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Colossus
Posted By: S7NN3R<xhalcyon713x@yahoo.com>
Date: 16 January 2006, 10:04 pm
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Colossus
Chapter 1
Snow.
Snow fell heavily on the arctic tundra wasteland of Colossus. Great drifts of the white stuff came tumbling down from the heavens. Wave after wave after wave of snow, with no end in sight. Meters upon meters of snow stacked high off the ground.
Sergeant Damien Winters stood on a frost-bitten steel parapet, looking over a great, vast frozen plain. He hugged his parka closer to his chest, shivering. As far as the eye could see, there was snow. Far, far off in the distance, the great Blanco mountains towered high into the clouds, beyond sight.
Although it was technically daytime on Colossus, there was no sun in sight, obscured as it was by the great dark-grey storm clouds that shadowed the desolate world of Colossus, morning, noon, and night.
Located far from Sol system, Colossus was the only colonizable planet in the Beta Serpentis system. It also happened to be farthest from the sun. Seasons were all indistinguishable from one another on Colossus. Snow was the only constant on the planet, making meteorologist's jobs easy. Constant, unending snow fell everywhere on the planet, casting it in a permanent ice age.
Sergeant Winters had been standing on top of Alpha base for a long time, monitoring any incoming signals. This was the only place that a satellite dish could be placed on the entire planet, the winds often being too harsh or the snow being too heavy to be placed anywhere else.
"Heard anything yet, Damien?" Lance Corporal Craig McPherson asked from behind him. The corporal was tall and lanky with red hair and sharp green eyes. This was in stark contrast to the Sergeant. He was built like a bear, with long brown hair that cascaded down from his helmet, and ice-burg blue eyes.
"Goddamnit Craig. There hasn't been anything. There hasn't been a communiqué in over a month, and there isn't going to be one anytime soon. So just, just quit asking. Alright?" he spat.
"Sorry for asking," the corporal said, and turned back to his post. Being stuck on top of the base, monitoring the satellites was a fool's job. There was just no Goddamned reason for it. No ships ever passed through here. The Covenant didn't even bother with them because they were in the back ass of nowhere. There was only one city on the whole of Colossus, the promptly named city of Leviathan. The only reason Colossus hadn't been abandoned from the start of the war was because it was an ideal refugee camp. The Covenant probably had no idea of the frozen ice-ball, tucked far away in the unknown reaches of UNSC space.
There were several dozen fire-bases and other military buildings sprinkled throughout the city of Leviathan, and other smaller fortresses across the whole of Colossus. The only communication between these fortresses were underground cables, laid out centuries ago. There were no lakes or oceans on Colossus, they had all been frozen over millennia ago, and any hope of finding them had long since vanished, buried beneath the impenetrable infinitude of the snow.
"Hey, Sarge, you'd better come take a look at this," Corporal McPherson said. He was standing over the reception terminal that monitored for deep-space messages. He was typing furiously.
"Craig, if this is another one of your jokes, I swear to God, I'm going to just-"
"This isn't a joke, Damien. I just got a message. There's a UNSC ship coming in, seems to be…a cruiser."
"A cruiser? That can't be, I thought they were all being pulled back to defend the Inner Colonies."
[indent["Uh, nope. It's the, the cruiser Behemoth. They've just sent a message. Damien approached the terminal. Corporal McPherson hit several buttons in rapid unison, and a static transmission played.
"This is A---iral Mikhail Moskal, req--sting eme-gen-y dock. Over."
Sergeant Winters picked up the microphone, cleared his throat, and spoke directly into it. "This is Sergeant Damien Winters of Alpha Base here on Leviathan. We understand your situation, and will send a message to the dock-workers immediately. What is the nature of your emergency? Over."
"We were en—aged in a battle the next s-stem over wit- the C-ovena-t. They have f-ll-ed us int- this sy-tem, and we ne-d emergency re-airs. Over."
"Understood, Admiral. Sergeant Winters over and out," the sergeant said and turned off the microphone.
"What do we do, boss?" Corporal McPherson asked. Winters turned. The boy was shaking, clutching his parka closer to himself. The corporal's eyes were large, and seemed to bug out of his head. "The Covenant are coming, and we aren't prepared."
"What are we going to do? We're going to tell Major Cornwallace, and then we're going to prepare for an invasion."
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