The Ark
July 18th 2553
11:57 AM
Near the Silent Cartographer
Cliffs of dull brown stone loomed on both sides, narrowing into a slight passage that grew closer near the top. The tunnel was hidden from the sun's light and the three humans stalked down the tight the slit above their path they could just see smoke drifting upwards, and as they neared the end of their cover they began to hear the sounds of jiralhanae voices.
"Beratus, what happened?" A golden armored brute asked harshly, the sound of a fist hitting flesh and a low grunt signifying that one alien had been punched.
"I am sorry my lord, we must have hit some EM interference..."
"Silence!" Heavy footsteps pounded near their position, and they stayed hidden by pure luck as the wind blew the foul air in their direction and not in the brutes'.
Merick crouched closer behind his rock and watched with a slightly better angle.
"An Unngoy slave could serve me better than you; you have failed completely and your life is forfeit." There was a swooshing sound as a heavy metal object was swung harder and faster than it ought to.
The unfortunate brute leaped out of the way. "I have done nothing wrong, you are a poor leader and I challenge you to prove yourself!" In his vain hope for life, the inferior bade his superior to drop the hammer and come at him with his fists.
"I will crush your head and keep it as a trophy!"
It appeared that they were the only two remaining brutes; and the several surviving Unngoy, three in all, began to whimper and hid behind the wreckage of the scout ship.
The Brute captain grasped the neck of the minor and squeezed, his life slowly seeping from his face.
"Now." Merick rolled out of hiding and popped two shots into the back of the jiralhanae captain's skull before snapping another three into the face of the dying minor. Jared and commander Wilson stepped around the ship and aimed their weapons at the unarmed grunts, their weapons having been crushed in the crash.
"No kill I human!" The front one cried. "Please..." the last word turned into a moan and the grunt sat and groveled in the dirt.
"Get up!" Jenny demanded. "You don't have to die, but if you play any games I will kill you without a thought."
"We will obey." The lead grunt wore the veteran red armor and he scratched his nose and adjusted his methane breather mask when he realized he might live. "We will serve human masters now."
"Why is your ship here?" Jared asked in a friendly tone, though he still held his pistol ready.
"We were sent by the hierarchs to see if the Ark was not destroyed; and here we stand." The yellow grunt that answered got a glare from its commander and sighed.
Merick walked over and found the two flight officers aiming at the grunts. "Unngoy," For it was now general knowledge the actual names of the Covenant species, "You may go into your ship and salvage what gear you may for your survival and then come with us. We will treat you well, if you are willing to come with us you can live, and if not then you will have to die."
On scout ships the grunts usually were allowed more freedom of choice and leadership and enterprise; so it wasn't going to far to suppose that these grunts could make this choice.
"Go with you or die?" One asked. "Me thinks we should go."
The red grunt placed his hand on the shoulder of the one who spoke. "Here, I talk better human, and I are the leader."
"That's okay, you can all talk as long as you want to." Jenny smiled as she realized that these little creatures really wanted to be able to speak, and instead of having to torture them all they had to do was make them comfortable. "We humans believe that everyone has the right to speak what they want or believe; doesn't matter if they are right or wrong."
"I never heard that." The red one squinted at them to try to tell if he could detect any deception; but no, their scent and voices and faces had not changed. "Fine, we will follow you."
"Now, we cannot allow you to have weapons, but you still need to follow us." Merick grinned and stepped inside the shipwreck. Purple panels of metal hung from the ceiling along with cables and plasma conduits, coolant dripped across the floor, and down the short hall there appeared to be a storage bay. "Are your extra rations and methane tanks in here?"
"Silly human," The red one laughed. "Follow Za'na, I show you." He opened the door using his immense strength and pulled out equipment for a methane tent, and extra tanks, and breather masks, and armor just in case. He continued to rummage while humming a slight twelve-tone tune. "The food!" He declared at last.
The three other yellow grunts all helped clear the area and bring out the supplies. When they finished, they all posed in front of their work and began to set up a camp. Merick sighed when he noticed they were getting ready to stay.
"No, no, no, this is not a good place to set up a camp." He pointed out the numerous geological reason why they shouldn't camp on top of a tunnel, right under a soft bluff, right next to a canyon, and with a stream running parallel to the crashed ship.
"We can't carry all this, we would have to abandon all the emergency supplies." The shortest one, also in yellow, complained.
"You just say that cause you are a runt." Another one teased.
"No, they're right." Jared affirmed, and picked up a crate full of gear. "I'm sure though, that if we pitch in we can bring all that we need."
"That they need." Wilson laughed. "And do I look like I can run around with a bunch of methane tanks?"
"The female is right." Za'na the red grunt pointed. "But she can carry the food."
"Why do I always get these jobs?" Jenny propped her box on her knee and wiped the sweat from her eyes.
"This is good for you," Jared replied through his teeth, "Doncha know that working out makes you more attractive?"
"I thought working for the navy gave me that for free." She gained a new grip and continued trudging after the squat little grunts who dragged a long piece of metal piled high with goods.
"See human, up in the Forunner building we can rest!" Za'na declared, even though Merick was right next to him and could easily keep pace.
"Alright, we'll take a break on that terrace." As they neared it, they could see that the doors were cracked open, but there were no longer any signs of battle except for the broken door. And even though they had planned on taking a break, as soon as they reached the cool building they felt refreshed enough to keep moving. They filed in one side and out the other of the building and now faced a long sloping valley with Forunner walls on both sides.
The valley ran down to a cliff edge and a drop off, and in the middle of it there stood a rounded wedge-shaped building. It had an entrance on the front and the right and left sides, as well as ramps that ran along the sides and lead to a middle level terrace. Right below this there was also a small door.
"We leave our stuff here." One grunt dropped and curled into a ball in a corner to sleep.
"Alright, we are going to take a break." Merick slung his crate into a stack and began to organize their salvaged equipment, he blocked the doors and made sure the place was defensible using the sheets of metal and crates that the grunts had brought. He worked to unload the extra armor and food into sections before noticing that his crew was not presently in the building.
The grunts finished setting up a methane tent and began their sleep inside; apparently fully trusting the humans who had labored with them. Merick sighed and climbed up the long ramp to the roof and found his two officers sitting on the edge with their feet dangling over the side and idly bouncing their heels against the wall as they sipped from their near-empty canteens.
"...don't get it," Jenny examined the back of her hand for lack of anything else to occupy her mind. "Why do I pity them?"
"Because they were forced into being our enemies and have realized that they like us; I mean, how can you kill someone who likes you?" Jared answered, turning his head so he could see her face in perfect perpendicular profile, and his eyes drifted past her to see the captain sitting down as well.
"You have a point Hansen, but it happens, and sometimes by accident." He grinned.
"What do you mean sometimes?" He countered his captain's statement.
"When I was a kid," He watched the clouds, smiling as he noticed one of them looked like a bird, "I had this pet dog, her name was Libby, she was an excitable dog, and always seemed to be jumping on people. My friends didn't like her because she scared them, and more and more she began to enjoy that fear and started to play bite and then actually bite people."
"I think I can see where this is headed." Jared shared an amused look with Wilson.
"Anyway, one day she mauled one of my friends in the face and had to be put down; I always felt as if I had dealt the killing blow." Merick finished and glanced at their faces.
"We mean actual people." They said as one.
"You mean just humans or..."
"Everyone, not animals."
"I was a hard time in my life." He defended. "I was seven."
"Quiet, you'll wake the kids." Jenny mocked, meaning the napping Unngoy on the base level.
The sun slowly stretched over the horizon, and the land began to darken before they stood up and went down to wake their companions. The methane tent was turned off, and the grunt were groggily stepping from foot to foot in their armor in an attempt to stay awake.
Jenny bent her knees a little and placed her hands on them so she could see the grunts from their level. "I never learned your names." She said.
"It's too late for talk human, you never speak your names to we either." One of the tired yellow grunts complained in terrible English.
"Japat no be rude." Za'na chided.
"I be Japat." He replied without remorse in his voice.
"You sound like it, now come on, we have to get inside the main structure and explore." She waved a hand to bid them to come.
"What does you look for?" Japat wrinkled his nose, still not understanding what these humans were up to; just thankful he was allowed to live.
"We're looking for a map, that way we can leave the desert." She answered. "Now come on."
The four grunts waddled after her, comically trying to catch up with Jared and Merick as they climbed the long ramp up to the door in the hillside wall. The sane quickly lost its heat, the cool oddly refreshing for the grunts and spurred an intrinsic energy that woke them and excited them. "We coming human, slow down."
The ramp itself reached two stories before two smaller sequential ramps lead to the fourth level. The walls of the main structure were now apparent, and an unlocked door led inside the tower. The humans slipped inside and motioned for the grunts to wait until they had proved it was safe.
"It dark human, but me smell nothing!" Za'na quipped once he was inside. "There nobody here."
"Except us." Jared noted and took a left at the next intersection and face an open doorway. All blood and body traces were gone, the small room was empty and led even deeper. The group of seven continued on for about a half hour before they finally reach an open terrace with a console glowing with blue light.
"Master, look!" Japat pointed as a sentinel zipped forward and faced the captain.
"You have found the Cartographer, well done Reclaimer, but I must ask why you have taken such strange companions?" Mendicant Bias' smooth and quiet voice issued from the sentinel, and it seemed like a shame that it didn't have a better-looking physical speaker.
"We captured them from our enemies and have decided that they pose little risk." He replied.
"Well, as soon as you access the console and find that which you seek, I will take you and your ship relatively close to your objective."
Merick placed his hand on the pulsing blue panel and scrolled as best he could through the Forunner computer. "I don't know how to use this, can I get my AI to help me?"
"If you cannot read the words of my creators without help, I will not help you until you can. You are going to have to stay here and study the basics of language until you can tell me where the library is." Mendicant Bias chuckled at the indignant face Merick made. "This will be beneficial for you and your race, it is worth the time you spend."
The sentinel vanished as it sped away, and they all stood there in shock at their new assignment before they began their trek back.
"You don't become a Forunner expert overnight!" Merick kicked a wall in passing.
"This is a big test master, but I thought I heard your computer "beep" before it left." Hanat, one of the yellow grunts spoke up with courage.
Merick pulled out his personal PDA and found that his hard drive was fairly overloading with new information; and a message that still phased in and out on the screen.
"This is a start to your education, share with your friends; if you are lost they might have to start where you left off."
He growled and opened the first file, it was filled with Forunner letter and recordings of his own phonetic sounds next to it. "This is going to take a long time."
"A, makes the sound aw or ah." A recording spoke from the small built-in speakers.
"I'm going to hate this." Merick took point and brought them back to their camp outside the Cartographer, the four grunts happily entered their methane tent and took off their masks as soon as they were sure it was safe. He went back onto the top of the wedge-shaped structure and sat down with Hansen and Wilson, "We might as well get cracking on this."
They groaned as he began to play the list of sounds and show them the symbols.
"This is going to take us forever!" Jared ran his hands through his hair in despair.
"Well, I sent a copy of this information to Dickens, he will probably be able to help us." Merick stated, hoping it would sooth his and their annoyance. "He should be getting back to me soon."
"You know him, he'll most likely forget about us and focus on it, besides; can't you just upload it to your neural lace?" Jenny asked.
"The problem with that is that I could get brain damage from trying to overload it with a ton of information at once; for now it would just be easier in the long run to learn this the old fashioned way." He answered, and jumped when his com suddenly crackled.
"Captain, this is Dickens, I find this new data very interesting. Truth is, I'm sure that ONI would be very pleased with this alone if we returned." The AI's tone was very excited to say the least.
"Charles, we came here on a specific mission; we need to gain access to the archives and not just a few tidbits on Forunner language."
"But sir, this is a lot of information; I haven't even finished reading all the material." Dickens complained.
"Hey Dickens," Jenny put in, "Would it be bad to upload this kind of information into a neural lace?"
"This is a lot of tough material, you would have to let me upload this with precision and it would take a long time to put things in order." He answered coolly. "And that would be avoiding any permanent damage; permanent, not temporary." They almost could hear him smile. "You see, any one of you could go into a temporary coma or have nervous issues for a time even with my precautions; and I know that that would not be acceptable to you even if it would pass."
"Yes, we see..." They all pretended, just so he would stop talking on the subject.
"Here is what I recommend: come back to me, or just upload the phonetic figures. That way you would be able to at least read the sounds written all over the place. Then continue to study the language in your spare time and in a week upload the grammatical structure, and in a series of weeks upload segments of vocabulary." Dickens paused for their benefit before continuing. "The unfortunate part of this is that you will have to learn conversational Forunner language."
"I take it you don't think it is unfortunate?" Jared inquired.
"I think it is worth the time." It was a trite answer but true.
"Well we get it, could you help me program a loading software into my computer so I can transmit this information in packages to my neural lace?" Merick asked.
"I'll get working on it, but for now I suggest that you go to sleep while there is no light; I cannot teach a tired mind."
They all separated and found that some corners of the building were heated, and quickly entered REM.
A/N: Hey, um, just for those who are going to quote the terminals from Halo 3, I am going to keep true to the fact that Mendicant Bias or MB went rampant and was destroyed. Also, that he is a ghost inside the forunner computer system trying to find a way out and is... oh wait, I'll be working on from there...
Anyway, just telling you.
"I see you Reclaimer..."
He is not the accommodating AI we thought he was, he was in charge of telling the populations that their death gave them eternal life: This is why the Covenant believed in the Great Journey, and also he made contact with the Flood and was allured into believing that they were the rightful next step in life. It looks like he went rampant and was the reason that the Flood nearly succeeded the first time.
-Tremble Wolf