Author's Note: I apologize for the shortness of this chapter, but this was really the best place for a chapter break. The next chapter will be very long, and I have it completed, so it should be posted in the next couple of days, Saturday at the latest.

Disclaimer: Halo belongs to its rightful owners.


Chapter 8

//THIRTEENTH CYCLE, 80 UNITS

COVENANT BATTLE CALENDAR//

(OCTOBER 25, 2552 USNC MILITARY CALENDAR)

EAST WING OF UNSC ALPHA BASE

COVENANT OFFENSIVE SQUAD, GH-00987

BEVROREN (UNSC DESIGNATION)

Verk was waiting on the bottom of the shaft when the rest of company finally dropped onto it. Bits of charred and twisted metal had landed here as well, and Lumeria gingerly picked her way across the floor to where Verk stood at ease.

"I haven't tried to open it yet," her sub-commander informed her, gesturing to the lift door at this level.

Lumeria nodded. "Lekl, it might be better if your men wait up a bit, in case the earlier situation repeats itself."

The nonchalant commander shrugged loosely. "Whatever you say, Lumeria," he tossed playfully, and began ascending again. Lumeria, catching herself admiring his sleek movements, quickly focused her attention elsewhere. This door, however, was locked, and there was no key pad on the inside.

"Can't set charges in here," Verk murmured studiously. "Even if we had any more."

Lumeria drew and ignited her sword, the blue tone shining brightly in the semi-darkness, casting a heavenly halo on the smooth walls. "There's always another way," she said resolutely, and buried the superheated blade up to the hilt in the metal. It immediately made the material around it glow bright red, converting to white-hot. Verk grinned and pulled his own blade from his hip, starting on the other side.

X X X X X

"They're coming!"

The frantic shout rang out over the hustling personnel, drowning out the bustle as everyone froze and turned, surprise and shock on most faces. Melissa Adamson nearly dropped the terminal she was loading into a crate but tightened her grip in time, turning to exchange a look with Tina Hopkins, working a table over. Her friend's face matched her own: so pale her freckles stood out beneath her copper hair, green eyes wide. They had never expected to actually fight after being assigned to Bevroren; the Covenant had always been a faceless enemy to them.

The two had been friends since grade school, and gone through middle and high school together. It was Melissa's idea to join the battle, though neither of them had any idea what they were getting themselves into. Not like Avelyn, she thought. Avelyn had been doing what she wanted: fighting for humanity. To her there was no nobler cause.

But Avelyn wasn't here. She had been on recon, and the chances of her survival were...very slim. Melissa had seen Grace's lifeless form stretched out as they had fled. She closed her eyes at the pain of the memory. So many friends, comrades, lives, dreams, all snuffed out in one swing of a superheated blade, one shot from a rifle. A merciless advance never pausing; blind hate desiring only death. A simple swipe, brushing her friend out of the way...she shook her head and shuddered away the last image, a twisted neck--

The other soldiers were hurrying now, faces grim and determined: they were working against time, and everyone knew it. Some were setting up large, bulky armament for one last, desperate battle; some were loading the most vital pieces of equipment onto the numerous vehicles to take them to a hidden hanger on the other end of the Forerunner base. Melissa had been in awe when she had entered this room, staring at the intricate runes, but had quickly been pulled away by orders to organize and load the equipment. She had been contemplating the fact that the brass had a secret hanger they had told no one about. Not that she minded if it got her out of here alive, but it made her wonder about honesty in the USNC, especially the hushed ONI. Katerra had been directing them for awhile, before she had eerily cut off. They hadn't had word from the command center since then.

Then the last men had arrived with the frenzied shout, and the others hurried forward, helping dump all their explosives on the lift, and sent it back up, sealing the doors behind it. They had known when the Covenant discovered it. Melissa could imagine the scene when the explosives detonated: the nearest incinerated to ash, others tossed and twisted, ugly, staining purple smears along the walls. Screams. There had been plenty from their side, and nothing that could be done to help. It had been so fast...that was her only consolation: that her fellows had not suffered long.

A man brushed past her: Jackson Carrol. "Here," he said, and hefted her now full crate. "Grab that terminal and let's go." She followed, picking up the object. They reached the Warthogs just as a horrible, rending shriek of metal tore the air and gunfire opened up.

"Get the Warthogs out!" a captain yelled, hoisting a shotgun. He dashed into the fray and was lost from sight. Melissa scrambled aboard as the loaded vehicles lurched forward. She wedged herself between two crates, cradled her gun against her, and ducked her head out of sight.

X X X X X

The weakened metal shattered nicely, bits and pieces hurtling out into the human lines in a rather successful frontal assault. Verk made sure that he was first through the new opening, the remaining heat penetrating through his armor and dermal suit as his bulk filled the gap, firing his plasma rifle randomly before he could clearly see. When he could, he immediately aimed for one of the turrets the vermin had set up, melting through the casing. Its' crew abandoned it as it detonated.

Then enemy bombardment was whistling through the air in retaliation, and his squad, converging behind and beside him, was only too happy to give them a fight.

It was over almost before it started. Bullets rattled; plasma and Needler projectiles shot through the space between both parties, often accompanied by snarls, growls, curses, and challenges. In the close quarters, it was nigh impossible to miss, but in the end it was the Covenant shields that lasted longest. Verk blew apart two more turrets with his riflel, then switched to his carbine, picking and choosing targets at his leisure. Lumeria was a blur, moving along at the head of their wedge, her sword—she always preferred hand to hand combat—blazing as she struck and slashed with the graceful ease of long practice, cutting a path through the enemy line.

Then there simply was no enemy line, only a few stragglers desperately fleeing the slaughter, easily dispatched. Verk returned his weapons to their places and looked around for his commander.

XXXXX

Satisfaction filled Lumeria as she stepped through the carnage, her fingers still curled around her active sword's hilt. A human at her feet, bleeding out from a hit on his hip, most of one leg gone, struggled to drag himself away. She reached down and hoisted him up by the neck, enthralled with the feeling of being more powerful than this pitiful being. He gasped something from her iron grasp, hands scrabbling with her stronger one, and she twitched a mandible in an amused gesture. Whether it was an oath cursing her forefathers or a cry for mercy she did not know, and did not care. No curse from this wretched creature could harm her powerful forefathers; and she had no mercy for the beings that had killed so many of her men this day. Swiftly, her blade pierced his chest, and he fell still. Lumeria powered down her plasma sword, releasing it from its' last kill, dropping the corpse, and surveyed the area. It had been a short fight, and they had won, but she could see her fallen brethren, darker bulges among the vermin dead. She replaced the hilt on her right hip and stepped over her latest victim, taking stock of the situation.

They were in an immense space that the humans had packed with incompatible tables, the steely, shiny silver stridently contrasting the bluish hues of the wall's gray. Wondrous runes were scrawled across them in jagged patterns. The carnage and equipment marred the elegant scene, but it was repayment for the disgracing of this place.

Lekl came around a table to walk beside her, skipping slightly. "That was fun," he said with boyish fervor, rolling his shoulders. "Over too soon, if you ask me."

"We were victorious. That is all that matters," she answered as Verk approached. "Casualties?"

"Minimal," he replied. "One of ours, and four Unngoy. Two of Lekl's Sangheili, and six Unngoy."

Lumeria paused and uttered a prayer for those who had passed on that day as guardians of the Great Journey. "We must push on and make sure there are no more vermin defiling this place," she said determinedly.

"For us holding the same rank, you're pretty bossy," Lekl commented, then followed in her wake.

There was little to glean from the equipment the humans had left; no way to know what they had learned. The Covenant search lasted only a few minutes, then Lumeria and Lekl were once again leading them further into enemy territory.