Concurrence Chapter 4-7

2755 words. 

She followed him as he dashed from sidewalk to sidewalk – keeping the potholes in mind this time around of course – sticking to the shadows wherever they could as the Phantom rose above the city after depositing its troops, beginning a lazy circle over the area. Its bay doors were still open to allow the Unggoy-manned plasma turrets to add even more aerial cover, one on each side. Seela lived for combat, but she’d be a fool to let herself be killed so swiftly by four plasma cannons.

They cut through a building rather than cross the next street in the open, the space littered with overturned tables and chairs, the arrangement reminding her of the dining establishments on the homeworld, this place must play some similar role.

Halfway through, the Major held up a fist, the gesture obviously meaning stop, Seela pausing behind a chair obediently. He pointed a gloved hand to the way they were going, the outside road turning at a right angle, leading north and east. A Jiralhanae and two Unggoy were loitering around in the rain, their backs to Seela and the Major as they kept watch.

The Major opted to wait for them to move on, he and Seela taking up positions behind fallen tables, but after a few minutes, Seela tapped him on the shoulder. “They are watching the street, they will not move for some time. We must kill them.”

“Could double back,” he countered. “but… we need to go this way. Fine.”

Seela almost thanked him by how much relief was coursing through her. Finally, she could take out her frustrations on a traitor. “No grenades,” he quickly added. “I doubt you have a suppressor for that carbine, but suppose it’s not the loudest gun out there.”

He drew his pistol, the weapon barely bigger than her thumbs, but she knew not to underestimate the stopping power behind Human weapons. “The Jiralhanae will have shields,” she said. “I can destroy them easily enough, you deal with the Unggoy. Grunts,” she added when he made to ask her.

“How many shots does it take to collapse a shield?”

“Five.”

“Too many,” he said. He drew a Covenant plasma pistol from his belt, taking aim with both of his sidearms. “I’ll take his shields, then you pop him in the head. Ready?”

“Always,” she answered.

She scoped in on the traitorous Jiralhanae, watching from the corner of her eye as the Major overcharged the plasma pistol, the weapon wobbling in his hand. When it reached maximum charge, he sent it, taking aim with his Human pistol as the bolt sailed towards the group. There were two loud snaps as he downed the pair of Unggoy with precise headshots, the Jiralhanae yelping in alarm as his underlings slumped to the street.

The bolt slammed into his backside with all the force of a hammer, and he stumbled around, his eyes going wide as he looked down the barrel of Seela’s carbine. She pulled the trigger, and the Jiralhanae joined his dead squad without another sound. The whole attack had lasted about five seconds, Seela and the Major turning their heads towards each other in the ensuing silence.

“Nice shot,” he said. “Let’s go, the other patrols might have heard something.”

They walked out into the rain, the Major stepping over the felled Jiralhanae, Seela lingering as she overlooked the dead patrol. Killing from the shadows wasn’t an unheard of strategy, Sangheili swordsman often used cloaking technology to close in on their targets, but she’d always preferred facing her foe down where they could see one another. Yet this precise, hasty attack was no less thrilling than open warfare. She wondered why that was…

She noticed the Major was putting some distance between them, and she hurried after, the sound of the Phantoms engines fading into the distance as they slipped deeper into the city. When she was confident they weren’t being followed, she spoke up, her mandibles flexing in a grin.

“The Brutes are none the wiser,” she said. “I have heard tales of Imps striking from the shadows, but to be participating with one, it’s a novel experience.”

“They’ll find out their patrol’s dead soon enough,” the Major interjected. “They’ll know someone’s been in the area. We’ve just painted a bigger target on our backs.”

“Then we shall face them down like the glorious thorns in the Covenant’s side like we are.”

The Major huffed, his first word trailing out from a laugh. “You’re impossible, Seela.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m so used to working with patient people, soldiers who pick their fights, not hot heads like you.”

“I don’t know what a hot head is, but I’ll take it as an insult, given how many slurs you like to send my way.”

“Hot heads are-”

He stopped, whipping around, the sound of the Phantoms engines returning in force as the ship banked into view above the rooftops, one of its searchlights swiping over the street they were stood in. They threw themselves into the closest building, the entire face of the structure made of shattered glass, the two vaulting into the shadows to take cover.

The searchlight locked onto their hiding spot. The Major might have been able to go undetected, his dark armour helping him blend into the darkness, but Seela’s power armour held no such concealing properties, reflecting the searchlight like a beacon as the Phantom locked onto her.

“The shadows fail us,” she muttered.

“You mean your white armour failed us!” the Major replied. “Get down!”

There were a pair of marble columns a little deeper into the building, and they ducked behind them as a barrage of plasma fire streamed down from above. They appeared to have entered another space filled with tables and other furniture, the plasma melting through the wood and plastic as the dropship’s guns opened up.

She peeked round the column between the volleys of fire, seeing an Unggoy on the side of the dropship was rotating a cannon mounted on a flexible arm, the little creature barely tall enough to look down its sights.

That wasn’t the only weapon the Phantom had. On the chin of the slowly lowering vessel, another, larger cannon rotated on a gimble, the barrel splitting into three long arms arranged in a triangular shape. She knew from experience that its gunner was the copilot, safely nestled out of sight in the cockpit.

It aimed its multitude of barrels at her position, Seela crouching behind the column as it sent a burst of plasma her way, the muzzles glowing pink with heat as it suppressed her position.

She could feel the heat on the column as it took the brunt of the attack, Seela noticing the Major’s cover was faring no better. He was to the left of her, the pillar turning to liquid as the heat splashed against it in droves.

She leaned her carbine round the side of her cover, exposing as little of her body as she blind-fired at the dropship, knowing her weapon couldn’t penetrated the ship’s hull but wanting to retaliate all the same.

“We’ll die if we don’t move!” he yelled over the plasma fire, clutching his weapon in his hand but refraining from using his ammo.

“Open to ideas!” she shouted back, ducking away to reload.

“Wait, you hear that?”

She was about to ask when he was talking about, when she did. It was a distant ringing sound, coming from somewhere to their right. She looked that way, spotting a door at the far side of the room, the lightbulb above it flicking on suddenly, despite being off not a few moments ago.

“Cover me,” the Major said. Without warning he dashed across the open, narrowly dodging a stream of plasma fire that almost cut him down. Now he was behind her column, Seela leaning away as he edged closer out of the line of fire. “I mean that literally,” he added. “you have shields, I don’t. On three.”

He counted down, and they ran across to the door, dodging round tables and couches, the Phantom’s guns tracking them in their mad dash. Her shields absorbed the fist-sized rounds, but they didn’t last long against concentrated plasma from a cannon, and she let slip a pained moan as a grazing shot skimmed the back of her leg.

She ducked under the frame, the two finding themselves in a Human kitchen, the thick walls cutting of the Phantom’s line of fire. Pots and plates were stacked high on cabinets that would be unreachable to a Human without assistance, one such stack falling to the ground with a clatter as the Phantom began to harry at the building with its vast firepower.

Her companion wasted no time, running for another door on the opposite wall, Seela glancing at the strange appliances lining the room’s edges as she followed, the scent of cold food wafting into her nose. Her leg throbbed with pain every time she put weight on it, but she couldn’t let the pain stop her, she had to keep moving.

The Major shoved the door open with his shoulder, the frame swinging open to reveal a dark alley lined with waste bins and discarded bags of rotting food, rain drenching everything in a shining layer of water. Seela had to crouched to squeeze herself through the frame, knocking aside the door which had swung back to hit her on the face.

She looked up, seeing the Phantom’s bulbous shape framed against the dark clouds, the chin cannon adjusting its aim as the dropship drifted over their heads.

“This way!” the Major said, his boots splashing against the ground as he took off in a sprint down the alley. Seela ducked under an awning projecting out of one of the buildings, for once glad of the cities confusing design as the many protruding facades made it difficult for the Phantom to zero-in on her.

“Do you even know where you are going?” she shouted, running as fast as her pained leg would allow, her paces so much longer than his that her speed mattered little as she caught up with him.

“Not yet!” he answered, Seela giving him a bewildered look as he navigated the alleys. She couldn’t see the Phantom, but she could hear it, the aircraft’s vector engines flaring and dampening as it circled the skies, seemingly sounding like it was all around them.

The ringing noise from before was getting closer with each second, that must be what the Major was running towards, and sure enough, they emerged from the alleys back into the open streets, and just across the road were four stations lining the wall. They were strange, blocky devices with number pads on them, protected by glass domes where Humans would presumably stand in cover while they used them.

One of the devices was giving off that incessant ringing noise. “Phones,” he explained. “they’re like the communicator in your helmet.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to answer it?” she asked. “Who could be hailing us anyway?”

The phone stopped ringing, and a bright light drew her attention to the left. There was an archway sheltering some sort of underground entrance, the sign above the incline flashing on and off, the word unreadable to her.

“Caution!” a synthetic voice said from over by the phones. “Surface traffic is busier than usual, please consider using subway systems! Don’t forget your ticket!”

“Thank fuck, come on!”

“Who was that?” Seela asked, but the Major didn’t answer her, taking off in a sprint towards the flashing entrance, kicking up splashes of water with his boots. She took off after him, her hooves thundering across the street, glancing back over her shoulder to see the Phantom was pivoting on the spot, its rear engines pulsing. In a moment it would make a pass right over her position.

She threw herself into the awning, the spot of light from the Phantom’s searchlight washing over the entrance not a second later, the ceiling casting harsh shadows on the concrete. Seela rolled down the first couple steps before finding her balance, aiming her carbine up at the sky, but the Phantom wasn’t there. The ship was making another pass at the alleyways they’d come from, she had not been seen.

She jogged down the steps four at a time, seeing the Major had already reached the bottom. When she joined him, she planted her hands on her knees, depositing her carbine on the ground as she collected herself. She looked up the stairwell, watching the thunderous sky occasionally glow bright white as lightning streaked, her heart pounding against her chest. Was she… exhilarated, right now? How could fleeing from her enemy inspire such excitement in her heart? Perhaps it was just the lack of breath, she had never had to run so hard in a long time…

“That was too close,” the Major muttered, the Human likewise panting for breath, one of his arms leaning against the chiselled stone wall.

“Too close?” she echoed. “We were literally fired upon. That’s not close, that’s compact.”

He shrugged, or maybe that was just him fighting for air, she couldn’t tell. Seela took a moment to examine their surroundings in the following silence. The place was large and mostly empty, save for a few strips of railway tracks that cut channels into the colourless floor, with a depth of maybe her hooves to her chest. They were underground, obviously, the ceiling a huge stretch of tiled brickwork, with slopes instead of harsh edges at the corners. How much weight from the surface was sitting atop this thick roof? Just the thought made her nervous.

There were small shelters and sitting booths flanking the channels, the rails appearing and disappearing from tunnel mouths on either side of the complex. It reminded her of the place she had made her stand, only much bigger and more open. Kikowani, had the Major called it?

“Should be able to throw off the Phantom now,” the Major said, likewise giving the area a look over. “There’s plenty of other exits leading up to the surface, just have to pick one.”

He began to walk off, and Seela’s nostrils flared in agitation, stopping his trek as she reached over to clasp his helmet between her finger and thumbs, turning his head around to face her with all the effort of plucking an unruly housepet.

“Who, was, that?!” she repeated, jabbing her free hand over her shoulder. “You said before we were stranded in this city, yet we were coerced into this hiding place by… by someone!”

“Stranded doesn’t mean being alone,” he replied, still being mysterious even with her giant hand engulfing his head. She wondered how much effort it would take to crush his puny helmet.

“If you do not answer me in the next five seconds, I’m leaving.”

“Best ultimatum I’ve ever been offered.”

“You need me, fool,” she growled, leaning close to his face, knowing where his eyes were by memory despite only seeing her reflection in his mirrored visor. “I am the only thing stopping you from walking into a wandering Brute patrol.”

“I could take my chances,” he replied. “You know how good I am at slipping past Covenant.”

“Perhaps I should fire off a shot, then? Lure the Phantom and their forces to this place? I am not afraid to die, but you are, your mission is too important, you said so yourself.”

“Fine…” the Major sighed, rolling his eyes judging by the way his helmet moved. “I have a contact in the city, alright? A… sleeper agent. It’s like a spy,” he added when Seela cocked her head in confusion. “There, can you put me down now?

She blinked when she noticed his feet had left the floor at some point, and she deposited him back on the ground a little harder than was appropriate, the Human stumbling as she released him.

“See? Not so hard to give me a straight answer, is it?” she chided. “Now we may proceed.”

He grumbled something she didn’t quite catch, taking the lead as they delved into the complex. The place was huge, with various branching hallways twisting out of sight along the wall to their left, no doubt leading to more, identical areas like this one.

“So,” she began, lowering her carbine so she could nudge her way through the debris littering the floor. “can this sleeper agent contact you only through those ‘phones’?”