Chapter Six, Part One

Sllus-Nav Munitions Depot, Arnok System

Hour of Declination, Third Declination

The Arbiter arrived at the Sllus-Nav on a Seraph fighter he had commandeered. It had taken a while for Arbiter, who's name had once been Yu'Songalee, to truly grasp the enormity of the Arbiter's powers now available to him. He could, within reason, suborn any fighting force he saw fit to his cause, from a single Kig-Yar as an assistant, to entire Covenant armadas. He held the jurisdiction of life and death over any of the warriors that fought under his command. He could order the obliteration of entire planets, possibly even entire systems and be held totally unaccountable for his actions.

However, that was often the price for the tasks an Arbiter must undergo, he recalled.

The role of the Arbiter, and its origins, had been lost to the mists of time. It was pre-Covenant, when the Sangheili were a race of proud warrior-clans spread amongst the stars, competing for honor and occasionally territory or resources. When a younger, less advanced race was found, the Sangheili would preserve their worlds and remain unnoticed by them, and the best ones would be used as hunting grounds, where an Elite could test his honor and mettle amongst other species' warriors. With the war against the Prophets and their reconciliation, however, the Covenant forbade such activities.

It was presumed that the Arbiter became, before the Prophet's intervention, a method amongst Elite warriors, so that they could set aside their honor and accomplish whatever task needed to be done. It was a general rank in society, a state of being that an Elite could don and un-don with elaborate ritual. With the formation of the Covenant, there had been a brief period of turmoil where Sangheili society had been fundamentally changed. The Arbiter became the Holy Vanguard of the Great Journey, its previous social functions amongst the Elites reforming into the holy warrior, an avatar of the Covenant's righteous fury.

Sllus-Nav was an ideal place from which to begin reforming the serried Covenant ranks. Aside from its material importance, which was considerable, and its high numbers of trained technicians and shipyards, which was also hefty, it also boasted considerable internal defenses, which could repel any Unggoy attack that could conceivably be launched. Those defenses could be used to bolster the morale of the warriors who fled, and in addition his status as Arbiter would cause additional unity.

He was met at the docking bay by a Sangheili honor guard and the Sengheili commander of the station. His Seraph's engines cooling and spinning down, the Arbiter exited his craft and grasped the arm of fellow blood-brother. "How goes things here, Sub-Commander?"

"Preparations have begun as you instructed on the way in, Holy One." The group proceeded to walk from the hangar bay to the Bridge. "Our sensors have begun recalibrating, and efforts have begun at the repair bays to shore up the most damaged ships."

"How many losses?"

"Over 9000, sir, with more on the way each day. Whoever commanded the Fleet surely is dead for this travesty."

"I can assure you, Sub-Commander, that the people responsible for this debacle will be dealt with in due time. And some already have," with a slight chuckle underneath his breath. It felt…odd…to speak of himself as one who was dead. Or, really, his previous self.

He looked around at the Bridge. "I need the collated reports of the past 17 hours of operation, Sub-Commander."

"Already on their way, sir. The readouts will appear on the central command console."

"Very good. Carry on."

"Yes, sir." His honor guard left, and the Arbiter was left to his own musings and thoughts. It was important to strike back quickly, and hard, before the Unggoy had recovered from their own losses and dip in morale. While they ran when their high leaders died, they would return with sharp fangs, as they had so often under the Sangheili's leadership. "Vermin," he growled under his breath. It went against the natural order of things, to do what the Unggoy had done. No other Covenant member had ever rebelled as flamboyantly as the Unggoy had, that and remained alive for this long.

His analysis of the information collated for his reading was interrupted by a red flare in the communications sections. "Communications, what is transpiring?" the Arbiter commanded.

He received broken messages, static, and screams. "Out systems defenses—" "Overrun!" "Somebody get a message through to command!"

The Arbiter pounded his console in fury. The Unggoy had come, much quicker than expected. He sounded the alert. "All warriors to their posts! The Unggoy are upon us! All warriors return to their ships! Defense command, initiate your orders on my signal!"

He turned to the console again. He memorized the route to his Seraph, and left.

The Arbiter tuned into the battle grid. "Shipmaster Yu'Longfree, report!"

"We're almost loaded for departure, holy Arbiter. I've sent the fleet ahead to the outer grids. It seems the Unggoy have developed a method to open Slipspace portals in the middle of our ships! We've suffered heavy casualties so far, and the Unggoy have come out swinging."

"Very well. They're here to destroy the station, as well as eradicate the survivors. You must hold them off in a defensive front until I can get the station ready to receive them."

"Yes, holy Arbiter. Shipmaster Yu out."

The Arbiter continued. The base was a hive of activity. Species of all kinds in the Covenant rushed to their posts. Weapons systems were prepared, and the outer stations in orbit above the main one prepped weapons. He went to the station's command armory and selected a plasma carbine and a pair of Brute spikers, for use on the Unggoy's exposed methane tanks. The hilt of his plasma sword was tucked in its magnetic cradle in the curve of his back. He checked it, ignited it, then deactivated it and returned it. He selected a few plasma grenades, adhered them to their harness, then left.

He had a feeling he knew what was going to happen before it did. "Holy Arbiter!" Shipmaster Yu roared over the comm. Net. "Unggoy boarding craft are pouring out of the Slipspace portals they're opening! We're taking many of them down, but we won't be able to hit all of them!"

"Very well! Do what you can, and hold off their capital ships until I can arrive to your location!" The Arbiter switched to the station's local frequencies. "Station warriors, Unggoy boarding craft inbound. Prepare for combat!"

Chapter Six, Part Two

The Arbiter met with the master of Security onboard the station, a Jiralhanae named Hades. He had dispersed security across the station to the bays and weak points in the stations hull where it had been determined they were most likely to break through. The station was large in volume, but not so much that each team couldn't rush to another's aid.

Hades was large like all Jiralhanae, and smelled like festering garbage. To an Elite's sensitive sense of smell, this rendered an already strained relationship with the Brutes, as they were sometimes called, almost intolerable. The Arbiter silently thanked the air-filters in his armored suit as he approached the mammoth creature. "Security master." He nodded in recognition.

Hades nodded in return. The Jiralhanae, though smelly, certainly weren't stupid, and this situation warrant a certain level of politeness and cooperation in the conflict ahead. "Arbiter." And after all, he was also under the Arbiter's command, though how Hades felt about this was unknown.

A Kig-Yar squawked as it looked at its sensor grid. "Twenty seconds."

Hades rumbled in laughter. "So, they are stupid enough to come through a hatch. This will be fun."

The Arbiter didn't disagree, though he was internally grateful for any slip-up the enemy might make.

The red lights turned blue, and the Arbiter and his retinue of troops in front of him were exposed to the sight of over thirty Unggoy…with Fuel Rod Guns. Pointed right at them.

The Arbiter dove to his left back down the passage, and felt more than saw the wave of green actinic death wash over him. Then, blackness.

The Unggoy troops cheered as they saw their enemies vaporize in a shower of light and radiation. The corridor ahead partially slagged, but Covenant metal was sturdy, and could take the abuse. They avoided the red-hot metal patches, and spread through the hatch quickly, covering every route that ran to them.

Slout stutted through the hatchway to personally oversee the capture and acquisition of this station. They knew the schematics, and knew the Bridge wasn't too far off. It was their goal to vent the hangar bays, resulting in the massive, still-loaded cargo containers to be spaced. A second group of Unggoy cargo transports, accompanied by a few warships, would Slipspace in, grab the loot, then Slipspace out. Then the station and everything in it, would be slagged to molten debris.

So far, it was going perfectly to plan.

"Commander! Hatchway is secured."

"Good." Slout preened. "Make your way to the Bridge. Make sure nothing lives, and make sure you vent the entire station after the bays are done."

"Yes, sir!" They trotted down the hallway. A few seconds alter partly around a bend, he heard a shriek of pure terror, then "Sir! Come here!" He approached, then stared at what he saw. A Sangheili, covered in an unusual form of armor… "An Arbiter," he sighed. And…he knelt down and touched the middle of his back, where the Sangheili's pulse was. Very, very faint. "He's out, boys. Get him on the boat, and throw him in the brig."

"But, sir! This is…an Arbiter! A Holy Warrior!" His troops were stuttering in their fear. "Shouldn't we kill him?"

Slout frowned, and bared his teeth in dissatisfaction. "No. He be a good prize for the Freem jhour'in, and he'll get prize! Now move!"

The squad continued, and the Unggoy left behind picked up the massive Sangheili slowly, and brought him onboard the Phantom, which soon left for the Uuk'Nar's Revenge to present their acclaimed prize. No one noticed, in the rush, out of the mound of charred bodies by the hatch a small mound moving by the hatch, and while everybody was busy with the Arbiter, a furry clawed hand clutching a small, device. The moving mound of fur disappeared, only ripples showing where he was, and the ripples moved, ever so agonizingly, into the Phantom.

Freem jhour'in was busy coordinating the Unggoy frontal attack on the Covenant's outer defense stations. He had requested that all ships in his command, all 230 of them, be loaded with the new really-fast plasma missiles, but only half had been filled to his request before they had to leave. All ships had been modified for the plasma beams as well, which would put a definitive clinker in the Big People's plans.

First through the shattered wreckage of Covenant ships out of the Slipspace portals that had opened up inside of them, were the ships with the missiles. They spewed them out, and began gutting the nearest Covenant anything with their incandescent beams of fury. Within seconds, they had cleared a large are of space through which the jhour'in's ships could pass into normal space, and they emerged virtually in the center of their defensive fleet.

His groups split into two, one with 190 ships and the other with 40. The larger force turned and smashed right into the large Covenant counter-attack that was heading towards them. Sporadic fire from the outer stations soon thickened as the outer stations received more accurate targeting coordinates and improved their rate of fire. Plasma torpedoes streaked across space and smashed full-on into the Unggoy frontal shields, but plasma beams lanced out, slicing through shields like they weren't even there. Over 23 vessels, including one Assault Carrier, drifted through space cut in half at the middle, before containment in the reactors failed and space was littered with wreckage and metal shards moving at virtually c.

The smaller group, while the larger group distracted most of the Covenant vessels, proceeded to micro-jump in-system, to get closer to the main station. These ships spewed fighters and boarding craft by the thousands, which screamed forth from their hangars. The main station was very large, and covered in hundreds of scaled-up fuel rod guns and thick plasma batteries. The closer the vessels got, space became saturated with plasma fire everywhere, a blue wall of fire. Unggoy fighters screamed in, Phantoms and Banshees flying in and striking holes in the network of guns, but with horrific casualties, flesh and metal tearing, boiling, and gone into blackness.

At last, the main station had been breached. First one, then two, then twelve, then many, many more craft successfully burned, blasted, or landed into the station. Heavy fire met their efforts, but special teams of Unggoy, equipped with massive Fuel Rod guns and plasma cannons, fired back, punching holes in the defenses.

When the signal came the Unggoy retreated. The number of Covenant forces kept trickling, and was soon to turn into a flood. The strike teams pulled back, and then, just when the Covenant though they had won, the Unggoy opened the main Hangar Bays, sending massive cargo containers into space and living being who in the room at the time, which were many. Then, as if for a final insult, the entire stations was opened. Every living being froze, Hunter worms shriveling up in the cold, Engineers collapsing and occasionally exploding in gore, Brute, Elites and Jackals grasping their equivalent of a throat, then keeling over dead. The Unggoy team donned space suits left their armor on the deck, then left through the hatch they came in. Twenty seconds later, the escorts to the troop transports, which had successfully loaded up all of the containers into their cavernous holds, fired, slagging and destroying the station.

That was the signal to regroup and leave. The main force of 230 ships, now reduced to less than half that, turned fired their massive plasma missiles at the outer stations, then left. Behind them they left, again, shattered Covenant fleets, slagged stations, uncountable losses in every conceivable category of war, and a shattered sector defense that it would take the Covenant entirely too long to exploit, during which time the Unggoy would ravage half the galaxy.

And, in a ship fleeing triumphantly from the battlefield, two warriors, defeated, began to wake up.