Halo: Predator Lost CH9: Rain rain go a way, please come back some other day.
Nova's mothership 150 years in the past.
"Pathetic, you are the weakest and slowest I've ever seen. You could have joined your brothers in their Chiva's and yet here you are still getting kicked around like a pup on their mother's teet. Your very name implies you'd be better off as a farmer on some no-name planet" Spoke Shredder, seeing a barely adult Scythe get back up again.
"I remember you. You were one of many who tried to train me but was by far the most brutal."
"hehe, yes, I believe it was shortly after this Elder Nova himself decided you weren't worth the effort and so pawned you off to some colony. Death would prove to be an effective teacher but even after all that you still were never assigned to join a hunting party, let alone lead after an incident. Instead, you became a technician on the bridge keeping everything going. Do you know why you were never allowed to hunt again?" Shredder asked knowing the answer.
Scythe knew as well, in fact, it was only succeeding in his chiva and Deaths training that allowed him to survive. He made friends, found love, and in the end, his mentality had shifted. " I feared death, I no longer cared for the honor of the hunt, status, trophies, the constant need to show who was better. I only cared about seeing Spirit again"
"Exactly! Shredder walks circles around him keeping his nearly black eyes on Scythe at all times. When you won fights, instead of celebrating glorious victories, you simply walked off to get treated, with each new trophy, you likewise didn't celebrate. You no longer cared for the traditions of the clan a clan that had dedicated itself to hunting the most glorious of trophies and to show just how much superior we are to everyone else"
"That is precisely what got you killed." Scythe points out. "Your hatred for me grew when on the last and only joint hunt I was allowed on after my Chiva, I saved your life. So infuriated to have your honor tarnished you challenged me to the death in front of the Elders. Thus like a field of grass, I cut you down, why, because, in the end, your own hatred for me is what got you killed.
After that, I simply chose to remain on the bridge crew, not as a form of punishment but because I was free to choose what I wanted to become instead of adhering to the blood lusts of someone who looked down on those who served our meals every day." Scythe finished now remembering that he wasn't a failure.
Shredder noticed a massive neon green cut through his torso, eyes widened he dropped dead.
"Well done."
Turning around, Scythe stood shocked at what he was seeing, it was Spirit, only she wore a black dress and for some reason, there was an ora around her that seemed to be as bright as a star.
"loss is another part of life but unlike your friend there, you truly understand it better than anyone. That is why you haven't blown yourself up, that is why you get the thrill of a challenge of something new. Every clan has its own traditions and cultures but in the end, everyone is unique, in your case you have someone to fight for which is something the vast majority of hunters don't have.
Even if I'm not here, you can still fight in my memory."
"Fight who?" Scythe asked with a confused look on his face
Spirit smiled, " Ones who care nothing about the hunt, only the death of us all"
"That doesn't sound very specific, also who are you, you may look like spirit by you don't talk like her." Scythe inquired, his eyes narrowing on this figment of his mind.
Spirit smiled wider, "Time to wake up Scythe" and with a snap of her claws everything vanished
"Sleep well Scythe?" Winter was sitting eating a piece of jerky from the ship's stores and going through the datapads.
Scythe noticed a distinct rapid tapping sound on the hull, going toward the hatch, it was dark and raining quite heavily. The soldiers were gone but had left up some surveillance cameras to watch over the only entrance into the ship.
"Tell me, Winter, on those planets that were glassed, did the ooman database say by who?"
"As a matter of fact it did, but I wanted to get into the history first. So some famous humans we know of were near total opposites of their counterparts. The one named Dutch stayed in the Army and would later retire at the rank of Colonel, by contrast in our universe he became obsessed with trying to hunt us.
Mike Harrigan, actually lived a normal boring life and was quite the family man. The only thing to note with him is when he resigned and moved to a different state with far fewer restrictions. Retired with plenty of grandchildren.
Moving up, the humans finally achieved FTL capability by the twenty-third century and have spent the last two hundred years colonizing space. The first wave built the inner colonies such as the planet we are on. The second wave built the outer colonies, which gradually started rebelling thanks to some politics. Honestly, humans would have a much easier time if they just simplified everything instead of creating more useless regulations.
Finally, eleven years ago they came in contact with a number of alien races, things seemed to go well at first before all of a sudden this conglomerate declared war on humanity. Saying their destruction is the will of the gods and that we are their instrument." Winter paused wondering if Scythed had any questions thus far.
"Is there any video footage of these creatures and what they are?" Scythe asked
Winter nodded and brought up the data for the various recorded races which for right now we're under human designations for ease of memory. "The head of their government are the prophets, thus far none have been seen in combat so nothing of note there. The second ones are designated Elites, reptilian in nature like us, and are similar in size but not as strong but their leg shape makes them quite fast on the ground but not good climbers.
The Elites are the ones who command fleets and armies, they are smart, skilled, and are harder to kill thanks to personal shields.
The third ones are Brutes, size, and mass makes them bigger and stronger than us, not very intelligent but are known to devour anything or anyone with hardly any cooking whether they are dead or alive.
Fourth are small creatures that make up the bulk of their army are called Grunts. They breathe methane, breed quickly, have no personal shields and are easily scared as soon as their leadership is gone.
Fifth is Jackels, used as snipers, and to protect checkpoints, use a handheld energy shield.
Sixth are the Hunters, interesting designation for a walking tank, are worms working together to carry heavy firepower and are very hard to kill as they are covered in armor which is immune to small arms fire.
Any questions thus far Scythe?" Winter asked having stopped his summarized briefing
Scythe pondered this, so many races under one roof, one would think such cooperation was impossible, and yet they decided to wage a war against the humans for no reason.
"Winter, what is the name of this government, and what type of destruction are they referring to?" The growls from Scythe were lower in pitch this time, fearing the answer but then felt as if he already knew the answer.
" Total genocide, every human being and the planet they're on are obliterated, furthermore their technology is comparable to our own which is a bit more advanced than the humans. They call themselves The Covenant."
Scythe activated his wrist gauntlet and did a double-take of their own war with the Engineers. The Engineers who once played a major role in the galaxy began using their hard meats to wipe out civilizations that they created. In short, if you failed their expectations then you were destroyed. The Yaujta couldn't stand for this and waged a war against them.
The war lasted decades, but when it was realized that the law was too restrictive and so a Code of War was created. Simply put it allowed an anything-goes approach to winning the war. Including the total decimation of planets. The end result was inevitable, eventually, the Engineers were brought to the brink of extinction, then vanished.
"Winter, would you say this destruction meets within the criteria for total war protocol?" Figuring they were the only two in existence the decision was theirs but the code of war required a unanimous vote within the council.
"Yes but I should warn you I don't have enough ammo to fight a war on such a scale." Winter now wondered just what Scythe was thinking, his entire demeanor has changed to something more like him and it was a bit unnerving.
Scythe now understood whether it be by Paya, God, some other entity, or heck by a freak accident. It was clear, overall these oomans were more peaceful than the ones in their own universe but war was still in their nature, no matter how hard they tried to suppress it. Then with just a few taps of his wrist device, the silent subspace beacon was deactivated.
It had already been a few cycles anyway and if their kind was even in this universe there was no telling if they could understand the signal at all.
"Inform the oomans we have a deal and to request pick up for us and this shuttle" Scythe ordered, even though Winter outranked him, he knew his friend respected him enough not to question him unless it has something to do with his weapons. Then he'll start talking your head off.
Meanwhile at Algolis headquarters
The lighting spectacle was quite beautiful, it always brought peace to Stein while he was growing up.
"Sir we just received a message from our alien guests and well they are requesting a pickup both for them and their shuttle, oh, and that we have a deal." Relayed an orderly.
Colonel Stein raised an eyebrow at that, he was expecting at least a few more days but then again. The creatures did learn they aren't in their own universe anymore and since everything they searched was on those datapads it's likely the Covenant aren't any friends of theirs either. Thankfully a heavy lifter was already made ready to lift the shuttle and accommodations made for the Predators. The only problem was the weather, ground transport would be easy but not aireal.
"Get Mayweather and Owen out there along with at least five, five-ton trucks to transport any and all equipment from the ship," Stein ordered.
"Yes sir."
Meanwhile, at her small home, Mayweather was having a leisurely day when the call came in. "Great, now I have to get wet, for crying out loud I'm a radar technician, not a ground pounder. Oh well." Putting on her UNSC issued wet weather gear she proceeded to head out to the ship.
Having received the message from the Colonel, Scythe contemplated imploding the ship after it had been cleaned out but figured its materials would be useful for other things. Sure enough, the oomans arrived in trucks within fifteen minutes. The ooman who challenged him looked like crap, because of injuries sustained from yesterday. Scythe couldn't help but trill a chuckle from that.
"Okay, we are here in the pouring rain ready to load up the cargo you want to take with you, now before we do this just what exactly are you bringing with you." Owen requested, his muscles were sore as hades and would've been more than happy to lay in bed all day but nope. On the other hand, asking Sarah out may be a good idea since now that he thought about it, she was pretty, and hey, if she was attractive by alien standards then who was he to argue.
Scythe handed the oomans a separate Yautja data pad only translated into their language. He and Winter already figured the datapads the oomans gave them were monitored and quite frankly they trusted this man and the girl more since they got to know them better.
Owen looked at the inventory and his eyes widened. gulping hard he now just realized just how lucky they were since this craft was filled with enough ordinance to wipe out half the colony. Still, it read like a UNSC munitions inventory. They've been monitored the entire time so it couldn't have been stolen.
Seeing the odd look on the oomans wasn't surprising as Winter confused even his own kind. Immediately following his chiva, he visited earth to look into weapons developed by a man named John Moses Browning. Upon scanning many of the man's creations Winter copied and improved the design of the M2 Browning machine gun.
Chambered in .50bmg( browning machine gun) or 12.7*99mm rounds, these were far more potent. Instead of brass, lightweight polymer type material was used for the casing, the powder was greatly enhanced which when combined with the machine gun could propel an 800-grain armor-piercing bullet up to four thousand feet per second. making it more devastating than anything shy of a 20mm cannon. To add icing to the cake. When the weapon ran out of ammo, a toggle switch transformed it into a plasma cannon with a rate of fire half that of the bullet configuration, so about 250 or so plasma bolts per minute.
Winter used this weapon with incredible results as hundreds could be decimated in less than a minute thanks to the high explosive rounds which detonated with a yield of a 75mm howitzer. However, the manifest had the MK2 version with an explosive force more comparable to a 155 howitzer.
Winter knew weapons inside and out and knew how to build them and their components. If the oomans could give them the resources then they could make more of their technology, at least the parts they knew of. Scythe thought.
"Less pondering more moving, word of warning humans, don't touch the wrist devices or take anything apart. Unless you want to vaporize yourself and colony by accident." Winter said with two massive ammo cans underslung in each of his hands, carrying them out to the trucks and loading them in. Ignoring Scythe and the oomans as he did this.
Sarah herself now looked at the devices on their arms, wondering who in their right mind would carry a havoc nuke on their arm like one would wear a watch
"Okay then, good to know, Alright everyone let's get all this stuff loaded, if lit looks like that thing on their arms, let them take care of it, in the meantime follow their directions," Owen ordered.
"Yes sir!" Following Winter the men carried the munitions, medical, weapons, a lot of weapons, into the trucks,
Sarah for her part kept overwatch with a rifle, knowing she would just get in the way and to ensure no one from the colony tried anything stupid. If it weren't for the wet weather gear, she would be soaked down to the bone.
Within an hour anything not bolted down was loaded up and within that time a pair of warthogs had shown up for escort. The heavy lifter would be used to transport the shuttle to the main hanger when the weather cleared up.
Upon receiving word they were on their way to the base, "Colonel Stien realized now just how important algolis was to become in the next few months and years. "Send a message to the nearby UNSC warship to take all the data we have learned and request additional ships and personnel if they are available from nearby colonies. If not then any ship, even an old freighter will work as a testbed for new technologies." Things were now getting interesting Colonel Stein thought.
Reviews are better than coffee. Anyway time to move the story along.
I know what you're thinking, this is so out of character for both the predators and humans, however. Sargent Johnsen who loathed the Covenant was more than willing to work with the Arbiter who orchestrated the deaths of billions and the destruction of Reach. Granted that was to stop all life within 25 thousand light-years from being obliterated but still.
Heck, it didn't take long for humans to start working with former covenant races at all. A tribute to mankind's adaptability and needing every ally they can get.
Now then you can see I covered Winters M2 Browning.
Any ideas would be very much appreciated and as one reviewer PM me, he can attest to me giving thanks to those that do.
Now it should be noted I only recently found out Predators take their Chiva at fifty which is when they reach maturity but I imagine they still grow for a couple of decades.