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Deja Vu's Beginning Part 2
Posted By: Psycho-Monkey<Chimpywashere@gmail.com>
Date: 1 May 2007, 3:55 am
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Part 2: The End
Sergeant Jack Durant, leader of Beta Squad, sat in the Pelican with the rest of his squad mates of Beta. To his left was Demitri who was an excellent engineer. Demitri never liked going outside in the sun, he preferred dark cloudy days. "It's calming to me," he would always reply. That said he always wore a different helmet than the rest, the helmet covered his entire head; at first glance Demitri could almost be mistaken for an ODST. That said, he never went on any mission without his helmet.
Next to Demitri was Rockwell. Rockwell was a "good" explosive expert. He loved explosives, making a various types pipe bombs and finding new ways to improvise a bomb in his garage during his teenage years. It always confused the squad why he was never caught. Rockwell always wore a happy grin, one that you could tell he was wearing even if he wore a helmet. Finally across of Jack was Jerry, Jack's best friend. The only person who joined the war to watch over Jack. Jerry was actually one of the best snipers Jack ever knew in the Corps. Jack recalled Jerry shooting squirrels with a Winchester in the woods when they were twenty. Jerry had a rugged look, with very messy hair. His face was dirty with the friends he and Jack lost since the war started. "LZ is hot!" yelled the pilot. "I'm dropping you off and getting out."
"Roger that," said Jack, "Everyone check your weapons and equipment!"
The Covenant were occupying a city twenty miles from their location. The city in particular didn't have a major tactical advantage on the battlefield until repeated UNSC aircraft patrols noticed that the Covenant were massing their forces on the border of the city, in the direction of the nearest UNSC base. Not a very tactical move on the Covenant's part, but hubris strikes even aliens sometimes. The preferred goal was to recapture the city, but the goal that seemed more likely was to at least weaken the mass of Covenant soldiers. Longswords went in first to bombard and disrupt the mass of Covenant, and draw the attention of the Banshees and anti-air artillery away from the Pelicans. Basically, a modern day Blitzkrieg. Out of the seventy Pelicans in for the mission, Jack only knew of the two squads his was going to work with to retake the sector they were assigned to control.
Rockwell screamed, "Yeah, baby! You can't stop the Rock!"
"Shut up!" yelled Demitri in response to Rockwell's war cry. They always had a verbal quarrel whenever they were about to go on a mission. They were like two newlyweds on their first night. Either way, this kind of argument never happened off duty.
Thud! The hatch opened, air escaped the door from the pressure. Bullets sprayed and Plasma bolts were exchanged in a very long fire. Pelicans that already dropped off their presents hovered in the air, turned toward the Covenant firing squads and unleashed their payloads of .50 caliber bullets. Not surprising to say, the Covenant expected this and brought in Grunts with fuel rod cannons. The Grunts yelped with glee as they blindly fired their weapons at any direction in front of them. This close the Grunts didn't need to aim, they would hit anything no matter what even their own allies. The concentrated blasts flew in and damaged- some even destroyed the low-altitude Pelicans. It wasn't before long that the few remaining Longsword fighters still in the air stopped by in response to a distress call from many of the downed Pelicans. The bombers went into formation, staggering one behind the other, and unleashed what was left of their welcoming committee. Fireballs exploded upwards as Grunts flew in the air and Elites were shell shocked. One Marine, whom Jack guessed was the leading squad in this wild rush, waved his hand. Everyone moved out of their cover and rushed, switching to M6D pistols, and taking out the wounded Covenant soldiers with a swift .45 caliber bullet to the chest or stomach.
The carnage ended, over ten Pelicans were lost but, thankfully, the few Longswords that stayed behind offered to carry wounded back to the base. Jack looked around the temporary base. It wasn't long before the sergeant acknowledged the presence of Alpha and Delta squad. The three squads moved into the corridors of the ruined city. Jerry, being a sniper, looked at any suspicious cover- the roofs and the balconies- anything that might resemble a good spot for snipers. After walking for an hour without meeting resistance they came across a plasma mortar's crater. The crater was identified as plasma inflicted by the smooth edges and the glassy gloss of the hole itself. Around this crater was various bodies of Marines, scarred with plasma burns. Some of the bodies even had a crushed in skull, these were obviously inflicted by Elites. Jerry walked towards Jack a gave him a nudge. "What do you think?"
"You want the truth?" Jack asked back, Jerry nodded 'yes.' "I think it's either an ambush or the Covenant are still in the vicinity. Of course you can't really tell from the burns, but the crater is still smoking."
Both stayed silent, and all three squads walked on. It might as well be a trap. They reached a ruined courtyard soon after finding the bodies. The flowers were dark and shushed aside as if Jackals just ran through them. Bushes had an awkward feeling to them, Alpha checked all of them to make sure there wasn't a bomb or any Grunts hiding in them. Bodies were spread around the courtyard, plasma and bullets were found almost everywhere. The only place that the battle seemed to have stopped was near the entrance of a small two story apartment. Delta was in charge of checking the apartment.
"Can you spell 'trap'," said Demitri as Alpha and Beta sat behind the bushes.
Jerry gladly responded, "T-R-A-P, trap."
The groups gave a small chuckle. Except for Jerry, instead of chuckling with his friends he gave a serious face with his eyes looking in one direction. He looked as if he suspected something coming from behind. "I… I'm going to go fall behind."
As he said that he took his sniper rifle, checked it and walked backwards; getting a good distance between the squads and himself. Instantaneously, Beta squad checked their rifles and equipment with Alpha doing the same a few moments later. Both squads hid behind fallen furniture and rubble with their guns aimed at the only entrance towards the courtyard, the only door leading towards them. From behind the stone walls were various grunts and snarls. Jackals came in shields up. Rockwell responded by taking out a fragmentation grenade and tossing it at their feet. Silence came upon them… the smoke slowly cleared and plasma bolts shot outwards toward Alpha and Beta's cover. Four sniper shots were heard along with four Grunts who squealed before their deaths.
After an hour and a half the advances stopped, more grunts and snarls were heard from behind the wall. Alpha and Beta squad took this opportunity to quickly run in and take whatever weapons were near them before running back to cover. The stone wall then rumbled, explosions were heard behind it and two Hunters smashed through.
"Run!" Jack yelled to everyone. "Run, damnit RUN!"
At this point everyone turned the other way and ran. As they ran four shots were heard overhead, three pings and one roar of pain were heard from behind. The Hunter fell with tremendous force; its partner, however, raged by anger from the death of its bond brother, charged its fuel rod gun. Jack turned around to check the status of the second Hunter when it fired. Big mistake, he thought. The tremendous force of the plasma struck Jack. He felt searing hot pain as the plasma burned his armor and his skin. Jack's life flashed before his eyes. He saw everything, his childhood, his teenage years, the Covenant attack on Harvest (he lived on Harvest and was one of the very lucky few who got off), joining the Marine Corps, his training. Jack saw everything up to this very point, but one stayed very clear even after his vision passed. "If you were hypothetically in a situation where, no matter what you did you would die?"
Jack squinted as the fuel rod blast drilled deeper into his stomach. "What would you do?"
The fuel rod blast ended with a very large gapping hole in Jack's stomach, he wondered why he survived. "Would you let fate grab you and end your existence?"
Jack Durant heard his friends yelling at him to see if he was okay. He wanted to make a thumb up as a joke, it was the only way he could clear his mind of the pain, but he didn't have the strength to do it. "Or would you try to fight back anyway?"
Daryl's voice continued in Jack's mind. That old man's voice just wouldn't leave, like he was taunting Jack right before he died. "Choose to live or die trying?"
The Hunter walked up to Jack. Beta Squad was desperately trying to piece together what just happened, they were in complete shock. They were in enough shock to prevent them from moving to help their Sergeant. The Hunter looked at the near dead soldier, gave a growl at Jack for being so pathetic and raised his gigantic boot. Sergeant Jack Durant of Beta Squad regretted his answer to the old man and summoned all his strength to whisper one last sentence before he closed his eyes and let the Hunter step on his skull, "I'd rather choose to live or die trying."
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