115

Chapter 7

"Classified my ass, we all out rank you. Right guys?" Buck asked as we made our way back onto the ship, I rolled my eyes. 

"Yes Buck, we all outrank the lieutenant." Tanaka said sarcastically, they soon began to argue with each other as I began to do my job.

"If you don't mind me asking, could you tell us why that info is classified?"

I turned to the Master Chief and sighed, I held up my hands and a hologram appeared. I opened a file and switched it around so they could see, I then kneeled down and opened a panel on the floor.

"Lieutenant redacted, formerly Marine, Navy, ODST. Affiliations: UNSC, ONI Headhunter." They read, I heard a hum from Buck.

"Wow, that's impressive. You know I used to be ODST, New Mombasa was my final assignment before moving into the spartan program. What was your last assignment?"

I pulled multiple wires from the floor and then stood to take a panel off of the ceiling, this one led straight into the engines. "Halo." I said briefly before pulling multiple cables down, as I moved into the cockpit to do the same I heard them begin to speak.

"Holy shit, S115! I remember now, a few months ago you were the only thing people talked about!"

"Yep." I said as I pulled a main cable into the hangar, I grabbed the wires and began to connect them together before plugging them into my back. After a few moments the ship roared to life, the other spartan lost their balance and moved into the seats.

"Nice work." Chief spoke, I took the compliment without response and moved to the pilots seat.

"This planet it fake."

"What do you mean?" Locke spoke.

"From the air I could see the citizens in the streets, once they got to a certain point they disappeared and appeared somewhere else. Once I noticed I began to trace their movements, it was all in a pattern that repeated over and over again. Just a few moments ago I checked my motion tracker and didn't see anyone but us, I even extended the range. I could see the whole city, miles of nothing. This city is fake, whoever lived here has been gone for a while."

"Wow. He's good. But uh, where did they go? I mean they have to be somewhere."

"I think I might know," Locke started, "If Cortana wants to police the galaxy, what better way to do that than to have everyone she can in one space?"

I turned the VTOL on and gently maneuvered out of the building, "I'm going to call the Infinity, even if Cortana finds us she'd know we were here anyway. The Prometheans and Guardians report to her."

OoO

I stood in the bridge of the Infinity while Captain Laskey had Roland attempt to track the Guardian through slipspace, while it was hard to keep track of the Forerunner, we could. And that's better than nothing, "I understand that your suits were out of power, but we specifically told you not to contact us."

"With all due respect sir, if Cortana wanted to do something to this ship, she would've done it when she was here." As I said this I began to think, Roland came up with a map of the galaxy with certain points highlighted.

"Laskey sir? The Guardian appears to be going in circles-"

"Get me to the main server room." I commanded, everyone turned to me as I ran out of the room and towards the train system. The UNSC Infinity was so big that it could hold ships inside of it, so walking from one end to another could be difficult.

I ran into the tram and hit the server room, which was right above the engine room. Once the train stopped I ran out and past multiple crew members, I entered the server room and went to the communications area. 

"Damnit." I cursed as I saw that one of the lights was blinking blue, as opposed to the regular white or red. I pressed a small button on the side of the server chip and a tray with the comms systems on it slid out, I opened the box and pulled the wires out. "Roland, cut the comm relays, she's listening in."

"Relays have been shut down, no on going or incoming calls will be heard."

"Thank you Roland, can you check the last time the comm systems cycled? If she plugged into them they would have to reset."

I began to walk out of the room and back to the tram system, as the train began to take me back Roland's voice came in on my helmet radio. "The comms recycled 1 hour ago, she wouldn't have heard anything involving the plan."

"Good...we can't risk her having a heads up."

OoO

"Lieutenant, would you like to fill us in?" Captain Laskey asked, Sarah Palmer was standing on the bridge as well. I jogged over to the holoscreen of the map and Roland came up.

"Roland said that the Guardian was going in circles, it's a distraction. She was listening in on us."

"Shit." Palmer said as she leaned on the table, I shook my head.

"She doesn't know anything, she's only been in the systems for an hour."

They both nodded and began to think, the door to the bridge opened and Dr. Halsey walked in. She stormed up to Laskey and glared at him, "Which one of you has been touching my ship's systems?" Laskey pointed to me and I crossed my arms. "Why?"

"Cortana hacked into them."

She sighed, "Hmm, yes that would be a reason to shut them down. We need to get her out of the picture as soon as possible, get the teams together. We need to think of a plan."