Chapter Eight - At All Costs
1204 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Holy Shrine of the Rings, Covenant homeworld, unknown system
Jack broke contact with the Engineer's tentacle violently, falling backwards into Rachel's swift arms. She steadied him as his mind reeled and slowly refocused on his surroundings.
Jack's eyes snapped open.
He broke free of Rachel's grasp and stood before the beam of light, then nodded to the Engineer. The creature wiggled its tentacles in joy and moved to a support pillar nearby, where it opened up another secret panel and began fumbling with its wiring. The others held their positions as Jack stared at the Elder Prophet and the crystal glowing from its headdress. Logan sighted down his plasma rifle at the shadows about them and called out to him.
"What the hell is going on, Jack? Please let us in so I know what I'm supposed to shoot."
Jack didn't even look at him.
"Just hold your positions. We may not have much time. We need to get this Prophet and this crystal out of here, ASAP. We could very well end this war, once and for all."
Logan shifted his grip.
"Jack, you touched that thing and immediately recoiled. What happened in that second can't be that hard to explain-,"
Jack's mind double-checked itself for a moment. I was only in contact for a second? It felt like hours to me…
"Logan, I don't have time to explain. There are more forces at work here than we realize. The Covenant may be onto us at this very moment…"
One by one, the tubes of energy interlocking to form the larger column began to go out with a powerful, draining hum. Before long the room became almost pitch black as all light sources faded. The only reminder of where each Spartan stood was the faint glow of plasma rifles and a needler in the dark.
In that moment of shutdown Jack lunged for the collapsing Prophet and caught him. With ease he slung the old alien over his shoulder and turned to descend the steps.
He heard the noise before he saw the blue glow.
Energy swords wavered towards them from the darkness, casting faint glimmers across the Spartans' visors. Logan felt inclined to further alert them to the threat.
"Company."
Logan, Eric, and Rachel opened fire in three directions, a triangle of plasma and crystalline needles that forced six wavering forms to duck and dive aside. Jack soared down the seven steps of the platform in one leap and aimed his own plasma rifle with one hand sweeping the shadows. He felt the Engineer floating alongside him.
Jack was glad the camouflaged Elites were fools. Instead of waiting to activate their bright weapons, the zealous warriors believed in the glory of open combat. Even stealth was ruined by their desire to be known for bravery in battle. Now was a time when Jack thanked their religious short-sightedness.
Logan and Rachel caught up to Jack as they dashed for the de-activated entrance doorway, all three turning now and then to fire plasma bursts blindly into the dark. Eric, Ashley's body still slung over his shoulder, held the rear, jogging backwards and firing needler rounds methodically at various angles. He waited until one needle locked on and tracked a target, where it embedded itself momentarily into an Elite, revealing its location. Eric would then unleash the rest of his crystalline volley and send the Elite howling in an explosion of vibrant pink energy and shredded, cindering flesh.
Jack assumed the Elites had snuck in under their invisibility cloaking through the entrance and then surrounded them. But what he didn't expect were the two large, armored figures that stepped out from either side to bar their way.
Hunters.
Jack forced himself to increase his pace rather than slow down, and began to close the twelve meters between he and charging green glow of the Hunters' cannon-mounted forearms. His plan was simple. He would have to leap straight onto one of the thing's shoulders and propel himself over their katana-like spines. He could only hope the others would follow his lead and make it after him.
But he knew before he had closed half the distance to the Hunters that there was simply no time. Twin missiles of green energy trailed from the Hunters straight for them, too quick to dodge. Jack tucked into a defensive crouch with the others and shielded his polarized visor with his arm.
But they all watched in fascination as the green blobs of energy swerved, compressed into thin tendrils of light, and swept in various arcs about them. Jack turned just in time to see the two bolts expand to their regular intensity behind them and detonate amongst the remaining four Elites' ranks. One shot collided directly with an Elite, vaporizing him on the spot and sending the others sprawling, their camouflage in disarray. The other shot swerved and exploded nearby one Elite into a support pillar, shattering the ancient marble-like structure with ease.
The Spartans heard a deep groan of cracking stone. Logan shoved Rachel away from a descending chunk of rock the size of a Warthog. Jack sighed in relief as the two stepped from behind it unscathed. He decided to change tactics.
"Spartans, evasive."
As one, the Spartans rose with their burdens and spread out to either side, taking shelter behind various pillars as the Hunters began to recharge their guns and the Elites struggled to rise. The Engineer was nowhere in sight. The surviving three Elites were dispatched with precise blasts from the Spartans' plasma rifles, and soon each listened intently. The Hunters could be heard clanking deeper into the room.
As Jack had guessed, the Hunters felt obliged to sweep the room now that their Elite allies were dead. That would leave their exit open a little longer…
Until more Covenant arrived.
Jack turned to his side where Eric waited patiently behind his own pillar further down. Jack motioned with his hand for Eric to take Ashley's body and stealth it to the raised center dais further back. Eric nodded in understanding, and began to wrap Ashley's arms and legs about him. Eric held up his spent needler, and with a signal from Jack, tossed it quietly into his waiting hand. Jack activated the Spartans' COM Channel and clicked two sets of two rapid clicks to Logan and Rachel waiting on the far side of the room. They would give Eric a distraction so he could get Ashley's body to the dais. Eric tensed behind his pillar, waiting for the signal.
Click-clack!
A piece of stone rubble bounced into the center pathway near the entrance, causing the Hunters to shift their weapons towards Logan and Rachel's side of the room. One Hunter lumbered into the depths of the shadows to investigate, while its partner watched its back. Eric sped silently through the darkness towards the steps, Ashley slouching over him like a sleeping child.
Jack tore his gaze away from Eric's retreating form and slid his body to peek around the other side of the pillar. Jack held the empty needler ready to throw, but paused. He wondered if he should try simply running towards the Hunter, knowing that the Prophet's crystal would deflect any high energy contacts.
But he immediately dismissed the possibility, knowing full well that a stray shot might simply hit one of his Spartans. Now Jack thought of it, glancing down, the Elder Prophet had hardly made a move or sound since he had first lifted him up, and Jack wondered now whether the old thing had lost consciousness from shock of battle.
Jack hurled the needler towards the closest Hunter, who didn't so much as flinch as the weapon bounced off its armored head. Instead, the creature turned and began charging its weapon. Jack counted one second, then threw himself towards another pillar as a flash of green lit up his view. A splash of heat and a smack from a flying piece of debris, and Jack brought himself into a roll that put him on his feet behind the pillar Eric had previously been occupying. Jack glanced at his shoulder again, confirming that the Prophet he carried was unharmed. Jack heard another earth-shuddering rumble from above and knew his Spartans' time was running out.
The Hunter, now thoroughly confused, turned as it heard a high-pitched whine and felt a plasma grenade explode on its back. Smoldering, the beast knelt on the floor in pain, hurt, but not defeated. It turned towards the general direction of the unknown assailant and fired blindly into the darkness with its energy cannon.
But instead of smeared human flesh pasting the walls, the Hunter watched in horror as its bond brother caught the blast full in the chest and was thrown up against the far wall. Several more blue plasma grenades sailed through the air form various angles and latched onto its fallen comrade, destroying it in a bright blue explosion of flesh and rubble. The surviving Hunter roared in agony, rose from its kneel, and began firing its cannon at random into the surrounding darkness.
Jack laid the Elder Prophet down beside the pillar, hoping he and his Spartans would be able to draw the Hunter's fire onto them instead. Jack reached out and detached the crystal from the Prophet's headdress with some ease, and held the object firmly in one hand. Jack looked towards the center dais and found that Eric had already laid Ashley's body along the uppermost steps on the opposite side, just out of view of the enraged hunter. Jack made a dash straight for him.
"Spartans: to the platform, now!" Jack called over the Spartans' COM link. He felt rather than saw Rachel and Logan slip in beside him from the shadows. As the three ascended the seven steps they fell into crouched positions and formed a rough delta triangle. There they proceeded to open fire on the Hunter and lure its rage. Jack glanced to his side and saw that the Engineer had returned to the panel where it had deactivated the beam and was already beginning to reactivate it. The Engineer was three steps ahead of him, as he had hoped.
"Continue firing until your weapons are spent. Flag me when you're out. Hold onto this," Jack said, thrusting the crystal into Rachel's free hand. Sure enough, the next energy bolt fired from the Hunter thinned and arced over them, where it proceeded to shatter another pillar beyond. The building began to tremble.
Logan cocked his head.
"One question. What happens when the Hunter stops firing and decides to charge us?"
Jack shrugged.
"Improvise."
Jack leapt over the two meter gap in the floor where the beam would have continued beneath the Shrine and landed alongside Eric. Eric had opened the small access panel on the back of Ashley's armor power pack and sat, his hands frozen. Jack rested a hand on his shoulder.
"You know what she would have done. What she would have wanted."
Eric shook his head.
"You didn't love her like I did."
Jack paused, knowing time was almost out. He reached gently for the controls.
Eric gripped Jack's forearm tightly.
"I'll do it. It has to be me."
Jack nodded, his patience running thin. Hesitancy in the face of love was one thing. Downright dangerous attachment was another. Eric had three seconds.
Two.
One.
Eric entered the failsafe code and set the timer for seven minutes.
That's a Spartan, Jack thought to himself with pride.
But Eric received a flashing error message. Jack's heart sank. Ashley's power pack had lost all of its functions when it was sliced in two by the energy sword. Jack began to rise and call Eric off.
But Eric wasn't finished. He then faced away from Jack and reached over his shoulder, flipping open his own access panel. Jack's heart went stone cold. His answer was resolute.
"No."
"Do it."
"It's unnecessary-,"
"I'm not asking-,"
"Neither am I-,"
"You're the only one who can do it. If you don't, I'll stay. Until the end."
Jack's mind raced for a way to convince Eric out of what he was going to do. The Spartans' MJOLNIR armor power pack was built with a last resort self-destruct device, where it would overload until critical point and explode in a ten meter radius. Jack's hope was that the blast would set off a chain reaction within the Shrine. Ashley was marked as MIA, which for all its worth translated to KIA, and her armor would have accepted the signal to self-destruct, had it still worked. But Eric was still alive. His would not overload unless its user was dead, had flatlined, or…
Was overridden.
Jack's computer-linked neural interface had received all relevant data upon being promoted to Master Chief Petty Officer. He had inherited all that the Chief knew beyond the rest of the Spartans' knowledge, as well as all corresponding access codes and overriding protocols. Eric knew that Jack had received the code to override his suit and force the overload. That, or he would have to kill Eric…
A green explosion rocked the wall nearby, showering them all in a fresh wave of debris.
Jack accessed the code and punched it in.
AT ALL COSTS
EVERY LAST MAN Protocol overridden. Access granted. Overload in t minus 6 minutes, 59 seconds.
Jack turned Eric's shoulder so that they were face to face and lifted his visor, Eric doing the same. Jack looked him eye to eye.
"You're a brave soldier, Eric. You're always a part of the team."
"Don't patronize me, just go-,"
"I mean it Eric. Regret nothing. You've done everything any of us can ask for."
Jack pressed his plasma rifle into Eric's arms, to give him some form of protection while he waited out the minutes. They held gaze a moment, and then Eric slid his own visor shut. Jack nodded and squeezed his shoulder one last time, hating himself more deeply than he hated the Covenant.
6:48 seconds to go.
Jack rose and leapt back over the gap in the platform, just as its interlocking tubes came back to life with a gel-glass shimmer and refilled with energy. Just as he skidded to a halt beside Logan and Rachel, the two Spartans tossed aside their spent plasma rifles. Jack drew his M6D and took careful aim at the Hunter now closing in on them.
"We need to get behind it and kill it," Jack said. The Hunter had twenty meters to go. Logan nudged his head behind him.
"Eric holding down the fort, then?" Logan didn't need to ask if he was staying for good.
Jack nodded. Rachel lowered her head briefly, then glanced behind them at Eric. He held Ashley in his arms, their helmets thrown off. It looked like he was whispering to her softly. The Hunter's steps clanked loudly on the floor as it roared.
Ten meters to go.
Jack looked to either side at Logan and Rachel.
"Green-Two and Three, give me a boost."
The Spartans recognized his orders at once and knelt forward, placing their arms, hands palm up, before Jack's feet. This was something they thought might never prove useful in combat. But Spartan training was innovative.
The Hunter picked up its pace with six meters to go. Jack tensed, then stepped forward onto Logan and Rachel's hands. The two Spartans thrust upward and Jack leapt forward through the air. Already several meters upon the raised platform, he tucked into an aerial somersault and was propelled over the Hunter's head and lethal spines. Jack landed in a crouch on his feet and rolled to absorb the fall, coming out facing about on one knee, pistol raised at the Hunter's exposed backside.
Jack fired once.
The Hunter flinched and its momentum carried it the last three meters up the steps, where Logan and Rachel stepped aside. The creature then collapsed and fell forward into the renewed and shimmering beam of energy, where it was vaporized instantaneously.
Jack sighed and lowered his gun.
6: 31 seconds.
Jack sprinted behind one of the pillars and slung the Elder Prophet over his shoulder. He then motioned for the crystal and Rachel tossed it to him. They each paused at the foot of the steps.
All three turned and gave Eric one last two-fingered, bitter-sweet smile salute goodbye, then turned and ran with Jack for the doorway. The Engineer followed.
As the three Spartans crossed the entrance threshold, the Engineer halted and accessed the door panel, working to restore the shield barrier and prevent any from entering…or exiting. But as Jack reached out to speed him along, he heard a low hum and turned.
Three Phantom dropships hovered before them from their hiding spots. One from each side around the bend of the Shrine and one from below the center landing deck. Nine turrets flashed red plasma.
The Spartans hardly flinched and continued to run towards the nearest Phantom. Searing plasma swerved and compressed to avoid them and the crystal, and some even struck back at the Phantoms in their randomized vectors. Jack sprinted for one Phantom's anti-gravity troop deployment openings. Sure enough, three gold Elites dropped from the Phantom, as well as other Covenant from the other two Phantoms. But Jack had no mind for them. Only what was in his way.
With a deft leap and a swift kick Jack knocked one Elite away and over the edge of the open deck into the abyss below. Upon landing Jack ducked another Elite's swing of its energy sword. Logan and Rachel disposed of the alien with a series of rapid punches. The third primed a plasma grenade and threw it directly at Jack. But the super-charged device was warped by the Prophet's crystal and swiveled back towards the Elite, latching onto its shoulder. Jack shot a foot out and caught the Elite in the chest, sending it over the edge like the first with a flash of blue light.
Before any other Covenant soldiers could pour down, the Spartans had already leapt into the beam and were gravitated into the troop bay.
Inside awaited six more Elites.
In several chaotic moments, the Spartans had knocked out three Elites, stolen the weapons of three more and killed them all. All three were panting, surprised they had all survived. Even Logan without his shields was unscathed. The sheer confusion and ruthlessness of their approach into the ship had caught the Elites off guard.
Logan and Rachel tended to dispatching the pilots and taking over the controls, where they would hope the other Phantoms had not yet been alerted as to the outcome of the battle. Jack set the Elder Prophet against the wall, the Engineer by his side. Jack turned to the floating creature and pointed at the Elder.
"Watch him."
The message was clear enough for the Engineer, who began attending to minor scrapes on the Prophet's body, dripping from between the gashes in the Prophet's once glimmering robes. Jack rose and went to the cockpit. Rachel turned from the pilot's seat and spoke, her voice with less charm. First Ashley, then…
"Enemy Phantoms are onto us. I'll get us out of here. The Engineer might be able to help us send the proper counter-responses and we can slip onboard a larger ship."
Jack nodded and returned to the main deck, but the Engineer was already moving towards the cockpit. Jack walked over to the Elder and knelt before him. Jack was exhausted, but was ready to tend to all his allies.
He checked the Elder's heartbeat, not quite sure if the alien's body worked the same as a human's. Even the creature's skin felt cold. He looked towards the Engineer and caught its gaze before it disappeared into the cockpit. The Engineer looked back at him with a look of defeat and sadness. And suddenly Jack knew beyond a doubt that the Elder was dead, had been dead from the moment the beam was deactivated and the crystal unpowered.
Jack slammed his fist against the wall.
And then it hit him. What he had let Eric commit himself to doing. What he had promised never to let happen. Jack sank against the wall, hating himself, spilling angry tears. He glanced at the countdown timer.
5:13.
The Phantom lurched and accelerated to top speed. Its shields gave way under fire from the two pursuing Phantoms. But the ship held and it passed beyond the giant outer sphere's entry ports into the night.
Rachel piloted the dropship over the Covenant metropolis until she found what her readings confirmed as the evacuated Covenant destroyer, in for repairs.
Bingo.
The Phantom pulled into the larger ship's open hangar, where the team made a swift landing and sped to the destroyer's bridge. Once all three Spartans, the Engineer, and the Elder were inside, the controls were fired up. Already Covenant Seraphs and Phantoms were closing in on their position, alerted to the danger. The destroyer groaned to life and began to accelerate out of the atmosphere, dozens of smaller ships in pursuit. Other, larger warships however would be called in from orbit to trap them, and so Rachel prepared their slipspace jump.
"Where to, Green-One?" she asked.
Jack looked at the hologram of the Covenant homeworld below them, at the large spherical structure, still visible from space, that encircled the Holy Shrine of the Rings. The sphere that encircled Eric and trapped him. The sphere that would become his tomb.
But no, he was already lost once Ashley died. Was already bent on taking his life, sacrifice or not. Jack glanced at his pistol, two rounds left in the magazine.
How many more would he sacrifice?
o o o
1:07.
Eric stroked Ashley's red hair, wishing her blue eyes were open and staring back into his. Her hair was cropped short, military cut. But to Eric, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
He thought back to their childhood…no, to their indoctrination as soldiers. As Spartans.
She would always tease him, make fun of him when he messed up. It made him angry, not at her, but at himself, for failing, for not being better than the others. It drove him into a frenzy to follow orders to the letter, to get the job done, to be perfect in her eyes. It took him years until he understood her teasing as playful and that in truth she admired him.
As they grew up, they knew each was the other's inspiration. Their relationship was kept secret, though the signs weren't hidden for long, and by their mid twenties had fallen victim to lust and made love.
And now here Ashley lay: cold, dead, so different than she was in life. It was not fair that her death was not instantaneous like his would be. That she had to bleed and drain and lose her life second by second, in Eric's arms. She had told him to help the team. But didn't she understand? She was the only reason he fought. Without her, he would have dropped out, taken a dishonorable discharge and been left to a regular life.
The other Spartans were his brothers and sisters. But Ashley…she was his lover. No other comes before that. Not even the team.
I hope you understand, Ashley. I hope you understand why I am weak. I give in to love. I'm giving the team one last gift.
And with that Eric kissed Ashley's cold lips, tears running down his face, dripping silently on the hard floor.
He didn't even notice the countdown hit 0:00.
o o o
Jack watched as a bright flash shone brilliantly on the surface of the Covenant homeworld. Eric's supernova gift to the Covenant. Jack marked SPARTAN-004 as MIA. Rachel called out from the cockpit.
"Entering Slipspace!"
Jack clutched the crystal tightly. He thought of the Chief, the other Spartans…Reach.
The hologram faded. Jack closed his eyes.
How many more?