An Elite's Tale

The bomb explodes and turns everything near it to confetti. For the exception of a few heads still running around, which we take to stomping, the Flood had, for the moment, been defeated. But it had come at a cost. One of us was dead. I do a quick head count and see that Shadow is missing. I remember thinking that perhaps he'd backed off the edge but the report of his shotgun comes from further inside the complex, back the way we came. Son of a bitch had tried to make a run for it. He'd left us to die.

"Let's move!" I shout at my teammates.

Regardless of his intentions, he still needs to be saved. We run back through the confusing, symmetrical halls and find him pinned down by a small lance of Grunts and Jackals being led by a single purple armored Elite. We move in to take up defensive positions near Shadow. I still don't remember seeing any of the aliens throw anything, but they do. Oh they do...

I get shoved hard into Wildcat and we both nearly fall over. I turn and see Serpent run and dive towards the enemy, but what I don't see is the thing that's fused to his armor. Not till it's too late. The plasma grenade detonates in a brilliant blue flash mid-air. A wave of heat hits me and I'm thrown backwards off my feet—straight into the corner of one of those stupid covie supply crates. Electrifying pain shoots through my entire body. When I open my eyes I see that where Serpent was a moment before, there is nothing. He'd been vaporized at the epicenter of the blast. All I see is his melted, green striped helmet bouncing and skittering behind the enemy's lines, coming to a spinning stop beneath the foot of the purple Elite. He's laughing heartily, an evil and terrifying laugh.

My body hurts all over now, but I grit my teeth and fight through the pain to try and stand up. That's when I notice Shadow up ahead sitting on the floor against the wall with his head down, not moving. I automatically assume he's dead. My helmet visor is cracked somehow, and I'm fighting hard to swim above consciousness and stay afloat. But I'm heavy, and I'm drowning. Everything is fading to black.

"Stay down Iceman, I've got this!" I hear Wildcat say, although she sounds distant, far away as if I really am underwater.

The last thing I see before darkness takes me is her standing between me and the aliens, hosing them down with her submachine gun. Distant booms I took to be explosions shook the floor beneath me as I drifted off into deep nothingness.

When I woke up, the sore pain in my back had returned twofold, and I was being dragged out of a cell I didn't even know I was in. They'd taken my M7 and pistol, plus the rucksack with all my ammo and gear. My helmet was gone too.

All I still had was my battle armor, which was better than nothing, but without my helmet I had no VSR or uplink to COMs.

I snapped out of my stupor and looked over to Wildcat and tried to meet her gaze, but the spunky strawberry blonde was busy staring death up into the eyes of her assigned executioner. Beyond her was a Scarab walker, a mere runner's jump from the ledge where Johnson was.

I briefly considered the notion of somehow escaping and taking control of the giant metal spider, but dismissed the plan as the silly fantasy that it was for the predicament I was in. My eyes panned across the despondent scene until they rested on my own executioner. He looked down at me and grunted.

He was big, even by Brute standards, and he smelled like shit. He had a Covenant Carbine in his hands, and a red cased Plasma Rifle I've heard the apes refer to as a "Bloodhand" sitting comfortably in its holster on his furry hip. I knew that these knock-off versions fire noticeably faster, but lack the stopping power that the original blue models have. My interest steered away from him and veered over to the guards by the door.

Something wasn't right.

I squinted. The air behind them rippled ever so slightly. The Brute closest to the door suddenly turned his neck at an impossible angle at the ceiling behind him, and fell slowly and silently while the other suddenly jerked his own head forward and stumbled. The guard at the door walked forward and fell. A second later, about half a dozen Elites materialized on the platform where the bodies once stood. That was when the Brute Captain made the mistake of taking his and the attention of the other Brutes off of us by pointing and yelling.

This was no amateur squad of Elite's. I couldn't see any with matching armor, but made note of all the distinctly different armor types and colors, distinguishing each of them as not only high ranking officials, but proven warriors of merit. A purple armored Elite was at the front of the formation. He had a white, circular emblem printed on his bicep that I'd only seen one other time; on the arm of the Elite who killed my squad.

Sarge yelled, "Go go go!" and sprinted for the Scarab. Wildcat and I instantly sprang into action.

My Brute had his back turned and his carbine raised at the newcomers. I leapt forward and snatched his Plasma Rifle from its home and squeezed the trigger, backpedaling until I bumped into the wall Wildcat and I had been kneeling in front of. Six red, rapid fire plasma rounds hammered into his thick hide. He spun around to face me. I scrambled over the wall.

I landed facing up and saw sickly green sticks of radiation zoom overhead. Then I saw the Brute's head appear, growling and baring his teeth, so I kicked off the wall and slid across the floor on my battle armor, spitting plasma. The Brute ducked back into cover. Four glowing red metal spikes punched through the wall, which evoked a yelp and the growling stopped abruptly. I stood and watched the long sharp spikes while they cooled to a dull gray.

I looked to my savior.

Huh?

The purple Elite had saved my life. This was mere hours after nearly taking it from me. I didn't know what to think. I did get a bit concerned though, when I saw that he hadn't lowered his hatchet gun, and he was still aiming in my direction. The Elite next to him saved my life by grabbing the gun and moving it away, but I wondered if he was gambling with his own life when the purple one moved his focus from me to him with the slowness and deliberation of a Scorpion tank.

Not my problem, I decided.

Helljumpers are the best of the best soldiers the UNSC has to offer. That is, without turning ourselves into robotic freakshows. But heroic reputation or not, that was one confrontation I did not want a part of. I knew my limits. The Elites were sweeping up the last of the Brutes, so I booked it to the ledge, then dived and caught Wildcat's hand and she pulled me up onto the deck of the Scarab. A moment later the ground jerked and shifted beneath us, and the Sergeant Major's voice blasted over the intercom.

"Listen, you don't like me and sure as hell don't like you. But if we don't do somethin', Mr. Mohawk's gonna activate that ring. And we're all gonna die."

One of the aliens stepped forward and said, "Tartarus has locked himself inside the control room."

"Well I just happen to have a key," Sarge responded. He continued, "C'mon, grab a Banshee and give me some cover. They're gonna know we're comin'."