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Army of One part 2: Horrible Discovery
Date: 8 March 2005, 3:22 AM
An Army of One
Part 2: A Horrible Discovery
Hayes had been walking around the remnant of camp Zulu for around an hour, assessing equipment, looking for survivors, and trying to find a way to contact the fleet. He found no survivors, and there was no useful technology he could use that was still intact. He did however find the armory.
The armory was one of the first things that was built at the camp. It was pretty much a steel box with dirt thrown over the top, but it served its purpose well. He walked into it through a hole that had been burned into the side from a large plasma explosion. Stepping inside, he was amazed at the amount of weaponry in the room. There were artillery cannons, warthog turrets, every type of gun in the UNSC arsenal, and enough grenades to destroy a lightly armored frigate. He walked down the isles of guns, having trouble choosing which he wanted. He would only be able to carry two himself, mainly because he would also have to carry a lot of ammunition.
After a few minutes of consideration, he decided to take with him a S2 AM sniper rifle and a M90 shotgun. He also grabbed 12 fragmentation grenades and attached them to his chest straps, and brought as much extra ammo as he could carry.
"Now all I have left on my list is to find a vehicle and get the hell outta here!" he said to himself. He walked outside to find his vehicle. All the warthogs he came across were damaged or out of gas, so that only left one option. Even though he hated the Covenant, he had no choice but to use one of their ghosts to escape with. He found one that had almost no damage, hopped on, and began to drive. He find driving to be quite easy, and it was also very relaxing because of the almost perfectly smooth ride.
After he had been driving for about 5 minutes, he heard a distinctive sound to his left. He looked up to see 2 Phantoms flying away from the Library. He cursed the enemies flying them, and he continued driving. After about an hour of driving, he saw to specks on the horizon. In a few moments they came into clear view, and he saw that they were 2 other ghosts driving in formation. He figured they were elites on patrol so he prepared to kill some Covenant.
He pulled the shotgun of his back and cocked it, ready to blow away the driver. The closer the ghosts came however, the more and more they didn't look like elites. When they were about 100 feet away, he saw that the creatures driving were large, and were leaning over the hoods of the vehicles. He had no idea what these things were, and he wasn't about to ask them. When they were 15 feet away, he fired his shotgun at the lead driver. It appeared to have no effect on it, and it continued to come closer, and began to open fire with the ghost's turrets. It eventually passed him by, without a single shot hitting. It was a horrible shot, and Hayes was thankful. Then Hayes had an idea. If shotguns couldn't kill these things, then he knew something that would. He turned the ghost around to face the enemy vehicle, and boosted it to full speed. When they were about 45 feet away, he jumped off his ghost. He hit the ground hard and felt one of his ribs snap. He looked up to see the ghosts collide, and the resulting explosion was so powerful it vaporized the ghosts and his skin burned for a second. "Great" he said "now for his buddy." The remaining ghost turned to face him, and began to accelerate toward him. He was apparently trying to run Hayes over, which he didn't understand because he could easily just shoot him with the turrets, but he wasn't complaining. When the ghost was about 6 feet away, he jumped to the side, shotgun in hand. As it passed him by, he fired the gun, blowing the driver clear off the vehicle.
He ran over to the body. He was disgusted by what he saw. It looked like an elite only by shape, and was a sickening green color. It had small tentacles and antennae on its body, and its limbs were greatly deformed. Even though it had just taken a 8-gauge shot to the chest, it was still moving. Cocking the gun again, Hayes muttered "Survive this." and loaded the round into its chest at point blank range. This was apparently the killing shot, because it stopped moving. He looked over at the ghost he had recently shot the beast off, and noticed it was in reasonably good condition. He hopped on, and was disgusted to find he was sitting in a mucky clear water.
Comfort aside, he punched the throttle onward toward a hilly region on the horizon.
Army of One part 1: realizing reality
Date: 9 March 2005, 10:55 PM
An Army of One
Part 1: Realizing Reality
1715 hours, September 24th, 2552
Forerunner Installation 05, Within Quarantine Zone 14
A lone ODST awoke in a haze. He sat up, and looked around at all the carnage. There were fires burning everywhere, ghosts and warthogs were smoldering heaps, and powerful Scorpion tanks were melted to the ground. Hayes and his team had been called back as reinforcements for camp Zulu. Hours before, the base had been attacked by a large Covenant force, numbering at least 2000 strong. The marines had been prepared to fight the Covenant, but had not expected such a large force, especially when they were almost directly under their ship, In Amber Clad.
The marines had constructed the camp when the ship had entered the area to retrieve an artifact from something Capt. Keyes had referred to as "the library". He didn't understand why she wanted to waste good men to retrieve an object that he had never heard of before. He thought it would be much more wise to try to find a way off the ring instead. Thinking of the ship, he looked up to the sky above, waiting to see dropships emerging from her hangar bays, coming to pick him up, along with any survivors.
What he saw made him hold his breath. The ship was ablaze, fires were erupting from her hull and explosions blew off large sections of her armor. He reached over a dead communications officer and grabbed his radio. He set the signal to the ship's frequency and attempted to make contact. "This is Corporal Hayes, requesting information on the condition of the ship and any surviving crew." There was no response. He tried again. "This is Corporal Hayes, requesting information on the ship. Is there anyone up there?" He was pretty annoyed by now, and he yelled into the radio "This is Corporal Hayes, what the hell is going on up there?" He was greeted by silence, and as he began to put the radio down, he heard static on the other end, followed by weak breaths. He brought the radio back to his ear, and a voice began to speak.
"God help me, they're everywhere. Don't know how much longer until they find me, but......... Oh god, they're coming!!" Hayes heard a loud beating sound on the other end, as if someone was hitting a bulkhead with a sledgehammer. The soldier on the other line began talking again. "Die you monsters, I wont be one of you, never!!! Bring it on you sons of-" The soldier stopped speaking, and Hayes heard screaming and a sick, sucking sound on the other end.
Hayes had no idea of what was going on. He had expected to wake up from unconsciousness with a victory party going on around him, but wound up awaking in a field of death, with his ship ablaze and being attacked by the enemy. Ideas began pouring into his mind about what was going on. What if after the Covenant destroyed camp Zulu, they had sent their boarding craft up and captured the ship? What if he was the only one left?
As he was being tormented by these thoughts, he heard a loud sound overhead. He looked up and saw bright lights appearing off In Amber Clad's hull. The sound climaxed and the ship disappeared into Slipspace. "Oh my god." Hayes said, and he realized what had happened. The Covenant must have captured the ship, and they were undoubtedly taking it to the rest of their fleet, with all of the information still aboard. This meant that the Covenant would learn all the locations of human colonization, all of the UNSC's weapons research, and the name and location of every human ship in the galaxy.
He assessed the situation. He was the only marine alive in this area of the ring, he had no hope of escape, and the Covenant had just captured the ship he had once called home. He realized he was going to eventually die, and that it was quite possible the human race was now doomed.
As he was trying to digest this, a crazy idea popped into his head. What if he was to find his way aboard a Covenant ship, stow aboard, wait for it to enter human controlled space, and escape in one of its pods? It was a crazy idea, but it wasn't like he had a lot of options available to him. His mind was concluded. He was going to escape this ring of die trying.
Army of One part 3: Surviving Hell
Date: 9 March 2005, 11:02 PM
An Army of One
Part 3: Surviving Hell
0127 Hours, September 25th, 2552
Forerunner Installation 05, Outskirts of Quarantine Zone 15
Hayes had been driving for hours, and he was beginning to fall asleep. He had passed the hilly region he had seen hours before, discovering many bodies of Covenant and the beast's called the Flood. He had heard rumors at the camp of these beasts, but blew them off as some kind of fairly tale or ghost story.
As he began to pass some ruins, his ghost began making a strange sound, and he lost control. He jumped off, and the ghost continued to drive crazily another 50 feet, when it exploded into a shower of sparks and plasma. He looked around him, and realized how dark it was. As he felt sleep set in, he walked into some of the ruins and laid down behind a large stone.
A few hours had passed since he had fallen asleep, and he was awoken by the sound of plasma and machine gun fire. He stood up, slung his shotgun over his back, and proceeded to peek out the door of the ruin, sniper rifle in hand. What he saw almost made him fall over. There were around 5 dozen Covenant fighting against what appeared to be hundreds of Flood. He saw elites brandishing energy swords, wielding dual plasma rifles, and driving ghosts. In the distance he even saw a Wraith tank firing plasma mortars into the waves of oncoming Flood. There were also many grunts, who all seemed to be cowering in fear of the enemy and running away. The proud elite warriors did their best to end the assault, but they were easily outnumber 16 to 1.
He looked amazingly at the vast number of Flood, from small popcorn shaped pods, to large balloon-like monsters that exploded near their prey, and finally the main combat forms that were infected elites. He was also disgusted to see combat forms that appeared to be former humans, men who he might have once called friends.
As he was gazing upon the Flood, he heard the sound of squealing grunts nearby. He looked to his left and saw the grunts who were retreating from the fight were apparently going to try and hide in his ruin. He propped his sniper rifle on the doorway and peered through the scope. He aimed in on the lead grunt, pulled the trigger, and saw the grunt fall to the ground, minus half his face. The grunts looked at him amazed, and were probably wondering were this human came from, and where he learned to shoot. He didn't give them much time to think though, as he began to open fire. He caught the next three in the chest, and was then forced to reload. The grunts apparently seized this opportunity, and began to open fire as he was removing his clip. Even though their shots were horrible, Hayes wasn't about to get shot. He tossed the empty clip and rifle on the ground, and ripped a grenade of his chest strap. He pulled out the pin, and threw it toward the grunts. It exploded almost perfectly in the center of the group, and bodies and pieces of grunts blew through the air and fell upon the ground. "Well, I guess I ended this party." Hayes said dryly, as he began to reload his sniper rifle.
He barely had time to put the clip back in and pull his shotgun closer before another enemy neared his position. This time however, it was not grunts. It was about 3 dozen of those small popcorn shaped flood, who were apparently the most numerous form of the monsters. They hopped and squirmed toward his position, and he fired his shotgun into the mass. This shredded many of them, but there were still to many left to feel safe. He pulled another grenade from his chest, and rolled it toward the enemies. The resulting explosion killed almost all the remaining enemies, but 2 still remained. He pulled out his shotgun and fired at the one on the left of the other. It ripped it apart, and then he aimed toward the second. Hayes pulled the trigger, and was horrified to find the gun had jammed. He dropped the gun, and when the Flood was 3 feet away it leaped into the air toward Hayes. It landed on his shoulder and began trying to chew through his armor to his neck. He reached to his leg and pulled out his combat knife, which he used to stab his attacker. It took multiple stabs to kill the beast, and when it finally fell, it had already managed to puncture his skin, but not his throat. He reached up and felt his neck. There was a small amount of blood flowing from the wound, but what concerned him most was how fast it was swelling. Within a few seconds he could feel a pretty good sized bump on his neck.
No time to worry about that he thought, because he had to fix his gun. He reached down and picked up the shotgun, removing the barrel to see the problem better. He found what he was looking for, a large rock jammed behind the shell. It must have fallen in when he pulled it towards him. Apparently though, it must have not be in a position to clog the first or second shot, but afterwards moved in more, preventing a third. He removed the rock and put the barrel back on. He cocked the gun, waiting for the next attack.
He didn't have to wait long. Waves of Flood attacked him for the next hour, some groups small, others large. When it was finally over, he had 3 grenades left and was completely out of sniper ammo. He left his ruin to search for more ammo outside. He found another 13 shells for his shotgun, and grabbed some plasma grenades to replace the ones he had expended. He also picked up a plasma rifle to make up for his loss of the sniper rifle.
As he walked across the battlefield, he came across and dead gold elite clutching what appeared to be some kind of data pad.
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