Halo: The Coming Fire

by Peanutgallery4

Amonika's family lives in a time when Humanity faces an existential threat: extermination by a vastly superior alien enemy known as the Covenant. They live hidden from the Covenant on possibly the most guarded planet Humanity has left, Reach. But for all their security, living in times like these shakes faith and breaks spirits, when the cares of life can no longer distract them.

1. 1

1.

The sound of a child's scream pierced what had been pure silence, sending a rush of adrenaline through Amonika's brain. Her reflexes had already jumped her from facedown sleep to sitting up on her knees and pushing her back against the corner wall, by the time she realized it was a fake scream. The sound when her brother pretended to be hurt worse, if at all, than he actually was, she was all too familiar with.

He called for Mom, audible through the vents. It was probably a bad dream. And so Amonika relaxed, layed down back into her bed, and activated the massaging function tailored to her shape and size for ten minutes, primarily to drown out the noise of whatever annoying conversation her brother would have with Mom once she got there, or worse yet, his continual yelling if she didn't immediately come to cuddle him.

Another yell, and she tried to go back to sleep. But the same nagging insecurity which had kept her up until well past her intended time earlier that night now came back to her. She tried to overwhelm her fear with tiredness. As the hum of machinery in the bed faded away, she heard her brother's high pitched, whining voice.

"Mommy, I had a bad dream. Really bad."

"Yeah? What, what was it about?"

"It was… so there…" he burst into tears. In fact, unlike his initial scream, he sounded genuinely upset.

Amonika, frustrated at how well the vents carried the next room's sound, pushed her head harder against the bed, in order to feel the vibration in her head.

"The Covenant… they were here. They were in our-"

Her Mom was horrified at the very idea that her son was having dreams about the Covenant. "Oh, no… No, no, no, Clint. It's okay. That's not gonna happen."

"And they had you, and Dad, and Walter… and they were killing you all."

"No Clint, no…"

"And… and I… was the… I was the only one they didn't find, and I was hiding from them. And I ran down into my room, and I was hiding under my bed and I got all the blankets out and all the toys and put them in front of me and I… I just had one hole to see out."

"Clint, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It was just a dream."

Amonika had stopped her bed's machinery by now. The fear had retaken her, and she listened for what would be said next, how her mother would react. Amonika had never been brave enough to talk to her or Dad about such fears, but had simply internalized them as they became worse and worse. In the daytime it seemed irrelevant, a danger much too far away to be realized, avoidable by just looking away. And so she did all the time she could, but laying in bed at night there was no refuge from the horror, such a clear and tangible one it so often became. She hadn't slept well in several months.

"And I heard all of their sounds. They were looking for me, saying my name… and then one of them came into the room. It was all black and it was so tall and strong, I knew I couldn't beat it. And it was holding… your head."

"It's okay… It's okay…" Mom gave no reasoning beyond that.

"It's not over. I was trying so hard to be quiet and I wanted the Covenant to go away, but it looked around the room, it smelled… it was smelling everywhere, and then it looked down at me, and it looked straight into my eyes. And it had… red eyes… and so I tried to run away, and I got out and I ran past all the Covenant, and I ran outside to try and run away… and I wanted to run as far as I could, but I wasn't fast enough because, because… there was this ship that was all black, and it was so big, it was bigger than Reach, and it blocked out the star. And in the middle there was a giant hole where they started coming out of… they started doing, you know… like they did to, uh, Rufus' Grandpa's sister's planet. Rufus' grandpa said before it kills you it hurts more than anything else in the universe. The huge laser came down and started burning everything, and I couldn't run away fast enough… and then I woke up."

Amonika shivered, as her room was once again silent. Mom didn't answer atfirst.

"No, Mom, don't go!"

"I'm just getting your father."

Now, very faintly out of the vents, "Travis, come talk to your son."

"What, what does he need me for?"

"Tamas has been telling him alot of things… about the Covenant."

Then what sounded like a shrug.

"Hey, Clint. So you had a bad dream?"

"Yeah. About the, um... Covenant."

"Well, Clint… you know where we are?"

"Our house."

"Yeah, and our house is on Reach. You want to know what the strongest planet, of all the Human planets is?"

"Earth?"

"No, it's Reach. You're standing on it. This planet is so defended, that literally no amount of Covenant they could send would be able… even to get close enough to hurt us. We have thousands of ships here, and even more stationed at Tribute and Eridani IV, and we have hundreds and hundreds of cannons that would shoot their ships out of the sky like-" he snapped his fingers "that."

This explanation was a comfort to Amonika atfirst, until she caught him claiming "hundreds and hundreds" of Mac cannons on or around Reach, when she knew for a fact there weren't more than 50.

"They couldn't burn the planet?"

"... Where'd you hear about that, Clint?"

"Well, different places… Rufus' grandpa told me alot of it."

Mom cut in "and he told him that before it kills you, it hurts more than anything… does."

"Hmm… well, Clint, I won't lie to you. For those people who get killed by Glassing, it's very painful. And you know what, if I were to be called into the military or something, to go fight the Covenant, and maybe I got killed… by one of those Glassing rays… I'd have to be brave, and I could be brave, because I'd know that you, and Mommy, and Amonika were here and you guys would be safe. But guess what, Clint?"

"Huh?"

"When you die by burning, you feel it for a little bit, you feel it hurting, but then you know what happens? It fries all your nerves off, and you can't even feel it anymore. You can't feel anything. That's not so bad, is it?"

"But… but you die…"

"That's something you have to be brave about too-"

"Rufus' grandpa said the Covenant… that what the Covenant think is… that Humans, when they die, they go to Hell, and they keep hurting forever, just like how it felt when they died, and they can never get out… because Humans are all evil… and so when they kill us they-"

"Tell me, Clint, are you evil?"

"... No…"

"Am I evil?"

"No."

"What about Mom?"

"No."

"Or… Amonika?"

"Well… kinda." He gave a small laugh.

"No, not kind of. The Covenant don't know what they're talking about. They've made all of this up, everything having to do with, uhm, suffering after we die. That's just silly, when we die, that means that we, that nothing more happens to us, right?"

"Right."

"Humans are all evil monsters? They've never met one of us, just like we've never met one of them. They may be aliens, but they're no more… that doesn't make them right. They've gotta be stopped just like any bad Human would have to be stopped, and we are stopping them. Like your brother. Walter's out there fighting the Covenant right now, fighting for us, and he's still alive. You think he cares what the Covenant think about him? No. He's not fighting for the evil side, he's fighting for the good side. Now you know you're not supposed to listen to what Rufus' grandpa says. He's messed up in his mind."

"Well… that's a good thing, definitely, like, because… well it's just what Rufus' grandpa says, but he says that it probably would happen soon, until the Covenant finds Reach. It's not true, but it's just he said they've been finding every other planet, and almost every time, except for some times, they destroy them, and burn them. And he says that once they find us, they'll destroy us too. Only if they get one of our ships… then they can look on the computers and see where they need to go."

"The Covenant are not unstoppable. Maybe Tamas thinks they are, but they aren't, or else we'd never be able to save our planets, like just happened for Tamas' sister's planet. They didn't destroy Sigma Octanus. And they'll definitely never destroy Reach. it's here."

"So that's just because he's… has problems with his mind?"

"... Yeah. Now get some sleep, Clint."

"Can I sleep in your room?"

"No, I believe you can be brave in here."

"No I can't"

Amonika stopped listening. Dad's answer was somewhat satisfactory for Clint, but not so much for Amonika. In truth, even if he'd not made a statement she knew to be false, it wouldn't have put any of the questions to rest. Of course, he was explaining it for a child, and since she surely wouldn't ask him herself it was all she'd receive.

Amonika checked the time. 0540, by Reach SíkságTZ Standard time. In smaller text beside it was the Earth London Standard Time, which no one she knew ever had any use for. Atleast it allowed her to know that people in England were having lunch at about that time. She, for one, needed to get back to sleep.

By the next morning fear had been flushed out of Amonika's mind. She forced herself up, got her things ready, fed the dog, then ate breakfast, allowing herself more than she would have if her Mom hadn't already left for her work at the ONI center. Time and time again she had zealously enforced eating less than satisfactory, claiming the food would expand in their stomachs.

Her workplace loomed large, contrasting against the humbler buildings that mostly comprised this town. It had been built on the rubble of demolished farmhouses, bought by JOTUN agricultural. Now where family farmlands which fed the town had lain, was one massive crop stretching for miles and feeding the cities of Reach.

One four-story machine plowed the forest of unconquered sapgrass, intending to expand the crop until it covered the entire valley Westward, tapping into the swampy soil's rich potential. Reach's ground was compatible in spots like these with Earth-native plants, though most places were nearly impossible to yield anything. Somehow, unaware of the sapgrass fields, the earliest colonizers of Reach had been able to survive and establish their farms. It was an uncompromising endeavor of self-sufficience at the time. Now, since the loss of many farming planets, Reach had once again to become self-sufficient. Smaller machines gathered the crop to a tub of corn, deep enough to damage the cobs at the bottom. By the time Amonika arrived the tub had already been pulled inside.

Her eyes glazed while manually stripping the corn and filling it into a cart until it was time to roll it to its processor. One person operated what needed operation on the machine until the kernels were packaged into gallon boxes. Then two stackers put the boxes on a shelf. She was not alone, with more than forty other women, and a few men standing beside the conveyor to her left or right, and several carts.

Corn was only the largest production at JOTUN, but there were at the same time many other people glazing their eyes over at many other produce stations. Some of them played music, but not her station. Some of them were very friendly to Amonika, but not her own station, for the most part. It happened that today her only refuge was the giant wall screen in her view. It was semifinals in the Galactic Cup.

Now these teams have drama with each other, that's well-known. But just in case you've been living under a rock and haven't heard, you'v egot Hang Kana from Clan Guta who left the rugby team co-founded by "UNrePENtant" on Clan Tuzhal, and has basically ghosted him anytime he's tried to reach out since. There's a long story there, too long to explain this second, but we can be sure it will lead to some serious anger in this game today. Well, I mean we can't be sure, but we should expect it, for sure! And they're off!

The monotone commentator refused to shut up over the rugby game, referencing interactions between celebrity players which were surely recorded in the annals of Waypoint, and yelling spastically whenever the players did anything of note. A pit rose in Amonika's gut, shearing yet more corn. She couldn't imagine being so preoccupied with this game, as to spend her whole life on it, or even a significant fraction. Well, most of the players did say they donated their incomes to the war effort. But it still felt wrong that their life's work would be so pointless. Maybe it did have a point, though. Maybe it was a hope to someone right now with no hope. The pit returned. She stood there handling corn, a necessary job, since no machine was present to do it. But even as their surplus increased it would only go to the refugees flooding into Reach. It would never make its way to a soldier out there making a difference. If she could get corn to a hungry soldier like Walter then it could give them the strength to fight and win.

To make a difference. That is the need of every human. A female soldier narrated this UNSC ad, and while Amonika looked away at first in favor of corn, she found herself looking up to it again. In a universe that tells us, 'you are too small' The video showed a planet from space, with hundreds of explosions on the surface 'you will never make a difference,' the only one who can call its bluff… is you. A studio-filmed clip of a soldier yelling with righteous rage played, a rocket launcher over her shoulder. She fired, and the missile zipped towards a bright purple Covenant ship. Amonika became jittery when the clip intercut with realistic footage of a rocket hitting a similar ship, only much darker. The ship fell out of the sky and was consumed in flame.

Humanity is not a speck! Humans are people with WILL and SPIRIT! And those are two things that can make a difference! After another similar clip of soldiers auto-gunning down a pack of grunts and jackals, it showed an older woman who looked tough as nails. In eleven worlds over eight years, there is one thing the Navy has taught me. It is that we have so much more power within us than anyone could believe. I've seen the weakest men and women become heroes, I've seen superior Covenant forces STOMPED OUT. More and more victories against the Covenant were shown, including a very clean encounter where ODST's gunned down Jackals. This clip in particular thrilled Amonika.

The narrator came back in. How can the universe tell us we are insignificant, when we continue to rise to the occasion, to outsmart it, to show it we have survived the best it can muster, for 26 years and counting? This is what we say to the Universe: 'We do not submit.'

The UNSC Needs YOU. There was a waypoint link.

It was before Amonika was born, and when her brother Walter was only a toddler, that the Covenant attacked Humanity. The announcement at the time, like the waters of a breaking dam, flooded every tv channel, every radio broadcast, every aspect of human thought, as everyone wondered "what,?" and "why?" We were no strangers to alien life, Amonika lived around it every day, but never before sentient life. And like in a movie, these aliens immediately waged genocidal war, destroying any planet they found. Society nearly collapsed due to hysteria. On a couple planets it did.

Her mother and father, like the very overwhelming majority of Humans, had long ago set their loyalties to the advancement of humanity through peaceful progress, the violence surrounding the Insurrection being only a bloody stain in our ledger. They had devoted their lives to compartmentalized functions, her Mom's being physics and her Dad's being psychology. They were in no condition to go fight on the frontlines, as the world suddenly wanted them to. They comforted themselves in the fact that they could do more good for the defense of Humanity in their indirect contributions than they would throwing themselves at the Covenant facefirst. They wanted the same for their children.

But the war had different ideas. Their son, who was born into a drastically different world than his parents were, set his sights on being a soldier, and from what Amonika heard he'd become a quite good one. Being in the UNSC provided a heavy monetary incentive which the Grants reaped every month, and if Amonika signed up as well it would be a considerable upgrade from what she currently made. And food was expensive.

Moreso than food, the price of realty had gone sky high on Reach. Construction was taking place left and right, and it had turned what was once a rural area where Amonika's family, the Grant's, lived in one of a handful of qivas, into a suburb only a couple years back. Any given piece of property on Reach had increased its worth fifty fold since the Covenant's existence had been released to the public. For many wealthy people in the Outer colonies, it had turned nearly into a mad scramble to move away from their less defended and high-risk planets to undeniably the safest planet in Human space, to such an extent that the planet government had to start denying immigration en masse. Not for lack of space, but for so many other accommodations that strained the people of Reach more and more every day.

Amonika's parents had considered selling their estate and moving to a different planet. Anywhere near to Earth with lower average realty costs, like for example Andesia, where much of their extended family lived, would have done, and they wouldn't be afraid of starvation. But because they craved the safety too, it wasn't entertained for long. They still possessed luxuries that could be sacrificed.

And so the plan was to stay, and hope for the best that the state of the war would turn in Humanity's favor. But it seemed every month or so nowadays, that news got out of a Covenant attack on some previously untouched planet.

Staving off creeping fear, she'd entertained with herself and her parents the possibility of going into the UNSC like her brother, mostly out of lack for any otherwise helpful passion she wanted to pursue in her life. She had always loved biking, and so in the past few years, and especially since she'd turned eighteen in May, she took what time she could to ride cross country, mainly to build up endurance.

However, even now that she was old enough to sign up, Amonika still wasn't wholly decided on joining. She wasn't quite sure what sort of strength, mental or physical would be tested in boot camp and on the battlefield, but a high endurance level had to be helpful for any of it.

The day passed quick. Knowing the time she had lost since going to work she might have felt guilty if not for the fact she was looking forward to the evening. As she headed home she remembered, a present was expected for Clint's 7th birthday on the 14th, Earth reckoning.

The bell jingled as she entered the store in town, and scanned the halls on one particular side for a toy. Anything cheap would do. A stock of cheap plastic sets with UNSC soldiers vs Covenant were growing in popularity, all depicting the side of Humanity in the winning position of course. Looking to the top, she could see a large set of the Covenant's strange vehicles, and lots of large and small infantry, with a single Spartan soldier on the side of the UNSC. The Spartan was clearly carefully and expensively made, moreso than any of the other figures. Likely the type of figure you were intended to have one of for a whole collection. She considered grabbing the first reasonably priced set she saw, containing an army man and one of the creatures called Jackals. But she considered the scared little boy and what he would think of the set, putting aside all the phony cries for attention. Perhaps the set would be a cognitive trap to Clint, an unwinnable battle. She looked at the Jackal. Many models she'd seen before were terrifying. Battlefield footage showed the horrible reality. There was even a life-sized statue in a museum Amonika had once visited, alongside many other types of Covenant, nearly all of which towered over her. But this figure looked intentionally rounded, defanged and unthreatening. Possibly the effect of cheap plastic. She set down the box, wondering if it would do him harm.

The other major shelf stocker was related to that year's Reach Galactic Cup, the celebrity players of which had figurines in hordes. It seemed a more hyped-up event this year than it ever had been before, but who actually bought this stuff? Amonika didn't know any kid young enough for toys who cared about the Cup more than passively. Glancing over at the electronics section, she quickly glanced away after seeing the price range. The UNSC toy it would be, and in fact she realized the comfort of scared children was exactly the toys' design. Contrasting the idea of an all-black monster with red eyes which was too big and strong to be beaten, with a very real, tangible, killable creature, the tools to defeat which were in your hands. That was the selling point for these things. That and looking really cool.

This was among the aforementioned luxuries which could be abandoned if push came to shove.

Riding home through what had become a sizable town in Amonika's lifetime, feeling the cool, wet wind and watching the native birdlikes fly low and perch on manmade structures, she felt inclined to check her commpad. As a matter of fact, the forecast had changed since five Reach days ago, when she checked to make sure and it said light rain tonight. The current prediction was light rain this evening, heavy rain and thunderstorm at night, then light rain tomorrow.

This evening was the time when Amonika and her boyfriend Rufus, who lived with his grandfather in the same qiva as the Grants, were supposed to go riding cross-country together. She accepted light rain, and could get over it. If she joined the UNSC she'd more than likely face much tougher challenges. But if the ground became wet enough it could become a hazard for their bikes. She had experience with as much.

It was a slow, easy decline from the store to Amonika's qiva, and so she calmly took in the sight of her hometown. The sky gleamed a bright aqua, as was common for Reach, with a wall of increasingly dark clouds approaching in the West. It was a beautiful view, which on examination even Amonika, having grown up only knowing it, could appreciate. As she passed by the foliage of fir trees transplanted from Earth, and alongside less regularly and more randomly spaced native trees, the small mammalian Wood Skits could be seen walking on the branches without making them so much as wobble, ruffling through the dense leaves in order to find the much smaller mammalian Sagenes, or perhaps one of the meaty anthropoids which stuck to the leaves' base and hijacked its chlorophyll in order to create reproductive materials.

In places around the planet where Wood Skits were uncommon, hives of both these types of creatures could grow out of control, and touching one of the trees' thankfully tall branches would cause a disruption the Sagenes would interpret as possible prey, and send flooding towards in order to capture and eat, if possible. Humans were not their target food source, but nonetheless seeing and feeling the hundreds of millimeter-long creatures flood onto your arm in order to identify you was an experience which scarred Amonika's childhood.

For years she saw those tree-dwellers as evil creatures, but if it wasn't for them, particularly the females of the anthropoids with no non-latin name, after maturing in the planet's tidal period, spread their "wings" and became carried by the wind, and high into the air. There they would stay until full, when they would maneuver themselves back down onto another native tree, latching onto the Plasma Fish for more materials with which they would make their offspring, their internal processes injecting the harvested chlorophyll to provide an energy source long enough to sustain their children their whole lifetime.

Anyways, when latching onto the Plasma Fish, named after Earth's jellyfish which they most resembled, these anthropoids would cut them up and kill them, leaving their transparent light-as-air flesh to eventually fall to the ground, and sometimes collect on the sides of pools of water. Only after death would the Plasma Fish's bodies lose the quality they usually possessed, of injecting a paralyzing neurotoxin, which was weak but in continued contact could become dangerous, into the blood of any mammalian who touched them, including Humans.

Normally, they hung very sparsely a couple of Kilometers in the sky, where few humans were in danger of touching them, but without the anthropoids keeping them in check, in a few years they could grow in numbers until they drifted dangerously low. In a couple of cities Amonika had seen in documentaries, they resorted to using high frequency sound emitters, which the Plasma Fish had an evasive reaction to, and played them day and night, inaudible to the human occupants. Less efficiently, some rural folks with the problem would use leafblowers.

Amonika looked around. She recognized a few of the faces out and about today. This was still a somewhat rural place. She rode past house after house, quickly and mostly cheaply built, and then a few old qiva's like her own.

Funny enough, most people living outside of Reach didn't even know what a qiva was. It was a commonly built structure, or in some cases multiple structures close together, built by the early Hungarian settlers who, after finding Reach to be inhabitable without much technological assistance, left the colony stations and claimed property around the planet. Many of them, though none in Amonika's town, were made from the tough wood of native trees. Almost always built for the living of multiple families, several homes connected, usually in a circle, with a shared courtyard on the inside. Sometimes they were fenced off for more privacy, with a pole in the courtyard's center and each home having a pie slice backyard. They varied in size from a single private dwelling, to an entire neighborhood half a kilometer from end to end.

Amonika's qiva was built by Rufus' great grandparents and with the former owners of the Grants' home, of which it had four. There was no paved road for a hundred meters leading up to it, and the front door to Amonika's home was on the backside. As she approached, a flurry of barks came, first squealing from the two Moa Miniatures living in the front household, then from her own Shepherd dog, Chabby. Her father's Shepherd dog, to be specific.

"Hey, Chabby. Chabby, down!" The dog jumped up and down with joy. Energy bursting out of its seams, it ran to the far wall and back, stepping on Clint who was sitting on the floor. Amonika rolled her eyes as he burst into tears and cried for Mom. He was way too old to be acting like this, she thought. Her Mom was a psychologist, she assumed she'd see past Clint's charade.

Well in this case she did. "Clint, stop crying. You're fine."

He sat back up. "Mom, Chabby stepped on the pad with his dirty feet."

"Well… you should have wiped his feet on the mat when he came inside."

Clint used his shirt to smudge away the dirt, and went back to watching the Galactic Cup semifinals. "Since when do you watch that stuff,?" Amonika asked him.

"A few days ago, when I was over at Rufus' grandpa's home, he was showing me this game. It looks super fun. I wanna do it when I grow up." She saw a group of athletes playing something akin to rugby.

"You are not wasting your life on that."

Clint slapped the base of her leg, genuinely angry. "It's not a waste… like how bike riding is."

"Well, bike riding as a… bike riding for bike riding's sake would be pretty weird. That's not what I'm aiming for."

"Speaking of which," her mom, Elma said, "are you still planning on going, uh, cross country with Rufus today?"

"Yep, in half an hour."

Her Mom stopped the task she was doing, and contemplated for a moment. "Clint, I need to talk to Amonika alone." Clint got up and left the room without pulling his eyes from the screen.

"I don't want Clint going over to Rufus' house anymore." That made two of them. "Atleast not when Tamas is around… I know it might be rude, but… to be honest, between his, uh, hmm…" she searched for the word. "His perspective?"

"Yeah, his worldview. Or his conspiracy theories."

"Yes, exactly. Well, I don't know about conspiracy theories, but his worldview. It's not a good influence."

"He's a conspiracy theorist."

"Between that, and his dementia, it was always a bit questionable, leaving him to watch Clint all the time."

"I know, I know. Pretty sure I've said it before."

"Hmm… well, last night, apparently Clint was getting bad dreams, and apparently it was because… Tamas told him about the Covenant, and how they would attack planets, and how they would glass them. And he's apparently, like, telling him that the Covenant can't be, pretty much can't be stopped by any means, and we're just delaying the inevitable or something."

Amonika's hairs stood on end. And that's not true?

"We don't need Clint hearing all that stuff, at his age?" Well, Amonika was hearing the same things at about the same age. "We've specifically told Tamas not to go saying stuff like- oh yeah, and he also told him something that's just, like, scaring him to scare him. He said… well, something we don't even know is true, we don't even know that much about the Covenant at all, but Tamas is making claims about what they believe in their religion, and how all Humans are all just totally evil demons and so we're going to go to Hell when we die, and it's just like, well for one, it's pretty ironic, because Tamas basically believes the same things there. He thinks we're going to Hell. But… yeah, there was alot more, and that was just what Clint told us, and he's getting nightmares about it."

Amonika nodded silently. Atleast on Reach, it was the common cliche that the generation of Amonika's parents had little respect for the generation preceding them, and that they expected their children to have the same disrespect for their grandparents, but not their parents. The Grants were a direct contrast to the cliche. Amonika hadn't respected Tamas in the slightest since she was a girl. "And so you needed Clint to leave for this? You don't want him hearing?"

"Well, your father already made it clear to Clint. He's not going to talk to Tamas anymore, not alone. And I was wondering, you're probably gonna say no, but someone needs to go talk to Tamas and make sure he understands the situation on his end."

"... me?"

"You're probably gonna, I mean that is a bit to put on you. But I thought since you were already headed over there."

"Yeah, to pick up Rufus."

"Then Dad will have to do it when he gets home. I don't have time to spare right now." Amonika looked at the large pad she was focused on, which appeared white without the filtering glasses set to its frequency which her Mom currently wore.

"Whatcha working on?" Amonika asked, not used to her work being hidden from view.

"I, actually, am not allowed to discuss that."

"Oh no?"

"Nope."

"Does it have war application, is that why? You, like, don't want the enemy to know the details of what we have?"

Her Mom didn't answer for a time. "I'm trying to concentrate, 'Monika. And no, I can't really answer that either."

Amonika made audible her amusement. Secret, classified ONI stuff. Her Mom wasn't usually working on things so shrouded in secrecy.

After going upstairs she took off her backpack, slung it on her bed, and took out Clint's toy to stuff it on a high shelf where he couldn't see.

After filling her pack with the necessary things, she pulled out the toy. In attempting to quickly stash it somewhere Clint wouldn't see she arrived on only one viable choice that wasn't covered in other junk. A high shelf with physical paperback and hardback books stacked up nearly to the ceiling. They didn't even belong there, they were her parents'. They used to collect the things out of worry something might happen to the network, and everything would be lost. In that case, they would still be able to keep the "essentials." Mostly uninteresting books like Reach History, Sherlock Holmes, Far Whisper, Moby Dick, Lord of the Rings, Soldier's Story, War and Peace, A Narancs Története, but also dotted in with some books Amonika had been forced to read and liked, albeit in the normal onscreen fashion, like The Day I Found Them, the Lost Theater series, or, as she had gifted her father in hardback one Christmas, Behind the Mark. He never read it, and now the stash had somehow ended up in Amonika's room, only further donating to the coating of junk over every surface.

She'd assumed there was enough space between the top books and the ceiling to stick the plastic box, but apparently it wasn't so clear cut, and she tried forcing it until a stack fell off the side and onto the floor. An unreasonable amount of rage enveloped Amonika. She stuffed the toy back into her backpack, because there was nowhere else for it to go, so she thought.

"Okay, I'm heading out," she later said while making for the back door. Her Mom didn't respond. Walking out into the courtyard which served as backyard to all four of the qiva's homes, two Moa Miniatures ran up to the only fence in the circle. It was the Larugas' portion of the yard, who wanted a bit more privacy even before it would be useful to keep the Moa in and the dog out, and so they put the fence up.

Jerbett and Walfali were named after the main characters of a Netseries which was popular when the Larugas were young adults, and were very timid creatures. Half a meter tall on long thin ostrich-like necks, and about 90 kilograms a piece, Jerbett and Walfali were Reach-native fauna despite how much they resembled ostriches from Earth.

Even after generations of breeding on this new planet, Chabby still reacted to them as alien, and went into defensive mode whenever he saw or smelt them. Looking out the back door and seeing them run up to the fence now, he unleashed yet another barrage of his most gravelly barks.

Through a hole in the fence, Amonika pet Walfali on the back, who immediately recoiled and allowed Jerbett to take his place. She too recoiled when pet. They were of course looking for food, not to be cuddled, and tiptoed away when they realized she had none.

Tamas and Rufus' portion of the qiva was disconnected from the rest of the structure, which in turn formed a "C" shape, and so Tamas and Rufus' quarter stood half its width out of sequence, enough space to park their tire-contact cars in either open pass. Beside the backdoor hung a flagpole reaching high into the air. Sailing at half mast, but still high enough to be seen from beyond the qiva, the flag of Sigma Octanus flapped in the wind. Officially, planets or in Sigma Octanus' case Star Systems did not have their own flags, and every Human colony was supposedly under the flag of the Unified Earth Government, by its own law. But the population of certain planets who leaned anti-UEG had rejected this imposition, and designed their own national, planetary, or star system flags as a symbol of rebellion. On occasion, this rebellious spirit led to Insurrection, and its various factions and manifestations, both organized and unorganized.

Like Reach, Sigma Octanus had an Insurrectionist presence, and so like every other, its System flag was looked on as a somewhat distasteful or even treacherous icon of terrorism. Tamas' sister, like himself, was an Insurrectionist sympathiser, and had sent him the flag as a gift years ago. Now, after his sister had survived the Covenant attack on the planet, he'd worked up the nerve to put the flag on display, showing his support for the survivors of course. Amonika's parents just so happened to up their own UNSC flag, and flying it at full mast, to show support for their son Walter.

"Yeah, I liked the way you were thinking with the Octanus flag," her Dad had explained to Tamas, which appeared effective at minimizing headbutting. But despite her parents' best efforts, Amonika feared their entire qiva was marked as a place of taboo regardless. If she'd had her way she'd have torn the Insurrectionist flag down off its pole. And burnt it.

Nonetheless she put on a happy face when approaching the aluminum backdoor, and gave it a light knock.

Rufus was in his room, a holographic display of the entire galaxy in front of him. He floated in a fraction of Reach gravity, manipulated by machinations in the base of his pod, and yet still felt weak. His arms rested 90 degrees at his sides as he grasped the two extruding controllers, using the left joystick to move his POV on a flat plane relative to the galaxy, the right joystick to turn the camera, the left slide to move him vertically relative to the galaxy, and the right slide to zoom in or out.

His pod was an expensive piece of equipment his dad bought when he was his age, back when such pods were very popular. For obvious reasons, no one bought these anymore as opposed to the relatively cheap commpads and such, and so they weren't sold, except on Waypoint to the decadent.

Rufus' dad most likely used the machine for entertainment, and while Rufus often did the same, it also enabled him his fears. So many planets, 560 to be total, were shown with some sort of icon next to them, above the planet's North pole, which stayed the same size no matter how far you zoomed in or out. It was a couple of years ago Rufus made his way to this exact online chart, generously provided and consistently updated by the Eridanus Waypoint user Kronett_9, who he was now a good acquaintance of. At the time, he had made an ignorant promise to himself: that he would never come back. That he would never again engulf himself in the fear that came with looking at this page, a fear which Kronett_9 definitely shared, as he had done tens of hours of research in order to put it together.

The icons beside each planet came in two shapes, one the Unified Earth Government logo, to designate official Colony Worlds of which there were sixteen, and the other a flag to designate independently founded worlds. These icons themselves came in three colors, green, red or yellow.

Reach, and the other planets in the Epsilon Eridani system, were green, meaning they were undiscovered by the Covenant. In the years since Rufus had followed the page, the number of red planets had grown from 368 to 406. There were also five yellow planets, which were found and attacked by the Covenant, but successfully fought off, atleast for now. Harvest, Chi Ceti IV, Arcadia, Imber, and as of the last month Sigma Octanus IV, where his great aunt lived. Rufus had never met her, except in messages through slipspace data pods. He'd never left Reach. But she was the first person he personally knew who had been in a Covenant attack. It was a chilling thought, that such a threat had struck so near. Sigma Octanus was nearly an Inner Colony. Auntie Suzi seemed to agree. She'd sent a transmission on a ship traveling through slipspace after surviving the attack, telling Rufus and his grandfather that she would do everything in her power to leave her yellow planet and come to Reach. If she could make it, by all means, they would welcome her and let her live in their qiva. There was plenty of space.

But when a planet went yellow, it rarely stayed that way for long. It might not be long before another Covenant fleet arrived at his great aunt's planet, and finished off what they started. There was no apparent sign of the Covenant ever stopping. No matter how much of theirs Humanity destroyed, it didn't seem to deplete a seemingly endless supply of Covenant ships produced from who knew where, and burnt planet after planet. How large was the Covenant? How much space did they occupy? To Rufus' knowledge, Humanity was in no position to guess when they might be exhausting enough to give up the war. Though it was denied officially, everyone online believed the UNSC had more casualties than they took from the Covenant in nearly every battle.

On multiple occasions, looking at this very page on EpsEri's Waypoint servers and seeing an entirely red marked galaxy had been an event of Rufus' nightmares. As he examined the 560 planets for much more time than the information given deserved, he thought a thought that wasn't new. If any planet here was under attack right now, we wouldn't know it. Earth herself could be burnt to a crisp and we wouldn't get the news of it for two weeks.

He looked out the window, laser focused on the mountain of black against the moonlight. He was captivated by the thought of a dimly shining fleet of the Covenant's strange ships hovering in the sky, undersides glowing with the buildup of plasma. His heartrate rose, and his grip tightened. A paper Bible sat on his shelf, unopened for months.

I'm sorry, Lord. I've ignored you too long. He shut down his pod. There was no point going back to analyze the same page again. Wiping sweat off his face, he sat down on his bed and opened the Bible. He looked at the leather and paper and found comfort in them.

"I know the Covenant is a dog on your leash, Lord. Please let me act like it. Even if their armies go on indefinitely, they would all fall dead were it not for your providence. If you wanted us all destroyed, Lord, then none of us would be here. You do have a purpose for me and my family, being alive right now, and carrying Your truth on through eternity, and praising You. I haven't lived up to what You want from me. I've been self-serving, and so preoccupied with other things I forget You. It's not good to forget my savior. I submit, God. And only hope in so doing you give me the strength to stand unafraid… when- whenever death comes. Oh God, The Universe you created is huge and terrifying. I feel like it could snuff out someone, as tiny as me without even noticing. Why do I have such little faith? I trust You, I trust that you hold all things in your hand. Give me more faith, please. Give me more courage, to be able to live my life well, erm- the way you've called me to. In Jesus' name, Amen."

He closed the Bible. It was too late to read he thought, but he was satisfied and calmed by prayer. He looked outside. There was nothing in the blackness.

But the dark figure standing in the doorway made him jump, reengaging his heart rate before he recognized his grandfather.

"Rufus, come here. Right now!" and Tamas quickly limped away.

Rufus climbed out of his pod and followed him into the living room. There was a voice yelling out of the room's speakers, that of a scared and angry woman. "You can't do this to people you can't do this to me! People know what you're doing! Hundreds of people are listening to this broadcast!"

A man's voice was getting closer. "Give me the radio. Give it to me."

"Is this real?" asked Rufus. "Is it a recording?"

Tamas shushed him, motioning to listen. The men's voices faded, meaning she must have closed or walked away from the door where she was at.

So it was live. His heart began to race more furiously then any imagination could cause. His eyes got blurry, and the woman in the transmission screamed. "Stop it, stop it! You're not gonna take me!" There was a struggle, and then the woman's screams came from further away then they were.

"How do I turn this thing off,?" asked the man's mumbling voice. Dozens of other voices erupted, many people apparently on the channel with different quality microphones. They yelled at the man, calling him many colorful words and expressing rage, fear and flabberghast. By the time the voices relatively calmed down there was no more audio coming from the woman's device.

Tamas turned it down. "Oh my, Rufus, you missed so much. That was Elka Terrio you just heard." Rufus had recognized the voice. Terrio was an activist he and his grandfather had met at a couple of political events.

"What the hell was just happening to her?"

"I should have gotten you sooner, Rufus, I should've gotten you sooner. That was a soldier who attacked her."

"No way…"

"Yes! They were all around her house, circling it and they broke in to kidnap her! It's the same thing they've been doing for months now! So many people, up in the Skorpio Mountains, have just disappeared. This is that channel I've told you about, Rufus. Everyone here is reporting on where the UNSC has been striking! Elka was one of them, and now she's been taken, Rufus! Do you understand?"

Tamas had told Rufus about "kidnappings" for some time, some strange new fixation, but he never believed it. "Holy shit, it's real…"

"Of course it's real! This is what the UNSC has been planning for ages!"

Rufus found himself calling again to God. He needed that fortitude now.

Next afternoon, Rufus was back in the pod, when there was a hard knock on the outer shell. "Rufus, Monika's here to see you. Get outta there." Adrenaline shot through Rufus. He closed out of the map page and hit his arm on the pod's wall.

After nearly forgetting, he responded "Okay." The side door swung open after releasing it from the inside, and he saw his grandpa, Tamas. "She wasn't supposed to be here yet." While checking the wall clock and seeing it wasn't too far from the time to go, Tamas responded.

"Well, she's here now. Don't keep her waiting." At that same moment, Amonika appeared behind him in the doorway.

"Heya," she said somewhat awkwardly.

"Hey," Rufus responded, about to add on you're here a bit early.

"How've you been lately, Monika,?" asked Tamas.

"Fine," she responded, and seemed as though she wanted to say something to him.

Rufus did his best to direct the conversation "well, I was just talking to my Dad. He's been sending me some great jpg's." He pressed a pad on the inside of the pod, and immediately the three dimensional holographic projection on the inside transferred to a two dimensional screen cast on the exterior.

Placing his hand on the fiberglass wall and darting it across the screen, Rufus maneuvered to the private board between him and his Dad, and sorted by .jpg files.

Amonika took a seat, already smiling at what she might see.

An online news article's headline appears up above, reading "UEG suggests riding bicicles instead of fuel consuming vehicles."

"Me."

Below, a large man sits in an office chair, his shirtless flab bulging out from beneath the armrests. The video starts with him turned away from the camera as the office chair slowly spins around for him to face it. "In case you have not noticed, I am fat," a posh European voice coming from the man.

Amonika didn't know where that clip was from, if anywhere, but it was hilarious nonetheless, and she began to feel sore grinning so hard.

"Let's see, what else…" Rufus scrolls through the gallery, looking for snaps she would understand and find amusing.

"What's that one,?" she asked after spotting the flash of a particularly eye catching image.

"Anyways," Amonika finally said, looking at her watch, "you ready to get this show on the road?"

"So, no… there are a few reas- a few things making… me not able to go."

Amonika looked at Rufus judgingly, as if it was a betrayal that he was declining what they had already planned. "What do you mean?"

"So, for one. I'm really not feeling good. Like, feeling bad, today."

"How?" Amonika was becoming quickly frustrated with Rufus, and would not let him get away with changing things.

"In quite a few places. Umm, in my legs, for one. I hurt my leg yesterday, right on the knee-"

"Oh, come on, you'll be fine."

"Not if we're gonna be biking. Like, for a long trip, that's gonna become a problem."

Amonika stood up and hung halfway out the door. "Come on, Rufus… what happened to your knee that was so bad you can't ride a bike?"

"Well, it's not like I can't ride at all-"

"Then let's go!"

Tamas yelled from his couch "Rufus isn't going today, Monika." She looked concerningly in the old man's direction.

"I could probably go myself if I really tried, I'm sure. But then Tamas is saying stuff like- he really doesn't want me going far out right now. Apparently… like, according to his radio, and… you know, alot of the sources he's got, they're saying the UNSC, right up North UNSC teams are going around and… driving people out of their homes and stuff."

Amonika rolled her eyes even as he said the words, then swung back into the room, lowering her voice. "Rufus, think."

"I'm thinking,!" he said apologetically, no challenge entering in his voice.

"Is Tamas really scaring you with his stupid radio? It's a load of bull!"

"Monika, I've seen the troops, driving down Casper street in Warthogs, just today."

"And what do you think they're doing? Are the UNSC not allowed to drive on their own planet? Without, like, scaring people into their homes?"

"Tamas has been… he's heard people on the radio literally get taken out of their houses by force."

Amonika laughed to cover her anger. "Fine." She walked up into the living room and looked at Tamas, the news playing silently on his physical screen as the muffled sound of radio broadcasts came from the machine in the armchair beside him. A microphone jutted out from behind the headrest alongside his mouth. He was clearly in quite a state of investment in whatever the radio was saying.

"So, Tamas," she said in a gentler tone, "I hear you wanted to cancel mine and Rufus' plans?"

"Yes," Tamas said sternly. "You can still hang out here if you want, or go somewhere very nearby if you want. Just not too far from the house."

"Umm… what's the reason for that?"

"You heard Rufus, Monika. They're going around forcing people out of their homes. And killing some people. I'm talking with some of them right now." He turned up the radio volume for Amonika to hear, but she talked over it.

"Well, you're probably not talking to anyone who's gotten killed." She chuckled.

"Oh no, and not the people they've gotten to yet either. They're not allowed to talk to anyone when the UNSC comes for them. I've heard it myself, a soldier wrestling away the radio from a man. It's been going on for a couple of weeks now, started up far North. But now they're moving further and further South, been getting more and more crazy about it, and now today Rufus saw Warthogs barrelling down our own town's streets, isn't that right?"

Rufus was now standing in a corner equally far from Amonika and Tamas. "Yeah."

He continued "They're really coming down on the whole planet now. They want to root out anyone who could possibly be an Insurrectionist, no matter how many rights they have to discard to get them. And they've been saying they wanted to do this for… for a long time now, really since that f***ing ordeal with the ship."

"Yeah, when it was bombed… you know, I really don't think we have much to worry about as long as we're just riding around… being normal people and not terrorists."

Tamas lowered the volume and looked Amonika in the eye. "I don't think you understand. They're not just taking rebels, or even just the people on the radios. It's every person they see. If they're living out there, isolated, then the UNSC is taking them. They're going full authoritarian. It's like Nazi Germany, we're being rounded up."

"Give me a break, Tamas." She looked over at Rufus. "Are you really buying this? This isn't real. Maybe the people up there… I- no, I don't even- there's nothing to say, no argument to be- like, we've been planning to go on this ride."

"You can ride a bike any time," Tamas said, raising his voice, "but Rufus isn't going right now, while this whole mess is happening."

"Rufus, you're an adult, you can make decisions for yourself."

Rufus seemed to have shrunk standing, hoping for the tension to lower rather than rise any further. Clearing his throat, he rose to Amonika's question. "Even if this wasn't happening, this knee would still be a problem. But… it really is… happening. Like, if you've heard all the stuff I've heard, come in over that radio. It sounds crazy, I know-"

"We're riding bikes, Rufus. What do you possibly think anyone's gonna do to us?"

Tamas turned the radio volume way up and spoke into the microphone. "Hey everyone. I've got a girl here who believes the UNSC is not ransacking the countryside. Anyone have anything to say to that?" He stopped transmitting, and the silence went unbroken for a fleeting moment.

"Idiot."

"Well she's wrong, ain't she? She'll see things differently when they come busting in through her own front door."

"It's people like that who always allow Fascists to take power."

This was the straw that broke Amonika's back. "Are these retards actually gonna say anything other than insult me?"

"They have literally been doing this for almost half a year! We are hearing more people get taken away every day, more than the last. If I didn't pack my things and get my family away to the city, I wouldn't be talking to you right now."

"Turn it off, turn it off Tamas."

"Turn it off, sure, just turn off anyone that disagrees with you, or tries to open your eyes. Read a book, kid."

Apparently Tamas had transmitted her words through. Into the microphone, he said "stay safe, everyone," and only then turned it off.

"That was too far, grandpa," Rufus tried to intervene.

"Why? Why do you-" Amonika shrugged. "Do you really think the UNSC is just an evil… ugh, entity? That's just looking to ruin everyone's lives and, and they want to kill you? Is that it? Do you want to go to war against them too? Are you really just a plain Insurrectionist? You want people to kill people instead of the Covenant?"

"Never once! Have I said anything of the like! The UNSC is evil, but we've got no choice but to thank them, because they're the primary shield who will protect us… some of us, that is, from the Covenant. You'd Think! You'd think that in a time like now, when extinction is a severe possibility, when Humanity is being attacked by an Other, that now would be the one time we could band together and fight for a singular purpose. That's the logical assumption!"

"Exactly, yet rebels continue to kill and bomb and-"

"But the UEG sees this as an opportunity to tighten their grip. See just how much they can abuse the people they should be trying to protect. What they're doing right now, on Reach and Tribute, is the effect of evil. Evil people in control."

Amonika covered tears with laughter. Looking over to Rufus, he was beet red. Looking next to her watch, she took a deep breath and said "anyways! I'm going to go on my ride. Before it gets too late and I'd be biking home in the dark. Rufus, I assume you don't want to come?"

After taking a moment to simmer down, Rufus said "no… and you really shouldn't either."

"Okay, well. I'm an adult, I will make my own decisions. Umm, Tamas. My parents wanted me to let you know that they're not gonna be leaving Clint with you anymore."

"What's that now?"

"Yeah, uh. You were apparently telling him stuff about, like, how he was going to burn in Hell."

"I told him that's what the Covenant believed."

"Yeah, and how they glass planets and stuff? Yeah, my parents really don't want their son to be told those things, not by strangers without their consent. So yeah, I guess they'll find a different sitter for him, or… I don't know exactly what they're gonna do, but we're cutting you off." With that she left out the front door.

After a silent recollection, Rufus put his hand on his face. "I saw the Warthogs… soldiers with guns in their hands..."

"She's crazy, isn't she? You know I knew her since she was just a young, young child. Watched her like I do Clint. No idea what changed."

"And I heard Elka Terrio's family get… basically get dragged out of their houses."

"Of course you did. It's plain as day. But some people don't want to see what's right in front of their eyes."

"Amonika's not crazy though. And she's not an idiot."

"Alot like your Mom," Tamas said, as if not hearing Rufus' words.

"Woah woah. No, my…" he shaked his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. "Amonika didn't have anything explained to her, it was just… those people on the radio didn't really help, did they? Just mocked her. I'd, I'd be pretty upset too if I were her, and when she's, you know, she's constantly being told by everyone that the Innies are lunatics and the UNSC are the good guys-"

"Exactly. It blinds people from the truth."

"Well, she'd actually need to be seriously convinced… when we say something that's so contrary to the propaganda."

Tamas acknowledged his words without a response, and after a minute looked out the window. He saw Amonika riding her bike in the distance.

"Should we have let her go? By herself?"

"We can't stop her. She's probably right. She'll probably be fine. But the risk is there, and it's one I don't want you taking."

"Well I don't want her taking the risk either!" Rufus walked towards the front door, but barely opened it.

Tamas shrugged, then turned the radio back on. "Thank you guys for trying to talk with the girl, but she seems to have rejected your story."

A deep, gruff voice comes through, thick with native Reach accent. "This channel is for reporting the UNSC capturing people, do not use it for casual conversation."

"Aye, I reckoned it was on topic."

"It wasn't. You have plenty of places to talk about your personal matters, but anything broadcasting through here should be of practical importance."

"Alright, alright," said Tamas, and released his mic.

Amonika wondered how such a radio could exist. Surely the UNSC would shut it down. Penalize the Accounts of anyone who used it in some way. It was a giant hub of misinformation after all, and a breeding ground for terrorism. She was mathematically sure that someone on the stream was truly Insurrectionist. She still had a glimmer of hope she could change Rufus before he went down that hole, but the doubt consistently gnawed at her, now more than ever.

The day was hot, she was already getting sweaty. Hopefully it would cool down as the star lowered.

Then it hit her: in school she'd heard stories about how a common tactic of Insurrectionists was to use unique frequencies of traditional radio in order to communicate secretly without having to so much as sign into the Chatternet or connect their System accounts in any way. Due to the low audio quality of certain radio channels, their voices couldn't even be identified, and they were essentially anonymous as long as they didn't give away personal information. Such channels were used by the conspirators who bombed the cruise ship last year.

Finally she had scaled the incline, and from here on the ride Northwards would be even or downhill. She glided past construction sites for more traditional houses, the only buildings further North so far than her cluster of qivas, until you reached Range Skorpio.

Amonika switched to a higher gear and sped down to the fields, the road now elevated more than headheight above the rest of the ground, yet the tips of the sempervirent gramina stuck out above pavement level. Falling down into the dark green brush would be unpleasant, and you would be covered in the acidic sap found below where the sunlight didn't reach. The sap had a unique smell, in fact a nostalgic one for Amonika.

Hoping to ease her mind from the things weighing down on her, she took a big whiff in. The smell satisfied her, but it was a bit different from normal.

A vehicle approached from behind. The hum told her it was a hovercraft even before looking back. She tried riding as far to the right as she could on the thin road without risking falling down into the brush, and the vehicle passed her on the left side.

The smell. It was now evident to Amonika, and she couldn't un-smell it. Almost surely it was smokey, in some way. But the particular genre of smokey was completely new to her. She searched her memory and found nothing even remotely similar. She glanced left, to the soon-setting star Eridani. In previous years, bad fire seasons led to Eridani dimming and reddening from her perspective. She couldn't look directly at it, but nothing seemed to indicate a veil of smoke.

She rode on, and the smell persisted. She came to the roundabout where she would turn East. In the center island there was a young tree, planted from the seed of transplanted evergreens originally from Earth, as was customary.

No one else was there save a vehicle coming from far off in the East, and so she circled around the loop before taking her road.

There she saw them. It was not in fact one, but three vehicles coming from the East, all of them military vehicles with open beds. As they came closer it became clear that two of them had open beds filled to the brim with UNSC soldiers, armed and in full gear. Her heart began to race as she told it to steady.

She rode on, reassuring herself they were no danger to her. As the convoy passed by, she glanced at the soldiers, and they glanced back. Their expressions, at least from what she could tell, seemed almost… guilty? Ashamed? She breathed a sigh of relief as they drove on by, her hands shaking on the bike handles. None of them lifted their guns. No one yelled at her or gave her an order. Why had she been afraid, Amonika wondered.

Did I- a part of me believe Tamas and Rufus more than I should have? Any one of these men, she thought, could have been her brother. Not actually, since they would have been notified if Walter had been stationed back on world, but the comparison was a needed reminder that the people Tamas was so afraid of were all someone's brother, or son or husband.

She looked back to see the convoy turning Southwards, back the way she came. Surely there was a reasonable explanation. She forced herself to stop thinking about it.

The road began climbing upwards in approach of Mount Nerna's Northern arm, and Amonika's legs were already starting to feel it. She would take a break after climbing to the bike trail's peak, and the hardest part was over. Without Rufus there, she guessed she would just get out her commpad and snack on some of the stuff in her pack.

After leaving the sapgrass fields, she smelt the air once again. There was no more scent of sap, but the smoke persisted. Finally, she turned back South, leaving the road onto a bike trail that would take her up Mount Nerna. She lowered her gears, and not without reason; the ascent started almost immediately and steep. For the next 10 minutes, Amonika took what level or downwards stretches she could get as opportunity to raise her gear and gain speed, but that also taxed her body. There was little to no rest until reaching the top, a good 4 kilometers from the trail's start, and nearly a kilometer off the ground.

Her ears popped and she started to feel very weak, considering taking a rest earlier, but she pushed on. If I were on the battlefield and, say, I was sent to capture an important position, or to give my fellowsoldiers reinforcements, then I couldn't afford to stop early. Not if my life depended on it, or the lives of others. Surely Walter has had to push on like I am now. She wondered what planets still standing would have been lost to the Covenant had soldiers surrendered to their aches when their bodies told them to rest. Then she considered on what planets it didn't matter.

With only a brief slip of the bike off to the side, Amonika finally made it to the top, or as high up as the bike trail went. In fact Nerna's true peak was another 300 meters up, and smaller trails went off up to it. But here Amonika dropped the bike and sat down on a rock protected from starlight by the mountainside, getting her breathing under control. She felt quite proud of herself for the bit of restraint she'd shown. As she saw it now she was truly cut out to be a marine.

From here she could look down on the long shadow of Mount Nerna, and then much further away to Jamestown, where her grandparents lived. They were situated right on the beachhead, belonging to the same Lake Nerna which stretched across to the unnamed little suburb where Amonika lived, and then back West all the way out to the city of Purus, which she couldn't look towards at this spot on the mountain.

She treated herself to the view for longer than she would have without being so winded. As her breathing steadied, she unzipped the pack and pulled out her commpad. Powering it on, it opened to her Waypoint home page by default. It had difficulty connecting. After a few seconds passed and she got no response, she exited Waypoint altogether.

After a few moments it occurred to Amonika that her town's poor comm tower was blocked by this side of the mountain. She spent a few more minutes holding onto hope before returning the pad to her pack and walking the bike up a steep slope. At multiple points she almost slipped off the slope, but quickly learned to utilize the bike's brakes for extra traction, then alternating to lifting it when her own feet were supported.

At the ridgeline, about 20 meters below the peak, she cast her bike down on its side. The Western edge was a steep dropoff, and she hung her legs over. The star was now partially blocked by faraway mountains. The light dissipated to pleasant levels, and she could now see the distant ridgeline through something of a haze.

The commpad made a rising melodic sound effect to denote a network connection. Now glancing through Waypoint, she opened a recent message from Sedo Sorites, a girl 11 months Amonika's junior who lived in a directly adjacent qiva to her own. Two messages, one 35 minutes ago, the other 2 minutes.

You riding away all on your own? Where's Rufus at?

Rufus just drove off with his Grandpa. What's going on?

Amonika pondered a response for a moment. How about you step away from the front window, eh?.

Immediately she could see Sedo typing. Just wondering what's going on. Are you on your ride or whatever?

Yeah. I'm looking down at your qiva right now. She glanced down the steep wall and to the North, where Sedo's qiva marked the northernmost structure currently lived in in the area.

. Why isn't Rufus with you though?

It just didn't work out. Why does it matter?

I dunno. What are you doing right now?

Just sitting. Close to the top of the cliff, enjoying the view.

Nice, bet it would have been romantic.

Amonika was a little frustrated by the message, but it wasn't Sedo's fault. Well I best get going before the Sun gets too low.

She then immediately went to message Rufus. Sedo says you left with Tamas? Are we still on for tonight?

She waited a minute or two for a response, but then decided it wasn't worth it. She stuck the pad in her pack and got back up on her bike. The terrain and steepness meant she braked the whole way down to the trail. The ride down would be mostly easy, descending longwise until a kind of back and forth stair left you on the ground near the Sea. She would then ride a paved way beside the water around Mount Nerna's lower end until it met with the town's Southern end. From there it would only be a matter of riding slightly uphill through the downtown and up to the qiva areas.

"Afternoon, Pallaton. Is that what you'd like to be called?"

"Call me Lieutenant Pallaton, how bout it?" The hologram of the officer sitting in his chair chuckled. "Yeah, that's fine."

Pallaton quickly establishes a joking tone, noted Travis. "Alright, great. Umm, I'd like to know-"

"Oh boy, already something to write down? I must be more transparent than I thought."

"No, I don't want you to worry about this." Travis held up his clipboard. "I was just noting, I get the feeling you, might be a bit cynical about attending."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"You know, nothing you say here leaves this room."

"Of course. Yeah, I know that."

"You can tell me anything, erm, I don't want you to hide anything from me, or even from yourself. Man, I would never want to equate actually being there with seeing footage, but I have seen alot of footage. It is… a harsh reality."

"Oh, you- you have no idea."

"I know, but I have talked to alot of men and women like you who who were out there. And I understand what it does to the mind. So let me be clear to you now: you need to have some strength to be able to go through this." He had finished his sentence even as Pallaton was clearly angered by it.

"No, no. No you don't understand what it does. Like you can talk to me and other vets all you want, but frankly all you've ever known is safety, and peace. You have no idea how terrifying the Universe is. Sorry. I don't mean to…"

"You've been in the UNSC a long time, haven't you, Pallaton?"

"Since the War began, well a few months after."

"And I have nothing but thanks for your service. No joke, I read through your history and was seriously impressed. You've got one of the most interesting stories of anyone I've talked to."

"Thank you."

"After 27 years, I have nothing but understanding for having an outburst like you did."

Pallaton grumbled. "I mean I won't jump around it. It was wrong, and stupid of me. Well no, that's not true. It wasn't stupid. I've got enough experience to tell where we have an opportunity for survival… and where we don't. I… I'm happy to have been proven wrong."

"Interesting. After so many engagements I believe you. Tell me, why was this time different?"

"Oh, it's not really that unusual. I think the most unusual thing about me is that I haven't died yet. Soldiers die every day out in that, f***ing war. My soldiers have died out…" He whimpered out the end.

"Well thankfully you all made it out last mission."

"Because of ODST's, radio silent ODST's I couldn't possibly- if they weren't there, then we would have had no chance getting off the planet."

"Maybe. But Pallaton, I've read your own quote about how 'seeing defeat as a foregone conclusion will be a self-ful-'"

"Self-fullfilling prophecy. I know what I've said. You must be able to understand I was younger when I said it."

"Sure. Is it not true now?"

Pallaton put a hand over his face. "Oh, you motherf***er… Well you tell me. I'm not dead."

` "All of us can be broken under stress, under fear, and we act irrationally."

"Are you familiar with the concept of rationalization? Like, you try to explain the things going on inside you as an ideology, or a sound byte, or wise words?"

"Yes."

"I've done it for a long long time, and I don't think I'm the only one. I'm truly sorry to my second in command, who had to excuse me, through wails and shouts of despair. Because he had to take the burden that broke me. To be the one responsible for survival. To be the one to figure out how to win an unwinnable battle, and hope."

"Now Pallaton, as footsoldiers they're all going through the same stress you are. I know you've been through alot, but that doesn't make it something unique to you."

"It is. Trust me, I've been both, it's not the same. As a footsoldier you can convince yourself that you are the chess piece in its right place, that the man above you knows the path to follow, as long as he doesn't break and show the horrible truth, or what did you call it? A harsh reality?"

Travis flipped his paper and began to write on the other side.

"That I've been telling the same lie all my life. Sure, I've survived because of this brain, because of these skilled hands, and even because of the lie. But truth be told it's luck that has held me in the balance. Luck that I've figured for a long time would someday run out. Last time it looked like my failures, and I've failed plenty, were going to cost my own life, not just my men's."

"Hmm. And this scared you? Moreso?"

"I'm glad you asked, because it really didn't. I was horrified when I lost Edgerton, or Brennan, or Rachi, or the Undertow, or the Salt of the Earth, or the Promise, no different from last time."

Travis recognized the ship names, but not the people. "I've made peace with my own death, Doctor Grant, make no mistake. I'm a good soldier, after all, and our highest purpose is to sacrifice ourselves for the good of Humanity. But last time I made a simple calculus. There was no hope, and so I let myself drop the act. I left my men to see and hear exactly how hopeless they were, because in an hour, we'd be dead either way. Or so I thought. But luck was not done with me. It's too late. No matter what they try and put into my head here, short of memory erasure, I can't rationalize luck as my indomitable will, or the refusal to give up. Better men than me have failed in spite of it." Tears trickled down his face. Even through hologram, his stare looked distant.

"My son is in the UNSC."

"I'm sorry. Alot of sons are."

"Don't be. He's an ODST and he's still alive, but even if he dies out there, his life will have been worth it."

"Maybe… oh, you know most of the men that get sent out there, it's against their will. Some of them go kicking and screaming."

"My son wanted to go."

"Some do. Like, what do you want from me? He's gonna die before long, if he hasn't already. Maybe you get the news today, meaning he'll have been dead atleast two weeks. I'm sorry! I know you don't want to hear it! I know society would crumble if they heard what I have to say. Hell, we seem to think they'd crumble if they saw one single defeat. We lied about the percentage of Human to Covenant casualties. We lied about how many battles we win. We lied about how much special weaponry we have, and the difference in technology between us and Them. It sucks, but for all your holding-society-together you're on no less borrowed time than I am. Travis. You can drop the act, Travis. You know it too. I know you've seen it on the face of every washout came through these sessions. And I know you feel it too, because everyone does.

But then the can't be drafted, you know. So what do we do? We sell them on it. It's a gigantic cultural industry to convince our young women to join. Multiple female soldiers have told me that the propaganda that convinced them to join was just false. They lied about the percentage of Human to Covenant casualties. They lied about how many battles we win. They lied about how much special weaponry we have, and the difference in technology between us and Them. And it works. There's something, particularly wrong with sending out young women to fight and die. Maybe it's just an old-fashioned bone in my body, but when Maria Jacob died, or when Franz Veneneida; these were young women in my platoon. When they died, it was a heavier addition to the burden on my back than anyone else.

"Mayday, mayday! There's a Falcon craft hovering over my house. There are soldiers on the ground! They have guns! My family's in the bunker, I'm gonna try and hold out but I- I live in the Southeastern Scorpio Mountains, uh… just off of East Crossvalley Road."

Rufus' stomach ached. East Crossvalley Road was so close. Far too close.

"God (blank)," whispered Tamas, sitting wide eyed listening to the broadcast. A few other reverent curses came over the radio, but no one offered to help. Rufus and Tamas surely couldn't, they only had a hunting rifle between the two of them, and the only fighting experience either had was Tamas over 30 years ago. Yet Rufus felt compelled to go and help this man and his family. The two could probably drive there before the soldiers broke in, but then what could they possibly do?

"Please. It's a big olive green house, it's above the forest. Someone, anyone, does- someone has to live close to here."

A shaky-voiced young man came in. "How many are there… do you think?"

"Oh, I don't know… atleast five on the ground."

Not another word came from the young man. Rufus was seized with anger. Why was no one helping him? The lives of his family could be on the line.

Tamas looked up at Rufus caringly. "There's nothing we can do."

"Well- maybe not if we all cower away. But I know for a fact there's enough firepower listening in right now to stop a few marines." He looked around the house. "We should have gotten some guns by now."

Tamas sighed. "They all have their own families to worry about, you know… besides, we've said before it's possible the UNSC listens to this frequency. If there was anyone who is gonna help this man they wouldn't announce it." That eased Rufus a little.

"May God be with you," Tamas spoke into the mic.

"No, no, please, I need help! My family's here with- "

Tamas turned off the radio and reached his hand out to Rufus. "Help me up?"

Silently, Rufus lifted his creaky grandpa off the couch. Tamas then went to put on his jacket.

"What are you doing,?" asked Rufus.

"We're going to get a weapon. Unless you want to defend yourself with our peashooter moa rifle."

Snapping out of a somber haze, Rufus made for his pad. By the time he got it, Tamas was already in the car and had it started.

As he stepped in, Rufus asked where Tamas planned on going.

"Just to the gun store," Tamas responded. "For the moment."

It wasn't a far drive downtown. In under 5 minutes, they'd arrived at the gun store. An empty lot, Only two bikes locked up on the side, likely the staff.

As they parked, Rufus's pad buzzed. He allowed himself a little relief when he saw Amonika messaging him.

Sedo says you left with Tamas? Are you still on for tonight?

Rufus didn't know how to respond to that. The two had planned on coming back and eating at Loke Joint after the ride, but Rufus assumed that was off the table after he stayed from the ride.

Are we?

He deliberated on the message. Amonika likely wasn't in a great mood.

"Rufus, let's get a move on." Tamas was walking for the building, and Rufus followed.

Inside was a small front room, with a path behind the glass counter leading to a larger back. Guns of all legal sorts lined the wall behind the counter, which itself held varieties of ammunition inside. The walls were lined with countless posters, valuable items, knick knacks, and the like. As was intended, a sprawling tapestry giving the illusion of being hand sown depicted soldiers of the Colonial Military Authority; standing, sitting, lighting a cigar; over the bodies of several Covenant species. One of each, it in fact seemed. An Elite in the foreground, its four mandibular jaws open wide, a jackal on the right, a brute off to the left, and in the center a female soldier perched against the corpse of a Grunt. A beautiful sunset shone in the background. Or a sunrise.

The bell that rung at their entrance alerted the employee. "Just a second!" she called from the back room. After a moment the girl came out to greet them. "Hello, gentlemen, how's today treated you?" She was about Rufus' age, her features and skin shade betraying her origins in one of the melting pot planets, the ethnicity of which had evolved into something very much of its own identity.

Tamas responded. "We're alright, thank you. We were looking for a gun. If you don't mind?"

"No, no. That is what we do here. What did you have in mind?" Tamas ignored her in favor of his own thoughts.

"We're looking for… Tamas, any idea what we're looking for, in particular today?"

The old man leaned over the counter, gazing up at the options. "You know what we need are some automatic weapons, with decently high caliber, and good range…"

"Semi-automatic, all right," the girl said, "that's gonna be on the pricier end of the spectrum there."

"I mean fully automatic, would be appreciated. Not that you would happen to have any here, would you?" He stared the girl down until she looked away.

"Nope, that would not be… it would be illegal."

Rufus took over "I don't think cost will be a big issue for us, what's the best… just options you have?"

"Umm…" the girl said, turning to face the wall. "You have a few options. There's the Mumbai 22 EL," she said pointing to a long rifle. "That one has a .25. caliber and a range of… it was a range of 1500 yards. But it is single-action fire"

"Eh, won't do I'm afraid," said Tamas.

"Alright, there's also the AR-2320. Good range, not as good as the Mumbai, but… yeah, it's semi automatic."

"What's the caliber,?" Asked Rufus, not knowing what was acceptable to his grandfather.

"It is… a, 15 cal."

"That won't do," Tamas shut down the possibility.

"If you don't mind me asking, what do you have in mind for your gun? Is it a hunting thing, or-"

"Home defense," said Tamas.

"Yeah," continued Rufus, "it's just a security precaution, you know, we put off for too long."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. But to be fair most intruders won't need a very big… a gun like the Mumbai would probably more than, umm, do the trick."

Tamas leaned further over the counter. "Alright, I'm tired of dancing around the deal here. None of these guns are what we're after. We need Misriah material, if you'll pardon my bluntness."

The girl got a little bit shaken up. "Umm, Misriah is a military production, we can't sell them, not legally."

With a sigh, Tamas pushed on. "I get why you're trying to play this game, I do. I'm sure your father appreciates it. But if you'll please, I'd like to speak with him."

"Umm, my Dad's not here at the moment. It's been a slow day after all. If you want to talk to him you'll have to meet him at his house." She clearly wanted nothing to do with Tamas and Rufus anymore.

"So that's the deal, there's nothing under the counter here."

"No no no, this business is perfectly legal."

"As we should've expected," interjected Rufus, gently pulling Tamas' weight off the glass and onto the floor.

"Don't worry, I know the guy. Not where he lives though?"

"Umm, I can try calling him, tell him he has some customers. If he says no though, I'm afraid I can't help you."

"Fair enough," said Rufus, "then we'll get something from here."

"Wait just a second," said the girl, and she went back to the backroom. Rufus and Tamas sat down on the waiting chairs. Rufus looked around at the walls.

"You been here before?"

"Yeah, I got that hunting rifle some years back. Before you were born, in fact." He pointed to a far corner, where the unofficial flags of Reach and Eridani III hung overlapping one another and being overlapped by other things. "See that?"

Rufus grunted in acknowledgement. He was getting cold feet now, and just as he pulled out his commpad to respond to Amonika, the girl came back.

"Okay, our address is 61 off Shcoden road."

Tamas opened his commpad, and into it said "61 Shcoden Road"

"Sorry for the trouble," said Rufus. "I get wanting to stay out of… of the crazy business." She nodded slowly, still on edge. "I like that poster you got hanging, right up there in the middle."

"Hmm? Oh yeah! Yeah, that's a good one. There's a lot of detail on it, I can look at it for quite a while. I mean, I have."

"Nice, and is that the… Colonial Militia on there?"

"It is, it is. Yeah my Dad was in it before the merge."

"Awesome. Yeah you'd be surprised, there's a lot of kids nowadays who don't even know what the CMA is, it's crazy."

"That is crazy, it's true. I've seen it firsthand, I can confirm…" she let out a long held bit of breath. "Dad is a little bitter about what happened, but the way I see it the... CMA and everyone who was in it, they're, they're still doing the, playing the same part under the UNSC."

"Well, yeah, but it's that under the UNSC part that… is contentious."

"You know? If we're fighting for, for a common survival, then who can get angry over the flag we fly?"

Tamas had gotten the location and was standing by the door. He seemed to be suddenly interested in how long Rufus might carry the conversation.

Rufus stood up and opened the door for his grandpa. "Fair enough."

"She's pretty, no?" Tamas looked at Rufus instead of the road.

"... I suppose so."

Unsatisfied, the old man turned back to the road. "Kind of looked like she liked you too."

Rufus gave a snort of a laugh. "I doubt that."

"What you don't think so? You're a good looking chap, my blood after all."

"Are you aware I have a girlfriend? Or did you forget?"

"I mean, I suppose Amonika's fairly pretty herself. But… ah, you know."

"No, I don't. What do I know? And hey, you missed our turn."

Tamas did a double take. "What was the street?"

"Shcoden road, that's off the 245, past the crops."

Tamas' face didn't betray that Rufus was ringing any bells, but he turned around all the same. "But in regards to Amonika… let me just say that I've been around for a long time now-"

"I'm aware of that."

"And I have experience in… people. And you know when your father and your mother were in love, back in the day; I mean, I was happy for him. But I could just tell, I knew things were gonna end up going sour. And I talked with him on many occasions, I asked him 'are you absolutely sure this is the,' well you know. The right girl for him? And he assured me time and time again. He was so in love, and I'm sure he believed it."

Rufus had nearly ripped blood vessels in the act of rolling his eyes.

"Now, now listen to me. The only point I'm making is that Amonika… I know exactly what type of person she is, and I know what type of people we are."

"Because she's not a Christian?" Rufus taunted, his tone implying the notion's absurdity.

"Well. That wasn't my main, uhh-"

"Please shut up."

Tamas looked sidelong at Rufus. "She's emboldened you, hasn't she?"

"I guess I was in dire need of emboldening then." Rufus had retreated to looking down at his commpad.

Tamas did a double take at the road, then slammed on the brakes. The pad went flying out of Rufus' hands and down below the glove box.

Rufus had no time to swear between filling his lungs back up and seeing the roadblock directly ahead.

Three warthogs sidelong blocked the entire road and then two half-road-lengths dipping down into the sapgrass. One Warthog had a manned turret, and a good dozen armed soldiers were walking or sitting around. They all turned to face the car that had drawn so much attention to itself.

An ONI officer materialized knocking on Rufus' window. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah…" he rolled the window down. "What, what's going on here?"

"It's a roadblock, Sir, that's what I can tell you at the moment."

"Thanks for that. Why is the UNSC here? Why are there (Blank)ing turrets? What the (Blank)?"

"Okay, calm down, Sir."

"Are we not allowed to leave?"

"If you have a verifiable emergency we can escort you to wherever you need to go."

"No, I don't have an emergency! What the (Blank) does that have to do with my right to go where I (Blank)ing please? What if I try and drive around? Are you gonna shoot me?"

"Umm, I wouldn't, but this is only for a limited time. I'm sorry I can't tell you more, really. But it's nothing to get worried about."

Rufus was amazed and horrified. It was here.

After many minutes of unproductive argument, Rufus spoke up to Tamas. "They've put their roadblock right ahead of Shcoden Road. We can still get where we want to."

With a final curse against the ONI officer, Tamas rolled up the window. "You're right, and our time is cut shorter than I thought." He throttled the engine hard and turned onto Shcoden.

When they knocked on Mr. Giarra's door, he was utterly oblivious to the scope of their danger. Tamas pointed out the roadblock, and after coming inside told him about everything they'd heard on the radio. Evidently the two were familiar with each other, if not real friends.

Giarra decided he wanted to get his daughter from the gun store, but she was home shortly.

"Don't look so dour, girl. Ermm, what's your name?"

She looked nervously to her Dad. "It's okay, Ruel. They're not with the UNSC, they're going to help us fight."

"If we were agents we must be deep undercover, not doing much at all until now," said Rufus, his voice shaky but energetic.

"We'd be some of the more useful agents in the UEG," Tamas chuckled. There was argument over where it would be best to fall back to. There was discussion of getting the word out to the town, of organizing some sort of resistance. Perhaps pass around Giarra's illegal weapons to whomever knew how to use them. Rufus had friends who could shoot. No Waypoint, only direct messages through Chatternet. Tamas suggested the library as a place for the citizens to meet, and if need be defend. But Giarra wasn't optimistic. Even being a strong and large stone building, it was exposed in every direction, particularly to the entire mountain ridge. And pretty much nowhere in the town was any safer from whoever controlled the ridge. But assuming all roads out of town were blocked then there was no way to get up the mountain except up the steep side, which wasn't viable.

This was no militia.
Rufus cursed all the days of his life never training to fight, paralyzed by fear of some faraway alien race. He had a much nearer threat. A threat he could fight. A threat he could kill, and he might very well have to. Fear was so far from him now it seemed foolish. He needed action.

Rufus offered to go see if there were any open roads leading to the mountain, but he was told to stay. As night set in, Giarra led Tamas and Rufus downstairs. From there he led them downstairs again, through a tucked-away door. Giarra pulled several cases from off the shelves and set them on an island table. He started unlatching the largest one, very excited. "Now, this isn't one I'm selling to you. But I think you should see it."

After the complex locks were opened, he lifted the lid to reveal a Covenant firearm. It was covered on the top with metallic purple material. A very long barrel protruded from a curved frame that seemed to have a very large and oddly shaped handhold.

Rufus' heart pounded. He was exhilarated by the all out war that seemed to be an upcoming reality.

"Where do you get something like that?" Wondered Tamas while reaching out his hand.

Giarra didn't let him touch the thing. "A trader back on Biko. He got it from the ground in a warzone. But it's not the only Covenant weapon we have. He locked the case back up before revealing a much smaller object of the same style in another case. Rufus recognized it as what was called a plasma pistol, though it was colored entirely black, likely by spray paint.

"Have you fired these?"

"When I bought them, yes. And this pistol I fired years later and it still worked fine. Very quiet, very dangerous in the right, well in anyone's hands really."

Rufus showed concern. "Don't you think using plasma weaponry would be a bit… cruel? Like, using it on other Humans."

"It's hardly worse than the bullets fired at you. And that's exactly what we're up against. You'll have to learn fast, boy, that there's no time to be worried about cruelty."

"All the same," said Tamas, "I'd prefer to be using a weapon I understand. You've got Misriah here, right?"

"I do, that's the majority of this room." And so they went through several cases of Military grade weaponry. Many options were discussed, Giarra offering to give Tamas his pick freely. But Tamas insisted on paying him.

"We've got another family next to us, with no weapons or anything."

"Can any of them shoot well?"

"... Not particularly."

"Yeah, neither can I," said Rufus. "Not well," he amended.

"Well I only have so much to go around. If we're gonna organize something we gotta be with whoever can fight back."

Rufus had been sitting on an idea for a few minutes when he spoke up. "What if we called in help from Jamestown?"

"Do you know anyone in Jamestown?"

Rufus thought for a second. "Only Mr. and Mrs. Grant." He saw Tamas confused. "Amonika's grandparents."

"The only family I know there would lick the boots of the UNSC if they marched in. Maybe they have already."

Rufus cursed under his breath.

The briefcase Rufus carried to the car through the heavy rain held an M90 Shotgun, Tamas carrying a small box of shells. They had spent more time than Rufus would have liked trying out different options, and fidgeting with the mechanical pieces, practicing the loading of shells and their removal.

What Amonika was doing Rufus couldn't say, but now their plans seemed unimportant compared to defending the town. He had tried a couple of times to respond to her, but being unwilling to fight the writer's block he had left her on read for hours.

"Hey Rufus, can I see that?"

"Huh?" Rufus went to homescreen and handed Tamas his pad, who then threw it in the back trunk.

"Listen, I don't care if it's Waypoint or Chatternet, you cannot message anyone anything suspicious on there, you cannot take it anywhere they'd find suspicious, and you cannot say anything suspicious around it. You should know that, right?"

"Right."

As they drove up once again to the roadblock, they noticed it had opened somewhat to let cars and cyclists enter from outside, but men sat in the opening. No one manned the turret, and Rufus wondered if they could all be killed if they were caught by surprise. No. They couldn't without more men.

Amonika let gravity carry her along the coastline until the angle turned against her. She gave her wobbly legs what rest she could afford, moving to the lowest gear. By the time she made it back up to the qiva, she had no mind to do anything with the bike other than throw it on the ground.

Tamas' car was still gone. The time had now come to get the rest of the night sorted. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be today, she thought, and maybe she should just go home and get some rest before tomorrow.

She opened the front door to her own house. Her Dad looked up from his pad. "Hey, Amonika! How did your time out with Rufus go?"

"It didn't," she said, keeping stride down to her own room. But he wouldn't have that.

"What do you mean,?" he asked while stepping down to meet her.

After annoyedly shrugging off her pack, she conceded an explanation. "Tamas has Rufus off on some crazy… like, like fearmongering. He wouldn't, refused to go riding tonight. And because, supposedly, up where we were going there are UNSC guys, like… I don't even know. Going around killing people?" She shrugged. "You can ask them about it."

"I'm sure there's more to it. If Rufus canceled his plans maybe they've got something serious-"

"No really, you can ask them!"

Her Dad sighed against the wall. "We may have a chat about it." And looking at her, "so what, did you ride all that way by yourself?"

"That's where I'm from. It was a fun time anyways." Her tone was not fun.

"... Well what's happening now?"

"Well our restaurant is in town so he shouldn't have a problem with it. It was more way out by the mountains they were worried about." She glanced at her commpad, which bore no reply from Rufus.

A sudden and overpowering frustration with Rufus overcame her. She messaged him: "Waiting for you in my car."

There was no need for the car, not originally. But if Rufus is gonna insist on running off on our date night, she thought, he better damn well feel guilty about it. She felt any other course of action would be letting the boy snake away.

And so she told her Dad she'd be waiting in her car for Rufus to get back from a short errand. And wait in the car she did, with no idea when Rufus would get back. For a while, she sat in the driver seat, window rolled down, occupying herself with Waypoint. Chabby sat in the front window staring daggers which failed to cut her.

Having her head staring directly at her commpad for so long and unfazed by Chabby's barks, when she first noticed Sedo standing right outside the door it gave her a scare.

"How's it going?"

"It's none of your business," Amonika said, first with intent but making it sound more playful at the end. She'd lost the will to be angry.

"... sorry this all didn't work out then. But tomorrow you're still good to go to the city?"

"After Clint's party, yeah."

"Okay, okay… you getting tired yet, of so many events?"

"Not yet, I haven't even gone on one." She laughed.

"Fair enough." She looked down at Amonika's commpad, which she turned away. "You know I saw some Warthogs drive in from Crossvalley road earlier."

"Oh yeah, I rode past them… I mean, I wonder what they're actually doing around here."

"Well they were all gathering around the UEG building, a few dozen UNSC fellas. I bet your Mom would know."

"She's just a paper pusher, she doesn't get told every little thing that goes on."

"So you don't think she knows."

"No, she might. I guess she did have to… well basically she said she can't tell me anything about her work right now." Amonika got a lump in her throat.

Sedo continued a conversation and Amonika halfheartedly humored her, but she was captivated by the inability to fully discredit Tamas' warnings. It was enough to truly convince Rufus. But her mother would never go along with any sort of abduction. Atleast not for anyone who wasn't a threat. Surely not even Tamas would qualify for any show of force. Or would he? Amonika didn't know everything the old man got up to. Maybe there was no real violence intended. She struggled to come up with another plausible use for so many soldiers in this small town.

"Sedo,!" her Mom yelled, poking her head out of the far qiva's front door, "come eat your dinner with the rest of us!"

The girl grumbled. "I am so moving out the moment I turn 18. You must have some good parents if you're still here."

Amonika chuckled, happy to break off her train of thought. "Good luck moving away anywhere right now."

Sedo left her to silence and her own thoughts. Only the wind was starting to blow with the onset of night, a chilly air making it's way into the car. She rolled up the window, oppressed by nagging thoughts and a feeling of wasting her night.

What saved her was a message from Rufus: a simple "ok," followed by "sorry Tamas needed me for some errand. I'll be a little bit."

Amonika abandoned the pretenses of trying to make Rufus feel guilty, in fact she was a bit ashamed of herself for stooping to such a level.

Her eyes strained looking at the screen, until she decisively turned it off, to soak in the night. It had become lonely and dark. The rain had snuck up on her, but now it was really pouring, producing a calming barrage on the car roof.

She felt giddy, protected from the outside world by a wall. Though rain battered her on all sides she sat in the warm, dry comfort of carbon fiber and glass. She became fixated with a hundred drops tapping every second.

For a while she admired the atmosphere before a cold drop of water spiked her adrenaline. She looked around, then up. Rain was somehow getting in, and condensating on the roof. So much for protection, she thought. But she was of no persuasion to leave the comfort of her seat. Hoping to preserve her warmth, she shuffled halfway to a different seat, avoiding the drip.

It was 8:08 when Tamas' truck rolled past to their side of the qiva. Rather than get out, Amonika honked as it passed by. Not long and she saw the figure of Rufus staggering in the rain.

Amonika slid fully to the passenger seat and handled the driver door, which Rufus stiffly opened before sitting down.

"Watch out," she said, happy to be in Rufus' company, "There's a drip where you're sitting."

But he didn't seem to care. "Holy hell…"

"So what was that errand about?"

"Amonika, you… you wouldn't understand."

"Oh, no?"

Rufus put a palm on his forehead. "Can you trust me? Like, that I'm not lying to you, or being disingenuous, or, or just mistaken?"

"Yeah. I mean, you're allowed to be mistaken. What's the problem?" Amonika was genuinely concerned.

"It's the same damn problem you've already written off." Amonika had no response. "... me and Tamas were heading to the edge of town, and there were… there were armed men there. With warthogs. With turrets."

"Woah, woah, hold down a- they didn't attack anyone, did they?"

"No, but they're blocking off the road West, they're… aught, you wouldn't believe me anyways."

"Rufus! I don't believe you're lying to me. I trust you, really. I even, on my bike ride I passed a bunch of UNSC vehicles driving past."

"Well they're here now. And do you see?" He pointed up ahead North, out into the darkness. "Maybe you can't see, from here, but they're blocking off that road North now. The one we were going to ride on."

"The road I did ride. I think you think this is more menacing than it actually is."

"No, no, I bet they've cut off the East road by the lake too. There's no way to get out of here."

"Why, why do you think that?"

"Think what?"

"That they're not letting us go down those roads at all?"

"Because we talked to one of them."

"I guess I just don't get why we're assuming the worst."

"Because, dammit! We've already heard it happen everywhere else! Everyone else around us is being abducted!" Rufus started the car and pulled out. He turned in the direction of downtown.

Amonika looked at him as if expecting an apology for lashing out. He conceded. "Sorry." And only the thud of rain filled the car for a time.

"You still wanna go out to eat, right?"

"Not yet." He slowed down when approaching the ONI building. A high-tech spire which stood out against any other building around. Sure enough, there were more warthogs parked back in the courtyard. Empty. Rain fell into their open roofs and drained out below.

"What do you think they're doing here?"

"I don't know. But it's the UNSC's planet, they can go to a small town on it."

"That's the funny thing, it's really not. Our- or should I say my ancestors settled Reach before the UNSC did. It's their world, and we're all living on it. Give me a break."

Amonika held her tongue, though she wanted to say something like if you don't wanna live under them why don't you move to some defenseless outer colony? If this was tyrannical, she could endure much worse rather than escape into the blackness of space. Rufus would surely think her spineless.

"Yup, that's what I expected." Rufus braked. "About ten men, guarding the South road." Rufus looked to Amonika. "You wanna go to talk to them?"

"No. I just wanna eat."

"Now don't take this the wrong way, but have you ever shot a gun?"

Amonika looked up from her plate. "Can't say I have."

"Then we both have the same level of experience. But Tamas has got a rifle, a Moa hunting rifle, up somewhere in our backrooms, and we can try shooting it."

Amonika avoided eye contact, continuing to eat. Rufus lightened the mood by laughing playfully. Eventually, she swallowed. "So let me get this story straight. The UNSC is sending men through, like, civilian homes on Reach, and basically making them leave and go… somewhere with them. And they shoot anyone who resists."

"I don't know about that. I haven't heard of anyone dying over the radio, but I assume they would do so if the, if the guy opened fire on them first."

"And they've been doing this all throughout, like the…" she pointed in a Northerly direction, looking for the name. "-The Skorpio Mountains, with just dinky little rednecks in the middle of nowhere. And now they've come to our town to… abduct all of us too? Or just the Insurrectionists?"

"Anyone they suspect to be 'Insurrectionist,' yeah. Which really means, 'I've said anything vaguely anti-UEG in my life.' Which, they have access to all of your Waypoint comments, your chatternet messages, even stuff you just say around your commpads, if it's the right keywords. Especially if you get angry, they can detect that. There's no way they don't know my and Tamas'... things we believe."

"So what, are they trying to take you all to some maximum security prison?"

"Maybe! Or maybe they're- I just, don't know. Am I allowed to say 'I don't know?'"

"Yeah, you're allowed." They both finished eating. Rufus couldn't muster the will to bother her any further. He thought of trying to tell her something of God, and her immortal soul, but she would just think it silly, he thought, and right now he needed to be as credible to her as possible. No, that's ridiculous, he thought. Tell her. Tell her… that Jesus loves her? What do I say? Something not so… disingenuous.

"... I know Walter really wanted to take you shooting back in the day," said Amonika.

Rufus relaxed. "Yeah. Yeah, that's right. He brought back his own gun from boot camp. That was something else… I forget, I forget how he got found out, but his Captain, or whatever the guy above him was, ended up giving him so much crap, he told me; for sneaking that gun out."

"Yeah, yeah, he let me hold it."

"Me too. It wasn't loaded, I assume."

"Nah, of course it wasn't loaded, that's the first rule they teach you when using a gun. The gun is always loaded."

"Yeah, that's right." Rufus chuckled at the memory. "That apparently wasn't safe enough for the- for them. Go ahead and bring your gun wherever you need to kill things but, but Heaven forbid even letting your family and friends pick it up, when it's unloaded. And, and when you're supervising even."

"I think you're underestimating how much soldiers will screw around, when they're not under supervision from someone above them. I think Walter bought, like, regular, civilian ammo for it, and we were looking for a good range to fire it at… and I think we still have that ammo, up… somewhere."

"It was an MA5, yeah. They usually use special armor piercing rounds, but… I wonder if there is a civilian counterpart that would work… Man, I miss Walter. He'd teach us everything he knows if he were back here, I'm sure."

"Yeah, what would he think of us? His sister and his best friend?"

"I don't-" Rufus tried to silence his grin, "I don't think he'd be surprised. He'd, I'd told him even before boot camp, that, you know, I had a crush on you or something-"

"Oh, so… so you think he'd get back and think it's kind of cheesy."

"Well, I don't know about cheesy. I mean I don't think it's cheesy."

"Eh… one could say it is."

"Aww, man. Well I hope cheesy doesn't bother you too much."

"No, no, there are worse fates..." Amonika decided to risk breaking the playful turn of the conversation. "You know, if Walter was to come back, and he heard what Tamas is telling us right now, who do you think he would side with?"

Rufus spent a good moment chewing. "I guess, that depends on, how much he's been indoctrinated by the UNSC."

"Indoctrinated, eh?"

"I hope he isn't, and I, I don't think he would be, because, what, what he's doing, the fight against the Covenant, that's, of course, that's great. The UNSC is totally, he's fighting for all of Humanity right now. I guess the danger would be, if they get it in their heads that, since, for the most part, the UNSC is the one protecting everyone, that everyone is, like, a child in the sense of needing protection, and needing to learn discipline, or belonging to the UNSC, and the UEG. I'd- it's an easy thing to think in that situation, I admit it."

"But of course he'd never go from 'I need to fight the Covenant at all costs' to 'I need to turn and fight random civilians on Reach who are just minding their business.'"

"... Well no, I don't think he would think that, but the type of UNSC soldier who would go and fight the Covenant is different from the type who would hang back here on Reach, and, and do this!" Rufus was gonna stand his ground, much as he hated having the conversation.

"I don't know, Rufus, I don't think anyone would do this."

"Well, it's what's happening. You can… bring up conjecture for why, but, but the figures behind the UNSC don't think like you would."

"Hmmm." Amonika finished eating.

When they arrived home, the rain had made way for a quiet chill. Rufus reluctantly parted with the beautiful girl. She tore him, he thought, in a direction opposite to reality. An ignorance not even blissful, but forced, avoiding at all costs confronting the terrible reality. He couldn't bear it if she had never come home from the mountain. In a moment of passion he promised to protect her, whether she would protect herself or not, atfirst to the black of the night, and then to God.

Tamas sat behind the front window staring out up the road where more Warthogs now sat parked. "I told you to make it quick."

"Warthogs are blocking off the lake road. What should I do?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I'm no strategist, but this body-" he reached to hold his back, but his arm wouldn't make it. "- it's as good as dead to me, Rufus. My mind too. I'm slow. I'll do everything I can if it comes to it, but you need to do the same… Do you understand that, Rufus?"

"Yes. I'm ready." He reached for the shotgun.

"Are you? I'm not dumb. I know you never wanted to be a soldier. I know you've tried to hide your head and be a contribution back here, even if you've never found anything useful to do."

Rufus knew he was being insulted, but at the moment he couldn't agree more. He could hardly be more frustrated with himself.

"And dammit, son! I wanted you to stay here too! I wanted the safety of Reach for you! But I… almost regret it."

"No, no. I think it would be better if I was out there. I'd rather die for Humanity than die fighting other Humans. But this is the place we've chosen to end up. This is the fight that's on our doorstep! God didn't put me here without a purpose, yapa!" He noticed a tear on his cheek, and wiped it off sternly. "Come on! What should I do?"

Tamas' dourness faded, he almost grinned. "That's the right question to ask."

Amonika tried to quiet down Chabby at the front door of her sleeping house. The hours muddled before she went to bed, in a constant dialogue against Rufus. She tossed and turned with the mechanical churning of the bed, unable to settle his voice in her head. But behind the argument, behind Rufus, a horribly familiar force slowly revealed itself. She tried to chase down threads of debate, facts of UEG branch structure and Human society. But all of it inevitably became meaningless. A vapor in the wind. The four walls around her were not a home, not an arm of Humanity's kingdom over this alien planet. The ground beneath the floor was not the ground her kind was meant to walk on. But it was all she'd ever known. Was she a thief all her life then? Were all the people she loved as well as the people who sat in high buildings, creatures removed from their right place?

Every night as far back as she could remember, regardless of what had happened in the day, Amonika could only hope to fall asleep quickly. Because if she couldn't, in the corner of her eye she might almost see a bright light. Amidst the silence of her room she thought she might be hearing a siren. She pushed her head into the machinery beneath her mattress.

I'm sorry, she finally thought to Rufus, and then she thought it again. He's right? She heard the screams Rufus had heard, and her back prickled. It almost sounded like Clint. I was wrong from the beginning? She felt Rufus' nervousness, his senses going off as soldiers began encamping all around him. Their guns were trained on him, and he struggled to warn people. They were all going to die if they didn't do something. But Amonika had only dragged him through the mud. Told him to ignore it. She denied that the soldiers were closing in. Walter would never hurt me. But it had been so long since she last saw him.

She would deny the reality until it came for her and everyone she loved. She had even tried to convince Rufus it wasn't real. I'm sorry, Rufus. Forgive me, please.

But standing behind Rufus, she became aware of something else. A shadow, with glowing red eyes. An impossibly huge thing with its gaze fixed on her. A God, standing over billions and billions of Covenant. She saw them bow and worship, so numerous and so far that they looked like writhing grains of sand. The shadow narrowed closer to the ground, and traced back to two single points at Amonika's feet. The shadow became more distinct as the light behind her shone brighter. She turned around and yelled. She was blinded by the beam of light, coming down from the sky. It had snuck up on her. Because she chose not to see it. She ran to Rufus but he disappeared in the light. Her father, mother, Tamas, Walter, Zaccory, her mind flashed through each of them, hoping to find them there. At last she realized, if she could choose not to see it sneak up on her, she could choose not to see it now, and so with a great effort, she opened her eyes.

Her bed had turned off. She now saw only the blackness of the room.

PART 2 OF 4 COMING SOON

This section too is a work-in-progress to some extent, but I am hard at work occasionally, in jotting down my vision of the rest of this relatively short story. I set no predictions for when it will be finished, but let it be known this is my closest story to being finished. However I still find myself juggling between this and so many other projects for priority, life stuff aside. I've recently put out the first of two albums in my project "A Game That Doesn't Exist," an epic electronic adventure inspired by retro 80s and 90s adventure games, which tells its story through only song titles, and the music itself, as it weaves many different leitmotifs seeped with meaning. If such a project interests you, you can find it linked on my profile

If this doesn't interest you, then rest well, as this will become my main priority project after my second album is released