Chapter 20 – Bornstellar-Makes-Eternal-Chances.

"Reclaimer. It is time we spoke."

I tried to blink myself awake.

Am I dead?

"No, but you are in danger, that is why your imprint, your gaes has summoned me."

Oh god, I'm hearing things.

"Try to take this seriously, young reclaimer. I have much to discuss."

Somehow, I felt myself floating in a sea of tumultuous thought, gliding across a thousand years of space and time like a boat across a pond.

"You're one of these forerunners."

"Very astute, reclaimer."

"Hardly. I've had nothing but visions of you lot for days. Meddling with my head and my memories."

"Yes, well, I apologise, but predicting your species development was mostly guesswork on my part. When I made this little hunt, it would require you to understand, and it would require this echo of me to be able to reveal the information you needed, as you needed it."

Convenient.

"Not at all, young reclaimer, as you will no doubt find out."

You "can" read "my" mind?

"This is all happening in your subconscious mind, your mind and your speech are one and the same."

"That explains the last dream I had."

"May I ask what it was that you dreamed of?"

"The day my life fell apart…"

"He made quick time… I should have known he would take the first chance he got…" the apparition half mumbled this as though he were at war with his own thoughts, or some intrusive force.

"Who did? I knew I felt something else there!"

"That's why I revealed myself to you now, young reclaimer. You can't know. Not while you are in danger."

Danger…

My head swam with painful attempts to remember why I was even here.

"The covenant."

"Who?"

"A group of aliens that worship your ancient buildings and artifacts."

"Really? That is… troubling. Why do they threaten the reclaimers?" he seemed to wonder aloud.

I was confused. "We're heretics? I don't know much about them, sir."

The entity sighed, as though to shake its head.

"What are the races?"

"Lekgolo, Sangheili, Kig-yar, Unggoy, Jiralhanae and-"

"San'shyuum" the voice replied, gravely.

"You know them?"

"A lesson for another time. Your subconscious seems to think that I can help you survive this, reclaimer. Tell me, what do you need?"

What do I need? What do I need?

"To escape? Yes, that's right, I've been captured…"

"I'm just a memory bank, reclaimer, I cannot give anything more than the information I have regarding my society and my work."

"Well…"

My mind raced again, I knew that if I couldn't use this thing to help me escape, I could probably use it to survive.

"Are you Bornstellar?"

"Sort of. It's all rather… complicated for something like yourself."

"You can just call me primitive, you know, there's no need to patronise me."

The entity seemed to want to laugh but spoke as though it were unable to.

"I meant no offense. We will get around to that, I promise."

"Right. Well, the covenant worship you. I was thinking that I could prove to them that I understand their religion or have information that is critical to their cause, that maybe it could at least keep me alive long enough to escape, right?"

"A sound hypothesis."

"But I don't know anything about their religion, not really, anyway." I would have shrugged, but here in this ethereal plane of pure memory, I had no form.

"I know they despise human's and they believe they are on a holy journey? Or on the way to one…"

I groaned, even in this formless state, my frustration was known.

"Journey… and you said they worship us?"

"Yeah, fanatically. Drake said you all disappeared. I don't know anything about you, Bornstellar, how would I even know if you went on a journey like they claim."

"We didn't, but perhaps that is how they rationalised our disappearance."

"Maybe."

"You don't seem interested in the mysteries unfurling before you, young reclaimer."

"Oh, I am," I said, truthfully, I was thoroughly engrossed, "but I've been getting good at not asking questions that I won't get an answer to."

"I wish I had your wisdom when I was your age." He replied, sagely.

Huh, well if I amount to little else in life, it's cool to know that I at least one-upped an ancient alien locked in a snow-globe.

"You are not dead yet, reclaimer." He said, reminding me that he was omniscient here.

"Yeah, yet. Is there anything you can tell me about your disappearance that might keep me alive, that they might want to know?"

"There was no 'disappearance', only death. What we did… It killed us. There was no salvation for us. Only for you, for them."

"Very cryptic." I observed, as the memory of Bornstellar seemed to glitch around me, as if he were shuddering. "They would never believe that, they're too dogmatic to be put off by danger, they'd call me a liar and lop off my head."

"If it is credibility you need then remember the word 'Halo' and the name 'IsoDidact'. They will serve you well."

"I'm so confused."

"The less you know, the better, child."

"Hold on, you said, the journey wasn't your salvation, but it was ours?"

"Yes but-"

"That is all you can say, yeah I get it." I sighed; "can you at least tell me what did you do to deserve it?"

The space ruffled, shimmering with pain and regret.

"We betrayed the mantle. We lost ourselves, rebelled against our masters, and bent the galaxy to our whims without regard for the lives we destroyed to build our empire."

"Sounds familiar."

"Life seeks to survive, often that manifests itself in the domination of others."

"Who did you dominate?"

"Everyone, from your forebears, to those of the covenant. Our reach was as wide as the galaxy itself and our power unmatched for millennia."

"I don't see how that is particularly cruel" I laughed, "we must have been less than monkeys at the time."

Bornstellar seemed to sigh, it was hard to tell without a body to relate to.

"We certainly thought of you as much."

"Well, do you still think that?"

"I never thought that. Well, not the Bornstellar part of me, anyway." He sensed my confusion, "Forerunners go through a sort of chrysalis stage, we evolve into castes. Imagine a colony of caterpillars" he said, sifting through my own memories for reference, "and instead of morphing into one specific animal, it can choose multiple paths, some build, some fight, some collect resources, and others guide lesser life forms."

"So, you were racists, too." I said, wryly.

"Not in the way you imply." He said, with all the nonchalance of an alien that didn't understand complex human racial histories.

"Jesus, I can tell you're not human." I replied, wishing I had elbows to scratch. My entire being ached for a cigarette. While the symptoms seemed to be fading, the stress of my predicament made the cravings all the worse. "How does it work?" I asked, curiously and with the intent of moving the conversation along, "Is it biological? Medical? A technological upgrade?"

"It's a bit of all of them, to be honest. The sad fact is that it was part of the reason that we were doomed. The wrong castes constantly remained in power. The Builders maintained control with their abilities, naturally. My caste, the warriors, gained precedence in times of war, and too late, in the case of the last war. It was the life shapers that should have ruled, however, they never wavered in their duty to the mantle. The ensured our transition to a meatless society, crafted homes and uplifted species ravaged by our wars. Our castes were shackles, a prison of our own biological design. A cruel joke that we never escaped from."

"The life-shapers were religious?"

"In a sense, yes, the mantle of responsibility meant that we were to guide and nurture life ravaged by our expansion, or by their own limitations."

"You mean inferiority."

"I would have hoped that someone as interested in the documentation of the past would understand that it's never as simple as that. The most advanced life in the galaxy will never colonise the stars if there isn't enough ore on their planet to develop flight."

"I suppose humanity doesn't really have a leg to stand on in that regard."

There was a silence. It frustrated me that I couldn't know his thoughts but then, he was just some kind of imprint. What was it that he called it?

Gaes.

"It's an imprint, as you suggested. A set of instructions, memories and imperatives passed through one's DNA. Usually they are implanted at birth but… it seems my wife succeeded on bestowing her gift, at least."

"Sounds like a nice lady" I said, nonchalantly.

"You don't know the half of it, young reclaimer."

"Will I ever?"

"If you live."

"I suppose staying here forever isn't an option."

"No."

"You aren't a very cheery people, are you?"

"We lose that when we transform."

"Right."

Silence.

"I'll be off then, shall I?"

"Good luck, we shall meet again, young reclaimer."

I}{=}{I

The first thing that I noticed, as I woke from my 'slumber' was the roar of the crowd. The deafening howl of Kig-yar, the warble of grunts and the roar of the brute clans made my ears shudder with the screams of their triumph. This meant a lot to them. I felt a bit like Joan of Arc, paraded through the streets of Plantagenet France ready for her burning. The software in my helmet couldn't keep up and just flashed an error message in the corner of the screen as my head ached with a dull throb that was more than just the effects of withdrawal, it was the unmistakable pounding of blood freshly returning to my head.

I was stood up, held in place by a great big hand clasped around the back of my neck. My legs went stiff and I steadied myself, the movement alerting the Brute to my waking. He grinned in the corner of my vision and I groaned as he hoisted me up into the air, sending the crowd wild again.

So, I'm a trophy, then. I will not go quietly; I will hold myself proudly.

I am a woman of the species that fought against itself over and over, that tried and struggled in the name of freedom, of liberty, of wealth, exploration, adventure, of evil… Humans were not to be underestimated. I would show them what a human can be.

My helmet picked up the words of the Brute, Ketarus, who held me aloft like a discarded children's toy. He must have been close enough for it to pick out, but he roared, basking in the glow of victory.

"Behold, the dastardly imp!"

I began to recognise the word that probably meant 'imp' erupt from the crowd as their frenzied blood lust ramped up. I neared the tower they'd erected in the middle of the shopping district and took in the sight.

It stretched high into the sky, reaching into the orange glow of the skopjean summer sky. The planet's orange hue contrasted the purple spire as they warred for supremacy over the scenery like David and Goliath.

We're not far from the mall…

I shuddered and my stomach lurched. If I was going to avoid anywhere, it had to be there. It could be the greatest fortress against the covenant, the hardest place that they had ever tried to conquer and I would not set foot within a mile of it. I couldn't. Already, it was too close for comfort, hiding like a snake in the grass.

"Put me down!" I demanded, shouting at the brute, channelling all the fury I could muster into my voice.

He swung me around to face him.

Just as Drake taught me.

The blow would have surprised no human, but these aliens thought of us as weak. They thought us feeble. It would be fun to show them how wrong they were.

It actually knocked him back a little.

Retaliation was swift and adored by the crowd. Wind rushed from my lungs like a vacuum as the Brute drove its head at my chest. Had I not been wearing ODST armour, I might have been split in half. Erun stepped forward, his blade drawn, its twin peaks probing at the edge of my neck. It was good that I felt shame now, I shouldn't have tried to die. I should have tried to fight.

It was a searing brand marked deeply into my cheeks. I felt more shame at my own weakness than I did from the scorn of my enemy, laid out before me in a stormy sea of frothing hatred. It was almost pitiful, in a way, a mighty army reduced to an animalistic frenzy by a sixteen-year-old girl with a metal ball and a rifle.

Perhaps I expected too much of intelligent life but I couldn't help but hope that they were capable of more. It would be tragic if this was the pinnacle of civilisation for them. Maybe strife and the desire for progress was a trait most profound in humans, perhaps that is what Bornstellar saw in us that they didn't see in the Elites or their prophet masters.

Erun's white-hot blade wavered and he simply glared down at me, his eyes affixed to the pack on my back. There was a tense atmosphere on the deck of the transport, The Elites and Brutes stood in segregated groups on either side of me as we rolled towards the spire built as a command centre. There was constant glaring and hushed talking between the groups and only Ketarus ever broke this system, approaching Erun and staring down into the helmet perched on my head.

"Redemption is ready for us but he grows impatient, Erun, can we hurry this charade up so I can watch him eviscerate this filth."

My body spasmed as he kicked me and a dull throb began to emerge from my side.

Erun scowled, had he not reacted to the kick, the recoil from the blow would have left me without a head. "Careful, [context: Idiot]. We need the imp undamaged for his holiness" read the translation software.

"We need to get this moving; we've wasted far too much blood on this backwater as it is."

Ketarus' consideration for his forces made him more terrifying than the other brutes. He was a thinker, there was precision to his brutality, purpose, even. My hair stood on end at that thought and only the fact he seemed a rarity assuaged my terror. If the brutes ever discovered the fruits of education, the galaxy would bend before them.

It would certainly pit them against the Elites.

The Elites seemed to be on top because of tradition. There were honours and rules to their ranks. Old fashioned pride. It was like reading a virtual history book or a simulation of old human caste-based societies.

"I'm well aware of that, Ketarus. We can shrug off the losses, but the Unggoy need this. We have risked their disobedience and that is, as you well know, a very dangerous thing."

The Brute grunted loudly and shook his head.

"On your head be it, Zealot."

"I know what I'm doing, Ketarus."

"I hope so, for your sake. This campaign has been… less than ideal."

They clearly didn't realise that my helmet was translating and recording their conversation. In fact, it seemed as though they had absolutely no understanding of our technology at all. Their commitment to their faith was costing them in this war, Human technology was heretical and it stopped them from wiping us out completely. Protecting that fact was now paramount if I were to help the UNSC after my escape.

If I ever escape.

"As I said. I know." Erun grunted.

He looked back at me and pushed his foot between my shoulders, pinning me to the floor as the crowd exploded again.

"Brothers! Hear me!" he said with a roar. "When we finally ascend and begin the journey to the divine beyond, we will remember this moment, will we not?"

They howled in agreement.

"The taming of this would-be imp marks the first step to the discovery of the path! In her possession is an ancient device, left by the God's to show us the way, to reveal the start of the great journey!"

It shouldn't have been possible but they seemed to grow even more jubilant and the noise deafened me as the transport pulled into the excavated square in front of their base.

They'll be very disappointed when they realise Drake has it.

"But!"

The garrison quietened a little, waiting for the bad news.

"She" he tickled my shoulder with his blade, sending a searing icy pain through my shoulder, "has corrupted the device! She defiled it with her filthy fingers in a vain attempt to stop us from beginning the journey!"

The crowd remained in a silent trance. Hate burned in every beady eye and hid in every taught motionless jaw. My skin prickled and a shiver ran up my spine with the force of a thousand charging horses.

"Fear not, for she will be delivered to the prophet that she tried in vain to murder." He paused, allowing the crowd's anticipation, rage and frustration to build in a silent storm of emotion.

"AND. SHE. WILL. BE. JUDGED." As Erun said this he dipped the blade into my shoulder, making me cry out in pain, my scream setting the crowd into furious stupor.

Erun turned to face me as the crowd roared its approval.

"Did you like the speech little mouse?" he asked in his surprisingly fluent English.

Did he know that I understood that?

"It wasn't very inclusive" I said, groaning, "stabbing me was a nice touch by the way, really appreciated that." I gasped, realising that it was simply Erun's attempt at bread and circuses.

"hmph"

Was that a laugh?

Beneath the helmet I cringed, was sarcasm a higher form of humour to these things? God help them if that's culture to them. War, Religion, and Sarcasm sounded more like a cocktail made from craft beer and spirits than the three pillars of a spacefaring society.

If I ever saw Drake again, I resolved to do two things: knock him out and then ask him everything we knew about Covenant culture.

The transport slowed to a halt and I was lifted to my feet by one of Ketarus' brutes. In all there were about twenty massive creatures escorting me inside the main chamber and up towards a throne-like mound at the far end of the room. The Elites strode ahead, filling the space proudly as the Brutes followed, dragging and yanking me along with them like the limp chew toy of an old farm dog.

With a yelp, I connected loudly with the metallic floor plating as the guards retreated and Erun and Ketarus stood around me.

"I thought he was ready." Erun said in English, pacing about. It was odd to see him so nervous and strange that he would speak the human language.

"He's making you wait." Ketarus replied, also in English. "I don't think your stock is quite as high as it once was, brother." he said with a shrug.

The remark made Erun stop and turn quickly.

"Tread lightly, Brute. You forget your place."

"Trouble in paradise, eh?" I said, chuckling. The fact that they needed me alive had given me a confidence I didn't know I possessed.

I had never lacked for it, of course, but goading your alien captors was a step up, even for an extrovert like me.

"Even the mouse can sense the change, Zealot." Ketarus mused. "Something is not right; the universe is unbalanced."

"Silence!" Erun shot back, his eyes darting about.

By God, could they be anymore paranoid?

It was then that the purple door to the left of the throne-mound chimed and its lights switched from red to neon green. The creatures around me snapped into rows and knelt as the prophet whirred into the room, gliding on a new chair and surrounded by some kind of royal guard.

I tried to stand but Erun pinned me back down, remaining standing as he did so. It seemed his rank afforded him the luxury of paying respect on his feet. The chair ignored the mound and its low hum grew louder as it approached me.

"Is this the one?"

"Yes, your holiness"

"Show it to me. Remove the…" I think it gestured to my head, "that."

"Your holiness, are you sure that is wise?"

"Are you afraid, Erun?" it laughed, "have the human's tempered your fire?"

"No, Holy Prophet. I am simply being cautious, this one and her allies are tenacious. The one named Drake is known to us." They shared a glance, "He was responsible for the sabotage of The Conquered Iconoclast."

"Ah yes, I remember, terrible losses. Terrible." The voice seemed authoritative and resolute. "Now remove it. Show me its face."

Ketarus obliged without question and pulled my helmet from my head and allowed it to fall to the floor in front of me. I refused to look up but Ketarus wasn't in the mood for dragging this out and gripped me by the hair and yanked it back, forcing me to gaze up and into the eyes of the now hideous gray-skinned San'shyuum.

His skin was boiled and sore. In places, dry and dead flesh peeled away from him like grated cheese and much of his body was bandaged in an aromatic cloth that only vaguely hid the smell of seared meat. His eyes however, were bright and young, there was rage and disdain in those eyes but more than anything, there was ambition. It exuded from a gash in his soul and poured from his eyes like lava.

"Such fragile things, don't you think?" he said, speaking in English.

"They are…" Erun said, half agreeing.

"Deceptive." Ketarus finished Erun's thought for him.

"Very astute, pack-leader."

Our eyes hadn't left each other's since they met. I refused to back down, pride was my only card to play at this stage. "What do you think of your handy-work? Does it irk you to see me alive?"

I shrugged, "I never was much of a cook."

The creatures behind me growled and roared but the prophet silenced them with a wave of its hand.

"Leave us. Erun and Ketarus, you stay."

The others fled the room in hurried silence leaving the three of them standing over me like lions over a fresh kill.

"Now this… Drake, he foils us here, as well?" he said, glaring down at me.

"It remains to be seen if the damage done to the orb is reversible" Erun said, nervously tapping his hoof against the purple floor.

"Yes, the orb!" he leaned back and stroked his chin, "was the relic what we believed it to be? Where is it?"

"We aren't sure, I haven't gotten anything from her yet, your holiness."

"and why not?"

Erun looked uncomfortable and I noticed a glance between himself and Ketarus.

"As I said in my report, they managed to summon a demon, we had to regroup for a final assault. Had our forces consisted of the regular ratio of troops, we may have taken it sooner."

"Yes, well, Truth doesn't want us losing more Elite blood than necessary. Not when the start of the Great Journey is so close. Besides, Ketarus and his Brutes have proved themselves as shock troops. His victory at the gates of the city will go down as the lone bright spot of this damnable campaign."

The Brute bristled.

"Still, this is the situation that we find ourselves in. The Prophet of Truth believed this orb carried a message. A message from one of the God's themselves. It may even contain details about the Great Journey itself."

The IsoDidact… that was the name I had to remember, could that be one of their God's?

"Prophet… did he say which one?" Ketarus asked, quizzically.

"No. He did not."

"She will not understand what it is we speak of. If we wish to question her, we must… reveal the holy works to her."

"Not if we do not need her. Touch her hand to it."

Ketarus grasped my wrist for emphasis and my fist loosened, Erun simply shook his head, as if unable to hide his contempt for the Brute.

"Well?" the prophet demanded; his tone of piety become one of frustration.

"She was the one holding it when I caught them trying to escape, Holy Prophet, but it is no longer in her possession it seems."

Ketarus grunted his affirmation.

"It hasn't told me anything." I said, surprising them. It was a half-truth; I hadn't been told anything that could help me give away Bornstellar's gift.

"Ah it finds its voice at last!" he scowled down at me, "tell me, Erun. Do all of them look fresh out of the crib?"

"Just this one. She wears the armour of imps but I suspect she has not been trained as such."

"Escaped you more than once though, didn't I?" How much insolence the Elite would take was unknown to me but the Prophet seemed to allow that humiliation.

"Spirited one, isn't she?"

"She is." Ketarus agreed, "She tried to take her own life when we cornered her."

"Is that so?"

"It is." Erun said, inserting himself back into the fore of the conversation. "I'm inclined to believe that the little mouse has something of value, even if she says she doesn't. We may not need the orb if we can pry from her the information inside of her."

The prophet looked to the Brute, much to Erun's annoyance, and he nodded again.

"Well then, my loyal adjudicates have determined that you have something we need, child."

He looked at me expectantly.

"You can't be serious?" I replied, incredulously, "you think I would just give you what you want? Just like that?"

"My dear, you do realise how many humans survive captivity, don't you?"

"I don't care."

"My, she is combative, isn't she? Are all human females like this?" he said to Erun, who stood with his arms folded and his eyes fixed on me like some nascent hawk.

"As with all things, your holiness, humans have a significant degree of variance in all things. It appears our run of bad luck continues." Erun replied, sagely.

Ketarus nodded, "She looks…" he pawed at my chin with his foot, "young."

Erun nodded in agreement as the prophet cocked his head, "You mean this is actually a human child?"

"Late adolescent, I believe." Erun said, his eyes resting on me now.

"You could just ask me?" I said, struggling against the beasts pinning me in place.

"Fascinating." The Prophet said, "I've been asking Truth to consult the oracles for permission to study them for years…"

Erun looked at Ketarus, I couldn't see the brute but I didn't need to. I knew that look. There was something going on between them. I knew the pair of them were curious, but having had no experience of Elite and Brute behaviour, I didn't know what was and wasn't something of note. Thanking God for the helmet that sat watching, I craned my neck around at them.

"Permission to speak freely, your holiness?" the Brute said, from above me.

"Yes?"

"It is a point of… concern, for myself and Erun."

"Is that so…" he floated around me in a long slow circle, "perhaps we should recognise this for the opportunity that it is."

"Holy Prophet, we do not have the time-" Erun replied, quickly.

"If she has information, we do have the time."

Ketarus crouched and plucked me from the floor by my head, suspending me in the air like a tee-shirt. I spat at him but he simply grinned, wiping it off with my hair.

"The orb." Erun asked, Ketarus thrust me before him, pushing me to my knees with ease. "Who's was it? Where did it lead? What was its message?"

"I don't know what you are talking about."

"Yes, child, you do. We have had the secrets of these devices revealed to us before. There is no use in withholding anything from us." He said, his voice echoed and soothed, it was intoxicating. I felt as though there had perhaps been a beauty to him once upon a time. That was long gone now, however. I had seen to that.

"I-I can't help you, even if I wanted to" I said, without thinking, I was a lot more terrified than I would admit even to myself. They looked at me now with an anticipation and intensity that I could scarcely cope with, "I don't know anything about your religion, I don't even understand what I have been told."

The Prophet smiled.

Oh, dear god.

Why did I tell them that?