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An Average Joe
Posted By: KrazyKorean4<stormchaser222@walla.com>
Date: 21 January 2006, 10:29 pm
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I was a regular guy, just like you. An average Joe if you would. Living by myself, in supreme bachelorhood. The only real thing that bothered me was if I ran out of milk or needed to go to the bathroom during my show. I'm pretty crazy about politics and what's going on in the world. I haven't always been. I really started paying attention to the news after what happened at Reach. Jesus that was insane. Then that thing with Halo. That really got to me. Nothing scared me more than the possibility that something could happen here. The Covenant could find Earth. But all that was in the back of my mind. When I read that Halo was destroyed, I remember heaving a huge sigh of relief. I thought it was over. I was wrong.
It was 7:30 am. I didn't have a car anymore because the payments were through the roof. I didn't want to have to deal with that. So I started taking the train about a year ago. I walked to the terminal, which was about a twenty minute walk from my apartment. I had a job pushing papers for some big shot corporate group. I didn't really care about it much, but it payed decent, and the benefits were well worth it. I got to the packed terminal. The sky was clear. I walked inside and bought my ticket. The ticket lady was nice. I smiled at her, but then realized how cheesy I must've looked. I quickly walked to my right and onto the boarding platform. I raised my wrist up to my face and looked at the time. 7:43. The train wouldn't arrive for about another twenty minutes. I sat down on a bench at looked up at one of the television monitors suspended on a pillar. They were airing a live broadcast from one of the defense platforms. They were awarding that Master Chief guy a medal. I thought to myself, "that thing is pretty intense." And it was. As I continued to watch, I saw some guy running in the background, and then a blue little computer holographic women appear from a pedestal. There wasn't any audio on the T.V. screen, but I could see one of the officers looking worried. The highest official turned to the Master Chief, and there were some words exchanged. The Master Chief, and then he was gone. Something wasn't right.
I turned my focus off the screen and instead to a military aircraft zooming overhead. A Pelican I think it's called. It landed in the courtyard to my right. A dozen marines jumped out and started telling people to go home. I stood up and looked down at them. About three of them came up to the platform. One of the three came to me.
"What's going on!" I yelled over the noise of the Pelican.
"You need to evacuate the premises now!" he yelled back. "Let's go!" he exclaimed, and he grabbed my arm and took me back down the steps. I had a small idea of what was happening, and when I thought of it, my stomach did a back flip.
"Tell me what the hell is going on!" I screamed at the marine.
"The Covenant are attacking! We have to get out of here now!" My face went white. My legs suddenly felt like jello, and I started shaking a little bit. My nerves were pretty much shot, and my eyes grew wide. It couldn't happen. It was impossible. And yet it was happening. The marine yanked me down and I saw people being escorted into the Pelican. Soon, another Pelican landed, followed by a third. The marine and I were now sprinting towards on of them, but it started to rise, as did the rest of them.
"Hey!" the marine shouted. We started jumping up and down, trying to get their attention. But it was no use. They had already climbed about 30 feet and accelerating toward the south part of the city. The marine pressed a button on his headset and spoke into it.
"Do not take-off! I repeat, do not take-off. There are still people down here!" he stood wide-eyed. I heard someone on the earpiece, but couldn't quite make out the words.
"Well send another one to evacuate the rest!" As he was speaking to whoever, I looked up into the sky. A big, purple, sleek-looking ship was hovering to the north of us, about a good ten miles away. Then it started to glide over to where I was. To exactly where I was. I screamed at the marine and pointed to the ominous object.
"God dammit! A Covanent cruiser. They've already broken through our defenses! Let's go!" he grabbed my hand and we started running back towards the terminal. We were passing people running towards the terminal too. There were more left here then I had thought. I checked my watch again. 7:58. The train was due in two minutes.
"We should get on that the train when it arrives! We'll have a better chance being where it takes us then being here!" I shouted to the marine. We got inside the terminal and took the stair two at a time. The marine had a rifle in his hands, and he looked at me and gave me a pistol.
"Just in case," he said to me. I looked down at it. I looked back up and he was holding three clips. I took them and put them in my pocket. We waited. It seemed like hours but the train finally came. It wasn't stopping. For good reason too. Flames were escaping from it, front to back. Nothing wasn't being scorched. It passed us and moved on. The Covanent were already here. I stood in disbelief, not knowing what to do next. That choice was made for me as the alley on the other side of the courtyard was being filled with Covanent. The marine and I ducked down. A couple elites saw some people and fired at them. Unbelievable. They were dead. Everyone was defenseless as the Covanent were picking people off left and right. I counted the bastards. There were three elites and six grunts. I tried to think. The marine next to me looked the aliens and said nothing. His eyes were trained on the elite that fired the last shot.
"What the hell are we supposed to do?"I whispered to him. He turned to me. I could see fear in his eyes. There wasn't much of it, but it was there.
"We have about ten minutes until that Pelican arrives. But until then, we're going to have to hold them off."he replied. The Covanent started to spread out, and I realized that if we still stayed here, they would be on top of us in a matter of thirty seconds.
"We have to run" the marine said. We turned around and saw that there was a small opening that lead to the parking garage. We waited until the there was a wall between the Covanent and us, and sprinted the ten yards to the opening. I turned my head and saw one of the elites about thirty feet away from me, and he was looking straight at me. Our eyes met, and then I was in the parking garage.
"Dammit one of them saw us,"I said to the marine. He didn't hesitate in continuing to run. I followed him. We moved to the left and down a ramp to the lower level of the parking garage. As I was moving down, I felt a searing sensation on the top of head, and a blue blob of super-heated plasma passing over me and embedding itself in a wall. I continued to run, and we finally got out of the parking garage. I turned around and saw two elites moving down the ramp. The marine saw them too, and once the elites were out in the open, he told me to shoot. We started shooting. The marine on the left went down pretty quickly, but my aim wasn't the best, and one of the elites managed to get behind a parked car. But I kept shooting it. The marine unclipped a grenade from his belt and took out the pin. He tossed it at the car and the ball of Hell rolled under the car. It exploded. The sound was deafening. Shrapnel flew everywhere. The elite wasn't there anymore. But a smear of blue blood all over the wall behind it was. Another elite followed by the grunts were coming down the road to our left. We ducked behind a wall. There were two openings separated by the wall. The marine peeked out the left and started unloading three shot bursts from his rifle. I peeked out of the opening to the right and emptied the pistol. I was aiming for the grunts. There was click coming from the pistol. I ejected the clip and put a new one in. Resuming the shooting, I saw two of the grunts fall. The rest were shooting at us. The elite was shooting from behind a pillar, but the grunts were out in the open. I easily picked them off. All that was left was the lone elite. But then I noticed that the marine wasn't shooting anymore. I turned my head to look at him and he was lying face down in a pool of blood.
"Jesus Christ" I whispered. I ran over to him and flipped him over. A plasma round had hit him square in the face, and his head looked as if it was melting. Rage filled my body. I took the rifle he had and opened a pouch of his belt and took out a clip. I reloaded the rifle. I stood up and, with the rifle in my right hand and pistol in my left and calmly walked out into the open. I raised the pistol and circled the pillar. I saw a blue foot sticking out and shot it. The elite roared and stepped out from the other side of the pillar. I fired at it, aiming for the piece of shit they call a head. It only fired one shot from it's weapon before it was one the ground. I didn't let up. I wanted to make damn sure that bastard wouldn't ever get up. It never did. I heard the distant roar of a Pelican and I looked up to see one coming landing in the courtyard. I ran over to it. The pilot looked at me and shouted at me to get in. I stepped into the back and the Pelican lifted off. I looked down into the courtyard and into the building where the marine was. I saw him. He was still laying on the ground. I saluted him and watched him fade into the distance.
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