EliteCommander

Halo: Aegis Team

In their charge across the room, many of the Brutes had not made it to the other side, or died shortly thereafter. Spartan Aviza had cleared the walkway above them, leaving the chieftain with little in the way of direct support. Many Human rebels were still alive, but they moved forward more slowly and fired from distance, as they were more vulnerable.

The Spartan, Rex, had moved up into cover behind the rightmost column to meet the chieftain’s charge. Especially in close quarters, his shotgun could put quite a lot of pressure on the Brute’s shields. His first shot as the chieftain was nearing caused his shields to flare, then Aviza’s firebomb struck from above and further drained them with the intense flames. Nevertheless, the chieftain did not stop his momentum straight at Rex. As a Spartan and CQC expert, however, Rex’s reflexes were quick and precise. He deftly ducked under the the hammer’s horizontal swing while dashing away from where it would strike the column. The weapon’s kinetic impulse sent out a shockwave that pushed Rex and damaged his shields, but he had dodged far enough to avoid most of the damage. As well, he kept his aim on-target enough to deplete the Brute’s shields with another shell from his shotgun.

Rex took aim straight at his opponent’s head as he pumped his shotgun; however, the chieftain had one more trick before he could fire. Suddenly, the chieftain’s shields were charged rapidly and started to glow bright white with streaks like lightning across their surface. The “invincibility” module, as it was known, overcharged his shields to the point of being practically impenetrable. It was surprising that these Brutes would still have such equipment in a working state from the war, but that was the obstacle they now faced. The module would only last a short time, but the chieftain had already made it into close quarters, among Aviza’s team.

The Cradle

This time, it seemed, the insects really were simple animals. 595’s light display did seem like a good idea to scare them off, though unfortunately, it did not seem to be enough. When the creatures reared up, she switched to the third firing mode on her fusion cannon, which turned it into a plasma thrower. It could shoot forward a dense cloud of superheated plasma, much like a flamethrower. It was bright and immensely hot, neither of which would be too appealing to any creature on the receiving end.

Rareth’s suit identified the acid as a corrosive agent as soon as it hit her shields. There was some drain to her shielding, but the acid was not too much of a concern. Although it was good to know these things had the capability; it could be more of a threat to others in their group. In any case, Rareth soon let loose a stream of plasma in a wide arc in front of them. Its glow easily illuminated the cave, and its heat would hopefully encourage anything it did not incinerate to run away. As she had said to the Agent, she was not here to be an exterminator.

The Cradle

Rareth did not back away, at least not at first. The creatures seemed to have their own passageways, likely dug themselves, that branched off from the main passages. It was an important detail to remember, though the insects in front of her were more of a concern at the moment. She also scanned them as much as possible and made note of what she could observe of their morphology. They were long, slender, and seemed equipped to deal with tough prey. In any case, Rareth still stayed calm regardless of the numbers in front of her.

In an elongated bubble around Rareth, the Agent would be able to see her energy shield become visible in the air as it turned translucent and started to refract the light passing through it. She had modulated it to allow it to protect against lower velocity attacks. In normal use, an energy shield would protect against high energy or high velocity projectiles, while slower moving objects could pass through it. They could, however, be modulated to become more like solid walls blocking any object attempting to pass. The disadvantage in this state was that the shield would block attacks in either direction, so Rareth would need to lower it whenever she made any attacks herself.

“Are you mere animals, or are you intelligent?” Rareth questioned towards the insects. After the worm had turned out to be an intelligent entity, it was plausible that any creature they encountered could be sapient. “If you are, we have no intention to hurt you. If not…” Her voice trailed off as she glanced down at 595. “Let’s start backing away and return to the first passage. If they let us go, we will leave them be.”

The Cradle

“Hold right there.” Rareth ordered as soon as the Agent started to move off along the side passage. “If you are going to help me, you must move behind me, not ahead. It is necessary for us to scout these caves for danger, but we are not here to exterminate every pest that might live here. Follow behind me, and we will see what is living here, but do not simply shoot on sight. If these are simple animals, they may simply flee when they see us. If they attack, I will kill them.”

Regardless of what 595 might have thought about Rareth taking the lead, it was not as if there would be much hope of overtaking her once she did get moving. There was no feasible way of moving their entire group through the caves stealthily, with all of their equipment, when the tight passages would carry the echoes of every single footstep far and wide. Since they would not have the option of stealth later, Rareth made no attempt to hide now. If something was going to attack, she wanted it to attack her, without the civilians present. Ideally, whatever creatures they encountered would either flee on sight, or they would be able to scare them off. If not, she would need to assess how much of a threat they posed.

The Cradle

Rareth was mostly ignoring her eyes, instead focusing on the map she was creating as they went of the path ahead of them. They had not yet come to any divergence in the path, but if they did, she might slow down somewhat to give her sensors a chance to map them as well; at least as far down them as the echoes would be discernible.

”A Datius is as equipped as they need to be for their task, but it is not our technology that makes us.” Rareth replied. “A Datius is the…apex, excepting only for the Rahn’Saki. Not all of us are soldiers, but we are all the most capable in what we do. I will merely say this: there is a reason the Rothian special forces team assigned to this mission consists solely of myself.”

The Cradle

Rareth approached the Agent, looking down onto her with a stern expression. “I intend to finish this quickly, and I will not wait on you. I trust that you will be able to map the cave system as we move through? If you fall behind, return to the camp and wait for me. Otherwise, follow my path and keep watch for any dangers.”

With that, Rareth waited no longer. The rest of the Human soldiers were setting up their camp’s defenses, while the scientists were finally able to rest their feet. Even if nothing else was accomplished here, this break would help the civilians to keep up their pace once they started to move again.

Rareth followed along the edge of the river, into the entrance to the cavern, and just as she promised, she was moving quickly. In such tight quarters, it was not as if she could move as fast as her body was capable, but she had still not been lying about the fact that her pace would be difficult to keep. They did not have to go too deep for the ambient light from the outside to fade. She could illuminate their path with lights built into her suit, though even in complete darkness, she would have had no trouble navigating. Her echolocation implant was even more effective within the cavern than it was outdoors. The pulses of sound traveled far down the cave ahead, tracing out all the potential paths ahead long before she could see them. She could decide ahead of time which way she wanted to go, without stopping or slowing her pace at any point.

The Cradle

Rareth turned and looked down at the agent skeptically. “Do you have comparable capabilities to these soldiers? I would be fastest alone. One of your Sacred Band may not slow me down too much, but you…you lack their augmentations, do you not? Unless there is something you are hiding about yourself, I would be delayed too much by taking you with me.”

Though her words might have been harsh, Rareth was intending to make use of her full capabilities. She would not be holding back as she had been to allow the others to keep pace, so any help would need to be able to keep up with her.

The Cradle

“Regardless of the ordinance we have available, there are no guarantees it would be faster. And we may accidentally collapse it ourselves with the explosives. If the cave does not end up bringing us close enough to the other side, it may be slower to blast through it than to just go around. With the information we have, staying outside is our best choice.” Rareth reasoned.

This time, it was actually Nirann that spoke up with an objection. “Well…we could go about it in a way that would make sure we don’t collapse it ourselves, at least. I know the echolocation hardware you Datius have is top-notch. If you’re pinging the surroundings while we’re going through, not only could you map out the cave system, but I could analyze that data to get a pretty good picture of the structural integrity of any part of the cave. That is something we could work with.”

Surprisingly, there was something of a long delay from Rareth as she weighed the pros and cons of each option. One path would certainly be safter than the other, but they were in a hurry. If it was just herself and the other soldiers, the choice would be clear, but they had the civilians and their equipment to worry about, and all of it was essential.

“I can scout ahead myself.” Rareth finally continued. “I can move far more quickly alone than we can together. I can go into the caves and seek out an exit on the other side, mapping the cave system as I go. Based on the size of this mountain, it should not take me long to get through, unless the caves are particularly difficult to traverse. And if that is the case, we certainly should not use them. Whether I find a path or not, I can be back within an hour. You can use that time to rest, recover, and continue your work.”

The Cradle

Despite the discussion and debate among the others, Rareth had made her determination pretty much right away. She did not hesitate to speak up right after Thebes. “We cannot know for sure where that cavern leads, or if there even are any other exits that a person can fit through. But more importantly, it is too dangerous. We have already seen that life in this place can be titanic; easily capable of collapsing a cave right on top of us.”

Rareth moved over to the edge of the ridge and looked down into the valley. The visibility down into the valley was not exceptional, but it was still much easier to see the path ahead than it would be in a cave. “If we encounter difficult terrain, I can move ahead of the group and try to quickly scout our best path forward.”

Nirann sighed, followed by a chuckle. “At this point, I’m wishing we could have just rode there on the back of that worm.”

The Cradle

Nirann mimicked the sound of breathing a laugh through a non-existent nose. “Oh, I’ve had subroutines running iterations on that since we left. Combat programming doesn’t take up that much processing power, so I can multitask. I’ll give you the update on my progress.” He said before sending Dr. Wetherall the data with a partial reconciliation.

Rareth might have objected to losing any focus on their surroundings, but ensuring their safe return was vital. Between her sensors and the Sacred Band’s, Nirann’s were likely redundant. He could afford to put more focus into solving the problem, if he needed to. In any case, Rareth kept leading on up the only path they could follow for the moment. Though, she was looking out for alternatives. They needed to take the most direct route they could.