Chapter 5: Ashes and Memories
Infirmary
Tarin, now fully clothed and refreshed, strode into the ship's infirmary. Last she knew, Karla was in here after receiving wounds from the previous battle. She took one step inside and shivered as she looked around. Like all infirmaries, the room was a stark, antiseptic white. Beds lined the walls, and good number of them had occupants, mostly Marines and crewmen who were wounded in the recent fighting. Tarin noted that most were asleep or unconscious. Some were laughing and joking with each other, while others just stared into the ceiling, as if in a state of shock. These Marines were the lucky ones. Twenty Marines and twelve crewmen died defending the ship.
Suddenly, there was a commotion at the end of the room, and Tarin saw that her captain was in a heated argument with the ship's doctor.
"These wounds would normally take weeks to fully heal!" The doctor complained to Karla, who was busy picking up her gear and completely ignoring him. "It's barely been three days and now you want leave?"
"Like I said," Karla said coolly, "I feel perfectly fine."
The doctor sighed and shook his head. "I don't know why I let you do this."
"Because, Doctor Pennert," Karla grinned, "You know for a fact that I can survive pretty much whatever the Covvies can throw at me."
Doctor Pennert sighed again. "I've been patching you up since you were in diapers, and still you manage to amaze me with the amount of punishment you can handle."
Tarin quickly saluted saluted as Karla walked up to her. Karla returned the salute, and they both marched out of the infirmary.
"You know that man, captain?" Tarin asked Karla after leaving the infirmary.
"Hah, when you have a father like mine lieutenant, a lot of people tend to know you. So what's this visit about?"
"I'm just here to inform you that the company is assembled and prepped, awaiting your orders."
"And what else?"
Tarin hesitated. "That's about all I had to tell."
"Ah, you can't fool me." Karla continued walking down the hall. Tarin had to increase her pace to catch up. "Nobody would make the effort to come all the way to the infirmary unless it was something important, plus I can tell when one of my subordinates is lying."
"It's nothing-"
"Oh, come on, Tarin. You almost never speak a word. I'm actually enjoying this little conversation we're having here."
"It's kind of personal." Tarin said quietly.
"Well, there's nobody here." Karla looked around the hall. "Might as well tell me what's on your mind before we turn the corner and bump into a bunch of shady Marines who live for nothing less than digging up dirt on their superior officers."
"Well..." Tarin bit her lip. Karla looked at her and noted that even though Tarin was an officer, and a very composed one, Tarin was still just a kid, just like a lot of the Marines serving in these late war years. Hell, she was only two years older than Sam.
"I was just wondering what exactly your relationship with Paccone is." Tarin said very quickly and quietly.
If Karla was taken aback by the comment, she didn't show anything. "Well, you'd better ask Williams for the story, I've told him about it before. Or better yet, ask Paccone himself. I'm pretty sure he'd be glad to brag about it."
"You won't tell me?"
"I'm in no mood to, nor am I under any obligation to tell you anything." Karla said calmly. "Anything else?"
"What's your personal opinion of him?"
"Firebloom."
"What?" Tarin was dumbfounded at the answer.
"Sorry, I guess not a lot of people know what that is." Karla said, abashed. "It's this very special root that grows on a few planets, and it's famous for its extremely strong and tangy flavor."
"Can you explain further, captain? I'm afraid I'm still not seeing it."
"Well, when I first tasted Firebloom, I thought it was the best thing ever to happen to me. Unfortunately, Firebloom is also notoriously spicy, and I eventually stopped eating it because I just couldn't stand it any more." Karla paused for a moment, as if recalling old times, "Weeks later though, I started to thinking 'Boy, wouldn't be great to have some Firebloom again?' I guess you can say the same thing about Paccone. You can love him and hate him, but eventually you come to accept it all."
Tarin raised an eyebrow. "Are you admitting that you still have feelings toward him then, captain?"
"You know what, totally disregard what I just said. Those painkillers Pennert gave me are making me feel dizzy."
Tarin nodded and didn't say anything else.
Bridge
"The new AIs have been installed, and are already formatting themselves to the ship's system." Joshua announced, his ego still somewhat deflated at having to rely upon other AIs.
Engineers had been working tirelessly in the past couple of days to add in the new AI cores to the ship. Thanks to the ingenuity of the engineers, they had managed to jury rig the three new cores in the aft section of the ship near the nuclear reactors. Though they were all Class C AIs, significantly lesser quality than a Class A, they could still perform millions of calculations a second, and were adequate for the task, though the lacked a lot of the personality that made higher grade AIs so... human, if you could say that.
"I hope I don't have to memorize any of their names. Remembering the names of my kids is tough enough." Rogers smiled. He already knew the three new AIs would be running in the background, managing the ship's maintenance and power distribution systems, leaving Joshua free to operate the ship's active and combat systems.
"They are called Melchior, Balthasar, and Casper, though I severely doubt you will be seeing much of them."
Rogers grinned at the agitation in Joshua's voice. "How's the status on our jump?"
"ETA to Earth is another two days." Joshua chimed. "Though I still don't understand why you lied to Mahoney about this being our last jump."
"Frankly, I'm more concerned about getting this ship to a decent shipyard for proper inspection. We won't be doing much good for the Human race if we happen to explode in the middle of a Slipspace jump. Besides, this isn't the first time the Cole Protocol has been...'broadly interpreted'."
"Point taken, sir. Care for a game of chess to pass the time?"
"I'd prefer a game where I actually stand a chance at winning." Rogers grinned. "Or we could ask one of those new AIs to join in."
"Absolutely not." Joshua pouted.
Rogers laughed.
Recreation Lounge, Deck T
"Wow, I've never seen a human being drink so much." Sam gaped as she looked across the room. Paccone was in the middle of a drinking contest against a rival Marine unit, and neither side looked as if they were going to back down soon."
"Dang." Leo looked as Paccone downed his seventh beer in seconds. "I have no idea what your sister ever saw in him."
"Wait," Sam narrowed her eyes. "What does Karla have to do with this?"
"Wait, you don't know?" Leo suddenly realized that Sam was not present when Paccone told his little love story.
Oh crap. He thought to himself.
"Uhhh, it's nothing." He said out loud.
"No no, it most definitely is something." Sam glared at Leo, who seemed to cringe at her very presence. "You'll tell me what this is all about, or I'll start breaking things, starting with your legs."
Leo tried to stall, hoping against all odds that Paccone would miraculously appear and save him from this predicament. "Uhhh, you're not going to like it."
"No, you're not going to like it when I start getting pissed." Sam ignored the cheers in the background as Paccone's opponent finally collapsed from total inebriation.
"Fine." Leo said, finally breaking under the pressure. "Your sister and the Sarge... used to have a thing."
"A thing?"
"Yeah, a thing." Leo said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. He wasn't quite prepared for the punch on the shoulder he received, which convinced to talk more. "They used to be a couple at some point in the past, and a very close one at that."
It took a few seconds for the comment for the words to sink in, and Leo found himself amused at the expression Sam's face.
"You mean to tell me that my sister and my commanding officer actually had..."
Leo nodded.
"Oh. My. GOD." Sam buried her face in her hands. "This is so embarrassing."
"Yeah, I was kind of freaked too when he told me about it."
Sam took a deep pull from her bottle and sucked the entire thing dry.
"I didn't know you drank." Leo said, slightly worried.
Sam sighed and set the empty bottle aside. "I didn't until now."
At that moment, Paccone sauntered in. Even though he had downed an insane amount of alcohol in an extremely short period of time, he didn't even show a sign that he was even slightly drunk.
"Sir, do you have a fantastically efficient liver, or are you actually a robot, because I'm pretty sure normal people would've have died drinking that much." Leo pushed a chair out for Paccone as he approached.
"Hah, you haven't seen anything yet." Paccone grinned as he sat down. "Wait till you see me go up against some Helljumpers. I'll show those wusses how someobody really drinks. Hey, what's wrong with Wellings here?" Paccone looked curiously at Sam, who still had her face buried in her hands, trying to cope with the fact that her own sergeant could possibly be her brother-in-law.
Not a very pretty thought, as you can imagine.
"Ummm, you know that little story you told me back on Aeola in that 'town that is not be named'?" Leo asked.
"Oh." Paccone said, immediately catching on. "Well, this is pretty awkward."
"You're damn right it is." Sam glared at Paccone. "Did you know this when I got assigned to you?"
"Frankly, I thought you just happened to have the same last name... and hair... and eyes... and super sexy body..."
Leolaughed otu loudat the joke, prompting several nearby Marines to turn their heads to see what was so funny,and even Sam couldn't help but grin.
"If it makes you feel any better." Paccone continued. "You're like the little, annoying, whiny little girl I've never had."
Before Sam could say anything in response, somebody else spoke. "Excuse me sergeant, but do you think we could talk for a moment?"
The three Marines turned to see Lieutenant Tarin Richards standing at their table. None of them recalled her coming into the room. It was as she had just materialized out of thin air.
"Lieutenant." Paccone gave a casual salute. "What can I do for you this fine day?"
"We need to talk." Tarin said sternly.
Leo looked, and for the first time, he was surprised to see that the expression on Paccone's face was serious. Meanwhile, Sam was just staring curiously. Unlike Leo or Paccone, she didn't remember encountering Karla's taciturn and mysterious replacement.
"If you excuse me, kids." Paccone stood up. "I'm going to be going for a walk. If anybody asks for me, what do you tell them?"
"That you're on the Covenant homeworld wading through waist-deep piles of Covenant dead as you unleash your ungodly fury on their poor souls?" Sam recited wistfully.
"You're damn right I am." Paccone grinned and exited the room with Tarin.
"What was that all about?" Leo asked after Paccone had left.
Sam shrugged. "Heck if I know."
"So, what is this all about, Tarin?" Paccone asked as he followed Tarin down the hall.
Tarin stopped and leaned her back against he wall, looking uncertain as what to do next.
"Look," Paccone started to say, "I know you may have been extremely pissed at me when we last saw each other-"
"When you pulled me from the fires of my homeworld all those years ago," Tarin cut him off. "I... never really got the chance to thank you for it."
Paccone looked at her, and saw that Tarin's expression softened. Christ, she now looked exactly like that girl whose life he had saved so long ago, but just as quickly, she reverted back to that cold, emotionless mask that she had mastered so well.
"That's all I had to say. I'm afraid that all that familiarity we had that time is... well... gone now. I just want to set it straight that it's Lieutenant Richards and Sergeant Paccone from now on, and I think that's the way it should be."
Paccone nodded gravely. "Take care then, Lieutenant Richards. Don't forget everything I tried to drill in your impressionable little head."
"I'll keep that in mind." Tarin turned to leave, but stopped for a moment and said, "Oh, and just remember that even though things with her may seem tough, it'll turn out all right in the end."
Paccone just stood there, even after Tarin was long gone. He was troubled with the thought of what she had to go through in order to deal with the trauma of watching her own world getting glassed in front of her very eyes , and what the meaning of that cryptic message was.
K Deck
Tarin strode down the hall, meandering through the Marines and crewmen milling about, performing their routine duties. This made Tarin think about what her purpose was. The only job that she had ever felt comfortable doing was fighting and killing Covenant, and left little room for any kind of compassion or caring. Was this really her path, to keep killing until her enemies returned the favor?
"A rather interesting conversation."
Tarin stopped dead when she heard Karla's voice behind her.
"You heard?" It was more a statement rather than a question.
"I may be incredibly unconventional when it comes to dealing with my troops, but I would be a total failure as an officer if I had no idea what my subordinates were up to." Karla tapped the wall. "Besides, ship walls tend to have ears, especially when they're run by an AI."
"Your record is incredibly mysterious, Tarin." Karla eyed her lieutenant carefully. "There are a lot of gaps in it, along with a fair number of ONI-issue black highlighters. I was willing to overlook those discrepancies due to your marvelous combat record, but your apparent involvement with Sergeant Paccone has now made me want to ask some questions."
"I don't think I should tell you."
Karla shrugged. "Obviously you went through the trouble to getting my story out of Williams, I'd thought you'd want to regale him or me with tales from your own illustrious past."
Tarin sighed. It was bound to get out sooner or later anyways.
Cenar
Dresdon System
Two years ago.
Sergeant Ronald Paccone dug his feet into the solid earth and breathed in fresh, unfiltered air. After spending weeks cooped up in an UNSC troop carrier, he was finally glad to be on solid ground, even if he was on a "crowd control" mission. Strategically, Cenar was not a very important world. It had a total population of about ten thousand people, and 90 of its land mass was basically forest. The only reason why the UNSC was interested was because intercepted Covenant transmission suggested that Cenar was the next target, and rather than fight, UNSC high command decided it was easier just to evacuate the planetary population. Paccone's current mission was to venture into the forests on the western edge of Cenar's largest continent and round up the civilians living in several small villages and towns.
Personally, Paccone disliked babysitting. Much to his annoyance, he had heard that Karla was sent to Schizen Eight, a planet experiencing some of the heaviest fighting so far. The thought nagged at the back of his mind because Paccone couldn't stop thinking about her. He had always expected to see her face, or get chewed out by her for disobeying some obscure rule or regulation. As a result, he seemed to be more depressed and lost than before. Some of his squad members were worried that he would do something suicidal. Paccone thought that they were probably right. With Karla gone, he had nothing else to live for.
Except for killing Covenant of course.
"All right men, tighten it up there." Paccone said sternly. "There's no such thing as a lost Marine, and I do not intend to be proved wrong."
There were many rumors and stories about the vast woodland forests of Cenar. Many of the locals believed that the trees here had a life of their own, and actually moved every now and then, so going inside without losing your way was impossible. Even more rumors stated that only a select few "wood people" could navigate these supposedly living mazes, and yet even more rumors suggested that they were extremely skilled at combat and stealth.
Paccone laughed these rumors off at first, but once he and his squad passed the treeline, he began to revise his opinions. So far, the forest always seemed to change whenever he looked at it. He would close his eyes for a second, and when he opened them again, there was this inexplicable feeling that something was different. If it weren't for the GPS signals being emitted by the orbiting warships, Paccone knew that navigation would be a far more difficult.
"Sir," Paccone's point man, Penkala called in on the radio, "We've stumbled across something here and... well... you might want to see this."
Intrigued, Paccone made his way through a straggle of brush and stopped in his tracks as he saw what Penkala did.
"Son of a bitch." He muttered.
The ground was littered with dead Covenant. It wasn't surprising that the Covenant had forces on the planet, but it was surprising to see a large group of them dead. Paccone surveyed the area and estimated that there were about twenty four grunts and two Elites in the group. Roughly two squads. Paccone bent down and inspected the bodies closest to him. What intrigued, and creeped him out the most was the fact that there was so much blood everywhere. Usually, bullets left small, neat holes that didn't bleed profusely, and energy weaponry cauterized flesh, sealing ruptured blood vessels shut. Explosives didn't leave much of anything behind. All that left was blades or some kind of melee weapon, which Paccone found hard to believe, but the evidence was there. The Grunts had long gashes and cuts in areas that supposedly had large blood vessels, like the neck and armpit. Both Elites also showed similar wounds, though how somebody could kill an Elite hand to hand was far beyond him.
"What could have possibly done this?" Paccone asked himself.
Suddenly, the forest seemed to come to life, and the next thing Paccone knew, somebody had materialized in front of him, holding a silver knife to his throat.