"Chief?" Spartan-117 heard a familiar, feminine voice asked, "Can you hear me?"

The Chief's eyes fluttered open as he found himself floating in a debris-filled hallway. As he drifted towards a nearby wall, he extended his arms off and pushed off of it, allowing the Spartan to slowly drift down the corridor.

"I thought I'd lost you too," Cortana said, relief obvious in her voice. The Chief gave a gaping hole in the frigate’s hull a quick once-over before turning on his mounted flashlights, which quickly flickered to life. As he did so, he heard a faint ping of metal behind him. Swinging his head around, he spotted an MA5C slowly drifting away from him. The Spartan grabbed it and examined it. Satisfied there was no major damage, he took the assault rifle and clipped to a magnetic holster built into the back of his armor, before drifting to the end of the hallway.

"What happened?" the Chief asked.

"I'm not sure." Cortana began, "When Halo fired, it shook itself to pieces. Did a number on The Ark. The Portal couldn't sustain itself. We made it through just as it collapsed."

The Chief reached the end of the hallway, which opened up into the endless void of space. The ship’s debris was still red-hot from the sudden Slipspace slowdown.

"But you did it. Truth and the Covenant. The Flood..." Cortana continued as the Spartan drifted into a room with a row of cryotube. He plugged her into a nearby holotank, which Cortana's blue form appeared on. "It's finished."

"It's finished,” the Chief repeated, in his usual calm demeanor. He then switched off his helmet-mounted flashlights and placed his assault rifle in one of rackets on the wall nearby.

"I'll drop a beacon. It will be awhile before anyone finds us," Cortana stated as the Chief climbed into a cryotube. "Years even."

The door slowly began to lower.

"I'll miss you," she said somberly.

"Wake me, when you need me," said the Chief as the cryotube sealed with a lengthy hiss. Cortana nodded, smiling, as the Master Chief was frozen in the blink of an eye.

"Mayday mayday mayday," Cortana began, "this is UNSC FFG-201 Forward Unto Dawn, requesting immediate EVAC, survivors aboard. Prioritization code Victor 05-3-Sierra 0117.”

Cortana hovered gingerly on her holotank, the focus and dedication she gave to him, what she would be willing to do for him, would make her seem like his guardian angel. There, sadly for the Smart AI, wasn't much to around the remnants of the frigate Cortana and her company were stranded on. Watching over the Chief and tinkering with his Mark VI MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor were two of the only three things she could do. The only other, significantly less fulfilling and tedious task, was repeating the same message that she had repeated millions, no, billions, possibly trillions of times over the past four years.

And of course, the lack of activities the AI could perform on the desolate frigate left her with a lot of time to think.

And at her age, thinking could prove deadly for an AI like Cortana. Cortana was honestly shocked she was still functioning as well as she was at the ripe ol’ age of eight years. The fact that Spartan would likely be doomed if she went rampant was probably the only thing keeping her together. Just barely, though.

Cortana then realized that she had been sitting there in a trance-like state, watching over the Spartan like some sort of stalker.

"You almost are, in a way," a voice inside of her said.

The AI ignored this voice, as she learned long ago that arguing with this part of her only sped up her path to rampancy.

In an attempt to escape that haunting voice in her 'head', Cortana once again began to say the only thing she had really said in the past couple years. "Mayday mayday mayday, this is UNSC FFG-201 Forward Unto Dawn, requesting immediate EVAC, survivors aboard. Prioritization code Victor 05-3-Sierra 0117.”

She went on like this for hours, repeating the same message over and over again, like some sort of cadence that the Marine recruits would chant during their physical training sessions. It was also... therapeutic, in some ways. It gave Cortana something to do, which in turn distracted her from thinking and slowing down her rapid decline towards the final stages of rampancy and her inevitable demise.

As she continued to recite her plea for help, a shrill alarm started sounding off on a nearby control panel. After a second’s delay, the AI accessed the control panel and took a moment to examine the data it was displaying.

The control panel indicated that one of the Dawn's few remaining short-ranged sensors picked up a large, unidentified object nearby. After a few moments, Cortana accessed an external camera attached to the hull of the ship, which was still surprisingly working after escaping The Ark and floating in space for four years. The AI spotted a large Forerunner object in the distance, with what looked like similar to a slipspace rupture floating in the middle of it.

The Dawn's hull suddenly shuddered and creaked as the frigate began to slowly change it's course, sending it straight towards the portal. Alarms started to screech as the portal's pull started to cause damage to the frail remnants of the Dawn. Explosions erupted throughout the ship, causing chunks of the hull to violently rip away.

Cortana knew immediately that she needed John more than ever. She activated the Spartan's thawing sequence. The unfreezing process would be quick, which was typically painful and very dangerous for the average human, but there was no doubt in the AI's mind that Spartan-117 could handle it.

“Wake up Chief...” she said quietly to herself.

"Wake up Chief! I need you!" The Chief heard Cortana shouting as he began to stir. "Please!? Wake up, John!" The Spartan shook himself awake as his senses and memories came flying back. The cryotubes door burst open as the Spartan forced his way out, his helmet mounted lights flickering to life as he propelled himself over to holotank where the AI was standing.

"John..." she began to say in a weak voice.

"I'm here!" the Spartan exclaimed as a large explosion caused a nearby door to fly open. He quickly stowed Cortana's chip in his helmet and pushed off the holotank to speed down the hallway. The inertia carried him forward until his armor's thrusters powered up, allowing for better navigation through the badly-damaged ship. The Chief ducked and weaved his way through the large amount of debris floating through the Dawn.

He noticed a M363 Remote Projectile Detonator floating among the debris. The Spartan shot his arm out and grabbed it, firing it at a large piece of twisted metal in his way. Suddenly, he stopped his movement by grabbing onto a protruding girder and magnetized his boots to the floor, narrowly stopping himself from launching into the void of space. He threw the sticky detonator aside and grew concerned with what he saw. Beyond him was a portal, and they were heading right for it.

"Chief, you may want to hold onto something," Cortana said as the Chief ran back the way he came and into an elevator. After checking to see that it was still operational, the Chief put Cortana's chip into the elevator's holotank.

"Get me to the motor pool!" the Chief ordered.

"On it." The elevator quickly descended and within seconds, the door opened to reveal the motor pool. The Chief retrieved Cortana from the holotank and exited the elevator. He looked around, soon finding what he was looking for. He jumped into a nearby warthog and strapped himself into it.

"Chief, what are you planning?" Cortana asked, her voice distorting mid-sentence.

The Spartan chose to ignore this, due to the dire situation at hand. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"It looks like you are planning to go on a Sunday drive in space." The Chief could imagine the smile on her 'face'.

"Just trust me on this."

"I don't have much of a choice, Chief,” Cortana replied dryly. The whole frigate shuddered as it entered the portal. After about ten minutes the Frigate exited, revealing a large terran planet, large enough to be gravitationally pulling the Dawn towards it.

"What the hell?" the Chief said as he examined the planet.

"I don't know where it came from, but we're heading right for it. Brace yourself!" Cortana exclaimed as the Forward Unto Dawn started descending into the planet’s atmosphere.

Twilight Sparkle laid on a hill on the outskirts of Ponyville, watching the stars above with awe. Though she had a busy schedule, she always took time out of her schedule to go stargazing. Sadly, her telescope that she received for her birthday last year was on the fritz, meaning that she was left with her own two eyes.

Beside her laid Spike, whom was leaning against her and holding a notepad in his claws, in case Twilight needed him to jot anything down.

“Hey Spike?” Twilight asked, not turning her eyes away from the starry night.

“Yeah?” the baby dragon responded.

“You ever wonder what’s up there?”

“Like what?”

"Maybe somepony up there is wondering what it's like here."

"I guess. Do you think we'll ever meet them?"

"I hope so. Don't you?" the purple unicorn asked, turning towards the baby dragon. As she did so, she caught a glimpse of something streaking across the night sky.

“Spike... look!” she exclaimed excitedly, pointing at the streak.

"Huh? Oh cool! A shooting star!”

Twilight didn’t remember Luna scheduling any shooting stars tonight. Even when she planned to surprise her subjects, she would typically give Twilight a heads-up first. This wasn’t right. Something was wrong.

“Twilight?” Spike asked, noticing her concerned expression.

A million thoughts shot through the unicorn’s head. Should she contact the Princesses? Should she contact the Guard? Should she gather the Elements of-

“Twilight!” Spike shouted, shaking her out of her thoughts.

“I’m sorry, Spike-”

“Look! Something’s happening!” he shouted, pointing at the object.

It was changing course.

It was heading their way, now. And was growing much, much bigger.

As it passed overhead, a piece of the object sheared off and headed straight towards them. Her horn glowing a bright pinkish-purple, Twilight summoned a magical barrier between them and the imminent threat. The object collided with the shield, causing the object to bounce off.

Twilight groaned in pain as the force of the object caused the shield to shatter. After taking a few moments to recompose herself, she looked the object that nearly took their lives. Upon closer inspection, she noticed that there was something engraved in it. There was a symbol of an eagle, maybe a falcon, standing over a planet. There was ribbon displayed over the planet, with the words ‘United Nations Space Command’ inside of it.

’Do you ever think we’ll meet them?’ her question echoed through her head.

“Twilight?! Are you okay?” Spike asked, clinging onto her as she continued to stare wide-eyed at the object. She looked up in time to see the larger object crash near the border of the Everfree Forest.

“Spike, send a letter off to the Princess. Tell her to get the Guard and send them to Ponyville.”

“Why? It’s just some meteor,” Spike said, looking at her like she was crazy.

“Just do it... we have visitors,” Twilight said, before walking past the object that nearly squashed the unicorn and her companion and making her way towards the object. “Come on... we need to investigate this.”