AN: Took a long time to work up this chapter. Between trying to get to lt. Colonel in Reach, dozens of projects and complicated homework assignments, hanging out with friends, and just plain writer's block, this took a long while to get done.
ooooooo
Shepard looked at the tall alien, wondering if the hunter was joking. He looked at the remains of the first hunter, trying to think of something to say. A human wouldn't ask someone he just met to speak at his brother's funeral, obviously hunters were very different. He tried desperately to think of everything he knew about hunters, he remembered the speculative ONI reports on hunter psychology. He remembered something about them pausing mid-battle to recite poetry, and how they simply ignored the other races, to the point of trampling them if they got in the way. Other than that all he knew was that they were big and scary. Shepard had literally no idea what the hunter wanted him to say or why.
"This seems a little strange to me. Still, I guess you hunters are pretty strange if I believe all the ONI reports," Shepard decided to say something simple and to the point. He figured if the hunters were a culture of warriors they might appreciate it, "I did not know this hunter before he died… but he saved my life in order to help defeat the covenant, a noble cause."
Shepard glanced at the towering hunter to see if there was any reaction. The alien only looked back impassively. Shepard stepped back from the dead hunter's body. The other still living alien nodded in an almost human fashion.
"Okay, so you made another alien friend... keep this up and we can start our very own zoo!" Joker cracked the joke, oblivious to the giant alien standing next to him.
He nearly had cause to regret the joke. The hunter turned and took a step towards the pilot, raising its cannon arm. Joker backed up in a near panic, hastily fumbling for his weapon.
"Easy now," Shepard said to the hunter, "it's just a joke."
The hunter didn't even turn to face him, but rumbled something Shepard couldn't quite make sense of, though it almost sounded like English.
Joker had his grenade launcher out and pointed at the hunter, "What'd he just say?"
A deep rumbling laugh came from the alien in response.
"Now I feel vaguely insulted, and I'm not sure how." Joker safed and slung the grenade launcher behind his back.
Shepard grinned at the pilot's misfortune, and then his expression became serious, "I don't hear that phantom anymore." He looked to the sky, seeing only swirling dust. Shepard turned his attention back to the hunter, "So, what do I do with you then?"
The hunter rumbled a response, but again Shepard didn't understand any of the words. He looked to Liara and Joker, but they shook their heads. "So, are you going to work with us?" The hunter nodded its head; so far the alien seemed to understand English so Shepard took the gesture to mean the same thing it would to a human. The alien continued speaking in its own language, oblivious to the fact that it wasn't being understood.
"Isn't it nice talking to a hunter instead of running around in circles screaming?" Joker unpolarized his helmet and gave Liara an exaggerated wink.
Shepard ignored Joker, "I guess I'll take that as a yes… I suppose you understand English?" Another nod from the hunter, "Okay, then did you see a zealot and another alien, almost human? Or did you kill them?"
The hunter turned to face into the storm. It lifted its cannon arm and pointed into the swirling dust.
"Then lead the way." Shepard gestured with an arm and fell into step behind the walking tank, Joker and Liara followed close behind. Shepard flipped off his external speakers and motioned for Joker to do the same. "What do you think?"
"About what commander? Working with a hunter that's probably killed dozens of our people here on reach? Working with a zealot that had done even worse? Being stuck on reach with no way off, and possibly no way to contact our rampant AI who may or may not help us anyway?" Joker took a deep breath, "Because I'm just peachy with all that."
"How can you accept such things?" Liara interrupted before Shepard could reply, "They killed so many of your people and you don't care?"
"I didn't say I don't care. There's nothing I'd like better right now than to drive my knife to the hilt into some elite's skull. That won't help humanity's situation though…" Joker motioned to the hulking alien up ahead, "We're falling behind… last one there has to buy the drinks!"
Shepard made a mental note to talk to Joker later, or better yet find a psychiatrist. He shrugged his shoulders and followed the two as the hunter led on into the dust storm.
ooooooo
Richard Hall followed the non-covvie aliens through the encampment. A corvette hung ominously overhead, Hall thanked whatever god might have been listening that the covenant were generally stupid and preferred to attack in close combat before bombarding their enemies to rubble.
It was about as much of a disaster of a battle as any fight against the covenant he had seen. Brutes dropping in all over the place, defenders scattered and trying to hold out in desperate pockets. He counted the turians lucky, as there was only a single corvette laying siege to their base.
They eventually came up to a group of turians armed only with sidearms, and whose armor was significantly less worn. High level officers Hall realized.
"I don't have time for it specter, these aliens are pressing everywhere, I have enough trouble just holding their dropships back with portable anti air weapons." One of the officers stated.
"You have less time than you think." Hall interrupted, "We've been fighting these bastards for twenty seven years, if you don't do something about that corvette soon they'll give up on trying to kill you in close combat and just blast this area to ash."
The alien stood up and turned to regard Hall with one hand on his sidearm, "How exactly do you expect me to do that? Guardian lasers do little more than scratch their paint. And every time one of my ships attempts to shoot it, they end up dead."
"Have you tried contacting our planetary command?" Hall shook his head in disbelief at what he was about to suggest, "You bastards might have invaded us without cause, but there is something to the old saying of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the covenant there?" He pointed a thumb to the corvette hanging overhead. "That belongs to the covenant, a group of races that has already slaughtered billions of us in their religious genocidal war. If they're attacking you now, you can bet they'll hunt your race down next."
"Do you really think it would be that easy? Why would your commanders work with us?"
"I don't know, you'd have to let me try and talk to them," A wraith mortar crashed to the ground nearby, shaking the ground they stood on, "and soon."
ooooooo
Odeg'Delus, once shipmaster of a frigate in the sangheili military, found himself in a situation he wouldn't have even considered less than a month ago, trudging through a planet destroyed by his race, following a human through the ash and dust.
The entirety of his life he had been raised to believe the prophets knew the will of the gods themselves. When he had found out that the prophets had been lying to his people for all those hundreds of years he had expected to fight the prophets, their brute lackeys, and even the other races of their once glorious covenant. Odeg had even accepted that he might have to work alongside the once hated and reviled humans in order to defeat the prophets and their accursed rings. He did not expect to be fighting his fellow sangheili.
The human ahead made a hand signal, and crouched down low to crawl over an ash dune. The unknown alien with the long and likely undeserved name followed suit. Instead of crawling, Odeg crouched and moved forward until he could just see over the lip of the dune.
A large number of his people stood around several vehicles and hastily built shelters. A veritable mountain of emergency rations, human and covenant alike sat under the cover of a pair of damaged shadow transports. Odeg's mandibles curled in disgust, his people after being left behind, were now reduced to scavengers. From his position at the crest of the dune he counted two ultras, a pink armored zealot, a ranger, and a half dozen spec ops soldiers.
He fingered the handle of his sword when he saw the other inhabitants of the camp. Brutes and jackals, traitors and cowardly scum, well suited to the task of scavenging in the blasted ash wastes of Reach. There where a full three dozen of the dishonorable brutes, including a chieftain, and roughly half that number of jackals, all equipped as skirmishers. Their armor was a mix of types, likely the kig-yar had scavenged their equipment from their fallen comrades.
"I will go down there and convince my brothers of the traitorous nature of the brutes." He announced to he two companions.
"Seriously?" The unknown human asked. "Just walk down there and convince a zealot that he should make nice with us? Hell, for that matter why are you fighting with me? Last time I saw an elite he was trying to gut me with a sword."
Tali looked back and forth between the human and Odeg. He ignored the alien's looks and met the humans gaze. "Our race has been condemned to the same fate yours has. Millions of us already lie dead in the halls of high charity."
"Ha!" the human let out a short laugh, "You get a taste of your own medicine and suddenly you want to be friends?"
"It's not that simple." Odeg refuted the human's accusations.
"Isn't it? Nevermind, we have work to do, go ahead and try and talk to the lot, if they don't listen to you, I'll be sure to bury your body someplace nice." The human turned back around and tapped his helmet, activating the zoom feature.
Odeg couldn't tell if the last statement was a joke, so he ignored it and began walking down the dunes.
He didn't get more than a few steps before being noticed. One of the spec ops troopers raised his weapon, "Halt!"
Odeg followed the order, "Take me to your commander trooper, my ship has been destroyed and I have had little rest since. I am glad to see a friendly soldier for once."
Sangheili spec ops weren't stupid, but they were inclined to trust other sangheili. The soldier contacted someone over his comm, likely the zealot in the center of the camp. After a few brief exchanges the elite nodded to the center of camp. "Talk to commander Awel'Limudee. He is in the center of camp." With that the elite stalked back off on patrol.
The camp was small it was only a short while before the occupants noticed him. Odeg took note of the hostile glares of the brutes, and the lazy almost uncaring looks of the kig-yar.
His fellow sangheili looked at him with a measure of resignation. They saw a shipmaster alone among the wastes and assumed, correctly, that he had no ship to escape on.
The zealot walked over to greet Odeg, "Welcome to our camp shipmaster, shame that it isn't under better circumstances."
"The circumstances are worse than they appear."
"I take it the humans came back and stopped the rescue mission then? If they come to finish us off, then I say let them, I could use a good fight!" The zealot gripped his sword handle in anticipation.
"If only it were humans we had to fight." Odeg's reply was calm and instantly drew the zealot's attention as well as the pair of ultras.
One of the two ultra ranked sangheili walked forward, "What are you saying brother? The parasite was defeated when the demon destroyed the sacred ring."
Odeg made sure to activate his radio before speaking so that the other elites on patrol would hear his words. "It is not an easy message to bring, but we have been betrayed… the entire sangheili race has been declared heretics, by the high prophet of truth himself." Odeg's words stunned his fellow sangheili.
The zealot was the first to recover from his confusion, "Lies, you cannot speak the-"
The zealot's words were cut off by a gravity hammer smashing into his skull. Odeg and the other two elites were sent flying through the air by the impact. Odeg rolled to his feet sword in hand. He looked towards the brute chieftain who contemptuously kicked away the zealot's remains.
The brute started laughing, "So the hierarchs have finally made their move… took them long enough. I will enjoy killing your kind after so long under your heel." The brute took a few practice swings with his hammer at the empty air. "Kill the heretics!"
Odeg began backpedaling from the brute, knowing his sword would do him little good, except to take the chieftain with him to the grave.
"What's the matter shipmaster?" The brute sneered at his title, "Scared?"
Odeg ignored the taunt and looked at his plasma pistol; he barely had any charge left in the sidearm. He shot the weapon until it ran dry. The chieftain merely laughed; the brute's shields hadn't even dropped.
A swing of the chieftain's hammer sent a crate tumbling his way, and he rolled to avoid the projectile. Odeg was about to consign himself to a close range duel, where the brute's hammer could cripple or kill him even if it missed. Fortunately for him, his radio came to life.
To his surprise it was the human's voice that he heard, "Hey goldie! There are a few crates to your right, make your way there, unless you want Mr. Hammer there to splatter you all over the ground."
Odeg continued backpedaling from the brute, in the direction indicated by the human. When he judged himself close enough he dived into a roll and ended up behind the weapons crates. His two allies, the human and the alien were lying down in the ash, weapons at the ready.
The brute came around the crates and received two shotgun blasts to its chest. The chieftain's shields dropped. The human came up to his knees and continued firing. The other alien fired from her prone position on the ground. The two shotguns punched large fist sized holes into the brute's chest. Purplish red blood pored out over his armor. The chieftain was tough though, and its armor had absorbed most of the small pellets. It roared in anger.
The roar was quickly cut off in a gurgle. The brute clawed at its throat where a knife now protruded. Odeg seized the opportunity; he drove his sword deep, and yanked it out sideways, killing the brute finally.
"Thank you human and you Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," He said nodding at each in turn, "We should not stand here idle; there are more brutes to kill."
ooooooo
Shepard continued to jog behind the massive bulk of the hunter. He still didn't know the thing's name, and doubted it was pronounceable if he did. As the group crossed the ash covered wasteland of reach he began to wonder if they were even headed in the right direction. The hunter could have easily misunderstood his instructions; at least he thought it might have, honestly he didn't really know how the hunter's mind worked.
His thoughts were broken as he heard the distant rumble of far off explosions. "Let's move people!" Shepard broke into a light jog, following behind his team. They got to a particularly steep dune, Shepard, Liara and Joker had to holster their weapons in order to crawl hands and knees up the hill, the hunter powered up the slope, its heavy frame digging out footholds in the loose ash dune as it walked. Shepard moved away from the hunter's path, its passing had stirred up the ash and made it hard to crawl up the slope.
He finally came to the crest, Liara crouched beside him, and Joker had ended up several dozen yards to his right. The so far nameless hunter… had charged right into the brutes. It swung its shield back and forth while firing its cannon into groups of the aliens.
"Concentrate on the skirmishers!" He yelled out to his two companions. Mimicking his own words, he pulled his assault rifle from behind his back and lined up a burst on one of the aliens. Four rounds blew the armored jackal's head apart and sent it into a somersault. He noticed a brute armed with a needle rifle attempt to flank around the hunter. A blue glow surrounded the offending alien and lifted it into the air. Before Shepard could finish it off, another blue blast hit it and sent the brute flying off into the distance.
Down in the alien's camp, the elites were regrouping, four spec ops elites led by an ultra stood up from their cover and began rushing the distracted brutes, firing their plasma weapons the whole time. The ranger triggered his jump pack and landed behind an unsuspecting brute. The specialist stabbed an energy blade into the brute's neck.
He noted Odeg and Tali in another section of the battlefield fighting a small group of skirmishers, that battle ended quickly, with some sort of stung grenade from Tali allowing Odeg to finish them off with his energy sword.
It wasn't completely one sided, a pair of skirmishers armed with needlers circled around one of the spec ops troopers near the rear, eventually filling the larger alien with enough projectiles that he exploded in a messy pink colored cloud, three more bodies of dead elites lay around the battlefield, including an ultra.
Shepard fired several long bursts at the skirmishers, one of them dropped, the other leapt away, its gun arm hanging limply at its side. Plasma fire forced him to duck down behind the dune, a quick glance showed a half dozen skirmishers and half that number of brutes charging up the dune at him. He chucked a frag and ran to the side after making sure he wasn't visible from the other side of the dune, Liara followed close behind. Joker seemed busy looking for a good place to launch a grenade without friendly fire; Shepard tapped the pilot on the shoulder and pointed behind him, where the brutes and skirmishers were cresting the dune.
Joker nodded and launched a grenade in their direction. It was nearly perfectly aimed. Two of the brutes and three of the skirmishers jerked and rolled down either side of the dune, limp and obviously dead. Shepard didn't see the other three jackal scouts, but the remaining brute swayed on his feet and began to aim his spiker. Shepard didn't let him. Ten rounds tore the alien apart and sent it to join its comrades in hell.
Twenty two rounds left; Shepard aimed down into the camp, and saw the sangheili and hunter mopping up the remaining brutes. A human in standard army kit walked up to a bleeding and badly injured brute, finishing off the alien with a shotgun blast.
The ranger from earlier began walking up behind the army soldier, energy blade in hand. Shepard nearly smacked himself; Odeg might have run across these elites and convinced them to fight the brutes, that didn't mean they would accept that humans were no longer their enemies.
He brought his rifle up and hoped he had enough ammo left to take down the elite. Thankfully he didn't need to open fire. Odeg quickly stepped in behind the unknown soldier, energy sword brandished. The ranger didn't back off, the other elites began to walk up behind him, their weapons trained on the zealot. The army soldier and Tali stepped up behind Odeg, their shotguns at the ready.
Shepard motioned for Joker and Liara to follow him down into the camp. They walked up behind the elites in the middle of their conversation.
"You would work with the enemies of our covenant?" the ultra demanded of Odeg.
"They are not enemies, the oracle itself works with the humans, it speaks in their language and follows their commands." Odeg countered. "Were it not for the human's aid halo would have destroyed us all."
"Lies spread by a heretic." One of the spec ops accused.
"Are you calling your own arbiter a heretic?" Shepard picked that time to interrupt. "I thought that rank meant something to the sangheili."
Only the two elites at the rear reacted, making sure to keep guns trained on both groups.
The ultra responded to Shepard's accusation, "What would you know human?"
"That's the reason I'm here, instead of back on earth fighting the brutes. I stayed behind so our prowler could travel to earth with your arbiter on board. He knows the truth, and he plans to make it right. You might not want to hear it, but your religion is a lie, made by the prophets to make you their willing slaves. Do you want to end up like these brutes? So deluded by their faith they'll kill their own brothers in arms?" Shepard pointed his rifle at the ground with one hand and pointed with the other. As if to emphasize his point the massive form of the hunter walked up behind him and rumbled something in its own language.
The elites gripped their weapons nervously, unsure of what to do, and obviously contemplating a suicidal last stand.
"You do not need to die for this honor-less cause." Odeg stated, "Come with us, we journey to the human homeworld, to put an end to the lies of the prophets and the traitorous brutes."
"If they speak the truth," the ranger began, "Then it would be foolish of us to fight here when our sons and families, even sangheilios itself are threatened by the brutes."
"Are you suggesting we work with heretics and filth such as humans?" one of the spec ops soldiers questioned.
"Are they?" The ultra responded in turn, "Think of how many times our forces have been horribly bloodied by the humans on the ground, and of how determined their resistance was when they fought for this planet. How many of our ships died simply to achieve orbital superiority? I'm starting to think the prophet's betrayal goes back much further than simply when they told the brutes to kill our brothers."
Joker chose that moment to but in, "If we're going to fight, let's get on with it already, if not, let's hurry up and get this over with, I'd rather fight some brutes than sit here talking with you lot about battles past. So call in your phantom and let's all fly up to our ship will yah?"
"Your soldier speaks well, but the brutes pilot our phantom. I do not know if they have heard of what has happened here, but if they have they will likely only venture near to attack us." The ultra placed his weapon on his back, "I fear even with a hunter fighting with us, we will not be able to easily destroy a phantom."
Shepard thought the problem over for a few minutes. He turned to the army soldier, "I take it you're lieutenant colonel Rodriguez?" A nod from the soldier, "Good, how did you originally broadcast that message? We might be able to get in touch with our AI, and find another way off this rock."
Rodriguez, seeing that the elites were no longer pointing their weapons at him, also placed his shotgun away, "There's a bunker not too far from here, I can't get too far in, requires a hell of a lot more clearance than I've got, seems to be an ONI research facility of some kind. NavSpecWeaps, you know the really high level stuff. In the emergency situation I was 'allowed' access to the station's comm system, its got enough juice to punch a signal to orbit."
"Then that will have to be our next destination," Shepard turned to the elites, "Assuming you are in agreement?"
The ultra nodded, "The sooner we leave this planet, the better."
ooooooo
A lone asari sat sipping a drink in a bar on Illium. Not the most uncommon sight. The only thing unusual was the furtive glances she cast at anyone who walked into the bar. Also not an uncommon sight on Illium in particular, but it did tell the salarian walking into the bar that he had finally found his target.
The salarian walked over to the bartender, ordered a pair of drinks, and sat down in front of the nervous asari.
As soon as he sat down the woman began talking, "Are you my contact?"
The salarian smiled internally, "No, I'm with the STG, we want to ask you a few questions captain Lantea." He not so subtly indicated other salarians lounging around the bar. In truth they weren't STG, but the salarian reputation worked wonders on the asari freighter captain. She grabbed the proffered drink and took a long sip.
"So, why is the STG after me? On an asari world no less. I didn't think I pissed anyone but Saren off; still don't know why he's after me if I only lost a scientist and a quarian."
"That is not why we are here. The relay you went through to reach that world, did you know that it had been activated not a week prior to you travelling through it?"
The asari leaned back and crossed her arms, "No I didn't, it's not like just using a relay at the edge of the terminus systems is illegal."
The salarian sipped at his own drink before continuing, "I wasn't finished, less than a day after you went through that relay a group of pirates also traveled through, followed closely by a turian hierarchy patrol fleet."
"I wasn't helping out pirates if that's what you're asking; my ship and crew's activities have always been on the right side of the law." The asari started sounding more defensive.
"Regardless of your ship's questionable activities, that wasn't the most interesting traffic through relay 314. Only a day later an entire turian battle fleet traveled through, including a dreadnaught." The asari shifted uncomfortably. Letting the STG operative know that she knew something about what might have happened to that fleet. "Imagine the council's surprise when only the barest handful of those ships returns from that relay. We know you visited at least one planet on the other side of that relay. We would very much like to know what you learned on the other side, and why you thought it was so important to leave that you left behind the daughter of a very powerful matriarch, a person who was also it seems very closely watched by a council specter."
The asari started talking, slowly at first. She guessed, quite correctly, that she would have an easier time of it if she just went ahead and told the STG what they wanted to know, "It was just a ship graveyard. A few dozen cruisers and dreadnaught sized ships without any eezo; all floating about a planet that looked like it had been nuked into oblivion. Doctor T'soni wanted to take a look at it, but my quarian mechanic started babbling something about some of the debris being recent."
The salarian interrupted the story, "But you figured you had time to look around and loot the place since everyone else had gone and killed each other."
The asari nodded, "That, and there might have still been prothean ruins on the surface of the planet, we probably should have left as soon as we saw the bodies on that station."
"Bodies?" The salarian asked, genuinely curious. The captain was being unusually cooperative; it made him feel more confident that he could find out what exactly was behind relay 314. The turian fleet had mission reports from their initial invasion of the planet, and the battle data from the fleet engagements, but little else.
"Yeah, lots of 'em. Two different species fighting over that station for some reason. That's when a pair of dreadnaughts showed up in system and started launching fighters. The shuttle tried to make it out, but they blew it to pieces before it could even get out of the hangar bay. We made for the relay right after that."
The salarian blinked in surprise, "Two dreadnaughts? Do you know how large they were?" The operative knew that the turians had engaged two dreadnaughts during their one sided engagement, dreadnaughts wielding impressive shields, directed energy weapons, and that were several times larger than a citadel standard dreadnaught.
"Not off the top of my head, one was bigger than the other is all I remember."
The salarian stood up from his seat, "Good bye captain, if you're running from a specter, I wouldn't recommend omega, know from experience only the dumb criminals go there, and usually get stabbed in the back before you can shoot them."
"Yeah… thanks…"
AN: Now to clear a possible questions before they get asked, no those new elites are not going to be a part of the 'squad' They'll be on the crew, at least until they get to earth.
Feedback is appreciated.