Author note: Hey everyone Good to be back with a new chapter. I hope you all enjoy it and please leave a comment on anything at all questions about the Prehumans, their technology, ships, events and such stuff and of course criticism. A thing I would like to ask about is if you guys think there is enough action in the story so far or should I take it a level up? Another thing is if any of you have thought up something cool you might want to see in the story, it could an invasion of a planet, a scouting mission gone horribly wrong and such, in the near future PM me and I'll see if i can fit it in somewhere... and no you can't request the Chief I have something special planned for him *evil laughter*
Prisoner of war
The 03/15/2581. The Capital
Siflion walked out unto a balcony that overlooked most of the Capital, the old capital of the forerunner. Hundreds of thousands of pillars of black and dark gray smoke rose from the many cities on the just as many platforms. High above the smoke rested the many imperial ships that made up the first invasion fleet. They had thought the Foreunners would have fought with tooth and nails to defend this place but no respond fleet had come to the Capitals rescue. Siflion signed for himself and turned to the other person standing near the railing, the reason why he was up here in the first place.
"Good to you're still in one piece my friend." Aldu Tasmor said, he sounded tired or maybe stressed out by something. Aldu didn't turn around to look at his old friend and prince. Siflion just smiled and walked up beside him, his helmet breaking itself apart into the small nano machines it was made of which then moved down to his shoulders and back and linked together with the other nano machines. He rested his arms on the railing and just watched scenery together with Aldu, a light breeze shaking up his shoulder long black hair. A few ships had been tasked to put out the fires and salvage what they could from both Forerunner and their own ships and ground units. They stood there in silent, only the light wave of air breaking the silence every few moments, before Aldu turned to look at Siflion.
"So what you what kind of trouble did you find yourself in on that planet that the crazy ancilla sent you and your men to?" Siflion breathed out heavily and explained what he and his squad of Sinners had encountered on the Forerunner planet. How they had appeared in front of a bunch of primitive spacefaring aliens who worshiped the Forerunners as their gods and how they had encountered other humans that had attacked them.
"… I don't know why they really attacked us… Those other humans I mean." Siflion looked at Wave-Class battleship passing by over their heads, his face clearly telling Aldu that his friend was in deep thoughts on the matter.
"What do you think that?" Aldu asked curious about what Siflion was thinking and turned to face him with his right arm still resting on the rail, supporting his weight. Siflion just shrugged and remain silent for a few moments think how he should tell his friend what was troubling him.
"It… it all started because one of them, a young female I guess, threw a grenade at us. We… we just reacted out of instinct and retaliated and before I knew what was happening we serving their asses on a sliver plate." The Lord of Admirals looked a bit confused at Siflion, not catching why this bugged him so much. Siflion must have felt his confusion and proceed to explain.
"It was clear that they had never seen or heard of us before but that girl… I could almost taste the fear and terror that was dripping from her as soon as she laid eyes on us. I think she knew of us somehow… Weird right?" A smile appeared on his lips when he thought about how ridiculous that sounded. Aldu didn't really know how to answer that and instead tried to change the topic.
"You came to deliver the Night Lords report, just hand it over and I'll read it myself." Aldu extended his left hand, palm up. Siflion Just nodded, thankful for change of subject, and extended his right hand, palm down, just above Aldus. A few sparks of electricity appeared between the two hands before both of them pulled back their hands, the exchange of information complete. Aldu could, with the help of his servitor, feel the data in the back of his mind, images, smells and such could be felt, almost as if he had been there himself. Of course he knew that it was only the important parts he had received, the pieces that Siflion had deemed unimportant enough for him had been 'cut' out. Aldu looked through the report, analyzing it, for a few moments.
"So… These Humans have settled on Hakkurok Kullok." Siflion just nodded.
"That's what the prisoners and their star maps tell us."
"Good I want you to go there and investigate their defenses if possible bring back some prisoners for interrogation." Siflion looked back at his old friend.
"You want me to lead an expedition? That's like asking the Flood to stop consuming all sentient life. I'm a Sinner, remember, my kind isn't very popular right now." Aldu nodded he knew that, everybody in the empire knew that. The Sinners was after all hated more than even the Praetorian Guard and that said something about their reputation.
"And that's why I'll send you, their prince, who is trying so hard to rebuild the Sinners past reputation. That's why you joined them in the first place, right? And by the way it's an order so live with it." Aldu gave a devilish smile. Siflion narrowed his eyes at his good friend and superior but in the end signed heavily.
"Fine you win this time Aldu. You should be glad that I gave up the throne to my little sister or I would have personally demoted you to trash cleaner." Siflion started to walk towards the large doorway that led into the building.
"Lucky for me that you never liked politics and just wanted to swing that sword of yours around all the time like the child you have always been." Aldu yelled after the leaving prince only to receive the ancient insult of the middle finger over the prince's shoulder.
_Ω_
Siflion and his squad of Sinners stood on the bridge of the Loyalty-Class Light Cruiser that he had been given command of. Of course the ship's captain wasn't every happy in the least to take orders from a Sinner even if it was his prince but he didn't outright protest against having the Night Lords onboard his ship.
"So my lord, where're we heading too?" Asked the ship's captain, Ydrall Goval was his name, from his command chair with small smile on his lips. He spat the word 'lord' out with barely contained disgust. He looked between the gathered Sinners, knowing full well that they couldn't really hurt him or his crew no matter what he might do within curtain limits without spurring up some kind of grand political havoc. It would be the end of the Sinner program after so many millennia's of stubbornly avoiding being shut down by the ruling classes of the empire.
"We're going to Hakkurok Kullok, an old world of our ancestors." Siflion looked back at Ydrall, the old captain more interested in his fingernails than what Siflion had to tell him. "You have the coordinates right?" Ydrall uttered an "aye" as his answer and stopped exanimating his fingernails and turned his attention to the Sinner captain.
"I have them and we're heading out very soon, I would recommend that you and your… men got down to the time lock champers and prepare for the long sleep, the journey should take some time before get to Hakkurok Kullok.
Siflion nodded and signaled for his men to head down there. He walked towards the exit but stopped beside Ydrall. He rested an arm on tick metal backrest of the command chair and leaned towards ydrall ear and whispered. "Remember who of us are in charge, captain." The sound metal bending could be heard all over the small bridge as Siflion squeezed the metal, leaving a deep mark of his hand in the backrest. Siflion let go and walked out of the bridge and soon cased up with his team.
_Ω_
The 04/05/2581 Harvest
It had been hard here on Harvest for the last 10 years. Thanks to their separatist allies had humanity been able to return Harvest. The nuclear winters were still hard but were now manageable. The cleaning up of the planet after it was glassed by the Covenant Empire at the opening of the Covenant-human war was at long last paying off. Soon the earth was ready to be seeded again. The 500-600 people who live on the planet and worked hard to nurse and heal the planet back to its former glory were proud of their work. Carl Harrison, a middle-aged man and farmer, sat on a small hill overlooking the small colony, housing the planets entire population, and the surrounding areas that was planned to be turned into large fields of gold from the grain that would be harvested in the coming decades. He sat there enjoying the last rays of sunlight before he would head back to the colony.
Behind him was a purple metal covered machine, one of the 'gifts' from the separatist, buzzing as it absorbed the remaining traces of radiations that still were left in this area. A low beeping noise told him that the machine was finish with gathering the radiation. Carl let out a small sigh and got up on his feet and walked over to the small machine and grabbed it with both hands, small maybe but very heavy, and lifted it up walked over to this truck not far away and placed it on the back of the tuck. He was about to open the door to the driver's seat when a large shadow sudden threw the land into shadows. He turned around and saw a large ship hovering above the small colony, its form bolting out the light of the sun. Small crafts sped out from its sides, Carl would guess that they were dropships, all of them heading to the outskirts of the colony. Then the ship fired. A large drop shaped bolt of white smashed down right in the middle of the colony. The small two-story buildings were blown away by the explosion, a large pillar of smoke and fire rose form the ground.
Carl stood there beside his car in shock as he witnessed his home getting turned into ashes before his eyes. He entered the truck grabbing the shotgun that hung behind the two seats, loading it with shells he had hidden in the trucks glove compartment. He stepped on the speeder and raced towards the colony on the dirt road. He had to get back there. He had to protect his family. He had to get to them before any harm came to them.
He was not far from the outskirts of the colony when his truck was struck by a large bolt of antimatter. The left wheel along with some of the trucks hull turned into energy and exploded, sending the trashed truck spending around in the air before it hit the ground hard upside down.
Carl coughed as dust found its way down his lungs. Still holding his shotgun tightly he crept of the heavily damaged truck and out unto the fields of low grass. He got up on feet, his legs shaking violently. His ears ringing, he couldn't hear a thing other than the ringing noise. A finger to his left ear conformed that blood was pouring out of it. His vision darkened and spun but never did his focus on the colony waver. He had to go home. He had to get them protect them. A sudden sting in his chest made him stop. He looked down and saw a small hole through its right side, the smell of burned flesh reached his nose and the task of blood in his mouth. The shot must have pierced his lung. He narrowed his eyes and grunted, spitting a lump of blood up. He hadn't time to die now and pushed forward. He didn't get far before he felt a second sting, this time in his left side. He fell to his knees, letting go of his shotgun as he fell. No matter how hard he tried his body wouldn't listen to him. A human, he thought it was a human, clad in light and dark gray armor and an almost sickly yellow colored visor walked up in front of him from behind him, probably the one who had shot him. In its arms rested a rifle that slowly changed it form, from something that look a little like the DMR to assault rifle looking form.
The Sickly yellow visor staring him in the eyes before it raised its rifle at him and fired. Carl could feel his body being pushed back from the force of the tiny explosions inside his body, his chest and stomach exploding and sending bloody pieces everywhere and painting the low grass red with his blood. The last thing Carl saw before he closed his eyes for the last time was more of those light and dark gray armored humans walking towards the burning colony.
_Ω_
Ca. half an hour later
Normally when you 'woke' from the time lock it was a slow process to make sure that the brain didn't take any damage from the sudden change awakening. It was more of an unconscious thing so you didn't notice this. This time however there was no slow awakening. Siflion was pulled out of the timelock, like he had been sucked out through an airlock, and straight into the arms of No'el who grabbed his captain and supported him as he regained control over his body.
"W-what's happening? Are we under attack!?" ask Siflion as he looked around the cramp hallway of time lock champers. All around him were his soldiers all with their weapons ready. No'el shook his head and let go of his captain when he had made sure he could stand on his own legs again.
"No, but it looks like captain Ydrall Goval chose to let us sleep while he launched an attack on a small settlement on Hakkurok Kullok."
"He did what!?" Yelled Siflion, his echoing in the small hall, his voice filled with rage. I am the commander of this mission how dare his do something like this. Siflion thought as he grabbed hold of his weapons and equipment.
"Where is Ydrall now?" he asked, heading for the door.
"The settlement, sir." One of his Sinners answered. Siflion gave a short nod and headed for the nearest hanger bay, his troops following close behind. They walked straight to a Shadow Wasp Dropship, its pilot being so unlucky at being at the receiving end of Siflion fist and thrown off his own plane. One of the Sinners started the engines and when all members of the Night Lords were onboard took off and headed down to the burning ruins of the small settlement.
The dropship soon touched ground the Night Lords exited the vessel and walked through the destroyed dirt streets of the settlement. Death could be seen everywhere, men women and children butchered in their homes or dragged out on the middle of the streets to be executed in groups, none of them looked like they had been soldiers. Siflion felt sick. Killing defenseless civilians wasn't the way of the imperial military. It was tasteless, cowardly and dishonorable to commit such an act. Only the Praetorian Guard was truly known to do such things. The Night Lords soon found Ydrall Goval and some of his man on an open plaza toying with a young girl, by shooting after her feet, making her jump and dance around while the Hastati troops laughed their asses off at the poor girl's misery. The girl couldn't be more than 14, in her arm she held a small baby boy warped in a cloth, her little brother maybe. A round from a Morpther in assault rifle mode cut through one of skinny legs the shot get out on the other side with the antimatter still inside its energy container but a small boom was heard as the antimatter was released into the air. The girl landed face first into the ground, the baby boy landed a little bit away from her. She had lost her grip on the boy when she was shot.
"What is the meaning of this!?" Yelled Siflion on the top of his lungs, the crowd of Hastati soldiers ceasing their laughter and moving aside to make room for the Sinners to enter the ring they had made around the girl and her little brother. He walked over to the crying baby, his big sister trying to crawl over to him with what strength she had left. Siflion carefully picked the baby and turned to the young girl. Her eye wide with terror of what unspeakable horrors Siflion could do to her baby brother. But her great surprise he walked over to her knelt down in front of her and handed her her little brother. She quickly snatched the baby out of Siflions hands and hugged the baby tightly into her breast trying to hide it from all the Hastati troops. Siflion got back on his feet and spotted the captain of the light cruiser, who stepped forward as if challenged by Siflions piercing glance.
"What's the meaning of this?" Siflion hissed at Ydrall when his had come close enough. "Have you forgotten your place? I'm the commander here by orders of the Lord of Admirals himself!" Siflion yelled into Ydralls face, the smaller man not moving an itch, just looking Siflion straight in his eyes.
"… I did what I was allowed to do, my lord." Ydrall spat after a long silence. "According to the ancient law Sinner are not allowed under almost any circumstances to take command of other imperial forces other than units within their own ranks. What the Lord of Admiral ordered was against the law and therefore you have no command over me or my men. Ydrall gave a devilish smiled. Siflions rage was boiling to new limits, he raised his fist, ready to send the captains head flying off his shoulders.
"I wouldn't do that either." Siflion stopped himself in the last moment from letting loose this wrath. "If you strike me you will doom your precious Sinner program… You wouldn't risk that right?" Ydralls smile widened as he saw Siflion lower his fist and sigh heavily.
"Fine you win captain but as your prince I beg of you to spare the rest and capture them, for later interrogation." Siflion pleaded. Ydrall scratched his chin and look like he thought hard about what to do in a mocking gesture.
"Hmm… Fine I'll see to it but only because you're the prince." With that Ydrall turned on his heels and shouted his orders at his men who all vent to work with gathering up survivors and getting them on the dropship for transport up to the ship above them. Siflion sighed again already feeling mentally exhausted. He turned to where he had left the young girl and her little brother and saw that one of the Night Lords two medics was treating the gun wound that the poor girl had suffered from before. Heloan walked up beside him and looked at the small girl.
"Why, why did you interfere and rescue that girl and the rest of the settlement?" She looked up that Siflion, trying to see his in the eyes.
"They're humans…"
"No they're not… You know that. They have Forerunner DNA in them. Their existence must be some kind of mocking by the Forerunners." Heloan interrupted. Siflion shook his head.
"I don't think that's the real reason… Look at her" He pointed towards the girl now free from the medic and now sat on a half destroyed bench close to a ruined house with her little brother in her arms. "… and tell me that's not a human being and furthermore it doesn't look like they had anything to defend themselves with. They could do nothing more than hide and hope for the best… At least I managed to save some of them."
_Ω_
An hour later
"Those were the last ones captain." Shouted No'el over the noise of last dropship filled with prisoners taking off. Siflion nodded in reply and walked away from the small plaza that had been used as a landing zone for the past hour, No'el quickly shorting the distance between then when he followed Siflion and fell in steps with him.
"Captain!" Siflion stopped when he heard Heloans voice over the squad's com channel, she sounded upset about something.
"What is it, Heloan?" Siflion asked, signaling to No'el to get on the channel too. He did as ordered.
"I was listening in on some of Captain Ydralls troop's com channels and it looks like a hostile ship has exited slipspace a few minutes ago and it'll enter the planet's atmosphere in a matter of moments." Siflion and No'el exchanged a look of confusion. If they had just arrived to this planet only a few hours ago than it should be days before any kind of responses fleet could be dispatched… unless of course that they had been here longer than the few hours that Siflion and his Sinners had knowledge of. His Servitor seemed to come to the same conclusion as him. Ydrall had purposely held them in time lock longer than the rest of the cruisers crew.
"Do you have any idea if the light cruiser can take on the hostile ship?" Asked Siflion over the com channel, pushing to No'el with elbow, getting him to contact the rest of the squad and order them to gather at the small plaza.
"Not a chance according to Ydralls men's scans the hostile ship should be around 6 kilometers long… I would say the odds are against us this time sir." Siflion forced himself not to roll his eye. You don't say.
"Got it, return to the plaza with the rest of the team asp…" Siflion looked up at the small cruiser above their heads. "We're leaving before things get hot."
It didn't take long before the Night Lords had gathered on the small plaza. Siflion had spotted several imperial dropships heading back to the cruiser. Seemed like ydrall had come to the same conclusion as Siflion had, they didn't stand a chance against that kind of force, and had chosen to pack up and leave before the hostile ship could reach them. Night Lord made their way towards their dropship in a brisk pace.
"There it is, No'el you dri…" Siflion didn't get time to finish his sentence before someone in is squad yelled "Incoming!" The moment after the large blast of antimatter hit the dropship, sending what was left of its hull flying in all directions. The shockwave from the explosion of released antimatter send the group of Sinners flying back a few meters before hitting the ground hard. Siflion groaned as he sat up and stared at the burning wreck of their dropship. At least there hadn't been anyone on it when the antimatter hit it. An evil laugh over the imperial open com channel was heard. It was Ydrall who was laughing.
"Haha… Oh that was good, now I think I'll be on my way out of here." Siflion gritted his teeth at the voice of the cruisers captain. Above the group of Sinners the Cruiser started to move, slowly rising into the sky.
"What're you doing? Do you intent to leave us behind?" Siflion asked venom dripping from his voice. Ydrall laughed again.
"Of course I am, if I can get rid of a few of you Sinners than its fine with me so I can take revenge for what your kind did to my family during the Great Rebellion." Siflion shook his head. Ydrall must have gone bad that rebellion was more than 76.000 years ago.
"Are you made? That rebellion was fought more than 76.000 years ago and the Sinners were reduced to nothing more than 50 men strong."
"SHUT UP. Your kind is a curse upon this empire and you destroyed my family's reputation and wealth. The Goval family was once a powerful family of system and planet lords but after the rebellion my family was reduced to nothing." With that Ydrall cut the channel and the Night Lords was left stranded on Harvest as they could only stand and look at the cruiser ascending into the skies.
"Sir… What do we do now?" Heloan walked up to her captain and placed a hand on his shoulder. "The hostile ship is still approaching." Siflion took a deep breath before letting it out. He stared at the ground, thinking like a mad scientist. He stood like this for a while before he looked up at his team.
"Did anyone of you spot a landing zone or a hanger for spaceships of some kind?" He asked looking between all of them. Everyone shook their heads except one who took a step forward.
"I think I saw something that looked like a hanger over there." the Sinner pointed towards a few rocky hills resting a few kilometers away from the settlement. Siflion nodded his approval to the Sinner.
"Alright folks, we'll head over there and see if we can find anything that has a slipspace drive." His team nodded their understanding and headed towards the hills.
_Ω_
The UNSC New Dawn had already unloaded its six Strident-class heavy frigates. Four new frigates hadn't yet to be assigned to the New Dawn after its battle above Growth. The seven ships moved towards Harvest slowly. UNSC had received a distress call about an unknown vessel entering the system form the small colony a few days ago and had dispatched the New Dawn as its response fleet. The New Dawn hadn't been far away from the Epsilon Indi system patrolling for pirate or Covenant loyalist activity.
To the captain of The New Dawns surprise they spotted a small vessels ascending from Harvests atmosphere and shortly after unloaded something into space, mines maybe. The captain ordered a scan of the unloaded objects and before long he got the horrifying news. The objects were identified as some of the inhabitants of Harvest. They had thrown all of them out of the airlock and their cold stiff corpses drifted idly near the small ship before the ship went into slipspace and disappeared from the star system.
With the small ship gone the New Dawn turned its attention back to Harvest once more. It sensors had already detected the group of Sinners near the colony and so it deployed its Spartans to fight them.
_Ω_
Cortana could feel the pod shake when it was dropped from the Infinity-class warship and sped towards the planet directly below her. Her team and other Spartan teams had been dispatched to capture or kill the remaining hostiles on the planet. Because her team had the most experience dealing with these purehumans,as Tainted Vow called them, they had received direct orders to try and fight them head on with a few other Spartan teams as support.
"Alright Spartans prepare for landing and remember that we're dealing with a highly advanced human race so don't take any unnecessary changes and keep your heads down." Tay Adams said over the radio to all the dropping Spartan teams. He had his left arm replaced with a mechanical one after having most of it blown off on Growth. A series of "understood" came from all the Spartans. Cortana took a deep breath and exhaled slowly just before the pod hit the ground.
_Ω_
The Night Lords had almost reached the hills when they saw dozens of droppods descending towards the settlement. A few of the pods looked like they were heading towards the Night Lords. Those pods hit ground a few kilometers away the Sinners current position.
"Faster they'll swarm the area in a few minutes." Siflion yelled at his men as they climbed the rocky hills. The Sinners climbed as fast as they could towards the hanger at the top of the hills. We'll never make it before they're upon us. Thought Siflion, his sensors could already begin to pick up the wave of hostiles coming towards them if he tuned up his motion sensors. He looked around and spotted a good sniper position with lots of cover and a good view over the area. His face hardened and headed towards the position, his morpther rifle transforming into its marksman mode.
"No'el, you take command of the Squad." Siflion said firmly over the squad's com channel. He soon got into position and kept an eye out for any foes to appear.
"What!… Why?" Asked No'el confused.
"I'm going to hold off the enemy while your escape." A figure came into sight from behind a large rock and Siflion fired his rifle. The shots missed its target, hitting the rock instead, but the figure threw itself behind the rock to get out of Siflion line of sight.
"We're leaving you here captain!" Heloan yelled over the channel, already turning around and heading back to her captain.
"Yes you are, that an order!… You'll go back to the fleet and tell them what happened here." More enemies appeared form different locations and began to open fire in his general diction. They still didn't know his exact position yet. His motion tracker was going crazy from all the enemies moving around. He would say there were at least two and a half dozen right now but more could be coming at any moment. He flung an Antimatter grenade at over the cover of one of the groups of hostiles. Screams of pain could be heard before antimatter exploded, sending bloody bits everywhere. His servitor suddenly screamed at the back of his mind to look out for something coming over his cover. Reacting on instinct alone he threw himself back, away from his cover, an explosion throwing up the dirt from where he had been a second ago. His armors shield deflected the indirect damage but the shockwave of air sent him flying even further. He rolled around on the ground before coming to a stop, lying on his back. The sound of engines reached his ears and a small freighter flew by over him, heading towards space. He smiled to himself he had done what he could to save his squad, it was time to surrender. Slowly he got up in a sitting position and began to strip himself of any weapons he had on his person before waiting for the enemies to get to him.
_Ω_
Cortana was the first to get up to the snipers previous position, a freighter speeding by her from above towards space. The position where the sniper had shot at them before Alex Bush had had enough of it all and fired a grenade from his M319 grenade launcher and blown the position to bits. Not far away sat the sniper, one of those black armored guys they had met back on the Growth, with what must have been all of his weapons and equipment he had on him lying in front of him but far out of his reach. Cortana moved towards him slowly aiming her MA4D Assault rifle at him. The red glow from helmets optics stared at her, waiting for her to do something. She slowly squeezed the trigger on her rifle, wanting nothing more than to empty the magazine into his head and ending the life of one of the monsters from her nightmares. The voice of Tay reached her and she let go of the trigger but still aimed at the black armored human.
"Excellent job Cortana." Tay and all the other Spartans appeared behind her all of their weapons pointing at the black clad human. Tay turned to their prisoner.
"Alright tough guy, if you make one wrong move than we fill you with holes. Do you understand?" The black armored human nodded. "Yes, I understand perfectly." He stood up very slowly, everyone tightening their grip on their guns as he did. Two Spartans move to restrain him.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." He advised them but they didn't listen and proceeded. One of them tried to grab his hand only for small tendrils of armor to slash out towards the offending hand, and a sound best described as mechanical hisses came from the armor. The two Spartans quickly jumped back in surprise.
"I warned you. She don't like when people like you try to touch me." The tendrils withdraw and melted into the armor again, as if the tendrils had never been there.
"That the hell was that!?" Asked one of the two Spartans, having drawn his sidearm "And what the hell do you mean by 'she'?" The black armored human's helmet came apart, as if it was made of something like sand, and revealed a light brown skinned young man with shoulder long black hair under it, a small smile on his lips.
"That would my armor that is controlled by my servitor… You might call yours for ancillas or something like that." He clapped his chest plate a few times. "I will follow you but don't try to touch me or anything like that." Tay just nodded a called the New Dawn of extraction and to prepare a prison cell.
_Ω_
The 04/19/2581
It had been two weeks since the attack on Harvest and the capturing of one of the purehumans. So far he hadn't said anything at all and had only been sitting in a meditating like position in the far end of his cell. He hadn't even touched the food that they had offered him. They had tried to take off his armor but every time they got anywhere near it it slashed out aggressively and seemed to annoy it more and more each time they tried. The armors wearer just smiled to himself every time as if he found their efforts funny and a waste of time.
The UNSC New Dawn had returned to orbit above the newly terraformed Reach and a very special guest had gotten onboard that would like to see the prisoner, Fleet Admiral Tomas Lasky.
The door to Siflions cell slid to the side with a low hiss, allowing the Fleet Admiral to enter with the two Spartans that stood guard outside. Siflion opened his eyes and look at his newest visitor.
"I hear you're not the talky type of person so I would appreciate if you could start talking and answer a few questions if you don't mind." Lasky said in a friendly tone but still as commanding as a person in his position was required to have. Siflion continued to stare at him. Lasky took this as a silent 'yes' and asked his first question.
"So for starters, let us get to know each other a bit more, what's your name and rank?"
"The girl…" Lasky was taken a bit by surprise at the response. Honestly he had thought that the prisoner wouldn't have had said anything at all but he was confused as to that he was referring to.
"What girl?"
"The girl who I first surrendered to… I want to talk to her too." Lasky raised an eyebrow. According to the report it was the Master Chiefs daughter who had reached the prisoner first and 'captured' him. What was her name again? … Ah yes Cortana. Lasky turned to one of the Spartans.
"Get Reach team down here now, I need Spartan Cortana here now." The Spartan nodded and raised his hand to his ear, trying to get in contact with Reach team. Minutes in utter silence event by before Reach team arrived, all of them in their inner skinsuit, and Cortana was guided into the cell while the rest of her team waited patiently outside. She saluted to Lasky. The young female Spartan was around his high if not a few inches higher. It was funny to think that she was no more than 16 years old.
"Sir, what can I do for you?"
"At ease Spartan." Lasky saluted back before turning back to Siflion, Cortana step a step back and watched. "Now that we're all here can we get along with our talk?" Siflion nodded and slowly stood up from his meditating position, making sure that the Spartan guards wouldn't shoot him because he got on his feet to fast.
"I'm Siflion Talma, Sinner captain and Prince of the Human Empire." Lasky and the Spartans were taken aback from the title of Prince of the Human Empire while the Sinner past went over their heads.
"You…You're a prince?" Asked Lasky, Siflion nodded. "As in part of a royal family?" Siflion nodded again.
"Yes my family has ruled over the Human Empire for more than 100.000 years. My sister is the current empress. Our type of government is every feudalistic. It has been like that ever since the end of the wars with the Flood and the Forerunners." Siflion sighed heavily when he thought back to what he knew about the ancient wars. Lasky just nodded, not really interested in what kind of government the Empire had right now but the part about Siflions sister was the current ruler could likely be used for later negotiations or threats, while Cortana kept watching Siflions every move, big as well as small moves.
"Moving on, what was the meaning behind you and your men's presence on the Forerunner planet designated Growth?" Lasky asked next. Siflion let out a light chuckle at the question.
"Haha…Oh that was just a coincidence."
"What do you mean by that?"
"I along with a massive fleet attacked the Forerunners capital and because of a rampant Ancilla throwing me and my men in to a portal we ended up on Growth."
"Why did you attack our troops when you got to them?" Lasky narrowed his eyes at Siflion who ignored the fleet admiral and looked at Cortana.
"Your troops fired first and we retaliated… you can ask her why it went as it did, I would like to know myself." Lasky turned to the young Spartan who had taken a few steps back when all eyes rested on her. She didn't get to formulate an answer before Siflion continued. "You seemed to know of us somehow even though we have never seen each other's kind before."
Cortana licked her lips; she could feel the sweat forming under the skinsuit. What should she tell them? That she had attacked Siflion and his men because of a bad dream she had had ever since she had been deployed on Growth. She looked between Siflion and Lasky once more, both of them becoming more and more impatient of waiting for her answer.
"I-I don't know… I have had bad dreams about his kind so… I just attacked him." Lasky forced himself from facepalm while Siflion just narrowed his eyes clearly think about something. Lasky was about to scold the young Spartan but was interrupted by the two Spartan guards readying their rifles at Siflion who had taken a step forward.
"If I may I might be able to make tests as to clarify this." Lasky raised an eyebrow at Siflion letting him know that he didn't understand. "The Forerunners high ranking lifeworkers had a… hobby, if you want to call it that, to construct gears and inserted false memories into their subject races to make them act or evolve in a pattern." Siflion extended his hand and a few small tentacles formed and swung about by a force of their own. Cortana and Lasky stared at the small tentacles of dark armor with wide eyes for a few seconds before turning their eyes back on the Sinners face again.
"And where will those things go?" Cortana asked with a small hint of fear.
"Into your brain, I need to access your neural cortex to retrieve the data." Cortana swallowed heavily. She didn't really like the idea of having strange alien nanomachines inside of her head and messing around to find something that no one in this room except for the prisoner. No she didn't just dislike the idea she hated it.
"It might sound extreme but I don't have the right equipment at hand and I promise by my ancestors and as prince of the Human Empire that I won't hurt her." Lasky looked at the young Spartan. It was clear that she didn't want to do this and he felt sorry for her to be in this situation but on the other side a Forerunner might have encoded something into her... warning or something. Lasky didn't know and he hated himself for what he was about to order. He was about to open his mouth…
"I'll do it." Lasky looked at the young Spartan. Her eye radiated with determination. Lasky nodded and Cortana stepped forward, in front of the much taller Sinner.
Siflion looked the young girl in the eyes too and a faint smile appeared. She was brave and had guts he had to give her that. He lifted his hand so his index and middle fingers pointed in towards her temples, almost touching her. Small tentacles formed from the tips of Siflions armor and slowly crawled its way forward. When they reached her skin they dug into it and made their way to her brain. Cortana winced at the tiny stings of pain that went further and further into her head. Siflion had closed his eye in the meantime and focused as data were extracted directly from Cortanas brain.
The process went on for a few minutes until Siflion suddenly and without warning jerked back away from Cortana, the small tentacles breaking. What remained of the nanomachines inside her head self-destructed one by one until none of them was left. Siflion panted hard, his entire body was shaking. He sat down on the bed, his arms resting on his legs. Cortana rubbed her temples. An insane pain had erupted inside her head when Siflion pulled back. She looked at Lasky when she felt his hand on shoulder.
"I'm-I'm okay sir, just a small headache noting more." Lasky nodded and ordered her team to take her back to med bay for an examination. Cortana was almost carried out of the prison cell by Tay Adams. Lasky turned to the still panting Siflion when Reach team was gone from the hallway outside the cell.
"What the hell just happened?" His voice was commanding and harsh. Siflion looked up from where he sat with a tiered look and sweat dripping down from his face.
"I-I don't know myself." He shook his head. "It was like I was forced out by… something." He laid himself on the bed and got as comfortable as possible. "That test drained me, I need to rest know." Lasky nodded and turned to leave.
"The ones who will question you next won't be someone like me and they're experts at getting the information they want out of you so I cooperate and do as they say for your own sake." The tick metal door to the cell shut close behind Lasky and the Spartan guards, leaving Siflion alone in his cell once more. A silent moment went by without anything happening before Siflion felt a mental hand on his shoulder. He could feel in the back of his head the concern from his servitor as she tried to get him to relax.
Master… you found something inside that girl right? Siflion gave a mental nod to his servitor. But that wasn't anything like Forerunner technology.
"No, that wasn't Forerunner tech." Siflion stared up to the ceiling, concern in his eyes. "It's Precursor." Siflion could feel the disbelief from his servitor. Even if it is Precursor why would she have it inside of her and why would it give her these nightmares?
"I don't know… but what I did get out the test was that the alterations caused by the Precursor tech happened only a few months before we made contact with her kind." This nagged him a lot. Who or what had access to Precursor technology to that level? It couldn't be the Human Empire. The Precursor artifacts they had couldn't do anything of that kind. The Domain would probably be able to answer the question but it had been so weak and unstable ever since the day Torres Talma, the first empress of the Human Empire after they had gone into hiding, had vowed to return and destroy the Forerunners.
"We have to get back to the Empire as fast as possible and we're taking that girl with us when we leave."
How will we do that? Asked his servitor and Siflion smiled.
"My sister must already have caught the news of my capture and have probably already dispatched the entire Order of Assassins… The assassins will find a way, they always do."
