Halo: Night Stalkers

==Chapter One: Cyclone==
=== D076 - I ===
The distinctive imprint of the MJOLNIR's boots made a deep mark on the soil. The intricate, refined details of the boot’s sole was left in the ground as the foot moved on. The grooves, spots and locks all formed part of the unique pattern that would remain in the dirt. More and more of these identical prints began to form, as Daniel trudged onwards. The edges of his armour had seen better days since he had arrived on the surface of the planet he was now forced to call home. Dirtied, weathered shoulder pauldrons matched his grimy, dinted visor. He wasn’t much better off than the rest of Fireteam Cyclone. They were all far from the UNSC’s standards of clean, neat parade dress.
The dirt track the Spartans trudged on was small for humans of their physicality. The UNSC marines that followed behind them were much more suited to the narrow trail, as the branches and leaves that encroached from the restrictive walls of the forests drooped above the heads of the regular soldiers. The Spartans simply ignored them, walking through them as their shielding and titanium plating simply brushed off their attempts to interfere with their path. They had been on their journey for several days. A price to pay after sacrificing their vehicles to a successful operation.
The path was long and winding: across hills and ridges and valleys the group went, all of their potential views hidden behind the shroud of trees and terrain. On occasion they would see the peak of a lonely mountain protrude from behind a cover of leaves, then quickly disappear as the wind would hurriedly mask its existence once more.
Yet one of the mountains would not be hidden. Towering over the landscape, the snow-capped peak defiantly stood above the landscape, as if proving its perceived superiority over the terrain below. Christened as Gelar’s Peak, the humans within the group had another name for the mountain: Mt. Reach. It wasn’t meant as a slight towards those that had named it, but rather a reminder of what had been, what once was, for many of those on the surface of the planet.
The months spent on the planet had been tough. Away from support, alone and sparsely equipped, the UNSC upon the surface had managed to consolidate strength in the aftermath of Cortana’s reckoning. Those in space were not so lucky, as the battered remnants of a frigate on the side of Mt. Reach attested. They fought on, nevertheless, against both of the foes that had sought to kill them. At least, that’s what they told themselves.
‘Is simply surviving really fighting?’ Daniel asked himself. A lot of new questions had popped into his head recently, mostly ethical in nature. The structure that the wider organisation of the UNSC provided was comforting to him, even if cold in nature. The indifference the commanders of his Spartan company showed to him and his comrades didn’t bother him as much as it did some other members of the Spartan unit. He knew everyone in Fireteam Cyclone felt the same as him, and operating without a high command– no, operating as the high command – was a foreign concept to them.
It was, at the start of their entrapment on the planet. Farron-Nir. Fireteam Cyclone and the 87th Independent Marine Company, supported by the frigate Myriad. They were there to keep watch on the ongoing civil war between the Swords of Sanghelios, and the Souls of the Damned. A month had gone by with silent observation. Then Cortana happened. In one single stroke the Myriad had fallen to the surface, miraculously landing mostly intact on the highest mountain on the planet, and had cut off the UNSC forces’ only method of communications with anyone outside of the Farron-Nir System.
The company of hardened leathernecks had been reduced by attrition. They now numbered only 50, led by the fresh face of a young lieutenant just out of OCS. They had picked up some surviving crew from the frigate, but it wasn’t enough to reinforce the non-augmented humans severely. Fireteam Cyclone remained their most potent fighting force, the sharp edge of the blade. They had been together for seven long years. Five SPARTAN-III supersoldiers: humanity’s finest. All proficient in all forms of warfare, deadly with any weapon and dangerous to any opponent.
And they were all fourteen years old.
They truly were the bastard children of the SPARTAN-III program. Alpha were the pioneers, the first crop, mostly scythed down during PROMETHEUS. Beta would follow, providing some of the most famous Spartans of their time, along with their remaining comrades from Alpha. Gamma too were there, the final standard line of S-IIIs. They fought bravely at Earth, along with their older brethren, and held the line until the Human-Covenant War ended.
And then there was Delta. 150 children, all orphans, roped into a black-site ONI program on Argus V. Trained for four years, then deployed in 2557. Most of them were twelve years old. Augmented too. Issued either SPI or MJOLNIR armour. Cyclone was one of the lucky few teams to be issued the armour that most Spartans were famous for using. Of all the fireteams, they were one of the best, and it showed in their bonds: it also was present when competing against certain other teams.
As much of a sadness it was, it was still a fact: no Delta candidates outside of Fireteam Cyclone liked them. They were the black sheep, outcasts. Even if Deltas were encouraged to be competitive against other teams, Cyclone was the target of everyone in the program because they decided to take that at face value. Not because they disliked every other Deltas, no. Far from it, in fact. It was simply due to the strong belief that they had been assigned a directive, and they wished to follow it to its successful conclusion.
Daniel, Bailey, Yvette, Samuel and Dominik. Deltas 076, 130, 251, 094 and 314. That’s all they were to ONI, after all. Numbers. Assets. Objects to be deployed in the field. Not people. The others might have names, backgrounds, personalities, but they weren’t with ONI. No, they had crossed that bridge long ago, and revoked any ties to the UNSC’s most secretive organisation. Yet despite ONI’s lack of belief in Fireteam Cyclone’s humanity, they were one of their most prized assets. And it was only due to one simple fact.
Because they hadn’t deserted.
Since their graduation in 2557, Deltas had struggled with the concept of being a Spartan, and fighting. It made sense, considering they were just kids. Yet this caused multiple defections to Insurrectionist forces, perhaps inspired by the acts of several Gammas. As such, entire fireteams they had known simply went AWOL, a fact only made worse by Cortana’s emergence. No one in Fireteam Cyclone held any doubts that some of their brethren would side with the rampant AI in her domination of the Orion Arm of the galaxy.
Most desertions were premeditated, some months if not years in advance. They of course had help. The Gammas were the most prone to desertion from the UNSC, and as such the uncommitted, treasonous Deltas received assistance from them. Most well-known was the infamous Simon-G294. No one in Fireteam Cyclone liked Simon. They thought him callous for his desertion, and a prick to work with.
Then again, Fireteam Cyclone weren’t exactly the friendliest to outsiders.
A snap. A halt. The right arm of their skirmisher at the front, Bailey, was held up in a fist. All movement ceased. The arm came down from the khaki-coloured Spartan, as she brought her rifle up to her shoulder. Scanning across the path, with slow, defined movements of her head. Searching, identifying, analysing. There were always threats on Farron-Nir. Bailey knew that firsthand after a particularly vicious battle with one of the Soul of the Damned’s Narik-Solari, and so she tended to err on the side of caution.
Satisfied that the way was clear, she brought her hand back up, gesturing forward. The journey of the UNSC personnel began in earnest once again, as the bright sun of the planet beat down on them. It was late in the afternoon, according to the 21-hour rotation of the planet. Night often came early, due to the lopsided orbit of the planet, yet this was not one of those days. The sun would be up for several more hours, and as such they had to keep moving at a rapid pace. Lessons had been learned on what would happen to those caught away from a stronghold in the night, when the Narik-Solari went hunting.
The time between Bailey’s halt and the arrival at the wreck of the Myriad was not short enough to count, but long enough to wear out the hunting party as they finally made it back to their refuge. With a knock on the twisted, torn metal of the front chokepoint, several UNSC-issue weapons came to bear on the visitors, before quickly being stowed as they saw who it was. Daniel gave a quick wave to the garrison, before gesturing to the rest of the patrol to come forward. Bailey followed, clad in her SCOUT-class armour configuration, followed by several marines. Following them were the grey and brown tones of Dominik and Yvette’s MJOLNIR, each wielding the ANUBIS and EOD classes respectively. Behind them came the last of the marines, with Samuel bringing up the rear, with his tanned, standard MJOLNIR Mk. VI armour holding a machine gun.
Opening the bulkhead that led into the bowels of the ship, the Spartans ducked their heads as they went, as the marines filtered through and to the left, off to their bunks. The Spartans, however, continued straight, navigating their way through several hallways and open atriums before coming to a halt at the door to a room situated near the now-wrecked bridge of the Myriad. With a simple press of a button, the doors slid open and Fireteam Cyclone walked through. They entered what had become what Yvette had entitled as the ‘dismantling’ room.
Several racks lay on one side of the wall, empty yet awaiting the equipment the Spartans would deposit. On the other side were several weapons lockers, open and half-empty. The team would begin to fill up the lockers with their firearms, removing their helmets to reveal their features. Daniel removed his helmet, turning it over as he stared into his once-clean faceplate, now covered in dust and grime. Four months of non-stop combat and little time for rest would do that to a uniform, even one as sturdy and durable as MJOLNIR.
With their weapons stowed and helmets stowed, Cyclone now focused their attention on dismantling and depositing their armour on the racks near the wall. Without disassembler machines it was a long process, yet the team had managed over the course of their stay on Farron-Nir to get it down to a reasonable twenty minutes. Everyone helped each other, neatly stacking their pauldrons, plates and gauntlets on the equipment racks in clearly defined areas. Now, they could relax.
Daniel turned to his fellow members of Fireteam Cyclone, and banged his fist against the metal wall twice. The reverberating clang of techsuit silicon on reinforced steel attracted the attention of his team, who had been waiting idly for the debrief. They all turned to him, their heights varying slightly yet mostly level with Daniel’s fierce grey eyes.
“Anyone want to say anything before we get this briefing underway?” he asked nonchalantly. He looked around the room, at the tired faces. Bailey swept her brown hair to the side, as she shook her head. Yvette and Samuel simply said “Nope,” in unison, whilst Dominik simply said nothing, and made no movements of his head. Daniel then shrugged.
“Alright then. I’ll keep it short,” he started. “Essentially, we all know what happened. We went out, blew shit up, stole more food and supplies, lost Harrison and Daniels, and blew up a Souls outpost. Pretty self-explanatory, right?”
The rest of Fireteam Cyclone nodded their heads. Daniel found himself nodding with them.
“Too easy then. It’s currently 1833, sundown is in an hour, sunrise is at 0722. Remember it’s 21-hour time, so no one fuck up in remembering that. Dominik, I want you,” he said, nodding to the stony-faced Spartan, “On first watch from 1930 until 0130. Samuel, you’re on from 0130 until 0430, and then Yvette will take over for you until first light.” Samuel and Yvette nodded, affirming Daniel’s directives. The fireteam leader then turned to Bailey.
“You and I are on tomorrow with whoever draws the straw from Yvette, Samuel and Dominik,” he said. “Last time you were on you almost shot a marine due to how tired you were. I need you alert, so get some good sleep tonight and tomorrow. We don’t have any more patrols scheduled for the next two days, so use that time wisely.”
“That goes for all of you.” He said. Then he smiled. “Another day on this shithole done with, another one closer to relief.” The others lightened up somewhat at his comment, with Bailey giving a weak smile as Dominik rolled his eyes. Yvette and Samuel stayed quiet. The entrapment on the planet had hit them hardest. Daniel was still at a loss as to why, and whenever he approached the subject they’d brush it off and end it there. He’d just left it since then.
The Spartans, upon Daniel’s unofficial end of the briefing, would then get up, with all of them turning towards another door attached to the room. Opening the door, the five supersoldiers entered inside to their quarters. Bunks found from other areas of the Myriad had been moved into the room, with everyone in Cyclone receiving their own bed, footlocker and cabinet. Daniel had encouraged decorations or adornment of the room, to inspire some sort of individuality, and as such posters and pictures had been put up on the walls or positioned on the footlockers.
Yvette entered first, and promptly turned to her left and fell onto her bunk. Samuel snickered, and then made his way to the bed directly opposite hers, pulling out a drawer from the cabinet and snatching a data pad. Dominik paused, waited, and then stated “I’m going to the range,” before promptly exiting, moving out of Bailey’s way as she entered the room and walked towards her bed at the far end of the Spartan’s quarters. Daniel shuffled his way to his bunk, pulling out the drawers of the cabinet one by one, until he found his data pad and headphones. Entering his code, he put on his headphones, and began flicking through the tablet mindlessly.
Bailey looked up from her bed, and saw Daniel’s face, heavily concentrating on his search for something to do on the data pad. Her snort attracted his attention, as he looked up and saw Bailey silently chuckling. He pulled down his headphones. “What?” he asked innocently enough. Bailey just shook her head.
“Your semantics and endless search for something meaningful to do in down-time,” she said. “Just relax, Dan. Not everything has to be a mission. You’ve never properly relaxed since boot.” Daniel shrugged.
“That’s because we’re stuck here, and I don’t want to be stuck here forever.”
Bailey made a teasing face, and shook her head. “Just don’t bury yourself in work,” she warned. She looked around at Yvette and Samuel. “They’re managing to find fun things to do,” she commented.
Daniel looked away from Bailey, and saw Samuel fast at work drawing with a stylus on his tablet, completely zoned out to the world around him. Yvette, meanwhile, was doing her best impression of a brick wall, having suddenly fallen asleep within the span of a few seconds. Daniel refocused his attention towards Bailey, as she pulled a physical book from her footlocker.
“I do things my own way,” he said.
Bailey just rolled her eyes. “You always have.”
Daniel thought of continuing the debate, but thought better of it. Bailey was too good with words. She’d have him tongue-tied within minutes. He then turned his attention back to his tablet, and put his headphones back on. Then, he found his music, and selected a playlist compiled from a list of 20th and 21st Century rock music. Daniel chuckled to himself upon analysing his choice of music. ‘Maybe I do do things differently,’  he thought to himself. He smiled at the thought. His eccentricities, his music taste, his genetic makeup was what made him human. And his teammates and comrades reminded him that he was, even if he wasn’t treated as such by others. By ONI.
Daniel sat back on his bed and tucked the old, worn pillow behind his head. This time, however, instead of going over his previous mission reports, instead of trying to add to his already burgeoning map of the force deployments of every faction on Farron-Nir, he would sleep. He placed the data pad on the top of the cabinet to the side of his bunk, and settled in for a few hours of rest.
=== D314 - I ===
Clang. Clang. Clang. One target after another went down, the bullets hitting their metallic counterparts with neat, grouped precision. Clang. Clang. Clang. Another set, this time further away, dropped by the accurate fire of the marksman. Clang. Clang. Clang. The last three, the furthest out, were felled with astounding precision. The nine targets had all been taken down with nine shots, from the barrel of Dominik-D314’s marksman rifle. The Spartan paused, and lowered the weapon from his head. Flicking the safety on, and removing the magazine, he emptied the remaining bullets onto the bench in front one by one, allowing them to roll and tumble as they made their journey from the DMR’s 15 round box to the titanium table below.
Dominik watched as the green all-clear signal came online along the roof of the range, and the nine targets reappeared, bobbing up again, as if to challenge Dominik to do it again. He shook his head, and looked back down to the rifle and bullets on the bench.
He swept the bullets into the small box to the left of him containing more cartridges, and grabbed the DMR by the stock. Turning away from the targets, he looked to the weapons rack along the wall, and walked to the open slot that he had pulled the DMR from. Placing it into the holder with a satisfying click, Dominik then turned to the side, and walked along the row of UNSC firearms, examining each with a simple glance as he moved past.
He brushed his fingers over the grated metal of the weapon racks, letting the solid bars sweep his fingers back as they glided over the metal. He wasn’t trying to select another weapon. No, he was simply thinking. Analysing. Concluding.
Dominik’s favourite part of training with Delta Company was always the range. They first went to it almost a month into training. It was quite a long way there, and so their trainers turned it into an exercise. A pack march all the way to the range, and whichever team got their first could shoot twice. Fireteam Cyclone, despite only being together for not even four weeks, knew of Dominik’s passion. They didn’t know why he liked shooting so much, or why he was good at it, they just knew he enjoyed it. And so they had all simply shouldered their packs, and started the march without a single word of complaint.
Dominik got to shoot twice.
Dominik hadn’t told them of his background then. He had told them since. Of growing up on Sigma Octanus IV, in Côte d’Azur, of going hunting with his father and his surplus military rifles. Of  fleeing from the Covenant invasion, yet being trapped in the city. Of his rescue by the Spartans clad in green, who destroyed all of the aliens that tried to kill him. And of his meeting with the ONI representative that recruited him into joining Delta Company, even after starting his new, orphaned life on Mars.
Everyone knew of the last detail before he told them, though. Everyone had met a shadowed, masked agent from the UNSC’s special intelligence organisation, who had convinced them to join the program, to become Spartans. Dominik was reasonably sure the same man that saw him also saw Daniel, and Bailey, and a few others in the other fireteams of Delta Company. He couldn’t be exactly sure, but he had his suspicions.
And now he knew the rest of Fireteam Cyclone’s background too, much like they knew of his. He knew of Daniel’s escape from the Covenant at Paris IV, and his attempt to save his sister before he was wrestled away from the burning plasma by UNSC marines. He knew of Bailey’s three attempts to fight the Covenant with the UNSC in the remnants of the city of Miami, despite only being seven years old. He knew of Samuel and Yvette’s history, witnessing the deaths of their parents by Unggoy death squads on Reach.
They had all suffered from trauma. They had all lost their parents. They had all been forced to leave everything they knew behind and start anew. And yet, their second chance had brought them together. It brought them a sense of community, a mutual respect and love for each other. They were all family now. Four years of training through hell, and another two on constant missions had brought them together.
Dominik paused as he thought back to their training on Argus V. His reminiscing had distracted him from his task, and he found himself staring at the weapons locker. He blinked once. He blinked twice. Then he turned around and made his way to the door of the range. As he opened the sliding door, a trio of marines walked through looking up towards the Spartan. Despite Dominik’s young age, he still towered over them. Giving a curt nod, Dominik left them in the room and moved onwards, turning left from the range down a dimly-lit hallway.
After a time, he found himself walking in the direction of Cyclone’s quarters. He looked down at the watch wrapped around his wrist. He cursed, and picked up the pace. Dominik had gotten so side-tracked at the range, that he had ten minutes to get into his armour and get up to the sentry station. Muttering under his breath, Dominik held his steady jog until he reached the door to the dismantling room.
Opening it, he ducked his head as he went and turned to the  equipment racks. Moving to his section of the benches, he began to don his power armour, starting with his grey boots. Once he had fastened them to his techsuit properly, he moved up to the leg greaves and knee-plates, taking his time to ensure that they were attached and electronically connected to the rest of his uniform.
Moving on, he began to attach his front right thigh plate, holding it in place as he reached and grabbed the rear piece. Connecting the two with a harsh yet affirmatory click, he let go of the pieces, and they stayed together, properly locked onto his fatigues. He repeated the process with his left thigh, then moved onto the rest of his upper body plating. The chest-plate, the rear-plate, his gauntlets, forearm plates and shoulder pauldrons. Despite the rush he took his time to ensure everything was done properly. If something malfunctioned whilst up there, he wouldn’t be able to fix it until he was back at the dismantling room.
Finally, he wrapped his hands around the angled, diagonal features of his ANUBIS-class helmet. Taking a breath, he pulled it over his head and yanked down, waiting for the inevitable hiss and clack that would confirm the helmet was locked in.
When that came, he nodded to himself. Turning around, he then walked over to the weapons lockers, and opened the one simply marked 314. He paused at that.
It was funny to him. To be identified as a simple number. His father would have hated that. Dad always had names for Dominik in his back pocket, and would just pull them out whenever he felt like it. Dom. Donik. Nik. Dude. Buddy. Son. That was gone now. Had been since Sigma Octanus IV. Dominik knew his duty, and his job. His purpose in life. Yet at times he found himself thinking what could’ve happened if his Dad never died that day, where would he be. They would probably still be on the planet, albeit at a different city.
“We would go hunting,”
“Hunting,” he repeated.
His pause had interrupted him, and he felt the vibrating shake of his left wrist. He looked down to his gauntlet to see that it was time for him to be on shift. He took a single deep breath, pulled his personal DMR from the weapons racks, and slotted in a magazine into the stock. Filing several more into ready-use pouches along his armour’s waist, he gave a reassuring pat to the receiver of his weapon, and walked out of the room. No one saw his right hand, placed upon his thigh holster, vigorously shaking as he left.
=== D251 - I ===
“You’re off.”
Dominik turned away from his position along the sentry post’s rail. He found himself looking at Samuel, dressed in his standard tan MJOLNIR, wielding an assault rifle. Dominik tilted his head slightly to the side, and pointed with his free hand to Samuel’s weapon.
“I thought you hated the MA5,” he said, looking back up to Samuel’s visor. Spartan D251 gave a shrug, an impressive gesture to accomplish within the power armour.
“Eh, it’s grown on me since we’ve been here,” he replied. “This is the C model. I prefer it’s handling over the D, and it’s mag size is a lot more reasonable than the B.” Dominik grunted in response. Flicking the safety on his rifle, he mounted the weapon on the magnetic clips of his MJOLNIR armour.
“Have fun,” he said. Samuel just nodded, and moved past him onto the rail. He didn’t turn back, and just listened to the sound of Dominik’s boots clanging on the metal ladder leading into the Myriad. The sound echoed and slowly faded away, as Dominik finished his descent and Samuel began to hear the night once again.
He set his rifle down on the railing, and looked around. The sentry platform really did have the best view. The metal platform hadn’t existed when the Myriad came to its final resting place upon Mt. Reach. Welders from the ship’s engineering company that survived had erected it at the request of Daniel, building the platform up from the ruins of the ship’s bridge. The small, circular platform didn’t leave much room for two normal humans, especially not a Spartan supersoldier in MJOLNIR armour. Samuel made it work.
Sighing, the teenage soldier lowered himself to the ground, allowing his legs to hang over the edge of the platform. Putting his rifle to rest at one side, he brought up to his face a pair of binoculars: a gift from Dominik. The standard UNSC binoculars were widely regarded to be mass-produced garbage, and so several months ago, before Farron-Nir, Dominik had ‘procured’ for everyone in Fireteam Cyclone a set of custom, civilian Zeiss 18x E334s.
The optics on them were far superior to any standard UNSC production models, and as such they made fantastic spotting tools, even for the augmented Spartans. Yvette had done some tinkering with them, to make them compatible even with their MJOLNIR armour, which had done wonders for their new scouting capability.
Yet tonight was not a night for continued excellence. No, tonight was a night of appraisal. Of reflection. Samuel hadn’t properly thought about anything for the past few weeks. Mostly due to the patrol shift, somewhat due to the fact that he had staved off thinking about anything not involving their current situation. Now, though… Now he had the time to think, and take it all in.
Detaching his helmet, he placed it besides him as he looked out over the wilderness of the forests and rocky outcrops below. There, halfway up the world’s tallest mountain in what had been their home for fourteen long, arduous weeks, he had a commanding view over the landscape. From the narrow, protected entrance to the frigate’s wreck, to the gravelly windswept cliff faces of Mt. Reach, the hills extended down into the terrain, turning from harsh stone to soft dirt, barren peaks to luscious trees. He saw the small path that he and the others had taken earlier in the day, and its winding, continual path through the forest.
Moving his gaze to follow the track as it extended further and further away from sight, Samuel thought of the path he had taken to get there. From Reach, on the Princess Galactic, a cruise liner practically falling apart by the time it escaped the system. From the one, chance meeting he had, pickpocketing an ONI officers’ wallet and then running rampant for several hours, before the aspiring agent offered him a chance to put his skills to use. From Argus V, his first meeting with his squad. Daniel’s hand that reached out to him on the first group activity they ever did together, and Yvette’s push forwards to get him over the finish line.
Samuel knew he wasn’t the best Spartan in the squad. He had consistently come in the lower half of the company in individual exercises, from hide-and-seek to infiltration and marksmanship. He knew Daniel was a natural leader, one who cared for them but understood his responsibility, and by extension the responsibilities of Cyclone. He knew Yvette was a wizard with technology and maintenance, and had once disarmed a land mine blindfolded on Argus V. He knew Dominik was a fantastic marksman, and that Bailey was one of if not the best of Delta Company’s scouts.
So what did that make him? He had wondered that for years now. He was an average Spartan, never excelling in anything. Sure, he could disarm a mine and operate a nuclear bomb, but all Deltas could. He could hit a moving target several hundred metres away, but again, so could every other Delta.
“It makes me ordinary,” he declared to no one in particular. He nodded his head at that. “Ordinary.”
That wasn’t a bad thing, and Samuel knew it. He could never consistently beat Daniel in close-quarters combat, or outshoot Dominik at the range. And he was fine with that. He was still a Spartan, one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments. He would always strive to be better, but Samuel realised early on in training that someone had to be average, and if that was going to be him, he was okay with it.
Now, back to the task at hand…
Samuel returned his helmet to his head, and began his job. What he was actually there to do. Luckily for him, nothing had gotten close whilst he was ruminating his thoughts. In fact, nothing was even visible.
That meant nothing. They had been tricked by complacency once before. And it had cost them. The Narik-Solari were fierce, and crafty bastards too. Samuel had seen one ambush a squad of marines on patrol, watching helplessly as the body-cam footage revealed the dangerous, violent stalker simply jump out of plain sight, energy daggers in both hands.
Daniel and Samuel made the trip out to recover their bodies the next day. It wasn’t pretty. Deep gouges in their body armour, missing limbs, screams of terror blankly pasted onto the dead soldiers’ faces, a reminder left by the lone hunter.
It wasn’t as if the Narik-Solari were unknown. No, the UNSC knew exactly who they were. Arguably, that made them even scarier. Rogue assassins of the Covenant, originally privy only to the High Prophets. And then they had joined the Souls of the Damned, hoping to atone for their past deeds, much like everyone else in that Sangheili-led terrorist organisation.
They had run wild on Farron-Nir during the first stages of their clash with the Swords of Sangheilios, killing three field commanders within a week. The Narik-Solari did their work well, leaving no witnesses, no traces of where they came from and no obvious wounds. However, one of them was caught in their fourth attempt to kill the newest commander, who had laid an expert trap. It was then that they cast off their guise and attacked with a full ferocity. The Swords of Sangheilios had made a serious mistake, that had led from one simple assumption: there was only one of them.
Samuel had read the reports gleaned from encrypted Sangheili communications, and it wasn’t exactly light reading material. The survivors of the battle said there was anywhere from five to fifty of them, and that they destroyed the ambushing forces. This had been six months ago, and it was the very reason the UNSC had dispatched Fireteam Cyclone and the marines to the planet. To observe, and understand.
It hadn’t taken long for the Narik-Solari to find the Spartans, however. Two days in, a marine patrol went missing. They turned up a week later, their corpses mutilated and body armour destroyed with plasma blades. The squad leader had a sign hung around his neck, with a simple message from the hunters: ‘Leave now.’ Of course, they hadn’t. They lost more squads to them, and all night patrols were halted.
It was why Samuel was now up in the sentry post with a pair of binoculars, observing and scanning for anything. They liked to play mind games, psychological warfare. Flashing lights peaking through the treetops, to be followed by howling and manic laughing echoing across the landscape. The purposeful show of force, to display one hunter who would then return back into the darkness, followed by another who would be far away from the last, each following this crisp, parading behaviour until the sun came up, and any trace of their presence had vanished.
The Narik-Solari were clever, he had to hand it to them. But they never fought fair, or conventionally. For good reason, too. They had tried it after the marine ambush. Cyclone went out on a patrol after their bodies were displayed proudly within the forest. They were ambushed by several of them, hoping to finally take the honour of slaying a demon.
It hadn’t worked like that.
Their combat was heard by the marines in the wreckage of the Myriad. Whilst their ambushing skills were good, and their assassinations unrivalled, fighting against a unique, competent and confident Spartan squad in a conventional format did not go well for them.
Fireteam Cyclone, after fighting off the remaining Sangheili bladesmen, managed to take one corpse back to the Myriad. The assassin was in a very light combat harness, built in a way that mimicked the design of an ODST’s armour, if it had been crafted for an Elite. His gauntlets contained two energy daggers, and his belt had clamps for two energy swords.
What was most interesting about the Sangheili was the scars. The alien had scars travelling down all the way from his head to his feet. Some large, some small. All looked to be from plasma burns, that scarred tissue and left the assassin marked. Cyclone weren’t experts on Sangheili culture and tradition, so they didn’t know what it meant. That job was for the pencil-pushers at ONI.
He carried no sort of personal shielding, either. The light combat harness ensured that it would be too big to fit in the armour. Rather, it seemed that his harness was built entirely towards reducing plasma burn damage and defending against bladed weapons. The oblique angles could, and would, deflect blades away from the armour, giving the Narik-Solari an opportunity to strike for a finishing blow. The harness seemed to be a punishment and a reward, but Samuel-
The lights. They were back. Samuel quickly pivoted towards the flashing light. Hidden behind a roof of leaves several kilometres away, the movement was erratic. It was moving fast, too. The light was heading towards the mountain in a strange way, constantly moving left and right, as if dodging attacks. Samuel quickly tried to pan out, to see if he could find anything following the light, but he couldn’t. Refocusing on the light, he tried to see if he could identify what it was, but it was no use. The illuminated beacon was too skilled, it seemed, using the trees in a coordinated manner to dodge any observers.
Switching his helmet’s VISR video feed from night vision to thermal imagery, Samuel tried again to spot his target. This time, he succeeded, spotting faint flashes of a animal running through the forest. Zooming out to see around it, Samuel saw quick glimpses of several more heat signatures, chasing after the original figure. Panning out once again, Samuel looked to see where they were headed, realising that they had changed directions towards the path that led –
The path that led to the mountain. That led to the Myriad. Samuel slotted his binoculars into their armoured case, and quickly reached down to his MJOLNIR gauntlet. Activating a secure radio-link onto the Fireteam Cyclone channel, he keyed the open-mic button.
“Cyclone, it’s Samuel. We’ve got problems. Multiple heat sigs moving towards the Myriad via the track. Don’t have a positive identification on any of them. But they’re not friendly. Please advise on course of action, over.”
Samuel knew that most of them would be asleep, but one wouldn’t: Yvette was due on for sentry duty after Samuel, and so she would be sitting in the dismantling room as the ready-reserve.
Samuel’s predictions were proven correct, with a green acknowledgement light winking on, in the top left of his HUD. Yvette’s tag. Samuel then waited, and focused his attention back to the chase. Pulling back out the binoculars, he watched, and waited to see if any direct action would be required from the young Spartan.
=== D076 - II ===
“Dan, wake up.”
Hazy, tired and with sleep in the corners of his eye, Daniel woke up to the sound of the Myriad’s alarms blaring, and Yvette banging on the wall. He squinted, looking around the room, to see Bailey and Dominik in the same situation as him: bleary-eyed, weary, yet rapidly recovering.
“What is it, Yvette?” he asked.
“Sam’s spotted heat sigs moving towards the Myriad. Not friendly.” That caught Dan’s attention. Swiping the covers off of his bunk, he swung his feet off the comfortable mattress to the floor.
“Narik?” he asked. Yvette shook her head. “Don’t know. Sam can’t tell, but they’re sure as shit moving fast, and will be here within fifteen minutes.”
“Alert the marines on duty,” ordered Dan. “Get them ready for a fight, then head up to Sam’s position and try and get an ident on the pricks.”
Yvette nodded, and strode out of the room. Daniel turned to Dominik and Bailey, who were already out of their bed, and moving to put their techsuits on. Daniel got up, and opened his footlocker.
“Dan, your techsuit’s over here,” Dominik began, but Daniel held a hand up.
“I want to be up and out ASAP,” he said. “I’m not going to waste time putting my armour on. If they get here before you’re ready, I’ll hold them off. You guys, go ahead.” Dominik nodded, and turned to help Bailey fit her arms through the sleeves of her suit.
Daniel quickly dressed himself in a simple Spartan training tee, and a pair of UNSC PT shorts, grabbing his boots and quickly tying them up before striding out the door to the dismantling room. Walking past his green MJOLNIR COMMANDO-class armour, he moved to his weapons locker. Throwing open the door, he equipped himself with a light ODST chestplate he had requisitioned from the armoury of the Myriad, and grabbed the closest available weapon: an MA5 and a pistol.
Strapping a pair of knee guards to his legs, he then began to jog out of the room, before turning around and running back to his locker. Grabbing an earpiece from a small compartment, he attached it to his head, and sorted through the channels until he arrived at Cyclone’s frequency.
“This is Cyclone Leader. On my way to the front checkpoint now. No MJOLNIR, so comms need to be open on my end.”
“Affirmative.”
“Acknowledged.”
Samuel and Yvette both responded, whilst Dominik and Bailey stayed quiet. He knew they were still getting suited up, and paid it no mind.
“I want to know about everything you see up there, Sam. Let me know when they’re five minutes out.” He said, ending his transmission.
Sam responded curtly. “Will do, Cyclone Leader.”
Daniel continued making his way through the halls, his combat boots thumping on the cold metal floor attempting to try and drown out the droning wail of the alarms. On his way, he picked up several wandering marines on guard duty, conscripting them into his ad-hoc fireteam as they made their way towards the entrance to the wreckage.
Rounding the last corner to the bulkhead blocking the way outside, Daniel simply wrenched open the metal door weighing several hundred kilograms, and held it open as the marines he’d collected rushed out the door. Stepping through and closing the door, Daniel looked around at the defensive emplacements of the marines.
Whoever had arranged it knew their stuff. It had changed since he was last there to properly analyse the setup, but changed in a way for the better. The squad on duty were crouched behind several layers of sandbagged positions, all arranged within the small, narrow chokepoint the wreckage provided. Several positions had mounted machine guns on them, ranging from a standard M247 to the heavier, tripod-mounted AIE-486H rotary weapon. Small stacks of ammunition and explosives were scattered in strategic locations, to allow for easy reach when under fire. Finally, in a small rivet created above the bulkhead door, was a sandbagged position reinforced with girders from the frigate, housing a two-man SPNKR team.
Daniel approved. It seemed the OCS shavetail was worth their salt. He allowed himself a smile for just a moment. ‘The fourteen-year old critiquing military defences,’ he thought. That was quite the irony in the fucked-up world of the 2550s.
Moving to the sandbagged location closest to him, Daniel saddled up to a marine corporal, who was loading ammunition belts into his machine gun’s feed box. The corporal nodded wordlessly to Daniel, and continued the complicated process.
Marines sat ready at their positions. None of them spoke a word. They held their weapons close, chins to their stock, eyes aimed down-sight. Some had simply rushed to the entrance in nothing but underwear, others in half-uniforms ranging from PT gear to singlets and combat boots. Nevertheless all of them wore a helmet, all of them had their body armour strapped down, and all of them were ready to fight any enemies. They hadn’t survived for five months on the planet by being naive.
Suddenly, static over the radio, followed by Samuel’s voice. “Cyclone 3 to Cyclone Leader. Getting close now, ETA two minutes. Still can’t tell who it is, though. First heat sig is a Sangheili, the rest are Jackals. Be ready.”
“Acknowledged, Cyclone 3.” Daniel clicked off his transmission, and switched to the marines’ channel.
“This is Cyclone Leader. The aliens will be on us in approximately two minutes. One of them is an Elite, chased by some Jackals, so be careful. We don’t know whose side either group is on, so watch your fire. Ident the target before engaging. Over.”
Daniel didn’t expect a response from every soldier, and to his credit didn’t receive one. But he did notice that they had gotten the message. Subtle changes in posture, the checking and rechecking of weapons’ safeties and chambers, the affectionate knocks on helmets given by NCOs or buddies. They were mentally preparing themselves.
The seconds ticked past. As they did, more sounds came into earshot for Daniel. The sound of plasma bolts being fired, and hitting stone and sand: the sound of footsteps thumping on the rocky trail: the sounds of more footsteps following the original pair, these ones making less on an impact upon the ground. Daniel cocked his head, then refocused his attention to the bend in the trail that led to the chokepoint and the frigate.
The steps got closer. The marines readied themselves. Daniel hefted his rifle to his shoulder, and sighted himself onto the edge of the corner of the track. He wouldn’t have to wait long for a target.
A Sangheili in a red combat harness rounded the corner, sprinting at full tilt. He was breathless, and held a plasma pistol in one hand. Yet it wasn’t aimed at the veteran marines in front of him: rather, it was aimed behind, firing random, spastic green bolts of energy into the darkness. Daniel saw the white emblem of two crossed energy swords on the alien’s helm. Daniel moved his aim slightly, and gently squeezed the trigger.
A Jackal with a plasma repeater bearing on the Elite went down with a tight, controlled burst to his head, purple blood spattering out of his head as he fell down. Another Jackal rounded the corner, its beak open in surprise as he too was shot with a spread to his torso.
“Open up, marines! The Elite’s a friendly!” Daniel yelled hoarsely.
The marines then began to fire, providing covering fire for the Sangheili as he sprinted up towards the marines’ position. The Jackals that had followed him found themselves caught behind a wall of lead. It seemed only one of them had the foresight to bring an energy shield, as he crouched behind his protective barrier as his brethren died running into the wave of lead.
One of the marines to Daniel’s front pulled a grenade from his webbing, pulled the pin, and threw it in an overhead arc. The explosive landed gracefully behind the shielded Jackal, startling the vulture-like enemy as the grenade exploded, killing him and several of his buddies.
The marines’ fire petered out, as no more targets revealed themselves. The engagement had been less than twenty seconds, yet an entire lance of Jackal soldiers lay dead or dying on the ground at the entrance to the chokepoint. No one dared move from cover in case there were more lying in wait. No one except Daniel, who jumped over his sandbagged foxhole and moved to the Sangheili soldier of the Swords of Sanghelios, who had collapsed several metres in front of his position.
Moving to assist, fearing the worst, Daniel instead heard the exhausted, hearty breaths of an alien that had simply fallen down due to his fatigue. The soldier turned to Daniel, and coughed once before speaking.
“I am Major Erro ‘Rafum, of the Bladed Warriors,” he sputtered, still trying to regain his breath. “I have been sent here by Kaidon of House Taram, Rel ‘Taram.”
“What does the Kaidon want with us?” asked Daniel. The major, despite still being out of breath, managed a hoarse laugh.
“You are demons,” he said. “And only demons can hunt the Night Stalkers.”
== Chapter Two: Lighthouse ==
=== Josh - I ===
Everything was trying to kill him.
The ground, the trees, the rocks, the animals, and especially the Grunts currently searching for him, hoping to tear him limb from limb.
Josh knew that at the moment, he was the biggest prize up for grabs in the sick hunting games of the Souls of the Damned. He had been captured a month ago, and had somehow managed to outlast every single one of his competitors in the games his captors made him compete in. Twice he had won.
Now, the game was different. Instead of whatever is left standing wins, it became whoever. Well, it had always been whoever, but Josh never really saw the aliens he was competing with as anything more than competition. As such, when their screams rang out as the hunters found them, he never thought much of it. The Elites were too honourable, too large, too strong to attempt to hide. No, they’d rather duke it out with the Grunts, to try and fight until everyone else was dead. Josh always won those games, because he was the only one with the knowledge to hide and use camouflage.
Now, though… he wasn’t the only human competing. This time, there was ten of them. Five humans, five Elites. All enemies of the Souls of the Damned, all captured for sport rather than any need for information and torture. No, the torture was the game. When they were let loose, given their head-start, he looked around as they all ran through the gate into the wilderness.
The four others were all bridge crew from the Myriad. None were trained in ground combat, or maskirovka, or surviving. They were used to a clean, calm environment on a warship, intermittently interrupted by the chaotic presence of battle, before returning to their regularly scheduled programming. Not now, though,
They had all been scared. The Elites never were. They were too arrogant to understand the real challenge of the game. The humans knew, though, yet they also knew they weren’t equipped to hide. Josh tried to help them, tried to give them tips. Every time he did, he felt the sharp thwack of an electro-staff or hardlight-prod from his interrogators. He had tried.
Now, though he was hiding under a large, fallen log, waiting, desperately, for the game to end. He knew that he could try to run away, he could try to escape, but that never won him the game. They simply kept searching, and they would search until they found him. The first time around, he evaded them for three days, almost making it a third of the way to the Myriad. They spotted him with a dropship, and had brought him back to their keep kicking and screaming.
They did not let him go unpunished for the stunt.
Now, he just waited. Blotting out the footsteps that would surround him before disappearing, the sharp, guttural cries of an Elite going down to his hunters, and the disgustingly-cheerful yell of a Grunt as he ripped a limb or mandible from his prey’s dead body.
He wasn’t used to the human screams, though. Those were what truly disturbed him. The loud, terrifying screams of a ship engineer as he was found, and torn apart by the bloodthirsty Grunts. The bloodcurdling cries of another as they were skewered by the serrated blades carried by a Jackal on the hunt. And the horrible wails of a deck officer as she was brutally killed, used as bayonet practice for joyous members of the Narik-Solari.
There was one left, though. Josh wasn’t sure where they were, but he knew they were alive. He had only heard three human screams, not four. The other guy looked crafty, in the brief moments Josh saw him before the game began. He was stocky, with well-built legs and a hardened, gaunt face. He looked determined, yet hollow. He had met Josh’s gaze in the moments leading up to the gate opening, and simply nodded.
He didn’t look anything like the navigations ensign he was masquerading as. No, he looked like Josh. He looked like an ODST.
Orbital Drop Shock Troopers. The UNSC’s finest non-augmented soldiers. Sure, the Spartans were good. No, they were very good, Josh begrudgingly admitted. But they couldn’t be everywhere, and when the marines on the frontlines needed backup, most of the time their reinforcements would arrive in a wave of metal drop pods raining down from heaven, obliterating anything in their way and hitting the earth with a nail-biting thump, before ditching the doors and disgorging their hardened, veteran battle cargo.
Josh had seen campaigns won by sheer strength of will alone. Well, that and a well-oiled M7 submachine gun. From Ballast, Concord, Fumirole and Earth, Josh had seen it all. He had fought with his fellow ODSTs to defend the destroyed, burnt-out remains of the UNSC’s Bravo-6 facility in Sydney, withdrawing into the tunnels and catacombs below the surface as they fought with brutal ferocity against the violent Brute packs sent to root them out.
He had also fought until his last bullet, scavenging weapons from dead friends and foes alike, as the members of his unit still combat effective dwindled ferociously from a full-strength battalion to a lone, five-man team. An understrength squad. Defending the headquarters of humanity. The five of them, manning a single barricade down the hallway at the lowest level of the facility, protecting several hundred civilians that had escaped the chaos on the surface.
And then the rescue. The liberation, the easing of the pressure. Two weeks spent in that nightmare, before they were relieved by two green, armour-clad figures. They stood at a height that was taller than Josh thought possible, with the armour more futuristic than even his worn, tired ODST plates. And they simply annihilated anyone in their way.
There, in the darkened caverns of Bravo-6, Josh found respect for the Spartans. He knew that after the war, soldiers from any branch could join the newly formed Spartan Branch if they had the chops, and Josh had certainly looked into it. But he decided against it. He couldn’t abandon his loyalty and duty to the red and gold comet of the Helljumpers.
Maybe, just maybe, if he was a Spartan, he wouldn’t where he was right now. But that wasn’t exactly the thing Josh was going to think about in his current situation. No, the mid-life crisis and his regret for not becoming a supersoldier would have to wait until he was either dead, or off the godforsaken planet he had been trapped on.
But he was still a Helljumper. And those alien maniacs couldn’t take that from him.
So he continued to lie in wait, as the minutes went by, then hours, through a short rain squall that filled his crevice with water, until finally the sun was setting and the last rays of light washed over his hiding place. Over the time, he had heard the remaining competitors of Elites die in their final fight, and so he knew it was just him and the other, faux-ODST. Competing, yet not enemies. No, allies.
Maybe, just maybe…
Josh shook his head. No. Wouldn’t happen. No one was that willing to help others in a sick, twisted competition such as this.
A twig snapped. Josh’s eyes dart from the small opening from which he can see into the rest of the world from, hidden under the huge log covering the small nook he was crouching in. He saw a pair of boots attached to elongated legs. Boots that had two toes. Boots connected to an obviously alien armour plate. Boots that were pointing directly to the log, and to his eyes.
Well, shit.
Josh held his breath, as the legs ever encroached on his position, plainly and ungainly stamping down on the fresh roots and damp ground. They were moving closer. He watched the Elite’s feet step up and down, tramping fresh, damp grass under his sole as he closed in. He couldn’t know, could he? Josh knew he’d been careful to hide himself well, he didn’t think anything could betray his presence. The feet stopped, just on the edge of the vision slit Josh had made for himself. Barely wide enough to squint out of, he watched as the hulking xeno looked around, and looked to the log. Turning around to face away, he lowered himself to the log, sitting down with his feet either side of Josh.
What luck! Not only was he trying to evade capture, but his pursuers had decided to take a goddamn break on top of him! Josh tried not to laugh at the ridiculousness of his situation. Even if it was outlandish, even if it was funny, a single snort, chuckle or snicker would reveal him to the Sangheili hunter, and so he knew there was no chance for him to think about his situation too deeply.
The deep, calculated breaths of the warrior above reverberated through the log to Josh. He felt the Elite relax ever so slightly, his feet untensing and his posture shifting. The ODST knew then that he was going to be there for a long time, for better or for worse. The Elite was settling in for a night’s camp before recommencing the hunt for Josh and the other survivor. And judging by the way the sun was setting extremely quickly, and the fact that the Elite had begun to snore loudly in his native dialect, Josh had no chance of making an escape without disturbing the lone warrior.
Tonight was gonna be a long night.