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The Fall of Firebase Bravo - Part Three
Posted By: Rachel Docherty<f6024309@tees.ac.uk>
Date: 17 August 2008, 12:28 pm
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Barrett looked at himself in the jagged shard of mirrored glass that was propped up against the barrack wall. His face was caked in dried dirt and blood, the two substances mingling so much it was hard to tell which was which. Scooping some water in his hands from a dirty plastic dish, he tried to get the worst of the dirt off his hands and face, before taking a look at his leg.
Rolling back his fatigues, Barrett could see the plasma burn properly. The blackened skin was encrusted with the filthy mud from the jungle floor. Barrett shuddered and tried to rinse the wound with some of the water from the dish. He was pretty sure that was gonna get infected.
After cleaning it up the best he could, he wrapped his leg in the bandages he'd been given and rolled the leg of his pants back down. Barrett caught his reflection in the mirror again and sighed.
His service in the UNSC had aged him, he'd seen too much, and looked much older than his twenty-five years. His dark hair, though shorn to stubble, still showed a little premature grey at the temples, and his deep-set blue eyes were dulled and devoid of any inner light that might have once been there. They had more lines around than he remembered. Barrett grimaced, a little glad that his parents couldn't see him now, he looked like a man who'd lost everything, he thought, which wasn't too far from the truth.
He had had a pretty sheltered childhood, growing up on Paris IV, one of the UNSC's colonies. He had wanted to join the marine core for as long as he could remember. First it had been the rebels, threatening Earth's colonies, and now the Covenant. Barrett had heard all the stories before he'd signed up, marines signing up and being shipped out to boot, never coming home. The stories hadn't put him off though, to protect Earth and her colonies had seemed like the biggest and most important responsibility of all. To him, the UNSC meant honour and pride. He remembered the day he left clearer than anything else, sticking out in his memory, all contrast and noise. His mother had never wanted him to go. She had cried and cried and begged him to stay. That had been the last time he'd seen her. The Covenant had laid siege to Paris IV in 2549, and Barrett knew inside that she was gone. The grief inside him had turned to bitter rage, and he had continued his service, needing to know that he was hitting the Covenant back. The UNSC had become his family, and wherever they were stationed was his home, although Barrett thought, after seeing the huddled groups of marines settled in the cloying dust around the firebase, nursing gaping plasma wounds, some blinded or deafened, Barrett had to wonder whether the UNSC that he knew would still have a place in its 'family' for those broken, torn-up soldiers, or whether they'd have a place anywhere at all.
'Private Barrett!' A voice from the doorway tore Barrett from his thoughts, and he snapped a salute without thinking. Looking at the origin of this voice, he realised it was the young marine he'd seen at the entrance to the base, with the bandaged eye. The man laughed.
'I don't think salutes are necessary Barrett.' He leant against the doorframe, scratching at his head where the bandage met his military stubble.
'The Corporal sent me to make sure you're mobile. We've got to round up the soldiers that can move around and get them together at the Pelican. We're dusting off in approximately ninety minutes.'
Barrett felt his face crease in a frown. He considered whether it was inappropriate to voice his worries, but he decided that in his situation, military etiquette was not the highest priority.
'How is that possible? The Covenant'll take Cote d'Azur. We'll lose the planet.'
The marine looked at him with his good eye, evidently sharing his concerns.
'Apparently, those guys we saw come down on the dropship are NavSpecWep.' He paused and folded his arms. 'They're gonna either take back the city or destroy it.'
Barrett wiped his hands down on the leg of his fatigues, 'They are gonna have to be some powerful force to take back that city.' He limped over to the doorway, picking up his adopted sniper rifle from the dirt. The barrel was caked with filth, the mouth of the gun stuffed with plant material and dried mud. Barrett wiped half-heartedly at the dirt with his hands.
'I know how you feel Barrett, but you saw those guys come down the landing ramp.' The marine paused for thought, 'I've never seen anything like them before. Corporal Harland says they move like ghosts.' He bit his lower lip, and folded his arms across his chest. 'The camp's full of talk. They think they're Spartans.'
Barrett felt his heart lift a little as he thought again about those figures in that strange, pearlescent armour coming down the exit ramp of the dropship. He had heard the rumours on their last tour of duty. The Spartans were supposed to be military miracles, super-soldiers. People said they would end the war. Up until today, Barrett had never seen one, not even in a picture, they were like urban myths, it was always a friend of a friend that had seen them, someone posted somewhere far away. He had been beginning to wonder if they even existed, or if it was more UNSC propaganda to raise morale. But the more he thought about it, the more he wanted, and needed, to believe that today he had seen a Spartan. He had heard the stories of their engagements. Talk buzzed around the marine core that no Spartan had ever been killed in action, that they were nothing short of invincible. If the marines were right, and those soldiers he had seen were everything he'd heard about, maybe they'd have a chance of getting off this rock. Barrett looked up, his mouth a flat sombre line.
'I hope they are everything they're cracked up to be. For all our sakes.'
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Barrett could feel the Pelican dropship shuddering as it accelerated away from Firebase Alpha, kicking up dirt and ash from the ground-up mud. He gripped onto a handhold and gritted his teeth, feeling the familiar rolling sensation in his gut at the sudden altitude change. Barrett felt himself glancing at the rear of the dropship, he couldn't stop looking at the Spartans.
They were silent, and fast. That was the thing that surprised Barrett the most. After seeing them come down the exit ramp of the Pelican earlier that day, he'd expected a lot of things, but not this eerie, isolated silence. They moved fluidly as a team, and made the thick, metal hide of their odd pearlescent armour look graceful. Barrett knew he was staring, but he couldn't look away.
One of them had been wounded taking back the city. His arm was burned off from the elbow down, ending in a raw, coagulated stump. But yet he was still alive, he had even been coherent enough to salute the Spartan leader, the Master Chief, when he'd boarded the dropship. Barrett had heard all the stories, but he was beginning to believe what they said about the Spartans. Maybe they were invincible.
He heard the huge sonic boom of the warhead detonation, and the Pelican's engines struggling to compensate for the shock wave. Blinking rapidly, Barrett looked away from the sky as it turned white. The bomb had gone off. All the Covenant troops, and Cote d'Azur, were dust. A small squad of Spartans had done what platoons of marines couldn't. Sigma Octanus IV was a win for the UNSC.
Barrett was dimly aware of a voice coming from somewhere in the dropship saying that they were going to dock with the UNSC Leviathan. He felt his spirit lift. They were going to jump to Reach, they were going to be saved, after all.
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