major stood at attention until Captain Strickland, pouring over the ship's readout, took notice of him.

"Captain Strickland, sir!"

"Major Harrison, great to meet you." Strickland grinned widely, gesturing for him to stand at ease. Jack did so willingly. The ache hadn't quite worked itself out yet.

The captain wasn't an old man, but he wasn't exactly young either. He had a warm, friendly face, large, intelligent eyes, and a quirky smile at his lips. Jack had read his report. Strickland was a bit of a joker, but he'd pulled off some helluva work in the War, so he figured he had to be worth his salt.

The captain waved a hand at the spook, introducing him pleasantly. "Major, I'd like you to meet Colonel Roth, Office of Naval Intelligence."

Roth had seemed shady and mysterious at a distance, but now that Jack was closer, the man seemed simply exhausted. His eyes stared blankly from behind their bags, his face worn by worry-lines. When he extended a hand to greet Jack, it was with a weak grip and a faint smile. "Major. A pleasure."

Jack didn't ask any questions. He didn't have to. Turning back to face his console, the smile ran from the captain's face, and Roth's had vanished somewhere between major and pleasure. Without looking away, the captain stated, "Major, we've located the wreck of Forward Unto Dawn. She's in bad shape. Cut right down the middle. Massive pressure leaks, I'm sure, and we're reading next to no life on board. I'm assuming that's our priority. Only living thing on that hulk."

Jack suddenly stood a little straighter. The Master Chief. He was alive after all.

"We're holding here until we get confirmation from the shipboard AI that it's safe to approach. This might just be the most dangerous part of space, Major. The Ark's here, which means this is the last combat zone of the war. We have to assume it still is a combat zone. We passed the construct several minutes ago. Somewhere off our portside. He really blew that thing to hell."

"Do you expect it to respond? The AI?" Jack inquired.

Strickland shrugged marginally. "We can only hope. The Dawn is hanging in low orbit over a planetoid of some kind. Readouts are showing us it's a Class Nine: Earth-like conditions. The gravity well could be messing with their Comm Array. Thing is, it could also pull us right in, trap us there with the Dawn, if she's trapped, that is. She's still got her engines, but I'm not sure if they're operational. If they are, then they're not enough to escape the pull. Not in her state."

Even as he spoke, the ship turned to starboard, and a panoramic scene slid into view. A blue-green planet appeared, dominating the scene. It was illuminated by the nearest star, a large, azure mass. On its surface, Jack could make out a tremendous ocean, taking up perhaps ninety-percent of the planet's visible surface. The only location not submerged beneath its uniform exterior was a single, perfectly circular landmass, perhaps a thousand miles in diameter.

As Jack gazed on, he breathed, composure forgotten, "What the hell is that?"

Here Roth stepped in. "We suspect this is of some relation to the Forerunner artifact, the Ark. But we don't have any positive answers yet."

They all noticed, there, upon the surface of the region, was what appeared to be an enormous symbol. Circular, with another circle contained within it, connected by an extension of the outer rim.

"We've accessed our databanks," Roth went on, eyes gazing unwavering at the emblem. "Nothing from our history, but the Covenant lexicon we've recently been granted access to show us something exactly like it."

Leaning forward, past the captain, Roth tapped the controls with surprising familiarity. A glyph appeared on the holopad in the room's center, illuminating every corner in amber light. The bridge crew, to their credit, went right on working.

Jack was thunderstruck. "What does it mean?"

Roth hadn't even turned around. His eyes continued to stare hungrily down at the surface, as if he didn't want to look away for fear of it vanishing like a forgotten dream. "That, Major, is the Forerunner symbol for Reclaimer. It had various meanings for the Covenant, the inverse symbol meaning Reclamation, but for all intents and purposes, it means one thing."

At last, he tore his eyes away from the spectacle, turning to face Jack. "Us. Humans, humanity, whatever you want to call it. The exact meaning of it all is unclear, and why a Forerunner symbol meaning human would be stenciled on an unknown planet eludes me, but we've called it in already. Of course, the message won't get there anytime soon, but that's procedure. In the event of encountering an alien artifact of unknown origin, send a transmission back home immediately. If we should somehow fail in our mission, and never return, at least information of this… thing, will reach ONI."

"ONI?" Jack's brow furrowed. "Shouldn't we alert FLEETCOM to this?"

For once, a genuine, albeit frightening, smile crept across the spook's face, and Jack finally realized how they earned that name. "We needn't bother them with all that. The message will take a very long time to reach anyone, and I feel my people will be better suited to deal with the matter as discreetly as possible when it gets there. I recommend we begin an investigation into the matter immediately. We'll be needing your troops, Major."

Jack felt blood rush to his cheeks, realizing this rescue mission had just gotten a lot more complicated, and that this spook was almost runing the show. "Captain, does this change matters?" he asked, determined to remain formal.

Strickland shook his head, having kept his eyes shut in silent concentration throughout the discussion. "No. It doesn't." Roth's face immediately fell, an ugly look coming around his features, but Jack felt nothing but newfound respect for the captain. "We've still got a job to do. There's a man on that ship that needs our help. Everything else can wait."

Without another word, he turned and strode out of the command center, followed shortly by a seething Roth. Jack could tell the Colonel didn't like the idea of completing the job when there was an official "ONI mission" to attend to, but Jack couldn't care less.

Raising a communication 'pad to his lips, Jack spoke. "Dawson, you read me?"

After a moment, a strong, deep voice responded, slightly distorted by static. "Loud and clear, Major," Dawson rumbled. "Are we running hot?"

"Affirmative. Wake the boys up and get them into something airtight. We've got a job to do."