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Final Fall: The Second War by Nick Kang
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Meyers' War: Part 1
Date: 19 February 2005, 3:19 PM
Author's Note: I don't care if Author's Notes make the story look unprofessional. This is the series that you guys couldn't get me to shut up about. Or more correctly, this is the miniseries that is actually the prologue to the series that you couldn't get me to shut up about. While the prologue series has very little to do with actual series, it does help to explain a lot of what is happening in the actual series, as well as answer some questions I thought a lot of you might have.
And sorry about submitting it so many days late. My internet went down for some reason and I had to wait.
Enjoy
NK
Meyers' War
Part 1
1742 HOURS, SEPTEMBER 22, 2558
MEMORIAL SYSTEM, COVENANT-OWNED SPACE
CONQUERING OF COVENANT HEIRARCHY
BATTLE PRIORITY: ALPHA +1
It was an ocean. An ocean of towers and large clusters of needle-thin steeples, religious structures and slum tenements. From squat, wide little churches to towering identification outposts, the ocean contained buildings of every shape and size. Except this ocean was not inhabited by fish and sharks; it was home to millions of underworldly demons, nearly all of them thirsty for Human blood.
It was Memorial.
Of course, ONI had never discovered the actual name of the last Covenant world, but such a thing really didn't matter when there was war to be conducted. But, to Corporal Jacob Meyers, the world outside the Pelicans troop window didn't seem worthy of a name such as 'Memorial.' It looked more like a twisted, demonic version of Hell.
Meyers drew his eyes from the window and looked about the interior of the dropship. Nine other Marines, six of them armed with BR55 Battle Rifles, the other three with M7 caseless submachine guns, sat on the brown cushioned shock pads that lined the wall. All of them were gaunt; most of them were probably reciting their death wishes in their heads. None of them spoke.
The scream of the Pelican's engines was the only sound that punctuated the air, which was odd. On all of the other missions Meyers had gone on, the pulsing of the dropships contra-gravity thrusters had always been easily drowned out by the steady thud of Covenant plasma flak anti-air fire. But this time...they weren't firing for some reason. They were just letting the UESC forces drop in. They might as well have greeted them with a turkey dinner.
Meyers let his head tilt against the wall and loosened his grip on the battle rifle. He just hoped that was the case.
"Suit up, we hit the ground in two!" Meyers' attention was momentarily drawn to the wall-mounted speakers that spat out the copilot's voice. The pit of dread within him, however, immediately opened back up when the message ended. He checked the magazine in his battle rifle for the umpteenth time. The ammo screen on the rifle showed that it was full, but he never trusted machines at a time like this. After visually confirming that the clip was fully loaded, Meyers slammed it back into the ammunition receive and snapped back the bolt of the weapon, also for the countless of times.
Taking off his helmet, Meyers smoothed down his sweat-matted brown hair and took inventory of his grenades. All three of them were safely pinned to his combat belt. Meyers replaced the helmet.
"We're nearing the LZ! Good luck to ya, boys!" The female pilot's voice broke the silence momentarily, and then Meyers felt himself dropping, once again, into the mental vault of horror. Any second now, the damn Covies are gonna open up with their AA guns and blow us all to hell. Meyers found himself thinking. He again wondered why they weren't firing. They knew the Marines were here, he was sure of it. The UNSC invasion fleet had wiped clean the defending Covenant fleet in a matter of minutes, which was plenty enough time for the aliens to send a warning to the surface defenders. But why weren't they firing?
"Okay Marines, the second your feet touch the ground I want you to seek cover behind anything you can find and wait for our recon squads already on the ground to give us a report." Master Sergeant Kyle Jacobs yelled over the Pelican's landing thrusters. "Is that clear?"
All nine other Marines, including Meyers, shouted, "Yes, sir!" The fact that they all yelled at the exact same time created a booming message that drowned out the dropship jets. The air was suddenly filled with the clacking of weapon checks and the grunts of Marines undoing their harnesses as the LZ came into view below the dropship. Meyers peeked over the side of the drop opening to survey the Landing Zone. It appeared to be a type of city square, circular in shape, and spanning at least fifty meters in circumference. Two streets intersected in the center, making it look a lot like the crosshairs of an ancient World War II sniper rifle. Off to the right, installed in the ninety degree angle of the roads crossing each other, was a somewhat small holo-base, which, at the moment, was projecting the image of a Prophet Hierarch, seated in its floating throne. It seemed that the Covenant had been preparing the Human invasion, seeing as how collapsible bunkers had been erected, one on each side of all four street entrances. As the Pelican got closer, Meyers saw that the bunkers were facing out, as if the Covenant wanted to keep the invasion force out of the square. He guessed they hadn't expected the dropships to use the city clearing as an LZ. At the moment the defensive emplacements were deserted, for one reason or another. It was quite strange, first the Covenant didn't fire on the Pelicans with the AA guns, and now there was no sign of activity from their defenses. Meyers wondered why they had chosen to hide themsel—
The air was suddenly alive with fire. Hundreds...nay, thousands, of small blue explosions suddenly filled the light purple sky. Sounds unlike any thunder Meyers had ever heard punctuated the air, filled with the distinct poof of popping plasma flak canisters. The dropship shook violently, sending Marines and equipment down onto the floor. If the safety fence hadn't been fitted over the drop opening, half the squad probably would have been sent hurtling over the edge.
"Brace yourselves back there!" The pilot's voice could barely be heard amid the explosions. "I thought the Helljumpers reported as silencing their artillery!"
"The bastards waited for us to get up close...when they couldn't miss! Banshees, inbound!" Came the copilot's fear-strained shout.
Tiny blue explosions appeared and disappeared in the distance, mixed with yellow-orange ones as the AA fire struck its targets. Despite the rattling fire and the overwhelming damage that the Pelican had, no doubt, taken, the pilots continued to bring the dropship closer to the LZ. It was likely that the Covenant had set up ambushes there, as well.
The seconds seemed like minutes as the dropship quickly descended down over the city, blue explosions popping around it and sizzling off inches of Titanium-A battleplate with each attack. Meyers noticed several gun emplacements near the LZ, launching plasma flak canisters into the air. Those would have to be taken out as soon as they made the drop.
If they made the drop.
The purple-grey streets below became more detailed as the Pelican got closer. With one final, violent lurch, the contra-gravity thrusters kept it propelled a solid meter from the ground. Sergeant Jacobs yanked a lever next to the drop fence, and the spring-loaded barrier shot into the wall. He started gesturing outside and yelling something, but Meyers couldn't tell what. The fear inside his mind and body had consumed him so much already he really didn't care, either. The only thing that he cared about was surviving, and the first step of survival would be to get off the dropship. Even at such a low altitude, plasma flak still caused limited damage. This bird wasn't going to stay in the air for much longer.
Two men had already gotten off the Pelican before Meyers' feet his the ground. The street wasn't hard concrete like he was used to. It was softer, spongier, perhaps used more effectively to keep the Covenant hover-vehicles in the air. Seven more clunks on the ground behind him indicated the rest of the squad hopping off, their weapons poised to fire. But there was nothing. He turned to watch the Pelican sail back into the air. Those pilots were making a suicide attempt. Another salvo of plasma flak could easily bring the dropship out of the sky, which would most likely kill the pilots. He decided not to watch that chain of events occur, and turned back towards the front.
Jacobs had already taken point, his BR55 Battle Rifle against his shoulder, pointed forward. But there was no reason to be at the ready. Nothing was there. No charging infantry assault, no Wraith energy mortars...not even the hum of a single attacking vehicle. The Covenant seemed to want to sit this one out.
The continuous poof of plasma flak had grown almost silent on the ground, and the tiny black dots of descending dropships seemed to create wave after wave of landing infantry.
And then the humming started. At first Meyers thought it was an approaching Ghost or Spectre, but those would be easy to dispatch. He glanced at the Marine near him holding an M19 SSM rocket launcher. But then the humming grew in volume. The squad looked about itself, adrenaline spiked, looking for the charging vehicles. And then a shadow fell over them, and one man looked up. His eyes grew wide, and he screamed into the COM.
"Contact! Contact! Phantom, inbound! Take cover!"
Meyers looked up, saw the huge purple shape, saw the glowing point-defense guns, and knew that the entire squad was truly and royally screwed.
Meyers' War: Part 2
Date: 1 April 2005, 2:44 PM
Meyers' War
Part 2
No sooner had Meyers thought than the tri-mounted plasma cannons let loose with an opening salvo. Pink bolts of plasma lanced from the weapons, spearing two Marines in seconds. The rest of the squad ran for cover, behind anything that would provide protection from the rain of plasma. The glowing bolts lit the streets with purple flashes, and the sound of return fire from battle rifles and submachine guns responded. A cold terror gripped Meyers, and for a moment he found himself unable to move. The mere sound of the cannons repeatedly discharging was enough to make even the most seasoned Helljumper think twice. He saw the Marine with the launcher fire off a single rocket before taking a blast of plasma directly in the chest, heard the man gurgle over the COM, and fell. The rocket had already locked, however, and it flew through the air, trailing yellow-orange fire, and knocked straight against the fore plasma cannon on the Phantom. The gun took the rocket, shuddered, and sent small pieces of charred metal into the air, before sprouting streams of blue-green gas and falling from the underbelly of the gunship. The destruction of the one cannon significantly reduced the amount of suppressing fire coming from the Covenant dropship, but not fast enough to save the doomed squad. A circular hatch opened in the underbelly of the ship, between the two aft guns, and a blue-green light so bright that Meyers had to cover his eyes shot down from it. In seconds a stream of Covenant warriors poured down from the drop hatch, bellowing war cries that speared even the high-pitched rumbling of the Phantom. The group was comprised of mainly Jackals and Brutes, but a few Drones also took to the air once dropped onto the ground.
Meyers had never had the chance to fight against Elites, Grunts, or Hunters. They had disappeared from the Covenant Hierarchy before he had enlisted.
Rifle fire was already heard before the enemies touched the ground, and several Jackals toppled from the gravitational stream of the gunship, but their blood made the journey smoothly down to the ground. The Brutes hit the street and immediately opened fire, their strange red-colored plasma rifles spewing bolts at a far greater rate than the normal blue rifles. Perhaps this was what the Brutes overlooked the most, for they were scampering for cover seconds after the opening salvo, their rifles belching streams of red gas from overheating. Countless amounts of Human rounds made their way to the scrambling gorillas, and two of them fell before the last stopped running, took several rounds in the chest, and dropped its rifle. Its mouth opened wide, and a horrible, deep shriek left its lips. The sound speared through Meyers' conscience and paralyzed him, before he realized what the alien was about to do. The he found it within himself to move. The Brute lowered itself on all fours, ready to charge, and then the quick, deafening crack of a .454 Casull round lit the air. The sound was so loud that Meyers momentarily opened his mouth to scream, but it was gone before he had the chance to. He looked up, just in time to see the Brute's headplate dent, puncture, and then the Ape's head simply exploded, showering the surrounding three feet with black blood turned chunky from mixing with the shattered brain. The headless body remained upright for a split second, and the collapsed onto its stomach, a puddle of ichor spreading from the stump of a neck.
The remaining squad turned, and saw Sergeant Jacobs, both of his hands wrapped around the handle of his smoking revolver.
From there, it was a short firefight devoid of Human casualties to clean up the remaining Jackals and Drones. The majority of them had taken cover on the opposite sides of the collapsible bunkers to let the Brutes fight it out, and had had little influence on the overall battle.
Once the squad had slain all of the Covenant, Sergeant Jacobs called for a grouping by the holographic generator. Meyers, as well as the remaining three other Marines, gathered around their CO. Two of them stood watch with their backs to the group and their COMs tuned into the briefing, while Meyers and the other Marine faced Jacobs. The weary Sergeant began to speak.
"Okay people, they caught us off-guard, but I'm sure we can pull through it. If the briefing of this invasion held up, then we know that Bravo Company landed somewhere around here." A map appeared on Meyers's uni-HUD, displaying a black-and-white overhead map of the surrounding area. A yellow square appeared and zeroed in on a position about seven kilometers west from the squad's current position, and then the image magnified so that the area inside the square took up the entire display. It was another town square, much larger than the one they were in now. A single blinking blue dot signaled Bravo Company's mobile tracking beacon. The squad shuffled nervously, looking at the distance between them and Bravo. It wasn't far for Marine standards, but in a Covenant city they could be slaughtered several dozen times over on the journey there. Meyers felt another sweat break on his forehead. Jacobs continued. "Our mission is to find them and go with them." If the tall Sergeant had any fear in his body, his voice didn't reveal it. "So, either Bravo Company is there and waiting, or they're dead, in which we'd still be able to police weapons and find possible survivors. In any event, we had better start walki—"
"Contact." One of the rear guard whispered over the comm., most likely to avoid detection by the hostiles. Meyers turned, and his eyes focused on several moving objects in the distance to the northward road. They seemed to be Jackals, because of their hunched over, striding gait. They hadn't activated their shields yet, nor had they spotted Meyers's squad.
"Hide." Sergeant Jacobs whispered back, and the squad crouched down and made their way behind the collapsible bunkers. Meyers paired up with Corporal Parelli, the squad sniper specialist, and together they hunched down behind one of the bunkers. Parelli stood up enough to fit his rifles barrel through the firing slot in the bunker, and peered through the scope. Meyers heard the click of the scope enhancing the image, and Parelli reported seconds later over the comm.
"They're Jackals, maybe five of 'em. Looks like a routine patrol. Evidently they haven't heard that we've already had a little party with this area."
Another Marine, Meyers recognized him as Private Bullows, spoke. "Well what good's a party to them if they aren't invited? It would be so un-neighborly to leave them out in the cold while we have all the fun."
"Why you're right, Bullows." Jacobs's voice took up the speaking role. "Parelli, make sure that our friends are invited. But try to make it quiet. We don't want my parents to wake up and see how trashed we've made the house."
Parelli grinned, gave his response, and screwed his silencer to the end of the S2 AM Sniper's Rifle. He sighted through the scope once again. "My pleasure."
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