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From: Those they Loved. To: The Covenant. Chapter one: Mission Prep.
Posted By: Sgt. Hardick<thug13669@yahoo.com>
Date: 22 August 2006, 12:24 am
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0430 Hours, June 15th, 2552(Military Calendar)
Onboard UNSC Frigate Harbinger, Treva System.
Captain Peterson stood on the bridge of the UNSC frigate Harbinger. He felt out of place here however, as he was an ODST, not a naval officer. He had been summoned here by the ships commander, a Lieutenant Brylane. She wanted to inform him of his mission he was sure, little did she know that the 7th had hacked into the UNSC command channel and already knew what was about to be said. Covenant forces had attacked Treva, and although their space forces had been decimated, they had landed a significant force planet side. Command wanted his men to go planet side and observe enemy movements. They where then to coordinate bombing runs until enough of the covenant forces where destroyed to allow UNSC marines to begin clean up operations. "Well it seams I get to play chaffer for you again doesn't it Peterson." Peterson wasn't sure exactly what kind of response the Lieutenant expected, it was after all true that the "Harbinger" had been the 7th's workhorse for the last 6 missions. He decided to give his usual agreement speech. "Yes Mam, but some one has to do it for us." There was a few seconds of silence, except for the sounds of the bridge equipment and blinking lights that lit the room. Peterson had always liked the Lieutenant a little to much, considering the fact that in the military one never knew how long their friends would live. In a space battle, the average life span of a UNSC ship smaller then a Cruiser was 2 minutes and 26 seconds. A Covenant Frigate had a life span of longer then 5. With that the Lieutenant decided to brief the Captain...
0500 hours, June 15th, 2552(Military Calendar) Slipspace
Onboard UNSC frigate Harbinger, En route to Treva system.
Peterson entered the armory onboard the
Harbinger. It was similar in most ways to every other armory aboard UNSC ships. After confirming his identity with the Warrant officer at the entrance, he wandered inside. Gunnery Sergeant Seun Jacobs and Sergeant Timothy Hawks were already putting on their armor. The specially adapted suits where basically the standard issue ODST full body armor, but had been fitted with the newest tool in the UNSC arsenal, adaptive camouflage. It was in no way similar to the covenants "active" camouflage, but instead used miniature cameras and a class D AI to change lighting in the different plates into actual patterns, such as woodland, urban, or plain. It was unfortunately prone to damages considering the sensitivity of the plates, and the AI, and any sort of mass plasma impact within a certain radius had been known to cause an EMP wave that shorted the system out. Continuing through the armory Peterson came upon Lance Corporal Jim "Head shot" Fell. He remembered back to when Jim had first gotten his nickname, it had been his first mission with the 7th, and he had been tasked with taking out a perimeter guard. He got the clean kill, then shouted out "HEAD SHOT", almost giving away the teams position Boy had he been cut down by Jacobs. He had to clean out the latrines for the next six months. Jim was busy disassembling and reassembling his S2-AM sniper rifle. He swapped up the normal scope for a thermal imaging one, and then preceded to make several changes aimed at lightning the load. Jim looked up and noticed the captain. He was about to stand up when Peterson motioned for him to remain at ease. He sat next to the young Lcpl, "You ready for this mission?" he asked. Jim looked up, and the captain noticed the same raw determination he had once known himself. "Sir, yes, sir. If anyone can ever be considered ready for a mission." Peterson respected the young marines comment. Battle plans were only good until something went wrong, and on a mission like this everything could go wrong real quick. Peterson simply nodded and stood up again.
He walked over to the half a meter thick window that separated the armory from the live fire course. Inside were Corporal Scott Parker and Private First Class Max Winters. They where both testing out the new BR-55 rifle. The captain personally liked it better then the assault rifle because of its accuracy and scope feature. It was the perfect complement to the S2-AM's 4 shot magazine. Considering its compact size 36 rounds was a rather large magazine. Plus it had a single shot or 3 round burst feature, which would help to conserve ammo in a large fire fight. He wanted to make sure that each one of his men was also comfortable with the new weapon as well. Winters had lost a brother during a battle that the Captain couldn't remember. Ever since then he had been a lot quieter. Come to think of it, hadn't everyone in this squad lost someone at one point. Peterson took out a small locket from his left pocket. Inside had once been the only thing he had ever loved more then the corps. He was always amazed at how this little one by one inch photo could bring out so many emotions in him. His wife, Breana, had been one of the first casualties of the war. She had been on Harvest all those years back. On a mission for WHO. He wished he'd been their all those years back. Even if all he could have done was try to shield her and yell curses at the unknown killer. That also lead to his only regret when killing the Covenant. They all looked so alike he'd never know which ones had been responsible for Harvest. He put the locket back where he'd gotten it from then preceded further into the armory.
Standing around the Mission Prep. table stood the remaining members of his platoon. PFC. Michael Brewer was chambering a new magazine into his M6C pistol. Mean while Corporal Christopher Knight was trying to get the men into formation, since he was the only one to notice the Captain was approaching. Everyone finally listened to the Cpl., and stood at attention. Peterson looked over his men one by one. Lcpl. Michael Annuchi, Lcpl Stephen Ajayi, a 6'6" Nigerian who could probably best an elite in hand to hand combat. Next to Ajayi stood PFC Andrew Zull, by far the loudest son of a bitch in the corps. Well that was his squad, all save one. They where still awaiting the replacement for Cpl. Brittany Ayes. She'd been listed as Killed in action ever since their last mission. The Captain and Gsgt. Jacobs had been forced to watch as her position had been bombarded by 3 covenant wraiths. They never officially saw her die, nor was her body recovered, but the Captain would never forget the feeling as her bio-signs in his HUD went from green to yellow to red, all in under 2 minutes. The captain turned to PFC. Brewer, his squad radioman. "Contact the rest of the squad and tell them to form up. Where only a few hours away from our objective and I want to make sure where all ready." five minutes passed but the rest of the squad quickly assembled in front of the captain.
"Alright everyone have a seat, lets go over mission objectives and see what we can do, as always any suggestions feel free to speak." He gave his men a minute or two to settle in. "Alright so here's are mission in a nut shell. At 23:40 hours Covenant forces attacked Treva. Admiral Vassnack organized a fleet and managed to destroy all covenant ships in system. However Covenant carriers managed to land an unknown number of drop ships onto the planets surface. Our first objective their for, is to locate any significant sized covenant forces, and order air strikes in on them via the carrier New Order. Once command deam's that we have eliminated enough enemy's, marine landing operations will commence. Our secondary objective is to locate the reason for occupation and not glassing. Command believes its something the ONI boys dug up. We'll be making our landing's via HEV's. Any questions or concerns, speak now. The men sat thinking for a few minutes. He heard Cpl. Knight mutter FUBAR under his breath, and couldn't help but agree...
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