Saving Spartan 117

John watched as the Didact fell off the light bridge into the swirling orange abyss below. He crawled over to the bomb and successfully managed to arm and activate it, blowing the Forerunner race into nonexistence. But it was neither of those that kept him up during the night. The Didact had deserved to die, and the Forerunner race had been bent on the extinction of the entire universe, so he had nothing to feel there but anger at them for all the good men they'd killed. What was bothering the Spartan though were the few minutes after that was accomplished. Those minutes where Cortana had last spoken to him, those minutes where the AI had finally died. They were ingrained in his memory, haunting his dreams.

"How..." he began, trailing off the sentence as he tried to understand how Cortana was standing in front of him, just a head shorter than him.

"Oh, I'm the strangest thing you've seen all day," she said, giving him a small smile.

"But if we're here," he began, not finishing his sentence.

"It worked," Cortana told him. "You did it, just like you always do."

"So how do we get out of here," John asked, looking around at the light blue walls, covered in glyphs and moving holographic symbols.

"I'm not coming with you this time."

John got up from the bed he was laying on, moving to the bathroom and turning on the light as he leaned over the sink. He turned on the tap and splashed some cold water on his face, trying to stop the memory for the fifth time tonight

"What," John asked, feeling the first trickle of fear.

"Most of me is down there," Cortana replied, looking down at the floor. He understood what she meant, and it only made him even more scared, rather than comforting him, knowing that his only friend was sacrificing herself to save him. "I only held enough back to get you off the ship."

"No," he said immediately, not wanting to believe it. "That's not-we go together!"

"It's already done," she replied, her voice cracking.

John tightened his grip on the edge of the sink, gritting his teeth as tears started to form in the corner of his eyes. He shook his head, his brown hair which had grown over the past few months shaking along with the movements.

"I am not leaving you here," John replied.

"John," Cortana said softly, moving forward a step and laying a hand on the chestplate of his armour. She released a shaky breath and said, "I've waited so long to do that."

"It was my job to take care of you," he replied as she let her hand fall, turning his head away to try and keep her from seeing past the orange tinted visor.

"We were supposed to take care of each other," she replied, drawing his attention again. She gave him a smile and said, "And we did."

"Cortana, please," John said, his emotions conflicting with each other. She started backing away from him and he said, "Wait."

"Welcome home, John," she said before taking one last step back and disappearing.

That was the main thing that kept poking at him, the second thing was the last thing that Lasky had said to him, before he'd curled up in his shell, not responding to anyone or answering anything.

"You say that...like soldiers and humanity are two different things," Lasky had said. "I mean, soldiers aren't machines. We're just people."

John repeated the saying in his head more times than he could count, and it was finally getting through to him, along with the death of Cortana. He didn't have to carry on like he had been, simply following any order given to him and subjecting to the will of the UNSC, he could live his own life if he wanted. He was only human after all, they would have to allow him to retire, after all he'd done for them, all of the times he'd saved them, killed the Covenant, the Flood, the Forerunners. He made up his mind at that moment, standing over the sink with tears staining his cheeks. He was going to live a life.

He was going to quit the UNSC.

Spike the Dragon had woken up that morning like always, with a stretch, a yawn, and a look over to Twilights bed to confirm that she was already up and about. The thing about this morning though was that she was still asleep, surprising Spike enough for him to consider waking her up and asking why, but he knew that would only cause her to run frantically around the house the minute he did so. Considering the option of missing out on his breakfast, he decided to let her sleep for now, making his way towards the kitchen to eat something before Twilight woke up and made him do chores or something.

When he walked into the kitchen he gave a small sigh, spotting loads of books splayed out across the table. "How many times have I told that mare not to leave her books on the kitchen table," he muttered to himself, picking each one up and stacking them on top of each other, laying them together in a corner of the kitchen. He gave a look at the spines of each one to see what she had been so interested in and noticed that they were each books on astronomy, giving him a bit of a surprise. "Never really thought she'd be interested in astronomy."

Then again, she did acquire new interests in a flash, and he found himself making bets about what her next subject of interest was going to be. After about thirty minutes, Twilight walked into the kitchen and looked speedily about as she asked, "Spike, where did my books go?"

"They're over in the corner," he said, pointing a claw at the corner in question. She nodded and sat down, using her magic to  pour a bowl of cereal. Spike decided to ask her the question that had been on his mind since he'd seen those books, "Why the sudden interest in astronomy?"

"Well princess Luna is supposed to be forming constellations in the sky tonight, and I was looking at the kinds she would be doing," Twilight responded.

"By studying in books," he asked. "Not to be rude Twi, but those are the past, it's not like she does the same ones every year."

"Actually she does," Twilight informed him.

"Right," he muttered, "how silly of me."

The two of them finished their breakfast and Twilight hurried off to get her telescope ready, she had some stars she was going to look at tonight.

When John walked into the mission control room, he had full intentions of telling Lasky that he was retiring, but the minute that he saw Lasky's strained expression, his intentions flew out of his mind. "Commander Lasky," he said as he walked up, "what's the matter?"

"This," he said, pointing at the holo-screen in front of him. On it were a bunch of UNSC pelicans surrounding a planet, along with a bunch of Covenant ships. "We've got outnumbered troops near the edge of the beta squadron and we can't go in there because there's too much heat, going in would just doom the entire ship."

"So send me in," John said, "think of it as a final mission before I take my leave."

"You're leaving the UNSC," Lasky asked. "It's about time you got a break from this life. You were put up as a Spartan as a kid after all."

"All the original Spartans were kids," John reminded him.

"But as far as I know, you're the longest surviving one. All the others have been either decommissioned or were KIA," Lasky said. "So you're going to go in there?"

"If it means saving those troops, then yes," John replied.

"What's your plan," Lasky asked him.

John pointed the fact that they were close together and said, "If I can crash one ship into the next, they're close enough that it could cause a chain reaction."

"Could," Lasky asked.

"There's always the chance that this could go wrong," John said as he turned and headed for the door. "I'll be getting on my armour, I want you to get a pod ready for me. Get me in there and I'll finish this."

"Okay Chief," Lasky said.

Ten minutes later and John was armoured up and ready to go, arriving on the deployment deck to find the pod ready and waiting for him, but surprisingly no Lasky. John just shrugged it off, supposing that Lasky had better things to do than escort him off on a final mission. He entered the pod, finding some coordinates already entered in and waiting for him to press the key to send him off. He sat in the seat and pulled the locking bar down, pushing him tight into the seat. He reached out a hand and tapped the enter key, the doors hissing closed behind him, sealing him in the small chamber as he waited for the shuttle to take off, but it didn't seal fast enough to prevent him from hearing Lasky yelling behind him.

"Wait, Chief, the Freelancers-" was all John heard before the door sealed, cutting off all sound.

The rockets started as John tried to get out of the seat, slamming his palm against the bar, trying to get it to release, but failing as the rockets gave one final pulse before flaring to full life and shooting him out the bay doors, through the energy shield and into the void of space. John kept frantically trying to get out, not even knowing what he would do when he did, but hoping he could get something accomplished. But to his dismay, everything was locked.

As if something had planned this entire scenario though, there was a meteor, which managed to slam into the small craft, saving John from whatever fate lay in wait for wherever he had been heading. The impact of the meteor caused the tracking mechanism to malfunction, cutting of the engines subsequently and leaving him stranded in the empty void of space, waiting for something to happen as he drifted from his original course. Luckily for him, he didn't have to wait long.

From the way he was facing, the craft was floating backwards, slowly turning over as it continued, never losing the small amount of speed it had with nothing blocking his new path. As he turned over, he caught sight of a bright light that only grew brighter as the craft rolled over all the way, revealing a bright speck hanging in the middle of his path. John had no idea what it was, but he knew that it couldn't be good. If it was shining that bright then something had to be wrong with it.

The craft turned over again, obscuring his view of the light and leaving him wondering how close it was. He simply waited there, having exhausted all of his options, and watched to see how this would all play out. He passed through the light without harm, he didn't know when, but by the time the shuttle had turned all the way around again the light was gone, leaving him to wonder just what the light was.

There was that glint of light again. Twilight had been looking into the telescope she'd set up for about an hour now, even though the sun was still out and shining. And even though it was still shining, she could see something glint up there in the sky every few minutes, and often in different areas. That was curious enough, but she could easily have brushed it off as Luna getting ready for tonight, but she didn't need practice, even if it had been a thousand years since she'd done this, it was the same routine every year. Now the question bugging Twilight was whether or not to alert Celestia and Luna or just observe it and tell them later. After a few more moments of indecision she finally made a choice.

"Spike, take a letter," she called out, not taking her eye from the telescope. Spike appeared with the quill and note, having only been in the next room, and wrote down what Twilight said, "Dear Princess Luna, it has come to my attention that-"

That was the moment when something crashed into the Everfree Forest, streaking down from the sky at speeds close enough to breaking the sound barrier, crashing into the ground with enough force to cause Twilight to stumble and grab at the edge of the banister to keep from tipping as well as causing Spike to knock a bottle of ink all over him. Something had just crash landed on Equestria. In the Everfree Forest. Twilight made a decision there that she would find out what was going on because more likely than not, that thing that just crashed was to be associated or blamed for the lights in the sky.

And she was going to find out how.

The first think that John actually saw after passing the light were ships. They apparently caught sight of him as well and decided to pull him in, at which John felt enthusiasm. Until he got close enough to actually see the accents of the ships exterior. Spikes covered with different coloured blood and other substances that John couldn't and wouldn't identify, given the chance, covered the exterior of the ships at odd intervals. As he saw those, a sense of dread filled the pit of his stomach. He tried slamming in the lock again, even going so far as to pull out his assault rifle and fire a few bullets into it.

The lock popped free.

John blinked in surprise, lifting the bar and stepping out of the seat, hardly believing his luck. As the shuttle moved closer, John knew that there was no way he was getting out of this without a fight, so he reloaded his gun and settled in the seat, his gun rested on the edge of the seat, aiming at the door. The lock hissed open as the shuttle landed in the dock, and for a minute John wondered whether or not to give them the benefit of the doubt. At least until the flashbang entered the room. John ducked his head below the seat and squeezed his eyes closed, hearing the bang that sent made him deaf, but preventing the flash from reaching his eyes too much. He leaned over the seat again, waiting for somebody to enter the room. He didn't have long to wait.

The first man to enter the room was unarmed and was easily dispatched with a quick burst of bullets. After the first man fell, John knew that he had to move fast or risk being killed. He moved up to the door quickly and peered around the corner, pulling his head back as a bullet struck his overshield and drew a bit of power from it, lowering the meter on his HUD in the helmet a bit. He sprayed a few bullets blindly and rushed out into the large and surprisingly empty hanger. It was only then that John noticed something off and he took a look back to confirm his suspicions.

He was fighting ponies. He was simply confused for a second but was snapped out of it by a bullet impact in the crate he was behind. He focused again on the fight at hand and fired off a few shots in the direction of the shots and ran right behind them, leaping over the cover and burying a bullet in the creature's head, blowing it's brains out of the bottom of its jaw. John continued onwards, leaving the deck with bullets following his heels but missing either way. He ran past a window in the corridor he entered, and caught sight of a planet that resembled Earth and he immediately made plans to get down there, planning to escape using some transport.

"He went this way," a voice shouted as hooves clopped down the hallway ahead.

John looked around and dived into a room, listening as they ran past him and towards the hangar. He quietly moved out of the room and further into the ship, looking for directions towards the escape pods hit finding himself in the control room instead. He looked around and spotted a bunch of ponies sitting at consoles, shouting at each other and pressing buttons as they adjusted things.

"Hey, could anyone tell me where the escape pods are," he asked, hoping no one would look his way.

"Down the hall behind you, take the first left, can't miss it," one of them said, not turning away from his control.

John nodded and turned to walk away, glad that his bet had paid off, but stopped as he heard one of them say, "Be back before we go on the raid though, you wouldn't want to miss this."

"Hey, where's the armory," he asked, knowing that he was pushing his luck, but he wasn't about to just let this planet get ransacked, "you know, just in case I need to defend myself."

"Go out this room and take the first door immediately on the right, take whatever you need, but make sure you put it back later," the same one said, "why, you planning on goi-" he stopped as he caught sight of John. "Red alert, we have an intruder," he shouted before pulling put a pistol and aiming it at John.

An alarm was set off as John ducked out of the room, hiding behind the door frame as bullets flew from inside the room. John found himself right up against the door to the armoury, slamming it open quickly and slipping inside, closing it quickly and jamming it closed with a metal rod. He quickly picked over the supplies they had, pulling out a couple of packets of C4 as well as a remote detonator. He slipped his assault rifle into its holder on his back and picked up a chain gun, the box of bullets attached containing about two hundred bullets.

He turned around, making a move towards the door but stopping as it blew inwards, slamming into the wall opposite him. He revved up the chain gun, firing round after round into each pony that tried to enter the room, a pile of bodies quickly forming as each bullet slammed into a body, releasing a steam of blood as well as tearing them to pieces and breaking apart bones. John pressed forward, firing at everything that moved was he picked his way over the remains of the bodies, forcing his way into the control room and slamming the door closed behind him after he'd cleared the room, staining the gray walls red. He carefully placed the C4 on a few select consoles and even laid one on the window, linking them to the trigger in his hand wirelessly.

He kicked the door down rather than opening it, blinking once in surprises he took stock of a hallway empty other than the numerous dead bodies. Then he realized what they had done. Somebody who heard him ask about the escape pods had heard and now they were more likely than not lying in wait. He slowly made his way to where they were stored and stopped outside the door, picking off a frag grenade from his belt, releasing the pin and tossing it in. The grenade went off and John walked into the room, moving down wave after wave of attacker as his shield took the damage. He only got back into cover once his shield hit critical, pulling out his assault rifle and blindly firing around the corner as he waited for it to recharge.

There were too many of them, he noticed that as soon as he peered around the corner. He only had one last option to escape this death trap. He was suddenly glad that he'd brought a jetpack with him and he activated it now, allowing it to settle on his back as it expanded from its smaller size. He took the trigger in his hand and pressed down on the red button, flaring his jetpack to life as the control room of the ship exploded, releasing the oxygen in a steady stream as it was sucked into the void of space. The emergency oxygen in his suit cut in and kept him from suffocating like the rest of the crew and he rushed through the dying crowd, leaping onto a pod and closing the hatch, setting the drive for manual and pressing the launch button.

The energy on his pack ran out right as he entered the pod and he shrugged it off his shoulders as the pod took off. He managed to keep control of the craft for about half a minute before another explosion rocked the ship, sending pieces of debris flying directly for the pod and sending him spiraling right down towards the planet, beginning to burn up as he entered the atmosphere. John took notice that the craft was heading right for a forest before he finally passed out from the force pressing down on him as he sped towards the planet.