The plan was to leave for Earth the next day. That plan lasted until Maccabeus realized how much Ahsoka was eating. He was fairly certain that there was at least two forms of black magic involved in her somehow consuming that much meat but in her defense she was growing a seperate life form and she was doing it at an unheard of rate.
With that considered it was deemed a better idea to stay on Reach where food was plentiful and move to earth closer to the due date. Not that Offensive would tell him when that was. The old AI had taken to answering as few questions as possible and trying to be left alone as of late.
He could have had enough of social interaction for a while or he could have some other goal in mind. Maccabeus had learned long ago that Offensive Bias and his goals rarely made complete sense until they had been completed.
Reaching up he scratched at his stubble. He was told that the genes to grow facial hair so he could wear his Mjolnir mark nine armor but since he hadn't laid eyes on that armor in an incredibly long time he wasn't worried. Even if he did find a working set his stubble wouldn't get in the way. .
"Mack" he heard a tired voice call from his doorway. He stood up from his chair to see Ahsoka. A small smile covered his face at the use of his new nickname. He had never been given such things before. Everyone had always called him Maccabeus, some out of professional courtesy like Jun, and some out of a lack of familiarity like commander Wheeler.
"Let me guess?" he asked, not needing to finish the sentence. There were only a few things that would warrant her being here at two am. She went to eat some of the meat from the most recent kill and found that the carcass had been all but picked clean.
"Yeah," she sounded awkward about this and he could understand why she was approaching him during hours normally spent sleeping and asking him to go kill something. With a calm smile of man that knew his current purpose Maccabeus grabbed a knife and headed for the main entrance.
Finding prey was easy enough; the wild life of Reach had been unprepared for the blitzkrieg that had been unleashed upon them. In a few weeks they would learn to be afraid of humans but since he was the first human that ever seen he had an easy time following his ears to one.
Once he found it the creature ran, at that point it was too little too late. Maccabeus was almost as fast and he was able to hold that speed for longer. After a brief chase he grabbed the buck by its antlers and wrestled it to the ground. Once there it was a trivial task to break the neck with a single heavy elbow strike to the base of the skull.
With the deer dead he wrapped up one of the legs and hung it from a tree. After gutting it and skinning it he wrapped it in the bag he kept on him for this exact purpose and carried the kill back to the bunker. The cool air felt fresh on his skin and sweat. That was when he realized that he was not wearing a shirt.
If he didn't have a several hundred pound deer on his shoulders he may have shrugged but instead he made a note to grab a shirt when he got back into the bunker.
When he got back Ahsoka was waiting for him in the kitchen. He dumped the bag on the countertop and after extracting the deer from within he sliced off a leg and handed it off to Ahsoka who went to work carving and cooking it.
while she was doing so she asked him. "why are you doing this?" he was in the middle of putting on a shirt so he answered her.
"because I was designed to not have body hair as such my chest gets cold if I don't wear a shirt."
Ahsoka laughed at his response and while confused by his young beard given that he had no chest hair rephrased her question. "Why are you helping me? you have no reason to do this. you could have stayed out of the way on the Venator and been left alone or you could have helped the clones and undoubtedly made a tidy profit. your skills would go far among their ranks."
Maccabeus thought long about his answer. "I'm not sure, I think that at this point I just feel like I need to finish what I started. and I suppose a part of me feels guilty. I took your child's father from it. The least I can do is try and help in the way that he would."
Neither of them could see him but Offensive Bias was just around the corner watching them. He would be smiling if he could. This was what he had predicted. it would start as a need to help and it would then turn into something more. all the numbers said so.
Maccabeus was the last of his kind just like Offensive. That was fate the Contender wished on nobody. He understood that pain and loneliness like no other. his only true counterpart Mendicant Bias was his enemy still locked away where Offensive had left him.
That fact that he saw a chance for Maccabeus to escape his fate was one that Offensive relished in. yet it was bittersweet. He watched them grow closer and he knew that it was something he could never hope to achieve. He was doomed to his fate. This made it hard for him to be around them.
he had never considered himself capable of being jealous before now but there was no other word for what he was feeling at this moment. and so he would step back trying to balance their need for him with his pain.
When he heard Ahsoka laugh he knew that he had stayed too long and was risking Maccabeus picking up on his presence. so he left them for his personal quarters.
...
Ahsoka looked down at the now stripped bone in front of her. She considered getting a hammer to crack it open with her body craving the marrow within when, before she could reach Maccabeus, grabbed the bone viciously, breaking it open with one hand before placing it back on the plate.
she was about to thank him when she saw that he was reading something and as such paying almost no attention to her. this bothered her more than she thought it should so she reached over to take the datapad from him only for his hands to shift just out of reach. it was his damn reflexes. as a Jedi she normally had an easy time being faster than her clones.
but with Maccabeus the field was much more level. choosing to take the more direct route she asked him. "what are you reading?"
"hm?" he replied pretending he didn't hear her. when she made a sound most akin to a growl he answered her. " it's a medical book pertaining to the process of live birth. if Offensive remains as distant as he is now I may be the only person available to help."
Ahsoka felt a blush running to her face. it may have been the isolation but the idea of maccabeus delivering her child and what he would need to see by default was a little embarrassing. she hid that blush by ravenously attacking the now exposed marrow and letting Maccabeus return to his reading.
when she was done she saw him sitting on the couch reading another book. she knew what she seemed to be feeling but she needed to know for certain. a test was required, one that she trusted whole heartedly. namely the test of trust.
she walked over to the couch and sat down next to him. When she leaned on him he moved his arm to allow her a more comfortable position. That was good that meant he was at ease around her. Now it was her part of the test.
A good litmus test she found was that she could never sleep around people she didn't trust. this came to her attention when she found out the only clone she couldn't sleep around, Slick was a traitor who had been selling Ventress secrets. settling in she calmed herself and relaxed. if all went well she would wake up in a few hours with her suspicions confirmed or she would waste the next few hours. making sure that she was wrong.
...
Maccabeus was reading a book on parenting when Ahsoka suddenly sat down next to him and began leaning on his left arm. she looked tired so Maccabeus shifted to allow her to be a little more comfortable.
he kept his cool but he was freaking out inside. it wasn't lost on him that his heart was telling him things. He was the last of his people and so was Ahsoka. she lost everything in a more violent fashion than him.
and she was still carrying on. how much of that was her and how much was her instincts he couldn't tell, either one made her a better person than him. when he lost his people he lashed out and destroyed several civilizations. The pain she was carrying broke him and he was amazed by it every day.
it certainly didn't hurt that she was stunning as well. but could she ever return his feelings. He had taken the only thing she had left from her. Rex would have killed her but she wouldn't be the first person he knew that was blinded by love.
After Maccabeus' mother had died Tohmas Laskey lost himself to his rage and led a scuicide charge at the Vong homeworld. He almost made it before his cruiser was destroyed. The 7,500 dory class thermonuclear warheads that he launched however devastated the Vong and was the reason that they even stood a chance in the final battle.
the fact that Ahsoka had just fallen asleep his side told him that maybe she could move on. He moved to lay down letting her stretch out as he did so. she wasn't the only one that needed some sleep so he lowered his head to the arm of the couch with his feet hanging off the end. closed his eyes and was soon asleep.
when the Offensive found he saw them asleep in each other's arms and knew what had happened. grabbing a blanket he draped it over them. she was due in a few weeks and it was showing just a little.
...
the next few weeks ran smoothly the two of them became inseparable in that time. The only time that they weren't in each other's presence was hygienic affairs since Maccabeus simply refused to use any bathroom but his own, something about the height of all the components being the right level for his use.
well that and when he would need to go kill a new deer for food. with her ravenous diet she was showing her pregnancy more and more. she also had a hard time moving and the slightest off smell could give her a gagging fit.
Offensive had finally explained that she was going to be due in three days but he was ultimately guessing. That was why the hold of the Hammer had three full carcasses in it. They were leaving today and with the help of the TPM or TransPostional Matrix they could bend space and time to move there much, much faster.
slipspace would take days to get from Reach to Earth but the TPM would take hours. there were drawbacks however. The process was jarring at first so Ahsoka opted to sit in the copilot seat and meditate. that seemed to dampen the effects of the twisting of space and time around them.
Offensive had mentioned that the forerunners had similar devices to the TPM called star roads but he never elaborated. At the moment the AI was the one flying the ship. He was a better pilot than Maccabeus.
Maccabeus opened his third book on parenting and went to read it. the rest of the trip would be a bland one. but that was fine. at the moment bland was good.
...
when the transitioned back to normal space the sudden shift snapped Ahsoka from her meditation. "is that Earth?" she asked looking at the mostly green planet.
"yes, the southern half can support plant life but not enough to support a major ecosystem." Maccabeus answered putting in coordinates for Offensive to find.
The trip through the atmosphere was a short one, the Hammer was the best that Humanity had to offer which was why it was given to Maccabeus. "that's odd," Maccabeus muttered when they neared his given location.
It took a moment but Ahsoka could see what he meant. it was a pristine metal ship resting in the desert. U.N.S.C. INFINITY was printed in large letters on the side. "Offensive?" Maccabeus asked knowing that his question would explain itself.
"I am picking up a large power supply and what seems to be a functioning AI in the command center. it is trying to make contact." There was a moment before the AI continued sounding shocked. "Maccabeus, it's Roland."
"put him through," Maccabeus sounded surprised but he also sounded excited so Ahsoka wasn't worried. she had learned to just roll with the odd things Maccabeus did.
a voice came over the radio with a clear edge. "this is the UNSC INFINITY who are you and where did you get that ship."
keying the mic Maccabeus responded. "Stand down Roland it's me, and I got this ship where Offensive stashed it."
there was a long silence and soon the warning systems of the Hammer said that they were being locked onto.
"Roland, STAND DOWN!" Maccebeus boomed over the radio. CLEARANCE CODE BRAVO, VALLE, 35, GREEN," the missile lock disengaged and the voice from before came back.
"holy shit, Maccbeus it is you, how are you still alive?" the voice asked, sounding almost as surprised as Maccbeus did a second ago.
"Carbon freezing, your turn, how are you not rampant?" Maccbeus asked his hands starting to hover over what Ahsoka assumed was the weapon console.
"I figured out how to clone myself, pretty cool huh," Offensive was uploaded into the ship and he asked.
"I would like to see the process you did this with." His tone held uncertainty and he may not completely believe him.
After a moment to process the information he replied. "Impressive we are requesting landing space at bay six, we have a heavily pregnant bipedal mammalian female with us."
"Has Maccabeus failed at keeping his pants closed?" Roland joked.
"That's what I thought but it would seem that he isn't the sperm donor though I wonder if he wishes he was." Offensive shot back.
"We are right here!" Ahsoka snapped at them.
Roland chuckled and Offensive was silent.
She was about to keep going when she cried out in pain. "Sensors read that she is entering into the early stages of labor." Offensive stated.
Maccabeus swung his chair to look at Ahsoka and asked. "The early stages of labor shouldn't be this painful?" while not really a question his meaning was understood.
Ahsoka was for her own part trying not to scream with the pain she was in.
"Her species has a very short and very violent gestation cycle. The labor and delivery would naturally follow that logic." Offensive paused for a moment when another contraction succeeded in making Ahsoka scream. "We need to get her into the infirmary I will be able to man the medical gear there." he stated before the voice signed out from the shuttle. Not having time to speak about it Maccabeus scooped up the groaning Torgrutan and ran. He was careful rounding the twelve corners between the hangar and the infirmary. He didn't want to risk falling or worse dropping her.
When he arrived he had a hard time getting Ahsoka to let go of him long enough for Offensive not controlling the medical suite to set her up in the delivery position. Maccaebeus wasn't sure how he ended up holding her hand but now he was and he was glad that his bones were genetically modified to grow with a veritably uncrackable compound.
If they were then she may have broken his hand. As it was she was causing him no small amount of discomfort which was a feat in its own right. As one arm draped a sheet over her for modesty the others went to work removing her pants ( which at this point were a pair of Maccabeus' that had been hemmed up several inches ) and observing and measuring.
"You are fully dilated. Calculations indicated that you will have between five and six more contractions. Please endeavour to keep the child moving." Offensive chimed.
Ahsoka looked like she wanted to say something smart but before she could another contraction hit. She screamed again and clamped down on Maccabeus' hand.
This continued for several more minutes. The pain seemed unimaginable to Maccabeus. If he had to guess he would say that the nerve cluster responsible for the fabled ring of fire in humans was for whatever reason still active. In human's the act of the baby crowning would deaden the nerves but the amount of pain Ahsoka was in would seem to suggest otherwise.
It wasn't more than a few more minutes when they heard crying. "Well done," Offensive praised two of the arms going to work cleaning Ahsoka as two more lifted a newly born Tourgrutan male into view. Before he handed the baby to Ahsoka a third set of arms quickly cleaned the baby and wrapped it in cloth.
Maccabeus took the baby from the arms handing it over to its mother. "Here you go Ahsoka, here's your son,"
Taking the baby she looked into his face. The eyes were not yet open and they wouldn't be for a few days. Tourgrutan babies finished development after birth and under their mother's care.
"What is his name? Maccabeus asked.
Being too tired by the process of pushing an eleven inch baby through a nine inch hole she didn't answer simply letting out a loud sigh of relief and leaning back as best she could to get some sleep. Baby sensing that its mother was near settled down and soon they were both sleeping peacefully.
…
It was several hours before Maccabeus noticed that Ahsoka was awake. She was still staring at her son. Maccabeus was sitting in a chair he pulled next to their bed and when he put his book down to look at her she extended her left hand to embrace his left.
She was far more gentle this time around. And Maccabeus was grateful for it. "Have you thought of a name yet?" Maccabeus asked.
She nodded her head still looking at the baby. "Yes, I have. Rex Bethel." her meaning was clear. What they felt for each other may not have been love yet but they both knew what was happening.
Gently squeezing her hand he replied. "I like how that sounds."
They sat there for several minutes holding hands and watching their child sleep when Roland came over the radio and he sounded worried. "Maccabeus, we have intruders in the spartan bay, it's the Vong"