A strong oak branch crashed to the jungle's floor, forcing Speartip to dodge to the left. She rolled to a stop down on one knee, aiming her rifle as swiftly as she could.
Standing bipedal a few yards before her was one of the largest predators she had ever seen. The creature stood solidly fifty feet tall. Its legs were as thick around as the oak tree it had dismembered with a mighty swipe of its massive paw. Each talon extended four feet from small but muscular fingers, featuring only a single knuckle each.
At the creature's midsection jutted a pair of extra appendages covered in dense jungle-green fur and tipped with hinge like pincers, akin to the claws of a lobster.
The monster's mammoth torso rippled with powerful muscle as its scarred and pockmarked dark brown chest stood out as it was devoid of the fur covering the rest of its body.
Its enormous high-domed head sported the longest of its fur, the length of the follicles cascading down the length of its back to touch its bearded glutes. Its dark amber-colored eyes shone with hunger and feral ferocity. Its jaws open slightly, bearing its sharp seven inch teeth which were coated with a generous - and dangerous - amount of saliva. Two bony mandibles jutted from the sides of its slavering mouth, twitching with anticipation like the jaws of a fifty foot soldier ant.
Speartip grimaced and held the sides of her helmet as the gigantic creature swung each of its arms backward, raised its face to the inky sky and bellowed an intensely loud roar before charging its human meal.
Speartip thought quickly. Luckily the beast was more concerned with her and did not focus on destroying her ship.
The pilot dove, rolled, jumped and slid to avoid the mighty swipes of the jungle predator's meaty and rock-solid arms.
She thought quickly as she leapt another right-handed swipe, but was forced to reach for the heavy tree limb the beast had knocked down as its left pincer opened and threatened to shear her in two.
She deftly inserted the limb perpendicularly into the crevice formed by the opening of the cloven claw. The creature roared in anger as it found not the strength in its claw to snap the bothersome oak branch.
Speartip took the time to fire several volleys of lead from her battle rifle into strategic locations among the creature's body; its knee, its side, its stomach, a claw, its face… the only damage caused was to partially blind the creature's eye and pierce its nose. The roar it gave at the pain it felt seemed to shake the ground.
The creature's fury doubled as it punched and slapped and pinched and stabbed at Speartip whose training helped her evade the furious lunges.
An idea formed within Speartip's mind and with that she sprinted away from the enormous green-furred creature toward one of the thickest redwood trees she had ever seen. Taking a moment to calculate the trajectory in relation to her ship's position, she deemed the multimillion dollar craft safe and climbed the thousand-foot tree quickly.
The beast seemed to laugh as it spotted her within its view. Its fetid breath would have knocked her flat if not for her helmet. The beast inched forward, the iris of its pupil dilating as it centered in on her white armor.
Speartip smiled inside her helmet as she brought her rifle to bear on the center of the creature's eye and pulled the trigger, firing burst after burst of bullets into the jelly-like optic. The bullets burst the eye like a water balloon, blinding the hulk of muscle and fur causing a bellow from the depths of the creature that redlined her audio meter.
Speartip recovered from the concussion and set herself. She watched the beast's movements carefully. Suddenly the blind predator grasped the redwood trunk with all four arms. Speartip smiled as the enraged monster pulled at the trunk with all of its considerable might, ignoring the tell-tale cracking and groaning of hardwood that was suddenly being pulled to its max.
Harder and harder the beast pulled, making the giant redwood bow toward it. It took a step back and gave a throaty roar as the trunk finally gave way. As the heavy redwood tree trunk fell forward, knocking the blind creature off balance and sending it toward the hard ground with a whine that sounded panicked, Speartip launched herself into the air, landing on the creature's stomach and bolting down its leg before leaping toward the ground and out of the path of the falling redwood when she was ten feet from solid footing. She rolled when she hit, but the air was knocked from her lungs.
Speartip lay on her back on the packed Valhalla heaving for air to return to her lungs. She turned her helmeted head toward the freshly crushed predator, breathing its final breaths before it died, a low throaty rumble escaping its abused lungs.
When Speartip could once again breathe normally, she sat up, arms propped against her knees as she finally allowed the realization that she had survived. She pressed her com switch located at her right temple.
"STF HQ, did you see what I saw?" she breathed in a hoarse whisper.
"Affirmative, Speartip. A Valhalla Kymora. Brutal apex predators. Nice work." the dispatcher said with awe.
"Nice work? I just killed a giant with a redwood tree." Speartip groused.
"Yes. As I said, nice work." the dispatcher repeated.
Speartip sighed.
No respect. She thought.
"Fine," Speartip said finally, "Transmitting coordinates of red and blue positions now."
Speartip depressed a button located on her wrist-mounted control panel.
"We've received your transmission. Be careful now. If you think the Kymora are bad, you don't want to run into a Vanquish." the dispatcher said cheekily.
"Dare I ask?" Speartip ventured.
"Basically an abomination even bigger than the Kymora, lined with dense plates and a single eye and a maw that literally spits acid."
Speartip's eyes widened in wonder, but she would never admit to it.
"I'll be sure to avoid them if I can." Speartip allowed before switching off the channel.
She sighed again and allowed her eyes to at least water. She pulled a square piece of paper from her leg compartment and studied the face of a middle-aged man with longish black hair and a friendly smile on his face. She held his gaze with an emotion she didn't want to give name to before releasing her hold on the picture and sliding it back into her leg compartment.
BBBBB
Missouri had left Blue base with even more questions than he had entered with. He hadn't spoken since Church had displayed his odd examination of Lambda's hologram. He had looked toward Carolina before backing up a step, turning around and leaving quietly.
"UNSC hunting us, Reds totally unwilling to help us and the Blues either unable or too unstable to help." Missouri stated simply, shaking his head.
"He said I was a missing component." Lambda said, equally as shaken.
"The Director's driving force behind that entire freelancer project was to bring back his dead lover, but in all those years he never got Allison - or Tex - right. The personal logs said he was missing something. A component that he could never figure out."
"Love." Lambda stated blankly.
"Apparently, if you believe Church. But I thought the whole reason he was copying Allison…"
"Beta." Lambda corrected.
"I'm sorry?" Missouri wondered lifting an eyebrow.
"Beta was Alpha's memory of Allison. The director worked to rebuild and resurrect her. You say he did it for love, but since when does a man torture a woman out of a sense of love?"
Lambda's voice was nearly monotonous as she pieced it together.
"So he didn't work with love… he threw love out because he didn't want it. Didn't think it… she… was important to his work."
"But that was what was missing. He was so obsessed with loss that that was what she ended up being… a failure." Lambda continued.
"Then how does love come into the picture?" Missouri wanted to know.
"He made her angrier, stronger, more resilient and tougher. But all those qualities do nothing more than cause a person to be more reckless. Love would have made Beta slow down, would have driven her toward him. She would have survived because…" Lambda trailed off and projected her image in front of his visor, staring intently into his eyes. She smiled warmly, love and a new appreciation for Missouri shining in her bright green eyes.
"She would have survived because she wouldn't have wanted to die."
BBBBBB
Missouri and Lambda had wandered for an hour before they noticed a red shape near the rock face they were heading toward.
"Hello, Sarge. Out for a late night stroll?" Missouri asked, greeting the older man.
"Looking at the stars actually. Trying to see if I can spot a shooting star so I can wish for Grif's unbearably torturous death. It's a long story." Sarge spoke nonchalantly.
Missouri nodded slowly.
"Okay… good luck." Missouri said before traveling on to find a place to stay for the night.
"Actually, hold on Moe. I was gonna wait till tomorrow but I can't help but wonder… how in the hell are you going to survive a UNSC military strike?" Sarge asked.
"I don't know." Missouri admitted after a moment of thought.
"Do you have any weapons? Backup? Special gadgets to make you faster or stronger?"
"We have only our wits and this battle rifle. Nothing more." Missouri confessed.
"You don't even have a warthog do you?" Sarge demanded, crossing his arms.
"Alright, I get it. We're toast. Are you just here to laugh at us? If you have any suggestions I'm all ears."
"Huh. I like you, Moe. So when are you gonna be a man and ask for assistance?"
"I didn't think your people wanted to help me." Missouri said, sounding skeptical.
"You didn't even ask so we didn't offer. Another pro tip, no one is going to help you unless you ask. If you would have asked, every one of us would have helped you."
"What about Grif?"
"Yeah, he's always like that. Truly one of the worst, laziest and even one of the ugliest soldiers I have ever worked with. But he'd help you too if you pushed him."
"Why do you recommend Grif in the first place then?"
"It's true, me and Grif don't see eye to eye. Hell, speaking of eyes, I'd like to replace his eyes with two grenades. I may have tried to murder him exactly fifty-seven times and I enjoy threatening his worthless life like you enjoy talking about a warm, breezy summer afternoon. But for such a waste of skin, he really isn't that bad."
"Has anyone ever told you that your endorsements are really not all that ringing?"
"Yeah, a few times. But as far as pep talks go, I like to think I'm one of the masters, dirt bag."
A long, pregnant silence passed between the two lifelong military men before Missouri polled his beloved AI.
"Should we take him up on it, Lamb?" Moe asked hesitantly.
Her bright pink image lit up the immediate area between the gold and red soldiers as Lambda appeared.
"Sarge, your entire unit would be passed over if you stay out of it. But if you put yourselves in the middle of this thing, you will surely be targeted." Lambda said cautiously.
"Yep, sounds like our kind of odds alright. But we're used to being outnumbered and outgunned by real, professional soldiers using their inviso-whatsits and their strength gizmos to have the edge. Just remember that we have managed to kick your asses over a lot of different worlds. We can handle an entire army." Sarge said confidently.
There were several moments of silence. Could this be real? Were they finally being accepted? Did some soul somewhere finally care if they lived or died?
Missouri finally found his voice.
"Sarge, would you be willing to help Lamb and I overcome the men and women hunting us?" Missouri asked with a new respect in his voice.
"Heh heh, thought you'd never ask. We've got men - and Donut - and yours truly has a lead on some freelancer device to help you out." Sarge said, clapping the gold soldier on the shoulder plate.
"Sarge, Lambda has no combat parameters. She couldn't run a combat enhancer." Missouri reasoned.
"Now don't you worry. She won't have to fight. She just needs to do what she does best and this freelancer thingie will help her do that." Sarge said.
Missouri finally felt like he was onto something. He knew something was coming, but he didn't know what or when. He looked at the older soldier.
"Let's do this." Missouri said confidently.
"Alright. Come on back to Red base and we'll get cookin'!"
Missouri smiled and followed the Red sergeant back toward the dark spire that was Red base.
A/N: Apparently Jaden Silver isn't the only person in the world with a bad memory, because I can't remember if I thanked her. In that case, I want to say a major thank you to Jaden Silver.
It was her idea that Lambda would likely be female based on a close relationship to Beta, which was Allison's memory. Therefore it isn't a stretch to imagine that Lambda's core emotion of love would easily be overlooked because the Director was so focused on Tex's combat parameters and her meanness and toughness to the point that he would completely overlook love. In his mind, how can he keep Tex from dying? Give her all those traits that most people expect in a survivor, but he overlooked what would have given her CAUTION.