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Halo: Hunted-Part One
Posted By: Overwhelming Force<iamapsychopathichermit@hotmail.com>
Date: 18 December 2003, 7:09 PM
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0200 hours UNSC time
Private Peter Benson awoke to the sound of flames. As he once again entered the world of depth perception he realised two things. First that he had no idea where he was. Second that he had forgotten everything over the past day or so. Then pain crept into his mind and he looked away from the startling blue, cloudless sky above him, and moved his vision down to his stomach. Craning his neck, he saw a large piece of shrapnel sticking out of his side. Yelling with pain, he tugged it free and found that it hadn't gone too deep. Nothing seemed to be bleeding in excess either. Wincing against the wound in his side he got to one knee and looked around him, breathing heavily. They were in the centre of a grassy plain, flat for miles around. To his west there was a range of mountains, their iced-over caps glinting in the dazzling sun. Blinking and shading his eyes he saw no other mountains or vegetation, or, in fact, anything, for as far as the eye could see. Looking around closer to home now, he saw other unconscious men and several dead ones. The first thing to catch his eye, however, was the crashed and burning Pelican lying mangled in front of him, the squad Warthog lying overturned, but miraculously lightly damaged, on its right. Benson got to his feet and began to walk slowly around, limping, waking the unconscious members of his squad and closing the eyes of the dead ones...if they still had them. He had been with this squad for several months, he knew that. He also knew their names, ranks, serial numbers, and everything about himself, his family, his most important achievements, in fact everything about his life, until what he figured must be around thirty-six hours ago. Everything since then was a blur. There were eight men out of a twelve-man squad left alive, including him. Connell, Demolitions, Watt, Sniper, Harland, Rifleman, Croydon, Rifleman, Johnson, Engineer, Jaime, Medic, and Burton, Support were the other survivors. Benson himself was also a rifleman. The Sergeant was one of the dead, so Corporal John Harland was in charge. They gathered near the Warthog.
"Guys, where the hell are we?" Jaime Firenze said at once.
"Hell if I know, I just want to get out of here." Jimmy Watt answered.
"You mean you guys don't remember either?" Benson interjected quickly; he was glad he hadn't lost his mind.
"No, man. What's going on here?" Jaime spoke again.
"Who cares? Where's the radio, I'm calling base." Marcus Croydon interrupted.
"Sorry, it was in the Pelican, that much I know. We're stranded." Harland walked over to the squabbling men.
"Shit." Breathed Harvey Johnson.
"Damn." Said Thomas Burton.
There was a long pause, which Benson broke.
"So what the hell do we do now?"
Another silence shattered this time by Harland.
"We camp here tonight, salvage what supplies we can. Use the Warthog as a guard post. Johnson, can you fix it?"
"I can try."
"Well jump to it. The rest of you set up a defensive perimeter. I'll see what I can find. Move out."
The men scattered.
Lanadai looked down at his Golden armour. He had worked his way through training to become an Elite in the Covenant's great ranks. He turned and looked back to where he'd left his recon squad and fired two glowing shots into the air, the agreed signal. They moved down from their place in a valley in the mountain range on which they perched. They all knew that the Humans were somewhere ahead on this plain. They had called in air support to destroy their dropship. He knew what they would be after. At his rank, you knew many things. And he couldn't let them get it. He was shaken from his thoughts by Kapak, a Grunt that was more of an annoyance than a useful member of the squad.
"Lanadai, any word?" The pathetic creature was excited about the spilling of human blood now, but he knew he wouldn't have much will to stay and spill it when the time came. He would run away, revealing the cowardice he denied.
"No, Kapak. They are out there somewhere east of here...." Hamadee stopped and peered intently into the gathering darkness.
"Lanadai? Lanadai what can you see? Lanadai!"
"Silence!" Lanadai yelled suddenly, causing Kapak to shriek in terror and stumble over backwards. Lanadai turned back to what he had seen. There was a flickering several miles ahead. He recognised it easily enough.
"Flames..." he muttered and made his way back to the squad.
Peter Benson was jolted awake by the sounds of plasma fire.
"CONTACT!" he heard yelled from the Warthog-end of the camp. He heard its gun blazing and heard the squad firing with their various weapons. He grabbed his MA5B assault rifle and sprinted over to see the Covenant squad running at them. A Golden Elite was at the fore, plasma rifle blazing, with three blue-armoured Elites in tow. On the right flank, a red-armoured Elite was charging at them with three more blues behind him. There were four Jackals providing fire support from a small hillock at the rear of the charging squad. No less than ten Grunts were charging in on their left flank. Crouching near the Warthog, Benson opened fire, depleting his first magazine in a matter of seconds, claiming three Grunts. The other seven men were firing on the groups of Elites, and had cut down three of the six blues and the red one. The Gold Elite and his one remaining blue follower began to fire fully automatic at the Warthog, but on the run they were finding it hard to aim. The two blues remaining on the right flank were now crouched low and were peppering them with accurate fire. A Jackhammer shell from Connell disposed of one quickly, and sniper fire dispatched the other. The battle seemed to be going their way. Four more grunts had been killed by Benson and they were running. The Golden Elite turned back too, and the blue Elite with him broke and ran also. The Jackals remained for several minutes longer before retreating when one of their numbers was cut down.
"Yeah! That taught those bastards not to mess with us." They were the last words of Johnson as he revealed himself in the Warthog's gunner position.
The Grunt with the fuel rod cannon crawled as quietly as he could through the darkness and lined up his sights on the human vehicle. He fired, the huge projectile sputtering from the barrel of the cannon liken a vengeful phantom. He saw the vehicle spiral into the air as the shot connected, killing its gunner. Victorious, it crawled back to the rally point.
"Jesus Christ!" Watt cried before rolling out of the way of the flying vehicle. It crashed to the ground and exploded just where he had been a moment before.
"Johnson!" several of the men shouted and rushed over. But Johnson was gone.
"God damn it!" Harland yelled. "Pull together guys, they could hit us again, we're moving NOW people."
Kapak looked on in mild amusement when the Humans began to run. He levelled his plasma pistol on the one that seemed to be the leader and began to overcharge it. Lanadai hit him hard on the back of the head and the shot flew into the sky. He rolled over and hissed angrily at him.
"Let them be for now, we need to follow them. Our orders are to bring back survivors if possible. If you kill their leader they'll be headless and fight to the death, but while their commander's alive and well they'll always be sure there's a chance of survival. That means they'll keep running and we will be able to take captives and not be executed for disregarding orders."
Kapak was silent for a while.
"Just regroup and start moving." Lanadai whispered.
Benson acted as rearguard for the couple of hours until dawn. The squad didn't stop once throughout the night. He had seen the shimmer of a Gold Elite several times, but hadn't reported them. They had been too far in the distance. Three blasts on the radio. That was the 'fall in' signal. They were stopping. They had escaped the Covenant for now.
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