Meridian Divide

by Cassandra Rose Clarke

  At first, Evie didn’t quite grasp what Captain Dellatorre was saying.

  No extraction. No way off Meridian.

  “Are you certain?” Commander Marechal asked. “My group’s been through a lot as it is, and we still have the Covenant bearing down on us. That artifact itself could be a damn beacon.”

  “I understand,” Captain Dellatorre said. “Which is why ONI has decided to send you to Annecy. You are stranded on the moon, but transport north should be manageable.”

  The tent seemed to collapse in like a black hole. The entire reason Dorian had even come up with the backup plan was to get them off Meridian faster. And now they were going to be heading deeper into the fighting? She blinked rapidly, trying to hold back tears. Commander Marechal was leaning forward, speaking with Captain Dellatorre about the details of the plan, but their voices seemed to meld together into gibberish. She looked up at Owen. His gaze flicked toward her, just for a second, and she saw the sympathy in his eyes.

  “Rousseau,” Captain Dellatorre said, jerking Evie out of her fog of panic.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Evie straightened up.

  “My scientists are curious to know more about the artifact. Could you please go over how you were able to activate it? In detail, please.”

  Evie’s thoughts were a confused jumble of fear and confusion. She opened her mouth, unsure where to start. Everyone was staring at her.

  “It was a puzzle,” she began, her voice shaky. “And I did my best to solve it.”

  Thirty minutes later, Commander Marechal had called the remaining members of the militia together, ready to relay Captain Dellatorre’s orders. Evie found the rest of Local Team, still shaky from the meeting in the Command tent.

  “Is everything okay?” Saskia asked. “What’s going on? What’s this meeting about?”

  Evie shook her head. “It’s not good.”

  “What do you mean?” Dorian said.

  “I’ve got new orders,” Commander Marechal said, clomping into the center of the encampment. “We’re leaving Brume-sur-Mer.”

  “Oh, wow, seriously?” Victor laughed. “Why were you keeping that from us, Evie?”

  Dorian, though, only frowned. “He said leaving Brume-sur-Mer. Not leaving Meridian.”

  Victor’s laughter vanished. “What the hell does that mean?”

  Saskia shushed him, led the group up to where the rest of the survivors had peeled themselves away from their resting places and into a ring around Commander Marechal and Owen. Evie’s throat was dry.

  “We’ve made contact with ONI,” Commander Marechal said. “And I have some bad news.”

  Dorian twisted around and looked at Evie. She just shook her head, hopeless.

  “They can’t get us off Meridian. Not right now, at least.”

  Angry voices rose up from the militia, an intense rumble of discontent. “So what are you going to have us do?” someone shouted. “Just sit around here until the Covenant come and pick us off one by one?”

  There was a surge of angry agreement. The commander looked unfazed.

  “The artifact we recovered contained a map,” he said, and then launched into a brief description of what Evie had accomplished earlier. “And because we are presently stranded here on Meridian,” Owen said, “ONI has decided to send us to Annecy. We’ll be moving out immediately, so as to avoid Covenant retaliation—they’re already scouring the area around the original camp, so we have to act fast.”

  Saskia gave a sharp inward gasp, and Evie instinctively reached over and grabbed her friend’s hand. She felt that fear herself.

  “Did they tell you that in there?” Saskia whispered.

  Evie nodded grimly.

  “What the hell’s in Annecy?” yelled Dubois.

  Commander Marechal sighed. “We don’t know. It will be our job to find out.”

  “I’m not asking about what that map is directing us to,” he snapped back. “I’m asking what the hell’s in Annecy. Is it Covenant-occupied? Abandoned? What?”

  “Soldier, you’re being impertinent,” Commander Marechal snapped. “The city was evacuated yesterday. As such, we don’t have a full picture of what—”

  Groans erupted from the group. The commander held up his hand, yelled, “Enough! I’ll remind you that we were sent to Meridian to secure whatever the Covenant was after. But the object in Brume-sur-Mer isn’t what they were after, at least not ultimately. Ergo, our mission has not been completed.”

  Owen stepped forward. “Sir, if I may …” When Commander Marechal nodded, he turned toward Dubois and the rest of the survivors. “Extraction isn’t possible right now with the Covenant orbital presence. You all know we cannot stay in Brume-sur-Mer. Our options here are limited.”

  Dorian stepped forward. “I’ve got a question.”

  “No one can be extracted,” Owen said. “Not even Local Team. But all of you are capable of handling yourselves.”

  “That’s not what my question is about,” Dorian said coldly. “I wanted to know how we’re getting to Annecy if the Covenant are after us here and orbital transport’s blocked. It’s on the other side of the moon.”

  A couple of militia members agreed, and Owen smiled slightly, just for a flicker of a second.

  “We are aware of that, Nguyen.” Commander Marechal activated a glowing map of the forests surrounding Brume-sur-Mer. Vast areas of it were marked bloody with red light; Evie realized that was Brume-sur-Mer itself and the original camp. Covenant-controlled territory. “If you will stand down, as is expected of you, I will explain the situation.”

  Dorian stepped back, his cheeks flushed red.

  Commander Marechal looked out at the crowd. “I understand that you are upset,” he said. “I understand what we have been through. But we have orders, and we have protocols, and we aren’t going to dissolve into chaos because you are unhappy. Now”—he gestured at the map— “we will hike north through the woods, following this trail here.” A blue line lit up on the map. “It’s not a true trail, but we’ve determined it will get us through the woods in optimal time. This will take us to Desmarais, where we will load up on an in-atmo cargo freighter. The pilot is part of the Meridian Air Force and will get us to Annecy in a couple of hours.”

  The commander switched off the map. “She will drop us in Annecy, and we will proceed from there. Command will attempt to maintain contact with us to ensure immediate extraction of anyone who requires it once we break atmo.” He looked coldly at Dorian. “Including Local Team.

  “Our options are limited here, as Spartan Owen stated. All of us have suffered due to the charge on the Covenant excavation site, but this war has called for desperate measures since the beginning.”

  Evie noticed Saskia looked over at Owen when the commander said this, although she could not read her expression.

  “Suffered?” sputtered Kielawa. “More than half of us are dead.”

  Commander Marechal’s face hardened. “What did I just say about protocol, Kielawa? All of us will be dead if we don’t rendezvous with the pilot in Desmarais. The Covenant will stop at nothing to retrieve the artifact currently in our possession, and you damn well know it. We have to stay one step ahead of them.”

  For a moment, the woods were silent. Then the militia erupted into angry yelling.

  “Is Command serious?”

  “A freighter? Really?”

  “They’re sending us into another death trap!”

  “And they’re just abandoning these kids? Are they kidding?”

  Commander Marechal responded by giving a loud shout of anger.

  “This is our best chance for survival,” he said. “Fifteen minutes. Pack up what you can carry and move out.” He slung the rifle around to his back. “And by the way, those kids are the only reason we’re getting to leave Brume-sur-Mer at all. If it weren’t for them, we would be preparing to march on the Covenant again. Now move!”

  There was a pause, a held breath. Then the militia scattered throughout the camp, g
athering up weapons and rations, leaving the tents. Commander Marechal turned to Local Team.

  “Thanks for vouching for us,” Evie said quietly.

  “I only said it because it’s true,” Commander Marechal said. “Now, you heard what I said. Pack up and carry out. I’ll be transporting the artifact.”

  And then he stomped away, stooping down to pick up his comm pad. Evie glanced at Saskia, who looked pale and worried.

  “I’ve always wanted to see Annecy,” Evie said with a strained smile, but Saskia only stared at her.

  Saskia had gotten very familiar with the forest around her parents’ house in the time before the invasion. She had been able to navigate through the tangled copses of trees, the heavy underbrush. After the invasion, when she and the others had found themselves stranded outside the town shelter, she had led them through the woods with a confidence she didn’t always feel but could always, at least, fake. Sometimes they had to clear a path, but there was always the start of one, a thin area where people had walked before.

  On their way to Desmarais, there were no such trails.

  They were nineteen troops in total, a number that seemed so small when she had finally counted it but which seemed enormous now that they were wading through waist-high ferns, hacking away at vines as thick around as a man’s forearm. The old-growth trees towered over them, their trunks covered with parasitic plants that created a second canopy that caught what little rain made its way through the treetops. The militia walked single file, Owen at the front, Local Team behind him, and then what remained of the four squads, with Commander Marechal bringing up the rear. Saskia walked right behind Owen, untangling the felled branches he sliced away with a Covenant energy sword he had somehow acquired during the earlier battle. The branches fell Saskia’s way with blackened edges, smoke sizzling on the damp air.

  “How much longer?” Dorian mumbled behind her.

  “I have no idea,” she said, flinging a wad of vines into the undergrowth. “I don’t even know how long we’ve been walking.”

  He didn’t try to talk to her further, thank god. She was too exhausted to navigate such a deeply wooded area and speak with someone at the same time. Her leg muscles burned, and her feet sent shooting pains up her splints every time she pressed them into the ground. Her vision blurred; her mouth was dry. She wanted to curl up in a bed—a real bed, not a cot, not a pile of rain-soaked palm leaves—and sleep.

  But she couldn’t. So she walked.

  She had no sense of how long they had been walking. When Owen halted and threw up a fist to indicate that the others do the same, she thought they had arrived. Except they were still deep in the woods. There were no signs of civilization, just the greenery crushing in around them and the constant shriek of insects.

  “Something’s coming,” Owen muttered.

  Saskia’s chest seized up.

  “You four, get close,” he said, holding out one hand, as if he could sweep Saskia and the others into the safety of his armor. “Victor, give the signal.”

  Victor nodded, then stuck two fingers into his mouth and let out a loud, piercing whistle. Saskia huddled close to Owen with the others, her rifle out. She peered through the scope and saw only green. A rustle as the rest of the militia formed two tight concentric circles, weaving as best they could through the dense growth.

  Saskia held her breath, one eye squeezed shut, the other watering as she stared through the scope.

  “Careful, careful,” Owen said softly. “They’re close.”

  “How can you tell?” Saskia whispered.

  Owen didn’t take his eyes off the woods. “I hear them. I hear—”

  And then Saskia heard it too, a deeper pitch to the rustling. Leaves scraping against armor. The guttural whisper of an alien tongue.

  “Get down,” Owen hissed, and opened fire.

  The plasma fire was returned immediately, purple streaks that scorched the underbrush. Saskia hit the ground, her elbows sinking into the mud. The militia fired out in their ring, the gun blasts erupting like fireworks in the forest.

  With a piercing, unison cry, the Covenant charged.

  Saskia fired furiously at them between the spaces of the militia’s legs, the recoil from her gun shuddering up her arm. These were not Grunts coming after them, but the imposing, leathery-skinned reptilian creatures the UNSC called Elites. When Saskia had first learned about them in school, they were called Sangheili.

  And she had fought one before.

  And survived, she thought, sliding another magazine into her rifle. From her vantage point, she counted ten figures total: Four of them were definitely Elites, but the rest look liked massive bears walking on their hind legs, firing heavy iron weapons toward the militia. The others are Jiralhanae. Brutes, she thought, remembering the holos from school and from her training at Tuomi Base.

  Ten to nineteen. And she had the nineteen on her side. It was a strange feeling, to be the one doing the outnumbering for once. Though she knew from her parents that the odds still weren’t in their favor in this fight.

  Owen had broken away from the crowd and charged straight into the remaining pair of Brutes, who swung their large weapons up and out, attempting to slice him open with the jagged, serrated edges affixed to their stocks. He caught their blows with his energy sword, drawing forth great sprays of sparks. The militia moved in tighter, giving him cover fire as the Elites directed their attention toward him.

  And, like that, Saskia understood what Owen was doing. He was making himself into a distraction.

  “He’s giving us an opening to run,” Saskia said, her voice trembling.

  “No way.” Victor gritted his teeth, his gun firing off at a tremendous, earth-shattering speed. “I’m not running.”

  “He’s trying to protect us,” she said, feeling hopeless. “He knows we can’t take them with these weapons, and we can’t just stay here to die.” She swung her head around, looking for Dorian. But Dorian crouched beside Evie and Farhi, the muzzles of their rifles blazing with white light. At least the Brutes had been beaten back. And it didn’t seem like a single member of the militia was missing.

  Yet.

  Saskia grabbed her rifle and leapt to her feet, finger squeezing tight against the trigger. She joined in with the rest of the militia, firing into the knot of Elites swarming toward Owen. Two of them peeled off and strode toward the militia. They both wore armor that flared with energy shielding as it deflected the bullets, sending them careening dangerously out into the forest. And one of them had the same kind of energy sword that Owen wielded.

  “We won’t be able to defeat them!” Saskia hollered. “They’re too powerful!”

  The one with the energy sword roared something in the clicking Sangheili tongue and raced toward her. She had a sudden flashback to the day when she had led all the Brume-sur-Mer survivors to the forest, only to be confronted by an Elite. She had only survived that fight with luck, really. She doubted she could manage a trick like that again.

  The Elite swung its energy sword at her as the other fired into the rest of the militia, who returned a wall of bullets that sent the Elite slamming back into a net of vines. The Elite with the energy sword twisted around and barked something in its language, which the second Elite returned. It was strange, but it sounded like the same combative tone Saskia used to use when her parents asked her to stay in her room during weapons demonstrations. The same tone that frequently meant she was planning on ignoring them completely.

  Commander Marechal shoved his way through the crowd, urging the soldiers forward.

  “Run!” the commander barked, blocking their view of Owen, who was engaging the crowd of Elites. “Get to the rendezvous point!”

  “We’re not leaving him behind!” shouted Saskia.

  “Go!” Owen roared.

  Saskia fired once more into the melee of Spartan soldier and Covenant Elites. Then she did exactly as Owen asked. Her bare feet pounded against the ground, and as she passed Evie and Dorian firin
g into the Elites, she grabbed hold of Evie’s arm and pulled her forward with her.

  “What are you doing?” Evie squawked.

  “Getting us out of here, like Owen ordered!”

  “We can’t leave him!”

  Owen picked up the limp body of one of the Elites and hurled it into the crowd that had massed around him.

  “He can take care of himself,” Saskia said. “Let’s go.” She pulled harder on Evie’s arm, and this time Evie relented.

  “Dorian!” Evie called. “Victor!”

  “They’re over there,” said Mousseau. “Good luck getting them separated.”

  And that was when Saskia saw. The two of them were in the middle of the brawl with the Elites, throwing their guns sideways at Elite heads, getting dragged down to the forest floor by powerful, muscle-corded arms. Owen sprang into action with a spray of bullets, and Victor and Dorian scrambled to their feet. Victor had a bloody streak across his forehead. Mousseau grabbed him and pulled him forward, dragging them away from the fight.

  “Let’s go,” Caird said. “I’m getting us out of here.”

  “We can help!” Victor said, shrugging out of his grasp.

  “None of us can help,” Caird hissed, pushing them forward. “Blue squadron will be right behind you.” She shoved Victor toward Saskia, and she caught him. The blood pulsed out of a wound across his temple. Did they have MediGel? She couldn’t think about that, not until they got to the rendezvous, not until they were safely in the air.

  She grabbed Victor and yanked him forward. Dorian had already caught up with Evie, and the two of them weaved through the woods, ducking away from blasts of wayward plasma fire. The Elites were too focused on Owen to notice them or the other militia members who had managed to peel themselves away from the fighting. And so they took advantage of the break and ran, pushing themselves as far as they could through the thick, murky tangle of the forest. Saskia could hear the plasma fire behind them, ringing out through the woods. Was it getting closer? She could only hope it wasn’t.