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A Series of Wierd Events - Sequel, Part Four [STERFRYE]
Posted By: Hunter_Killer<jlp8118@sbcglobal.net>
Date: 25 March 2004, 2:59 AM
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"This is your captain speaking," Steele said over the intercom system built into the Longsword. "We'll be landing shortly." The Interceptor settled onto one of Alpha Base's landing pads. As the landing gear deployed, we landed with a soft thunk. "Please feel free to move about the cabin," he joked as the ramp at the front opened and Simpsonsrule, Steele, Agent Shade and I, fire team Sierra (We had decided on the name during the flight), walked out of the airplane and moseyed in to Alpha Base.
"Nice digs," Steele commented as we came through the main entrance. I let out a low whistle. It was indeed pretty nice. We came to a T-junction. That had a crude, hand-painted sign:
>ARMORY
OUTSIDE
COMMAND CENTER
QUARTERS
"I wonder what's happened to the other three arrows," I muttered as a snickering Marine walked past us with a bucket of whitewash. "Ah..."
"You from HBO?" a voice asked from behind us and I jumped. I spun and faced a blonde-haired Marine.
"Yeah," I said as I extended my hand. "Sterfrye."
He didn't return the courtesy. "Who?"
I blushed and muttered, "You know, writer of the Battle for the Norah series? I inherited it from Agent Shade. Don't you remember me?"
The HBOer cocked his head to one side and starred into space. "Not really," he answered. I groaned as the others chuckled behind me.
I sighed and jerked my head in order to each of the other members of fire team Sierra. "Anyway, that's Simpsonsrule, Steele, and Agent Sh—" my introduction was cut short as the HBOer dove past me, knocked me over and I slammed face first to the floor. The others laughed. I rolled over to see the guy shaking hands with Shade and praising him for his Shadow Ops II work.
"I hate being underappreciated," I grunted as I heaved myself off of the floor. I finally got him to tell me where the command center was after I shook him hard. To the left as it turned out.
"So, who exactly was that?" I asked as we began walking.
"You didn't read his tag?" Steele said incredulously.
"Uh...no," I answered.
"It was Mnemesis."
We walked down a group of hallways and finally came to the command center. Another hand painted sign read, "MESS HALL", but lacked any arrows. The snickering Marine passed by us once again. I was beginning to see a pattern here...
There were mainly HBOers in the room. I recognized Louis Wu instantly. He was wearing a general's uniform that was adorned with medals. As a matter of fact, his whole chest was adorned with them. There wasn't a single part of the uniform showing in the front. He looked like the very image of a banana republic general. That or a despot. I read the name tags off of everybody else's chest (Keep in mind that, since we were forced into Halo character bodies. It was difficult to recognize everybody.) and found that Alpha, Main and Walker were also there. I took a seat and heard a commotion from the door I had just come through.
Hunter_Killer hobbled in on one foot as he struggled to put a combat boot on. "What's up?" he asked as he took a seat. Wu grinned, puffed out his chest, the lights dimmed, and he initiated a PowerPoint show. He pulled an unfolding pointer from his pocket and pointed to a mug shot of Keyes from the POA.
"Captain Keyes is on the T and R, as you already know,—unless you are the biggest newb ever—at this point in the game. Because we don't want to screw with the game's system more 'n necessary, we're going to launch an attack on it," said Wu. "You will be Assault Leader," our glorious leader announced as he used his pointer to single out H_K. "Squads Delta and Alpha will conduct this bolt. Pelicans Echo 293 and HBO 1 will provide drop-off and air support."
The meeting dismissed and H_K and Alpha took their squads to the armory to get jiggy wit' it. I sighed since we weren't going to be part of the assault, but my squad was tired. After all, we had just been chased down through the atmosphere by several Seraph fighters, and nearly been blown to bits by Steele and his napalm.
Main and his squad walked off to wherever, and I settled down into the seat to grab a nap. Unfortunately, I don't fall asleep easily. I couldn't figure out what was nagging me until I finally looked at my teammates. That was it. November squad, Mainevent's team, had Main, Goatrope, Wado, FOrunnER and 'Nosolee.
I on the other hand, only had myself, Shade, Simpsonsrule and Steele. I could do with a few more team members. I made up my mind, stood up, and marched to where I guessed Major Silva's office was.
"You want what, Sergeant?" Silva asked as though I had just requested 200 pounds of uncut cocaine. I hadn't, so I sat forward in my chair.
"More people, sir. Currently there are only seven people in my fire team. I want three more." The Major scowled behind his desk.
"You'll get one. She's in the brig across the hall."
"Brig? What'd she do?"
"Nothing, but I do believe that she is clearly mental. Take her and keep her away from me." I nodded, stood and saluted, and left. When I informed the MP at the brig of my intentions, he gladly handed me the keys. I unlocked the door, looked inside, and promptly slammed it shut again. Once more, I eased the door open and peeked.
A girl was sitting at a chair wearing handcuffs and bouncing a little baby Elite on her knee. "Wowt, wowt, wowt," it grunted. Egad, I thought to myself.
It's Jillybean! I promptly decided that, since I didn't want to baby-sit, some other poor sap could have her.
As I was shutting the door, I heard Louis Wu dash up behind me. "Ah, I've been looking for you everywhere!" he said as I turned around.
"What's up? You need Sierra for a mission?"
"Uh, no," he muttered as he handed me a mop.
"What's this?" I asked indignantly.
"It's called a mop. You use it to clean up water."
"You can't be serious. Please tell me you're not serious."
"Okay. You're not going to mop up water."
"Good."
"You're going to be mopping up vomit. Mainevent apparently gave some of his meatloaf to FOrunnER before they left and—" he was cut short as his PDA beeped. He looked at it and shoved it back into his pocket.
"Looks like you won't be mopping after all. H_K and the others are having a hard time at the grav lift. Frogblast tells me that Spark has something to do with this. You'll ship out with CoLd BlooDed and his squad. I suggest you get your team and go down to the armory to load out."
I nodded gratefully, saluted and raced back to the T-junction. I glanced at the sign:
It was blank! "Why is this blasted sign blank!?" I screamed. The snickering Marine began to walk past...but I grabbed him and slammed him up against the wall.
"THE ARMORY!!!" I roared. He grinned and said in a somewhat stuffy accent: "Armory? I wasn't aware that we had one." I growled as I unsheathed my plasma pistol and stuck it under his chin.
My voice was dangerously calm. "Let's try this again. Which way is the armory?" He pointed his finger to my right. I dropped him and ran down some hallways. I skidded into an open door and realized that a Hunter and a POA tech were standing behind a desk with several guns on it. Their backs were to me, and they were typing away on an absolutely huge keyboard, all the while muttering things such as, "...someone's blocking it...no, no..."
The rest of Sierra arrived, and I cleared my throat. The Hunter turned around. "You here for the guns?" he asked. I nodded.
"Yeah. We're moving out with CoLd BlooDed's team.
"Boll," the Hunter said as he leaned over to shake with his massive hand.
"Sterfrye."
"Who?"
"I don't have time for this. What've you got for us?" The Hunter leaned over the table and gave an expression that looked like a grin.
"Well," he growled. "There's your decaf and then there's your regular."
"Ha, ha. Seriously, we need guns and ammo."
"Fine, fine," he grunted as he indicated the guns on the table with his Fuel Rod Gun. "Take your pick." Everybody lunged for their gun, and I threw my AR onto the table and grabbed a navy colored shotgun. "Ah, you have excellent taste in heavy weaponry," the Hunter chuckled. "That sucker shoots a spread of sniper bullets and it's automatic. Clip size is twelve. Pump the chamber to switch to a spread grenade shot that uses both frag and plasma."
"All right. What else is there?"
"Coors, Miller, Bud, Heineken, Michelob..."
"Oh, you're a riot," I mumbled as I proceeded to trade my plasma pistol in for another AR.
"Excellent choice. That boy shoots shotgun spreads with a scope and sixty bullet clip."
"Ooooh. I like it," I said jovially as I took double handfuls of clips for the weapon of mass destruction that was now hung over my back. "Has CoLd's team come here yet?"
"Yeah, they have. They're on their way to the pad right now." I gathered the rest of my group and dashed towards the pad.
We ran out the main entrance to get to the outside landing pads, and looked around for our designated Pelican. "Where is it?" I asked rather irately. I didn't want to miss our first mission.
"Say," Simpsons said suddenly. "Have any of you ever seen a movie where passengers try to board a train that's leaving the station, and they have to hop on the train at the last second? You know, while it's moving?"
"Simpsons, what does that have to do with—" I began, and realized what he was saying. "Don't tell me," I said flatly. "The Pelican is taking off right now, behind us, and over a hundred yards away, right?"
"Yep. Well, it's not in the air yet, but its engines are revving up."
"Great," I muttered as I spun on my heel and began sprinting towards our ride. I yelled on my radio at the aircraft to stop, but it paid no heed. The radio must've been broken. By the time we got to it, it was about four feet up in the air. Simpsons was first aboard since he was able to leap onto it easily with his Flood body. The three Marines were right behind him. Steele was next as he grabbed the lip and hauled himself over. Shade reached out and managed to snag the edge of the ship's loading ramp as the aircraft began to lift off. I had fallen behind due to the fact that the ammo was heavier than I had anticipated. Shade was hauling himself up when I grabbed his ankles and watched in horror as we lifted to twenty feet off of the ground!
"Let go off me, you—" Shade yelled. I could guess the rest.
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