Legacy of Onyx

by Matt Forbeck

  “In my clutch. And another four in the younger clutch. Plus another dozen from my other mother’s clutch, but they’re all grown and gone now. They didn’t come with us.”

  “You have two mothers?” Molly didn’t know anything about Unggoy sexual preferences or mating habits. Everything Gudam was telling her was brand-new.

  “Yuh-huh, and three fathers, but only one of them came with us to Onyx. He works as an explorer, just like my other mother, Momma Beskin, but the mother who’s here, Momma Aphrid, she doesn’t know anything about stuff like that. You know, Forerunners and the things they built. But she didn’t want to just sit around all day long being useless, so she teaches here instead. She’s the best!”

  “How come I didn’t see you in math class?” Molly said, slightly confused. She’d suffered through that first thing in the morning but didn’t remember seeing any Unggoy. “Or your mother, for that matter?”

  “The man who’s been teaching us the last couple days was a substitute,” Kareem said. “Teacher Aphrid should be back in school later today.”

  “She was home taking care of me this morning.” Gudam dug her strange foot into the grass and twisted it about, as though slightly ashamed—another surprisingly human mannerism. “I decided to try running around outside without my breathing kit on.” She pointed at the pack on her back. “I need methane to breathe. If I don’t have any, it really gets to your head after a while, you know? Well, I suppose you don’t, breathing all that high-powered oxygen the way you two do!”

  Gudam coughed a couple times after that, and Molly wondered if Gudam’s voice was always that wheezy, or if it was an effect of her messing with the wrong gas in her lungs. She struggled for a moment to catch her breath, grabbing on to Kareem’s arm as she did.

  Then something happened.

  Molly couldn’t believe it at the time, but she found herself actually beginning to feel sorry for this creature. The Unggoy. Molly tried to remind herself that this thing was part of the Covenant—or, at least, she would have been had the war continued. And, to Molly, Gudam was as genuinely ugly as could be, almost offensively so, but even still . . . something about her intrigued Molly. She found Gudam strangely adorable, but couldn’t explain why.

  “How old are you?” Molly asked, again not quite sure where the question came from. It seemed entirely logical despite the completely illogical nature of the conversation’s participants. What kind of small talk is one supposed to have with an alien?

  “I just turned five!” Gudam said brightly. “As humans count years at least. We had a big party for me and all my clutchmates.”

  Gudam again started laughing loudly, attracting the attention of other students. She would have probably continued if another fierce coughing fit hadn’t stopped her again.

  “Just five?” Molly could hardly believe it. Gudam seemed to be about the same size as the other Unggoy Molly had seen in the dining hall.

  “Unggoy grow to maturity rather quickly,” Kareem said. “I think Teacher Aphrid is actually only ten years old.”

  “That’s right!” Gudam said. “But she doesn’t look a day over eight!”

  Molly had a hard time reconciling Gudam with what she’d known about Grunts before coming to Onyx, the little she’d learned through newsfeeds and Waypoint articles. She zeroed in on a loose fact, something obscure that had frightened her when she first heard it: some Grunts would make suicide runs, charging into a group of humans and activating plasma grenades. The Unggoy may have been cannon fodder, but they’d killed a lot of people.

  But Gudam didn’t seem dangerous at all.

  Had there been Unggoy on the ships that had destroyed Paris IV? Molly wondered once more. Almost definitely. And they’d likely murdered millions during the war—including my sister and my parents.

  The thoughts were sobering, but it was where Molly’s mind went.

  Gudam hadn’t been on one of those enemy vessels, but if the war had still been going on, she could have wound up on a ship like that, doing what those who came before her did: trying desperately to kill more humans.

  Maybe even trying to kill me.

  But instead, this strange alien was cracking jokes and acting friendly, and that strange shift made Molly’s stomach twist.

  “So who are you?” Gudam stuck her hand out to Molly. “Any friend of Kareem’s is a friend of mine.” Gudam lowered her voice in confidence. “I hear that’s the kind of thing humans say to each other. I’ve been reading on the side to catch up.”

  Molly hesitated for a moment, but then she took the little creature’s large hand and shook it. At first, Molly was nervous. The Unggoy had thick clawed hands that vaguely reminded Molly of a crab’s pincers. She wondered if she’d even get her hand back in one piece. Yet, despite the roughness of Gudam’s shell, her touch was surprisingly gentle and light. She shook Molly’s hand with what seemed to be sincere glee.

  “I’m Molly.”

  “Hello, Molly! You’re only the second human I’ve done this with! Most people get uncomfortable, you know. I don’t blame them. I mean, you humans are so soft and fleshy, you need to protect your skin, but I think I see why you do this among yourselves—shake hands, I mean. It’s fun to make contact like this, isn’t it?”

  The Unggoy’s mouth spread into a wide smile, showing every one of her vicious teeth. Molly did her best not to think of what it would feel like to have those things sink into her soft and fleshy skin.

  “I suppose so.” A slight grin appeared on Molly’s face without her intending it.

  The three turned at a sound, hearing someone snarl behind them.

  “Damn hinge-heads,” an angry boy said. “We ought to space the lot of them. One at a time.”

  Molly tried to assess what she was seeing. A trio of large boys were stalking toward a single Sangheili who was standing off to one side of the courtyard by himself. She didn’t know how well Sangheili ears worked, but she could easily hear the boy’s words and was twice as far away from him as the alien. Still, the Sangheili didn’t acknowledge the human. He just kept his head down and seemed to ignore the kid.

  Molly recognized the Sangheili as the same one she saw sitting by himself in the dining hall. The one she’d refused to sit with. Most of the Elites were challenging to tell apart here, shades of browns and grays. This Sangheili was different though. Its skin was paler than that of most of the others, almost white. The alien definitely stood out from the other members of its species, at least on Onyx.

  Some humans who had been near the Sangheili moved away from him as the three boys approached. The one in the lead was buff and burly, with short-cropped hair. He looked as if he could be a marine in training. The two who followed in his wake were cut from the same mold. They were each shorter and smaller than him, though not by much, and they wore the same dark scowls.

  “Uh-oh,” Kareem said in a low voice meant only for Molly’s ears. “That’s Karl Zakovksy, and that’s his brother Zeb, and their friend Andres Malez.”

  “They’re trouble?” she asked.

  “Biggest bullies in the school, from what I can tell. They haven’t picked on me yet, but I’ve been steering clear of them.”

  “That’s not easy to do in a school this size,” Gudam said. She stared openly at the troublemakers as they went by a few paces away. “Eventually, the people who want to find you will find you.”

  Karl strode up to where the Sangheili stood with his back to them, looking out across a field and into the forest just outside the school grounds. The boy reached out and shoved the alien in the shoulder, almost knocking him to the ground.

  “Watch where you’re walking,” Karl said to the alien. Instead of moving past him, though, Karl stopped and cackled as the Sangheili staggered forward and then caught himself.

  “Yeah,” Zeb said, echoing his brother. “Watch where you’re walking!”

  The Sangheili turned around slowly and gave each of the boys a dead-eyed stare. He stretched out to his full height so he coul
d look each of them in the eye. They were older than him, maybe, and taller, but he easily outmassed each of them.

  Molly’s apprehension about the aliens aside, she knew how this could end. In a fair fight, the Sangheili could probably take down any one of those boys, even Karl. But they clearly weren’t interested in making this a fair fight. She scanned the courtyard to see if any faculty were around to stop this, but not a single adult was in sight.

  “I was standing still.” The Sangheili’s voice was higher than she expected, but she hadn’t heard too many voices from his species before. She wondered if he was a younger fledgling.

  Kasha was the first Sangheili who had ever spoken to Molly in person. Before that, the most she’d ever heard came from newsfeeds with Sangheili such as the Arbiter, the leader of the Swords of Sanghelios, giving a speech. His own Elites had claimed to be humanity’s allies since the end of the war. He often spoke in delegations and peace conferences between his government and the UEG. As intimidating as the Sangheili were, the Arbiter had a magnificent voice, deep and resonant.

  The Arbiter and his Swords of Sanghelios stood out as the shining example Molly’s Newparents often used to prove the Sangheili weren’t inherently evil. Even if they’d been deceived by the Prophets into attacking humanity for nearly thirty years.

  To Molly, that made little difference. She understood her Newparents’ interpretation of the events, but she didn’t think that being fooled into murdering millions of people got you off the hook for murdering millions of people. They were still responsible for what they had done.

  With the war stopped, are we supposed to just act like it never happened? Molly’s parents and sister were still dead. How am I supposed to deal with that?

  “Then watch where we’re walking,” Karl said. The other boys sniggered at that.

  “Are we to do this again?” The Sangheili shook his head on his long stalk of a neck in a weary way.

  “Do what?” Zeb said. “Put you in your place?”

  “I am where I am meant to be, human.”

  Karl smirked at that and glanced about as if looking for something. “Really? This doesn’t look like a hospital to me.”

  “Or a graveyard,” Andres said darkly.

  His tone was more unsettling to Molly than Karl’s or Zeb’s. The other boys were being cruel, but Andres sounded as if he didn’t want bruises, but blood.

  “We have been through this ritual several times,” the Sangheili said. “What will it take to put an end to it?”

  “That’s simple.” Karl leaned in toward the Sangheili. “All we have to do is put an end to you.”

  That’s when Gudam appeared between the two boys. “Hey, Karl! What’s up?” she said in a dangerously happy voice.

  The boys had been too focused on each other to see the Unggoy slipping up until the last second. She was so small and slight in her movements that it was easy to lose track of her. Both the Sangheili and the human boys edged back, completely off guard.

  Karl didn’t just move back though. He must have seen the Unggoy as a threat, and he lashed out with a punch. His fist caught Gudam on the right side of the tube that covered her nose. With a horrible crack, it went flying off to one side, along with a spatter of glowing blue blood.

  Molly was stunned. She looked around the courtyard for someone, a teacher—anyone—who could help. There were only students, all of them staring at the scene, frozen.

  Gudam spilled backward, her limbs splayed out in every direction. The pack on her back slewed off at an awkward angle and began leaking methane. She started coughing, clearly unable to properly breathe the oxygen all around her.

  This had suddenly become very serious.

  Kareem ran to Gudam and knelt down next to her, checking to see if she was all right. Molly wanted to do the same, but for some reason didn’t. She just stood there, feeling helpless.

  “You attack a little Unggoy?” The Sangheili stabbed a long finger at Karl. “For the crime of greeting you? This time you have gone too far.”

  The Sangheili was angry, this much Molly could clearly see. As much as she didn’t like him or his kind, she couldn’t blame him. Molly may not have had a long list of friends inside Onyx, but Gudam was about the friendliest creature Molly had ever met. It didn’t matter to her what grievance Karl might have against the diminutive creature; she didn’t deserve to get laid out like that. No one did.

  “You think so?” Karl said. He had reeled back for an instant when he’d seen how badly he’d hurt Gudam. Now he stepped forward again, owning the attack and evidently hungry to mix it up with the Sangheili. Karl thought he had finally found something that pissed the alien off enough to drag him into a fight. “Let’s see just how far we can take this.”

  Karl reached out and pushed the Sangheili. To Molly’s surprise, the alien didn’t stop him. He didn’t raise a hand at all.

  Molly scanned the courtyard again, hoping to find an adult this time. She saw other Sangheili fledglings. They were watching too. For a second, she thought they would step in to defend one of their kind. Yet . . . none of them even moved in the direction of the fight. Instead, once they discerned what was happening, they all turned away, completely uninterested. Molly didn’t understand. Are they going to let one of their kind get pummeled?

  “Some hinge-head you are,” Karl growled, pushing the Sangheili again. “You going to just let me shove you around like that? Don’t you have the guts to do anything about it?”

  The Sangheili flexed his big fists. “I do not care to fight you, human.”

  “I didn’t ask you that.” Karl shoved him with both hands this time, much harder than before. “Did I?”

  Still, the Sangheili only staggered back, regained his footing, and did nothing. He just glared at Karl as if he might snap at any moment and bite the boy’s head off.

  Karl sneered at the Sangheili. “You don’t care what we might do to you?” Karl turned toward Gudam. “Or your little pet here?”

  That was it for Molly. She couldn’t just stand there and watch anymore. Not with Gudam lying there, hurt and struggling to breathe. Someone has to stop this, she thought. Then . . . without her recognizing it, her own anger suddenly took over and moved her feet for her.

  Her instincts had kicked in again.

  Molly barreled toward the conflict and came between the Unggoy and Karl. “Knock it off, all of you!”

  Molly hated bullies. She always had. Especially the kind who picked on people smaller than them. It probably had something to do with her having had to fend for herself in the last two schools, or perhaps it was because of what had happened to her family on Paris IV.

  The bottom line was that she didn’t let anyone push her around. Not ever.

  As Asha often told her, It’s not the size of the dog in the fight that matters. It’s the size of the fight in the dog. And Molly could fight big if someone pushed the right buttons.

  Karl stepped back and gawked at her audacity. “Are you kidding me? You’re going to stand up for that thing?” He clearly hadn’t processed the possibility of a human defending an alien. Molly didn’t blame him for that. She hadn’t foreseen it herself until just a second before doing it.

  “I don’t care about him or her or whatever!” she said as she got up in his face. “You don’t get to step up to someone minding their own business and start knocking them around!”

  Taken aback momentarily, Karl recovered and glared at Molly, raising his hand to her much as he’d done to Gudam. Molly hadn’t surprised him though. He wasn’t about to smack her down out of some mistaken instinct of self-preservation, or out of some anger he’d held over from the war. He was just furious at her for having dared to try to stop his bullying. This time, he was going to hit a human being, and he was going to mean it.

  Molly cocked back her leg preparing to kick him, but Karl knocked her flat before she could even strike. He had backhanded her across the jaw, and she felt a sting of pain as her lower lip split open against her teet
h.

  Molly fell to the ground, clutching her mouth. Although she’d been through a war and had dealt with all sorts of bullies in other schools, she’d never been in a real fistfight before. It wasn’t the pain that shocked Molly, at least not at first. It was the idea that someone would actually hit her.

  “Damn hinge-head hugger,” Karl spat at her.

  Molly pulled her hand away, and it was covered with blood.

  Kareem launched himself at Karl. He came at him from the side but didn’t get far. Zeb and Andres grabbed Kareem before he laid a hand on their friend. Together, they slammed Kareem to the ground, flat on his back. Molly heard the air escape his lungs as the wind was knocked out of him. Kareem was struggling to breathe now too.

  Molly quickly recovered. She jumped to her feet and lunged at the boys, who’d begun kicking at Kareem. Just before she reached them, Karl stuck out his leg and tripped her. Rather than tackling Andres, she stumbled into him.

  Andres shoved Molly back and took a step toward her, his fists up and ready. His knuckles darted out and slammed into her face before she could regain her balance. Molly stumbled backward, howling and holding her eye, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened and hoping he hadn’t blinded her for life.

  Someone’s hands caught Molly and kept her on her feet.

  She looked up to see Andres moving above her, his other fist cocked back to hammer at her again. Molly braced herself for the blow. This one was probably going to knock her out cold. These jerks would actually hit a girl.

  Then a voice from behind her boomed out. “Hold it!”

  Andres froze, his arm still back and ready but his eyes flung wide. He took a huge step back and put his hands in the air to show he had stopped.

  Molly took a moment to blink the pain from her eye and watched her vision slowly clear. Satisfied that she hadn’t gone blind but still wincing from the pain, she looked up to see who’d saved her.

  It was a Sangheili instructor Molly had glimpsed earlier that day, the first male Elite she had ever seen in person and without any armor, unlike in the war vids she’d watched. The label outside his classroom had said that his name was Dinok ‘Acroli, and apparently he specialized in xenolinguistics. This meant that he taught Sangheili how to speak to the humans, and vice versa.