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Reflections: Day Two
Posted By: Elysion<sword.roland@gmail.com>
Date: 20 February 2008, 3:11 am
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DAY 2
The sign proclaimed its welcome in big, bright letters, but the way it dangled limply from its laser-scorched billboard proved it was lying. Savannah had never felt less welcome anywhere in her life as she cautiously stepped into the store. She'd been here a hundred times, but that had been when the place was lit and filled with people. It was cold without the warmth generated by dozens of human bodies.
She strained her eyes, trying to divine the contents of the shadows. No movement, no slight hiss of the breath masks worn by the smallest aliens, caught her senses. Still, she crept in as softly as she could and hid underneath the cashier's station for a few seconds. She reached up and felt around for the clipboard she knew would be there, detailing the store's layout and inventory. She would need to think carefully about what she needed most; otherwise, she might grab too much to carry easily.
The board was bigger than she had anticipated, and covered her legs completely when she set it down on her lap. Quickly she scanned its contents, noting the location of all the ways in and out and all the dead ends. More importantly, she had access to all the cameras. She could set the security system to think the store closed, but she would need the manager's passcode. She didn't have time to spend rummaging through the offices looking for a ten-digit number somewhere.
Finding a way she could carry the board comfortably under one arm without impairing her movement, she set off.
* * *
DATE: 3/26/2577
FROM: UNSC MIL AI TNG2814-74
TO:
SUBJECT: SPARTAN – S41
Subject has shown a significant resistance to the standard mnemonic therapy. The original memories are reasserting themselves such that intensifying the MT could result in a total loss of ability to recognize reality.
I need more time.
>84F2E00206DFDCA7008C030780066>SYSTEM ERROR 9320
>The M7 submachine gun is gas-operated and magazine-fed. It fires 5mm x 23 caseless ammunition.
The suppressor fit snugly onto Savannah's SMG, and she gave it an experimental tap to ensure it was in place. Holding her weapon at the ready, she stepped cautiously to the edge of the Pelican's bay, and jumped. She fell 25 meters to the tundra below….
* * *
Click, click. Savannah gently tossed the multi-tool back to its kindred. The locks that snapped its heads in place were too loud to be useful when trying to avoid notice.
Click, click. The multi-tool, however, lay limply in its box.
The forgotten clipboard fell from her shaking hands and clattered to the floor at her feet. Only the sharp crack of metal on metal fully shook Savannah from her reverie, and she pressed herself into the gap between the upper shelves. The boxes beneath her feet shook slightly.
A diminutive alien rounded the corner, one of the gas-breathing ones, its clawed feet clicking on the floor. Savannah had to suppress a laugh – the alien was no bigger than she was, and wandered about like a lost child. Nonetheless, she held her breath as it approached. It paused below her, and interestedly grabbed for a box of screws.
Her footing gone, Savannah tumbled from her perch. She crouched on the floor, face to face with the alien for an instant. It screamed, shoved her aside, and ran babbling away.
She took two quick steps forward, yanked the plasma pistol from the Unggoy's satchel, and fired twice, dead center mass.
The laser gun joined the clipboard on the floor. Trembling hands covered her burning eyes to block out the scene before her, but somehow it seems to seep through her face into her brain. Her first shot had scorched a hole in the back of the alien's air tank. Her second shot had ignited the escaping gas, setting the helpless creature ablaze.
It wasn't that she'd never seen death before. Watching a lion feast on a young gazelle, though, was not the same as watching a creature burnt to death by her own hand. But why had she pulled the trigger? She'd never fired a gun in her life, never even be around one, yet it all felt perfectly natural. Even automatic.
Something did feel wrong though. She had fired the gun, she knew she had, but she could not remember the actual sensation of doing so….
* * *
The metropolis of Vladivostok towered in the distance, but Savannah was focused on the newer settlement only half a kilometer away. The brief hadn't been exhaustive – all she knew was that the semi-permanent refugee camp was the largest of its kind on Earth and the now the ad hoc headquarters of the True Colonial Militia. The TCM had been the controlling force behind a series of increasingly large-scale terrorist attacks, and now could be organizing a standing army for the purpose of taking on the UNSC.
So, obviously, they needed to be taken out.
A series of eight slight indentations in the ground were the only clues that the rest of Blue Team had taken up positions around a rock outcropping, their light-bending MJOLNIR-R armor making them little more than whispers in the wind. Behind the rock, Mick hefted the long laser designator that was both the key to the operation and their greatest liability.
The beam projected by the sniper-rifle-sized device could be easily detected by a number of security measures which the militiamen might have. Plus, its large size would be visible with a simple pair of optical binoculars, even if its wielder was not.
In a single motion, Mick dropped out from behind the rock and lay prone to support and stabilize the designator. Savannah triggered the zoom on her faceplate to scan for threats, while Naoko, Whitney and Eric readied scoped M6 pistols.
The radio crackled to life on the narrow-beam channel: Mick confirming the target with the UNSC Within the Hollow Crown orbiting overhead. The Crown carried a high-intensity, low-blast radius tactical nuclear missile keyed to the laser. The blast would, in theory, knock out the Militia leadership with minimal civilian casualties.
Savannah could see the tiny laser dot on the squat, two-level compound at the settlement's center, but even as Mick signaled Blue Team to fall back to the extraction a flash of sudden movement in the distance caught Savannah's eye.
A pair of MAKO attack drones rose from concealed pads on the edge of the camp, jerry-rigged LAU-65D/SGM-151 missile pods hanging precariously from their undercarriages. They hovered for a moment, searching, and then rocketed toward Blue Team.
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