Welcome to the next big milestone for Phantom Pain! Chapter 10! It just really warms my heart to see all the amazing support this story is getting. As I am writing this it has 68 favs, 99 follows, 43 reviews and a total of 13.359 total views. This boils down to approximately 2800 people who have read the entire thing through.
I want to thank everybody for your support, especially SmokeTinyTom who has been proof-reading this story for a while now. The reason I didn't let him do it this time is because I wanted it to come as a surprise. Furthermore I want to apologise to The Mandalore Freedom for promising to introduce his OCs in this chapter. They will come into play in the next one, that is a Gustah Guarantee.
This chapter will be mostly character development. I noticed Grul has been ignored and since M'tar will be training Ratha eventually, I thought I should give him some screen time.
I hope you enjoy!
~Chapter 10~
"Navigator, how far are we from the Pirate base?" Kiyo' asked the Sangheili officer. Those raiding scum wouldn't even know what hit them, the honourless bastards.
"We are ten minutes away from exiting slipspace, Shipmistress." He answered dutifully, causing Kiyo' to spread her mandibles in a grim smile. There is no better target practice than pirates. She thought.
She looked back down at her holotable. Imagery captured by drones had shown a pirate base hidden in an asteroid field with two old looking frigates guarding the station, no match for her brand new battlecruiser.
The harder part was taking over the station itself without either them or the pirates themselves blowing it, as the humans so wonderfully said, sky-high. They had such a wonderful language. Difficult, yes, but also full of figurative speech and idioms. Growing up on a mixed race colony had thankfully helped her grasp English rather fast.
The plan was to sneak in two SpecOps squads; one to take the reactor and one to take the control-centre. Once those were taken, she would drop her forces in the hangar and some Sangheili Rangers on the outside to enter through the airlocks. The troops in the hangar would be supported by three of her eight Mgalekgolo pairs and some Kig-Yar snipers. Hunters, they were called in the Great War. I can understand why.
From there they would push through the hallways and systematically wipe to scum off the face of that asteroid. She didn't mind Andrew was at the Coruscant, let him deal with politics, she always enjoyed a good fight better than a debate. Her ship had more ground forces anyways.
"Mistress, we are entering real-space in five seconds!" an Unggoy ensign called out in his race's tell-tale squeaky voice.
"Good, prepare energy shields and ready plasma torpedo tubes one to six. I want those two frigates out of the way before you can count to ten!" she shouted out as the blue swirling of slipspace made place for the starry background of what was the Corathin Cluster. Before her, two frigates –surprised by her sudden entry- tried to twist to meet the Unbending Justice with their lasers.
"Target the left frigate, hold, FIRE!" she ordered as the portside tubes glowed brighter and three blobs of superheated plasma left them at a high velocity, easily locking onto the old frigate. It tried to evade the torpedoes by diving down, but they followed effortlessly and made contact with the relatively small ship, overwhelming it's shields quickly.
Kiyo' watched with morbid satisfaction as two of the three projectiles impacted on the engines and the third one with the bridge. It didn't last long until it violently exploded, creating a miniature sun before dissipating completely, leaving only molten wreckage floating aimlessly in the vacuum of space.
"Starboard torpedoes, fire!" she shouted again as red bolts started impacting on the shields, not really doing any damage. As another volley of plasma disabled the frigate before it too exploded, leaving no time for its crew to get to the escape pods.
"Launch Seraphs, let them make sure it is clear before the boarding craft take off." Her second in command, a Sangheili by the name of R'tas Aram, named after the Fleetmaster famous for his actions in both the Great Schism, the Kig-Yar Rebellions and the still ongoing Storm War, nodded in confirmation and relayed her orders over the intercom. It is to the brave ground forces now to bring us victory. she thought as the pirate fighters were being obliterated by the superior Type-31 Seraph Starfighters.
Back in the days of the Human-Covenant War, or the Great war as it is mostly called these days, one of most feared situations for a soldier, marine or trooper could find himself in was close quarters with a Mgalekgolo, or as the UNSC called them; Hunters.
There was a very good reason for that. These beasts, weighing at an approximate 4.800 kilos and measuring at least 3.7 meters high were equipped with an almost indestructible shield and a fuel-rod cannon. And as if that wasn't scary enough, there is always two of them.
Now imagine these poorly equipped and trained pirates seeing not one, not two, but three pairs storming at them, firing explosive green plasma at them while their friends were being taken out by snipers and two and a half meter tall aliens none of them had seen ever before.
It was a bloodbath.
Not one of the pirates in the hanger survived past the first two minutes of combat, after which the ground complement of the Unbending Justice split up and started clearing out the hallways, leaving no one alive to tell the tale.
"Shipmistress, the hangar and 70 percent of the station is cleared. SpecOps have taken the reactor, but the command station was better defended than we expected. Major 'Karut guarantees it will be ours in a maximum of ten minutes." R'tas Aram said informed her with a respectful nod of his head.
"Good, spare no one. I have no mercy for this scum."
"And the slaves?"
"Slaves? There are slaves on board of that station? Why did you not tell me sooner, Aram?" her face was pulled in a sneer of disgust. Even the old Covenant was against outright slavery.
"My humble excuses, Shipmistress. I was only informed just before I brought you this report and I wrongfully assumed you knew. One of the platoons, I believe it was the 15th Infantry platoon, secured slave quarters. They were wearing bomb collars, but a squad of bomb disposal Unggoy has already disabled them by means of a small EMP burst. The state they were in was… not good." R'tas informed.
"I see, bring them aboard and make sure they are treated for any wounds, be they physical or mental. Anything else?"
Her second looked a bit hesitant for a moment and clicked his mandibles together, "Some of the pirates have children, what should be done with them?"
"How many?"
"Fifteen. Ten of those are younger than sixteen years of age and six are younger than five years."
"Spare those that are younger than eighteen, bring them on board and see if they need treatment."
"It will be done, Shipmistress."
Koro was confused. From the day the Trandosian slavers had descended onto his home he was sure he would never ne a free man again. His wife and daughter were not with him anymore. He didn't know if they were alive or not, but strangely, for their sakes, he hoped they weren't. That way they would have been saved from a much worse fate. Or maybe they had been bought by a good person and were not living the life of a slave.
And Jabba will win a pod-race. The Togruta mentally scoffed at his own foolish thoughts.
Now though, there was a big reptilian warrior standing in front of him, examining him through blue shining eye slits. The same warrior who had broken into the slave quarters –if you could even call it that- and basically melted the flesh off the bones of the two pirates who were guarding them while a third had his way with a young human slave.
That last pirate had received the worst punishment; the warrior had picked up the Twi'lek by the throat and driven his sword slowly through the struggling man. Oh how Koro had enjoyed the screams of one of his former owners as the filth's guts were pierced and cauterised until the strange two-pronged sword was all the way through and the creature deactivated it, letting the body crumple to the floor.
The reptilian appeared to not be alone as four more of them stepped through, followed by small, creatures wearing orange armour and breathing masks. It was soon clear what the little ones were doing- even if he and the rest of the slaves couldn't understand the guttural language the leader was giving.
The little ones placed a small cone on the ground and attached some components from different backpacks, swiftly assembling the strange structure before one of the warriors approached him. Apparently he seemed like the de-facto leader of the slaves.
"The collars on your necks are bombs, no?" he, because with a voice that deep it was obviously male. asked with surprisingly good basic, showing some disgust at their conditions. Koro nodded.
"Yeah, I suppose that's going to get them off us? Don't bother, we already tried so many times. Without the key it'll blow up or just won't come off."
"Do not worry, the device will emit a powerful electro-magnetic pulse which will disable them so we can have them removed safely." The warrior stated as the Unggoy finished putting the device together and took a few steps back before squeaking something to each other and pressing a few buttons and sparks crackled over the surface.
A sphere expanded through the bars of the cage and as soon as it hit him he felt a small electric current run through him before he fell to the ground, unconscious.
"Dammit, Grul, I'm being flanked, where the hell are you?!" Gus shouted as a bullets pierced the air where his head had been a second ago.
"I am being a bit held up here." The large Sangheili said calmly as he shot a flood form that came a little bit too close for comfort.
"Fuck! There's more coming! I can see Sangheili and Jiralhanae forms from the west." He called out, stomping an infection form.
"We need that drone operational If we are to survive any longer." Grul stated.
*This is Commander Willis of the 2nd Mass, our position has been overrun! Drones are a no-go! I repeat, drones are a no-go!* A voice shouted, distorted over the radio.
"Well, it has been an honour fighting with you, Gus. May you rest well in the afterlife." The warrior said solemnly as he and Gus fought towards each other for a last stand, plasma and bullets felled the infected.
"It has been an honour for me too." the Rookie said, his back against the wall next to Grul, "At least we will go down fighting."
"That we will, brother, that we will."
"Jesus, guys, will you stop being so melodramatic." Emma suddenly shoved herself between them on the couch, snatching the controller out of Gus' hands. "What are you playing anyway?"
"Call of the Covenant. I took it with me from home, and apparently you guys have an entertainment system, so I challenged Grul here to a game of Flood Infestation. We got pretty far as well, wave 34."
Emma raised an eyebrow. "Does Mike know about you two playing videogames?"
"Yes, apparently he's pretty good at it. He didn't want to play Flood though, so I just played a regular game against him. He absolutely destroyed me on Havoc City."
"Well alright then, you got another controller because I'm taking this one."
"Yes, of course. Buckett, can you please bring me the other controller? It's in my quarters."
"Roger, roger, sir." A whiney synthesised voice called out. Said voice belonged to the droid Miranda had reprogrammed to be their –as she called it- "Gamma butler". She had also painted its body like it was wearing a tux and dubbed it Rusty Buckett. He wasn't fast, rather clumsy, and made quite a bit of noise. Gamma didn't really give a shit about that, though. It brought them drinks, that alone was enough to keep it around.
The way their quarters were set up was rather spacy. In the room normally reserved for two platoons, there was only one. They were supposed to pick them up on Reach after the mission, but the freak slipspace accident prevented them from going back.
He slept in a room together with Grul, while M'tar shared one with Louis. Sarge had his own room since he was their leader, the girls slept in one room and no one really knew where Squidward went off to at night.
All the rooms were linked to their own "Gamma Cave". We really should stop letting Miri name things. It was a small communal room equipped with a four sitter couch, a holo-screen and an entertainment system that Louis had "liberated" a while ago when they had raided an Innie outpost.
They, being the VSF-squad, acronym for very special forces, were given quarters a bit away from the rest of 74th platoon.
He immediately shot up when he heard a scream. Oh fuck! How could I forget that! Ratha was sleeping on his cot, getting some extra sleep after watching another old movie with Gus the previous evening that escalated into two, and then three movies. And he had just sent a battledroid, modified as it may be, into the room where a young, ten-year-old girl that had seen her family cut down in front of her by the very same droids was sleeping.
He bolted to his room, frantically pressing the button to open the sliding door. Inside, Rusty was lying on the ground and it turned its head towards him. "Master, the little mistress seems to be in distress."
"Get out of here, Buckett." Gus said as he practically shoved it out of his room before looking at his cot, finding Ratha huddled in the corner, hugging her legs to her chest and crying silently.
He sat down next to her and pulled her close to him like he had done with his sister after their dad died. "It's alright, it's alright, he's gone. You're safe, Ratha."
He could feel her shaking as she clung to his arm like a lifeline. "I- I- I-"
"Sssh, breathe in, breathe out. It's all over, you're safe now." Their dad dying was the worst thing to ever happen to his family. Nobody knew how he died, BGI had just shown up at their front door and handed a letter over before leaving just as fast. It was a painful time for the Swanson family. Their mother fell into a deep depression and he almost turned into an alcoholic, but caring for his then ten-year-old sister had taken priority. This was like a déjà vu.
"G-Gus?"
"Yes, Ratha?"
"I want to learn how to fight." It was aid with such determination and conviction that it put a small, sad smile on his face. At the same time though, it was worrying. Everyone knew about the Spartan III's and how they had been recruited from orphans that couldn't think straight. They were offered revenge and they took it with both hands. Hallsson told him what he wanted, but he wanted it to truly be her choice. Not some revenge-driven decision she would come to regret later.
"We'll see, Ratha, we'll see."
Well, I have some mixed feelings about this one, but over-all I'm quite satisfied.
Next chapter we'll have the Shriek Hawks (for real this time), the job will be revealed, we'll look a bit into Andrew and cows will rain down from the heavens in celebration of me.
If you see any spelling mistakes, tell me. If you like/dislike it, tell me why. If you are a Hobbit, tell me. If you have any complaint, tell me.
Thanks sooooo much for bearing with me through the first few chapters which weren't very good in my opinion. May the Chief be with you.