Struggle to Survive Chapter 4: well what do we do now?
Posted By: Sh4rk<Jackal117@gmail.com>
Date: 16 May 2005, 9:24 PM
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Chapter 4: Well what do we do now?
Alan stood in the sentry tower at the corner of the base. His Br55 slung over his shoulder. The sling dug into his shoulder but his attention was fixed on the battalion of ODST's stood to attention in the centre of the bases drill square. They were being addressed by the base commander. He couldn't hear anything though, the rumble of the frigate hovering two miles above him, drowned out what ever was being said. He looked up at the frigate and swore, then remembering that there were officers aboard, saluted. It was a one fingered salute. When he looked back down, the commander was saluting. The ODST's erupted into cheers, drowning out even the frigate, and broke into a run towards the waiting pelicans. Alan wished he was going with them. A chance for the piece of the action, but hey at least the meal queue would be shorter.
General Briggs lay in the corner of his cell. The room stank of excrement and sweat, he moaned, He lay there trembling and sweating, too weak to move. Terrible memories flooded his mind; his wife's head being blown apart, the viscous brain matter dripping from his face, the state of the ship, what of it he'd seen when he'd been dragged to the boarding craft. All of a sudden another image sprang unbidden into his mind, his last memory of captain..., he couldn't remember his name, lying there in his bridge, slumped against one of walls, surrounded by dead and dying crew members. Pistol in hand, with a smoking hole in his stomach. The corpse had stared at him, piercing him to the soul; staring accusingly at it him. I'm sorry he thought. His world span around him and he fell into unconsciousness again.
Alan and the whole base waited and waited for news from the ODST's. They were the best, surpassed only by the Spartan's. They should have had returned within forty eight hours. But three days passed by and still there was no news. Eventually a week later a lone Wasp escape craft limped back into the system. Inside were three Shock Troopers and an Engineer. The men were immediately rushed to hospital, unfortunately the Engineer died shortly afterwards, the Helljumpers however were made of sterner stuff and survived. They told a harrowing story.
They had jumped to the last known coordinates of the Generals flotilla. The Covenant were still there, millions of them. They never stood a chance. The bastards had an assault carrier. The frigate had barely exited slipspace when it was hit by a plasma torpedo. They only escaped because they were right by the escape pod when the ship was hit. The ship was burnt clean in two. They had only just escaped. The seraphs were closing fast and they just had time to calculate the slipspace jump. They had managed to make the jump to slipspace, but before they had, a lucky shot from a seraph had hit them, damaging the jump engine. They had traveled only a few million miles before it shorted out. The engineer had spent three days mending it whilst they lived on starvation rations. They hadn't thought that they would see anyone every again. The mood inside the pod had turned ugly and one of the Helljumpers had quarreled with the Engineer, a death had only been prevented by his other two comrades who had restrained and calmed him. They had been on their last legs when they had arrived, they weren't sure how long they could have kept on going!
He heard footsteps outside his cell door. Moaning he tried to stand, determined not to let those bastards see how nearly they had broken him. The door hissed open and light flooded the room. Two Jackals entered and roughly hauled him to his feet, their talons puncturing the already ruined skin on his upper arms. They dragged him through the oppressive corridors of the ship to the room which had come to know as hell he was dragged inside and strapped to a chair. The silver armored Elite standing in front of him looked intently at him.
"Well, human, will you talk or will we continue as before?" General Briggs manage to drag up the strength to spit on the Elite.
"Very, well then, Kig-yar continue.!" The Jackals hissed and moved forward. One of them ignited at plasma flare and held it near to his left thigh burning the skin. The General screamed and then thankfully fainted.
General Briggs came round. He was slumped forward in the chair. Blood flowed from his mouth; he'd bitten through his tongue. The Elite stared at him. Turning it said something in its language and the two Jackals disappeared. General Briggs sat in silence. He stared at the Elite imagining pulling the plasma pistol from its holster shoving it in between its mandibles and blowing it to hell.
The Elite guessing his thoughts chuckled and backhanded him across the face. General Briggs hunched over spitting out broken teeth. Blood flowed in a torrent from his nose and pooled on the seat in between his legs. The broken teeth fragments clinked on the floor and then lay still. With a great effort he sat back up straight again. Looking at the Elite he spoke, every word was agony and he winced,
"One day you and all you stinking kind will rot in hell!"
The Elite inclined its head as it worked out what he had said. After a moment it laughed and replied. "No Human. I will transcend the physical while you are left behind in eternal suffering."
General Briggs was thinking about saying something when the door behind him hissed open and the Jackals entered. They were dragging a piece of machinery. They left it right next to General Briggs. One of them pulled a tube from its side the other pulled a long needle from a slot and attached it to the tube, they moved towards him with the needle and one grabbed his arm.
"Oh no you don't you dirty fuckers" he yelled and pulled at his bonds. The Jackals ignored him and plunged the needle deep into his vein. One of them got a drop of blood on its talons. It licked it off and hissed happily. The Elite walked over and switched on the machine. It hummed and General Briggs felt it pump chemicals into his bloodstream. His arm started to itch terribly where the needle entered the skin. But slowly that disappeared. He could feel parts of his body going numb as the drugs moved through his system. Then the drugs hit his brain. He felt lightheaded and drowsy, it reminded him of the time when as a teenager he had tried smoking cannabis. He couldn't think straight and he felt strangely vulnerable.
The Elite turned to him, "Now Human we shall talk!" and talk he did. Somewhere deep down he screamed at himself and tried to stop but his body was too weak to resist the drugs that swamped his system.
The base had been on alert for the past week now. Command had decided that if the covenant had known about the General's flight then they must know about the base on Tara IV. Pelicans of Marines were scouring the planet to see if the covenant had landed a recon force. But so far nothing had been found.
Alan sat behind the wheel of a warthog. He hummed in time to the music playing through the earphone of his helmet. He was part of the rapid reaction force. Their job was to stay a constant alert, ready to respond to anything. It was the most boring job possible. Something hit the back of his helmet smacking his face forward into the wheel. Swearing he turned. Sam was sat on top of the M41 chain gun. He swung his leg again. This time however Alan was ready, he grabbed Sam's foot and pushed. With a cry Sam fell backwards off the gun mount bouncing of the rear fender and ending up in a heap on the ground. Sam got up, half laughing half swearing he climbed into the passenger seat. He was just reaching down into the foot well having spotted a packet of mints when the radio came on. Alan killed the music he was listening to.
"This is pelican Kilo 312 with fire team Zulu onboard we've found....... Taking......... engines have been shot to pieces, we're going down! Our position is.........."
"Shit!" yelled Alan. Switching frequencies he spoke into the radio. "Command did you get that?"
"This is command, hang on, we are triangulating the position of Kilo 312... got it. Private leave your warthog, it would take to long there's a pelican waiting on pad D14 your sergeant will meet you there.
Sam and Alan jumped out and ran towards the pelican pads, calling to the other drivers and gunners as they went. They assembled behind the pelican and sergeant Williams strode over. "Right men mount up lets go and see what's going on. Keep you're eyes peeled, we could be flying into a whole world of hurt so stay alert!"
"Ooh Rah"
They jumped into the back of the pelican and the sergeant took the gunner position. The engines started to scream and they started to lift up into the air. The radio crackled and the pilot swore. The pitch of the engines dropped again and the pelican sank back down onto its undercarriage. The sergeant got onto the intercom to the pilots and was just turning to talk to them when a warthog roared up and screeched to a halt. The driver jumped out and scrambled into the pelican seating himself in the jump seat the closet to the back. He carried a highly modified S2 AM snipe rifle. Its barrel was about six inches longer than the normal S2. It also had an oversized magazine which hung down about six inches below the magazine housing. The scope was much longer but less bulky and the bipod had been removed.
The stranger seated himself sideways in the seat and strapped himself in. He then attached a sling to his rifle which he then tied to the netting above their heads. When he finished he ended up with him sitting facing out the back of the pelican with the rifle hung before him so he could use it without having to support the full weight.
The Pelican again lifted into the air and this time it moved off towards the horizon.
They had been flying for nearly three hours now and they were drawing close the spot where Kilo 312 had gone down. Everyone was nervous. Alan rechecked that his magazine was correctly seated for the seventh time in ten minutes. He checked that his fragmentation grenades were easy to reach and that his pistol and SMG were secured in their holsters. Satisfied he leant back in his chair trying to calm himself as the pelican neared the crash zone. You'll be fine. You've trained for this. Remember your training. Trust your teammates. Change magazines when you can. Don't run out of ammo! "Move move move. Come on Marines lets do this!" They sprinted from the pelican to form a perimeter. Nothing moved. No shout of Alarm greeted them.
They stayed in a defensive perimeter for the next twenty minutes. Alan was lying in long grass. It tickled his nose but he didn't dare moved for fear of attracting attention. Sweat pooled in the centre of his back as he lay there still as a rock scanning the area in front of him for any signs of hostiles.
At length the sergeant came through on the radio and they moved out towards the crash site which was about five hundred yards away. As they drew close an awful smell reached Alan's nose, flies flew in swarms above the wreckage and parts of the pelican were still smoldering. The knelt down about one two hundred yards away and Sergeant Williams motioned for Alan to move up. Being a recon specialist it was his job to check out the area. He whispered to Sam to follow him and together they moved towards the downed pelican. They moved up towards the cockpit but the there was too much smoke inside to see clearly. Backs press securely against the warm metal of the Pelicans flank they edged towards troop bay entrance. They reached the end of the pelican's fuselage. Alan took a deep breath and drew his SMG. Laying his battle rifle on the ground he swung round the corner and aimed his SMG down the length of the troop bay. His eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the dim light, but when they did he wished that they hadn't. He doubled over and vomited all over the ground. Sam came up to see what was wrong. "Oh my god," he breathed. The inside of the Pelican was like a scene from a horror film. There were body parts everywhere. Flies hovered over piles of intestines that littered the floor like swollen spaghetti. Blood was splattered all over the walls and ceiling. Sam doubled up and added to Alan's pool of vomit. Meanwhile the rest of the patrol had moved up. The marines looking into the pelican gasped and turned away clapped hands over their hands over their mouths. Sergeant Williams came up and looked in. "Well there's not much we can do for them. Let's try and work out what brought this bird down then just a phosphorus grenade in there and we'll head home.
It didn't take long for the marines to find out why the pelican had crashed. There was plasma scoring all over the rear engines and one of the central jets was missing. They called the pelican in for extraction and Sergeant Williams incinerated the remains of Fire Team Zulu.
Alan sat dejectedly in his seat. He couldn't believe what he had seen. Suddenly the war seemed all top real. He banished the thoughts to the back of his mind and tried to catch up on some sleep.
He was awoken by yells and a loud bang. He was totally disorientated and it took him a few seconds to work out where he was. In that time there was another loud crash and the pelican shook. He turned and looked out the rear of the pelican just in time to see another green missile lift of from the ground and slam into the rear of the pelican. He could here the metal sizzling as it melted and he realized that they were taken fire from a plasma weapon of some sort. It took a few moments for the importance of that single conclusion to hit him.A Plasma weapon, that mean covenant, Jesus!
Suddenly someone elbowed him out of the way. It was the sniper. Quickly he set up his weapon and sighted in. He fired and at the same time another green missile slammed into the pelican's rear.
The panicked voice of the pilot came through on the intercom. "I've lost her. We're going down. Prepare for a hard landing." Alan grabbed onto a bar and strapped himself into his jump seat as the pelican began a steep nose dive. There was a judder as the pelican hit the ground then Alan hit his head on something and lost consciousness.
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