The Forerunner's Struggle
Posted By: Asa Kania<Shadow_Fox_777@hotmail.com>
Date: 3 April 2005, 8:15 PM
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"Did you get that last slipspace rupture on vid?" Corporal Chink asked Lance Corporal Fyre. "I didn't quite catch the full ship, it jumped back to slipspace so fast."
"Yeah, I even did a carbon scan... a few little dots appeared on the screen. Not much more than that." Both of the corporals didn't have much to BS about since the brass had been knuckling down on them. More work needed to be done, and there was MUCH less time then the marines originally thought.
Ever since the populace on Nyce overflowed, the people demanded the UWSA(Universe Wide Space Association) find more room on yet another foreign planet... and the bastards on earth were backing them.
So the UWSA decided to put the military to work. They were now in the middle of constructing several... ring type worlds. Each one was twice as massive as Earth herself. Each of them had their own climate systems, the same gravity as earth, enough land and water to keep trillions of people happy. It even had its own animal populace. 4 of the seven rings had already been completed, and now it was time to build the maintenance AI.
"Hello, I am 343 Guilty Spark!" Chimed the annoying floating light bulb.
"Shut up y' piece of crap!" Chink grumbled. He was about to add something to his last sentence, but he was cut short when the warning signal blared in his face.
"SLIPSPACE RUPTURE! SLIPSPACE RUPTURE!" The computer's AI screamed at the two corporals.
"Record it!" Fyre screamed back as he stumbled for the control panel. "Oh my God." Fyre watched as the pirate vessel emerged from slipspace only kilometers away from the outpost.
Fyre thought it had stopped completely, but he watched in horror as it continued to drift toward the outpost in the vacuum. There was a loud metallic SLAM! Fyre jumped for the communication relay link.
"This is Halo outpost 4! Repeat! Halo outpost 4! We have a breach in level seven! Looks like a pirate corvette of some kind." Fyre hoped the rest of the marines aboard the station were ready.
"Chink! Go help out!" Fyre snapped.
"Yes sir!" Chink saluted and sprinted off the bridge, almost forgetting his gun. Fyre continued to work out the bugs in the maintenance AI.
"Hello, I am 343 Guilty Spark! I am the monitor of installation 04." The AI floated around the room; a laser beam fused broken wires and welded metal together.
"I guess you can be of some assistance." Fyre jumped as he heard screams behind the bridge door. There was a series of bullet rattles, and the sound of a ricochet. Deep down inside, Fyre felt sorry for the pirate bastards... always having to fight instead of live. But there was no remorse for them along the lines of the Corps...
***
"OUTBREAK! OUTBREAK!" Chink yelled as he fired at the pirates. He looked to his left to see another marine lob a grenade. Immediately Chink dived behind some ammo crates. There was a thump of pressure throughout the room, and after a moment all the marines cautiously stood up to look what was left. What they found was a wounded pirate crawling out from around a corner... His chest cavity was moving.
"Help.. me!" The pirate screamed in pain. His chest broke open and a small... spider-like thing floated to the marines. There was a mosquito-like straw that came out of the pod, and it attached itself to one marine. He cried out for a moment before he dropped to the deck.
Chink saw the man's eyes. He would never forget that look of pain. Fyre stepped out of the doorway and threw a knife at the pod. It exploded and the other marines went to go help their comrade. Now it would be time to search the ship itself.
*3 months later. HALO installation 07. CODENAME: D.E.S.O.L.A.T.E.*
"Sniper report. No activity in kilo 44/47. Permission to pull out?" Mika reported over the comm.. channel, her voice crystal smooth. No reply. Damn. That meant the fallback option was overrun. Mika decided to risk turning around to see what had happened.
She turned her head. What she saw horrified her. Smoke billowed from behind the massive sand dunes. If she listened hard enough, she heard a .50 caliber gun firing. How could she not have noticed? The monsters were damn hard to track in the pale sand.
Now all she had to do was find a way to - Her thoughts were cut short as a tentacled marine lunged at her. Had it been watching her all this time? Or had it blended in until now?
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