"Warship, this is Eridani System Control, identify yourself or be destroyed, over."
"Eridani System Control, this is UNSC Scorpia. Sending identification package now, over."
"Stand by… confirmed, proceed, over."
"Requesting docking authorization for immediate emergency repairs, over."
"Scorpia, stand by… sending your maneuvering solution. Maintain formation with your escort. Eridani System Control, out."
Verdant tapped a virtual data pad a few times, then disappeared it and looked up at Garcia. "Maneuvering solution set, sir." A long red arc appeared on the display, connecting Scorpia to one of the heavy repair and refit docks orbiting and embedded in the surface of Reach's moon Turul. A small blinking diamond showed a pair of Blackbird-class corvettes burning to meet the destroyer.
"Thank you, Verdant." Garcia rubbed eyes red with sleep deprivation and furrowed his brow. He stared at the damage report in front of him, suddenly realizing he had spent the past five minutes reading the same sentence. He grumbled in frustration and jabbed his finger at the hologram to scroll down.
The bridge door slid open and admitted a bedraggled marine. She picked and stumbled her way through the debris to stand in front of Garcia and rendered a sloppy salute. "Report, captain."
Garcia took a moment to finish reading the current section on the damage to life support. Warnings of critical damage and systems running on local backup really ought to have concerned him more than they did, but nobody seemed to have asphyxiated yet. "Sergeant Armandez," he said, returning the salute. "Proceed."
"Engineering has successfully replaced the cooling manifolds in Reactor Three. We are back to fifty percent maximum propulsion output. Also, Medical reports that all casualties are stable and prepared to transfer off the ship."
"Excellent. Send them my gratitude for their good work." Frowning, Garcia studied Armandez a little closer. "Sergeant, how long have you been running messages?"
"Um…" Thinking hard, Armandez unconsciously began to sway back on forth on her heels. "Thirty five… seven hours?"As she thought, it was as if all her body's bills had come due at once, and a wave of fatigue large enough to qualify as a tsunami slammed visibly slammed into her. Her posture, already less than stellar, positively wilted.
Garcia felt his own exhaustion begin to catch up, but fought off the desire to black out then and there. "Why haven't you been replaced?"
"Everybody else been up forty…sir," she mumbled, eyes drooping to half mast before shooting back up. "Uh, sorry. Sir."
"Get some sleep, sergeant. That's an order. Verdant will assign you quarters."
"Yessir…" Her lack of polite protest told Garcia all he needed to know, and it was with a start of guilt that he realized he'd forgotten to ask one thing.
"Before you go, one last thing. Has the prisoner said anything?"
"The prisoner? Uhhh…" Armandez scratched her head with a befuddled expression. "Her… well, the thing is…"
Clang
Clang
Clang
Cla-
"You can keep that up or you can keep your kneecaps."
"… sorry." Dawn caught the tennis ball and stuck it in her pocket. She then folded her hands under her head, trying to get comfortable on the hard metal floor of her cell. Just her luck to get stuck with the most hardassed, non-conversational guards this side of the Ark. With most anything she could do to entertain herself prohibited, and uninterested in the tatty tabloid wilted in the corner of the cell, Dawn decided to run a self-diagnostic. Again.
Commencing diagnostics… again.
Muttering a few choice comments, her engineers got to work. Dawn couldn't blame them. But arrested and thrown into the brig on suspicion of trespass and stowing away, what else could a girl do? No one would let her speak to an officer or present her case. Dawn wasn't quite sure what her new limits were, but even if she was pretty confident the cell door wouldn't prove much resistance to a solid kick, breaking out would likely be unproductive. Finally, she couldn't access the local Waypoint net, so any chance of figuring out what new shitstorm she'd woken up to was right out. Anything she did or said might just make her situation worse.
Though speaking of her new limits…
Her own body. What a damned strange thing to say, and yet even as she mouthed the words Dawn felt a rather giddy rush. Her body. Not a hull with sensors and weapons and thrusters, though she could still feel hers in the back of her mind, ready to be called upon, but a body with eyes and ears and arms and legs. One that she was actually, truly in charge of, not operating at the will of another, and now she had the time to figure it out.
Testing her newfound control, Dawn stuck her arms up straight, hands silhouetted by the harsh LED light set into the ceiling, and laced her fingers together. Wasn't it funny how they came together just right, fitting just right into the gaps? She then wiggled them around, suddenly fascinated by her ability to move each one independently. What range of motion compared to a blocky, clunky hull, and fine motor control to boot! Discovering shadow puppets, she amused herself for a few moments by making two dogs play — could she get a dog? — before a strand of hair fell onto her face and tickled her nose. "A-a-a-" The weird pressure in the back of her sinuses died away before she could relieve it, leaving Dawn with an itchy throat and a profound sense of disappointment. In vain, she did everything she could do induce the pressure again. Simultaneously she practiced using her hands, tying her hair back into a rough ponytail to keep it under control, then found a particularly polished patch of floor to look at the results.
The face that looked back at her was familiar, yet foreign. Tanned, almost olive skin, smooth like a sheet of titanium despite years of radiation exposure. Plasma-blue irises met each other in round eyes above a freckled nose. Dawn self-consciously licked her chapped, dry lips, and her reflection did the same. She tilted her head down, up and sideways, trying to get a better angle on her hair, and in the process lifted her shirt just a bit, exposing a thick, messy, and raised scar that ran across her abdomen.
"What the…?" Lifting her shirt above her stomach, Dawn found the scar continued around her entire body, passing directly across the bump of one of her vertebrae. She traced it with a finger, startled at how hard and raw and recent it felt. It was like someone, or something, chopped her in half with a pair of shears then welded her back together again.
In fact, something had, hadn't it? Repressed memories came trickling back, memories of shouts and explosions, of rotting, grotesque monsters with disgusting insect-like creatures scuttling between their legs, of relief when a Warthog crashed into her hanger, of redlining her reactor and pushing beyond that to make it through an unstable slipspace portal, of a flash of pain and a scream that she couldn't articulate, and then of seven cold and lonely years, with only a frozen super soldier and a slowly degrading AI she couldn't even talk to for company…
"Ah!" Dawn tore herself away from the past, crushing her memories of that last battle and shoving them ruthlessly into a deep, dark corner of her computer systems. She found herself on the ground, balled up and quivering, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. In the back of her consciouness her XO quietly asked if she was alright. Curtly dismissing him and batting the tears away, she breathed hard and deep, calming herself by softly reciting maintenance regulations. "P-propulsion Equipment, 2b: Auxiliary and maver-maneuvering units (Category 12b/12c) will be inspected at a m-minimum of once per three days, immediately upon entry or exit of realspace, and immediately following any incident in which the vessel engaged in action…" She also cast about for something to focus on, something physical to distract her from that deep, dark hole she stumbled upon. Something like…
Rumble
Her annoyingly persistent need for food would do. Perhaps it was only fair. She hadn't eaten in, what, a day? Two days? And people — was she already calling herself people? — needed food, didn't they? Maybe hunger was making her introspective. "Um, excuse me, can I have some food?" she asked the door. "I'm actually really hungry…" Her stomach growled loudly, startling her and emphasizing her point.
No verbal reply came, but after a couple of minutes a small plastic-wrapped package came sliding through the door flap. Dawn picked it up and read off the label. "MRE, one, pasta. Date of manufacture… April 8th, 2580." She looked back at the door. "Holy shit, what year is it?" Opening the package, she was greeted with a tray of spaghetti in red sauce and ersatz meat, a small package of 'cheese', a dinner roll, three multivitamin pills, dried fruit and a bar of chocolate so dense she thought her teeth might crack on it.
"Someone run a chemical composition test on this," Dawn muttered, chipping some dust off the bar and licking it up. She set it aside and turned to the entree, which came in one of those fancy self heating packages. She tore the top foil layer off to activate the chemical heating element. While that worked she poured the cheese package on top to melt it, tore the dinner roll in half, and popped a piece in with the pills. The other piece and the fruit chased the bitter things down.
"Mm…" Even with her limited knowledge she knew this wasn't haute cuisine, but by all accounts it didn't seem so bad either. There was no small amount of grousing from her crew about ration quality, but maybe it was just meaningless bellyaching. Besides, it chased the memories away, and just that simple act made the food delicious The lab tests came back, indicating that yes, the chocolate was indeed chocolate. She ate that too, though it was bland and slightly bitter. Finally, with the cheese melted and pasta heated she poked a fork into the entree and took a careful bite.
"Ah!" Flavors exploded on her tongue, salty and savory, and Dawn recoiled in surprise. The intensity surprised her, contrary to her mental image of the bland, barely palatable MRE. She shoveled more into her mouth, savoring every bite. "Oh, wow… I've been missing out!"
"It's just an MRE, you know?"
A voice from her cell door hit Dawn's ears, causing her to jump and spin like a rabbit. "Ah! Wh-who's there?!"
"Chill, chill, lass. I'm your new babysitter." The viewport slid open, revealing a pair of warm brown eyes. "So you're Dawn, huh?"
"That's right," Dawn replied cautiously. She hesitated, then decided this guard seemed more conversational than the previous ones. Perhaps her questions would find purchase here. "Can you tell me your name?"
The eyes studied her closely. "Well, I guess. Not like my name's worth much anyway. Private Iverson."
"Private Iverson." Dawn tried that out on her tongue and decided she liked the sound of it. "Thank you. Um, the last guard…"
"Ah, him? Don't worry about it." The eyes stared into Dawn's, searching for something. "I heard you were an inquisitive little stowaway."
"I'm not a—" Dawn stopped and sighed, having been over this argument a few dozen times already. "Yeah, I have some questions."
Iverson made a humming noise and moved away from the door. Dawn felt a little pang of regret at that; after days of isolation, even a pair of eyes had been welcome human contact. "Well, you don't seem like a bad sort. Let's do a trade, one for one. How's that sound?"
"Great. Let's do this!" Dawn leapt at the chance for some answers, though some part of her thought the sudden change in policy suspicious. That part was trampled to death under a stampede of questions. The first one to beat the rest into submission and make it out of Dawn's mouth was, "Is Earth okay?"
Dawn heard that same humming noise, along with Iverson scratching her chin. "Well, I guess. I haven't been back in a while. People are nervous, of course, but that's par for the course in our corner of the galaxy…"
The rest of Iverson's answer trailed into blank noise as Dawn sat down heavily, letting out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. Earth is okay. She held the words in her head, savoring them, letting them anchor her. Earth was okay. It hadn't all been for nothing. Earth was okay. She put a hand to her chest, a weird feeling, both loosening and tightening, hot and cold at the same time blossoming there.
"Um, lass? You there?"
Dawn blinked away tears, but unlike before they didn't feel so bad. Commander Keyes… Sergeant Johnson… Chief… you did it. "Yeah. Yeah. I'm okay." She sniffed and wiped her eyes, then composed herself with a deep breath. "Um, yeah. Your turn…?"
"Right. What's your real name? And don't tell me it's just Dawn."
The shopgirl's lips curled into a weary smile. "And I'm telling you it is, believe it or not. Well, technically, I'm Charon-class frigate FFG-201 UNSC Forward Unto Dawn — I'll thank you not to italicize it — but everyone just says Dawn. I know, I know, I sound worse than insane, and I don't know how to prove I'm not, but that's the honest truth."
"You see, that's why you never go for the back-alley chems. That shit'll scramble your head right quick." Iverson sighed — people did that a lot around Dawn — and made a sympathetic clucking noise, or at least something Dawn thought was sympathetic. The knowledge came quickly as her human mind asserted itself, but having all of three days worth of human experiences, half of them in a jail cell, made for a poor learning environment. "Come on, really? No way."
"Yes way."
"You're really sticking to this."
"Yes!"
"Fine, fine. We'll come back to it. Your turn now."
Dawn considered her next question carefully, not knowing how many of these she'd get. After mulling it over for a few seconds, she slapped her forehead. "It's obvious, stupid," she muttered, then raised her voice. "Next question. What year is it?"
A full twenty seconds of silence reigned, during which Dawn thought she could hear Iverson roll her eyes. "You kidding me?"
"Nope."
A sigh filled with pain and misery. "It's 2585. My turn: what's your homeworld?"
Reyes-McLees shipyards, so… "Mars, technically?"
"Oh! Martian, are we? Which part?"
"The… orbital habs."
"Excellent. Finally, another Martian on this damned boat. We should talk some more, if you ever get out of there. Your turn now, what do you want to know?"
"Um…" Ask about the Covenant? But if Earth was still standing, chances are they weren't a huge factor, security wise. No, it was time she learned about that one word which seemed to carry so much pain and fear with it, that made her guards unconsciously grip their rifles when they said it. "Yeah. What are the Abyssals?"
Iverson was quiet for a full minute this time, and Dawn feared she'd finally given up on this obviously amnesiac prisoner — which, to be fair, wasn't too bad of a description, considering the thirty odd years of history she seemed to be missing. "The Abyssals, huh?" she finally said, softly. "Where to begin. Must've been… wow, eleven, twelve years ago? I think I was in sixth grade when the news broke. Another blasted alien invasion, but we didn't even get a Covie-style spiel this time. Abbies just showed up, smashed a fleet and burned Farpoint to the ground. They sort of look like Covies, too, but it's different enough that you really can't mistake them. As for anything more… well, all the details are classified, and any research is under lock and key. But there are some things ONI can't hide, like how their ships can scramble our sensors just by existing, how they can take half the energy of a MAC round and make it disappear." She sighed. "So to sum it up, another alien alliance bent on wiping us out for reasons unknown, immune to our weapons, that we know nothing about. They came out of the void and return to it when they're done, so we call them Abyssals."
After Iverson finished, Dawn realized her hands were trembling. It was the Covenant all over again, except even worse because these aliens didn't even give a reason. Was this her fate? Die in one war, wake up to another? What could she even do? She didn't want to fight, not at all, but the fight always found her, one way or another. For a cold, scared heartbeat she wished she were dead again, but death was no guarantee of rest now, it seemed. "… God."
Iverson snorted. "If you find Him, let me know. Sure hasn't shown himself around lately." And then she fell silent.
In the ensuing quiet, Dawn suddenly noticed she could no longer hear the murmurs of the slipspace drive, or the whispers of slipspace as the ship slid through its folded dimensions, which had been a constant companion for two days now. She blinked and tilted her head, but the sounds didn't return. Hesitantly, she knocked against the door. "Excuse me? Can I ask one more thing?"
"Depends," Iverson replied. "Go ahead."
"Did we… did we jump out?"
Iverson snorted. "Yeah, hours ago."
"Well, can you tell me where we are?"
A brief silence reigned. "You stowed away without even knowing our destination?"
Dawn rolled her eyes but bit back a futile argument. "Humor me. I'm an idiot."
"Alright." She could definitely hear the eye-roll in Iverson's voice. "Welcome to Reach, lass. I'd say enjoy the sights, but you'll be staying here, answering some more questions probably."
A second passed. Dawn blinked while she computed that information. She knew the meaning of each individual word, but when put together like that even her high-speed mainframe had some trouble parsing it. When it finally did, though, and something clicked inside her brain…
"Say where now?!"
Four days. It took four days to ensure Scorpia's reactor didn't melt down, to stop all the atmosphere and fuel leaks, to find all the bodies, cut away the damaged armor, and start her down the road to recovery. Four days of fighting tooth and nail to keep her out of the scrapyard, wondering if the old girl's time might really have come. Four sleepless days, on top of a week of nonstop combat, and Garcia could finally see a glimmer of rest and recovery on the horizon. He could send some messages, grab a bite of real food, breath fresh air, visit the Lábatlan nature preserves, get hammered at a shitty dive bar and wake up with a nuclear headache…
If not for the ONI agent sitting in front of him, listening impassively to Garcia's after action report. Why she couldn't just read the submitted written version he did not know, but he knew better than to refuse a visit from the Office of Naval Intelligence. At least, while the agent grilled him for all he knew, he could take some secret pride in his own private little intelligence operation.
Private Iverson's reports had been quite… interesting. No doubt it was the kind of stuff ONI would disapprove of him having… but what ONI didn't know — and that was precious little — wouldn't hurt them. The prisoner sitting in Scorpia's brig, Dawn, was apparently a sailor hailing from the Martian orbital complexes. A DNA sample, secretly taken off an MRE fork, and a search of public databases revealed no matches. In and of itself, that wasn't too unusual. Seedy Martian backstreets were home to many unregistered births. In addition, Iverson suspected, and Garcia frankly agreed, that she had suffered some sort of severe brain injury or gone insane, since she claimed to be the personification of the legendary frigate Forward Unto Dawn. That Dawn had initially claimed not to know the year, the status of Earth, or what the Abyssals were, reinforced that suspicion.
Further questioning revealed a distinct unfamiliarity with current cultural and technological trends, the history of the past thirty years, modern UNSC equipment, the works. The more Garcia read, the more confused he felt. Perfect recollection of things she couldn't have experienced, yet complete ignorance of very recent events. Yet that wasn't what bothered him the most. That honor belonged to the as-yet-unanswered question of how the hell she'd managed to sneak on board Scorpia. There were no records, no footage, no reports of her coming on board, yet damage control teams had found her wandering the corridors, casual as could be. Unfortunately, Dawn insisted that she had no idea how she'd gotten on board, and without a PQI or interrogation drugs there was no way to force an answer out of her. Regretfully, Garcia turned his attention back to his present situation.
"… and that's my summary of the action." He finished his report in robotic monotone, careful not to look the ONI agent in her eye.
"Thank you, Captain." Garcia shifted uncomfortably in his too-small plastic folding chair and tried to keep his hands still in his lap. Across from him the agent made a note on her datapad, giving no sign of noticing his little trip down thinking lane. It was the most recent of dozens, maybe hundreds made over the past few hours. "Very helpful."
Hope rose in Garcia's stomach. "So are we done here, or—"
"Wait." The German came clipped and sharp. Irritation filed the agent's voice and she held up one hand. Garcia clamped shut his mouth like a chastised schoolchild, hope crawling back into his intestines to be digested and fuel a growing sense of weariness. "You naval types are always so impatient."
"… sorry."
"Very well." She tapped her stylus against the table and cleared her throat. "I want to ask you some more about this." She turned the data pad so he could read it and underlined a section of her neat, college-style Cornell notes. "This 'dreadnought'."
"What about it?" he asked warily, trying to figure out where he might have slipped up and given ONI, or worse, IntSec ammunition against him. "You have the combat recordings."
"They are near useless," she dismissed. "Utterly fragmented and contradictory! If their loss wasn't so systematic, I would call it gross incompetence."
She spat the last word and Garcia felt his spine involuntarily stiffen. "Listen here, spook, I am happy to cooperate, but I'm not sitting pretty while you accuse us of incompetence. We've lost too much for that!"
The agent exerted a visible effort to control herself. A thought struck Garcia — was she new at this job? No veteran field agent he'd dealt with had ever displayed that much emotion. "My apologies. It was not my intention." She tapped the datapad again. "This 'dreadnought', as you called it, has been designated an Abyssal Z-Class. Examination of damage suffered by the 12th Fleet has determined a large part of its armament are made of conventional Abyssal weapons, like energy projectors and particle cannons. However, examination of battlenet records show that Battleship Division Nine was not hit by any of these weapons; rather, the sensor recordings gathered before their destruction indicate an entirely new type of weapon, something we're calling a mass-transferral beam."
Garcia pulled himself out of flashbacks to his tactical theory courses in OCS. "I'm sorry, a what-a-what now?"
The agent spread her hands. "Exactly what I'd like to know. We call it that because, as far as we can tell, that's exactly what it does. Structural records show no heating, like we'd expect from a energy weapon, or sudden hull stress followed by failure, like a kinetic weapon would cause. Minimal radiation too, except for increases correlated with reactor failure and a Cherenkov rise that we can attribute to a slipspace drive failing. All's well one moment, the next…" She snapped her fingers. "Half the ship is gone. Luckily for us it seems to only be able to target one ship at a time, and charging time increases exponentially with the mass of its target, but still."
"Holy shit."
"Precisely. Assuming basic physics hasn't been violated, the mass and matter must go somewhere. Therefore," she tapped the data pad again, "mass-transferral beam, for lack of a definite mechanism."
Garcia leaned back and took a deep breath. "Okay. That's a load of unfair bullcrap. But even if we knew what it was, what do you want me to tell you? I'm not a physicist."
"No, you definitely aren't. But…" The agent scrolled down a bit and underlined a new section. "You've already given me your impressions of the ship and its combat abilities. Typical invincible, unbalanced, overpowered alien tripe. This, though, is very interesting to me."
Craning his neck, Garcia squinted at her disjointed, compressed handwriting. "That's…"
Annoyance flickered across the agent's face. "Mein Gott, my handwriting is not that bad."
"It really is," Garcia said beneath an exhale, but redoubled his efforts to prove his literacy. "Ah… what I reported feeling before we got slapped back to Reach?" He looked up. "Is ONI my counselor now?"
"In your nightmares." The agent sat back and brought her notes around to herself. "You reported a distinct feeling of uneasiness when first encountering the Z-class. Please provide an exact timeframe for this feeling."
Garcia tightened his jaw and forced himself to review his memories once more, in HD and with director commentary. "It was… right before that thing fired, and ended in… half a minute? Maybe one? I wasn't really looking at the time."
"Right before? I see. That does match up with other reports I've gathered. Please describe this feeling in more detail, beyond simple uneasiness."
"Do I have to?" The agent looked him in the eyes, sending shiver down his spine. "Okay, okay. Imagine… imagine the thing you're most afraid of. Something you would give literally anything to get away from. The monster tapping at your window, under your bed and in your closet." The agent gestured for him to get to the point. "Now imagine that thing surrounding you, like a cocoon. You can't escape it, because its hugging you. It's getting inside you so you can't speak or breathe, and the worst part is it's telling you that you haven't even seen a fraction of what if can do, and all you can do is curl up and pray it goes away."
He finished, feeling even more drained than before. The agent merely watched him with a sort of detached, clinical interest, adding to her notes in that efficient ONI way. "Interesting. Would you characterize this pressure as physical or mental?"
"Both."
"Danke. Logs provided by your ship's AI indicate no change in physical surroundings, so it must be an issue of mind over matter. We will, of course, pull physiological records of the incident."
"Of course you will." Garcia wasn't even fazed at the casual breach of privacy, not that there was much of a privacy law to breach nowadays, was there? "I hope they're helpful."
"Mm. Perhaps. In unusual times, unusual connections may occur…" The agent's voice grew distant and she stared at her data pad in an odd way. This lasted a moment before she came back to the present. "This topic is now closed." The agent's tone left Garcia no room to even hope that he was done. "Now I want to discuss the prisoner currently in custody aboard your ship."
He'd known this was coming, but that didn't keep him from gazing longingly at the door. "What about her?"
Sighing, the agent allowed a knot of frustration to furrow her thin eyebrows. "Kindly use 'it'. Tests conducted by our medical personnel—"
"Wait, those corpsmen were your people? And what do you mean 'it'? Isn't she human?"
"Obviously they were. And the tests… well, they're only conclusive about one thing." The agent folded her hands and looked Garcia in the eye, deadly serious. "It's not quite human. Captain, your prisoner might be an Abyssal infiltrator." She held the eye contact as if daring her interviewee to disagree.
His first instinct was, in fact, to protest, but Garcia didn't intend on falling into any more ONI traps than necessary. The downside was that he looked like an idiot, staring blankly while he processed and thought about the news, but the more he chewed it over… "That kind of makes sense. A rescue team found her in an empty storage room and said she was real cagey about how she got in there without a suit, especially since it was surrounded by vacuum."
The agents eyebrows rose a fraction of a millimeter. "You've got more critical thinking in you than I thought. Are you sure you went to OCS?" While Garcia tried to defend his alma mater, she tapped her data pad until it displayed a request for authentication. "These are instructions for you. They require your biometric authentication. Your DNA."
"I know what biometric authentication is," Garcia groused, pressing his finger to the data pads scanner. His finger registered a small prick as the device took a tiny blood sample before the lock blinked green and a simple text file filled the screen.
"Take your time to read through. An ONI kill team will board your ship to extract and, if necessary, terminate the prisoner. Your job…"
"Is to keep he-I mean, it in the dark, not get in your way, and not to breathe a word of this to anyone. Yadda, yadda, yadda, Everyone knows how this works." He signed and printed where the document required, finishing with a flourish to flaunt his superior penmanship. "Now, is that all?"
"This time, it is. One for three, not bad." The agent stood, giving Garcia his cue.
"A pleasure talking, Agent." He stuck his hand out to shake. His interviewer looked at it like it was a snake for a moment, and Garcia wondered if anyone outside of ONI had ever offered her a handshake before.
"Hmph." She reached out to take his hand. Right before they made contact though, Garcia shivered, a full body convulsion. The room temperature, already cool, had suddenly dropped at least 5 degrees. He withdrew his hand, trying to rub some feeling back into his arms and stop the growing sense of dread, and the agent looked at him strangely. "Are you alright?"
"I know this feeling. Oh, God, I know this feeling." He grabbed his radio and toggled the priority channel. "Bridge, sound general quarters! Abyssal incursion likely! This is not a drill, out!"
"Captain Garcia? What's going on? Do I need to call a corpsman?"
"No. No! They're going to be busy enough." He held out a placating hand and moved a step closer. "They're here. The Abyssals are here."
"How do you—" The agent's face paled and she grabbed the table to steady herself. "It's what you described, isn't it?"
"Yes. Listen. Agent— goddammit, what's your name?!"
"B-Berlin. Agent Berlin."
"Berlin. Listen. You're gonna feel like the world is ending in a few seconds. It kind of is, but you've got to keep it together, okay?" He cast about the room and pointed at a corner. "I suggest you sit there. Less chance of falling and hitting something."
"G-got it." She scrambled to obey, and Garcia concluded she really was a newbie. No real ONI agent would so readily listen to a line officer. Berlin settled into the corner, then looked about in confusion and apprehension. "So when is this going to—"
Past experience helped Garcia stay on his feet, but his vision still went spotty, his mind went numb, and he was pretty sure he crushed a dent into the table keeping himself steady. Staying conscious also let him just barely hear whispers at the edge of his consciousness. He couldn't exactly make out what they said, but they surely weren't anything pretty. In the corner, Berlin had gone as rigid as titanium-A3. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, almost bulging, and her lips formed words that had no sound. Shudders shook her up and down with regularity, and she was breathing so hard Garcia thought she might actually activate the emergency life support through oxygen depletion.
The pressure began to fade, the ringing in his ears following much too slow for Garcia's liking. Forcing flexibility back into his muscles, he moved to kneel in front of Berlin and placed his hands on her shoulders. The agent yelped, eyes snapping forwards, and Garcia found himself with a hardlight knife against his sternum. "What do you think you're doing?!" she hissed.
"Oh, good, you're okay." He extracted himself gingerly, offering a hand. Putting her knife away, Berlin took it and Garcia pretended not to see her wipe away a tear. He was hardly in a position to criticize. "Are you okay?"
"O-of course." Her voice was shaky and the brusque tone forced, but Garcia didn't push it. "G-get in contact with your people, find out the situation!" she ordered, a bit too quickly.
Garcia moved to oblige, but his radio crackled first. He couldn't help feeling a surge of pride for his crew as a shaken but clear voice came through. They'd obviously felt the signs and braced themselves, and their recovery was markedly quicker than last time. "Captain Garcia, enemy forces detected in-system, past the lunar perimeter. That big one is back for more! They're closing in, over."
"Fucking knew it." Ignoring the spook, Garcia toggled his radio. "I'm on my way. Prepare for action against boarding parties, out!" Looking back at Berlin, he said "Your attack dogs will have to find a kennel."
"How the hell are they here?! You said you followed the Cole Protocol!"
"I did! We all did! How in the blazes—" Garcia stopped with a snarl. "It doesn't matter. I'm going to defend my ship. You can come with me or make yourself useful somewhere else. Either way, we're done here." He stood and made for the door.
"Wait." Berlin hastily got up and jogged to his side. "Firsthand experience would be a good supplement for my report." She squared herself up and stuck out her chin, daring him to contradict her. "I'm coming with you."
Garcia couldn't help smiling. "My pleasure, Agent. Just shoot straight."
"Don't think for a second you're in charge of me!" The door opened and they jogged out into a hallway filled with soldiers, sailors and marines running forwards and backwards, shouting orders, donning gear, and handing out weapons, all while the klaxon blared general quarters and Scorpia began shuddering with the vibration of weapons impacts against Turul's surface.
"Hey! Hey!" Dawn banged on her cell door. "Hey! What's going on out there?!" Through the tiny window, she could see flashes of people running back and forth, hauling an increasingly absurd and worrisome assortment of weaponry. She pressed an eye up against the transplast and tried again. "Hey! Can somebody please tell me wh-"
The door flew open. Dawn fell back on her butt with a startled gasp, scooting to the back of the cell with a startle gasp. A grim-faced marine stood in the doorway, pointing an assault rifle at her face. Slowly, Dawn raised her hands, palms out and open, and grinned a wobbly grin. "Hi there?"
"Up." The marine jerked her barrel upwards.
"Okay, okay. Don't shoot. Please." Keeping her hands up, Dawn slowly got to her feet and turned in a circle to show she was unarmed. "No weapons, see?"
The marine stepped into the cell and out of the doorway. She jerked his head to indicate Dawn should exit before her. Nodding furiously, she slid past and stood in the corridor outside with her back to the wall. The marine followed her without closing the door, not once taking her eyes off of Dawn, then moved to stand facing her. She stared at her for a moment longer, almost looking through her, causing Dawn to fidget uncomfortably.
"Can you handle a gun, lass?"
"Huh?" Dawn blinked. "Well, yeah, but—"
"Great." The marine pulled out her pistol and thrust it at Dawn, butt-first. Dawn eyed it warily, then took it gingerly with both hands. "You're on anti-boarding duty now. Come with me."
"Anti-boarding—hey, wait!" The marine turned and quick-marched away, leaving Dawn to scramble after her, tripping over feet she still wasn't quite used to using. "Wait! What's going on? What's your name?!"
The marine slowed to a trot and looked over her shoulder. "You don't remember me?" Dawn shook her head, causing the marine to roll her eyes. "Private Iverson, dummy."
Dawn's eyes widened a fraction. "O-oh! I'm sorry, it's just—"
"Can it. Abbies were spotted past the lunar perimeter at 0320. Defenses immediately engaged but are suffering heavy casualties." Iverson stopped and turned, expression deadly serious. "The fact the fishheads are even humoring this rock with a fight means there's something on this moon they want. Something they've gotta get in person. And we're not gonna let them have it."
Dawn gulped and nodded. "Do we know what they want? Intel, a person, some ONI project?"
Iverson had a good laugh at that. "Lass, if we knew anything about what fishheads want for Christmas, we wouldn't be losing worse than if the Browns broke a mirror in front of a black cat on a native burial ground." She started walking again, quicker this time, leaving the hapless shipgirl to jog in her wake.
"Jesus, okay," she muttered. "And Abbies? Is that like Covies but for Abyssals?"
"Duh." They entered the central receiving area, now being filled with field consoles, radio sets, ammunition, weapons, and large portable titanium shields. Their design didn't seem much modified from Dawn's day, but her eyes caught the glimmer of energy shielding covering their matte surfaces.
"We have energy shields now?"
"We've had them for fifteen years. How—" Iverson cut herself off and saluted an officer who popped up from behind a radio set. "Lieutenant Armandez! Congrats on the promotion."
"Iverson. Welcome to Scorpia defense HQ." Armandez looked behind him at Dawn, eyes sharp and appraising. "Is the prisoner cooperating?"
"She knows where to point the gun and to shoot at the ugliest bastard, so I just hope she doesn't nail Kenton."
"Hilarious. Shoot her if she starts looking funny. I'm putting you two on the visitor's entrance. Take one of the machine guns and get set up."
"Aye. Any news about the battle?"
The lieutenant looked up at Iverson and shook her head. "Not good. We just lost Battery Foxtrot and Battery G—" A heavy rumble shook the ship. "Well shoot, Golf was under heavy attack."
"Dammit. That's, what, all of our orbital stations?" A glum nod confirmed this. "What about surface defenses?"
"The missile silos are Winchester, guns are off the air, heavy fighting around the civilian and commercial docks."
"Dammit." Iverson kicked the wall in frustration. "Where is the fleet?!"
"On the other side of the planet, apparently. Maybe jerking off?"
"No." The marines turned around, surprised, at Dawn's interjection. Eyes closed and mouth a tight line, she shook her head. "They've already engaged." She could feel ships dying, crying out as fire, explosions, and the cold void snuffed out their crews. Every loss was like a small punch in the gut.
"Hey." Iverson's voice accompanied a hand on her shoulder, and Dawn realized a tear was snaking down her cheek. "You're not flaking out on us, are you?"
"No. No." She took a deep breath and forced a smile. "I'm good."
"Alright. Maybe that chill got you as well." The two marines unconsciously shivered at some shared memory. Dawn tilted her head in confusion, but went unnoticed. "Nothing compared to last time, thank God, but damn that was unsettling."
"What chill…?" At that moment, the sounds of gunfire began echoing through the corridors and the radio, causing the three to jump. Armandez lunged for the receiver.
"Report! What's going on?!"
"Engaging Abyssals at Docking Tubes One and Two! They've broken through station defenses and have heavy weapons!" The whoosh of a rocket emphasized the point. "We'll hold as best we can, over!"
"Copy that! Iverson, get moving!"
"Aye! Let's move, lass! Grab that ammo!" Feeling woefully underarmed, Dawn followed Iverson as she grabbed a machine gun and dashed for the brig's two entry ways, going right at the fork. Picking up as many cases of ammunition as she could carry, Dawn paused to listen to a few of the reports coming through to Armandez. Abyssal landings all over the station, in all sectors, and attacking with unusual aggressiveness. What did that last part mean? "Lass!"
"Coming!" Dawn got to her position and dropped the ammo. "Where do you want this?"
Iverson did a small double take at how much she brought in one trip. "Three cases MG to me, three to Laughley, three to Lin. Distribute the rifle and shotgun ammo evenly." Dawn leapt to obey, leaving three boxes with Iverson, giving three to a marine poorly hiding a hangover, and handing the rest to a pale man who looked like he weighed less than his machine gun. Magazines of 7.62 and 8-gauge — it warmed Dawn's heart to see that some things didn't change — went out as well, and Dawn acquired four magazines worth of pistol ammo for herself. She found an empty spot behind a titanium shield and settled in, taking some small comfort in the hum of the energy shield.
"Shotguns, use ricochets to shred them! Frontline, take cover when the claymores go off!" Yelling advice, Laughley went around to each position, making sure nobody was in anyone's line of fire. "If there is a single blue-on-blue, I'll make you wish the Abbies had got you!"
"Yes, Corporal!"
Anxiety ran thick in the air. Dawn checked and rechecked her pistol, and even bummed a cleaning kit from a charitable marine. She field-stripped and cleaned the weapon in two minutes, racking the slide back with a satisfying clack. The weight of the gun, hefty but well-balanced and easy to hold, reassured her. Her sharpshooting skills were less of a sure thing, but she only needed to put metal downrange, right?
Laughley's radio, keyed into the same circuit as the one back in the reception area, crackled. "HQ, Delta Squad, they broke through Docking Tube One! They're going straight for you!"
"What?! Delta Squad, come in! What's your status? Delta!" Armandez's voice came back in reply. "This is HQ, Docking One is overrun, we need reinforcements!" The channel cut out with a curse. Armandez appeared in person a moment later, crouching down next to Laughley. "Dammit, all control points are under attack! We're on our own." Dawn saw a flicker of fear in her eyes, instantly smothered under steely determination. The lieutenant toggled her radio one last time. "This is it, no help coming! Check your zones, stay in cover! Fight smart, don't scare, and we'll get through this. Oorah!"
"Oorah!"
Gunfire drew ever closer as the minutes passed. Laughley chewed an unlit cigarette. Iverson sipped some water, hands shaking so much she spilled more than she swallowed. Armandez disappeared to check on the other entrance, then reappeared with an assault rifle and a box of grenades. She handed those out, two per person, lingering by Dawn. "You alright?"
"Yeah, totally! Fine, fine, everything's fine."
"Hey, hey, don't worry. You're human, I'm human, even if you're our prisoner we're in this together, right?"
"… I guess. Thanks." Dawn tensed at the faint sound of approaching footsteps. "They're coming."
"Okay." Armandez slipped back into her position without question. "Prepare to fire on contact!" Bolts racked back, safeties snapped off, and marines stared down their sights, eyes focused and unblinking.
The first Abyssal Dawn ever saw was a decidedly unimpressive figure. Maybe three and a half feet high, stubby and stout, wearing midnight-blue, black and purple armor pieces over a bulky off-white bodysuit, one glowing-green eye exposed by its helmet. A nasty-looking little blaster was strapped to its right hand. The thing reminded her of a Grunt more than anything, and got two steps into the corridor before being aerated by a hail of gunfire.
Dawn cocked an eyebrow — another fun thing she could do now — as its body crumpled. She hadn't even had time to shoot. "Was that it?" she asked aloud. "Not that I'm complaining," she rushed to clarify when Iverson shot her an unamused look, "but the climax really didn't fit the build up."
"Shut up," Laughley snapped. "Use your brain, something's not right."
Armandez nodded, tense. "You're right." She keyed her radio. "HQ, Abbies are up to something. Hold your fire, but stay in cover!"
A moment passed and another Abyssal, practically identical to the last one, walked into the corridor without so much as a glance at the blood and body cooling on the floor. It stopped in the middle and coolly regarded the human defenders, heedless their stares or of the row of automatic weaponry trained on its head.
"What's it doing?" Iverson whispered. Laughley shushed her with a hiss, thumb hovering over the trigger for the claymore mines. "Permission to shoot, sir?"
"Negative! Something's wrong." The Abyssal made sort of a jerky half-nod, followed an odd barking noise. There was a rustling noise, and a pair of Abyssals walked out. They towered over the first alien, maybe seven feet tall, armored much the same but in a sleeker fashion and carrying larger, longer, more powerful looking rifles. Their helmets completely enclosed their heads and they wore some strange apparatus on their backs, connected by a cable to a red optic on their helmets. One of them wore a red stripe on its helmet, the only apparent concession to individuality. Something tugged on Dawn's vision, and when she gave in and allowed her senses to sweep outwards she could make out faint tendrils of energy seeping from their bodies. Even a moment's glance at that level made her shiver with revulsion and hastily retreat, the foul and malevolent auras whispering at the edges of her mind. Strangely enough, none of the marines seemed to sense it — maybe they were just used to it.
A growl of anger emerged from the UNSC line as they saw what the Abyssals carried between them. A half-conscious sailor, ankles bound, bloodied and beaten. The Abyssals dropped him to the ground and forced him to his knees, prompting a groan of pain as one planted a foot in his back.
"Damn them. A prisoner? Abbies never take prisoners." Armandez narrowed her eyes. "Wait… what are they…?" The Abyssal with a red stripe snarled and shoved its rifle barrel against the man's head. He winced in pain but didn't cry out, then turned as best he could and fixed his captors with a withering glare.
"Alright, fuckers, I'm awake!" He spat on the ground, saliva mixing with blood from his lip. "You want me to talk? Lemme talk!"
Armandez called out, "Sailor! What did they do to you?" She risked poking her head above her cover. "What's your name?"
"Technician Ian Hauser, sarge." He licked a stream of blood away from his mouth before continuing. "They tore right through the aft docking tube, I think I'm the only survivor." A shadow flickered through his eyes, and Armandez knew that only adrenaline and shock factor were holding the man together. "They stuck some kind of… thing in my head, it lets me understand some of what they say, they want me to translate for them," Hauser finished, shuddering in revulsion.
"Dear Lord," Iverson muttered, nervously ghosting her machine gun's trigger. "They want to talk. The devil must need a jacket." A few marines murmured agreement.
Armandez squinted at the Abyssals, who showed no signs of backing off. Dawn could see her trigger finger just barely trembling. The sergeant obviously wanted to blow the aliens away, but the gun against Hauser's head prevented that. In a twisted way, Dawn was happy about that. She couldn't pretend to be a master tactician by any means, but even she could see that only one side would walk away once the shooting started, and it wasn't the side wearing UNSC green. "Alright!" the sergeant said, "We'll hear them out. But if I think they're playing fast and loose…"
Relief and guilt colored Hauser's expression. "Thank you, sarge, thank you. Sorry for the trouble…"
"Don't be, just play along."
"Understood!" Hauser turned back to his captors. "Alright, you came to talk? Talk, I ain't got all day!" He spat at their feet for good measure, then turned back and nodded stiffly to Armandez.
Red Stripe turned its head as if to make eye contact with the sergeant, and Dawn shivered as the red optic passed over her position. The Abyssal then spoke in that growling, barking language, interspersed with random pauses and hisses. Hauser looked like he was having an aneurysm, but got the words out haltingly. "It says… it wants to make a… trade? Yeah. Trade me for… something."
Armandez cocked her head and frowned. "Alright. I'm listening."
Continuing, the Abyssal produced a series of hard clicks and growls. Confusion grew in Hauser's eyes and sweat beaded on his forehead. "Uh… it says we have a… cup? No, a vessel, yeah. A vessel, and it wants to trade it for me." The Abyssal continued, and his eyes met Dawn's. "He says… it belongs to them, and they will let us live if we hand it over."
"And where is this 'vessel'?" Armandez demanded impatiently.
"Um…" Dawn desperately wanted to look away as Hauser scanned the row of faces in front of him, but found herself frozen in place until his gaze met hers and he tilted his chin at her. "Right there, apparently. That one."
Dawn felt the air around her chill. Blood drained from her face and she instinctively raised her hands. "I-I have no idea what they're on about. Vessel? No, I don't know—"
"You're not telling us something." Laughley's machine gun twitched in Dawn's direction. "Why do they want you?"
I think I know, but you wouldn't believe me even if I told you. "I swear, I don't know! I h-haven't done anything, really!"
"Excuse me if I don't buy it." Armandez's gaze was cold now, none of her previous warmth there. "A vessel? What for?" Dawn's chest was tightening again, and she knew that this was fear, real fear. She opened her mouth to defend herself but her throat was stuck, her tongue wouldn't move—
"She's a damned spy," someone murmured, and before Dawn could blink the murmur was taken up.
"Spy."
"Saboteur!"
"I had a feeling—"
"They can shapeshift!"
"Shoot her—"
"QUIET!" Laughley roared, though his expression remained hard and hostile. "Jesus Christ, your mouths are so open you'd think this was a cock-swallowing show! It's sarge's call."
"Thank you, corporal," Armandez replied, then asked, "Is it true?"
"A-ah…" Dawn swallowed and tried to speak, but the words kept catching. She looked around for any sign of sympathy, but the closest she got was Iverson, wearing a deep, contemplative frown. "Th-that's…"
"Well? I've got a ship's worth of people I'm trying to keep alive here, and if handing you over will do it, then…" Armandez waggled her hand back and forth, then jerked her thumb at the Abyssals. "And you're acting mighty strange for someone who's got nothing to hide."
Funny how things could go so wrong so quickly. Just a few minutes ago, all these cold eyes had been aimed at the enemy, and all this hate hadn't been aimed at her. Dawn's mind worked overtime trying to come up with a good defense, but where could she even begin? Oh, I'm the spirit of a warship from 30 years in the past, I somehow revived here and come on you can totally trust me? It sounded insane even to herself. But if she couldn't… well, she had a feeling that killing herself might be preferable to whatever the Abyssals had in store—
She nearly fell over when Iverson's hand landed on her shoulder. "Really, guys?" Iverson said, "Are we really listening to these alien bastards? You really think they'll just let us go if we do what they say? Come on, what is this, preschool?" Her grip tightened in a reassuring way. "And even if they did, are we so ready to sell one of our own to these alien bastards? I vote no."
"But," argued another marine, "they're trying to trade person for person, so she's obviously important to them. They don't want us to kill her before they can get her. And if she's that important to them, isn't it too dangerous to keep her around?"
"If she's so damn important to them, they can come and get her. Worst comes to worst we just shoot her in the head, but we sure as hell aren't just gonna give these fuckers a free lunch, are we? At that point, might as well just bend over and let 'em fuck us if we're so cheap!"
"I-Iverson…" Dawn whispered, breathing a sigh of relief and gratitude. All around her, marines and sailors blinked and looked at each other strangely. Armandez's eye twitched and she shook her head like she was clearing a fog out from around herself. When she looked back up, it was with a new light in her eyes.
"You're out of line, Iverson," she began, and for a moment Dawn feared the worst. "But you have a point." Armandez's mouth set into a thin line and she flicked the safety off of her rifle. "Hauser!"
The technician looked up, startled. "Yes sarge?"
"Do those alien bastards understand us, or do you have to translate for them?"
"I think they only understand if it comes through me."
"Well, tell them we've come to an arrangement," Armandez said, discreetly signaling for everyone to get into position. "Also, once you're done, hit the dirt."
Hauser's face paled, but he nodded his understanding. He repeated Armandez's words to the Abyssals, who seemed satisfied by the way they nodded. One of them let go of Hauser and stepped forwards to conduct the exchange, a hand outstretched to grab hold of Dawn. She watched it approach, staring at the gauntleted appendage, a small part of her wondering if, when push came to shove, the marines would really fight over a lowly prisoner—
"Now!" Armandez yelled, diving to the side as her rifle barked. The Abyssal's chest burst into a shower of gore as a burst of fire took its companion in the head. Hauser fell to the ground with a yelp of pain and two sailors dashed forwards to drag him back into cover. Iverson shoved Dawn behind an empty crate and let loose with her machine gun, as did Laughley and Lin, filling the air with steel and shredding the alien troops who charged into the wide corridor at the sound of gunfire.
After a moment the Abyssals began firing back. Despite initial heavy losses there were still a good baker's dozen of them, and their sheer weight of fire forced several marines to duck back into cover. A grenade exploded and sprayed lethal shrapnel everywhere. Sniper fire took one marine in the head before the sniper fell to the storms of buckshot ricocheting down the hallway, tearing apart anything in their path. Mines went off, bouncing ball bearings and flèchettes off the floor and walls, covering the floor in blood and filling the air with screams.
Unfazed by the screams or the streams of crystal fire passing over, next to, and shattering on their cover, Armandez and the other defenders combined accurate, efficient bursts of fire to drive the Abyssals back down the corridor and into cover. Someone yelled backblast and a rocket screamed downrange, curving around a corner and blasting gore and debris back the way it came. Someone fired some sort of multi-rocket launch system, peppering the Abyssals with micro-missiles and blanketing the battle in a pall of smoke. The aliens replied with some heavy weaponry of their own, and Lin had to abandon his machine gun when a plasma bomb turned it into a smoldering pile of slag.
Dawn stared wide-eyed at the chaos around her. Naval battles were one thing, this was… well, her only experience with ground combat was the secondhand stories her marine complement told. Seeing the blood and gore, the hairline difference between life and ugly, random death, it made the clinical, deliberate pace of a naval engagement seem like a video game in comparison. "Reloading!" Iverson yelled, tearing an empty ammo box away from her gun and slotting a fresh belt in. As the brass ejector rattled back to life, she turned to Dawn and shouted "Lass, I saved your life, least you could do is shoot back!"
"Oh!" Dawn snapped out of her trance and fumbled with her gun. She aimed down the sights but couldn't make out much through the haze of smoke and muzzle flashes, eventually resorting to blindly emptying her weapon at the closest flash she could see. The solid kick of the pistol made her feel better, like she was actually defending herself, and once she might have even hit something but then she was out of ammo and searching for a fresh magazine.
"Frag ou-arrgh!" A marine went down clutching his stomach and a live grenade rolled onto the floor. A shout of alarm went up before Laughley dove at the thing and hurled it down the corridor. It exploded in midair, and a stray fragment caught Laughley in the neck as he was standing back up. He went down with a curse, and the sudden loss of a machine gun emboldened the Abyssals to increase the pressure. One after another, marines and sailors caught bullets in the arm, the leg, the chest, the shoulder, each casualty giving the Abyssals just that much more room to move up, to put more fire on the remaining defenders, and with the amount of ammunition being thrown around it was guaranteed that something was going to stick.
"We're getting overwhelmed! We need to fall ba-ack!" Iverson reeled back as something sliced her cheek open, drenching the side of her face in blood. "Shit!" She attempted to get back on her gun, only to have a well-placed round blow a hole through her hand. "Fuck!" she screamed in pain, cradling her wound in agony and dropping into cover, leaving her machine gun silent.
"We can't run, we'll just get shot in the back!" Armandez shouted, dropping her depleted rifle in favor of a pistol. "We hold here!"
But they couldn't hold. Even Dawn could see that, with the little experience as she had. There were only so many marines, so many sailors, so much ammo, and there seemed to be no end to the Abyssals. She tried to take Iverson's place on the machine gun, but the Abyssals were now focusing fire on the heavy weapons and a bullet struck the bolt mechanism and put the gun out of commission. A feeling of helplessness threatened to overwhelm her, made all the worse by the fact that she knew she ought to be able to do something, to use the power she knew lay dormant within her, but she didn't know how to access it, to call it, to summon the weapons and armor and not just the spirit of the frigate she was—
"Hey!" Armandez was shaking her shoulders, trying to get her attention. "Can you hear me?!"
"Y-yes!"
"I need you to get to the radio and tell all positions that HQ is about to be overrun! They'll know what to do after that, but you need to tell them!"
"W-what about you?!"
"I need to stay here and lead my marines, now go! We'll cover you!" Armandez gave Dawn a rough shove and took her spot on the line. Dawn stumbled back, then turned and began to run for the radio, hiding her relief at being away from the fighting. Maybe, if she could hide somewhere, she could use the time to quickly figure out how to use her abilities, then come back and actually contribute. Her thoughts running, she picked up the pace, trying to stay low, and made it within five paces of the door before a round tore through her chest.
"Ah." Just like that, all the strength left her body. Dawn crumpled to her knees, coughing and choking. She heard Armandez curse loudly but no one came for her, and she didn't expect them to. What a bitter way to end a short, useless life, she thought as her arms gave out and her face met the floor. For some reason her consciousness wasn't fading out quite yet, but she figured that'd happen soon enough.
Useless. Pathetic. A second chance, and this is what you do with it? A voice which sounded remarkably like her own came clear and mockingly as if it was right next to her ear. After a second, Dawn realized it was coming from herself.
It wasn't… I tried my best! Dawn didn't know why she was arguing with a voice in her head, but something compelled her to anyway. I just couldn't… I didn't know how…
So you're just gonna die here, then? Looks like you don't really want to protect anyone, or you'd make a greater effort.
No! I do! I'm just… too weak…
Damn right you are. At least you're honest.
Please… I just… tell me how I can protect them… I don't want to lose this chance… A reply didn't come for a second and Dawn was afraid the voice wouldn't speak again. She didn't want to die alone.
You're an idiot, you know that? You don't have to fight anymore. You've earned a break.
I know, but… I was made to. I swore to. I want to.
…Heh. The laugh was still sardonic, but with the slightest tinge of rueful admiration. You're an even bigger idiot than you appear. But an honest idiot, and sometimes an idiot is just what's needed. You're sure you want to do this? A hint of hesitation entered the voice on that last sentence.
To be honest, Dawn wasn't sure she really did. After years of fighting the Covenant, another war really didn't appeal to her. Just closing her eyes, letting go, and not putting up with this shithole of a galaxy any longer sounded quite nice. But…she also wanted to live, to see what life, real life, had to offer. She wanted to taste food, to read a book, to walk on the surface of a planet and breathe fresh air. She wanted to walk among the people she fought for, bled for, died for, because fighting for the UNSC, for humanity, was the only thing she'd ever known, the only purpose she'd ever had. And, more than anything, she knew that those people had suffered enough — if she could do anything to ease their pain, to keep them safe… well, in that moment, she couldn't really imagine doing anything else.
Yes. I am.
Suit yourself. I've unlocked your powers — the rest is up to you. Good luck. I'll be watching with great interest~.
The voice fell silent, and with a gasp Dawn was drawn back to the present. Judging by the clamor around her, not even twenty seconds had passed. But in those twenty seconds, a strange new energy suffused her limbs, filling her with a new strength. Shakily, she pulled herself up to her knees, then looked down at the bloody hole in her chest, now filled with a small, pulsing pinprick of light. Trembling, she reached in with her fingers, took hold of the light, and with all her strength crushed it until it shattered into uncountable shimmering sparks.
She saw her own blood spilling out into her hands.
She felt a bolt of pain, hot and piercing.
Her vision turned white, and something deep inside snapped.
SYSTEMS BOOT
BOOT OS .N.6.7.2549… DONE
A piece of shrapnel left a deep scar in Laughley's armor as he popped up to fire his assault rifle, desperately trying to hold back the Abyssal wave. Armandez started to shout his name, but stopped as a low-pitched hum filled the space around her with an oppressive drone.
SYSTEMS CHECK
REACTOR… ONLINE
"What the hell is that noise?!" she yelled, and Laughley shrugged in hopeless confusion. Not wanting to take a chance, she began to order a retreat.
PROPULSION… ONLINE
SLIPSPACE… ONLINE
A flash of light from behind drew her attention. Armandez turned to see the prisoner, Dawn, on her knees, blood dripping from the wound in her torso, with a soft silver light emanating from her body. The drone also appeared to be coming from her, and Armandez could only muster a bewildered, "What?"
SENSORS… ONLINE
WEAPONS… ONLINE
"What the bloody hell's going on?!" screamed a marine, overcome by a mixture of pain, fear, and battle madness. Armandez could only shake her head, and she noticed that somewhere down the line everyone, even the Abyssals, had stopped firing and that the aliens' body language now resembled something like… fear.
SYSTEMS CHECK… DONE
ALL SYSTEMS… ONLINE
The light grew to a blinding intensity and the drone reached a fever pitch. Armandez couldn't hear herself think, but yelled for everyone to get down and threw herself flat on the ground just as the Abyssals opened fire with a fury she'd never seen before. Their shots all flew towards Dawn just as the light pulsed outwards and the space around her seemed to shatter.
FFG-201 FORWARD UNTO DAWN… ONLINE
WELCOME BACK
"Cover right, falling back!"
"Understood, covering right! Frag out!"
Wiping sweat out of his eyes and fear out of his brain, Garcia poked his head and borrowed rifle up over his crate and let loose on full auto. Recoil ruined his aim but the bullets still forced an Abyssal to duck back into cover and silence its machine gun. A well-placed grenade made sure it stayed there. The lull in fire provided a squad of marines the opportunity to disengage from their increasingly unhealthy position, retreating back up the corridor towards greener pastures.
"Much obliged, sir!" A machine gun let loose, stitching a red line across three Abyssals unlucky enough to choose that moment to break cover. Combined with a fresh volley of grenades, it persuaded the rest of them to pull back to a less exposed position. A scattering of smoke grenades and rifle fire covered the aliens' retreat.
The pullback on both sides left the no-man's-corridor in between pockmarked with bullet holes and plasma burns, scarred by grenades and littered with shell casings, abandoned cover and bodies. The lull allowed a marine to call out, "Is anyone wounded?"
A sailor, huddled against a storage crate with his hands clamped around his calf, groaned a reply. "Ah… my leg's hit bad."
A corpsman immediately rushed over and pried his hands away. "Let me see," she ordered, and shone a light on the wound. "Oh, damn." Blood trickled from a ragged hole left by a ricocheting crystal round. "No exit wound. Okay, I'm going to try to get the bullet out and give you some painkillers and stop the blood loss. Is your leg numb?"
"No, it hurts like a motherfucker!" The sailor yelped the last part as the corpsman jabbed him with a hypo full of anesthetic and poked a pair of tweezers into the wound. "Son of a bitch!" he hissed, trying to relax and let the painkiller take hold.
"Hold still!" The corpsman moved the tweezers around, then drew out a bloody shard of crystal. She cast it to the ground and ground it to dust beneath her boot, then peered into the wound. "No burns." She looked up and made eye contact with the sailor, eyebrows furrowing. "Those fragments should have cooked any organic matter they stuck in. You got damn lucky."
"Well whoop-de-doo, can I get a fuckin' bandage now?"
Lieutenant Wyatt, the highest-ranking surviving marine, made his way to Garcia's side. Chancing a glance over the portable shield they huddled behind, he whispered, "Captain, something's up. Abbies never give up this much pressure if they're not planning something."
"Oh yeah?" Garcia knew he was being rude, but frankly he was exhausted, scared, and goddammit where was Berlin? He needed to have someone make sure she wasn't sabotaging the reactor or purging the computers or whatever an ONI field agent did in their spare time. "Like what, lieutenant?"
The marine shrugged helplessly. "Don't know. Tube One got overrun, so they could be fixing to hit us from the rear, but nobody's reported anything coming this way. Maybe they're bringing in some heavy weapons. Hell," he said, chuckling mirthlessly, "maybe they're retreating."
Garcia snorted. "Yeah, and maybe I'm a Spartan. Make sure everyone's got ammo, I've a feeling this is temporary." Wyatt nodded and grabbed another marine to help distribute the remaining ammunition. With Abyssals loose in the ship, it was too risky to make a trip to the armory, so they were stuck with what they had. Garcia then remembered to reload his own rifle and count his remaining magazines. Three full thirty-two round magazines remained for him, as well as two partially filled. It wasn't a lot, but if he aimed well and didn't choke the trigger, it would be enough.
Or so he hoped, and that hope wilted a bit when a fistful of grenades came rolling down the corridor. Garcia shouted a warning and ducked, avoiding the shrapnel and popping up just in time to see the Abyssals charging again, weapons blazing and swords drawn and one bearing down directly on him—
The Abyssal crumpled, a bloody mist spraying out of two neat holes in its helmet. Garcia whirled around as Agent Berlin slid into cover beside him, bandoliers and a bulky ammo box slung over her shoulders and dual-wielding pistols. "'Lo, Captain," she said, "hope I'm not too late." She kicked the box over to a machine gunner, then poked her head up and emptied her guns down the hallway. "There's rifle ammo in this belt, and I've some — Scheiße, that was close! — grenades on me somewhere—"
"We were wondering where you'd got to." Garcia slapped a fresh magazine in and drove an Abyssal into the open with enfilade fire, where a marine brought it down. "Did you run into trouble?"
"No, actually, the corridors had signs of fighting but I didn't encounter anyone." She peered at Garcia suspiciously. "You didn't order a retreat, did you?"
"Haven't had the time." Sweat rolled down Garcia's forehead, dripping into his eyes. He didn't dare take a hand off his rifle to wipe it away. The Abyssals were steadily advancing despite the torrents of steel pouring into them. Weight of numbers and skilled use of cover prevented the defenders from dropping enough, and even as Garcia fired another marine went down with a scream, left hand flying to an arm that was no longer there.
The sudden decrease in fire was enough for the aliens to intensify their attack. They charged with maddened abandon, with even less regard for their own lives than they usually had, as if a great force was spurring them on. Not even the veteran marines holding the line had faced such individual intensity and soon the Abyssals were swarming over the barricades, fighting hand-to-hand in desperate melee. Berlin disappeared under a dog pile of three aliens, yelling in German and slashing with a combat knife. Wyatt backed up against the wall, jabbing his bayonet in quick, efficient thrusts. Garcia found himself knocked to the floor, pistol skidding away, and fighting for leverage with a massive Abyssal. He wrestled with all his strength to keep it from shattering his skull like a watermelon, locked in a life and death struggle while the alien's weight kept him from wriggling out and its concealed face hung merely inches away from his own.
Suddenly, a crack like a railgun discharge sounded out, and the weight disappeared. The Abyssal dropped dead, jaw shattered and head twisted around in a way heads were not supposed to twist around. Above it stood a sailor, arm extended and breathing heavily with exertion. Guns fell silent, the sheer force behind that megaton punch making both sides stop and stare in disbelief for a long moment.
"Alright there?" She turned around, bent down and offered her hand to Garcia. An awkward second passed, his shock preventing Garcia from properly noticing it in favor of looking at her uniform, obscenely pristine despite the destruction which surrounded them. "Hey, your eyes are gonna pop out like that."
"Oh. Uh, sorry." He took her hand and she hauled him up, giving him a once over as she did. "Um, who are you?"
His savior coughed and turned slightly red at her ears. "Right, sorry. I'm—"
The Abyssals snapped out of their funk and opened fire en masse. Moving almost too fast to see, the sailor shoved Garcia down behind her, crossing her arms in front of her face and shielding him with her body. The sound of crystals hitting flesh drew a grimace onto Garcia's expression, and he braced himself for the feeling of blood soaking into his uniform and of a body slumping over—
"Whoa there." The UNSC line collectively gasped. Several sailors swore, a few marines muttered prayers and crossed themselves. Garcia turned slowly and looked up at an unbelievable sight. The sailor, still standing, looking no worse for the wear other for rips in her uniform. "You messed up my outfit!" Garcia couldn't see her face, but the casual menace in her voice provided fuel enough for his imagination. "You're gonna pay for that." She flicked her wrist, and space literally bent and twisted in her fingers. Light gathered in her palm, so bright that it forced Garcia to look away and shield his eyes, and coalesced into a SAW. She gave the drum magazine an experimental spin and cocked it, then cradled it by her hip.
The Abyssals panicked and broke cover, firing behind them as they fled back towards their boarding pod. They made it perhaps twenty feet before a hail of bullets cut them down, their screams drowned out in the monstrous roar of the SAW. The sailor — no, Garcia decided, she wasn't a sailor, if anything she was one of those vengeful angels from his abuelo's stories — swept the machine gun back and forth, not stopping until every Abyssal was on the floor and expending at least three times as many bullets as the magazine could possibly hold. She waited a moment, sighed and tossed the machine gun over her shoulder where it disappeared in a shower of blue sparks. Then she turned around, smiling pleasantly, and every human in front of her comically dove behind cover, leaving Garcia the only one in the open. "Sorry about that. Where were we?"
"I—uh—ah—" Garcia rebooted his brain and rolled his tongue back into his mouth. "Wh-who—what are you?!"
"Oh, right! Ahem." Garcia blinked and she was suddenly at attention, rendering him a textbook perfect salute. He made eye contact, and those swirling, plasma blue irises quite nearly mesmerized him. "FFG-201, Charon-class frigate UNSC Forward Unto Dawn, blah blah boring stuff reporting for action, sir!" Then she winked, and all Garcia could think was something that could probably arm wrestle an ODST with her pinky had no right to that innocent of an expression. "But you can just call me Dawn."