In Hoc Anno Tennebris

Snow fell gently on the mountainside. The chalk-white ridge offered a generous view into the valley below: a view of darkness and fear. The night’s dark wings covered the mountainside in deadly silence. A thick stillness lay upon the valley, a fearful dread spreading out across the valley and the mountains and on across the entire planet. War and death festered here in the embers of a fading year. Sparks flickered in the valley, the faint lights of distant plasma bursts or tracer fire. The Banished assault on this world might have faltered in recent days but the war was far from over.
Another war. Another wounded planet. Another night spent sleeplessly staring into the darkness.
A thick, square bunker perched along the ridge offered some shelter from the snow and the war beyond its sheet-plated walls. The Banished rained these structures down upon the planets they conquered by the hundreds, ready-made outposts packed with assault troops. This position must have served as an observation post before the Kru’desh Legion did what they did best and made someone else’s shelter their own. A lance of Kru’desh legionnaires—human and Sangheili, that strange union of Insurrectionist and ex-Covenant that was the face of this reborn legion—held a loose perimeter outside. Dozens more rested fitfully inside the bunker’s surprisingly spacious interior.
Cassandra-G006—Engel, I’m Cassandra Engel. My mother’s name, a name not a number—could not sleep. She lay flat atop the bunker roof and peered into the valley through her rifle scope. Her SPI armor shielded her from the cold. A ragged cloth draped over her shoulders kept the snow off her visor and rifle. Despite her armor and blanket she still felt the chill deep within.
Distant lights flashed in the valley. Twenty kilometers away if the HUD computer mounted inside Cassandra’s helmet could be trusted. UNSC positions still held out against the Banished assault. Even in the midst of a holy night the war raged on. Holy night. The thought brought a bitter taste to Cassandra’s mouth that had nothing to do with the rations she’d shared with the Kru’desh platoon an hour before. The Banished mocked everything holy and good. Strength was their only virtue, violence their only intention. Banished war fleets swept across the shattered galaxy like an avalanche, destroying or subjugating all in their path. The great chieftain Atriox—the latest bestial Caesar to rise from the dark sea of a doomed universe—made war on all who opposed him: the Created, the Covenant, the United Earth Government’s bloodied war machine, and any other warlords who would not unite beneath the Banished banner.
Warlords like the Kru’desh commander.
Sometimes Cassandra wondered if the Jiralhanae horde was God’s judgement on a galaxy that had worshiped false idols for far too long. A terrible thought—yet she could never completely set it from her mind.
The snowfall picked up. Great white chunks beat mercilessly against the bunker roof. The mountains and the valley below would be snowbound come daybreak. A beautiful sight—and terrible fighting conditions. Cold to torment the soldiers, mud to stall the war machines, and certain death for the tens of thousands of displaced refugees scattered over this region. A cold, deadly Christmastide.
Cassandra remembered the snow back on Talitsa. She thought back to the time that she and Dyne had ventured out into those snowy streets, two Spartan deserters naïve enough to think they could make things better by inviting the neighborhood to a holiday party in a rundown clinic. The fresh fallen snow had looked beautiful then. Cassandra thought they were really making a difference—she with her clinic ministry and Dyne with his Renegade crusade against the Syndicate’s thugs. Two years later and Talitsa was rubble, Cassandra fought a bush war at the edge of the frontier, and Dyne…
The lump swelling in her throat made Cassandra angry. She tightened her grip on the rifle and scanned the hillside for Banished infiltrators. She should be over all this by now. Too much had happened for her to still worry about Dyne, who had left Talitsa in defeat without so much as a word to her or anyone else. The past was the past. This new war was now, and like it or not Cassandra was here fighting it.
Merry Christmas to me, I guess. Cassandra couldn’t sleep. She’d be on this snowy roof all night. No hardship at all for a woman who’d spent so many sleepless nights of her girlhood clutching a rifle while ONI’s drill instructors hunted her fellow Spartan recruits through the jungles of Onyx. But a wretched end to a wretched year nonetheless. A reminder that she’d never be free from the wars they’d forged her to fight.
Something scraped against the bunker roof. Cassandra tensed. She knew this was no enemy. That distinctive limp, faint and yet intimately familiar, did not belong to any Brute outrider or Jackal sharpshooter. Right now Cassandra might prefer the company of the Banished. The enemy was less complicated than the friend approaching now.
Simon-G294—Simon Venter, that’s who he is now.—commander of the Kru’desh Legion, such as it was, dropped to his belly and scraped over the snow-dusted roof to lie beside Cassandra’s position. He said nothing. After all those years spent watching him hold his beloved SPI gear together Cassandra still wasn’t used to seeing him wear the stolen and repurposed ODST body armor now standard issue among the Krudesh’s human legionnaires. They lay together in silence for some time, peering through the falling snow and into the dark valley below.
A ping inside Cassandra’s helmet indicated that Simon wanted to open a private voice channel. He could just use his command privileges to force a channel through the Kru’desh com network, yet he still pushed through the courtesy of requesting one outside the net. Cassandra turned away from the rifle scope and regarded him. His helmet tilted slightly.
The snowy darkness was so cold. She needed just a little bit of warmth. A little bit of light.
Cassandra slipped one arm out from under her rifle. She slid two fingers across Simon’s visor—the “smile” greeting all Spartans knew so well. Simon hesitated. He raised his left arm, a skeletal prosthetic that protruded out from his armor. He caught himself and raised the organic arm instead, swiping his fingers over Cassandra’s visor.
They hadn’t exchanged a greeting like that in such a long time. Too long. Cassandra chased away the doubts and anxieties—as much as she could with a world being murdered beneath her—and opened the com channel.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” A year of war had scraped Simon’s voice raw. “Are you busy making yourself miserable up here?”
Cassandra shot him a sour look. Her helmet hid her face, but she knew Simon saw the grimace all the same. He knew her too well. “You’re one to talk. Should I head back inside? I know you need space to brood.”
“Touche,” Simon muttered. He’d grown prone to bouts of pensive reflection ever since Archangel’s Rest, withdrawing away from everyone and vanishing into his own thoughts. Tuka might have helped free him from the demons who gnawed at his soul, but Tuka was gone. Another friend lost.
Below them two human legionnaires moved over the darkened hillside to better vantage points. A Sangheili knelt behind them, beam rifle trained into the darkness. Cassandra still struggled to believe that these were Simon’s troops. They were both a long way from Gamma Company and Onyx and Mamore. Those two scared deserters, runaways with the whole galaxy set against them, seemed like total strangers. Simon was a commander now, heir to Redmond Venter and Shinsu ‘Refum, one warlord among thousands vying for power and survival in this new galaxy. And Cassandra was… what exactly? One of Simon’s soldiers? A refugee? She couldn’t call herself a Spartan anymore. At times like these when the darkness pressed in, all she felt like was a frightened child.
Simon shivered through his armor. The snow piled up gently around them. For one craven moment Cassandra yearned for things to be the way they used to be. She wanted to pretend that they were both still children huddling together for warmth, clinging to each other against the darkness. The fantasy kindled a faint warmth inside her. It didn’t last. Cold reality reminded her of all the pain and sin lingering between them. Simon walked with a limp because of her—she’d broken his leg and thrown him from a Talitsan rooftop when he’d brought his Covenant warriors to her city—to Dyne’s city. All the hurts and betrayals wouldn’t go away just because circumstances had them fighting on the same side again. Simon was a traitor with blood on his hands. The Insurrection, the Covenant, the Syndicate—no cause had been too wicked if it helped him survive and advanced his ambitions.
And me? I’m a traitor too. I deserted, just like him. And I’d be dead if it weren’t for him. They needed to talk. Nothing between them would ever work if they didn’t talk. And yet they lay together in silence.
More tracer fire sparked deep in the valley. The Banished fought on through the night. Their darkness covered the valley, the planet, this whole galaxy.
“We’re pulling back in a few hours,” Simon said quietly. “Mohsin has a convoy moving up from the south. Urei’s troops are dug in twenty klicks to the east. We’ll regroup there and wait for reinforcements from the Ascension.”
“And the valley?” UNSC divisions still fought the Banished down below. Even without orbital support they made the enemy pay in blood for every stretch of ground.
Simon shook his head. “The Banished are pushing too hard. We only took this position because they threw everything into the fighting down there. They’ll overrun the valley by this time tomorrow. I’m not losing any more troops on a lost cause.”
It was the sensible choice. The practical choice. The darkness pressed in around them. The clouds above hid the stars, a curtain drawn over the light. A blanket of cruelty and oppression smothered the universe itself, just as it always had. Principalities and powers came and went, some less terrible than others. Little lights flickered and survived, yet did nothing to dispel this terrible darkness.
“This isn’t…” Cassandra hesitated. Even after all the time she’d spent away from the confines of military pomp she did not discuss her feelings easily. Especially not in a war zone. Spartans were practical creatures, more comfortable talking about mission parameters and weapon calculations than emotions. For all the good Cassandra’s heroic brothers and sisters had done, they still served the darkness. Humanity’s Caesars had made it so, forging children into deadly killers. “This isn’t how I thought we’d spend our first Christmas back together.”
“Christmas?” Simon stirred, shaken from thoughts of troop movements and marching routes. His head tilted as he checked the date inside his helmet. “Oh, right. Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? For what?”
Simon stiffened like he always did when he was embarrassed. “Should’ve gotten you something,” he muttered, as if hoping she wouldn’t hear. This was the Simon beneath the armor, behind the cruel reputation and bravado. Not the warlord, not the traitor, not the Spartan, but the clumsy, uncertain young man Cassandra wished she saw more often.
She pressed the attack. “Like what?”
“Huh?”
Cassandra bared her teeth behind her helmet. “What is this hypothetical present you would have brought me?”
Simon lay still. Snow settled over his armored back. He knew he was being teased. He could sense the smile behind her helmet.
“A blanket,” he rasped. “So you’d give me my poncho back.”
He swiped at the ragged fabric draped over Cassandra’s shoulders. She batted his arm away. “Finder’s keepers. I gave it to you, you threw it away, so now it’s mine again.” It felt so good to talk like this. She knew it wouldn’t last.
Simon forced a laugh, low and insincere. He turned back to the doomed valley. The Banished moved out in the darkness. Their commanders cared little for how many of their warriors might die driving the UNSC back. All that mattered was that the enemy be cast down and destroyed. This was the law of the world. Strength and victory were all that mattered.
Simon extended a finger and brushed snow from Cassandra’s armor. If they stayed out here much longer they’d vanish beneath the piling snow. “Thank you,” he said. “Thanks for staying.”
Cassandra nodded. More silence passed between them. They both stared into the darkness, lost in their own thoughts. The war raged on as it had all year and the year before that. The losses mounted and the darkness deepened. Cassandra wished she could stop fighting. But to stop—to leave—was to face the darkness alone. She couldn’t do that anymore. The UNSC raised her to fight. She couldn’t change that. So she fought, even if that meant marching with the Kru’desh. She wished she could see a future beyond this war. She’d seen that future for herself once. Not anymore.
“If there was a way out,” she said quietly. Her rifle barrel dipped beneath the snowfall. “If I left…”
“I’d follow,” Simon said at once.
“With your legion?”
“No.” This time he spoke with some effort. “Just me. I wouldn’t use them. Not with you, I mean. I don’t want things to be like that. Not anymore.”
“You wouldn’t use all that power to drag me back? I’m hurt. Aren’t I worth a few lances, at least? I’d feel like you weren’t trying hard enough.”
He didn’t take the bait this time. “I’d be done with the Kru’desh. For good, I mean.” His helmet peered straight ahead into the darkness. He spoke in that low, pensive tone he adopted when he was completely serious.
A new warmth blossomed in Cassandra’s chest. For reasons she couldn’t explain, Simon became a torch when he spoke like this, a flickering light against the darkness. Was he like that for other people, or just her? And perhaps more importantly, did Cassandra create that light for him?
“You’d give it all up?” she asked. “Lay down your command? Just walk away?”
“Yes. I’ve thought about it a lot after Archangel’s Rest. After Shinsu’s fleet was destroyed and I thought the war was over.” He let out a nervous, rasping chuckle. “It’d be a weight off my shoulders. A chance to make things simple again.”
Simon was a good actor. A superb liar. He’d cheated and schemed his way to power the likes of which most humans could never dream. But he could never lie to Cassandra. She’d known him too well for too long. The warmth behind her ribs intensified. She wondered if he felt the same heat. He really had changed since Archangel’s Rest. Did she dare believe this could really work?
God had worked a miracle in Simon. A miracle soaked in blood and pain, but a miracle all the same. God had taken Simon’s heart of stone and given him one of flesh. And me? Did he work the same miracle in me? This was not a galaxy of miracles. They were a faint hope before the Created’s planet-shattering might and the relentless march of the Banished. A candle flickering in the wind, a mote of light in an ocean of darkness—and yet a light the darkness had never overcome.
“You had a simple life once, or something close to it,” Cassandra said. “Could you really give it all up with no regrets?”
“I’d hate myself,” he said dully. “I’d want it all back. But I’d try. I’d really try.”
“Maybe that’s the reason you need to stay,” she ventured. “You don’t want it anymore, but the Kru’desh need you. These people believe in a legend. A legend you need to see through.”
“A lie.” That old bitterness crept back into Simon’s voice. Juno’s betrayal still gnawed at him. That cut ran far deeper than any wound Diana or Amber could ever inflict. “Just smoke and mirrors, that’s all it ever was. There’s no legend. You know that.”
“I thought I knew. But a lie couldn’t turn a gang of criminals and terrorists into a force for good. Who are you to say what they believe in?”
Simon turned and regarded her through that dark visor. War raged on in the darkened valley. A talon of Banshees flew through the driving snow overhead. They paid no heed to one abandoned outpost on the hill below. “You want me to keep running this circus? Half my warriors want me to be a warlord. The other half want me babysitting refugees. To hell with the Banished. All the kids and dreamers we’ve taken on will be the death of me.”
“I don’t know about crazy. You sound saner than you have in a long time.” Cassandra swept the valley with her rifle again. “Maybe this is good for you.”
He made a derisive noise. “You’re damned inconsistent sometimes, you know that?”
A light flashed deep in the valley. Smaller flashes surged after it. The Banished concentrated their assault on a single position. Hundreds of warriors were surging upon some poor UNSC platoon now, slaughtering the brave men and women still holding the line. Cassandra’s hands tightened around the rifle.
“I’m a deserter,” she said quietly. “I made so many excuses for so many years about why I did it, but that doesn’t change the fact that I abandoned my position, same as you. Sometimes I caught myself wondering if things would have been better if I stayed and did my duty.”
Simon was quiet for some time. She knew thoughts of what might have been were constantly on his mind. More explosions blossomed below as Banished talons bombed UNSC positions. “And what was your answer?” he finally asked.
“I could have stayed. I could have done my duty. But then you’d be dead. I might be dead. I’d never have met Gavin or Zoey or Karina or any of the others. I wouldn’t have helped all those people on Venezia in Talitsa. Even if I was wrong, even if I failed some good came out of it. God worked through me all the same. I think he even used my sins to lead me to salvation. Maybe it’s the same with you. It was war. You did what you did. Some people died because of you and other people are still alive because of you. Whatever your reasons—you may have meant them for evil, but God meant it for good.”
“Still talking about God,” Simon sighed.
“I’ve always felt comfortable talking about God when you’re around. Most people don’t like it but you—”
“I’m too busy not understanding it to get angry,” Simon said. “I still don’t understand. I’ve never believed, you know that. At least, I thought I didn’t. But I’ve seen things since then—in the Domain, the Silent Garden, all those damned Forerunner cathedrals. I can’t explain what happened in there. I just don’t know if that really was your God in there.”
“I’ve told you before. He doesn’t live in those palatial cathedrals or in the power of the Forerunners or anything like what the Covenant believed. That’s how the Forerunners thought, too. How the UNSC and the Created and the Banished all think. They worship the idea of power, just like you. And I…” Cassandra struggled to find the words. She suddenly felt foolish. Simon had come here to keep her company. He had enough on his mind. He didn’t deserve a lecture. “I worship it, too. None of us can escape it. We can’t help breathing in sin, even if it chokes us.”
“Is there any hope at all?” Simon asked hoarsely. “Where does God really live, if he isn’t with the power to smash planets and move life and rule the galaxy?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. But I think he lives with us. Not with the proud and the confident, but in tarnished souls like yours and mine. I saw him sometimes on Venezia and Talitsa. I see him in those children and outcast your Kru’desh protect.”
“I still don’t understand,” Simon said forcefully. “But ever since Archangel’s Rest I can’t help but think about my soul. I want to believe it’s worth saving.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
Simon didn’t ask if she was talking about him or herself. They lay together in silence, staring into the murky darkness as another year died slowly around them. Countless snowflakes danced through the air. The darkness pressed in from all sides yet somehow they still endured. Two lights in the darkness, was that the right way to think about it?
Darkness was the foundation of reality. The strong crushed the weak. Hatred and violence consumed everything. From the primordial past up through now that false power of evil held sway. Everyone and everything, all of creation, was forced to serve that power. Life itself was just meat for the principalities and powers of this world.
Simon had offered his life up to the powers of darkness. Cassandra had done the same in her own way. She’d lost count of how many people she’d killed in the hopes of a righteous future. She’d killed three people just taking this bunker and she would kill more tomorrow once the battle swung back this way. The Kru’desh she fought alongside were thieves and mercenaries and terrorists. The darkness lived loudly through all of them. The river of their lives raged on, surging on some terrible, unknown course. And yet somehow good persisted. Somehow light shone on.
Perhaps that was light’s true power: to survive, to live on even in the midst of darkness. Somehow God looked into a universe that drowned itself in evil and found it worth saving. Somehow God chose to live in that same universe and suffer alongside the lonely and the poor, the weak and the oppressed.
Light shone everywhere, no matter how much the darkness tried to smother it. Beneath all the evil of the UEG technocrats and the Covenant warlords, the Banished chieftains and Insurrectionist dictators, the humble and the good labored on, never knowing if anything they did made any difference at all. Those whose modest examples showed the greater power of… could she really call it love?
Love, perhaps, or simply a promise: the promise that there was room in the Father’s house and at the Father’s table. The mad notion that this galaxy did not need to be as cold or as cruel as it seemed, that the light really could shine in the darkness and never be overcome. That life was more than what one should eat and wear, that life was meant for more than service to Caesar.
“What do you want, Cassandra?” Simon’s question caught her off guard.
“What do you mean?”
“I want to…” He struggled to find words. “To want what you want.”
It was a good question. What did she want? An end to the war. An end to the duty of killing in the name of a better tomorrow. A chance to live, not as a Spartan but a child of God. Simon couldn’t give her that, but he could help her reach her destination. And perhaps she could help him reach his.
Artillery pounded deep in the valley. The powers of darkness raged on, trying as ever to smother the light. The snow fell upon the living and the dead, yet a distant wind peeled back the clouds just enough for the stars to shine through. Daybreak would come soon. They’d be trapped in war once again, trading evil for evil in a vain effort to do some good. Someday this would all end. No more war, no more killing, no more heartache and death. Not tomorrow, not next year, but someday.
Cassandra lowered her rifle. She tilted her helmet up to look at the stars. The warmth in her chest drove back the cold dark. She knew Simon felt the same way. How else could she explain how they were both still here, still making the same mistakes, still groping blindly for each other?
“I want you to still be here with me next year,” Cassandra said.
His helmet dipped solemnly. “And the year after that and the year after that.”
Dawn’s faint light poked over the horizon. The Kru’desh mustered beneath the falling snow, one quivering flame amongst many. A tiny flame struggling, gasping for life—yet deadly as a bonfire with the right kindling.