The Phantom, which had broken off a caravan of thirty covenant drop ships, hovered twenty feet off the ground going a consistent thirty mph.
The interior was chrome and purple clad with two 'rooms', the cockpit controlled by a solitary figure, and a larger launch bay holding eight Covenant soldiers, all in different colored armor.
The figure in the front was an Elite, pilot class, who turned to talk through the open hatch to the group in the launch bay.
"Listen up," it bellowed " the other phantoms are going to the battle grounds, but the prophets have a special mission in store for us… We've been ordered to the area where the last mayday signal from the recon team came from. So prepare for immediate drop off, it's just over this ridge."
The Covenant in the back shifted their weight as the drop ship turned upwards.
They consisted of three field command elites, two adorn in blue another in white, and five grunts. The grunts, who were in a single file formation against the wall of the drop ship, wore colored armor; (from the first grunt to the last) green, two yellow, one red, and a white medical.
The highest ranking of the field command Elites, Iso Sambee who wore the white armor, faced the group.
"You heard the pilot." He growled, "So get into drop formation. Zas'cee, ready your grunts for drop!"
The elite Zas'cee called out a short command and both yellow armored grunts scampered over to the glowing blue drop pad and jumped.
"We go with honor." Zas'cee said as he disappeared down the pad.
"Now," Iso Sambee said imperiously to the last field commander "Iconydee, take your grunts to the extraction point and hold it in the event of unexpected enemy fire or anything out of the norm."
Iconydee began to growl but thought better to not start a confrontation with a higher ranked Elite. "It will be done, though I would rather fight then retreat like a coward."
"Understandable," answered Iso Sambee "but that position is necessary." Then he walked to the wall opposite to him and began surveying a wall hanging vital sign monitor, showing that he was in no mood to keep the argument up.
Iconydee sighed and walked over to the drop pad and barked an order to the grunts. The green class grunt, with the plasma torrent, and the red class with the Needler, waddled over and jumped through. Iconydee stepped into the light speaking as he descended "we go with hono-"he dropped.
Iso Sambee turned his attention away from the wall mounted monitor to the cockpit. "Pilot," he said "take me to the edge of the drop position just after where we dropped Zas'cee."
Without answering, the pilot spun the ship around and arched over the rise again. The arch was so sudden the white armored medical grunt stumbled to the hard metal floor gasping.
" You better be more stable in the field or you'll never keep up with me, Ta…" growled Iso Sambee.
"Tay, Tay Yungo." said the medical grunt, quickly.
Iso Sambee grunted and looked back to the wall mounted monitor.
"With all respect, sir, but what use is I?" said Tay slyly "I mean, I, well, I just a grunt. You a big strong Elite who can take care of your self."
" You do know how to stroke a warriors ego," Iso Sambee said, calling out the grunts slyness. " But you're right, why do I need you indeed."
Iso Sambee sighed and faced Tay Yungo, looking down at him. Iso Sambee was disgusted at how hard this grunt was trying to get out of the fight.
" You're no use to me for many reasons." Iso Sambee said, "but the only one that matters is that you're small, meaning that you can reach certain areas that a 'big strong Elite' such as myself can't."
"Oh," sighed Tay, hoping to be of more value.
"We're here." said the pilot.
Iso Sambee gestured for the grunt to follow and walked over to the drop pad. "Pilot," he said, " fly this craft around after we disembark, and head toward the extraction point." And with that he pushed Tay Yungo into the light and watched him drop. He then walked into the light himself, letting it consume him.
Tay found himself lying face first on the corpse-covered ground. Fallen grunts, and Elites lay in broken forms all around in what was the recons' last stand.
Iso Sambee landed next to Tay Yungo chuckling slightly. "This is what happens when you don't prepare for everything. These are the remains of the recon team, sent out to record the progress of human settlement on this planet…" he pivoted and looked at a gaping hole on the edges of the battle zone.
"Apparently, from the message we were able to piece together in the communication network, some sort of monstrosity came from a large, cave like hole in the ground. The monster was small, but able to spout fire from its mouth and hover over a short distance."
Iso Sambee spread his arms and walked about pointing.
"This is the work of a true monster."
Tay suddenly knew why he was needed. "S-so this is why you need me… to go and-"
" Yes," Iso Sambee said slowly " and why I brought you this."
He pulled out a small, grunt sized, headset and handed it to Tay. " Now, go. I will guide you through the hole with what the recon scouts were able to map out. Then, after you die or find something useful, we'll head back to the extraction point and give our information to the Higherarch's."
Iso Sambee began to drag Tay over to the hole when something began to growl within. Tay shrieked and struggled to get out of Iso Sambees' grasp. In a rage Iso Sambee pushed the grunt aside.
"So," Iso Sambee cried, "we get to see the monster. Grunt, turn on your data recorder, we must get some information out of this suicide mission."
With a gulp Tay activated his HUD and began to record, as Iso Sambee ignited his Plasma sword and ran into the jaws of hell.
What was later viewed on the dead grunt's HUD, picked up by the Covenant salvage team, was rather expected.
Zas'cee looked around the meadow. It was apparent that a great battle had taken place here. The tattered remains of the reckons' phantom lay on its stern twenty-some yards away, causing mounds of debris and earth to form a scar-like path were it had crashed. The body of the pilot lay limp on the ground in a puddle of blood and engine fuel.
Zas'cee hailed the Perfected Cleanser, on of the many Covenant ship's circling the planet's gravity field.
"We've reached the crash site. Requesting information on Iso Sambee. What in the Prophets happened? His signal just up and cut off."
"We're just as much in the dark as you up here," answered an Elite from the ships communication room. "We'll inform you if we find him."
The communication feed went dead and Zas'cee put the head set down.
Damn, he thought. Iso Sambee was one of the finest. But Zas'cee felt no remorse. With Iso Sambee's "leave", Zas'cee had just gained high command. And that, to his joy, couldn't be any more perfect.
Zas'cee sighed and looked back to the two bickering grunts under his command.
"I wan' the Fuel Rod!" said the smaller of the two.
"But I was born first! I get dibs!" said the elder.
The two brother grunts continued to fight until Zas'cee roared in annoyance.
"Now look what you did!" squeaked the older brother, hitting the younger over the head. "You made leader mad…"
"Me?" he protested "You da one who is being a snark-licking-barf-lar!"
With that the two grabbed each other and tumbled on the ground in a premature slap fight.
Zas'cee, having just been promoted and not wanting to end his good mood, watched the grunts fight it out for a while until the older of the two came out on top. The younger brother pouted as he picked up the spare Plasma Pistol.
He then gave a long raspberry at his brother. Unfortunately, he forgot about his mouthpiece and it resulted in a slimy mess on the inside.
The older brother began to laugh, "Asga, you dumb. Why you always make mess?"
"Its not my fault Yaskia!" Asga said in a joking tone, "You taught me all I know!"
The two laughed as they flipped switches on their environment suits. As they did this Zas'cee turned, once more, and surveyed the area.
After they were finished setting up their suits they stood at ease behind Zas'cee to await orders.
"Listen up!" Zas'cee barked. The grunts snapped to attention. "We're here to determine what made the recon team crash and to evacuate any survivors. Understood?"
"Yessir!" the grunts answered in unison, walking of to search.
Zas'cee hiked up towards the fallen ship. As he came to it, he noted small holes that peppered the outer shell. Bullet holes. He touched a button on his HUD to start recording, sending the video straight to Information Processing on the Perfected Cleanser. He then walked up and down the length of the hull, stopping to record points of interest.
Suddenly something too the back of the ship snapped, and Zas'cee turned with his Plasma Rifle drawn. He didn't see anything on his motion tracker, but as most Elites learn, machines break eyes don't.
He walked to the place of the sound but saw nothing. He shrugged of the uneasiness and walked back to record more data.
After gathering what he thought would be sufficient data, he then walked over to the decomposing corpse of the pilot and knelt down to examine it. It too had the bullet holes all over it, a sure sign that the humans must have taken them down.
"I sure hope you are getting all of this up there…" he said to the ships monitoring staff over his COM link.
"You can count on it," replied a tech elite " and it sure looks like the humans found him. I wouldn't bother searching for survivors."
"Understood." Zas'cee said standing up "I'm calling in my grunts and heading to evack'."
Zas'cee got up from the body and walked back to where he, the grunts, and their gear had been dropped off.
The grunts, though Zas'cee had ordered them to scout the area, had not moved much. They both were at the 'food nipple', fighting once more over the creamy substance from the nipple. Zas'cee scowled to himself while walking over to reprimand them. When he was a good ten yards from the two brothers, Asga turned to the approaching Elite. At first he looked mildly fearful of being caught slacking, but it quickly turned to a look of pure terror. Asga's eyes bulged and he began to choke on the nipple in an attempt to scream.
Yaskia looked over to see what made his brother act so strangely, when he too was overcome with fear. Stuttering and choking, he pointed at Zas'cee.
Wait thought Zas'cee slowly. He's not pointing at me… He began to turn. He's pointing behind me-.
He pivoted all the way around as the silent stalker whipped him across his doubled jawed head, slicing his jaw muscle.
He fell to the ground, but snapped up instantly aiming his Plasma Rifle. What came up to meet his eyes was monstrous. Not that it was big, it was only about a foot bigger then a grunt, but it looked horrid. Scaled, winged, clawed, with eyes like a Jackal, two sets, it struck Zas'cee as a worthy opponent.
He would kill it himself.
The beast sprang up from its muscled hind legs and raged toward Zas'cee.
Zas'cee roared as he dove out of the way, firing at its flank.
The creature screamed and crashed to the ground, the same place where Zas'cee had fallen.
"How do you like it?" Zas'cee barked, kicking the thing in the head.
With a scream like a Banshees engine, the thing opened its wings knocking Zas'cee hard on his ass. With a wingspan of fifteen feet, the creature easily took to the air, speeding over the rise where the Zas'cee and the grunts' Phantom had come from.
Zas'cee began to cough as he watched the beast fly off. He put his hands on ether side of himself and tried to lift his bulk off the ground.
While the Elite gathered himself the two grunts cautiously scrambled over, scared of another attack.
Zas'cee slowly got to his feet but quickly bent double and coughed up blood. He swayed and fell over again, muffling cry of pain. He put his head and shook, knowing he was a fool for not taking the signs of an ambush seriously.
Asga was the first to come up to the Elite. He walked over and quickly reaching out and patted him on the back, the grunts form of a comfort touch.
With a sudden renewed strength, powered by a threat of a new attack, Zas'cee bolted up and swung at the grunt, hurtling him backwards.
"You," screamed Zas'cee, grabbing the grunt by the nape of the neck "where in the name of Arbiter were you? You stood and watched while it attacked me!"
Knowing his brother was in trouble, Yaskia began to pull on the Elites' armor in an attempt to help his brother while crying:
" Stop it, stop it! We did tell you. We do good, good! Please don't hurt!"
Zas'cee stopped shaking the small form of Asga and looked down at his defending brother. He realized that he was being too harsh, they were grunts, and they wouldn't have done anything but gotten themselves killed.
"Sorry I-I…" Zas'cee began to say, but thought better than to give grunts an apology, and raised his voice to a roar "I'm furious that you did nothing but stand there and watch!"
He dropped the young grunt, which immediately ran to his brother and embraced him.
Zas'cee walked off to their gear, leaving the grunts to hug, follow, and whimper.
As he came up to the gear, he glanced back to the two grunts.
"You two," Zas'cee called " go grab the communication link."
The grunts wobbled off to fetch it, leaving Zas'cee to his thoughts.
"What you think big brother?" asked Asga; once they were out of earshot of the Elite " you think we get out'a here?"
"No know," answered Yaskia blankly, not knowing what to think of their new situation, or how to keep his brother safe "but I do know we need to go, or we'll be dead."
The two came to the communication link and grabbed it, hauling over to the drop zone, just as Zas'cee injected himself with something in a syringe.
"What that?" Asga asked, dropping the COM.
"Careful!" gasped Zas'cee, diving for it "if this breaks, we're stuck here!"
He caught the link in mid air and fell, landing right on the syringe. Holding his sides, Zas'cee slowly got up holding the link.
"You, you…" Zas'cee said menacingly "YOU IDIOTS! I SHOULD SKIN YOU ALIVE! I-"
CRACK!
Zas'cee dropped to the ground in a pool of his own brains, and a 50 cal Sniper trail were his head had been moments before.
With a screech Asga jumped and ran away from the elites prone form.
"What the-" Began Yaskia, who had not realized what happened, when another sniper round tore through his back armor and out his chest. The round opened his mane methane tank, which reacted to the oxygen, causing a fiery blue explosion cascading him towards his retreating brother.
Yaskias' flaming body hit Asga square in the back sending him sprawling. With his last fight for life, Yaskia tried to grab on to the younger grunt, which only resulted with Asga getting up looking down at his dieing brother, and ran away faster and screaming out in fear.
With his last dieing moment, Yaskia saw his brother fall to the third sniper round going through his head, leaving the easily spotted smoke trail in its wake.
Iconydee surveyed the area around him for the third time, waiting for any information to come to him over his COM link.
He and his two grunts had had been dropped off over three hours ago, and so far hundreds of encrypted messages came to and fro over the com about Elites being attacked, monsters coming out of the ground, and so on. Other elites and grunts made their way back to the extraction point, supposedly ordered by the prophets them self's.
He shook his head and looked away from the COM link and surveyed the drop zone, again. It was about eight miles away from where the recon team had 'crashed'. The place was a giant bowled out gully, with one end leveled with the ground around it, making it look like a giant U from up above. It was a perfect spot to defend, given how the surrounding hills were to steep for any thing other than a flying vehicle to pass.
He glanced back at the two grunts left to his disposal. The minor green class grunt was wielding the plasma torrent, while the major red class was messing with his food nipple. The two of them were at the back of the valley, preparing for the suspected battle.
He couldn't remember what they called them self's, Me Choda, no… Chota? He didn't know, and decided not to bother with it. They were grunts… scum.
The COM link began to tone, a message from Perfected Cleanser.
"Iconydee, come in. we have good news, you've-"
Iconydee interrupted the tech, less then interested in "good news'.
"Requesting an update on what happened with Zas'cee, was It the humans that got him or…"
"You know we cant tell you any thing without permission from the hierarchs," began a COM tech from the ship.
Iconydeecut him off again. " But the Prophets know how urgent it is for information to come to us ground side! We're in the dark down here, what with the reports from surrounding troops saying things like the commander is dead and all!"
The COM tech raised his voice, "You know damned well why it is we can't tell you, so leave it be! But for now we can tell you that you have been put into command, for the time being."
Iconydee's spirit lifted slightly at this.
"Thank you, sir, It's an honor. Forgive me for my hostilities"
"Well coagulations," replied the COM tech " but don't expect to stay up on top for much longer,"
"Oh?" Questioned Iconydee " and why's that?"
The COM tech chuckled audibly through the speakers, and Iconydee saw the secure audio line icon appear on his HUD.
" The prophets have been sending us Capital Ships and Phantoms full of brutes. They've been cramming the docking bays for a good three hours now, and the Perfected Cleanser isn't the only ship to be boarded. From what my fellow officers have found out, the brutes are on every ship orbiting this planet… as well as on the planet. I'm sorry, but the prophets have ordered the Brutes groundside as well. They'll be there shortly. And in numbers greater than our own, so I suggest that you be careful and not piss them off!"
And with that the COM went dead. Iconydee turned it all the way off and set it on the ground. He swung his head around and called out to the growing group of grunts and Elites.
" Listen up! Start counting your blessings now; I am your new commander! And for now, I will forget about all your cowardice for a premature retreat, but only if you can redeem yourselves… The brutes are coming, and I for one don't want them to have a higher body count than I!"
Cheers from the crowded Elites rang from the gully, traveling fro COM link to COM link, reaching the Elites and Grunts scattered across the area.
Iconydee cried out again "when the time comes to take the battle to the enemy, will we be ready?"
Enormous amounts of "yes!" came to Iconydee from both the troops in front of him, and the COM link at his side.
" Excellent." Iconydee whispered to himself. He then thrust his fist into the air and bellowed; " Onwards to victory!"
Mi Chota watched his leader as he proclaimed his new power to the gathered elites and grunts. To his fellow grunts, him self included, this was an almost ritual thing to happen. If one high ranked Elite died, another took its place.
"-but only if you can redeem yourselves…" Iconydee continued, and for the most part, the grunts could care less. New leaders meant different work and punishment. Still, the grunt listened any way.
Iconydee paused, catching Mi Chotas' attention. Then the Elite shouted, catching everyone's attention, "The brutes are coming, and I for one don't want them to have a higher body count than I!"
Through the fellow elites made quite a cheer for victory, the grunts began to congregate on the edges of the mob.
In an almost telepathic agreement, the grunts began to prepare.