Legacy of Onyx

by Matt Forbeck

  First student? This told Molly that they had bigger plans for this class of theirs, but that somehow she had been selected to go first. That was profound, almost too much for her to take in.

  “Our goal is to teach you discipline and defense, not to make you into a weapon. We’ll hold classes at the Pax Institute, right after school.”

  “Ah.” Then Molly saw the catch. She’d been trapped into going back to school. “So this class is only for kids going to the Pax Institute? That’s the kicker?”

  Lucy shrugged. “I’m not trying to trick you into this, Molly. But if you’re going to stay home the entire time you’re with us in Onyx, are you really going to need self-defense lessons? This is for kids who are willing to come out of their shell and learn what it looks like to be a soldier—even though I’m guessing your parents won’t be terribly thrilled about it.”

  Lucy was completely right. They wouldn’t be thrilled about it at all, but the opportunity had come directly from a Spartan and involved Molly’s peacefully agreeing to go back to school. They’d at least see it as a worthwhile compromise, she hoped.

  “Fine. I’ll go back to school. For now.”

  “That’s all I ask.” Lucy got up to leave. “If your parents are okay with this arrangement, we’ll see you tomorrow after classes.”

  “I hope this will be worth it.”

  Lucy gave her a wry smile. “Molly, that is the last thing you have to worry about in the universe.”

  CHAPTER 11

  * * *

  * * *

  When Molly finally returned to school the next day, she went with the benefit of knowing that she wouldn’t have to deal with Karl, Zeb, or Andres for the time being, since they were still on weeklong suspensions. The same wasn’t true of anyone else there, of course.

  If people had ignored Molly on her first day, now they treated her as if she had the plague. She’d never been shunned before, but at first she didn’t mind it much. In fact, it made things a lot easier. Molly hadn’t come back to make friends. All she could think about all day was just how much she wanted to get through her time inside this stupid sphere and blast the hell out of there as soon as possible.

  As far as Molly was concerned, she was living in a prison. She didn’t need to associate with the other inmates. She just needed to serve her time and then get out at her first chance to do so. Moving from class to class with her head down, she tried desperately to focus on the training that awaited her at the end of the day.

  When math class came around, she saw Kareem and Gudam. Teacher Aphrid—whom she’d never before met—greeted her at the door. Without inhibition, the Unggoy sprang toward Molly with a spontaneous hug that she couldn’t deflect.

  “Thanks so much for helping out my little Gudam,” the Unggoy said in her high-pitched voice. The teacher’s grateful embrace was cold and scaly and very unpleasant, but Molly could tell that it was sincere.

  The Unggoy looked much like Gudam, though to Molly all of their kind looked similar. The teacher was about a hand span taller than Gudam, though, with a shell a bit more vibrantly blue in parts. Unsurprisingly, Aphrid seemed to have the same aggressively optimistic attitude that marked Gudam.

  Molly had a hard time comprehending that. Aphrid’s child had almost been seriously harmed by another student who hated aliens. To Molly, the strange glee about the entire circumstance was the most alien thing about her.

  At first blush, Molly found that unappealing. She even hated it. Aphrid’s “little Gudam” had been attacked and probably wouldn’t ever truly be safe in a school with kids such as Karl, Zeb, and Andres.

  Who knows what would have happened if Gudam hadn’t been able to get to her methane in time? Who knows what might happen once those punks come back? Molly started to wonder if this attribute of Aphrid’s was one of the reasons the Covenant so easily put down Unggoy and used them as expendable soldiers by the thousands.

  But Molly also found something about the Unggoy’s demeanor—a happiness that seemed unshakable—vaguely infectious. It seemed impossible to remain irritated with Aphrid, even for the length of class. Apparently the Unggoy teacher refused to let her joy be controlled by others. There was something heartening in that.

  In the meantime, Gudam seemed perfectly fine and was just as talkative as ever. Molly hadn’t given much thought to her since the event but found herself relieved that the Unggoy hadn’t been seriously injured.

  “Momma Beskin patched me right up as soon as I got home,” she said, pointing to her jaw, which to Molly didn’t show any sign of injury at all—or perhaps she just couldn’t tell. “Poppa Marfo was angry about it, but Momma Aphrid managed to smooth the rough parts out of his shell. By the time I finished telling him everything, he insisted that we invite you over for dinner!”

  Gudam looked up at Molly with wide, expectant eyes, suddenly quiet, which caught her completely off guard. Has an Unggoy family just invited me over to their home?

  “That’s very kind,” Molly said, trying to find a way out of the invitation. “But I’m not even sure what foods Unggoy eat.”

  “Oh, we eat all sorts of things!” Gudam said with a wide grin. It seemed as if she’d already planned to overcome any objections Molly might pose. The little alien had thought this through. “Mostly we stick to Unggoy cuisine when we can, which is what you humans call seafood, of course, but we can really eat anything. Here in Onyx, most of the food is the human kind, so we eat lots of that too.”

  Fortunately for Molly, the class began at that very moment. She wouldn’t have to give Gudam a firm answer . . . yet. Molly couldn’t help but notice a few of the other human students giving her sidelong glances about it, but she ignored them. Molly might not want to dine in an Unggoy home, but that was her choice to make, not theirs. She didn’t need their approval.

  By the time lunch came around, Molly had already decided that she’d try to find a different place to sit. She felt that being somewhere else was the best way to put everything that had happened behind her. Perhaps if she ignored everyone, people would just leave her alone, and the day’s end would come quicker.

  When she finally got her food, Molly scanned the hall for an empty seat. Gudam and Kareem were already sitting at a table together with no one else around. She attempted to pretend that she didn’t see them and hunted for another place to sit. The last thing she wanted was to perpetuate the notion she had some kind of friendship with those two. But every time Molly made her way toward a table full of humans, their glares forced her to veer away. And she had no plans sit at one of the tables filled with Sangheili or Unggoy.

  Only one other table had lots of free seats besides the one that Gudam and Kareem were at. One Sangheili student was eating there, but Molly figured she could just sit as far away from him as possible. The Sangheili looked up at her as she walked toward the table, and then she finally recognized him.

  Bakar.

  The same Sangheili whom she’d gotten in trouble with the other day.

  Molly was ready to about-face when she realized she’d passed the point of no return. She’d committed already. If she turned away now, it’d be even more awkward, and she definitely didn’t want him to think she was a weakling—or to be forced to admit that she’d seen Kareem and Gudam’s table.

  The last thing she wanted to do was to sit down and talk more about Unggoy dining habits while trying to eat her own lunch. Even the thought was nauseating. Sitting across from this Bakar had to be the better option.

  Molly picked out a chair at that table as far from Bakar as she could manage and placed down her tray without acknowledging the Sangheili’s presence. Before she was even fully in the chair, he raised his eyes, cold and unblinking, and seemed to scowl at her. She quickly dropped her eyes to her food and began to eat.

  Bakar didn’t.

  He hissed at her, ending in a low growl.

  “I need a place to eat,” Molly said, her face stern. “This one was open. Do the math.”

  “What are
you doing here?” he said in Molly’s language. His voice, though higher pitched than Dinok’s, was formidably and heavily laced with menace.

  Molly didn’t care to explain herself more than that or to unpack the idiom. She just lowered her eyes and dug back into her meal.

  Bakar stared at her. Then he hissed again. “I do not want your friendship.”

  That stopped Molly cold. She dropped her fork and shot the Sangheili the hardest glare she’d ever given. “That works out perfectly then, because you don’t have it.”

  “You came to my aid against those three nishum, and now you wish to sit and share a meal with me?” He waggled his head at Molly as though something were self-evident by that action.

  Molly leaned over the table and spoke to Bakar in a low voice, not bothering to hide her disdain for him any longer. “Take it easy, alien. I stepped in to help Gudam, not you.” Then she pushed her tray away and stood up, preparing to leave. “And now I’ve lost my appetite.”

  “You made me look weak. Like I needed the aid of a human.”

  “Next time, I’ll just let them bust in your lizard face.”

  “That would be the more favorable thing to do.”

  Molly let out a bitter laugh. “Are you asking me for a favor? Seriously?”

  Bakar scrunched all four of his mandibles together tightly. His face was fierce and tense, and he looked as if he was attempting to bite back his words. Then he pushed his tray away as well. The two stared at each other in silence for a moment.

  “Just leave me alone,” he finally said.

  Then Gudam came up and set her tray down on the table, equidistant from both Bakar and Molly, the Unggoy’s beady eyes darting back and forth between the two. Molly had been so focused on Bakar that when Gudam appeared, she almost jumped out of her seat.

  “Hey!” Gudam nearly shouted, completely oblivious of the argument going on. “You must have missed me and Kareem when you were looking for a table.”

  Then Gudam ungracefully clambered into a chair and kept talking as though that were the most normal thing to do. Molly looked from the Sangheili to the Unggoy, then took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair.

  “I know how easy that is to do,” Gudam said. “For one, I’m so short that you can’t help but overlook me. Get it?”

  Kareem approached slowly from behind the Unggoy, looking entirely uncomfortable about the situation. He must have read between the lines and probably knew that Molly didn’t want to be Gudam’s friend, no matter how excited about that possibility the Unggoy might be, but what had to be even more uncomfortable for him was how to navigate the obvious tension between Molly and Bakar, who sat scowling at each other.

  “And as far as Kareem goes,” Gudam said, still in her own world, “well, he’s a male human. I find them hard to tell apart, don’t you?”

  Molly took a sip of water and swallowed. Her lunch was already ruined. What did she have to lose by talking to an Unggoy who wanted to accidentally poison her over dinner?

  “I could pick Kareem out of a crowd,” she said to Gudam, grimacing at the awkward situation. “But I am a human, you know. Telling them apart is more important to me.”

  “I suppose it is!” the Unggoy said, somehow excited by that. “How amazing that must be, to have grown up with so many strange creatures around you at all times. I mean, it’s hard for me to imagine. My clutchlings and I look almost identical. Our parents can tell us apart, but it’s hard for anyone outside the family to manage it, even among other Unggoy.”

  As her nerves started to settle, Molly took a deep breath and asked herself a simple question. What do I have to lose?

  Peering hard at the Unggoy, Molly asked, “You are Gudam, aren’t you?”

  The Unggoy stopped for a moment, trying to process if Molly was serious, then spontaneously cackled long and hard. It was so loud that everyone in the dining hall turned for a moment to look for the origin of the sound.

  Gudam slowed down and readied her response. “Why would I tell you that?” She gasped for air between each word. “That would only ruin the surprise!”

  “Enough!” Bakar spoke so loudly that it caused Molly to flinch. He stood up from the table and stormed away, no doubt thinking they were foolish children who had spoiled his brooding.

  The three of them silently watched him leave. Not until the Sangheili had completely exited the building for the recreation yard did Molly breathe a sigh of relief. Until that moment, she’d been slightly worried that Bakar might be angry enough to physically take his frustrations out on her.

  “He’s a little touchy about the fight,” Kareem said.

  “Why?” Molly asked. “He didn’t get into any trouble.”

  “That’s the problem,” Kareem said, finally sitting down. “The other Sangheili fledglings here expect him to stand up for himself and knock the insolence out of any stupid nishum who dares taunt him. When he doesn’t do that, they give him hell for it.”

  “Nishum? Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  “It’s what the Sangheili call humans, like their version of hinge-head,” Kareem said, looking down toward the table. “Not exactly flattering. I think it means ‘intestinal parasite’ or something.”

  “Gross,” Molly said with an expression that matched. “So, why doesn’t he knock those boys around? He seems perfectly angry enough to do it.”

  Kareem shrugged. “Not sure exactly. Some of the students I’ve overheard talking about Bakar claim he’s a bit of a pacifist, especially as far as male Sangheili are concerned. He doesn’t want to fight anyone unless he absolutely has to, and the others think he’s a coward for it.”

  “It’s also why he gets picked on,” Gudam said. “He’s the only Sangheili who will take it.”

  “Couldn’t the others stick up for him?” Molly asked.

  “They could, but it’s offensive and shameful to do so,” Kareem said. “In their culture, you do these sorts of things for yourself, or you suffer the consequences. Survival of the fittest in every sense. Things have gotten even worse for Bakar since the incident the other day. Apparently, others are pressuring him hard to take down one of the humans who started all of this.”

  “Good,” Molly said enthusiastically. “He ought to get back at those jerks. He should go after them off school property and beat the daylights out of them. That might be what it takes to finally shut them up for good.” She pulled her tray close now that Bakar was gone. The food was cold, but eating it was better than nothing. “What’s stopping him?”

  “Maybe he’s already seen enough violence in his day,” Gudam responded solemnly. “I hear he lost his mother in the war, and he never talks about the rest of his family. That’s pretty unusual for a Sangheili, though—the pursuit of peace, that is.

  “They tend to think with their weapons. They brutalized my people during the war, I’m told, although I didn’t see any of that personally, of course. In the Covenant, my fellow Unggoy were little better than slaves to be ordered around—and kicked when we weren’t doing our jobs fast enough.”

  Molly knew the background of the Unggoy to some degree, but she hadn’t thought about how it might affect them on a personal level at all. The Unggoy had certainly been unwilling participants in the war, a species that didn’t have much of a choice but to go along while the Sangheili mercilessly abused them. In the Covenant, they’d been victims too, and looking at Gudam, Molly couldn’t help but feel compassion for the small creature.

  It did not, however, change her mind about going to dinner at Gudam’s house.

  “But Bakar isn’t like that?” Molly asked.

  Gudam shook her head. “He hates the war—hates even talking about it. He’s very unlike his fellows in that way. I have only one class with Sangheili, and he is in it. Lots of them like to go on about how they long for a battle in which they can finally prove themselves. They just don’t have anyone to fight these days, especially in here. They’re kind of a peculiar breed of creature, always so hungry for
violence.”

  Molly couldn’t help but marvel a bit at Gudam’s description. The Unggoy was far more contemplative and well-balanced than Molly had given her credit for. “What happened to the rest of your kind after the war?”

  “There are many Unggoy out there.” Gudam nibbled something on her plate that looked like rubber. Molly looked away when her stomach started to turn. “Some went home to Balaho, others are employed on different worlds—some even remain slaves. I’m sure there are a few insane ones who have taken up arms with hostile factions like the Servants of the Abiding Truth or what’s left of the Covenant. They would rather keep the old ways than follow the Arbiter and his Swords of Sanghelios toward some kind of peace.”

  Molly had her back to the rest of the room while Gudam was talking, so she didn’t see the drink pouch come sailing over her shoulder until it landed square in the middle of the table. It splattered directly on top of Bakar’s abandoned tray and sent the plates there scattering, splashing cold liquid and leftover scraps of food everywhere.

  Molly wound up with her entire face and chest coated with the bluish drink and a pale white paste Bakar had been eating, something the color and consistency of bird excrement. The stench was unbearable.

  She leaped to her feet in a cold rage, spinning around and shouting at the rest of the dining hall. “Who did that?”

  No one took credit. A bunch of the students farther away from Molly’s table burst out laughing instead, which only infuriated her more. She didn’t have anyone to focus her wrath on, though, which made things even worse. There were just too many of them, and in the moment she felt as though they were all against her.

  After glaring for a few seconds, completely covered in food and drink, Molly spun on her heel and made for the exit, determined to find a restroom and clean herself up as best as she could.

  “You eat with a filthy animal, and you’re going to get dirty!” someone shouted from the other side of the dining hall. The laughter was even louder this time.