Chapter Seventeen

I was alone in the bed when I woke up. I glanced around, but all I could see from my position was the wall to the bathroom, and the door.

So I closed my eyes and tried to catch a few more minutes of sleep before John walked in. I could feel him; he was down in the lobby getting breakfast. He intended to wake me up when he got back.

It was almost time for us to leave for the first set of ruins.

I rolled onto my stomach and felt my ostomy bag beneath me. It was full.

Would I have enough time to empty it and get back in bed before John got back?

John could sense my dilemma, and though he didn't comment on it he did find it amusing. And he reminded me that it was 0930; I'd gotten plenty of sleep.

I shot back that the problem with my fatigue wasn't the amount of sleep I'd gotten. It was directly tied to the intense soreness between my legs.

I got the distinct sense that he was smirking.

With a bit of a groan I pushed myself upright. My bag needed to be emptied; there was nothing else to be done about that.

I pushed my arms up and a bit behind me, straightening them at the elbow so intensely that they bent a bit backwards. Both shoulders popped.

I ran a hand through my knotted hair and blinked a bit.

This bedspread was so warm. I didn't want to get up and expose myself to the frigid air conditioning.

But I had to.

So I slid off of the bed and hugged John's shirt close. The metal floor was so cold on my feet. And my thighs were sore - they were shaking, actually.

I set my bag cover, a plain pink fabric one, on the counter and grabbed one of the recyclable plastic cups from beside the sink. I set it below the faucet and turned it on as I emptied my bag into the toilet.

I was already up, I told myself, so I might as well get ready for the day.

But I was so tired. And my legs were sore. My hips were sore.

Suffice it to say everything in my lower body was sore. And some of it was bruised, though I hid that knowledge from John.

He always felt guilty that he'd been that hard on me, even though I'd said so many times that it was inevitable and not a big deal.

When the cup was full I turned the faucet off and rinsed the inside of my bag. I could feel John on his way up from the lobby.

I resealed my bag and pulled the fabric cover back on. Then I rushed back into the main room and flopped down on the bed.

As excited as I was to see more Forerunner ruins, I was so, entirely exhausted.

I hugged one of the pillows to myself and curled around it. It was still warm from my body heat, and the air around me was so cold.

The door hissed open. I heard John's boots on the metal floor.

"Good morning," he greeted.

I groaned into the pillow.

He laughed a bit. I felt his weight settle behind me.

His warm hand was on my left shoulder. He made a circle with his thumb on the fabric.

I took a breath and released it in a lazy huff. "It's too early."

"It's oh-nine-thirty-five."

I groaned again. "I have to get up, don't I?"

"I brought an apple."

I rolled over to face John. "You're the best."

I took a moment to admire him. He was in a SPARTAN-sized Marine BDU, with a hard brown pauldron on his left shoulder. It looked good on him, the whole outfit.

"You're stalling," he accused with a bit of a smile.

I sat up and leaned against his left arm. "Says who?"

He shrugged his shoulder, shaking me a bit. "It's obvious."

"What? You look good."

He shot me a look.

"Okay, I'm stalling a bit. But you really do look good."

He laughed through his nose and kissed the top of my head. Then he handed me an apple. "Eat. We're leaving in twenty minutes."

I made a face and held the apple in both hands.

John pushed himself to his feet and walked over to the far corner of the room. There was his weapons stash, which had been concealed inside a massive suitcase that unfolded to reveal all manner of firearms and blades.

That was what the ONI agents had done when they 'inspected' the hotel rooms. They'd provided ample weaponry for John and his team to take on anything short of a Covenant Scarab.

I took a bite out of the apple and stood up. The floor was still cold.

I set the apple down on the night table and grabbed some of the Arcadian clothes that I'd bought from a shopping bag. When we got back from the ruins I would have to fold the clothes and put them in my suitcase.

My outfit was cute, at least in my opinion. It was a grey tank top with a keyhole on the chest, with jeans and some brown booties.

When I'd put it on I turned to look at it in the mirror, checking out every angle, and I liked it.

I spritzed myself with a bit of perfume and deodorant. Then I ran the brush through my hair. My bangs were light and fluffy, as usual.

My hair was really thick, and I was concerned about the humidity, but it was way too short to tie into any sort of ponytail. It would have to remain how it was.

When I stepped out of the bathroom John was loading a pistol. He had his back to the room; he was looking out the window as he worked.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and leaned into his back. His emotions flared over the bond.

He turned, setting his pistol on the desk beside him, and wrapped his arms around me.

This was shaping up to be a good day.

oOOOo

The trail we were taking was thin. Through a rainforest not quite as thick as Requiem's. The trees were tall, but not so tall as to make us bugs in comparison.

Not like Requiem's.

Because we weren't on Requiem. We were safe, on Arcadia, and away from the Didact. He was dead.

I loved the Arcadian outfit I'd bought with Ellen yesterday. And despite the season - it was summer in this region - I wasn't hot. There was a steady breeze keeping all of us comfortably cool.

I was still sore between my legs. I could only hope it didn't show in my gate; I was normally good at hiding such things, but this kind of soreness was still mostly unfamiliar.

John, Linda, Kelly, and Fred were all in the supersized marine-like tactical gear. They had pistols on their thighs, rifles on their backs, and plenty of spare ammo on their waists.

And John looked really good in tactical gear. He didn't have a faceplate on his helmet - he and the rest of blue team had holographic visors over one eye - so I could see his face. I rather liked that.

And, had he been less busy, John would have acknowledged my affectionate thoughts. But he was busy, scanning our surroundings with his rifle. So were his teammates.

In fact, Ellen and I were the only two in our group who weren't armed. Our guides, Saoirse and Oisin, both had some strange kind of pistol strapped to their hips.

"Ye best watch for swallow holes as we get closer to the structure," Saoirse said in a thick Irish accent. "This isn't a trail most tourists take, so they haven't been mapped."

She had dark brown skin and cornrows so long they nearly reached the waistband of her khaki jeans. And she was decked out in survival gear. Lightweight of course, and only a day's worth, but she looked more prepared for the actual jungle than even the SPARTANs.

Her coworker, Oisin, had tan skin and red hair that was nearly the same shade as his skin, in the places where it hadn't started to grey. He had some very dark freckles over his nose and creeping up his temples.

There was an intense air about him.

In fact, I could feel through the bond that John had recognized him immediately as a combat veteran. He certainly felt like one.

Oisin hadn't talked much during our trek. He was so incredibly focused on his task, getting us to the artifacts in one piece, that he'd barely taken the time to introduce himself to us before he announced that he was going in the front to make sure the trail was clear.

I was reaching out. I could feel the Forerunner structure growing closer; it was just ahead.

Oisin was the first one to point out a gleam of metal through the trees.

I pushed up onto my toes in excitement. The feeling of belonging that I felt around Forerunner technology was like a balm on my soul.

I didn't necessarily feel out of place anywhere else, but I felt so much more like me inside Forerunner structures. So much so, it was almost like I wasn't me at all. It was a strange, paradoxical feeling.

And I relished it.

When we emerged in a small clearing I saw the structure. It was a huge, moss-covered grey building. The building was arranged in such a way that it integrated into the cliff face behind it; I hadn't even known we were near a cliff.

The structure had collapsed in some places, as if it had been the scene of some sort of battle. But I could feel a few mostly-dormant systems that were still functioning. It wasn't completely a ruin.

I sped up, brushing past Ellen and Saoirse in an attempt to reach the building.

John's left hand shot out and latched around my shoulder. "It may be unstable."

I shot him a mildly betrayed look. "It looks fine to me."

"Wait until the professor has a chance to survey it," he insisted aloud. The threat of sinkholes and structural collapses had him wary.

My eyes fell to the ground so that I wouldn't get locked into a staring competition with him.

John shifted, running his thumb subtly over my collarbone. "Tawny."

I averted my eyes to Ellen and Oisin, who were watching her datapad as she guided her floating camera along one side of the structure.

"Tawny, it's not safe to go inside yet."

I looked up at John. "It's just… I just wanted to take a peak."

John levelled me with a deadpan look; we both knew I wanted to do way more than that.

With a bit of a sigh I relented. "I'm sorry, you're right. I need to wait for Ellen to make sure it's safe."

"He's just trying to keep you alive," Fred said from a few feet away, where he'd been pretending to not listen to our brief argument.

I wrapped my right arm around John's waist in a bit of a hug; I didn't want to impede his battle-ready status, but I expressed affection in a very physical manner and I couldn't do much to help it.

He rested his arm on my shoulders and opened his love to me through the bond. And his appreciation for the cutout on my shirt.

That bit made me blush a bit, but hopefully it would just look like the humidity had gotten to me. I was distinctly aware of the group with us.

John smirked a bit.

I bumped his thigh with my hip. "Rude."

He didn't respond. The smirk grew.

Ellen glanced back at me. "Tawny! Is this thing still active?"

"What thing?" I asked, stepping towards her a bit.

She and Oisin were by the right hand corner of the building. They were looking at something, but I couldn't see it from this angle.

Kelly and Saoirse, who were on the right side of the clearing fifty feet behind Ellen, could see what they were looking at. And they didn't like it. Kelly, especially, was prepared to fight.

So I picked up the pace and jogged towards Ellen. John was keeping pace beside me with a brisk walk.

I rounded the corner and halted; a giant aggressor Sentinel was lying on the ground. Its mechanical arms were limp, and it was dulled. Covered in a fine layer of dust, animal droppings, and a bit of moss on its lower parts.

But John wasn't about to take any chances. He kept his rifle up and ready.

When I stepped closer to the Sentinel he asked, "Is it safe?"

I nodded. "I think so. I-I can't feel anything; I think it's dead."

I hadn't really seen a Sentinel up close. Not this close.

It was huge. Nearly as tall as me, and almost as wide as John was tall. And it was so long, it was easily longer than a SPARTAN in armor was from head to toe.

"It looks like a regular aggressor Sentinel," Ellen noted from behind me. "And scans are conclusive."

Linda walked up, her sniper rifle comfortably in her hands. "So this place has Sentinels. That complicates things."

I knelt beside the Sentinel. "May-maybe not. This has been dead for a long time; maybe the others are dead, too."

"I still don't like it," she said.

John's fingers rippled on his rifle. "I don't either. Eyes up, Blue Team."

Ellen called the holocam back and plucked it out of the air. It was a small sphere, about the size of an apple, with a lense on the front that looked like a giant eye. It was kind of cute.

She stuck it back on her belt and checked something on her datapad.

"The visible structure is stable," she said. "We can advance that far, at least."

So I stood up, abandoning the dead Sentinel, and followed her towards the entrance.

It was an angular doorway that was wider than it was tall.

"Tawny, can you get it open?" she asked.

I stepped forward with a nod. "I-I think so."

I pressed my hand against the door and closed my eyes. The doorway was still active, if the physical door was a bit aged, so all it took was one impulse and it slid open.

The support under my hand disappeared and my eyes shot open. I staggered a bit.

John and Kelly were inside, moving their weapons around and checking every single crevice of the dilapidated building. Kelly had Oathsworn tight in her hands, but like Linda it was a comfortable and familiar grip.

After a moment Kelly announced, "Clear."

So Ellen, Oisin, Saoirse, and I walked in. Linda and Fred brought up the rear.

"Frederic, keep an eye on the door," John said.

"Affirmative." Fred halted just inside the doorway and peered out into the outside world.

The inside of the building was, so far, a plain metal room. The walkway, walls, and partially-collapsed ceiling were lined with blue lights, but that was so standard in Forerunner architecture that it was hardly worth noting.

I looked around the barren, grimy room. "This is just an entryway. Whatever this place was built for, it's further inside."

That made John uneasy.

"Professor, do we need to go further in?" He turned to look down at Ellen.

She nodded. "It's our job to make sure this place is safe for a more dedicated team to investigate. We have to go deeper."

John prepped for any number of bad situations in a mere heartbeat. So did the rest of the SPARTANs, and Oisin and Saoirse.

I couldn't feel any warnings from the Domain, though. We weren't in immediate danger here.

That didn't help soothe John.

Ellen nodded towards the door on the far side of the room. "Is it safe, Tawny?"

"Yep. I-I mean, I don't know if it's going to collapse or anything. But we-we're safe from anything that might attack us."

She pulled the hovercam off of her belt once more and had it start scanning the room around us. "Let's go, then."

So I walked up to the doorway and opened it. We were met with a wide descending hallway that hooked to the left after it levelled out some thirty feet below where we stood.

"Fred," John called him to join us.

Then John and Fred descended the hallway. They stopped at the turn, and Kelly and Linda moved ahead of them.

The four of us at the top couldn't see them from the top of the ramp, but we heard Linda's voice echo when she said, "Clear."

So I started down. Ellen was behind me, but Saoirse and Oisin moved up ahead of us. I noticed Oisin's fingers curling towards his weapon and his gaze becoming flighty; he didn't like being underground. He felt trapped.

When we reached the curve I touched soft fingertips to his arm to get his attention. Despite my delicate touch he started.

"Do you want to stay up in the entrance?" I offered.

Oisin shook his head. "I'm alright, miss."

John followed my train of thought. He didn't want to force Oisin into an uncomfortable situation, either.

So he said, "We could use someone to guard our exit."

The seasoned man saw straight through John and levelled him with a hard look. "I don't need yer pity, nor yer special attention. I'll be fine, son."

So John let it be, and we continued down the hallway.

The segment was several hundred feet long. It ended in a doorway like the two we'd already come through. Kelly and Linda were flanking said door, waiting for us to catch up.

"Something's been in here recently. There's moss growing in some places." Linda turned towards the entrance. "That door hasn't been closed this whole time."

I noticed dust particles and a bit of mold. Linda was right, and it looked like the relatively recent activity in this place hadn't been confined to the partially-collapsed entryway.

John didn't like that at all. Neither did his siblings.

I opened the door at the end of the hallway when we were still a few feet away. Linda and Kelly moved in immediately, scanning with their weapons.

It was a huge room that stretched out a hundred feet in front of us, and at least three hundred feet to the right. About a hundred feet to the left, too.

There was a walkway stretching the length of the room, and several ramps leading down to it. One such ramp was right in front of us.

Each ramp was in front of a doorway; John counted them much quicker than I could and found a total of twelve doors.

He'd also reached out with his mind and found a control room for this facility through one of the doorways opposite ours. He sent me that information.

He couldn't let on about his own abilities, after all. Ellen's camera was documenting everything, and Ellen herself was sure to write an account of this excursion when we got back.

We all had to, actually, other than Saoirse and Oisin.

So I said, "There's a control room through that door," and pointed to the fifth door on the right, across the room from us.

Ellen glanced from me to the door. "Can we survey the entire structure from there?"

"We should be able to, y-yeah." I nodded.

"That makes this a lot easier." She pulled her long black hair down and retied it into a neater bun. "Let's go."

So we set off down the ramp and across the massive floor.

John had his rifle in both hands, but he was open in the bond. That was the mental equivalent of holding hands for us. I could feel every emotion he felt and experience some of his thoughts.

I returned the feeling, letting the bond be comfortably open between us both ways. Resting in him and feeling him rest in me.

We walked up another ramp and I opened the door. Fred and Kelly walked in ahead of us, scanning the area with practiced intensity.

It was another hallway. There were a few doors along the way, but none of them pertained to us.

So, once Fred announced that it was safe, I kept my gaze ahead and walked for the doorway that I knew was at the end of the tunnel.

The hall was curved slightly to the right. It was a subtle curve, but one that couldn't be fully ignored as we walked.

When we reached the doorway for the control room I opened it. John and Linda scouted it out before any of us went in.

Though he hid it well, Oisin was getting more and more tense. His trapped emotions were getting to me.

I tried to tune them out and see the inside of the control room.

From what I could see - that wasn't much; Oisin and Saoirse were in the doorway and blocking most of my view - the room was a vast cavern-like structure with smooth metal walls that went up further than the doorway let me see.

"Clear," John eventually said.

So we all walked in.

The ceiling curved up to an elongated dome several hundred feet above us. The room itself was rounded, with a set of tiered floors. We were on the lowest level, with a console in the center of the room.

Just behind the console and stretching to either side of the doorway was the second tier, a six inch step up, in the shape of a C. It had two brackets on it, with the console directly in the center.

And the third floor, another six inch step, was at least twice as wide as the second floor. There was a series of large doorways on the wall behind third tier; Blue Team had noticed them right away and they did not like the looks of them.

I didn't feel any warnings in the Domain, though.

So I walked up to the console and placed my hand on the top of the pillar. "Let me see i-if I can get everything online."

"Take your time," Ellen said listlessly. She was watching her datapad as information from the hovercam scrolled onto the screen.

Blue Team and Oisin were scanning the room with trained soldiers' eyes.

And Oisin was so tense now that he was actively fighting off hyperventilation. He looked a bit pale. He hid it well, but every SPARTAN in the room had noticed his wild eyes.

Linda glanced at me and jerked her head towards him, silently asking if there was anything I could do to calm him down.

I shook my head and shrugged apologetically; I could send him calm emotions, but that was a conscious process. As soon as my attention went elsewhere, so would the comforting feelings.

I definitely planned to help him, but not before I made sure the base was online and safe.

So Linda resigned to keep an eye on him in case he became a liability.

I delved into the structure's systems. So much was dormant, but I could feel that very few things were truly disabled. I could have most of the base up and running in just a few moments.

From there, we could make everything safe for any future teams. If the base was advanced enough we could even set it to fix itself up.

As soon as I sent a wakeup pulse throughout the system I felt John's alarm. It was intense enough that I jerked myself completely out of the system and slammed back into my own body.

I staggered for a moment, getting my bearings amongst chaos and fear.

Oisin had his pistol out and was looking around with wide eyes. "I know I heard something, don't tell me I didn't! Don't tell me I'm crazy!"

The pistol was aimed at the ground, but in such a way that it could easily turn towards any of us.

John spoke through the bond. "Handle him."

I sent a gentle-but-massive wave of calm towards Oisin.

His grip on the pistol loosened. His body relaxed marginally. The feral look of terror faded somewhat from his eyes.

I took a tentative step forward and said in a gentle voice, "It's alright. You didn't hear anything; we're safe."

"He did hear something," Linda asserted from my right. "We all did. From those doorways."

I followed her head tilt and bit my lip. The doors lining the room. If something was moving in those doorways...it would have a distinct advantage over us, if it wasn't a friend.

And when was anything Forerunner friendly?

oOOOOo
Author's Note: Hi guys! I have some bad news.

So I don't really write chronologically. I write whatever comes to mind and piece things together from there, and so far it's worked pretty okay I think. The problem is that, while I have the ending of this book and some of the next one, I still haven't written the next part of this one. I know what's going to happen, I just need to get words on the page. Unfortunately this week is slated to be insane for my poor schedule so I may not have time to write anything. There's a chance I may not update for several weeks, actually. In case that does happen...I'm so sorry :(