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Oh Thirteen Part 7
Posted By: Stuntmutt<stuntmutt@yahoo.com>
Date: 24 March 2004, 11:58 AM
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Bean interlocked her fingers and tried to smash the parasite from Jonah with a two-handed blow. Her strike passed through thin air. Jonah's corpse vanished.
"Get behind me," said a disgruntled voice. She turned to see a Spartan trudging forwards, weapon lowered.
"Oh thank..." Bean began. "No, wait."
Jonah stepped past her. "What...?"
Bean sprang forward to where Jonah had been standing when the Flood creature attacked.
Something hideous shot out of the darkness. Bean shut her eyes.
Doodu hopped from foot to foot and howled.
Jonah crashed to his knees by Bean's stricken form. He grasped the quivering Infection that had punctured her chest and burst it with a sickening pop.
"Bean?" A disgusting, gelatinous tube projected from Bean's ribcage, the guts end of a stinger buried deep inside her body. She stared straight up at Jonah.
"This Jonah has to live to..." Bean swallowed. "...to defeat the Flood Jonah. You have to live..."
She smiled at him and raised a trembling hand to his visor.
"I would've liked to see..."
Her eyes widened. She started to twitch.
"Oh, Jonah. Don't...let me turn into..."
Jonah yanked back the trigger on the gun she had made for him and jerked the muzzle sharply across her midriff.
Engineer First Class Emma Bean gave a soft sigh.
Doodu looked down at the curl of smoke issuing from the black line in the floor that began one side of Bean's body and terminated the other. He gave a low keening sound.
Time stood still. But this was no side effect of overloading temporal engines. Eventually, Jonah stood up.
"It's okay," he said quietly. He cleared his throat. "It's okay. Eventualities. Anomalies. Paradoxes. She'll walk round the corner any second."
Jonah stood to attention over her body.
"Any second," he repeated.
There was a buzzing sound from the tunnel ahead. The searing lines of an igniting power sword cut through the shadows.
"I'm afraid. That's. Not the. Case."
The white alien loomed out of the darkness like a spectre.
"All her. Eventualities. End here."
"I don't believe you," said Jonah.
"I do not. Lie." 'Utsoree raised his sword. "She ends. Here. And now. So. Do you."
The Spartan turned his gun on the Elite.
"I am Jonah Oh Thirteen," he said. "And believe me - your luck has just run out."
The sword flashed through the air. A beam of energy lanced out. Human and alien dodged and lunged, colliding head on with a thunderous clash. Weapons were torn aside. Savage blows rained, as the two bodies rolled and writhed. Alien roar was indistinguishable from human bellow. Jonah slammed his metal fist into the Elite's skull. Then again. And again. Its head snapped back viciously and purple blood gouted from beneath the white armour. The Elite screamed.
"Engineer. First. Class. Emma. Bean." Jonah punctuated each word with a brutal, hammering blow. He drew back his fist one final time to crush the alien's head to pulp.
A metallic hoof slammed into Jonah's belly, smashing the breath from his body. 'Utsoree kicked hard and the Spartan was tossed into the air. Jonah crashed to the ground, flat on his back.
By the time Jonah managed his next painful gulp of air, the White Elite stood over him, one hoof pinning the Spartan to the floor. 'Utsoree once again held his sword. He brought it up over Jonah's head.
"Good," gurgled 'Utsoree, purple gore oozing from his maw, "Bye."
The sword fell.
As did the hand that held it. Followed, in short order, by the arm to which it was once attached, and then the arm on the other side of the alien's body.
'Utsoree's head was still turning round as it, and the shoulders beneath, slid away from his torso. What remained of the Most High White Elite crumpled in a heap a few seconds later.
Doodu struggled under the weight of the Sentinel gun.
"Meant...for me?" gasped Jonah.
"Not this time," replied the Grunt.
Jonah was silent for the whole of their climb to the surface. He had tersely thanked Doodu for his intervention, then set off without a backwards glance. The Grunt was bewildered. Perhaps humans had very different customs regarding their dead. But Doodu would never have left a close companion's body just lying there. Jonah set a furious pace through the tunnels and Doodu was forced to run as fast as he could just to keep the Spartan in sight. They encountered no more Flood, but every once in a while, Doodu thought to see another Grunt just like him either slightly up ahead, or just behind where he had been seconds earlier. But each time when he turned to look, the other Grunt was gone. When Doodu finally emerged from the structure onto the surface of the shattered segment of Halo, his methane breather rasped and wheezed with alarming frequency. The starry blackness was spinning much faster than it had been when they'd seen it last. There was no sign of any guards and most of the Covenant ships had gone. The barren landscape was deserted, and when Threshold swung through the heavens, it loomed much closer than it had previously.
"What is that?" asked Jonah, indicating the prototype Covenant spaceship.
"Th...that's a Liche. It's one of a kind, the fastest ship in the fleet."
"Perfect," said Jonah.
Doodu shook his head. "No good. It only holds one. We'll take a dropship..."
"No," said Jonah, "we won't." He raised his gun. He didn't actually point it at the Grunt, but there was a definite suggestion of menace in his stance.
"Get in," he said.
"What about you?"
"I'm not going."
Doodu blinked rapidly. "You'll die if you stay."
Jonah grunted. "No more jinx. No more bringer of bad luck. No more Jonah."
The Grunt looked up at the Spartan.
"She died so you could live," said Doodu quietly. "She gave her life so yours could continue. If you throw it away, her life was lost in vain."
"Go," said Jonah.
Doodu stood there silently for a moment. Then he hobbled towards the Liche. As he neared the boarding ramp, he turned.
"One of our myths tells of the Forerunner's first encounter with the Flood. It's said that the fall of the ancients began when, one day, out of nowhere, a swarm of hideous creatures appeared on a Forerunner world. Those first horrors were led by an evil knight, a fallen armoured warrior. A Flood King. The story goes that he brought death to hundreds of worlds from that first encounter."
"It runs in the family," said Jonah
"She said you had to live to defeat it."
Jonah's gun lowered slightly. "She... she only meant..."
"Every Flood victim stems back to that first encounter. Every life that falls to them, human or Covenant, is because of that Flood King." Doodu climbed aboard the ship. As he disappeared into the cockpit he called back, "You owe it to your friend and to all those lost to the Flood to live and fight back."
Long after the Liche had scarred the darkness with a streak of brilliant glare, Jonah stood and stared after it. Despite the environment controls and shielding of his suit, the temperature was beyond uncomfortable. Jonah finally turned to gaze at the huge fiery ball that was Threshold
"We'll see," he said aloud. We'll see."
Jonah Oh Thirteen hefted his Sentinel gun and strode back into the Forerunner construction.
Doodu laid in a course for the Covenant worlds. He would have the duration of his journey to concoct a decent story of how he came to be in command of the Liche. Pity it was so fast. That would give him less chance to iron out all the details. He switched a monitor to rear view and watched the spinning fragment of Halo dwindle in size to a tiny dot. Then, just before his slipstream engines engaged, he thought to see the dot flicker and disappear completely.
The Liche's engines kicked in. Normal space blurred in its wake.
"Good luck human," said Doodu. "If there can be such a thing for you."
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