Veiled Executioner
"Chief! Chief, can you hear me?" the voice quarried urgently. The Chief's eyes opened; he was staring at the lifeboat ceiling. He sat up and leaned on one of the vacant seats next to him, attempting to regain his bearings.
"At last." she exclaimed. "Are you alright, can you move?"
"I'm fine, Cortana." he responded, slowly getting to his feet. His head ached; he must have banged it on a bulkhead during the crash. That would also explain why he had been knocked unconscious.
"The others," said Cortana sadly, "the impact; there's nothing we can do."
It appeared that the Chief was the only one to have survived. He wasn't even expecting to live, himself, especially after the airbrakes were torn off the pod when they had passed through the ring's atmosphere. 'Those genetic enhancements must be doing me more good than I thought'. He walked toward the front of the pod and checked the pilot to see if she was still alive; she was gone. He assumed that being at the point of impact would've provided her with a quick, painless death.
'It was the least she deserved.' he thought in mourning and hatred – mourning for all those who had already been, and who will be lost, and hatred for those who caused this turmoil: the Covenant.
He proceeded to check the others. There was one, another female, on whom he had found a pulse. Her sweet, pale face was bloodied and bruised from the landing.
"Hey," he said to her "wake up." He softly placed his large hand on her shoulder and gently shook her.
"I don't believe it." Cortana mused to herself, "She's alive." She stirred a bit and pressed her hand against her neck as she groaned quietly.
"What happened?" she asked the Chief, a bit disoriented.
"We crashed." he said bluntly. The marine sighed.
"Thanks for the update." she said sarcastically as she rose to her feet. She was a bit dizzy due to her injuries, and braced herself on the Chief. "I'm Private Foster by the way, sir." she said. She looked out the cockpit window and focused her sight, noticing that they were a mere three or four meters away from the edge of a cliff. Though she looked relieved that they landed when they did, the cliff was the least of her concerns as she remembered her fellow passengers.
"Are they alright?" she asked the Chief in a concerned tone.
"I'm not sure." the Chief said. He reached over to the others and felt for their pulses. He had been positive that absolutely nobody but himself could have survived such an impact, but with a small strand of hope still clinging, he checked each and every marine. To his surprise and relief, he found a pulse on one other marine - the same one whom he had earlier recovered on the Pillar of Autumn at the entrance of the lifeboat.
"He's alive." the Chief said.
"Marine, marine." said Foster.
"Are you alright?" the Chief asked him.
Like the pilot, the marine also pressed one hand against his neck, and the other against his head. He looked up at the Chief.
"Private Raymore, sir." he paused. "Did any of the others make it?" he asked, looking to see three of his lifeless comrades fastened to the wall and the other three strewn on the ground outside of the pod.
"No," the Chief stated dryly "we're the only ones." He looked to the two marines.
"We need to get out of here. The Covenant are going to be looking for us."
"Good idea, sir." Foster said.
Raymore was stunned; looking at his deceased comrades, he couldn't figure out why he was still there. The look on his face was of utter fear and hopelessness. 'It's not fair.' he thought 'This can't be happening.' The Chief once again put his hand on the marine's shoulder.
"I know how you feel." he said, as if he could hear Raymore's thoughts, "But you know what they say: 'Revenge is a dish best served cold.' Now let's get out of here, or it won't be served at all."
The two battered marines were forced to limp out as quickly as they could physically drive themselves, but not before retrieving weapons for themselves from the weapons locker aboard the lifeboat. As they made their way out, two Covenant banshee fighters whirred by, overhead; that was certainly not a good sign.
"They're scouting the area; they must know we're here." Cortana said.
The Covenant knew about the Chief; he was the last of his kind, as far as anyone knew - he was all that remained the Spartan II program. The other Spartans had been destroyed along with Reach, the UNSC's (United Nations Space Command) prime colony and naval base.
The Spartan II program was an attempt by the UNSC to defend against their new enemy who called themselves "The Covenant": an assembly of species who were engaged in a religious war against the "infidels", and were bent on destroying humanity.
Earth's new weapon was an effective fighting tool against Covenant forces, and if they were able to create enough of them, they could deploy them against the Covenant and the tide of the war could have eventually turned for the better.
But The Covenant launched a massive preemptive strike against Reach using hundreds of ships. Their immense fleet caused utter devastation - thousands of lives were lost and much of the UNSC's fleet was reduced to debris. The war seemed to be a lost cause, and that didn't seem to be changing much.
"I'm detecting multiple Covenant drop ships on approach." said Cortana "I recommend moving into those hills. If we're lucky, the Covenant will believe that everyone aboard this life boat died in the crash."
The Chief had to think fast. He knew that if they found him, then they'd find Cortana: the Pillar of Autumn's AI construct. And he knew that if they captured her, then they'd learn everything: force deployment, weapons research, Earth. He had to keep her safe from the enemy - that was his mission.
"I recommend moving into those hills." suggested Cortana "If we're lucky, the Covenant will believe that everyone aboard this lifeboat died in the crash." The Chief looked over to the left and pointed to several boulders that were on the other side of a nearby river.
"Behind those rocks," he said, "hurry!"
The two limped across the bridge that was between them and the opposite bank, while the Chief took up the rear. As they glanced below, they saw that the river led to a roaring waterfall which plummeted down, all the way to the foot of the massive cliff.
Soon after they took cover behind the rocks, they heard the sound of the Covenant drop ships engines as it approached their position. It swiftly droned by and stopped near the derelict lifeboat. The Chief glanced around the rock and saw the drop ship come into a low hover above the ground. He also observed two Covenant elites come out of the side openings of the drop ship. They were both taller than the Chief and were broad-shouldered; they each had four mandibles, all lined with razor sharp teeth.
After them followed six grunts, all short and stubby, wearing masks with tubes leading into methane tanks on their backs so that they could breathe. Then three Jackals jumped out, their dark scales glistening in the sunlight. All of them carried plasma weapons.
The Chief returned to the safety of the rocks and looked at the two other marines.
"Stay as quiet as you can, and don't move" he said to his nervous companions. "They might not notice us."
They were too breathless to speak, but they each gave the Chief a stare of acknowledgment as they brought their weapons to bear - the Lieutenant, her assault rifle, and Raymore, his sniper rifle. The Chief wanted to stay as covert as possible, so he chose Raymore to use his sniper and take out the Covenant soldiers, one by one.
"Work your way down, Private. Take the elites first."
"No problem, Chief." Raymore responded. He lifted the sniper scope to his eye; the Chief slid over to the side and peered around the right side of the large boulder. He got a perfect view of the group of Covenant, via the scope in his helmet's visor.
"Zoom in on the ultra." said the Chief.
Raymore peered through the lens and set it to full magnification; he had a perfect shot at the head of the elite clad in polished silver armor. He awaited the order from the Chief to fire.
The Chief was about to give that order when suddenly the unsuspecting Ultra was fiercely jerked into the air, two blood dripping blades penetrating all the way through his torso.
The ultra let out a loud growl of pain just before he went limp, still skewered on the two sharp, jagged edges. When the Chief looked past the elite, he could see no one behind it; however, he was picking up an extra blip on his motion tracker as the elite was thrown in the direction of the lifeboat.
The team of Covenant soldiers looked at to their fallen leader in shock. The grunts in the team began to panic; one of them began to go wild, and the others followed suit. The second elite of the major rank, the one dressed in smooth maroon armor, withdrew a second plasma rifle to accompany his first one. The Jackals activated their energy shields and ducked behind them to protect themselves.
As the three marines observed these proceedings, the maroon elite discharged several bolts of plasma from his two rifles in the direction of his deceased comrade. From what the Chief could tell, the elite had hit something but they still couldn't see it. The jackals all began to fire in the same direction, but they hit nothing; apparently, whatever was there wasn't there anymore.
Without a warning, a grunt collapsed to the ground in two pieces, its innards splaying onto the ground. The grunts began to scream wildly and the elite turned and fired again, this time hitting the unknown attacker several times before it relocated. As it moved, the Chief, with his keen sense of sight, saw a faint distortion rippling through the air. 'It must be using some sort of cloaking technology or camouflage', he thought.
The Elite obviously saw the distortion too, because he had trained his weapons onto it and continued firing. The distortion was struck several more times before lancing toward the Elite and severing his head from his body. The Elite's head tumbled into the congregated grunts; they began acting more wildly than before.
One ran over to the cliff and stopped at the edge. The distortion moved towards the fear stricken grunt, picked it up off the ground and, from what the Chief could tell, crushed its head with a single hand.
The jackal closest to the attacker charged his plasma pistol and released a bright flare of plasma. The green bolt struck the back of the intruder and caused it to release the grunt. The grunt was more than likely dead, and if it wasn't, it would be when it reached the end of its terrible fall to the foot of the cliff.
The rest of the Covenant began to discharge their weapons at the invisible creature. But it leapt into the air, evading each shot fired and landed amongst the baffled Covenant. It sliced at the jackals, piercing through their shields into their bodies. The grunts attempted to escape, but their stubby, little legs could not carry them fast enough; they were soon impaled, each and every one by the two long blades.
Soon, all but one ominous signature had disappeared from the Chief's motion tracker; he looked at his companions.
"We need to get out of here." he said to them urgently.
"Now!" added Cortana. By the look on their faces, the Chief could tell they were all in agreement. They scrambled up the boulders and jumped to the ground. They began to shuffle up the hill that bordered the side of the river, the Chief slowed himself to keep the pace with them. But they were going as fast as their legs could carry them.
The Chief detected five bodies moving up ahead; he also noticed another that was following them; it was a mere twenty or thirty meters behind them.
"In order to cross that distance in that time, that thing must be going fast." Cortana observed jarringly "…very fast."
They were approaching several boulders all about a meter apart; the Chief was ready for an ambush. Just then, several elites appeared from behind the rocks, and began to assault the disoriented marines. The Chief needed to get through; he'd rather run through ten groups of Covenant than have to face whatever they saw, or didn't see, back at the lifeboat.
He switched his assault rifle into his left hand and drew his pistol with his right; he then ensued to blast one of the elites to the ground. The other two marines managed to make their way through while the Chief preoccupied the Covenant soldiers, though Foster had received plasma burns from one of the Covenant weapons.
The Chief hoped that whatever it was that was following them would stop to deal with Covenant. If what happened back at the bridge was a display of it's favorite past time, then there was a good chance that it would be distracted long enough to allow the Chief to locate any survivors from the Pillar of Autumn and call for pick-up.
The Chief checked his motion tracker once more - the intruder stopped.
'Those unfortunate souls.'
Guan'De stopped in his tracks. The Oomans had indeed fought their way through the party of aliens at the top of the slope, just as he had predicted.
Guan assumed that his gory display at the Ooman's desolate escape pod had frightened them off.
'So much the better.' It would make the hunt more challenging. He loved striking fear into the heart of his prey; it was like adding seasoning to meat.
But though he was eagerly anticipating the chase, it could wait till he had slaughtered these few aliens.
Guan retracted his wrist blades and reached behind his back; he withdrew his combi-staff from its sheath and extended the two ends of it to their full lengths. He spun it into a comfortable combat position in his grip and he deactivated his stealth device, making himself visible to his prey.
They all jerked their heads towards him. The grunts backed away, as if a wave of fright had radiated from Guan when his presence became evident. The jackals also recognized his superiority, knowing that they stood no chance against this foe.
The two remaining warriors fearlessly strode forward, confident in their abilities to kill this aggressor; they both were outfitted in glassy blue armor. Guan assumed that these two were of a lower rank, but he was sure not to underestimate them, for even one of these warriors could turn out to be a fearsome foe.
Guan roared a challenge to the two aliens. They responded with similar, vicious growls which echoed off of the rock walls looming around them.
Guan motioned with his hand for them to come to him. They keenly rushed him, but he was prepared for this long before. Guan swiftly detached a silver shuriken from his belt and flung it towards the nearest one.
The shuriken passed through the alien's body, instantly separating his upper half from his lower, killing him; and like a boomerang, the shuriken returned back to Guan, passing through the second one, dividing him as well. The green grass was now stained dark purple with the blood of the two fallen warriors.
Not long after Guan mercilessly slaughtered the pitiful grunt soldiers, those two alien fighters that had been scouting the area earlier had returned. They had immediately spotted Guan and were closing in on him fast.
Their forward fuselages each had two built in plasma cannons with a lethal fuel-rod cannon in between them; this cannon released a large, neon green ball of destructive energy directly at Guan. He leapt out of the way just in time; he could feel the heat of the explosion blow against him as he landed some distance from where he had just been standing.
The second fighter began to spray the ground using its plasma cannons, attempting to hit Guan. The only weapon Guan could think to use was his own self. He didn't want to risk damaging any of his weapons.
Guan dug his large feet into the soil and awaited the purple crafts to come in for another pass. Once again, they attempted to pelt Guan with their plasma cannons, but with his speed and agility, he eluded them.
But as they passed, Guan leaped from the ground and grabbed the left wing of the lead fighter and swung himself atop it.
The fighter started to bank to the left because of Guan's substantial weight, so he quickly crept back to the cramped entrance of the cockpit in the rear side of the relatively small craft where he saw the alien pilot laying face down, inside the fuselage attempting to keep his ship from broad-siding the cliff side.
Guan reached inside and pulled the distraught pilot from the cockpit and threw him to his death on the ground below.
Guan quickly squeezed himself far enough into the craft to pilot it. He soon got a visual of the other perplexed pilot and his fighter, and he turned the craft towards it. Without warning, Guan left the controls and leapt onto the wing closest to the rock wall and extended his wrist blades. He jumped.
Behind him, he heard the two vehicles crash into each other causing a large explosion that propelled shrapnel in all directions.
Guan flew through the air towards the cliff side and rammed his wrist blades into the stone, stopping himself from plummeting to either serious, bone breaking injuries, or death. And there he was hanging, not exactly sure how to get down.
'Not quite what I had in mind…'