Prologue

Humanity never fully recovered from the AI apocalypse created by Cortana that occurred at the end of October 2558. The events created chaos around earth and many of the colonies following the takeover of earth by the created, all AI’s were either shutdown or went rogue and joined Cortana on her plans. The UNSC Infinity was last seen in orbit around Earth before leaving and being AWOL.

Cortana used the guardians at her control to send out an EMP around Earth, disabling most electronics and most UNSC ships. UNSC HICOM had managed to shutdown some of their AI’s before Cortana arrive and took over, having had little warning of her plan before her arrival. However, only Admiral Hood, Serin Osman and Spartan Orzel managed to escape onboard an ONI Prowler.

Humanity didn’t get a chance to prepare, caught off guard by Cortana’s reappearance and takeover of Earth. Her created were a quite powerful force, especially with the Guardians at her disposal. The UNSC defenses we quickly disabled by the EMP, leaving the defence fleet useless. The AI’s joining her cause didn’t help, they helped her gain control of some systems, creating chaos and asserting the dominance of the Created over Earth.

Cortana knew all too well how the UNSC’s command structure was built and what were the strategic strongholds. If she could takeover Earth, she could take the other ones. However, she didn’t know much of the post covenant war changes that were made. The UNSC having lost Reach, the largest military stronghold at the time, knew they needed to upgrade ship and defensive strategies.

But those efforts were pointless, by the end of the month, most of the inner colonies were under her control. Those that would resist wouldn’t last long when she moved the Guardians and pacified the words. By the end of November, countless lives were lost, and most of the inhabited space was now controlled and under the martial law of the Created.

The UNSC Infinity had been on the run since leaving Earth’s orbit. Captain Lasky with the help of the onboard AI, Roland, had been making random slipspace jumps and trying to stay as far as possible from most major colonies. Only sending small strike forces to gather intel and trying to remain as unpredictable as possible. So far after a year no indication that the created were even aware of the Infinity’s location.

The automated ONI Prowler onboard which Serin Osman, Admiral Hood and Spartan Orzel managed to escape Earth had arrived at a predetermined world selected by Black Box before it was shut down and placed with the other 12 UNSC Hi-Com AI’s and secured in a case that Osman carried with her. They were in orbit around Rossbach’s World, an uncharted world outside the UNSC’s and Earth’s government network. They had planetary coordinates in the onboard computer which lead to some land with some form of installation. They looked at the compound from orbit and could only seed signs of previous activity, noting recent. Something was built there and then abandoned. Considering their current predicament, both Admirals decided it would be best to land there and try to form a plan with the current resources they have at their disposal. They know they could not try to contact the UNSC directly considering the threat of the Created that could intercept their communications.

The world was discovered by black box two years before and arranged for some installation to be built here. There were no records anywhere of what was done here as most of the work was done via automated ships and building robots. Osman questioned what to do with the UNSC’s military AI’s in her possession. But after reactivating Black Box, he informed her that they were secured before they had a chance to hear Cortana’s call to join her and the Created.

Osman wasn’t sure how to proceed, Admiral Hood and she were isolated from the rest of UNSC Hicom, they had to plan without them. It could be weeks or years before someone found them here. Black Box had planned for this place to be a shelter that could last for a couple of years. They had power and supplies to last for a while here. Osman’s main concern right now, they had no knowledge of the extent of Cortana’s AI uprising. Hood didn’t know how to proceed either, he did trust Cortana in the past, but the situation changed and casted doubt on the reliability of AI, and they now a case full of them. Black Box was the only one both trusted right now, it would have to do. After all they were there, seemingly out of sight of anyone because of him. Hood never acted on impulse, he always thought his actions through, even though sometimes he took risks that could have not panned out how they did. This could be one of them. Osman and Hood agreed to spin the AI’s back up and offer them the choice that Black Box didn’t give them, having been shut down before they could get Cortana’s message and offer to join the Created. Orzel had concerns about it but it was not his place to make the decision and question HiCom. After quite some time thinking about it, Osman decided to go through with the plan. She used the console with an AI card receptacle to activate the AI’s and talk to them before shutting them down again and moving to the next. She explained the situation to them, and offering them the choice, to either remain here in storage to be activated later and help in the fight against the created or join Cortana and the created.

Out of the twelve AI’s, three of them decided to join the created. Black Box didn’t agree with letting the AI’s go, but he was not in charge. At this point they didn’t know what the situation was back in colonised space. Hood and Osman agreed that the secrets that the AI’s held were probably no longer of any value. If Cortana had taken over Earth and the other colonies, she had probable access to the UNSC’s networks. Black Box helped them plan a route to drop off the AI’s next to one of the UNSC’s research stations, giving them a chance to join the created back in the UNSC’s network. At the same time, this would be a good opportunity to drop beacons in slipspace to figure out what was going on.

Since leaving Earth, the Infinity had been making random slipspace jumps across the galaxy, trying to not stay in the same place for too long, staying as much as possible hidden from the Created. They knew the threat that Cortana and the created were. Her plan to take over the mantle of responsibility from the forerunners. Her plan was to enforce peace in the galaxy, and to do it by force against those who would oppose her. The as soon as fireteam Osiris and Blue Team managed to escape the Genesis installation, they regrouped with Palmer and Dr. Halsey. They informed Palmer and Dr. Halsey of the situation, of what Cortana did and what she was planning. The fact that she couldn’t find the Infinity likely meant that Roland the ship AI didn’t join her and the created. This gave Halsey an idea that if they could use the forerunner technology on Sanghelios to contact the Infinity they would be able to regroup with the ship and form a plan against the created. Halsey managed to get a forerunner artifact running and establish communication with Roland onboard the Infinity. They were able to communicate through slipspace which was normally only possible by using communication beacons, which Cortana would have been able to tap. Roland relayed the call from Halsey to Captain Lasky who decided to try and extract them since Halsey would be an asset in the current situation. They hatched a plan and gave Halsey coordinates for a rendezvous planned the next day, the Infinity would be in system for 15 minutes, they would have to be there on the 29 of October or miss the window. For the next years, the Infinity spent most of it’s time doing random jumps, planning random drop points and pickup points for the different strike teams sent out on missions. This included deploying Blue Team on Reach in October 2559, sent to retrieve artifacts from Castle Base’s ruins now occupied by some Covenant forces.

During their occasional sorties, Black Box and Osman would leave beacons to gather as much intel as possible on UNSC forces resisting the Created. However, after a few months it became clear that there was almost no resistance. Black Box knew that there was only one other AI he could trust and hatched a plan to get in touch with it. He trusted Roland, the AI onboard the Infinity, if he were still out there, he could help with the current situation, plus having the Infinity at their disposal would turn the tides of the conflict. They started leaving beacons with hidden messages that Roland would eventually figure out, there was no information whatsoever on their current location, just some data and a query asking to do the same. If Roland started dropping beacons, then Black Box would know that the Infinity was out there. It was a long shot, but they didn’t have much of a choice, their current situation was stable enough, they couldn’t risk giving away their position to the Created.

Chapter 1

Reunion

15 October 2559

Slipspace heading towards Reach

Almost a year had passed since the rise of Cortana and her created. Those that weren’t lucky enough to escape colonized space were either killed in the conflicts with the Created or living “peacefully” under Cortana’s rule. The guardians were present everywhere, used to enforce the peace trough drastic means. Those that stepped out of line were quickly dealt with. All UNSC facilities for research in artificial intelligence were destroyed or rendered in-operational as a mean to contain the possible counter attacks the humans could do against the created.

Today was one of the monthly sorties for Osman and Black Box, the were heading towards UNSC controlled space to drop two beacons in hopes that Roland might detect them. They would drop the first beacon outside the system where Reach was located, the planet was no longer a military stronghold, having fallen to the Covenant in 2552. The idea was to make the jump seem random while adding some amount of though behind it. The other beacon was to be dropped in another system where there was no UNSC presence. The trip would take a couple of days, making random jumps between systems. This would make tracking them with their slipspace jump quite more difficult. Osman was sitting in the pilot’s seat of the ONI Prowler, Spartan Orzel was sitting in the co-pilot seat. They were barely flying the ship; Black Box was handling most of the tasks. The prowler was built to be mostly autonomous, making it ideal for covert operations since there was no need for a crew to be present other than the strike team. Admiral Hood stayed behind on Rossbach’s World, tending to tasks on the compound they had setup there.

As they exited slipspace in an uncharted system, Black Box’s avatar appeared on the center console between the two pilots.

“That was the last jump before we head to Reach” said the AI. “Are you all ready?” He asked.

“Ready” replied Orzel.

“What could possibly go wrong?” said Osman.

“Spinning up splispace drive” said Black Box.

The space around the ship started to distort as the drive was charging. A few seconds later, the ship entered slipspace and was headed to Reach.

“Are we expecting trouble?” asked Orzel, inquiring as to why Black Box asked them if they were ready.

“Unknown, it is likely that there is no presence in this system, but we have limited intel currently” replied BB. “All we know is that the Created are in control of most of the UNSC and Covenant space, we no longer pick up any communication from UNSC forces fighting back.”

“Which is why we need to stay undetected and try to establish contact with the remaining forces if there’s any” said Osman with assurance.

“I know Roland is still out there, there’s no way he joined the Created” added Black Box.

The jump took a couple of hours, the crew felt the time pass by slowly. The had done the same kind of missions over and over in the past year, but every time they were nearing a destination it felt that time would slow down, taking forever to reach their destination. They tried their best to pass the time, talking with Black Box, talking with each other, and contemplating the emptiness of slipspace. Osman was well acquainted with the solitude of waiting for something. Having been through the Spartan II program, she was well equipped for the situation. Orzel was part of the spartan 4 program, trained as an adult instead of a child. Some would qualify the spartan 4 as lesser Spartans, but the advance in technology well then made up for the bio engineered Spartans 2. The key difference was that all the spartan 4 were volunteers, UNSC service members that volunteered to enlist in the spartan program. They would then go through less invasive augmentations and be outfitted with the newer MJOLNIR Gen2. The newer version of the armor was more capable than the first version and compensated for the less physically augmented Spartans 4. The few remaining Spartan 2 would spar against teams of Spartans 4 in the infinity’s war games and they would sometimes loose, having no clear advantage both class of Spartans could be considered equal.

Osman would sometimes wonder what would have happened if she didn’t wash out of the spartan program. If she would have successfully received all the augmentations what her life would have been? Would she have died on Reach? Would the events have been the same? One thing was for certain, what has happened in the past cannot be changed, but the future has yet to happen. The actions taken now have some impact to what will be to come. This would sometimes occupy her mind, but it wasn’t worrying her, it was more of a thought exercise than anything else.

“We should be leaving slipspace in one minute” announced Black Box.

Osman closed the briefings she was reviewing and swung her chair in the direction the ship was facing. Orzel reopened the primary fight displays even-though he wasn’t flying the ship. Most of the mission was flown using the auto pilot, Black Box made corrections only if necessary. The ONI Prowler was designed to by effectively crewed by as little as 3 crew members.

“Ever seen Reach since it fell” asked Osman.

“Never in person” replied Orzel.

“Ever been here before it fell” Osman inquired.

“No, I never visited Reach, I was posted on Earth, never saw combat before the fall of Reach” he explained.

“A pitty, this place was beautiful before the covenant glassed almost all of it” added Osman.

“Almost? I thought the covenant always glassed entire planets” asked Orzel, curious about what Osman just said.

“As a matter of fact, they missed a spot” explained Osman. “Castle Base. It was built in a mountain that happened to contain ancient forerunner artefacts.”