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HELLJUMPERS CHAPTERS 6-7
Posted By: Havok<snayperskaya@hotmail.com>
Date: 10 September 2002, 11:36 pm
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CHAPTER SIX: JOY RIDING
Rob, Me and the other members of the 229th S.O.G. have been assigned to daily missions officially known as Search and Destroy missions. However, me and my Special Operations Group have generally call these missions joy riding. The object of the mission is to kill as many of the covie bastards as you possibly can. We had started a competition of sorts. There was now a kill board taking up one wall of my quarters. Every day after we got back to base, we all sat around in my room watching the mission recorders. Rob and I are still in first place, of course. We have tallied 126 kills over the course of two weeks. Fi bait, and the Anachronism (aliases of course. Rob and I are Skull and Crossbones) are in second place with 97 kills. Today we started out kind of late, around 0800 or so. Rob yells to me, "I see a few of them! Grunts! Slow down!" I hit the brakes and jump out. All of a sudden the grunts could see me; I was outside the protective cloak of the hog. I dodge to the side as a burst of plasma burns past me. I slip on an active camo unit and bring up my sniper rifle. *THWIP*THWIP*THWIP*THWIP* Four little grunts go down gurgling, their throats torn wide open. Then the chain gun spins up and the bullets seem to appear from nowhere as they chew through the grunts. All of a sudden, it's over. I count up the dead, 8 grunts and a shitload of fluorescent blood. I get back in the hog and deactivate my personal cloaking device.
Rob tells me to be more careful, I give him the finger, he laughs, and we continue.
"I think we should go look for a base of some sort. All those little buggers seem to be hiding in those structures under the ground." Rob yells to me.
"Yeah, that's a good idea." I yell back, and step on the gas. We head at top speed toward the nearest known covenant holdout. For the most part, the covies had gone under ground, when they realized that their supply line from space had been cut. We drove on for about an hour, when we came to a mountain rising up out of the jungle. Set in to the base of the mountain was what looked like a hangar door. Two gold armored elites guarded the entrance. Rob let out a low whistle. Not many bases were important enough to have gold elites guard the entrance. We couldn't get very close, because the sound of the massive tires crunching over the ground would alert the elites. Rob and I donned our active camouflage and exited the vehicle. We circled very carefully around the elites. Rob socked his elite in the head with a brass knuckle reinforced fist. My elite turned at the noise, but I viciously smashed the butt of my sniper rifle into its head before it could do anything else. Rob policed the bodies and I took the opportunity to get to the hog and radio in to HQ that we had found something of interest, and to have some backup in case we got into trouble. They acknowledged and I signed off.
Rob had hid the bodies in a bush and was waiting for me by the entrance. The door seemed to be of Forerunner origin, not covenant. The door had a motion sensor and when we stepped toward it, it opened. We cautiously entered and readied our rifles. Around the corner there were five grunts and three elites patrolling inside a large chamber. Rob and I split up to far ends of the room. We still had the active camo, we were not seen. We each silently took out an elite. The other aliens noticed this and the grunts panicked and started firing in all directions. Two grunts shot themselves, and died in a pool of fluorescent blood. I sniped the elite, who fell and in its death throes, convulsively squeezed the trigger, taking out a grunt's legs. Rob had his M-90 shotgun out and was taking care of the other two grunts. Two blasts and two grunts flew across the room, no longer recognizable, the front of their bodies chewed away from the buckshot.
We didn't bother with cleaning up the mess, the whole friggin base must've heard the commotion. I took out my assault rifle and motioned Rob forward to the next hallway. We took a few twists and turns, and through a door, and suddenly we were outside. Well, it sure looked like outside. But the climate was way different. Topside when we had entered, it was dense jungle. Here is was the middle of winter. Snow was falling heavily. We couldn't see the ceiling. We couldn't see the ground either. We were standing on a narrow bridge that spanned across the gaping cavernous space. I looked, but couldn't see the other side of the bridge. I took out my sniper rifle and took a look through the scope. Through the special 30x magnification, I could just barely make out a spire rising from the center of the bridge toward the sky. I handed the rifle to Rob so he could have a look see. He looked through the scope briefly and then stated simply, "Let's go."
We trekked through the knee deep snow on the bridge toward the tower, thinking of what we would find when we got there. We were about halfway there when I noticed little humps in the snow. I stopped in front of one and brushed off some snow. It was a grunt. Funny how the cold temperatures sent them into a sort of hibernation. I called Rob over and we continued, occasionally bashing a sleeping grunt that happened to be in our way. As we got closer to the tower, I grew more and more astonished at the dimensions of the thing. It was roughly hexagonal with sweeping geometric shapes etched into it. I spotted six stationary guns protecting the entrance to the spire. I told Rob to go ahead, and that I would snipe off any opposition from here. He split to the side and continued on. I brought up my sniper rifle and sighted in on the entrance. There were ten elites, eight hunters and then six grunts manning the shade turrets. I radioed to Rob about this new development. He acknowledged and I began to pick off targets. *THWIP*THWIP* Two hunters went down, spurting orange blood over the snowy landscape. Six of the elites ran around to the other side of the building. I watched, curious as to what they were doing, when three ghosts and three banshees suddenly appeared. Holy shit, I thought, this is gonna be tough. I told Rob to go for the Ghosts. He didn't say anything, but a few seconds later, I saw one of the ghosts start to smoke. It swerved and plowed into a low flying banshee, knocking both of them off of the bridge and into the abyss. I sighted in on a banshee and spied the elites head poking up from a view port, and gently squeezed the trigger. The banshee dove for the ground as the elite learned how to fly without a head.
I lowered my rifle and raced forward, bringing up my assault rifle. Half a clip later, the last banshee twirled from the sky in a cloak of smoke and flame. I looked over to Rob in time to see him eliminate the last of the banshees. The grunts had recovered finally from the shock of losing their elites, and opened up on us. The hunters and remaining four elites charged while the grunts sprayed the area with suppressing fire. Purple streaks shot past me as I dove into the snow. I popped up and loosed a few rounds toward the nearest turret. The grunt screamed and gurgled on his own blood as a round got him in the chest. Rob fired from his prone position in the snow. Flakes of snow flurried around him from the muzzle blasts of his assault rifle. He picked off two elites with the extremely efficient anti-matter rounds.
Snow was vaporized right next to me by another shade turret, and I decided it was time to move. I jumped up and raced another ten meters before plopping down again. I yanked my ruger free of its holster and sent a few round through the neck of the nearest hunter. Another hunter saw me; pivoted and raised its arm. I bolted from my spot as a huge green blast vaporized my previously occupied position. I loosed the rest of my clip at that hunter before he could recharge his fuel rod gun. He went down in a fiery green ball when one of my rounds found his gun's plasma cell. I turned in time to see a hunter in the action of bringing my shield down on my skull. I ducked and was splattered in the alien's fluorescent blood as his head toppled off its shoulders. I radioed Rob for a brief thank you and charged forward again. Rob had taken out the three remaining hunters and two more turrets. I sighted my assault rifle on the next turret and fired. I pivoted before I saw the grunt go down and emptied the rest of my clip at two elites coming from the side. They went down hard and I ran toward them. I picked up their grenades and lobbed two grenades at the last turrets. They disappeared in twin blue flashes.
The firing died down and I stood up. Rob had advanced all the way to the entrance and had already sat down and was inspecting his gear. I jogged over to him, retrieving plasma grenades along the way that the deceased elites and grunts would no longer be needing.
"That was fun! Let's do it again!" joked Rob as I approached. I gave him the finger and sat down next to him. "Which way you think we should go?" he asked. "Up or down?"
"I am betting that whatever they covies are trying to protect is gonna be up. Harder to fight up than down. Easier to defend from the top too." I decided. I took out a ration bar and chewed thoughtfully. "you think we should invite the cavalry to join us?"
"nah," Rod said. "they'll take all the credit if we find anything." He got up and shrugged on his backpack. I got up and did likewise. I finished my ration bar and we started up the stairs, Rob taking point.
CHAPTER SEVEN: A NEW SUPERWEAPON
We had been climbing the stairs for about and hour and a half when I began to wonder just how fucking long it would take us to get to the top. There were windows every hundred steps or so. I glanced out one of them and looked down. The bridge had faded from view. Damn we are high. A few minutes later we reached a landing with two grunts patrolling. Rob leaped on the far one and brutally snapped its neck. I unsheathed a knife and jammed it into my grunt's brain cavity, twisting savagely. It toppled to the ground. I was about to say something the Rob when he motioned for me to shut up. I shut up and listened. I could hear a faint humming coming from somewhere above us. I took point this time and we started again up the stairs, much more cautiously than before. Looking out the windows now only granted a look at a dense cloud bank. Gradually the humming got louder as we approached the next landing. I also heard a faint but unmistakable noise: an elite walking somewhere up ahead. I turned on my motion tracker and saw a dot moving slowly back and forth. I waited until the dot was moving away from me an then struck. I bolted onto the landing and spotted a gold elite walking away from me. I hefted a throwing knife and hurled it as hard as I could at the base of the elite's neck. It sank in up to its hilt and the alien fell. A grunt sleeping in the corner stood up, startled at the noise, but Rob was upon its neck before it could let out a squawk. I strode over to the elite and dislodged my knife from its neck. Seeing as we were in no immediate danger, I decided then and there to keep a tooth from every golden elite that I killed. I withdrew from my pack a pair of pliers and yanked out one of the dead elite's canine tooth. I slipped it into my pocked and then I also liberated its plasma sword. I studied the hilt of the device for any button that would activate the blade. Finding none, I decided it must be pressure activated, I squeezed the handle and eureka, I had myself a working plasma sword. I showed it to Rob, and then clipped it to my belt.
We continued up the next set of stairs. The humming noise had turned into a steady drone. We sped up out pace. The noise would help conceal our footfalls to any enemy in the area. A few minutes later, I noticed that the walls were becoming gradually farther and farther apart. Suddenly, the stairs ended, and we found ourselves in a winding hallway. Moving right along, I almost tripped over another one of those damn grunts. I was about to kill it when I noticed that it had the black armor of the spec ops grunts. Its fuel rod gun lay at its side. Knowing full that the gun explodes when the grunt dies, I sidestepped and continued on, leaving a grenade under his gun. The moment he woke up would be his last moment alive. A few turns later, Rob and I saw something truly unprecedented. A hunter clad in black spec ops armor stood with its back to us. A spec ops hunter? No one had ever seen one of those before. How important is this place, I wondered. I Motioned Rob to stop. We had to take care of this situation flawlessly. The hunter's armor covered all of his body. There were no orange spots of flesh visible. The only option would be to shoot out one of his twin fuel rod guns. To do this, someone had to get his attention. I knelt in the firing position and readied my sniper rifle. Rob set a plasma grenade with a ten second fuse and sent it bouncing down the hallway. The hunter heard the noise and turned- *THWIP*
*CCRRRAAASSSHHH!!!* The anti-matter round hit the fuel rod's charging cell and ignited it. The hunter staggered, staring at his stump of an arm. Then the plasma grenade exploded and the hunter went down, thick orange blood welling out of its arm, congealing on the ground. We heard a grenade go off behind us. Spinning, we realized that the explosions had woken up the spec ops grunt with the grenade I had set under him.
We continued forward, weapons at the ready. The droning sound had escalated to a deafening roar. We must be close. We turned a corner and stopped suddenly. The hall had opened into a cavernous room. At the far end of the room were two spec ops hunters, guarding a doorway.
"Whatever they're guarding so jealously must be in that room." Rob subvocalized to me. I looked at him and nodded. I put a fresh battery cell into a slot in my belt and the active camo shimmered back on. The old battery had run out before we reached the snow covered bridge. Rob took the hint and activated his also. Those hunters had to be taken out quickly and quietly. We snuck up and I examined the Hunter from a few feet away. It looked like he had no weak spots besides the fuel rod charger cell. But looks can be deceiving. I knelt down and looked at the behemoth's underarms. Sure enough, its armpits had no armor. It would be impossible to hit the armpit in a fight, so the makers of the armor obviously never thought to put any there. I unclipped the plasma sword and held the base of it up to the exposed flesh. I tightened my grip and the blade flashed out, right into the behemoth hunter, piercing and flash burning internal organs. It collapsed. The other hunter began to turn and address this new threat. But they are ungainly and slow when it comes to addressing a new threat. Before it could do much more than turn, Rob had emptied the clip from his MA2B into the hunters exposed underarm. The second hunter fell next to the first. He looked at me and nodded. Or at least I think he did. Close up, you can kind of see the object wearing the camo. We turned to face the door. I strode over to a keypad set into the wall and pressed a few keys. The keys were inscribed in some sort of runic alien script. They were definitely not covenant letters. The door slid silently open.
Inside were about a dozen of those floating scientists. They were hovering here and there, examining control panels at a furious pace. To regular hunters sat in the corner, keeping watch over a red box. The Master Chief had told Rob and I of his past experiences with the covenant. I recalled one story where he had been sent to a city of Cote de Azores and had seen much the same thing with the hunters in the corners. I knew that they were transmitting something to a ship in orbit somewhere. It had to be a stealth ship, or else the battlecruisers would have seen it and blown it out of the sky. I opened fire on the hunters, hitting their exposed flesh, felling them. Rob fired his assault rifle in controlled bursts, aiming for the scientists. I got about five of the scientists before the firing stopped.
"Rob, you get on the horn pronto and get the cavalry here right away. We need this area secured now, before more covies run us over." I shouted at him. He pulled the long range radio out of his pack and called HQ. while he was doing this, I went over to where the two hunters lay. I picked up the red box and studied it. "and Rob, tell them that the covies have been transmitting some info, probably to a stealth ship in orbit."
"Roger Black two, we copy all information. We are deploying the sixth armored division to your position immediately. Wait for reinforcements, the bug out of there and back to base for debriefing. Command out" I heard the radio say. Rob shut off the radio and we policed the bodies, lining them up in a corner. We were inspecting the control panels when six gold elites burst into the room. They were obviously a quick response team in case the control room was attacked. They were too late to save the scientists. They didn't se us in our active camo, but as soon as Rob opened fire, all hell broke loose. They converged on our position as two of the elites fell from Rob's guns, two more fell as I emption my assault rifle's clip into the mass. As they closed with us, plasma swords flashed on and jumped into the fray. I ignited my own plasma sword and slashed the head off of one of the two remaining elites. As Rob dispatched the last one, a horde of spec ops grunts entered the room. I lobbed two plasma grenades into the mass of grunts. Secondary explosions wracked the grunt's lines as the fuel rod guns detonated, a few fuel rod shots were loosed in our direction before the last of them bit the dust, courtesy of my assault rifle. The last fuel guns exploding was drowned out by the sound of a Pelican dropship's engines at full throttle. Evidently, some of the ships had found a way to fly to our position directly instead of taking the long way as we had done. The engines wound down outside and I could hear the eager shouts of the disembarking marines. Rob and I took a few trophy canine teeth from the elites. Rob also got a plasma sword of his own. We left the control room, and a large hangar door set into the side of the room where we had killed the two spec ops hunters opened. Three warthogs and four scorpion tanks rushed into the cavernous room. A corporal disembarked from the lead warthog and rushed inside the control room. I then realized that we still had our active camo on. I turned off my camo and shouted to the corporal. He jumped and turned around.
"Where the hell did you come from!... Sir!" he nervously asked.
"Sorry, we had our active camo on" I explained as Rob turned his camo off and shimmered into view.
"Oh ok." Still looking uncertain, "Well sir, Sixth Armored division reporting as ordered sir. We have this entire complex and the surrounding area secure. The next wave of pelicans has the technicians and ONI spooks coming to examine the control room. You two can catch a ride back to base on a pelican outside. I have already sent someone to drive your warthog back."
We saluted and Rob and I jogged outside and hopped on the next outgoing pelican. I told him to get us back to Command HQ. I then leaned back and promptly went to sleep.
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