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Dreams of Master Chief
Posted By: Max Ellis<haunted_i@yahoo.com>
Date: 24 October 2003, 12:59 PM
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Foreword
Every novel is better than its subsequent movie. You know more than what you can see or hear, because you also know what the characters are thinking. I'm not saying you shouldn't see movies, just that you should read the books they are based on. As for Halo itself, I know all the cinematics and dialogues by heart, have created quizzes over the gameplay, and have read the book twice. So here you have what I believe is an accurate 'behind the helmet' account of the dreams of Master Chief. And, er . . . it helps if you read the book.
September 23, 2517
John lay on his cot, thinking about what he had heard earlier that night. He was trying to make sense of Doctor Halsey's words, running them through his head. Why did it seem so hard for her to tell them all that? Well, he thought, it was hard hearing it. Even though he knew that he probably wouldn't ever see his parents again, he had a growing feeling that he was part of something much more important now. He felt pride, but also confusion. Why me? And why so many other six-year-old kids?
Ugh. He rubbed his throat, wondering how long they were all in cryo sleep. The last thing he could remember before being awakened on the cruiser was sleeping in his own bed. That was the day he first met Doctor Halsey, on the playground.
He reached into his pocket and felt the quarter with his thumb. The side with the eagle, he thought. John was about to take the quarter out when the barracks' doors flew open. He had to shield his eyes at first, the light was so bright. He ran out the doors and into...the playground? Next to this military building? But he wasn't worried about that. Other kids could be heard, screaming about something. They were playing king of the hill, and he was missing it!
John tore past the playground equipment to where his class was swarming over the huge dirt mound. It was bigger than he remembered, and there were so many kids pulling at each other to be the first one on top. Just more of a challenge, he thought, as he leapfrogged over someone and smacked into the steep edge. Using nearby bodies, he hauled himself up over wave after wave of other children. This seemed to go on for some time. When John finally looked up, the top of the dirt pile was no closer than when he started! He crawled as fast as he could, but kids just bounded over and piled on top of him until he was pressed firmly into the dirt. And he kept sinking! Going completely through the dirt, he stopped breathing.
Reaching what he thought must be the very center of the dirt mound, the bottom dropped out and John fell. He fell through darkness for a long time, finally landing in the auditorium where Doctor Halsey had spoken. Everyone was there from before, but after he landed they began to rise up in midair. Doctor Halsey pulled a ball out from behind the podium and tossed it to the kids, who all dashed for it. Gravball! John always won that at school, until they stopped letting him play. He shot up out of his seat towards the crowd, went through it, and emerged at the top with the ball. Rising farther, he looked at the prize in his hands.
That was strange. He knew he had seen this pattern before, as he examined the ball. It looked like the planet Earth.
It popped.
John flew backwards at first, but then arced until he was falling straight down. He landed on a cold metal surface, surrounded by darkness again. Feeling around, he caught the sharp corner of something with his palm. Running his hand down it, he realized it was his cot, which he slowly climbed into, and tried to fall asleep again.
March 09, 2525
Hallways. Some were the same, some merely similar, others totally different. He turned right from the cold, sterile hallway of what must have been a hospital, entering a much warmer one. Marble floor and ceiling supported by stone pillars. Or was it steel? John honestly didn't know. He was about to touch one when his father stepped out from behind it.
He looked just like he did the last time John saw him, wearing a plaid soyester shirt and a warm smile. John reached out to him, then hesitated. He let me be taken away! His father's smile faded as he leveled an assault rifle at John and whispered to him.
"Thou shalt not kill."
He pulled the trigger, and everything went white.
John blinked in the harsh light. Once his eyes adjusted, he cast them up to the wall display. 0601 hours.
November 02, 2525
John, now known by his rank of Master Chief, led his unit to the equipment room. By now, all of the Spartan-class soldiers had received muscular augmentation and steel bone plating, giving them super strength. They also had extra neural implants inserted, yielding reflexes six times as fast as any normal person. They could, as one Spartan put it, "take on the universe, pretty much."
Each soldier filed into the room, picked up a band instrument case, and proceeded to the launch bay. There, the group split in half and entered two Pelican dropships.
It was an unusually smooth ride. On the way, Kelly asked "Is anyone else bothered by the fact that we're the only intelligent life in the universe?"
"You don't know that," Sam said. "There could be dozens of other civilizations out there."
"If there were, we would have run into each other by now," replied Kelly.
"They could all be on the opposite side of the galaxy or something. We don't know. But how about a little optimism, huh? You're basically hopeless for us ever finding intelligent life."
"I know this is sad to think about. Right now it's just us, and when we expand to fill the galaxy, and one day even the universe, it will still be...just us." She looked around the cabin for support, and her eyes rested on John. But Master Chief didn't return the stare.
He was looking out the window.
He was watching a planet's destruction.
The atmosphere itself seemed to be rapidly boiling away, and the ground itself developed an inner glow. It looked as though lava was coming out of the planet like sweat from thousands of pores. And there was no discernible cause for all this. But what worried Master Chief the most was that everything was getting closer. They were going to land on this fireball?
Before he knew it, the Pelicans touched down and everyone spilled out onto the tortured soil. As soon as the last Spartan was clear, the dropships took off, eager to escape the oncoming fire storm. Suddenly, everyone's instrument cases popped open to reveal strange new weapons. They were mostly sleek and rounded, with some sort of purple coating. A few Spartans tried firing bullets into the inferno, which only seemed to make it approach faster.
And for the first time in his life, the Master Chief felt totally powerless.
August 30, 2552
"Scanning . . . just dust and echoes. We're all that's left. We did what we had to do, for Earth. An entire Covenant armada obliterated, and the Flood . . . Halo. It's finished."
"No. I think we're just getting started."
And with that, Master Chief took off his helmet, set a course for the nearest inhabited system, and sat back for a deep, deep sleep.
He woke up covered in snow. Slowly rolling over, he stood up and brushed most of it off his MJOLNIR II battle suit. Looking around, he saw that he was atop a steep hill overlooking endless fields of nothing but snow. Before he could wonder what he was doing here, an all-too-familiar sound played into his ears.
Master Chief looked up to see a Covenant Banshee flying down at a forty-five degree angle, coming straight at him. At a thousand feet away, the craft released a green plasma bomb and veered off. Before the Chief could react, the ball of unthinkable energy struck his entire body. A blast that intense should have immediately killed anyone, even in MJOLNIR armor.
It brought the Master Chief to one knee.
That was it.
That was all.
A primal scream ripped from his throat, and hordes of Covenant grunts appeared on the horizon. The Banshee didn't expect to have to make another pass, and it came around again, much closer to the ground.
It fired a plasma ball from a hundred feet up, and the Chief leapt. The plasma struck the ground where he was, burning the soil even further. But at the same time, Master Chief struck the Banshee. It continues to fly until he ripped the growling elite out of the exposed cockpit and threw it to the ground. He swung into the cockpit, managing to land the craft on the hill which was still smoldering from plasma burns. The grunts were much closer now, but something inside Master Chief had snapped. He hefted the entire Banshee as a gun, reaching inside the cockpit with one hand to fire scores of plasma into the lines. When this wasn't working fast enough, he lifted the Banshee over his head, spun around, and threw it far out in the distance. The resulting explosion managed to take out every last grunt, to the Chief's great satisfaction.
His eyelids fluttered open just enough to see his ship's screens displaying normal operation, and closed again so he could continue to dream.
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