"As the war raged across the stars, many of the Outer Colonies went dark, favouring protective isolation over direct involvement in what was proving to be a horrifically one-sided conflict. For some, such policies proved successful; their rediscovery being cause for celebration in the immediate post-war period.
For others, such as the third planet in the Cairo System, it meant that when the Covenant did come, they would face the storm alone."
- excerpt from The Human Covenant War: An Annotated History (published 2571)
"Rashid!"
Rashid grumbled, rolling over. The pillow was warm and soft against his cheek. He pulled the duvet over with him, scrunching his eyes shut.
"Rashid!"
Sunlight streamed in through the attic skylight. Dust motes swirled and danced giddily in the shafts of light. Outside the windows of the attic bedroom, the planet's twin blazing suns were rising, slowly bathing the city of Keshod in a pale, pink glow. The air filter unit beside the window coughed into life noisily. Within an hour, the vent processors would thrum at max-capacity for the remainder of the thirty four hour day. Just another sweltering day on Cairo III.
Footsteps thumped on timber stairs. Rashid's bedroom door banged open. It was Jamal, his older brother. He was due on the first morning shift. Jamal worked with the processor maintenance teams, and wore the grubby yellow oilskin dust suit worn by the city's support workers. Vent work was gritty, numbing labour; seldom pleasant but steady. For the next twelve hours, Jamal would pull pigeon dung from the flow-grills with rubber gloves, tend to vent coils and replace dust-choked extractor fans. Wrapped up in several sweaty layers of protective atmos-gear and exposed to the punishing heat and swirling dust storms that could sweep across the planet on a whim, it was a job for those on the lowest rungs of the planet's economic ladder. Though his face was largely obscured by the bulky nozzle of his filtration mask, his eyes were fierce as he hauled the blanket from Rashid's top bunk. The cold lanced through his skin like an icy spear.
"Rashid!" he barked, "School! Now!"
Jamal disappeared with a clatter of footsteps on the narrow staircase. The door at the foot of the stairs slid shut behind him. He would be gone for the rest of the morning cycle. Rashid blinked, rubbing at his eyes. He had overslept. He shivered, missing the comforting warmth of his bunk. A planet of extremes, Cairo III was plagued by scorching days and freezing nights. He rubbed his hands together, blowing on them in an effort to coax some life back into them. Rashid picked up his school pack, grabbing the packed lunch Jamal had left for him by the refrigerator. Rashid snatched up the scuffed data pad at the foot of the bed. It was old but well cared for - an integrated ChatterNet surfing unit, which could interface directly with the wider CPA network. Jamal had saved for months to buy it for him; a birthday gift.
Rashid stepped out onto the street, sealing the door behind him.
Their apartment was a small shoebox tucked away at the top of Almora Hill, a low-rent residential district overlooking the slightly more prosperous center. Come to Almora Hill, Rashid thought sarcastically, commanding views and abject poverty! Here the houses were densely packed on top of each other; small structures cladded with pale sandstone, locally sourced. The flagstones which lined the dusty streets were uneven and missing in places. Six years had passed since the local government declared itself isolated from UEG governance. The city had deteriorated rapidly.
Rashid kept his hands jammed in his pockets as he walked down the hill; chin tucked against his chest. The chattering in his teeth would only be temporary. The icy cold would soon be a fond and distant memory once the suns rose to full height. The city was only coming to life. For all its poverty, the air smelled of fresh bread and ground coffee. Bakeries and corner vendors tempted his nostrils with their morning wares. The local traders were opening for business. Roller shutters automatically retracted, lifting up with a clacking grind. There were few cars on the road. Fuel rations were in effect, and only appointed patrol cars belonging to the local militia were permitted to travel. He left his audio-headset wrapped loosely around his neck, choosing not to listen to his music. In this part of town, it paid to keep your wits about you, but he also enjoyed the sounds of the city yawning its way awake.
He made his way down the hill, glancing at the mural stenciled onto the side of a bordered up UEG police station. It depicted a red fist clutching a rifle. Keshod Stands Free, the words at the bottom read. The mural itself was stencilled with bullet holes. There was a gang of youths hanging around the base of the mural. They were teenagers, dressed in a mishmash of frayed coats and shabby dust-gear, but their shaved heads, white skin and armbands on their arms revealed their uniform allegiance to the Koslovic Liberation Front. KLF were not people to be trifled with. They stared over at Rashid, at his patchy clothes and his short, diminutive form. Their eyes were cold and hungry.
Rashid turned away, eager to avoid eye contact. He was the wrong age, the wrong size, the wrong skin colour. He ducked into a narrow alley between a machine shop and the local butchers. He heard a shout from behind him, and quickened his stride. Moving onto the parallel street, he flinched as a militia truck zoomed past, fusion engine purring. Gunfighters hung from the back of the truck, posturing with their rifles as pounding Pulse music blared out from a speaker system. They wore looted UNSC surplus gear, defaced with coloured stencils. Many wore sunglasses and bandanas, their tanned and muscular arms exposed. They paid no heed of Rashid as they swept past. One or two of them were glancing up at the sky nervously. This part of the city was all but lawless now, with only Central, the core of the city, occupied by the remnants of the old colonial militia.
The militia Warthog rolled off down the street, disappearing around the corner. Rashid stepped out on the street, heading for a stairwell leading down to the city's underground network. The suns had climbed at an alarming rate, and within minutes the cool shade of the underground would be a welcome respite from the blistering heat.
He was halfway down the stairwell when he found her.
The girl was nine or ten years old, slightly older than he was. Her skin was the darkest ebony, and she sat with her feet swinging out over the railing overlooking the underground platform. The platform itself was dark and silent. The train didn't run to this part of the city anymore. He wondered what she was doing here.
"Hello." Rashid said.
She turned to look up at him, her eyes solemn and staring. She had remarkable poise. Rashid spent a great deal of his spare time reading, learning, studying. Poise was definitely the appropriate word to use. She had sad eyes, he decided.
"Hello." she replied sullenly.
"Aren't you going to be late for school?" he asked.
She shrugged and turned away, gazing out over the empty platform.
"I don't go."
"Your parents don't make you?"
"I live in the East Side shelter. I don't have any parents."
"Oh. Well... neither do I. I live with my brother. Up on Almora Hill."
"I've seen you around at the market." she nodded, "You go to the sims? You know, up by Tetra Park?"
"My brother doesn't let me. He says there's a lot of KLF around there. It's not safe, he says."
"You learn how to avoid them." she replied, "You can learn how to avoid just about anything if you're smart about it."
He didn't want to sound like a coward, so he changed the subject.
"Do you fly in the sims?" he asked.
Her expression brightened. She nodded eagerly. "The old pilots at the Starport, they let me use the machines. I'm not very good, but I've been practicing. Someday, I want to be a pilot."
"Without going to school?"
A guilty look crossed the girl's face.
Rashid shook his head. "You should go to school. My brother is studying to be an engineer when he isn't doing shift work. He says it'll make things easier if we can get a job in Central. Learning is important, even for pilots."
"You sound like the priest from the shelter." she said glumly.
"Come with me. There's a class on at 9, at Shelter D-14. I'm already late. We can go together."
There was something about the earnest expression in his face that persuaded her. The girl pulled herself to her feet, brushing off her clothes with his hand. She was wearing a functional maroon jumpsuit which had seen better days. It was patched and worn and ingrained with salty dust, a hand-me-down from one of the aid shelters. Much like his own. She stuck out her hand.
"I'm Chidinma. My friends call me Chidi."
He shook her hand.
"Rashid Datar. Nice to meet you."
Footsteps clattered down the stone steps behind them. Voices drifted down the tunnel. Mocking, jeering banter. A whooping laugh, then cackling. A bottle smashed against a wall, somewhere out of sight. More laughter. Rashid's hair stood on end. The KLF teenagers had appeared at the foot of the entry steps. They were too busy jostling one another to notice Chidi and Rashid at first. One of them was carrying a spray can, no doubt intending on adding to the winding graffiti which coated the tunnel's walls.
"Hide!" Rashid hissed, grabbing Chidi by the wrist.
They hurried down the steps to the platform. The KLF's footsteps followed them.
The west platform was empty save for a few splintered timber benches and a single, battered public access terminal on either platform. Both terminals had been sprayed with paint; their display monitors cracked from where vandals had tried to smash in the reinforced glass. Nobody seemed to care. No trains ran here any more.
Rashid and Chidi ducked in behind the terminal on their side of the platform. The clammy walls stank of urine.
There were six teenagers, varied in height and age. The tallest of them was eighteen; a lanky, squint-eyed youth with pock-marked skin and a perpetual leering sneer. Rashid knew him well enough. The thug's name was 'Smiler' Zhukov, and he spent a lot of time as a snitch for the local militia's protection gangs. Counterfeit smoke peddling, some harder substances, even rumours of weapons, if the price was right and you knew who to ask. He carried a switchblade. His fondness for using it was common knowledge.
Rashid looked at Chidi, putting a finger against his lips. Zhukov was a known racist and a nasty piece of work through and through. He and one of his closest lackeys, a bulldog-faced oaf who was more slab than human, were mocking one of the smaller members of the group. The others jeered and laughed at the appropriate moments as they milled about the foot of the entrance stair platform, content to kick around some of the loose tiling that had fallen down from the crumbling ceiling.
Hidden as they were behind the terminal, there was nowhere to go. There was no way to cross the open platform without being spotted. The tunnel mouths themselves were yawning cavernous mouths of shadow; ominous and impenetrable. They were trapped.
"What do we do?" whispered Chidi, eyes wide.
Rashid quietly shrugged off his school pack, setting it gently on the ground. He carefully undid the clasps, and rummaged a hand deep into the bottom of the bag. When it emerged it was holding a worn but well cared for data pad. The keys on the display were old and faded from use, but from the way Rashid's fingers danced over the controls, Chidi could tell the boy was operating from practiced instinct.
"C'mon, c'mon…" Rashid breathed, fingers racing.
The connectivity light on the data pad winked green. Rashid smiled tightly.
The terminal beside them suddenly lit up with a warbling tone. Smiler's gang snapped around to look at the sound. Panic welled up in Rashid. He'd meant to activate the other terminal on the far side. His heart hammered as his fingers tapped more instructions into the data pad. Chidi shrank back into the corner between the terminal and the wall. She could hear the gang's footsteps coming closer. Rashid's typing took on renewed urgency.
Suddenly the public terminal on the far side of the platform chimed into life with a warning blurt.
KEEP IT CLEAN, RESPECT PUBLIC PROPERTY flashed up on ticker tape running across the platform walls.
"What the hell?" Smiler frowned, sauntering over to the edge of the platform. His gang followed him, their mouths slack in confusion. The system hadn't worked in years. Chidi watched as Rashid tapped more instructions into his data pad. The text on the ticker display changed.
HELLO SMILER, the screen read. I AM WATCHING YOU.
Smiler exchanged an uneasy look with his friends. Rashid glanced at Chidi. There was a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. After a moment, the next typed message appeared.
I WOULD SUGGEST LEAVING THE FAT ONE BEHIND. I AM HUNGRY AND WISH TO FEED.
Chidi grinned. The colour had drained from the KLF. Their swaggering bravado was gone now, replaced with nervous trepidation.
"We s-should… we should go." the bulldog faced boy stammered.
"Idiot. There's somebody here watching us." Smiler growled, looking about. "Find him."
Rashid's eyes widened. More tapping.
Suddenly there was a blaring siren from both info terminals. The noise was astonishing. The siren kind used by the old Keshod Police Department, back when it was a functioning public body, and not a punishment gang for would-be revolutionaries. Smiler's gang bolted for the stairs, their footfalls clattering on the hard metal steps. The fat one led the charge, having discovered an agility hitherto unknown for such a large boy. Only Smiler stood his ground, scowling. Smiler pulled the switch-blade from his coat, flicking it open.
"Very funny. Police sounds. Inventive. But there haven't been police in this part of the city in years. You see this knife? When I find you, I'm going to gut you with it."
Rashid and Chidi were still peering out when Smiler whirled about, spotting the two terrified faces peeking out from behind the info terminal.
"Got you." he sneered.
Smiler was on them in a second, the knife in his hand. Rashid shrank back in terror, the data pad clutched in his sweaty palms. Chidi hauled him back behind her, stepping forward. Her chin was tilted upward in stubborn defiance. Smiler was easily twice her size.
"Not so funny now, is it?" Smiler said, his grin savage and hungry. There was a dangerous look in his eyes.
"Leave us alone." Chidi said evenly,
"Or what, you stupid little n-"
Chidi was on him in an instant, finger nails raking his face. Smiler cried out in surprise and swatted her aside. Chidi tumbled to the platform roughly, grunting in pain. Rashid hung back in the corner, quaking with terror. They were dead. He had tried to be smart, and now they were dead. Smiler was going to gut them, just like he said. Unless…
Smiler dabbed at his face with his fingers, snarling when he saw there was blood on them from where Chidi's nails had raked his cheek.
"Bitch!" he snarled, "I'm going to have fun cutting you-"
The platform spot lamps sprang into life. In the dim gloom of the underground, the sudden glare was blinding. Rashid, his eyes closed, was touch-typing more commands into the data pad from memory. The info terminals started vomiting tickets like hyperactive confetti. It was a dazzling display of utter chaos.
Running emergency lights started blinking red arrows toward the nearest available exit.
Rashid didn't need to be told twice. Unused for months, the system shorted itself out after having its command codes overridden with the coding equivalent of a freight train. The spot lamps flared out, and the info terminals died with a rattling sigh. Smiler blinked the blinding after-images away from his eyelids. He looked about. By the time the gloom had settled itself across the lonely underground station once more, Rashid and Chidi had already taken off up the tunnel.
Smiler could hear their hurried footsteps echoing off the tunnel walls. Sprinting after them in the dark, Smiler's grin had taken on a manic, determined look.
He was going to enjoy this.
They hid in the dark, transfixed by terror.
Smiler's legs were twice as long as their own. There was no running from something that could outpace them, especially something as pissed off as a rangy criminal a fondness for stabbing. The next station was a short hop on the tram line, but on foot it was a thousand metres that they could ill-afford to cover in time. They crouched under the platform ledge, low against the track. The track itself was designed with pits bracketing either side of the rail line. Were anyone to fall down onto the track, they could use these indentations to avoid being splattered by an oncoming train.
It was there where they hid; legs aching, lungs burning. Rashid's suit had been torn at the knee and was bleeding. The pain glowed hot like a rash. The wound itched madly. The cut would scab, badly, but it was the tear in the suit that bothered him. A giddy voice at the back of his head told him that even Smiler didn't kill them, Jamal certainly would.
They could hear Smiler's footfalls slapping against the polycrete platform overhead. Smiler was breathing heavily, a short lifetime of smoking counterfeit cigarettes having finally caught up with him. The footfalls rang overhead. They came to a stop. Chidi looked at Rashid. Rashid looked at Chidi. Neither dared breath.
Smiler was right above them.
Something burst through the tunnel above, punching into the centre of the track. There was an explosive cloudburst of smoke and pebbles. Daylight flooded in from a hole which had just been blasted in the ceiling. The hole itself was a perfect cross section of packed dirt, severed cabling and bent metal from where the object had sliced clean through the topsoil.
In the centre of the track was a streamlined purple pod, its base half buried in the earth. The pod still glowed a ruddy pink from the heat of atmospheric re-entry. Smoke coiled and twisted from its hull. Rashid knew what it was instantly. He read the Chatternet; was wise to the way the world worked. And how it could end. He grabbed Chidi's wrist in a terror-fuelled vice, eyes wide.
Smiler was not a man with a devout love of reading. He did not read the ChatterNet, nor did he know what the pod was, or what danger it posed. He jumped down onto the platform, his head cocked to one side. He held the switchblade low at his side as he approached, feet crunching on the shingled surface of the track. Smiler Zhukov didn't fear anything.
The pod sat idle, framed by the bright shaft of sunlight spearing in from the street above.
There was a hissing sigh, and the front of the pod popped off and clattered to the ground.
A giant leapt out. It was a hulking, shark-like creature, armoured in an enclosed suit of iridescent blue armour. It stood almost fully twice the height of Smiler. Smiler looked up at it, agog. At long last, Smiler Zhukov came up against something bigger and scarier than he was. The Elite stared down at Smiler, barking a challenge in warbling alien tones. Smiler cried out in a mixture of terror and anger, voice cracking. In desparation, he lunged with the switchblade; lashed out.
A mistake. The Elite flowed around the arcing knife and effortless plucked Smiler off his feet by the throat. Smiler kicked and thrashed, gurgling; his knife-hand was clamped in the Elite's other hand. The arm was stretched taut. The Elite cocked its head to one side, studying Smiler in much the same way a scientist might hold up a test tube for closer inspection. It rumbled an amused laugh. Smiler croaked in terror, legs pumping in the air; his free hand flailing and thumping against the Elite in fruitless despair.
With a snarl, the Elite tore Smiler's arm clean from its socket. His strangled shriek was cut short by the brittle snap of his neck. His legs stopped kicking. The Sangheili cast the broken carcass aside, arming its weapon and stalking away up toward the direction Rashid and Chidi had come from. Its heavy footfalls receded into the darkness.
Rashid and Chidi sat there frozen in the dark, clutching one another and trembling with mortal terror. Rashid's data pad lay forgotten on the ground beside them.
In the distance, city-wide alarms began to wail.
Doom had come to Cairo III.
In accordance with the doctrines of their faith, and led by the peerless Sangheili, the Covenant fell upon Cairo III in a storm of rage and fire.
The sky was filled with flashing purple ships, which shrieked as they strafed the town with merciless plasma fire. Few of the colony's inbuilt anti-air defences were operational. Those that were fell silent within minutes, their crews slaughtered, their fire ports burnt into slag by superior firepower. Two-pronged Spirit dropships swooped in, disgorging clutches of alien assault teams down onto the streets below. The militia's response was chaotic and uncoordinated; any response was knee-jerk, with individual gangs choosing to defend their preferred personal territory rather than preserving locations of real strategic value. Marshaled by Elites, the Covenant assault squads cut through them by the dozen.
Panic was absolute. Civilians bolted for shelters, only to be felled in the street by sheets of scything plasma fire. Such was the indiscipline of the militia's firing that numerous casualties were a direct result of friendly fire, rather than anything meted out by the alien invaders. One militia Warthog opened up on an Elite caught in the centre of the street. The bullets of the back-mounted rotary cannon took the Elite apart, along with the two families taking cover in the building at the far end of the street. The streets were strewn with smouldering debris and broken bodies. The air was filled with plumes of sooty smoke, crackling with the tinny rattle of gunfire.
Kig-Yar mercenaries began to establish themselves on the rooftops, cackling maniacally as they lanced fleeing humans off their feet with pinpoint beam rifle shots. Skirmishers leapt from rooftop to rooftop, their carbines barking as they outflanked and encircled bewildered militia fighters. A pair of armoured Mgalekgolo began wading through a vehicle depot, swatting abandoned cars and trucks aside as if they were flies. One Warthog gunned straight for the first Hunter, its multi-barrelled cannon spitting. Hard rounds tinked and spanked off the creature's armoured bulk. The Hunter hunkered down, weathering the storm of fire behind its pitted shield as the Warthog closed the distance. With a whooping grunt, the Hunter plunged the shield into the centre of the Warthog's cockpit, pulping the drive and shunting the vehicle off the road. Its wheels spinning as it tumbled through a shop front, crushing those taking shelter inside. The Hunter took a step back, pumping twinned shots of fuel rod into the twisted hulk before moving on, sowing destruction wherever it trudged.
Rashid and Chidi saw none of this. They heard the screams from the streets above, and followed the train track down toward Central, the administrative hub of the city. Refugees swarmed into the tunnels like rats, desperate to escape the unfolding havoc above. Within minutes, the tunnel was black with people, shuffling and sobbing as they fled south.
Central was the beating heart of Keshod. It was here where the most cohesive defensive effort was being effected. UNSC veterans, long since driven underground by the Insurrectionist factions, had emerged and were rallying the ragtag resistance fighters into something resembling a decent fighting force. Ancient enmities were forgotten in the face of unremitting annihilation. It ultimately proved futile.
"People of Keshod, stand firm!" a voice on a tannoy sounded. "Drive these aliens from our planet!"
Fine words, but hopelessly naïve. The tannoy's support tower was atomised by a plasma mortar shell a moment later. Its operator was killed shortly thereafter, dragged out screaming into the middle of the street by Kig-Yar, where he was gleefully dismembered.
Rashid and Chidi kept their heads down, staying together. Chidi led the way. She was more familiar with the tunnels, having relied upon them to get from her home to the Starport countless times. Their progress was impeded by the thickly packed crowd. They had slowed to a crawl, taking a single shuffling step whenever the throng inched forward.
"This is no good, Rashid. We're going nowhere." Chidi said, "There's a service tunnel which runs straight to Central just up from here. On the left."
"There's nothing on the charts." Rashid frowned, poking at his data pad. The charts were old, outdated. The screen itself flickered and bounced from the repeat return of a hundred thousand competing ChatterNet users. That, and the sheer amount of plasma discharge being dumped into the atmosphere was playing havoc with his connection.
"It's there, trust me. Just a little farther."
She was right. All but ignored by the edge of the tunnel wall was a small iron door. The crowds shuffled past, heedless, not wanting to waste time by bothering to open a door that had no handle. Chidi produced what looked to be an enlarged hex key from her jumpsuit.
"Where did you get that?"
"Stole it from the Starport." she replied, as she plugged the key into a recessed diamond hole in the door. "There's tonnes of stuff out there that nobody wants anymore."
"You stole it?!" Rashid gasped, appalled at the very concept.
Chidi shot him a look over her shoulder.
"Do you want in or not?"
Rashid closed his mouth, realising that now perhaps wasn't the best time for following the rules blindly.
There came a growl echoed up from further back in the tunnel. Low, wet and hungry. People began whispering and push forward more urgently. Somebody cursed. Then somebody screamed. An ear-splitting, piercing wail that was cut sickeningly short. Like a starter pistol at a race, the effect of the shriek was immediate. The crowd surged forward. People began shouldering forward. Shoving. Somebody fell, and cried out as they were trampled. Steadily, the rush became a stampede.
There was a spitting sound of gunfire which reverberated from further back in the tunnel. Though it would be years before Rashid learned what the sound was firsthand, he would never forget it. It was the sound of several Jiralhanae Spike Rifles on full automatic. Lancing barbs chopped into the rear sections of the crowd. There was little need for precision aiming. Packed tight and with no hope of escape, people died in their dozens. The ensuing panic would kill hundreds more.
"We need to go. Now." Rashid urged. The crowd was pressed tightly behind them. Some of those held upright were already dead, their lungs crushed in the squeeze. The air was filled with muffled screams, frenzied bleating.
"It's not working!" Chidi panicked. She was working the hex key as hard as it would allow.
"Let me help! On three!"
They both grabbed the hex key, hauling on it. It moved slightly. Chidi put everything she had into it. Metal squealed. It budged, slightly.
"Again!" Rashid cried.
The Brutes advanced, chortling amongst themselves as they unloaded into the rear of the crowd. They ignored those they maimed, stamping on those close enough to bother killing. Those that did manage to escape would die shortly thereafter, intercepted by Kigyar overwatch teams laying in wait at the underground exits. For those below, suffocation would take the greatest tally.
Finally the door opened with a metallic shriek. The two children tumbled into the maintenance shaft. Adults began barging in past them, stepping on them in their haste to take a new way out. Chidi pulled Rashid to his feet, yelping as yet another panicking refugee stepped on her foot. They hurried along, ducking into a small ventilation passage that ran parallel to the maintenance tunnel. The ceiling height was too low for adults to fit into, and Chidi had to duck her head to avoid clocking it against the top of the vent.
They half-ran, half-crawled for what felt like hours. The ventilation shaft eventually branched off from the maintenance corridor entirely, canting upward and slowly but surely bringing them back up to street level. Rashid kept his nose in his data pad, navigating with brusque calls of "Left. Right. Left again."
The boy's sense of direction was unerring. Seldom was it that they had to double back. Chidi for her part kept him from walking smack into the middle of intersections. Rashid's data pad was like an extension of his body. He was completely absorbed by it. Chidi envied him in a way. Every so often, she could hear a chittering, squawking sound. The sound echoed maddeningly from all directions. They increased their pace. The chrome of the vent shaft soon became powdered with fine sand. Sunlight dappled through one of the vent grills at the side of one of the buildings. They had escaped the lower tunnels.
They peered out one of the external vents overlooking the street below.
It was carnage. The war had already swept through this part of the city, leaving in its wake a carpet of bodies and strewn debris. One or two fallen Covenant were scattered amongst the fallen. A makeshift barricade had been set up in the centre of the street, though this had been ploughed through the centre by a Wraith Battle Tank, which had in turn been immolated by an improvised explosive device. The militia, many of whom had strong ties to the Insurrectionist cells on Cairo III, were putting their experience with explosives to good use. That there were bits of charred Warthog hull scattered about the smouldering wreckage told Rashid the rest of the story. Kig-Yar scavengers, their glowing Point Defense Gauntlets a rainbow of colour, picked their way over the wreckage, seeking to salvage some profit from the devastation.
"Get out here?" Chidi whispered. She was anxious to get out of the vents. That chittering sound was growing ever louder.
"There's an internal exit not far from here. We have to stay off the streets." Rashid whispered back.
The exit in question was a bulky, hinged frame vent cover, which yawned open into a spotlessly clean kitchen. The luxury on display was mind boggling. The food processing units and counter gleamed; even the deep-fryer was stainless steel, brushed with chrome. Spot-lamps lit the room brightly, and ceramic tiling covered the floors and walls. There was even a walk in freezer, larger than Rashid's entire bedroom. The two children looked about, blinking in confusion. The building was an upmarket hotel of some kind. Its former occupants had left in a hurry. The stove was still on, and boiling water bubbled over from a pot, sizzling down the unit. Ever mindful, Rashid turned the oven's setting down to simmer before checking his data pad once more.
Rashid tapped his fingers quickly; accessing the hotel's internal network. He sealed the only door leading into the room.
They were less than twenty minutes walk from the Starport. In this mess, that might as well have been two hours. The hotel they were in was called the Good Rest Hotel; it was used for visiting trade officials and government dignitaries, and enjoyed an opulence entirely at odds with the remainder of the city.
"Where are we?" Chidi asked, breathing heavily. She crossed over to one of the massive fridges and helped herself to a jug of water. She drank sloppily, allowing the spilling water to wash the cloying grit from around her mouth. She wiped her mouth and passed the jug to Rashid, who did the same.
"Not far. About two blocks at the most."
"We need to move. There's something-"
A rasping squawk made them turn around. They froze.
"... here."
There was a birdlike Kig-Yar perched in the ventilation shaft they had just crawled out of. It was a scrawny, thin-limbed wretch, with light plumage and waxy, chicken-like flesh. On the small of its back was a pouch of swag; looted items from the heaped dead in the tunnels - engagement rings, good luck trinkets and rosary beads. Sickeningly, some of the rings still had fingers attached. The Jackal's skin was covered in dust and soot. It turned its head from one side, blinking steadily. It leapt down into the room, tensing its barbed claws and snapping its beak. It carried no weapon, but given the malnourished appearance of the two diminutive children, it wouldn't need any. The claws looked wickedly sharp. So too did its rows of serrated teeth.
The Jackal bared its teeth, tensing to pounce.
Rashid was faster. As the Jackal leapt forward, he grabbed the cooking pot from the stove by reflex, swinging it one-handed into the creature's face with a clang. Boiling water caught the beast full on. It shrieked in agony as it tumbled past him.
Then Chidi was on it, a frying pan in her hand. She brought it down on the Jackal's head with a resounding bong. Purple ichor and broken teeth flew. She brought the frying pan down twice more for a good measure. The Jackal lashed out with a back-handed claw in blind rage, grazing Chidi's arm and smacking her to the ground. Livid, and with one eye swollen shut from second degree burns, the Jackal clawed itself back onto its feet. Rashid started throwing everything he could find at it. A bowl of fruit, a cheese grater, a spatula. The Jackal back pedalled, shimmering its Point Defence Gauntlet to life in an effort to ward off the deluge of random cutlery. A head of lettuce exploded against it, making a mess of the floor. The Jackal croaked a challenge.
It was so preoccupied with Rashid that it didn't see Chidi snatch up a chopping knife and lunge forward.
The knife buried itself to the hilt in the creature's throat. Purple ichor jetted from the wound in thick, pulsing spurts. The Jackal squealed a mewling gurgle and toppled back onto the floor, legs pumping and spasming. It died messily, giving one final involuntary twitch before its eyes rolled back in its head and lay still.
Chidi looked down at the Jackal, hands on her knees, gasping for breath. Her forearms were coated in the sticky warmth of purple gore.
"Nice." Rashid panted. "We… need to go."
Chidi managed a nod, swallowing the urge to vomit.
There came a bang at the door from the doorway leading out into the restaurant proper. Clawed hands, pawing at the doorway. Alien fists started thumping at it.
Rashid looked up at the doorway. He looked down at the dead alien, then over at the walk-in cold room. He turned to Chidi, who had retrieved a new kitchen knife, a determined look on her face.
"Get down." Rashid said, he was once again typing into his data pad. "Behind the island unit."
The automated systems within the kitchen began to adjust in accordance with his commands. The door to the cold room opened in a billow of steam. Inside were a selection of prime meats, fine cuts of beef and pork and veal. A veritable feast. The lights around the expansive island unit shut themselves down, with the exception of the lights directly above the dead Jackal. Rashid made a few more adjustments. The lights to the cold room snapped to life. He had one final adjustment to make. He ducked down in the darkness beside Chidi. He tapped in the last command.
The outer door unlocked and a Jackal stumbled through.
This Jackal Skirmisher was twice the side of the first. A larger cousin, perhaps a tribal leader? Rashid couldn't make sense of the markings, but the armoured exoskeleton and massive rifle were proof positive that this creature was more of a warrior than a looter. It held a long barrelled purple carbine in its hands, and swept the room carefully. With a blurt of motion too fast to see, it leapt up onto the island unit, tracking for targets. It squawked a challenge to the open air.
Chidi could hear the click of its taloned feet against the surface counter. She could see the barrel of the carbine sweeping above her. The Skirmisher's talon drummed against the stainless steel counter impatiently. The carbine disappeared from view. There was a clack as the Skirmisher, satisfied that the room was clear, went down to check on its fallen comrade. Rashid watched it, tracking its progress in the wobbly reflection of some of the wall mounted metal panels. Were it to simply turn its head slightly to the left, it would have seen their reflection staring right back at it, quaking in petrified terror.
The Skirmisher toed the fallen Jackal dismissively, turning its neck about as it inspected the knife wound. It stood back up, ruffled its plumage in the equivalent of a shrug and then stalked toward the cold room, carbine held up before it. Its toes clacked against the icy floor. A growling purr issued form its throat as it looked up at the cow carcass twisting on the meat hook before it. Rashid silently edged toward the doorway on the balls of his feet, creeping closer to the cold room. The Skirmisher snapped a bite off the meat, swallowing it raw. Ravenous from the day's killing, it began to feed, chomping and chewing with greedy snaps of its beak.
Rashid leapt up and made a lunge for the doorway. The Skirmisher turned about, hissed in surprise and turned about far too quickly. Its legs went out for under it. Struggling for purchase, its clawed hands scrambled at the icy floor. Finding traction, the Skirmisher tensed its legs and pounced.
It slammed into the door just as it clicked shut.
Rashid hastily slapped the lock controls on the door, effectively sealing the creature in. Enraged, the Skrimisher started unloading on the doorway with the carbine at point blank range. Dents began appearing in the doorway, but short of a plasma grenade the frame would hold. Rashid snatched up his data pad, toggling the heat settings of the room from chilled to freezing. The Skirmisher plummage bristled at the influx of cold air, as it pounded the butt of its carbine against the doorway in enraged frustration. Then it stood back, activating its link with the Covenant BattleNet. Rashid didn't need to speak its chittering language to know what it was saying.
Rashid turned to Chidinma, eyes wide.
"Now we have to go!"
They fled the Good Rest Hotel just as a half dozen more of the larger Skirmishers leapt across the street, bursting through the roof lights. Their avian agility fascinated Rashid, but this was no time for admiration. The fighting had died down to a few stubborn pockets of resistance. Covenant ground forces owned this city now. Across the planet, a similar scene was being played out in every settlement.
The children knew none of this. There was no time to tap into the wider ChatterNet, to establish what was going on. All their efforts concentrated on the moment, from one desparate second to the next. They cowered in an alley, waiting for a hulking Hunter to clank by, its spinal fins bobbing. They ducked back behind the shadows of an overturned truck as an Elite boomed instructions to the line of Grunts fanning out across the street. Every so often, a gunshot would ring out, typically followed by an accompanying scream. Chillingly, Rashid's ChatterNet reception improved drastically, due to the number of users dropping offline for decidedly permanent reasons.
It became a mopping up action. While many battles still raged across the planet, the main fight had gone out of the city of Keshod. The shrieking Banshees overhead returned to the ships in orbit. The skies thinned, then cleared entirely. For the first time in six hours, the airs no longer screamed with the wailing drone of impulse drives. The Elites moved on too, satisfied their work was done. They pushed on to the hills surrounding Keshod, to prosecute the war against those who had fled the city. The cowardly Humans would be punished, and justly so.
The smaller Covenant warriors were left behind to pick through the ruins, rooting out survivors and dispatching them with brutal efficiency. Many triggered improvised booby traps, typically in the form of high explosives. Shaped charges, high yield impact. Typically triggered by trip-wires or pressure plates. Faced with Armageddon, the Insurrectionist elements of the population were using their guerrilla expertise to devastating effect.
To the last, the people of Keshod would deny them.
Rashid saw awful things as they entered the Starport. A great battle had taken place here. The Control Tower was ablaze. The Gravitational Tether had been blasted apart by concentrated orbital bombardment, raining debris across the entire city. That single act alone had killed hundreds of thousands. Entire buildings collapsed beneath the atmospheric debris, which set fully half the city ablaze and reduced six whole blocks into jumbled mounts of crumpled polycrete. A pall of dust hung over the city, causing the children to choke and splutter. Rebar girders jutted out of the scorched ground like crude gravestones.
Dozens of the bodies cast aside throughout the ruins were dressed in the same uniform as the maintenance support teams. Rashid thought of his brother, lost somewhere out in this hellish city, and wept.
The approach to the Starport's hangar bays made for a grim journey. The hardpan was scored with impact craters and the burnt out shells of Covenant vehicles. Charred remains, human and alien, lined the polycrete asphalt. Many of the bodies had begun to swell in the blistering heat. Some had been stripped naked by the concussive impact of Covenant shelling, their clothes shredded by shrapnel. Flies swarmed above the shimmering heat thrown down by the beating suns. The air stank with the acrid smell of plasma discharge, and the rotting flesh of the fallen.
The two children inched their way through the devastation, tiny and vulnerable against a backdrop of tremendous violence. Their small feet brushed against a tinkling carpet of shell casings, where a mounted machine gun had clacked dry before its crew were overwhelmed and silenced forever.
Chidinma didn't say a word. Instead she quietly took it all in; developing a hardened look that Rashid hadn't seen in the many hours they had spent travelling together. It was a look that never quite left her, not even until the day she died. Rashid put the data pad back in his backpack. There would be little use for it now. He resolved to spend the rest of his time in this life looking after his friend.
Had he been paying more attention, he would have seen that there was something going on in orbit. Had he been older and wiser; with more time to study the signs, to understand them, he would have had been more hopeful right then, in that field of death. But for all his brilliance, Rashid was still a child; just a lost little boy in the centre of a city gutted by plasma fire. Buried at the bottom of his pack, Rashid paid no attention to the data pad. To the display that showed his signal was active and transmitting since he last used it in the hotel kitchen, and that he was being tracked by eyes unseen.
Eyes that had taken a very special interest in them altogether.
They reached the hangar. Or what was left of it.
The roof had caved in, and several of the transports were fire-scorched husks, hulled in a dozen places by concerted plasma fire. Others seemed fine from the outside, until they crept up the access ramp to discover that Kigyar salvage teams, eager for scrap, had gutted the instrumentation in a frenzied looting spree before moving on. Rashid began to despair. There was nothing for them here. Chidinma refused to give up, her jaw set in a determined line as she prowled about the abandoned Starport.
"We're toast." Rashid said, blinking back tears.
Chidi ignored him, increasing her pace. She walked around the corner of the building, peeking around at something out of sight.
"Seriously, Chidi, we're toast. We should head back to the city. Maybe we can hide in the ruins, scavenge for supplies. ChatterNet coverage has almost gone dark, but I should be able to make up a map where we can comb for supplies. Maybe we can hide in the ruins, scavenge. They might leave."
Chidi wasn't listening. She wasn't moving at all. She was staring at something tucked around the corner and out of sight. Rashid hurried to have a look himself. He gasped.
"Or not."
It was a hangar, an old rusty aluminium shed. Whoever owned the hangar had unlocked it, then decided to try and flee on foot, unmanned by the sheer number of air fighters the Covenant had disgorged from space. With a dented roof that sat at an odd slope, the building itself was of no consequence to anyone.
What was inside it changed everything.
It was a Shoebill '85-E. An antique, a postcard from another era. A precursor to the standard UNSC Pelican, the ship was well preserved, dressed in red livery and coated in a fine layer of dust. A civilian craft, the ship had a more bulbous cockpit, and the armour plating was far thinner. A name, Prize Catch, was stencilled in gold letters on the outside of the cockpit beside a picture of a winking pelican holding a fishing rod in one of its wings. The name was fitting. It was a prize museum piece, loving cared but long forgotten in the chaos of the invasion. Miraculously, the Kig-yar looters had missed it during their initial raid.
"It's an antique." Rashid began. "A piece of junk."
Chidi didn't take her eyes off of the Shoebill. She was in love.
"It's perfect." she breathed.
"It's probably not even fuelled."
"I know how to fuel a ship."
"We'll be shot down the second we take off."
"Stop being negative. We'll be fine."
"And let's say we do take off. Where do we even -"
"I said we'll be fine, Rashid!" Chidinma's eyes flashed as she skewered him with a glare that scared him more than the Covenant. Rashid closed his mouth.
Chidi approached the Shoebill, triggering the remote access switch on the landing bay's console. The hatch descended with a hiss. She put one step on the landing ramp, then turned around. Rashid was hanging back, looking deathly pale.
"Well, are you coming?"
"I've… never flown before. Ever."
"Well I have. Let's go!"
"I don't want to. I'm nervous!"
"You're scared? You?! You locked a flesh eating alien in a fridge singlehanded but you're scared of flying?!"
"You're ten years old!" Rashid protested.
"And you're what, eight?"
"Nine!" Rashid was indignant.
"Well stay there then. This ten year old is about to fly this ship, whether you're coming or not."
With extreme reluctance Rashid followed her up the ramp. Chidi, despite the sheer trauma of the day, hid her smile as she settled into the cockpit, settling the massive flight helmet over her tiny head; felt the worn but welcome padding of the flight seat at her back. The whole cockpit smelled of warmth and dry leather, like new shoes. She had to prop herself up with a series of stacked fire blankets just so she could see over the instrument panel. She took a moment to familiarise herself with the controls. The layout was different than what she was used to, and the gauges were slightly cruder, but the basics were the same. Just like the sims. Rashid plonked himself in the seat beside her, buckling up the straps and looking deathly ill. Propped up as she was on her perch, he looked tiny beside her.
"I lied actually." she said over the com as he settled a pair of massive earphones over his head.
"Lied? About what?"
Chidi flipped a switch. The dashboard lit up. Fully fuelled, systems green. She flipped two more switches, and the airframe jolted as the engines powered up. Locking tethers disengaged. It took her another moment to find the running lights. Chidi gripped the stick, settling in. Gently, she eased the stick forward. The Prize Catch wavered in the air as it wobbled out of the hangar on its lift jets.
"I'm only nine years old too…" she said, pushing the throttle up. The Shoebill nosed forward unsteadily, gaining altitude. Rashid's brown skin turned to a greyish green. Chidi couldn't suppress her grin any longer.
"…and I've never flown before either."