Chapter Nineteen

When John said the ruins were on the edge of a farm he wasn't joking. And when Ellen said it would be cold she wasn't joking either. A thin layer of snow covered the fields for miles, or so it seemed.

I was bundled in warm underclothes, jeans, a thick shirt, and a puffy vest. Ellen had given me a spare beanie, too.

She'd also lent me a pair of waterproof boots. They were a size or two too big, but I wasn't about to complain about having warm feet in this cold. And I had gloves from the Air Force base; warm and hydrophobic.

My body was warm, but my face was not. We'd barely stepped out of the transport and my nose was already numb and red.

Ellen's face was flushed against the cold, too. She didn't seem to mind it as she led the way through a mulch-covered field. At the edge of the field, cutting into the treeline, was a distinct circle of metal spires.

The ruins were beautiful. They looked like the spires near the buildings on Halo. I just hoped they weren't hiding some galaxy-killing technology the Forerunners had deemed necessary to make for whatever reason.

This would have been the most miserable, cold place to hide something like that.

Blue Team had prepared for the cold, too. The air base we were staying in had winter gear on hand and it was easy to integrate the thicker gloves and balaclavas into their supersized BDUs. The only exposed part of their bodies was their eyes, though their breath made visible clouds through the fabric over their lower faces.

As we walked through the field a figure near the spires became visible. His form cleared up and revealed a slightly aged man with a beer belly and sunburn on his face. He, too, was bundled in warm layers.

"Heyo!" he greeted in a thick Scottish accent. "I appreciate you taking the path."

I looked back and noticed that some of the snowy mulch behind us was more well-packed. It was a space between rows of the field, where we wouldn't step on any slumbering plants.

Ellen shook the man's hand. "Are you Conor O'Connell?"

"That I am." Conor nodded. "I take it you're Dr. Anders?"

"Please, call me professor. And tell me about these ruins."

Conor turned to look at the spires behind him. "There isn't much to say, I'm afraid. They've been here since before my mother bought the land. The wee ones love to play about it when it's warmer."

"I see." Ellen had her datapad out. "You haven't noticed any movement?"

"None."

"Do animals avoid it?"

Conor paused to think. "Not that I've noticed, but perhaps. Hasn't crossed my mind before."

Ellen walked between two spires. I followed her and saw...nothing. The spires circled around an empty, snowy clearing and that was it.

"Tawny?" Ellen glanced at me. "Is there anything else?"

I nodded. I knew there was more. We just couldn't see it...yet.

"What?"

"I'm not sure," I whispered.

She pursed her lips and walked up to the tallest spire, off to the left.

I glanced around the spires and shuffled towards one on my right. It had a small scar down the side of it, like something sharp had dragged down the length.

My concentration broke when Fred walked behind me. He and the other SPARTANs were spreading out at even points around the circle, focused on the forest beyond the spires.

"I was right worried when the military wanted to investigate," Conor admitted. "Didn't realize they'd send such a small team."

Ellen's voice was distracted. "If we find anything of interest they'll send another team, maybe a battalion."

Conor sobered. "Oh."

If we found a terminal ONI would send in an excavation team immediately, and they probably held little regard for how their efforts would affect Conor's property.

But I couldn't let something like that stop me from finding a terminal and bringing the galaxy back to the Domain. Maybe I could push ONI to reimburse him for the property damage.

All of this was hypothetical, anyway. Until we actually found a terminal I needed to focus solely on locating one, and stop worrying about the 'after'.

I looked back up at the gouge in the metal spire. It had slashed clean through something on the metal. It looked like an engraving, a symbol with a circle in the center. I glanced around and saw similar etchings on all of the spires.

"Tawny," Ellen called.

I walked over to her, listening to her borrowed boots crunch in the snow. I hated being so cold but some childish side of me was liking the snow; we didn't get much of it on Eridanus II.

When I reached her Ellen pointed to something way above her head, in the center of the spire. "What is that?"

"I-I'm not sure," I admitted. I tilted my head and studied the round thing, which was sticking out a bit. "It looks like…"

I lifted up into the air. Too late did I remember Conor's ignorance to my powers, and his sudden disbelief was palpable. He exclaimed something but my focus was on the button in front of me.

I heard Fred talking to Conor; he would handle it.

When I was level with the button, which was about ten feet up, I floated closer and brushed my fingers over it. The whole thing was twice as big as my hand, and old-looking. It was just as worn as the spires themselves.

I glanced up and noticed an engraved line leading from the button to a circle. The circle etching looked exactly the same as the circles on the other pillars, but there were no other carvings on this one spire.

"Hey, Ellen, it's a button," I said. "Can I push it?"

"Is it safe?" she asked.

"I-"

I paused as John walked up and pushed my borrowed boot up. It had been about to slip off.

"Thank you." I smiled at him and turned back to Ellen. "I don't know. The Domain is being slippery; I can't tell if it's pushing me or just..there. It's always stronger near ruins."

Ellen looked down in thought. I could feel her mulling things over. I could also feel Conor; he was still in shock but Fred was helping him come to. And warming him up to the idea of a mountain of paper NDAs.

While Ellen was weighing pros and cons I landed next to John. He glanced down at me and resumed watching the forest, which was both white and black. The snow made things light and crisp but shadows bled in from everywhere and obscured anything clear.

I thought it was pretty, but John was uneasy with the low visibility. So were his siblings. Other than Fred they were all attentively scanning the forest, and Fred kept glancing back up at it as he talked to Conor.

Finally Ellen shook her head. "We'll leave this to another team, unless you get anything more certain."

I shrugged. "If the Domain does anything new I'll let you know."

She nodded. "Is this it, then?"

I looked around, feeling that there was more here. But it had to be brought about by pushing that button. Something told me ONI wanted to talk more with Conor before they risked destroying his farm.

Maybe then they would let us come back here.

With that hopeful thought in mind I nodded. "This is it. There's...there's nothing else here."

oOOOo

Mullingar Air Force Base was small, but I wouldn't call it quaint. The surrounding towns were quaint; Mullingar was cold. The only activity was the trickle of on-duty soldiers hurrying from one building to another.

They were never larger than groups of three, as if the usual flood of soldiers, which could be expected on any military installation, had been just as frozen by the cold as the water lines.

The lack of foot traffic outside made it the perfect place for John and I to find time alone. He looked endearing, bundled up in a military-issued black coat with the hood pulled up. And his hands were warm, even through his gloves.

I'd gone into town last night to buy a bag - something to carry my extra clothes from Clíona city so that my suitcase wasn't so crowded - and ended up buying a faux-fur-lined white puff coat and yellow mittens. I couldn't resist when I saw them; they looked too cute.

John agreed, when he saw me wearing them, although he noted that the knitted mittens weren't waterproof. That meant no snowball fights, under threat of freezing my fingers off.

But I wasn't interested in snowball fights right now. I was holding John's left hand and swinging our arms as we walked.

"Ellen says she wants to see me at seventeen-thirty," I said.

John glanced down at me with his bright blue eyes that seemed to glow with the piercing sun. "That's in fifteen minutes."

"I know."

He'd meant to imply that I should probably get going, but neither of us wanted to let each other go. We would have to eventually; Blue Team had a briefing in thirty minutes. We were headed out again soon.

"Hopefully we'll find a terminal this time."

John inclined his head in agreement. His outward reaction was staggeringly composed for how strongly he wanted to find a terminal.

"I have a good feeling about it," I said. "We're going to find a terminal soon, I know it."

"Have you heard anything from the Domain?"

I shook my head. "Have you?"

He hadn't, either.

But I just felt like we were going to find a terminal. It could have been wishful thinking but I liked to believe it was a premonition.

John was apprehensive.

"John?" I slowed a bit and looked up at him. "Are you okay?"

He looked down at me with such an intensely endearing expression that I felt my heart pull. He looked vulnerable and strong and...well, he looked perfect.

But he didn't answer me.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"It's nothing." He looked forward, and the sun sharpened the angles of his face.

I could feel how strongly he didn't want me pushing it. He was as nervous about me finding out what he was nervous about as he was nervous about what he was actually nervous about.

So I sank down off of my toes and pouted my lip. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his heat. "You should meet Ellen. You don't want to be late."

"Good point." I placed my mittened hand over his on my shoulder. "Will you be okay?"

"I will."

"Okay. I'll see you at the briefing, then." I smiled up at him and walked towards the dingey R&D building. That was where Ellen usually was.

When I walked into her makeshift office she looked up from a desktop hologram. "Tawny, good. I've just finished debriefing Dr. Quinn; he was in New Pompeii with an underground Forerunner structure."

"What did he find?"

"Cryptic readings that probably mean nothing."

I deflated, even though I hadn't been expecting news of a terminal. Ellen wasn't excited enough for a terminal to have been found.

"Doctors Pierce and Owen scoured the continent of Mu and found an interesting datacache. They're sending it to ONI for deciphering, although I'm sure we could do the job more quickly." She rolled her eyes.

I sniffed a bit and pulled my mittens off. "What about Dr. Truman?"

"Found nothing in Portobello or Skye. One of the structures had been levelled; ONI's sending a focused team to investigate."

A hum filtered through my lips. That was pretty much everyone on the ground; a web of xenologists in their element and scouring the planet for so much as a whisper of a terminal.

And we'd found nothing.

There was something building, related to the search for the terminals, and I was scared of it. I just didn't know what it was.

I sniffed again. "Are you going to the briefing with us?"

"I am." Ellen checked her datapad. "I wanted to have a word with the Colonel before we leave the base. Do you want to come with me?"

I glanced at the computer on the desk. "...No, thank you. I'll see you at the briefing."

She pushed herself to her feet. "Alright."

When she was gone I sank into her chair and pulled up the mission reports from the other xenoarchaeology teams. And what Ellen said was true; nobody had found anything of use. This planet had terminals but they were well hidden.

The Domain pulsed in my chest with a hollow feeling, a sense of dread. I needed to find a terminal here. It was such a desperate feeling; I had to find a terminal here.

John felt it, too.

oOOOOo

Author's Note: This chapter is short and dull, I know. That's kind of on purpose and kind of because college applications and a lack of consistent WiFi are murdering my productivity. Also the doctors still don't know what's wrong with me so I'm going to a specialist in a month or so. It's great.

I love you guys tho!