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Redesignation 1of 2
Posted By: Stuntmutt<stuntmutt@yahoo.com>
Date: 2 February 2004, 5:57 PM
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The deck rocked as another piece of the Autumn parted company with the rest of the ship.
"Anyone got any suggestions?" asked the Master Chief.
The Spartans resembled a group of bronze statues. They carried the analogy through to their response.
The Chief sighed. "How about a stirring chorus of 'One Wheel On My Wagon' then?"
Another plasma bolt shook the hull.
Towards the back of the group, an armoured hand rose into the air.
The Chief went rigid. He cursed silently that he hadn't qualified his request. He should have said, "Anyone got any suggestions...except you."
"Go ahead, Spartan."
History has provided some stunning examples of tactical acumen; General Custer's "Where did all those Indians come from?" Admiral Lord Nelson's "They couldn't hit an elephant from thaaaargh," and King Leonidas's "Goat track? What bloody goat track?"
The suggestion offered to the Chief was right up there.
When Dr Halsey had set up the Spartan project, she had chosen the initial participants after exhaustive interstellar traversal, painstaking research and complex test procedures. On a remote farming moon, a boy named Jonathan had been one of the very few to meet the Doctor's exacting requirements. But on the day the boy was due to be picked up and shipped out, he was absent from school having succumbed to a virulent outbreak of chicken pox. Unaware of this, UNSC Special Operatives stalked into his classroom in a flurry of long black coats, dark glasses and attitudes usually associated with teenagers at the back of the school dance. They had asked for Jonathan and left with a pale and scrawny specimen of boyhood who was tenuously linked with the prospective Spartan candidate in two respects only. His name also happened to be Jonathan. Oh, and it was him who had passed on the chickenpox.
The Master Chief jabbed at the airlock control panel. He looked out at the Spartan on the other side of the reinforced glass.
"Ready?"
Jonathan 012 straightened up. "Yes sir."
The plan was insane. Not the sort of heroic-against-all-odds kind of insanity you always knew the good guy would overcome in the end. This was more your dress-in-a-bedsheet-yelling-noodle-oodle-doo sort of insanity. But the Chief had good reasons for going along with Jonathan's plan. He couldn't deny there was an element of style to it. But more importantly to all aboard the Autumn, the plan meant Jonathan would no longer be among them.
There was a metallic clang as the Chief operated the airlock doors.
As tradition demanded preceding any heroic (or bedsheet attired) act, the Chief felt obliged to gift his fellow Spartan with a decent set up line.
"What if you miss?"
Jonathan's visor turned towards the Chief.
"Uh...I...um, I hadn't really thought of tha..."
The airlock decompressed. And Jonathan 012 shot out into the vacuum.
The Chief pressed the panel again, initiating the process that would reseal the doors.
Stylish indeed. Possibly even worth trying himself at some point. But that snappy comeback needed work.
Instead of returning the boy instantly, Dr Halsey became fascinated by him. Disaster not only followed Jonathan everywhere, it sometimes went on ahead. During art class, a glop of paste he had spilled on the floor resulted in another child having to be put in traction. On Jonathan's day to feed the class goldfish, they all went belly up. He had even managed to cause a fire. During swimming lessons. Dr Halsey was a scientist. She dealt with cold facts and quantifiable data. She tied her hair up and wore really big glasses to emphasise the point. Even so, she couldn't help the feeling there was something almost supernatural about the way that although Jonathan was the cause of catastrophe after catastrophe, the ill effects only seemed to befall others around him...
In contrast to the angular human ship which it had been battering with uncanny
accuracy, The Covenant cruiser 'Symbolic Leviathan' had lines like a well
sucked acid drop. As he floated through space towards it, Jonathan thought two
things. One was whether somewhere on the Covenant homeworld, a high ranking
alien chose the names of their spaceships using a copy of Roget's Thesaurus and a
pin.
The other was 'Gah.'
Only with a lot more a's in the middle.
The Master Chief returned to the cargo bay. To the casual observer, the assembled two-ton cyborgs did not appear to have moved a micrometer. But to the Chief, there was a noticeable attitude of relief to the Spartans' poses.
"Is it me," he asked, "or do we seem to be getting hit less all of a sudden?"
Doodu was a Grunt who was going places. Admittedly, they were places like the ship's mess to clean the food nipples while battle raged outside, but by Covenant standards he was a Grunt with prospects. He had already been promoted to Silver and was angling to rise one day to the exalted rank of Black. The secret of his success to date was simple. Short legs. Given the predisposition of his race to turn tail and flee faced with almost any opposition, Doodu's pitiful limbs had always left him in the rear of the retreat. Which, from his superiors' perspective, put him closer to the enemy than his comrades. That's why the rank of Black denoted extreme bravery. They were really rubbish at running away, possibly on account of the cripplingly heavy fuel rod guns they carried. Doodu just needed a chance to show that he had so much more to offer than wielding a mean nipple cloth. He rounded a corner. And came face to face with a Spartan.
Jonathan propped Fred up as best he could whilst clutching their team's red flag. The sleet stung their eyes and soaked into their vests and shorts as the two young men stumbled barefoot through the blizzard.
"Should've been there by now," muttered Fred. Blood trickled from a gash at his temple.
Jonathan grunted, half under the weight of Fred and half because all he'd managed to do was trip over and cause a diversion while Fred had savagely laid into three of the opposing team. He'd managed to wrest back possession of the red flag before the blues could get it back to their base. The element of surprise had helped, but even so Fred had taken quite a pummelling in the process.
Jonathan squinted at a distant shadow on the icy rock face.
"I've found the cave. We're back."
Fred managed a weak smile, and Jonathan seemed to find extra strength to quicken their pace over the last hundred metres. The gloomy cave was no less cold than outside, but it offered shelter from the biting sleet. Jonathan moved to lower Fred and replace the flag in its holder.
"No," said Fred, "I'll do it."
Setting his teeth, Fred hauled himself upright using the flag as a crutch. He limped forward, and reverentially slotted the flag home. He promptly slumped to the ground.
Jonathan breathed a sigh, and then let out a yelp as two figures detached themselves from the shadows.
"Um," said one, scowling, "does that mean we win?"
"Guess so," said the other, "but it's not much of a victory."
Fred stared at his comrade in disbelief.
Frozen as he was, Jonathan still managed to turn a shade paler.
"Ah," he said. "Wrong cave."
The plasma pistol quivered and shook. Not because it had been overcharged for a shot, but because a very small alien was pointing it at a very large cyborg.
"Why are you here?" squeaked Doodu.
Judging by Doodu's voice, the Spartan could swear someone had swapped the Grunt's methane breather for helium.
"I'm here to sabotage your ship," Jonathan replied.
The pistol wavered even more. Doodu had been shocked when he had asked the Spartan to drop his weapon and the human had complied without hesitation. But confessing his mission before Doodu had even uttered a single armour-filling threat of grisly torture...maybe Spartans weren't as fearsome as Doodu had been led to believe.
"How?"
"I'm already doing it."
"How are you doing it?"
"Ah. That I couldn't tell you."
Doodu hopped from foot to foot. "You will tell me. You will tell me or you will die."
"No, no. I mean I can't tell you because I don't know."
Doodu took a step backwards. Memory repression eh? The cyborg's mission must have been hypnotically buried so he could never be forced to reveal the details. Well Doodu knew someone who could soon fix that. If Doodu could deliver up a captive Spartan and full details of his mission...
Black? He could be the first ever Gold Grunt.
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