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Covenant Geurilla Terrorist Troupe
Date: 14 April 2003, 2:01 PM
Lieutenant Colonel Farsky walked briskly down the bare hallway, mind racing, eyes to the floor, toward the Super Computer Mainframe storage room situated in the secret Government Agency established on the planet Janus, unknown to nearly all the Human race, light-years from earth, the CMIA (Covenant Monitoring Intelligence agency) established secretively by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense and the President of Earth. This agency had everything on the Covenant; battle tactics, physical properties of the Grunts, Elites, Jackals, Hunters, Brutes and even some information on the newly discovered Prophet, a spiritual and Religious leader for the Covenant, it is been theorized that the Prophets are the ones which have rallied together the Covenant for this war against Humanity. The Mainframe had detailed reports on every battle with the Covenant even some videos from soldiers helmets with Fibre Optic cameras attached, Farsky was thinking of these things, and thought, "not everything".
The electronically operated door slid open and light flooded in to the unlit room. Out the only window in the room a rabbit could be seen, it seemed to realize Farsky looking out the window and it skittered off into the surrounding forest. It reminded Farsky that the installation used to be an abandoned shelter, to whom it used to belong on this out of the way planet is unknown, but the planet was an earth type planet capable of sustaining human life as well as other Earth life forms, so the planet became a kind of Sanctuary for endangered earth animal species, then the new president took interest and built this installation when the Covenant came along, the Joint Chiefs and the Secretary of Defense advised the President to fund the upgrade of the shelter, the President agreed and put a total of $10,000,000,000 into building this installation and it has paid off, slightly, since the Covenant are now starting to overpower the Human race, and Farsky believed that the Attack on Reach may have been the work of this terrorist group, or so he had theorized. The animals and the people of the installation seemed content together and there was never any violence between, most officers, including Farsky, often spent their time out with the animals feeding them and whatnot. Breaking away from his thoughts Farsky ventured toward the server, sat himself down on a chair and stared at the server that was bonded with the mainframe, with this you could access the entire mainframe stream of information, you'd think that there'd be more security around a room like this, but the Joint chiefs thought that secrecy was good enough security for this agency, "maybe not anymore" thought Farsky again.
Farsky leaned back on the chair and revealed a vintage Cuban Cigar from the right breast pocket of his uniform placed it in his mouth and began to chew the rough end, rolling it between his top and bottom teeth, these were in short supply and cost a large amount of any kind of currency, this was because shortly before the end of the previous president's rule Nuclear War had been waged against the supposed "Axis of Evil" which included Cuba, as well as North Korea, Iraq, Iran, etc. After a few seconds of pondering and chewing, Farsky began to type a few commands into the computer, immediately the monitor flashed on lighting up the unlit room with the sky-blue hue of the desktop background. Farsky closed and massaged his eyelids, thinking what to look for, also his mind was on the first mission of the New SPARTAN II, and data on his battle should reach the agency soon, along with big boxes of supplies for the coming months. Farsky thought a bit longer, "if my theories are true the agency, maybe even Master Chief could be in danger, we need to keep him alive, doesn't he have that unique AI construct what's its name Cortana right, he could be used as our tool against this Troupe, maybe" thought Farsky.
While searching through files Farsky thought back to the attack recently on the SS Seven, the ship scuttled and everything living inside sucked out by the space vacuum, an attack like that doesn't suit the loud, guns blazing normal tactics of the usual covenant, it was a secretive strike, like Guerilla Terrorism, with the only evidence a plasma pistol, this is what gave Farsky the idea that there could be a Covenant Terrorist group and that they have no knowledge of it.
While searching Farsky eventually came across a report on a similar incident that was found out, covenant were seen fleeing on hidden banshee's, from the ship The Pillar of Autumn ("that sounds familiar" thought Farsky), but a grunt was left behind, he'd been shot and was dying, there was a recording of the grunt's last words: "...ugh...the clergy...my fellow clerics...they...ugh...have...guh..." the grunt then died. When Farsky heard this he was enraged and confused, he wondered why nothing had been done about this, nothing else on the report about it, nothing had been done or doing.
Farsky fixed up a fibre optic camera on top of the monitor and opened a channel to his partner in the agency, Herbert Civil. It was late, Farsky looked at his digital watch, 3:00am, Farsky hoped he was up. After 8 seconds of patient waiting a plump figure with his hair in disarray sat himself down on the screen,"yeah, what" Farsky quickly explained the matter of a terrorist Group called the Clergy and its members called Clerics and about the previous incident not being acted upon. Herbert jumped into action, he seemed really on edge with this theory, but started to complain that there wasn't enough food in this place to keep him going. Farsky just thought that he should get out more, get exercise. Come to think of it, thought Farsky, the boxes on the supply ship were pretty big, big enough for a Hunter...
The Clergy
Date: 14 June 2003, 10:03 AM
Farsky was beginning to sweat, and breathe heavily, he realized that the thought that just materialized in his military mind was radical but made some sense, the supply boxes came from an undisclosed location and an elite Guerilla troupe such as the one theoretically pieced together in Farsky's mind from shards of unconfirmed evidence could effortlessly sneak aboard an unmanned drone, piloted by a computer that new only the way to go. There is no security on the ship, no cameras, you could make all the noise in the world on the ship and nothing would happen it would just keep on flying at an unparalleled extremity of speed toward a target until it landed then it would be unloaded then re-programmed to fly back to its origination. This so-called "Clergy" and its members the Clerics would have a field day in a place like this; slaughtering nigh on defenseless humans left, right and center, using their over-powering strength and weapons to destroy all the equipment we have, along with every useful scrap of information and data contained within the mainframe at which Farsky sat at this very moment. It would be an unimaginable disaster-strike upon Humanity, crippling its only source of Covenant weaknesses, apart from the few good men who have fought Covenant and lived and have found their weaknesses the hard way.
Before Farsky went back to his conversation with Herbert, he began to compose the evidence he had and he formulated a plan. He went through his knowledge of the installation; there was one cache of weapons stored in the docking bay at the far east of the installation, the basic weapons were there; MA5B Assault Rifles, M6D Pistols, M9 Fragmentation Grenades. Then he realized another fact, in the experimentation labs there were all the kinds of Covenant Weaponry found on the field, including: Plasma Pistols, Plasma Rifles, Needlers, Plasma Grenades, and even turrets. Also there were a few Warthogs present in the Docking Bay; also one Ghost Covenant vehicle was present in the Experimentation labs, which could be used. But this still all depended on whether the Secretary of Defense or the President believed him. He believed he could set up the few turrets available around the area where the ship would dock and man them with spare personnel, "I hope to God that the untrained personnel on the turrets can manage" thought Farsky, also he could position the few marines stationed on the installation around, next to or near the turrets for extra cover. "Yes" thought Farsky "It will work" he believed, he began to think of a last resort "If the Covenant are too strong we will simply use all our grenades, plasma and fragmentation, to shatter the ship, yes" for once, Farsky's spirit began to lift, he felt extremely confident. Although he needed a backup, if they would get into the installation it would be all too obvious that their objective is the Supercomputers. He would need to make a copy of the data in the mainframe from the server, he needed a data crystal, these crystals had a lot of memory space about 100 Terabytes, far more than enough to hold all the data, he hoped.
The wheels on the chair squeaked piercingly as he slid it back and got up to pace to the right side of the room where there were cabinets were full of, everything, he opened it and coffee mugs spilled out and smashed on the floor, paper towels were scattered her and there, books and magazines in places, sugar cubes, pens and pencils. Eventually he came upon are centimeter-by-centimeter transparent crystal cube. Only few people new that this crystal made up one of the layers of Master Chief's MJOLNIR armor, it was what stored the AI Construct, also the cube he used to transport Cortana from his helmet to another server, it was the perfect substance for storing data.
Farsky made his way back to the computer, slipped the cube into the drive and copied the entire hardrive to the crystal. A window popped up with a bar that began to fill very slowly. He then turned his attention back to the picture of Herbert Civil, it seemed herb had already changed and was piling through files trying to find more evidence, Farsky spoke to him again:
"Found anything, Herb?" asked Farsky
"Nothing, Ross" replied Herbert "but I did look at the stuff you mentioned it does raise suspicion, are you gonna take this to the Joint Chiefs?" asked Herbert.
"I've got another theory," said Farsky
Farsky went on to explain his theories on the supply ship and how he would prepare for such an incident.
"Ross, man, you've got to take this to the Chiefs even higher tell the damn Pres or the Secretary of Defense, you have to let your fears known to them so we can take action here" exclaimed Herbert.
"Alright, I'm off," replied Farsky.
He need only tell the bosses about his suspicions; they had access to the mainframe from their offices they can check it out when he tells them, Farsky thought. He began to run toward the Comms office where he could open a line to the Chiefs, he didn't have much time.
Worry
Date: 20 June 2003, 4:30 PM
Farsky was running, jogging, and "No! Got to be quicker!" he thought, he broke into a steady sprint, one he could hold for 2 and a half miles before his hands began to shake, or so he could in boot camp 3 years ago, he was well fit and ready for action, even at this late, or more realistically, super-early our. He looked at his watch, the bouncing was blurring the numbers but he could just make out 3:45am.
He passed few people on his way, mainly marines posted at various lab doors, these men looked young, he thought, it was a shame that they waste their lives on such a planet with nothing to do but stand all day. Well, thought Farsky, they'll get all the action they hoped they'd get when they joined if my theories are true.
Farsky arrived at the entrance to the Communications room; he paused, breathed in deep, wiped some stray hairs back from his forehead and tidied up his uniform. Before he entered he grabbed the Officer's Insignia on his shirt collar, apprehensively thinking back to the day he achieved it, his and the other marines training will have to all come back to them soon, he thought.
As Farsky ventured in, there were a few other officers in the room as well. Farsky looked around at the plain room, the only thing that struck him as obvious on it was at the back a giant 10 x 15 foot plasma communications screen, which at the moment had the Marine Commandant strong, masculine face on it shouting various commands at a helpless marine stationed in front of the screen. The room's walls were about four feet thick, layered with rubber, Acoustix, and Electromagnetic waves (more specifically, Microwaves), these Microwaves were rumoured to cause sterility and insanity, making most of the male officers extremely edgy in the room.
Farsky walked slowly toward an officer holding a clipboard and asked, "Are there any other Joint Chiefs available for a talk?" "Only the Marine commandant," the officer walked over to a desk near and picked a mouth speaker to clip on the ear," here clip this on and wait until the Commandant has finished off the Marine he's talking to."
"Thanks" replied Farsky, clipping on the speaker.
"IS THAT CLEAR!" shouted the Commandant at the poor marine.
"C...crystal...sir!" replied the helpless marine, and then jogged off.
"Commander Falke!" Farsky greeted the Commandant, saluting.
"At ease, Farsky, no formals needed, you're among friends, right?" Farsky thought back to the scared Marine.
"I guess, sir, I have a serious problem, or more logically, a theoretical problem, sir," said Farsky, worried again.
"Elaborate on it, Ross" replied the Commandant.
Farsky continued to explain his theory and his worries, the Commandant, though, seemed incredulous, even though he had checked the evidence given to him by Farsky.
"It all seems a bit far-fetched, don't you think, Farsky" said the Commandant indignantly.
Farsky became angry, a man in the Commandant's position should realise the danger this place was in from a terrorist Covenant group, with only a handful of Marines this place was defenceless, Farsky lost his cool.
"DAMNIT FALKE! DON'T YOU SEE WE ARE DEFENCELESS HERE!? UNLESS YOU BELIEVE ME AND SEND ANOTHER BATCH OF MARINES AND EXTRA MUNITIONS HERE THIS INSTALLATION AND ALL THE DATA IT HAS, PERSONNEL EVERYTHING WILL BE LOST ALONG WITH EVERYTHING WE KNOW OF THE COVENANT AND ANY CHANCE OF WINNING!" bawled Farsky.
This cacophony had caused all the officers in the room, to look towards Farsky, confused and worried, they began to gossip, this would be around the whole installation in minutes, "damn" thought Farsky.
"Farsky calm down, if you're that spooked about it maybe I should send a consignment of Marines to your place, how many do you need?" asked Falke.
"As many as you can spare," said Farsky, like it was an order.
"Okay, okay, let me see" Falke began to fiddle on his computer, " I can get 300 troops there in 5 hours, along with, whew you're lucky, 3 million rounds of ammunition," said Falke with a smile
"Should be enough, that is about 3 marines to every hallway minus a couple outside, yes, send them right now, Falke" Farsky ordered, even though he was outranked.
"Done, I'll get right on it, you are the highest ranking person on the site, yes?" asked Falke.
"Right," replied Farsky.
"Then I'll order all my troops to take orders from you, clear?" said Falke.
"Clear as the air itself, thanks Falke," replied Farsky his spirits lifting.
Farsky continued back to his Dormitory, forming his plan together to order all the Marines when they arrived. In his Dormitory, Farsky looked at the time on his digital watch again, 4:00am. He needed rest he hadn't slept in 48 hours. He set his watch for 8:00am so when he got up he'd have an hour to get ready for the marines, and get everyone else ready for this attack.
Preparation
Date: 20 June 2003, 4:31 PM
Farsky awoke to the vulgar, irritating noise of his Digital watch alarm. Slightly refreshed, he got up and paced slowly back and forth, remembering his speech that he made ready for the marines. As he paced, slowly, concentrating, he realised a briefcase in the corner of his Dorm, the Briefcase was a SADM, a Special Atomic Demolitions Munitions, a working one, which he had constructed in the early years of his Academy training and won an award for it, it was basically a nuclear bomb in a suitcase, airtight to prevent radiation leak. It contained a ten-pound cube of Uranium-238, and that was surrounded by another 20 pounds of packed plastic explosives. Remembering his days as a young inventor, he straightened himself up, stuck his chest forward and waltzed out of his Dormitory, looking as respectful as he possibly could, avoiding eye contact with passers-by, bravely saluting Marines as he walked by with increased vigour so as not to deter his fellow marines who most likely had already caught the gossip that was started in the Communications room only a few hours ago by Farsky's anger-break.
Farsky was making his way to the speaker room where he could speak through loudspeakers all through the installation, this was primarily used to contact staff needed or to announce meetings or lunchtime. Farsky reached the door and walked through without a moment's hesitation, although he was compulsively fiddling with his officer's insignia on his shirt collar again. He saluted another present officer and told him he was going to use the microphone for an important message, "Go right ahead, sir" came the answer. Farsky swiftly took up the microphone and pushed a nearby button to open the channel. Immediately altogether throughout the facility all loudspeakers rang sonorously twice to signal an on-coming message... complete silence.
"All posted Marines and Junior officers to report to the Far East docking bay immediately for a briefing, repeat..." Farsky repeated his statement and hung up the phone.
Undoubtedly, most of the personnel already on the way knew what was going to be said, although there were always going to be a few marines left in the dark.
Farsky exited the speaker room slowly and began again, walking with increasing vigour and respect toward the Far East of the installation, ready, as he ever would be for his speech. The installation was large the trip was long and Farsky found it more and more difficult to keep up this vigour-walk, he began to walk normally, with a blank face.
The trip came to an end as the east docking bay was reached, many marines were already here muttering among themselves, one-by-one they all began to realise that the Lieutenant Colonel was there and became silent and stood vertical. Farsky stared along down the very large docking bay with no roof, breathed deep and said:
"You are here for good reason I assure your full briefing will come soon when the next batch of marines get here, but for now, I need half of you to go to the weapons cache and bring everything here, remember to share, then the other half go to the labs and bring all Covenant weaponry here and bring all Covenant weaponry from the labs to here, including turrets, and bring them here and set them up around the inside of the docking bay, facing in, then take posts at each turret. The new batch of marines will be arriving in 45 minutes; I want you all ready by then so we can finish the Briefing! Dismissed!" ordered Farsky.
The Marines erupted into action; half going to the labs the other going to the weapons cache, silence again in the docking bay, Farsky was all by himself, with only his thoughts to keep him company. He ran back to his Dormitory when he arrived he grabbed two Magnums, "Grace" and "Hope", from inside the top of the desk underneath his laptop; he stuffed it into his trousers and crammed his pockets full of ammo, and ran quickly back to the hangar.
There already some Marines back at the hangar, but they were all from the weapons cache, no doubt that the ones getting the covenant artillery were having trouble persuading the lab technicians to hand them over, it would only take one of them to start waving a gun and the technicians would give up.
The new Marines arrived shortly after the Covenant weaponry finally made it to the hangar; the Marines from the installation helped the others unload the heavy crates of ammunition into the bay, where they were abruptly emptied and soon every marine had pockets and guns and side arms full of ammunition. They all assembled quickly in formation in front of Farsky.
"This is why you are here! It is the suspicion of Commandant Falke's and mine that there maybe a Covenant Guerrilla Terrorist group called the Clergy, and its members Clerics, and we are worried that this installation is a primary objective of theirs to destroy, we cannot let that happen! I want all the marines in the two columns on the far right of me to break into groups of three and patrol one hallway each! Any surplus marines get back here! Everyone in the 6 columns on the far left of me to break into threes and find a room each to monitor any surplus marines get back here! The two columns in the middle will patrol around the base, all the Marines that are left to take posts all around the inside of the structure, if possible next to turrets! GO!" Farsky shouted these orders, immediately after all the marines splintered into different units and scattered all over the base.
"Yes," thought Farsky ,"This is going to work there is no way it won't."
Suspense shattered
Date: 20 June 2003, 5:17 PM
"It'll work Ross, I wouldn't worry too much, and I don't know why you suspect anything, even if the Covenant group is made of all Hunters and Elites, only 10 of them would fit in the supply ship that much couldn't match up to hundreds of marines," said Herb reassuring the intimidated Farsky.
"Yeah, you're right Herb, thanks for the encouragement, I guess on your side of the bas there is already a good few men, or are the marines not following my orders?" asked Farsky feeling much happier.
"There are groups of three patrolling the hallways every now and again," Herb replied.
Farsky simply replied with "Good" and a "Bye" then logged off the conversation and unhooked his fibre-optic camera. He looked at his watch 7:00am, only an hour until the supply ship is scheduled to arrive.
Once he had loaded his magnums, Farsky returned to the Docking Bay and helped to set up the Covenant turrets and distribute weaponry there was a lot of surplus ammo left over, including grenades, they might need during the battle, Farsky left it there.
Farsky decided that to rid himself of further feelings he needed to give the men another pep talk, he stood straight like before, chest puffed out and jutting chin, fingering his Officer's Insignia again, confidence.
"Marines! We will battle for our right to win today!" all the marines begin listening attentively, "In less than an hour you will meet an enemy that will be dangerous, very dangerous, possibly 10 hunters, maybe 5 grunts but we will still battle them, for those of you without experience with the Covenant, YOU ARE IN FOR THE FIGHT OF YOUR LIFE! But you, you men and women, you're Earth's hope, they're ray of light even, when you fight in the next hour, fight for your friends, your family, the children of Earth! DO EARTH PROUD! DO YOUR COMRADES PROUD! That is all..." Farsky ended and the Hangar erupted with the sound of cheer and whistling.
Farsky stood back and admired the view of happy confident Marines, some of them will die, he realised that but what could he do about that.
Everyone was ready, Farsky had arranged for the Communications Department to come on to the speakers and notify the base when the supply ship was near.
The docking bay sky doors were already open, morning sun beamed into bay revealing clouds of dust moving swiftly and calmly through the air. Soon.
"Lieutenant Colonel Farsky, Sir! Docking ship is inbound 5 five minutes!" a voice came ringing in from the speakers.
Breathing could be heard very loud over the long silence, heavier and heavier, someone dropped his or her side arm. CLING. This resonated throughout the docking bay marines instantly turned pointing their guns toward a scared puzzled marine. "Jesus..." people muttered, others just shook their heads or rolled their eyes, fear built as the seconds passed like hours. Breathing heavier, faster.
"One minute, Sir!" the voice quaked over the speakers again.
"Everyone ready!" Farsky shouted.
Breathing.
Heavy, fast.
Guns cocked.
Loaded, checked.
Ringing noises.
Breathing.
The dust began to move faster, like particles in a chemical reaction, it began spinning, a marine stuttered. Loud noise, like whooshing swept through the sky doors and into the docking bay. The marine beside Farsky was shaking; he remembered the marine's face.
The ship entered noisy as hell, shaped like an arrow with the head as the cockpit but a rather bulky but streamline back part intended for the cargo, but was it? I t took seemingly hours to settle down; the ramp came down at a long angle so the cargo could slide. Then nothing...
Silence, the marines were edgy, the close marine still shaking, then another noise, unfamiliar, like something sliding along a smooth surface, a box? Yes...
The marines saw it, they panicked, they didn't understand and were to slow to realise the following consignment of grunts with one elite, they were different, the grunts, brave...
That box.
Shouting.
No gunfire, yet.
The dust, settled...
Here we go...
The grunts spread, firing random blasts of charged plasma pistols, one hit the marine was down, strange. The grunts were moving unusually for normal ones, more confident in their swift yet strangely perfect movements. All gunfire started, but these grunts were simply too good, it was uncanny, why? CHUG! A plasma shot hit the ground before him Farsky stumbled, while falling, Farsky aimed Grace and fired, yes, the hip, but not fatal for a grunt, Farsky lost sight and hit the ground hard, nothing, he rolled and spun up on to one knee. The grunts looked as if they were dancing, dodging all shots that came to them, no, it wasn't possible, Covenant didn't fight like this! Farsky was confused but didn't stop he brought out Faith and they fired in all directions but the grunts danced and dodged. All firing ceased collectively as all the marines reached for ammunition, no! Thought Farsky, vulnerabilities were exposed and exploited, the grunts stopped dead crouched all charged and fired in different directions followed by a barrage of minor pistol shots, but there were enough for massive casualties, that there were, over half the marines left toppled or flew backwards and others barraged with minor shots, they burned. During this a calm Elite watched then decided to make his move with the box in front, he clicked the glowing hand mechanism in his hand that spread into a plasma sword, he cut up the side, over the top and down the other side with the plasma sword carefully, a groan, something erupted from inside the box the top splintered into millions of parts. The elite began dancing and firing at the helpless marines, Farsky looked at the box, a Brute! NO! These marines couldn't handle this, Farsky patted his pocket, the cube was still there, and he'd have to make a run for it. Brute kicked its way through the rest of the box and roared an inhuman howl that resonated so loudly Farsky could feel his eardrums vibrating to the max. No...
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