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Cry for a Hero part 5: Man Behind the Cloak
Posted By: el_halo_diablo<funkmonker3lite@hotmail.com>
Date: 21 August 2002 7:27 pm


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       The Warthog I rode in sped at full speed until we heard no more noise. The Jeep came to a screeching halt.
      "Okay we're going to run a recon, and find if there is anything apealing," the driver said to me,"this is a job for the Marines and not for you police," he said snidly to me,"your job is to hold position here until we come back," he threw me a small device, like the one the sergeant gave to me before he died,"if you're in trouble, press this button, and we'll come right back."
      I jumped out of the warthog, and onto the hard sand,"good luck!" I said to them. Nobody answered as they revved the engine and sped into the dust storm, and dissapeared from 20 yards away.
      I was alone again, and I had a feeling that they would never come back. I waited for 45 minutes for them to come back and turned around to start walking back to the LZ. Then I heard a faint noise in the background, coming from the direction of where the Marines left. I stopped and listened to the noise get louder, it was contiuous like an engine. I though mabye it could be a Pelican searching for survivors. The noise was getting closer by the second and it was starting to sound like a warthog. The noise was getting louder, so loud that it must be about 50 yards away from me. Then, A large figure of a warthog slammed out of the sandy wind and into my line of sight, 20 yards away. I jumped out of the way, just avoiding the speeding warthog. I watched it pass me just before an explosion tore it into pieces.
       I ran over to the wreakage of what was left of the Warthog and searched for survivors.
      "augh! over here!" An unknown Marine shouted to me.
      I ran over to where he lay, to find a close to dead man, burnt from head to toe and covered in blood.
      He grabbed the collar of my armor,"You cant stay here!" he said in complete pain,"The rebels have taken over the entire South-side of this section! There is a small city that we located Northbound of here that might give you refuge...grrg...but you have to get out of here!" he let go of me,"go...."
      The unknown marine fell silent along with the others in the warthog. I switched-on my thermal scanners and saw that the whole sout-side was covered in heat signatures, most likly rebel forces. I slowly got up onto my feet, and botled north. I kept my thermal scanners on, in hope of seeing civilization. I probably ran for 20 minutes, until I saw heat signatures coming from the direction of where i was running. I came up to the city to find a wrecked city. There were burning buildings and bodies of what looked like, innocent civilians. I walked further into the city, down the streets, past flaming turned over cars, and rounded a corner. An explosion sent me to the ground, as concrete from the building next to me spilled all over me. I lay, buried under concrete, while I watch a rebel tank, along with 5 other men walk down the stret towards me. I lie there waiting for them to pass me while I act dead. While they were passing me, I pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade and rolled it under the tank. The explosion blew the tank in half and sent the bodies of the soldiers flying for a short time before they slumped on the ground dead. I pushed the rubble off of myself and continued down the street, I saw one very large building, still intact. I went into it and ran up the stairs. As I ran up, there were bodies of police and other fighters strewn wherever there were windows ridden with bullet holes. I came up to the end of the stairs and went through the smoldering door, onto the roof. I looked around at the carnage: there were people that were mangled and shot-up...dozens of them, all dead.
      "LOOKOUT!!!" someone screamed, just before there was a crack of a sniper rifle and a bullet smashed into my helmet. I crawled to the small 4 foot side wall, where there was protection from the sniper. I looked over to my right and saw a badly wounded police officer,"Mars protection unit, Sergeant Walkins, it's good to see another police around here." the police officer said to me, holding his gut, where blood ran from.
      "What happened here?" I asked in disgust of all the slaughtered bodies that lie on the roof.
      "We were caught by suprise, when our police headquarters in this city were ambushed by rebels. The lucky few, including me, escaped HQ just before the rebels blew it up with a large explosive. We fought a hard and long battle. Finally, the rest of us,including armed civilians, made our way to this building...not many of us made it up here...this was the final battleground," he paused and looked into the sky and then asked me,"who are you?"
      "Private Cooper, Earth Protecion Unit." I answered
      "Oh thank god we got re-enforcements!" the officer said, with his first smile.
      "There was a...complication, and I dont think many of us made it out." I told him, and that wiped the smile off his face. I streched my legs and the sniper fired at my legs sticking out, the bits of the roof spit into the air, as the bullet missed my foot by an inch. I pulled my leg back in quickly.
      "Where the hell is that sniper coming from?" I asked.
      "The tall brownish building directly behind us." he answered while he checked his wound. I switched my thermal sensors and quickly popped my head up, to see where he was. the sniper fired another shot that slammed into the front of my helmet. I fell down with the impact of the bullet to my helmet, I felt a large bump on my head. I decided that this sniper needed to be taken out immediatly. I switched my righht view lens from thermal, to zoom. I puled out a grenade and checked my MA6B. I pulled the pin on the grenade and arched my hand over the wall towards the sniper. I jumped up and watched as the sniper followed the grenade with his gun, not paying any attention to me, bad idea. I jumped from my hiding place and put the view into 10x zoom, leveled the MA6B, and fired at the unknowing sniper. I kept my finger on the trigger as the bullets pierced through the wall where the sniper was standing. The sniper jolted with every bullet that went through his body. He fired his gun into the air and finally fell to the ground, dead.
       I helped the Police officer to his feat and he stood up, thanking me for saving him,"your a great hero for what you have just done." He cocked his head over to something in the distance, out of the city, and into the desert. I looked over to find what he was looking at: there were mass troops fighting eachother, jumping into trenches, and tanks and warthogs returning fire.
      "I got to go." I said slowly, staring at the large fire-fight. I threw the sergeant a med-pack from a persons body and let himself deal with his wound. I ran down the flight of stairs and onto the streets. I kept running until i came to the desert where UNSC Warthogs zoomed past me, firing thier chain guns. I lept into one of the trenches, and ran down it, until I came to a large group of Marines and Police.
      "Welcome to the party." A marine leisurly said to me.
      "Whats going on here?" I asked him.
      "Well, somehow we all recieved a message to rendezvous at this location, all the survivors rushed to here, to find a large opposition of rebel forces, just beyond those barricades, in more trenches. There's a communications tower just beyond this detour, that this message told us to go to."
      "What are we going to do?" I asked another question to him.
      He sighed,"we've been ordered to have a full-out charge on their trenches, when the commander of this ground squad says so."
      "THE COUNT OF 3!!! WE CHARGE" a man yelled out.
      "Here we go." the marine next to me said with a smile on his face."
      "2!!!!"
      "Whats your name?" I asked the marine.
      "1!!!!! GO! GO! GO! GO!"
      We jumped out of the trenches and immediatly were responded with enemy fire.
      "my name is Priva-GAAHHH" he tried to answer my question, but got a bullet to the throat.
      We all charged, there were hundred of us all charging, guns blazing. Everyone let out a battle cry as some rebels began to flee. everyone dove behind the barricades to reload. Explosions blew the berricades to sand and sent some people to the ground, as the rebels disintegrated the barricades with dozens of rocket launchers. We all came out of cover, and continued on towards the enemy, firing at as many rebels as we could. I saw all of them duck and all fire ceased, as we ran towards the 500 yard stretch, they all came back up, but with large things. I zommed in towards the things and saw that they were LAAG chain guns mounted with a bi-pod. There were about 50 of the chain guns pointed at us, as we all ran towards them. I turned off the zoom and yelled at everone to get ready for heavy fire. I saw all of the chain guns light up, as bullets deflected of us, but some of the bullets found their mark, in the unarmored spots, dropping about 50 people in the first 200 yards. We were at 300 more yards, and the chain guns were starting to get more accurate, and dropping more marines. I still ran forward without a scratch, as men around me fell to the ground bleeding refusally. 100 yards and closing, only about a hundred men were left. I kept running and the line thinned every yard we closed on them. 20 yards, a marine yelled,"GIVE EM' HELL!!!" as he pulled out his plasma dagger. We jumped down into the enemy trenches and activated the plasma daggers. I pressed the button and it let of a deadly glow. i ran up to the first rebel that was attempting to lift the chain gun. I sliced at his abdomen and he was split in half. 5 man charged at me, with combat knives. I spun with the dagger out and decapitated the first two men, then I rammed the knive through another, spilling his guts on the ground and swiped the legs off another. The last one brought up his pistol. I quickly ran over, and amazingly, sliced the pistol in half just when the man fired. The bullet exploded in the man's face and he was temporarily blinded. I took advantage of this and cut his head off. The blade was so hot, that when it cut off the man's head, it cauterized the jugular viens, allowing no blood to come out. I ran down the trench to notice the brutal slaughter of the other rebels by the deadly force of the plasma dagger. We ran all down the trenches, eliminating the enemy, until it was silent.
       We peered over the trenches to see the devistation of smoldering tanks and other vehicles, dead bodies, and large craters. I turned my head towards a lrage structure, standing out of the dust-filled wind. The count on people that survived was 51 Marines and 4 Police. We all walked slowly over to the structure.
      "Ok" A marine that seemed to be in command said,"this appears to be the communications building, us 20 Marines will get into the main communication center via air vents, The rest of you guys will access into the main com center by using the hallways. I looked around at the police and saw two familiar faces: Zamns and Hopkins!
      We all noticed eachother and ran over to greet eachother. It was a great moment to see that some of my friends made it through.
      "Lets move out!" the commanding officer said. We open the door, and immediatly autocannons fired at us and killed 5 men. One marine tossed a grenade into the hallways and destroyed the two autocannons. We ran down the hallway. and Hopkins stopped and accessed a panel.
      "What are you doing?" Zamns asked him.
      Hopkins answered,"Im attempting to shut down security!"
       Then the lights in the section of the hallway we were in, turned red.
      "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO HOPKINS?!?" Zamns screamed at him.
      "Musta screwed up!" He said, and made a run for the closing doors in the hallway. Everyone scrambled for the closing doors. I jumped out of the way of the closing door and tried to jam it with my plasma dagger. I heard it crunch and the back of it sparked. A few more men made it through the door that I jammed, before the dagger started to really spark. It fell to the ground and I grabbed it. I touched the end of my plasma dagger and it electricity surged through my rubber gloves. It was broken, but i still kept it. I looked throught the window of the door that trapped a lot of marines. I heard the doors seal. The red lights in that hallway turned from red to green, as gas started to pour out into the sealed room that was holding them. All of the trapped people ran to the doors and attempted to cut it open with their plasma daggers, but failed. They slowly stopped pounding and fell to the ground dead. I looked around myself, there were only 6 people left, including me and Zamns and Hopkins.
       We ran down the corridors, without any disruptions, then came to a door that was labeled 'Central Com Center'
      We open the doors to find 3 rebels. They jumped and took cover behind some com officers that were at the computer panels held hostage. The rebels put the guns to the heads of the com officers. I also jumped behind a com officer and leveled my gun to the com officer's head. The other people held their position in the small dark cramped room, guns at everyones head. I looked up to the air vents to find some of the grates being lifted up and guns pointing down at the rebels, which meant that the cammander made it. Everyone was silent until a com officer broke the silence,"WAIT! im reciving and encripted message being sent from space...its hard to encript, but... oh my god...." The com officer froze looking at the screen.
       Suddenly a gun fired from the vents, hitting a rebel. The hit rebel fired a few shots into the com officers, and they fell down dead,"FORGET ABOUT YOUR OWN STRIFES!" The last remaining com officer said,"THEIR HERE!!!" he looked terrified, still looking at the screen,"AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!"
      Everyone was excanging bullets. One rebel puled a pin on a frag, and lobbed it up into the vents. the explosion rocked the ceiling and flames shot out of the vents, most likely killing all of the marines inthe vents. 3 of our men dropped to the ground dead, leaving just me, Hopkins and Zamns. the fighting was over and there was no noise from the air ducts above. I walked over to the com officer that was still alive,"What is it? I asked."
      He pointed at the screen:

      <.....Intercepting message.....>

      <.....Message intercepted......>

      <.....Breaking encription code......>

      <.....Verifying oirgin.......>

      <.....Space ship tracked from Saturn......>

      <.....Not UNSC commisioned.....>

      <.....Searching database for info.....>

      <.....Type found......>

      <.....Processing.....>

      <.....Covenant......>


      I stared in awe at the screen.
      The com officer pulled out his sidearm and shot the screen,"IT CANT BE!!!" He screamed. HE leveled his pistol to his head and shot himself.
      I heard a flump to the left of me: it was zamns sprawled on the floor.
      "Hey Cooper." I Hopkins said, as he turned me around.
      "Wha-"
      The butt of his gun hit me directly in the face. I fell to the ground slowly and as my eyes slowly closed, I saw Hopkins stand over me and laugh, just like in my dream...





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