Fire Everlasting

Simon-G294 struggles to escape a Covenant carrier as it approaches destruction.

The fire was spreading.

From where he lay, maimed and bleeding on the bridge of a ruined Covenant assault carrier, Stray could see the flames seeping in through the doors. They rolled over the floor and lapped greedily at the bodies of the warriors he’d killed. In another moment they would consume him, too.

No. No, no, no. A rasping snarl escaped Stray’s throat. He rose with a painful effort, feet barely able to prop up a body that felt like it was already burning. He couldn’t stay. He had to get out of here before the carrier blew.

The others were waiting for him.

Fuga ‘Torvan’s corpse lay just a few feet away. Stray’s machete was buried in the Covenant Shipmaster’s neck. And there, just beside the body, rested a bloody, severed arm.

Stray’s arm.

His gaze drifted down to the bloody stump where his left arm had hung just a few minutes before. Funny, it didn’t seem to hurt at all. His body was wracked with pain, but the bleeding stump was simply numb. As if the missing arm had just gone to sleep.

''Shock. I’m going into shock.''

He dropped to his knees and fumbled with his medical pouch. The biofoam patch was in the kit for just this reason, to staunch the bleeding from severed limbs. But his remaining hand shook from pain. He could barely make out the wound site, his stump was so numb. The patch missed once, twice, then a third time before he clumsily slapped it across the wound.

The fires were getting closer. Already tongues of flame lapped against ‘Torvan’s corpse like waves on the beach. A distant rumble coursed through the ship and sent Stray sprawling against the deck. His bombs had done their work. The carrier was dying, with him still aboard.

That knowledge did what the loss of his arm could not. Stray staggered back to his feet. He couldn’t stay here. He had to leave, now, before the fire consumed him as well. ''The hangar. I have to get to the hangar. They’re waiting for me.''

He couldn’t die here. He wouldn’t let it beat him, any more than he’d let the countless other opponents he’d ever fought beat him. It was always him up against someone—they were usually better armed, better equipped, far more talented, and yet they never matched his own burning desire to stay alive. And now he wasn’t even facing off against another person. Just a crippled ship and the agony trying to beat him back down to the ground.

He’d win this time. He had to.

“Gavin,” he coughed into his com. His head was starting to feel numb. “I’m on way out. Just be ready to pick me…”

He paused then, his gaze inexorably drawn to the tactical display at the center of the bridge. The display was a mess of alien glyphs, but it didn’t take a genius to notice the flashing warning signs plastered across the monitors. Stray’s blurry, unfocused vision honed in on the largest screen, a local battle map showing the ruined carrier, its handful of escorts… and a single enemy ship blasting away from the hangar.

There was no visual indicator, but he didn’t need one. He knew.

They’d taken off without him.

Did I tell them to do that? He couldn’t remember. It didn’t seem like something he’d do. An offhand show of gallantry as he raced off to finish placing the charges? No, that wasn’t like him at all. And it didn’t matter.

Escape pods. The desperation cut through a mind hazy from pain and blood loss. ''Escape pods near the bridge. I have to hurry…''

He staggered out from the bridge, limping through the flames down a corridor littered with corpses. His vision blurred again, stretching the corridor out for an eternity. As if he’d be walking down over the dead forever in some private hell. The escape pod bank… would he ever reach them?

A door opened up before him, revealing a row of empty pod bays. Only one pod remained, its door twisted and bent by one of the explosions. The corpse of the Elite caught by the same blast lay by the door. The pod was there, so close. Just a bit of metal between Stray and survival.

He surged forward, grasping at the door and heaving with all his might. The metal creaked and groaned even as he snarled along with it. Just a bit more effort and he’d be out. A bit more effort and he’d live. He leaned in and grabbed the door with his other hand.

The hand that wasn’t there.

Stray blinked down at the stump on his arm, only just remembering the wound. He blinked behind his helmet as the realization drained through him. The door. His arm. The fire closing in behind him. The carrier blowing up beneath him.

“Gavin?” He wasn’t even talking to anyone anymore. He leaned down against the pod door, not even trying to wrench it open anymore. No amount of willpower could save him now. No amount of determination could get him into that pod. His breath came in faltering gasps now. For the first time, panic truly overwhelmed him. “Zoey, listen I’m stuck in here I need… I need… get me out…”

His fist slammed into the door. “Get me out!”

The blast caught him full in the chest. He was thrown out of the pod bay by the sudden explosion, sprawling back into the hallway among the corpses. The fire was all around him now, eating into his armor, his flesh.

If he was screaming, he couldn’t hear it. Agony ripped his mind apart as he writhed amid the dead. Distantly, he perceived a figure standing in the hallway. A female face. A familiar face.

Cass… But she wasn’t here. She was far away, too far to help him, to even know that he was out here, burning and dying alone. And even if she could, would she?

Tears blurred his vision. Tears of grief, of pain. Of rage. Only one person could save him. And she was staring down at him with a look of supreme satisfaction. He stretched out his arm. A final desperate plea surged up from another fire, another moment of desperation: “Save me, Diana!”

And Diana smiled. She faded away without a word, becoming the wall of fire surging down the hallway to consume him.

Stray did scream then, a wordless howl of rage at Diana, Gavin, and the entire galaxy.

Dark fire burned away his universe and he fell forever.