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Draconic's Fic, Chapter Thirteen: Unforgotten
Posted By: Kathryne Charles<Ishdakitty@gmail.com>
Date: 8 June 2006, 5:10 am
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Chapter Thirteen: Unforgotten
The Iliad and the Odyssey were intended as humankind's first true migration to the far reaches of space. The first two commercialized vessels ever created with Shaw-Fujikawa engines were commissioned by the Trans-Universal Emigration Association; civilian economic geniuses trying to get a foothold on what had been primarily military interests. The TUEA intended to take two thousand "ordinary" people along with another thousand specialists to a small yellow star at the far reaches of explored space. They hoped to settle on the earth-like planet in orbit of A-3317-C, forever hallmarking the TUEA as the Forefathers of spatial colonization.
Instead, the twin ships vanished into Slipstream and were never seen again. Following several lawsuits and criminal investigations, the TUEA because synonymous with colossal failure instead; the phrase "Tuea'd" rapidly became employed in the same respect as "Fubar".
Unbeknownst to the human race, the Iliad and Odyssey were lost due not to human failure so much as human shortcomings. A-3317-C was shadowed by a microscopic point-singularity. The miniature black hole was self-sustained, drawing more energy from Slipstream space than real space. It's position between two stars sharing a similar gravitational pull made it invisible on most light spectrums. The scientists who chose the Iliad and the Odyssey's final destination had no way of knowing what they were sending the ships into. When the vessels reached the gravitational distortion the Iliad was ripped to shreds instantly, sucked into the black hole. The Odyssey caught the very edge of the rippled space, and was flung at incredible speed from one end of the universe to the other in a matter of moments. They terrified skeleton crew barely managed to drop out of Slipstream before the momentum carried them into the yawning emptiness between galaxies.
The crew had to stop and rush the windows in the moments following the disaster; shocked by the beautiful glistening world they hung in orbit over. Proof had finally been found that Humankind was not alone in the universe. They Odyssey had found the Sangheili homeworld. Astonished delight was quickly replaced by horror; in the wake of the discovery the Odyssey was boarded and her crew drug from her corpse. The Sangheili homeworld was inhabited by the strongest of their race, the dissenters long gone. Nobles and military personnel had no time for diplomatic talks with the lost fifteen hundred souls, and after pressure from the noble class the remaining crew was forced into servitude. Over the years defiance was beaten and bred from the soft human slaves, and the Odyssians over time forgot their true roots in the galaxy. When the Covenant preachers began their religious propaganda against the rapidly spreading human race, the ears of the nobles and the slaves alike perked in response.
More humans began trickling into the market as the planets were glassed; sneaking human survivors off dead worlds became a popular, if illicit, method of supplementing a meager soldier's income. It rapidly became apparent that the difference between the humans and the Odyssians was a vast one. Odyssians always looked down as their masters preferred. Humans still looked to the stars. The servitude-bred subrace loathed their cousins with a passion that surprised even themselves.
It's because they envy us. Rebekka Lane had spent most of her life enduring the dark, hateful looks of those born in slavery. Unperturbed, she walked on the lower-gravity world with elegant ease. She had been born on Jericho-7, a world barely qualified for colonization due to its gravity. She'd had a normal childhood, with kindergarten classes and playmates. A tomboy of sorts, she'd played minor-league soccer when she was six, and excelled. But nine days before her birthday, an alien army fell from the sky. Homes had been leveled, and her school had been hit with a bomb in the early hours. She still remembered looking at the old red building reduced to burning rubble, in shock and feeling a child's morbid amusement as the universally shared childhood dream came true. She'd been rushed along with the other evacuees; shoved into some corner as grownups argued over futile plans. Some lady had snapped a picture of her cuddling her teddy for comfort before moving on to the next group of survivors. When the enemy soldiers stormed the building, Bekka had crawled under a table and cowered in fear till the Unggoy had dragged her out. Glowing weapons had been aimed at her in unison, but one of the massive blue aliens had waved them away, crouching in front of her and focusing intelligent black eyes on her. She'd stared back wide-eyed as he argued with the others, and eventually she'd been picked up and carried back to their landing ship.
She couldn't really remember anything after that, until they'd settled in orbit over an alien planet. The sight of the massive blue world rising through the frosted violet windows had snapped her out of the dream-like state she'd been in. She knew now, after years of living here, that she'd been one of the lucky ones. With her natural strength from early years on a high-gravity world and her relative youth, she'd been perfect for Sangheili slavery.
"Watch where you are going, scum!" She glanced back from the old memories at two adolescent Sangheili males who stepped in her way. A sniggering female looked on. Bekka rolled her eyes in an echo of her mother and stepped aside. The smaller male followed her step, chuckling in his low voice and snapping his jaws in her face. He looked annoyed when she didn't jump back. She squared her shoulders and looked him over critically. Raised by the family of the very soldier who saved her, she'd been given the very privileged service of the youngest son's personal servant and companion. Triselii, their world, had been in the early days of it's population during the first baby boom in the war's wake. There had been very few children of Patki's age, and the human girl had helped distract him from his busy noble mother.
He'd been insistent on becoming a warrior with every breath, and Bekka had trained at his side, struggling to keep up with the naturally fit Sangheili boy. She had a physique that put most Olympic athletes to shame, but maintained a deceptively slim figure due to the training techniques. The boy who blocked her path had a major advantage of height, but Bekka would have bet a great deal that she could put him down with a few hits; there were definite weak points that could be utilized in an unfair fight. While the quad-jaw formation of the Sangheili was unnerving to see at first with it's rows of vicious teeth, it was actually a rather fragile configuration. The near-hollow bones that allowed such large creatures to exist were broken as easily as a human's nose. The boy wasn't wearing the dense jawguards that warriors favored. A fast right punch with all her weight behind it would probably crack the lower left mandible, although such a scuffle would result in severe punishment.
She just stared at him, debating the punishment against the satisfaction of a fight, unnerving him enough to send his weight shifting back slightly. Years of training guaranteed a win; his sudden uncertainty would slow his reactions. She got as far as balling a fist before he jumped back a pace, hunching in respect. Bekka sighed and looked over her shoulder at Patki, who was watching in bemusement. Where their training had been stonewalled in her at the physical peak of human musculature, it had turned him into the poster-child of the Sangheili military. He stared down from a great height as the children quickly jumped out of their path. Bekka snorted and continued walking, Patki falling a pace behind.
"You are going to get yourself in to trouble one of these days, Bekii." He gave her their version of a smile as she shrugged, an all-too-human gesture that had never been beaten out. Not that she'd been beaten often, Patki threw such a fit at his mother when she would order Bekka punished that the girl escaped most of the Sangheili brutality that was the legacy of the Odyssians.
"Probably. But I'll go down remembering the look on their faces. That alone would be worth it." Fashioning conjunctions out of the Sangheili language was a tough challenge, but it helped her cling to her lingual heritage. Long ago she'd taught Patki Commonly Applied English, the accepted language of most space colonized worlds. CAE, pronounced "Sigh," was a bastard combination of English, Spanish, French and Japanese. Unlearning CAE was one of the first training courses in the UNSC, which favored a more traditional English. Of course, if Patki's mother ever learned that it was Bekka's covert teaching that eventually led to his defection from military life, the human had no doubts the Sangheili matriarch would have her drawn and quartered.
"So what are your plans now? Your mum probably will not be too happy to see you hanging around again." She was careful to keep her most recent set of bruises under the restrictive clothing servants wore.
"Well, Father sympathizes with me. After all, something made him want to save you back in the day. He has offered to pay for transport wherever I decide to go. There is a colony base a few light years out from here, I am going to try my luck out there." He paused. "You are going to come with me."
Bekka smiled up gratefully. It was difficult to keep her relief from showing, and the shiver wasn't completely suppressed. "I was hoping you would say that." Patki's bright, shining future as a covenant soldier had ended in one brief confrontation on a human world they were overrunning. He'd been second in command of a squad, and enthusiastic about his position in spite being raised along with a human child. They had been guarding a human structure, which had some artifacts of interest within, when a human woman had darted out from behind a building. His commander had caught her easily and tossed her into a wall, where she slouched down, protecting a crying bundle in her hands. She had looked up tearfully, and begged. "Please don't hurt my baby…" Patki, with his knowledge of CAE, had felt sympathy welling up. Then his commander had attached a plasma grenade to her chest and stepped back.
Laughing.
Patki's official report was that several human soldiers had overpowered them with stolen covenant weapons, and he'd been lucky to be the only one to survive. He'd left the military immediately following the incident. It was his mother's heritage that had protected him to some degree, although her pedigree was stretched thin these days. He had only returned to Triselii to gather his belongings; namely Rebekka. He glanced down and smiled, her step was lighter and she didn't bother to exchange the usual glares with the Odyssian servants who stood silently in the doorway.
"Why the colony base?"
"I have an aunt there. Very un-official. Walked out on the family years ago."
"Is this a common thing for your family?"
Patki grinned as he entered his personal code to open the doorway to his childhood home. His mother was standing there, fuming on the other side of the door, and before the torrent of her wrath started, he answered Bekka with a rueful tone. "Actually…yes."
Jhonan yawned and read the paragraph explaining the ship's modified drive for the third time in a row, finally giving up and settling back to just look out the forward window. Although Slipstream made the stars invisible, the Draconic had advanced sensors that pinpointed and holographicly displayed the locations of such massive gravity wells in realspace. The stars rushed past like the old screensaver that had been popular in the late twentieth century. It was easy and mindless to watch. He was drawn back to reality as a pale wraith of color appeared on the sensors and the ship slowed automatically, holocrystals on the pad between pilot stations rapidly warming.
"What have we here? Cyke, I need you on the bridge, we've finally got a chance to try out the weapon drive." The cool female voice was accompanied by the appearance of a holographic pilot geared up like Cyclone. She gave a bright smile to Jhonan and waved.
"Who the hell are you?
"I'm Draconic."
"Oh, like the ship?"
"No. Its 'The [I]Draconic[/I],' I'm just plain old Draconic."
"Uh…okay." He frowned, remembering Cyke's description of how badly AIs and NIPs got along. "What are you doing here?" Cyke hotfooted onto the bridge, Matthieson close behind.
"She's with me. Drac, run a full analysis on the ship, we don't need any mistakes."
"Already done, it's orbiting a human inhabited planet called…" the holocrystals darkened as she delved into the ships astrolocation information, "Belvius. Who names their planet 'Belvius' anyway? It's currently in combat with three UNSC cruisers. They seem to be losing the fight."
Jhonan felt a shiver run down his back. "Wait, we're just hovering in Slipstream? I though you had to be moving to maintain the field."
"No, thanks to certain information gleaned from one of the artifacts, we've managed to develop a drive capable of a lot more sophisticated maneuvers." Draconic smiled at him coyly. "Just wait till you see how the ships got their name. Captain, permission to bring the Firestorm drive online?"
Matthieson nodded, and settled in his chair. "If you are certain the ship can handle it."
There was a soft hum through the entire ship, and on the pilot's panels an overlay of the engines appeared. Jhonan watched in interest as a small device shot out from where the three engines intersected, and hovered with a small metal link to the back of the ship. The engines shifted slightly, no longer facing straight out the back but turning to cross exhaust fields. All three intersected on the small metal ball that began to send the bridge a new stream of information.
"Dark, please drop us into realspace and plot an intercept course with the covenant craft." Matthieson frowned; knowing the specs and actively watching the Firestorm in action were two very different things. The pilot responded immediately, although he looked a bit nervous as the ships short-range engines sent them hurtling towards the violet dot that was rapidly growing into an enemy vessel.
"Switching all sensors to passive mode and raising the active camo." The ship's silver exterior faded to matte black at the AI's command, and the girl vanished from the panel as all her attention went into the mathematical equations. The blue form of Cortana appeared in her place, and all three men blinked in surprise.
She shrugged unrepentantly. "What? Draconic is doing all the math, I'm just a passenger. I want to watch this." The forward screen cleared to show a beautiful blue and green orb turning gracefully under the firefight in her orbit. Signals from the UNSC ships taking fire clogged the channels, cries for help calling out to ships several light years too far away. The [I]Draconic[/I] slipped in silently, and as her engines started to heat up, Jhonan swallowed hard.
"Sir, on this course we're going to crash into her."
"No, Dark." Cyke grinned as he entered the last few codes, reading the enemy ship's shield frequency and setting the [I]Draconic[/I]'s to match. "Just have a little faith." Dark sighed and remembered a promise he made to god the last time he was hanging over a planet facing doom, and vowed to at least keep his eyes open this time. The small black dart rushed the Covenant vessel and appeared on her sensors seconds too late. As the shields met they shared a frequency, allowing the human's protective field to complete the circuit and meld smoothly through. Point five meters away from impact a small, unstable window into slipstream appeared, and the [I]Draconic[/I] shot through. Jhonan held his breath as they emerged an instant later. He accessed the rear view, and whooped aloud, unable to help himself. The Firestorm-class vessel had left the window open behind them, a tube through the belly of the ship that was unstable and barely holding together. Streams of matter shot out both the impact zone and exit point, as the gravitational rift fought to close itself. In the silence of space, the Covenant cruiser imploded.
"FIRE STORM. We're employing a Focused Intersection Replenishment Engine capable of performing what we call a 'Slipstream Trans-Occupational Realspace Maneuver.' Quite a mouthful, but it's the most recent super weapon in the UNSC. The intersecting exhaust fields power the short-range Slipstream jump without being quite enough to solidify the gap. Gravity doesn't countenance snarls, so in a matter of seconds the field collapses with a rather violent bang. After we're already clear, of course. Not bad for little ship, eh?" Draconic appeared alongside Cortana, an amusing sight as neither of them had much space.
"Any problems with the engines?"
"Nope. Shaw-Fujikawa drives back online and operating at full capacity. I'm reverting them back to their travel configuration now." Cortana made an annoyed sound and vanished. Draconic smoothed her jumper out as though the holographic fabric was real.
"Very well, Dark, get us back onto our original course, please. I'm going back to my bunk." Matthieson got out of his chair, as Jhonan cleared his throat.
"Those people are wondering what happened, sir. Are we going to signal them?"
"Regretfully, no. The UNSC will be here soon enough to smooth things out, but the Firestorm is still classified." He set a hand on his half-brother's shoulder. "This is what it feels like to be involved in ONI, kid. We get to be guardian angels without any of the perks."
Jhonan frowned at his back as he walked away. "What perks, exactly?"
The captain's voice came back laughing from the corridor beyond. "Chicks. Chicks dig a guy with wings."
Cyke was busy pouring over data recorded during the weapon's use, but the teenage AI smiled shyly at him from the holopad. "It's true, you know. I wonder if it goes both ways?" Her image shivered, and pale gold wings materialized on her back, matching her hair. The pilot blinked in surprise; he'd thought it was harder than that for an AI to change their self-assigned form. She gave a little frown at the new addition. "More dragon-like than angelic, I'm afraid."
"I dig it," he said with a grin. She smiled even more, and he got the feeling she was winking behind the visor.
[I]It's gonna be an interesting month[/I].
The need to scream was one of the most basic human needs; a physical reaction to fear or horror that preserved sanity through giving some small release to the battered human mind. Suspended in a web of pain, Halley fought for that release in utter desperation. The device being used was generating a field of electricity that locked muscles in place without causing any permanent damage. Fire raced through her veins in an unending cycle of agony, but the device was only secondary to the true torture. It only made things easier for her tormenters. Face down, she should only have been able to see the floor, but the Ahzentia had thoughtfully set up mirrors so she could witness their experiments. It amused them to ask her for her input after the fact.
She watched without the ability to scream as they took small plasma knives and began cutting into her back. It was all very clinical, and distantly she wondered why someone would dissect her through the back…humans started in on the chest. She choked, and vomited, and that same part of her mind wondered if the setup was to prevent her from drowning. In the reflective surface, skin began to run like melted wax.
Halley's pupils widened to swallow the iris and beyond. Violet light banked out her vision and the electricity broke long enough for that scream to finally escape…
…Halley hit the floor and grunted, rolling instinctively to her feet before she even knew what was going on. She gasped, her throat raw and her head pounding, but the room was cool and dark. The dream was already receding into her subconscious mind, and she looked to the hammock that swung slowly opposite her own. Miira was already asleep again; she was becoming adept at kicking Halley's bed over and passing back out in the same move. The Spartan took a few moments to gather herself and climbed back into the swinging net, which barely accommodated for the fetal position she curled into.
She refused to cry.
"I hate you, demon." Miira scowled ferociously at the unperturbed woman who wolfed down a full plate of purple vegetables that she claimed was "better than broccoli." Whatever this broccoli was, it must have been disgusting; even the Unggoy turned up their noses at the purple stuff. Apart from the demon, only Engineers consumed it, and Miira was relatively certain they didn't have taste buds.
"You are not the one who wakes up with bruises from being kicked out of bed every morning."
"I would prefer bruises to waking up to that horrible noise you make." She shook her head in disgust.
"Sorry. Humans call them…" Halley munched on, trying to find a translation. "Night terrors, I believe is as close as it gets."
Miira shuddered, the words "Night terrors" conjured up all kinds of childhood memories. "To cause such a sound they must be terrible indeed. Do you remember them?"
"Nope." The demon was a good liar. Her tone and inflection were perfect, but she broke into a cool sweat at the mention of her dreams, and to the keen reptilian-like sense of smell the Sangheili possessed, it was easy to pick up. No matter how often the demon bathed, the smell never completely went away. A small plant now grew in their shared quarters under a small radiation lamp; it was a small green bush that grew like a weed on several planets. Halley had discovered it on one of their excursions, and had been remarkably excited by the find. She called it "mint" and claimed that the plant was also found on earth. Miira was just glad that when the demon chewed the leaves it sweetened her breath somewhat. In the weeks since her unusual companion had arrived, Miira had grown rather fond of her in spite of the disruptions to her usual routine. Not that the Elite would ever admit to it.
"Well, prepare yourself. Tomorrow you will see for the first time what the lives of the free Sangheili are like. I am meeting with a companion on one of our colony bases."
"A Sangheili space station? Wait, wait… 'free' Sangheili? Since when have you not been free? You take over our planets, you kill every living thing you find as long as your prophets cry 'heretic' and shake a stick at it, and you blithely rule over all the Covenant races in your command. If that is slavery, sign me up."
"Shake a stick?"
"Human expression. Stems from a human religion called Voodoo, where priests shake magic sticks at you to curse you."
"How many religions do you have?" Miira was surprised to hear evidence of extended faiths; she'd always believed the human race was uniformly atheistic.
"Hundreds, really, most of them dead now. We started studying them more intently when we realized we were fighting an enemy on a religious crusade. For all the good it did us." She finished her meal and stood up. She ran a hand through her hair, which now hung well past her shoulder blades. As the Covenant had no real concept of a "brush," she had braided most of the white mass to keep it back from her face. The rare, brief glimpses of her reflection showed a feral being staring back; wide, paranoid eyes framed in a wild mane of braided snow. No one dared lay a hand on her save Miira, although she was relatively certain that was due to the Elite's possessive nature. Halley was quite simply a pet, albeit a well kept one.
"Just when I think I have your kind figured out."
"How can you expect to learn about a culture if you just kill it off?"
Miira shifted uncomfortably, meeting the cold blue gaze of the demon was remarkably unnerving, even if the unarmored creature was considerably weaker. Something under the veneer of a shattered mind stirred in the icy depths of her eyes like a sea creature ever moving slowly to the surface. Miira dropped a mandible open and turned her gaze away. "The Covenant at the behest of the Prophets seek your destruction. I long ago learned co-existance may eventually be necessary." She looked over again, and the demon's eyes had returned to the usual placid stare, the thing in them gone or better hidden. The thought of her kin moved Miira's words to passion. "Your best chance for creating a lasting peace is to avoid the Covenant altogether. The colony base will speak for itself. You say we are free, yet when you see how our brethren live there, perhaps you will understand that leadership and self-empowerment are not always synonymous."
"You spoke too fast. What did you just say?"
Miira sighed heavily, and pressed her palm to her forehead, a gesture picked up from her pet. "I really hate you, Demon."
"What else is new?"
Paul stood silently at attention, staring out the frosted windows of the welcome center in Obsidan's PHD. A testament to the seriousness of the day was the presence of Sparks just behind him and to his left, still and silent. He waited for three full minutes for her to speak, but she just waited, an unprecedented gesture of support. He managed a slight smile and looked back at her. "Is the team ready?"
"Yes, sir. We're just waiting for our final orders before heading topside."
"Tell them we move out at 0800." He returned his eyes to the dead campus, well in the grip of an unusually cold winter. It suited his mood. Paul had never wanted to command the Beta Spartans. It wasn't that he couldn't, it was just that command had always been Halley's. Her remarkably inane ideas that so often panned out as brilliant tactical maneuvers, her ability to keep Nile in check, and her constantly flaring temper that he'd always had to try to counter were all deep holes now. He'd lost teammates before. The Beta team had always been under equipped, their armor usually the leftovers after the Alpha team was suited up. The budget Dr. Halsey was afforded didn't fully cover both teams, and when she was pulled out of Spartan II towards the end of their training, their priority had been dropped to a sad tertiary position. There had been more casualties in the Beta Spartans until the disaster at Reach. Paul was used to losing friends. He just wasn't prepared to lose his best friend.
Sparks moved off silently, and a much bigger shape took her place behind him. A hand that easily palmed his shoulder pauldron settled there, and Paul sighed hard. "Come on, bro. Time to go give 'em hell."
Nile's voice summoned up the very satisfying image of the Brute who'd given them their information. It had been stoic against the threats of torture, till they brought in it's last surviving companion. Paul had literally kicked the second brute's head in, crushing it's scull till it was little more than paste. After that, getting answers had been easy. Paul felt no remorse, only harsh satisfaction.
"She's out there, Paul. She's not dead, no matter what MC said. Hell, we've known her since forever. She's probably out there somewhere fighting her way back to us. That kid was tough as nails." Paul frowned and clenched a fist. For all the bigger Spartan's bravado, Paul couldn't see it his way. Halley had been taken by a race known to the Brutes for their cruelty…a cruelty so intense that even the massive simian aliens feared being caught by them. Better that she was dead.
"Inform the Captain we will be onboard shortly." He pulled away from Nile's attempt to comfort and walked towards the tarmac. He had no intentions of letting his Chief's death cripple him.
It was going to fuel his revenge.
Hugging her daughter goodbye was one of the hardest things Jean Schaeffer ever had to do. The past two years or so on Obsidan had been wonderful, the home they always wanted. Then two weeks ago the mail had brought the end of their dream life. The UNSC had revoked Jean's permanent base status. A massive battle on the Han Medical Station had ended the lives and careers of three hundred medical personnel. As a result, the Navy was pulling the most experienced battlefront medics back into service, and Jean had been at the top of the list.
Last night's conversation had been about divorce.
"It's not like The UNSC has never done anything for us." The argument sounded hollow even in her own ears. Her husband sat on the bed with his face in his hands, anger giving way to pain. "We couldn't afford a home like this on our own, and the school Sarah is going to is ranked number one in UNSC controlled space. You know how many schools that is? And our medical benefits, love, we couldn't have afforded your back surgery without them." She knelt before her husband, who met her eyes reluctantly. "I knew, we knew, that there was every possibility that this would happen someday. The war isn't won, no matter how good things are looking."
"This assignment, how long is it for?"
"Undetermined." She broke eye contact and sat back. "Could be months, could be years."
"How many of your daughter's birthdays do you want to miss? You haven't even been there for half. Half!" The anger was there again, and he stormed into the bathroom attached to the main bedroom. She heard the water running, and forced herself to be strong.
"If you want to file for divorce, I'll understand." The water shut off, and silence prevailed for a long moment.
"Jean…" He stepped back into the room with a sigh, and dropped back onto the bed. "I don't want a divorce. I just want us to be a family."
"You don't think I want that too?" Jean scowled and rubbed at the headache slowly expanding in her temples. "Do you know how many under-seventeen orphans there are from this war? The last census suggested almost a billion. A Billion. That's almost a sixth of Earth's natural population! And nearly a third of them are dying from lack of food and medical care. I love our daughter. I love this life." She stood up, suddenly fired to passion. "But I learned to do what I do because it's necessary. Medical professionals are desperately needed, and I'm not going to turn my back on humanity just because I've had a glimpse of how good life can be." She turned to go, but Daniel caught her wrist. She let him pull her back to the bed, all the fight suddenly gone in a rush of tears.
"I know, baby. I know. We'll make it work."
Sarah was older than the last time her mother left on a campaign, and explaining it to her had been a little easier this time around. The school really was top-notch, the nine-year old was far more mature than many other children her age. She wasn't happy, but she understood math now. There were a lot more hurt people than doctors, so her mommy had to go help other little girls and boys. She hugged Jean solemnly, and met her eyes with pride.
"When I grow up, I'm going to be a doctor. Then we can help even more people, okay?" The childish words wrenched Jeans heart out, and she couldn't even word a response, only hugged her child again fiercely. When she rose again she hugged her husband, absorbing the memory as best she could.
"Come home to us." He barely managed the whisper, and when he pulled back he couldn't meet her gaze. The cavernous PHD welcome center had been so warm when she arrived, and now it seemed to swallow her whole. Sarah's eyes suddenly widened, and she pointed franticly to some place past her mother's shoulder.
"Look! Mommy! It's a SPARTAN." The huge armored figure turned it's head, hearing her from an impossible distance. He reached up and pulled his helmet off, walking towards the three of them with a slight smile on his scarred features. Sarah was practically shaking with excitement, and Jean brushed back tears and smiled back.
"Dr. Schaeffer?" Going back to school on Obsidan had been well worth it, she still got a thrill out of the title. "You'll be riding up in our shuttle today." Sarah made a noise halfway between a squeal and a giggle, and the Spartan knelt down. He was so big he barely managed to reach her eye-level.
"My mommy is going with you?" She stuck her thumb in her mouth, a long broken habit surfacing in the face of such an unnervingly big adult.
"Yup, kiddo. I'm gonna keep an eye on her and make sure she comes home, okay?" Sarah nodded, leaning against her father's legs. The Spartan looked unimaginably tough, with short, midnight black hair and a scar that covered most of his face. She grinned around her thumb; it was easy to believe he could protect her mother. He straightened and stepped back, walking calmly towards the exit ramp to the tarmac. Jean hugged her daughter one more time.
"I love you, baby. Don't you ever forget it." Reluctantly she turned and followed the Spartan out of the room.
Sarah tugged at her father's leg, and he looked down, smiling and trying to be strong for her sake. "Yes hunny?"
"I changed my mind. Can I be a Spartan when I grow up?"
Most artifacts has some level of sentience. One, however, had a sense of gender. She called herself Lithili, and hung in her silent cocoon of metal, waiting for her visitors. The Other had passed close by, but they were not meant to meet yet. It was reassuring, though, to sense Imriel's passing, even if it's thoughts were fractured into separate personalities. It had already found one of it's missing pieces, and both artifacts now traveled in a host of flesh and bone. The mind in control was only a facet of Imriel, forged in the fires of mortal life. Already, though, the facet was losing it's distinct edges, and the mind was beginning to merge into a whole.
But Imriel and it's counterpart Halley had passed on by in Slipspace.
The others were coming to seek Lithili, thinking her no more sentient than any other rock. They had to be tested. She could see both ways in time, from the massive, ever growing past to the billions of possible futures that could be woven of the fabric of the present. It was her calling to share them. The mind that would soon be born in it's second reincarnation. The being who defied the very rules of statistical variance. The end to her long slumber. All approached as fast as human ships could fly.
Lithili waited.
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