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Life During Wartime by The Grenadier
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Life During Wartime (part 1, chapter 1)
Date: 20 July 2007, 2:49 pm
Part One, Chapter One
0435 Hours, September 18, 2517 (Military Calendar) /
Delta Phi System, Illedian IV, Jarisol City
Andrew awoke with a start.
The dream was having quickly faded back into reality. The woman who had come to visit him weeks ago, watching him play, asking him all sorts of questions… what had she wanted? He had heard her talking to a man who didn't look very comfortable in the clothes he was wearing. She said that everyone on colony might not be alive in a few weeks. That they needed to hurry. That–
A loud crash sounded from somewhere in the house. It startled him and he fell out of his bed. He forced his eyelids open and looked around the dimly lit room. Andrew got up slowly from the ground, quietly opened his door, and peered down the hallway.
The crash had come from the kitchen. Making sure to stay quiet, he crept down the hall and peeked around the corner.
There was glass on the floor and an open hole where the window should have been. Andrew was about to get a better look when the lights in his house went out and the wall behind him exploded, sending dust and chunks of concrete flying into the air.
Andrew fell to the floor, but didn't look back to see what had caused the blast. He pushed himself up, ignoring the rather large cut across his knee, and ran into the nearest room shutting the door behind him.
He was in the closet. He pushed shoes and coats aside as he got into the nearest corner and sat with his knees against his chest. What was happening? Was he going to die? And where were his parents?
Another blast shook the house. There was a slight ringing in his ears. Was this just another dream? This had never happened before… maybe–
Andrew silenced his thoughts as he heard boots stomping across the solid wood floor. He heard some muffled screams coming from the direction of his mom and dad's room… his parents! The cries grew louder and louder until they arrived in the kitchen and finally stopped. Andrew opened the door a crack and risked a peek into the room.
A tall man holding a gun saluted and said, "General Graves, sir. We've found them."
Andrew looked out further saw a man with long hair rub his hands together and take some kind of device out of the pocket of his coat. His parents had their hands on their heads and were surrounded by a small group of men with more guns.
"Howard," Andrew's father whispered, disgust laced in his voice.
"Good to see you alive and well," Graves replied calmly. "You knew you couldn't avoid us forever. You knew eventually we'd find out where you were hiding."
Hiding? Andrew thought. Why would we need to hide?
"What do you want?"
"Your cooperation, of course. Because if my intelligence is correct, you know quite a bit about the UNSC. Secrets. Strategies. A whole myriad of things!" He paused and added, "Knowledge we must have if we are to liberate the frontier worlds." Graves looked him right in the eye.
Andrew's father spat at Graves.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You don't, do you?" Graves said, wiping his face. The device Graves had been holding in his hands flickered to life and blue sparks played across the top of the machine.
"Then perhaps she does."
Andrew heard a scream of pain and saw his mother drop to her knees.
"She doesn't have what you're looking for!" Andrew's father shouted with a pained look in his eyes.
Graves pocketed the device. "Then tell me what you know."
Andrew's father didn't have a chance to tell Graves what he knew because at that moment, at least half a dozen new men stormed into the room. There was shouting, gunfire, and a loud thump that echoed through the walls.
Graves cursed. "There is no time left – men, incapacitate him and transport him to the extraction point. The woman is of no use to us. Execute her and move out." Graves' orders were carried out immediately. One of the men unholstered his sidearm and shot Andrew's mother in the head. Before his father could even let out so much as an audible gasp, he grabbed his neck and fell to the floor; a dart had punctured his skin, and within seconds he was unconscious. Somebody grabbed his limp body and they were all gone.
The house was silent.
Andrew stood there, not understanding what was going on. Was this what the woman had meant when he had heard her say everyone might die?
All he knew was that he wanted to get out of here. To someplace far away. The shot that killed his mother still rang in his head. Why did they have to kill her?
He burst out of the closet and ran. He cut his bare feet on the glass scattered across the floor, but that didn't stop him. He ran out onto an empty street covered in freshly fallen snow. He turned the corner and ran right into somebody.
The man looked startled, but any trace of that feeling quickly faded. The man then took a piece of paper out of his pocket, and looked at Andrew, then back at the paper. He grabbed something from his belt and talked into it. Andrew heard another voice, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. He put the device away, squatted, and spoke.
"You've got to come with us."
Apparently Andrew didn't have any say in the matter, because he was quickly scooped up and taken away. The man didn't stop running until he reached a field. There was a ship sitting a few dozen yards away, the entrance of which was guarded by three soldiers in identical uniforms. The man jogged into the ship, closely followed by the men who had been guarding the ship. The entrance shut.
"We've got him, Doctor."
Andrew couldn't believe it. It was the same woman who had visited him a few weeks ago.
"Good," she said, strapping herself in the co-pilot's chair. "Let's get the hell out of here."
Andrew felt a lurch, and the dropship rose into the air and quickly ascended through the atmosphere towards an even bigger ship.
Andrew felt something. He looked down to find someone had put a syringe in his arm. His eyelids suddenly became very heavy. He wanted to go back to sleep. The voices around him became distant.
He couldn't make out much of what the woman was saying… he understood a few a words… "Reach"… "last of the candidates"… what did it all mean?
Then again, it didn't matter. He was away from the man who took his family from him. And he was too sleepy to think about it all now… he'd do it later… when he wasn't so tired…
The reality around Andrew faded back into the dream world once more.
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Author's note: I haven't written in a long time. My last fanfic, "The Flood Onslaught", didn't really work out that well. I didn't even finish it. Plus, the ending I had in mind for the story wouldn't have made much sense given our current knowledge of what's going on in the Halo universe.
I got bored this morning, and I decided to write this. If you haven't guessed by now, Andrew is a candidate for the SPARTAN-II project. Rebels attacked his homeworld, and he barely escaped intact.
The story will tie more into the development and life of the SPARTAN-IIs, and will focus on early struggles with the Covenant (before the events at Halo) and the UNSC's war with the United Rebel Front (this is why I put General Graves in this portion of the story. We'll learn what happened to Andrew's dad later on).
I don't know what else to say. Feedback is always appreciated.
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