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Cry for a Hero Part 1: First Engagement
Date: 10 August 2002 5:08 am

      Everyday, dozens police fall in the fight against rebels. The most feared group of rebels on the planet, Earth. 'The Activists' are a large group of people that belive the UNSC arent doing their job against the covenant and other things. In reaction, the UNSC sent specially trained soldiers to act as law enforcement officials. The UNSC are so busy fighting covenant, that they left the police to do all the dirty work, that is, unless a planet is taken over.


      We ran to the launching pad, grabbed our armerments, and ran into the roaring Pelican CL II (a larger pelican that can carry 10 passengers, and 2 small police mechs).
"GO GO GO, we got a mission to carry out, you can check your fingernails some other time!" the sergeant yelled over the roar of the pelican to us.
      We all took a seat and strapped the backs of the seat to our armor to prevent ourselves from falling out during flight. The Pelican took off full capacity, along with two other Pelican CL II's. Just another everyday mission: Restore peace and prosperity to the region assigned Blah blah blah.
"Ok men," the sergeant got our attention,"our assingment today is to neutralize a Activist break-in in a UNSC munitions warehouse."
      Everyone took their eyes off the pelican floor and the scenery wizzing by outside, and stared at the seargent.
"so we're just going to barge into a building loaded with UNSC weapons at the rebels disposal?" A private with the last name of Hopkins exclaimed.
"intelegence reports that half the weapons in there they wont even be able to use." sergeant said with no emotion.
Everyone remained sceptical but silent.
"Heads up everyone, we're gunna fly over a hostile activist held region, prepare for evasive maneuvers, and keep your head inside!" The pilot informed us.
We watched as all the pelicans we poorly evading chain-gun fire, missles, and tank blasts. One pelican behind us took an unfortunate blow to the nose by a tank cannon and lost altitudide immediatly. We watched and paniced as the passengers evacuated out of the downing pelican under fire, I feared no one from the downed pelican would make it back to HQ.
The seargent radioed to the pilot,"Lieutenant! Turn back! We got men under heavy fire, We must help!"
She replied,"sorry sergeant, but my orders are clear! If your looking for a hero to save them, it aint going to be me!"
Everyone fell silent as we continued past the hostile area en route to the objective.
"20 miles and closing" the pilot said.
"Ok the LZ will be on the roof, the holo-map shows 4 points of enterance from the top."
"start listing." one impatient private said.
The sergeant acessed a panel and a 3-D blueprint of the structure was revealed on the center of the floor. the holo-view zoomed over to the roof.
"Alright, there are 2 cargo lifts made to transport large munitions like tanks and other weapons, and there's a normal access-way elevator for personnel." The sergeant exclamied.
"Then whats the fourth point of entry from the top?" A private with the last name of Jamenson on his armor asked.
"ROBERTS! CORPORAL ROBERTS!!!" the sergeant screamed over to a heavily armored man sitting in the front.
"YES SIR!" the stranger piped up.
"Corporal roberts is our specialist in the field of explosives, and THAT is the fourth entry point... we make one our selfs." The seargent evily grinned,"Ok men what you have in your armorments is light body armor, a MA2B, a standard sidearm, 2 frag grenades and 4 stun grenades strong enough to short-circut electronics and put infantry into a coma."
We all looked at eachother smiling, remembering the time Private Hace dropped a stun grenade on his cratch and momentarily paralized himself from the waist down.
"What are you smiling about Private Cooper?" The seargent asked me, grining.
"Nothing that attains to the subject, SIR!"
"hmmmm" The sergeant grumbled.
"10 miles and closing!" The pilot yelled.
"ok Privates Trinket and Jinkens, you two will be manning each of the police mechs. You two will have dual 50mm autocannons and a stun-rocket launcher with a capacity of 10 rockets at your disposal. Those stun rockets can fry the circuts of large vehicles like tanks, and can kill infantry, so watch out. These 'mechs' as they call them are bi-ped walkers:lose a leg, lose your life. They stand at about 20 feet, and have enough weight to crush a mark V, and enough power to flip a Wraith mortar tank, so watch out. "Shouldn't there be a new prototype weapon that we should watch out for?" An engineer riding in the seat across from me asked.
"Oh I almost forgot," the seargent said,"the UNSC are testing out a new anti-vehicle mech, we fear that the Activists might have these at thier disposal. also....we dont know exacly what they do. Pilot!" the sergeant screamed, changing the subject,"Whats our ETA?"
"ETA is in 10 min!" She replied.
"Ok that sounds about right," The sergeant mumbeled, and then spoke up,"Pilot, send Privates Trinket and Jinkens to their mechs."
"aye-aye sir."
The two privates seats went below the deck to the mechs, and came back up empty.
"This is private Jinkens ready to roll!" he radioed from the police mech,"This is Private Trinket online and ready to rock!"
"Go through the checklist."the sergeant said automatticly.
"ok life support, check, internal and external sensors check, hydrolics systems check, circuts and electronic systems...check, weapons...autocannons check....and stun-rockets check. Firing up propulsion rockets for flight...check. Well sergeant we are hot and ready to-"
"ANTI-AIR MISSLE HAS TARGETED US!" the Pilot screamed.
"pinpoint the location!" said the seargent.
"....IT'S COMING FROM THE MUNITIONS BASE!"
"shit...they've accessed the perimeter defenses-EVADE LIEUTENANT!" The sergeant barked into the com radio.
"huh?..."
"what is it lieutenant?!?"
The pelican continued on a direct path towards the warehouse.
"LIEUTENANT! You hear me? EVADE!!!" The sergeant yelled.
"I hear you loud and clear sarge, but the controls have seemed to be jammed!"
The engineer pulled something out of his case, it seemed to be a small hand-held computer with two antenne on it,"The lieutenant is right," the engineer grimly said,"they've seem to have located a system jamming device and targeted it on this pelican."
"CRAP THEY JUST FIRED ONE!" the pilot yelled
"there's no way I can reverse the frequency or change it...we're screwed"the engineer said slowly.
"30 SECONDS TO IMPACT!"the pilot screamed.
"Alright...EVAC PROTOCOL!" The sergeant barked at us.
Lucky for me, I knew the drill, all you had to do was pull the manual release on the back of the seat and it would come off with your armor giving the person a 20 min. jump-jet, intended for a safe landing in a hostile area.
"20 SECONDS!"
"EVAC LIEUTENANT!"
"I cant...the door doesnt have a manual override," she said slowly and silently,"so get your asses outta here and save your selfs..."
Everyone was jumping out of the pelican, activating thier packs to jump to safety. The sergeant stood at the end of the Pelican ready to jump and looked over his sholder at me,"LETS GO! MOVE! MOVE!"
I looked over at Private Hopkins, still in his own seat. I looked over at the sergeant waving his arms for me to jump but i shook my head and said over the roar of the engine,"THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH HOPKINS!"
"Go ahead Cooper, I can't stop you, Farewell!" The sergeant said as he jumped into the open air.
"10 seconds...it's been a pleasure working with you guys the pilot said,"this is Charlie Vector...signing out-"
"HELP COOPER! I THINK MY PACK IS STUCK ON SOMETHING!"
I pushed him forward to find that there was still a hook grappled on his cord,"WHAT IS IT?!"He asked
"hold on I can fix it," I said as i pulled out my sidearm and shot the hook,"GOOOOOOOO!!!"
He jumped up out of the seat with me as we ran towards the exit. in my head i thought 3...2...1...Time.
We came to the edge and i said,"JUM-"
BOOM!!!
The explosion hurled out of the Pelican and down towards the earth. I found the panel on the side of the pack and pressed the button. The engine cells ignited and soon I was able maintain my balance in the air.
       A few minutes later we all grouped up. The only surviving Pelican was ordered to drop its people off and turn around, due to 'hostile conditions'. I made a mental count: 15 police and 4 police mechs manned by four other police, which means everybody from our pelican and their's made it all off including the 2 mechs from each of owr Pelicans, and then there was me.
"Ok listen up troops," the sergeant barked to all of us,"the objective remains the same, rendezvous at the rooftop, neutralize all rebel treat inside the complex."
"There is one thing that has changed." The Engineer piped up,"the most affective way to enter is we must split up into two teams."
"Oh? And why is that?" The sergeant scoweled.
"well, my computer shows multiple heat signatures, some are much bigger than any human."
"Great idea," the explosive specialist commented,"if i get some cover, i could take out those lifts and come from behind."
"Well then, it looks like we have a plan. Alright then, blue team will cover the demolitionist as he does his work, and the red team will engage the rebels, and show them what death is all about. I'm assinging teams now."
He punched in a few things on a panel, and my HUD face panel litup with a little blue dot.
"OK red team, MOVE OUT!" The sergeant yelled at them as he pulled out his M-90 shotgun. He left with nine other police officers and the four police mechs.
"Alright blue team," the demolitionist exclaimed,"I am in full command of this squad."
I counted my small team: 1 demolitionist, 1 engineer, and 4 regular police including me.
"Ok I want a delta formation of 3 in the front, and 1 will provide cover from the back, otherwise you four officers are escorting me and this lieutenant engineer. We are going to hit the two cargo lifts to stop re-enforcements to the top, then we will assult the remaining opposition...well, GO GO GO!
we started off towards the warehouse and noticed the missle turrets dismanteled in a heap of metal and flames by red team. Everything was green until we heard over the com-link: "AHHH TAKE COVER!"
We saw an explosion in the air
com-link:"GAAAUHHG"
"Lets move double time to our objective blue team GO GO GO!"
We all went full speed on our jet packs, nearing the warehouse.
com-link:MAN DOWN! MAN DOWN!
com-link:TAKE COVER BEHIND-GUAAAAHHH!!!
com-link:Requesting re-enforcements! They've got major armor support! They must be about 100 feet tall! FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!

AS we got closer, I saw the huge beasts. They appeared to be a large version of a UNSC 'battle mech' but they were much bigger. They appered to be armed with a normall 65mm auotocannon and what seemed to be a square cannon but instead of having one large barrel, it must've had hundreds of small barrels inside the square shaped cannon, because when it fired the weapon, a police mech was torn to shreds, ridden with small holes. It was also targeting the officers with the same weapon decimating them. I seemed to notice that it was only able to fire that weapon once every 15 seconds though.

"hurry we dont have much time!" the corporal yelled at us, readying his explosive charges.
as we arrived onto the large roof we ran towars the lift. there was four alert rebels that fired at us. I ignited my jet pack and opened up a clip of my MA2B on them and 2 dropped to the ground, the other two guards took cover behind some boxes, I read the label on the boxes: SPNKR ROCKETS-WARNING EXPLOSIVE!
I motioned towards the boxes. the engineer fired his sidearm directly at the boxes and they made a huge explosion that threw the other two rebels 25 feet in the air. We ran over to the first lift and the corporal quickly planted the charges on the lift and detonated them, rendering the lift unoperable. We quickly ran over to the other lift, picking off as many rebels as we could as we ran over there. I noticed the name of the officer in front of me: PT. Casey, and thought back to when we were in the academy together, just before he was shot in the chest by a sniper that was guarding the other lift.
"AHH!" I screamed as his blood spattered on my armor and his body fell into my hands,"SNIPER PERCHED!!!" I screamed in fear, as I turned on the after burners on my jet pack so high, when i got in the air, they blew up sending me to the ground, knocking the air out of me. I didn't move fearing that the sniper was about to shoot me i closed my eyes and then heard another loud shot from the sniper rifle...good, not me. the engineer fell dead next to me, his pale face looking into mine. I was filled with rage, i couldnt sit here playing dead while my fellow partners fell to this scum of a human. "ARRRRRGGGGHH!!!"I screamed in rage, then jumped into the air screaming. I ran towards the man while he re-loaded, i saw his cold senseless face of determination, that is until he saw me. He quickly finished re-loading and steadied his rifle for another kill. Not me, He'll never kill me. I kept running He fired right when i dove. He fired again and again and again, now he had to re-load.
"AAAAAGGGHHH!!!" I screamed as i pulled out my sidearm and fired constantly I was so filled with so much rage, that I missed him every shot, one more bullet i thought. I was 10 feet away from him, as I hurdeled his baricade. He raised his loaded rifle again, but it was too late, i ran up to him and grabbed the barrel of his rifle and shoved it in his face as i heard his nose crack as blood streamed out. he screamed but I didnt care, this freaking guy deserved to die painfully. I took the rifle from him and swung it at the side of his leg: it broke inwards as he gringed in pain.
"NOW ITS YOUR TURN SCUM!!!" I screamed as I pulled the pen on a fragmentation grenade and shoved it in his screaming mouth. I knocked him in the back with the butt of the gun and ran him off the building edge. I looked away but heard the explosion.
The coporal ran over with the two other surviving officers over to me. He shakily said,"the liutenant and private Casey are dead, but we need to deal with that lift right now." he said as he placed expolosives on it. The lift crumbled just like the other one.
com-link:WHERE'S THAT SUPPORT!?! WE'RE FALLING LIKE GRUNTS HERE!
the corporal com-linked the red team and said,"alright our first objective is acieved we are now rushing to assistance."
The Corporal handed us all small flat devices,"put those on one of the legs of those prototype mechs that should take them out."
there were three of us and tree prototypes, so we each chose one and ran towards the backs of them there were some rebel infantry standing around the mechs so I ran over to where i dropped my MA2B next to the Leiutenant, Picked it up, re-loaded it, and straifed while shooting my gun three men caught my fire and fell to the ground. I noticed the other two officials were'nt having the same luck as I was: they were pinned down behind some cargo while being under fire by the rest of the guards. I threw a stun grenade at the group of rebels gleefully shooting. The grenade discharged bolts everywhere the electric bolts hit the rebels and they all fell to the ground, most likely in a coma. all three of us ran up to the backs of each mech, and planted the device. we ran back and watched as the Corporal pressed the blue button. The mech's legs exploded into sparks and shrapnel. The explosives worked on all three of them and they fell to the ground in a heap of molten metal and flames. The red team jumped out of their hiding places and ran towards the remaining rebel infantry. The surviving sergeant came out of his hiding spot filled up with used shotgun cartridges and charged towards three rebels. he let out a battle cry as he blasted all three of them with one blast. We rejoyced a little but honored the dead. I counted the people left: 1 sergeant, 1 corporal,4 officials from red team, 3 from blue(including me) and 0 police mechs, which meant no armored support.
"Alright men, there are 5 floors to this building so-"
we heard a faint rumbling that got louder, the ground started to shake everyone stood up and grabbed their weapons preparing. all of a sudden, the ground errupted and the cement roof exploded next to us. We all fell to the ground from the erruption, and noticed another prototype mech coming throught the roof, it had a propulsion system! It came all the way through into the air and fired both weapons in the same exact place. the roof was shot to splinters as it collapsed under us, as I fell, I wondered what would happen next.

Cry for a Hero Part 2: Wish it Were a Dream
Date: 11 August 2002 1:43 am

      The roof collapsed under us as we all fell into the building. Cement from the roof fell on our bodies as we tried to get up. The entire warehouse was dark and the air was filled with dust from the cave-in. I sprang up and looked around for my fellow officers.
      "TAKE COVER!" someone yelled as the Prototype mech peered over into the building, ready to fire.
      It unleashed it's aoutocannons on us hailing us with bullets. We all ran behind a big crate filled with machine parts. I slowly arced my head around the crate to see the mech jumping down to the floor we were on. Lukily, the mech weighed so much, it smashed through our floor and fell on the one below, sideways.
      "Ok,"the sergeant got our attention,"there's two ways we can take this building, I say we split up."
      "ok you two will come wit-"
      Gunfire sounded off around us, as we all split up for cover, the sergeant was hit in the back with a couple bullets, by a machine gunner.
      "GAHHG, IM HIT!"
      I ran back to him and drug him behind a broken down warthog.
      "I'm not going to make it" he said while wrentching in pain.
      I pulled out the med-kit from his pack, but he hit it away,"no..ahh!save it for yourself kid..."
      he fell limp in my arms and wispered,"Take this,"he handed me a small device with a plastic case around a red button,"your gunna need it kid..."
      "sarge?SARGE!" I screamed into his lifeless ears. I looked around at the others, returning fire behind crates and other objects. I grabbed his shotgun and turned towards the 5 rebels that were shooting at us. I fired the shotgun at the guy closest. The recoil was enormous but so was the affect, the man fell down dead.
      the other officials came out of their hiding spots and started shooting. I targeted another person and shot a man with an MD6. The other officials burst fired on 2 other men ending their lives. The last rebel hid behind something and reached for something in his pocket.
      "HE'S GOING FOR A FRAG!" Corporal Roberts yelled.
      I jumped over my berricade and ran sideways so his entire body was showing to me. He pulled the pin, and I aimed a shot at his chest. I fired right when he was about to throw it, the blast hit him in the hand that was holding the grenade. The grenade dropped in front of him, his eyes widened and he tried to kick it, but it was too late, BOOM! his smoldering body lay 10 feet from the explosion. Everyone came out of their hiding places and went over to the sergeant.
      "According to the holo map of the sergeant, this floor is the scrap and surplus floor, the fourth is the Robotics floor, the third is the ammunitions floor, the second is the Vehicle bay, and the last floor is another Robotics floor. I say that we should split up and meet at the last floor and signal for evac."
      I counted everyone that would be in this mission:Crp.Roberts, Pt.Hopkins, Pt.Dasf, Pt.Senker, Pt.Zamns, Pt.Smith, Pt.Johnson, and me.
      "Well...MOVE OUT!"
      "SIR! YES SIR!" We all shouted before we went our seperate ways.
      I found a stair-way that would be able to take me to the bottom floor, so I kicked it open, and checked to see that there was no-one on the stair way, It was all clear. I quickly ran down to the fourth floor, I opened the door, and let it swing open slowly, I peeked around the corner to check for hostiles. There was nothing but long robotic assembly lines made for constructing weapons and ammunition, and the broken mech that fell through the celing onto the fourth floor. Nothing was moving so I turned back to the stair-way and then stopped, I heard voices.
      "...and all of a sudden BAM! something shook the celing, did you guys hear it?"
      "Well of course dumbass, thats why we're sent to check it out."
      They were about 2 stories below me and arent able to see my face yet, but they would soon, I had to think fast, they were running up the steps.
      "STOP WHERE YOU ARE!" I commanded them.
      Their footsteps halted, but they still couldnt see me.
      "IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" One man ordered me.
      "Do not treat your COMMANDING OFFICER like that, I can have you...demoted!" I barked at him.
      "Apologies sir I didn't know it was you...what happened up there anyways."
      "Um...A plane crashed into this building it was uh...hold those scum UNSC personell!"
      "Did you find anything important?"
      I thought for a second.
      "Yes!"I exclaimed as i pulled out a stun-grenade and set it to a 7 second timer,"Here catch!"
      I threw it down to them.
      "Nice throw sir!"
      I peeked my head over at them,"Nice catch, Idiot!"
      "Huh?" He dumbly said
      The grenade detonated in his hands paralyzing them all.
      I ran down the flight of stairs and opened the next door, I could hear people talking but the crates of ammunition were staked so high, it was impossible to see over. I walked down a hall to find Privates Zamns and Dasf coming from the other direction towards me. when we met up Dasf said,"ok we gotta clear out all the rebels in this area, so lets split up and stay on com-link just in-case we need assistance."
      We nodded our heads and I said,"did you hear those voices? they sounded like they were coming from-"
      our conversation was broken by the roar of a warthog engine starting. We ran to a place where four halls intersected, they seemed to be the main hallways, there were also scattered crates and small hallways. I looked down one of the main hallways and saw two warthogs sitting at the end of the hallway, both of them were starting their engines. The entire warehouse's lights all flickered to life, lighting up every nook and cranny of the large room.
      "Uh, guys....we have a problem." I said slowly as i saw 4 men running to the 2 warthog's shotgun and gunner seats. 1 man with a sniper rifle got into the shotgun seat and pointed at us.
      "Um same here..." Dasf said.
      I turned around to see what Dasf was looking at and on the direct other side of the warthogs was a scorpion tank, loading up with passengers.
      "TAKE COVER!" I screamed.
      I heard the warthogs nearing our location.
      "HERE!" I yelled, as we ran into a curving hallway of crates. The warthog caught up to us and let loose on its chain gun.
      "ZAMNS, throw me a frag!" I yelled over the noise of the chain gun tearing up the floor. He threw a grenade behind himself to me. I pulled the pin on the grenade and threw it a little ways ahead of me into the stack of crates. BOOM! the crates toppled right behind me onto 1 Warthog, immobilizing it the other Warthog recklessly jumped oof of the other one and spun sideways flinging the passengers out of the vehicle. 1 man landed in front of me armed with an MA5B, when he got up I pulled the trigger on the shotgun and smeared his body against some crates. The driver got up and reached for his MD6 but I pulled The trigger on my M-90 and blasted his body back 5 feet. The gunner of that warthog was crushed by the warthog. Amazingly the Warthog stood upright, but its chain gun was torn off from the crash.
      "Hey Zamns!" I yelled to him,"do you know how to drive one of thses things?"
      "If it means surviving this hell-hole...SURE!"
      we jumped into the Warthog, I climbed into the back. the Warthog that was held under the boxes sprung out.
      "PUNCH IT!" I yelled to Pt.Zamns
      The Warthog accelerated immediatly and almost threw me off the thing. The warthog was right behind us and opened fire on us. The bullets dug into the chassis and I saw as he sniper was readying for a shot, luckily, the path was always windy.
      "SPEED UP!"I screamed over the roar of the accelerating Warthog.
      I pumped my shotgun and waited for when the warthog would come around the bend. It appeared and it was speeding up. I pulled the trigger and littered their windshield with holes. I pumped and fired again the windshield was getting weaker everytime i hit it. We went around another corner and swirved some boxes that the Warthog behind us just smashed through.
      "WERE COMING UP ON ONE OF THE MAIN HALLWAYS!" Pt. Zamn yelled to us.
      A plan just came to my head
      "Great! Turn into it!"I replied.
      we were coming on a small stretch before the main hallway and the Warthog appeared yet again bahind us, I pumped my shotgun and fired. The glass of the windshield shattered into a million pieces, some of the spray from the shotgun hit the sniper in the chest, injuring him. We turned the corner onto the main hallway, facing the unexpecting scorpion.
      "Drive straight!" I ordered Pt.Zamns
      "But-"
      "JUST DO IT ZAMNS!" I yelled
      "YES SIR!"
      The other Warthog screeched around the corner right behind us. I pulled out my MD6 sidearm and aimed it straight at the driver's head. I saw his Eyes widen and him screaming at the sniper to shoot me, but he had a hard time because of his injuries. I fired a straight shot into the drivers face and watched his blood spatter agaisnt the Warthog's interior. Both the passengers jumped for the wheel and it spun sideways allowing it to stop in its tracks. In all this havok, the driver of the tank noticed this and adjusted his cannon at us.
      "ON MY MARK, YOU'LL TURN!"I said to Zamns.
      The tank had a kill-shot on us.
      "MAAAAARK!!!" I screamed in fear that we were too late.
      Our Warthog swirved off into a different hallway just as the tank shot, the contrails passed right past my head and smashed into the two survivors of the enemy Warthog. I knew the tank was going to fallow us so I figured we could have an advantage.
      "Stop right here!" I ordered.
      The warthog screeched to a halt.
      "Search through thses crates and tell me if you find anything usefull."
      we smashed open crates, most of them were just magazines but we found some crates filled with fragmentation grenades. I took some so i had four in my belt and spilled the rest on the path.
      "If you find any grenades, spill 'em here." I said to them.
      "Hey cool, flamethrowers!" Pt. Damf said, amazed
      "Good we each need one." I said.
      "Found another crate fulla frags"
      "Pour them all on where the other ones are.
      I took all the styrofoam from the crates holding magazines, and covered the fragmentation grenades with them.
      "Ok, when that tank comes over here, ingnite the styrofoam with the flamethrowers the grenades should explode from the heat when the tank crosses over it."
      "Nice." Pt. Zamns commented.
      The noise of the tank got closer.
      "Ok lite 'em up!" I said
      We turned on the flamethrowers and lit the styrofoam on fire and ran away. from a distance we heard and explosion and a bunch of cries of pain and a big plume of smoke bellowed to the celing.
      "I think we've finished our job here." I proclaimed.
      We ran into Privates Senker, Smith and Johnson right before we came to the stair-way.
      "Hey its good to see you guys are ok!" Johnson said stragely.
      "Hey where's the corporal?" I asked.
      "He com-linked us and said he needed assistance on floor 2." Pt. Senker said.
      We all walked over to the door and Pt. Johnson was standing right behind us.
      "How are we going to approach this door?" Pt. Smith asked.
      "Wanna barge in shooting?"
      Someone hit Pt. Hopkins in the head with the butt of a gun, he landed on the floor un-concious.
      "What the f-"
      BAM! BAM! BAM!
      Senker, Smith and Damf fell on the ground dead, each shot in the back of the head.
      "NOOOOO!" I screamed.
      Me and Zamns turned around and saw the smoking barrel of an MD6 pointed at my head...held by Pt.Johnson.

Cry for a Hero part 3: Shattered Allies
Date: 14 August 2002 5:37 am

      I dropped my shotgun on the floor in awe of the barrel of Pt. Johnson's MD6 pointed at my forehead.
      "Hmph." Johnson grunted at me,"You were always better than me at the academy...well guess what,"his finger tightened on the trigger,"this time...I WIN!" he screamed at me.
      "Johnson..." Pt. Zamns said slowly.
      "SHUTUP!" Johnson screamed.
      "...yes, sir." Zamns looked at the ground fearing he was going to be executed by his own team-mate.
      I thought to myself this was the end, remembered the time we fought together, foiling that Tank and seeing the plume of...smoke rise to the...celing!
      "The smoke alarms."I wispered to myself, making a small grin. I have to stall for time, for the smoke to reach the celing.
      "What..what are you smiling about!?!" Johnson screamed, his hand shaking.
      "Remember that time when the chief of the academy gave us a 3 day food suspension? And we then snuck into his office and welded his desk and chair to the celing, and welded his fan on the floor?" I asked him, looking at the smoke rising to the top, just 10 more seconds needed.
      "Yes...why?" He asked suspicious
      "Why are you doing this Johnson?" I asked watching the plume of smoke past his face, following the very peak of the cloud upwards.
      "Well...it seems pretty obvious...the UNSC will be conquered by the rebels and the covenant." he replied,"once we prove that we hate the UNSC, the covenant will live in prosperity with us."
      Come on..THINK..."thats not true!" I yelled at him.
      "Oh?" He seemed interested.
      5 more seconds.
      "Well..."I stalled
      "I am growing impatient." He said, steadying his pistol.
      "The covenant are out to kill all humans, not just ones that get in their way." I remarked.
      3...2...1...
      "time's up." I mumbled.
      "what-"
      BRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!
      I watched his eyes travel upwards to the sound of the fire alarm. Perfect.
      "GAAAAAAAAAHH!" I screamed as I lunged for his gun. He noticed me jumping at him and fired a shot, right when I deflected his gun. The bullet hit Zamns in the torso, right in-between armor segments, and he crumpled to the ground. The water started to fall all over us, adding a somewhat scene to this grim situation.
      I took my right plated fist and swiped at Johnson's hand. I heard his fingers crunch, as he dropped the pistol onto the ground. He took me by the neck and rammed my face into the wall. My face-plate shaddered into pieces, cutting up my face. he continued to ram my face into the wall, until I grabbed his leg and pulled as hard as I could. He fell to the ground, so I twisted his ankle with all my strength.
      "AAAGGH" He screamed in pain as his anle gave-way to the force, breaking it into two pieces. He reaced for my shot gun which lay 1 foot away from his out-streched arm. I still had hold of his ankle and dragged him away from the shotgun. He heaved his weight to one side and kicked me with his good leg, in the face. My head landed hard on something.
      Johnson grabbed my shotgun and stood over me," GO TO HELL COOPER!" He screamed to me.
      "After you!" I said, grabbing the object under my head and rolling to the side. He pulled the trigger and the floor exploded next to my head. I jumped up and looked at what I was holding: Johnson's MD6.
      "DIE!" He screamed, pumping and firing another shot close to my head.
      please let this thing still have ammo in it. I pulled the trigger, and a bullet rushed out of the barrel and nailed johnson in the hand.
      "GAAARRHH!" he moaned as he tried to hold the shotgun with two injured hands. I pounced on him, disarming him on the fall to the ground.
      "Well it looks like you beat me again Pt. Cooper..." Johnson said silently,"go ahead...can you make my death painless?" He said with tears of desperation. I thought to myself: orders are to neutralize all enemies.
      "your not going to die..." I said, pulling off of him.
      He sat up,"what do you mean?"
      I pulled out a stun grenade,"after I accomplish this mission, they'll come and pick you up." I threw the stun grenade at him, the electric bolts hit him and put him in a coma.
      I rushed over to Zamns and Hopkins. I rolled Zamns over and found him in a small puddle of blood, he was still alive. I checked the bodies of Senker, Smith and Damf, and found a bio-foam container in damf's equipment case. I applied the bio-foam to Zamns and his facial expression changed. he smiled at me,"I new we'd make it. arrrgghh!" He was hurt badly, and I checked the equipment case to find a sirenge of pain repressment. I injected the whole thing into Zamns and he was able to get up.
      We walked over to Hopkins, who was still laying on the ground, we sat him up and Zamns slapped him across the face.
      "Thats not going to help." I said smiling to him.
      "Huh? What?" Hopkins woke up looking around the whole place, confused.
      "See I told you it would work!" Zamns said to me proving me wrong.
      "Hopkins, you lucky bastard!" I said smiling to him, because that was the second time I've saved him.
       "Alright we need to go and help out Corporal Roberts, we dont know what danger he's in."
      Com-link:This is Alpha Beta Echo niner! in immediate need of assistance!
      "Crap, thats the Corporal!," Zamns said.

      We picked up our equipment and kicked open the door to the stairs. There were rebels running up the stairs in response to the fire alarm. We opened fire on the unknowing rebels and they all fell to the ground dead, one certain person kept rolling down the steps until he hit the bottom.
      "Right there!" Zamns pointed to a door that had the number 2 above it. we broke open the door and peered inside. the vehichle bay was dark except for the center upmost center of the room, where the Corporal sat up against a crate.
      "He alive!" Hopkins whispered pointing to his breathing chest.
      "Okay, we'll head straight for him, but be very quiet." I ordered them.
      The room was Just like the one before, because It had crates and utilities stacked about 75 feet in the air. everything was so dark when we stepped into the room and closed the door behind us. there were many small hallways that branched oof of this main one that I saw. As we crept closer to the Still Corporal I said,"This doesnt make any sense. I figured this place to be the most populated area. As we crept closer and closer to the Corporal, things seemed to be going slower and slower.
      Now I could make out Corporal Roberts face, It was taped up, and he was tied to the crate. My eyes widened as he tried to scream for help. I looked up to the top of the crate and saw something moving.
      "Run," I said silently.
      "What?"
      The crate that the corporal was tied to exploded into flames, as dozens of bullets tore through his doomed body.
      "RUUUUUUN!" I screamed to them. The wall of boxes next to us exploded, sending large crates down on us like rain. A normal UNSC Battle Mech armed with 4 65mm auto-cannons charged out of the place where the wall was and opened fire on us. The defening noise of the auto-cannons raged throughout my ears as the floor was torn up by the hail of bullets.
      "RIGHT HERE!" I screamed at them to turn around a corner into a small hallway. We ran down the hallway and found an empty warthog. Zamns knew what to do and jumped into the driver seat I got on the gunner seat and hopkins took shotgun. Zamns peeled out as the Mech came crashing through the boxes tearing up any crates that got in its way with its continuous fire of bullets.
      "SHOOT HIM COOPER!" Zamns screamed at me.
      the mech came around the bend and I opened fire upon it. The chain gun was unbeliveibley hard to controll, the bullets were going everywhere, and most of the time were hitting the mech. We were swirving so much that the mech was never getting a shot off of us. The pilot finally found this out, and sped up on us.
      "SHIT HE'S GUNNA TRY TO RUN US OVER!" Hopkins panicked. He threw a grnade under its legs, it exploded, but did no apparent damage. We passed a hallway and I caught a glimpse of a large set of proto-type mechs sitting offline in a holding area.
      "TURN AROUND!" I yelled.
      "ARE YOU NUTS?!?" Zamns remarked.
      "We're gunna buzz by those mechs, and I'll jump out into one, ok?" I said
      Zamns didnt answer my request, but slammed on the brakes and continued back towards the mech. The mech was approaching rapidly, It was like a game of chicken, he was a car, and we were a chicken. As we got closer to the mech the rumbling was felt from every footstep it took. 100 yrds...50 yards..10 yards. Zamns slammed on the brakes, fish-tailing and the mech whizzed over our heads. The mech tried an abrupt halt, but the forward momentum brought the top of the mech forward. The mech fell frontwards, and the cockpit smashed into the ground exploding into flames and sparks. Just before we turned around the corner into the holding area, 2 warthogs came from the main hallway towards us.
      "HOPKINS!"I yelled to him,"YOU'LL HAVE TO TAKE GUNNER WHILE I JUMP!"
      "YES SIR!" Hopkins joyfully said.
      we were approaching the holding bay where the mechs were sitting and I jumped off,"I'll meet up with you guys later." I told them before I jumped. When I jumped off, I tucked, when I hit the ground, I rolled until I came to a stop. there were two men standing at the foot of one mech.
      "STOP RIGHT THERE!" I screamed at them. They saw me and reached for thier guns that were set against the ladder. I reached for my shotgun, CRAP! I must have left it on the warthog! Luckily I traded handguns with one of my dead fellow officers. I reached for my MD6 and shot them both until they fell to the ground.
      I searched their bodies for some kind of access key, and found one. I took it and quickly went up the ladder. I watched both the warthogs speed by me in pursuit of my teammates. I put the access key into the slot and the cockpit door opened.
      "Ok lets see how this thing works." i said to myself as I slid myself into the nicely fitting seat. The door dropped down and two joysticks came down to my hands. I motioned forward with the joystick and the mech moved forward, I moved my hand to the side: the mech went to the side. I pulled the right trigger and the large gun on the prototpe mech fired, boreing a big hole in the mech in front of me. I fired with the left trigger, and the twin 75mm autocannons blew apart the rest of the mech infront of me. I watched the status menu show the status of the mech, ammo and when the primary weapon was re-loaded.
      "Hmmm I cant let them use these mechs" I said wondering. I pushed the joysticks forward. The impact alarm went off just before I rammed into them. The first mech fell sideways, knocking all of the mechs over like dominos.
      "Ok time for some payback." I said, ready to kick some major ass. I moved forward in the direction of where the two Warthogs went. I must have been going 120 mph, because I caught up with them soon and opened fire on the first Warthog by suprise. The Warthog exploded into bits and pieces of flaming junk. The other Warthog dodged my second volley fire on my primary weapon but soon I pumped it so full of lead, it finally gave way and exploded, sending the driver and its passengers into the crates.
      The enemy light started flashing and gave me a nav. point on some enemies. I decided to cut through the crates, and smash through them. All the infantry scattered as I opened fire on the unexpecting vehicles. One person got into a Scorpion tank and fired a shell, straight at my torso. I responded by fireing a salvo of bulltes and a piece of my mind.
      "TAKE THAT SHITHEAD! HAHAHA!" I looked at my status menu and it showed that the tank shell ate through 40% of my Titanium B Armor.
      "Warning! Warning! 3 enemy Battle Mechs on radar!" The voice in the cockpit said.
      I turned around to see 3 mechs emerging into view. I fired my primary weapon on the closest one, and took a huge chunk out of its lower torso, mechanical liquids spilled out. I pulled the left trigger and littered the first one with bullet holes.
      "Warning! Damage to external armor!" The voice chimed in.
      I locked onto the next one and continuously fired the secondary autocannons on it in the same place until it hit the parts inside, and juices came out.
      "Primary weapon ready to fire."
      I pulled the right trigger square on the cockpit, I watched as the protectant cockpit glass shattered, killing the pilot. The next mech fired up it's propulsion rockets and jetted into the air. I looked around the cockpit and found a button that said 'press for jump-jets'. I pressed the button, and another joystick came up from below me and set infront of me. Butllets pinged off of my cockpit and littered the armor, damamging it, and putting my torso internal breech down to 20%. I pressed the trigger on the middle joystick, and I was lifted into the air. I fired the secondary weapon and focused on its left leg.
      "Primary weapon ready to fire"
      I pulled the right trigger and shredded its left leg. The fuel was leaking everywhere and the rocket flame ignited with the broken feul cells, and it exploded, completly decimating the left leg. the mech fell to the ground. I hovered over it and set the rockets to land, I landed hard on the mech's cockpit, silencing the operations of that one. I moved back over to the first mech, It seemed to be immobilized, and sense I was behind it I went full speed against it and slammed into it. The mech, due to all the damage to the torso, let out an explosion of sparks and split in two. I looked around at the damage I caused.
       I moved forward but stopped. I saw movement coming towards me. I couldnt tell, but i didnt want to fire upon it, fearing that it would be Zamns and Hopkins. I inched closer and saw what it was. There were large ranks of rebels coming my way, there must have been two or three hundred of them.
      "Oh crap." i said as I un-buckled myself from the mech. I opened the cockpit door and crawled out.
      "Good Bye, have a nice day." The friendly cockpit voice said to me as I left. I climbed carfuly down the mech, and saw a big gaping hole in the torso area where it had been majorly damaged. I ran backwards away from the ranks of rebels and towards where the Corporal was I walked slowly past the corporal, he was still breathing, but extremely wounded. He had blood flowing down his mouth and was ridden with large holes in his limbs and abdomen.
      "Cooper!" he coughed up some blood,"aghh... I rigged the last floor with loutus mines..uagh..I came back for you guys-raagh..but was captured and used as bait...I kept the detonator close to my heart...the only place that they didnt hit me. I still have it. get the hell out of here and blow the hell out of as many Activists as you can..."
      "Have you seen Zamns and Hopkins?" I asked him.
      he shook his head.
      "I think your the only one left..." Said the Corporal
      "What do you mean...your still here..." I said looking at the rebels coming around the corner
      "Not for long kid...now go!" he yelled at me, coughing up blood.
      "I have to carry you out!" I said with determination.
      He pulled out an MD6,"my death will be on the field, not in some med-center...GO...THATS AN ORDER!"
      I slowly walked away until I got to the door to go down. I saw him level his MD6 and fire it upon the ranks. I saw a few men fall, but I didnt want to see the Corporal die so I shut the door behind myself and ran down the steps, I heard an explosion of a grenade...and then silence. Thats the last I ever heard of Corporal Roberts.
      I ran down the flight of stairs with the detonator tight in my hand. I didnt bother surveying the scene before I ran in on the first floor. There were two men talking and smoking, I pointed my gun at their heads and fired, dropping both of the unexpecting soldiers. I picked up one of their MA2B's and an extra clip from the other one, and continued. The celing was lower and there were more aoutomated assembly lines I ran down the lines not seeindg any one until I arrived to the desk at the front. I ran back to the dead bodies of the two people and put his marine armor on. I walked slowly past the table of armed rebels and outside.
      Outside, there was a squad consisting of two tanks, 5 warthogs and about 25 other men. Minutes passed by as I waited, hopeing that Hopkins and Zamns would come out alive. I saw two suspicious men walk out dressed in shiny new marine suits, only one had a bullet hole in the rubber in-between plates and the other had a small bullet hole right where the info viewing panel is in front of the right eye they waled out and stood next to me.
      "Good to see you again, sir." The man wispered. I looked into his face, Zamns! The other man was Hopkins.
      "Ok fallow my lead." I said to them.
      I ran up to one of the rebels and acted panicked,"THEY'VE GOTTEN INTO THE 2nd FLOOR AND HAVE TAKEN OVER, WE NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE!"
      The man took the bait and motioned over to all the vehicles. Everybody sped into the building. I watched the hundreds of rebels come pouring out of the elevators and stairs onto the first floor in pursuit of me. The two forces met and stopped. They all looked confused. The man that we told pointed over to us. The person that looked like a commanding officer screamed an order to shoot us. I waived my hands and flipped open the case and pressed the detonator button. The explosion started from the back and moved forward. The rebels broke rank and tried to run from the mass explosions, but didnt make it very far. The explosions surged through my chest every time one went off. The lotus mines disintegrated the mass squads and tanks and threw men including Warthogs everywhere. The explosions hit the end, blowing the guards at the counter into pieces, and shattering the armored windows. In the end of all this chaos, all that was left was smoldering ruins of the first floor. I bent over and picked up a piece of metal and something fell out of my pocket. I looked at it and remembered when the Sergeant gave it to me just before he died:,"Take this,"he handed me a small device with a plastic case around a red button,"your gunna need it kid...". that was what I remembered from what he told me.
      "What is that thing?" Hopkins asked.
      "Im not sure...but sarge said I'll need it."
      "Hell, why dont you press the button, we have nothing to lose." Zamns suggested.
      I looked at the case around the button and broke it with the piece of metal that i picked up. I hesitated and then pressed the button.
      "Evac request sent." A voice chimed in from the small device.
      "Thanks sergeant" I said looking at the ground in sorrow.
      Thirty minutes later, two Pelican CL II's came to pick us up. Inside were two medics ready to help the injured. We climbed into the all-to-familiar seats, as the medics worked on Zamns' wound.
      "Where's everybody else?" A cheerful voice of the pilot said.
      "This IS everybody else..." hopkins said softly.
      "Roger that..." the pilot went silent after that.
      The pelican lifted off and went on a path in a different direction. The hatches closed and locked.
      "Uh pilot?"I was confused.
      "I read you loud and clear."
      "Why arent we on a path back to HQ?"
      "We've recieved an urgent distress beacon that reqests mass re-enforcements."
      "Where?"
      "Mars."

Cry for a Hero part 4: Touchdown on Mars
Date: 20 August 2002 1:15 am

      ~I leaped out of the dropship onto the red planet. The place was barren and dusty. I looked around to find no one else present. I was alone in a hostile area, I had to move and find someone to aid me. I ran and ran until I came to the bottom of a hill. The wind was blowing hard, as crimson dust blew through the air. I made out figures up on the top of the hill, coming towards me. I reached for my radio: no radio, I reached for my binoculars: no binoculars. The figures were becoming visible and they appeared to be hundreds of humans in black robes and black masks runnning towards me. I heard their battle cry from 500 yards away and I decided they were hostile, I reached for MA2B: no MA2B. I panicked, and while I watched them running towards me, I let my hand run down to the holster of my pistol: the holster was empty. I was unarmed and alone and I decided to stay where I was. I raised my arms in defeat hoping they would take me as prisoner. They got within 100 yards, and they all opened fire on me. Dust sprayed everywhere as bullets hit into the ground. During all this violence, everything was silent, all i could hear was the wisper of the wind. They got close to me and there bullets were hitting their mark, passing through my vital organs, though...I felt no pain. I finally fell to the ground, where I lie awaiting to die. I listened to the wind blow into my ear, i figured this would be the last thing I would hear. I lay looking up into the dust filled sky, as my eyes became filled with blood. I heard footsteps coming towards me as my eyes started to close. I opened my eyes and saw one of the masked men standing over me. He grabbed his mask and took it off, revealing the face that would doom humanity: The Covenant.
      "GAHAHAHAHAHA," this alien laughed over my bloodied body. my eyes started to close, and my body became limp as the laughing voice echoed in my ears...~


      "Hey...hey...COOPER!"
      "Huh? what?" I woke up to see that I was still in the dropship. I looked towards the hatch to see a lond corridor.
      "Wha...where are we?"I asked to the face of Hopkins appearing into my clearing vision.
      "Well we just borded the UNSC 'Pheonix' troop transport vessel. Are you alright?" he looked at me strangely.
      "Yah...why?" I replied in confusion.
      "You were shaking in your sleep and moving around, whats up?" He looked worried.
      "Nothing..nothing." I assured him as I climbed out of the seat and stood upright,"where's everyone else?"
      "Well we were all told to go to the briefing chamber ASAP to get us ready for the fight against the activists that have taken over a contingent of Mars territory."Hopkins said.
      "So why are the Marines and us being sent to do this?" I asked.
      "The police on Mars' surface have broken off radio and com link contact." Hopkins said, his face grim.
      "Ok, well we better go to the briefing room." I said, changing the subject.
      We found our way into the briefing chamber, and looked down to see hundreds, mabye thousands of police officers and marines standing in a large space, awaiting instructions.
      "Welcome everyone" A voice boomed in the large room,"you have all been told about what has happened on Mars, and you know what you must do. Eliminate as many rebels as you can, avoiding civilian casualties. The sector that has been attacked is this one." A large holo-map appeared in front of everyone. A large section of the planet was highlighted,"All that has been allegedly taken by the rebels known as the 'Activists'."
      I looked around at all the police officers: most of them looked scared. I then looked at the large groups of marines and saw they were anctious to go into battle.
      "There is a current count of 250 police officers and 775 Marines Participating in this campaign. The police officers are inefficiently equipped and armed so they will be sent to the armory and will be trained on the new MA6B and will be equipped with the latest armor."
       I ran down into the large group of people, and saw as the Marines walked to a different doorway than what the police were walking into. I followed the police into the doorway to find a large room filled with weapons and armor.
      "LISTEN UP SCRUBS!" A UNSC officer barked to us,"You'll be given the latest equipment used by the Marines: Titanium B armor plating, and the MA6B. We have to hurry up, so I'll run through the basics. The Titanium B armor plating you will be suited in looks a lot like the original armor plates, but can withstand blasts from pistols, machine guns, and most importantly: LAAG fire. There is a small screen that will be close to your right eye, that will aid you in communications, important news on the field, and has many viewing aids, like infared, zoom capabilities, and many other uses that you will discover on your own." He put down the armor that he was holding up, and picked up a sleek looking gun,"These are the MA6B's. they have enough power to take out a Warthog's armor, with less recoil than any other MA class. The magazine holds 80 bullets." He placed down the rifle,"Oh I almost forgot!" He picked up a standard 8 inch combat knife,"thanks to the covenant, we were able to make a plasma dagger." He switched it on and a luminescent blue glow surrounded the blade.
      "Bridge to troops," the intercom came to life,"this is Captian Sinfelt, Prepare to board the pelican dropships in loading bays 1, 2, and 3."
      "Ok suit-up, you dont got much time!"the UNSC officer said to us.
       Everyone ran out of the room suited with the armarments that the UNSC personell gave us, and followed the arrows to the loading bays. We stopped running when we came to the massive loading bays.
      "YOU!" A marine shouted at us, standing next to one of the many pelicans,"2 more in this one!"
      I ran over to the dropship and took a seat. I watched as another police officer climbed in with me.
      "ok hold tight!" The pilot radioed in, as the pelican immediatly rose into the air.
       The pelican's back hatch closed as the airlock opened up allowing us into the void of space. We continued en route to Mars and then the pilot said,"Ok we're reaching Mars' atmosphere, ETA 15 min."
      I watched the two marines each on the end of the hatch prepare their sniper rifles in case of a hostile LZ. I looked around at all the people: all of them were shining their rifles or fiddleing with the plasma daggers.
      The hatch opened and the snipers pointed their guns out the back and flipped the saftey off.
      "ETA 5 min. hold on...Im getting some activity at 3 o'clock!" the pilot informed us
      I gripped the handlebars in fear of us getting hit.
      "ETA 3 min. Activity ceasing."
      I squinted behind us but saw nothing in the dust filled air.
      "There's a dust storm going on right now, so it'll be hard to land safetly." The pilot said.
      I heard an explosion coming from the ground and then suddenly the tail of the Pelican exploded into shrapnel and flames,the warthog on the end dangled from a single hook, still intact.
      "SHIT! WE'RE HIT! We've lost our main accelerators! Switching to hover rockets!"
      The rockets that are supposed to be used to make a safe landing roared to life in order to maintain flight.
      "Reaching LZ, but there's activity everywhere!"
      The com channels came to life, and there were screams of pilots and marines being downed by enemy fire.
      The snipers turned on the infared vison and let lose on magazine after magazine of sniper rounds.
      "OK LZ has been reached, landing..."the pilot said shakily. The warthog started to swing as the pilot slowed down. finally, the hook that was holding the warthog broke, and the warthog fell down and out of sight.
      I looked at the back of the hatch, past the continuous fire from the sharp-shooters and saw dozens of other pelicans landing. When we reached the ground everyone ran out of the pelican. It was mass pandimodium, as Marines and police scrambeled for vehichles. I looked to the side of me to see a hovering pelican get hit by a rocket. The heat from the explosion bruned against my face as I ran past it.
      "WE NEED TO GET OUTTA HERE!" a marine screamed just before he was ridden with bullets to the back. A spray of bullets hit me in the chest, but the armor saved me, and knocked me backwards into the red sand. there were explosions, gunfire and cries of fellow men. Some marine lifted me up out of the sand,"Do you know of any other vehichles that we could access?"
      I thought back to when the warthog fell out of the pelican,"YES!"
      I thought to where it would be and ran in that direction. I arrived to the warthog, and luckily, it was intact, and ready to be used. Marine came up to me with two other marines.
      "ummm...theres only room for three" I said.
      "Can you hold on?" The marine asked me while jumping into the driver seat.
      "ummm..."
      He grabbed my arm, and threw me into the warthog, and sped off into the barren Mars desert with the four of us. I still heard screames and explosions from where the landing zone was. The cries for help on the com-link channel grew silent as we sped off into the vastness of Mars.

Cry for a Hero part 5: Man Behind the Cloak
Date: 21 August 2002 7:27 pm

       The Warthog I rode in sped at full speed until we heard no more noise. The Jeep came to a screeching halt.
      "Okay we're going to run a recon, and find if there is anything apealing," the driver said to me,"this is a job for the Marines and not for you police," he said snidly to me,"your job is to hold position here until we come back," he threw me a small device, like the one the sergeant gave to me before he died,"if you're in trouble, press this button, and we'll come right back."
      I jumped out of the warthog, and onto the hard sand,"good luck!" I said to them. Nobody answered as they revved the engine and sped into the dust storm, and dissapeared from 20 yards away.
      I was alone again, and I had a feeling that they would never come back. I waited for 45 minutes for them to come back and turned around to start walking back to the LZ. Then I heard a faint noise in the background, coming from the direction of where the Marines left. I stopped and listened to the noise get louder, it was contiuous like an engine. I though mabye it could be a Pelican searching for survivors. The noise was getting closer by the second and it was starting to sound like a warthog. The noise was getting louder, so loud that it must be about 50 yards away from me. Then, A large figure of a warthog slammed out of the sandy wind and into my line of sight, 20 yards away. I jumped out of the way, just avoiding the speeding warthog. I watched it pass me just before an explosion tore it into pieces.
       I ran over to the wreakage of what was left of the Warthog and searched for survivors.
      "augh! over here!" An unknown Marine shouted to me.
      I ran over to where he lay, to find a close to dead man, burnt from head to toe and covered in blood.
      He grabbed the collar of my armor,"You cant stay here!" he said in complete pain,"The rebels have taken over the entire South-side of this section! There is a small city that we located Northbound of here that might give you refuge...grrg...but you have to get out of here!" he let go of me,"go...."
      The unknown marine fell silent along with the others in the warthog. I switched-on my thermal scanners and saw that the whole sout-side was covered in heat signatures, most likly rebel forces. I slowly got up onto my feet, and botled north. I kept my thermal scanners on, in hope of seeing civilization. I probably ran for 20 minutes, until I saw heat signatures coming from the direction of where i was running. I came up to the city to find a wrecked city. There were burning buildings and bodies of what looked like, innocent civilians. I walked further into the city, down the streets, past flaming turned over cars, and rounded a corner. An explosion sent me to the ground, as concrete from the building next to me spilled all over me. I lay, buried under concrete, while I watch a rebel tank, along with 5 other men walk down the stret towards me. I lie there waiting for them to pass me while I act dead. While they were passing me, I pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade and rolled it under the tank. The explosion blew the tank in half and sent the bodies of the soldiers flying for a short time before they slumped on the ground dead. I pushed the rubble off of myself and continued down the street, I saw one very large building, still intact. I went into it and ran up the stairs. As I ran up, there were bodies of police and other fighters strewn wherever there were windows ridden with bullet holes. I came up to the end of the stairs and went through the smoldering door, onto the roof. I looked around at the carnage: there were people that were mangled and shot-up...dozens of them, all dead.
      "LOOKOUT!!!" someone screamed, just before there was a crack of a sniper rifle and a bullet smashed into my helmet. I crawled to the small 4 foot side wall, where there was protection from the sniper. I looked over to my right and saw a badly wounded police officer,"Mars protection unit, Sergeant Walkins, it's good to see another police around here." the police officer said to me, holding his gut, where blood ran from.
      "What happened here?" I asked in disgust of all the slaughtered bodies that lie on the roof.
      "We were caught by suprise, when our police headquarters in this city were ambushed by rebels. The lucky few, including me, escaped HQ just before the rebels blew it up with a large explosive. We fought a hard and long battle. Finally, the rest of us,including armed civilians, made our way to this building...not many of us made it up here...this was the final battleground," he paused and looked into the sky and then asked me,"who are you?"
      "Private Cooper, Earth Protecion Unit." I answered
      "Oh thank god we got re-enforcements!" the officer said, with his first smile.
      "There was a...complication, and I dont think many of us made it out." I told him, and that wiped the smile off his face. I streched my legs and the sniper fired at my legs sticking out, the bits of the roof spit into the air, as the bullet missed my foot by an inch. I pulled my leg back in quickly.
      "Where the hell is that sniper coming from?" I asked.
      "The tall brownish building directly behind us." he answered while he checked his wound. I switched my thermal sensors and quickly popped my head up, to see where he was. the sniper fired another shot that slammed into the front of my helmet. I fell down with the impact of the bullet to my helmet, I felt a large bump on my head. I decided that this sniper needed to be taken out immediatly. I switched my righht view lens from thermal, to zoom. I puled out a grenade and checked my MA6B. I pulled the pin on the grenade and arched my hand over the wall towards the sniper. I jumped up and watched as the sniper followed the grenade with his gun, not paying any attention to me, bad idea. I jumped from my hiding place and put the view into 10x zoom, leveled the MA6B, and fired at the unknowing sniper. I kept my finger on the trigger as the bullets pierced through the wall where the sniper was standing. The sniper jolted with every bullet that went through his body. He fired his gun into the air and finally fell to the ground, dead.
       I helped the Police officer to his feat and he stood up, thanking me for saving him,"your a great hero for what you have just done." He cocked his head over to something in the distance, out of the city, and into the desert. I looked over to find what he was looking at: there were mass troops fighting eachother, jumping into trenches, and tanks and warthogs returning fire.
      "I got to go." I said slowly, staring at the large fire-fight. I threw the sergeant a med-pack from a persons body and let himself deal with his wound. I ran down the flight of stairs and onto the streets. I kept running until i came to the desert where UNSC Warthogs zoomed past me, firing thier chain guns. I lept into one of the trenches, and ran down it, until I came to a large group of Marines and Police.
      "Welcome to the party." A marine leisurly said to me.
      "Whats going on here?" I asked him.
      "Well, somehow we all recieved a message to rendezvous at this location, all the survivors rushed to here, to find a large opposition of rebel forces, just beyond those barricades, in more trenches. There's a communications tower just beyond this detour, that this message told us to go to."
      "What are we going to do?" I asked another question to him.
      He sighed,"we've been ordered to have a full-out charge on their trenches, when the commander of this ground squad says so."
      "THE COUNT OF 3!!! WE CHARGE" a man yelled out.
      "Here we go." the marine next to me said with a smile on his face."
      "2!!!!"
      "Whats your name?" I asked the marine.
      "1!!!!! GO! GO! GO! GO!"
      We jumped out of the trenches and immediatly were responded with enemy fire.
      "my name is Priva-GAAHHH" he tried to answer my question, but got a bullet to the throat.
      We all charged, there were hundred of us all charging, guns blazing. Everyone let out a battle cry as some rebels began to flee. everyone dove behind the barricades to reload. Explosions blew the berricades to sand and sent some people to the ground, as the rebels disintegrated the barricades with dozens of rocket launchers. We all came out of cover, and continued on towards the enemy, firing at as many rebels as we could. I saw all of them duck and all fire ceased, as we ran towards the 500 yard stretch, they all came back up, but with large things. I zommed in towards the things and saw that they were LAAG chain guns mounted with a bi-pod. There were about 50 of the chain guns pointed at us, as we all ran towards them. I turned off the zoom and yelled at everone to get ready for heavy fire. I saw all of the chain guns light up, as bullets deflected of us, but some of the bullets found their mark, in the unarmored spots, dropping about 50 people in the first 200 yards. We were at 300 more yards, and the chain guns were starting to get more accurate, and dropping more marines. I still ran forward without a scratch, as men around me fell to the ground bleeding refusally. 100 yards and closing, only about a hundred men were left. I kept running and the line thinned every yard we closed on them. 20 yards, a marine yelled,"GIVE EM' HELL!!!" as he pulled out his plasma dagger. We jumped down into the enemy trenches and activated the plasma daggers. I pressed the button and it let of a deadly glow. i ran up to the first rebel that was attempting to lift the chain gun. I sliced at his abdomen and he was split in half. 5 man charged at me, with combat knives. I spun with the dagger out and decapitated the first two men, then I rammed the knive through another, spilling his guts on the ground and swiped the legs off another. The last one brought up his pistol. I quickly ran over, and amazingly, sliced the pistol in half just when the man fired. The bullet exploded in the man's face and he was temporarily blinded. I took advantage of this and cut his head off. The blade was so hot, that when it cut off the man's head, it cauterized the jugular viens, allowing no blood to come out. I ran down the trench to notice the brutal slaughter of the other rebels by the deadly force of the plasma dagger. We ran all down the trenches, eliminating the enemy, until it was silent.
       We peered over the trenches to see the devistation of smoldering tanks and other vehicles, dead bodies, and large craters. I turned my head towards a lrage structure, standing out of the dust-filled wind. The count on people that survived was 51 Marines and 4 Police. We all walked slowly over to the structure.
      "Ok" A marine that seemed to be in command said,"this appears to be the communications building, us 20 Marines will get into the main communication center via air vents, The rest of you guys will access into the main com center by using the hallways. I looked around at the police and saw two familiar faces: Zamns and Hopkins!
      We all noticed eachother and ran over to greet eachother. It was a great moment to see that some of my friends made it through.
      "Lets move out!" the commanding officer said. We open the door, and immediatly autocannons fired at us and killed 5 men. One marine tossed a grenade into the hallways and destroyed the two autocannons. We ran down the hallway. and Hopkins stopped and accessed a panel.
      "What are you doing?" Zamns asked him.
      Hopkins answered,"Im attempting to shut down security!"
       Then the lights in the section of the hallway we were in, turned red.
      "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO HOPKINS?!?" Zamns screamed at him.
      "Musta screwed up!" He said, and made a run for the closing doors in the hallway. Everyone scrambled for the closing doors. I jumped out of the way of the closing door and tried to jam it with my plasma dagger. I heard it crunch and the back of it sparked. A few more men made it through the door that I jammed, before the dagger started to really spark. It fell to the ground and I grabbed it. I touched the end of my plasma dagger and it electricity surged through my rubber gloves. It was broken, but i still kept it. I looked throught the window of the door that trapped a lot of marines. I heard the doors seal. The red lights in that hallway turned from red to green, as gas started to pour out into the sealed room that was holding them. All of the trapped people ran to the doors and attempted to cut it open with their plasma daggers, but failed. They slowly stopped pounding and fell to the ground dead. I looked around myself, there were only 6 people left, including me and Zamns and Hopkins.
       We ran down the corridors, without any disruptions, then came to a door that was labeled 'Central Com Center'
      We open the doors to find 3 rebels. They jumped and took cover behind some com officers that were at the computer panels held hostage. The rebels put the guns to the heads of the com officers. I also jumped behind a com officer and leveled my gun to the com officer's head. The other people held their position in the small dark cramped room, guns at everyones head. I looked up to the air vents to find some of the grates being lifted up and guns pointing down at the rebels, which meant that the cammander made it. Everyone was silent until a com officer broke the silence,"WAIT! im reciving and encripted message being sent from space...its hard to encript, but... oh my god...." The com officer froze looking at the screen.
       Suddenly a gun fired from the vents, hitting a rebel. The hit rebel fired a few shots into the com officers, and they fell down dead,"FORGET ABOUT YOUR OWN STRIFES!" The last remaining com officer said,"THEIR HERE!!!" he looked terrified, still looking at the screen,"AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!"
      Everyone was excanging bullets. One rebel puled a pin on a frag, and lobbed it up into the vents. the explosion rocked the ceiling and flames shot out of the vents, most likely killing all of the marines inthe vents. 3 of our men dropped to the ground dead, leaving just me, Hopkins and Zamns. the fighting was over and there was no noise from the air ducts above. I walked over to the com officer that was still alive,"What is it? I asked."
      He pointed at the screen:

      <.....Intercepting message.....>

      <.....Message intercepted......>

      <.....Breaking encription code......>

      <.....Verifying oirgin.......>

      <.....Space ship tracked from Saturn......>

      <.....Not UNSC commisioned.....>

      <.....Searching database for info.....>

      <.....Type found......>

      <.....Processing.....>

      <.....Covenant......>


      I stared in awe at the screen.
      The com officer pulled out his sidearm and shot the screen,"IT CANT BE!!!" He screamed. HE leveled his pistol to his head and shot himself.
      I heard a flump to the left of me: it was zamns sprawled on the floor.
      "Hey Cooper." I Hopkins said, as he turned me around.
      "Wha-"
      The butt of his gun hit me directly in the face. I fell to the ground slowly and as my eyes slowly closed, I saw Hopkins stand over me and laugh, just like in my dream...

Cry for a Hero part 6: End is Near
Date: 23 August 2002 2:03 am

      I woke up to feel a pain on my forehead. I went to rub it, but my hands seemed to be stuck. Someone smaked me in the face, and I opened up my eyes slowly, to find a familiar face.
      "So," Hopkins smiled at me,"how are things going Coop?"
      I looked around the room: it was a small utility room about 10x10 in size. Only Hopkins was present at the time.
      "Im doing fine how 'bout you?" I aksed smiling. He punched me in the face and smirked.
      "What did you see in the com center?" he asked me, suspicious,"dont make me kill you now, this is the only reason I kept you alive...are the UNSC sending more troops? Is that what the message read?"
      "nope" I answered simplily.
      "Then what the hell was it Coop?"
      "Why the hell would I want to tell you?" I asked, while finding out that my hands were tied behind a simple wooden chair that I was sitting on.
      "Because," he pulled my plasma dagger out and put it to my neck, it was un powered at the time," if you dont...im going to cut your smart little head off."
      "So your just like Johnson?" I asked.
      He smiled,"Yes, we worked together on the whole thing, gathering info for the Activists, weapons depots, weaknesses in the force, and much more!" he paused,"didn't you ever wonder why Johnson just knocked me out back at that warehouse, and didnt kill me? He was SUPPOSED to fake like I was hit in the head, and I was SUPPOSED to fall down and draw my gun to kill the rest of you people."
      "You told the rebels where we were going to land...didnt you. And you told the Marines to rendezvous at that certain location? You Bastard!" I lunged at him, but failed, considering that I was tied. I fell over sideways, he put me upright and kicked me in the face, blood swelled down my nose.
      "Yes it was quite easy, all I had to do was punch in co-ordinates of the LZ, and send the info to the rebels. once the Pelicans were fired on, I walked to the pilots cockpit, shot him and oped the main hatch when we were still in the process of coming out of space, killing all the passengers. I then came all the way to this com center, where I was able to rally all the survivors of the UNSC raid here, so they would be slaughtered," Hopkins let out a big laugh,"I also purposly set off the gas defence seystem in that corridor to kill who I hoped to be all of you."
      "Good plan," I sarcasticly commented him, while looking at my malfunctioned plasma dagger that he held in his hand,"If your going to kill me, do it in honor, please make it painless."
      He looked at me suspiciously, while I looked at his bare hands.
      "Fine, but I gotta know how this baby works, I didnt really pay much attention to the instructor." he said while fiddleing with the plasma dagger.
      I sighed and said,"Hold the bottom with one hand and flip the switch,"
      He put his hand on the bottom, where it was crushed, and put his finger on the switch. Sweat beaded off my forehead in anticipation of his faulty move. I was fixated on his finger as he slowly flipped the switch. The energy surged through the plasma dagger until it reached the crushed wires at the bottom of the dagger, The massive bolts of electricity went into his hand that was at the bottom of the plasma dagger. I watched him as sparks flew out of the dagger, and his hand started to fry. He threw the dagger at the wall, breaking it. I stood up and rammed him in the stomache with my head. he fell down twitching from the voltage that surged through his body in those few seconds. I dropped on his body, with my back, breaking the chair on him, and all the ropes on me became lose. I threw all the ropes off of me and liesurely opened the door, leaving Hopkins there to twitch for a few hours, besides, I had better things to worry about.
      I ran down the empty corridors until I ran past one where there was yelling at. I walked back to the door and cracked the door open, to find Zamns in the same position I was in, being bossed for information. I saw his eyes light up as I snuck through the door and ran up to the unknowing, and alone rebel interrigator. I grabbed His head from behind, and quickly snapped his neck. The man jolted for a second, and flumped to the ground dead. I took the man's gun and smashed Zamns chair with it, freeing him from it. I looked at the gun which seemed to be a MA5B but had a grenade attachment welded to the side of it. I looked at the ammo count:60 bullets, and 5 impact grenades, and 2 extra magazines. We ran out of the door just as the whole entire facility's lights flashed red. and red alert sirens went off blaring in my ears. I looked down the hallway from where Hopkins was, he was laying halfway on the ground, and he had his hand on the security button. He laughed continuously before I fired 10 bullets into his body. He fell completly down in a puddle of his own blood, and died with a hysterical look on his face.
      "We gotta get outta here quick!" I said.
      "Detonation in 10 minutes, Havok nuclear device armed." A computer voice sounded.
      "OH SHIT! That Idiot Hopkins must have armed the weapon!" Zamns said.
      "Is there anyway we can stop this?" I asked him while we ran down a long corridor.
      "Yes, every building has an override command, so we gotta get to the central processing unit, before time runs out!" Zamns yelled to me over the sirens.
      Men poured out of a large room and scrambled for the exits, we didnt bother fighting them, so we let them continue on thier way. We came to a map that showed that we needed to go through the large room and take two rights to the corridor that led to the CPU. We ran into the large room where about five men came through the door, these men were ready to fight. I fired my grenade in the middle of the group and their bodies were sent everywhere in a hail of shrapnel and fire. We came through the door back out into a corridor, and took a right, we continued on until we got to the corridor that turned into the hallway that led to the CPU. I looked around the hallway and peeked it in just before 4 pop-up sentry guns shot up the walls next to me. They were guarding the CPU and I had to take them out in order to continue on.
      "Zamns, run as fast as you can across this hallway to the other corner, to distract them." I ordered him.
      "Right!" He confirmed and ran across the hallway, as bullets littered the floor all around him. Just before he reached the other corner of the hallway, I came out of my corner and fired 2 impact grenades directly at the sentry guns. They exploded, sending metal everywhere, and left sparking craters in the floor. We ran down the corridor and found a sealed panel labeled: "CPU WARNING: DO NOT TAMPER!"
      "Warning! 7 minutes until detonation" the computer voice informed us."
      We bashed at the panel that was sealing the controls, and finally, it came loose, and fell off. We saw the button that would override the detonation, but it was sealed and needed authorization.
      "SHIT! We aren't authorized to override the system!" Zamns told me.
      "Well...why dont we just bash the seal?" I said with desperation.
      "I leveled my barrel of my gun and pulled the trigger, releasing 50 bullets into the small seal. The seal was getting thinner by every bullet, so I dropped the spent clip and put in a new one, and fired again, unleashing my entire magazine on it. I heard it crack and then I smahed it enirely with the butt of my gun.
      Relief swept over me and I smiled,"After you!" I happily said and motioned for Zamns to press the override button. I saw his hand push the button, and I jumped for joy. We high-fived each other, then suddenly all the lights shut off. We both turned on our flashlights and looked over at our selvs.
      "Hey whats going on?" Zamns asked me.
      "I don't really kn-"
      "Warning! No authorization recived! Tampering detected in CPU! Base has been now set into lockdown!" The computer voice boomed over all the speakers.
      I heard all the corridor doors shut and lock, and the countdown continue.
      "Were screwed..." Zamns said slowly just before our flashlights flickered...and went out.

Cry for a Hero Part 7: Escape...again?
Date: 25 August 2002 5:31 am

       That was it, we were done for, after all we did, we are foiled by something so unexpectible, yet stupid.
      "Well," I slumped down on the ground, laying my back against the wall,"it's been nice knowing ya."
      "Yah you too," Zamns answered.
      As I lay on the ground, I felt a cool breeze run down my back. I close my eyes imagining that the breeze is coming from an open window on Earth, the cool autum breeze soothes me, and I relax and forget about my troubles. I thought to myself, too bad there's no windows. I snapped my eyes open, realizing that the cool air was coming from something.
      "Hold on Zamns," I said getting up on my feet,"I think there's an air vent in here."
      I slammed my hands on the wall and traveled them up the wall to find that air was blowing harder. I flipped on my infared vision on my view glass, and saw blue heat signatures iminating from a place in the celing.
      "AH-HAH!" I yelled.
      "What is it?" Zamns asked in the pitch dark.
      "I found a way out, flip on your infared vision and help me up there."
      I saw the red heat radiating from Zamns come towards me, and stick out his arms. I jumped on his hands and bashed open the grate that lead to the air conditioning vents. When I got up in the small vents, I helped Zamns up, and we continued down the vent.
      "Ok we need to find a vent that leads to the generator on the roof." I told Zamns.
      We crawled and went around a couple bends until I saw blue signatures going upwards. I was able to stand up and look upwars. The generator was blocking the exit, seeing that there was emmense heat radiating off of the air conditioner that was about 30 feet above us.
      "Stay back." I told Zamns, and I fired a round at the air contitioner. I saw the red bullets zing into the generator, until it exploded in a briliant red color on my small infared screen.
      "I hope you can climb." I said as I positioned myself, so my feet were on both sides of the 3 foot wide vertical shaft to the roof. I slowly climbed up the shaft, with Zamns directly behind, errm, below me. I reached the top and pulled myself up onto the roof. I helped Zamns out of the shaft, and I turned off my infared screen. It was bright outside, and the dust storm seemed to have passed. We ran down the fire exit, down the side of the building to hit the familiar hard sand.
      "2 minutes to detonation." the computer voice boomed outside. I watched as rebels scrambeled for empty warthogs to escape. I ran beside the building not worrying about getting into a warthog.
      "Where are we going?" Zamns questioned me.
      "Not only was Hopkins stupid enough to use my plasma dagger, but also he gave me a perfect escape idea."
      "What!?!"
      "Hopkins told me that he killed everyone in his pelican, and went to the com center to radio in for a rendevouz point. He couldnt have ditched the Pelican and still made it to the com center and broadcasted his message in such a short matter of time for all the UNSC to get there."
      "So...."
      "So what Im saying, is that Hopkins HAD to have flown the Pelican all the way to the com center in such a short matter of time. The Havok nuclear blast hits a radius of 50 miles, but only affects aircraft within 10,000 feet from the explosion. We would never make it on a Warthog, so that why we're taking Hopkins' Pelican."
      We came around the corner to find Hopkins' Pelican hovering.
      "Hurry someones going to Take off!" Zamn said to me.
      We ran into the back hatch of the taking-off pelican, and opened up the cockpit to find a terrified rebel piloting the aircraft. I lifted my weapon and fired directly at his body, to make sure the controls weren't damaged. Blood splattered all over the cockpit, and we threw his body out of the seat. I grabbed hold of the controlls, and made sure that we went almost directly upwards.
      "How much time do we have left?" I asked Zamns
      "Ummmm...one minute."
      I looked at the altitude monitor: it read 4,000 feet.
      "Why cant this thing go any faster!?!" I screamed at the Pelican, thinking that we might not make it.
      "Drop the cargo." Zamns said, pointing to the Warthog hanging on the tail of the Pelican.
      I found a button that said "Release vehicle" and pressed it. The Warthog dropped to the ground, and the pelican gained a little more speed.
      "Needs more dropped!" I told Zamns.
      He nodded, and started releasing all the weapons holds on the pelican. Rocket launchers and other heavy items slid out the back and into the air. The Pelican gained more speed, showing us at 9,000 feet.
      "TIME?!" I yelled to him.
      "25 seconds." He answered back.
      My hands gripped the stick and sweat poured off of my face. I knew this was going to be a close one. The altitude devivce showed 9,600.
      "10 seconds!"
      9,800.
      "6 seconds!"
      9,900 showed on the device. Breakup warnings lit-up all over the ship. The status display showed that our wings were about to break off. Just a couple more seconds, hold on wings!.
      10,000 feet!
      3 seconds.
      I looked back at the building and It flashed, and a gigantic blinding explosion blew out of the place where there was the com center. I had to look away from the brightness, but felt that the explosion was close to hitting us. The shockwave hit us and knocked out our landing rockets. The remaing ammo was thrown all over the back room and the cockpit. I saluted all the men that gave up their lives in that battle, and continued onward, closing the back hatch before we began to exit the world's atmosphere.
      "Off by 3 seconds" I said to myself.
      "Zamns," I said, getting his attention,"I saw the thing that the com officer saw..."
      "Huh? What was it?"
      "It was..." I strained to say it. I thought to myself, no it cant happen here...here of all places,"proof of covenant forces near Saturn and on a vector towards Earth..."
      I saw Zamns drop on his knees,"no.....no-no-no-NO!"
      "Sorry...but its true. We might be the only ones to know, so we have to tell the UNSC "Phoenix" about our findings, so we can rally the whole UNSC fleet in the entire universe to combat the covenant in our home galaxy."
      "Right." Zamns said un-enthusiasticly.
      "You don't think we will prevail...do you?" I asked him grimly.
      He didnt answer my question, just stayed silent on the floor of the pelican.
       We were in space for a while before Zamns slowly walked to the cockpit, and sat in the side seat.
      "Whats that?" Zamns asked pointing at somthing in the distance. It was large, and had a metallic look to it. The large object gleamed in the sun and seemed to be a large UNSC ship.
      "Hmm...it looks like the "Phoenix", I'll try to establish a com link," I said, and switched the frequency to the ship's frequency, I got nothing. I looked over to Zamns and said,"no link."
      "Well mabye they're maintaining radio silence." Zamns inquired.
      "Yah, lets take a closer look and try to get in touch with them." I said, and pushed the thrusters towards the object.
       We got closer and saw that there are many pieces of metallic slabs floating around. We dodged a few pieces that came at us, as we neared the great looking object. The figure blocked out the sun as we went next to it. We flew by the side of it, and our jaws dropped, when we saw the words printed on the side of the big metal heap: "Phoenix".
      "Oh my..."
      "Uh Cooper...look..." Zamns said in awe of something.
      "Not right now Zamns." I said to him staring at the "Phoenix", which was now a heap of metal with large plasma holes borred into it.
      "No...LOOK!" Zamns said, and swiveled my head towards something else, in a different direction. I looked over, and saw the lovely moon of Earth, only, a big hunk was torn out of it. I looked over to where there were many purple objects in space, past the moon. I looked on the navigation display to where the purple objects were:

      <....navigational point Alpha....>

      <....processing....>

      <....Nav. point found....>

      <....Locaton: Earth....>

      I saw as some of the purple objects broke up to reveal some of Earth, It was red and charred in many places as the purple objects, which appeared to be hundreds of covenant cruisers, hailing Earth with thier weapons aimed to incenerate the planet.
      "What are we going to do?" Zamns asked me, still starring at the awful sight.
      "Run..." I said just before something came on the long range sensors.
      "CRAP! Its a covenant cruiser, they've spotted us!" Zamns said. I saw a light flash on the enormous cruiser, and I jeered off course. The plasma cannon shot vaporized our wing and sent us in a crazy path.
      "MAYDAY! MAYDAY!" I yelled as I sped back towards Mars in hope of landing safetly.
      "Oh shutup no ones going to listen to you!!!" Zamns screamed at me. I watched as the Orbital MAC Batteries guarding Mars, fired a volley of MAC rounds at the cruiser, and blew it to pieces. More covenant Battlecruisers were coming out of slipstream, close to Mars and immediatly opened fire upon the recharging MAC guns. The covenant cruisers were slowly picking off the MAC guns one by one, as we descended down upon Mars. We entered the Atmosphere at great speeds. Once again, breakup warnings lit-up all over the Pelican. I put the thrusters on full and tried to get a less of an angle on our quick descent. We were nearing the ground quickly.
      "OOOOOH CRAP!" I said over the sound of the speeding pelican, just noticing that we had no landing rockets because the Havok knocked them out of service. We came in at emminse speeds, and I thightened my helmet strap. 10 feet and closing, I was still going fast, but was trying to land it as softly as I could, by going in at a very small angle. 5 feet and closing, I saw a big boulder in the way about 2 miles ahead. We hit the ground and I pulled up, trying to create drag, to slow it down. The impact into the ground sent my hands off of the controls, and Zamns to scream,"COOPER YOU IDIOT!"
      Another warning light went on, this time it was a seat-belt malfunction , on my side. The seat belt came loose immediatly. The Pelican slid at great speeds on the ground, and I held onto the seat. The boulder was getting closer, and I knew we would hit it. We kept sliding on and on and the boulder was getting closer, and I waived to Zamns,"IM GONE!" We hit the boulder and my body flew forward into the protective glass. The glass shattered from the sheer momentum of my body, and I was projected out of the Pelican, rolling across the sand for about 100 feet. If it weren't for the neck support, I would have broken my neck on the impact of my head on the glass. I came almost to a stop and rolled over and bumped my forehead on a rock. My vision started to blur. and I took one last look tat the Pelican that was now flipped over the boulder.
      "aww man...not again...." I said as I knew I would fall unconsious. I tried to get up, but my vision blurred and I fell to the ground and took a nice nap...



      <next part: Part 8: Unexpected Savior>

Cry for a Hero Part 8: Unexpected Savior
Date: 28 August 2002, 3:46 am

      ~I was running down the amber fields of Earth, so spacious, the wind blew a nice breeze that swept past my face soothed my, as I ran through the fields. I looked into the bright clear sky, and smiled. I came up to the top of the large field, and looked down onto a small town. There was nothing left of the town but smoldering ruins. I screamed, but this didnt help me, I turned around and ran away from the place, but then the beautiful fields all burst into flames, the sky filled with dark omnious clouds, that covered the sun. I looked around, and all I saw was death. I looked down at my feet, and saw a little girl, scraped, and covered in black soot. "This happened, and you didnt help...its all your fault!" She said crying.~


      "DAMMIT COOPER WAKE UP!"

      I opened my eyes slowly to find myself in very cramped quarters. I looked around to see Zamns and I were in a small room, what appeared to be a cell, I looked over to what was the front, and a purple glowing shield prevented us from escape. I looked at the shield, and saw a small one inch tall horizontal line of lighter purple on the shield that was flickering. The line ran all the way across to the other side and seemed to be a weak spot.
      "Soooo, what happened while I was unconsious?" I said to Zamns, the only person in our cell.
      "Well, the covenant sent search parties all over the planet Mars, for human survivors, and brought us all here." Zamns explained.
      "Why? The covenant never take prisoners."
      "Well they're looking for answers on small outer colonies that humans are fleeing to, and other usefull information. Nobody's answered any of their questions, and have all been killed."
      I got up and pressed against the shield, it was as hard as a rock.
      "Dont try, I already did," Zamns said glumly,"I checked everything for escape options, and came up with nothing. Well there's no way we're getting out of this, some Marines have tried to escape, when their sheilds were lowered," he pointed over to the large grunt and elite ranks guarding the doors, and on the floor, lay a couple of dead Marines,"I think we're stuck," He pulled out two cigars that he'd kept in the upper right chest pocket,"Victory cigar?"
      "Heh, well....," I started to say, but then thought about the shields,"Do you have any matches?"
      "Yes..."
      I took out a MA6B bullet that was left in my pocket, It was usless, but right now, it would save our lives.
      I watched a Marine get pulled out of his cell and dragged to a chair, where he was strapped in at the waist
      "Tell me secrets!" A Grunt demanded to the Marine, which in response, the Marine spit at the Grunt,"AAHHH I GOT COOTIES!!!" the Grunt screamed and slapped the marine,"Now...TELL ME SECRETS"
      "Ok," the marine said,"I was sleeping with your momma last night." And laughed.
      "You were? AH! Don't try that crap on me mister!" The Grunt barked at him,"TELL ME SECRETS!"
      The Marine said,"ok...Im going to kick you in the nuts!" And the marine took a swing at the grunt's cratch, A loud thump was made, when his foot met the Grunt's cratch, and all the humans in the large prison room laughed out loud.
      The grunt ran away screaming,"I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO HAVE KIDS NOW!!!"
      The Marine was brought up, and shot in the back of the head, and his dead body was dragged off.
      I looked down, and got back to buisness. I ran the bullet down the shield, until i came to the lighter colored spot. I ran the bullet through the lightly colored spot, and the bullet went half the way through the shield.
      "BINGO!" I Said," Zamns, start breaking all the bullets you have, and gather as much gun powder as you can in a pile." I handed him all the bullets that I had, and handed him my helmet for him to smash them with.
      I looked up at the Covenant that seemed to be bringing in a huge monitor. They punched a few buttons on the panel, and the monitor came to life, displaying the footage to all the prisoners:

      It showed a city, with buildings burning and collapseing, and civilians panicing, running everywhere, while large plasma bolts rained down on the city. A Female reporter came on the screen:

      "This is UNN: Universal News Network. We are on the ground on Earth, and it seems that the Covenant have found our homeworld, and began immediate destruction upon the planet! The casualties are estimated in the billions, as the Covenant attack every major city!" The reporter was shaken, and tears were in her eyes,"There are mass evacuations in place, as millions of people flee to outer colonies in slipspace, hoping to escape the covenant threat." The camera moved to show the sky, as a plasma bolt plummeded down towadrs them, the camera man dropped the camera and ran, but didnt make it far, as the bolt smashed into the ground, and incenerated everything in a 30 foot radius, the camera fizzed in and out, then went blank.
      The Covenant in the room all laughed at the sight as all the humans looked down on the ground.
      "Psst, Cooper, I'm done." Zamns said to me, showing a small pile of gun powder,"this enough?" He asked.
      "It should be." I told him, and put the gun powder in a small bag that I had.

      Then the whole prison section turned red, and red lights were flashing. A gray colored Grunt quickly waddled into the Prison bay and said,"TURN ON THE MONITOR!" The covenant turned it on, to show the outside of the ship. There was a small green object floating towards a plasma cannon mounted on the ship, that was firing at a lone Lonsword Fighter. Just when the cannon fired, and the shields lowered for that short amount of time, the object sped past the shields and smaked right onto the ship's armor.
      "IT'S HIM!!! GET HIM!!!" The same grunt screamed, and It seemed that all the covenant knew what he was talking about, because all the covenant ran out of the prison bay, and out the doors.
      "Perfect," I said, as I poured the gun powder on the side of the shield, where the weak spot was,"Give me a match."
      He handed me a match, and I lit it. I stepped back, and threw the match at the gun powder, the powder exploded, and hit the weak spot in the shields, leaving a 3 foot gap. I grabbed my helmet and then, Zamns and I climed over, and into the large hallway, filled with prisoners behind thier sheilds. They all cheered as we walked over to the teminal, and lowered the shields, letting everyone out. There was an explosion somewhere on the ship, while we opened up the cases holding our weapons that the covenant found laying around. I grabbed my MA6B and a MD6 and loaded them both up with full ammo, I also grabbed a few extra magazines for the MA6B, and stuffed them in my pocket.I then grabbed 4 frag grenades, and put them on my belt. Just when everyone got their armaments, all the rebel prisoners turned their guns on the UNSC Marines, and in response, the Marines turned thier guns towards the rebels. Everyone stood still, any sudden movement, and there would be mass bloodshed.
      "What are we doing?" I asked, all the rebels turned their guns towards me,"We are diying in a losing war, while we fight ourselves?" A couple people lowered their weapons,"We need to stop worring about our petty strifes and work together, together we can pull through. If we all shoot eachother, there will be no one left, and what good would that do? We must owrk together to fight these scum. FOR MANKIND!"
      "FOR MANKIND!" People shouted, and everyone lowered their weapons, and shook hands with one another. Everyone was happy, to all be allies. We all gathered as much gear as we could and walked towards the door.
      As we walked up to the door, we heard gunshots being excanged, and a shot from an M-90 silenced the commotion. We all stepped back from the door, because we heard Elites shouting past the door. We waited, and all of a sudden, an elite screamed, and the entire door blew open, senind pieces of the door at us, at the base of the door, lay pieces of Elites, and a crater in the floor, from a large explosive. My eyes traveled upwards to find someone that looked familiar. I've only seen him in books and holo-vids, but this was for real: A tall man In full green armor stood at the bodies of the Elites, his shield glimmering in the bright light. A visor covered his face, he was a Spartan. He walked past the crater, and towards us.
      "Master Chief, John 117 reporting!" He said to us,"looks like you guys could use some help."
      No one answered him, they just stared in awe.
      "Ok lets split up!" he said, breaking the silence,"half of us will go to the bridge, and commandeer it, and the other half will make their way over to the loading bays, and shut all the doors leading into the Battle Cruiser, to prevent any re-enforcements from getting in here. I'll lead the expedition to the bridge, who's coming with me?"
      Everyone wanted to go with the Master Chief but they decided to split up, there were about 50 men going to the bridge, includng me, and about 60 men going to the loading bays.
      Right once we got into the cramped hallways, we split up. Now the 50 of us were running down the hallway, with John in the front. We came around a corner to meet a group of 5 Elites rushing to assistance. 20 of the people in the front lines let lose a fire of Machine gun, sniper rifle, pistol, and shotgun fire, that shredded the Elites into pieces.
      "Cortana has set up a nav point to the bridge, She'll lead us the way." John said.
      We ran down the corridor and into a large open area,"Cortana says the Bridge is just past this area and up the hallway at the end." He said, just before a large salvo of plasma hit the walls all around us. There were about 25 Elites running In out direction, followed by 10 Hunters, and a large rank of Grunts.
      "Shotgunners in the front, snipers in the back, I want anyone with an assult rifle to be in the middle, run away from your postion if a hunter attacks," John said casually, like he's done this many times before," snipers, aim for the Hunters, before they have a chance to fire. There were about 15 snipers, they were a mix of Marines and rebels. They immediatly fired at the Hunters, and one by one, they dropped to the ground, The Elites started firing at us and some of the men in the front dropped dead from plasma wounds. The Elites kept running closer and closer, while the snipers fired at the last remaining Hunters. All the Hunters were elliminated before they got a shot off. The Elites had a continuous fine, and they were starting to aim for the snipers. The snipers returned the favor, dropping many of them. The Elites were getting closer, and the shotgunners ran out to the Elites, and started blasting their bodies to shreds. The Covenant were losing, so we all charged, except for the snipers, which stayed at a distance. I saw some men pull out plasma daggers, and cut through the Elite's shields like a knife through Jello. After we killed the elites, the Grunts continued bravely towards us. Usually they would flee, there was something funny with this picture. We all fired at the dozens of grunts, and they were all dead, in a matter of seconds. We cheered, seeing that we've cleared out this area, but I still looked over at the door. I saw something glisten and ripple in the light.
      "HOLD IT!" I yelled.
      "Whats wrong?" Zamns asked me.
      "I saw something."
      "well...like wha-"
      A mans skull next to me was crushed inwards as we heard a loud thump and an Elite laughing. All around us lit up in plasma fire from camoflauged Elites. Some of the Elites were running up to unknowing people, and hitting them, usually breaking-in their faces. I turned on my infared vision, and saw the forms of Elites running around, in the groups of people. I saw one raise his fist over the head of the Master Chief, and I fired my MA6B straight inot the Elite's head, the bullets pierced through the shields and into the Etiles body.
      "USE INFARED!" I screamed, as I fired at as many Elites as I could. plasma hit me in the armor on my arm, and a little bit of the armor melted off. I turned around to the Elite that was shooting at me, and fired a dozen bullets into the Elite's abdomen, He blood sprayed everywhere, as his vital organs were obliterated. The ammo counter showed that the ammo was low, so I pulled out the old magazine, then took out a full magazine out of my pocket, and snapped it into the gun, and cocked it. I saw a group of 5 elites, hiding behind a crate. They didn't see me, as I pulled out a frag grenade, and threw it behind them. The Grenade detonated, throwing two Elites' bodies in the air, and the other ones with their shields down. I shot-up the three Elites that survived the blast, and moved on to other ones. By now, All the Marines were able to easily pick off all of them due to the infared scanners. The battle fianally ended, and everyone searched the room for other enemies, and rigged the door with a grenade. We counted the bodies, we lost 14 men in that entire battle.
      "Ok," Master Chief said,"Lets continue on to the bridge, we'll deal with the bodies later." He said carelessly.
      We ran down to the door, and removed the grenade from the door, and continued down the corridor to the bridge. We covered the door, as someone activated it to open. The door led to a small balcony, that overlooked the enormous bridge. There was a walkway that led down to the floor. The bridge was swarming with covenant officers.
      "Okay, I want the snipers perched here," John said to the snipers, pointing at the small balcony,"To pick off as many covenant as you can," He turned to all of us and said,"Remember NOT to damage any equipment on the bridge, Me and Cortana have an idea once we're finished with the covenant." John paused,"That's a good idea Cortana," He said, talking to Cortana, which must have been an AI that was installed in his suit or something."Ok. Cortana said that this bridge will be swamped with defense mechanisms, Cortana will be able to hack into their system, and change the defense program to oppose the Covenant, to give us a winning edge."
      The Master Chief walked over to a panel in the hallway, and inserted her in.
       There was a loud siren that went off, and what appeared to be something like a chain gun that shot plasma, popped out of the celing everywhere. There were about 20 plasma chain guns that immediatley opened fire on the covenant below. It was mass panic, for them, and they started to flee the Bridge. Many Covenant stayed, and tried to destroy the defense mechanisms, while we ran down the walkway. The snipers took perch, and fired on the harder targets, like Hunters and Jackals. Some Grunts tried to run up the walkway we were running down, we simply pushed them off the edge and let them plummet to their death. We came down to the floor, and right away, 5 Jackals saw us and released charged plasma pistol shots on us. They whizzed past my face, and smashed into one Marine's Chest plate, which was practicly melted down to nothing. We opened fire on the Jackals, but nothing was hitting them, due to their shields.
      "HAND TO HAND!" I yelled, and 4 of us ran, and jumped over the jackals' heads. I spun around and swung the butt of my gun at one Jackal, that wasnt fortunate enough to turn around in time. The next one jumped on my leg, and tried to bite through my armor.
      "Son of a-" I said, as I lowered my gun to the top of it's head and fired, blasting it's brains all over the floor. The other people took care of the other Jackals, and we continued on to the next Covenant. We ran up to 6 Elites, and the shotgunners took them out before even one was able to fire, but then, 3 Elites With plasma swords came up from the bottom deck of the bridge. A sliced the 4 shotgunners in half in a matter of seconds. There were five of us there, in front of the swordsmans, and we fired upon them, The bullets seemed to be doing minimal damage to these gold colored Elites. They turned towards us and ran full speed. One of the Elite's shields was knocked out and we concentrated on killing him. The bullets punctured his armor and went into his body, his blood sprayed everywhere, but we didnt stop filling him up with lead, until he fell down. While we were killing that Elite, One jumped 10 feet into the air, and met his plasma sword with a man's head, it sliced in half, and the Elite ran over to another person. I Fired at him until my magazine ran dry, then I Went to my sidearm, and fired at the Elite's head, the shield ran out, and the last shot went through his head, just before he was going to swing at another person, and then he fell dead on the ground. The last elite junged at me and tackled me. I screamed, as it pinned me down and laughed. It raised it's plasma sword into the air, and brouth it down. Just before the sword reached my head, he fell sideways, a contrail led right into his side, he screamed in pain, as the bullet from the sniper rifle went all the way through his body. Another shot from an unknown sniper silenced the Elite. We Charged after the remaining Covenant, and quite easily defeated them. The Master Chief walked down to the main control panel, and popped a chip which turned out to be the AI, Cortana into the panel, She came to life and reported that the other group shut all loading bays, and elliminated all covenant forces in the area with minimal casualties.
      "Now," The Master Chief turned to Cortana,"What was the plan you had in mind?"




      <next part: part 9: Beginning of the End.>

Cry for a Hero Part 9: Beginning of the End
Date: 30 August 2002, 3:31 am

      We all stood around the panel, over the dead covenant bodies, waiting for Cortana's explanation.
      "Ok I think I have it all analized," She said,"Since we have the use of a covenant Battle cruiser, and all it's technology inside, We better make good use of it."
      "LETS GET BACK AT THOSE BASTARDS DESTROYING EARTH!" A marine shouted to Cortana.
      Cortana shook her head,"No you fool, we've already lost to the covenant at Earth, thats why we must strike back...and put a dagger through their own hearts."
      We all looked at each other.
      She continued on,"To learn what we are going to do, we must know a little about the Covenant, Lukily I have enough information in these databases to know. See," she paused,"The covenant recieve psychic brain waves from the Covenant Religous leaders. The religous leaders act as beacons for all the Covenant that live in the universe. Fortunatly, the Covenant, every race of the Covenant, if I'm exact, have adapted to recieving the brain waves. If we were to kill the religous leaders, all the Covenant would recieve the feedback, and would either go insane, or will die."
      "So how do we kill these freaks?" Zamns asked.
      Cortana sighed,"the religous leaders are located in the center of the Covenant home world."
      "The center as in the core?" One Marine with a sniper rifle asked.
      "Yes, the core doesnt have a heated core like the Earth. Instead, It's core is pure crystallic fusion crystals, with many tunnels leading to the inside, big enough for 10 CCS Battle Cruisers to pass by eachother. A big enough gap for us to go inside as far as we can."
      "So we're just going to charge in to where the most important Covenant are and shoot them all with these fancy lasers?" I asked.
      Cortana looked down, showing a sad emotion,"No...The area thats close to the religous leaders is too heavily guarded, and will fire on any ship that comes near the blockade, with persicion lasers."
      "Why persicion lasers?" someone asked.
      "Because, she said,"The crystals surrouding the tunnel will explode easily, if fired on. Thats why we will try a different approach."
      We were all confused.
      "The ultimate sacrifice," she said in a omnious tone,"We are going to land the cruiser in the tunnel, along with the other docked cruisers in there, and set the engines to overload...The ship will explode from overheating, causing a chain reaction in the crystals. The explosion will destroy the religous leaders and will blow the planet to pieces from inside-out. The only problem is...we need to have a volunteer to press the override button once the engines go critical, in order for the engines to overload."
      I looked around, as no one voluteered. I then stepped forward,"I will." I said trying to be as brave as I could at that moment.
      "Me too," Zamns said and also stepped forward.
      "Good," Cortana said with a smile on her face,"Just in case the Covenant get suspicous, They'll try to board our craft, and shut the engines down. We will stay with you as long as we can, then we will go for the Fighters, and escape, before you blow the place to hell."
      "We're ready to fight to the death." A marine stepped forward, along with 20 other men consisting of rebels and marines,"We'll stay with them and fight off the covenant to the end."
      Many others stepped forward, soon there was about 100 men that were just about to sacrifice there lives for mankind. A smile swept over me seeing the brothership of all the men on the ship.
      "Ok then, also the database indicates thats there is a small rebel group of Covenant on the homeworld that fight for freedom and the immediate halt of killing other species. They can prove to be very usefull."
      "Right then," Master Chief said,"then its all been planned out: We go and find the Covenant rebels and persuade them to help us, and then we continue on into the core, land, and blow the whole place to hell, while the rest of us evac. our asses out of there."
      We all nodded and the Master Chief added,"Cortana set a course to the Covenant Homeworld."
      "Right Chief." She aknowladged, and the engines whinned, coming to life again,"Get ready to feel weird!" she yelled, just before the engines readied for slipstream. There was a whooshing noise, and everything stopped in time for a couple of seconds. I saw my body separate in two, like they were copies of each other, then suddenly come back together. The ship shuddered, and my body shot 4 feet into the air, and slammed down onto the ground with immense force. All the lights and systems were off when we came out of slipstream. I looked around and hurled on the ground along with many others. The lights came back on, and all the other electronic systems came back online.
      "well it appears that we have came out of slipstream, and have arrived to the Covenant solar system.

      The com channel came online: Covenant Cruiser 'Shadow Lurker', please Identify cargo!

      Cortana radioed back in a Covenant tounge: We have dead.

      There was silence for a while and then the Com. Officer replied.

      com channel: verywell, continue to bio-disposal sector 23 on Tak'ar.

       On the way there, Cortana told us that the world of Tak'ar was the Covenant homeworld. She modified some of their holographic technology in the ship to suit us. She made the device put a hologram around ourselfs, to make us look like Covenant Elite soldiers. She gave us the voice trasnlators that Grunts use, and modified them so we can communicate with other Elites and Grunts, and hear what they say to us.
       We heard the landing thrusters fire, as we came to a stop, hovering hundreds of feet above the surface. Cortana turned on the Gravity lift, and we all walked towards the place where the lift was, and saw 5 elites appear on the gravity lift, with a large hovering box, probably to put the bodies in. As they came towards us, sweat beaded on my head,"I hope these holograms work." I muttered.
       The Elites got closer and closer to our group. they came up to us and waived, we all waived back and continued to the gravity lift platform. The 50 of us all took the gravity lift down to the surface of the planet, which obviously had an oxygen based atmosphere.
       We stepped off of the platform, unarmed, and ventured off into the streets. We all split up and relied on a private com. channel to communicate. I walked down the streets, and ducked just before some kind of hover vehichle decapitated me. I looked along the streets to find them buzzing with prosporus Covenant. I walked down the streets past all the robed-not armored Elites and Grunts, going through their daily lives. The walkways were packed with Covenant podestrians as they all pushed past me and my slow pace. How could this be the Covenant? The Covenant are supposed to be ferocious aliens that are nassty and brutal, but they were so peaceful and innocent here. I walked over to a bunch of civillian Covenant all crowding around a monitor. The monitor displayed something that looked like news. I watched it:


       "And this is the CNB: Covenant News Broadcasting, we have breaking news on the warfront,"An Elite news reporter with a feminine voice said,"Our fleet has just found the evil Humans homeworld, that they call...Earth. All the commander of the Covenant Naval Forces would comment on, was that they were tipped off by an anonomous being. Our Warships Immediatly responed and proceeded to glass their homeworld. Scientists predict that the Human Race will be exterminated very soon. There is a rumor that one of our ships was stolen, but there is no confimation of that yet."

      The monitor turned off, and all the civillians were talking about death to the devils and all, But there was one certain Grunt that stood out from all of them. The Grunt had clothes on that partially hid his face. and he seemed to be the only one that wasnt showing relief or smiling at the news. The Grunt sighed, and shook his head and walked away. I looked up at the towering spires which appeared to be building that went up into the purpleish sky, and decided to follow that Grunt. He walked down the street, squeezing through Etlites legs and past the other dozens of people crowding the streets. He looked back at me and turned back around and kept walking, then looked back again, and sped up to a small run. I looked at his legs, and they had armor on them, like he was a soldier. He ran into an alley, and I followed him. When I came down the alley, he turned around another corner so he was inbetween buildings. I also went around the corner, to find a plasma pistol pointed to my face.
      "DON'T move..." The grunt said, and charged the plasma pistol up.
      "I'm not here to cause any trouble!" I said raising my hands in the air, staring at the green bulb on the end of the plasma pistol.
      "Drop your weapons!" He demanded me.
      "I dont have any." I said.
      "Your a Covenant soldier." The grunt said, taking his robe off to reveal shiny brown armor.
      "No I can Explain." I said.
      "You sure are!" The Grunt said, and opened a door, and pushed me into the place.
       The lights in the building turned on to reveal a large room, filled with anti covenant army posters, weapons, couches, and a bunch of other stuff. The Grunt pressed a button, and the doors opened. Dozens of Elites and Grunts walked out of the room they were in, and into the one I'm in. They all sported Brown armor, and plasma weapons.
      "What is he doing here?"An unknown Elite asked.
      "SIR! I found him following me!" The Grunt said.
      This Elite must have been the head honcho because everyone was looking at him.
      "Who are you?" The Elite asked.
      "Who are you?" I asked him.
      "I am the great leader of the Covenant Resistance: Kah'Amir, now...who are you?" He asked lighing up his plasma sword on his hand.
      "I am," I hit my back against that wall I was put up against, crushing the hologram projector. The hologram flickered and went off, revealing my true self,"looking for help."
      "Is this real?" Kah'Amir asked to an Elite holing a small device.
      "Well this scanner shows that he's really a human." The Elite answered shocked.
      Everyone stared at me and lowered their weapons. All the Covenant rebels ran and crowded around me, asking me mixed questions:
      "How did you get here?" "Who are you?" "Are you a god?" "Can I have your autograph?" "Can I feel your skin?" "Why am I so fat?"

      "SILENCE!!!" Kah'Amir said, silencing everyone,"Now what is it that you needed help on?"
      "Do you have any type of ship that will transport a large amount of weapons and troops?" I asked.
      "Yes we have a stolen E class transport vessel...why?" Kah'Amir asked.
      "Good," I said,"load up all your weapons and men, that you can get on there, 'cause your going to meet some of my friends that have a very important task on their hands."




      <Next: Part 10: The Cry Will Be Answered>

Cry for a Hero Part 10: The Cry Will Be Answered (Series Finale)
Date: 6 September 2002, 1:06 am

      The rebel Covenant were all conversing as they started to pick up all the equipment that they could hold.
"HOLD ON!" Kah'Amir said, and everyone dropped thier luggage,"Yes you are a human, and as much as we'd like to help you, I think I want to know what we're getting ourselfes into, before we ally with you and your bretheren."
"Ok..." I told them the entire story and plan of how we're going to destroy the covenant,"But the only problem is, you will also die, due to the feedback of the religous leaders."
Kah'Amir laughed,"ha-ha my friend you are wrong, one of the resons we became rebels of the Covenant, is because the religous leaders controlled our lives with implants that would recieve their brain waves. Your comuter, 'Cortana' is wrong about adapting to the Brain waves, the waves are simply recieved by implants in our brain. Whenever another Covenant defects top us, we remove the implant, that way the religous leaders don't kill you."
"How would they kill you?" I asked confused.
"Ah, the implants can recieve deadly brain waves from the religous leaders, that way, they don't have any traitors in the ranks." Kah'Amir explained.
"So are you willing to fight against the Covenant, and escape to watch them all die painfully?" I asked smiling.
"This has been an answer to our prayers, yes we will join you and your friends." Kah'Amir said shaking my hand.
      We all made our way to the transport vehicle, and loaded it up with as much weapons and ammunition as we could. Everyone tried to fit in the cramped aircraft but failed. there were 10 rebels and me that couldn't fit in.
"Oh no," Kah'Amir said,"It looks like you guys will have to take the streets to the ship. There are enough plasma rifles in the basement for all of you people that cant make in on this transport vehicle."
      the eleven of us went down to the basement, and grabbed two plasma rifles each. We came out onto the alley-way, with long trench coats on, to disguise our real selvs. We walked into the streets, and made our way to the CCS 'Shadow Lurker'.
Some civillian yelled,"THEIF!" As a bulky Elite snatch her purse, and bumped into me. I fell on the ground, and the hood fell of, revealing my human face. Everyone that was standing around me froze, staring at my true self.
One anonomous Grunt screamed,"HUUUUUUUUMAN!" And everyone scrambled away for me. 5 armored Elites that seemed to be law enforcement officers, rushed out of a Starbucks and leveled their guns at me. All the Rebels threw their trench coats off, holding plamsa rifles in both hands, and opened fire on the unsuspecting Elites. I pulled both of my plasma rifles out and aidied in the slaughter. The Elites eventually dropped dead, burnt from major plasma shots. We ran down the streets, leveling the crowds with our powerful weapons.
      Just before we came into the bend into the Body Disposal Site, where the ship was, three Ghosts appeared, and fired on us. We all straifed for cover, firing and destroying one Ghost. I checked my pocket, and found a fragmentation grenade. I pulled the pin on one, and threw it at a Ghost that was shooting at a Rebel. The Grenade detonated, and sent the body of the driver 20 feet into the air, before he smacked into the ground. The last Ghost charged for a rebel that was out in the open, and took his head off. I yelled and jumped onto the Ghost, and tried to throw him off. He responded my swinging at me, not realizing where he was headed on the ghost. I looked forward, and there was a rising on the ground, that led into a large fire, where the bodies were being dumped. I took his hand, and turned it forward, giving it more acceleration. He took another swing at my face, and slammed me off the Ghost. I tumbeled and watched as the Elite screamed, just before he went off the small jump, into the fire.
      After all that happened, we made our way to the gravity lift, and met up with the others. I showed them who I found, and they were all assigned fighters for the escape. The other scouts came back with no rebels, so all we had were these 60 or 70 Rebels ready to kill some covies. The entire count of Humans was 95 and Covenant Rebels were 61. We readied everyone with a full set of grenades and ammo and gave them instructions on where they would be stationed. Me and Zamns were told to be locked in the engine room, and push the override button with the engines reached critical, allowing the reactor to overload, and make an explosion large enough to cause a reaction with the crystals in the center of the planet. After we finished prep, Cortana fired the main thrusters, and set a course to one of the main tunnels that led into the center of this world.
      After a few minutes, Cortana notified us that we were going into the tunnel. Everyone crowded around the small windows that were scattered around the bridge. The tunnel was enormous, but not only was it enormous, It was packed with Covenant ships of all kinds. The walls of the tunnels seemed to have an eerie glow to them, from the crystals. Ships were flying everywhere, and there were thousands of ground troops, patrolling the area, for any suspicous activities.
      We continued down into the tunnel, and Zamns and I were guided to the engine room, where we would stay the entire time, in lockdown. I had an MA6B on my shoulder strp, and a MD6 in my holster, which I put on the engine room panel. I held tighly onto the MA6B, and watched all the monitors, displaying much of the areas inside the ship, including some outside cameras. The ship came to a stop, and started to lower to the ground, instead of occupying one of the ship ports. The ship finally reached the ground and it rubled when it hit the hard crystals below.
      Cortana wasted no time, and immediatly started to overload the engines, by keeping the thrusters on, but diverting all the heat back to the reactor, to cause the engines to go critical. I took a seat, and Zamns followed me. I looked around the room and saw that it was a blan room. The size of the room was about 20x20 feet, and at the back side was two large cylinders, which had a beam of energy running down the center of both of them. I thought to myself that the cylinders must be the reactors.
      We could hear all the com channels, and listened in to see what was happening. Then, a covenant Grunt voice came on the com channel:
Com link(Grunt): This is ship inspector 164, I need to verify your authorization for this sector.

I saw some Covenant troops start to gather outside the ship's main hatch, and were looking at the ship suspiciously.

I then heard the Master Chief say to cortana,"Tell them to go to Hell." And I saw Humans gathering behind the main hatch.

Com Link(Grunt): Well?

Com Link(Cortana): Go to Hell you bastards!

There was silence for a moment and then the grunt gasped over the Com. link. The Covenant standing outside, raised their weapons and ran towards the main hatch. The Marines opened the hatch all of a sudden, and fired into their ranks with rocket launchers. All the bodies of the covenant flew everywhere, and they were immediatly replaced by another squad of Elites. The Marines pulled out M90's and blasted the charging Elites. A mass of 10 golden colored Eites with plasma swords then showed up and sprinted at the Marines. All the Marines fired at them with their MA6B's and Shotguns, but the Elites overpowered the 20 Marines in the entrance. The Marines bodies were sliced into pieces, and the last brave soldier pulled a grened right before he was killed, the grenade rolled over to a small group of the Elites with swords, and detonated, killing all of the ones standing around it. There were some lone Marines in the entrace firing from random locations, but they were quickly killed. On other screens, People were rigging the doors with Fragmentation grenades, by strapping the pin on the other side of the sliding part of the door, so when the door was opened, the pin would come out, killing the enemies in the front.
      The Covenant secured the large entrance area, and started to bring in more troops. Before they shot out the camera in the entrance, they were already massing in the hundreds, consisting of grunts, Elites, Jackals, and Hunters. They finally rushed into the first hallway, and the rigged door exploded, killing two Hunters and three Elites. They massed down the hallway, shooting out all the maitnenance cameras. It seemed that the Humans were rallying a group of 75 men in a large open loading bay, that was on the way to the engine room that I was in.
I watched as the Covenant flooded the halways, en route to the large loading bay. The Marines were going to lose this fight if they weren't re-enforced. This was their only chance, and I couldn't sit on my ass and watch them be brutally slaughtered. I jumped out of my seat, and ran to the door. The door slid open, and three Covenant rebels with plasma swords, including Kah'Amir tried to stop me, but I ran past them.
"Rally all the troops that you have, and follow me!" I yelled to Kah'Amir."
"Right Brother!" He aknowladged, and com linked to all the other rebels scattered around the ship. They quickly arrived, and consisted of twenty-five rebels, most of them carried plasma swords and plasma rifles. We ran down the corridors, and into the Large loading bay where all the marines were.
"Ok this is what we're going to do," I addressed to all the brave worriors," I want all Elites with plasma swords to find a high place to hide, all machine gunners, back-up into the hallways, Shotgunners, make a berricade of crates infront of the door to hide behind. I want all snipers to find a perch now." Everyone immediatly responded. I was suprised to see them listening to me, but I guess they were out of ideas.
"Ok, all machine gunners," I said,"throw grenades at the Covenant all at once when I give the signal. The Plasma sworders will drop down on them, and the snipers will pick off any Covenant. If the Covenant try to force their way to this door," I pointed to the door where the shotgunners were setting up a makeshift berricades in front of the door we were protecting,"All the people with shotguns and plasma rifles will jump out and fire upon them, do whatever means necessary to keep them from getting through that door."
We had the whole place set up, and one marine set up a camera for me to see, and we closed the door behind us. I was with all the machine guners consisting of thirty men holding MA5B's and MA6B's, they all seemed nervous.
"Get one frag out each," I told them,"once I open this door, I want you to chuck these bastards right into their ranks."
A marine tapped me and showed the monitor to me: The Covenant were just arriving into the room, very slowly. All the Covenant were looking around at the crates up high above them, training their guns on unseen targets. when they got into the middle of the room, I said,"When I say three, we're all gunna bust outta here, and throw these mother fuckers into their faces," I watched the monitor, as they inched closer to the door that we were in,"THREE!!!"
      I bounded towards the door, causing it to open,"DIIIE!" Just then, all the machine gunners threw their grenades in sync, and the whole place lit up in fire. The Covenant panicked, as the Rebel Elites jumped down upon them, slicing them in half, and the snipers hailed deadly rounds through their heads. Coveant fired at the snipers, but it was too hard to aim from all the commotion that was going on. The Rebel Elite Swordsman's swords spun through the air decapitating many at a time, like operators were acrobats, spinning around, and rolling. Kah'Amir let out a battle cry as he leaped over a Hunter, and cut its back open. he spun around in a circle, and swiflty cut two Elites in half. The covenant were firing everywhere, and plasma heated the air. A lage group of Elites, about forty-five of them ran towards the door we were defending. The Shotgunners came out of crouch, and fired on all of the Elites, all at once. Many of the elites dropped in the first volley, but they kept coming, and the shotgunners kept firing. The Covenant killed most of the Rebel swordsmans, and all rushed towards us, forgetting the surviving snipers and swordsmans that were picking off the stragglers. There were probably one hundred and fifty Covenant carging at our berricade, about 50 meters ahead of us, and the all let out an ear piercing battle cry, that defend the loud crack of a sniper rifle. The Shotgunners quickly tried to re-load, but it was too late. The Elites in the front let out a deadly volley of plasma fire, that incenerated most of the shotguners. The Rebels plasma riflers came out of the berricades, and collided with the ranks of Covenant Elites. Most of them were clobbering eachother and snapping each others neck's, while some hanged in the back, and fired at the mass group of Elites and Grunts.
      The Hunters then all shot their feul rod guns, and carbonized some of the machine gunners, that came out of the doorway. The Marines then engaged the wall of Covenant that killed-off most of the Rebels already, tearing them apart with the armor piercing bullets of the two types of assult rifles. The Hunters continued to fire their large arm-mounted cannons, and kill several Marines in the process. From there, everything was seeming to go very slow, plasma danced around my head, as marines quickly fell to the covenant, while I sat back with a few survivors, killing as many Covenant as we could. Then everything snapped back to normall, and a few plasma rounds hit me in the chest and arms. I fell back, as the molten plasma melted through my armor, and burned the flesh of my chest off.
      A strong metal hand grabbed me and picked me up. I looked up to see it was the Master Chief, with a rocket launcher in his hand. He shot a round at some advancing Hunters, and blew them all down. John 117 dragged me into the hallway, and yelled for the survivors to follow him. I got up onto my feet and looked into his reflecting visor and wondered what his face was like, was it a sad look? Or was it a look that he's seen this many times before, and that we were the people that were always the casualties.
"You need to get back into the engine room, We're leaving!" The Master Chief yelled to me.
I nodded my head, and ran down a different corridor, to the engine room. I heard the rubleing of the covenant forces behind me, as I opened the door to the engine room, and locked it behind me. I found that I dropped my MA6B back in the hallway, but I didn't want to risk going back outside and picking it up. I looked at the monitors, and the covenant split-up, one large force went the way to all the escapers, and the others went toward our door. I watched the survivors, consisting of about ten Rebels, and twenty-five humans board the small fighters, open the doors, and speed out.

Com link(Master Chief):....For everyone that is staying on the ship...thank you...You all are true heros, and will be remembered as the ones who saved humanity...

      I watched the screen as a big group of Covenant came to our door, and started to pound on it. From behind the large groups of elites pounding on the door, Kah'Amir ran up and jumped in the ranks of them.
"TO THE DEATH!!!" Kah'Amir shouted valantly, as he jabbed his sword through the bodies of two Elites. The Enemies turned towards him, and he stood his ground, fighting all the Elites that ran at him. An Elite snuck from the corridor behind, and jabbed a plasma sword through his chest.
The blade came out the other side and he wispered ,"Goodbye my brothers, may there be peace..." He activated a plasma grenade with his last strength, and fell to the ground dead. The grenade went off in a blue explosion, and killed eight Elites that were standing around him.
      The Elites took no time in remorse, and continued to try to break open the door, using plasma grenades, and blunt objects. I looked back at the reactors: The once tranquil cylinders, were coarsing with heat, as a large red beam ran down the center of both the clear cylinders.
      The door blew open, and Elites poured into the room. Zamns leveled his M-90, and blasted tree Elites back at a time, but they kept coming. I remembered I left the MD6 on the engine panel, so I ran And picked it up quickly. I fired the enite magazine, and two Elites crupmled to the ground. Behind the Eitles, arrived the Snipers and Rebel swordsman, that decided to stay back. The allies immediatly massacred the Elites, but there wasn't enough support. The snipers were shooting at point blank, and the Elites broke their gus, and kicked their skulls in. The remaining rebels all shouted,"TO THE DEATH!" as they charged into the enemy ranks, driving their swords through as many as they could before they would die. Finally, the elites turned back to us. An enemy swordsman jumped at me, and sliced my stomach open. I looked at my insides in horror. Zamns fell to the ground, he was mortally wonded, charred from plasma burns. We both lay on the ground, as the Elites all laughed at us. I looked up to the celing, and caught something on the corner of my eye. I lokoed over to the reactors: The entire cylinder was pulsing red, and blue energy swirled around, out side the reactors. The lights turned red, and I knew that the engines were going critical, I had to reach the panel, and press the override button. I flipped over, and saw the panel, four feet away from me. The Elites laughed in my ears at my desperation, just like in my dream. Thinking back into my dream covered me in rage. I screamed, as I drug my body across the floor. My eyes were red from the glare of the reactors. And I thought back to all the times people risked their lives for me, and saved me, but this time...it was payback.
      I reached the bottom of the panel and looked at the barley alive Zamns. I pulled myself up, and saluted to him. He forced a smile and saluted back. I turned my hand over to the laughing Elites, and displayed my bloddy middle finger, and waved my other hand goodbye. The eyes of one particular Elite widened, he shouted, but it was too late. Energey swirled around the entire reactors, and the heat pushed off of me. My hand slowly went up in the air, and smashed down on the button.

Cry for a Hero: Epilogue
Date: 20 October 2002, 3:49 am

      The space about a million miles away from the covenant homeworl was silent. The World itself seemed dormant, as billions of covenant inhabbited it. From the distance, a small horde of fighters, and transports are seen speeding away from the lively planet. the small group of covenant ships go out-system, and power-down their engines.
One voice in one of the small covenant crafts breaks the silence,"Chief?"
"Yes Cortana."
"Are you sure you want to see this?"
There is a long pause,"Cortana, all my life, I've been waiting for this, but I just can't see this."
"Verywell then, computer, maintain course."
Over the com link is one of the covenant rebels:
Com Link(rebel): Where are we going to go? We have no place to live. Your kind will not accept us.
Com Link(Cortana): Don't worry, I've already set up a nav point for a peacful planet, where you will be safe from humans.

"What about us cortana?" A Marine said from behind the cockpit seat,"are we going to Earth?"
Cortana sighed,"No soldier, according to news transmissions and distress beacons...Earth has been completly decimated."
The soldier lowered his head, and stared at the metallic floor.
"Don't worry," Cortana said happily,"The refugees from Earth, and other inner colonies found a safe galaxy, and are colonizing. They've named the Galaxy 'Hope'. All the remnants of the UNSC naval and ground corps are rallying there, It looks like we have a new home."
"So we're going home?" The marine said, and looked up,"We're going home!" He shouted with glee. All the transmissions from the ships filled with joy and happyness. There was but one person who wasn't rejoycing.
The Master Chief stared blankly out in space, and silently prayed for all his fallen brothers.


      From the same view as before, looking upon the homeworld of the Covenant, a ripple went across the entire world, and the enormous planet shook.
      from on the planet, the great tunnels shot explosive flames thousands of miles into the air, and vaporized any ship or being instantly.
      The Religous leaders in the center of the planet were shaken by the approaching death. One Religous leader broke meditation, and looked around. The crystall walls started to crack, and turn a bright color. monstorous explosions ignited every second, closer, and closer. The crystals began to grow in brightness. The rest of the religous leaders broke meditation, stood up, and looked around confused. The crystals became so bright, that they were too immensly bright to look at. One Leader was brave enough to say something, and the only word he was able to utter was,"Shit-".
      The crystalls that formed the superstructure of the planet combusted into a large catalist explosion. On the surface, Large buildings toppled, as millions of citizens scrambled for their life, trampling many as they franticly dove for cover from falling spires. All of the Covenant knew it was the end of the world...their world. The ground ruptured, and flames errupted from the enormous cracks. More Crystals reacted, more every second. The ground pulsed violently, and then the whole planet gave way.

      Back in space, from the view millions of miles from the planet, the mayhem was apperent. The planet bacame a giant ball of light, and then exploded. A ring of fire raced outwards from the explosion like a drop in a pool of water. Large pieces of the world flew in al directions.
      From the Elite world, a single Meteor the size of Australlia approached their planet. A ball of fire could be seen from the inhabbitants on the surface, and they all pointed up at it. The meteor grew closer, and people dropped anything they were holding, and fell on their knees. The meteor tore through the dense atmosphere, and impacted the suface, immediatly reducing anyone on the surface to atoms.
      On the grunt world, The ring of fire approached their world, and alot of the grunts shouted gleefully,"WOW FIREWORKS TONIGHT!!!" and they all gathered in amusement, that is, until it hit thier weak atmosphere, and ignited their methane world. The world was like a brilliant new-born sun. All the grunts on that world died a slow and burning death. One grunt coughed up a few word,"some firwork display that was,"and his body was soon reduced to ashes.
      On the far-away worls of the Jackals and Hunters, the feedback from the diying religous leaders have reached them. Worriors ran around screming like there was an insect in their head. Many went crazy and began to kill others. Some couldn't cope with the pain, and commited suicide. The entire world was in havok, as their brains went through torment until they died. Transmissions filled the air of tortured covenant.



      The Master Chief stayed silent through the whole thing, a single tear ran down his cheek as he stood saluting to the fallen.
The transmissions finally became silent. The Master Chief lowered his arm, but still stood with his hands behind his back.
"Master Chief?" Cortana said quietly,"I think it's time to go."
Com Link(Kah'amir): It's been a great honor working with you Master Chief, Peace be with you!

The covenant rebels all broke off from the group, and entered slipstream, destined towards their new home.

"Master Chief?" Cortana said again.
The Master Chief slowly sat down in his chair,"You want to leave don't you? We all want to leave..." He said sadly.
Cortana had a small smile on her face,"setting corse to-"she was interrupted by the Master Chief.
"Cortana," The Master Chief said, while the slip stream engines fired up,"there's only one thing that puzzles me...how did they find Earth?"
The ships move into slipspace, and disappeare out of the system. The space around the covenant homeworld system is now completely silent. There is one disturbance though. On the outer reaches of the system lies the being who gave away the position of Earth to the covnenant, its name is 343 Guilty Spark, and he still has a hunger for vengance...

<The End?>

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