"What happens to the ship?" The Spartan asked as he attached his sidearm to the magnetic clip at his waist. Hazard lights bathed the corridor in a harsh, red light as the super soldier sprinted toward the HEV bay.

"Well, judging from our trajectory, the speed of re-entry, and given the fact that the Dawn is little more than a gutted hulk, it should burn up in atmosphere. Anything that reaches the surface of the planet will be ash." His AI companion, Cortana, stated through the neural relay that connected his nervous system to her housing chip.

The two continued on in silence until they arrived in the HEV drop bay. The Chief quickly clambered into one of the pods, locking down the door and opening the bay as the pod was rotated over the maw of space. The blue-green planet sat forlornly below, glistening in the sunlight of the systems only star. "Cortana, I need you to judge the exact moment for us to drop so that we'll be clear of the wreckage when it starts to burn up, and so we won't end up in the water. Swimming in a half-ton of armor isn't exactly one of my go-to strategies."

"Right, drowning would be bad. Ok, accounting for the ship's momentum, and the gravity of the planet, and adding in our mass… We need to drop… Now!"

The Chief slammed his fist onto a large button on the console, and sat back as the pod fell free of the Forward Unto Dawn's carcass, and began its steady acceleration toward the planet's surface…

"So, Wise Girl," the dark-haired, green-eyed boy started slowly. "You ever wonder what's out there?"

"Seaweed Brain, as much as I love the idea of having an intellectual conversation with you-"she paused as she ducked a blow from a child of Ares' spear, then brought the pommel of her knife against the side of his head with a solid thwack. "- do you really think that now is the best time?"

Percy grinned as he sent a geyser of water into the slowly approaching phalanx, knocking down campers from a mix of cabins. The gaps filled in quickly, but the fallen campers stayed down.

"You have to give them credit-" Percy disarmed another member of the vanguard and threw her into the steadily marching formation, coasting on a small tidal wave. "-their organization is definitely improving."

"Get down!" Annabeth yelled as she tackled him to the ground. A dozen arrows, with varying nasty surprises, pin-cushioned the air where he had just been standing.

"Wow, they're really… upping their…" Percy's smile fell as he trailed off, staring into the sky above them. The rest of their team had fallen back and formed a defensive position at the base of their flag. Annabeth got back onto her feet shakily as the red team continued to press in.

"On your feet, Percy. I don't plan on losing a war game tonight!" She glanced down at him, still lying on his back with an odd look on his face. "Percy?"

He stayed right where he was, staring up into the night sky.

"Alright, form a shield wall!" Annabeth called to the rest of her team. "We are not going to lose! They are not getting this flag! Archers, I want rolling volleys, trip them up, slow them down, I don't care how. Percy, get UP!"

Percy shook as if he had just woken up. "Annabeth, the boundaries! They guard the camp against monsters and misdirect mortals, right?" He called shakily.

Annabeth stopped dead in her tracks, and turned to face Percy. He was still lying on the ground, staring at the sky with the same odd look. It was then that she realized what was so foreign about his expression: he looked scared.

"Can they stop something like that?" He continued in a small voice, as he raised his arm to point at the stars.

The battle around them had grounded to a halt when the leaders of blue team had stopped giving any directions to their forces. All of the campers turned their eyes skyward, following Percy's hand, and were shocked into silence by what they saw.

A massive object was blazing in the atmosphere, breaking to pieces that disintegrated almost instantly.

"Don't worry!" one of the demi-gods shouted. "It's burning up in atmosphere. There's no way it'll make it down here. Whatever it is."

"How do you know?" Another camper yelled.

"Because some of us actually paid attention in science class, that's why!" A third camper called back.

Percy rose to his feet and quieted them all down with a steely glare.

"That's all well and good," He said loud enough for them all to hear him. "But what is it?"

The silence that followed was broken by a loud roar as a piece broke away from the rest of the debris, and continued its blazing descent. Straight toward the camp.

"Oh Styx…" The whole group sighed.

As the object continued to zoom downward, it almost seemed to slow as it made contact with an invisible bubble. Granted, the key word is almost, since it flew straight through whatever should have stopped it, and landed in a blazing crash in the heart of the camp.

The two teams arrived at the site of the crash, and Percy wanted so badly to break down in a fit of laughter. The object had landed almost dead-center in the cabin of his favorite campers: Ares cabin, children of the god of war, would be sleeping on the ground tonight. All that remained was a smoking, charred boars head.

At the center of the crater, a metal object sat, dug snugly into the dirt and the remains of a few bunk beds. It glowed with heat, which could be felt at the mouth of the crater. As it cooled down, features on the objects surface started to become visible, leaving a single question, put to words by one of the more eloquent Ares campers. "What, in the name of Hades, just crushed our cabin?"

"Whatever it is, it isn't going anywhere." Percy announced. "Ares cabin, go to the Big House and tell Chiron what happened. Grab some sleeping bags while you're at it, you'll be sleeping in the dining pavilion tonight. Everyone else, go to your cabins, and get some sleep. We'll check this thing out tomorrow." He passed an uneasy glance from Annabeth to the object, and slowly shook his head in wonder. Whatever it is.

The Chief came to slowly, with a splitting headache that almost caused him to blackout, again. Whatever had caused the pods systems to fry upon re-entry must have caused him to hallucinate, because the last thing he remembered was a bunch of kids in armor surrounding the crash site. While he had grown used to the unusual after dealing with the Covenant and Forerunners, a bunch of teenagers running around in ancient Greek armor was definitely pushing it.

"Cortana, status report." His request was met with silence, which severely shook him. Why wasn't she responding? "Cortana?"

"Chief, could you give me a second? I'm in the middle of a conversation." She finally replied. After a few seconds, she started speaking to him. "Alright, sorry about that. It's hard to ignore someone like her."

"Who are you talking about?" The Chief asked. For an uneasy moment, he recalled the strange behavior she had been displaying back on the Dawn. But she can't be that far gone. Can she?

"I was talking to-" Her response was cut short as the pod began shuddering, and a quick glance out of the observation window showed the Spartan why: heavy duty cables had been wrapped at intervals along the surface of the pod, and they were being lifted out of the crater left by their landing. As they rose above the mouth of the crater, John's suspicions were confirmed.

He had been hallucinating, and obviously still was. The pod had apparently landed on one of several cabins in some kind of camp. Of course, that wasn't the weird part. What was strange was the campers; groups of kids ranging in age, race and ethnicity, almost all of whom were decked out in ancient Greek bronze armor. And all of whom were currently surrounding the pod with weapons drawn.

As he edged his off-hand toward the emergency release clamps on the pod door, he tightened his grip on his sidearm, linking it to his HUD. Chief, Cortana warned. They're only kids. Play nice. "That's what that Sergeant thought when he put me in the boxing ring with his ODSTs." He chided softly. "Don't worry, kids love me." Uh-huh.

As the strange object was being towed by the pegasi to a clear area, away from the cabins, Percy felt a shiver go up his spine. He turned around quickly, and came face-to-face with a woman wearing an all grey suit. Her eyes were covered by a blind-fold, also grey, and she wore a mismatched pair of earrings. On her left ear, she wore a cornucopia, and on the right, a wheel that seemed to spin all by itself. She was silent for a moment, as if sizing him up. Under any other circumstance, he would have thought it was odd that a blind woman was inspecting him, but he knew goddess when he saw one.

"Lady Tyche, I believe?" Percy asked slowly. He was nearly positive that he was speaking to the goddess of luck, although he had only ever heard descriptions of her. She had no children at the camp, and judging from what he had been told, she never would, at least not for long. As the goddess of luck, she was blind to who received her gifts, and many times, people who deserved luck never received it.

All of her children received bad luck, and most never made it to camp. Those who did never lasted long. The entire previous generation of her children had been lost during the Titan War; they had the bad fortune joining the losing side, and most never even saw the end of the conflict.

She gave a sharp nod in the affirmative. "Jackson, I'm here to warn you about the object that fell from the stars last night." She spoke softly, as if merely drawing breath would change the courses of the lives around her. "Inside that object is a man. He is a powerful warrior of unmatched skill, although he has fallen out of his own time. He will be an asset to you in the times to come. Consider his arrival to be a lucky gift from me. He will be out of practice with the weaponry that you use, but he is a fast learner."

Percy nodded slowly, but wasn't too surprised. This wasn't the strangest thing that had ever happened to him. "So that's your warning? Watch out for the guy in the metal space box? Seems like a given to me."

She smiled slyly at him. "Oh no, I have two warnings for you. The first is that it would be wise to watch yourself around my son. He is very lucky, and while his luck will never run out, it never has been, and never will be, all good luck. The second is that while we've been talking, he broke out of the pod, and is currently holding you as his hostage. Your friends aren't taking very kindly to that, at all. Bad luck, Mr. Jackson." With that, she disappeared in a flash, and Percy felt himself enveloped in a steely grip as he came back to reality.

Annabeth thought she had seen it all: the Minotaur, Canadian cannibals, manticore vice-principals, a labyrinth that spanned the whole world, and a boy that turned down godhood. So when the seven-foot-tall, green-armored soldier blasted out of the strange object and took her dazed boyfriend hostage, she was only slightly shocked. When he started ordering everyone to drop their weapons in flawless Greek, she hardly even batted an eyelash. Once he realized that nobody could fully understand him, and had switched to fluent English, she became mildly surprised. After Percy, one of the most accomplished fighters she knew, came to and was completely powerless in the soldier's grip, she was highly concerned.

Chiron, disguised in his wheelchair, and Mr. D arrived shortly after Annabeth began brokering a deal with the soldier; information in exchange for Percy. Chiron, in an attempt to defuse the tension, rolled about four yards away from the green warrior, and began to talk.

"Hello there," He began calmly. "I'm Mr. Brunner. My associate, Mr. D, and I are councilors at this camp. Do you know how you came to be here? May I ask your name?"

The soldier was silent for so long that Chiron was about to repeat his question when he began to speak. "I crashed here when I abandoned my ship, which burned up in atmosphere. Where am I? My ship-board radar equipment was… inoperable. What's wrong with your chair?"

Chiron was taken aback by the final question, but was quick to recover. It didn't go unnoticed that his second question went unanswered. "I'm not sure what you mean about my chair. As for where you are, you're in New York, on Long Island Sound, to be precise."

The soldier was silent for a moment, almost like he was having a conversation with himself. "What's the location of the nearest UNSC base?"

The whole crowd was silent, not able to really process the question; nobody had ever heard of the UNSC before. Chiron was the only one to voice his confusion. "The UNSC? Is that some sort of military organization? I'm afraid I've never heard of them."

The soldier nodded, like Chiron had simply confirmed something he already knew. "Do you have the date?" He asked quietly.

"Of course. It's the 20th of September, 2009. What did you mean, about my chair?" Chiron asked, his own curiosity well past peaked.

For a long moment, the soldier was silent, but then he released Percy and shoved him toward Chiron. "No more lies, 'Mr. Brunner', stand up. I don't work with people who lie to me, and my partner knows that your chair is hiding something. Not to mention that you remind me of someone I knew… a very long time ago." He lapsed back into silence, but remained in a combat stance that promised pain to anyone that tried to come close to him.

Chiron nodded slowly and then, taking hold of the armrests on his chair, pulled himself out of his disguise. If the soldier was surprised by the half-man, half-horse that stood before him, he didn't show it.

"A centaur? I thought that your kind was only mythical." He said at length. He spoke as if things like this happened to him every day.

Chiron smiled sadly at him, and approached him slowly. "Walk with me for a moment, Mr….?" The strange warrior simply nodded, and easily kept pace with the instructor as he walked.

As the pair headed toward the beach, leaving the crowd of heavily armed, and highly confused campers behind, the soldier replied in a sharp fashion. "Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra 1-1-7. You can call me Master Chief."

"Very well, Chief. May I call you Chief?" Without waiting for a response, Chiron continued. "My name is Chiron. You and I have much to discuss."