The Halo Universe belongs to Microsoft Studios and 343 Industries. But these characters are my own creation and cannot be used without my permission. If you do use them without my permission, then Buzzsaw will slice your car in half. Oh, and your house, dog and whatever else you own. Enjoy the show.

The Sangheili 800 Squad

Chapter 13: Finders, Losers

February, 2550 (Human Calendar)

1339 Hours

Frozen Forest

It was about ten minutes after they left Utarz that Repora spoke up.

"So Tracer… you think he'll do it?" He asked.

Tracer, since he was in the Wraith, didn't hear him.

So Repora activated his radio. "Oi, Tracer."

"Repora!" Tracer snapped. "We have to maintain radio silence, remember?"

"Oh please, no-one's gonna hack into this." Repora scoffed.

"You never know! They might listen to us discussing plans or something and take advantage of it!"

"You sound like Atar." Repora commented. "Why'd we discuss plans on our radio?"

"I don't know, it's just a possible situation! Now turn off your radio!"

"But then how will I talk to you? You can't hear me while you're in the Wraith, and we can't stop to talk either."

"Have you considered not talking to him?" Zen asked.

"No." Repora said. "Why?"

"Turn your radio off!" Tracer said angrily.

"Fine." Repora muttered, deactivating his radio. "Some people just can't grasp the art of conversation."

About fifteen minutes passed as they walked behind the path of carnage that the Wraith was creating.

Then Repora did it again. "Are we in a better mood?"

"REPORA!"

"Look, I'm just gonna keep doing this until you answer my question." Repora said.

"Fine." Tracer muttered. "What's your question?"

"Do you think that Utarz'll do it?"

"What, rescue Miara?" Tracer asked.

"Yeah."

"To be honest? No."

Zen stopped walking. "Wait, what?"

Knowing that Zen had stopped, Tracer kept moving regardless. "I don't believe that Utarz will actually rescue Miara. If anything, he'll probably just get himself captured as well. Atar was right. Miara has to save herself."

"What?!" Zen said angrily.

Tracer sighed impatiently. "Look, remember our code of honour? The part regarding getting captured by the enemy?"

Zen double blinked. "What? Oh…"

"Oh, that's right!" Repora said cheerfully. "'If you get captured by the enemy, then you have to find a way to free yourself. Otherwise, you have lost your honour and you must immediately kill yourself.' How could I forget?"

"Yeah, I forgot as well." Zen muttered, running to catch up. "Dunno why."

"Probably because Miara's one of the nicest people here." Tracer replied. "I only just remembered as well."

"And Atar's the only one who remembered." Zen said. "So then we shouldn't've sent Utarz to rescue her."

"Actually, when I remembered about the code, I realised that Utarz was the perfect choice for this." Tracer said. "He's useless as a soldier, so he'll just slow us down and he has no chance of rescuing Miara, so he'll just get captured as well. So it's effectively a way of getting rid of our worst soldier."

"Huh." Zen said. "That's convenient."

"I dunno." Repora said doubtfully. "It seems too convenient to me. Almost as if the author realised he had made a mistake in Sangheili behaviour, so he came up with some stupid reason for the story to not conflict with established Halo canon."

Zen stared at Repora blankly for a moment.

"And he must've also wanted a pointless fourth wall break." Repora added.

Zen shook his head. "You know, I really want to know exactly what goes on inside that head of yours."

Repora chuckled. "No, you don't."

"Well, shit." Utarz grumbled. "I was going somewhere with this."

Utarz had spent the past ten minutes wandering aimlessly in the forest, hoping to find Miara via blind luck. Unfortunately, this plan had gone down the drain almost immediately, so that wasn't working. And Utarz didn't have a backup plan, so he had basically gotten himself lost for no reason at all.

Which sucked.

Okay Utarz, think. Utarz thought to himself. Miara can't be that hard to find. I mean, she won't just be in the middle of nowhere, there'd have to be a place where the Heretics are keeping her, like a super-secret base or something.

Utarz looked up. But I can't find something like that from down here. Maybe if I climbed one of the trees…

Really hoping that the things would be able to hold his weight, Utarz jumped up and grabbed one of the branches.

It broke.

Utarz hit the ground and groaned in annoyance. He looked around for a large rock or something, but there was nothing. Just the same flat, empty forest. Not even any big hills.

Utarz looked around for another tree, preferably one with thicker branches. They all appeared to be the same though. All thin and easily broken.

Easily broken…

Utarz had a sudden brainwave. If the Wraith could plough though these things at its slowest speed, then maybe he had a chance at knocking one over. He could then use that as a sort of ramp to climb to the top of one of the other trees.

Utarz turned to one of the trees and kicked it with all his strength.

It broke, but it also hurt Utarz's foot like hell. He cursed and waved it a bit before looking at his handiwork.

Ha! He thought smugly. Bet Tracer couldn't've done that!

It wasn't where he wanted it though, so Utarz had to go over to the fallen log, pick it up and place it against another tree. It was surprisingly heavy, so Utarz had to call upon some forgotten muscle mass in order to complete his task.

Once that was done, Utarz panted for a bit, trying to get his energy back.

Then he slowly climbed up the log, hoping that it wouldn't snap it half and send him plummeting back to the ground.

Thankfully, it held so that Utarz could get to the top and look around.

At first, he was bitterly disappointed. The skyline was pretty much more of the same. Just treetops in the immediate area.

Then he was surprised by the mountain range. He had never noticed a gigantic line of mountains in the entire time that he had been stationed at the SSMB. Although, he had been in a crater.

Then he saw a line of trees falling over in the distance. He assumed that it was due to the Wraith. Although, he was slightly confused by the lack of trees to the east that wasn't in the path of the Wraith.

Maybe that's where Miara is. Utarz thought. It's a long shot, but I don't see any Forerunner shit anywhere, so that rules out secret bases.

CRACK

Utarz froze, then looked at the branches he was resting on.

"Ah, fuck." Utarz muttered before falling to the ground.

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised that they chose not to save her." Iro said to Buzzsaw as they walked.

Buzzsaw raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"Code of honour." Iro said. "If you're caught by the enemy, you have to get out by yourself."

This made no sense to Buzzsaw. "So why did you kidnap her if you knew that they wouldn't help her?"

"I didn't." Iro replied. "I thought they would be stupid enough to ignore the code."

"Oh." Buzzsaw continued walking. "Well, they weren't."

"Unfortunately." Iro sighed. "Looks like we're back at square one. We'll have to come up with another plan."

"Don't you mean you'll have to come up with a different plan?" Buzzsaw corrected. "If I recall, you usually come up with the plan, and then you send me to actually put the plan into motion."

"And I do a good job of it, too." Iro replied. "I mean, when was the last time that one of my plans didn't work?"

"Fifteen minutes ago." Buzzsaw replied.

"…Okay." Iro muttered. "So we need a new plan."

"Well, we can't get in front of them without dealing with their tank." Buzzsaw said. "So we should be moving forward when they're sleeping."

"You mean when we need to sleep."

"Well what's your plan?"

"Hmm…" Iro was thinking quickly. "Well, you're right. We can't get in front without dealing with the Wraith, so we might have to go for sabotage…"

"What kind of sabotage?"

"Well, they can't hurt the artefact with a Wraith blast. They'd need more powerful explosives."

"So maybe one of them has these explosives." Buzzsaw said.

"Yeah…" Iro said. "Question is, which one has them?"

"Repora. Remember? He mentioned having the bombs with him back when they sent off Utarz."

"Ah, yes." Iro said. "Repora."

Then it hit him.

"Oh… Repora."

"What?" Buzzsaw asked. "What's so bad about Repora?"

"…He was a rather… infamous serial killer back on Sanghelios." Iro explained. "He would go to a Kaidon's housing, attack the Kaidon with no warning or explanation, defeat him in battle, and then kill him."

"…Oh." Buzzsaw suddenly felt like he was intruding on something. "How'd he kill them?"

"Slowly." Iro shuddered.

"Yikes." Buzzsaw mumbled. "Wait, how do you know this?"

"He would record the whole event with either audio or video." Iro said. "Sometimes, he would somehow know and talk to the person watching or listening to it… His crimes made the news headlines a lot."

"That's messed."

"Indeed."

"Wonder what made him do that."

"I don't know, but whatever happened to him made him a killer since childhood."

"Since he was a kid?!" Buzzsaw exclaimed. "He's been doing that stuff since he was a kid?! How the hell did he manage to get into the army?!"

"I don't know. Maybe the Prophets were doped up or something."

"So how exactly are we going to do something about this guy?"

Iro sighed. "I'll figure something out."

"Okay, there, again." Buzzsaw said. "You sighed again. How exactly do you do that if you can't blow?"

"…Shut up."

1426 Hours

Heretic Chasm

"Oi!" Miara yelled at the boulder blocking her way back to her teammates. "Big guy!"

Miara waited a few seconds before she heard a noncommittal grunt on the other side.

"I need some fresh air!" Miara added. "I can't survive on stale cave air forever."

"You went to toilet thirty minutes ago." Tank pointed out.

"Look, you can guard me, but just let me breathe proper air for a moment, okay?"

There was some silence before Tank groaned in defeat. "FINE."

Miara waited until Tank had pushed the boulder aside before she made a run for it.

She had already tried this strategy before, however, so Tank knew what to do and just moved his shield in front of her.

Miara quickly stopped to avoid getting hit by it again.

Tank pointed his cannon arm at her. "Breathe fresh air. Two minutes."

Miara gave him a look of contempt and stepped outside.

She wasn't lying. She really did need the fresh air. She breathed deeply.

There. Much better than the cave air.

Miara looked around. The cliffs didn't seem to have many footholds or handholds, so climbing didn't seem to be an option. The only way out appeared to be the natural ramp that lead back up to ground level.

She could just run away, but she reckoned that Tank could just blow her up without any trouble at all. Miara didn't exactly want to end her life at the moment.

Maybe she could convince him to let her go…

Picking her words carefully, Miara said, "You don't seem to be particularly thrilled about your job."

This was true. Tank didn't exactly want to play babysitter while the others went to get the artefact. In response, he grunted.

Taking that as an agreement, Miara continued. "So why are you doing this?"

This was an easy one for Tank. He said, "Tank must do what is necessary."

"Well, why can't someone else do it?" Miara asked. "I mean, your talents are best suited to… other things… right?"

"Tank may not sound like it, but Tank is not stupid." Tank said bluntly.

Faking ignorance, Miara asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Two minutes are up."

"What? No it hasn't."

"Get back in cave."

Miara sighed in defeat and walked back into the cave. Tank followed her to the entrance, waited for her to get inside, then rolled the boulder back over the entrance, making sure that there was a slit to allow her to breathe.

Miara hated this. It was awful. She needed to get out.

She knew the others wouldn't rescue her, as per the code of honour, so she had to rely on her own devices. Unfortunately, she didn't really have any, so she had to think of something else.

She needed a gun. She needed something to defend herself with. That way, she'd be able to stand a chance. As it was, she had no way to free herself.

If she had a second person with her, she might be able to plan something around that. But she was the only one here.

She needed to think this through.

Tank, meanwhile, had decided that Miara had a point.

He was not enjoying this job. He had joined Iro's team to bring the Prophets to justice, not be a prison guard. He wanted action, and action didn't translate to turning his back while some Sangheili peed behind him.

But it was necessary. And Iro told him to.

If Iro told Tank to do something, Tank would damn well do it. Iro was the smartest of them all, which was why he was leader. Iro was the one who would lead them to victory against the Covenant.

Eventually, anyway.

They needed more people to join them, which was why they had tried so hard to get Zen on their side. He could've convinced the whole squad to join them.

Unfortunately, fate said otherwise.

Tank looked around. He was bored. He wanted to do something.

He could go for a walk. Miara wasn't going anywhere. Even if the others showed up, they wouldn't have the strength to push the boulder.

Then again, Repora had explosives. He could blast open the rock. Then Miara would escape and the whole incident would be Tank's fault.

So he had to stay.

Tank grumbled and looked around. He was starting to hate this chasm already.

A sudden glint of light caught Tank's eye. He looked up at the top of the cliff, but it disappeared the moment he saw it.

He looked at the cliff for a few moments before settling back down.

2201 Hours

Near the Wraith

"Okay, okay, okay!" Repora suddenly ran in front of the Wraith. "Stopstopstop!"

Tracer stopped, climbed out of the Wraith and glared at Repora. "What?"

"Can we like, stop for tonight?" Repora asked. "We've been walking for hours."

"We have much more ground to cover." Tracer replied.

"So? We can afford to stop for more than four hours."

"Repora has a point." Zen said. "I think we should pause for tonight and then continue early in the morning."

"The Heretics could get a lead!" Tracer argued.

"I doubt it." Zen replied. "They're probably just as tired as we are."

"Yeah!" Repora supported. "Let's just stop for now and continue later!"

Tracer sighed. "Fine."

"Yay!" Repora jumped into the air and then walked off. "I'm gonna go find a nice piece of log!"

Zen watched him go. Then he looked up at Tracer. "You know, you could be a good leader if you wanted to."

"What makes you say that?" Tracer asked, turning to him.

"Well, for a start, you're a smart guy." Zen said. "Are you a good strategist?"

"I like to think so."

"Well, all leaders need to be good strategists. So that's one area checked off."

"Uh, huh."

"You're also reasonable." Zen added. "A good leader needs to be reasonable."

"Which is probably why we're going to shit." Tracer muttered.

"And you have good co-operation skills." Zen said.

"With whom?"

"Well, with me and Miara and… and…"

"That's where the co-operation ends." Tracer said. "I don't work well with idiots."

"Idiots?"

"You know. People who aren't as smart as me."

Zen stared at him. "…Like?"

"Well, I'm not saying that I'm a genius." Tracer said modestly. "I just don't get along well with people like Utarz and Repora… and Atar."

"What's wrong with Atar?"

"I dunno, he's just… hard to deal with." Tracer replied. "I mean, he's a good person, it's just that… I think that a good leader would let command deal with this."

"I guess I can see that." Zen said. "I mean, splitting into these groups isn't exactly a brilliant move."

"Yeah…" Tracer said. "I just think that a group of professionals would be better trained to handle this."

Zen looked at Tracer oddly. "Don't you want to handle this?"

"This isn't cowardice, if that's what you're thinking." Tracer said quickly. "It's just that combat isn't really my strong suit and I don't want to let the team down."

Zen chuckled. "Relax. Utarz is much more capable of that."

"Hey guys!"

Zen and Tracer turned to see Repora coming back into view with a giant, hollowed out log.

"Look what I found!" He said excitedly, putting it on the ground. "It's nice and warm and it only has sixteen spiders in it! It's perfect!"

"Yeah." Zen said. "Perfect. What do we get to sleep in?"

Utarz looked over the ravine. The Hunter was still in front of the cave entrance. Good news was that he was now sound asleep.

Utarz had decided to wait until night so that he wouldn't be seen, but now that the opportunity presented itself, he was having trouble deciding what to do next. He knew for a fact that he couldn't push the boulder away. He wasn't strong enough to lift a Plasma Turret.

Maybe there was like a weak spot somewhere and he just had to shoot it or something. He didn't know that his Plasma Rifle could do that, but… what else did he have?

Utarz picked up the rifle and looked at it. He had never shot the thing in his life. It was a gift from his dad. He didn't want to shoot it. But hey, first time for everything, right?

Actually, how the hell did one shoot this thing anyway? Utarz looked at the gun. He'd never bothered to figure out how it actually worked. He started touching random places on the gun, trying to figure out how it shot.

CET-CHOW

A blue bolt of plasma shot out the front and zoomed down the canyon. Utarz watched as it arched downwards and hit the Hunter in the head.

It woke up violently, swinging its shield around and hitting the boulder with incredible force.

Utarz could hear the crack it made as the boulder developed a large jagged line down the middle.

The Hunter froze, apparently horrified by what it had done. Then it remembered that something hot had hit its head, so it looked up at the source.

Utarz backed up quickly to avoid being seen. Now the Hunter was awake and alert.

Now what?

Utarz crept up and looked at the Hunter. It looked around, then decided to search the area. It lumbered away to the earthen ramp, apparently wanting to search where the round had come from.

Once it was halfway across the ravine, Utarz took his chance. He put his rifle in the holster climbed over the edge and started climbing down.

When Utarz had started, Tank was at the base of the ramp. When Utarz hit the bottom, Tank was at the top.

Utarz ran over to the boulder and looked at the impressive crack in the boulder. He was surprised that the rock hadn't split into two, although he expected that another blow like that to do the trick.

Hoping, but doubting, that the plasma bolt would be enough, Utarz reached for his rifle and shot at it a few times.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, come on." Utarz muttered, hitting the boulder with the rifle. "Break, goddammit…"

Deciding to go for a different approach, Utarz backed up, intending to kick the boulder with his foot.

As he did, he hit something made of out metal.

Utarz spun around and came face-to-face with Tank.

"How the fuck did you get down here so quickly?!" Utarz exclaimed. "Actually, how did I not hear you?!"

Tank pointed his cannon at Utarz and growled. "Put weapon down."

Utarz slowly put his gun on the ground. "Okay. Are we cool?" He asked slowly.

Tank advanced around to the boulder and gently pushed it aside, keeping his gun on Utarz all the while.

Miara was standing in the middle of the little cave, glaring at the entrance. When she saw Utarz, she double-blinked.

Oh, great. Utarz thought bitterly. So much for a rescue.

"Get in." Tank ordered.

Utarz walked inside the cave to Miara. Once he was inside, Tank gingerly rolled the boulder back over the entrance and they were both drenched in darkness.

Miara opened her mandibles a bit.

"No." Utarz raised a hand in extreme annoyance. "Not a single word."