Another chapter. The UNSC and (another) faction of the Covenant work together for the first time, and Escape from High Charity continues. (Honestly, not-343 could get a lot out of the canon schism/fall of High Charity if they wanted to. But I digress.)
I'm not amazingly satisfied with the dialogue in the first part, but sitting here staring at it for another week isn't going to make it any better.
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.
2100, 23 August 2550
Iota Horologii, Surface of Forerunner Installation, Near Control Center of the Installation
"Kig-yar, you should know that while I will tolerate this arrangement, I am not pleased by it."
"And you should know that I've been around your kind enough that I'm not blind to your emotions. I also know you have enough brain behind those four jaws to know working with me and the humans is your only shot at getting off this ring alive."
The gold-armored sangheili groaned resignedly, and Chac Lon allowed himself to smirk for a moment. He couldn't resist needling the sangheili after all the interactions he'd had with that species over his career as a pirate. And now was one of the few times the kig-yar truly had the upper hand in the interaction. Of course, Spartan-005 standing a dozen paces behind them were really in charge. He said he was here to provide "support and liaison", but both the kig-yar and sangheili knew he was there to deal with anyone who got out of line.
Getting the sangheili to listen to the humans had been hard enough. At least the suggestion of putting them under Chac Lon's command was quickly vetoed. While it would have fed his ego quite nicely, Chac Lon wasn't dumb enough to think it would work for even a second. Before they even made it out of the mysterious control room the T'vaoan would have gotten blade through his chest.
The kig-yar and sangheili, along with the supervising Spartan and the sangheilis' unggoy subordinates, were deployed in one of the approaches to the control room structure deep within the mountain. (The human contingent of the UNSC was protecting the entrance they had used to make their way to the control room.) A short walk away from the control room, the passage opened up into a large room full of alcoves and pillars, and the Spartan had decided they would make their defense there. Since half of Chac Lon's kig-yar were T'vaoan skirmishers and the rest were too few to make a good shield wall, he had sent them to various alcoves and ledges high up near the ceiling, to snipe at any invaders coming through the far entrance. The sangheili and unggoy stayed low, but were at least smart enough to get into cover behind various pillars and other features of the inscrutable Forerunner architecture.
But the Covenant had not arrived yet. So, for some reason, Chac Lon had gotten it into his head he should go chat up the sangheili. Intentionally annoying someone three heads taller than you and twice your weight probably wasn't the smartest idea in the galaxy, but it was far from the dumbest thing Chac Lon had ever done.
Eventually, the sangheili grew tired of Chac Lon's poor attempts at humor, and turned the conversation in a more serious direction.
"Tell me this, kig-yar; what will you do once this war is over? Have you resigned yourself to serving the humans for the rest of your life? Or do you hope that today will be enough to make the Covenant overlook your previous indiscretions?" Before Chac Lon could answer, the sangheili continued. "Don't play coy with me, Chac Lon. I was briefed on your file, and by rights the Covenant could have executed you seven times over."
"Only seven times? Are you sure that was the complete file? Sorry, I'm joking again." The T'vaoan paused. "I've had quite a lot of time to think about that the last several months, but I don't think you will like the answer."
"I doubt it will be the worst news I have heard today." The gold-armored sangheili grumbled.
"The kig-yar have never been tightly joined to the Covenant. Why should we be part of it at all? The kig-yar will be better off free, able to make their own way in the galaxy. And the Covenant splintering itself to pieces is the best opportunity in centuries to make it happen."
"And what makes you think your kind is fit to govern themselves? Doubtless you kig-yar will go crawling to the jiralhanae once-"
"No! Not while I'm alive." Chac Lon hissed.
"Your file mentioned this." The sangheili said, seemingly amused. "But still, your kind are naturally greedy and selfish. What keeps the kig-yar from dissolving into a hundred petty warlords that the Covenant or humans simply squash when they get the chance? And besides, what will you do once the slipspace drives we gave you burn out?"
"The kig-yar made it to the stars before the Covenant showed up, we can do it again. Who knows, in another decade or two, maybe we would have had our own slipspace drives. Imagine, thousands of independent freelancers and pirates spread across the galaxy, evading the Covenant's yoke! There's no way you could ever have caught all of us." Chac Lon mused. "Your hierarchs must have known the humans would do the same, right? Even if you found their home world like I did there would be countless small colonies on moons and asteroids all across the galaxy. You could never have found all of them."
"I have begun to realize the Prophets' folly these last few hours. But I still doubt the kig-yar have the moral capacity to lead themselves. And even if they did, why should they follow you? There must be hundreds more kig-yar with more wealth and renown on High Charity alone, and I doubt your friendship with the humans will be enough to prop you up as a figurehead. If you would even settle for that."
"And when I get the knowledge to make slipspace drives off some greedy human shipbuilder and become the sole supplier of slipspace drives for all kig-yar? Then use the profits to control a nice piece of the gambling houses and alcohol dealers?" Chac Lon smiled. "I'm not so foolish as to think I'll get all kig-yar to follow me based on loyalty to ideas. But loyalty to money? I will find enough to keep us from being overrun by one of the many factions the Covenant splinters into? That's possible."
"Yet you are foolish enough to say this with the Demon within earshot." The sangheili gestured toward the Spartan standing impassively behind them.
"The humans know I'm a kig-yar, and I know they know." Chac Lon responded. "There's no point in trying to hide it from them. And think about it from their perspective; would they rather have someone they know how to deal with in charge, or have my kind go running into the arms of some Covenant faction or the jiralhanae?"
"As you say." Chac Lon doubted the sangheili was actually agreeing with him; it looked more like a signal to end the conversation.
They stood in awkward silence for a few more minutes. Eventually, Chac Lon excused himself to go check on how his kig-yar were doing. He was starting to feel hungry, and if he was then they probably were too. Suddenly, an alarm sounded, from one of the sensors that had been placed further out toward the entrance of the complex. The Covenant was back.
It took a few more minutes before the sangheili and kig-yar saw the first sign of the enemy. The sole entrance to the far end of the room was a single unlit hallway; wide enough for two jiralhanae to stand side by side, but still a choke point. Every weapon, including Chac Lon's battle rifle, was trained on the entrance. All that is heard is indistinct chattering, before the hallway suddenly lights up with a blue glow.
A dozen unggoy rushed forward, screaming at the top of their lungs as they carried lit plasma grenades. Chac Lon was momentarily shocked; he'd heard of the Covenant using their unggoy this way, but it was still astonishing. Behind him, Spartan-005 was not shocked at all. He'd seen this tactic before fighting on human colonies, and knew how to deal with it. Yelling 'Fire in the hole!', the Spartan tossed a single fragmentation grenade overhand into the line of oncoming unggoy. It skipped off the floor and detonated just inside the entrance to the hallway, barely a meter in front of the first pair of unggoy.
The first pair of unggoy died instantly; the next two were grievously wounded and stumbled, dropping their live grenades. A second later, eight plasma grenades detonated, triggering a massive chain reaction among the remaining unggoy. A wave of hot air swept out of the passageway, buffering the entrenched kig-yar and sangheili.
One of Chac Lon's kig-yar laughed at the attack; "Idiots, what did they think was going to happen." The sangheili were less amused. "The real attack will come next." Chac Lon heard one of them mutter. "That was just an attempt to see if they could get rid of us with disposable unggoy. The real attack will come soon." The red-armored sangheili says. If any of the unggoy in their force object to being described as 'disposable', they didn't voice their objections.
The next thing the kig-yar and sangheili heard from the hallway was the sound of metal scraping on metal. Out of the scorched, blood spattered hallway emerges a column of jiralhanae, two wide. The first three jiralhanae in each column were carrying metal shields, tall enough for them to crouch behind. As soon as the first pair became visible, Chac Lon opened fire, along with every other kig-yar and sangheili in the room. But the shields, made of starship-grade alloy, easily deflected the rounds from UNSC guns and even absorbed shots from plasma rifles without protest. After a few bursts, Chac Lon switched to shooting the wall and floor near the jiralhanae. Hopefully the fragments from his rounds would bounce behind the shields and at least slow the jiralhanae down.
It is the unggoy attached to kig-yar and sangheili who scored the first kills against the jiralhanae column. Two of the unggoy wielded fuel rod cannons, and they emptied their magazines into the advancing jiralhanae, killing two and severely wounding a third. Return fire from the advancing jiralhanae killed both of them before they would reload, and the advancing column simply stepped over their dead comrades. As the first of them made it out of the passage, they broke into a run, charging toward the sangheili on ground level.
With their improvised shields, energy shielding, hefty personal armor, and natural resilience, it was a good tactic for the jiralhanae. In theory, the sheer violence and suddenness of the attack would break the sangheili defensive positions, and allow them to be overwhelmed piecemeal. They had not accounted for two problems; the kig-yar perched above, and the presence of a Spartan.
Chac Lon aimed his battle rifle at one of the charging jiralhanae, and fired, hitting it in the back of its head and neck. The three 9.5mm rounds simply impacted on its shields; the jiralhanae barely noticed. But he was under fire from four other kig-yar, and he was quickly hit by more than a dozen other rounds from both rifles and submachine guns. The shields faltered, and the jiralhanae stumbled as bullets started hitting his armor and exposed flesh. A second burst from Chac Lon hit the jiralhanae in the back, and it tripped forward as fragments hit its lungs and spine. As it fell to the floor, its life was ended by fire from half a dozen sangheili plasma rifles.
Meanwhile, the Spartan engaged one of the other charging brutes on his own. Stepping out from behind cover, he presented quite the target; all the jiralhanae wanted the glory that came with killing one of the Demons. One of the jiralhanae dropped his shield and blindly charged at the Spartan, who calmly stood his ground as he pulled out his shotgun. At the last moment, the human warrior dodged of the way. Before the charging alien could react, Spartan-005 fired his shotgun point blank, obliterating its shields and sending pellets through armor and flesh. The second shell barely a second and a half later was more than enough to kill the jiralhanae.
Despite this, there were still thirteen of jiralhanae left, to say nothing of the file of kig-yar whose shields were now visible in the hallway. The combat quickly devolved into several melees at extremely close range, just as the jiralhanae intended. From his perch, Chac Lon kept firing, now not even bothering to look down the scope of his rifle. He watched as a single jiralhanae violently killed four unggoy, shrugging off the shots from their plasma pistols as it crushed them into paste. Another grappled with a sangheili minor, breaking its shields before firing a pistol-like weapon into the sangheili's stomach twice, killing it.
But the fighting was not one-sided. The gold-armored leader of the sangheili effortlessly beheaded one jiralhanae, before dodging the attacks of two more and ripping both their guts' open with his blade. Another fell to the butt of the Spartan's shotgun, its helmet caved in by an unexpected blow. Chac Lon was finishing off a jiralhanae minor when he caught sight of a flash of pink to his left. One of the Covenant kig-yar had sighted in on him and fired a burst of needles in his direction. There was only one way for him to dodge; Chac Lon jumped to the floor below, easily absorbing the impact with his legs. The needles passed harmlessly by, but now the T'vaoan was in the middle of the brawl. At least he kept a hold of his rifle.
Standing up, Chac Lon squeezed off a burst at one of the Covenant kig-yar at the far end of the room. The enemy was turned to face one of the sangheili, and half his body was unprotected by his shields. All three rounds from the burst hit the enemy and he dropped to the floor. This attracted the attention of two of the other Covenant kig-yar, who crouched behind their shields and started rapid-firing their plasma pistols in Chac Lon's direction. As he jumped out of the way out of the surprisingly accurate plasma , Chac Lon felt a sudden, sharp sensation of heat on his right hand and arm, and reflexively dropped his rifle.
Hissing in pain, he glanced at his hand. There was no permanent damage, but he saw that the front third of his rifle was melted into a gooey, misshapen mess. Cursing, he threw it away from himself. All he had left now was his personal sidearm, and the energy daggers built into his armor. Chac Lon was again thankful that the UNSC had let him keep his own armor, instead of trying to force him into a bastardized version of what they gave their own humans.
To his right, Chac Lon saw a red-armored sangheili fighting two jiralhanae. It had already killed a third with its energy sword, but the other two jiralhanae were higher ranking and clearly pushing the sangheili to his limit. For a moment, Chac Lon thought about using his pistol. But the 8.5x24mm rounds would be essentially useless against an armored jiralhanae, even if they weren't shielded.
Chac Lon activated the energy daggers on his armor, and rammed his right hand into the back of the larger jiralhanae's knee. As the brute screamed in pain, Chac Lon jerked his hand to the side as hard as he could, ripping the dagger out the side of the leg. The jiralhanae fell to the ground, roaring in pain. It tried to reach for its unseen assailant, but the sangheili stabbed its sword through its mouth, ending its pain.
The other jiralhanae glanced over, shocked at his comrades' sudden death. "Miserable worm! I will crush you!" He shouted, as he swiped the blades of his spiker at Chac Lon. Chac Lon barely dodged, feeling a rush of air go by as the spiker passed centimeters from his face. Ducking below the jiralhanae's strike, he lashed out with his wrist mounted dagger, catching the jiralhanae in the ribs and cutting a gash into the flesh. But it was the sangheili who delivered the killing blow, as he pulled out his sword from the other jiralhanae and plunged it into the others' chest. The sangheili briefly locked eyes with the T'vaoan, and nodded almost imperceptibly.
Their momentum broken, the surviving Covenant did their best to retreat back out of the chamber in good order. They did not succeed. The dozen or so surviving Covenant kig-yar and unggoy turned to flee as soon as the Spartan and sangheili forcefully advanced on them, throwing down their weapons and running as fast as they could for the exit. Only two of the kig-yar made it out. All three of the surviving jiralhanae stood and fought, managing to take down a sangheili minor and wound one of the kig-yar before perishing under an overwhelming weight of fire.
While the UNSC and their allies won, the battle was far from bloodless. Three of Chac Lon's kig-yar were dead, and two more were wounded enough they might never fight again. All the rest of them had at least minor wounds, though for Chac Lon and a few others they weren't anything that would seriously hold them back. A third of the sangheili were dead as well, though a few of them, such as the gold-armored commander, were completely unscathed; as much due to their better shielding as their superior skill in combat. Naturally, the Spartan was untouched.
25 August 2550, Central Portion of the Lower Districts, Covenant Holy City of High Charity
Three days ago, Rtas 'Vadumee would have been appalled by the filthiness of this part of the lower districts. Truth be told, he still was. But since the start of the civil war on High Charity two days ago, he had much bigger concerns. Chief among them was how to get himself and his sangheili off this cursed station.
It was clear from the last two days that the jiralhanae's takeover of the station was well planned. They clearly outnumbered the sangheili, and made use of their numbers and surprise to eliminate many high ranking and capable sangheili commanders. The survivors were left leaderless and spread out across the station. 'Vadumee, his special operations sangheili, and councilors had not run into any groups bigger than lance size, though there were rumors that resistance was consolidating further down in the station. They had encountered jiralhanae multiple times, and even a group of kig-yar bandits who took potshots at them from range. 'Vadumee had done the best he could to keep them out of trouble, but one of "his" special operations troops and two of the councilors had fallen in the last two days.
Most of the sangheili he'd run into had chosen to stay and fight on High Charity. Only one small group of seven had decided to join him; counting them, himself, his four special operations sangheili, and the eleven surviving councilors, there were twenty-three of them in their ad-hoc company.
Most of the civilians were staying out of the way of the combatants, just trying to keep their head down and survive until the fighting passed. 'Vadumee and his group were interacting with them as little as possible; thankfully they had found a supply cache a few hours after leaving the upper districts and had not had to "requisition" food or water from civilians. To sink to that level would have been a disgrace. Not to mention even 'fancy' kig-yar or unggoy food was unpalatable, let alone the slop they ate in the lower districts.
Still, the central question remained; how to keep the councilors safe, and get them off High Charity? There was no word from any of the other councilors on the station, so as far as 'Vadumee knew they were the highest ranking sangheili left. As requested, Thalo 'Malokee had looked for a suitable ship and indeed had found one, the Wik-pattern destroyer Quiescent State, docked only two hours' travel from where they were now. But not half an hour before a skeleton crew of sangheili attempted to flee High Charity in it, only to be shot down by one of the jiralhanae-crewed ships in the fleets outside. 'Vadumee was horrified to hear that more than two-thirds of the vessels assigned to High Charity were destroyed, and even more had fled, crippled. The survivors randomly patrolled in small groups organized by species.
Even more concerning was that something had shaken the entire station a few minutes ago. A long, slow vibration; not enough to do (more) damage to the buildings up here, but the sangheili could feel it in their bones. What could make a station the size of High Charity shake like that?
As they continued deeper into the lower levels, 'Vadumee was tense. Something felt off, like they were being watched. Going down a spiral ramp, he saw a slight discontinuity, a shape that was out of place behind a nearby barricade. He kept walking for a few seconds, then whipped out his carbine and pointed it at the barricade.
"Show yourself!" 'Vadumee yelled. To his surprise, an unarmed kig-yar stood up, hands raised above her head.
"Just so you know, I've got two snipers aiming at your head! I don't want to fight, but if you kill me you won't last six more heartbeats! We're just trying to get to our ship and get off this gods-damned station! Just leave us alone!"
'Vadumee was inwardly tempted to shoot the impudent creature for its insolence, but he knew his shields would be hard pressed to hold up against two beam rifle shots. (It was improbable both the snipers had gotten their hands on those weapons, but he could not take the risk.) As he slowly inched toward cover, he hard the rest of his group raising their own weapons. But before anyone fired, he was surprised to hear Thalo 'Malokee speak.
"How many are in your group, kig-yar? Only three of you will not be able to survive the journey through the lower levels." He said, as he stepped into the open.
"Nine. But three are children and one is too old to fight." The kig-yar seemed to deflate, what little bravado she had was gone.
"We outnumber them more than two to one. Why have we not destroyed these fools?" One of the councilors growled, but 'Vadumee held his hand up to silence him. 'Malokee had a good head on his shoulders, and the special operations commander was willing to trust his subordinate had an idea to get them out of this situation.
"Tell me of this ship." 'Malokee continued, ignoring the hubbub behind him. 'Vadumee immediately recognized where his subordinate was going with this. In exchange for passage off High Charity, the sangheili would escort the kig-yar to their vessel. Not a normal arrangement between the species, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
"She's a gas hauler, docked in a hidden umbilical lower down in the spires. Named Brother of Commerce, got her secondhand off some pirate in Eayn nine cycles ago. Not the flashiest ship but I'm her mistress and I love her." Clearly taking pride in her vessel, the kig-yar was smiling now. 'Vadumee also saw that the rest of their group was showing themselves. Three Ibie-shan and six Ruuhtians; as the shipmistress had said three of them looked barely half grown and one of the Ibie-shan was missing half arm and walking hunched over.
"And I assume you have made some modifications to this vessel in order to 'facilitate trade', maybe to make her more evasive or harder to detect?" 'Malokee asked, feigning innocence.
"Maybe?" The shipmistress responded evasively.
"If you assist us we may be able to ...overlook... past indiscretions." One of the councilors helpfully added.
"She had modified drives and a jamming suite salvaged off a Zanar-pattern cruiser. Oh, and the gas holds are modified with a false interior to hold extra passengers."
"Hmmm, interesting." 'Malokee acted as though he was deep in thought for a moment. "Commander, what do you think?" He asked 'Vadumee.
"Kig-yar, I am willing to work with you, under one condition. We must travel to as specific location, which my superior specified in case of a contingency such as this. After that, if we have no more need of your vessel, you and your kind may leave and forget this ever happened." 'Vadumee said, addressing the shipmistress.
Before leaving on his mission, fleetmaster Thel 'Vadamee had provided Rtas 'Vadumee with a fallback location to meet him at in the event something went horribly wrong. An out of the way, nearly deserted system; one of his sangheili had been there years ago on an anti-piracy patrol, but other than that the Covenant rarely visited. Perfect for a situation like this. Even if 'Vadamee hadn't made it there it would give them space and time to plan before meeting up with other sangheili forces.
At first the councilors and some of the other sangheili were skeptical; why not head right to Sanghelios? Surely it would be best to defend their home world and gather their strength. Fortunately, 'Vadamee's name carried respect, and they agreed to follow 'Vadumee once they saw it was the fleetmaster's plan. If he suggested it, they were willing to play along.
"I imagine I won't get a better deal. As long as I get off this damned place without being torn to pieces by a pack of starving unggoy." The kig-yar exhaled, a weight off her shoulders. 'Vadumee could tell it wasn't her ideal option, but it was better than what she had before.
"If we're going to work together, we should at least learn each others' names. Shipmistress Valat, at your service."
0230, 25 August 2550, Aboard UNSC Targhee, Near Installation 04, Iota Horologii System
"This room is clean. You're sure of that? No bugs."
"You know as well as I do that AI can listen in on anything it wants to. So I did it old school. Maintenance crews cut every wired connection leading into this room, and set up fans outside to mask any audio that could leak. Only electronic thing in here is this battery powered flashlight."
Captain Robert Sakai, commander of the UNSC Targhee, and Rear Admiral Titus stood in a cramped storage closet deep in the bowels of the Targhee. The admiral (and ONI officer) had requested roughly 16 hours before that Sakai meet him in an "electronically dead" part of the Targhee. It was an odd request; if he was worried about Colter listening in Sakai could simply have told him not to listen (or worst case used one of the failsafe codes), and Titus had control over any ONI personnel present.
Sakai soon figured it out. The one thing they couldn't stop from listening to them was the AI on the ring below. Likely the same floating blue orb the ground teams encountered, it was friendly for now, but clearly intelligent. And, in the assessment of the people on the ground, unpredictable. Potentially an even bigger situation than the increasingly complex situation with the Covenant.
"You've been briefed on what we've found out about the purpose of this ring. What that AI, Guilty Spark, told us. Do you believe it?" Titus asked Sakai.
"It seems farfetched, but we don't have anything that proves it wrong. Even if it's not true, that ring is an immense technological find. One we can't let fall into the hands of the Covenant." Sakai had an idea where the ONI admiral was heading with the conversation.
"Good, you understand." Titus said, smiling slightly. "We can't keep both cruisers here indefinitely. One of the prowlers is already on its way back to Reach with information about this installation, but once the situation on the ground is stabilized I intend to detach the Pillar of Autumn to return with what we've salvaged."
"I'll be hard pressed to hold against a Covenant fleet with a single cruiser."
"I've already ordered the Autumn's special weapons to be transferred to your vessel. Besides, if the conflict within the Covenant has spread beyond this system they'll have bigger fish to fry the next few days. Still, I'm ordering you to take the Targhee in close to the ring once the Autumn departs. Say what you need to to that AI to get him to let you in close, but if the Covenant arrives in force and you are unable to repel them -"
"I'll do what I have to." Sakai cut off Titus; it was clear what he was asking. "Are you sure it will work? I doubt these 'Forerunners' skimped on building this ring."
"Getting in atmosphere and close to the surface will significantly increase the coupling and transfer of energy to the ring structure itself. I had my people run a few hand calculations and they're confident it will work with some margin." Titus paused. "I know you know what I'm asking. I wouldn't unless I really thought it was necessary."
"Understood." Sakai responded. "I've been lucky to last this long, my ship and I will do what we have to do."