The Book of Zar, Part 5

I pondered for some time as the two of us made our way through the underground rail system of this Zarid city. Verth was half-conscious, blood loss and bitter cold sapping his strength. I too felt my footsteps grow heavy as the chill gnawed at my bones, a thousand vicious daggers stabbing me from all angles all at once. I focused on pushing onward, through the darkness, night vision sights guiding our way.
“You should have left me behind, brother,” Verth said weakly.
“Nonsense,” I replied. “We are a team, we fight together, we survive together.”
We reached a door that I knocked down, which opened up to a moderately-sized service corridor. Going through, we made turn after turn until we happened upon another door, whereupon I opened it: it was unlocked, specifically for us. Our friends in the Zarid Alliance can be thanked for that as well as the room the two of us stepped into.
It was a moderately-sized room, filled with communications equipment, provisions, and weaponry, all Banished in origin. I closed the door behind us, then set Verth down on a stone bench. Then, I locked the door and placed an energy shield over it.
Verth chuckled weakly. I turned to him, and he stared at me with a peculiar grin. I did not understand in the slightest, and so I simply moved to bandage his wounds. I took a medical kit provided for by our local contacts and opened it, whereupon I used the cloth bandages to cover Verth’s open wounds and at the very least stop the bleeding.
“Care you not for honor, brother?” asked Verth.
“No,” I said plainly.
“You act like a physician, brother. Why debase yourself so? Just leave it be, I am strong.”
I sighed and stepped back. I left Verth to his own devices as I proceeded to our comms systems. I interacted with one of the interfaces, bringing up a menu to initiate communications with our transport, a corvette known as the Cold Steel.
“Cold Steel, Cold Steel, this is Bronze Team, do you copy?”
“Bronze Team, this is Cold Steel.” The voice was En’Geddon’s. “We have just entered the system undetected. Estimated time of arrival: six hours.”
“Cold Steel, this is Bronze Team. We hear you. We have sustained one casualty. Repeat: one casualty confirmed. Over.”
“Understood, Bronze Team. Maintain vigilance and await extraction. Avoid detection and remain calm. Over and out.”
“Six hours?” inquired Verth. “I am not sure I will leave this world alive.”
“Nonsense! Come on, brother, have faith.”
“Have faith! Oh, that is quite ironic, coming from you.”
“Hah, true.”
“Indeed it is? You really are an atheist?”
I looked at him thoughtfully yet respectfully as I returned to tending his wounds.
“Is that a yes or a no?” Verth asked.
“I shall let your imagination decide,” I replied. My friend grumbled at the non-answer as I pressed the last bandage into place. His wounds were cleaned and dressed, but he was still seriously injured and in no condition to fight.
“Well, I can surmise well enough that you do not follow the faith of the old Covenant, at least, not anymore. Or perhaps not for a while now, considering your time spent in a penal colony for looting and blasphemy. Why did you slander the Covenant so?”
I sighed and sat down in a chair. Leaning on the back rest, I looked up and coalesced my thoughts. “You’ve asked me that for years and I’ve never given you a real, honest answer. Perhaps I shall now.
“Ever since I completed my training at the Academy on Sanghelios, in my heart there has pervaded a certain sense of… isolation. It was as if I was an island, in a large, tempestuous sea, all other lands distant from me. I had no particular others to truly call ‘brother,’ to truly see as someone I can trust in battle, someone I would be honored to fight and die beside. My family… they found little patience for me as a childling, and this attitude translated – with little alteration – into my adult life. So, when I departed Sanghelios upon my enlistment into the Fleet, I departed with no intention or prospects of seeing my kin again.”
“Stars above, you’re a man with no family,” Verth softly exclaimed. “I pity you.”
I nodded silently as a gesture of thanks and continued. “The battles I fought against Humanity in the war were numerous and bloody. Men I called friends for mere days were slain in battle, thrown into meat grinders in frontal assaults against determined Human resistance. The Humans were physically pathetic but spiritually resilient. Their zeal was matched only by that of some of my comrades, and the battles became more and more grueling. More and more times my shields were broken and I dashed for cover, whereupon I was berated by my fellows for cowardice. Their insults were silenced with their deaths.”
I paused, sighing, attempting, with all my mind’s vigor, to pull from the darkest depths of my consciousness those distant memories that I sought to relay to Verth. I was only moderately successful, and I drew in a breath and continued. “I cannot quite remember exactly when I started speaking about my misgivings, but when I did, they were largely comments. Single statements. Observations may be the best term. I would say things like, ‘Oh, these Humans are quite courageous warriors.’ Or, ‘I saw all my friends die yesterday.’ Or, ‘Gods, this is certainly a difficult holy war.’ A few others would nod and agree, some would grumble indifferently, and many would hurl jeers or slight insults at me for being a fool.”
I fell silent for some time, I cannot recall how long. Then, Verth said, “Zar?” He grasped my attention.
“Ah, forgive me, I was attempting to gather my thoughts. So, I would simply make quiet statements. Then, I can recall our legion summoned forth to attack a Human settlement of significant size. We did so, sweeping aside the defenders and thoroughly liquidating the remaining Humans. As we swept the settlement for life one last time, my curiosity for the enemy grew. I became greatly intrigued by their society, their ways of life, the things they fought so fiercely to defend. So… I took a tome from a Human house.”
“Oh my,” uttered Verth. “Oh my, oh my, you indeed transgressed norms and customs.”
“Please,” I retorted. “I was not alone in my lance. They all indeed sought relics of Humanity for their own reasons. I believe the Kig-Yar wanted to pillage and plunder of course, while the Unggoy was utterly fascinated by Human jewelry. The other Sangheili wanted mementos for their childlings. So, I had the tome. I wanted to study it some more for later, but I felt in considerable danger for as long as it was in my possession. So, I hid it amongst my baggage in our legion’s main camp. To further add to any confusion should it be discovered, I even placed it in the baggage of another fellow, and encouraged my lance-mates to do the same.”
“The ruse failed, though,” commented Verth. “Obviously.”
I paused, slightly affronted by the sudden outburst of my captive audience. “Obviously,” I said pointedly. I continued. “I was discovered, witnessed by a group of Kig-Yar and by a superior officer of me and my lance’s particular activities. The punishments doled were… within expectations. After receiving my lashings and branding, I was thrown into penal colony after penal colony, mining salt, uranium, bauxite, platinum, iridium, or just rotting away in citadels of suffering. The one we meet each other in was the one I resided in the longest.”
“And now you are free.”
“And now I am free.”
“How is life now, with us?”
I chose my words with the utmost care. I could not know whether the rumors that Atriox had informants everywhere were true or not, nor could I know if Verth was one himself or not, but one could not be too careful. “I am indebted to the Banished,” I responded. “Atriox’s Banished freed me, I fight for them. It’s that simple.”
“That simple?”
“Oh, indeed.”
Verth gave me a lethargic nod and blinked slowly, taking shallow, somewhat ragged breaths. “You need not worry any longer, brother,” he said. “We are your family now. We are your brothers, your sisters. As long as you are with us, we will be with you, and we will not deceive you like the Covenant did before.”
I smiled, nodding. “That is the hope.”
Verth gave me a puzzled look. “Just a hope? Not enough to believe?”
“I… have been betrayed before.”
My friend only chuckled. “Surely, we would have no reason to stab you in the back, no?” he said.
“Perhaps not,” I responded.
A few more hours passed, and Verth’s condition seemed to have improved well enough to where he was capable of moving faster than a hobbled walk. Now, the Cold Steel was in position, signaling us on the coms.
“Remember Bronze Team,” started En’Geddon, “we will be posing as a merchant vessel from a neutral Kig-Yar faction. We will spend eight hours at Adkas Spaceport before departing, which should give you ample time to covertly board us. Once we depart, we will not return to the planet.”
“Understood, I said.”
“Good luck Bronze Team. Cold Steel out.”
Verth stood up on his own two feet. “Let’s get off this world. For Thon.”
“Of course. For Thon.” I checked the ammo on my Erdellian shotgun and nodded to Verth. To cover our escape I set timed charges of high explosives. It would cause quite the commotion in about two hours. Hopefully.
I did not need to assist Verth, but I did need to maintain a slower pace for him to keep up. Nevertheless, both of us were reasonably well-armed, and the spaceport was just across the river, itself navigable with virtually any sort of watercraft.
Verth and I snuck our way through service corridors and eventually reached a passageway that led to a connection with the sewers. Here came the more revolting section of our journey. I loathed when the map instructed us to wade through these channels of lithoid filth, which smelled of ash and organic decay, caked and moistened. I actually think it improper to further describe the scents I bore the most ill fortunes of encountering, so I will simply say we traveled through it and eventually found our way to an automated filter station. We went through it undetected and again followed the sewers out to the river.
Once again, our local contacts proved invaluable, stealthily providing us with a small motorboat anchored just off the gravel shore, beneath a pier. It was located in front of the opening from the sewers, which was most fortuitous. We crossed the freezing waters in the boat. I was initially fraught with worry that the engine would be noisy and attract undue attention, but thanks to Zarid technology, the engine produced no noise and so our crossing was covert and unnoticed. We slipped beneath the shadows of the shimmering spaceport.
Verth and I abandoned the watercraft as we ascended up the embankment to the spaceport proper, cordoned by two layers of electrified fencing. Beyond the fences I spotted the Cold Steel anchored in a slot of the port, the one nearest to the water. So tantalizingly close was the vessel, I could hurl a rock and it would strike the side of it. But yet any attempts to disable this fence would be detected, and I do not believe our contact could disable it without being discovered themselves. The two of us were stuck.
“What now?” wondered Verth as he lazily leaned against a large boulder half-buried in the snow-covered dirt.
I looked at the fences, a faint electrical hum emanating from them. I looked to the left and right, and saw nothing but snow and dirt before the wide open space sequestered specially as clearance for the spaceport. Then I took note of the time: dawn was rapidly approaching, and the cover of darkness would vanish. We would be totally exposed in the open, inviting death or arrest. I vowed neither would befall me today. So, I elected to be bold. I placed a small explosive charge at a section of the outer fence and took cover with Verth.
“Can we make it in time?”
“Of course!”
The charges detonated, and we rushed forward. Alarms were sounding as I hurriedly set another charge for the second layer. I detonated that charge, and by now the automated turrets defending the port were being brought online. I carried Verth the final way and I ran for the loading bays of the destroyer masquerading as a merchant vessel. We were beckoned by an anxious, quaking Unggoy, and as I leaped onto the vessel, I heard the sound of an explosion behind me. I turned, and saw a large blast from where the underground hideout was, in the center of a plaza. My distraction at work.
As I handed Verth off to several Kig-Yar for medical treatment, En’Geddon had to guide the destroyer off the planet. We sped off, racing past the defenses, who were too taken aback by the sudden shock of these new attacks. The destroyer jumped into slipspace before the Zarids had sufficient time to react.
I was by Verth’s side in the medical bay when En’Geddon entered. “I want the room cleared.” The Jiralhanae, Kig-Yar, and Unggoy all vacated, save Verth and myself. The door was closed. “Your foolishness was costly, ‘Yorin,” said the Jiralhanae.
“The mission was accomplished, the target is eliminated,” I responded in defense.
“The collateral damage is unacceptable!” said En’Geddon in a barely contained anger. “We should consider ourselves infinitely fortunately that your wanton bombing of the city center did not kill our contact outright! But he is sufficiently alarmed to call into question our relationship. Our contacts in the Zarid Alliance are few, and this one took multiple cycles to nurture. If it does indeed come to pass that your actions have sullied this relationship, then I shall crush your bones into dust. You are being removed from active duty for the rest of the month.”
“Sir-“
“There will be no discussion. No doubt Atriox will want to hear about this matter.” En’Geddon left the room. I turned to Verth.
“I do not envy you, Zar,” my friend said.
“Me neither,” I added.
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