Concurrence Chapter 4-3

2650 words

The Major

Streets of New Mombasa

Eight Hours After Rupture

“I don’t know what I’m looking at here,” the Major muttered.

Winking an eye shut, he adjusted the magnification with his right hand, using his left to hold the scope to his opened eye. There was no real reason to carry scopes when his shotgun was his go-to weapon, but it was small, portable, and perfect for recon.

The view granted him an omnipresent vision, bringing him closely to a curved road that swept round the base of a fire station, maybe two hundred feet away. There were black plasma burns all over the building, its once striking coat of red paint now dark and scorched, the Covenant had probably targeted emergency services right after mowing down any military presence. A hose tower that jutted out of one side of the station had been decapitated, a plume of smoke trailing from its top.

The street they had been following ringed the station’s right side, the lanes flanked by cars and trucks, as if the drivers had pulled over before abandoning their vehicles. The road then curved back to the left, disappearing behind the bulk of the station. The road almost looked like a question mark from this angle.

He and Seela had set up on the balcony of a nearby office block, the Elite to his left as they peered over the handrail, exposing as little of their helmets as they overlooked the junction, distant noises putting them on edge.

There was movement at the base of the hose tower, the Major’s view zooming until two Brutes filled it, their red armours shining in the glow of a nearby traffic light. They had their backs turned, crouching on their knees as they wrestled with some sort of mass lying at their feet.

“Let me see,” Seela said, gesturing for the scope. He promptly ignored her, watching as one of the Brutes leaned down, hauling the mass to his armoured chest, presenting it to his counterpart.

Only now did he get a good look at whatever it was they were trying to overpower. It looked like some kind of air sack with tails and tentacles sprouting out of its sides, the tips of its appendages covered in cerulean points of light. On its back were teeth-shaped bits of armour, hiding the bulk of its glistening body. A long, winding neck trailed out of its chest, the appendage capped with some sort of helmet, a solitary blue eye serving as its visor.

The Brute not holding the bizarre alien produced a plasma grenade, thrusting his arm forward and driving the explosive into a cavity on the creature’s soft belly, his long arm burying up to the wrist in its flesh, a burbling screech carrying on the air. The Brute pulled its arm away, its palm empty of the plasma charge, and the Brutes seemed satisfied, the one pinning the alien now letting it go.

The creature began to drift into the air like a balloon, floating with its slug-like neck twisting left and right, beginning some kind of patrol as the Brutes lifted their heads to watch it, one of them giving the other a nudge as he laughed at something.

“I think that’s a Huragok,” Seela muttered, snatching the scope out of his hands. The scope looked tiny in her massive arms, Seela pinching it between her fingers as she held it up. “This magnification is terrible,” she mumbled. “How you see anything with these is beyond me.”

“Then use your carbine,” he sighed.

“… I was just about to,” she defended, bringing the weapon to bear in a way that came off as flustered.

“Better not pull the trigger,” he said, his rigging shifting as he adjusted his weight. “And give that back.”

She rolled the scope towards him rather than just hand it to him, the two watching for a while as the floating alien milled about a dozen or so meters above the street.

“Yes, definitely a Huragok,” Seela confirmed, tracking it with her weapon. The Major just preffered to call them Engineers. “We used them – we as in the Covenant – used them as technicians mostly. What were they doing with it just now?”

“They shoved a grenade down its throat,” he explained. “They planning on blowing it up?”

“I do not know,” she replied. “I have never seen one outside of a ship before.”

“Me either.” The Major pulled up a mental image of the kiosk map, having checked one only minutes earlier. The Superintendent had insisted this was the best route towards his objective, and that doubling back and taking any other route would add hours to his journey he simply could not spare. They would have to go through.

“There’s plenty of cover by those vehicles,” he said, gesturing down at the road. “Those Brutes are sticking close to the station, so we should be able to slip through if we keep our distance.”

“Slip through?” Seela repeated. “There are only two of them, plus the Huragok, and it is an easy target.”

“Listen to me,” he said. “We don’t know what that Engineer is capable of, and there’s definitely more than just two Brutes. See how those cars are all off the road? The Covenant moved them to clear the street, probably to let vehicles get through. We don’t stand a chance against mechanised infantry in a frontal assault.”

“Your tendency to slink around like a coward is becoming tiresome,” Seela growled, pointing her carbine at the ground as she swivelled to face him.

“Vigilance is not the same as being a coward,” the Major shot back. “Let’s say we do it your way and a Ghost comes flying over, you think you or I will be able to frag it before we get overwhelmed? You willing to take that chance?”

“Yes,” she bluntly replied, the Major sighing in frustration.

“Fine, go kill yourself but give me a few minutes to get clear, you’ll provide a distraction at least.”

“You are not leaving without me, Imp.” She raised her carbine, just a little, but enough for him to notice. “You said we would wait for opportunities to slay the Covenant, how is this not a chance for vengeance?”

“It might be, but we need to evaluate them a bit more first,” he said. “Let’s circle them, and once we’ve got a number on their forces, we can go from there.”

He thought that if they could safely reach the other side of the station, he could slip away if Seela decided to sate her bloodlust. She was such a hot-head, and he imagined she’d have charged right into the Engineer if he wasn’t here to reign her in. As amusing as that would have been to see, they had to stay hidden.

“Very well,” Seela conceded. “But if we are discovered, I want to see you firing your weapon, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Great, I’ll take that,” he replied, surveying the junction. “Okay, I’ll keep an eye on the Engineer, you move to those cars on my signal.”

“No,” Seela replied. “I will cover, you will lead.”

“The fuck is with you and making me lead?” the Major shout-whispered, as raising his voice might give them away. “Just go, I’ll be right behind you.”

“The last time I trusted someone to watch my back, they ended up shooting it,” she snarled back. “And I do not trust you, Heretic. You might retreat the moment I leave this balcony. That, is a chance I’m not willing to take. Lead on,” she insisted, gesturing with her carbine at the street below.

“Whatever,” he grumbled. “Just don’t linger, I won’t wait forever.”

Staying low, he crept back into the room the balcony extended out of until he was sure he could stand without being spotted. It was a typical office workspace, a grid pattern of cubicles stretching from one wall to the other, the monitots blue with error screens. There was a stairwell at the far end he and Seela had made they way up from minutes earlier, the Major backtracking until he was back at the foyer, now underneath Seela’s position as he stalked up the street.

He ducked behind the boot of a sedan, turning his helmet up as he watched the Engineer bob about near the fire station’s sloped roof. Like Seela had said, he had only seen the creatures inside Covenant ships, doing as their namesake suggested as they maintained the alien starships. They were the only non-combatant species in the Covenant. Maybe the Brutes had decided to change that, having replaced the Elites as the Prophet’s new favourite after all.

Dangerous or not, the Brutes had shoved a grenade into the Engineer’s stomach, the implication not lost on the Major as he treaded lightly through the frozen traffic, each splash of his boots making his chest tighten with anxiety. The Two Brutes were on his left as he worked his way up the street, stopping behind a van as he peered back at Seela’s sniping position.

He could see her tall, sweeping helmet as she panned her carbine over the street, pausing for a moment before she rose up, planting a foot on the lip of the railing. Rather than follow in his example, Seela simply jumped off the side of the building, rolling when she landed on the street, the Major wincing as he heard her armour creak from the impact. She was definitely not the subtle type.

Following the same route he’d taken, she stalked through the cars, keeping as low as her tall frame could allow, the Major continuing on up the street when she was close. They moved from car to car, close enough to the aliens the Major could pick out the guttural breaths of the Brutes, the rain providing enough volume on its own to cover all the little noises his boots or Seela’s hooves made as they moved.

The Engineer drifted out of sight behind the station, making for a poor scout even with its aerial advantage. After a couple of minutes, they reached the other side of the fire station, but as the Major rounded the bulk of an abandoned truck, what he saw made him pause.

A garage was built into this face of the station, but instead of housing a fire truck, a giant purple vehicle plugged the space. Its design was smooth and bulbous, more resembling of Covenant aircraft then any type of land vehicle, with a rounded nose and two fins protruding out of the sides of the chassis, the vehicle maybe thirty feet wide and just as long. There were two turrets mounted on the top of the vehicle, a plasma cannon for the copilot, and a mortar turret serving as the main weapon.

The Wraith was the Covenant’s artillery tank equivalent, capable of tearing through infantry as well as armour at extreme ranges. The Major had been worried about Ghosts, but nothing aside from Covenant carriers inspired as much concern as a Wraith did.

“What’s wrong?” Seela whispered, stopping just behind him. She followed his gaze around the hood of the truck, her eyes widening as she spotted the parked Wraith.

He glared at her behind his visor, gesturing at the tank as if to say told you so. From behind the Wraith’s bulk appeared two Grunts, chasing pieces of rock as they rolled them around with their stumpy feet. If they had opted to fire on the Brutes, those aliens would have jumped straight into their tank.

“You were right,” Seela muttered, the Major picking up on a bit of shame in her tone. He’d gloat over this later, right now they had to put as much distance from here as they could.

He scanned the street ahead, the road splitting into two directions, north and west. The north road was clear, the road inclining to higher ground, but the other was not, the Major spotting two Jackals and a Brute behind a pair of plasma barriers, the screens of shimmering energy taller than Seela was. The Jackals were sweeping their needle rifles lazily around, but the Brute was more attentive, the Major ducking out of view as he reared his ugly head towards their hiding spot.

“Sentries,” he told Seela, holding up a hand when she made to look. “Don’t look, the Brute’s watching.”

“We cannot slip past them,” Seela noted. “They watch the entire street.”

“Don’t have to,” he replied. “We’re going the other way, but there’s not much cover. We’ll have to wait for an opening and dash across.”

“Perhaps its for the best we leave this patrol be,” Seela said. “I thought all our Wraiths had been recalled to the carrier for the redeployment.”

“Guess they missed one,” he said. “Looks like you’re finally starting to think like an operative,” he added, her reluctance to fight a tank surprising him.

“Operative?” she asked.

“Never mind. I’ll go first, wait here until I signal it’s clear, then you follow.”

He waited until the Brute he had his back turned, then the Major dashed across the street, being out in the open for so long making the hairs on his neck stand on end. There was about ten meters of open ground between the sides of the street, and every second in it was horrible. A plasma bolt in the back was not the way he’d imagined going out.

He stomped over the lane markers, splashing the puddles of rainwater that had formed in the potholes as he dipped behind a letterbox on the far side of the road, breathing a sigh of relief as he hid in its shadow.

He peeked over at the Jackals and the Brute, they had not noticed him, but there wasn’t any room for relaxing, Seela still had to sneak past. When they weren’t paying attention, he nodded towards Seela, but the Elite just shrugged back at him. Did she not know what a nod was? He realised he had never described to her what his signal would be. Thinking quickly, he raised a fist at her and extended the thumb.

She understood the gesture, the alien breaking cover and moving into the street, the biggest target in the world. About halfway through her dash, she slipped, the Major looking down to see she’d caught one of her hooves in a pothole, the Elite tumbling to the street, her carbine skidding along the pavement.

The Major’s heart started to race, but his concern was directed towards the Covenant. In the tranquillity of the storm, the clattering of her armour had been very loud, and one of the Jackals squawked, pointing a claw in the fallen Elite’s direction.

The Brute unleashed an intimidating roar, lifting a plasma rifle and firing it in Seela’s direction, her shields flashing as they absorbed the energy. She was closer to the truck than the Major, so she doubled back, pressing herself against the vehicle as her shields depleted.

The Jackal’s suppressed her hiding spot with their needle rifles, the supersonic crystals shattering against the engine block, but the Major was looking elsewhere. The Grunts next to the Wraith had jumped out of their skin the second the shooting started, clambering over each other as they scrambled up the flank of the Wraith. In a few moments that thing would be sending plasma bolts the size of cars her way.

The Major considered leaving her. She was a huge target that would just draw even more attention to him, and the Covenant would be focused on her while he snuck away, but something gave him pause. She was a prime source of intel on the Covenant, and if he could exfil her, humanity would have a chance to learn more about the Covenant’s plans, that kind of information could be crucial for Earth’s survival.