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Halo 3: Elysium Part 2
Posted By: Travis Knight<darke127@Yahoo.com>
Date: 22 January 2007, 8:35 pm
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It was a long drive. They drove in silence, with the two marines huddled close, supporting one another. John squelched a lurch of sadness, which was laced with fury and guilt over the death of Michelle. He gave his head a barely visible shake, and pulled into the abandoned town of Old Mombasa.
The caked mortar buildings stood hunched and huddled, casting long shadows down cobbled streets. Shop windows were broken doors kicked in, and corpses strewn about. A few silhouettes moved around, stalking the streets silently. John noted that they were armed. He continued forward carefully. Even a spooked civilian could kill an unready soldier. He remembered the survivors in New Athens when blue team had armed them. Even without the help of the SPARTANs, the untrained people would have probably made it out by themselves.
He drove along one of them, giving him a brief glimpse. A tattered gray shirt hung loosely off of his starving torso. Bands of muscle and bunches of veins were too visible, and his rib cage was obtrusive like a claw just beneath the skin. His eyes were deep set and sunken., and he gave an astonished look at the golden faceplate and olive armor that encased John. He saluted smartly, and watched. Others, more survivors and scavengers, came to the streets when the man started yelling in a native African tongue.
"Shut up! They'll hear us!" One man, a heavily armed black man, stood atop a generator looking down at the warthog. He carried a mobile turret, with bandoleers of ammunition and what looked like patched marine fatigues. "You'll ruin the trap!" John stopped the car. They might need that turret, and an untrained civilian definitely did not.
"You," John said, pointing at him. "In the name of the UNSC, I am commandeering that weapon. Give it to me now." John got out of the car.
"To hell you are, you freak!" the man shouted as he dropped to the ground. "Do you know where you are?"
John waited silently, resisting the urge to simply kill the man and be done with it. Humanity needed every single man and woman they could use. The covenant were on earth, this was no time for beating around the bush. The man walked up to John, and stood little under half a foot below John. He looked right up into the faceplate, and sneered.
"You in a ghost town, green boy. You and we all that are left, and you want us to give up our survival? Leave, now, if you don't want trouble."
"This is no time to be fighting amongst ourselves."
"Yeah, 'cept you bullying us. We survived the last covenant assault, and we gonna survive the next," he patted the gun, "with these. Get out."
John clenched his jaw. He had hoped it wouldn't come to this. With lightning speed, he struck out, knocking the man back. Before he could fall out of arms reach, he grasped the gun, and two of the bandoleers, then stepped forward and grabbed a set of dog tags and snatched them off the man's neck.
"Hey," he said, falling back and landing hard. He grunted, and raised himself. From behind his back he pulled out a magnum and fired directly into John's chest. He rocked back a bit with the slug, which fell crumpled to the ground, deflected off of the energy shield.
"Don't do that again," John warned. "I need any grenades and ammo you have. Surrender them now."
"Hey man, I don't like this," came the voice of one of the marines in the jeep. "I don't like the way they're looking at us."
John ignored it and looked hard at the black man in front of him. He clenched one fist, a sign the other Spartans would have understood. Reluctantly, the man gave ground. "Fine," he snarled, "but if we die, it's on your conscience. Wait, you don't have one." He spit at John's feet and stormed away, throwing the bandoleers on the ground before John.
The Spartan knelt and picked them up, tossing them in the back. More people began to toss things at them, and John caught some. That which fell out of his reach, he pointed at the two marines to pick up. After a while he ordered them back into the jeep, and they continued. In all they had gotten four MA5B Assault rifles, eighteen clips of ammunition, four magnums, two SPNKR missiles, to which John had no clue how civilians had gotten them, the mobile turret and six hundred rounds for that, and three more battle rifles. They had also received a belt with six grenades still attached. John no longer worried. Unless they ran into the entire Covenant Armada, they would be fine. There was enough ammo from the bumblebee, the town, and the hog's turret to last them more than a few days of decent fighting. He hoped.
The town continued along on its winding path, and John noted a few familiar landmarks from his earlier ventures through what was left of the town. The majority of the eastern and newer part had been obliterated, and it was only this older section that had survived the brutal Slipspace bubble that had opened. His radiation count was notably higher, but not in the red.
When the buildings ended suddenly, like some giant knife had sliced and slid them away, the ground sloped down. John drove along the crater, carefully picking his way among the debris. In the back of the jeep he heard a slew of curses coming from the marine. "Load the turret," John said to him.
"Yes sir."
Ahead of them, John saw the telltale wiggle of bright orange armor that alerted him to the presence of grunts. The little aliens reminded him of dogs, they walked on all fours, and sounded remarkably like them at times, as well. Three of the Sangheli elites came out of a cluster of buildings. They held their weapons at the ready. John heard the charge bolt click into the turret behind him as he slowed the vehicle.
As he got closer, he saw the paint scratched off the elite's armor, baring the gray metal beneath it. Around them hung the ceremonial necklaces of their victim's teeth, and John relaxed, noting it they were decorated with what looked like Brute fangs. These were separatists. He let go of his Assault rifle and pulled up to them.
"May the prophets fall," he said to the closest one, who walked up to him.
"And may the Brutes die with them," it replied, snarling into John's visor. He clearly wasn't happy at the sight of a Spartan. "State your business, human."
"No. Let us through."
There was a brief exchange of foul, guttural language, and the elite stepped back. Another one, decorated in fewer teeth, stepped forward. He was able to articulate English better, John noted, when he spoke. "We cannot allow you to pass. We have orders from the highest of our ranks to hold all back from this site."
John ground his teeth. These bastards weren't going to let him through without garnering some kind of information. Some alliance. "I am going to kill Truth." They erupted into some form of laugter that set John on edge. He cocked his head slightly, indicating that he didn't understand. Of course they didn't understand the gesture, but continued to make the odd noise in their throats.
"Good luck," one of them bawled. "We've tried, he's too well guarded."
John felt a smoldering of anger. "I've killed a prophet already." They fell silent.
"You are the demon who killed that fool Regret?"
"Yes, now move."
"Leave one of your men here, I am coming with you," said the one whom John had spoken too first. John didn't like the idea.
"No."
"Then we will slag your vehicle and kill your men."
John was silent. They stared back at him, and one motioned forward the grunts. Two held golden fuel rod cannons that glowed green with the charges that sat in back of them. They aimed in the hog's direction, an ample motivational tool that John need not consider twice.
"Fine. One of you get out."
"We're staying with you, chief."
"No. Its get out or die." They weren't willing to give ground. John felt backed in on all sides, with no support on the horizon. "It's death either way, chief. These monsters will char us if we don't get cut down in battle. We choose battle."
From the ground, one of the grunts procured something from a pouch. "I have human food," it barked in a high throaty voice. In its small claw it held out some kind of smashed bag of dried chips. It looked with cow eyes at the marines.
"Aw, what the hell. At least they speak English." One of them, John didn't know which, got out. From the back, he grabbed a weapon and some ammo. John watched as he snatched the bag of food out of the grunt's hand and sniffed at it. He made a squeamish face and handed it back, surveying the lot of them. Behind them, John saw a few other humans mixed in. The crowd itself was about thirty or so in number, though it was spread out and not in any particular organization.
The elite seated itself obviously uncomfortably next to John. He saw its energy shield pop and fizzle out and it settled more comfortably in, though its spine wasn't designed for the alternating right angles of Human seats. It gave him a curt nod and grunt, and he floored it. He couldn't get over the thought of this thing as the enemy. He had killed hundreds of them himself, and now some of them- not all, were fighting by humanity's side, eager for revenge with the knowledge of the treason and brainwashing carried out by the prophets and brutes. John had deciphered for himself that the three races had always been blood enemies, but for a time, the Sangheli and prophets had been peaceful. The entrance of the brutes into the covenant had been treading on thin ice, and it inevitably gave through.
John drove in silence, and the marine behind him stood at the turret, facing behind them, scanning the horizon. There were brute and jackal hunt-and-kill teams out here, closer to Kiliminjaro and the Ark. On the horizon, John could see the white smudge of light emanating from the massive structure that had been unearthed. It lit up the small piece of the horizon, keeping the dawn from painting a full picture.
"Human sunsets are rancid," said the elite from beside him. "How can you live on this backwater sewer?" John said nothing, but bristled. He had thought it beautiful. They continued then in silence.
As they got closer, they entered the shadow of the great cloud above the Ark, which swirled and heaved with lightning, thick with rain and thunder. The sky became a massive rolling swab of thick cloud, and the lightning grew ever more virulent the further towards the center they went. It also grew brighter, until at one point, John had to wonder how something so bright could be made by machine.
When they neared the Ark, John heard the whine of mongoose engines. From outcroppings of scorched rocks, six of the four wheelers matched speed with the warthog. On a frequency John's COM picked up automatically, they gave the call sign.
"State your name and rank," John barked, not slowing. They were fifteen miles to the edge of the basin.
"Captain Foreman, Lieutenant Kim, Sergeant Laurie, and Privates Midge, Ryan, Coleman, and Evan. Where are you headed, sir?"
"The Ark, we're going in."
"Its suicide, sir. The Banshee patrols start up not much further ahead, and there are three covenant cruisers hovering a few dozen yards above the rim of the basin. Each time we try to penetrate their perimeter we're sent running with out hands covering out asses. They're too thickly concentrated."
John knew all this. He also knew that they had no choice. "It doesn't matter."
"What if you don't make it?"
"I will."
"Then we're coming with you, sir."
"No, stay here."
They didn't slow. John glanced at the mongoose closest. His FOF tag read Lt. Kim. "Kim, who are your best riders?"
"Midge and Ryan," he replied.
John watched as they sped up, and fell in formation behind the lieutenant. "We'll take them, we might need recon vehicles. Are they armed?"
"Each with a SPNKR and rifle."
"Good. Spartan 117 out."
"Good luck, sir."
John heard the COM click off, and he adjusted himself.
Beside him, the elite twisted his neck back and watched as two of the ATVs fell in with the warthog, trailing just out side of the dirt kicked up by the tires. In the mirror, John noted they were in ODST gear. Good, he would need the battle hardened blood of these men. He was short on hands as it was, and he was about to jump feet first into hell, as they said before a drop.
As he got closer to the Ark, the purple hulls of the covenant craft came into clearer view. He heard some bickering over one of the COM channels between the two drivers. He ignored them, but kept in mind that this would tax all of them. Unfortunately, he didn't know how to expect the elite to act under fire. He knew they had private COM Channels, but he didn't know which. Instead, he looked at it. It returned his gaze, and after a while, he said, "Human tactics; no charging, no bravado. Are we clear?"
"You threaten my honor?"
"A mentor once told me that there is no honor in unnecessary death. I am in charge. You stick with us and support us."
Grudgingly, the elite accepted. "As you command," he said.
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