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Destiny Chapter 3
Posted By: Crazy_Canuck<chief_16@cogeco.ca>
Date: 18 June 2004, 4:59 PM
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0900 Hours February 3rd 2550 (Military Calendar)/ Destiny, M.F.B. Aqua
Even though it was only 0900 hours, Sean was the last member of the squad to get out of bed. He sat up and looked around, all the beds were empty and already made. None of the guys were in the room, but he could hear the sound of tools in the hangar. He out of bed put on his fatigues and walked into the hangar yawning and stretching his stiff-arm muscles.
"Hey Boss," Ding said, his arm was now free of the sling, as the Sergeant walked through the door into the hangar. "We weren't sure you were ever going to wake up."
"But, it's only 0900," commented Sean, with a huge yawn.
"Ya, but the new weapons are coming in today."
"Not for another four hours, though."
"Still," Ding said, "You've got to be excited."
"Ya, but it's not worth losing sleep over."
Sean looked around the room, Doc was surrounded a mountain of medical supplies from the Pelican, checking what he had and the expirary dates on everything.
Private Louse was checking the air in the Warthog's tires, while Parsons was updating the terrain maps in the computer systems on the Hogs and Pelican.
Ding was standing beside him, cleaning a few extra guns that were in the storage room and Archer was checking gears on the retractable roof over the Pelican.
Half of the roof slide back so that the Pelican could lift off and land vertically, since having to fly it out of the hangar door (however big) would be very difficult, because the hangar across from them was only 30 feet away, and there was a road going between them.
The morning went by pretty quickly, considering that the anticipation of the shipment was practically killing them. 1200 hours rolled around and everyone was just about finished whatever they were doing. Sean suggested that they head to the mess grab a lunch, bring it back and eat it on the roof so they could see the Condors fly in. Everyone liked the idea so they quickly finished what they were doing and followed their Sergeant to the mess hall.
They jogged to the mess hall and walked in. It was pretty full, though it was lunchtime. The Sharks walked up and got in line; today's lunch was corned beef on rye, with left over mashed potatoes and turkey. They quickly grabbed their lunch and walked back to their barracks, where they climbed the ladder just inside the hangar door, to get to the roof.
There were a few other squads on the roofs of their bases around them, but the majority of the roofs remained empty, providing a better view.
The landing pads were near the centre of the base and they were also slightly elevated, so the wash from the jets didn't blow to much crap over the roads and into the barracks surrounding it.
"Pretty good view from up here, eh?" commented Archer.
"Ya", agreed Louse, "I could see a Covenant attack miles before they got here."
"Shut up," snarled Ding, "Don't say things like that!"
"Hey, Louse you got that telescope of yours up here?" asked Parsons.
"No, but I'll go and grab it."
"Grab a radio while you're down there," shouted Doc, after him. "We might be able to hear the pilots reporting in before we can hear the engines."
"O.K.," the Private yelled back, "Be back in a minute."
When he got back they all sat back and listened to the static on the radio as Louse fumbled with the powerful, yet small radio.
"Damn, I'm not sure which frequency they'll be on, but I would think that it would be the air traffic towers freq."
He twisted a few more knobs and they heard two people talking.
"...Roger control." "We spotted three large Covenant patrols in the last 60 miles Southeast, they each had two Ghosts with them, and were all moving in the same direction," said the first voice, obviously the Pilot of one of the Condors.
"Roger," came the voice of the control tower officer, "I'll have the General meet you at the landing pads so he can question you, but until then don't say anymore over this frequency, understood?"
"Yes, Sir, understood."
"What's your ETA?" asked the control tower officer, changing the subject.
"Approximately 25 minutes," the pilot replied.
"Roger that, over and out."
"Sir," Louse asked, "what do you think so many Covenant are doing way out here?"
"Just reconnaissance Louse nothing to worry about, we do that all the time in their territory," Sean replied.
Though he didn't tell them that these reconnaissance missions were becoming all too common, in this area.
Sean remembered when he was 10 and he had overheard his parents talking about the same thing one night. They had told him the exact same thing that he had just told his men, one year before M.F.B. Adventure was attacked and both his parents were killed.
Except this time he would be ready, and he wouldn't let anything happen to his men.
It was another ten minutes before the Sharks heard the first faint roar of the two Condors. Louse was looking through the telescope he had retrieved from the barracks.
"Hey, guys," Louse said slowly, "looks like the one of the Condors is smoking from one of its engines."
"What?" said Parsons, "Give me that."
He looked through the telescope for a minute before saying, "Oh my God, he's right the forth jet on the front right wing is pouring out smoke, it must have gotten pummelled. Those Condors are designed to take one helluva beating, if it's that badly damaged then they must have come under some pretty heavy fire!"
"Now guys," piped in Sean, trying to calm everyone down, "It's probably just an engine malfunction or something."
"I don't think so Sir," said Parsons putting the telescope down and turning around to look at his Sergeant, "That sort of malfunction has never ocu.."
Parsons stopped his sentence short because of the look he was getting from his superior.
"Uh, right" he said lamely, "It was probably just an engine malfunction or something."
The Condors roared overhead 15 minutes later; the second Condor was still belching thick amounts of black smoke from its engine and the plasma scoring on the hulls were unmistakable. Only a couple of seconds after the two Condors had touched down the pilots came running out the back of the vehicles and over to the General.
They all quickly went into H.Q. and that was the last they saw of them.
The Techs. immediately started unloading the cargo onto the landing pad, and lots of small golf cart like vehicles rolled up with three interchangeable trailers behind them. The trailers were loaded up and the carts drove off to deliver the crates.
"Hey, Serge," Ding said, "we should head down to the hangar to wait for the delivery."
"All right," Sean replied, "Lets head down."
The Marines climbed down the stairs, and grabbed some chairs, to wait by the front of the hangar with.
They didn't have to wait more than 15 minutes before one of the carts wheeled into the hangar loaded up with crates.
The crates were Vacuum-Sealed, stainless steel about four feet long, two and a half feet wide and three feet deep. They also weighed about 800 pounds, with all the armaments inside.
"Oh boy, I hope all of these are for us," Archer said excitedly, almost hopping up and down on the spot.
"No, not all of them," the driver answered, getting out of the drivers seat and walking to the last trailer, "But I do have three crates here for a Sergeant Sean Visentin and his Sharks."
The driver handed Sean a clipboard and said, "Just sign here, Sir."
Sean obliged and thanked the driver, then handed the clipboard back.
It took two Marines to lift a crate off the trailer and deposit it beside the workbenches on the right side of the hangar.
"Lets crack these babies open and see what we got," Louse said, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice.
The marines opened the first crate and found ten brand new Battle Rifles, and sixteen new SMGs.
"I'm in heaven," commented Doc. "This is absolutely wonderful."
The Sharks opened the second crate and found 200 cases (cases hold twenty magazines) full of magazines (magazines have 30 rounds) for the Battle Rifles.
The final crate contained cases of magazines for the SMGs and instructions on using them. Since the team and all the Marines on the base had been e-mailed the complete instructions on both weapons, they already knew the guns inside and out and just left the instructions in the case.
"Oh, no," exclaimed Archer, "In all this excitement we forgot to book time at the shooting range!" "We'll never get any now, the range will be booked for months!"
The rest of the Marines became distraught at this, and immediately began cursing themselves for not remembering to book some time.
"Oh, Jes," Sean said, "all of you guys forgot?" "What kind of a squad have I got here?
The Sharks looked at their Sergeant in disbelief.
Sean continued, "Well I guess it's a good thing I didn't forget to book us some time, because then we would never be able to use the new guns."
"You got time," exclaimed Doc, "Awesome!"
"You're the best, Sir!" Archer yelled.
"You're the Man!" screamed Louse.
"I love you, Boss," Ding sobbed.
"Excellent, Sir," Parsons said beaming at Sean.
"Ya, ya," Sean said, "Your all buying me a beer after, I know. But if you want to get to the range on time I suggest you put those crates onto the Hog's trailer and hook it up, cause were booked for an hour in 20 minutes."
The Sharks quickly hooked the trailer onto the first hog, loaded the crates on and tied them down with the straps on the trailer.
They hopped into the squads two Hogs and took off for the shooting range.
When they arrived, the place was packed with squads trying to get in. They parked the Hogs and hauled the heavy crates up to the gate.
The shooting range was an open field at the back of the base, which was separated from the rest of the base by a five-meter tall cement wall. The door leading into the shooting range was a solid stainless steel sliding door. The only way to open it was by pressing the button on the inside of the office that was protected by a plexi glass window, which is where they were standing now.
"You can't get in," the clerk said irritably, without looking up, "We're booked solid for the next two months."
"Well than I guess it's a good thing I booked four hours during that time then," Sean said.
The clerk looked up, "Oh, Sergeant, sorry come right in."
He pressed a button and the door slide back. The squad lugged the heavy crates down to the end of the shooting area where they opened them up.
"Alright, lets pass these out then," Sean, suggested.
Each Marine received a Battle Rifle and one case of ammunition for it, and two SMGs and one cases of ammo to use at the shooting range. This was more than enough for the short time that the Sharks would be at the range, but Sean wanted them to get as much practice as possible before going on patrol on the 5th. That only gave them today and tomorrow.
"O.K team," Sean yelled over the gunfire coming from the other slots, "Lets not waste anytime."
The Sharks quickly got into their slots, put on their eye and ear protection and started shooting.
They started with the Battle Rifles; the gun had excellent long range with a 2X scope on the mount. It fired single shots while zoomed, but became automatic while not zoomed. Which made it a good close range weapon as well. The team had no trouble putting the bullets where they wanted them to go, so they moved onto the SMGs.
The SMGs were not an effective long-range weapon due to the terrible accuracy while aiming at targets more than 20 metres away. However they made up for that in close range combat. The team quickly realised that the SMGs should not be used as long-range weapons and moved their targets to ten metres. As soon as they opened fire the sheer number of bullets tearing through the paper and wood blew the targets apart. Using two SMGs made the job that much quicker, though you lost some accuracy it didn't really matter at that distance.
The Sharks spent their hour perfecting their technique with the new guns, and basically had fun. After their hour was over they slung their guns and hauled the crates back out to the Warthog's trailer.
"Sir," Parsons said, "Do we have any more time at the range tomorrow?"
"You, bet", replied Sean, "But tomorrow were only taking 10 clips of ammo for each gun, so we don't use up to much. So you'll have to concentrate on your targets more and not fire every where at once."
"That's fine by me," answered Ding, "As long as we get to do more shooting, soon."
The Sharks got back to their barracks and spent the rest of the day talking about the guns and what they were going to do to the next Covenant that walked into their cross hairs.
The next day was spent in much the same fashion; they went to the shooting range at 1200 hours and practiced everything.
They were called to HQ at 1500 hours to be briefed on their up coming patrol.
They learned that there had been many Covenant sightings in the last 48 hours and that there would be double the amount of patrols as usual.
What they weren't told was that highflying radar planes had found a huge encampment of Covenant forces 74 miles to the southeast and that the Generals feared an attack within the month. The base's long-range communications were being jammed and that they had sent Skyhawk jump jets out to try and get word to the closest bases before it was to late.
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