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The First Moments
Posted By: Aleks G.<haloaleks1992@hotmail.com>
Date: 5 August 2007, 9:34 pm
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Okay…simple mission…infiltrate…kill everything that moves… stop the terrorist plan. Simple…
"Adam…hey…dude?" A voice crashed sergeant Halkinsons' train of thought.
"Hmm?" he snapped back to full attention.
"I was just saying," Thomas groaned, "that everything I said before was very important…but apparently…you didn't hear shit!"
"Yeah…that's whatever you were talking about for you." Adam replied, drifting completely out of his mind.
"Don't let him get to you Tom…he's going in alone…he might not survive…I'd be the same way if I was in his situation," Lieutenant Patronski glanced at the mental wreck that Adam had become. "In fact…he's probably already doing better than I would be."
Adam just sat there staring at his MN-66-I Pistol; suddenly he looked up and asked,
"So how does this thing work again?"
Tom sighed,
"It uses your body heat to recharge a small potassium chloride-tungsten composite cell which transfers into to small bolts of energy, and basically…it can't run out of ammo as long as you're alive."
"I see," Adam wasn't the least bit amazed by the new technology. "What else?"
"Well…" Tom scratched his head, "its also got a new thing called a bio-cell…it uses your body's natural electrical energy as a means to energize a secondary firing mechanism, one that's at least a hundred times more powerful than a single shot, but it takes a while to charge."
"Huh?" Adam squinted at Tom "what?"
"Ugh…" Tom grunted at Adam's lack of a vocabulary, "it means that if you use it long enough…it makes a big boom…do you understand that?"
"Yes…I'm not a total idiot," Adam rolled his eyes.
Tom sighed and looked at his PDA…
"We're thirty seconds out…better get ready."
"I'm ready," Adam jumped to his feet, and was immediately thrown to the deck by the deceleration of the P-436 Albatross. "Uhhh…you didn't see that…" Adam's face reddened as he looked over the edge into the sand below.
"Don't forget…" Tom added, "That new armor is still very much in the prototype stage…it might have a few kinks."
"Sure…" Adam hopped out of the flying drop-ship and hit the sand running. His helmet's half-visor adjusted to the glare, and displayed a small marker to indicate the location of the facility where the terrorists had been hiding.
"Good luck sergeant" the Lieutenants voice crackled over the radio.
He was only about half a click from it…but it would take some time to get there, even at a dead run. To his surprise it didn't take long until he came up on the lip of the crater where the facility was situated, it was a long way down, and it was a longer ways forward. A mechanism clicked on his armor, Adam looked back to see a pair of long spines wind out of his armor's 'supply pack' the spines extended silently for a moment, then they hummed to life with energy. The energy formed into a solid shield and took the shape of a wing; apparently this suit could do a little more than the designers had told him. Adam stepped off the edge of the crater, and the wings caught the air quickly and guided him towards the abandoned facility.
Adam suddenly realized: I just put my total faith in a suit that still has kinks…if those had broken off or something…I would be dead!
As he was gliding towards the facility he heard a snap,
"Oh shit…" Adam cried as his left wind snapped off, and he fell forty feet to the sand below. He landed hard and bounced several times, rolling in the hot golden sand. Adam leapt to his feet with amazing agility despite being knocked around like a rag-doll.
"Hey…how am I alive?" he asked himself. He rapped on the suit with his knuckle, and laughed,
"I love this thing, the little kinks are worth it."
Adam looked up to see the plant was close, only a few dozen meters away.He ran to it full speed. when he neared the edge of the plants perimeter, he looked around quickly and jumped onto an old fuel silo. Adam began climbing up the side of it by way of the rusty worn out ladder bolted to it. He needed a better vantage point; a seventy foot tall silo would do nicely. He reached the top quickly, and he used the built in magnification in his visor to scope out the old oil refinery. It was totally empty, but by the sound of rumbling engines, he could tell that was about to change. At least fifteen SUV's rolled past the silo, unaware to his presence. The midnight black vehicles formed a three by five formation and parked near a silo on the opposite side of the refinery grounds that Adam was on. Each SUV only had two people in it, which seemed awfully wasteful, but Adam was glad they didn't invite more friends to the party. Another, louder engine roared from behind him, the next vehicle was a long semi, with a warhead on the back, a SCUD-launcher. There wasn't just one, either, two more of the colossal green trucks followed the lead truck. The last vehicle followed the three SCUD trucks, it was a dark van with a large satellite on the back, it was probably the missile guidance truck, and that meant it was priority one. Adam drew his pistol and opened up on the crowd that had spilled from the SUV's.
The pistol was relatively quiet, but by the rate of people clutching their chests and dropping, it was effective. The pistol hissed and a blue bolt of fire leapt from the barrel, executing one of the SCUD truck drivers. The remaining men had located Adam and had opened fire on his silo. Refined kerosene spewed from the silo and splashed the dry cracked pavement below. Adam grabbed the ladders' hand rails and glided down the opposite side of the silo. When he hit the bottom, he had holstered his pistol and un-slung his rifle, an MA11-C. The rifle wasn't as silent as the pistol, in fact it downright roared at fully automatic, but it was more effective against multiple targets. Men in dark suits ran for cover firing their handguns, and were cut down in mid-stride by the .45 caliber magnum rounds. For their sake, the rifle had a shallow clip of only 40 rounds, but it was a quick and easy front loader, and soon enough, more lead was tearing through the SUV's and the men hiding behind them. When the valley was quiet, Adam moved toward the van, his handgun at the ready. He forced to heavy door open, and pointed a gun inside.
"Freeze" he yelled at the computer tech tapping away furiously at his computer, "I said freeze you son-of-a-bitch" Adam pistol-whipped the man in the back of the head, and he fell out of his chair and landed on the vans' plastic-lined floor.
Adam hit the small switch on his pistol, and the barrel split open and let four prongs protrude from the vents. A small triangle of blue laser light formed on the man's forehead.
"I told you to freeze…" Adam said patronizingly as he squeezed the trigger. The bio-cell moaned and emptied a red bolt of fire into the man's head. "Wow…it is powerful."
The computer the tech was working on beeped, and it was just loud enough to get Adam's attention. Adam stepped up onto the van and looked at the screen.
The timer read: 00:1:36
"Well shit…this probably doesn't have a 'save the world' button…so I better think of something else" he laughed at his idea of a 'save the world' button.
The answer came in the form of Micro Atomic Radioactive Bio-Layered Explosive System, or M.A.R.B.L.E.S., a tiny spherical explosive about the size of a ping pong ball. He pulled a small jar from a small holder under his 'supply pack'. He popped the jar open and pulled a handful of the small explosives from the wide-mouth. He dropped two under each SCUD truck, and then proceeded to dump the rest of the 'marbles' around the refinery under fuel-silos and pipelines. He knew he only had about 30 seconds left, so he ran, at maximum speed, from the facility, he flipped the 'marble jar' over and put his thumb over the detonator attached to the bottom. Just a few more feet and I should be safe, unless those are nuclear warheads, in which case I'm dead no matter what. God I hope they're not nukes.
Adam dove for a small crevice in the sand, and he hit the detonator. A small flash lit the edges of the crater, and a thundering bang echoed through the whole valley, secondary explosions sounded as fuel tankers and silos erupted into flames and blew shrapnel across the refinery. Adam decided to look, so he leaned forward, exposing just the top of his head, he could see what was once a large facility, now it was a metal graveyard, and the souls of all the men he had killed for his country clawed for the air, burning bright orange and roaring for freedom. Adam stood and moved towards the facility, he had to make sure the targets were all down. Without any fuel left, most of the fires died, but some had managed to make their way to the SUV's and what was left of the SCUD trucks and continued to burn. A large crater had been blown in the concrete floor of the large facility. A flat steel plate sat on the bottom of the crater, completely unharmed. This is strange…that thing should be burned right through, maybe it's a storage container or something, but it still shouldn't be that tough.
Adam shot at the plate with his pistol and the rounds simply glanced off. He walked down the sloping edge of the crater and came close enough to touch it. But the plate took the first step; it reached out and touched him. Adam fell backwards as a large metal pedestal rose up and touched his hand.
What the hell is this, some frickin' alien or something? The pedestal rose about 3 feet high, and two small wings spread from the sides. The small wings glowed bright white and they produced a small holographic screen and a single circular icon appeared below it. The screen fuzzed from static to an image of empty space, the camera kept switching, from one point in space to another, when the camera landed on a random planet, Adam hit the icon, and it pulsed from cool blue to a fiery red, and then began flashing. I wonder if that was a bad idea…
The pedestal retracted back into the large metal plate, and the whole plate started to rise…lifting the ground beneath his feet. Adam yelped and ran up the side of the crater, he got to the top and could see the pavement cracking around the metallic plate, he got to the edge of the crack and managed to jump over before it lifted. The plate rose about forty feet in the air, and chunks of concrete and pavement started to break off and fall around Adam. Sergeant Halkinson covered his head and ran. it was a bad idea…a really bad idea. Adam got clear of the falling debris and spun to look at the 40 foot tower. The pavement on top was completely gone, it had all fallen off, and the flat top started to open, it looked like a demonic metallic flower, and what it did definitely wasn't going to be good. The tower reduced its height until it was down to only about 5 feet tall. And the flower opened completely, it looked a lot like a sattelite dish. Originally being only about 30 feet across, it nearly doubled its width by opening up.
A small cylinder protruded from the center, and it starting attracting particles to its core. The cylinder started to hum, and Adam was instantly worried, he looked at the structures base for something supplying power to it, and he found something. A thick Super-conductor cable, if he could cut that, it would stop this 'thing' from working. An energy blade popped out of his wrist, and Adam dove for the cable. The structure fired, and a wave of energy blew his wrist-blade into a fine haze, and knocked him out for a few seconds. He came back to consciousness, and he couldn't move, his armor's joints had fused from the high-energy radiation.
Oh this is bad...
He heard the familiar roar of an Albatross coming in close, and hoped they came to pick him up. The heavy craft landed in the cracked and burned courtyard and from the sound of it, a few dozen marines spilled out. Adam cried out in despair, and a marine came close to him. Adam heard a radiation counter squeal and click; he was as hot as a reactor technician. His vision started fading, but whenever he closed his eyes, bright colors would keep him from going to sleep, which he really felt like doing. He felt lightness in his stomach as several marines hefted him and carried him back to the Albatross, Adam tried to say thanks, but he couldn't breathe. Tom grabbed Adams arms and pulled him on board.
"You're okay buddy; just…stay with us…"
Adam nodded weakly and tried to keep his eyes open. But I'm totally fine aren't I? I mean…I don't feel anything…I'm just tired…
Tom, with the marines' help, towed Adam to a Cryogenic Freezer, so they could keep him alive until they could get to a hospital. Adam remembered seeing the inside of a glass panel surrounded with metal supports, and then darkness overwhelmed him as the freezing process took place.
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