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Author's note: Originally written for Bungie Fans Online's Fan Fiction Contest for May 2006. Since it appears that their server is not coming back online anytime soon, I am presenting it here for all you good people.
Hope you enjoy it.
Regards
*******************************

The Last ForeRunner
by RVideo
May, 2006


Once, 430,000 years ago, there was a special gathering of the Nyara Council. The Nyarans worked fervently and quickly, as time was indeed running thin. Already, the Flood Aberrants controlled eleven Nyaran local worlds, twenty-three Nyaran HyperCraft, one trans-dimensional dock-ring and fourty-seven natural satellites. Holding the Council Chamber's centre floor was RynnStarr, lead scientist and production analyst of The BioMachina Research Project, Hu-Manne Division.

"What you have proposed", she stated with a decided firmness to the Grand Council of Nyara, "Is as insane as it is unworkable. "

The Grand Council's members looked to one another and then to the chamber's center, where RynnStarr paced in semi-circles, across the quartz, amethyst and citrine floor. As she did so, she focused on the Council members, one by one, and continued forward with her plea.

"We originally created the prototype Hu-Mannes for the purpose of retrieving elemental gold on several planets, most notably on Tellus Earth, third from Sol 205 Distal in the Spiral Arm of Axis East. We have incorporated into their structure a core reptilian brain, overlayed with basal neo-cortical processes thus allowing for their survival, mating, healing, organizational and creative powers of cognitia. Now, in the terminal face of our erasure from the cosmos, you propose to leave them alone, isolated from the entire Galaxy, on the surface of Tellus Earth. Truly I say in this hour, that the Council's plan is an exercise in the most tangential of attempts toward madness and desperation."

BerynStarr, the Grand Council's lead advisor, interjected. "Scientist RynnStarr, of this Council and it's proceedings, you are out of order of your Post. We of the Seven Nyaran Councils have indeed addressed all problems with the protoype, with the Prototype Reptilia Elitae, and of the cross-resonant self generating waste specie, created quite by accident, which we refer to as the Flood Aberrants. Granted we already acknowledge that the Flood's creation, resultant of vibrational fallout, to be sure, counter-relative to a Living Being, the subspace resonant anti-thesis of both Reptilia Elitae, and the Hu-Manne, are errors of our own doing. The Great Designers Of Universes never communicated to our race, by metaphor or direct translation, any thoughts that the synthesised Creation of Life was against the Grand Design of Universes. And thus, for this Great Sin, we are Guilty, and will die of this, our first and last attempt toward an emulated Spark of Life."

RynnStar gracefully waved her hand with an arced encompassment, as if visually appealing for her position on the floor. Her hairless and perfectly curved body were covered only with the most basic of clothing, whose marterial resembled more of firm, moldable wrap than cloth. Such was the custom of all the Nyaran ForeRunner, indeed of the females. As with all women on Nyara, RynnStarr was forbidden from direct visual contact with the prototype Hu-Manne males, as they would perceive her as a true Goddess of alien proportion, and would permanently damage their consciousness as a result of such exposure.

She spoke to the group. "You simply cannot leave the Hu-Mannes alone on Tellus, isolated and undefended. They will never survive without supervision beyond the droids."

BerynStarr projected into the Chamber's centre: "It has been decided already, We will replicate the smaller creatures and flora, pre-archived for their DNA maps in the Raas-Haon Computer Cluster, and finally re-generate the less dangerous species, with only minor corrections in their design. The entire process will be fully automated and should take no longer than 41 Tellus days."

RynnStarr interposed. "What about their need for beliefs? Communication? Writing? Metallurgy? They do not have a third brain as we do, and thus will not be able to synthesise these critical talents on their own power."

"My dear RynnStarr, we are doing everything we can to assure the Hu-Mannes' survival on Tellus Earth. We will place them in a crescent valley, three kiloterems across, to which we will give the name of Su-mer, which, as you are aware, means 'Renewal' in the ancient tongue. To the south, we have already constructed a building of Tellus limestone and granite, in the shape of a 54 degree tetrahedral pyramid. This structure will serve as both a communication tower, if they evolve to the point of mastering mass-crystal resonance gravity wave communications, and as well, a repository of clay tablets of stamped characters instructing on how they may build a Civilization in time. To the first of the Hu-Mannes we will impart the Great Secrets to decoding these tablets. I assure you, RynnStarr, they will survive."

"As long as they do not learn of Hyperspace travel, and thus reveal themselves as available BioMass for the Flood Aberrants."

BerynStarr lowered his head a few degrees, and stated with solemnity, "Yes, that is true. They can never learn of the super-luminal jump procedure. If they do, they are sure to discover the Halo Labs and Defense Systems. They would never last long against the Aberrants."

"Then it is settled. I will accompany the Seed Craft of Hu-Mannes and oversee their progenesis on Tellus."

BerynStarr raised away from the Great Chair, as did the entire Council's members, in protested unison. "Stand down, RynnStarr, for you have become obsessed and maddened of your creation! You shall die with the rest of us as we de-inertialize the subspace fabrics and turn Halo's Key! We are all doomed to die and that is that. You betray your people, the future of the Hu-mannes and Elitae, and indeed the Designers Of Universes! We know and see of your intent. RynnStarr, you cannot live among them, nor mate with them as they contain too much of our very own DNA codations. You shall not blasphemy the entire race of Nyara on this, the eve of our collective destruction!"

RynnStarr stormed toward the Chamber's main exit doors. As she walked, her shoes rang out and echoed bitter tones, as crystal floor met sole of foot. Waving her arm in the air, she said aloud, "Turn on your mighty Halos, Beryn. Turn your beloved Index, and destroy us all. You will be no different than the Flood Aberrants themselves." Behind her, the Great Chamber doors closed with a reverberative thud.

That was the last time that RynnStarr of Nyara ever laid eyes on another fellow Nyaran ForeRunner, ever again.


******

Across the Nyaran main complex center, the alert was sounded for all to hear, emitted from community speakers and personal Com-Links. "Fellow Nyarans, prepare yourselves and your families for our collective entrance into the next Journey. We shall stand together in the Aether forever, in our love and our guilt for all time. Our sacrifice not in vain, but to defeat the greatest foe the Universe has ever rendered to our plane, the Flood Aberrants. With our death comes their death, and with their death comes but the promise of future life."

RynnStarr stared out of her laboratory window, 343 stories high, atop Gen Lab tower two. Already she could see the nearby orbiting Halo slowly growing radial threads of plasma, as it prepared to charge and release it's Wave, thereby disassembling any complex protein chains with a molecular weight higher than 70,000. She wondered if the Monitor robots would hold the Aberrants to task. They were machines, and machines never last forever. Ironic that their nursery would become their prison for all eternity. She knew that the Flood Abberants could never be killed off, as they became a matriculated aspect of all life, even the fungi and plant life. Removing them was as impossible as removing a mitochondria from a living cell, and hoping that the cell would stand to live.

With a desparate sigh, RynnStarr took one last look at her main lab. All the testing equipment, holobot assistants, bench gear, virtual notators, the exam lights...They were all as extensions of herself, and now...She would never see them again. All those hours hunched over these things. Perhaps this was the reason behind her last minute inclusion of lacrimal ducts into the Hu-Manne prototypes. The Nyara could not produce tears, as their outer corneas were permanently lubricated from birth with a solid coat of proto-gel, unique to their species. Several higher animals could produce tears, however, and it just seemed like the right thing for RynnStarr and her team to do. As well, a fifth finger was added to the Hu-Mannes, and more...Everything she wished she could have that the Nyaran ForeRunners lacked. The Elitae, in contrast, sustained the four-fingered hands of their designers.

RynnStar grabbed her pack and flung it over her shoulder, and slowly closed the laboratory door. She ran down the corridor, jumped inside the VertiTrans Pod car, and pressed 'LP32', which was the button for Launch Pad 32, where the Seed Craft awaited to be launched onto it's long journey, vectored toward Tellus 3, or Earth.

A synthetic male-tenor voice emitted from a small grille on the VertiTrans Pod's console. "Authorization required. Please pass Ident over transductor now. Access restricted."

Damn the security of Nyaran transporters. What did it matter now, anyway? "Stupid auto-tenders", RynnStarr thought to herself . She reached inside one of the small outer pockets of her pack. Out from the pocket she removed a cylindrical transducer, and waved it over the console's surface.

"Checking...Cleared. Thank you N.S. Officer RynnStarr for using the VertiTrans System."

She solemnly peered out the viewport onto the Nyara cityscape's massive expanse. A singular blinking amber light signalled that the console AI awaited her command for movement. "Last train home," She sighed quietly. "Initiate travel now, please."

And with those words, the VertiTran sped straight down to the underground SpineTubes, and onward to the Launch Pad 32 and it's sole tenant, the Seed Craft destined for Tellus Earth.

It would take some time to arrive at the Pad, given the distance was about 232 kilo-terems away from the GenLab complex. The SpineTubes could convey up to 1,000 VertiTrans and PopuTrans Pods at once on it's inner surface. To be sure, RynnStarr and her singular Pod were alone, inside the massive tube, speeding past deserted Pods and debris of various shapes.

"That's odd. The debris...There shouldn't be any in here. They usually keep the SpineTubes spotle..." She made a guttural throaty sound that initiated the onboard AI to active mode. "Console, please scan debris proximal to us within the Tube and report."

The AI responded to her command in 300 millseconds, even before her mouth closed from her last syllable. "Scanning...Objects located. Adjusting for relative velocity. Spectrum pass complete, objects one through five-eleven...Radiometry pass complete, objects one through four hundred...Composition pass compl..." The AI paused. "All scans complete. Debris composition of local materials, synthetic with trace proteo-organic deposits. Debris mass increasing at a rate of 4.120 kilos per minute. No furthers. Thank you for using the VertiTrans AI Assist."

This was, indeed, very strange.

Mildly confused, RynnStarr looked out of the Pod's windshield. Directly in the path of the VertiTrans Pod, about 50 terems ahead, standing motionless save for the waving of several long, ominous tentacles, was a FloodForm. At once it jumped high into the air, straight up, and as the Pod passed under it, despite it's incredible velocity, landed with a loud, nerve shattering resonant THUNK-THUNK on the Pod's alloyed roof, casting symmetrical dents into it's surface.

"Ah, no! An Aberrant! They're here! Console! Please!"

The VertiTrans console replied in only silent pause, as the Flood creature, with slow, evenly timed blows attempted to gain access from the car's roof.

THUNK. THUNK.

RynnStarr repeated her ambiguous command to the Pod's onboard AI. "Console, please!"

The AI responded with a benign indifference. "I am sorry, I do not understand your command or question. The outer shell of the Pod is compromised. Please stand by for all-stop. Thank you for using the VertiTrans system."

"Console! Are there any weapons onboard? Do not stop the Pod! Please continue to Launch Pad destination at terminal speed!"

THUNK. THUNK.

The Pod slowed to a crawl, and then halted on the outermost track. "The Authorities have been notified of your emergency stop. You may now exit the Pod safely. I am sorry, but there are no weapons onboard this Pod. Thank you."

RynnStarr cursed under her breath as the sound of shearing metal sounded directly over her head. She knew she had to find a weapon soon, or die in the middle of the cavernous SpineTube, deep below the City.

A seeking tentacle protruded downward into the Pod's cabin, whipping furiously about. Green luminescent ooze dribbled down onto RynnStarr from the newly torn hole above. She grabbed her pack and shoulder-rolled to the extreme stern of the Pod, just beyond the reach of the Flood's extremity.

Her hands and arms trembled as she pawed through her pack's contents. "...Something in this damn bag, I don't know.." she thought, "..or I am dead in the next thirty..."

Another loud THUNK and a tearing sound of seperating metal sheets and rivets eminated from above. Now a second tentacle, this one with appendages resembling three distorted, grotesque fingers, joined the first. Small pieces of freshly torn, bloodstained fragments of skin covered it's surface, most likely from a recent encounter with another Nyaran, only to succumb to the blind wrath of this putrid creature.

Buried in the very bottom of her bag was a Plasma Knife device, used mainly for forensic specimen examination back at the lab. There were two models of this particular knife: One whose plasma blade had an adjustable length, the other with a small, fixed blade. She hoped and prayed for the former.

And it was.

Heaving a hopeful sigh she quickly wielded the knife, turning the blade's length to it's maximum possible setting. The glowing blade of energy populated the air just beyond it's tang. She whirled around while still hunched to determine the encroaching Flood's position. A fingered tentacle smacked her onto a prone position, as decidedly as if it were composed of animated steel. She landed face-first on the Pod's floorpad. A sudden pain erupted from her lower abdomen.

The Flood shouted down into the car a series of mucous-coated groans and growls, as if confident of it's impending victory.

RynnStarr sprang upright and slashed at the tentacles transversely with all the force and power her body could summon. The Plasma Knife seared right through the Flood's flesh as if it were of brown-green gelatin.

The Flood bellowed forth a loud, echoing yell that was unmistakably of pain, and jumped down into the car.

"Console, open doors now!"

The Pod doors slid open immediately and RynnStarr scampered out of the car, but not before being knocked again to ground by the Flood.. This time her face met the SpineTube's surface, a polymeric alloy material, slippery and cold to touch.

The Flood creature leaped to the Pod's doors, which were now closed, seperating the two. It appeared to be analysing how to open the doors. The Flood then forcefully pryed it's smallest finger-appendage into the door's seal, and popped it right off of the Pod's chassis, propelling it several hundred terems to the SpineTube's far wall, as it ricocheted, clattered and rang, until it rested a good distance away.

A crouch down, a spring forward, and the Flood attacked as RynnStarr rolled back and away from it. She jumped to her feet, this time, not without reports of pain in her back and legs. Blood seeped from a near-vertical wound on her middle abdomen, trickling down and over her form-fitting pant-shorts. The Flood lunged forth it's larger appendage, and RynnStarr quickly dodged it's swing as it swooshed past her head by only a few milli-terems. Another of the Flood's arms swung forward, to counterbalance the first. She stabbed at it before the Flood could rotate back to a fighting stance.

The Flood stood there, and noiselessly stared at her. It appeared to be struggling for a more effective attack in it's mind, wherever it's mind was to be found.

RynnStarr posed in the best defensive posture that felt natural, weight forward, tense but not locked, Plasma knife glowing defiantly against the sporous monster who opposed her. She had never trained in self defense, for she never had to do so. Her third brain, however, provided her with what the Nyaran called Auto-gnosis. Indeed, the Nyaran ForeRunner were both teacher and student in one being. They simply had no requirement for schools. Time to focus and generate their own lessons, usually in quiet isolation, was all that was needed.

The Flood attacked again, swiftly in a direct forward charge against RynnStarr. She swung laterally left in strafed avoidance, but not before the Flood connected to her right arm and back. She simultaneously pivoted and faced the Flood directly from behind. With full momentum she buried the Plasma Knife deep into the Flood's back, mid-spine, right between the shoulder blades. The Flood immediately fell to the ground, motionless.

She stared at it's corpse for several minutes, and wondered how they ever managed to escape the Lockout Isolation Lab. If only the doors of Lockout held...

Time was now against her as she scanned around the massive SpineTube's interior for another Pod that was possibly not derelict. Some three hundred paces distant, on one of the middle tracks, was what appeared to RynnStarr to be, possibly, a working Pod. She tried to break into a sprint but stumbled forward as several small leg muscles refused to contract. She was too injured to run. She had to pace it out and hope that she could make it in time to the next Pod up ahead.

Shuffling forward towards the Pod, RynnStarr halted in her path several times as indiscernable smashing sounds echoed and reverberated from within the SpineTube's gigantic structure, their sources apparently a good distance away. It was difficult to judge distance there. Now and again she inadvertently kicked debris in her path; One piece appeared to be remains of a former Nyaran's lower leg, but she couldn't be sure. Not far along there lay a ball of incomprehensible flesh with blobs of what appeared to be congealed blood interlaced amongst it's mass. Seconds passed that seemed as days, as she pushed forward.

RynnStarr raised her eyes to determine the remaining distance of the Pod. She estimated the closing Pod to be about fifty paces or so away. Not too far now. Almost there.

A small green flash on the floor, ahead and to the left of her view revealed a small, ball-shaped Floodform scurrying straight to her with an almost dreamlike, flowing pace. She broke into a disconcerted jaunt, which was more of a falling forward than a run. The Floodform leaped right onto her neck, and wrapped three vine-like tentacles around her head. She felt a sharp penetration of her throat, shallow but painful, as it sought out to join her to their Organism.

As the Floodform completely covered her face, RynnStarr blindly swept the Plasma Knife across it's protruding form with one sure stroke. The Floodform exploded with a sudden popping sound, emitting glops of tissue and acidic liquid dispersed in a small cloud. She hobbled the remaining distance to the Pod, and almost tripped as she cleared the Pod's doortrack. Small areas of her skin disintegrated from contact with the acid. Screaming in pain on exhalation, she looked past the Pods forward window. Barely capable of seeing at all, with her body virtually immersed in acid and a thin filmy green mucous, she struggled to look. This is what she saw.

A massive wall of Floodforms were racing toward her down the SpineTube.

"Console! Close doors and lock! Activate Pod gravitic amp drives now! Now, go Console, now now!"

The Console light-panels flickered to life as streams of navigation and operational data displayed in a cool, flowing three dimensional coat just above it's surface. "Thank you for using the VertiTrans System. Doors sealed. Gravitics linear and now propulsed differentials to forward tangent. Please use personal restraints during travel."

At least this AI seemed to be slightly less retarded than the one aboard the previous Pod, Rynnstarr thought. "Console, proceed to LP32 at once. And perform override to any all-stop errors."

"Travelling to LP32 now. This Pod will not stop until destination reached. Thank you for using the VertiTrans System." Yes, less retarded and less secure about restrictions as well. If she had the energy to laugh she would have at that moment.

"Thank you, Console." Her vision now becoming clearer, she could see that the Flood were just a few terems from the now accelerating Pod. In moments the Pod met the frontline, and smashed and pulverised through the cloud of Flood. The Pod was now travelling up the ascending SpineTube at over 250 terems a second.

As the hundreds of bodies smacked against, and were crushed under the Pod's chassis, small inward-bowing dents appeared in the alloy from both the sides and roof. The console AI vocalized the Pod's current state. Spindling cracks formed in the windows, but the transparent alloy held fast.

"Pod chassis compromised...All-Stop error ignored...Gravitic A at sixty percent...All-Stop error ignored...Multiple objects in TrackPath....All-Stop error ignored...Velocity terems per second, four hundred twenty.."

The Pod was now travelling so fast that any Flood that could manage a finger hold onto it's surface were skinned in seconds: The sheer force of the passing wind stripped their skin and subcutaneous tissues right off of their frames. RynnStarr's Pod now trailed behind it a cloud of particulate debris, dust, and flags of brown, black and green skin.

RynnStarr could barely see past the brownish-green slime that now partially opacified the Pod's front windshield. She saw the vague outline of the massive Seed Craft in the far distance, resting patiently upon Launch Pad 32. The Flood now completely covered the SpineTube's remainder, as if their singular purpose was to stop the travelling Pod and it's sole occupant. The voice of the Pod's AI broke the incessant, dulled thuds of Flood bodies smashing against the Pod's frame. "LP thirty-two is now one thousand terems distant. Prepare for all-stop."

Launch Pad 32 was a massive, singular raised platform of synthetic cast concre-metal, built to both withstand the weight of the massive saucer-shaped Seed Craft, and to simultaneously isolate the Craft from the City far below. The only connection between the Launch Pad and the rest of Nyara was across only a few single-track rail bridges. Only Pod riders who were cleared for admittance were allowed access to these otherwise forbidden spans. A small number of menacing Flood percariously balanced themselves on a rail-bridge, just ahead of the still-racing Pod, in a desperate last attempt to stop her. THWAP. THUD. KA-THUNK. RynnStarr believed that was the last of them. Between her and the Seed Craft's access dock, she could only see parallel shining rails, reflecting the overhead Nyaran suns.

"Thank you for using the VertiTrans System. Please exit the Pod. Your destination has been reached.." The AI fell silent. The Pod doors partially slid open, slowly grinding against the damaged doortacks, sustained from it's most recent conveyance. RynnStarr managed to slither past the quarter-open doors. She turned around and looked upon the Pod for one last time.

"Thank you". she whispered to the now inanimate car, as if it were some bygone hero of ancient Nyaran legend. "Goodbye."

RynnStarr was now thoroughly exhausted, filmed in blood and sweat and rotting tissue. She could hardly propel herself to the access ramp. The looming Seed Craft with it's massive hulk roofed over her for what appeared to be a kiloterem or more. How the Council ever managed to throw this thing together on such short notice impressed RynnStarr to no end, despite their arrogance and adherence to their ancient Codes.

As she approached the entryway that would grav-lift her up to the Seed Craft's isolation locks, far overhead, she glanced out toward the rail-bridge across which she recently traversed.

They were coming. They were flowing across the rail-bridge, and indeed across all the other rail bridges as well, with burgeoning masses of Flood very close to the Launch Pad itself.

RynnStarr waved her Ident transducer over the access inductor panel. "Thank you NS Officer RynnStarr. Please secure all personal items and prepare for GravLift transport." She stood in the centre of the GravLift circle which outlined where the GravLift's light-cone would, hopefully, soon resonate around her.

The Flood alighted onto the Launch Pad, and straight away, raced toward RynnStarr. She anxiously awaited for the GravLift's activation. "Console, please initiate GravLift now! "

The Seed Craft's AI flatly responded. "Energy prime for lift is commencing now. Please stand inside the circle boundary."

The Flood rapidly formed a shrinking arc around her. As the closest ones approached her position, only a handful of terems distant, the air around her suddenly shimmered , distorted and cooled. The GravLift quickly ascended her person, with hundreds of Floodforms jumping and lashing out to her from the rapidly retreating ground below her feet.

RynnStarr entered the isolation lock, as the Seed Craft's AI initiated decontamination and equalization procedure. Bathed in multiple scanning lines of purple and white light, every microbe, spore and prion that called her body's surface home was quickly extinguished. The inner lock door silently slid open, and she took her first step onboard, onto the outer radial deck of the great ship.

A small ceiling panel slid open several terems above RynnStarr's head. A luminscent metal and glass sphere descended directly out from the opening. "Hello, NS Officer RynnStarr, preliminary scans of your bioshell reveal extensive damage. Please follow me to the Suspension Infirmary." It slowly floated down the curving, richly decorated corridor, just above head-level to her.

"I...I don't think I need suspension therapy." She protesed to the floating AI construct.

The AI continued in a male, overly-friendly and oddly inflected synthetic voice typical of most Nyaran Constructs. "Oh, that seems hardly probable that you do not. You simply must follow the onboard protocol. Your damage and the resulting shock from launch will result in permanent damage. Please follow me."

RynnStarr followed the bobbing, glowing sphere through several constantly curving corridors of varying widths, down a small MechLift about 50 terems, and onward to the Infirmary. When they finally arrived, the AI sphere hovered perfectly motionless over a SINC, or Suspension Interspace Nanorepair Chamber. RynnStarr slowly and stiffly removed her clothing form-wraps, not without some degree of pain, and entered the chamber in supine position. Inside, the SINC surrounded her with a permanently sterilized soft material, onto which no single-celled organism could ever live. Scanning her memory and neocortical patterns, the SINC determined that the best procedure for RynnStarr's sedation during it's repair was a combination of ambient sounds, sub harmonic sines with riding square waves in the third and seventh harmonics, two non addicting sedative medicines, synergistic and given transdermally, and finally, a high periodic water-wave float-sim.

RynnStarr grew very sleepy, as she felt a diffuse tingling inside, everywhere, as the dispersed, in-vivo nanobots began their meticulous repair of her body, cell by damaged cell.

The Seed Craft forced itself up and away from Launch Pad 32, slowly at first, then into a lower orbit, and then broke away from Nyara's gravitational tug.

And as she slept, and dreamed, of days and moments gone by, of the Nyaran sunsets, and the golden and lost lands, now so far distant, lost forever and drifting away in silence.

Many months passed as the Seed Craft accelerated to reach luminal two, or twice the speed of light, relative to constant space-time. To acheive this, the AI construct initiated a subspace bubble in the bow's gravitic modulator plates,. The subspace bubble encomappsed the entire Craft, preventing it's approach to infinite mass once it reached luminal one.

In synchronicity the Halo devices burst forth their deadly wave across the Galaxy. Washing over world after world, moon after moon, the wave deconstructed the molecular proteins of complexity higher than seventy thousand. Every living thing on these worlds, throughout the Galactic Plane, every plant, every germ, every creature, vibrated apart into their subatomic components as the wave pushed itself out from even the furthest tips of the Great Spiral Arms.

The wave of the Halos never reached the Seed Craft, since the Craft was indeed not existing in space at all, as it travelled along, safely insulated within it's self-generated bubble warp, and outside the bounds of space and time. The designers of the Craft did not expect, however, that the Halo's shock would drag the Craft back into common space, as it's leading edge behaved as a gravity sink, pulling anything in hyperspace back out of it's warpstate.

The bubble warp fell away from the Seed Craft, as if it melted like a shell of heated ice, and the Craft fell down into common space, and smack onto the extreme trailing edge of the passing Halo wave. if the Craft fell back into common space any sooner, then RynnStarr would have instantly been killed inside.

"Oh my, this is not according to procedure. No, no, this will not do at all. I simply must have input from a Master." The AI sphere proceeded to the Suspension Infirmary, where RynnStar remained asleep, and oblivious to the reality that at that moment, she was the only living complex being alive in the entire Galaxy. Not even the Seed Craft of the Elitae had onboard a single complex living being, only suspended embryos.

As she awoke from sluggish awareness, the AI hovered overhead in pulsed anticipation of her consciousness. "Master RynnStarr, there has been a malfunction. You must awaken at once."

"Alright, I am awake. What happened? Where are we now?"

"It's simply unacceptable, Master RynnStarr! The Craft was pulled back from the safety of hyperspace when the Halo waves passed. We are now drifting at point four luminal."

"Point four? We...No...That's...How far away are we from Tellus Earth?"

"I am so sorry. I am only capable of attitude and directional control of the Craft, with some impulse. At this velocity we will reach Tellus in three hundred seventy thousand, and thirty one."

RynnStarr crumpled to the floor. A great sadness and emptiness welled inside her Nyaran heart. Now, more than ever, she indeed wished that she could cry.

All alone she was, across the great span of the Galaxy; Those countless millions of worlds now dead, and she would, in time, die somewhere inside that ship, slowly drifting toward Tellus Earth at a mere forty percent lightspeed.

*****

Thus many years passed. RynnStar grew older, wandering the Craft with it's endless corridors and storage rooms, full of now idled robots in storage, who would eventually nurse and grow the first of the Hu-Mannes from their embryonic stasis once the Seed Craft landed on Tellus. In one of the Great Rooms was the Raas-Haon computer, an autonoumous behemoth which would rebuild all of the lifeforms, one by one, to generate a balanced biosphere on Tellus, through complex processses of transcription synthesis that was beyond even the comprehension of RynnStarr's intelligence. To be sure, the computer was never capable of constructing a being as complex as a Hu-manne, or Elitae, much less a ForeRunner.

In those remaining eight hundred twenty seven years of her life, she never totally lost her mind to insanity, although she did hold conversations with herself quite often. The AI and synthezised enviro-chamber helped her immensely. She read a lot, and she watched the holomovies, some with a hundred different endings, some with two or three. She enjoyed staring at the celestial forms; The abstractions of the nebulae, the dark-matter clouds, the reaching arms of hydrogen wisps illuminated by the solar winds of nearby stars. Her third brain gave her answers as to their composition and structure almost as fast as she could focus upon them. Drifting along, so very far away, the distant yellow star of Tellus Earth not even resolvable beyond a pinpoint of light, even with the onboard telescope, a model JjinStarr 48, revision B.

Most of all, she enjoyed looking over the Hu-Mannes in embyonic stasis. There was nothing for her to really do, as the entire Seed Craft was designed from dome to dome to fly completely unattended. Regardless of such, she still enjoyed looking after the bio readouts of their condition, and the system-state monitors, as well. A little stir here, a swoosh of some injected liquid there, all automatic, by robotic arms and hands and fingers of metal and glass and light.

And as she watched this ballet of automata unravel, again and again, the AI sphere hovered nearby, curious and perhaps a bit lonely for conversation with another intelligence of some form or other.

"What are they called, these Seeds?" AI asked out of raw curiosity.

RynnStarr turned and looked at the AI. "My dear, they are Reclaimers."

"Reclaimers of what?" AI asked as it silently hovered and bobbed.

She turned back to stare at the robots and their subjects under the glass. "Reclaimers of Life, my dear."

AI paused in comprehension of her statement. He was unable to conclude what that meant, nor quantify it so, so he sent out a communication which utilized gravitic modulations to his fellow AI constructs on the far away Halos. "...Message ingress from onboard constrtuct of Craft 001 Tellus...The Hu-Manne Seeds are Reclaimers, and may hold the Key to Life...Please update your databases" The distant AI's already knew that their now dead creators, the Forerunner, referred to the Halo Indicies as the 'Keys To Life'. Therefore, any Hu-Manne who survives may hold the Index, if this ever should need to be recalled in the far distant future.

Later, while they travelled together around the Craft, AI asked RynnStarr if she ever thought about naming the Craft itself. RynnStarr paused for a moment, and expressively waved her hands wide, and said, "Well it seems as if this ship is one continouous arc. Most of the corridors and TravelTubes are arced in some way." Indeed the ships construction was designed for efficient access before the launch, not for the comfort of any onboard, living passengers.

"So what would you like to call the ship then?"

"I don't know. Let's just call it the Arc."

"Oh...That is a good idea."

*****

On the final day, if there was such a thing as a day in the depths of trans-galactic space, RynnStarr, the last ForeRunner rested and stared at the stars for one last time. And with her last breath, the only being left alive in all the spinning arms of Galaxy, died and left this plane forever.

For the next three hundred and sixty thousand years, not a single being drew breath. The entire Galaxy was dead, devoid of all life, from Core to Spiral Arm.

The Seed Craft drifted to Tellus Earth, and softly landed somehwhere near the equator, on the Eastern side of a continent chosen by AI to be the most stable, relatively immune to plate tectonics and volcanic eruption. This landmasse was called by the Nyaran, "A-fricea", which means in Nyaran, "Without danger".

And so the motions began; The long-dormant androids, the miner bots, the contruction droids and bio-synth assistants powered to animation all in concerted unison to help the fledgeling Hu-Mannes, and indeed, all future lifeforms of this Tellus Earth, to thrive and grow and populate this faraway planet of hope.

When the time came, and the Hu-Mannes were well on their way to self sustenation, as with all the lifeforms of the Earth, the AI initiated the Protocols of End, which sent the armies of robots and droids to march into the nearby ocean, buried forever in silt and sand, far below, never to be found, or discovered by the primitive Hu-Mannes, lest they learn of their true and tragic beginnings, and fall into despair.

The Seed Craft itself, named the Arc by RynnStarr, buried itself deep below the crust of the land called A-fricea, never to be found without great effort, by the Hu-mannes, or perhaps, someone else.

AI slowly hovered inside the dark and deeply buried Arc, now many many terems below the soil and sand and rock, it's lantern the only source of light inside, and rested near the petrified bones of RynnStarr, and gave it's final command for self-decompilation. And with that command, it's lantern dimmed, and that little room, inside the Arc, became dark and silent, forever.

And to this very day, somewhere deep below the soil and rock of A-fricae, in the middle of that great ship, lie the bones of RynnStarr, last of the Nyaran ForeRunner.


THE + END

*************
post-note: This story was written in it's entirety on a standard modified Xbox, using DyneBolic Linux 1.4.1, a USB keyboard and the AbiWord word processor.
Interested in running a word processor on your Xbox? Check out my video tutorial at halo2forum.com

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