Hello to my faithful readers (and faithful reviewers--you know who you are!)! Next chapter up, and slightly grisly--which is partly why it never got posted. And in case anyone noticed, a lot of these have no mention of the S-IIIs; the bulk of them were written before I thought of adding in the surviving S-III kids, so sorry. Reviews are always appreciated; flames will be used in a campus bonfire! ;)
Disclaimer: I don't own Halo.
Chapter 4: Grim Discovery
Laura watched from the rear of the group as they explored the abandoned base; from the look of things it was left over from the war, and a few Covenant stragglers were still in residence. They'd already capped off a few Jackals and Brutes, but it wasn't as easy as she described it in her head—a still-smarting wound in her side was proof of that.
"You alright back there?" Fred asked.
"Would you quit fussing already?" she shot back in annoyance. "I'm not bleeding, I'm not dead, so quit babying me! Enough's enough!"
"Touchy," she heard him mutter over the COM; she shot a death glare towards his visor and stalked forward. The other members of their scouting party—a mixture of Sangheili and Spartans—cleared out of her way.
"If you're not bleeding, then why is your blacksuit wet?" John interrupted. Laura glanced down to check for herself, even going so far as to pull off a glove and run her bare hand down her side; it came away stained a dark red.
"Joy, must've been that last Brute," she grumbled. "Someone toss me a medkit?"
"Here," Kelly tossed her a first aid kit while Fred signaled a halt. "There's biofoam and bandages in there."
"Never mind the biofoam—save it for later on. We got sutures and painkillers?" Rummaging through the kit, Laura came up with the aforementioned items and began undoing her blacksuit. The gash wasn't deep, thankfully, but it definitely looked ugly.
"Tell me you're not going to do what I think you're going to do," Fred groaned.
"If you're squeamish you can turn around," she grunted, wiping as much blood away as she could. "Someone's gotta do it, though, and it might as well be me. I know what I'm doing—Mom made sure I would, in case I ever needed to stitch someone up in the field." Downing a pair of painkillers in one gulp, Laura turned her attention to threading the needle and stitching her skin closed. The pills wouldn't take effect in time for her to stitch herself up, but with any luck they'd kick in soon enough that she wouldn't feel pain for the rest of the mission.
"Disgusting," she heard one of the Sangheili mutter in his own tongue. "These humans are a dishonorable race. Look at how the female lets her blood be spilled!"
"There is only dishonor if the act is dishonorable," she answered in the same language, her voice tight as she tried to hold back the pain. "If blood is shed performing an act worthy of honor, then each drop of blood is an honor of its own. But if blood is shed during an act of betrayal or cowardice, every single drop is a disgrace. I deem it an honor to spill my blood if it means saving my people." She smirked as the alien recoiled in shock—not many people knew she could speak and translate the various languages of the Covenant Empire. Probably the only time those memories of mine have come in handy. Finishing the last knot in the sutures, she wrapped them tightly and stood up shakily.
"Hurts like a bitch, and not the best job I've done, but they should hold as long as I need them too," she muttered, resealing her blacksuit as best she could.
John tipped his helmet in her direction, and she shook her head once—her signal that now wasn't the time to talk. Shouldering the battle rifle she'd picked out for the mission, she took point—just in time to walk into what appeared to be a slaughterhouse.
"Heaven help us," she breathed, her pain forgotten, her hands shaking now from the sheer horror of what she was seeing. There were no bodies, no intact bodies at least. Various limbs and pieces were scattered around what had once been a prison. Laura took a few shaky steps forward, and behind her heard the cries of horror and disgust from the Sangheili in the team—the Spartans were silent, but she knew they were affected as much as the rest of them. They were just conditioned against showing it.
"By the gods," one Sangheili roared. "What happened on this world?"
"A Lekgolo, honor," another replied, indicating a long-dead Hunter carcass. "If one of those beasts went into a rage…" He left the sentence unfinished, but there was no need of further explanation. The evidence around them was all too clear.
Laura tried her best to block out her surroundings, but the grisly carnage around her refused to fade away. "We should…we should gather what we can. Maybe…maybe these people had families, people who are waiting for news."
"Good idea, Laura," John nodded, and looked at Fred (since he was the ranking officer). Fred issued the orders, and the group fanned out looking for dog tags and what remains were left. Laura began her search on the "west" wall of the prison, gathering what she could and fighting the urge to vomit. No one deserves this fate, she thought, no one. Fighting back another wave of nausea, she glanced up in time to catch a glimpse of what looked like mahogany wood…A distressed cry escaped her as she dropped everything and ran forward, dropping to her knees to cradle the remains of a human hand, a hand that still clutched a carved wooden flute.
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Kelly, Fred, and John started at Laura's cry, and whirled around with weapons raised. What shocked them was the sight of the sarcastic, die-hard Spartan rocking back and forth on her knees, sobbing as she cradled the sad relic. John noticed the wooden flute, and recognized it as something Laura herself had carved; it was beyond him how it had gotten here, though. Behind him he could hear the Elites shifting uneasily, and he honestly didn't blame him: it had been a long time since he'd seen Laura this upset.
"Why?!" she suddenly screamed, turning her gaze to the ceiling. "Why did you have to take him? Wasn't it enough that I was willing to die, that I was willing to suffer for his sake? Wasn't it enough that they had to stand by, that they had to give me up to this hell of a life? He was the greatest thing that kept us going, that kept us together! Why did he have to die? Why did you take him from us? WHY?!?" She crouched over the hand, sobbing, but the only intelligible words were "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
"Who was this human to her?" one Elite asked; John only had his suspicions, but he had the feeling he was right.
"I think…I think it was her father."
Laura continued to cry, her tears forming large wet spots on both her uniform and the floor beneath her. She barely registered when Kelly moved forward and put one hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm so sorry," she cried, her voice shaking from her sobs.
"You shouldn't blame yourself," Kelly murmured. "You had no idea, there wasn't anything you could've done."
"But I should've been able to do something!" she sobbed. "I should've been here with him, protecting him, instead of on Earth letting ONI push me around! What good are my augmentations and training if I can't even protect my family, huh? What use are they if I can't even protect one person?"
Kelly looked up and caught the signal from Fred. She opened a private COM channel and heard, "We need to get her out of here—she's no good to us at the moment."
"How are we going to do that? She'll probably only move to get revenge."
"Which is why we need to get her out of here." Fred moved up next to Kelly and slipped her a syringe—polypseudomorphine from the medkit, which he'd taken and loaded the minute he saw Laura screaming. There was about triple the normal dosage for a human, but with Laura's augmentations there were no guarantees that even a double dose would be enough. Kelly nodded and injected the contents into Laura's neck; Laura looked up, surprise and sadness mixed on her face, and passed out. Kelly caught her before she hit the floor and draped her over her shoulders.
"Get her back to the ship, and tell them what we found here. Tell them…tell them we've found Colonel Morisson."
"Yes, sir," Kelly replied and headed back to the ship; two Sangheili followed at an order from their leader.
"Why did you have to drug her, Fred?" John asked.
"You of all people should know why," he replied. "In her current state of mind, she wasn't going to be any good to any of us. She would've wanted revenge, and that kind of instability could have gotten us killed. I wasn't going to take the chance.
