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Halo: Broken Path
Posted By: GreenMJOLNIR<grnmjoln@ksu.edu>
Date: 27 November 2007, 11:51 pm
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Halo: Broken Path
Prologue
"You can't deny that the martial law instated during the Human-Covenant War was for emergency purposes only!" The senator from the North American 4th district took a pause to measure the reactions from his outcry. "The UNSC has no right to hold their power any more, nor go unchecked from the United Earth Government any longer." Brown put a period to his statement with a firm slam of the fist upon his small wooden podium within the UEG Senate meeting chambers. Many of the faces he saw mirrored his own. Wrinkled, aged far beyond the years of those that wore them, and a collection of smug frowns reflecting his own.
"I concur with Senator Brown," spoke a man, face fresh from a recent shave upon both his jaw and scalp. "In fact…" He stood from his seat, revealing an empty sleeve from his suit and a cane supporting his remaining arm. "I think perhaps the UEG isn't going far enough!" A simmer of hushed murmurs filled the chambers. "Immediate disarmament is needed! A complete disbanding of the UNSC is the only solution to such a blatant coup of power," he said with a smile as he started to limp from his desk, right leg dragging on the metallic steps with the same arm supporting for it. "May I have the floor?" He said more as a command than a request.
Senator Rotich Brown grimaced. His salt and pepper eyebrows buried deep into his eye line, thickening an already existing unibrow that he seemed to always be unaware of. "I am not finished Ashton." His voice echoed sternly through the expansive chambers from the COM speakers strategically placed around the metallic, Greek amphitheatre design.
Councilor Christopher Ashton laughed at Brown's attempt to block him from taking the floor. It was a futile attempt. Shaking his head as he laughed, he finally finished his trip down the thirty-seven steps from his aisle seat. Without a word he stood, hunched as he stared down the Senator. Brown blinked, as was predicted and the near monotone voice of a "dumb" AI ushered Ashton.
"Councilor Ashton has the floor," it hummed.
"Thank you," he responded to the Brown, who was stepping down from the center podium. Being the Councilor Chair of the Colonial Administration Authority definitely had its perks. Hobbling up to center stage, the light illuminated gloss of plasma splash burns that pocked the left side of his face.
Ever since the UEG created the UNSC and humanity had founded its first colony, the CAA had been at the head of the outer Earth policy and power. Formerly a minor fragment of power within the legislation, with the vast expansion of humanity and the demand for better colonial policy with the rebel uprisings the CAA had grow to become the single most powerful council of the government's Senate. Admittedly not powerful enough to override the Senate's authority single handedly, the CAA still had a lot of sway with many of the legislators in the Senate, and protocol dictated that any member of the CAA council had prerogative over the floor.
"Goddamned war hero," Brown grumbled to himself, his tail between his legs as he withdrew to his desk.
Brown was right about one thing, and it was that Ashton was considered a hero. He had earned nearly every possible medal that the UNSC had over his thirteen year career as a marine. The only ones that rivaled his own collection were those that fought as a part of the SPARTAN II program and a handful of dead ODSTs. But the medals weren't worth anything to Ashton, not anymore anyways.
"Yes, that's right. The UNSC has over stepped its bounds." He paused for the silence of agreement and to make sure he had everyone's attention. "Taking over our government just to fight some war? The extreme means of recruiting below the age line to keep numbers up? Loosing so many of our men just to keep out species alive!? Unbelievable!" He yelled, the gruff voice of his former years as a drill were coming out now.
The mood of the room changed. A little over half of the original twelve-hundred and fifty-two senators survived the harsh war and with humanity in such dire straits, no new elections were held. And even though it was five years after the loss of John 117 and the end of the war, the bureaucracy was still debating over how to redistrict the remaining colonies. Yet the room was full enough for Ashton to see wide eyes across the board.
"I mean, they only died and sacrificed everything so that you could sit and debate over budgets and technicalities. For that they deserve nothing less than to be put away in the closet so that your UEG police can finally take the training wheels off. I mean, am I right? Well?" His voice nearly cracked as he screamed his seniors in the room. He may have been CAA, but they still have the final call when it came to what flew and what didn't. Ashton didn't say a word as he waited for an answer that would never come.
"Without the UNSC, this government would have crumbled long ago… And you… Your families… Friends…" His tone was more somber now, as if reaching out to a lost child. "All would be burned… Wiped clean in a bath of plasma. And now you want to stab us--" Ashton interrupted himself, realizing his mistake. "You want to stab them," he corrected, "in the back?" He shook his head. "All of those lives… All that pain… For naught."
Ashton sighed. "You can't do this," he whispered mostly to himself before he withdrew from the podium. The line rang through the everyone's ears via the COM despite his quite volume. He straightened as he did what he could to march out the large, metallic doors opposite the leering eyes of humanity's judges. As he exited the room, business got back to normal in the bureaucracy. Now he could only mutter a single statement, with malice, under his breath before attending his daily meeting with a scotch on the rocks.
"We won't stand for it."
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