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Earth was safe for now, which among every soldier, civilian, and the covenant rebels was a reason to celebrate. Many of the regulations about alcohol on the ships were lifted temporarily providing for a party. ~ The next day the ship was back to normal, except for the smell of puck that filled the docking bays. "Wake up everybody!" yelled out John to his Spartans, "we will be briefed in 20 minutes." All of the Spartans scrambled through the showers and quickly got into their dress uniforms. John led them to a conference room were they were given a bagel and a cup of coffee. After the Spartans ate their breakfast a man walked in wearing a gray uniform, upon it their was the ONI crest and under that his name, Tim Sole. "Hello, as you know right now you are being hailed as heroes on earth and its colonies, but with your victories their was a tremendous cost, onboard that command ship their were prophets, and the destruction of them was the destruction of a great opportunity to use them as hostages for negotiations," said Tim in an irritated voice, "also onboard that ship their were numerous weapons that we have never seen before and the rebels can't give us any information upon them. Do you realize the technological advances we could have made if that ship was captured?" "Sorry sir but the destruction of that ship was the key to our victory, if it was not destroyed the covenant would be the ones holding a party," said John, "that ship was too large for even twenty platoons of Spartans to capture anyways, any attempt to take it would be a complete failure." Tim seeing that he was defeated he sat down and flipped open a file, "that is all you can do," he said to himself, "in other news we have decided that it is time for you to be revealed to the public, they had been aware of your existence for years now but they have never seen you, also we think that your presence among the public may increase the recruiting rate, and in this stage we need every able body we can get." "So when do we meet the public," said John. "In three hours, the UNSC news room is already being filled with reporters, and outside the UNSC HQ there are thousands of civilians who are hoping to have a glimpse of their saviors," said Tim. This was a term often associated with the Spartans, but never on this scale. A monitor was turned on showing a news reporter standing outside the UNSC HQ, around her thousands of civilians gathered many holding signs saying things like "God Bless The Spartans," and "Down With The Covenant," these images struck awe in the Spartans. "In about 3 hours from now the Spartans are expected to make their first public speech," said the reporter, "The leader of the Spartans is known only by his rank Master Chief." John and the rest of the Spartans got up and left the room all with their minds set on what they were going to say. ~ Two and a half hours later John and the Spartans walked towards a pelican that would transport them to the surface. Two parallel lines of Marines made a path from the door to the docking bays to the pelican, all of the Marines stood silently at attention as the Spartans boarded the pelican and closed the hatch. The pelican lifted off the bay floor and sped out of the Argentina towards earth. As the pelican descended upon the HQ John could see that there were thousands of civilians all around. "Holy shit were bigger than U2," said a Spartan. "U2?" asked some of the elite Spartans. As the pelican landed reporters and people holding cameras swarmed the pelican while dozens of Marines attempted to hold them back. One by one the Spartans jumped off the pelican and began to walk towards the HQs main entrance, a path was marked out by Marines who tried desperately to hold back the reporters. As the Spartans walked questions were shouted at them from all directions ranging from, how does it feel to have saved earth? To what did you eat the morning before? None of the Spartans answered any of the questions, as they reached the HQs main entrances two Marines opened up the doors and saluted as they walked inside. Inside the main lobby of the HQ general Kits stood waiting for them. He quickly saluted and said "follow me to the conference room." The Spartans followed him down several passageways until they reached a conference room; inside it several men all-wearing highly decorated uniforms sat consulting Cortana who hovered several inches from the table. "Ah good to see you Chief," said Cortana. "Good to see you to," said John as he sat down. "Well welcome Master Chief, its good to see you and the rest of the team," said a figure at the end of the table, "ONI seems pretty pissed off about the fact that you didn't capture the command ship, but that's just like them, they would rather see a billion soldiers die than miss a good opportunity for research. But other than that were quite pleased with the results of your mission, and we are already preparing the fleet to begin our next." "And what will we be doing," asked John. "Thanks to general Sears the location of the covenant home world has been revealed to us and we are prepping to attack," said the figure, "that's all I have to say at this time, now go out their and show the world who saved them." The Spartans left the room and went up an elevator that took them up to a small room with one door; beside the door two Marines stood saluting. "Through this door please sir," said one Marine. John opened up the door revealing a raised platform with a podium on the top; John walked up and looked down over the sea of people that stood in front of him. "Good morning," said John, "in all of these recent victories we must remember the fallen, for many of them did more than we could ever do, and until now I never realized the real reason that we were fighting. But now I realized that we are greater than any foe and that we shall stand above all, for our race we will fight to the death, and in death shall we gaze upon our accomplishments and say 'we changed the universe'" Next: Changing the Universe |
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