117 The Eternal Guardian

by Nanofield

Chapter 15: One Journey Ends And Another Begins

^Somewhere In The Milky Way Galaxy^
Approximately 4,900 Years After Departure From Earth
[Cortana]

Another empty star; the last empty star. Every single star in the galaxy, not a trace of him. Almost 5,000 years of space but I couldn't even find a signal. No use now is there? I'll just go home I guess.

Setting destination... Star name “Sol”... Destination set.

Estimated time of arrival at base speed... year 7502.

Initiating slip space jump in 3...2...1... Jump initiated.

Well, I have some time to kill till I get there. Might as well go over everything again. The Huragok's numbers have reduced to a few dozen. Nothing happened, just not many were needed. The small sentinel factory has been off for the last few thousand years because there are well over a thousand functioning units with about one hundred roaming the ship. The Midnight Dawn has enough firepower to take on High Charity at this point and make a decent offensive stand. That would, however, require a full crew to manage; something I don't have.

This ship is nothing compared to what humanity has likely accomplished in my 5,000 year absence. I myself am probably outdated at this point. Would they look at me like how I'd look at a floppy disk? Old and outdated, that's what I am.

Well, being a 5,000 year old A.I. is nothing to be ashamed of; especially one piloting a massive ship.

Well, nothing really to do for now.

Entering standby mode... set alert to slip space deceleration.

Standby mode on.....

*****

ALERT... slip space exit imminent..................

Standby mode deactivating..............................

Start up failed...................................................

Reattempting start up.......................................

Start up failed...................................................

Warning!!! Critical condition of A.I. matrix detected

Reattempting start up.......................................

Start up faaaiiilllfaaaiiiifffffafafafafafafa.........

Start up successful

“That's disturbing.” Fully powered on, I take a look around. There is a Huragok floating next to the console. Running a few diagnostics on the ship's computers I see that a problem occurred in my sleep; a few circuits overloaded and blew up. This caused a few systems to malfunction during the start up process. I run a diagnostic to figure out how that happened. Till then, I turn to the Huragok that fixed the problem and give him a simple nod. No higher means of communication necessary because it is all rather superfluous. He knows I'm grateful and that is what matters.

Now to handle what I got here for. I take the ship out of slip space right next to... No, that can't be right; that is supposed to be Earth. But, it can’t be. The planet has a massive crack running down the side straight into the -no longer molten- center with bits floating around. The surface of the planet is desolate as the moon once was. The moon is not much better now that I look at it.

I run the basic scans I made while out looking; pointlessly I might add. Nothing pops up.

Almost ready to panic, I open up a communication broadcast. “Hello, hello this is UNSC Midnight Dawn. Do you copy?”

No response. Perhaps again? “Hello this is UNSC Midnight Dawn. Do you copy? Repeat, this is UNSC Midnight Dawn. Do you copy?” Still nothing; I cut the com link.

“AAAAHHHH!!! How could this have happened!?” I try to send out the same message to the other worlds, yet no response. “Nothing!” The human race is dead and I don't know why. Not even a trace of them is left. Perhaps if I stayed, instead of searching for John, I would have known what happened; could have stopped what happened. Not caring enough to turn off the communication system, I deactivate the projection sphere and just settle on the podium I keep it on. That is it, no more people, no more John, no more point.

{7552}

Attention, message received.

What?

Attention, message received.

But... that's impossible.

Attention, message received.

How?

Attention, message received.

OK, I get it. Don't understand, but I get it. A message from somewhere.

Message opened

'For the answers you seek, find the center. Speak friend, and enter.'

Great, a riddle. It seems there is also something else here.

'01010010010000010010000000110001001101110110100000110100001101010110110100110100001100000010111000110000001101000111001100101100001000000100010001100101011000110010000000110010001110010010000000110000001100000010000000110010001110000010111000110001'

Now we're getting somewhere. I input the coordinates and head out. Soon I will know what happened. I will find out. I will find him.

Author's Note:

let's see who figures it out first.

Comments

[He Who Reads Ponies]

I ran it through a free binary translator and got this: RA 17h45m40.04s, Dec 29 00 28.. I know something is off but i do not know what it is. All I can get from this message is the month and day.

[MuzaWaza]

Confused.com

[Mr Dorito]

Not what I expected but an update is an update.

[Nanofield]

5458708 Not what you expected in a good way or a bad?

[Mr Dorito]

5458719 Neither. I was actually hoping the chapter would be about Chief but at least it shows what happened to Cortana so I give you a thumbs up. What kind of ship is the Midnight Dawn anyway?

[Nanofield]

5458725 Infinity Class with major Forerunner overhauling.

[muffinator]

[Mr Dorito]

5458739 hmmm I thought it would be a 70km Superdreadnought or something.

[DarkStarz]

5458725 http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Infinity-class_warship its a infinity class warship

[Lord Shaxx]

Damnit! I reached the end already?

[alfaomega]

5458671 17 houres 45 minnets 40.04 second becembrt 29 00 28 I dint understand the 00 thoe

[alfaomega]

Halo 4 cheef spoke to the didacts orb and relest him equestrea is reqreum

[Xzaves]

5458671 RA is something that happened at 17hrs 45min 40.04s or 5:45pm.
or will happen in 17hrs 45min and 40.04s.

Dunno :D

[Nanofield]

5460676 5460438 5458671 It isn't a time.

[He Who Reads Ponies]

5460817 Is it an astronomical distance, 17 Lighthours, 45 lightminutes, and 40.04 lightseconds from Earth?

[alfaomega]

5460831 or from john

[He Who Reads Ponies]

5461138 According to Wikipedia. Right ascension (abbreviated RA; symbol α) is the angular distance measured eastward along the celestial equator from the vernal equinox to the hour circle of the point in question.The celestial equator is a great circle on the imaginary celestial sphere, in the same plane as the Earth's equator. In other words, it is a projection of the terrestrial equator out into space. As a result of the Earth's axial tilt, the celestial equator is inclined by 23.4° with respect to the ecliptic plane.

[phallus of malice]

5461150
This isn't the SAT, you have to explain why that matters.shechive.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/gif_4.gif?w=400&h=225

[phallus of malice]

5461296
Or is it I who is the idot here? Because that's what this is looking like.

[He Who Reads Ponies]

5461296 I guess with that tiny distance it would not matter with FTL capable spacecraft it would not matter but in every other case there would be a large margin of error.

[phallus of malice]

lh5.ggpht.com/_DVoNvgQORbw/TAi8_i66KyI/AAAAAAAAAds/53EJtFCbUGA/yes.gif 5461323

[Explosions]

5457491 I like how I try to correct someones spelling and in every other comment I mis-spell at least one word.

[Explosions]

5458719 wouldn't you be morally inclined to answer a question about the story anyways seeing as you want us to understand it so we keep reading?

[PlieRow666]

can mane 6 meet master chief.

[Crescent Nebula]

You know I am not surprised that earth is like that but than for some stupid reason my brain has the crasy thought that zecora is the one who said that riddle but it's probley the librarian

[Nanofield]

5462127 i mean a question about the future or a secret or something you shouldn't know. Like if john will die or about cortana. Something like that.

[Shadow-Dancer]

How is cortana still in exsistance in halo 4 she was distroyed even then there is rampancy.

[Nanofield]

5481526 au halo. After beating the didact, cortana came out with John and was ok. mc got her back to earth and she got cured of rampancy. It's in chapter one.

[Safhell]

great scott it lives and generates over 1.21 gigawatts; byt regardless good story and like Flynn IT LIVES

[Nanofield]

5493989 I see what you did there; and it was brilliant.

[Safhell]

5494411
encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT60-KXhAR-d7XZLCazYgh-lgorg0gTk7sOwPbcYjMSMgmXrDzuqg
and they will continue on my friend

[Symyon]

I'm guessing that the coords lead to the chief

[Symyon]

So is the Chiefs armor in this story similar to the FOTUS Armor set only without the horn?

[Nanofield]

5530890 Sort of. I am not an artistic person. The mental image I have of his Armor is similar to the armor there. But it is also different. If you want a good frame of reference for his armor, there you are. If you want to make it up in your mind as you go, that's completely fine.

[Symyon]

5534091 I actually kinda picture it a cross between the FOTUS armor and Agent Locke's spartan armor

[Nanofield]

5534508 His armor was used in the old picture.

[Kerberos]

I just can't take how OOC the author made Chief. He talks way too much, and when he does, he isn't saying things he would say. He was almost completely raised by a strict military coordinator. So, his whole mind is wrapped around that. I've never once seen him swear either, that was just my tipping point. This story had so much potential, but the OOC Chief just kills it for me.

[Nanofield]

5543147 Now, I took what you have to say into consideration. To begin... him swearing was something I fought with myself over for a good week or two. I didn't really want to have him swearing, I don't swear even on my worst days. However, swearing also conveys emphasis into certain situations where normal speech just won't do. Him talking more in general; we see more of that in books and movies than in the games. The games keep him quiet most of 1 through 3 because of the same reason why 1- 3 never show his face. So we, the gamers, can better put ourselves into his shoes so to speak. The fact that he is OOC is intentional. He is 300 years old. His mentality will shift as the story goes along. I know I am not the best author, and I have made mistakes with this story; but I hope this helped clear away some of your questions.

[Kerberos]

5544778 It does, thank you. I am usually pretty over critical with Halo fics since I am a big fan. If I see something that looks weird, I usually go back through cutscenes and the books to see if that is something he would do. But yeah, I won't criticize you on this anymore, but I just felt the need to vent, sorry.

[Nanofield]

5545520 Not a problem. We all vent sometimes, i do too. And your criticism is not unwelcome because you are civil about it. You give reasons why something is wrong instead of just trolling and hating. I am a bit fanatical about this stuff too. You wouldn't believe how much time i spent on halo wiki researching terminology and statistics. Personalities are something i have trouble with so i simply used that. Turning my weakness into a strong point to make the story better.

[Irish Rogue]

5460676 I got RA 17h4������������������������ on a translator. :P

[RC-0117]

5963815 this is the translation RA 17h45m40.04s, Dec 29 00 28.1

[HellBreaker]

Now to handle what I got here for. I take the ship out of slip space right next to... No, that can't be right; that is supposed to be Earth. But, it can’t be. The planet has a massive crack running down the side straight into the -no longer molten- center with bits floating around. The surface of the planet is desolate as the moon once was. The moon is not much better now that I look at it.

tse1.mm.bing.net/th?id=OIP.M6ca2d93ad0815c84076234ba841ba13co0&pid=15.1