III

Naomi recalled her first encounter with the Covenant. An eternity ago it felt like, but it remained fresh in her mind. Always did. You tended to remember most things: the dramatic, the terrifying, the pleasant, the absolute best and the absolute worse. She'd experienced them all, like the five stages of grief. But it was never in order, never unyielding but always consistent.

The encounter, like most, was unfavorable. Jackals was the first species she saw, or the Kig-Yar if one felt obliged to refer to them properly. She never did, as their human-given designation fit them quite well. What better target practice for the savages than to fire upon fleeing humans before their world was ultimately glassed? Mercy killings they certainly weren't, so why exercise restraint when the shoe was on the other foot?

She didn't wait for the first Grunt to hit the floor before she practically lunged into the hall with Jacen behind her. She swept left and she swept fire, pulsing the trigger to her rifle at any movement she could pick up. The cowardly aliens jumped in surprise, turning their backs to run with their arms flailing above their miniscule heads. You never shot someone in the back, not without reason. It was better to face them, to have the decency to look them in the eye before you take their life. Naomi would not use that reasoning; she wouldn't dare, not with any alien.

Swiftly, brutally, and unapologetic, Naomi emptied her magazine into the fleeing backs of a trio of Grunts. Their stout bodies crumbled and dropped to the floor in awkward contortions. Blood streaked out from the bodies, painting the floor around them in spatters. She snatched a full magazine from her chest rig and slammed it home. More Grunts were coming; she could hear them shuffling closer. If they were armed, and pissed, it would be an onslaught they wouldn't survive.

Jacen came out into the hall, eyes immediately marking the dead Grunts. He looked down the opposite end of the hall, his fingers furiously pecking against his thigh. They were in it now; there was no backing out now. Peace wasn't an option now. Maybe it never was. Had to roll with it.

He went up to Naomi, firmly grabbing her shoulder. "We need to leave… now!" He went to where the bodies were, policing the unused plasma pistols they'd dropped. "Gather all the weapons you can. We'll go back the way we came, make a run for the Hog."

Naomi unslung her pack, unzipped it, and threw four of the alien pistols inside before rising quickly at the collected steps of the approaching enemy. She didn't know how many there were of them, but she didn't want to find out.

"I'm right behind you," she said.

Jacen didn't wait to know if that statement was true or not. He pushed forward back toward the vehicle depot, not quite running, but fast enough to get the hell out without any surprises. His mood was volcanic, teetering on the verge of eruption. A simplerecon op. That's all it was supposed to be. Watch the enemy, study the enemy, learned what you can, and then leave. Going inside was a mistake; he'd own up to that, but to go as sideways as it did was unacceptable. He had to calm down. It was okay to have a measure of anger during a fight. It helped fuel you, keep you alive even. But blind rage… blind rage got you killed. Blind rage sent you into the battle unawares and only youto blame if you're killed or responsible for the deaths of others. Jacen had Naomi to thinking about and Naomi had him to think about. They'd get out of this together, as they'd always had.

He turned the next corner, rifle first, and aimed down the ghostly vacant corridor. The vehicle depot was close now, maybe another fifty yards, but they would never get there. A cluster of Grunts, 30 or so, marched from around the corner, all noisy and smothered in their mildew stench. They must've heard the gunshots.

Jacen stopped so abruptly that he nearly pitched forward to fall. "Back up, back up!"

Naomi aimed down her sights but didn't fire. She backpedaled with Jacen, locking eyes with the first few Grunts that were out front. They were armed, from what she could see. If she nor Jacen fired, maybe they'd restrain themselves, too. Dumb thought. The Grunts opened up on them.

Dozens of plasma bolts swarmed the narrow hall like angry bees, buzzing and primed to sting. Metal boiled and sizzled around them, nearly hitting them. Jacen and Naomi managed to draw back into next hall, firing aimlessly as they did so. A smoldering blue orb was flung into the mouth of the hall's fork, mere feet from the human combatants. Jacen's eyes went wide as saucers. He grabbed Naomi by the back of her collar, pulled her behind him, and flung open the nearest door to shield them. The grenade detonated.

A wave of intense heat washed over them as the blast took the door off its hinges and blew the two of them back on the floor. Shards of glass pelted their helmets. Naomi made a guttural groan when Jacen's body landed atop hers, his elbow falling mercilessly into her abdomen. She felt squished, flattened underneath Jacen and the scorched metal door that was leaning off of them.

Jacen hit the door with his left forearm, having to bring over his right arm to successfully push it off of him. He felt Naomi squirming under him with muffled obscenities that he could assume were directed at either him or the hell storm they were suddenly in. Whichever one, he slid off of her and immediately went for his rifle. He shot the first Grunt that wandered around corner. The round ripped through its mask, taking off half of its jaw and sent it spinning to the floor. He unclipped a frag grenade from his belt, one of his only two, primed it, and threw it against the back wall. It bounced off the wall, landing somewhere out of sight. He heard the Grunts yelp before it exploded. Severed limbs and fountains of blood went flying across his eyes. He didn't know how many he'd killed, but it didn't matter. They needed to buy time.

Naomi was on one knee behind him, holding her left arm close to her body with a fist. A shooting pain crawled up into her elbow and flowed through her forearm and bicep. She guessed she must've fallen on it awkwardly when the grenade went off. The discomfort would have to be pushed back, however. Grunts were approaching at the opposite end of the hall. With the exception of the few offices and storage rooms in the hall, there was nowhere else to go if they got boxed in. The Grunts wouldn't need to aim to hit them; they would simply need to all fire relentlessly. She grimaced through the pain, slowly standing with ringing ears an aching jaw from her teeth clattering. She kept telling herself that she wasn't dead, that it wasn't over. Keeping fighting, keep surviving.

Jacen felt something brush up against him. He didn't turn around, but simply shouted over the gunfire that was his own. "We need an escape route, ASAP!"

"Like I don't know that." Naomi fought through the disorientation, wanting the urge to spit the blood out from her mouth. She swallowed it down, her body nearly bringing it back up. The halls up ahead contained the personnel quarters that was overflowing with the curious, while the hall behind them was buzzing with the pissed. Either way, they would have to fight their way out. Playing it by the numbers was best, and there were more of them headed her way than the ones in front of Jacen. It'd be close, but running was better than nothing.

She took a few steps back until she was shoulder to shoulder with Jacen. A few Grunts came into the hall from her end. She fired a few warning shots, discouraging their progress. "Gimmie numbers. How many on your end?"

Jacen reloaded his rifle with a huff of irritation. He blindly fired around the corner before stealing a quick look. "Maybe ten or twelve."

"Are we clear left?" Naomi asked next.

"Ja, it's clear."

Naomi reloaded her rifle. She frowned menacingly; it was her second to the last clip. That wasn't going to be enough to last her through this, and she couldn't leave the gun behind. They couldn't be replaced as easily as they were before. She clipped the rifle back on her vest with its tether and let it hang, opting for her sidearm.

"I'll give you some cover fire. Find us an exit."

"All right." Jacen ceased fire to reload, down to his last clip himself. Fourteen shots, plus one in the chamber. It was shaping up to be one of those days. He dared not the jinx the ordeal by thinking it couldn't get any worse. Any situation could always regress.

"Go, go, GO!" Naomi screamed, letting go a volley of burst shots.

Jacen shot off his back foot, rounding the corner and spearheaded down the empty left hall. There were no doors on either side, just faded arrows and words that were no longer legible. Kept running. The hall ended with shut double doors. Jacen lowered his shoulder and went through them, falling forward. He was instantly hit with a blistering chill, the gel layer in his undersuit failing to regulate his temperature from the colliding mixture of sticky hot humidity and a sudden, winter-like chill.

At first glance, he caught of sight of machines, generators, humming noisily despite the gunfire from Naomi. He didn't see any Grunts, for now. It appeared empty. He shot up to his feet, firing a trio of shots toward a Grunt in Naomi's blindside.

"Got an exit. Get moving!"

Naomi chucked the empty clip from her sidearm at one of the fleeing midgets and ran for the open door ahead of her. It only took her a few seconds to reach the door and grab Jacen's outstretched hand, but it felt like an eternity in her mind. Every stride was met with plasma being shot at her: over her shoulders, around her feet, sizzling past her head. All near-misses. The second Jacen latched onto her hand, she was pulled in and shoved into the room as he quickly shut the doors.

"Barricade the door!" Jacen said, turning every which of way in search of anything of use.

Naomi pushed herself off the back wall, struggling to catch her breath. She holstered her pistol, unable to see anything that could barricade the door. The only thing in the room were a trio of 3 foot tall generators lined up against the wall, a few desks that were bolted to the floor that Jacen was struggling to uproot from the concrete, something in the far corner that looked like an oversized hot water heater and—

—Naomi didn't move, entranced. She didn't know what she was seeing, not exactly. It appeared suddenly, silently, and without notice. Her voice was caught in throat. She wanted to shout, to scream at Jacen, but nothing came out. Would it attack?

"Jacen…" she managed to utter, though she doubted he heard her. He continued to wrestle with the desk, eventually kicking in the thin legs and collapsing one side. She raised her voice, but only slightly. "Jacen."

"We gotta get that door blocked!" persisted Jacen. He moved to the other side and began to the other legs.

"JACEN!" Naomi barked.

That got Jacen's attention. He retired from her onslaught against the desk, facing Naomi with a heaving chest and hunched shoulders. "What?"

Naomi timidly pointed behind him.

The anxiety in Jacen's chest tightened. Hands that were once balled into his blood-choking fists were loose and open, wet from the sweat within the gloves. He didn't want to turn around, expecting to feel the heat from a kamikaze Grunt standing behind him with its beady eyes brimming with satisfaction. But there was no heat and there was no Grunt. There was only the steady chill in the air. Naomi's hands-by-her-side stance was enough for him to build up enough courage to look, for he knewher gun would've been up if it was anything else. So he turned around.

Jacen didn't exactly know what he was looking at. It seemed like something out of a child's imagination, something unreal and mythical but somewhat terrifying. He could only describe the creature as a floating eel protruding from a jagged cocoon like a hermit crab. Its long, bluish-purple neck ended in a small head with six black eyes, while four tentacles hung below an open cavity in its body. The entire creature looked disgusting, slimy and obviously unworldly. But its appearance wasn't what worried Jacen; it was its reaction. He couldn't count on his hand how many times the Covenant flagrantly ignored him, because it never happened.

The alien was completely oblivious to the humans standing in front of it. And from what they could notice, it didn't care about the obvious firefight that was happening. Casually, it floated between the generators that were infused with Covenant tech, which more than explained how the Grunts were thriving. It was ingenious, really. Years, decades, had passed before humanity was able to either adapt or reverse-engineer Covenant technology to suit their needs. This thing had done it overwhelming ease. It tinkered and tested the generators, making small adjustments before moving over to the oversized water heater.

It was then the odd alien snaked its head around and looked at them. Jacen took a step back, holding an iron grip on his rifle. Naomi had shifted to the right, using the generator closest to her for cover as she took out her pistol. The creature didn't appear to have any weapons, but that didn't meant it was any less dangerous. If it made a move, Naomi wouldn't hesitate. But nothing happened. The alien turned its back to them and began syphoning off measures of liquid methane that was stored in a container. Liter by liter, the alien pumped the methane into the metal cylinder, while opening and closing a vent that sat atop the coned-shaped head of the cylinder.

Jacen dared to venture closer, stealing a look over his shoulder to make sure the Grunts hadn't come through.

Naomi came out from behind the generator. "What are you doing?"

"I think this thing is responsible for creating the atmosphere in here." Jacen was within ten yards of the alien. It regarded him with another sidelong look and continued working. "It's repurposed our oxygenator to convert the methane into gas. Check your atmospheric readings."

Naomi grumbled. They didn't have time for this. The Grunts would be pushing through at any moment, but she went ahead and checked her suit's readings. The concentration of methane in the air was exceedingly higher in the room than it was in the other parts of the facility, juggling between 88 and 89%. "Yeah, the air is saturated in it. I guess that explains why the Grunts have survived this long. But as fascinating as this is, we need to quit this place and get back to the Hog, yeah?"

Jacen was now standing directly beside the alien. There was no aggression, nor an attempt to move him out of the way. The alien simply worked around him, not missing a beat in its fluid motions. "Yeah. There's another exit over here. We'll see if we can loop back around to the depot, or find another way out altogether."

"I say we go for the latter." Naomi jogged up to where he was, checking out the exit door for herself. It opened up and she went through, scanning both ways. "It's clear… for now. Now's our best chance, Jacen."

"Do you think we should kill it?" Jacen thought out loud. "Grunts probably won't survive long without its help."

Naomi thought about it, but would it really change anything. The alien already created a breathable atmosphere for the Grunts using the dated oxygenator, which she thought was impossible. They could destroy it, preventing the alien from using it again. The atmosphere would slowly decay as Titan's natural atmosphere seeped inside. Over time, the Grunts would asphyxiate and die. Problem solved, she supposed.

"Do whatever you think is best," she told Jacen. "Grunts are gonna be—"

—An emerald flash occurred behind him as the doors to the room blew inward. The silver-armored Grunt scuttled in, holding a fuel rod cannon on its right shoulder. It cried out with horrid screech of a scream. A squad of lesser Grunts piled in behind it, all emitting the same battle cry.

"Run. RUN!" Naomi grabbed Jacen and shoved him out into the hall. She fired a few aimless shots and went out herself. Plasma struck the wall where she once was. The alien floated closer to the oxygenator as the Grunts scurried past it.

In the hall, Jacen and Naomi ran until they were clear of the generator room. Naomi was out in front as Jacen brought up the rear. He looked behind him, seeing nothing but another flash of green ejected from the fuel rod cannon. It impacted the side of the wall just south of them, sending a wave of concussive heat over them. Jacen maintained his footing, stumbling a bit. "Keep running!" He yelled. "They're right behind us."

Naomi hadn't the faintest clue where she was going. One wrong turn and they'd be moving deeper into the compound. The end of the hall was coming up fast with another fork. Left or right? Right or left? Christ, why didn't they have schematics to this place? She went left, suddenly catching sight of a Grunt that was coming around the very corner she was going. The two of them collided.

Naomi spun off the 4'6" alien and went to the floor, her lower half aching from slamming into the thing. The Grunt had fallen on its back, squirming like an overturned turtle. Jacen couldn't slow down fast enough before reaching the collision. He hurdled over Naomi, going shoulder-first into the back wall. He bounced off and hit the floor with a hard thud. His visor cracked and his teeth went deep into his lip. The taste of copper was prevalent in his mouth, feeling the warm blood slide down his chin.

"Kill the humans!"squawked a nearby Grunt.

One jumped on Jacen's body, linking its bulbous hands around his neck and began to squeeze. He felt its claws dig into the material, inching into his skin as he felt his airways being blocked. The little alien was stronger than he anticipated, and with most of its muscles in its bulging forearms, Jacen was surprised it hadn't broken his neck on initial contact. His windpipe was crumbling and his lungs were set aflame from the lack of oxygen. He tried to see where Naomi was, but all he could see was the Grunt baring its miniscule teeth with a menacing glare of fiery hatred in its eyes. It was a look Jacen was all-too familiar with: the rage, the despair, the pain, the vengeance—all rolled up into a single look that could fuel you to bring your enemy to destruction.

But the Grunt's face dropped, its eyes cold and its mouth slacked open. The pressure around his neck eased as a knife protruded from the soft muscle behind the Grunt's jaw. The knife was ripped out as fast as it was plunged in, spraying atrial blood across Jacen's shades.

Naomi grabbed the Grunt's needler from its waist and mule-kicked it from atop Jacen. She emptied the weapon into the faces and torsos of massing Grunts, watching the pink needles make contact and detonate in their flesh. Jacen went into a coughing spell below her, struggling to pull enough air into his body. Naomi tossed the needler away, hooked her arms underneath Jacen's armpits, and pulled his 215lb body from the middle of the hall. She positioned him against the wall, knelling down in front of his face.

"Hey…" She slapped the side of Jacen's face. "You good, you alive in there?"

Jacen finished his spasms of gut-wrenching coughing, downgrading to wheeze with a near incomprehensible voice. "They're cold…"

Naomi leaned closer to him. His voice was as if he'd swallowed glass. "They're what now?"

"They're bodies!" Jacen got up, staggering with his first few steps. He picked up a pair of plasma pistols, handed one to Naomi. "They're cold to the touch. They must've just come… from outside."

Naomi went to the edge of the wall and glanced around the corner. The Grunts, led by the psycho in silver armor, were closing the gap. She turned to face Jacen. "Then we know where to go. Ready, or do you wanna get choked out by a child-sized alien again?"

Jacen rummaged around in his gear like a smoker searching frantically for his lighter. "Hold on, I think I have something for you." He shot up his middle finger. "After you."