Decent progress this week, not back up to a 3 chapter buffer (who knows if that will ever happen), but 1 1/2 is decent enough.
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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.
18 August 2549
UNSC Camp Teton
Arka Region, Levosia, 26 Draconis System
The distant rumble of a sonic boom shook the military camp yet again. Far in the distance, in the southwestern sky, a few streaks of orange descended as more debris reentered the atmosphere.
When the Covenant cruiser destroyed the top station of the planet's space elevator and sent the rest of it falling back to the surface, many in the UNSC feared the worst. Thankfully, through some quirk of physics and angular momentum, some of the upper part of the elevator had been slung out into interplanetary space. The rest broke apart into fragments, either right after the plasma torpedoes hit or upon entering the atmosphere.
The worst had come in the first few hours after the Covenant left. The lower parts of the elevator were far enough away from the plasma torpedoes and falling slowly enough that they didn't completely fragment after entering the atmosphere. Also, the support structure of the in-atmosphere portion of the elevator was far more heavily built than the rest of it. The first impacts hit with the force of small nuclear bombs, wiping out the small settlements and villages unfortunate enough to be in the path of the debris. Preliminary estimates were that more than a thousand were dead, in addition to the civilian casualties from the destruction of the elevator itself and collateral damage in Collins from the battle with the Covenant.
The Marine's counteroffensive in the final hours of the battle had been successful enough that the Covenant were only able to evacuate part of their forces. The rest were left behind on Collins, and most fought to the last man. It took until the early hours of the 17th for the last of them to be rooted out from ruined buildings and sewer tunnels in the city. Amazingly, though, there were a few prisoners. A few elites who had been unconscious or too injured to keep fighting, but also a couple jackals who surrendered on their own initiative. Only about a dozen, but more than usually surrendered in cases like this. They were sectioned of in another camp some distance away, under guard by a platoon of UNSC Army troops.
The jackals at Camp Teton had it much nicer. To say they were friends with the humans would still be quite a stretch; the scars of the ongoing war with the Covenant were far too deep for that. But there was at least a base level of trust between the humans and jackals. A lot of that was due to the casualties Chac Lon's people had taken in the fight for Collins. Nearly twenty dead, half as many injured bad enough that they were still laid up. Most of the rest that were planetside had at least some injuries. The grunts had come off even worse; almost a third of them were dead from the fighting in the underground part of the government complex. The survivors were off on a completely separate base, living in a couple sealed habitats the UNSC jury-rigged. Them and the humans seemed to be getting on a bit better than the humans and jackals.
Even so, the jackals at Camp Teton had earned enough freedom to be allowed personal weapons (though they were still under armed guard). So when Captain Korhonen walked into the barracks and saw a jackal working on a needle rifle as Chac Lon supervised, he wasn't too surprised. A few others were scattered around the room, working on weapons or armor of their own, or asleep.
"Not doing it yourself?" Korhonen asked Chac Lon.
"I could, but I try to leave heavy work to the professionals. Also, this." Chac Lon held up his right hand and arm, bandaged in eight different places.
"Weren't you out throwing rocks into the river yesterday?"
"That was something I had to take care of myself." Chac Lon saw Korhonen staring, waiting for an explanation. "Kig-yar tradition, if you can't bury someone at sea or in the stars."
"In the stars? You mean out the airlock?" Korhonen was confused and a bit repelled. Should have expected them to be fucking weird. He also noted that the jackal working on the rifle had got up and left. Still don't like humans, I guess."
"Yes? Considered good form to send them into an atmosphere, but space is big."
The human officer was still nonplussed. "On a different note... ONI did mention that your people had a sailing tradition."
"Eayn has a lot of ocean, bunch of little islands. Not like this place." Levosia was a semi-arid planet; there were some oceans but much of the planet was desert or scrubland like where Camp Teton was set. "Grew up on T'vao, didn't have much water either, I never sailed. Though..." Chac Lon turned over his shoulder to look at two of his compatriots sitting nearby. "Shim, Mirr, you want to tell the human about the Legend of Shin and her treasure?"
Mirr laughed. "You mean the time she almost got us both drowned and shot?" She said, pointing at Shim Vol.
Shim Vol ruffled her feathers in mock annoyance. "You were perfectly fine with it when I suggested it. But as soon as something little goes wrong you start crying!"
She continued. "Shin was a legendary pirate queen thousands of years ago. For 50 years she cut a bloody reign of terror across the northern seas of Eayn. She and her crew were the greatest pirates our world ever saw. Big guy over there -" She pointed at Chac Lon "-wouldn't have even been fit to scrub her decks."
"You wound me." Chac Lon laughed. "But go on."
"Legend had it at the end of her life Shin took her greatest treasures and buried them deep in a cave on the island of Vir'Rago. Gold, jewels, weapons of unimaginable power. Since then, countless kig-yar have sought the treasure, but nobody knows what came of it."
"Vir'Rago is an old extinct volcano at the north pole of Eayn." Mirr cut in. "The interior of it is high enough that it's the one only places on Eayn there's ice year round. Two hundred kilometers of frozen wasteland, high enough you can barely breathe, dropping to the sea in almost vertical cliffs. So of course thousands of kig-yar have gone to seek the treasure and died in the process."
Mirr continued. "Twelve years ago, Shim Vol and I barely knew each other and she gets the idea to go look for the treasure. Not only did she somehow convince me to do it, but she got me to go along with doing it the traditional way."
"Which is?" Korhonen asked. Loath as he was to admit it he was actually intrigued by this story.
"Getting a little single-masted sailing ship and taking that right into the teeth of the storms that surround Vir'Rago. Storms known to have snapped iron-hulled ships in two."
"The legends say Shin's hoard only reveals itself to those who have proven truly worthy. How better to show that than by sailing into waves taller than your boat, with only the wind and your wits to guide you?" Shim Vol laughed again.
Mirr continued the story. "So we buy this little sailboat, not even as long as this room. And we set out from the northern coast of Ruuht. Goes great the first two days; we're making good time, catch a couple fish off the side. Then comes the storm."
"Strongest wind I'd ever seen, and waves half as high as our ship was long. Then they got bigger. We lasted about an hour before the mast snapped off. Got turned broadside to the waves and rolled over. Thank the gods for two things." Mirr paused. "First was that the hull trapped some air and didn't sink right away. Second was Shim thought ahead for once and brought along an emergency radio. She punched it once it started getting real bad, rescue Phantom showed up not even a quarter hour after we sink. Cost near all our money to pay the fee but we didn't die." She laughed. "You probably figured out by now we didn't get the treasure."
"Now tell the rest of the story." Chac Lon said, smiling.
Mirr hissed in frustration. "You want to handle this, Shim?"
"Sure! We get back to land, we're completely broke, we need money fast. Mirr gets a lead on some guy shipping military grade demotion charges through a port on Ruuht, headed for a pirate group on some asteroid. I do some digging on the guy doing the shipment, some scrap of eggshell we'd never heard of and he doesn't run with any of the Big 6. We go in there, lift the charges, resell them for big profit. Sounds good, right?"
"Mirr goes in, charges are in three batches, waiting to get loaded on some bolted-together shuttle. Security's a bit tighter than we expected but I keep watch and Mirr grabs the first load. Nobody sees her or me. She's on her way back in for the second load and all of a sudden there's a massive flash and my ears get blown out. By the time my brain unscrambles itself I've got a bag over my head, hands and legs are tied, and I'm being dragged somewhere."
"I think I'm dead, I'm ready to offer just about anything to get out alive. Bag comes off my head and Mirr's sitting across from me, all tied up too. And pointing a rifle at the both of us is that guy." She gestured at Chac Lon.
Korhonen, who'd been listening more intently than he expected, was confused. "Wait, so you stole from him, but now you're working with him."
"Tried to steal from me." Chac Lon corrected the human. "They had a damn good plan, made those guards I'd hired look useless. Lucky thing Teth and I saw her as she was hauling the first load away and set up a trap for them. Thing is -" Chac Lon leaned in. "Would you rather have somebody skilled working for you, or working against you?"
"I can respect that viewpoint." Commander Engers said from the back of the room, making the three kig-yar jump. The ONI officer had arrived a few minutes before, apparently unnoticed by anyone but Captain Korhonen.
"Nice of you to join us, human." Chac Lon seemed annoyed but quickly recomposed himself. "By the way, those things I used to stun Shim Vol here, flash-bangs I think they're called? Learned the trick from an 'insurrectionist' human. He seemed like a decent guy."
"I'm sure." Engers noticed the slight but ignored it. "Now, I was going to make a comment that Shin's treasure sounded a bit like it might or might not be Forerunner artifacts, but if it was the Covenant would have dug it up years ago."
"Probably. My bet is that the treasure was gone pretty quick after Shin buried it. Her crew might have been loyal enough to not go dig it up, but word about it got out somehow. But... I imagine you two humans didn't come here to hear ancient kig-yar legends."
Korhonen nodded. "The reinforcements I requested after your stunt showing up here last month will be here in the next day or two, most likely. First thing; we'll be evacuating everyone, including you, from the planet; you know as well as I do the Covenant will be back in force. Get your people packed up."
"Got it, will do. You going to put us on your ships? I've never been on a UNSC ship before and I'm a bit excited, to be honest."
It wasn't strictly true that everyone was being pulled off Levosia. All UNSC assets, sure. A decent number of civilians and militia refused to leave, though, deciding to take their chances on the planet. Their hope was that Covenant wouldn't notice (or wouldn't go through the effort) of glassing every last human spread out across the whole planet, especially one so insignificant to the overall war effort.
The real nightmare scenario was the Covenant returning immediately, before the rest of the UNSC arrived. Not only was the civilian evacuation still ongoing, but the Forerunner artifact was still on the planet. Korhonen took the precaution of moving it to mineshaft a hundred kilometers outside Collins. If they left it in the original building, he worried that the Covenant might try a coup de main and drop special forces directly onto the governor's building. Moving the artifact should at least give UNSC enough time to detonate the warhead if the Covenant got close.
"Might not feel the same once you feel what cryosleep is like. Really, they're probably more worried about how to deal with all the grunts you brought along. At least you jackals breathe oxygen. And can eat human food."
"Some of it's better than others. We've been sampling some of your rations and if you want suggestions I-"
Korhonen interrupted him. "How did you get your hands on UNSC rations? You know I told you to use up what you brought along first."
"Can't help if you humans like trading. Some of your soldiers might not fit in too bad in kig-yar society."
The UNSC officer sighed. "Goddamn it, is food the only thing you've been 'trading'? Don't answer that." He paused, clenching and unclenching his fist. "Note to self – unannounced search of the barracks tomorrow morning."
"If it helps, we haven't taken anything too sensitive. You humans are pretty good about that, and I told my kig-yar to go easy anyway."
"Thanks." Korhonen said sarcastically, clearly still annoyed. "Need I remind you, again, that once the UNSC fleet shows up I'm not going to be in charge? Some admiral will be, and there's no guarantee they will be as accommodatingas I have."
20 August 2549
UNSC Camp Teton
Arka Region, Levosia, 26 Draconis System
Captain Timo Korhonen stood at attention, waiting for the arrival of the commander of the UNSC fleet that arrived at Levosia early that morning. Consisting of a pair of Marathon class heavy cruisers, five destroyers, and nearly a dozen frigates and other support vessels, the size of the fleet made it clear that the higher-ups realized the importance of what was happening on Levosia. (That there was at least one prowler, if not more, accompanying the fleet, went without saying.) Korhonen could hear the commander, Vice Admiral Adrian DeSantos, talking in the hallway outside. Korhonen had heard the vice admiral's name before, but had never interacted with him in person. Hopefully the UNSC sent somebody competent.
At last, DeSantos entered, and took a seat across from Korhonen. "At ease, captain, take a seat." The vice admiral spoke. "Or, well, first things first." DeSantos said as he pulled a small package out of his pocket and slid it across the desk as Korhonen sat down.
Opening the package, Korhonen was surprised to see it was a pair of star-shaped rank insignia.
DeSantos continued speaking. "Consider that effective today. HIGHCOM approved the promotion before I left, contingent on what I found here. Considering that the Covenant was here and this planet isn't a lifeless ball of glass, I think you deserve it. Usually goes a lot worse when a Covenant fleet shows up."
"Sir, to be fair, it was a small fleet. Only three ships, and two of them got away."
"A win is a win." DeSantos coughed. "Sorry, getting over a bug from a week ago. Anyway, as I'm sure you've figured out, we've got a very complex situation here. Priority one is this Forerunner artifact that contains the location of Earth. Based on the information your people gave me..." The vice admiral glanced at his watch, "ONI should be just about finished loading it up and getting it into a prowler headed out of system. I haven't technically been cleared to tell you where it's going yet, but you probably already have an idea. Won't be heading to Ballast with us."
Ballast was an interesting choice; an inner colony, but not one as important as Reach or Earth. Korhonen had never been there, and didn't know much about the place. He'd have to do a bit of research, at the very least to see what the climate was like.
Continuing, DeSantos held up a few fingers. "Priority three is the evacuation of any remaining UNSC ground assets. Priority four is the civilians. Which leaves us with number two. The elephant in the room."
"Yes, that. It is the entire reason I called you here." Korhonen said. "First question for you – transport arrangements. Regardless of recent events, I don't trust those jackals to just get in their ships and follow us."
"Mmhmm. Thanks to some ONI research back in the 2530s we do have some cryo formulas that will work on the jackals, won't be pleasant waking up but they'll live. The grunts are a bit more of an issue; being methane breathers and all there weren't really any good solutions on hand. They'll have to make the trip awake."
Korhonen shrugged. "Whatever you have to do. I would say I won't be sad to be rid of them, but I assume a condition of taking these stars is that I stay on as a 'resident expert'."
DeSantos nodded. "Like it or not, you are currently the UNSC officer with the most experience working with any of the Covenant species in a non-hostile situation. You and your people have a better insight into how they work than probably even ONI, though they'll probably kill me for saying that. Speaking of, they did tell me to ask you this, I don't think it's necessary but I was directly told to do this. Have you, Captain Timo Korhonen, developed any sympathies for any Covenant species as a whole."
Korhonen was impassive. He expected that something like this might have come up. "No. Alright, maybe I do feel a little bit bad for the grunts. The jackals here are assholes to them and it sounds like the actual Covenant treats them even worse. Jackals though? Think I like the ones with the Covenant even less. At least some of them got the idea that maybe they shouldn't be trying to wipe out humanity, so it's possible for them to have some decency, but 99 percent of them just decide not to."
The vice admiral across from him took down a few notes. "Good enough for me. I've read your file and skimmed what happened here the last few weeks, I know you're not going to run off and give a bunch of bird freaks where Earth is. ONI does what ONI does, though. With that said, tell me more about the grunts here. How do the jackals treat them?"
"Like an annoying little brother at best, more like servants or slaves even. They were responsible for most of the cleaning, some of the cooking, stuff like that on the jackal's ships. Don't usually get much of the cut when the pirates go raid somewhere, even the grunts that fight with them. Still, they're at least free to leave for somewhere else if they want to, which is apparently better off than some other pirate crews or the Covenant. A few of the grunts said that some pirate crews will just kill grunts for sport, the ones here at least feel a bit like they're part of the crew. Most of them don't like jackals a whole lot but they try and keep it quiet. For their part our jackals here mostly think grunts are stupid morons that can't look after themselves. Also got a sense that the jackals don't like it the grunts even think they're remotely equal to them."
DeSantos chuckled. "Sounds like the jackals are a real piece of work. Can't say I'm shocked."
"Sir, dealing with them was... difficult. Especially at first. Just about all of them didn't like humans, there's a language barrier, and the 'cultural' issues. Sir, I take it you've never been inside a jackal ship?"
"Can't say I have."
"The smell is awful. Don't know whether it's shit or sweat or whatever they eat, but it's nasty. Of course none of them thought it was a problem. Thank God I got them to do at least a bit of cleaning. Still pretty clear these guys aren't military, though."
DeSantos looked intrigued. "Do tell."
"Sir, wow much graffiti would you consider to be an appropriate amount for the walls of a UNSC ship?" Korhonen chuckled. "I can't read much jackal yet, but I'm told most of it was obscene, mocking the 'officers', or both. My tour guide didn't seem too tore up about it, even though a bunch of it was directed at him. Not to mention the 'pictures' most of the jackals had up in their cabins or hanging in nooks and crannies on the ship. Aside from that, most of them spend their free time gambling, consuming various narcotics, fighting each other, or some combination of those three things. That and trying to steal anything that isn't bolted down."
"I see. Though a lot of sailors or Marines wouldn't act much different if you left them unsupervised." DeSantos smiled wryly.
"Heh, Sergeant Johnson said as much."
DeSantos produced a set of files from his briefcase. "Now, you have some discussion on various individual jackals in your initial report here that I skimmed. I doubt most UNSC officers have ever thought of them as individuals, rather than something to kill. I know I haven't, so I'm curious. For instance, you mention that the one that is the most devout believer of the Covenant religion has been one of the most helpful."
"Yeah, one of the corvette captains, Brak. Don't think his views about humanity being the successors to the Forerunners are quite Covenant mainstream, but he's definitely been the most eager to help without trying to get something in exchange. He's gotten us a lot on Covenant religious practices, what little he can tell us about their slipspace drives-"
"Do they not know how they work?" DeSantos interrupted.
"One of the jackals used the term 'sealed can' to describe their drives. It sounds like the Covenant very tightly controls their drives; if you want to get a new one you either get it with a ship or turn in an old one, and they're pretty tamper proof. Anyway, Brak also gave us some stuff about the Covenant capital, High Charity. Used to live there, apparently."
"Some kind of huge space station, isn't it? That jackal, Brak, he didn't happen to know the coordinates for it, did he?"
"Sadly, no, said he hasn't been there in years. Says his family got booted out for his mother having some fringe religious beliefs, and that led to him being a pirate. He told us it is where the Covenant leadership, the 'prophets' live, but there population is hundreds of millions at least. Even if that's mostly civilians it'd be a tough nut to crack."
"Sounds like a job for Spartans, maybe. I did tell you that I got a few of them involved, didn't I?"
"No sir, you did not. Are they here?"
"No, no, they'll be involved once we get offworld here. I felt their skills would be useful for analyzing the jackal's combat tactics, and as a unique perspective. Might keep the jackals scared, too." DeSantos laughed. "Only managed to get two, and even that was like pulling teeth from Holland."
"Shows how much importance ONI puts on this if they're willing to detach any at all." Korhonen said. Indeed, pulling any Spartans off combat operations, even a small number only temporarily, would only be done in the most critical situations these days.
DeSantos flipped through some more papers. "I see your people put together files on a bunch of the jackals: Shim Vol, Kvet, Teth..." The vice admiral held up a thicker sheaf of papers. "And the boss jackal, Chac Lon. Tell me about him."
Korhonen exhaled, before glancing over his should. "You want the bad stuff first?"
"You afraid he's listening?" DeSantos smirked.
"He has a habit of eavesdropping. Among other things. Like all jackals he's a greedy, thieving asshole; problem is he's better at it than most. Sometimes I think he pisses me off for the sake of pissing me off; he's called me by my actual name about four times total even though he knows I know he knows it. I suspect he's got a bit of a sadistic streak; at the very least he doesn't show any remorse about killing humans before. The biggest thing though, and one I'll have to keep an eye on for a while, is that he seems to be looking at this whole situation for a way he can get an advantage. Chac Lon didn't come to us out of any sense of duty or moral obligation, he did it because he thought working with the UNSC was the best way for him and his people to make money in the long run."
"I assume he's got some redeeming qualities if we've been able to work with him."
"Chac Lon does seem to genuinely care about the people under his 'command'. He bitched about a lot of stuff the past couple weeks, but a good chunk of it was him trying to keep the rest of the jackals happy. He's got a bit of a heroic streak, even if he won't admit it."
"I saw that footage of him jumping on that elite and stabbing it in the neck. Pretty ballsy." DeSantos said.
"He did ask me how much the bounty was on that elite after he pulled that stunt. Even if he is a pain in the ass he's come around to working with us on most occasions. He doesn't love humanity but he definitely doesn't like the Covenant. And, honestly? His personality isn't the worst I've dealt with. I've had ensigns that were more painful to deal with than him."
"So you wouldn't go have a beer with him, but..."
"Some people might. Eventually." Korhonen shrugged. "There's still a lot of distrust of the jackals, even after they fought on our sight the last couple days."
"This war's cut a lot of deep wounds, the kind that don't heal overnight. About him not liking the Covenant; I'm guessing it's something a bit more complex than a bunch of 'honorable' elites breaking up one of his smuggling rings or something?"
"No, no, he doesn't actually dislike elites that much, oddly. He's not a fan but he says they're just doing their jobs and he can respect that. No, he really hates brutes. It's interesting. Chac Lon will crack jokes about elites, mock them, but he never jokes about brutes. He just hates them."
"They kill his parents or something?" DeSantos asked. Would be ironic if the Covenant's atrocities had driven some of their own into humanity's arms.
"Not exactly, but maybe. He told me his parents died when he was young, real young. He didn't sound too torn up about it. I think he might have had some more family, but he won't talk about it. Shuts down if you ask. Some of the other important jackals know but they aren't talking either."
"Something embarrassing for them?"
Korhonen nodded his head. "No, I think it's actually out of respect. He doesn't want to talk about it, so they won't either. ONI could probably get him to talk, but I don't think that's a great idea at this point."
DeSantos sat silent for a moment, thinking. "Worried about their continued cooperation if we push too hard?"
"Yes, sir. My judgment is that it would be counterproductive at this time."
The vice admiral nodded his assent. "I trust you will continue to get as much information as you can by less intrusive means. Any information you find will be helpful in our fight against the rest of them. Speaking of, there's one other issue I wanted to discuss with you. The civilian reaction. On one hand, we scored a definite victory against the Covenant here; we beat them on the ground, held our own in orbit, and pushed them out of the system, even if only temporarily. The civvies on the home front need to hear all about UNSC wins to keep there morale up."
"However..." Korhonen had an idea where DeSantos was going with this.
"Section Two has been doing a pretty good job spinning the war so far. If the public sees things that makes Covenant species look sympathetic, that could be problematic. I know, I know, these jackals here weren't Covenant, random civvies aren't going to know that."
"Sir, to play devil's advocate, sir, might it help morale to know that the Covenant isn't a gigantic, all-conquering monolith? Also, I did shut down all Waypoint and Chatternet links offplanet as soon as the Covenant arrived in-system."
"Of course, good job. I understand your point, but I'd hold off on that line of messaging until we actually see a big fracture in the Covenant, and I think ONI would agree." Korhonen mused that ONI had likely fed DeSantos their stance beforehand. "It's good that you're thinking about that though. One thing I would request is that you keep an ear open for anything we could use to drive a wedge into the Covenant. This Chac Lon guy hates brutes? Maybe enough other jackals do too, that's something we could use. Hell, maybe we can get more of them to go against the Covenant for their own reasons."
"I talked about that with Engers, the local ONI guy here, about a week ago. He told me to be careful."
"Hmmm?" DeSantos was intrigued.
"If we somehow manage to unify the jackals and help them out now, they could cause problems for us after the war is over. I told him we'd cross that bridge when we come to it."