So, I'm back with another rewrite of one of my earlier chapters.
Still I don't really expect too much form this, other than some more context and details to be expanded upon. Anyway that's enough of my ramblings, so let's get onto it.
As per usual all Credit for the idea for this story goes to worldwonderer2.0. And as always, all rights go to their owners as I own nothing!
"This thing is falling apart!" Cortana cried out, as Chief increased the Pelicans' dive angle.
"It will hold." The Chief assured her, as the ship bucked under the Chief's rough handling.
As he continually pushed the Pelican's nose farther down, increasing their dive speed.
"We're not going to make it!" Cortana said in alarm, as she ran the numbers in her head.
As the Pelican bucked hard once again, a large section of the Pelican reinforced hall armour started to fly off. Unable to handle the stresses John was putting the airframe under.
"We'll make it." The Chief reassured her as he finally started to pull the Pelican out of its dive.
But it wasn't enough, as Cortana had already calculated that much!
"Pull up! PULL UP!" Cortana cried out in a panic.
But it was already too late, as the Pelican made its sudden and violent impact onto the moon's surface. But as the ship came to a stop and the smart AI started to assess the damage, she was surprised to find that the crash landing hadn't done as much damage as she had feared, almost as if…
"You did that on purpose. Didn't you?" Cortana commented once the ship had come to a complete stop.
John didn't respond to this, as he unstrapped himself from the pilot's seat and started making his way to the Pelicans troop bay. All the while checking to ensure that nothing had come loose during their rough descent through the plants' atmosphere, as he did this, John could help but notice that some of the boxes had shifted slightly. Not enough to warrant his attention, but a couple of the boxes had lost their lids. As such he would do a quick inspection to see if any of the contents had ejected themselves from their containers.
While doing so, John then stopped at one of the opened containers. As it was filled with some Covenant weaponry that had been provided by Arbiter in exchange for some UNSC weapons.
Still, for some reason John found himself drawn to the Covenant Carbine and the small plasma pistol that was located alongside a couple of other Covenant weapons within the same container. As he suddenly had the strong urge to take both of the weapons; mostly because the Spartan had no idea what he would encounter once he left the dropship. So with this in mind, John quickly equipped both weapons as he finally reached the manual override for the Pelicans ramp.
As the controls for that had in the cockpit had been damaged in the crash landing he had just made.
"Fancy a look?" Cortana then asked him, as the Chief approached the manual release for the Pelicans ramp.
As John flipped open the cover and pulled the release, causing the ramp at the end of the troop bay to begin to lower. So with one last check to ensure that he didn't want to bring anything else.
John made his way to the lowering ramp, once it had fully down, Chief stepped out onto the world and couldn't help but notice his immediate surroundings. For it seemed that Chief had landed on the edge of a mountain range that then lead out into a vast open waste.
At least that's what John thought it was, but the more accurate term would be vast dirt plan; for there was no vegetation growing within the immediate area.
Still, this didn't bother the Spartan as he fully exited his ship, all the while scanning the area to make sure that there weren't any unwanted creatures watching him.
Then satisfied that this wasn't the case, John turned and closed the bordering ramp, and then once it was closed and secured, John turned his attention to their most immediate problem.
"Cortana, do you have any idea as to where we should go?" Chief then inquired.
As he knew that Cortana would know the best place for him to start.
"Well, while you 'flying'," Cortana said this part rather sarcastically, not that Chief noticed as she continued. "I've detected what might be a small settlement in the area. It's a couple of clicks from here, but still, try to play nice with the locals if you can. I've already put a marker in on your HUD." Cortana answered as a waypoint appeared on his HUD.
"Understood, any suggestions about the locals?" John then asked.
"Well, I would suggest trying to talk," Cortana said, even though she knew it was a gamble as to whether the locals would be friendly in the first place.
As most people weren't that friendly to strangers, no matter who or what they were.
"That not really isn't my strong suit." John reminded her.
As Spartans weren't meant for that, and he and Cortana knew that. Because he would've been raised to be a diplomat and not a soldier if that was what the UNSC had truly wanted from their Spartans.
"Then let me do the talking." Cortana said simply, "Come on, we won't have long until someone comes to investigate the crash site. And I don't want to be around when that happens." Cortana said, as John quickly started moving in the direction of the waypoint that Cortana had set for him.
But little did Chief know, on a ridgeline not too far away, someone was watching him, as he continued walking away from the ship and towards the waypoint that Cortana had provided for him.
On a ridgeline located not too far from the Pelicans crash site. Two humans in armour watched as the man walked away from the ship the two siblings had been hoping to scavenge for parts.
"Shab!" The one in the gray armoured muttered.
As his adopted sister said nothing, as she merely continued to watch the stranger in the strange olive green armour make start walking away from the down ship.
"Well, there goes our payday." The woman muttered under her breath.
The original reason the two of them had come out here was to hopefully salvage something from the crashed ship. But now that idea was truly dead once they had caught sight of the loading ramp lowing.
As instead, the brother-sister pair were now more interested in the signal person, or thing that came walking out of the ship. Even with the range finder and zoom, both of them found it rather hard to make out details whatever it was. But from what they could make out, it was obvious that they had more important things to worry about.
"Any idea as to what that is Valerie?" Valeria's bother Nars then inquired.
As Valeria continued to refine the view from her zoomed-in range finder; but despite her efforts, Valerie was still unable to get a clear idea as to what she was looking at, but one thing was clear.
For whatever armour the stranger was currently wearing; it certainly wasn't of Mandalorian origin.
"No clue ori'vod; still I can tell that they're defiantly, not a Mando'ade," Valerie said knowing her brother's probable reaction to this.
She wasn't disappointed in the slightest, as even the unknown didn't deter him from what he saw as his duty.
"Ah, so we've got an aruetiise playing Mando?" There was a hint of sick amusement in his voice as he said this. "Maybe we should go and teach him why that's a mistake."
Nars like most Mando'ade were fiercely protective of their culture from outside influence, unlike those so-called New Mandalorians, who were trying to blend aruetiise ideas with their culture.
Needless to say, neither their ideas nor they were well-liked by most Mandalorians at large. They had given the name 'Dar'manda' or simply translated: The soulless.
Non-Mandalorians have given up their identities and heritage in exchange for safety under the backed Duchess of Satine based in the old fortress city of Sundari. Though she was originally supposed to be a front to the rest of the galaxy during the Mandalorian Civil War; Satine had managed to free herself from her backs and instead turned the tables to them.
Needless to say, any Mando'ade that was paying attention knew that Satine and her movement were going to be an ongoing problem moving forward. Considering that she had managed to gain status in the Galactic Republic, removing her wasn't going to be as easy as it first appeared. So for the moment, the Clan had bided their time to let the Dar'manda enclave sit there and look pretty.
But needless to say, sooner or later the Galactic Republic would become distracted and then the Clan would make their move. That much Valerie was certain of, but that didn't matter at all at this moment as her attention was needed in the immediate present as the stranger was on the move.
"Looks like they're on the move," Valerie muttered, as she and Nars watched the stranger start walking away from the ridgeline in which they were located.
"Looks like they're heading to town," Nars muttered as he continued watching the armoured man walk away from them.
"I'm assuming that we're going to follow them?" Valerie said as she continued to watch the armoured man continued walking in the diction of the nearest mining camp.
"Of course," Nars said as he stood up. "Someone has to show this aruetiise; proper Mando hospitality." In other words, Nars was planning to confront the stranger at a time and place of his choosing.
Valerie wanted to say something but quickly swallowed it. As she knew that she couldn't dissuade her brother from this course. All she could do instead was make sure that he didn't get himself killed when he enviably fired the first shot.
Still, she couldn't help but glance at the large chunks of armour plate that were laying there ripe for the taking. As they needed the credits more than anything right now, still she simply couldn't leave her di'kut of brother to his device. Especially knowing his track record when it came to this kind of thing.
"I just hope you planning on talking." She said as the two of them started walking.
"If this counts as talking," Her bother said as he then waved his Blaster, as Valerie mentally shook her head.
As she had called it alright, as her di'kut of a brother still hadn't learned his lesson from the last time he had to pull this kind of stunt. Nor did it look like he ever would; a fact that her ba'buir seemed more than aware of. And as such, had been the reason why he had asked her to watch over him in his absence. Even so, Valerie wasn't sure if she could keep her promise to her old man this time.
Even so, that didn't mean that she wasn't at least going to try. It was the least she could do for him considering that he had adopted her when her family had been killed.
Still, it took them a while to reach the down ship and has reached the area in which they had originally seen the mysterious strange did Valerie start scanning the area around them, at which point she then noticed something in the soft dirt. As it took her a moment to realize what it was. For it was a half-complete outline of a footprint!
Valerie had nearly missed it due to its size and shape. But from what she could tell, the foot was larger than any humanoid that she was aware of; it was a good half foot larger than hers!
'Just what are you?' Valerie asked herself as she then glanced over the drop ship.
Valerie then turned her attention to the ship, as it was of a make and model ship that she didn't recognize at all, as it didn't have any of the markings that she recognized. Alongside the fact that this ship had very unusual features as well.
The most prominent of which was the four independent thruster pods that undoubtedly made this a very maneuverable ship, but it also seemed to lack most of the usual features that were standard in most starships across the wider galaxy.
Still, this didn't stop her from trying to find something that might help to identify where the ship came from.
"Valeria," Her vod then called out to her, "Are you coming with me? If so move your shebs." Nars said as he continued walking away from her and in the direction of where they had seen the stranger go.
Immediately realized that she had been staring at both the footprint and the unknown ship for some time now; Valerie then looked up to find that Nars was already moving further away from her trying to find the trail of their query.
"Yeah, I'm coming," Valeria said, even though she was still distracted by what she had discovered.
As she couldn't believe that it was real. But given what she had seen... she was starting to get a really bad feeling about this.
"Shab, Valerie, if you take any longer then I'm leaving you behind. Come on!" Nars waved her along as she raced to catch up to him.
As she then ran to catch up with her brother, Valerie couldn't help but silently asked herself just what kind of creature they trailing.
All the while Valerie was silently hoping that this didn't turn into a fatal mistake, as the two of them quickly started to move away from the crash site and pick up the trail that they both knew that this giant would leave in his wake.
Mando'a dictionary:
Aruetiise - traitor, foreigner, outsider
Di'kut - idiot, useless individual, waste of space (lit. someone who forgets to put their pants on)
Ori'vod - big brother, older brother, special friend
Ba'buir - Grandfather, Grandmother depending on context
Mando'ade - Mandalorians (Pl) - sons and/ or daughters of Mandalore
Dar'manda - A state of not being Mandalorian - not an outsider, but one who has lost his heritage, and so his identity and his soul - regarded with absolute dread by most traditional-minded Mando'ade
Vod - brother, comrade, *mate*, sister
Shab - Short for shabiir, meaning screw up or screwed up
Shebs - backside, rear, buttocks (also rear of building etc)
That's all she wrote, I hope you all enjoyed this.
As I did my best to expand where I could; still this was a rather short chapter all things considered.
But despite that I do hope that you all enjoyed it all the same. Also let me know if I missed any Mando'a and I'll put it into the dictionary.
So until next time, have a good one.