by Matt Forbeck
Meanwhile, ONI closed down the Repository and a number of other portal-adjacent sites until they could figure out a way to ensure the safety of anyone working there. That meant moving around all the people who’d been assigned to a given site, including the Huragok, who now found themselves on other low-risk duties.
For the Huragok who was present at the Repository during the attack, that included, apparently, working at the Pax Institute from time to time.
One day, when Molly and the others were waiting for Tom and Lucy to show up for a self-defense class, the Huragok arrived instead. It just floated right into the room and spoke to them in an electronic voice. “I am Prone to Drift. I am speaking to you through a translator that I built. I operate it via the cilia on the ends of my tentacles.”
It was a strange way for it to introduce itself, but Molly found it disarmingly honest. She was curious if this was how the Huragok talked to everyone or just her. She peered underneath the creature and saw that it was doing just as it said: using one of its six tentacles to manipulate a glass-faced datapad mounted to its underbelly.
“I was not created with the ability to vocalize thoughts, as that is an inefficient means of communication. For communication among Huragok, that is. When I must talk to humans, however, it is required, so I designed this system.”
Kareem walked all the way around the creature, taking it in from every angle. “Amazing.”
Prone ignored him entirely, as if it knew exactly how amazing it was. “I am here to inform you that Spartan Tom-B292 and Spartan Lucy-B091 will not be able to make it to your meeting today. Their duties require them to be elsewhere.”
“They could have just sent us a message about that,” Bakar said, suspicious and seemingly unimpressed with the Engineer’s communication innovation.
“I was coming to the school to make some improvements and repairs, and they knew that I wanted to meet you. That made this not an either/or decision but a both/and decision.”
“Are you the Huragok who was in the Repository?” Gudam said. “I so wanted to meet you, but they bundled us into the transport and got us out of there so fast, we never had the chance. My poppa worked with Huragok during the war, and he always has great things to say about you—how smart you are and how pleasant you smelled to him.”
Molly wasn’t exactly sure what Poppa Marfo smelled when he was near a Huragok, but it was clear to her that they had radically different ideas of what qualified as pleasant.
“I was in the Repository when it was attacked. I understand you four helped distract the creature that killed several people there before Mike Spenser could remove it. For that, I want to express my gratitude.”
“We did not do it to save you,” Bakar said, as though he was ready to stop wasting time.
“You’re welcome,” Molly said to the Huragok as she shot Bakar a look.
“What are you working on here?” Kareem said.
“I am charged with updating and improving the security of this facility. I plan to work after the school day is over so as to minimize any disruption my presence may cause. Communication to facilities outside the sphere has been difficult. After I am finished here, I will tune the city’s primary communications relay located at the center of the Citadel.”
Molly knew exactly what Prone to Drift was talking about.
The newsfeeds had been filled with all sorts of reports about troubles in the colonies. That was nothing new. It seemed to be an exacerbation of what Molly had discussed with Yong and Asha, possibly connected to their work on the sphere.
This wasn’t the first time in UNSC history that there had been comms trouble between worlds. The colonies and the Unified Earth Government had been at odds since way before the Covenant War started, and now that the war was over, they were back at it again—in some places worse than ever. Fighting near key planetary relays cropped up and would often sever communication for days and even weeks.
This time, however, the colonies were reporting disasters that didn’t seem to have anything to do with rebels. Entire worlds were going quiet all at once, with no one responding from them at all. This didn’t fit the profiles of a civil conflict, and its effect spanned so wide, it was clear that the UNSC didn’t have an adequate response in place. For Molly, the whole thing was disconcerting.
At first, the regular news sites treated it tentatively, not entirely confident what they were reporting. They insinuated that it was probably just some kind of trouble with slipspace communications relays. The opinion sites let fly conspiracy theories of all kinds. Some claimed that slipspace pollution from humanity’s heightened use of Forerunner technology had taken out the colonies and was bound to doom them all. Others believed this was the harbinger of a coalition of colonies gathering a massive navy able to challenge the UNSC and take over Earth.
Molly hadn’t forgotten her conversation with Asha and Yong though. These blackouts probably had something to do with Project: GOLIATH. Had to be.
But what was more concerning for Molly was that Bakar’s brother, Dural, was evidently still running around inside Onyx with who knew what kind of weapons on hand, not to mention however many Sangheili were with him from the Servants of the Abiding Truth.
How did they get into Onyx and what are they after? Molly wondered. Why haven’t the Spartans been able to track them down yet? Are the Servants just biding their time, preparing to strike—or are they planning something else? All of these questions occupied Molly’s thoughts most days.
And she wasn’t the only one.
At school, chatter about the incident at the Repository didn’t let up. As far as Molly knew, most of the other students had no idea about the presence of the Servants, much less Bakar’s true identity and his relationship to Dural. They may not have even known who the Servants were.
Despite that, most of the students were scared. None of them had expected to have their lives imperiled after moving into the most secure location in the galaxy. Now they were learning a hard truth: even in a refuge such as Onyx, no one was truly safe.
For Molly, Gudam, Kareem, and Bakar, the effect of the Repository event was entirely positive. Dozens of other students kept thanking the four of them for their bravery that day, taken off guard by how a bunch of no-name outsiders had responded under pressure. The students were treating them like heroes, and for a moment Molly almost bought into it.
After mulling over the situation for a few days, however, she realized Asha was right. They weren’t heroes. They were silly kids who got caught up in something way over their heads that could have ended with them all getting killed. They had just been incredibly lucky that day.
Prone to Drift agreed with that view.
“I am impressed with you four,” the Huragok said, escorting the group from the gym.
“Because of what happened at the Repository?” Kareem asked.
“Yes, but not due to your actions. Those were foolish. Given the probabilities in question, it is remarkable that you survived.”
“Why then?” Molly wondered.
“You four impress me because you embody what this city has been about from the beginning: unity. Given all that has happened in your species’ past, the fact that you four are bonded as friends and allies is the real marvel. The Forerunners created places like this shield world to preserve biodiversity. You honor their work with your actions.”
The Huragok’s profound statement hit Molly hard. “Thank you, Prone to Drift,” she said.
“There is no need for formality anymore, Molly Patel.” The Huragok craned its neck to stare at her with its six eyes. “You four can call me Prone.”
One night, after dinner, Director Mendez came over to consult with Molly’s parents, and she managed to discreetly listen in from the kitchen. Evidently the Covenant had set up shop on a planet known as Kamchatka, a world that had something to do with the Forerunners. Molly’s Newparents had apparently known the location. The Covenant forces were hunting for something left behind by the Forerunners
, and Mendez was concerned it might have something to do with Project: GOLIATH. After assessing the data he shared, Asha and Yong agreed with the possibility, but they weren’t entirely convinced.
Later that night, Molly spent a few hours scanning the newsfeeds for more details about what Mendez was referring to, but nothing came up. That didn’t mean it hadn’t happened, just that the director had access to far better information than the media. She would have been shocked if she’d found anything at all, given ONI’s involvement. Still, the questions that hung out there bothered Molly. What made things worse was that she knew her Newparents were at the center of it.
During one of her self-defense lessons with Lucy and Tom a few days later, Molly asked them if there were any updates about their efforts to find the Servants of the Abiding Truth. This was in the middle of a fistfight between her and Bakar. The four students had begun sparring a few weeks earlier. It was challenging at first, but as they progressed, Molly found herself more and more confident, even against a Sangheili who did not understand what it meant to go easy.
“Nothing new on that front,” Tom said, as Bakar threw a punch at her that she narrowly blocked. “But we’re obviously not giving up.”
“Are you sure they didn’t leave or something?” Kareem asked, while he dodged a kick from Gudam. “I mean, they did kind of break their way into this place, right? They could have broken out.”
“It’s possible they fled,” said Lucy. “But that’s not the most pressing issue. Like you said, those Sangheili warriors got in here somehow. Even if they’re gone, we need to figure out how they managed to breach the exterior so we can secure the sphere. Otherwise, they could hypothetically show up in any part of Onyx at any moment.”
“What about the Huragok?” Molly asked. “The ones who were made for Onyx. Don’t they have a way to know where the breach is?”
“Yes and no,” Tom said, somewhat displeased that they’d ground the training session to a halt. “Onyx is a pretty big place, right? They can monitor a lot of it, but most is out of their reach, and the network was never completely finished. During the height of the Forerunners, apparently there had been thousands of Huragok here, but we only have a handful, who are largely focused on a very small sliver of all that Onyx is. That said, entry to this world should have already been barred—which means the Servants found an exploit of some kind.”
“Do you not have any leads at all?” Bakar asked. The Sangheili was still hard to read, but not with regard to the Servants. He got agitated every time the subject came up. Molly took advantage of that to catch him with a backhand to his gut.
Lucy shrugged. “I didn’t say that. The Huragok have been trying to trace them through the portal network. We have some clues, but nothing definitive. I’m going to go check a few of them out in person tomorrow. We’ll see what turns up. Now, no more questions. Let’s get back to training.”
That night, Asha and Yong took Molly aside with a datapad and showed her a memo they’d gotten from Director Barton. It reported that a team of Spartans had infiltrated Kamchatka during a battle between the Covenant and hostile Forerunner defenses protecting what they were after. During the operation, the Spartan team had found and killed the leader of the Covenant, Jul ‘Mdama.
In other words, Bakar’s father was dead.
Molly hadn’t told her Newparents about who Jul ‘Mdama was to Bakar yet. She hadn’t told anyone. Most ONI personnel inside Onyx probably knew about Bakar’s relationship to ‘Mdama, but few other people in Paxopolis did.
“I need to tell Bakar,” Molly said.
“If it’s appropriate, I’m sure Kasha will let him know,” Yong said. “Or Director Mendez. This stays between us. The only reason we showed it to you is so you’re not going into school blind.”
“Is this being reported by the Sangheili newsfeeds?” Molly asked.
Yong made a quick scan of the major Sangheili sources on his datapad. He shook his head as he went. “Nothing,” he said after a moment. “At least not yet.”
“The Sangheili don’t have the same kind of information structure we have,” Asha said. “And much of Sanghelios is a war zone right now. The Arbiter’s too busy actually fighting against the Covenant in his own backyard to worry about propagating that news.”
“And ONI’s likely keeping a tight lid on the information too,” Yong said. “If it hadn’t involved Kamchatka, I doubt they would have let us in on this. It’s only because of what they found there, what the Covenant had been after. It’s one of the Forerunner machines we talked about earlier, the thing we were brought here to research. Except . . . on Kamchatka the machine actually activated.”
Activated? Molly thought as her chest grew tighter. What does that mean?
She wanted to press Yong further, but Asha cut her off.
“And we wouldn’t share any of this if we didn’t know that it’s safe with you,” Asha said. “This is classified, Molly, so keep it to yourself. If others knew about the connections here, that’d cause a lot of people to be really concerned, and it could ultimately hamper our ability to help. But why are you so worried about Bakar?”
“It seems like something he’d want to know.”
“More than likely, he’ll know before school tomorrow,” Asha said. “Kasha would not keep this from him. No reason for you to head out to the Sangheili keep over this.”
The thought of going to the Sangheili keep—which sat on the opposite side of Paxopolis from the Unggoy burrow—made Molly instantly uneasy. That was still a good ways off from what she felt comfortable with. It was one thing to be in the same class with aliens—even to be friends with some—but something completely different to go to the place they called home.
Molly went back up to her room and lay on her bed restlessly for a full hour. She couldn’t shake the info she’d just learned.
Bakar’s father is dead.
Any hope he might have had for peace about his father or reconciliation was gone. Forever. Molly knew what that felt like, and it made her sympathy for Bakar even stronger.
Eventually, she gave up wrestling with it. She grabbed her datapad and tried to contact Bakar over the Pax Institute’s messaging system. She hadn’t gotten much use out of it yet, other than to get assignments from her teachers, but it was the only connection she had to Bakar at the moment. She pinged him on it.
Molly: Did you hear the news? About the fighting on Kamchatka?
There was no response for over an hour. She finally gave up and was about to go to sleep when she got a ping back.
Bakar: I have now.
Molly: Are you okay?
Bakar: Of course I am.
Molly thought about just accepting that and talking to him about it in the morning, but she couldn’t let it lie.
Molly: What about your father?
Bakar: I have been dead to him for a long time. Now I can say the same about him.
Molly: I’m sorry for your loss. I know what it’s like to be an orphan.
Bakar: I was orphaned the day my mother died. This changes nothing.
Then he signed off the system.
Molly stared at the screen for a few minutes, wondering what to make of it. Her story and Bakar’s were certainly different, but both of them had now lost their parents. That made her feel closer to him than she had before.
When Molly saw Bakar at school in the morning, they didn’t talk about it. But at lunch in the dining hall, Kareem delicately brought it up.
“I shed no tears for my uncle,” Bakar said, refusing to use the word father.
How do Sangheili grieve? Molly wondered. Do they memorialize their dead? Do they weep? Looking at Bakar’s impassive face across the table, Molly wondered if he even had the physical ability to do so.
“I don’t blame you,” Kareem said. “Your uncle was . . . well, you know.”
“All too well. There was a time when I respected him, much as I thought of all my uncles in our keep. When he took up arms against the Arbiter with the
Servants—when my mother died looking for him—he lost that respect.
“Still, I admit I took some comfort knowing that he was yet alive. I have heard nothing of my keep for many years now. For all I know, it was brought to ruin in the war. Given the actions of my uncle, I could hardly blame the Arbiter for that if so. In any case, I thought perhaps Jul was my only living relative. Now there is only Dural.”
“Wouldn’t it have been better to know that he was your father when you were living in that keep with him?” Gudam asked softly. “How proud you would have been of him! And you would have been next in line to be the kaidon, right? Or would it have been your older brother?”
Bakar snorted at that. “Neither. The reason we keep knowledge of our lineage secret—from both fathers and sons—is exactly to prevent any sort of handing down of power from one generation to the next. To become kaidon, I would have to prove myself to be the most worthy, just as he did, and his uncle before him—and that would never have happened.”
“Why not?” Molly asked.
“I do not have what is required to become kaidon, and I never have. I am too weak, they tell me. And I suppose I proved them right about that. I don’t savor combat or seek glory from war, as they do.
“I would rather pursue peace and apply our people’s effort toward things that build up our society, not tear it down. Besides, if my father had been willing to groom anyone to take over his position, it would have been Dural. He was older, for one, and he was much more like Jul in so many respects.”
“And you?” asked Kareem.
“I favored our mother.”
“Me too,” said Kareem. “I never really knew my birth dad.”
“Did you lose him in the war?” Molly asked.
Kareem shook his head. “Divorced my mom early on. Left Earth for the colonies when I was still in diapers. Haven’t heard from him since.”
