Legacy of Onyx

by Matt Forbeck

  “Since the power outage, the machine has shown no additional signs of hostility. If this situation lasts into the evening, we plan to return you to your homes before dark.

  “Thank you for being model students throughout this trying time. I know we are all unsure of what might happen next, but if we work together and treat each other with respect, it will prove to be a testament to Paxopolis and its ideals.”

  Under most other circumstances, a good portion of Molly’s class would have groaned at Kasha ‘Hilot’s announcement, but the students were all too stunned by the day’s events to complain. Everything they would normally argue about seemed petty against the Guardian’s arrival and what had taken place outside.

  Looking around the room, Molly realized that Dinok had come back, but he hadn’t bothered to check in with their table.

  “He’s mostly watching over those two tables of Sangheili,” Molly said to the others in a hushed voice. “What’s that about?”

  “Those are some of the most aggressive Sangheili in the school,” Bakar said with a shrug. “He is making sure they do not do anything foolish. Sangheili males are not used to spending a lot of time pent up in one place. We are trained for active physical engagement from a very young age. Sitting still does not come easy, especially when there is a fight brewing. That is why many Sangheili become warriors.”

  “Is that what you’re going to do when you’re old enough?” Molly asked, though she felt she could already guess the answer. “Become a soldier?”

  Bakar looked at her. “No. I am not like them. But that is your plan, is it not?”

  Molly’s jaw dropped. She hadn’t told anyone at the school about her interest in joining the UNSC.

  “It’s in your bearing,” Bakar said in a knowing tone. “Your attitude.”

  “And what about Kareem?” Molly asked, trying to change the subject. “Do you see it in him?”

  Bakar stared blankly in Kareem’s direction.

  “I’m more of a fly-over-the-battlefield kind of guy myself,” Kareem offered.

  “So you know how to pilot?” Molly asked, surprised.

  Kareem blushed a bit at that. “Let’s just say . . . I’ve put in a lot of hours with simulation.”

  “I wasn’t aware we had access to a flight simulator,” Molly said. “I thought it was only for military personnel.”

  “As long as you have special approval, it’s open to almost anyone,” Kareem said.

  “His dad was a pilot,” Gudam said softly.

  A cloud passed over Kareem’s face.

  “Ah,” Molly said. “I’m sorry.”

  Kareem immediately ginned up a game smile. “The war’s been over for a long time. My dad’s been gone even longer. And we have other things to worry about.” He nodded in the direction of the Guardian.

  “Wonder if they’d let us go outside and look at it,” Molly said. “Probably say it was too dangerous, right?”

  “Perhaps we should not ask.” Bakar pressed his mandibles together shrewdly.

  That surprised Molly. Bakar always seemed so straitlaced.

  “It is simpler to wipe off your blade once it has been blooded,” the Sangheili said.

  “What?” Molly didn’t get the idiom.

  “You do not ask if you can strike. You simply strike.”

  “Are you trying to say it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission?”

  He looked unimpressed. “Close enough.”

  Sangheili probably did little asking for forgiveness, Molly thought, and even less asking for permission.

  “We can’t have been the first students to have thought of this,” Kareem said, glancing around.

  “That’s a good point,” Gudam said. “Of course, if everyone else here had come up with the same idea before us, the dining hall would be empty now, right? Or maybe they all thought better of it, which is why none of them have dared to try to leave.” She glanced around the room. “That actually makes much more sense to me, I think.”

  “We could just slip out into the recreation yard,” Kareem said.

  “Everyone would see us open the doors,” Bakar pointed out.

  “Maybe we could go through the Science Hall.” Molly pointed toward a corridor that led down an alternate path to the yard.

  The others liked that idea. When the four of them saw their chance to make a break for it, they all quickly hustled out of the hall and down the corridor, padding along as quietly as they could. They eventually made it to the doors that led into the auditorium, and from there they could reach the yard.

  “Where to next?” Molly asked. “Are we sure we want to go to the yard and risk having someone spot us from the dining hall?”

  “Let us go to the roof then.” The Sangheili pointed toward a nearby door across the hall from the auditorium. “There is a set of stairs in there that leads to an access hatch on the top of the school. From there, we can easily see what kind of damage the machine has done.”

  The door to the stairwell was unlocked, and they took the stairs all the way up to the top. Fortunately, the stairwell was lined with windows, letting in plenty of sunlight for them to see. When they reached the top landing, they found a ladder that led to a steel hatch above them.

  Kareem went first and reported it was unlocked. He shoved it open and climbed up and through, briefly looking around before beckoning the rest of them to follow. Gudam went next, with Bakar right behind her. When she struggled to climb over the hatch’s edge, Bakar gave her a boost through. Then Molly came up last and didn’t bother to shut the hatch behind her. She was too stunned by what she saw.

  The Guardian stood alone on the horizon opposite of where it had first appeared, hovering over the squat, square buildings of Trevelyan that sat near the aperture. There was no sign of the UNSC—or of anything else.

  Only silence. Silence and smudges of smoke marring the otherwise pristine sky.

  From this vantage, they could see multiple crash sites across the city. Some of the impacts had been huge, where UNSC starships had suddenly lost power and smashed into the ground. Thankfully, their fusion drives had not exploded or little of Paxopolis would have remained intact.

  Other pockets of debris appeared to be composed from the wreckage of smaller craft, such as fighters or even gunships. Some had crashed into the ground—others into buildings.

  Molly wondered how many lives had been lost today. Had hundreds of people been on those frigates? And how many had been in the buildings below that had been struck, some of which had toppled over into piles of rubble?

  Molly followed the others over to the edge of the roof and leaned up against the parapet. From there, she could hear the distant chatter of gunfire and the humming reports of energy weapons, and she could see bright flashes from both on the outskirts of the city.

  “What’s happening?” Gudam said as she tried to peer over the wall. “Who’s fighting out there?”

  Molly recognized the sounds of the UNSC’s armaments. “Most of that is coming from humans, but not the energy blasts. Maybe they’re Sangheili?”

  “Those do not sound like the plasma weapons of my people,” Bakar said.

  Molly wasn’t so sure. She noticed shadows swiftly crossing the street and darting into an alley almost half a klick away, too far away to see clearly. She leaned forward and stared, trying to discern what must have been a distant battle, given the bright flashes of light against the spires of smoke. If they hadn’t been on top of the school, they wouldn’t have been able to see anything at all. This vantage was as good as it was going to get.

  Molly strained her eyes harder.

  Who is the UNSC fighting?

  Against the splash of weapons fire, she saw strange shapes come into focus. Although they were bipeds, they did not look or move like humans—or Sangheili either. Covered in a strange metal-like armor and firing what appeared to be Forerunner energy weapons, these bizarre soldiers surged through the streets like choreographed dancers moving in well-coordinated
patterns. They also glowed bright orange in places and seemed to move in fierce, quick bursts, as if they were teleporting from one place to the next—though from that distance, it was impossible to tell for sure.

  “This is worse than I thought,” Kareem said. “But at least those things aren’t in the halls of our school.”

  “Not yet,” Molly said.

  CHAPTER 24

  * * *

  * * *

  One of the first things the field master taught the Pale Blade was: Never attack your opponent’s strength.

  Dural ‘Mdama knew from his short time in command that many warriors forgot this when they sized up a foe. They saw the point at which their enemy was strongest, and they attacked that, often because it was the most noticeable thing and made the biggest target.

  This is the path to destruction, and the imprudent charge down it because they want to prove themselves the strongest on every level. They want not just to defeat their foes but to humiliate them and dance on their corpses.

  So Avu Med ‘Telcam would say.

  While Dural could appreciate the impulse to shame an enemy, he recognized the foolishness. He knew that the only thing that counted in a battle was winning. History did not celebrate those who lost, and victory was never enjoyed by the dead.

  So, when Ruk suggested that they charge headlong for the security checkpoints on the edge of the human territory and attack in a frontal assault, Dural had to fight two impulses. The first was to strike Ruk across the face with the butt of his storm rifle for making such a ridiculous suggestion. The second was to let him attempt it.

  Part of leading was to allow the overly ambitious to be crushed on the shoals of their own ambitions. Ruk would have probably failed to take down even a single human soldier before they ground him beneath their boots, and it would have served as a lesson to the survivors under Dural’s command. But Ruk would have insisted on taking many of the warriors with him, and Dural did not care to spill their blood on such insanity.

  “I am not stupid enough to waste lives attacking our enemies in their castles and citadels while they sit in gunners’ nests,” Dural told Ruk as the Servants’ commanders scrambled to assemble their warriors for a march upon the human city.

  “But they are engaged in battle with the machines of the Forerunners,” Ruk said. “Should we not come to the aid of the soldiers of the gods?”

  Even Keel had informed Dural and his commanders that the Guardian had deployed Forerunner soldiers—a class of armigers—to contend with the humans attempting to resist it. This certainly complicated Dural’s plan, but in his mind, it added the kind of complexity that could be used to the Servants’ advantage. In making their defense against the Forerunner threat, the humans had exposed their soft underbelly, and Dural would not miss an opportunity to strike it.

  “They are indeed machines made by the gods. But whether their actions hail from an edict of the gods or their own desires remains to be seen,” Dural told Ruk. “Have you not learned from our people’s time in the Covenant? The machines of the gods sometimes go mad and make their own path, even at the cost of the faithful. Whatever the case, it is too great a risk. I am not charging into a firefight in which both sides might turn against us at once.”

  “Give me a portion of our warriors, Pale Blade, and I will take care of the rest,” Ruk said, checking the power supply on his armor. “This is our chance—the one we’ve been waiting for—to destroy the humans on this world and to at last wrest control of it!”

  “And that is exactly what we are going to do,” Dural said calmly. “But instead of trying to destroy their strongest concentrations of soldiers, we will do what they least expect and strike at what means the most to them: their families and friends.”

  Ruk scoffed at Dural. “And what good will that do? We are at war, and you want to attack them in their keeps?”

  “To the humans, this is not a military base but a research site. Their soldiers are here only to protect the researchers. If we eliminate those nonmilitary personnel, we rip the heart out of their operation. Do you not see?

  “They are occupied at the moment—distracted—so we strike them at their weakest point. When they double over in agony at our success, then—and only then—we sever their heads and take what is rightfully ours.”

  Ruk bristled at Dural’s plan. He wanted to plunge his energy sword into a demon’s heart. The Pale Blade understood the desire, but the field master had placed him in charge to pursue wiser options than simply gratifying his warriors’ desire for revenge.

  “What about your plan to steal their Huragok?” Ruk asked. “Has that too been forsaken?”

  Dural clacked his mandibles and turned to Ruk as if he were a fledgling. “They use their Huragok in their research. Do you think they would have such rare and precious creatures at the edge of their settlement, where you suggested we strike? Or might they be lodged deep inside their city, where there is some measure of safety and protection?”

  “Point taken,” Ruk said grudgingly. “Still, I do not relish slaughtering the feeble in their homes. That is not the way of our people.”

  “That kind of talk is exactly how we lost the war with the humans,” Dural snarled. “And it was why we lost the battle against the Arbiter too. You ask us to bend like water when we must be nothing but stone!”

  The solution to the Pale Blade’s dilemma over the past few weeks had been in front of him the entire time. He had been thinking about how the Servants of the Abiding Truth might accumulate sufficient mass and firepower to contest the humans openly, but there was no need to take that path. The humans had foolishly embedded themselves among the relics of the Forerunners, many of which they used as dwellings. If the Servants’ Huragok, Even Keel, could manipulate the portal network to get Dural’s forces into the city right now, that would change everything. The plan held great risk but also promised unparalleled rewards.

  “Instead of throwing ourselves against a fortification,” he said to Ruk, “we will emerge inside their courts and strike at the very heart of their settlement before they even realize they have been compromised.”

  Content with his defense of the plan, Dural strode off toward Keel, who floated near the controls to the Cathedral’s portal. “Have you found an active portal that reaches inside the human city yet?” Dural asked.

  Before Dural had set him to that task, Keel had confirmed that some power sources—such as those in small arms or certain data devices—could be reset, while others remained stubbornly inactive. Vehicles, ships, weapons emplacements, and many larger machines and power grids were kept neutralized by a steady pulse constantly emanating from the ancient construct. Somehow the portals on Onyx could be reactivated, though, as the Forerunners had apparently shielded them from the effects of the Guardian’s attack.

  Even Keel bobbed its head as it displayed the image of an overhead map of their target on a nearby screen. “The humans built their settlement in and around the city the Forerunners named the Citadel. Most of the portals inside of it are defunct, but I was able to activate one particular portal that seems well placed for your purposes.”

  Dural could see how the humans had settled inside the Citadel’s abandoned buildings and built in, on, and around them, like uncontrolled weeds that begged for immolation. One spot on the map glowed a bright blue, showing the portal through which Even Keel could transport the Servants right into the center of the ancient Forerunner city.

  “We enter here, and we strike hard,” Dural said. “We do everything we can to sow chaos throughout the city. If this distracts them from their battle against the Forerunner soldiers, so much the better. We are all servants of the gods!”

  Dural’s frontline commanders—including the recalcitrant Ruk—assembled behind him. For this operation, they would travel directly into their target from the Cathedral. While it meant the humans might be able to trace their route back to their home base, Dural felt it was well worth the risk. Getting hundreds of warriors to pour into
the city through one gate would be enough of a challenge on its own. For Dural’s plan to work, the Servants needed to move orderly and effectively—and fast—without prematurely drawing attention to themselves.

  The Pale Blade gazed into the eyes of the warriors nearest to him. They were all hungry to no longer be forced to sneak around on this shield world. They wanted to marvel up close at the riches their enemies had plundered, while inflicting retribution on those same foes. They wanted to taste a real victory of some sort, and today was finally the day.

  Dural fixed a storm rifle onto his back and drew his energy sword, activating it. Its blade hummed to life, and he held it high over his head. “For the Abiding Truth!” he shouted, and his warriors responded in kind. “And for Avu Med ‘Telcam!”

  Then Dural charged through the activated portal first and found himself exactly where Keel had promised: atop a sprawling Forerunner structure in the center of the Citadel. His heart leaped at the sight. At that moment, Dural wanted little more than to explore the place and plumb the depths of the mysteries of the gods in their very own dwellings, but there would be time for that later, after rooting out the traitors and the humans once and for all.

  Dural found himself standing on a wide platform that spread out before him, hedged by a low, curving wall. Ramps peeled away to his left and right, descending toward the streets below. It appeared to be a veranda of some sort, perhaps for recreation or watching the nearby lake. A number of humans had gathered by the wall, evidently to watch in relative safety the battle that raged around the city streets, just below the looming Guardian.

  Dural quickly charged into those hapless weaklings before they could signal any kind of threat and call attention to the Servants’ ingress. They were unarmed and unarmored. Anyone worth the title of soldier had already gone off to fight in the battle, so the Pale Blade saved them the shame of their cowardice by ending their lives.