The Last Days of Charum Hakkor: Chapter 3

Seven hours in. More cries of landing craft appeared all over the city, and even the planet itself. I thought of the Primordial and the seven thousand warriors that guarded it. I asked myself if anybody deserved the knowledge that that beast could provide. I came to the conclusion that no. Nobody did. Not even the Forerunners. The answers that that thing gave were worthy of nothing but itself. I would not wish it on the most evil of the Ancestors.

The sun was gone, masked by smoke and the debris itself above us. Even though it would be midday in Padak Hakkor, it looked as if the gates of hell had opened right here. For all it seemed, that was exactly what happened.

"Picket cruiser right behind us!" the Deckmaster announced.

"I'll deal with him!" the Weaponsmaster answered. "Weapon station 20! Target what I'm giving you!"

"It will be done, my Lord!"

The cruiser next barreled over us with its body on fire. It tried to right itself and fire at us, but a Precursor column melted into view and the doomed cruiser slammed into it. Half a second later, we were past it, and back into the battle.

"Here comes the Mantle's Approach!" Podam cried out.

"Take a shot at it!" I ordered. "Let the Didact know I am true to my word!"

"Aye, my Lord! Firing!" the Weaponsmaster announced. Both tubes of antimatter warheads towards the Didact's flagship. A massive explosion set out for kilometers as the reaction between mater and its opposite took place. That must have been a hundred ship kills. The shock rolled over our shields, but we rumbled somewhat.

"Chief of Signals! Check to see that the Didact has been killed!"

"Scanning!"

The clouds cleared, but I saw the answer myself. "No…"

The Mantle's Approach kept on coming despite an explosion of incredible proportions. Being in atmosphere would only make it more powerful. But there it was, with shields crackling. All the ships around it though had been cleared.

"Confirmed delivery… I count thirty thousand individual kills! Mantle's Approach is unharmed. By the Ancestors..." Lodemathan breathed. "How do we stop that ship?"

"I knew it wouldn't be that easy." I growled. "Ready another shot!"

"Lord of Admirals!" the Weaponsmaster screamed, "Boarding pods inbound!"

"What?!" small dots blasted from his ship. In seconds, the ship shook as a deep clang sounded through the hull.

"They're on!" The Weaponsmaster screamed. "We're being boarded!"

"Why didn't our shields stop them?"

"I… I don't know!" the shocked officer looked over his instruments, trying to find an explanation for all of this. "I… all decks are reporting that the Warrior-Servants have invaded! Sir, they're firing on the crew."

That did it. They had forced their way aboard. It was going to come to this. "Captain!" I called. One of the bridge guards stood straight with arms to his side.

"My Lord?"

"We need to set up a defensive perimeter around the bridge. We leave this room, and we'll be dead. I want you to rally whatever soldiers you can, and defend the bridge. They want us alive."

The man's helmet dipped in obedience. "We will lay down our life for you, Lord." He looked around the bridge. "You will want energy shields to defend yourself. I will have a full group guarding this door. They shall not reach the bridge."

I smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder. I understood him because the thoughts that went through his head were the same ones that went through mine. We had little illusions that we would walk away from this. The Captain left some of his guards behind, and stepped through the blast door of the bridge. "My Lord?" I met his eyes. "It's been an honor to serve aboard this ship and defend Charum Hakkor."

"You do me proud, soldier." When the door closed, I knew it would be the last time I would see that man alive.

There was very little left to do. Some of the weapon stations continued to fire. We didn't give the order to stop them though. I wanted to give the bastards every last ounce of strength we had.

Every ship, even a Grand Cruiser had emergency shield walls that we could throw up in case of a boarding. I ordered blast doors closed on the windows, and the guards at the ready, aiming their rifles, just waiting.

The communications played the cries of dying men and women aboard the Tara-Neede who wanted help, but couldn't get it. I did not know what was happening in the outside world, and what was left of the capital city. I thought of my home in Hondorin, which was probably destroyed by now; just a crater as deep as all the others on this planet.

It was quiet. My men watched the door. I heard blasts though down the hall for what seemed like an eternity. I had my own weapon ready, as if I thought we would be able to hold the position. I knew it was over, but I had to make a decision. Would I be leaving alive, or dead?

An hour after the Captain had left, I was ready to make that choice. The shields were up, and the bridge crew was armed. The guards stood with weapons pointed ahead. They knelt to maximize their accuracy. No doubt the Forerunners were using breaching charges to get in. Less-essential bridge crew hid in corners of the room. I didn't stop them, but I wouldn't hide like a coward. I would see this through to the end.

With another bang, the door split open. Tall men with visors spilled in. They wore golden visors and moved like unnatural things from the great beyond. The first Warrior-Servants raised their own rifles.

"Drop your weapons!" one of them called in our language. "The Didact does not wish this to end in bloodshed!"

A guard found a burst of courage. "No! I won't let you take this bridge!"

But I stopped him. I grabbed the barrel of his gun and forced it lower. "No. If the Didact wants us alive, he will take us alive. This isn't worth losing your head over!"

"But we will die! I know it!"

"No. He will not kill us, even though it seems that way!"

I'm sure he was considering suicide, but this was the most dishonorable way to die. Any soldier who even considered blowing his head off would not be worthy to stand on this bridge. I unclipped my weapon and threw it to the floor.

"Look on the bright side, you'll get your death… but not today." I stepped forward, defiant, even in defeat. With a glance behind me, my men followed suit. The soldiers looked at their guns and then dropped them. My trusted officers, the young Podam, the burly Weaponsmaster, and the intelligent Lodemathan stood proud and walked with me into the arms of waiting Prometheans. I heard no shots afterwards, so the crew had found their honor as well.

Even though I could not see their faces, I was sure the Prometheans viewed me with disgust. I was the lowest of the low to them. I was the scum of the galaxy, and yet, I felt as if nothing could touch me. We fought with all of our hearts, and we lost.

When we boarded the craft to bring us to the Mantle's Approach, I was granted a look over Padak Hakkor… what was left of it anyway. The capital city where our empire was once regulated, a city with towers that rivaled the Precursor structures was a burning mountain. Fires raged in a million different locations. But that wasn't what broke my heart. Not two minutes after we left the Tara-Neede, a bolt from on high intersected the Grand Cruiser. It flashed brightly for a second, but then shattered in flame and metal. I felt as if a part of me had died with that ship. One of the Warrior-Servants noticed the pain on my face.

"Your punishment begins with the destruction of your assets." He huffed in amusement.

Padom looked at the Forerunner soldier, "What will you do to us?"

"Silence, worm!" a senior warrior responded. "Those who disgrace the Mantle are not worthy of questions!"

The time aboard the Didact's flagship was one of the worst moments of my life, but the real horror came when we were brought to their capital. The fires of Charum Hakkor were far behind us, but the confines of some place beneath their capital seemed far more foreboding. I was herded with thousands of other survivors. Thousands out of millions. The slaughter hit me like a nuclear weapon as we were named the ships that were destroyed and how many were aboard them.

"The Tara-Neede! 29,478!" a herald called from somewhere in the room. "The Harrasser! 18,390! The Ch'esashi! 30,145!"

I wanted him to stop saying numbers. In the heat of the battle, the numbers were merely a detail, but after the fact, I recognized that every single number represented a life. A person, no different than me, who had a family, a home, and they were dead. In some ways, I wish I was like them, thinking that I was dying and that my sacrifice would mean a victory. Sometimes the dead were spoiled.

Then, he walked through the doors. He was here. The Didact stood out against the Prometheans around him. He was tall, easily four meters tall. To see him in person like this was quite humbling, especially without my uniform.

We had all agreed to get rid of our uniforms. We hoped this would confuse the Didact to go through everyone. An inconvenience to him… but he was able to find me. He spotted me out of the thousands gathered here. He came up to me with a smile.

"This was a place I wasn't expecting to see you, my nemesis."

"How did you find me?" I asked, enraged.

"Even by disposing of your uniforms, there are other ways to track a man. The way the others look at you, the way they respect you… These are not things that one can simply throw away. No… they are carried within our hearts as warriors." There was a moment where I felt he looked into my eyes, even though he was alien to me, we understood one another.

But then he was back to pacing around me. "Your punishment must be severe though. Your kind took the Mantle of Responsibility for All Things upon themselves. You forced your way into our space. You took worlds for your own, and killed those who stood in your way. Your hand alone has taken my children from me."

"Yet you still cling to their souls, unwilling to let them leave." I spat, referencing their Durances, which held what was left of their lives.

"You insulted our kind in life. I shall not allow you to insult them in death."

"But, as my wife has made it clear to me on many an occasion, we have our own problem. Your kind has faced the Flood, and you lived. I find myself in a rather… difficult position. I would demand you to tell me of the Primordial – The Timeless one, whatever you may call it in the hopes it will aid us in the Flood."

"But you know I will refuse to speak." I said to him, weak from the fighting.

"Indeed, and rightfully so." He flared his nostrils. I could tell that he wanted to tell me something that gave him… great pleasure. "But I have no need to make you talk, for your mind will be more than willing to speak for you."

I didn't understand, and he got down on his knee. Even kneeling, he was taller than I, and I was tall for my race.

"My finest opponent," he began. "the Mantle accepts all who live fiercely, who defend their young, who build and struggle and grow, even those who dominate – as Humans have dominated, cruelly and without wisdom. It is a kindness you do not deserve, but it is something we are willing to extend to you, for your own good.

"But to all of us, there is a time like this, when the Domain seeks to confirm our essences, and for you, that time is now." He looked towards the hallway that he came from, and nodded. Machines shaped like wedges hovered down the hallway into the room we were in. A strange light pulsed on it. For some reason, I was frightened by this machine.

But he lowered his voice to the level a friend would even, "Know this, relentless enemy, killer of our children, Lord of Admirals: soon we will face the enemy that you faced and defeated. I can see that challenge coming to the Forerunners, and so do many others…" He closed his eyes and got to his feet. "… and we are afraid."

His pain in saying that, in admitting that to me signaled the danger of the Flood. My own kind met the Parasite, but by the Ancestors, we won. Now the Forerunners were seeking to gain the edge we had. The Didact was afraid? I tried my best not to smile. For fifty years of constant assault on Charum Hakkor, after millions of our own dead, and I was supposed to feel pity? Not on my life.

"But as I said before, your unwillingness to divulge the secrets of how you bested the Flood do not anger me. It would be what I would do if I were you… but it does now matter." The Didact ordered the machines to line up in a neat column. "That is why you and many thousands of your people who may contain knowledge of how humans defended themselves against the Flood, will not pass cleanly and forever, as I would wish for a fellow warrior, but will be extracted and steeped down into the genetic code of many new humans."

I looked to the machines in horror. Even though I did not know their direct function, I knew what the Didact intended to do with us. He saw the presence of fear in my eyes, but did not respond in jest or in spite.

"This is not my wish, nor my will. It arises from the skill and wish of my life-mate, my wife, the Librarian, who sees much farther than I do down the swirling streams of living time. So, this additional indignity will be inflicted upon you. It means that, I believe, that humans will not end here, but may rise again—fight again. Humans are always warriors. But what and whom they will fight, I do not know. For I fear the time of the Forerunners is drawing to a close. In this, the Librarian and I find agreement. Take satisfaction, warrior, in that possibility." He stood and turned to leave. "The war is over, Human. You may have lost this fight, but there will be more battles for your kind yet."

Before he left, I asked him what was on my mind. "You will not let us die? By what means?"

The Didact turned to look at me one more time. "It is not easy to describe to you, Lord of Admirals, but regardless, I extended you a courtesy of a life after this… I do not think you will wish to want the answer to this. Now, I leave you to sleep. When you awaken, if you do at all, you will find yourself serving a new masters, touching minds you never thought possible, but for now… sleep."

I felt a prick at my arm. Drugs. Sedatives. By the time I realized it was happening, I was already feeling my lids becoming heavier and my body becoming sluggish. I was lowered onto a bed that was not there before, and there I lay. Before I closed my eyes for the last time in this life, I saw a bright flash of light… and then I was gone.

These are my recollection of the last days of the Human Empire, which I now tell to you. Learn from our mistakes, and learn that the Forerunners themselves were not without fault. Learn that nobody can stand at the top of all things and rule with a pure heart. We fought valiantly, bravely, with no fear of death… and the irony is that we were not granted death… instead, half-life. These are the last days of Forthencho, Lord of Admirals, Commander of the Last Fleets of Charum Hakkor.