A/N: Sorry about the wait, a mixture of various vacations and reading The Fall Of Reach made me realise how many big plot holes there were in my story. Well, I have drafted an edited version, and the story is now much better than before, I think so anyway. Next chapter will be another big space battle, and then hopeful some Master Chief Killing Stuff spree :D
The Rvarn'ii: Part 5The three of them departed the holographic simulator through the doors they entered by. Taking a sharp turn to the left, then a down a gently sloping corridor they marched silently on, the Chief keeping his pace faster than normal to make sure he didn't lose the two high ranking Elites in front of him. The two Rvarn'ii talked quietly but quickly to each other, seemingly forgetting their human guest for the moment. They were moving right into the bow of the ship now, the Chief seeing the roof develop into a gradual curve that mimicked the outer layer of the ship, the dark lilac beams that made up the main supporting skeleton of the vessel began appearing through the ceiling tiles. His eyes focused on these supports as he became aware of the differences apparent within their texture. Through their length he saw small, dark purple lines threading the semi opaque material that made up the bulk of the beam. His superior eyesight allowed him to discern some minute flow of liquid in the purple tendrils, which looked almost like the flow of blood through the veins in his own body. It had quite an unnerving effect as he walked past each support.
"What the hell is this ship made of?" He asked the two Rvarn'ii in front of him. Only the Captain turned his head to address the human as they walked on. He gave his answer in a sort of soft growl.
"The interior is made up of standard titanium-derivative compounds, tough enough to hold together despite a considerable battering. The outside hull, however, is a bio-metallic composite. That is, the actual material has organic qualities. The hull repairs itself extremely well, particularly in battle, and when the ships are built originally, the organic metal is actually grown over a light mineral mesh, almost like an animal's skin I suppose. The finished casing is incredibly strong, there being no metal joins over the entire surface means that there are no weak spots. Heat and energy absorption are superb, most plasma impacts can be handled without any noticeable effect. Indeed, our hull is more resistant to attack than our energy shields are. The veins you see pump mineral nutrients to various parts of the hull the need repairing, as well as various agents that may required to fend off an attack by a chemical based weapon. The network also has a primitive nerve structure running throughout the hull that we have attached to our internal sensors, allowing us excellent damage control and general maintenance data." The Rvarn'ii turned his head back as the three rounded another corner.
"Interesting," muttered the Chief, as he slowly took in the information. "You mean you do have shipyards in the Rvarn'ii?"
"Small, mobile ones, fast enough to be able to manoeuvre out of trouble should the Covenant find them. I'm afraid our limited numbers means that despite our technological advancement over them we still do not have the resources to maintain any fixed positions, except small outposts located in undiscovered or rarely visited systems. Most of our numbers reside within their ships. Which is why we have been desperate to contact you."
"Us?" Replied the Chief, staring at the back of Rniork's neck.
"Yes human, your kind." Growled Briyanku fiercely, as if he didn't think much of the human's comment, or indeed the human at all. The Captain spoke again.
"All will be explained after we have eaten. I should imagine you are sick of combat rations Master Chief."
"I guess. Although I'm not sure about your cuisine either."
"True, but, I am your host, so I guess protocol dictates you at least try it my human friend." The Gold Elite laughed heartily, "believe me human, it is better than the being the cuisine itself on a Covenant table."
"Hmmmm," was the Chief's only, quiet reply, as he once again looked around the corridor they were walking through. The side doors leading off to various places were much fewer and farther between now, instead, large, cylindrical circuitry columns stood on either side of the corridor, their neon glow and gentle hum adding to the alien atmosphere of the ship. Little electric sparks shot across the various; lattice-like bunches of matter that made up Rvarn'ii circuitry, giving the impression, to the Master Chief at least, of micro thunderstorms raging throughout the controls of the ship. He wondered just whether the ship itself was just another breed of overgrown Rvarn'ii, and if it was the best friend of anyone in particular. The pulsating red tendrils that were still visible through the bulkheads seemed only to reinforce this weird idea in his head.
He stopped just behind the two Elites as they grinded to a halt. They turned to a door on their right and Rniork pressed a single green panel at its side. The door slid into the wall without a sound and the two Rvarn'ii immediately entered the room beyond. The chief followed them quickly in what rapidly transpired to be a sort of senior officer's wardroom for the Rvarn'ii. The room had minimal lighting, a sort of pale yellow instead of the usual blue or purple prevalent in the rest of the ship. A single circular table, seemingly made of black marble or something close, rose out of the centre of the room, surrounded by three small but elegantly decorated stools placed at equal length around the table's circumference. Three elliptical silver dishes rested adjacent to the seats, sparkling under the light to give off an almost gold effect upon their highly polished surface. Across the far wall of the room ran a enclosed display of various items taken as mementos from the various conflicts the ship had been engaged in, including a rather eerie blood-stained helmet that had by its decoration once belonged to a Covenant Elite.
All three sat down at their assigned seat, sitting in silent meditation that Rniork said was an important part of Rvarn'ii eating etiquette. After several minutes a small door on the opposite wall from the Chief opened and revealed a grunt in white uniform carrying a large tray, which had upon it, three aqua-coloured spheres slightly indented on their base so they could sit comfortably on a flat surface. The grunt moved first to the captain, setting one of the cylinders down in front of him, then, he moved to the Chief, and then onto the Briyanku, who was still in meditation. The Chief noticed that the cylinder had a small hole in it; perhaps an inch in diameter, and inside this 'cup' was a thick, bright scarlet liquid.
"This is Draf, an extremely rare but widely appreciated drink. It is an acquired taste though human, I must warn you." Rniork took a large swig from his cup. The Chief held his in his hand and looked deeply into its content, wondering just what a Rvarn'ii acquired taste must be like. He raised the cup to his lips and took a small swig.
It wasn't as bad as it could have been, the Chief thought. It was surprisingly thick, almost the consistency of honey, although its actual taste was rather unusual. It was a sort of mild sweet, as if the taste was supposed to be there but wasn't quite. In fact it was rather bland, although quite filling in the Chief's mind. Better than Cryochamber Inhalant anyway.
After a minute the grunt reappeared with another tray, this time whatever it was smelled quite strongly, a well-cooked meat kind of smell, and the human was taken aback when dumped on his plate was a single, blue egg shaped vegetable covered in a strange scarlet sauce. The Chief winced. He saw no cutlery, and watched for a moment whilst the two Elites began to eat theirs. Both attacked it with their fingers, the sauce running off their gloved hands as their sharp claws dug huge chunks out of the food in front of them. Scratching off mouthful-sized chunks they proceeded to eat quite rapidly, the food simply being swallowed rather than chewed. Giant bulges in the Elites' necks showed the passage of the food as it quickly descended into their internal digestive systems. The Chief looked at his own vegetable sitting lopsided on the plate, and decided to try. He took the plant and began to split in his powerful fingers, watching the flesh of the vegetable contort and collapse under his grip. He took one of the few loose pieces and put in his mouth. He nearly coughed it back up. A thousand times hotter than the spiciest thing he had eaten before, only the Spartan's incredible pain control stopped him bringing the food back up. He grabbed the Draf and took a huge gulp and the fire went out immediately. It was replaced by another strange taste, almost like a sweet and sour dish, except with a more, well, tangy taste. The Chief swallowed and looked up at the two Elites, who had just finished and even the emotionless Briyanku looked fairly content. They stared at him as though waiting for him to do or say something. Rniork was the first to speak.
"Well, it appears the Orosk Seed was a dish too much for you human." The Chief felt slightly humiliated, perhaps for the first time since he was first bought to Reach all those years ago…
"It wasn't to my taste," he said. Rniork nodded.
"Our palettes, human, are a lot less sensitive than yours, and so to produce the same stimulation, we must eat food with a flavour many times stronger than any food normal humans can tolerate. Anyhow, we…" He trailed off again as he turned away for a moment, as if distracted by something else. He got up slightly, leaning forward on his powerful knees, cocking his head as if trying to hear something distant. He rose to his full height and walked over to the far wall. John began to hear something too, an extremely low hum, vibrating through the furniture, a micrometer of movement above that generated by the engines. He rose to his feet. Briyanku sat looking a bit unnerved, not quite having hearing sensitive enough to pick up the gentle vibration. Rniork placed a three-clawed hand on the wall, held it for a moment, and then withdrew as if stung by an electric current. He turned to the two others in the room.
"Covenant!" He growled in a hearty war cry. Briyanku literally jumped from his seat and turned to the door behind him. He ran out, yelling at the top of his lungs or whatever he had, followed by the determined forms of Rniork and the Master Chief. All three ran through the corridors at a frightening pace, sending many of the Rvarn'ii crew, including several big Elites, jumping hastily out of the way. The Captain pressed a button on his wrist.
"Rniork to the bridge", he growled into his hand.
"Bridge here!" Came the immediate response. Mristuwk sounded slightly worried.
"Are there any readings on any of the proximity or spectral scanners?" Rniork cried, jumping through a pair of bulkhead doors that hadn't quite opened in time. "Anything at all?"
"We're detecting a couple of minor anomalies on the rear spectral scopes. At least three, possibly four separate targets, although at this range it difficult to tell. I released a wake probe to see if I can get any more data on the objects. I was just about to bring the "Proven Consequence" to Alert stations, Captain."
"Bring her up to Battle stations Mristuwk!"
"Yes Captain. We will begin receiving the data back from the probe in 23 seconds."
"Okay, Rniork out." The Captain put his wrist down but did not slacken the pace, the corridor reverberating quite horrifically as three fast powerful strides powered along it. It took just three minutes to race the mile and a half back to the bridge. As they ran, a dark purple light began flashing along every corridor, along with a ship wide electronic message from Moruk to prepare for battle. They entered the bridge, as Mristuwk was finishing off analysing the first telemetry from the wake probe. The Blue Elite turned to three new arrivals, his face locked in an expression of determination.
"Captain," he said, his voice dripped with the closest an Elite got to anticipation, "we've picked up five Covenant vessels, four Vrako class frigates and a Gurloh class destroyer, all in attack formation, accelerating on our current course and heading. They will be within our firing arc without adjustment in 57 seconds." The Chief noticed Rniork smile at the sound of the destroyer. He spoke swiftly back to Mristuwk.
"I assume it's some of our friends from the Omega battle group?"
"Yes sir," replied the junior Elite, rechecking his console. "All the identification markers check out. It appears that they caught our trail when we disabled one of their ships whilst picking up the human."
"Very good, I was hoping they would follow us from there. This way it appears they found us by fortune. How's the battle damage from our previous encounter with the bulk of Omega?" Rniork stared up at the viewscreen, straining his eyes to see the rapidly approaching Covenant ships as they appeared in the distance.
"The internal damage to our secondary power grid has been patched up well enough to last us till our next sojourn at the space dock. Our regrowers have managed to repair roughly eighty percent of the damage to our external bio-armour; I think the report is on your desk sir. Those point blank hits did some considerable damage despite the relatively weak energy of their beam weapons." Rniork stood in thought for a moment.
"Accelerate us slightly, keep us equal to their speed. I'll need to brief Briyanku and the human on something." He turned to face his two dinner companions as they looked attentively at him. He looked at them both for a moment, as if trying to decide between the two, and then plumped for the Chief. The tall Gold Elite looked down directly at the human in front of him, and spoke quite rapidly. "We tracked your fighter roughly twenty two hours after you left the Halo artefact. Before detecting your long-range distress signal we were tasked with bringing about the destruction of the primary ship construction facilities of the Omega battle group, a large force of about five hundred various Covenant vessels. Although rescuing you wasn't in our primary mission objectives, a standard order dictating that finding you is the paramount objective of an Rvarn'ii vessel overrides anything else, and so we came as soon as we could. When we spotted two Covenant vessels pursuing you however, we decided to wait until they actually slowed down to engage you before making our own attack upon them and recovering you. Both those vessels were part of Omega, and so we knew that at least several vessels would track us if we kept within a certain speed and distance of the original combat point. Our last encounter cost us a bit in exterior damage, although they lost seven frigates, four destroyers and a carrier in the process." He paused momentarily, making sure the Chief had taken it all in.
"I am surprised that they sent such a small force after us, particularly after our last encounter. But the last time they attacked en mass cost them a third of their detachment. So I assume they're going to gamble with a smaller force in the hope our weapons can't track them as well if they have more manoeuvring room. Fools, and it gives us an opportunity we didn't have the last couple of times. You see, destroyers are command level ships, and so in their databases they have complete listings and specifications of all ships and bases within their unit hierarchy, including fleet level information. I am hoping that we can disable this destroyer and retrieve all the necessary information out of its computer core. Which is where, my human friend come in. Your inbuilt A.I will be restored to you, and your good self and a team of Rvarn'ii Elite Commandos will board the destroyer and acquire the necessary data using you're A.I's core invasive programming. It's slightly risky, but judging by the Covenant's combat reports you seem to do pretty well against uneven odds. This is not an order, I do not possess the authority to give your orders, it is a request, Master Chief, but I should warn you that Omega's next destination is the Sol star system."