The ground beneath
and above him trembled. The cave shook and
small particles of dust filled the air. The sound reminded Lt. Harkin
of a beast’s growl, that soft roar that the lost wolves of Eridanus
VII used to let go, right before striking down their prey. That’s
what they were, he thought, a helpless prey, and nothing more. The
menacing beast of the Covenant had taken it all. Reach, New Mombasa,
his sight and soon they would take the Earth. Humanity was doomed to
become nothing more than a whisper of the stars, just one more of the
hundreds of thounsands of creatures that had gone extinct.
He was useless;
the war had made him a tragedy. He had abandoned all hope, and
accepted fate as inevitable, just like the ancient Greek used to do
in those times of yore. The weapons he had used didn’t stop the
monsters; they hadn’t even scratched the fierce elites. Only a few
grunts had fallen to the filmsy bullets of the once trusty Assault
Rifle. And even then, it had ammounted to nothing. Grunts were much
like the Hydra, if you killed one, ten more took its place.
He had gone up in the
ranks, not through heroic deeds, or missions accomplished, but
through the sole act of surviving. Time and time again he had seen
his comarades fall, pierced by large pink needles, blown to pieces,
or victims of friendly fire. All died but him; the most useless and
coward of them all had survived. He who longed for death, lived to
see another day; and those who dreamt of a tomorrow, laid dead,
charred on the molten ground. Such a tragedy can only be the work of
fate, of an unavoidable and relentless fate.
He had tried to
anticipate it. He had walked willingly towards the glassing in New
Momabasa, but he hadn’t been reached by the blast radius. He wanted
it all to end, but he couldn’t muster the courage to put a bullet
to his head. It would dishonor those who
perished before him. His release from life would only happen in the
heat of battle. The glassing was the last he had seen. He could get
his sight back, or at least that’s what the medic had told him, but
only in a Hospital and with the right care and instruments. Out in
the battlefield there were no such concesions.
He wasn’t angry, he
prefered it that way, since he wouldn’t be able to dodge the plasma
bolts. The Covenant was coming, he knew better than to fool himself.
Commander Keyes said that they could find the base and that it would
happen eventualy. He liked her; she wasn’t like the others he had
served during the war. She didn’t lie to them. She was fierce and
strong, but she was way over her head. One frigate, a small base, a
few soldiers, mostly wounded, and some Pelicans could not stop the
Covenant. They only lived still, because they hadn’t moved forward,
but it was a matter of time. Death was coming. It didn’t matter how
many sorties they completed or how deep they dug, the Convenant would
find them.
Somenone carried him
to the Pelican’s landing bay, the uppermost
one in the base. He had requested to be there on some false heroic
excuse, he had been granted the request. He imagined no one would
have the heart to refuse him, every bit of morale was necessary. Even
if he was blind, he could still reflect the spirit of the UNSC
soldiers. The truth, however, was grim. He thought that that
particular landing bay was the base weakest point, and surely the
first to be raided.
That morning
he didn´t hear the usual early roars of the Pelicans. Three left
instead of the usual two. And half an hour later, a fourth. He had
been there enough times to know something was off.
“This is it” he
said to himself as he relaxed by the stairs. It was a matter of
waiting now. Only a few more hours and the end would come. Death
would stand before him, give him back his sight and let him read the
pages of his destiny that were written long ago. He hoped he would
die like the greek of the island of Milos, who did not struggle with
fate, but instead accepted it humbly, as was narrated by Thucydides.
He remembered that
there was another time when he would wait for hours.
Just like the people on the island saw the Athenian army of three
thounsand strong and expected Spartan help, he had hoped a Spartan
would come. Those towering convenant murdering machines that were
undefeatable. He had waited so many times for them, and they had
never shown. Not once, not to save him, not to save his comarades,
not to save the people of Milos. He was convinced they were no more
than a lie, a carefuly built ruse to push them to fight harder, to
hold the line one more minute. But it had been pointless, almost
everything was lost. And what little remained would soon disappear.
The engines of the Pelican crackled as the thrusters stoped and the
huge metalic bird landed.
“A Spartan!”
someone claimed. Harkin’s heart skipped a beat.
“For real?!” he
could barely believe it.
“Yeah man! For
real!”
And so, everything he
hoped came to be, a Spartan had come for him.
