章 65: Interlude: Machine Soldier Uprising
When John stepped onto the bridge, all of the Infected stood and saluted. "Fuck off," the Spartan responded, and they all laughed and sat back down, all save one, of a similar height and build as the Spartans with his mother's nearly black hair and electric blue eyes. "Durandal," John said, and hugged his son fiercely.
The other man hugged back just as tight and whispered, "I missed you, Dad."
"I missed you, too," the Spartan returned, just as soft. He only reluctantly stepped back so they could start the briefing, even as more hard light chairs were called up for the Spartan teams. John sank into one with a relieved sigh, then said, "Joyeuse, talk to me."
The ancilla's avatar appeared at the head of the bridge, life-size. She took the form of an aqua-colored version of herself while in flesh, a tall, slender but not delicate young woman with a high ponytail, hair still falling to her waist, armored in the same MJOLNIR-inspired combat skin the Parallel Spartans wore. She called up an image on screen, then folded her arms.
The Chief let out a heavy breath. "A Guardian Custode."
It was an enormous segmented machine, thousands of feet tall, glinting silver and glowing blue through the dust swirling around it, caught in the midst of rising from its underground slumber. The blurred photo didn't distort the quiet menace the construct carried for those who knew what it could do.
"'A Guardian Custode'?" Origin Fred repeated, audibly frowning, "What's it guard?"
"The Forerunner Ecumene," John answered quietly, "from everything that might be a threat. Including us." He looked at his daughter. "How many does he have?"
"Meridian will make eleven that we know of," she answered. She flipped a hand up, palm facing her, and a holopanel appeared over it. She started scrolling through it. "There have been several reactivated in human space, more than just the ones Mom named - there's also Samuron, just recently Kamchatka, and both Meridian and Laika III are running systems checks in preparation for deployment. The rest have come from the Fourth Ecumene's space - Corasetii, Maluven, and Ixixien, to name a few."
"Eleven?" John repeated, "A single Guardian can police an entire star system. What's he need eleven-" But then he realized and stopped. "The Didact needs eleven-plus Guardians for the same reason he needed the Composers and Zero-Three. He's coming for all humankind."
"We have to stop him," said Kelly.
"And we will. What's their rally point?"
"Unknown," Joyeuse answered, "He and this mystery ancilla you mentioned are working hard to cover their trail - he doesn't want anyone to know what he's doing until it's too late. That's probably why Mom told us about Meridian - we can ride the Guardian out or follow its Slipspace wake. The Didact can't hide his location from us if we've got boots on the ground there."
"A fair assessment. How long until we reach Meridian?"
"About twenty-four hours," she answered, "but the Guardian won't be able to launch for about forty-eight. A hundred thousand years is a long time, even for Forerunner tech; it won't come online like that." She snapped her fingers.
Parallel Fred looked to John. "So what's the plan, Commander?"
"Origin Blue Team will be going in to ride the Guardian. Nighthawk will follow on the Slipspace wake, or track my earpiece if you can't catch the wave in time."
"Sir, respectfully, nothing good ever comes from splitting the party."
"At least this time Tiamat won't swoop down from the sky and attack."
"No, just a super-powered digital Forerunner who got mind-fucked by a Gravemind."
He had a point, which John acknowledged but still shook his head. "Nighthawk is a stealth corvette, not a destroyer, which is what we actually need right now. But this is all we've got and she needs to be protected in case we need a quick extraction. I want to hold you in reserve as much as possible until even part of the Fleet can link up with us. Joyeuse?"
"Perfect Storm, Foreshadow, and their escorts are closest, but it's still going to take time for them to get to our location. We maintained the strict quarantine you originally set up while in the Parallel, so there's no one else even remotely close to the edge of human space. And we have no idea where we'll end up. The most efficient option would probably be to have them on standby until we arrive wherever, then have them come straight to us, but I don't know if that will be an option. There might be restricted Slipspace access or other barriers."
John let out another long sigh. "Let's rest up, then. We're gonna be on our own for a while. Ambience, can you take a look at Kelly?"
"I-"
"Fred and Linda had a bad angle," John interrupted her gently, "but I saw that first Hunter hit you with his shield, and I know yours weren't fully charged."
He could read the frown in her stance, the set of her shoulders, but at last she nodded and followed Ambience from the bridge, the Lifeworker saying, "Right this way, ma'am; I'll have you fixed up as fast as I can."
Parallel Fred signaled the other Spartans. "I'll show you where we're all sleeping, since Joyeuse has probably already reconfigured everything for us all to bunk together."
The ancilla in question blinked innocently, but none of them bought it. She had gotten a double dose of Cortana's everything.
"Go ahead," said John, "I'll be right behind you, but there are a few things I need to check up on with the Fleet first."
Linda nodded, and she and Fred followed the Parallel Blue Team back out into the ship.
When the door shut behind them, he leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and buried his face in his hands. He let out a shuddering breath that turned into a watery laugh. "She's alive," he gasped, "She's alive!"
Both Joyeuse and Durandal came over to him, and they all shared a tight embrace.
-------------------------------------------
The showers were empty when John finally finished with the backlog of urgent reports from the Fleet and came around to use them. The Constructors shucked his armor piece by piece. Then he peeled off the techsuit and the undersuit and everything under that, and set the whole thing aside to be disinfected while he showered, the little machines zipping around.
He stepped into the cubicle and tapped the wall, and the water came on at the perfect temperature and pressure. For a long minute, he just let it run down over him, watched the red swirl endlessly away into the drain, resisted the urge to poke at what he saw. He couldn't feel any pain from it - the nerves had been one of the first things to go; it was both a miracle and pure spite that he could still move under his own power - but nothing good would come from messing with it.
When he started feeling faint, he forced shaking hands to clean his body and disinfect any spaces that had a high likelihood of becoming infected. Then he shut off the water with another tap and stepped out, grabbing a towel and carefully patting himself dry.
Then he went back to his gear, now cleaner than the day he'd received it, and pulled out his few nanite injections. Since he'd linked up with the Fleet again, he didn't need to be sparing with them - and with the upcoming fight, he couldn't afford to be. One by one, he injected all six into the bruised crook of his arm, shivering a little when he felt the faintest tingling that signaled they were working. They'd stay in his system for about two weeks, which would be more than enough time to settle this, with more near at hand if it wasn't.
Then he rebound everything, put his armor back on, and went in search of his siblings.
They were in the mess hall, and when he saw what they were eating, John laughed. "Ah, introducing them to the wonders of halgengei, huh?"
"And screw you very much for keeping this from us," Kelly said before slurping up another worm and starting to chew. Even Linda looked a little piqued.
"I didn't even have any for myself, let alone you," John said, padding over to sit next to them, "Already too much risk already getting just what I did from the Fleet. But if I had gotten some, I would have shared them."
"A likely story."
He chuckled softly.
"And that armor, too," Linda added, shamelessly eyeing her other self's set.
She stood up and did an obliging pirouette so they could see. "It's an M38 combat skin."
"Oh?" John stated more than asked, "Thirty-eight? When we left the Parallel, it was only twenty-three."
"Our Halsey's been hard at work. It's been more of a side project, though; she's really been interested in Precursor artifacts."
"That doesn't surprise me," John said dryly, "but I am surprised there were any left to find. I thought the Great Cataclysm destroyed them all. Well, most of them, anyway."
"Most," Parallel Fred agreed, "but not all. Especially the star roads. Like you told us, the Forerunners timed the firing of the Array so the maximum possible number of star roads would be in realspace, since the array's energies wouldn't propagate through Slipspace. But the maximum number…"
"...doesn't mean all," John finished, "How many has she found?"
"Almost fifty, all told. She thinks she's got a line on a knot in Slipspace near the galactic center - maybe the Gravemind thought it could escape the effects of the array near the black hole or something." He shrugged. "But she thinks there might be seven or eight, maybe even ten."
"That sounds like quite a haul."
"If she's right, it will be, and she usually is."
John smiled and said, "I look forward to seeing the results of her work, then."
-------------------------------------------
"You aren't planning on going back, are you."
It wasn't a question, not really.
John opened his eyes and turned his head just enough to look Kelly in the eye through his visor, where she lay curled on her side in the other bunk. The others were asleep, or at least faking it very well. "No," he said after a moment, "not really."
She nodded. "I got the feeling that you were pulling away, getting ready to leave even when you'd just come back. I never imagined anything like this, though."
He laughed softly. "I wouldn't have, either. It's out of this world, both literally and metaphorically."
That got a small chuckle out of her. "That was a bad pun, John."
"It wasn't intentional."
"A likely story." After a moment, she stretched and settled, continuing in a faintly sleepy voice, "This wife of yours has good timing at least. I was thinking of leaving myself, although maybe not quite like this."
"Kelly…"
"You know what they wrote in my file, don't you. I bet it's true for the other me as well."
"...I remember."
Though mission oriented and competitive, several Spartan-II trainers suspected Kelly-087 harbored no overt loyalty to the UNSC, and was only prevented from leaving the program due to strong bonds with her companions in Blue Team.
"I'm with you until the end, brother," she said.
From above them in the dark, Fred said, "We all are."
Linda hummed in agreement.
"...Thank you."
**********
The bridges are burning, the heat's on my face,
Making the past an unreachable place
Pouring the fuel, fanning the flames, I know
This is the point of no return.
-"Point of No Return", Starset (Transmissions)
週次パワーステータス
-- 推薦
ランキング 
-- 推薦
チケット