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Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 3
Posted By: Arthur Wellesly<arthur_wellesly@hotmail.com>
Date: 21 April 2003, 12:33 AM
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Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 3
2025 Hours, September 19, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
On Halo's surface
It had been 10 hours of roundabout trips from the Silent Night to the surface of the mysterious ring-world but finally all the 105th Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, the "Helljumpers", plus their vehicles and equipment had all made it safely to the ground. The Marines had been carefully placed after Colonel Neal had examined an assortment of maps made by Vulcan. She had eventually chosen a slightly sloped hill with cliffs on the west and north sides leading to a sheer 250 meter drop to the blue ocean below.
The Marines had already dug in, forming the standard defensive marching camp to provide them with cover should an unexpected enemy arrive. The "standard camp" consisted of two ditches, the one in the front one and a half meters deep, and the secondary one, one meter deep with three meter high steel and concrete barricades to keep approaching enemies at bay. Beyond this was a network of trenches and more barricades surrounding and going through the tents that dotted the ground. In the back was a M808B "Scorpion" Main Battle Tank, entrenched into the ground. The other tank was also inside the perimeter, but it was on constant standby should an emergency outside the camp arise.
Lastly, the ten Heavy Reconnaissance Vehicles and twelve Light Reconnaissance Vehicles were all outside the base's large perimeter and many were already loaded up with Marines to get ready to move. The plan was to secure a 10-kilometer radius around Alpha Base to make sure no surprises were waiting for them. Then they would go to practically randomized areas around the ring and begin investigating whatever seemed interesting. They were just waiting for the order from commanding Captain Griffin.
They didn't have to wait much longer. "Let's get moving, ladies and gentlemen," the captain's harsh voice said over the universal frequency. "You know your orders... go go go!"
The M12 LRV "Warthogs" sped ahead of the slower M25 HRVs, going a steady 180 km/h over the rugged hills of the area they were in. There were disadvantages to having such speed, however. The Warthogs provided little cover while the ironically named "Jaguars" were big and bulky with plenty of armor and full covering. Also, while the Warthogs had a maximum capacity of three soldiers, the Jaguars could easily accommodate five and up to seven.
First Lieutenant Takahashi was sitting in the passenger seat in one of these Warthogs, his gun sitting idly on his lap with the safety on. He was relaxed; no sign of life had shown itself so far and the Silent Night had the whole area on surveillance far above, so if any troop movements came about, he would know about it long before the actual danger presented itself. Right now his main concern lay in scanning the area with his heat sensitive visor and listening in on the radio frequencies. Nothing important was happening right now, and no messages were addressed to him.
Right now, Takahashi and his two Warthog convoy were to go to a large structure located approximately nine kilometers to the south. Already, he and his team could make out a spire of this building in the distance as they rapidly closed in on it. "Jesus Christ," he said, leaning over slightly to the driver, Joel McPherson, "It's enormous!"
"It is," he said through clenched teeth, trying to keep the Warthog steady as it bounced from one hill to the next.
It was only a couple of minutes later that the two Warthogs arrived at the objective. They all stopped for a moment to stare at the structure in awe. It stood about 100 meters tall, dwarfing even the impressive hills and natural elevations that surrounded it. It looked to Takahashi like the installation was disappointingly drab, constructed of a dull, grey metal that reflected little light. Nevertheless, strange symbols were carved deep into the walls of the graceful building, which seemed physically impossible at points where the base was thin and the spires massive. Takahashi figured there must have been something more there than the eye could see. Beyond the twin spires was the curve of the odd ring as it ascended up into the heavens. The first lieutenant was startled to realise it was the first time he had noticed this particular scenery since he landed on the surface a number of hours ago. He forced himself to pay more attention.
Everyone hopped off their respective vehicles and approached the alien structure, guns now at the ready, spooked by this obviously non-human building. "Anyone see an opening?" Takahashi called out, lifting the visor attachment from his helmet out of his eyes.
There was a pause as the six Marines spread out, and then Sergeant-Major Mary Hurst called out, "I found one, sir! Over here!"
The Helljumpers ran over to where the gunner was yelling. Indeed, there was a small entranceway just large enough for a human to walk comfortably through. It seemed out of place in this immense structure. Mary entered first, snapping around the corner with her gun at the ready, and then she lowered it and signaled for the rest of the fire team to enter with a simple hand motion. They walk cautiously into a small room with the same ornate patterns plastered along the metal walls. There was one ramp, and it only led down. "Looks like there's only one way to go," Takahashi risked, sure there was no one anywhere near. "I guess we can't go up into the spires."
The makeshift fire team made their way down the ramp onto a small platform, then down another ramp and another small platform. It went down for about 100 meters and then they at last emerged into a vast cavern. "Holy hell!" McPherson uttered, his oath echoing a thousand times against the curved walls of the unnatural cave. The gigantic hollow was shaped like a half-sphere with a reflective glass platform extending about five meters from the wall. It provided a walkway around a huge hole in the center that took up most of the cavern's 500-meter diameter.
Takahashi slowly walked forward toward the hole. The platform on which he stood was translucent, but it reflected much of the bright light that illuminated the room overhead making it impossible to see what the hole below housed. As he inched his way towards the edge, he suddenly gasped as he looked down. The shaft he looked down must have extended for kilometers. The bottom was lost in a cloud of hazy mist, and blue crystal-like objects that dotted the circular walls all the way down eerily lighted the darkness.
"Henley!" he called to the communications NCO behind him. "Get alpha on the radio! Tell them we'll need AAVs if they've got any to spare!"
0645 Hours, September 20, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Cavern under building near Alpha Base
Captain Griffin entered the cavern silently, still taken aback by the enormity of it all, but prepared for it by the accounts of the many Marines who had already been in here. He had actually requested to come here and personally hear the reports from the Marines who had explored the shaft with the Autonomous Air Vehicles. He had asked him not to give any specifics until he was actually there.
"Greetings, sir," said Mitchell Proule, the technician responsible for the fifty million dollar vehicles. He approached him and snapped a smart salute. "I won't dwell on pleasantries, sir, I'll just get right down to business. A group of Marines was sent here to investigate and secure this building, and they found this cavern at 2035 yesterday. They immediately called in for my AAVs. We got here shortly after at around 2200. Ever since then we've been sending waves of the little robots down their to investigate. I believe there is one down there as we speak."
"And what have you found?" the captain asked shortly.
"The main shaft, what you see here," he gestured down into the hole, "goes down about twelve kilometers. It then opens up into a large half-spherical cavern almost identical to this one which has a number of smaller shafts branching off from it which go down another additional five and a half kilometers."
"So why are there still AAVs down there now if you know all that?" Griffin asked.
"Well, sir," he began, walking the captain around the curved platform, "there are two reasons." He stopped in front of a metallic, meter long robotic looking device that was flat on the top and curved on the bottom, which made it lean somewhat unsteadily on its side on the glass floor. A shaft about a third of a meter in diameter ran through the top and out the bottom of the robot with grating on both sides and a large fan in the middle. Similar looking shafts, though smaller, dotted the small robot elsewhere. "This is our class-D AAV. It is the lowest class of AAV available and the only kind we have. It has a limited flying time of an hour and a half and only a speed of about thirty kilometers per hour. It is simply not designed for expedition, and certainly not on this scale. Reason number two is that along the twelve and five kilometer stretches there are a number of sub-shafts leading elsewhere."
"Have you found out what the purpose of this shaft is and where it leads?" Griffin asked.
"No, sir, only theories and guesses," he said. "One is that it provides a form of transportation across the whole ring. Another is that it is meant to store things, and we have evidence of that, to stray to your second question. Although we haven't exactly determined where the shafts leads, we have found a number of rooms along the sub-shafts, some with locked doors, some with unlocked doors, and some, strangely enough, with open entrances that looked like they had their doors forcibly torn off."
At this, Captain Griffin raised his eyebrows. He had a bad feeling about this place, and he sensed others did too. "Keep me appraised, lieutenant," he said to Proule. "I don't care if it seems trivial to you, report to me if anything happens. Besides," he said, taking a sweeping glance of the massive cavern, "I doubt we'll run into anything trivial on this bloody ring."
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