Hey guys, Val here. Been fooling around with Spartan Ops again lately, since it’s a concept I actually like quite a bit. Anywhoo, I wrote a short story inspired by the events of a game of Spartan Ops I played, I hope it’s an entertaining read. Cheers!
Snuffed glories
By Val V.
Razoth’s quills rubbed tightly within the carapace of his vacuum-sealed combat harness, itching every time they so much as moved a centimeter. He couldn’t stand it. But as much as the itching bothered the Kig-Yar male, he didn’t let it show, and gripped his carbine more tightly. For he was commander of a Kig-Yar marksman Lance, and he dare not set a poor example for those he led. Together, six in all, they rode in the back of a Phantom dropship.
He’d come to lead this unit since they were but baby chicks in their mother’s warm, reassuring nest, where she’d been murdered over a deal gone wrong, as they occasionally do. He and his brethren had since bonded, and after hunting the perpetrator down and ripping him from beak to talon, they’d banded together as mercenaries. They were inseparable: wherever Razoth went, his brothers followed. That had led them to join Jul Mdama’s Covenant. They were idiot zealots, but they paid well, and offered some pretty decent equipment.
To Razoth, this was a start to something bigger: he planned to use his funds and pedigree to gather other Kig-Yar mercs and grow his band. He wanted to have his own clan, without the matriarchal structure that’d defined the culture of his species for centuries. Under that rule, he’d more or less become a second-class citizen after being orphaned from his clan mother. This was the start of a revolution. He wanted a future where it was he who got to choose his mates, not simply be tolerated by holier-than-thou queens and maybe get to mate for once in is life.
His heroes were the likes of Krith and Reth, who dared to try and stand as tall as the clan-mother caste. Both of whom ultimately failed, but that didn’t bother Razoth. He liked being the first to do something. He always took point, led his unit from the front, and more often than not he was the one to fire the first shot. Today, he was yet again poised to lead his pack, ready to hunt the foul humans and earn his pay.
The dropship shuddered as it decelerated, and the door gunners shot rapidly at a crude, bouncy, wheeled vehicle used by the hominid scum. The Phantom’s side doors opened, and moments later Razoth’s squad was mobilizing, with him first-out as always. He didn’t even get to touch land as his spine was sheared by the excruciating force of the human vehicle’s wide hood. By the time Razoth finally did touch the ground, his body lay in several pieces in a long trail of violet blood.