And now we arrive on everyone's favorite Forerunner artifact. Going to be a challenge to evoke that same feeling you got at the start of the second level of CE, but we'll see how it goes.
Thank you again to everyone who's read, followed, and reviewed. Looks like the email notification thing broke again, but I know people are reading anyway :)
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.
1200, 17 August 2550
Aboard UNSC Targhee, Near Installation 04, Iota Horologii System
"If I was them, I'd send a bunch of sangheili out first. Let their shields take the fire, and there's always a bunch of minors wanting for glory."
"Isn't this what you used to do, jackal? Shouldn't you know?"
"I wasn't part of the Covenant, you shitter." Chac Lon hissed. "And besides, kig-yar don't have shields the same way sangheili - elites do."
"So you never stole anyone else's ship? Sounds like a pretty terrible 'pirate' to me." The Marine shot back at him, clearly enjoying the exchange.
"I never said that. Now what I would do is send in all the unggoy to soak up your bullets. Those things breed like nothing else, six of them die and there's twelve waiting to take their place."
The marine chuckled. "They do have a lot of those shits, don't they? Almost feel bad for 'em."
"Zip it, Marines! Eyes up and get ready to make those bastards regret they even thought about getting on our ship!" Sergeant Major Johnson yelled from further down the passageway. The sergeant major was in charge of the defense at this breach, and arranged his Marines along with Chac Lon's kig-yar in a series of defensive positions down one of the Targhee's major passageways. Their job wasn't to kill all of the Covenant boarders, just slow them down enough for the other breach to be wiped out. Given that that one had all three Spartan-IIs assigned to it (in addition to more marines and some ODSTs) it wouldn't take long. Then, they would come clean up here.
Chac Lon was at the front barricade, along with a pair of other T'vaoans, Jak Zhan and Shal Fel, along three human Marines. He wasn't carrying his normal weapons, instead he had a human submachine gun, and a plasma pistol. The submachine gun was a far cry from his needle rifle, or the human burst fire rifle he'd trained with the past several months, but inside the Targhee the rapid-firing submachine gun would be more useful. Chac Lon was wearing his normal armor, though he'd long since replaced the purple and black markings on it with dark green paint and UNSC insignia. Jak Zhan and Shal Fel had modified gladiatorial armor with energy gauntlets covering their forearms. Probably a better choice for close combat like this.
The plasma pistol was a weapon Chac Lon had extensive experience with, from his time as a pirate and thief. Though virtually useless at the longer ranges Chac Lon and other kig-yar preferred to fight at, its ability to fire a large burst of plasma made it useful against hard targets such as sangheili, and even as crude tool. Convincing the UNSC to bring a few dozen along on BLACK FLAG had not been a challenge; now they would be put to use. Not only the kig-yar, but also many of the Marines were carrying plasma pistols.
Less than twenty meters away a circular area of the bulkhead began to glow dull red; the Covenant boarding craft was nearly finished melting through the outer armor of the Targhee. Chac Lon cocked his submachine gun, then propped it against the makeshift barricade and drew his plasma pistol. He hoped that the storage crates and steel plating covering them would be enough to withstand the plasma fire that would soon be coming their way. As the glow brightened to orange, his finger hovered over the pistol's trigger.
A shower of sparks and the armor plate fell free, revealing the entry tube of the Covenant boarding craft. The kig-yar and humans at the barricade squeezed the triggers on their plasma pistols, charging the weapons. A soft green glow lit the corridor as a strange buzzing sound filled the air. From one deck below came the sound of gunfire. The Covenant had arrived.
As Chac Lon predicted, the first Covenant out of the boarding craft was a file of sangheili minors, all wielding plasma rifles. As soon as the first one cleared the energy shield at the exit of the boarding craft, Chac Lon released the trigger, sending a sphere of superheated green plasma downrange. Before it hit, he was dropping the plasma pistol and reaching for his submachine gun. He didn't see his shot hit one of the sangheili. Three other plasma pistol shots hit other sangheili, leaving most of the group missing their shields.
Two of them had the presence of mind to charge forward toward cover and keep firing; if they died at least they might take a human or two with them. Chac Lon raised his submachine gun and sighted in just in time to see the other two stop to yell defiantly at their assailants. He aimed in the general direction of its torso and fired, squeezing off a short burst of five round before recentering his sight picture and firing again. The minor's harness was nowhere near the best the Covenant had to offer, and the sangheili tumbled to the floor, bleeding from five separate wounds in his chest and neck.
All the rest of the sangheili in the first group died within seconds. But they lasted long enough to draw the defenders' fire, and more Covenant were pouring into the Targhee. Chac Lon sprayed a few rounds in the general direction of some unggoy, then ducked down as blue plasma screamed past, close enough for him to feel the heat. They all missed him, but one of the Marines had slower reflexes and fell with a gurgling scream as two shots from a plasma rifle hit him on the shoulder and neck. Chac Lon glanced at him for a moment, but it was obvious he wouldn't survive; the plasma burned clear through the Marine's armor and all the way down to the muscle and bone.
"First squad fall back! Second squad cover!" Sergeant Johnson's command gave Chac Lon leave to do what he was about to do on his own.
"Jak, Shal, go! You too, humans!" He yelled as he stuck his submachine gun over the barricade and blindly emptied the magazine downrange before slinging it onto his back. The pair of T'vaoans easily outpaced the humans as they sprinted toward the barricade behind them; Shal Fel simply jumped over the barricade to land behind the surprised Marines, somehow evading all the Covenant fire headed his way. As soon as the last of the Marines left, Chac Lon went. Zig-zagging, he ran toward the safety of the second defensive position meters away. Blue and green bolts of plasma flew past; he felt something on his left arm burning, and smelled something burning.
Suddenly, one of the humans in front of him stumbled barely short of the barricade as plasma splashed around their feet. Reaching down, Chac Lon barely slowed as he hooked his right hand into the human's uniform, catching a handful of fabric, skin, and muscle. The Marine grunted in pain as Chac Lon pulled with all his might, digging his claws in and roughly dragging the human to safety. As the T'vaoan ducked behind cover the Marines and kig-yar manning the second barricade resumed firing. More than two dozen sangheili and unggoy had made it aboard the Targhee, and there were still more coming.
Collecting himself behind the barricade, Chac Lon looked at his left arm for a moment and saw a few of his feathers smoldering with the tips burnt off. At least it wasn't as bad as that time on Persia IX, he thought as he jammed a replacement magazine into his submachine gun.
"Keep your heads down!" Someone further back yelled, as a pair of machine guns opened up further down the hallway, spraying the right hand side of the hallway. Hundreds of bullets flew downrange, tearing apart unshielded unggoy and sangheili alike. Even a few kig-yar were killed by rounds that ricocheted behind their shields. Many Covenant, though, were smart enough to get into cover, hiding behind protruding parts of the ship's structure or the remnants of the first barricade.
The fire from the Covenant slackened for a moment, before a volley of grenades flew toward the humans. Pressing himself to the floor and raising his arms to protect himself, Chac Lon watched as the flew past, landing around the machine gun position. The Marines manning only had a moment to dive for safety before the grenades exploded, tearing the position apart and sending debris flying. It was only through pure luck that three of the five Marines there managed to survive.
With the guns down, the Covenant charged forward with renewed intensity, even as the defenders of the Targhee rushed to fill the line. Ears ringing, Chac Lon rose to a crouch and leveled his submachine gun at a white-armored unggoy. Squeezing the trigger, he put a long burst into the unfortunate unggoy, splattering teal colored blood onto two of his squadmates. The other unggoy seemed shocked, more that a kig-yar was shooting at them than anything else as they stared at Chac Lon. The T'vaoan killed one of them and was about to finish off the second when he saw a white-armored sangheili headed straight for him.
It was at this point Chac Lon realized he'd left his plasma pistol behind. Hissing in frustration, he backpedaled away from the sangheili and pointed his weapon in its general direction. Just as he started firing, his right foot caught on a critically wounded human lying on the floor, and he stumbled. Most of his burst went wide into the ceiling and wall; what few rounds did hit did practically nothing to the enemy's shields. As he desperately rolled out of the way, Chac Lon was barely saved as one of the Marines turned his fire to the sangheili. While the burst of fire from the Marine's submachine gun didn't make it through the sangheili's shields, it did grab its attention. It fired a burst from its plasma rifle downrange, peppering the wall around the human but thankfully scoring no direct hits.
Now out of point blank range and with his target distracted, Chac Lon crouched behind a storage crate, aimed down the sights at the sangheili's head, and fired. After two rounds, the submachine gun ceased firing, its magazine empty and bolt locked open. The T'vaoan didn't even bother to try reloading; he lunged for another weapon lying on the floor that had been dropped by a dead human. The sangheili turned to follow him, venting heat from its weapon as more Marines started firing at it. Its shields flared blue as it was hit by more than a dozen rounds but it stood firm. For a few seconds at least.
Just as Chac Lon grabbed a weapon off the floor and frantically tried to crawl back to cover, the shields winked out. Even still, the high-ranking sangheili's personal armor was enough to deflect most of the incoming rounds. Suddenly, there were brief flashes of pink behind the sangheili, and it started to turn around in surprise. A fraction of a second later there came an explosion, and the sangheili toppled forward with a massive hole in its back. Shal Fel was crouched feet away, holding a needler still covered in unggoy blood.
There was a momentary lull in the combat, and Chac Lon noticed that the gunfire from the deck below had stopped. The UNSC had been pushed back to the third defensive position, hastily set up at a corner where two passageways intersected. If the Covenant made it past this one, they would have the run of the Targhee, until troops from elsewhere came to chase them down. Chac Lon wondered about the contingencies the UNSC doubtlessly had in place. Would they simply seal off doors, or would the captain of this ship go so far as to vent this deck into space?
Before he could consider the implications, the Covenant renewed their push. A squad and a half of Chac Lon's kig-yar were crouched in the hallway, shields out, as the humans fired over their shoulders. The wave of unggoy at the front of the Covenant advance were momentarily stymied by this tactic, not expecting to see it deployed against them. Annoyed, the sangheili minor commanding them slapped one of the unggoy and was about to order them to throw grenades over the improvised shield wall. But before he could, an armored figure vaulted over the line of kig-yar. Even Chac Lon, with his sensitive eyesight and quick reflexes, barely had time to register who the green-colored figure was; one of the demons.
The Spartan barreled into the Covenant formation, toppling three unggoy as he went for the sangheili minor. The young sangheili warrior, eager but inexperienced, had no chance against the human supersoldier. As it tried to club the Spartan with its plasma rifle, the Spartan simply caught its arm and in a fraction of a second hyperextended it, forcing the joints far beyond their limits. Shocked, the sangheili barely realized it was injured before the Spartan snapped its neck.
As the sangheili's corpse fell limply to the floor, the rest of the Covenant force tried to react. Many of the unggoy panicked, as did a few of the enemy kig-yar. The sangheili, though, stood firm. They knew of the humans' demons, and they would not allow themselves to fall to fear. Four of them further down the hallway lowered their weapons and began firing at the oncoming Spartan.
The sight of the Spartan tearing through the Covenant attackers breathed new life into the Targhee's defenders, both human and kig-yar.
"Go! Assist the demon!" Chac Lon yelled to the other kig-yar as he waved his weapon downrange. They started pushing forward individually, keeping their shields up as they methodically moved down the hallway. The Marines followed steps behind, firing between gaps in the cluster of kig-yar.
Chac Lon heard Johnson encouraging the Marines, "That's it, steady push, watch your fields of fire." as he raised his own weapon. His first target was a pair of panicking unggoy. A long burst caught both of them in the back; one fell to the floor bleeding. The other screamed as its methane pack turned into a crude rocket and bounced off the ceiling twice before exploding. As he searched for another target, Chac Lon caught sight of the Spartan engaging another one of the sangheili.
Blithely ignoring incoming fire, the Spartan charged headlong toward the sangheili. Chac Lon was shocked to see plasma splash harmlessly off a glowing yellow field around the Spartan's armor. Energy shielding, just like the sangheili. Chac Lon thought. The demons had not had they when they trained against the kig-yar on Reach months ago. Firing its assault rifle, the Spartan emptied a third of a magazine into the sangheili before slamming its left hand into the alien's neck. The sangheili's shields flared and dissipated as they absorbed the hammer blow. In a fluid motion, the Spartan jammed its weapon into the sangheili's gut and pulled the trigger, blowing it apart. The entire engagement had not lasted even five seconds.
More gunfire was now coming from the other end of the hallway, just out of sight. The other two Spartans had arrived. In moments, the Covenant attack completely collapsed. The few unggoy and kig-yar still alive tried to run back to the boarding craft, while the sangheili died standing. Only a few moments later, there were no Covenant left fighting on the Targhee.
Moving forward, Chac Lon found a single kig-yar minor cowering behind a support beam, clutching its plasma pistol. Before it could react, Chac Lon clamped his left hand over its mouth and pushed it up against the wall. Sticking the barrel of its submachine gun into the kig-yar's ribs, Chac Lon hissed at it in their native language. "This Covenant is not worth dying for, is it?"
A muffled squawk was the only response. "Drop your weapon, put your arms up, and I'll tell the humans to keep you alive." The kig-yar said nothing in response, but did as Chac Lon told.
"Hey Marines, this one's giving up!" Chac Lon nudged the prisoner out into the open, only now noticing the blood dripping from a wound on its side. He made eye contact with Sergeant Johnson, who waved three Marines over. "Ramirez, take your squad and get that jackal to the brig! Rest of you that can carry a weapon, get your asses to the Pelicans! Captain Sakai wants us off his ship and landing on that thing in twenty, so we're doing it in fifteen!"
"Hold on to your asses, this is gonna get a bit rough!" The pilot of Pelican Delta-129 announced over the intercom. The dropship shuddered as it encountered the outer reaches of the ring's atmosphere, and a few of the kig-yar in the troop bay checked their seatbelts. Chac Lon was unperturbed. He'd ridden Phantoms and bolted-together kig-yar dropships through hurricane force winds and electrical storms, this was nothing. Besides, he wasn't in one of those pods dropping straight from space. That would have been too far.
There were ten kig-yar about Delta-129, along with a pair of human Marines from the Targhee who didn't seem particularly pleased about the seating arrangements. Several supply crates were tied down in the middle of the dropship between the two rows of seats; the kig-yar (and humans) could only see the heads and necks of the people across from them. Not that this had stopped the conversation in the cargo bay of the Pelican.
"I don't dislike these human weapons, but as soon as I can I'm going to steal back a needle rifle." Chac Lon said to the kig-yar sitting across from him.
"That what you used before? Staying with what you know?" The other kig-yar, Zhal Ven, asked. Chac Lon hadn't known her for long; she was a part of the group the defected to the UNSC in February of 2550 and one of very few that HIGHCOM cleared for Black Flag. A skirmisher major before her desertion from the Covenant, she had long since repainted her armor but kept the red-dyed feathers many of her rank had.
"Yes, and it's just better. Jiralhanae can take six, seven, eight human rounds to take down if you're not perfect placing your shot. Three needles and the filth's pink mist. Not to mention when the needles set off an unggoy methane tank."
"I used one for a bit, but the carbine felt better in my hands. Of course once I left I had to use whatever I could find." Zhal Ven paused. "Do you ever worry about fighting other kig-yar? Running into someone you know, or family?"
"Someone you know still with the Covenant?" Chac Lon asked.
"No, not now. Two sisters and a brother all used to but they got out before I left. Rest of my family never joined. I hope the Covenant didn't get to them." She looked at the floor. "My parents lied after I deserted and said they'd disowned me, hope that's enough to keep the split lips off them. What about you, you have any family with the Covenant?"
"Nobody that I care about more than my own skin. Some distant cousins that I haven't spoken to in a dozen years at least. Maybe? My family was small to start with, and right now I'm the only one."
"What, no brothers or -" Zhal Ven stopped as the Ruuhtian next to her poked her before whispering something into her ear. She frowned, and was about to apologize when Chac Lon waved her off.
"Teth-" Chac Lon cocked his head toward his friend a few seats away "- says it helps to talk about this, and he's usually right on these things. Had one sister, she was with the Covenant. Gone for years now." He stopped for a moment, letting out a few deep breaths. "It hit me hard. She's the only blood family I ever had."
"Sorry." A few more moments of silence, and Zhal Ven continued. "You aren't a believer in the great journey, but..."
"If I did would I be here?" Chac Lon smiled a bit. "Do I think I'll ever see her again? After the night..."
"When the last of the stars go out..." Zhal Ven half sang, finishing the old, half-forgotten kig-yar song. "Part of me used to believe in the great journey. Faked it well enough a bit of it got into my head. Honestly, though..."
"I'm not sure I could tell you what I believe. Last year has made me think about things a lot."
They sat a few more minutes in silence, before the sound from the Pelican's engines suddenly changed. A few of the kig-yar looked at each other, while the two humans in the Pelican looked more relieved than anything else. Seconds later the rear door began opening, and Chac Lon got his first look at the terrain of the ring. Out the back of the Pelican he saw a grassy meadow, dotted with clusters of small trees barely taller than he was. A few boulders, maybe the size of a Ghost or Warthog sat half-embedded in the ground. Out of the corner of his eye he caught something looming in the sky.
"All y'all get your asses off my bird! I've got another load to pick up back on the ship!" Came the voice of Delta-129s pilot over the intercom. The Pelican had not fully landed, just slowed to a hover centimeters above the grass. A squad of ODSTs stood behind the Pelican ready to help unload the cargo; Chac Lon wondered where there pods had landed, and whether all of them had survived. He had heard that even non-combat drops from orbit could be treacherous.
The pair of Marines seated at the back of the Pelican were the first ones up. Unlatching the first of the supply crates, they handed it to a pair of waiting ODSTs, who roughly put it on the ground nearby. It took less than a minute to empty out the rest of the Pelican, and it was soon climbing back into the sky at maximum speed. Then came the fun part; setting up camp. Gods willing a flight of Banshees or Seraphs wouldn't show up in the middle of it. Chac Lon's rifle was strapped to his back, but that would be little help against an attack from the air.
As Chac Lon and Zhal Ven carried a crate of rations away from the landing site, his eyes darted about, noticing many things. The first was one of the demons carrying a crate in each hand, the same size as the ones that took two humans or kig-yar to carry. Farther away, closer to the edge of the small plateau, stood a pair of automated turrets mounting some massive six-barreled autocannon. A team of technicians was swarming over them, but Chac Lon was surprised that they'd even managed to get them down in one piece.
2100, 17 August 2550
UNSC Camp Scott, Unknown Forerunner Installation, Iota Horologii System
"Hey, idiot, wake up." Shim Vol laughed as she nudged the half-awake Chac Lon, forcing him back into awareness.
"That's 'captain' to you, brainless. And stop swinging the damn hammock." He grumbled, as he raised his head. One arm hung limply over the side of his hammock, while the other cradled his rifle against his stomach.
"Pair of humans coming this way, headed down the gully." That was worth waking up for. The kig-yars' tent wasn't too far from the rest of the camp, but it was unlikely that a human would wander over here just for the fun of it.
Originally the plan had been to set up the kig-yar in one of the prefabricated tents adjacent to the rest of the human camp. Chac Lon, though, decided a better spot would be in one of the many gullies at the edge of the plateau. About five meters deep where Chac Lon was sleeping at the head of it, the ravine deepened to about fifteen meters before it abruptly dropped off the edge of the plateau at nearly a sixty degree angle. The standard issue UNSC tent had enough fabric to cover the 'roof' of the gully for about forty meters, enough to house all of the kig-yar in the gully's width. Naturally their human commander complained when he saw what the kig-yar were doing (especially the nonstandard modifications they had to do to get the heater and built-in latrine to fit), but he'd relented after a few minutes. The human knew a losing battle when he saw one.
Chac Lon squawked a few profanities, before sliding out of the hammock and getting to his feet. "Ah, well, I suppose I should see what they want." He was just about finished adjusting his feathers when the first human stuck his head in.
"God, this place stinks like shit. Which one of you is Chac Lon?" The human, whose insignia identified him as a second lieutenant, asked as he tried not to gag.
"That is me. What do you need?"
"Colonel Gagne called an officers' meeting. Wants you there." The lieutenant exhaled sharply through his nose. "You have a comfortable setup here?"
"It works well enough. More natural sleeping arrangements for us." The kig-yar were sleeping in hammocks or on pads on the floor, rather than cots like the Marines or ODSTs.
"Good, sounds like you won't be spending much time here. Colonel will brief you."
"Thanks." Chac Lon put as much sarcasm into his voice as he could muster as he exited the tent and made his way up the gentle slope toward the center of Camp Scott. (Chac Lon was aware of the camp's name, but Colonel Gagne hadn't seen fit to inform him or most of the enlisted about the 20th century explorer it was named after. Probably for the better.)
The humans seemed to noticeably relax once they got out of the kig-yar tent. Whether it was because they still didn't trust the kig-yar or just because of the smell, Chac Lon did not know. In any case, they made their way toward the command post of Camp Scott in silence. They were about two thirds of the way there when Chac Lon heard something. A low hum, barely audible over the background noise of the camp. He was about to ask the humans if they also heard it when he saw the automated turrets slewing.
Six Banshees were inbound, coming in at high speed from a few hundred meters above the surface of the ring. In milliseconds, the dumb AIs on the pair of turrets closest to their approach vector identified them, locked on, and computed targeting solutions on the first two Covenant fighters.
For Chac Lon and the other UNSC forces outside, the sight of the turrets activating gave enough warning for them to prepare themselves for the roar of the rotary autocannons. The jiralhanae pilots of the incoming Banshees had no such warning; they were clearly not expecting the UNSC to have such heavy defenses up. Two Banshees exploded, shredded by volleys of armor piercing 20mm rounds. The other four immediately dove for the deck and went evasive as they turned for home. One of the turrets managed to tag one with a few rounds before it went out of range; the Banshee wobbled onward for a few kilometers before tumbling into a shallow lake.
"Well, now they know we're here." The lieutenant escorting Chac Lon muttered as they continued toward the command post.
"Like they didn't already." The other human, a sergeant, responded. "That was a recon mission, bet you anything the split-lips are going to be looking at footage of this place in a couple hours. Least they didn't see much."
From the commotion and noise in the camp, it looked like more than a few of the human soldiers had also had their rest interrupted by the Covenant intrusion. Chac Lon was already awake and had his rifle, so he took the chance to look at the sky as he followed his escorts. An alien sky, completely unlike any other world he had ever seen.
There was no horizon, but instead the ring curved upward, making it look as though they were in the bottom of a very wide valley. At the zenith above him, Chac Lon could see a thin line; the far side of the ring. At that distance the details were too small for him to make out, but closer in he could see the ring's landscape. Ocean, clouds, patches of green, brown, and even white. The landscape looked almost natural, despite its setting. Why had the Forerunners built it this way, Chac Lon wondered. Was it a colony world, a habitat they had built in place of settling on a planet? If not, what was it?
The three of them soon arrived at a building at the center of the camp, larger than most of the other buildings and shaped like half of a cylinder. Sturdier looking than the tents that made up most of the makeshift UNSC base; it was obviously the main command post. A pair of ODSTs stood guard outside the doorway; Chac Lon saw one ODST's eyes briefly widen as he made eye contact with the kig-yar. Chac Lon smirked internally; looked like the humans still weren't completely used to having him around. After being ushered through a few doorways, he arrived at the meeting, and helped himself to one of the empty chairs.
Colonel Gagne was not a tall man; when Chac Lon stood upright he was nearly half a head taller than the human officer. But he was qualified an ODST, and had survived fighting the Covenant since the 2530s; clearly he was a capable fighter and leader. From his interactions with the colonel, Chac Lon knew he wasn't entirely happy to have the kig-yar around, but was able to keep it professional in settings like this. He had even less of a sense of humor than Korhonen did back on Levosia, though. (Or maybe he just didn't show it around the kig-yar.)
"Now that everyone is here, we can begin. I will keep this brief; the next eight hours are the last real break we will have while we're on this structure. The original plan had a less compacted schedule, but the presence of the Covenant has forced the use of contingencies prepared by Admiral Titus and myself."
Gagne paused, before continuing. "There are two objectives for our ground forces on this installation; protect Camp Scott, and gather as much information about this structure as possible. Company Alpha of the 105th and the Marines will handle the first objective for the time being. The rest of you will be deployed to support the second objective. Admiral Titus and his prowlers have identified priority sites based on their proximity to our current location and our current knowledge of these 'Forerunners'."
The overall plan was simple; the UNSC would investigate three sites tomorrow. One 'priority' site that would get the attention of the main archaeological team, and two other ones that would just be Marines and ODSTs taking pictures. Everyone else would be defending them, Camp Scott, or the outlying and hidden Pelican dispersal sites. Of course, what Forerunner sites would be productive was basically chance at this point. This installation was so far outside what anyone human or kig-yar had seen that while they weren't starting from zero, they might as well have been. Honestly, at this point the most useful thing would be a map or at least something that let them talk to whatever AI ran this ring.
"Chac Lon, I need you to select four of your best kig-yar, and -" Colonel Gagne spoke, addressing the T'vaoan commander.
"So myself and three others. Already know who."
The colonel gritted his teeth for a moment at the interruption, before continuing; "Each of you will be leading a fireteam doing distant support for the primary site. You'll be our eyes and early warning for a Covenant attack. Your job is not to run around looking for artifacts or shooting up random Covenant patrols. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." Chac Lon judged from the colonel's tone he wasn't in the mood for humor.
"Excellent. Pelicans start leaving at 0600 tomorrow. Don't know what this place's day-night cycle is or when we'll get another long break, so I'd recommend getting what sleep you can. Dismissed."