Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian

The cover of Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian by April Martin

Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian is a short story written by Frank O'Connor, which is featured in the book Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe. It follows the story of an ODST named Michael Baird in-battle onboard the ship UNSC The Heart of Midlothian, with the help of the AI Mo Ye.

The story was adapted to motion comic format by ONE and published on Halo Waypoint as a four-part series.

Plot summary

The story starts aboard the UNSC The Heart of Midlothian with ODST Sergeant Michael Baird being told he has cancer. The ship's medical technician tells Michael that his disease is easily treatable and that the procedure will take about an hour. The operation begins with the ship's AI Mo Ye watching over him. While Baird is asleep, the ship is ambushed by a small Covenant fleet just after it drops out of slipspace, and the surprised crew are overwhelmed by the boarding parties. As Mo Ye tells Baird about the events that occurred while he was unconscious, he asks why she cannot just wipe the NAV database, as per the Cole Protocol. She tells Baird that this boarding party was unlike any other, as they systematically separated Mo Ye from these essential systems to prevent her from doing so. She also reveals that they had brought aboard a never before encountered Covenant species. In order for Mo Ye to start the self-destruct sequence, Baird needs to travel to the bridge and manually boot her systems. She is able to tell him this because she had left a small piece of her coding behind to watch over Baird's procedure. In addition, while she is limited to this piece of coding, she is physically incapable of doing anything that will harm a human due to Asimov's First Law of Robotics; as a result, she can not self-destruct the ship either, as this would lead to the death of Baird.

Armed only with a fire extinguisher, Baird sets out for the control room to manually destroy the database, but encounters a small group of Covenant, consisting of four Unggoy, two Kig-Yar, and one Sangheili. He snaps the first Kig-Yar's neck by smashing its head with the fire extinguisher. He then uses the fallen Kig-yar's Covenant Carbine to take out the next. As the Unggoy begin to disperse in fear, one accidentally runs into him. As they look at each other, Baird notices an Energy Sword running through the cowering Unggoy and himself. He looks up and realizes the leading Sangheili has stabbed him with his sword. As the Sangheili pulls away, the Unggoy falls dead and Baird loses consciousness.

Baird is awoken again by Mo Ye, who leads him to a medical cabinet containing "Rumbledrugs", known to be used by Insurrectionists when fighting SPARTANs. It is known as a suicide drug, slowly destroying the body, but temporarily making it totally impervious to pain and capable of amazing feats of strength. Using these drugs, Baird, with about an hour to live before the medicines kill him, makes his way to the control room, where he encounters more of the boarding party, including the leader, who is same the Sangheili who had stabbed him. Baird drops his weapons and says he will give them the coordinates of Earth if they let him escape. As the Covenant begin to raise their weapons at him, the Sangheili roars at them to stop and communicates with the Huragok onboard. The Sangheili then agrees to let Baird do what he asked to do.

Baird reactivates Mo Ye, but instead of giving the boarding party the coordinates he removes the AI's safety protocols, allowing her to destroy the ship. Baird then punches the Sangheili as hard as he can, breaking his hand and the alien's jaw. He begins to taunt the Sangheili, but it recovers and beheads Baird with its energy sword. After initiating a fake countdown, causing the Sangheili commander to order a retreat, Mo Ye tells him that there is no need for any countdown whatsoever. She promptly detonates the destroyer's nuclear charges, destroying the entire ship. The inferno wipes out the Covenant ships that had ambushed the UNSC, and soon everything is peaceful again. "Like midnight".

Characters

• Michael Baird
• Mo Ye
• Ghost (Mentioned only)

Trivia

• The story is similar to Bungie's project Marathon in the sense that the protagonist is the last human survivor on-board a ship and is helped by an AI who can only open doors. In Marathon, the AI is Leela, and in Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian, it is Mo Ye.
• 'Heart of Midlothian' is the name of Frank O'Connor's favorite association football team, based in the Gorgie area of Edinburgh.
• The story is linked to the Halo Legends short film Prototype. It states:

"Algolis had been attacked by a small but potent Covenant force. Details were thin, since the only witnesses were civilians... Civilians who'd been been kept deliberately in the dark about the Prototype weapons systems on that planet... The plan was to...find out what happened on Algolis and make sure the weapons prototypes were completely eradicated... The last mission had been complicated by a Marine sergeant going MIA. Guy the other Corps of Engineers salts called "Ghost.""

— Halo: Evolutions, page 82