23 May 2549
Tangier II, Human Outer Colony
"Dropping out of slipspace … now."
2 million kilometers above the human colony, four ships flashed into existence. Two corvettes and two cargo vessels, all clearly of Covenant origin.
"Anybody show up to fight?"
"We just got pinged by something in orbit, boss. Stationary defense satellite, looks like an old frigate they ripped the engines out of. Nothing we can't handle. Also a freighter on the far side."
In the captain's chair of the lead corvette, the Phantom Chance, Chac Lon sat up a bit. It would be a distraction from the main raid, but that freighter could have quite a bit of cargo on it. And if they captured it … even a damaged, human ship would fetch quite a few credits.
"Any chance we can catch her?"
"Probably not, already seeing a thermal spike. Bet she's spinning up her drives already and bolting."
The T'vaoan slouched back. "Very well. We'll be in and out before they can raise the alarm." He keyed the communicator. "Brak, can you handle that satellite?"
The commander of the other corvette replied back. "Affirmative, we will cleanse the skies." The ship broke off from the trail of the loose formation, turning toward the human platform.
"Excellent. Rest of you head for the planet. I'll lead the attack on the spaceport, find some good targets near the main settlement."
The defense satellite in orbit of Tangier II was at one point a UNSC frigate, captured by the insurrectionists back in the 2510s. Once a capable vessel, it was well past its best years; the remote colony had little ability to manufacture replacement parts (and no access to buy any beyond what few could be scavenged on the black market), and the station was no immobile with many systems inoperable. Against the kig-yar corvette Unconventional Devotion and its pulse lasers the platform stood little chance, though it did manage to dent a few armor plates before being left tumbling and venting atmosphere.
With the only significant human defenses out of the way, Tangier II was open for the taking. The four kig-yar ships rapidly descended through the atmosphere, before leveling off a few kilometers above the ground. Nearby was the main settlement of Tarreton, home to nearly half Tangier II's population of 240,000 and a modest spaceport. Surrounding the city was an expanse of farm fields, along with a large open pit mine to the northwest. Home to rich veins of copper ore, it was the main driver of the small colony's economy before interstellar trade collapsed after the start of the war with the Covenant.
Chac Lon turned to his second in command, Teth. "Get the Phantom ready and contact Shim Vol. Our Phantom and the pair from her ship will grab the spaceport. With luck there'll be some valuable data on its terminals along with any cargo."
"Already got it prepped, Chac, just waiting on you. Getting a bit tired of sitting in that captain's chair? I can take it for a while."
"I stayed in the ship back when we knocked over that asteroid base a bit ago and I was about bored out of my mind. Just try not to break anything while I'm gone."
"You got it, boss. And don't go getting yourself shot, what's this operation going to do without it's brains?"
Chac Lon chuckled, looking over his shoulder from the doorway to the bridge. "Teth, I hope you and the rest will honor my memory by beating this shit out of each other for command of this outfit." He paused. "Any secondary targets?"
"Brak says he's going to head for the mine, there's a pretty sizable mansion nearby. Should have some shiny things in it, and if not we can grab some crates of mining explosives. Explosives always fetch good credits."
"Sounds good to me, Teth. Keep an eye out for anything unexpected, humans like to be tricky. Shouldn't be too much on a backwater place like this but you never know."
In his cabin, Chac Lon donned his gold-colored armor. Putting it on didn't take long; he'd done it dozens of times before. Before heading to the Phantom, Chac stopped for a moment to appreciate his trusty needle rifle. Like most of the stuff his outfit had, it was secondhand (at least), bought from a dealer on Eayn years ago. He sometimes wondered how the engineers back on High Charity who made his weapon would feel about what it was being used for these days. Likely they wouldn't be too happy, which gave Chac a bit of amusement.
As the corvette descended through the stratosphere of Tangier II, Chac Lon boarded the single Phantom in the hangar. Unusually, the hangar bay was fairly organized and clean. Most of the crates and support equipment had been pushed off to one side, and put in some semblance of order by the corvette's complement of unggoy (under kig-yar supervision). The reason for this was simple; Chac Lon wanted ample space to sort through and catalog any loot stolen from the humans. Normally, the hangar was used as a combination of a maintenance area and recreational space, where the kig-yar would do things from servicing their weapons to betting on whatever caught their fancy (card games, dice games, wrestling matches, anything else).
The Phantom headed for the surface, flanked by the pair from the converted freighter Cheap Money. Aboard it were thirteen kig-yar and eight unggoy. Most of the kig-yar were T'Vaoans, plus a pair of Ibie'shan to keep the squad of unggoy in line. Chac Lon was not in the troop bay, but in the cockpit looking over the pilot's shoulder. Ahead he saw the human spaceport. Its most prominent feature was a long mass driver pointing into the sky at an angle, but there were also a few regular launch pads, an airstrip, and a drydock that held the rusting hulk of an old freighter in the process of being scrapped. Already smoke rose from the spaceport; minutes ago a surface to air missile battery opened fire on Phantom Chance, only to be quickly destroyed by the corvette's pulse lasers.
Chac Lon pointed toward the roof of the main terminal of the spaceport and spoke to the pilot; "Drop me and my squad on the roof there, Rep. The unggoy will go with Shim Vol's people." Chac Lon's plan for assaulting the spaceport was fairly simple; the bulk of the kig-yar would hit the main terminal from two sides, while Chac Lon and his T'Vaoans on the roof shot any human defenders in the back and generally made a nuisance of themselves. The three Phantoms would orbit overhead providing fire support.
They were getting close to the ground now. As the Phantoms approached the terminal the side doors dropped open exposing the troop compartment to the outside and revealing a plasma turret on each side. Chac Lon was about to head back into the compartment when he saw muzzle flashes ahead.
"Damn!" The pilot cursed as he threw the Phantom into a skidding turn and dove for the surface. He was a fraction of a second too slow to avoid the fire; the transport rattled under the impact of heavy machine gun rounds, and Chac heard screams from the troop compartment. Bracing himself against the wall of the Phantom as it dodged another stream of fire, he turned back to the compartment. "How bad?"
"One unggoy is probably dead and another definitely is, boss! Door gun's ruined too!" True enough, one of the unggoy lay in the center of the floor cradled by three of his brothers as blood poured from a gaping wound on his abdomen, while nothing was left of the other besides large splotches of blood near the ruined gun. Chac figured he must have fallen out after getting hit. Looking over the compartment, he was relieved to see none of the kig-yar had anything worse than a few cuts and scratches.
He radioed to the other two Phantoms in the group. "Anybody got eyes on that thing, want it dead now!"
"Already on it, boss!" The machine gun turret and its crew vanished in an explosion of red plasma as the second Phantom directed its main gun onto it. A second turret opened up in response, but the crew wisely fled as the Phantom directed plasma onto it.
"Good shooting! Let's get on the ground!"
The Phantom curved back toward the terminal building, firing a few plasma bolts at humans as they went. Chac Lon and his group weren't part of the Covenant, but they all harbored varying distaste for the humans. And besides, if fleeing civilians tied up responding forces, that was always helpful.
"This look like a good landing spot, boss?"
"Looks good, Rep. Let's go!"
Chac Lon was the first out of the Phantom, shortly followed by the rest of the T'vaoans in his squad. Jumping from a few meters up, the landing was nothing too hard, and his legs easily absorbed the shock. Taking a moment to collect himself, he took stock of the situation.
The part of the roof they had landed on was flat, but a bit away it rose at a moderate angle to another flat part. This area, the highest part of the terminal building, was home to a small forest of antennae and a quite large communications dish.
He pointed at a group of four kig-yar: "Kvet Rec, Jak Zhan, Shan Vol, Thac Vol! You four set up in that comms array! Thac, you're in charge."
"Got it, boss. Cut the wires?"
"Yeah, but priority is killing any humans that look like they're in charge or know what they're doing." The group had two of the precious beam rifles, and Thac Vol was a good sniper even by kig-yar standards. (Her brother was also good, but in Chac Lon's opinion he was just a bit too excited about the blood and guts part of things to be as good of a sniper as his sister.)
Chac Lon and the rest of his group spread over the flat part of the roof. Crouching behind a protruding piece of machinery, he surveyed the area. The rest of the force attack the spaceport had dropped in what looked like the parking lot, and was now advancing using the (presumably) civilian vehicles as cover. The human defenders were set up behind concrete traffic control barricades near the entrance to the facility; even though they weren't intended for a firefight they seemed to be providing decent protection. Still, barely a minute into the fight, two humans had already fallen to the hail of green plasma and pink needles fired at their position.
The kig-yar were organized into three rough squads. One advancing behind their shields, while the other (and the unggoy) hit the humans with suppressing fire. The third was off to the side, advancing at a different angle against a less well defended part of the terminal. The two main squads were moving forward at a decent pace; their tactic of alternating fire and movement was keeping the humans down pretty well.
Chac Lon raised his needle rifle; through the scope he sighted a human that looked important. Exhaling, he centered the human's head in his scope, and gently squeezed the trigger.
A fraction of a second before Chac Lon fired, one of his squadmates put a needle through the sternum of one of the other humans. That startled the rest, which spared Chac's target from a clean round through his brain. But not from a fatal shot. The needle went through the side of the upper jaw, just under the nose, breaking into fragments as the human toppled over and smashed his head against the concrete. The human bled out a few minutes later.
Chac Lon switched targets, now simply putting the sights over a human's torso before firing. Two rounds put that one down, their primitive body armor doing barely anything to stop the rounds from the needle rifle. Within a few seconds another four humans were taken out of action by fire from the kig-yar on the roof, one losing most of their legs after the detonation of several needles. At this the humans abandoned their position, falling back to the interior of the terminal as the kig-yar and unggoy on the ground rushed forward. So far, casualties were light; Chac Lon saw two kig-yar carrying one of their bleeding compatriots to a sheltered area near some bushes, where another kig-yar and an unggoy were already being patched up.
Tsan, an experienced kig-yar from Shim Vol's ship who was in command of the force on the ground, radioed in. "Boss, we've pushed the humans inside. Permission to push in?"
"Go, but take care. It is likely they have more serious defenses prepared inside."
"I'll be careful." Three years back, Tsan had been part of a raid on an insurrectionist human asteroid colony, and watched half a squad get shredded by a stack of mines concealed behind a door. "Mind if I get a bit loud?"
"Not at all. Let me know if you need support, there should be some access from the roof into the building somewhere."
Tsan motioned three unggoy to the front. Two were carrying powerful fuel rod guns, while the third had a old human grenade launcher (all three had been purchased from a weapons dealer on Eayn). The bulletproof glass of the terminal entrance had held up against stray shots proof plasma pistols and spent needles. But as the unggoy emptied the magazines of their fuel rod guns, it quickly shattered, disintegrating in a cloud of green fire. The grenades that followed did even more damage, shredding the furniture and stray luggage left behind and setting it afire. Even though the building's sprinklers activated seconds later, the kig-yar and unggoy rushing in still pushed into a cloud of smoke.
The fight outside was also going poorly for the humans. The insurrectionist militia on Tangier II had little in the way of heavy weaponry; the small colony could afford little and didn't have enough energy to make their own. Heavy armor was out of the question, though they did have a decent number of armed Warthogs. Within minutes, a convoy of them was headed for the spaceport. Immediately, it came under attack by the three Phantoms orbiting the spaceport. The humans manning the Warthogs returned fire; the lone gauss cannon-equipped Warthog managed to moderately damage one of the Phantoms before exploding. The rest were less successful, and in a minute and a half all but three Warthogs were destroyed, and those were retreating at full speed.
To their credit, the surviving humans did bail out and continue toward the spaceport on foot. That lasted until they came under sniper fire from Thac Vol's squad on the peak of the terminal; the first human falling at a distance of almost a kilometer from a shot through their neck. At that point, they abandoned their attack, retreating out of range of the forces in the spaceport.
While this was happening, Chac Lon looked for a way into the terminal building from the roof. He wanted somewhere that would put him behind the main body of humans inside the terminal, but also not too obvious of an entrance. Even a single civilian human with a shotgun could ruin his day as he came through a doorway, to say nothing of if they booby-trapped it with explosives. (It's what he would do in that situation, after all.) Also, they had to move quick; shipping and navigation data was highly valuable on the resale market; both for other kig-yar pirate groups, and to the Covenant itself. But, the longer it took them to access the data center for the spaceport the longer the humans would have to delete it (or just trash the servers).
Fortunately, being a T'vaoan gave him some advantages. Jumping from a height that would break a human's legs would just his muscles a bit sore the next day. There was a section of the terminal building nearby with skylights that looked to be about 5 or 6 meters above the floor. Chac Lon cautiously peered through the skylight. There weren't any humans around, though he did see some discarded luggage and food strewn around.
He motioned to his squad, then to the skylight. "We're dropping in through here. Don't see any humans, but stay cautious."
"Any of us staying up here for top cover, boss?"
"No, Thac and her squad can handle it. After the Phantoms trashed those humans we shouldn't have to worry about reinforcements for a bit." Chac radioed Tsan. "We're moving inside, need us to hit the humans from behind?"
"We've got it under control here, boss, Fitap and his grenade launcher are doing good work. Think the humans are close to breaking."
"Understood. Looks like there's some food stores near us, once you clean up those humans you can let the unggoy run wild in here a bit. We'll go to the data center for this spaceport and get their data."
Chac Lon smashed the skylight, using his needle rifle to widen the hole in the glass enough for him to fit through. He hung from one arm, then dropped to a crouch on the floor below. As expected, there was nobody around. He darted behind a wall, and the rest of his squad followed him down. It was only when they were all behind cover that one of them spoke up.
"Hey, boss, do you know where that data we're looking for actually is?"
Chac paused and slowly exhaled. "They usually put big data processing places at the bottom of buildings or underground. Besides, you all can read a bit of human, right?" The squad nodded. "Look for signs. Or, I might just ask one of the humans politely if I see them." Chac Lon smirked. The experienced kig-yar typically picked up a bit of human language over the years, but he'd actually studied it a bit on his own. In his own opinion, aside from Shaon Tol and her artifact retrieval team, he was one of the best in the outfit at understanding human. And since Shaon Tol and her team were with Brak's forces today, he'd handle things. (Befitting his religious beliefs, Brak disliked speaking or reading human, though he'd still picked up a bit over the years despite his best efforts.)
As if on cue, Brak called him. "Chac Lon, I report good news! Our force is pushing the humans from the mine as we speak, and better, we have seized the large mansion we saw! It appears it was owned by the governor of this planet and the owner of the mine!"
"The both of them?"
"No, they were both the same human! From how he furnished his residence it looks like it was a quite profitable venture for him. Until his death today."
"Indeed. Any casualties?"
"Two dead and about a dozen injured in the attack on the mine, these humans are quite devious with their use of explosives. A landslide was triggered that buried one of the squads alive, thank the Prophets it was not very deep. The humans at the mansion were cowards and ran after the death of their leader. I have directed Shaon Tol and her team to begin cataloging the items in the mansion, it appears many date from earlier periods of human history. With your permission I will use one of my Phantoms to evacuate the wounded and transfer more valuable items."
"Good work, Brak, keep it up. Far as I know there are no signs of human air support, so do what you want with the Phantoms."
Brak acknowledged, and closed the connection. Now, back to the task of finding the data. Chac Lon looked around the room. Sadly the humans had not been courteous enough to provide directions. Pausing, he listened for a moment. The sounds of combat were to his left, so he went right, motioning for his team to follow.
Down that hallway was nothing; it opened up into another section of the terminal area that seemed to be unused and filled with old furniture and empty storage containers. It did at least lead to a set of stairs leading downward marked with a bright red 'MAINTENANCE' arrow.
After a few minutes of wandering through storage areas and rooms filled with pipes and ductwork, Chac Lon was getting frustrated. As he dragged his claws along an insulated pipe (and briefly contemplated scratching a bit of profanity into the surface), one of his squadmates chirped and motioned for silence.
"What is it, Zep Yan?" He whispered.
"Humans. I hear them, that way." She motioned down an intersecting hallway.
"On it." Chac Lon moved to the front, the rest of the T'vaoans fell in silently behind him. Zep Yan pointed to a door labelled 'B1-170, Janitorial Storage'. Chac Lon gestured in approval, then moved in close to the doorway, and listened. The humans were clearly trying to be quiet, but he could hear heavy breathing and muffled crying. A good sign; it meant the humans behind the door almost certainly weren't soldiers lying in ambush, but scared civilians.
A quick tug on the handle confirmed it to be locked, but Chac Lon easily kicked the cheap plywood door open. Crammed into a dark closet that reeked of chemicals were six humans; four males, two female. One of the male humans shakily brandished a short folding knife. After a quick hiss and angry look from Chac Lon he quietly dropped it.
"Hello humans! We are going to do a business transaction! You -" Chac Lon waved his free hand at the cluster of humans "are going to tell me where the computers are that keep the trade data for this spaceport! In exchange, we forget that you are hiding in this room and let you live! A win-win for both of us!"
A few seconds of silence, then one of the humans responded by spitting as hard as he could at Chac Lon's face. "Fuck you, Covie! Just fucking kill us and get it over with you fucking turkey!"
Hearing his squad raising their weapons behind him, Chac Lon motioned for them to stop. He paused for a moment, as if in contemplation. Then, he darted forward, roughly grabbing the human by the lower jaw and pulling him forward.
"Lucky for you, I'm not Covenant. If I were, you'd already be dead." He growled as he squeezed harder, feeling his claws dig into the human's face as blood ran down his fingers. "That doesn't mean I give a shit whether you live or die. Now, the data. Where is it?"
One of the humans in the back mumbled, barely audible. "B5-100, four levels down. Only room on that floor."
Chac Lon smiled. "Thank you, you have been most helpful. It makes me happy we could come to an agreement." He turned to his squad. "We've got our target, let's go, quickly. Be cautious, if the humans aren't lying it's probably defended." They moved down the hallway, headed for a nearby stairwell. "Oh, and if that room's empty, or it's rigged full of explosives that blow me to pieces as soon as I open the door?" He paused and pointed back to the humans' hiding spot. "Come back here and kill every last one of them."
Fortunately for the humans back in the storage closet, B5-100 was not empty, nor was it filled with tons of explosives on a hair trigger. It was indeed a room full of computers and data storage. Chac Lon was the first one in, and was a bit surprised to find it seemingly empty.
"Alright, spread out and start disconnecting the data disks! Unplug them carefully, human stuff is usually pretty tough but don't start acting like a damn jiralhanae on it!"
"Hey, boss, how do we know what stuff's important? Nobody's going to pay much to read about what the humans are buying for lunch!"
"Just grab everything, we'll sort through it back on the Phantom Chance! Besides, even unsorted disks go for a few credits, always somebody willing to gamble that the humans are keeping a map to the Rings on their computer."
Chac Lon moved over to the farthest row of computers, and started disconnecting the disks as his squad did the same. After a few, he got into a rhythm; unplug first data connection, unplug second, wait a second, unplug power. Idly, he thought about calling Tsan and asking for a few of his unggoy; this room was decently large. To his left, he heard a rustling noise, and started to look up.
Four loud bangs and a spike of pain in his left arm brought him back to full alertness. Only a few meters away was a human, brandishing a pistol and charging at him with a look of pure fury etched on his face. Grabbing his needle rifle, Chac Lon turned to face the charging human and did his best to dodge. He avoid the worst of the blow, but the human still slammed into him, knocking both of them into the row of servers.
The human had the advantage of surprise and the initiative, but Chac Lon was a kig-yar with years of combat experience. As the human stood up and braced himself to launch at the kig-yar, Chac Lon whipped his needle rifle across the human's face as hard as possible, smashing the muzzle into the human's jaw. The human stumbled, spitting out blood and a few teeth, but kept coming. Chac Lon hit the human with a sharp left jab into his injured jaw, sending another spike of pain through his injured arm. But it made the human stumble again, and let Chac Lon get some distance. The kig-yar lowered his rifle and fired a needle into the human's abdomen, stopping his attack for good.
The human slumped against a wall, coughing blood. His wounds were clearly fatal, and obviously incredibly painful. Still, he looked at Chac Lon with defiance. "Just do it, Covie."
Chac Lon obliged. "Good fight, human." He raised his rifle, and put a single round through the human's forehead. The entire fight only lasted a few seconds; by the time three of Chac Lon's squad rushed around the corner with raised weapons, the human was already dead.
As the excitement wore off, the pain returned in full force. Grimacing, Chac Lon leaned against a wall, and looked at his wounds. Two rounds hit his upper arm; it looked like one had shattered against his armor, but the other made it through. Purplish blood slowly oozed from the wound, but it wasn't spurting, and he could still move his arm. The round must not have made it all the way to the bone.
Setting his rifle down, he motioned toward one of his squadmates, a T'vaoan named Raan Lim in orange armor. "Bandages and cleanser in my medical kit." He pointed at a compartment on the back of his armor. The other kig-yar obliged, opening the compartment and pulling out an assortment of medical supplies.
"Doesn't look too deep, Chac, I see the round in there."
"Do your thing, Raan." At that, she pulled out a knife and gently probed the wound, until she found the remains bullet and quickly flicked it out. Chac Lon hissed in pain.
"You know, Chac, if this was the Covenant they'd just have a sangheili slice your arm off."
"And if you were a sangheili I'd have dropped your ass in the slums of E'shin and let you find your way back to High Charity on your own." Raan Lim laughed. "Can you imagine a four-jaw there? Wouldn't be half a day before he'd get his teeth scammed out of his mouth." She squeezed a bottle of gel into Chac Lon's arm, then wrapped it with a bandage. "I'm not a doctor, but that ought to hold up until you get back to the ship."
He nodded in approval. "Thanks, Raan."
Looking down at the body of the human on the floor, he noticed the pistol still clutched in the human's right hand. It looked like a different type than the typical human pistol, possibly an older type. Still, the human had obviously taken good care of it; it was virtually spotless aside from a few specks of human blood.
"I'll take that, don't suppose you'll mind." Using his foot to nudge the human's body around, Chac Lon was pleased to see two full magazines clipped to the human's belt. "Score!" He looked up at the rest of his squad and gestured toward the human. "Any more in here, or is this guy the only one?"
"Haven't seen anyone else, boss. Doesn't look like he got too far deleting stuff, should be a good haul."
"Wonder why he didn't just grab a hammer and start breaking the disks? No matter. I'll radio Tsan and get him to send an unggoy or two down if he's finished dealing with the humans upstairs." He inhaled. "The air stinks down here anyway, I think we could all use some light and clean air."
Back at the surface, things had quieted down. Tsan reported that a few minutes after Chac Lon went inside, the remaining human defenders had abandoned their position, fleeing with a decent-sized group of civilians up the access road for the spaceport. Tsan guessed that about half the human militia died inside the building, and more fell as the snipers on the roof harassed them as they ran. Already, the kig-yar and unggoy were searching the fallen humans for weapons and ammunition, and arranging them into piles outside. Chac Lon also saw other loot that had been grabbed from the spaceport: medical supplies, alcohol from the shops inside, even something that could only be described as an abstract sculpture. A bit further away in a grassy area the wounded were being treated; next to them were a few bodies that had been hastily covered in sheets taken from somewhere.
Tsan saw Chac Lon looking at the bodies. "Lost Zet and Vot, boss. Human with a grenade got both of 'em. Also two unggoy." The T'vaoan frowned. "Make sure Zet and Vot get their set aside. I'll notify the family once we get back to Eayn."
"Zet's sister is in another squad, already let her know. Don't know if Vot had any family." Tsan glanced at Chac Lon's bandaged arm. "How you holding up, boss?"
"Got a bit sloppy, don't think there's any permanent damage. Probably going to be sore for a while."
At that moment, the radio came alive. "Chac Lon, this is Brak! We have a situation at the mine!"
"What do you mean by situation? Do you need support?" Chac Lon's mind ran through scenarios. Did the humans have heavy weaponry. Had (Gods forbid) the UNSC showed up?
"No, nothing of the sort! The humans have all been neutralized, there was a cost but the area is clear. It is far more … delicate."
"How many casualties? I will send a Phantom to you to bring them back to one of the ships."
"Four, and no need, they are all dead. At the hands of a single human. Near the bottom of the pit we found a tunnel headed underground. Within was the human. I think they were guarding the … relic."
"Relic? Do you mean..." Chac Lon left the next word unsaid, but the implication was clear.
"Yes, Shaon Tol has begun examining it, and I have seen it as well. Forerunner."
"Get that area locked down, no humans anywhere near it. I want to see this for myself, I will be there as quick as I can."
"I have already dispatched one of my Phantoms to collect you. It will arrive in minutes."
"Good, good. How big is the relic? Can it be moved?" Forerunner relics were enough of a complication on their own, but a gigantic one that couldn't be moved would be a huge problem. At that point, his best option might be to hold the area and use his intermediaries to get the Covenant onsite. That would take days at least, and interactions between kig-yar pirates and the more zealous parts of the Covenant was always painful even if nobody ended up impaled on a sangheili's blade. A small, portable relic would be much easier to handle, and still would go for an obscene amount of credits on the black market.
"It is embedded in the rock, but the actual relic seems to be about the size of two or three kig-yar. Shaon Tol is hopeful that we can carve it out of the rock without damaging the relic."
"She knows what she's talking about with this stuff, give her whatever she needs. In the meantime, start getting your people and all the regular human stuff back up to the ships. Once we get that relic on board I don't plan to stick around any longer than we have to." Chac Lon chirped to get Tsan's attention. "Get started loading everything up, we're about done here. I've got a situation to handle over with Brak's people."
"You got it, boss. Looks like we got a pretty good haul today."
"Yeah, good work all around." Chac Lon's thoughts were wandering. He'd 'found' Forerunner relics once or twice before, if you counted stealing them from rival outfits as 'finding' them. Even those small relics had netted him a handsome profit.
But he had also heard darker rumors about Forerunner relics. Stories whispered around campfires and dive bars about Forerunner ruins protected by strange robotic forces, and Covenant artifact retrieval teams vanishing without a trace. Chac Lon was not a zealous believer in the Great Journey, but he did believe the Forerunners had once existed and held great power. And things that held great power could be dangerous to meddle with.
The ride over to the mine on the Phantom took only a few minutes. Combat had ceased, but it was obvious that there had been a battle here. Something was burning fiercely, emitting a dark cloud of black smoke, and it was clear where a section of the pit had collapsed. To say nothing of the human bodies strewn about, Chac Lon counted at least ten just while he was flying over. The Phantom hovered over a piece of flat ground near the bottom of the mine. Brak and two other kig-yar were waiting for him. He jumped from a few meters up and made his way over to them, as other kig-yar and unggoy started moving items onto the Phantom.
"So, Brak, before we get to the main event, how did the rest of the party go?" The kig-yar started making their way into the tunnel.
"Excellently, I have already loaded some of the items I suspect to be more valuable aboard the Unconventional Devotion. Whatever human owned that mansion seemed to have enjoyed collecting old weaponry, Shaon Tol tells me that some of it dates back more than a thousand years!"
"I didn't realize she knew human weaponry that well."
"She said that a few of the items were labeled with how old they are."
"Ah."
"There was also a collection of firearms, naturally the humans were too cowardly to put any of them to use. They are probably obsolete, but some could sell for good prices. Such as this one." Brak showed Chac Lon his datapad, which displayed a picture of a twin-barreled rifle at least twice the size of a beam rifle.
"That looks like it could punch a hole straight through a jiralhanae."
Brak laughed. "Naturally I expect one of them will end up buying it."
They were further into the tunnel now; the natural light from outside had vanished, and only the gentle blue glow of artificial lighting allowed visibility. Chac Lon saw the mangled body of a human, wearing the remnants of a mine worker's uniform, but also body armor, oddly enough.
"Is this that human you mentioned? We must be close to the relic."
"Yes, the relic is just around this corner up here." Chac Lon heard the whine of a plasma torch ahead. Turning the corner, he saw the relic.
The base of the relic was a block of gray metal, seamless aside from regular groupings of lines purposefully etched into it. Sitting upon this pedestal was a translucent blue crystal, nearly a meter high. Within the crystal were faintly glowing lines forming unusual symbols unlike anything Chac Lon had seen in any language.
Examining the relic was Shaon Tol and other three kig-yar on her team. The gray-armored T'vaoan held a datapad, rapidly alternating between taking pictures and typing notes into the pad.
"So, any idea what this thing is?"
Shaon Tol jerked her head toward Chac Lon, seemingly a bit startled. "This is... unique... compared to anything I've run across before. I recognize some of the symbols, and notice that the text in the crystals isn't laid out in lines, but arranged in three dimensions. I think the location of the symbols is significant, but I'm going to feed the data into my computer back on the ship and do more analysis before I can say anything."
"I'm curious about how it ended up buried on a human planet like this."
"This obviously isn't the human homeworld, and most of the rock layers above us are unconsolidated sediments. It's probable that the Forerunners put it here and it was buried afterward. As far as how old it is?" Shaon Tol cocked her head and glanced at the relic. "I couldn't tell you without a detailed geological profile on this place, and even then it would only be a guess. My contacts tell me regular dating methods don't work on Forerunner materials."
Chac Lon stared at the relic. He could see what Shaon Tol had pointed out, but beyond that, insights eluded him. He turned to one of the kig-yar operating the plasma cutter. "How long until this thing is ready to move?"
"Only a few more minutes, boss. Humans did a lot of the work for us. Can't say I understand any of that Forerunner stuff but I guess the humans thought it's pretty important too."
A thought started to form itself in his head, but dissipated unformed. Chac Lon turned to Brak. "When this thing's ready, I want it on a Phantom by itself with Shaon Tol and her team. I'll designate an area on the Phantom Chance near her normal cabin where the relic can be kept safe. I've got the feeling this should be kept as private as possible." He noticed an annoyed look on Brak's face. "Don't worry, I'll make sure you get the finder's fee on this. Somebody's going to pay a lot of money for it."
"That's not... very well, it will end up in the right hands eventually. Shaon's going to want time to look at it before you pawn it."
"Don't worry, she can have as much time as she needs. I'm honestly a bit curious about it myself, this is my first time seeing a relic like this undisturbed."
Minutes later, the Forerunner artifact was cut free, and loaded into the waiting Phantom. By the time it arrived on the Phantom Chance, the rest of kig-yar (and unggoy) were headed for their ships as well. Not even half a day after they first arrived, the four ships climbed out of atmosphere and entered slipspace, leaving Tangier II behind. By the time a hastily assembled UNSC task force arrived at the planet, the kig-yar were long gone.