A bit shorter chapter this time, I'd considered sticking another short bit onto the end but decided it'll probably fit better in the next chapter (and I don't have it written yet). Next couple chapters are some plot ideas I've had in my head but was struggling to integrate into the story, hopefully the transition works well enough. Thank you again to everyone who's read, followed/favorited, and reviewed!
Standard copyright disclaimer: I do not own Halo or any associated media, characters, or settings which are properties of 343 or Bungie. This is a work of fanfiction written purely for entertainment and not for monetary gain.
11 December 2549
Concord, Human Outer Colony
After the destruction of the Covenant battlecruiser Portent of Storms, the rest of the Covenant small ships in orbit fled, pursued by the UNSC ships that suddenly had superiority. That still left a large Covenant force on the ground, and for the past three days the UNSC had been working on mopping them up. A significant chunk, led by a Brute chieftain, chose to make a stand in Malakhit, centered around the wreckage of the battlecruiser. The UNSC responded with a massive bombardment using all the artillery and air support they had available, hitting the pocket for nearly 24 hours. Hundreds of incendiary and thermobaric bombs were dropped against the Covenant holed up in the remains of the battlecruiser. Even so, the last remnants were still fighting on the 11th.
Other Covenant forces dispersed, fracturing into small units with the destruction of their command structure. Most of them near Malakhit were mopped up fairly quickly. The ones who fled to the hinterlands would take longer. Odds were many of them would freeze to death or starve. And those who didn't could be dealt with by local forces with a bit of UNSC assistance.
Evacuation of Concord had already begun. Civilians, along with critical UNSC assets, were the first ones off planet. (The team of Spartans that destroyed the battlecruiser boarded a UNSC destroyer two days later and were already on their way back to the inner colonies.) Still, there was quite a number of UNSC forces left on the ground. Including the ones in this hospital. Several kilometers away from Malakhit and well away from the fighting, the UNSC 'requisitioned' it early on during the Covenant's attack, and it had been the main treatment center for injuries too severe to handle in the field. Even now there were many here, either too injured to risk the flight up to a spacecraft and cryostatis, or simply low priority for evacuation.
Rear Admiral Timo Korhonen had spent a few hours visiting with wounded UNSC soldiers, sailors, and marines this morning. Now, though, he was headed toward a different section of the hospital. He approached a closed set of doors, guarded by a somewhat disinterested pair of soldiers sitting at a desk. At least they were alert enough to see him coming and do their jobs. Korhonen imagined it wasn't the most interesting duty.
"Good afternoon, sir." One of the soldiers said as he scrolled through a datapad. "Looks like you're on our list. Look into the sensor and swipe your badge on the reader when the light turns yellow."
Korhonen thanked him, and looked into the retinal sensor perched on the desk. A light above the sensor, initially white, blinked blue as it scanned his eyes. After a few seconds, the light turned yellow. As instructed, Korhonen swiped his ID card over a reader on the desk. Detecting a match between the retinal scan and the provided identification, the light turned green, and the door behind unlatched with an audible click. He stepped through.
This wing of the hospital was where the UNSC was holding its non-human patients. Covenant surrenders were rare, but not unheard of. Grunts were the most common, Brutes and Elites much rarer. There were also the cases of the prisoners who were brought in because they were too injured to resist capture. Again, not a common scenario, as it required the UNSC to win or at least hold the field, and have the chance to take prisoners. Plus, almost all human soldiers had no second thoughts about simply executing any wounded Covenant they found. On the other hand, ONI did sometimes ask for prisoners. And quite a few NCOs and officers were savvy enough to realize that capturing a general or chieftain would do wonders for your career.
Korhonen wasn't here to see a bunch of sedated Brutes or Elites, though. Part of this wing of the hospital was occupied by the UNSC-aligned Jackals. In their role as recon troops and spotters, quite a few of them had been hurt. Most injuries were minor, some weren't. One squad, Yankee Two, was overrun by the Covenant and killed to a man. Quite a few others had plasma burns, broken bones, and other injuries. Then there was Chac Lon, who'd challenged a Brute to hand to hand combat and nearly gotten himself killed for his trouble.
Korhonen arrived as his destination, room 237. He knocked twice, then entered the room a few seconds later. Two orderlies were inside, along with a pair of Jackals. Korhonen recognized the one sitting at a table as Shim Vol, one of the leaders among the Jackals (kig-yar, he reminded himself), who'd defected to humanity. The other, lying in a hospital bed and hissing curses under his breath as the hospital staff changed his bandages, was Chac Lon.
The kig-yar had been brought in on a medevac Pelican with an injured soldier and a dozen civilian survivors of the transport crash. The medics did a commendable job stabilized him, especially considering the species difference, but he was still near death when he arrived. The kick from the Brute shattered half the ribs on his left side and drove the fragments into his internal organs. One of the kidneys was completely destroyed, along with most of his liver and part of a lung. Flash-cloned organs could fix that, but not the pints of blood filling up his abdominal cavity. The hospital staff had been forced to get transfusions from the uninjured kig-yar in Chac Lon's group (that there'd been quite a few volunteers spoke well of how he was regarded). But thanks to the wonders of modern medical science, the kig-yar was alive and conscious less than 96 hours later.
"We're almost done here, sir." One of the orderlies said to Korhonen, as he unrolled another strip of gauze. A pile of bandages stained an unusual purple color lay in a plastic bag nearby.
"Take your time." Korhonen looked around the hospital room as the orderlies finished up their work. On the table by Chac Lon's bed sat a datapad, along with a hardcover book. Intrigued, Korhonen picked it up; it was a historical text on the Jovian Moons Campaign of the 22nd century. Raising his eyebrows, he showed the book to Shim Vol, who made an indifferent gesture.
"Something's gotten into him the past couple months and he's finally appreciating the benefits of literacy. Good for him for getting something that will stimulate his brain, guess your hospital library didn't have any cheap magazines full of adventure stories." The female kig-yar was idly shuffling a pack of cards; Korhonen figured her and Chac Lon had been playing some game before it was time to swap his bandages.
"And you're so well read by comparison." Chac Lon said, stifling a groan as he sat up. He glanced at the book Korhonen was holding. "Didn't have a slipspace drive repair manual like I hoped for, but this interesting stuff. Remind me to borrow one of the books Shaon Tol grabbed about the history of kig-yar spaceflight once you humans finish having her figure out all your Forerunner artifacts."
It was probably for the best that nobody like Halsey was around to hear that comment, Korhonen thought.
Chac Lon continued; "Might appreciate it more if my mind was running full speed, but getting your guts crushed and losing a lot of blood takes a lot out of you. Well, like you humans say, 'fortune is random, fate shoots from the hip.'"
"I've never heard anyone say that in my life." Korhonen deadpanned.
Chac Lon slumped back in mock defeat as Shim Vol laughed. "Heard it in some human music on a disk I stole from one of your outer colonies. Some part of my head liked it." He sat back up, and turned to face Korhonen directly. "So, what actually brings you here, admiral? Unless you want to hear my thoughts on human music and history and other things I apparently don't know anything about?"
"You are technically my responsibility. And given that we're headed back to Ballast shortly, I need to make sure you're up for cryo."
The kig-yar groaned. "I'm fine with staying awake. I can keep myself occupied for a few weeks. Alright, fine."
Korhonen ignored the complaining. "How does this place compare to a Covenant hospital?"
"A Covenant hospital?" Chac Lon laughed. "They'd have just left me there to die. Sangheili or jiralhanae they'd help, but sangheili are weird about doctors and jiralhanae are too stupid for it to matter."
"I assume black market care is better." Korhonen knew that Chac Lon had quite a history of injuries, and the surgeons he'd spoken to earlier today mentioned how much scar tissue and healed fractures they'd seen on the x-rays. Shockingly, being a pirate was quite hazardous for your health.
"Medbay back on the Phantom Chance was good enough for little stuff, and if you've got money and know the right people you can get whatever you need. Couldn't have gotten a new liver and kidney in a day like you humans did, though. Rumor is the bosses in the Big 6 keep a couple genetically compatible kig-yar around in case they need spare parts." Chac Lon paused. "So you can tell ONI if you want defectors find a kig-yar that needs an organ transplant. Speaking of, have there been any?" The kig-yar sat up, looking at Korhonen almost eagerly.
"If there have been, I wouldn't be at liberty to tell you." Korhonen replied.
"Well if your ONI grows a brain, you know who to squawk at."
Whatever damage the jiralhanae did to Chac Lon's organs clearly didn't impact his brain too much, Korhonen thought. There actually had been some Covenant kig-yar who'd surrendered to the UNSC, not many but a bit more than normal. One of Korhonen's tasks after he got done here was to help the MPs sort through them.
Well, it was time for Korhonen to broach one of the real reasons he'd come here.
"They got about a hundred-fifty survivors out of the wreckage of that transport."
Chac Lon seemed momentarily surprised by the change in topic. "Did they? It looked like it went in pretty hard."
"It did. Most of them were dead on impact." Korhonen replied. "Would have been more dead if it wasn't for the UNSC showing up so quick. And what you did."
The kig-yar was sitting up, simply staring at him. Part of Korhonen's brain noted that the other one had stopped shuffling its deck of cards.
Korhonen continued; "I know why you did it, you hate Brutes. More than most people I know. But I don't know why."
Shim Vol interjected "Human, he -", only to be cut off by a sharp gesture from Chac Lon.
After a second of silence, Korhonen kept talking, softly; "I'm not going to pull it out of you, but if I'm going to work with you, if I'm going to trust you, I want to know what drives you."
"And what about – alright, fine. You want to know, I'll tell you." Chac Lon pushed himself upright. "You're lucky, most of my kig-yar have only heard this story when I'm completely drunk. But I don't think the nice people here would appreciate it if I destroyed this liver that took them two tries to make."
The T'vaoan sighed. "Both my parents died when I was barely two years old. Starship accident. Don't feel sad about it. Probably should, but I don't have any memory of either of them. So I was raised by my sister, Shan."
"Five years old than me. We had a decent place, and some money left over from our parents, and a bit of help from some of our cousins, but still. So she learned how to steal, and how to fight. And she taught me. She was better at stealing than I was. A lot better. I could match her hand to hand, but she was a better shot. Maybe just because she was older. Mayb not." He paused, staring off into space for a moment.
"By the time I was thirteen we were already starting to get a crew together. No starships, no Phantoms, just a couple of us who'd do some smuggling and jobs on the side. She was in charge, I was the number two. Things were going good, with the war with the humans there was more opportunities than ever. We even had dreams of raiding human colonies ourselves one day!" Chac Lon looked a bit apologetic about the last one.
"Shan was worried, though, and she wanted an insurance policy. What if something happened to the both of us on a job. That's why she signed up with the Covenant." Chac Lon sighed again, longer and softer. "She'd do a couple years, make some contacts on the inside, maybe even send some 'business' my way if we were lucky. Afterward she'd come back and we'd run the company together. As good as she was at fighting the Covenant wouldn't dig too deep into her background or her family. I didn't want to see her go but I thought she'd be fine. Why wouldn't she?"
"Went good about three years. I didn't get to talk to her too often, but she seemed alright. Not the most fun for her but she was making the most of it, like most kig-yar do. Couple of my kig-yar served in the same unit as her. Covenant put her in a recon unit, like they do with T'vaoans. Couldn't tell me the details of what she was doing but she fought in quite a few battles." He turned, looking directly at Korhonen. "And yes, she killed humans. No way around it. Didn't really buy into the Great Journey shit but she could fake it and it was just a job to her. Anyway. One day, end of summer,Teth comes up to me with a datapad in his hand. Tells me he's got bad news but I need to hear it."
"Shan and her unit were on one of your colonies, world named Hellas. Her file was under the command of a jiralhanae who'd been told to find and kill two of your demons on that world. He failed, no surprise given how skilled your demons are. He... didn't take failing well. Went berserk." Chac Lon halted, composing himself. "Shan was standing there, and before she could do anything that jiralhanae grabbed her neck and snapped it. Like that." He fell back onto the hospital bed, spent. "One of the other kig-yar there knew Teth knew me, and slipped him the footage. The Covenant? They never bothered to tell me."
"Found out later that jiralhanae got five lashes for what he did. Five damned lashes for killing my sister." The anger was now coming through in his voice, Chac Lon was practically hissing. "At least some human popped his head open two days later, so I should thank you for that."
"So that, Rear Admiral Korhonen is why I hate jiralhanae. I know, killing them won't bring back Shan. But oceans and skies does it feel good."
The room was silent, aside from the medical equipment gently humming in the background. Chac Lon lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and breathing heavily as he opened and closed his hands. After a minute, he seemed to calm down, at least a bit. Korhonen was the first to speak.
"What if it had been a human?"
"What?" Both kig-yar said simultaneously. Clearly they had not been expecting that question. But Korhonen continued. "If one of those Spartans had killed her, would you hate humans the way you hate Brutes."
"What? No." Chac Lon still seemed confused by the question. "They'd just be doing their job. I'd be mad, but Shan knew humans would be shooting at her when she joined up. Not that some filth that couldn't control itself would murder her in an insane fit!" He exhaled deeply again, trying to calm himself. "Why, are you worried that if something happens with you humans I'm going to start to hate you all?"
Kohronen replied; "Honestly, I don't know. It was the first thing that popped into my head." He thought for a moment. "I just need to know that you're not going to do something like that again. It worked out this time, but one of these days it won't. And as much as part of me doesn't want to admit it, you and your people are a valuable asset."
Chac Lon laughed. "I'd tell you that this here -" he motioned toward the bandages and stitches on his midsection "- would be a good reminder, but Shim over there and about thirty-six other kig-yar would be lining up to call me a liar. I'll keep it in mind, though. Really, I will. At the very least my brain knows I'll win better by thinking though. Need to get my gut to realize that, that's the hard part."
"I suppose I can't ask for any more than that." Korhonen replied, smiling.
15 December 2549
Covenant Space
Rota 'Yarolee was displeased, to put it lightly. Of the many fleets he'd sent out in search of human colonies, three had found human-controlled worlds. Two of them were successful, overrunning the pitiful human defenses and glassing the major population centers on the human colonies. The third had failed. And of course, it was the one where his real target, the traitor kig-yar, were. If only he had been there in person, instead of leaving it up to the jiralhanae the Prophet of Truth had saddled him with. At least the chieftain had the dignity to die fighting with the humans instead of fleeing like a coward.
One of his subordinates had suggested heading to the human planet himself, but 'Yarolee knew that would be of no use. The humans, and their kig-yar lackeys, would have left long before he could arrive, for parts unknown. (He was still dispatching a force, under trusted sangheili supervision, to complete the destruction of the human world.) No, he would have to use a different method. Failing the hierachs would unacceptable.
'Yarolee had a contact at the Ministry of Concert. A cousin, a few years younger than him, and raised in the same keep. Though he was a sangheili of good character, and pious enough, his skill with the blade was... somewhat lacking compared to many of his peers. After a brief time in the Covenant military, he'd taken up a position in the Ministry of Concert. Not the dream job for many sangheili, but it provided well enough and he did his job well. And, to hear his cousin tell it when they had spoken a few days ago, he had gotten to see combat in recent days.
Some ministry had the bright idea to come into the kig-yar's home system and wipe out the biggest pirate clans. 'Yarolee's cousin heard that the fleets involved had been crewed by jiralhanae; was this a power play but that race, or were they actually doing the Prophet's bidding? In any case, like taking the lid off a pot of boiling oil, chaos had resulted. Fighting broke out all across Eayn as the kig-yar fought amongst themselves. Covenant forces restored order in major population centers, but was still going on at a lesser scale in rural areas. (Not that kig-yar worlds were ever entirely peaceful, of course.)
Not all of the kig-yar were fighting, though. Many fled, leaving for safer Covenant controlled worlds, or running to parts unknown. But would any follow the traitors into the humans' arms? The Covenant had done a thorough investigation, and concluded that there was no grand conspiracy among the kig-yar to go over to the humans. Some might be desperate enough to try on their own, though. For years, the Covenant had been dimly aware of kig-yar interacting with the fringes of human society on rare occasions. It had been treated as an opportunity to gain intelligence on human worlds, and dealt with when it got out of hand. Still, if a kig-yar with the right contacts switched sides, they wouldn't be completely lost in the void. And it couldn't be ruled out that a few figured out what this Chac Lon did and decided to take their chances following his lead.
It was fortunate that the Covenant had a longstanding practice of inserting loyal agents into kig-yar criminal organizations. All 'Yarloee was asking for from his cousin was to reshuffle a few of them, and to keep their ears open for any groups headed for human space. If the Forerunners willed it, the humans would send their kig-yar to meet them. And Rota 'Yarolee would be ready.
