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Oh Thirteen Part 2
Posted By: Stuntmutt<stuntmutt@yahoo.com>
Date: 24 March 2004, 11:55 AM
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"I don't suppose you have such a thing as a rocket launcher?" asked Jonah. "Or a MAC Cannon perhaps?"
"Afraid not," said Bean. "I was never any good with guns. I'm only really trained to fix stuff. If I want to fill something full of holes I use a drill."
The Covenant ships were almost directly above them.
"Maybe we could throw some stones then," muttered Jonah. "Or at least direct some particularly scathing insults in their general direction. Do you have anything we could make a white flag out of?"
"Not that I'm prepared to take off right now," said Bean.
Shadows fell over them, as one by one, the enemy ships passed overhead.
And kept passing.
"Er...?" said Jonah.
"Told you I was lucky," said Bean.
As soon as the news of a Halo being discovered had reached the Covenant homeworld, Onlo 'Utsoree had commandeered the fastest ship available, and sent orders ahead for all forces in the vicinity of the ringworld to be put at his full disposal. He could do that. He was a White Elite. The only authority higher than his was that of the Prophets. This situation that could well change if 'Utsoree was successful in his mission. In his mind, he had gone over and over the day he would overthrow the old order. And when he installed himself as supreme ruler of every member of every race within the Covenant, he would turn to the deposed mystics and cry, "If you're Prophets, how come you didn't see this coming?" That would be a moment to savour. The sort of moment he'd want to relive over and over again. And if, as his instruments suggested, what 'Utsoree was looking for was on this fragment of Halo, he would quite literally do just that.
"Where are we going?" asked Jonah as he clambered over blackened rocks trying to keep up with Bean.
"This way," she replied. Gravity was all over the place, light in some patches, practically non-existent in others. It made their progress quite awkward.
"Didn't the Covenant ships go this way?"
"Uh huh."
Jonah halted. "Well that seems like a phenomenally good reason to be going the other way."
Bean stopped and turned to face him. "Do you know about the old Chinese farmer and his horse?" she asked.
"I think you'd better check your Scanalyzer," said Jonah. "Sounds like the radiation levels are getting through your helmet."
Bean laughed. "Didn't they teach you any philosophy in Spartan 101?"
"No. They mostly taught us how to hit things in the head with a rifle butt," said Jonah. "From behind."
"There was an old Chinese farmer who lived with his son. They were very poor and their only possession was a horse," said Bean.
"Poor? Last I heard stabling fees were astronomical," said Jonah.
Bean ignored him. "One day the horse broke through the fence and ran away. 'What bad luck,' said the local villagers. 'We'll see,' said the farmer. The next day, the horse returned, but brought with it several wild horses. 'What good luck,' said the villagers. 'We'll see,' said the farmer."
Jonah began to wish he were marooned with a sweaty marine instead of the chirpy engineer. At least then he could have swapped stories about hitting things in the back of the head.
"Next day, whilst trying to ride the new horses, the farmer's son fell from one and broke his leg. 'What bad luck,' said the villagers. 'We'll see,' said the farmer. The day after, the army came through forcing the local young men to go off and fight in a battle from which few would return. But the farmer's son couldn't go because he had broken his leg." Bean looked at Jonah expectantly.
"Is that it?" he said.
"Yes. It's all a matter of perspective. Sometimes what seems like bad luck can be good luck," said Bean. She turned and once again began to make her way up the rocky slope.
Jonah reluctantly followed. The after a minute, he said, "But if you follow the logic of that story through, the son would probably have died of plague or something that he would have missed had he gone to war."
Bean shook her head inside the helmet.
"What I'm saying is, don't be so sure everything is doom and gloom. Try seeing things from a different angle."
Bean had reached the top of the slope. She crouched down and waited for Jonah to join her. He crept up beside her and peered into the next valley. The Covenant ships had landed in a circle around an alien edifice. It looked like an upturned tuning fork the size of a skyscraper. Other smaller structures were dotted around its base in a seemingly random pattern.
"For instance," said Bean, "instead of regarding the Covenant as an enemy out to kill us, think of them as providers of the only way off this thing."
Jonah looked at her. Then he looked back down into the valley at the dropships. Dropships surrounded by dozens of scurrying Covenant troops.
"We'll see," he grunted.
Doodu was unceremoniously frogmarched out of the dropship with several other energy shackled Covenant prisoners and herded towards the tuning fork structure. Behind him, the dropship lurched back into the sky. Doodu noticed it was the only one leaving.
"Where's it going?" he squeaked.
The Silver Grunt in charge of the prisoners bounced over and slammed his pistol into the side of Doodu's head.
"Silence." The Silver leant in close to Doodu. "It's not like you'll be making the return journey," he hissed.
Jonah assessed the situation. "Okay. There's loads of them. There's two of us. They've got guns. We haven't."
"Fortune favours the brave," said Bean, scrutinising her Scanalyzer.
"That explains a lot," said Jonah, "I've made a point of staying alive via the miracle of cowardice."
They watched as one of the dropships rose and departed.
"That leaves a gap in their perimeter," said Bean. "We could get to those outer structures and look for a way in there pretty much undetected."
"Yeah, that's...what?" Jonah stared at her. "We're supposed to be getting out of here, not sightseeing."
"There's something very important to the Covenant in there," said Bean. "Something important enough for them to send a large force to a piece of wreckage that's about to crash into a sun. Aren't you curious?"
"I am now. Curious whether you're Military Intelligence."
Bean snorted. "Those guys put the moron in oxymoron."
Jonah managed a chuckle. He'd know why he was chuckling just as soon as he got the chance to check a dictionary.
"You said yourself we can't fight our way to a ship," said Bean. "But we could sneak in there and see what's going on."
"You know what curiosity did?" grumbled Jonah.
"You're not a cat, you're a half ton cyborg. Come on."
Before he could argue, Bean was up over the ridge and taking advantage of the patchy gravity to bound down into the valley. Jonah had no choice but to scramble after her. He mused darkly that the Well Known Phrases And Sayings Committee would probably amend it to 'curiosity killed the Spartan' after this.
There was no alien cry of alarm. No plasma bolts crackled overhead. There wasn't even a big, dry twig to go crack at an improbably high volume. As he loped down the incline, Jonah wondered if Bean really was as lucky as she claimed and if her good fortune was counteracting his own relationship with Lady Luck (who, as far as Jonah was concerned, was no Lady). Maybe Bean was the answer to his curse.
Jonah reached one of the outbuildings and ducked into it. Inside was a small antechamber from which a tunnel sloped down into darkness. Bean was already halfway along it.
"Wait up," said Jonah. "Let me go first. You're bound to bump into something intent on blasting you to goo. Might as well bump into it from behind my Type Five Armour and rechargeable shielding."
Bean stopped and allowed Jonah to go ahead of her. At the end of the tunnel he signalled for Bean to halt behind him and gingerly poked his head out into the gloom. "Has it occurred to you that you might just be paranoid?" said Bean.
Jonah lit up like a cartoon electrocution as a beam of intense energy lanced out of the darkness and sliced through his shields, flinging him back into the tunnel.
"Not... for one... second," he gasped.
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