My goal here is to put out a chapter every week, and keep a 3 chapter buffer (just finished chapter 5). Let's see how long I can keep it going.

Comments and reviews are of course appreciated.

13 June 2549

ONI Site Epsilon, Reach

"Are you familiar with Tangier II?"

"Can't say that I am."

"Pissant little outer colony, settled back in the 25th century, fell to the insurrectionists in 2518. Not even a million population. Way down on our list of priorities, file on it has it marked for cleanup after the war with the Covenant ends. Section One did insert an agent in 2536, mostly to notify us in case the innies tried to pull any shit like they did back in 23 Librae. Name was Lieutenant Javetts, and he's the only reason we know we have a big fucking problem."

"What's that?"

"In early May, miners on Tangier II opened up an unusual cavern. That cavern contained what appears to be a Forerunner artifact. Javetts managed to get himself hired as a foreman at the mine, so he buttons up the site and sneaks a message out on a freighter May 19th. Didn't have much detail on the artifact, but his guess was that it was some kind of data archive or map."

"I'm guessing something happened in the meantime before we could get in there."

"Yeah, that's one way of putting it. May 23rd, four Covenant ships show up, blast their way through whatever orbital defenses the innies slapped together. Luckily a civilian freighter was on approach to the colony at the time and managed to scoot. Showed up here the 29th after just about burning out their slipspace core."

"Did they execute the Cole Protocol? If the Covenant tracked them here..."

"Thank God, they did. 8th Fleet scrambles destroyer Aleutian and frigates Thuringia and Hidalgo, they arrive in-system a couple days later. Good news is planet isn't glassed and most of the people are still alive. Bad news is the Forerunner artifact is gone, and Javetts is dead. Found his body near where the artifact was with a bunch of Jackal blood splattered everywhere. I've put him in a for a commendation, for what good it does."

"So a smash and grab? That doesn't sound like normal Covenant M.O."

"Well, that's the only possible bit of good news. Might not have been the Covenant. Review of data from the engagement in orbit shows the Covenant vessels had nonstandard modifications. Bigger thing is that security footage and survivor interviews shows no evidence of Elite or Brute presence. Just Jackals and Grunts."

"That is odd, I've heard of Jackals operating independently before, but not for artifact retrieval ops. Witness accounts can be inaccurate, but if security footage doesn't show any high-ranking species then that's a pretty big data point."

"Well, a couple of the survivors straight said one of the Jackals told them they weren't Covenant."

"Are the turkeys speaking English now, or does some random civilian on a backwater colony know how to speak Covenant now."

"First one. Written statement from the survivor is that this Jackal was looking for the data center for the spaceport. I say written statement because this guy talked back to the Jackal and they apparently didn't appreciate it. They'll live but need another two surgeries to fix the damage to their throat and lower jaw."

"So that Jackal was looking for the data center for the spaceport, but the forerunner artifact was in the mine which is presumably some distance away... Sounds like they were just there to knock the place over and got lucky."

"Yeah, sounds right. Apparently the 'governor's' mansion was ransacked pretty good, and the 'governor' caught a couple plasma rounds to the face. From what the Navy reported it sounds like the guy was a piece of work, basically used the place as his own little feudal colony. Plus, he was implicated in a couple insurrectionist bombings back in the 2520s."

"Well, I won't lose sleep over him at least. So the big problems are; what is this forerunner thing, and where is it going?"

"No clue what it is, but the Jackals are probably going to take it back to their homeworld and sell it. Hopefully some idiot Jackal buys it and uses it as an art piece instead of the Prophets getting their hands on it."

"Just another thing in the pile of shit these days."

"Yeah, sure is."

13 June 2549

Eayn (moon of Chu'ot), Kig-Yar Homeworld

Chac Lon speared the small crustacean with his skewer, making a satisfying crunch as he pierced the shell. He spun it idly a few times in midair before biting into it. There were still a couple of the steamed, sauce covered prawns in his bowl, but he was already feeling full.

"Teth, you want the rest of these?"

"You think I'd ever say no to free food, especially from this place?" Teth grabbed the bowl and poured the contents into his own before spearing two prawns and swallowing them almost whole. Chac Lon had found this shop years ago, and even though it was out of the way and run down it served some damn good food. (Honestly, in Teth's opinion, for sauced prawns the worse the shop looked the better the food was. That this one fished theirs out of the river behind the shop was even better.)

He nodded toward Chac Lon's bandaged arm. "Pain pills killing your appetite?"

"Nah, I've been skipping them the last couple days."

"Thoughts of work, then."

"Yeah. Thanks for taking care of the last batch of payments, by the way."

"No worries, I think I'll settle for a three quarters share of the loot this time." The two kig-yar chuckled. Though Chac Lon was in charge of his outfit, Teth handled a good chunk of the administrative work of wrangling a couple hundred kig-yar into a functioning group. Teth had a far better head for it than Chac Lon, so the T'vaoan was happy to pay him handsomely for his work. The two had been working together since Chac Lon only had a single worn-out dropship to his name; while their fleet couldn't compare to the biggest kig-yar pirate outfits, their partnership had definitely been successful.

"So the biggest thing we've got left to deal with is the human weapons we salvaged."

"Aside from the thing, of course."

"Yes." Even though the shop was far out of the main commercial district of this city, and the two were seated all the way at the back with empty tables around them (Chac Lon had been coming here long enough to be treated like a bit of a VIP), there were some things that were still too sensitive to discuss here. Forerunner artifacts were definitely one of them.

"So, speaking of human weapons, mind if I get a look at that human pistol you salvaged?"

"Sure, no problem." Chac Lon reached to his hip, unholstering the pistol. He paused to drop the magazine onto the table, before locking the slide open and passing it across to Teth. "I got part of the handle replaced, human fingers are shaped weird and it was hard to get a good grip on it."

"Huh, I'd thought most human pistols were bigger. What rounds does this use?" Teth turned the pistol over in his hands, looking for identifying markings. "8.5mm, is that small for human bullets?"

"I guess so? Put a round through my armor, though, so it must be pretty good."

"Hah! Not the worst way to judge a weapon."

The two kig-yar continued their conversation for nearly an hour longer, until they were interrupted by an unexpected arrival. Chac Lon was in the middle of cracking a slightly crude joke about sangheili when a crashing sound at the front of the shop made him look toward the entrance.

"Jiralhanae" he hissed. Three of them stood imposingly at the other end of room. The largest had an unfortunate kig-yar pinned against a table, while the other two brandished plasma rifles. As the kig-yar squirmed, the jiralhanae stomped down on their leg with a sickening crunch.

"Fool! Did you not think we would find out about your little smuggling operation!" The jiralhanae twisted the kig-yar's arm to an unnatural position. "Consider yourself lucky that I am not as zealous as some. Next time you may get a sangheili's blade in your belly."

Chac Lon's hand drifted toward the pistol on the table, until Teth roughly grabbed his shoulder. "Not now, not now." he whispered "There's three of them, all armed. It's not worth it."

"What would she want me to do?"

"She wouldn't want you to get dead for no benefit."

One of the jiralhanae turned and looked at the two, taking half a step toward the table. For a brief moment, Chac Lon made eye contact, before averting his gazes to the floor. The jiralhanae laughed. "That's what I thought, featherhead." Before the situation could escalate further, the lead jiralhanae put his hand on the other's shoulder. "Come, Marimus, our work here is done. Their thoughts are not worth worrying about." At that, the jiralhanae filed out, only a few minutes after they had barged in.

Chac Lon was still tensed. "Give me my rifle and I'd have killed every one of them."

Teth was unconvinced. "At close range like this? And even if you had, did you see their armor? Those guys were Covenant, kill them and the hammer gets dropped on us. Literally."

The T'vaoan exhaled, and moved to the front of the shop. The injured kig-yar sat propped against a wall, in great pain but still conscious. Three others clustered around her, already trying to patch her up.

Chac Lon wasn't a doctor, but he did carry a few medical supplies with him most days (his job could be a bit hazardous at times). Wordlessly, he passed them to one of the other kig-yar, then turned to the injured one on the floor.

"The hell was their problem?"

She grimaced as she propped herself up. "I resell human media files, mostly to unggoy. Guess one of the methane suckers got caught and talked."

"Good money in that, but you have to be careful with it."

"Tell me something I don't know. Would you believe that there's actually some sangheili who like human movies? Never had a problem like this with them, guess they know to keep their mouths shut." She glanced at Chac Lon's pistol. "You handle human stuff, too?"

"Yeah, but I try to stick with selling to other kig-yar. I'm more involved in the acquisition side of things."

"Yeah, I get what you mean." She winced again, Chac Lon could tell that talking was painful. "You seem alright, keep yourself safe out there."

"You got it, ma'am." Chac Lon dropped a few coins on the restaurant counter. "Keep the change." He walked outside, into the hot, humid air of Eayn.

15 June 2549

Two days later, he was in a different part of town, in a more industrial, built-up area. In the basement of an old warehouse worked one of the best independent armorers on Eayn. Chac Lon had started working with Tark a few years ago when he first got his hands on a set of Skirmisher Champion armor. The Ibie'shan had repaired all sorts of damage to Chac Lon's armor; bullet holes, shrapnel damage, plasma scorching.

"Hey Chac Lon, heard you were back in town. Rumor has it you picked up some pretty nice stuff on that human colony. Need some work done on your armor again?"

"That's right." Chac Lon placed a box with his armor on the table. "Some cracked plating on the left arm, and the usual scratches and dents."

Tark looked at the damaged armor. "Not as bad as that time you almost got yourself cooked on Persia IX. Had to recast half the damn plates."

"Should've known to wait until after the sangheili left to try and scavenge battlefields. Speaking of sangheili, can you make a modification to the armor?"

"I'll do what I can but active camouflage might be a bit hard."

"No, not that. Wouldn't say no, though. You know those little energy daggers they have that pop out of their wrists? Could you integrate those into the armor."

"Sure, if you're willing to pay for it. I don't have too many sangheili combat harness parts laying around."

Chac Lon smiled and lifted a heavy bag onto the table. "Would this get me a discount?" He untied the bag and showed the contents to Tark. "Two human assault rifles, both with two loaded magazines."

Tark smiled. "Yes, I think that would. MA2's, don't see those too often. How about I knock thirty percent off the price for you."

"Thirty-five."

"Thirty-five and you tell me what dealer you're selling the rest of your human weapons to."

"I'll send it over right now." Chac Lon pulled out a data pad. "Though, we are keeping a few for ourselves." He patted the human pistol holstered on his right leg.

"Good deal! I should have that armor ready for you in three days, that work for you?"

"No problem. Good seeing you again Tark."

"You too, Chac."

19 June 2549

Most of the commanders in Chac Lon's outfit didn't live on Eayn. Chac Lon and Shim Vol, unsurprisingly, were from T'Vao, and both still had places there. Mirr actually was born on Eayn, but she now lived on one of the numerous colonies in the asteroid belt in the Y'Deio system. Brak spent the first few years of his life in a slum on High Charity, but now he also called an asteroid in the Y'Deio system home. Of course, home was a bit of a fluid thing for kig-yar that spent most of their time on ships or running between dozens of planets, asteroids, and stations.

Still, today they were all meeting in a lake house in a remote southern part of Shi'Lako, one of Eayn's many islands. Officially owned by a holding company registered in a minor asteroid habitat, Chac Lon bought it a few years ago to serve as something of a clubhouse, and somewhere sensitive business could be discussed. The property lines were close to a kilometer away in every direction, and the rolling topography shielded the house from view of the closest road. Of course, when so many officers were here, additional measures had to be taken. Such as the team of four snipers on the roof. The place couldn't stand up to a determined assault by the Covenant or one of the big pirate clans, but Chac Lon didn't have plans to attract that kind of heat anytime soon.

Of course, messing with Forerunner relics did have the potential to cause complications. Figuring out exactly what those complications were was why they were all here tonight; Shaon Tol finally had a good idea of what she thought the thing they stole from Tangier II actually was. In a bit, the kig-yar would find out exactly what the relic was, and figure out how to profit from it.

But first, there was a game that needed to be finished up.

"Your turn to set, Brak. You're at five, Mirr has seven, Shim Vol has eight, and I have, uh, two."

Brak picked up the finned dart, as long as his head with a sharpened point. Gripping the projectile in his left hand, he planted his feet and threw the dart. With a loud thunk, it sank into a slab of wood propped up about ten meters away.

The game was a simple one played by kig-yar for many years. One player throws the dart into the target, the rest compete to stick their darts in closest to the first player's. Usually played to a score of nine, tradition held that the heavier and longer the darts used, the better. When played at rowdy parties the results were predictable.

"Alright, Chac, you're up. I'd pray for the Gods to bless your throws, but I fear even their power has limits."

Chac Lon had owned this particular set of darts for many years, and the group played regularly. Despite this, he was awful at the game.

Chac Lon picked up the dart, staring at the target. Squinting one eye, he carefully considered the distance to the wood and the weight of the dart, then threw.

The dart sunk into the corner of the slab of wood, almost half a meter away from Brak's.

"Knew I should have gotten drunk first."

"Yeah, like that would help." Shim Vol laughed. "My turn." Unlike Chac Vol, she was quite good at this game. Her dart landed much closer to the target, barely two fingers away from Brak's dart. "Hah! Mirr, your time of winning has come to an end!"

"Watch me, Shim. I beat you the last three games and I'm going to make it four." Mirr picked up her dart, and in a single fluid motion she lobbed it downrange.

It would have been a scoring throw, had it not glanced off one of the fins on Shim Vol's dart and hit at an angle, sticking into the wood a hand's width from the target. Mirr stamped the ground and chirped in frustration, as Shim Vol celebrated. "Haha! I win! I am the greatest!"

Mirr was still unhappy. She pulled out a few coins and challenged Shim Vol. "Play for fifty next game? Or are you scared you won't get lucky again?"

Unfortunately for the competitors, Chac Lon stepped in and ended the conversation. "That's it for tonight. Shaon Tol told me half an hour ago she was ready, and if we spend any more time messing around she's liable to come up here and beat my face in."

Mirr sighed. "Fine, if you insist."

The Forerunner relic was delivered in the dead of night, and now sat in the basement, far away from prying eyes. The basement was usually used as an armory and storage area, but those items were pushed off to the side, with the relic in the center. About a dozen kig-yar were assembled in the basement: Chac Lon, Shim Vol, Mirr, and Brak, a few more of the more important officers in the outfit, and finally Shaon Tol and her team.

Chac Lon motioned for the room to be quiet, then gestured at Shaon Tol. "Alright, Shaon Tol, go ahead. You mentioned that it took a bit of work to figure out exactly what this was."

Shaon Tol gestured excitedly at the relic. "Yes, it did. I recognized a few of the Forerunner symbols on this artifact, but there were a lot I hadn't seen before. I had to go through some of the oldest material I had, copies of writings from the Prophets more than a thousand years ago. But the real key was some files Kvet lifted from the Ministry of Concert offices here."

Kvet was one of the kig-yar on Shaon Tol's team, and incredibly gifted at accessing computer systems. He spoke up; "The security was laughable, probably because these files were copies of copies of copies. I assume the originals are in an archive on High Charity somewhere."

Chac Lon hummed appreciatively. "So what was in these files that was so important?"

Shaon Tol answered. "Translations for some of the Forerunner symbols I couldn't translate before. Most of them I had an idea on and this was just confirmation, but there are a few new ones. That, combined with how the information is laid out on the artifact, showed me what the artifact is. A starmap. Could one of you kill the lights?"

One of the kig-yar in the back obliged, and the room went dark. Now, a faint blue glow from the artifact was visible; strange symbols seemingly floating in space within the transparent crystal that made up the top part of the artifact.

"This isn't just a starmap, it's a map to the homeworlds of the species of the Covenant!" Shaon Tol shined a pointer at one part of the artifact. "Here's Y'Deio. Not only does it have information about the star that matches, but one of these symbols even translates as 'kig-yar'!"

A wave of energy ran through the room. Even those who did not devoutly believe in the Covenant's Great Journey revered the Forerunners to at least some extent. To know that the Forerunners had known of their people, that was something to behold.

"The next one I translated was Sangheilios. It wasn't too hard to confirm the star system matched, it's about the only triple system on here. The symbol for 'sangheili' is on here too. With that providing information about the spatial layout of the map it was less difficult to take 'real world' stellar information and translate it back onto the map. For instance, here's Te, Balaho, and Doisac." Shaon Tol pointed to each world in turn.

Mirr spoke up. "How old is this artifact?"

Shaon Tol relied; "Not sure exactly, best estimate I could give is that it's probably at least 90,000 years old. Most Forerunner relics seem to be that old at least."

"The stars are constantly moving with respect to each other, how would the Forerunners know how to show them at the exact time the artifact was being looked at?"

"There's some kind of power source in the artifact, I can't tell exactly how it works but you can see these symbols glowing. Likely the Forerunners set this thing up to adjust the starmap as time went on, if we looked at this again in 10,000 years I'd bet all the positions would have shifted. Now, if I can continue," Shaon Tol seemed a bit annoyed by the interruption. "There's a lot of stars on here that I don't recognize. A lot near the edge of the artifact, so they could homeworlds of species the Covenant hasn't encountered yet. But there's one in particular that stuck at out me. This one, here." Shaon Tol pointed at an especially prominent planet, marked with a unique symbol.

"This planet is marked as especially important, it's the only one with this unique symbol. It also doesn't correspond to any known homeworld."

"Could it be the home world of the Prophets?" Brak asked. The Prophets were notoriously secret about the location of their home, and some doubted their claim that it had been destroyed hundreds of years ago.

"No, I don't think so. The symbol for San'Shyuum is on this star here, one of the other 'unknown' systems. First, this one is marked with a different symbol that I've seen a few times in other places, and it also looks like it's the only one where both the star and one of the planets is named. The translation of the planet name was a bit rougher, but after running it through my computer programs a few times I've got solid confidence in it."

Chac Lon leaned forward. "What is the symbol, and what does it mean?"

Shaon Tol smiled. "I thought you'd be excited to hear this, it roughly translates as 'Reclamation', which my data says is typically associated with large troves of Forerunner artifacts."

That got the kig-yar talking amongst themselves. An entire planet of Forerunner artifacts? The riches from such a find would be incalculable.

"And what's the name of this planet full of Forerunner artifacts?"

"Erde-Tyrene."