This one ended up a bit longer than I expected, and took me a lot longer than I hoped to write. Such is life. (I think this update also puts the story over 100,000 words, which is a nice milestone.) Big thank you to everyone who's read, favorited, and followed.
This is the end of the first main arc of the story. I plan to have a couple chapters as transition before it gets into the next big part of the story, which will take place some months after this one. Still working out the details but there will be some familiar settings.
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.
Update: added in some breaks between PoVs, since a review pointed out there weren't any (were supposed to be in the word file but looks like they got eaten on upload).
18 February 2550
System 702-5K5, Edge of UNSC Space
The shipmaster of the Forceful Voice sat in shocked silence for a long moment, staring aghast at the cooling remains of more than a hundred of his best warriors. And his cousin.
"Honorless curs!" Rota 'Yarolee swore as he slammed his fist into a nearby console. "I will burn all of them! All of them!" The rest of the bridge crew stood by warily, not wanting to arouse their shipmaster's wrath. After a minute, one of them worked up the courage to speak.
"Shipmaster, shall I launch our fighters to destroy them?" The officer tensed, expecting an outburst from his shipmaster.
"No. Stay your hand." 'Yarolee growled, practically grinding his mandibles. "We will close with the heretics and destroy them directly. They have no other ships, and the firepower of this vessel far outmatches theirs." He turned to the helm. "Maximum speed, set heading directly for the heretic ship! This affront to our gods shall be destroyed!" A few on the bridge cheered. 'Yarolee did not.
"You think we made them a bit angry?" Teth wondered aloud. He was taking a short break from working on the slipspace drive; he'd been going nonstop for hours and needed to rest his eyes a bit. It was a lucky coincidence that he'd come onto the bridge just as the Cheap Money detonated.
"I would be. Eight Phantoms? Those don't come cheap." Shim Vol replied. She was in a much happier mood; still sad over the loss of her ship, but at least it had fried a bunch of Covenant as it died.
"And whoever was on them." Teth said. "Boarding a hostile ship isn't something you learn in a day; the sangheili on those ships would have been in the Covenant for years." He wasn't wrong; boarding actions were far from easy, especially on a maneuvering, hostile ship. Only the most desperate or confident of kig-yar pirates wouldn't bother to shoot out their targets' engine or weapons before trying to board. Even for a team of Spartans a boarding action would not be a trivial task (not that any of the ONI agents aboard were telling the kig-yar).
"I don't just want them to be angry, I want them stupid." Chac Lon said, looking over his shoulder at the ongoing conversation. "The more mistakes they make the longer we have to get the drive fixed and get out of system."
"Then I'll offer a prayer that shipmaster's lover was on one of those Phantoms." Shim Vol said. Chac Lon and Teth choked back laughter.
"We can hope." Chac Lon said, as he stared at one of the screens. "Looks like they're picking up speed, guess they are angry."
"I hope for my own sake that we're not going to sit here and let them come to us." One of the ONI agents on the bridge remarked. Chac Lon held up his hands in a placating gesture. "Peace, human. Everything is not under control, but I am not out of ideas. You see these rings here? We sit here, drifting slowly away from them, until that battlecruiser gets close. Then -" The T'vaoan had picked up a notepad from somewhere and was now using it and his hands to explain himself "- we dive down along the rings edgewise, heading straight for the planet. They won't just be able to plow through, they'll have to follow us through all that junk. Should slow them down and keep them from getting a good weapons lock on us until we jump out of here."
Unfortunately, it likely wouldn't be enough to hide them completely. That battlecruiser definitely had a far better sensor suite than the Phantom Chance; even if it didn't a smart shipmaster could just send his Seraphs and Banshees out to search for the corvette.
Then Chac Lon had another thought; would the strange magnetic field of the rings interfere with the battlecruiser's shield at all? He wasn't sure, but it would be a lucky break if they did. The rings almost definitely would interfere with guidance on plasma torpedoes, but if he could still land enough hits to cripple the battlecruiser that would give the Phantom Chance a lot more breathing room.
Of course, he'd only have one salvo. That Covenant battlecruiser could throw torpedoes at him until its shipmaster got bored. Not to mention the suite of other weapons it had that could easily punch right through his corvette's armor.
The Covenant battlecruiser was coming hard, adjusting its course to follow the gently maneuvering corvette. Still, there was no sign of any fighters being launched. Odd. Chac Lon let his mind wander a bit, thinking about how he'd hide one of the humans' nuclear mines in the rings. With all the strange interference coming off the rings, that battlecruiser would probably run right over it without seeing it. Though, if he could wish for that, he'd rather have an intact slipspace drive. Teth was still recalibrating the drive, and it looked like his team wouldn't finish before that battlecruiser made it into weapons range.
Another thought popped into his head. "Humans, I have a question for you. What do you know about jumping to slipspace in-atmosphere." Chac Lon pointed at the gas giant looming outside their window. Seeing the surpised look on their faces, he continued. "I want to plan for every possible contingency, and if we don't get the drive fixed by the time we're chased out of the rings I intend to take us into the atmosphere."
"I've never done it." Bjornsen replied. "I don't think it's much of a secret that Coventant drives are more advanced than ours. Jumping in-atmosphere seems like the kind of thing a jackal pirate would do."
"If I knew all the details of my drive I'd be sitting in my own private asteroid counting the money I made after reverse engineering and selling them. But to answer your question, yeah, kig-yar will jump in atmosphere if they have no other choice. Five out of six times it kills you, but that's better than six out of six times." Chac Lon replied.
"There are the rumors about..." Agent Tajiko entered the conversation, bringing a groan from Bjornsen. Apparently he'd talked about this before. Chac Lon was intrigued, even if Tajiko was out of his mind it would be a bit amusing watching the other human suffer a little.
"Go on." Chac Lon motioned for the ONI agent to continue.
"Years ago, there was an admiral, Admiral Cole, who fought the Covenant for years. His last battle, he was cornered by dozens of Covenant ships, so he lured them in close and fired his ship's entire completement of nuclear weapons at the core of the planet he was hiding in, making it ignite and blowing apart the Covenant fleet. Official story is that he died in the process."
"But..."
"It's possible that he survived. Rumor has it that simulations showed his ship would have had a good chance of surviving an in-atmosphere jump right before the planet exploded." Tajiko explained, a smile on his face.
The other ONI agents looked unconvinced. Chac Lon wasn't either. If this Cole had survived, wouldn't he have shown up at a human planet shortly after, and kept fighting with the UNSC? Hopefully he did survive, if only because that would mean the chances of them surviving might be that little bit higher.
Meanwhile, the range to the enemy battlecruiser kept decreasing. "Torpedoes inbound! Six of them!" Called out one of the bridge crew, as a cluster of new blips appeared on the screen, accelerating toward the Phantom Chance. Chac Lon was worried. That Covenant battlecruiser fired the torpedoes much further out than he expected. (Not to mention well outside the range of his own ship's weapons.)
At the helm, Ramac didn't even need a verbal command from his captain to get the Phantom Chance in motion. At maximum power, the corvette dove toward the planet, hugging the bottom edge of the rings as it ducked beneath the edge. Immediately the sensor screens went fuzzy, but the incoming torpedoes were still visible, as they angled to intercept the Phantom Chance.
For a bit, the Phantom Chance continued onward, maintaining a straight trajectory as it gently skimmed the edge of the rings. Then, it dipped a bit lower, putting a bit of space between itself and the rings. Chac Lon fastened the rarely used safety straps on his seat, and keyed the ship's intercom. "All crew, brace for evasive maneuvering." The ship adjusted its vector, skidding at an awkward angle and pointing its nose upward as the plasma torpedoes approached the ring.
One of the plasma torpedoes directly impacted a twenty-meter wide fragment of an iron-nickel asteroid as it entered the ring, vaporizing it completely. Another flew through a particularly thick clump of dust, which spread out the plasma and deflected its trajectory as the magnetized ring particles interacted with the torpedo's own magnetic field. The other four made it through the ring unimpeded and continued toward the Phantom Chance and were now only seconds away from impact with the corvette.
A hit from even a single one of the plasma torpedoes would destroy the Phantom Chance; the unshielded corvette's armor would easily be boiled away by the destructive power of the plasma torpedoes. As the four projectiles approached, the Phantom Chance acclerated upward, darting into the ring. The entire ship vibrated horribly as itsengines were pushed far beyond what they were ever designed for. Within the corvette, alarms rang out as components overheated and began to melt. The rings themselves did more damage; as the corvette plowed through heedless of any obstacles, smaller fragments sandblasted the exterior, wearing away even more of the damaged paint job and putting a few dents into the outer hull. One large chunk smashed into the joint between two armor plates, cracking them and causing a slow plasma leak.
But the Phantom Chance was a tough ship, built nearly a century ago and commanded by four different sangheili and kig-yar shipmasters. It held together, coming out of the top surface of the ring trailing smoke but alive. And somehow, the maneuver worked. All four plasma torpedoes went wide, and as the gunners on the battlecruiser tried to correct their aim they flew into the rings and dissipated.
"It's firing again!" Yelled one of the kig-yar on the bridge, and true enough the Forceful Voice had let loose another volley of plasma torpedoes.
"Helm, take us back under!" Chac Lon wanted the ring back between them and the incoming torpedoes. It was good to see his idea of using the ring system to interfere with the torpedoes worked, but they only had to get unlucky once.
"Captain, I don't know how many times we can do that again." Ramac said, concern evident in his voice. "One of the main engines is down to backup injectors and I see six other things that will probably need yard time to fix."
"Noted."
Ramac sighed. "I'll do what I can to keep her from shaking herself apart."
The Phantom Chance vibrated again as it passes through the rings and a few more fragments bounced off the armor. Thankfully none big enough to do any real damage this time. Chac Lon glanced at the screen showing the battlecruiser continuing to get closer and frowned. They could just barely keep pace with it in a straight line, but it was coming at an angle. And every time they would evade the battlecruiser would just keep plowing straight in. Was there any way he could use that to his advantage?
Chac Lon activated the intercom again, on a private channel. "Teth, by the gods where is the slipspace drive?!"
"Nearly finished! You thrashing around the ship like that isn't helping!"
"Just get it fixed! Fighting that battlecruiser isn't good odds." Chac Lon did have an idea starting to form in his mind, but getting out of this system was still the best option.
The second set of plasma torpedoes continued their approach, headed in at a shallower angle than the first bunch. Not how Chac Lon would have done it, especially after seeing some of the first salvo get disrupted by the rings. Were the sangheili controlling the plasma torpedoes too unobservant to realize that, or were they that overconfident?
Still there was no sign of any fighters launching from the Covenant battlecruiser. "Can you get us into the ring? Without hitting any big chunks?" Chac Lon knew he was asking a lot from his helmsman; trying to maneuver the Phantom Chance at high speed with all the sensor interference they'd get would not be an easy task.
"You doubt me, captain? I think I'm starting to get the hang of this." Ramac smiled, clearly less concerned about the situation than Chac Lon was. Or maybe he was just hiding it better. The Phantom Chance slid back up into the ring, banking slightly to avoid a cluster of particularly large fragments. As it continued through the ring, the ship weaved through the chunks of rock and metal, running over a few small chunks but not hitting anything big enough to punch through the armor. The upper atmosphere of the planet below was getting closer, but still thousands of kilometers away.
Two of the poorly guided plasma torpedoes fizzed out well short of the Phantom Chance as the went into the ring. The other four held together long enough to go after the frantically maneuvering corvette as it dived back below the ring. Two of them made it through the ring but missed by kilometers; either the gunners on the Covenant battleship lost track or the interference from the planet's magnetic field was getting too strong.
In open space, both of the last two torpedoes would have hit and reduced the Phantom Chance to a cloud of slag. Only seconds before the first of them hit, the corvette jerked sharply back upward, ducking behind a moonlet a third of its length. The plasma torpedo tried to follow, and slammed directly into the moonlet, dumping its entire power into the chunk of iron and nickel. The heat was too much for the oblong moonlet to withstand, and in a fraction of a second most of it melted, spreading out into a cloud of plasma, molten metal, and tiny fragments. The Phantom Chance was caught in the fringe of the cloud; on the underside of the ship many tons of plating were melted away, along with several secondary thrusters and a pulse laser emplacement. Luckily for the kig-yar and humans about, the last of the plasma torpedoes was also caught in the explosion. That it lost cohesion hundreds of meters away from the ship saved all aboard from certain death.
"Krath, what the status of our torpedoes?" Chac lon yelled over the noise of the bridge.
"All eight tubes ready to fire, captain!" The weapons officer replied enthusiastically.
"Good! Don't shoot yet, I want to drag that battlecruiser onto our side of the ring. Ramac, find another rock like that one that took the hit for us and head toward it! I've got an idea."
After a few moments, the Phantom Chance adjusted course, headed for a half-kilometer wide moonlet nearby. The Covenant battlecruiser had yet to launch another salvo of plasma torpedoes. Chac Lon wondered whether they'd realized the futility of trying to fire through the rings. He just had to hope that the less powerful guidance systems on the Phantom Chance wouldn't be completely disrupted by even being close to the rings. Firing back at the battlecruiser through the ring would obviously be a fool's errand.
Sure enough, the Forceful Voice plowed straight through the ring mere minutes later, just as the Phantom Chance passed the moonlet. A brief flash was visible as the magnetized ring particles interacted with the battlecruiser's shields, but it made it through without a scratch. It was visible now on the magnified optical sensors mounted on the Phantom Chance's hull, an organic purple shape faintly backlit by the glow of its engines reflecting off nearby dust and fragments. Even from a long distance it was clear how much the battlecruiser outmassed the Phantom Chance.
"Weapons, fire one torpedo at that rock. Get the other seven targetted on that battlecruiser and ready to fire." Time for Chac Lon to put his plan into action.
"Copy that, captain. Tube one away." A single plasma torpedo lept from its silo on the Phantom Chance's hull and curved backward, accelerating away from the fleeing corvette and toward the rapidly receding moonlet.
"When I give the command, fire the rest of the torpedoes at that battlecruiser. Hide them in the flash from the first torpedo as long as you can."
Everyone on the bridge watched as the torpedo continued toward the moonlet. The battlecruiser was showing no reaction to the torpedo; either they hadn't seen it, or more likely they knew their shields could take the hit from a single torpedo.
"Hold it, hold it." Chac Lon carefully watched the distance between the torpedo and the moonlet close. "Now! Launch them all, launch them all!" Just as he issued the command, and before the rest of the torpedoes left their tubes, the first hit the moonlet, tearing it apart in a brilliant blue explosion.
The plasma torpedo did what it was meant to; create a massive explosion and debris field that would disrupt the Covenant battlecruiser's sensors. With luck, they wouldn't see the other seven torpedoes launched from the Phantom Chance until it was too late for them to evade. At that point it would just be a question of whether the plasma torpedoes would have enough power to punch through the battlecruiser's shields.
Of course, the explosion and its interaction with the rings also scrambled the sensors on the Phantom Chance. As the plasma faded and they came back into focus, a cry of alarm rang out. "Captain, they're firing again!" Six more plasma torpedoes appeared on the screen, heading straight for their ship.
"Stay on target." For a moment, Chac Lon considered trying to use his own torpedoes to shoot down the enemy projectiles, but decided against it. There was no guarantee it would work, and unlike him the battlecruiser would just fire again. "Helm, now would be a great time to push those engines."
"Captain, we're already at almost 7/6th power on the reactors." Despite his protests, Ramac was already adjusting the engines, squeezing as much out as he could.
"I need more." He turned to his weapons officer. "How long to impact on the battlecruiser?"
"Thirty-five seconds. Fifty seconds until they hit us." Krath anticipated Chac Lon's next question.
"As soon as ours hit, evade hard into the ring. Gods willing our hits will trash their guidance for a few seconds."
The torpedoes passed around the cooling pieces of the destroyed moonlet, in three groups. If the Covenant ship hadn't seen them yet, they definitely could now. "Fifteen seconds to impact!" Almost on cue, the battlecruiser started turning to dodge the incoming projectiles.
A Ket-pattern battlecruiser was far less agile than a corvette like the Phantom Chance. Even if it could maneuver like the smaller ship, its sheer bulk meant that it would have to displace itself much further to get out of the way of the incoming plasma torpedoes. All seven of the torpedoes launched by the Phantom Chance impacted on the front third of the Forceful Voice. The first four were completely absorbed by the shields.
Had the shields been at full strength, the would have been able to withstand the fifth. But they had been slightly disrupted by the interaction with the rings, and had been about to drop to allow the Forceful Voice to fire its plasma lance at the Phantom Chance. The fifth torpedo destroyed what was left of the shields on that section of the hull, and started to burn through the ship's armor plating. The sixth and seventh torpedoes hit within milliseconds of each other, only meters apart, and vented their full fury into the Covenant ship.
For a few seconds, the impact sites were hidden by the glow of plasma. Then, briefly, the gaping wound in the starboard side of the battlecruiser's front was visible, molten armor glowing a bright orange as atmosphere streamed out of the hole. Suddenly, secondary explosions appeared all across the battlecruiser, venting plasma out of the hole and cracking the armor in half a dozen more places. The ship was now drifting, its momentum still carried it forward but it was clearly wounded.
Bereft of guidance, the torpedoes from the Forceful Voice strayed off in random directions, cleanly missing the Phantom Chance. Back on the bridge of the corvette, Chac Lon slumped back into his seat and exhaled, relieved. "Good shooting, Krath. That should buy us enough time to get out of this damn system. Ramac, you can throttle back, now, but keep us moving."
"On it, captain." The ride smoothed out as the Phantom Chance's overworked engines dropped to a more sensible power output. For a bit, the bridge was silent as they watched the video feed of the crippled battlecruiser, as it drifted listlessly and a few more small explosions blossomed across the hull. Chac Lon turned to the ONI agent sitting closest to him. "You see humans, you can take down a Covenant ship even with a little corvette like mine. Just need a bit of luck and some skill. You can pay me later." He said, smirking.
It looked like the annoyed human was about to respond, but he was interrupted by something much more important. "Boss, they're dumping pods!" The sensor picture was rapidly filling up with the signatures of hundreds of Covenant life pods, along with hundreds of radiation spikes as the pods used their small built-in slipspace drives to escape the system.
Chac Lon stared at the signatures of the pods leaving the system. "The Covenat puts slipspace drives on their life pods? Must be nice to-" He stopped for a moment, while his brain caught up to what he was seeing. "Wait. Pods! Oceans and skies, we killed it! By the gods it's a battlecruiser and we killed it! How?" At that the dam broke, and the rest of the bridge broke out in excited cheering and squawking. Even the ONI agents were smiling. Chac Lon stood up. "When we get back, drinks or on me for all of you. As much as you want. Even you, humans."
Agent Bjornsen laughed. "I've heard what you jackals drink, I think I'll pass."
Chac Lon shrugged. "More for me." Bjornsen chuckled for a moment, before leaning in close. "Say, you mind if I ask you for a favor. What are the odds that the slipspace drive on all of those pods is going to work."
"A small drive like that wedged into a pod, and however many hundreds there are on a ship like that? Not high." Chac Lon switched his console to view the outside sensor picture; sure enough there were a few pods left floating in space or trying to maneuver using their small thrusters.
"Would you mind grabbing one? My bosses won't be thrilled about that mole detonating a ship full of defectors, but I bet they'd forget about that if they had a prisoner or two to interrogate."
A part of Chac Lon's mind shuddered at the thought of what ONI's 'interrogation' would look like. "Sure, why not? One condition; I'm not putting my crew at risk at all for this. I'm not opening a pod in the hangar bay to let a mgalekgolo out to run rampant."
"If I remember, the Covenant puts transponders on their pods telling who's inside. They wouldn't want to waste their resources picking up a pod full of kig-yar or unggoy if there were any sangheili floating around, would they?" Shim Vol said, as her and Teth walked back onto the bridge. Chac Lon looked at both of them, before simply asking Teth "Drive done?" The other kig-yar gestured affirmatively, and Chac Lon smiled. "Thank you, friend. Winning this battle wouldn't do us any good if we were stuck here."
He turned back to Bjornsen. "Now, as I was saying. I'll grab a pod for you. No mgalekgolo, and any jiralhanae can get left to rot. So you want a sangheili. Or a huragok or a Prophet, but I doubt we'll see one of them. Even one sangheili armed and in armor is going to be a threat unless we figure out some way to incapacitate him before we open the pod." The T'vaoan wore an expression of intense concentration. "I've got a couple ideas, but I want to hear your ideas."
"Longshot, but do you have any flashbangs or whatever the Covenant version is on here?" Agent Tajiko asked.
"That was one of my ideas, I love those things, but I'm not sure if we brought any. Teth, can you check on that?"
"Sure." The other kig-yar turned and left, heading for the Phantom Chance's armory.
As he left, Chac Lon continued. "Well. If we don't have those, what other ideas do you have, humans?"
"What kind of chemicals do you have on the ship?" Tajiko asked.
"Some of the stuff for cleaning is a bit nasty, could probably get something if you started mixing random stuff in the galley. Got rid of all the methane and stuff for that when the unggoy left. Years ago I sold a bunch of salvaged cans of VX 6 but that's long gone." Chac Lon said.
"Show me. I don't want to kill them, just knock them out. ONI training included a course on improvised chemical weapons." Tajiko responded.
"Of course." Chac Lon pointed to his helmsman. "Ramac, work with Kvet and anyone else to decode their distress signals and figure out if there's anyone worth picking up. Get the pod into the hangar bay if there is. Anybody else that can hold a weapon and isn't doing anything else I want you in the hangar. Don't want some split-lip popping the hatch early and running around. They come out, you kill them."
About a quarter of an hour later, Chac Lon, two dozen kig-yar, and three humans stood within the hangar bay. All were wearing spacesuits.
"You're sure this is going to work?" Agent Bjornsen asked Chac Lon.
"They breathe oxygen same as both of us do, and they use the same life support as us on Covenant ships. We'll keep it depressurized a bit longer to be safe." said Chac Lon.
"No, I mean, can you drop the atmosphere in this big of a space and repressurize it?"
"We've got enough storage onboard to go to full vacuum and back to full atmosphere three times. It'll be easier than trying to clean up that disaster in the galley, at least."
The attempt by the kig-yar and humans to create makeshift tear gas in the Phantom Chance's galley had created something. Not a gas, but a thick, congealed substance that spattered all over the place when they tried to thin it out by heating up. It had been potent, though. Chac Lon had gotten clump of it on his arms and it still stung; two unforunate kig-yar were in the infirmary after catching a lot more of it. It wouldn't kill them, but it can't have been pleasant.
With no flashbangs in the armory, they'd been forced to go with Plan C. The hangar would be depressurized to about a sixth atmosphere, then they'd cut a hole into the pod to vent its air. The sangheili would pass out in short order, and could be tied up at their leisure.
"What if they're wearing spacesuits?" Bjonrsen asked.
Chac Lon hefted his needle rifle and smiled.
Thel 'Domasee had made it to a lifepod, but that was the only thing about the only thing that had gone right for him today. A major among the warriors of the Forceful Voice, 'Domasee had been disappointed not be chosen to be part of the force to capture the enemy ship, then enraged when his comrades were treacherously murdered by the cowardly kig-yar. After that, he had returned to his barracks to grieve and vent his rage.
He was still there the ship started falling to pieces. How Shipmaster 'Yarolee managed to lose a Ket-pattern battlecruiser to a corvette was a mystery 'Domasee would likely never know the answer to. He only hoped the fool had the courage to die with his ship. If not? Well, the hierarchs would not let him live long in that case.
Dodging fire, plasma, and debris, 'Domasee made it to a lifepod. A deep laceration on his left leg was still slowly oozing blood, and the exposed skin on his right side had been burned by an exploding plasma conduit. Neither of the injuries was cripplingly bad, and he'd still been able to activate the controls on the lifepod and leave the doomed ship. (He'd waited a bit to see if anyone else would make it into his pod, but nobody had. Probably for the better that no unggoy or (heavens forbid) kig-yar had shown up.) Doing his best to remember the rarely practiced procedures for using the lifepod, he had set it on a course away from the planet and after the required time, activated the pod's single-use slipspace drive. It should have jumped him to a nearby system with a healthy Covenant presence, where he would have been quickly picked up.
Nothing. All that resulted from activating the drive was the sound of sparking and acrid smoke seeping from behind a panel. 'Domasee had decided against making a second attempt at using the drive. He'd have to hope that the air and supplies inside his pod would last long enough for the Covenant to come investigate the Forceful Voice's distress signal. He'd cleaned himself off as best he could, and laid down on the seat of the pod to try and rest.
He'd been surprised when only a short while later, he heard something bang against the outside of the pod, then felt acceleration as it was pulled by something. For a fraction of a moment, 'Domasee hoped that another Covenant vessel had arrived. But he soon realized what was actually happening; the kig-yar had his pod.
'Domasee picked up his plasma rifle and prepared himself. Even for a warrior of his caliber, engaging an entire ship of kig-yar would a tall order. And they would doubtless be waiting for him when he came out of the pod. But he would make them pay in blood before they killed him.
For a few more minutes 'Domasee and his pod were dragged along, before he felt a change. Suddenly, the pod was scraping against something, and more importantly, he could faintly hear sound from outside again. The sangheili realized that his pod must be inside a ship with atmosphere. Likely he was in the hangar bay of the corvette the Forceful Voice had engaged (and lost to). Had a Phantom pulled him in?
Clutching his weapon, 'Domasee looked at the release mechanism for the pod's hatch. They would be expecting him to open the door and come out shooting right away; if he waited a bit they might let their guard down. He leaned back against the back wall of the pod, and did his best to be silent. Outside, he could hear movement and what might have been kig-yar speech, but the sound was weaker than before. Odd.
Then, something started cutting through the hatch! A shower of sparks flew into the pod, making the sangheili flinch as a small hole appeared in the exterior of the pod. As soon as it the skin of the pod was fully breached, the precious atmosphere inside began rushing out, making a piercing whistling sound as a thick fog filled the inside of the lifepod. 'Domasee was startled; had the kig-yar brought him here only to kill him as a cruel joke? He would not, could not give them the satisfaction.
'Domasee stood up and inhaled. Already the air was growing thin; he knew he had only seconds left. He lunged for the release mechanism, as the edges of his vision went gray. Still, he forced himself to reach for the hatch, and pulled with all his strength on the release mechanism. It gave it bit, but remained shut. He pulled again, and this time the hatch opened, falling free of the pod. In his fading sight he saw half a dozen kig-yar and a human in a loose group outside the pod.
The sangheili stepped toward the lip of the hatch as he tried to raise his plasma rifle. He could not. His arms moved slowly, barely responding to his commands, and 'Domasee stumbled over the edge of the pod as the hypoxia affected his brain. He fell to the floor of the hangar, slammed his mandibles into the metal plate as his plasma rifle fell from his grasp. As he tried to reach for it, someone kicked 'Domasee in the face, sending him back to the floor. As he fell unconscious, the last thing he felt was his arms being wrenched behind his back and someone grabbing his legs.
Thal 'Domasee awoke some time later, in an unfamiliar room. Both his wrists were cuffed to a metal frame, and his legs were shackled together and tied to something. He could barely move any of his limbs. As he returned to full awareness, he looked around where he was confined. From the color and texture walls, it was clear this was a Covenant-made ship, but upon looking closer this wasn't a military ship. For one, not even the most lax of shipmasters would have allowed the multiple pieces of kig-yar language graffiti he saw scrawled along the walls. There were other little clues; a bit of grime, the mismatched light fixtures, other oddities.
At the foot of the bed 'Domasee saw two figures. A human in a gray uniform, and a kig-yar in gold-colored armor. As 'Domasee struggled against his restraints, both turned to look at him. The human pointed at the sangheili and said something in his own language that 'Domasee did not understand. Whatever it was made the kig-yar laugh. 'Domasee growled and spat at the pair, which only made the kig-yar laugh harder. After a few moments, it stopped laughing, and looked directly at 'Domasee. Then, the kig-yar spoke, in accented sangheili.
"Glad to see you're awake. Be happy you're a sangheili, if you were a jiralhanae I would have let you die."
"Don't patronize me, kig-yar. In a fair fight I would kill you in a moment."
"Why would I fight you fair?" The kig-yar gestured at a holstered pistol. A human weapon, by the looks of it. "You should save your breath sangheili. I think this human here would very much like to talk to you."