New chapter up and away!
Note: This is not a happy chapter. There is some language in here, and lots of blood and death later on. Just to let you guys know. Things are getting serious now on Terra Beta.
I guess this was partially inspired by what happened today in Connecticut at Sandy Hook. I know it doesn't do the tragedy justice, but this was the best way that I could express me feelings towards what happened. Here we go.
Chapter 23
North hurled himself backwards as a set of seven heavy claws aimed at his head in the darkness. He tumbled away from the gigantic furred monster in front of him, what seemed to be a gigantic cross between a sloth and a mole.
Unfortunately, it lacked the sedate nature of either creature, which was evident with its glowing red eyes, snapping jaws, and angry foam on the edges of its mouth. The creature gave a decisive crunch, and the bones of another unfortunate soldier snapped between its teeth. The bleeding, splintered carcass fell from the enraged creature's mouth and lay in a crumpled heap along with three of its fellows.
"Get those torches lit!" Dawn shouted to the other panicking soldiers, working on distracting the angry jupti in their path. However, even she was having a hard time avoiding those heavy claws and the whip-like tail of the twelve-foot creature, which sprung at her again and again. North readied a pistol and fired it into the jupti's shoulder, and the creature snapped its head back to him and charged.
Just as long as it stays away from York and Tex, North thought desperately as he dodged left and right to keep the alien creature's interest. Something whizzed through the air, and the jupti howled and clawed at its neck. What looked to be a rod with a feathered fletch at its end stuck out from between folds of the jupti's oily black fur. Dawn readied another arrow into her recently constructed bow.
"Dodge!" Chi screamed, and Dawn somersaulted out of the way of the jupti, which pounced on where she had just been. "Be more careful," the AI begged.
"Only so much I can do there, Chi," Dawn gasped as she took a hit to the chest from the jupti, forming a trench from where she was pounded into the earth.
"Dawn!" North shouted after her. "Don't just stand there!" he called to the soldiers hastily constructing torches and trying to light the dark green grass. However, the darkness around them was not doing them any favors.
"I'm alright!" Dawn's voice sounded from a good thirty feet away, and she sprung to her feet. Slipping the bow over one shoulder and readjusting the quiver of arrows strapped to her thigh, Dawn drew her sword at the charging jupti and gave a mighty slash as it passed, like jousters at a tournament. The enormous black creature stumbled and clawed at the glistening red wound to its shoulder. North took the opportunity to fire a round from his sniper rifle and hit the jupti in the back of the head. The alien toppled to the ground, unmoving.
"Nice shot," Dawn remarked as she sheathed her bloody blade into its scabbard on her back.
"You're not too bad yourself," North remarked, noting the archaic bow and arrow on her back. "I have to ask, though, why that when you can have a more conventional firearm?"
"Honestly, bows are more silent and they feel better in my hands," Dawn responded, eyeing the jupti as it grumbled and tried to get to its feet. "It's just a preference thing, like you prefer your sniper rifle. Incoming!" she shouted suddenly, and they both shot backwards as the jupti charged again.
"Hurry up with those torches!" Texas shouted from where she was guarding an unconscious York. There came a shout that the bundles of grass were ready. "Light 'm up!"
Twelve bundles of long prairie grass burst into flame in a semi circle around York, Texas, and Julius, and the jupti growled in annoyance at the harsh light from the flame. As a purely nocturnal hunter, jupti were sensitive to sudden flashes of light. However, instead of backing away from its enemy, the jupti charged at a group of soldiers around such a blazing bundle. It smacked one soldier and sent her flying across the ground in a spin, snapping her neck along the way. Another soldier was caught in the massive jaws and instantly crushed.
"Not anymore, you brute!" Dawn shouted, launching herself onto the jupti's back and holding on for dear life as the animal started bucking to dislodge the nuisance. "North, shoot the thing!"
He needed no further instruction. Steadying his rifle, North fired off a round into the jupti's eye. Not satisfied as the black alien slowed, he fired another two rounds into the side of its head and another two into its side, puncturing its massive lungs. With a sickening gurgle, the jupti keeled forward and collapsed against the earth, no longer moving.
With a gasp, North walked over to see Dawn pulling out a knife and cutting a section of fur from the creature. "I didn't know that animals like this existed on colonized worlds," he remarked gravely. Dawn didn't say anything for a minute, concentrating on skinning part of the enormous jupti and folding the still bloody fur from where she cut. Rancid orange flesh was revealed from where the skin was removed.
"None of us knew what we were getting into when we landed on Terra Beta," Dawn finally admitted. "Mother wasn't even sure if we should have come here at first. We lost about five percent of the original 2000 refugees in the first year from animal attacks like this. We finally developed some methods of protection by observing the planet's ecosystem and benefitting from it. We learned about how to deal with creatures like the byakra and the byaknut peacefully. Then, there are ones like the jupti who, once they develop a taste for human flesh, go rampant and can only be killed."
"Why are you skinning it, then?" North asked. "After it killed five soldiers, I'd think you wouldn't want to deal with something like this."
"Jupti blood contains a high amount of iodine," Dawn pointed out as she finished her work and grabbed the bundle of pelt in her arms. "The iodine is roughly the same concentration used commercially as a disinfectant, so we use it on expeditions to help slow down infections and heal wounds."
"So, you're hoping that it'll help York?"
"At least partially. Here, Julius," Dawn tore off a strip of the oily black pelt from the bundle and tossed it to the medic, who removed some of York's armor to wrap the bloody skin around York's leg wound. York gave a hiss at the application of the iodine-rich blood, then relaxed as it worked on eliminating some of the infectious material in his wound. "Luckily, we also found that jupti blood isn't nearly as infectious as human blood, so we won't have to worry about blood-transmitted pathogens. How're York's vitals now, Delta?"
"Though York's fever is still prevalent in his system," the AI reported, "the infected area of York's leg has decreased in temperature slightly."
"A lesson in fold medicine is all well and good," Texas said as she came up, removing her helmet to wipe sweat from her brow, "but can we keep moving before something like that attacks again?"
"Good idea," Dawn conceded. "Regroup!" she called to the soldiers, and they started off on their quick march again, with North and Dawn heading the group by a good few feet.
"Hey, Dawn?" North asked after a little bit of silence. She gave acknowledgement that she had heard his query. "I have to ask you something…it's about what White Griffin said back on the Nagasaki."
The aura around Dawn dropped a few degrees. "What about it has you worried?" she asked slowly and cautiously. North began to wonder if this was such a good idea.
"She mentioned your sisters and how many relatives you have."
Dawn thought for just a moment. "I don't try to control my sisters' actions, even though I am head of our family technically," she said after a pause. "I will let them do what they believe is good and true to their hearts. However, there are some that…might disagree with my attitude towards their promiscuity."
"Who would have anything to say to that?" North was curious. "I mean, we're in the 26th century."
"I'm not arguing with you on that one," she replied. "There are some families, though, like White Griffin's and Yellow Jacket's, that aren't so forgiving. I've gotten numerous messages from them about 'reigning my sisters in' and 'eliminating impure blood from our family lineage.'"
"That's just awful."
"My nieces and nephews are the products of honest mistakes, I will admit," Dawn spoke somberly. "However, like I say to those families that disapprove, I refuse to deny my sisters the freedom that they almost never had under Kao Jin's rule. Things were much worse then, to put it midly. And as long as they learned from their mistakes," Dawn had a smile in her voice," then they were valuable mistakes that will be loved and cherished."
"Even though Chickadee suffered from it," North murmured
"Nobody could have known what would happen with Chickadee's murder," Dawn whispered. "That won't change my stance on my sisters, though. They are happy, and I'm happy for them."
"I have one more question, then," North started. There came a very pregnant pause, and the implication hung heavy in the air.
"Yeah, I'm not a virgin," Dawn admitted morosely. "I was taken advantage of by someone who I thought truly loved me as much as I loved him. It's in the past now, though."
"I just bring it up-"
"Because you want to know who did it and kill the bastard?" Dawn gave a short, humorless laugh. "No chance in that, North."
"I BRING IT UP," he reiterated with force, "because I want to check and make sure that you're over it and you can invest as much into our relationship."
Dawn walked in silence for a good thirty seconds, thinking. "Yeah, I've gotten over it," she admitted. "For a while, I was determined to hold a grudge and that hate for the jerk who first took my heart, but I learned that I didn't need to be bitter forever. I can find love again, and nothing is going to break my spirit down again."
The sun was beginning to rise as they crested one of the higher hills interspaced between the limestone cliffs. The glorious star was bright, healthy, and red in the moist morning air. "We're only a half-day's march from New Taipei!" Julius called up, and there came a collective cheer from the soldiers.
"Finally, we're almost home," some of the soldiers with red stripes on their arms remarked, and a few embraced in their excitement.
"Hold on!" someone with one green stripe (a scout) held up a hand, sniffing the air intently.
"What is it?" Dawn asked as she turned to the scout near the front of the group.
"It should be the harvest time," the scout started in a young male voice, "but I don't smell any fresh cut plants or hear any people in the nearby fields. We're near my home village, and everyone should be up and making a ruckus by now with the harvesting."
"What else is there?" North asked as the scout sniffed again.
"Smoke, and…" one more sniff. "…blood." The scout took off running towards the direction of the smell, ignoring the calls of the other soldiers. Exasperated, they took off running after him, running towards what looked to be a small residential area.
The helmeted scout stood frozen in shock at the sight that met them regarding the fate of the village. Not one of the huts or stone buildings lay without damage, and fire still licked at many of the thatched roofs. Part of the prosperous fields lay burning from the fire that had set the town ablaze. Bodies lined the dirt streets of the ruined prairie town, all of its inhabitants slain without discrimination of gender or age.
Immediately, they began searching for an sort of survivor of the pillaged place. "Who could possibly have done this?" a few people murmured in a daze as they peaked into burnt-out cabins and stone residences.
North knelt on the ground, examining a set of tracks in the dirt. They were very obviously made by both a Mongoose and a Warthog, and he was quite sure that none of the IAOC currently had those vehicles. "It was the Insurrectionists!" he called out, and soldiers crowded around the tracks that he had found. "They came in here and torched the place."
"But, to attack a town of innocent people," an older female soldier gasped. "We all remember the atrocities of the Revolution, but never would I have figured that they'd stoop so low as to blatantly massacre innocent civilians like this!"
"It's the only thing that they know!" a younger soldier shouted, and several of her fellows agreed. "That's all that the Innies have done to us, is do everything to hurt us and make us suffer like this, just to prove a point."
"I may be bloodthirsty," Omega appeared by Tex's elbow as she examined the bloodied corpse of a young mother protecting her baby from their inevitable demise. "But even I would not bring myself to this, to attacking the innocent."
"I know, Omega," Texas whispered as she closed the clouded, distant eyes of the two deceased with as much gentleness as she could muster in her shock and grief. "I know."
York, in one of his more lucid moments, had taken off his helmet as he leaned on a pile of straw that had miraculously survived the fire. He tiredly saw all the bodies around him, reflecting on how he had developed some strange immunity to the carnage that surrounded him.
"York, you seem upset," Delta said hesitantly as he watched his host.
"It's sad, D," York muttered, seeing the positions that many of the villagers had taken, and he surmised that they had at least tried to defend themselves before being ruthlessly slaughtered.
"The destruction?" the AI asked. "The horrible actions committed by humans against their own kind?"
"No, not that," York murmured sadly, watching part of a young boy's ashen skin blow away in a gentle breeze. "I just can't feel as much sadness or something like that as I used to. That's what's sad."
"I see," Delta responded, confused. "Do you believe that it is some unnatural human reaction in the brain that is preventing you from feeling a strong emotion towards the death of others by the hands of the same people?"
"No, I don't think I'm a sociopath," York responded as ash blew away into the vast expanse of the prairie behind them. "I think that, after hearing for years and years about things like this happening on other planets with the Covenant, and all the fighting, and all the death…I think that I'm just too tired of war to think that anything is really going to change."
"Is that another part of being human?" Delta asked curiously, trying to adjust his logic to the situation.
"I think it just might be," York responded, feeling tired again and leaning against a brick wall to rest his unarmored head.
"North," Theta asked, sitting on North's shoulder cross-legged.
"I can't explain why people do these things right now, Theta," North cut across his AI's words, but the little purple Spartan persisted.
"Not that," he insisted. "Look." He pointed to where Dawn sat on her knees, completely frozen. She was bent over and using her hands to support her upper body. North walked over to where she was sitting, and paused as small gasps and sobs reached his ears. Tears of anger and anguish tracked freely down Dawn's face and darkened the light gray ash under her gloved fingers. Chi sat in a human form on the ground as well, static-laced with an emotion not completely integrated into her programming. Even as an AI fragment, they could feel similarly to how their human hosts did. Chi was cross legged, fingering the ash under her sadly.
"Why?" was all the AI could ask in her grief, watching as the electromagnetic force from her hologram carried some particles of the grey substance away into the air. "Why is there this much…this much death and destruction?"
North gently put a hand in between Dawn's shoulder blades and gave her a gentle embrace, and she pushed herself into his arms for comfort. Though not exactly screaming her heart out, the force of the emotional breakdown still could be felt throughout the entire group. North held her close, gentle yet firm, conveying that he was there and alive and healthy, even though they were surrounded by death.
Dawn didn't deserve this, North thought as the dark-haired woman buried her face into his shoulder. All that she had done was for the good of her people, so that they could live happy and free. To see that all of her work was put to shame by the acts of the terrorist Innies so quickly, after years of work…
A boot could be heard snapping some of the wood from a wrecked structure nearby, and they all jumped. Those that had weapons drew them and pointed them in the direction of the noise, worried that the Insurrectionists had returned to make sure they finished the job.
A lone soldier in MJOLNIR armor stepped out of the gloom and haze of the smoke in the air. Armor of light gray that had faded almost to white from age and the numerous scratches along its entire body glinted like a ghost in the red sunlight cast from the smoke-laced air. A golden visor stared at all of them, while five fresh red stripes adorned the soldier's right shoulder. All the Red Stallion soldiers dropped to their knees in submission to the newly arrived soldier's rank among them.
"Renee," Dawn greeted shakily, nodding to the grayish-white Spartan. The golden visor dipped in acknowledgement.
"You just found this?" a voice asked through the helmet, rough and female, laced with age that did not match her tallness and muscularity. "We're in some rough times, Phoenix. It's good to have you back."
"I just wish it was on better terms," Dawn sighed, looking into the wreckage and the disheartened soldiers of her home in the ruins of a hometown.
"Well, we can use all the help that we can get," Renee answered, staring at the three Freelancers in their own MJOLNIR armor, newer and more advanced than her own yet lacking the wisdom accumulated from years of battle and hardship in hostile environments. "We'll get back at those Innies for this. I swear it," the woman continued with bloodthirstiness in her voice.
"I swear that I'll get back at them for this," Dawn gritted her teeth and clenched her fist as fury roared through her veins. "And when I see Kao Jin, I'll make sure that he suffers for every single life that he's ruined ever. I won't hesitate this time," she vowed.
"I'll kill that bastard and end this war if it's the last thing that I do."
Yeah, terrible scene. I feel like a horrid person from writing about all that death, but I needed to give some motivation for what's going to happen later in the story.
Anyways, Renee is NOT an OC. She (or he, they never mention the gender, but I decided that she was a woman) is a Spartan that suffered from some of the augmentations conducted in the Spartan II experiment. Nobody knew what happened to her or Kirt from earlier, but I put her here. Deal with it, it'll work.
Next chapter is another Flashback. Hooray!
'Till then,
anna1795