Chapter I
Posted By: HellBreaker<hellbreaker03@hotmail.com>
Date: 14 November 2008, 8:40 pm
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Private Sam Sweeny watched the man seated on the track in front of him as the convoy rolled along. Even the heavy armor of the scorpions tread track sagged under his weight. They where retreating from the northern front to regroup at central command. The covenant had been hammering them for two days and in the dead of night the 6th armor company had slipped away. He felt a twang of regret for those men who had stayed behind to cover their retreat. Sam had been stationed on Prometheus III for a year now, three months of which had been devoted to holding off the covenant on the ground. They had expected them to glass the planet weeks ago but so far nothing.
The last few days had been filled with hard fighting as the men and tanks of the 6th armored company had attempted to hold a small ridge in the farming provinces of the planet. During the first day the covenant had launched a vigorous attack and the marines only held out because of the actions of a new arrival. The man sitting in front of Sam now.
This solider puzzled Sam, he had seen him single handedly take on two squads of jackals and grunts at once, most with what appeared to be some sort of claw on his left gauntlet. No one not even the sarge could do that without being turned to glass, this man was truly a super soldier. Even when they had been hopefully outnumbered and moral was shot he charged into the field and killed five times that of which a normal squad could. However something struck Sam as odd, this man was not human by any means. No he moved to quickly, was to strong and could read the tide of battle better than any commander. Sam had heard tails of something like him, if he remembered correctly they where called Spartans, yes that was it. These Spartans where unstoppable, rumor was that they were immortal and couldn't die, although some went missing sometimes. But a Spartan here? It just seemed too farfetched.
"Take a picture kid it will last you a lot longer" said the figure in a grim voice.
"What?" he hadn't realized it but he had been staring at the man for a while now.
"Then again, anything to do with me will get you killed so you're better off just forgetting"
"I'm sorry I didn't realize I was staring" Sam fumbled
"No worries I'm used to it" he said as he unhitched a strange weapon from his back and began to clean it. It was a vary odd weapon like nothing Sam had ever seen before. It looked nothing like covenant weaponry but defiantly wasn't human either. It had a round middle grip with a large bore muzzle and a wicked looking blade attached to the bottom of the man grip. The blade curved around the whole and was nearly as big as the weapon itself.
"Where did you get that?" he asked
The figure looked at him, his visor a golden orange "I ripped it from the hands of a monster" he said solemnly "same with these." He indicated the twin blades welded on his left forearm.
"What do you mean a monster?!"
"That's classified however if you see a big hairy thing fighting along side the grunts and jackals, promise me this"
"What sir?"
"Promise me you will run, you stop shooting and just run, run, don't look back."
"I'm no coward sir" Sam retorted. This sparked a spine tingling laughter from the man, it was almost bone chilling and yet somehow reassuring.
"Its not about cowardice soldier, it's about surviving to keep fighting"
"I don't understand?"
"I told you, so promise me"
"I can't promise something like that" Sam remarked. The golden coloring in the mans visor slowly cleared revealing his dark eyes, and a multitude of scars. "Promise me" he said. With no other choice apparent to him Sam promised. The tank rolled on, as did the two tanks in front of it and in back. The last five scorpions of the companies original twelve. The sun was setting and central command still had yet to come into view.
"Excuse me sir" the young man said to the old "are you a Spartan?"
"That's a hard question; officially yes I am a Spartan. Morally no I wouldn't place myself in with the heroes"
"Heroes never call themselves that sir"
"No I suppose not, never the less I don't think I quite qualify for the position"
"How much longer do you think it will take us to make it to" The marine said trying to change the subject.
"I am not sure my clock is still set for our first objective but here I have a way to pass the time" He pulled a MA5B clip, when he unlatch the first round a deck of cards sprung up.
"Have you ever loaded that mag by mistake sir?"
"Ha-ha, yes but only once now I keep it in the back. But it sure as hell screwed me because I had to bead the Jackal to death instead of just shooting the dam thing. Since we don't have a table I have a more convenient game, tell me private do you know how to play war?"
"Yes sir me and my brother used to play back at boot camp" Sam replied as the Spartan handed him half the shuffled deck. Each of the cards was marked with a large green 13 on the back.
"You ready? Draw" They both pulled a card, the Spartan had pulled a three of hearts, and Sam had a two of spades. For some reason this sparked another burst of laughter like the last but it had a sorrowful tone to it.
"You know I was saving this for a special occasion but I have a feeling you need it more if you can actually loose to me" He reached into the magazine again and pulled out another card, which he handed to Sam. The marine turned it over in his hand, it was a Joker a wild card and taped to the front was a four leaf clover. Sam stared at the card a puzzled by the gift.
"Thirteen this is Company commander Likens we need you up here now there have been some developments" Fry's radio spurted. He looked at the soldier still flipping the card over in his hands. 'Best of luck to him' he thought.
"Sorry kid I gota run" He said as he grabbed the deck and slid the two haves back into the clip. As he prepared to hope off the tank Sam said "you never told me your name sir"
"Everybody just calls me Friday" and with that the Spartan sprinted off at speeds unreachable by normal men.
Sam watched the character speed by the tank and over the top of the hill. 'Friday huh' he thought as he focused on the back of the card again. Looking out at the sun as it went down he tucked the card inside his breast pocket and wondered about this strange fellow.
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