Preston was alive.
For the first time since Nicola died, I had some hope that my old life wasn't completely gone, that there were people out there who I love and trusted. As we looked out over the valley and towards the castle, ready to make the relatively short trek back to safety, the world around us began to rumble. The covenant had not rested, it seemed, and their Plasma artillery began sighting our position by the old ash tree. Drake bid farewell to the Major and said nothing as we clambered over the trench wall and stood at the top of the valley.
It was an awesome sight.
Destruction was everywhere, from the torn-up ground that looked like cake mix, to the remnant of the Covenant's defences and the bodies of the fallen. Blood pooled in the valley, flowing like a recently dried river, smeared across the valley floor. It was strange, seeing the valley like this. This place had held such a special place in my heart for years. It was a place where I could be myself, that I shared with friends, and the place where I didn't have to conform to anything but the command of the wind.
Drake and Percival lead our section of the column, with myself, Preston, and Jack making up the centre of the precession, trudging across the scarred landscape. It was unrecognisable from before and that helped, I don't know how I would have felt if I had seen this destruction doled out in front of me but now that it was done, that my little place of tranquillity was the site of a great battle, I felt a keen sense of finality for this planet. That for all intents and purposes, it was done for.
It's liberating at least.
We ducked as a plasma shell exploded to our left. Drake yelled to get a move on and we broke into a jog as the line behind us erupted in gunfire. UNSC rockets and helicopters rushed overhead, engaging covenant banshees and protecting us as we removed ourselves from the battle as quickly as we could. We passed body after body, the remains of fortifications, sunken trenches, and the molten remains of tanks. Each of them was riddled with holes and wounds. Without fail, everything in the valley had been ravaged by the war and consumed by heat and fire.
This continued on until we reached the dried riverbed on what used to be the valley floor. It must have been as wide as a motorway and as deep as several houses, because the boulders here were the size of a car and numerous, too. The riverbed had been the site of most of the up-close fighting and while I couldn't would out who had been holding most often, I could now see Cadets and recruits scurrying about with sandbags and ammo boxes.
"This is how you've been spending your time, then?" I said to Preston as he looked about.
He sighed, "mostly, yeah, all the guys at bootcamp have been used as reserves until recently. There's a battalion of us, trainees, interns, civvies with experience, locals with guns." A young boy ran across the formation with a submachine gun that looked comically large in his lanky arms.
"It's a Pal's Battalion," I said, shuddering.
"A what?" Preston asked, cocking his head slightly.
"They were units in the first world war designed to increase the number of volunteers and boost morale." I shook my head, "the trouble was when a battle went poorly, you lost all your mates in one go."
Preston remained silent.
"Where were you when this all kicked off," he asked.
I thought back to the argument and that miserably warm summer's afternoon. My fingers twitched, remembering all of a sudden that they hadn't held cigarette in the same way since.
"Walking home from the tree," I replied, my voice soft and delicate.
"Oh, so the others?"
"Could still be alive." I nodded, firmly.
Preston seemed to uncoil and his shoulders relaxed. He'd wanted to ask that since he'd seen me, I reckon, but Preston was surprisingly tactful when he wanted to be.
"They, um, they left me a note, though." I said, reaching into my pack. "They went to the space port…"
Preston sighed.
"Ah…"
"Yeah" I said, understanding instantly, the man's feelings. Our entire family, if they hadn't reached the transports, or had gotten on one of the unlucky ones…
They'd all be dead.
"I was here, obviously, Camp Artemis is a few clicks from the Castle and we've been supplying it, evacuating the wounded, and making sure the rest of the line holds. Not sure how a stone castle has managed it, but it shrugs off plasma like it's a weak breeze."
"Oh" I replied "when the plasma lands, it will heat the stone and melt it and then, when it cools it hardens."
"No kidding?" Preston laughed.
"I think so" I replied.
"Well it's kept me safe, anyway."
A silence hung in the air a little.
"So… what about you, Mads?"
"What about me?" I asked, innocently.
Every bone in my body wanted to just avoid reliving most of what had happened to me over the last month or so, and I knew that I'd get into massive trouble with Drake's boss if I did decide to spill anything.
"You know what." He said, pointedly.
I sighed. "Honestly? Not a lot. I got picked up by Drake on the highway into town and he recognised me. I've been stuck with him ever since." I said, looking at Drake and Naomi, one of which would definitely be listening.
"Uh huh, and that's why you're best friends with a SPARTAN?"
Looking about, I could see Naomi's visor turned in my direction, ever so slightly.
She was listening.
"She's just being nice."
"Right, because SPARTANs are famously nice."
"This one is." I said bluntly.
"Which definitely isn't some kind of sign of respect?"
"No…" I said, very unconvincingly.
"I get it, if you don't want to say what happened Maddie," he shook his head and looked away, "some of what I've seen has just…" he couldn't finish, but I knew what he meant. I'd seen it myself, the twisted bodies and mangled faces. I reflexively touched my own forearm, remembering the deep gashes and bloodstained rags I'd been wearing after the Falcon crash.
"Is awful." I said, finishing for him.
Preston just nodded.
"There is lots to say, P, I'm just not ready to say it." I admitted, nudging him playfully with my arm. "It's just a lot to process and I haven't even had a moment to think yet."
As we spoke, and finally cleared the riverbed, the frontline behind us erupted in gunfire and convoys of men and tanks pushed forward, adorned with whatever was able to be moved up and block the enemy's advances.
"It's nice to be on this side of the front for a change." I said, watching the equipment rush to the front.
Preston shrugged. It was strange to have so much more experience than him. That feeling was good. I didn't feel any sort of need to prove that either and as we neared the Castle, Drake dropped back to talk to me.
"Everything okay?" He asked, leaning over to me.
"Yeah," I nodded, "all things considered"
"Hang in there, lass, you're not out of this yet." He said, placing a hand on my shoulder, "when we get back, I'll get you some proper fatigues, you'll need them here."
"Just make sure they're black" I replied as the Castle closed in, its melted walls and hardened battlements expanding to fill the horizon as we slipped into its shadow.
Preston shot me a look, and I reddened a little under the ODST helmet.
"This isn't about fashion" I said, as I Drake felt Drake's glare from under his helmet.
"I didn't think it was." He replied.
"Oh" I said, blushing again.
He didn't think I was vain for even a moment.
Preston was eyeing the Captain as we chatted, trying to work out who this man was.
"Captain Drake, this is Preston Harper, my brother." I said, trying to make my brother feel less awkward.
"Ah, that explains the fighting then," he said, pretending that he didn't already know who Preston was.
"Nice to meet you, Sir" Preston bumbled awkwardly, not expecting the man's rank to be so high. "Thank you for uh, looking after my sister."
"It's fine, lad, it was all part of the mission." He said reassuringly.
Preston seemed unsatisfied by that and decided, in all his pig-headed wisdom, to press Drake for more.
"So, are you Special Forces?" he asked, looking at Drakes black ONI fatigues.
"Of a sort" Drake shrugged.
"And Maddie fought with you?"
"She did. We were behind enemy lines."
"She won't tell me what happened." Preston said, cheekily, pushing his luck as he usually did.
"Good. She's not allowed to. If you fancy getting into trouble with some very important people, you can keep poking your nose where it shouldn't be." Drake said, menacingly. "Ms Harper has more than proven herself to me and that SPARTAN over there." he added teasingly.
Preston looked at me, grinned wryly, and shook his head. "You never could keep yourself out of trouble, could you?"
I shook my head and laughed as the bridge across the moat extended and we passed over it. I pulled my helmet off as we stepped into the castle, its massive portcullis sliding shut as we moved to the side, directed by Drake to a place that was out of the way. The place was massive, made of a dark stone that melted into shiny black obsidian with each plasma round that had bounced off of it.
"This is huge…" Naomi said, "do you think all castles are this big?"
"No, they didn't have the technology to build architecture like all of this." I said, "the guy who built this was obsessed with himself, he played at creating history with his own hands by looking to the past and doubling what came before in size. It has as much historical value as the local department store."
I shook my head.
"It's a husk." Akron said as he joined us, "it's an imitation, not an homage."
"Exactly," I said, folding my arms, "it's a fake."
"I'd like to see a real one someday." Naomi replied, "you make them sound a lot more impressive."
"You've never been to earth?" Percival asked.
"No, never."
"We'll go there together, Gnomes. I promise."
The SPARTAN made a strange gesture to its faceplate with several fingers and I desperately wanted to ask her what that meant but Drake strolled over to me and called the group to attention. Everyone sprang into place and waited patiently.
"Right," he said, looking at James and Albert as the Military Police arrived to frog march them off to some dark dungeon. "We've all been through a lot so they're assigning us to the Northern Spire, we should be providing overwatch from up there until a Pelican can get here to EVAC the lot of us."
He stood near me and spoke softly. "Follow me to the barracks and get cleaned up, Col Sanderson wants to see us in an hour for a debrief."
"How much am I going to have to lie to her about, Sir?" I asked, swallowing.
"A lot."
}{=}{
With my gear and what remained of my life stowed in the Northern Spire, I was now ready to face the Colonel. Drake led me to the tent, the pair of us clad in black and armed with as much knowledge of subterfuge as one man can tell a child in the space of an hour.
"Remember lass, It's ninety percent attitude. Walk the walk, and you'll be fine." He said as two burly Marines met us and nodded for us to follow them deep into the castle. The castle walkways were wide and gauche, another sign that it had been built for show rather than purpose. Old castles had small corridors so that fewer men were needed to hold it and I forgot, in my annoyance at this pale imitation, that I had ever revered it.
It looks perfect from afar, but like me, its sophistication and beauty were skin deep. It was vanity, pure and simple.
We walked along the austere and wide hallways filled with men and equipment, the busyness was the only thing that conveyed any sense of authenticity. Voices and orders barked into the chaos of a base under siege and a rumble tore through the ground beneath our feet as we moved along the winding corridors of the 'under-crypt'.
Another redundant and meaningless title.
I didn't know what it was that was irritating me about this place. It could have hit a bit too close to home, I think. Regardless, the chaos receded as we passed a checkpoint and entered the restricted area reserved for the top brass.
"Captain Felix Drake and Miss Harper, for you, Ma'am."
"Hm!" sounded a voice, swallowing some kind of her drink, "send them in, the rest of you can take ten."
A mile of support staff, planners, and defence experts filed out of the room. When we finally entered, the place rumbled again as something crashed into the castle above.
"Don't worry, kid" she said, sipping her coffee, "if this place gives out, you'll be dead before you realise it's collapsed on top of you."
I must have looked horrified as she chuckled and put her cup down. She held out her hand to me as Captain Drake remained standing at attention, only saying "at ease" after she dragged out our greeting for as long as possible.
"You wanted to see us, Colonel?"
"I did," she said, returning to her coffee and walking around the table. "My hail Mary failed. Care to explain why you abandoned the plan, Captain?"
Drake straightened and looked her dead in the eye. "My orders took precedence, Ma'am, the situation changed and I made a call."
Colonel Sanderson looked irritated, her calm demeanour was gone, replaced by resignation.
"That was our last chance, Captain. Skopje has been a cluster fu-" she looked at me, "er, a disaster, from start to finish. General Masood and the top brass were wiped out in the first attacks, leaving me in charge of planetary defences. We caught a lucky break bringing down that cruiser, though, and the Navy put up one epic fight for a while."
She shook her head and sighed. The weight of the world on her shoulders.
"I really want to blame you for all of this, Captain. I hope you know that."
Drake stared right at her. I guess he wanted me to know how much ONI were loathed because I didn't think I was supposed to know how badly this campaign had gone.
"Colonel Hernandez made the situation very clear, Ma'am. Everything I have done has been to secure Miss Harper's safety." He lied.
"Oh, I very much doubt that, given how many opportunities you had to get her out. Did you know about that, dear? Your saviour here put you in harm's way."
I looked at the pair of them, wanting desperately to sink into the floorboards or something.
"I-I did," I replied, uncertainly, "the Captain was very honest about why he didn't get me out." I lied.
"Oh?" The Colonel asked, her thin brow arched like a metal beam, buckling under the weight of some great force.
Drake looked at me from the corner of his eye.
"Yes, he did, I refused to be a burden to the men. My grandfather wouldn't have run, my brothers wouldn't, and neither did I."
Colonel Sanderson smiled, "I admire your loyalty but Private Stoots and Corporal Davenport have already told me everything, dear. The details of Captain Drake's crusade to recover an alien artifact have been passed on to Dr. Halsey." She grinned now, "She wants the Orb."
Drake's brow furrowed. It wasn't much of a display to most, but to me, it was a clear sign that the Captain was not happy.
"With respect, Colonel, Dr. Halsey is a civilian contractor. She, and you, have no right to know of my mission."
The Colonel shrugged. "You're a proud ONI man. You know the strings she can pull, now, you killed half a fleet's worth of men and women. Their absence killed a lot of my men and made a bad situation a thousand times worse. She wants that device and I'm inclined to hand it over to her."
"Again," Drake said, calmly, "you don't have the right."
I swallowed. You would need a buzz saw to cut through all the tension in the room.
"You seriously want to go up against Halsey?" The Colonel asked, a little taken aback.
Dr. Halsey sounded like bad news to me, but this was the high stakes world I thought I was born for, if Drake trusted someone else above her, then I would too.
I just better make sure I'm their damned favourite.
"It's like you said, I took the black, I live and breathe ONI. If you expected me to go turncoat like those two sorry excuses for soldiers then you are as deluded as they are. There's only one person more powerful than Catherine Halsey; and she's my boss. So, take the Orb by force if you want, but don't expect the reprisal to be particularly pleasant."
Colonel Sanderson seemed to lose her nerve at the mention of ATLAS. Again, I was left in awe at the power of their names. Just the mention of them inspired horror and reverence in high ranking officials.
"You're a cold bastard, you know that, Captain?" she looked at me, "and somehow you've inspired a child to side with you..."
"With respect, Colonel," Drake said, seizing the pause, "the situation here was so bad that the only way to salvage this operation was to complete my mission. You wanted to take that cruiser on the off chance that there might be something on it we can use, right?"
The Colonel folded her arms.
"Well, what I have, as you well know, is a game changer. I'm not sure what those bags of skin told you, but if it's even a third of the full story, you know exactly how valuable this is. It's not been in vain, and I've secured you a win. That is far more than you could have hoped to find in a disabled covenant cruiser."
Sanderson looked like she was at the end of her rope. "Look," she said, "I want you off this base and out of my sight as quickly as possible. You won't touch those men you cited, and I'll make sure they get off lightly. I really do hope you find something worth all those lives; I'd take one of them over a fleet of you ONI types." she half spat, looking directly at me.
A heavy silence filled the room and the Colonel dropped her head, studying the live tactical map in front of her. "In a few hours, the front will collapse." she said, her voice dripping with callous resignation. "All forces on the planet are to retreat to their rally points, and a Pelican will arrive to pick you up in a few hours from the helipad near the northern spire."
"We spotted the new Fleet as we approached the Castle, how are they holding up?"
"Well, for now, these evacuations are long protracted affairs. By our estimates it should all be completed within the week. God willing, you will be long gone by then." she said, tersely. "Take this," she said, handing Drake a strange looking gun. "Luckily, we have orbital support, because..." she fiddled with the display and zoomed out.
My eyes widened.
"...the force we are facing is massive. I've never seen anything like it. By all accounts this Castle will fall in a few hours, we simply can't hold out against that many troops."
"They're after us." Drake said.
"Of course, they are," Sanderson replied, "another reason to get out of my sight, don't you think?"
"Yes, Ma'am" Drake said, snapping a quick salute and spinning on his heels. I followed after him and passed the waiting support staff behind the door.
We continued in silence through the 'under-crypt' passing marines covered in bandages and recruits ferrying equipment out of the area, ready to be loaded onto trucks and moved to the next defensible location. I watched with sadness as men grieved for passing friends and trembling with fright as the walls shuddered with explosive tremors. Occasionally, screams rang out as someone was surprised by cracks appearing in the ceiling. Each step seemed more and more perilous, and Drake eventually broke into a jog, keeping half an eye on me as we ran through the halls and up the wide and open steps to the surface.
It was much louder than before, that much was obvious. The sky thundered and clattered with great claps and groans from UNSC and covenant artillery, trading blow after blow, shelling the men at my old ash tree. It was likely long gone by now; burned to a crisp as Covenant rifle fire melted it into a charred stump. The world felt hot, even as the evening began to darken, with the walls of the castle glistening as they blazed hot under the plasma that was dropped on the area from bombing raids. Falcons and Hornets soared above, felling suicidal banshee's, which charged overhead in a vain attempt to destroy or defences.
We crossed the massive courtyard filled with tanks and transports and came to another building and slipped inside. Heading up the tower towards the rest of the unit, stationed at the top of the Spire. The air grew crisp but the walls of the spire remained warm as more and more plasma spattered across the walls like spilled paint. Drake continued up the stairs, moving up and beyond the helipad and onto the highest turret in the castle. The roof had collapsed a little, but the rubble provided ample cover for our unit as we found them settled in with all of our gear.
"Another siege?" Naomi asked, as we entered the room.
Drake shook his head, "Colonel Sanderson doesn't think the front will last for very long."
"Damn..." The Sergeant said, struggling to his feet. "How many are we up against?"
"Looked biblical to me" Drake said, rubbing his eyes.
"And extraction?" Akron asked, eagerly.
"A couple of hours. The navy needs to clear the lane and then they'll send the Pelican down to meet us."
We all stayed silent.
"What about Preston?" I asked, looking about.
"His unit was assigned to the defence over there." Naomi said, pointing to a Garage sticking out of the castle's walls.
This just isn't going to end quietly, is it?
I sighed and sat against a small rack of Sniper Rifles. The rubble was comforting and small. A good place to hide as the hours ticked by, my nervous and anxious body sweating the upcoming battle right out of my beleaguered pores. I felt like a mess and as I glanced into the gleaming bolt of my competition rifle, I saw the tired and war weary face of a soldier staring back.
Not so pretty now, am I?
I smiled to myself. I'd come so far and yet, vestiges of the girl I was a month ago still remained. It was a little reassuring, to know that not everything was gone. Afterall, it's not as though I were irredeemable…
But I hadn't enjoyed being the person at all.
As my reflection ended, my eyes dropped. I gave Drake a pleading look and he nodded, letting me sit back against the wall, exhausted and slip into a deep sleep.
}{=}{
I dreamed about a lone ship in orbit around a lone star.
It was like nothing I had ever seen and yet, it seemed totally familiar. The ship floated inside an asteroid belt, lifeless and dormant, yet inviting and calming. At first, I didn't even realise that I was lucid, my last few visits from Bornstellar were a long time ago now, and the memories were laced with pain and tortured screams. This however, felt more grounded in reality, less dreamlike and more…
Like a message!
Perhaps it was because I was safe, or perhaps it was because I was about to die and the information needed to be passed on before I did. Regardless, the dream was far more comprehensible than any other, and began as I, in this out-of-body state, began to creep towards the ship. It happened slowly at first, but then, quicker and quicker I moved. In moments, I was crossing light years of space towards the Ship as it began to accelerate away from me, its engines spooling up in a brilliant and blinding flash of light. The flash grew, expanding across my vision until it receded, revealing a great vista on a planet that I had seen before.
Meridian?
The ship was gone now, replaced by rock and dirt beneath my feet. I wore a strange garment around my chest, and a long flowing skirt around my waist.
Cute…
I thought, checking myself out.
"I'm glad you find your ancestor's garb amusing." a voice said, in my head.
"Sorry." I said, reddening. "Who are you?"
"I'm the creature that Bornstellar condemned to this fate." he sighed.
"You're the gift?
He laughed, "I have no idea, although I doubt it."
"Well, what's your message."
"I don't know." The voice wavered slightly.
I stared at the horizon, blankly.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know what it is I have to show you, Bornstellar was irritatingly cryptic."
I sighed and looked around. "Well this is Meridian, what do you know about this place?"
"It's where my tomb is."
My eye's widened. "There's an ancient tomb on Meridian?"
"Sort of. It's complicated." he said, his voice calm and authoritative. "But I would rather you didn't go snooping around it."
"Ain't gonna happen" I grinned, "I want to find you."
Meridian morphed and moulded into something newer, with humanity filling the landscape and building over the planet's surface. This was a strange forerunner, totally unlike Bornstellar.
"What's your name?"
"Tukmentukhan"
"That's a mouthful."
He laughed, it was a private laugh, as though there was simply a joke that I wasn't in on.
Suddenly, Meridian was floating away from me. Rather, I was floating from it. With grace and speed, the surface disappeared until it was a small dot and then until the planet was in view, running from me as I arced around the star it orbited and back around again. This time however, the planet seemed different.
"This isn't Meridian." I noted.
"No, it's not. You will come here someday. You'll come here to find me."
"Why do I get the feeling you know much more than you are telling me?"
The voice smiled. I know it did.
"Yes, good choice, Bornstellar."
"What are you talking about?"
"Good choice indeed."
}{=}{
"Maddie!"
I gasped, sitting up with a jolt.
"What?" I groaned as a muggy wave of nausea swept my head around like an alcoholic stupor.
"They're coming, and I want to talk to you"
Blinking the sleep from my eye's, I realised the voice was Drake's, he was knelt in front of me.
"They broke through the front? the sleep from my eye's, I realised the voice was Drake's, he was kneeling in front of me.
"They did," he said softly, "they lasted half a day longer than expected as well."
"What about pick-up." I said, nodding.
"The navy weren't quite so lucky, but they're breaking through as we speak"
I jolted, trying to ready myself for a fight. "Wait a second, lass." Drake seemed like a husk to me at this point. "I just wanted to say, before anything happens, that I'm sorry."
I looked at him completely dumbfounded. Was he serious?
"Captain..." I said, shaking my head in disbelief, "for what?"
He swallowed, "for getting you caught up in all of this, for teaching you about this life. You won't yet but one day, you'll regret it, you'll hate me for it, too."
It was best to stay silent, to let the man vent his guilt.
"This job, it will be the making of you. There's no doubt in my mind that you will succeed, you have a killer instinct, a shrewd mind and a hunger for knowledge. I'm not saying this very well..." he shuddered, "one day, you will step back and be forced to look at the person this job has made you and you will have to reconcile the things you do for this job with your conscience."
"Is that what you've spent the last month doing?" I asked, searching the man's eyes for the cracks in his mask.
His eye's blazed with a fire I'd never seen. Drake had always struck me as a man devoid of emotion, a statue wearing a mask. As I saw his eyes then however, I knew that I had been wrong. He wasn't some soulless mannequin masquerading as a man, but a man pretending to be a robot. It was clear, the raging torrent of emotion lurking beneath the surface and it made my skin prick into goosebumps.
"I made my peace long ago, lass." he said, sadly. "I'd just never seen it happen to someone else until now."
"Well, it's really not your fault, you know" I replied, playing with my hands. "I do think I was meant for this. It's not like you forced the covenant to come here. It's not like you knew I would walk into that tent in Orestis. By that point, I had already been in two firefights; that alone was more than enough to get me curious."
He rubbed the bridge of his nose and smiled a little, reminding me of the picture I'd lifted from his room back at the mall.
"I have something for you" I smiled, rummaging through my backpack. When I turned to reveal the letter, Drake's eyes glossed over.
"This is..."
"The snap of you and your wife."
Drake sighed, "it's the last one I have of her."
"It is?"
"She was killed," he swallowed, hard. "With our daughter, as they escaped an outer colony in the early stages of the war."
What can I even say to that?
Drake looked old, like really old and for the first time since I'd met him, he didn't seem much like an operative for an elite spy organisation.
"She was only eight but..." he paused as his voice wavered, "she was a lot like yourself. Strong. Confident; a-and she wouldn't take anyone's crap."
And I'd told him I didn't need him to be my father…
A fresh wave of guilt washed over me as I felt my own eyes try to water.
No. Not yet, you're so close.
"Felix, I'm so sorry."
"Nothing to do with you, lass. It's not your fault you are who you are."
"It's them." I said, flicking my head to the direction of the covenant army. "They've taken everything from us. It's their fault we are forced to do what we do."
"That's letting me off lightly, don't you think?" he said, sighing.
I leaned in, "half a fleet died and we were able to discover a message intended for humans sent from a time where, as far we know, we should have been apes! God only knows what this 'gift' is going to be. It really could change everything."
Drake smiled, "You make a lot of sense. It's not helping me pity myself, you know that, right?"
"Good." I said, smiling as well, "pity doesn't look good on you, Sir."
Drake shook his head and stood, offering me a hand. I took it and he chuckled, "One day Harper, you're going to be scarier than I am."
"With respect, Sir." I said, picking a Sniper from the rack on the wall, "I'm more terrifying than you are already."
"Ain't that the truth." Jack said, grinning. "So, are we ready to get this done?"
Drake nodded and handed me an ODST helmet.
"Our orders are very simple. We hold this location. Snipe high value targets as the Marines call them in. Naomi and Maddie are on overwatch, Jack and Akron you spot. I have this." he said, holding up the strange gun.
"Hoo-ah" Jack said, "we have orbital support?"
"We do, a frigate is on station to provide the area with orbital bombardment. The Fifth Fleet sent their regards in advance so we'll have to give them a big thank you when we see them again."
I crouched and crawled to a space beneath the rubble that overlooked the valley. What I saw didn't surprise me as much as it should. The Covenant were assaulting the positions at the riverbed. Grunts in their tens of thousands charged across the valley against the machine guns of our lines.
"My God." Percy exclaimed, "what are they doing?"
We watched as they died in their droves, a hundred or so a minute, with each successive wave falling in front of the last, using the piled corpses of their brothers to get just a little bit closer to the front of the UNSC lines.
"Reprisal, probably." I said, gloomily, wondering where Miplap had ended up. "For that uprising in the city."
"Jesus." Jack said, peering into his binoculars.
"Not our problem," Drake said, "when they break through those lines, they'll be in range. Elites are easy to spot in all of that, so are brutes. Prioritise accordingly."
Naomi began to take aim as a portion of the line buckled and began its retreat. Drake slipped back into that machine and slid on his fancy helmet, putting a finger to his ear. I returned my focus on the field and watched as rockets began falling on the enemy in a great wall of death and destruction. The killing grounds were ablaze with Covenant dead and though plasma fell on the retreating Marines, it paled in comparison to the great wall of fire that the UNSC had at its disposal.
When the Marines finally reached the defences surrounding the outer wall of the castle, the bombardment slowed, waiting for Drake's direction as he climbed the rubble to a perch where he could see the enemy.
"Okay, kid, the weakest point of the line is probably down there." He said, and a waypoint pinged onto my heads-up display.
The garage.
"So that's where we will focus our fire." Another item loaded onto my visor: it was the familiar targeting reticule for the rifle. "These are massive distances we're dealing with so don't be offended. Are you ready?"
"Ready." I replied, determined to defend my brother and his men as best as I could.
"Okay, here we go" he said, as Naomi's rifle cracked.
A third indicator appeared, above an Elite, charging from the rear of a group of a hundred Grunts, flanked by a guard of Kig-yar. As I lined up the shot, it struck me how far removed I was from all the fighting. Up here it was quiet, only the basely rumble of detonations reached us. The Elite slowed, and I squeezed the trigger.
The bullet soared through the air like an eagle, arching with grace until it slammed into the skull of the Elite. The rest of the column paused, looking about. With their usual constitution, they turned on each other and ran. The devout among them engaged their plasma grenades and charged, but none of them made it far.
"Kill confirmed." Jack said, clicking a button. A small counter appeared in the helmet.
"Found another, north of your last, Brute, Chieftain by the looks of him."
"Copy that" I said, wondering if it was correct. It certainly sounded correct, at least.
He didn't correct me, instead, he flashed the beacon onto my HUD. The brute was tearing through his own grunts to reach the front and I centred the red target where his head would be in a few moments.
The rifle kicked.
Again, it careened through the sky, bending along the curvature of the earth and straight into the beast's gut.
"Good shot." Jack said, robotically.
Another mark on my visor appeared.
The brutes became enraged and I watched in awe as Naomi slotted half of them before they got within range of the UNSC small arms.
"Incoming. Hold fire." Drake said calmly.
I zoomed out to see spacefaring artillery explode along the valley floor, destroying huge chunks of the cover in and around the riverbed, the stones exploding into sharp chunks, shredding soldiers and vehicles alike as their cover became giant hulking cluster bombs.
"Barely denting their numbers" Jack said grimly.
"Resume fire" Drake said over team speak.
Naomi's rifle exploded, another round flying out into the valley.
"This guy, just watched him take out a squad of marines with that carbine. Real crack shot."
"Let's ruin his day." I said, grinning as I lined the targeting dot over the Kig-Yar's head.
I squeezed the trigger again and the rifle unleashed a round. The wind was gone for now and it smashed through the stillness with a determined and unmitigated power, taking the bird-like creature's head clean off.
"Clean kill." Jack said.
"They're getting a bit close, don't you think?" I said, readying the last round to fire.
"Don't worry about that, kid, here. There's a commander in a wraith, do you think you can hit him?"
I scanned the line of tanks, checking the distance as they approached in waves of ten or more.
The Elite was sitting in the little pit, firing the cannon at the UNSC lines. He was precise and direct, marshalling the troops around him with grace and poise. The distance was about as far as it had been when I had tried to kill the prophet.
That time, I hadn't taken the opportunity to check the wind properly and it had picked up, knocking the bullet off course.
"I can hit him."
"Okay, kid, check the wind on your HUD and press the blue button on your rifle, at this range we will need to take into account the Coriolis effect as well.
I pushed the button and another indicator appeared, tracking the flight path. There was little going through my mind as I squeezed the trigger, no delusions of grandeur clouding my mind or desire to prove myself.
There is only the mission.
As I breathed deeply, the Elite slumped, and yet another area of the enemy's attack was thrown into chaos.
"Sir, new target, inbound. It's a corvette!" Naomi said, coldly.
"I see it," Drake said.
A corvette on a suicide run.
My eyes widened and my heart quickened, a great sense of terror overwhelmed me as the Corvette, which peeled away from a large task force engaging the UNSC in the sky and fired once before several huge bolts struck its hull.
The ship lurched as the round soared through the sky, lowering itself with grace until it collided with the castle.
The ground shook, the world groaned, and more rubble fell away. Dust was thrown up over our defences and Marines rushed to the breach as the Covenant converged on the hole.
All the while, the Corvette fluttered from the sky.
"Where did it hit?!" I shouted, coughing up spittle and dust.
"I don't know!" Akron replied, "Anyone got eyes on?"
A moment passed before Naomi spoke. "Garage. Huge gap about fifty metres wide."
Oh no.
"Maddie?" A voice called out.
No, no, I just found you.
"Maddie, listen to me!"
I wasn't listening, I was scrambling from out of the rubble.
"Where are you?"
The chatter sputtered over the comms in my helmet now, loud and panicked. I stumbled over to my backpack and clipped the hatchet and the rifle to me back.
My legs felt like jelly as I stumbled to the door, feeling for the handle.
"We got artillery incoming!"
"Maddie!"
It came free and I coughed hard as I began to descend the steps. Down I went, passing the landing pad as it was hit by several plasma shells, melting the surface away, bubbling and boiling as the metal buckled and cracked.
"Damn it, Naomi, find her!"
"Captain, the landing pad is gone!"
The world descended into chaos as I rushed down the stairs, the spiral swaying in the air, uneasily.
Not my brother, not now.
Nothing was going to stop me as I ran, half throwing myself down the stairs as orders, screams, shouts, and explosions rang in my head. There was a place in all that, which seemed to me at least, as a place of serenity and clarity. All the destruction and death around me didn't matter, it didn't even register in my head. All I could hear was the echo of my own heart beat and the sound of my own breathing until I charged through the open door and out into the dying embers of my home world. The parade ground was massive and I didn't look back as I ran in the direction of the collapsed wall, the last of my possessions in my hands.
Everything I did, all the praise, the achievements… they mean nothing if I can't protect my brother.
He was down there, in that soup of destruction, fighting for his life. Maybe he was already injured. Maybe he was already dead.
He deserves to have someone look for him, at the very least…
He deserves my help.
A loud thunk could be heard behind me. The unmistakable pounding of SPARTAN armour grinding stone into dust beneath its weight.
I darted forward in a futile attempt to outrun her but inevitably, her armoured fist grabbed me by the collar.
"What are you doing?" She asked, robotically.
"Saving my brother" I growled.
"You're screwing up."
"That's my brother" I replied, shocked at how she couldn't understand that.
She's a SPARTAN. How could she know?
"You're making a mistake. You will make a lot of powerful people very happy."
"What does that matter?" I asked, trying to work out what might motivate a SPARTAN to break the rules. "If you had the opportunity to save your family, or your comrades, just once, would you take it?"
Naomi paused, unsure of what to say. The pause lasted long enough for Drake and the others to catch up as I struggled in her grip.
"Felix, let me look for him, please!" I begged.
Tears threatened and it took all the anger I was feeling to keep them at bay.
"Sanderson is leaving" He stated over team speak. "In about twenty minutes this entire place will be given orders to evacuate."
"Sir," Akron hissed, "You're not actually letting her go, are you?"
"I've been sent secondary coordinates but we need to secure a ride first. Maddie? Naomi? You have ten minutes."
Naomi nodded but Drake depolarised his helmet.
"I have everything I need for a successful mission at this point, lass. If you're here in eleven minutes, I won't be."
I swallowed and nodded.
I was terrified, sure, but there wasn't any doubt in my mind.
Hang in there, big brother.
I'm coming.