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Halo 2: A New Hope, Part 2
Posted By: Sephiroth<jbrandon3@cox.net>
Date: 9 November 2002, 8:20 pm
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0637 Hours
September 16, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Military Intelligence Station, Sol System
After Dr. Halsey finished, the Spartans in the room left talking about the new technology. They'd probably be skeptical until they saw it in action, and then they'd believe, whereas when the Covenant saw it, they'd be very dead. One Spartan walked over to her with an anxious look on her face. She had blue hair.
"Hello, Kelly," Dr. Halsey said.
She nodded. "How are the others?"
"The ones you brought in? They'll survive. Two of them will be battle ready in a few days, but the others might take more than a week. They all have severe plasma burns."
"Good...I keep on thinking I should have done more."
"What else could you have done? The twenty-seven of you killed thousands of Covenant. There was nothing else you could do. But how did you get six out?"
Images flashed in Kelly's mind. The Spartans in a clearing, spraying ammunition of hundreds of figures swarming towards them. Kenny, Mark, Michael, exploding in a cloud of red needles. The run away from the hordes of Covenant, breath rasping in her throat. Plasma screaming after them that kept on finding targets. Finding the abandoned storage building. Hiding everyone inside. Running towards a Covenant dropship in desperation, firing madly at the troops it dropped off, diving inside before it closed, killing the pilots. Dragging Fred, Katie, and the others into the ship. Taking off. She shuddered. "I don't want to talk about it."
James came up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder. Kelly's eyes turned unusually shiny and she turned away. James was very lucky, Halsey thought. He had been down to less than two minutes of oxygen in his suit before a UNSC cruiser leaving Reach had pulled him in. He had had only minor injuries. James smiled at Dr. Halsey, then gently led Kelly away.
Dr. Halsey felt a pang of remorse as she suddenly remembered John. What had happened to him? She had cast about for information until discovering that the Pillar of Autumn had jumped out of system, closely followed by multiple Covenant craft. The odds didn't look good for Captain Keyes and the Master Chief, but John seemed to ignore odds and survive. There was a chance that he was still alive... but where?
0651 Hours
September 22, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Slipspace
UNSC Longsword Interceptor
The Master Chief stared out of the Longsword into the distorted reality of Slipspace. Sighing, he leaned back in the chair he was sitting in and tapped his fingers on the dashboard impatiently. "Cortana," he said, "just how long are we going to be stuck in Slipspace?"
"We are not stuck," replied a disembodied yet annoyed female voice. "Just merely delayed. This Longsword's Shaw-Fujikawa Slipspace generators are a joke. They're only intended for insystem jumps, and we are practically moving across all of known space and a little more space that was unknown until I analyzed the symbols on the rock you got from Sigma Octanus IV. I'm following a route from Halo that will lead us to Earth now."
The Master Chief paused. "Do you think there will be anything left when we get there?"
Cortana processed that for a full three seconds, and then replied, "I...I don't know. We can merely hope for the best."
They remained silent for a few seconds, but then Cortana groaned and appeared before him on the holo-projector in the dashboard. A hand with lines of code running through it went to her forehead.
"What?"
"I just analyzed the remaining time that we can squeeze power out of our Slipspace generators."
"Well?"
"38 seconds."
"Great."
"No, wait a minute. If I can divert the power from all other systems to the Translight system except for recycling oxygen...we'll have a little more than two days."
"Do it."
"I'm way ahead of you."
There was a slight droning sound as the whirring machinery in the depths of the ship slowed down and came to a stop. The computer screens in front of the Master Chief clicked off and finally the lights went off. Cortana glowing figure disappeared from the holopanel and John was left sitting alone in a darkened cockpit, with the greenish light of Slipspace casting an eerie glow upon the scene, to brood on his thoughts.
1227 Hours
September 24, 2552 (Military Calendar)
The planet Tesen, Rigil Kentaurus System
Kas'jorg grounded the last of the humans into the dirt underneath his foot, then contemptuously spat on its body. He lifted his head and gazed upon the scene around him. Tesen's main city Mastris, once a beautiful white city, was now a heap of rubble. Human bodies along with Covenant bodies littered the ground, burning buildings and vehicles gave off pillars of flame, and the very ground the bodies laid on was stained red. Yet it was also stained with blue, which angered Kas'jorg. Too much blue.
The soldiers of his army were getting sloppy. The assault that he had planned, that he had personally led, had been successful, but one company, Las'tk's company, had charged early and their marksmanship had been horrible. He decided to make an example and strode through the Grunts and Jackals moving around kicking the humans to make sure they were dead and carrying the bodies of their fallen comrades to piles of the dead, to be later respectfully burned, so that any humans later arriving would not defile the Covenant's bodies with their foul hands.
One Grunt got in his way and he kicked it to the side. His armored foot caved in the Grunt's chest plate and ruptured its breath tanks, so that it clawed at its helmet while methane spurted from the tank on its back. Gradually its death throes subsided. These lower species were useful, but only to the point of being tools. One must remind them from time to time of their place, or else they got insolent.
He came to where Las'tk was giving orders to some Jackals, grabbed his head from behind with his left hand, lifted him into the air, and shouted out in a deep and powerful voice in the tongue of Asla, "Behold Las'tk! It was his weakness that caused many of our soldiers to die. And because of his weakness he shall pay the price."
The onlookers gasped at the sight of the golden Elite with blood-red war stripes on his arms easily holding up a red Elite, who looked very shaken. Kas'jorg glared at Las'tk's back. He clenched his right fist and a long plasma blade grew out of a slit in the armor on his forearm. Then he held Las'tk up high and plunged the blade through his back. Las'tk screamed as the hard blue plasma of the blade destroyed his insides and melted his armor, causing smoke to curl up into the sky. Kas'jorg increased the pressure in his left hand and clenched it tight, crumpling the Elite's head inside its armor to a fourth of its usual size. Las'tk's screams abruptly stopped and Kas'jorg scornfully dropped the body to his ground.
"Get rid of this mess!" he growled a group of Grunts standing near to him who squealed as they jumped in fright. "Now, who is Las'tk's second in command? A blue elite standing a few meters away walked forward. He seemed shaken at the sight of the Grunts tentatively approaching the still smoking body of his leader behind Kas'jorg, but quickly collected himself. Kas'jorg sized him up. Tall, strong, and intelligent-looking. This one looked competent. "Name, rank, and serial number!!" he growled.
The blue Elite straightened. "Ml'ent, Minor Elite, 009238467 of K Division, sir!!"
"Get some red armor on. You're promoted and now have Las'tk's position. Be sure to do a better job than he did."
"Yes sir!!"
Kas'jorg turned away and began walking to his personal Banshee. In ten minutes he set down in the launch bay of his destroyer, the God's Judgement. He eased himself out of his Banshee and strode to the bridge door. Behind him, Grunt technicians waddled over to his Banshee and began washing it, polishing it, and checking its instruments.
As he stepped into the bridge his navigations officer Jla're hurried over to him. Jla're wore blue armor and a large insignia on his chest representing navigation. He saluted. Kas'jorg nodded and said, "Did you scan Tesen's navigation databases for their homeworld?"
"Yes," he replied, "and oddly this one had a full map of their colonies, however, where the homeworld was in the databases, didn't exist."
"What?"
"They altered its location to send us off course."
"Unacceptable. How are we to exterminate their home planet?"
"Don't worry sir. We mapped the locations of all their known colonies and inhabited worlds. They all follow a spiral formation radiating outwards from a single point."
"And where is this point?"
"We have its coordinates."
"Excellent. The strike team sent to the Proxima Centauri system is done?"
"They should be finishing any minute now sir."
"How are things looking?"
"The humans put up a decent fight, but they were overrun quickly. No ships were defending the space around it."
Kas'jorg nodded. "They have recalled all their ships to their homeworld. A last defense. Notify Command. I want a force three-hundred ships strong at least."
"The Prophets might not..."
"Bah! The Prophets are weak. They confuse the lower species with myths and lies. We Elites are strong. I do not care what they think, nor what they say. Give me those ships. I want frigates, carriers, destroyers, cruisers, everything. I want these ships stocked with our best troops. The new species as well. We will see what they can do."
"The newly recruited species from Taso?"
"Yes. And some of the new prototype ships."
"Laser destroyers?"
"Yes."
"It may take a while, sir, to stock the ships and have them rendezvous with us."
"How long?"
"From our home system, sir...six days."
"No!!" he slammed his fist on a dashboard, creating a deep rent in its titanium cover. "I want the ships here in five days."
"Pull all our troops off this planet. I want this cursed ball of dirt completely glassed and us leaving the system in fifteen minutes. Now!" As Jla're hurried away Kas'jorg crossed his arms and grinned, revealing rows upon rows of razor sharp teeth. This last planet, this homeworld, would finally be destroyed and he wouldn't have to waste his time on these beings made of dirt with pathetic technology. And if the green devils showed up again...he would take care of them himself.
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