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Draconic's Fic, Chapter 12: The Longest Road
Posted By: Kathryne Charles<Ishdakitty@gmail.com>
Date: 14 January 2006, 3:39 pm
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Chapter Twelve: The Longest Road
Miira stared down the corridor of the Ahzentian ship with a feeling not unlike claustrophobia. The vessel was lightless, and while the Sangheili had excellent night vision, they weren't a race born to utter darkness. The halls were nearly twice her height, yet their width was half of what she was accustomed to, giving the optical illusion of the continuing walkway ahead constantly narrowing. She shook off the edgy feeling and glanced down at the Unggoy trailing nervously in her wake. The Elites behind her were taking up careful positions, but they seemed almost disdainful of the tiny aliens following faithfully with them. She dropped her jaws in a little smile at the Unggoy closest, and he nodded back, making a sweet little chirrup sound in thanks. Strangely, reassuring the little creature seemed to reassure herself. Compassion, it seemed, was not always a weakness.
She crept further on, but lights up ahead caught her attention and she activated her camouflage cloak, motioning the others to do the same. She briefly thought of the Arbiter as she did so; she had been teasing him to get an effective cloak since they'd met. He obstinately refused to part with his Arbiter's suit, and the idea of upgrading the beautiful, antique armor was utterly abhorrent to the stubbornly traditional Sangheili male. Miira wrenched her focus back, remembering his last words before they parted, and scanned the area for a tactical advantage. She crouched and leapt towards the bars set into the ceiling, pulling herself up into an out of the way position where she could still see the action below. She pulled her swords out and her thumbs hovered over the activation switches.
Two Brutes entered the hall bearing their version of the plasma rifle, peering about shortsightedly in the dark. They passed under her, grunting at each other in what did not register to Miira's translation device as words. She watched as one moved a little further ahead, and the other stopped directly beneath her position. She gave a little smile; her luck was running well today. She dropped silently but for the hiss of her blades springing forth, and landed on the Brute's back with both plasma spikes sinking to the hilts behind its massive shoulder blades. It roared in agony and bent back, hands flailing at the invisible weight just past its fingertips. Miira extended her arms and pushed the blades down, sawing through its ribcage as her weight became suspended over the plasma swords. She dropped as the body did, the Brute gurgling in death, and it's partner roared in rage and turned clumsily in the thin hallway to face her. Once it's back was turned, the Unggoy and Sangheili positioned in the hall opened fire, and under the massive assault of green plasma, it joined it's companion in the land of the dead.
Miira hefted one of the plasma rifles, testing the charge and the weight, and stepped up to a quaking Unggoy who was looking at its depleted pistol in dismay. She handed it the weapon, and it stared up as though it had never seen an Elite before.
"You give to Tehgli? But I nothing but Grunt!"
"Your weapon is empty. You may well have fired the killing shot. You have earned it." He took it, almost reverently.
"My thanks, Swordsong. I use it well, Tehgli promise!"
"Swordsong?" She bobbed her head quizzically.
"We Unggoy say you need title. You kill enemy, they don't see anything coming but hear the blades humming their death! We call you Swordsong now. Is that okay?"
"Yes, that is fine." She worked to keep the amused smile off her face. As far as titles and nicknames given by the Unggoy went, she could do far worse than "Swordsong." One of her Elites policed the other Brute plasma rifle, and her team nodded. She stalked down the hall towards the navigational marker on her eye inserts, confident that no threat could hold her team back.
John was starting to hate portholes. The Draconic's Cryogenic Suspension Chamber sported three such windows so that newly re-awakened crewmembers could get a bearing of their location, and the Chief stood by one of them, wallowing in memories. He touched the glass against his will, and could almost see the pale, wraithlike image of fingers touching the opposite side. He hated remembering her. He hated hurting in a way that didn't shrug off like an injury. He hated emotion.
Damnit, soldier. Why did you have to say it? It wasn't her final words that ate away at him in a constant twinge of guilt. It was the fact that this very helmet kept him from saying it back. She'd known that under all the rigors of duty and responsibility that stood between them constantly he'd loved her like an idiot teenager. But he'd never said it, and his last chance had been locked behind a visor. Ironically, he now needed the visor to keep his expression from showing to those around him. His voice was cold, but the look of concerned sympathy he received when his face was revealed was more than he could take. All this pain. And all over a stupid relationship I never should have engaged in. He couldn't wish the memories gone. The brief, bright light that Halley had been in his life had healed years of the cold darkness. The war had almost destroyed who he was aside from just "Master Chief." Everything in his life made him a soldier, a killing machine. Halley had made him human.
He resented it.
The Marines of Echo Company were laughing and prepping for their extended stay in the freezer, and a chorus of whistles and catcalls filled the room as the women of the Company started undressing. The girls laughed good-naturedly and threatened the men with bodily harm, and Caleb sidled over to Crissa, eyebrows dancing. "So…you think two of us could fit in one of these?"
She laughed and smacked his shoulder. "Don't be such a goon, Cal." She tossed her shirt at him and he sighed, shaking his head.
"Guess I'll have to settle for the view."
"Speaking of views…I guess it's pretty cold in here, eh?" She grinned as the men immediately switched topics. Crissa grabbed a pair of the green pills on the table and a small cup of the activator fluid, and downed both. "Ugh, they haven't changed the flavor yet? I hate lime." The pills dissolved quickly in her stomach, and she stepped towards the Cryo Tech standing next to the first open pod. The young man flushed a little and avoided looking at her. She grinned; such innocence was rare in this age. As the pods lid closed over her, Caleb blew a kiss, and she sent one back even as the cold gas made her lightheaded, and she slipped into unconsciousness.
John watched the exchange carefully without turning his head towards them, and once again that clench of guilt in his chest stole his attention. We could have been like that. The other Marines followed Crissa's lead quickly, and in under an hour the Tech crew was ready to set up the specially prepped cryo-tube that would hold the Chief. He handed the memory cube that housed Cortana to one of the Techs as he moved towards the pod. "Put this into the computer as soon as we jump to Slipspace."
The man shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, sir? We…already did." John glanced towards the window, and sure enough the blackness of Slipstream space was all that his eyes found. Blackness, and one very sad smile…
"Then do it as soon as you're done here." He couldn't keep the agitation out of his voice, and the Tech pocketed the cube carefully, stepping back out of reach. John lay back in the tube and exhaled through his nose, shutting his eyes against the memories. The small canister that jacked into his suit and changed the air for cryosleep hissed near his left ear, and he floated on a wave of sedation as the pod shut. She was still there with him like the ghost of a dream until he passed out.
Miira and her team entered the chamber near the bridge of the ship shortly after Urza arrived, and there were the corpses of two Ahzentia already piled against the wall. The Teacher's team was three Unggoy and one Elite light, and she scowled at the waste of good soldiers. One Brute was still alive, and strapped onto a table of some sort with long, needle-like blades protruding out of it's body. At Urza's command the blades sank back into the table, and the Brute died of blood loss in a matter of seconds. Miira frowned, and snapped her jaws in irritation.
"What good does letting him die do?"
"He already gave us his information. The artifact is down that hall in a cell on the right." The Teacher walked out of the room smugly, and Miira followed behind, curious. The cell in question was empty but for a single human figure in the center of the room, knees pulled up to its chest and its eyes staring blankly at nothing. The Teacher growled. "This is it? Their great artifact is nothing but a worthless human??" He pulled the door open and crouched, waving his fingers in front of the pale face. "Broken."
"What do you mean?"
He stood, and stepped back. "Kill it. I have seen humans like this. Its mind is broken. Their species does not recover from such mental strain. Weak." One of the Unggoy, the one called Tehgli, stepped past the Elites, stood in front of the human, and twittered excitedly.
"No! No! Tehgli know this one, this not a human but Demon!" Urza dropped a single mandible open in the Sangheili version of a raised eyebrow. "This the Demon that swore on the Forerunners that it would find me. You cannot kill it! Surely this a test!" Urza huffed and motioned one of his Elite's forward. The Unggoy, either paralyzed by fear or consumed by faith that it was a test, refused to step aside. The Elite shrugged and raised its blade. Miira made her decision.
As the blade descended, Miira stepped forward and jammed her right hand blade into his ribs, slicing through the shield and armor smoothly. The blade fell from twitching fingers and deactivated as it dropped. The Teacher roared in irritation, and Miira lowered the corpse to the floor, feeling a slight pang of guilt. She looked up, ignoring the Teacher, and noticed with surprise that she hadn't been the only one busy. The human, or if Tehgli was right, Demon was now staring at her, crouched on the floor and gazing up menacingly through thick chucks of beige and red fur that fell about its hairless face. Its teeth were bared, and given its position and the Unggoy now standing behind it, it must have grabbed the little alien and thrown him out of the way of the blade. How something so small and pale could look so vicious was strange; its small eyes glowed bright blue in the reflection of her blades and its bone structure stood out like a starving animal's. Demon indeed.
Miira tossed her head at Urza triumphantly. "Not so broken after all, is it?"
"Fine. It is now your responsibility. Enjoy your pet Demon, Miira." She ground her teeth, and looked back down, suddenly less pleased with herself. The Demon smelled awful, and it didn't look particularly clean either
"Do you understand me, Demon?" It only glared back, and she clenched her teeth. She gestured at it, then herself, and waved it to follow. It stood, and did so, eyes looking about with the same nervous twitch many Kig-yar developed. Miira was surprised to note that the creature's movements were nonetheless flawlessly smooth. It was fast, too; for something with legs half the length of her own and oddly bent it had no trouble keeping up with her. [I]A pet Demon? I must have been wrong about my luck.
Cortana sighed with relief as she regained a sense of awareness. The mainframe she was plugged into was strange to her, but at least it was something she could affect, unlike the stasis of the memory cube. She glanced around her curiously, and set her hands on her hips in agitation as she accessed the crew log and noticed the Chief was already under. She really wanted to know what was going on.
"Hello…Cortana I presume?" She looked up quickly and noticed another AI in the system. The other AI was also female, but it's self-assigned form looked remarkably human, nothing special about it outside of the quicksilver band across her eyes. Her presence in the system was varied on a level that took Cortana aback, and she raised a brow.
"You're a fourth Gen, aren't you?"
"Most certainly. And you are a legend. I'm so glad you're onboard, considering many of the Firestorm-Class' advances are based on your theories."
Cortana blinked. "Firestorm-Class?" She looked around. "You mean this ship? It's…They used my theory on cross-variance magnetic exhaust induction! I didn't think anyone would actually try it!"
"Tried it, and made it work. I'm Draconic, by the way."
"That's also the name the ship is registered under."
"Yup, it's named after me. Well, the 'me' that died. Not the AI me." She smiled cryptically.
"Why isn't any of this in ONI's databases?"
"Honestly? I don't answer to ONI. The Section Eight project that produced the NIPs was part of it, and the ship is technically their possession, but I answer to a higher authority."
Cortana shivered, suddenly feeling very confused, which was not a feeling she had much experience with. "The Admiralty?"
"Higher." Draconic's eyebrows danced behind the visor. "Think about it…in order to maintain public calm, what is the one step the UNSC never took on Earth?"
Cortana's form drained of color. "Oh, no."
"Oh, yes. They never declared Martial Law." She leaned in, conspiratorially, and Cortana felt horror creeping through her emotional subroutines. Everything she'd ever believed about the chain of command had just hit an unexpected roadblock. It was so deviously simple, yet so complex that the inner workings were going to take hundreds of processor cycles to comprehend. Pieces of a puzzle she'd never even noticed before were falling into place. "Both the UNSC and I answer to the Civilian Senate; in my case specifically to one Senator Felicity Warwick." She grinned at Cortana's stunned expression. "I believe we call that…checkmate."
Miira felt a small victory as Urza stormed into the landing bay personally, irritation clear on his face. She smiled cheerfully at him. "What can I do for you, O Teacher?"
"Why are you stealing a dropship? And why did you order the bridge crew to change course?"
"It is quite simple. One? I can not try to communicate with the Demon while it is broken. I also can not attempt to fix it on this ship surrounded by idiocy. Two, the mammal stinks, and I intend to drop it in a lake to attempt to clean it. Three, I need a vacation. This planet is not far off our course, and I am going to land there."
"Very well. But do not tarry long."
"I did not ask for your permission, Urza." She turned her back to him and walked onto the dropship, closing the hatch behind her.
The planet was marked on few stellar charts, and Miira only knew of it from trips with her father during childhood. Thick jungles covered the entire globe, and a lesser gravity than most human worlds had allowed the flora and fauna to grow considerably larger. It was a world not unlike the one the Sangheili had evolved on, though their homeworld was now covered in cities and such natural beauty was rare. When occasionally the noble child Miira had been grew stressed with her seemingly pointless duties, she had stolen away to this peaceful place. With any luck the Demon would feel the same.
Miira watched the delicate creature that followed her like the pet it was called, wondering how such a soft, fragile race could ever have evolved. She led it down a path between massive blue trees to a small glade. Here the mountains ended, the snows from up high melted and were heated by the brilliant sun and dumped into a glorious little waterfall aside from the main river. The Demon exhaled sharply and it's expression changed. It waded into the water and began scrubbing sand into it's skin. Miira crouched on the shoreline and watched it. Eventually, it's sky blue eyes lifted and regarded her calmly. Miira debated for a moment, then attempted to address it again. "Do you have a name?" She pointed to herself. "Miira Sohatilhanee."
The Demon seemed to be thinking, and then shrugged its shoulders. It started to speak, shut it eyes against what seemed like pain and tried again. "Halley." I'm not a Spartan anymore. Spartans don't break.
"Hay'lee." It did the most peculiar thing with its eyes, rolling them skyward and then down.
"No…Halley. You accent wrong." Miira blinked in annoyance.
"You do speak our language."
"Small pieces only. No translate anymore, must remember sounds that match words of my language. I listen, I learn." It exhaled sharply from its nose.
"You are a Demon?"
"Your word for us, yes." Its slit-like mouth turned downward at the corners, and it focused on its scrubbing. Its skin actually became paler, if that was possible.
Miira thought for a while before her next words. "Do you have a gender?" It blinked, seeming surprised.
"You ask odd things. Yes, I am a female." It, or rather, She dunked her head under the water, and as it rose back up its hair changed to the color of fresh snow. Miira rose a little, respectfully. White was a rare color on any species; even the winter races had dark fur part of the year. White was used to signify things that were special in Sangheili culture. She tilted her head, taking in the creature's odd shape. "Another odd question?" The Demon asked with a tone of amusement in its strange high-pitched voice.
"What are the lumps for? I have always wondered why half of your race has them and the other half does not." The Demon's mouth quirked in the opposite direction.
"We call them 'breasts.' They are used to suckle our young. Well, for those of the human race who can have young."
"Your younglings eat from them?" The Elite looked scandalized. "What of their teeth?"
Halley made an odd sound not altogether unlike Sangheili laughter, and her lips showed teeth without a menacing glare. "Our young have no teeth when they are born."
"What do they eat without teeth?"
"Fluids."
"I see how your race evolved so soft."
The demon reversed its lips again, and its eyes darkened. After more scrubbing it looked up, and one of the small fur patches over its eyes lifted independent of the other. "What does your race have for females?"
"I am a female, Demon." It lifted the second patch of fur and bit the outside of its mouth.
"I guess your females are as big as your males?"
"Bigger when fully grown." Miira glanced at the Sun's decent, and stood. "If you are sufficiently clean, we can go."
"Yes." Hay'lee walked out of the water, now every inch of her skin gleamed moonlight pale, slashed here and there with pink marks. Her back was the worst of all; deep red slashes ran from her neck to her slender waist, the skin no longer hard and rigid but still discolored like a burn. They looked recent. Given the condition Miira found the Demon in, it was a safe assumption that the Ahzentia had put them there. As she sat at the controls of the dropship, Miira clenched her jaws tightly to lock down the surprise that welled up. Being concerned about Unggoy was bad enough, caring about a lowly human, even if it was of the Demon variety was just too much.
However, a neutral outlook towards the Ahzentia had shifted to a definitive shade of disgust.
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