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Civil War Part 1: The Grunt Assault
Date: 21 August 2004, 5:48 AM
CIVIL WAR: PART I
The Grunt Assault
A patrol of Jackals marched along the top of the ridge. They could barely detect the smell of Grunt, the scent they knew all too well from hours of bossing the little pyramid-monkeys around when the Covenant ranks were in control. Occasionally they heard a small snort, or the telltale clicking of a Grunt's footstep, but the sounds were so rare that it was impossible to pinpoint the source. The only thing they could do was keep looking around for the Grunts, but this bored them, and they could no longer resist the urge to start chattering to each other.
Gamarr turned behind him, and hissed to his fellow Grunt.
"Give me a boost!"
The other Grunt lifted Gamarr on his shoulders and stood on his toes. He provided just enough leverage for Gamarr to dig his blunt claws into the ice and drag himself up onto the ridge, silently as possible. It was hard for the Grunts to keep low, due to the chilled methane tanks that they toted on their backs, but Gamarr kept his belly to the snow anyways as he crawled forward and peered around a large boulder.
It was sheer luck that all of the Jackals had their backs turned to their position, as they marched in the opposite direction, chattering and hissing to each other. Gamarr immediately knew what they had to do. He crawled back to the edge of the ridge, and whispered to his 20 or so comrades who stood waiting below.
"We need a frontal assault team of Grunts with plasma pistols, and a followup team with needlers. Divide into groups!" Gamarr told them. He leaned even closer over the edge, and whispered even more quietly to the Grunts.
"The plan is this: The frontal assault team will cover themselves behind these boulders up here. We will need to get the Jackals' attention so that they turn their shields in our direction, but we mustn't let them know where we are hiding. When I give the signal, each of you will ready an overcharge shot on your pistols, and I will give another signal to aim and fire at the Jackals' shields."
"Once their shields are down, the Jackals will be defenseless. That's when our followup assault team will load them down with needles, and blow them to hell."
There were a few seconds of whispered murmurs, giggles of delight, and then the Grunts were ready. The frontal assault team clambered up onto the ridge, and quickly took their positions, hiding behind bushes, boulders, snow banks, and whatever else was available. In total, twelve plasma pistol-wielding Grunts were hiding, including Gamarr himself, all of whom where waiting for his signal.
Gamarr peered over the rock he was hiding behind. The Jackals were moving as slowly as ever. He could tell that they were dropping their guards.
Perfect, he thought, a sly grin creeping beneath the mask on his face.
"Charge your pistols!" he hissed to his fellow Grunts. He waved for the followup assault team to join them on the ridge, and they hid a few metres back from the frontal assault team's position. Each Grunt had their own dreams of hailing down vengefully on the egotistical race of Jackals for all the mistreatment they had been endowed with.
Gamarr waved slightly to alert his comrades that he was going to get the Jackals' attention. With that, he fired a single shot off of his plasma pistol, and then quickly charged his pistol along with the rest of the group.
The Jackals spun around, hissing wildly and swinging their pistols from side to side. Some held their shields askew in surprise, but others were more disciplined and quickly shrunk into combat position, even though they could not see the enemy.
Twelve screaming green bolts hurled out from where the Grunts were hiding. They tore into the Jackals' position. One particular Jackal had stepped back in surprise, shield held at his side, and was hit directly in the chest by a plasma bolt. The Jackal squealed in agony and terror as the plasma melted metal, flesh, and bone into one, and burned a hole clean through his upper torso. He clutched at his chest as he dropped to the icy ground, twitched a few times, and died. The Grunt who had fired that particular bolt sniggered in satisfaction, witnessing every second of the Jackal's death.
Out of the twenty Jackals, nine had their shields down, and three were dead, all in a matter of fifteen seconds.
The Grunts spared no mercy to the Jackals as they fired a second volley of plasma bolts into the group before they could even comprehend what was happening. Four more Jackals went down, and all but one had their shields put down. This left them tender prey for the followup assault team, who charged out onto the field before the Jackals even had time to recoil from the attack.
The familiar ping, ping, ping of the needlers rang out in quick succession as the Grunts jammed their triggers down, and the superheated plasma crystals dug like hooks into the Jackals' skin.
Ajax, the only one with a shield left, held strong against the needles that bounced off his shield, but he felt a pang of guilt as his comrades went up in bright purple explosions. But they didn't matter now, he thought. He just needed to find a way to escape from the Grunts' assault.
He jerked his head to his right. The ridge sloped sharply downwards. He couldn't see where it ended, but he had a plan, a plan to outrun the burning hot needles and escape from the Grunts.
He patiently waited for a break in the fire as the Grunts drew closer and closer. The break arrived as some of the Grunts were already celebrating their victory. He took this opportunity to detach his personal arm shield, swing it underneath himself, and hurl himself into the concave of the shield.
He had turned his shield into a sled of sorts, as he slid down the slope of the ridge at high velocities. There was no way that the needles or the Grunts could catch up to him now.
The Grunts stopped firing and paused, staring in amazement as the Jackal sped away.
Then, one of them burst out laughing, and the rest joined in, rolling in the snow, snorting and giggling hysterically. They knew what was at the end of the ridge's slope, although the Jackal didn't.
Ajax screamed as he saw the other edge of the ridge appear, and he flew closer and closer to the valley of his death. He tried to dig his claws into the ice and snow, trying to stop himself from being flung off the edge, but he only succeeded in ripping his claws clean out of their sockets.
Off the edge he flew, and he plummeted downwards towards the hard, icy surface below.
Several Elites turned and looked to the sky in wonder after they witnessed the Jackal soaring out of the heavens and landing on the earth with a sickening thud.
Meanwhile, the Grunts were in a very celebratory mood. It was the Grunt nature to take pride in each small step towards victory. This particular group of twenty-five Grunts was on a mission to rescue prisoners of war from an enemy Jackal encampment, and while they were at it, they planned to take over the territory and turn it into a base.
The encampment was well-stocked with weapons and vehicles, and the Grunts were eager to lay their paws on the weapons store, as they had a limited number of weapons for themselves.
Gamarr galloped over to the highest point on the ridge he could find, scampering on top of a boulder. He turned, and announced the benefits of their victory to his fellow Grunts.
"With our successful assault, we have now gained ourselves nineteen fresh plasma pistols..." he said. His announcement was greeted with enthusiastic cheers. "...and a memory to last for generations!" he finished, waving a paw over towards the other end of the ridge, where Ajax had met his gruesome death. The Grunts broke out into howls of laughter, each one remembering the terrified look on Ajax's face as he had sped down towards death.
"Ready your plasma pistols, my troops, for our attack does not stop here! Our brothers are waiting for us, friends, our brothers of war! With them, we will dominate this base and claim it as ours!" Gamarr roared into the group. They all cheered, waving their plasma pistols enthusiastically in the air. "Gather up your supplies, leave no Grunt who is war-worthy behind, and we will all claim victory!"
With this, each Grunt scrambled for the pile of dead Jackal bodies, claiming fresh plasma pistols as theirs. There weren't enough fresh pistols for everybody, so some Grunts had to settle for pistols which were only at fifty or sixty percent instead of ninety percent. That didn't deter them, however. They were willing to fire their weapon as fearsomely as any other Grunt, and ready to fight to the death.
In all honesty, Gamarr was beginning to lose confidence. Had the first assault merely been a stroke of luck? Had they only won because the Jackals had their backs turned? Gamarr would never know. But they had to push forward. Their fellow Grunts needed him to attain freedom, and he needed them to claim the Jackals' base for the Grunts. He knew that hundreds of Jackals patrolled the base. They had captured a couple hundred of his troops and locked them into dungeons within their base, stripping them of weapons and grenades and tossing them into the weapons storage. The Grunts which were currently with him were the only ones who escaped alive.
Gamarr's thoughts wandered back to the time when there was peace between the various Covenant races. It was hard to call it a friendly peace, however. Gamarr's kind, the Grunts, were considered by higher races to be cannon fodder. Grunts had no voice in the society of the Covenant. They were forced to work at the worst jobs, were always sent out first in battle (to be killed first, inevitably), and were looked down upon, literally, by every other race in the Covenant.
The war had started when an Elite, by the name of Aku Amumee, had killed his own command after a battle on Installation 04 in which his group had barely escaped death. In his command were four Grunts, two Jackals - and his own younger brother. He emerged from the battlefield and returned, reporting that he was the only survivor of the battle. He spun a tale about how he had fought valiantly to the brink of death, trying to defend his command, but had failed. The Prophets bought his story.
That is, until a little Grunt named Lagan opened his eyes, wiped his own blood off of his face, and realized what had happened. He was severely injured, just barely managing to crawl back to the Covenant base. He was delirious by the time he reached the base, and when Covenant guards inquired, he told them that he was the "messenger of truth", and said that he had a message of treachery to share with the Prophets. The guards escorted him to the Prophets, and Lagan told them what had happened.
At first the Prophets did not believe Lagan, until a guard checked Aku Amumee's records, and found that Lagan was indeed under Aku's command and that he was telling the truth. Lagan died minutes after, imagining Aku Amumee's punishment.
The Prophets were outraged, not necessarily at Lagan's death, but at the fact that Aku Amumee had killed his own brother in a greedy, self-absorbed search for glory. But the Prophets made one mistake, one that would cost the Covenant its entire social structure and the fragile peace that hovered between the races.
They announced what Aku Amumee had done to his squad. They showed a video of Lagan's last words, the way he groaned in vivid pain as he barely managed to speak, and how his eyes darted and he smiled slightly as he died.
The news of Aku's crime raised a huge uproar in the Covenant society. Not a single creature trusted Elites anymore, their reputation extremely damaged at this point. To defend themselves, Elites constantly started rumor after rumor to confuse the other species.
Chaos ensued, even after Aku Amumee was executed in public. The Prophets learned of how the Elites had started spreading rumors, and frowned upon their behavior.
Thus, the strongest specie bond in the Covenant, the bond of the Elites and the Prophets, was loosened, as the trust that the other species had in each other was destroyed. Times grew dark as the civil unrest spread throughout the galaxy that the Covenant inhabited, and news soon arrived of the destruction of Installation 04, and the loss of thousands upon thousands of Covenant warriors. This both saddened and angered the rest of the Covenant society, and they plunged further into darkness.
The only Covenant creatures who did not know of the civil war which was arising were those who were headed towards Earth, to annihilate the human race. Contact had been lost with the armada, but now the mission which they were currently attempting to complete was long forgotten by most all of the Covenant.
Gamarr knew he had his own mission. He wanted to return to his frozen home, where the little aliens could live in peace, far away from the civil war of the Covenant.
But as the Grunt looked ahead, off of the ridge, and into the haze-filled encampment, where scores of jackals patrolled, he knew that the day of homecoming was far away.
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