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USA Invasions parts 1 and 2
Posted By: Robert.skull
Date: 10 November 2004, 8:06 PM


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Part 1: NYC

Mr. Henderson found the feet first. At first, he thought it was just some bum sleeping in the back alley. He went up to the object - and his jaw dropped. It was a Jackal, a birdlike alien belonging to the religious group known as the Covenant. These aliens had invaded Earth only a few days before, and the UNSC's Marines had been able to keep them at bay long enough for the SPARTAN Master Chief to get there. However, the Covenant wasn't supposed to be in New York City - they had only landed in New Mombasa.

Henderson walked up to the creature and kicked it. It didn't move. He took the dead alien's energy shield, as well as its nearly full plasma rifle. He turned and left with his prize. After walking down a side street for a few minutes, he stopped dead. There was a pack of three Grunts - smallish, purple-colored aliens with orange body armor - led by an Elite with an energy blade. The Elite was looking the other way, so Henderson snuck up behind it and punched it - hard. The Elite growled and turned. Henderson, thinking quickly, activated the energy shield and opened fire on the Elite. After what seemed like an eternity, the Elite's shields died, then it did too. The Grunts ran in panic and confusion as Henderson mowed them down, too. He checked his plasma rifle's charge meter. It read: twelve percent.

Henderson grinned as he surveyed the carnage. He had killed four Covenant soldiers, gotten one energy blade, three plasma pistols, and a fresh plasma rifle. However, his joy was short-lived. Hearing a roar above him, he looked up to see three Covenant Phantoms screaming over his position.

He whipped out his videocellphone and dialed the UNSC's USA HQ. They documented the call and immediately dispatched a dozen Pelicans. Each carried fourteen soldiers, including two ODSTs.

Five minutes later, 168 UNSC soldiers landed. Henderson spotted the triple bars of a sergeant and approached. "Hi, I'm Henderson." The sergeant replied, "Great, now give me those weapons." Henderson gave up his weapons, but kept the energy shield - spoils of war. The sergeant thanked Henderson and asked him about what had just happened. When he talked of the Covenant earlier, the sarge nearly soiled himself. Henderson signed up for the Marines right then and there. Then the 169 soldiers took off for HQ in lower Manhattan.

Once at the HQ, the soldiers settled in. Suddenly, in an instant, the wall exploded in a bright blue flash. Four Elites stood outside the hole as a dozen Grunts poured in. The Elites shouted "Wort wort wort." The soldiers inside took up position as the grunts started shooting. The Marines and ODST's opened up on the aliens with their Battle rifles and SMG's, killing all the Grunts. Henderson dodged plasma fire as he went to get a dead Grunt's fuel rod cannon. He picked it up and hid behind a desk, stuggling under the weapon's weight. He fired at the Elites, who struggled to stand. An ODST tossed an M9 frag grenade into the fray. When the dust cleared, the Elites were dead. An office agent phoned the UNSC High Command in Sydney, and they promised to send 6000 Marines and 500 ODSTs, as well as the SPARTAN Linda.

Henderson surveyed the destruction and found twelve humans dead. The remaining humans began crating weapons. Soon the news came in; the Covenant cruiser "Fearless Prophet" had landed with 3000 troops, including a battalion of Brutes and two platoons of Hunters, in Central Park.

The skies darkened as hundreds of Pelicans dropped off their human cargo. Several exploded as Covenant AA guns fired. The new soldiers unloaded their weapons: thousands of battle rifles and SMG's, hundreds of magnum pistols, scores of shotguns, and dozens of sniper rifles and Jackhammer rocket launchers. They got crate upon crate of grenades, ammo, and one crate of HAVOK tac-nukes. Linda took up her position behind UNSC lines, waiting for Covenant to wander into her crosshairs.

Henderson heard a rumbling and turned to see two armored divisions - each with 15 Scorpion Main Battle Tanks - moving into position behind him.

A few hours went by. The Covenant approached, and Henderson could see the glinting of Hunter's Shields. The Sarge yelled, "Get tactical, Marines!" Henderson loaded his battle rifle...

Part 2: Topeka

Mary Alice Louise Farnsworth pirouetted in front of the mirror. "I hate my name," she thought. "I'm gonna go down to the Kansas City headquarters of the United Nations Space Command and enlist under a different name." And so she set off on the journey of a lifetime.

She enlisted under the pseudonym "Jane Farmer." Due to her relative inexperience with combat, she was sent to the fortress world of Reach after completing boot camp. After she had been there for a month or two, the Covenant attacked. When the planet fell to the inexorable alien juggernaut, Jane was pulled back to Earth to prepare for the obvious Covenant attack.

A few months later, a loud banging on the door awakened her quite rudely. "OPEN UP PRIVATE!" bellowed a soldier. A Marine? Here in Topeka? Why? "GET THAT DURNED DOOR OPEN!" the soldier yelled again. Jane got up and opened the door. "What?" she yawned. "The Covenant is landing in Topeka! We need all personnel to get ready to fight!" The colonel shoved a battle rifle and M9C pistol into her hands. "They're both loaded. Let's move!" She followed the colonel to a Warthog and they sped off towards Topeka, five miles distant.

When they arrived, the city was in chaos. Plasma torpedoes slammed into buildings - soon, even the government buildings were burning. Marines were firing into rows of advancing red-armored Grunts and their Elite leaders. Gauss-cannon mounted on Warthogs fired their sonic-speed rounds into the enemy lines even as energy mortars from Covenant Wraiths eliminated them. Jane took up her battle rifle and fired at an Elite. Scenes from her life flashed before her eyes against the cries of the wounded and the steady "BROO-BROO-BROO" of her battle rifle.

An Elite fired at her from her left. She ducked just in time, but the super-heated plasma melted her weapons. She crawled to a dead comrade - the colonel that she had driven with that morning - and picked up his two SMG's. She loaded the weapons and opened fire, trying to keep them level from all the recoil.

The two Elites switched to needlers and began firing. Jane rolled away from the explosive pink shards. She turned just in time to see the rounds hitting an Elite that had been standing behind her, ready to hit her in the back. In a pink explosion, it was gone. Suddenly an overcharged plasma pistol bolt washed over her. She blacked out.

When she came to, she was in a UNSC military hospital. "Where am I?" she asked. "In Topeka," came the friendly reply from a nearby nurse. "But I thought that Topeka fell," said Jane. "It did," answered the nurse. "But then we got 12,000 reinforcements and we've started taking it back." Jane got up to the objections of the nurse. She hefted an assault rifle nearby to check her strength. All was fine. She left the hospital in high spirits.

She looked around her. Marines were running around securing weapons from dead Grunts, Jackals, and Drones. A lieutenant tossed a needler at Jane, who dropped her MA5B and took the strange alien weapon. She tested it. It worked fine - in fact, it seemed better than normal. She approached her commander, who just happened to wander past. "Hey, Farmer," the corporal said. "You all right?" "Yup," replied Jane. "HQ in Wichita says the 527th infantry and the 235th armored divisions attack at sunset - that's us. Get ready to move." Jane did.

Six hours passed, and five o'clock approached. Jane heard the low bass droning of fifteen Scorpion MBT's coming in behind her. The 235th is here, she thought. The two thousand soldiers in the 527th assembled in front of the Scorpions. To the tune of the UNSC's Galactic Anthem ("Hail to the Master Chief") the columns began to move toward the front lines and the waiting Covenant.

After 15 minutes of marching, the small army came across the enemy. Six hundred Grunts lay sleeping, and four hundred Drones stood - or should I say, flew - guard duty, accompanied by sixty Jackal snipers. Jane looked around - no Elites. Her column moved toward the Covenant army. The Scorpions opened fire on the Drones and Jackals as the Marines unloaded clip after clip of light munitions on the sleeping Grunts. Bits of alien flew everywhere. The battle was all over in half an hour - at the cost of forty Marines and one Scorpion, whose crew had barely escaped alive.

Jane approached her corporal. "Well, corporal, we did it," said Jane. "We sure as hell did," he replied. "Now, let's go, they Covenant'll be back..."





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