Somewhere on Victoria

August 14, 2558

During Vasili's ONI training, he had been countless programs to ready him for one of the toughest jobs to ever been placed on a human. Even his Spartan augmentations afterwards made his position as an ONI field agent no easier. The most grueling was the resistance to imprisonment and interrogation, lasting nearly a two whole weeks. It was run by Marine and Navy specialists at one of Reach's heavy forts, Fort Lavigne.

Before he had left for his mission, an undercover objective for the torture, he was given a random code word by his instructor. To pass the interrogation toughening, he was required to keep the word from breaking and it was the job of the torture specialists to get that code word out of him.

For his entire stay, they had owned his body and soul. Some of the horrible atrocities they had done to him were regular beatings in various parts of his body, confined on the hot days inside a stuffy container without water. Sometimes they would poison his miniscule food which made him spew it back up after eating. They once forced spiced rum down his throat during an hour of questioning until he passed out and upon awakening, he was waterboarded. No matter how much they tried to beat him, he never gave up his code word, Vasili kept a small part of his mind on the part that it was merely a drill and he was not going to die.

All of his hopes of such torture were now out of sight as he sat locked in a concrete room the size of a bedroom with nearly fifty other immigrants.

He somberly looked up to see the man with a rifle shut the door. Looking down he whispered, "Surf."

The time he spent at Fort Lavigne was pretty much a five star vacation compared to a couple of says spent in the hands of Andres' employers.

He along with the other men hadn't been given a single crumb of food or a drop of water for days. He was overwhelmed by the stench of sweat and the occasional waft of body waste.

In the process, he was in the hands of the higher echelons of the smuggling cell; they had taken his picture on a forged Victorian document and then gave him the crust of a half eaten roll. He was then sent back to the cell under the watchful eye of an armed guard.

On the morning of the third day in the cell, a group of skirmishers arrived from a small jackal shuttle. They spoke to the smugglers and then the sentries brought out the cell's occupants and paraded them in front of the six pirates. Vasili couldn't see their faces because if the gray bulky armor and the familiar symbol on their shoulders. He noted the plasma pistols on their hip holsters.

He and the other men and women stripped naked as if on an auction in front of the smuggler's clients. The skirmishers were inspecting every single one. Vasili's teeth were checked for decay and then they had to prove that they could lift some stone by a wood pole.

After a couple of other tests, running and hauling more stones, the skirmishers brought out two boxes, both with four Covenant carbines inside. Instead of money, the smugglers were instead paid by Covenant weaponry, which was expensive in human society due to its rarity and effectiveness.

They selected the five out of Vasili's group, himself included. These were the biggest and strongest of the lot. The others were sent back to the cell.

They were led out to a docked U shaped spirit dropship that seemed to be on its death throes. Then upon entry, herded onto the prongs of the ship along with other muscled smuggled, likely from another post. The dropship roared to life and he felt the craft begin to ascend as it broke free of Victoria's gravity.

What impressed Vasili was that nobody cried or complained. Not a single soul demanded to be released. They were willing to escape the clutches of oppression and were willing to do anything to accomplish that.

They flew for what seemed like days but in reality was likely not over twenty four hours the ship finally settled down and powered off. They now heard more instruments working so that meant that they were onboard a starship of some sort. It would be another thirty minutes before someone threw open the hatch. Some of the men closer to the opening tumbled out onto the purple floor. They were onboard a Covenant ship. When Vasili exited, he was proud of his ability to stay upright.

Careful not to arouse suspicion, he crossed around the spirit, noting a space capable banshee parked in the stand. Fear began to creep into his limbs as it began to dawn on him. This was no simple pirate operation, it was a real illegal smuggling. He had no options left and no way to contact Ballista. He had thought of grabbing the banshee fighter and hightailing it out. It was only a few yards to his left and within seconds he could be in the seats, powering the engines on and boosting out.

Bracing himself for the attempt, he planted one foot in front of the other when he saw a skirmisher underneath the hull tinkering with the cannons. He had a thought of attempting it anyway when one of the skirmishers sprang in front of him, snarling in a clear order, pointing his needler towards the others who were now headed to the cell blocks to be contained until they arrived.

He allowed the skirmishers to escort him to a cell that he shared with two others. Both of his partners had the same sagged defeated look to them. He now thought that the ones in the container suffering a cold bleak death were the luckier ones.

"How long will it take to reach wherever we're going?" The man asking was a younger boy, maybe about twenty.

He still thought that he was headed for Reach or wherever. The ship's bearing was in the opposite direction towards the Outer Colonies.

Six hours later, he was roused out of his sleep by an alarming blow by the skirmisher's needler. Vasili cringed as the blood remained on the pink crystals and from the wound in his side. He was then moved out with his cell mates to the spirit again. The shield doors were active, hindering any attempt to disclose where they were.

The dropship's interior had been scrubbed so now a fresh smell, the first pleasant thing ever since Vasili started his journey. He piled in with everybody else, making sure that he got into a comfortable position before everyone was stuffed. Once the doors were sealed again, the spirit took off and they remained in silence for the next two hours with only the engines constant whine that sounded as if it were to fail at any second.

The dropship arrived at their site, offloading the cargo hard enough to bruise his feet. Looking up at the black mountains of the open cold air, Vasili saw the others coming to their senses as well. He joined them at the entrance and got his first sight of hell on this world.

Now is where Vasili's really going to have a hard time! Now it's not just Trip who's in deep trouble.

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