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Shadows of Archon II (part 29) - Oh Great, Now What?
Posted By: Wado<wyamauchi@msn.com>
Date: 27 November 2002, 9:51 am
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A dedication from the author:
As there are only about 4 chapters left in this series, this chapter is dedicated to Knightmare, Sarge, Arch, Diablo, and Spart who have been there from the beginning. I'd also like to mention MasterChief, Vero, Kyle (or is it now The sword of the admiral) who have provided inspiration through thoughtful comments for some time and new comers like Xzilen. If I've missed anyone, sorry, it's my oversight.
For them I've written this in the style of my original series, "The Return of the Archons." Without further ado, here it is. Enjoy...
------------------------------------------------
Oh Great, Now What?
John wiped the newly formed frost from his visor. As he gazed across the glitter filled room, now severely obscured in a thick fog, he no longer saw it as a room filled with a kingdom's treasure, but only as a prison. John would trade all this treasure, his weapons and even his army of tiny robots just for one working thermal generator or a pile of dry kindling. Yes, a nice old-fashioned campfire would be more than welcome right now, beside a cabin on the lakeside roasting marshmallows and telling scary stories.
Cortana's words snapped John back to the reality of the situation. "Chief systems failing, it's some kind of energy dampener field. Shutting down communications to conserve power..." Those were the last words John heard from Cortana.
The cold, oh the bitter cold... John looks at his suit controls, his environmental suit is failing; his shields are down. With ice filling his lungs, each breath becomes colder and harder than the last.
"A plan, need to think of a plan..." John utters as his vision starts to blur. In the icy cold John's body begins to numb but his mind becomes clear. He remembers the Grunt, the poor Grunt scientist.
John looks at his new friend, Master Noc Covenstein, rolled up on the ground shivering like a small animal in the dead of winter. This little Grunt saved John's ass just minutes ago, but there was no fighting them, the Forerunners are just too clever and powerful.
"Hang in there, Noc," said John in a commanding voice as he covered the Grunt in priceless gems creating a makeshift blanket. John thought, why would an advanced race like the Forerunners have a treasure room like this, especially aboard a strike cruiser?
"No matter," said John and then he began to hum battle hymns from ancient times. With a fire in his heart, he moved ever so persistently, picking up discarded weapons and placing them about like a science or art project. When he seemed satisfied with his work, he sat down on the ground, his silhouette the shape of an armored warrior monk. There was nothing to do now but wait and stay awake -- must stay awake.
[Fade to black. Much time passes in darkness.]
"System starting..." read John's HUD, but John lay still as the night.
Approaching voices were heard. Still John remained unmoving.
"Is it dead?" said a voice not unlike a young woman's.
"No my lady, he is wanted alive, but the dampener field did its job well" said another deeper voice. "The thing is that primitives like these are so predictable, always so good at the close combat but after one devastating area of effect attack and they are history."
"Commander, was it necessary to turn off the dampener field so soon," said a third voice.
"Yes Nietche, quite necessary," replied the deeper voice. "His vitals appeared too low, he must be taken alive. Now grab him and let's get out of here."
"Alert, enemy weapons arming," said a monotone voice in the background.
Psssh, bam, sizzle... weapons fire from all around. John had booby-trapped the whole area contingent on the two captured Forerunner weapons. These weapons did not have enough energy to fire in the dampener field but still remained functional in a standby mode. When power was restored, they fired. At the same time dozens of needler grenades were launched into the air, how they could tell enemy from friend John did not know -- attribute that to Covenstein's genius.
When he heard no more explosions, John rolled up on one knee with Battle Rifle in hand. All around him dying Immortals (Imperial Elites) twitched and bled, but John had little focus on them, in his sights was a beautiful young woman with fire in her eyes and a dark mist in orbit around her. One of the dying Immortals had fallen too close to the dark mist and John could see the arm of the Elite dissolve in mere seconds leaving only bones and armor.
"Don't move," commanded John. "Who and what are you?"
"How dare you speak to a goddess in such a tone, but then, maybe I should get used to it, you are the vessel that Margoth has chosen to return in. Hmm... Spartan, you can call me Xeth, the Lady Xeth."
John moves and retrieves one of the Forerunner weapons and places it over his left hand and arm. In his right he kept hold of his rifle, never once taking his rifle sights off of Xeth, but cautiously looking about for something else.
"Spartan, if you are worried about others, don't -- it is just you and me. I sent that new Voice of Morgoth to his ship. Oh, you probably know him as the Prophet Lextus. What an insistent creature, he actually thought that he was going to present you to Margoth. I could not see that happening so I took the liberty to intercept this ship. Oh your body will look so good on Margoth," Xeth said with a smirk.
"I hate to rain on your parade Lady, but that's not gonna happen," remarked John as he kneeled down to help Covenstein get up.
"Thank you Spartan," said Covenstein in a noble but high voice, then the Grunt quickly assembled a small weapon resembling a crossbow and placed an ornate blue bolt in the shaft. Pointing the weapon at Xeth he smiled saying, "Allow me, courtesy of the Archons."
"Hiss, those meddlers," screeched Xeth. "I command you to put that thing away or I'll..."
"Or what my Lady, for a goddess you sure sweat like a Gundarian weeble," replied Covenstein. "This nice missile reacts to your Forerunner power levels, the more power you exert the more it seeks you. If you raise your power level to teleport or to blast us, it will automatically fire. Do you feel lucky, goddess, well do you?"
Xeth turns her head away from Covenstein as if the mere sight of the missile disturbed her.
"Nice going Noc, keep an eye on her, and be careful that mist around her dissolves flesh," said John. "Cortana, are you there?"
"Just one moment Chief," replied Cortana. "There, diagnostics completed, I'm here, I'm all here. Oh great, now what. Chief, I've got a memory parody error and a power leak in a secondary neural array system, tracing and purge failed."
"How serious is this?" asked John.
"Not serious but it is exhibiting the properties of a virus, no telling what kind of damage or backdoors it might leave," explained Cortana, "and I've got to put more cycles in containing rogue processes."
"I can help with this," said Covenstein. "Spartan, have this Forerunner lead us to the ship's control room while I help Cortana, here is the Archonian weapon."
As Covenstein and Cortana worked on solving their problem, Xeth reluctantly led the group to the control room. Once there, Xeth insisted on looking out the main holo-viewers.
"We have arrived, Spartan," said Xeth.
"Spartan, these controls indicate that we have reached Sanctum, the Covenant Seat of Power," said Covenstein. "How is this possible, oh yes, in the energy dampener field we must have been placed in a form of stasis. Minutes, hours to us might have been days and weeks."
"Yes this is Sanctum," said Xeth, "and as you can see there is not much left of your mighty Covenant, not much left except slaves to the gods and food for the Flood."
"No, this can't be..." replied Covenstein as he looked in sadness and disillusionment. The planets, once housing billions of Covenant were now blackened orbs of glass. Covenant ships, once great and noble, now drift, derelicts in space.
"At first they fought admirably, honor before death, truth and the holy spirit," added Xeth, "but after the Flood was released onto your worlds, your leaders ordered the glassing of your own planets to stop the plague. After that, the heart and soul was ripped from the Covenant. Wait, it even gets worse, look yonder, those broken fragments are a few from the hundreds of small ring worlds that we destroyed, each of those rings contained the tombs of your greatest dead Prophets. Did you not recognize the treasures aboard this very ship? Yes, pillaged from the tombs of your more greedy Prophets. You are months too late to save your kind. Did you even think that your species, a bunch of insects to the great gods, would even stand a glimmer of a chance? You are an idealistic idiot. A peon, a fool, a stupid... arrrrrgh, nooooooo!"
The ground shakes and into a multi-colored vortex is sucked Xeth, never to be seen again. John lowers the Archonian weapon and removes his finger from the trigger. Outside, the enormous asteroid ship of Xeth's vanishes into nothingness.
"Thank you," said Covenstein with tears in his eyes, "I had not the will to act, yet I wished for nothing more than its demise. Spartan, Xeth has been unmade by the Archons, but I am told the cost is much, a great Archon and Starguardian has perished for this act to succeed. Xeth might be reborn in some other place and some other time but will continue to meet a horrible demise until she does an unselfish and good act of such magnitude that it makes up for the untimely demise of the Archon and Starguardian. So I am told, so I am told..."
"Chief, good news," interjected Cortana. "I isolated and contained the issue, I can't seem to purge it yet but it won't be causing any more problems."
"That is good news Cortana," remarked John, "and now what can you do with this ship?"
"Already working on it," replied Cortana.
"Me too," said Covenstein.
"You know Chief, I've been wondering, those Archons sure have helped us, why do you suppose?" asked Cortana.
"Noc, can you give us some answers?"
"I cannot tell you much Spartan due to reasons I cannot tell you, but I can say that the Archons are like a light that guides and burns brightest in the heart. Their light shines on living things and creates shadows. These shadows work the magic and protect the life. We, Spartan, are these shadows. We are the Shadows of Archon."
John looks back out the holo-viewer, the three of them against 20,000 Forerunner ships, this is going to be one hell of a fight.
-- Next, Payback --
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