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In Shining Armor, Part 1
Posted By: LostRock<seraph11@aol.com>
Date: 19 June 2004, 5:48 AM
Read/Post Comments
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And Now A Word From Our Sponsor
Phew. Man, it feels like it has been FOREVER since I posted a story. I'm so glad I have some free time again to do so. School's a bitch. I've been working on this story for a little over a month, just typing whenever my heart is set on it. That, and tweaking. I'm taking my work a little more seriously and just tweak, tweak, tweaking until I'm completely satisfied. Part 2 is still in the cooker, and it might be a while before you set your eyes on it. For the time being, enjoy my little offering.
LostRock
P.S. My "Revenge Of A Spartan" series is dead. No, the Chief wasn't going to die, I planned to get him out of there ("there" being an uber-nuclear explosion). I was just unsatisfied with the series altogether. Sorry to anyone who might've cared. Heh...or remembered for that matter! HA HA HA!...meh.
Sergeant Arthur Gabriel was a typical UNSC grunt: a young, eager, energetic Caucasian brown-haired soldier-boy, ready to defend the human homeworld. He was also bored. He sighed as he shuffled along in the streets of London, in the Piccadilly Circus district. As he looked about the huge spectacle, Art remembered the first time he had been to Times Square, when he was fifteen. The three-dimensional signs, shouting out slogans of the latest in fashion, food, clothes, and the like in annoyingly cheerful voices; the street urchins, wandering aimlessly down the unkempt avenues or slumped against a wall with some bullshit sign, begging for money; the drivers of cars leaning their heads out of their windows and yelling "Move, asshole!" while simultaneously honking their horns.
Piccadilly was different, however, and not just because of the culture gap. The advertisement projectors did nothing more than spark, the bums were nowhere to be seen, and the sound of angry motorists had been ominously silenced.
London was a shell from the initial Covenant attack wave. Buildings stood like trees that needed just one more little chop from a lumberman's axe before they fell. Some had already succumbed to such a fate.
Art looked at the buildings, feeling sorry that the British had to be one of the first people to endure the Covenant bombardment. He had always liked the British, especially their folklore. His favorite pastime as a kid was to read myths about dragons. He enjoyed reading e-books about valiant warriors defended by nothing but a coat of metal charge into battle on their noble steeds against the gigantic, fiery, lizard-like monsters. Some of the men were triumphant in their attacks, stabbing the dragon at its weak point, the heart, with their blades. Others were not so lucky, charred to a crisp inside their metal shells. Art was now just like those warriors, fighting this enormous dragon known as the Covenant. However, his battle would be a hundred times harder: the Covenant didn't seem to have a weak point.
Art even had his own armor, the top-of-the-line Marine field suit codenamed Excalibur. It was similar to the Spartans' famous Mjolnir armor: body shields, enhanced strength and speed, and a battlefield HUD. The intimidating suits were colored in a cobalt metallic sheen. The only difference between Excalibur and Mjolnir was that there was no optional AI that could be included in the suit. Probably because they didn't have enough time to drill holes in everybody's fucking heads, Art thought as he remembered the SPARTAN-II project. He respected the legendary Spartans as soldiers, and likely as people too, if he ever had a chance to meet them. However, he had heard rumors that some sick and twisted things had happened to the supersoldiers to get them to become what they were today. The last he had heard of the Spartans, they were headed out on a spec-ops mission under "The Keyes To Victory" (as all the swabbies constantly and ecstatically referred to Captain Jacob Keyes as) to supposedly "turn this war around." However, Art had heard that the Spartans had been there at the siege on Reach, and were all presently MIA.
Art was jolted back into reality by a BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! He looked up to see a trio of titanic electric-blue explosions over the remaining line of buildings, standing out against the grey skies. It had come from the frontlines, which were an unbearable five klicks away. Soon, Art knew, these streets would be crawling with Covenant. Suddenly, his radio crackled to life.
"Okay, Marines," the voice of Art's commander Captain Winters said to his Foxtrot Company, "That's our cue. Haul ass over to Piccadilly Underground Station; we got word from the frontlines that the Covenant will try to sneak past us via the subway tunnels."
Art unslung his custom rifle from his shoulder. It was an oddball weapon that he had engineered himself: an MA5B mated with a 2x scope that had an oversized clip of one hundred 7.62 mm rounds. Art had balanced out the rifle from the extra weight, but it was still a bit heavy, leading to some superiors asking Art why he would make such a rifle. His response was, "It can tear an Elite a new one and still have rounds to spare." So far, no officer had argued with that. As backup, Art also packed an SMG, snugly strapped to his leg.
A nav point from Captain Winters to the train station's stairwell appeared. As Art jogged over, he spotted a figure at his 11 o'clock. From the armored humanoid's stature, he knew it was his squadmate, Sergeant Lance Brawn. If it hadn't been for the Human-Covenant War, Lance might have been a model: he was a blonde, muscular, blue-eyed rascal from New York, with a heavy accent. In combat, Lance was the cool cucumber that shot his enemies with an unshaken hand. His weapons of choice were an M90 shotgun and an M6D pistol.
"Hey, Lance!" Art called. "What's up?"
Lance chuckled. "Oh, y'know...chillin', illin', doing a li'l killin'.
Art laughed softly and rolled his unseen eyes at Lance's poor attempt at some 21st-century slang.
"So, what kind of company are we expecting?" Art asked, dropping the joking attitude.
"The usual," Lance replied in the same manner, as the two Marines intercepted each other's paths and turned to walk down the steps of Piccadilly Circus Underground Station. "Grunts, Jackals, Brutes, yada-yada...you name 'em, they got 'em."
"Fuckin' beautiful," Art replied sardonically. He was a bit surprised with his sudden mood swing, but he knew he shouldn't have been. All Marines were trained to take on cut-the-crap attitudes once the lead and plasma bolts became the new atmosphere of the battlefield.
Art and Lance came to the bottom of the staircase, and looked around as if they had just gotten a tourist's pass to hell. The little shops containing candy, drink, and bric-a-brac by the barrelful were a mixed bag: Some were completely caved in, others looked as though they were merely closed for a holiday.
The ceiling was pockmarked with holes, some which led outside, the rest led into buildings. The unkempt floor was covered in dirt and large chunks of concrete. Art and Lance saw the ticket scanners were completely destroyed, leaving the escalator shafts that led to the Bakerloo and Piccadilly lines without obstacles. The two Marines peered down both of the shafts to find that they were pretty intact.
"What do we got, boys?" a voice said to the backs of the sergeants. Lance and Art swung around to attention, recognizing the authoritative voice of Captain Winters. Standing behind their CO was the rest of Foxtrot Company, checking their weapons, talking to one another, or just wringing their fingers with anxiety.
Winters was a mountain of a man, standing 6'8" and able to bench 500 pounds without the aid of the Excalibur armor. Winter's size was possibly a danger to him; with his pounding steps and enormous armored frame, some soldiers from other companies might easily mistake him as a Hunter.
"We're assessing the battlefield, sir," Lance spoke, "from what we can tell, the train waiting areas are intact. I suspect the reason the Covenant aren't here yet is because the tunnels are caved in from the bombing; that should give us some time to set up."
Winters folded his tree trunk arms across his great chest. "How do you propose we prepare for the attack, boys?" he boomed. "I'm open to suggestions." Winters looked from one sergeant to the other, then back again. He often quizzed his Marines because, unlike most soldiers, they had a better chance of living long enough to become officers, thanks to Excalibur.
Art considered a moment. "Sir, we have a serious advantage if we hold position here." He looked over at the escalator shafts, which both faced a flock of shops that stood in the center of the lobby. "We can just snipe them off as they come up the escalators. It's too risky to go any further downstairs because the Covenant will likely bring along some vehicles into the tunnels, and if the place comes crashing down, we'll have nowhere to run to."
"I concur," said Winters, and turned to the rest of Foxtrot. "Marines! Set up stationary guns at choke points surrounding the escalator shafts! We're going to make sure that no breathing Covenant—sucking up air, methane, or God knows what—sets a foot on that staircase leading up to Piccadilly!"
"SIR YES SIR!"
The Marines began settling themselves in. Four stationary machine guns were set up about twenty-five feet away from the shafts, with sandbags surrounding them. The soldiers knelt in doorways, leaned out of windows, crouched behind sandbag bunkers.
Suddenly, a muffled explosion came from below, loosing some plaster from the ceiling.
"Get to your positions, and keep your eyes on the prize," Winters crowed.
Lance and Art stood in a coffee shop, leaning out from wide windowpanes. Art listened to the sound of his breathing. Still steady. Indiscernible sounds emanated from below, and kept getting louder and louder. Art glanced at his motion tracker. There were so many enemy contacts that the indicator looked like a tomato.
He turned to Lance. "This is going to be very painful," he proclaimed in a flat voice.
Though his helmet completely hid his features, Art could still hear a crazy grin in Lance's voice. "Yeah? Question is, for who?"
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