Chapter Eight
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The way down the rock was a lot harder than the way up had been. The steps were steep and Verity was once more carrying Bilbo along the way. Gandalf was trying to guilt trip her into helping Thorin along, but there was no way she was touching that oaf with anything but her foot to his rear end. Nobility, who liked them? She moved until she was standing beside the other group and they were soon waiting for Thorin and Dwalin to come down the slippery slope.
"What was that thing that came out of the sky with the loud shrieking?" Ori asked her, eyes wide in curiosity. She looked around them and then sighed, they had a while yet before the slow moving dwarfs made it all the way down. Gandalf looked just as interested as the rest of the lot did.
"That was a Banshee." She stated, getting a few confused stares she decided to elaborate on the name at least. "In some mythology from my people, a Banshee was a ghost of a woman who could predict the death of someone by hearing her scream at night you knew someone or even yourself would be dying soon. The machine's high pitched screech is how we named it also with the deadly fire accuracy of the machine that killed a lot of people." She stated, "You would hear it before you saw it, and knew it brought death with it." She finally stated at some of the Dwarrow still had the confused looks on their faces.
"Okay, so what was that presence we felt before Bilbo showed up?" Bofur asked. Verity looked up at the sky and then around them trying to find a way out of the question.
"That was my second in command, he flew the Banshee to help save you lot and to bring me more supplies." She stated, Shaking the pack of ammo and food that she had been given on the mountain range. "You will all have the luck of trying my rations that my men and I get. Lucky you." She stated with a smile. The group looked at her confused. Gandalf hand his hand in his beard calmly pulling on it. She had answered the questions yes, but in a most familiar fashion that Gandalf did in order to evade an almost complete answer to them. He would have to get further questions from her later. The arrival of the last dwarfs had the group preparing to move out, night was starting to fall and the group felt it best to move in darkness, as the wargs would be gaining on them as they had lost much climbing down from the massive stone.
With the lack of a fire the group couldn't really go hunting or foraging, so the packets of meals that she had been given proved to be more useful than she had thought they would be. The dwarrows expressions after being shown how to open and prepare one and then digging in had been well worth the price of it too. She had to hide her laughter behind a canteen that had been passed to her by Gandalf of all people. She shared a look of mirth with him as Ori gagged on what could have been peas but she had never been able to tell.
Soon they were moving once more, and the Dwarrow were all giving her mixed looks of sympathy and betrayal. She found it funny and couldn't help her snorts of laughter that came when one of them would mutter about how foul her food was, and would get a glare in reply.
They waited in the darkness, quiet and on alert as they listened for Bilbo to come back from his spying. Verity didn't like that Gandalf was sending someone out, but understood it was necessary as she had done so on countless occasions herself. A flashback of a planet in purple, a child to young to be in the military but also light enough to scramble over objects without alerting the covenant of his position, coming back with bloody face and a missing hand as he had almost been caught if it hadn't been for the small air vent that he had been hiding in. Verity closed her eyes and breathed deeply, this wasn't that time. The boy was now a young private in the marine corp with a robotic limb like herself, and he had stated on multiple meetings that he didn't blame her for what had happened. It was the event of war, it was needed and he was happy to help then as he was now.
The sound of feet softly treading over rocks had Verity opening her eyes as she stared into Gandalf's face. The man was looking at her as if he knew what she had been remembering and he nodded his head at her in silent acknowledgement. She nodded back, just as Bilbo broke into sight and started on about a massive bear. Verity looked over at Gandalf as if he was somehow to blame for the entire thing, and for all she knew she was correct.
Especially as they raced through the woods aiming for a large cottage in a clearing with a massive bear chasing them. She was cursing up a storm as Bilbo kicked her in the sides like she was a freaking race horse. Verity was running as fast as she fucking could with the grass sucking at her weight like a giant suction cup. They made the doors just in time and the Dwarrow and to go and be dimwits again on how to open a blasted door. She was going to have to take the time to teach them how to do so when they were not all about to be eaten by the bear. When she had tried to shoot at him Gandalf had smacked her in the shoulder with his staff and told her not to anger the blasted thing.
"What was that?" Throin asked, glaring at Gandalf as the others tried to catch their breath. Ori and Bilbo and the other youngsters were huddled closer to the woman as she rested slumped on a hay pile.
"That was our host." Gandalf stated, and Verity lifted her hand up and gave him the one finger salute before dropping it onto her stomach.
"You bloody arse, I have bruises on my sides from the halfling kicking me like his favorite race horse. Next bloody running we do, you are carrying his pint size body." Verity stated, to get Gandalf hemming and hawing about how well she did keeping up and outpacing the others even with all the added weight of her armor and weapons and of course Bilbo. "I should have just shot the damn bear, at least one of us would have died happy." She grumbled, getting a glower from Gandalf as he settled down for the night.
The next day wasn't any better, with Gandalf going on about how Beorn didn't like any visitors and how they needed to come out in pairs in order to ease the man into things. Verity scuffed at that. March out her dumb ass out to the man chopping wood and introduced herself. "Hello, I am Major Verity Amezcua of the ship Santa Maria, I come in peace."
Beorn looked at her amused as she saluted and looked behind her as Gandalf hurried to catch up with her with Bilbo by his side. "These are my dimwitted associates pay them no mind and they won't do anything overly stupid." She offered as their greeting. Gandalf smacked her over her head with the staff and Verity grumbled about her not needing a talking baboon to tell her what to do. Beorn grinned as he watched the woman as she seemed to mimic Gandalf behind the man, and adding her two cents worth in by stating the two of them meaning the entire bakers dozen and the wizard were here on a nice long walk with a good story on why they were being chased by orcs and wargs.
The stay was nice, Verity thought. No need to get run over by angry people with pitchforks but nice. Gandalf and the others had finally cornered her into a small room and demanded full details on what and who she really was. So she ended up spilling a lot of the beans. To them about how advanced her people were, the Covenant, the human genocide, the breakup with the Covenant.
"We know you are not from this world lassy." Oin started. "You told me this yourself when we were at Rivendale." Verity nodded her head in agreement.
"That is true, and you know I have artificial limbs that are not from this world and a lot of scars and weapons that are not native to this world either." Verity stated with a shrug, looking at the group that were watching her right back.
"What was that thing that fell out of the sky, you called it your ship?" Gandalf stated, Verity nodded her head.
"The Santa Maria, Battleship of the UNSC or the United Nations Space Corp. I am Major Verity Amezcua, commander of the Battleship. We came through a wormhole and crash landed on this planet. We haven't been to this part of the universe so we are unsure of the planet itself." Verity answered looking at the group. Gandalf's brows furrowed.
"I am afraid madam that we need more to go on." He answered. She furrowed her brows as well.
"The UNSC is the guarding army of human colonies of different planets along the galaxy we know as the milky way. However, years ago we found out that we were not alone in this aspect as a colony was attacked and destroyed by a group of races of aliens foreign to us. They attacked and killed all of the colony and destroyed the planet. Leaving it barren. The UNSC started counter measures to prevent further attacks but were met with hostile actions from the group that called themselves the Covenant." Verity stated, she looked at the wall, her face blank as she went into the light background of how they got to this planet.
The Dwarrow looked at each other and Gandalf and Bilbo both looked horrified. "You mean to say that planets and entire nations were wiped out?" Bilbo asked.
"Affirmative." Verity stated, still looking at the wall.
"Lass, you spoke to Master Baggins about your home world, was that one of the planets that was destroyed?" Balin asked, trying to be careful with the question.
"Affirmative." She replied, "I was a teenager at the time, I lost my parents and my birth planet." She stated. The Dwarrow sucked in their breath as they looked at each other. This almost seemed to reminisce of the Dwarrows loss of their mountain.
"What happened to the Covenant?" Gandalf asked, eyes worried.
"There was a fracture in the ranks, as they found out that what the hierarchy was mainly doing was aiming for the death of all things in the universe. The Sangheili and other races started fighting amongst themselves when the rings that they were seeking became weapons of mass destruction and brought with it parasitic creatures." She answered. "The Covenant fractured in fractions of itself, some siding with humans, others finding new forms to believe in and continuing the attack against humanity." Verity stated.
"By Mahal, Lass. What is there worth fighting for if that is what is out there?" Gloin asked. Verity's blank expression hardened and she looked at the dwarf.
"Hope!" She answered back. The rest of the evening afterwards they left her alone to converse with her men and AI.