Chapter 5: Jumping the Alien Shark

1159 HOURS, MARS 8, 2535 (MILITARY CALENDAR)/COVENANT SYSTEM

“ULOOR”, ABOARD COVENANT DROPSHIP

Randal didn’t like small spaces. Had he been a normal person and not a 7-foot tall
supersoldier, he would probably be claustrophobic. And yet he had volunteered to be locked
inside a crate and lifted into a Covenant dropship. It wouldn’t seem logical to a regular
person, but to a SPARTAN, there was no such thing as not volunteering for a mission. And at
least he wasn’t alone. In two crates beside him in the dropship storage area were Michael and
Thomas, who, after him, had been the fastest to volunteer.
On the other hand, there were many things that Randal didn’t like. For example, working
with the jackal Zealot Ped. Randal had a bad feeling about the jackal from the start, but since
the commander had ordered them to cooperate, Randal and the other Spartans had no choice
but to work together with the jackals. But Randal felt that before the end of their mission, Ped
would turn on them, for one reason or another. However, Ped wouldn’t be able to take them
by surprise. Randal would make sure of it.
Their current mission was simple enough; find a way to get to the planet Ped had called
Iloom without alerting the entire planet of their presence until they had caused some serious
hell. To do that, the small group had laid in wait for several days for a freighter to pass by.
When a freighter finally showed up, Ped had contacted the crew and pretended to be a patrol
unit commander. Then he had requested to be allowed onboard the ship to see if everything
was in order. Luckily, the Jackal captain of the ship had agreed, and as Ped prepared his
personal bodyguard and dropship, Ponton had requested that Ped took some Spartans with
him in case things went badly and they would have to take the ship by force.
And now, Randal sat there in his container. He knew he was capable of breaking out of the
thing whenever he wanted, but it still made him feel uneasy. Slightly relieved, he felt the
dropship halt, then slowly descending downwards. Finally, it stopped in the air, and Randal
heard as the storage bay and troop bay doors opened. The steps of Ped and his bodyguard
were heard distantly. He noticed as Ped started to talk with another jackal, probably the
captain of the freighter, in the screeching-hissing jackal tongue. Without the translators turned
on, he couldn’t understand a word. But he could still feel that as the discussion dragged on, it
got worse and worse. Ped had probably already offered the captain to join him and his
rebellion, and the captain had disagreed.
After a minute, the discussion had apparently gotten more and more intense, and finally,
Ped gave off a horrible screech. Randal immediately recognized it as the signal, and at the
same time as Michael and Thomas broke out of his container with a powerful punch. They
jumped out of the storage bay, drew their rifles and fired. The jackal captain shrieked in terror
as its two guards fell. It then shrieked again, and then, from several places in the hangar bay,
jackal and grunt crewmen popped up and charged towards the Spartans, armed with wrenches
and other pieces of junk found throughout the ship.
Thomas charged in with a loud shout, shotgun at the ready. After five crewmen had fallen
to his weapon, the rest started to flee, with Randal and Michael taking them down with their
sidearms. After a minute or so, the hangar bay floor was stained with light-blue and purple
blood, dead bodies and half-dead aliens lay on various places. Randal gave Michael a nod,
whom then went to ‘check’ the bodies with his sidearm.
Ped had started to talk with the jackal captain again, but the creature seemed to still be
unwilling to help them, as Ped screeched something to Randal and pointed on the captain with
disgust. Randal pulled out his sidearm and fired two shots, one in the heart region, and the
other in the head. Ped’s first bodyguard retrieved his translation device and activated it with a
easy tap on one of its buttons.
“He was…uncooperative.” Ped said after a few moments, staring down on the body. “Even
though I offered him half the goods he was delivering.”
“What was he delivering?” Randal asked.
“A random assortment of goods” Ped replied. “Some medicine, jewelry, various non-
important devices, lots of food and a couple gravity belts.”
“Gravity belts?” Randal asked curiously.
“Belts used by the Covenant upper class to float slightly over ground” Ped explained. “But
it only works for the lighter races, so they wouldn’t work for you.”
Randal decided not to push the subject further. The commander had warned everyone not
to ask too many questions to Ped, as he feared that he would get easily annoyed. That
included questions about the Covenant as a whole, as Ponton thought that Ped may not trust
them completely anyway, which would open the possibility that he could be feeding false
information.
Randal waited until a second dropship entered the hangar. Several jackals walked out of it
and moved for what Randal guessed was the Freighter’s bridge. They were probably going to
serve as the ship’s new crew to replace the dead one. Along with the jackals, the rest of the
Spartans, the first ODST Combat Team under Silva’s second-in command Melissa McKay,
Sergeants Dean Jackson and Marvin Mobuto, and finally Lieutenant Keyes. Randal was
surprised to see a higher ranked officer going onboard this ship, but he gave a salute as the
Lieutenant passed by. Suddenly, Keyes turned around with a slight grin.
“At ease, Randal” he said with a calm voice. As he walked away following Mobuto,
Jackson and the Jackals, he left Randal confused. Why was he so easy on him? Randal
wondered if he had met him before somehow.
___________________________________________________________________________

Keyes felt uneasy walking so close to the Jackals. In fact, this whole pact made him uneasy.
The incident at the Rubble had showed him how much the jackals could be trusted. Not at all.
Yet, the commander had agreed to an alliance with this Ped. The jackals had faked being
Heretics and outcasts to the Rubble citizens as well, and it nearly cost the Rubble’s people
their lives, along with the Covenant nearly getting the navigation data to earth. What would
stop Ped from just turning on them right now and capturing them?
But, what if Ped was different? What if his goals were genuine? Keyes had often asked
himself those questions lately, as Ped had appeared so enthusiastic on their planning. And he
had willingly ordered to kill some of his brethren just to claim a ship they needed to infiltrate
their next target. Either, he really meant what he said, and was a white sheep in a flock of
blacks, or it was a very elaborate conspiracy to get them brought before and executed by the
Covenant leadership. Both were possibilities, but Keyes wasn’t sure which one to believe.
Despite his personal feelings, he had volunteered to join the new jackal crew on this
freighter, so that he could help command the next mission; to infiltrate the distant planet and
cause some serious hell so that Ped’s ships can help and sack it. He hadn’t commanded any
military operations ever since his demotion three months ago, and he hoped that his mind was
still sharp enough.
___________________________________________________________________________

Rkod witnessed the planet Rhomegra, and his spirit cried at the sight. Parts of the planet were
burning, and the distant moon lay in waste. Parts from destroyed warships could be seen at
several locations in the black space.
His sadness turned to anger, a zealous fury he could barely control. No matter what, he
would stop this madness.
“Arbiter!” the officer on the ship’s communications station screamed. “Disturbing news,
noble Arbiter, from our deep-space probes in the Megra-Lotuv system. The Kig-yar Heretics
AND the humans were spotted in the system.”
“At the same time?” Rkod asked. He didn’t like the sound of that.
“Yes, noble Arbiter. In fact, we have reason to suspect that the two allied each other in the
system, since neither was destroyed and they made the same slipspace jumps. Although, it
could be that the Kig-yar simply boarded the ship, killed all humans onboard and then took
the ship as their own.”
“No.” Rkod replied, his voice now filled with anger. “The humans would have taken the
Kig-yar with them to death with a bomb or such.”
Rkod’s anger got a hundred times worse. The very fact that the Kig-yar would ally with the
humans…it was outright disgusting. After a while, he couldn’t keep his anger back, but let out
a mighty roar which gained the attention of the entire crew. After a few units, he calmed
down, knowing exactly what to do.
“Pursue them immediately!” he ordered.
 “But noble one” Nryta ‘Lejgolee, the ship’s navigator, protested “shouldn’t we alert
Regret’s and Mercy’s task forces of our discovery and tell them to link up with us? And aren’t
you scheduled to leave your report to the Hierarchs?”
“There is no time!” Rkod shouted, his anger once again boiling. “The humans and the Kig-
yar might already be attacking another of our worlds. We must stop them now!”
The crew complied, and focused on their stations. The ship turned away from Rhomegra
and pointed out into the starry space.
“All vessels aware of our new trajectory” Rkod heard the communications officer say.
“All systems ready, entering slipspace in two units” Nryta added.
Soon, Rkod would maybe have his vengeance. And, on his honor, that vengeance would be
bitter – for his foes.