Chapter 20: Pilgrimage

Heretic's Bane
The Fleet of Blessed Fortune
High Orbit over Earth

Fleet Commander Tessek Ronimus sighed as he gazed at the Imperial Covenant fleet slowly orbiting the holy planet below. The name of the planet had long been forgotten, but Ronimus knew that it was an extremely important strategic and religious objective for the Prophets. The exact nature of the planet was not known, and Ronimus and his fleet were absolutely forbidden to attempt to land on it. Instead, the Prophets would send the occasional scout ship, only to have it promptly destroyed by the Forerunner defenses. Ronimus knew of the Prophets' desire to discover more Forerunner facilities and artifacts, but never before had he seen a Forerunner planet so heavily defended.

"Fleet Commander!" One of the bridge crew yelled.

"What is it?" Ronimus asked, bored.

"Sensors have detected Slipspace fluctuations outside the system." The crewman said. "Though it must be some sort of mistake…"

"Don't make silly assumptions." Ronimus snapped, causing the Kig-Yar crewman to recoil in fear. "Tell me what that means."

"Well, from these readings, it says that there are hundreds of ships moving through Slipspace, maybe even a thousand or more, but it makes no sense. The Human fleets barely number over a hundred ships, and the majority of the Republican battlegroups have been accounted for. There's no way there can be so many ships, unless the humans have finally banded together, but such a thing has never happened!"

"This is troubling." Ronimus grumbled. "Order the ships to raise alert status to full, I don't want-"

Suddenly, Eternal Wrath, the cruiser that had been orbiting along the Heretic's Bane's port side, exploded in a massive fireball, sending shards of metal and clouds of volatile plasma flying in all directions. Heretic's Bane shuddered as the debris began impacting against her naked hull, while other ships, similarly unshielded, were caught in the fireball or were torn apart.

"Activate shields and power up weapons!" Ronimus yelled."Order the fleet to full alert!"

Like a hive of angry bees, the Covenant fleet suddenly began buzzing with activity. Bright blue flares flickered across the skies of Earth as Covenant ships powered up their shields. Clouds of Seraph fighters poured out of their hangar bays and started forming defensive screens around their motherships while the pickets took positions on the outermost edges of the fleet formation. However, even with the quick response, a half dozen more ships succumbed to the unseen enemy.

Like wraiths in the night, the three Ghillie-class frigates Ranger, Sojourner, and Voyager slipped out of the combat zone, their payloads expended. However, they weren't the only infiltrators working to sow confusion and destruction among the enemy. Phantom was among the Covenant fleet as well. It had been silently subverting a carrier, leaving instructions for it to ram the nearest ship at full speed. The resulting crash annihilated a cruiser as the carrier's front prow punched through its hull like a javelin. The damage from the crash touched off sensitive plasma cores in the carrier, creating massive secondary explosions that severely damaged a cruiser and incinerated a dozen small support ships.

At this point, the advantage of surprise had evaporated as the Covenant fleet finally mobilized. The infiltrator ships withdrew, leaving the rest of the fighting up to the more conventional warships. Leading the charge was Valhalla and Pegasus, leaving a mixed force of Fleet Orion and Starfall ships. Instead of jumping in all at once, Keyes had separated the Exile forces into several groups. That way, the Covenant would not know their true numbers, and it meant that Keyes would have reserves to call on if he needed them.

At face value, the three hundred Covenant ships would have demolished the seemingly paltry one hundred fifty that Keyes had deployed, but it failed to take into account that three quarters of the Covenant fleet was on the other side of Earth, well out of range and unable to contribute. The Covenant and Human ships both traded volleys of fire. Ships on both sides took hits and were damaged or destroyed. Valhalla and Pegasus spearheaded the assault, blasting a hole into the Covenant line with their superior firepower. However, the less advanced Human ships didn't fare so well. The destroyers Adamant and Kayle and the frigate Solusar were incinerated, and a dozen other ships took heavy damage.

"Fire all missiles at the orbital facilities!" Keyes yelled. "Instruct Pegasus, Ironbreaker, and, Siegebreaker to do the same!"

The two cruisers and two missile frigates unleashed a storm of high explosive destruction. The missiles sent devastating explosions rippling around the three Covenant defense platforms, wiping out the defensive fighter screens and blinding the platforms' point defense systems. With the signal given, Group Rogue Spear, Jiles' ragtag fleet of scavengers, mercenaries, and pirates, swarmed the Covenant installations. Since their job professions required it, the scavengers were extremely skilled in ship boarding and close combat. Within seconds, hundreds of heavy fighters, corvettes, and light frigates locked onto the Covenant defense platforms and began disgorging their armed cargo.

Meanwhile, Keyes' second battle group jumped in directly behind him and began contributing their firepower. Under the withering assault of missiles, lasers, and MAC rounds, the Covenant were forced to break formation or be destroyed. With a wide window over Earth, the Human ships quickly consolidated their small victory and entrenched themselves in high orbit. Meanwhile, with the element of surprise on their side, Jiles and his men were able to storm the vital sections of the defense platforms and seize control, adding their firepower to the Human fleet.

"Position secure." Jillian announced. "The Covenant ships are falling back."

"Get the dropshps ready to launch." Keyes ordered.

Hangar Deck

Five dropships sat in the hangar, warming up their engines and waiting for their cargo. These five dropships would be joining a total flight of twenty, with Covenant Republic support, to spearhead an assault onto Earth's surface. According to the information Silent Caretaker had given, the mechanism that allowed direct access to the Ark was located on the African continent. However the portal could not be opened without the aid of a Forerunner ship Silent Caretaker dubbed a "Keyship". Once a Keyship was prepped and ready, the strike force would then proceed to the Ark to deactivate the Sentinels and the rest of the Forerunner defense network.

The most obvious problem was finding a Keyship in the first place, but Silent Caretaker had a solution. Before the Forerunner abandoned the planet, they had left a single Keyship behind, buried under the surface where their enemies could not find it. As another security measure, the Keyship was kept permanently phased into a pocket of Slipspace, making it impossible to access via conventional means. Fortunately for the Humans though, Silent Caretaker knew where to find, and most importantly, how to access and activate the Keyship.

"Dropships ready to launch." Eurale announced.

"Begin stage two of the operation!" Keyes commanded.

With that, the dropships disgorged from their carriers and made a beeline straight for the planet. Normally, there wouldn't be any possible way for a small flight of dropships to pass the impenetrable wall of Sentinels guarding the planet, but Keyes had already thought of that. Thanks to data taken from Puddlejumper's flight recorder, Keyes was inspired by the tactic its crew used to reach the surface, and decided to take it to the next level.

At the outer edge of the battlespace, a Slipspace wormhole opened, and a massive silver arrow shot out at near lightspeed, showing no sign of slowing down at all. The silver arrow was actually the old civilian superfreighter Merchant's Bounty, out on its final voyage. Its sheer mass, rivaling that of a full size cruiser, would be its weapon. Covenant ships, seeing the fast approaching ship, were quick enough to maneuver out of the way, but they weren't the true target. Merchant's Bounty continued on its suicidal trajectory straight at Earth. The Sentinels, detecting the threat, began to mass together in an attempt to fight off the freighter. Golden beams of light lanced through the ship, but did nothing to slow it down. The ship's crew had long since abandoned ship and it was now only running on basic automated algorithms. The freighter then slammed into the Earth's atmosphere and the formation of Sentinels like a truck ramming a brick wall. Merchant's Bounty was crushed flat by the sheer force. Its nuclear reactor, already red-lining, finally overloaded and exploded, engulfing the skies over Earth with nuclear fire. Following close behind, the dropships blasted straight through the cloud of fire and debris, using the after effects of the explosion to shield their approach from the Sentinels.

"Why didn't we do this when we first came here?" Kay wondered. "It seems so much simpler now."

"I think it had something to do with the fact that we didn't have a superfreighter just happening to be sitting around for us to use." Kyle retorted, making sure enough energy was being diverted to shields to protect Puddlejumer from the heat and random debris. "Brace yourselves guys, this is going to be a rough landing."

Fortunately, unlike the first time they arrived, there were no Sentinels to greet them as they descended to the surface. The majority had been wiped out by Merchant's Bounty's sacrificial attack run, and the rest were busy trying to fight off other threats dipping into low orbit like Covenant warships attempting to retreat from or make their way to the main naval battle.

Lynn stayed quiet during the entire descent. She was trying to focus her mind for the battle ahead, but something kept distracting her. Whenever she let her mind and senses wander, she'd suddenly start catching brief glimpses of visions. Though it wasn't particularly harmful, it was fairly jarring and did a good job at breaking her concentration. The visions seemed to become more common as they neared the surface, and Lynn didn't think it was just coincidence.

"You okay?" John, who was sitting right next to her, asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Lynn gave a reassuring, but hollow smile.

Suddenly, the vision flashed before Lynn's eyes again, but it stayed much longer this time. She realized that it was another distant psychic echo, even more ancient than the one she picked up on Reach. She saw a single ship, neither Human nor Covenant, descending alongside them. Nobody saw it because it wasn't actually there. It was a figment in her imagination, trying to make sense of what her passive telepathy was detecting. As Lynn tried to get a more detailed look at the alien ship, it faded away just as quickly as it appeared.

With the Sentinel population in the area depleted, the majority of the assault teams met little resistance as they touched down on the landing zone. A few of them ran into some stiff Sentinel resistance, but they eventually managed to clear out the Sentinels. However, some teams ran into more Sentinels than others…

"Why the hell do we have to have the LZ with all its Sentinels still intact?!" Kay complained.

"Didn't you hear? Nobody likes you." Kyle snarked.

"Ha ha." Kay fired a burst from her rail rifle and downed another Sentinel. "They have to end eventually."

"Last I checked, there were exactly sixty two Sentinels stationed in this area." Silent Caretaker said helpfully. "So far, you've only destroyed ten of them."

"Can't you do something other than talk?" Kay yelled.

"I'm sorry, but that is not within my parameters."

"You do realize," Ackerson pointed out, "that you're holding up an entire platoon of Marines with all your bickering?"

"Oh screw this." Lynn drew Laevateinn and broke cover, charging the line of Sentinels. The automated drones turned and tried to track her, but Lynn had augmented her speed to the point where she was just a blur. Before anybody had time to blink, a dozen Sentinels dropped to the ground in pieces, their formidable shields useless against the sword powered by their own technology.

"Oh dear, she really is a special one, isn't she?" Silent Caretaker observed.

"Yeah." Kyle nodded. "You might want to stay back. It's kind of hard to tell you apart from a Sentinel."

"A wise decision." Silent Caretaker agreed.

The Sentinels put up a stubborn fight, but eventually they gave way to the determined assault led by Lynn and John. It took several more minutes for Silent Caretaker to phase the Keyship back into realspace. Soon, there was a deep rumbling from the earth that shook everything for miles around.

"Now we must proceed to the control station." Silent Caretaker said. "Fortunately, the operation of a Keyship one of my primary functions, so I can assist you there."

"Finally, something you can actually do!" Kay sighed.

"So wait, how do we get into the Keyship?" Sanah looked around. "My sensors are detecting a massive shift in the earth below, but I don't see anything we can use to-"

Suddenly, both the ragtag group and every single Marine and Covenant Republic solider disappeared in a flash of light.

Keyship

When their sense readjusted, everybody realized that they were now inside a cavernous, brilliantly lit chamber. The architecture and atmosphere was purely Forerunner and fairly familiar, but the main difference was the near perfect preservation. Every facility that they had previously come across had either been abandoned or partly destroyed from a long forgotten battle.

"There are several points of interest that will be imperative to gain control of." Silent Caretaker said. "The most expedient method would be to divide in teams."

"Fine, I'll get my men to take those areas." Ackerson nodded. "Me and my squad will go and take the bridge."

"Gladly."

"Lynn, you stay here and hold position." Ackerson's grin nearly turned into a sneer. "Just don't cause too much trouble."

After Ackerson and his Marines left, Silent Caretaker turned back to face Lynn and said, "It's a pity that I sent his squad the coordinates for the waste recycler facilities."

"Wait, you mean, you lied to him?" Sanah asked, bewildered.

"Correct. After careful observation, it is in my opinion that Ackerson and his men are not the optimal choice to take the bridge." Silent Caretaker explained. "Their combat rating, at best, is Class Two. The defenses at the bridge are Class Twelve."

"So wait, you mean we're the only ones that can beat them then?" Kyle asked.

"Not exactly. I specifically meant that you are currently the best suited to take on a Class Twelve threat, not that you would have an guarantee of winning."

"So then, what are our ratings then?" Lynn asked.

"Class Three."

This only elicited blank looks from everybody present. However, Silent Caretaker either didn't notice or didn't care and continued on.

"This is far as my protection can take you." Silent Caretaker said calmly. "You'll have to fight the rest of the way, but fortunately, it shouldn't be a long trip."

They quickly progressed though the large blast doors that led out of the room and passed through several eerily empty chambers.

"Why isn't there anything here?" Kyle wondered.

"Oh, there's definitely something here." Lynn cautioned.

"I agree." John nodded, his instincts warning him to stay alert.

"Wait." Sanah said, stopping. "My sensors are picking up movement. Two contacts, closing in fast."

"Watch out!" Lynn shoved Kyle and Kay, sending them flying across the chamber.

"What the hell was that for!?" Kay yelled before seeing a vaguely humanoid being materialize where she and Kyle were just standing.

"Company." John drew his rifle and fired at the new threat.

"Watch your back!" Lynn warned. John whipped around just in time to see the second ambusher rushing at him. A swift swing of his weapon connected with the attacker and sent it flying back.

"What are these things?" Kyle shouted, firing at the first attacker. It was a lanky, humanoid automaton that looked like a human version of a Sentinel. Its blue, glowing eyes resonated with the twin pair of blades attached to its forearms. The weapons looked briefly familiar until Kyle realized they were near identical to Lynn's phase sword.

"John! Don't let those things hit you!" Kyle warned. "Your shields will be useless against those blades!

"Oh dear." Silent Caretaker mused. "It appears Class Twelve Sentinels have already been deployed."

"You could've told us about them earlier!" Kay yelled as she tried to track one of the Sentinels. Even though the group had superior firepower, the Class Twelve Sentinels were ungodly fast, zipping to and fro.

"Something's not right." John observed, rolling to dodge a scissoring attack by one of the Sentinels. "They're moving too fast."

"Wait." Sanah backed off toward Silent Caretaker. "Is there some kind of teleportation grid in this ship?"

"Why of course." Silent Caretaker said matter of factly. "It's used by Monitors for expedient travel to and from the various facilities that require their attention."

"Can Sentinels use the grid as well?"

"Possible. However, most Sentinel types are not advanced enough to take advantage of the grid, but Class Twelve Sentinels can."

"Can you disable it?"

"But that would be a violation of numerous proto-"

"Oh, shut up." Sanah cut off the Monitor and forcibly plugged in a connection jack into it.

"Wait! That's not supposed to go there!" Silent Caretaker whined.

Sanah ignored him and continued taking advantage of her opportunity to hack the Forerunner network. While daunting at first, Sanah found it monumentally simple to break through the initial firewalls and anti intrusion measures. Apparently, Forerunner programmers thought along the same lines as human ones. Ignoring Silent Caretaker's protest, Sanah quickly deduced which systems were running the Keyship's teleportation grid. She only had a few seconds before the system's electronic defenses could reform themselves, which only gave her enough time to tinker with the programming of just one of the Sentinels.

An instant later, one of the Class Twelve Sentinels suddenly disappeared and reappeared, fused inside the chamber wall as its molecules combined with the walls. Such a freak teleportation accident would have been impossible with the system's safeguards, but Sanah had cleverly disabled them before she was booted back out of the system.

"Well, that lowers the threat by half." Kay sighed.

"We had enough trouble just fighting one." Kyle breathed. "I don't even know if John and Lynn can take it."

Sure enough, the second and final Sentinel was proving a handful, even for the telepath and the SPARTAN. Even without the ability to teleport, the killing machine was still supernaturally swift and agile, dodging every attack aimed at it. Lynn was being pushed to her limits trying to predict where the Sentinel will attack next and trying to dodge said attacks, while John, lacking the speed and finesse required to fight the Sentinel in close combat, contributed with tight, controlled bursts of gunfire to keep the Sentinel in check, which saved Lynn's life on more than one occasion.

At this point, Lynn knew she wasn't going to last much longer. The Sentinel had the advantage of endurance, and it wasn't necessarily concerned with actually hitting Lynn. All it had to do was force her to expend valuable energy to defend herself until she got tired and made a mistake. With nothing left to try, Lynn took a huge gamble and concentrated the last of her mental reserves to grab the Sentinel in a telekinetic hold. The Sentinel twitched and spasmed as it attempted to fight its way through the telekinetic attack.

"John! Now!" Lynn cried, her voice strained by the sheer effort required to hold down the elite Sentinel.

True to his nature, John didn't waste a second. The Sentinel attempted to swing its right arm around to swipe at him, but John easily grabbed it and brought his elbow crashing down on it, snapping the arm off like a toothpick. The Sentinel stayed inhumanly silent and tried to bring its other arm around to defend itself. Flicking his wrist, John activated the newly installed blade mounted in his forearm. The high frequency blade hummed and shivered as it plunged straight through the Sentinel's armored neck. With another flick of his wrist, John beheaded the machine, making it look deceptively easy. The head then fell off and comically bounced along the floor, but its actual body was still active and still very much dangerous. Determined to put it down once and for all, Lynn brought Laevateinn's unbridled fury down on the Sentinel. The magnificent blue blade slashed a perfect diagonal cut straight through the machine's armored torso like butter, knocking it down for good.

"I say!" Silent Cartaker floated in, his solitary blue eye flashing angrily. "This is a serious breach of protocol!"

"Be quiet and open the door." Sanah growled. "Or I'll hack you again and make sure to fry your speech circuits."

Getting back to the task at hand, Silent Warden opened the final door. As the group walked in, Lynn was suddenly hit with another vision, this one more lucid and longer than the previous ones…

Eden

She was strolling along inside a cave dug into the side of an ancient mountain. As she looked behind her, Lynn could see a massive, beautiful savannah stretching out as far as the eye could see. In front of her, Lynn could see at least a dozen people being led deeper into the cave. These were not people Lynn had seen before. From first look, Lynn could tell that they were rather primitive technology-wise, and looked upon the Monitors and Sentinels floating among them with a mixture of fear and reverence. As they ventured deeper into the cave, they finally met with a hauntingly beautiful woman. While she looked Human, there was something about her that made it clearly obvious that she wasn't. She looked upon the primitive people like a mother would to her children, which served to calm their fears.

"My children." The woman said. "The time has come for you to leave your homes, at least for a short time. A great darkness is approaching, and it will engulf you all if you stay."

This obviously agitated the primitives. They had absolutely no concept of a world outside their small villages and savannah, much less the countless worlds in the infinite universe above.

"Do not worry." The woman said soothingly. "You will be brought back in due time. However, I will not and cannot accompany you, and you will not find me waiting for you when you finally return. Because of this, I will impart to you one last piece of knowledge."

The woman's eyes scanned the entire crowd. Lynn could almost swear that the woman's eyes had settled on her. But just as quickly, the woman's eyes diverted away.

"You may not understand these words that I give you, but I can guarantee that they will become invaluable to your people in the momentous and trying times ahead." The woman continued. "These times will not come in many sunrises, and not until after all of you have returned your bodies to the earth, but I ask you to remember these words and to pass them on to your children and friends in any way you can."

Keyship

"Lynn? LYNN!"

Lynn's eyes suddenly snapped open. She then saw Kyle's worried face.

"Huh? What's wrong?" She asked.

"That's the question I was about to ask you!" Kyle sighed. "You just completely zoned out for a second there."

"Sorry, I guess I'm just a little tired from that fight back there." Lynn lied. She wasn't sure if she wanted to reveal that vision to her friends just yet.

"Well, as long as you're okay." Kyle pointed to Silent Caretaker. "Caretaker's gotten everything up and running. We're going to be taking off any second now-"

Suddenly, the entire ship rumbled as its ancient engines, silent and cold for thousands of years, suddenly roared to life. Like a man who was buried alive, the Keyship pushed and clawed its way out of the ground, pushing aside mountains of earth to finally break free to the surface and the sky above.

"It appears that there was some kind of misunderstanding." An obviously angry Ackerson scowled as he and the rest of the Marines marched into the bridge."

"Oh dear, I may have gotten some of the digits switched around." Silent Caretaker mused. "It won't happen again."

"I don't think hanging around with us is too healthy with the little guy." Kyle whispered to Lynn. "It looks like he's picked up some bad habits."

"You always were a terrible role model." Lynn smiled.

"In any case, we have the Keyship moving and the portal has been opened." Silent Caretaker said. "We shall be there shortly."

A minute later, the humans looked out of the Keyship's viewport to see a massive portal floating over the African landscape. Energy crackled along its edges, supercharging the air and creating numerous thunderstorms and other atmospheric phenomena. Lynn briefly wondered if the innate fascination she was feeling was the exact same feeling that those primitive people back then experienced when they first saw such a spectacle.

"Portal activation is a success." Silent Caretaker announced. "Proceeding to the Ark."

With a surge of acceleration, the Keyship boosted through the portal and disappeared.

Valhalla

"Sir, we've just lost contact with our ground team." Jillian said. "Their final transmission said that they had successfully taken the Keyship and opened the portal."

"It's in their hands now then." Keyes said solemnly.

"We have a target lock on the next Covenant ship." Eurale announced.

"Fire at will!" Keyes commanded.

The Ark
Just outside the Milky Way Galaxy

After a flash of light, everybody's eyes refocused to see something unlike anything they could have ever imagined. Below them stood a space station of unrivaled magnitude and scale. Not only was it the size of a small continent, but it was also literally a small continent in space. Nestled within its center lay land masses, rivers, and lakes, all kept alive by a stable and breathable atmosphere, yet immune to the hazards of the vacuum of space it was exposed to. There was nothing quite like it.

"It's… beautiful." Kay whispered.

"Unbelievable." Kyle blinked, his mind racing to figure out just how something like this could work.

John looked on silently, his face hidden by his reflective visor. Those that looked at him briefly pondered what he was feeling. Surprise? Happiness? Disbelief?

Or was it sadness?

Meanwhile, Lynn was not enjoying the same experience the others were having. She was having a terrible headache, and there was this odd buzzing sound in her head. It wasn't just any sound, though. It seemed to permeate not only her ears, but her mind as well, slowly snaking its way into the crevices of her thoughts like the roots of an insidious plant. Then suddenly, without thinking, she marched over to one of the ship's control consoles and started rapidly typing in instructions.

"What are you doing?" Silent Caretaker spun rapidly to face her, genuinely surprised at her apparent familiarity with working with Forerunner technology.

"I- I don't know." Lynn blinked. Suddenly, the buzzing was gone, and now she was looking at the control console and couldn't remember why.

"Lynn, what did you do? Kyle asked.

"Oh dear!" Silent Caretaker panicked. "Something has activated the teleportation grid! It's powering up!"

"What's it teleporting?" Lynn asked.

"You." Silent Caretaker's solitary blue eye stared at Lynn's face.

Instinctively, John and Sanah moved in a vain attempt to reach Lynn's console to abort the teleportation, but they were too late. Due to their close proximity to Lynn, all three disappeared in a flash of blue light.

"What happened?!" Kyle screamed, looking Silent Caretaker. "Where did they go?!"

"I do not know."

"What do you mean!?"

"I do not know." Silent Caretaker said somberly. "I honestly cannot tell you where they are."