The human. The human stalks me. Like a bad smell, like rot on meat, like… like a warrior, hunting prey. My faith guides me to the path, my body acts out of divine instinct and yet, my mind nibbles at the resolve that has burned in my chest for so long. A child bested me, the child grew up and followed me, here, to the place of my great triumph! To be considering her in the face of what I am about to achieve… in the face of meeting a real living forerunner... When I stand before them, I want to ask them once and for all, what purpose the humans serve. I want to know why they fight us so relentlessly and why they appear favoured by our God's, whose will we so diligently follow.
I have won many glories, enough to secure my place in the halls of my people. Yet it is not enough, the slight I suffered at the hands of that human has haunted me, left my reputation in tatters. I have neither the clout, nor the good will that someone such as Thel 'Vadam has. I have no doubt that he could avoid such disgrace. He would sooner become an Arbiter and die a hero of the journey.
Perhaps what frustrates me is not the human child, but humans themselves. They possess the spirit of great warriors but hide behind 'smiles', gross gestures of friendliness that involve baring the teeth, like a hunter. It is one of the innumerable contradictions of their people and one that seems to stick in my mind. The girl, Harper, has worn that expression to me before. Are we friends? Have we driven them mad? Perhaps, we have come so close to destroying them that they have forgotten themselves.
Or perhaps, more chillingly, we do not understand them at all.
Erun Jag'amee's confession to the Priestess, 'Arbitrator of the Damned', prior to the discovery.
}{=}{
December 1st 2551:
The Plateau, Near Mount Sundial, Meridian
19:33 hours local time.
Maddie sat for a long while, just feeling. The state she found herself was one of pure horror. Another attempt, another failure, there seemed no end, no final victory in sight for her let alone her people. She wondered if this was how civilization was to die. Not with a great military battle, but beneath the weight of a thousand failures. Crushed under morale and mounting deaths like a frog slowly boiled in water.
Damn it all. All this work, and for what? An ancient evil being that even the Gods feared?
Erun's little convoy reduced to a mere speck in the distance, blurred by the tears in her eyes that lingered after her bout of sobbing. There was a rush of wind and Maddie shuddered, drawing herself inwards, somehow even tighter than before. Katya stood beside her, looking out across the plains. There was a little click as she holstered her weapon, and a hiss as she removed her helmet, letting her long blonde hair wisp in the breeze.
"Drake says it's in the mountain" she noted, aloud.
"Everyone's dead." Maddie replied, bitterly. "Everyone's dead, the data is gone, and we've caused all of this for nothing."
Katya glanced down at her, then sat next to her with her legs folded and leaned back. "Not everyone."
"All my missions have gone wrong."
Katya shook her head. "They haven't gone as expected, and this breakdown of yours is what happens when you put your self-worth into your ability to execute missions. Each mission brings us closer to that mountain" she said pointing, "don't you want to go there and find out what it is you've been looking for?"
"I don't know."
"That's your problem." Katya said, observantly. Maddie tensed, she wanted to rage, to ask her how she could possibly know what her problem was. Katya looked at her and smiled in amusement, she even knew what her reaction would be to that. "ONI made you a husk, they made you live with the guilt of the job without preparing you for it. They made you into a weapon, aiming you at whatever they like and pulling the trigger with no thought as to where the bullet goes, or what the strike of the hammer means to you."
Maddie wasn't sure why, but Maggie lingered in her mind. If there was anything that she felt guilt for, it was damning her to this life. Was death and a clear conscience preferable to this? Having to cope with sacrificing an army for information? Maggie no longer even had the option of an out. If she was a SPARTAN test subject, God only knew what had been done to her, and Maddie knew that Parangosky wouldn't allow such an asset to simply walk away from this fight.
"After Skopje, my sister was hurt." Maddie half mumbled, "the Admiral, she came to me and she told me she could save her life. I turned her over to them without a moment's hesitation. She became a lab rat and I don't even know if she's alive. Legally, Drake can walk over here and put a bullet in my brain just for telling you this. The worst part, by far, is that she gave me an out. Drake gave me an out. They said that I owed them nothing, that I didn't have to sign on with them or save my sister's life and I ignored that opportunity without even asking my sister what she wanted."
"Is that really your fault?"
"It's my name on the official secrets document."
"The name of a teenager." Katya snorted, "Let me tell you something that no one ever told me about joining ONI. They love cases like us, broken people with problems make for easy, pliable recruits. I wager even Drake has a similar experience." Maddie remembered the story Drake had told her a long time ago about his parents, about the spiral he fell into, and the Office's role in pulling him out. Katya's eyes told her that she knew that she was right about Drake without Maddie even speaking a word.
"So? Haven't they improved your life too?"
"Sure, they have, but at what cost? When they found me, I was a… toy for the worst kind of people. I had been trafficked and then helpedtraffic others. I was broken in every sense of the word, and I was younger than even you were when they manipulated you. Beaten. Abused… and worse," she shuddered, "like I said before, I even loved them for it." she added, very quietly, her whisper dying on the wind near Maddie's face. "ONI looked at that girl, let her attack a Captain, and then offered her a way out, not out of that life, but out of those circumstances. When Veronica saved my life, I felt indebted to ONI and I was in awe of their power over the world around them. I know that you understand what that control means to a young girl whose life has disintegrated around her. They baited me in with safety and control and then let me chase it for the rest of my days."
"I definitely understand that." Maddie replied, wiping the last tear from her eye.
"You understand more than you know. You are in the place that I was, where I realised that ONI wasn't the solution to my troubles."
"I am?"
"We are on similar paths, it seems."
"That's a comforting thought." Maddie said, dryly.
"Maybe." Katya sighed, "It took me years to rebuild myself. To learn about who I am and what I want."
"Any pointers?" Maddie asked, grimly, still staring out into the chaos below.
"I'm still learning but… I believe that is part of the process. We cannot reach a destination if we do not try to travel."
Maddie considered this. Just how much she had dedicated herself to ONI over the last five years was enough evidence for her. She had been a puppet, stuffed full of strings and made to dance to the tune of Parangosky's marching drum.
"How long did it take until things got easier, Kat?"
"A long time." she said, quietly. "What happened to me… isn't something you can just forget. I know that you understand something similar."
Maddie struggled to swallow the lump in her throat, "That month I was tortured. The helplessness, the worry, and the… importance of the mission. It doesn't leave you, does it?"
Katya sat forward, her eyes piercing Maddie's like air decompressing into space. "No. It's part of you. It's part of you that ONI uses to keep you in line."
"They've played us for idiots."
Katya nodded firmly. "They played two children for idiots. Don't be so harsh on yourself. It is only natural for a child to confuse purpose with meaning, a tool has a purpose but a person searches for meaning."
"That's… profound."
"A nugget of knowledge from one friend to another" she said, breaking into an understated smile that meant more to Maddie in that moment than any praise that Drake or Parangosky had offered.
"I became a horrible person because they told me that was what we needed to win this war but… every moment of the war that we remember, the last stand at Actium, Cole's last stand… they're all stories of human triumph. They are legends because they are people with traits, we should aspire to have ourselves."
"Now you understand. Stop trying to be Drake, try to be like someone you actually respect as a person, not for their job."
Maddie looked over her shoulder at Drake. He stood proudly, directing a Pelican to our location but now, she remembered the time he had begged her not to follow in his footsteps. "Why do you stay, if you think this way about ONI?"
There will come a day when you regret joining ONI.
She smiled, "I think that I trust myself more than I trust any operative ONI would send in my place."
Maddie laughed, "Yeah, that makes sense. Someone has to do it, right?"
As she remembered the words in her head Maddie realised that Drake was the end result of a life of adherence to Parangosky's Office of Naval Intelligence. A brilliantly skilled, ageing man with no family, and fewer mentions in the Galactic record than he had successful missions to his name. Maddie's thoughts then turned to her grandfather. She wanted the respect of her men that he commanded, she wanted to be written about like those old legends Napoleon and Wellington, she wanted to have a family, to love like a normal person and care for more than her job.
I want my dignity and control over my life.
Maddie's jaw tightened and Katya smiled ferociously, seeing the calm assurance that seemed to wash over her. The woman, once a true believer, rose to her feet with a new perspective and a dogged desire to really, truly find out what this gift was. Then she'd create a legacy to be burned into the stars. All the covenant would know her name by the time that she was done with them and her people would celebrate her name for a thousand generations or more.
A nice thought, Mads but maybe let's just find out what Bornstellar left us before we start thinking about revenge. After all, George might find such brevity ugly.
Maddie offered a hand to Katya, who took it emphatically as the Pelican settled on the grassy hill. Braeburn wouldn't be coming. It was just her, Duggan, Katya, and Drake. Her friends gathered on the ramp as Maddie clicked her helmet back into place, running her fingers over the A.I port which should have held Walsingham.
Another thing they took from me.
She'd build another one day, she resolved; watching the medics tend to her friend and the bodies of the fallen as the Pelican rose high into the sky. She took control of the gun, looking back at Drake and thinking back to Albert Stoots, the principled ODST who left when he was forced to cross a line that he didn't like. Maddie hated him for his cowardice, he'd gotten Ellen killed that day, and played a part in helping ONI secure Maddie's undying trust.
"Okay, listen in." Drake said, as Maddie wondered what Nicola would think of her now. She was a kind soul at heart and gave her life to stick with her friend when it counted.
She wouldn't have handed over her sister like that.
"NAVCOM is tracking Erun heading up the slopes of Mount Sundial, they've given us an LZ."
Maddie's heart fluttered. It wasn't over, there was still a chance to uncover the mystery and claim what had been given to her. She watched the battle below, spooling the gun just in case. Ellen would have been proud of how far Maddie had come; she was a bona fide badass. Ellen was always looking ahead, she envisioned a future beyond her service, which is why she'd always remained quiet about her opinions on the mission. Surviving was her best shot at life and while it hadn't worked out for her, it might work out for Maddie.
"This mission is entirely ad-hoc, so Duggan, stow that rifle and grab a DMR, we'll need range and CQC up there, Harper, ditch the SMG for this BR" he yapped, thrusting it onto the clip on her back. "We have little intel and only an idea as to where to go. NAVCOM believes this tunnel entrance here might lead to the location of the device."
Maddie watched the briefing as best she could but two banshees swooped out of nowhere, raining fire down upon them. They banked in unison, an elegant and well-trained pair of aces. The Pelican rose up the steep rock formations, the angle of the ascent made it difficult for the Banshees to get a shot off as they pursued the ship up the hill. Maddie drilled a thousand rounds of lead out into the night sky, ripping little holes in the crafts armour before it shut down and the elite inside slipped to the ground in a lifeless lump.
The sheer mountain face gave way to scalable paths and more gentle inclines as they reached the top, the Banshee still attacking them doggedly as they ascended the cliff. Maddie watched as it broke away and climbed high into the sky, its thrusts screaming to outpace the relatively slow Pelican. In one graceful move, the craft turned harshly and took aim, letting a bomb loose.
"Evade!" Maddie yelled, but it was too late, the shot speared through the right wing.
"I'm setting you down here, you'll have to hoof it!" the pilot shouted.
"It's making another pass!" Maddie cried, tracking the movement as everyone bailed. She hopped out and landed softly on the crunchy snow that capped the Mountain. "You'll be-"
The Pelican's fuselage erupted and brightened the sky as the Banshee finished the job.