03: ONI SAYS JUMP

Making tracks through the outskirts and then the hills to get back to the sloop where he had left his fellow Spartan II took what felt like forever. Flint hadn't heard anything else on the radio from her since the first couple of calls, but the mission clock hadn't ticked off that much time.

Had something actually happened, or had he imagined the whole episode? Would he arrive back at the Whispers only to be greeted by a surprised look from Tori and questions about why he'd cut the mission short? She didn't know his patterns, but she was smart enough to be able to guess how long it should take him to get it done.

Puzzling over such thoughts as he made the journey, Flint circled the landing struts of the sloop and toggled the hatch to open. He stood still for a moment as it came down, the foot settling into the stirred leaves before he started up the steps. Most days he was halfway into the ship before it was even all the way open, but at the moment, he felt everything was so awry that jumping ahead just seemed like a bad idea. He needed a moment or two to collect his thoughts first; it didn't really help that said thoughts were all over the place.

Changing to being the one being flung out of bed while still asleep had put perspective on a few things, to start. Tori's slow amorphous change from spitfire to mellow but dangerous had kept him on edge. She was strange to start with, but this… the acid at the edges of his mind made it hard to figure out. She had changed, slowly, gradually, becoming someone else. Flint wasn't sure how to react to that, or if he was even supposed to.

Stepping back aboard the Whispers for the first time since that morning, Flint paused to take it in. The entrance bay was empty of unusual, noteworthy changes; it was also quiet, and it remained that way even after he'd sealed the exterior and opened the interior airlock. Silence pervaded, it seemed, through the entirety of the ship. Finally, after several dozen uncounted heartbeats, Flint heard a small thump sound, like a small object with neither rolling nor bouncing properties had hit the floor.

The cat?

Flint tapped the fingers of one hand idly against the empty magnetic grapple plates on his thigh armor where his missing magnum was supposed to be, thinking. He had never known the Whispers to actually whisper. But now it seemed to be doing just that. Reaching up, he unlatched his helmet, and lifted it off his head. Once it was tucked under an elbow, he began the slow, observant walk up the corridor into the depths of the sloop, looking for where his only companions might be hiding.

The walking seemed to help calm his nerves, though the silence still tingled at his edges. Idly, he wondered what he would find; Tori had never been quite this absent in the past. She could play at being distant, sure. But even she had her limits, and with the engines on a cool spin – off, in layman's terms, without actually being shut completely down – the ship was quiet enough that even Flint's walking had a soft echoing ring to it. Each step rattled down the breadth of the corridor, advertising his location.

Finally, a sign of life showed itself, at the juncture where the corridors to the engine room and the main feed to the front of the ship met. Artemis walked, quiet like a ghost on her fuzzy paws, around the corner, her tail hung outward behind her in indication of opinionated observation.

Flint paused where he stood to look at the cat a moment. Seeing him stop the cat stopped also, and took a moment to lick at the inside of a wrist. The motion drew Flint's attention to the sticky, matted fur on all four of the cat's paws, although where she could have gotten a substance that met those criteria was a mystery. Even the biologically beneficial substances that were aboard that could possibly do that to cat fur were all sealed away inside tubing that was damn near Spartan-proof… no way a tiny housecat could get one open.

Flint quirked a brow, trying to figure that detail out. If she had been, as previously guessed, clawing the skin off Tori's shins, her complexion ought to be at least mildly colored. It wasn't – whatever substance was all over the cat was predominantly clear. At that point she decided to lift her tail, the very tip curled over like a pointing finger, and come forward to rub her head and sides across one of Flint's armored boots. He watched her do it, bemused by the gesture, but couldn't even feel the gentle push of having been head-bonked on the shin. Mjolnir would do that.

Reaching down with his free hand, Flint scooped the cat up off the floor, and set her inside the collar of his chest armor, where she promptly head-bonked him in the face and made him laugh. "Happy to see you too, kid," he told her. "What'd you do with the other Human aboard, hm?"

Now she was making skin contact, he could tell her sticky paws also had a smell – and were actually still sticky, and not dried on and simply matted down. He grimaced briefly when he felt some of that unknown stuff come off on his chin. Yuck. But it smelled vaguely familiar; whatever it was, it rang eerily similar to the type of stuff found on Human innards. But, like connective tissues or fat deposits, or the way the inside of a freshly peeled skin smelled. Not like blood, not quite like muscle tissue. This explained, though confusingly, why there was no color on the cat's matted fur.

It wasn't blood… it was something else.

Pulling the cat away from his face to spare himself more of the sticky goo, Flint began to walk again, helmet in one hand and cat in the other, around the corner from which Artemis had come. At first he thought he ought to check out Medical, because that was where such smelly, sticky substances ought to be – ideally – but at the other end of the corridor that smell was now in the hallway, and nolonger just on the cat.

And he was nowhere near Medical.

Brows meeting, Flint turned to follow the smell, eventually winding up in the fore section just aft of the bridge, and it was there he finally found Tori. She was seated on the floor, propped partially against one wall, her arms folded over her front like she felt a need to hold her chest together with them. There were smears, some thick, some thin, of the clear substance everywhere, including all over her arms and her clothes.

He leaned over to put the cat down when she looked up at him, still wearing his puzzled expression from earlier; "It stinks in here," he greeted, perhaps tactlessly.

Tori hiccupped at him, her own expression going from oddly neutral to mildly annoyed. "No, I stink in here. And so does Junior." At that proclamation, she held aloft a baby – their baby – still sopping in partially dried amniotic fluids.

Flint felt himself do a double take; not because he was shocked to see a baby, but because the sight of it sent shuddering chills through his large frame as part of a horrifying memory surged upwards. The last time he'd seen something so small, so young, and so fragile, it had died, and it had been his fault for thinking he could fight with the one holding it. When nothing immediately otherwise similar to that event occurred again, he felt able to take a breath to steady his nerves, and focus back on the present.

Tori's annoyed look morphed into puzzled concern. She tucked the baby back down into the crook of an elbow, where it emitted the oddest sounding mumbling noises. "Flint, are you okay?"

"No," he blurted, before he was even sure he wanted to answer that question. Now it was out, though, and there was no taking it back. He sighed. "Why are you sitting on the floor?"

To that, Tori shrugged, dismissive. "It's as far as I got before I couldn't crawl any farther. I started out in there," she jerked a thumb at the semi-distant door to the bridge. Faint smears of blood mixed with the amniotic fluids were all over the walls and floor between that door and where she now sat. It took until then for Flint to realize that she was also, at the moment, not wearing any pants. Their current location was not immediately evident, but she could be sitting on them, or have left them on the bridge.

Having the ship pretty exclusively to themselves for so long had lent certain degrees of efficiency… and random nudity… to the daily routine. It was not uncommon to wander about clothed, half-clothed, or unclothed, and it was for this reason it had taken that long for Flint to notice the detail; it simply wasn't unusual enough to warrant note.

"Wait…" he scrunched his face up, watching as Artemis trailed paw prints through the amniotic fluids on the floor around Tori, tail still erect like a little flag. "Is this what you were bawling about on the comn earlier?"

Tori huffed a sarcastic laugh. "Two hours ago, sure. Help me up; this stuff is actually kind of nasty and the kid came prepackaged in a lot of it."

"Yeah, it looks like you got it everywhere. Even on the cat." Flint agreed.

"Hey, that part is her fault!" Tori defended. "She wanted to get involved."

.

After Tori and the so-dubbed "Junior" had been put through the shower, all associated laundry items shoved into the wash, and the vast majority of the nasty stickiness scoured off the deck, the four of them wound up gathered in the quarter the former three had shared.

"He looks like you, except a little darker," Tori mentioned, her eyes half-lidded as she stroked her fingers over the baby's bald head. She had chosen to sprawl on the bed, flat on her back for the first time in six months, the baby trapped in a makeshift birdsnest shaped out of a handy blanket near her head. He was a squirmy little thing, and while he certainly lacked language skills, he was also predominantly vocal.

Flint had gotten tired of the endless dialogue a while ago, but apparently Junior was still fascinated by his own vocal chords. Grumbling a little as he sat down in the chair next to the door – it was seeing some use, nowadays, and he was glad for its presence – the cat immediately invited herself to his lap the instant it became available.

Dropping both hands over her when she laid down there, Flint heaved a sigh, pushing his mouth to one side. "Is he ever going to shut up?"

"I don't know," Tori admitted. "He's kind of the first new baby I've ever met. None of the articles I read mentioned anything about how much or how often babies vocalize. Maybe it's something you learn from social exposure in a civilian setting."

Flint grunted, a little disinterested. "Well, he can't sleep there every night."

Tori gave a small laugh. "He won't sleep at night at all, Flint." She turned partway to see him. "Not for the first handful of months, at least. He'll catnap… kind of like Artemis does. His digestive system is too short to keep a sustainable amount of sustenance aboard for very long at all, and from what I read, if you don't feed new babies often, they tend to scream."

"Great, screaming," Flint groused. "Just what I need." He poked his head with a finger, indicating its contents. "I was hoping the internal sound effects would stay internal."

Tori sighed at him; she knew better than to ask where any internal screaming was coming from, because Flint did not tell tales. He never had, and she didn't expect that to change. He was a tortured, tormented soul, and there was no hiding that much, but why he was a tortured, tormented soul would probably remain a mystery to all but Flint. "Well, in any case, it's simple enough to put a stop to it. Just plug in a boob and the baby does the rest."

Flint's face contorted between confusion and humor. "Plug in…? What the hell, Tori?"

Seeing that, she laughed. "You know… medically, breast tissue is mainly mammary glands, which, under the correct hormonal circumstances, produce a fatty liquid. And according to what I read, it's supposedly me giving him my immune system until he develops his own."

"Which is a hoot and a half considering you haven't got one," Flint put in. "I'm gonna be anemic at this rate."

"Don't be silly; as much as I can tell," Tori began, apparently waking up to rise to the challenge of a scientific lecture, "your condition is genetically based. Mine was induced; I did used to have a perfectly functional immune system, you know. And as much of an inconvenience as this little guy is gonna be for a while, he is just as much your son as he is mine. Which means, he's got a fifty-fifty chance of turning out just like you."

"What, medically speaking?"

Tori nodded. "Your brother told me that your father had a similar condition, although less potent. There were tales of the trait farther up the line than him, too, all in varying degrees of severity."

Flint shook his head. "Frank talks too much."

"Frank spent thirty years in the military fighting aliens just so he could see you again, Flint, don't be ungrateful. Besides, having a little background on what to expect from… ah, hell, he needs a name." She blew a tired raspberry, turning back to see the baby. "… problematic."

"Why?" Flint asked, seemingly genuinely curious.

"Mainly," Tori answered, turning back to look at Flint, "because I've never given anyone or anything a name before in my life, and the one I give my kid is going to be stuck on him for the rest of his life. He's a dumb little shit-factory now, but in ten, twenty, thirty years from now, he's just as functional and viable as the next human being. That's a lot of pressure."

To that, Flint actually gave a crinkled smile that touched his eyes. "Nice."

.

"Junior" turned out to be a decent inspiration for a name, or that's what Flint supposed, when Tori finally came back with an actual name for their baby; because it turned out to be "Jonas". Flint didn't feel one way or the other about it, but while it was nice to finally have something to call the kid besides "the baby", he chose not to make any offerings just so Tori wouldn't change her mind about it and leave Flint confused as to what to call him.

To Flint, this was the most efficient and straightforward way to deal with the situation. It made him feel lucky that the cat had come with a name already, solving the issue before it could begin. If only babies came out of the womb wearing nametags, too. Oh well.

Jonas, as it were, surely did not know the meaning of the concept of shutting the hell up, however, and after the first bawling session that appeared to have no origin – and no solution, either – Flint had retreated to the bridge in search of silence. Tori appeared to have slightly more patience for that behavior, although she had been the one doing all the research of what to do with baby humans. Flint wondered if he ought to have looked over some of that material himself, now the kid was out; never once in all his galactic travels had he encountered something that could emit such a piercing, muscle-rending sound.

The worst part, though, was it wasn't something he could use a gun to solve. Adapting to yet another change in ship life was going to be long and arduous, but adapting to extra – and useless – crew would probably be worse. He had briefly wondered why nobody had seen fit to warn him what kind of impediment to action this was going to be; first being pregnant had physically stopped Tori from fitting inside her Mjolnir, thus taking her out of commission. Now, simple maintenance to keep the baby alive and healthy was going to continue to prevent her from reentering the combat theater, which meant Flint was going to be a one-man wonder for a lot longer than he'd originally guessed; being small enough to fit back into her armor would probably take a handful of weeks – or months, who knew – but getting the kid to a place where he didn't need hourly access to his mother was, according to Tori, going to take years.

Or, at least one.

Sitting down at the helm, Flint discovered the silence of the bridge did not actually possess the solace it had advertised upon entry; there was a message from ONI HQ, and just from the title of the encrypted file, it looked a little angry.

Feeling deflated and defeated even before he'd begun, Flint typed his way through the decryption and opening process to display the message it contained, and find out what ONI was upset about now. Didn't they know now was not a good time? Well, no, how could they? Flint hadn't exactly been honest with them, lately.

Personal ignorance might be bliss under certain circumstances, but the ignorance of others to one's personal circumstances certainly was not; reading down through the message, Flint's brows crawled closer and closer together until they almost touched over his nose; He spared a couple of fingers to rub the wrinkle when it started to throb, but the frown felt somehow permanent.

ONI had just gotten flagged by a hellacious distress call from the colony they had sent him to, because someone had seen a Spartan II in action, and someone had told the locals that the reason he was there was because there was a Flood infestation in the neighborhood. The reports had been believed as credible because there was a Spartan II on the ground. The resulting pandemonium from the colonists all clamoring to get away before that theoretical infestation came their way was something to behold, apparently, and now Flint was in trouble for having propagated the lie.

He wasn't sure what lie they thought they were referring to, because while he didn't recall everything about the small pocket of Flood on his last op, he was pretty sure he hadn't been dreaming that. What did the desk jockeys back at ONI HQ know about Flood on the ground? Flint was the one who had actually seen, met, fought with and been defeated by the parasite. If anyone would know Flood when they saw it, it would be Flint.

Right?

In any case, there were new orders attached; he, and Tori, and the Whispers, had just been called in. Flint imagined there would be the usual rigor of medical checkups and system diagnostics and the memory chips from the helmet cams pulled for review… but it presented a brand new problem.

Tori's pregnancy was an unknown to ONI, and randomly presenting a brand new baby without ever having admitted to any of it would look really, really bad. There might be ominous words, like retirement, spoken. Being decommissioned from the field was something Flint had done his best to avoid; the coping mechanisms he'd discovered for handling his deteriorating condition were all tied very tightly to his work.

The suit, the fighting, the fresh environments every week. He needed that… shoveling Tori out of bed at two in the morning or being woken up by her kicking him off of her from the middle of a half nelson were not the worst things he'd found himself doing, lately.

Flint rubbed his eyes, feeling old and tired. He had no idea how to handle ONI's newest request. Tori looked pretty bad, baby out and done with or not. There would be no hiding her condition… likely no hiding his, either. And where could they hide the baby, on top of everything else? Problems, problems, and no solutions were forthcoming.

Nightmarish echoes danced at the edges of his eyes, even when closed, but now there were new elements included that he had thought, had hoped, were locked solidly away. He'd never heard the Sangheilian infant cry, possibly not because it hadn't done any but because the sound of battle was louder, but it felt the same. Frankly being near the infant scared him; he had no idea what he was going to do, living long-term with the kid.

Now ONI was behaving like the Brute Chieftain, but this time was different. Again, not a problem he could solve with a gun. Everything was coming crashing down, all because someone didn't believe the one qualified guy to know what he saw when he saw it.

An abrupt sound woke him from his brooding, and he about snapped right out of the chair. Turning to see the extent of the room, Flint stopped when he found Tori standing there – remarkably enough, sans baby.

She looked worried. "Flint, you're a mess."

The greeting didn't help. "ONI just issued a recall. We have to go in to base main."

The update changed her expression almost instantly. "What? Why?" She seemed a little unsteady on her feet, but she wasn't moving for the other chair in the room. "Wait… what are we going to do about Jonas? Did they find out about him? Is that why we got called in?"

Flint shook his head, almost able to count time in the spaces between heartbeats again; she'd spooked him, and spooked him bad. It didn't always end this pleasantly, either. Forcefully, he stilled his shaking arms, keeping them rigid at his sides. They wanted something to grab, something to kill. Killing things made him feel better. Let him focus. Made him think that maybe he was still sane. "No, they don't know. Someone sent in a Flood report. ONI is antsy."

She visibly relaxed. Her eyes stitched across the keys on the consoles behind him for a moment, before lifting back to his face with a new question. "What are we going to do about Jonas, though, if we're going in?" If ONI didn't know about the child yet, they would surely find out if he came along for the ride back to HQ.

"I don't know," Flint admitted, feeling weak. The frown stuck on his face was beginning to hurt, but it still wouldn't come loose. Problems he wasn't even sure how to tackle were multiplying, and it was making his head swim. He felt his hands coming up, so he ran them over his own head to give them something to do.

Strangling Tori was not going to help; it would probably just get him kicked in the guts and locked in a storage bay for a few hours. She folded her arms over her chest, looking pensive. "Is there anyone we could leave him with who would give him back?"

Flint's mind spun in a dizzying direction, but he got his hands to come back down again. Letting his arms go totally limp helped; dropping his shoulders too just rippled tension back in, though, and he felt his fists clench. Pain seared in sideways, and he realized he had his jaw set when his teeth began to ache. Regardless of species, regardless of parentage, babies always seemed to come with a hefty box of bad news attached to them. Seeking counsel on how to handle that seemed like a good idea. 'Taramee would know what to do with a baby – right?

Tori's waving hand in front of his face distracted him for a moment, and he looked at her. "Who's 'Taramee?" she was asking.

A shadow crossed Flint's face, but it disappeared quickly. He swallowed. "You're shitting me."

Tori gave him an incredulous look. "Why would I know who 'Taramee is, Flint? You don't talk about your past with me."

He shook his head. He knew she'd met the overgrown oaf at least once, but it had been a brief encounter and he couldn't remember if he'd bothered to introduce the two. "I didn't think that had come out, aloud."

"Well, it's out, and apparently this 'Taramee fellow has experience in babies, so out with the rest of it. Is that really an option? Is there really someone we can trust?"

Flint exhaled. For a single, shining moment, all was still. All he could see, all he could feel, was the stillness of the control deck, the cool, recycled air, and Tori. Just Tori. No spinning horrors, no shuddering nightmarish ghosts clawing at his consciousness. It was, he realized, an option. Maybe not a good one, maybe not the one he ought to choose, but it was an option, something other than confessing to ONI.

"Flint, don't do this to me." Tori insisted, stepping closer and resting her hands on his shoulders. "Come on, what's going on with you? Should I be worried?"

He forcibly dropped the tension in them, but when he met her gaze again he knew she'd felt him drop it; doubtless she could see the anguish too, even though it wasn't on his face. "Just… an old friend. From a long time ago." The truth was, 'Taramee was the biggest damn Elite Flint had ever met, and he'd chosen the warrior for his strike team back on Delta Halo when the Schism was just getting started. 'A long time ago' was an understatement; it had been several years.

'Taramee was one of many Elites Flint had been adopted by; and he was, in part, responsible for Flint's Sangheilian name. A moment of peace crept into the chaos abruptly at the recollection that he still had that name; like a temporary balm, the one fond memory amid a storm of trauma bubbled up, and the wrinkle between his brows relaxed just a bit. My name is 'Zelisee. He had said that, once, to Lord Hood. And for a time, he had truly believed it. But nobody had called him that in what felt like ages, and it had almost faded completely. Perhaps it was time the Sangheilian legend made a reappearance.

"We should get airborne… leave orbit. I'll drop him a call in slipspace and hope he answers. If anyone can pull this off for us, it's 'Taramee." With that said, Flint turned back to the controls, and sat back down, reaching for the interface and spooling up the engines.

Tori found the sudden resolution and confidence almost as alarming as the rush of haunting shadows behind his eyes from earlier; but it was something, and at least he wasn't going to attack her. She made a mental note to bring up his old Elite buddies more often; they seemed to distract him from the terror that followed his every step.

.

Once the Whispers made slipspace, Flint parked it and started broadcasting. Despite ONI's urgent recall order, Flint was disinclined to hurry to the specified coordinates. He wanted to see 'Taramee first. He spent most of his time just sitting on the bridge, although he did take time out to clean and put away his armor and weapons from the last op. Tori seemed suddenly a merciful creature, keeping the infant away from him.

Or maybe she felt a need to protect the kid from him; Flint was not the most stable individual, even on his good days. Other than the initial show-and-tell, he hadn't even really seen the boy, but after the terrible reaction he'd encountered the first time around, Flint was not exactly enthusiastic to try again. Whether Tori understood that or if she didn't was honestly immaterial; either way, the current situation worked out alright.

Part of him wasn't sure what he would say to 'Taramee when the big Elite turned up – part of him wasn't sure the warrior even would show up. Three days passed, slowly, like syrup, and Tori seemed to slowly gravitate back towards the onboard gym. Her sessions seemed unusually short, but she went back a lot. Very often he could hear her complaining loudly at the weights and cables, bitching about how she had never ever been that badly out of shape before in her life; even aboard the asteroid laboratory where he had found her, she had frequented the gym and kept in shape.

Apparently, being pregnant hadn't permitted her to do very much of anything, and recovering from it was a frustrating process. Flint did his best not to go in there when she was working; it sounded like an invitation to a fight he did not want to have.

Finally, feeling that maybe 'Taramee was never going to answer, and unwilling to further irritate ONI by being excessively late, Flint chose a halfway point to the indicated coordinates and dropped the sloop out of slipspace. It was a good way to pop back up on radar and show he was making progress in the general direction of obedience, but he was certainly in no hurry to actually arrive quite as yet.

He'd been sitting there for about ten minutes – long enough to stop paying attention to the readouts – when the comn pinged an incoming tightbeam signal. The sound was neither loud nor harsh, but it still startled him enough to make him grab the chair so he wouldn't fall out of it.

"Damn…" Flint swore, looking quickly over the readouts. Opening the channel, he waited a moment, listening, to see what was going on.

"Great legends speak themselves across the aeons, and are carried by the hearts of those left in the breaking waves of time. Dreams of memory and the fire of souls, the preservation of history, for honor, and pain of growth."

Flint felt himself laugh before he realized he was going to. "Waxing poetic, now, are we?"

"Did you understand it?" Came the answer.

Flint rubbed an eyebrow, a little puzzled. "'Taramee, I'm guessing."

"In fairness, 'Zelis, you did call me. When legends beckon, those honored to hear the call, answer it."

Flint shook his head, bemused and amused. "Alright, then. But what's with the poetry?"

There was a sound something like a harrumph, but from the over-long throat of a Sangheilian. "It is useless, I am told, to try explaining its worth to those who do not appreciate it. I am curious to know, however, what is so urgent an event that even the great 'Zelis would cry for aid for three solar days without ceasing. And to me, specifically, at that."

Flint felt his cheeks redden. He'd forgotten how very high the pedestal the Elites had put him on was; and he'd also forgotten how embarrassing it could be, trying to get them to stop gaping at him in awe. "'Taramee, this is serious."

"I would imagine," the Shipmaster agreed. "But that does not, even still, explain the reason for that call. Why am I here, 'Zelis? What has happened?"

"Logistical problems, 'Taramee," Flint admitted, kneading his brow with both thumbs at once. "Tori had her baby, and ONI doesn't know about it."

The next sound that was not a word that came through the line sounded like startled choking. "Astonishing! So even the legendary 'Zelis is not immune to the wiles of the females; I had heard you had chosen a mate; I was unaware you had fathered young. Such prestige, to be the offspring of a warrior of such honor."

Flint rolled his eyes. "Whatever… look. We've been recalled. I wondered if you knew of a safe place we could leave the baby until ONI was done with us."

Silence.

"'Taramee…?"

It took several seconds more, but the Elite finally did answer. He was quieter, and sounded reserved; "I know of such a place."

Flint breathed out, a little relieved. "I don't know why I didn't think you would, but it's good to know you do. Listen…"

"'Zelis, spare me," the Shipmaster issued, sounding a little stern. "I know what you are asking. I will grant your offspring the sanctuary it requires for as long as it is needed. I have not forgotten the same that you did for me, once."

Flint's brows raised. "Oh, don't tell me, let me guess; it's an honor thing."

"Quite so. You needn't ask this favor of me, 'Zelis; the favor has already been granted. It is an honor, in itself, that you would come to me with this in the first place. It shows, for as little as you wish to admit, that you are truly more one of us than you are one of the Humans. It is why we call you brother. The soul does not care what appearance you wear."

Flint felt himself nodding. "… thanks." After another look across the readouts, he added, "Wait, so where are you?"

"Esel, lift camouflage. 'Zelis will be bringing his small vessel aboard briefly."

At first, Flint opened his mouth to reply, but then shut it again without a word, as an old Covenant cruiser-class ship materialized out of nothingness across his sensor array. 'Taramee had been speaking to a crewman on his own command deck, just then, and not to Flint. He felt his face smile for him at the sight; 'Taramee was wrong about one small detail.

Flint truly did feel more at home among the Elites than he did with his own species, of late. Since the Schism, ONI's mission parameters had shifted from simple Human preservation to darker, more ominous enterprises, and even Flint wasn't sure where they thought they were going with that thought. The Sangheilian race, conversely, had stayed just as straight and narrow and tightly honorbound as ever. Only the rabid xenophobia had been discarded, leaving the rest to shine how it ought.

"'Zelis, you may dock your vessel in the open bay. You should see an indicator for it on your sensors." 'Taramee added, after the ship was done materializing.

Flint gave a soft whistle. "Cloaking tech has gotten a little better since the war, eh, 'Taramee?"

"It has not changed. Your technology still has not caught up," the Shipmaster answered, coy. "If memory serves, you never could detect us when we chose to conceal ourselves."

To that, the Spartan II did laugh, a genuine expression of genuine amusement. "Aw, you know you couldn't hide all that effectively for all that long, big guy. We always seemed to find you out." He steered the Whispers toward the indicated docking bay; the cruiser was big enough to fit a thousand sloops of that size inside it, with plenty of room to knock them about inside left over. Having a couple of bays for smaller spacefaring ships didn't seem that unusual, given the enormity of what he was docking with. "Speaking of if memory serves," Flint continued, "wasn't your ship a hell of a lot smaller the last time we met?"

"To borrow a Human phrase, 'Zelis, do not sully my bluster before I have a chance to boast it. It is crude for warriors to discuss the relative sizes of their ships."

To that admission, Flint just snickered.

.

Artemis walked in first, the moment the door slipped open, her skinny little tail held high. Flint paused in the doorway to watch her walk away, weaving through the legs of the exercise equipment bolted to the floor all over the room. In all his travels and all his experiences, he had never once imagined he'd wind up having a tiny little housecat adopt him. There were days when he felt more fond of the cat than of Tori, but that was mainly because the cat was a simple creature, and Tori had an innate love of overcomplicating everything.

Now there was the added complication of Jonas, and heavens only knew how he was going to cope with that. Flint struggled just to figure out how to react, let alone choose between any selection of reactions. Tori, at least, seemed to be trying to return to her normal physique. Being able to fit into her Mjolnir again would certainly be a boon, but her belly hadn't been the only thing about her shape to change over the course of the pregnancy; Flint wasn't sure how she planned on solving all of her hormone-related shape changes, but she seemed to be willing to give the usual gound pounder's old method a try.

At current, she was pulling down on the handles of a machine designed to tighten the core; her weakest point, apparently, given what she looked like while trying to use it. Stepping out of the doorway at last, Flint slowly approached where she was. Past the stack of secured free weights, he spotted that familiar birds-nest bundle of blankets, in the center of which squirmed the baby.

For once, he was quiet, his little eyes wide like he was in shock but the rest of his chubby face merely suggesting mild interest. Grabbing one of his own feet, he tried to push it into his mouth, but the hand he was using to do it with got in the way. The entire posture served to block his view of Flint, though, and when his foot got free he fell flat again. There was no indication of whether he was doing any of that deliberately or not, and Flint wasn't sure if he really wanted to ask.

Tori, spotting him, used the visitation as an excuse to stop what she was doing and rest for a moment. Resisting the retraction of the handles she'd been pulling on until it came to a gentle rest, she let go of it and paused to mop her face with a handy towel she'd had draped over one knee.

"Hey, fancy seeing you here." She greeted.

Flint looked up at her, feeling mixed. "Found him."

"Found who?" Tori asked, adopting a puzzled expression.

"'Taramee. I just docked us to his ship."

She sat up straight, rolling the towel between her hands until it was a tight ball. "Did you talk to him about the problem? What did he say?"

"He said he'd take… Jonas… for as long as we needed him to."

After a wash of anguish passed across her face, Tori nodded, assenting. "Good call, I guess. Does he know how to care for a human child, though?"

Flint shrugged. "I have no idea. I'm sure you can give him all the scientific data he never wanted to know on the topic, though, given what you had to say to me about it."

Tori scrunched her face at him, standing up, stepping out of the seat on the machine and circling to where the baby lay. By that point Artemis had found him, climbed inside the blanket nest and had been grabbed by a handful of fur on the side of her neck.

Tori pulled Jonas' fingers open, set the cat aside, and promptly lifted the entire assembly up into her arms. Freed, Artemis darted for the door, pawing at it once she arrived when it failed to open automatically. "You know, I was keeping her out of here for a reason," Tori said, to Flint.

"Reasons that were not disclosed," Flint reminded her. "She follows me everywhere, even into the shower. Come on, let's get this overwith." He turned towards the door.

The cat looked relieved to see it was just Flint when he scooped her up, but her tail was still twitching back and forth as she watched Tori and the baby from over his shoulder. Flint led them back to their quarters, however, and deposited the cat on the bed.

"What are we doing in here?" Tori asked, puzzled. "I thought we were going to go meet this splitlip friend of yours."

Flint grimaced at her, pulling open the Mjolnir locker door. "Elites appreciate recognizable position and rank, Tori. Odds are if I show up without my armor on most of them won't know who I am, and I just don't have the patience today to spend endless hours re-introducing myself. That and some of them still seem to think 'Zelis is a lizard like them."

Tori hiccupped. "Wait, so… should I put mine on, too?"

Flint shrugged, dismissive. "If you want to."

Suddenly feeling small and exposed, Tori hurridly put her bundle of baby and blankets down on the bed next to the cat, and promptly pulled her armor locker open too. Artemis didn't try to interact with the baby again, allowing both Spartans to dress in silence. Tori had to stop with her skinsuit around her hips, though, and procure an ace wrap to try and do something about the remains of her empty baby belly. It hurt to crush it inward like that, but leaving it loose just wasn't going to work.

Flint had to help her with sealing the skinsuit, and again with the upper torso armor plating, but she was able to do the rest by herself. Apparently, the space allotted for her breasts wasn't quite right anymore either, and it had taken some rather comical looking adjusting once in to make it sit correctly.

By the time Tori was finished, she looked only mildly thick about her middle, and totally back to normal everywhere else. Flint caught himself smiling at the image she cut; there was nothing quite like having one's battle buddy back again. When Tori saw it, though, she responded with a sheepish grin, and her cheeks reddened. "What?" She demanded, embarrassed.

Flint shook his head, declining to comment. He just dropped the helmet down over his head and sealed it down. When the HUD came up, he saw Tori fastening her own helmet down, too. "Ready when you are," he reported.

"Should we get some guns, or is that too much?"

"Oh," Flint mumbled, considering the question. "Uh… sidearms, maybe. No. Your combat knife should be enough. This isn't a combat op." He shook his head.

Tori nodded, reaching up to touch the knife he'd mentioned once before turning to see about her baby. She was delicate with her handling of the unprotected infant, aware her motions were augmented and empowered by her armor, but she still managed to jostle him enough to make him set up bawling again.

Flint tolerated it for a moment, long enough to hear Tori start trying to shush him, before he remembered he had his armor on, now, and could shut that crap out with the touch of a button. Relief flooded in when the sound cut off abruptly. Jonas' wrinkled face and gaping mouth indicated he wasn't done complaining yet, but Flint couldn't hear it and that was good enough for Flint. The expression on the baby's face eventually did relax somewhat, and it took until then for Tori to decide she was ready to go.

Artemis darted away into the depths of the ship when the trio left the quarters, but that was fine; she would probably just take a severe disliking to the Elites on the other ship anyway. Flint could feel each step, every subtle shift and slip of his armor moving around him. The subtle tug of the machine accelerating his every action, both balanced and non. As he neared the hatch, an itch formed in the back of his mind that insisted he shouldn't go through that door without a rifle on his back and a magnum on his thigh. He kept walking.

The picture visible through the visor of his helmet was different from that which could be seen when he wasn't wearing anything on his head; the world looked a little narrower, but more revealed. He could see the slowly gathering dots outside the ship as the Elites milled forward, without formation. It had been almost an hour since setting the ship down, and no one had emerged. Perhaps some of them were starting to wonder why.

At the interior airlock door, the control to open it would simultaneously extend the ramp to the bay floor on the outside. Tori joined him at the second door, and both waited for a count of three breaths while the system cycled and the interior door had a chance to shut. The exterior airlock would open automatically, with the instruction Flint had given it; when it slid back, a sea of upturned Sangheilian faces was beyond it, greeting them in total silence.

Abject terror stabbed through him, and for a moment, Flint did not move; he stared at them, stared them down, willing himself to move. Warriors had not gathered before him like this since Delta Halo, when he had first been introduced to, and brought down by, the Flood. It was not the time he had contracted the problematic infection, but it had been raking claws and flashing muzzle fire, the roar of explosions, screaming, small-arms' fire and rockets.

Phantom pain crawled up the Spartan's spine from the location where that rocket had struck him, effectively ending his participation in the fight. Eleven months of surgical reconstruction and brutal rehabilitation had followed that fight. It had been, he'd learned much later, worth the cost. The Flood had bypassed Earth and what little remained of the Human race was left to rebuild however it could. Finally, the surge was past; and Flint took his first step forward since seeing the gathered members of 'Taramee's crew.

They resembled that old crowd in a way Flint could not shake. Perhaps it was the inherent knowledge that somewhere amid their population was, at the very least one, of the selfsame warriors that had been there on that day.

Standing at the top of the ramp to the floor of the bay, Flint scanned their faces, looking for anyone familiar. Anyone he had a name for. None presented themselves, but several looked painfully alike to faces he had never asked the names of. Breathing out, he strode slowly down, his perspective sinking until it matched theirs, and the hollow, resonating ache subsided.

Tori appeared in his peripheral, showing that she had followed his lead almost perfectly. Step out, stop. Walk down the ramp, stop. One of the near individuals' jaws flexed, and Flint remembered to turn his exterior sound back on. What came through was the last of what he remembered as a typical greeting; but it was in Sangheilian, and despite the visor, Tori looked like she was trying to shoot the guy dead with her eyes.

Flint made a gesture of looking around at the assembled warriors again, then followed the motion with, "Where is your Shipmaster?"

Eyes drew slowly from Tori, from the baby in her Mjolnir-clad arms, and seemed to drool over Flint. It was the least unsettling thing he'd had to endure thus far, however, and he let them do it.

None currently present looked terribly inclined to answer, but they did form a path down their middle when another fellow came striding into the room, one of those looks on his grizzled split-chinned face. If he could find something to be pissed off about, then he would be pissed off in very short order – but for the moment, he was still looking.

"Who's this?" the Spartan-II asked.

As if in response, newcomer spoke to one of the fellows standing near to him, asking, "I have heard many great tales of the honor and prowess of this 'Zelis, and now I hear this warrior is aboard our mighty vessel; where is he hiding, and why have I not seen this icon of perseverance?"

Flint folded his Mjolnir-clad arms over his chest. For all intents and purposes, Tori looked like she was frozen to the spot; blessedly, the baby was silent, staring with those wide eyes of his at all the shiny armor and dark, reptilian creatures around them.

Instead of answering aloud, the guy farthest from him within their cluster just gestured inward towards the group; when the newcomer's gaze traveled through them, one by one they gestured him onward, until all that remained at the end to go to was Flint. Instead of acknowledging the Human's presence, he instead adopted a grumpy look; "Do not play games with me, brothers! If he is not here, simply say as much."

"He's right in front of you," the one just off Flint's elbow informed the guy, his voice, his tone, even his accent tugging ugly strings of memory out of the Spartan. "You looked right at him; he's particularly hard to miss."

That earned the fellow the newcomer's full attention, but again, he ignored Flint entirely. "Every warrior I look to here waves me onward, none claim his honored name. Is he invisible?"

"Not at all," the warrior answered, and dropped a four-fingered hand over Flint's leading shoulder, clearly and undoubtedly indicating him. The gesture – the way it was executed – finally cinched it. Here was one of the warriors who had followed Flint into the Flood's maw, so many tortured years before. He looked old, scarred, beaten… not terribly unlike Flint himself. "This is he."

Finally, the new guy looked straight at Flint, rather than past or through him. And then he got a very disgusted look on his face that Flint recognized; it was that same look that a whole lot of the Sangheilian race wore whenever a Spartan showed up on the battlefield pre-Schizm. Apparently, the idea that they had been so completely outmatched and that all they had accomplished and bled for until then was moot because the Spartans had a habit of clearing entire fields of opposition, even if there was only one lonely Spartan onsite to do it.

"A Human?!" the newcomer roared, indignant. Looking back at the Elite who had indicated Flint as the so-named, he fumed visibly. "How dare you defile the name of a great and powerful warrior with this blatant lie of his identity! No Human could bear a Sangheilian name, and none ever shall!"

"Hey, I earned that," Flint said, finally speaking up. The Elite next to him had solidly proven his identity as one of the handful of actual brothers he counted among the reptilian race; defending him felt natural. "Got blown to hell earning that name."

Rounding on Flint again, the newcomer snarled. "I will punish you for these lies, vermin! I do not know how you convinced these shallow-minded few that you were one of our greatest, but I will set them straight – after I have removed your head from your honorless hide!"

The declaration left Flint feeling more than just a little insulted – 'Zelis was, after all, one of the facets of his long and tormented past that had helped to hold his fracturing mind together. Having a genuine brotherhood restored to him after being stripped of his first fellowship had served as a balm like no other. For a time, it had assuaged the madness that still creeped in the darkest corners.

When the new guy swung, Flint flung an arm up and forced him to miss, redirecting the entire arm. With that same hand he grabbed the two mandibles on that side of the guy's face, right out of the middle of a roar, and promptly pounded him in the head with the other fist until he felt one of the jaws dislocate; as if fueled by the pain with a need to defeat him, the Elite grabbed him around the armored collar under his helmet, and tried to lift him right off the floor. Doing that with a Marine or an ODST had worked since the beginning of the 30 years war. Doing that with a half-ton of Mjolnir armor wrapped around a man an entire head taller and significantly greater in depth and breadth was a whole other matter.

Flint felt the lifting motion, though, and memories of being torn to pieces by the augment that he had not known was an augment until the last minute flashed through his forebrain; his estimation of Elite capabilities was skewed thanks to that one horrifying encounter, and he did not trust that this lunatic could not, in fact, pick him up and throw him across the room. Thoughts of the other Elites – his friends, his comrades-at-arms, his brothers – and of Tori – the only soul brave or stupid enough to stay at his side through thick and thin – stabbed through his mind like lightning bolts, flashing in and out of existence as he weighed the task at hand, and what he had to do to bring this enemy down and keep it from hurting any of them.

In response, he gathered the fingers of his free hand into a spearheaded point, and promptly shoved the entire hand right into the guy's gaping mouth. He choked, eyes bugging out, and tried to withdraw, but Flint had a firm hold of half his mouth in the other hand.

Pulling mightily on that side of the guy's head, Flint forced his thick, armor-plated arm down the horse-length throat, all the while weathering down punching, swatting, clawing and raking from both the guy's arms. He even kicked both feet a little, struggling to get loose. The entire lower half of his head had deformed, and the lip of his throat between the two jaw sets had torn. Bubbly purple blood trickled in thin lines from the wound, but it was likely a whole other story down where Flint's diving hand was.

He could feel the soft tissues tearing and rending around his angular armor plates, bronchial tubes shredding and collapsing, esophagus tearing away and shrugging down atop the stomach. There at the top of the apex of the bronchial connection, though, he found one of the two hearts he'd learned to shoot out of their chests at an early age. When he grabbed it, its beat stuttered, and the Elite's bugged eyes suddenly purpled with bulging blood vessels. If he could have made any sound at that point, he likely would have.

At about the time Flint tore the heart from its cradle between the Sangheili's lungs and began to withdraw his arm, the offending warrior sank to his knees, evidently finally out of blood-oxygen content and unable to replenish due to the size of the blockage in his neck. A terrible, fleshy tearing sound followed Flint's arm out as it came back to the light, and in his hand was what remained of a mangled heart with the upper arterial connections strung out and torn, dangling between Flint's hand and the guy's mouth as a weak reminder of where it had come from.

His arm was a dark arterial purple from the elbow down, but with the removal of the major pump organ, that same blood was now pouring out the Elite's mouth in silent observation. He stared up at Flint for a few seconds more as he bled to death internally, and finally toppled to his side on the decking at his feet.

Flint threw the torn heart at the body, a little disgusted; Elite blood was mildly corrosive, and likely by the time he got back to the Whisper it would have pitted the surface of his armor. When he looked up, though, absolutely nobody was moving. He had everyone's undivided attention, however, and he suddenly felt very small.

"…uh."

"Under normal circumstances…" one of the farthest observing began, pausing to cough and tear his eyes from the blood-vomiting corpse with the bugged-out, bloodshot eyes, "under normal circumstances, the victor in a battle of honor would take the place of the deceased, since he was an… uh, in a commanding position aboard the ship."

Another suddenly jumped in, as if afraid of where that would go; "But considering these unique circumstances, I think it would be better proper if we dealt with the gap in command ourselves."

"No," the first countered, casting his companion a look. "In accordance with the codes of Sangheilian honor, he must choose his successor himself. He is ineligible for 'Derin's position because he is Shipmaster of his own vessel, and commander of his own crew. But he is 'Zelis; he is still one of us. Therefore he must be given the right to choose."

Flint relaxed visibly. "Whew."

"I think some cautionary tales should be added to the legend of the great 'Zelis," one of the ones standing next to the Spartan mentioned. "That was horrible just to watch."

"And that," said a much deeper, much greater voice, turning all heads to see as the monstrous 'Taramee strode into the scene, "is why 'Zelis is legend, and not merely a hero of fading merit." The Shipmaster closed the gap between them, kicked the offending corpse aside to get it out of the way, and grabbed Flint firmly by his pauldrons. "It is good to see you again, old friend."

Flint felt suddenly weak, and all he could do was nod. No torment, no torture, no internal demon, could break the bonds he had made with this giant. Even the gaze from that other warrior to his side – the one he had never asked the name of – was understanding, and compassionate. Each of these warriors had been through much of the same and many similar events as he, and they all knew exactly what kind of wrestling match he performed with himself every single day.

Doubtless, each of them did the same thing too. 'Taramee dropped his hands, and turned past the Spartan in front of him. Flint looked that way, for just the briefest moments wondering why. Seeing Tori, clad fully in her armor, reminded him.

Why he was here, why he had needed to meet with the warriors he had begun to think he would never see again. Even through her Mjolnir, Flint could see she was shaking as she extended the blanket-bundled baby to the massive Elite. With a tenderness that belied his visage, 'Taramee cradled the bundle, first looking down at the boy and then up from him at the boy's mother. He towered over her, his broad frame dwarfing her willowy build worse than it did to Flint.

"You are stronger than you know," the Shipmaster told her, gently. "Mother, warrior, guardian of our greatest legend. Keep his back for us, Toh'rey. We will keep your young one safe."

She gave a faint nod, and whispered, "okay."

"Rest assured that none outside this vessel will know of his existence, or discover his presence. Go and do what must be done. When you are finished, call for us, and we will appear." The promise was emphasized by a resounding roar from his crew.

Tori looked, to Flint at least, distraught. The armor hid most of her from view, but some of the body language got through the cold, metal shell, betraying the hidden expression behind her polarized visor. She flinched visibly when Flint set a hand on her shoulder, as if all the focus she owned were contained on the bundle in 'Taramee's arms. As if the break of eye contact were the permission to proceed, the Shipmaster took that moment to turn, and walk back through the assembly of Sangheilian crew, ostensibly to return from where he'd come.

Flint closed his hand on the shoulder beneath it when he felt Tori lurch after him; he could feel her shaking, through that contact, but the added pressure seemed to remind her to be still. He wasn't sure what to make of the situation, but even without Tori there to show her own opinions of the matter, Flint felt a little torn, himself. The struggle to find headspace for an infant son inside a war machine had not, apparently, been entirely fruitless. The same instinct he had felt on the colony world of the boy's birth was now telling him that that massive Elite warrior was walking away with a piece of Flint in his arms.

It questioned Flint's trust in the Shipmaster's ability, and questioned the merit and wisdom of Flint's decision to give the child away. Tori, meanwhile, seemed to be having a full blown meltdown. Not for the first time in his lengthy career and undoubtedly not for the last, Flint was grateful for the armor.

To whatever extent it could, it was saving face for both of them. When 'Taramee made the far edge of the gathered crowd, Flint pulled Tori back up the ramp towards the airlock of the Whispers. The warriors below watched them leave in silence. As far as Flint could tell, their faces held no expression… no judgment. It was a small mercy, he knew, against the storm that was coming.