Epilogue: Return of the King
Wake up?
Wake up?!
A dream? Was it all just a dream? The feeling of a hundred thousand other consciousness' brushing against my own, soothing in the slow murmur of their conversations amongst themselves – the individual thoughts and feelings and memories of thousands of others – my servants, my friends, my brothers- and sisters-in-arms – a dream?!
After so long of being full with the lives of others, the silence – the emptiness – was unbearable.
Had they been imprints, recollections of brave warriors, awoken by cryosleep and near-infection, spun into a fantasy more real than reality? Had they been Forerunners once, Duances – memories of the deceased that the Librarian had implanted in me the same way she had Chakas and Riser, the friends of the new Didact? And Cortana, I carried her inside my mind to prevent her from crashing before I could get her help, inadvertently grafting a lot of my own "coding" onto her – was that a dream, too? An amplified version of the feeling I got when she was integrated with my armor?
For the first time in my life, I raged against the injustice of my situation. Inadvertently, I had given myself a taste of what I could have had – the friends I could have made, the life I could have lived, the love I could have known. I had felt freedom for the first time in my memory – been close enough to hold it in my hands – and it had been snatched away, not once, but twice.
If I had never become a Spartan, if I had never gone to the Ark, what kind of life would I have led? What kind of air would I have breathed? What worlds would I have walked, discoveries would I have made, lives would I have touched?
And ultimately… what end would I have met?
I never would have touched the Parallel… never would have known their loss because I never would have known them…
It is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.
Is it? Truly, is it? Is it worth it? I will carry this emptiness with me for the rest of my days – the memories of the life I could have had will never fade, not completely – after all I have gone through, is the comfort of my Infected too much to ask?!
:John, wake up:
It was her voice. I could hear her calling to me, though she sounded as if she was speaking from deep under water or far away in a cave.
She needed me.
I responded to her as best I could, fighting the chill of the cryochamber. My body felt strangely stiff, like I was weaker than I had been – but if I was no longer a Gravemind, that was now the case.
:I need you!:
:Please!:
My heart started beating, the pace accelerating rapidly as the adrenaline still in my system jump-started my return to normal. My body was beginning to give me feedback, blood pumping fast and hot.
:Wake up, John!:
My senses finally returned to combat readiness.
She was waiting.
"Chief!"
My helmet lights flickered on. I blinked around for just as second before forcing the cryotube lid up when it refused to open on its own. I moved swiftly over to the holopedestal where my artificial intelligence stood.
"John," Cortana gasped. The jarring of the ship made it impossible for me to get a good look at her, but her voice made her relief at my presence clear.
"I'm here," I told her, but an explosion interrupted anything else I could have said, blowing open the titanium doors on the far end of the hall. My AI crouched on the holopedestal to shield herself from the blast, despite the fact that she was immaterial, holding her hands above her head – an instinct left over from her creation from the mind of a living human, perhaps. She sorted herself into her chip in moments. I yanked her from the slot and pushed off the pedestal, triggering the jetpack built into my new MJOLNIR – it-it hadn't been that way before. When, when had it...?
No time. I ducked under a flying oxygen tank in the hall beyond. As I moved through towards the severed end of the Dawn, there was another explosion off to our right, sending the blasted remains of what looked like the FTL drive towards us. I managed to evade it by grabbing hold of a twisted beam over the next blast door and pulling us out of the way. I swung down, kicked the doors open – and almost immediately had to push off one I-beam to duck under another of its more massive siblings splitting the center of the machine shop beyond.
The remains of the Dawn were falling apart around us. As a result of the low gravity, there was a lot of free-floating debris between us and relative safety – and weapons. I snagged the pistol as it came towards us, fired when I saw that it was still loaded. The compressed liquid nitrogen hit the doors blocking our way out. It hissed, weakened the metal enough to where the pressure of the air still inside was able to force it open.
When I saw the void of space beyond, and the bright glow of an unknown Portal, I grabbed on to one of the warped struts to the left of the door before we could be flung free into space. The magnetic grippers in my boots activated, enabling me to let go and reload the pistol.
Even through my armor, I could feel the heat of the explosions behind me; a fine ship in her death throes, but refusing to go silently into the night (I conveniently ignored the fact that sound could not travel in space).
The Dyson Sphere before us (for there was no doubt in my mind that this was what it was) was a simply massive construction, at least as large as the Sol System out to Jupiter's orbit if not bigger. This one's surface was exposed, the frame and plating bare to space, not a true Slipspace Shield World the way the others were – or, were supposed to be. The last of three massive security airlocks was opening on the side facing us, the outer two having already slid away into the armor of the sphere.
The sun inside was blindingly bright; my visor fully polarized to block out the dangerous levels of light. The star's gravity was pulling us in.
And we had no means of escape.
Was this how it was going to end? Our journey – however real or imagined – cut short by a fall into the gravity well of a – what kind of star was this? A white dwarf? A neutron star? Surely the Forerunners wouldn't be that crazy – oh, wait. They allowed the Flood to ravage the Milky Way unchecked for three hundred years – and then built the Halos. Yes. Yes, they would be that crazy.
Dammit. We were so dead.
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Total word count: 57 769
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Ladies and gentlemen, good evening,
You've seen that seeing is believing;
Your ears and your eyes will be bleeding.
Please check to see if you're still breathing.
Hold tight cause the show is not over!
If you will please move in closer,
You're about to be bowled over
By the wonders you're about to behold here…
-"Ladies and Gentlemen," Saliva (Blood Stained Love Story)