This might be the last chapter for about two weeks - I'm going on vacation later this week and won't have access to my computer for a week and a half. Depending on how I'm feeling I might upload Chapter 6 before I head out but if not it should be here early August.
As always, comments are reviews are appreciated.
19 July 2549
Y'Deio System
The past 18 days had been the most frantic of Chac Lon's life. Even with Teth handling much of the company-level issues with trying to defect to humanity, there was still a lot for him to handle personally. In the past few weeks he had used up nearly an entire package of stimulant tablets that was 'recommended' to last two and a half months. If he was lucky he'd managed five hours of sleep total in the last three days. The kig-yar wasn't a stranger to stress, but it was starting to wear him down.
"Hey, Chac Lon, you awake?" Shim Vol poked the other kig-yar in his back feathers, startling him back to awareness.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm here. What?"
"Gods, you need to get some sleep. Let Teth or somebody else handle getting undocked and out of here, you know you can trust them."
"Yeah, but I'm still not sleeping until we're in slipspace."
"Suit yourself, idiot. Anyway, came by to tell you Cheap Money is fully loaded and ready to go. Drives ready, borer ready, nav data loaded."
"Good, good." Chac Lon turned to Teth, who had been standing nearby silently. "Get us a departure clearance, one hour."
"You got it, boss. And you really should get some sleep. I can handle this thing for a little while, even with all the crap you bolted on it."
"Yeah, yeah, still want to keep an eye on it. Don't think I could sleep right now even if I wanted to."
The Phantom Chance had been torn up pretty hard fighting with the humans in Erde-Tyrene. Thankfully there wasn't any permanent structural damage, but Chac Lon had spent a lot of credits patching up the armor and replacing wiring, pipes, and other internal systems. (What he would have given for a huragok or two.) Since his ship was going to have to spend days in the yard anyway, Chac Lon decided to use the opportunity to make some modifications he thought would be useful.
It had taken a lot of work and a couple favors, but as of two days ago the Phantom Chance was fully repaired and modified. There had been a bunch of internal changes: minor upgrades to the sensors and bridge instruments, some more tweaks to the drives to squeeze a bit more power out of them, a bit more armor plating in a few places. He'd also had virtually all of the ship's plasma mortars stripped out, leaving only a single pair on the underside of the ship. In place, bolted to the outside of the hull, were eight single shot plasma torpedo launchers.
Plasma torpedoes were a common armament on heavy Covenant ships such as cruisers and battlecruisers. Fed with plasma and energy from the ship's fusion reactors, the plasma torpedo was a devastating weapon capable of inflicting catastrophic damage on unshielded ships. Of course, when kig-yar pirates got their hands on the technology, they modified it to suit their own ends.
Large vessels were uncommon among pirate fleets; even the Big 6 pirate groups operated only a few smaller cruisers of obsolete design. Larger vessels were too expensive, too difficult to maintain, and most importantly, too big for the Covenant to tacitly allow. So, kig-yar engineers decided to figure out how to fit plasma torpedoes to smaller ships. What they came up with was the launchers Chac Lon had mounted on the Phantom Chance.
Each one held only a single torpedo and a disposable "charge" to activate the torpedo. After firing it, the launchers had to be reloaded from outside the ship, either planetside or by a team of kig-yar doing a risky EVA. The launchers were also hideously vulnerable to enemy weapons fire; many a kig-yar corvette or raider had been torn apart by secondary detonations after their torpedo launchers were hit. Even if that didn't happen magnetic fields generated by a corvette couldn't guide a torpedo nearly as far as a heavier ship could, so the torpedoes were limited to short ranges.
Privately, the owner of the shipyard Chac Lon paid to do the modifications thought he was an idiot for putting that many on a corvette. Still, money was money, and she kept those feelings to herself. The other officers in Chac Lon's group also thought he was an idiot, and they didn't keep those feelings to themselves. Brak's Unconventional Devotion had taken less damage than the Phantom Chance, and he had simply gotten it repaired to his original configuration. The ship had served him well for years, why fix what wasn't broken?
Chac Lon's response was that if they had to go up against a heavy Covenant ship, he wanted to make it hurt, even if he only had one shot. Naturally, the response was that any shipmaster would have to be a complete idiot to lose something like a battlecruiser to a single corvette, even a modified one like the Phantom Chance. Chac Lon's counter was that there were a lot of stupid shipmasters in the Covenant, and he'd roll the dice on getting lucky.
Leaving aside whether it was a good idea or not, getting all that work done on the Phantom Chance cost Chac Lon a lot of money. Then again, after they left Eayn they'd be outlaws to the Covenant, and as far as he knew humans didn't use Covenant money. Even so, for the repairs to his ship and other acquisitions, Chac Lon had been forced to sell off just about everything. Minor stakes in a dozen businesses from tea shops to loan providers, all gone. About the only thing he hadn't sold was the place on Shi'Lako; Teth had advised that selling off every single thing he had might look a bit suspicious. If any Covenant or other agents were keeping an eye on him it would be best to make it look like there was at least a chance he was coming back instead of fleeing Covenant space forever.
Obviously, Chac Lon and the rest hadn't been honest about what their plans were while they were back in the Y'Deio system. There were a couple different stories that the officers had come up with; a new privateering contract from the Covenant, preparing to work with one of the Big 6, anything but the truth. Chac Lon had told the owner of the shipyard and most of the merchants he was contracting with that they had a lead on a rich human colony far from Covenant space. The modifications to the Phantom Chance, and all the weapons he'd bought were insurance in case the humans tried to defend themselves. Not a story that would hold up to interrogation by a bunch of sangheili zealots, but enough to satisfy random bystanders.
What they told their crew was a different issue. Lying to them about their plans wasn't a workable option, for a bunch of reasons. Chac Lon, like other kig-yar pirates, was fine with lying, cheating, and stealing in situations that would make a sangheili blush (or incandescent with rage). But deliberately lying to his crew, that entrusted their lives into his hands, and had saved his own hide many times just felt wrong. A few of them had been with him for six years or more, loyalty like that deserved honesty in return. More pragmatically, the crew finding out halfway to Erde-Tyrene (or wherever) that they were defecting to the humans could well trigger a mutiny. Humans weren't exactly well liked among kig-yar, even the ones that weren't part of the Covenant. Even if they didn't hate them with a religious fervor, most kig-yar thought humans weak, stupid, or both. Among their outfit, Brak was probably the only one that actually had any affinity for humans, and only then because he'd bent the Covenant religion to require it. A mutiny would see Chac Lon and friends either dead or handed back over to the Covenant. Which also meant they'd be dead, but in a more painful way.
With that said, telling all of the crews their plans immediately after they'd decided on going to the humans hadn't been a good option either. Given how long it took them to prepare to leave again after they'd arrived back in Y'Deio, someone could easily have gone to the Covenant. Or even said something they shouldn't have where someone was listening. Chac Lon's outfit wasn't the biggest or most notorious pirate outfit among the kig-yar, but there were probably a few out there who'd like to see them disappear.
The first step had been to let off anyone with an expiring contract, or just wanted out. While a lot of kig-yar worked as pirates for the chance at loot and salvage money, there were also some who worked on contract arrangements. This guaranteed them pay, but they wouldn't profit from any big scores. There were a couple that Shim Vol and Mirr had convinced to join them, but for the most part the officers weren't too torn up about seeing them go. Contractors tended to be competent and usually didn't cause too much trouble, but they never really felt like part of the crew.
While that was happening, Chac Lon and the others had revealed the truth to a few of their most trusted subordinates. The one's who'd been with them the longest, squad leaders … the ones he knew were loyal to the outfit instead of the Covenant. All of them had agreed to come along, especially once they heard the full story about the Forerunner artifact and 'Reclaimers' and realized the magnitude of the heresy they'd been drawn into. Chac Lon left it up to them to convince their crewmates and deal with any objectors. He liked to think he got on pretty well with most of his crew (Unggoy aside, but who cared about them?), but when talking about heresy and defecting to your onetime enemies it was best to talk with a friend instead of your boss.
There was still the problem that there was almost certainly at least one Covenant agent in his outfit. Hopefully they'd be scared enough about being adjacent to heresy that they'd stay quiet and throw their lot in with the rest of the kig-yar. But what if they didn't? There was a lot of ways they could cause trouble: sabotaging the ships, killing Chac Lon or one of the other captains, or even just shooting at the humans on first contact. There wasn't much that could proactively be done to deal with any Covenant agents without knowing who they were, which put Chac Lon ill at ease. He'd post some guards around the drives and slipspace core, and keep his cabin locked while he slept, but that was just reacting to the threat.
The second big issue to other than informing the crew was what to take along when they went to meet the humans. That had been the cause of quite a bit of animated discussion. Weapons were the biggest question. Chac Lon had suggested buying up as many needle rifles, beam rifles, plasma pistols, and all the other stuff they normally used as they could. After all, they wouldn't be able to resupply for a long time (if ever). Mirr and Brak had instead suggested getting human weapons; if the humans let them fight, they'd be using their weapons, and might as well start training now, right? Chac Lon had countered that Covenant weapons could also be traded to the humans, to sweeten whatever deal they made with them. Mirr had then reminded him that the humans probably had about a million plasma pistols by now, and what use would they have for a couple hundred more?
In the end, what resulted was a compromise solution that didn't make anyone too upset but didn't fully satisfy anyone. Chac Lon bought a crate of needle rifles and four crates of ammunition, along with a bunch of other Covenant weaponry (even some fuel rod ammunition for the unggoy on his ship). Brak managed to get his hands on a bunch of human shotguns, which he was nice enough to distribute around to all the ships. Apparently jiralhanae were pretty fond of those human shotguns, so they fetched a decent price on the black market. Though after trying one, Chac Lon couldn't deny that the shotguns (although primitive) were incredibly effective at close range. (He'd caught a couple of pellets from one years back on a raid on a glassed human colony. Lucky for him the Marine shooting at him had bad aim.) It was fortunate that he'd delegated handling stuff like rations and medical supplies to Teth, otherwise they probably would have ended up with a bizarre mix of kig-yar and human food and medicine.
Along with the weapons, rations, and similar things, there were also the personal belonging the kig-yar brought along. Some had more than others; many of the crew basically lived out of their cabins, so they already had all their possessions aboard ship. Those that did have a place on Eayn (or one of the nearby asteroids) had salvaged whatever they most valued and could fit into their cabins, or into whatever space they could find in the cargo bay or storage areas around the ships.
Some of the officers had brought more varied possessions along with them. Chac Lon had decided to bring his skimmer along, declaring in a fit of pique that he'd spent hours and hours working on it and he wasn't going to let some filthy jiralhanae put their hands on it. After the others were unable to argue him out of it, it was sitting in a corner of the Phantom Chance's cargo bay roughly shoved underneath a pair of Banshees that were being stripped for parts.
Shaon Tol's cargo was probably the most unique. Almost her entire cabin was filled with artifacts and written copies of books and papers. (The artifact was in locked crate in the cargo bay, firmly bolted down.) Not about the Forerunners though; just about all of it was relics from pre-Covenant kig-yar society. Old weapons (even a blade from 2,500 years ago), paintings, even religious artifacts. Getting those was especially difficult; the Covenant did their best to stamp out the religions of species they assimilated, and for the most part they did a damn good job. Chac Lon and Shaon Tol had had an interesting conversation about the selection of artifacts a few days prior.
"I'm surprised you didn't bring more Forerunner stuff. You had entire rooms full of it back in your place on T'vao, and you really put your heart and soul into researching that stuff."
"I've got what I really need on my datapads. Besides, since the humans are 'Reclaimers' they've probably got Forerunner relics all over. But this? There's not kig-yar artifacts like this anywhere but on Eayn."
"So this is more valuable, then?"
"Yes, but that's not it. Chac Lon, do you know how much of our culture the Covenant's erased?"
"A lot, it's been more than a thousand years since they showed up."
"Yeah, I knew that, but I didn't know until I got my hands on all this." Shaon Tol gestured to the pile of artifacts behind her. "All this that's survived, it must not even be the six-thousandth part of what there originally was! So much of our old culture, our traditions, everything, gone! If I can preserve a little of it then by the gods I will!"
Chac Lon paused, thoughts running through his head. "I, uh... well I doubt they'll glass Eayn just because of us. There's got to be millions of other kig-yar in the Covenant military."
"Right, but how long until they got around to burning this? Even if the humans shoot us all on sight they'll at least have the decency to stick all this in an archive somewhere."
Chac Lon had thought about that conversation a few times in the last couple days. Shaon Tol had said something important, but he couldn't exactly pin down what it was. Maybe he'd nail it down once he got a bit of sleep and the situation calmed down.
Aside from assembling possibly the best collection of old kig-yar history on Eayn, Shaon Tol and her team of specialists had also been tasked with finding a suitable colony to meet the humans. Heading back to Erde-Tyrene was the last resort option; being the human homeworld and where the kig-yar had previously shown up unannounced, it likely had defenders in a 'shoot first, ask questions later' mood. It wasn't a trivial task to find an alternative, though. Glassed human colonies were well known, but usually had some level of Covenant presence. Even if there weren't Covenant around, the few (if any) survivors of a glassing likely wouldn't have a way of contacting the rest of the UNSC to let them know what was going on. Not to mention that they probably wouldn't be interested in talking to anyone that looked like Covenant.
So, they needed to find a human colony that wasn't glassed, preferably a smaller outer colony where the humans wouldn't be too touchy. The Covenant probably had leads on some places like that, but their star charts weren't exactly made public. However, just because they weren't public didn't mean they were completely inaccessible. Shaon Tol's computer specialist, Kvet, was able to get a copy of some Covenant star charts and intelligence reports on human traffic. (The Ministry of Concert's incompetence at information security could be counted on to provide a bountiful harvest.) From that data, they were able to determine a likely location for a human colony. It was a triple star system, with two close yellow and orange stars, and a third distant red one. It was a good distance from Erde-Tyrene, and quite far from Y'Deio as well.
The plan was that after traveling to an intermediate system (another deserted wasteland like the one they'd used before going to Erde-Tyrene), they'd enter slipspace and travel to the outer reaches of the system. There, they'd scan for human/UNSC presence; if they found any, the hard part would start. The kig-yar had an idea of what radio frequencies the humans used, but all their military communications were heavily encrypted. Their best hope was to broadcast in the clear on a UNSC frequency and hope that a human comms tech was awake enough to figure out that something was going on. Not the most elegant plan, but it did have the advantage of simplicity.
"Hey boss, we're ready to go. Say the word and we're off."
Chac Lon was snapped out of another rambling train of thought by his subordinate's announcement. Looking out the viewport, he saw that the Cheap Money, Midnight Dancer, and Unconventional Devotion were already undocked and pulling away from the station.
"Well, we're committed. Helm, get our departure clearance and let's cast off."
Half a minute later, the Phantom Chance shuddered slightly as the docking clamps disengaged and the helm backed the corvette out of its berth. As it did, Chac Lon looked out the viewport at Eayn and Chu'ot below. Somewhere off in the distance was a point of light that was the asteroid T'vao, his birthplace. Chac Lon was not particularly religious, but he offered a brief prayer that today would not be the last time he saw his homeworld.
20 June 2549
Slipspace
Predictably, Chac Lon had passed out immediately after the Phantom Chance went into slipspace. After sleeping for nearly 19 hours, he felt much better, though there was still some lingering fog in his mind. Probably lingering fatigue from his lack of sleep the past few weeks and all the stimulants he'd ingested. Gods willing he'd be able to get a good amount of sleep the next few days while they were in slipspace, and be fully awake by the time they arrived at the human system.
As he stretched out and dressed himself, he noticed a priority notification on his datapad. Frowning, he read through it. It was an alert from one of the guards he'd posted at the slipspace drive, from three hours ago. Chac Lon exhaled in disappointment. He'd hoped to make himself some tea and have a slow day, but it looked like that wasn't happening. At least they'd managed to handle the situation so far without waking him up.
Ten minutes later, he had drank some water and put on his armor, and armed himself with the human pistol he'd stolen off Tangier. Making his way into a storage room next to the engineering spaces, he saw Rac and Yath, two of the Ibie'shan he'd assigned to guard the slipspace drive. The two were brothers who had been on the Phantom Chance for about two years, and were known for spending most of their spare time brawling with other crewmembers (and winning a fair bit of credits in the process). Yath also had an outstanding warrant for murdering an off-duty sangheili minor, so Chac Lon knew there was little chance of him (or his brother) informing on him.
Behind the two brothers was a T'vaoan that Chac Lon didn't immediately recognize. Her hands and feet were hastily bound with electrical cables, and she also looked quite bruised and bloody. Evidently the brothers had beaten her up and restrained her, but why?
Chac Lon spoke to Rac and Yath first. "Who's guarding the drive right now?"
Rac responded. "Nop and Rin Bem, boss. Called them in early when we caught her trying to cut some cables in the drive room."
"Good work. Did she do any damage?"
"Not that I could see boss, but I don't know how those things work."
They hadn't disintegrated into a shower of subatomic particles or dropped out of slipspace, so if she had damaged the drive it couldn't have been too bad. Chac Lon turned to the restrained T'vaoan.
"So, what's your name, and why did my people catch you in the drive room? I know all my engineering crew by sight and I don't recognize you."
"What business is it of yours, heretic." She hissed.
Ah, well that answers a question I hadn't asked yet. Chac Lon thought.
"Yeah, you got me, I'm a heretic. That doesn't answer my question, though." His hand moved toward his pistol, and she noticed.
"Go on, kill me. These brutes got lucky enough to catch me before I could take the drive offline but they can't make me talk." Even with how much she'd been beaten, she was still quite defiant.
Now Chac Lon recognized her. She was Toth Ram, one of the newer crewmembers on his ship. If he remembered right she'd only been on board for about four months.
"Alright, Toth" Her eyes widened briefly as Chac Lon said her name, but quickly returned to her hateful expression. "Before I do kill you, I want to know. Are you working for the Covenant, are you a zealot, or do you really just not like me. I hope it's not the last one, I try to be a pretty likeable guy." Chac Lon smiled as he raised and cocked the pistol.
Toth Ram smiled. "The Covenant sent me to keep watch on your sorry little outfit. I thought it was a useless assignment, but now I know that my place on the Great Journey is assured. And I'll be glad to spit on your corpse as I leave you behind."
Just as Chac Lon flicked the safety off the pistol and aimed it at the T'vaoan's stomach, Yath interrupted him. "Boss, wait! Don't shoot her!"
Chac Lon was nonplussed. "Tell me why I shouldn't. Messing with the slipspace drive could have gotten us all killed. Same as if we got caught by the Covenant."
"Yeah, boss, I get that. But I heard rumors about the humans, that secret group they have. What's it called?"
"ONI?" Chac Lon was unsure. That was really a Shaon Tol or Shim Vol question. They knew more about the humans.
"Yeah, that. Offering a Covenant spy to them will really sweeten any deal you make with the humans. And from what I've heard, they'll know how to make her talk."
Chac Lon grinned. "You know, Yath, you've got a pretty good brain in your head. I like that idea." Toth Ram's eyes widened as Chac Lon looked at her.
"Search her for any tracking devices, be as thorough as you have to. Then, take her to the brig. Keep her alive but not comfortable." He addressed Rac and Yath; the two nodded their assent. "But first-" Chac Lon shifted his grip on the pistol, and savagely clubbed the Covenant spy across the face with it. As she coughed blood, he pistol whipped her again, harder, cracking a few of the bones around her right eye. "I'll let the humans finish you off, but let that be a reminder not to screw with me."
He turned back to the brothers. "I'm going to go let the other ships know about this. I'll get a replacement for your next shift, you two earned some rest. Good job."
As Rac and Yath roughly dragged the Covenant spy out of the room, Chac Lon sighed and made his way back toward his cabin. Hopefully the rest of the trip to the human system would be uneventful.
29 July 2549
Levosia, Human Colony
26 Draconis System
Captain Timo Korhonen had not envisioned his career ending in a remote outer colony. But, after the disaster at Earth, here he was. Privately, Hood told Korhonen that he knew the captain had done the best he could. But there needed to be a scapegoat for letting the Covenant find the location of Earth, and he was the natural choice. He knew this was likely the end of the line for his career in the UNSC; he'd be stuck in a dead-end assignment like this until he retired or the Covenant glassed this place. At least this colony had decent weather, and a few things for his men to do while off duty.
The incursion last month had thrown the UNSC's entire strategy into disarray. Dozens of ships were being recalled from the outer colonies to defend Earth. The UNSC was so desperate that they even pulled ships out of a few outer colonies where there was ongoing fighting against the Covenant, essentially sacrificing those worlds to strengthen Earth's defenses. Oddly, so far it seemed like that had all been done for nothing. As far as Korhonen knew, there had been no further incursions by the Covenant in the Solar System, or any other key systems like Reach. Still, reinforcements were flowing inward, and command was likely activating all sorts of contingency plans and secret protocols.
If (when) the Covenant did show up here, there wasn't much that Korhonen could do. He had even less forces than he'd had at Saturn; his only large ship as an old Diligence-class destroyer, the Brisbane. Built more than eighty years ago, the ship had been mothballed at the start of the Human-Covenant war. At least it was in good repair, unlike most of his Halberds at Saturn. Backing that up was five corvettes and two squadrons of ground-based fighters. At the moment there was also a destroyer on stopover after a battle at the Paris IV colony, though it would be gone in a few days (likely headed to Earth or Reach). An ONI prowler had also made an appearance a few days before; Korhonen hadn't seen any signs of it since, but it was possible it was still in system. What it was doing was anyone's guess.
Korhonen was on his way to a meeting with Levosia's civilian governor when alarms sounded in his command center. Immediately, in his gut, he knew; Covenant.
"Sir, Covenant contacts. Outer edge of our sensor range, but they're definitely there." Lieutenant Commander Smitson, his executive officer, immediately confirmed his gut feeling.
Korhonen began issuing orders. "Get the fighters warmed up, and get Brisbane and the corvettes into a defensive formation." He remembered the other destroyer. "Call the Thunderer as well, get them into formation with the Brisbane." Though it was also old, the Hillsborough-class destroyer was bigger than the Brisbane, and would be a major addition to his combat power. Next was a call to the governor he had been about to meet with.
"Governor? Yes, it's the Covenant. We don't know how many yet or how soon they'll be here, but get the evac protocols started."
There were some slipspace-capable freighters and liners on Levosia; not enough to evacuate all civilians, but a few could be saved.
"Smitson, do you have classification on the Covenant vessels?"
The lieutenant commander looked a bit confused. "Sir, sensors are showing two corvettes and two freighters. It doesn't look like they're moving."
Korhonen's heart stopped for a moment. No, there was no way it was the same ones. This had to be a coincidence, or the sensors are wrong. But the thought kept eating at the back of his mind.
"Confirm target classification, and designate Sierra 1 through 4."
There was a pause as Smitson fiddled with his console. "Sir, still showing the same classification. Designating Sierra 1, 2, 3, and 4." Numeric designation popped up next to the red contacts on the screen.
For a few more minutes, the Covenant ships held their position, not even shifting formation. "At least they're giving us time to get ready." Korhonen joked, trying to put a bit of humor into the situation. That didn't prepare him for what was coming next, though.
"Sir, we're receiving a transmission from Sierra 2. On one of our comm frequencies, but unencrypted."
"Patch it through." Korhonen was expecting an Elite or Brute ranting about how the humans were an affront to the great journey, their destruction was the will of the gods, the usual. He was not expecting what he actually heard; a raspy voice that took him a second to place. Is that a fucking jackal?
The message that played over the command center's speakers was even more unexpected.
"Hail, humans. This is Captain Chac Lon of the corvette Phantom Chance. We are not Covenant, and we are not hostile. We carry important information, and we want to defect."