Chapter Two

0900 Hours, July 24, 2554 (Military Calendar)

Outskirts of unidentified town

Tabah Region, Planet Demeter, Itami System

Morgan's first day on Demeter was spent watching this strange little town for almost a full twenty hours, maintaining an observation post half a kilometre out to keep an eye on the ebb and flow of things within it. He saw no end of wagons come in and out, laden down with wooden crates and barrels that were covered by tarpaulin, or of trappers that headed off into the woods for hours, returning with the local game slung over their shoulders or carried between them on stout poles.

Once the sun went down, oil lanterns came out to illuminate the streets with a soft, orange glow that cast dancing shadows of the people that walked through them. From somewhere inside the town came the sounds of general revelry, no doubt the local bar or saloon, that lasted until one o'clock in the morning.

After that the only people Morgan saw were what he assumed passed for law enforcement in town, a group of four men that walked the edges of the settlement with rifles drawn and at the ready. In fact, it was in the hands of one of these men that he finally saw a modern firearm, albeit in the form of a weathered MA3 rifle that had seen many miles and better days. They disappeared once the sun came out, replaced by the waggoneers hauling their cargoes of who knew what to who knew where, but their presence piqued his interest.

There was still no mention of Rory on any radio station, civilian or military, and the people here didn't look at all like they were on alert, ready for the possibility of attack by UNSC forces. Rather, the patrol seemed to be a matter of routine for the men, the four of them walking easily along a path they had trod many times before. They were alert, sure, but not hypervigilant, suggesting they were accustomed to the noises of the town and forest, and knew what belonged and what didn't.

It begged the question, then, of just what it might be they were watching for. Wild beasts, maybe, but if that were the case then why were these men hurrying across the mouths of streets to avoid being backlit? Or kept from clumping together into one large group? Movement like that suggested their worries lay in creatures that could walk on two legs, and carry weapons like theirs.

The obvious answer would have been that the Innies had descended into some manner of civil war and these men were just keeping watch for whoever was their enemy, but after spending a day on the planet Morgan was beginning to doubt these people were Insurrectionists.

At no point since making landfall had he heard any mention on the radio about Earth and its imperialistic ambitions, of the UNSC jackboots who carried out the will of their political masters, or of reports about what their fellow freedom fighters had accomplished back in the colonies. There hadn't even been any mention of some of the various groups that operated under the Insurrectionist banner.

Instead there were talks about recent actions by some group called the Azure Kingdom, or those of the Empire of the Black Mountain, and how they might affect the lives of people, here, in the Republic, alongside some manner of forecast for new Landers, set to arrive sometime next month. Just what they were wasn't elaborated on to any degree, only that they would be coming before too long.

Again, it would have been easy to assume they were Insurrectionists fleeing Earth and the UNSC but Morgan was struck by the near total absence of propaganda being blasted out over the air. He had conducted his fair share of operations on Innie worlds before and they always had propaganda going out between songs and news reports. Yet here, on Demeter? Nothing.

So just who were these people? The fact the Innies had been talking about them, and a fleet of repurposed civilian ships was in orbit, meant some manner of link between the two groups existed but there was nothing on the ground to support this theory. No propaganda, outdated weapons and technology, factions that had never been mentioned in any briefings he had read. As far as Morgan could tell, these people were wholly unaware of the fleet above their heads, or of any other human civilisation for that matter.

This was another instance where he wished HIGHCOM had authorised the release of an AI for the mission, if only to have someone who he could talk his theories and ideas through with. Their responses might not have been wholly human, being based in code, but just being able to talk aloud about a problem to even an inanimate object was often step one solving it.

The best Morgan could come up with was that these people were descended from a colonisation effort gone awry. Not every ship sent out in the Domus Diaspora came back, excluding those harvested for resources, and it stood to reason that at least some of the missing vessels would have made it to habitable worlds before mechanical issues trapped them there.

Without a supply line back to the colonies, the crew would be forced to manufacture everything they needed for themselves. The ship's onboard factories would be a godsend in such a situation but that required them to be operational, or that whatever mishap had befallen the vessel hadn't required evacuating it.

If that were the case, the survivors would suddenly find themselves thrown back to the pre-industrial age and be forced to start from scratch, leading to the widespread adoption of older, less complex technologies that weren't reliant on precision machining and integrated circuitry.

That made a lot of sense now that Morgan thought of it and he chided himself for not thinking of it sooner, being too stuck in the mindset that these people were Insurrectionists to consider other alternatives until now. It still didn't explain why chatter about this place had been picked up on Venezia, or why there hadn't been any record of the place in the CAA's old files on colonisation, but answers for those questions could wait until later.

Right now, Morgan was faced with the choice of remaining hidden like he was, observing these strange people, or breaking cover to speak directly with them. If they weren't affiliated with the Insurrection and had no idea what was going off in the space above them, it might be possible they were friendly towards the UNSC, or at least neutral towards it, and willing to offer some help and information he was sorely lacking.

If the opposite were true, though, he would be putting himself into a bad tactical position by allowing himself to be surrounded on all sides by people that were armed. Worse, word would get out a Spartan was on the planet sooner than he would have liked. It was bound to happen once he started conducting offensive operations, but preferably after a month or more of clandestine observations to pinpoint targets of interest.

Morgan grimaced as he weighed the pros and cons of each option before sighing inwardly, rising from his observation post.

1103 Hours, July 24, 2554 (Military Calendar)

Unidentified town

Tabah Region, Planet Demeter, Itami System

Seeing the town up close only served to reinforce the idea it had come from the old American southwest, its buildings made of wood with wide verandas that had hitching posts for horses outside them, whilst hand painted signs proclaimed what services they provided to the people who, as one, fled on seeing Morgan walking into town.

He took that as something of a bad omen, but at the same time find it promising they hadn't all just opened fire on him with their guns. If they truly were aligned with the Insurrection, seeing a Spartan walking into their midst should have invoked a more hostile response.

As it was, the only people to confront him were the same four he had seen patrolling the town last night. They, like everyone else, had leather dusters and wide brimmed hats on, evoking the cowboy aesthetic, though unlike the rest of the town's population they were also wearing body armour. It wasn't a design Morgan recognised but if his theory that these people were colonists stranded for an untold number of years, it was likely a homegrown variety.

They also had six-sided stars pinned to their dusters, and three of the four were silvery in colour. The fourth man, who was also carrying the MA3 rifle, wore a gold star which probably meant he was in charge of the group, and by extension the town's protection.

'Easy,' Morgan said. 'Easy. I'm not here to hurt you.'

He held his hands up to show they were empty, doing his best to appear as unthreatening as a Spartan in full armour could be to the men who pulled up short about thirty metres from him, fanning out as they shouldered their weapons.

'I'm sure you ain't,' the leader said. 'But you'll forgive me if I don't believe the word of a raider.'

'I'm not a raider,' Morgan said.

'Really?' the leader said. 'Because you sure don't look like any Lander I've seen.'

'I'm not one of those, either,' Morgan said. 'I don't even know what one is.'

'I'm sure you don't.'

The leader of the group didn't seem at all convinced by anything Morgan was saying, and neither did those under his command. They just kept their guns trained squarely on him as around the two parties, people began appearing in windows and doors carrying weapons of their own. Bolt- and lever action rifles, pump-action shotguns, revolvers. Everything that might be seen in a Western was on display and pointed at Morgan.

'I really don't,' he said. 'Up until twenty-four hours ago, I hadn't even set foot on the planet. My name is Morgan. I'm with the UNSC's Spartan Branch.'

There was some twitch of recognition in the eyes of a few people when he said that but not enough for them to lower their weapons, or fire them for that matter, only for one of the townsfolk to suddenly step forward and begin talking.

'Don't fire on him, marshal!' the speaker said. 'Don't fire! Any of you!'

The speaker was an old man with a flowing beard, a revolver in one hand and a black covered book in the other, a bible of some kind, that he was holding aloft as he approached Morgan.

'Preacher, I ain't got time for this,' the leader, or marshal, said though he did at least point the muzzle of his gun away from Morgan, if only so he wasn't flagging the old man. 'You can see plain as day he ain't a Lander, and if he ain't one of us he has to be a raider.'

'No, you fool,' the preacher said. 'This man is our saviour, our salvation, sent by the Lord to rid us of the raider threat. He is a Spartan!'

Morgan, who was confused by the chain of events that had just happened, became even more so once the preacher dropped to his knees before him, dropping the revolver and bible both, and clasped both hands into the air as though in prayer. A few moments later, several other people came forward to do the same until a dozen of them were surrounding the now thoroughly bewildered Spartan who slowly lowered his hands and looked to the marshal who, like him, was taken aback by the scene unfolding in the street.

A few minutes passed in silence, the only sound being the mumbling of prayers coming from the kneeling townsfolk, until the marshal's wits returned and his lowered his rifle, gesturing for the others to do the same, and he said, 'Let's talk.'

1120 Hours, July 24, 2554 (Military Calendar)

Rock Ridge

Tabah Region, Planet Demeter, Itami System

'Name's Strickland,' the marshal said once he, his posse and Morgan were inside his office, the junior members lowering the blinds to hide them from the huge crowd that was gathering outside. 'Marshal of Rock Ridge for, oh, twenty years now. Drink?'

He sat down at his desk and pulled out a half-empty bottle of some dark amber liquid, holding it out to Morgan as he leant against a wall but the Spartan shook his head. Strickland shrugged, pouring himself and his team a measure, and once everyone was seated he said, 'I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that despite what the preacher was saying, the Lord Almighty didn't send you our way.'

'No,' Morgan said. 'Speaking of, exactly what was with that?'

Strickland shook his head. 'I'm not one for religion. You want to know, you better go out and ask. Or visit River Town. They're big on religion down there.'

He nodded to a wall mounted map that displayed the region and Morgan glanced at it, locating their position at Rock Ridge quickly enough and then River Town shortly afterwards. It was a good five-hundred kilometres away and, as advertised, sat right on a river.

'Maybe later,' Morgan said.

'Yeah, maybe,' Strickland. 'So, what brings you here if not the Lord?'

'Reconnaissance,' Morgan said before going on to give a rundown of his mission to Demeter and the events that had led to it, classification be damned, culminating with the engagement over the planet after their presence became known and his subsequent landing in the nearby forest. As he spoke, Strickland and his deputies shared the occasional glance or made a note in a book, or stoically smoked hand rolled cigarettes between mouthfuls of whiskey.

Finished, Morgan held his hands wide and said, 'Which brings us to now. If you have any questions, ask them.'

The four men looked at him and then at each other, but as one shook their heads.

'In all honesty, what you're talking about seems a little beyond our station,' Strickland said. 'We're just some Podunk town on the Republic's frontier. You'd be better off going to Central City and talking to the people there, but if the raiders or the Insurrectionists, or whoever it is up there are against you, then I guess we at least have that in common.'

'I guess we do,' Morgan said.

He looked again to the map and to the settlement marked as Central City. As with River Town, it's name was an apt description given that it sat right in the centre of the Republic, a little over two-hundred kilometres to the southwest which also meant it was the same large city he had seen during his descent. According to the map's legend it was also the capital for the Republic, though inwardly Morgan hoped that any help or information it's leadership could give him would be better than their ability when it came to naming places.

'Good to hear,' Strickland said as he stood, his deputies following suit a moment later. 'Come on, let's get you a ride to Central City.'

The marshal made for the door and opened it to reveal a huge crowd of people waiting in the streets, the preacher from before at the front with his bible clutched tightly against his chest, and on seeing Morgan everyone fell deathly silent.

'Well, marshal?' the preacher said.

'Spartan's going to Central City,' Strickland said. 'Talk to the folks there. We're giving him a ride.'

'Then I shall go with you,' the preacher said. 'We all will!'

He turned to the crowd and said, 'All the faithful who prayed for this day shall follow the Spartan on his most holy quest, so that we might be saved from the wretched raiders who come to torment us!'

Around a quarter to a third of the crowd raised their hands and gave out various exultations before hurrying off to different parts of the town, no doubt to gather their things for the two-hundred kilometre journey, with Strickland muttering to Morgan, 'See what I mean about not getting involved with the religious types?'

'Yeah,' Morgan said, taken aback by the fervour of the preacher's followers.

In a way it reminded him of how the Covenant had been back during the war, and still were in some cases, and the atrocities such zealotry could lead to under the justification of it being god's will. He grew worried that these people and others who followed their faith would misinterpret something he said, or take offense from somebody that held a poor view of him, and commit some terrible act in the belief it would please him.

He would have to be very careful around them, if not minimise exposure, though at the same time he couldn't help but wonder just how it was these people had come to know of the Spartan program, to say nothing of what caused them to deify the supersoldiers. As far as Morgan knew the public had only been aware of what Spartans were since 2547, being rumours before then, so how could the descendants of a colony ship from who knew how many decades ago have knowledge of them?

It was just another question to add to his growing pile of them, but at least the next few days would provide Morgan a chance to try and answer some now that he had people he could talk to. A lot of people as it turned out, a column of fifteen covered wagons trundling out of Rock Ridge nearly an hour later. Each was filled with the more religious residents of the town and their supplies, embarking on what Morgan felt had the underpinnings of a pilgrimage for them.

Even from the head of the column he could hear the sounds of hymns being sung, and some of the wagons had colourful displays of flowers hanging from their sides. The wagon Morgan was in had no such décor, and the only occupants beside him was Strickland and his seniormost deputy, a man called Duke, who cradled a lever-action rifle as he rode shotgun.

'Liable to be hit by bandits,' Strickland said before Morgan could ask. 'A caravan this big, they'll think we're carrying valuables. Probably be best to keep your own piece handy.'

'I always do,' Morgan said. 'Yell if we run into trouble.'

A grunt came from Strickland which Morgan took to be an agreement. He unlimbered his battle rifle and placed it on the floor of the wagon next to him, lay down with his head resting on a sack of grain, and promptly went to sleep.