Lights out had been called long ago in the Marine's barracks on Sigma Orion Station 4. But the beds were empty. Chelsea and her squad mates got a small thrill from breaking the disciplined routine they had learned during boot, but that was not what drew them into the warehouse at one O'clock in the morning.
Chelsea stood in standard issue sweatpants and a training bra. Sweat dripped down her blood-flushed face. Her heart pounded.
Around her cheers and jeers in a dozen languages screeched in Chelsea's ears. She drowned them out to focus on her opponent.
The birdlike creature widened its stance, flexed its claws, and cocked its head to the side to get a better look at her. It weighed half as much as she did and was as skinny as a broomstick. But size and strength meant very little. Victory came from training, experience, and the ability to think on one's feet. Chelsea knew not to underestimate her opponent's abilities.
This jackal had been trained as a sniper. She knew that because it had killed her Sargent during Chelsea's first combat encounter with the Covenant. She could remember the Sargent dropping like a lead balloon, seeing the alien slip from back into cover in a cave on the cliff wall, though not after jumping in celebration at a clean head-shot. And now here she was, face to face with it almost three years later. She was anxious to see how this sniper would do in hand to hand combat.
There were three taps on kettle drum from the upper floor of the warehouse, and then one loud bang. On signal the melee began. The Jackal was faster than Chelsea. It made the first move, jumping at her. It cleared a good six feet of air. Chelsea barely had time to roll out of the way.
The Jackel landed on its feet, turned on its heals, sprinted at Chelsea before she could gain her balance. Chelsea rolled aside, reached out her arm, and caught the Jackal before it could run past her.
She pinned it against her body. Its legs writhed, and beak snapped for flesh. It slipped from between her arm and her shirt like a melting ice cube, and then was behind her, and then on top of her.
The creature was small, but big enough to knock off Chelsea's balance. Chelsea landed on her stomach. The creature grabbed for her arms, but she rolled over, pinning it underneath her. She righted herself, placed a hand on its neck, and avoided the vicious kicks of its back claws as it tried to free itself.
One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.
The match was hers.
Chelsea let go of the creature and flexed her arms. That was the third match she had won today. And as the standing victor, she'd stay in the ring for another round. The shouting from around the ring grew louder. The gambling pot, a dirty plastic bin filled with trinkets and a dozen different currencies, was divided among the winning gamblers.
The creature scrambled to its dog-like feet, and glared at her. This was the part of the match that was somehow the most difficult for Chelsea. Three seconds ago she'd been holding her Sargent's murderer on the ground by its throat, and she had just let it go. She watched it jog out of the ring to a pack of its own kind who were waiting with consolations and a tube of hydrating fluid. In the time before she would have ended him. Her desire to see its blood spill was still in her, the anger she felt when she looked at it, that feeling consumed her. But tomorrow she would need this creature. Tomorrow they had to fight the Flood. Her feelings didn't matter and the time before didn't matter either.
When the human and Covenant forces had finally set aside their differences to fight a common, greater enemy, officers on both sides had tried thousands of ways to force their troops to forget "the time before." Chelsea had been forced to attend seminars in xeno-linguistics and cultural sensitivity. Those did little to improve communication among new, reluctant allies in the field. Joint training operations among the different races broke down quickly. Meetings between officers ended in shouting matches so loud and ruckus the computerized translators couldn't keep up.
But at the end of the day there was only one thing that humans and the Covenant had in common, one thing that could bring peace. And that of course was more violence.
At first commanding officers had tried to break up the "fight clubs" as they popped up at bases throughout the system. They were a waste of time, a distraction from real training, and proper eating and sleeping. They were a complete degradation of discipline.
But the officers began to notice, humans and aliens who fought against each other in the ring would work together like gears of a clock in the field. The ring worked a kind of magic over the troops. It gave them a chance to vent frustrations, it taught them to read the body language of different species, it allowed them to learn each others' strengths and weaknesses.
Chelsea was still fighting Covenant, but now it was gamblers money on the line instead of her life. It had gotten easier for Chelsea to let go at the end of her matches. It had never been easy, and never would be. Maybe it was knowing the universe was bigger than some stupid race war, or maybe it was knowing if she let her opponent live, she get a chance to whoop their ass again a few nights later. But letting go had gotten easier.
And when the local AI's translation matrix was working, and she had a chance to speak to some of the aliens—think of that, actually talking to aliens, and on top of that, actually talking to aliens who had once wanted her dead—they told her they felt the same.