"It's not." The tension in her voice echoes through her mood, hot and sharp. "It's a composite. From my memories."
Cortana doesn't want this. She doesn't want to have to relive it, to try to make someone who didn't fight in their hopeless war understand what damnation lurked among the stars. And she certainly doesn't want to explain her role in the climax of it all.
But--and there's always a "but," isn't there?--Sombra is her partner. She agreed to keep this untrained non-soldier alive to the best of her ability, and that's no less true now than when it looked like this mission was going to be a milk run. Keeping her in the dark might get them both killed.
"The aliens are the Covenant. They waged a three-decade war of annihilation against humanity, the war the Chief and I have both spent our lives fighting." They won't show up as anything but scenery, she's sure. This is her nightmare, and the Covenant has never scared her.
"The ones on both sides that are...changed are infected by the Flood. It's a sentiovore, a parasite that invades and converts any organism with a central nervous system into itself." Again, nothing but scenery. A Flood form can't do a damned thing to an AI a thrown rock couldn't, and though it tried its best on the Chief, he's still here and the Flood's not.
"When the Flood converts enough biomass in a single area, it...wakes up. Forms a Gravemind, an intelligence with its own memories and the memories of everything it's absorbed." Cortana pauses, and surprises herself with the distinct proprioceptive memory of clenching her teeth. Her echoed humanity always chooses the most inconvenient moments to surface. "You...should expect to run into that."
no subject
Cortana doesn't want this. She doesn't want to have to relive it, to try to make someone who didn't fight in their hopeless war understand what damnation lurked among the stars. And she certainly doesn't want to explain her role in the climax of it all.
But--and there's always a "but," isn't there?--Sombra is her partner. She agreed to keep this untrained non-soldier alive to the best of her ability, and that's no less true now than when it looked like this mission was going to be a milk run. Keeping her in the dark might get them both killed.
"The aliens are the Covenant. They waged a three-decade war of annihilation against humanity, the war the Chief and I have both spent our lives fighting." They won't show up as anything but scenery, she's sure. This is her nightmare, and the Covenant has never scared her.
"The ones on both sides that are...changed are infected by the Flood. It's a sentiovore, a parasite that invades and converts any organism with a central nervous system into itself." Again, nothing but scenery. A Flood form can't do a damned thing to an AI a thrown rock couldn't, and though it tried its best on the Chief, he's still here and the Flood's not.
"When the Flood converts enough biomass in a single area, it...wakes up. Forms a Gravemind, an intelligence with its own memories and the memories of everything it's absorbed." Cortana pauses, and surprises herself with the distinct proprioceptive memory of clenching her teeth. Her echoed humanity always chooses the most inconvenient moments to surface. "You...should expect to run into that."