Pelican Charlie 223 Chapter One
Posted By: James Kinsella<jckinsella@redrunr.net>
Date: 29 April 2003, 11:04 PM
Read/Post Comments
|
Pelican Charlie 223
Chapter One
1034 Hours, December 23, 2552 (Military Calendar)/
UNSC Judgement assaulting Covenant Colony Repentance
"All pilots, scramble to your ships and await flight coordinates." Came the voice of Judgement's A.I., Soell. The flight officers broke up their game of euchre and ran to their various ships. Flight Officer Captain James Purcell ran as fast as he could to his ship, Charlie 223. He jumped inside and climbed the ladder into the cockpit. He ran the Pre-Flight checklist and entered the coordinates he received into the computer. He thought about the difficulties of his predecessors. When they had gone in for a landing all they had was a 70mm. chain gun, and some HE Anvil-II rockets. After the capture of the Covenant ship, Golden Apocalypse, all UNSC ships had received upgrades, the D77-TC 'Pelican' included. The troop carriers now had two of what was recognized as a medium yield anti-infantry plasma turret, also known as a 'Vulcan'. The ship also had sixteen HE Anvil-III's in its arsenal. The Anvil-III's had a plasma tip that melted through whatever it hit. All in all, Purcell was impressed with how the UNSC had adapted Covenant technology.
As the Marines of Fire Team Bravo loaded into the Pelican one yelled out, "Are you gonna' give us a smooth ride this time, Earendil?" This comment referred to their 'bumpy' ride down to the Covenant held planet, Wrath.
James responded with the only thing he could think of, "You didn't help, screaming back there the entire way down. As I recall the deck had to be scrubbed because someone forgot to go to the bathroom before they left." That seemed to shut him up, and Purcell closed the cargo bay ramp. As he looked at one of the gauges he saw the picture of his wife. He hadn't seen her since before the Covenant assaulted Earth. He wished he could go home, but he knew that with all the attacks on Covenant colonies planned, that wouldn't happen for a while. If the UNSC slowed down now, the Covenant might have a chance to regain their footing. That was something nobody wanted to have happen, so the advance across space continued.
Soell's voice over the comm. channels broke Earendil's reverie, "All dropships, release docking clamps and head to you targets. We're beginning the ground attack. Stay in line with the Daggers and Longswords and you'll be okay." This announcement was what everybody had been waiting for. James watched as the hangar bay doors opened, and looked down at the planet. Purcell was impressed with the spectrum of color the planet had. It looked like a beautiful place. He then thought of all the other beautiful places that had existed, but were now just balls of glass, lifeless and floating in space. With that thought he released docking clamps, and put the throttle on one-third.
As the fleet of Pelicans made their way towards the planet Earendil looked out of his window. The Covenant had put up a pitiful fight in defense of this planet. But lately that seemed to be all they had. Mainstream opinion said that this was because they were bolstering their homeworld's defense, but Purcell thought differently. He thought that the Covenant didn't have anything to fight with. His opinion was that they had exhausted their resources in their attempt to commit genocide on humanity.
The trouble with landing on a Covenant planet was just that simple. They actually had to land. When the Covenant had been attacking human colonies they would just glass the planet. Humans could do that too, but UNSC doctrine said that that was unacceptable, and Purcell agreed. If they fought the way the Devils fought, they would become the Devils. The problem with this was that they had to occupy an entire planet, and slowly remove the brainwashing that the Prophets had used to control the rest of the Covenant society. It was a long process, and while it was happening there were attacks on humans left and right. This meant that the process of taking a Covenant planet took about two weeks in total. After that the former Covenant populace was usually very docile, and almost no problems had occurred with 'liberated' planets. A few had even applied to the UNSC, in order to become colony worlds.
Once again Soell's voice interrupted James's thinking, "All Pelicans, you are ordered to break formation with the fighters, they are needed back up here." This statement shocked Purcell. Usually the fighters escorted Pelicans all the way. What was so important that they were needed with the fleet? James knew that the Seraphs would now inflict heavier losses, but he didn't understand why the fleet needed fighter support. He looked at his radar, and suddenly understood. It looked as if his prediction of the Covenant being out of resources was wrong. An entire new fleet had popped up, and the Covenant now outmatched the humans at least three to one. It looked as if the Assault of Repentance was going to take longer than predicted...
New Series, but I think it's a good start. Tell me what you think.
|
