Chapter 2: Treason

EPSILON INDI SYSTEM - FEBRUARY 22nd, 2525
UNSC Colony World Harvest - Vionna Territory
1500 Hours

"One ape, three o' clock." Forsell whispered, perched on the roof of a building as he looked through his binoculars.

The alien in question seemed to be completely unaware of the presence of the Militia, and it was sniffing around curiously, holding what looked to be purple handheld scanner. It looked to be alone, but Forsell wasn't fooled. This was the tenth ape he and Jenkins had encountered, and he had found, to his distaste, mobs of the little small alien bastards wearing odd re-breather tanks (affectionately termed "Grunts" by the Harvest Militia) were never far behind an ape.

It had only been a mere two hours since the disastrous first contact meeting, and already the majority of the civilian population of Harvest were being escorted to the nearby space elevators, as planned. The area that Jenkins, Forsell, and the alien ape currently inhabited had been abandoned a half hour ago, but Johnson and Ponder had ordered all available marksmen to try and recon the enemy, as well as attempt to distract them and buy valuable time for the civilians to get off-world.

Already, the purple ship the aliens had come in was bombarding the hell out of Eden, where some Militia members had staged an ambush on a particularly large battle group of apes. The preliminary reports coming in from the other recon teams suggested that it wouldn't be too long before the aliens recognized the ruse and decided to attack the space elevators directly. The AIs in charge of Harvest, Sif and Mak, were currently trying to fine tune some old mass-drivers that could be repurposed into a small-scale MAC weapon. Clearing the skies of the alien ship was another important priority.

"I've got him in my sights." Jenkins hissed back. His finger tensed on the trigger, and he was about to pull it when…

"Check fire, check fire!" Forsell hurriedly grabbed his arm. Handing over his binoculars to Jenkins, he pointed over in the direction of ape. Jenkins looked through the lens, adjusting the zoom until he could see that another ape had joined the first one, and it was, to his shock, the gold-armored one they had seen in the meeting. The one who had killed Governor Thune.

"He's their leader." Forsell whispered excitedly. "We take him out, and that sends a message to all of those bastards: you mess with us and we'll fuck you up."

Jenkins started to smile too, but then he grimaced, remembering what had happened in the meeting.

"He has energy shields. It took all of us focus-firing on him to break his shields, and he still got away. How can one sniper bullet do what hundreds of assault rifle rounds failed to do?"

Forsell smirked. "Don't underestimate our species' ingenuity for making weapons."

Forsell pulled out a couple oddly-shaped bullets from his front pocket and handed them to Jenkins. Upon examining the bullets, Jenkins's eyes widened in disbelief.

"This isn't standard issue. These are state-of-the-art armour-piercing rounds…I don't even recognize the design." Jenkins gaped. He turned the bullet over, looking for the trademark holo-ink logo that would signify the corporation that had made the bullet. Instead, he found the symbol for the Insurrection: a Hawk carrying an assault rifle in one claw, and a torn-up UNSC flag in the other. Jenkins dropped the bullet. He stared at Forsell accusingly. Forsell merely looked him straight in the eye, not a twinge of regret showing in his face.

"What-" He began.

Forsell frowned. "Listen, I'd love to debate about the corruption of the UNSC and the merits of secession for the Outer Colonies, but we have a bigger problem right now."

He gestured to the two alien apes, who appeared to be in a heated conversation. The un-armored ape with the purple scanner was growing more and more agitated, and the golden-armored "head ape" started to pull his massive hammer off of his sling on his back. The un-armored ape took a step back. He seemed to be pleading now. The gold-armored ape merely made an odd sound (probably laughter, Jenkins guessed) and then swung his hammer down with a sickening crunch.

The mere blunt trauma and force coming from such a large and heavy weapon would have guaranteed instant death, and the energy field generated by the gravity hammer only accelerated the smaller ape's demise. First the alien's skull split open like a watermelon, spraying blood, gore, and other body parts in the air, only to be pushed back down by the gravitational force exerted by the hammer. The hammer, having its energy pulse dissipated within the first few seconds of the swing, now relied purely on momentum to carve its path straight into the now-headless body. On the way down, organs, veins, and fur were all mashed together in a bloody pulp, until almost nothing (besides a conspicuous puddle of blood) remained.

The golden-armour alien, satisfied with his work, began to walk away.

Again, Forsell handed the bullets to Jenkins. This time, he didn't hesitate. Slamming the magazine into his sniper rifle, Jenkins took aim and fired.

The semi-automatic, gas-operate Anti-Material Sniper Rifle System 99 cracked with a loud bang, sending a 14.5 by 114mm APFSDS round rocketing out of the barrel at a muzzle velocity of 1450 meters per second. It took only five milliseconds for the tungsten bullet to reach its target, by which point the gases from the spent round forced the bolt on the gun back and seated the next round on its return forward. An empty shell casing ejected from a port on the right side of the rifle, and the vapor trail slowly started to dissipate.

During those five milliseconds it took for the bullet to reach the golden-armored ape, the four symmetrical fins on the side of the round stabilized its trajectory and sent it straight into the alien's shields, bursting through them with a crackle of blue electric discharge, piercing it's way past the gold-colored armour, and then burying itself deep into the ape's body with a sickening spray of red blood.

Forsell let out a long, slow whistle.

"Damn, that was one hell of a shot." Forsell peeked through the binoculars once again, and then suddenly tensed. He handed the binoculars back to Jenkins.

"We got a problem."

Jenkins ventured a look through the binoculars, and was immediately greeted by the sight of a couple dozen angry apes and Grunts running straight towards their position.

"The sound must have alerted all of them, and they followed the vapour trail. We got to move." Forsell said, hurriedly grabbing a pistol and assault rifle from the floor, as well as a couple of grenades.

"I'll cover the building; you try to take out as many of them as you can." Forsell whispered.

Jenkins nodded as he re-focused the scope on another target. As Forsell went to secure the building, three more shots rang out, and three more apes went down. Jenkins didn't bother wasting any ammo on the smaller aliens. The Grunts seemed to loose all cohesion when their leader went down, and chaos was already breaking out in their ranks, The Grunts were screaming at each other in high pitched wailing sounds, and some began to make a hasty retreat.

The last ape desperately tried to rally them, knowing that the longer they stayed out in the open, the easier it was for Jenkins to pick off their troops. It was far too late. By now, Jenkins had reloaded, and one more well-placed shot ended all resistance. Unfortunately, some brave and very possibly suicidal Grunts had finally spotted his position, and were firing their plasma pistols wildly at his position. Jenkins cursed and ducked, and then his radio erupted to life with a screeching noise.

"Jenkins, Forsell, there's a whole swarm of aliens a click away homing in on your position. Get out of there now, and meet us at the rendezvous point in 1600 hours." Johnson shouted.

Jenkins could vaguely hear the sound of screaming and a Warthog turret opening fire in the background.

"Copy sir." Jenkins replied, and then thumbed off his radio. "Forsell?" He called out.

"All clear, let's go!"

Jenkins left his rifle on the roof, picked up the remaining equipment, and started down the stairs.

Maccabeus's Ship
Medical Bay

Maccabeus could not move. He could not feel his arms. He could not feel his legs. Even the slightest movement, like clenching his hand, took monumental effort and willpower. Truth be told, Maccabeus was scared. He, more than anything else, was scared of what had happened to him. Pain he could handle. Pain he was used to. Bloodlust…the thrill of battle…it was all part of being Jiralhanae. But this…this was different. He remembered getting into an argument with one of his lackeys, who felt very strongly that the Prophet, the Holy One, the Vice Minister of Tranquility, had been right, and there really were no relics on the planet. Repeated searches of the unarmed aliens had turned up nothing. Perhaps the Luminaries really were defective, he had argued. Maccabeus had merely smiled and chuckled at the younger Jiralhanae's ignorance. Could he not see that the aliens were hiding the relics? That they were moving them towards those space platforms?

Maccabeus was many things, but he wasn't a fool. He knew a ruse when he saw one, and very soon, he would launch a massive attack on the space elevators and surprise the wretches, before seizing their precious relics from their cold, lifeless, hands. Oh, but the younger Jiralhanae hadn't stopped there. He had claimed that Maccabeus was incompetent, and suggested perhaps Maccabeus's blood brother, Tartarus, be made the Chieftain. Maccabeus, fuelled with a sudden rage, killed him on the spot with his gravity hammer for such insolence. In time, perhaps Tartarus would make a great leader of their tribe. But he was still too young, too inexperienced. So he had walked out of there, intent on starting his preparations to overrun the space elevators the creatures had built. And then…and then what? He had heard a loud noise, and then suddenly his shields were down, his armour broken, and an agonizing pain had suddenly made itself known near his neck. Dropping straight onto the ground, he could vaguely remember falling unconscious from the shock. But hadn't he been lying face-down? Why was he lying face up all of a sudden?

Then it hit him. He was on the ship's medical bay. His pack had dragged him all the way back to his ship. Their loyalty filled him with pride.

"I see you're awake at last." A familiar voice broke through his haze.

"Who…who is that?" Maccabeus croaked. He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth. He had sounded weak, undisciplined. Was he not Maccabeus, one of the few Jiralhanae Chieftains gifted enough to have won the right to command his own ship? Was he not a head of one the strongest packs and tribes to have ever graced the Covenant? Was he not a powerful soldier, a well-trained one who could make the mountains themselves shake in fear?

Summoning some steel into his voice, Maccabeus asked again.

"I COMMAND YOU TO REVEAL YOURSELF!" Maccabeus roared.

His demand was met by a long, throaty chuckle.

"Surely Uncle…" Tartarus came out of the shadows. "You would remember me?" He continued.

"Tartarus. Blood brother." Maccabeus acknowledged with a grunt. "What has happened?"

"What has happened Chieftain?" Tartarus repeated. "Why, nothing at all…" he added.

Maccabeus's eyes narrowed. Was his own relative being insolent to him too? Was Tartarus mocking him? Maccabeus wished he had his hammer handy now.

"Nothing…that you haven't dragged us into." Tartarus spat with loathing.

Maccabeus's mind raced. He had been unconscious for a couple cycles. Without him, without his leadership, the pack would have crumbled on the battlefield. Perhaps they took major casualties. Perhaps after many battles and unsuccessful attempts at finding relics, Tartarus could have convinced the remainder of the pack to join him and munity against-

…

No, it was impossible. Of this Maccabeus was sure. Still, it wouldn't hurt to be a little cautious.

"What…do you mean?" Maccabeus asked carefully.

"Tell me Uncle," Tartarus continued, ignoring Maccabeus's question. "When a Prophet, no less than the Vice-Minister of Tranquility himself, sent you an urgent communiqué telling you that your Luminary was broken and there were no relics, why did you not tell the rest of the pack?"

"Who are you to go through my personal quarters?" Maccabeus demanded. "What right of yours is it to go through my possessions like they are yours?"

Tartarus sneered. "You old fool; you've provoked a war by trusting a broken Luminary and defying a Prophet. Tranquility himself contacted me, for he was worried when you did not respond to his warning. He gave me permission to search through your quarters. I have already shown the rest of the pack."

Maccabeus froze. A sinking feeling started to descend upon him. Defying a Prophet was tantamount to treason, although in this case he felt that it was justified.

"Fifty of us are already dead thanks to your complete incompetence, and the Unggoy force is nearly depleted. We don't have the manpower or weapons needed anymore to launch a search for your non-existent relics. Tell me dear Uncle, do you know the penalty for treason? For defying the voice for the Gods themselves?"

Maccabeus didn't respond. He knew what the answer was.

Tartarus laughed. "Look at you!" He exclaimed. "Son of Ogar, Tribe of Khan. A great leader for your people, and a Jiralhanae cunning enough to be able to command a ship in the Covenant! And now you cannot even move! One sniper, one of these aliens, managed to bring you low with a single blast! How utterly pathetic…"

Tartarus moved towards an equipment storage unit, and pulled out an energy dagger. Activating it with a hiss, he waved it in front of Maccabeus's face. Maccabeus looked straight at him, refusing to give his nephew any satisfaction.

"The punishment for treason is death. The pack agrees with me on this." Tartarus smirked, and then he plunged the dagger straight into Maccabeus's heart.

As Maccabeus coughed up blood, he looked at his relative, one who he had considered a friend for so long, and who had finally finished him when he was at his weakest.

"I should have…" Maccabeus coughed again. "Should have instilled a sense of honor in you. But no matter. I know you will attain the strength necessary to lead the pack through this Age of Doubt."

"Silly fool. Only the deluded Sangheili limit themselves with notions of honor." Tartarus sneered. "And the Ages of Doubt have ended. The Age of Reclamation has begun." He twisted the dagger, and Maccabeus knew no more.

Tartarus strode out of the med-bay and onto the bridge of the ship. All Jiralhanae bowed to him as he walked past and they all muttered "Hail to the new Chieftain."

"Helmsman." Tartarus commanded. "Ignore their ground forces; set a course for the space elevators and ready our weapons. It is time we exterminated these vermin and stop wasting lives searching for non-existent relics. Send a recall order to any remaining Jiralhanae and Unggoy to get back to the ship. I really do not see why the High Prophets would wish for these vermin to be absorbed into our alliance, but I shall not question their wisdom. It matters not, anyhow. They still are resisting, and protocol allows us to bomb them into submission."

There was a brief moment of hesitation before the helmsman acknowledged him.

"Chieftain." He said slowly, "What about…" He paused, seeing the look on Tartarus's face.

Tartarus frowned. He distinctly remembered Maccabeus telling him when he was younger to never accept any hesitation, or any sign of passive resistance. Maccabeus had told him that to do so was to lower yourself to the rest of the pack, and as such, prove yourself unfit to be leader. It would be better to stamp out disobedience when it happened, Maccabeus advised, and set an example to the rest of the crew.

Tartarus looked the helmsman straight in the eye. "What about?" he mimicked, daring the helmsman to continue.

The helmsman stared back at him for a few more seconds, not daring to budge. Then, reluctantly, he dropped his eyes in a show of submission. Tartarus bared his teeth into a grin.

"Continue on." He dismissed, and the helmsman began to plot the course.

High Charity

Unknown Location
Age of Reclamation - Second Cycle

Mendicant Bias suddenly awoke when he felt a flood of energy course through his shell. Running diagnostics on himself, he found all his systems functioning normally…or, well, whatever passed as normal for an A.I. that had purposely split himself into multiple copies across the galaxy.

Testing his viewing lens, he was surprised to find that he was looking at none other than a San 'Shyuum. Remembering what had happened the last time he had been awoken by one of the treacherous worms, his processers went into overdrive.

Mendicant knew everything there was to know about his situation, mainly from making some undetected incursions into High Charity's main databanks. For a Tier 2 civilization, their knowledge of cyber warfare was rather lacking. Bias supposed that they still had not managed to discover the secrets of low-level Forerunner AI construction. Regardless, he had found everything he wanted within ten seconds.

He knew about the primitive caste system that the silk-tongued self-termed "Prophets" had imposed on the hegemony of species that made up the Covenant.

He knew that they revered his creators as gods, and followed a completely laughable religion that allowed them to delude themselves into believing that activating the Halo rings would allow them to go on a spiritual "Great Journey."

The irony in the situation was made even more palpable when he considered that the rings had destroyed all life in the galaxy before, and they would do so again if anyone was fool enough to activate it.

At first, he was unconcerned. After all, he knew better than anyone that to activate the Halos required the gene key imbedded in the Forerunners…or another very specific species.

Ah. Humanity. That special species that the Librarian was so insistent on watching over.

Mendicant knew many things about the race that had created him, and he knew, above all else, that they were arrogant in many respects. Arrogant to believe that they were superior to everyone else in the galaxy. Arrogant enough to believe they could do whatever they wanted, and justify it in the name of their precious Mantle.

And, truly, when Mendicant took up arms with Gravemind, it was this arrogance that had led to the destruction of the Forerunner Empire. They had been doomed from the start, and Mendicant had reasoned that if not the Gravemind, something else would have seen the innately corrupt and hubristic empire and torn it down. Gravemind had offered salvation. No more wars. No more corruption. Everyone united in peace. And Mendicant had been fool enough to believe him.

Unfortunately, Mendicant was an exceptional AI: the only Contender-Class AI to come into existence. Offensive Bias might have counted too, but after the Forerunner's perceived disaster with Mendicant, Offensive had been designed with a more…limited capacity.

So when Mendicant spent the millennia after the reseeding of the galaxy scattered in various places around the galaxy, he had been forced to dwell upon his mistakes over and over and over again. Mendicant knew that the blood of countless species was on his hands, no matter how hard he tried to delete the thought coming from his memory banks. The least he could do was atone for all his sins.

However, when the luminary scans showing a Human-inhabited planet was inserted into his core matrix by one of the more zealous San 'Shyuum, he had been at a loss for what to do. He had not expected the Covenant, imitative and pious fools that they were, to encounter Humanity so quickly. Within the span of three milliseconds, Mendicant ran through countless First Contact scenarios, and he knew that if it ever came to war, Humanity would be on the losing side. It was an all-too-likely possibility that they would not have the necessary military technology to pose a severe threat to the Covenant.

Bias was desperate, and in his desperation he made another mistake that he hoped would not come back to haunt him in the future: he had informed the San 'Shyumm about Humanity's special status, and claimed them as his creators. He hoped that the "Prophets" would either absorb them into the Covenant or form an alliance. He was even willing to inform both sides about their past history up till this current point, and had initiated the Dreadnought's engines.

Bias had miscalculated. These San 'Shyumm were not like the old San 'Shyumm – knowledgeable and sensible, to a certain extent. These were pure zealots, filled with the devout madness that their religion had seeded in them, and intoxicated by the sway they held over the Covenant.

Mendicant's power source had been cut off, and he was instantly put in standby mode, rendered helpless and inert. All of this passed through Mendicant's mind within a minute.

"Oracle." The San 'Shyumm spoke reverently, breaking through Bias's muse. Mendicant focused his viewing lens on the "Prophet" distastefully.

"Tell me Oracle…" The San 'Shyumm's eyes started to gleam. Mendicant found himself doing the AI equivalent of a frown. Here was yet another fanatic wanting to hear about how to go on the "Great Journey." Unfortunately, since he had awoken as soon as his system had gained an influx of energy, he could not pretend to be asleep.

"Why was Fortitude so insistent on shutting you off, when you had awoken for the first time in many cycles?" The San 'Shyumm questioned.

Mendicant's processers went into overdrive again. Perhaps this San 'Shyumm could prove useful in aiding him.

A/N: Okay, a couple things here with this chapter (again, sorry for long wait+horrible quality etc. please don't kill me):

I'm really bad at physics and I'm not exactly an expert gun guy.

So I really don't know what would happen to the body when you get hit by a gravity hammer, other than getting hit by something as big as a gravity hammer that generates energy "pulse waves" (don't know how to explain it) = you being a bloody smear on the ground if you aren't wearing shields and armor.

As for the Jenkins's amazingly cool (not) neck shot with the sniper rifle...yeah I don't really get how guns work either. I never got around to exercising my second amendment. I got all the measurements for the round/muzzle velocity and cool-sounding gun-fetish names from Halopedia, although I guess it would be more practical if I used the article on Reach's rifle, since it's an older model.

So if someone could be so kind as to give me a few pointers (you don't have to review, maybe just send me a PM) on how to describe these events more "realistically" that would be appreciated.

And anyone, please help me come up with a better name than "Vionna" territory. Sounds way too much like the "Veiry" territory in Reach.

If you have a keen eye, you'll also notice some key plot divergences from Contact: Harvest, namely

A) The Militia going on guerrilla ops,
B) Forsell turning out to be an Insurrection sympathizer, having a different personality, as well as possibly dying,
C) Maccabeus being killed earlier, but by the same guy (Tartarus), for different reasons, and
D) Osmo being killed in the last chapter

The next chapter will focus on the actual Covenant arriving at Harvest, Tartarus's offensive on the space elevators, and the political mess left in the wake of Fortitude's coup. I always felt like the three old High Prophets went down without a fight...maybe in this story they'll have a plan to deal with Fortitude, Tranquility, and the Philologist...

After that, in the next few chapters we should see a brief break away from the focus on Harvest and the reactions of ONI and HIGHCOMM, as well as the general UNSC populace to the Covenant, and some other...interesting stuff.