Chapter Nine: A Brief Reunion

POV: John-117

Date: 2531

Reference: During Chapter 15 of Chipped

oOOOo

I had heard Sergeant Forge's comm, same as the rest of my team. He had Professor Anders and Tawny, and they were coming back.

Tawny was safe. She was alive.

"John," Kelly pressed.

I looked up from the floor in a silent question.

Fred jerked his head towards the huge ramp. "You should go meet her."

With a resolute nod, I broke off from my team and walked at a controlled pace across the massive deployment bay. Towards the gargantuan ramp. Sunlight spilled in around the edges, but my HUD managed the glare.

I saw Professor Anders first. She breached the top of the ramp and turned to watch someone.

Sergeant Forge's head appeared over the ramp. When his shoulders came into view I saw Tawny leaning heavily on him.

He had an arm around her, helping her walk. She looked tired and dirty and in pain, but she was alive.

I was running towards her. She looked up, and something sparked in her amazing green eyes.

"John!" Her voice was breathy.

I forced myself to slow down before I hurt her. Sergeant Forge let her go as I jogged up.

I fell to my knees in front of her, cupping her face with my hands. My thumbs ghosted over her temples, her cheekbones, her lips.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

Tears welled up in her eyes. She closed them and nodded, a watery smile on her face. Her head tilted into my left hand.

"I'm okay," she said. "I-I thought they were going to kill you-" Her lip trembled.

I pulled my helmet off, seeing her with my own eyes. Taking in every detail of her, from the dirt on her jaw to her gorgeous eyes.

She took a few breaths. "I was so worried about you."

Why would she be worried about me? She had been kidnapped, held by the Covenant. She should have died.

"We're safe now," I assured her.

She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and nestled into my neck. My heart jumped.

I tightened my arms around her, so, so careful to avoid crushing her. I couldn't feel her in my arms, but I could feel her face pressed into the crook of my neck through my biosuit.

Professor Anders, behind Tawny, cleared her throat.

Tawny looked up at her, her arms still wrapped around me.

"We need to talk to the Captain," Anders said. "I think I know how to disable that Covenant fleet, but I need you."

I pulled Tawny closer to me and forced a glare down. "What do you need her for?"

Professor Anders put a hand on her hip and looked down at me. "With her abilities, especially considering we don't know exactly what happened up there in the core of the planet-"

"What happened in the core of the planet?" I asked.

I held Tawny out and searched her body for any injuries. Signs that she had been hurt by them. I couldn't see anything aside from the cast around her left knee, which was from Harvest.

"I-I don't know," Tawny admitted. "I can do more things now. I'm not...I'm not sure what happened."

More things? Did she mean her powers?

Professor Anders refocused the conversation. "She might be able to destroy the false-sun that this world is built around. That would get rid of the fleet."

She wanted Tawny to what?

I glared up at her. "And us with it. What if the Covenant catches you again?"

The professor wasn't affected by my glare. She wouldn't back down; she wanted Tawny to destroy this sun.

Tawny could barely throw a punch, how was she supposed to destroy a sun? What had happened in the core to make Professor Anders think this was acceptable?

I felt a soft hand on my jawline. Tawny pulled my glare away from Professor Anders.

When I met her eyes my gaze softened.

"John, I have to- I have to do this," she insisted softly. "You didn't see the ships they have...they would destroy humanity in a matter of days."

What kind of ships did they have? What Covenant ships were that powerful?

What could be so bad that Tawny was willing to try and destroy a sun?

I looked down at her with a tense jaw, searching her eyes for any hesitation. "Are you sure?"

She nodded. She was intimidated, I could tell, but she was as desperate to destroy this fleet as Professor Anders was.

I pushed myself to my feet. My left arm was still around Tawny, keeping her close.

I looked down at Professor Anders. "What's your plan?"

oOOOo

I was in one warthog, on the machine gun. Tawny was in the passenger seat beneath me, and Sergeant Forge was driving.

Linda was driving the second hog, with Kelly on the gun and Fred in the passenger seat.

We were driving to a teleporter that would take Tawny to the core of the planet. She would go there, alone, to somehow destroy the sun.

We had exactly three minutes and twenty three seconds to get back to the Spirit of Fire before everything in the vicinity of the planet was destroyed. It was a three minute drive from here to the ship, which left Tawny twenty three seconds to get back to the warthogs once she had somehow destroyed the sun.

As we drove closer to the teleported Tawny tensed. "Sangheili."

I let go of the machine gun and pulled my rifle off of my back. "How many?"

"So many of them," she breathed. "At least ten."

"Weapons free, Blue Team," I warned. I turned to Sergeant Forge. "See if you can hit any, bring them out of hiding."

I couldn't see any Elites, so they were using active camouflage.

Sergeant Forge shoved the gas down, redlining the hog in third gear, and hit one Elite. There were two massive bumps as we drove over the Elite. I magnetized my boots to the floor beneath me and braced my forearm against the gun.

We hit a second Elite and killed it. I looked back on its dead body as Sergeant Forge skidded the hog to a halt beside the teleporter.

Linda put on the breaks beside us, and Kelly and Fred jumped out and engaged the Elites. They were starting to reveal themselves, turning off their camo now that they'd lost the element of surprise.

I looked down at Tawny. "Be safe."

"I will," she assured me.

It would have to do.

I threw myself down and magnetized my rifle to my back as I fell. When I landed I grabbed an Elite's face and snapped his neck.

There were two to my left. I grabbed the magnum off of my thigh and took a running start towards them.

I latched my arm around the rightmost Elite's neck and swung myself around him. I pressed the nose of the magnum into the base of his neck and fired two shots. His shields were useless against a point-blank shot.

I threw his body against the second Elite and shot him through the head.

There was a flash of blue to the right. Tawny was gone.

"Chief!" Linda cried.

There was an energy sword bearing down on me from the left. I danced to the side and kicked the Elite's wrist hard enough to snap it.

He snarled at me with fear in his eyes. He'd dropped his sword, and his right hand was hanging loose at an odd angle.

I took a decisive step forward and kneed the Elite in the ribs with my right knee. My armor cut into his tough skin, and he roared in pain.

I elbowed him in the jaw hard enough to break his neck and threw his body into a duo of Elites threatening Kelly.

"Thanks, John." She nodded to me and threw herself back into the fray.

I made a point to be focused and aware at all times, but combat with Elites was so repetitive that it felt like it only took us several seconds to dispatch every single hostile.

"Status." I stepped over an Elite's corpse and looked over my team.

Kelly shouldered her shotgun. "No injuries reported, Chief. We're good."

I turned towards the portal Tawny had moved through. "I'm going to her."

None of them argued. Neither did Sergeant Forge.

"Be ready to move," I ordered.

Then I stepped into the portal.

I reappeared on a floating platform in the very center of the planet. Tawny was several feet in front of me, on her knees and breathing heavily.

She turned to me, her eyes desperate. "You have to leave! John, you have to get out of here!"

I'd heard enough soldiers sacrifice themselves to be wary of her phrasing.

"Not without you," I insisted. "Did you do it?"

I looked up at the sun, but it looked the same.

Tawny shook her head. "I don't know if I can. I have to- I have to try again."

I was unsure what happened to her here a scarce half hour ago. She and Professor Anders said she gained new abilities. I couldn't imagine what kind of ability would give her the power to destroy a sun.

Tawny pushed herself to her feet. Her back was to me, but her body language was harsh. Desperate. Vengeful.

Her hands shot out to her sides. She brought them together, her arms straining, as if there was an invisible sphere between her hands.

I felt some strength, something foreign and dormant, drain from my body. From my being. Move into her.

She was floating. Her arms were spread again, her head tilted up, her body taught.

She was destroying the sun. It was terrifying to watch.

I couldn't look away from her. She was like an ancient Nordic deity; harsh and beautiful and strong.

Thunder - it wasn't thunder - rumbled all around us.

Tawny had done something to the sun. The immense noise around us was from the sun but I couldn't tell if she had completed the job or not.

She fell out of the air. I caught her; it was hard not to since she'd fallen back onto my chest.

"We...move," Tawny insisted weakly. "Get out."

I held her close and sprinted back to the teleporter.

As soon as we reappeared by the hogs I vaulted into the passenger seat beside Forge. "Go!"

Forge nodded, shoving the hog into gear and hauling ass away from the teleporter. The rest of my team was behind us, keeping pace in their own warthog.

I readjusted Tawny so that I was cradling her. Her head was resting limply against my chestplate.

She looked dead.

"Stay with me, Tawny," I pleaded.

She didn't react. I could see her pulse on my HUD; it was slowing rapidly. It had been too high, now it was too low.

The stress of destroying the sun would kill her. She was going to die in my arms.

As soon as the warthogs had stopped, the massive ramp of the deployment bay closing behind us, I tumbled out of the hog.

I lifted my right elbow, trying to rouse Tawny as her heart rate continued to plummet. "Tawny, you have to wake up."

There was no response. Her heartbeat was so slow that my HUD warned me heart failure was imminent. 40 beats per minute and slowing.

I turned to Sergeant Forge. "Get a medic. Now!"

He nodded and ran off. Tawny's heart slowed to 30 bpm.

Serina announced that we had successfully jumped to slipspace.

Tawny had done it. She had saved us.

She was dying in my arms.

A frantic medical team approached, a gravbed between them.

I didn't want to let them take Tawny. If she died with them, I wouldn't be allowed to see her again. They wouldn't let me hold her body.

She wasn't dead yet. If she went with these people they had a chance of saving her. A chance that grew slimmer with every passing moment.

I forced myself to lay her down on the gurney. The medics began treatment even as they pulled her away from me.

oOOOOo

Author's Note: Did I forget to post this last night? Whoops. Sorry :(