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Sharp Edge of a Knife by Arthur Wellesley
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The Sharp Edge of a Knife: Part 1 of 3
Date: 30 June 2006, 4:04 am
"Have you ever felt nostalgic for something you never had?" Ahmed Temsik asked his friend.
"I believe that's a contradiction in terms," Simon Campbell said, with a hint of laughter.
A single snowflake fell and quickly melted on Ahmed's nose. He looked up at the overcast sky, a bleak expanse of grey darkened by the approaching night. He sighed, and breathed deeply the cold mountain air. "Today, in town, while I stood by the fire lit outside the church, I had the most striking recollection of camping. You know, old style camping, a tent out in the wilderness next to a wood fire." He looked meaningfully over at Simon. "I was raised in New York City. I've never come close to camping. I've never even wanted to."
"Yea, I get that sometimes, I guess," Simon answered after some consideration. "It's probably some long lost memory that gets confused over time."
Ahmed shook his head adamantly. "No. I was there. I didn't just see it in my mind's eye; I felt it. I breathed that air, felt the ground with my hands. It was fleeting – but it was real."
"Are you alright, Ahmed?" Simon asked with a slightly worried tone.
Ahmed turned to look him directly in the eyes. "What do you think, Simon?"
Simon's eyes wandered past his friend's face to the object that dominated much of the sky above; hovering a hundred meters above the forest floor many miles in the distance was a thing of terrifying beauty. It was huge, many times the size of the largest craft mankind had ever conceived, and exponentially more deadly. Its smooth surface reflected the dull, retreating sunlight with an unnatural brilliance, its cool iridescence bathing the snow-covered ground in a soft purple hue. The exterior curved continuously, forming a bulbous bow, a wickedly pointed stern, and on either side a dizzyingly ornate series of concavities and superstructures. Even from the distance of many miles, the gentle glow of thousands of windows and elaborate symbols strewn across the surface slowly began to outshine the dying light of the sun.
One could see at a glance it was a thing built to inspire awe in both friend and foe, and neither man who now gazed upon it had any misconceptions as to which side of the line they stood on. For them, and for all the people of this planet, the Covenant Capital Ship was a harbinger of death.
"They have not yet fired, or indicated that they are planning to," Simon said consolingly, his eyes not leaving the horrifying sight. "They have not done much of anything, in fact."
Ahmed snorted softly. "Do you think that means our lives can not now be measured in hours, if not minutes?" he asked tiredly. He got to one knee and stuck his hand in the snow. He brought out a handful and cupped his other hand around it, packing it tightly into a ball. It felt good to feel snow again. It felt good to feel anything.
Simon finally ripped his eyes away from the alien craft and turned to face the brighter light of the town. He rested a hand on Ahmed's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "We should check on the package. It might get rough down there."
It was an absurd concern, as they both knew, for all on the planet would soon be less than dust in the wind, but Ahmed conceded without a word. They both needed something to distract them from the coming darkness, and both hoped to find solace in performing their duty. Ahmed threw the snowball he had made with all his strength into the trees of the forest. It quickly disappeared from sight and disintegrated in the branches silently. As they all soon would.
The two men were Marines of the United Nations Space Command, and both had joined before the draft had been issued. Even so, neither had ever fought the Covenant. They had been attached to dozens of different ships each, many of which had long since been destroyed, but as the obsolete human weaponry did little against the might of the Covenant, space battles had never lasted long enough to warrant personnel combat. As such, they had gained much experience with military bureaucracy and almost none with combat; therefore, they were the perfect choice in escorting Miriam Cohen, a Senator of the United Nations Governing Council, back to Earth.
They had not been on the planet for more than an hour before the Covenant ship had entered the atmosphere to take position, seemingly intentionally, over the docking platform where they had landed their shuttle. When they asked Miriam if there were any alternate vessels on the planet they could take instead, she told them that there were not. Ephrath III was an underdeveloped colony with a tiny population, and all the slipspace capable ships had left transporting as many people as possible to the safer Inner Colonies. They had stopped coming after Reach had fallen. Since they had decided that attempting to get to the shuttle they had rode in on was suicidal and may in fact provoke the glassing of the colony, they were trapped on the surface, their fate bound to that of the planet and all its inhabitants.
Ahmed and Simon descended from the precipice on which they had stood and entered the edge of town. The community was not a large one, though there had been a time when more than ten thousand souls had called this place home. Over half had left, however, in the evacuation that had preceded the fall of Reach. The rest had congregated elsewhere, coming together in the face of impending doom, to share comfort and to bear the heavy burden of despair as one. This created an atmosphere that, despite being in full battle gear and carrying military shotguns, made both soldiers tense up and unconsciously check their corners. The empty buildings that loomed ominously on either side of them, dark because of the ordered blackout, suddenly seem to conceal innumerable and unspeakable dangers. Shapeless figures lurked in every crooked alley and behind every boarded window. The darkness that had fallen upon the town was all consuming, oppressive, and unambiguously evil.
With heart stopping suddenness, a window crashed to the soldiers' right. They switched on their flashlights, hoping to blind whatever had caused the noise, and spun in the direction from which it had come. The yellow light shone upon two small faces, and was quickly followed by a sharp and impulsive expletive. In a startling flash, the two figures were gone, sprinting down the street as fast as their legs would carry them, one of them screaming loudly.
"They're just kids, Ahmed," Simon breathed, white faced. "They're just kids."
Kids hard at work looting their town. A quick sweep of their flashlights down the remainder of the street revealed dozens of broken windows and armfuls of supplies dumped unceremoniously on the road. To these young kids, no older than thirteen or fourteen, the abandonment of their town was little more than good fun. They did not see the danger of the Covenant ship, at least with any clarity. Even if they did, they did not care; they lived in the moment, and the moment was eternal. There was something obscenely comforting in the destruction of these small shops and homes. Both men stopped in their tracks and appreciated the mindset of youth until the kids were out of sight and the last trace of the screaming evaporated into the night.
At the end of the street, a dim glow began to emanate from further within the town. The light danced along the ground and on the sides of the buildings, illuminating comely brick homes and welcoming stores. The foreboding air that had followed the two Marines into the town dissipated precipitously as they came nearer and nearer to the light's source. Eventually, they emerged into an open square, at the far end of which stood a modest limestone church, an elegant steeple its only adornment. For the size of the town, it was quite a large church, but it was not big enough by half today. Outside the building, all across the square, thousands of people camped out in drab tents and other makeshift shelters despite the increasing cold. Numerous fires had sprung up around the camp, though they were all dominated by a single, large bonfire in the center of the plaza around which many people gathered and talked in hushed voices. The warmth and light this scene should have provided the soldiers was severely diminished by the many signs people had set up or were holding on which "God save us" had been scrawled in some way or another.
There were no atheists on Ephrath tonight.
They continued on past the square along a street that ran across its top, back into the darkness which, against the light that extended for a short distance down the pavement, seemed blacker than ever. The darkness consumed the cheerful light of the bonfire until they were left with nothing but the gaunt outline of the town against the faint light of the vanished sun and eerie glow of the Covenant craft.
"Why does she insist on living in the abandoned part of town?" Simon asked nervously.
"Suffering in silence? Out of sight, out of mind?" Ahmed suggested, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the great emptiness. He could not have cared less for the senator's reasoning, except for the mild inconvenience of reaching her quarters, but merely wished to hear himself speak. "Maybe she doesn't feel she belongs with the others."
Simon shook his head, also deciding to discuss the matter at length in order to fill the unsettling silence. "That doesn't make any sense. She decided to stay behind on this backwater colony to assist with the evacuation and then refuses to be with them in their time of greatest need?"
"I admit, I wondered that myself," Ahmed admitted. "Maybe, at the end, we can ask her, and save her the awkwardness that would follow."
While it seemed a terribly inappropriate quip, it somehow fit the moment, and Simon sniffed appreciatively. "Yea."
They suddenly came upon a dim light that shone through a frosted window and Ahmed signaled to Simon to be quiet. "We're here," he announced unnecessarily. He approached the door of the small brick house and knocked; the sharp noise somehow seemed suppressed now.
On the other side he heard the scuffling of someone looking through the peephole and accordingly he offered a small nod. The door opened immediately, revealing a pretty young girl who graciously extended a welcoming arm. Ahmed entered, and beckoned Simon to follow. "Hello, Sarah," he said warmly to the girl.
"How are you, sir?" she asked. The pleasantries seemed absurd given the situation, and the three of them chuckled softly. In the chaos that had descended upon the town, any pretense of class and hierarchy had vanished with the last vestiges of hope.
"Lieutenant Temsik," came a commanding, feminine voice from the darkness of the room. "What do you have to report?" A woman stepped into the flickering light of the window-side candle to greet the Marines. Miriam Cohen was slightly less than middle aged, and though she looked much younger, a number of wrinkles betrayed her years. Despite this, she was exceptionally good-looking, sporting dark brown hair tied back in a ponytail casually tied with a few stray hairs that crept across her chestnut brown eyes. She was dressed in plain clothes and wore no jewelry – she looked so unlike a senator, in fact, that Ahmed was momentarily taken aback.
"We patrolled the northern and eastern perimeter," he said eventually. "The ship has remained silent and there has been no activity anywhere in the surrounding area. It's been quiet. Deathly quiet," he added.
"Obviously we were limited to a small area of surveillance," Simon offered. "We're only two men. And the police patrolling the south and west didn't exactly seem enthusiastic. Most of them are in the square, anyway."
"Understood, Lieutenant," Miriam said heavily. "I do not see the point of any further excursions of this nature, at least for tonight." They all briefly exchanged grim looks at this, silently wondering whether or not they last the night. "In the meantime, gentlemen," she continued hurriedly, "please make yourselves comfortable. Unless you have somewhere to go."
The Marines smiled and shook their heads. Miriam retreated back into the darkness and lit a candle at the other end of the room; Sarah sat at the desk at the window to continue her work on a computer; Ahmed and Simon scoped out a place to sleep, on the remote chance that they would find any. Yet, as they all carried on with their separate tasks, there came a moment, a fleeting second, when all four pairs of eyes glanced at the window to behold the faint, cold glow in the distance that heralded a future steeped in darkness and death.
Tonight, they would sleep on the sharp edge of a knife.
The Sharp Edge of a Knife: Part 2 of 3
Date: 7 July 2006, 4:34 am
The couch was comfortable enough; the leather was soft and plush and its surface provided ample space. The room, too, was pitch black but for the dancing light of a small candle and was suitably warm despite the cold outside and the absence of electricity. Ahmed Temsik, however, tossed and turned, unable and unwilling to settle. He lay there in silence, staring unblinkingly at the bare white ceiling, afraid to close his eyes. He wondered briefly why dying with his eyes opened seemed so much more palatable.
Ahmed heard Simon rearrange himself noisily on the pullout on the other side of the room. He felt no compulsion to strike up a conversation with him, even though they faced a sleepless night and he had a million things on his mind. He thought it best to keep all the regret, anger, bitterness, remorse, and love with himself and reconcile them his own way. Besides, he thought, if he said it all out loud in a great torrent, it would be like accepting defeat and the death that would accompany it.
No, he had accepted that long ago, far before the Covenant ship had come to Ephrath. If he said all that was on his mind, it would be like uttering his last words.
He had never gotten married. It was not for lack of trying, either, for he had long sought to find love before he died as all others would by the inexorable force of the Covenant. Whenever he began to get close to someone, however, whenever he began to feel safe, something would preclude the relationship from progressing any further. Usually the degeneration would occur as a result of the frequent reassignments he was given by command, though most recently, the woman he loved was killed in action at Sigma Octanus. After that, he resolved to spend the rest of his waning days alone and safe himself the pain of another loss.
It was not so big a change, really. His parents and sister had all died when he was just a boy, and he had spent most of his early days friendless and introverted. He found he could find no comfort for the horrible loss and loneliness he felt, and eventually stopped looking. It had been a time of excitement, in fact, when news of the Covenant threat reached his ears, for it seemed as if fate had given him a purpose at last. He had enlisted with the Marines long before the draft had become necessary, for he hoped to fill the gnawing void within him with some sense of duty and accomplishment. Instead, he spent the next twenty-two years falling back to the Inner Colonies against the relentless Covenant onslaught and being shuffled uselessly around the navy, never staying in one place long enough to develop any sort of meaningful bond with another person. When he thought of the empty life he had led, and that he would die leaving nothing behind, not even memories, his heart ached terribly.
Ahmed slowly sat up on the couch and swung his legs forward. For several moments, he held his head in his hands and felt himself shake. He fought the urge to weep. His face felt unusually hot and clammy in spite of the relative cool of the room; his throat, too, was parched. He got to his feet gradually and stretched his stiff shoulders, every movement very deliberate, as if each one could be his last. He left the common room and walked unsteadily towards the kitchen, blinking his eyes against the sudden light of the hallway.
The kitchen was well appointed for a house of such limited size and luxury. Its style was modest and of the old world, like much of the small brick home. Almost everything was made of the hard, dark wood which grew in abundance on the surface of the colony. It looked almost medieval, with cast iron handles on the cupboards and simple yet striking images of distorted people and animals carved into the face of the many cabinets. Only a handful of the comforts of modernity betrayed its setting. It stirred within Ahmed a vague memory, though he could not place it through the fog that clouded his mind.
He opened one of the cupboards and took out a large glass mug. He filled it quickly under the tap of the sink and took a long, satisfying gulp. The water was refreshingly cool and fantastically fresh, and he felt his temperature return to normal and his fears subside.
"That water comes directly from a spring on the edge of town," a voice said from the hallway, causing him to spin abruptly around. "The water of Ephrath is always cool and fresh."
It was Miriam Cohen, who had stopped now on the threshold of the kitchen wearing a loose-fitting white robe. Ahmed noticed her hair was now free about her shoulders.
"Indeed, ma'am," he said courteously, and took another sip. "Both Simon and I commented on the number of lakes and rivers as we came in. When the sun caught their surfaces, they gleamed like jewels amidst seas of deep green. I had never seen anything so beautiful." It seemed so very long ago now.
Miriam retrieved a glass of her own and filled it with the same water. "I can not sleep," she said before drinking. "I wouldn't want to even if I could. I want to know exactly when I am going to die. Nothing terrifies me more than the thought of dying in my sleep." She laughed softly and drank quickly from her glass. "It's perverse, isn't it?"
"No," he returned. "No, I was just thinking the very same thing. It is like the moment before execution, with a gun to the back of your head. You want to know when it is coming." He looked at her suddenly, and found that their eyes met. "Do you want to die for this planet?" he asked suddenly, without really meaning to.
"I can think of very few things worth dying for, Lieutenant," she answered immediately, as if she had contemplated the question beforehand. "Ephrath III is my home, and I have proudly represented her for ten years. But no, I have no wish to die for her, when the stakes are so low." She looked back at him. "I'm sorry that you had to come here for me."
"I did my duty. At least I can die with that," he finished bitterly.
For a time Ahmed was unable to distinguish, they stood together in the kitchen in silence. There were not even any sounds that drifted from the town square. He finished his drink before she did, but he waited until she was done. At last he bid her a rather uncomfortable goodnight and set his glass down on the counter.
Miriam leaned across him to place her own glass next to his. Ahmed moved once again to leave, but she, in turn, moved once more in his way. Looking down, he saw that she was looking meaningfully into his eyes, her own eyes deep pools of dark, chestnut brown. He felt her body against his and her arms slowly wrapping around his waist. He could see it, he could feel it, he could even smell it—slowly he moved closer to her and tentatively brushed his lips against hers. She reciprocated passionately, pulling him to her and kissing him deeply. He lifted her up, his body consumed with fire, and moved as best he could out of the kitchen.
And he carried her, their lips never parting, their bodies pulled unconsciously towards the bedroom that loomed ever closer at the end of the hall.
Ahmed lay in bed next to Miriam and sighed contentedly. It had not been the act itself which instilled in him this feeling of ecstasy, so counter to the feelings that had gripped him earlier in the night. It had been connecting with another person so intimately and doing something so primal, so fundamentally human, almost in protest to those who had come to kill them. They had made love frantically, desperately; they both sought solace in the idea, in the defiance, rather than in the pleasure itself.
Miriam stretched luxuriously on the bed and moved closer to him, so that their bodies seemed to meld into one. Her eyes immediately focused on his left side where a long purple scar blemished his dark skin. She traced its length delicately with her forefinger—his skin tingled thrillingly. "A battle wound?" she asked curiously.
"No," he said with a small, mirthless laugh. "I have never been in combat. In fact, I've never been closer to the Covenant than I am right now."
Miriam said nothing to this. She saw him take a deep breath and guessed there was something weighing heavily on his mind. Eventually he said, "When I was six years old, I was in a car crash back on Earth. Some drunken bastard was driving a truck on the wrong side of the road, and it was dark…" He shook his head and cleared the anger that consumed him whenever he thought of the incident. "My dad couldn't avoid him, he was coming at us like a damn meteor. My dad, my mom, and my sister were all killed instantly. They said it was a miracle I survived."
"I'm sorry," she said earnestly.
"Don't be," he said dismissively. "I barely remember them." He collapsed back on his pillow and felt as if a giant weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "You know, that was the first time I've spoken of that to anyone since I signed up."
She smiled lightly and kissed him gently on the lips. Then she suddenly rolled out of bed and walked to the other side of the room to stand by a marble dressing table. Ahmed immediately missed her warmth and the fragrance of her hair.
From the table she picked up a small necklace. As there was only a candle to light the room, he did not recognize it at first, though he eventually saw that she held in her hand a golden Star of David. She pressed it tightly to her chest and then to her lips and whispered words of prayer in Hebrew. This done, she set the talisman back on the table and clambered back into bed next to him.
Ahmed, who had witnessed this ritual silently, now looked at her. "I did not realize you were religious," he said.
"I have not prayed since I was a little girl," she answered softly. "Have you not prayed today?"
"No God can not save us from what is coming," he said.
"It was not salvation in this world for which I prayed," she returned. A certain drowsiness had crept into her voice, and with it, Ahmed felt his own eyelids grow heavy.
As he resigned himself to an unwanted sleep, a thought from an earlier conversation entered his mind. "Why do you not stay with your people, Miriam?" he asked.
"They thought they were actually going to survive this," she responded, her eyes now closed. "I found it terribly depressing."
He felt a tremendous weight on his chest. His extremities ached terribly. There was a blinding flash of such intensity that it burned his eyes through his closed lids. He screamed but no sound came out; instead, a horrible chill rushed in. With it came an overwhelming sense of torment, pain, and anguish, as if the air itself were laced with human suffering. At last, he forced his eyes open despite the pain; he was surrounded by a pure white light, and hovering in this radiance were thousands, millions of eyes. They were disembodied and unblinking, their ghostly gaze directed solely upon him. They were at once sorrowful, angry, regretful—the sheer weight of their emotions increased the suffocating burden. They continued to watch, all the eyes on him, as he slowly drowned in the pain. He welcomed death, if only the agony would stop, if only the feelings dissipated.
If only they stopped looking at him with such hatred.
Ahmed snapped up in bed, his face deathly pale and covered in a cold sweat. He put a hand to his chest to make sure nothing was there constricting his lungs. He had never experienced anything so real which was not; residual pain was still with him, in fact, as he struggled to regain his breath. Yet nothing stuck with him so readily as the feeling of being watched by the multitude of unforgiving eyes.
As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness of room, he soon became aware that he was being watched. He squinted at the large window at the front of the room and saw, silhouetted vaguely against the dim light outside, a figure looking through the frosted glass. The candle in the room had long since gone out, and he could not see the figure with any clarity, but he could discern the blurred outline being a height of no less than eight feet.
His hand reached instinctively to his bedside table, though he remembered he had left his gear by his couch in the common room. Instead, he rolled quickly out of the bed to face the figure head on. The dark shape staggered back from the window as if startled by the sudden action. It soon recovered, and ran quickly off down the street.
Without thinking, without even really wanting to, Ahmed ran to the window and flung himself bodily through it. The shattering glass cut his skin painfully, and as he landed on the pavement outside he felt several shards embed themselves in his feet. With a fleeting thought of Miriam, he set off down the street, the pain only spurring him on. The street ahead was far too dark to see the figure, but he had seen it run this way, and so he followed with as much speed as his body could muster.
Further down the road, the density of the buildings thinned and the cool glow of the distant alien ship flowed into the streets in intervals. Intermittently, Ahmed saw a glint of red in the distance, and he was sure it was whatever had been watching him. The thing was moving with an inhuman speed, an impossible speed; it only gradually struck him that he was keeping pace with it. As the impact of this incredible feat set in, he began to wonder what he would do if he did in fact catch up with this creature, weaponless and half the size of his would-be adversary. It was not a conscious worry, however. His mind was singularly focused on catching this interloper; like tunnel vision, he could conceive of nothing else but the object of his efforts.
At last they were reaching the end of the street, and before them lay an imposing chain link fence. Ahmed summoned the last of his strength, his bloody feet pounding the pavement at an unbelievable clip, and prepared to tackle the figure as it slowed to a stop. He decided his only hope would be to bring it down as quickly as possible, before it had time to react.
It did not stay to wait for him, however. The figure jumped straight up, placed a long-fingers hand on the top of the fence, and vaulted clean over it. Ahmed jumped at the fence as well, his hands just reaching the top. He struggled for a moment or two to lift himself over it, his aching feet scraping desperately against this final barrier, but his flagging strength finally failed him and he fell backwards to land with a heavy thud on the ground below.
On the far side the alien had turned around and watched him, sprawled on the ground and breathing heavily. Its eyes glinted dangerously under a dark crimson helmet and it opened its maw silently, as if in a smile. Ahmed spat a biting insult at the creature between rasping gulps of air. Suddenly, it took off once more, leaping over a low brick wall and sprinting off into complete darkness. It was gone.
"What the hell happened to you, Ahmed?" Simon asked persistently as he pulled yet another piece of glass from his friend's dirty, bleeding foot.
Ahmed had barely said a word since he returned to the house and found all three occupants waiting anxiously at the entrance. Miriam, in particular, looked white with worry. He had not been able to speak at first, and in any case he couldn't yet put into words what had happened. He did not quite understand it himself. His reaction to the sight of the figure at the window had been purely instinctual, borne of a fleeting moment of adrenaline, will, and sheer hatred. Looking back on his recent experience, chasing the alien had been surreal, even ethereal; it had been like someone else was acting through him while he was still asleep and in bed. His conscious mind had not quite caught up with him until he had stumbled back, bleeding and broken, to the house.
As he had been surrounded by the concerned occupants of the house and bombarded with questions to which he offered no answers, he had mulled over what had happened. The Elite should have killed him. They should all have been killed many hours ago; the Covenant were not known for hesitation when faced with an undefended human planet. It no longer mattered why they waited uselessly above the surface outside of town and refused to attack, to turn Ephrath into a lifeless wasteland as they had to the hundreds of other colonies that lay in the wake of the Covenant's campaign. All that mattered was that they were still alive, and that waiting expectantly to die was foolish. The inhabitants of the planet were doomed by either complacency or action. He had seen the inevitability of this fact in the alien's malicious eyes. Thus, fear of forcing the Covenant's hand became inconsequential. They still had a mission to complete. They had to act.
He slowly got to his feet, ignoring Simon's protests. "The time has come for action," he said abruptly, pulling out the last piece of glass from his heel with his fingers. "An Elite was here, at the house, just outside the front window. I chased it to the end of the street." This revelation produced startled gasps from all present save Miriam, who continued to stare at him, white faced and speechless. "I don't know what the alien's coming signifies, but it can not mean anything good. Anyway, I refuse to wait here any longer to die or be dragged away. We have to do something."
"If they're in town now, the forest has got to be crawling with them," Simon intervened. "Exactly what are two soldiers, a senator, and a secretary supposed to do against a Covenant capital ship?"
"The alien was alone," Ahmed said determinedly. "For some reason, the Covenant have shown reluctance in taking any sort of action here. We must use that to our advantage. We have wasted too much time already. We are getting her," he pointed to Miriam, "off this planet, as ordered."
"The question still stands," Simon returned.
"There is a military base just outside of town, off the southern highway to Vezelay," Miriam offered unexpectedly.
For a moment, all eyes turned to her. Then, Simon said, "With all due respect, ma'am, no amount of firepower is going to help us in a fight against the Covenant. A capital ship can carry thousands of troops, and they can field superior weaponry than whatever we can scrounge."
"Does Ephrath have a Self-Defense force, Miriam?" Ahmed asked, ignoring Simon.
"No," she answered with deliberate steadiness. She still seemed quite shaken by the night's turn of events. "The colony was never big enough to warrant its own armed forces. The Marines were responsible for our defense, and they were stationed nearby."
"Then we may have all we need," he said hopefully. "But for now, we need a car."
The Sharp Edge of a Knife: Part 3 of 3
Date: 4 August 2006, 4:44 am
"I know what you are thinking," Simon Campbell said after a long stretch of silence.
"You do?" Ahmed Temsik replied vaguely, only half listening. Most of his attention was focused on navigating the stretch of highway in Miriam's car without the benefit of any light. He did not dare turn on the vehicle's headlights lest any Covenant patrols should spot them, and the lamps that usually lit the road had been switched off after the blackout. Simon suggested using their helmet's night vision function, though the motion blurring made driving even at a moderate speed a harrowing and dizzying experience. Ahmed did not slow down, however. He could not; the threat of a Covenant bombardment was ever present.
"Yes," Simon returned tersely, "and it will never work. The ship will have its shields up even at stationary, and there will be nothing on this planet that will have a high enough yield to bring them down."
At this point, the two women in the back were suddenly interested in the conversation. "What is he talking about, Ahmed?" Miriam asked.
He was still not listening. A sharp curve in the road required all his concentration, and as he accelerated his way through it, his stomach churned as his vision blurred. At least he had the whole road to maneuver.
When it became clear he would not answer, Simon explained in his stead. "Marine bases typically store tactical nuclear warheads for ground engagements. I believe Ahmed wants to detonate one under the ship."
There was an immediate tumult at this revelation. "You can not be serious, lieutenant!" Sarah cried, shocked. "The blast will surely destroy the town!"
Ahmed checked his watch, ignoring the protests. They were nearly twenty minutes out of town. "Where is the base from here, Miriam?" he asked.
"I will have no part of this," she said fiercely. "If the people of this town are fated to die, then so be it. But I will not have their blood on my hands just so that I may survive. I would rather die with a clear conscious."
Finally registering the dissent of his followers, Ahmed slammed his hand on the steering wheel causing all the vehicle's occupants to jump. He slowed the car to a quick halt, lifted the visor from his helmet, and turned to face the Senator. "Miriam, I want only to get to the base," he said in a voice that trembled with barely controlled frustration. "I will explain what I mean to do once we arrive there. If you still will not help me, then we may die there instead of in town. It makes little difference now."
He could barely see Miriam's face in the dim light, his vision all the worse from his abrupt abandonment of night vision, but he sensed acquiescence before she gave it. "Have we passed the refueling station?" she asked slowly.
"Yes. About two minutes ago."
"Then there should be an exit ramp on the left soon. I will guide you from there—it should not be far."
He nodded, but before moving on, he glanced briefly at Simon in the seat beside him with a questioning look. "I'm with you all the way, Ahmed," he said matter-of-factly. "Until the end."
He clasped a hand on his friend's shoulder. Nothing more was necessary.
The car started up again, and they were off. He immediately regretted his immoderate outburst. Certainly, worry and doubt were understandable given his plan, especially from a woman who called this place home. He had been on a mission until her interruption, though, focused single-mindedly on the task he had set out for himself; a task that he knew must end in his death. So he had detached himself from the situation, for he feared that if he dwelled on it at any length fear would overcome him. His sudden return to the present had brought all this to the surface, and Miriam suffered its consequence.
They reached the exit Miriam had told him of, and he turned left across the abandoned highway to drive along it. She guided him from there, as promised, and at last they reached the restricted road that led to the base. He turned past the empty checkpoint and drove down the final stretch.
It was not long before they arrived at the Marine outpost. It was predictably dark and completely abandoned. "The base lost its use after we became isolated from Earth," Miriam explained when Simon wondered at this. "The few remaining Marines simply left, recalled to the capital from then on."
They exited the car and approached the entrance, Ahmed and Simon leading the way with flashlights scanning the area. The front building was marked administration, so they passed it and headed towards the rear. The atmosphere was unmistakably eerie. Over the empty concrete buildings a frozen UNSC flag fluttered stiffly in the light breeze. Beyond the myriad frosted windows of the rows of barracks was nothing was a deep blackness, belying the life and vigor that once inhabited the long halls. Silence now filled the base; it was like a massive grave, marking something once living yet now gone forever.
"I think this is it," Simon announced. He gestured towards a windowless square building that stood starkly near the back of the base's perimeter. On either side of an immense metal blast door were signs that warned of explosives, chemicals, and radiation within.
"The armory," Ahmed breathed. He reached out a hand and touched the cold metal door. It was freezing to the touch, though he did not immediately withdraw his hand. Then he looked down at the ground and frowned, saying, "It's been sealed and the power has been cut."
"The base must run on its own power," Simon suggested.
They backtracked to the maintenance building they had passed earlier. Simon kicked in the locked metal door, the deep thumps echoing discomfortingly in the utter silence of the camp. They entered and quickly located the generator. Simon, who had some technical training, immediately approached it and gave the machine a critical look. "I think I can get it running pretty quickly," he announced. "Looks like they just shut it off manually."
"Hurry up," Ahmed pressed him, glancing at his watch. The sun would be rising soon.
The two women, meanwhile, turned to him and looked at him expectantly. "I have brought you here," Miriam said. "Now tell me your plan."
She looked freezing. It did, in fact, seem colder within the building than it had without. He had the sudden impulse to put his arms around her and warm her. Shrugging off the absurd notion, he prepared to make good his promise. "I intend to find the lowest yield nuclear device possible. The ship is a good distance away from the town, and they are separated by hilly terrain. If detonated at ground level, the people should be safe."
"Then what good will that do us?" Sarah asked. "If the ship remains, then nothing will change except, perhaps, for the Covenant's complacency."
"My hope is that the blast will provide a sufficient distraction for us to get away on the shuttle. If we can make it to the craft, we blow the warhead and enter slipspace before they can track us. In time, we can return to Earth."
"It's one hell of a long shot," Simon said with reluctant admiration, "but it is the best course of action we have."
As Ahmed studied Miriam's pale, doubtful face, he realized the wrenching decision she had: to stay and perish needlessly or, as the planet's leader and representative, abandon her people to their deaths. He took her hands and said firmly, "It is the only course of action."
Miriam looked at him sorrowfully, her eyes glazed with tears. His heart ached painfully as he studied her, feeling the pain she felt. He wondered how much of his efforts were dedicated solely to her; more accurately, to the bond he felt they now shared.
At last, the generator whirred to life, and Simon let out a whoop of success. "I got her running!"
"We must move quickly, then," Ahmed said as they gathered their supplies. "I do not still want to be on this planet when the sun rises."
"I think I can override the seal from here," Simon said. "Bear with me."
Using their officers' codes, the door to the weapons facility was soon open. They left the maintenance station and returned to the building at the back, the imposing doors of which had now parted. Entering, Ahmed saw an impressive array of small arms and explosives hanging upon an endless series of racks—all manner of rifles, shotguns, and pistols, interspersed along the way with bundles of grenades and bulky anti-personnel mines. All of this he passed with hardly a look. His quarry lay waiting for him at the rear.
A large wooden crate lay haphazardly along the back wall, a yellow symbol plastered on its front cautioning radioactive materials within. It had been removed from its special storage space and seemingly dumped here, as if the Marines had debated whether or not they should take it with them and ended up deciding against it. A fortunate thing.
"Crazy times we live in that a nuclear weapon is left abandoned in an empty Marine base," Simon said in awe. He bent down and inspected the size of the crate. "Looks like a nuclear mine. I doubt it is more than a megaton. If detonated on the ground, the town should not feel its effects."
Pausing in thought, Ahmed lay his hands upon the container and ran his fingers along its coarse surface. "One megaton will be as a bee-sting to the Covenant ship," he said slowly. "If we are to succeed, there can be no room for error."
"We can do it, Ahmed," Miriam said confidently, shivering more than the cold should have evoked. Simon, though, looked at Ahmed with narrowed eyes, but his gaze was steadily ignored.
"We should load this crate onto one of the Warthogs," Sarah suggested.
"No," Ahmed said. "Warthogs are too big and too noisy. If we come into contact with the Covenant, we are dead no matter what our armament. We will put it on a civilian truck."
At his instructions, the crate was loaded onto the bed of a dark pickup that had been left parked at the base with the help of a forklift. They were careful by necessity, but they worked faster and with less caution than sense would dictate; they had only another hour of darkness before the sun would betray what little cover they had. Everyone seemed to work with renewed energy, purpose providing a much needed bulwark to their flagging hope.
They were off as soon as they were able, Simon and Sarah in the cabin with Ahmed and Miriam crouching in the bed of the truck, holding their package in place. Although they had tied the crate down to the best of their ability, their haste made the arrangements precarious at best. If the crate slipped off the back, all could be lost.
Simon drove them back on the highway, which in time would take them to the far side of the ship. Despite still being encumbered with night vision, he drove faster than Ahmed had, pressed on by the approaching sunlight. It seemed perceptibly brighter already; Ahmed could just discern the snow covered branches of the trees on either side of the road swaying in the gentle breeze. As he watched them he felt, along with the renewed fear of being discovered by the Covenant, a profound regret in destroying the rugged beauty of this planet. He reminded himself that the ruin of Ephrath was a matter of time and beyond his control, yet somehow this did not allay his feelings of guilt. He recalled Miriam's reluctance to be responsible for the death of the townspeople while in the same breath acknowledging its inevitable destruction.
He looked over at her now, making out the outline of her face and her hair whipping furiously from the passing wind. She seemed to sense his eyes upon her, and he saw her turn to face him. He held her gaze for some time, taking some comfort from it. With the prospect of her home world and all she had known facing obliteration, he considered speaking some words of consolation to her. He realized she would probably not be able to hear them, however, and in any case they would be unnecessary. Hollow words could do nothing for her now.
It took a full hour to traverse the distance necessary to ensure the safety of the town, at the end of which Simon no longer needed the night vision equipment. The sun was not yet visible, but the land was bathed in a soft, bluish light, aided in part by the glow of the ever-closer Covenant ship. With the cover of darkness now gone, Ahmed decided they needed the cover of the trees.
He banged his hand twice on the back of the cabin and called to Simon to turn off the road and enter the forest. "Not too far," he ordered, "but far enough to be discreet."
Simon searched for a parting in the dense trees and soon found one. He drove into the forest about one hundred feet, stopped, and then turned it around, should the need for a quick getaway arise. The ship was directly overhead now, its cool purple glow shining through the treetops. It had seemed so beautiful from a distance, if unsettlingly so, but up close it was hideous, terrifying. He wished he had the means to bring about its destruction.
They all then left the truck and lifted the crate down from the cargo bed. The two Marines pried the box apart and, with some difficulty, the four of them were able to carry the heavy device another thirty feet through the thick foliage to a small clearing. Simon, although at first nervous at tampering with it, was able to activate it shortly without setting it off, to the relief of no one more than himself.
"Alright," Ahmed said in a tone of finality. A sense of peace and calmness suddenly seem to come over him. He understood his part to play and no longer feared what would come of it. "Miriam, Sarah, please get the truck started up. We will need to move out quickly."
Seeming to understand Ahmed had something he needed to discuss privately with his friend, the two moved back towards the vehicle. Miriam caught his eye just before the trees obscured her, and her own eyes seemed to widened in alarm. Did she understand now? he wondered. He imagined so.
"Ahmed," Simon said, rounding quickly on him before he could speak, "it must be me. It must."
He just shook his head. "No, Simon. I led us here. This is my doing. I will stay."
They had neither the time nor the equipment to set up a proximity trigger, and they could not risk leaving the device alone lest patrolling Covenant should destroy it—their plasma weapons could melt its components before they had a chance to fire. Both of them understood that someone had to remain behind to make sure it detonated.
Ahmed waved down Simon's further protestations. He laid a hand on his shoulder and forced him to look into his eyes. "Simon, you have a wife and a baby on the way. There is nothing for me back home. This is what I was meant to do."
Simon averted his eyes, unable hold his gaze any longer, surely seeing with the truth of his words. "Go, my friend," Ahmed said warmly. "Take them to safety. The shuttle should not be far from here. Contact me on my com when you are ready."
He said nothing, only nodded. Then, he was off, running back through the brush to where he had left the truck without another glance.
No sooner had Simon disappeared behind the trees than the forest became alive with activity. A searing heat scorched Ahmed's face as a tree to his right burst explosively into flames, the force of which toppled him to his back. Struggling to rise, he brought his shotgun to bear from its sling and briefly scanned his surroundings. Deciding in a split second that the plan had failed now before it had begun, he leapt to the nuclear mine to activate it, but his way was suddenly blocked by three plasma bolts striking the ground before him, spraying molten glass across his front. He fell back once more, the breath knocked from him, leaving him gasping for air. He reached weakly for his fallen weapon, but a, horrible wrenching pain suddenly shot through the hand that sought for his firearm. Looking up, he saw an Elite had landed its armored foot directly on his left hand, kicking the shotgun away with the other. Ahmed screamed in pain.
And screamed in failure. So it had all been for nothing. All their efforts had been utterly wasted, and they now faced ruin as surely as if they had done nothing. Likely his friends, the object of all his exertions, were now dead. If only they had been given five minutes longer, if only Providence had lent them a few moments for their plan to come to fruition. But God did not seem to be much on their side in these waning days of humanity.
The Elite at last lifted its foot, sending a new wave of pain shooting up his arm. He brought his ravaged hand to his chest, holding the wrist tightly with his other. It was a hideous sight to behold: the flattened, bleeding appendage hung limply from his wrist, its middle and ring fingers torn completely off. It made him sick to think the twisted mass of flesh and bone was part of his own body. It hardly mattered now—it would all be over soon enough.
He looked up, trying to make out those who had come to kill him. The Elite that had caused him so much pain stepped over him now to stand before him. It was flanked by at least a dozen Grunts and Jackals, all brandishing glowing weapons, something the Elite curiously lacked. He had seen videos and holograms of the Covenant before, but these did not prepare him for the real thing. The Elite was huge, standing at least eight feet in height, with a wicked face fixed with glowing eyes that bore into him with an unabated hatred. The Jackals were monstrous creatures, screeching horribly from their grotesque mouths. The Grunts were all squealing high pitched sounds and staring at him with a dreadful hunger in their eyes.
They did nothing, however, keeping their distance and, for all their posturing, holding their fire. At last, seemingly on the order of the Elite, a Grunt came waddling over to him, a small weapon in its reptilian hand. It came to stand next to him and pointed the device at him. Ahmed closed his eyes and waited. This was it.
Yet, still nothing happened. Even the myriad sounds emanating from these creatures came to a halt. Slowly, Ahmed unscrewed his eyes, looking once more at the throng of his captors. They had parted to allow the passage of yet another alien and he noticed that all the others had bowed their heads as they let it pass. Eventually, the figure emerged into the light of the burning tree, and he gasped upon seeing it. The alien was about human height, with an elongated head sporting pale pink skin. It wore brilliant purple robes trimmed in gold and walked towards him in a bizarre, stuttering gait, as if unused to the practice. Surely, this was a Prophet, one of the hierarchs of the Covenant so much talked about by the UNSC but never seen. He wondered if he was the first human to ever lay eyes upon one.
The creature stood before him and looked at him with narrowed eyes. It glanced briefly at the mine nearby, but completely ignored it. Likely, the dull metal casing looked harmless enough to one so arrogant as to dismiss anything of human design. In any case, the Prophet seemed singularly interested in him.
Suddenly, the Elite behind him spoke in a deep, rumbling alien tongue, its jaws parting and quivering in a terrifying manner. Ahmed studied the Elite closer as it spoke. The firelight reflecting off it revealed the crimson armor which it wore. He recalled his chase back in town, the brief glint of red illuminated by the distant ship, and wondered if it was the same alien.
The Prophet responded to the Elite, and Ahmed was shocked to hear it answered in perfect English, apparently for his benefit. "Let them go," it said in a high pitched, slightly hissing voice. "They have no chance of escape, and will soon join their kind in death."
Ahmed's heart jumped at this. Had they made it away alive?
The Elite spoke again, apparently protesting the Prophet's decree. The Prophet rounded then on his subordinate. "Silence!" it breathed. Then, it turned back to Ahmed, and its expression changed quickly from anger back to its previous countenance of vexation. After what seemed to be a prolonged silence, the creature laughed at him, a horrible, mirthless laughter that made his skin crawl.
"I simply had to see it with my own eyes," the Prophet said when it regained composure, its jowls quivering as it spoke. "One of the chosen humans, into which so much pain and effort has been expended by those who can never comprehend your true purpose. Their attempts to kindle your buried potential has been the cause of much worry in the High Council." It laughed once more, but this time it was more forced, deliberately mocking. "And now to behold the source of so much controversy, dispatched with such ease and cradling a broken hand and a broken spirit! If only they could see you now.
"While I never subscribed to the same worries as the others, I nevertheless hold a certain respect for your kind, however miserable your nature. That you recognize your destiny without the scriptures speaks of a certain intuition; primal and uncultivated it might be, but it lurks still just beneath the surface. The pitiful fruits of your labor have put up more resistance than any thought possible, but it is your champions that filled us with such trepidation as we embarked on the final leg of the Great Journey. Even without their leader, they put up an admirable struggle, and this new apocryphal Hero still inspires much terror in the lower castes and among those of lesser faith."
At this, the alien leaned very close to his face. "He is not what he should be, nor what you hope him to be," it breathed softly to him. Ahmed wrinkled his nose, but it was more instinctual than out of any need. He had expected the aliens to smell, yet up close to them they seemed completely odorless. All that filled his nostrils was the forest air and the smell of burning wood…
And the feeling of the forest floor on his hands…
"He can not win this fight and will not survive what is to come," the Prophet continued. "Indeed, your species' last hope ended completely by chance. We do not know how it happened, or why, but you were not chosen as you were meant to be. An accident, I believe, precluded you from following fate's path. I'm sure they were much distressed by this: you were the perfect subject, genetically predisposed unlike any other for their indoctrination. Like a moth to a flame, they were drawn to you without knowing why, without understanding. I imagine they tried despite your condition, but by the time you were recovered it was too late to elevate you to your destiny."
Ahmed had not been listening to the alien's ramblings, too much distracted by the pain in his hand and the weight of his failure. He did not understand a thing of what the Prophet had been saying, yet its latest words slowly sunk in, and stirred within him a memory so old and hazy he wondered if he imagined it. But it quickly increased in clarity until he could make out the words and faces of those involved, and he knew it was no figment of imagination.
He was in a bed, a hospital bed, surrounded completely by white; white sheets, white walls, white light. A nurse hovered over him, attending to the many plaster casts that covered much of his body. Lying down nearly flat on the bed, he was unable to see his surroundings very clearly, but straining his eyes and moving as best he could, he saw a woman at the door of his room, conversing in a piercing whisper with a doctor. She was very striking, dark locks of hair falling over her pale skin. Her delicate features were twisted in frustration now, though. He struggled to hear what was the discussion entailed.
"I'm afraid only family can see the patient right now," the doctor said sternly.
"Given his family all died, that seems a rather restrictive rule," the woman responded angrily. "I am here on behalf of the UNSC to take this child…"
"I'm afraid if they want to take a six year old boy in critical need of care and recovery from this hospital they will have to do rather better than a slip of paper, Doctor Halsey," he returned, intimating his doubt at her credentials.
She looked furious at the man's impertinence, though she appeared either unable or unwilling to argue any further. She looked at Ahmed, lying there pathetically on the bed, encased in plaster, and her gaze softened. Nodding, with a great sadness and disappointment about her, she turned around and left without a word.
The Prophet looked at him intently as his eyes widened and nodded slowly, a smile spreading across his face. "Ah, but you do remember now, don't you? It should have been you. You were the first." The Prophet started pacing the ground before him, and its expression changed to one Ahmed understood to be satisfaction. "It is good you understand, human. Your race must die by as a matter of course, and I feel no regret for their extermination, but it would have been truly vile to kill you without making sure you understand where you went wrong, given the limitations of your inferior nature. You of all your kind are an enemy worthy of respect, and this small courtesy is one I take upon myself gladly.
"Understand now that it ends with you. The weight of your failure is crushing, and certainly divine. You never bred, for reasons surely guided by the same hand that caused your accident. Your species will die, their last hope set on a falsehood, their last actions reflexive rather than meaningful. You are the last thing to stand in our way."
It was in this moment that many things happened at once. The Elite spoke once again, inciting the Prophet's wrath—but only briefly. On hearing what its comrade had to say, the alien's eyes opened wide and it screamed orders frantically, causing many of the aliens to run off into the brush in the direction of where the truck had been.
At the same time, Ahmed's com piece crackled to life, and the message he had waited for came with heart-lifting clarity. "Ahmed, if you are still there, we are in position."
He looked around him, pain and misery evaporating with the voice. Half of the aliens, including the Elite, had run off into the woods after the escaping trio. The Grunt next to him, momentarily stunned by its leader's fury, did not immediately fire. Seizing upon this moment, a fire newly kindled within him, he grabbed the alien's weapon with his remaining hand and with all the strength left to him he pulled it forward. The alien lost its grip and sprawled forward on its stomach. Acting quickly, he pointed the pistol at the Grunt's breathing pack and fired a bolt into it.
A bright flash followed by intense heat filled the air. The aliens screamed again, but this time it was in pain and surprise as flaming methane flew in every direction. Much of it landed on Ahmed, and burning pain seared through his body, but the knowledge of imminent release filled him with a final, powerful energy. He sprung to his feet, half running, half crouching, and dove for the nuclear mine. A few of the more levelheaded aliens tried to stop him, firing a few shots that further burned him, but still recovering from the blast they had not the time to aim properly. At last, he reached it, and clasped a hand to the casing's controls.
He thought he could hear the roar of the shuttle in the distance. He thought he could hear the mine activate with a hum. He thought he could see the long awaited sun finally rise above the trees. None of that mattered now. It was all soon cleansed by a beautiful, pure white light and blissful silence, a silence that carried him away on its comforting wings.
It was finally all over now…
Miriam Cohen vomited again into the shuttle's limited toilet. She fell back on the floor of the bathroom, resting against the rear wall and breathing heavily. She felt awful; weak, nauseous, hot. At first she had attributed it to sorrow and horror at the destruction of her home, and then to a sickness she must have picked up back on Ephrath. But neither medicine nor counsel offered relief. And she dared not consider that possibility…
Ahmed's plan had worked perfectly. Somehow, he had survived the aliens' ambush and set off the mine that would act as their cover for escape. They entered slipspace just above the planet's atmosphere and traveled for a full week away from Earth, as per the Cole protocol. When they had reentered normal space in an obscure solar system, they had waited for the Covenant ship to appear in chase.
It did not. They had lost track of the shuttle. Beyond all odds, beyond what seemed possible, they had survived.
They were now headed back for Earth, a journey that had taken two weeks already and was almost complete. Yet somehow, she feared to go there, to be back among civilization carrying the weight of the deaths of all she had known. They would judge her, she did not doubt, for leaving her people to die in pursuit of her own safety, but she did not care. It had never been about survival; she had reconciled her fate back on Ephrath. Rather, it had been as it was with Ahmed: a desperate act of defiance against an unbeatable and relentless enemy. However intangible the consequences might have been, defying the Covenant's will filled her with hope and satisfaction.
Summoning the will and the courage she needed, Miriam slowly approached the medicine cabinet and with an unsteady hand she opened the mirrored door. From within, she retrieved a small white capsule with a small screen on its front. She held it for a moment at arms length and then, with a prayer, pressed her finger to a small indentation just below the screen.
It beeped immediately. She dropped it suddenly, as if it pained her, and put her face in her hands.
A knock sounded softly at the door. Sarah's voice came soon after. "Are you alright, Senator?" she asked tentatively.
"Come in, Sarah," Miriam answered tiredly.
Her secretary opened the door and stepped gently in carrying a bottle of clear liquid. "I have found more medicine in the ship's hold," she began, but she stopped when she saw the Senator's pale, distressed face. "Ma'am?" she ventured inquisitively.
Miriam held a hand to her mouth for some time, staring at the floor in sadness. Eventually she looked at Sarah directly, her eyes dim with mounting tears.
"I'm pregnant."
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