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Spartan 058 - The Tale of a Sniper by Tyler McIntosh aka kokiri
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Spartan 058 - The Tale of a Sniper
Date: 4 July 2005, 1:35 am
Spartan 058 - The Tale of a Sniper
Chapter 1 - Near Covenant battle station Unyielding Hierphant
Linda sat there in awe, after just infiltrating the Unyielding Hierophant and barely escaping just to find that their two highest ranking comrades were about to sacrifice their lives to take out a substantional chunck of the Covenant's fleet when the mobile station blew. A voice came through her speakers, " Linda, take the NAV station. Fred, you're on Ops. Will, give the Sergeant a hand at Weapons One." Linda snapped into attention and headed for her specified station. Will sat by the Sergeant stating that a COM patch had been established when Admiral Whitcomb appeared on one of the foward viewscreens standing on the bridge of Ascendant Justice, while Lieutenant Haverson sat in the background fiddling with the Covenant flagship's controls. Linda just sat at her stations checking her viewscreen every now and then while she listened to the Chief and Admiral's conversation. She gasped as the Admiral brought the artifact from Reach into the viewscreen, "How could this be possible?" she questioned to herself, "Locklear blew the artifact along with himself back at the pirate station!" A holographic stand was brought into view answering Linda's question quickly. She caught small parts of the converstation as she tried to focus on the NAV controls. Linda watched as the Clarion Spy Drone's image showed the Ascendant Justice slam into the station's central ring structure. Static filled the viewscreen until a bloodied image of the Admiral came back on, with Haverson in the background with a clearly broken arm. After sending a system wide transmission resulting in a wave of Elites surrounding the ship. The stations reactor meltdown could become visible on the outside as the station started to become a dull red color. "Move us back, Linda," John said. "Keep us in the moon's shadow. Use as much power as we can spare." She tapped the necissary controls as she gave the Chief a reply, "Aye, Chief," she replied. "Foward thrusters answering one third reverse power. Course one-eight-zero." On the screen Linda could see sparks coming from the sealed doors, meaning that the Covenant were coming. The Admiral gave last orders to the Chief and asked him something about some Alamo, which she could only guess at, just as the Elites bursting through the bulhead, the Admiral started to fire just as the viewscreen burst into static. After pulling back out from the moon the Spartan saw the remnants of the Covenant's once mighty fleet, maybe a dozen remained out of the round about guess of five hundred. "A brilliant strategic victory," John whispered. "Cortana, get us out of here."
She just sat there without her armor on, deep inside of the Gettysburg's decks summing up the past days events: her awakening from her painful surgery, the recovery, the pirate station, and the trip to the Unyielding Hierphant. Her recovery was still in effect, and she felt it with every movement of her body, but she really couldn't complain. After claimed dead she fought her way back into this all to real world, but it was a good world, and she was happy to be back in it alongside the remaining Spartans. But would they be any good now that the Covenant knew the location of Earth? She had just witnessed the true power of the Covenant, even though they destroyed that all powerful fleet, the Covenant would surely be back with another, and probably much faster than the last. Wherever the Covenant were though she knew that she would be there too fighting with a renewed vengance, they had killed her once but they'd something big to kill her again. she would make sure of it. "ETA to Earth in three hours," Cortana's voice announced through the ships COM speakers. Hopefully Earth's orbital MAC guns would be operational by the time the Covenant came knocking, she always knew that the Covenant would find Earth but she had never thought of it as a now factor, only something that would eventually happen. The Chief interupted her in mid thought, "Try to get some sleep, from all of the things you've been through you deserve it." She started to protest but the Chief's gaze changed her mind, "Ok Chief, but don't forget to wake me up when we reach Earth, or I'll be coming for you instead of the Covenant. The Chief let out a smile and a small laugh, which he quickly stopped as he remembered the consequences, "Roger that, now get some shut eye."
Spartan 058 - The Tale of a Sniper - Chapter 2 & 3
Date: 26 July 2005, 4:09 am
Spartan 058 - The Tale of a Sniper
Chapter 2 - En Route to the planet Earth
Linda ran through the corn field on her family farm, laughing all the way as birds of every sort flew through the air. She was home, she could smell the pie her mother was making inside the home, she could hear her yelling. "Linda wake up," the voice said, she pondered the thought of why her mother would ask her to wake up. She woke with a start to find John staring down on her, "Linda we are near Earth, get preped and ready, we'll be in the system within moments." Washing away the pleasantries of the dream, she assembled her MJOLNIR armor with the care and expertise of a trained technician. She could hear the groan of the strained Gettysburg as it exited slipspace, the Chief's voice came through the mounted speaker in the corner, "All crew, report to Docking Bay 7, departure to Athens Station in five." The COM snapped off, Linda grabbed her S2 as she rushed out of her quarters to take the elevator to Bay 7.
For all it was worth Linda, Will, Fred, and John tried to look their best, but their suits dissagreed, after a week of constant fighting it was a miracle the suits were still in one piece, much less operational. They took the small dropship to the stations docking bays, and quickly landed, and after a quick security check they were on their way to the ships command center. A group of officers mingled around checking computers and the like, a black haired female officer strode towards the group of Spartans and the Sergeant. "Keyes, Miranda Keyes," the dark haired women said, Linda could have swore she heard the Chief's heart drop at the sound of the name. "It's good to see you back, after I heard the report about Reach I had feared the worst," said Miranda, she seemed to be looking around for another. "Where's my father?" she pressed.
Linda sat outside the conference chamber after departing with Sergeant Johnson, who was in search of a cafeteria of some sort, she could hear the Miranda's sobbs through the door as the Chief reminesced about the events following Reach until now. After several minutes, a teary eyed Keyes came out followed by a grim faced John. "Please follow me into the Briefing Room," said the demoralized Keyes. After a short walkthrough of the building through corridors with giant windows that had monsterous views of Earth, Miranda led them into a large room with a holographic screen and plenty of high ranking officers, one of them was a scowling Ackerson who was sitting by the highest ranked Lord Hood. "Good to see your back Chief, I'm sorry to hear about your fellow Spartans," commented Hood, "I'm sure they gave one helluva fight before they went down." The Chief's face was as hard as rock, "I'm positive they did," said John, his voice not giving any emotions. Linda could only smile about that behind her polarized visor, she knew that her brothers and sisters would never go down without a good fight, just look at her, she had gone down fighting and was rewarded with a renewed life. "Yes I'm sure of it, but returning to more recent news, the Covenant. As I have heard you've knocked out a substantial part of the invasion fleet which should buy us more time, our main priority is to get the MAC grid online and ready for whenever they do decide to barge in. As for your team, they will be split up on different MAC platforms, if one of them gets hit I don't want to lose the whole group understood?" The Spartan's all nodded. "Chief, you will stay aboard the Cairo, Linda you and Fred will board the Athens, Will is to be stationed on the Malta," continued Hood, "shuttles will take you to your designated stations, and by the way your new suits have just arrived."
Spartan 058 - The Tale of a Sniper
Chapter 3 - On board MAC Station - Cairo
All of the Spartans save the Chief sat in the hangar bay, conversing about what they thought would happen next.
"You know what, they probably stuck me on the Malta all alone because they know that that one is going to get hit first," Will remarked with a smile.
The Spartans all started to laugh, Linda thought that it was good that they could spend some time together sharing a laugh and telling humorous stories from their childhood. The atmosphere around her seemed to be full of high spirits and good times, it was the calm before the storm, one of those things everyone knew was coming but just kept pushing back into the far reaches of their minds.
Linda just sat in the corner alone, adding new modification's to her S2, she was where she needed to be, alone with her rifle waiting for the piviotal moment that would turn the tides. She was a sniper and she always would be, she knew her duty, but lately the rest of her comrades had been easy on her, that was probably the reason Hood had stationed her with Fred. She knew her limitations but the brass seemed to be trying to keep her healthy. She gave a smile, she knew the major downside of being with Fred was sharing all of those kills.
The Chief strode up behind the group as they were getting the last of their equipment stowed away on the pelican, she could tell by the Chief's movements that something was bothering him, Linda knew exactly what he felt, the thought of leaving his brothers and sister alone again to face the wrath of the Covenant without him. She made sure that she would do her best to stop his worrying.
"Our new suits should arrive within the hour, about the same time you should be prepped and briefed about your tasks on the platforms, I hear they're supposed to be top notch, tons of new upgrades like shielding and an auto binocculars built into the lens. When the Covenant do attack keep on your toes and give em hell, and by the way, don't do anything I wouldn't do," John said with a hint of laughter behind his voice.
"Well that rules out a whole bunch now doesn't it," said Will with a laugh which caused the whole room to join in.
"It sure does, good luck Spartans," John said as he turned and walked out of the bay.
The Spartans finished loading and all got strapped in ready for their flight to the MAC Stations.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Your suit's a bit different than all the other ones," said the old tech officer, "It has a 30X zoom and a hip compartment for extra bullets or any designated sidearm, you barrel also has a special new barrel which can reach targets from a significant distance."
A good chunk of time passed by as the tech officer went over the new suits functions and controls. The new suit was a weapon of it's own, with an increased shielding system that recharged in nearly half the time and a jump capibility of nearly two meters was extraordinay, it matched herself and her fellow Spartans perfectly, but then again they were the only ones that could wear the magnificant suit.
"You may notice a new HUD display too, we had to alter it a bit after complaints about not being able to see any second weapon's properties. Your current health bar is now gone because we decided that you would probably know when you were taking a couple of shots," the little old man said with a smile and a small chuckle to himself. "I'm all done with you so your free to go, I think your friend's waiting outside for you.
"Thank you again," replied Linda as she walked out of the lab.
Fred sat outside waiting for her so they could find their quarters and explore the station a bit more, "Aren't these great?" Fred asked as he looked down at his own suit, "They've done quite a bit since we've been gone...after Reach. Enough about that though, where should we go, we have some time off I suppose."
Before Linda could answer though the station's COM burst open with a loud voice, "We have Covenant targets at the edge of the system, stand by."
"Lets get prepped before we get stationed on welcoming duty!" Fred exclaimed as the staion burst to designated stations.
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