An Elite's Tale

"I'm reloading, stay on him! Stay on him!" Madiba's younger brother, Mar, cried over the constant pandemonium in the background.

"He's too fast! I'm almost out!" Madiba shouted back.

Finally, with a combination of luck and skill, Madiba's last high explosive anti-personnel grenade made contact with the enemy Banshee and threw it off its pursuit course with the Arbiter's wingman. The two airborne Elites piloted their Banshees flew to a safer altitude and Mar swayed his now reloaded fuel rod gun over to their pursuers.

"I got him," he said confidently as he lightly traced the path of the Brute fliers.

Mar launched off an orb. The round arced up and coasted at its zenith for a few seconds, then demolished the Brute flier at the start of its descent. It had been a pretty faraway target, and a flying one at that. Mar roared with delight and punched the air with his free hand. Madiba grinned, proud, and patted his little brother's back in congratulations.

The Scarab speakers suddenly blared, "Get clear of the door!"

The two then turned around to face their destination just as the plasma beam ripped across the sky and made short work of the control room door. It was like a deafening war horn. Surely the Brute's inside knew they were coming, but Madiba sort of liked it that way.

Ready or not, here we come.

The twins both looked up as the Elite Banshees flew overhead. One swooped low to the Scarab, descending low enough for the Shipmaster's Plague to leap up from the main deck and grab on. The brothers sat there for a moment in silence, turned to each other, then looked back at the leaving Banshees.

Mar commented, "He's keen to get to stop that Brute."

"Aren't we all?" Madiba said more than asked, taking his eyes off the airborne Elites and placing them on the Shipmaster's approaching Phantom.

"Apparently not..." Mar muttered.

The Phantom parked in a hover above the Scarab and deployed its gravity lift. A single blue Elite Minor came floating down the twinkling violet luminescence to the main deck and spoke for a minute with the humans before heading up to the top deck.

"Sirs," the Minor said and snapped to attention. "I was sent to find Major 'Garaisee."

"First name?" the brothers both asked.

"Madiba."

Hmm. What now?

"That is me. How can I help?" Madiba said.

The Minor relayed the message, "The Shipmaster requests your attendance on the team being sent after Tartarus. I was placed under the command of Major Mar, with the task of defending the Scarab."

Guard duty? Ouch.

Madiba looked over to see what had to be a priceless pissed look on his brother's face. Unfortunately, Mar's helmet did a good job of hiding his expression.

Mar stared back, wordless. After a moment, he said, "Well you can't have the fuel rod gun if that's what you're thinking."

Madiba burst out with a laugh and patted his brooding brother's shoulder. "I wouldn't dream of it, Mar. Just don't let those apes scratch my new Walker."

Mar corrected him, "You mean my new Walker. And fear not. As the oath says..."

"We shall grind them into dust," they finished in unison.

It was their favorite part of the pledge. The Red Twins clasped forearms.

"Good luck," Mar added. Madiba opened his mouth to respond with his usual quip, Will not need it, but stopped himself. Might need it this time.

He headed down the ramp to the main deck, and saw the humans all huddled near the entrance of the ramp that leads to the bottom deck on his way to the gravity lift. One of the Imps, commonly and jokingly referred to as miniature Demons by many Covenant, was sitting on the ground while the other two humans stood over him. One was a Marine, expression stern and solid. The other an Imp with reddish hair, expression grim and morose with obvious thoughts of vengeance. The one on the ground was sitting in a pool of blood that only seemed to be growing wider.

Despite his distrust for humanity and the popularly negative Sangheili opinion toward medical attention, Madiba felt compelled to go over and suggest a way to stop the bleeding. A near miss from a single burst of his plasma pistol sidearm could cauterize the wound in seconds with minimal pain, but he held off on his benevolent suggestion. The idea of him going over to them and explaining how an Elite shooting at a wounded human would be helping did not go over well in his head. Madiba just let it be and walked over to the gravity lift and stepped inside.

The violet energy elevated him straight up into the Phantom's troop bay. After stepping out of the lift, he took a look around and was a bit taken aback. The extent of the toll the Phantom security crew had taken during the battle was evident. Although all the bodies were gone, there was a ridiculous amount of blood that stained the floor, walls, even the ceiling. And it reeked. Bad. A pungent aroma of burnt hair and fresh corpses still hung in the air. Not only that. When he, Mar, and Rtol had briefly been aboard the Phantom before the fight for transport to the Scarab, the whole squadron was on display, with an array of well armed Elites and Hunters and a lone Grunt. Now, only Field Master Fin 'Goramai and Xepo, the green armored Elite, remained. Everyone else had either gotten killed or reassigned. Or both.

The two Elites stood off to the side, talking about something as they waited for reinforcements to arrive. The humans came up the lift after Madiba and stepped off into the troop bay right as the Phantom lifted off. Getting right down to business, Fieldmaster Fin 'Goramai walked over to address the newcomers. Problem was, he only spoke Sangheili. Xepo translated his messages to the Humans.

"I never thought I'd see the day that Elites and humans would form an alliance," the Fieldmaster warbled. "Didn't think we could leave our barbaric past where it was."

As Xepo repeated what he'd said, the Zealot rested his eyes on the Marine, who seemed to be the leader out of the two human soldiers judging by his age and demeanor. Then he said something else, and Xepo converted the words to human English, "Within that Forerunner complex is a misguided Brute who is trying to destroy the galaxy. We cannot allow this to happen. This fight, may be the last fight of all our lives. This is where we make history, unless we fail, in which case our sacrifice may never reach the light of day. We must not fail, or our legacy, everything our species have built and fought for, will be destroyed."

Avery Junior Johnson's face was partially hidden beneath the bill of his ever present utility cover cap. It was sort of intimidating, and the human's abnormal height only added to the effect. However, instead of taking the opportunity to respond, he stared deep into the Zealot's eyes. He seemed to be searching his soul for a sign of deception, or any indication that this was some kind of ruse. A polygraph couldn't have administered a more accurate test.

No one moved a muscle. Eventually, Johnson relaxed, then said, "You're right about one thing. If we're gonna stop Big Ugly, we need to forget the past and work together. As a team. Hooah?"

Behind him, the Imp shouted, "Hooah!"

Xepo translated the message to Zuvo, who opened his mandibles in a 'grin' and held up a forearm in a diagonal blocking gesture. Despite the difference in species, Johnson recognized the universal warrior's handshake and crossed his forearm against the Elite's, forming an X. Behind Madiba and the Imp, the Phantom's gravity lift came back online. They had arrived at their destination.

Rtas 'Vadumee's voice sounded through the troop bay, "This is it. Go forth and save us all from total annihilation."