"Ghosts of Rhen Var"
By Kpmh2001
Cold winds blew over the snowy mountains of Rhen Var as a small team of unusual warriors made their way closer to their objective. Ben, Curie, Set, and Meadows had since been joined by Nathan, Yu, and Fairfire, who had no explanation for how they'd also gotten off of Remnant, let alone ended up with the rest of them. Naturally, they were still working with the Rebel Alliance, at least for the moment, and were now on another mission for the Rebellion.
After Curie had conducted what was potentially the single most destructive cyberwarfare campaign in history against the Imperial Garrison on Kashyyyk, Sev and the rest of the Rebels had managed to gain some substantial ground on the Wookie's Homeworld. As a result, the Rebel Alliance elected to send Onyx Team on another mission, one that was far from the warm and sunny forest world that they had left. Worse still, at least in Ben's opinion, it was a wild goose chase.
Rhen Var was a frozen, largely inhospitable world where nothing grew and the sky was always filled with clouds. The ruins of structures old and new alike utterly covered the planet, and it was one of these ruins that held their objective. According to Sev, one of the "Jedi" working for the Rebel Alliance was looking for some kind of ancient encrypted data device, and given Curie's talent for breaking those exact things open, and the rest of Onyx Team's remarkable talent for killing Imperial soldiers, they had been the perfect unit for the mission.
Naturally, some members of the team were happier with the situation than others.
"Hey Sarge?" Yu asked, momentarily struggling to pull her foot out of a divet in the ground that had been concealed by the thick snow. "The next time some scrawny officer sends us to the fucking Yukon, would you kindly tell him to shove it up his ass instead of saying yes?"
"What she said." Meadows added. Both of them had chosen to speak over TEAMCOM, which was just as well, as even with the voice amplifiers in their helmets, the howling winds would've likely made their speech indiscernible.
Fairfire sighed and grumbled something foul under her breath before she answered. "Believe me, I was fucking tempted, but this is important."
"It is." Curie spoke up over TEAMCOM. "If General Kota is correct, this Holocron could hold some very powerful information."
"For once Curie, I disagree. We should have disregarded the man." Set's booming voice added, earning the Sangheili Warrior some odd looks from the rest of the squad. "While I normally would speak against complaining like whimpering Unggoy, and especially against disobeying orders, we owed that insolent fool nothing. In the time that we spend here, Curie could bring ruin to our foe by the fleet, rather than opening a storage device."
Ben couldn't help but smile at the mental image of Curie effortlessly disabling Imperial Warships, indeed, it wasn't a far-fetched idea. The Empire's cybersecurity was still stuck in the 1990's, as were their computers, whereas Curie was a modern Artificial Intelligence with the finest cyberwarfare tools that ONI had to offer. Naturally, she'd torn through their computer systems on Kashyyyk like a MAC slug through a particularly unfortunate flock of geese, causing substantial damage up to three systems away.
Nathan, it seemed, supported Set's idea as well. "You see? Even the split-lip gets it! Uh, no offense."
"You will need much harsher words than that to wound me, Imp." Set dismissively replied. "Perhaps next time you could exercise some creativity with your insults?"
"He's got you there Nathan, but look on the bright side," Yu stepped in. "There's a whole galaxy's worth of new insults out here! I'm thinking maybe it's time we update our vocabulary."
"Feh, everybody around here talks like their mom's watching. Even their swear words sound made up." Nathan argued. "I heard one guy say "shit" and it genuinely caught me off-guard, I think that's the only one I recognized. Plus there's-"
Nathan was interrupted by a terrifying and alarmingly loud ghostly howl that seemed to completely blot out the sound of the wind and emanate from everywhere around them at once. Above, below, front and back, Ben heard it from everywhere. The whole squad froze and raised their weapons, but the sound died out as quickly as it came.
There was a moment of awkward, terror-filled silence before Yu finally spoke up. "What the fuck was that?!"
"Steady!" Ben spoke up, his finger ready to snap to the trigger of his A280C "Elite Series" Blaster Rifle at a moment's notice.
A minute passed, then two, before it became clear that whatever had made the noise, it was clearly gone now.
"Even the predators of Sanghelios could not manage a cry so terrible." Set said, sounding genuinely shaken for the first time that Ben could remember since the Elite's crisis of faith. "Whatever that was, I fear that we would not stand a chance at defeating it."
Ben glanced over the rest of the squad, it seemed like everybody was okay, save for Nathan, whom Fairfire was quietly reassuring.
"Any guesses, Curie?" Ben asked. If anybody would know what made the sound, it would probably be her.
"Still working on it, but whatever that was, it had at least four-hundred and three points of origin." Curie answered. "If I come up with anything, I will let you know, but for the moment, I believe we are safe to proceed."
"Four-hundred…" Meadows said. "Are we sure we shouldn't pull back to the shuttle? We don't know what we're getting into here."
"There's nothing saying we're not just going to get caught by… whatever that is, if we try to fall back. We might as well keep moving." Fairfire said.
As the highest-ranking member of their squad, the call was technically Fairfire's to make, but Ben could tell that it was an unpopular one. Truth be told, he didn't much like the idea of dying for nothing either, and doubly so the thought of putting Curie in danger. His gut was practically screaming at him that something bad was about to happen, but if Curie herself had said to proceed…
The squad advanced cautiously, tentatively, eventually cresting the hill that they were climbing… and spotting an entire Imperial Firebase at the bottom of the other side, at most only a kilometer away. Just at a glance Ben could tell that it was something substantial, it had to house at bare minimum a full company of soldiers, and there were a handful of walkers of various models stationed outside.
There were defensive structures in the forms of large gun emplacements, oriented against both air and ground attack. Multiple large buildings, probably including barracks and warehouses, not to mention a massive command center.
Without a word, Onyx Team slid back into cover, waiting until they were sure that they hadn't been spotted before Yu broke the silence. "That's… a lot to take on. I know we were expecting an Imperial Garrison but, well…"
"It is a lot." Fairfire conceded. "But they're camped out right next to the ruin we need to be exploring, I think we can safely assume that we're after the same thing."
"Why make assumptions?" Set asked. "Meadows, do you not carry a spy drone with you? Perhaps we can see for ourselves what they are doing. Alternatively, I still have my camouflage, I could infiltrate them."
Meadows shuffled his rucksack and shrugged. "I've got one, and I'll highlight that we can't exactly requisition another…"
"We'll try the drone, it's better than throwing Set in the lion's jaws." Fairfire swiftly decided.
"I do not know what a "lion" is, but I can assure you, I would not be the one with fear in my heart." Set somewhat pointedly replied as Meadows dug the small recon drone out of his rucksack.
It was a fairly decent plan, at least from Ben's perspective. Imperial sensors had noticeable difficulty in picking up basically anything in the very limited UNSC arsenal that they had access to, so the odds of them picking up a basketball-sized drone on their radar, even at such short range, was surprisingly minimal. The Empire wouldn't have too much luck with their eyes either, since as everyone on Onyx Team had learned, the helmets used by the rank-and-file Imperial soldiers offered very lackluster visibility.
Once Meadows had the drone airborne and ascending, Fairfire issued out a few more orders. "Right, Ben, Nathan, creep up to the ridge and see what else is up there. Set, start thinking if there's anything you can summon to give us an edge if we have to fight. Meadows, Yu, we'll stay just behind this ridge, be ready to move if we're needed. Curie, take the drone, see what you can see."
A series of vocal confirmations and green pings to the status lights answered her as Ben led the way up to the very lip of the ridge. Nathan joined him very shortly afterwards, and Ben let out a low breath as between his own eyes and Curie's work with the recon drone, he got to see what they had to work against.
The recon drone effortlessly spotted everything that the Empire had to work with, and relayed their live positions to Heads-up Displays of the entire squad. The results were, to put it mildly, discouraging. Ben's prediction of a company of enemy infantry had been right on the money, but it hadn't taken into account an entire enemy walker section, primarily AT-STs and a pair of the much larger AT-ATs.
It was a tough position to crack, but they'd fought harsher battles back on Remnant. Already Ben was starting to form a plan in his mind. Set could place satchel charges to knock out the walkers from the cover of his active camouflage, and Nathan and perhaps either Yu or Meadows could provide overwatch while the rest of them dug in along the ridgeline and sniped the Imperial's strength away, exploiting their range advantage to the fullest.
"I have something." Curie relayed to the entire squad over TEAMCOM. "The Imperials appear to be excavating something from the ruins. Judging by the shape of the objects and the architecture of the ruins, I would assume that they are looking for coffins."
Curie put an image of what she was looking at in one of the corners of Ben's HUD, and predictably, she seemed to be entirely correct. The Imperials had taken perhaps four-dozen of the coffins out of the ruins and laid them out in the open beside a landing pad, perhaps planning to move them off-world.
"Those can't be coffins, far too big, you could fit a Warthog in those." Fairfire pointed out, no doubt seeing the very same image. "Maybe those have the data we're looking for?"
"Makes more sense than the Empire digging up a bunch of old corpses." Yu added. "Unless they're planning on raising the dead…"
The discussion continued, but Ben kept his focus solely on his mission. Even so, he had an equally-capable and perceptive squadmate right beside him to consult. "What do you think Nathan? How should we play this?"
Ben, however, received no answer, aside from a single mechanical click from Nathan's position. He turned and saw, to his immense confusion, an M99 Stanchion Gauss Rifle in his hands. The massive weapon was already in place on its bipod, and Nathan was looking down the scope. "Nathan what is that? What- where did you get that?"
There was an awkward pause, and Ben received no answer. "Nathan, you still with me? We need to think-"
Finally, Ben realized Nathan's intentions.
"No- NO-" He firmly said. "Nathan, we're not doing that!"
"Shhhhh." Nathan shushed him, dialing in his scope.
Ben briefly considered reaching over and grabbing the rifle out of his hands, but recognized that doing so was probably just as bad an idea as what Nathan was thinking. Fairfire was also trying to talk him down over TEAMCOM, but Nathan didn't listen to her either. "Hold your fire, that's an order!"
"Shut up." Nathan quietly replied as he racked the bolt.
"I'm the one in command here!" Ben firmly said, although he had a bad feeling that Nathan probably didn't care. Curie was also trying to talk Nathan down, but Ben was focused more or less solely on Nathan, and didn't quite hear what it was she was saying.
When Nathan spoke, he sounded thoroughly annoyed and exhausted. "My bones hurt, the snow here is haunted, and I'm tired."
"Get it together!" Ben insisted.
Nathan did not. "Cover your ears."
"We're not fucking doing-" Ben got midway through his sentence before Nathan pulled the trigger.
The coilgun spoke with a vengeance as the sound barrier was torn asunder with a fury. In the blink of an eye, Nathan had killed no fewer than seven Imperial Soldiers, making strategic use of a conveniently-placed barrel of rhydonium fuel to cap off his shot with a torrential explosion. The fireball was so massive that it was more comparable to an impacting artillery shell. One of the mysterious coffins was caught in the blast, but between the smoke and fire, Ben couldn't discern its fate.
Needless to say, they were no longer going to be doing things stealthily.
"What the hell was that?!" Ben angrily demanded as he hastily dialed-in his blaster rifle and took aim at the Imperial Installation. With any luck, he'd at least get to pick off a few of the patrolling Snowtroopers before they reached cover. Curie highlighted something on his HUD which he wordlessly trained his scope on, expecting to find a snowtrooper to shoot… only to find the coffin that had been caught in Nathan's fuel explosion and badly cracked, slightly exposing the contents.
The coffin looked empty, but it was not.
"Hold your fire!" Curie practically screamed at them all. Moments later, they saw why.
From the cracked coffin emerged… something. In truth, Ben didn't quite know what he was looking at, made more difficult to discern by the fact that it was partially transparent. The… creature, floated in the air, had two long limbs to either side that ended in sickle-end protrusions. It wore some kind of cloak that covered the majority of its torso and possessed no legs. The head was something that, despite Ben's efforts, he couldn't get a bead on. It was like it was always changing, never once staying stable enough to create a concrete form.
Whatever it was, Ben and Nathan, now joined by the rest of the squad who had thankfully confiscated his Stanchion, watched in both horror and rapt fascination as the spectral being floated over to the nearest snowtrooper and discharged a ball of fire at them. It impacted with the force of an anti-tank rocket, leaving nothing but a charred skeleton where there had once been a fully-armored imperial trooper, even melting the snow around him.
Ben vaguely heard Yu mutter something under her breath about "calling it," but kept his focus solely on the base as more of the transparent beings rose from the coffins, attacking the Imperials. In the far distance, they could hear the same unearthly howls and cries that had caught them off-guard earlier, only now, they were aimed at the Empire.
"Spirits… I see now why the Jedi sent us here, this is a place of honor." Set surmised, watching with abject glee as their mutual enemy were literally melted.
The Snowtroopers and walkers desperately fought back, but their blaster bolts simply passed through the ghostly apparitions. Several of the wiser ones focused their fire on the coffins themselves, and as each was destroyed, one of the ghosts vanished into the air. They were, however, far too late to turn the battle around. Even the larger AT-AT walkers were blown apart by repeated blasts of energy from the ghosts, and before long, the last Snowtrooper lay dead.
All of Onyx Team, save for Set, watched in stunned horror as each and every one of the ghosts momentarily turned to face them, clearly able to see them perfectly in spite of the distance… before vanishing into the air. A tense minute of anxious waiting passed before they realized that, for whatever reason, the ghosts had deemed them worthy of not being attacked.
They were safe.
"Hey Nathan?" Yu shakily got their sniper's attention. "Thanks for being a dumbass and shooting that thing."
Nathan did not reply, clearly unable to summon the nerve, Ben didn't blame him.
Fairfire, ever the stoic woman, seemed only mildly fazed. "Curie, what the hell were those things?"
Curie paused for a moment, which was always a bad sign, since as Ben had learned long ago, the rate at which she could think vastly exceeded a typical Human's. "I do not know. As much as I lament the idea of giving credence to a baseless theory, I am going to say that Set's assessment is the most likely possibility."
The rest of the squad turned to Set, who shrugged. "Do not look to me for answers. It seems obvious to me that those were spirits, although clearly not the kind that we would be familiar with."
"Will they attack us?" Fairfire asked. When neither Curie nor Set answered, she added; "Either of you, come on, even a guess!"
Curie spoke up, sounding both frustrated and scared. "I have no scientific basis for my theory, but I believe that, somehow, Nathan's inept and stupid decision may have somehow aided the… entities. I believe that we should leave while they still hold some goodwill for us."
"You are wiser than you give yourself credit for, Curie, that seems very reasonable to me." Set added. "Perhaps the spirits were trapped in their coffins, and what we heard earlier was merely the spirits calling for aid? In which case, Nathan may have done a great and honorable deed."
"May." Yu interjected, highlighting the opportune word. "Let's get out of here before we have to find out if your theory's right."
The squad raised no objections, and so, empty-handed, the squad turned back to begin the long hike back to their shuttle. A part of Ben still felt a bit disappointed at having been forced to leave empty-handed, even if the odds of them even retrieving anything valuable in the first place had been minimal at best.
"Hey Ben, where did you get that?" Curie asked him, snapping him out of his thoughts. He also noticed that rather than using his speakers or TEAMCOM, she spoke directly to him, privately.
"Get what?" He asked her, before noticing something on his HUD that he hadn't before. The M99 Stanchion that Nathan had mysteriously acquired was now resting on his back, and he certainly didn't recall picking it up. In fact, last he remembered, Yu had been holding it. "Wait, how did-"
He could practically feel the exasperation that Curie felt as she spoke. "Please do not talk about that to Set, even if he asks. If you have picked up his ability to 'call upon the Gods for aid,' I will have an aneurysm."
Ben had to stifle a chuckle at Curie's impression of Set, which was far better than it really had any right to be. "Consider me sworn to secrecy."
"Good, because I have nothing to bribe you with." Curie teasingly added.
"Bribe? Curie, I have a Gauss Rifle." He happily replied. "We might not have what we came for, but we certainly have something… even if we don't know where it came from, and it's apparently moving whenever we're not looking."
"...Indeed." Curie said, her tone conveying a lot of the same feelings that Ben was currently suppressing.
With more than a little trepidation and confusion, the squad continued their hike, more than content to leave the spectral guardians alone.
Author's Notes: Been a while, sorry about that, I blame my continual braindeath. If this seems nonsensical and devoid of focus, it is because I am, and because a lot of the inspirations for this little omake also were.
A very big thank you to one of my favorite videomen, Valefisk, for digging up some old memories with his "Count Dooku's Soul Harvester" video. And another big firm thanks to Hoot, whose dialogue I largely stole wholesale from his video "He has acquired the LONG BARREL" which is one of my personal favorites. It also fit Ben and Nathan a little too well, although obviously they aren't British.
Oh and thanks to Pandemic Studios, for being the absolute fucking best and making my favorite Star Wars planet, along with a lot of my favorite games.