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Jera III
Posted By: Elizar<kopaka2219@hotmail.com>
Date: 10 March 2004, 1:58 PM
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The Elite 'Ulumee had recently gained control over a medium sized army. But the purpose of having it was much different than he had thought of. The Prophets had assigned the army to him for a test. He was supposed to build a camp on recently captured human colonized planet. The habit was to glass the planets when eliminating all offensive forces on them. There had been only few cases of when a planet wasn't glassed, and that's what when 'Holy Relics' were on them. When in search of the holy relics, there had been reports of strong offensive forces of humans attacking to find out why the Convenant didn't glass the planet.
The strong offensive force was in most cases the same. A small team of humans in special armors attacked, and when they attacked, they won. The Prophets had categorized the records of the special humans as in-field trauma. But now, after a small incidence of missing a relic into the human's hands, they decided to check the reliability of the stories. By sending a team to check if sparing a planet will raise the attention of the humans in the special armor.
Jera III, what the humans called their colony, was easily taken away, and not glassed. The Convenant that raided the planet were doubtful of the mission, but no one dared to speak against the Prophets.
'Ulumee quickly set up camps for his small army. He bore a handsword generator and a plasma rifle, wore his special strong golden armor, so there was no doubt on what rank he had in the camps. Three hundred of Grunts, thirty elites of different ranks, forty jackals and three pairs of hunters covered the infantry. There were also five banshees, fifteen ghosts and two wraiths. They were ready for battle, there was no doubt about that.
"They haven't glassed Jera III yet, but there is no mining movement, so they can't be looking for something left by the Forerunners." The captain of Frequent, Raquel, said to the small army of Marines. But there was one that wasn't a Marine, he was the part of old project of super soldiers, SPARTAN project. He was the only Spartan that wasn't unreachable at the moment. Spartan-117, nicknamed 'Master Chief', for good reason, listened carefully at the Briefing, hoping to get some better Intel before jumping into hell.
"What we think is that they are going to use the remotely position of Jera III to make a stable army base. There is a small army down there at the moment, and we are going to get Jera III before they can grow it." She continued, pausing to wait for some questions from the Marines. No one asked, so she continued.
"Master Chief will be dropped down first and without company to check the basic preps of the Convenant force down there. He will take down part of their defenses and then you drop in to pick up the trash.
"Any questions?"
No one asked.
"Master Chief, prepare for dropdown. Dismissed."
Only few minutes passed and Chief had already gathered the required weapons, the usual assault rifle, MA5B, and the S2 sniper rifle. He didn't know how great force he would be facing, so he got the as many clips as he could carry, silently.
The pelican transmitted a small bogey signal so the Convenant didn't detect it as it landed in a small clearing between the tall trees of the jungle.
"You have the panic button, Chief, I will stay on station to pick you up in time." The pilot said to the Chief, which gave her acknowledge lights.
The ever present Cortana made a skim search of the records about Jera III which weren't properly protected. "It's a jungle all through, Master Chief, I'm putting a NAV-point directed at where the ONI thinks the base is, but you will have to find good recon or sniping spot." She said after only half-a-second pause.
"Great, I thought I had nothing to do while on this mission." The Master Chief answered in his usual sarcastic voice which eased him bit before the real action.
"Beware though, Master Chief, we are not far away from the camps."
"Beware though, Master Chief, we are not far away from the camps."
'Ulumee sprang up in his chair as hearing the alien language. There had been no force attacking for the few days, and now, he could be facing the humans in the special armor. He quickly ran the small string of talk into the translator. The process was quick, and the result was: "Beware though, [Unknown army rank], we are not far away from the base."
'Ulumee wasn't the best one in human communication, but the softness in the original voice could lead to the one talking was a human female.
'Easier to kill' He thought, but she had been addressing someone another, probably someone stronger.
Then he decided to run the unknown name in the records. It didn't turn out empty. There were records of several Master Chiefs, but there was only one which had the rank name like an actual name. That 'Master Chief' was a nickname to one of the special humans, and it was even said that he was the former leader of the special humans.
"Zamma!" He called over the room. Visually shorter Elite in crimson armor sprang into motion and ran up to 'Ulumee.
"Yes?" He asked.
"Monitor the cracked channels, there was an activity only short time ago, let me hear any translation through my radio." 'Ulumee ordered. "I'm going hunting."
'Ulumee took a small team of ten grunts, two other veteran Elites and three jackals. But he also gave orders to other units, monitoring them to be ready for battle and wait for further orders.
He ran up to the point were the activity was recorded. He was going to fulfill his mission, and get away from the human polluted planet.
"We are too close, let's find a good spot where we can look over the camps so we can make a good recon report for the Marines." Cortana said, putting a NAV-point over at one ridge.
The Master Chief was about to move, then he froze as he thought he had heard something. After few seconds, he moved again to the new NAV-point, but a plasma blast came from between the trees and landed on his shield. The alarm shirked a shrill warning as the shields were depleted from taking that bolt.
"We are too close, let's find a good arena where we can look over the base so we can make good [unknown] report for the [army]."
'Ulumee stopped suddenly as hearing the translated string, and the new location point was less than fifty meters away.
The grunts got easily scared by the sudden stop of their leader, and the most uneasy one overcharged his plasma pistol and shot through the trees.
'Ulumee turned quickly around as seeing the bolt passing him only by less than an inch. There was no doubt on who had shot as the grunt in the yellow armor held the overheated plasma pistol. 'Ulumee took his plasma pistol away and smacked him with it. The force was powerful enough to kill the grunt.
The jackals and the other elites laughed low while the other grunts sidestepped uneasy, not knowing if the leader would kill them just for fun.
But everyone froze for a second as a frag grenade was thrown in the middle of the group.
Master Chief didn't even let the shields get their required time to reload, as he made a quick scout of who shot. He managed to see the Elite in the golden armor killing the grunt, and while the group was off guard, he threw a grenade in the middle of the group and fell back, letting only then the shields to reload.
"They are probably monitoring the COM channels, putting up security link." Cortana told the Chief.
The Chief ignored her as he took out the last grunts, jackals and the veteran Elites. But the golden one had gotten away, but wouldn't give up the fight. No Elite did as far as Master Chief knew. Chief quickly picked up any other weapons that could help him and he also picked up few plasma grenades. He looked at his motion tracker to be sure that the leader wasn't returning, and if he would, he would be ready.
"Security link up, we can talk without them listening and tracking." Cortana said.
"Will it hinder you to listen to the Convenant?" Master Chief asked, uneasy if he could go in without the AI's help. He had become bit too dependant on her.
"Yes. I cannot risk listening on them without them detecting me." She answered. "Head up to the recon spot, we got a mission to finish."
The Master Chief was about to move forth to the spot marked on his HUD, but heard the humming of Banshee coming.
"Can't I catch a break?" He asked to himself.
'Ulumee had against his will run away from the human, both in fright of that the rumors about him was true, and it was part of his tactics. The plan was to pinpoint out where the human was, and bring him down with heavy weapons.
The fuel rod blasts from the banshee tore down the forest, but no human in green special armor was found, alive or dead. 'Ulumee looked around, but it wasn't till he looked to arena that was nearer to him, that he saw how the human ran forward to him on major speed.
"They won't attack their leader, we need to get close to him!" Cortana practically yelled to Master Chief. He had been most of the time dodging the blasts from the banshees. And Cortana risked entering the small battle network to find out the commanders position. It was perhaps suicide for most humans to be near commander elite, but Master Chief wasn't normal human, he was a Spartan.
The commander turned away and used the dense forest to dodge most of the shots coming from Chief, and his shield was strong enough to withstand the few shots that hit its mark.
Master Chief ran after the commander, shooting few shots at him, intending not to kill him as he was his 'shield' against the banshees. They were heading to the camps, but Chief didn't notice that while chasing the commander.
"Clearing ahead..." Cortana said, but there wasn't much information what was there, but she knew that they were closer to the camps, but wasn't that close. Suddenly, she found out what was waiting for them in the clearing. "STOP" She yelled, but it was too late.
Chief froze in his tracks as he entered the clearing. There were two shades, one ghost, uncountable mass of grunts and jackals, five elites and a pair of hunters.
He acted quickly, tossed couple of frag grenades behind the hunters, killing one and wounding other, raised his assault rifle and took out the ghost as it had been approaching him. He took out a jackal and used its shield to barely dodge a fuel rod blast from the remaining hunter. The shield promptly melted away and he threw it away along with the jackal. The hunter charged forth and the other Convenant stood back to get the hunter to finish the job easily.
The Chief's shield flared a bit as he didn't manage to dodge the hard melee from the hunter with its shield, then jumped back and hit the unprotected back of the hunter with his assault rifle. Then he turned over to the rest of the Convenant. They hadn't expected the hunter to go down that easily. It wasn't till Chief took down both gunners, Grunts, in the shades down easily with his sniper risen.
The Elite in the Ghost yelled warrior scream and headed straight for Master Chief, which barely dodged the plasma blasts from the battle vehicle. When it was just inches away from Chief, he jumped and pushed the elite off, jumping in the ghost and concentrated on the jackals and the elites. But he had also gotten bit careless. The ghost was perhaps good battle vehicle but gave poor defense.
"Chief, look out! Shields at 20%" Cortana called, and if it was like a button was pushed, a grunt ran forth with overcharged plasma pistol and released the bolt, effectively flipping the ghost around and forcing Master Chief to jump out so he wouldn't be pinned under it for few, but valuable, seconds.
The shield started to shriek the familiar warning as one of the shades was manned and shot at him. Chief turned around, ran up to the shade, smacked the grunt out of the seat but jumped behind fallen log to let his shields generate. But it took too long, and the Convenant weren't known for waiting.
Chief sent a frag grenade blindly over his shoulder, and heard grunts and jackals scream as it detonated. He heard an elite repeating the same word three times, that was something between low bark and laughter, but his automatic translator translated it to "Go go go" But the timing was right, the Chief's shields were recharging. He jumped up but ducked right again as he heard grunt yelling the usual words for "Look out" to his teammates, which often indicated that he was throwing plasma grenade. The Grenade landed behind his back, but fortunally, it didn't land on him. He didn't want to be the first Spartan to know what effect it had on the Mark V armor if plasma grenade lodged onto it.
He jumped from the grenade and felt glad that there was only the golden armored elite along with a small group of grunts. The grunts went easily down, but the commander didn't fire while the grunts were killed. He waited.
'Ulumee had a plan, but it was hard in process. He had ordered a bogey signal to be sent so the channels of the humans were blocked within some radius, and the human in the special armor was within the radius. He couldn't call for any backup. But 'Ulumee didn't know if backup was part of his plan.
He jumped aside, rolled on the ground, and his shield deflected most of the bullets from the human's weapon. Green beam went past him and onwards to Master Chief.
Chief saw what was happening just before the shot came. He quickly jumped away and saw how the overheated plasma blast grilled the ground which he had occupied only half a second before.
"Shields at 15%" Cortana gave her usual warning to Master Chief, but the shrieking alarm was enough for him to know the shields were low.
He threw a plasma grenade to the banshee that was barely visible between the trees, but since he was called the luckiest Spartan for good reason, the grenade got stuck on the banshee, a perfect throw. He saw how the commander's shield flickered and went off when he got in the shockwave from the banshee which blasted when the grenade detonated. But the blue glow from the blast was that sudden that the Chief's visor wasn't quick enough to adjust to it. When his own eyes got adjusted, he saw how the Elite charged forward him with his glowing sword raised.
The chief quickly dodged to the right since his shield was dangerously low and one hit from the sword was enough to kill him, even for the Mark V armor. He jumped up and grabbed the hand that held the sword and pushed the Elite back against a tree trunk trying to force the sword against the Elite's body. He couldn't let the sword even touch him when his shields were that low.
The Commander answered by pushing Master Chief back with his feet. But the Elite expected Chief to fall backwards, to be easy to bring down, but he just staggered back, then ran back as bringing up a plasma pistol and put a bolt at the Elite's body, effectively turning off its shields. The Elite staggered bit backwards from the blow, and went behind a large fallen treetrunk to get his shields recharged. Familiar blue light came forward to him, but he was too late to duck the incoming plasma grenade, it got stuck on the back of his head and quickly took him out of physical misery.
The chief looked down at the body of the former commander Elite, and watched how the blue blood was spread in one meter radius from the body.
"I take it you have a plan?" Cortana asked.
"Yes, we call in support and kill anything that isn't human." Master Chief answered, and slammed a fresh clip into his MA5B.
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