The amount of violence in the story has offered me many reviews. I do have to warn you, if you are squeamish, you may want to consider stop reading right now. As they say, the worst is yet to come.
Chapter 9
Commander Zulfar had slain the two guard quickly, pulped their skulls so they wouldn't raise an alarm, but his haste was rewarded with a dizzying paralysis that lasted for nearly a minute. When he was sure he wouldn't collapse, he sent the messages to the Jiralhanae.
There was one more thing to take care of. Zardock inputted a new frequency into the computer, the frequency of the radio in Sub-commander Shara's armor. "This is Commander Zulfar, does anyone copy."
He didn't know how much time had passed, probably only a few moments as his voice stretched out to find a receiver, but it felt like an eternity. He wasn't sure if it was anticipation or another symptom of the concussion. At last, a roughly feminine voice responded; "This is Sub-commander Shara, I copy."
"Sindal," he gasped. "Thank the Forerunners."
"Zardock? We thought you were dead."
"I may be by tonight," he admitted. "Sindal. I am in the human base. Trace this signal. I have already contacted the Jiralhanae. They should attack, and I will be able to escape in the confusion of the ensuing battle. Is anyone else with you?"
"Yes, we met with Furno and three of his team, as well as a pair of Lekgolo and a squad of Unggoy."
"You are all to come to this location, but do not engage in the battle until I rendezvous with you. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir. May the Forerunners watch over you."
"And with you," Zulfar said, before taking a long breathe. SuKahn would arrive with in the cycle. Shara would come soon after. "May my blade be sharp. May the Forerunners guide my hand. I need the armory. I need my armor back. And the other Sangheili. Then we escape."
---
The events that happened next were like clockwork.
The Covenant's forces began arriving by first light of the morning. Infantry unloaded out of Spirits and Phantoms first: Brutes and Jackals, armed and armored and eager to begin the slaughter. There were thousands of them, maybe millions: a sea of rabid aliens. Then came the vehicles staying just out of range of the human's guns. The small ones at first: Ghost and Specters to provide the infantry with support. Finally the ground rumbled, and at least twenty Wraiths came roaring forth.
"Why don't they just attack?" Jordan Sampson asked.
"Why should they?" was Alexander Lucien's response. " Psychology is half the battle. They have numbers, they have firepower, they have every advantage. They're goanna drag this out as long as possible." Lucien took a puff of his cigarette as he adjusted the scope of his rifle. "Christ, I'd be great to cap one of them."
"Captain Coffey will have your head before the Brutes do," Sampson warned. "Remember, about a year ago, we found that Covenant ship just drifting in space. The engines had been damaged and they were just floating around, waiting for a rescue."
"How could I forget?" Lucien asked without a trace of remorse.
"I'm kinda thinking that this is, like, God's way of punishing us, you know? I mean we're goanna be slaughtered. There's no way we can call in any back up and there no way we'll last more than a few minutes. We're fucked, you know."
"And you think this is the work of some higher power? Punishing us because we blew up a ship? No, this is the doing of the Covenant. And if I'm goanna die, I'm goanna take as many of those fuckers down with me as I can."
"You and me both," Sampson breathed. "Do you want to die?"
"Course not."
"My father used to say, any day worth living is a day worth fighting for. So lets fight and lets live. Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer."
The two shared a bitter chuckle as they both looked through the scopes of their rifles. That's how they would wait for the end.
---
The ground shook so forcefully, Rebecca stumbled off her feet. Another eruption. The glass beakers and jars that filled the infirmary shattered on the ground. "Get the sick and wounded out of here," she ordered, before taking up her rifle and rushing out of the room.
No amount of training prepared a soldier for war. Not the ship to ship combat that dominated intergalactic combat, or the impersonal bombings that the Covenant enjoyed so much. Nothing prepared a soldier for trench warfare: fighting so close you could see you fear in the victim's eyes even as the bullets ripped away their life. Fighting so close you could reach out and touch the furry hide of the Brutes or slimy skin of the Jackals.
Rebecca had been taught to use a knife by Captain Castlion in basic training. She had silently mocked him, wondering what was the use in knowing how to fight with such a weapon. How wrong could she been, she thought, as she drove the glistening steel into a Jackal's throat. It gave out an avian like cry and wet cough as its blood trickled down into its lungs. She pulled her knife free and allowed the body to slump.
Her Battle Rifle worked fine enough. Indeed, the first thing she'd done is taken a position at the outer wall with all the other soldiers. She held the trigger down and sprayed into the advancing infantry. The muzzle flashed. Ejected cases glittered in the sun as they spiraled down to the ground. Bullets met walls of flesh but the Covenant kept charging forth.
There was no strategy. Rebecca had heard stories about warfare with the Elites. Though ruthless, the aliens did at least show guile and cunning in their attacks. Assaults were said to come in waves, so that each time the Elite general could determine their opponent's remaining strength. A soldier was at least given a chance to breathe between fending off the aliens. The Brutes commanded no ideals such as tactic. There was one single attack, one endless battering crash of screams and gunshots. The Brutes clawed at the walls and climbed upon their dead.
Rebecca convinced herself it was not cowardice that drove her to flee the main wall. The Brutes had broken through the defenses and were now charging in, slaughtering any in their path. Rebecca had no choice, to stay and die would solve nothing. She retreated deeper into the base. Screams and cries followed at her heels. Screams and cries of her fellow soldiers who continued to hold their posts despite the sea of monsters that plowed through them. She could almost feel the hot breathe of the Brutes on the back of her neck.
Fearful Rebecca turned to her blind side and fired off a flurry. She didn't aim. She just shot in a terrified frenzy.
Because her attention was on her blind side, she didn't see the Brute that had somehow found its way to her front. Both barrels of a twelve-gauge shotgun, fired from point blank range into her chest. Brutes always did like loud powerful guns, subtly or accuracy be damned.
Rebecca's motion as she flew backwards was reminiscent of a rag doll: limbs flailing helplessly until the ground came upon her. She broke against it, her head cracked against the floor and she felt blood drench her scalp. Her battle rifle spun out of her grip.
Her vision, as well as her mind, was hazy, but she had enough recognition to know that there was a squeezing pressure on her chest, and that she wasn't on the ground as her feet kicked helplessly. Though it was difficult, she opened her eyes enough to see an ocean of white fur before her. "No," she whimpered. She tried to struggle, tried to claw her way free, but the Brute merely threw her over its broad shoulders. Her breathe tore out of her lungs, and when she tried to suck air back in, she was met with the foul odor of the Brute's fur. She feel out of the light and into an all consuming darkness.
She woke in a cage, roughly five feet by five feet, and just tall enough for her to pace as long as she stayed hunched over. That was all she could do. Pace. Wait. Stare at nothing for hours on end. Pray. Think. Plot her escape. So far she hadn't come up with too many good ideas. Pray. Think. Pray more. She hadn't prayed for decades, but she hadn't forgotten how.
For the umpteenth time, Rebecca took a firm grip of the bars and pulled. She struggled. She strained. She summoned every ounce of strength she could muster, but it was all for nothing. In despair, she dropped to the ground and put her head down. Of course she couldn't escape by strength. She'd tried that when the Brute first locked her away in the cage, and it hadn't worked. A week had passed. Her body had grown skinny and malnourished; she was fed scrapes only sporadically.
The heavy door of the room she was held in swung open to allow the albino Brute to shuffle heavily into the room. It trampled about, setting its weapons down and removing its armor, never once taking notice of the captive in the cage until she began to speak.
"You can understand me?" she demanded.
The Brutes beady red eyes focused on Rebecca, who felt a cold touch at the small of her back. It turned its attention back to inspecting its cannon sized side arm.
"You can understand me," she screamed. "Why don't you just kill me? Just kill me, please."
A feeling of hunger induced weakness knocked Rebecca down. She wished an Elite had captured her, they would at least have the decency to interrogate and execute. She thought back to all those Elites they had kept in base. All the Elites that the corporal had ordered to be let live so they could be properly tortured.
The best torture was affective and simple. She'd never thought to leave a prisoner in a cage and go about her daily life, to allow one to see the world pass by and for one to know they could not take part in it. "What are you planning?"
"To make you suffer." It was the first thing Rebecca had heard the Brute say, save when it barked orders to its subordinates.
"Why?" she demanded, banging on the cage's bars. "What did we ever do to you? Why do you do this? Why do you kill and destroy and conquer and kill?"
"Its fun," the Brute grunted. He took the heavy steps towards the cage. Rebecca backed as far as she could out of fear. "Its fun to kill and destroy and maim." He picked up the cage with one huge hand and began to violently shake it. Rebecca smashed against the indifferent bars. Flesh and bone broke against metal. The cruelty continued for several minutes, before the Brute threw the cage against the farthest wall.
"See," he laughed. "That was fun. Besides, I wouldn't want the meat to spoil."
There wasn't a part of Rebecca that didn't hurt. She imagined more than one of her ribs were broken, jagged bone stabbed at her inside belly every time she took a breath. She'd landed on her arm once or twice, it crunched noisily beneath her and now lay limp at her side. Her vision doubled. A concussion perhaps. Internal bleeding seemed likely.
The Brute shut off the lights and lay down. Loud, weighted snoring filled the room. Clutching her sides in pain, Rebecca silently promised she would see the death of the Brute.