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Altered: Bomb Threat
Date: 20 November 2004, 1:12 AM
Note before the story: Some people here might remember some of my old series, like Just One of Those Days and The Rebel. And those people that remember those also probably remember how i just dissappeared and stopped writting. Well I decided to come back and start writing fanfiction again, but im not going to continue any of the series I started a long time ago. Instead I'm going to start a new series, Altered, which is going to be somewhat like the Just One of Those Days Prologue was, but with Halo 2. It's an altered version of what happened in the game, and things i wished I could've done in the game (but couldnt), told through the story of the characters. Now lets get on with the story!
Chapter 1: Bomb Threat
"Pay attention, 'cause I'm only goin' over this once." Came the voice of the Gunnery Sergeant as he stepped over to the 'zapper' as he called it. The Master Chief had gone through this process before, however, and didn't need to be told to step onto the red square; and into the two spinning arms that would weave a web of yellow light around him and jump start the new shield generator that had replaced an old and damaged one he had used on Halo. "You're new armor shields are extremely resilient, very efficient, much better than the Covenant tech we used for the Mark V." He continued, speaking of the stolen and improved Covenant shield generator that had been in the Master Chief's old armor system. The Gunnery Sergeant didn't say anything after that, and the Master Chief looked down at the blinking hand-shaped pad, and looked up at the Gunnery Sergeant questioningly. The response was in the form of a nod, and the Master Chief placed his hand (which was a bit big) on the pad and pressed slightly. The two hanging arms began to swirl around him, throwing out their yellow waves of energy. A wave of invisible force washed over him from the inside, threatening his balance (and his breakfast). When he reoriented himself the waves of yellow began to turn red, and he knew his repreive was only momentary as another wave of force washed over him, downing his shields, which immediately began to recharge, he noticed, much faster than before. "Bingo! As you can see," the Gunnery Sergeant began, "they recharge alot faster this time!"
But the last part of his sentence was barely heard as the Master Chief's attention was drawn to the huge metal blast doors opening on the other side of the room, revealing a clean, finely dressed Sergeant Johnson, his white naval uniform (and equally white teeth) a stark contrast to his dark skin. "If your shields go down, find some cover, 'n' wait for the meter to read fully charged." continued the Gunnery Sergeant, completely oblivious to the form standing behind him, for the noise of the opening doors had been nearly inaudible in comparison to the whirling arms of the shield charging station.
"That, or you can hide behind me." The Gunnery Sergeant whirled around, a look of surprise on his face, which calmed immediately. "You done with my boy here, master guns? I dont see any training wheels." Sergeant Johnson remarked sarcastically, and the look on the Gunnery Sergeant's face turned to one of slight anger.
"His armor's workin' fine Johnson, so shut your chili hole." He turned back to the Master Chief, "Your free to go, but remember, take things slow." He finished, putting an emphasis on the last three words.
"Don't worry, I'll hold his hand." said Sergeant Johnson as he turned and strode back to the elevator, Master Chief right behind. The Gunnery Sergeant went too, but halted just short of the elevator doors.
"So, Johnson, when're you gonna tell me how you made it back home in one piece? Inquired the Gunnery Sergeant as Master Chief dialed the keypad next to the elevator door.
"Sorry, guns, it's classified." Sergeant Johnson sternly replied as the elevator doors began to close.
The Gunnery Sergeant gave a "Humph!", then exclaimed, "My ass! Well you can forget about those adjustments to your A2 scope, and your..." His voice trailed off as the elevator doors closed completely and began to rise.
Sergeant Johnson sighed, "Well he's in a particularly fine mood today."
The elevator stopped and the doors opened, revealing a tram car on tracks that overlooked a vast storage room which harbored a huge window that revealed two similar MAC platforms above Earth. The two stepped onto the tram car, the doors closed and locked with no more noise than a whisper, and they both looked out at the majestic mostly blue planet before them.
"Earth..." Sergeant Johnson began, with a hint of sadness in his voice. "Haven't seen it in years."
Master Chief nodded in agreement, though in reality he had seen the planet just a few hours previous, before he had reported to the Gunnery Sergeant for armor replacement.
"When I shipped out for basic, the orbital defense grid was all theory and politics. Now look, the Cairo is just one of three hundred geosync platforms."
The tram began to slow, and Master Chief knew it was about to come to it's destination, a destination he wasn't too thrilled about.
"Ships have been arriving all morning. Nobody's sayin' much, but I'd bet somethin' big's about to happen." Sergeant Johnson then brushed his clothes off, though there hadn't been a speck of dust on them to begin with, and prepared to step out into the waiting crowd of clapping marines, Master Chief did the same. He noticed a flying gray steel ball with a multitude of lens placed at seemingly random positions, snapping photos at the pair.
"You told me there wouldn't be any cameras." Master Chief whispered as he stood next to Sergeant Johnson, who had quite opposite feelings about the situation and seemed to be almost posing for the pictures.
"You told me you were gonna wear somethin' nice!" Sergeant Johnson replied in mock anger as they began to walk towards a door opening on the other side of the room, Master Chief quite ready to get out of the crowd. "Folks need heroes, Chief. So smile, would you? While we still got somethin' to smile about!" He finished enthusiastically as they walked through the door, into another vast room with a couple of new forms waiting for them near a holotank (which was empty at the moment, but Master Chief knew it would soon be filled with the image of Cortana, the brilliant and sarcastic AI that sometimes took up residence in his own helmet, providing him with valuable intel in the field, and remarks about the current situation whenever she felt the need)
"Gentlemen," Began an old man in a naval suit similar to Sergeant Johnson's, but with the obvious rank of Admiral on on it. "we're lucky to have you back." He finished after they traded salutes. A much younger man came up behind him to whisper something in the Admiral's ear.
"Go ahead, Cortana." The Admiral said to the empty holotank, which suddenly appeared with a purple and black female form, with a hairstyle that was short in the front and then suddenly dropped back long as it got to the ears, and also had mathematical symbols rolling up and down her transparent body.
"Another whisper, sir, near Io. We have probes en route."
The Admiral sighed and looked back at the pair. "Sorry but we'll have to make this short." He informed them as he turned to get a medal from a young man holding a small tray of them. The ceremony proceeded from there, Sergeant Johnson getting a medal for his bravery and daring on Halo, and since then. A medal was also given to a young woman who the Master Chief identified as Commander Keyes. But not the Keyes that had once captained the Pillar of Autumn that had crash landed on the ring world Halo. This, Master Chief assumed, was a relative of some sort though, too young to be a sister, probably a daughter. The Admiral confirmed his suspicions, giving her a medal for her dead father's heroic actons.
Suddenly a number of alarms began to blare, surprising all of them. Cortana's form popped up again.
"Slipspace rupters just off our battle cluster." She reported.
"Show me." Demanded the Admiral as he turned to a holographic map behind them.
"Fifteen Covenant capital ships just outside the kill zone."
The Admiral began issuing orders. "Commander, get back to your ship." Before he could say anything else though, a radio message came from the holographic map (which was depicting a group of Human ships moving towards a still group of Covenant ships)
"This is Fleet Admiral Harper, moving to engage the enemy!"
"Negative, Admiral, form a defensive perimiter around the battle cluster." He then turned to Sergeant Johnson and Master Chief. "They're going to try to take our MAC guns offline, give their ships a straight shot at Earth. Chief, defend this station."
Master Chief nodded, then turned to Sergeant Johnson. "I need a weapon."
____________________________________________________________
"Feel the fire on that bulkhead!" Shouted Sergeant Johnson as he finished assembling a portable turret on a balcony overlooking a room with multiple holographic maps and a huge set of blast doors at the end, which were slowly being weakened with fire and plasma from the other side. Marines had taken up positions around the room, some taking cover behind the metal frames of the holographic maps, some just kneeling with their guns pointed at the door. The Master Chief, however, had taken up a position in the corner of the room just to the left of the door, a place most of the intruders wouldnt bother to turn around and look in while being fired upon from the front. The doors continued to weaken, untill the fire stopped for a moment, and the doors blown open and an Elite clad in blue armor came roaring in, intercepting dozens of flying bullets from the marines. The shields began to weaken and the Elite aimed his plasma rifle up to fire at the placed turret-
When Master Chief jumped in behind it and slammed his rifle down on the back of its neck just as the shields gave way. The Elite's knees buckled and it began to sink to the floor, but not before it got another round of bullets in its head from Master Chief's MA7B Battle Rifle. He quickly turned and pulled out his SMG, which unleashed a spray of lead over the nearly half-dozen grunts coming in behind. Those that didn't get killed by that wave of bullets, were killed by the exploding methane tanks of their comrades.
Master Chief ducked back behind one of the holographic maps and waited for the next enemies to come out. A second Elite, nearly identical to the first, jumped around the corner with it's plasma rifle firing. Master Chief leaped up from his position, flying at the Elite, grabbing it's shoulders and pulling it aside as a wave of bullets washed over the seven grunts coming in the door after. The grunts went down easily, although one marine got clipped on the shoulder by a stray plasma bolt and dove for cover, barely being able to fire his gun.
The Elite broke free of the hold and roared as he shoved Master Chief against the wall and began to come forward- into a shower of bullets from the portable turret manned by Sergeant Johnson. He nodded his thanks and the group moved forward into more waiting enemies.
____________________________________________________________
Minutes later, he came out onto a catwalk overlooking the massive hangar bay, where he found the source of the Covenant boarders. A boarding craft was latched onto the massive window overlooking the Maulta. An artificial gravity screen was on the doorway, ushering those inside, out, and bouncing back those outside trying to get in. There were a multitude of grunt bodies on the floor, and one or two Elite bodies as well. He saw a single Elite, breathing heavy, leaning against one of the big steel crates, which the marines were periodically pelting with bullets. The Elite clutched it's dual needlers tightly, and the Master Chief knew he needed to do something quickly. He could jump down and spray the Elite with bullets, but he wouldn't be fast enough to stop it from hitting the marines on the other side of the bay. Yet if he just fired right then and there, the Elite would turn it's fire on him, and he didn't want to be on the reviecing end of those guns.
So, thinking quickly, he pulled out a fragmentation grenade, and threw it infront of the box. The Elite dove around the box as the grenade exploded, and the crate flew forward into it's face.
It stumbled backwards, disoriented, and Master Chief hopped over the rail, the layer of gel in his armor absorbing the fall, and tackled the Elite, slamming his rifle into its face and then shooting a short stream of bullets into it.
The marines in the bay cheered at his dramatic arrival, and he noticed many grunt forms riding out of the boarding craft.
He also noticed a couple of Elite forms.
If he stayed, he could probably take care of the grunts, but he didn't want to tango with two or three Elites at the same time. So he turned and did what his enemy had just seconds ago, and put his back to the side of a crate facing away from the craft. He heard the "Whee!"s of the grunts and knew he had to think of something. Glancing at the dead Elite he had just killed, he noticed a plasma grenade attatched to it's belt. He crouched, reached out and pulled the grenade off, trying not to go too far out of the shadow of the crate. Standing up, he thought of the position of the gravity field, calculated, activated the grenade and tossed it behind him, the grenade bouncing off the field and onto the head of a grunt, and before the group knew what had happened, the plasma grenade, and the methane tanks of the grunts, blew, instantly killing everything within the blast radius. It also incinerated the steel crate and sent the Chief flying, downing his shields.
And then there was only silence, and the marines came out of their positions and jogged over to observe the wreckage. One marine turned and looked out the window, then exclaimed, "Hey! The Maulta's already driven off it's boarders!"
All the marines, and the Chief, looked out to see that the ships were, indeed, retreating from the MAC platform.
"Maulta, report." Radioed Cortana.
"I can't believe it, their retreating, we won! We won!" Came an extatic voice over the radio.
Something was wrong though, the Chief could feel it. The Covenant didn't retreat until they won or until they died. His adrenaline began to pump faster, and time seemed to slow as the seemingly victorious MAC platform blew into tiny pieces that flew off into space.
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