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CHANGES SIX: REDEMPTION

If he was to live, he would have to get away from the bomb; he could go sideways and try to disappear; he might be seen but might not be met by a monster. He could go back, back to the aliens, where he might not be seen but he would be found. He waited, lingering on the edge of the drifting cloud, and plunged back into the swirling dust; he didn't know why. He only felt that it was necessary, as if the call of fate were driving him back into that murkiness.

Thank God the dust was drifting straight away from the town; he counted his paces and estimated when he was about where he had left the bomb. He counted thirty more paces. There were aliens everywhere, but for reasons incomprehensible they were not killing him. Perhaps in the dust he was indistinguishable from the Elites. They were barking, growling, communicating and . . . planning something. At least it sounded like they were. How many paces past the bomb? The creatures were everywhere; one brushed against his side. He shivered, shuddered for a moment; then his body danced and waved in spasms of terror and a scream caught in his throat, stifling him. With infinite courage he forced himself to move, to move at all costs . . . and found that he was running.

There were sounds of alien voices around him; they knew he was there now, and they knew he was not one of them. Fear consumed him and he fled faster, but, catching himself and his mind, realized he must do something, and dove for cover behind a large rock, lying still there. Now he was barely on the far side of the dust-cloud. But then a gust of wind came, and the dust at last rolled away entirely.

He shuddered again, realizing that he had no idea where the detonator was. He felt nothing in his hands. The chill of ultimate failure ran down his spine, and in despair he looked at his hand.

The detonator was there, by a miracle—his fingers still poised above the button. Why hadn't he felt it?

The aliens were just over the rock, scarcely four feet away: Three Elites, talking in their deep voices. They were looking away for the moment: towards the town, where plasma continued to bombard but there was hardly any answering fire. That meant that they were waiting for him to set off the bomb; they didn't dare to show their faces above the walls or the plasma would destroy them.

Infinite courage was realized again. He knew what he wanted to do. Few men had ever looked terror and fate full in the face. Fewer still lived. But to stare at death and defy it, to look in the eyes of a monster that hated Man, and spit in its mouth and watch it die an instant before oneself: that was strength. Or if nothing else, it was the call of fate: and defiance of infinite terror and hate . . . well, at least it would be a manly death.

And so he stood, and leapt over the rock, the detonator high in his hand above his head, and planted his feet behind the nearest Elite and cried out in Human tongue that he defied them. It turned around in a flash and raised its arm, a limb with quite enough power to crack his skull or break his frail Human neck. At the final moment he adjusted his legs so they would be, as near as he could figure, behind the monster's legs. Its arm was in the air falling, but it never fully fell. The Lieutenant's fingers closed on the detonator's button . . . .

A powerful radio signal radiated out in all directions, quickly as light piercing the rocks and bodies and finding its target. The receiver inside the apple caught the beam and relayed a signal to the firing mechanism. The mechanism sparked and the spark caught the fuel, and a sun erupted among the aliens. The ground within a three hundred-yard radius was cleared, and hundreds of Covenant roasted in the fire. The blast caught the Elite in full swing of his mighty arm, hurling its body away, forward, away from ground zero. The killing machine became a protective shield that absorbed all of the shrapnel and flying rocks, and most of the fire, and saved the Lieutenant from the devastating explosion.

The Lieutenant was seeing intense hate in the thing's eyes; if they could hate, did that mean that they were creatures capable of love? Didn't love come first? But even more intense was the terror in its small eyes. Small, the lieutenant felt, was his courage, but it was enough to stand firm. Then the blue mass lurched towards him. The whole word shivered, and all things leapt in that direction, all things but the solid earth. The vibration-wave caught him, too, and his body moved several inches backwards and then back. It was a sickening sensation, and very painful; but it didn't last. It must have been the shrapnel and rocks that drove the Elite to move more than the wave carried it, several feet and into the Lieutenant. The world of red fire faded into darkest black.

He came to and found himself alive and some distance from the town. He forced himself up and began to move. At first he was in too much pain, shock, and weariness to move but a few paces in half a minute, but then he was able to accelerate. He passed the gates after twenty minutes, just as the Covenant massed at the tip of the ridge for an enraged final assault. He was greeted with a deafening cheer by the Marines, and could not help but grin so widely that he felt that the skin on his face must surely split.

Enough was enough. It was time to abandon the walls: they were broken where they were still up, and cracked where they weren't broken. He tried to pick five volunteers to die with him behind the second wall. Every Marine volunteered, and the embattled sergeant threatened mutiny if the Lieutenant did not retreat now to the final line of defense to await the dropship. The Lieutenant was adamant, but so were the Marines. Finally ten Marines were picked out of the much larger number of volunteers to man the second wall. Two were assigned to each bunker, and the rest of the tiny handful of survivors retreated further back.

The Lieutenant joined them, but could only walk very slowly. He would not consent to be carried. But there were sounds of war nearby, and growing nearer steadily. Suddenly they knew that the gate was breached. Behind them the third and final laser held its ground for a moment, and the assault wavered, but the wave was too strong: the tide rolled in over the helpless defense. Last grenades were dropped by dying hands, and more aliens were sent screaming through the air: more drops in a sea . . . .

The Lieutenant and the four men with him were caught by the first scattered plasma shots near a bunker. With no other choice, the Lieutenant went in and readied his weapon, pausing for a moment to order the other three to run for their lives. His eyes were powerful, his glance like fire, and his words were not easily resisted. Two of them ran for survival, and two showed a strength of will strong enough to withstand even the Lieutenant's demand.

They gathered at the bunker's window and watched: five of them. A second bunker was destroyed in green fire; it was scarcely fifty yards nearer to the enemy than they were. The aliens turned their fire on the Lieutenant's bunker. First came the purple needles, dancing randomly above and beneath the window. Then came the blue plasma, just far away enough to not kill the Humans immediately. Then came the green plasma bolts, some small and some larger. The larger ones would have caught onto the humans and tracked them slightly—though not nearly so well as a needle—until it hit them, but the opening was too small for them to lock on. But there were so many of the larger green plasma bolts. The Grunts and Jackals were just outside, the Elites were in the doorway.

One man cried out "Hunters " and another man covered his beloved Lieutenant with his body, and then all disappeared in green fire.

For the second time that day, the Lieutenant came back from the dead. He groped around and found a human hand. Slick and sticky with blood, but a warm, living human hand. He squeezed it for the comfort of them both.

When his strength returned he pushed himself to his feet, looked out the bunker window, and saw one Hunter coming onwards. It was the only Covenant visible. No, no, there were more behind it; but the Hunter was close, and rapidly advancing.

Then the Lieutenant realized that he was carrying the human hand, and that it was no longer attached to a body. He cast it aside in repulsion and then in wonderment that it was probably his last human contact, and he felt that perhaps he should not detest it so.

This place was hell. He had lived in hell for days now, or was it forever? Was it since...since the before-time, in the arid hills? Or was it only since he had stepped off the Pelican onto Lambda Seven? Why was he still alive? It was impossible for a Human to survive as long as he had in this war. No one could survive this long in hell. What superpowers were keeping him alive? Had he called it luck? Strategy? Strength? Yes, they were all true, but now he realized another reason: a fiery spirit and a fierce will to live that could not, would not be conquered. A final reason to fight one last time entered his head: if he survived, he would see beauty again. Deciding beforehand not to allow any considerations of despair, he began to move: walking towards the door, jogging out the door, darting underneath the Hunter's shield.

He began to run.

There are many different kinds of running. First, there is the simple, basic jog where one runs as if for fun, energy being expended until the energy diminishes. Then there is the running hard, the running with a purpose. This is the running that takes up all of the runner's concentration. It requires determination and endurance. This is the running employed by many people who run both for joy and for health. Then there is the running that takes one to the limit. It is employed when strength wells up out of the depths of a man's soul and drives him to move against all odds: against all weariness and all physical pain. It is the running of those who are truly committed to war games, the running of those in the final stages of a marathon, and especially the running of soldiers fleeing from the battlefield.

The Lieutenant had reached his limit. He pushed the pain back inside his head; it was something to be ignored. He felt the fear but focused on the will to live. A man had many false limits, and one's true limits are never found until one goes much, much farther than he thinks he can go. This he had learned well in recent years.

The pain throbbed deep inside his bones, and his skin was burning with the need for more sweat. The Lieutenant had reached his true limit, and he had no more strength. He was about to fall in the dust, to be burned and his body torn to pieces and lie dead in the dust.

He used his last strength of will. He pushed himself just an touch beyond the limit. The pain was now like a roaring waterfall screaming in his brain. The Lieutenant remembered duty and the will to live because he was a human, and there was something beautiful about being human. He pushed himself just a little bit farther. He was now running like a whirlwind, and the pursuing foe was falling behind. Like a hurricane he swept past the objects of the burned-out town, and passed swiftly across the dust like the shadow he had been in the twisted hills of sand when all had changed and his life had become this hell.

He remembered a word: beauty. In his exhaustion he could not think what it was: there was only running in this world. Running and its pain. Running, and running was his glory. He was free, unconquered, wild and strong, a man, and running was his glory. And somewhere else there was another world (before things had changed) and somewhere ahead, perhaps, lay another change beyond which beauty would be visible and freedom could actually be enjoyed.

Beyond the limit he ran. Beyond human endurance. A brownish shape loomed before him and his subconscious whispered to his conscious that it was his destination.

And then, for some reason, the Lieutenant fell. One last tearing spasm of pain ripped through his body and he felt nothing. Behind him the Hunter came on, roaring with rage, its shield raised to crush.

The Lieutenant was dimly—barely—aware of the final pistol shot fired on Lambda Seven.

Behind him the Hunter collapsed.

The Lieutenant was dimly aware of something soft but strong on his hand—another hand—and hands on his waist, his back, moving him. He felt his muscles straining futilely to lift his own body up, and was unaware that his nerves had relayed a message from his brain telling them to do so.

He came to, and the world felt like a dream. There was immense pain, but it was all inside him. Outside it was soft. Warm but not hot: quite cool, actually, compared to hell.

But hell had been called "Lambda Seven." It came back to him: the disattached human hand, the dust, the blood, the innumerable corpses, the flying plasma.

And he also remembered that he had been drinking fresh water a moment ago. He had not known it at the time—at least, not that he knew of—but now he somehow remembered it.

Beside him was a lovely face. He remembered what the face was called . . . Maria. He found he could slowly move. He rotated his head and looked around. At Maria's feet was a pistol. He closed his eyes, and went back to the nightmare, driven back to hell by curiosity.

Yes . . . yes . . . there had been one pistol shot. It might have been hers.

There were more people. A few feet away on the other side of the ship was an old friend, a brother, a blood-brother, someone he must have known since he was born. Wasn't this the dearest friend he had ever had . . . but what was his name?

Oh yes . . . it was the embattled sergeant across the way, one with whom the Lieutenant had shed his blood, now become his brother.

People were talking. Someone said that a Spartan had survived, whatever that meant. The Lieutenant wondered what calamity it was that the Spartan had survived. Suddenly the Lieutenant realized that he had been asleep and had just woken up. Now they were talking about a ring. A huge ring floating somewhere in space. They had been repeating the word "halo" for some time. Someone said, "The MC is being sent to Earth now."

The Lieutenant tried to speak for the first time. He tried to ask where they were going, but the words were slurred and incomprehensible. He cleared his throat, let someone pour water between his lips, and again asked, "Where are we headed?" He was barely able to croak out the words.


"To Earth" someone said. "For the end. The end of . . ."

". . . of hell or humanity" finished the Lieutenant, his voice raspy and full of weariness. "It's one or the other."

After a pause the embattled sergeant said, "Say, Lieutenant, what's your name?"

"Adams. Jeremiah Adams. What's yours?"

"David."

"Who all survived that, David?"

"Five Marines, ten more civilians counting Maria here. All the scientists."

The Lieutenant wept for his fallen brothers, but knew that he could not cry for very long. He would have to rest, and most likely get back to the bloodred war after a time, though maybe he could take some vacation time even after he left sick bay. Sick bay: thank God, if there was one, for a few days in sick bay to do nothing but sleep and maybe read books. Egads, the way he felt, it might be weeks in sick bay. Later when he didn't feel so tired he would have to check himself and make sure there were no body parts missing.

This time in hospital he would pay strict attention to the books to see if he could find a final answer. If there were any philosophical system, any God, any religion, anything at all, that commanded duty and adored beauty without any contradiction between the two, that belief must be truth, and the Lieutenant would have to find it. If there were any system, any God, any religion, that explained just what is so beautiful about being human, that said why humanity is worth fighting for . . .

He was still barely more than a child in his years. Once again he wept for the death of innocence and for the loss of good lives. He wept for his comrades in arms. But then he looked at Maria and wept that her beauty had emerged from the battle unscathed. Her eyes betrayed deep sorrow at the loss of her home and—who knows—maybe some of her relatives had died—maybe he would ask her—but her beauty seemed all the brighter for the sorrow.

And so finally the boy warrior and Lieutenant wept that, through his own scars, someone else might be preserved. And, bearing scars, he would live on. If he had a chance, he would find something better than what he had now.

"But that is the beginning of a new story—the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended."

-The final words of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment."

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