Greetings to all of my loyal readers. This is a Halo fic dedicated to two of my favorite characters. It also involves a theory I have. This starts shortly after Zamamee's battle with the Chief.
Disclaimer: I do not own Halo. Why do we even write these stupid things?
The Return of Zamamee and Yayap
Chapter1:Escape
Yayap had made it about a mile from the Pillar of Autumn when he started having second thoughts. 'Don't look back. You're free. You don't have to obey them anymore.' Yayap had been saying this to himself repeatedly for a while. No matter what he did, his mind kept drifting back to his commanding officer, the Elite known as Zuka 'Zamamee. He had always held a deep resentment for the Elites because they had more or less treated his species as garbage. However, while traveling with Zamamee, he'd developed a level of respect for him. He had almost started to think of him as an uncle. He and this Elite had been assigned to tracking and killing a human in special armor. In fact, the last time he had heard Zamamee's voice, he was on his way to ambush the human. Yayap suddenly had a vision of Zamamee, horribly wounded as the human looked down at him. The human readied his weapon, leveled it with Zamamee's head, and… Yayap sharply jerked his ghost around and sped toward the Autumn. 'I must be out of my mind!'
Zamamee awoke to blinding pain. He struggled to remember what had happened. Suddenly it all came flying back to him. He remembered his plan to fight the human with a shade. He remembered hosing the human's position with white-hot plasma fire. He remembered the elevator suddenly dropping. Then finally he remembered seeing two small blue balls of energy, followed by a massive blast of plasma. 'Plasma grenades.' After that, nothing. He wondered how he was still alive, and then noticed the wrecked shade. He saw that it had suffered a great deal of damage but the cockpit was still relatively intact. 'It must have shielded me.' He silently wondered if fate had arranged that as an act of mercy or as a curse. Had it not been for the shade, he would have died instantly, now he would die slowly, miserably. He rested his head and let his mind wander. As all beings do in their final moments, Zamamee looked back on his life. He had fought for many years in the Covenant, just as his father and grandfather before him. He was quickly elevated through the ranks, finally achieving the rank of Spec Ops Trooper. It suited him just fine because the Spec Ops were only sent on the most dangerous missions and he was the type of crazy who went for that sort of thing. He looked to his left and saw one of the Grunts who had assisted him in getting the shade onto the lift. It had taken the full force of the grenade. He doughted that it had even felt anything. He suddenly felt a pang of regret. He, like most of his people, had treated the Grunts as little more than slaves. Thinking of the Grunts quickly brought his mind to one in particular. His assistant, Yayap. He chuckled slightly at the memory. Yayap was unusual, even by Grunt standards. He remembered the reports in the med-bay about a group of Grunts insisting that he be taken from the human ship for medical treatment despite the fact that his injuries were fairly minor. Zamamee wasn't a fool. He knew Yayap and his squad had done that so they could get out of fighting. He originally had recruited Yayap as a punishment for his cowardice. But as time went by, he sort of began to think of him as the annoying little brother he never had. He remembered the maneuver at the human base. He had sent Yayap as a spy. The operation ended with Yayap holding him at gunpoint. At the time he had been murderous over the incident but looking back, he realized how much courage it must have taken the diminutive creature to stand up to him. And who could really blame him? Yayap had probably been taught from birth to hate the Elites. Add that to the Grunt's own experiences and Zamamee was surprised Yayap had let him live. He smiled at his recollections of the Grunt and wondered where he was. He then frowned when he remembered how much grief the Grunt must have suffered because of him. 'I deserve to die.' He closed his eyes and waited for death to take him when he suddenly heard a squishing sort of noise. His eyes shot open. He knew that sound. 'Oh Forerunners no. By the rings please no!' He looked up and sure enough, an Infection Form was slithering toward him. For the first time in his life, Zamamee felt true terror. He could barely move. He was helpless to fight off the squid like creature that was slithering toward him. He could give only let out a scream of terror as the creature landed on him. The Flood Form latched onto his neck and drove its penetrater into his spinal column. What Zamamee felt was pain beyond pain. He struggled and screamed as the creature did its foul work. Finally, he could feel unconsciousness start to take him. Zamamee lapsed into darkness. Truly believing and fearing that by the time he next awoke, he would be little more than a walking corpse. Little did he know, fate had other plans.
Yayap stormed through the engineering section of the Autumn, dodging flood, sentinels, and debris. If memory served, Zamamee said he would ambush the human at a nearby lift. He headed there as quickly as he could and came across a particularly gruesome site. There was evidence of a massive explosion. He quickly recognized the work of a plasma grenade. He saw a wrecked shade, two dead Grunts, and… "ZAMAMEE!" He quickly checked Zamamee's condition. His injuries were considerable. He was covered in burns. Parts of his armor had been welded onto his skin and two of his mandibles had been blown off. However, he was relieved when he realized he was still breathing. 'At least he's still alive.' Suddenly something dropped from the top of the shaft and landed on Yayap's shoulder causing him to nearly jump out of his skin. He threw it off and then, shakily, went to investigate it. As he'd suspected, it was an Infection Form. What surprised him was that it wasn't moving. He moved forward and gently nudged it with his weapon before jumping back. It didn't move. No dought about it. It was dead. However, this didn't make sense. Normally when these things died, they popped. This one looked more like it just shriveled up. Yayap shook it off and went about helping Zamamee. He remembered that a launch pad was located in the ships dorsal structure. "Don't worry buddy. We're getting out of here."
Yayap had used the lift to reach the upper area and then went about trying to use one of the human vehicles he found there. He had just picked a good one when he heard a garbled message come from its radio. "We have a (buzz) cat destabilization of the (buzz) fusion core (buzz) five minutes before (buzz) detonate." Yayap had heard enough. They had to move now! He finally got the vehicle working and drove them toward the far end of the ship. Along the way, he saw a massive battle taking place. Flood, Sentinels, and Covenant were tearing into each other all around them. Yayap, realizing how many Covenant were still on the ship, opened his com link to a fleet wide setting. "Attention all Covenant forces! The human ship is about to explode! Get as far away as possible!" He waited a moment and a voice he recognized as a Jackal's came over the line. "Who is this!" "This is Grunt Major Yayap. Please listen to me! I intercepted a human transmission saying that the ship will self-destruct!" He waited a moment but no further transmissions were made. "Damn it!" He floored it toward an access junction when the floor exploded sending the warthog flying into a hallway full of dead flood. Yayap quickly reagained his senses and examined the grisly scenery. "What a rush." He looked up and nearly soiled himself. The armored human was in the hall walking toward them. 'What do I do? WHAT DO I DO!' Just then Yayap thought of something. One concept shared by virtually every sentient being in the galaxy was that madness was to be avoided. If the human thought he was crazy he might leave him alone. The human was getting closer. He'd have to say something spontaneous to get out of this mess. The human was raising its weapon. Yayap said the first thing that popped into his head. "GOOD THING THAT FOOD NIPPLE'S WAITING FOR ME AT THE STARSHIP CAUSE MAN! HAVE I WORKED UP A BIG-GRUNTY-THIRST!" The human tilted its head slightly. Yayap couldn't see his face but he was pretty sure it held a look that said "WHAT THE HELL!". The human backed away slowly and headed out of the hall. 'I can't believe that worked.' Yayap headed back to the warthog and floored it to the pad. He arrived and was pleased to see a pair of banshees over head. "HEY!" One of the craft landed and the pilot looked at Yayap with annoyance. "What is it?" "We have to get out of here! The ship's about to blow!" "WHAT!" He signaled his partner and the two quickly radioed a drop ship to pick them up. The ship appeared a few minutes later and they all abandoned the ship with just minutes to spare. Yayap looked out the cockpit shield and watched the human ship explode. He was surprised to see what happened next. The explosion tore a chunk out of the ring, which slammed into another region. The ring slowly tore itself apart. Yayap suppressed a sob at the loss of one of the sacred rings and looked at Zamamee. 'I hope this works out okay, buddy.'
And there you go. I hope you like it. If not, it does get better, I promise. Please R+R.