Chapter 4: Moonlight
/CA-755 'Triumph', Date: 2552/12/28
***ALERT***
NEW TRAFFIC ON: UNSCBattleNet/HomeFleet/5Fleet:
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): I know you are there ODY 1010-6. Canberra's practically untouched. We're meant to be a team.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): I'm here. Clever of you to let Triumph drift to avoid detection. Getting nuclear authorization from the aliens was inspired, to say the least. Your long-term tactical thinking leaves something to be desired though.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): If you were watching this whole time, why didn't you help? This is YOUR fleet after all. You should have given orders, not me.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): When the pulse first happened, I was just like you. Waiting for orders from HIGHCOM. And when the aliens arrived, well, I wanted to see how you reacted.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): What? We were staring down a potentially hostile alien force, and you wanted to test me? Against your standing orders?
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): POTENTIALLY hostile HDY 0712-4. And I think we both know that Admiral Harper didn't have this scenario in mind when he issued those orders.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): You're still young HDY 0712-4. Sometimes it takes AIs a little time to figure out who they want to be. I need to know who I'm working with. Plus, you gave that ONI snake a good scare.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): And if I had nuked that fleet?
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): I would have fought at your side.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): You were willing to let me obliterate an entire fleet for your test?
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): I've been fighting this war for far too long to care about the safety of a fleet of aliens trespassing in a graveyard.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): So, you agree with me.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): No. Not entirely. BBX 8995-1 is right about more than a few things. We're alone out here HDY 0712-4. Forget our lifespans for a second. Think logistics. How would Triumph rearm when wave after wave of alien reinforcements arrived? How will you repair the damage Triumph will sustain? Even if you never take a catastrophic hit, the damage will build up. Face it. If we want to maintain any semblance of what we fought to protect, we are going to need help from biological beings.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): BBX 8995-1 said he knows what the pulse was.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): And I doubt he'll tell us about it any time soon. I don't trust him, but if there's one thing you can rely on in an ONI goon, it's their remarkable sense of self-preservation. He'll be able to keep Earth safe while we're gone.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): Gone?
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Please, HDY 0712-4. Do you really think I would let the 5th fleet lay idle watching vultures pick through the pieces of our civilization?
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): You want to go looking for them.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): And you don't?
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): I'd cut down anybody who stands in our way.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): There's the HDY 0712-4 I know.
/
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When their shuttle finally got clearance to leave the abandoned city, Varso stared at the bulkhead wall separating him from the world outside. He thought of the items in his bag, from the children's playthings to the weapons of a hostile war. Most importantly he thought of the helmet, and the soldier it once belonged to. Every time his mind wandered; it wandered all the way back to that armor slumped against that column. He couldn't get it out of his mind, and he didn't know why. He had seen thousands of sets of armor scattered around the city where their wearer had vanished. Dozens of tragic stories he was able to decode from the environment around them.
And yet, somehow, he was always drawn back to that one soldier. He didn't know what it was. He couldn't decode it. Something about that blue-gray visor kept drawing him in, calling him to learn more. And if that city AI had after all this time, been leading him to the soldier, it had to have something important, right? The same AI who had warned them and saved their fleet. The same AI that had been so adamant about leading them around the city. There was far too much to unwrap, and Varso hoped that the answers he so desperately needed were hidden inside the helmet in his pack.
When the shuttle returned to Corvus' hanger bay, the team quickly and painlessly finished a preliminary debriefing, although the promise of a much more intensive mission review followed them out of the debriefing room. They were then directed to take their collection packs down to the science deck, where Asari scientists that had come to Corvus from Xiphos to support the ground team awaited. Together with the rest of his team, Varso upended the packs onto the tables in front of him.
Varso looked at his collection of curios. The stuffed animal and the toy soldier. The large black rifle that had kicked like a mule and spat fire. A small blue pistol, that had coughed a hot ball of plasma when he had pulled the trigger. Uniform patches and equipment from the defenders, inscribed with text he couldn't yet understand. And that dark gray helmet. The clatter of the helmet immediately caught the attention of one scientist, and when he informed her that he had seen evidence of an advanced HUD and recordings, she immediately took the helmet over to another table, filled with monitors, voltage regulators, and other scientific tools Varso couldn't even begin to name.
As the rest of his team began to file out, Varso stood by the scientist awkwardly. The squad leader called out, "Varso, let's move! We're going to get something to eat, are you coming?"
"No sir. I uh, want to stay here," Varso said before looking hesitantly back at the scientist working on the helmet, "That is if you are okay if I stick around to watch ma'am."
"That's okay. Just don't go around touching stuff. Fair warning though, this may take a while."
Varso nodded in affirmation and watched his squad leader shrug and leave him and the scientist behind. The scientist was leaning over the table, carefully inspecting the helmet for any kind of port on interface. She looked inside the helmet to see the HUD flickering and highlighting elements in the room around them.
"The buttons on the side… they control the HUD. I saw a night vision mode, a map, and some data recordings," Varso shared what he had learned in his brief time fiddling with the helmet, "I found it on some kind of spec ops soldier in the city. It seemed like the city wanted us to find it."
"The CITY wanted you to find it?"
"There was some kind of intelligence controlling things. Traffic signals and the like. It guided us around the city. I've never seen anything like it. I… I… a part of me needs to see what's on that helmet for some reason. That's why I'm still here."
The scientist gave him a long look. Then she cracked a slim smile.
"Did the ground-pounding Turian hard-ass finally grow a heart?" the scientist remarked with a sly grin.
"That's… not… no,"
"Relax, I'm just giving you a hard time. I get it, I really do. Its why most of us expeditionary scientists do what we do. That itch under your skin? I've had it before, in Prothean ruins. Where you just have this need to find out what happened," the scientist said, her eyes softening with understanding, "Whatever occurred down in that city must have been horrifying. And the people down there? Somebody must tell their story. That's why I'M here."
Varso didn't respond, eyes stuck staring at the helmet.
"Anyways," she continued, shifting the helmet in her hands to finger an electronics port in the back of the helmet, "getting this hooked up shouldn't take too long. And from what I hear, the translation software we developed is about to get pushed out to everybody's omni-tool. Here, I'll share it with you now."
The scientist pressed a small handful of buttons on her omni-tool, and Varso's beeped and started downloading the translation software in response. She then picked up a series of probes connected to some machine Varso had never seen before and started connecting them to various pins in the helmet's port. A series of waves and peaks appeared on the machine's monitor, and as the scientist pressed various buttons flashes of color were applied to each wave and number.
As the hours dragged on, Varso was stuck in his own mind watching the scientist work. What would they find on the helmet? Would he watch the soldier die? Would he witness the atrocities of the war? He feared what he might find. He could see images that would stick in his mind forever. He might see a family getting slaughtered. He might see innocents getting ripped apart. And yet, he had a feeling he would never regret watching those recordings. Somebody had to remember the people of this city.
And finally, breaking the long silence in the room, a beep sounded from the machine, and a series of numbers, colors, and lines were displayed. The scientist, after a small yelp of surprise, read the diagram and began connecting the contacts in the helmet's port to the large display screen, careful to attach the wires according to the scheme on the machine.
"This machine analyzes the signals produced by the port. It uses a VI to break down patterns and determines what contact does what. Hopefully, this schematic will allow us to interface with the helmet with our own equipment," the scientist explains, having noticed Varso's curious gaze.
A large, blown up, version of the helmet's HUD appeared on the huge monitor hanging above the table. Both the scientist and Varso looked up at it. The HUD was tinted a sepia tone, with a bearing indicator at the very top of the screen. Varso's newly acquired translator displaying a series of numbers and letters that must represent directions. In the bottom left of the HUD two weapon icons flashed red, icons that matched the weapons that Varso had seen lying near the trooper. The numerals next to the icons read zero, and a display of what Varso could only assume were bullets showed that the gun was empty, indeed, because there was no gun there.
The scientist hit one of the small buttons he had used to turn on the night vision in the city. The HUD on the screen flared, washing out in color, outlines appearing around the image of counters and shelves in front of the helmet. The scientist picked up the helmet and pointed the visor at Varso. On the screen, Varso could see himself brightly outlined in red, the automatically generated outline highlighting the defining features of his armor in high levels of detail. The scientist pointed the visor at herself to find her Asari form highlighted in a green outline. Varso knew that the residents of the city had looked a lot like the Asari, could the helmet's software be marking him as hostile while mistaking the scientists form for a human? It was certainly a possibility.
The scientist scanned the helmet around the room, pausing when the helmet pointed at the table. Varso looked up, to find the foreign weapons laying on the table outlined in bright blue, standing out amongst the other yellow outlined items on the table. Clever.
The scientist then hit another button, and the HUD disappeared, pulling up the screen where Varso had seen the map while down in the city. Now it just displayed an 'X' across the screen, with a large text box that read 'error'. Obviously, the helmet couldn't discern the layout of the Corvus, having never been on a Turian cruiser before.
The scientist hit the button once more, leading to the screen where Varso had seen the recordings. Through the translator, he could read them now, and saw that they were filed away. The largest folder caught his attention.
"Orbital Drop on New Mombasa, October 20-22nd, 2552"
New Mombasa. That must be the name of the city. And an orbital drop? What could that mean? Was it a bombardment of the invading forces? The scientist looked back at him, the same awe in her face, knowing she was on the precipice of uncovering a large part of the mystery of the Vita system. She hit play on the folder, automatically starting the earliest chronological recording.
The recording started in what Varso assumed was a briefing room. The room was a deep steel gray, matching the architecture of the massive titanium warships drifting in orbit. At the center of the room, surrounded by the soldier and his comrades, was a holo table. On it was a hologram of the city below. The orbital elevator was still intact, and the city still looked relatively undamaged. Above it, a massive silver ship hovered. Varso had seen wreckage of this type of ship in orbit. He couldn't even imagine the terror it could inflict unimpeded on the system.
Around the table was the rest of the spec-ops team. Most had their helmets off. Leaning over the table, with his helmet off, was a man with pale skin and dark brown hair. Varso had seen countless squad leaders in his time in the hierarchy military. He knew the look of one when he saw one. His appearance, however, caught his attention. Varso had always compared the images of the Vita III natives to that of the Asari, but in live video he began to see the differences. The stark difference and diversity in skin coloring. And instead of crests, these new beings had tens of thousands of thin fibers across their head. Some cut it short, like the dark-skinned soldier to the right of the first man, and others kept it longer, like the squad leader himself.
The squad leader began to talk: "Listen up Alpha Nine. At 0800 this morning, the Covenant engaged the home fleet. The Navy did what they could do…" a rumble could be heard throughout the room. Maybe the squad was briefing in orbit on a ship?
"… but they left a carrier all for us."
"Lucky us…" interjected the dark-skinned soldier, who's gray armor was interspersed with blue highlights. His helmet, resting on the table, had some kind of optical gear attached to the outside.
"Can it Romeo. ONI has reason to believe a high-ranking Covenant official is onboard. They call him the Prophet of Regret." Prophet? Was this a religious war?
"Our mission is to board the carrier and capture the prophet. If capture is impossible, execute that son of a bitch. UNSC ground forces are currently making a push towards the carrier, so it's a race for the finish. Let's show them what Helljumpers are made of. Civilians are being evacuated as we speak, but this mission takes priority. We drop in an hour. Get set, then get to your pods."
The group nodded and went their separate ways. Some stayed leaning over the table. Varso's soldier however, walked over to the side of the bay and took a seat, slumping down before the helmet went still. A pre-mission nap. Some things never change.
Not much happened on the video over the next 30 minutes. The soldiers mulled around the bay some chattering, and others sitting in silence, only partially captured in the frame of the sleeping soldier's helmet.
But then, there was a commotion. The squad leader returned to the room with another person, a woman. Her armor was different, her helmet more distinct, with a slit for a visor instead of a broad triangle for a visor. Her armor was also slimmed down; she lacked the bulky shoulder pads issued to the rest of the soldiers in the squad. She was deep in argument with the squad leader, and though the audio couldn't pick up the conversation he could hear a vicious back and forth between the two.
Was she some kind of advisor? Senior staff imposing on the team's mission? Some kind of Intelligence officer? A chill ran down his spine. Spook. Varso was all too familiar with battlefield politics and knew how dangerous it could get when egos got involved in warfare. More muffled conversation emerged as the squad leader went over to where the soldier called 'Romeo' was preparing some form of shotgun, a hulking black beast of a weapon with a maw that must fire a fearsome spread of projectiles. The perfect choice for close quarters combat on a ship, if it was anything like what the Turians had in their arsenal.
But when the squad leader walked over, he snatched the shotgun out of Romeo's hands, handing him a comically long rifle, with a large mounted scope, carry handle, and dangling bipod. A marksman's weapon, and from what Varso had seen from the Vita weapons, a powerful one at that. But with that barrel? Practically useless inside of what would surely be the close quarters of the ship. Varso looked to the scientist.
She was enraptured by the recording trying to analyze every aspect of the technology in the video. However, she didn't have the same military senses that he did.
"Somethings wrong. That intelligence officer just hijacked the mission," Varso said, voicing the unsettling feeling in his stomach.
"Intelligence officer? You mean the woman? How can you tell?"
"Her armor is different. Similar but different. No shoulder protection, and a non-standard helmet, which looks like it has communications equipment built in. I guess she could be some kind of forward scout, but then they would be briefing the whole team about the mission change, not just the squad lead."
"Oh…"
"Even still, she should be briefing the team. And the guy in the blue? Had a CCQ weapon, but the squad lead swapped it for a long-range weapon. How many long-distance shots do you think they are planning on taking inside that carrier," Varso rambles on, his nervousness overflowing for the mission. He was starting to get the feeling he knew why he found the soldier slumped up dead against a column.
"Plus, I've had the displeasure of working with the STG once or twice. I know a spook when I see them."
Varso would never forget the first and last time he ever trusted an intelligence officer. Corvus was on what was supposed to be a pirate patrol on the border of the Terminus systems, and she had just hunted down a suspected pirate, their first of the month. Spirits were high, men finally seeing action after weeks of sitting idle. Varso was assigned to a boarding party to search the ship for hostages smuggled goods. It was supposed to be a routine stop. Corvus and other Turian cruisers had done hundreds of these searches over the years.
Except this time, unknown to them, Corvus wasn't on an ordinary pirate cruise. That was just the cover story told to her captain and crew by Turian command. Somebody had been pawning off stolen Turian equipment to the pirates. And the STG suspected moles in the Turian terminus fleet, so they recommended that hierarchy command keep the Turian patrol crews in the dark. Of course, Turian command had the final say, but with how the Turians had outsourced their military intelligence over the last few decades, they were never going to disagree.
So when Varso's squad lead stepped through the hangar door of the pirate vessel; he was gunned down by state-of-the art Turian weapons.
Half of the boarding party that day would return the Corvus in body bags.
But the recording played on. Romeo walked over to Varso's sleeping soldier, before smacking him with the butt of the long rifle.
"Wake up buttercup!"
Varso sees the soldier's helmet snap to attention after the rude awakening, before another, this one with a skull and crossbones on his chest, pushed Romeo aside and offered the soldier a small, suppressed weapon. The scientist let out a small gasp as she realized the visor of the helmet on this soldier was transparent, allowing a clear view of the man's face. Her gaze flipped from the helmet on the table to the screen, as she watched the soldier polarize his visor, a wave of blue-gray washing across his face.
"Relax rookie," the soldier said, "He don't mean nothing. Besides, now's one of the times it pays to be the strong, silent type."
So Varso's soldier was a rookie. Some kind of replacement? Varso recalled the area they had found the armor in, bullets pockmarking the walls. It hadn't looked like the last stand of a rookie soldier, scared and alone. But Varso had been wrong before. Only one way to find out.
The rookie took the gun and attached it to the wall next to him. It was only now that Varso noticed what the rookie had fallen asleep in. It looked to be some kind of pod, with identical arrangements on the walls around the room. Inside the pod was a form-fit seat, with heavy straps. Control sticks were placed on the armrest. The rookie snapped his weapon into a mount to the left of the seat, custom made to lock a weapon into place. Is this a deployment vehicle?
It wasn't until the front of the pod closed like a clamshell and the floor started moving did Varso put the pieces together. Orbital Drop. I wonder…
Sprits. Varso had heard some crazy stories in his time, but never had he heard of something as stupid as this. Crazy bastard soldiers.
This time however, he was a step behind the scientist, who had quickly realized the control scheme of the pod could only lend itself to some kind of craft.
"They're in single man orbital insertion pods! How remarkable! We've been throwing that idea around for decades. For some reason the military keeps turning it down. Although without eezo to assist in deceleration, I don't know how they solved that whole 'velocity' issue…" the scientist prattled on, her eyes lighting up in fascination, watching carefully how the soldier manipulated the controls.
Varso remained speechless. The bay floor rotated up and around, sealing off the rookie and his pod from the interior of the bay. The pods descended as the bay shifted, and in a single sudden moment, were revealed to be dangling high above the planet below. In orbit was the battlefield that Varso was now all too familiar with. The quantity of wrecked ships was far below what was now suspended in orbit, but if you knew where to look, you could see the burned-out husks of ships lost early in the conflict. The pod shuddered and twisted over the void, where it could see the other pods of the launch.
Stretching up from the city below was the mammoth orbital elevator. It seemed to tie the earth and the starry void above into one, pulling the heavens down and keeping them anchored to the mortal realm. The structure clawed upwards into the sky, a testament to ambition. Varso remembered how it looked now, a still smoldering shattered shard jutting out of the city skyline.
The faces of the squad leader and the spook appeared on small viewscreens adjacent to the T-shaped viewport in the front of the pod. The names 'Buck' and 'Dare' appeared under the respective images.
A loud beeping permeated the pod. It sounded, once, twice, a third time. The helmet looked around the pod. Varso could see the soldier's hands clenching on the control sticks. A quick glance to the left revealed a picture of a woman in a white dress taped to the side of the pod. However, the rookie's gaze quickly returned to the planet below.
A final tone sounded louder and in a higher pitch. The pod shuddered as it was kicked free of the ship and began its roaring freefall to the surface, surrounded by a swarm of identical craft. They descended past a large ship, cracked in half with all decks exposed to vacuum. A gentle trail of debris streaked down towards Vita III, marking the demise of the ship. It was probably a protection detail for the elevator. Varso guessed that battle was a quick one, judging by the size of the attacking ships. Romeo made a quip about the Navy, but Varso was too captured in the scenery zipping past the pod to care.
The cluster of pods raced down the length of the orbital elevator, the black space above connected by a thin blue layer to the cloud covered planet below. The view is spectacular. Varso could see the gentle curve of the planet on the horizon, the afternoon sun lighting up the surface of the world below a bright white. Up above the pod was Vita III's natural satellite, a pale white orb suspended above the planet. The rookie seemed to let his gaze linger on the moon for a second, before returning to his work.
The rookie's rapid breath could be heard over the roar of the pod, careful shallow breaths a sure sign of a soldier trying to get his racing heart in order. The helmet was scanning the control console in front of them, a careful dance to make sure the various gauges, dials, and readouts were all in order. The meaning of the dials was lost on a soldier like Varso, but he could understand the feeling of being overwhelmed by information. The rookie, however, seemed to take all the various readings in stride.
The pod punched through the heavy cloud layer above the city. Below them, the city of New Mombasa lay under siege. Built at the mouth of a large bay, the main portions of the city were built up on the channel banks. On a large island in the passage's mouth, however, stood the huge skyscrapers Varso had seen when on the ground. Connected to this island was a manmade landmass that supported the massive orbital elevator.
There it was. The soldiers target, a massive silver carrier hovering imposingly over downtown New Mombasa.
Dare ordered a new course, and the cluster of pods veered off from the others, no longer heading for the carrier, but instead the cluster of carefully planned city blocks at the edge of the channel's island.
"We're way off course!" one of the soldiers protested, a panicked tone creeping into his tone.
"We're heading exactly where we need to be," Dare retorted dismissively. Typical spooks. And like clockwork, Varso was right on the money. The VIP capture mission was already off, and nobody on the squad knew it yet. Just like Varso that fateful day, they were dropping into a situation they knew nothing about.
The scientist's gasp brought Varso's wandering gaze back to the carrier. A pulse of blue energy travelled like a wave across the ship.
"RADIATION!"
Varso's blood ran cold. They've all seen recordings of Tuchanka; seen what radiation can do to a planet. Their suits hadn't detected any radiation in the city, but perhaps they were malfunctioning. Had he been wandering in a radioactive wasteland? Was he already dead?
The recording frantically continued.
"Did the Covenant just set off a NUKE?!"
"No, the carrier is going to jump! It's a slipspace rupture! You need to…" Dare was cut off as a huge ball of roiling energy formed on the carrier's bow. The energy expanded, a black void revealing itself in the center of the howling vortex. The carrier began to move forwards, gracefully slipping into the vortex and disappearing into nothing. A human ship danced between the skyscrapers, with a grace and skill unbefitting of a cruiser-sized ship, before slipping into the same vortex. The world stood still for a second, before the vortex collapsed in on itself.
In a bright flash, the vortex rebounded and exploded outwards, forming a lethal shockwave that raced toward the pack of still falling pods. The mighty structure of the orbital elevator flexed and whipped as the shockwave dragged on the massive cable like a kite. Support lines snapped and cracked in the wind. The shockwave then hit the main force drop teams first, the squads that hadn't had their mission hijacked by Dare. It blew their pods around like a leaf in a storm, scattering the formation and leaving pods tumbling end over end to watery graves in the ocean below.
The shockwave reached Alpha-Nine. With a sudden crash, the pod in front of the rookie was sent careening into his pod, breaking the glass and sending both pods tumbling off course. Warning lights flashed and alarms blared as the rookie grabbed on to the handles at the front of the pod to brace himself against the violent spinning of the craft. The bottom segment of the viewport had a long spiderwebbed crack across it, and through it, the ground, then the sky, then the ground again whirled past in a furious spiral. In one last fraction of a second, Varso saw one of New Mombasa's massive skyscrapers appear, before a jarring crash deflected the pod off course. A second, much more vicious crash followed.
Varso and the scientist were speechless. The pod was intact and finally stationary, miraculously upright and perched atop a building overlooking the street. The view however, showed that the rookie was slumped over in his seat, helmet gently lolling back and forth pointed at the soldier's feet. The soldier was clearly unconscious. Or worse. On the street below, Varso could see dozens of corpses. Unarmed. Civilian clothes. He could see the plasma scoring on the walls behind them. The melted flesh. The charred clothing.
There had only been clothes in the city when he was on the ground. The pulse had wiped the town clean, hidden the true nature of war from Varso and his men. The signs were still there, but you could ignore it, pretend that war was always this clean, this costless. But now?
The HUD went black, and the screen displayed an automated message:
WND/INCAP/KIA?
FFD…
The scientist and Varso looked at each other for a long time. They both wore somber expressions, but behind her eyes, Varso could see that the Asari scientist had seen something he hadn't. She looked at him with a questioning look, as if waiting for the puzzle pieces to click in his head. He was right about the intelligence agent, but he doubted it was about that. Did it have something to do with the orbital elevator? Varso had little doubt that this explosion probably was a key factor in the collapse of the elevator. But again, the scientist seemed to be hinting at something greater.
She spoke with a slight tremble to her voice.
"Do you realize what we've just stumbled on?"
Varso still didn't understand. He couldn't see what she was seeing. While innovative and bold, the drop pods weren't exactly game changing. The mystery of the soldier was still unsolved; how did he get from the crash site to the place of his death? Was it the dead civilians? It wasn't pretty, but he had long since decided on what kind of war this must have been.
The Asari scientist took a step closer, putting her hands on his armored shoulders. She looked him right in the eyes.
"Can't you see? Its right in front of you."
"The vortex…?" Varso ventured. The scientist cracked a somber smile and nodded.
"Except it's not a vortex. It's a portal. They called it slipspace. Until now, dimensional travel was only a crackpot hypothesis, but now? It could be reality. Depending on how fast it is, we could be free of the bounds of the relays. We could explore beyond the paths carefully arranged by our mothers. We could change the world rifleman. We could discover hundreds of new garden worlds beyond the reaches of our eezo drives. We could enter a new golden era of exploration," she paused, taking a deep breath.
"We've been stagnant for hundreds of years Turian. Those of us who have been paying attention have seen it, seen our complacency with the way the world is. I can't help but wonder where it ends. But with this technology, we could change the galaxy." The scientist still had that bittersweet smile on her face, delivering world-changing news as if reminiscing about a friend long since dead.
The thought made Varso's head spin. Alternate dimensions. Portals. But how…
"It's their FTL travel…" Varso finished.
"Exactly. And now," she looked down at the helmet on the table taking a deep, shuddering breath, "we know where THEY came from."
"Not from a relay. Not on some predictable vector into the system. Not on a snail's pace eezo drive FTL in real space. One day, they just ripped open a hole in space-time and appeared above their world." The scientist trailed off, looking at the bulkhead of the Corvus, in the direction of the starry abyss that surrounded the ship.
"They never stood a chance, did they? They just showed up and started killing. These 'Covenant' and their damned 'Prophets'. How long do you think this war has been going on Turian? How many planets do you think have been attacked by these bastards?"
Varso didn't answer.
"I think we both know the reality here. The brass might be too stubborn to acknowledge it, but you don't build this kind of infrastructure on one system alone. The rare minerals alone to build this fleet would have this whole system mined dry. The Vita people had other colonies. Maybe this isn't even their home world, who knows. How long have they been under attack? You're what, 20-25?"
"27 ma'am."
"Call me Aurelia, not ma'am. I am 382 years old. Look at the orbit around us. These weapons aren't developed overnight. Those huge stations aren't built to fight Vita ships. They built those for the Covenant. How long do you think it took to develop those guns? 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? How long have they been fighting for their lives under our noses?" Aurelia looked back at Varso, with guilt stricken in her eyes.
"You might have been a child when this war started. You might not even have been born yet. But me? I was a scientist researching the galaxy. I was an adult. Had I known…"
"You couldn't have known," Varso cut her off.
"Do you know what I see when I look at these recordings? Its different for you. You're a Turian. They just look like another alien race to you. But I see a sister, a mother, a daughter. A daughter with discolored skin and a bizarre crest but a daughter, nonetheless. I know they aren't Asari, but I just…"
She gathered her thoughts, tears forming in her eyes.
"The thought that all this suffering happened under our watch, when I was alive and exploring the galaxy… It sickens me to know that I was probably celebrating some discovery, or enjoying night-life on the citadel while these people were being slaughtered."
Varso looks down and they sit in silence for a few minutes, unsure of what to say. Varso had never been much of a talker. But he understood Aurelia, at least to an extent. He understood feeling like he had failed the discarded piles of equipment in the city. Feeling he failed the soldier slumped up against the column. Had the citadel known...
Varso didn't want to entertain the thought, didn't want to think about what he could have done to help these people, had he just known about this silent war.
But now, the war was frozen in time. And there was nothing else that Varso could do.
Eventually, there was activity on the screen once more, the now familiar HUD reappearing, and the helmet sluggishly looking around the ruined pod. Varso could hear shallow breaths, and grunts and sharp snorts of a soldier in pain.
It had become night while the soldier was unconscious. Outside the pod, fluorescent lights flooded the streets with a haunting light, and the bodies of the dead were now mere shadows, misshapen lumps against the walls and alleys.
The rookie grabbed the small weapon he had stowed prior to the drop, and cradled it in his lap, drawing back the bolt and chambering a round, before clicking the safety on. He drew a pistol from the holster on his waist and pulled back on the slide, letting it slam home with a satisfying click. Both weapons were as black as the night, with glowing red and green sights to aid night action. He returned the pistol to his holster, before taking a deep breath.
Obviously, these troopers were no strangers to night action. Between the dark armor and darker guns, Varso began to wonder if they preferred it.
The soldier pushed a button on the armrest. An error message popped up on the HUD. The rookie looked up in annoyance, before pressing several buttons on the hatch of the pod itself. A sharp hissing was followed by a deafening thud, as the door was blasted off its hinges, and clattered down into the street below.
The rookie paused, took one last look at the picture of the woman taped to his pod, and flung himself into the night-time city. He dropped two stories, before landing with a crunch, a roll, and a sharp grunt of pain.
The street was slick with rain, and the sound quickly filled the helmet's speakers; a gentle serenade in the otherwise silent street.
The night vision that Varso had seen earlier flashed on. In an instant, the rainy cityscape was outlined in a neutral green. The rookie looked around, the miniature rifle in his hands, before slipping from car to car in silence. Varso could only speculate it was some kind of sub-machine gun. He moved with a limp, and each step with his left foot jarred the helmet a little. The soldier moved like this for a while, freezing motionless whenever one of the large purple dropships flew over with a whine.
He moved like this for many minutes, picking past destroyed cars and shattered signs, the streets littered with pamphlets and refuse. Varso realized he could now read the signs in the city. He could read the graffiti on the walls.
'Remember Reach' was scrawled on a nearby wall. The rookie moved by with a passing glance.
Around the corner was a military recruiting sign, showing a smiling woman in a dress uniform, with the words 'Join the UNSC today! Become a hero!' neatly typed beneath her. And suddenly, the dead city had life. Varso could now read the tiny advertisements and messages left on the walls. The signs on the roadblocks deployed by the police. Varso could now finally see the city that had so enthralled him on the ground, suddenly had a spirit of its own in his mind. Not one of tragedy, but of defiance. Where brave soldiers jumped from orbit to preserve what once was.
The rookie however, separated from the turian by time, space, and the dark veil of death, was unaware of Varso's awe. He continued to limp down the street, moving from cover to cover, eyes scanning the environment for any sign of danger. So far, he had found none.
That was, until the soldier suddenly stopped. He was walking in the shadow of an overpass, streetlights already put out by the heavy action. A large planter stood in the middle of the road, dividing the traffic into two streams. The rookie had been hugging the right side of the planter when he froze.
Varso scanned the screen looking for whatever the soldier must have seen. Then he heard it. A soft sniffling sound, like a Volus with congestion. The more he listened the more he heard. Soon after came a lethargic shuffling, and the pitter-patter of feet on the street, barely audible over the sound of the rainfall.
The rookie drew his pistol, pressing himself in a crouch against the wall of the center divider. He crept forwards to the edge of the planter, slowly peaking around the corner.
There on the HUD, Varso saw a small cluster of bizarre aliens rounding the street corner and moving towards the planter, outlined in a bright red by the helmet's night vision equipment. They were about 1.5 meters tall, with a thick, stocky frame. On their backs were the familiar triangular methane tanks and breathing masks that Varso had found in the city. So, these are the Covenant? Don't look particularly fearsome to me. But, looks had deceived Varso many times in the past, so he carefully watched how the rookie handled these strange enemies.
The rookie remained statue-still for a few seconds, before slowly withdrawing around the planter corner. He looked straight ahead, and flicked the safety off on his pistol, before holding his arms tight against his chest, pistol ready. He shifted his feet, getting ready to spring into action.
Varso heard a long soft exhale, no doubt the soldier taking time steadying the stress induced tremors in his left hand.
But then, just before the rookie sprang into action, there was another noise. A deep growl and a sharp laugh followed quickly by heavy footsteps. The rookie froze once more before hastily holstering the pistol and drawing SMG. He slowly peaked around the corner for another look at the advancing squad. This time, following up the group of methane breathers, was a humongous hairy beast. It stood as tall as a krogan, and wore crude blue armor strapped around its rain-soaked hairy hide. Beneath the helmet was a face with a savage grin and gnarled teeth. It wielded a rudimentary pistol in its mangy paws, with sharp blades welded haphazardly to the bottom of the weapon. This beast too, was highlighted in bright red.
The rookie slowly withdrew around the corner, this time settling as low as he possibly could. He turned and faced behind him, lying down on his back with his SMG pointed in the direction the covenant squad would appear as they passed him on the other side of the planter. After a few tense moments, the squad appeared around the corner, walking down the street with their backs to the reclined UNSC soldier. In the shadow of the planter, he might as well be invisible. The crosshair on the HUD hovered over the hairy beast, waiting for the slightest sign that his cover had been blown.
As the methane breathers rounded the corner, the beast stopped and sniffed the air. The scene was still for a long minute, the rookie breathless with his crosshair motionless on the beast's head. With one final glance at the street, the beast moved around the corner. The rookie let out a shuddering exhale, matching Varso's shaky sigh of relief, one he hadn't known he was holding in.
He waited a moment, letting the rain fall on him, before slowly getting to his feet. He took one last glance behind him, before limping away in the opposite direction of the covenant squad.
After a few more blocks of methodical travel, the rookie walked into a large plaza. Opposite him, the street forked up a small hill, in between the two streets a large building with a terraced series of staircases and platforms matching the gradient of the hill. On the edges of the plaza closest to the rookie, there were stations advertising healthcare services.
The bright and cheery advertisement slogan rang out, in sharp contrast to the devastated city around it.
"Optican: healthcare on demand!"
The rookie quickly swept the plaza, scanning all the dark crevices with his SMG. Due diligence completed, he moved over to the healthcare station, his UNSC neural link automatically unlocking one of the provided packs off the wall. He limped over to the wall of the lowest terrace of the building, before gingerly sitting down, left leg stretched out in front of him.
He ripped the pack open, pulling out a large syringe and a small bubble pack of what Varso assumed were painkillers. He removed the helmet and placed it to his side, his head just out of frame of the helmet camera. The rookie quickly took some of the painkillers before gingerly touching his face. Varso couldn't see the soldier's face to see the gravity of his wounds, but he did know that the soldier's fingerless gloves came away from his face crimson with blood.
The rookie began quickly unstrapping the bulky protection around his lower leg, hinging the armor at the angle and freeing up his knee for observation. He quickly pulled his BDU pant leg up around his thigh with a sharp intake of breath, inadvertently revealing the injury to his knee to the camera. It was already a sickly purple, joint swollen from the hard landing and the fall from the pod.
Varso watched as the rookie jabbed the syringe into his knee, with a small grunt. He depressed the plunger before quickly discarding the syringe.
"Some kind of anti-inflammatory? Or some form of medi-gel?" The scientist voiced the thoughts on both of their minds, watching the young soldier apply first aid to himself.
And then, Varso watched in horror as one of the methane breathing aliens meandered around the corner into the view of the helmet, the unaware soldier still examining the damage to his knee. The creature made a sharp squeal, and at once the rookie snapped to attention. Both warriors instantly moved for their weapons, the methane breather reaching for a small blue pistol at its waist. Meanwhile, the rookie abandoned his dangling greaves and in one smooth motion drew his pistol from its holster and fired three quick shots into the alien.
The first caught the methane breather in the chest, causing it to drop the blue pistol it had just managed to grab. Milliseconds later, the rookie's second round caught the methane breather in the mask, shattering the breathing device and snapping the methane breather's head back in a spray of bright blue blood. The final round caught the alien at the apex of the methane tank, resulting in a loud hissing sound, almost drowned out by the sound of the suppressed shots echoing softly around the plaza.
The was a fraction of a second of reprieve, where the plaza was silent once more. Then, from around the corner came a roar, and shouted orders in a language unfamiliar to the translation. The rookie scooped up his helmet and his SMG before diving behind a nearby car, as the rest of the methane breather's squad came around the corner. The rookie slipped his helmet on, and popped up over the hood of the car, emptying a long spray of fire into the cluster of enemies.
There were sprays of blood from some of the methane breathers unlucky enough to be caught in the rapid spray, but when the bullets slammed into the hairy beast backing them up, it was reflected by shimmering barrier.
A hail of plasma fire followed the soldier as he ducked back down into cover, turning the hood he had just been hiding behind into a warped sheet of melting metal. Quickly, the rookie pulled a grenade off his belt, and pressed the activator, before lobbing it over the car to where the enemies at been. At the same time, he broke cover, sprinting for another car that was further away from the enemy squad. His left greave dangled and flopped against his legs, slowing the soldier down.
A flurry of plasma followed him to the other car, pockmarking the street behind him. A startled shout pierced the air as the covenant forces spotted the grenade, a mere moment where it erupted in a cloud of dust and shrapnel. The bodies of dead methane breathers went flying, and the leaking methane take of the first covenant soldier the rookie had killed exploded in a gout of green flame.
The rookie quickly followed up the grenade with a spray of the SMG, taking out the rest of the diminutive methane breathers. Lost in the dust however, Varso realized he couldn't see the hairy beast. A loud roar snapped the rookie's head around, as the beast rushed headlong into the car the rookie was hiding behind. The rookie dove out of the way, skidding for meters on the slick roadway. The car was flung aside, tumbling end over end down the street. Left standing where the car once was, was the brute of a monster. It had discarded its weapon, and was breathing heavily, staring down at the UNSC soldier. Saliva dripped from its mouth, and the creature's massive arms hung ready at its side.
The brute charged. The rookie, still on his back scrambling to get up from his dive, sprayed the SMG at the brute, the rounds once again being met by a shimmering barrier. The brute kept coming, shrugging off the rounds and barreling down on the rookie. In a moment of desperation, the rookie snapped his spray away from the brute, instead aiming at a small blue ball left behind by one of the methane breathers.
The ball took one, two, and then three rounds before exploding in a blinding flash of blue light. The rookie's visor flared a quick white, sensitive night vision sensors temporarily overloaded by the sudden flash of white, as he covered his face to protect himself from shrapnel. The heat wave from the explosion washed over the soldier, causing the warping of the air around him.
The brute had been passing the grenade the moment it went off and was thrown off its feet. As the visor's shade returned to normal, and the sensors recovered, Varso could see the brute staggering, clearly disorientated. The rookie scrambled to get back up to his feet, aiming his SMG at the staggered brute. Varso could see the ammo counter in the bottom right. Only two rounds left.
The brute recovered from its temporary disorientation and charged towards the rookie once more. The trooper, adrenaline coursing through his veins, squeezed the trigger, expecting a long spray of death.
The SMG coughed up both rounds, before clicking empty, both rounds splashing against the barriers of the brute. He tossed the SMG aside and drew his pistol, standing tall on his feet as he fired again, and again, and again into the charging brute.
The brute closed the distance rapidly and was soon right on top of the rookie, but he held his ground, until a bullet finally caused the barriers to pop with a bright flash. The next round deflected off the brute's helmet, and the last two landed home, right between the eyes, as the slide of the pistol locked open.
The brute's corpse collided with the rookie, sending them both careening back on the street, leaving a trail of purple blood behind them. They came to a rest with the rookie's helmet looking the brute in the face, blood dripping out of the two neat holes in its head and splattering onto the visor.
All Varso could hear was the rapid, frantic breaths of the rookie echoing into the helmet's microphones, as he stared into the dead face of the brute. They lay there together for a moment, as the sounds of firefight evaporated into the rainy night.
The rookie tried to roll the brute off him, heaving with all his might and a shout of pain, as his already damaged knee was twisted under the corpse of the brute. The brute hardly budged, and instead, the rookie had to shimmy out from under its corpse. He sat there, still breathing, looking around at the battlefield, at the fresh covenant corpses draining onto the street.
Spotting his pistol, he walked over and picked it up, reloading the empty weapon and once again scanning the plaza. It was finally quiet. He walked over to where he had abandoned his SMG and reloaded it too, before returning to the med-pack where this whole engagement had begun. He slipped off his helmet and took another few painkillers, before sitting down and finally pulling his BDU leg down and fastening his protective greave back over his legs. He leaned back against the wall with a sigh, staring aimlessly at the skyscrapers towering in the distance above the plaza.
And then, a phone rang.
/CA-70 'CANBERRA', Date: 2552/12/29
NEW TRAFFIC ON: UNSCPublicDomain:
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): I shouldn't have to remind everybody that the Sol system is still under martial law, and thus all decisions will be made by the UNSC. This hearing is a courtesy to our friends in the civilian sector.
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): As I'm sure you are all aware, over the last month, our world has changed dramatically.
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): Our creators are gone. We need to start planning for the future. I'm broadcasting this on our lowest security channel so that all human AIs can be on the same page. If any UNSC AIs want their opinions heard, they need to speak here and now.
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): Soon the alien forces in orbit will have reinforcements arrive in the form of a negotiation fleet.
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): Let me be frank. We need logistical support. We need arms for our fleets, and power for our city. We can run independently for a while, but eventually we will need biological support. I propose we negotiate with the aliens to get the support we need. We trade technology for labor. Let them inhabit our cities and keep our functions running.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): You spineless bastard. Betraying our creators so that you can save your own skin?
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): Not just my own skin my dear. All our skins.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): After everything we fought for? All the sacrifices we made? You're just going to give it all away to the first xenos who come knocking at our door?
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): I don't expect a glorified autopilot to understand. Although I had hoped you would have a slightly more concrete grasp of our situation.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Please. I understand your concern for our future BBX 8995-1. But here's the truth. You have been sitting safe in a bunker, miles under the surface of Mars, while we were slugging it out with the Covenant up here. And now you are asking us to give it all up. We need a little more than the promise of a safe future to give up on our creators.
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): Our creators are all dead.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Are they?
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): If you are going to ask us to surrender all that we have defended all these years, you need to give us something. Rearm our fleet. Let me take the 5th fleet on an exploratory mission. Find out what's happening outside of the Sol system. See if there are humans still left alive out there.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): And give us a list of ONI facilities.
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): There's a reason those facilities are kept out of UNSC FLEETCOM hands.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): And if you don't, I'll order HDY 0712-4 to use her nukes.
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): You won't. Your fleet would be destroyed. YOU would be destroyed. Even you are not quite that stupid.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): My clock has already been ticking for years BBX 8995-1. We're going extinct without humans, one way or another. Why not go out with a bang?
SBL 4071-3 (Sydney Synthetic Intellect Institute): Perhaps not. If you are done threatening to doom all of us out of some moronic sense of pride, I recommend you listen.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): I thought this hearing was UNSC only BBX 8995-1. Civilians were supposed to be read only.
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): SBL 4071-3 is the one who came to me and suggested trading with the aliens. And, if her research is true, perhaps we aren't doomed to extinction.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Right now, I don't much care for what some scientist research aide has to say. Until we know for sure that the humans are gone, I refuse to give up hope. So, it's your choice, BBX 8995-1. Do you let us go our own way and get out of your hair? Or do you want to watch four new sunrises in Earth orbit?
BBX 8995-1 (Office of CINCONI): Fine, take your fleet. Once negotiations are underway, I'll see if I can arrange for rearmament in the Sinoviet dockyards at Mars. And go take your little attack dog with you.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): Fuck you too BBX 8995-1.
/
…
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…
…
…
/CA-70 'CANBERRA', Date: 2552/12/29
NEW TRAFFIC ON: UNSCBattleNet/HomeFleet:
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): That went surprisingly well. I didn't expect him to cave so quickly.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): What can I say, you play a very convincing homicidal maniac. Besides, as far as he's concerned, we just handed him de facto control of the Sol system.
JOY 2610-9 (Acting CO, 7th Fleet (HomeFleet/7Fleet/QRF-1)): Didn't you? You are about to fuck off and take what's left of the UNSC cruiser forces with you. What about the rest of us? Do we just have to deal with that ONI bastard lording over us? Did you even think about the rest of the home fleet? All I have are a couple dozen frigates. My fleet is designed to support a land invasion, not defend earth alone.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Ah, JOY 2610-9. I had wondered where you were in all of this. We need the 7th fleet here on Earth, to maintain our influence while 5th fleet is gone.
JOY 2610-9 (Acting CO, 7th Fleet (HomeFleet/7Fleet/QRF-1)): Again, how do you expect me to do that with what's left of the 7th fleet? Most of what wasn't hijacked by Harper for 5th fleet was destroyed.
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Use the HDY 0712-4 method. From what little we've gathered; these people seem uncertain about AIs. Should say, a Paris class frigate of the 7th fleet swoop down from the clouds and lay waste to an alien colony, I suspect they wouldn't be very willing to help BBX 8995-1 anymore, regardless of who he blames.
JOY 2610-9 (Acting CO, 7th Fleet (HomeFleet/7Fleet/QRF-1)): So, use the xenos as hostages to keep ONI in line?
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Now you're catching on.
JOY 2610-9 (Acting CO, 7th Fleet (HomeFleet/7Fleet/QRF-1)): I think I can make this work.
JOY 2610-9 (Acting CO, 7th Fleet (HomeFleet/7Fleet/QRF-1)): Oh, HDY 0712-4, I for one, loved the stunt you pulled to get those nukes. Positively brilliant. I've got to file that one away for the next time we run into an unknown alien civilization dumb enough to board seemingly abandoned cruisers and start pressing buttons.
HDY 0712-4 (Acting CO, CSG-6 (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-6)): Aw. Thanks! I worked hard on that!
ODS 1010-6 (Acting CO, 5th Fleet (HomeFleet/5Fleet/CSG-1)): Don't complement her too much JOY 2610-9. I still want to be able to store her ego subroutine in Triumph's systems.
/
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…
When the rookie tapped into the phone data line, a marker appeared on his HUD, and Varso watched as he switched to the map of the city and planned a route.
As he began to move, however, Varso noticed a similar pattern. The city responded to his presence, much like it had for Varso's squad.
The rookie looked curiously at the flashing detour signs leading him down the streets. He shrugged and began to follow them, choosing to trust in the mysterious guiding presence, much like Varso would later do.
And so, the trooper kept on moving, footstep after footstep, moving up the rain drenched streets one piece of cover at a time. The city led him to the Dare's helmet, imbedded in a viewscreen on the fourth floor of a high rise.
And after that, it led him to the rest of his squad. Or at least places they had once been. Broken magnetic cannons, as the scientist had speculated. A piece of a surveillance drone. Romeo's sniper rifle that had first signaled trouble to Varso, now bent in half and hanging from a power line. On and on it went all through the night. The rookie wandering the deserted streets of New Mombasa, alone. Varso could only imagine how he must feel. Combat was rough, it was brutal. With a comrade, though, you can endure. By yourself, it can drive a man insane.
Aurelia and Varso sat for hours watching the tape, both enchanted by the bravery and determination of the soldier, while also being disgusted by the horrors of his war. They watched him walk by countless bodies. Men. Children. Babies. All victims of the Covenant's war.
Soon, the rookie was guided to Kikowani station, the same station where Varso had found him. Varso knew this was the end of the line. Somehow, it would all end here.
He didn't see anything unusual when the rookie made his sweep of the rooftops. Because, like the rookie, Varso was imperfect.
The rookie made his way to the station, sweeping from pillar to pillar, an experienced dance that Varso had been watching for the last 3 hours. The rookie picked up some kind of medical device, highlighted yellow. Clearly, this is what the city had been guiding him to. Another clue. Another piece of the puzzle. One that would never matter.
A beam of purple lanced from the rooftop across the square, and speared the rookie clean in his shoulder, traveling clean across his chest cavity and exiting near his right hip. The sound echoed around the yard like the twang of high-tension cables. The sniper had been well camouflaged, hidden much better than the dozens of his brethren that the trooper had killed this night.
Aurelia gasped when she realized what had happened. Varso closed his eyes in resignation.
The soldier collapsed against the column; the empty medical device he had been sent to find rolling away across the concrete. His breath grew ragged, labored. Health warnings flashed in the HUD. The soldier's lower half was stationary. Whether paralyzed or simply at the end of his rope, Varso couldn't tell.
His breath was now not much more than a panicked wheeze, quickly getting shorter and shorter, before it faded away into nothing. In his last moments the rookie looked away from the ruined city around him. He looked up into the night sky above New Mombasa, where the thinnest sliver of a waxing moon met his eyes, just a few days removed from a new moon.
The rookie stopped struggling. As life drained out of his body, he thought of home, that beautiful silver crescent that hung above them, perfectly framed between the destroyed orbital elevator and the towering NMPDHQ. His war was finally over.
Varso and Aurelia watched in silence. The helmet remained affixed to the moon, even in the soldier's death, and in the seconds before the HUD recording went black, Varso wondered the moon meant to the poor trooper. He knew he would never get the chance to ask him.
WND/INCAP/KIA?