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Project Athenian: Chapter 2
Posted By: Arinoth Koby<stklego@hotmail.com>
Date: 12 January 2005, 9:29 PM
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**Note, this is not a final version**
Chapter 2
Arinoth rolls to his right, the plasma barely missing him to the fact that his shields flare up from the heat produced from the weapon. Arinoth decides he doesn't have enough time to graph his side arm and goes to engage the enemy head on. The Elite noticing that Arinoth was not going for a weapon swings at him a second time, a stronger, more concentrated thrust. Arinoth rolls forwards towards the Elite's feet, the sword barely missing him a second time. As Arinoth comes out of the roll, he kicks up one of his feet landing a crushing blow to the Elite's knee cap, causing it to stubble back howling in pain. Arinoth takes this moment to reach for his battle rifle, firing several rounds into the injured Elite, which stumbles backs before falling to the ground. The Elite then disappears, apparently one of the holographs.
"You do know that was cutting it close, though you did have a few more millimetres before his sword would have hit your shield," Zeo chirps out.
Arinoth does not reply, realizing that the AI he was given happens to have been programmed with a sense of humour. Arinoth shakes his head to clear his mind, reloads the battle rifle with some MA5B ammunition and presses on into the darkness.
Minutes pass before he is confronted by several defense droids, remotely operated by simple AIs and marines. The druids immediately open fire on Arinoth, giving away their position. Several high velocity glance off of his suit's diminishing shield and begins to impact against the actual armor. Arinoth quickly ducks to find cover. Zeo quickly tells him that all the internal components of the suits are still intact and that his armor is actually working as a second shield, which it is supposed to. Arinoth removes the MA5B round that is in his battle rifle and switches it to the then weapon's primary ammunition. He leans at a diagonal to get a possible angle to shoot at his enemies whom continue to fire volleys of rounds towards his position. Arinoth quickly lines up his targeting reticule and fires several quick bursts at each of his enemies, immobilizing or destroying the droids. Arinoth slowly comes out of from his cover and moves slowly, in the shadows, towards the immobile droids. He finally stops; he is only a foot or so away from the large scraps of metal that were his enemies. One of the droids begins to twitch and fires random rounds at the ceiling. Arinoth quickly rolls to his side before a large piece of the cavern comes crashing down, burying the droids and where he was a few seconds ago.
Several hours progress into the "test", Arinoth made quick work of all of his obstacles so far, yet he has a bad feeling that there is going to be something worse then what he has already faced. As he continues down this stretch of caverns he happens to overhear conversation between several Elites and humans and veers off the obstacle path to investigate the noise. He peers around the corner listening attentively.
"We must shut down the Athenian project as soon as possible; the subject may become a threat to the mission."
A reply comes after what sounds like Elite dialect translated, "Do what is necessary, we must proceed with the initial objective. We must the human species of its genetic defects; we must step up our assaults to continue the purification. Make sure those you wish to survive meet our expectations and are kept on remote 'safe' worlds."
"The current projection is that 95% of humanity will be eliminated, leaving the rest as the perfect specimens for our society to thrive."
"Excellent, after we shut down project Athenian there will be no force to stop us, most if not all of the foolish SPARTAN IIs are dead. Once the project is terminated we may set up for the final sweep."
Arinoth then hears footsteps as the group he was listening to leaves the caverns, heading to the surface, What Arinoth was able to peace together was that some part of the UNSC has made a deal with the Covenant to create the perfect humanity. The "Holy War" is nothing but genocide. He has to do something...
Arinoth is interrupted by a message coming over his com-line, "Arinoth, your test is complete, the UNSC High Command has decided that your performance was not satisfactory and that project Athenian is then forth terminated."
After hearing those words, there is a cold lump in his throat. He has to do something; he will do something, "Zeo, we have to find someone on the inside who can help us stop them..."
Zeo replies, "I suggest we leave immediately and undetected, if we can find somewhere safe then we should look for a solution."
Arinoth nods in agreement, turn towards a dark hallway in the cavern, disappearing into the darkness. There will be patrols of UNSC marines searching for him but they wont find him, he's gets to surface through an old service lift, amazing what you can find when your on the run.
Arinoth peers on the surface of the industrial planet that he has been calling his home for so long, examining all the different types of structures and how all of them will end up being destroyed...
"Arinoth, I have been analyzing the conversation we over heard early in the caverns and have a positive vocal ID match with one of the humans, UNSC High Command councilor Chan Dorlan. His residence is not too far from here, shall we pay a visit?" Zeo says breaking the previous silence.
"Hmm, I believe we shall, upload the coordinates Zeo," Arinoth replies while checking that his battle rifle is still with him.
Upon arriving at the large condo structure Arinoth decides to scale up the building until reaching the appropriate floor. Once he reaches the desired floor, which ironically is the 13th, he carefully breaks into the build, leaving shattered glasses around the window he broke in. He hastily puts up a black tarp over the broken window with an under construction sign on it so that no one would suspect an intruder. He walks down the hallway, stopping at his target's door. Arinoth quickly lock picks the door, opening the door and closing it behind him once he has entered the room. Most of the building's security was on the first floor so there is no room alarm for Arinoth to disable. He quickly scales the hallway walls and places himself along the ceiling right a couple of feet beyond the door and waits.
An hour or two passes before there is activity at the front door, its occupant unlocks his condo door, steps inside and closes the door. He begins to walk towards his family room when he is jumped by Arinoth. Arinoth lands on his feet blocking the doorway, "Greetings Councilor."
"What the, who are you?!" the surprised councilor replies.
"I am your worst nightmare; did you not expect someone to eventually find out the truth about the war against the Covenant, the planned genocide of 95% of humanity?" Arinoth questions the taller man.
"I....," councilor Dorlan begins to reply before seeing that Arinoth has a knife in his hand, "You have no proof of this...you can't tie me to anything, let alone this crazy theory of yours."
"Hmm it's a shame I'm going to have to kill you then," Arinoth says coldly.
"What do you want with me?" Chan replies frustrated
Arinoth looks at the man before playing the recorded conversation he heard which clearly has the councilor's voice on it.
"You don't understand, humanity is plagued with diseases, not just physical but mental. We are doing everyone a favor by purifying humanity. You must understand, it is for the better-" Chan's voice is interrupted as Arinoth thrusts his body forwards, the knife piercing into the councilor's vocal chords.
Arinoth stares into the man's eyes as he watches the traitor to humanity die. It doesn't take long for the councilor's body to droop to the floor and lay there life less with a pool of blood coming from his neck. Arinoth steps over the man's dead body and walks inside, places the modified battle rifle on the bed and places a note reading,
"UNSC High Command, I know what you are up to; I will not enclose the details on what I know since my proof is limited. I will right the wrong you have caused, and by doing so I will kill all of you." Arinoth leaves the note unsigned as he leaves the dead man's room and heads to the broken window in which he used as an entrance, at which he dives through the black tarp plunging downwards, pulling a rip cord on a glider and floats out of the city, to find his next victim.
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