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No Place Like Home by Joel Barkley
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No Place Like Home: Chapter One
Date: 26 November 2004, 4:05 AM
It was believed that no other SPARTAN's survived the attack on the planet Reach. In reality, a precious few made it off the planet alive. To begin with, there were about sixty SPARTAN's. The Covenant had thought that they had killed every last SPARTAN on the planet. But in the hidden underground laboratories, there were about twenty-two that were unscathed.
Taken out of cryogenic sleep, they were sent to Earth to help the pinned down Marines. The events that followed would shake the Earth. Literally.
Chapter One
"Load up and ship out you worthless piles of crap!" yelled the Sergeant O'Neil. He was responsible for getting the SPARTAN's to Earth in one piece.
The nineteen supersoldiers loaded up in three dropships. Once on board, they all started checking their weapons. They were given full ammo for their battle rifles and pistols and were also given four fragmentation grenades. The reason for this operation was made clear twenty four hours ago.
Three days ago the Covenant attacked Earth. They had launched a full on assault on the major cities throughout Earth. The UNSC space vessels could not hold them off. Their weapons far surpassed that of the humans. They had already gone on with the ground assault. The Covenant was tearing the Marines apart piece by piece. The only hope was the SPARTAN's.
Fighting as a whole, the SPARTAN's would rescue Marine divisions pinned down by the Covenant. Many Marines were scattered throughout the city, and they were on the way to main objective. They had to get to the UN command center in the middle of the city. The command center was the last place on Earth that was capable of making SPARTAN III's, the new and improved SPARTAN. This new supersoldier could turn the tide of the war.
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Aiming down the iron sights of his battle rifle, Mark III breathed in and out slowly. There were eleven grunts on his left, five elites down the middle, and three jackals on the ledge to his right. His position was behind a concrete berricade. He had two frag grenades, two clips of battle rifle ammo, two pistols with full clips of ammo, and one rocket launcher with one shell, and lots of imagination. Taking a grenade from his belt, he flipped the pin off and tossed it into the crowd of grunts. Before it blew up, he picked up the rocket launcher and aiming at the elites, fired. Simultaneously, the grenade and the rocket shell exploded. Bodies went flying into the air and the jackals became aware immediately. Standing up, he took out the pistols and fired into the jackals. The bodies went limp in seconds.
Walking back to the berricade, Mark III heard a faint sound. It sounded like heavy running. Hunters were coming. Grabbing the battle rifle, he sprinted towards where the elites once stood. Spotting a fusion grenade, he picked it up. The ledge above was in climbable so he took out the last frag grenade, pulled out the pin and dropped it on the ground. He jumped in the air as high as he could and the grenade exploded. Thrust up by the blast, he grabbed onto the ledge and laid as flat as he could. Five second later the hunters ran into the dead end. They were confused. They just heard the grenade. Walking towards the ledge, they looked around for the enemy.
Mark III activated the fusion grenade and dropped it on the head of one of the hunters. The doomed hunter felt the melting metal on his head and looked at his fellow hunter. Right as the grenade exploded, the other hunter dove away. Orange blood splattered every where and half of the torso of the hunter was gone. Taking the battle rifle, he aimed at the mid section of the other hunter. Letting off two bursts of fire, he then held the rifle steady. The behemoth alien was unmoving. He jumped down off the ledge and started looking for more plasma grenades. There were none. One of the elites had a Covenant Carbine, so he took it.
Mark III was a SPARTAN II sent from the same colony that Master Chief had come from. In fact, he was Master Chief's genetic equal. Taken from the same batch of DNA, Master Chief and Mark III were the only surviving SPARTANS's from that DNA.
He was sent down with the Helljumpers just two days before. But his landing pod was blown off course some twenty miles away from where the Helljumpers had landed. He was now stranded in the city without radio contact, rations, and was running low on ammo. But he was determined to make a dent in Covenant forces.
Slinging the battle rifle over his back, he raised the Covenant carbine and jogged out of the dead end alley. He looked cautiously out in the street. It seemed to be clear. Looking at his HUD compass, he went North West and started towards the UN command center. Something in the air caught his attention. It was three UNSC drop ships, and behind that trailed four Banshees firing plasma and fuel rod shots at the ships. One of the ships caught on fire and started a fast descent towards Earth. Out of the back jumped what seemed to be seven SPARTAN's. Feeling hope being rekindled inside him he started sprinting off in that direction.
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Sergeant O'Neil yelled at the pilots of the Pelican that he was in to shake the Banshees behind them. The back of the Pelican opened and the SPARTAN's fired at the Banshees with battle rifles and rocket launchers. Three of the Banshees exploded in a brilliant blue light. The last of the Banshees was heavily damaged and tried to fly away but one of the SPARTAN's with a sniper rifle fired into the back of the elite that was piloting it. The bullet traveled through the spinal column of the elite and ripped open the spinal chord. The elite let out a howl and the Banshee flew into the side of a building and exploded.
The Sergeant told the pilot to land in the highway and the remaining Pelican followed. The SPARTAN's jumped out and checked their ammo. They would have to go find the seven SPARTAN's that got hit by the Banshees and jumped out. They wouldn't last long if they jumped into the Covenant's arms.
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Mark III was running as fast as he could down the road towards where he thought the SPARTAN's had landed. Seconds later he saw a large group of grunts also heading towards the supersoldiers. He ducked behind a concrete pillar and took aim with the carbine. He shot five bolts of plasma into the group and the carbine was empty. The bolts hit one of the grunts tearing through it's armor and hitting it in the jugular sending blue blood squirting into the air. The remaining grunts turned around and fired their plasma pistols. One of the plasma bolts hit his overshield. Mark took his battle rifle and using the scope, shot a grunt in his methane tank and it exploded sending his fellow grunts flying.
Mark checked his ammo and exchanged clips. He was running low. He ran to the bodies of the grunts and picked up two plasma pistols. There was also a plasma grenade attached to the belt of a grunt. He attached it to his own belt and spotted a dead Marine and next to him was a battle rifle. So Mark took the ammo from the rifle and took the tags from the Marine's neck. The tag said "Private Jenkins." It was like an omen of death. Now Mark wondered if this war could be won.
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Sergeant O'Neil went with his group of SPARTAN's to go look for the others cut off from them. None of the radios were working. Even though he was back home, it just didn't feel like home. He had received word that his son, who was a Marine, was killed in action. He wanted to make the Covenant pay. The SPARTAN's were his ticket. He would take no prisoners on his quest to kill every last Covenant soldier on the planet.
"Keep your eyes open and your finger on the trigger!" yelled O'Neil as they jogged towards the downed SPARTAN's. Up ahead was an off ramp and coming up it were several Covenant vehicles followed by two hunters. O'Neil made a hand motion and the soldiers took up defensive positions behind concrete pylons. Two of the supersoldiers with rocket launchers took aim at the Wraith. They fired one after the other and the tank exploded in a ball of blue flame. The two ghosts behind the tank boosted past the wreckage only to be met by battle rifle fire. In a matter of seconds, the ghosts were demolished. The hunters ran to the soldiers with fuel rod cannons leveled. One of the hunters was greeted by a rocket to the torso blowing it in half. The other hunter ran towards O'Neil all the while being shot in the back by rifle fire. This particular hunter was determined to make a kill. It got to O'Neil and was about to rip his head off when three bullets whizzed into the back of his skull and came out of the front.
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When the hunter dropped to the ground, Mark III was standing fifty yards away with his battle rifle level. The spent cartridges lay on the concrete, still smoking. He walked towards Sergeant O'Neil, the other SPARTAN's stood in awe.
"Who the heck do you think you are?" asked O'Neil.
"A thanks would be nice." replied Mark. His MJOLNIR steel black armor was splattered with blue, purple, and orange blood. "I was separated from the Helljumpers when I landed. My radio's out, and I'm running out of supplies."
"That still doesn't answer my question."
"Mark III, from the original SPARTAN II project."
"Do you mean to tell me that you're Master Chief's twin?"
"Yes."
"Welcome aboard, son!"
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