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The Traumatised Marine (bitesize part 2)
Posted By: Traumatised Marine<rbecalick@hotmail.com>
Date: 10 March 2003, 10:09 PM
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He found the source of the light, it was a chemical light rod, used to attract attention and direct Pelicans, etc.
It lay scattered amongst gun ammunition and medical kits.
Kennedy looked up from the spread of supplies to see a crippled, grounded Pelican.
'Victor 933' It said on a small plate.
It was the Pelican the person at the command shuttle had mentioned over the comm, it was in a bad state, it had hit the ground hard, and was smoking, it had crashed not long ago. Kennedy distantly remembered who the pilot had been... Packham.
But neither the pilot or the Marines were anywhere to be seen, and this craft was ruined, it was no use to him.
He picked up one of the glowing blue light rods and put it in his leg pocket, picked up a few clips and waited there, this was the most likely place that evac would come for him.
He waited, the longer he did the louder the voices got, but they weren't just voices this time, they had faces now. They were the faces of his squad. The Sergeant, Bisenti, Jenkins.
They were there, whispering with those awful voices,
"We'll get you!"
Kennedy saw Mendoza's limp body, sprawled against the door of the chamber he'd killed him in. Suddenly Mendoza turned his face towards him and began to stumble at him. His eyes had rolled back into his head,
"You- you killed me..... they will kill you!"
Kennedy heard a deep rumbling, he turned to one of the doors in the chamber, the creatures were behind it, they rumbled powerfully-
"ARGHHHHHHHH!!" Screamed Kennedy, throwing forward.
He was back by the Pelican, but he could still hear the rumbling.
He looked up to see the rumbling was the throbbing sound of a Covenant dropship.
He instinctively ducked for cover, before realising that it was the Covenant dropship that they had stolen, the one that had come to save him.
How long had he been hallucinating?
He waved the light rod frantically to attract attention, but it didn't notice him, it flew overhead.
"NOOOOO!!!" He cried, drawing his rifle and firing up at the dropship. It had to notice him!
The craft reacted to this, but not the way Kennedy wanted.
The craft careered clumsily in the air as it hastily tried to come down, it seemed the pilot had little idea how to control it. The dropship came into a steep descent, tusks forward, down into some jungle out of Kennedy's sight, it didn't slow, there was a loud crash and the ground shook.
"NOOOOOOO!!!!" Screamed Kennedy desperately, sprinting for the crash site.
He arrived to find the dropship in an awkward position on the ground, tusks down, against a titan-sized tree.
It was out of action.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!" Shrieked Kennedy to the canopy above him.
His only means of escape, gone, his hopes extinguished.
Out of one of the side doors of the tusks came a banging sound.
Kennedy jumped and levelled his rifle in fear.
The slamming sounded exactly the same as the creatures slamming against the door back in the chamber when he first saw them.
"" he begged fearfully.
WHAM!
WHAM!!
WHAM!!!
WHAM!!!!
The hatch burst open.
It was a Tech!
He'd been slamming against the hatch to open it.
Kennedy fell to his knees in grateful relief.
The Tech strode forward,
"What the bloody hell's going on here!? What were you playing at!? Didn't the Marine who I spoke to on the comm tell you lot I was coming to pick you up in the stolen Covenant dropship!? Now how are we gonna get out of here!? Where the fuck's everyone else!?!" He spat in rage.
Kennedy just shook his head, sat on the ground, mumbling to himself.
"Speak up!!" Snapped the Tech.
Kennedy turned his head up to look at the Tech, his eyes were bloodshot, streaming with tears,
"Y-you!" He blubbered, "Y-y-you ruined my chance to g-get away!"
"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE!?!?" Boomed the Tech.
Kennedy recoiled in shock, he collapsed to the ground, shaking and crying softly.
The Tech came down to his side,
"...I'm sorry, look, I know whatever's happened here has been very bad for you, but I need you to tell me so I can let the guys at the command shuttle know. Can you do that for me?"
Kennedy nodded feebly.
The Tech patted him on the shoulder and helped him up.
"Good. I promise I'm going to get you out of here, I'm Ensign Carter"
Kennedy hastily tried to dry his eyes.
"Private Kennedy" He replied sullenly.
Carter nodded and smiled,
"Now, first of all, what happened to Victor 933?"
Kennedy straightened up.
"Follow me!" He said.
"And where are the others?" Carter pressed on.
Kennedy paused,
"I don't think there are any."
Carter pressed on.
"What about the weapons cache? The structure? 2nd squad said they had been guarding it."
"They aren't there anymore." Replied Kennedy hopelessly.
"Then where are they?" Demanded Carter.
"I DON'T KNOW!!" Burst Kennedy in a flood of tears, "STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS!!"
Carter stepped back,
"Okay, okay, let's take this a step at a time. Come on, show me where Victor 933 is, yeah?"
Kennedy nodded, tears streaming from his eyes.
"Oh shit!" Groaned Carter.
He looked at the crippled wreck that was Victor 933,
"No wonder we lost contact. I wonder if the radio is beyond repair? Maybe we can send a distress call. After that we can head into the structure for cover."
He entered the open hatch and went through the access door to the cockpit.
He surveyed the controls with a disapproving look, then he tried to get the communications systems running. The panel lights flickered feebly and every so often something sparked. Kennedy smelt burnt plastic.
"Oh, this is going to be fun!" Grumbled Carter, who proceeded to wrench off the damaged repair panel and stuck his head into the control station, his arms disappeared underneath it too as he began to tinker.
"Tell me what happened while I fix this." Came his voice from inside the control station.
Kennedy leaned, still trembling slightly, against the pilot seat, and proceeded to tell Ensign Carter everything.
"And that was when the green squid monsters bashed through the door and attacked my squad."
Kennedy heard Carter's tinkering pause for a moment, it seemed Carter was thinking. After all, what Kennedy had just said sounded pretty insane, and his mental stability was certainly questionable at this point.
However the tinkering recommenced after a moment,
"Go on." Carter encouraged him to continue to talk, in the same way a psychologist analysing a lunatic would encourage him to continue to talk.
"So my whole squad is dead," continued Kennedy, "and I think they're going to become monsters just like the mutated Elites I told you about, earlier."
"I see." Said Carter slowly from within the control station, "Including Captain Keyes?"
Kennedy dug back into his mind, remembering the bodies that had been on the chamber floor. He was certain that Captain Keyes' body had not been there.
"....I-I think they must have taken Keyes away. Maybe they could tell he was important, maybe they wanted to use him as a hostage or something." Kennedy thought out loud.
"So Keyes has been captured?" Asked Carter.
Kennedy nodded, but of course this was stupid because Carter's head was in the control station and he couldn't see the acknowledgement.
"Hey Kennedy! Answer the question!"
"Yes, he was captured!" Replied Kennedy obediently.
Kennedy continued to talk, he was glad to have someone to talk to. It helped him ignore the voices in his head and the visions of his squad... and of Mendoza.
"Right!" Announced Carter, interrupting Kennedy, "I hope this is going to work."
Kennedy fell silent as Carter reached for the distress call record button.
The little panel's lights and buttons lit up.
"YES!" Hissed Carter happily, "Hang on a sec," He said, addressing Kennedy, "the Pelican's memory database was fucked in the crash, I'm gonna have to manually input the frequency ranges and audio filters, nothing serious."
His fingers proceeded to dance across the keys, setting it up to record his message and broadcast on all UNSC frequencies.
"Right," He said, surveying the little lit up panel that stood out against the rest of the dead system controls, "I don't know what kind of quality this is gonna be, but it's the best I can do."
Kennedy leaned forward,
"You have to tell them that we are under attack by the little monsters! Tell them they took Keyes, tell them we need to get out of here!" Said Kennedy urgently.
"I know! I know!" Snapped Carter.
He flicked a switch and a small round light lit orange.
"Dropship Victor 933 to all UNSC forces from the Pillar of Autumn, we are in need of assistance.
We are under attack by some new kind of life form, it isn't Covenant, repeat the new hostile isn't Covenant!"
"Tell them about Keyes!" Prompted Kennedy.
"Captain Keyes has been captured by hostiles. You will find us dug in at a large structure in a swampy area. We need to pull out. Please, send help! I will set this message to repeat at standard given intervals. Dropship Victor 933, clear."
Carter switched off the comm and turned to face Kennedy, his face was now set differently, a sort icy relentlessness.
"Right, let's head back to that structure you came from, I want to see these monsters to satisfy me you aren't a nut!" He said coldly.
With that Carter left the cockpit, picked up a rifle, examined it, and when he was happy, reloaded it with remarkable speed for an operations officer.
Kennedy followed after Carter as he strode through the vegetation.
"Please!" Pleaded Kennedy, "Please don't make me go back there! Please!"
Carter stopped and gave Kennedy a hard look,
"Buck up you pussy!!" He snapped, "You've faced death before, we all have. You're alive aren't you? So don't worry! And if you die, it won't matter 'cause you'll be dead!"
With that Carter continued on.
Kennedy considered what he'd said briefly, before realising how far he was from the surprisingly tough Ensign and began to tail after him.
The pair crossed over the great rotted log that Kennedy and 1st squad had crossed before.
They proceeded upwards, passing the unmanned Shade turrets.
It was at this point Kennedy remembered about the lotus mines.
"Ensign Carter!" He hissed.
"What now?" He asked impatiently.
"There have been lotus mines planted here!"
"Proximity or remote activated?" Asked Carter.
"Remote, I have the activation frequency and code."
"Good." Approved Carter, "We may need them later, where are they?"
Kennedy wasn't actually sure where they were, the only one he knew the rough whereabouts of was the one that Bisenti said he'd planted in front of the structure entrance.
"Well" Said Carter briskly, "If we need to use it let's make sure we aren't in the entrance!"
They proceeded carefully into the structure.
They could see the hover lift.
The voices in Kennedy's head began to get louder, with more intensity.
"WE WILL GET YOU!!"
Kennedy let out a cry collapsed to the floor.
"HEY!!" Shouted Kennedy, "Don't you have a breakdown on me!!"
He came forward to help him up when the holo lift rumbled and chimed.
"Holy shit!!" Choked Kennedy in horror as Carter helped him up, "Something's called the lift down!!"
The pair quickly dashed to hide behind some Covenant crates in the back of the chamber.
They heard the sound of the lift as it rose from deep underground back up to the surface.
"Oh god! Oh God the things, the things are coming!!" He whimpered feebly.
"Shuttup!!" Hissed Ensign Carter, shoving him angrily.
The lift surfaced, but it was not the creatures that stood on it.
It was a group of Jackals and Grunts.
The creatures were obviously frightened, they hastily ran for the great entrance out of the chamber into the jungle.
"Kennedy!!" Hissed the Ensign, get your rifle ready and hand me the remote detonator.
Kennedy did as he was told.
"We can't let them secure the area outside or we'll be trapped in here. OK," Said the Ensign, "CHASE AFTER THEM!! CHARGE!!!"
Kennedy followed the Ensign, sending bursts of bullets after the fleeing Covenant, the creatures panicked and scrambled out of the structure, without a glance back.
When the creatures reached the entrance of the structure and were fleeing into the jungle outside Carter detonated the lotus mine. The explosion scared the shit out of the creatures, but all it hit was a Shade gun turret, flinging it forwards.
Carter had set it off too late to harm any of them.
"GET ON THE LIFT BEFORE THEY REALISE THERE'S ONLY TWO OF US!!" Yelled Carter, running onto the lift.
Kennedy stood, paralysed.
"I-I d-don't want to g-go in there!"
Carter was reaching for the holo panal.
"Fine! Fight the Covenant alone up here!" He called.
This made Kennedy panic, he didn't want to be alone, faced with the voices in his head and several Covenant.
In a split second decision he leapt on to the lift that was already beginning to descend.
It took him a second longer than it would have normally for him to hit the descending platform, due to the fact that it was descending.
He landed heavily.
"I want to see what it is that makes a leatherneck quake in fear!" Said the Ensign, ignoring the fact that Kennedy had had the wind knocked out of him, his face was set with suicidal determination.
"You're n-not gonna like it." Choked Kennedy fearfully.
The lift chamber they descended into was deserted, but the next chamber on was a different story.
The Ensign strode in to the next chamber to be greeted with the plasma fire of a group of Grunts on the floor below.
He tried to fire back, but he didn't even have standard Marine armour, and within moments he was on the floor, charred holes smouldering in what was left of his chest.
This sent Kennedy over the edge, he'd been drawing a kind of strength from the incredibly tough and courageous Ensign, and now his last lifeline to sanity was severed.
He could hear the monsters' voices. Malicious, evil, and pounding in his head like he was haunted with some hell-spawned demon that plagued his soul.
Kennedy wailed madly, leaping from the landing and landing painfully on the floor below, disregarding the pain in his legs like one of the mutated Elites, Kennedy tore across the chamber, dodging the Grunts streaking hot plasma.
He made it through a door, and continued to run, no longer caring what he ran into, he just wanted to get away from the horrible, horrible voices of the monsters.
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