“Sir,” Corey asked, “are you sure this is the best course of action?”
“Absolutely not.” Kai replied. “But it is one way to test the limits of the new armor, right?” He rammed some jackals aside with his brute shot, and with a flick of the wrist, pulled the pin from his frag grenade. A thud emanated from behind him.
“Perhaps.” Corey said. “But against an entire Covenant army?”
“You know me.” Kai stated. “Unconventional warfare is usually the most interesting.” Fire and brimstone erupted around him, scorching the strange symbols, distorting them and melting them away. As he momentarily peered at one, it seemed strangely, yet distantly, familiar.
‘Not now,’ Kai thought, turning back to the battle at hand. ‘Research can come later. Let’s take this one down first.’ He exchanged fire with a pair of brutes with concussion rifles; they missed, inadvertently sending large stones flying every which way, crushing grunts and jackals unfortunate to be caught in the arc. His shots, on the contrary, did not; they erupted in a flash, knocking down the two. He took some rounds and loaded them into the chamber of his brute shot.
The admiral continued to mow down another score of enemies before he realized that the numbers have thinned significantly. Surveying the rest of the team, doing surprisingly well despite facing an army more than ten times their numbers, he nodded with approval, and set his mind on something else.
He saw several vehicles still intact; they were significant threats if left to their own devices too long, so he tagged them, and sent their positions to Eagle and Bertha, hoping the long-range and heavy weapons would knock the rest of them down. He then sought the chieftain they had spotted earlier. There was something odd about that brute, the leader rank aside.
Kai brought up some other frames to his HUD, and found that the armor of this brute correlated to a rather dangerous sect. Although all brutes were merciless and barbaric, evident by the fact that he stood above the carnage while the rest of his subordinates were obliterated, he was much better trained, having abilities that would be the envy of a black-belt martial artist. Viper may have trained his team well, but Kai didn’t trust that they could take on such a foe; he marked the chieftain, and sent the link to Viper, hoping that he could take on the brute. Between himself and Viper, Kai felt more confident that Viper’s close-range combat skills were better suited to handle the situation than his own explosives expertise, despite what he saw during training.
Kai took a deep breath, and minimized the files, just as Aura ran down a line of grunts, whooping in joy. ‘She’s an odd one,’ Kai thought, ‘certainly more optimistic than most soldiers on the frontline. But maybe that’s due to inexperience; combat fatigue will take its course in due time.’
Breaking from his chain of thought, the admiral slung his brute shot, opting to keep the shielding on, and unsheathed his built-in energy swords. They hummed to life, but as he took his first swing at a rampaging brute unfortunate enough to rage near him, the blades sputtered for a moment. They were solid enough, however, to sufficiently end the brute’s life.
“Damn,” Kai muttered under his breath. He looped toward the nearest pillar for cover. “What’s the status report on the armor?”
“It is at 95%.” Corey reported. “The modifications are currently being integrated into the arms of the armor, so there may be some interference.”
“Great…” Kai looked over his shoulder, and saw that Viper engaged the chieftain. At first it seemed like the captain could handle the situation, but Kai saw that he was making sloppy mistakes, overly hasty slashes, wide cuts. As Viper’s blades began to sputter, Kai asked, “can you activate the armor now?”
“Yes,” Corey stated, “but it may be detrimental to prematurely acti–“
“Doesn’t matter.” Kai retorted. “Viper won’t survive at this rate.” He watched as Viper slammed into the floor, his blades flying away from him. One landed by the foot of Kai. “Do it!”
“Yes, sir. Activating.”
As Corey ended that statement, dozens of noises whined into Kai’s ear as the armor’s pieces moved themselves as per the modifications. As the sounds died down, Kai grabbed the fallen hilt. A simple pop-up appeared on the lower left corner of his HUD:
Code:
Kai inserted into the blank:
Induction
A hiss occurred at his gauntlets, and shielding electricity swarmed around it as he tightened his grip on the energy sword hilt. It hummed, then hissed to life, unwavering. “Finally…” he muttered. He winked off the sword, turning his attention to the brute; despite the efforts of the teammates, he made its way to Viper, struggling to maintain consciousness.
“Damn it,” Eagle cursed, “someone help the captain!”
With striking agility, he ran straight toward the chieftain. The hammer came down…
…”Viper!” someone screamed…
…but then there was no pain.
Viper had shut his eyes from the ensuing impact, but nothing happened. He looked up, and was shocked to see that Kai was standing over him. Behind him, the hammer had smashed onto the shouldered brute shot, the shield unrelenting despite taking a gravity hammer to the base. He stared, speechless, at Kai. The admiral could only utter one word to the defeated captain:
“Weak.”