Chapter 10

A moment or an eternity passed in the cold consuming darkness.

Rebecca was awakened by the mechanical whirr of the door. Somehow, she had managed to fall asleep despite the pain it took to breath, despite the thunderous snoring of the albino Brute, despite a million other factors that would have driven a normal person into the depths of insanity.

Her eyes struggled to focus in the darkness but to no avail. It was simply impossible to see through the pitch blackness of the quarters. When that failed, she struggled to hear something, anything, over the Brute's obnoxious sounds.

Illumination was granted when an energy sword ignited. A shapeless creatures leapt through the darkness Through the black, the blade swung down and into the Brute's chest leaving a residual trace of glow in the air. A torrent of blood lurched upwards, only to be claimed by gravity and spill to the floor.

For a long moment, the only sound was the sizzle of blood on the blade. The Brute rumbled, his hands spasm and his legs kicked, but it must have been a reflex, as what creature could survive such evisceration. At last his heavy body heaved and fell still. The shape pulled the blade out and swung, cleaving the Brute's head from its shoulders. The head lopped along the ground, finally coming to rest a few steps away.

The room's lights hummed to activity. The shapeless form of bent light slowly materialized into an Elite, clad in white armor, though a side of his helmet seemed to be damaged. Only momentarily surprised by the huddle of humanity in the cage, the Elite casually waltzed over and lowered to his haunches, holstering the extinguished energy blade onto his belt.

"Kill me," Rebecca begged.

The Elite ignited his blade and swung, neatly slicing the front of the cage away. With his free hand, he clicked the communicator on his breastplate. "Captain," he said in a deep rumble. "I've found a survivor. Are the charges in place?"

"Yes commander." Even through the static, Rebecca recognized the voice. She knew it was fake. That voice couldn't belong to the Captain Coffey. No, it just couldn't.

The Elite reached into the cage, Rebecca didn't have the strength to fight back.

"Are you hurt?" the elite asked.

Rebecca pushed out of the hold. But without support, she crumpled to the ground. The Elite again picked her up, cradling her in his arms, tight enough that she couldn't escape. He held her frail body with one arm and carried her out of the room. Half a dozen more Elites were in the hallway waiting to greet her. The disembodied corpses of Brutes were strewn about the ground, their blood covered the walls and formed a pool on the floor that stretched down the hallway. The smell of rotting death was revolting. Once again, Rebecca passed out.

She awoke a long time later in what she assumed was a hospital ward, as a white curtain offered her a make shift room, and her tattered rags had been replaced by a paer gown. Over several minutes she became more aware, and realized how badly she hurt. How she wanted to return to the sweet embrace of a drugged sleep. Her broken arm was in a cast, which she had trouble lifting up. Her chest was thoroughly taped.

"Coffey?" she asked, her vision sharpening on the withered old features of the captain. "The Elites. They had me."

He was quiet a long time, his fingers laced like the steeple in the old children's rhyme. Finally, he said, "You've missed a lot."

---

The swords clashed like thunder as a powerful swipe was parried with expert precision. Zardock sneered. "This is pathetic. I am not a low level grunt. Stop holding back."

Gripping her twin blades tightly, Sindal loosened a guttural roar from her throat before charging forward. She swung her arms together in an attempt to scissor her foe in half. Zardock easily parried the assault with his single blade before smashing his elbow into Sindal's jaw. A kick swept her legs out from under her, and she landed hard on her back.

"Pathetic," Zardock muttered as he lifted his blade above his head, intending to drive it down. Sindal blocked by bringing her twin blades together. The sub-commander smashed both hoofed feet into Zardock's chest, kicking him backward. Quickly mounting him, Sindal drove both blades down.

The energy swords hummed at either side of Zardock's head. "You're dead," the sub-commander grunted.

"It took you too long," the commander observed. "You are far better with your blades then I am, far better than any I have ever seen. You should be able to "kill" me with in moments. Is something on you're mind?"

"Zardock. I don't like this treaty with the humans. I don't trust them."

"Nor do I. But it is a necessity. We haven't had any communication with the others. The humans claim they can't contact their comrades either. For now, we are united by the common threat of the Jiralhanae."

"The dark skinned one, the one who you made the treaty with. He asked me to show him how to use our weapons. Do you understand what that means? Every weapon we give them, every tactic we show them, they can use against us. They will want our camouflage next, and our sacred blades."

"I know Sindal," the commander admitted. "But for now we have no choice. There are more Jiralhanae than Sangheili and humans combined. We have blown up only one of their bases. SuKahn is dead. Another will take his place. We can not survive alone."

"But can we survive with the humans? Even if we defeat the Jiralhanae, do you believe the humans will simply lower their weaponns when our back is turned? We have been in a war with them. They have killed us. We have killed them. Do you think they will forget that? Do you think I have forgotten what they did to me?"

"Sindal," he began, but said nothing further.

"You did the right think, Zardock," the sub-commander said with comforting sincerity. "I just pray that our people show up first."

That's all folks. Its been fun writing this, and i hope its been fun reading it too. Thank you everyone who left a review. And no thanks to all you freeloading bastards who couldn't say "Good job Wolf." (Just kidding). I won't write a sequal to this i'm afraid, because i feel that everything that needed to be said has been said and the rest of the story will unfold in Halo 3. My next work will be a Star Wars fic: "Masks" and after that "Aggresive Diplomacy." Again, thank you for reading, i hope you enjoyed.