Shepard shook his head to clear it. He found himself, for a second time in less than a week, sitting in the cockpit of a recently crashed pelican, flown by Joker.
"You know…" Joker said before coughing suddenly, "If this keeps happening, my reputation as a flawless pilot might be compromised." The pilot reached over and pulled a weapon out from beside his seat.
Shepard frowned and looked closer at the weapon, "Is that was I think it is?"
"Yes," Joker replied, then hefted the grenade launcher and walked over to the entrance to the troop compartment.
"Compensating for something?" Shepard asked, and joined him, lifting his rifle as well. When the door opened they found the pelican had set down relatively well, Liara was already unstrapping from her seat, Tali and Odeg were no where to be seen. "Where did they go?"
Liara looked at him and shook her head, "They flew out of the crew compartment while we went down."
"Shit," Shepard started walking towards the open rear hatch, "Come on, we'll see if we can pick up their IFF tags. They could still be alive; we were pretty low when we went down."
The alien pulled out her plasma pistol and followed them out.
To Shepard, Reach was completely unrecognizable. Blasted landscape, shrouded in a duststorms was all he could see, where otherwise grassland and forests dominated the wilds of Reach. The atmosphere was almost unbearably hot, dust kicked up by the bombardment made his helmet mandatory, visibility was almost nil. He checked his assault rifle, making sure the safety was off, and set off into the dust.
Shepard held a hand up, signaling the group to stop, "Hear that?"
Joker nodded and started looking up into the sky, "Yeah… not good."
Liara, not recognizing the sound, looked back and forth between Joker and Shepard, "What is it?"
"Phantom, covenant dropship, some of them have cloaking, judging by how loud it is, could be two dozen to two hundred meters away. Hard to tell in this weather." Shepard replied, "Just stay down and try not to be seen, keep your eyes and ears open."
He stepped forward another couple feet and stopped again. A set of tracks were worn into the blasted and melted surface, "Look at these, too big to be human, too many to be just Odeg. We're dealing with more covenant, some of the brutes must have survived."
"Um, commander?" Liara's voice had a hint of worry to it.
Shepard walked over to the scientist, "Shit… that's a big footprint."
"No shit Sherlock," Joker walked up to them as well, "That came from a hunter…"
"Right, we might need that grenade launcher." Shepard stood back up and led the group through the terrain towards a group of faint UNSC IFFs. Dust, glass, and the omnipresent hum of the phantom were their only companions.
ooooooo
The Justice Bringer hung in space near relay 314. Kuril sat in his command center waiting for any other ship to arrive. Only fourteen frigates and a cruiser besides his had made it back so far. It had been over an hour since he ordered a retreat. It was time to accept that the rest of the fleet was dead, killed by the two unknown dreadnaughts.
"Give the order; we're transiting back through the relay. Send the report to the Hierarchy as soon as we get in range of an extranet buoy, and send a report to the council telling them they've probably lost a specter." Kuril turned back to the central holoprojection after giving orders to the crew, thinking about what just happened.
The turian fleet just took a serious blow from an unknown group of aliens, after invading a planet possibly belonging to them. The only thing was, the new arrivals didn't use the same language, and so far they had been unable to translate it.
Kuril now found himself in the position of commander of the expeditionary fleet, at least what was left of it. This new enemy could be worse than the rachni or krogan; they actually had directed energy weapons, against which kinetic barriers were next to useless. Hopefully the council would be able to pull together against the threat, rather than focus on blaming the turians. Even more so, Kuril hoped that the admiral's decision to invade hadn't provoked these aliens beyond reason.
As the bright light of a relay transit faded away, one of the bridge crew came up to him with a datapad, "Sir, I've completed translating the transmissions between the two enemy dreadnaughts."
Kuril fixed the tech with a disbelieving stare, "How did you manage to do that so quickly?"
The tech responded crisply and professionally, "Sir, we downloaded backups of what we could salvage from the human databases. There were several translation files, one of which was for the language used between the unknown dreadnaughts. They appeared to be broadcasting in the clear as well."
"They were broadcasting in the clear!" Kuril asked in confusion, "Never mind, what did they say?"
"I have the recording here," The tech answered, "in full holographic form."
To send a simple communication in full three dimensional media required a lot of communications bandwidth, it seemed odd that these aliens would do so in a battle situation. Kuril gave a nod to go ahead and play it.
The image of the galaxy flickered and died, replaced by two alien figures facing each other. One was a thickly muscled bipedal, wearing some sort of heavy armor, long teeth filled its snout, but much of its facial features were covered by an ornate helmet. A simple looking weapon was holstered at its side. The being's attire, posture, and appearance screamed warrior, even more so than a krogan.
The other alien was the complete opposite. It had an extremely long neck protruding from a small hump. Its limbs were frail and appeared almost useless. Its facial features where wrinkled and covered in fuzz. Drooping flaps of skin adorned its cheeks and jaw. The eyes were not particularly intelligent looking, reminding Kuril of a domesticated herbivore. It floated with the assistance of some sort of belt, reinforcing the notion of physical frailty.
The two aliens began speaking; the large one was the first to speak, "Noble prophet, unknown ships have been detected in orbit of the human colony. They are not of human make."
The frail one, the 'prophet' gave the larger alien a look of condescension, "Chieftain, are they bombarding the human's world into dust?"
"No," The chieftain replied.
The prophet continued to speak, "Then they are aiding the humans, the humans may not be able to help that they are born an affront to the gods. But… these… newcomers, are willingly consorting with such debased filth, they are obviously no better than the traitorous sangheili, so they shall burn with the rest. Their destruction is the will of the gods, and we?"
"We are their instruments." The chieftain bowed and the transmission cut out.
Kuril's mandibles worked for a few moments in surprise. These aliens had attacked them simply because they thought they were helping the humans. He turned immediately to the tech, "Send this to the council, priority flag."
ooooooo
Tali and Odeg had been walking for nearly fifteen minutes, and the small group of IFF signals hadn't gotten any closer. Thankfully they hadn't run across any more sangheili either. Tali decided to try and find out why they were being attacked by Odeg's people, "Why are they attacking us? I thought your people were allied with the humans."
"We have been allies for less than two weeks," Came the simple reply.
"Oh," When Odeg didn't elaborate further, Tali decided to pry, "Then why did you kill those two, why not try and convince them that your cause was right?"
"I did." Odeg increased his pace, forcing her to jog to keep up, ending the conversation.
Tali sighed and set her attention back to their surroundings, she saw a dark shape appear on their left, a shadow amid the dust storm, "Odeg, on the left, I think that is the pelican."
The hulking warrior nodded his head and let out a little huff before walking towards the downed ship. Tali followed, covering the warrior with her shotgun.
Odeg ducked down to look inside. Tali stood in the duststorm, nervously watching the surroundings. She almost didn't hear the deep subsonic rumble. She did hear the whine of some machinery charging and stepped down to see what the sangheili was doing inside the pelican. That action saved her life as a stream of glowing green plasma smashed into the pelican, right where she had been standing, melting a hole in the side of the vehicle.
"Hunters!" she heard the zealot yell out a late warning from inside the pelican.
Two massive shapes resolved themselves from the swirling dust. Though hunched over they were taller than Tali, and covered in spikes and armor.
One hunter's arm began glowing green. Tali sprinted out of the way, staying just ahead of the stream of burning plasma as it tracked her motion. She saw Odeg walk out of the pelican, firing a plasma pistol ineffectually at the hulking shapes. Their armor seemed impervious to the weapon.
The second massive alien reared back and lunged towards her, swinging what appeared to be a massive shield through the air. Even though it impacted half a meter from her, Tali felt the impact and stumbled. She pulled her own pistol and fired several rounds into the center of the beast before it could swing again. She was rewarded with a short spray of phosphorescent orange blood. The thing didn't even slow down, the only reason she didn't end up flattened, was Odeg switching fire to the hunter threatening her.
The lumbering beast spun around faster than she would have thought possible and hunched over, firing its cannon at the sangheili.
Tali noticed exposed orange flesh along the thing's back and fired her pistol at the new target. The rounds passed straight through to the other side, but the thing barely seemed to notice.
She realized the tiny rounds fired form her pistol probably didn't cause it enough pain to register, or so she thought. The hunter whipped around, bringing its shield up and around, intent on squishing her like some annoying insect.
The world seemed to slow down around Tali; the shield came up, and began swinging down towards her…
An explosion hit the tip of the shield, causing the hunter to stumble back and saving her life.
Tali turned around to see where the shot had come from. A human in green armor, with a bulky face mask stood a short distance away, hefting some sort of heavy weapon.
"What the hell?" She heard the man mutter under his breath.
Tali turned to follow his line of vision, she saw Odeg firing his plasma pistol back at the hunters. She turned back to the man, "Are you the lieutenant colonel?"
"Um…" The man's posture suggested extreme confusion, he seemed to shake it off, "Fuck it, Yeah I'm Lieutenant Colonel Rodriguez." He yelled out and fired a rocket at the two hunters before rolling into cover behind a rock outcropping, narrowly avoiding their return fire.
The zealot made it to their cover as well, sliding in next to the colonel, "We must regroup with the commander and return to our ship."
The Colonel shook his head as if in defeat, "Ordinarily, I'd ask a question or two… but right now… I guess beggars can't be choosers." The man threw aside his weapon and pulled out a well worn grayish silver gun. He racked the shotgun and fired a shell towards the two hunters, "I suggest we run that away," He jerked a thumb behind them, "I don't have any more weapons that can take out those hunters easily, and if those stealth elites are nearby we'd be f'ed if we try to take them out the old fashioned way."
Odeg looked towards the hunters as if debating whether to run or to fight. He seemed to come to a decision and turned to the human, "Lead the way."
ooooooo
Nihlus and the former prisoner stood to either side of an emergency hatch. The human, a man named Lieutenant Richard Hall, carried a spare pistol from the armory. The weapon was relatively simple and didn't really require any training to use and maintain, unlike some heavier weapons.
Nihlus looked to the human, and then nodded at the hatch, "What can I expect?"
"Typical covenant tactics involve taking out large targets with air support, then once the enemy has broken they'll send in cannon fodder, followed by more elite troops. Aim for the leaders and the grunts will scatter." The human soldier turned to the door as if considering, "We'll have to watch out for their vehicles though, unless you have a rocket launcher hidden on you somewhere?"
Nihlus gave him the turian equivalent of a raised eyebrow.
"Right… okay, that ship overhead is probably going to sit there, dropping troops from its grav lift. You're going to want to send out a general retreat order, get out into the countryside, and then I'll try and contact our command staff, get a truce working so we can work on kicking them off our planet. Of course before we do any of that, we'll have to survive."
Nihlus keyed the controls to the small airlock. The sounds of a hard fought battle filled the air. Turian non-coms yelled out orders to their troops, much deeper voices could be heard from further away.
"Brutes… not elites, damn I've never fought brutes. They're supposed to be tough as hell." Hall raised his pistol and pointed it in their general direction.
Nihlus drew his shotgun and followed the human lieutenant out. A few turians saw the armed human and gave him a sidelong glance, but they also saw the specter and didn't ask questions, instead rushing to the sounds of battle.
"You know this planet better than I do." The human looked up to the ship hanging in the sky, as the now outnumbered and outgunned turian fighters and gunships tried desperately to destroy their covenant counterparts. "Where to?" He asked nonchalantly.
The sound of gunfire close by drew Nihlus' attention, "We help our forces. I'll need to contact the general in charge and convince him to retreat."
Without waiting for a reply Nihlus moved towards the nearest sounds of battle. It wasn't long before he got his first look at the covenant. Dozens of corpses of small aliens littered the battlefield where they had apparently rushed a group of turians holding a superior position.
"Grunts, little bastards are damn vicious in a pack." Hall commented from behind him.
The turians turned to regard the new arrivals. Their leader took a long look at the human. Nihlus cut off any objections before they could be made, "He's with me; we need to find the general."
Hall smirked at the officer, "And then kick all the alien bastards off our planet."
The unnamed turian officer scowled, "He's commanding from the central troopship."
The conversation was interrupted by a low buzzing sound.
Hall brought his pistol up and started firing, "Drones!"
A swarm of dozens of flying insects buzzed around the frigate they had taken shelter near, firing a near continuous stream of green and pink projectiles.
Two turian troopers exploded in a pink mist. The others began firing into the air, missing more often than not.
One of the drones let out a screech and plummeted to the ground. The human dived towards its dead body and came up firing the dropped weapon.
Nihlus' own shotgun took out another half dozen of the flying creatures before they broke off. Only five turians fell in the short firefight.
"We need to move, elites, brutes, or hunters will move in next. We probably don't have the firepower to deal with any of those." The human seemed to take in the turians' skeptical looks. "We've been fighting these bastards for twenty seven years. Trust me."
"I have a feeling Admiral Korrus, if he is still alive, was a bit hasty in assaulting this colony," Nihlus remarked offhandedly, a few of the turians nodded their heads, agreeing with him. "Now, move out, back to the command post. I'll take point, lieutenant, you're with me."
Before the group could move more covenant weapons opened up on their cover. A group of four aliens were advancing with some sort of glowing shield held out in front of them. Behind them many more small aliens were advancing while firing their own plasma weapons.
A bright blue object soared over the advancing aliens. It landed on the turian officer, where it stuck and refused to come off. "Plasma grenade! Get back!" the human shouted from behind him. One of the other turians refused to heed his warning, and attempted to remove the grenade. Both of them disappeared in a bright blue flash as the explosive went off. Protected by his armor, Nihlus barely felt the heat from the blast. Several other turians were not so fortunate.
Nihlus ignored the death and took aim with his shotgun at the leading aliens. The shots seemed to simply bounce off the shields they carried in front of them. He switched his aim to the side where the alien's gun poked out; he was rewarded as the lizard-like thing reared back in pain. A follow up shot from a fellow turian put it down quickly.
A massive gold armored alien shouldered its way through the smaller ones, seeming to shrug off the rounds that hit it. It raised a wicked looking weapon and fired off several explosive rounds at their cover, keeping the turians' heads down.
"Good thing I have this," The human lifted a pinkish weapon up and over cover, firing a spray of glowing pink rounds towards the alien.
To Nihlus' surprise, the rounds tracked their target, even as the alien attempted to spin out of the way. Several of them stuck in the alien until they exploded in the same manner that claimed two turians earlier.
The smaller aliens broke cohesion and fled. The three shield bearing aliens attempted to sprint away. Nihlus and the other turians gunned them down as they fled.
Hall stood up and looked over the battlefield, "We need to move, now!" He pointed to the air, where several dropships began turning around towards their position.
The turians needed no further prompting.
ooooooo
Shepard and his two teammates advanced along the rubble covered ground. Visibility was almost nil. They could still hear the phantom, though it was much quieter than before. He turned to Liara, "I don't suppose the blue shiny thing you do is any good at detecting an enemy."
"That's not how biotics work commander." The human-looking alien replied.
"Oh well, worth a shot." Shepard grinned at her and continued forward, assault rifle in hand.
It wasn't long until the quiet was broken by the distant sounds of a hunter's assault cannon firing.
"Shit, hope they're okay…" Joker whispered.
Shepard shot him a glare before motioning for the group to take cover. There was a bit more weapon fire, including something that sounded like a shotgun. A final roar from a hunter sounded. Shepard couldn't tell if it was one of victory or rage. He hoped for the latter, but deep down he assumed the former. He turned his gaze in that direction, but couldn't make anything out from the swirling dust.
Shepard tightened his grip on his weapon; they had already lost two members of the team. All for a possible survivor, "This guy better be worth it." Shepard's mind briefly considered that he had known those two aliens for only a couple days, that and the fact that they were aliens.
He shook the thought from his head and started forwards again, there were hunters on the loose; if he wasn't careful they could all die.
Several minutes of nerve wracking travel later he began to see the outline of the landing pad they had originally tried to land at. He also saw the silhouettes of two hunters. As he and his two remaining team members crept forward he could make out more details. The hunters had their backs exposed, and appeared to be taking turns firing on the bunker door. That actually boded well; it meant someone human was still alive on reach.
Shepard carefully took aim with his assault rifle. He would only get one burst into the hunter; he had to make it count. "Joker, you ready? Joker?"
Before he could turn around and check on the pilot, he felt himself being lifted up roughly into the air. He found himself staring into the face of a black armored elite. His two squadmates were similarly incapacitated.
He could hear Joker thrashing impotently against his captor, "What gives we're supposed to be on the same side!"
The elite holding Shepard barked out orders "Keep his heresy silent. I will not listen to such lies."
The hunters stopped firing; he could hear their strange rumbling sounds as they spoke to one another and walked over to the group of elites and humans. The leader elite turned to look at the monstrous aliens. "Get back to opening the bunker. The fleet may have abandoned us, but we still have our duty to destroy the human scourge."
More deep rumbling, felt rather than heard, followed the orders.
Shepard took the opportunity to try and negotiate with the elite, "There's been a civil war, something about a sacred ring. Your prophets have ordered the brutes to kill every sangheili in existence." He made sure to get the race pronunciation correct, to try and not offend the volatile warrior. "Only truth is still alive, we can stop them, win this war."
"Lies!" the elite practically roared, bringing its plasma rifle to Shepard's gut.
He kept his eyes open and stared into the elites face, "Sure, sit here, live your last days in blissful ignorance while the brutes glass your planets, just as they did to ours."
The elite let out a low growl, and reared back with his gun arm. A faint blue glow filled his vision, and he felt himself go flying through the air.
As he pulled himself up into a sitting position, coughing and wheezing from the impact, he saw Liara still standing and glowing blue. The elites and Joker had been sent flying by the blast of biotic power.
"I don't care how many surprises, or how much cunning you humans have, you will still die by my hands!" The elite from earlier was stalking towards him, energy knife in hand. He seemed none the worse for wear being sent flying.
Shepard reached for his pistol and drew it, knowing he wouldn't be able to kill the elite before being skewered. He fired the pistol anyway.
He didn't believe his eyes when the elite seemed to pop, like some overripe fruit.
Shepard slowly looked upwards in awe. The towering form of a hunter stood there, its shield buried in the spot where the elite had stood. It regarded him with an unreadable expression. Shepard didn't quite know what to do, his mouth hung open in sheer surprise.
Then he heard the unmistakable click-whine of plasma grenades sticking to their target. The hunter let out a low pitched wail, and was literally torn in half from the explosion.
Shepard looked to see the other two elites behind the now dead hunter. They raised their fists in victory. Their celebration was short lived, with a roar that seemed to shake the planet itself, the second hunter charged the two aliens. A swing of its massive shield sent one elite flying like a rag doll. The second elite wasn't so fortunate. It found itself bowled over. The hunter didn't let it get up. The massive beast lifted one foot up and brought it down on the struggling elite, again and again.
When the hunter finally stopped there was nothing recognizable left. It stepped back from its gruesome kill, and tossed its head back. A deep incredibly mournful sounding wail came from the huge alien.
Shepard was completely at a loss for what to do. He had always seen hunters as walking tanks, not… this.
Liara, having no prior experience with hunters, was the first to work up the courage to speak, "Are you okay?"
The hunter didn't acknowledge the asari's question. Instead it seemed to launch into a speech in what might have been its native language, all the while it seemed to be gesturing above its dead bond brother.
Shepard finally realized what the hunter was doing, "Be respectful, I think its some sort of prayer for the dead."
Shepard, Liara, and Joker stood to the side, waiting for the hunter to finish. They all had their weapons held at the ready.
When the alien finished its monologue it turned to the three members of Shepard's squad. It pointed to Shepard with its cannon arm, and gestured to its companion.
Shepard had no idea what the hunter was asking him, so he voiced a guess and hoped the alien could understand him, "You want me to speak for him?"
The alien's voice rumbled again, this time Shepard could make out a word, though it was barely understandable through the deep rumbling voice,
"Yes."
ooooooo
AN: A ha, now we have more members of the squad... including someone really, really, tall.
I had a bit of trouble writing the first bits of this chapter, but once I got to the last two sections it finally started rollin. Hope you enjoyed it.
I probably will update this story once more before reach comes out. I want to find out how bungie lets noble team live/die before I write much more. They don't have infinity ward's reputation for killing off characters, but at the same time spartans are a bit over powered for what I'm trying to do in this story. That and I like the idea of the chief having been the last spartan, lost in the last battle of the war... etc. It has sort of a poetic thing to it. I got to say, I hate how they retconned Johnson into being a spartan I, it was better when he was a bad ass human.
Also, I still have to make a few decisions on the order of events... If anyone doesn't mind spoilers I would appreciate some input.