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Subject: Sangheili Polvora
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
For the honor of the Mirratord!

A form slipped between crates and stilled behind the Brute in question, settling there and losing the visibility generated by motions. ‘Lygotee watched in wide wonder as the beast seemed to calm, and breathe a tired sigh as it gave its surroundings another survey with a disinterested gaze. An eternity slipped by, but the Brute never did regain his previous composure, even after the vague shape left its presence in favor of somewhere less occupied. ‘Lygotee waited for his teammate to come about, but a full half minute elapsed and nothing happened- he nearly freaked when something applied pressure to his side, however, until he realized it was just ‘Lavuree, glaring at him past his cloaking engine.

Relaxing, ‘Lygotee let go of the Elite’s throat and put his hand down. “You should know better than to spook me.” He whispered, annoyed.

“Spook you, Leader?” ‘Lavuree scoffed, rubbing his throat. “You called me!” He hissed. “Next time I shall not be so forthcoming when you summon me.”

‘Lygotee snapped his mandibles at his teammate. “We have been over this! What happened in here to make the Brutes so agitated?”

‘Lavuree flexed his, obviously contemplating returning the expression, but in the end let it drop in favor of returning to the topic at hand; “They believe a number of us have infiltrated their command vessel and are responsible for the disruption and loss of life there. The killings happened directly after the ship left the docking ring to prevent just such an occurrence.”

‘Lygotee nodded, thinking. Finally, all he could come up with at the time came out. “Why did you touch me when you arrived…?”

‘Lavuree seemed to smile a wicked smile, but being transparent made the expression hard to discern from the pattern on the floor behind his head. “I turned your comn unit off, Leader, because you left it on after calling for this discussion.”

‘Lygotee wanted nothing more right then than to kick himself hard enough to leave a bruise worth limping for. Where was his mind? This was the last thing he needed right now. He sighed. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, Leader. Thank the Gods that I was observant enough to notice.”

‘Lygotee waved it off in favor of another change in topic. “What is the plan for the watch above us when we strike?”

“There have already been several dispatches to the upper decks to ensure they are not a problem, Leader. They are taken care of.”

“How much longer until we are all inside and in position?”

‘Lavuree turned in an odd direction, making his transparent form seem to bend in an unnatural fashion. When he turned back again, he said, “Maybe another minute, Commander. Then you might expect the go ahead signal without waiting long.”

‘Lygotee studied the way the floor looked through his comrade, and wondered if he looked like that when he too was invisible. A thought later, he asked, “And those already inside? Are they in position?”

“As best they were able, I presume…” ‘Lavuree stated, contemplatively, picking at a plate of armor over a lower mandible as he did so. “This incredible mess the Jiralhanae have made unloading crates of supplies has made the execution somewhat difficult to accomplish.”

‘Lygotee nodded, satisfied. “Good… return to your place.”

“Yes, Leader.” ‘Lavuree stepped out of his Commander’s hiding place and slipped away, between boxes. ‘Lygotee’s gaze turned to follow a Brute as it paced past, and noted with disdain that the plasma rifle it was carrying was in its hand. Another with a grenade launcher/bladed cudgel followed the first shortly. Brilliant! They had heavy weapons, here… things could very easily get out of hand if anything happened to their re-supply of troops.

With a long sigh the Sangheili shook his head; there was never a war fought nor battle won that did not see the victor as badly or worse wounded than the defeated. Many a fine warrior would die this day, and maybe perhaps himself, as well. Through a narrow slit between the boxes several boxes away he saw a familiar glint, and a moment later the predetermined sequence of clicks piped through his comn.

Now!

‘Lygotee exploded out of his hiding place in an almost perfect synchrony with nearly all of his kind, pulling free and activating his energy sword as he drew it across his first victim. The Brute didn’t even get to howl, but enough was said by all those surviving him to make up for the lack. ‘Lygotee didn’t let him hit the floor before he was joined by one of his brethren, but then the power node in his sword was low and unlike the newer ones issued to those what earned them, the node in his was harder to replace and held less energy. Replacing it back on his belt, ‘Lygotee pulled his carbine from his shoulder and sent the first round through the back of the next Brute’s mouth, the bolt slamming its head back and dropping it in its tracks even if the blow didn’t kill it immediately.

‘Lygotee hoped that it had, as he fired into the fray that he was suddenly a part of. His blood curdled at the first sound of a Sangheili scream, the first among many that was the direct result of the Jiralhanae recovering from the surprise and shock of the first few minutes of the attack. The doors to the corridors opened, and a few hundred more flowed in, Elites herding Unggoy like little goats.

The wild-eyed grunts quickly mowed down the first row of Brutes with their combined plasma fire, but the Brutes were having nothing if not a field day with those they managed to get close to. A pair of them plowed right through the littler creatures, smashing them flat and running them under, killing several and incapacitating more than a few just with the one move. ‘Lygotee spotted ‘Pohamee and Szęnaqee out of the corner of his eye, and it occurred to him to wonder where ‘Lavuree had gotten off to and if he were holding his own or needed any assistance.

There was too much happening directly around him, though, for him to simply break away and search for his teammate, so all he could do was wonder. A heartbeat later he saw a Brute sailing through the air in a ballistic arc, to slam and sprawl against the force field barrier of the bay door before dropping to the floor and back out of sight behind innumerable boxes. ‘Lygotee was awed, but he couldn’t let it stop his own movements or allow himself to want to investigate. Everyone was doing as they deemed necessary, and if it meant tossing Jiralhanae like little Unggoy then that was what it meant. ‘Lygotee raised his carbine to shoot another Brute in the head, and was swatted to the side by one that had suddenly appeared beside him. He rolled with the momentum the blow had afforded him, coming up onto his hooves again before the beast could reach over and stomp him while he was down.

The Brute snarled at him, and lathered his shields with rounds from his plasma rifle, a scuffed and beaten looking red weapon that made ‘Lygotee wonder at how it still worked. He quickly found out why it looked that way, though, when stars exploded behind his eyes after the impact the thing made into the side of his head. Staggered by the blow, and with his shields at less than half power, ‘Lygotee had to fight like he had never before in order to keep from being owned by the beast. He was not about to let them have him- if they wanted his blood, they would need to bleed for it.

He aimed for the Brute, and surged upwards, coming off his balance for the move and hoping he didn’t miss because of it. He hit the Brute and rebounded, the battery in his sword depleted. The Jiralhanae moaned weirdly, and toppled, but the fight wasn’t over yet and he couldn’t use that trick again. Stashing his sword with the switch still in the active position due to no real need to flip it over just yet, ‘Lygotee had to dive for cover when rounds from a grenade launcher flew through the air at him following a brightly glowing plasma grenade from somewhere else.

Explosions followed him for several paces, but he managed successfully to get clear of the blast radius of each. Slipping between boxes, the Elite held there for long enough so his shields began to recharge, but before it was finished he reactivated his cloaking engine and darted for a new place. His old one erupted hard enough so the boxes there were peeled open and weapons and ammo sprayed out across the floor.

Needles sailed over his head as he raced along, slipping between and around combatants and giving quick aid to whomever needed it. He paused to issue a kick to the gut of a particularly difficult Brute, doubling the beast over and allowing the Elite he had been harrowing to slam the back of its head with his rifles. The Brute recovered from both assaults quickly, though, and snatched a wrist to hold it out to the side as it opened its mouth in the Elite’s face. The other rifle came up and the hot end was crammed into the maw of mention, before filling the brute’s mouth with enough plasma to burn out the back of its head.

‘Lygotee jumped a fallen Brute and stopped at the other side, facing a peculiar member with a silver dorsal stripe. This one was wearing armor, not just the bandolier and belt set the rest had on, and the weapon in its hands was something of a modified grenade launcher. There were also two spike rifles on its hips. ‘Lygotee looked him up and down, but he was still invisible and the fellow didn’t notice him until the device auto shut off. Startled out of his reverie, and with the intense noise of the combat happening in the room rushing back to him, ‘Lygotee had to dodge to the sides in both directions at once to avoid being slammed in the chest by a souped-up grenade. The explosions generated by them seemed to be worse than a typical explosive by four times, and the shrapnel they each flung was impeded not by loss of power but lack of fly space due to all the boxes- wonderful cover, he thought, given to them by the Brutes themselves.

  • 04.07.2007 10:18 AM PDT
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
For the honor of the Mirratord!

Still, even a cargo crate couldn’t hold up to that kind of abuse, and he was chewing away at them following ‘Lygotee with those grenades. He toggled the switch on his invisibility device, but it was still too hot and refused to activate. Irritated and tired of being shot at already, ‘Lygotee came around the beast and mounted the top of a crate to jump onto him from above. The Brute spun about, but the grenade flew past the target and then the Elite was upon him, wrestling for the weapon.

The struggle lasted until ‘Lygotee pulled up a leg and slammed his knee into the Brute’s jaw, causing him to involuntarily arch back and release the launcher. He came back pissed off, though, and ‘Lygotee had no time to compensate when he was seized, picked up off the floor and thrown into the tangled mess he had made of the crates.

Slices and shards of metal crate stabbed at his armor and depleted his shields again. He rolled free of the mess only to be grabbed again and taken by an elbow to be swung about and slammed into another set of crates, these so far undamaged by the fighting. Pain shot through ‘Lygotee’s midsection, and he balled up where he landed when he was released, fighting down the spasm his nerves had enacted in response to the intense impact. After what felt an eternity, and with his heart pounding in his ears, ‘Lygotee spread a hand on the floor and tried to rise from it.

The Brute stepped close and kicked him, turning him over against the crates he had just been hit with. Winded and too disoriented to react, ‘Lygotee just lay there, unable to do much more than await his fate, whatever it might be.

As the Jiralhanae came into focus, though, he realized it had turned from him and engaged another. Thunderous explosions and bright fiery plasma bursts decorated the fight, which he discovered a moment later was hand to hand- a bad equation where Brutes were concerned. The familiar flavor of his own blood became evident in his mouth when he tried to inhale, black spots in his vision telling him he was about to pass out from air loss due to having both lungs collapsed after the impact to the crates.

This was not the best place to be unconscious, though, and he knew it. If he was found by the wrong party, there would be nothing he could do about it. Color and motion blurred together as one, and sound distorted enough to become unrecognizable. Before long, the whole room darkened, leaving nothing spare the deep empty abyss where no one could see their own hands.

‘Lavuree didn’t need to look to know his Commander wasn’t dead; his enemy was irritated because he hadn’t gotten to finish him. ‘Lavuree didn’t need to harass or goad his enemy, either- he was already mindless from rage and all the Elite needed was to work that to his advantage. Slowly he was pushing the Brute to the edge, and when he went wild and berserk with that rage, he could kill him without needing to watch each action to make sure it wasn’t overshot or worse.

The Brute hammered at what he thought was his antagonist, aware now that not all Elites were equal. His last kill hadn’t actually died, but it wasn’t much of a problem when he could kill him later- but this one refused to even so much as take a blow. He was quick and slippery and he knew where to hit the Brute where it would hurt. When he thought he might have him, he would slip away as if he had been greased.

‘Lavuree swatted aside the grabbing hand and punched the beast in the nose, but he found he had wasted time in doing so and now he was out. A grip too strong to break clamped around his waist, and he was in the process of coming away from the floor when he lifted his legs and planted his hooves opposite the Brute’s head. Sinking his fingers into the grip on his midsection, ‘Lavuree coiled and tore it away, to leap from the impromptu perch into a back flip that landed him on his hooves several paces away, so he had plenty of time to jump up and run along the Brute’s back onto the floor behind him as he charged more or less on all four limbs. Seeing he had missed, the Brute spun about, his eyes burning with hatred and his muscles quivering with energy. He needed to snap this one in half or he would never be sated. ‘Lavuree was waiting for him when he got there, ready and able to meet him. This time he allowed the Brute to slam into him, but only because he felt he could take it.

Feeling his victory at last, the Jiralhanae rose back to his feet and rose up for a double fisted punch. ‘Lavuree reached up and seized his jaw, bringing his arms down prematurely and with less power for hitting with, to loosen the grasp on his mouth.

‘Lavuree let his hands hover at his mouth, using the well-timed distraction to pull free two plasma grenades and prime them. He held them up for the Brute to see, so the panic would register in his brain. The Elite let him get several paces away before throwing them at him, effectively trading places with the Brute and keeping from the suicide the Brute had thought he meant to perform.

Doaedemet saw the bright balls of plasma explosive sailing at him, saw them adhere to his armor. He had no time left for any sort of cry or retaliation, no time to re-close the gap he had put between himself and the Elite, as the crafty warrior had let all the fuse burn already… it was a fool thing to do, but this time it had worked, and now there was nothing to save him from his end.

Who was the fool, he wondered, the Elite, or Doaedemet?


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Can I stop here and not be stoned to death? I wanted to post more but duty calls and I'm out of time. I'll put the rest of chapter four down later on, but probably not today. Hope you enjoied this... ciao.
~Aardvark

  • 04.07.2007 10:26 AM PDT
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
For the honor of the Mirratord!

Here's the rest of it... and there should be more of the next chapter following this one unless I get kicked off the net before I'm done. Enjoy...

**********************************************************

Chapter Four, part two:
0200 hours; Command Station Radiant

A swift kick and a sideways impact to the head sent the Brute topsy-turvy, stunned and down but not yet dead. He left it for the Elites at his flanks, moving deeper into the room that was the docking bay on the ninth quarter of the industrial side of the station. If there came any more, the sheer numbers of the Unggoy would drown them, as the waves of the little creatures swam past his feet. Somewhere in the masses were several medically capable and equipped grunts, so anyone who fell and was left behind the lines of actual conflict could be seen to immediately. Down on the bottom floor, where much of the fighting was happening, the third team of Sangheili burst in, shredding the Brutes that had been weakened by the first and second. Dial M’akamee was on the second floor, carving his way across the deck to clear the air above his Elites of enemy fire. So far he had lost enough warriors and killed enough of the enemy to bathe a star-class vessel in blood. Somewhere there ought to have been a few pairs of Lekgolo, somewhere in the bowels of the Radiant, but he had yet to so much as hear of them in a week and had assumed the Prophet had taken them with him when he left. It was becoming evident that that was just what had happened. The massive and effective Hunters were nowhere to be found, and there was also no sign of their remains.

If the Brutes had killed them, too, they hadn’t done it where the Lekgolo were supposed to have been posted. Dial paused to survey the battle below him, trying to count heads in the writhing mess of often tossing bodies. A Brute that had been alive suddenly was dead, an Elite that had seemed fallen got back on his feet. Deeper into the chamber the opposite was true; the Sangheili were having trouble claiming the room, but just when Dial supposed it was a possible outcome, the air filled with buzzing insectoids.

“Curses! They have brought the Yanime’e with them! Warriors! Take them down! Concentrate your fire on them until there are no more.” Dial commanded, realizing instantly that the combined fire from those bugs would do just the same as what the combined fire of his Unggoy had done.

He watched with satisfaction as all the bolts needles and rounds from his compliment flew at the bugs, leaving little to no flight room amid the fray. Yanime’e dropped onto their targets and intended victims in droves, unable to withstand or escape the sheer amounts of fire sent at them from the side. Dial hated to waste such good troops, but the bugs were something very short of hard wired and it was difficult at best to give them new orders if they conflicted with the old. The Supreme Commander had seen this sort of problem before, and adapting to a situation was better left to the other varied members of the Covenant.

“Commander- more Brutes!” The Elite to his left called, redirecting his aim even as he spoke. Dial had enough time to look, the motion accompanied by the same of four others, before the Brutes of mention charged in and tore the speaking Elite open where he stood. Dial flew over the Unggoy’s heads and slammed his hooves into the offending Brute, knocking him to the floor. Before he could rise, he stabbed the arrogant creature in the throat with the tip of his energy sword. Blood bubbled out of the wound, but the Brute’s spinal cord had been severed, and the blood loss was rendered irrelevant; the Brute was already dead.

The charger’s accompanying troop mates barreled in, then, exchanging heavy fire with the Elites Dial had brought with him. The shorter Unggoy bent so they were even shorter, standing beneath the roof of free-flying plasma, and sent up their own volley at the Brute’s legs. Dial watched as a dozen Jiralhanae dropped not from loss of life but from loss of limb when the needles and plasma showering on their legs became enough to sever them. The floor was slick with the blood of both sides, but neither would stop until one or the other were all completely destroyed.

Dial had not come upon his high rank by accident, nor had he stumbled his way there; he knew things others did not, could spot things others would never see. He also was prone to recognizing when something benign was not as peaceable as it seemed, and though nothing about the current situation was peaceful, Dial began to recognize the signs of something worse coming up. What could be worse than a troop of Brutes, though, that the Brutes had in supply? The question burned at him as he sliced and hacked at the enemy he presently faced. A small number of the Elites with him began to withdraw from the front of the line, but it only occurred to Dial to follow their action when he saw why they were doing it; by threes the Unggoy sought the front, each carrying a fuel rod cannon, the giant weapons dwarfing their carriers.

Yet nothing was more effective than just that, and even as one was cut down before firing the first shot, the rest buried the Brutes in huge bombs of superheated plasma. Dial could only look on as the floor and parts of both walls to the right and behind the Brutes began to sear and vaporize under the intensity of the barrage.

Letting the Unggoy carry the weapons onboard a space-borne craft, no matter how big, was a disaster waiting to happen, but at times one had to cut one’s losses- whoever gave the order to send them forward had been the one that got tired of watching his brothers be killed around him first- eventually Dial would have gotten to the same point, he knew, which was why they were given the guns to begin with and brought along. Dial stepped forward to survey the damage done to the floor when it was overwith and the Brutes were all dead- most of them dissolved-and defeated, but aside from it being hot enough to melt his hooves right off his legs at the moment, it seemed to have retained enough to traverse over without falling through.

This was good- they would need to. But until it cooled enough for them to pass, they were trapped where they were unless they chose to drop into the action below them or go back the way they had come. Dial looked over the conflict below them, half his remaining troop following his gaze.

From somewhere near their entrance point, he could hear a grunt fussing at an Elite, scolding him for something in his native tongue. Some of the fallen hadn’t died, and were drug to the back of any perceived possible combat zones for treatment. Evidently, one of them had taken an injury either in or close to a nerve cluster, and it hurt too much for the warrior to want anyone to touch it.

Dial breathed a weary sigh. He raised his sword, and looked at it. He had more than half the battery left, and he had more than half the Jiralhanae population to go. He cast a look at the warriors assembled beside him. “Half of you stay where you are. Maintain the clarity of this deck- allow no Brute access but die only if you must to ensure that. The rest of you, follow me. We are going to give our brothers on the bottom floor a hand.”

He received a chorus of eager growls and worts, the Unggoy eminating their own slightly more high-pitched hoots and cries. The Sangheili wanted nothing more than to spend some time killing the Jiralhanae, and the grunts with them were willing enough to follow them that they too seemed to have adopted the angered stance of their leaders. The Sangheili had not been generous to the little aliens, but they were far kinder than any Jiralhanae had ever been.

With this, Dial M’akamee and forty Elites piled onto the bottom floor of the docking bay, only a dozen or so of these turning from the fight to catch the following Unggoy, who were eager to jump but unable to handle the stress the impact would grant them- if the Sangheili didn’t catch them, they would be as good as dead when they hit bottom. The rest immediately engaged the Brutes they could see, effectively clearing a swath and generating a brief lull in part of the bay. Once the Unggoy were down, the rest of the Elites raced after the retreating Brutes, showering the hairy behemoths with as many rounds from all their guns as they could.

Needles and hyper sonic rounds hammered between bolts of plasma, some of the encroaching Sangheili warriors scooping up fallen or scattered weaponry and dual-wielding them against the enemy. Dial pushed through to the bridge and around to where the docking-ring doors were, knowing there was one advantage he owned that the Brutes could never counter.

He was captain of this ship, and no one knew his ship better than he did.

Dial M’akamee sliced out at a Brute, but the beast dodged, causing him to miss. The quick Jiralhanae then promptly defeated his own luck by returning head-on, whereupon Dial ran him through and left him curled on the floor to die of one of two means- execution by the Elites behind him, or blood poisoning from having his feces mix with his blood inside the wound. Another came forward, firing his plasma rifle, but he only had one and he barely buzzed Dial’s shielding before six dual-wielding Elites brought him down. Dial smiled grimly as he passed the heaps of bodies the fighting had left, passing more than a few cold and stiff faces he knew. Blast scoring was everywhere, broken crates and busted weaponry scattered throughout the mess, cracked plasma nodes leaking onto the floor, big pools of sticky, half-coagulated blood, bits and pieces of both Sangheili and Jiralhanae bodies all over the place.

  • 05.02.2007 2:25 PM PDT
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
For the honor of the Mirratord!

“This one’s alive, Leader.” One of the Unggoy said, hopping more than walking to the indicated Elite. Dial watched as the last of the Brutes backed through the door that had been locked, and let it close before locking it again. There couldn’t be more than two or three dozen of them in there, if the number on the floor in here was anything to gauge by.

“Is there another way in there, Commander?” The Elite to his left asked.

“No.” He answered. “That area was built to withstand explosive decompression. When the door locks, four auto sealers come online- anything offensive against the door causes them to weld it shut, and only a complete replacement of the entire door would open it again.”

“What is back there?”

“The docking ring- and the ship they took to get here. We cannot even hope to starve them out.” Dial snorted. “We will need to circumnavigate the whole of the Radiant to get into there. There is only one other entrance and I doubt if it hasn’t been sealed like those leading to the Resource Chamber. Still…” He turned from it to see the bodies strewn about at his feet. “Their retreat will give us time to pick up this mess, and rearrange things to suit our needs.” He looked at each of the faces looking back at him in turn. “Survey for survivors- have the Unggoy carry the rest to the freezer chamber for later identification and processing when we have time.”

“Yes, Leader.” One by one they slowly dispersed, doing as he commanded. Unggoy were everywhere, bouncing between corpses looking for life or goodies. Brutes didn’t typically have anything worth much on them, unless one was in the business of making hand cream out of refined and filtered Brute skin oil. The creatures certainly produced enough of the substance to be a marketable product- even if nobody wanted to buy such a thing. Dial scanned the room briefly from where he stood, looking in general at the whole thing. He saw nothing he liked.

In the end he deactivated his sword and hung it on his belt again, to assist for lack of anything better to do while he thought with the cleaning and sorting out of the bay he was in. Already several of the bodies had been taken away, dead ones being carted off to the freezer chamber to be preserved until something else could happen to them.

They were all heroes, Dial mused, driving back the Brutes who sought their utter destruction. He dared not count the numbers, knowing to do so would increase the weight he would then carry back into battle. Just looking told the logical side of his brain that it was easily over a hundred. The actual statistic would need to wait anyway- the numbers of boxes impeding the sightline would make counting them all difficult anyway.

He turned to see a Brute that had a silver dorsal stripe, and frowned. The rest of the beast was a dark brown, making the silver look like a kind of colored interruption. Shaking his head, he turned from the bloodied and torn carcass to see an empty splash of violet blood at the base of a crate that had been dented badly. Dented in the shape of Sangheili body armor.

Dial looked back towards the Brute he had seen, and started in alarm.

The carcass was gone, without traces of drag marks.



Chapter Four, part three:
0530 hours; Capital Ship Rampant Generosity

Hoku Zimivee. The name meant nothing to him, and that detail he found odd- he had thought he knew most of the operatives in his line of work, but unless this one was somehow either a new recruit on an assignment that he wasn’t notified of or he had been there all along as some kind of sleeper cell agent.

Any of the above possibilities disturbed him. There was nothing save the kid’s actions over the past few hours that even hinted that he might be connected. Mün Gazenee understood one thing better than some of his peers; if a situation didn’t immediately expose all the angles to his expert eye, then something else and much worse was likely very wrong.

“Who are you?” Even his Leaders couldn’t have accomplished this sort of chaos and destruction at the age of the warrior in front of him. Mün didn’t expect any reply, hadn’t spoken to garner one- the only soul within earshot was incapable of speech at the moment, unconscious as he was.

Mün Gazenee wondered where he had come from, who he was, why he was aboard- he remembered finding him on the Command deck, assisting him there- and he hadn’t stopped berating himself since for assuming he was a fellow member of the same underground group that Mün Gazenee was; the Mirratord.

Hoku Zimivee wasn’t even a name that sounded somewhat familiar- there was no recollection to access, nothing he could remember about this character from before the encounter under the eyes of the Brute’s leader- a nasty and cunning som-blam!- known as the Butcher, or more commonly just by his name, Throug.

Mün Gazenee had tried to follow the younger Elite, when he left the Command deck, but he had been in such a hurry he had outpaced Mün almost immediately- and when he got to the end of the trail, he had found nothing more than a closed dock door and a headless Brute. At that point it had been prudent to assume what he had. Zimivee was outside, had made it- he was certainly going fast enough. He remembered being awed at the sheer speed of the youth, amazed by how when he got moving, there was nothing, not even Mün, who could catch him. At first he had thought he had the same sort of cloaking device that Mün had, until he finally found him again, and discovered due to his inanimate condition and visibility that it was actually a pair of alternating devices that were both standard grade.

He was clever… adaptive, maybe even a little too smart for his own good. Mün had spoken briefly with a field master, before coming here, but he hadn’t expected anyone to accompany him and had only realized he was trapped aboard the vessel apparently after his mystery companion had. And if that be the case, even this fellow had been slow on the ball, if he needed to fly that fast to reach his exit in time.

As a precaution, Mün had tethered Zimivee’s hands, not to mark him as a prisoner, but to keep him from jumping awake in a panic attack due to the circumstances Mün had pulled him from. Four Brutes, it was amazing. Four of them, all at once, and without firing a shot, definitely without aid of a sword… or any other weapon, for that matter. Mün was still shaking his head at the intensity of the action. How many could do that? He hadn’t tried it personally, but then he had never found himself in a situation to need to- he was more careful than that. If he thought about it, he decided he could not, in fact, pull it off. He wasn’t good enough for that. He had learned a special fighting technique, and it made him very hard to beat by those that didn’t know it, but sitting in the small, darkened room now and watching this new mystery player, Mün Gazenee decided firmly the last thing he would ever want would be to have to fight that kid.

Whoever he was, he was more than he seemed. But at the same time, he was pretty torn up, if still alive and suffering nothing fatal. Mün shook his head, again, still having a hard time wrapping his mind around the swirling circumstances. First he was not as alone as he thought, then the abilities of the youth before him began to pile on, first his speed then his level of dangerous, and not to mention the swath of dead Brutes he had carved through the middle of the ship. And all, Mün noted, without being seen or getting caught. Mün himself had had difficulty at first determining why there were so many dead when there appeared no actual conflict of interests within the Jiralhanae command structure. So far, the only friction was between the Brute commander and his whelp, who wanted the position.

“…am I dead?”

Mün returned his mind to the present, and his gaze to his captive audience. He smiled, slightly amused. “No.”

Zimivee’s face wrinkled. “Where am I?”

“Hidden- safe, for the time being.”

He turned his head, and looked back at the agent. “That’s not fair.”

Surprised, Mün cocked his head. “What isn’t?”

“I was looking all over for you. How come you found me so easily?”

“Maybe because you were just close enough that all I had to do was turn around, and there you were.” Mün answered. “You are either the most idiotic or the bravest soul in the Covenant, though… I must admit.”

Zimivee squinted at him, before pressing himself into a sitting position. “What does that purple bar on your shoulder mean?”

Mün shook his head. “In time. I need to know if you are trustworthy before I trust you.”

Zimivee nodded. “Fair enough.” He looked down at his hands, but what Mün expected from him next never happened- instead he surprised him yet again, by lifting his hands and biting the ties around his wrists so they loosened enough for him to slip free of them. Taking the binding from his mandibles, he flung them at Mün. “You realize, I hope, that by that gesture you have a long way to go to get that trust?”

Mün looked at the binding. Then at Zimivee. “Who are you??”

Zimivee shook his head. “If you won’t tell me, I won’t tell you.”

“You are the only one I have ever known to take down four Brutes by yourself without any sort of weaponry at hand.” Mün insisted. “I don’t even know how you did it. Didn’t they fight you?”

“Of course they fought me. No one wants to die. I just wasn’t inclined to give them that option.” Zimivee circled one wrist with the other hand, looking down at the floor between Mün’s hooves as he did so. He knew he had won that fight by the skin on his teeth, but if he let this awestruck fellow know that, he was liable to wind up worse off than before- with one of his own to contend with, not just the Brutes aboard. “So what is a special operations Elite doing out here alone?” He raised his gaze to meet Mün’s. “Where is your team?”

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Mün hid a cringe. He was very observant- and anything, even the tiniest slip, might blow the whole thing wide open. His group was a secret, and secrets don’t stay secret for long when in the presence of people like Zimivee. He might or might not share, but that was a risk too big to justify taking right now. “I’m it.” He answered- it was an honest answer, but given the circumstances it was liable to be the only one. Anything else might be needing editing, which would make it all lies. There was no such thing as a half-truth in the eyes of the Mirratord.

“Just you, then? What’s the mission? Sit around and watch while everyone dies? You cannot possibly hope to accomplish much when you’re alone.” Zimivee scolded. “Which is why I was seeking you out to begin with.”

“Ah, well, there you have it.” Mün replied. “It’s just me and you, but we aren’t alone, now are we? There is a whole ship filled with Brutes to keep us company.”

Zimivee snarled at him. “I don’t care what or who you are. If you work for them, or if you hesitate to kill them, I will kill you.”

Mün cocked his head. “Now why would that be?”

“They murdered the High Council. On top of that they came here to kill us too.”

Mün nodded, his expression somber. “I know.”

“Then why haven’t you been killing them? There are plenty enough to go around.” Zimivee protested.

“What makes you think I haven’t?” Mün shot back. “What makes you think you can come here into the territory assigned me and interrupt my mission, just to scold me like some child for not doing as I have been doing for the entire voyage of this vessel??” He had raised his voice, but as soon as he finished and the silence returned he regretted it- someone might have heard.

“Quietly!” Zimivee hissed. “Do not allow your passions to rule you. Even I cannot combat a whole ship’s worth of Brutes and win. You will have them kill us both with your shouting.”

Mün sighed. “I did not mean to become loud. You forced it from me.”

Zimivee was about to protest the statement when he suddenly turned around and said something entirely else that sent Mün back on his heels. Cooling his expression as well as his tone, Zimivee answered, “I apologize for inciting your anger. But I will not waste time with bickering. There isn’t time for that…”

Astonished yet again by the seeming wisdom within the youth, Mün was speechless for a moment. In the time it took him to gather his thoughts, Zimivee added,

“What is your mission?”

Mün shook his head in an attempt to clear it. “Elimination of the leader faction of the Brutes. But the order in which they must fall is so meticulous that it is taking forever… and now the next one that must go is out of reach.”

Zimivee spared some time to think about that. “The son… Doaedamet.”

Mün cast him a look, but it changed when he remembered the youth before him had already been around a bit. He nodded. “Yes, him. If his father falls while he is still alive, he will assume command and the ripple effect will be disastrous.”

“He cannot assume anything as long as he does not know.” Zimivee offered.

Mün committed the Elite he was looking at to a moment of study before replying. “What had you in mind?”

Zimivee tipped his head. “Kill him anyway, and worry about Doaedamet when he turns up. He is aboard the Radiant, after all.”

Mün nodded, but not in complete agreement. “He is at that, but while you did disable the command protocols for motion in this place, you failed to also disconnect the communications array. He will know as soon as someone turns to him for orders when Throug is dead.”

Zimivee paused. “Throug?”

“Yes.”

“I need to know something else, before you and I begin anything in the remote department of cooperative operations.” Zimivee said.

“If it isn’t something I cannot in good conscience give you, I will answer to the best of my knowledge.” Mün replied.

“If you don’t know the answer, no one does.” Zimivee told him. “I wanted something to call you by. Your name.”

Mün nodded. That he could part with. Not a big deal. It wasn’t as if there was a list somewhere with all the names of the members of the Mirratord on it. “I am Mün Gazenee.”

Zimivee opened his mouth, but shut it again a moment later to try again with something else. “I suppose you already had plenty of time to look me up, didn’t you.”

“I did.” Mün answered. “But it told me little to nothing of you. You are more than you seem, Hoku Zimivee. I begin to suspect you may have as many or more secrets than even I.” When Zimivee started to speak again, Mün held up a hand. “I will not ask for them if you do not ask for mine. Do we have a deal?”

Zimivee just nodded, silent.

“Now. Exactly how do you plan to pull off your proposed action?”

He received a shrug. “I tend to wing it, most times. Plans go awry- when operating without one, and on the basis of a mere set goal, things do tend to go smoother.”

Mün laughed. “I like your philosophy.”

“It doesn’t often go as I would like, however, when I have to take orders from someone who happens to have a plan.” Zimivee amended. “Which is always.”

“You ought to come up in the world soon.” Mün assured him, before rising from his seated place on the floor, and walking to the door. Zimivee watched his motions, feeling the skin on the back of his head pulling tight. Here was a professional, a killer, someone who no one messed with that lived. And Zimivee had argued with him. He kept his face clear, when Mün turned back to look at him from the still-closed door, but inside there was a terrible knot in his gut that would undoubtedly make things difficult. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure he wanted this Elite’s company…

“Get up, we haven’t all day. A patrol comes through here every seven hours and…”

Zimivee didn’t let him finish, rising and meeting him by the door. “I was out that long?”

“No.” Mün sighed. “After I found you and fixed you up, there was less than a three hour time lag before you woke. I just want to be long ago gone from here before they arrive so there is nolonger any residual scent of either of us when they do.”

“One more question.”

Mün frowned at him.

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Doing what, exactly?”

“Hiding out on enemy ships killing command staff.”

“Never before. Maybe a week.”

“I meant in general.”

Mün shook his head. “Eventually, Zimivee, you will get yourself killed for asking too many questions into the wrong departments.”

“How long?” Zimivee insisted.

“Thirty years, thirty one, maybe. Why is it important?”

“Good, you know what you’re doing. You lead.” Zimivee said.

Mün rolled his eyes. “Good grief.” He touched the locking mechanism on the door control and it slid open, detecting them near it and permitting passage. Zimivee watched as Mün faded from sight while walking through the door into the hall, and activated one of his own cloaking devices before following.



Chapter Five, part one:
0615 hours; Capital Ship Rampant Generosity

He held what resembled a slender rod that had been shaped slightly to the form of his hand, so it was easy to hold, but the item, while tending towards the same genre as the rest of the stuff he carried, held no obvious sign of being a weapon.

It was as if it were just a shaped piece of metal, but Zimivee knew better than to let himself be convinced of that. Mün Gazenee had yet to activate the device, but he was holding it like he meant to use it somehow on something sometime soon. Zimivee was attentive more than his usual for his curiosity, wanting to find out what it was, what it did, when or if that happened. At the moment, he held only one of them, but he had two, oddly enough, the other on his belt, adhered by the micro-grappler hooks that were on nearly all standard grade arms.

Along the route the two Elites had taken, Zimivee had noted each and every side passage and wayward personnel they had come within sight of, certain if anything went wrong he would need that information to aid in his flight from the scene. He wasn’t stupid- any action other than running away was suicide when faced with a room filled with Brutes. Especially, he mused, when one was all alone. He hoped Mün was being as observant, but if he was it wasn’t an obvious attribute.

The Sangheili confused him; what was obvious was he had been in the business of backstabbing for a great long while… what wasn’t was his methods. Mün was the sort of warrior that one understood as being nonexistent. He did things without credit, moved without being seen, acted under orders that had never been given. He was the convenient solution to what was otherwise a terrible sore that had no cure.

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Still, given this, Zimivee had expected him to have obtained an excellent judge of character, or at least be able to read one’s eyes. How else could he have lasted that long in this business? Zimivee had been utterly astounded at just how wrong the fellow had been about him. He had nothing to hide, no secrets, no shady past… truth be told he hadn’t been alive long enough to get into anything that deep. He wasn’t terribly young, but he’d been told more than once that he was young for his position. And if Mün was any better at predicting the future than he was at judging character, that little tidbit would probably be a mainstay throughout his career. Zimivee smiled to himself, realizing how silly it all seemed- because he had none, he could never tell his secrets, would never slip, was incapable of falling out of character. Hoku Zimivee would be Hoku Zimivee regardless of the situation. He only had the one face to wear.

And that right there, by itself, would only serve to convince Mün further that he was just like himself, only better at it. Zimivee watched as the Brute ambled past, three of his clan mates trumping along in his wake. After they had gone, and the hall was clear again, Zimivee reached out, and swatted at the air behind Mün. He had learned already not to touch the Elite when he wasn’t expecting any physical contact- he tended to overreact when that happened.

Responding to the unusual air current, Mün turned his head; it was the sort of attention Zimivee preferred over being attacked. Quietly he posed his question to the older warrior. “I realize you may not consider this the time, but I do, so I have to ask… what are you going to do with me when your mission is finished, given that you don’t exist and your mission doesn’t, either?”

Mün frowned at him for a moment, checked the hall, then turned around to face Zimivee fully. “Listen, kid, I don’t need your help.” He stated, baldly. “As long as you don’t get in my way, you’ll be fine. Don’t attract attention to yourself or to me, and we won’t be seeing one another again, am I clear?”

Zimivee frowned right back. “By that… we won’t be seeing one another again… you mean you won’t need to come back to kill me?”

Mün sighed, frustrated. “Don’t play dumb with me, Zimivee. I don’t need to be told to see you aren’t that shallow. Either shut up and keep pace, or back off and get out of my sight.”

Zimivee fought down the urge to snarl at him. They weren’t friends, weren’t even on friendly terms, but this pseudo-hostility was beginning to get on his nerves. “Don’t address me as if I were a child.”

Mün shook his head. “I’m in a little over my head, and you sank me deeper in. Do not tempt my already raw temper. The right thing for me to have done when I found you was to have killed you on the spot, and you know it. You have complicated my mission. And that alone makes you my enemy.”

“Your enemy! Your enemy has done more to ensure the survival of our brothers onboard the Radiant than you have! Do not judge me when you don’t even know me, and trust me when I say you do not know me.”

“I am fully aware how little of you I understand, Zimivee. Do not try to goad me into another pointless argument. We are wasting time.” Mün turned away, then, and resumed his walk. Zimivee spared a moment to growl to himself, looking off down a hall to the side, before breathing deep and trotting off after the grumpy warrior. If relations got any worse he knew he would never forgive himself for seeking Mün’s company. He was the last person in the known territories Zimivee wanted to be near, and the last person he could enjoy working with.

Mün was interesting, but Mün was cold. Exact and precise, and guarded even in the best of company. Zimivee understood he had been given a bit more trust than Mün was accustomed to granting, but he wasn’t about to corner himself against all things spare himself. He had enough enemies, and he knew it.

A Brute appeared up ahead, pausing in the hall where he could block the whole thing. The beast crossed his hairy arms, and surveyed the juncture he was standing in before curling his lip in a silent snarl down the corridor to his fore. “I smell Elite scum.”

Zimivee cocked his head, but forewent any opinion of the statement of his own in favor of seeing what Mün thought of it. The Elite turned slightly to see Zimivee instead, as if thinking the same thing he was- get his companion’s reaction before pursuing any action of his own. Zimivee wanted to laugh, but withheld the urge in favor of tipping his head at the agent.

Mün made a silent grunt of either disinterest or confirmation of a theory he had already come to, and turned back to see the Jiralhanae as it unfolded its arms and began to tromp past them. Inside the moment they were shoulder to shoulder, Mün’s unusual palm-rod sparked to life and spun around in his hand. Zimivee’s mouth opened in surprise at the device; it was the oddest looking energy sword he had seen yet, but it was indeed an energy sword. Rather than two accompanying blades of energy the width of a filament and the breadth of his palm at the starting end tapering down to a point four feet later, this blade was straight as a ruler, with a mere foot’s length on one end and four inches on the other, past the tip of the rod in Mün’s hand. There was no second accompanying blade opposite the first of the rod.

Turning the blade from its original position with the long end following his arm to his elbow, Mün poked the skinny thing through the Brute’s side in a single viper-strike move before rotating it back again and turning it off. The Brute winced once, burbled something that didn’t really get to leave its mouth, and crumpled in its tracks.

Zimivee stared at it in horror. The energy had a circumference, rather than a breadth and width, and the size of the hole Mün had made was no bigger than one of his fingers- and with only a foot’s worth of length, his aim had needed to be more then perfect to have stabbed the middle right out of the Brute’s heart. He cleared his expression before looking up, but gained a new one- frustration- when he saw Mün had vanished from the area again. Zimivee wished he had a sword, but he would have been happy with one of the standard grade ones- by the way Mün had handled his odd version of the otherwise common weapon, Zimivee guessed it would be by far more difficult to learn to use. One would not dare flex one’s wrist with sharp energy like that so close to one’s arm.

Zimivee breathed a sigh, and stepped past the Brute’s body, not really that interested in finding Mün again when relations were not that desirable anyway. Alone again and this time in no real mood for company, Zimivee moved through the ship on a mission all his own. If Mün wasn’t going to do what he claimed was his job, then Zimivee would. At first he encountered mild resistance as he tried to go for the command decks, but found quickly the reason for all the activity surrounding the area was due in near precise fault to his being there. Someone had gotten smart overnight, and though they still didn’t know where or who, the Brutes now knew what, and they were looking for him. Hopefully, they didn’t also know there was more than one, or that they were currently at a bit of odds with one another.

Zimivee didn’t much like Mün Gazenee, but he wouldn’t betray him. Still, the same might not be said for Mün. Who knew what his loyalties were. And at current Zimivee wasn’t even sure if he wasn’t working for the Brutes to begin with. Some agents would go to impossible lengths to appear as they were not- like Mün’s killing of the Brute in front of Zimivee.

If someone were to ask him, he might just hand over any information for a pat on the back and go back to work. Zimivee couldn’t trust Mün any more than Mün could trust Zimivee. Anything Mün had against him could easily be his undoing, but at the moment he couldn’t have cared any less. Here he was, pretty much isolated inside the enemy’s territory, caught between a ship hull and a wall of Brutes, with only his wit and his determination- and sometimes his fear- between him and oblivion.

He supposed if he were caught now, after causing so much trouble, the Brutes wouldn’t be so kind as to let him die. Any and all frustration he had caused would then be taken out on him, maybe one of them would want to tear his limbs off him while he was conscious. Zimivee wore a grim smile into the Command Deck, wore it all the way up the ramp to the flank of the commander of the whole problem; Throug.

The Jiralhanae in the chamber looked mostly busy with whatever tasks they had taken on themselves, but Throug looked nothing if not bored. His gaze moved from the holographic displays almost immediately when Zimivee got close. The young Elite stood no less than two paces from him, and he had caught the scent of Sangheili within the same moment it took for Zimivee to come to a stop.

A moment later, Throug turned to see right through the Elite, a puzzled look on his face. Zimivee considered his expression for a time, then decided it really didn’t matter- the beast would be dead soon and so would all his followers. Every one on the ship would die, until there were no more. If he had to he would wait for his fellows on the Radiant to come get him, because he knew it took more than one lone soul to pilot the cruiser. If Mün ever got in the way he would likely wind up sorry he had.

Zimivee had had enough. He didn’t like the idea of being at odds with the agent, but there was nothing going to stop him from completing his mission, however self-appointed it may have been.

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Chapter Five, part two:
0615 hours; Command Station Radiant

Parts of the view were obscured, but what he could see seemed clearly rendered enough, so he spared a moment to study it. At first, while the image was out of focus, it looked foreign and alien to him, but it was fascinating- and after it had come into focus, he realized it was just the pattern in the ceiling above him. His senses jolted when he realized he was lying down, and began to reel as he fought down the urge to jump to his hooves and survey his surroundings.

If he was alive- and he certainly hurt well enough to be- then that meant he had been missed, and he would do well to not change that until he had gotten a better picture of his circumstances. So far all he could hear was silence, the occasional bubbly noise of the muted boiling the engines made through the conduits running in the ceiling above him.

Enin ‘Lygotee carefully and slowly turned his head, not wanting to alert any enemy of his condition- that of being still alive- before he was prepared for it. His expression turned perplexed when he realized he seemed to be the only one in the room, and the room happened to be a medical quarter. If the healer was about, they were being very quiet. Feeling capable, ‘Lygotee pressed into a seated position, and propped back on his hands to look around better. None of the details made much sense- if this was indeed a medical quarter, why was he the only one in it? Doubtless there were others who had been hit, wounded.

Right when he had swung his legs over the side of the flat he’d apparently been placed on, the door to the room slid open and several warriors filed in, each who was capable of walking on their own carrying a fellow who wasn’t, but they all passed ‘Lygotee without so much as looking at him. Curious, the Commander pressed from the flat and walked after them, to watch as the wounded were laid out for care and the stubborn ones went back out to scrape more fellows off the deck plating.

Unless his memory failed him, he knew pretty much where he was- and he left the medical quarter with another destination in mind. Finding the corridors of choice took longer than getting to the aforesaid destination did, but he arrived in the much-fought-over docking bay before it was very cleaned out. Elites wandered here and there, some looking at the various bloodstains smeared across the crates and the floor, others picking up the bodies that weren’t moving anymore, the little Unggoy darting about between them, scraping up the smelly corpses of the fallen Brutes and dragging them off for either cremation and introduction into the soil in Hydroponics, or ejection into vacuum. ‘Lygotee watched the quiet procession of cleanup with a sense of closure. What had happened was overwith; and there would likely be no more bloodshed here.

It was an odd feeling. There was no guarantee that the Brutes would not try to retake the bays, or that some residual item of their dominion here wouldn’t cause some sort of backfiring that would cause more heartburn. ‘Lygotee lifted his gaze to the decks above, and saw a flash of gold, but it wasn’t just golden anymore. The Radiant ’s Commander had seen something rather rough, and wore a kind of odd blue-brown stain on his armor, the dried residues of Sangheili blood. He walked without a limp, though, or any other kind of pain-induced hunch, casting orders and issuing commands with as much gusto as prior the whole event.

‘Lygotee paused, sensing someone approaching his position, and smiled to himself before turning to watch them come. As he had suspected, it was ‘Lavuree, and the Elite wore a number of interesting looking dents. For sure they had not come from any crate or any Brute’s fists. His gait wasn’t straight, but it wasn’t off by much.

“Leader.”

‘Lygotee tilted his head. “Is it to you that I owe my life this day, ‘Lavuree?”

The Elite smiled oddly. He looked almost sad. “We are both forever in that debt, Commander- do not presume to repay what you never can. You owe me too many times as do I you. What have you seen of ‘Pohamee?”

Dread immediately replaced his previous amusement. He had seen nothing of either of his remaining teammates until ‘Lavuree’s approach, and the means of the mention made him wonder if ‘Lavuree was asking if he had seen ‘Pohamee’s remains. “Nothing at all. I had not seen anything of either of you until now.”

‘Lavuree gave his mandibles a speculative scratch. “Neither have I, Leader. I grow weary of searching.”

Which meant little better than ‘Lygotee had at first thought. ‘Lavuree likely meant to say he had seen all the collected survivors and hadn’t found their teammate, but had yet to look over the dead for a reluctance to find him there. ‘Lygotee couldn’t blame him, really, but it would never rest until he knew for sure and had borne witness to the evidence.

‘Lavuree spared their surroundings a look before issuing a weary sigh. “Many have fallen this day, Leader.”

“Many more shall before this is over, ‘Lavuree- we are strong, but we are not invincible and there are yet more Brutes to face.” ‘Lygotee replied. “Only keep faith that we should prevail, and we just might.”

‘Lavuree cocked his head at his Commander. “They still outnumber us, and I wonder if you have forgotten that they have a war vessel that we do not?”

The mention made ‘Lygotee frown, remembering the start of the current conflict, and the spy that he had sent that never came back. He had been by no means weak or naïve, but looking back ‘Lygotee realized it had been foolish to send one so young and lacking so much experience to do a job like that. Still, though he was gone, he at least had accomplished the mission first- something to be proud of and to bring his family honor. ‘Lavuree wasn’t looking at him anymore, something else having gained his attention somewhere across the bay. At first ‘Lygotee was content to let him look at it without comment, but after it failed to then lose the Elite’s attention shortly, it piqued ‘Lygotee’s own curiosity, and the faraway something got his attention too.

“What are you looking at?”

“I spy the Supreme Commander doing a most unusual thing.” Came the answer.

‘Lygotee stepped closer to his teammate, unable to see anything of the kind from where he was. Indeed when he had adjusted his vantage, he too saw what ‘Lavuree had mentioned. Dial M’akamee was rather animatedly beating on a crate that looked very broken. The four Elites at his flanks seemed to think the inanimate object was merely getting what it deserved, but the scene made no sense to anyone else watching. “By the Rings- has he gone completely mad?”

The comment made ‘Lavuree smile- he looked at his Commander. “No, Leader- it is cleaning detail. Observe what happens when he gets the crate open.” He gestured in the direction of the calamity. ‘Lygotee only frowned speculatively at him, but he did as bid- and when the beleaguered box finally broke open, the contents expanded, and some of it flew for the ceiling of the bay. Plasma fire followed it up, burning the Yanime’e down as fast as they went up. He heard a responding snarl from one of the Elites shooting at them, when those that had had the chance concentrated their fire on one of their antagonists.

‘Lygotee frowned. “They’re keeping the drones in the crates? That’s something of a strange practice.”

‘Lavuree nodded, picking at a dried flake of blood on his armor. “Brutes are as Brutes do, Leader, but don’t ask me to explain why they do the things they do.”

‘Lygotee sighed. “We should find ‘Pohamee.”

“Why?” ‘Lavuree asked, sounding as though the location of the Elite in question was no big mystery.

‘Lygotee frowned at him. “I do wish you would stop this nonsense. What do you know that I don’t, suddenly?”

‘Lavuree laughed. “That’s him, there, with the Supreme Commander. Kicking bugs and swapping ideas.” He pointed, indicating a warrior that looked nothing like ‘Pohamee at all until he looked up and over at Dial to respond to something he had said. The sideways motion was trademark of ‘Pohamee, slightly exaggerated due to an injury to his left tricep. ‘Lygotee squinted. He looked different due to an armor change- which was rather odd considering ‘Pohamee thought of his armor as something he owned and he was as liable to discard it or bits of it as ‘Lygotee was to discard his skin in favor of wearing Jiralhanae hide. The Elite had always been a little odd that way, seeking to protect his armor rather than allow it to protect him.

‘Lavuree somehow gained the Elite’s attention and waved him over. When he got close enough, ‘Lygotee noticed why he had been so hard to recognize. He wore pieces from four different suits, and none of them were in reasonable condition. It looked like he had been swapping out ruined pieces for ones in better condition off other Elites, though the practice seemed something ‘Pohamee wasn’t liable to do.

“Where have you been hiding? I was looking everywhere for you.” ‘Lavuree scolded. “And what is this? Who gave you that ridiculous get-up?”

‘Pohamee smiled grimly. “Much of it is salvage. I seem to have become an explosives magnet, and this only suited our plans once I realized it. Still, even using it to my advantage proved hazardous. How fast can you get out of your armor, ‘Lavuree?”

He gave that some thought. “I don’t know. I’ve never had to escape it in a pinch.”

‘Pohamee laughed. “Eight seconds.”

‘Lygotee’s eyes popped. “By the gods! How do you manage?”

“Sometimes, I didn’t.” ‘Pohamee shrugged. “But when you have four grenades adhered to you and three more inbound, you learn to be quick really fast.”

“You appear to be in good health.” ‘Lygotee mentioned. “Seems to me you were quick enough.”

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‘Pohamee shook his head. “It was harrowing, but I managed. Still, the armor I had to throw was more explosive than the grenades stuck to it- one of my bracers vaporized, I think.”

“Good to know you haven’t lost your edge, ‘Pohamee. Better, to know you’re still alive.” ‘Lygotee said. “How many of these crates have Yanime’e in them? Do we know?”

“No, but so far it has only been the one. I’m more curious to know if we have a plan to access the Brutes?”

“Nothing short of extracurricular travel will gain us access to that quarter- this station was built to withstand explosive decompression in more than one quadrant at once. They’re sealed in good enough to keep breathing even if we vent.” ‘Lavuree said. “If you look at the construction prints, the air ducting in the cross sections between quadrants also seal shut when the doors do. Simply put, the Radiant was too well-built to give anyone an advantage in this kind of situation. Both sides of this conflict are stuck facing a bottle-neck.”
“How do you know all this material just… off the wall like that?” ‘Pohamee asked. “You must have amazing memory.”

‘Lygotee laughed. “That’s why we love him, ‘Pohamee.” He punched ‘Lavuree’s shoulder. “Walking archive, this one.”

‘Lavuree grimaced, baring all his teeth at his Commander. “Ow.”



Chapter Five, part three:
0735 hours; Capital Ship Rampant Generosity

Mün Gazenee stepped around the cooling body of the fallen Jiralhanae and past, moving for the nearest door inside the corridor he was in. If there was one thing the rather brash young Elite had taught him it was that the fewer Brutes there were aboard when Throug fell the fewer he would need to contend with when the chaos got started. It simply hadn’t occurred to him to bother with them much spare the ones that gave him trouble before. It occurred to him then as he passed the inter-passage barrier that he ought to check on Zimivee, but when he retraced his steps and surveyed the paths he thought might have been taken by the mysterious agent, he found the sneak had completely ditched him and left him shamefully clueless of his whereabouts.

Irate, Mün began to search deeper down each corridor, hoping to catch up quickly enough to stop or at least stall any madness the youth planned to enact. Zimivee might be an agent, and he might be the best of the bunch in history, but he was still young and still thought like a youth, unseasoned and untried by the hardships and frustrations of the veteran. It seemed, though, that he had his ways of getting around even that- especially if he could be such a pain in Mün’s side- and having it all his way despite.

“Where are you?” Mün muttered, seeing his plotted path had yielded nothing. Zimivee was gone- but there was nothing to indicate he had left the ship. Which meant Mün was slipping, or Zimivee was better at what he did than Mün gave him credit for.

Either was frightening, a prospect Mün preferred not to envision. Still, the longer he knew the kid and the more he learned about him, the less Mün liked him and the more he respected him. This was becoming more than a pain- it was ridiculous. Mün knew how good he was, but nothing he came up with seemed to even come close to what Zimivee dared to do. Maybe he was just that good…

Mün almost suffered cardiac failure when an alarm screamed in his ear, the ship systems activated to allow all hands to be aware of what could only be Zimivee- an intruder had been found. Recovered from the initial shock of the sound blaring at him to begin with, Mün decided on a location within the span of a heartbeat and headed in that direction shortly after. The whole ship had just become one giant enemy and he couldn’t keep it at bay for long. There was just one good thing to the whole mess- they were after Zimivee, not Gazenee.

Still, Mün would be shot just as fast as Hoku for the simple fact of being born Sangheili. This seemed the only thing the two of them had in common, though, as he had found that they just couldn’t get along at all. Mün arrived at Command as high strung as he had been in years, anticipating a firefight. What he found was a giant heap of decomposing Throug, which didn’t help his mood much, as the whole room was in a frenzy much akin to headless chickens that weighed five hundred pounds each and became angry and destructive when disoriented.

Mün snarled at the mess that had been made of the Command platform, previously holding position over the rest of the bridge and now resting directly on it, tipped down off the snapped ramp that had previously led up to where Throug had liked to stay. The noise garnered several responding growls from the Brutes around him, but Mün ignored them. Where was Zimivee, the presumptuous bastard? And what, by the Rings, had he done to snap the Command platform in half like that? At least he had completely destroyed the Brutes’ communications capabilities until someone jury-rigged something somewhere else.

Which meant even though Zimivee was getting ahead of himself, and in Mün’s way, he at least had had the presence of mind to clean up after his mess. Or, at least, to keep it from becoming a bigger one. Mün heaved a frustrated sigh. Kids…

Hoku Zimivee pushed up from the floor, dazed and a little disoriented. After giving his head a shake to clear it, he looked around, before gathering his legs beneath him. More things hurt than he thought he owned a right to, but he knew he was alive by them. What perplexed him was how he had ended up beneath the fallen Command platform. It had taken him a moment to realize that that was where he was, but after that he could only wonder why. It was just as well, he mused, as he had become quite visible and the Command deck was crawling with more Brutes than he remembered being there. Zimivee spared a moment to investigate the slick hot moisture on his helmet before moving further, and frowned when he found it to be his own blood.

Funny, but he didn’t seem to have any injury on his head… still, it was something of note and he would need to remember it later if he ever found himself lightheaded. Taking a breath, Zimivee pulled his lower half from under the crumbled part of the fallen platform, and pushed aside a loosened piece to pass into open area. He paused when he realized he had forgotten to see if his cloaking devices had cooled enough for use, the tell being the fact that two Brutes were staring at him, each wearing expressions akin to utter disbelief. Zimivee spared enough breath for an expletive before both lifted their plasma rifles to fire at him.

Quickly he withdrew into the hole from whence he had meant to come, avoiding the inevitable coating of plasma, but it burned a hole through the materials behind where he had been. This quickly became a bad thing when the platform began to shift, settling closer to the floor and decreasing the amount of space Zimivee had in which to fit.

“Oh, no.” Zimivee complained, placing a hand on the metal above him and pressing, even though he knew he could never hope to hold the thing up- it was nearly solid metal and more than eleven times his size in cubic mass. Still, the Brutes had his only perceivable exit filled with plasma, which was further complicating the matter by being a severe solvent to the metal beneath the parts above Zimivee. The whole thing would sink into a pool of slag sometime soon, and it would squash Zimivee beneath it.

He snarled at his circumstances, aware there was little he could do- his shield engine was shot, smashed in the collapse. Finally, the fire stopped, but the place it had been was so hot now he dared not get near it. Still, the platform continued to sink, leaving him fewer options for scrutiny. When he heard a Brute’s grenade launcher fire and the grenade subsequently detonate, he darted for his fast-closing exit and slammed hard into the metal on the left as he tried to sail past the molten hot spot. He didn’t quite clear it, but he rolled free of the falling platform without further injury, clear of immediate danger until another Brute or two decided to finish him.

Zimivee clawed at the wall he came against, seeking his hooves, and turned to see the rest of the room. Directly after he had turned to look, he saw his only Elite companion snap into view as his shielding took a direct hit from a grenade. Zimivee gaped. Mün!

Worse, despite all his deft dodging, they had his position saturated and were giving him no room to maneuver. He couldn’t last. Forgetting his personal agony for a moment in a spike of anger, Zimivee thrust himself at the nearest Brute and reached over it’s head. When his fingers found it’s nose, he sank them in and yanked back, tearing the Brute’s head in half and off its shoulders, leaving the jaw still attached to its neck.

That accomplished, Zimivee tore the weapon from its hands as it fell, turned about and fired it point blank at the Brute beside him. The whole room’s compliment had gathered at Mün, determined to kill him, but they erupted into disorganized chaos when they realized they were being assailed from behind. Zimivee ducked into a roll, avoiding the first volley of launcher grenades, but a hand-flung plasma grenade met him at the end when he stood up. Zimivee snarled at the thrower, ripped the adhered section of his ruined armor from his person and flung it back at the offending Brute.

The shrapnel embedded in the Brute’s hide, exploding shortly thereafter and taking out a comrade as well. Zimivee dropped to a knee and fired as many rounds in succession as the rifle he’d swiped would allow. When it was overheated, he darted across the room to meet Mün, aware the other Elite was being hammered.


  • 05.02.2007 2:38 PM PDT
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
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Zimivee didn’t stop- he sailed in, sank his claws into Mün’s arm, and sailed out without stopping or changing direction. Mün coiled around the new ache, snatching Zimivee’s hand and plucking it off, so the two of them separated in time for a plasma grenade to sail cleanly between them, missing both. Zimivee pulled up short and spun, firing the last of the battery into the crowd of pursuing Brutes, aware he needed to clean the room if he intended either of them to escape alive. A glance at Mün told him he had to hurry; the Elite was in the middle of a spasm, brought on by the introduction of flak to a nerve cluster.

Swiping a stray grenade from the floor, Zimivee primed it and selected his target as the one that kept minding his proximity- the one that preferred his fellows be in front of him so he never got hit by any plasma. Through a keyhole the grenade sailed, impacting and adhering to the Brute’s ammo belts. Zimivee wasn’t disappointed when the beast roared in fury at his fate- though had he the mind he could have changed it- and dropped to his knuckles to charge forward rather than tearing off the ammo belt to save himself. He managed to shoulder past his comrades before it detonated, but he was still too near them to save them from his fate, and blew down the two he didn’t kill as well as killing three along with himself. Using the lull in the fire to gain an edge, Zimivee spared a look at his equipment belt to see if a cloaking engine was operational. Finding one of them was, he activated it, so when the two remaining Jiralhanae recovered their wits and their feet, they didn’t see him.

Mün Gazenee watched through hazy eyes, half-aware, as the Brutes began to converge on his position. It didn’t really matter that much- he had no outstanding desire to die, but excepting Doademet, his mission was complete and if it killed him he at least would die with his secrets. Neither Brute quite made it to him, though one was holding his launcher like he meant to strike with the blade on the back.

Searing hot bright energy sliced the air, segmenting the hirsute duo as a hot knife through butter might go. Bits of Brute flew across the room as the wielder of the energy blades moved with an almost perfect grace between them. The doors opened, more of the crew filing in, attracted by the commotion, but these too failed to effect much damage to anything beyond one another as Zimivee flew at them and cut among them. An almost serene smile crossed Mün’s features as he watched the little thief using his blades- backwards, he noted- as the last weapon he could get his hands on that worked against the enemy. He could hear the next wave coming through the vibrational quality in the floor, but he knew if they ever arrived his strange non-friend wouldn’t be able to fend them off.

Having had a moment to gather his wits, Mün pried his aching, broken carcass from the floor, and with the help of the wall, made his way to the other door. This, at least, would preserve what progress had been made. When he reached his destination, the barrier slid away into the wall, revealing the next troop of Brutes. Mün smiled at them.

“Mess with the best, die like the rest.” He flipped the front Brute a deceivingly latent object the recipient could not readily identify, and touched the panel on the wall to seal the door shut. He heard the patter of plasma fire on the other side after it closed and the Brutes had recovered their wits. Following shortly came the telltale thump of the bomb he had handed the lead Brute. Leaning on the freshly sealed door, Mün turned to see how Zimivee was faring. He found himself turning around in time to witness the youth’s final kill- a double-puncture of the single-bladed swords through the last of the Jiralhanae. It burbled weirdly, grabbing at the Elite that had just killed it, before slumping to the floor from whence it would never rise.

Zimivee saw it to the floor, then heaved a breath and looked back at Mün. The door slid closed, and the lights down the center blinked red; it had auto sealed as soon as it was clear of obstruction. Zimivee cast it a look, then leaned on it and slid to the floor, where he raised the swords and deactivated them. Mün frowned at what he saw, not understanding. Zimivee rested his head on the door, and his hands on the floor, before closing his eyes and relaxing.

Mün’s expression turned interested when he realized his next perception was false- for a moment in the settling silence of the ruins of the ship’s Command Deck, it looked for all the world as though Zimivee had just died, with Mün watching. When Mün moved to verify this, Zimivee moved, tilting his head to see the Elite approaching. After he had closed the gap, Mün dropped to a crouch and plucked one of his swords from Zimivee’s hand. “These,” he stated, “are mine, and you may not borrow them.” After he finished speaking he took the other one, but directly following this he sat beside him.

“I thought I was in your way.” Zimivee mentioned, his tone turning Mün’s head. He was poking fun at the other Elite. “Why did I have to save your carcass twice in a row?”

Mün snarled at him, but in truth he too was amused- if only slightly. The kid had a point. “Remember it was you who was rescued from dire straits first, so that you might return the favor later on.”

Zimivee smiled at the air in front of him. “You threatened me.”

“You jeopardized my mission.” Mün replied.

“I completed your mission, old man. You weren’t doing anything at all.”

Mün elbowed him, eliciting a grunt. “You know nothing of the Mirratord or their ways. I had my methods.”

“What methods? You weren’t doing anything at all!” Zimivee groaned, wrapping his arm around the accosted side. “…what are the Mirratord?”

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that. Not to you.” Mün looked at one of his swords. “And you are not at liberty to disclose it either.”

“You’ve mentioned this mysterious faction three times now, Mün. Can’t I at least know what on the Rings you’re talking about?” Zimivee asked. He spared a look at the sword being inspected, and pointed at it. “That’s mine- I’d appreciate having it back.”

Mün was about to respond when it occurred to him that his first impression might be incorrect; so instead of his almost instinctual retort, he asked speculatively, “The bloody handprint?”

Zimivee nodded, inhaling audibly. “Yes.”

Mün burst into peals of laughter.


*****************************************************
This is the end of chapter five- chapter six part one is finished but I want to wait until I have part two done too before I post it. Hope you all enjoy this- and yes, you can feel free to try to pry into my mind and figure out what in blazes I'm getting at. (grins) I'm sure you'll be guessing for a while yet.
~Aardvark

  • 05.02.2007 2:42 PM PDT
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
For the honor of the Mirratord!

Chapter Six, part one:
0744 hours; Capital Ship Rampant Generosity

The wet smear on the wall lined up with the one on the floor, but it wasn’t overtly evident where the donor of the blood from which it was made had gone. The three Jiralhanae standing in observance of the scene each had their own ideas, but one thing was blatantly obvious above all the rest; there had been Sangheili aboard their vessel, and more specifically, on their Command Deck.

One might go so far as to claim one of the petulant reptiles had been the one to kill Throug, but the details of that demise were to be seen; for one thing, the number of bodies scattered around the ruined and useless room topped two dozen, lesser and greater clan members indiscriminately. It seemed aside from Throug, there had been no specific few on the command chain that was wanted dead. For a moment the trio contemplated trying to sniff the assassin out, but it seemed odd that any such destruction could have been performed by any one Elite; in essence, they were reluctant to admit to themselves the truth, as though no Brute could be found that had a sense of honor, but many were available who owned a good deal of pride.

It didn’t take long for them to decide the ship had to be crawling with filthy Sangheili too cowardly to show their faces, each and all invisible as had been revealed by the spotty reports from the ones who were killed immediately after. From a crew of nearly thirty thousand of intermixed Jiralhanae, Kig-yar and Yanime’e, they were now down by more than two hundred. Sangheili or not, something was certainly killing them, and in a hurry. But it seemed as if the place in particular was cursed somehow; as the other two watched, the middle standing Jiralhanae suddenly spat a mouthful of blood, and doubled up on the floor at his companion’s feet. Their alarm came too late to save themselves, though, both feeling the bite of an energy blade slicing through their thick hides prior to any evasive action either could have enacted.

“You could have laughed at them first.” A disembodied voice grumbled. “Also… what did I tell you about those swords?”

A second similarly disembodied voice responded. “You said I couldn’t borrow them, not that I couldn’t steal them.”

There came a weary sigh.

“You moved too slow for my tastes, and you would have done the same anyway.” Zimivee protested. “Do you feel ambulatory?”

“Yes…”

“Here- hey, hold still, how can I give these back if you make me miss by moving? You’re hard to see.”

Mün laughed, taking the pair of deactivated swords. “I was actually starting to move towards the door, when you did that. I half expected you to want to keep them.”

Zimivee made a petulant noise as he moved past. “You’re hopeless.”

Mün began to follow. “I am interested to know where you got your hands on that re-gen pack, though. Those are only found in large medical facilities.” He cast a glance at the pile of reeking bodies they had just made and were leaving behind. “It’s also an experimental substance.”

“I know.” Zimivee remarked. “I stole it from the med-chamber on deck five.”

“Deck-? You found it onboard this vessel?” Mün asked. “I already looked through that deck and all I saw was a couple of Kig-yar on guard duty.”

Zimivee cast the older warrior a look, before shaking his head and stepping to the control panel. When he had the door open, he passed through, ignoring the fact that had he wanted out he could have just gone through the hole in the other door the Jiralhanae had made coming in. Mün didn’t speak, simply following his companion’s apparent lead. He could go any direction he desired at any time, and he knew it, but for now the path Zimivee chose seemed appealing enough. “That might be because you weren’t looking where they would keep something like that.”

“I hope this limp doesn’t persist long. I can’t seem to keep a straight trajectory.” Mün mentioned absently. “I also hope you know what you’re doing, because you royally ruined everything I had in place.”

Zimivee felt compelled to laugh. “Are you lost?” So far he’d done nothing but what his instincts had forced him through. And each time he got into some trouble he just kept saying the same things to himself- You idiot! was among the tirade. Of late he had never been more amazed by the sheer stupidity of his ideas and actions. Mün didn’t seem to be much in the way of helpful, though he did have his moments.

“Not so much as lost but cast from my element.” Mün replied. “What are your plans now? You’ve demolished the primary control room.”

“Meaning?” Zimivee asked, glancing down a hall as he passed it, heading up to one of the hundred or so circular junctions dominated in the middle by a single column, usually filled with plasma conduits. Mün cast a look behind them.

“Meaning you have no way to steer this thing if the Brutes decided to roll her about and start shooting at your beloved station.” He looked fore again in time to draw up short with the realization that Zimivee had stopped, and was facing him. Unlike the younger Elite, Mün could easily tell the position and manner of a cloaked fellow. Zimivee had to guess.

“Meaning you think I just murdered all my fellow warriors.”

Mün stepped back, a little shocked. “Not necessarily…”

“Meaning you think I’ve been nothing helpful the entire time I’ve been aboard?” Zimivee asked. “What do you mean by that, Mün? I know fully that no one can control the ship from that chamber anymore, that is not the issue here. I need to know where your true loyalties lie- and I don’t expect them to be with me, so don’t even try to go there. To tell you the truth I honestly don’t care one way or the other about your silly little clan or whatever it is- this ‘Mirratord’. You are here, you say, for the express reason of eliminating the majority of the Brute’s resources- namely, their leaders. But every time I turn around, I find myself at odds with you, and I can never really figure out why. Who are you, Mün? Who are you really?”

Mün stammered for a moment, caught entirely off guard by this sudden barrage. He didn’t get to do much beyond that, though.

“Nevermind, you probably wouldn’t tell me anyway.” Zimivee dismissed, turning away in disgust.

Offended, Mün Gazenee reacted without thinking about it for the first time since he’d completed training years ago. Snapping an arm out, he seized the younger Elite by the back of his head, spun him around and knocked him to the floor- but he didn’t leave him there, lifting him again with a turning kick that was powerful enough to have lifted a Brute, causing the lighter creature to smack into the ceiling- and when he was halfway down from that, Mün topped it all off with a viper-strike punch straight to Zimivee’s middle. Without delay the accosted warrior flew across the hall and slammed hard into the adjacent wall, but unlike most of his kind and severely unlike what Mün expected, the kid neither balled up nor touched the floor with more than his hooves.

Falling onto them in a frighteningly calculated way, Zimivee coiled and launched straight back at his assailant, his bright black eyes burning with his pent-up irritation and all the pain he had suffered at the various hands of the enemy. Mün tried to evade the lunge, but was too slow, if by a margin. Zimivee caught him anyway, and from there it only got worse, as far as the fight went. Mün felt he had just gotten way in over his head as he was forced to battle off the angered youth who seemed to him to be living up to and more all his worst fears. A single semi-positive thought did occur to him, though, as he threaded aside a strike aimed at his face and sidestepped what could have been a paralyzing blow.

This kid should have been one of the Mirratord.

Mün imagined all his speed and skill melting in comparison with his sudden opponent, and he found himself berating his instinctual reaction the whole time. Zimivee was quick, every motion smooth and calculated to do a fair bit of damage if it managed to hit home, though few of them actually did- for that matter, Mün’s own counter strikes never seemed to even come close to their targets, though once or twice he did feel a connection. Usually while he was thus in contact, Zimivee was too, sparing no time trying to block a strike that had already hit but using Mün’s strikes like openings in his defenses- which, technically, they were.

Mün found himself wishing he had the impeccable skill and power of the top echelons, but though he was among the better few, he was nowhere near that level of which was required to even pretend to compete with them. Mün managed to keep a hold he’d gotten on one of Zimivee’s wrists, and tried to use the opportunity to slam a fist into his ribs, but the younger Elite merely turned as though in dance and caused the Mirratord agent to miss. The spin also loosened and lost Mün’s grip on his arm, freeing him for whatever move he chose next.

Mün stared hard at the young Elite before him, realizing something other than the obvious had caused him to back off. His stare was returned, he saw, but no words were spoken as they each regained their breath from the sudden conflict that had seemingly ended the way it began- abruptly.

Mün’s senses reeled as he suddenly became aware that his flank held more than mere corridor; had a Brute found them? Careful to keep an eye on Zimivee, Mün spared some attention in that direction, to verify. Thankfully, the lone Jiralhanae walking the floor towards them seemed oblivious, and for some reason didn’t even pause to notice any smell that hinted of Sangheili presence. Mün sniffed reproachfully; had they really been here that long? Had they really been smeared by enough Brute-juice to lose their own scent in favor of the enemy?

  • 05.25.2007 10:10 PM PDT
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When the Brute got past Mün, he touched his belt, only to stare down at it in horror when his hand found naught where one of his swords used to be- should have been. In a stab of panic, he checked the location of the other, only to nearly collapse in relief to find he at least still had that one. Taking it in hand, he turned to take both the Brute and Zimivee into account, but that was all he had time for before he witnessed the unfortunate beast’s demise. The head rolled down its back as the body fell forward, the sharp, piercing glow of Mün’s missing sword telling him he needn’t worry about having to go looking for it.

Still, this made Zimivee no less of a problem himself. With the Brute’s remains between them, Mün and Zimivee were left to stare uncontested at one another again. Mün took a deep breath, attempting to calm himself, but Zimivee hadn’t deactivated that blade yet and it was making him wonder if the other Elite had a second target in mind.

“You never cease to amaze me, Zimivee.” Mün grouched. “How do you always manage to filch my things without my ever noticing?”

Zimivee seemed disinclined to talk to him right then, but he answered anyway. “You expect to be able to notice when things are taken when you’re trading blows? I did not attack you, Mün. I never wanted to fight you. But I am growing less and less appreciative of your continued presence here. If you cross me again, I’ll kill you.”

Somehow that warning seemed… desperate. Something didn’t quite fit, but it didn’t make sense. Zimivee had come across as and then proven that he was as deadly or worse so than Mün himself. By looks, the kid couldn’t be much older than Mün’s own son, who was still in training at the Academy on his planet of birth. Yet, even still, he was beginning to show signs of distress, meaning his patience was wearing thin or his courage was, one.

How could that fit? Zimivee was a highly-trained weapon, probably someone’s pet assassin, reporting directly to some high ranking official. But that seemed slightly unlikely, as any Prophet would have told his minions to watch for the members of the Mirratord- and it was an obvious frustration of Zimivee’s that Mün had failed to elaborate on what he was talking about after the first accidental slip of tongue. He was lucky, and he knew it, but if Zimivee got to talking to any of his constituents, he was easily liable to find someone that knew a little more than he did- namely, all the odd off-hand myths, but it was a far sight more than Zimivee knew, and he would likely tell whoever it was he worked for. Mün was tempted to power up his remaining sword and dispose of the growing problem at once, but something stopped him- a curiosity.

Who was Hoku Zimivee?



Chapter Six, part two:
0800 hours; Command Station Radiant

“In an hour, what have we accomplished?”

“If you want to pick things apart, Leader, personally I am willing to take a break from all this never-ending work.” The slight hiss following ‘Pohamee’s voice made it clear what he was doing- extracurricular activity. More than a dozen Elites had suited up for this, their semi-covert operation to get those doors open again, preferably without an insane cost in lives.

‘Lygotee could only smile. “I am certain most of us share that sentiment, ‘Pohamee. It has been a long and grueling fight.” ‘Lygotee said. Carefully, he maneuvered his EV jet-pack’s nozzles, so he coasted easily through the vacuum of space within the Station’s shield envelope. Getting across the outer hull wasn’t hard, nor would getting there intact be much worse. The main item was the ‘bottleneck’ at the airlock they would face upon attempting reentry to the Station’s decks. Hopefully, ‘Lygotee mused, there wouldn’t be any more treacherous double-play this time.

The memory of the circumstances surrounding the death of his longtime friend and team member haunted him still, and teased the edges of his conscious mind even as the airlock door came into view.

This is for you, ‘Obaulee… and this time, pray we do not fail. The thought seemed to echo in his mind, but they made it to the sealed door and then successfully got it open without incident. It seemed the corridor on the other side of the airlock was empty, and silence followed the team inside. Since the chamber inside the airlock was of insufficient size to accommodate them all at once, they passed through in clusters, dispersing into the halls as they activated their camouflage. Being caught without backup was a very daunting prospect, but what had ‘Lygotee worried was that he didn’t know half his mission-assigned team, and had no idea who was best at what or who needed to be where… or if any of them would even accept his orders.

It was his command, but that was saying little, considering there were only two in the whole assembly he knew he could trust completely. And not just to follow his orders, but to think up new ones to fit the ever-changing situation. They were a team, unbreakable…

Shaking off his concerns in favor of concentrating on the situation, ‘Lygotee stepped out into the hall with an Elite at his elbow that he had only spoken briefly to once before- he only vaguely recalled the warrior’s name, and had no ideas as to what he was useful for. Belatedly aware he had lingered too long in a spot, ‘Lygotee moved deeper inside the Station, needing to know their location and which direction the door they were supposed to open was. Airlocks didn’t appear in convenient places, so they had had to use the ‘nearest’ one, which was painfully distant from where they needed to be. This meant not only that getting to the door would be difficult at best, but that if they were cut off from said door, or were unable to get it open at all, returning to the airlock would be worse than coming from it.

‘Lygotee was not looking forward to this mission. He flinched visibly when he felt a hand find his shoulder, but a glance at the face in his peripheral earned him a measure of reassurance. ‘Lavuree had never let him down, even at his own expense.

The same could not be said of ‘Pohamee, though his loyalty had never been called into question. He merely hadn’t the knack of always being in the right spot at the right time to do anything about it when his Commander was in dire straits. That was ‘Lavuree’s talent. ‘Lygotee appreciated them both immensely and equally, aware fully he would have been dead long ago so many times over were it not for the both of them… the memory of his recently culled team member sliced through his mind like an energy sword, reclaiming his confidence and stripping it from him again.

‘Lavuree’s expression told him he hadn’t done so covertly, however, as he knew that look; it meant his feelings were written on his face. Taking a deep breath to clear his head, ‘Lygotee moved forward. Without even noticing, he left the pain and the memory behind quickly enough, in the swirl of calculating and formulating stratagems for the expected conflict when the Jiralhanae discovered their half of the fortress had been breached.

Cloaked and quiet, the Elites all moved forward, ‘Lavuree at point. He had the map of the place pretty much memorized- if ‘Lygotee had been leading, he knew without any trace of a doubt he would have gotten them all lost beyond hope of retrieval. It was another reason he had doubts about the success of the mission- he hadn’t had time to become familiar with the skills and talents of his new, enlarged team, and he feared to deploy them badly when it counted. He could only hope they had enough sense to arrange their own selves accordingly so everything might not go wrong after all.

Avin Szęnaqee, currently ahead of ‘Lygotee, seemed to be moving in accordance with the things he could see. And though this was not a terribly bad thing, it did mean he was less than Spec Ops material, and this was not what ‘Lygotee was used to working with. He sighed and shook his head tiredly as he surveyed the motions of his mission squad. They were strong, but they were ill-prepared for this task. If he could have more of the kind of Elite like ‘Lavuree…

Szęnaqee turned a far corner, and the whole group froze when he did. Quietly they all parted as a stream of Jiralhanae filed down the hall, either heading somewhere important, or fearing to scout these halls alone or in pairs. Fully six of the armed hairy behemoths strode through, but ‘Lygotee saw them as little more than six of the enemy he wouldn’t need to deal with later; his sword powered on, and like a string of lights on a single wire the energy swords of those around him came to life each in succession- as if in anticipation of his triggering the chain reaction. Unable to see the wielders, but more than able to see the swords floating in the air, the Brutes turned from a more or less calm demeanor to utter revolt. Jiralhanae blood splashed upon the walls, slices and pieces of Brute hide slapping the floor in succinct moist splatters. ‘Lygotee looked down at his sword, aware he hadn’t had the chance to so much as lift it, and felt an odd smile on his face. He had killed them- it was fully his fault. But indirectly… and the knowledge gave him the oddest sense of power he’d never known before. At the touch of a button his enemy had been smote, and despite how the button of mention had been the trigger on an energy sword, there was nothing beyond that single action- activating it- that had been his, personally.

  • 05.25.2007 10:13 PM PDT
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Shutting it off, he re-clipped it to his belt and stepped forward, believing for the first time that he could truly pull this off- and perhaps even come back alive. Behind him, ‘Lavuree and ‘Pohamee followed with the rest of the warriors in tow.

In silence and often single-file they trod down the hall, each aware infinitely of the littlest noise that anyone made. It became so that even the lightest whisper hurt to hear, as to ‘Lygotee it seemed a bold shout. He could hear his own heartbeat, his breath, the slight rasp of his armor every time an elbow brushed a side or thighs touched. He felt he was so wired for the detection of compromising noise that should anything of actual normal volume occur, he would be rendered deaf by the overload of decibels.

‘Lygotee cast a glace down a hall they had chosen to pass, but on a hunch sent three of their number to see what lay at the other end. Perhaps it was nothing, but he had learned long ago to follow his hunches, as more often than not they proved more than worth following up with investigational action. After seeing the dispatched trio off, he turned to reclaim his position in the remaining ranks, and backpedaled abruptly when he found himself face to face with ‘Lavuree. Somehow he looked pensively annoyed, but over the years he had come to know there was never any enlightening explanation accompanying the expression- only dismissal of any query. Still, in this situation, ‘Lygotee was inclined to ask.

Without allowing for any such action, ‘Lavuree turned from him, and moved back into the flow of Elites, disappearing among them as one more camouflaged form indistinguishable at a distance from the rest. Frowning himself, ‘Lygotee issued an irritated huff and stepped into the pace set by the group, well aware he needn’t be left behind. Sometimes it just seemed as though the warrior could read his mind…

Ahead of the party, the hall reached a juncture, leading to three other locations. Each passage had a door through which they would need to pass, but after determining that there was nothing behind any of them, they filed through towards the destination. So far, so good. ‘Lygotee reached the point and wondered if he ought to see what was down them all, but decided he hadn’t the resources to rediscover every nook and cranny in this side of the station. Quietly he walked past them. It didn’t take long before collectively the whole party lost their transparent dispositions, their active camouflage engines overheating in batches as big as would fit in the airlock from which they had all come. ‘Lavuree was able to spot the two members of his original strike team almost immediately, one by his face as he watched his Commander approach and the other by the dent in the shield engines over the back of his armor vest. ‘Pohamee tended to be slightly more identifiable by the various dents, dings and scratches on his armor, as per his habit of not allowing much to happen to it.

“Are we all here?” He asked, once he had closed the gap between himself and ‘Lavuree.

“Yes, Leader… save the three you dispatched earlier to survey that other hall.” ‘Lavuree answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Verification, ‘Lavuree. You know how I hate it when I am left behind.”

“Then why are you standing still while your team moves on without you?”

‘Lygotee blew a sigh. “I did not intend to remain here, ‘Lavuree, do not think me so shallow. Is it not good practice to periodically check on one’s warriors to determine if misfortune has befallen them?” Without waiting for an answer he moved past, making time to the front of the group to see how far they had come and whether or not they had arrived at the position where the Jiralhanae were holed up. Thusfar all the silence was beginning to gnaw at him, and he had to wonder if they weren’t all just walking into one more huge trap…

“Leader, stop!”

‘Lavuree’s alarmed cry filled the air between walls within the corridor, and echoed in ‘Lygotee’s mind as he watched in surprised horror as what could easily be his end coming to meet him. Time seemed to slow, and stop, if but for only the span of a breath, but within that breath an Elite that had not previously been there slammed hard into his shoulder, and slung him off to the side even as the warrior that had been beside him was cloven in half by the sharpened metal cudgel aimed for him. Impacting the wall, he felt his shoulder crunch, but the following wave of agony from the injury came rather slowly to his suddenly adrenalin-spiked system. Brutes sprang from places too small to have hidden an Unggoy, most of them acting as if they had been literally boxed into place, charging into the fray on all fours like enraged animals too long in the cage.

Seconds ticked by that felt more like minutes, but it seemed to only be that way to him; so far none of his warriors seemed to have recovered from the overwhelming attack. And that, he realized quickly, was just positively unacceptable.

‘Lavuree flew sideways with the force of pull only a Brute could have mustered, but rather than being flung, he balled up on the end of the arm and seemed to slither up it to the Brute’s neck, which soon after was rendered less a head to carry. ‘Lygotee was forced to his hooves in a hurry to avoid being crushed beneath the falling behemoth, but once there he found his motion returned to him, enabling action both swift and decisive.

At the onset of Brute casualties, things appeared to improve, if marginally. The screams of rent Sangheili and bloodthirsty Jiralhanae being sated of their lust filled the space to capacity, raising a thunderous ruckus that began to slowly change its tune.

All at once ‘Lavuree reappeared in ‘Lygotee’s peripheral, the warrior a brilliant red in color and super reflective; he had become completely drenched under an artery at some point, but the good news was it could not be his own or that of a fellow’s, by the color it bore. Bright energy lanced sharply, tearing through whatever came in the way, and cutting a swath big enough to allow a semblance of recovery and retribution on the Elite’s part. ‘Lygotee smiled, sending his own first kill to the floor, feeling proud of his team however dysfunctional it might have been.

Brutes began to fill the gaps between Elites, dropping with the evening of the field. This was just a minor detour… they had a door to open.



Chapter Six, part three:
1000 hours; Capital Ship Rampant Generosity

The warnings were all there. It was as if someone was watching out for him, but they had to be no more substance than the ethereal; Mün was something just shy of a monster, in his book- but indispensable, which was a pain. If he had wanted to kill Hoku in the slightest, then Hoku would be dead- long ago.

Whoever, whatever, this Mirratord agency was, they had a collage of nasty assassins at their beckon. Zimivee wanted nothing to do with them or with Mün, anymore than he already had, but it was beginning to look as though somewhere, somehow, he had been bestowed with the worst of curses; his worst nightmare was his only ally, and disposing of it or the mere attempt to do such a thing would leave him so very trapped and bound to such a doom as he dared not look in the eyes. The situation was problematic, at best…

Zimivee had entered the vessel well knowing he might not come back, but he had never envisioned it happening this way. There was just something to be said about dying in a fashion that wasn’t visible ten miles out. The sight was going to drive him utterly mad, if it hadn’t already, as he owned the knowledge that anything and everything he did could too easily wind up being moot to the ultimate outcome. He had met his match, in psychological warfare, and it hadn’t even been the doing of his acknowledged enemies.

Not that any Jiralhanae could be credited for such elaborate scheming… but that only made the situation that much worse. There was frustration, anger to the point of rage, even spite… but above and beyond the measure of each of these was the fear- that haunting, hollow cry echoing in the back of his mind, following each and every action, driving him to awesome feats up to and including being able to fight off Mün… who he hadn’t realized was so deadly up close until they had had their little spar. The realization had only served to increase that fear and multiply his ware of his surroundings.

Had he no true allies? Could he own no true friends? Must everyone be their own and owning of no allies, pledging fealty to other, outside, often alien sources? Zimivee had become so familiar with the feeling of being alone in a crowd that he had occasionally wondered if he could ever return to the station, if he got that opportunity. Slowly the beleaguered Elite moved past the sentry who was literally looking right through him. That door was the single door on the ship he hadn’t passed, and he was seriously considering it, right then- just to see if Mün would follow.

His heightened senses detected the masked motions of something else before he might have otherwise, and he realized it had to be the other Elite; he’d been a fool to think the agent had let him out of his sight for even a small increment of time. If he was anything, he was annoyingly observant, even if he never inserted any opinion of the circumstances he was seeing. Zimivee paused, half wondering what the fellow would do. The answer to his question made itself apparent soon enough without the asking, though, as the reflection of bright, hot energy reflected on the widening eyes of the unfortunate Brute. It occurred to Zimivee that the short, strangled sounding bark the creature got out was sloppy for the agent’s style, as it was usually perfect silence that followed that blade, when it was in those hands. The one Zimivee had filched from him tended to leave a trail twice as gory and a song saluting his methods.

  • 05.25.2007 10:16 PM PDT
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But then, he had learned not to use it the way Mün did, barring utter necessity, as that particular style always left himself as bloody and wounded as his enemy- he simply didn’t have the know-how to hold a filament of hard energy aligned with his forearm.

When the Brute had settled on the floor, in a growing pool of sticky Jiralhanae blood, Zimivee turned the whole of his attention to the killer of the beast. His sword was still on… in a frightened dodge for safety he powered up the one he had stolen, twisting partway through his maneuver to connect the swords and deflect an otherwise unstoppable blade. He heard Mün snarl at him, and understood the tone of the growl meant the agent was offering no quarter- he wanted his sword back, he wanted Zimivee out of his way, he was going to accomplish what he still could in lieu of Zimivee’s actions, but he wasn’t going to allow Zimivee the chance to screw it up for him this time. Or so it seemed to Zimivee.

Turning aside the blade got him punched, the impact to his head shattering his balance and slamming his battered body against the wall behind him. Something on the inside cracked, and he sagged to the floor, gasping though he gained no air for the attempt, and doubled up in enough pain besides to not care. The sword he had held rolled to a stop beside him, dropped and disregarded in favor of more pressing matters.

His senses reeling, Zimivee never really noticed when he passed out for lack of breath, the pain in his lungs never peaking the other agony that Mün had granted him. Somehow, he thought, this just doesn’t seem fair… on a ship filled with the enemy, and I get to die at the hands of one of my own…

Mün Gazenee stood over the crumpled form of the one he had come to think of as his equal or better in battle, and the expression he wore was one of confusion. This lifted, though, when he came to a conclusion that seemed to match with the circumstances; Zimivee had dropped, but the action was hardly his fault. Aside that he was, after all, just a kid to the older agent, he had been going hard and fast for longer than even Mün could have managed, and under some pretty rough conditions. The buildup of agony had to have been his ultimate undoing, as he limped where Mün walked straight, strained where Mün had strength to spare. What Mün found impressive was that where Mün fell short, Zimivee took up all slack and pulled it painfully tight as well. When he wasn’t wounded, he was a marvel. Just the fact that it had taken nearly three hundred Brutes to bring him to his knees, plus the intermittent fighting with Mün, was downright frightening. Awe- inspiring, even…

Raising his comn unit to where he could see it, Mün touched the activation control. Pylori Havwénee would be the one to answer, following the Jiralhanae battle cruiser at a safe distance in a guised vessel large enough only for a crew of six, tops- but Pylori was the only Elite aboard. He kept Mün on top of events outside his current mission, changes in plans and orders, and relayed his reports back to the Mirratord command staff. They had heard precisely and exactly one report concerning this kid, but they were about to hear more.

“Go ahead, Raptor.” Pylori answered.

“Have you been detected?” Mün asked.

“Not as yet. There is no indicator they know to look. What are circumstances there, brother? I have detected elevated alarm systems coming online all over that vessel for the past four hours.”

“Yes, sadly, and I think I may have been wrong to employ the methods I had chosen for this mission… things have changed greatly since we last spoke.” Affixing the device to his helmet, Mün raked Zimivee’s limp carcass from the floor even as it began to fade into view. He continued to speak as he walked away from the scene of their latest incident. “You recall the young warrior I mentioned last report?”

“I do. I ran a search on him, but I didn’t find much. If it was ever there, it was erased better than anything I have ever seen. Anything pertaining to any special or secret operations training or missions is nonexistent.”

“By the Rings… What sort of youth comes fresh from the Academies with abilities like this? He had me backed against the wall, and nothing I could do would change that.”

“Where is he now, Raptor?”

Mün looked at his burden and wondered for the second time why he was bothering to help the kid- there was no chemistry, no common ground, between them. All relations were hostile as each looked to the other as the blame for all that went wrong in their own plans. Still, somehow, they always wound up saving one another at intervals, despite. It was like a sibling’s rivalry. Never allied, never at war, but incapable of letting the other go and equally incapable of letting them stay.

“Raptor?” Pylori asked, again. “Are you there?”

Mün drew a deep breath and let it go slowly. “He’s currently suffered massive impact trauma and is unconscious. I have him secured from hostile forces, for now.”

Pylori seemed to give that some thought. “You realize he could be working for our enemies.”

“If he is, we have bigger problems than this warrior here.” Mün mused. “Because he forced a slip from me, without appearing to try, yet he has not so much as pretended to do similar, even though I have been trying to get something, some sort of clue, from him.”

“What have you learned of him so far? What has he openly shared?”

“That if I continue to be detrimental to him, he will kill me… that and his name. I think either he is used to the alias so much it comes out even when he means to say the real thing or it truly is his name.”

“Raptor, he isn’t a machine. There must be signs. How does he carry himself?”

“That’s the part I cannot seem to figure out.” Mün answered. “One moment he’s more assured of something than I could be if I trusted everything to go according to plan. The next he’s as frightened as a small child and fighting more akin to a cornered animal than any trained warrior… but it makes him unbeatable. You have seen me fight, Nightbird. You have seen my style, my methods. Zimivee disarmed me of that, and I didn’t notice until he was pointing my own swords at me.”

Pylori made a noise that made Mün think he was shaking his head in disbelief. “I have seen you, it is true, but until I see this youth as well, I shall never believe you, I fear.”

“Nightbird.” Mün accused. “That ought to be the last thing you want to do. I recommend we follow one of two directions concerning this warrior.”

Pylori grunted. “What be those, Raptor?”

“Concerning the secrecy of the Mirratord and the safety of the Hierarchs, we must either recruit him or kill him. He has instincts like no other I have seen, even if he minds them only under great stress.”

“You should have killed him the moment you slipped your tongue, Raptor.”

“He is the only thing keeping me alive, under these circumstances.” Mün argued. “And I, him. For now he is useful, even if delusioned and reckless part of the time. When he proves himself of no further use, I will attend the problem of leaked intel. But not until then.”

“Raptor, you know protocol!” Pylori snapped.

“I am the one in the middle of this mess, I will decide what happens and when! I need only answer for my methods after it is concluded.” Mün replied, his tone even and cold. He was finished arguing. Nothing Pylori said would change his mind.

The other agent heaved a sigh. “Raptor… I am going to have to tell the Leaders everything you just said. I am trying to persuade you not to make the biggest mistake of your life. Get rid of him, amend your mistake, and finish the mission so you can get out of there and back where you belong.”

“Raptor out.” Mün snapped, deactivating the comn unit before he became angry at his compatriot. Placing Zimivee inside a vacant crew quarter, Mün sealed the door and spent a moment in reflection as he studied his… captive? Companion? What was Zimivee, exactly, by definition? He hadn’t professed any loyalty to much beyond the Covenant, which strictly speaking had already broken and left his loyalties moot. Mün shook his head, and heaved a sigh. Such complications in his plans usually meant he would invariably need to pull out and wait for things to calm down and forget about him before trying again. It had only happened twice… in eighty years, just twice.

But along came a spider, and here he was again, trapped between his own loyalties, the situation unique to all aspects that he could tell. Where did he come from? Who did he work for? Who was he? Why was he here? And how had he come this far without hearing about the myth circulating the Covenant that nearly anyone else would have known just as a matter of course? Surely he wasn’t deaf. He certainly didn’t act it.

“Who are you?” Mün asked, staring down at the still form before him. The words echoed inside his head, as the question he had asked before came back, posed again to the same creature, yet remaining still unanswered. Somehow, Mün got the feeling he would be asking that for some time to come.

  • 05.25.2007 10:17 PM PDT
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Chapter Seven, part one:
1030 hours; Command Station Radiant

Rkwa ‘Lavuree sidestepped the first Brute and around one of his comrades, feeling the heat from his camouflage engine. Soon it would be too hot and would auto shut-off and leave him exposed.

He had no intention of letting the enemy catch him because of that, though, and was already heading for a place that looked like ample cover. A shadowed alcove at the far reaches of the chamber, it wasn’t the most ideal for springing from once any fighting started, but so far they had avoided any outright combat. That wasn’t the issue, here, either- the mission was to get to the sector door and open it from the inside so it didn’t weld itself shut, and then resume the assault. So far so good, but ‘Lavuree had a bad feeling about the last stretch of their walk- which was coming into view even as their team made it all solidly across the oxygen processing chamber without incident.

He watched in silence as four of the team strode quietly by right under the nose of a Brute who was raking a porous rock across the blade on the back of his grenade launcher. The noise hurt ‘Lavuree’s teeth, but he couldn’t rightly expect much from issuing a complaint. Sometimes, the most annoying things were the ones he could do something about, but didn’t dare.

‘Lygotee moved somewhere out front of the group, catching his attention. Watching the transparent figure move past a crenellated wall filled with alcoves built of spaces between conduits made ‘Lavuree wonder if half the motions he made were real. The way his figure was wavering due to the backdrop made it hard to tell. Once the last of the Sangheili were past and through, he began to move forward, himself. The feeling of danger followed his motion, increasing with each step, until he finally realized why.

There before him, the hapless Elite taking up the position fore of only ‘Lavuree suffered a massive equipment malfunction and complete failure. First his camouflage engine finished overheating, but instead of auto-shutting off, it detonated like a hand grenade glued to his side. Doubling the problem that he was now completely visible, the warrior’s responding cry of pain nearly rendered the noise of the actual detonation moot. Brutes all over the room turned to see the source of the noise, in time to witness the Elite dropping to his knees. The engine had bitten a chunk out of the warrior’s side, rending flesh and peeling up armor plating. Bright violet blood poured from the wound, but at the moment, blood-loss was the last thing he had to worry about.

‘Lavuree knew in an instant they were too far spread, and the Brutes would be upon them all inside the minute, to tear the rest of them to pieces as they were discovered. Reaching outward with his mind, ‘Lavuree seized the moment, and froze it. This was their only chance, but extended still, time was running out.

“Get to the door! Get it open now !”

He wasn’t sure where the orders had come from, was less sure of who had issued them, but the Elites seemed to understand. As one they formed up, and dragging their fallen fellow, darted for the door that would lead to the corridor between sectors- and the sealed door they were here to open. Finally the last of them were in position, and a defensive parameter had been created around the outer door leading to the corridor where the rest were, busily prying the door’s codes from the computer to get the thing to open. ‘Lavuree felt the floor tremble, but he held on. The more time he could give them, the better off they would be.

But he couldn’t hold forever. First one, then two, then more and more of the Brutes broke free of his grasp, most of them charging forward on all four limbs in a blind rage. No one fully understood the events they were seeing, even when the final Brute broke free and moved toward the Elites, their motions broken and stumbling. And in their midst, fading into view, a single Sangheili warrior. The air rippled and warped around him, even as he staggered forward, attempting to evade the Brute’s crazed onslaught. Plasma fire spanned the gap, searing the hides of those currently turned away, though that little detail quickly changed.

‘Lavuree was forced to dodge back again, away from safety, away from the line of Elites who had all come into view again with overheated camouflage engines. Luckily, no one else had suffered another detonation of something that was not really supposed to be explosive. His hearts pounding in his ears, his vision fuzzy around the edges, he felt assaulted by the uproar the Brutes were calling out, snarling, snapping and firing their own weapons. The front ranks had engaged the rest of the team, but he was still swimming in those unable to press through to do some shooting of their own. Just the noise was incredible, and the furor was helping his scattered mentality none at all.

Complications surged overhead with the introduction of plasma grenades, as though the first three or so would never get close enough to bother him, one landed almost in his hands. Reeling away from it, clawing at the Brutes in an attempt to get clear, ‘Lavuree came face to face with one wearing a set of scored and dented armor plates under his bandoliers.

Staggering back under the concussion of the last grenade blasting off, ‘Lavuree had no time to evade the swipe the Brute made at him. Claws hidden by hair became evident when Doaedemet scooped his fingers under the Elite’s armored vest and lifted him from his hooves. Snarling into ‘Lavuree’s face, the Brute clamped his other hand around the Sangheili’s skinny neck, intending to either rip it in two or snap the bones inside it. ‘Lavuree’s eyes narrowed at him, both of his own hands wrapped around the wrist of the hand around his neck. Telekinetic energy lanced through the Brute Commander, doubling him over shy of his intended action. Tumbling free, ‘Lavuree tripped up a couple of other Brutes by accident, then another by design to keep it from hammering him into the floor when he turned up at it’s feet.

Where Doaedemet wound up, ‘Lavuree never saw, but he couldn’t spare time to think about it when the Elites behind the firing line launched a second volley of grenades. The smell of burning hair singed his nose, but aside from the occasional buzz his shields got, ‘Lavuree knew he couldn’t rightly complain- they were, after all, only protecting their own selves. He knew he would have been shooting just as they were, were he in their position and another in his. But somehow, he needed to get through the mess and behind that line- somehow, gain a safer position where he didn’t have as many at his fore as at his flank.

Feeling nauseous and weakened by the expenditure of raw energies, ‘Lavuree staggered away from the line of Elites, hoping to gain a distance from the fighting so he might not be gunned down with the enemy. After several frustrating and harrowing minutes, he finally broke the crowd and pelted across the open floor for the other side of the room. He knew before he looked he hadn’t gone there alone, and only a swift step to the side saved him from being crushed under the flying monolith that was the Brute who had chosen to chase him down. ‘Lavuree took his carbine in hand and shot the presumptuous beast in the eye with a single round, at point blank, when it spun about following his evasion.

Freed of immediate danger, ‘Lavuree took a moment to gather his wits and his breath, steady himself and reaffirm his footing. That accomplished, he raised the carbine to take aim at the back of the seething mass of tossing Brutes. Now there were grenades being exchanged, not just given, but the battle between the two lines at the fore of each group remained the worst part of the equation. Sparing a glance at the ammo counter on the back of the magazine set into the top of the gun, he looked back to the crowd of brutes and selected his first target. He fired, the target moved in a lightning-fast twitch, and the shot missed, embedding in another Brute’s leg instead.

Not surprisingly, it did little beyond stop there- ‘Lavuree doubted the beast had even noticed. After expending the magazine plug, and never hitting a single spot he’d aimed for, ‘Lavuree had grown tired of the game and reloaded to fire fast and hard in a random pattern that was only aimed remotely at the writhing mass of angry Brutes.

Just his luck, and he hit one somehow in the head with three consecutive rounds, killing it and with its carcass felling another who was in the way. Shoving the dead weight aside, the second Brute rose again, but it also noticed there was a lone Elite standing on the wrong side of the crowd, and quickly rallied several of its pack-mates to attack with it. ‘Lavuree fired at them until the magazine ran dry, and as the plug auto-ejected, he let the weapon rest at his side as he leapt to a nearby conduit cable on the wall. There was no way he could accomplish much by running back the way he had come, but up was as good a direction as any. Brute hands slapped at the conduits beneath his hooves as he gained a height enough to evade them for the time being, but another that had hung back threw a major kink in the plan he had made by hitting him with a well-aimed grenade out of its launcher.

The shock of explosion robbed ‘Lavuree of his grip on the conduits, but he wasn’t going to let them have him that easily, especially when his shielding was only half gone and he bore no injury. Perhaps they would sing of him for this… twisting mid-air, he effected a backflip, and as he turned to face first away from and then back at the conduit cables, he fired a round of plasma from his rifle at the grenade-launcher-toting Brute, then a series of them at the conduits.


  • 06.21.2007 9:47 AM PDT
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What happened was not what he had envisioned, but danger warnings lit up like Christmas in his mind barely a second before the whole wall erupted in a ball of brightly lit plasma fury. Oh, lovely… ‘Lavuree thought, directly before he smacked hard into the floor atop the shooter Brute, and then rolling from it in time for the both of them to be bathed in searing, burning plasma from the burst conduits. More than he thought was proper to have fit in them came out, gushing in a pressurized spray before settling for a more tranquil flow from the open pipes. Dissolving Brutes’ cries of utter and complete agony without comparison drowned out the nearby firefight, and as a result caused it to hesitate as both sides wondered what in creation had caused the few creatures to scream so. ‘Lavuree had just crawled behind a column when the first observer turned to see, so none looking surmised his involvement.

Tearing and ripping at his armor, the Elite fought hard to be rid of it and escape its proximity at the same time not touch it while the plasma ate the metal as if it were paper and glue. Rid of the suit, ‘Lavuree had escaped major injury, and a horrible death, as well, but he had not been completely unscathed by the incident. Leaning against the column to catch his breath all over again, the Sangheili warrior could feel the heat from the cooling plasma even at his current distance from it, and wondered if he might suffer some temperature-related malady.

The thought escaped his forebrain when the first wisp of the fumes reached him. Reeling back with his hand over his mouth, ‘Lavuree pushed himself to his hooves despite the wear and pain to escape the awful smell and the likely hazardous properties of the plasmatic fumes. Coughing and wheezing, ‘Lavuree was wishing he could have retained his armor- it had extracurricular enabling equipment attached to it, meaning an independent air supply. As he was, one of the Unggoy would have been better off than he, even with its little feet in the middle of that pool. Silence echoed through the bay for a moment, until someone realized the obvious aloud;

“The quarter has been poisoned!” A Brute cried, raising general alarm and telling the Elites behind them to don their masks again- but shortly after doing so they also resumed shooting, regaining the Jiralhanae’s attention and reinitializing the fight. The wounded and fallen Sangheili had been pulled to the back, into the corridor where ‘Lygotee was, at the far end attempting to open the quadrant door. It didn’t take long for the Brutes unable to access the actual fight to begin to suffer, choking on the toxins introduced into the air by the cooling plasma that had created its own unique lake in the middle of the floor- doubtless the ceiling of the lower level had bowed down, decreasing the height of any corridors and perhaps even dripping molten metals onto the floor there- as it were, liquid metal ringed the pool of plasma, which as it lost its own heated liquid state, became gaseous and was introduced into the atmosphere inside the room- if anyone opened a door, it would leak all over the station.

As much as ‘Lavuree was content to allow the Brutes to gag to death on airborne toxins, his own people were at risk as soon as the quadrant door was opened- not to mention all other species aboard. First power would drop all over the station, due to energy-source loss, aka the plasma, then the toxins would travel, maybe get all the way to Hydroponics, and due to the loss of operations power, the air scrubbers would not be able to keep up, and all those plants would die, meaning the air would further toxify due to a sudden loss of good air production. The entire station would become a death trap, to anyone not constrained to canned air fed through a mask.

Those were hard to sleep in. ‘Lavuree was exhausted, physically and mentally, but he couldn’t allow something of such magnitude to occur- especially since it was his fault for shooting a hole in the conduits and letting that plasma out in the first place. There was only one thing he could think of to stop it in its tracks, though.

Explosive decompression- the stations automatic subroutines would slam shut and seal all of the doors and all the gasses would go harmlessly out into space, where nobody needed to breathe anyway. Pulling to his hooves once more, ‘Lavuree tethered his armorless body to a second column, ensuring he would not follow those gasses out. Any of his comrades would fare better out there, considering how they each and all had armor, shields and EV packs as well as an air supply. If ‘Lavuree went, he would die.

Taking a deep breath, he opened his mind, and felt the structure of the metal barrier between himself and the outside. He only needed a small hole to get things started, but he knew he would not be able to stop it from making itself bigger within the explosive decompressing. Latching onto the molecules making up the metal of the hull, the Elite began to rearrange them. A sudden spike of elation warned him to hurry; it was his commanding officer, having realized how close he was to accomplishing the mission. Once that door opened, the odds of someone standing in it in time to be crushed in half when it auto-resealed again were high.

Slowly, the metal rolled and rippled, but he let go the instant it began to bulge. All by itself the hull ballooned out and burst, the concussion blast of the first level disgorging its contents into vacuum causing the next wall in to rupture, exiting a chain reaction until the pull reached the chamber where the danger resided. ‘Lavuree watched as the wall opened like an enormous toothy maw with a dark abyss beyond the teeth, before his tether pulled tight and everything in the room surged for that opening- including all the Brutes, Elites and loose clutter. Taking his queue, ‘Lavuree formed a ‘kinetic wall behind him, to stop the pressure of losing the one wall to cause the loss of the next one up. He couldn’t hold it forever, but he knew he didn’t need to. Once the pressure was gone, the gaping wound would hang open and still without further calamity to the vacuum until something else erupting got it started again.

When all the air was gone, anything that hadn’t been sucked out began to level off and float in a deceptively serene manner, until the outward flow receded and the internal artificial gravity reclaimed its lost possessions. Staring bleary-eyed out into the broad, open empty of space, ‘Lavuree began to see lit flares, as the Elites regathered themselves and headed back into the station through their exit. Doubtless none had expected that- but he hadn’t had time or method by which to warn them, and there was nothing he could have done about it. He waited in the still, holding to his tether, holding his breath, and tapping his toes lightly on the floor as the vacuum and artificial gravity both teased at his mass and weight, until the last that he could sense had passed the outer hull. Reaching again with his mind, as a grand finale, he pulled on the metal and closed the ragged hole once more.

“How fast can you get out of your armor, ‘Lavuree?” ‘Pohamee’s words echoed in his head as he smiled at the rushing air through the vents in the wall beside him. He was all alone in the room, now, all that was left of the assault to regain access to this part of the station.

“Five seconds.” He whispered, hoarse and sore from inhaling noxious fumes. “Just five…” He sagged to the floor against his tether, the gravity and air reclaiming the environment even as he faded from it, dropping into a haze enveloped by the darkness of unconsciousness.



Chapter Seven, part two:
1100 hours; Command Station Radiant

“What a mess you have made, Commander.” Dial commented. “How did this happen? Did their vessel open fire?”

‘Lygotee, somewhat at a loss, could only shrug. “I do not know how this hole opened here, sir. But every deck between here and hull-side were vented and emptied of personnel. Thankfully they were all Jiralhanae, but the damage is extensive enough the frame was bent.”

Dial shook his head. Turning from the ruined wall and the mass of crushed-closed plasma conduits, he surveyed the rest of the chamber he was in. Everything that had not been secured to the wall or floor was gone, sucked out into space- including over three hundred Jiralhanae, and every bloodstain on the floor had drag marks going towards the hole in the wall. The opposite wall, however, where any further damage might have been found, wasn’t even bowed. “There was no attack from the Jiralhanae ship…” He decided.

“Leader?” ‘Lygotee asked.

“What closed the hole, Commander? And why are all the openings torn in an outward direction? And what,” he added, striding to the indicated unscathed wall. “happened to the round within this chamber that it did not so much as leave soot on the other side of the room from the entry point?”

“You mean to ask what was in this room that wanted out?” ‘Lygotee asked.

“Yes.” Dial turned to see him, glancing at the divot big enough to bury forty Brutes in that was in the floor, empty and hardened in weird smooth shapes formed from the cooled slagged metal. “What wanted out, what happened, that it went slowly enough for the plasma to burn a hole in the floor before everything was sucked out into vacuum?”

“I can testify that it was much faster than that, Leader- and the walls each burst from the hull inward- I believe it was one of my Elites that shot the conduits open, which was prior to the incident.” ‘Lygotee answered, folding his hands behind him. “Whatever it was, it came in, not out.”

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Dial grunted. “I somehow fail to match that event to this evidence…” He frowned at the ragged holes still in the walls all the way to the outer hull, which he could see from his present location. “But the noise… we all heard the roar of decompression, all over the station. You made me wonder if she weren’t going to rend apart and leave us all in vacuum.”

“As far as I am able to tell, the event was isolated, and the holes never got any bigger than they are now- we all were sucked out through them, as were the Brutes.”

“You failed your mission, Commander.”

‘Lygotee inclined his head. “I cannot be held accountable for this, Leader, and you know it. As resourceful as I am I do not hold the fabric of space at my behest, nor would I have employed it had I. No one saw this coming, and no one, not even the Brutes, were prepared for it when it happened.”

“I heard reports of the Brute Commander being here prior to the explosions, but now I have confirmed reports of his presence elsewhere. Mind explaining that one, Commander?”

‘Lygotee shook his head. “I cannot- personally the only time I saw him he and I were within the docking-bay.” Sparing a look down into the divot in the floor, he added, “However I might bear mention of some rather anomalous occurrences happening in and around our fights with the Brutes… it still evades me why they did not immediately fall upon us while we were strung out, when Dasakumee’s camouflage exploded.”

“That was part of the list of questions I was pondering, myself, Commander. It seems out of character for the Brutes to pass up easy prey in favor of one that poses a challenge.” Dial picked a claw across the rippled metal on a column beside him. The pattern was fascinating, but the column had been damaged. When the repairs were effected, the pattern would be gone.

‘Lygotee looked at the trail of droplet-shaped divots leading from the edge of the plasma pool to a heap of what looked like it had once been a suit of armor, melted into and welded to the floor. He knew who’s it was, but he couldn’t let his thoughts turn to ‘Lavuree when bigger things were at stake- not to mention the Supreme Commander wouldn’t appreciate having to bring him around from a daydream.

“Something was holding them back.” He mused.

“What?” Dial asked, looking up from the column at ‘Lygotee.

He looked back. “They were being held. I could see them, at first, and they were all acting like they were pulling against strong tethers binding them to the walls behind them. Some broke free faster than others, but there was nothing I could detect that looked remotely like cables or chains. Nothing at all- but I strongly believe they were not acting.”

Dial narrowed his eyes at the Commander. “Something? Just, something? Brutes are hard to hold with real, genuine tethers, Commander. I seriously doubt an imaginary one would do better.”

‘Lygotee frowned back, but did his best not to allow the superior officer to see it. “I relate only what I saw, sir.”

“And it means little as for facts, Commander. I am still waiting for you to explain it.” Dial replied.

‘Lygotee shook his head. “I do not own any explanations. I still cannot figure out who is responsible for the walls breaking apart- the Brutes are ruthless, but they aren’t suicidal. And we had no access to that area once the fighting started, nor had any of us ownership of a weapon capable of punching through that many layers of hardened metal. I couldn’t begin to guess, sir. ”

“Among those you deposited in the medical ward for repairs, I noted one did not come in with his armor.” Dial mused, changing subjects temporarily. “Does this mess here explain why?” He gestured at the armor welded to the floor.

‘Lygotee nodded. “‘Lavuree was drenched in the loosened plasma.”

“And what was he doing that he wasn’t sucked out the hole when it opened, an event that would have sealed his fate?”

‘Lygotee was about to reply when he realized he didn’t know. ‘Pohamee had picked the wayward team member up, and hadn’t said if he had found him unconscious or what his position was. ‘Lygotee hadn’t spoken with ‘Pohamee since seeing him carry the half-cooked Sangheili out, either. He straightened. “I do not know.”

“You don’t?” Dial asked, sounding surprised. “Why? You didn’t ask him?”

‘Lygotee had a ready reply to that, at least. “He left this room in ‘Pohamee’s arms, sir, and he was unconscious.”

Dial spent a moment thinking, staring at the jagged seam across the inner side of the hull down the torn and gaping wound through the inside of the station. Something wasn’t adding up, but he knew ahead of time he didn’t have enough pieces of the puzzle to determine what. “This event merits investigation. Did you know, Commander, that had not this hole opened when it did, when the door they sealed shut was opened the whole station would have become unlivable?”

‘Lygotee pondered that. “I hadn’t given it thought until now, sir.”

Dial squared his gaze on his subordinate. “It is too lucky, too coincidental, and far too lacking in reasons why it would happen in the first place.”

‘Lygotee sighed. “Events of similar weal have been following me almost my whole career, Leader, and I have yet to learn why.”

Dial breathed a frustrated sigh, and turned from the scene. “This will be addressed later. For now, there are still Brutes to deal with.”

‘Lygotee watched him leave, then surveyed the wreck one more time before following. “The gods only know why these things happen to me.” Turning his back on the scene, the Elite strode to the door and through, aiming for the chamber where he had last seen ‘Pohamee. If ‘Lavuree had woken long enough to say anything, he would be the one that knew what. In truth he was more worried about the next action the Brutes would take, following this anomalous event, than what butchery the Supreme Commander might employ upon ‘Lygotee’s honor.

The mission, per se, had failed. There was no question to that. But it hadn’t exactly been a total loss, either, and for it there was little room to complain. Even the Supreme Commander understood that much, if it made him unsure how to react to it. And though things had not, even slightly, gone according to plan, they had gone, at the very least, much better towards the health of all concerned.

‘Lygotee was a corridor from the medical facilities when he encountered ‘Pohamee, but he came up short when he saw his teammate’s expression. The Elite was not overly expressive, via facial or bodily posture, but when he did strike some pose or crease his face it had a general meaning of importance about it. ‘Pohamee didn’t frown lightly. Nor, ‘Lygotee knew, did he allow any passing observer to know he was worried about something. And even an Unggoy would have known to wonder after seeing ‘Pohamee’s face.

“Ah, Leader. You have spoken with the Supreme Commander, haven’t you?” He asked, his tone muted and his volume low. This was one of his tells- when ‘Pohamee got quiet, circumstances were far from ideal.

“I was, yes… what—” He started to ask, but found his voice cutting off without prompting when ‘Pohamee waved at the air in a dismissive manner.

“You don’t want to know that, Commander. When you know, you will learn it from the source, and I suggest you wait until you are ready for the worst day of your existence to face that source.”

“‘Lavuree is dead, isn’t he?” ‘Lygotee asked, his own voice falling in volume and measure. Somehow the news seemed surreal, coming from himself. But ‘Pohamee hadn’t said that. He hadn’t said anything. He looked drawn, upon closer examination, something hard to accomplish when it came to ‘Pohamee. The Elite was often mistaken for a robot, when he refused shock, indecision and pressure. He shrugged off what sent others reeling.

Just as he found himself expecting, ‘Pohamee shook his head, denying the accusation. “No, ‘Lygotee, he is not dead. Worse.”

Surprise and denial rippled through ‘Lygotee’s frame. “Worse?”

‘Pohamee met his superior’s gaze, latching onto it as if trying to give some kind of silent message. The feeling ‘Lygotee got was something closer akin to a deafening scream for help. It didn’t match the warrior from whence it came, though, and it confused his reception. “He’s gone, they took him.” ‘Pohamee seemed to waver. “I should be dead, Leader, they massacred the rest, and…”

So it was shock. Somehow, somewhere, something had finally broken through the resolute warrior’s seeming unbreakable mental barriers, and he had witnessed something to defy the laws of normalcy. ‘Lygotee grabbed him. “Who took him? Where?”

‘Pohamee grabbed ahold of the arm ‘Lygotee had extended. “The Brutes.”

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Chapter Seven, part three:
1220 hours; Capital Ship Rampant Generosity

Hoku Zimivee opened one eye, the nictating membranes over both of them feeling oddly numb, as if he had pushed his face into some nerve gas. For what felt to be the longest time he thought what he was looking at was distorted by heat-waves, until he realized the truth of the matter. His eyes weren’t focusing.

Panic gripped him when he realized much of his body wasn’t responding to stimuli, leaving him mostly paralyzed on whatever surface it was that he lay. It hurt, though, it all hurt, and he wished he were in his quarters on the Radiant and not aboard some enemy vessel at the end of his ropes about to die some horrible death either at the hands of his counterpart, Mün, or those of a few dozen Brutes.

The shipboard population seemed willing enough to rip them both limb from limb, if they were ever slow enough to get caught. Zimivee rolled his head to one side, wanting to know if he were about to be killed or if he had managed to pass out in a place where nobody went, regularly. There was the distinctive sound of a Kig-yar arm shield activating, but he couldn’t see much to define if it was on a Kig-yar or not.

Despite all his desire and need to get up, to move, he discovered any and all attempts were futile, so he relaxed his effort in order to try amending his blurred vision. At the sound of a door sighing open, he stilled himself to listen, hoping he might be missed. This proved not the case, when he heard a distinctive Jiralhanae snort followed by a guttural word that he never did catch. Something huge and a little fuzzier than all the other things loomed over him, and in that split second, all his nerves fired off and he coiled out of the way, rotated and came about in time to scissor down on the back of the Brute’s neck. A stunned grunt escaped it, and it dropped onto its face, way off balance and open for attack.

Zimivee took a grenade from his belt and primed it, dropped it onto the Brute’s back between its shoulder blades, and let it melt the hair and meat there as it sank into a custom made divot fused in the muscles while he rested his hoof on the back of the squirming Brute’s head. He backed off once it was securely stuck, a burning ball of HE melted into the anatomy of one who couldn’t have deserved it more. The Brute, just as expected, went bawling backwards into the hall from which it had come, all the while clawing at its back in an effort to get the grenade out of its shoulders.

Three steps back into the hall, it detonated, and threw the Brute hard forward, against the partly closed door. Zimivee sagged to his knees, and slumped forward, uncaring of the half a Brute in front of him. He didn’t want to die, but he knew he couldn’t go on, not like he was. He was too tired, too hurt, and too far from help. His brothers might not even know he was alive at the moment, which made it harder still to cope. Nothing was easy… but why did he always end up getting the short end of whatever stick happened along? For once he wanted a break.

The next time the door opened, in its cycling attempt to allow the blockage to pass and close at the same time, the body was jerked back, out of the track, and dropped in the hall. Zimivee wanted to know who had performed said act, but he hadn’t even the strength to lift his head anymore. The adrenalin was gone, the moment was over, and he was through.

A hand cupped under his jaw, and lifted his head for him. Above him, standing just his side of the door, which now slid completely closed, was Mün Gazenee. Over his shoulder was a carbine, with plugs of loaded magazines on his belt. On each hip was a red-sheathed plasma rifle, and the two single-bladed swords snugly in their loops next to the grenades, opposite the carbine reloads. Zimivee wanted to say something, wanted to react somehow, but in the end his fatigue couldn’t allow for it. Mün smiled at him, if faintly.

“You could be the best, someday.” He was saying, softly. The words sounded liquid in Zimivee’s ears. He wondered if he was going to pass out again, his mind swimming as the world began to tilt. “You could be so much more than you are now… at your age, I was half this good.”

Zimivee rested the weight of his head against the supporting hand, sagging forward, nolonger listening. He would hit the floor, if he wasn’t held up, but he didn’t care. He was far too tired to care.

Mün Gazenee lowered the worn youth to the floor so he wouldn’t fall, and stepped back. Such strength- and stamina. It made sense, now. Whoever Hoku Zimivee had been before, he was stronger now, better attuned to the ways of the world, a deadlier weapon. But he was still just a child, so young and with so far to go. Truth be told Zimivee would have to be seen to and tested by the top echelons of the group, but there was no doubt in Mün’s mind that the kid had as much if not more potential than Mün had had when he was recruited. It was rare to find ones like Zimivee. Outside the main sources, unrelated and unconnected in all ways but one, that one being the Covenant… which was now dissolved.

Half-alive and wounded beyond repair, he had still felled an uninjured Brute and killed it to boot, without needing a gun to do so. Or maybe Mün was misjudging him again- half-alive was obvious, but maybe he wasn’t as beyond repair as one might think. Mün crouched next to the crumpled form of the youth who he had been keeping alive and who had kept him alive likewise, and began to wonder if he put in a word for him, if the Mirratord would accept him, or if he would even accept the Mirratord.

To the insiders, what was asked of the members seemed reasonable, but who knew what sacrifices an outsider might see it as. Finally in possession of the information he had been seeking, Mün had realized why his original impression had seemed wrong to him near the end, and where it had originated to begin with.

Growing up Zimivee had spent long hours of each day in practice, honing his reflexes to be the best for when he joined the Academy. When he became old enough to participate in the parade that the trainers chose from, he had been selected nearly right off. Despite being smallest in the class, there was no one he couldn’t get the best of, and he shot through the lessons at superlumenal speeds. Here was the warrior whose sire had made sure he would never fail when called upon, and would never falter under stress.

Too much stress, though, had gotten the best of him, and even though he obviously was in no way willing to quit even as yet, he still couldn’t push on any farther. This daunting task had taken it all out of him, and he had no more. It would be days before Zimivee was fit for duty again. He was one thing Mün hadn’t expected, though, aside from his apparent impressive skill- double jointed.

It explained why he was so much stronger- he had to be, else he would overextend and cause himself to come out of joint, leaving him helpless in pain on the floor- and why he was so much more flexible, able to do so much more in motion. He could escape any hold anyone had on him, regardless of where or who. And he could fling himself through the air like he belonged in flight, all aerodynamic and streamlined. But what he wasn’t was someone’s assassin-spy, nor did he hold any other loyalties apart from the Covenant he had joined. He wasn’t specially trained to take on a monster of an enemy and win- he wasn’t even trained specially. Zimivee wasn’t anything especially extraordinary, but he was scared half to death. And that made all the difference.

Mün spared their location a look, wondering what he could do to keep the Brutes from killing the singular fellow while he scouted out what they were doing in light of their loss of a central command station. The smart ones had scraped a couple of Engineers from the engine rooms to jury-rig a new one, but Mün knew he had time- if only a meager amount. The construction of said replacement command station would take time, especially since it was within the chamber where the old one had been- where all the contacts met. They wouldn’t have anything like what they had had before until they put into drydock, but for the time being and the circumstantial allowances, things were looking more or less in a general upward direction. For now, the crew was leaving Mün alone.

Zimivee, on the other hand, had just been at the brunt of a scout/patrol, loners either out of the loop or sent sneaking out to see about routing the pain in their collective rear ends. It was still popular belief that their ship harbored more than a squadron of Elites, but how this reasoning could stand up to any sort of logic made it plain why Brutes were considered so lowly by the Elites; if a goodly sized company of them existed aboard, the ship would have been emptied of Brutes by now. In light of their loss of coherent command, though, the Brutes were doing surprisingly well, and that worried Mün greatly. What did they know that he didn’t?

He often wished he had had a squad of his fellow Mirratord at his side, but his mission had been command removal, followed by a stealthy extraction. Truth in all Mün was supposed to have left long ago, not still be aboard a ship helping a lost and frightened youth trim the dwindling crew. But he had learned something, from that youth, in the time he had taken to change objectives. It had royally peeved his contact and extraction, Pylori Havwénee, but he had had more imposing characters become unhappy with him and he’d survived… he was not about to turn tail and abandon Zimivee after everything.

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If brash and a bit annoying in his own right, the kid had opened Mün’s eyes to something he had otherwise overlooked. And any revelation meant Mün had missed something, which usually was synonymous with ‘fatal mistake’, in Mün’s line of work. He hadn’t made a terrible many of those, or at least had been lucky enough to never have noticed. If he had to leave Zimivee behind for the good of all, it would most likely mean he was dead. Because of what Mün had witnessed, he was never more convinced of anything than he was about Zimivee being what was good for all- more than sure the Sangheili population on the station believed him dead, he continued to fight for them despite, determined to cripple the vessel when anyone else might have prioritized escaping it.

The fact made Mün feel honored to know him.


Chapter Eight, part one:
0100 hours; Command Station Radiant

When ‘Lavuree opened his eyes, he didn’t understand his environment. First, the first thing he had seen upon opening them was a Brute, and beyond that anomaly, he was neither in the oxygen-processing chamber nor a medical ward. But then, the presence of the Brute could explain away both of those.

Perhaps he had been taken prisoner? The thought jolted the rest of him awake, and he tried to sit up, but found he had not only been tied up, but down as well. ‘Lavuree was going nowhere. Relaxing back, the Elite tried to take in his surroundings, to see what he could of the circumstances. It was a small chamber, which made sense, without conduits or vents, and a single entrance and exit point, at which stood the Brute of mention. The scraggly beast was something of a marvel, when one got past the fact that he was, after all, a Brute, and not much else.

‘Lavuree surmised he had to be enormously strong just to carry all the crud embedded in his hide that he did; and beyond that he carried not one but two RPGs, the first of which looking like it had been saved for virtue of the blade being in good condition- the rest of it certainly wasn’t, though the other one looked operable. Grenades hung in rows on a set of crossed bandoliers over the Brute’s shoulders, completing the look. He was typical for his kind, ‘Lavuree mused, but he had seen some combat. His upper lip was cleft, from the same cut that scarred his nose, and another scar had closed his left eye permanently. The beast looked surly indeed.

Looking himself over, ‘Lavuree was mildly disappointed that he had no armor, and no equipment, but he had been expecting that much. All of his injuries had been seen to, which made him think he had been in a medical ward, at least for long enough to have been tended before the Brutes dropped by. His arms had been tied behind him, though, which complicated matters, especially when they were tied elbow to elbow. The position hurt, and caused his breath to be short, since he was stuck with his diaphragm half-pulled.

The Brute at the door cast him a disinterested glance, then raised a fist and banged twice on the door; surprisingly, it wrinkled and the noise echoed. Were they in the Maintenance Sector? ‘Lavuree closed his eyes, and focused inward, until he found the calm necessary to reach out and see the outside of his confines. He found six Brutes in the hall outside, all guards, eight more at a control station down the corridor trying to hail their ship, and scattered patrols all over the rest of the area. So, he was in the heart of the infestation? How curious. And why was he taken alive, rather than killed? Brutes didn’t usually employ the practice, but since they had, ‘Lavuree wasn’t going to complain. As bad as the situation got, he could always amend it, if at all possible, since he was still alive.

Finding none of his brothers-at-arms anywhere within reach, he began to despair, wondering if they thought him dead with whoever else had been in the medical ward with him when the Brutes came. There was no verification on that, though, so he steeled himself for whatever might come. Elation wrote itself on his features momentarily when he found and identified a lone Unggoy. The little creatures were infinitely useful, as far as ‘Lavuree was concerned, but he had tactfully been keeping his mouth shut when a superior ordered them around like nothing more than cannon fodder. It wasn’t his place.

The little creature responded speculatively at first, but then more enthusiastically, after ‘Lavuree managed to convince him that the mission that had been planted in his mind would make the Elites he answered to very proud of him.

Plant a seed in fertile grounds, and watch it grow.

Unggoy rarely presented themselves to the Elites, preferring to hunker down and hope to be ignored or missed, and rarer still did they race past their fellow packmates in preference of the company of the bigger aliens. Unggoy he had known for years followed him with their puzzled expressions as Oahndeet pedaled past them without slowing down for so much as a greeting.

Truth be told the Grunt didn’t know what he thought he was doing, either, but he bee-lined for the cluster of raving Elites anyway. They were speaking heatedly about a missing member of their own, but Oahndeet’s grasp of the language ended there. The context was enough, though, for him to know he had found the right ones to deploy his information to.

It took him several tries just to get their attention, but he regretted it once he had it. The Elite in the red armor lifted him by his methane mask, and snarled in his face before tossing him away. He landed on his tank, though, which wasn’t even dented when he came to a stop. Rolling back to his feet, Oahndeet frowned at the group, but quickly erased the expression when one of the ones in black looked at him.

“What did you want?” It sounded odd- which equaled dangerous- that the Elite’s tone was so soft. Was Oahndeet fixing to be killed?

He stuttered for a moment before answering comprehensibly. “Me… me have information on you lost warrior.”

This announcement caused a stir in the ranks of the group. The black one spoke again. “How did you know about the lost warrior? What do you know?”

Oahndeet pondered that. “Me not know- me just come up with it. Me thought you would like to know, because me not think this from me own head- me not know any Elites by name.”

“You thought it up- and we’re supposed to take this at face value?” The red-clad scoffed. He was silenced by an upraised hand belonging to the black-clad.

“What name?”

“Umm… ‘Lavuree?”

The Elites exchanged glances. Looking back at the Unggoy, the black-clad asked, “And what do you know of him?”

Oahndeet shrank some, under the gazes of more Elites at once than he was used to. There were six or eight of them, all looking directly at him. “He okay. He locked in little room for Brutes to talk to. Ask questions. But he no have no armor, and he think he might be in trouble when talking all done.”

“No doubt.” As if in dismissal, the Elites all turned from him, and began their own converse anew. Oahndeet got the feeling they were wasting their time… and he dropped to his knuckles to skip back to the ranks of Unggoy for a secondary plan.

“You, you and you, you all with me. Me need little guns, no pack nothing big, we go crawling in the ducts. We have mission.” He instructed.

“You only just come in from patrol, Oahndeet, and you talk to Leaders, and you back out again?” A Grunt complained. “Where the smart in that?”

“I be okay, just get up and come with.” Oahndeet said, again. “Come on, up, up. We have long ways to go.” When the three he had selected began to follow him, he started for the arms locker so they could grab needlers. Two braces of plasma pistols wouldn’t be good for much against Brutes, but needles worked wonders when in sufficient supply. Oahndeet had learned this as a matter of course through the recent conflicts. Unless he took forty or more, pistols wouldn’t be sufficient.

Once they were loaded, Oahndeet hopped onto the back of one of his fellows and pried into the cabinet where the spare shield generators were kept. While they were meant to be installed into the armor of an Elite following the original’s failure, the devices could also be jury-rigged into a Grunt’s armor if done properly. And the instructions in Oahndeet’s mind kept stressing that the more defensive he had, the less offensive he would need to carry, and the smaller he could be- and smaller meant faster through the ducting. He carefully applied a generator to each of his mission-members, then masked them so the Brutes wouldn’t see them and shoot them out first thing. A Grunt named Pan applied and concealed his, before all four of them moved out.

  • 06.21.2007 10:00 AM PDT
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
For the honor of the Mirratord!

While stealth was imperative, it couldn’t be maintained long enough to justify the extra weight and mass of a cloaking engine as well. The Unggoy would just need to be swift, and careful. Oahndeet set his Grunts in the right direction, and they all began to pelt along the corridors right through the wrecked room that had once been an oxygen processing chamber and down the gullet of the Brute’s claimed sector.

Oahndeet was sure the Elites would kill them all for this even if the Brutes somehow missed them, but even as he had that thought the instructions surfaced in his mind again and he threw his fears in the back for later. He was an Unggoy- not a coward!

Where that thought came from would remain a mystery to him for the rest of his life, but his seeming nonchalance towards the approaching doom they were running for strengthened his companions, and not one of them faltered when the first Brute came into view. As one the group slid almost gracefully into a side passage, stayed there until the sentry had passed on, then shot out again and past the first wall.

Oahndeet steeled himself for a fight. He knew he only had three Grunts to work with, and no Elite backup at all, let alone a competent Elite Leader to make sense of the battlefield and give orders. But apart from this, he did have those three Grunts, after all, and each one was competent with their weaponry, fully healthy and well-armored, not to mention shielded as well. They might not stand for much in a one-on-one fight, but Oahndeet knew he and his team would persevere despite anything anyone threw at them for sheer force of will.

He would complete this mission, he was going to retrieve that lost Elite, and he was not going to let the Brutes hammer what information they could out of it! He was an Unggoy, not a coward. And that Unggoy was on a mission.

Pan pulled him up short when they came to a tee, when he almost passed it without looking into it first. Their luck held, when Pan’s attention to that detail proved worth mention, and the three Brutes at the other end of the hall they were fixing to traverse turned and began to walk towards them, as of yet oblivious to their presence. Oahndeet made a fist and thunked Pan’s armored shoulder, then waved said fist and pointed at the ceiling. The halls here were too long and too straight for a retreat to be effective; they would be at the other end of the hall when the Brutes reached the juncture, but they would still be in view, and likely in motion. Motion, as was common knowledge, attracted the eye. Pan hopped onto his back, and Kip onto his, successfully reaching the vent overhead and opening it quietly. Taking hold the edge, Kip tapped Pan’s tank, who tapped Oahndeet’s, who then waved at the fourth member, the smallest Grunt named Wassal.

Wassal mounted his pack-brothers like a ladder, and scooted into the airshaft above them. From the bottom up they came, Oahndeet following Wassal, followed by Pan, who then helped Kip the rest of the way into the ducting he was holding onto. Once everyone was inside, hunkered down for the lack of available space, Kip placed the covering back over the hole, and peeked through it to watch as the disaster they had just averted strolled calmly by.

“Clear.” He whispered, when he lost sight of the patrol, and in backwards formation they piled back out. The air ducting didn’t run parallel with the hallways, making it a confusing substitute for a passageway to a predetermined location. Oahndeet kept at the knowing feeling that he didn’t have time to be getting lost, and if he had to bop into the ceiling now and again, that was fine. He didn’t want to fight the Brutes without Elite backup anyway.

The four Grunts moved quickly and quietly for their objective, avoiding alerting or engaging the Brutes they saw along the way- until at last there were too many of the bigger creatures to slip past in their old manner. The attention to size and weight paid off then, when all four of them were successfully able to traverse the innards of the air distribution shafts above the hallways. Oahndeet paused beside a smaller vent duct, and tried to look down it, wondering why he was so convinced that this was the one that led to the room where the captive Elite was. He looked over his ranks, then gestured at Wassal. Any speech would be echo-prone, and voices in the air system would certainly alert the Brutes.

The smaller Grunt made a face, but he waddled up to the vent shaft and poked his head down inside it. When the rest of him proved it would fit, too, and if he wriggled just so he could take his methane tank with him, he wriggled down through it to the vent on the wall inside the small room to peek through the mesh grilling at the occupants.

There was the Elite, without armor, but there was a Brute, too, which meant if Wassal made an entrance, he would need to have his needler at hand to fill the beast with shards of explosive crystal immediately after his feet touched the floor. Looking back at the Elite, he determined why it was just lying there, as though complacently; the Brutes had tied it down very securely, and without some kind of equipment, the Elite was going to go nowhere. Squirming backwards, Wassal returned to his packmates in the main duct, to which he tried to describe the situation, without saying a word. The Brutes outside would need to be gotten rid of, somehow, but luring them off would be easier than killing them all, as though they had the ammo for it, there wouldn’t be much left for anyone else, as well as the fact that any dying screams would defeat the whole purpose when more came running.

Nods of agreement followed his message, and after giving him instruction to return to the small room and killing the Brute there, Oahndeet took the other two and retraced their steps enough to come out in the hall outside. Things would need to happen fast. Watching them go, Wassal spared time to take a few deep breaths. Oahndeet had assigned this mission, but why the Elites hadn’t wanted to come themselves still baffled him. He was just a Grunt, and a small one at that. Somewhere along the way his growth had stalled far short of where it ought to have.

Mustering the gall for the action, Wassal kicked out the grating and dropped into the room right under the nose of the Brute standing guard. If he lived through this, he promised himself he would never do it again.

------------------------------------
There you have it... more comes later.
~Aardvark

  • 06.21.2007 10:03 AM PDT
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
For the honor of the Mirratord!

Chapter Eight, part two:
0210 hours; Command Station Radiant

‘Lavuree let go of the sights and sounds outside the realm where his eyes and ears might sense them, and pulled back into himself; it was fixing to begin, and he didn’t need to be partly in a trance when the action started. Right as he looked up at the Brute, the smallest adult Unggoy ‘Lavuree had ever seen slammed into the floor between them from out of the air ducting in the top of the wall to his left.

The Brute reeled back in surprise and shock at the sudden flash of motion, but before he could identify just what it was that had hit the floor before him, the little Grunt filled his face with razor-edged needles, and when they exploded, it left little of his face attached to his skull, and with the frontal lobes of his brain exposed and rent, the Brute toppled to the floor in a heap.

‘Lavuree looked from the beast to the Unggoy, as it turned to look back. “You being rescued, Leader. You hold still and me cut you loose.”

‘Lavuree didn’t answer- he didn’t need to. He let the Unggoy slice through the cable wrapped around his arms, all the while wondering what had possessed the creature to come alone- surely he hadn’t made it sound that urgent. The both of them would be dead meat before reaching the first juncture all alone as they were. But the Grunt didn’t seem to care- as if he had an army outside the door waiting for them so they could move out, back the way they had come. ‘Lavuree wished he had his armor, or at least some form of weaponry, but the only thing available was the Brute’s RPG.

Dissatisfied with the selection but unwilling to leave the room unarmed, the Elite scooped it up on his way to the door. It opened with a quiet hiss to an empty hall. The picture didn’t make any sense to him, having been certain there were supposed to be six or more Brutes there- but when the Unggoy ambled past his leg and started down the hall to the right, ‘Lavuree had to let it go in favor of putting ground between himself and his enemy. He was lucky in that they had not had time to do any interrogating before his extraction arrived, but this was one good Grunt if he didn’t even need to look where he was going to successfully steal a Sangheili from the enemy.

The situation began to make more sense when he saw another Grunt. Perhaps there were more of them, after all. The little creature darted for them, going full speed on all four of its stubby little limbs, but the Brute in pursuit, who was traveling in a similar position, was gaining on it by leaps and bounds. ‘Lavuree aimed the RPG at the ceiling and fired two successive shots, both of which ricocheted directly onto the charging Brute’s head. Crude and clumsy as it was, the weapon did its job, stopping the Brute and sparing the Unggoy. Coming to a stop, and realizing what had just happened, the Grunt looked up at ‘Lavuree and smiled brightly behind it’s methane mask.

‘Lavuree nodded to it, and moved forward. Two more Grunts turned up shortly, having had more success in losing their own pursuants in the maze of halls throughout the station. The four of them traded low-pitched squeals and grunts in apparent relief at finding one another in relatively good health, then they proceeded to go back the way they had come, navigating the halls to avoid as much combat as possible.

‘Lavuree checked his launcher- it only had two more grenades in it, but it also had an impressive melee attachment if he ran out right when he needed to the least. By the third juncture, though, he began to sense alarm and fury stirring the Brute ranks, as they not only found their prisoner missing but the guard dead and one of the outer sentries down as well. Quietly he urged his escort to go faster- word was spreading quickly via the comn system, and soon everyone would be on the lookout for them.

Oahndeet had seen more impressive looking Elites, even without their armor. But something about this one made him respectful despite, even when no one would have really known if he had snubbed the creature and left it where he’d found it. The further along they got with the Elite in tow, though, the more Oahndeet found he rather liked the character, as most unlike the other Elites he had worked with, this one was being nice to them. Telling them they ought to go faster, should pick up the pace, and then said why. No plain, un-explanatory orders to perform such and such an action. And Kip had even said that he had saved his life, killing the Brute that had been about to catch him- and he hadn’t tried to shoot past the Unggoy, rather calculating fast-changing angles and fired off rounds way over his head.

So the Elite either had a good eye or was brilliant with math. And he liked Grunts. Oahndeet began to wonder if he had been too late in rescuing the fellow, as no Elite in his right mind liked Grunts… he was probably doped out on some drug the Brutes had given him to make him more cooperative.

Still, it was a nice change, and he put forth the effort to make sure they got back to the Sangheili’s territory intact before that drug wore off and his charge got irritable. They pelted along on all fours, running as fast as they could, the Elite maintaining their pace on his triple-jointed legs easily enough. Pan spotted the Brute patrol first, and called it to the attentions of the others, but the Jiralhanae quartet had only just popped from the cover of another juncture- and there was no stalling their momentum that fast.

Oahndeet tried anyway, having no desire whatsoever to barrel face-first into the Brutes, and to his surprise, he successfully attained a complete stop- and so did his pack-mates- several feet shy of the creatures. He felt like he had been grabbed from behind, and pulled backwards until he nolonger owned any forward momentum. A quick glance over his shoulder at the Elite behind them and he was convinced- but how had he grabbed four Grunts with only two hands? The question lost priority quickly when the Brutes began to shoot at them, exchanging hot plasma with sharp needles from the Grunts. First one, then another blew up in explosive gore as the needles tore them open, but the other two hid behind their unfortunate kin, even holding their lifeless forms up as a shield even after they had died.

Oahndeet screamed in protest when Pan flipped backwards, three consecutive shots to his head killing him and shoving him over. He hadn’t seen the Grunt’s shields die, but now that he looked he realized his own were nearly depleted. First one, then another grenade bounced off the wall behind the Brutes, showering them from the back with sharp flak. Both howled, and though not that badly hurt, both dropped their organic cover and for it were soon just as full of explosive crystal needles as their fallen comrades.

When the last needle detonated and the Brutes were all dead in rent heaps on the floor, Oahndeet turned to his fallen pack-brother. The Elite scooped Pan’s body from the floor, and looked at it. Oahndeet wanted to protest, was half a mind to shoot the Elite full of needles too, but he held back, well aware the penalties for such an action. As one, Oahndeet, Kip and Wassal stared sadly at their pack-mate, unsure what to do.

‘Lavuree shook his head, and set the Grunt down again. He had hoped the unfortunate creature was merely wounded, but the plasma had burned through his little face and eaten out part of his brain. He was dead, and there was nothing to be done about it. Watching the remaining Grunts, ‘Lavuree noted that none of them so much as touched the body, but he had seen them all bristle with anger when he had picked it up. Grunts were like this; keeping their own culture a secret, even interacting differently when alone than when in the company of other members of the Covenant. And unless ‘Lavuree suddenly ceased to exist, the Grunts before him wouldn’t mourn their fellow in the way that had been passed down to them by their forefathers. ‘Lavuree understood that.

But before he could say anything regarding circumstances or situations, the three of them turned their backs on the dead Grunt and proceeded down the hall. ‘Lavuree spared a look at the abandoned body, the picture of Brutes feasting on Unggoy meat forming in his mind. Disgusted, ‘Lavuree picked it up and followed his rescue.

The others might not understand, but the last thing ‘Lavuree was going to do was allow the enemy even a single corpse to gloat over, let alone eat. As was expected, he earned a few odd looks from the other three Unggoy, but not one said a word, either querulous or in protest. ‘Lavuree dismissed them, focusing on the task at hand. The patrols were thinner here, at the outer edge of the sector. It wouldn’t be long before he was back among his own, and when he got there he knew the first thing he would do would be to don some armor. Being in a fight without it made him feel as though he were paper. His hide was certainly as resilient against rounds of plasma or grenade flak.

‘Lavuree ran behind the three Unggoy, forming a spearhead in front of him. They were faster than he remembered Grunts being clocked as, but then the Unggoy had never been fully open or forthcoming with their abilities. The one at the point of the spear suddenly bowled sideways, but before ‘Lavuree could determine why, both his surviving comrades did the exact same thing- and right where they had been a heartbeat before stood a Brute, dual-wielding plasma rifles. ‘Lavuree drew up short, dropping his load to one side to bring up the blade on the back of his filched RPG, but despite the alarming proximity he wasn’t clubbed in reply.

  • 07.07.2007 7:39 PM PDT
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I am a Sangheili Bard.
Tomes of the History of the Mirratord
For the honor of the Mirratord!

The Unggoy began to howl in savage notes as they engaged more of the Jiralhanae, determined not to lose another of their number, but there were too many for one of them to mind what ‘Lavuree had to handle. He felt the crude blade connect solidly with the Brute’s shoulder, and it cut a nice deep gouge in the meat there. The problem was the placement of the wound meant the owner of the shoulder was now royally pissed off, rather than dead.

It fired plasma at ‘Lavuree’s exposed head, overheating both rifles at once. Alarmed and a little out of sorts, ‘Lavuree did not have time to stop the flying plasma in entirety, nor had he time to duck out of the way. He was simply just too close. When the bright flare faded from his vision, he glared at the Brute, snapping his mandibles and snarling at it. If the beast wanted to play dirty, ‘Lavuree would play dirty.

The Brute, to it’s discredit, stared in shock at the Elite for more than one reason- first, ‘Lavuree should have been killed by the same virtue that felled Pan. There might even have been a hole out the back. But he wasn’t even bleeding. He was, however, an altogether other color. Having been unable to stop the plasma from getting close enough to do damage, ‘Lavuree’s face and throat were deprived of the extra-cutaneous layer of skin. So stripped, he now looked very pale, the skin nearly white. As the Brute stared at the Elite in horrified fascination, the dark, hateful eyes seemed to droop, and drool out of their sockets. When ‘Lavuree blinked, however, this also proved to be not the case, as the lenses were expelled from their previous resting place. Pale purple eyes burned through the brute, the irises the color of the Elite’s blood.

‘Lavuree snapped outward, the ‘kinetic energies set loose upon the offending creature enough to rend the walls behind it and cause them to buckle- even as the Brute shattered like so much glass that had been hit. Those witness to the explosion turned and ran for their lives, having no wish to contend with a weapon the likes of which would do that to a formerly healthy adult Jiralhanae. But ‘Lavuree wasn’t done yet. He caught each of them, and with the enormous amount of fury he commanded, tore each of them to ribbons before allowing their remains to rest. When the last one was dead and mush, ‘Lavuree turned glaring to the Unggoy, who were all cowering with their arms over their averted faces. They had never witnessed anything at all like what the Elite had just unleashed, and likely never would again.

Looking down at the three little Grunts, his temper began to cool. He was reminded of another of the same species, one he had known years before. He turned away, and paced back to where he had left Pan. Myri was dead. The unfortunate Unggoy had been dead for years- almost as many as ‘Lavuree had known his team- ‘Lygotee, ‘Pohamee and ‘Obaulee. But ‘Lavuree could never forget him, and never wanted to. Myri had taught him something about the virtues of being a Grunt, and had been the one to show him that even those looked down upon by all others could rise to an occasion.

Myri was responsible for ‘Lavuree’s viewpoint of the Grunts being more than mere cannon fodder. They were people, too…

Quietly, in the settling calm after the storm, ‘Lavuree picked up the limp body of the little alien that had risked all to come get him. Turning to the other three, he pushed on them lightly until they recovered enough from the shock of seeing the Brutes rip to pieces without anything laying a hand on them to move on. Passing them one by one, all the ones that had tried to flee, ‘Lavuree realized how well timed his outburst had been; counting the piles of mush on the floor as they went past them, he came to the sum total of fourteen.

Had they all gotten to shoot, had they all gotten to fight, there might not have been anything left at all of ‘Lavuree or his escort.

  • 07.07.2007 7:44 PM PDT

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