4

Major 'Garaisee knew this was the end. He tossed his needler to the Brute's feet, held out a hand, then curled his fingers towards himself. Only days before the massacres began, he had graduated from the Bin Son Sangheili, and his textbook technique was still fresh in his mental and muscle memory. If he was going to die, it would have to be by hand.

The Captain, clearly amused, hiss-grunted something in Jiralhanae to his subordinates that caused them to put away their weapons. The Captain kept prolonged eye contact with Mar as he did so, and neither of them blinked.

The Captain issued another order and three Brutes moved to apprehend the red Major.

I'm ready to die. How many can I take with me?

The first Brute to reach him was the first to go. Mar countered his lazy grab attempt with a rock-hard fist to the bicep of the incoming arm to knock it away, then stepped to the right and elbowed him in the jaw. Following up with his other hand, he clamped around the lump in the Brute's throat with two fingers like a pair of pincers, yanked back, and ripped the Adam's apple out of place.

That Brute collapsed clutching its throat as Mar ducked under a wild haymaker from one of its allies. The Elite lashed out with a knee smashing sidekick and the Jiralhanae who threw the punch went down too.

Mar saw the third beast running at him with hands outstretched to strangle and stepped forward, meeting the Brute before it got to him. He got his own arms inside and spread them apart, knocking the arms of the Brute off to the sides, grabbed the vulnerable Brute by the head and forced it to a helmeted headbutt. His opponent staggered back, and Mar reared back and soccer kicked him in the crotch. The Brute cried out and dropped face down holding its furry genitalia, and landed chin first onto Mar's rising knee.

'Garaisee hadn't even recovered his balance when the irritated Captain bull rushed him and knocked him into the computers. He had also abandoned the previous weapon rules, now coming at the Elite with a small jagged piece of metal that barely passed as a knife. The Captain brought the blade down to nail Mar to one of the energy screens but the latter saw it coming and weaved to the left. The Captain completely pulverized the screen he'd been in front of to a splash of energy and plunged the knife into the monitor.

Mar had just gotten back to a fighting stance when he looked over to the broken splitscreen and saw, off to the side, a peculiar white dial. If there was one thing he knew about Scarabs, it was that each one had a fail-safe installed, in case the human's tried to hijack one that had valuable intel, equipment, or individuals on board. The Walker would go into emergency shut-down and self-destruct. This was the first thing he thought of when he saw the dial and instantly knew what he had to do.

If I'm going down, they're all going down too.

He lunged for the dial and turned it right as the Captain yanked the knife free and lunged at him, slashing. The handheld kinetic weapon blithely ignored Mar's energy shields and screeeeeched a long scar diagonally across the front of his ruby combat harness. A shrill, repeating alarm sounded and the ground suddenly jolted and convulsed beneath them. Both lost their footing, as well as all of the Brutes that were off to the side supervising the fight. The power went out and dull red light flashes intermittently in sync with the alarm.

I'm sorry, Madiba.

Fully prepared to die and with nothing else to lose, he leapt at the stumbling Captain to try and wrestle the knife away. As they grappled and struggled to bring each other down, Mar saw the spike grenades on the Captain's hip. Desperate, he loosened his grip on the knife and grabbed one, the tension snap sending the Brute flailing back into its teammates, a few from the ramp now rushing in through the powered down energy door.

Mar almost fell back too, but had both arms out for balance and caught himself. That's when he noticed light. Not the flashing alarm lights but sunlight, shining up into the command center in thin rays from the floor beside him. He hadn't noticed it before.

He primed the spike grenade and raised it up by the handle. It hissed like cold water hitting red hot metal. The Brutes all braced for the worst. Instead of at them, Mar turned and hucked it at the floor, blowing open a square escape hatch.

By the Gods...

He'd never seen a more beautiful sight. Wasting not a second more, he crossed his arms over his chest and pencil-dived through the hatch, out the bottom of the command deck. He could see Phantoms and Banshees still flying around as he fell through the air and the Scarab exploded overhead just as he sliced into the water with barely a splash. Once underwater, he scrunched up and shot downward, kicking and clawing as hard as he could to swim away from the capsizing wreck and back to dry land.