John-117/Late War: Difference between revisions

At 1637 hours on [[2552#September|September 22]], John finally allowed himself a moment to just sit and think and remember all the recently deceased.{{Ref/Reuse|HFS5}} He asked Cortana to scan the debris field again, but she noted that she already had and that there was nothing out there. Even so, John implored her to continue trying, seeing as they were without a [[slipspace drive]] or means of cryopreservation and only had enough power, air, water, and food for a few hours at most. When she still failed to register any transponder signals or distress calls he suggested actively scanning each object in the area but was informed doing so could take eighteen days. When Cortana did finally detect a signal, it was revealed to be coming from a {{Class|CCS|battlecruiser}} appearing from the far side of [[Threshold]]'s [[natural satellite|moon]], [[Basis]]. John immediately ordered the A.I. to power down everything besides their passive scanners and whatever minimal power she needed to keep herself and the ship functioning. Five more battlecruisers followed in the wake of the first and finally the [[flagship]] of this small fleet element came into view: a {{Class|DDS|carrier}}. John drifted from his spot in the pilot's seat to the Longsword's aft compartment to find its weapons locker empty with his own [[MA5B]] only holding thirteen rounds. He returned to the sysops seat upon a declaration from Cortana that she had found something, and that something seemed like it could be a cryopod from the ''Pillar of Autumn''. John instructed her to bring them toward it using the Longsword's maneuvering thrusters only but was told this would take twenty minutes and that the Covenant vessels were predicted to encounter it in as little as five. In order to allow them to reach it first, John put his helmet back on and resealed his armor so that Cortana could vent their atmosphere to provided added propulsion. Their ETA dropped to just two minutes and as they came closer to their target, it turned out to actually be three cryotubes affixed side by side. John dared to feed a little more power to Cortana's systems and she soon after found another new contact that strongly resembled a Pelican stuck on a chunk of rock a half-kilometer in diameter. Cortana thought it might have crashed there but John was certain, based on the position of one of its wings, that it had been intentionally parked there in a way that left it ready for takeoff. As Cortana swung their craft about to intercept the pods, John returned aft to tether himself and braced against the second explosive decompression that followed when by fitting himself within the empty weapons locker. After, he leapt from the rear to where the three cryotubes drifted just thirty meters away. John just barely managed to hook a finger on the furthest cryopod and then secured himself to them. He hastily pulled himself and the pods back to the Longsword, but as he did so two of the enemy cruisers began to accelerate towards it and ready their weapons to fire. Before they did so, however, three missiles from the Pelican drew their attention toward it instead. John brought his cargo aboard and rushed to get seated again.{{Ref/Reuse|HFS5}}

Against Cortana's protestations, John unloaded on the trailing ship with the fighter's guns and told her to get him a firing solution for their [[ASGM-10 missile]]s to target its [[plasma turret]]s when the [[energy shield]]ing around them dropped.{{Ref/Reuse|HFS5}} He relinquished fire control to her and proceeded to send the craft accelerating deeper into the debris field after she fired the four that they carried. Cortana took over piloting the Longsword after that and John was able to perform a sweep scan of his own in order to try to find anything that could help them. He decided to finally hail the Pelican and was introduced to [[Warrant Officer]] [[Shiela Polaski]]. The Master Chief urged Polaski to meet them at a NAV point almost directly on top of [[Ascendant Justice|the flagship]] and had Cortana slow their speed so both smaller craft would arrive at the same time. The six cruisers stopped stopped firing at them out of fear of hitting the {{Class|DDS|carrier}}. Once the Longsword and Pelican were around twelve hundred kilometers away from one another John asked Polaski to hand establish a system link with them so Cortana could take over control of both vehicles to attach them to one another. At three hundred kilometers from the flagship it finally began to bring its weapons to bear on them but their extreme oblique approach angle and speed made them hard to hit. Both the Pelican and Longsword passed the carrier and began a slingshot orbit around Basis and it was at this point that they both met each other at just prior to 1710 hours.{{Ref/Reuse|HFS5}}<ref name="HFS6">''[[Halo: First Strike]]'', ''Chapter 6''</ref> John moved aft to the access hatch connecting both ships and was shocked when the first person he pulled through was none other than [[Staff Sergeant]] [[Avery Johnson]]. John's first reaction was to kick the hatch shut and slam the marine against the hull, drawing Johnson's own pistol and pointing the barrel at his forehead at the same time.{{Ref/Reuse|HFS6}} He had been sure the staff sergeant had been consumed by the [[Flood]], given that he'd last seen him in the footage recorded by Private [[Wallace Jenkins|Jenkins]]' [[Helmet recorder|helmet cam]]. He demanded to know how it was possible for him to have escaped unscathed, to which the man simply claimed that the Flood had passed him by as if it was disinterested in him. Cortana noted that a preliminary readings from Johnson's biomonitors indicated he was free of infection, so the Chief relaxed enough to return his sidearm to him. Three other survivors from the Pelican joined them thereafter. In addition to Warrant Officer Polaski, a [[pilot]] from the [[23rd Naval Air Squadron]], there was an [[ODST]] by the name of [[Locklear]] and finally [[Elias Haverson]], a lieutenant of the Office of Naval Intelligence. John let everyone know that given their lack of slipspace-capable transport, their only option was to seize control of one of the Covenant's nearby ships after they completed their slingshot around Threshold's moon. Though the lieutenant outranked him, John felt comfortable asserting authority over him since he still intended to carry out [[Operation: RED FLAG]]. Haverson, of course, was well aware of RED FLAG and reluctantly submitted to the Spartan's tactical command. John told Locklear to grab extra weapons, ammunition, and grenades from the Pelican while he briefed them on his plan to capture the Covenant flagship, ''[[Ascendant Justice]].