STRING 34
Earth calendar – estimated 97,447-45 BCE…
Thema after Thema and sector after sector fell to the Flood, and more and more worlds and cultures were evacuated – but only portions thereof, that could be safely extracted: Galatians, Jjaro, Pfor, Yonhet and others, all scooped up and taken to one or the other of the Arks. Large, specialised portals were set up in various systems to allow waves of evacuation vessels, and the larger, finial 'Keyships' to make the journey safely outside of the galaxy. Special focus was payed to the San'Shyuum, with a research centre hidden on their home planet, and a sophisticated star map device provided – as it was thought the region could hold out for longer, as an evacuation hub. Only the Orion cluster and the area around Requiem remained totally inviolate, along with the world later known as Earth.
The master Gravemind still desired to know the location of both Arks, and kept prisoners to interrogate, toward that end. Among those he kept the longest was the poor Catalog captured with the Didact – who he would later release, in compromised form.
In Thema 102 – a region of the galaxy near the Orion cluster, and partially sealed off by distorted magnetic skins, that bent the light, oddly – the Gravemind's forces closed upon a cluster known as Path Nachryma. It was a unique location, perhaps created by the Precursors, with scores of stars and dwarf stars closely linked, and thus, hard to navigate into. (Compiler note: and we suspect, significantly destroyed before the war ended, leaving little but nebulae-like residue)
Mendicant Bias diverted himself from his… discussion, with the Catalog, to converse with the Gravemind in person.
"We sense a possibility of danger…" the Gravemind said, as they entered a solar system full of small, cold moons.
"Under the circumstances, what remains should not be capable of reforming a significant combat force, yet somehow they have found a way. What danger could they be?"
"Forerunners surprise even those who created them. Their treachery is matched only by their resourcefulness. One of them, the Master Builder, arouses our interest. Tell what awaits us in that mess of moons…"
"A portal, always open, stretches far outside the Ecumene to a shadow fleet of technological monstrosities – no doubt led by an inferior metarch, Offensive Bias. This fleet guards the Ark, the last bastion of Forerunner resistance and the final repository of all sentient life."
"Then we must find the Ark – and harvest or prune our garden again…"
Elsewhere, terrible battles continued to be fought by dwindling Forerunner fleets, led by warriors like the Falchion, the Examiner, and their loyal Princeps, commanding smaller flotillas.
In locations like Path Terrullian, enemy fleets poured in, no longer using ordinary slipspace, but phasing out of new routes unlocked by Neural Physics, the latest terrible tool wielded by the Gravemind. Even as they did so, asteroids were hurled by the Falchion's ships at the materialising vessels, using torsion beams and tension drivers, disrupting their matterwaves even as they synchronised with the amplitude of matter in normal reality, and explosively shattering many vessels, or forcing others to desperately micro jump to safety.
After initial victories, the tide quickly turned though. Artificial intelligences aboard ships increasingly became corrupted and turned on their masters, even as countermeasures were sought by Offensive Bias and others. Then massive structures of exotic material emerged into normal space, great pearlescent filaments knotting and twining, and several Star Roads of Precursor creation, sending out disrupting energy fields that cut off Forerunner ships from their access to vacuum energy or slipspace travel, and then shut many down altogether. Then whole moons and planets began to be torn apart. Elsewhere, even uninfected Ancillas became shut down by interferent energy fields and waves, unable to transmit information or call for help. It was a final blow for many regions – the old Capital system was abandoned, forces withdrew all over the local galactic arm. With two thirds of their forces gone within the year, the remainder gathered under Offensive Bias, whilst a smaller force hoved to the Didact and his fledgling campaign – stalling for lack of enough Prometheans to lead the charge. Most ships not engaged in combat fled the galaxy altogether, to gather at the two Arks.
It was out there that the remaining Forerunner Council narrowed their options down to but a handful, and prepared to initiate a final, desperate contingency, seeing few alternatives now. Some now regretted past hubris in their worldview, and strove to save us many as possible, or at least, give them merciful ends. Others still could not understand how the whole of creation seemed to be turning against them, perhaps up to and including their own 'gods'.
In the new council chambers, a hologram of the galaxy showed the terrible march of the enemy hordes, across the stars, in fiery red.
"The Flood cover more of our galaxy with each passing day," said Faber, in private discussion with the Librarian, his old adversary. With some display of contrition, he had turned himself in pleading for mercy and a chance to contribute to the final plans. He was even preparing to disclose his knowledge of the Onyx project, and make it fit for use – if not as a sanctuary, then as another fortress, perhaps. And there had been talk too, of a similar concept, referred to only as 'Bastion'…
"They feast on the essence of all life," he continued. "The only way to stop their advance is to remove that life on which they feast."
He manipulated the controls of the display, and a blue wave spread out and extinguished the red lights across the holographic galaxy in rapid order – and by inference, everything else.
And so it has come to this, thought the Librarian numbly. The end of days, the eschaton of history – for those of us who made our history within this galaxy; only a remnant might return to repopulate it, and snatch something out of our bitter war with the Flood…
"My Lifeworkers have made plans for the reseeding of humanity, and of all life after the Halos are fired," she said at last.
"So you agree that Halos are our only solution…"
"I do," she answered, rather hollowly.
"And… your husband?" he asked anxiously.
"My husband… has a different opinion on what steps to take against the Flood."
"So he indicated to me, when I found him. He… no longer seems himself."
"But then, are any of us?" she sighed. "The council has requested his presence, and to learn more of his new battle strategies, and these – creations of his. I hope to speak to him when he arrives, and find out what remains of his spirit, the essence he once shared with me. We have all lost so much – my condolences on your own."
"Thank you, Librarian," Faber said, with some attempt at grace. "We have had our differences, you and I, but our combined efforts were the only things to eventually bear fruit in this conflict, I now realise. You sort to find ways to preserve, and I to… cleanse."
"And out of mercy, and as a clinical denial of the Flood's goals, I feel it should be… and not in vengeance," she said, a little pointedly.
"As you see it; I do not think I could bear to look upon that… abomination again, though, without losing all control. Do you think the rest of his people were… benevolent, once?"
"I hope so. I learned a little of them, but such small crumbs. The Mantle – it may return in a new form, but I do not think we understand it, and we will likely have to step aside, so that living time may throw new ideas into the mix, new paths to be followed toward it…"
"That is quite a dangerous idea to voice, particularly among our leadership…" Faber mused.
"Much of that old leadership is gone, and its ideas may be so much dead wood. I might even include many of my own among those. Still, I wish to preserve… perhaps someday, to be remembered."
"Quite a candid admission; I felt the same, for so long… but now, the idea of being forgotten starts to have some appeal. Win or lose, I will go down as the biggest mass murderer in history, for what I brought into being…"
"Perhaps – or perhaps, in a longer view of living time, preservation and destruction are not always so easily separated. I think we should both find our ways to commune with living Time, with whatever pathways we can find into the Domain, even in faith alone, with no outward sign, and find what peace we can over this – our followers deserve it from us, along with our resolve, if nothing else."
"And then… what shall we do? Where shall we go?"
"Then we must find a way to… begin anew. And not as we once were. Perhaps with old temptations somewhat shorn away…"
"Contrition," murmured Faber, mulling the unfamiliar concept over as he did so.
"Sometimes there is a great sickness before the purge," the Librarian said, with that rarest of Forerunner expressions, a sad smile.
On Far Nomdagro, the Didact's old home and private world, the two warriors at last met – both the Didact, yet both unique.
Bornstellar looked on his old mentor with much trepidation – even some fear. His face had changed, his eyes blazed, and alarming fangs projected, lupine-esque, from a colder mouth. Had he done that to strike fear into this enemies, or to remind himself of what he must become, sacrificing himself up to feral ferocity, a pack guardian?
"I've never apologised: it had to be done, what she and I did to you," the older warrior at last said.
"I serve - it was my privilege," Bornstellar replied, banishing for now wistful thoughts of his parents, his sister – of no closure alongside them.
"You have been a partner, and a good one, to my wife, while I could not… husband or protector." To that Bornstellar nodded, still pondering the surreality of it. "While I was in my Cryptum, she made her deals, got what she needed. You saw the results: now our testimony, our evidence, has been gathered. Was there a great crime? Did we kill the last of our creators?"
"We did: with full justification," he answered.
"And you believe that?"
"Absolutely…"
They talked for a while, of the Precursors, and of how they had changed, grown apart in temperament, and of how they saw creation these days.
"Now all I see are the colours of nightmares – every star turned against us."
"And so it is," Bornstellar admitted. "The last combined Forerunner fleet made a stand out beyond Jad Sappar. Thousands of 'star roads' sheltered and magnified the enemy's strength, protecting swarms of ships – Forerunner ships – crewed by our own infected warriors; a perversion beyond imagining, but not beyond reality."
"I do not need to imagine…"
They spoke further, for a time, of how even the stars themselves seemed dimmed, uninviting – and Bornstellar sensed a shadow of paranoia in his old compatriot. "That's the power the Precursors had, isn't it? They shaped and moved galaxies! They created us! How did we ever manage to defeat them?"
"Perhaps they were powerful but naïve?" Bornstellar suggested. "But they've had ten million years to contemplate those mistakes.
Even as the Didact suggested new strategies, Bornstellar was already surrendering to the inevitable, what all his knowledge and instincts were telling him.
"What we saw years ago at Charum Hakkor – before you imprinted me – the result of a unique Halo test. Complete destruction of all Precursor artefacts: back then it seemed an awful aberration, but now we know what Halos are really capable of. They can destroy any structure that relies on neural physics. They are our last hope."
At this, the Didact darkened alarmingly, and turned, clenching fists. "And loose damnation on the stars?! My wife sympathises with our enemies – this quest to fulfil the Mantle has haunted me my entire life. And for countless millennia, we have failed to realise the one truth that could have saved us from the beginning: The Mantle isn't to be inherited by the noble… it is to be taken by the strong!"
At that, the Librarian entered the room – and had been listening for some time, Bornstellar suspected – and forestalled their confrontation for a moment. "Beloved!" she exclaimed.
"Did you hear my blasphemy, wife? Do I discredit your belief in the Mantle?"
"It is not ours to receive, nor theirs to give, not now. Tell me, my husband: is this anger, this hatred for our enemies, what stands between us and the joy of reunion?"
He gazed upon her with an odd expression, half wistful nostalgia, half condescension. "Humans drowned out entire civilisations with the Flood – they brought this horrific parasite to our people. Had we acted quicker, had we taken what was rightfully ours, we could have cut this infestation off at the source. Know this: the universe will now be turned star by star, world by world, organism by living thing, into even more of a tortured mockery than it already is. Look at what it's done to me!" he finished, opening his arms in a desperate flourish, a rare admission of helplessness.
"Everything it touches is afflicted with madness; it has touched me. I am myself mad!"
The Librarian flinched backward somewhat, in a confused mix of fear, alarm, pity and regret. She nodded at Bornstellar, and he quietly left.
As he departed, the Didact stared after him through the heated mix of despair and mania, and pondered for a moment: was that my way of warning him? Warning both of them?
Eventually, they held each other, but it was without enough of the old closeness, more like that of a nurse comforting a trauma patient, and they broke apart.
"Soon we shall have to flee, if we do not all perish in the final campaign, and lose most of our civilisation with it, all because we never grasped the Mantle by the root…"
"Some of our past will remain – I found survivors from the old war with the Precursors, living out in Path Kethona, beyond this galaxy. And something of you remains – you are not all mad. I would give some of my spirit into yours, if it would restore you somewhat."
"No – I must remain unmixed, honed to a knife's edge, for this last terrible goal. If we do end up leaving this galaxy though, we may find more of the Precursors, or earlier contemporaries, and try to seek their guidance on the Mantle. Even these remnants of which…"
Emotionally wrung out by his continual dance in and out of personal intimacy and his ever present obsessions, the Librarian finally snapped out: "The Mantle?! You still hold to that… fairy tale, after all that has happened? After this thing has consumed a million worlds? Can't you see? Belief in the Mantle sealed our doom! Weakened our protectorates, bred dependence and sloth!
Our so-called guardianship has stripped those we would keep safe of any capacity for self-defence!" The Didact glared at her, feeling betrayed. "Were we such noble guardians when we drew our line and abandoned billions to the parasite?!"
He rounded upon her heatedly: "The Mantle has not failed! I've already raised scores of worlds, sterilised systems, routed and disintegrated the parasite! We're learning its tricks and strategies," he continued, as he paced back and forth. "We can halt this thing! And we can follow in Their footsteps!"
Who though, she wondered? Our cousins outside this galaxy; the Precursors, past civilisations – the gods themselves? She had not always been sure what the Didact believed in, in terms of grand metaphysics, but got a sense of it now.
"There are no unstoppable forces in this universe. There are no immovable objects: everything gives if you push hard enough." It sounded like one of his old war college speeches.
"And what about us, Didact," she said, reverting to formalism. "We've been irresistible and immovable for too long. Maybe it's our turn to give…"
"I can see you are set upon your own goals, as ever," the Didact snapped. "Perhaps once more in partnership with the ever mendacious Faber; so let him prepare his Halo rings and new shield worlds if he must – ideas he stole from me, also. I will let actions speak louder than those ill-considered words, and prove the truth of my essence before the Mantle – and it shall not fall."
As he stomped out, the Librarian ruefully reflected on how similar he and Faber had become, both obsessed with the Mantle in their own way, as the very symbol of what Forerunner culture had come to mean, and unwilling to change how they saw themselves in relation to it – let alone without it. Could she herself even contemplate life without it having meaning?
When we pass out of life, the part that continues to burn and consume us is the part that will not let go, she recalled, from one of the old Lifeworker philosophies.
Nevertheless, the Didact agreed to accompany their fleet out to the greater Ark, away from Far Nomdagro, to meet with the council, and aid the defence if necessary. He made no promises about staying long term, though, and his massive command ship soon warped out of the system, leaving bitter, faded memories of domestic life in their wake.
When they arrived at the great, six armed Ark structure, they did speak a second time though, this time of the Domain, and what they remembered of it, and the Didact's long period slumbering in his Cryptum, partly connected to it.
"The Domain can tell the living only what they already know – or what they have stored in its expanses. I wandered through all the corridors… so they appeared, anyway. Centuries of wandering through hallways and caverns and ever deeper, darker places, lined and fitfully aglow with ancestral records and memories, upwellings of past visits, rarely by me, sometimes by our ancestors… on occasion, our descendants," he said reverently.
"Descendants?" she said, heart almost wrenching: All possibilities contained in the Domain – or only potentialities?
"The Domain keeps its secrets with only with difficulty. It wants, it needs, to spread knowledge. It wants to tell us when we're being foolish, but it can only replay the emotions and memories of those who came before. Still, rarely… it violates its own rules."
And many of our people believe we live many lives, returning to experience it in a new way, a new perspective, contextualising memories anew, and our relationships, she pondered. "What about our descendants?" she asked, touching his hand.
"I felt their touch, their love: and yet, they were fading. The Domain is filled with sadness – a deep shadow has fallen over everything Forerunner. When I was pulled up from that, pulled out of the Cryptum and revived, I couldn't remember. But now I do, in part; horror brought it back. The Gravemind returned it to me, it forced me to listen." He broke from contact and summoned his layers of armour abruptly, letting them flow onto this back, pivoting like wings of some fierce cherubim. "I need to fight against what it has told me, what it has done to me, done to all of us. I need to fight with all of my might and will, and everything I can gather… every weapon and resource. But I have been undercut from the very beginning by that Manipular, Wife. The worst thing I've ever done was imprint him. And so, forgive me in advance for what I must do and know why I do it."
And now comes the paranoia again, she thought fearfully, and thought to ask what it was he intended, but they were interrupted by sudden alarms, and the appearance of multiple floating tactical ancillas, led by their newest commander, Offensive Bias.
"This ark is under attack – large concentrations of Star Roads are emerging in near space," the machine informed them.
"How much time?" asked the Didact.
"Hours, no more…"
Looking outside via viewing portals and displays, it seemed that 'large concentrations' meant enough to blot out all visible specks of light beyond – even their glimpse of most of the galactic disk. Doom was following closely upon their necks again.
"How can we repopulate the galaxy if we lose everything here?!" the Librarian gasped.
"After I finish my task, I will depart in the Mantle's Approach," the Didact said, grimly.
She pondered their resources, including one of the older Halo rings, now called Omega Halo, parked in orbit of the Ark megastructure, that housed a number of her rarest human populations. It could still be mobile, if activated fast enough, and could serve as a lifeboat for still more beings. "How can we save them all? How can we ever get free? And where do we go?"
"There is no way out – only through. If you wish to survive, you must leave now. When the Flood is finished, they will leave nothing left of this place." He turned, stretching an arm out towards the dwarf galaxy of Path Kethona beyond. "The Star Roads will keep clear of the Halo's firing path – that will open an escape route. But it will not remain that way for long: you must escape in Audacity whilst you still have the chance." And then he shut her out again, looking down at the Ark. "Traitors," he whispered. "And yet… even in the midst of our most monumental failure, I will seize another solution…"
And he stomped out again, leaving her with two recollections: everything gives if you push hard enough… and… the part that burns is the part that won't let go.
