Chapter Text
John felt like he was floating. Like laying back in a pool of lukewarm water--he couldn’t tell where his skin ended and the liquid began. Curiously enough, it also felt like he was sinking, submerged under the water. Everything was dark, muffled…
Wait, was this what sleep paralysis was like? Was that what was happening? The last thing he remembered was… huh. He couldn’t remember the last thing he remembered.
Wait… if he focused, he could hear a voice speaking, repeating something…
“Hey!” John tried to speak, only for his mouth not to move an inch. It was like he was frozen asleep, his eyes held shut, but aware of his surroundings. Teetering between consciousness and otherwise--like a Schrodinger’s Cat experiment where alive and dead are instead awake and asleep.
And someone was about to open the box.
Suddenly, John’s efforts to force his eyes open met with success as the layer of… icy stuff coating his body was quickly thawed out. He took a deep, stinging breath, like a gulp of cold winter air after stepping out of the warmth.
He was just about to shoot up, when belatedly, he realized he was already standing up. A second later, a blue display filled his vision, accompanied by green ASCII characters flashing by.
“What the?” John spluttered, looking around in confusion.
“Yes!” The man cheered, raising his arms happily. “Yes! We’re going home!” He laughed, letting his arms dropped as he carefully approached. John had about a dozen questions ready to go, but wasn’t able to get out any of them when the guy continued speaking. “Welcome back, Chief!”
“What’s going on…” He demanded, the voice’s natural cadence serving to hide his terror at the situation.
“I rerouted what little power I had into your suit.” The mysterious stranger replied, assuming he was talking about something else. He walked off to the side, grabbing some things. Tools, by the looks of them.
John continued looking around fearfully, something keeping his body anchored in place, before he saw the eagle, globe, and banner logo on one of the boxes.
UNSC…
All right, so, he had to get his bearings-
“I’m seeing a fault on the calibration matrix.” The bearded stranger stepped back into view. “At least, I think it’s a calibration matrix.”
“No, what-“ John began, only for the guy to hold up a flashlight or something in his vision.
“Okay, follow the light.”
“No, hold on!” John barked in his authoritarian voice. He was in an unfamiliar place, with no clue how he got there, and the last thing he remembered was going a bit… barmy. “How did I get… here!? Where is here!? Who’re you!? What is going on!?”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, take it easy, Chief.” The man tried to get him to calm down. “Let’s just get these diagnostics done, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
“Look, I’m not-“ He cut himself off, taking a breath. “I’m not doing too good right now.” John sighed, looking down.
The man’s eyes shot up in surprise as he blinked. “Oh, um… neither am I. But don’t worry, we can get it all sorted. Can we do the calibration now, please?”
“Right.” John looked up at the light, a small asterisk at the center of his vision turning a steady green as he stared at the object.
“Okay…” The man held the light below him. “Now down…”
“Looking up and down, okay, some Mister Miyagi wax-on wax-off type of bull right here…” He mumbled, only for the sound to come out much, much louder than he had anticipated due to the helmet speakers.
“Come on, Chief, don’t be like that.” The man shook his head but smiled. “It’s just looking at things.”
John looked down, locking on at the light.
“See, that wasn’t so bad.” The Spanish-accented man remarked as he stepped back. “They mentioned you were a lot of things… squirmy wasn’t one of them.” He cleared his throat, looking at a tablet computer in his hand. “Visor functions look good…” The man mumbled. “But there seems to be a problem with the servos in your hands.”
John looked down, at the hands encased in green armor plating. On his left arm, there was a launcher… wait, was that a grappling hook? John’s fist twitched, and the cable retracted, locking in place. He’d always wanted a grappling hook.
“Stay calm,” The man tried to advise, seeing the twitching muscles for what they were, “You’ve been out there a while.”
“Hm…” John mumbled, nodding as he forced his left hand open, wiggling the fingers for effort. Boy, this was weird. Like wearing nothing at all…
He brought up his other hand, feeling something in it, and he brought it up, forcing it open.
John slowed, seeing the small data chip inside. He’d seen it--or at least, a similar model--dozens of times before…
“Cortana…?” He tried clutching it between his fingers properly. He remembered her, his… friend, wasn’t she? He didn’t know, this was all so odd. He could remember concepts, had knowledge of there being someone named Cortana who occupied this chip, but he couldn’t remember what she looked like, sounded like, or acted like.
“Still out there--I think.” The mysterious man replied, and John’s head snapped up to look at him as he rifled through some containers. “I don’t know. Everything’s just been one great, big, mess. Haven’t heard from her since that thing blew up. Hold on, I think I see the actual diagnostic tool…”
John didn’t pay him any mind as he looked at the chip, worry permeating his cells.
Okay, he had questions, and there was someone there to answer them. John’s empty hand went up to feel the back of his head, and the fingers brushed along a little slot on the back of the helmet. He’d done this before, plenty of times… The muscle memory was proof enough of that.
He brought the chip up, and slotted it in. A tiny jolt went through his nerves, before words flashed across his display. Something about weapon containment… he saw the prompt to continue, and wondered for a moment about how to continue, before it went ahead.
Wait a minute… His suit was connected to his body, and since he was in the suit…
Oh, God, he had a computer bolted to his brain stem.
The man stumbled forward, breaking the hoses off the back of the armor, and unsteadily walked around, before finding his balance.
“Whoa, whoa, take it easy.” The guy advised him. He double-took, as John braced against the wall, breathing heavily. “Hey, Chief, are you okay?”
“I’ve woke up god knows where with only a complete stranger, it feels like I’m having an out of body experience, I don’t know why anything’s happening or what’s going on, I can’t remember a damn thing, and I’m trapped inside a half-ton walking coffin!” He snapped at the poor man, shaking. “No I’m not all right!”
“…wow.” The man blinked, shifting. “Okay, um… well, when you put it like that, I guess it makes sense. If it helps, I’m not exactly okay myself…”
“Wonderful.” John deadpanned, looking at the comparatively shorter man. “Look, just… just please, tell me what’s happening.”
The man tilted his head. “You don’t…?” He paused, eyes darting around. “There’s something you need to see, Chief.” He gestured with his head toward the cockpit.
John followed the man’s gesture, inquisitively glancing back at him, before he walked, moving through the airlock. One half of the sliding doors stayed in place, and John pushed it aside, as easy as he would push an automatic door open.
As he stepped into the cockpit, aqua-blue light bathed the space, and John looked out, slowing to a stop.
“We lost… lost everything.” The man said, though John wasn’t listening.
The man’s attention was focused squarely on the enormous object floating out in space. An enormous ring of metal, on the inside of which was what looked like the surface of Earth.
“There’s nothing left for us here.” He continued, unaware of John’s lack of attention.
It was… amazing, terrifying, beautiful were all words that came to mind. It made him feel awestruck… then utterly insignificant.
“I don’t even know where here is.”
‘Halo.’ The name came to his mind. The ring was missing a large chunk, the shattered debris floating out in space, but curiously, it seemed fine. Shouldn’t centrifugal force have ripped the rest apart?
The… spacecraft suddenly lurched as though it had struck something, the lights in the place going dead as an eerie glow came in through the cockpit.
“No!” The pilot exclaimed as he looked up in fear. “Not them! Not again!”
John turned around, wishing he had some light, only for the flashlight in the helmet to activate at the command of his thoughts.
“We need to run!”
“Um…” John looked at the bay doors of the ship. Okay, think. Something big heading this way, something bad… if they stayed, they definitely would die, if they fought, they might not die.
Yeah, okay, it wasn’t a great plan, but fuck it!
“Do you have a gun?” John asked, looking at the pilot.
“Gun?” He repeated, spluttering.
“Gun. Shooty thing. Point at person, pull trigger, give death.”
He stayed staring, before he went into action, handing John the pistol. The screen in his vision flashed, calling it a Sidekick. The number in the lower right corner flashed red, and he frowned.
“One bullet?” John groaned, shaking his head. “Never mind.” Right, the suit was sealed, so if he opened the door, he could shoot out at whatever ship had grabbed them… with one bullet… yeah. That couldn’t possibly go badly.
He began moving toward the rear doors, and the pilot spluttered. “You’re not going out there!?”
“Heck no!” John replied, “Just… getting my bearings. I need to see what the hell’s going on.”
The pilot shook his head, sealing himself in the cockpit.
The amnesiac (or just plain bananas, though it was probably both) supersoldier body found the door control, and pressed the button, before the air removal sequence could complete.
The bay depressurized, sending the crates and objects inside flying…
And before John realized it, him.
“Oh, crap!” John screamed as he was sent into the void, into the wreckage of a huge battle. “Ah!” He slammed into a bit of wreckage, stopping. “Okay! Okay, John, don’t panic! You’re just in space! Without a tether! And no one to rescue you! YEAH, I’M CALM!” He wheezed, spinning around.
Okay, okay, calm… calm. He had air, that was the important part. Air was good, air meant he could stop and think about his problems before they ballooned even more. He looked around, seeing the bodies of soldiers and burnt-out old vehicles floating in the carnage… and guns. Good, he liked guns. Guns were a nice security blanket in a world gone mad. Peace, through overwhelming firepower. A light moved over him, and he looked, seeing the enormous starship looming over him.
It was though, at that moment, that the very-slightly insane supersoldier entered a different mode of operation. Fight-or-flight, sink or swim. All hands to battle stations, this was as real as it was ever going to get.
He survived hell before goddammit! He’d do it again, just to show whatever was responsible that you don’t mess with John Fucking… wait, what was his last name again?
All right, he had a job to do.
Now, he was in zero-g. Problem. There was plenty of stuff floating around him. Not a problem. He couldn’t get to the stuff to kick off it. Problem.
But… he did have a grappling hook.
He pointed his arm at the wreckage of a futuristic jeep, then wondered for a moment about how to fire it. Was it the Spiderman motion? No. How about a punch? No.
Hmm… the rest of the suit was controlled through the brain, maybe-
Ah ha! With the mere thought of the word ‘grapple’, the wire and hook shot out, latching onto the metallic husk floating in space. John sent the retract command, and was yanked toward it, slamming into the vehicle, and into the bit of metal it was trapped inside.
“Okay… sweet.” John chuckled, before he looked down, seeing a dead man in the passenger seat. “Oh… not sweet.” He winced. Okay, he didn’t really want to touch the dead, much less grave rob them, but… well… he needed guns. And that guy had one that looked almost like an assault rifle.
Gingerly, John took the gun, and some of the spare clips floating around. He looked down, seeing the storage compartments on the armor, and slipped the magazines inside, repeating the process for some pistols floating around.
Okay, now, if he had to guess, the best way to get on board that ship was through the big… glowing… red… thing.
Was that the technical term? Yeah, yeah, it probably was.
Chunks of debris floated past, and very clumsily, John grabbed on, pulling himself along, and across the metal flotsam. He got close to the bay of the alien spaceship, and sent out the grappling hook, yanking himself through.
The energy shields surrounding him popped, before the artificial gravity grabbed onto his body, and yanked him to the ground.
“I can’t believe it!” The pilot radioed him, laughing. “You made it!”
“Yeah,” John muttered, “I can’t believe it either…”
He seemed to have ended up in some sort of cargo bay.
Right, one man in an alien spaceship, no backup, and no idea what the fuck he was doing…
He could do this.