DT 2021: Barbarians on the Frontier

UNSC soldiers were familiar with Brutes. They knew what they were capable of.
Jiralhanae, the Sangheili’s word for the bullet-proof warrior culture born from the super-Earth named Dosiac. A barbarian species with a pension for violence and a figurative reputation of diamond-lined stomachs.
They loved to eat the living and the dying, fallen enemies and allies alike. During the Human-Covenant War, processing areas for captured human soldiers turned into tapestries of splattered blood and armor plating left from the poor devoured souls. Abandoned homes and businesses became industrial slaughter houses for the Brute hunger. If scenes of post-massacre appear cleared and cleaned out, it wasn’t unusual to suspect a Jiralhanae pack nearby. Not even the dinosaurian-like Kig-Yar were so liberal about their food choices, favoring at least to feast on the dead rather than the still-living.
Even after the Covenant fractured in their Great Schism and their war with humanity came to an end, the violence between civilizations continued in 2553 and onward. Brute raiders burning and devouring entire frontier towns and draining newborn colony worlds of their resources. Stragglers from the Prophet of Truth’s assault on Earth continuing a one-sided war in the jungles of Mesoamerica and South America ran on for years without end.
An Army Ranger company made the patrol rounds at the edge of human space under the glint of three spheres of moonlight. They expected trouble at every turn as they passed mountains and forests; homesteads and old terraforming towers.
But they didn’t expect a broad daylight gunfight that refused to end.
Under the intensity of a frontier sun, forty Rangers put up a defense in a decimated homestead atop a hill overlooking a square kilometer of machine-tended gardens and crop fields.
Voices screamed out over the different unit radio bands, reporting new contacts and situational reports as they developed in precedence and priority. The first two hours proved mostly quiet as the Rangers made effective work upon the enemy ambushers rising from the grasslands around the human property.
Unggoy conscripts were cut down by accurate headshots and bullets piercing their methane tanks, suffocating the crustacean combatants from Balaho. The alien cannon fodder had no interest in the fight but there was little else they could do with weapons to their front and back. After three decades of war, the UNSC troopers barely blinked at their plight.
Kig-Yar phalanxes and shield lines received early deaths as trip mines and fragmentation grenades halted their slow advances, routing measured approaches hour after hour. Kig-Yar snipers were left no room to breathe as human technology – drones and smart scopes – closed the skill gap between human and alien sharpshooters.
But the Jiralhanae proved to be the difficult part.
Their barbaric charges became the dominant presence as Kig-Yar and Unggoy were set aside for all-out attack. Through mealtime and lulls, their leathery skin always flashed across trooper gun sights. The Brutes didn’t vacate the battlefield, they never did. They just kept coming.
By the third hour into the firefight, troopers of Foxtrot 2-4 – responsible for the southern approach – reported their DMZ of landmines was exhausted. Foxtrot 2-5 reinforced 2-4, doubling the number of scopes on watch as Jiralhanae capitalized on the lack of explosives under their feet.
M118 rounds bruised and scratched at the Jiralhanae hides but rarely penetrated under initial engagements. Instead, Rangers focused columns of gunfire into approaching Brutes as they climbed the fortified hill, dropping the gray-skinned behemoths with concentrated slugs.
Rangers from Foxtrot 2-2, noted for having several accomplished marksmen, reported unfortunate news that they ran out of .51 caliber rounds for their SRS99 sniper rifles after collecting their fifteenth kill in the fifth hour of combat.
The specialists from Foxtrot 2-5 announced thirty minutes after 2-2 that they used their last rockets on a modified Ghost hovercraft covered in many serrated blades. 2-5 was the heavy weapons squad, loss of the rocket launcher and railgun meant resorting to hand grenades and small arms for the rest of the gunfight.
The radioman for the company’s command element noted in frustration that the ONI prowler monitoring their situation bugged out of the battlespace after encountering a trio of alien storm cutters. Reinforcements and resupply wouldn’t be coming for some time.
“We’re alone out here,” the radioman remarked solemnly.
By the seventh hour, Foxtrot 2-5, 2-1, and 2-4 all reported low ammunition counts. The southern and western approaches were left abandoned as 2-2 and 2-3 tried to focus incoming charges by the now entirely-Brute force into chokepoints along ravine ways tied to the homestead’s irrigation and waste systems.
Despite almost a hundred assumed casualties on part of the Jiralhanae assaulters for seven injured Rangers, Foxtrot 2-1 confirming their entire squad was out of ammunition emphasized how dire their situation looked.
Sunset inched close at the eighth hour and Foxtrot 2-5 and 2-4 were without ammo except for their handguns and sidearms. The savage Jiralhanae didn’t stop coming, even dragging away their own dead for what the Rangers assumed to be a late dinner.
The ninth hour came and went and the gunfire drew from rapid to a trickle as the last squad ran out of their precious ammo. Emptied M392 DMRs, MA5C assault rifles and MA5K carbines littered the human compound. Soldiers pulled off their gear as dread developed sweat and set the entire Ranger company on edge. Their campfire glowed as smoke billowed into the air, black as the specter of Death hanging over the patrol unit.
At nine hours and twelve minutes, large shadows cast by Jiralhanae breached the compound perimeter – clambering over impassible walls for humans but were mere fences to the Jiralhanae.
Screaming and shouting carried through the human fortifications as the Rangers attempted to put pistol shots into the Brutes and retain some level of control in the chaos. Ape-like roars and the crashing of war hammers echoed next to the gunfire. Brutes jumped on their victims, crushing skulls, chests, and biting down into soft-armor joints for the unlucky ones caught in vice grips.
A mere twelve Rangers remained standing, shouting in fear and making wide gestures with their empty weapons in faux attempts at looking intimidating in the face of fear and overwhelming adrenaline against the glow of their dwindling flame. Their comrades lay strewn across the former homestead, now food for the aliens or the bacteria in the dirt.
Frantic shouts in proper English and alien-attempts at English called out at one another, “Surrender! Surrender!”
No one did. A Ranger threw up his arms, revealing a final fragmentation grenade with the red primer button set alight. He didn’t let go of the grenade and charged at the nearest Brute.
A large bang erupted in the space followed by smoke and steel. Scalding shrapnel caught two fellow Army Rangers center-mass, dropping the troopers to the ground as they drowned in their own blood and urine.
The Brutes screamed bloody murder in hoots of their own horror and delight as their gravity guns coughed out molten spikes, shredding the last of the human survivors. As the frontier sun descended on the homestead, Brute cheers of victory echoed from the defeated stronghold. The campfire dimmed to coals and smoke retreated as the deed was done.
Death claimed its bounty. Now was the night of Brutes.
Days later, once the UNSC Army reclaimed the frontier badlands from the Brute raiders, the elsewhere remnants of Foxtrot Company were left to pick up the pieces of their fallen and a massacre of industrial proportions. It was difficult to judge right away who was responsible.
“This place was cleaned up and yet there’s blood everywhere… Torn uniforms, bent armor plating, human bone fragments… Shrapnel in the walls.”
Staff Sergeant Duke Hartmann examined the debris of battle as he took extra care to not step on imprints of human bodies left in the grass, dirt, and cobblestone.
“Brutes don’t behave like this do they? A Skirmisher road-gang maybe? They’re a little cleaner with their kills.” Sergeant Hideo Gross suggested as he picked at the ground where the shell of a fragmentation still smelled fresh of spent gunpowder.
“Not normal Brutes,” Hartmann established with some quiet hesitation. “But it was definitely Brutes. No plasma markings except outside the structure. Jackals and Skirmishers generally leave more bones behind. Brutes will eat everything available to them as long as it was alive at one point.”
“So, what makes you think they’re Brutes?” Gross asked in morbid curiosity. His eyes glanced at the pile of scorched bodies stacked atop the once burning firepit. Strewn human corpses dropped in a neat but disgusting pile of shattered bone and bisected limbs.
“They still took the whole bodies. They only left us the ones they couldn’t bother with eating,” Hartmann explained, gesturing to the gapping holes left in the corpse pile. “And they plucked out their IFF transponders and mission recorders.”
Hartmann pointed to a corner of the compound interior where a trio of new-blood Rangers examined a pile of human military electronics. One of them clutched an apparent alien flag soaked deep in scarlet human blood. While faded, the inscription was clear as day with black and maroon in its tapestry.
A triangular icon shaped like a violent flower with vague extenders in the shape of possible alien shields and spears pointed like dangerous pedals. The faction’s name laid on their lips as the pair of Rangers whispered as one, “Banished…”
Hartmann coughed, an early understanding dawning on him left by the Ranger-killers.
“They wanted us to see this.”