Halo: Indelible Past/Chapter Sixteen

Autel 'Vadam had never thought he'd see the day where he would look back on the Fallen War as the good old days.
Standing in the center of a tight, ringed room within Meru's government complex, he felt the eyes of his fellow warriors and the weight of command beating him down as it never had before.
And they are not my fellow warriors, the weight reminded him sternly. They are my subordinates.
Clad in the grey and red of a special operations officer, Autel faced a room of military officer and civilian consultants, all drawn together to face the sudden threat of human revenge killings. Before him floated a holographic map of the region, with red strobes flashing where there had been attacks. Right now the map looked as if it were infested by red insects, with a massive colony right inside Meru itself.
"Three more attacks today," he reported, the words feeling heavy between his mandibles. "Two villages were burned and one of our air patrols inside the city was shot down."
"Unacceptable!" spat one of the civilians. His robes marked him as a member of Meru's governing council. "How can these humans keep striking at will? Your warriors were supposed to put an end to this madness!"
One of Autel's officers growled a warning, but he raised a hand to wave him down. If there was one thing he'd learned from his father's grueling efforts to keep Sanghelios alive, it was that the merchants and bureaucrats were as vital to success as the warriors. Right now, he needed his makeshift war council to work together if they were to resolve the crisis.
"Have any more keeps been attacked?" he asked the room at large.
"No reports, but it took us days to learn of the Henden massacre."
"Why aren't your countermeasures working?" the bureaucrat demanded. "Two days have passed since the attack began, and so far your warriors have accomplished nothing!"
"Short of a full evacuation of the city, there is little we can do," Autel explained patiently, resisting the urge to have the loudmouth dragged bodily from the room. "They are able to flawlessly impersonate our pilots, crack our codes, and pass themselves off as our own fliers at every turn."
"We tried instituting checkpoints," an officer explained. "But they responded by loading Phantoms full of explosives and bombing the inspection points."
"Is there nothing to be done?" another civilian asked mournfully. "More of our citizens die every hour."
Autel clenched his fists, furious at the humans for their brutality, at his superiors for putting him in this position, at his warriors for not achieving results, at himself for having nothing to end this madness...
The door at the far end of the chamber slid open, and a single warrior strode in. Unlike the other officers, he wasn't special operations. His armor denoted him as an Ultra with the regular army, and his armor was stained with purple blood. Fresh blood.
As heads turned in his direction, the newcomer strode through the holograms towards Autel. "Another attack," he snarled at the surrounding room. "They struck an evacuation convoy. I lost two warriors driving them off."
"Get me a report on all of their known movements since then," Autel ordered, his eyes fixed on the newcomer. "If they plan on exporting their violence to other states, they need to have warning."
As the meeting diverged into small, terse groups, Autel raised a hand in greeting. "Fira. I thought you wouldn't be attending the gathering. Again."
Fira 'Demal, his best and oldest friend, shook his head. "You might be obligated to waste time with these mewling fools, but I'm not. These butchers strike us at every turn, and we still don't know who they are or why they are here."
Autel nodded. "The transmission countermeasures. Do we have a solution to their jamming yet?"
"Not at present, seeing as the Arbiter refused to consider the possibility of something like this!" one of the bureaucrats butted in angrily. "We are powerless against their digital tricks!"
Fira turned and fixed the unfortunate politician with a frigid glare. "Know your place, worm."
Ignoring the jab at his father, Autel placed a calming hand on his friend's shoulder before things could get out of hand. "I know you have more to report."
But Fira simply shook his head. "I wish I did, but out there we simply respond to their every move, and they are always two steps ahead of us. It's all I can do to keep my warriors together out on the streets."
"It cannot go on like this," Autel admitted. "I have already requested a corvette force to sweep the skies around Meru. The humans can't possibly be cloaking all of their Phantoms, and we need to find where they are launching from."
"The sooner the better," Fira agreed. "I have lost too many warriors already. And there is still no sign of Tuka."
Autel nodded sympathetically. Fira had been scouring the city for his young protege ever since the attacks began, but so far his efforts had been in vain. "The corvettes will tip the scales," he assured his friend. 
Unfortunately, the meeting had chosen that time to grow silent. Autel winced internally, bracing himself for more criticism while praying Fira didn't do as he'd been threatening for years and begin lopping off political heads.
"Why weren't these corvettes called in the first place?"
"What is the army doing out there?"
"Why can't we track their movements?"
To shout them down would be meaningless, Autel knew as he restrained himself while his operation fell to pieces around him. They are afraid, all of them. That is the goal of these humans, to inspire fear and terror amongst us while they carry out their murder around us.
He sensed Fira ready to begin cracking heads and wondered how he would handle the evacuation without civilian support.
And then a thin, reedy voice cut through the argument like a blade. "Quiet down, you fools are giving me a headache."
All eyes turned to look at the smallest, oldest Sangheili in the room. Garbed in plain civilian robes and cradling a long, thin cane, he sat up against the wall beside the door, staring into the crowded council with wispy, failing eyes.
Autel blinked, surprised at having forgotten this elder was even in the room.
His name was Deno. There was no clan name that had ever been attached to it, at least as far as Autel knew. An ancient, withered veteran who had seen the beginning of the Great War and fought it through the Schism, Deno was the scarred face of Sanghelios's intelligence forces. He should long since have retired, but Autel understood that retirement for one such as Deno was impossible. He had given himself, mind and body, to the Sangheili people.
And when he spoke, the room silenced immediately.
Deno cocked his head. "This bickering is pointless. Right now you should be less concerned with the attacks and more concerned with how the rest of the planet sees your reaction to them."
"Spymaster," one of the bureaucrats began, but Deno cut him off with a wave.
"Enough from you. Vadam, you should know that Prefect 'Unul died this morning. My Black Guard only just recovered his corpse."
Autel blinked. Without the prefect, his hold over the civilians was at an even worse point than it already was. "How?" he demanded.
"It seems he received a transmission from a mercenary claiming to have a fugitive to be handed over to him. The fool didn't tell you because he wanted the glory of the capture for himself."
Autel knew better than to question how Deno knew these things. The spymaster had spun his web of information far across Sanghelios. Very little escaped his notice, and even less escaped the grasp of his elite Black Guard, the closest thing Autel had ever seen to a Sangheili secret police.
"What happened?" he asked.
"The humans ambushed his party on the landing pad and killed nearly all of them. The fugitive he was after escaped into the city; my warriors only just reported that they have lost him."
Autel blinked, still trying to process the information, but Fira plunged in before him.
"The fugitive," he demanded. "Who is he?"
A hint of a smile passed over Deno's mandibles. "You know him well, Ultra 'Demal. The human sell-sword Mordred. I believe we owe a great deal of our current altercation with the Path Walkers to him, correct?"
Fira stiffened, then turned to Autel. "I need to get back to the city. Now."
"Not alone," Autel insisted. "I will come with you."
Fira shook his head. "No," he said, strangely plaintive. "Please. I am honor-bound to bring this one in. Especially if he is involved in this carnage."
Without another word, he strode towards the door. Autel could hear him already communicating with his subordinates, ordering every warrior at his command to prepare for a hunt.
**
The prisoners had all been herded together, old and young, weak and strong, warrior and civilian. They sat hopelessly within a large makeshift holding cell made of twisted iron bars the humans had brought with them. The bars were crude, with gaps that would have been easy to slip through but for the armed guards who ringed the enclosure. Patches of blood left on the floor and bars were reminders of the fate of any who tried to break free.
Tuka's head still ached. His wounds hadn't been treated since the massacre in the plaza; he and his fellow prisoners had been stripped naked before being thrown into the enclosure. Blood dripped steadily from his cuts and wounds.
Doing his best to work past the pain, he looked forlornly around him. None out of the dozens of prisoners were talking. Most kept their heads down and didn't say a word, while others did as he did and surveyed their captivity in stoic silence.
The whole thing made Tuka's skin crawl. It reminded him of his brief stint as a slave back on Famul. But this time he hadn't planned any of it, nor did he have friends ready to break him out within the next few hours.
Now he understood why the slaves back on Famul had been so hopeless. But I mustn't give in to despair. There is a way out of here. There has to be.
He looked back at the guards. Only a few were actually watching the prisoners; the rest were scattered about the holding room, which looked like one of the war bunkers he had been inspecting with Fira not ten days before. But though they idled and conversed amongst themselves, the humans all had their weapons held firmly in their hands. There was no way they'd be caught off guard.
Beside him, one of Tuka's fellow prisoners stirred. Tuka had pegged him as a warrior earlier, and his suspicions were confirmed when the big Sangheili growled, "How disgraceful. I have nothing to kill myself with."
Tuka slowly rested a reassuring hand on the warrior's shoulder. "Don't think about death," he told him. "Not now. We have a responsibility to help those around us."
The warrior jerked away and glared at him. "We can do nothing, you fool. We are already dead. Our only choice now is whether we die with or without honor."
Tuka saw no point in pressing the argument and looked away, fighting the despair sinking into his stomach. He still had no idea who these humans were or why they had attacked Sanghelios. They didn't look anything like the few human warriors he had seen. Rather than the drab green of most human combat armor, these guards were dressed in black and grey without any of the insignias and symbols he had seen on UNSC warriors. He still couldn't comprehend the butchery he had seen back in the plaza. As a child, Tuka had seen most of his family slaughtered as senselessly as the attack back in Meru, but he couldn't see the point in attacking the Sangheili in the one place that would be guaranteed to invite crushing retribution.
A door at the end of the room beeped and slid open. Tuka's head swiveled to face it, his hopes rising within him. This was it, warriors had come to save them…
But his hearts sank as three more dark-garbed humans marched into the room. The guards looked over at them as they approached and Tuka froze when he realized the foremost of the newcomer was the Simon look-alike he had seen back in the plaza.
Not-Simon gestured at one of the guards. "The boss needs a prisoner," he said casually. "And this time, give us one that doesn't die after five minutes with Reaper."
The guard snorted. "Way that psycho works, they'll be lucky to make it through two."
Not-Simon just shrugged. "Just grab one, will you?"
He strode towards the enclosure as the other guards readied their weapons. Tuka looked around at his fellow prisoners, trying to sense if they were going to throw themselves at the opening and overwhelm their captors. But there was nothing to be had from the crowd of dejected prisoners.
The warrior beside him stiffened, and Tuka realized what he planned to do. Just as the enclosure door swung open, the warrior leapt up and charged towards the humans.
A gun appeared in Not-Simon's hand in an instant, along with a look of smug satisfaction that the real Simon would never have had. When the warrior was almost on top of him, he fired two swift shots into the Sangheili's legs.
The warrior collapsed, howling. Not-Simon deftly shot both his arms as well as the rest of the guards stiffened and waved their weapons at the rest of the prisoners in warning. Not-Simon knelt and hauled the crippled warrior out of the enclosure. "Hurry up and get one," he ordered.
But all eyes were on him as he holstered his pistol and drew a knife. With a deft flick of his wrist, he slashed off one of the warrior's mandibles. When the bleeding Sangheili screamed and flailed, he cut off two more, then sank the knife deep into the warrior's abdomen. Tuka watched in horror, unable to look away, as Not-Simon slowly disemboweled his victim.
After a horrified eternity, Not-Simon rose and kicked the gargling warrior over. "Now I've got blood all over me," he complained, wiping at the purple blood on his combat vest.
The guards reached in and hauled a young female out of the enclosure. Not-Simon looked her over and shrugged. "At least she's not resisting," he commented. "Let's go."
As he neared the door, Not-Simon tossed back over his shoulder, "Any more try to hit you, just send them to their ancestors. Slowly."
One of the guards shook his head as the doors closed behind him. "That Peter. What a freak."
His friend laughed. "What can you expect? The kid's Venter's little lab rat."
"I'm just glad the boss has him hunting these animals instead of humans. Did you see what he did to that one girl back on Famul?"
"Oh, yeah. The bayonet incident."
So Peter was this apparition's name. Tuka looked over at the now thankfully dead warrior, drowned in a pool of his own blood. All he could do now was pray that his fellow warriors would not abandon him and his fellow captives to their fate.
**
Venter scowled at the latest prisoner Peter had fished out of the growing crop of survivors hauled in from the HLF's raids. He didn't know much about Sangheili physiology, but he'd picked a few things up preparing for this operation and slaughtering hundreds of them over the past few days and he was pretty sure that this one was a young female.
"Peter, you fuckwit, do you really think she'll know anything useful?" he demanded, leaning against a communications station. "Cut her throat and bring me something useful."
But the armored man beside him raised a hand. "No," the Reaper said. "This one'll do. Put her on the table."
The soldiers dragging the prisoner complied, flinging the young female down on the barren table the Reaper indicated. Venter watched, arms folded. It wasn't that he didn't trust the Reaper, except for the fact that he didn't trust him. The guy had been useful, Venter had to admit; over half the software the HLF was using to pull off their Phantom con game had been programmed by the guy. But apart from that, the Reaper lived up to his name by being a ghost.
The Reaper leaned over the prisoner, faceless under the SPI armor he always wore. Venter figured it was something that took getting used to, but even then he was sure it couldn't be comfortable to wear all the time.
"Serum Alpha," the Reaper ordered, and one of his aides deftly placed a small syringe in his outstretched hand. The female struggled for a few moments as he injected her, then fell limp, her chest taking small, shallow breaths.
Venter rolled his eyes. "And what exactly are we accomplishing here? I want to know about more targets to hit, not what makes these things tick."
"Believe me," the Reaper said dispassionately, raising a small medical knife. "I've studied these animals inside and out. Killing these things is what I do best."
He carefully made a small incision in the female's abdomen and began to cut.
"So what's the point of doing this? Just shoot her and get me someone who will tell me something!"
"Patience." The Reaper continued to cut. "You focus on the mass killing. This is for a target that requires a little more precision."
"Oh, whatever." Venter turned to Peter. "We're wrapping up with that first city, Mera or whatever the hell its name is. Do we have the parting gift in place yet?"
Peter smiled. "En route now."
"Good. In the meantime, let's hit some more of those villages the recon team called in."
Behind them, the Reaper continued to cut.
Category:Actene