- Dr. Catherine Halsey: Silver team, Master Chief has been compromised by the object you located on Madrigal. Because of this, he's no longer able to comply with orders. You've been dispatched by Fleet Command to neutralize him. I'm superseding those orders. Whatever he's experiencing, there are other available solutions. When that ship lands, I want you to secure and protect Master Chief from anyone who actively threatens his life, whatever the circumstances.
- Kai-125: Engage friendlies, ma'am?
- Vannak-134: If they go after Chief, they're not friendlies. Correct, Dr. Halsey?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: Correct.
- Kwan Ha: What are you doing?
- Master Chief: Scanning the integrity of all bio interfaces for evidence of abnormalities.
- Kwan Ha: That your way saying you don't feel well?
- Master Chief: Yes?
- Kwan Ha: You gonna live?
- Master Chief: Yes.
- Kwan Ha: Hey. There anything to eat on this ship?
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: What sort of weapons is the ship carrying?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: John is not gonna fire on us.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: I think it's safe to say you don't know what Master Chief is going to do at this point.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: Ship's flying on AI. We have control. I'll send an escort of Pelicans.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: I need more than an escort, Captain. Put out the alarm. Scramble everyone to landing bay, full squadron protocol.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: Due respect, we are talking about our most important military asset.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: We are not taking any chances.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: Let me investigate. I'll speak to John, and whatever influence this object's...
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Question one more order, Doctor, and you can watch from your lab.
- Professor: New deal.
- Djanka: Yeah, let someone else deal. The Professor has sticky hands.
- Professor: You saying I cheat?
- Djanka: I'm saying you don't wash your hands.
- Professor: My hands are filthy with the blood of UNSC marines.
- Djanka: Speech, Professor. Regale us with another one of your war stories.
- Professor: I've got scars older than you.
- Djanka: Have you seen a Spartan up close?
- Ruben: I've faced marines.
- Djanka: "I've faced marines." One spartan is worth a hundred marines.
- Professor: Ah, but, Djanka, there's another difference between Spartans and marines. Marines can be killed. Spartans aren't human. They're faster, stronger, smarter. They cannot be stopped. They just keep on killing... without mercy... till there's nothing left... to kill.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: Status report.
- Master Chief: Returning from Twenty-Three Librae, Planet Madrigal, with a single survivor. Covenant disarmed, one escapee.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: And your neural lace metrics, any anomalies?
- Master Chief: I saw things when I touched the object.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: What kind of things?
- Master Chief: Woods. A white dog. A family.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: A family?
- Master Chief: That's what it felt like.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: Okay. John... until we know more about that object, I'd like you to keep your distance from it.
- Master Chief: Copy that.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: You've been through a lot, John. So, whatever's happened, you get yourself back here and we will sort it out, okay?
- Master Chief: Yes, ma'am.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: Heard you played politician today with the rebel girl.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: Dad, I tried. I sucked up my pride, and I really - I gave it my best.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: I believe you.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: Selling Dr. Halsey's Spartans to a rebel, of all people. As if Halsey'd ever do a think to promote me.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: That's not entirely fair.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: Please don't. Don't defend her. She's done nothing but throw roadblocks in my way.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: Halsey's always been single-minded. Work is the only thing that matters. I made my peace with that a long time ago. It's nothing personal.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: "Nothing personal" isn't a great excuse when it's your mom.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: You know, you are a lot like her.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: Ouch.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: I meant that as a compliment.
- Kwan Ha: You don't eat?
- Master Chief: Didn't see anything I liked.
- Kwan Ha: Yeah? What is it you like?
- Master Chief: Nuts. Bolts. Microchips. That was a joke.
- Kwan Ha: Yeah, no, I get it. Hilarious.
- Master Chief: Link Command, Silver team. Covenant forces on planet Madrigal neutralized. Twenty Elite warriors killed, 150 civilians. No survivors.
- Kwan Ha: Wait.
- Master Chief: Correction: one survivor. Female. Juvenile.
- Master Chief: Kwan.
- Kwan Ha: [aiming a rifle at him] Don't move.
- Master Chief: You're gonna need to listen to me.
- Kwan Ha: What did you do to me? Stop messing with that stuff.
- Master Chief: UNSC changed the air mixture, not me.
- Kwan Ha: Why should I trust you?
- Master Chief: I am trying to get control of the flight.
- Kwan Ha: I will kill you.
- Master Chief: This is Mark Six Mjolnir armor. The outer layer is enhanced titanium. You won't even dent it.
- [takes off his helmet]
- Master Chief: If you want me dead... you'll need to aim up here.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: There's a weapon signature on the girl.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: [to Dr. Halsey] Did your Spartan just give an insurgent a rifle?
- Kwan Ha: Master Chief, huh? You know, we've actually met before today.
- Master Chief: When was this?
- Kwan Ha: When you killed my mother. She was at a meeting. Outer Colonists getting together to talk about how the UNSC was stripping us of all our natural resources. But before they got into all that, you and three other Spartans showed up, responding to an insurrectionist bomb threat. But, see, that never made much sense, because why would...
- Master Chief: Why would insurrectionists blow up a meeting for insurrectionists?
- Kwan Ha: Yeah.
- Master Chief: We were ordered to eliminate the organizer. And the orders changed.
- Kwan Ha: To what?
- Master Chief: The assembled were deemed an imminent threat.
- Kwan Ha: My mom seemed like an imminent threat to you?
- Master Chief: What I can see on the ground may not reflect the entirety of the situation.
- Kwan Ha: What does that mean?
- Master Chief: Sometimes, others know things I do not.
- Kwan Ha: It ever occur to you that it might work the other way around?
- Master Chief: Then you question everything?
- Kwan Ha: And someone told you that's bad? Of course they did. It's funny, I... I don't look at pictures of my mom that often, but... you... you're everywhere. Can't turn around without staring at an uplink about humanity's best weapon.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Captain, does Master Chief know the girl is Article 72?
- Captain Jacob Keyes: Of course. It would have been communicated to him.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Dr. Halsey, what's wrong with 1-1-7?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: Nothing, it's just a neurochemical glitch caused by a power surge to his prefrontal cortex.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: It's not nothing. Rather than execute the rebel as ordered, he has decided to kill the video feed from his ship. What's going on?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: I think he's having memories.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: What?
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Of?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: His parents.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: I thought you'd sealed those memories.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: He's not even certain that they're his memories. For the moment, they're just visions.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Then why violate procedure?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: I don't know.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: So what happens now to the girl?
- Captain Jacob Keyes: That's what I came over here to tell you.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: Tell me what?
- Captain Jacob Keyes: Kwan Ha was badly wounded in the alien attack on Madrigal. Despite our best efforts, she succumbed to her injuries.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: I-I spoke to her, and she was fine. What--? What injuries? Dad. You didn't order an Article 72.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: Came from up top. I wanted you to hear it from me.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: Well, then you're okay with this?
- Captain Jacob Keyes: It's not about being okay.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: No, it's about keeping the deuterium flowing, regardless of the cost.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: It is not that simple.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: It is that simple. It's-it's an Article 72. We're murdering a teenage girl... and I'm complicit.
- Captain Jacob Keyes: We're in a war, Miranda. The future of humanity...
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: What's the point of saving humanity if we're going to give up our own?
- Captain Jacob Keyes: Sometimes you have to make hard choices to get good results.
- Dr. Miranda Keyes: Now who's sounding like Halsey?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: John recovered something on Madrigal. Possibly Covenant.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: We'll add it to our collection.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: No, no, no, no. This... this is different. It's like nothing I've ever seen. We've been fighting these alien creatures for years, and we still have no idea what they want, where to find them, or how to beat them.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Command on Earth want answers. If that object can tell us anything about them, I have a feeling the committee's concern about dead rebels will go away.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: I told you that was a nonstarter.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: We have paused active development.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: You've paused nothing. Catherine, your genius has given us so much to be thankful for. Channel that genius appropriately and legally. Get rid of that, and any others. Clear?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: Clear.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: I've given you a long lead, Doctor. Don't hang me with it.
- Kwan Ha: You don't eat?
- Master Chief: Didn't see anything I liked.
- Kwan Ha: Yeah? What is it you like?
- Master Chief: Nuts. Bolts. Microchips.
- [pause]
- Master Chief: That was a joke.
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: Take down the oxygen in 1-1-7's suit. Don't drop the O2 below 40. I want him unconscious, not dead.
- Admiral Margaret Parangosky: Can the girl survive this?
- Dr. Catherine Halsey: I thought you wanted her dead.