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The Major

Beneath the Streets of New Mombasa

Nine Hours After Rupture

Given his past experiences with train stations, the Major decided to stick to the platforms and avoid trudging down the tunnels this time around. He didn’t head straight for the nearest exit, that Phantom could still be in the area, so instead they hopped over a couple of platforms until he was confident they wouldn’t immediately be greeted by Covenant when they returned to the surface.

His visor outlined the edges of the rectangular rooms as he and Seela climbed up a frozen escalator, the next area reminding him of a terminal at an airport, with numerous metal detector arches and filter gates protecting every branching direction. Judging by the various gift shops and corner cafés lining the area, this must be the hub of the metro. After a few minutes of walking, the Elite spoke up.

“I must stop,” his companion said, lifting one of her long legs up to rub at her calf, the Major frowning back at her over his shoulder.

“We need to orient ourselves as soon as possible,” he replied as he walked. “Already lost enough time thanks to that Phantom.”

He didn’t hear her following, so he sighed, turning round to see she was lingering ten or so meters back, her foot still raised as she examined herself. From this angle, the strange shape of her legs was more defined, the Major taking a moment to look them up and down.

They were digitigrade, like the hind legs of a dog, her thighs thick with muscle, her sparse armour leaving little to the imagination about their weight and power. They ended in a pair of wide hooves, like a deer. Her legs were huge by his standards, but proportional on her large frame, and to other Elites she probably passed off as slim, more lithe, sporting a balance between muscle and grace, as she was demonstrating at this moment – standing on one foot without even bracing herself against something.

There was a nasty scorch mark between her first and second knee on the left leg, her form-fitting bodysuit melting like candle wax in a rough patch the size of his palm. She must have been shot when they were fleeing the Phantom.

“You okay?” he asked, holding his shotgun one-handed as he adjusted his rigging.

“Oh yes my melted skin doesn’t hurt at all,” Seela answered with a roll of her eyes. “of course I’m not okay, fool, I told you I must stop, didn’t I?”

“Still have the medigel,” he reminded her, fishing in one of his many pouches. Seela batted a hand at him from across the floor.

“Forget your gel, it will not work on me, I’m not human.”

“I don’t think it discriminates,” he said. “It heals tissue, and you look flesh and bone to me.”

“I said forget it. I need but a moment’s rest.”

He began to complain, but restrained himself, Seela was too stubborn to warrant another argument. He internally winced when Seela hissed through her mandibles as she prodded a finger at her wound. It looked painful, if her gushing, purple blood was any indication. Did she expect to just let it heal on its own?

“At least run it under some water or something,” he mumbled.

“Do you see any water around here?” she asked.

“There’s a bathroom right there, go clean yourself up.”

“How was I supposed to know?” Seela shot back, walking over to the door he was pointing at, flexing her mandibles at him in the same way one would pull a face at a hated colleague. When she pushed the door open, she spun around, glaring at him. “Did you just snort?”

He had, she’d heard him even through the helmet, her senses must be much better than he thought. “That’s the men’s bathroom,” he chuckled.

She threw open the door again, which had closed while he was talking, pointedly strutting inside despite his words. After a moment, he heard her call out from inside. “Where’s the water?”

The Major sighed, seeing they weren’t about to get moving any time soon. He let his shotgun hang in its sling as he entered the bathroom, checking over his shoulder for contacts before moving inside.

There were three cubicles to one side, and just as many sinks on the other, the place looking untouched compared to the rest of the city, tucked away as it was. Seela was standing in front of one of the stalls, her tall helmet brushing the ceiling, her hands on her wide hips as she appraised the cubicles.

“Should I use the water in there?” she asked, gesturing at one of the toilets.

Part of him wanted to see her dunk her hand in it, but she’d probably punch him in the brain if she managed to piece together what toilets were used for, so he didn’t bother. “No use the sinks,” he said, leading her over and demonstrating how to turn one on. “Blue means cold, red means hot. Now hurry up.”

The top of the counter was below waist height to the giant alien, and she pulled a leg up on it like she was vaulting over a railing, placing her giant hoof into the sink. She grumbled as she tried to find the right position to put her injury beneath the faucet, angling her leg in ways that would have sprained his muscles if the Major had tried to copy her. She never stumbled, however, never lost her balance, her other leg completely straight and anchoring her to the ground.

Eventually she found a proper position, her leg angled awkwardly across the counter, her knee on one side of the basin, and her ‘foot’ on the other. She reached over and turned the cold water on, hissing through her mandibles as it began to wash over her burn.

The Major stood to one side of the exit, switching his attention between watching the exit, and watching her. A plasma shot like that could send a human straight to the infirmary for weeks, but she’d walked all this way without voicing a single complaint. He knew Elites were tough, but seeing it for himself was no less impressive.

He began to tap his foot, Seela occasionally twitching as she adjusted her pose. She sighed every now and then, the Major imagining how the cool water was relieving her burning pain. The silence dragged on into the minutes, until Seela glanced over at him.

“Could you stop that?”

“What?” he asked.

“Your foot, it is twitching. And you are also tapping on the wall, it’s annoying.”

He balled his hand into a fist, he hadn’t noticed he’d been flexing his fingers against the wall all this time. “You are disconcerted,” she noted. “I will not so slow us down, injury or no.”

“It’s not that,” he replied. “I know you can just shrug off anything that comes your way. It’s…”

“Don’t keep me waiting,” she chided when he went quiet.

“I’m just not good at standing around. Makes me nervous.”

“One should relish for the quiet moments,” she said, turning the water down a notch. “It is the only chance a warrior has to reflect. How can simply standing make one nervous?”

“I’m always on the move. Or fighting, or drawing up strategies. My whole life revolves around those things, I’ve practically made them my identity. When I’m not doing any of that, I start to… reflect, as you put it, on things I’d rather forget.”

“… I too, wish to stay ahead of some memories,” Seela replied. “Take the infant I almost killed, for instance. That moment is always there, burned into my mind like the afterimage of a bright light, and sleep is no longer the welcome reprieve it once was.”

He had a jab about what she dreamed on the tip of his tongue, but he held it back, not wanting to interrupt her. “-but a warrior cannot let regret weigh them down, lest they crumble rather than fall, when the end eventually comes.”

“Just keep moving forward, huh?” he said. “Guess that kind of outlook isn’t limited to just humans. Easier said than done, though,” he added, crossing his arms over his vest. “I’ve lost a lot of friends during my years with ONI, and tonight isn’t the first night my whole team’s gone dark. The other operators gave me a nickname, wanna hear it? Lone Wolf, because people assigned to me had a habit of never making it back nine times out of ten.”

“You feel responsible for their deaths?”

“Of course I do,” he snapped. “I’m supposed to get them out, not leave them to die. It got so bad I stopped calling my squadmates by their name, thought it would help cope if and when they died, like a defence mechanism, but it’s ended up fucking me and making me a stone-cold, miserable sack of... But you wouldn’t get it,” he finished with a shake of his head.

“I am also a leader, remember?” Seela said, a strange expression on her face. “I may not have led a fellow Sangheili in battle, but I do know of the duty and obligation one feels for their charges. You think after a battle on how you could have done things differently, how you could have minimised casualties, but you must banish these thoughts. To dwell on the dead, when you remain among the living, is a foolish endeavour. Perhaps on some level, I do ‘get it’. I may even see a shade of me in you, Major.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have both made war our livelihood, yet cannot seem to rationalise its consequences no matter how hard we try. We seek any means of distraction if it means ignoring our troubles, be that moving, or fighting.”

“Yeah, well, what else can we do?” he asked, his hands raised in exasperation. “All I’ve ever known is how to kill and fight.”

“On the contrary,” Seela said. “You have meticulously avoided confrontation whenever possible, and you have failed to kill me.”

“So I can’t even do that right, good point…”

“I meant that as a compliment,” she added. “You are not so bad a leader as you might think. Despite my complaints, your insistence on avoiding open battle has brought us this far, has it not? Keep your dedication ready, Major, and do not let the losses of your teams discourage you, no amount of lament will undo their deaths.”

That hurt him, but as much as he tried, he didn’t have a good comeback to throw at her, and not just because of his troubled thoughts. She had not meant that statement to be an insult, but a fact, and somehow that was worse.

“How’s the leg?” he asked. She narrowed her eyes at him, but decided to follow his changing of the subject. She twisted the tap, the water petering out as she lowered her leg to the floor, putting a little weight on it.

“Better,” she replied. She readied her carbine, cocking her hips as she planted a hand on her waist, her pose making him acutely aware of how lithe she was. “Well?” she asked, her purple eyes seeming to sparkle beneath the ceiling fluorescent. “I am ready when you are, Major.”

“Right.” He readied his shotgun, pushing the door open with his shoulder, the two returning to the hub of the metro. There were no Covenant, no sign that anything had come past while they were having their little chat.

“You humans love your underground complexes,” Seela said as they got moving. “We should be swift. I’ve seen the city from above, it could crumble down on us at any time.”

“Feeling a little claustrophobic, huh?” he asked.

“Do you mock me? I am talking about the destruction left by the rupture, and the great monument that has collapsed. Your city has become unstable.”

“What great monument?”

“The… tower, just beyond the city, the one that reached into orbit.”

“You mean the space elevator?” he asked, Seela shrugging at him. “Don’t worry, just a little further and we’ll be out. Hopefully your Brute buddies aren’t waiting for us when we get topside.”

“If they are, we will deal with them,” Seela replied. “I am curious, what is a space elevator?”

“Don’t have any on your homeworld?”

“No. What is there purpose?”

Seeing they had the time, and there was no harm in indulging her, he began to explain.

-xXx-

Water cascaded over the first couple of steps at the top of the incline, the exit from the metro nearly identical to the one the Superintendent had ushered them towards during their escape from the Phantom. The rain was coming down in white, misty sheets in a way one could see the wind’s influence through them, the Major suppressing a shiver beneath his armour as the cold lashed at him.

He swept his shotgun left as he emerged from the stairwell, Seela moving right as she mirrored his movements. There were no dropships waiting for them, no Brutes or Covenant, just the city and the fires it was all bathed in.

“Which way, then?” Seela asked, turning to him once they had cleared the area.

“Not sure, have to find a kiosk,” he said, beginning to walk down the street, clogged with vehicles just like all the others. “Keep an eye out.”

“Can’t your sleeper agent tell us where one is?” she said, following him on his left.

“He should,” he said, wiping his visor clear of water. “Eyes and ears out, then. He might ring another phone like last time.”

It would be hard to pick out anything over the storm, but he knew Seela’s hearing would be better than his, and unlike him, her helmet wasn’t completely obscuring her features, so it shouldn’t be hard for either of them to find something.

They marched on through the city and soon enough, a billboard on the side of a building flickered on, displaying an arrow pointing straight down. Following it brought them right to another kiosk, the Major taking a moment to find their location and orient themselves.

“Are we on the right track?” Seela asked, checking the area while he worked.

“Our little underground venture took us on a bit of a detour, but it’s manageable. Couple hours, and my mission will be nearly complete.”

“And, what after?” she asked, the two picking up the pace once he’d memorised the route. “Say you accomplish your mission, then what?”

“Then we’ll exfil, and be out of each other’s hair.”

“I do not have hair,” she replied, the Major rolling his eyes behind his visor.

“Figure of speech,” he explained. “Means we’ll be parting ways. You’ll be interrogated, and I’ll be redeployed to wherever it is the Navy needs me.”

“That is my fate, then? To be tortured by humans for information? That, is my reward for assisting you?”

“I’ll put in a good word for you,” he reassured. “The proverbial door is always open if you don’t like it,” he added, raising an explanative hand.

“You are giving me a choice?” she asked, her mandibles splaying wide, as though in surprise. “I thought I was an asset?”

“And I thought I was an Imp, but I guess opinions change,” he countered. “Can’t force you to do anything.”

“True, though perhaps…” She paused, rolling a shoulder as she adjusted her armour. “We shall see where our paths take us. For now.”

“Pretty vague commitment, that,” he noted, but Seela didn’t respond, and he didn’t pry. There was no reason to when his objective wasn’t even in sight. It was as the saying went, they’d cross that bridge when they got to it.

-xXx-

They walked down sidewalk after sidewalk, climbing over and navigating around numerous traffic jams, using the roads that pointed east to guide them. The metropolis was as unremarkable as it had been hours before, a landscape of empty buildings and narrow alleyways, darkness and fire coalescing into a harsh redness that shrouded every surface.

He kept his eyes on the hellish skies, expecting a Phantom to dive over the buildings at any moment, even though the Brutes had no way of tracking them besides visually. The silence combined with the rain was enough to almost come off as lulling, but there was a horrid temperance to the quiet, like this was all a giant no man’s land.

“Anything on the BattleNet?” he asked, turning to his towering companion. She would have told him the moment she picked up anything, but the silence was starting to grate him.

“No,” she replied. But a couple minutes later, she held up a hand for him to stop. She was almost following him by his side now, no longer content on keeping way at his flank. “Hold on, I am picking up something…”

“Your Brute buddies?” he asked, gripping the choke on his shotgun.

“No,” she said. “And it’s not the Prophet’s either. It’s…

She got to a knee, which put her at roughly eye level with him, and she gestured for him to come closer. “What?” he asked, apprehension swirling in his stomach as he moved next to her. He was like the size of a doll to her, and he could somehow feel her mass on some primal level, it was a strange sensation.

He was about to repeat his question, when she reached up and turned a small dial on the bottom of one of her mandible guards, a garble of static quickly growing in volume. She was adjusting her speakers so he could hear what she was hearing.

A raspy voice quivered from her helmet, followed by a wet gurgle. Whoever it was, they sounded like they were in a rough state. “What’s he saying?” he asked, the alien words lost on him.

“It’s… a Sangheili,” Seela explained, widening her eyes as though she couldn’t believe it. “He’s wounded, and he’s… speaking nonsense. He doesn’t sound like he has long, we have to save him!”

“Seela,” he began. “He’s just going to bring every Covvie down on his position, we can’t just walk into that.”

“No, no he’s using a private channel, one only Sangheili ranks have access to,” she said. “We know better than the Jiralhanae to broadcast ourselves on open channels. Major, we have to help him.”

“What if he bleeds out before we get there?” he asked. “And how’d he get so shot up in the first place? The Covenant are probably right on top of him.”

“I do not care,” Seela snapped. “Major, three of us working together is better than just two, and he may know if any more of my brothers are still alive.”

She got to her feet, the Major backing up before she could knock him over. “I am going, follow me or don’t, it matters not to me.”

She took off in a jog before he could get another word out, the Major finding himself hesitating as she ran down the street leading north. Would two Elites make his journey easier? That was a matter of debate, but it would be better than lugging it the rest of the way on his own.

“Fucking aliens are gonna be the death of me,” he sighed, running after her as she navigated the streets. After a couple turns, she stopped in the shadow of a towering building, getting to a knee as she peered back over her shoulder, waiting for him to catch up.

“He’s on the other side of this structure,” she said, bringing her voice down to a whisper. At least she’d grown enough sense to not go rushing in.

“Thanks for helping me out, Major,” he replied, sing-songing his words. “I sure appreciate the support for this useless detour.”

“Hush,” she snapped, raising a thumb to her communicator. “He has gone silent.”

“Then he’s gone? Shame.”

“We must be sure. Let us navigate to the second floor of this building, survey the area.”

“Wow, Seela’s not going to just shoulder her way straight into the open? I’m impressed.”

“I said hush, now move it.”

The stepped into the main lobby of what first came off as another office building, the two of them making their way behind the front desk, where a pair of elevators were built into the wall, along with a stairwell. They made their way up, Seela with a little more urgency, the two finding themselves in a barren floorspace. There were plastic films draped over large sections of the floor, along with a pair of step ladders and bundles of wooden planks. This place must have been under renovations before the invasion.

The wall facing their destination was a huge stretch of waist-high glass, he and Seela crouching in front of it as they overlooked a small, square-shaped area boxed in from all sides by other buildings. It appeared like some sort of miniature park, with hills as tall as the Major’s shoulders covered over in freshly trimmed grass, the area laced with juvenile oak trees, their bases surrounded by park benches. A dirt track weaved through the area, connecting the four corners of the garden together, where doorways led in and out of the neighbouring buildings.

It was like someone had plucked a part of a botanical garden and deposited it right here in the middle of this urban landscape. It would have looked almost serene, if not for the bodies.

At a glance he could count ten dead aliens strewn about the garden, bioluminescent blood glinting under the fiery sky. There were no humans, just Brutes and Elites, along with a few Grunts, slumped over in positions that hinted at the battlelines of a past firefight.

Seela had told him that her kind had been betrayed, but to actually see its effects was still an interesting sight. Perhaps the Covenant was weakening, and Earth might have a chance to still pull through this long war.

“There!” Seela said, the Major following her pointed finger. One of the Elites rolled onto its side, the movement easy to pick out over a sea of stillness. She looked antsy to go, but before she did, she mumbled something to him.

“What’s that?” he asked, her voice too low to catch.

“I said cover me,” she repeated, running off back the way they’d come before he could make a comment, emerging into the garden below after a few moments. He watched as she navigated between the corpses, sweeping her carbine left and right, dropping to a knee when she reached her dead kinsman. Did she not say her brothers were overtly sexist towards her? Why did she care that this one was still alive?

She turned the Elite onto his back, pressing her ear against his mandibles, like she was checking his breathing. She gave him a shake, but the alien didn’t respond. Seela waved an arm at the Major, making a come here gesture with her hand.

As much as he disliked this situation, he made an I’m coming wave, and before long, he walked out into the garden, the air laced with an unusual freshness thanks to the flora. The hills were so covered in dew they sparkled like mounds of gemstones, the overhanging canopy thick enough to bring the rainfall down to a light dribble. New Mombasa was starting to make him long for the rural areas.

Seela was in the middle of the garden, and she didn’t look up at his approach. “He’s still breathing,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “Major, do you still have your healing gel?”

“Seela…”

“Now, damnit!”

He let his shotgun hang by his side, fumbling with his pouch as he hunkered down beside her, ripping open the packet of gel with his gloved fingers. “Here. Rub it into the wound and-”

“I know how it works,” she snapped, taking the packet from him and hesitating, not sure where to begin. The Elite looked like he’d been through hell. There was a huge burn on his stomach, and his left arm looked like it had been shattered, as if someone had forced it through a grater. He was also missing two of his mandibles, his purple blood seeping down his neck and throat.

She started with his torso, the gel and the Elite’s blood quickly making a mess of her hand. “I need more,” she insisted after a few initial rubs. “Major?”

He looked around, but if there were any Optican stations around, they weren’t close enough that it would matter. “All I got. Don’t Covenant carry meds on them?”

She didn’t answer, moving on to the Elite’s arm next, rubbing what remained of the gel into his twisted limb with a kind of frantic desperation. “Seela,” he said again.

“H-He was just talking on the BattleNet.”

“Seela,” he insisted, and she raised her eyes to his. “Look at him, he’s gone.”

He pointed at the alien for emphasis, Seela beginning to deflate as his words got through to her. This wasn’t the first time he’d had to snap a fellow soldier out of it, but he still felt a bit of guilt for her, and he wasn’t sure why.

“You’re right,” she said, placing a hand on the Elite’s armoured chest. She began to say something he couldn’t understand, speaking in her native language. It was some sort of prayer judging by the tone, and as much as he wanted to get moving, he waited for her to finish.

“I knew it was a slim chance,” Seela said when she was done. “And even though your gel didn’t work, I-”

A purple muzzle flash cut her off, quickly followed by a gunshot. The Major managed to catch the split second in which the purple contrail was visible, the round coming from one of the doors the garden branched off towards. He felt like someone had struck his chest with a brick, the Major falling to the ground on his ass.

He dipped his head, seeing a crystal shard poking into his chestplate, about the length of a pen. The armour had failed to do its job, he could feel his blood trickling down his skin beneath the plating, but that wasn’t what had him worried. The needle round was beginning to glow, the pink hues of the crystal casting a strange light on his helmet, so bright it was making his eyes water.

He ripped the shard out with a groan, casting it aside, where it shattered into a thousand pieces before it had hit the ground. Needle rounds could detonate if they didn’t shatter first, his insides would have been blown apart had he been a second slower.

A follow-up shot rang out, and the Major would have been killed on the spot, had Seela not stepped between him and the sniper, her shields glowing as the rounds were deflected. She didn’t waste a moment, shouldering her carbine and taking aim, the squawk of a Jackal filling the garden as she pulled the trigger.

Another needle round bounced off her flank, Seela snarling as she dropped to a knee, aiming her weapon up at a window on the eastern wall, the barrel of a Covenant rifle poking out of the frame up there.

Another sniper revealed itself on the western side of the garden, leaning out from behind a doorframe and taking aim at the Major. Rather than get to his feet, he lunged for the cover between the hills, his vest scraping against the gravel path as he hit the deck.

Waiting for the right moment, he raised to a crouch, bringing his shotgun to bear on the Jackal, who fired off a shot. The needle streaked past the side of his helmet, the Major barely flinching as he sent a slug its way, the Jackal toppling over and out of sight.

“Damned snipers!” Seela snarled, backing up as she likewise ducked behind the mounds of earth, her shields just about to break. “Where they waiting for us?”

“Doesn’t matter, just keep your head down,” he replied. He pumped his shotgun, holding the barrel down as he and Seela practically had to prone to stay out of sight. “How many?”

“Three.” Another round streaked across the garden, leaving a purple contrail, the shard breaking apart as it impacted the top of Seela’s sweeping helmet.

He activated his visor’s low-light systems, rolling onto his shoulder so he could see the second-floor sniper, levelling his shotgun. He sent two slugs its way, the first broke a chip of the frame apart, and the second found its mark, the Jackal tumbling to the grass and landing with a sickening crunch.

He covered his helmet with an arm as return fire peppered their measly cover, puffs of dirt exploding from the little hills and showering both of them in soil. Seela could afford to be more liberal, her shields allowing her to peek over the mounds for longer as she picked off another sniper, discharging her cartridge as she emptied her weapon.

“I’m almost out,” she said, her scowling face framed by the swirling energies of her shields.

“Here.” There was a dead Elite just to the Major’s left, and he had a couple of carbine cartridges on his hip. He threw them her way, and she snatched them out of the air, punching them into her empty carbine. If she had any issues with robbing her dead brothers, she didn’t voice them.

Tens of purple contrails crisscrossed over their position, some impacting the hills and churning up the dirt, Seela peering over the lip of earth when she was reloaded. She sent a burst of green bolts at one of the snipers on the gardens edge, the Jackal flopping to the ground, his rifle firing off a couple more times as the alien seized up. The Major joined her, twisting his body round and propping himself up on his elbow, cutting down another Jackal that had been trying to reposition, his buckshot catching the avian as it darted between the trees.

He took advantage of the following quiet to reload, thumbing fresh shells into his receiver as he scanned for the last Jackal. “Up there!” he shouted, pointing back to where they’d overwatched the garden minutes earlier. A feathered head of a Jackel was peering through the windows, its beady eyes going wide as it realised it was spotted.

Seela turned her carbine on it, the first round shattering the window, the next going straight through the wall, the Jackal falling out of view. “More are coming,” she warned, gesturing over the hill to their north. The Major lifted his helmet, watching one of the many doors slide open to reveal half a dozen Grunts, the little aliens waddling onto the grass as they fired blindly with their plasma pistols.

The Major pumped his shotgun, moving over and crouching shoulder to shoulder with Seela as they opened up on the Grunts, the small aliens spinning like tops as they picked them off. He felt heat wash over his face as inaccurate return fire sailed over his head, his weapon rocking into his shoulder as he sent shells downrange. He almost felt bad for how easy it was for him and Seela to cut down the Grunts, but their presence distracted them from even more reinforcements piling into the garden after a few moments.

“Chieftain!” Seela exclaimed, her voice a blend of dread and excitement. From the same door the Grunts had come from, a trio of Brute Minors sauntered out into the rain, flanked by a fourth. This one sported armour the colour of rust, his head clad in an ornate helmet not too dissimilar from Seela’s own, save for the jagged horn poking out of the forehead. Clutched in its powerful arms was a giant hammer, longer than the Major was tall, the Chieftain swinging the massive weapon from one shoulder to the other with uncanny ease. That was a gravity hammer, the blocky generator on the head making the air around it shimmer with its anti-gravitational energies.

The Chieftain shouted something in its alien language, the other Brutes raising their plasma rifles as they fanned out, two going left, the other moving right.

“We must move!” Seela yelled, ducking alongside the Major as their hill was pulverised with plasma, the soil tossed up into the air in sheets, some of the grass igniting and immediately sizzling out from the rain. “I will draw them away!”

She stood out of their cover without warning, firing from the hip as she climbed over the hill to their rear, her shields saving her from being immediately shot down. She disappeared out of his view, the plasma fire going with her as she retreated to some unseen position.

He didn’t dare raise his head out of cover, so he flipped over onto his belly, crawling between the hills with his shotgun clutched out in front of him, his elbows digging into the soil. Green and blue plasma bolts crisscrossed over his head, the ground shaking as someone detonated a plasma grenade, though if this was Seela or the Brutes he couldn’t tell.

He clutched his helmet on instinct as another explosion sounded off, this time a lot closer, flecks of dust and dirt raining down on his helmet in clumps, it was like being back in basic training all over again.

He crawled across part of one of the gravel paths, seeing there was a tree up ahead. That would make for better cover than lying on the ground, so he made for it, his damned chest rig getting caught on rocks as he crawled.

He felt the ground quake again, but this time it wasn’t from a grenade. He turned his head to see a Brute had moved this way. It raised a giant foot onto the lip of the hill to his right, firing on what he presumed was Seela’s location with a plasma rifle. The thing looked especially huge, considering the Major was on his belly.

It hadn’t appeared to notice him, and the Major quietly levelled his weapon, the sound of escaping gas carrying over the immediate area as he dumped a shell into its flank. Its shields exploded like shattering glass, the alien turning its weapon on the Major with a yell of alarm. It pulled the trigger, the Major feeling the ground around his head rumble as the Brute narrowly missed him.

He pulled the choke and fired again, the Brute’s head snapping upward as he hit it centre mass, the alien tumbling forward. He rolled out of the way of its massive, falling corpse, continuing his crawl as its body landed right where he’d been a moment ago.

He rounded the trunk of the tree, wiping dirt and rain from his visor as he rose to his knees, pumping his shotgun once more as he surveyed the area. He was on the left half of the garden, while Seela was on the right, trading fire with one of the Brute Minors as she took a knee behind one of the hills, their shields weathering the exchange of plasma. Behind the Brute, the Chieftain waved his hammer like he was a standard-bearer, his presence no doubt inspiring the Covenant to keep the pressure on.

The Major ducked his head when a bolt crashed into the tree, the final Minor having spotted him and suppressing him with plasma fire, a pair of Grunts pushing forward, following the dirt track as they tried to flank. He dropped them both with his pistol, stealing the occasional glance at Seela as she dealt with her own problems.

She snarled as her shields were depleted, a bolt catching her in the midriff as the Minor followed up with a burst from his rifle. Ducking down and fishing for the last grenade on her belt, she chucked it blindly over the hill, the Brute’s cry of alarm petering out as the plasma detonated.

A Grunt was coming at her from the side, letting off a shot as it rounded her cover, the plasma bolt slamming into her shoulder before she could react. Her carbine rocked as she killed him, Seela rolling her shoulder as she made to reload.

A gut-wrenching roar carried across the garden, Seela peering over the hill at the furious Chieftain. He braced his hammer against his side, thumping his fist against his breastplate as he began to charge towards her, every impact of his feet hitting the ground making the garden trees shake. She turned her carbine on the ten foot tall Chieftain, dumping bolt after bolt into the approaching Brute.

His shields swirled with every round she sent, but they did not break before her carbine ran empty. She reloaded, but the Chieftain bounded across the garden despite being laden with heavy armour and an equally overbearing weapon, raising the hammer over his head as he moved into striking range.

She danced out of the hammer’s path, the bladed side of the weapon smashing into the spot she’d just been standing on, throwing dust and earth into the air. Seela almost lost her footing as the weapon came down, the tremor that followed rivalling that of explosions, the gravity generator enhancing the already monumental slam.

She darted in and clocked the Chieftain with the stock of her carbine, a spurt of blood and a tooth or two streaking out of the Brute’s jaw. He immediately retaliated with a headbutt, Seela clutching her face with a hand. Readjusting the grip on his weapon, the Brute twisted the hammer out of the ground, hauling it in an upward strike. Seela stepped out of the way, wary of even a glancing strike from such an imposing weapon.

The Chieftain used the momentum of the missed attack to his advantage, turning on the spot and bringing the hammer level with his chest, swinging the weapon round for another strike, the blades shining in the waning light as they neared. She ducked beneath the swing, and the hammer collided with the nearby tree, the blades digging into the bark, the jets built into the rear of the engine igniting. It cleaved through the tree like it was made of water, the sound of splintering wood growing louder as the tree began to list.

The Chieftain snarled as he tugged his hammer loose, Seela taking advantage of the pause to shove her shoulder into his chest. He stumbled back, his glowing eyes turning up as the tree dropped onto his head.

Rather than to be crushed like an insect, the Chieftain gripped the trunk over his shoulder, like he was about to start hauling it off somewhere, his knees buckling, but not breaking. Seela took the distraction as a means to reload, snapping her carbine back into its firing state, filling the occupied Brute with rounds, watching as his shields collapsed with a flash of energy.

As she aimed for his head, the Chieftain lugged the broken oakwood in her direction like he was chucking a spear, Seela knocked off her feet as the trunk slammed into her chest, her back meeting the wet grass as she tumbled over a hill. Her breastplate crumpled like paper, the alloy digging into her bodysuit as it bent inward, the edges of her vision blurring as she fought through her daze.

The Chieftain was on her before she could get to a knee, Seela realising with a start that she’d dropped her carbine during the fall. He swung the hammer from left to right, the blades swiping inches from her snout as she dodged back. Rising to her hooves, she stepped in and seized the hammer before he could lift it, the two struggling for a moment for control over the weapon.

The Chieftain decked her across the mandibles with a fist, Seela staggering straight into the blades of the hammer, the metal digging into her ribs. The Brute pulled the haft, and Seela roared in pain, the sharp metal shifting around her blood as it cut along her body.

She had meant to overpower the hammer from his grasp, but now she was leveraging it for her very life, Seela aware of every inch of alloy that slipped beneath her skin.

“You will die slowly, Heretic,” the Chieftain growled, gripping the hammer by the lower half and throwing all his weight into it. The blades pierced deep into her hide, her purple blood staining the hammer as it dug a channel into her torso. She’d be severed at the middle, just like that tree. She wondered if she would still feel her legs as they disconnected from her body.

The overbearing strength of the Brute suddenly lifted, a suppressed snap of air carrying on the wind. She turned her head to see the Major was aiming his gun at the Chieftain, a collection of dead aliens behind him, he had dealt with the rest while she’d been occupied.

He fired off another slug, and the Chieftain doubled over, Seela using the distraction to rip the hammer out of his hands, a worrying amount of blood spilling out of her side as she dislodged herself from the weapon, but she paid it no mind, raising the generator over her shoulder, the sheer weight almost causing her to lose her balance. It weighed a lot, even for her.

She brought the weapon down on the Chieftain, the gravity generator crackling with energy as it added its own momentum to her swing. It slammed between his shoulder blades, his armour breaking apart in a rough circle from the impact, the Chieftain’s body impacting the ground with a crunch, the swing carrying so much momentum a shockwave rippled outwards through the grass.

“Vulgar weapon,” Seela muttered, her hands sliding off the haft, the thing buried deep enough it stayed lodged in the Brute’s spine even as she let go. She turned as the Major walked up to her, slotting ammo casings into his gun. “Major, it… was…”

A wave of nausea cut off her words, and she stumbled to a knee, planting a fist on the ground to brace herself, her laboured breathing laced with an odd, tingling feeling.

“Seela!” she heard him say, one of his gloved hands touching her on the arm. Despite her waning strength, she still bristled at his touch. “Fuck, you’re bleeding bad…”

She looked down, the wound from the hammer had run deep, her thigh painted purple all over as her blood spurted out in droves. Odd, it wasn’t hurting at all. If anything, her plasma burns were the most painful.

Darkness coalesced in the corners of her vision, and her chin met the dirt as her strength failed her. The Major said something about medigel, and when she tried to reply, all that came out was a pitiful groan. No matter, at least he was the only one to hear her final breaths.

The last thing she saw was his helmeted face peering at her from above, and then her world went dark.