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Warrior of Earth by Keti 'Kotaree
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Warrior of Earth: Part 1
Date: 15 July 2004, 9:30 PM
I am an elite. I am not covenant, however.
It was a fierce firefight. Slowly but surely, the humans were winning. I threw a grenade at the marines, hoping to kill enough to turn the tide of the battle. It stuck to one of them, but he ran as far from the other marines as he could get in the three seconds he had. A human had snuck up behind me. I turned around in time to see him, but he had opened fire before I could react. My shield was going down, fast, so I beat him over the head with the bottom of my plasma rifle, killing him. I ducked into a cave to recharge my shields. A human grenade flew in, making it's characteristic clinking. I jumped up in surprise and hit the ceiling with my head, knocking myself unconscious. The grenade turned out to be a dud. The humans won the battle, killing every the covenant they saw moving. Scavenging afterwards, they stumbled upon my unconscious body and dragged me out. I was taken aboard one of their ships and restrained.
I woke up in the hands of the humans, in a small gray room. My head felt like it was splitting open. Every beat of my heart, the pain came back. Then I realized that I couldn't remember anything. My past, my beliefs, everything was missing. I tried to move, but I couldn't. I looked up at my hand to see it fastened by a metal bracket. All my limbs were stuck in one. I tried to break free, but to no avail. A red light on one wall turned green, and as it opened, I saw that it was a door, rather than a wall. A human walked in, escorted by several others.
"What's this?" asked the one who appeared to be in charge of the others. He held up a plasma rifle, but I didn't recognize it at the time. I looked at it, but couldn't tell what it was. "How does it work? How do you recharge it?" said the human. I still couldn't remember a thing. "And this?" he said, holding up my plasma sword. "How does it work? Huh?" I cocked my head and looked at it.
"He might have amnesia," said one of the other humans. "He hit his head pretty hard, and from what we can tell about Elite Physiology from the TES, elites are a lot like humans. Judging by the mark on his head and the toughness of his skull, he hit his head hard enough to kill any human. Amnesia would be a potential side effect."
"So we found a high-ranking elite that can't remember anything? There goes my promotion," said the leader. He turned and walked toward the door. The other human started talking on the way out.
"Maybe not sir, we've discovered invaluable-" the door closed behind them, and the green light turned red. Another door closed over that door. The brackets holding me against the wall released, and I could move around the room. Not that there was much space to move around. There was a table, and a bed. I sat down on the bed, and tried to remember anything that might help me get out of here. Nothing. I looked around the room again for anything that might spur my memory. Nothing. The whole room was alien to me. I laid down on the bed and tried to sleep.
I was in a large room. There were smaller creatures walking around, and then one that was floating around. He told me to go to the Control Room. I walked down several hallways, passed through an enormous room with the smaller creatures working, then back into another hall on the other side, and took a left into a room. It was much smaller than the last two, with supporting pillars, purple like the rest of the ship but with a bluish glow from the inside. There was a ramp in the middle of the room, leading up to a circular platform with a display encircling it. I slowly walked up the ramp and touched it, my hands ghostly moving through the panel, but not without effect. A few symbols appeared, which read "Alert: Human Spacecraft," then flashed on and off. All the others in the room ran to the doors, leaving me in that room alone.
I woke up. "Weird dream..." I thought. I looked around for the humans, but they weren't there. Having no other choice, I waited. I thought about the dream I had, what it migh have meant. After about half an hour, the door opened and the first human from before walked back in. Another human who had been walking behind him stopped at the door.
"Are you sure this is a good idea sir?" The first human walked in and gave me the plasma rifle. Not knowing what he wanted me to do, I looked at it, then at him. I put it down, confused.
"See?" said the leader. "I told you. He can't remember it. It's just like you said yesterday, he has amnesia," he said. He turned to me. "Can you understand me?" he said. I nodded. "So elites speak English then?" I cocked my head to one side in confusion, not understanding the meaning of "English." "Say something," said the human.
"Wort," I said.
"Okay...uh, are you hungry?" he asked. I hadn't been thinking about it, but I was pretty hungry. I nodded. He walked out and asked for some food. Why so generous all of a sudden? I thought. Two minutes later, a human came in with a box. He opened it up.
"Can you eat this?" he asked. It was a freeze-dried military ration. I opened it and tasted some, and though some made me feel like I was about to barf up the contents of my empty stomach, some of it was really good. I was so hungry it took 30 seconds for me to finish what I could stand to eat.
"Wow, he'd be a good example to those greenhorns who complain about the rations..." said the leader. He took the dish, and told the other humans to get more of what wasn't on the plate anymore.
After eating my stomach out, I laid down on the bed. "What should we do with him?" I overhead one of the humans asking another in the hall outside.
"Do you realize the potential of having an Elite such as him among us? He's a Gold Elite. They're the strongest, smartest, toughest, and among the most respected Covenant among them. He could be the best thing to happen to the war since the Spartan-II program."
"He might not be as good as you think he is. Remember the amnesia? Besides, a lot of people think..." their voices trailed off down the hall.
Over the next few weeks, I was taught by the humans. Their reasons for fighting, how they fought, I was shown images of Covenant craft and weapons, some of the species that make up the Covenant, and some of the planets they inhabit. The instructor, appearantly an expert on the covenant, named me "'Kotaree." Whenever anyone else would address me from that day forward, it was as 'Kotaree.
"'Kotaree, wake up." said my commander. I yawned and got up. "We have a job for you," he said. I got up and followed him to a holographic screen. "We want you to enter this Covenant Cruiser. I'll explain how in a minute. Now what we need you to do on that ship is get as much information as you can to us. We have arrangements to pick you up later, when this is over. Now over here we have some things for you to take. This is your plasma sword, this is your plasma rifle, a few of your grenades, a Covenant energy shield and these two devices," he said pointing to each and then holding up a small cylindrical glass vial, and another device that was also quite small, and had a tiny display on it. "We also captured one of the Covenant drop-ships," he said. Sure enough a Phantom hovered on a screen showing the shuttle bay.
"Here's the situation. We entered slipstream after one of our colonies, Reach, was attacked by the Covenant. Now we've come out, and we found an huge ring between Threshold and Basis. Our sensory equipment indicates it's safe for a human or covenant to live on. The Covenant are on their way here, so we have to hurry. Fly that dropship onto a Covenant Cruiser. Find the control room, take the small device out of the vial, and put it somewhere near the ship's control room computer. When you need us to pick you up, use this device here. It'll transmit your location to us, so we can pick you up. You'll have to wait in the cruiser's shuttle bay for one of our pilots to come pick you up. Use it if you think you might be discovered or if you don't think you can do anything else. Do you understand what you have to do?" I nodded. "Good luck." I got in the Phantom and flew it off the Pillar of Autumn, watching it slowly disappear into a small gray speck against the infinite blackness of space.
I saw a covenant ship ahead of me. I was nervous. What if they knew I was fighting with the humans now? What if I forgot someone who I used to be friends with? I cleared my mind and flew into the ship's shuttle bay. I hovered a few yards over the ground. Here goes nothing...I gathered my courage and got out of the dropship, landing on the second floor. Everyone stared for a second. I knew it. They knew where I'd been and what I was doing here. I shouldn't have come here. I shouldn't have landed the banshee. I should have turned back and told my commander I couldn't find it. Everyone turned back to what they were doing.
"Tort rork!" said a blue elite. "Come with me," he said, and I followed him into the center of the ship, leaving the dropship, and likely my last chance for escape, back in the shuttle bay.
I knew this place from somewhere. It was the place I was in that dream I had. If this was indeed the same ship, or a very similar ship as the one I was on in my dream, I could probably find my way around. I was instructed to guard the control room of the ship. I started to feel relieved when I realized they didn't know I was not Covenant. A grunt took my shield and gave me a new one, and took my sword. I hesitantly gave it up, but only so as not to be discovered. He gave me a plasma rifle. I took it and made my way to the control room of the ship. I passed hall after hall, all looking identical. I passed through the engine room and took an extended glance at the machinery. Not much to look at anyways. The Covenant almost always hid the parts behind large curvy casings anyways.
Finally, I arrived in the control room, where I could transmit data to the humans. It was the room from my dream. The room had a few grunts and a jackal walking around trying a little too hard to look like they were doing something important. The holographic control panels would show what I was doing from both the front and back, so I would have to time what I did with the group walking to the other side of the room. They walked, slowly but surely, around the room to the doors. I looked through reams of information that would be useless to the humans. Covenant injuries and records of who sleeps where. Then I saw that the Pillar of Autumn had been shot down. I was surprised some of the crew had survived, and several of the ejected escape pods were found, some with several dead, others empty and unattended. Hundreds of Covenant had been killed by what escaping drop-ship pilots had described as a human in a green armor with energy shields. I had seen only one of the humans use a shield like that, and that was Master Chief. I was glad to see he had survived. I tried to divert attention away from the area Master Chief was in so that he would more likely survive. I input massive casualties and reports of hundreds of humans in the area I was told to. I wondered how long I would be able to keep up this act before being discovered. I transmitted what little useful data I could find on an unencrypted channel. I took a deep breath, and then exhaled. At the end of my shift I went to the sleeping room and fell asleep in just a few seconds.
In the middle of the sleeping period, I woke up. I visited the armory which was strangely unguarded. I picked up a plasma sword and a new shield. I followed the labyrinth of halls to the Control room. I looked up at the other gold elite monitoring traffic. Other than him, the room was empty. He looked at me, and then turned back to the task at hand. I walked up the ramp. "Wort?" he said. I turned on my plasma sword. "WORT! WORT!" I swung at him with it. His shields were on, but now were completely fried from the overload of my attack. I swung again in the same motion. He jumped back to dodge my sword and I lunged forward. The stab cut a gaping hole in his torso. He gave a cry of pain as he fell to his knees, then flat on his face. I pushed him into a pit by the control panel and deactivated my sword. Three red elites entered the room.
"Wort tark?" said the one nearest me.
"Kort." I replied.
"Tortork korp korotort." said the middle one.
"Korortork toro korp." I said. The middle one let out a puzzled groan. They went back to their patrol. I setup the device to copy and transmit all the data that came through the Control Center of the ship over unencrypted frequencies the humans would recognize. It would be almost undetectable. It was as small as a grain of sand and only had to be placed close to the control room computer. I put it in a small corner of a nearly invisible seam in the display projectors. I took the dead Elite and carried him to an airlock, then opened it and dropped him in there before closing the inward energy barriers and depressurizing the airlock. Then I opened the barrier to the outside. The dead elite fell down toward Halo.
A few revolutions of the ring later, I overheard several Covenant on the Truth and Reconciliation were being attacked. It was followed by a distress signal, and I erased it from record as soon as possible so they wouldn't send a backup crew, and then I left the control room so nobody would find me doing it. I walked down the hall. Had anyone noticed? I couldn't be sure. I continued down the hall until I heard a group of grunts talking around the corner of the hall. I turned around and walked back toward the control room right as they came around the corner.
"Someone in the control room is erasing important information! Are you supposed to guard it?" "Korl Nok," I said. It meant, "I was thirsty." I ran down the hall to the control room and turned on my sword. Looks like it worked. As far as they could tell, I was on my way back from getting a drink while someone deleted important data. I rushed in to find the control room empty, just as I'd left it.
"Kork Kort!" I yelled at the grunts, indicating the room was empty. They rushed in and tried to restore the deleted files if possible. They couldn't. The data was streaming in so fast that something as small as a distress signal would be overwritten immediately. There was nothing they could have done. But I knew I had to be more careful dealing with that data. One more reckless mistake like that and I'd be done for. I sent out a query signal asking the ship who had sent the distress signal to respond. Nothing. I supposed the control room had been invaded by humans, so no covenant would have received the distress query.
"How do you know what he's saying?" asked one grunt, as they all exited the control room. "All those worts and borks sound the same to me." The door slid shut behind them.
The next day I woke up to a loud yell. It was the intercom. I was called to get into a drop-ship. I hoped we wouldn't be going to a place where Master Chief was. Or if I was, that Master Chief was alone. He knew I was somewhere among the covenant but not where, but if he was with other marines, I'd be pelted with grenades and sniper fire from the others before I could prove I was friendly. If I just started slashing Covenant forces first thing, all the covenant would turn their fire towards me which I was no better a situation. So I just hoped. When we landed, we were underground. We followed several hallways and snowy canyons. We paused when we got to the canyon containing Halo's Control room. I knew that if Master Chief wasn't already there, he was well on his way.
I was at the top of the pyramid structure of the control room when two Banshees took off from the stone bridge across the canyon. Shots were being fired. The wraith was launching powerful blasts of plasma at the natural bridge across the canyon. Master Chief took out almost every covenant on the bridge. After he had entered the door on the other side, I saw my one chance to avoid being taken down like the rest of the covenant around me. I took a banshee that was nearby over to the bridge, telling the others I was going to look for survivors. I flew to the other side and got out, checked a few jackals and grunts for life signs, all of which had none. A grunt came up behind me.
"What was that? Humans don't fight that well! Did you get any reports about him when you were in the Control center of the ship? Did you hear about the distress signal that was erased from record? I heard about it from Yayap..." He continued his pointless chatter while I checked for more life signs. The grunt was getting incredibly annoying. I walked around a rock towards the edge of the bridge while acknowledging the chatter. When I was close enough I shoved him off the cliff at the wraith, and ran to the door leading towards where the drop-ship had landed us down.
Once inside, none of the Covenant I left behind could have possibly caught up with me. I had taken the banshee, and the last Covenant on the bridge who was close enough to give chase was probably still falling. I dashed as fast as I could, passing room after room of dead Covenant forces.
Five minutes later, I slowed to a jog. The dead grunts and jackals smelt horrible now. As I was going back, the hideous smell of the blood permeated the air. When I got back to the landing site, nobody was there. I looked for a way out, but it was too high up and too far down to get anywhere without a vehicle. I waited for covenant drop-ships to arrive with backup so I could report back and get away from this area. I'd rather chance everyone on the cruiser finding out about me and attacking me than face Master Chief not knowing who I was.
The door opened behind me. I turned my head to look at who it was. It was Master Chief. He started firing with his AR, ear splittingly loud as close as he was. I ducked and took cover behind an upturned shade. I slid my deactivated sword towards him under the turret to show him that I was unarmed, and waited for a second. He stopped shooting. Then I poked my head out from behind the shade.
"Are you 'Kotaree?" he said. His voice was surprisingly calm. I nodded. He tossed me back my sword and looked down the tunnel, expecting something.
"Foehammer, how far are you?" he said. A Pelican came up from the bottom of the pit.
"Chief! Behind you!" yelled the pilot.
"He's friendly, don't worry. But he needs a ride back to the surface."
"You sure Chief?"
"Yeah, trust me." Foehammer turned the pelican gracefully around so that we could get in. Master Chief jumped aboard. "You coming?" he asked me.
I nodded and jumped in. Foehammer took off down the tunnels, the roar of the engines echoed through the narrow passages behind us.
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