Halo_ Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe - Eric Nylund [22]
For months their ferocity haunted him. He started gathering all the footage and reports on the race that came in. Brutes showed a diversity not only in appearance but in the way they carried themselves, as if the weight of the world was on some of their shoulders and others were free to stand tall and dominant. He intuited they must be a weathered species, hardened by many years of struggle, most likely battling among themselves. He tried numerous times to get approval to travel back into Covenant space in search of their home world. Every attempt was denied. But when Brutes started playing a larger role in the attacks on human planets and were suspected of having some animosity toward other Covenant species, his requests started working themselves further into ONI command. When word came down that they had seized the planet Beta Gabriel, he finally got his approval. They were nesting right in his backyard.
His mission was to gather as much as he could on the inner workings of this race of the Covenant, find out just how many survivors remained on Beta Gabriel, and look into finding anything among this species that could be used to cause deeper fissures within the Covenant juggernaut. It was a simple operation. Enter point A, watch from point B, exit a few days later from the exact drop at point A. Quiet, discreet, quick. He’d never thought it would be this bad.
CERETUS HATED being around these despicable creatures. If it were up to him he would have them all in his belly. He truly enjoyed the taste of their flesh, but Parabum’s new “honor” code put an end to it. Their Chieftain decided that the simple slaying and eating of the humans had to stop; there were too few of them left and it was far better to keep them around than to quickly eliminate them. Many of the others agreed, and Ceretus had to admit it was extremely enjoyable to watch them suffer. But he just couldn’t stand living among them, especially after the shame he’d been suffering since their defeat.
When they’d first arrived on this forest planet, it had been a glorious day. The humans all clumped themselves together in one area, as if that made them safer. Only a few of them were even armed. Ceretus and his brother, Maladus, didn’t even need their spikers; they had more fun killing by hand. The hunts lasted for days, the bounties delicious, their bellies never fuller. Ceretus knew that the gods would have been pleased with this conquest. It was a bittersweet revenge in the face of such a painful loss. But as the days passed and the human population dwindled, there was still no sign that the Chieftain was ready to leave.
Ceretus quickly began regretting following this cowardly Chieftain when he retreated from the massive attack. Now, as he stared at the newly found human they’d shaken from the tree, he would have much preferred to die in battle. This was not the life for a true follower of the Great Journey.
He looked back toward his brothers-in-arms. All were barely capable of understanding the path the Forerunners left for them to follow. He took his eyes from the pathetic human captives to the ship that brought them here, the Valorous Salvation. Chieftain Parabum kept the ship constantly protected with four of his bodyguards. He refused to power the ship’s communications; he didn’t want anyone to find them. It was