by Matt Forbeck
The Forerunners had constructed everything in the sphere long before any humans arrived. If a road had been necessary, they would have built it themselves.
But perhaps she was being pedantic. After all, beings who could create something as incredible as Onyx probably had hundreds of better ways to get around than on twenty-sixth-century vulcanized tires. Until the researchers exploring the sphere figured out just how exactly the Forerunners managed it, they would remain stuck with wheels and roads.
The students assembled near what Molly believed was the main doorway, a large wall at the nearest end of the Repository that looked as though it could be opened. Kasha ‘Hilot stood at the front of the group, atop a low wall that framed the walkway that led into the building. A man stood next to her, waving the students closer.
He wasn’t completely unfamiliar. Molly had seen him roaming around the Pax Institute before, but she didn’t know anything about him. He was older than her Newparents, by quite a lot—perhaps even enough to have been one of their fathers—yet not much about him felt grandfatherly.
He was rangy, with untamed white hair and sharp blue eyes. He looked as if he’d been left out in rough weather for most of his life, like one of those cowboys from early American history. He even wore a pistol in a holster on his hip, which seemed fitting.
In a gruff, no-nonsense voice, he said, “Good day, kids. My name is Mike Spenser, and I’m one of the primary liaisons between the Pax Institute and ONI Research Facility Trevelyan. You can just call me Mike. I spent a lot of years working for ONI in the field, and so I look at this particular post as a way to make up for all the horrible things I’ve done in my life.”
Most of the kids laughed at that, but Molly noticed that Mike didn’t do more than crack a wry smile.
“Part of my role here is to escort specific groups and high-value assets that leave Paxopolis on excursions, retreats, or academic field trips like this. While your headmaster is more than capable of managing such duties, and while this part of Onyx is relatively secure, there’s still a lot we don’t know about this strange world we now call home.
“That’s why I’m here: to guide and protect you. You’ll make my job a lot easier if you follow a few simple rules.”
He ticked them off on his fingers.
“One. Stay with the group. If you wander off on your own, you might get lost or run into trouble.
“Two. If you somehow manage to completely blow rule number one, stop and wait for help to arrive. We’ll figure out you’re gone soon enough, and if you keep roaming around, it makes it a lot harder for us to nail down your position and find you.
“Three.” Then he said something Molly didn’t understand at all, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. “Any of you get that?” he said with a smile.
Molly glanced around but didn’t see any of the humans raising a hand. Even the Sangheili and the Unggoy seemed confused, although a few of them had started chuckling.
From behind Molly, Kareem softly cleared his throat. She looked back and saw him thumbing her attention toward Bakar. The young Sangheili stood with one hand reluctantly held in the air.
“Yes?” Mike gestured toward Bakar. “I was talking in an obscure dialect of Sangheili. I figured someone just might get it. Anyone else pick up on it?”
All of the other students shook their heads, even the other Sangheili. Mike gave them all a rueful look. “ ’Course not.” He nodded toward Bakar. “You want to translate for your fellow students?”
Bakar hesitated. Speaking to the rest of the class was probably the last thing he wanted to do, but Mike wasn’t about to let him off the hook.
After a moment, Bakar gave in and said, “ ‘Pay attention. You might learn something.’ ”
“Right.” Mike looked at the rest of them. “You kids are living inside one of the most amazing xenoarchaeological finds in all of human history. You’re studying alongside different species from across the galaxy. That’s pretty extraordinary if you stop to think about it.
“This place—Onyx—it’s unlike anything we’ve ever encountered before, and it will take many lifetimes for us to explore and investigate. This very small piece of the sphere you’re in right now deserves your complete respect and attention. Its incredible age alone demands it.
“So for your own sakes, show some intellectual curiosity. That’s what brought your families here, right? This isn’t just an amazing opportunity for them. It’s one for you too. Take advantage of it. Safely.” He bore down hard on that last word.
With that, he jumped down from the wall and led them into the Repository.
CHAPTER 16
* * *
* * *
The Repository was just as amazing as Molly had hoped it would be.
As they walked up to the building, the wall face revealed a gigantic set of doors, which responsively peeled away from the front of the building, exposing a massive hangar interior several stories tall.
The lights inside the structure began to glow stronger, responding to the approaching group by illuminating the cavernous structure from one end to the other. As large as the Repository was, it was hardly empty.
The astonishing building was packed from one end to the other with a wide variety of vehicles: wheeled and winged, floating and hovering. Too many to even begin to count.
Molly recognized some of them as Covenant craft, purple and curved into vaguely biomimetic shapes. They ran not on traditional propulsion methods such as propellers or jets, but on a boosted-gravity drive system allowing them to either hover or fly. She knew the names of some of them from her time exploring the Covenant War: Banshees, Ghosts, Wraiths, and others. It seemed that the UNSC had kept samples of each in the structure, including some she’d never seen. And they had them in large numbers, dozens upon dozens.
Among these stood some machines that seemed to have been made by the Forerunners. Most of them were gray or silver and had distinctive angular designs, usually trimmed in glowing blues. Incredibly, they seemed to be constructed of floating bits that were clearly meant to be connected parts of a single unit but somehow never actually touched. Molly had never seen anything like this before, and she found her eyes were riveted to every shape and design.
It made her wonder if this was the kind of stuff Yong and Asha had been studying all these years. If so, their collective effort and excitement finally made sense. If these kinds of machines were what the Forerunners were capable of creating, then following in their footsteps was worth it.
The Forerunner craft stood in stark contrast with the sorts of vehicles the UNSC built, which also populated the hangar: boxy and practical, tough and durable, familiar and reliable. They came in greens, grays, and browns, as if they were built for blasting through fields, cities, or jungles rather than atmospheres and outer space—though she noticed they had a few spaceworthy craft there too.
From Molly’s own research, she knew most of the UNSC vehicles in the hangar by name—Warthogs, Scorpions, Mongooses, Pelicans—but a few new ones she’d never seen, some which even seemed to incorporate Covenant or Forerunner technology overlaid on the human design.
What was this place originally designed to do? Why are there so many vehicles from different species here? Is ONI using this as an ad hoc hangar facility for any vehicles they happen to have on hand? Molly immediately wanted to ask a hundred questions, but she didn’t have a chance right away.
A dozen humans roamed among the vehicles, each dressed in UNSC fatigues. A single Sangheili worked alongside them too, with a pair of Unggoy by his side. None of the aliens wore uniforms, though, just strange coveralls.
Maybe that was meant to put the humans around them at ease. Molly had to admit, it was better than seeing them strut around in armor. All of the workers, however, had sidearms—including the aliens. Ironically, some humans had ex-Covenant weapons such as plasma pistols at their sides, while the Sangheili carried a Magnum holstered on one of his legs.
Onyx certainly made for st
range bedfellows.
Then Molly spotted a Huragok. She’d expected to be disgusted if she ever encountered one in person, but at first blush the creature seemed incredibly harmless and somehow intriguing . . . in an odd way. In the languorous way it moved, it appeared serene, even petlike.
“Do you see that?” Molly asked Bakar.
He nodded. “One of the Engineers. I heard many tales of them growing up on Sanghelios, but I had never seen one before. Not until I moved here.”
“Me neither,” Gudam said. “They sure are funny looking. I wonder how they get around. Do they have to propel themselves by expelling gas?”
Kareem laughed openly at that comment, while Molly rolled her eyes. Bakar simply remained silent. His unflinching response made her wonder if he was just a sour member of his species or if none of the Sangheili had a sense of humor. Or perhaps he had been jaded to start with and coming to the Pax Institute had only exacerbated his condition.
As the group slowly gathered in the center of the hangar, Mike Spenser cocked his head to one side like a dog picking up a whistle. Then he pushed a finger into his ear and listened, responding with a series of short answers and grunts.
When he was done, he gave the group a regretful frown. “I’m sorry to have to do this, but I need to step into the back for a moment. Something’s come up.”
“When can we expect you to return?” Kasha asked.
“I won’t be long.” Mike looked out at the herd of students. “Take fifteen minutes to wander around the place, kids. Explore and discuss, but don’t touch anything. The vehicles might be locked down right now, but they are fully functional and capable of causing real damage—and for you, serious trouble. After you’re done taking it all in, head back and meet me right here.”
He spun on his heel and took off. As he went, he signaled to the Huragok with a whistle and flip of the wrist. The creature sped along after him at a surprising speed.
“You heard him, students,” Kasha said. “You have fifteen minutes. Do not be late, and do not touch anything!”
The rest of the students scattered. Molly walked off in the direction least likely to put her among any of them, and Kareem and Gudam followed suit. Bakar trailed after the three of them, though just far enough behind that he could arguably be separate.
As they walked deeper into the hangar, each of them craned his or her neck around to try to get a better view of the building and all the amazing things in it. It was the most fascinating place Molly had ever been in. Not only was the Forerunner structure an incredible piece of architecture, but the vehicles were unlike anything she’d ever seen so close.
On the periphery, Molly spotted a number of large doors that lined both sides of the long structure. Some of these stood open with clear views to the dense foliage on the outskirts of the Repository, while others remained closed. They appeared to be enormous shutters that could retract upward into the vast angular ceiling above, and it quickly became apparent how the vehicles—especially the large ones—could be moved in and out of the structure.
The sheer scale of the place stunned Molly as she turned back to face its center. It was one thing to walk alongside a massive aircraft and take in just how large it was in real life. It was something else altogether to stroll among dozens and dozens of such craft inside a building made by an ancient civilization—and then to realize that the building itself was far bigger than all of them put together.
Despite its great size and elaborate design, the Repository seemed like a logical part of the whole that was Onyx. The Forerunners were evidently masters at merging the natural and the unnatural in ways that felt seamless, perhaps because everything here was, in effect, made by them. Even sitting among the heavy foliage that surrounded the hangar, the structure felt as if it just fit—as if it had been placed there before the vegetation, ancient beyond all human comprehension.
After wandering a few paces from the group, Molly paused briefly at the edge of the structure to take in the morning light as it cascaded down through the surrounding forest. Then she heard a huge crash off to her right and turned to see a seventy-ton Pelican dropship tipping completely over onto one of its wings.
Then she spotted the enormous creature that had knocked the vehicle over.
The beast emerging from behind the Pelican laid its shoulder into the heavy transport again, this time shoving the craft’s opposing wing into a nearby Hornet, slamming the wing hard into the other vehicle’s encased rotors. The animal stood about as tall as a house, if a house could run around on six muscular legs, each as thick as a pillar of granite. Its gigantic mouth was filled with several rows of daggerlike teeth, and three rows of bright red fins ran along its back.
To Molly, it looked like some kind of dinosaur from Earth’s history, or better yet a frightening combination of the giant crocodiles that roamed the swamps of the colony Terceira and the great red sharks she had seen in nature vids from New Carthage. Whatever it was, the animal clearly wasn’t safe.
It threw back its head and roared so loudly Molly’s eardrums threatened to burst. She instinctively ducked behind the nearest person, putting him between her and the monster.
She didn’t realize it immediately, but she’d taken shelter behind Bakar.
Molly told herself that was because the Sangheili was so large, not because she felt that he’d protect her. Bakar locked his feet into position and remained unmoving as Kareem and Gudam huddled behind him too, tracking the creature with his eyes as it stormed through the hangar.
From somewhere behind them, Kasha ‘Hilot began shouting orders at the other students. A few of them froze in terror, unable to move at the terrifying sight.
Mike suddenly appeared from wherever he’d run off to and drew his pistol. He fired three quick shots into the air. “Kids!” he barked, pointing toward their transport, which had already shot alongside the Repository, near where the bulk of the students were. It screeched to a sudden stop by the closest hangar doors. “Get your butts back in your ride!” he shouted.
The noise of his voice and weapon had gotten the monster’s attention. It turned toward the group while Kasha began herding the students close to her out through the Repository’s doors.
Mike took aim at the creature and fired a single round at it. The beast reared back on its four hindmost legs and howled in fury at him. Even then, it didn’t seem to Molly that the bullet had hurt it as much as stung it.
The other students frantically stampeded toward the transport, which almost made Molly turn tail and try to sprint ahead of them, since she and Bakar stood closer to the vehicle. Instead, Bakar swiftly guided her behind him, along with Gudam and Kareem. For a second, Molly worried that they would be crushed underneath the Sangheili as the others charged past him, but Bakar braced himself and held his ground.
To Molly’s amazement, the other students parted around him as if he were a rock in a river. Even Karl, Zeb, and Andres gave him a wide berth. It might have been a perfect opportunity for them to take a cheap shot at Bakar, but they were too scared for their own safety to bother trying to torture him at that moment.
“We should help,” Bakar said.
“The others look like they’re all getting along just fine,” Kareem said, casting a glance back toward the students piling into the transport.
“Not the students, the adults.” Bakar pointed toward the building’s interior.
The large predator had moved to the center of the Repository, thundering deeper into the hangar in pursuit of Mike, who was using his pistol not to harm it as much as draw its attention away from the students.
“Mr. Spenser,” Bakar remarked. “He has no idea what he is up against.”
“And you do?”
Bakar nodded. “The rafakrit is a mythical creature in my culture. I read about it in scrolls as a fledgling, and this, human, is most certainly one.”
Kasha stormed up to them, shouting the entire way. “Move! Get into the transport, now!”
Bakar had seem
ed to be talking in a dream: distant and preoccupied with memories from his childhood. Kasha’s voice snapped him right out of that, and he sprang into action. The rest of the kids dodged away from him as he grabbed Kasha’s arm and hauled her to the side.
“Did you tell Mr. Spenser about the rafakrit?”
Kasha shook her arm free and glared down at Bakar. “Rafakrit? There is no such thing, Bakar. Do not be a fool. That is just a myth told to children to warn them that they should listen. You obviously did not hear it enough!”
In the distance, Molly saw Mike, weaving between vehicles for cover, crack off another few shots at the beast. Four marines and two fully armored Sangheili warriors had suddenly appeared from the far side of the Repository’s hangar. They raised their own weapons at the creature but held their fire, evidently unsure how to handle the situation.
The beast completely ignored them. It howled in Mike’s direction once more and charged at him, razor-sharp claws out. Mike ducked behind a low-hovering Covenant Phantom just in time.
The rafakrit, if that’s what it was, slammed into the hovering dropship and shoved it back several meters as if it were a cheap toy. The ship’s antigravity drive kept it from toppling over. Instead, it slid along on an invisible sheet of energy just above the pavement, giving Mike just enough time to escape.
“It is real though, Kasha.” Bakar stabbed a finger toward the beast. “And it is right there, just like in the stories. Look at it!”
Kasha snarled at Bakar with all of her jaws at once, but to her credit, she spun around and stared back at the creature she’d been trying to save the students from. Mike had distracted it enough that it couldn’t reach them before they could get to the transport and shut the doors, so Kasha finally had enough time to take a good look at it and evaluate Bakar’s claim.
“By the gods, it is!” She glanced at Bakar and corrected herself with what looked like a frown. “Apologies. Old habit.”