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RATIONS
short stories from the halo universe
#1: SLAYER
The jungle raids were taking their toll on corporal Helena Lauritson.
Her hands hurt from the AIE-486H machine gun, her eyes hurt from the infrared goggles, and she felt like if it weren't for the safety line connecting her to the D-77A pelican gunship she'd fall off.
However, popping a stim-pack soon fixed that. The small chewy tab had a vile, artificial coffee flavor to it, but it gave a semi-enjoyable rush, and greatly reduced her fatigue.
Helena didn't know the exact details of it, but FLEETCOM had ordered that all Covenant forces in the Odigre Jungle area of R2514-Beta to be eliminated by air raids. Apparently, a covenant carrier got separated from its battle group, and was hunted down by a pair of UNSC ships that disabled it.
The surviving crew of the covies' ship landed on the moon, and the order was given to eliminate them.
"Heads up Bravo 3, we're coming in on a covenant camp. Target the sha-
Suddenly Helena heard a sound like a glass skyscraper collapsing and was temporarily blinded by a purple flash.
She could barely hear anything, it all sounded dull and far away… something about covenant turrets…
Cold air again.
Tail blown off, burned steel smell.
Strange pain in her chest.
Slumped against the hatch.
Falling.
Run, jump, pull the handle.
The wings of her HAWK flight suit (which makes the user look less like a hawk and more like a flying squirrel) deployed, and she rose upward as if rockets had been attached to her front.
She glided for about 25 seconds total before crashing softly into the canopy, safe as far as she could tell. Pelican flight crews that had been downed always gave high praise to the HAWK suit, and she could see why.
It was faster than a parachute, so it didn't present much of a target.
Corporal Lauritson cut herself free from the vines of the jungle, and took 30 to check her kit. She had one M7 caseless SMG with 4 magazines and a compass attachment, a medical pack, a portable hydrogenerator, an IR pilots helmet, a combat knife, a self-launching flare, and 2 days worth of rations.
She estimates she'll be here for 4 days.
Sq'ono Dwolomee ran away for the first time in his life of 94 units under the bright night sky.
What he had seen had completely shattered his faith in the covenant; no one would believe him, a heretic, doomed to public disembowelment for knowing the truth.
He would join the other heretics, with the humans. Only the brutes and a few of the dumber grunts still believed the lies of the prophets. Surely they could be overcome… he had to find a way off the moon first…
Dwolomee did not know why he had been created as an elite. He wondered why the gods had made him, an elite warrior with the heart of an Unggoy (Grunt). Then he remembered that it was quite likely that there were no gods.
His eye caught something, moving fast in the air. Probably the native wildlife.
He was wondering what it would be like if he had to live on this moon forever when something strobed bright orange in the jungle.
He heard an alarm sound in his helmet, and realized that his shields had been hit by a human's weapon.
Helena realized that it wasn't a brute she was shooting at when the elite's shields flashed. She clearly remembered her CO telling her about the recent covenant schism.
The elites were on their side now… sort of.
The large, vaguely reptilian alien said, in plain Standard, "Don't shoot!"
She holstered her submachine gun.
The elite poked his head out from behind the rock he was taking cover at.
"Don't shoot" it said again, this time quietly.
She saw it's long-fingered hand drop the carbine it was holding.
It came out from behind the rock entirely now, and she could see it in full size. It half combat-crouched so that it stood at about 2.5 meters tall. She stepped towards it, and it took a few hurried steps back. "Don't shoot" it said, evidently one of the few phrases in it's Standard vocabulary.
It was afraid of her.
Dwolomee was very nervous. Even though it was almost a week after the schism, he had seen humans kill his kind without mercy. Understandable, but even a normal Sangheili would be cautious around this human.
The thing was around a third of a unit tall, and it looked different than most humans he had seen. Maybe it was a female.
The human said something to him: "You speak Standard?"
Dwolomee had to make strange movements with his mandibles to speak the human language: "Yes"
The alien looked like it was having some difficulty speaking.
"Lets get a ride" she said.
Fieldmaster Iragius feared nothing, but he had always felt uncomfortable in enclosed spaces. The small cave was lit purple with the portable command displays manned by the jackals, and the temperature was uncomfortably warm due to the warm-blooded brutes on board.
"Fieldmaster, another phantom is down. No survivors."
Iragius looked at the low ranking Jiralhanae who brought him the news. He was barely over adolescent age. Good, a fighter with zeal, fervor. Unlike the Sangheili, traitors to the covenant.
"And good news- The excavation team has reached the door."
Iragius stiffened at this development.
"Bring the oracle."
The Jungle had gave way to a kind of 2 meter grass plain, apparently this planets equivalent of a desert. It was raining softly, and aside from the shower all was quiet.
Helena was using the compass attachment of her SMG the to find her way back to base, so the elite was on lookout.
She was recalibrating the thing for the 4th time today when the elite asked her a question.
"Will they try to kill me?"
"Uhh, I don't think so. Almost all humans know about the schism now."
Suddenly a long purple bolt of energy streaked across the plain, it's immense thermal energy heating the air around them a few degrees.
Both had dropped to the ground just in time, the sniper was obviously less experienced.
After a few more shots, the elite had crawled closer to her.
"I have an idea, but it will require your cooperation."
Jeshik Y'onmaq cursed under his breath. He should have spent more time at the simulator.
However, he could have sworn he saw the hunched over shape of a Sangheili… Suddenly he a burst of carbine fire, and as soon as he got a bead on the running human a Sangheili grabbed her and fired another shot from his carbine.
As Jeshik's squad walked towards the elite he noticed that the grunts were trying their best to look like actual soldiers.
The human squirmed like something Jeshik had once eaten in the grip of the Sangheili.
"This one is a rough prisoner" said the 8 foot warrior.
"Hmm. I hope that won't affect the taste. It looks tender enough."
"The Hell I am" said Helena as she pulled out her machine pistol. She fired a long burst at the Jackal while diving for cover.
The human sized alien nearly exploded in a burst of purple gore, and the grunts immediately ran away.
The elite hesitated a moment before expertly shooting each grunt in the head.
However, jackals rarely operate alone.
The two life forms were silent as they hunted the last birdlike combatant, finally spotted hiding behind a rock.
The elite destroyed it's shield with his plasma rifle, and Helena finished it off with her SMG.
They had made camp in a cave 2 miles from the covenant base, which they were sure would be completely foolish to try to stay in, and the cave was at a high altitude, so that if a pelican happened to fly close enough she could activate the flare to maximum effect.
The elite (Dwolomee it had asked her to call it) was eating happily, something that looked almost exactly like an ancient kitchen sponge.
Helena however, was left with "Pork in BBQ sauce" rations.
The stuff looked like it wasn't made of anything indigenous to Earth.
It occurred to her that their foods were probably toxic to each other, and at any rate the sponge looked like it wasn't much better than the rations.
She tried to remember what real food tasted like, but the UNSC rations felt like they made some kind of chemical blocking to that part of her memory.
She remembered Reach, her home planet. She used to live somewhere on the coast, a little north of the equator.
She remembered that a landscaper had once tried to import Terran palm trees, resulting in the continent being almost completely covered in them by 2497. They had to engineer a special virus that would kill something like a third of them.
She wondered whether they could engineer a virus to kill the brutes…
Next morning she was waken by something large, hard, and powerful nudging her back. It was Dwolomee's hoof boot. He was holding something furry in his hands.
"I thought that I might be able to eat this. Do you know what it is?"
"That's a rabbit". She looked at the small dead creature with mixed disgust and hunger.
It was hard to tell with the helmet, but Dwolomee looked thoughtful.
"Does it…taste good?"
The skinned, gutted, and drained rabbit tasted better than her rations once it had been roasted over the fire.
Dwolomee had no trouble chewing his portion, and Helena watched his quadrisect mandibles tear off large chunks.
The elite ate hungrily, but made a face that looked like he was smiling.
She had learned over the years that this was the elite version of a grimace.
The big alien looked as if it suddenly remembered something, then reached for a pouch on its back. The pouch was red, and appeared to be embellished with gold thread patterns.
It took a pinch from the bag with both thumbs of it's left hand (the pinch was quite large, due to the size of it's thumb) and sprinkled it on the meat.
"What's that?"
"A spice from a long time ago. I've been saving it."
The stuff smelled like an overused sock dipped in pepper sauce.
The pelican moved closer and closer over the jungle canopy, and Helena waited extremely eagerly for the opportune moment to deploy the flare. Now.
The flare rocketed up from its mini stand, leaving a trail of smoke that smelled of old eggs. The flare burst into a bright red ball of light, making a sound like a screeching owl.
The pelican dropped steadily, turning around as it did so.
Then the door gunner opened fire, the rounds making a wet smacking sound as they impacted on something behind her.
She turned around to see Dwolomee, half of his body blown away, purple blood and organs strewn across himself and the ground.
Her emotions were mixed as she rode the pelican to camp Tango 10, partly feeling as if she had lost a comrade in battle, partly feeling as if a pet of hers had died.
She gripped the foul-smelling spice bag in her hand, it was about the size of a handbag but to him it must have been only a small thing.
Him.
The dead pet feeling was gone.
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