It was taking longer than expected.

John questioned whether or not he should have pushed Cortana to taking her meds before dismissing the notion. After Cairo, he made a promise to himself that she wouldn’t get hurt again due to their link.

She was still in the Forerunner system; John had been occasionally reaching over their open link to monitor her progress. It was disconcerting for him to see through her perspective as she was infiltrating the system. All he saw were trillions of lines of codes scrolling at impossible speeds, both in the familiar Unicode used by the UNSC and the binary code of the Forerunners. Despite her slowed speed, it was unfeasible for him to keep up with the amount of data she was accumulating.

He turned his attention to the shielding mechanism he had found while rummaging through the ruins. While there were plenty of corpses down here, it appeared that most of the artifacts had been taken. He wondered, briefly, if the Covenant hadn’t already found another way into this complex.

It would be one more time the UNSC had fallen behind the Covenant.

“John," Cortana said, her voice cutting through the eerie silence that surrounded the ruins, "we’ve got Covenant inbound. I’m detecting a half dozen landing pods. ETA is in ten minutes.”

"Understood. Are you out of the system yet?”

"No, not yet. I’m going through the last of the files now..." she said, her voice trailing off.

John frowned at her uncharacteristically distracted response. "Are you going to be?" he pressed.

Immediately, he knew something was wrong. It had taken her just too long to respond to his question. She was acting almost…glitchy.

"Not before the Covenant arrive," she finally answered. “I will contact you when my objective has been completed.” She terminated the comm channel abruptly.

Then, to his shock, the familiar hum he associated with Cortana completely faded from his mind. He hadn’t felt that emptiness since…No, he wouldn’t let himself think about what happened at Panama. He tried to reestablish the connection with her via their neural link, but he saw nothing but blackness.

She had locked him out.

Instantly, his suspicion reintroduced itself to him. He should have never trusted her. He should have never apologized. He should have never--

"Chief," Keyes' voice cut into his thoughts. "Protocol GOLD MINE has been activated in Cortana's matrix."

Instantly, John froze. That would explain Cortana's recent change in behavior. A wave of guilt at his quick--too quick--return to distrust washed over him.

"You need to make sure that generator stays online until Cortana gets out of the system," the captain ordered.

"Understood, sir." He turned around and made his way back to the control room. It was standard procedure for the Covenant to find the power source and cut it off, preventing them from accessing the Forerunner databases. But John’s concern was deeper than having to worry about fighting in the dark; if Cortana was in the still in the system when they power supply was destroyed, she would be stranded in the system.

That was not going to happen.

He made it back to the room with less than a minute to spare. The earth around him shook and the ceiling above his head began to crumble at the pods’ trajectory. He tucked himself in a darkened corner of the room. He would take any advantage he would get. Fighting a half-dozen Elites alone was going to be difficult, even for him.

"Cortana, are you out of the system?”

She didn’t respond.

He knew with GOLD MINE in effect, he was on his own. Cortana wouldn't open the communication channel until she had completed her mission.

The first pod broke through the ceiling, pulling John’s thoughts away from Cortana. He held his assault rifle steady as the first Elite came out of its transport. Before he had time to aim his plasma rifle, John fired a quick burst at him, hitting him squarely in the chest.

He barely had time to sprint across the room and grab the plasma grenades off the fallen Elite before another pod came crashing through. He slid under the console and whipped around to face his would-be attacker.

This time, however, the Elite was ready for John’s attack. Two shots were fired before John was able to fire a round. He rolled out of the way, dodging the bolts of plasma. He tumbled to the side and shot in the direction of the Elite. He managed to hit the Elite, but the Covenant solider was not out of the fight; he tossed a plasma grenade in the Chief's direction.

Left with no other choice, John charged towards the Elite. He slammed his gauntlet in his chin, shattering his jaw. As the hulking solider staggered backwards, John fired two quick shots to his chest with his spare pistol.

He pressed himself against the wall closest to the power console. Despite his effort to control the situation, four more pods came crashing overhead. As he was about to activate the plasma grenade in his left hand, a familiar cool presence entered his mind.

"Master Chief, the Scorpion will be disembarking in five minutes. Please return there immediately.”

This time there was no mistaking the stiff, almost mechanical way she was speaking to him, a side effect of the protocol being in effect.

"Understood," he replied evenly.

John frowned as he took in the position of the Covenant. The Elites were not idle during his brief exchange with Cortana. They had surrounded him.

He was trapped.

"Your end is near, vermin," one of them snarled.

The others around him laughed.

John was left with limited options to try to survive the next thirty seconds. He flicked his gaze to the gaps in the ceiling. If his aim was just right, he might be able to cause a collapse and bury the Elites alive. It would take luck and an exact location for his target, but he could do it with Cortana’s help.

He opened the private comm link. "Cortana, I need you to give me the exact location where I need to throw this grenade to cause the ceiling to collapse," John said urgently as the Elite closest to him activated his energy sword.

He hoped the GOLD MINE protocol would allow her to make the calculation. He doubted he could figure out the position on his own. Fortunately, she responded quickly. "I have marked the position on your HUD. Please, remember, Chief, that your throw needs to be precise. If you are off by a centimeter–”

He knew the risks. If he missed, he would be buried alive too. "Understood," he said, ending the channel.

Without wasting a second, he tossed the plasma grenade at the position she had marked. The Elites around him grunted as they realized what he was attempting to do. John wasted no time to watch their reaction. He took advantage of their distraction and pushed his way through the Elite furthest away from his position and ran towards the door.

Perhaps, if it had been a group of grunts in the room with him, he would have been able to escape. But, the highly trained Elites weren’t as easily as distracted. Before John had a chance to flee, one of them fired his pistol at the Spartan. John staggered at the impact, but pushed himself forward.

It was that one misstep that would prevent his successful escape. The mouth of the entrance was less than three meters away when the high pitch sound filled the room. A sinking feeling settled over him as he realized he wasn’t going to make it out of the room before the grenade detonated.

He felt the explosion before he was able to faintly register the sound of the room around him collapsing. Blackness filled his vision as the rocks came crashing around him. Consciousness slipped from him, despite his best efforts to stay awake.

His luck had run out.

o0o0o0o0o0

A switch had been flicked.

Protocol GOLD MINE was in full effect.

As her subroutines were sifting through the massive amount of data, one of them found a suspiciously familiar looking set of symbols. She began going through the enormous amount of mission logs in her matrix and found that, yes, a similar set of symbols had been seen by John several months before they had been assigned to work with each other.

At that influx of information, her alpha-priority programming had taken over and protocol GOLD MINE was implemented. She had to assimilate the meaning of the symbols immediately.

Protocol dictated that she needed to contact Captain Keyes and inform him of the situation. "Captain Keyes, protocol GOLD MINE is in effect."

"Damn, so this trip was worth it." He paused for a second. "You know that the Covenant are coming, right?"

Of course she did, but it didn’t matter if the Covenant were coming. It didn’t matter if Johnson died protecting her. It didn't matter if John was sacrificed while trying to keep the generator online. The only thing that did matter was deciphering the meaning of the symbols.

"Yes, sir. I will be remotely activating defense pattern 'Delta Echo' immediately. The ship systems should be able to eliminate any Covenant threat until I am finished here. Please contact Spartan-117 with orders to hold the generator room until my objective is complete," she commanded.

"I'll take care of it, Cortana. You find what you need to. Keyes out."

With that out of the way, she quickly accessed the information stored in her storage buffer and found that the symbols found were remarkably close to some known characters from the ancient Athenian alphabet. She ran a cross-analysis of them two and found that over eighty percent of the symbols matched. She processed it through her translation software. It took less than five seconds for her to decipher the meaning of the words.

In the mouth of the cave lies the key to the world. The waters lap the land that is parched.

There was only one place in the world that could be: Australia.

She paused three full seconds before her subroutines started racing. No one, not even the Covenant had dared to travel to the island that had been ground zero for the humans' demise five hundred years ago. But, if she understood the translation correctly--and there was no reason why she wasn’t--this would lead them to a safe entrance to access the cursed land.

Protocol dictated that she needed to return to the Autumn and report the information to High Command immediately. Without waiting another millisecond, she planted a virus that would delete all of the data in the network which would prevent the Covenant from deciphering the data.

As she transferred herself out of the Forerunner system, she accessed the myriad of information filtering through her systems that had been filtered by her active protocol: the Covenant had reached their location while John was trying to hold the control room on his own.

Now that she was out of the system, there was no reason for the Spartan to remain in the generator room. He needed to return to the ship before they left him behind. "Master Chief, the ship will be disembarking in five minutes. Please return there immediately," she said stiffly.

There was a long pause. Finally, he spoke. "Understood."

Later, there would be time for her to review her actions, to feel guilty for her coldness towards the Spartan. But, right now, she had one solitary focus: to make sure the information got to the UNSC. John’s feelings, even his life, were acceptably expendable, according to her protocol.

"Sergeant Johnson," she said, turning towards him. "We must return to the Scorpion now."

"I’m right behind you, ma’am," he said formally.

Before she walked out of the room, she removed her pistol from her holster. There was a forty-three percent chance that the Covenant would be blocking their way to the ship. If they increased their speed by twenty percent, then the chances lowered by eighty-three percent. Quickly, she climbed over the rubble and rock.

Information from the Scorpion’s sensors entered her matrices. Two Ghosts were on their way to the ship’s position and another half dozen burrowing pods were closing in on their position. It would be close, but they would make it back to the Scorpion before they had a chance to attack.

She looked at Johnson who was looking at her strangely. But, like the trained soldier he was, he spoke none of his concerns aloud.

"Follow me," she instructed before breaking out into a run. They may survive if the rubble collapsed around them; they wouldn’t survive a direct attack from a Ghost.

As they were making their way through the narrow tunnel, her comm channel was opened. "Cortana, I need you to give me the exact location where I need to throw this grenade to cause a collapse."

Briefly, she considered telling the Chief that she didn’t have the time to calculate such a trajectory. But, her beta-priority command wouldn’t allow her to do such a thing. If she could do something to insure the safety of the Chief, she needed to do so.

She accessed the video feed from his visor, noticing the Elites that were circling around him. But that was not her primary concern. She saw the holes in the ceiling and calculated the exact location he needed to throw the plasma grenade.

"I have marked the position on your HUD. Please, remember, Chief that your throw needs to be precise. If you are off by a centimeter–"

"Understood."

The channel ended.

As they rounded the corner, the ship came into view. She sprinted up the loading ramp and stood in front of Captain Keyes who was looking as expectantly.

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes, sir," she replied confidently.

"So, this mission is a success?"

Cortana frowned, briefly as her alpha-priority and beta-priority mission clashed with each other. She couldn’t give a clear response to the captain’s comment. "I have not heard from Spartan-117 since his attempt to escape the Elites in the generator room," she reported as she activated the Scorpion’s engines. "We need to get out of here, sir. Spartan-117 will not be able to reach the ship’s position before the Covenant do."

Her voice was stiff, emotionless.

Keyes frowned. Johnson sputtered. Keyes looked torn for a moment, no doubt weighing the risk of staying here longer than necessary.

"Negative, Cortana. We’re going to wait until the Chief gets back aboard," Keyes said firmly.

Cortana hesitated for a second as she tried to contend with the conflicting commands. "You do realize that your interference with the GOLD MINE protocol will more than likely result in a court martial?" she asked, her voice still showing none of its usual warmth.

Finally, Johnson had enough. "What the hell is going on here?" the sergeant demanded. He faced Cortana. "Since when is leaving the Chief behind acceptable?

Keyes held up his hand, quieting Johnson. "It’s not Cortana’s fault. You can blame her new found dedication on ONI." He looked back at Cortana. "I’m willing to face that court martial. Get the Chief back aboard. That’s a direct order."

Reluctantly, she tapped the controls. "I could send the Warthog to the Chief’s location. If he regains consciousness, then he might be able to get out of there alive," she suggested.

"Do it," Keyes commanded. "Then run operation protocol: ANARCHY."

She paused for a moment as her subroutines scrambled to find the obscure protocol. Within two seconds, she found the command and implemented it.

And she was herself again.

All restrictions put into place from the alpha command were suspended. She looked at Keyes, her eyebrow raised. "Sir?"

His shoulders lowered and he let out a breath. "Just something Catherine told me when you were first assigned to Alpha Team," he said, relieved. "She planted the code in case something like this happened. She was always against any protocol overwriting your primary commands. She trusted you to be able make the right assessment of a situation and react accordingly."

He paused, looking at her. "I trust you too, Cortana."

It was the first time that anyone had directly said those words to her since the fall of Reach. Sure, the implication was that she was to be trusted, but hearing the words impacted her more than she thought they would. She nodded. "Thank you, sir."

He nodded. "Let’s just keep this between the Alpha Team."

Johnson grinned. "Aye, sir."

Before she could reply, the Warthog transmitted a signal to her; it was arriving at John’s position.

With her new found freedom, she accessed the vital signs from John’s armor. He was still unconscious due to a concussion. Four ribs were cracked, his Achilles heel was torn and there was significant blood loss. Cortana knew if it was anyone else, she doubted they would survive.

But, this was John, she reminded herself. He made a habit of breaking all of the laws of probabilities.
"Chief, come on, you’ve got to wake up," she said via their private comm channel.

His vital signs were unchanged.

"Come on, Spartan, don’t make me doubt your luck now," she said, getting slightly panicked. She knew if he didn’t respond soon, they would have no other option but to leave him behind. "We need to go. The Covenant are about to reach us."

He still didn’t respond.

"Please, John. I can’t--" she struggled admitting her weakness. "John, you have got to wake up."

"Cortana?"

She let out a shaky breath. His voice was slurred, his vitals were weak, but he was responsive. "John, the Warthog is headed your way. Can you move at all?"

"Yes," he gritted.

"The Warthog will be at your position in thirty seconds. When it gets there, you’re going to have to hang on." She bit her lip. "It isn’t going to be the smoothest ride, but you’ll make it out of here alive."

"Understood," he slurred.

She monitored the Warthog’s progress through its video feed; John’s visual output had been damaged in the crash. She frowned as he came into view. A large beam with a half a meter from his spine. If he had made one less step...

No, now was not the time for second-guessing. Now was the time to get John back to the ship before the Covenant arrived.

"Now John!"

She watched as he grabbed the task-like arm in front of him and threw himself on top of the bulky machine.  "Hang on!" she said as she turned the Warthog around and pushed the engine’s to their limit.

It wasn’t going to be enough. Even if John’s shield’s protected him from the hurling rocks and debris, the Scorpion would be in the firing range of the Ghosts for nearly twenty seconds before he was able to get on board. She raised the shields to maximum power, ignoring the niggle of the protocol to leave him behind.

John was going to make it.

Finally, as the Warthog came within a hundred yards of the ship, Cortana said, "Lowering boarding ramp now. Johnson, John’s vitals are weak. I’m going to need you to get him into a medical bay until we clear--"

A shot rocked the cabin. "Direct hit on the port side. Shields holding at 82 percent," she said, holding on to the control panel. Several tense seconds passed before she announced, "The Warthog and the Chief are on board.” She did her best to not let the worry enter into her voice.

"I’ve got him," Johnson assured her before walking off the bridge.

Keyes sat in the command chair. "Punch it," he ordered.

o0o0o0o0o0o0o


Cortana had been right, John sluggishly thought as he released his grip of the Warthog, it was certainly one hell of a ride back to the ship. He was fairly certain his right shoulder had become dislocated during the ride, though the drug cocktail that was rushing through his system hid any signs of pain.

He took off his helmet and set it on the ground. It was useless in its current condition; the outside of the glass had been shattered when the debris kicked up from the ground. His armor had taken a beating both from the collapse and the ride; John didn’t know if it would ever be able to be fully repaired.

He knew he had several broken ribs and his Achilles heel, the same one that had torn months ago when he first met Cortana, was ripped apart. Based on the grogginess he felt, he knew he had a severe concussion.

John would be relieved when they were able to get on base where they could tend to his injuries properly, but, for now, the biofoam was doing its part and he was certain he could put weight on his right foot and he would have to ignore the headache.

With a determined step, he started making his way to the bridge. Before he could get far, the ground beneath him shook violently.

They were under attack.

Once the floor stabilized, John continued down the corridor, leaning on the wall for extra support. He needed to get to the bridge to see what was going on.

"And where do you think you’re going?" Johnson asked, coming down the hallway with a scowl.

"To the bridge," he evenly answered.

The sergeant shook his head. "No, you aren’t. Cortana said you got pretty banged up out there. I’m supposed to make sure that you get down to the med bay."

"I’ll be fine," he replied as he continued walking towards the bridge.

"Stubborn fool," Johnson grumbled, but made no other argument to try to stop him. "Just remember, it’s your ass she’s going to kick, not mine."

Another tremor shook the ship.

"I’ll take my chances," John answered as they walked down the corridor together.

When John stepped onto the bridge, he walked into a scene of barely-controlled chaos. Keyes was frantically tapping at the weapon controls, Cortana was moving back and forth between consoles. Smoke was coming from one of the power couplings.

"Couldn’t stay away from the excitement, huh?" Cortana asked wryly without turning to face him.

Despite his injuries, John felt relieved at the playfulness in her voice. Though the time right before he got crushed was a bit muddled, he remembered her coldness towards him.

The cabin shook tumultuously as another bolt of plasma hit the Scorpion. John braced himself on the console closest to him, dodging another burst of smoke coming from another busted coupling.

"Direct hit on the port side. Shields to twenty percent," Johnson announced as he hopped onto another control panel. "Another couple of hits like that and we're toast."

"Return fire," Keyes ordered.

John watched Cortana tap the console to unleash a barrage of bullets in the direction of the Covenant battle cruiser.

"Minimal damage," Jenkins reported.

"We’re not going to be able to outgun them," Keyes muttered, pulling out his pipe. John watched as he slowly down briefly, considering his options. Finally, he walked up to Cortana and put his hand on the back of her chair.

“I’ve already got the Autumn heading to our position. I should be able to collapse the structure and bury the ships with the new schematics that I found,’ Cortana offered as the holographic layout appeared on the main view screen.

“Do it.”

“Understood, sir.”

She looked at John for the first time. John could only imagine the sight he was: blood was splattered on his face, his normally pristine armor was crushed and filthy. "The techs at home are going to kill you," she commented offhandedly.

He didn’t have time to answer before she spoke again. "If I were you, I’d take a seat. This will make the Warthog ride seem like a walk in the park," she warned.

He ignored her advice and strengthened his hold on the console. He would be ready for whatever she had in mind.

"Hold on.”

The ship violently shook as it plowed into a beam in the center of the main room. Three shots from the main canon fired. John watched as the ceiling began collapsing in front of them.

“Cortana--”

“Not now.”

She pushed the engines forward as hard as they could go. “Engine output at 112 percent,” she unnecessarily announced. “It’s gonna get rough.”

Suddenly, she pulled up on the control stick, causing the ship to point straight up in the air. The centripetal force was pushing against them. Despite his grip, John felt his fingers slip and he slammed against the wall of the cabin.

The wound on his head that had recently stopped bleeding ripped open. Blood dripped down his forehead as black spots entered his vision. His head roared in protest at its mistreatment.

"You ok?" she asked on the private comm.

"Yeah," he replied slowly. His movements were sluggish, his thoughts were even more muddled than they were before.

"Maybe next time you’ll take my suggestion and take a seat," she replied dryly.

He didn’t respond, but he awkwardly lowered himself into one of the too-small seats in the cabin, focusing on remaining conscious.

"Two Covenant cruisers destroyed," she said to Keyes with a satisfied grin.

Keyes lit his pipe. "Now let’s get out of here before the rest of those bastards figure out what we did to their ships."

O0o0o0o0o0o0o

"It’s not perfect, but it will have to do," Cortana said as she took a step back and examined John’s forehead.

Since she was the closest to a doctor they had on the ship, it fell in her jurisdiction to tend to John’s injuries. His ribs had been mended, but they would still be sore for several hours. The gash in his head required seven stitches which were covered by the gauze she had found in a ship’s med kit.

His armor had been placed in the automatic repair facility that was on board the ship. It would be able to fix most of the damage done to the suit, but it would take Cortana a few hours to completely repair it. They were lucky that the irreparable parts–the HUD, the power supply, her matrix chip–were spared in the collapse.

"Give me your hand," she instructed.

He did as he was told and gently set his hand on top of her palm.

She ran the instrument over his crushed digits. "I’m still going to have to wrap them. The damage is…extensive. But," she said as she pasted on a smile, "if anyone could expect a full recovery, it will be you."

She felt awkward around him, still blaming herself for not being strong enough to override the protocol, to fight the demand to leave John behind.

"Cortana."

She reluctantly raised her gaze to his pensive brown eyes.

"Captain Keyes told me about what happened. About the GOLD MINE protocol."

"Then you can understand my frustration," she said, uncharacteristically embarrassed. As human as she appeared, she was still a machine, run by protocols and data pathways. There would always be someone who would be able to program her, to do what they wanted.

She turned away from him and grabbed the bandages from the metal table. "You know, never once have I resented being an AI. I can think in ways that humans can only dream of. I have hacked into the toughest Covenant systems. But today?" she shook her head, facing him. "I have never felt more like a machine before in my life."

He grabbed her free wrist with his good hand, stilling her movements. "You are as human as any of us."  She pulled away and started wrapping his fingers.

Several quiet seconds passed.

"Would you have done it? Left me behind?" she whispered, locking her gaze on his familiar brown eyes.

A thick silence settled over the room. It wasn’t fair to put him on the spot, she realized. Emotional leaps and bounds were not his strong points.

"Yes."

She closed her eyes as the impact of his answer weighed on her. Of course he would let her go. He was the consummate solider. He was a Spartan. He was--

"But, I would come back for you."

She jerked her head up and opened her eyes, surprised. "That almost sounds like a promise."

"It was." John shifted his weight and Cortana knew he was done with that part of their conversation. He looked back down to his half-wrapped hand. "What activated the GOLD MINE protocol?" he asked, changing subjects.

"This," she said, activating the screen behind her, as she continued wrapping his hand.

She watched as he looked at the unfamiliar symbols scroll across the screen momentarily before the translation and her assessment appeared.

He sharply turned away from the screen to look directly in her eyes. "Australia?"

She nodded once. "Yes." She released her hold of his hand, letting it drop away from her. "But, this is what I can’t figure out."

A new cluster of data appeared on the screen. One word stuck out amongst them the most. "Halo? What’s that?"

"I don’t know," Cortana admitted, turning towards the screen, "but something tells me that we’re going to learn plenty about it soon enough."