39It was then, as we were falling back and had yet to consolidate our new defenses, that the Parasite renewed its attack, and I learned that my lord Alcyonius made one key mistake.
He had thought that the Parasite would deceive us.
He had thought that the Parasite would subvert our communications and lead the legions astray with false orders and deceptive reports.
But the Parasite did not infiltrate. No. At the moment of our greatest vulnerability, every transmitter in the dome of High Charity opened up, and through them the Parasite spoke to us.
In the voice of the High Prophet of Mercy, it denounced the faith of the Covenant as a sham, and mocked us for the high crimes of heresy and deicide. In the voice of the High Prophet of Regret, it spat cruel slanders against the Forerunner and the Holy Rings. In the voices of thousands of saints from the Golden City, clerics and generals and scholars and statesmen all, it spouted insidious lies and deceptive truths mingled together so skillfully that not even the wisest among us could have separated the one from the other. All of them blaspheming the faith, urging us to lay down our arms and embrace the horrid fate that the Gravemind called salvation.
Forerunner preserve us, we did not know what we discovered within the second Ring. The scriptures warned us, but how could we have believed? We thought that we were fighting a plague with a mind, but we were matching wills with a carrion god.
Many radio operators took their own lives, rather than live with the blasphemies they heard. I know this to be true. But as the Parasite spoke to us, we spoke back. I and many other radio operators began singing hymns, and we were joined by many thousands of clerics and bishops with their sermons. Even the warships around the Mendicant City opened up with their own proselytization arrays. The Gravemind did not go unanswered. We shouted our defiance back, and the communication bands all about High Charity decayed into an incoherent, staticky mess.
It could not be helped. Our communications failed when we needed them the most. Just as many legions were falling back, deaf and blind, the Parasite's second wave arrived. The Parasite had exhausted all of its aircraft, and so the second wave had to advance on foot. These were scalded things, their skin scarred and blackened by the steaming waters at the base of the Firebreak, and hardened into armor. They were without number, and they overran our legions effortlessly.
I myself only saw this last action at a distance, and even I barely survived. I doubt that even one in a hundred and forty-four who saw the Firebreak breached lived to see the end of the day, so complete was our destruction. To those lost souls, those brave warriors like Captain-Major Alcyonius who martyred themselves to deny the Parasite, we owe so much. If anything remains of them, they shall be comforted, for a thousand grateful generations will raise prayers in thanks for their sacrifice.
From the third volume of the Annuals of the Moesian Legion, penned by Leleb the Scribe after his return to Jiralhanae territory in 2566.
Evening Period, Transshipment Docks, 'Umtalla Feifdom Dockyards
The Jiralhanae and their vassal soldiers fought desperately to deny the Sangheili a beachhead. But one barge filled with refugees after another arrived, and the vanguards soon forced the hairy savages to retreat. The battlefield they left behind was a chaotic mess illuminated by the fires of buildings and wrecked barges.
Citizens spilled off the barges, herded by Sangheili warriors. They milled about and piled onto vehicles until their undercarriages scraped across the ground.
Warriors barked commands to each other, shouting over the screams of the wounded and dying. Kin called out for lost kin, and from every direction came prayers for strength and salvation. It was too loud for Septal 'Rehestuf to hear his aunt speak, so he held her close with one arm and held his halberd aloft with the other. If they were separated for one moment, he would never find her in the crowds.
This wasn't war. The wars attested to in his clan's ballads were contests of will and martial might. Warriors fought to prove their prowess, but they also fought as part of a regimented whole. Orders flowed from officer to soldier, and all fought under a single banner.
But the warriors paving the way for the citizenry fell far short of that standard. They were the leaderless dregs of a dozen legions. Unggoy Deacons had to beg them one by one to remain on the transshipment docks and hold back the Parasite.
Out of the corner of his eye, Septal saw a Sangheili in green robes striding through the crowds. It was one of the 'Umtalla officers that had led them all here from the Unbreakable Spine. He was beset on all sides by people shouting questions over one another until he took a voice projector from a Deacon and shouted for silence.
A hush descended over the crowd.
"I am Akrao 'Umtalla, chief coordinator of my family's offices in High Charity! The Jiralhanae yet hold this port. The warriors will drive back the Jiralhanae, and you will all follow me and my kin to the piers. Do not get separated, or you will be left behind. Do not stray into the path of the warriors, or the Jiralhanae will slaughter you all!"
"How far to the docks?" someone shouted.
"Not far, I assure you," Akrao answered. "If you are fit to walk, then walk! I beg you, let the old and the infirm ride in the carriages. There is room for all within my family's heavy freighters."
Septal's hand tightened on his aunt's arm. The Jiralhanae held these docks since this morning, and they weren't fools. Who was to say which ships they had taken, and which were still moored in place? Would there truly be room for them all?
Glancing over his shoulder, he studied the lights of distant airships rising up the length of the Spire of Gifting. More refugees? Or something worse?
Calls went out, and the warriors formed up into loose lances. Their war machines pushed through the crowds and took the lead. Even a Phantom gunship flew overhead, barely fitting through the airlocks between the transshipment docks and the 'Umtalla port. And Septal led his aunt by the arm so that they would be close behind.
"What are you doing?" she shouted over the buzz of the crowd. "We are to wait!"
"I'm getting you out of here," he shouted back. "Do you trust me?"
Her words were lost to his ears, but he could see her eyes. Ihyera was terrified to her core. But she trusted him regardless.
Evening Period, Kaisan Dai Street, 'Umtalla Feifdom Dockyards
Laden with sailors and provisions, the two cargo sleds fled from the warehouses and their pursuers. Down Kaisan Dai street, toward the tip of the spire. All they had to do was reach the highway that led down Pier Three, and Quatch hoped they'd be home free.
But the war beat them there.
The intersection of Kaisan Dai street and the highway was filled with the kind of desperate combat that Quatch hadn't seen since the war.
Lances of the Fist's soldiers, Brutes and Unggoy and Kig-Yar alike, fought from entrenched positions. Struggling to gain ground were bands of Sangheili warriors. Some were from High Charity's Home Legions, others wore the armor of house guards, and many wore no armor at all.
It was a vicious firefight that would tear apart anyone who tried to flee down the highway, and there was no time to stop. Nak yanked back on the throttle and the sled wavered, as if he was unsure of whether to turn around, but Quatch clawed him in the shoulder and screamed for him to keep moving.
"Where?" the old sailor demanded.
"Anywhere but here!" Quatch shouted. "Keep going! Don't stop!"
Nak let out a nervous trill and shoved the throttle as far forward as it would go.
The engine cried, and the cargo sled lurched into the intersection. Plasma bolts hissed by and crystalline shards tinked against the vehicle's frame. Quatch heard the thumping and scraping of bodies as they went under, but he barely noticed. He was staring at a grenade their way, craning his neck around to follow it as it just barely missed the front of the sled. Then he kept staring, transfixed by what he saw down the other end of the highway.
Vehicles. Dozens of them, piled high with people and possessions. Many were on fire, and the rest were driving around them. All about the vehicles were people of all races, either dead in the streets or cowering behind cover. It was the kind of thing he hadn't since since his days in the Legion.
And then the storm passed. They had crossed the highway onto the extension of Kaisen Dai street, and the fight was behind them.
"What now, chief?" Nak asked.
"Keep going," Quatch replied. "Find us a corner to hide. Pem, see if Kess is still behind us. And get the Sangheili kid out of the back, I need to talk to him."
Pem asked something, but Quatch was too busy fiddling with the wrist communicator to hear. Snippets of the conversation with Kuotasim whispered out of the communicator as he skimmed back and forth through the audio file.
"A starship? So that is your-"
"-rother against broth-"
"-through the veins of my adult kin-"
Nak pulled into a nook between two buildings and parked the cargo sled. A moment later, Kess pulled alongside and parked his sled as well. Long moments passed as both waited for more orders.
"What do we do now?" Nak finally asked.
"Not now," Quatch replied.
"Are we just going to sit here and wait for the fighting to sto-"
That was as far as Nak got. Quatch twisted around in his seat and snarled so sharply that it shocked the old sailor into silence. Then he played the recording.
"Go now," Kuotasim said. Take my brother's corpse with you. Find our living kin, and pass the word unto them. I command them to leave High Charity."
The Sangheili kid, P'thon, climbed into the cab. He looked as if he was spoiling for a fight, but the fire in his eyes died when he recognized his elder's voice.
"The Lamesai Unesh Nok abided the ages on the Holy Ring, and now it is here! It spreads through High Charity unchecked! It turns brother against brother and corrupts noble warriors to their core!"
Quatch stopped the recording. Pem and P'thon looked confused, but the feather's on Nak's head were flattening against his skull, a sure sign as any of growing terror.
"Those Sangheili out there, and the citizens behind them," Quatch said. "They're running from something, and it's not the Brutes."
Just like the convoys of Humans that Quatch had seen in the Legion, the times when his unit had been dropped along a highway with orders to let no one pass. They'd shoot whoever came until the highway was choked with wreckage, and yet the Humans still kept coming. It had been nearly certain suicide for the Humans, but they were driven to do it. They'd been desperate to get off their world before the Covenant cleansed them from orbit.
"We can't wait. We need to get off this station right now. Kid, is there another way into Pier Three?"
The young Sangheili pursed his mandibles.
"P'thon," Quatch said. "Is there a backdoor?"
Evening Period, Storage Hangar 318, 'Umtalla Feifdom Dockyards
P'thon led them away from the entrance to Pier Three and down a utility hall. Their destination was a dock a quarter of the way down the pier that had long ago been converted into a storage hangar. Shelves of equipment and pallets of starship parts cluttered the floorspace, and atmospheric craft were stowed in overhead racks. But the centerpiece of the hangar was a Timely Sirroco-class freighter lying in a well.
Quatch cocked his head when he saw the starship. Timely Sirrocos came in all shapes and sizes, but this one was different. It was a deluxe model, easily one of the largest he had ever seen. The central fuselage was elongated to accommodate an internal cargo bay on the underside. Two wings sprouted from that fuselage, swept out and then back to form two booms that tapered down to meet a pair of oversized engine housings. The whole ship, from its contours to its gleaming rust-red hull, was far more streamlined than it had any right to be. It looked less like a workhorse freighter, and more like a bird of prey in a dive, but it was still and cold in its docking clamps. Mothballed. It probably hadn't left its berth in years.
Quatch stared until the freighter was lost behind the equipment shelves, and then he focused on the task at hand. The hangar was quiet, gloomy even. He doubted that the Brutes had come in here. Maybe the fight hadn't yet reached the pier, and he could get his crew safely to docks Three-Twenty-Two or Three-Thirty-One.
That hope died as his cargo sled approached the hangar bay's internal doors. He could hear the roar of heavy fighting on the other side of the bulkhead.
Quatch jumped down from the cab and marched over to the door. If there was even a chance that they could keep going, he had to take it. But one look through the man door told him everything he needed to know. The war had beaten his crew here too.
If they were hardened soldiers, like his comrades in the Legion, maybe he could order them to charge through that firefight. Maybe they would even make it. But they weren't. They were just scared sailors.
"Shit," he breathed as he closed the door and locked it.
"We can't stop here," someone shouted. It was the deserter, Tur. "We have to keep moving!"
"Something wrong with your ears?" Nak shouted back. "There's Brutes out there. We can't go!"
"We need to just stay here," Pem said. "Lie low, let this whole thing blow over."
"Lie low?" Quatch snarled. "We've wasted the whole godsdamned day hiding behind crates! We are out of time!"
Nak pulled his traction sled alongside Quatch and peered down from the cab. "We're not going anywhere without a ship."
"We'll take that one," Quatch said, pointing toward the Timely Sirroco.
Everyone turned to stare down the wide gangplank that ran between the booms to the rear cargo hatch.
"That one?" Nak asked.
"It's a freighter. It'll do."
"Freighter?" P'thon spat. "That's grand-uncle Rael's racing yacht!"
"Quatch, that freighter is mothballed. We'll never get it started in time."
"Nak, I know. Can you get it ready to fly?"
The old engine chief made a choking sound as his mane fluttered. "The reactor and the engines are cold-soaked. We don't even have the right-"
"Nak, I know! I'm asking you, yes or no, can you jumpstart that ship?"
"... Yes. Yes, I can do it."
"Good," Quatch said as he climbed into the traction sled. "Tur, stay by this door and wait for Taol."
"Wait for who?"
Quatch cursed. "Dwe, wait here and flag down Taol when she passes by. Tur, keep him safe. Pem, you and your keelworkers hook that ship up to the dock, give us power and fuel. Nak, you and Lan beat a path to the engine room. P'thon, Heik, you're with me. We're going to the bridge. Everyone else, get these traction sleds stowed and scrounge what you can from this boneyard. Eyes and teeth, people! We're leaving as soon as Taol gets here."
Evening Period, Base of the Local Spire of Gifting, Middle Region of the Unbreakable Spine
With a start, Alcyonius realized that he had been here before, on this airfield, at the base of this very Spire of Gifting. This morning a barge landed his legion here. They had come out fighting, smashing through the Sangheili's hastily-erected defenses, and went on to conquer their way up the Unbreakable Spine. It was here that Alcyonius had first set foot upon the Holy City.
It seemed like a lifetime ago.
He stared up at the mural that wrapped around the roots of the Spire of Gifting, one that told the history of the War of the Cloven Moon, and how High Charity's intercession ended the war and brought peace and great fortune to the Worlds of Avul.
He'd beheld it that very morning. Standing atop his troop carrier, he swore to his men that their actions today would echo through the ages. Tonight they would dine in the estate of a High Councilor, and tomorrow they would ascend. They would leave behind monuments like this one to tell those who came after the Covenant of the glory of the Legion.
That glory was gone.
Alcyonius wasn't even sure how he had got here. Everything after the fall of his headquarters was a haze of horror and violence. His own men had fallen in battle, to be replaced by deserters and stragglers who rallied around Alcyonius only to be consumed by the Parasite.
Perhaps the armies of the Covenant had been broken. Perhaps the Parasite had already fled to the stars. Alcyonius couldn't know. The city around the airfield was a miasma of smoke and fire stalked by dead things. Every piece of communications gear he had found was smashed. The Unggoy and Yanme'e working to start the engines of the Spirit dropship he guarded were too frightened to speak to him.
He was alone save for Beringus, and Major Beringus wasn't long for this world.
Beringus had fought a Parasite-beast with blackened skin, a loping thing that threw itself about on its hands. Beringus prevailed, but the beast's skin had ruptured and spewed clouds of spores. Beringus was tainted, and as they watched the perimeter, Alcyonius kept one eye on his old friend.
"Just like on Njarro," Beringus said.
"What?"
"Just like the good years, back when we were two minors without an Unggoy to our name."
Alcyonius smiled. His old friend was still here.
"Those were the good years. We made them good. We didn't fight apostates or plagues, just bandits. And then Humans."
"Mmm. I preferred chasing the bandits across the dunes."
"No. The fight against the Humans made us strong," Alcyonius insisted. "If I could start all over, far away from Tartarus's filth, I'd do it. I love battle, and I would raise another Legion to fight it."
"What," Beringus wheezed. "Does Tartarus have to do with it."
"You remember Garvus!" Alcyonius said. "Don't you remember the love we had for the old chieftain? You remember the pride he had in us? That was loyalty. Tartarus struck him down, and then he held up treachery as a virtue! How can one lead Jiralhanae who think like him?"
Beringus laughed himself into a coughing fit. "Then you should have stayed down here with me, friend. Let other fools build the Legion. A troop of Unggoy and a lance of Kig-Yar, that's all you should have commanded."
"Was I unfit?" Alcyonius demanded. "What did I do wrong?"
"You charged into battle, and the men followed you. You spoke fancy words, and the men heard you." Beringus turned around, and Alcyonius didn't know whether it was his old friend or something else peering from behind those cold eyes. "But you never lead them. You never commanded their hearts.I know."
Alcyonius leveled his mauler at Beringus. Something flashed across Beringus's face that could have been fear or anguish, but then he knuckles down and charged.
Alcyonius fired.
Beringus fell into a heap at his feet. The body twitched as if it was trying to stand even though the head was gone, but Alcyonius fired until the movement stopped.
Moments later, the engines of the Spirit finally whined to life. Alcyonius took one last look over High Charity, where he had brought his Legion and forged his legend, and he cursed the carrion god that had taken it all from him.
Then he turned around and boarded the dropship.
Evening Period, Storage Hangar 318, 'Umtalla Feifdom Dockyards
Quatch heard Pem connect this ship, the Parhelia, to the port utilities. For the longest time, nothing seemed to happen. The freighter looked just as dead as a thousand-year-old derelict. His gaze dropped from the ship to the airlock, where P'thon was standing in shame-faced silence, to Nak, who was patiently checking his chronometer.
At long last, the lights in the airlock waxed and shifted from red to blue. P'thon submitted his arm, and the airlock opened to let him in. Moments later, the curtain doors of the Parhelia parted and rocked upward, allowing the sailors into the cavernous cargo bay.
The cargo sleds parked in the middle of the deck, and the sailors rushed to unload them. Nak and Lan raced for the engineering room. Quatch, Heik, and P'thon were ahead of them, sprinting for the helm.
The Parhelia continued to power up all around them. Banks of lights in the cargo bay winked on, and the gravity planks in the deck began to hum, and compressors within the bulkheads chuffed out stale air. The systems came alive in stages, ebbing and flowing like the breath of a great beast as it roused from slumber.
A door at the end of the hallway powered on and parted just in time to let them into the cockpit. The cockpit was small, but spacious, as it was designed for a Sangheili crew. The captain's dias stood above and behind the pilot and co-pilot's stations, which were recessed into the deck.
Heik took the copilot's chair. Quatch took the pilot's seat and guided P'thon's hand into a palm-shaped recess in the console. The ship recognized his veinprint, and dozens of flat holographic displays winked to life and cycled through their boot sequence.
"Heik, contact the Harbormaster's office," Quatch ordered. "Request fresh astrocharts. Whatever this tug's got in her databanks, it's got to be years out of date."
"The Harbormaster's…" P'thon breathed. "You said there was nobody there! You said they were all gone!"
"They are gone, kid, but the computers are intact. It should be automatic." Quatch studied the console in front of him. The flight instruments that had finished booting, but every last one of them was blank.
He cursed and stabbed a claw at an intercom button.
"Nak, I need those engines running right now!"
Evening Period, Engineering Room of the Qwis-109* Parhelia
"Nak, I need those engines running right now! Nak!"
Nak jabbed at the intercom with his foreclaw. "You'll get it when it's good and ready."
"How long?"
"Soon." With a hiss, the old engine chief flicked off the intercom, stepped away from the control console, and resumed his walk around the Parhelia's main fusion reactor. Strictly speaking, there was nothing he could learn from a visual inspection that the control console wouldn't tell him. But it felt necessary. Almost like a proper introduction to a stranger.
The reactor did not have an exposed reaction chamber, unlike most designs. It was buried deep within a sarcophagus, both for the protection of the crew and to keep its secrets safe from prying eyes. The sarcophagus was wrapped around itself like a shell, and two wing-like plenums stretched to the port and starboard bulkheads.
The skin of the sarcophagus was covered in a network of channels and indents. Those were the instruments and controls that a fusiontender like Nak would need to access to service the reactor. Everything else was buried out of reach. Nak recognized half of the instruments by sight, and he took great comfort in the fact that all of the luminous channels were glowing a healthy blue-white.
As the engine chief wandered around the reactor, Cam followed him around like a young chick after his mother, looking completely lost. That was to be expected; Cam was a deckhand by trade, and had rarely set foot in an engine room. The only other crewmember who had experience in the engine room was Lan, and she was busy powering up all the ship's other systems.
"What's gotten into Quatch?" Cam asked.
"Something he saw in the fight outside spooked him. Old memories from the War, probably. He wants to leave as soon as Taol finds us."
"That soon? You can't pull a ship out of storage that fast, can you?"
Nak laughed and drummed his claws against the reactor shell. "Son, the reactor was dead before I threw the switch. Cold-soaked. Hasn't been run in years. It takes the better part of a day to bring a reactor up to full operating temperature."
"We don't have a day!"
"Of course not," Nak said. "That's why we're going to get it done in half a paska. Less than the time it takes you to eat dinner."
"Now?" Cam asked. He glanced over at the dollies loaded with drums of fluid they had brought up from the cargo hold. "What about the reactor coolant?"
"Forget it. It's not the right grade anyway," Nak said.
"Why not? Coolant is coolant, isn't it?"
"Hah!" Nak barked. He pulled a sample vial out of his coveralls and jammed it into a port in the sarcophagus. When he extracted it, the vial was filled with a thick greyish fluid. "This is a high-performance reactor type meant for Ministry starships. It uses a special coolant, a sour mix with a metal powder catalyst. All we have is the standard light and heavy types."
"Is that it?"
"What, this?" Nak asked, indicating the fluid in the vial. "No, this is more of a preservative. Meant for long-term storage of a powerplant. But it will imitate the real thing long enough for a test-fire."
"Long enough to…" Cam cocked his head and gave Nak a worried look. "Something's going to go horribly wrong, isn't it?"
"It will," Nak said. "But that's tomorrow's problem."
He stowed the vial, returned to the control console, and beckoned Cam over. "Watch that panel. It's a piping and instrumentation diagram for the coolant loops. The little pips indicate temperature, and the red discs are valves. If you see any loops getting hotter than the rest, open up the upstream valve."
"Me?" Cam asked, staring at the diagram with a mix of bewilderment and terror. "Why not you? Can't you do it?"
"No," Nak said as he stepped over to the other end of the control console. "I've got to take this station and make sure the reaction doesn't take off until it's good and ready."
Within the sarcophagus, deuterium fuel was being metered into the reaction chamber. Energy drawn from the dock passed through the fuel, ionizing it and flashing it into plasma. Magnetic fields confined the plasma and hurled it toward the center of the reaction chamber, where more magnetic fields diverted the plasma over and over again, trapping it in an endless loop.
Fuel. Heat. Acceleration. Magnetic flux. A dozen inputs, all of which had to be kept in perfect balance as more fuel and more energy was added to the mix. And even though the deuterium plasma wasn't yet fusing, confining it was like trying to hold water in one's claws. It would be impossible without the paragravetic fields squeezing the plasma hundreds of times over in the blink of an eye.
It would be better to leave this stage to the automatic systems, but they wouldn't work fast enough. They were programmed to slowly bring the reactor up to temperature, and so Nak disabled them, and once he took over he didn't dare let his attention slip for one moment. He heard Cam say something that might have been a question, so he told the deckhand to figure it out himself. After that, he thought he felt Lan step up to the console, which was a small comfort. She knew what she was doing, and this sort of thing required a T'vaoan's touch.
Time blended together. After a while, he didn't know how long, he judged the reactor to be ready. The ring of plasma fuel was dense and well-formed, the controls were responsive, and the coolant flowed as it should. With his heart in his mouth, Nak ordered the reactor to go critical.
Instantly, the paragravetic fields that had been confining the plasma hammered it. Alarms blared, and the sarcophagus's internal structure groaned under the strain. The web of luminous channels flashed red, and then faded to a dark blue. The reaction chamber at the heart of the sarcophagus was bathed in the light of a newborn star, and the reactor fed that energy back into the plasma fuel. Moments later, the reaction was self-sustaining. Moments after that, there was energy to spare.
Nak allowed himself a moment of relief, just long enough to run his claws through his mane of feathers and breathe "It's all yours, chief." Then he went back to coaxing the reactor to burn hotter and brighter.
Evening Period, Bridge of the Qwis-109*
Parhelia
"We have power!" Heik crowed.
"Yeah, I see that," Quatch said.
One by one, all of the Parhelia's subsystems were switching over from drawing power from the dockside supply to drawing power from the main reactor. It was an agonizingly slow process, as each changeover had to wait until there was power to spare.
Quatch ground his teeth in frustration and prioritized the engines. Shields, sensors, and life support could wait. He needed the engines hot right now.
"Heik, get on the intercom. Tell Pem or someone to get ready to uncouple the ship from the dock as soon as I disconnect us from the dockside power supply."
"Aye," Heik said. "What about the hangar doors? Can we open them from here?"
P'thon's jaws fluttered in the negative. "It's just like the other docks. It has to be lowered from the control tower."
"That should be an automated request," Quatch said. "We can do it from here."
In his mind's eye, he remembered what the hangar doors looked like from the docks. They weren't just a thin curtain to keep the atmosphere in, they were a thick shield to keep flotsam and jetsam out. If they couldn't raise the Harbormaster's office…
"We'll worry about that later," he said. "What does this boat have for shields?"
"Look to that panel there," P'thon said, pointing to a holographic panel at the upper left-hand corner of Quatch's console. "The shields are strong and plentiful. My family would not have them built any other way."
"Good. Is there anything else you can tell me about the way your family builds boats?"
There was a huff of breath, and a reedy voice asked "When are we leaving?"
As one, Quatch, Heik, and P'thon turned to face the intruder. An Unggoy dressed in the robes of a Ministry scribe stood in the entrance to the bridge. He withered under their gaze and took a half-step back. With a nervous breath, he said "I did not mean to intrude-"
"Where did you come from?" Quatch asked.
"Ah, your servant let us in. We can all pay for passage."
"We?! How many of you are there?" With a snarl, Quatch turned back to his console and clawed at the controls until he found a live video feed from the cargo bay. After he'd had two eyefuls of what there was to see, he exploded.
"What's going on down there?"
Evening Period, Influx to Pier Three, 'Umtalla Feifdom Dockyards
The traction sled coasted to a stop just outside the gates to Pier Three. Taol climbed out of her seat and leaned out of the cab, all the better to survey the battlefield with her own eyes.
Pier Three was a long, broad causeway that wove between dozens of docks. On a normal day, it should have been full of sleds and Lekgolo forms carrying freight to and from the docks. Now it was full of fresh bodies and burning vehicles. It reminded her of some of the fiercest street battles Taol had seen in the Legion, and it was still going. She could see sporadic firefights all along the length of the causeway until it was lost in smoke and haze. And even that smoke was lit from within by weapons fire, like lightning in a thunderhead.
"Taol?" Dith asked from the passenger's bench.
"Mmm?"
"I don't think Quatch would-"
Whatever Dith thought Quatch would do, she didn't hear it. She saw a flash of orange in the corner of her eye. Spikes. They hissed through the air and punched into the traction sled's frame, but she'd already slid back into the cab, gunned the engine, and threw the sled into gear.
The sled lurched forward and bobbed on the road. She twisted the clutch and selected a pulse pattern for the gravity cushion that sacrificed lateral traction for linear traction and speed. The traction sled lurched again and accelerated to highway speeds.
Taol heard screams, but she didn't care. She had attention only for the road ahead. She saw gunfire race her way and smoke-obscured shadows reaching for the sled. She didn't slow down. She had to plot a course through the burning wrecks and the dead bodies, because even grazing a heavy piece of debris could send her vehicle spinning out of control.
In a way, she was reminded of her days as a gunnery officer aboard a Phantom dropship, flying among the burning skyscrapers of Bath'tet. She had command of all three guns back then, but no control over where the Phantom flew. Now she was in the pilot's seat, able to choose her path but unable to shoot back at her numerous enemies.
Stay alive. Find Quatch.
A troop carrier appeared out of the gloom, guns hammering away at some target behind her. One of the turrets swivelled to follow her. She swung to the left, just barely clearing a fallen girder as the traction sled fishtailed. The rules had been the same back on Bath'tet. Go fast. Stay low. Hug the ground cover or the Humans and their corkscrewing rockets will find you. Pick a destination and get there as fast as possible.
Taol was aware of Dith screaming in terror in the seat beside her, but she didn't feel it. If anything, she felt hungry. That was the closest she could get to fear anymore. She'd been terrified enough in the streets of Bath'tet, and in every night since when she revisited that city in her dreams again and again until terror meant nothing to her.
A blue light bloomed in the distance. Bright, like a rising sun. Taol leaned on the controls, steering the traction sled to the left just in time to avoid a spear of plasma that lanced down the causeway. For a moment, it looked like they were going to make it. But then the sled lost traction. The rear end swung out from behind her. She overcorrected, clipped a guardrail, and was sent spinning.
She was back in the skies of Bath'tet again, her Phantom dropship gutted by a missile and spiralling toward the ground, filled with blazing fire and terrified soldiers. The world spun around her, and she just barely had the presence of mind to stay in her seat.
It all came to an end when the traction sled slammed tail-first into the bulkhead so hard that it flamed out the reactor and slammed Taol back into her seat.
Plasma flashed again. A long beam of blue and actinic light played down the causeway, cutting through girder and bulkhead and flesh. Taol recognized it as an excavation beam. Having lost control of the docks, the Brutes must be retreating and destroying everything in their wake.
In the light of the excavation beam, Taol could see very few Brutes left. Those that remained were being overrun by mobs of Sangheili and Unggoy and other races. Other mobs were hiding behind cover or battering down any door they could reach.
And some were looking her way.
The lights on the dash indicated that the sled was still doing a self-diagnostic. She tried to start the engine anyway, but there was only a hollow knocking sound from the reactor.
"Taol, look."
"I know, Dith."
"Look over there!"
"I know! We've got to get out of here!"
"No, Taol, look! There's Dwe! He's waving right at us!"
Taol craned her head to follow Dith's finger. Sure enough, someone wearing the yellow-and-green of the Libation's deck crew was beckoning them over to Dock Three-Eighteen, far from where Quatch had told her to meet up.
The reactor ignited on the fourth try, and the sled lifted off the ground. Taol turned the sled around and made for Dwe, hugging the bulkhead tightly. The excavation beam was sweeping up and down the causeway, firing in long bursts to save carrier fluid or exhaust heat, she didn't know. One moment, Taol was bathed in light that burned her skin and prickled her scales. Another moment and the light was mercifully gone, plunging the pier into darkness.
Dwe guided them through a set of double doors. Taol looked around and realized that they were in a hangar, not a proper dock, but by then the doors were closing behind her. With a hiss, she jumped down from the cab and confronted Dwe.
"Where are we? Quatch said to meet him at Dock Three-Twenty-Two."
"I know," Dwe replied. "We couldn't make it that far. Quatch told me to stand at the door and flag you down."
"It's alright, we've got a ship." A strange Kig-Yar whom Taol had never met before pointed to the distance. Taol almost asked her who she was and why she considered herself a 'we' with the Libation's crew, but she looked over her shoulder instead.
There in the distance was a Timely Sirocco-class freighter. The running lights were lit and all four engine cones were glowing bright blue. Between the booms, she could see into the cargo bay in the lower half of the fuselage. The interior lights were on, and she could see many vehicles parked inside, and dozens of Sangheili and Unggoy milling about.
"What's all that?" Taol asked.
"People," Dwe said nervously. Refugees from outside. They said that they could pay for a berth."
"And you believed them?" Taol asked with a hint of steel in her voice.
"What was I supposed to do, say no?"
Taol swore and backhanded him. "Idiot! We have no food! We have no guns! We can't take on passengers!"
"I told him-" the strange Kig-Yar started to say.
"Shut up and get on the sled!" Taol snarled as she drew a plasma pistol from her tunic. "Dwe, you lock the door, and lock it tight!"
Dwe scrambled to comply. As soon as he was clear of the keypad, Taol charged a shot and fired. The keypad exploded. Sparks and smoke erupted from the seams and the doorjamb. Satisfied that the hangar door would never open under its own power again, Taol climbed back on the traction sled.
Up close, she could see that the freighter was sleek and classy, as if some madman had built it for racing rather than business. That worried her. What if the ship didn't have tow fields? A Timely Sirocco with only an internal cargo bay couldn't possibly be economical to run. Quatch had struck a deal with Kuotasim to take any of the Umtalla freighters, and this was the one he'd chosen?
As worried as she was about the ship, she was more worried by Dwe's passengers. She could see at least twelve dozen, and many of them wore the fine dress common to the upper crust of High Charity. Rich people could be seven kinds of unreasonable, even in the best of times.
Taol stepped off the traction sled as soon as it crossed onto the freighter's unloading ramp. A starship this size always had an intercom system at all of the airlocks, and she found one in the console by the main door.
"Quatch?" she said as she keyed the bridge. "Are you there?"
"Taol? You made it?"
"Yes, and I've got the bodies. What's going on here?"
"I was about to ask you that. Where did all those loiterers come from?"
"Dwe let them in. He says that they're passengers."
"Shit. Taol, we can't take off yet. Pem is still refueling the freighter, and I don't know what else Nak has to do to get the engines going. Keep everything under control down there. Don't do anything rash!"
"Yes," Taol replied, and she cut the connection.
All of the passengers in the cargo bay were converging on the traction sled, and their mood was furious. They were shouting and swearing oaths, and some were gesturing toward the bodies in the cargo bay. Dwe had dismounted, but now he was scrambling back into the cab to escape the crowd.
With a huff, Taol drew her pistol and advanced upon the mob. "Knock it off!" she screamed. "Leave him alone!"
A few heads turned her way. One Sangheili rounded upon her and bellowed "Have you masadoor gone mad? What possessed you to bring these corpses here?"
Taol leveled the pistol at his head and squeezed the trigger. The Sangheili blanched and threw himself to the ground, so she fired over the crowd. A slightly overcharged blob of plasma smacked against the flank of the cargo sled in a shower of sparks and slag.
The tension in the air snapped. Some of the mob fled, while others hit the deck. Taol fired again and shouted until she had their eyes and their silence.
"Those corpses in back are Umtalla clan. They own this dock. We were contracted to get their bodies away from the Brutes. And if any of you so much as thinks about mobbing us, I'll shoot you and throw your body overboard."
"Very well, Kig-Yar," said a Sangheili who wore the ornate blue-white armor and cloth of a custodian of the high courts. He held a halberd in a guarded stance, and he was shielding another Sangheili with his body. "Know that I am Septal Rehestuf. I know not what deals you have struck with the 'Umtalla, but they are at an end. We have only barely escaped here with our lives. We are in the trough of calamity, and the Lamesai Unesh Nok crests above us all. I implore you, we must leave at once, before it comes crashing down around us!"
"The hangar doors are locked and broken," Taol said. "And the Brutes have other things on their minds. We're not leaving until Shipmaster Quatch says so. And all of you had better keep quiet and stay out of our way."
Septal's mandibles curled into a snarl, but the harsh retort died in his throat, pre-empted by the sound of a distant explosion.
Evening Period, Cradle of the Qwis-109* Parhelia, Storage Hangar 318, 'Umtalla Feifdom Dockyards
The deck shuddered underfoot. Pem and Kess looked at each other. The Spire of Gifting had been shaking all day, but that impact felt close.
"Was that a docking clamp?" Kess asked, his quills twitching nervously.
"Can't be," Pem said, and he took off at a dead run. He vaulted atop the hydrant turret and scrambled up the alloy mast that connected a bundle of frosty hoses to the fuel port under the freighter's port wing. When he was near the top, he saw over the gangplank and the docking clamps.
There was a smoking hole where the hangar's interior door was supposed to be. Dark forms were rushing out of it.
Pem turned to look at the bundle of hoses that were shaking gently as liquid deuterium flowed through them, and then down to the two fuel trucks that were elevating giant casks of reaction mass into the freighter's wing, one at a time.
"We've got to go faster," he said.
Evening Period, Cargo Bay of the Qwis-109* Parhelia
Standing at the top of the freighter's loading ramp, Taol peered into the distance. Even through the smoke and darkness, she could see Brutes and their soldiers storming through the hole in the bulkhead. They were clearly massing to charge the freighter.
"Yaress," Septal said, standing beside her. "Our time here is finished. The Enemy has found us out. Call your shipmaster, tell him to cast off now, or we shall surely perish!"
"We can't leave," Taol said. "Our keelworkers are still out there on the cradle."
Septal seized her by the shoulders and spun her about to face him. "We must leave, and leave them behind as well! If they are not already aboard this ship, then they are as good as lost!"
"We can't leave," Taol repeated calmly. "Those keelworkers you want to leave behind are out on the cradle because they're refueling this ship."
Cries of dismay rose from the refugees around them, and even Septal was taken aback. Fear flashed across his face, followed by despair and finished with grim resignation. Stepping out onto the loading ramp and raising his halberd overhead, he called for silence once more, and he got it.
"Citizens of the Covenant," he said. "Today, we thought we'd found the gate to salvation. Instead, we only found strife, and then the truest name of ruination."
"We have survived this long only by the grace of great fortune, and by the courage of warriors who martyred themselves to secure our escape. No more. We must save ourselves. I implore you, if you bear arms, if you feel the faith stirring within your breast, stand with me. We shall stand together, and we shall lay down our lives to secure a final victory! I am prepared. My soul is ready. Who else shall stand with me?"
Most of the refugees stepped back from the loading ramp, and some of those turned and fled deeper into the cargo bay. A few did step forward, including the Sangheili matron who he had been guarding. She threw herself at Septal's feet and begged him not to go, but he embraced her, and then pushed her into the arms of another Sangheili.
"If you are cowed by fear," he shouted. "Then be a useful coward, and keep her safe!"
Then he turned and marched down the loading ramp.
Taol was going to follow, but she spotted the Kig-Yar deserter at the cargo hatch's terminal, clearly trying to close and lock the door. With a snarl, she called for the soldier to stop.
"The name's Tur," the soldier replied.
"Tur, Tur, I don't care," Taol replied. "Step away from the console. You're coming with me."
"You're not going out there, are you?"
"Of course I am. So are you, if you want to be a part of this crew."
"Me?" Tur asked. "No. Never. I'd sooner swim through vacuum! I'm staying in here and I'm locking the doors!"
"You scared?" Taol asked. "Afraid that your old friends will recognize you?"
Tur cocked her head. "What?"
"I've heard of what your Legion does to deserters. If you're that afraid that the Brutes will see you for what you are, pull that armor off. I'll wear it."
"My Legion? My Legion?!" Tur demanded. "Don't you idiot sailors understand? It's not Brutes!"
At the base of the loading ramp, Septal stopped and drew a plasma rifle from his robes. He could see silhouettes of twisted abominations massing in the smoke at the far end of the gangway, backlit by raging fires.
"I am Septal 'Rehestuf, scion of Kharkhom, custodian of the courts and the cause of justice, sworn to the service of the Second Sunrise! The Forerunner named you, Parasite! Flood, they called you. With holy light, they banished you from the galaxy, cast you into the dark. Like them, I refute you!"
"By the blood of my forefathers, by the wisdom of the First Saints, I swear that you shall not take this vessel! You shall not escape High Charity!"
When Septal finished, one of the abominations began to scream, and then another, and then all of them. Shrill and halting, the shrieks blended together, and they sounded like cruel laughter.
As one, the Parasite host charged.
Septal scoffed and readied his plasma rifle. "Go back to the shadows."
A/N: In the second chapter, I promised that eight months between updates would not be normal, and look at that! Chapter eleven is twelve months late. What can I say. It's been that kind of year.
In that time, a Daybreak worldbuilding thread has been started over on Spacebattles, as well as a snippet thread, and a friend of mine has started a new story, Itter Rock. All are set within the same continuity as Not All Who Wander. What started out as a lone alternate universe project has snowballed into a project with many authors.
I'm looking forward to the future. I've got a lot of stories I want to tell, and I can't wait to share them.
Next chapter should be here relatively soon. It doesn't have much in the way of scene cuts, just glorious, operatic violence. Minor note: I'm not sure if it's going to show up, but the hull number of the Parhelia is the Qwis-109(Asterisk). The Covenant in Daybreak use a base-twelve number system, so I'm using (Asterisk) as a placeholder for the eleven numeral, which is usually pronounced "Star" when read by a Human. Problem is, I'm not sure if this website will display special characters in stories. We'll find out, I guess.