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-The Croton Chronicles: Chapter 2, At least we're not dead...yet

      The nearest Elite clubbed Renner and he was thrown into unconsciousness. When he awoke he found himself in a cell.
"If being captured wasn't bad enough," came the familiar, if not grating, voice of Shandor, "this purple is cruel and unusual punishment."
Renner's vision began to clear and he found that he wasn't the only one in the cell, his spastic radioman Shandor was with him.
"Aw c'mon, I'd rather be dead than stuck with him," Renner whispered to himself. But he also had to agree with him, the purple that bathed the cell was nauseating...at best.
Soon the voices of a number of marines could be heard, most were grumbling about being caught, some were frantically trying to come up with plans for escape, and a few...well actually only one was panicking.
"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! THERE'S NO ESCAPE!" Shandor yelled.
"Stow it marine or god help me I'm gonna...." Renner was cut off as an Elite in spiffy looking black armor trimmed with gold turned off the force field that acted as the door to Renner's cell and yanked him out by his collar.
"HEY! WHAT THE FUCK! LET GO OF ME YOU STUPID BASTARD!" Renner yelled as he was dragged through the corridors of sickly purple...well he didn't know where he was, that however would soon change.

      Renner was taken into a huge chamber, inside the chamber there was a huge curved table. He was dragged to his feet by the elite that had removed him from the Covenant holding cell and almost immediately incredibly bright spot lights came on revealing people...kinda, behind the table. Renner couldn't believe it, he had only heard rumors of what the leaders of the Covenant religion looked liked and sure enough these three creatures fit those descriptions to a tee. Behind the table sat three Covenant Prophets, each one had on an ornamental head dress, flowing robes, and seemed to float in midair (no doubt another gross misuse of Covenant technology). The middle Prophet, whose headdress was significantly bigger than those of his counter parts, began to speak. Renner was immediately forced to bow (in reality he was shoved to the floor by the elite standing behind him).
"Why have you come to this planet?" the Prophet asked in surprisingly good English.
"Why do you think we came here, to kill you and the rest of your entire fucking race before you kill us!" Renner retorted and spat.
He didn't get away with his remark; the elite behind him punched him hard in the kidneys, lucky for Renner he was already on the floor.
The three prophets began to mumble to each other in an alien language that Renner could have never hoped to understand.
"Z'arlemee, bring the human some food." The prophet ordered the elite that had brought Renner into the chamber. Z'arlemee knew better than to refuse an order from a High Prophet, so without hesitation he brought Renner a small tube of something and a canteen that had been taken from one of the marines when they were captured.
"You must be hungry, eat." the prophet directed Renner.
"Never, I'd rather die first." Renner shot back.
The high prophet waved his hand and Z'arlemee grabbed Renner by his jaw, forced his mouth open, and squeezed the contents of the small tube into his mouth. The content of the small tube was the foulest thing Renner had ever tasted yet it seemed to give me renewed vigor.
"What you just ate was a vitamin paste designed specifically to rejuvenate even the most tired soldier" the prophet said.
Renner spit out as much as he could onto the chamber floor,
"Fuck, they weren't kidding when they said the bad tasting shit was good for you" he mumbled as he tried in vain to cleanse his mouth of the foul tasting paste.
"Wise words for such a simple species" the prophet said.
"Why the hell am I here? I didn't know the Covenant took prisoners" Renner asked after having given up on getting rid of the foul taste in his mouth.
"We don't, to us it's a weakness. But this was a special circumstance, and special circumstances require different methods."
"What the hell are you babbling about?"
"You're here because we both know that your forces are vastly outclassed in space and that our ground forces have been unable to gain anymore ground and in fact are losing ground." the prophet said.
"Then what the hell do we have to talk about, we both know the score." Renner responded.
"Since the fall of your military HQ on the planet, I believe you called it Reach; your forces have been dwindling. It has been my suggestion, since before this cursed war began, that our races should be at peace but others have decided that your race is not worthy of the gifts of the gods. So, I suggest that both of our forces immediately declare a cease-fire."
"You're talking about a truce between the Humans and Covenant? You've got to be kidding!? My marines would never go for it, neither would I for that matter." Renner responded in a stunned tone.
"I expected this kind of response. So, in exchange for a truce I and the other prophets on this planet have decided that we will willingly surrender ourselves to your forces. You will also be returned to your men."
Renner was shocked, up until now he thought he'd seen everything; he'd seen millions die when the Covenant mercilessly glassed a planet, he'd seen the ferocity and viciousness of Covenant troops, and he'd seen many of his good friends die right in front of his eyes.
"I'll give you 1 of your hours to decide, take him away." the prophet waved his hand and Z'arlemee dragged Renner back to his cell.
Back in the prophet's chamber, "Do you think he fell for it?" one of the lesser prophets asked the high prophets.
"I don't know. I wouldn't put it past the humans to see right through our plan." the high prophet responded.
"You honestly think that the humans are developed enough to understand the complexities of our plan? The High Prophet Almighty himself has said that the humans are under-developed." the lesser prophet asked.
"You don't know what you're talking about. The High Prophet Almighty summoned the counsel of prophets before this war ever began, it was there that we decided to proliferate the idea that the humans were under-developed and lesser evolved than we are. It's all a lie, the humans could have been the greatest allies we would ever have if it hadn't been for that glory seeking fool that we sent to make first contact in the system the humans call Harvest."
"You mean that the humans could be..."
"SILENCE," The high prophet yelled, "those things are not to be discussed within these walls."
With that the high prophet sent everyone out of the chamber, leaving him with his thoughts. The high prophet thought to himself for a very long time, most of his thoughts were centered on whether his plan would work and if it did could the humans pull it off like he had planned.

      Back in the holding cells Renner was still in shock over what he had heard not more than 10 minutes ago.
"SIR, ARE YOU OKAY SIR!" Shandor continually asked.
In a flash Renner had gone from shock to anger, and stood up and grabbed Shandor's shoulders and slammed him into the wall.
"If you don't shut the FUCK up I'm going to make sure that you don't get out of this alive. You get me soldier." Renner said through gritted teeth.
"I'm.....sorry....I...uh...." Shandor stuttered.
"Alright, we have to get out of here. Those Covie bastards are planning something...something big" Renner said, after having let Shandor fall to the floor.
"What are you talking about sir?" Shandor asked.
"The Covenant are trying to broker a planet wide truce. It sounds too good to be true, and it I think it is." Renner said.
"The Covenant want peace" Shandor said, in a rather loud voice.
"Not so loud Shandor!" Renner whispered, "I don't want the rest of the men to know."
"What are we going to do sir?"
"You speak French Shandor?"
"Yes sir, why?"
*"First, we have to get out of here, where ever here is. Second, we need to 'requisition' us some weapons. Third, we need to find that nuke....I want to leave the Covenant a little present"* Renner said (in French), he then continued to outline his plan. It was a daring plan....actually it was an insane plan, and it just might work.
About an hour later...at least it seemed like an hour. The high prophet that had talked to Renner earlier that day came into the cell block, beckoned all of the Elite guards out of the room and then floated over to Renner's cell.
"I'd like to talk to you" the prophet said.
"If you've come for my decision, it's NO" Renner responded in an insolent tone.
"I haven't come for that" the prophet hit a few buttons on his chair, "there, now we can talk. I've turned off the monitoring devices."
"What do you want now?"
"I want you to help me get out of here."
"How the hell am I supposed to do that, I don't even know where here is."
"You're in a Forerunner facility on the second largest continent on this planet."
"Then how do you explain the Covenant holding cells?"
"We've made some...alterations."
"I'm sure you have...."
"As a gesture of good faith I'm going to release you and your men." The prophet keyed a few more buttons on his chair and all of the force fields turned off.
"You really want us to get you out of here?" Renner asked. He was again shocked by the way this Covenant acted.
"Yes, I do. What I told you in the counsel chamber had been the truth; I do believe that we should have been allies instead of enemies. I don't believe in our reasons for fighting this war, I would like to offer my knowledge and services to your people."
Shandor, who had been asleep until the force fields went down, was standing there in complete shock. Again the prophet keyed a few buttons on his chair and a panel in the wall silently opened and a rack holding plasma rifles and plasma pistols emerged from the opening.
"Here are some weapons; with these I hope you will help both me and your men."
"Alright, we'll help you....but first you have to tell me where they took our weapons when they brought us here, I've got a surprise in store for your old buddies" Renner smugly said to the floating prophet.
"Okay" Renner said, "let's get to those weapons."

      In a split second the whole seen changed, twelve religious guard elites ran into the brig. "Your holiness," the head elite began, but said no more. "Ung," was all the elite could get out as three green dart shaped projectiles flew threw his body and imbedded themselves in the far wall.
"You'll pay for that," another elite yelled.
The only response was a deep laugh and the clacking of mandibles.
"Crap," Renner thought, "this is going to get really ugly really fast. We've got to get out of hear."
While hiding in a corner he heard the high pitched whine of small projectiles and the scream of dying elites.
The prophet was amazed that these were his high guard, undefeated and damn near invincible, being slaughtered like sheep. His thought of amazement were cut short, an elite dived in front of him but to no avail the projectile passed straight through him and capped the prophet square in the head.
"Damn those lesser prophets," was his last thought, for in that second he knew who had caused his death. "But how...these were defiantly not their troops...," and he was sent to paradise.
Renner stood up from his fetal position.
"Well they look dead...so what the hell just happened?"
"Who gives a shit," Hillock said.
"Yes," Grater said as he ran over and put on the dead prophets crown, "let us take it as a sign from the gods." He said crossing his eyes and waving his arms around. "I want peace with the humans."
"Bullshit," Hillock laughed.
At that point everybody started laughing, no sleep, and fighting the covenant will do that to you.
Then they heard the same deep laugh as before, but not a sinister one this time. An elite in solid dark green armor appeared before them.
"You aliens are really too much," He said in perfect English, "too bad I'll have to kill you."
"Are you sure about that?" Renner said.
"Way to be our fearless leader, that will show 'em," Hillock snorted.
The elite just laughed, and so did Shandor.
"What's wrong with that one?" The elite pointed to Shandor.
"Him," Renner said pointing again at Shandor, "he's just missing a few important chromosomes, if you are going to kill us kill him first."
"Well he really doesn't seem to be a threat, so he'll die last and you first," the Elite laughed to himself.
His plans for torture and death were cut short, when three hunters bounded in, they were led by the same oversized one Renner had seen outside.
"TIHS," The elite yelled, which means shit in his own language.

      The big hunters' arm shot out and grabbed the elite's head. There was a brief pause followed by a crunch; the elites head popped like an over ripe grape. In the ensuing battle the hunters took multiple hits, the two smaller hunters went down rather quickly but the big guy just stood there. He dropped his shield, paused for a split second, and shot a quick jab with his right hand hitting a, now visible, invisible elite across the room.
Abruptly the shooting stopped.
The elite stood up to face his would be assailant.
"NO WAY!" Shandor yelled, "DID YOU SEE THAT, HE SMACKED HIM OUT OF THE AIR LIKE A FLY!"
"Shut up you fucking retard," Grater said while simultaneously punching Shandor in the face.
"Everybody just keep quite so that we can get out of hear in one piece!" Renner screamed.

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