BraK3R's A/N: Hey guys, i'm really sorry about how ridiculously long it took me to get back to this. There really is no excuse, just that i've been lazy. I just want you guys to know that I have not abandoned this fiction as it would be a double disappointment, so here's BraK3R, back at it again.
DelVarO's A/N: Heck yeah! I'm back and i have a new chapter with me. Sorry it took me this long to update, but i had a
lot of things to do lately, or i was just too lazy to do anything. Stupid heat wave... and stupid writer's block.
Anyway, I hope you will enjoy this chapter, i did enjoy writing it. Have fun reading it!
Chapter 4 – Fears
0823 Hours, February 7, 2563 (Military Calendar) / Planet Venatio / Jungle
Anxiety, a lot of fucking anxiety; that's what Damian was feeling right now. At this point in his military career he was considered a veteran, especially since he'd been fighting with Echo squad from the beginning. Currently in his early thirties, he was starting to age but nevertheless still remained physically fit and agile. It felt as if he was still in his early twenties, fighting hard and living rough, but now he felt himself slowly losing his edge, as if the tip of a knife were to become dull. Witnessing at least a dozen squad members come and go through the 11 years of his service, Leone, Brass, Akira, and Sean had been the only ones who'd stayed throughout the years.
Some of his best friends had died right in front of him during battle, a few of them in his arms occasionally, their blood always soaking his BDU's. Injured beyond memory, both emotionally and physically, it was surprising just how much he was still able to take now that he thought of it.
He'd always felt fear before battle, knowing that every time he dropped into battle could possibly be the last time he ever did. Fear, when soldiers who had been standing right next to him got egged by plasma bolts, falling to the ground screaming in agony and rage, refusing to go down without a fight. He definitely felt fear a lot of times, but he'd never felt
anything like this. During the Covenant-Human war, and the following "Cleansing" as many called it, he had always known what he was fighting.
25 years of learning how the Covenant fought and developing counter-measures against them, the fight had always been hard but at least there had been ways to fight back against the enemy. Here though... here there was nothing to shoot at, nobody to fucking return fire to.
They all knew something was here in the jungles with them, but they didn't know where or what it was.
He knew one thing for sure though; it was definitely not friendly and it was most definitely not of Covenant origin. In the two decades and a half of war, the Covenant had never conspired such grotesque displays. Sure, they treated humanity like vermin, but they never hanged the dead; usually they'd just leave the bodies on the battlefield until they rotted or until the planet was glassed.
They also never took heads for trophies, as the ODST's had soon found out after inspecting the bodies. The heads had been ripped clean off along with a portion of the spinal cord, as if it had been a normal and effortless action to perform .
Akira had suggested that perhaps it was a local alien race that was intelligent enough to hang bodies and skin people, but that theory was quickly ruled out.
The research facility here had reports on nearly every known species that inhabited the planet, and no species here had been found intelligent enough to actually make ropes and skin people. Other life forms in the universe were found to exist long ago, and evolved life-forms that could build civilizations and eventually travel space were a proven fact. Whoever was out there in the jungle with them, didn't seem too keen on making allies.
Nichire was worried, and worry was a thing only sucklings and unblooded pondered about. Experienced and honored warriors like Nichire did not worry; they lived the hunt and triumphed. This however, unnerved him greatly. He was worried of a particular Yautja, one that had been blooded only recently. Young Yautja were often brash and arrogant, full of themselves, and overconfident in their abilities. Nichire himself had been like that in his younger years. It had only taken his mentor and first hunt leader to dishonor him in combat and teach him a hard lesson. Young Yautja that disobeyed their Leader didn't live long, as for ones that actually challenged one… those were rare and often considered foolish. The word of the Leader was law; they weren't Leaders for nothing.
His old mentor had allowed him to keep his life and live with the shame of being defeated. Nichire had learned from that day on that there were hunters who were always much more experienced than himself, and to always expect someone stronger and faster than himself.
He would never admit it, but he missed old Akar'chi. Akar'chi had seen to countless hunts, many of them with Nichire. He'd sired countless bloodlines with the females and tales of his feats had reached all the way to the Ancients themselves. Akar'chi had met his fate honorably, facing a Hard Meat Queen by himself! He died that day, but he took the whole hive with him. Nichire wished his death would be no less grand than old Akar'chi's.
But Nik'ah'kum… He wasn't like the other younglings. Yes, he was overconfident and aspiring to greatness that was out of his reach… but he was no fool. Nichire spectated him during some of the hunts. He was cunning and dangerous and he wasn't a freshly blooded Yautja either. He was talented and had great potential.
Nichire would expect him to achieve a position of Leader in a few decades time, though not the Leader of Nichire's group. Nichire was not as young as he had been before, but he wasn't old enough to stop being Leader and Chieftain of the Hunt either. Perhaps a skirmish similar to his and Akar'chi's fight would erase the youngling's foolishness from his head.
When he had told the others about the Oomans, he'd seen Nik'ah'kum's reactions. He knew Nik' ah'kum wanted to hunt the Oomans for the glory of the hunt, and he also wanted an Ooman's skull on his trophy wall. Nik'ah'kum even dared to raise his voice on him and protest his order! The situation had been quickly defused though; it had been too close to a fight for his likings. What unnerved him even more however, were the reactions of the others. Even though they didn't express themselves like Nik'ah'kum, he knew that they silently agreed with him.
They wanted to hunt the Oomans as well, and he suspected that they would do that were Nichire not present on the hunt. They were not here for the Oomans however, this wasn't a normal hunt like the usual ones they participated in. There had been another hunting party here. No one had heard anything from the party for quite a long time, so Nichire's group had been sent here to find out what had happened to them, and finish the other party's hunt.
He had researched about that other party. They were a party of unblooded Yautja about to participate in their blooding ceremony, but as far as his suspicions went, they had failed since none had returned. And failure in a blooding ceremony was rare, which either meant that there had been an unforeseen foe, or there was a hard meat colony on the planet.
He also knew that there were other Oomans here, ones that had arrived before this new Ooman party. Nichire was not stupid, and he had already guessed what those new Oomans were here for. Both of their objectives were very similar. His hunting party had come to find the failed blooding ceremony party and the Oomans had come here to find their own party. But Nichire knew that if there were Hard Meat here, that meant that the Oomans who had previously been here were most likely dead.
Truthfully Nichire would prefer to leave the Oomans be, but he knew that if the Oomans were to somehow interfere, or a certain foolish young warrior were to disobey him, conflict would be unavoidable. Right now however, he decided to worry about Nik'ah'kum first. One thing that he'd learned from countless hunts was that if there was something that worried him, he always removed the cause of that worry.
The situation wasn't looking good. But really, when did it ever look good to begin with?
Their ammo was low enough to be a cause for concern and they had just started the mission not too long ago. Morale had also plummeted exponentially after the discovery of the headless human bodies hanging from the trees. Damian could practically smell the anxiety in the air around the members of Echo Squad.
He shifted his gaze to the Kids. They were new to this. Sure they weren't green, no ODST was, but they had never been in such a situation before, ever. In truth, they'd never been in any major battles at all, like the Battle of Earth or the Evacuation of Reach.
In a way, he envied them. Kyle had grown up in a 'happy' family somewhere in Detroit back on Earth. He had a girlfriend waiting for him back at home, something that Brass always laughed about stating how she wouldn't wait for him long. Kyle is an 'overly friendly' soldier and human being in general. Jimmy though, is more careful about his life stories. He's the silent type, the kind that doesn't talk much about his earlier life before joining the ODST's and only talks about it when he's asked.
Damian once wondered why Kyle decided to join the ODST, or into the UNSC to begin with. From what he'd heard, Kyle had had a pretty decent life back on earth, unlike the current "original" Echo squad members. Damian himself grew up on Mars and all he had left was Echo squad who he considered as family. Akira grew up on some planet in the inner-colonies that he'd already forgotten the name of, but it had been glassed back in 2545 when she was barely 15. She was the only surviving member of her family left. Brass never told any of them about where he grew up but they did know that his father and his grandpa had both served in the UNSC and he was just continuing the tradition.
Leone was actually the only one of the "original" squad that was born and raised on earth. The gray-haired Sergeant never liked to talk about his family, and they all respected that. They knew that he'd had a son in the Marine Corps who had been stationed on some base in the inner-colonies which had been attacked a little over 10 years ago. No one survived that attack. Sean was the only one of the squad whom they knew jack-shit about. The only thing he ever told them was that his family was gone.
Up ahead, Damian heard Brass mutter some curses when he tripped on a branch that had fallen and hidden in the jungle foliage. Damian had to admit that moving through this jungle sucked.
"Fuck… How close are we to the base? I'm getting fucking tired of moving through this jungle." Brass said.
"Shit, he does have a point there sarge. We've been walking for around 2 hours now." Mary said, for once actually agreeing with Brass on something that wasn't connected to fighting somehow.
"We're near, so shut up." Leone answered gruffly. They all knew that he wasn't enjoying this either.
"We will arrive in a few minutes, it's not that far. I really don't see the point of asking me the ETA when you can see it for yourself." Leone said with a heavy sigh. "They can see the distance on their HUDs… those dipshits." He muttered under his breath, which practically everyone still heard.
"Sorry sir, just trying to relieve the tension!" Brass said apologetically, though they knew he wasn't really sorry.
Damian was getting tired of walking as well. The jungle was getting thicker and thicker as they went through making their original plan, which consisted of them walking in a straight line to their objective, completely had been forced to find detours around thick clusters of wood, deep gorges, and thick rivers. He looked up, seeing the odd blue-purple color of the sky, the blazing sun, and the pair of huge bluish moons that were visible during the day and the night.
As Leone promised, it took them 'a few minutes' (which were actually 20), to get to their objective. A large green clearing, at least 500 feet in radius, stood at the foot of a small mountain. Damian noticed some small dog-sized brown-furred animals scatter away from them once they caught sight of them. Those small creatures even kind of looked like dogs, with the exception that they didn't have a dog's mouth; instead they had an elongated tentacle-like appendage, with a long pink tongue sometimes sticking out of it, tasting the air.
"Alright," Leone started saying after the animals scattered, leaving the humans alone in the clearing "The entrance should be around here…" He said while moving towards the mountain wall.
It took them about five minutes of searching until they found it and understood why they hadn't seen it at first. It looked like a rockslide had almost completely covered the entrance, blocking it with rocks, dirt and several pieces of what was once a tree. Luckily for them, it didn't cover completely, but in order to enter they still had to clear out the path a bit, much to Brass's annoyance.
"You think that this is the reason they sent a distress signal?" Sean asked while pushing off a large rock from the small hill the landslide had formed.
"I don't think so. They wouldn't have called because of such a small thing. Besides, it's not the only base on this planet, there are another two and if this was their only problem, they would've asked for their assistance, not ours." Akira answered. "But this does look discomforting."
"What do you mean?" Brass asked aloud.
"Well, if it was their problem problem, it would mean that the other bases would've sent someone to clear this out. Since it's still here… it means that no one's used this door for quite some time." She concluded.
"That's what I've been thinking. Come on, let's clear this out and see what's going on inside." Leone barked, urging them to work faster.
After a few minutes of working, Leone screamed his lungs out at Brass for throwing a large rock that almost flattened Jimmy. Finally, they cleared a path large enough for all of them to get through. Up ahead, with the faint light from outside shining in and the hard tac-lights beaming from the ODST's helmets, stood a heavy titanium door.
The door looked like it hadn't been used for a long time, but it wasn't damaged in any way either. Giving a quick glance back at his squad, Leone motioned them to prepare their weapons, and fixing his grip on his own weapon, he moved to unlock the door.
Nik'ah'kum stood before Cha'kun'da in the shadows of a large tree, away from the prying eyes and ears of their hunting party and the bright rays of the sun. Nik'ah'kum smiled beneath his mask. He knew Cha'kun'da well, too well for the older Yautja's likings.
"Why have you called me?" He asked the younger hunter, clicking his mandibles in annoyance. He didn't want to sound too hostile, his relationship with Nik'ah'kum was already strained as it was. He knew that the younger Yautja was stronger, Nik'ah'kum often holding victory over him in battle. He also understood that Nik'ah'kum was considered a prodigy, a very skilled hunter with vast potential, which was the second reason for their rivalry, and he'd heard the praises of older Yautja often rained upon the younger hunter, often saying that he would become Leader soon.
He never liked the younger, overconfident Yautja but he wasn't stupid. If Nik'ah'kum were to become future Leader, it would be good to be on Nik'ah'kum's good side. Which was why Cha'kun'da put up with him in the first place and answered to his call.
"You wish to hunt the Oomans." Nik'ah'kum stated more then asked with a click of annoyance from his mandibles. Cha'kun'da nodded his head, genuinely curious about what Nik'ah'kum wanted say that had to be said in private.
"Then we will hunt them together." The younger Yautja said.
Cha'kun'da looked at the warrior in front of him, shorter by half a head then him. He stood confident and his voice did not betray any hesitance. He considered his options. He wanted to hunt the Oomans. He'd already had experience with them once in another hunt, but what he had faced there… was not the same as the stories he'd been taught as a suckling. He'd been taught that the Oomans were the hardest prey among the soft meat; fearless in battle and impressive opponents in a hunt. But what he faced then… was a fearful bag of bones and flesh. He did that creature a favor by putting it out of its misery. Yes, it did put up a fight, as meager as it was, but he expected more. Much more.
He didn't give up hope though. There were different Yautja, perhaps there were different Oomans as well and he had simply been unlucky to hunt a cowardly one. Perhaps these new Oomans will be more like what the tales showed.
"Leader will not approve." He finally answered.
"I know. But I am already taking care of it. Leader will not stop us from taking our trophies from these Oomans. They are our prey." Nik'ah'kum answered with several clicks of mandibles accompanying him. Cha'kun'da suddenly realized something, though more suspecting was the correct word. Was Nik'ah'kum planning to become Leader in this hunt? He suddenly realized that if Nichire were to find out about this, he would kill Nik'ah'kum, and Cha'kun'da as well. But how will Nik'ah'kum accomplish this feat?
Nichire has many to support him, while Nik'ah'kum, no matter how talented he is, is still too young and does not have the support of the more senior members. Having many questions but not enough answers, he decided to ask. Besides, he really did want to hunt the Oomans.
"How will you accomplish this? The others will support Nichire, not you." He stated. To his surprise, Nik'ah'kum began to chuckle loudly.
"Do not worry yourself with this. I will take care of everything. The others will support me, and as for how I will accomplish that, you will have to see it for yourself." He said, clicking his mandibles in joy.
He placed a hand on Cha'kun'da's shoulder. "Go to the others now. Soon, we will have our hunt. Say not a word to the others about this."
"You may trust me. I will stay silent." He turned to leave but then paused. "You are not joining me?" he asked.
"No. I must find Nichire and speak to him about the upcoming hunt." The young warrior stated. Cha'kun'da nodded and left the shadows of the tree. He heard Nik'ah'kum leave as well.
He started to get a bad feeling about this. He respected Nichire, respected him a lot. He'd learned a lot from the older and respected warrior and sometimes Cha'kun'da even wished he could be like Nichire. He knew that he could never fight like Nichire. He'd personally seen him dispatch a dozen Hard Meat drones, with only his wrist blades and spear! Cha'kun'da had more than once aspired to become as formidable as his Leader but now, Nichire was taking away his chance to hunt a supposedly formidable prey. This was an insult to the warrior, who had silently fumed when Nichire announced that they were not to hunt the Oomans.
He didn't like this. He didn't like Nik'ah'kum. But as long as he would get his hunt, he would heed Nik'ah'kum's orders. As long as he would get his hunt, he would be willing to betray Nichire.
DelVarO's A/N: Ahh, the plot thickens! It will get interesting soon, do not worry, it will be much more interesting! Ive been spending most of my time playing the AvP game, which was completely awesome, really. Unfortunately i havent managed to see the new Predators movie, which i heard was awesome, though not epic as much as i hoped it would be, but i cant judge it yet, i havent even seen it! I'm still rather pissed about the two AVP movies, which were unfortunately a large pile of steaming crap. Okay, the first movie wasnt so bad, just a large rip off of the AVP book, which i read, which was a lot better than the movie. Still, cant do anything about it, and Holywood have a habit of fucking up a lot of things. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, i will try to update a lot sooner, which would be a greatly good thing for both of us! If you liked this story, or chapter or whatever, please review! Your support will help me a lot, and if you did enjoy, dont stalk the story from the shadows, review the story and tell me what you think! I'm open for any ideas or corrections or anything else!