Chapter 10 – Viribus
(6th Cycle, 26 Units - Covenant Battle Calendar), 9th Age of Reclamation
Epsilon Eridani System, In Atmosphere over human world of Reach
Aboard SDV-class Corvette Holy Dispersion
:********:
Zin was ready.
He had chosen the best route into the brig, the best being the only way in that wouldn't see him and Ugug shot to pieces. The way they were using would let them keep their distance until they could figure out who was friendly and who wasn't.
After surviving the initial shootout, they had made their way to the upper decks, coming to the corridor that lay between the bridge and the plasma battery. There they passed into an entryway off to the side of the passage. The doors led them into a room which contained another of the Dispersion's lifts, one that would grant them straight access to the brig just a few decks below. The Sangheili loved to use it to descend into the Jiralhanae's den without having to get too close to the jailers themselves. They could lower a prisoner inside then toss them to their new hosts before making a speedy and spiteful withdrawal. Zin's main concern, however, was making sure that the Jiralhanae weren't able to get a good shot at him. The plan was to stop the lift once it was halfway into the brig then peer down at the jailers. That way, he could assess the situation with some measure of safety, and if worse came to worse, escape with little issue.
Ugug was guarding the doors to the room, watching for any dangerous passerby. Meanwhile, Zin was at an access terminal that emitted from a projector lens near the center of the space. Right in front of him lay the sealed descent shaft of the lift. He was sifting through the flurry of glyphs, searching for the one that would call up their ride when the shaft suddenly opened on its own.
That was odd, he thought. He didn't remember activating it yet.
The paneling of the floor slid apart to unveil an ascending platform. Zin froze. His hesitation lasted only a second before he was scrambling over to Ugug.
"Run!"
Ugug was quick on the uptake and ran after him. They dashed out of the room and hid on either side of the doors. In fear, they peered back inside from the safety of the corridor.
The lift rose into sight and so did its occupants. There were over a dozen of them, though they weren't Jiralhanae or even Sangheili.
They were humans.
Imps.
The handful of black armored shock troopers briefly held their position on the platform, checking the room before they began to disembark. Zin's frantic mind was quick to understand why they were here, glancing down the corridor in the direction of the bridge. He spotted the doors' security terminal near Ugug. He tried signaling him to seal it shut but his friend refused to relent, his legs quaking at the presence of the enemy. With no other options Zin tried to inch towards it.
Then he heard Ugug's quivering breath rise to a squeal. "It's them! It's them!"
The troopers whirled towards them with their weapons. Zin broke into a run. He dashed the rest of the way past the threshold though not before bullets sputtered through the doors. One of them struck his gas tank and twirled him around, tossing him over. He landed on his stomach but managed to fall to the other side of the doors, safely out of range.
Ugug was cowering against the wall. He clutched his head at the gunfire shooting past.
Zin took out his plasma pistol. Shoving his friend aside, he shot back through the doors, not aiming at anything but simply trying to keep the humans at bay. It seemed to work as he heard a commotion inside that preceded a lessening in the gunfire. Then a bullet zipped by his hand, barely grazing it so that he almost dropped his weapon as he pulled back.
"Ug!" He shouted.
Ugug peered through his fingers at him.
"Keep them back! I need to close the doors!"
After hesitating, Ugug nodded and unfolded himself from his own fearful embrace. He inched towards the doors and tried to peek inside. A burst of fire whipped past his head and he reeled back. His ragged breaths shifted from fear to a building rage that exploded into action. Ugug whirled back around the doors and fired inside with renewed purpose, letting off a trigger-happy spray of bolts at anything that moved.
Zin got to work on the terminal. He maneuvered through the security clearances before reaching the lockdown sequence he was searching for. He pressed the necessary glyph. To his relief, the terminal responded in kind and the doors began cycling shut.
Fast footsteps approached from the other side.
Zin felt a shock of fear pin him in place. However, at the last second, Ugug gave a loud cry and rushed out in front of the threshold. He stood in the way and fired with reckless abandon. And the humans fired back.
Zin watched bullet after bullet tear through his friend. Ugug kept shooting, ignoring the bursts of blue blood that splattered his face, until his shots went skyward as he finally toppled back.
"UG!"
Not waiting for the doors to close, Zin rushed towards him, firing through the entrance at the black figures making a run for the threshold. None of his bolts landed. He was too angry, too enraged and terrified to aim, merely squeezing the trigger to reach his friend through the rain of bullets. Nearly there he felt a sharp stab in his stomach and another in his shoulder that knocked him over. He landed next to Ugug. The doors saved his life once they sealed shut, locking away the humans with a hiss of mechanical reinforcement.
Zin balked at his wounds. He'd been hit in the arm and the side. Both were bleeding. He gasped at the pain and struggled to control his breathing. His attention soon shifted to his fellow Unggoy.
Ugug was worse and yet better off. Worse in that he was bleeding from head to toe. Better in that he couldn't feel any of it. His head sagged against the floor, his eyes partly shut, it was clear to Zin that his friend couldn't feel anything at all. He still tried to shake him awake but there was no response.
Tears stung at the corners of his eyes. Circumstance stopped him from mourning. The whir of mechanics made him turn again to the doors. Instead of red, the indicator lights were flickering blue. The shock troopers were trying to reopen it from the inside. From the look of it, they were succeeding.
Zin searched frantically for an escape. Either end of the corridor was too far away. He would be gunned down before he was out of sight. In the middle of his panic, he spotted a maintenance hatch on the wall and made a run for it.
He slipped through the small energy barrier, allowing him to fall into the crawl space inside. He slid into the dark recesses of the passage where he waited to see what would happen.
The indicator lights on the doors transitioned from a glimmer to a stable blue. They cycled apart, giving way for several troopers to rush out and clear the passage. More came after them. They passed by Ugug before continuing a watchful advance in the direction of the bridge.
Zin weighed the idea of coming out behind them. He imagined himself shooting them in the back. Watching a few of them drop to his bolts would have been better than the inner torment he felt at seeing them walk away. It would have been better than watching Ugug's blood drain across the floor unavenged.
He did nothing.
Soon even the humans' footsteps were too distant to distinguish from the natural clamor of the corvette. The only sounds he could detect were those of his grasping hands and shallow breaths as he crawled further down the maintenance tunnel.
His mind screamed at him to turn back, to fight. His body, or rather the Unggoy within, refused to listen or slow its escape into the Dispersion's innards.
:********:
The Staff would have preferred a nice, easy clearing of the hangar from a reserved distance. It would've been better than the mini-shock operation he was doing now. Nevertheless, it gave his shotgun a chance to lighten its load into the chest, leg and face of every Covenant ugly he came across.
Once the ODSTs gained a foothold in the bay, Garrison wasted no time pressing against the corvette's crew. They were making headway. It was slow work at first as 1st Platoon swept right across the edges of the hangar while 2nd Platoon went left, leaving 6th Platoon to push through the center. Their trident maneuver was made more manageable thanks to three factors. First was the wholesale extermination of most of the Drones. Second was the elimination of a few of the more annoying Hunter pairs by concentrated fire. Third was the destruction of those shades and turrets at the center that had held them back for several minutes already. All was accomplished through a varied use of SPNKR rockets and a singling out of harder, more maneuverable targets with sniper fire.
"Move in!" Garrison called over comms. "Take those flanks, roll them back!"
The order came just as 1st Platoon was chasing a group of pesky Grunts through aisles of defense barriers. The little gasmask wearing menaces were putting up a good fight, routinely popping out to take undisciplined but persistent potshots at those coming after them.
Epsilon went through the barricades on the right side while Whiskey went left, putting the former closer to the bay doors and the latter to the center of the bay. Epsilon found less cover to work with as the number of barriers diminished the further they went. The defensive line eventually gave way to a small opening that came just before a cluster of tall plasma coils. The ominous blue glow of the cannisters was an immediate red flag. Epsilon halted behind the last barriers on their side, wary of the cylinders and searching for a way around them. The retreating Grunts didn't share their hesitation. Half a dozen back-pedaled straight towards them while laying down thick suppression fire on their pursuers.
The squad waited until their targets began slipping through the group of coils before they emerged. Bullets showered the gas tanks of their fleeing quarry and the coils, breaching both to create a white-hot chain reaction. The canisters detonated in plumes of ionized gas joined by the fiery methane of ruptured gas tanks and several short-lived screams. Limbs landed against the barriers as burning metal rained upon the troopers.
The Staff was the first to forge onward. Out the corner of his eye he saw Whiskey doing the same, all the while treating a group of retreating Jackals to the courtesy of their rifles.
The platoon advanced through the smoking aftermath of the explosions towards the next checkpoint; the support pillar of one of the elevated platforms. Atop it, a crew of Jackal snipers were letting loose a constant stream of needlers onto those troopers fighting through the center. Right below them and beside the pillar, a shade turret made itself known by unleashing a deluge of plasma on the arriving platoon. Simultaneously two Elites moved around from the other side of the support to give their own plasma rifles a say in the fight.
Ducking and weaving through the spray of bolts, the platoon slid, leapt and tossed themselves behind the next defense barriers and crates. They returned fire merely to find that they were more hard-pressed than they thought. A plasma turret from across the main bay ripped into their cover with ruthless accuracy. The bellicose Grunt behind it had a good flanking position. It created a crossfire that forced a few to hide where they could, leaving some exposed from the front. The shade took notice and moved to take advantage, using a swift rotation to align its barrels with Epsilon's squad leader.
With his DMR, The Staff got off the first shot, striking the energy shields around the Elite's head in a race against time. Then a miracle: both the gunner's shields and helmet exploded. The long echo of a 14.5-millimeter round reached the Staff's ears as the Elite toppled out of its seat.
A second round flashed across the main bay and through the skull of the other gunner, silencing the last turret just as fast.
The two squads reengaged, this time finishing off the pair of Elites by the pillar. The Staff looked over his shoulder in the direction of his two saviors. Atop the rightmost platform Mackley and Lang lay prone with their SRS-99s shouldered and their bipods laid out. The posting gave them the best view of the bay as it did for the sniper pairs leveraging the other platform and the bridge in between. Plasma returns from below crashed harmlessly against the barriers and portable shields that girded the edges, not that 1st Platoon's guardian angels were worried about it. Their panning scopes were set on clearing a path for the platoon wherever they could. The Staff gave them a grateful thumbs up and made to move from behind his ammo crate.
The second he did a Hunter pair came onto the scene. The juggernauts stomped around either side of the support pillar. Their shields became mobile barriers as their assault cannons took aim at the surprised platoon. The troopers flung themselves back behind whatever safety they could find just before the pair's opening barrage. One of them released a continuous stream of plasma that snaked over their heads and seared their cover. The other relied on single-shot fuel rods with which it singled out individual positions, testing each person's protection with brain-rattling explosions. One kept them pinned while the other probed for the weakest links.
Sniper fire sounded from the far platform. The high caliber rounds merely ricocheted off their shields or off their helms. Still, more rounds followed. The Staff sensed Mackley and Lang were trying for headshots and failing at that, both spending at least a whole magazine on the two behemoths. This only seemed to aggravate the pair. Their spines rattling, the one firing off single shots refocused on the snipers while its partner kept the platoon at bay. A fuel rod belched out of the former's cannon. The Staff watched it race right over his head and straight into the platform. An explosion of crackling energy destroyed one of the portable shields outright and blew a chunk out of the structure.
It was a miss.
The shot was too wide, having hit the wrong side of the platform. Mackley and Lang were more accurate. They doubled down, this time striking the Hunter twice, one through an exposed knee and another through the neck. Accuracy did not mean lethality. The Hunter proved as much by standing its ground despite the dead worms that seeped out of its armor.
The Jackals on the opposing platform chose that moment to reintroduce themselves. Renewed needler fire crashed against the remaining barriers on the other side, downing the last portable shield and forcing the pair's hand. Mackley and Lang readjusted their aim to get their hostile counterparts in their crosshairs. Two shots rang out. Two Jackals fell. One clutched desperately at the hole torn into its throat while the brains of the other seeped across the floor. Their surviving comrades squawked unintelligible threats at their opponents and battered their position with more needlers. The pair began to flinch at the pink shards that glanced off their rifles and grazed their helmets.
But the Hunter wasn't finished.
With the pair's attention no longer on it, the juggernaut was free to raise its assault cannon. The Staff saw its trajectory before the fuel rod went out. He made a vain attempt to throw it off by firing at whatever weak points he could find in its armor. The constant torrents of its partner made this all but impossible and the few shots he managed to squeeze off become little more than ricochets.
The assault cannon fired.
Fear gripped the Staff as he tracked the green comet with his own eyes, watching it sail across the bay and right into the support pillar beneath Mackley and Lang. The explosive impact bucked the entire structure. Its structural lights vacillated from the damage. A second fuel rod followed on the heels of the first and exceeded it. The strike punched clean through the pillar in a blossom of green flames. What remained of the structure groaned then buckled like weakening knees that were finally giving way. The lights that ringed the lip of the platform died altogether before what connected it to the wall cracked and broke, releasing a flash of torn conduits and sparking wires. Mackley and Lang realized their situation all too late. They tried to pick up their weapons and run only to have the floor fall out from under them. The pillar fully collapsed, taking the platform and the two snipers with it.
What remained crashed into the floor, disappearing in a cloud of flying debris and electrified smoke.
"MACK! LANG!" Daz cried.
The rest of the platoon was stunned into silence. It was one which Sergeant Dalton interrupted by running out into the open, ultimately shattering it with the stutter of his rifle. He tossed out a frag at the first Hunter. Then with the same hand he tossed out a flashbang at the one keeping them pinned. The first Hunter wheeled around in time to catch the blast with its shield, though at the cost of exposing its wormy back to the platoon. They furiously tore into it as the flashbang went off, blinding the second and ending its assault.
Dalton sprinted at the second, firing one-handed into its unguarded midsection. His freehand whipped out his pistol to double the amount of lead that poured into the worms. A pained growl escaped the giant. With the sergeant too close for its cannon the Hunter chose to charge. Dalton ran straight towards it, tossing himself to the floor to barrel under the swing of its shield. He rolled into a crouch just behind it and fired into its back. The Hunter readied an overhead swing. Dalton stopped to roll away once more as the shield axed down to crush the spot where he'd stood. He came up into a run, continuing to shoot as he dashed around the alien, forcing it back behind the safety of its handheld defense.
The Staff saw an opening and took it. As the others fired red-hot rage into the other Hunter as well as the Jackals above, he ran out with his shotgun. The second juggernaut had its back to him thanks to Dalton running circles around it. He got close enough to pump two shells into its back. Bursts of orange blood flew out from the armor to bathe his own.
He heard the creature groan and saw its reaction ahead of time, ducking beneath the blow as it lashed out with its assault cannon. He followed Dalton's lead and began running around it. The two kept their distance from each other so it couldn't withdraw or defend itself. They split its attention between them while they spent shell and bullet into whatever weaknesses they could find. The confused Hunter didn't know which to focus on and lashed out wildly. The two leapt beneath the swing of its shield and the thrust of its cannon, peppering its armor and scoring a growing number of wounds on its flesh.
An agonized wail arose from the dying colony. The giant made a desperate yet powerful swing of its shield meant to bat Dalton aside. It would've had he not back-pedaled at the last second, freeing the shield to crash against the support pillar with a loud clang. The blow toppled some of the Jackals and knocked back the perpetrator, throwing it off balance. It raised a foot to right itself but Dalton proved faster. With a running start he jumped at it and thrust his shoulder into its chest, giving the extra push needed to send it crashing onto its back.
Before it could recover, Dalton scrambled over it. He raised both pistol and rifle to fire point blank into its midsection. At the sight of the orange blood that washed over his comrade, the Staff rushed in as well. He jumped onto the rising assault cannon and pinned it beneath his boots, crouching on top of its limb as he pumped shell after shell into its neck.
Amidst the blood rage he barely noticed its shield arm rise for a final swing. Both he and Dalton ducked beneath the blow that would have surely decapitated them both. In a fury the Staff leapt off its gun arm to get even closer. He reeled back to plunge the barrel of his shotgun through the already maimed worms of its neck. Stabbing deep into the colony itself, he fired inside of it. After two muffled shots a third finally blew through the other side in a spray of amber gore.
The Hunter's struggles ebbed. Its arms and legs fell limp as a death groan escaped the colony.
The Staff yanked out his shotgun and dashed to the base of the nearby pillar for cover. Dalton met him there, slapping fresh ammunition into his weapons.
"Thanks for the help." Dalton said through exasperated breaths.
The Staff nodded as he took the moment to catch himself. "Like you even needed it."
He loaded new shells into the M90's receiver and peered over at the others. The last Hunter had suffered the same fate as its partner though with far more blood and bullet holes.
Part of the platoon moved across the casing-covered floor to regroup with their leaders. The other part either finished off the last Jackals above or stayed put, looking back to the collapsed platform. The smoke was beginning to clear. What it revealed was a stilled pile of mechanical debris and sparking components.
There was no order to the mishmash of wreckage, no signs of movement, no Mackley and Lang.
Those who reached the Staff got to work mowing down those Covenant beyond the pillar. An assortment of shield Jackals and Elites were scrambling up the nearby staircase in an attempt to retreat. The push through the center from 6th Platoon was driving them back. The added fall of the bay's portside to 2nd Platoon brought everything to a head. All three groups of ODSTs shot the fleeing crew in the back in what quickly became a rout.
Those Covenant who tried for the doors on the top of the stairs fared no better than those who made for the exits on the ground floor. None made it through in the face of the bullets that shredded shields, armor and body alike. The last to fall was an Elite which the Staff had the honor of putting a golf-ball sized hole in the back of its head. It crumpled at the top of the stairs and tumbled back down to the very bottom, leaving a long blood smear to add to those of its fellows.
Silence returned to the hangar.
Elements of the other two platoons slowly advanced on the stairs and the lower doors.
The Staff took the moment of reprieve to rush back across the bay on a beeline for the collapsed platform. The platoon came after him. They vaulted defense barriers and knocked aside ammo crates in their rush to rescue the downed marksmen.
The instant they reached the wreckage, they got to work deconstructing it, tossing away whatever could be moved while calling out the names of the two below. The Staff clawed at the peak of the pile. He pushed aside flickering machinery and wires whose heated sheathings burned into his gloves, melting some of the material. He carried on regardless. The faces of his men that were seared into the forefront of his mind meant far more to him than any burns on his palms.
Pulling up a long strip of metalwork, he tossed it aside and scanned what lay beneath. Within the detritus he spotted what looked like fingers. He brushed away the dust. Doing so confirmed both his hopes and his fears. It was a hand. A human hand.
It wasn't moving.
He grasped the fingers and began to pull. "I've got-"
"Got one!"
He peered back down to the bottom of the pile. Dalton and Reznik were heaving with their backs, trying to lift a large piece of the platform. Daz meanwhile was holding onto something beneath it; a hand. A dusty albeit living hand that grasped onto hers.
They weren't making any headway until Hector jogged over, giving them the extra muscle they needed to lift the debris. Zack came in and helped Daz pull the dirt-soaked trooper out of the rubble. They removed his helmet and found the half-conscious face of Lang.
Reznik kneeled beside him, laughing in half-mad relief. "You really had us worried there, man."
"Can you move?" Daz asked.
Lang nodded shakily. He looked around, coughing as he did. "Where's-...oh God, where's Mack?"
As if responding to his name, the Staff felt the hand he was holding twitch then slowly grab ahold of his. "I got him! He's up here!"
Right away the rest of the platoon scrambled up the slopes of the pile to help. The extra movement caused larger pieces of the debris to slip loose, threatening a landslide.
"Stop!" The Staff ordered. "Two of you come up. The rest of you stay down. We don't want to bury him any more than he already is."
After a brief consideration, Hector and Zack continued up, leaving the rest to slowly make their way back down.
The arrival of two extra pairs of hands helped the Staff dig out the lost trooper. In under a minute, they had uncovered an arm. A few pieces of rubble later they found a helmet. The visor was cracked and dusty but the face inside was very much so alive.
"Hey beautiful." Zack laughed. "Happy to see us?"
Mackley found the strength to grin at them. "You have no idea."
They removed the last of the obstacles, throwing them here and there. The Staff gave him a hand once his legs were free. Mackley groaned as he got on his feet. He stumbled a bit on the way down while they did their best to steady him.
"Thanks for the scare." Daz said, exhaling the last remnants of fear as she came to check him over.
"Don't thank me, thank the Hunter." Mackley replied.
"That was one hell of a shot." Lang added. Renni checked on him, taking his vitals from wrist to mouth to eyes.
"How're you two feeling?" She asked.
"Alive." Mackley answered. "Whiskey-4?"
"Not really, I feel like a dirty ghost right now."
"Ghosts don't get dirty." Renni corrected, parting his eyelids with her fingers to get a better look at them. "And if they did it would make for a pretty awful afterlife."
Dalton kneeled beside her. "How is he?"
"Still trying to figure that out. Alright, his right pupil is more dilated than his left. I'm thinking a Grade 1 concussion, maybe 2 depending on-" She noticed Lang's attention drifting off to the floor and gave him a light slap to the face, losing none of the methodical gracefulness of her practice. "Are you experiencing any nausea, slight headache maybe?"
Lang lazily shook his head. "Nah. Just a little winded."
"That's not bad. Okay, his situation's mild although he might need to sit this one out." She moved to check on Mackley. "And you?"
"I feel fine, doc." He made as if to raise his rifle in affirmation but remembered that he didn't have it. "Okay, I might be feeling a little naked but that's all. I can still-"
His legs gave out. Dalton and the Staff caught him by the arms.
"No, you can't." The Staff said.
Dalton followed his lead and dragged him beside Lang, letting the two sit by side.
"We can't take them with us." Dalton pointed out.
Mackley tried to get back up. "No-no, we're good, we're good. See, I can-"
Lang laid a hand on his shoulder and shook his head at him.
At that, Mackley settled back down, sighing at the burden of his condition. "So, what now then?"
To answer his question the colonel comm'd the entire room. "Hangar's secured. I want each platoon to leave a squad behind for security. They'll hold here while we make our move on the battery. We'll repeat the pattern until we reach the bridge. You've got a minute to decide who goes and who stays."
The decision was self-evident.
Dalton stepped up. "We can stay, sir. We'll manage with Whiskey-3 and 4 while you clear the rest of the ship."
"Sounds good." The Staff said. "It's settled then. We'll tell you how it goes over comms."
"Agreed, sir."
The Staff took one last look at the two that had been taken out of action. At least they were alive, he thought. Yet the realization did nothing to assuage his concerns. Instead, it shifted them to two more of his troopers, the two who still lay further ahead.
"Good luck, Whiskey." He said before gesturing for Epsilon to follow him.
They parted ways, leaving their sister squad to mind the rear while they jogged after those heading deeper into the corvette.
:********:
Shipmaster Rizanamee seethed with an almost unbridled fury. On the series of projection screens that floated around him he could see the same tragedy playing out again and again.
The crew's quarters had been seized. The last holdouts had put up a valiant defense in the Sangheili compartment but were ultimately overrun.
The armory was now crawling with the black-armored imps who strolled unhindered through the aisles of plasma weapons, walking by the bloodied corpses of the armorers.
He'd beheld it with his own eyes as the hangar's defenses were chipped away one warrior at a time. Not even the speed of the Yanme'e or the might of the Mgalekgolo had availed them of the slaughter. They did no more than dent the humans' numbers. The many that remained had left some of their own to guard the hangar. His hangar. The rest were pressing on through the corridor leading to the plasma battery.
The sole obstacles standing in the way of their advance were a handful of brave Ultras. On one of the many projection feeds that encircled him roundabout, Rizanamee observed the display which concerned this newest fight. It was a corner view of the passageway between the plasma battery and the hangar. The Ultras had thrown down the gauntlet, placing ammunition crates to serve as defensive barriers on either side of a shade emplacement. The narrowness of the passageway combined with the turret's range made approaching it a difficult task. The Ultras added fuel to the fire by imploring fuel rod guns and plasma launchers. The bonus of heavy arms kept a consistent flurry of plasma explosions between them and the enemy.
Yet it wasn't to last. The imps fired rockets down the corridor. The Ultras were nimble enough to escape them. The shade was not. Both it and its Unggoy gunner were reduced to a small blaze. More rockets flew out as sniper fire followed with an unerring accuracy. Explosions blew away energy shields while helmets were split open by passing rounds. Blood splattered the purple walls, melding with their color so that the corridors seemed to glisten.
In seconds the shock troopers were taking guarded strides down the passageway. They stepped over the battered corpses of the Ultras. Some of them stopped to shoot the fallen Sangheili even more as their procession passed beyond his view.
Rizanamee clenched his fists. There was now little standing between them and the bridge. Time was running short and so was his list of options.
With the fall of the brig to complete anarchy and the unnecessary death of so many at the hands of the Jirilhanae, he saw himself as twice cursed. By the humans and now by the Jirilhanae, twice cursed and twice damned. He could hardly take satisfaction in the deaths of the warden and his pack. Their demise meant more human forces were free to delve further into his ship.
Rizanamee shut his eyes to the displays that encircled him. He looked instead past the rotating projection of the planet, past the perimeter platform and the viewing glass of the bridge itself.
The mountain range continued to sprawl ahead. Its many peaks crawled deep into the far north, far beyond his vision though not beyond the Dispersion's sensors. The human town that lay on the western coast of the bay was growing closer. Only another 50-kilometers or so and they would be coming alongside it, ready to reinforce the commander of the Covenant garrison there who had personally requested his aid. Apparently, the shock troopers had not struck his ship alone. Reports from his communications officer showed a dire situation. In truth, the black-armored imps had landed at several critical positions around the area. Even then, they were merely a small part of a grand offensive being undertaken against Covenant positions across the region. The Fleet of Valiant Prudence was under siege, literally in the case of the Holy Dispersion. The capture of his corvette seemed to be one of the priorities in their overall strategy.
And they would fail in that. He would make sure of it.
He could not bear to see them take his ship, but at the same time he couldn't bear to break his promise to a fellow Sangheili. The commander at the town of 'Szeged' was losing neighborhood after neighborhood and district after district, being overwhelmed from all directions save the bay itself. Rizanamee's conundrum was no better. The singular distinction was that there were no reinforcements coming in his case. Brother corvettes like his fellow Shipmaster Moretumee's Ardent Prayer were busy handling the chaos in orbit. That wasn't to mention that Valiant Prudence's greatest weapon, the Long Night of Solace, had yet to make an appearance. Supreme Commander Barutamee was playing things too close to the chest, as Rizanamee had come to expect of someone of his misbegotten ilk. How he wished he was given command of such a ship. At least then the tables would've been turned against the humans, from those on the ground to those onboard.
With no available reinforcements, Rizanamee and those of the crew who still lived were all that stood between themselves and dishonor. That defensive veil grew even thinner at the sight of the spectacle playing out on one of his displays. He saw another feed capture the moment that both doors to the plasma battery cycled open. The imps stormed out across the raised walkway as well as the main deck. They encountered those last few crew who had formed their own defense, either side greeting the other with plasma and bullets.
"Shipmaster, they draw nearer to us." His communications officer said. "There is little yet between them and the bridge. What are your orders?"
Rizanamee didn't answer him. He felt the solution too obvious to have to explain it. However, he hated to admit it. To do so would be to acknowledge that he had been bested. Bested by humans. Certainly, such shame would chase his name and that of his progeny to the very ends of the galaxy, that is if he didn't correct the record while there was still time.
He looked across the bridge to each of his officers, prodding them with his gaze, searching for signs that they were ready for what he was about to demand of them.
"Speak your final prayers of peace to the Gods for soon we will speak with them face to face. Know this, that we may never rest within the tombs of our fathers, but our souls will not be ashamed upon our meeting with them. Prepare yourselves like Sangheili, gird your minds with the courage of warriors fit for your station. We will not lie in tombs of stone and marble but of metal and fire." He pointed an adamant finger at the screen that showed the humans battling in the plasma battery. "And these heretics will burn with us. Prepare yourselves, brothers, for today we will tread the paths of the Holy Ones. Until then, pray and fight and die. That is my final order and your final duty."
Again, he tested them with his gaze. They each met his resolute stare with one of their own. There was no hesitation, no weakness, no dishonor to be spoken of in the face of every warrior's fate. He took quiet pride in that. None would waver and neither would he.
As his officers returned to their stations, Rizanamee waved away the displays that surrounded him.
He strode around the perimeter platform towards the console on the other side. The scintillating array of glyphs that hovered above the station would help him put an end to the madness, to the humans, to his crew and to himself.
He had barely taken a few steps when a flash of light and a crack of thunder relieved him of his senses. A shockwave hammered his entire body, hurling him forward. He crashed into the holo-tank in the middle of the platform.
Dazed and winded, he struggled to pry open his mandibles and draw a breath of fresh air into his lungs. His senses kicked back in before the shock fully wore off, alerting him to the sound of weapons discharging across the bridge. He opened his eyes and saw that smoke had filled part of the room closest to the entrance. Gunfire and plasma cut through the haze, blasting components and sizzling walls. There were cries, curses and shouts from his officers as they traded shots with their long-awaited foes.
Rizanamee realized his predicament. The enemy was here on his bridge. With his numerous display screens how had he failed to see them approaching the doors? Their detonation of what was obviously some kind of breaching charge had caught him completely off guard.
The fog in his mind cleared long before the smoke in the room did. He remembered what he was trying to do. The station on the other side of the platform, he had to reach it.
He pulled himself onto his knees and noticed movement around the lip of the projection area. Through the holograph of the planet, he saw its defenders emerge from the smoke in real time. Two shock troopers, one on the left and one on the right, illuminated the haze with their gunfire. They were shooting at targets further in the bridge. He was right in their blind spot. Knowing they hadn't seen him yet; he took swift stock of his equipment. His energy shields were down but his sword was ready. He yanked its handle from his belt and leapt at the one on his left. His blade sprung to life in his hand, scything through the smoke as well as the enemy's waist.
He heard it scream, one which he cut short by seizing the human by the neck, leaving the sizzling remains of its legs to fall away. The torso was still clinging to life with none of the infidel's agony hidden behind its polarized visor. Rizanamee held it in front of himself while he cast his sword aside in favor of his plasma rifle. He fired long bursts in the direction of the gunfire as he backpedaled towards the station.
The distance felt longer than it should have. Trying to uphold his dying shield was a challenge. Firing as he did so made matters worse. He forged on regardless. His rigid determination to deny the humans their prize was all-consuming.
He refused to stop even in the face of another human jumping out of the smoke to shoot him at close range. He winced at the projectiles that tore through his armor, raising his 'shield' once more to make the human cease. It did so the moment it recognized what he was holding. He used that hesitation to drill its stomach with a plasma burst, sending it spiraling away with a bolt to the head.
He was close enough then to ditch his shield, casting the torso unceremoniously across the platform. He reached the station and began using one hand to type up a direct access to the corvette's repulsor drives. With the other he fired back at whatever shadow crossed his sight. At the same time, he summoned up the will to ignore the growing rush of bullets that burrowed through his armor as he drew more attention.
His vision blurred. Even then he refused to waver. He had just opened the self-destruction sequence before he felt a bullet tear through his neck, blowing off a mandible. It was seconded by a moment of searing pain unlike any he'd felt before that struck through his spine. He collapsed onto his knees. All the feeling in his legs faded. No amount of will would make them move. He tried to reach for the console. His fingertips only just brushed the lines of glyphs that would, with the right code, send his killers to eternal damnation.
But he couldn't do it.
Weariness tugged at his consciousness. His hands shook. Nevertheless, through his tiredness he thought of his next best option. His fingers typed out a different sequence. It was shorter and easier to manage albeit without the immediate effect of what he had initially intended. He finished its input just before a bullet tore through his hand. The pain caused him to drop his rifle. He slumped to the floor. Yet somehow, he found the strength to turn himself around in order to face his enemies. In the fading counsels of his mind, he accepted that he had done all he could. With blood seeping down his throat, his legs paralyzed, he sat still and waited for the end.
It did not come right away. More of the troopers emerged from the smoke on the other side of the platform. They continued firing at areas around the bridge where an ever-diminishing amount of return fire came to greet them. Eventually they were making their way off the platform and throughout the bridge itself, clearing away the last of the crew. One of them spotted him as it was passing. It stopped to eye the distant half-cadaver of its comrade as well as the still crackling head of the other nearby. Glancing between the dead body and its entrail-laden counterpart, it was clear it had made the connection. It kicked away his plasma rifle and pointed its own weapon at him though it refused to fire. There it stayed, watching him like a chaperone.
Soon the shooting stopped. In short order, the other shock troopers gravitated back towards the command platform and flocked towards the one holding him at gunpoint. They spotted their dead as well. He heard them speak in their grating, inferior noise of a language.
"This thing killed them." He heard the one aiming at him say. "It x'd them both. I didn't even see it but-"
Another trooper walked up into the gathering. By the way the others took a step back to let it through, Rizanamee understood that it was their leader. It too spotted the broken bodies of its fellows then set its sights on him. Cocking its head, it depolarized its visor so that he could see the strange and grotesque face behind it, no less grotesque of course than any human face he'd seen. Even so, the murderous glint in its eye was one he understood all too well as he awaited his judgement.
"Hey pal." The leader said. "Mind telling me your name?"
Rizanamee spat blood on the floor to clear his mouth. Despite his lost mandible he was able to speak clearly in the human's own foul tongue.
"What good will it do an insect to learn the name of one who's come to exterminate it? Will it last any longer than providence deems it should?"
"You seem impatient. Why? What's the rush? You're not going anywhere, especially now that you're a paraplegic." The trooper grimaced at him. "Of course, we could change that. We could make you a quadriplegic if you like. You know what I mean by that, right? I hope these words aren't too big for that little lizard brain of yours."
Rizanamee ignored the slight. "Do not waste my time with talk. You've come for revenge for your fallen, haven't you? Then do not speak. Act."
"You sure are demanding for someone in your position. I guess that's one way to know for sure that you're the head honcho here. Well, that and your armor." The trooper shrugged. "But yeah, I would like to do some pretty unspeakable things to you for killing two of my guys. See everyone else here, they'd be willing to do way worse, I'm sure."
Despite not seeing their faces Rizanamee could sense the bloodlust from the execution ring that now surrounded him.
Their leader shook his head. "Before all that though I want to know something first." He nodded at the console. "What were you doing over here?"
Rizanamee said nothing.
"Right, I forgot. You don't know me."
The trooper crouched down in front of him so that they were eye to eye. It offered a hand. "The name's Eddies, Captain Eddies. And you?"
Rizanamee remained stoic.
The human scum known as 'Captain Eddies' sighed. "Figured. Your type are always wound tight when it comes to us. Can't blame you though. If you tell me what you were doing here, I'll make your death a little less painful. You have my word."
Rizanamee gave a slow, apathetic shake of his head. "You do not understand, do you?"
"I don't understand because you're not telling me."
"I have fulfilled the work of the Gods whom you deny."
"Hey-hey, slow down there. They denied us first. We barely even knew your deities before they apparently gave you the go-ahead to write us off as a species. Yeah, some Gods they are."
"Heresy!" Rizanamee hissed and quickly found more guns drawn on him. "You do not understand the sanctity of our cause nor will you ever. Die now and be damned forever in your ignorance, heretic."
In the face of the repudiation Eddies remained unwavering. "Come on now, that's not very nice." He stood up as Rizanamee watched him casually pull out his pistol from his waist. "And here I was thinking we were having a good conversation. Oh, and I still didn't get that name."
"You will never have my ship." Rizanamee growled more like a curse than a statement.
"Sorry to break this to you chief but it's not yours anymore. This right here is now property of the United Nations Space Command."
"Never! This is the Holy Dispersion and I am its shipmaster, not you and not any filth of your race!"
"Really? Says who?"
Rizanamee spread his mandibles wide, bearing his many fangs at the abominable captain. "I am Shipmaster Irym Rizanamee and you-"
Eddies pulled back the slide of his pistol, racking a round in the chamber with a loud clack as he raised it to Rizanamee's forehead. "Not anymore you're not."
He pulled the trigger.
:********:
Major Rydo Tevumee was bewildered beyond belief as he watched the corvette's four repulsor drives unfold themselves.
The engine room of the Holy Dispersion came to life with motion. The four massive cylinders that dominated the chamber, two on either side of it and one above the other, took up the bulk of the space. The chamber itself became wider the further one went towards the stern with all four cylindrical drives running its length, connected to both the fore wall towards the bow and the rear wall. In the space between the drives was a chasm filled partly with the natural exhausts given off by their operation. Here, like stable boats above a shifting sea were two bridges, one leading from the fore and one from the aft of the ship. The two of them sailed over the rolling waves of gas before joining one another at a platform, one which surrounded the most important piece of machinery onboard.
The Dispersion's pinch fusion reactor had the appearance of two twin daises, one that reached up from the depths of the exhaust and one that reached down from the ceiling. They met at the central platform which ringed itself around them like a wide catwalk. There was space left between their claw-like ends within which pulsed the power of a small star.
A deuterium-tritium fusion compound was generated between them. The ethereal glow of the white-hot energies inside vacillated and scintillated but remained restrained behind pinch gravitic fields. The heat retention and compression of those fields made the energies take on vague shapes like a veiny tree or an expansive flower. It was beautiful in its own way, which was why it never ceased to amaze Tevumee how such beauty could, in the worst possible scenario of a meltdown, create a small supernova.
Yet that wasn't his main concern. The heartbeat of the ship itself was steady but the extensive arterioles of its many plasma lines fed into each of the repulsor drives. There lay the problem. The luminal plasma cores of the four drives were exposed as their protective housings decoupled and slid apart. The engine room was filled with even more light from the cores as the spheres of blue-white energies roiled within their gravitic containment fields like miniature suns. Nothing stood to keep their radiation from contaminating the whole room save what was ultimately a thin energy shielding, one meant more for basic observation than long-term protection.
The dozen Huragok that called the engine room home floated and buoyed themselves towards the drives. They probed the removed housings with their cilia-covered tentacles, inspecting the cores with keen interest.
There was confusion in the air and it centered itself around Tevumee. He stood on the part of the room's central bridge that extended back towards the fore wall. The position gave him the best view from which to see everything, from the cores to the main reactor. Thankfully the latter showed no sign that it was affected by the change. Still, he couldn't tell what had prompted the drives to do what they did. Nothing could have made them move except a direct intervention by the custodian Huragok or an action taken by the bridge. The Huragok were too busy investigating to be the culprits. It had to be the latter and if it was then it could only have been approved by the shipmaster.
But why? Why expose the cores?
The major hadn't received any orders from his superior since the last one that saw him repositioned here. Rizanamee knew that the engine room would be one of the most crucial installations to protect, second only to the bridge. Tevumee had managed to reach it in time and secured it with the help of a sizable detachment from the hangar. They completed the lines of defense barriers and shades leading up to and well past the main doors just before the humans arrived. They had held out relatively well. However, the same could not be said for the crew's quarters or the armory. He heard over his personal communications when the hangar fell. The tides of humans were now pushing in two distinct directions. One was heading towards the bridge. Another was crashing against his warriors and shade turrets outside the doors, trying to seize the engine room. He was keeping the humans at bay on that front. Even so, what of the bridge?
He tried to contact it. Again and again his contact requests were left unanswered.
The lack of any explanation caused frustration to fester in the back of his mind. First the repulsor drives get their cores exposed without any reason then the bridge goes silent? What other damnable bewilderment would he have to endure today?
The sound of a hard impact pulled him out of his brooding. He turned to the source alongside several other Sangheili. A ventilation panel next to the main doors had been dented. Another impact dented it further. Tevumee raised his rifle as did his warriors. A third impact knocked the paneling out of the socket.
An Unggoy tumbled out of the vent and onto the floor.
Tevumee lowered his rifle. He saw that the creature was bleeding thanks to the small trickle of blood that followed it out of the vent. He walked through the lines of manned defense barriers and portable shields, coming to stop in front of the unexpected arrival.
The Unggoy brushed himself off as he got up. The second he saw Tevumee he jumped with fright. Quickly composing himself, he stood to a shaky attention.
Despite the uniform ugliness that characterized his kind, Tevumee was able to recognize him as the chief of the freight crew. He was the same one he'd sent to bring the Jiralhanae to the fight. He also recalled that he never came back.
Tevumee tightened his grip on his plasma rifle, ready to blow the Unggoy's head off depending on his answer. "Where did you come from?"
"F-, f-, from the-, ugh, from the brig, major."
"And did you do what I asked?"
The Unggoy hesitated for a long while as if remembering something he would have rather wished forgotten. "I-…I tried but couldn't."
"Why is that?"
"The-, the Jiralhanae, major, they started a fight with the guards."
Tevumee's grip on his rifle slackened. "The guards?"
The Unggoy nodded emphatically. "Yes-yes, they did. I saw it. Me and Ugug, we-..."
As he trailed off, Tevumee called to him again. "Explain."
"S-, sorry. We came in right as it happened. The Sangheili guards were in there before us. They wanted to free the other Sangheili in the brig, to have them fight too. But the warden wouldn't let them. One thing led to another and they started killing each other. I barely got out of there alive."
Tevumee felt his hearts skip a few beats. The news was grim. First the humans, now the Jiralhanae? The idea that the brutish ingrates had turned traitor made his gut burn with indignation. Their betrayal could not have come at a worse time. He made a mental note to remember this most grievous of offenses after the battle. Once the humans were dealt with, he would sate the thirst of his sword on the blood of whatever Jiralhanae still remained alive on the ship.
"I see. And what of you? Why are you here?"
The Unggoy bowed his head ashamedly. "I...didn't know where else to go. The crew are dying everywhere. I even saw some of those humans head for the bridge."
Tevumee, alarmed, took an intimidating step forward. "How many?"
His diminutive subordinate took a frightened step back. "A-, a-, a few. I-, I didn't count. They were too fast."
"You tried to stop them, didn't you?"
"Yes, I did. Me and Ugug, we tried to seal the room, but they wound up getting out anyways. I ran into the maintenance tunnels and made my way here."
Tevumee took a moment to process the new information.
While he did, the Unggoy peeked past him to what was happening deeper in the engine room. "What's going on? Why are the cores exposed?"
"I would like to know that myself." Tevumee said. "You don't seem to know and neither do I. That leaves this situation up to my own discretion."
As Tevumee continued to think, the Unggoy also paused for a long while.
"Major?"
"What is it?"
"Ugh, what if-...what if the shipmaster exposed them on purpose?"
"I do not doubt that, Unggoy. He does everything on purpose. The question is why?"
"...I-...I think I know why."
Tevumee rounded on the creature, both curious and appalled at his unfounded confidence. "What do you know then?"
"The humans I saw heading to the bridge, they might've gotten inside. A lot of the ship is in their hands already. If they took the bridge too then-"
Tevumee held up a hand. "Are you saying the shipmaster is dead?"
The Unggoy swallowed nervously. "I don't know. But h-, he-, he could be and maybe that's why-"
"Watch your tongue. It is not too soon for me to carve it out of your mouth-"
"Maybe he is dead."
Tevumee was again taken aback by his boldness. "What?"
The Unggoy pointed to the doors. "Everyone past this point is either dead or about to die. I know it, I saw it. You've been back here but I got to see everything you didn't. The bridge could have fallen too. Have you been able to talk to them?"
The major fell silent.
"See? Why would the shipmaster do something like this and then say nothing? He wants us to do something, major. I-...I think he wants-, wanted us to destroy the shi-"
"Your arrogance has gotten the better of you, Unggoy. Do not speak to me as though your counsel was worth more than a useless breath of methane. The shipmaster is not dead. He would not fall to a measly handful of vermin and he certainly wouldn't surrender his ship to destruction without a bitter fight for it."
"But major, think about it, we-"
"Silence yourself!" Tevumee demanded. "Or I will do it for you."
The force of his tone alone made the Unggoy stiffen and his arguments fell silent.
The major pointed back to the few defensive lines set past the doors and further into the room. "Remember your place. You will find it in the very rear of this formation. Stay in your position and stay out of my sight or I might very well treat you with the same courtesy as the Jiralhanae did my brothers."
The Unggoy needed no further encouragement. He waddled away, disappearing beyond the first of the defense barriers under the shaming gaze of the Sangheili that manned them.
Tevumee again turned his attention to the doors, seeking a better explanation than 'destroy the ship'. He knew Rizanamee too well and had served alongside him for too long to think he would surrender his corvette to such a fate. They had been through worse before. Certainly, the Holy Dispersion would not fall here. It couldn't. He would make sure of it.
:********:
Zin was unsure of everything.
He had made it this far and had seen so much just for his advice to be spurned like he was some scrub grub in need of a stoning. He wasn't a parasite. He wasn't some stowaway. He was part of the crew for Gods sake. Didn't he deserve to be treated like a crewmate? Or was he still just an Unggoy?
The relentless journey through the maintenance tunnels and ventilation shafts left him exhausted. Moreover, having to lie to the major about who had actually started the fight in the brig was taxing. The truth would have likely and rather ironically seen him executed as a liar. Once he was behind the last defensive line he collapsed onto his backside and sat in thought.
The warm illumination of the reactor as well as the lesser light of the four plasma cores gave him a sense of comfort. He rarely ever got a chance to come to the engine room. Usually, it was just to deliver the regulatory instruments that the Huragok needed to manage the reactor's coolant systems. On those few occasions he would stop to do what he was doing now: sit and think and enjoy the heat.
He wished he could have done it more often. He wished Ugug was here to enjoy it with him. And what of the rest of the freight crew? Had they made it?
He glanced over his shoulder at the defensive lines and saw only Sangheili and a few Kig-Yar scattered among them. That answered his question.
He was alone.
Within the froth of his stewing thoughts, he found himself remembering the dead prisoners left within the brig. He recalled the spike filled Unggoy that the freed Sangheili tossed aside, leaving him with a silent scream frozen on his face. He recalled further the way that Ugug fell as bullets ripped into his chest.
Then there was the fact that he himself had run away. Rather than standing his ground like the happy-go-lucky drug dealer that he so often frowned upon, he had chosen to run, to save his own life over anyone else's. He'd saved himself and now he was alone. He was alive and very much regretting every breath that he took.
But amidst the darkness gathering within his mind, he found a light in the shadows. Four of them in fact; the four exposed plasma cores of the repulsor drives.
The situation was obvious.
The Holy Dispersion was about to fall.
The one person he thought would have both the strength and common sense to see this for what it was instead rebuked him for pointing it out.
The engine room was the last haven. Once it was gone, the corvette would be undeniably in enemy hands. There would be no escape and no rescue, only their blood spilt across a deck that was no longer theirs.
That could not be allowed to happen.
He appeared to be alone in that understanding too, that there was no way a scant few defenders could retake the ship, yet alone pilot it back to friendly space. There was only one option left and it was clear that Rizanamee had understood this as well. Despite the attentive and strong warriors keeping an eye on the doors, there were none who seemed to see what the shipmaster had really asked of them. None, perhaps, except Zin.
He looked at the hand holding his plasma pistol, the Unggoy hand, and wondered if he could will it to do what no sane Unggoy ever would.
Viribus - Strength