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Deja Vu's Beginning Part 1
Date: 19 November 2006, 10:54 pm
Part 1: The Beginning
Jack Durant woke with a start, he found himself in his room. His body ached from the battle yesterday. Durant tried to move, he failed. He drifted back to sleep two minutes later. Half an hour later he woke up again, this time with the strength to get up. Out of his bed he went into his restroom and splashed water on his face. The water was ice cold but refreshing. How he could sleep on Earth with the Covenant overhead and periodic land attacks, calmly no one knew. And when they didn't know they asked Jack why. He never answers them. Just being on his own planet, his home made he relaxed.
Jack exited his cabin, said 'hello' to the guard stationed at the gate and went into town. This was his time off, he aimed to make it last like it was his last. Durant walked down the street and saw crowds of people surrounding a horizontal poster with a Spartan on it. The poster showed a group of Marines behind a makeshift barricade on the left. The marines were shooting at scrambling Grunts and Jackals on the right. In the middle was a Spartan holding a beat-up Elite by his neck, the other hand was waving towards the marines saying, "All clear!" Under the poster was the famous phrase used by civilians and UNSC personnel alike, "Spartans never die!" Jack put his head down, nodded and walked away. He felt like telling everyone that they could, and that he saw one die. No MIA crap, they were human just like everyone else… just something more.
Durant stopped in front of a café. All his friends recommended this particular café, Jack couldn't figure out way. However, when he had a tried one of their coffees he found out why. The minute the liquid entered his stomach he felt a jolt of energy. He bought another cup, this time with some pastries. Eh, so this isn't exactly the way I intended to live the 'last' day of my life, he thought. At least- An old man sat in front of Jack. He had wrinkles all over his face, his eyebrows drooped to give him a sad look and the same went for his mouth. His was pale with "on-the border" nice clothes. Every time he reached for his bagel his hands shook. Jack continued eating his pastry in awkward silence. When the old man finally finished his bagel, he cleaned his side of the table and said, "Hello, there!"
Jack found it hard to respond without it sounding freaked, "Hello to you, too."
"You're a Marine…aren't you?" The old man suddenly shot that question so quick that Jack pulled his head back, as if he got hit by a bat.
"Er… yea… I-I am a Marine…" Jack said awkwardly, and then added. "How did you know?"
"Ohh lets just say that if you were as old as I am, you could tell too." The man responded with a smile.
The two suddenly were engaged in a conversation as if they were long lost friends that just met up. This old man has great social skills, Jack thought. Jack finally learned that the old man's name was Daryl, after ten minutes into the conversation. Daryl asked all kinds of questions: What are the Covenant up to? Have the UNSC finally decided to on Project Terra? Any new advancements in fighting the Covenant?
All these questions were asked as if Daryl never knew that the Covenant were here… on Earth. Jack was even more surprised that Daryl knew about Project Terra. Project Terra was originally proposed as a new colonization project. Selected individuals would be transported to a new planet far, far away from the Milky Way galaxy in hopes of preventing Mankind's extinction by the Covenant. The project was held into political limbo. That's about as far as the story Jack heard from his friend. Jack answered most of them to the edge of classified information, but made sure he wasn't too close that the old man could trap him. The two talked, seemingly forever, after Daryl asked military questions. The whole conversation completely changed subjects to riddles. The old man said he loved riddles. Jack felt obliged to say he did too; after all he did like riddles. This period of asking riddles and answering them continued until Daryl finally said, "Well, it's getting late. I better get going. But…" The old man's face turned very serious and sad, he then added. "I have one last question to ask you, but you have to answer it correctly."
"All right," Jack said with a little suspicion. "Ask away!"
"If you were hypothetically in a situation where, no matter what you did you would die? What would you do? Would you let fate grab you and end your existence? Or would you try to fight back anyway? Choose to live or die trying?"
Jack was stunned, he never liked talking about his past nor did he like talking about the future. He pondered for a minute before answering, "Well- er- in a situation like that…" He stopped, thought a little more and responded with more confident that this was the right answer. "No matter what I could do I might die…" He whispered that line, he didn't know why, but this question was very easy but difficult to answer. "So I wouldn't do anything," Jack said that last bit with a tense and scared tone.
"But," The old man shot back, almost as if he expected that answer. "What if, if you fought you might be that very, very small percentage of people that manage to survive? Would you try then, to fight back?"
Jack thought more. "Well even if I did, there is still that small percentage. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not that lucky to be in that small percentage."
Daryl sighed and nodded his head disappointingly. The old man got up, defeated that he didn't get that answer he wanted to hear and left the café quietly. Jack felt guilty for some reason. Maybe that wasn't the right answer…, he thought. Jerry burst thought the café door. "Jack!" he yelled with anger. "There you are! God Damnit! We were looking everywhere for you!"
Jack quickly got up and said, "What's going on?"
"You were supposed to be back at base two hours ago, we're being briefed on our next mission! And when they founded out you were missing guess which the poor victim had to get sent to find you!"
"What!?" Jack sounded really surprised. Two hours!? He exclaimed in his mind. I completely lost track of time because of that old man! "Why didn't they start the meeting without me?"
"Well, they were gonna but I guess they remembered that you are sergeant of our squad. Now let's go!"
"All right," Jack turned around to look at the table, the old man was still gone. "Let's go!"
"You owe me a beer for this Jackass."
Deja Vu's Beginning Part 2
Date: 1 May 2007, 3:55 am
Part 2: The End
Sergeant Jack Durant, leader of Beta Squad, sat in the Pelican with the rest of his squad mates of Beta. To his left was Demitri who was an excellent engineer. Demitri never liked going outside in the sun, he preferred dark cloudy days. "It's calming to me," he would always reply. That said he always wore a different helmet than the rest, the helmet covered his entire head; at first glance Demitri could almost be mistaken for an ODST. That said, he never went on any mission without his helmet.
Next to Demitri was Rockwell. Rockwell was a "good" explosive expert. He loved explosives, making a various types pipe bombs and finding new ways to improvise a bomb in his garage during his teenage years. It always confused the squad why he was never caught. Rockwell always wore a happy grin, one that you could tell he was wearing even if he wore a helmet. Finally across of Jack was Jerry, Jack's best friend. The only person who joined the war to watch over Jack. Jerry was actually one of the best snipers Jack ever knew in the Corps. Jack recalled Jerry shooting squirrels with a Winchester in the woods when they were twenty. Jerry had a rugged look, with very messy hair. His face was dirty with the friends he and Jack lost since the war started. "LZ is hot!" yelled the pilot. "I'm dropping you off and getting out."
"Roger that," said Jack, "Everyone check your weapons and equipment!"
The Covenant were occupying a city twenty miles from their location. The city in particular didn't have a major tactical advantage on the battlefield until repeated UNSC aircraft patrols noticed that the Covenant were massing their forces on the border of the city, in the direction of the nearest UNSC base. Not a very tactical move on the Covenant's part, but hubris strikes even aliens sometimes. The preferred goal was to recapture the city, but the goal that seemed more likely was to at least weaken the mass of Covenant soldiers. Longswords went in first to bombard and disrupt the mass of Covenant, and draw the attention of the Banshees and anti-air artillery away from the Pelicans. Basically, a modern day Blitzkrieg. Out of the seventy Pelicans in for the mission, Jack only knew of the two squads his was going to work with to retake the sector they were assigned to control.
Rockwell screamed, "Yeah, baby! You can't stop the Rock!"
"Shut up!" yelled Demitri in response to Rockwell's war cry. They always had a verbal quarrel whenever they were about to go on a mission. They were like two newlyweds on their first night. Either way, this kind of argument never happened off duty.
Thud! The hatch opened, air escaped the door from the pressure. Bullets sprayed and Plasma bolts were exchanged in a very long fire. Pelicans that already dropped off their presents hovered in the air, turned toward the Covenant firing squads and unleashed their payloads of .50 caliber bullets. Not surprising to say, the Covenant expected this and brought in Grunts with fuel rod cannons. The Grunts yelped with glee as they blindly fired their weapons at any direction in front of them. This close the Grunts didn't need to aim, they would hit anything no matter what even their own allies. The concentrated blasts flew in and damaged- some even destroyed the low-altitude Pelicans. It wasn't before long that the few remaining Longsword fighters still in the air stopped by in response to a distress call from many of the downed Pelicans. The bombers went into formation, staggering one behind the other, and unleashed what was left of their welcoming committee. Fireballs exploded upwards as Grunts flew in the air and Elites were shell shocked. One Marine, whom Jack guessed was the leading squad in this wild rush, waved his hand. Everyone moved out of their cover and rushed, switching to M6D pistols, and taking out the wounded Covenant soldiers with a swift .45 caliber bullet to the chest or stomach.
The carnage ended, over ten Pelicans were lost but, thankfully, the few Longswords that stayed behind offered to carry wounded back to the base. Jack looked around the temporary base. It wasn't long before the sergeant acknowledged the presence of Alpha and Delta squad. The three squads moved into the corridors of the ruined city. Jerry, being a sniper, looked at any suspicious cover- the roofs and the balconies- anything that might resemble a good spot for snipers. After walking for an hour without meeting resistance they came across a plasma mortar's crater. The crater was identified as plasma inflicted by the smooth edges and the glassy gloss of the hole itself. Around this crater was various bodies of Marines, scarred with plasma burns. Some of the bodies even had a crushed in skull, these were obviously inflicted by Elites. Jerry walked towards Jack a gave him a nudge. "What do you think?"
"You want the truth?" Jack asked back, Jerry nodded 'yes.' "I think it's either an ambush or the Covenant are still in the vicinity. Of course you can't really tell from the burns, but the crater is still smoking."
Both stayed silent, and all three squads walked on. It might as well be a trap. They reached a ruined courtyard soon after finding the bodies. The flowers were dark and shushed aside as if Jackals just ran through them. Bushes had an awkward feeling to them, Alpha checked all of them to make sure there wasn't a bomb or any Grunts hiding in them. Bodies were spread around the courtyard, plasma and bullets were found almost everywhere. The only place that the battle seemed to have stopped was near the entrance of a small two story apartment. Delta was in charge of checking the apartment.
"Can you spell 'trap'," said Demitri as Alpha and Beta sat behind the bushes.
Jerry gladly responded, "T-R-A-P, trap."
The groups gave a small chuckle. Except for Jerry, instead of chuckling with his friends he gave a serious face with his eyes looking in one direction. He looked as if he suspected something coming from behind. "I… I'm going to go fall behind."
As he said that he took his sniper rifle, checked it and walked backwards; getting a good distance between the squads and himself. Instantaneously, Beta squad checked their rifles and equipment with Alpha doing the same a few moments later. Both squads hid behind fallen furniture and rubble with their guns aimed at the only entrance towards the courtyard, the only door leading towards them. From behind the stone walls were various grunts and snarls. Jackals came in shields up. Rockwell responded by taking out a fragmentation grenade and tossing it at their feet. Silence came upon them… the smoke slowly cleared and plasma bolts shot outwards toward Alpha and Beta's cover. Four sniper shots were heard along with four Grunts who squealed before their deaths.
After an hour and a half the advances stopped, more grunts and snarls were heard from behind the wall. Alpha and Beta squad took this opportunity to quickly run in and take whatever weapons were near them before running back to cover. The stone wall then rumbled, explosions were heard behind it and two Hunters smashed through.
"Run!" Jack yelled to everyone. "Run, damnit RUN!"
At this point everyone turned the other way and ran. As they ran four shots were heard overhead, three pings and one roar of pain were heard from behind. The Hunter fell with tremendous force; its partner, however, raged by anger from the death of its bond brother, charged its fuel rod gun. Jack turned around to check the status of the second Hunter when it fired. Big mistake, he thought. The tremendous force of the plasma struck Jack. He felt searing hot pain as the plasma burned his armor and his skin. Jack's life flashed before his eyes. He saw everything, his childhood, his teenage years, the Covenant attack on Harvest (he lived on Harvest and was one of the very lucky few who got off), joining the Marine Corps, his training. Jack saw everything up to this very point, but one stayed very clear even after his vision passed. "If you were hypothetically in a situation where, no matter what you did you would die?"
Jack squinted as the fuel rod blast drilled deeper into his stomach. "What would you do?"
The fuel rod blast ended with a very large gapping hole in Jack's stomach, he wondered why he survived. "Would you let fate grab you and end your existence?"
Jack Durant heard his friends yelling at him to see if he was okay. He wanted to make a thumb up as a joke, it was the only way he could clear his mind of the pain, but he didn't have the strength to do it. "Or would you try to fight back anyway?"
Daryl's voice continued in Jack's mind. That old man's voice just wouldn't leave, like he was taunting Jack right before he died. "Choose to live or die trying?"
The Hunter walked up to Jack. Beta Squad was desperately trying to piece together what just happened, they were in complete shock. They were in enough shock to prevent them from moving to help their Sergeant. The Hunter looked at the near dead soldier, gave a growl at Jack for being so pathetic and raised his gigantic boot. Sergeant Jack Durant of Beta Squad regretted his answer to the old man and summoned all his strength to whisper one last sentence before he closed his eyes and let the Hunter step on his skull, "I'd rather choose to live or die trying."
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