[H1]Tar 'Mdalak[/h1]
[i]Paxopolis Simulated Training Centre[/i]
[hr]

Though he had been helpful when left alone, Jurna’s response to the ambush was less than ideal. He did listen to Tar’s warning and turn around, but the two shots he fired with his carbine were not enough to break the Brute’s shields. At such close range, he would have been better off striking the Brute with the weapon. Instead, he took the full force of a mauler shot that immediately breached his shields, which was followed quickly by a strike to his head with the mauler’s blade. Especially when wielded by a Brute, it was easily enough to kill, which was precisely Jurna’s fate for this scenario.

Ryssa, at least, was faring somewhat better. The stalker he was fighting seemed intent on tearing the Sangheili apart with his bare hands, but Ryssa thought quickly enough to turn his needler around and jam the needles straight into the Brute’s neck. It was another stalker brought down, though Ryssa was still unshielded and vulnerable.

Tar cried in anguish as Jurna's limp body fell to the floor. She grabbed a red plasma rifle from the severed hand of a Brute lying next to her and fired it at Jurna's killer. The half shielded Brute retreated back into the hallway.

"Put down your weapons! Or the humans die!" A gravelly voice boomed from the front of the room.

Tar peered over the top of the table and saw two Brutes, camo disabled, pointing spikers in the direction of her and the recruits. Each of them held a member of the Command centre staff in front of them.

Behind these two Stalkers, another Brute, also visible, was fiddling with one of the master control panels. Red lights began flashing in the command room, and one of the screens featured a plaintive PROXIMITY WARNING sign.

Of the two remaining recruits, Ryssa was the one to act. He ducked down quickly behind the barricade before even retrieving his needler from the Brute’s neck to allow the chance for his shields to recharge. Though, the warning on one of the screens meant he would not have time to wait. They had to act quickly. In this case, Ryssa did not need to hesitate nor look to others for direction. He already knew his instructions, based on the mission parameters. Directives from both the UNSC and Swords were actually similar in this respect: the mission had priority. Hostages were meant to be saved if possible, but ultimately, unless the hostages in danger were of critical importance themselves, the fate of the colony meant more than any individuals. For this scenario, stopping the sabotage to save the colony was the objective. Drawing his storm rifle, Ryssa braced it on top of the barricade and opened fire into the back of the Brute at the console.

Both the Brutes up front snarled in unison, firing their spikers at Ryssa. The Stalker at the console picked up his weapon and turned around, but didn't get any shots of. Tar jumped up, waves of pain crashing against the back of her eyeballs, and joined her fire to Ryssa's. The Brute at the back promptly melted to the console.

Seeing all was lost, the two Brutes up front cracked the skulls of their hostages, discarding them on the floor. Sharing a quick look, they began running at Tar, bodies low to the ground in berserk mode, jumping through the hologram of Sarcophagus.

Tar had encountered this particular move lots of times before. She tried to find a stable platform on her bleeding foot while they closed. Finally, satisfied she wouldn't fall over from the first strike, she drew her energy sword.

Greeting them with a bloodthirsty roar, Tar used the first Brute's momentum against him. As he leapt forward, she impaled him on her sword, lifted him clean over her head and dumped him behind her. She screamed in pain as her foot took all the extra weight.

Pirouetting clumsily to greet the second attacker, Tar launched her sword at him as he jumped from the hologram plinth, arms ready to crush her. It connected meatily with his torso in mid air, and the Brute clattered to the floor just in front of her. Tar pulled out her Mauler and shot them both in the head, just to be sure.

"Ryssa, help me turn this off. Daha, sweep and secure the room."

Though he certainly heard the two Brutes rushing their position, Daha was in no position to help. After Jurna’s death, Daha looked back into the hall to cover their flank. With a focused eye, it did not take him long to spot enough of a shimmer for him to act upon. He did not bother charging his plasma pistol, instead firing both it and the plasma rifle at slightly different positions to try and reveal the stalker.

Fortunately, one of the plasma bolts found its mark and disrupted the cloak. From there, he did nothing particularly special nor complex. He simply overwhelmed the Brute with plasma fire from both weapons. Daha’s shields were half-drained from a mauler shot at medium distance, but the Brute fell long before it could do any more damage.

With the hostile forces neutralized, the remainder of the simulation was fairly simple to complete. It was simply a matter of reactivating the defenses the stalkers had disabled, namely the settlement’s anti-air defenses. It was a task that required some knowledge of the Human computer systems, but they had been taught to do it.

Once the scenario had been completed, the team quickly filed out of the simulator to open it up for use by the next group waiting. The four recruits, now reunited, stood together at attention once again. Strictly speaking, the scenario had been completed successfully, with the primary objective fulfilled. The secondary objective to rescue hostages had failed, but that was, by the scenario’s own description, considered a difficult objective. What was of more concern to the recruits was the fact that they had performed far from flawlessly. Two of their number had died, and they made some obvious mistakes.

Tar looked at each of them in turn to gauge their feelings before asking: “Who would like to go first and explain how we did?” She was interested to hear their take on what had just happened. Even the Major, who would’ve been able to watch the simulation unfold even after his death.