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Chapter 16: Rekindling
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          The upside down face hovering over Halley’s was terribly odd. In some ways it was like an elite, in other ways it was drastically different. The demon didn’t understand at first why the little face was peering down at her; the other Spartan children aside, she’d never had younger brothers and sisters. She raised a white brow, scowling at the little creature. “What do you want?”

          It pulled back and sat on it’s heels, tail lashing. “You saved my sister.” It’s voice was as high-pitched and jaunty as any amused human child’s, and Halley sat up, yawning.

          “So you felt the need to wake me.”

          “I wanted to see if you would turn purple again.” He cracked the San’greal version of a grin. Halley laid back down and rolled over, thankful that of all the technologies that humans and Sangheili had developed similarly, pillows were a universal constant. She tugged one over her head, and went back to sleep.

          A clawed hand reached down and grabbed the top pillow a short while later, and Halley scowled daggers up at the calm, passive elite standing over her. “It is time to wake.”

          “Is there a rulebook somewhere that says ‘if it’s alien, wake it’ and you all just LOVE acting it out?”

          Miira let one mandible drop open in befuddlement.

          “Come on, Halley, there’s an artifact being moved to the temple. We need to start planning.” Bekka offered a hand up, grinning. “Miira thinks-” She tugged on Halley’s arm and made a noise, eyes widening. “How much do you weigh?”

          “There’s carbon bonded to the latticework of my bones; they’re nearly indestructible, but I weight a lot more then a normal woman my size.” Halley stood on her own, smirking.

          “Have you ever broken a bone before?”

          “Yes.”

          “Wow. To break nearly indestructible bones… that really must have hurt!” Bekka blinked in awe at the Spartan, who smirked back.

          “I fell off a fifty meter cliff face onto my arm. Didn’t have time to increase the gel layer pressure…” She frowned softly, thinking back. It was easy to get caught in that memory, dying at the bottom of a cliff with her heart pumping blood and coolant into the rocks; John had been the one to find her. Bekka tilted her head at the ex-soldier, and grinned.

          “You’re thinking of him again, aren’t you?”

          “What? No.” Halley scowled fiercely. Time spent among the aliens was wearing her down, the carefully built façade of stoicism starting to slip.

          “You were, your face got all soft and your head tilted and you started to smi-”

          “Artifact. You mentioned an artifact.” Halley cut the girl off abruptly, looking at Miira.

          “We are in luck. The minor Prophet of this temple, and that of a temple in a similar colony base share a relic between them. Twice a year it changes hands, and it is the only time that the artifact is not trapped behind powerful shields. It will be heavily guarded, but between my skill with the blades, Patki’s aim and your demon shell, we can-”

          “Demon shell?”

          “The crystal shell you summoned to capture a temple guard’s sword in.”

          “I can’t do that on purpose.” Can I? Penitent’s only response was a derisive snort, seeming to think the plights of her mundane human facet below her attentions. Halley sighed, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Think of it as a defensive mechanism that I can’t consciously control.”

          “Then you are soft and powerless.” Miira sighed, mimicking Halley’s eye roll.

          Siilana’Ithica padded towards those conversing; her son tugged her forward by the hem of the skirt-like garment she was wearing. “We could not help but overhear your conversation. Before his death, my husband and I shared a business repairing and maintaining the combat suits Elites wear… I believe I may yet have enough parts to build one for a creature your size.”

          Halley blinked in surprise. “Why would you do such a thing?”

          “You saved my child.” Siilana smiled, and shook her head. “That alone would be enough. If you require more motive, however, it was the temple guards who killed my husband for the ‘crime’ of lifting his eyes as they passed by, carrying their holy treasure. Within my heart there is a dark place that craves to see their blood anoint the very thing they carry.”

          Halley met her eyes, and nodded. If it were John who’s life had been stolen for some petty misdeed, she would do anything to see him avenged. “How long would it take?”

          “There are some things we need; if you and Miira could procure them, I can start as soon as we have measured you.” Halley nodded again and sighed. As much as she hated being touched anymore, she couldn’t argue that it was for a good reason. Once Siilana was content with her sizes she sent the Elite and the human woman to the open market with a list scrawled on a piece of foolscap.

          The market was less busy then  their first journey into it, and Halley’s lips eventually curled into a little smile, looking at the stalls. “Like a giant farmer’s market.”

          “What?” Miira glanced down.

          “John and I… would plan out vacation time together, sneak off for a week or two a year to some planet on the edge of UNSC space. We… wound up on a farming planet one year. They had this huge market, where people sold toys, and farming equipment, and vegetables,” she trailed off, smiling fondly. “Junk, really. But it was enchanting, in it’s own way. John never understood normal people, he was always so uptight in a crowd. Made me look relaxed by comparison.”

          “You only visited your lover once per cycle?” Miira blinked. “How can affection last under such tight constraints?”

          Halley laughed, closing her eyes and gazing up at the reflective satellites that shone like a hundred tiny suns over the colony’s face. “We made two weeks worth it.”

          “I am glad you speak of him now; you are not so broken, I think, as when we first met.” Halley snorted, and looked away, something shiny catching her eyes. Her lips pursed, and she walked towards a stall with signs in every language claiming “Human Artifacts.” The junk was a mixture of gutted human tech, dolls with painted faces and trash, but for one treasure in the back of the stall behind a glass case.

          Halley sucked in a shuddering breath. The expressionless MJOLNIR visor gazed back. “May I-” She bit her lip, closing her eyes, as Miira stepped up.

          “Let me see the green helmet.”

          The Kig-yar scowled at her shrewdly, but taking her for a wealthy Sangheili by the fine cut of her armor, he unlatched the case and handed the helmet over. “The scull of a demon. The rest of the carapace is missing, but the scull was found by my sister’s kit. I’ll let it go for no less then ten thousand cred.”

          Miira snorted in outrage at the price, but Halley gently took the helmet. Her heart nearly sank through the soles of her feet at the idea of finding a Spartan scull inside, but when she turned it over there was nothing but the soft, padded interior. She pried at the back of the helmet, where the padding was loose, and the Kig-yar yelped and hissed. She quirked a smile, and glanced at Miira. “Never worn, this must have been a backup suit. First thing we do when we’re assigned a new helmet is scratch our number in here.” She showed the little blank plate of metal. “I asked John, once; his team actually started the tradition. This was never worn by a Spartan.” She handed it back reluctantly, wanting to cling to the last little piece of her previous life.

          Miira handed it back and made a face. “Ten thousand cred? You will never get such a price.”

          “Then it will never sell.” He quipped it right back, and relocked the case. Halley gazed back longingly as Miira nudged her down the row.

          “Come on demon… you can gaze at your old shell later.”


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          The green armored Spartan gazed down at the slender man who boarded the Draconic, fingers gently sliding under the trigger guard of the pistol on his hip. Though Bob claimed he wished them no harm, it was in the Chief’s experience to trust someone exactly as far as he could throw them, with no MJOLNIR and in triple gravity. Bob smiled lamely up at him, and John sighed behind the expressionless facemask. It was official.

          He was acting like an idiot out of love.

          “It had to happen some time, Chief.” Cortana sounded amused, coming through his speakers.

          “Reading minds now?” He gestured towards the bridge and Bob walked ahead of him, hands in his pockets and looking as nonchalant as a civilian out for a Sunday stroll.

          “No, I just know you. And I know this isn’t like you. And I know that whatever vision you saw, Spartan-292 was in it, alive. You sigh like that, and it means you know what you’re doing is against the norm. Which means you’ve finally admitted to yourself that you do have a heart.”

          “…I’m sorry, were you still talking? I stopped paying attention after the word ‘know’.”

          “Sarcasm on your part doesn’t make my deductions any less correct, Chief.”

          “If you start the kissing song, I swear I’ll download you to a chip and leave you in storage the rest of the trip.”

          “The kissing song?” She laughed softly in disbelief. Bob paused, holding up a hand, and the Chief pointed out the bridge again.

          “You know the one. ‘So-and-so, and so-and-so, sitting in a tree’…” He paused. “The marines used to use it to tease each other. Lotta gay jokes, actually.”

          Cortana giggled in his head, genuinely amused. Bob finally reached the bridge, and offered a hand to Matthieson. “Thank you for bringing us onboard. We are taking readings of your ship, and should be able to jump to Slipspace without incident within the hour.”

          Matthieson nodded, and frowned. “Will there be any more of those temporal distortions?” Drac and Cyke looked at each other, text flashing between them at the speed of thought, and Jhonen frowned.

          “Nothing you will notice. I can give you the coordinates to the nearest artifact. Given how slow your ships move, we would place the trip at about a week’s time.” He shrugged, again slipping between the singular and plural nominative with no rhyme or reason.

          John shifted weight from one hip to the other, as close to a fidget as the man was capable of. He couldn’t think of a way to ask if they were heading in her direction that didn’t sound desperate, off-topic, or both. It wasn’t like him to get so worked up, but after months of believing she was tortured to death and forever lost, the glimmer of hope that she’d lived was near blinding in it’s intensity. He wanted to wring Bob’s neck till he spewed out Halley’s direction, point the ship that way and race in guns blazing like he had for Cortana.

          He wanted to heal the broken look he’d seen in her eyes for that heartbeat when he’d been able to bridge the gap; wanted to just hold on to her and forget all else. Wanted to whisper fierce words of love and adoration over and over in her ears; words he’d held back too long and been twice denied the chance to tell her. The Spartan wanted, just once, to care about his own happiness.

          “You okay Chief?” Cortana spoke softly in his helmet speakers, sounding concerned. “Your blood pressure and heart rate just picked up.”

          “I’m fine.” His voice was stony, but the quiet thought under it was laced with self-pity and longing. I want her back!


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          Halley and Miira returned from the market with a basket full of parts that could be used or converted to be used in the suit of armor Siilana was constructing. Halley didn’t speak a word, disappearing into a quiet corner to mourn her Spartans. A heavy price of breaking out of the feral funk she’d been subsisting in was the need to acknowledge the losses she had suffered. Her family was dead or out of touch; her only companions members of the very race that had driven hers to the edge of extinction.

          Miira headed back out almost immediately; the demon was not pleasant company when brooding. The white-haired woman was left alone for hours, until the San’Greal youth who had called her an angel walked over to her corner and sat down, quietly. Halley ignored her for a long time, eyes locked on empty space. Eventually the girl began to pleat her ribboned skirt, and Halley looked over at her.

          “I cannot imagine I am intriguing enough in my silence to keep you from being bored, so what do you want?” She frowned; a clear sign of her agitation was the tight, clipped syllables of the Sangheili language getting muddled in her soft human mouth. She slurred terribly when she wasn’t paying attention.

          “I wish to ask a question, but I did not wish to interrupt your meditation.”

          “I’m not meditating, I’m sitting here feeling sorry for myself.” Halley scowled and pulled a fuzz of fabric off her belted skirt.

          The girl smiled and leaned over, her voice conspiratorial. “I do the same thing, sometimes.” She pulled back and shrugged. “I am curious what your people believe happens after death.”

          Halley blinked, and shrugged. “Humans have many beliefs. Some people envision a heaven, where everyone who’s ever died goes and joins some giant party where everything is good, and you’re happy forever. Other people claim your spirit rejoins the spirit of the universe; all your questions answered, all your pains and pleasures shed for some mega oneness.” The little Spartan frowned, staring at the fraying hem.

           “What do you believe?”

          “Don’t ask me that.” Halley frowned softly, eyes lifting to meet the girl’s. “You’re young, and you have your own beliefs. Let that be enough.”

          “But I wish to know. Knowing what you believe will not make me automatically agree.” She grinned, and tilted her head. Halley closed her eyes, head bowed.

          “I believe that death is the end. Final rest. No special place among the stars, no great journey, just a cession of life, as if you never existed.”

          The girl looked up, surprised. “Honestly? Then… you never pray? Ever?”

          The Spartan shrugged and shook her head. “I never pray, never saw a point. I’ll hope, and I believe in luck, but that’s about as spiritual as I get, I’m afraid.”

          The girl smiled and stood, nodding as if some long missed secret was finally revealed and a mystery that long eluded her suddenly was solved. “Then I will pray for us both, angel.” She turned and skipped back to the room her mother was working in, Halley scowling after.

          “I’m not an-” The door closed. “-angel.” Miira returned later in the evening through the back door, and barely nodded to Halley once she entered the main room. She sat in her hammock and swayed, changing the batteries on her plasma swords. For the Sangheili female, it was almost a nervous habit.

          Patki and Bekka returned with a layout of the city wheedled from a bored sewer-worker, and most of the night was spent planning for how the Elites and the Spartan would ambush the temple guardsmen. Miira was concerned, but Patki seemed to think it all a grand adventure.

          “Come on. Think about it.” Patki shrugged. “No one ever dares attack them, they probably haven’t even been in a fight in years. Some of those old loosejaws are so heavy their armor doesn’t fit right any more, and that’s not muscle.” He grinned at Miira, who sighed.

          “Even with our military training, this will be difficult. There are usually fifteen guards. Numbers can play a part even when skill is lax.” She sighed, and made a face. “Demon, have you ever used a plasma sword before?”

          Halley laughed, and nodded. “Yeah. John’s better with them then I am, because of his reach, but after we learned the elites had swords, the UNSC sent both Spartan classes through an intensive training program in fencing. In MJOLNIR I’m damn near untouchable. Without it?” She shrugged. “I can probably fend for myself, at least. I’d sell my kidneys for a shotgun, though.”

          “Kidneys?” Miira attempted the word, and Halley laughed. For all her moments of brooding solitude, her ability to let go and smile was slowly returning.

          “A necessary body part.”

          “Then what good would trading them in do you, if you would simply die with this ‘shot-gun’ in your hands?”

          Halley grinned, not bothering to explain the figure of speech. “For a Spartan, it would be preferable.”

          “If you are going to die, do it with a weapon in hand? I can respect that.” Patki smiled, liking the white-haired human more and more. She reminded him of his old unit commander, back in training. Nearly half his size and with a voice twice as high in pitch, she still managed to evoke the same sense of pride. This was a warrior worth fighting beside.

          Bekka was the first one to give up on their plans and go to sleep, and Halley was the last. Long after even Miira laid down, the little Spartan poured over details, trying to make them gel. Wishing John was there to give her advice, help form a plan. She hugged her knees, looking around the alien room. Her eyes fell on the map in front of her, and the little pictographs blurred together as tears tried to well up in her eyes. She wiped them away, and let her head rest on her knees.

          “I miss you, John. I really… really miss you.” No voice called her from the darkness; no gentle gauntleted hands breached the distance to cup her face and draw her into those strong, safe arms. Even Penitent was silent in the depths of her mind. Homesick and heartsick, Halley gave up on planning and curled up on her pallet.


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          “Demon, wake up!” Halley opened her eyes, biting back the desire to just scream at the figure disturbing her sleep. She couldn’t hit Miira, either; the Elite had long since learned to wake Halley at range.

          “This had better damn well be good.” She sat up with a groan, and stood.

          “Your armor is finished.”

          Halley blinked, looking at the San’Greal female nodding calmly in agreement. “That was amazingly fast.”

          “Most of it was simply tailoring an old suit to fit your size, but my people are gifted with a kind of trance. Within it we can fix on one task and complete it very, very quickly, but to the exclusion of all else. I have not eaten or slept since I began.” Siilana looked tired, but strong on her feet still.

          Halley blinked, and nodded. “My thanks, then.” She walked towards the back room, and stepped in. And possibly for the first time in her life, stumbled over her own feet, gaping. It was an Elite’s armor, a smooth tight rubber making up the body suit, with the bright shell of armor plating designed to clip onto it in certain areas for additional protection. For all that it was supposedly old parts, it looked shiny and new.

          What stopped her in her tracks was the helmet. It was similar to a Sangheili helm, but far smaller, and where they usually had a sharp nose guard that protected their mandibles, this one had a smooth, gold visor. It was unmistakable; the helmet she had seen the day before was here, gutted and reshaped to fit an odd, hybrid design. It was lovely.

          Even for such a short time, Siilana or her children had seen fit to mix pigments to create a color that matched the helmet exactly, the Elite plating in a lovely reflective shade of MJOLNIR green. She covered her mouth with both hands, cheeks wet with tears she could not help but shed. Siilana smiled softly, placing a long fingered hand on the Spartan’s trembling shoulder.

          “The shields are strong. Miira told me your old armor increased your strength; I am sorry but we do not have the technology available to do that. The suit is lightweight, however, it should offer far more protection then simple skin.” Halley couldn’t answer, there were no words. She stepped forward, and took the helm off the rack. The angled lines cut into the gold visor stared back at her like an old friend, and she sank to her knees, sobbing softly in relief. I am a Spartan… you can rip me away from the UNSC but I will always find my way home, I AM A SPARTAN.

          Siilana frowned, worried, and took a half step towards the girl, thinking she’d erred. Miira stopped her with a raised hand, and led her back out of the room. “I thought she would be pleased.”

          “I have known the demon some time, now. She does not shed salt water for much, but when she does, it is from extreme emotion. I have seen her sad, many, many times. I do not believe that those are tears of sadness, Siilana. I think you just gave her part of her spirit back.”

          Siilana’s daughter peered into the room, and then smiled back at her mother, nodding. “You see? I can pray for us both.”