"The Covenant glassed my home," Cortana says. Insofar as she ever had one, anyway. Maybe Reach hadn't been home so much as the idea of home--familiarity, stability, security. All turned to ash and glass in the Covenant's endless, misguided holy war.
The thought of it calls its ghost into being, a bulkhead melting away to an impressionist sketch of high mountains with vast pine forests, all burning. Even a phantasmal holocaust carries a whiff of burning resin across to them, and Cortana catches herself quickly. She never smelled Reach burning, only watched through the Pillar of Autumn's sensors.
With a conscious act of will this time, she thinks of construction specifications. Marathon-class heavy cruiser. Two solid meters of titanium-A armor plate between them and any memories. The bulkhead snaps back into existence, for the moment as real and substantial as they are.
"Do me a favor." Cortana reaches up to the back of her body's skull, pulling out an AI datachip. "Slot this into your helmet."
no subject
The thought of it calls its ghost into being, a bulkhead melting away to an impressionist sketch of high mountains with vast pine forests, all burning. Even a phantasmal holocaust carries a whiff of burning resin across to them, and Cortana catches herself quickly. She never smelled Reach burning, only watched through the Pillar of Autumn's sensors.
With a conscious act of will this time, she thinks of construction specifications. Marathon-class heavy cruiser. Two solid meters of titanium-A armor plate between them and any memories. The bulkhead snaps back into existence, for the moment as real and substantial as they are.
"Do me a favor." Cortana reaches up to the back of her body's skull, pulling out an AI datachip. "Slot this into your helmet."