Thank you for the reviews and follows everyone, gives a nice shot of happiness to see people appreciating the story. Fake combat here, real combat in a chapter or two.
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.
1030, 26 September 2549
UNSC Camp Saranac, Ballast (Inner Colony)
"Squad two, four contacts, left, range three blocks, engaging."
"Got it, two, cleared to fire."
One of the adjustments Chac Lon had realized he had to make after arriving at Levosia was changing the organization of his kig-yar. While they were more organized that many other pirate groups, they were far from a military outfit. Imposing military discipline, especially on the level the Covenant did, would never fly, but he had taken some small steps like formally arranging the kig-yar into squads and rough approximations of platoons. The ad hoc groupings worked well enough in the battle on Levosia, and Chac Lon (with generous assistance from Teth and others) made some more tweaks. This exercise would be the first big test.
So far, it was going mostly well. The kig-yar fanned out around the building they'd been told to defend, taking positions on rooftops and in some of the sturdier trees. As the humans started advancing, the snipers started picking them off, going for the officers and other important looking humans.
Chac Lon had noticed over the years that human forces were more adaptable and resilient to taking casualties than Covenant formations. Sure, the Covenant might be fanatically devoted and willing to die, but if you killed a sangheili leading a lance of unggoy, the unggoy would run screaming. The humans would pick up the pieces and keep going. Still, killing the guy in charge was always a good way to disrupt an enemy force.
The kig-yars' tactic worked for a few minutes, until the humans fired an utterly ridiculous amount of grenades into the outskirts of the 'town'. But rather than exploding, these grenades emitted clouds of thick white smoke, blocking any view of the advancing humans. As they advanced, they kept covering themselves with smoke, until they reached the first line of buildings. An ingenious tactic, and yet another one that Chac Lon took note of for future use. With all these ideas from the humans, his kig-yar would surely thrash any other pirates they went up against!
"Another squad of humans, right ahead! Here they come!"
"I see them, shooting!"
Six humans came around a corner, hugging the wall of one of the houses. Four kig-yar were engaged with them, using their shields to block the human's fire, but they were getting pushed back. But it looked like they hadn't seen Chac Lon and the other two kig-yar on the roof with him yet. He aimed down the sights of his 'rifle', and fired. He was rewarded with a crude facsimile of the sound and muzzle flash of an actual needle rifle, and one of the humans stopping and swearing as they got 'hit'. The rest ducked back behind the corner, disappearing from view.
Even though they'd won that little engagement, the kig-yar were losing. The UNSC force's use of smoke let them get in close, and they'd put their numbers advantage to use. Along with their better coordination. Almost half of Chac Lon's force was 'dead', many of them 'killed' when attacked by two or three human squads at the same time. True, the kig-yar had claimed a lot of victims, but the humans had them surrounded and were pushing them into a smaller and smaller area of the training complex. (Of course, if this was real, Chac Lon would have got his people out long before half of them were dead. No job was worth taking casualties like that.)
"Squad three, they're pushing hard here, there's a ton of them! We need help!"
"I'm on my way! Hold out as best you can!"
"You got it, boss!"
Squad three was defending a more open area, a gap between rows of buildings comprising an irrigation canal running down a field of grass. Their end of it was barely fifty meters from the objective. If the humans broke through there, not only would they be in direct line of sight to Chac Lon's position, but they'd be able to rain grenades onto his position. (The human training munitions also included grenade and rocket launchers that simulated fragmentation. They had been murder on the shielded kig-yar in particular, and Chac Lon's forces quickly learned to prioritize them as targets.)
"Four, cover the objective, we're going to support three. Five, with us!" Squad four was down to only four kig-yar, but they'd have to do. Squad five was also pretty depleted, but the few of them that were left would add a bit of muscle to blunt the humans' push. Chac Lon gestured to the other three T'vaoans on the roof with him. "You, with me, on that roof over there." All three of them of them had (simulated) beam rifles, the range was a bit shorter than normal for but they'd still be able to pick off humans easily.
Sprinting over toward a small two-story building, Chac Lon leapt for the roof, grabbing onto a second story window ledge before pulling himself up onto the roof. As he did, he saw a small group of kig-yar in a tight, shielded cluster falling back to cover behind a piece of concrete. Behind them was the squad leader, an Ibie'shan wielding a human assault rifle. Chac Lon recognized him as Yag, an experienced fighter and one of the kig-yar he'd appointed as a squad leader a few days ago. At least he'd 'survived' to this point.
"Yag, I'm here, what's the situation?"
"At least three squads of humans, two coming up the middle and one in the buildings on the left. Taking our share of blood but we're running low on ammunition."
"What's priority target?"
"Get the ones on the left, we can hold the center. A few more dead humans and their push will break!"
Chac Lon acknowledged, and looked toward the row of buildings to the left where Yag had pointed out the advancing humans. He saw the squad darting between buildings, and fired. Miss. In a real fight the projectile from his needle rifle might have at least startled the human, but they didn't notice they were being shot at over the sound of gunfire from the rest of the complex. One of Chac Lon's comrades did tag a UNSC soldier, who fell out of line. The rest made it into the building. One made the mistake of sticking his head and arm out a window to get a shot at Yag's squad. In a real fight against the Covenant he would have been dead on the spot, instead he just made himself look foolish and 'died'.
The humans seemed wary after that second shot, as they kept themselves out of line of sight of the kig-yar. Chac Lon shifted his position, trying to get an angle, but couldn't see any good shots. So, he switched his fire to the two UNSC squads in the center. Yag's squad had gotten another good defensive position in small ditch that fed the canal, and had taken out four more humans. But another two kig-yar were also 'dead'.
The sights on his 'rifle' weren't nearly as good as they were on the real thing, but for Chac Lon they were good enough at this distance. He saw a UNSC soldier setting up a light machine gun, bracing it on a chunk of concrete. Quickly, he put his sights over the human's chest, and squeezed the trigger. Another fake looking flash and sound, and the human carefully laid the machine gun on the ground as he walked away with his hands raised. Another human went for the gun; she took two shots simultaneously from both Chac Lon and one of the other kig-yar. The rest of the human squad was a few meters away; close, but they'd have to break cover to get the machine gun. It was out of reach.
For a few moments, the UNSC soldiers looked like they were considering it. Then, they gave up the position and started running back to another barricade, leaving the machine gun behind. Both Yag and Chac Lon saw it happening, and saw the opportunity.
"Now is the time!" Yag yelled to his kig-yar. "They're running, hunt them down!" The Ibie'shan pointed as he sprayed his assault rifle in the direction of the retreating humans. His squad advanced at a brisk jog, keeping their shields up as they peppered the retreating UNSC soldiers with fire.
Chac Lon was more aggressive. He vaulted to the ground and sprinted toward the retreating humans, dropping into the irrigation canal for cover. If they could knock out these human squads, it would break their lines wide open. That would let the kig-yar use their superior mobility to flank the humans, divide them up into small groups, and eliminate them. The T'vaoan ran forward, popping up out of the ditch to fire at the retreating humans. Hitting a moving target while running wasn't an easy task, but Chac Lon did manage to get one of the humans, and he was gaining on them.
Suddenly, he felt a light shock in his back, as his training equipment buzzed. He'd been shot, and was 'dead', but from who? As he slowed himself to a stop, Chac Lon heard gunshots behind him. A whole squad of humans was behind the kig-yar, in a perfect firing position. He watched as a UNSC soldier hip fired a machine gun into the back of Yag's squad, 'killing' half of them. The rest tried to turn around to meet the new threat, only to be shot by the 'retreating' humans who suddenly stopped their flight. Chac Lon hissed in anger; he'd fallen for the false retreat, one of the most basic tricks. How could he have been so stupid?
Dejected, Chac Lon put his hands up and began the walk of shame out of the training area. The humans, meanwhile, were celebrating. The one with the machine gun flexed his arms while yelling "Damn I'm good!" in an exaggerated voice. Quite a few more mocked the kig-yar. "Got you, turkeys! Fried chicken for lunch today!"
It didn't take long for the humans to take the objective from the kig-yar; in only a few minutes only five of them were 'alive', and the exercise was called. They hadn't done terrible; the humans as many casualties as Chac Lon's kig-yar in terms of numbers, but the UNSC had wiped out the opposition and seized the objective. Clearly a win for them.
The two groups split up to eat lunch; still no intermixing, but at least they were willing to sit within sight of each other by now. As he ate, Chac Lon saw Korhonen and A259 talking to the lieutenant colonel in charge of the UNSC forces. Doubtless the UNSC had drones and cameras observing the whole exercise, and the two had watched and were giving the human commander feedback. After a few minutes, the human commander made his way over to Chac Lon.
"Well, that was interesting." He said. "Bit different from fighting Covies, but a good refresher. You jackals ready to go again in a couple hours?"
"Ready if you humans are." Chac Lon responded, more interested in his ration than conversation with the human.
"Want me to give some of my people a break, even the odds a bit?" The lieutenant colonel asked, a smiled plastered on his face. Clearly he was looking forward to another easy win.
"No, but..." Chac Lon thought for a moment, before breaking into a smile of his own. "What time is sunset around here?"
2130, 26 September 2549
The last vestige of twilight was fading in the western sky, as Chac Lon and his kig-yar prepared for battle. As night fell, the kig-yar dispersed themselves in the woods around the training site, hidden deep enough in the brush to be invisible from prying human eyes.
The human commander had been canny enough to realize that Chac Lon suggested a night engagement to take advantage of the kig-yar's superior senses. Though his troops had some night vision equipment, there wasn't anywhere close to enough for everyone. Luckily it was unnecessary; the training compound was equipped with lights, hooked up to a generator half a kilometer away. From their hiding place in a brush filled gully, Chac Lon and his lieutenants could hear the low-frequency hum of the generator, and see the glow of the lights inside the complex. In order to enact their plan, they'd need to shut them down.
Technically, they hadn't been told the generator was inside the training area. But nobody had specifically told them it wasn't. (No, they hadn't asked.) Likely, the generator would be unmanned, or at worst guarded by one or two technicians. A single squad of kig-yar could get in there, shut it off, carefully disconnect the fuel and electrical lines, and be out in a few minutes. No problems, could be done completely without incident.
Well, there was one possible problem. What if whatever luckless soldier assigned to guard the generator didn't know about the exercise, and was armed? Any UNSC soldier's instinctive reaction to seeing a bunch of kig-yar sneaking up on them would be to start shooting. Despite this risk, six of the kig-yar had still volunteered to shut off the generator. All of them spoke human, hopefully well enough to confuse any guards long enough for the kig-yar to get in close and disarm them.
2150, 26 September 2549
Rear Admiral Korhonen sipped a can of cola as he watched the camera feed from one of the drones orbiting the training. He was disappointed that the vending machine was out of the non-diet version, but he needed the caffeine more than the flavor right now. With him was a collection of other UNSC officers, along with the two Spartans.
He, along with A259 and A173, were observing the jackals (though at the moment A173 was off discussing something with Smitson (who'd come along with Korhonen on this assignment). So far, Chac Lon's forces were behaving as expected from jackals; sitting in the woods and taking potshots at the UNSC soldiers inside the perimeter. They'd 'shoot' one soldier, make a bit of noise, then bolt when the UNSC returned fire. If this was real combat the UNSC would have shredded a whole bunch of leaves and saplings, but not much out. Korhonen wondered whether the jackals were trying to run the UNSC out of ammo or just stress them out. Spartan A259, 'Carter' had responded it was likely both.
Suddenly, from the drone feed, they saw the lights in the training area shut off. Odd. That hadn't been on the script. Korhonen and Carter looked at each other. The jackals were up to something.
Seconds later, they were proven right. "Sir, we're getting reports of Covenant at the generator!" One of the lieutenants manning a console yelled.
"What kind? How many?" Korhonen responded. "Patch me through."
"Yes, sir." The lieutenant flicked a few switches, and soon the voice of a scared private was being broadcast through the command center.
"It's the Covenant! They're here! I couldn't do anything, they tied my hands and took my weapon!"
"Calm down, soldier, talk to me. What do you see? Elites, jackals?" Korhonen figured this random soldier on guard duty wasn't cleared for the exercise, but more importantly, he had to make sure it wasn't actually the Covenant launching an attack. (Though the private not being dead was a pretty solid indication.)
"All jackals, they snuck up on me! Took my weapon right out of my hand and told me not to resist. There's six of them, I'm sorry! The rope's loose enough I could get to the radio but I don't know if I can untie myself!" Korhonen could hear chattering and squawking in the background, along with mechanical noises.
A groan rippled through the facility. Yep, it was them.
"Stay where you are soldier, stay calm and don't try to be a hero. Help is on the way."
Korhonen turned to Carter and Smitson. "Did anyone specifically tell them the generator was off limits?"
A few of the other officers nodded. Nobody had. Carter responded; "Admiral, in a real fight the Covenant wouldn't consider it off limits. Let the exercise run."
A good point, and one Korhonen agreed with. "Agreed, treat this like another training opportunity. And get a squad of security forces out there before that private has an emotional breakdown. Hopefully the jackals hadn't been too rough on the poor guy; Korhonen made a mental note to have someone get him a day or two on liberty.
2200, 26 September 2549
"Yath, you didn't shake him up too bad, did you?" Chac Lon asked. He trusted his subordinate, but injuring somehow who might not have even been part of the training exercise would get the humans very angry. Korhonen was probably going to have a chat with him anyway after the stunt they'd pulled, but Chac Lon could take that heat.
"The human will be fine. Need to wash his underclothes though." Yath laughed, and the rest of the kig-yar with him after a second.
"Let's get moving. I trust you hid those parts well, but the humans likely have spares. Time to get as many as we can while the lights are out."
They had divided themselves up into small groups of three or four, and spread themselves out around almost the whole perimeter of the training complex. Two teams of snipers were left behind; one under Thac Vol, and another under Tsan. Both experienced kig-yar with a lot of experience shooting in an 'urban' environment like this. Already they were picking off any humans unlucky enough to cross their sights.
Shutting off the lights made it more difficult to see for the kig-yar, just like for the humans. But there was enough sky showing that Ballast's two moons gave a bit of light, and kig-yar were blessed not only with better night vision than humans, but eyes that adapted to the darkness quicker.
Chac Lon still had his 'needle rifle', and the snipers were using their usual equipment. But a bunch of the other kig-yar swapped out their plasma pistols and needlers for shotguns. Even the assortment of older models they'd picked up in the black markets of Eayn was compatible with the training equipment, and in an 'urban' environment they'd be perfect for shooting through doors or across alleyways. Kig-yar couldn't use their shields and a shotgun at the same time (Chac Lon once saw Yath fire a shotgun one-handed as a gag; his wrist was sore for days and he didn't hit anything), but they wouldn't be doing much of that tonight.
He was at the edge of the treeline now, two other kig-yar with him. Off to his left he heard the sounds of gunfire coming from the woods; single aimed shots by his kig-yar. The humans fired back at the muzzle flashes, getting lucky and managing a single hit. Chac Lon used the distraction to sprint across the open space at the edge of the compound, crouching by the outer wall of one of the buildings before any of the humans saw him.
The UNSC forces had been reduced in size so they only had numerical parity with Chac Lon's kig-yar, and they didn't have nearly enough people to defend the entire complex without spreading themselves extremely thin. Their commander was intelligent enough to realize this and concentrated most of his forces around defending the major approaches to the central objective, but the tradeoff was that the kig-yar could move around the outer edges of the complex unseen.
The T'vaoan and his two compatriots crept through the shadows, moving through patches of overgrown grasses at the edge of an alleyway between buildings. As he did, he heard a radio message from one of the sniper teams; "End of street, right building, second floor. Four humans."
"Got it. Engaging." Chac Lon nudged the other two kig-yar and gestured at the target building, indicating the humans within. Another quick sprint, and he was at the bottom of it. Still no sign he'd been seen. A human squad would have had to go through the front door, but Chac Lon didn't have to worry about that. A quick jump, and he was perched on a narrow balcony above the alleyway. Another, and he grabbed onto the edge of the roof, pulling himself up. There was a small wall around three edges of the roof, barely high enough to hide him from view of the surrounding buildings. He flattened himself out, getting into cover before crawling over to the edge.
They weren't seen, but the humans had heard them. "They're here man! They're climbing up the walls!"
One of the other kig-yar started laughing, until Chac Lon quickly gestured across his throat. Hearing the human freak out like that was funny, but they had to hold it in for now. Below, the humans were still arguing.
"I'm going out there, gonna clean them out."
"No! You don't know how many there are, let them come to us. Sight in on the door and we'll shred them as they come in."
"You let them set up up there and they're going to start picking people off! Foxtrot just went down, you want them doing that to everyone?"
As they argued, the kig-yar sneaked over to the edge of the roof. Attacking through the door from the first floor roof to the inside was a non-starter; even if they hadn't overheard the humans it was the obvious point of entry. Instead, there were two windows on this side. They'd go in through there.
Chac Lon was the first one in. Swinging himself through the window, he didn't bother aiming, but just pointed his needle rifle in the general direction of the humans and held the trigger down. All of them were facing the wrong way, looking at the door instead of the windows.
As they started to turn toward the kig-yar, Chac Lon's momentum carried him forward, and he directed himself into the nearest human. The collision was brutal for the human. Kig-yar didn't weigh nearly as much as a sangheili or jiralhanae, but the human was unprepared (it also didn't help that Chac Lon swept one of his as he staggered backwards). They fell to the floor, the human landing on the bottom and the kig-yar on top.
Chac Lon's target was a tab on the back of the training harness; pull it out and the other guy was marked as 'dead'. As he grabbed for it, he briefly saw a look of pure terror on the human soldier's face, as his free hand instinctively went towards where his knife would have been sheathed. It was only there for a second, fading to anger as Chac Lon pulled out the tab and the human was startled back to reality, but it was unmistakable.
In barely a third of a minute all four humans were 'dead'. Aside from the one Chac Lon grappled with, the other three were 'killed' by the shotguns the other two kig-yar wielded. (Not only had the shotguns 'killed' three of the humans, but they ruined everyone's hearing.)
The human on the floor was by far the most shook up. Fortunately, he wasn't hurt, but he wasn't happy either. "Fucking lovely, just got groped by a fucking jackal. Gonna go take a long shower and scrub my fucking skin off." He stomped out angrily, shortly followed by his comrades, one of whom gave Chac Lon an apologetic shrug as he walked downstairs.
"You think we should get moving, boss? Humans know we're here." A few seconds after the humans left, one of the kig-yar nudged Chac Lon, who was still getting his ears back in order.
"Yes, gods know they heard you shooting. No, no, I'm not upset at you, just those things are damn loud. How do the humans use them without bleeding from their ears?"
"Don't think you're supposed to use them inside like this without your ears plugged."
"Huh, right."
They could dimly hear gunfire in another part of the complex, maybe one or two streets away. Possibly another squad of humans getting taken out. Or one of the groups of kig-yar was seen crossing an open area and got massacred. Could have been either.
"Thac Vol, you have any more targets for me?" The teams of snipers back in the woods had a better view of the whole situation than Chac Lon did here in a building, and besides with their optics they could see pretty well in the dark.
"One block northwest, six or seven humans. Looks like you've picked off all their pickets and they're clumping up."
That would make things more difficult. "Do you have an angle on them if I get them outside?"
"Yeah, we have shots on the street outside."
"Got it."
This would be riskier, but fun. Chac Lon poked his head out into the street, and looked for cover. He'd need something to force to humans to come outside and flush him out. A bit farther down he saw an immobile Warthog chassis, stripped of useful parts but still useful as cover. He jogged over to it, gesturing at the other two kig-yar to remain behind. They could cover the doors and windows on the humans' building from where they were, but Chac Lon was the only one that had to go out to be bait.
"Come on out and face me you cowards! I've seen unggoy fresh off the nipple who fought harder than you!"
He saw two humans poke their guns out the windows and fire in Chac Lon's general direction, but nobody actually came out to face him. After throwing a few more insults at the humans with no response, Chac Lon realized he'd been talking in kig-yar the entire time. To the humans it must have sounded like a bunch of incomprehensible screeching. And he didn't know enough about these specific humans to know what to say in human language to get them riled up. Short of saying something about how the Covenant was right to glass all them, and that would be far over the line of acceptable behavior. Not to mention it'd probably get him beaten to a pulp.
Alright, time for a backup plan. Lying on the ground, Chac Lon saw a couple rocks, along with some rusted out parts from the scrapped Warthog he was hiding behind. Hefting a small rock, he picked it up and threw it at one of the windows of the human building. It bounced off the wall a bit away from his target, clattering off the concrete wall. His next throw ricocheted off the edge of the windowsill.
A couple more rocks got the humans' attention. Chac Lon heard them yelling about something, but he couldn't make out exactly what. He stood up and fired a few shots at the human building to sweeten the deal. Hopefully they'd see the muzzle flash and come to get him.
And they did. Four UNSC soldiers spilled out of the doorway, quickly splitting into two pairs to flank around both sides of the Warthog and kill Chac Lon. The first shot from Thac Vol's sniper team hit a human barely three meters from the door. Two more were down as they got halfway to Chac Lon's hiding spot. The fourth could have made it if he kept running. But he faltered, stopped for a moment, then tried to get back inside. He was 'killed' easily.
"Shit!" One of the humans swore. "Knew you were a distraction, but I thought it was for a bunch of your buddies coming in the back. Thought we could kill your squad while you split up, not that you were bait for the snipers! Now most of us are out."
The T'vaoan laughed. "I've been told my kind is pretty good at that. Now, if you don't, I've got to go clear out your buddies inside there." He gestured at the building.
The human cringed, realizing the information he'd revealed. "Great job idiot, good thing real Covies don't speak English." his squadmate muttered under his breath, as they walked out of the training area.
It took another forty-five minutes, and half their number, but Chac Lon's kig-yar took the objective. Not the result the UNSC commander had been hoping for; naturally he protested about the generator being cut off, but his complaints went unheeded. The important thing was the Korhonen and the Spartans got a lot of good information on how kig-yar fought, and how to fight them. As well as where the UNSC could do better. (Chac Lon was more than happy to point out where his kig-yar did well.)
Hopefully, the exercise also made the UNSC soldiers a bit less afraid of the Covenant's jackals, even if they never worked with Chac Lon's group again. And if they did operate with non-Covenant jackals again, this experience might keep them from killing each other at the first chance they got. At the very least, it was good that nobody had gotten killed or hurt more than a couple cuts and scrapes.