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Highlander's War ch1 pt2
Posted By: sam_fisha<sam_fisha@yahoo.com>
Date: 6 January 2005, 3:10 AM


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Authors note: "I eagerly await reader input, enjoy the story!"

On the pelican flying to the station: "I WANT EVERY MAN HERE READY TO LOOK THOSE UGLY FUCKERS IN THE EYE, SHOVE YOUR GUN DOWN THEIR THROATS AND MAKE 'EM EVEN UGLIER!" The Corporal yelled to the 8 men on his pelican. The co-pilot turned back and held five fingers up. "WE LAND IN FIVE MINUTES AND EVERY ONE OF YOU BETTER HAVE YOUR GAME FACES ON!" The Corporal continued to yell at his men.

The copilot looked back some time later and flashed 5 fingers twice. "GET TACTICAL MARINES!" The back end of the pelican exploded into action as they grabbed battle rifles hooked to the cargo net and clipped ammo to their belts. The marines held the rifles to their chests and braced for impact. There was a loud crash and the marines donned their pressure helmets. "Okay marines, when that door drops make your way to the cargo bay on our left, private Wilkes will blow the door while the rest of you hold support positions, inside we should find a pressure door leading to where the surviving Covenant are hiding, we kill any of them with holding weapons and try to capture one of those engineer balloon types, GO!"

The door of the pelican dropped and the men hustled off the ship and straight to the large doors. "We'll wait here until you can find a secure location to offload Corporal." One of the pelican pilots said. "Roger that flyboy." The Corporal responded. Private Wilkes ran to door and slapped on a det pack, pressed a few buttons and set it to a fifteen second timer. He flipped on the com channel and said "Pack is down, hold on to something and get out of the way." The marines cleared to fifteen yards of the door. After fifteen seconds nothing happened, after thirty seconds nothing happened. "I'll check-. "Wilkes started to say, "No, I'll take care of it." The Corporal said. Running back to the pelican, he hefted a rocket launcher and fired at the door. Orange and red fire rolled over the door, buckling the door inward, before it was blown out by the pressure of the air in the corridor. Chunks of door blew out of the crater, by crates and large boxes, one of which collided with private Wilkes. "SON OF A BITCH!" Corporal Hayes yelled as he sprinted off towards the floating Private, moving quickly towards the hole leading into the asteroid field.

The Corporal ran full speed towards the private and reached up to his helmet and hit a small toggle, turning off his electro-magnets in his boots. The Corporal jumped at the private and grabbed his flailing arm, with a quick throwing motion the Corporal flung the private towards the busted door. Now the Corporal was the one going along with the vented atmosphere straight towards the hole into space, he could be rescued but it would foul up the mission. The Corporal spread eagle and began to spin himself, which brought one of his arms next to a flying crate. He reached out a pushed himself from the crate as hard as he could so he was going straight for the floor of the installation, as he was falling he flipped his electro magnets back on and stuck to the floor. He looked back at the marines who where crouching to the sides of the large door. "It's almost done venting, get inside, and private, when you tell people to watch themselves you should watch yourself as well jackass." The marines walked cautiously into the now empty cargo bay.

"I found the air lock that should lead to the rest of the facility." Said Private Wilkes as he looked at a strange hovering control panel. "Open it up private." It took several minutes to open the air lock but when it did they saw it was small, very small. "Private Wilkes, stay at this end incase the airlock fucks up so you can open it. You four come with me, the rest of you go back to the pelican and grab the box of extra vac suits, GO DAMNIT!" The Corporal walked into the air lock, it was barely big enough for him and the four marines, and the glossy purple was annoying as shit. The small double doors on the air lock slid closed and two small vents started spraying the cloudy white air.

As it stopped spraying the air evened out and was clear. He looked over at Private Hicks. "Hicks, atmosphere reading on the double!" Hicks looked down at a bright blue panel on the arm of his suit. He looked up. "Density is 1.67, it's a heavy mix of oxygen, a bit of nitrogen and a tiny bit of methane, it safe to breath but might burn your throat a little." The Corporal readied his battle rifle. "Then were going in. Wilkes, open the doors, let's kill these bastards.' The doors in front of them slid open into yet another purple and blue room, it had a long curved walkway going from where they were on the airlock doors down around the wide round room into the bottom, where there was what looked like a garden surrounded command consoles, where the ramp met the ground floor there was a black circle, like a closed man hole.

The Corporal swept his battle rifle around the room but saw no activity. "Move in and search the area." The marines squeezed out of the air lock and down the ramp, holding their rifles to their shoulders, ready to eliminate any threat. The first marine in the formation, Private Hicks, stepped of the ramp on to the black disc which was about the size of three people lined up. Everyone froze as they heard a strange hum, then Hicks snapped to looking down at the disc and realized it had opened, revealing a brilliant blue light, like plasma weapons fire, but not only that, Hicks was hovering a few inches above the floor. "SHIT!" he yelled as he was suddenly pulled down through the light by an invisible force. "HICKS! ARE YOU OK!" The Corporal was answered by another "SHIT!" and the obvious sound of fast battle rifle fire, and then the thap trhap of a plasma pistol. "OUT OF THE WAY!" The Corporal yelled as he sprinted down the ramp and jumped on the open disc; it brought him up a few inches and hovered him for a second before pulling him down like it had done to Hicks. When he landed the Corporal was next to Hicks, who was in a crouch behind a flipped Covenant crate.

The Corporal crouched and looked over the crate around the room, it was also a round room but it had no garden and a lot of crates and command stations, this was more like the Covenant ships he had seen. But about fifteen feet ahead of them hiding behind another crate were two Grunts, both of them poking their heads over and the large pointed packs on their backs were in plain view. What the Corporal saw as strange was that their armor color wasn't the orange of a rookie, the red of a veteran, or even the gray of a special ops, it was a dull green, a rank the Corporal hadn't seen before. THWAT THWAT! The Grunts each fired twice.

Their rank must not be for accuracy because both shots were horrible misses to the left. The Corporal stood up to get a better view and readied his rifle, firing a burst into the pack of each of the Grunts, they screamed in a high pitched squeal as they tried to breath and received another burst in the head. The Grunts fell silent into a heap on the floor as the Corporal talked into the mic. "I need two more men down here and one to guard that lift from up there, and Wilkes, bring a couple of shotguns in, it's more close quarters than I thought it would be." After ten minutes of frantic movement the marines had unloaded the pelican and set up the area as Base 1. The marines also found the grav lift to the airlock room was on the other end of the room. As defense Private Renton set up a 30 cal with plenty of ammo facing the only door out and in to the room base 1 was in. The Corporal took privates Hicks and Wilkes, all equipped with shotguns, on a recon mission through the door. Wilkes hacked the door as the Corporal and Hicks stood beside the door to give the 30 cal at Base 1 a clear shot.

The door made a pssh sound and slid open, revealing a long rectangular room, like a widened hall way with a small purple pillar running along the right side every yard or so with a large white light emanating from the top. The marine at the 30 cal gave the sign for area clear. The Corporal and Hicks swung around and rolled through the door, then they stood still, waiting for some kind of ambush. Both men almost fired when they heard the SQEEERSH of a Jackal's warning call. The Corporal motioned for Wilkes to move in. As Wilkes ran into the room another Jackal call was heard, but the room seemed empty except for the pillars and the door at the other side. Then Wilkes yelled "LOOK!" And pointed with his shotgun at the curved wall on the left side of the hall war.

The Corporal looked over and saw the source of the screeching, built into the wall were rows of what appeared to be steal bars, holding cells. The wall had five individual holding cells, each about five feet wide and five feet deep and the one closest to the Corporal had three jackals in it. The Corporal raised his shotgun to give the bastards an 8 gauge salute to the face when he stopped himself. "If they were thrown in the brig maybe it was because they didn't follow command to kill Humans, but it could just as easily be for sleeping on duty." The Corporal thought. "Either way they would be good POWs, maybe we can interrogate them." The Corporal looked at the rest of the cells. One contained a lone Grunt. The Jackals looked strange without their armor, instead they wore a dull black armless robe, and on their shoulder they had a strange tattoo, no a burn. And the Grunt wore the same except he had a breather attached to his face which was connected to a short blue tube.

The Corporal mulled over his options. He spoke into his mic. "Wilkes, place a nav beacon and inform the others what we found, I want these things as prisoners." The Corporal walked over to the door at the other end of the hallway. When he approached it the door emitted a small beep and slid open. On the other side stood three Jackals and four Grunts, all surprised by the door opening. The Corporal shouldered his shotgun and fired twice at the unshielded Jackals. One of them was hit in the side and crumpled instantly, the others started their shield and returned fire as the Grunts ran for cover. Wilkes had already left the room to go back to base one but Hicks moved up beside the Corporal and began firing his shotgun. One of the Jackals fell when he failed to turn his shield to block Hicks fire. The last remaining Jackal fired a burst of three plasma rounds which barely missed the Corporal. Hicks ran forward as the jackal continued firing at the Corporal as he took cover.

The Jackal saw Hicks coming and turned, firing his plasma pistol straight into Hicks' stomach. Hicks doubled over but kept running at the Jackal, he plowed into him like a football player and knocked him onto the ground while repeatedly punching it in its ugly face. Hicks began yelling hysterically. "DIE YOU UGLY FUCKER! SEE WHAT YOU DID! YOU FUCKING SHOT ME!" Hicks continued to punch the jackal even after it stopped moving and its brains was in plain sight. By now the Grunts had stopped their retreat at the other end of the room as they frantically punched buttons on the door but it refused to open. Hicks stood half up looking at the four Grunts. He put his shoulder in front of him and ran straight at the closest Grunt.

One turned and saw Hicks in time to say "WEET!" Before it was rammed into the door by the 230 pound marine. The Grunt's thick blood painted the door as the other Grunts screamed with their clicks and barks. The Grunts turned and struggled with their plasma pistols but were shaking too much to get them off of their clasps.

Hicks drew his service pistol from its holster and leveled at the head of the nearest Grunt which trembled and continued fidgeting with its pistol. Hicks squeezed the trigger and sent three rounds into the Grunt's head. The Grunt standing next to it had raised its pistol and fired a round at Hicks, hitting him in his left leg."ARGHSONOFA!" Hicks screamed as he buckled to one knee, he raised his pistol again and pumped five rounds into the Grunt; it toppled over and received four more rounds in its side.

The last Grunt screamed. Hicks aimed his pistol at it and squeezed the trigger. Click. The pistol was empty, and the Grunt had his weapon aimed at Hicks' head. The green sphere of an overcharged shot started to gather on the prongs of the pistol.





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