Chapter Four

0400 Hours, July 26, 2554 (Military Calendar)

Dry Gulch Badlands

Tabah Region, Planet Demeter, Itami System

The attack Strickland had warned about came during their second night on the trail, a force of twenty or thirty bandits descending on the camp around an hour before dawn without any warning.

Morgan's first inkling they were there was when gunfire suddenly sounded, the noise jerking him awake and like in the wagon his hand was quick to clamp down on his battle rifle long before any conscious thought made itself known. Within half a second he was up and shouldering his weapon, taking stock of the situation.

The residents of Rock Ridge had circled their wagons into a defensive posture when making camp, creating an ad hoc compound, and those that carried guns were given the task of posting a watch throughout the night. Of the sixty-three people accompanying Morgan, only fifteen had weapons but that included Duke and Strickland who, effectively, were the only ones with any real combat experience.

The rest were just hunters and trappers, used to shooting at game and pests that couldn't shoot back, so it was doubtful they would be all that effective in a fight which, Morgan soon saw, would turn out to be true. Three of the off duty guards thrashed about in their beddings as they struggled to free themselves whilst another fumbled and dropped their rifle in a rush to join the fray, and one of those already on watch frantically fired out into the darkness at some silhouette just beyond the reach of the lanterns the camp had set.

Soon enough his weapon was empty and in need of a reload, but being a tube fed weapon it meant loading each round individually after plucking them from a bandolier. Not exactly a hard task, though between shot nerves and an excess of adrenaline the man's hands were shaking so badly that half of the rounds he plucked from the strap fell uselessly into the dirt.

The bandits, meanwhile, were attacking from defiladed positions at the two, six and nine o'clock positions, using a mixture of rocks and depressions in the ground as cover, all three of which were elevated enough to see over the tops of the wagons to give them good lines of sight onto the camp's defenders with cries of pain ringing out soon after the shooting started.

Morgan peered through his battle rifle's scope and centred the crosshairs on the head of the nearest bandit to him, firing a single burst of three rounds that struck the bandit between the eyes. A fine red mist erupted from the back of his head and he fell to the ground, dead, and those either side of him jerked back slightly in surprise before focusing back on the battle, only this time their attention was on the lone supersoldier.

Rounds impacted Morgan's shields to make them flare and he responded to the attack in kind, downing two more bandits in quick succession as he stepped out from behind the wagons to close in on their position. As he drew closer though, his HUD pinged that it was picked up the signal from a neural lace and overlaid a waypoint on one of the bandits that was still alive, causing Morgan to pause momentarily as an abbreviated service record flashed across his eyes.

The bandit, a Marine according to the information contained in his neural lace, paused as well and the two men locked eyes across the battlefield despite the gunfire. But rather than turn on the bandits and side with what was obviously a fellow member of the UNSC, the Marine drew a pistol and placed the barrel against his temple.

Morgan could only watch as the Marine pulled the trigger and ended his own life, the action shocking him and the few remaining bandits that had been fighting alongside him only a few moments prior. Unlike them Morgan recovered quickly, helped in part by other rounds slamming into him and he cycled through the last few bandits before him, downing each with a headshot apiece.

With them dealt with, Morgan moved forward to their old position and turned his attention to the remaining groups of bandits, both of which were splitting their attention between him and the caravan. Again, his HUD pinged two more IFF signals coming from the bandits who, like their fellow had, chose to kill themselves on seeing a Spartan was included in their opposition's number.

It was a bizarre and horrifying thing to see, for Morgan and the bandits both, though arguably it was more damaging to the latter given those three were likely their best fighters. It certainly seemed that way given their sudden collapse and withdrawal from the fight, blindly firing over their shoulders in some semblance of covering their retreat.

Morgan lowered his rifle rather than returning fire and just watched them go, tracking them as they scrambled up the cliffside and disappeared down a gully further up. Only then did he turn and kneel down to examine the Marine that had taken his own life who, like the bandits either side of him, was covered in a liberal layer of dirt and grime that came from living rough for extended periods. His pockets didn't offer much up, either. Just a few random trinkets likely taken from past victims and Morgan left them with the body, preferring to take the weapons instead.

'What's the damage?' he said on returning to the middle of the camp.

'At least three dead,' Strickland said. 'And four times as many wounded. But, thanks to you, it wasn't worse than that.'

He grimaced and clutched at his arm where a round from the bandits had struck, being one of the wounded himself, and Morgan was quick to guide him to a nearby seat to tend to it.

'Three of the bandits were UNSC,' Morgan said as he began examining the wound, a clean through and through that had missed any bone or blood vessels. It had still taken out a good portion of the surrounding muscle, and it was unlikely Strickland would regain full use or mobility of the arm once it had healed. 'Two Marines and a soldier.'

'If they were mixed up with bandits, they ain't your people anymore,' Strickland said, wincing as Morgan poured rubbing alcohol on the wound. 'Whenever the Landers come, we're supposed to round them up and take them to Central City for processing. Those with combat experience are asked to join the Rangers, so if they were out here preying on us they rejected the offer, or went rogue.'

'They all killed themselves,' Morgan said. 'Soon as they saw what they were up against.'

Strickland nodded. 'I imagine they would. The penalty for banditry, if they capture you, is hard labour.'

'Must be bad if death is a preferable alternative,' Morgan said.

'Wouldn't be an effective deterrent were it otherwise,' Strickland said. 'It's just for bandits, though. We have more humane punishments for other crimes.'

He winced and grimaced again as Morgan began stitching the wounds up as best he could, but not being a medic meant calling it a crude attempt would have been generous. But, as was often the case with all things military, if it was stupid and worked then it wasn't stupid, though Morgan had his doubts such a saying extended to wound treatments out in the field.

'Do you want me to go after the survivors?' he said, slotting his patient's now stitched and bandaged arm into a sling.

'No, leave them be,' Strickland said. 'We dealt them a pretty bad blow tonight, so they'll be easy pickings for the Rangers and bounty hunters. Oh, that reminds me. You're gonna want to collect the fingers of the bandits you killed, turn them in at the city. Could be a reward out for them.'

Strickland gestured up to the spot Morgan had assaulted and the eight or so bodies there, hauling out a knife which he held to the Spartan but he shook his head, both to the proffered tool and to the suggestion.

'Thanks, but I think I'll be able to get by without any bounties,' he said.

'Suit yourself,' Strickland said, shrugging, before whistling and looking to Duke. 'Some more bodies, up there. Grab their fingers.'

'Sure thing,' Duke said.

He finished applying a bandage to one of the wounded then made for the depression, returning a short while later with the fingers stowed in a now bloody bag that he dropped into the wagon he, Strickland and Morgan were riding in. A grisly practice but an understandable one, but only so long as they had some kind of DNA or fingerprint database to compare the sample to. Otherwise, what was stopping morally ambiguous bounty hunters from going out and collecting random fingers to turn in as 'proof' of a kill?

1514 Hours, July 26, 2554 (Military Calendar)

Outskirts of Central City

Tabah Region, Planet Demeter, Itami System

The capital of the Republic came into view early in the afternoon, appearing as a slight smudge on the far horizon that the hot air heavily distorted before slowly resolving into a more solid thing the closer the caravan drew.

Morgan unlimbered his battle rifle and shouldered it, linking to the scope to get a better look at the city which, even from afar, looked more modern than Rock Ridge had. Its buildings that were made of brick and stone and the larger ones rose five or six storeys above the ground, well beyond the Podunk burg he had first encountered. More than that the roads were actually paved surfaces rather than hardpacked dirt, and had actual motorised vehicles rolling along them.

Though as with everything else, most of the designs Morgan saw were homegrown ones that lacked the sleek lines of contemporary vehicles back home, being boxy things with gaps between the panels, and what few he did recognise were better described as homages to the original model. He could see what they were supposed to be, but it wasn't a perfect recreation.

A number of them soon joined the caravan as it headed for Central City when they spotted Morgan sitting on the front bench, the occupants of the vehicles staring at him with wide eyes, while others raced ahead into the city, leaving plumes of smoke behind them as they accelerated away. Some even got onto the radio, calling ahead to people in the city about some unknown armoured figure riding in so that by the time they reached the city proper, a large crowd was already waiting for them.

Several carried weapons and back behind the growing crowd, Morgan could see military styled vehicles rapidly approaching. He motioned for Duke to bring the wagon to a halt before getting out, closing the gap between him and the crowd who tensed up slightly, no doubt thinking him to be one of the raiders, until a repeat of what happened in Rock Ridge played out as a number of the gathered people suddenly grasped prayer beads or cross that hung from their necks.

By this point both the Rangers and the preacher who had accompanied Morgan joined him, the soldiers warily carrying their rifles in a not quite ready position whilst the preacher held his bible aloft with one hand, the other reaching out towards Morgan.

'Brothers and sisters!' he said. 'Fear not, for the Lord Almighty has answered our prayers, sending us one of His most holy Spartans to save us from the terrible menace of the raiders!'

That got them murmuring amongst themselves and despite himself, Morgan couldn't help but spare the preacher an exasperated stare from behind his visor as Strickland clambered down from the wagon, making for the soldiers to explain the situation without the religious rhetoric. Less than a minute later the leader of the troops, a sergeant based on the stripes she wore, gestured for Morgan to follow her and her squad to their vehicles.

Morgan nodded and fell into step beside her, the squad forming a loose cordon around him as they moved towards their waiting vehicles, a collection of small jeeps and a six-wheeled truck with an open, exposed back that Morgan wordlessly climbed into. The squad joined him, as did Strickland and the preacher, and soon enough they were underway amid a plume of black smoke.

Nobody said anything during the entire trip with the soldiers just watching Morgan, curiosity on their faces, leaving him free to take in the sights around him which, by all accounts, were astounding to say the least. Strickland had spoken more on the history of the planet and how Landers had been brought here since what seemed like just after faster than light travel became a thing, almost 250 years ago. That also pumped the minimum number of kidnapped people up to just under a million, assuming only 4,000 a year were brough to Demeter.

It was an amazing thing to see considering that those first 'colonists' were dropped onto the planet with essentially nothing beyond basic survival tools of axes, knives and saws, forcing them to create everything else from scratch. They had, in essence, gone from the Stone Age to what was almost on par with late Nineteenth, early Twentieth Century life in terms of technology, all in less than three centuries and whilst constantly under attack by the raiders.

Everywhere Morgan looked he could see diners, offices, parks, garages, general stores and more, with well-dressed people flitting between them all on paved roads that bore motor traffic of every kind imaginable from small personal vehicles to huge trucks like the kind he was currently riding in. All this, despite their rough start.

They even had government, the main seat of which seemed to be contained in a grand looking building. Columns flanked the main entrance that was larger than it needed to be, the doors made of dark wood varnished to a high sheen, and sitting atop the place was a huge dome at least half as tall again as the building itself, all of it made from an off-white stone that glittered faintly in the light.

Another crowd of people was waiting outside, including more Rangers with their weapons who looked to be flanking a single person, a diminutive woman, that Morgan took to be either the Republic's leader or at least some high ranking official tasked with greeting the strange newcomer.

'No funny business,' the sergeant said to Morgan once the truck came to a stop and everyone began dismounting.

'Understood,' Morgan said.

He waited until Strickland and the preacher had gotten off the truck before making for the new group, the sergeant and her squad waiting by the truck with some of them remaining in the rear bay, weapons close to hand.

'That's the president,' Strickland said in a low voice. 'Surprised she came out to meet you herself.'

'Me, too,' Morgan said.

The trio approached the president who broke ranks with the Rangers and met them halfway, her first act to give Morgan a head to toe examination as he stood before in his armour. Then, after a moment, she held her hand out.

'A pleasure to meet you,' she said. 'My name is Karla Argento, president of the Republic.'

He grasped her hand and shook it, saying, 'Spartan Morgan, UNSC Spartan Branch.'

Strickland and the preacher introduced themselves in short order with Argento nodding in greeting back, but when she gestured for Morgan to follow her inside and they moved to do the same she stopped and said, 'I appreciate you bringing this matter to my attention, but I'm certain Spartan Morgan can fill me in on his circumstances perfectly well by himself.'

Morgan glanced at her for a moment then turned to Strickland, hand out, and said, 'Thanks for bringing me to the city.'

'Any time,' Strickland said, shaking his hand. 'If you're ever out past Rock Ridge, stop in and say hello.'

'I will,' Morgan said.

He let go and looked to the preacher, Olmstead, whose name he had only just learned after all these days, and gave the man a single nod which, apparently, was all he needed.

'And I shall spread word of your arrival to the other devout,' Olmstead said. 'And please, Spartan, I beg that you come to River Town once your business in the city is concluded. The followers there would consider it a blessing to merely gaze upon you.'

Morgan glanced at Strickland from the corner of his eye and saw him ever so slightly shake his head in warning, so he said, 'I'll consider it, if time allows.'

'I shall await your arrival,' Olmstead said.

He made a cross in front of him then left, rejoining the crowd that had followed everyone from the edge of the city and continued to grow. Many that Morgan could see held the same prayer beads or crosses in their hands, and all were staring right at him as he stood at the foot of the steps leading into the governmental building.

Strickland disappeared soon after to leave Morgan alone with Argento who motioned for him to walk with her, and once they were moving said, 'I apologise for that, Spartan. The Helots can be… zealous, shall we say, in their beliefs?'

'I just spent three days with them on the ride over here,' Morgan said. 'I know.'

He walked on a few more steps then cocked his head towards Argento as what she said fully registered.

'They call themselves Helots?' he said. 'As in, the serfs from Ancient Sparta?'

'Non-clergy members, yes,' Argento said. 'I take it you didn't converse much with them on the journey over?'

Morgan shook his head. 'I figured it would be best to steer clear of people that consider me a deity.'

'A wise choice,' Argento said.

They reached the doors leading into the building and two aides were quick to open them for the pair, revealing a brightly lit lobby made of more of the same off-white stone, this time polished to a high sheen that offered up dim reflections of people as they passed by. To the right and left of Morgan were long hallways that had multiple doors tucked away, leading to smaller meeting rooms and halls, and ahead of him was a grand staircase leading deeper into the building.

'This way, please,' Argento said.

She made for the staircase and led Morgan up several flights until they were on the very top floor, all but inside the huge dome that dominated the building. Argento made for one door in particular that had two armed guards standing either side of it who both snapped to attention on seeing her, standing ramrod stiff as they stared straight ahead but Morgan could tell their focus was on him as he trailed behind their commander in chief.

An aide who had followed them up hurried ahead to push the doors open, revealing an opulent meeting room lined with more dark wood on the walls, a plush blue carpet underfoot, and furniture faced in cream leather, plus a well-stocked wet bar off to the left. To the right was an oil painting of a man dressed in a suit, the founder and first president of the Republic according to Argento.

'Please, have a seat,' she said. 'Would you like something to eat or drink? You might not believe it but we have almost every amenity from the colonies on offer, despite our situation, so I'm sure we can accommodate your preferences.'

'Coffee, please,' Morgan said.

One of the aides ducked their heads and departed as Morgan slowly eased himself onto one of the sofas, mindful of the weight of his armour, and opposite him Argento did the same, hands clasped in her lap.

'So,' she said. 'Where shall we begin?'