Nine: Builder's Legacy

"Exiting Slipspace in three… two… one."

The lights on the whole ship dimmed in response to the reactor drain for the pinpoint jump, and out of the blackness of Slipspace, light appeared. The Ascendant Justice nosed back out into real space, and on their three o'clock the warm yellow light of Epsilon Eridani filled the bridge through the Justice's external cameras. Cortana slowly fired the ship's thrusters to bring them around, saying, "We are seven hundred thousand kilometers from the system center. I wanted to jump in close enough to see what was going on but far enough away to be able to recharge and reenter Slipspace if there's any trouble – oh, shit." All the humans turned to look, and the construct broadcasted what the cameras picked up for the whole of the human crew to see.

Reach was burning.

From pole to pole, the major population centers of the planet had been vitrified in one fell swoop, turned to glass on a whim. Once great military bases of the UNSC were now nothing more than slowly solidifying slag, and the forests and mountains of the Spartans' home were on fire and crumbling to ash. A black hurricane of smoke and smog and microsilicates was swirling its way across a now heavily polluted ocean, most life gone from its depths. Fire raged everywhere, and pools of glass still glowed about the edges as if they were still fresh.

"Wait," Cortana said suddenly, zooming in on one part of the planet near the midlatitudes, "What have we here? The Covenant don't ever miss spots, so what is this?" There was an open spot of green forest and blue lakes and white snow amidst the angry black of scorched earth and fiery orange of burning plains. "That's the approximate location of ONI's CASTLE base," Cortana asserted, hologram disappearing as she reassigned her processing resources, "Assessing situation…"

"This warrants a closer look," Keyes stated, "If the Covenant are interested in it, then we should be, too. Whatever it is could turn the tide of the war."

"We're being hailed," the construct stated, "Preparing proper counter-response. Moving into high orbit."

The Captain rubbed his chin thoughtfully, turning his pipe over in his other hand. "Senior Chief," he said after a moment, "take your squad and one other down to the surface to investigate. We need to find out what's going on down there, see if we can use whatever they're looking for to our advantage. If you can, secure it and bring it back here with the Doctor. If not, destroy it."

"Aye, sir." Fred nodded, then gestured to Red Team. Both the Blues and the Reds set off for one of the docking bays to claim one of the Spirit dropships contained within, wary of the transient contacts that Cortana was picking up all over the ship. Yellow Team had gone to secure the armory with McKay but met up with them in the bay, carrying extra ammo for them to take with on their sojourn down to the surface. Cortana, meanwhile, was uploading all necessary responses to possible queries into the dropship's onboard computer, giving the subroutine in charge of them limited capacity for extrapolation in the given circumstances. When she retreated from the dropship's systems and scanned the planet and the space around it again, she brought something else to the attention of the UNSC personnel: the Covenant were using the rough equivalent of tugboats to push the remains of destroyed ships into immense graveyards around Reach.

"They're cleaning house as if they intend to stay a while," the AI said, "I've also received a response from the fleet, and they're curious as to why we're here but not suspicious enough to question our authority. Based on the near-obscene amount of honorifics attached to their responses, there was someone very important aboard this ship."

"Can you tell what they're here for, Cortana?"

"Not yet, though they are referring to 'holy relics' in about four times as many transmissions as normal; my guess is that they're looking for something below the surface – hang on. Picking up something on the UNSC E-band. A distress call… with Doctor Halsey's and Vice Admiral Whitcomb's personal codes. From here." A blue nav point appeared over one of the mountains near the very edge of the untouched zone, and that appeared to be where Covenant activity was the thickest. Nor was that the only problem; there were air patrols flying over at least every minute, and a squad of six Banshees was circling the area constantly.

All of the Spartans tensed, visibly on-edge; Halsey was their mother of sorts, and she was the only one who called them by name rather than number, could tell the difference between them when they were in full armor. Keyes came over the line again; "Senior Chief, take a few more squads with you and retrieve the Doctor at all costs; she's too valuable to let the Covenant get a hold of her, and Admiral Whitcomb… that goes without saying." The Spartan gave an affirmative reply and called Green Team down to join the three primary colors in the bay, and their construct began prepping another two Spirits for launch; one of the dropships alone could not hold eight tons of flesh and armor, nor could it have come back with Halsey, Whitcomb, and any survivors they might have had with them.

With no Covenant AI to broadcast her secrets or reveal that the Justice was in human hands, Cortana was free to start gathering information and wreaking havoc on the enemy, and she spun off several subroutines to do her hacking for her, sending them darting out into Covenant systems and coming back with mountains upon mountains of pre-processed data. Because of her experiences in the Origin and all that she'd retained, she was able to calmly listen in on their communiqués without interference, retrieving the encoded subchannel's orders to jump to Earth and storing them for later presentation to the humans. She would wait until the Spartans were back on board with Halsey and Whitcomb to tell them the news; they didn't need any more distractions.

Catherine Halsey was indeed down in the crystal complex with about twenty or so UNSC soldiers, including Admiral Whitcomb. They would have descended into the Forerunner structures below ONI's CASTLE base, and those structures would have security systems that she should be able to hack – unless, of course, John already had her registered in the Forerunners' recognition software.

Which he had, the jerk.

All of the Covenant were in the large chamber just outside of the Crystal Room, and Dr. Halsey…

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The Shard was suspended perfectly straight over the perfectly circular platform in the exact center of the room, and each of its thousand facets gleamed a brilliant exotic blue, lit from within, its darker core swirling chaotically. Its glow only stretched so far into the room, however, just reaching a two-inch-wide gold band inlaid into the floor. The walls were mirrors of platinum, each of the millions of one-foot-square planes reflecting the image of the crystal back at it, making its light seem more intense than it really was.

"This," Halsey thought aloud, "must be what the Covenant are here for."

"Which means that we can't let them have it," Whitcomb growled, peering down their only exit, the other end swarming with Covenant, "So let's grab it and go!" He missed the disparaging look she shot at him but heard her footsteps heading away from them and consequently toward the Shard. She glanced around at the mirrored room as she walked, seeing hundreds, thousands of herself from various angles as she approached the Shard, and though she hesitated for only a moment, she stepped beyond the gold line. The crystal flared an angry red in response and unmistakably scanned her; for the briefest of instants, she felt a great and ageless yet ancient something brush against her, and the contact sent chills of wonder and terror down her spine, Goosebumps rippling across her skin. Shock, clearly foreign in origin, touched their minds, but its words were directed at Halsey, though all of the humans could hear.

You. You are Her mother.

The Doctor furrowed her brow in confusion and cocked her head slightly as if she was trying to hear better. "I'm sorry?"

You are His construct's creator, are you not? Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey?

Thinking that the Shard must have been referring to Fred and Cortana, she replied, "I am. To whom am I speaking?"

I am Epheria. For the moment, that is all you need to know, but more with be explained as things progress down the [Path]. You must take me to your daughter as soon as possible; I need her to pass along a message to someone very important.

"Cortana is not here; she is…" Halsey hesitated; the Alpha Rendezvous was heavily classified. "…away with the Spartans."

She was,"Epheria" confirmed, her tone adding a "but" to the end, and now she has returned. Blue, Red, Yellow, and Green Teams will meet you in the outer chamber in about five minutes. The Shard fell silent, and Halsey warily stepped forward and picked it up; it was very warm and surprisingly light for its size, fitting comfortably in her hand. Now that she was holding it, she could feel a pulse coming through the gem, akin to the beating of a human heart, throbbing through the air, through the space around her like it was the heartbeat of the universe itself. The Doctor gazed down at it for a long moment before jogging back over to the Admiral and his men.

"What did she mean by those 'teams?'" the Admiral asked her, and the scientist was startled when the Shard heated in her hand, the pulse intensifying.

Exactly what I said,Epheria stated patiently, Four Teams – sixteen Spartans – will be here soon to rescue you. Any other questions?

"Yeah," one of the soldiers grunted as he fired at a particularly daring Elite that had poked his head around the far edge of the tunnel, "can you make them get here faster? These homicidal freaks are getting on my nerves."

Epheria sighed. Alright. The Shard :pulsed: suddenly and with an intensity that made the fabric of space around it seem to ripple, and a moment later, they heard the unmistakable sounds of gunfire, the ratting of assault rifles, and the shouts of the Covenant as they died. Anything else? A double-frappe mocha cappuccino or whatever the latest caffeinated drink is? Her sarcasm relaxed them for some reason; it was familiar territory, at least. The humans ignored her and jogged down the short passage between the antechamber and the crystal room, just in time to watch the Spartans finish off the last of the Covenant on the elegantly tiled floor; they swiftly met at the middle and were sweeping the area with their guns when Epheria spoke again. Hold me in clear view, Doctor, she said urgently, startling the Spartans, Let me balance over one of your hands. She was visibly concerned about the request but shifted the Shard as she had asked. Alright, they shouldn't kill you right now.

"Who?"

Look up.

They did so and beheld thousands of Covenant soldiers standing on the twelve levels of tiers that ringed the room, steadily ascending toward the elegant hologram of an unknown star system suspended in the air at the highest point in the room. The enemy had been utterly still, their motion trackers unable to pick them up, but they would have been a solid wall of red if it had. There were at least ten pairs of Hunters, hundreds of angry Elites, thousands of Grunts and Jackals bobbing around at their ankles. Their plasma weapons were charging, filling the air with a sound not unlike a thousand locust.

No one dared make a sound, save for one of the Marines, who let out a soft but heartfelt expletive.

There would be no need for the Covenant to aim; all they would have to do was fill the air with plasma and needle shards, and the humans would be obliterated before they could even make a break for the Spirits to make their exit. One of the Hunter pairs on the lowest tier roared their fury and fired their fuel rod guns straight at the gathering of humans.

-------------------------------------------

"All quiet on the western front, Commander?"

"Quite; it's all the same. Any word on the Gravemind in the Library?"

"It's there alright. Venera almost lost an arm, and Dacien got a few fingers broken, but other than that everyone's okay. The Infection forms are loose where you specified, and SpecOps has the Control Room; they're setting up some security alerts that will let us know when Tartarus and the Arbiter get there."

"That reminds me, get someone on COM and get into contact with High Charity; we need to make sure that the Arbiter is going to become the Arbiter."

"…that doesn't make sense, but okay. Whatever you say, sir."

-------------------------------------------

Kelly was in motion before anyone else, moving to put herself between Doctor Halsey and the Shard and the Covenant firing at them, and Fred and Sam darted in front of Admiral Whitcomb, the rest of the Spartans forming a wall between the shots and the humans, but the shots never came. Space in front of them seemed to :ripple:, and the plasma rounds disappeared through the ripple; they heard them impact harmlessly on the ground behind them a fair distance away. A thousand more shots rang out through the chamber, and again the Spartans braced themselves for an attack that never came.

Every shot was directed at the Hunters that had fired upon the humans, and though the pair raised their shields to protect themselves, the metal was meant to protect them from single weapons fire, not thousands; they were burned alive, their armor and shields ignited as well, and they only caught the briefest glimpses of them before they were vaporized completely. The section of the gallery where they had stood was blasted to naught but dust and debris that rained down onto the floor below, and an Elite in gold armor shouted something that whispered through their translators a moment later, "Take them, but the next one to fire on the holy light will be skinned alive! Go!"

"That's why they're after you," Halsey whispered, and Epheria snorted.

Yes. That is the understatement of the millennium. And before you lot start staring at me, we should probably get out of here first.

The humans hastily agreed, as some SpecOps Elites were rappelling to the ground floor and charging in their direction, and Jackals followed them down the ropes, eager to kill some humans or die trying. The Spartans lifted their weapons and fired three-round bursts at the aliens, sending a score of unshielded Elites on the forefront of the charge to the ground, tripping up those behind them who were too slow or too close to avoid the bodies; the humans made a break for the Spirits when the Shard let out a crack like a gunshot, startling the Covenant soldiers and scaring the Unggoy out of their little Grunt-y minds, causing them to start firing on their own people. That gave them the cover they needed to reach the dropships, get everyone on board, and get airborne before the Covenant could collect themselves and return to attacking the humans.

The dropships swooped out of the chamber and into the tunnel leading outside, and they were shocked to find that there were almost three times as many ships as there had been when they entered; one of the carriers was hovering directly over the exit and was attempting to use its gravity lift to force them back down into the chamber. Oh no you don't, bitch, Epheria hissed, and there was an explosion somewhere in the ship above them. Then they were free to accelerate for the Ascendant Justice, and they could see that it was engaging some of the Covenant ships, destroying them with laser-like bursts of plasma – and all of the sudden they were right next to it. It had been hard-docked to the remains of the UNSC frigate Gettysburg, its top to the destroyed ship's. Thedropships' pilots barely had time to put on the brakes before they whizzed into one of the docking bay, coming to a stop inches from the purple bulkhead, and Fred shouted at Cortana to get them out of there.

The construct did just that; scant moments later, the conjoined ships swung around to a seemingly random orientation and jumped away from Reach, light boiling around its nose before it was gone into Slipspace. She was surprised that Slipspace appeared normal, despite the fact that the Shard was onboard, and she detected Halsey and the Spartans moving for the bridge after a brief conference in the bay. It took them a few minutes to reach the command center, and all of the bridge crew snapped to salutes when Vice Admiral Whitcomb stepped in ahead of the Doctor and the Spartans. "At ease," the man said while Halsey approached the construct with the Shard cupped almost reverently in her hands, "Cortana, this… person needs to speak with you."

Much to their surprise, the Shard appeared to split along its thousand facets and formed two fragmented half-spheres about a foot in diameter suspended in the air, and a beautiful, blue-tinged woman materialized, standing on the bottom half-sphere. Cortana's hologram shimmered into view, the same size as the woman's, and she spoke in a musical but foreign tongue; their translators recognized it as Covenant words but spat nonsense at them. No one realized that it was the Forerunner language that they were speaking in.

"/Who are you and what do you want?/" Cortana said bluntly, making the other chuckle.

"/As blatant as we expected. I am Epheria, and I ask that you hear me out before you say anything,/" she inserted, noting the look of fury that appeared on the AI's face, "/My sister Selenica and I were attacked over one hundred thousand years ago by the goddesses of an enemy race called the P'Vort. They were able to catch us at our weakest and drove us from the Tower of Eternity, assuming our forms and tricking your Spartan into believing that they were us when they cursed him, changed him. We need both his and your help to dispose of them and take back the Tower before they find a way to open the [Gates Between the Worlds] and enslave everything, even your home world, the Origin. We have no doubt that that will be their first target./"

"/And what do you want me to do?/"

"/For now? Pass along a message to the Master Chief; tell him that I would speak with him and that in exchange we would try to find a way to make him human again. But…/"

"/But…?/"

"/It has been so long, so much time has passed since he was human that I fear he might never be able to turn back. Still, we will search for a way./"

"/And if he chooses not to help?/"

"/Us searching will do no good, as we'll all be dead or enslaved./"

"/That sounds unpleasant./"

"/It does, doesn't it?/"

"/Fine. I'll help, at least. Anything specific you want me to say to him?/"

"/Just that the Shard wants to tell him the truth and asks him to hear us out. In a sense, it is our fault that he is suffering, and we have tried to ease it as best we could. We want to help him finish the fight./"

"/All right, I'll pass along the message./" She nodded, apparently satisfied with Epheria's explanation, then asked, "/How do I know that you aren't tricking me to try and kill him?/"

She sighed. "/You're just going to have to trust me, but I give you my word as a Goddess of the Tower that I mean neither you nor your Spartan any harm. You will find no more binding vow anywhere./"

Cortana hmmed but accepted the vow, and so she turned to the humans and told them about the Covenant having discovered the location of Earth. Epheria grunted something derisive under her breath, masked by several horrified gasps, and the construct explained further about an immense space station called the Unyielding Hierophant. If they could destroy it, it would give the humans an enormous strategic advantage if some Covenant survived the explosion to reach Earth, not to mention the fact that it was that many fewer soldiers available to go after humans. While the Captain and the Admiral were conferring and the Spartans were staring at the Shard, Cortana abruptly realized something and turned to Epheria. "How exactly have you…?" She made a gesture with her hand, and Epheria understood, pointing at the Spartans.

Both of them turned to look at the warriors, who were staring at them as if they were some kind of riveting sitcom, and Cortana said, "Yeah, I can see how that would help."

"…what?"

"You all aren't supposed to be alive," Epheria said calmly, acting as if she was saying that the pyramids at Giza reflected Orion's belt, "and it is because of my sister's and my interference that you are."

"If you're talking about back there, that –"

"Not just then. There have been countless times we have interfered to save you, too many to be passed off as coincidence, and yet that is exactly what has happened. You," she pointed at Sam, "When you boarded a Covenant cruiser immediately after getting the MJOLNIR armor, you were shot by one of the enemy, and your jumpsuit should have been breached. But it held just long enough for you to return to your own ship before it tore. And Daisy-023, she used herself as a shield to protect some Marines from plasma fire before the MJOLNIR was upgraded with personal shields, yet she was perfectly unharmed. What about Solomon-069? He was caught in the explosion on the Covenant destroyer when they detonated a bomb to kill you – yet he is alive, saved by a miracle. The same for Arthur-079 when his personal transport exploded after it came under fire – and he, too, survived to be picked up shortly after. Cal-141 went on a sniping mission with a squad of ODSTs and was supposed to have been fatally shot – yet she survived and resumed active duty, something no ordinary human could have done even when the beam bent away from their vital organs. And the Fall of Reach… you cannot deny that so many surviving a jump to planet side without an HEV should be impossible. Yet here you all are – alive, if a little worse for wear." She cocked her head. "Can you explain that?"

Silence. Then, "Why?"

Epheria turned to look at Kelly.

"Why save us?" she asked, "You don't even know us. Our lives are of no value to you."

She smiled. "But one does know you and values you highly," she said, "one who holds the fate of humanity – and the Covenant – in the palm of his hand."

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"Ah –CHOO!"

"Bless you, sir."

Sniff. "Ugh, thank you."

"Are you quite sure there's no one talking about you?"

"That's just an old wives' tale, Lil'Ame."

**********

It waits for the day

I will let it out.

To give it a reason,

To give it its might.

-"It's the Fear," Within Temptation (The Silent Force)