Eight: The Final Countdown

Slipspace, en-route to Erde-Tyrene to observe the return of the Didact, 100001 BCE.

A pawn. A rook. A knight. A bishop.

One by one, John fiddled with the hard light chess pieces, assigning mental names and ranks to the white pieces closest to him. Without a doubt, the king was the Forerunner Council – slow, limited in movement, sometimes moving into danger, sometimes out. The queen was most likely the Didact, a versatile warrior, hard to defeat, the protector of the ecumene. The rooks, knights, and bishops were his divisions of Warrior-Servants, the pawns expendable machinery like UAVs.

But the Spartan had yet to figure out which piece represented his Infected and himself on the board. A rook – linear, striking directly and retreating with little deviation? But he was more than willing to use his Flood infection to save lives, if that was what it took, not just kill. A knight – the "hook" that could only extend so far before it had to gather itself for another leap? No again; he and his "Infected," as they called themselves, had spent years – once even two full decades – behind enemy lines, blasting away at the Flood, forcing it to halt its advance in order to hold the worlds it had taken as spawning grounds. A bishop – linear, like the rook, but along diagonal lines, zigging and sagging across the board? Closer, but still no. While he often used tactics from his own time to throw the enemy Flood off, he was also perfectly capable of striking out directly against an enemy.

Another queen?

The warrior picked up the piece and rolled it between his fingers. It was possible, he supposed. But if he was a second queen, his piece would be neither white nor black, but gray – for the genetic abilities and difficulties of the black, but the mentality and sanctity of life of the white.

He lifted his gaze to the black pieces on the opposite side of the board. In his mind's eye, the queen was no longer a queen, but a floating Monitor – green with Envy –with a broken crown supported on its cowlings. The king became organic and serpentine, bobbing back and forth like a serpent about to strike – the Gravemind. And on its head was a crown of spikes, curving inward slightly, made of splintered bone and held together by tendons and ligaments.

The Spartan summoned up the second queen and placed it equidistant from all of the corners, at the dead center of the board. Both sides had to pass it to attack one another.

But hadn't humanity and the Forerunners once been at war? What would he do if they went to war again? Would he try to mediate a compromise, a treaty? Would he let the two of them destroy one another? Would he fight? On which side? Who would be black and who would be white?

The board had no answer.

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With the effects of the Librarian's concealment canceled out by the filters installed on the ships, the Infected were able to watch the breaching of the millennial seal. The light was intense, so much so that even with most of it being filtered out before it reached the displays on the bridge, they still had to shield their eyes.

The Promethean was shriveled and weak as a newborn babe when he emerged, but his mind was at least partially aware of his surroundings. He became even more so when he did a telepathic scan of his surroundings and detected the Fleet of Shadows.

[I am unsure how much I should tell you,] John began by saying, doing the mental equivalent of pacing, [The Master Builder is still in power, but his influence is fading fast. He and many others are not long for this world, according to the Gultanr.]

'Then just tell me what you know you can tell me without fear of Faber using it to his advantage.'

[The Flood has returned. Though not yet utilized, twelve Halos have been commissioned and completed. Your wife sends her love.]

The Didact was silent a moment, as if he was expecting more. Then, 'It is worse than I feared.'

If he hadn't sounded so serious, John would have thought he was making a joke. The honorable Promethean Supreme Commander, cracking jokes?

'I assume the Librarian, in her infinite wisdom, has provided some kind of mission by which there might be further enlightenment?'

[So far as I am aware.] The Spartan had Nep'Thalia relay an image of the mountain that loomed over the Cryptum. [She left a design seed inside there for you. The ship will bear you where you need to go. As to where that is…] He sent the mental equivalent of a shrug. [Your guess is as good as mine. There are a number of locations that could be your first stop.]

'I see.' After a moment of deep contemplation, the Didact bid him farewell and broke the connection.

[C'mon, people,] said the human, opening his eyes as he returned to awareness, [Places to go, stuff to do, Flood to kill.]

A few people snorted in amusement, more at his poor attempt at humor than the humor itself. The Storm generated a slipspace portal, large enough for all five ships to travel through at once. The ships of the Fleet of Shadows used a different method of slipspace travel than most Forerunner ships, so they did not feel the extremes of time dilation and reconciliation that most ships did with the passage of the Halos.

The Gultanr were still struggling to predict the movements of Mendicant Bias and the Primordial Gravemind. Every ripple was followed whenever possible, whenever they were not busy evacuating the few people remaining from infected worlds to the lesser and greater Arks. The survivors were cleansed of any Flood DNA and sent back to the ecumene proper, within the Maginot Line.

'The universe resists change,' the Spartan mused to himself, thinking on what little he knew of the Origin's Forerunner-Flood War, 'Mendicant Bias was not seen or heard from until after he turned on his makers. We're not going to find him until he reveals his location.' He slid his hands up his face and through his hair. 'Dammit!'

there are no unstoppable forces in this universe there are no immovable objects everything gives if you push hard enough

maybe it's our turn to give-

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"I require an escort."

John looked up at the Librarian, who floated before him with her arms crossed. Her expression made it clear that she would not take "no" for an answer. "Where and when?" he asked.

"Janjur Qom, Sangheilios, Doisac, Te, Palamok, Eayn, and Bahalo," the Lifeworker rattled off, "and now."

The Spartan frowned. Given the fact that one of the planets had the word "Sangheili" in its name, it didn't take a genius to figure out that she was preparing to index the Covenant. Part of him was instantly against it, revolted at the thought of the species who had – would – cause so many human deaths being spared the wrath of the Flood and the Halos. A small part of that part of him wanted to do a little "Indexing" of its own, but he terminated that line of thought before it could go anywhere. [Volunteers?]

A flurry of 'Me's and 'I'll go's bombarded his mind. It wound up being most of the fleet. Those who weren't interested in seeing what they would be up against in the distant future were instructed to watch over the Librarian's experiments while their nossë – kindred, clan, family – escorted the Lifeworker's ships through her own personal portal. Their first stop, Janjur Qom, was the quarantined homeworld of the San'Shyuum, the Prophets.

John resisted the urge to blast the planet to bits and dance through the wreckage. He suspected the Lifeshaper wouldn't take too kindly to that.

Twenty-three billion human lives lost to the Covenant. If he stopped it here-

Humanity would never make it to Installation Zero-Four when they needed to. Never reach Installation Zero-Zero. Never realize that there was more to the universe than just them.

all things must pass away all life is doomed to fade

John's hands were beginning to hurt with how hard he was clenching them. He hated his indecision, how no one else was attempting to give him unbiased input, how the actions of a few were forcing him to decide the fate of a whole race. In a very un-Spartan-like display of anger and Flood-like display of strength, the Commander grabbed the edge of his desk and flipped it, sending holopads scattering across the floor of his office like leaves in a forest.

Then he inhaled deeply, forced his body to calm by increasing the levels of serotonin in his system. His Flood instincts were getting sneaky, trying to get free by destabilizing his mood, producing more chemicals to achieve the desired effect. The serotonin would help negate the other chemicals.

'You said so yourself, Commander,' Sérë rumbled, 'The universe resists change. Even if we killed them off, something we don't know how to predict or counter would appear to take their place.'

The Spartan sighed, knowing that the Builder was right. [That doesn't mean I have to like it,] he replied, resentment still seething in the back of his mind.

The lone Promethean on the decommissioned fortress let them through the quarantine shield after he verified their codes – John knew that the moment the Librarian gathered her specimens and departed, he would report them to the Master Builder. Eventually the Didact would follow them here, with the humans who had been gang-pressed into aiding him, and then he would fall into the hands of the Council. They were leading him right into a trap.

The vision struck without warning, like its predecessor.

"-a strange warrior with her," said the Confirmer, turning a San'Shyuum sculpture over in his hands, not looking at his superior officer, "a human like no other I've ever seen or fought. He moved like a cross between a Promethean and a predator. There were others – Forerunners of all rates, some member species of that farce the Galactic Council – but he stood out in my mind, and not just because he was the only human. They all deferred to him, even your wife."

"I see, " was all the Didact would say on the matter.

When at last they returned to their ship and began heading downstar, Bornstellar looked at the Promethean who had provided the patterns for his mutation. "You seem to know this human. Who is he?"

"What does my imprint tell you?"

"That he is… more… than he appears to be at first glance."

The Didact nodded. "He is… a unique case. Before I entered my Cryptum, I made him my equal in power and rank, though not in scale of power." The Warrior-Servant looked at the displays the ship presented to him, but he did not see them. "That he and his are escorting my wife… means much. I cannot imagine that he would so lightly allow the indexing of the San'Shyuum." He closed his eyes.

"So what does this mean for us?"

"It means that our time is almost up."

John jerked back to awareness, once again on the deck of his flagship. He had fallen again when the vision began, but his armor had locked up before he could hurt himself like last time. [Why does this keep happening?] he asked of his Infected, [Does anyone know?]

'Us, Spartan,' stated L'Toress from her location on the FireRain, 'We the Gultanr. The infection was not one-sided as it first appeared. It seems as if our collective infection has given us all the resonance DNA strands.' She brought up the relevant information and released it for their perusal. 'As a group, we appear to be amplifying the vibration – the quantum pathways, the resonance – into a true vision of potential future events.'

[Crap.] He let his head fall back against the deck plating with a muffled 'thunk.' [And as the Gravemind of this Hive-consciousness-thingy, I'm the one who bears the full brunt of the effects.] His armor injected a painkiller into his system to clear up the migraine that the vision had caused, then unlocked.

'Thank the Goddesses for that!'

[Fuck you.]

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"Bornstellar Makes Eternal Lasting."

The rest of his family – his parents and sister – appeared surprised at the unexpected intrusion. The Spartan had blocked their ancillas' ability to detect him and the twins, who were serving as his bodyguards. The first-form seemed to have expected their arrival. "Elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo," John greeted formally, "a star shines upon the hour of our meeting. I apologize for the intrusion. I am the Supreme Commander of the Fleet of Shadows. The Supreme Mantle Court of the High Council has asked that you be collected to bear witness on behalf of the Didact, at the trial of the former Master Builder."

"What of the Didact himself?" Bornstellar asked, moving to stand before him. He topped the Spartan by a head, yet his body language made it clear that he viewed the two of them as equals. "Is he unable to bear his own witness?"

"His duties have taken him elsewhere." This was neither the time nor the place to reveal the fact that the Ur-Didact was believed to be among the dead on Janjur Qom.

"The Flood?" the first-form asked, "Is he off fighting the Flood?"

"The Flood is nothing but a stellar disease." Bornstellar's mother chose that moment to insert herself into their conversation. She seemed desperate to have her words confirmed by the Spartan. "It cannot reach us here."

John felt intense pity for her – so like the ecumene as a whole, denying the existence of a terrible plague until they could ignore it no longer, a scourge that needed to be eradicated even as it stared them in the face. Words came to him unbidden: "'For I have known this darkness,'" he said in Digon, one of the oldest Forerunner tongues, "'and felt its embrace once before – horror best laid to rest.'" A beat of silence – [My mouth speaks at another's behest…] – then, "It already has."

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A/N: For those of you who didn't know, serotonin is a compound that is a common product of chemical reactions involving antidepressants. It helps to stabilize mood.

Quenya Glossarybr /

elen síla lúmenn' omentielvo: a formal greeting. Lit [a] star shines upon the hour of our meeting.