Gathering Darkness✔️

Chapter 09: Rescue Op

The rain had picked up a bit since he'd gone into the outpost.

Now, as Kane plunged into the treeline once more, leaving behind the relative comfort and security of the abandoned UNSC station, he felt a cold loneliness and apprehension closing in on him like a smothering fog. Kane tried to shake it off, this mission had been bugged from the beginning, but man, it just wasn't letting up. He'd been in awful ops before, real digging-your-way-outta-hell kinda ops, but this...

This made a rainy day with the Covenant look welcoming.

At least with those ugly things he knew where he stood. You just shot at them and they shot at you, repeat until one of you was dead. It was...simple. He liked simple. This was complex, and scary. Kane didn't really think of himself as a smart guy. To be totally honest, he'd signed up with the Corps so he wouldn't have to think. And for the most part, that worked. He followed orders pretty well, and what thinking he did have to do, that was to say tactical thinking, he'd adapted to decently. He could think in terms of a battlefield.

But this was some pretty high concept stuff.

A teleporting tall guy in a suit with no face? Mindless husks, like slaves to him? The mysterious malfunctions and the strange energy signature?

Well, at least Goll was here to think for him, for the most part. Of course, Goll wasn't here right now. If something happened, he'd have to think on his own. And, of course, the fact that he'd gotten promoted to Corporal was an irony all its own. He had to make decisions in the field, had to oversee people sometimes, had lives on the line. That wasn't new, not quite, but it was stressful. So far he thought he'd done pretty good...

Kane felt eyes prick on the back of his neck, like a frozen finger had touched him there briefly, and he twisted around, raising his light, scanning the woods at his back. He didn't see anything, but that didn't mean nothing was there. It could be this...slender man, or one of his Proxies. God, that word creeped him out.

Proxy.

He didn't know why, it just made him deeply uncomfortable. It was just a word. Why should a word inspire fear? The human brain was weird. As he made his way through the stark, rainy gloom, winding his way through trees and trying to keep up a brisk pace, Kane found his thoughts turning to Thompson.

He didn't know too much about the technician, because the guy was so antisocial. Okay, that wasn't true. Kane had initially thought that the man was antisocial, but really, he was just asocial. It was strange how many people didn't know the difference. Antisocial people actively fought against being social, while asocial people just tended to avoid it out of discomfort or shyness. They'd hardly talked at all for the first two months, and then, one day when Kane had come into the workshop to make some adjustments to his pistol, he'd found Thompson in there, making repairs to the team's gear, and they'd just started talking.

They'd talked for almost two solid hours. And almost none of it was awkward. He'd discovered that they had a lot to say to each other. In his own way, Thompson was funny, polite and sharply intelligent. Kane had had his initial doubts about the man, well, doubts that he was a good ODST. Bad ones did exist. But Thompson had proved him wrong. Although he wasn't the best at combat, he was good enough to keep himself and his teammates alive. Most importantly, perhaps, was that he operated spectacularly under fire.

Kane had seen the man repair a lot under pretty dire circumstances. In fact, they'd gotten out of a situation alive more than once simply because of Thompson's efforts. Besides being smart and kind, Thompson was diligent as hell. He'd known the man to work on an assignment for ten hours straight, with hardly more than a few bathroom breaks. After that initial talk, they'd sort of become friends, although to be honest he was never entirely sure where he stood with Thompson. Of course, that could be his own failing.