You may remember me, Grunty, from when I was on Installation 04. Well, this is basically the same thing, except it's in different places. It starts off when we go up a rank. Oh, and if you want to know how me and my friends got from Greeny's escape ship to High Charity, it's classified, so don't ask. And just before I start, I wanted you to know that all the mistakes in the first story are lies that Jackals told me at the Education Facility at recess time. One last thing before you begin reading. If you haven't read the first story, (or just don't remember it that well) READ IT NOW. This one won't make much sense otherwise.
Torbei, Rinyo and me sat on the floor of a room in High Charity as an Honour Guard Elite walked in holding a large metal box. He opened it up and removed from it two red Major Grunt armour pieces and a black SpecOps one.
'You two Grunts,' he said, pointing at Torbei and me, 'will be moved to Major rank, and wear this red armour. And you,' he pointed to Rinyo, 'will be put into SpecOps, wearing this black armour and permission to use a fuel rod cannon.'
'Yes!' Rinyo whispered.
The Elite dropped our specified armour in front of us and waited as we put it on. I heard muffled yells and cheers from out the open doorway, so I peeked out. A gold Elite was being stripped of his armour by Tartarus, the Brute Chieftain. The Elite's hands were put in restraints as Tartarus lifted a large stick with a burning end. Then it hit me. He was going to burn the Mark of Shame into the Elite's chest! Tartarus shoved the stick into the Elite's chest and he yelled in pain.
'What's going on out there?' asked Rinyo.
'Nothing of your concern,' said the Honour Guard. 'Now pay attention. The Prophet of Truth wishes for you to fight with the new Arbiter—'
'Whoa!' I said.
'By the Prophet's!' said Torbei.
'—if!' added the Elite. 'You fight well on…' the lights flickered and suspenseful music played for some reason, 'Earth!'
We gasped and there was a pause.
'What's that?' said Rinyo.
'It's the humans' home planet!'
'Oh…Oh! Right. Oh no…that is, um, surprising,' said Rinyo.
There was another pause.
'Aw crap, you ruined the whole effect,' said the Elite, his tone of voice like a small child's. 'Just go away. To the Phantom landing platform. Someone will take you to Earth.'
So we walked out the door and found our way to the landing platform, where a Phantom was ready for us to hop in. We each were pulled in and the Phantom took off.
'But how will we get there?' I said to an Elite on board. 'Earth is probably light years away.'
He made a huff sound and said, 'Some Phantoms have small slip space engines, you know.'
'They do?'
Suddenly the ship vibrated and I recognised the distinct feeling of slip space sickness. Yes, there is slip space sick just like seasick. A few minutes later the Phantom slowed and we jumped out. I felt hard ground under my feet. Our squad included an Elite, Torbei, Rinyo, me and…
'Hey, who are you?' I asked a Minor Grunt.
He looked at me and said, 'Hi, my name's Latnem. I like stuff, do you like stuff?'
Oh no, I thought. I asked him, 'You didn't happen to know a Modnar, by any chance?'
'Oh yes, I know him. He's my cousin. He's still alive, in here.'
He clutched his head.
'Uh, isn't your heart in your chest?'
He covered his ears and yelled, 'La la la, not listening!'
He'll be dead by the end of the week, I thought.
I stepped away from him and noticed the Elite out from behind cover(we were hiding behind a human vehicle, I think it's called a 'bus'). That's when I noticed we were on a huge bridge.
'Wort wort wort!' I heard the Elite shout, then an ear-splitting explosion blew him into a purple splatter on the road.
Over the ringing in my ears, I heard a distinctly human-sounding engine becoming slowly louder and louder. The front of a vehicle came into view. The front of a—
'Tank!' screamed Rinyo.
The rest of the tank drove out in the open and pointed its turret at us. I heard the gun power up, and it fired.
