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The Time Vortex by Arthur Wellesly
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The Time Vortex: Intro
Date: 30 October 2002, 4:52 pm
"Damn it, we need armor support right god damned now!" yelled Sergeant Peterson over the COM channel to Major O'Keefe, now in command of a nearby military installation half a mile east of the city. "We're being overrun by Covenant forces. Over."
Peterson impatiently waited for an answer as a piece of shrapnel struck the wall of a building he was leaning against. He heard some incoherent fuzz in his earpiece, which was part of his helmet, and then heard the response. "Scorpions are on they're way, Sergeant. Hold tight. O'Keefe out." Peterson cursed so foully that his squad of Marines crouching next to him was actually somewhat shocked. "They've been on they're way for twenty god damned minutes," he muttered to Corporal John Livington.
"Don't worry Sarge," said the Corporal soothingly. "They'll be here."
An army of three thousand Marines was pinned down in the city of Klendros on a planet in the Lambda Serpentis system, Jericho VII. A group of twelve Covenant ships had arrived via slipstream space at the planet and unleashed wave after wave of dropships to secure the planet's defenses and prepare it for immediate glassing. The Marines had given them hell so far, but it wouldn't be long before the city was taken. This city was the Covenant's only concern, for it powered nuclear silos that could fire on ships in orbit around the planet. The Marines knew that if they let this city fall, then the Covenant fleet would move in and destroy the planet.
Sergeant Peterson led a squad of thirty Marines near the heart of the city where both the nuclear silos and the fusion power plant were located. He had a warthog with him as well as two Marines with rocket launchers and five snipers. All the other Marines, including Sergeant Peterson himself, had an arsenal of MA5B Assault rifles, M90 Shotguns, and M9D Pistols. Five of Peterson's squad had already perished in a brief but bloody conflict with a group of Jackals and Grunts.
Peterson quickly looked out from the corner of the building they were hiding behind and examined the street. It was empty, except for a few piles of rubble from a demolished building. The veteran Sergeant knew that there could be dozens of Covenant hiding behind that rubble, waiting for something to move. "Livington, Sherman, you're with me. We're gonna run across this street and see if its all clear." Peterson turned away from those two and faced the rest of his squad. "You await my signal and then get your asses across the street too." Peterson was saying something, but it was not heard, for at that moment a plasma mortar from one of the Covenant mortar tanks outside the city smashed into a nearby apartment, completely demolishing it in one hit. Peterson sighed, then said again, "Bring that warthog with you."
Sergeant Peterson, Corporal Livington, and Private Sherman all prepared to sprint across the street. Readying there weapons, they dug they're feet into the ground and all ran at once at Peterson's word. They had almost cleared the street when a barrage of green and blue plasma bolts swept up from down the street and thudded against the wall of a house, melting it. Sherman and Peterson both made it safely to the protection of the warehouse across the street but the larger Corporal Livington was hit in the arm. The Marines watched it horror as the arm was melted off at the shoulder, leaving a bloody gaping hole on the side of Livington's body. He screamed in pain and then gasped as his cotton uniform burst into flame after being exposed to such heat. No more shots came from the Elites and Grunts encamped down the street; they watched in grim amusement as their enemy was slowly being burned to death as he was now a living torch.
It seemed like hours that Livington burned and screamed. Peterson reared his head at the stench of burning flesh, and came close to vomiting. Then quite suddenly, the screaming stopped, and the blackened and smoking body of the Corporal collapsed lifeless to the ground. The Marines shuddered, both in horror and in guilty thankfulness, all fully realizing that that could have been them.
Peterson forced himself to regain his composure. "Get the back of that warthog into the street!" He yelled to his squad across the street. The Marines, who had done this before, knew exactly what he meant. One Marine climbed onto the turret on the back of the vehicles while another slowly drove it backward out from the corner of the house and into the street. Once the full back of the jeep was away from the building, leaving only the turret exposed, the driver stopped and the gunner opened fire.
The powerful M41 LAAG, actually meant to be a light anti-aircraft weapon, fired 12.7X99mm bullets at a rate of around 500 rounds per minute (about 8 per second) down the street at the Covenant, and the result was devastating. The Elite commanders, figuring they were dealing with three Marines, ran up to finish off their targets along with their group of Grunts and were thus completely exposed to the warthog's turret. The enormous bullets tore through the bodies of the unshielded bodies of the Grunts and even quite easily ripped through the shielded bodies of the Elites. Satisfied that they had taken the enemy by surprise and now had adequate cover, the rest of the Marines ran out into the street and opened fire with their assault rifles on the Covenant.
Peering down the street using the scope of his pistol, Peterson saw the Covenant had been eliminated. "Ceases fire!" he yelled to his squad. "Cease fire you morons! Save your god damned ammo!" The firing suddenly stopped. Everything seemed eerily quite. The bullet cases dropping to the ground seemed to be unbearably loud in the silence. Peterson shuddered involuntarily. "Alright, Marines, good job. Now come to me!"
The Marines ran as quietly as they could across the street to their Sergeant and Sherman. Just as they all made it across the street a plasma mortar hit the roof of the warehouse they were crouching behind. It smashed through the roof and landed on the concrete floor inside the building, causing a chain reaction of smaller explosions as military supplies blew up after being hit with such tremendous force. Part of the wall of the warehouse the Marines were next to collapsed due to this and wounded several men. Shrieks came from inside the building as well, telling the squad that there were civilians in there when it blew.
Two more plasma mortars flew overhead and demolished several buildings near the Marines' position. "They're trying to hit the nuclear facility," Peterson realized. He shook his head in amazement. The nuclear warheads in this city were designed to destroy the heavily shielded Covenant ships, and if they blew, the entire city, as well as miles beyond that, would be destroyed, taking all of the Covenant along with them. Once again Peterson was forced to wonder what made the Covenant so determined to kill humans that they would die for the cause.
Peterson opened the COM channel to universal audience. "Any Marines squads near..." Peterson paused and looked at a nearby sign, "Olaf's Car Warehouse respond immediately, over."
Peterson waited for a response and quickly got one. "Roger that, this is Fire Team Delta, we read you, over."
"This is Fire Team Bravo, we're at the south wall of the warehouse," Peterson said. "Give us you location, over."
"Roger that, Fire Team Bravo," said the voice over the COM system. "We'll flare you."
Peterson pressed a button on the inside of his helmet and brought down a green eyepiece in front of his eye. What he saw was exactly what everyone else saw except it was green and very fuzzy. "Okay, Fire Team Delta," yelled Sergeant Peterson as another plasma mortar screamed overhead. "Flare away."
Peterson scanned the streets all around him, and directly Northwest of his position his saw a blinking white light. His scanner read that the flare was three hundred fifty yards away. He could not see them, of course, because the warehouse was in the way.
"Okay, Fire Team Delta, I've got you're position," said Peterson, grateful there was a squad of Marines so close. "We'll come to you. Any sniper cover you could give us would be greatly appreciated, over," he added.
"Roger that, Fire Team Bravo. Be advised, there are Covenant in many of these buildings, over."
"Okay, Marines, lets get ready to move, we're meeting with Fire Team Delta." Peterson looked around thoughtfully at his group. He had a nice squad of Marines, and although he never admitted it to them, they all knew of their Sergeant's opinion of them. It formed a unique closeness between the men. What they didn't know was just how much the death of a man under Peterson's command affected him. He was still shaken from the horrible demise of Corporal Livington. "Move quick and carefully," he added with a growl, "there are Covenant all over the place. Alright, team, let's go!"
Three men clamber into the warthog, a driver, an armed passenger, and the gunner, and it drove slowly out from around the warehouse, the rest of the squad packed fairly tight around it for cover. The five snipers had their eyes to their scopes and they scanned all around, looking carefully for any Covenant forces. Two snipers, walking together a few feet from the rest of the Marines, whispered something to each other, and then spread out. Seconds later they took aim at a window in a building several hundred yards away and fired. They heard a faint, gurgled scream of an Elite as well as several other high-pitched death shrieks of grunts.
"Good job Marines," Peterson said, congratulating his men. Just as they were one hundred yards away from the position of Fire Team Delta, they saw a Marine run out from behind a house and snipe a target. "True to their word," Peterson said thankfully.
They reached the position of Fire Team Delta. Peterson was impressed with what he saw. The squad had no warthog, but they did have fifty Marines with seven snipers and ten rocket launchers. The other Marines had set up a perimeter around their position, keeping a look out for any hostile troop movement.
"Good afternoon, Sergeant," saw a tall, thin man brandishing an assault rifle.
"Good afternoon, sir," said Peterson respectfully, seeing this man's rank as being first lieutenant. "How long have you been here, sir?"
"We got separated from the rest of the company about an hour ago. I tried contacting them, but..." he shrugged. "We fear the worst. We've been trying to get some armor support, but reliable old J.O.C. keeps telling us its on the way."
Peterson smiled a secret smile, but kept his thoughts to himself. "Well, sir, the Scorps are apparently coming down the main highway - I suggest we head there and give the tanks some infantry support so they can take out the Covenant Mortar tanks."
The lieutenant smiled ruefully. "Excellent idea, Sergeant, but how to you propose we make it to the highway. We must be a miles away."
"Four miles, three hundred fifty point eight yards away to be exact, sir," piped up one of the lieutenant's men, examining his eyepiece.
Peterson didn't answer for a moment, but just got up and walked over to a large board on the side of the shop they were next to. "Well, sir, apparently this is some sort of corner store here, and it says that one block away there is a subway station. If we can get to that we would be able to reach the highway in no time at all."
The lieutenant nodded. "Yes, I believe the subways are still in tact." The lieutenant opened the COM link on his helmet. "Major O'Keefe, sir!" he shouted over the fuzz. "What's the ETA on the Scorpion tanks?" As he waited for his answer, he reached up his hand to Peterson and introduced himself. "I'm Lieutenant Carson, by the way."
The Sergeant shook his hand. "Sergeant Peterson, sir," he said gruffly.
Just then, the response came. "Exact ETA is unknown at this time, not more than a couple of minutes."
Carson snorted derisively and closed the link. "Well, assuming he's right, we'd better be on the move." Carson nodded to Peterson. "Get you squad ready to move, Sergeant." With that, he turned to face his squad and prepared to assemble them for immediate departure.
Peterson turned to face his own squad. "Alright, ladies, we're moving out again. Lock and load your weapons."
The warthog was once again occupied. Seeing that the turret on the back had no cover, Peterson hopped on. The mounted turret was an ingenious and practical design. The rotating steel platform the gun was set on was highly magnetized, and when the gunner gripper the handles on the turret (where the trigger was located) the platform automatically magnetized. So, because each Marine had steel boots, the warthog could actually completely flip in the air, and the gunner would still be tightly attached to the vehicle.
The Marines set out down the long wide street in a loose formation, now that they were so exposed in the open space. The warthog was not going very fast, so as to stay with the rest of the Marines, but it did stay a fair distance in front of them so that it would be the first target any Covenant would see. At least the warthog could take a couple shots before melting.
Peterson was at first amazed they encountered no resistance the first couple hundred yards, and then he began to grow increasingly uneasy. He swung the turret around and looked at the tall buildings on either side of him. He did not have to worry about an air assault - the city's formidable AA batteries kept all the banshees at bay. Likewise, however, the Covenants mobile AA weapons easily kept the Thunderbird bombers and Longsword fighters from taking out the mortar tanks.
Suddenly Peterson heard a faint whistling sound. Apparently he wasn't the only one to hear it, for other Marines were also looking at each other knowingly, all recognizing the familiar sound.
"Ghosts!" somebody cried.
Sure enough, a group of four ghosts whipped out from a street at an intersection not one hundred yards from the Marines' position. "Take cover!" Peterson yelled and opened fire with his turret. The massive bullets hit the Ghosts, but the small and maneuverable targets were difficult to hit, so he did minimum damage.
Ghosts were the small assault vehicles the Covenant used mainly against infantry. Like most Covenant land vehicles, they possessed the ability to hover over any surface, and without friction, they could travel at tremendous speeds in a moment's notice. These ghosts were not moving much now, however, because they realized that the Marines had rocket launchers with them that could easily destroy them if they got too close. Right now, they were content with shooting their super heated plasma cannons at the group of humans.
The Marines ran for cover, diving into alleys between buildings or crashing through doors or even windows of houses. Sergeant Peterson, however, could do nothing. He was in the middle of the street and would be fried long before he could reach the cover of the buildings. The front of the warthog was not a smoldering mass of molten steel and rubber. The two Marines in the front were also dead, their skin dripping from their smoking bones, now clearly visible with no flesh. Peterson had no choice but to jump off the turret and take the only cover available to him: the back of the jeep.
The Elites in the ghosts had seen him, however, and they were slowly approaching the melted warthog, strafing along the sides of the buildings along the streets, firing at them in case any Marines were hiding in them. Suddenly, from a second story window of a hotel, a Marine fired a rocket at one of the slow moving ghosts. It hit the large front portion of it, the powerful explosive reducing it immediately to a burning wreck. Realizing that they had to move quickly, the ghosts sped up and zoomed seemingly aimlessly around the street firing randomly at the buildings. They will soon be here, Peterson realized dreadfully.
Then, Peterson pulled from his pocket an unfamiliar object. He smiled proudly. He had forgotten he had been saving this. What he held was a Covenant plasma grenade. Whoever was throwing it activated it by pressing a button on the side of it, and then threw it directly at an object. The non-descript metal grenade would stick to whatever object it was thrown at. Of course, the thrower would have to be careful not to touch the orange part, or else it would stick to him.
Peterson looked around the back of the warthog, and he saw that the ghosts were nearing his position. His pressed the button on the side, and it began to glow brightly, as if a blue flame engulfed the small orb. Just as a ghost appeared at the side of the warthog, Peterson threw it, and it attached itself to the side of the vehicle. The Elite saw it and tried to get out of the ghost but it was too late. The grenade exploded and destroyed the ghost, killing the Elite on it.
The remaining two ghosts realized they had to call for reinforcements, and so they backed away from the site. They were speeding away and they almost rounded a corner of the street when Private Millard sniped the Elite in the back of the head, the powerful bullet drilling through the Elite's shields and skull, killing it and leaving the ghost rider-less.
Peterson looked around him. There must have been five or six scorched bodies still burning brightly on the street. Once again, the smell of burnt human flesh made Peterson want to wretch, but he resisted the urge. He was still shaken by his encounter with the ghosts, but not so much that he couldn't yell at his Marines. "What are you just standing around there for, ladies?" he asked. "Don't any of you know how to ride a god damned ghost?"
"I do, Sarge," piped up Private Latromo, eager to impress Peterson having just recently joined the Corps. Most of the new recruits were trained in the use of captured Covenant technology.
"Alright, son, get your ass over there. We'll cover you," he added reassuringly, for the ghost was about fifty yards away.
Private Latromo was a skinny but well muscled man and quickly got to the ghost with no problem, but as he clambered into the seat, he looked down the street to the right of him after hearing a noise, opened his eyes wide, and then brought the vehicle to Peterson.
"Sarge, the subway station is down that street," he gestured to a nearby street going right from the intersection where the ghost had been, "but there must be fifty or sixty Covenant coming up too. I'd say about ten Elites, the rest an assortment of Grunts and Jackals, as well as that last ghost. They've got Hunters too, Sarge," he added quietly.
Lieutenant Carson, who was standing near Peterson, overheard this. "I doubt we can get past that, Sergeant. Even with our rocket launchers..." his voice trailed off as he heard the clanking of Elite armor, the high pitched, chattering voices of the Grunts, the piercing shouts of Jackals, and the low moaning of the ghosts. They also heard a new sound - the sound of heavy metal scraping against itself as well as deep grunts of unintelligible alien dialect. Hunters.
"Marines, spread out!" both Peterson and Carson shouted to their squads. "Grab some cover and fire whatever you see. Snipers and rocket launchers, get to the high floors of buildings." The highly trained Marines instantly went into action. Two twin tower thirty story apartment buildings served as a good position for snipers, and a series of five story houses were the favored place for the rocket launchers, who's rockets traveled at a much slower rate. The rest ran to get cover in various places. One brave man took their position on the turret of the warthog, the only remaining part of the jeep, but Peterson told him not to be a god damned fool and the Marine took his place back in an alleyway. Private Latromo waited in the lobby of a hotel with his ghost, ready to come out when needed.
It seemed to take forever for the Covenant to reach the intersection where they would become visible to the Marines. Indeed, they did stop for a while to discuss their attack plan and to let fear seep into their enemies. The effect on the Marines, meanwhile, was as potent as the Covenant hoped for. They waited in the dreadful silence for their enemy to come face to face with them. Plasma mortars screamed overhead, coming nearer and nearer to hitting the powerplant and the adjacent nuclear facilities. Gunshots could be heard from elsewhere in the city as the battle raged on.
Suddenly a noise could be heard from the street ahead. Nobody had ever encountered Hunters before, they had only heard rumors, and so the sound was as alien to them as the Covenant were. It was only several seconds later that the realized the Hunters were lobbing their fuel rod cannons over the building they were hiding behind towards the taller buildings where they assumed the snipers and rocket launchers lay hidden. This went on for several minutes (Peterson winced as he heard several screams that told him the Covenant's tactics were at least somewhat successful) and then they advanced into the open.
Peterson peered out of the alleyway he was hiding in and his jaw dropped. Clearly either Latromo was insane or the Covenant got reinforcements, for at that moment about three hundred Covenant, including about forty Elites, ten hunters and four ghosts, appeared around the corner and began to spread out to find cover of their own. The Marines opened fire with every weapon they had. Bullets tore through the poor grunts and killed some of the Jackals who were not yet holding their shields in a defensive position. However, for the most part, they were ineffective against the heavily shielded Elites and Hunters.
An RPG roared out of a window at a stationary Hunter, but the Hunter saw in coming and easily jumped out of the way to dodge it. Then it planted its feet firmly on the ground and fired its weapon at where it saw the rocket come from. The massive explosion blew apart the entire floor of the house the Marine was hiding in, and moments later the entire building collapsed, crushing another shrieking Marine on the floor above in the rubble.
Peterson went into action. Getting out from the alley he was in, he threw a grenade and a pack of advancing Grunts and Jackals, killing about three of them and knocking the rest off balance. Then he opened fire with his assault rifle and pumped the remaining five full of lead, hoping he had killed all of them for his weapon was now out of ammo. Peterson cursed to see a Jackal pick itself up off the ground and hold its energy shield in front of itself and prepared to fire. It fired one bolt of green plasma at him, and it came so close to the panic-stricken Sergeant that it seared the flesh on his face, but another shot did not come. Peterson watched in amazement as the Jackal's head exploded with the impact of a bullet and drenched its shield with its own, purple blood. The shield fizzled out a moment after so as the enemy could not pick it up and use it. Peterson wondered who had saved his life, but he could not determine through the carnage he saw.
The amount of gunshots he heard was lessening considerably now - most of the Marines were probably dead. In fact, looking at the street, Peterson saw so many scorched bodies he was surprised anyone was left fighting. He looked with helplessness as a Hunter shot its fuel rod cannon at a window where he knew some of his snipers were. He heard some screams, but they were quickly silenced as the building caught on fire from the phenomenal heat. Peterson saw no more rockets firing at the Covenant who were now torching the buildings with virtual impunity. He saw with dismay that Latromo's ghost was now a blackened lump of metal, with a burned and unidentifiable Marine sitting in its seat.
Then Peterson saw an amazing sight. He saw Lieutenant Carson's face appear in a window in a building across the street - Peterson figured him to be dead. The air was now buzzing with plasma bolts and needles. It would be suicide to go out into the open now, but Peterson had to try. There was strength in numbers, after all. Also, the Sergeant was getting uncomfortable with an Elite he saw was coming precariously close to his position, curious as to who had killed the group of Grunts and Jackals. And so, Peterson ran. A moment after he did this, a Hunter fired its explosive green plasma charge exactly where he had been.
Peterson had never been so terrified in his life. Twice a plasma bolt almost hit him. Then, just as he was almost through the door to the building he had seen the lieutenant's face in, a needle embedded itself in his steel breastplate. Moments later the needle exploded and sent shards of metal flying into his chest. Peterson flinched in pain, but was very grateful. He had never understood the use of the heavy metal armor; a sheet of steel would do nothing to stop a superheated ball of plasma. But now he was very indebted to it, for it had undoubtedly saved his life.
Peterson was not out of danger yet. He was standing in the doorway when suddenly a ball of green plasma fired from the fuel rod cannon hit the street not ten feet away from him. The Sergeant was flung to the other side of the room he was in, his right side badly burned. Carson and another Marine heard his moan of pain and ran down in amazement to find him.
"Peterson?" asked the lieutenant incredulously. "What are you doing here?"
The other Marine quickly looked out the doorway and reported what he saw to his superiors. "Sir, the Hunters have seen us and they're gonna fire!" The Marine was already hurrying to the back of the house as he said this, assisting Carson to drag the wounded Sergeant with them. Not long afterward the front of the house was blown apart as two or three Hunters fired simultaneously. All three Marines were thrown like rag dolls to the back wall of the house. The second story teetered for a moment, and then the fire that followed afterward made the front section of the second story collapse in. Luckily, the three Marines were thrown so far back they were not harmed.
"We've got to get the hell out of here," said Carson to the Marine, Private Jenkins. "Get Vicenti and we'll head out."
Jenkins nodded his acknowledgement and then ran into the yard of house to retrieve Vicenti who was sniping from a well-chosen hiding place when he called out to Carson. "Sir, you'd better take a look at this," he said, his voice teeming with joy.
Carson, curious as to what the Marine could possibly find so joyous in such a terrible situation, headed out back, dragging Peterson with him. He then came to the wrought iron fence of the backyard and saw a remarkable sight. Heading in from the west were two Thunderbird bombers at a high speed. They came closer and closer to the now compact group of Covenant and then unloaded their payload with laser targeted precision. A gigantic crater was torn into the street as the powerful missiles obliterated most of the enemy presence in the vicinity. Then, seconds later, a Pelican dropship came roaring up the street, its chain-guns attached to the front tearing up the asphalt in great spouts of debris. It succeeded in killing the last of the Covenant who survived the blast.
Two Marines in the back of the dropship manning a turret shouted "Any Marines left come immediately to the dropship. Orders of Captain le Blanc." Almost immediately afterward, the message was repeated in the helmet's headset to the Marines.
Peterson was conscious enough to hear this, and he sighed in relief. His rattled brain did not allow him to think clearly, and he figured they had beaten the Covenant and that Jericho VII would be saved from the glassing it would have surely had to endure. It would be all right... it would be alright...
Carson had to half-carry, half-drag the Sergeant to the waiting dropship. Vicenti and Jenkins were already on the Pelican, as well as two other Marines who had also apparently survived the attack. Carson was just strapping Peterson tightly into the dropship when he heard a noise to the right of him. Looking in that direction he saw an Elite standing in a doorway in a nearby building, a needler in its hand. It fired several shots at Carson, and the alien was so close and the projectiles moved so fast that Carson had no rime to react. He gasped in pain as the sharp needle embedded itself in his neck, and then his eyes grew wide as it exploded inside his jugular. A phenomenal amount of blood washed onto the deck of the dropship as Carson collapsed in a bloody heap onto the street. The Marines who mounted the turret on the back, sputtering in rage and horror, opened fire on the doorway, but the Elite retreated into the building.
The Marines swore uselessly and dragged the bloody Carson into the dropship. Vicenti and Jenkins looked on helplessly as their lieutenant squirmed on the deck of the Pelican, unable to scream. One of the other Marines, a Private Mendoza, attempted to stop the bleeding, but it was hopeless. Carson lost far too much blood, and he slowly died, his face a twisted mask of pain.
Private Vicenti sighed. "What the hell happened?" he asked one of the Marines.
The Marines also heaved a tremendous sigh. One said, "Well, the tanks finally made it through the Covenant resistance on the highway, but they were too late. The fusion power plant had already been hit and was going critical." He gestured down at the city they were now slowly gaining altitude above. The other soldiers peered down and gasped. The seemingly ruined part of the city they were in was actually relatively in tact compared to the rest of it. Klendros was not a city completely demolished. Most of the buildings had already been completely reduced to rubble, and those that were not were burning intensely. The fusion powerplant, located at the center of the city, was up in flames, and it was clear where it had been struck two or three times by plasma mortars. Peterson, weakly looking down from the edge of the deck, marveled that the plant had not already blown. He was thankful it had not - the explosion generated by the powerplant alone would be enough to destroy the entire city, not to mention the chain reaction of nuclear warheads it would set off destroying miles around it.
"Anyway, the Scorps got word that the plant had already been hit and that their mission was a lost cause," the Marines continued wearily, as if it tired him just thinking about it. "They were ordered to take out the mobile anti-aircraft battery instead to allow Pelicans to come and rescue whoever they could." The Marines looked at them with a sad expression, his dramatic gaze emphasized by the disappearing light he was silhouetted against as the door to the Pelican closed. "You were among the few we were able to get." TO BE CONTINUED Also, in the next one, I'll actually get to the Halo plot line. I just felt like making that intro. Expect more in the near future. Believe me, I have a major plot twist in store. (The title being a main clue, of course).
Email Address: arthur_wellesly@hotmail.com
The Time Vortex: Part 1
Date: 3 November 2002, 8:35 pm
Coincidence. Is there such a thing? Fate, destiny - are these a reality, or an idea humankind has created and stringed together, an elaborate tapestry of myths and lies. And what of time? Is it merely a continuous chain of events, or is it something tangible? Something that could be, perhaps, harnessed?
Sergeant Peterson was in a tight spot. He was running behind a warthog for cover with Lieutenant Carson as the gunner, Private Mendoza as the passenger, and the Spartan Master Chief as the driver. He had honorably chosen to not enter the warthog and let others take his place. He was, of course, much more vulnerable, but he had done what any courageous Sergeant would have done and so he gave up the luxury of safety.
The Marines and the Master Chief were on a mission to take Halo's Control Room after landing on the strange ring a day or two before this. Unfortunately, before they joined up with the rest of Fire Team Zulu, who were pinned down in the adjacent canyon by hostile Covenant forces, two Elites and four Grunts popped out from behind a snow-bank to the right of Peterson and opened fire. The warthog wheeled around to protect Peterson and provide cover for him, but it was too late. A plasma bolt struck him in the leg, melting it off and instantly setting him on fire. Two needles struck his stomach and blew his intestines clean out of his body. Another needle embedded itself painfully into the side of the Sergeant's head, and moments later, Peterson knew no more.
If 343 Guilty Spark's programming had allowed him to curse, he would have done so, and he would have cursed terribly. As it was, the Monitor merely hummed in an irritated tune and considered what had gone wrong. Peterson needed to survive to fulfill his destiny in the swirling vortex of time. But how could he work it out so that Peterson survived?
Then the answer came to him. If Peterson had been in the warthog then they probably would have just continued past the Covenant to rejoin with the rest of Fire Team Zulu. But with Carson, Mendoza, and the chief all in the warthog as well... obviously, one of them needed to go. It definitely couldn't be the Chief, for he was the chosen Reclaimer. This Private Mendoza also had his part to play in time, and that would soon come. That left only Carson... 343 Guilty Spark smiled with success as he saw through his infinite wisdom that the Lieutenant's destiny was blank and would not matter on Halo. Carson had to die.
343 Guilty Spark, looking back in history, saw no window of opportunity recently in which Carson could easily be killed. He had spent the last seventeen years of his life on board several different ships, doing nothing but look out a window helplessly as he, a Marine, watched other ships burn or entire planets be destroyed by his fanatic enemy. He considered changing time so much that the ship he served on would also be destroyed by these "Covenant", but he dismissed this idea after examining it thoroughly for a hundredth of a millisecond. That would be violating protocol, as well as killing others on the ship whom had their part to play on Halo.
Then Guilty Spark saw an opportunity, and he congratulated himself on finding it so quickly. Back on Jericho VII was the only place 343 could possibly kill the irritating Lieutenant. The Monitor was not worried that this was seventeen years in the past. It did not matter in the least to him - the Forerunner had programmed him so that he was incapable of feeling impatient. To do so would be cruel, and the little machine would probably go insane. The number of times he had to do this, repeating time over and over again to get things straight; often the Monitor had to go back farther than seventeen years. So thus it was that 343 Guilty Spark made his decision.
The bonds that held time together suddenly snapped, and the entire universe was hurtled back through time seventeen years in the past. Then, quite suddenly, time completely froze as 343 Guilty Spark considered exactly when Carson should be eliminated. He considered killing him along with the rest of his company earlier that day, but then he remembered he needed Carson to save Peterson from getting vaporized by a Hunter's plasma weapon. Obviously it had to be after that... but when? There was a very small window of opportunity before the dropship would take him away. He couldn't get him killed by the Hunter firing on the house, because that would kill Peterson as well.
343 Guilty Spark was not a machine to give up easily, though. He eventually saw an Elite waiting in a near by building, about one hundred feet from the dropship's eventual position. That creature would be his loophole.
Time, however, is a slippery thing. What most things living creatures do is of their own free will, considering what they should do next with their own thought process. External forces, of course, influence their decisions, and in this instance, time would be this external force, perhaps making a living thing realize something it didn't before. Perhaps, maybe... an opportunity to kill.
Elite 4711 had watched in rage as these pathetic humans wiped out his entire squad. He watched as a Pelican dropship roared up the street, tearing the asphalt apart with its massive 50mm chainguns and killing the last remainder of the Covenant. In his position, a Grunt would surely run out stupidly and try to terminate an enemy much the strength of its own. A Jackal would probably run away for reinforcements. A Hunter would walk out and blast the dropship with one shot of its fuel rod cannon. Elite 4711 knew it could not take out the four chaingun turrets on the front and the one mounted on the back, and so it knew it had to retreat. It figured all the humans were aboard anyway and now protected by five inches of titanium - it couldn't possible take a couple of Marines that long to get into the hovering Pelican.
Something, however, suddenly compelled the Elite to look out the door of the building it was hiding in, probably the click of a strap that sounded unnaturally loud to the Elite that told it there were still humans buckling up. Maybe it still had an opportunity to kill one of these foul aliens. After all, there were probably wounded that needed more time to get into the dropship. So Elite 4711 decided to look out of the door to kill whatever it could. It saw one human strapping another wounded Marine into a seat of the Pelican. It laughed in triumph and fired three rounds at the human.
Two of the needles failed to target very well and hit the titanium plating of the dropship, doing little damage. However, one of the explosive needles embedded itself in Carson's flesh, blowing his neck apart and drenching the Pelican's deck with his blood. The Marines mounting the chaingun opened fire on the Elite, but failed to hit it. The alien retreated back inside the building.
"Excellent", 343 Guilty Spark muttered to itself as Carson died. The Monitor was taking no chances, and he waited until the Lieutenant was clinically dead before going on his way and monitoring other parts of the universe. Guilty Spark could not speed time up - one change in Time could dramatically change the outcome of the vortex's continuing spin. And so the Monitor prepared to wait for seventeen more long years as the vast loop of time began to thread itself back together again, all of it culminating in the eventual knot that would tie it all together.
TO BE CONTINUED
Email: arthur_wellesly@hotmail.com
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