Chapter Twenty: Now What?
November 28, 2552 1425 hours
Covenant Warship Holy Retribution
Unknown System
Laura came back to consciousness a few hours later on the bridge of the Covenant ship. Her shoulder had been filled with biofoam and bandaged, and the shoulder plating on her armor had been removed; she saw the jagged hole where the strut had gone through, and felt she didn't want to know how bad her injuries had been. She sat up and tried to orient herself to her surroundings. The other four Spartans were nearby, cleaning their weapons and watching Covenant Engineers work on repairs. One of them turned and noticed her sitting up; by the voice, it sounded like Will.
"Welcome back. You were out awhile."
"The things I do for humanity," Laura said wryly. "What did I miss?"
"Not too much. We've found on a planet and are taking on air. Your plan almost worked flawlessly."
Laura decided to take that as a compliment and tried to stand up. She was barely on her feet for five seconds when she fell back down on her butt, denting the deck beneath her as she landed in full armor. Cortana materialized on a holopad near the control panels.
"You are still suffering the aftereffects of atropine poisoning. While the dosage was too small to be fatal, it was still enough to do some minor damage to your system."
Laura was unconcerned. "I'll be fine, Medical can fix me up when we get back. Where are we?"
"I've made a random jump according to the Cole protocol. At the moment, we are in an unknown system. There are still a few Covenant hunter-killer teams onboard, as well as a number of Grunts and possibly a Prophet, but most of them were wiped out." Cortana paused for a moment. "I must say I'm impressed with how well the plan worked."
"Save the parades for later. We've got a lot of work to do before we head home." Laura got to her feet and managed to stay up this time. She looked with disdain on the punctured shoulder of her Mjolnir armor, nudging it slightly with her boot as she frowned down on it. "So much for my new suit. I much prefer the blacksuits. Those weren't used to the point of being worn out before I got them."
Fred looked at her, and when he spoke he was angry. "That armor is the best--"
"Correction: your armor is the best. I was given one of the suits you had before you got the ones that you have now. ONI figured that would reduce my survival chances by half. All they did was pound out the dents, polish it, and repaint it to make it look new and top-of-the-line." She smiled grimly, even though she knew they couldn't see it with her helmet on. "Ackerson has no idea how long I've been cracking his codes. I knew ahead of time what he was up to."
"Then why did you go on this mission?"
"Chief, I have my reasons. Besides, I made the mistake of being arrogant enough to think I could survive on my own. I thought my portable shield generator would save my sorry little ass, and look where it got me." She looked around at the Spartans, and when she spoke again her tone was almost softened and pitying. "You may as well know the rest of it. Ackerson sent us on this mission hoping to get us killed, and did his best to try and get everything FUBAR before we left; in case you didn't notice, we had almost no intel or recon, even though there've been several probes and scouts launched in preparation for this op. He hates the Spartan program, but can't get rid of it on his own, at least not without arousing suspicion. He sent us out expecting us to fail, and did his best to stack the deck and make sure we would."
Only Cortana wasn't surprised, since her own forays into ONI's network had yielded that very information. The rest were too shocked for words. Laura had laid it out straight, since it was part of her nature to be bluntly honest when she needed to make a point, not realizing that they trusted ONI almost to the core. She felt the tension and realized she'd better go.
"Cortana, where's the location of the nearest hunter-killer team?"
"Two levels down."
"Excellent. I'll be back shortly." She strapped on her shoulder plate (while there was that big hole in it, it was still better than nothing), camouflage belt, and her knives. Pausing at the doorway, she looked back at the Spartans and shook her head. "Not everyone in ONI is as evil as Ackerson, but they can't do anything to stop him, and most don't even know how despicable their boss really is. You deserved to." She turned on her camouflage.
"Cortana, seal the door after I leave. Don't open it for anything."
Cortana opened a private COM link. "How will you get back in if I seal the door?"
"Just leave it shut. If by some miracle I do succeed, you'll know."
With that, she walked out the door, anticipating not to make it back. She knew what lay ahead of her, but didn't care. Her pain was too great to let her turn around; she hadn't wanted to hurt him, but had to tell all of them the truth. This was the only way she could think of to make amends: either she'd erase the mistake ONI called Blade, or take out the enemy by performing the skills which had earned her that codename.
Back on the bridge, the Spartans contemplated the news Laura had given them. They were shocked that ONI could do such a thing, but there was no other theory to fit the facts: 1) that ONI had knowingly provided Laura an inferior suit of armor, 2) that Colonel Ackerson had attempted to send them on this mission without any intel or backup (not realizing the resourcefulness of both Laura and Cortana), 3) that he had tried to kill her on the obstacle course before they went on this mission, using almost the same methods as he had for the Master Chief. During their initial debriefing following their arrival on Earth, they all knew Ackerson hadn't been happy to see them alive, but none of them were sure why. Fred was still dubious about the whole thing, pointing out that Laura had a strong hatred of ONI for reasons unknown to any of them, when Cortana broke into the argument.
"She's right. I took the liberty of checking Ackerson's files on the Spartan program after the incident on the obstacle course. He not only demonstrates a loathing for the Spartan program, he also has a particular hatred for SPARTAN-000, possibly because she turned out impossible for ONI to control. No matter how hard they tried to put her in her place, she always managed to find a way out and turn the tables so that their schemes backfired."
"If she's as uncontrollable as you say, why should we believe her?"
"Because she has over time won the respect of most of the UNSC officers, has performed her duties extraordinarily, put herself at risk to give you and the rest of the Spartans time to get back to the ship,"—Fred winced at that—"and because she is at this moment on her way to take care of a Covenant squad en route to the bridge." Cortana paused and shook her holographic head. "Something tells me she may not be planning to come back."
She replayed the conversation that had taken place before Laura left the bridge. While she was doing that, Cortana used the ships security cameras to monitor Laura's progress. When she reached the Elite commandos, Cortana put it on a holographic viewscreen so the Spartans could watch. Laura had reached the Covenant, and disengaged her cloaking device.
"You cannot proceed any further. If you surrender now, I swear you will not be harmed. Or would you rather have it said of you that you were defeated by a female?" With that, she yanked off her helmet to reveal her face. The Master Chief thought it was even more attractive than he'd seen yet; there was a fire in her eyes that he'd never really noticed before. Dropping her helmet on the floor, Laura drew her knives and waited for her words to hit home. As she had guessed would happen, the Elites were enraged by her taunts and rushed forward. Laura stood her ground and waited until they brought their energy rifles to bear.
In one fluid motion, becoming a whirling dancer of death in spite of the thick armor, she slipped past the first charging Elite and slit his throat; over a number of engagements with Elites, she'd learned that their shields were not equipped to repel projectiles that came at certain speeds—they could handle most weapons fire or melee attacks, but a knife was just slow enough to penetrate their defenses, while a sniper rifle projectile was fast enough to slip by. A second Elite lost his arm while a third was deprived of his arm and leg. The fourth was clever enough to maintain his distance after seeing what Laura was capable of. She made a quick end of the others, and watched the last warily. The Elite fired a series of plasma bolts, chortling as they hit their mark. The Spartans on the bridge watched in shock as Laura crumpled to the deck under the barrage, apparently dead.
"No, it can't be. Cortana, she can't have failed." The Chief spoke on a private link.
"Chief, I… wait a second… Oh how clever!"
As the Elite stood over his kill, a roar of pain escaped him as the point of a titanium blade appeared to grow out of his back. When he toppled over, they could see Laura was still alive. Her armor was burned and blackened from the plasma, and she winced as she stood up, but she was alive. She looked down at the dead Elites and shook her head.
"You fought well and honorably. Rest well and at peace."
Her next act surprised everyone; Laura walked up to what seemed like empty space and began to speak. Looking closer, they noticed a slight shimmer in the air and realized the 'empty space' was an Elite in active camouflage.
"I know you're there, and I know you can understand me. You are also not here to kill me or you would have attempted it by now. Since all these facts concur, it's safe to assume you were sent as an observer. Take this message back to your leader: this war is both useless and pointless. Too many have died already on both sides, and for no real reason. You say our destruction was the will of the gods, yet what mortal truly knows the mind of a god? Myself, I think this was merely a farce. While you spent all those months observing us, you began to fear us. You saw yourselves in humanity, and know we have the potential to become as powerful as you, so you chose to destroy us without giving us a chance. All you needed was a united armada, and so you decreed our existence as a blight upon the universe. Nothing unites a race quite as well as religion, so you rallied to one banner. Yet ask yourselves, what is the real reason? Are we really a blight on the universe, or are we merely a different facet of it? Was it the gods who called for our death, or mere mortals? What mortal being can truly fathom the all-knowing and intricate mind of a god?" She shook her head. "Our races are not so different, really. We could be so much stronger together, if you only give us a chance to prove ourselves. Humanity is a staunch adversary, no matter the danger, and we never give up, that you must have seen by now. We could be far stronger together as allies than separated as enemies." With that, she turned and left the room, leaving all observers in shock with her words; her views made sense, but could be viewed as treason if an officer were to hear them.
November 28, 2552 1530 hours
Laura continued to sweep the area around the bridge, eliminating Covenant teams whenever she found them. It all seemed too easy; she wondered if her message had gotten through. Time enough to worry about that, she thought as the pain began to overwhelm her. I've got bigger things to worry about right now. Better head back if I can. The pain was getting too hard to ignore; she wondered how bad it actually was. She took the quickest way to the bridge she could find, hoping it would be an easy road. Surprisingly, Laura made it back with no trouble, until she got to the door and remembered it was sealed. Putting her helmet back on (having retrieved it on her way back), she listened in on the conversations going on inside the bridge.
"Cortana, is she outside yet?" Linda's voice, Laura thought.
"I can't tell, the cameras outside the bridge doors were disabled during one of the firefights earlier. Anybody could be out there."
"How many more commando teams are still onboard? Any guesses?" Will, I think.
"I know better than to try. Hopefully, Blade got the rest of them. I never thought I'd see anyone better at knife-wielding than me." Fred, definitely, he's the knife-specialist, plus I'd know that bitter tone anywhere.
"Even if she was outside, how would we know it was her?" Will again.
"She'll find a way to let us know. Laura is more intelligent than she lets on." Cortana, that was unnecessary. We need to have a very long talk, you and I.
Laura had heard enough to know what was going on, and was in too much pain to wait for very long. She keyed in on the COM and let loose a birdcall, specifically a red-winged blackbird. Almost immediately the chatter died.
"Cortana, what was that?" That's him, she thought, her heart pounding.
"A signal of some sort. I've never heard anything like it before. It doesn't match any known Covenant signals or codes."
"Then it could be anything."
"Chief, what about the all-clear?" Linda again.
A few moments later Laura heard a six-tone whistle over the COM.
"Olly Olly Oxen Free? I take it there's an interesting story behind that." She paused a moment to inspect the burns, winced as she brushed the charred spot on her torso, and spoke again.
"As much as I'd like to just stand here and chat, I have some serious maintenance that needs to be done here. Mind sending out a repair kit or two?" In spite of her wry tone, the other Spartans could hear she was in pain. They opened the door and helped her inside.
"How long were you out there?" In spite of the faceplates, she knew it was Fred by the voice and the condescending tone; he wasn't too fond of her for reasons she didn't know. Probably still pissed about the sparring, she figured. He really needs to get over that.
"About two or three minutes before I let out that birdcall. The amount of time you spent on Earth and you still didn't recognize it? Amazing." She grimaced as they touched the charred spot on her armor.
"Let's get this off and look at the damage."
Laura was in too much pain to even argue about modesty like she normally would have. She lay there while John and Fred pulled off the blackened portions of her armor. Fred whistled at the extent of the damage.
"How did you get so far with that?"
"I have a tendency to be bull-headed. Sometimes, it does more harm than good. Just patch me up, will ya? I'm not comfortable being naked in front of guys, even if it's only partially so." She wrestled with her helmet. "And I'm definitely not comfortable with helmets," she said as she dropped it to the deck.
About two thirds of her torso was burned and blistered from the plasma heat. She was bleeding slightly as well, and there was debris in the wound. John was almost sickened by the sight, and was glad the others couldn't see the worry on his face. Fred didn't say anything as he probed the wounds with a scalpel from one of their field medical kits, but his body language gave him away: the injuries bothered him as well.
"Laura, why didn't you wear your shield?" In spite of the armor, Laura knew it was Linda speaking.
"The shield I brought with me was still in its experimental stages. It's temperamental at the best of times, but when that plasma grenade went off, the entire protective field was overloaded by the electrical disruption. Basically, the entire shield unit is dead, fried worse than I am at the moment. Until I get it repaired, I'm on my own." She winced and shot a nasty glare at Fred, the nastiest one she could muster. "Why are you poking me? That hurts!"
"I'm trying to figure out the safest way to remove the dead tissue. I've never seen burns this bad before."
"Lucky. If you want to see bad burns, work in the emergency room with my mother sometime. Give me that scalpel." She grabbed the scalpel and began to scrape the burned skin off her body bit by bit. John winced just watching her, even more than she was; he could see she was fighting not to cry out, especially since the tears that were gathering in her eyes were tears of pain.
"Damn, Laura, why don't you use an anesthetic?"
"I don't use them unless I have to. Besides, this is just a little burn. If you want pain, try being beat up by twenty ODSTs with no way to defend yourself." She smiled wryly, and began talking in order to take her mind off the pain. "Believe me, this is nothing compared to some of the things I've seen my mother treat in the OR. Burns, broken and/or severed limbs, gunshots, knife wounds, you name it. Too many accidents happen on base, and most of them wind up being during her shifts. Add to that the fact that she also studies microorganisms and you've got one busy doctor. I've worked with her and lent a hand on the really busy days: it's really interesting stuff if you can stomach it. Pretty much everyone at that hospital knows me, and they're always glad when I can assist. I learn quickly, so all they need to do is tell me what they need and how to do it; it only takes one time and I'm up and running with the rest of them."
She finished scraping off the burned skin and began to clean out the wound. About five minutes later she had finished and was trying to put her armor back on; Fred and Will stopped her.
"As badly as you've been hurt, you wouldn't be able to stand wearing the armor. Leave it off."
"Since when do you know my limitations? I've withstood a hell of a lot worse than this dinky little burn!" They could tell she was lying by the slight quiver in her voice. She knew it too, and decided to change the subject.
"What did you mean by firefights earlier? I thought it was too easy on my rounds earlier; did they bypass me and come after you guys?"
"Yes, they did. There's also a possibility that there's still more of them on board." Will's tone was grim.
"I'll just have to take care of them later. Now I'm worn out, and I'd guess I'm not the only one. We need to rest up before we do anything else, or we won't be combat-ready if the shit hits the fan; get some sleep, I'll take first watch." As the Spartans' heads snapped around in shock, Laura shook her head. "As I said, I'll be fine. You need the rest more than I do, and I've got too much on my mind to sleep. I need to think more than anything else, but don't worry, I'm still in fairly good shape."
John didn't like it, but couldn't argue without giving himself away. "Wake me after six hours. I'll take the watch after you." As one, the Spartans dropped off to sleep, leaving Laura alone with Cortana.
"You are planning to wake him up, aren't you?"
"No, actually I wasn't. No need for him to know that, though. I'm in too much pain to sleep."
"You said it didn't hurt all that much."
"It's not that kind of pain, Cortana, even though that does hurt something awful: it feels like someone's constantly stabbing me in the side with a fork. You'd have to be human to really understand, and I can't describe it properly. No point in talking about it, really; I have to deal with this on my own terms." She drew one of her combat knives and stared at it thoughtfully; the reflection staring back at her revealed a grim look on her slightly-rounded face, with strands of dark brown hair drifting around to frame it. Slowly, Laura spun the knife around and pointed the knife to her chest, preparing to plunge it into her heart, but she hesitated for a moment before spinning it away again. Cortana's holographic image watched curiously.
"Are you planning some form of self-deletion?"
"Hardly, Cortana, as I said before, you wouldn't understand. Just let me be."
"Are you in love with him?" The AI's words sent Laura's head upward in shock.
"How--?"
"You forgot to turn off a com channel earlier, and the Chief and I heard you say his name. When are you going to tell him?"
"I'm not." Laura shook her dark head. "He cares nothing for me, none of them do. I could be killed right now and none of them would care. All I am is a hindrance, a nobody who just happened to be the guinea pig for the SPARTAN project. The only reason they put up with me is because of orders from High Command; otherwise they'd probably kill me now and be happy to do so. Even if any of them really appreciated me, I'd still be nothing more than an outsider. I'm nothing more than a mistake that was never corrected or erased." She paused. "ONI did all they could to erase my existence, once they found they couldn't control me, but they tried and failed to erase me. You read the files Lorienna gave you?" When Cortana nodded, she went on, "Then you know everything, so I shouldn't need to explain it to you. They'll stoop to anything if they think it'll give them an advantage over me. If they found out I loved someone outside of my family, they'd try to use him against me. I don't want to put anyone through that, especially not him. I do love John, but it's one of those things that can never be."
Neither of them realized that John was still awake, and had been watching and listening the whole time. However, Cortana did notice an anomaly on the bridge sensors.
"I'm detecting something unusual on the sensors, Laura."
"I know. He's been there since I came on the bridge."
"You knew he was there? And you didn't say anything?"
"There was no need to say anything." Laura laughed softly and mirthlessly. "After spending a lot of time on my own, I've learned to tell what does and doesn't belong in any setting, even foreign ones; I noticed he was behind me the moment I stopped outside the bridge doors, but he made no move so I let him be for a time. He's only an observer, not really a threat to any of us. We've been speaking no secrets, so all he's really picking up is what humans are like when they're not fighting for survival. Poor guy's probably bored out of his skull watching and listening to me prattle on and on about nothing."
"Still, he could be a threat."
"Cortana, if he was an assassin he would have attacked us by now, at which point I would have slit his throat. Okay, maybe not slit his throat, but at least captured him in one piece."
"You seem uneasy about killing Covenant soldiers where most humans would enjoy the prospect. Why?"
"I have a slightly skewed perspective on life, Cortana. I've never liked killing, even when it was necessary. Plus, as you no doubt heard earlier, I believe this whole war was all started with a misunderstanding. If I can, I take people alive rather than kill outright, which is perfect for stealth missions, but not so good on the front lines. What keeps me fighting is the hope that I can save the people I care about from certain death as much as possible."
Laura's eyes filled with tears, which surprised Cortana—she'd never seen a Spartan cry, let alone this particular Spartan. When she spoke again, her voice was a whisper. "I committed my first murder when I was twelve years old, Cortana. I turned off life support for a 90-year-old woman because she was suffering. She and her family had begged the doctors for an end, but they kept refusing. I couldn't bear to see her suffering any longer, so I snuck out of the base one night and pulled the plug, and have felt guiltier than hell about it ever since." She paused and carefully wiped away the tears on her face; it wouldn't do to have to explain how she'd gashed herself wiping off her face in Mjolnir armor. "I haven't felt the same way about killing someone since then. It's one thing to train to kill people you've never met, it's quite another to kill someone you care about. If you could have been there maybe you'd understand."
"Perhaps. I did read your files, remember. Several references to Helen Gedeon's death were included when ONI was trying to decide what to do about your going AWOL."
"Yeah, they weren't too thrilled about that. As I recall, it took them a while to figure out how I managed to sneak out, and they still got it wrong." Laura shook her head and stood up. "Speaking of files, have you picked up on anything useful in there?"
"The Covenant still have no idea we've captured this ship, so for now we're all-clear. However…" Cortana's holographic figure stared off into space. "Well, that's interesting."
"What's interesting?" Laura asked, an expression of curiosity on her face.
"According to a number of archived transmissions I've decoded, there is a piece of recently-scavenged Forerunner technology which apparently allows people to access memories. If you could bring it up to the bridge, we could keep an eye on it until we get back to Earth."
"Where is it? Can you get me to it?"
"I've places a NAV marker on your HUD. You should be able to get there and back fairly quickly. Just make sure you hurry: there's no telling what might happen if you take too long."
"I'll be quick. Just let me wake someone up to hold the fort, and I'll be gone."
She shook the Master Chief awake, or so she thought. "It's a shame to wake you, but Cortana's given me a new objective: a unique piece of technology onboard the ship. I'm going to bring it back here so we can start looking it over before our scientists tear it to pieces. Shouldn't take long, I'll be back before you know it."