117 The Eternal Guardian

by Nanofield

Chapter 10: 1000 Years

^Somewhere In The Milky Way Galaxy^
{3562AD}
[Cortana]

1,000 years. 1,000 years of traveling through space looking for him. I made a promise that I'd find him. And just like him, when I make a promise, I keep it. He would do the same thing I'm doing if it were him in my position. He did do the same. That is the thought that has kept me going for 1,000 years.

1,000 years, all alone. Well, not entirely alone. I have visited over 10 billion stars, quite a few of them containing Forerunner artifacts. I found many shield worlds and other such installations. I made contact with the monitors of the installations. Once I explained my search for the 'Reclaimer chosen by the Librarian to defeat the Didact in battle' -as I have found it is useful to refer to him as such- the monitors were more than happy to assist me. Some upgraded my ship directly; others provide me with sentinels or a few huragok to assist me. I even received a minor sentinel manufacturing facility.

I appreciate the help. I am not quite capable with fixing large problems. During my five years on earth I used the Forerunner tech gathered to build a hovering hard-light hologram sphere that looks like a monitor but a bit smaller. Now I can interact with the physical world as if I was an actual person. I received upgrades from the monitors for that too. However, I still can't lift anything that's too heavy; if the construct sustains too much damage it will flair like all hard-light technology.

The UNSC Midnight Dawn is now more Forerunner than human. It can travel over 700,000 times faster than the speed of light when in slip space and can perform hyper accurate jumps calculable down to only a few decimeters. Much better than before, it was only 10,000 times faster and I don't even want to discuss the inaccuracy of typical slip jumps.

1,000 years of traveling to star after star looking for him. I have only covered one tenth of the galaxy, but I'll find him. Even if he is dead and gone, I will find him. I owe him that much at least.

>Exiting slip space in 4...3...2...1..., decelerating, exiting slip space.

The ship exits slip space at another star. Nothing special about this one. A planet capable of supporting life with moderate terraforming in orbit.

>Setting scanners to five light year radius.....Scanners set.

>Scanning for life in the surrounding area.....Not found.

>Scanning for UNSC Omega armor beacon.....Not found.

>Scanning for Forerunner, UNSC, or Covenant tech..... Not found.

>Confirming negative results.....Negative results confirmed.

>Releasing beacon for UNSC colonization party.....Beacon released.

>Locating closest relevant star.....Destination found.

>Initiating slip space jump in 3...2...1... Initiating jump.

Time to move on to the next star.

Comments

[Lord Shaxx]

Cortana's ship too OP
Plz DON'T nerf

[Aerin Silverfeather]

You know that if the "midnight dawn" can go 700 000 over 1 to speed in slip space, she could visit every single star in the known universe in about 8 seconds,,.

[Nanofield]

5867884 yes, but she has to stop and run scans every time. Her ship can only scan out about 5 light years... And i think that i should change that to one light year.

[Nanofield]

5867884 i just did the math, and assuming that she spends on average 10 minutes at every star, it would take her several hundred thousand years to reach all the stars in the galaxy, not calculating travel time. To reach the whole universe... No. It would take her 4 years just to reach the next galaxy over, at the 700,000 light year speed. And the speed is actually the speed of a forrunner key ship.... Approximately.