But it never came.
Instead the creatures stared blankly at them. They had been in the midst of plucking leaves from the trees and eating them with their toothy, three-mandibled mouths, and once they had registered the group’s presence, they simply returned to what they had been doing.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t press it,” said Spartan Holt in a low voice, as if he thought speaking softly would prevent them from being noticed, “but why aren’t they attacking?”
“There could be a number of reasons,” Luther said. “But if I were to guess, I’d say that many of the species on this installation had been predisposed to attacking us because of their genetic disposition. When the monitor—this Tragic Solitude, as it called himself—bred these creatures, it must have done it with particular genetic triggers that it could control through some impulse or neural communication system. With the monitor gone, the triggers may well have followed.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Holt. “Is that how he controlled the animal that carried off Vale? And that mammoth creature you guys encountered?”
“Presumably, but don’t get me wrong. The Ark was designed not just for sentient beings, but also for the creatures that ate them. The Forerunners were attempting to preserve entire biomes so that the removal of a single sentient species from a planet wouldn’t send it into ecological collapse. The creatures most dependent on thinking beings are the ones that eat them. So please don’t mistake me: there’s definitely still a threat. Some of these species are pure-blooded, natural predators, and they are not safe.”
“What about the fighting machines?” N’tho asked.
“The armigers?” Luther responded.
“I have never seen that kind before,” N’tho said. He had spent much time on Forerunner installations during his career in the Covenant. If anyone would have seen one, it would have been him.
“Neither have I,” Luther responded. “It’s hard to say what purpose they were previously designed for, but it’s clear that the monitor was controlling them as well, along with the Sentinels we encountered, and even the incredibly hostile weather conditions. All of it was a ploy by the monitor. It needed a human like Vale, and Kodiak’s brother before her, if it wanted to have any control over the Halo Array. It also needed Drifts, because it recognized that the Huragok was the only real threat our group posed to him, something that proved fatal for the monitor in the end.”
“So it kept throwing enemies and challenges at us,” Holt voiced, “hoping to pick us apart and ultimately take Vale and the Huragok for its own uses?”
“Essentially,” Luther said, looking over at Vale, who seemed somewhat detached from everything. “It had assumed that by triggering a countdown with the Halo Array, we’d give the monitor everything it needed, including direct access to Earth. Unfortunately for Solitude, it underestimated the ability of our two species to work together.”
The weather remained relatively temperate for a good long while as they traversed the distance back to the ship. Ironically, it would take them longer on this trip, because the inclement weather conditions that Solitude had instituted had actually created icy paths across large bodies of water, paths that they no longer had since the monitor’s destruction.
They were receiving a steady signal from N’tho’s cartographic instrument, guiding them back to the Sangheili, but even at this range, they could see Mayhem’s position a long ways off. It still looked like it was in bad shape.
Luther stared up into the Ark’s blue sky and could make out the portal high above, a pulsating, blue-black orb of energy. He wondered if it would shut down before they could get Mayhem serviceable enough to go back through it. He wasn’t confident at all that ONI would be able to figure out how to get the thing back on, but then he remembered that they had Drifts Randomly with them. If anyone could figure it out, it would be the Huragok.
Usze ‘Taham came up alongside him, noticing that he was staring up at the portal. Luther looked briefly at Henry’s body, wrapped snuggly and slung over the Elite’s shoulder, and he felt his heart sink.
“What are you thinking, Luther Mann?” Usze said, nodding up toward the portal.
“I’m still surprised that we traveled here so fast. Wondering how long that’s gonna be sustainable.”
“What do you mean?” Holt asked, coming along the other side. “Olympia said that the monitor had made changes to get the portal to transfer objects faster.”
“Yes, and she’s exactly right,” he said, clearing his throat. “My concern is how long it can operate given the amount of energy exerted. The monitor wasn’t concerned about the damage it might cause to the portal’s drive systems, because it was more focused on getting the Retrievers into the Sol system and recovering resources to rebuild on this end.”
He pointed to the prong-like pylons on the tips of the spires in the far distance on either side. The Ark’s petals were the primary energy conduits for the long-range portal that connected to Earth and other worlds. Solitude had managed to repair most of them from this end and only needed the humans on the other end to open it at the Excession.
“Those pylons help channel the portal-generating energy, but they’re likely under a great deal of stress right now, effectively compressing realspace into an almost unimaginably small frame of slipspace by way of crystal-mediation. This, alongside several huge astrogation shortcuts, made the effective travel distance between here and Earth extraordinarily short. Whatever Solitude did, it’s something that not even the Forerunners were comfortable with. I suppose it was only conceived of being used in extreme circumstances.”
Eventually their path took them into a green forest that was growing steadily. The area did not seem as damaged as the one they had passed through after landing. There were some lightly scorched regions, but most of it was quite navigable.
Their only stumbling block occurred when they came upon a small pack of the blind, dinosaur-like biped animals at the edge of a river.
The nearest of the creatures roared and, snapping its teeth, charged at Luther. Immediately N’tho was between them and swung his sword. The creature fell backward, wounded but still snarling, and the others began to advance. At that point, Kodiak and Holt opened fire, blasting them back. The animals retreated, but they were clearly not happy that the group was passing through their territory. “Let us keep moving,” said N’tho briskly. “We’re not clear yet.”
Vale spoke up as they moved along. “The monitor called these blind wolves. It had names for all of these creatures.”
“It is an incredible thing, this place. To explore everything around here,” Luther said, staring out across the impossibly vast surface, at mountains and oceans that were literally thousands of kilometers away, raising up immense arms into the empty space. Above them hung the Milky Way, a swirling cluster unspeakably far away—the Ark was a true testament to the Forerunners’ technological mastery. “It’s the stuff dreams are made of,” Luther said. “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the UNSC’s going to need to have some presence out here to safeguard this place. A research colony of some sort.”
“You volunteering, Doctor Mann?” Vale asked, looking up at him with a smile.
“I don’t know about you,” he grinned, “but I think it’ll be a good little while before I come back to this place.”
CHAPTER 19
* * *
The rest of the trip to the Mayhem was relatively peaceful, something about which Olympia Vale was extremely relieved. She wasn’t entirely sure how much more excitement and stress she could take.
The exterior temperature dropped rapidly with the shifting of the artificial sun, and they managed to reach their destination shortly before it hit the freezing mark. Once inside the ship, Vale was immediately brought to the medical facility, her injuries thoroughly treated. Despite their renunciation of medical care, the Elites certainly had the tools, left over from the Covenant years, to repair her broken body. It took only a matter of minutes befor
e she felt better, which came as a shock to her.
After she had recovered, they brought Captain Richards and the rest of the Sangheili crew up to speed. The others had been repairing the ship nonstop since the expedition began, but they had seen little progress due to the extent of the damage. The hope was that the Huragok would be able to work a miracle and at least get the ship intact and operational enough to get back to Earth.
Vale excused herself shortly after the briefing and went to a free quarters. There she sat, staring at the wall, glad that she was alone for a moment. Her mind kept going back to her abduction at the hands of Tragic Solitude. She recognized the need for the monitor’s destruction: it was a dangerous, grievously demented machine that could have easily turned against them at any time, had it been allowed to survive. But there was something about it that made her regret what had taken place. She didn’t know exactly why that was, and it really bothered her.
There was a heavy knock at the door. “Who is it?” called Vale.
The door slid open, and Usze ‘Taham was standing there. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“It’s okay,” said Vale in perfect Sangheili. “I just needed a little time to be alone.”
The Sangheili slowly strode into the room, the door sliding closed behind him. “I wanted to talk with you about your encounter with the monitor. It was very remarkable, how you handled yourself.”
“Thank you.”
“Then why are you upset? It is my understanding that you are angry with yourself, but the others do not know why.” He moved across the small room and sat in a hovering chair at its corner.
“I thought you didn’t sit down,” she said with a smirk.
“I will make an exception here,” he responded flatly. “Please explain what your reason is for concern.” He was clearly trying to put her at ease.
“The monitor died thinking that I had betrayed it. Which I know shouldn’t be a huge issue, considering what it was trying to do, but still . . .”
“And you know differently. Though it may not help.”
“Not in the least,” she said, taking a deep breath. “My life’s work is cross-species confluence and communication, that’s why I was on this mission to begin with. Working with your people to help eliminate decades of hatred and mistrust between our species. I’ve developed skills in this field over the years, skills that I’m extremely proud of. But ultimately, they did little to help me against the monitor. I couldn’t convince it to stop Halo, I couldn’t convince it to recall the Retrievers, and when I finally did break through, we ended up killing it.”
Usze stared at her for a long moment. “Olympia,” he said finally, pronouncing the syllables in her native language as well as she could expect, “the entirety of the galaxy owes a debt to you for what you did. The monitor would have never been convinced of peace between it and our peoples. And I believe that you know that. It would have turned on us in time, and when it did, would we have you there to halt its attack? Or would we perish, with no one to stop it? That is what you should be focused on.”
“Well, then, how come I feel like things could have ended up differently?” asked Vale. “I was so close to stopping it.”
Usze seemed to shrug. “I do not know. Some things do not feel right, even when they are. We have a saying in my clan: Those who always look to the sky never see what is right before them. Do not spend your time looking at the sky, when our victory is right before us. You were sent only to keep the peace between our species, yet you achieved so much more. Do not miss that fact, Olympia Vale.”
It would have taken at least a week to repair the ship, even with the Huragok, were it not for the fleet of UNSC vessels that came through the portal a day after the expedition returned to Mayhem. It had been decided that reinforcements needed to be sent through to investigate the source of the Retrievers’ attack. It took only minutes for the UNSC Witness to locate Mayhem, and what was recovered of the comparatively diminutive Sangheili corvette was lifted into the much larger human carrier. The ship and crew were stabilized within the cargo hold for the journey, and Witness began its cross-checks in preparation for its return to Earth.
On the ground, the UNSC fleet was already deploying large-scale, forward-operating facilities and firebases in various parts of the installation. Like Onyx and the Halo installations before, the Ark would be colonized by the UNSC in an effort to prevent the threat of Halo from resurfacing again . . . at least as far as this installation was concerned. It even looked as if plans were under way to assist in the repair of the installation. The monitor would get its wish after all.
Spartan Kodiak was standing in the cargo bay of the Witness, his helmet tucked under his arm, staring out a nearby viewscreen as space opened up to it. From here, the Milky Way galaxy looked remarkably brilliant. It seemed so far away, but he knew that the portal would make that great distance miraculously disappear.
Funny. Outside of the Ark, in that little bright swirl of lights, was every single thing I will ever know or meet or fight. Humans and Elites. And they all live there together.
He suddenly became aware that N’tho was standing next to him. He said nothing.
“I am sorry about your brother.”
“Thank you, but I’m fine.”
“Were it someone from my bloodline—”
“No, really. I’m fine. I appreciate the sympathy. Thanks.”
“I also want you to know,” N’tho said unexpectedly, “that I am sorry that you were maimed at my hand. I can only imagine the anger you have been burdened with all this time . . . the need for vengeance. Sangheili wear their battle scars with pride but . . . I admit that I would have felt the same, were it me.”
Kodiak shrugged. “As you said, it was war. Things happen in war. And now it’s over. Nothing to be gained by dwelling on it.” He turned to look directly at N’tho. “Thank you again for saving my life.”
“And you for me as well.” N’tho paused. “If you would like, I can arrange for you to visit my homeworld sometime. I think you might find it interesting.”
“Thank you,” said Kodiak, with the slightest of grins. “But I think I’m going to take a break from traveling to places with aliens on it that want to kill me.”
“Captain Richards. Welcome back.”
Serin Osman stood when Richards entered the office, which was an immense surprise. It wasn’t typical for Osman to acknowledge anyone coming before her, save in the most offhanded of ways. Standing up was a genuine show of respect. Richards wondered if Osman was feeling all right.
“Thank you,” said Richards. Osman gestured for her to sit, and Richards did so.
“You’re walking well, I see. Injury all healed?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Osman sat back down behind her desk. “I’ve read your debriefing and final report. I want you to know that I have recommended that you be awarded the Medal of Honor.”
Richards’s eyes widened. “What?”
“You and your team saved us all, Captain. I know there was a lot of tension early on between our people and the Sangheili, but your decisions and cool head ultimately saved UNSC lives. That certainly warrants some manner of reward. I am also recommending you for a promotion.”
“Ma’am, please. There’s no need for that.”
Osman stared at her. There was no confusion in her eyes, merely interest. “And why would I not do that? Don’t you think you deserve it?”
“No, I don’t. You said you read my report. So you already know that I was effectively useless. I was kidnapped by the Sangheili. I was injured early on in the expedition. Everything that happened, up to and including our rescue, as you put it, was because of the actions of others.”
Osman was silent for a moment. “Just out of curiosity, Captain, if the mission had failed, would you have passed that responsibility onto others?”
“No,” Richards said immediately. “I would have taken the blame for my inability to control the situation.”
>
“Then if you were willing to take the blame for failure, should you not also be awarded some credit for success? You had a bit of a powder keg on your hands with this team. Spartans and Elites and thirty years of dead bodies. That’s not an easy thing to manage, no less command.”
“Perhaps. But although the gesture is appreciated, I still don’t want to be promoted. With all due respect, of course. I may even put in for a bit of shore leave. I think I’ve seen enough action for a while.”
Osman pursed her lips. “All right, then. What about the medal?”
“Yes, I’ll take that. My father loves medals.”
And to Richards’s surprise, Osman actually smiled.
My name is Luther Mann, and my most recent memory is a staggering thing.
We are approaching the Ark’s portal, an immense gate held aloft in space, watching from the viewports of a majestic UNSC carrier called Witness. But it is the sight on the journey to the portal that will always remain with me.
Retrievers. Thousands of Retrievers.
They are simply adrift here—not firing upon us or on their way to assaulting our homeworld. They are doing nothing except floating helplessly through the void, like iron jellyfish adrift in a sea of blackness. Without the monitor to guide them, they are lifeless, and yet terrifying in scope as we navigate through them. There are so many it is almost unbelievable. Once, long ago, I might have called them “pretty” as well. Now, they are anything but that.
But I do respect them, and their power. And I respect this place as well.
Perhaps someday I will return to the Ark.
Once everything has settled down, maybe I can make the journey back here, work with the teams that have been deployed for research. Maybe even work with Drifts Randomly once again.
Perhaps we can take control of all the dormant Retrievers, open up a portal to another system to strip-mine lifeless planets for the resources and minerals required to fix the Ark. Perhaps we can, in fact, fix the Ark—finish what the monitor began. And in doing so, we may atone for the mistakes of our past by securing this place and a future for those who come after. Perhaps we can assure the continued life of the creatures residing upon it, and even prepare it for what might come. Henry would have wanted it this way.