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 Miara will burn out your eye with your own cigarette, even if you don't smoke. Enjoy the show.

The Sangheili 800 Squad

Chapter 14: Ideas, Ideas

February, 2550 (Human Calender)

0502 Hours

Frozen Forest

As Tracer drove in front of the group, knocking down trees, he wondered whether he should call Utarz just to see how he was doing. He did say to maintain radio silence, but Tracer needed to know whether Utarz had ruined Miara's honour or not.

There was a small problem though.

"There is no-one on your squad with the name, 'Utarse'. Would you like to add someone named 'Utarse'?"

"No!" Tracer snapped. "U-tarz. Not Utarse!"

"…Available options are 'yes' and 'no'."

"NO!"

"Noted. What is your request?"

"Call… Utarz…" Tracer said, very clearly and very aggravated.

"There is no command labelled 'fall'."

"Call!" Tracer yelled. "Call Utarz!"

"There is no-one on your squad with the name, 'Call Utarz'. Would you-?"

Tracer switched off his radio.

Outside the Wraith, Repora jogged up to Zen. "Hey, uh, Zen?"

"Yeah?"

"How much longer do you think this'll take?"

"What, the mission?"

"Yeah."

"Um… I'd give it about two or three more days."

"So… not long?"

"Yeah."

"So what's the point of Atar getting another soldier if by the time he gets here, we'll be done with the mission?"

Zen shrugged.

Tracer opened up the Wraith and looked at Zen. "Hey Zen!"

Zen looked up. "Yeah?"

"Could you radio Utarz? Just to make sure that he failed?"

"I thought that we needed to maintain radio silence?"

"Fuck that." Repora said. "Even if the Heretics did hack into our communications, they couldn't do anything with what we said."

"Good point." Zen switched on his radio.

"Hello." A nice, female voice said. "Thank you for using the RDIO Communications System. What would you like to do?"

"Uh…" Zen didn't really know what to do. "What can you do?"

"That is not a registered command. Would you like to try again?"

"Oh. Uh…"

"Most used commands are: call, add and ignore. Please say the command you want to use."

As a whole bunch of trees fell over, Zen said, "Call."

There was a slight pause.

"That is not a registered command. Would you like to try again?"

"What? I said call!"

"That is not a registered command. Would you like to try again?"

Zen looked at Repora. "Is this a joke?"

"No." He said wistfully. "RDIO isn't really a complex AI. I keep telling everyone that she might be a bit more useful if we let her become self-aware…"

"Call." Zen said forcefully.

This time, RDIO got what he said. "Who would you like to call?"

Before another tree could fall down, Zen quickly said, "Utarz!"

"Calling Utarz…"

Zen waited a while for a response.

"I'm sorry, but squad member 'Utarz' is unable to reply. His signal cannot be found."

"Uh, huh…" Zen said. "Call Tracer."

Slight pause.

"There is no-one on your squad called 'Tracer'. Would you like to try again?"

Zen blinked. Then he said, "Call Trac".

"Calling Trac."

Zen waited another while.

Then Tracer's voice came through. "You know, you could just talk to me."

"Then we'd have to stop, or yell." Zen replied.

"True. Did you get through to him?"

"No. It said that Utarz's signal couldn't be found."

"Huh… then he probably got captured as well."

"You think so?"

"Well it's either that, or he's dead."

"Which alternative is preferred?"

"Apparently his dad thinks highly of him, so, captured."

"He does?" Zen asked. "How come?"

"Hell if I know. Not my business to intrude."

"Okay."

An idea popped into Tracer's mind. "Hey, could you call Atar? See how he's doing?"

"Sure." Zen hung up. Then, to RDIO, he said, "Call Atar."

CRASH

"That is not a registered command. Would you like to try again?"

"Call… Atar."

"Calling Atar."

A few seconds later, Zen heard his commander's voice. "This is General Atar of the Sangheili 800 Squad. Who's this?"

"Zen, sir." Zen said.

"Zen! What's wrong? Have you run into trouble?"

"No, sir. We just want to see how you're going."

"Well, I'm not far from the base. I should be there by tomorrow."

"Right." Zen said. "Good to hear, sir."

"How's the mission going?"

"Good, sir. We should be at the crash site in two or three days."

"Excellent! So by then, not only would we have shown those Heretics who's really the incompetent ones, but we'll have an extra teammate who can help us out with the base! It's a win-win!"

"Right."

"And the rest of the team? Has Miara escaped yet?"

"No, sir, not yet. Although we think Utarz got captured."

"Wonderful! This day keeps getting better and better!"

"Right. Well, sir, I'll leave you to it then."

"Good. I'll radio you lot when I've reached the base! Atar out."

Atar hung up. Zen also decided to turn off his radio.

"Well, that sounded positive." Repora said happily. "This mission will be over in no time!"

"How do you know? You weren't even talking to Atar."

"Oh, you had your volume turned up high."

"…Oh."

0543 Hours

Utarz & Miara's Prison

Miara guessed that the others had simply wanted to get rid of Utarz. She got this vibe because she knew that if there was anyone who could fuck up badly, it was Utarz.

She and Utarz had spent most of the morning arguing. She wanted to know why and how he got himself captured and he wanted nothing more than to completely forget about it.

Eventually, she started looking for a way to escape while Utarz banged his head against the wall.

This produced an irritating noise, so after a few minutes of it, she turned around and snapped, "Will you stop that?!"

"No." Utarz replied.

"Seriously, stop it." Miara growled. "You could help me get out of here rather than give yourself more brain damage than you already have."

"Geahgeahgeahgeah!" Utarz said angrily, holding up a hand to shut her up. "I'm thinking."

Then he started hitting his head again.

A few seconds later, he stopped and rubbed his head. "Okay… okay…"

"What?"

"I have a plan." Utarz said.

"Oh, this oughta be good…" Miara muttered.

"Relax, I saw this in a book once!" Utarz insisted. He bent down to the ground and picked up a small rock. "Right, you see this?"

"Yes."

"This is me, okay? And this…" He picked up a larger rock. "This is the Hunter."

"He has a name."

"I don't give a shit. This rock…" He held up another small rock. "…Is you. Right?"

"No." Miara said sarcastically. "I'm here."

Ignoring her, Utarz continued. "So, we get let out every so often to take a crap, right? Well, we'll say that we need to go, then when Tank opens the door… or boulder… then I'll dash out and circle around him. K?"

"Yeah…" Miara nodded, wanting to see where he was going with this.

"Right, so while I'm doing that, you run for it and get back to the others. Then I'll grab the gun, escape with you, and we're done!"

"What's to stop Tank from shooting me while you get the gun?" Miara asked. "In fact, what's to stop him from shooting me at any time?"

"Well…"

"I mean, you obviously have a lower priority than me. Tank will probably ignore you. Actually, Tank will probably just swat you away. How close do you plan on-?"

"Alright, alright!" Utarz threw away the rocks, annoyed. "So what's your idea, Miss Brilliant?"

"Something less idiotic." Miara muttered.

"Really? So what is it?"

"I'm… biding my time."

"So you're working on it."

"Maybe."

"So you don't have a plan."

"I'll think of something."

"Can't we just call the others or something? I mean, that's not technically rescue… is it?"

"Yes, it is." Miara replied. "And we couldn't do that anyway. Try turning on your radio."

Utarz did and immediately heard static.

"Huh." He said.

"Yeah, radio waves have a hard time going through solid rock."

"So we have to rely on ourselves."

"Pretty much. So let's try to think of a plan that doesn't suck, okay?"

"Hey, I'm doing my best over here."

"You're killing your brain cells." Miara replied. "So how about you actually try to help, huh?"

"How? By suggesting ideas?"

"Yeah. I'd prefer it if you tried to think along Tracer's lines."

"Yeah, I'm not Tracer. I don't know how Tracer thinks."

"Just try." Miara replied.

Utarz sighed.

Then he walked over to the boulder and rapped it a few times. "Oi! I need to take a leak."

A barely audible groan could be heard on the other side.

Ten minutes later

Track to the crash site

Iro and Buzzsaw were walking down the path when Iro got an idea.

"Buzzsaw." He said.

"Yeah?"

"I have an idea."

"…And?"

"And what?"

"And what's the idea?"

"It's about taking care of Repora."

"Thanks." Buzzsaw grumbled. "That clears it up."

Iro activated his radio. "Let's see… Tank! Come in, Tank."

"Iro. This is Tank." Came the reply from the radio. "Is Iro in trouble?"

"No. I just need to ask a question."

Silence. Iro took that as a signal to go forward.

"When you were telling us about these guys in detail, you mentioned that Repora chased after the blue one trying to kill him. Do you happen to know why?"

"No."

"Okay, then… what was the blue one's name again?"

"Utarz."

"Last name?"

"Lano."

"Hm… as in 'Lano Keep?"

No response.

"Oh, right, you've never been on Sanghelios. Well, thanks for that, could you ask the prisoner about it? She might know."

"Prisoners." Tank replied. "Utarz is here."

"Oh. Well then just ask him."

"Wait."

"Yes, Tank?"

"…Can Tank come help find artefact?"

Iro blinked. "Uh… no. Sorry Tank, but we need you keeping guard over the prisoners."

"Can't Buzzsaw-?"

"Tank, it's too late to change our minds now. We'll tell you when you can come with us."

No response.

"Okay then. Bye." Iro hung up.

"So what's your plan?" Buzzsaw asked.

"Well, it's quite simple really."

"Then elaborate."

"I am." Iro said crossly. "Repora has a grudge against Utarz for some reason. Maybe, if we could persuade him to find and kill Utarz, then we won't have to worry about him destroying the artefact."

This didn't add up with Buzzsaw. "Uh… I thought that we had all agreed that we won't kill any of the 800 Squad."

"Apparently Utarz is dishonourable as hell, so I think we're in a good area there. Besides," He shrugged. "We won't be the ones killing him. It'll be Repora."

"Still…" Buzzsaw was unsure. "How will we take advantage of this when we don't even know what happened?"

"That's Tank's job. And if that doesn't work, then we'll just try our luck."

"Great plan Iro." Buzzsaw said sarcastically. "You're an inspiration to us all."

Tank rapped on the boulder.

"Oh yeah, come in, why don't ya?" The reply was muffled, but definitely belonged to Utarz.

Tank rolled the boulder over and stood in the entrance. He saw Utarz sitting in a corner, bouncing a pebble off the wall and back while Miara stood in the centre of the cave and glared at Tank.

"What do you want?" She asked angrily.

"Tank has question for Utarz." He said simply.

"Ask away, big guy." Utarz grumbled.

"Why does Repora hate you?"

Utarz froze for a second, then went back to his cool attitude. "Second thoughts; go fuck yourself."

"Tank needs to know."

"Tank, as I've stated clearly, needs to go fuck himself."

Tank growled and pointed his cannon at Utarz. "Tank wants proper answer."

"See previous."

Tank looked at Miara.

She shrugged. "He never said."

Tank looked back at Utarz. "Tell me, or I will kill sister."

At this, Utarz laughed. "Yeah, right. She's way more valuable than me, you wouldn't dare kill her."

"Tell me, or I will kill you." Tank said.

Utarz sighed in defeat. "Fine. Tell your buddy that Repora hates me because of something my dad did, k?"

"Details."

"It happened when he was a kid."

"More."

"Yeah, that's all you're getting, heavyweight! Goodbye!" Utarz snapped.

Tank glowered at him and left. As he did, he noticed Miara looking at Utarz curiously. He ignored it, went outside and gingerly rolled the boulder back over the entrance, making sure that he didn't accidently break it.

He radioed Iro. "Iro, Tank here."

"Tank. Good. Do you know…?"

"A bit." Tank replied. "It was something his father did when Repora was little."

"Huh… thanks Tank."

And then he hung up.

"Good to feel needed." Tank grumbled.

Author's notes

Short chapter here. Next one will probably be longer.

Thanks for watching.

Potato.