Chapter Twenty
John had told me to stay back. He meant it. If I jumped into danger this time, he would actually lose it. He was so scared for me.
But Sergeant Abram was about to get shot in the back.
I whispered, "I'm sorry, John," and teleported to a spot right behind the Sergeant.
The crawler hissed when it saw me, alerting the Sergeant to its presence.
He turned, stumbling back a bit. "Oh, shit!"
I threw my hand out and made a fist. Ultrasonic waves surrounded the crawler and pulverized it.
The Sergeant stared at its remains with wide eyes. "How did you…?"
I winced. "Don't tell John."
"Sure...thing?"
I teleported back to my tree root.
My neck craned to find John. He was across the way, on the back of a knight, underneath a huge, arched tree root.
The knight teleported away from him. He began looking around to see where it would reappear.
Something hit me from behind, sending me flying out into the clearing. I cried out, sprawling over the ground.
My chest felt bruised from the impact; it was already sore from landing on Requiem's surface so many hours ago.
I rolled over just in time to see the Promethean knight charging me, the hardlight sword on its arm preparing to stab me through.
I cried out again, this time in fear, and held my hands up above me. Waves pulsed out and surrounded the knight, locking it in place.
I looked over my arms, my chest heaving. It was completely immobilized in the air above me.
I scrambled to my feet, hardly noticing the pain in my ankle as I did so. I crept backwards, away from the knight, with my arms held out in front of me. My eyes were wide with acute terror.
I made a crushing motion with my hands. The knight compacted into a ball of metal.
As soon as I released my hold on the remains they evaporated in an orange datapurge.
John was there, grabbing my arm. "Are you alright?"
I exhaled shakily. "Yeah, I'm good. The-the soldiers are up there." I pointed to the structure up the hill. "Just inside the building."
"Come on." He wrapped his left arm over my shoulders.
Our hands were intertwined. My arm was at an awkward angle to hold his; it was worth it.
I wrapped my right arm around his waist and leaned my head against his arm, letting him take some of my weight. My ankle felt like it would collapse if it took any weight at all.
It didn't, obviously, because I walked up the hill with John's assistance just fine. It hurt worse than the injury really was.
We came out of a cavern of roots. There was a dropped IFF tag by the doorway.
I closed my eyes. "Nine people inside."
The door opened and three SPARTANs walked out, their guns up. They walked past us, scanning the surroundings.
They weren't SPARTANs like I'd ever seen, and John didn't recognize their IDs on his HUD; his confusion was clouding up the air around him.
Did they make more SPARTANs?
These were kidnapped children, too. But they were still children.
A young man with brownish-black hair walked out. "Afraid we're going to have to give you an IOU on that welcome home party."
He walked forward and offered John his hand.
"Tom Lasky, first officer of the Song. Never thought I'd see you again."
He knew John. The recognition had intense emotions. Pain, terror, grief. Almost exactly like Commander Orenski's recognition of Blue Team.
I wondered if it was related.
There was a man...no, a boy...in blue armor to our right. He had his rifle up. "Alright NOBLE, seal her up."
Inside the structure, which we were all walking into, was a marine by a transmitter.
A broken comm came through, "...all ground forces are ordered to return to Song of the East immediately!"
It was Captain Del Rio.
"Commander! Radio's hot!" The marine waved us over.
We walked up to the transmitter. John lowered me down onto the ground, with my back to the wall.
I once again tried to roll my right ankle, even a little bit, but it made a harsh complaint known. Pain flared up my leg; I couldn't move my foot.
The Captain sounded tense on the radio. "What frequency, damnit?!"
Lasky knelt beside the boxy radio. "Song of the East, this is Commander Lasky. Pelican recon teams are down. Repeat, all birds are down. We've got numerous casualties and require immediate assistance. Over."
"Finally." the Captain sounded agitated. "Did you get the coordinates to that gravity well?"
The question seemed to catch Lasky off guard. "Affirmative, sir, but we're going to need a bus out of here."
The Captain's tone was short and clipped. "Make it happen."
John was in a minor state of disbelief. "You were sent to do recon while the Song is engaged in combat?"
His disapproval was tangible even to the non-empathetic people around me. It made some of them wince, even though they knew they weren't the focus of his displeasure.
I forgot how intimidating he was.
Lasky sighed. "The Captain thought they could provide us cover and hold off the attack at the same time."
The child in blue armor - I could feel how young he was, and he was only a teenager - stepped forward. "We can't stay here, sir."
Both the child and Lasky looked over to a marine who was sweaty with pain, lying behind the radio to my left.
Lasky thought for a moment. I could feel his emotions fluctuating as he mulled over various plans.
With another sigh he pushed himself to his feet. Looked up at John. "I don't know if it's too soon to ask you for a favor, but we're running out of breathing room here real quick."
He smiled a bit.
"I don't suppose you're any good at clearing LZs?"
John nodded. "On occasion."
The Commander smiled. He would have laughed, if the situation was any less tense. "Take NOBLE Team with you."
"I'll send out an all-clear once the area's secure," John assured him.
A tall SPARTAN - he towered over John by a foot - walked up. He drew his fingers across John's face in a SPARTAN smile.
"Glad to see you're alive, Chief." He had an interesting accent. Slavic, maybe?
John clapped his shoulder, a very resigned gesture in comparison to the joy I could feel in his heart. "Jorge."
Jorge was a SPARTAN like John, not like the new ones. He was an adult.
John turned to me. "Stay with the Commander."
I bit back an argument. I was exhausted and hurt; I would definitely be a liability out there. He had six other SPARTANs with him, so he would be okay.
Right?
I pushed myself to my feet, gritting my teeth against the pain. "Please be safe."
"You know me." John brushed the side of my helmet with his fingers. "I'll be back soon."
He turned to the six SPARTANs. One our age, five still children.
"Let's move."
They walked out together.
I was left with Commander Lasky, Sergeant Abram, an injured marine with a broken leg, and the marine working the radio.
I lowered myself shakily back to the ground and pulled my helmet off. I was distinctly aware of how awful I looked; tear-stains tracking through dusty grime. Burnt hair. I was sure my jaw was bruised, too.
"Chief seems to like you."
My eyes shot up to look at the Commander. "Oh. Yeah."
"I'm glad to see him safe."
I looked down at the dark blue helmet in my lap. "How do you know him?"
Lasky regressed into his memories for a bit. "He saved me back when I was a cadet on Circinius IV. I was one of three to make it off of the planet with him, when the Covenant attacked."
"I'm...sorry."
He shook his head and held a hand up. "It's in the past now. So what's your story? You look like Blue Five."
I perked up a bit. "What is Blue Five? S-Sergeant Abram mentioned it, but I don't know what he meant."
"Everyone's heard about Blue Five and the Master Chief. The martyrs of Blue Team. The last SPARTANs to die in the war, and the only SPARTANs listed KIA."
"But...I-I'm not a SPARTAN."
"I know." He was deep in thought. "You're civilian."
I nodded.
"You're on the field, though. I've read your file; special powers and all. Maybe the UNSC disguised you as a SPARTAN for the documents released to the public."
"So wait." I took a moment to process. "You're saying Blue Team is...famous?"
He nodded. "The symbol of the UNSC."
"So they're all okay? Kelly and Fred and Linda?"
"Yeah, they're alright as far as I know. Just got transferred to the SPARTAN Branch a little less than a year ago."
"'SPARTAN Branch'?"
"You've been out for awhile." He sat down by the radio. "With all of the SPARTAN IIs, and the hypothetical SPARTAN IVs, they made a separate branch."
But those weren't the only SPARTANs. There were a lot of IIs, yes, about 70. But that wasn't enough to constitute a whole branch. And Lasky said the IVs were hypothetical, which meant there weren't any right now.
Which meant the branch was - probably - full of those children.
"You do know that those SPARTANs, o-on NOBLE Team, are children, right?" I pressed.
Lasky sighed. I could feel his guilt. "All I know is the IVs are supposed to be consenting adults."
I looked down. "That doesn't help the...would that make those children IIIs?"
He sighed again. "If you ask, ONI will tell you about their IIIs. But only if you ask. Otherwise, as far as most are concerned, those five are IIs."
My head fell back against the wall. "This war cost so much for so many."
"I'm just glad it's over. The Covenant splinter factions are easier to mop up than the real thing."
I let my eyes close. I could feel exhaustion dragging at my mind.
Since we'd woken up, John and I had fought enemies almost nonstop. First it was the Covenant, then Prometheans.
The only break from combat we had was when we were trekking across the planet.
And the trek wasn't easy, either, with hunger and dehydration and my ankle. It was only slightly less perilous than being literally shot at.
I blinked heavily, sitting up. I rubbed my face with the palms of my hands, trying to use the rough fabric and armor to wake myself up. Don't let your mind wander...don't think about-
"How long have you two been down here?"
I looked up at the Commander's question. "A few hours. We woke up in the Dawn right before it got sucked into the gravity well. When we got your comms w-we tried to warn you, but there was too much interference."
My eyes fell to my legs. Don't think about...too late.
"By the time we cleared it up…" My stomach churned when I thought about the Didact.
He could have killed us if he wanted. He was playing some sort of demented game with us - with all of us. I was terrified to learn what it was.
I couldn't meet Lasky's eyes. "How many people died in the crash?"
"Eight." His answer was immediate, like he'd been thinking about it as well.
I felt tears well up.
Eight people had died. The Didact had already killed eight people.
I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, me too." Lasky's voice was low.
I felt a sob coming up. I choked it down.
"You and the Chief seem pretty close."
I nodded and scrubbed my eyes. "We are."
I wanted to say more, maybe about how we were both Revivers, but then I remembered; John hadn't told anyone. It wasn't my place to share his secret.
"Wish I didn't have to send him out like that, but we need a way out of here," Lasky said apologetically.
"I understand." I fell back against the wall and stared at the ceiling with half-lidded eyes. "The Captain wasn't very accommodating."
"He gets like that. There's a lot on his shoulders."
"Like the safety of his men. I can see how worried he is for all of you." My tone was unusually dry.
Lasky didn't respond.
My thoughts started to wander. "I...I never meant for this to happen. First-Light warned us about the Didact. I never thought we'd be the ones to let him out."
"You let him out?"
I ran my tongue over my lips. They were dry and cracked.
"Yeah, we let him out," I admitted in a low tone. "He disguised his cryptum as a satellite...we tried to use it to warn you away from the gravity well."
"And that let him escape."
"We did all the hard work for him." My face crumpled, tears once again spilling over. Making tracks in my dusty face. "I never meant for any of this to happen."
"Hey." Lasky sat forward. "No one blames either of you. You were just trying to warn us."
The radio buzzed. "Sierra one-one-seven to Lasky, LZ is secure."
oOOOOo
Author's Note: Hi guys! Just a reminder that I will be taking down the original Chipped in a week and making Chipped: The Rewrite the official first book in the series!
Love y'all! :)
