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Chapter One: Part I, Discovery of an Enemy
Posted By: russ687<russ687@hotmail.com>
Date: 14 May 2004, 3:11 AM
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Gallant Strife
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Chapter One: Discovery of an Enemy
PART I
0544 Hours, July 21, 2552 (Military Calendar)
System Designation Classified, Planet Codename Milestone
The warm rain came down hard through the thick jungle. What was once a fairly mossy ground covered by thick plants was now turning into a half foot deep swamp as the rain drops fell through the large trees towards the landscape. The inconsistent hilly terrain made travel through this area difficult and slow, and the added flooding by the heavy rain did not especially help.
First Lieutenant Todd Kren cursed silently at the difficult terrain this place was turning in to. The only advantage he could see in any of this was the rain; their sloshing movements through the swampy jungle was completely drowned out by the continuous rain.
This place was now christened as the armpit of the universe.
Nevertheless, despite his newfound hatred, he still had a mission to accomplish, and he had eleven other men to lead. They were no doubt feeling the same way about this place.
He scanned the jungle back and forth with his M7A1 rifle as he walked. There were no animal sounds, nothing but the sound of rain coming down around them. The only movement was of the top of the trees swaying back and forth by some sort of wind that could not be felt at the jungle floor, and the leaves on all the plants as the heavy raindrops relentlessly hit them. If he did not know better, Kren may have suspected a hurricane of some sort, except for the fact that they were nowhere near an ocean. Maybe this planet had its own form of hurricane like storms....
Did it really matter what kind of weather they were in? Kren was partly mad at himself for hating this place so much. He was the platoon leader of what was probably one of the most seasoned and trained group of men in the ODST division of the Marines. They had seen blazing hot deserts and freezing cold mountains, yet he could not get over the fact that he was pretty much swimming through the thickest jungle on this planet, and for some reason he hated the hell out of it.
Maybe his bunched up anger on this mission was not about the weather, despite his certain dislike for it. Maybe it was because he had been sent to this hellhole by the one man him and his squad disliked the most. If it was not for that damn Navy ONI spook, he could be fighting the Covenant along side other Marines, somewhere where he could inflict as much damage on those ugly creatures as possible. But, like his training told him, and also his gut feeling, they were going to see their far share of the enemy on this assignment.
His wandering mind snapped to attention when their point man, Sergeant Jeff McCollum, knelt down into a crouch and held his fist up, without looking back. Master Sergeant McCollum was Kren's right hand man in First Squad, and he knew his stuff, having served with him for nearly four years. He was somebody who could be depended on, no matter what the situation. McCollum slung his M7A1 rifle and pulled out a small black device.
Kren, who was less then twenty feet behind him, turned around and motioned for the rest of their squad to get low and stay quiet, then he crouched up to McCollum's position and knelt beside the sergeant. He was looking at the small motion sensor screen, which was at the moment blank; not even picking up the Marines behind them. Everyone had stopped moving.
"Speak to me," Kren said quietly, looking around at the foliage. He could not see any farther then twenty-five feet, the vegetation was that thick.
McCollum waited in silence, then finally answered. "Unidentified motion detected..." He looked up and pointed slowly, "...that way, about forty-nine meters out." The sergeant looked back at the display and waited, obviously expecting it to reappear.
Kren looked in that direction for a moment. The maximum range for the motion sensor was about sixty meters, it was a heavily upgraded system from the standard issue, but in this weather and terrain, he wasn't sure just how close something could get before getting detected.
He reached into a web gear sack and pulled out a pair of binoculars. This system was extremely sophisticated, having built in infrared sensors as well as night vision assistance. Kren and his men had nothing but the best equipment available, and despite the idiotic man this ONI spook was, he made sure they got whatever they needed.
He activated the IR and pointed it in the direction McCollum had detected the motion source. He turned the magnification down and peered through the lenses.
At 43.2 meters away, range being given by an estimate IR range calculator, a large body emitted heat. It was hard to tell the outline of the creature, but it was definitely eight or nine feet tall with a body mass at around 500 pounds. A really large Elite?
"Got it," Kren said, still looking through the binoculars. "Just over 40 meters out; looks pretty big and whatever it is, it's staying pretty still."
McCollum nodded and turned to face the squad behind them. He activated the comm. link. "Smathers, get up here."
The young private got up and crouch walked up to them, remaining silent. Despite his young age at nineteen, he was admitted into the ODST training and then further hand selected by Kren's direct commander, Colonel Tucker, to join their small special ops division. He did not specialize in anything specifically, except being a damn good shot and killing anything that did not wear UNSC clothing.
McCollum handed the motion sensor to the private, who slung his M7A1 and grasped onto it. The screen remained blank. "Hold on to this and tell me if you see anything move aside from our squad, OK?"
"Yes, sergeant." Smathers replied, holding the piece of equipment tightly.
Kren frowned and put the binoculars down, then activated the comm. link. "OK Marines, one target, 40 meters bearing 235, silent kill. Let's get him."
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