Chapter Eighteen

A Kig Yar ran past us, gunning down two crawlers. A knight assassinated a Sangheili, way off to our left. Two Unggoy teamed up on a watcher and took it down.

John and I were hiding just inside the entrance. We had all of that mayhem between us and the satellite.

I pointed to our right, where there was a metal pathway overhanging an abyss. "Those are the satellite contacts. Up on the platform."

We would have to go through the entire battlefield to reach them.

John scanned the courtyard. "Stick to the sides. Let's go."

I floated up, moving slowly behind him. There was no cover, but no one seemed to notice us anyway. They were too busy tearing into each other.

The controls were just ahead.

A single crawler snarled from in front of us, metallic hackles raised. John fired two shots, taking it out. He bent down and picked up the rifle from a dead Sangheili.

"There!" I pointed to the end of the long walkway, to the satellite controls.

John sprinted ahead of me, down the walkway. There were two consoles before the satellite.

I saw him put both hands on them, and I heard his comm. "Song of the East, this is Sierra one-one-seven of the UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, do you copy?"

His voice echoed back, distorted and demonic. It sent an unpleasant chill down my spine.

I walked up behind him and looked up at the satellite. It was rising up in front of us, impossibly big and dreadful.

"Song of the East do you read?"

The hellish echo again.

The satellite was rising higher, above us, and coming apart at certain seams like a spherical puzzle. Orange light leaked out of the smooth splits.

Something, intangible to most, shifted within the satellite. Something deadly.

"John, get away from the consoles." My voice was full of fear.

John felt it too. He jerked his hands away and pulled his rifle out. "Find us an exit."

Something was moving within the satellite. Something massive, and ancient, and evil. It sent my heart into uncontrollable palpitations. My eyes were wide as the fear took root, making my body tremble.

"Tawny, find us an exit!"

I stumbled back, away from the satellite. I couldn't focus. My voice was desperate. "I-I can't. I don't know-"

John grabbed me and jumped off of the platform, hiding us behind a short half-wall. I curled in on myself and ducked my head.

A massive orange pulse boomed from the satellite, rushing through the planet's core.

No...it wasn't a satellite. It never was.

It was a cryptum, meant to hold a monster within. Meant to save the universe from his horrible self. Meant to contain the waves of hatred I could feel within his heart, so strong they were physically tangible.

The Covenant were never after ships, they were after this cryptum. We just cracked it open for them. Released one of their gods; a Forerunner.

Ur-Didact was awake.

John looked over the half-wall, taking stock of the situation. I looked out and saw a small floating platform, with metal plates like petals, lowering from within the cryptum.

The Didact was within. As the petals opened he stood to his full height. He dwarfed even John; all Forerunners were tall, and he was absolutely no exception.

Oh, my god. This was the Didact. The ancient evil that the Librarian had warned us of a scarce few years ago.

I whimpered, pressing my back against the wall. My eyes were looking around wildly. A way out. There had to be a way out of here. We needed to get out of here.

John pressed himself back against the half-wall. I could feel his anxiety; he knew how awful the Didact was. He could feel how awful the Didact was.

So could I.

The Didact wasn't evil without cause, of course. Echoes of ancient torture rippled from his mind. So long ago, now, the pain itself was hard to remember. Instead, all that was left was the emotional agony the memories brought.

And from that agony, anger. Wrath. Hatred.

"So fades the great harvest of my betrayal."

His voice spun up even more terror in my soul. My breathing was quick and shallow, my eyes wide.

We were going to die here. That was it; our death was going to be at the hands of this monster.

Then he would subjugate the rest of the galaxy under his tyrannical rule.

"Even these beasts recognize what you were oblivious to, humans. Your nobility has blinded you, as ever."

Oh, god, he knew we were here.

The half-wall between us evaporated into orange particles. I whimpered, tears soaking into the lining of my helmet.

John shoved himself to his feet and took aim with the Covenant rifle he'd taken.

The Didact surrounded both of us in ultrasound. We couldn't move. We were stuck to move as he wished.

And only as he wished.

He drew us up, closer to him. I could feel him rooting through my mind; no one had ever been in my mind before.

The way he rooted so thoroughly through my memories - my memories - made me feel sick. I tried to force him out, desperately struggling against the mental force in my head.

I could see John to my right, fighting against his restraint field. To no avail. He remained under the Didact's control.

The Didact couldn't control ultrasound himself, of course. The energy came from his suit. He didn't have powers like I did. Everything powerful about him came from his suit.

Still, his restraints on me restricted my power. I couldn't break his hold on me, not with ultrasound and not with teleportation. Because he wasn't his powers, he couldn't be affected or weakened by them.

"The Librarian left little to chance, didn't she?" the Didact asked rhetorically. "Turning my own guardians...my own world...against me. But what hubris to believe she could protect her pets from me forever."

The ultrasonic waves around me tightened. Painfully so. I groaned, trying to loosen his hold. I could barely breathe. John wasn't faring any better.

"If you haven't mastered even these primitives," the Didact nodded to the Covenant below us, "then Man has not attained the Mantle. Your ascendance may yet be prevented."

Where was he going with this? Was he going to kill us?

Would it be quick, or drawn out?

The torturously restrictive bindings around us seemed to suggest he had a sadistic streak.

He drew us in, even closer. I could hear John fighting against the bonds.

The pressure was so immense; it was making my vision go black around the edges. I felt g-forces that weren't there. It was hard to breathe, I was dizzy.

He was torturing us. Torturing John.

How dare he hurt John? John had been through enough, dammit!

I sent out a brief, strong pulse at that thought. The Didact's hold on me flickered for a moment.

It came back twice as strong; a broken groan left my mouth as my body was compressed from every side.

Nothing made sense, I couldn't think. I couldn't focus. Nothing felt real. The pressure was too intense, it was messing up my mind.

We were in danger.

"Ah, not yet." The Didact admonished my escape attempt. His lips curled in a snarl.

He turned his hand, moving me around so he could study me. He picked at a particularly personal memory in my mind; my first time with John. It wasn't his!

"Time was your ally, humans. But now it has abandoned you. The Forerunners have returned."

The Didact's mask slid on, looking eerily similar to a skull.

"This tomb is now yours."

With a flick of his wrist he sent us flying. John managed to wrap himself around me as the Didact rose back up into his cryptum.

We hit a stone wall. It jarred my body, even with John shielding me. I cried out at the harsh impact.

We hit the ground hard. My vision cut out, and I felt my body go limp.

Fear. I felt fear. It wasn't mine.

I knew, for some reason, I was supposed to be afraid. But I couldn't seem to remember why.

My side ached something awful. Whoever was carrying me - I was being carried, indeed - wasn't very courteous. It was bumpy and jarring.

Oh, John was afraid. Truly afraid. For once in his life, he couldn't set his fear aside.

His terror seemed to hone his abilities even more. He moved too fast for me to truly perceive.

Which was good, because if he'd been a second slower a huge falling rock would have crushed us.

I was cradled in his arms as he ran through a collapsing canyon.

"John?" I looked around at our blurry surroundings. "What's happening?"

"Tawny, find a way out of here," he panted. He was panting from the physical exertion of running so fast that I felt like I was in a car with no windows.

But his words confused my still-waking mind. "What?"

I knew something serious was happening. I just couldn't remember what it was. It was right on the edge of my perception, taunting me.

"The Didact opened a slipspace portal; it destabilized the core," he explained in a rushed voice. "We need to get out of here, now."

Everything came flooding back. My eyes widened. "Oh, my god. O-okay. Um...there's a terminus th-through this next fork. Go right."

A deep split in the ground opened up before us. John leaped over it, landing as if he wasn't carrying an extra four hundred pounds.

There, right in front of us, was a terminus.

I set it to the nearest surface-level node. It lit up when we were scarcely a hundred feet in front of it.

John didn't hesitate. He jumped into the air and flew towards the portal.

Flew? He hadn't learned to fly yet; he was shaky by himself, and he was carrying me and my suit.

But desperate times did call for desperate measures, I supposed.

The blue light of the portal engulfed us.

We reappeared atop a cliff. Flying right for the edge.

John rolled, wrapping an arm around me, and used his other hand to punch a hole in the ground. He latched onto the hole, using it to prevent us from going over the cliff edge.

Then he knelt above me, looking around at our surroundings.

I laid on my back, staring up at the sky. Tears were leaking out of my eyes, soaking into the lining of my helmet and falling back into my hair.

"Tawny?"

The Didact had been in my mind. He'd seen my memories. I couldn't stop him; I'd been completely helpless.

John looked up as something massive soared overhead. The Song of the East. It had survived the gravity well, somehow, but it was headed straight for the surface. It was going to crash.

It soared down, down, down, towards some random spot in the distance. I could hear its engines screaming.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is the Captain of the UNSC Song of the East. Unknown entity has seized control of our ship. We're without power, and on a collision course with an unidentified Forerunner planet!"

"Tawny." John looked back down, brushing the side of my helmet with his fingertips.

I whimpered. He'd been inside my mind; my deepest secrets were his.

John pulled me up, setting my back against a stone. He pulled my helmet off. Fresh air, completely unfiltered, filled my lungs.

John sounded worried. "What is it?"

I felt his armored thumb come up, wiping at the tears running down my cheeks.

The ground shook from the bottom of the cliff, behind us.

The cryptum - the Didact inside - rose up. John was on his feet in an instant, his Covenant rifle aimed at the massive orb.

I cried out, scrabbling backwards away from the Didact's vessel.

It floated up, scanning the ground all around us. The invasive orange light pulsed out from every side of the cryptum; there was no escaping it.

As the beam passed over me I started sobbing. "No, please-"

The cryptum pulsed once, taking off into the distance.

John followed it with his eyes. "It's going after the Song."

I tried to quiet my sobs, pushing my back against the rock.

"Tawny, talk to me." He knelt in front of me.

"The Didact." I struggled to clamp down on another sob. "He was in my mind. I couldn't stop him. He knows everything."

"'Everything'?" John sounded confused.

"He knows my whole life. All of it. He was there, in my head, a-and I could feel him...but I couldn't get him out." I whimpered. "I couldn't do anything."

A brief, white-hot anger flashed through John.

He turned it into motivation and refocused. "We need to stop him. Can you tap into the planet and find the Song?"

I swallowed heavily, running my hand over my hair. It was still in a bun, save the strands that had been burned by the needler round.

I ripped it out of the chignon, watching the severed strands of the burnt hair fall onto my shoulder.

As I tied it back up, brushing the blackened hair out of my right eye, I nodded. "I think I can."

Tears were still wet on my face, but I wasn't crying anymore. I was focusing.

"We need to stop the Didact," John said.

"You're right." I closed my eyes, choking down my terror. "We need to get to the ship."

"So where is it?"

It was a fight to keep my breathing steady. "I'm not sure. Let me look…"

I tapped into the planet, which was almost like one big computer.

The ship wasn't particularly hard to find, what with its abundance of electrical systems and living creatures. It showed up on pretty much every kind of sensor.

"Okay, it's about fifty miles North."

John slid his rifle onto his back. "Can you make it?"

I wanted to say yes. I almost did.

Then I looked out over the cliffs before us. Beyond those, thick rainforests.

And my ankle was weak with pain, even while I was sitting down. It was a sharp, ever-present pain. No matter how my ankle rested, it hurt.

I chewed on my lip, trying to decide how to answer.

Fuck it, we needed to get down there. Like John said, there were things that had to get done. It didn't matter if I could...I had to. So I would.

I met his eyes, hoping none of my terror leaked into them. "I can make it."

oOOOo

Author's Note: This week felt so short! My alarm went off to update and I didn't even realize what it was for a second!

Also I haven't left my house in more than two weeks lol. I'm enjoying the down time, but since I'm still fighting writer's block for the next book it's a very bittersweet enjoyment. I have been drawing a lot though!

I love you guys sm!