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A Demon Never Dies by Cthulhu117
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A Demon Never Dies-I of III
Date: 30 March 2007, 12:43 pm
A Demon Never Dies-I of III
Honor is a fool's prize. Glory is no good to the dead.
--Darth Revan
Ninth Age of Reclamation
Covenant Holy City Clear Morality
Valley of Tears
The six-winged leghia birds of the Valley of Tears squawked in pain as their peaceful lives were abruptly ended by a larger group of airborne visitors. The Covenant Banshees were not heavy vehicles, but they traveled too fast for anything in their way to survive. Their engines streamed trails of photons, phasing from indigo to violet.
When traveling at that speed, however, the Banshees were vulnerable: they were weaponless.
Special Operative Major Zara 'Tursamee planned to punish these careless Jiralhanae for their arrogance.
She nodded to the four Unggoy as they struggled along under the weight of their fuel rod cannons. Wearily, they crouched and aimed. The Banshees were difficult targets at this speed, but they were also oblivious to the activity beneath them.
All the Unggoy had to do was wait for them to start to move away . . .and then open fire.
The muffled thumps of the fuel rods were neatly stifled by the soft hiss of the waterfall. The Jiralhanae never saw the bombardment coming. Two of the three Banshees were blown clean out of the sky, their purple armor melting and deforming under the heat released by the exploding crystals. The third pilot, the one in front, saw his comrades go down and swung his Banshee away, a second too late. The shot clipped his right wing, and his Banshee described a melancholy circle in the air for a few seconds before another shot brought it down in flames. It plowed up a furrow through the mud of the valley and came to a stop within the reach of Zara's arm.
Zara laughed silently and spat at the wreckage. The Jiralhanae inside was cooked and broken, but that was no guarantee of death. She had seen the Jiralhanae survive being trapped under a crashed Phantom and survive, and she never underestimated them. All they did was underestimate her.
She walked around to the cockpit of the Banshee. The Jiralhanae was dead by the looks of it, but she made sure with three plasma shots to the skull. She would never underestimate the Jiralhanae again, not since the Ultra Ksen 'Junovaee lost his leg in the Council Chamber while gloating over what he thought was the corpse of his foe. Before his second, Zara, could reach him, a sniper Kig-Yar hiding in the rafters had finished him with a shot to the head. They had shot down the sniper right away, but the particle beam rifles of the Kig-Yar were brutal and effective. The sniper had done his job well; 'Junovaee's left eye had been punctured clean through.
Which left Zara in command. She was a rather junior officer, too; she wished fervently that one of the senior Sangheili had survived the ambush in the Hanging Gardens. Subcommander 'Nurutee had been the first to die; the Yanme'e had caught him in the open and killed him easily. The Officers, 'Xynyatyee and 'Munginee, had been torn to shreds a moment later as the Jiralhanae caught them out with a flurry of grenades. The Unggoy had been slaughtered as they tried to fight or flee. Four of the five Operative Minors had slowly been killed one by one as they fought their way out, leaving Zara and an older Minor named Naf 'Tefedee as the only members of the fourth reconnaissance team of the N'var Warrior Creche.
Besides the two Sangheili, there were the four Unggoy and a Lekgolo named Jken Dsur Nax. Jken's bond brother, Knad Dsur Anur, had been killed just moments ago, when a Jiralhanae in an insane frenzy had come roaring out of the door behind them and torn its vulnerable midsection in half. Jken, in a rage that frightened even Zara, had crushed the Jiralhanae with its foot until it was barely recognizable. Then it had lapsed into a near-catatonic state, silent and barely moving.
That left Zara with no real options and no real hope of accomplishing their original goal: namely, destroying the massive worldship Clear Morality. It was forged from the ruins of the Jiralhanae homeworld, and it held the Jiralhanae's main army. Xytan 'Jar Wattinree, who had sent them on this mission in the first place, reasoned that its destruction would strike an unparalleled blow to the Jiralhanae. And a blow like that was what they needed right now.
The problems were as follows: Zara had no idea how they were supposed to effect the destruction, their team had been ambushed in every place they set foot, and the enemy was only getting stronger. At first, they had only seen the Jjrra clan of Jiralhanae: the most barbaric and brutal. They scorned armor, and often weapons too. Still, their thick, shaggy fur made them a chore to kill with plasma weapons.
But they were nothing like the Nmmae clan, who wore armor not very different from Zara's own. They were hard to surprise and even harder to kill. Luckily, they were not numerous, and they were lacking in unit tactics. But they had weapons that Zara had never seen before, and that was more dangerous, almost, than anything else.
As she breathed out, trying to hide her fear, a giant, sharpened metal slug, red-hot, flattened with a hiss on the wall beside her head. She looked wildly around for the source of the shot. It was a Nmmae Major, crimson-armored, twenty meters away, hiding behind a crate of plasma rifles.
He was using one of the new weapons. They looked like the grenade launchers from a distance, complete with bayonets. But they didn't fire grenades. They fired enormous, superheated spikes at low velocity. Zara's shields could probably survive a hit, but she didn't want to find out. She rolled to the side, ordering the Unggoy, "Fire on the crate!"
The crate was flung far away by the combined blast of the cannons; the Jiralhanae behind it was vaporized in an instant. His weapon, melted looking and barely serviceable, slid slowly to Zara's feet. She picked it up and tested its weight. Very heavy, but it looked very deadly as well.
She clipped it to the Lekgolo's back. If it wasn't going to fight, it might as well carry supplies.
A particle beam hissed through the space she was occupying. It hit her in the upper arm. Her shields flickered and sparked, then disappeared. She took the only piece of cover that she could find: the Lekgolo.
There was another of the sniper rifle's distinctive hissing shots, and a particle beam pierced the Lekgolo's orange midsection easily.
Jken Dsur Nax lifted its head and roared deafeningly. Not so much a roar as an earthquake, the sound stunned everyone present. The ground shook violently. The Lekgolo raised its arm and unleashed its gravity beam gun on the sniper's position, slashing the beam back and forth like a luminous sword.
There was a sudden muffled scream from the unfortunate Kig-Yar, then the Lekgolo lowered its arm.
A slug from one of the Jiralhanae weapons slammed into its armor. "Another ambush!" Zara heard Naf shout. "Cover!"
Zara shoved the Lekgolo, trying to get it out of the open. If it died, they really would have a problem. . .and it would die if it stood here motionless for too long.
The massive creature, wearing nearly a ton of armor, did not move. She kicked it viciously in the hip, trying to get it to snap out of its daze. The next thing she knew, she was lying on her side, gasping shallow breaths. The Lekgolo had slammed her to the ground with a single heavy blow. Her armor's fine black finish was cracked badly, and it felt like some of her ribs might have suffered the same fate.
Naf grabbed her by the hands and dragged her behind a comm terminal. "Are you all right, milady?"
"I'm fine," she grunted, struggling to her feet. "But in the name of Ash-Ilios, what is that Lekgolo doing?"
Naf raised his head above the comm terminal for a second. His shields flashed brightly, and he ducked again. "It is currently rampaging through six Jiralhanae and beating them all to death."
"Well, that's a start," Zara said.
Naf laughed out loud. "It is indeed, milady. It is indeed."
They waited together, behind the terminal, until the screams of the Jiralhanae died away. Jken Dsur Nax was standing motionless, surrounded by a ring of mangled bodies. Its armor and shield were stained black with blood. It was making a deep, contented rumbling noise. Until it saw Zara.
With a deep rumble, it charged her. Zara sank into a tense crouch. Naf raised his carbine.
"No. Do not fire," Zara said tightly. "I have to stop this. . .myself."
The Lekgolo's fury was so great that it did not use its shield to batter her. It just ran into her with seven times her weight at a full gallop. Zara grabbed its arms and held on, pushing her feet deep into the ground.
She wasn't strong enough. The Lekgolo lifted her by the throat and crushed her into the ground.
"Stop!" she snarled, massaging her ribs. "Back to your lines, Dsur."
The Lekgolo raised its shield for the killing blow, but hesitated. Then, at her words, it slowly settled, straightened, and calmed. Zara was glad of it. If she had completely failed to subdue it, there would have been another member of the team gone. Not to mention the Lekgolo.
Naf reached down and took her hand, helping her up. "Your endurance continues to astound me, lady. Any Sangheili should have been killed by such a blow. You remind me what they say of the Demons."
"And what do they say of the Demons, Operative?" she asked, checking her armor for damage.
"Demons never die," Naf whispered. It was curious. The timbre of his voice was almost religious as he spoke of the Demons. And not without reason; the Demons were famed as warriors, even if they were the final enemies of the Covenant. It would have been an honor for Zara, or any other Sangheili, to die fighting a Demon.
The door at the valley's far end opened again, and Zara drew her energy sword from her belt. But it was not a Jiralhanae that stepped out.
It was, in fact, a Demon. His transponder registered as "CPO 1ST CLASS SPARTAN-149 JASON". Using what little she knew about the human transponders, Zara decided that this Demon's name was Jason. A short, meaningless name, fit only for an Unggoy. It rankled with her that she could not open fire right away. If the Demons were fighting the Covenant, they would be valuable allies.
Switching on her human-language translator, she barked, "Demon! Do not battle us; let us fight together against the vile Jiralhanae!"
A voice, cold and hard, with an incongruously gentle accent, answered her. "You're in revolt, Elite? Then just move aside. Get out of our way, and you don't die. You stay where you are. . ." An energy sword of his own sprang to life in his left hand. "And I send you on your own personal Great Journey."
She snarled at him and raised her energy sword into the third guard position of the Geskelhi defensive form. It wasn't a very impressive style, but it looked impressive, and this Demon didn't know the first thing about swordplay.
It raised its shoulders briefly, a gesture which she recognized as a 'shrug'. "Very well, Elite. I was planning to give you a death on your own terms, but instead, we'll do this my way."
Another pair of Demons stepped forward. Their transponders read, "CPO 2ND CLASS SPARTAN-002 MARISSA" and "CPO 2ND CLASS SPARTAN 081-DAVID" respectively. Both carried carbines, and both carbines were leveled at her head.
"Very well," she snapped. "We will aid you."
The first Demon, Jason, cocked its head. "Help? What do you mean? Do you want to blow this place up?"
"Absolutely," Zara shot back.
"Our missions seem congruent, then," the Demon said with a chuckle. "Meet Grey Team."
A Demon Never Dies-II of III
Date: 20 April 2007, 1:21 am
A Demon Never Dies
Glory is like a circle in the water,
Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself,
Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought.
--William Shakespeare
Ninth Age of Reclamation
Covenant Holy City Clear Morality
Central Tower
Second Hanging Gardens
The meditation gardens of Clear Morality were disturbingly quiet. Zara feared another ambush, but she did not voice her concerns. She just stayed close to cover. If there was an ambush, the Demons would die first.
They had been attacked twice more by Jiralhanae—Brutes, as the Demons called them—as they progressed through the central tower. The first time, they had been bunched up near a gravity lift, and one of the Unggoy had been killed by the spike weapons before they could take order. One of the Demons had ducked out of cover for a second, scooped up the fallen fuel rod cannon and emptied it into the Jiralhanae ranks, regardless of the shrapnel and explosions that washed over its shields. Amazingly, the tactic had worked. Only one Jiralhanae survived, which Zara sidestepped and bisected with her energy sword.
The Demons, she had to admit, really were remarkable warriors. She would have given anything to have their energy shields. The Demons could survive two grenades in the chest, although the second would give them a lot of residual impact.
More than that, though, they had a bizarre ability to cover one another. Whenever one of them was getting overwhelmed, they would shout to one another in their own language. Immediately, regardless of what was attacking them, they would turn and open fire on the enemies of their teammate. It was a novel, if slightly inglorious, method of combat. If they always fought like this, she could see where the story that they never died came from.
In truth, Zara was coming to see why the three of them had thought they could taken on two Sangheili, four Unggoy and an insane Lekgolo. The leader, the one called "Jay-zonn", was disturbingly good with an energy sword. He had no training, but that was precisely what made him so dangerous. The Jiralhanae came at him expecting him to use 'Venkanee's Defense or 'Gsunaree's Riposte, and instead, he simply dodged their attack and impaled them. As long as the sword didn't start to wear down its magnetic field, he would be effectively invulnerable. Unless he met a berserker, that is. Zara knew from experience that anything, no matter how skilled, would die if it tried to use an energy sword on a berserk Jiralhanae.
But now, there was no trace of berserkers. Or anything else besides them, which meant that there was something. This was too quiet, and the only way Jiralhanae were this quiet was when they were—
Her shields imploded with more force then she thought was possible. She sank to her knees, pain spreading in waves across her torso. The one impression that was imprinted in her mind as she fell forward onto the dirt was that whatever had hit her shields was purple.
She lay on the ground for a long time. Her shields slowly regenerated in a wave of blue sparks, but the pain did not go away. Everything was soft, quiet, and indistinct. She thought she heard one of the Demons rasping an order to his team, and could feel rather than hear the strangely light metal on-metal footsteps of one of them. But everything else blurred into one long stream of faint color and noise.
It was quite some time before she heard someone next to her. She tried to move her head to the side, to see who it was, but the rasping voice was enough to go by. It was the one they called "Jay-zonn", and he seemed to be arguing with Naf. She made an effort to hear what he was saying.
"Leave her here," the Demon said harshly. "She's dead or dying. The Jackal snipers are too good. Nobody survives a shot to the heart from a particle beam rifle, and we can't afford to drag a corpse around."
"You are as ignorant as you are cowardly, Demon," the Sangheili snarled. "Unlike you frail humans, we Sangheili have two hearts, and neither of them are near where she was shot. She's not badly wounded." Zara felt him kneel beside her, and was intensely grateful for his confidence.
Another of the Demons chuckled. This one had a marginally smoother voice. She guessed it was still male, but not Jay-zonn. "Frail, Elite? Want me to show you how frail I am?"
"Quiet," Jay-zonn rasped. "We don't need another war on our hands. Listen, Elite. You slow us down enough already. Add one nearly-dead officer and we'll never make it to the reactor room. If you keep her, we abandon you. That simple."
'Tefedee snorted in disgust. "Do not speak so rashly, Demon. You cannot use something as complex as a self-destruct mechanism. You cannot even speak our language."
"We don't need any self-destruct mechanisms," the third Demon said, "to use this."
Zara was vaguely aware that the Demon had let something fall to the ground. Naf picked it up. "Fascinating, yet crude," he said, an air of well disguised surprise in his voice. "We moved past this kind of technology millennia ago."
"That'll set you back a few millennia if you keep fiddling with it," the second Demon snapped. "Put the damn thing down. It's an ERINYES tactical nuke, not a plasma grenade."
"Suit yourself, Demon," Naf said sullenly, dropping the explosive. Zara grunted as it hit the floor close to her, sending painful reverberations through her head.
"She is alive, then," the third Demon said. "Odd. Very resilient. I wouldn't be too surprised for a Spartan to survive a beam rifle shot, but an Elite..."
Naf ignored them, bending down and pulling Zara into a sitting position. "Major, are you badly wounded?"
Zara coughed for several seconds before she was able to talk. When she did, she spoke in human, hoping the Demons could hear. "Yes. I mean, no. I am not injured as badly as I..." she coughed for a few seconds. "I think my lung was...punctured. I can fight, nonetheless."
The Demons shifted from foot to foot.
Jason didn't need this. He'd seen men in battle more wounded than this and live, but he'd seen a hell of a lot more be less wounded and die. This stupid Elite was already as good as dead, whether her lung was punctured or not. She had no grasp of tactics; she was naturally very athletic and strong, but she had no skill as a soldier. It was sloppy, and she'd been both sloppy and naive to walk out in the open at the head of her formation in an unsecured area like that. He felt sorry for her—no sorrier than for the dozens or even hundreds of humans she'd doubtless killed in her life—but sorry nonetheless. It was a miserable way to die.
Amazingly, with the argumentative Minor's help, the fool was actually getting up. Even more amazingly, she was speaking, despite the trail of blood dripping slowly from the end of one of her mandibles. "Demon!" she snarled, a remarkable amount of authority and imperiousness still in her voice given her injury. "Tell me why they call you immortal!"
"Excellency," the Minor grumbled in his own language, "do not—"
Jason wondered how she knew about the Spartan MIA Protocol. Then again, ONI were very careful that nobody ever saw a Spartan go down, even on their own side. It was no wonder that most of the Covenant had never seen a Spartan die. And that qualifier, in the minds of such a primitive group of races as the Covenant, might well be felt as immortality.
"We become immortal, excellency, because we are not foolish. We do not walk neatly through the middle of unsecured, sniper-infested areas so as to attract fire. Unfortunately, you fall somewhere," he searched for the words, "outside this criterion, so if you'll excuse me, we'll continue."
She grabbed his forearm. Her grip was iron-like, but he could feel the weakness under it. He had no doubts that a single powerful twist could snap her wrist, but he refrained from removing her, or even telling her to get off. "What is it, excellency?"
She drew close to him and whispered, "You know as well as I do that I have little time to live."
"Your point being?" he returned, careful to keep his voice expressionless.
"They say a Demon never dies," she breathed.
"Get to the point," he said flatly.
"We will all die together," she replied. "And when we die, we will be immortal. All of us. And you will see the truth about the Sangheili."
Jason laughed. This was not his ironic, bleak chuckle. This was the laugh he only ever let anything hear once, generally right before he killed it. This was how he responded to pleas for mercy. How he had responded for nearly twenty years.
"I think, Elite," he said, "that you'll find immortality only lasts for a fraction of a second before you evaporate into a cloud of superheated gas riding a nuclear shockwave."
"No," she answered, her voice becoming more and more hoarse. "Immortality lasts until everything ends. That is its nature."
Jason whispered one last sentence and walked away. Gray Team followed him, and the aliens followed them.
But Zara stood there until the rest of the group was nearly out of sight.
Then she slowly moved her energy sword from her hip, where it contrasted heavily with her dark armor, to her back, where it was invisible against her standard-issue gray bodysuit.
Then she, too, followed after them.
She knew she had probably killed herself by taking that sniper shot, but it had been necessary to find out the secret behind the Demons' undying existences. And now she had no further need to for them, except the bomb they carried.
A Demon Never Dies-III of III
Date: 17 May 2007, 9:48 pm
A Demon Never Dies
Valor is of no service, chance rules all, and the bravest often fall by the hands of cowards.
--Tacitus
Ninth Age of Reclamation
Covenant Holy City Clear Morality
Far Tower
Reactor Control
The hum of the reactor was not loud, yet it reverberated in Zara's bones. The throbbing in the center of her chest would not stop. She realized now that she didn't have far to go. This was as close as they could get to the reactor without fliers. Good thing, because she was fading pretty quickly.
The Jiralhanae had not returned. There was too much critical equipment in here for them to risk an ambush. Not that that would have stopped them; they couldn't have put that thought together themselves.
Zara could feel that she wasn't bleeding anymore. Now, she just felt empty, like all her innards had been surgically removed. It was not a pleasant feeling.
Her boots hit the floor at the wrong angle, and she stumbled. Naf's hand managed to hold her up, even as she threw out her hands to break her fall.
The noise made one of the Demons, the smallest one, turn around. It was the male with the soft voice. "Are you holding up, Major?"
Zara was so surprised that he cared about her that she took several seconds to form a response. "I will survive. For now, at least."
The Demon raised its shoulders and lowered them again. It was not a gesture Zara recognized, but she guessed it was a sign of indifference. "I think you had better stay behind," it said finally.
"No," Zara said flatly. "I will keep following you."
The Demon raised its shoulders again. "Have it your way, then. But I have warned you."
As the Demon turned around, Zara made her move. Lunging forward, she slammed the back of one armored fist into the base of the Demon's skull. It—he—slumped silently to the ground.
Somehow, the other Demons had noticed. The female fired three shots from her carbine, cutting Zara's shield to half power. Zara leapt at the Demon, trying to draw her energy sword, but the Demon gripped the barrel of the carbine and swung it at Zara's head like a club. Zara's shields collapsed, and she tasted blood.
With a burst of sudden, painful strength, she leapt back to her feet. With a powerful snap-kick, she knocked the female Demon off balance. Drawing her energy sword, she held it to the fallen Demon's throat.
Suddenly, Jay-zonn was there, twisting under Zara's blade and leaving a horizontal slash-burn through her armor and across her chest. As Zara instinctively recoiled, he brought an armored boot down on her shin, tearing the skin back. Zara cursed and swung her blade in a zigzag pattern, using 'Jnusree's Shield.
The Demon fell back slightly, shaking his head, and then swung his sword back into something that looked very suspiciously like 'Tumunree's Opening. If Zara hadn't known better, she would have sworn that this Demon was a sword-master.
As she continued her defense, concentrating on preparing to dodge, the Demon suddenly leapt forward and headbutted her in the chest. It felt like a Lekgolo had run her over. Worse, actually. Lekgolo didn't have this kind of power.
She blacked out momentarily as her head cracked against the ground. When she woke, 'Tefedee and Jay-zonn were arguing again.
"You seem to be failing to recognize the fact that she just tried to kill us," the Demon's icy voice hissed. "She knocked David out, and she nearly the same to Melissa. I will not allow that. She has betrayed me, and I am not going to spare her just because you say so, Elite."
Naf's voice was full of rage. "You would kill her, Demon? You will kill me first, then!"
"Silence," Jay-zonn warned. "You had better hold your peace. While we're arguing over her, your Grunts have all wandered off. Why don't you go find them?"
"We don't need the Unggoy now," Naf snarled. "We are nearly there. Just run ahead, plant your bomb, and get back here."
Jay-zonn seemed on the verge of saying something else, but then nodded. "I need to you to do it. For maximum yield, we'll want the self destruct on too. Go ahead, activate self-destruct with a medium getaway time, then put the bomb on the console. To activate it, hit the top left button, the center button, the bottom left button and the top right button. Understood?"
Naf's hooves receded. Zara became aware that the Demon was crouching next to her.
"Remember what I told you?" he whispered, almost inaudibly.
Zara nodded.
"I wasn't joking. It is time that this war was ended."
Zara nodded again.
"I will end everything."
Nod.
"Now, get up. If you want to kill something, now is the time."
He pulled Zara to her feet. Zara could feel that she was bleeding again.
Suddenly, there was a howl. It was quickly repeated in chorus. And then, thousands of Jiralhanae poured into the room.
Jay-zonn walked over to the other Demons, pulling them to their feet. Zara could hear Naf's hooves again. Distantly, she heard his voice: "It's done. We have a tenth of a unit till the self-destruct goes." Zara did not put any meaning to his words. If the Demon really did plan to end everything, there was no point to when it would happen.
Jay-zonn nodded. Zara noticed for the first time that he seemed very tired. The other two Demons nodded with him, and then they removed their helmets.
Zara had never really looked at a human before. These things didn't seem natural in the least, even for humans, but she was not unduly surprised. All three were pale and scarred. The female had straight brown hair reaching to her ears. The other male was shaven, with dark brown skin and white teeth. But Jay-zonn was something strange. His skin looked like it had originally been some kind of lightish tan color, and his hair was still dark and curly, but he literally looked like a corpse.
His skin was so pale that it was almost blue, and his hair was plastered by sweat to his scalp. Although he was obviously well-muscled and looked very strong, his head and neck were covered in cuts and abrasions, not to mention the beginnings of a bruise on his forehead where he had headbutted her.
Three helmets fell to the floor, and Jay-zonn spoke in reflective, quiet tones.
"When we first came here, we promised one another that we wouldn't die faceless," he said.
Zara cocked her head. "What do you mean?"
The Demon looked puzzled. "I'm sorry?"
"I thought a Demon never dies."
Jay-zonn nodded, and a hint of a smile came over his face. "Yes," he said confidently. "That's right."
Belisarius, Alpha Jiralhanae of Clear Morality, looked at the ring of corpses choking the reactor control center. He shook his head and turned to his assistant, the Unggoy Uninu. "How did two Sangheili do all this?"
The Unggoy's voice was not as squeaky as most of his kindred; he was actually able to string a sentence together. "May I remind you, Excellency, there were Demons with them."
The Jiralhanae snorted. "They are dead, I presume."
The Unggoy nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, Excellency. One of them had an energy blade, however. We estimate he was personally responsible for the deaths of over a hundred of your warriors."
The Jiralhanae growled appreciatively. "A hundred? Amazing. Even one of our Chieftains could not do such a deed. A pity that the Demons are beyond redemption. We could do with such mighty warriors."
Uninu coughed and turned away, pretending he hadn't heard that bit of blasphemy.
Belisarius walked gingerly between the corpses until he found two humans in green armor. Demons, all right. Curiously, they wore no helmets. Belisarius looked near their bodies, hoping to find the energy sword, but he found nothing.
"Hmph. After a battle, intelligence goes first," the voice of the Unggoy commented. "The search teams report no energy blade to be found, Excellency."
"Know your place, Unggoy," the Jiralhanae barked, but there was no force in his order. The bodies were piled the highest near the reactor control terminal. Here, on the pile, lay the body of a Sangheili in black armor, manged beyond recognition. Belisarius wrinkled his nose at the smell, and started to tear the pile of bodies apart.
At the bottom, he found two corpses and two guttered energy swords, the hilts stained with black blood. One of the dead was a female Sangheili, a Special Operative of some kind. The other was a third Demon, sword still in hand, helmet off.
"In the name of Ash-Varus," Belisarius whispered reverently. "Those were proud fighters."
"Excellency! Over here!"
Belisarius was startled from his reverie by the sharp call of Uninu. Walking over to the Unggoy, he found him examining the reactor control terminal. The screen had been slagged by a plasma blast, but sitting on the floor near it was some kind of human technology, about the size of his head. He picked it up and frowned.
"Do you know what this is, Uninu?" he asked the Unggoy.
On the side of the device, he saw human letters printed. He read them: E R I N Y E S. They didn't seem to mean anything. Maybe it was an acronym?
The Unggoy fiddled with the device for several seconds before admitting, "I am not sure, Excellency. Perhaps it is some kind of homing beacon for their vessels?"
The Jiralhanae sighed. "I shall bring it to the Huragok for analysis." Taking it in his hand, he turned and received the surprise of his life.
The "dead" female Sangheili had just grabbed his left foot from behind. She was saying something, but he could not make it out. He felt sorry for her. Even if the Sangheili were heretics and infidels, there were terrible wounds on this creature's body. No wonder it had seemed dead.
"Have peace, Sangheili," he said kindly, crouching beside it. "You and your allies fought bravely until they fell. Even the Demons were great warriors. You have earned a righteous death."
Her voice was fading now. Leaning close, he tried to make out her words. "What's that you say?"
"A Demon...never...dies."
Exactly ten human seconds later, the first and last ERINYES tactical nuke ever made detonated.
Belisarius wondered, as he and all the rest of Clear Morality evaporated suddenly into a whiff of carbon, why someone dying would waste their time to say something like that.
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