Legacy of the Precursors (Revised Edition)

by DrakeTheTraveller

A legacy is what man leaves behind, the culmination of past deeds laid down at his feet for those who come after. Noble Six walks in the footsteps of his predecessors, peerless warriors and tacticians. As a spartan, war is his birthright. As a man he has nothing to call his own, no legacy to his name. But after Reach's fall, he discovers just what inheritance he will leave behind.

12. Perspective

The shudder of the deck jostled the General from the labyrinth of meandering thought, the low thrum of cooling engines drawing away idle considerations and the clamor of long-set plans as the last eddies of warp energy sparked and shimmered over the screens. His gaze carried further however, to the object centered on a looming horizon, swirling silver clouds of factory smoke choking the atmosphere of a dying world. Even floating up hundreds of thousands of kilometers above the pollution, the effects of an unregulated, desperate war economy struggling to claw out of the grave were all but apparent.

An effort so frantic in its desperation that it burst free of the atmosphere in a constant stream of freighters stretched seemingly from one end of the system to another, hauling vital ore and resources from distant asteroid fields, shadowed by flights of Type-6 Strike Wings on constant patrol for fear of sudden Federation response or opportunistic raiders.

It was the busiest hyper lane in the Remnant Sector, the space surrounding the planet cluttered with hundreds of orbitals, space stations, refineries and defense platforms scattered like cosmic dust, guidance beacons sparkled in the darkness, twinkling motes of pearlescent starlight.

The sight might have been awe inspiring, if not for the fact it merely emphasized the failings of their people. No two worlds in their system were as developed, and considering the surface, that was a true tragedy.

"Sir, we've entered real space." A bridge lieutenant called out.

Bloodmaw huffed.

Eladard. The planet reeked of desperation.

To the Federation it was a symbol, a trophy of conquest, so far abandoned from its height that they didn't bother with even a token policing force. They left it, a testament to the Remnant's weakness.

To the armies and fleets of the broken empire. It was home.

Bloodmaw hissed through his teeth, the utterance absence of true agitation as he gestured ahead. Even so he could taste the dread in the air at the mere thought of his displeasure. Loyalty was all and well, but he found in his service that it was often tempered with the slightest ounce of fear. Command in the higher echelons of the Empire was often a delicate balance of both. The Remnant, for all its effort, was more a guerilla army than the legions of the once empire. The scattered command structures lacked cohesion and was woefully disparate in terms of both talent and ability. Loyalty simply was not what it used to be. Unsurprising. Blind devotion was reserved for empires at the height of their glory.

Such an age had died long before Bloodmaw had been born.

Often times the lower echelons were in need of a reminder to strengthen their allegiance.

"Take us in."

At his voice the once silent bridge sprang into action and the small planet below steadily grew larger. At the apex of his plans, the culmination of a decade of put-upon ambition, he found himself to be unexpectedly unhurried. There was time yet to spare as their warships entered the queue for planetary access, even their august visages swallowed in the mire of orbital traffic, broad prows and fearsome assault batteries shadowed by swarms of smaller craft zipping about like furtive insects. He was unconcerned. The delay offered only time. Time enough to prepare.

He shifted his attention to his back left.

"Arkwright."

"Sir!" The ever-dutiful simian snapped smartly to attention.

If there was to be anything said regarding the efficiency of the Remnant's command ability as a whole, it would be that he had yet to find an officer merely as competent as his personal attaché. It was little wonder then, that the Empire was nothing but a bloated carcass corpulent with memories of old glory, scattered stellar habitats and a handful of ruined worlds. Words such as efficacy and competency made alien to a disparate fighting force.

"Take the most effective regiment in the division and have them assembled at Hanger A by 1450." A waive at the table at the heart of the command platform brought a holo map flaring into existence. "Have the remainder deployed at these positions here." A scaled finger tapped in sequence at various districts across the capital that illuminated in various dark colors, closing his fist caused the display to enlarge and encompass the entire planet. "Pull Empire's Pride and its Shogun escorts into a grid pattern over Neo Doga.

"Prepare for The Nightfall Contingency."

To the ape's credit, his only visible reaction was a negligible twitch of the cheek.

"Sir! At once Sir!"

The fervor in his voice and the staunchness of his salute, heels of polished boots clacking loudly, was near enough to make the old General smile. "You have the bridge." He informed the simian, watching as Arkwright stepped forward with little hesitation, calling out orders as he moved to stand beside the captain's chair.

The ancient crocodilian cast his gaze ahead one last time, taking in the industrious action of his bridge crew and Eladard on the horizon, before he excused himself from the bridge. He could hear the chatter of a dutiful crew, muffled as the bridge doors sealed shut behind him.

Perhaps there was a future yet for this decrepit Empire. He mused as he departed.

He would only need to secure it.

XX-XX-XX

The shuttle ride from orbit gave Bloodmaw ample time to think, musing restlessly on the task he had set before himself. He had little care for ambition, that drive had been smothered by decades of pointless war, which made his position all the more ironic. One of his greatest desires was to step away from the warfront. To let go of old hatred and have peace. But as far as desires were considered this one felt empty. He had been fighting for a long time, and had grown tired. But he could not stomach the idea, not now. The Federation loomed above his head, a weight that dragged on his bones and pulled at his scales.

To retire now would be to accept defeat, to swallow decades of injustice, to let The Federation remain unchallenged and secure in their total destruction of the venomian people. Their post-war economic sanctions had brought financial ruin to millions, tore families from homes and utterly crashed Venom's fiscal market overnight. 24 hours after the ceasefire saw them as little more than a beggar nation. What Venom had expended centuries building; the Federation military debased in hours.

Federation fleets ravaged the capital world in their conquest. Their armies had defiled its surface with their boots and machines of war, pillaging its resources and setting fire to the skies. That was not to even speak of the fate of the inhabitants.

He brought a hand to his snout, as if he could blind himself to the memories that floated to the surface of his mind like drowned corpses.

The initial bombardment had killed untold thousands and the fallout from the destruction of their planetary energy grid had left Venom a barren husk, so polluted the survivors could not breathe without respirators. He could see it, even though his eyes were shut, like scars under his eyelids. The days after capitulation. Streets littered with corpses; bodies left to rot in the rubble, to bloat and decay. Some had been killed when the bombs fell, most afterwards, suffocating on poisoned air or burned by uncontrolled fires that raged so fiercely ships in orbit could observe the blazes. The whole world a grave.

A shudder cut through him.

That indignity, that… tragedy, had not been enough for the politicians in the Federation. Not days later, as the survivors still fought to claw out of the debris of their homes, those same monsters that condoned the destruction of a world, the very same object of their desecration, his world, his home, the resting place for tens of millions, of his family, as a penal colony.

Little more than a place to discard unwanted convicts and societal dregs. Within a week they were receiving the first barges, laden with the Federations social detritus, the homeless, the anarchists, and the mentally deranged. He had not even had the time to grieve before the mantle of command was thrust upon him, to lead the efforts to stabilize the planet and mobilize the scattered remainder of their forces to corral the unwanted population, as the general staff and politicians fled to the outer clusters.

Bloodmaw exhaled heavily, his breath hot with anger at the memory, his cold blood flushing with heat and his claws flexing, the feeling of rending flesh teasing their sharpened edge.

No.

He could not retire, could not die. Until all responsible were given their due.

"Sir…"

Something touched his shoulder, and Bloodmaw jerked out of memory to see the tight expression of the shuttle's pilot, the lizard's hand resting on his shoulder. His uniform was baggy and unkempt, and the scales around his eyes were dull and chipped. There were few flight schools left in the Remnant, and most were dedicated to the fighter pilots. Bloodmaw imagined the poor male likely had slightly above average academics and had been drafted to the lesser of the naval core, endless rotations shuttling troops and supplies, a thankless, ignoble task.

"We landed a few minutes ago." The pilot explained, his voice drawn and haggard, over his shoulder Bloodmaw could see a pill case on the console. Stimulants, now standard issue for pilots and drivers trapped in twenty-hour shifts.

The General gathered himself, stowing his emotions down deep, and stood. His crocodilian maw splitting into the approximation of a smile.

"Thank you, soldier."

The pilot nodded and stepped back.

"Of course, Sir."

Bloodmaw let the male be and readied at the ramp, the small squad of escorts accompanying him moved to follow in silence, their expressions hidden under faceless helmets and their genderless figures encased in heavy, uniform armor, large, black rifles resting in straps across their chests and humming with fresh charges. The cream of the crop, the best soldiers he'd been able to scavenge from other commands through guile or force, most prior history of special service or veterans since the days of the Old Empire.

The General did not believe in this new doctrine, drafted soldiers, hurried training, cheap ships overshadowed only by even cheaper armor. It was a wonder if High Command ever expected to do anything with this war with how lean they cut the budget, not to think of the incompetency amongst the upper staff. It was an issue he had never been in position to alter, the most he could do was equip his own forces properly. If his plans came to pass however, that would be the first of many things to change.

The detail snapped to attention at a glance and the leader, denoted only by the chevrons on his pauldron, keyed the access pad and the ramp descended. Bloodmaw let them sweep out ahead, scanning for threats, taking the time to reach into his coat and pull out and affix his mask. Soon, everything would change.

The moment he stepped off the ramp of the shuttle was the very same he realized there was no other recourse. He inhaled deeply, the char of black fumes and molten metal notable even through the thick chemical scent of the rebreather. He felt the sting in his eyes from acrid black smoke that hung heavy in the air. He took a moment to take it in.

The sight before him was one of barely managed chaos. The starport lurched across the horizon, endless lanes for trafficking shuttles crisscrossing a boundless field and protruding berths for VTOL transports reaching for the clouded sky like stalks of grass. Thousands of personnel weaved through the directed anarchy, passing between lanes busied with massive trucks laden with soldiers and materials. In the distance red and blue lights flashed from an emergency vehicle and a hole had been carved through the traffic, a dog and an ape in dark blue uniforms zipped shut a black bag and heaved it onto the hovering cart beside them.

Rising above it all was the sound, a ceiling of loud voices, vehicle engines, and sirens fighting to climb atop the constant roar of starships soaring overhead.

The general put aside the cacophony and set his sights to the distance, towards the mountains of black smoke, his maw marred into a grimace. His gesture was a command and his detail marched ahead, step-locked, toward the stairs leading down into the disorder. A gust of wind and a shrieking howl buffeted his back, ruffling his coat as the marauder lander heaved off its struts and began a steep climb into the stratosphere and lost to the heavy curtains of smog. Crimping resources was practically a Remnant custom, or so at least it was for his soldiers. He carried no frivolous regard for his position. A shuttle on standby was a shuttle wasted. It would see better use ferrying his forces planetside.

Even so, at the foot of the stairs an APC rested, engine idle, the open ramp flanked by a pair of his personal retainers. It was 83 kilometers from the starport to the capital district, and he had no intention of walking them. There was frugality, and there was stupidity. He had no issue distinguishing between the two.

Bloodmaw climbed inside, his soldiers shuffling in behind him, buckling down in their seats and shifting rifles to more comfortable places on their laps or with the stocks resting at their feet as the ramp clanged shut after them. He set himself close to the front, near the cabin where the driver and gunner sat, and took a moment to wander the interior with an idle eye as the hydrogen engine growled and the personnel carrier pitched into motion, its heavy treads churning, crushing chipped asphalt and concrete underneath. The vehicle was old, to no surprise, metal burnished by countless hands across years, scratched and worn, one of the screens from the outside cameras was shattered, and the other showing only a grainy feed, the camera likely not an original part of the vehicle.

Federation surplus most likely, either stolen from a decommission yard or purchased from people with less than stellar scruples. In a way the Federation was footing the cost for the Remnant military, more than half of their ships were Federation hulls, purchased either in bulk by anonymous benefactors or stolen by special operations groups or gifted by sympathetic individuals inside the Federation Navy. And nearly all their vehicles were the same, gutted old surplus jammed with whatever equipment they could make or scrounge. The only reliable source of material made by themselves were infantry weapons and munitions.

The absence of standardized, self-sufficient arms making was merely the symptom of a more complex issue. One that was soon to be corrected.

The harsh thunk of the transport shifting gears caught his attention and a glance at the only functioning display drew his focus. The grainy feed captured the severity of the planet's condition, stretches of broken road no different from bomb craters, dilapidated buildings, their windows shattered and the jagged panes of glass jutting like razor teeth. A steady stream of people meandered along ruined buildings as vehicles jostled for free space in the congestion. Worn, threadbare clothing clung to thin bodies, their faces smothered by oxygen masks but the despair in their posture more than visible. Figures reclined against buildings, slouched, tired, defeated. The arcology spires above withered in their disrepair, holes in the exterior patched with sheet metal and panes of glass smeared with accrued smoke from endless fires.

There were no trees, he noticed, the thought strange to him after so many years off world, shifting between hidden bases and concealed stations amidst asteroid clusters caught in stellar drift and underground complexes hidden in forests and deserts. There was no green. Everything was just grey, a thick blanket of ash from the constant spume of factory smoke. There were no plants, no animals, no ambient life.

Bloodmaw thought of Zoness, of its vast forests and blue oceans, a clear sky the most beautiful shade of sapphire. Cool, clean air and the scent of vegetation and rain. Animals stalked the forests rich with game. A veritable bounty.

That was what they should have, what they once had. Just one more tally, one more mark against the Federation.

The general, his mood soured further, did not think much for the remainder of the journey. He saved his thoughts, and his anger, for when he arrived. Instead, he keyed into the command freq for his comm network and listened to the chatter of his field commanders as the majority of his forces trickled down from orbit, forming their units in their designated positions. And that tugged at the only non-negative emotion he had. The chatter had already begun to lessen as the APC pulled off the road and entered the underground parking for the capitol building.

As the engine died and his guard detail clambered to their boots, Bloodmaw allowed himself the first real smile of the day.

There were few things left that he enjoyed in his life.

But this, he would enjoy very much.

XX-XX-XX

Ju'das had been in the midst of inventorying their meager supplies when he heard the shouting. Their outlook was as bleak as it had been the night before, the light of day offering no solace or reprieve. Half a dozen plasma rifles, two pistols, and a clutch of grenades was by no means an arsenal, but he could have been left with worse. It was luck enough that they had weapons, given that this phantom had been in the maintenance berth. Fortunately, the hanger armsmaster had neglected to empty the pilot's crash cache.

It was as he rotated through the rifles, checking their charges, that his concentration was disrupted. He might have paid little attention to the sound, having grown used to the squabbling of unggoy on many campaigns. But this howl was familiar in a different way, the hysterical squeal of a shattered squad pressed by enemy assault. He'd heard it's like as sangheili officers were cut down by human precision weapons.

Ju'das froze for a brief moment, surprise shocking his system, before he exploded into motion, one of the unspent rifles clutched tight in a fist as he bound under the angular ceiling of the cockpit and loped out into the bay.

The noise was clearer as the shuttle door slid open and spilled his figure. Shouting and fire, the sharp hiss of a recently familiar weapon punctuated by the high-pitched snap of plasma pistols. Ju'das lunged forward, free hand clamping on the roof of the transport to sling himself several dozen feet to the ground into a controlled dive. He tucked his head into his shoulders and rolled to dissipate inertia, coming out of into a wide stance.

He scanned the clearing within the breath of a moment. One of the unggoy had been cut down, a charred corpse singed with the scent of methane, his hearts thundered twice as hard till he realized it was one of the nameless, a loss, but not Nipnup. The rest of its more fortunate kin had fled to the opposite tree line, wildly discharging their weapons across the once beautiful field now ruined by fire and death.

The sangheili field marshal sought cover of his own, retreating as he found himself targeted by the shadowed element concealed in the trees at the opposite end of the skirmish. No less than three shots landed, fizzling impotently on his shields as he slid behind looming timber. His eyes narrowed, honed on a figure in the shadow and fired a short burst. Plasma burned bright, cutting through the air with an energized howl, scything down his enemy. The luminescent globes of ionized gas punched through black armor smeared in earth and covered in detritus from the forest floor.

The creature fell silently, a flash of red amidst the black, and Ju'das recognized their foe.

No surprise, yet still he was troubled.

This world was undoubtedly in ownership of this new race, an unfavorable position for the survivors of The Last Psalm. What's more, they fought like humans. Camouflaged armor, ambush tactics, and well trained. Indeed, he heard another of his unggoy shriek as a passing lance of ruby energy glanced its respirator and ignited the methane tube. The hunched carapace of the stout creature erupted into fire, splashing flames across the brush and trees, and dousing another of its cohort that was huddled too closely.

Ju'das snarled his rage at the loss of his subordinates and doubled his ferocity, laying a heavy barrage of plasma into the forest, setting fire to the underbrush and turning trees into pillars of flame.

"Great Marshal!" A tiny voice squeaked happily, the old warrior turned from the conflagration he had made to spy Nipnup and two of his fellow grunts huddled behind a large stone covered in moss. The excitable creature waived innocently and pointed eagerly to the female behind him who seemed somehow to be more exasperated than afraid.

And even though their situation was grim he felt his mandible twitch. Certainly, though bereft of wit there was much to say of the unggoy's faith and perseverance.

He nodded, and readied to regroup with his allies when there was a roar from the enemy's position. It appeared, that when faced with entrenched opponents or the forest fire licking at their heels, the thought of burning alive was more the sour.

They emerged in a tide, surprising Ju'das at their number, thrice a dozen, and the field marshal realized they'd be overrun. One field marshal and a trio of grunts did not a stalwart force make. The sangheili grimaced, realizing the sudden direness of their position, and lamented that he would not at least have the blade of his ancestors with him at his end.

And then there was a blinding flash of green and the world turned to fire.

He remembered taking cover behind a tree and now there was the ground, turning to ash underneath him as he found himself sprawled in flames. It was with great effort that he tried to stich his thoughts together.

Then there was hand on his shoulder, large and powerful, hauling him from the dirt.

"Stand at attention, Marshal Rasumai!" A voice boomed above him, proud, heavy with confidence and faith. His vison cleared and a warrior emerged from the smoky haze right beside him, deep maroon armor scorched heavily and tarnished by war, yet noble in bearing. "With me, Marshal." He intoned righteously; mandibles flexed with virtuous anger. "Let us wash away this filth!"

Ju'das shook his head to clear the numbness from the blast and started at the sight that received him, the alien warriors in full retreat, most their number charred skeletons half buried in glass. Pursed by a galloping lance of sangheili, their rifles howling as vibrant arcs of energy cut down the enemy in flight.

"Thaza?" He found his voice after a moment, his throat dry from the searing heat of vented plasma. He recognized the facial scars of the young warrior beside him, a rising figure in the political arena of the Ministry of Resolution, known for his fiery rhetoric and martial prowess. Last he'd seen of the whelp, he'd been debating the faltering economy of the fringe colonies of Sangheilios, popular amongst the youth but seen as a nuisance to The Ministry of Penance. Ju'das had not been aware Thaza had been assigned to the Fleet of Particular Justice.

"The one and only, Lord Marshal." The looming warrior barked a laugh as he clapped Ju'das on the shoulder. "I bed pardon for any burns, the Mgalekgolo have been spoiling for a fight. Their aim was… overeager."

A deep thrum reverberated in Ju'das' chest along Thaza's impassioned words, and the tree-line exploded into kindling, admitting a pair of armored goliaths that pressed forward, flecks of wood chips adorning their towering frames as they advanced, massive shields reflecting the pittance of fire from the now retreating foe. The barrels of their assault cannons shimmered from heart spooling from exhaust vents.

The lead hunter, its armor scarred and pitted, bellowed a war cry, its weapon burning bright before discharging, the beam of veridian energy cleaving through the forest, turning trees into torches and soil into glass. A cascade of explosions howled in its wake and a trove of the aliens died as its brother answered its call.

"Losses were heavy when The Last Psalm was overtaken, including most of the Mgalekgolo." Thaza inclined his head toward the rampaging pair, watching as they warbled their fury and charged into the flames heedlessly. The sangheili hunting lance, once leading the firefight, was forced to make haste or lest be left behind.

Ju'das nodded and was slow to respond, partly as he recollected his thoughts and the majority from the series of unexpected surprises, however fortunate they were. He has many questions, but most could wait.

"I had not thought anyone else had survived its destruction." He had seen the explosion from the phantom, the battlecruiser reduced to a twenty-kilometer crater of crystalized sediment. He had dared not hope.

"Most did not." Thaza's answer was a grimace. "I gathered what remnants could be found, it was how we found you, Marshal. The responder from your transport pointed the way. Even so I might not have found you if not for my good fortune." He turned, and Ju'das' gaze followed, mandibles widening in surprise.

"Good fortune, yes-yes." Chattered the kig-yar that approached them, taloned fingers clicking at a wrist mounted device in place of the energy phalanx customary to the race of pirates. It was short, even for one of its species, and its hide was dark in complexion, but its eyes were keen, bright raptorial yellow, and glimmering with mischief. "Good fortune indeed!" It squawked jovially, beak clacking in a parody of laughter.

He did not have a high opinion of the Kig-yar, jackals they were called by the humans, and for good reason from what he had learned of the creatures sharing such a name. Thieves, swindlers, and pirates. He had spent many years culling their raiding fleets in the periphery of the empire.

And so, Ju'das was surprised when it pried its hand from the slate on its wrist and extended the appendage towards him. "Engine Master Jath Zupok, at your service, Eminence." Its tone was courteous, but the roguish twist of its beak remained.

Stomaching his distaste, he grasped its arm in greeting.

"Well met, Jath Zupok." He eyed the kig-yar cautiously. "Circumstance it seems, has made us brothers."

"So it would seem… so it would seem." The birdlike creature hissed mysteriously, pulling its arm away and back to clatter at the device on its arm. Not a moment later it let out an indignant squawk as Thaza slapped it on the back conspiratorially.

"Indeed! Wise words, Marshal Rasumai." The giant sangheili chuckled deeply, his voice rich with mirth and Ju'das could see how he swayed so many of his generation. He imagined the warrior's rhetoric was just as charming in the halls of discourse on High Charity. "What a strange hour when those such as we march together. Ah! But I feel a tale has been born this day. From such dire beginnings are great heroes forged!" He glanced down and nudged the kig-yar beside them.

"Mayhap you might find your name prominent in the records one day, Zupok!"

The kig-yar managed only a polite nod, half focused on its device. Ju'das wondered what reason the small machine distracted it so.

"Although… I only wish we had arrived sooner, Marshal." Thaza lamented, his gaze and tone somber as it was drawn to the fallen unggoy.

"No great loss." Jath muttered impolitely under his breath, the creature as dismissive of the unggoy as all its species. But no different a sentiment as shared by most of the Covenant. It did not appear to care to mind its words all too much either, as it was in appearance unbothered by the twinge on Thaza's usually cheerful expression.

"Great Marshal!" A squeaky voice cheered triumphantly. And Ju'das allowed himself a slight smile.

"Ah, but not all is lost." He assured the sangheili veteran as he turned to greet the diminutive creature bumbling towards him, paying no heed to the huff of irritation from the birdlike Engine Master as he turned away, approaching a small cluster of his people that had been lingering around the bodies of the dead, prying at weapons and flesh with equivalent enthusiasm.

Ju'das paid them little mind.

"Safe as promised!" The unggoy stated proudly, his marked enthusiasm unshared by the pair of his kin who appeared less than satisfied as they grumbled at his back. Ju'das did not judge, considering they had lost more than half their number. Either unbothered or unaware, Nipnup continued unperturbed, gesturing mightily to the female that strode behind him as if she were some great prize.

Sudomi maintained a thin veneer of dignity, a trying effort, escorted as she was by such a… diminutive honor guard. "Greetings." She stated clearly and properly, inclining her head towards the towering monolith that was Thaza, who seemed rather unprepared to see her.

"Ah… of course, My lady." He rumbled slowly, a voice usually rich with fire and faith becoming almost modest as he spoke to her. His mandibles twitched imperceptibly, and his hide darkened ever so slightly. "This is a surprise, but a welcome one. It is fortunate indeed we arrived when we did."

Ju'das eyeing the staunch warrior closely, feeling a smirk pull at his jaws as Thaza suddenly cleared his throat and straightened his posture.

"Of course, we should be expeditious. The Mgalekgolo are impatient and we should not let them stray too far ahead Dar Jel'amee's lance." He gestured ahead, to the Mgalekgolo shaped hole punched into the undergrowth, flickers of flame skirting the edge of the outline. "We made camp some distance east, a plateau hugging the mountain. Once the hunters have been reigned in, we shall return. And much faster than before, it seems" He nodded toward the hovering phantom.

Thaza stepped forward first, leading their most unusual party. "There are yet more of our brethren to gather and we have need of a great Marshal." He cast an eye back at Ju'das and to the unggoy that seemed to perk up excitedly at his words. "We must let this new enemy known the fury of the Covenant! We shall not be so easily discouraged."

The prospect only brought weariness upon Ju'das. More conflict, more death. Thaza was a good sangheili, honorable, strong, and fierce. The idea of brokering peace did not occur to him. It was not an unfamiliar mindset, and all the more tragic for it. When had they become so accustomed to war? When had they cast aside righteousness for abhorrence? Glory for bloodshed? Ju'das remembered a time where they were brought together by faith, not shared hatred, before humanity, before this godless conflict. Now… he long believed that the gods no longer listened.

Is this what the Covenant had become?

A machine of war, of politics steered by self-interest. The weight of lives not but gekz on a scale.

It was with tiredness he shackled his despair.

It mattered not. Peace he may have desired, but peace he could not abide. Duty loomed above all. He was needed. And he would answer. For others, if not himself.

"So it shall be." Ju'das nodded grimly.

"As it is, always."

XX-XX-XX

Six felt… hazy.

Realization brought clarity, and with it something he had not experienced so intensely in many long years.

Despair.

He thought that had been torn out of him alongside the rest of his heart that day in the rubble, forgotten, hidden under shattered stone and broken bodies, praying, pleading, that they would not find him. He had not known the concept of death until then, those days pinned under the wreckage of his home, listening to the gnawing, the gnashing. It didn't matter how deep he had crawled into the rubble he couldn't ignore the sounds, like the tearing of sodden carpet, the crack of wet timber.

And the screams…

The world closed in around him, darkening. There was no sky, no light. He could feel the weight again, the crushing mass of the apartment block, the broken rebar that dug at his skin and the rocks that tore nails from his fingers as he tried to claw himself deeper, the boulders of fragmented concrete pressing on his lungs, fighting for every ragged breath through a film of powdered stone. He felt small, powerless… abandoned. He had been left behind, again.

Then he felt it.

Like summer petals on his skin, fingers running across his cheeks, soft and warm. Drawn out of his introspection, the spartan realized that the sensation was oddly… reassuring. She was right across from him, close enough he could feel her breath on his face, an ocean blue monolith amidst the darkness that felt like it was swallowing him whole. Instinct warred with reason, losing by a hairsbreadth. And he repressed the swelling urge to succumb to violence.

"Ak'j ebu0, oloh0kxadw nacc ro uchawxk."

She spoke, foxlike muzzle curling to form words so utterly alien. He could not understand them. And yet, the tone. It was not so different as something he remembered during the glassing of his world, the days of the fall. An echo pulled itself out of the obscurity of his mind, a glimpse of something he had forgotten, or discarded, so long ago.

"It's okay, moy malen'kiy volk."

He pulled away.

Warmth faded, as did the softness as the spartan dragged himself to his feet, aching, bloodied, but not beaten. Never. He ignored the emerald eyes that stared so keenly as he forced away the darkness through iron will and bloody memory. His body burned in outcry, torn muscles and raw wounds searing in intensity. He pulled away from that too, disassociated from the ache. It was easy, a learned habit. One of the first lessons from the program. He needed to detach, condense, compartmentalize. It was the only way to survive, to remain effective. He couldn't focus on anything else but on the thought of pushing forward. His mind was returned, but it wasn't whole. That was fine. It hadn't been that way in a long time. He needed to accept reality. He needed to face it of he was to persevere.

The UNSC was… gone, most likely, gone or having never existed, past, present, he didn't know which for sure, but, unilaterally, regardless of the means of instigation, he had been stranded. What seemed like a nonsensical conclusion, if not for the empirical evidence he had acquired, through experience and data. What little consideration he had toward the likelihood of retrieval had been discarded. The possibility now an impossibility. A difficult realization to accept. The spartan felt something twinge at the fringe of his thoughts, but he smothered the rising suspicion before it could take root.

In a way everything had changed, and yet nothing at all. He supposed, that having resigned himself to death, that this was all around a less catastrophic outcome. He had died, simply in a way that differed from expectation. He would be labeled MIA, one more tally like the rest of his brothers and sisters.

A gust of wind tugged at his matted hair, ruffling his dark mane slick with blood and sweat, and gave the spartan pause as he remembered himself. He cut a glance to the alien; the creature having risen to stand a good ten feet across from him. Its companion, appearing far less reserved, was equidistant, just at the periphery of his vision. Six appraised its cleverness in that moment and was impressed. The feline was vigilant, and clearly experienced, its positioning made the prospect of confrontation rather precarious. Not that he was under any predisposition to the idea of killing these creatures. Not when they were proving to be a source of welcome information.

The cat's smirk had been buried under a neutral expression that did not fool him. He understood body language, and the tenseness of their posture was reason enough to show that the blue fox was alone in her affability.

Speaking of, the alien took a step forward, carriage exuding pleasantness and wearing a far softer smile. His muscles tensed at the veneer of civility, but lacked the energy for little more than a grimace as she stepped into his range of motion. The sheer frequency of his encounters with nonhostile aliens in less than two days seems to have blunted his innate hostility, if only its physical aspect. It was of benefit of course, that these creatures reminded him of earth, and not the Covenant. And that was a curiosity he wished he had had the freedom to explore.

"Xoho." Again, she spoke and he could not follow the words, more alien gibberish, offering his discarded helmet, perhaps in some form of commiseration and he was forced to flatten his innate frustration. Some things were more important than personal bias. Given the circumstances he faced, it would be prudent to garner some manner of comprehension as soon as possible. It had become apparent that he had discarded the option of treating these aliens as hostile, a realization that was not as difficult to accept as expected. Considering their unusually familiarized appearance and nonhostile demeanor, and more alarmingly, there direct action in ensuring his survival, there existed a precedence for his neutrality. Not to say that there was no lingering animosity.

Yet, distaste was no reason for allowing ignorance. If he could stomach to understand the languages of the Covenant, he would survive this humiliation.

The spartan gently took his lost equipment from her, glancing for a moment inside. The rank stench of bile and the metallic odor of blood that wafted into his nose drew a sigh from him as he clipped the helmet to a hook on his waist.

He nodded in thanks nonetheless, there was no need to be discourteous, yet. In doing so he was given a moment to pause and reflect, taking the time to recognize his first peaceable interaction with an alien species, something he had never expected to occur. Yet here he was, nearly having an amiable conversation with a walking, talking fox, not thirty-six hours after fighting on the fields of Reach, assured of his final hours and the end of humanity. Fate had certainly propelled him to a strange place indeed.

Six good. He signed, for once appreciating the brevity of their ad-hock language. He had not the means and certainly not the desire to delve into any detail regarding his lapse in character. He was only grateful that no human had born witness to his misconduct. It was unbefitting of his mantle.

The alien did not appear overly convinced, to no surprise. But its courteous nature won out as it did not make any noticeable effort to press the topic, turning instead toward the skeletal remains of the heavy cruiser, head turned upwards to gaze upon its towering profile.

"Nxoho aj..." She spoke, her voice seeming to fade off. She turned back, revealing what might have been a sheepish expression as she signed. Where other? Or perhaps what other?

Which he could take to mean a query on the lack of the ODST Sergeant. Recalling the interaction previous, he gathered his thoughts and directed them towards concentrating on this, inane diatribe, nearly glad for the distraction.

Understanding his circumstance did not mean he had yet come to grips with it.

Supply gather. He answered in turn, seeing no reason to obfuscate or lie. Deception was only advisable when it was credible. And these creatures were, from his observation, at least as intelligent as a human. More than that he did not have a sufficient enough vocabulary with this rudimentary method of communication to add any form of subtilty or nuance. Which, led his mind to jump at something unexpected.

"Nxoho aj..." His voice ejected the alien tongue like a blade on a grinder. His vocal cords, already harsh and grating, had endured hours of dehydration and scorched air, and felt like course bristles on the lining of his throat, rendering his tone to a sputtering gasp not unlike a dying hydrogen engine, and it was with considerable effort he forced down the rising urge to cough his lungs out.

Unsurprisingly, the alien fox flinched at his sudden expulsion of its tongue, no doubt butchered and profaned with his ignorance. Its companion had reacted less placidly, and he eyed the half-raised weapon with some bemusement. Even so he gestured vaguely, pushing past a bought of inwardly directed consternation. He figured that this was little different then ripping a blade from a stab wound, if considerably more painful. There were many words to describe a spartan, but hesitant, or derelict, were not any of them. Comprehension had become his singular objective. Survival was a given, but if he was to make any headway in establishing new goals, he needed information and communication.

Thankfully, although in action that was beginning to become less surprising and more concerning, she seemed to understand his intent and her eagerness exploded.

"Nxoho… ah~" Where. She signed excitedly as her smile returned with doubling force and intensity. "Nxoho aj..." Where is. She clarified, enunciating clearly and made the recognized signs in sequence.

The spartan then realized, as the alien stared up at him enthusiastically, that he was not going to be dying anytime soon. Somehow. He had survived Reach. He had survived his hackneyed plan to land a blow on the Covenant fleet and detonating a slispace warhead jury-rigged from scrap. He had even survived escaping a battlecruiser in the midst of a warzone, stealing a seraph, and an explosion of course, followed shortly after by rapid free fall in a crashing starship. And of course, the antipersonnel mine, and a gun battle.

How had he survived?

Six recalled his exploits and even after living through it he was speculative. But this was all too coherent to be some kind of fever dream and far too grounded and bizarre to be an afterlife.

By some means, the last few days of his career had been more hectic and impractical then the cumulative years of his service. And yet… he was alive, and stranded in a very uncanny world where the aliens could be hostile or helpful, and were somehow more human in appearance than any Covenant species he had ever seen.

He reached an epiphany shortly afterward and felt a sigh wheeze through his battered lungs.

This makeshift hand sign bullshit wasn't going to work anymore.

XX-XX-XX

Déjà vu was a new feeling for Noble Six, one of a number of such sentiments that had arisen steadily in recent days.

Tree.

"Khoo." He repeated aloud as the blue vixen pointed at a particularly large specimen of the native flora that crowned the tree-line that had formed in the wake of the halcyon's impact. It stood tall, casting a shadow into the crater and over the camp that had formed at its edge, an array of tents and prefab walls ringed by glowing spotlights that cast light over the setting of the sun. Inside he could see soldiers at rest, sitting in groups and dealing cards on crates converted into tables or lying about languidly. It was peculiarly human, something he could have, and indeed had seen many times from the average rank and file marines in FOBs and on ships traveling or waiting between active theaters.

He had observed Covenant outposts and bases across dozens of star systems during reconnaissance operations and HVT assassinations back when he had been headhunting in the Hestia System. He had never seen any form of relaxation or recreation, or at least not in any analogue he could understand. Which made the sight of dogs and cats dealing cards all the more bizarre.

A remembrance pulled itself from the dredge of memory, of a blown-out residence on Meridian, a traditional picture frame skewed on a wall above a dining room, dogs playing poker with those strange visors, their canine faces made distorted caricatures by the bubbling of fire as the habitation complex burned. He remembered the bodies under the table just as well too, children and parents cut down by plasma weapons as they cowered, bubbling just like the painting.

There were times he despised that eidetic memory was a facet of the spartan augmentations, more that it was only proactive.

There were sparse few things he might have wanted to remember of his past, amidst the vast majority he actively suppressed.

There were, also, few places he would not mind forgetting.

Meridian was one of them.

"Hudtehd?" She called out to him, disrupting his thoughts, and Six recognized the familiar sequence of vowels and consonants she had attributed as his name. Since he had conveyed his desire for understanding she had begun to use that word for his name. It was… strange, an alien giving him a name after he had cast his own aside, served years as a number, a barcode, one of many. It was only the necessity that made it at all tolerable.

Again, he found himself subjected to ger gaze, the ever-familiar twinkle in her eyes as she looked upon him questioningly, to the haunting nature of her warm curiosity. Even without words he knew she wondered what he was thinking, and that unnerved the spartan. That constant desire to know… to comprehend. He'd never been the subject of fascination, at least not one that went beyond idle stupefaction. There were those who watched him in awe, or fear, as any spartan can attest. Such reactions he had long acclimated to, made easy to tolerate given the meaning of such fascination. They were each, symbols, living, breathing exemplars of defiance and hope, even if he'd never felt himself to be the part. They'd always wondered at the mythos of their existence, a carefully fabricated image made ubiquitous by the ONI propaganda arm. Yet, this creature, she seemed to look deeper.

The idea was ludicrous, that he could understand the motivation of an inherently alien creature after what seemed like mere minutes of contact, and yet… those eyes and the feeling she gave off. Reason made the concept nonsensical, but intuition told him otherwise, and often it was instinct, not reason, that kept him alive, and so it was instinct that he trusted.

Unlike before, this time her inquisitive nature had been brought forth by his absentmindedness. A frequent annoyance that he was beginning to believe was the result of some manner of concussive injury. Things of the past were continuing to slip past the blockade he had stashed them behind, memories… feelings, things he had cast aside to preserve some sense of rationality and focus through the madness of the Human Covenant war. He had been contemplative, distracted, and had not recognized she was continuing her lecture.

"Ufecewaoj…" He spoke against her curiosity, something he had been led to believe was adjacent to asking forgiveness or pardon. A strange thing for a spartan to ask of an alien, but he was beginning to realize that he now lived in strange times. He had never expected sociability to be a meaningful trait. Such a thing had no use against the Covenant. Here, it seemed, however, to have become his most desirable attribute. That was unfortunate, as it was by far his most deficient. Nevertheless. He supposed with a wry grimace.

Needs must…

"Hesb." Six formed the newest word as she hefted a familiar hunk of granite.

Rock. Trees and Rocks. He huffed softly. An excellent start to conquering the language barrier. Isn't it Six? Humored, but no less exasperated, he considered his most recent efforts as Azure pointed to her suit and began the arduous process of crash coursing an alien in her language. He had not yet even fully come to terms with the armistice between himself and this alien species and here he was, debating the nomenclature of rocks and flora with a blue fox woman.

He wondered what Noble would have thought of this.

He had only been assigned to Noble Team for a short while, but even so they were his fondest memories. Considering that they had all fought and died and Reach had been glassed, that was a rather miserable realization. He would not have minded Carter's leadership in the face of the monumental task ahead of him, and Kat's expertise in technology would have given him confidence in the future of his equipment and arsenal. But he was bereft of either. He could not rely on Emile's steadfast courage, or Jun's hawkish aim, nor the imposing bulwark that was Jorge 052. There was only himself, injured, fragmented and tearing at the seams, and an ODST Corpsman who he really hoped was not passed out in some crevasse of the crashed warship.

He was surprised to feel a new hollowness inside himself as he fully grasped the finality of his separation from Noble Team. And the spartan hardly noticed himself sitting on a large chunk of hull. The words of his Foxen tutor half remembered as his hand moved reflexively to a dented container on his breastplate, the latch popped with a flick of his thumb and he reached inside. The vixen's speech began to slow as she again noticed his inattentiveness but he paid little mind.

His thoughts were focused on the chain ensnared in his gauntlet, the dulled sensation of metal links hanging like gallows rope from his fingers, the rattle of four tags a clergy's clamor in his ears.

His thumb brushed against one in particular.

JORGE
S-052 A POS
SPECWAR
GroupTHREE/NOBLE

He wondered.

Had it counted?

Had anything counted?

Noble Six hummed thoughtfully, the sound a low rumble in his chest. Jorge may have been gone, but it seemed as if a part of him had not left Six on that Covenant cruiser.

Did you do this? He wondered of the fallen spartan and his newfound sentimentality. He supposed, in a way, he had not left all his ghosts on Reach. There were few that yet persisted.

He just would have preferred to know if they were benign.

"Hudtehd?"

"Uho you okay?"

Soft words tickled his ear like feathers, half recognized from his learnings from the creature he had been ignoring. Had old Menendez been here to see his lack of situational awareness Six would've likely found himself running laps around the Halcyon till he threw his lungs up.

As circumstance would have it, that was something he would never need be concerned about. Instead, I have you. He thought with some bemusement as Azure took his silence as invitation to approach him. The debris he was using as a chair was low to the ground, allowing him, for once, to be eye level with his impromptu language instructor. She was close, he realized, close enough he could feel the tickle of her breath on his face, surprising him with the scent of mint and what smelled suspiciously like coffee. Her face seemed to take up his vision, thin lips on a slender mouth curled to a smile, that shine of welcoming kindness and understanding in her eyes rather befuddling considering he made for a poor student. Had they been of opposing places, he would have been irritated by the lack of focus.

She seemed bereft of such frustration.

His instinctive distaste for aliens appeared muted, as he felt little of his habitual disgust at nonhumans within such proximity. A part of him knew, however, that had it been the sangheili zealot to be so presumptuous, he would have left it as a corpse at his feet. He knew he should be alarmed at her presence, such casual immediacy to an alien was anathema to the spartan mentality. And yet… he felt… a measure of peace. The sensation was strange, even more so given the whirlwind of turbulent events he had endured in the past 72 hours.

He supposed that there was, indeed, a part of him so distressed by the situation, but it was small, and seemed to be shrinking smaller. Adaptability was his namesake, eclipsed, perhaps, only by his penchant for survival against incredible odds. More so he reasoned it was the fact he had been refraining from thinking too deeply, ironic given his musing. But it seemed the past was far more distracting then then the present. The hammer blows seemed to keep coming from Reach to this world, nothing had panned out as expected and if he gave it the appropriate level of thought, he was sure he'd lose the last remnants of his sanity.

He might have kept musing on the significance of all this if not for an intrusion.

The pressure regulator in his upper armor seemed to still be functional, as he felt something lay against his forearm. Strange that something so unimportant had remained operational in the face of such catastrophic damage. Perhaps some last sputter of power in his Mjolnir system or some manner of redundancy he had not known existed. No matter. His focus sharpened on the object that had disrupted his contemplation.

Oh…

The spartan paused, recognizing the pressure as a foreign appendage. She had touched him. The blue vixen had laid a hand on him. Noble Six bristled, a cool shiver crawling up his spine like frozen lightening, cascades of static energy crawling up his arm. It took every last tattered remnant of his discipline to curb the desire to slide a sharp fragment of hull metal across the alien's throat. His eyes snapped towards her; the fox's expression tinged with underlines of sympathy.

He was overcome by a strange mix of bemusement and revulsion as well as something more. He could not tell what it was her touch made him feel as the sentiment was rather… complex, only that it was unfamiliar and, to his sensibilities, unpleasant. He would have no part of it. And yet, in spite of his distaste, a fleeting sense of comfort imposed upon his awareness as if to offer direct contradiction, and the spartan was distinctly reminded of the occurrence following the recovery of his facilities, of the way the leathery pads of her fingers caressed his cheeks, both warm and soft. By far that had been the most agreeable external factor he had been exposed to since he could remember.

Even so…

Six lifted his arm, forcing the alien to let go of him, and stood from the hull debris, no longer quite feeling the phantom of introspection. Clearly, he had allowed himself far too much leeway for distraction if he had become so unobservant. The fox's face adopted an unreadable aspect as he pulled away, and somehow, he could tell there was something she felt pressed to say. How he knew he could not say himself. It was instinctual, a sort of sixth sense of the like that he felt the moment he touched surface on Reach.

Just as well he knew that he had no desire to press whatever topic she might have been building the confidence to speak of, and dismissed her developing dialogue by taking the initiative. Doing so with loathing. Six was versed in many battlefields and aspects of war, and it was verbal sparring he had the least experience in.

Six shifted his feet, boots scrapping against hardened earth as he turned, gesturing towards the symbol still etched into the dirt, the organizational logo Azure had scrawled earlier, and spoke.

"Nxuk aj?" He queried, hoping he did not butcher the language too ham-fistedly. Not out of some sense of courtesy, but rather efficiency. The more proficient his grasp on the local language, the more effective his information gathering efforts would be. And the sooner he could divest himself from his reliance on this strange creature.

The alien seemed to pause at his enquiry and there was an air about her that made him think she was not quite finished with her initial inquest, but in the end, she gave him a rather formal nod and took a step closer, Though, he happened to notice she kept her distance as she mimicked his gesture and began to speak slowly and articulately, a jumble of increasingly familiar and less foreign terminologies. He was thankful, at the least, that she appeared to have cast aside the pretense for affability. The precept of education was far less unnerving.

For his part Six listened to her lecture, and in the face of his adamant promise to remain focused, a part of himself drifted away. And he wondered, as he learned.

What exactly did the future have in store…

XX-XX-XX

Aleksander Fedorov was having one hell of a week.

He'd known already once the Adjudicator slipped into the Epsilon Eridani theater that he was a dead man walking. He'd come to terms with it. Although, admittedly knowing they were reinforcing a losing battle was one fucking hell of a pisser. Even so, it was Reach. There was no damned way they were going to let the covies have it without giving every last damned effort they could.

There had been a hundred ODST's from their ship when they dropped over New Alexandria, part of one last push to secure LZ's for civilian extraction, paving the way for the entire compliment of marines to hold a five square kilometer grid.

By the time they had been forced to abandon New Alexandria there had hardly been enough to fill the bay of a pelican.

Aleksander sighed heavily, the sound echoing not unlike a soft breeze that wafted through the darkened, empty med ward. He was morbidly glad that there had not been any bodies inside. They must have tried evacuating the wounded, for all the good it did them. Dwelling on that chipper note, he closed the latches on the crate of medical supplies and, with a loud grunt, shouldered it off the examination bed and onto the cart he had wrangled from the closest munitions lockup.

The loud peel of crashing metal ripped across his ears as the steel crate fell and landed on another loaded with ammunition and weapons. He winced, both at the pain such a simple action caused, and at the thought of disturbing the resting dead.

He'd seen more than a few on his way here. Those that did not get out, or had been too far in to be blow out by decompression, trapped in rooms or under debris. It wasn't a pretty sight, and he was forced to remember that he wasn't looking at thawed beef pressed into a bloodied uniform.

They had been people, acquaintances, friends… hell even assholes.

But more than that, they had been human, and they had died in service to humanity.

The ODST limped around the cart, resting his good arm on the handle for support as he leaned into it, the creak of a busted wheel echoing harshly as he pushed it out of the room. The damned thing was heavier than a tank, laden with crates he'd spent the last several hours scavenging and loading with many such cuss words and exacerbated injuries.

He just hoped the spartan would be satisfied. They were tough bastards, and hard to please, if such a thing was even possible. They were a mystery for general enlisted, and a small part of him had bought the rumors they were machines. He'd even had the luxury of seeing one or two in his service before Reach. And then he'd seen a whole lot of them.

Seen them die too…

Before Reach he really had been sold into the propaganda. They had certainly seemed invincible, and were quite literally larger than life. He'd watched them dismantle opposition that his entire regiment had been stalled against, both on New Carentan and Virgil II. They seemed superhuman, faster than any man or animal and strong enough to throw elites around like trash cans. Which had bought in to the whole "terminator" rumor mill honestly.

Turns out though, in the end they bled red just as he did.

He remembered, viscerally, the moment he first watched a spartan die.

They'd been fighting in the spires for what seemed like days, caught in and left behind as the UNSC began their withdrawal. It had been brutal, short firefights in hallways and through apartments as the skyline of New Alexandria burned. It had been frantic, and he shivered at the memory, trying to establish firing positions had been near impossible amidst the panicking civilians and aggressive push of covenant infantry. Aleksander knew they would have never made it out of those towers if not for him. They'd stumbled across the spartan, a giant fellow in dark green armor, as he had been picking apart a team of elites in that hazardous armor color. You learned quickly to identify what level of fucked you were in a fight. And those fuckers in the maroon red armor were at the top of the list, even over the hunters.

After all, you could run from the big bastards.

He'd been ambushed by those things before, lost his whole unit and earned a nasty remembrance on his chest. Just one more shitty memory. Even so, funnily enough, it had been a spartan that saved his life that time too.

It had been nice to return the favor.

Gunny Foley, the mad bastard, threw the squad in as soon as he saw the spartan. After all they all knew, if the spartan went down, they'd be right behind him. James and Ortega were cut up like salami but the rest of their unit cleared house and suddenly they had a seven-foot tag along.

The guy never talked, spoke through sign though he never knew why. Even so he'd gotten them and the civilians out of the tower and to the LZ, fucked those covie bastards up and punched a hole through the enemy phase line.

He could see it like he was there in that moment, when the spartan had stopped running, his casual Olympian sprint slowing into a superhuman jog and then petering off altogether. They'd been running for hours after the hab spires, hounded by jackals and brutes, people had been dropping like flies all throughout, taken by beam rifles or pounced on by brute packs.

But they couldn't stop, not even for a second, or everyone would die. It hadn't been like the enlisting vids, with strong, burly men standing righteously over caricatured alien corpses. Nothing like the glory or adventure the recruiter sold him on as he sat in his cushioned office with his expensive luxury car out front. Rather Aleksander remembered crying, hot tears washing tracks through the dirt and blood on his cheeks as his legs screamed their agony of being pushed past the limits of the human body, even as he kept on pushing, kept on running away. They'd never mentioned the fear, the kind that turned your legs to jelly and surged like frozen lightening through your veins, that made the eyes turn feral and turned men into animals.

Nobody had told him about the children, those who were unable to be carried and had been left behind to be picked at by jackals. Or the screams… the stories had never told him about the screams.

Even when he had been a marine he'd learned.

Jackals liked to play with their food.

He'd been dead sure he'd end up just like those people his boys had left behind, and a part of him would not have complained. Nobody gets left behind, or so that's what the movies and stories kept telling them. In reality, he'd never seen men run faster.

Aleksander had been sure that they'd all have died right then, if not for the spartan.

He knew the moment the spartan stopped what it was he was going to do, he was sure they all did. The man who hadn't said anything, who killed the most, fought the hardest, and never gave a moment to rest, offered only a single nod and a strange gesture, a quick swipe across his faceplate with two fingers.

Aleksander would have given his own arm to know what was going through the man's mind in that moment, instead he had hurriedly offloaded his grenades and spare magazines. His whole squad emptied their kits, spare demo charges, grenades, mags, fuck even knives. They gave everything they had and then again, they were running.

He still felt like a fucking coward.

The sounds that followed after they turned the corner had been deafening. He could have thought a whole armor division had stayed to hold that goddamned line and no man would disagree. Eventually they'd reached the LZ, down three-hundred marines, half his battalion and two-thousand civies.

Something had overcome the men as they offloaded the survivors into the pelicans, as they gazed at another burning skyline, another world turning to glass, one more bitter loss. Before he even knew what was happening, they were rearming, grabbing whatever weapons and armor the UNSC army was leaving behind in their flight from the city.

And then they marched back into the firestorm that was New Alexandria, a ragtag militia with a few warthogs and a half slagged scorpion. It had likely been the stupidest decision of their lives, some lingering machismo from the propaganda and, perhaps most of all, the guilt of cowardice.

Like madmen they'd pushed back into the fallen city, cutting a path for the real hero they'd abandoned. Men dropped and vehicles were left as burning hulks on the roads and in the streets, but they kept pushing.

Then they'd found the spartan, still right where they'd left him.

That had been what the posters and the movies and the adverts should have been, what would have the masses signing up. A spartan standing unbroken, armor sweating molten metal and blood, one arm charred beyond recognition and a leg bent inhumanly, and still fighting even over a carpet of Covenant corpses even beyond any hope for victory. It was a spit in the eye of extinction, the very personification of human perseverance. Without a fucking word they'd charged in, guns belching lead and fury and the scorpion's engine growling like a beast.

They'd fought like demons, to prove to themselves and the spartan they were more than cowards, more then men, even as they died like men, cut down by plasma and explosives and cruel alien bastards. Even so, in their dogged desperation they made the Covenant retreat. The fucking Covenant! He remembered the scattered cheers of exhaustion as the creatures fled. A small victory, inconsequential, and perhaps meaningless in the grand scope of the war, of even Reach. But it had been theirs.

And it had been real.

Aleksander sighed, the war-torn courtyard falling from his vision as he again faced an empty corridor inside this goddamned wrecked ship. That had been the first time in his career as a soldier that he'd been proud, had hope.

The cart rolled down the uneven hallways, bouncing over warped deck plating as he ducked under hanging scrap and wire. It hadn't lasted long, hope, only as long as it had taken to approach the spartan. They found him, standing over the corpse of a child. He did not react to their words and it was only a moment before they had realized.

He had died standing. They hadn't known when, whether during the battle or fuck, before they even came back. Even in death he had not broken. He was sure he would have cried again, had he held any spare water in his body.

It took eight men to get the spartan's body on the scorpion. They sure as fuck weren't going to leave him there for the fucking jackals. They got him out of the damned city and back to the LZ. They made sure he wouldn't be abandoned like all the others that had been left behind.

They could do that much at the least.

The rest of his experience of Reach flew by quickly, a tireless retreat from a lost world. And here he was now, wherever the fuck here was, bumming around the remnant of this halcyon and left cavorting with aliens straight out of childhood cartoons like some fucking grade schooler with dementia.

Which… fuck… he still didn't know what the hell that was about.

At least he had orders of some sort, gather weapons, gather supplies, and bunker down. Orders from another spartan, this one mouthier than the last, but not by much which was hell of a thing to say. First time he'd seen a spartan's face and he was… surprised. Younger than he expected. The man certainly wasn't the grizzled veteran Aleksander anticipated, though he was definitely scarred like one. Could've been his age, maybe younger. How long had he been a spartan anyways? The average soldier knew next to nothing about them. The consideration, while interesting, was brushed aside for more reasonable concerns, like his long-term survival.

He reckoned his chances were much higher with a spartan around.

The ODST tried to keep thoughts of Reach, hell, any significant thought out of his head as he focused on rolling the platform cart down the way he'd come from. He channeled the absentmindedness most grunts learned for patrols and dead-end security details. It was an important life skill for a soldier, just under bullshitting and somewhere just above scavenging.

He tuned back in to the disaster that was reality when he turned down a corridor, noticing the discarded wrappers and medical supplies left by the spartan, a little further ahead he could see pale beams of moonlight streaming across the shadowed mouth of their little hideout, which was really just a massive hole in the ship's hull. His little trip must have been longer than he thought if the sun was already down, or maybe not. He had no idea what the day/night cycle was like on this planet. Shit, he didn't even know what planet he was on, and considering it had earth like gravity, plants, and breathable air, he wasn't much in mind to complain.

Idly, he wondered what had made the initial breach as he pushed the cart to a stop beside the corner the spartan had taken for himself.

Couldn't have been an energy projector, since that would have punched clean through.

"Plasma torpedo." He grunted lazily, coming to his conclusion as he shuffled away from the cart and towards the outside. There might be weirdo animal people out there, but he wouldn't mind catching a glimpse of a moonlit sky without a Covenant fleet smearing the view. Besides, the spartan was out there. If he'd been taken out by suddenly hostile forest folk, The ODST figured his chances were little better than if he'd bite the barrel himself, so it was something of a nonissue.

Fortunately, as he stepped outside, he was not vivisected by angry natives or strung up like an innie trophy. He remained unaccosted as he stood under the soft moonlight, the expanse of the blast crater that was the halcyon's grave, illuminated by the star hidden behind the planet's satellite. He noticed quickly, the distinct lack of bodies, the ones he'd seen when he stepped outside the first time, from whatever altercation had occurred in his absence. Seemingly, they had been moved and sorted by the alien force now encamped on the perimeter. Since he didn't see a raging bonfire, he could only assume they had been rolled into a big hole somewhere. He couldn't be bothered to feel any kind of way about that.

Aleksander, however, was not overly fond of an alien FOB within rifle range, but he was well aware of his predicament. Instead, he offered thanks to lady luck for the once considered impossibility of not inherently hostile aliens.

Trying not to pay too much mind to the eyes that had risen to attention after his arrival, he began his search for the spartan, given the dimensions of the herculean warrior he hadn't had a difficult time, finding the superhuman soldier not far down the rise accompanied by a recognizable member of the local populace. The ODST shambled his way over, careful to pick his footing in the dark, stepping over or around the debris cast off on impact. He took the time to examine the situation he was approaching.

He found the sight strange. The spartan, (a man he was realizing he did not know the rank or name of), was propped on a large section of shed hull and appeared to be in deep discussion with the rather peculiar blue fox the drop trooper had seen before, both made visible by the gentle orange glow of a heating unit sitting between them.

Discussion, was perhaps too generous a word he decided, as it seemed to be a more multifaceted back and forth mainly comprised of gestures and passing phrases of what Aleksander assumed to be the native language. He was surprised that the spartan was able to communicate at all, let alone have a remedial understanding of the foreign dialect. The stories he'd heard about spartans clearly had not been wholly fiction.

The ODST continued his approach, but slowed when he finally noticed the second presence, a cat of some variety, resting in the shadows. Aleksander noticed the rifle secure in its grip and was again frustrated by his broken arm. He doubted his chances were a sudden firefight to break out, considering all he had on hand was his sidearm. Nevertheless, he pressed on, his desire for information outweighing his concerns.

As he stepped into the light of the heating coil, the patchwork conversation between the spartan and the fox slowed to a halt, and he suddenly realized that all eyes had fallen on him. A brief memory of his first school presentation lurched to the foreground and he found his mouth suddenly dry, and not because of the dehydration.

The blue fox eyed him strangely, bearing a softness he had not expected as she took a small step towards him. The alien bowed ever so slightly, and spoke as it lifted its canine head.

"Whookadwj, ximud, eh jxeict A ju0... Hello?" He was surprised by the lilting cadence of her speech, and then even more so at a word he recognized.

"Right… uh… well… hello." He replied dumbly, noticing then the rather unimpressed scowl the spartan adopted almost immediately.

"Oh I… uh… hello… uh Ma'am?" He trailed off, his tone spiraling into something of a question. He winced, even as the alien seemed to curl its lips in what he hoped rather ardently was a smile.

But it seemed he had not yet finished blundering first contact.

Instinct took a sudden hold of him as he abruptly moved a step forward and jut his hand out, ingrained into him by his mother as proprietary courtesy, before he realized what he did.

Thankfully, his lack of awareness or tact did not devolve the situation into some sort of cliché disaster of miscommunication. Though he noticed the spartan's scowl darken exponentially.

To his great relief, and surprise, the alien stared at the offered appendage for a moment before her expression deepened and she reached out, the motion serene and regal, unlike his clumsily and unexpected motion, clasping hold of him firmly.

Shit… Aleksander grunted rather inelegantly in his head.

I'm shaking hands with a freaking alien!

More than the novelty, he was put off by the physicality of it. The handshake was a strange sensation, like grabbing onto a really, really soft throw pillow inlaid with smooth leather. He could only describe it as odd. He quickly pulled his hand away once he was sure some form of good edicate had been reached.

With greetings underway and no sign of an imminent firefight, he took several awkward steps back and glanced toward the spartan, the man for all intents and purposes a stone as he sat motionless.

"Uh… Sir…" He began, eyeing the aliens somewhat askance, unsure how exactly he was supposed to conduct himself. There'd hadn't been any advice for this in the infantryman primer and thus far he'd heard nothing from the spartan. "I gathered what I could from a few munitions lock ups and a sick bay, a few crates worth of each. Rifles, magazines, biofoam, a few pills and shots, more than I thought I'd find."

If he had thought interacting with the aliens was weird, he'd clearly never realized what it was like working with a spartan.

Rather than the answer he had expected, Aleksander was left with a sudden vacuum of silence. The spartan may as well have been wearing a helmet since his expression was just as unreadable, like chiseled stone or a bulkhead on a punic. This left Aleksander in something of a bind. He was a grunt through and through, he was damn good at fighting, and something of a proficient corpsman. What he was not, was a planner, thus far he'd been cruising on the spartan's acumen. He'd rather been hoping for a new set of orders, anything to keep him moving and make it feel like somehow this FUBAR situation had some manner of control.

He spared a look at the aliens, noting that they were also watching the immutable figure that was humanity's greatest hope with some curiosity.

And then, suddenly, with little elaboration, the spartan slide forward, off his seat, very much emasculating the ODST's self-confidence as he found himself loomed over. The man offered a stout nod in the direction of the blue alien foxy lady, (and what a set of words that was), and marched a path back to the ship with a short bark of "Let's go."

"Right…" Aleksander sighed helplessly as he moved to follow, casting one last glance back at the aliens as they departed. He could not lie, seeing them sitting in the light of the heating coil made him uneasy as he wondered what exactly lay ahead. They were stranded on an alien planet not of Covenant origin, knowing less than he did about the enigmatic and homicidal aliens he was used to. And they were under observation with no idea what sort of intent they had in store for him.

He was in the dark on a lot of things, and he hadn't had enough time to process even a third of it all. Hopefully, the spartan had been able to gather some kind of intel.

He did know one thing, however.

It was sure to be one hell of a night.

XX-XX-XX

As Randorn departed with the other human, Krystal watched, taking in the subtle tones of color about his person, again the deep and bold hues of discipline and annoyance were juxtaposed by his smaller companion who displayed vibrant reds and yellows, pulsing shades of frustration and anxiety in equal measure.

She wondered once more what it was that set them so at odds. She'd never seen two people so polarizing. Not for the first time she wished things had been different, that they'd discovered this new race properly. She imagined, with some morbid humor, that they likely shared her sentiments.

Yet, regardless of the informal and hurried nature of their contact she had been able to learn much from this first meeting. Randorn had, as a show of surprise on her part given his standoffish demeanor, saw fit to broach the communicable divide with an attempt at their language. It had been a strange revelation on her behalf. His appearance was deceptive. Who would have known that under the armor plates and fierce martial discipline was the mind of a scholar? She had learned he possessed more than shrewd cunning, Krystal had found him to be highly intelligent and able to quickly disseminate information. More so than that, after only a few hours he had been able to craft their remedial hand sign communication into a learning tool, grasping concepts and objects at rapid pace and converting it verbally.

Furthermore, he was a passing fair instructor and had taught her in turn a handful of words in his language, namely, their race and some minor edicate, words of greeting and such.

"Human…" She spoke softly, letting the enunciation roll of her tongue as she followed their departure with curious eyes. A peculiar word for its unfamiliarity. These humans were a subject of great interest. Expected, perhaps, given the nature of their arrival and the mere fact of their existence, but of interest nonetheless.

Chiefly, her fascination was of Randorn, partly as the focal point of their contact, and yet for greater reason, his character. He was something of a captivation for her. She recalled his response to the information he requested. It was the first time she'd seen a crack in his composure, and it appeared to have nearly killed him. It was the first time she sensed a new emotion from him a bitter and familiar emotion.

Despair.

It carved a channel of devastation through his discipline and breached a previously indissoluble stoicism. It had even been potent enough to drop him to his knees and she had rushed to him with the full expectation that he was suffering a lapse in composure and possibly was entering cardiac arrest. She had not fully realized what had occurred until sometime after, the reality overshadowed by her concern on his behalf. It had been strange to see the giant who had been so implacable suddenly so vulnerable, and had offered insight into the nature of Randorn.

His demeanor was a carefully affectated construct, she had come to realize in that moment of recognition. She had learned this viscerally as his emotions ravaged his mind like an uncontrolled wildfire. There was, to her astonishment, a fathomless wellspring of burning passion he kept ruthlessly suppressed at all times. He had made a prison of himself and buried his personality under a barrier of military doctrine. She knew not what the final blow was, but it must have taken something truly extreme to punch through so much dogma.

And she had found what lay under.

Pain. More than she thought to be imaginable.

His entire life seemed to revolve around pain, shadowed only by a simmering rage and crippling despair. Even secondhand the emotions were crushing and she had been brought to her knees under the weight of it. She wondered what it was that could make a being suffer as much as he had, that could interweave the very notion of suffering into one's existence. The look in his eyes when she had gazed into them…

It plucked at a previously unknown chord inside her.

She had done the only thing she could think of in that moment. She had held him, as he was buried under a mountain and told him it would be okay.

She had been there with him as he clawed out of that abyss. Something had changed in him in that moment, as he regathered his composure and she felt no ill will when he tore himself away from her care. She knew now a piece of the puzzle, had gained insight into what had made him. Randorn had become despondent, introspective, after recovering, though he showed no outward difference in demeanor there was a change in his emotions. Within his high walls of martial doctrine and hardened discipline now existed a crack, a thin, infinitesimal chip in an otherwise monumental edifice. There was a part of him that was… free.

And she found that so very interesting.

Time blended together soon afterwards, what could pass as normality resumed. Though it was worthy of notice that he had become somewhat cooperative, his efforts to learn their language an unexpected boon, and a rather exciting one.

She had not even noticed the passage of time until darkness had set in and Miyu brought up a heating unit to offer some light and to chase away the chill in the air, so embroiled had she been in their educational exchange. She thought back on his voice, a deep baritone, harsh but not unpleasant. She found allure in just watching and listening, at the strange way his flat mouth formed words and the steady rumble of his tone, dogged and consistent, almost machinelike. It was of note as well that he seemed unaccustomed to talking. His speech pattern was stiff, and curt, nearly as rough as his voice. A comfortable match with his sentence structure which was short and direct. It gave credence to what she known understood of him.

Admittedly little of strategic importance had been learned, she still was clueless as to the cause of their arrival, or the nature of the second ship that now only existed as a crater of molten dirt. But there was cause for delicacy, and considering the standoffish nature exhibited by Randorn and the rawness of his nerves she was merely glad he tolerated their existence and was thankful that he had been so amenable, not that his abrasive tone or stunted speech offered much pleasantness in the first place.

"So… that was interesting." The suddenness of Miyu sounding off was nearly surprising, if not for the fact it had been more surprising that the feline had been able to remain so quiet for what was likely several hours. Krystal had of course seen her prowling nearby, picking at the wreckage or slamming away at her wrist computer, likely updates for a very nervous Fox McCloud. But it seemed she had been right to suspect that Miyu could be cooperative when the chips were down.

Krystal nodded agreeably as she looked to her friend with a smile.

"Indeed. I feel that today was an important first step toward the future." A thought occurred to her and she felt a light giggle bubble into existence. "Of course, there was no saying in which way it was heading. But I feel… optimistic." She decided, noting that Miyu was slow to share in her good mood.

"I'm almost jealous of your confidence." Miyu admitted, the feline approaching to shut off the heating coil and sling it over her shoulder. "Cause the big guy-"

"Randorn." Krystal prompted helpfully.

"Riiiight…" The lynx huffed languidly as she motioned for Krystal to follow her up to the spot lights of the nearby FOB. "Well, Randorn, did not seem much of a people person. Not that I could blame the big fucker." Miyu shuddered. "I cannot begin to even imagine how much pain he is in right now. I mean I'm pretty sure that a couple hours ago I was holding his throat closed with a compression bandage. Although with that steel wall he calls a face you'd be hard pressed to believe that. Wherever these guys came from they sure can take a beating."

Krystal had not given much thought to his injuries, she realized, having become unexpectedly absorbed in their impromptu language course. But thinking back she realized he'd not shown any physical discomfort once, even at his worst, despite that he was covered in gauze and packed with that strange foam from the smaller of his kind. A creature that was infinitely less complicated.

And as they arrived at the checkpoint to the small FOB she found herself with a newfound admiration for Randorn, underneath the concern at his wounds and some guilt at having seemingly forgotten exactly what state she had approach him in initially. He was strong willed, and he seemed above all to be adaptable.

It gave her something to think about as the pair of sentries ushered them in with little fanfare, though the sight of a familiar orange vulpine leaning on a nearby barrier was just about the welcoming she expected. Miyu, sensing the change in the wind, was quick to make herself scare, but not before shooting her a smirk that admittedly lit a warmth in the vixen's chest.

"You know…" Fox began, stepping off the barricade wearing a particularly wry grin that was only somewhat cutting. "I should probably be pretty mad right now."

Krystal did not need her sensory ability to tell that despite his laidback air, there was a kernel of genuine frustration. She held no fault upon him for that.

"Yes, you would be right to." She admitted, her expression on slightly sheepish. If he decided on punishing her actions she would accept with grace. That did not mean she was looking forward to an imminent dressing down. There were few people who could make her feel small. Fox was one of two. The other had already left her hanging to dry. She blamed Miyu not either, rather she was thankful as always for her stalwart support when it mattered.

Fox scoffed at her reply, though it was bereft of heat. "I know you felt it was the right thing to do, and you may even be right, as you often are. But I am the leader of Star Fox for a reason. That usually means that my people come to me before they go off on hairbrained schemes that could potentially alter the political and social climate for the entire known universe."

She winced. "I… yes, you are again, correct." She crushed the instinctive desire to become defensive, buried it under her learnings from her monastic days. A dressing down was a small price to pay for disregarding his position and taking such a risk.

Fox, seeing her so chastened, sighed ruefully and his posture shifted to something less aggressive. He seemed, more than anything else, to be exasperated. "You know, I shouldn't be feeling like an asshole for disciplining one of my team. Seriously, stop making that face, you're killing me. It's like yelling at a pup."

She turned her head up to meet his gaze, and noticed now the hint of mirth under his eyes.

Krystal found herself smiling.

"Well." He chuffed, shaking his head contritely. "With that sad excuse for a dressing down over, we can get to the fun stuff. Come on." He gestured for her to follow and she did as he led her through the small camp. It wasn't much, but impressive regardless. The Federation military was a multi-faceted beast, with an equal assortment of issues. But preparation was not one of them. The camp was ringed with security, encircled by a fence and protected by sensors, sentries, spotlights, and overlapping firing arcs. There were prefab structures, a barracks, a latrine, a command center, and a mess. It was impressive what even a single company could do on the field and only showed what lengths the Federation would go to protect its citizens from crises. However, had they tried any sort of proactive efforts she would not currently be a wandering mercenary from a dead world. It was difficult not to feel bitter.

Andross had been an important political official in the Federation, it had been their lack of oversight that allowed him to accrue power behind the curtain, that led to him testing his weapons on her home, that left her the last of her people.

Bitter was not a word she might have described her feelings. Things might have been different, had Fox not found her on Sauria. He had singlehandedly given her faith, showed her that there was kindness, decency, and goodness in the Federation. He had turned her away from a path she had unknowingly been considering and she would love him for that, if not in the way he had initially hoped. But that was the past, what she might have done in her blindness and anger was something she tried not to think about so much, even though it visited her thoughts late at night and often during her meditations.

She realized then what it was about Randorn that she found so interesting. The constant, oppressive emotions he felt were the same as her own in the days immediately after her world had burned to cinders.

"Hey…" She felt a reassuring pressure on her shoulder. And found herself under the searching gaze of a concerned friend. "You okay, Krys?" Krystal felt the world return to her senses and realized they had arrived at the barracks and were inside the building. They were in a squad room that had been set aside for their team, and everyone was there and they all had eyes on her. And among them was Miyu, her amber gaze felt the warmest of all. The concern from her friends, the warmth of their bond, it was a soothing balm to wounds she had unwittingly reopened. With it she was able to bury the past where it should be.

"Yes." She answered with a small smile. "I was just thinking."

Fox's expression was complicated, and it was clear he was more aware of her inner workings then even she had realized. And he once more proved why it was Fox McCloud she placed her faith, and her trust in.

"I can't say I blame you. It's certainly been one hell of a day." His words were deflective and casual, even as he leveraged a look she knew well. It's okay. We can talk later. It said to her.

"So… since the aliens didn't kill you, that must mean something happened." Falco threw his two cents into the pool. If she had not been a proficient empath she might not have known the reason he pushed for a topic so boldly. But she was, and the truth was near enough to make her like the bird.

Almost.

"Yeah!" Slippy jumped to it excitedly. "What happened? Did you learn anything? Like where they came from? Or how they got here? Or what they want? Are the here to ear our brai-ow!" The toad exclaimed, nursing the top of his head as Miyu leaned away from him, her fist still curled from the light blow.

"Easy Slip. Let the poor girl at least sit down before you give her the third degree." The feline admonished him not unkindly.

Slippy had the wherewithal to be embarrassed as he laughed awkwardly. "Right, sorry Krystal."

"It's okay, Slippy." She assured him as she found the nearest cot and set herself down, not realizing until she sat down on a bed how tired she really felt. "I can answer a few of your questions, but if you want anything more detailed, you'll have to ask Miyu later as she was taking notes for the duration of our contact."

Things progressed as expected soon after.

Both the toad and the as of yet quiet Fay turned their ravenous desire for knowledge towards the lynx with great expectance, Krystal felt a small grin tug at her lips as Miyu looked utterly betrayed.

The vixen of course had forgiven the feline for disappearing earlier to leave her to Fox's tender mercies. She was just stating the facts as they were, no matter how it was they coincided.

And that was the honest truth.

Mostly.

---

AN: Yo it's me, back with another heated chapter. This is where Six becomes somewhat cannon divergent from the previous iteration of this story. My goal is to humanize a spartan, through a long, rigorous, and painstaking process. So Six has a past now, he has memories, horrific suppressed nightmare memories, but memories nonetheless. Also Yay The Covenant is not quite gone! They will have a greater part to play in the narrative, as will the inclusion of my other tertiary characters. I am also going to give a heads up now. This story will still largely feature romance, a hopefully slower, more meaningful and well written romance, but still romance. If any of you guys aren't on board, that's cool I don't mind. It's not to everyone's taste. If you don't like it, please don't complain about it cause that's not changing. Instead I politely ask that you take your business elsewhere. The story ahs been like this through all... uh... four? versions, I think? So that should be hint enough.\

Also again, I am super tired and have work in like six hours and I've been up for like nineteen, five of which have been staring into a bright computer monitor so I'm going to get some sleep.

Reviews are my ambrosia and sick pleasure, so please don't forget to tip your writer, favs and follows are also great too.

Later

Drake

Oh shit, I forgot or whatever drakethetraveller at blogspot for the blog. fanfiction likes to eradicate any sign of URL's so you're gonna have to search it for yourself. IDK I'm tired.