Halo: Stranded
“Mayday mayday mayday, this is UNSC FFG-201 Forward Unto Dawn, requesting immediate EVAC, survivors aboard. Prioritization code Victor 05-3-Sierra 0117.”
Cortana played her distress signal back to herself once more, as if listening to it would change something, even though she knew it wouldn't. She was beginning to wonder if she had gone insane, but she cast the thought away as she once again realized how close to rampancy she actually was. She knew it was inevitable, but she preferred not to think about it, and to focus on what to do once someone or something found them, or vice versa. She found that sometimes talking to herself helped to relieve the boredom, so she did just that.
“We've been floating aimlessly in space for one thousand six hundred fifty one days, six hours, and nineteen minutes. Over four years aboard this ship with nothing to do; no tasks to complete. For over four years, all I have done... is think.” She flashed red for a split second, then quickly returned to her usual blue self. “...What are you dreaming in there?”
-
Cortana was sifting through older files containing information on the original Halo installation they had found, when one the Dawn's few functioning close range radars pinged. She didn't think much of it, as they hadn't come across a single life supporting planet yet, and assumed it would just be another asteroid. What she saw, however, turned her to a bright shade of blue and purple, showing excitement.
The radar showed that the frigate was approaching what was indeed a life supporting planet. However, she quickly realized that the planet was much larger, and had a much stronger gravitational pull than the few other uninhabitable planets they had passed while adrift in space. She knew what was going to happen, and surely enough, she felt the ship shudder then heard it slowly start to groan and creak. Cortana knew what she had to do.
-
The hulking Spartan lay in the cryo chamber, completely unaware of what was happening around him. Inside his head, he was running through a field of poles. The poles were exploding into shrapnel around him as something poured round after round into them in an attempt to hit him. He recognized where he was instantly as the Pillars of Loki.
Chief remembered doing this once before, and also remembered what was firing at him. As he continued running, he heard Cortana say something, but he couldn't make it out. Suddenly, he appeared in an open field, and noticed a bell sitting on a tripod across the field from him. He then heard the sound of thrusters behind him, and turned to see a SkyHawk jump jet diving towards him, most likely locking onto him with a Scorpion missile. He tried saying something to Cortana, but found that he could not use his mouth. He tried turning to run, but quickly learned that he could no longer move any part of his body, except his eyes. All he could do was watch as the SkyHawk continued diving towards him.
Chief knew it would be over soon, so he closed his eyes. As soon as he closed them, he heard the SkyHawk fire. The missile soared through the air, and was only milliseconds away from hitting him, when he heard a voice yell his name,
“Chief!”
Everything around him faded into blackness. He felt relieved, but soon realized that something was wrong. He wondered why everything was black.
“Damn it Chief, wake up!”
He heard it again, more clearly this time, and instantly recognized the voice as Cortana's.
“Don't say I didn't ask...”
Chief didn't understand what she meant by that, and knowing Cortana, he was starting to worry. Suddenly, he was jolted violently as a shock of electricity surged through his armour and body, traveling up his spine and into his brain. He was awoken instantly and sat upright lightning fast, nearly smashing his head into the glass cover of the cryo chamber. For a brief second, he was confused as to why Cortana had woken him up, until he started to feel faint vibrations, and could hear rumbling in his cryo chamber. He pulled the manual release, then threw open the door of the chamber, ignoring the pain from the freezer burn that came with waking up from cryo sleep. He floated over to Cortana in a single leap, then ejected her data crystal chip from the holo pad and inserted it into the back of his helmet.
“Chief, you're going to want to see this...”
Before he could say anything, an explosion rocked him off his feet, sending him drifting a few meters to his side. He recovered, and kicked off the wall he had drifted into. By now, he fully realized what was happening. It was not Covenant or insurrectionists attacking the ship, or it would have been vaporized almost instantly in the state it was in. He propelled himself through a pair of jammed blast doors with his zero G boosters, while dodging any shrapnel that got in his way and getting knocked around by explosions. He dodged and weaved his way through the hallways, then finally arrived at the hangar.
The doors of the hangar were completely open, untouched since the last time he was inside of it. He entered cautiously, grabbing onto railings, equipment, and anything else he could hold himself down with. He then looked out of the open hangar at the new world he was approaching and saw huge forests, oceans, and lakes covering the planets surface. He also noticed that there were almost no clouds above the planet for some reason.
The Dawn was shuddering and groaning quite violently now, explosions from deeper within her rumbling loudly. Large chunks and sections of the ship were being torn off as it entered the atmosphere; it would crash land on the dark side of the planet. Chief couldn't tell exactly where it would land, as he was still too high in the atmosphere to be able to make an accurate assumption. As he gazed upon the planet, Cortana realized what he was thinking and piped up immediately, happy to finally be leaving her four year imprisonment aboard the Dawn.
“There!” Cortana yelled, directing Chief to an open SOEIV ODST drop pod safely attached to a wall by a thick metal cable.
Unfortunately, the drop pod was missing its hatch. Chief didn't worry about this though, as he wouldn't be using its acceleration thrusters, only its parachute and braking thrusters. The Dawn was starting to heat up dangerously as it fell closer and closer towards the planet. Chief didn't have much time left to disengage the safety locks from the restraining cable and get the pod airborne before he'd have to activate his armour lockup fail-safe. Doing so would effectively seize up his armour, protecting him from the heat, but dooming him to crash into the looming planet while still being inside of the frigate. He didn't know what to expect on the planet, so he made a dash to pick up any weapons and ammunition he could find from the various weapon racks bolted to the hangar walls.
The hangar was mostly barren of anything useful, but there were still weapons and pieces of equipment scattered around. Chief was beginning to get very hot, so he grabbed and equipped all he could before disengaging the locks from the restraining cable and gunning his boosters into the pod. He flew into it with immense force, knocking it and himself out into oblivion. As soon as he was airborne, he quickly fastened himself into the pod while Cortana used the thrusters to make minor course adjustments so they would not spin out of control.
“Just in time...” he heard Cortana whisper.
As they fell towards the planet, they could only wait, and wonder what might greet them once they landed.
-
Twilight Sparkle and Spike were eating dinner while they discussed the events of the day.
“That was a pretty awesome party, hey Twi?” the small purple dragon asked.
“I enjoyed it very much, and I'm glad you did too,” Twilight said happily. “Although you really shouldn't have eaten so many cupcakes,” she added scoldingly.
“Sorry, I'll try to remember that next time,” Spike replied apologetically.
The two of them were almost finished eating their dinner, when a reflection of light caught Twilight's eye. Curious as she naturally was, she decided to go and check out the cause of it. Spike followed her gaze, then the two of them approached the kitchen window and looked out across the street to another house.
The light was reflecting off of a large window in the house. They scanned the entire neighborhood for the source of it multiple times, until a bigger flash of light caught their attention. This one was obviously the source of the light reflecting off of the other house's window. They looked up to the sky, where the bigger light came from, and saw a massive meteorite falling towards Equestria. It was in a huge ball of flames, with more flaming pieces falling off of it and a thick trail of smoke following it. Spike and Twilight looked at each other, mouths both agape.
“I'll go get the girls, you send a letter to Celestia. This thing is huge and it looks like it's going to cause some damage!” Twilight yelled as she ran out the door.
Spike nodded, even though Twilight could not see it, then grabbed an inkwell and quill as fast as he could and sat down to start writing.
Didnt even read yet, liked and favourited anyway because Halo.
1503182
Just be glad that the Dawn's main reactors were all knocked off-line when the ship was cut in half by the gate shutting down prematurely. All big fusion reactors going up when the wreck hits the surface would probably have rendered the continent uninhabitable!
Cortana has problems, of course. She's going mad and she knows it (a horror that's hard to imagine). There is a part of her that loves the Chief and that unfortunately meshes rather well with the obsessive/possessive aspect of rampancy. Add on top of that, the Chief is a soldier first and foremost. He can survive most things but one thing he isn't good at is the "love and tolerance" thing, which is how the Equestrians mostly do things like this.
Overall, the two of them are about to have a very, very hard time waiting for recovery, assuming that it ever comes.
I like it keep up the good work
It's good to see a Halo crossover where the Master Chief is still portrayed as a true hero. How was he portrayed that way when he hasn't really done anything yet? Simple. The mark of a true hero isn't how many bad guys they kill, or how awesome their gear is, it's one simple ability that so many lack: the ability to ALWAYS escape certain death....just in time.
1503678
Thanks!
1504391
google.com/imgres?q=mlp+seems+legit&um=1&hl=en&biw=937&bih=605&tbm=isch&tbnid=CYOHd6BtXX9y5M:&imgrefurl=http://mlpimgmacros.tumblr.com/post/13079379751/rainbow-dash-seems-legit-image-macro&docid=u3Wov_OvCKnpzM&imgurl=http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_luzb785C5m1r3k1m8o1_500.png&w=500&h=322&ei=zaaJUN6KK4nE9gTt94HYBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=413&vpy=2&dur=141&hovh=180&hovw=280&tx=129&ty=98&sig=105268406330621895278&page=1&tbnh=143&tbnw=222&start=0&ndsp=14&ved=1t:429,r:2,s:0,i:74
I'm keeping an eye on this. It has great potential
I'm no saint when it comes to grammar, but there are a couple of sentences in here that you could adjust into separate sentences and not a run-on one.
In other news, I'll enjoy this story.
Very impressive I award you
Fail Safe*.
Looking good otherwise. I think. Meh, nothing egregious grammar-wise, so yeah. I go!
1503188 Halo to me, means hello.
Great story, i'm liking it so far!
Dead guys/stasis'd guys don't dream, Cortana.
Why spike like eating ponies?
Buckled down to start reading this. Start up the Halo 4 soundtrack as BGM. This should be fun.
Also, was that a dream of the first time Chief and Cortana worked together? From Fall of Reach? I like it. So far, as a big fan of both series I can say you are kicking ass.
This chapter has been fully revised.
This was really good. Faved.
-MegaBLYSTONE
This chapter was alright, up until the point you switched over to Twilight and Spike's section. It felt far too rushed and unfocused. Almost like you switched out with someone completely different for that part.
Chapter 1: read.
Only one minor sticking point so far. You would think that, being a space ship designed to be able to actually enter a planet's atmosphere, the Dawn would have all sorts of panic rooms and such in case it loses power in a planet's gravity well (like it has now), so that the crew could survive the crash without having to go reentry-kayaking in an open-face "self-burying coffin."
Come to think out if, the cryo-tube was probably safer than a drop pod.
But other than that, so far so good.
2303615 that's what escape pods are for. remember this is a military ship, moreover it's half a military ship that's been exposed to gravimetric stress and meteor impacts for the past four years. besides even if the military paid for one room to be armored enough to survive the impacts there is no guarantee that it's on the section of the Forward unto Dawn that the chief is on.
Actually the cryo-tube in the middle of a metal hunk flying at its terminal velocity into a planet is the last place anyone even a Spartan with a MJOLNIR Mark five or six armor wants to be, because there's no guarantee you won't be crushed to death by a multimillion ton piece of metal. Besides he's only using the "self burying coffin" as a parachute not actually entering the atmosphere, because he doesn't want to repeat Halo 3's beginning.
I think a dun DUN DUUUUUUN!
Sound effect is relevant
So, that I guess
So far, so good as I like what I’m reading. But, in 2019 I’ll have a slight problem remembering this Twilight is a unicorn, instead of a princess. Will Twilight encountering Master Chief slow down or speed up her ascension to become the Princess of Friendship?
Great chapter so far. One minor thing that the Spike and TS portion was a bit rushed but still interesting.
chief acts like 15 yr old xbox addicted kid
and celestia.... just blasts them with rainbow laser of harmony and called it a day won't you?