Sundry thoughts rolled around in the Lieutenant's head while just two
thoughts stayed in the background. Battle damage: defenses secure, but for
the gate. Survivors: Thirty-nine walking. Twenty wounded. Time to
dustoff: nineteen hours, at eight AM the next day. Time to the next dawn,
when a certain premonition told the Lieutenant the Covenant would again
crest the hill in a wave of destruction: seventeen hours. A smaller
thought in the background of his head was the continuous dull pain: every
muscle in his body ached. The final thought was a nagging question that
his entire motivation for everything that he had done had been wrong. No,
not wrong: incomplete.
There was the girl; no, the woman. No matter.
An overwhelming urge suddenly consumed him. It obliterated any other thoughts in his mind and its potency threatened to tear him apart; that, at least, was how it felt. This creature was a thing of beauty, and he wanted to protect it. It was strong in its own way, able to take care of itself. But its glory was not its strength; its glory was its beauty. And strength it had; but strength to defend itself against the Covenant hordes, it had not. Perhaps no one had, but at least the Lieutenant had a little bit more, and at least he would use it toward that end, that the thing of beauty would be preserved at the cost of his own blood, and that should any foul thing mar its loveliness, the Lieutenant would be dead before that end came to be.
But that was all a given, old news. What else could he do to protect her? The Lieutenant's fingers wandered across the smooth surface of the metal object attached to his belt. That was one thing he could to. "Excuse me, miss."
Her eyes leapt up and he clearly saw them with his own in all their mysterious wonder. A weaker mind would have faltered, but the Lieutenant did not waver. "What is your name?"
She replied, "Maria."
"Do you know how to use this?" The pistol lay flat in his palm, fully loaded.
"Show me" she said.
He demonstrated the cocking mechanism and the safety; then he removed the clip and put it back in again. "Now you do it." She did, a little slowly and clumsily but without any mistakes.
The embattled sergeant was nearby. The Lieutenant ordered, "Sergeant, bring me a dead Grunt."
"Yes, Sir!" barked the sergeant. The Lieutenant and the girl watched as the embattled sergeant with the help of a private dragged up the corpse of one of the slaughtered Covenant Grunts. The Lieutenant addressed the girl: "Fill it with lead, Maria."
She acquiesced without a word. She seemed a little bit frightened of the power in her own hands, but it was as if she knew it was necessary. At the first shot she let out a tiny cry, but then her eyes hardened with determination, and she gave it three more shots. She looked up at the Lieutenant, who almost smiled but stopped himself. "Keep going" he said without emotion.
The girl emptied the pistol and stopped only after twice hearing the click of an empty chamber. "That was very good" said the Lieutenant.
"Why do they have blue blood?" she asked.
"Hemoglobin," said the Lieutenant. "It carries oxygen in our own human blood, and it's what makes our blood red. These things breathe methane, so they don't have any hemoglobin."
"So they have some blue thing in their blood that carries the other stuff?"
"Beats me. I'm sure somebody knows that little detail. I just know why their blood isn't red." There was a pause in the conversation, and then the Lieutenant handed Maria three more clips and told her to keep the gun. Women were scary things, and the Lieutenant had other things to think about.
Time to dustoff: sixteen hours.
"Resources.we have some resources left.I was thinking that after the third laser, we can still make some mirrors just to blind them.if they attack during the morning that is. I suppose we could rig up some elaborate system to redirect the light for another time of day. And we have.horses.twenty-four. I was going to check with you and the leading men left in the town, and then eat them if that's ok with everyone. You know, the condemned man always gets a good last meal. None of us have had any fresh meat since we got here, and some of us in weeks and months."
"Don't kill them yet, Sarge" said the Lieutenant. Creativity had probably won many a battle in history, and certainly it had served well this morning. But a cavalry charge.bordered on lunacy. But what the heck. "Can anyone ride them, Sergeant? Some of the men from around here, maybe?"
"Far's I know."
"I want to speak to the men of the town. See who can ride.and who might be interested in certain death for the sake of their wives and children. Ok, the wives and children are mostly gone already. For the ones that are left.or just to give the rest of us a bigger chance. And if any of our own men might be able to learn to ride in a few hours." The Lieutenant was pacing back and forth, partially to consider how such a crazy idea might be accomplished and partially to wonder at his own stupidity at considering it.
"Lieutenant.are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
"Yes Sergeant I am: at dawn. With mirrors. It will be useless, of course, against Elites and Hunters."
"But Grunts. And.Jackals.squashed!"
"Bingo."
Ten hours to dustoff.
It was night. The Lieutenant looked at the stars-brilliantly bright. Lamba Seven's sky was a new arrangement of stars to him as he had never been in this sector, but some of the constellations looked a little bit familiar.
He was likely to die in the morning. They all were. But as long as they were still alive, they might as well live. So the Lieutenant looked at the stars.
But his eyes were drawn down when a slender shadow slipped from a nearby building, merged with the night, and then turned to look towards him. A cool wind blew across her face, making her hair to dance in its breeze. He looked at her and her bright eyes within the pitch black of her hair as it merged with the night seemed to him as were the bright stars overhead.
Then she turned and vanished into the shadows.
Suddenly two lines of though in his head came together and completely linked for the first time. Before they had only very nearly come together. He had sworn silently to himself to, above all, protect Maria. His body was almost broken, and it was weak, hurting all over. Well, that was because Maria's body was unhurt. When he had first written his battle poem, months ago, it had taken him hours to find the right words. This time the words came quickly and easily.
"And battle and war." was his only reality. "The children breathe a cool wind," was the state of reality behind the lines of battle, where those who were children to the ways of pain breathed clean air without the taste of blood in it. "Just a warrior and his sword" spoke of the battle once more. "Behind him peace wins" spoke of the objective of any just war.
He thought of what he had been through, from the first storm of plasma lightning over his shoulder as he had fled into the hills.to the monsters he had cut down in their tracks that morning. "I alone understand. I'll give them a chance. I'll show them the light. By my blood they will last." And again he thought of Maria. "For them I stand, For them I here dance, For them I fight, And this test I will pass." for her, for them, for the children, said the Lieutenant beneath the stars.
And he gathered his strength for the final stand.
Goldfired morning. Two hours to dustoff. The mirrors were in place. The certain premonition was more certain than ever. It was time.
The Covenant crested the ridge for the third and final time. They had been reinforced in the night; some of the men on guard duty had counted: one hundred and thirty-one enemy dropships.
The defenses were arrayed thus: the first line was of course, the wall, bristling with assault rifles, sniper rifles, pistols, and rocket launchers. Thirty-four Marines were there. The second line was the wall of boxes, bricks, and sandbags within the walls. Just five Marines had been placed there, at the center facing the gate, which was the definitive weak spot, having only the weakest makeshift wooden doors. For half a mile behind that wall along the town's main road were various boxes, buildings with windows, three smaller sandbag fortifications, and several bunkers. They were all currently empty; things to be used in a retreat. The last bit of ground to hold was the clearing in the center of the town where the dropships would arrive at 8:00 hours. It was surrounded by a four foot wall. The eighteen Marines who were wounded and able to sit up were already arrayed there, ready to pull assault rifle triggers. Their most significant task would be to cover the retreat of whoever came back from the outer lines of defense. The handful of women helped the two most badly wounded Marines, and did whatever they could for the scientists and other Marines: all in the buildings on the back side of the clearing, where it seemed a little bit safer. A few of the men of the town were stationed on the outer and inner walls.
The Lieutenant had a few special cards to play, but the effectiveness of any of them was debatable. The first special card was two out of the three new reflective lasers. As the light first peeked over the horizon and intensified to its full fury in virtually no time at all, the humans observed it and-at the right moment-swung the mechanisms into position. The light further intensified within the beam, and the oncoming Covenant began to feel its wrath: the wrath of humans defending their homes and families, and everything that was human to them.
But the first special card was a disaster, for the enemy's lesson had been well learnt. In only a matter of seconds the lasers and their operators were brutally melted and incinerated in the vast wave of plasma that caught them almost before they could react. The only weapon now capable of slowing the onslaught was the sniper rifle. There were seven rifles left, and the bullets had been evenly distributed: no one had more than four. In seconds the snipers had cast the useless weapons aside and begun aiming the assault rifles. They had destroyed three Elites, ten Grunts, and two Jackals: fifteen drops in an immeasurable sea.
The Lieutenant's rocket launcher was the first to fire. The rocket streaked towards a certain clot of monsters, leaving its characteristic smoke-line behind it, and the next objects to be launched through the air were screaming aliens. A few more launchers fired, taking out Jackals and Hunters by the ones, Grunts by the fives. Elites and Jackals were slowly succumbing to the pistols. The Lieutenant fired his second rocket, eliminating a Hunter, and then realized that the things were already within fifty yards of the walls. Assault rifles were now in action. With the bullets distributed among so many enemies, most of the Grunts were only wounded, and the Elites' shields were probably not even broken. The Lieutenant decided he would give the signal for the other mirrors in sixty seconds.
Forty-five seconds and two more rockets launched. The Lieutenant was now crouching below the fortifications. To stand up would mean almost certain scalding burns from the plasma that filled the air. It wouldn't take very many of those to kill a man. The Lieutenant raised his assault rifle above his head and blindly emptied the sixty bits of lead into the hellfire. Then he caught the eye of the embattled sergeant down on the ground, and gave him the hand signal to prepare the second special card's ground-side component. The embattled sergeant, always reliable, obeyed orders quickly and flawlessly. The Lieutenant dropped to ground-level, picked up the special package that was the third card, and screamed into his walkie-talkie the signal for the second card's wall-side component.
Now began the most beautifully heroic moment on Lambda Seven's saga. First the mirrors swung up: more than twenty of them, directing the sun's light into the eyes of the enemy's massed forces before the gate.
Then the gate was removed, blown outward from the inside with plastic explosives, its remains driving into the enemy and breaking the flesh, surely, of at least a dozen.
The horses charged forward into the light. Well-trained animals, they were driven by their heroic riders to their doom. A renewed blast of assault rifle fire broke out from above, and the twenty-four horses darted into the flaming whiteness. The only cavalry charge of this horrendous war saw them die, trampling their enemies, some. Cutting down a few with their assault rifles, some. Dying, all: all the men of this little town on Lambda Seven, kamikazes, into the burning whiteness rode, and in the whiteness died, and in the brightness and light bought a few more minutes of precious life for their still-breathing comrades behind the walls. Maybe it would be enough.
And some of the enemy fled. Victory!
Yet there were too few left inside the blasted, blackened walls. Twenty-four fewer with the heroes gone to their death on the horses. No, twenty-five.
The Lieutenant would have delegated this mission to no one else. He would also have seen to it that no one but himself volunteered. It was better that the others be given a chance to survive; let his own blood be the price of that.
He was in the dust, in the lingering wake of that heroic charge. Jogging now, slowing to a walk. His finger was poised on the button, lightly brushing the button that would set off the special package he was delivering to the Covenant.
One thousand ton's worth of TNT. Reduced to the size of an apple and the weight of one hundredth of its explosive power. The apple carried in the left hand, the detonator in the left. There was only one of these weapons on Lambda Seven; the factories back on Reach manufactured as many as they could, but they were fairly expensive and hard to make. The Lieutenant had been lucky to be given just one before he came to Lambda Seven.
The objective was to get as far away from the town as possible and set it off. The charge had carried the horses several hundred yards. They may have almost even reached the ridge. The Lieutenant was surely near the ridge now, and the dust was still there. He began to see flitting shadows of living enemies in the drifting brownness. Some fired their plasma rifles at objects on the ground.
He was among the ghosts. The blessed ghosts of the heroes whose bodies lay strewn on this cursed field. And the ghosts of the evil enemy. But he too was a ghost in this light, and prepared to go on to the other side and join the heroes. He knelt down, crouching behind a dead horse, and placed the bomb beneath its body. It seemed good to hide it, but he was not sure just why. He was ready to die, and the slightest mistaken move in his right hand would bring about his instantaneous incineration. Or, the slightest intentional movement: if they neared him in the drifting dust (there was no wind) and saw him, he would set it off. He was ready to die.
But what if living were possible? Well, he was resigned to his fate, but if there were the slightest millionth of a chance it was duty's decree to try it. He was laying down with the dead horse, watching and looking. Well, it was time to go back to the town. Maybe it would be possible to make it back inside the gates. He had done it last time he had left the city. He began to jog backwards, his back parallel to the ground as he crouched as low as he could. Then he stopped: there were no enemies in this drifting dust firing weapons or charging the town, but there were sounds of battle: Human and Covenant weapons shouting, and Humans screaming out hatred and pain.
He stood frozen among the drifting dust, and thought. Ah, of course: the cavalry charge had gone straight out from the gate, and the Covenant had been massed all along the walls. The ones to the sides of the gate would not have been swept away in the charge. They would be attacking the town. In other words, there was no going back.
If he was to live, he would have to get away from the bomb; he could go sideways and try to disappear; he might be seen but might not be met by a monster. He could go back, back to the aliens, where he might not be seen but he would be found. He waited, lingering on the edge of the drifting cloud, and plunged back into the dust; he didn't know why. He only felt that it was necessary, as if the call of fate were driving him back into that murkiness.
Thank God the dust was drifting straight away from the town; he counted his paces and estimated when he was about where he had left the bomb. He counted thirty more paces. There were aliens everywhere, but for reasons incomprehensible they were not killing him. Perhaps in the dust he was indistinguishable from the Elites. They were barking, growling, communicating and.planning something. At least it sounded like they were. How many paces past the bomb? The creatures were everywhere; one brushed against his side. He shivered, shuddered for a moment; then his body danced and waved in spasms of terror and a scream caught in his throat, stifling him. With infinite courage he forced himself to move, to move at all costs.and found that he was running.
There were sounds of alien voices around him; they knew he was there now, and they knew he was not one of them. Fear consumed him and he fled faster, but, catching himself and his mind, realized he must do something, and dove for cover behind a large rock, lying still there. Now he was barely on the far side of the dust-cloud. But then a gust of wind came, and the dust disappeared rolled away.
He shuddered again, realizing that he had no idea where the detonator was. He felt nothing in his hands. The chill of ultimate failure ran down his spine, and in despair he looked at his hand.
The detonator was there, by a miracle-his fingers still poised above the button. Why hadn't he felt it?
The aliens were just over the rock, scarcely four feet away: Three Elites, talking in their deep voices. They were looking away for the moment: towards the town, where plasma continued to bombard but there was hardly any answering fire. That meant that they were waiting for him to set off the bomb; they didn't dare to show their faces above the walls or the blast would destroy them.
Infinite courage was realized again. He knew what he wanted to do. Few men had ever looked terror, fate full in the face. Fewer still lived. But to stare at death and defy it, to look in the eyes of a monster that hated Man, and spit in its mouth and watch it die an instant before oneself: that was strength. Or if nothing else, it was the call of fate: and defiance of infinite terror and hate.well, at least it would be a many death.
And so he stood, and leapt over the rock, the detonator high in his hand above his head, and planted his feet behind the nearest Elite and cried out in Human tongue that he defied them. It turned around in a flash and raised its arm, a limb with quite enough power to crack his skull or break his frail Human neck. At the final moment he adjusted his legs so they would be, as near as he could figure, behind the monster's legs. Its arm was in the air falling, but it never fully fell. The Lieutenant's fingers closed on the detonator's button.
A powerful radio signal radiated out in all directions, quickly as light piercing the rocks and bodies until it found its target. The receiver inside the apple caught the beam and relayed a signal to the firing mechanism. The mechanism sparked and the spark caught the fuel, and a sun erupted among the aliens. The ground within a three hundred yard radius was cleared, and hundreds of Covenant roasted in the fire. The blast caught the Elite in full swing of his mighty arm, hurling its body away forward, away from ground zero. The killing machine became a protective shield that absorbed all of the shrapnel and flying rocks, and most of the fire, and saved the Lieutenant from the devastating explosion.
The Lieutenant was seeing intense hate in the thing's eyes; if they could hate, did that mean that they were creatures capable of love? Didn't love come first? But even more intense was the terror in its small eyes. Small was his courage, but it was enough to stand firm. Then the blue mass lurched towards him. The whole word shivered, and all things leapt in that direction, all things but the solid earth. The vibration wave caught him, too, and his body moved several inches backwards and then back. It was a sickening sensation, and very painful; but it didn't last. It must have been the shrapnel and rocks that drove the Elite to move more than the wave carried it, several feet and into the Lieutenant. The world of red fire became black.
He came to and found himself alive and some distance from the town. He got up and began to move. At first he was in too much pain, shock, and weariness to move but a few paces in half a minute, but then he was able to accelerate. He passed the gates after twenty minutes, just as the Covenant massed at the tip of the ridge for an enraged final assault. He was greeted with a deafening cheer by the Marines, and could not help but grin so widely that he felt that the skin on his face must split.
Enough was enough. It was time to abandon the walls: they were broken where they were still up, and cracked where they weren't broken. He tried to pick five volunteers to die with him behind the second wall. Every Marine volunteered, and the embattled sergeant threatened mutiny if the Lieutenant did not retreat now to the final line of defense to await the dropship. The Lieutenant was adamant, but so were the Marines. Finally ten Marines were picked out of the much larger number of volunteers to man the second wall. Two were assigned to each bunker, and the rest of the tiny handful of survivors retreated further back.
The Lieutenant joined them, but could only walk very slowly. He would not consent to be carried. But there were sounds of war nearby, and growing nearer steadily. Suddenly they knew that the gate was breached. Behind them the third and final laser held the ground for a moment, and the assault wavered, but the wave was strong: the tide rolled in over the helpless defense. Last grenades were dropped by dying hands, and more aliens were sent screaming through the air: more drops in a sea.
The Lieutenant and the four men with him were caught by the first scattered plasma shots near a bunker. With no other choice, the Lieutenant went in and readied his weapon, pausing for a moment to order the other three to run for their lives. His eyes were powerful, his glance like fire, and his words were not easily resistible. Two of them ran for survival, and two showed a strength of will strong enough to withstand even the Lieutenant's demand.
They gathered at the bunker's window and watched: five of them. A second bunker was destroyed in green fire; it was scarcely fifty yards nearer to the enemy than they were. The aliens turned their fire on the Lieutenant's bunker. First came the purple needles, dancing randomly above and beneath the window. Then came the blue plasma, just far away enough to not kill the Humans immediately. Then came the green plasma bolts, some small and some larger. The larger ones would have caught onto the humans and tracked them slightly-though not nearly so well as a needle-until it hit them, but the opening was too small for them to lock on. But there were so many of the larger green plasma bolts. The Grunts and Jackals were just outside, the Elites were in the doorway.
One man cried out "Hunters!" and another man covered his beloved Lieutenant with his body, and then all disappeared in green fire.
For the second time that day, the Lieutenant came back from the dead. He groped around and found a human hand. Slick and sticky with blood, but a warm, living human hand. He squeezed it for the comfort of them both.
When his strength returned he pushed himself to his feet, looked out the bunker window, and saw one Hunter coming onwards. It was the only Covenant visible. No, no, there were more behind it; but the Hunter was close, and rapidly advancing.
Then the Lieutenant realized that he was carrying the human hand, and that it was no longer attached to a body. He cast it aside in repulsion and then in wonderment that it was probably his last human contact, and he felt that perhaps he should not detest it so.
This place was hell. He had lived in hell for days now, or was it forever? Was it since.since the before-time, in the arid hills? Or was it only since he had stepped off the Pelican onto Lambda Seven? Why was he still alive? It was impossible for a Human to survive as long as he had in this war. No one could survive this long in hell. What superpowers were keeping him alive? Had he called it luck? Strategy? Strength? Yes, they were all true, but now he realized another reason: a fiery spirit and a fierce will to live that could not, would not be conquered. A final reason to fight one last time entered his head: if he survived, he would see beauty again. Deciding beforehand not to allow any considerations of despair, he began to move: walking towards the door, jogging out the door, darting underneath the Hunter's shield.
He began to run.
There are many different kinds of running. First, there is the simple, basic jog where one runs as if for fun, energy being expanded until the energy diminishes. Then there is the running hard, the running with a purpose. This is the running that takes up all the runner's concentration. It requires determination and endurance. This is the running employed by many people who run both for joy and for health. Then there is the running that takes one to the limit. It is employed when strength wells up out of the depths of a man's soul and drives him to move against all odds: against all weariness and all physical pain. It is the running of those who are truly committed to war games, the running of those in the final stages of a marathon, and especially the running of soldiers fleeing from the battlefield.
The Lieutenant had reached his limit. He pushed the pain back inside his head; it was something to be ignored. He felt the fear but focused on the will to live. A man had many false limits, and one's true limits are never found until one goes much, much farther than he thinks he can go. The pain throbbed deep inside his bones, and his skin was burning with the need for more sweat. The Lieutenant had reached his true limit, and he had no more strength. He was about to fall in the dust, to be burned and his body torn to pieces and lie dead in the dust.
He used his last strength of will. He pushed himself just an inch beyond the limit. The pain was now like a roaring waterfall screaming in his brain. The Lieutenant remembered duty and the will to live because he was a human, and there was something beautiful about humans. He pushed himself just a little bit farther. He was now running like a whirlwind, and the pursuing foe was falling behind. Like a hurricane he swept past the objects of the burned-out town, and passed swiftly across the dust like the shadow he had been in the twisted hills of sand when all had changed and his life had become this hell.
He remembered beauty. In his exhaustion he could not think what it was: there was only running in this world. Running and its pain. Running, and running was his glory. He was free, unconquered, wild and strong, a man, and running was his glory. And somewhere else there was another world (before things had changed) and somewhere ahead, perhaps, lay another change beyond which beauty would be visible and freedom could be enjoyed.
Beyond the limit he ran. Beyond human endurance. A brownish shape loomed before him and his subconscious whispered to his conscious that it was his destination.
And then, for some reason, the Lieutenant fell. One last tearing spasm of pain ripped through his body and he felt nothing. Behind him the Hunter came on, roaring with rage, its shield raised to crush.
The Lieutenant was dimly-barely-aware of the final pistol shot fired on Lambda Seven.
Behind him the Hunter collapsed.
The Lieutenant was dimly aware of something soft but strong on his hand-another hand-and hands on his waist, his back, moving him. He felt his muscles straining to lift his own body up, and was unaware that his nerves had told them to do so.
He came to, and the world felt like a dream. There was immense pain, but it was all inside him. Outside it was soft. Warm but not hot: cool compared to hell.
But hell had been called "Lambda Seven." It came back to him: the dis-attached human hand, the dust, the blood, the innumerable corpses, the flying plasma.
And he also remembered that he had been drinking fresh water a moment ago. He had not known it at the time-at least, not that he knew of-but now he somehow remembered it.
Beside him was a lovely face. He remembered what the face was called.Maria. He found he could slowly move. He rotated his head and looked around. At Maria's feet was a pistol. He closed his eyes, and went back to the nightmare, driven back to hell by curiosity. Yes.yes.there had been one pistol shot. It might have been her.
There were more people. A few feet away on the other side of the ship was an old friend, a brother, a blood-brother, someone he must have known since he was born. It was the dearest friend he had ever had.but what was his name?
Oh yes.it was the embattled sergeant across the way, one with whom the Lieutenant had shed his blood, now his brother.
People were talking. Someone said that a Spartan had survived, whatever that meant. The Lieutenant wondered what calamity it was that the Spartan had survived. Suddenly the Lieutenant realized that he had been asleep and had just woken up. Now they were talking about a ring. A huge ring floating somewhere in space. They had been repeating the word "halo" for some time. Someone said, "The MC is being sent to Earth now."
The Lieutenant tried to speak for the first time. He tried to ask where they were going, but the words were slurred and incomprehensible. He cleared his throat and again asked, "Where are we headed?" He was barely able to croak out the words.
"To Earth" someone said. "For the end. The end of."
".of hell or humanity" finished the Lieutenant, his voice raspy and full of weariness. "It's one or the other."
After a pause the embattled sergeant said, "Say, Lieutenant, what's your name?"
"Adams. Jeremiah Adams. What's yours?"
"David."
"Who all survived that, David?"
"Five Marines, ten more civilians counting Maria here. All the scientists."
The Lieutenant wept for his fallen brothers, but knew that he could not cry for very long. He would have to rest, and most likely get back to the blood-red war after a time, though maybe he could take some vacation time even after he left sick bay. Sick bay: thank God, if there was one, for a few days in sick bay to do nothing but sleep and read books. Egads, the way he felt, it might be weeks in sick bay. Later when he didn't feel so tired he would have to check himself and make sure there were no body parts missing.
This time in hospital he would pay strict attention to the books to see if he could find a final answer. If there were any philosophical system, any God, any religion, anything at all, that commanded duty and adored beauty without any contradiction, that belief must be truth, and the Lieutenant would have to find it.
He was still barely more than a child in his years. Once again he wept for the death of innocence and for the loss of good lives. He wept for his comrades in arms. But then he looked at Maria and wept that her beauty had emerged from the battle unscathed. Her eyes betrayed deep sorrow at the loss of her home and-who knows-maybe some of her relatives had died-maybe he would ask her-but her beauty seemed all the brighter for the sorrow.
And so finally the boy warrior and Lieutenant wept that, through his own scars, someone else might be preserved. And, bearing scars, he would live on. If he had a chance, he would find something better than what he had now.
"But that is the beginning of a new story-the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended."
-The final words of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment."
There was the girl; no, the woman. No matter.
An overwhelming urge suddenly consumed him. It obliterated any other thoughts in his mind and its potency threatened to tear him apart; that, at least, was how it felt. This creature was a thing of beauty, and he wanted to protect it. It was strong in its own way, able to take care of itself. But its glory was not its strength; its glory was its beauty. And strength it had; but strength to defend itself against the Covenant hordes, it had not. Perhaps no one had, but at least the Lieutenant had a little bit more, and at least he would use it toward that end, that the thing of beauty would be preserved at the cost of his own blood, and that should any foul thing mar its loveliness, the Lieutenant would be dead before that end came to be.
But that was all a given, old news. What else could he do to protect her? The Lieutenant's fingers wandered across the smooth surface of the metal object attached to his belt. That was one thing he could to. "Excuse me, miss."
Her eyes leapt up and he clearly saw them with his own in all their mysterious wonder. A weaker mind would have faltered, but the Lieutenant did not waver. "What is your name?"
She replied, "Maria."
"Do you know how to use this?" The pistol lay flat in his palm, fully loaded.
"Show me" she said.
He demonstrated the cocking mechanism and the safety; then he removed the clip and put it back in again. "Now you do it." She did, a little slowly and clumsily but without any mistakes.
The embattled sergeant was nearby. The Lieutenant ordered, "Sergeant, bring me a dead Grunt."
"Yes, Sir!" barked the sergeant. The Lieutenant and the girl watched as the embattled sergeant with the help of a private dragged up the corpse of one of the slaughtered Covenant Grunts. The Lieutenant addressed the girl: "Fill it with lead, Maria."
She acquiesced without a word. She seemed a little bit frightened of the power in her own hands, but it was as if she knew it was necessary. At the first shot she let out a tiny cry, but then her eyes hardened with determination, and she gave it three more shots. She looked up at the Lieutenant, who almost smiled but stopped himself. "Keep going" he said without emotion.
The girl emptied the pistol and stopped only after twice hearing the click of an empty chamber. "That was very good" said the Lieutenant.
"Why do they have blue blood?" she asked.
"Hemoglobin," said the Lieutenant. "It carries oxygen in our own human blood, and it's what makes our blood red. These things breathe methane, so they don't have any hemoglobin."
"So they have some blue thing in their blood that carries the other stuff?"
"Beats me. I'm sure somebody knows that little detail. I just know why their blood isn't red." There was a pause in the conversation, and then the Lieutenant handed Maria three more clips and told her to keep the gun. Women were scary things, and the Lieutenant had other things to think about.
Time to dustoff: sixteen hours.
"Resources.we have some resources left.I was thinking that after the third laser, we can still make some mirrors just to blind them.if they attack during the morning that is. I suppose we could rig up some elaborate system to redirect the light for another time of day. And we have.horses.twenty-four. I was going to check with you and the leading men left in the town, and then eat them if that's ok with everyone. You know, the condemned man always gets a good last meal. None of us have had any fresh meat since we got here, and some of us in weeks and months."
"Don't kill them yet, Sarge" said the Lieutenant. Creativity had probably won many a battle in history, and certainly it had served well this morning. But a cavalry charge.bordered on lunacy. But what the heck. "Can anyone ride them, Sergeant? Some of the men from around here, maybe?"
"Far's I know."
"I want to speak to the men of the town. See who can ride.and who might be interested in certain death for the sake of their wives and children. Ok, the wives and children are mostly gone already. For the ones that are left.or just to give the rest of us a bigger chance. And if any of our own men might be able to learn to ride in a few hours." The Lieutenant was pacing back and forth, partially to consider how such a crazy idea might be accomplished and partially to wonder at his own stupidity at considering it.
"Lieutenant.are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
"Yes Sergeant I am: at dawn. With mirrors. It will be useless, of course, against Elites and Hunters."
"But Grunts. And.Jackals.squashed!"
"Bingo."
Ten hours to dustoff.
It was night. The Lieutenant looked at the stars-brilliantly bright. Lamba Seven's sky was a new arrangement of stars to him as he had never been in this sector, but some of the constellations looked a little bit familiar.
He was likely to die in the morning. They all were. But as long as they were still alive, they might as well live. So the Lieutenant looked at the stars.
But his eyes were drawn down when a slender shadow slipped from a nearby building, merged with the night, and then turned to look towards him. A cool wind blew across her face, making her hair to dance in its breeze. He looked at her and her bright eyes within the pitch black of her hair as it merged with the night seemed to him as were the bright stars overhead.
Then she turned and vanished into the shadows.
Suddenly two lines of though in his head came together and completely linked for the first time. Before they had only very nearly come together. He had sworn silently to himself to, above all, protect Maria. His body was almost broken, and it was weak, hurting all over. Well, that was because Maria's body was unhurt. When he had first written his battle poem, months ago, it had taken him hours to find the right words. This time the words came quickly and easily.
"And battle and war." was his only reality. "The children breathe a cool wind," was the state of reality behind the lines of battle, where those who were children to the ways of pain breathed clean air without the taste of blood in it. "Just a warrior and his sword" spoke of the battle once more. "Behind him peace wins" spoke of the objective of any just war.
He thought of what he had been through, from the first storm of plasma lightning over his shoulder as he had fled into the hills.to the monsters he had cut down in their tracks that morning. "I alone understand. I'll give them a chance. I'll show them the light. By my blood they will last." And again he thought of Maria. "For them I stand, For them I here dance, For them I fight, And this test I will pass." for her, for them, for the children, said the Lieutenant beneath the stars.
And he gathered his strength for the final stand.
Goldfired morning. Two hours to dustoff. The mirrors were in place. The certain premonition was more certain than ever. It was time.
The Covenant crested the ridge for the third and final time. They had been reinforced in the night; some of the men on guard duty had counted: one hundred and thirty-one enemy dropships.
The defenses were arrayed thus: the first line was of course, the wall, bristling with assault rifles, sniper rifles, pistols, and rocket launchers. Thirty-four Marines were there. The second line was the wall of boxes, bricks, and sandbags within the walls. Just five Marines had been placed there, at the center facing the gate, which was the definitive weak spot, having only the weakest makeshift wooden doors. For half a mile behind that wall along the town's main road were various boxes, buildings with windows, three smaller sandbag fortifications, and several bunkers. They were all currently empty; things to be used in a retreat. The last bit of ground to hold was the clearing in the center of the town where the dropships would arrive at 8:00 hours. It was surrounded by a four foot wall. The eighteen Marines who were wounded and able to sit up were already arrayed there, ready to pull assault rifle triggers. Their most significant task would be to cover the retreat of whoever came back from the outer lines of defense. The handful of women helped the two most badly wounded Marines, and did whatever they could for the scientists and other Marines: all in the buildings on the back side of the clearing, where it seemed a little bit safer. A few of the men of the town were stationed on the outer and inner walls.
The Lieutenant had a few special cards to play, but the effectiveness of any of them was debatable. The first special card was two out of the three new reflective lasers. As the light first peeked over the horizon and intensified to its full fury in virtually no time at all, the humans observed it and-at the right moment-swung the mechanisms into position. The light further intensified within the beam, and the oncoming Covenant began to feel its wrath: the wrath of humans defending their homes and families, and everything that was human to them.
But the first special card was a disaster, for the enemy's lesson had been well learnt. In only a matter of seconds the lasers and their operators were brutally melted and incinerated in the vast wave of plasma that caught them almost before they could react. The only weapon now capable of slowing the onslaught was the sniper rifle. There were seven rifles left, and the bullets had been evenly distributed: no one had more than four. In seconds the snipers had cast the useless weapons aside and begun aiming the assault rifles. They had destroyed three Elites, ten Grunts, and two Jackals: fifteen drops in an immeasurable sea.
The Lieutenant's rocket launcher was the first to fire. The rocket streaked towards a certain clot of monsters, leaving its characteristic smoke-line behind it, and the next objects to be launched through the air were screaming aliens. A few more launchers fired, taking out Jackals and Hunters by the ones, Grunts by the fives. Elites and Jackals were slowly succumbing to the pistols. The Lieutenant fired his second rocket, eliminating a Hunter, and then realized that the things were already within fifty yards of the walls. Assault rifles were now in action. With the bullets distributed among so many enemies, most of the Grunts were only wounded, and the Elites' shields were probably not even broken. The Lieutenant decided he would give the signal for the other mirrors in sixty seconds.
Forty-five seconds and two more rockets launched. The Lieutenant was now crouching below the fortifications. To stand up would mean almost certain scalding burns from the plasma that filled the air. It wouldn't take very many of those to kill a man. The Lieutenant raised his assault rifle above his head and blindly emptied the sixty bits of lead into the hellfire. Then he caught the eye of the embattled sergeant down on the ground, and gave him the hand signal to prepare the second special card's ground-side component. The embattled sergeant, always reliable, obeyed orders quickly and flawlessly. The Lieutenant dropped to ground-level, picked up the special package that was the third card, and screamed into his walkie-talkie the signal for the second card's wall-side component.
Now began the most beautifully heroic moment on Lambda Seven's saga. First the mirrors swung up: more than twenty of them, directing the sun's light into the eyes of the enemy's massed forces before the gate.
Then the gate was removed, blown outward from the inside with plastic explosives, its remains driving into the enemy and breaking the flesh, surely, of at least a dozen.
The horses charged forward into the light. Well-trained animals, they were driven by their heroic riders to their doom. A renewed blast of assault rifle fire broke out from above, and the twenty-four horses darted into the flaming whiteness. The only cavalry charge of this horrendous war saw them die, trampling their enemies, some. Cutting down a few with their assault rifles, some. Dying, all: all the men of this little town on Lambda Seven, kamikazes, into the burning whiteness rode, and in the whiteness died, and in the brightness and light bought a few more minutes of precious life for their still-breathing comrades behind the walls. Maybe it would be enough.
And some of the enemy fled. Victory!
Yet there were too few left inside the blasted, blackened walls. Twenty-four fewer with the heroes gone to their death on the horses. No, twenty-five.
The Lieutenant would have delegated this mission to no one else. He would also have seen to it that no one but himself volunteered. It was better that the others be given a chance to survive; let his own blood be the price of that.
He was in the dust, in the lingering wake of that heroic charge. Jogging now, slowing to a walk. His finger was poised on the button, lightly brushing the button that would set off the special package he was delivering to the Covenant.
One thousand ton's worth of TNT. Reduced to the size of an apple and the weight of one hundredth of its explosive power. The apple carried in the left hand, the detonator in the left. There was only one of these weapons on Lambda Seven; the factories back on Reach manufactured as many as they could, but they were fairly expensive and hard to make. The Lieutenant had been lucky to be given just one before he came to Lambda Seven.
The objective was to get as far away from the town as possible and set it off. The charge had carried the horses several hundred yards. They may have almost even reached the ridge. The Lieutenant was surely near the ridge now, and the dust was still there. He began to see flitting shadows of living enemies in the drifting brownness. Some fired their plasma rifles at objects on the ground.
He was among the ghosts. The blessed ghosts of the heroes whose bodies lay strewn on this cursed field. And the ghosts of the evil enemy. But he too was a ghost in this light, and prepared to go on to the other side and join the heroes. He knelt down, crouching behind a dead horse, and placed the bomb beneath its body. It seemed good to hide it, but he was not sure just why. He was ready to die, and the slightest mistaken move in his right hand would bring about his instantaneous incineration. Or, the slightest intentional movement: if they neared him in the drifting dust (there was no wind) and saw him, he would set it off. He was ready to die.
But what if living were possible? Well, he was resigned to his fate, but if there were the slightest millionth of a chance it was duty's decree to try it. He was laying down with the dead horse, watching and looking. Well, it was time to go back to the town. Maybe it would be possible to make it back inside the gates. He had done it last time he had left the city. He began to jog backwards, his back parallel to the ground as he crouched as low as he could. Then he stopped: there were no enemies in this drifting dust firing weapons or charging the town, but there were sounds of battle: Human and Covenant weapons shouting, and Humans screaming out hatred and pain.
He stood frozen among the drifting dust, and thought. Ah, of course: the cavalry charge had gone straight out from the gate, and the Covenant had been massed all along the walls. The ones to the sides of the gate would not have been swept away in the charge. They would be attacking the town. In other words, there was no going back.
If he was to live, he would have to get away from the bomb; he could go sideways and try to disappear; he might be seen but might not be met by a monster. He could go back, back to the aliens, where he might not be seen but he would be found. He waited, lingering on the edge of the drifting cloud, and plunged back into the dust; he didn't know why. He only felt that it was necessary, as if the call of fate were driving him back into that murkiness.
Thank God the dust was drifting straight away from the town; he counted his paces and estimated when he was about where he had left the bomb. He counted thirty more paces. There were aliens everywhere, but for reasons incomprehensible they were not killing him. Perhaps in the dust he was indistinguishable from the Elites. They were barking, growling, communicating and.planning something. At least it sounded like they were. How many paces past the bomb? The creatures were everywhere; one brushed against his side. He shivered, shuddered for a moment; then his body danced and waved in spasms of terror and a scream caught in his throat, stifling him. With infinite courage he forced himself to move, to move at all costs.and found that he was running.
There were sounds of alien voices around him; they knew he was there now, and they knew he was not one of them. Fear consumed him and he fled faster, but, catching himself and his mind, realized he must do something, and dove for cover behind a large rock, lying still there. Now he was barely on the far side of the dust-cloud. But then a gust of wind came, and the dust disappeared rolled away.
He shuddered again, realizing that he had no idea where the detonator was. He felt nothing in his hands. The chill of ultimate failure ran down his spine, and in despair he looked at his hand.
The detonator was there, by a miracle-his fingers still poised above the button. Why hadn't he felt it?
The aliens were just over the rock, scarcely four feet away: Three Elites, talking in their deep voices. They were looking away for the moment: towards the town, where plasma continued to bombard but there was hardly any answering fire. That meant that they were waiting for him to set off the bomb; they didn't dare to show their faces above the walls or the blast would destroy them.
Infinite courage was realized again. He knew what he wanted to do. Few men had ever looked terror, fate full in the face. Fewer still lived. But to stare at death and defy it, to look in the eyes of a monster that hated Man, and spit in its mouth and watch it die an instant before oneself: that was strength. Or if nothing else, it was the call of fate: and defiance of infinite terror and hate.well, at least it would be a many death.
And so he stood, and leapt over the rock, the detonator high in his hand above his head, and planted his feet behind the nearest Elite and cried out in Human tongue that he defied them. It turned around in a flash and raised its arm, a limb with quite enough power to crack his skull or break his frail Human neck. At the final moment he adjusted his legs so they would be, as near as he could figure, behind the monster's legs. Its arm was in the air falling, but it never fully fell. The Lieutenant's fingers closed on the detonator's button.
A powerful radio signal radiated out in all directions, quickly as light piercing the rocks and bodies until it found its target. The receiver inside the apple caught the beam and relayed a signal to the firing mechanism. The mechanism sparked and the spark caught the fuel, and a sun erupted among the aliens. The ground within a three hundred yard radius was cleared, and hundreds of Covenant roasted in the fire. The blast caught the Elite in full swing of his mighty arm, hurling its body away forward, away from ground zero. The killing machine became a protective shield that absorbed all of the shrapnel and flying rocks, and most of the fire, and saved the Lieutenant from the devastating explosion.
The Lieutenant was seeing intense hate in the thing's eyes; if they could hate, did that mean that they were creatures capable of love? Didn't love come first? But even more intense was the terror in its small eyes. Small was his courage, but it was enough to stand firm. Then the blue mass lurched towards him. The whole word shivered, and all things leapt in that direction, all things but the solid earth. The vibration wave caught him, too, and his body moved several inches backwards and then back. It was a sickening sensation, and very painful; but it didn't last. It must have been the shrapnel and rocks that drove the Elite to move more than the wave carried it, several feet and into the Lieutenant. The world of red fire became black.
He came to and found himself alive and some distance from the town. He got up and began to move. At first he was in too much pain, shock, and weariness to move but a few paces in half a minute, but then he was able to accelerate. He passed the gates after twenty minutes, just as the Covenant massed at the tip of the ridge for an enraged final assault. He was greeted with a deafening cheer by the Marines, and could not help but grin so widely that he felt that the skin on his face must split.
Enough was enough. It was time to abandon the walls: they were broken where they were still up, and cracked where they weren't broken. He tried to pick five volunteers to die with him behind the second wall. Every Marine volunteered, and the embattled sergeant threatened mutiny if the Lieutenant did not retreat now to the final line of defense to await the dropship. The Lieutenant was adamant, but so were the Marines. Finally ten Marines were picked out of the much larger number of volunteers to man the second wall. Two were assigned to each bunker, and the rest of the tiny handful of survivors retreated further back.
The Lieutenant joined them, but could only walk very slowly. He would not consent to be carried. But there were sounds of war nearby, and growing nearer steadily. Suddenly they knew that the gate was breached. Behind them the third and final laser held the ground for a moment, and the assault wavered, but the wave was strong: the tide rolled in over the helpless defense. Last grenades were dropped by dying hands, and more aliens were sent screaming through the air: more drops in a sea.
The Lieutenant and the four men with him were caught by the first scattered plasma shots near a bunker. With no other choice, the Lieutenant went in and readied his weapon, pausing for a moment to order the other three to run for their lives. His eyes were powerful, his glance like fire, and his words were not easily resistible. Two of them ran for survival, and two showed a strength of will strong enough to withstand even the Lieutenant's demand.
They gathered at the bunker's window and watched: five of them. A second bunker was destroyed in green fire; it was scarcely fifty yards nearer to the enemy than they were. The aliens turned their fire on the Lieutenant's bunker. First came the purple needles, dancing randomly above and beneath the window. Then came the blue plasma, just far away enough to not kill the Humans immediately. Then came the green plasma bolts, some small and some larger. The larger ones would have caught onto the humans and tracked them slightly-though not nearly so well as a needle-until it hit them, but the opening was too small for them to lock on. But there were so many of the larger green plasma bolts. The Grunts and Jackals were just outside, the Elites were in the doorway.
One man cried out "Hunters!" and another man covered his beloved Lieutenant with his body, and then all disappeared in green fire.
For the second time that day, the Lieutenant came back from the dead. He groped around and found a human hand. Slick and sticky with blood, but a warm, living human hand. He squeezed it for the comfort of them both.
When his strength returned he pushed himself to his feet, looked out the bunker window, and saw one Hunter coming onwards. It was the only Covenant visible. No, no, there were more behind it; but the Hunter was close, and rapidly advancing.
Then the Lieutenant realized that he was carrying the human hand, and that it was no longer attached to a body. He cast it aside in repulsion and then in wonderment that it was probably his last human contact, and he felt that perhaps he should not detest it so.
This place was hell. He had lived in hell for days now, or was it forever? Was it since.since the before-time, in the arid hills? Or was it only since he had stepped off the Pelican onto Lambda Seven? Why was he still alive? It was impossible for a Human to survive as long as he had in this war. No one could survive this long in hell. What superpowers were keeping him alive? Had he called it luck? Strategy? Strength? Yes, they were all true, but now he realized another reason: a fiery spirit and a fierce will to live that could not, would not be conquered. A final reason to fight one last time entered his head: if he survived, he would see beauty again. Deciding beforehand not to allow any considerations of despair, he began to move: walking towards the door, jogging out the door, darting underneath the Hunter's shield.
He began to run.
There are many different kinds of running. First, there is the simple, basic jog where one runs as if for fun, energy being expanded until the energy diminishes. Then there is the running hard, the running with a purpose. This is the running that takes up all the runner's concentration. It requires determination and endurance. This is the running employed by many people who run both for joy and for health. Then there is the running that takes one to the limit. It is employed when strength wells up out of the depths of a man's soul and drives him to move against all odds: against all weariness and all physical pain. It is the running of those who are truly committed to war games, the running of those in the final stages of a marathon, and especially the running of soldiers fleeing from the battlefield.
The Lieutenant had reached his limit. He pushed the pain back inside his head; it was something to be ignored. He felt the fear but focused on the will to live. A man had many false limits, and one's true limits are never found until one goes much, much farther than he thinks he can go. The pain throbbed deep inside his bones, and his skin was burning with the need for more sweat. The Lieutenant had reached his true limit, and he had no more strength. He was about to fall in the dust, to be burned and his body torn to pieces and lie dead in the dust.
He used his last strength of will. He pushed himself just an inch beyond the limit. The pain was now like a roaring waterfall screaming in his brain. The Lieutenant remembered duty and the will to live because he was a human, and there was something beautiful about humans. He pushed himself just a little bit farther. He was now running like a whirlwind, and the pursuing foe was falling behind. Like a hurricane he swept past the objects of the burned-out town, and passed swiftly across the dust like the shadow he had been in the twisted hills of sand when all had changed and his life had become this hell.
He remembered beauty. In his exhaustion he could not think what it was: there was only running in this world. Running and its pain. Running, and running was his glory. He was free, unconquered, wild and strong, a man, and running was his glory. And somewhere else there was another world (before things had changed) and somewhere ahead, perhaps, lay another change beyond which beauty would be visible and freedom could be enjoyed.
Beyond the limit he ran. Beyond human endurance. A brownish shape loomed before him and his subconscious whispered to his conscious that it was his destination.
And then, for some reason, the Lieutenant fell. One last tearing spasm of pain ripped through his body and he felt nothing. Behind him the Hunter came on, roaring with rage, its shield raised to crush.
The Lieutenant was dimly-barely-aware of the final pistol shot fired on Lambda Seven.
Behind him the Hunter collapsed.
The Lieutenant was dimly aware of something soft but strong on his hand-another hand-and hands on his waist, his back, moving him. He felt his muscles straining to lift his own body up, and was unaware that his nerves had told them to do so.
He came to, and the world felt like a dream. There was immense pain, but it was all inside him. Outside it was soft. Warm but not hot: cool compared to hell.
But hell had been called "Lambda Seven." It came back to him: the dis-attached human hand, the dust, the blood, the innumerable corpses, the flying plasma.
And he also remembered that he had been drinking fresh water a moment ago. He had not known it at the time-at least, not that he knew of-but now he somehow remembered it.
Beside him was a lovely face. He remembered what the face was called.Maria. He found he could slowly move. He rotated his head and looked around. At Maria's feet was a pistol. He closed his eyes, and went back to the nightmare, driven back to hell by curiosity. Yes.yes.there had been one pistol shot. It might have been her.
There were more people. A few feet away on the other side of the ship was an old friend, a brother, a blood-brother, someone he must have known since he was born. It was the dearest friend he had ever had.but what was his name?
Oh yes.it was the embattled sergeant across the way, one with whom the Lieutenant had shed his blood, now his brother.
People were talking. Someone said that a Spartan had survived, whatever that meant. The Lieutenant wondered what calamity it was that the Spartan had survived. Suddenly the Lieutenant realized that he had been asleep and had just woken up. Now they were talking about a ring. A huge ring floating somewhere in space. They had been repeating the word "halo" for some time. Someone said, "The MC is being sent to Earth now."
The Lieutenant tried to speak for the first time. He tried to ask where they were going, but the words were slurred and incomprehensible. He cleared his throat and again asked, "Where are we headed?" He was barely able to croak out the words.
"To Earth" someone said. "For the end. The end of."
".of hell or humanity" finished the Lieutenant, his voice raspy and full of weariness. "It's one or the other."
After a pause the embattled sergeant said, "Say, Lieutenant, what's your name?"
"Adams. Jeremiah Adams. What's yours?"
"David."
"Who all survived that, David?"
"Five Marines, ten more civilians counting Maria here. All the scientists."
The Lieutenant wept for his fallen brothers, but knew that he could not cry for very long. He would have to rest, and most likely get back to the blood-red war after a time, though maybe he could take some vacation time even after he left sick bay. Sick bay: thank God, if there was one, for a few days in sick bay to do nothing but sleep and read books. Egads, the way he felt, it might be weeks in sick bay. Later when he didn't feel so tired he would have to check himself and make sure there were no body parts missing.
This time in hospital he would pay strict attention to the books to see if he could find a final answer. If there were any philosophical system, any God, any religion, anything at all, that commanded duty and adored beauty without any contradiction, that belief must be truth, and the Lieutenant would have to find it.
He was still barely more than a child in his years. Once again he wept for the death of innocence and for the loss of good lives. He wept for his comrades in arms. But then he looked at Maria and wept that her beauty had emerged from the battle unscathed. Her eyes betrayed deep sorrow at the loss of her home and-who knows-maybe some of her relatives had died-maybe he would ask her-but her beauty seemed all the brighter for the sorrow.
And so finally the boy warrior and Lieutenant wept that, through his own scars, someone else might be preserved. And, bearing scars, he would live on. If he had a chance, he would find something better than what he had now.
"But that is the beginning of a new story-the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended."
-The final words of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment."