Cross Blades

Cross Blades

Chapter the Eighth: Survivor’s Homecoming

Time Setting: after the last level of Halo 3


They had fought for what felt like days, and fate had now delivered them to this end.

The Ring was firing. It wasn’t yet completely built, and it was already firing.

The act would tear the Ring apart.

The Master Chief, the Arbiter, N’tho ‘Sraom, and Usze ‘Taham needed to be gone before it ignited.

The Arbiter and the Master Chief piled into a Warthog. Nithro grabbed a Mongoose and sped towards Forward Unto Dawn in a cloud of dust. Usze was left with the choice between a Mongoose and a Brute Chopper.

Usze had piloted a Chopper several times during the recent campaign, but he had never driven a Mongoose. As the ringworld began to come apart, Usze decided that now was not the time to learn. He jumped into the nearest Chopper and accelerated in the direction N’tho had gone.

At first the Chopper seemed like a good choice. As the surface of the ringworld lurched ahead of him, the Chopper’s massive blades simply plowed through any obstacles in its path. They did a particularly fine job in chewing up and spitting out Flood.

But then the ringworld’s surface bucked beneath Usze’s Chopper, throwing it up into the air. The unwieldy vehicle landed crosswise and skidded, and one of the blades hooked on something…Usze did not see what. Suddenly the vehicle was spinning wildly; Usze ‘Taham lost his balance and toppled off.

Usze ached all over, but when he saw the Chopper spiralling off a platform down into a burning pit of lava, he felt suddenly lucky.

Unfortunately, the feeling did not last. He dragged himself to his feet, but he was limping. His left leg just would not move properly. The ground ripped again under him.

Without his Chopper, there was no way he could catch up to the others. They would board Forward Unto Dawn—maybe, if they made it in time—and leave him behind.

It was not the best way for a warrior to die.

Far ahead, Usze saw N’tho look back over his shoulder and realize his companion was no longer behind him.

“Go!” Usze yelled, making a “carry on” motion with his arm in case his words were lost in the roar of the collapsing surface. “Get out of here—go!”

Several yards away, a Warthog cannoned past. Master Chief and the Arbiter.

They either didn’t see him, or they knew they dared not stop for him. Usze did not blame them. He was beyond saving, now.

He wished only that he’d had the chance to finish what he’d started with N’tho on the Ark.

But Nitro had turned his Mongoose around.

“What are you doing?” Usze scowled. “I said leave!” He staggered to his feet—was it possible N’tho hadn’t seen his signal? He made the motion again and again, but Nitro ignored him, pulling the Mongoose up alongside him.

“Get on.”

“You crazy, disobedient son of a…”

N’tho outright grabbed him, hauling him onto the back of the Mongoose.

“Hold on tight,” the Minor Domo ordered, and then opened the throttle.

Usze tightened his grip, clinging half to N’tho, half to the Mongoose…what did one grab onto? There were no handles, no bars. He finally managed to get himself in the seat and settled for hanging onto N’tho, wrapping both his arms around the other warrior’s chest.

He had no weapons. He’d lost the shotgun and his sword. He couldn’t do anything about the shuffling Flood forms he saw.

All he could do was put his head against N’tho’s back and close his eyes and hang on.

They were going to die. N’tho was going to die because he did the stupid thing, because he came back for a stricken warrior. Usze would go to his grave feeling guilt and shame…

…and the knowledge that even at this terrible and most inappropriate time, N’tho’s body felt so good against his.

The Mongoose jolted, hard. Usze opened his eyes.

The platform crumbled away beneath them.

This is it, Usze thought.

And then the Mongoose’s wheels slammed onto metal. By the Rings, they were in the cargo bay of Forward Unto Dawn.

“Holy shit, we’re alive!” N’tho said. “Arbiter! Cortana! Go! GO!”

They were alive.

By the Ancestors, they were alive.

Usze ‘Taham couldn’t stop shaking as he climbed off the Mongoose and sank to his knees. Beside him, N’tho was looking none too sturdy himself.

No matter how much N’tho had annoyed him in the past, Usze believed in giving credit where credit was due. “That was some impressive driving,” Usze said, cursing the tremor in his voice.

N’tho looked at him. “Thanks.” His breath whistled in and out of his chest. “You say you hate human weapons, but you are a damn good shot with that shotgun.”

The two Sangheili sat in silence and then…

…then the back wall of the room was cut off, like a cleaver going through butter. It just vanished.

N’tho screamed. His usual laughter in the face of death was gone. Now he was just screaming, his eyes wild, his mandibles gaping wider than they ever should, screaming…

Thanking the Ancestors for his airtight helmet, Usze sprang to his feet, ignoring the fire in his wounded leg. He grabbed N’tho by the arm and dragged the other Sangheili across the room and through the bulkhead, then slammed the panel behind him to close the bulkhead door. The door sealed, trapping oxygen in the room with them. N’tho gasped for air; Usze opened a comm link to the Arbiter as he continued to pull N’tho towards the next bulkhead.

“Arbiter, request situation report!” Usze barked, cursing the tremor in his voice. “Sir, what’s happening?”

“The Slipspace portal collapsed…we’ve lost the rear of the ship!” The Arbiter’s voice sounded as shaky as his.

“Taham and ‘Sraom are fine,” he reported, looking N’tho over just to make sure. N’tho had finally stopped screaming, though his body was twitching uncontrollably. The SpecOps rookie looked about as rough as Usze felt, but he seemed to be intact.

“Confirmed,” the Arbiter said. “Master Chief, report in.”

Silence.

“Chief, report.”

More silence.

“Cortana?”

“Sir?” Usze asked when it became clear that Cortana was not answering either. “Do you need some help?”

The Arbiter’s voice returned on the channel, sounding broken. “They were in the rear of the ship. We can’t go back for them—they were in the portal when it collapsed. There’s no telling where they might be.” He could hear the grim tone in the Arbiter’s voice as he continued, “And this ship is on the verge of structural collapse. We may not make it to Earth. We are going to get as close to Earth as we can before we revert to realspace. We would certainly not survive turning around and going back through Slipspace.”

Usze suspected that if the Arbiter was alone, he might have tried anyway. He ws on the verge of telling the Arbiter that he and N’tho didn’t mind, that they were willing to take the gamble. But Usze realized that even though he outranked N’tho, it didn’t give him the right to toss away the Minor Domo’s life. That was N’tho’s choice to make, not his.

And he also realized that the Arbiter had his own reason for wanting to survive. Rtas ‘Vadumee. And the whole population of Sanghelios who, after the Prophets’ betrayal, would be counting on the Arbiter to lead them forward.

No. They could not go back.

Reality seemed to bend and flex around them as the ship—or what was left of it—decanted to realspace.

“I’m transmitting coordinates to the Humans,” the Arbiter said. “Maybe they can find the Chief and Cortana. We, on the other hand, are going nowhere but down.”

“Do you need help?” Usze repeated.

“No. I want you and N’tho to brace yourselves…and pray to the Ancestors that we all survive.”

“Understood.” Usze rummaged around, found some cargo straps, and threaded them through the stringers of the bulkhead in an impromptu seatbelt. He sat down, pushing his back against the side of the ship.

N’tho was still standing there, shaking.

“Get over here,” Usze snapped, but it was only when he patted the space beside him that N’tho sat, practically in his lap.

To hell with it. Usze did up the straps around the both of them, hoping they would hold. N’tho wriggled, grabbing on to him.

They fell like demons from the heavens.

The universe turned over and over, spiralling like a helix, corkscrewing, flipping inside-out. Usze realized he was clinging to N’tho. Usze then realized that the both of them were crying out as terror and exhaustion ripped the shrieks from their throats.

And it was over. They were still.

He put his hand on N’tho’s muzzle until the younger warrior quieted.

“What are we gonna do?” N’tho said, his voice perilously close to a whimper.

“The Arbiter is in touch with the Humans. They’re coming to raise the ship and cut us out. He said he’d comm us if he needed any help, but right now the best thing we can do is stay down here and hold ourselves together.”

Easier said than done. Usze felt strangled, as though they were already running out of air. Logically, he knew the ship had air for a few days in it, but all of a sudden the confines of his helmet were unbearable. He popped the seal and pulled the helmet off his face, gasping in air, flaring his mandibles wide. Next to him, Nitro was staring into nothingness, eyes glassy, breathing shallow, as though he were hanging on to sanity by the thinnest of filaments.

What would the perfect Sangheili do?

All this time, Usze had considered the perfect Sangheili to be someone detached, unaffected by the emotions of the weak, unshaken by the events that occurred around him. Now, here in the wreck of Forward Unto Dawn at the bottom of an alien sea, Usze realized two things.

First, he would never be that perfect Sangheili. He was terrified, shattered, lonely, confused, angry, bereaved, lost… Who was he, to try to be a role model for other Sangheili when he knew it was a lie to pretend that he’d reached perfection? His weapons skills did not give him the leadership qualities of the Arbiter, the unshakable loyalty of Rtas ‘Vadum, or the indominatable spirit of Fil Storamee. Swordsmanship alone was not enough. The new way of the Sangheili people had to be community, and that was something Usze ‘Taham knew very little about.

That was the second thing he now knew, revealed to him in a moment of revelation. He did not want to be that paragon of virtue alone on his pedestal, towering above the mere mortals. He did not think that distant hero was a hero worth being any longer. No, if there was any damn bit of decency within him, he’d do the right thing and take care of N’tho, who was currently shuddering in his arms, crying into his neck.

The old Usze ‘Taham would have stood up, brushed himself off, and withdrawn—perhaps even chastizing N’tho for his weakness. The new Usze ‘Taham had been through too much, and changed too much. The Ascetic Ideal meant very little in this moment.

“Listen to me,” Usze rasped. He had to keep himself together. He had to bring Nitro back to reality, lest he be lost in a hell of memory and nightmare forever.

N’tho’s eyes were wild, but he focused on Usze’s face. Nitro seemed to be asking him the same question he had been asking himself: what did he want?

He wanted not to be alone any more.

“You remember that night on Shadow of Intent?”

N’tho nodded again, a small grin twisting the corner of his mouth.

“And the stream on the Ark?”

The grin widened. Yes, he definitely remembered that.

“When we make it out of here, I’m taking you to bed with me.” He found his face burning even as he said the words.

“Are you seri…” N’tho couldn’t even finish the sentence. He looked as though someone had set a wonderful feast in front of him, and now, as soon as he reached for it, they might jerk it away from him again.

He flicked the tip of N’tho’s snout. “Are you accusing a superior of lying?” he teased.

He could see N’tho’s eyes gleaming. “You’re on. Sir.”

And Usze, overcome by an impulse he did not understand, nipped at N’tho’s neck and whispered, “I thought it was bad manners to use honourifics when…”

N’tho grinned wickedly. “We’re not in bed. Sir.”

“Not yet,” Usze retorted and N’tho’s mandibles flared and he started to lap Usze’s neck, and Usze ‘Taham wondered where in the hell his dignity had gone and why he hadn’t gotten rid of it sooner.

Usze bent his head and started to lick N’tho’s cheek. N’tho’s skin was thick and raw and tasted like blood, gunpowder, sweat…and delight...

Suddenly there was a banging on the hull.

Usze froze. N’tho gave him some licks before he realized that his ministrations weren’t making his partner relax; then the other Sangheili drew back to look Usze in the face. “What?” N’tho asked.

“The Humans,” Usze managed to whisper hoarsely. “The Humans are cutting through the hull. If we keep this up, they’re going to…”

“Find us rutting like animals and lose all respect for us, yeah, I know.” N’tho jerked away, struggling out of the harness to stand, so fast that Usze’s whole body screamed out in loss and protest. “Oh yeah, and you hate me. I know that, too.”

Usze sprang to his feet as well and reached out to grab N’tho’s arm by the wrist. “I don’t hate you.” He tugged the other Sangheili close until they were nose-to-nose. “You crazy maniac, why did you come back for me?”

He should have died on the Halo. He had flipped the Chopper, fallen off. And N’tho, the idiot, had come back to get him.

“You could have died,” Usze continued. “Boiled to death in the lava.”

N’tho shrugged. “I would have missed you.” He dropped his head, looked away. It was a gesture of shame.

“I don’t mind,” Usze said softly. “Being missed.” He took his hand, carefully, and caught N’tho’s cheek, guiding the other Sangheili to look at him.

His hand was shaking. He didn’t think it was just battle shock. He didn’t care if N’tho knew.

He dared to put his other hand on N’tho’s back and pull the Minor Domo closer. N’tho did not protest, just stood there, quivering, letting Usze stroke him, burying his muzzle in Usze’s shoulder despite the fact that he had to lean downwards to do so.

Usze was trying to find the words to ask N’tho to come find him later, when this was all done—trying to figure out how to make it an invitation, not an order—when the Humans peeled back the hull and beckoned them out for medical care.

*

Usze ‘Taham tried to pay attention to what the Human ONI officer was asking him, but N’tho was looking his way across the table again from out of his unbandaged eye, and Usze’s thoughts persisted in following his vision until they centered around a certain SpecOps warrior instead of dwelling on the Halo mission. He answered the questions mechanically, feeling as though his mouth was moving automatically.

He felt that he’d told the story countless times already. How many times did the Humans need to hear about the “backup” Halo that had been released from the Ark? How often did he have to struggle to explain the plan that seemed to make perfect sense to the Demon and Cortana, the plan to fire the unprepared Halo? He had no idea how they could have been so sure that Halo would destroy the Flood on the Ring without wiping out the universe.

And worst of all, he had no idea where the other half of Forward Unto Dawn had gone.

He couldn’t even work up proper guilt, because every time he tried to tell himself that a Perfect Warrior would have been watching the monitors or something and known the Slipspace coordinates of the place where Forward Unto Dawn had been cut in half, his mind retorted that he’d been spending that time looking after N’tho and saving him from suffocation.

And then his mind just stayed on N’tho.

How it had felt when N’tho was in his lap, velvet skin against his bare chest, illicitly soft, deceptively sweet.

Ancestors preserve him. He’d been absolutely serious when he’d asked N’tho to come to bed with him. Now he had no idea what would happen when the two of them were alone, and it might be a huge disaster, but by all the fallen heroes, he couldn’t wait to find out.

“Look, can we sum this up here?” N’tho said at last, scratching at the bandage over his eye. “The Halo blew up. We think we got all the Flood. We know the universe is still here. We don’t have any fucking clue where the Master Chief is. We’re tired, we’re hungry, we ache all over and we feel like shit. If you need to talk to us more, try two days from now; we’ll probably be just waking up.” N’tho braced his hands on the table and pulled himself to his feet, moving slowly, like a Sangheili four times his biological age.

Usze got up as well. The ONI officer, rather reluctantly it seemed, gave them permission to leave; then he jogged down the hallway after N’tho, who hadn’t waited to be dismissed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Usze asked the SpecOps warrior.

“Sleep.”

“Did you get a room?”

“Don’t care about a room…anywhere I can sleep…quiet corner …that’s enough…” N’tho was almost falling over with exhaustion.

Usze reached out a hand, caught N’tho’s hand. “I have a room.”

“Goody for you.” N’tho couldn’t keep his good eye in focus, and his words were slurred. “Go brag somewhere else an’ lemme sleep.”

“It’s big enough for two.”

“Oh.” N’tho’s eye widened slowly. “Oh.”

“You’re coming with me and that’s an order.”

N’tho nodded and let Usze pull him down the corridor. Usze flashed a card in front of a scanner and the door opened. They’d been given a room in the senior officer’s quarters; the king-size bed, huge and luxurious by human standards, was just big enough to accommodate two Sangheili. Usze ushered N’tho in and closed and locked the door.

“Do I hafta sleep in my jumpsuit?” N’tho mumbled.

Oh, condemnation. Superior officers were supposed to be confident and decisive, fearless and reassuring. Usze was blushing like a virgin female on her first breeding season. N’tho was the one who knew what he was doing here…

…and if they were going to clean up at all, it would involve being naked.

Somehow the idea of taking off his armour and jumpsuit in front of Nitro seemed more intimate than the fact that they’d already been next to each other with no clothes on in that stream on the Ark.

Usze took a deep breath, trying to keep his voice steady. “No. All of our clothing is irredeemably filthy. Get out of that suit and into the hot tub.”

“Hot tub?”

“Human bathtubs are ridiculously small and I refuse to squat in order to fit myself underneath a human-height shower head.”

N’tho gave him a crooked grin. Usze took him by the arm and looked around the room. The hot tub was set off to one side. It took a little fiddling with the controls, but soon enough the tub was filling with warm water. Usze sniffed curiously at the accompanying bottles, guessed that one was soap, and poured some in. Fragrant bubbles frothed up from the tub.

And then he felt hands on his helmet and a voice saying “How do I pop the seal on this thing?”

Usze reached up and did it himself, lifting off the assault helmet, setting it on the table, and then looking shyly at N’tho. The SpecOps Elite continued to smile—apparently he liked what he saw.

Next, Usze put his hands on his chest armour, all the while looking at N’tho, who pulled back slightly to watch. ‘Taham tried to ask should I take it off? But he couldn’t get the words to pass his lips.

N’tho smiled softly, caught Usze’s wrists in his hands and guided Usze’s hands to his own armour. Usze hesitated, confused.

Then he felt N’tho undoing the snaps of his assault harness and he understood.

We undress each other.

Usze went slowly, carefully, and N’tho’s pace matched his. He gently set N’tho’s armour on the floor, piece by piece, while next to ‘Sraom a similar pile of claret-coloured armour slowly accumulated.

Then they were down to their bodysuits. They opened down the front, and the two Sangheili took turns—one holding a sleeve, the other pulling his arm out of it, and then they reversed until both of their jumpsuits were collected around their waists.

N’tho took Usze’s jumpsuit in his hands—one on either side of Usze’s hips—and then hesitated, silently asking permission.

Usze nodded, ducking his head. How long since he had been shy about anything?

N’tho gently liberated him from his clothing. He stepped out of the suit, nervously flaring his mandibles. N’tho stepped forward and buried his face in the other Sangheili’s neck.

By the Rings, how he felt! Usze held him close for a few moments, stroking Nitro’s back, but his hand drifted lower as if on its own accord. Soon he found himself struggling with the other male’s suit. N’tho pulled away a bit, gave him a tentative grin. Usze laughed and pulled the other male’s suit down.

N’tho wriggled free and leaped nimbly into the tub with a ridiculous splash.

Usze pursued him, entering the warm water with a little more dignity…but oh, it felt good. Warm, soothing on his sore muscles, sluicing the grime off his hide.

“Hey Uzi.”

‘Taham lifted his head.

N’tho splashed him in the face.

Usze spluttered, blinking furiously. “You damned fool…whatever possessed you to…”

N’tho was snickering at him. “Maybe you’d better come get me for that.”

“Maybe I will,” Usze replied. He ducked under the water, falling to his knees and reaching out to grab N’tho’s foot….then standing up as fast as he could.

It swept N’tho’s other leg right out from under him and dropped the SpecOps warrior down in the tub. The resulting tidal wave slopped over the side, making an awful mess on the floor. N’tho churned his arms, resurfacing, sluicing water from his mandibles and shooting Usze such a wounded look that ‘Taham collapsed back on the bench in gales of helpless laughter.

‘Sraom swam up to sit beside him. He poked him in the ribs. “Damn it, I never should have taught you how to be an asshole.” But he was grinning while he said it.

Usze grinned back. “I learned from the master.”

“Fuck you,” N’tho said, cuddling up against him.

Usze licked the other male’s cheek. Under the taste of soap and water was that hypnotic musky flavour. He felt his eyelids droop.

“By the Rings, I could fall asleep in here,” N’tho slurred.

“No.” It was dangerous because it was true; sleep was very tempting now. “Out.” Usze grabbed N’tho’s arm, tugged on it. “I did not shepherd you across the Omega Halo only to have you drown in a hot tub.”

“Shepherd, my ass,” N’tho muttered. “I was the one driving.”

“Shut up and get in the bed.”

N’tho made a sleepy sound.

Usze poked him. “Come on, Nitro. Out.”

N’tho slowly dragged himself out of the tub. He shook himself on the way to the bed, apparently not intending to bother with a towel.

Usze drew the line at sleeping in a puddle of dampness, no matter how tired he was. He summoned enough energy to sprint after N’tho and wrap him in a towel, rubbing him down. By the time he deemed the other Sangheili dry enough to release, N’tho’s eyes were mostly shut. Usze took only a few moments to dry himself, but before he could finish, Nitro had already settled himself in the sheets on his belly.

Usze dropped his towel and hesitated beside the bed. It was not too late to sleep on the floor; Forerunners knew he was tired enough. He had a sensation that if he were to get in that bed, he would be crossing a line, and there would be no going back.

N’tho raised his head and blinked once, twice, and made a questioning noise deep in his throat. “Uzi…I’m so tired …”

“Sleep now. We’ll see what happens in the morning, hm?”

Nitro managed a sleepy smile, purring loudly as Usze ‘Taham pulled back the covers and settled himself beside N’tho ‘Sraom.

Oh, it felt so good. Not just the ability to take weight off his aching feet or the sensation of finally being clean or the fact that he didn’t have to think about anything or do anything—no, the best was that velvet caress of his chest against N’tho. Such a decadent reward for a weary warrior…

He nudged the other warrior onto his side, tucking his chest against Nitro’s back, marvelling at his own automatic purring.

In the second before unconsciousness claimed him, Usze heard N’tho murmur, “Fuck yeah.”