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Subit Sepulcrum Titan Ipsi- Ch.2
Posted By: Sage Scorpion<Awesomedudeman2004@yahoo.com>
Date: 22 March 2004, 4:27 PM
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0505 Zulu September 4, 2563
900,000 km outside Tacyon System
UNSC Necromancer
When Jack walked through the door, all of his troopers jumped to attention. He smiled inwardly at their obedience. That would all change when they got to know him, and got to know what he would and wouldn't put up with. But, until then, it would be nice.
"At ease, boys..." And, after seeing the enraged looks from Janey and Alicia, he added "and girls."
Alicia made her way over to him and led him back to a seat at a bench. "Howdy, Jack. We have some visitors here that want to talk to you. Intelligence pukes from the look of them," Alicia said.
"Hhmm, I think you might be right. Damn, I hate ONI missions!" he replied.
"How do you know that they're here to send us on a mission?" she asked, puzzled.
"They wouldn't be here in person if it wasn't. If this was a briefing, or some new intel, they would have sent it down through our liason officer. No, they're sending us to some new hellhole, otherwise they wouldn't have picked us. How is it that the best soldiers get the worst missions, and the worst soldiers get the best? Ah well, better go talk to them before they wet themselves. See ya in five... better make that ten, one of 'em's General Twiggs. Crap."
He got up from his seat and moved to where the officers sat in their black ONI dress uniforms. 'Well,' he thought, 'At least this week won't be boring.' He saluted the men, and they returned it.
"Hello there Jack, nice to see you. How's life been treating you, kid?" the General said, greeting him warmly as a friend.
"Kid? Who's a kid? You're only 6 years older than me, you windbag. And I'm doing great, except I filed for some motorized ascenders a few weeks ago, for scaling and repelling, and Requisitions still hasn't gotten them to me. Now, I been askin around, and you're the only guy I know who outranks that prick of a Quartermaster, and I was thinking-"
Twiggs cut him off in mid-sentence, "Later, later Jack. This is of utmost importance, and needs to be addressed right away."
"Ah. I see."
"Could we speak in private? This is highly classified." the general said, glancing around as though there could be a Covenant spy overhearing them.
"When is it not? Sure. Right this way." Jack led them to a small room at the rear of the muster area, where his name was spelled out in gold leaf on an ancient looking polished oak door. It led into a small antechamber, which in turn led into his private officer. His sergeant secretary glanced up at them, and then pressed a button which opened the door.
When they stepped through the doorway, Jack took his seat in a high-backed synthetic leather chair, and Twiggs and the ONI officer took the seats facing his desk. Only then did Jack take the time to analyze the intel man. He was of average height, thin, and frail looking. His head seemed to come to a point in the front and back, and was very thin on the sides. He had a tannish complexion, with a vaguely Arabian or Persian look, but was very sallow looking, with deep bags under his eyes.
As soon as they were settled, Twiggs began to speak. "Jack, as you know, after we pulled out of the Nocturnisa system, reeling from a defeat, the Covenant battle fleet gave chase, and suceeded in doing a moderate amount of damage to a destroyer. However, that's not why I'm here. I'm here because the Covenant ships did not break off afterwards, as usual. They followed to the edge of this system, Tacyon, and hovered around 500,000 kilometers outside of the actual system, like we are now, but on the other side of the system. They appear to be reinforcing, and we don't have the strength to create even a disruption. An entire battle fleet is coming out here to reinforce us, containing several cruisers and a few battleships, as well as several amphibious ships with ground forces to supplement the already substantial number on the surface of our main fortress world, Tacyon IV. These ships will be carrying a full Marine armored division each, as well as a Combined Arms Tactical Air Squadron. Now, you may be asking yourself, 'What the hell does this have to do with me and my squad', but I'm just getting to that. Tacyon IV is as strong as we can make it, but not all worlds in the system are as well off. Tacyon II, for example, is a mining colony, with a relatively large civilian population, but it is virtually defenseless. There are no nuclear mine fields, and only a few orbital gun platforms. There are no ships in orbit because we can't spare any, and they would just be swept aside. On the surface, there are only roughly 10,000 troops on the entire planet, which is relatively the size of Earth. We can't really afford to lose the planet's mining and construction facilities, but we will have to. What we absolutely can not lose are the civilians, scientists, and miners on the surface. They may not seem important, but they are more important than could possibly be imagined.
"We are ordering you and your troops, as well as the rest of your company, to Tacyon II to beef up the Marine and Army troops there, and once the situation is critical, you are to retreat into the rural areas and fight a guerilla war, just to stall for time. ONI has been so kind as to supply you with enough stealth Prowlers to get you out of there once your objectives are complete. And your objectives are, (1), to hold off the Covenant ground forces for as long as possible with minimal loss in life, and (2), to then retreat and stall the Covenant for as long as possible before you pull out. Well, I've been sitting here doing all of the talking, what do you think about all this, Jack?"
"Thank you General, my most pressing concern is, why don't the Covenant just risk the loss of a few ships and take out the orbital batteries, and then glass the planet like they always do?" After that question, the ONI officer gave a small snort of derison, but said nothing, which earned a glare from Jack.
"Well, we know that they will want all of the ships that they can get for the main, and they are highly unlikely to risk the destruction of valuable ships for a small, seemingly unimportant backwater mining complex. They migh launch a few troop ships your way, but they will be concentrating everything on Tacyon IV, or so the Major here tells me, because they believe that if they break our outer lines of defense here, that they can roll us up on all fronts and destroy us in a mobile battle. Intelligence believes that this static war is killing them, because they are running out of allocated ships, troops, and supplies."
"How do we know this? Did you get some highranking Elite to defect, or something?" He asked, puzzled.
"No, these are more trustworthy than that. These are ONI's own estimates, created by our top analysts," the major said, smugly.
"What!? That's it!? This is what you're basing all of your plans for the defense of this system on?! Some ONI bullshit, that's what your'e going to place your faith for the lives of every civilian and soldier in this sytem in?! Man, fuck that! I have been fighting the Covenant face to face for my entire adult life, and I'm telling you that that's a steaming load of bullshit! These are the same Covenant who will stop on the very fringes of the Sol Sytem, turn around in space and jump backwards thousands of lightyears if they suspect a single human escaped their wrath on some little shit of a planet, and they will piss themselves to wipe out a few hundred thousand at a single time!" Jack cried passionately, turning over his chair in the process.
The snobbish ONI officer sat and sneered, unaffected, and then began. "Well, there are certain, um, factors involved. The miners and scientists on the planet have been excavating a little more than just iron and aluminum ore from this planet. The entire planet is dotted with ancient alien structures, which almost the entire population of the planet has been studying. The Covenant wouldn't dare glass it."
"Goddamn you people! If the planet is worth so much, why isn't it better protected then? If all these 'structures' are so damn valuable, why aren't there a hundred Super-MACs in orbit, and a fleet in the skies at all times?"
"Our biggest defense for the planet is simply the abscence of defenses. If it is big and strong and proud, it will attract too much attention. So, we try to make it look like there's nothing there worth the effort of-" Jack interrupted him.
"Wait wait wait, that makes no sense at all. You claim that the Covenant wouldn't dare glass it because it is valuable to them, too, but you're also saying that putting a large number of defenses up would attract attention. That is a complete contradiction, you moron! All of the relics and structures already make it a huge target, and so now it's defenseless because you have to overanalyze every damn thing! This is a suicide mission!" He exclaimed.
"It is not," the major snarled, "and you WILL follow orders, whether you like it or not!"
Up until now, Twiggs had been silent. He had watched the debate between the two, quietly siding with Jack, but not saying anything. ONI was NOT and enemy one wanted to make. After all, they still had a political black ops section, and well... "Point made, both of you! Sit down! Jack, he's right. You WILL follow orders. However, Major Ariagh, if you believe your plans to be foolproof, then you can accompany them. But," he continued, seeing Jack's outraged expression, "you will have absolutely zero authority over Jack, his squad, or his mission. You will have all of the authority of a civilian over all aspects of his mission, and he can give you orders only in the field of combat, but no other time. And no Lieutenant, you can't order him to make a suicide charge, or make him run off of a cliff. You are separate entities throughout. So get used to each other, and find a way to get along. Or die. It's your choice, either way."
"Sir, I will follow your orders to the best of my ability, to the Gates of Hell themselves, but I will NEVER follow this ONI puke, never. To me, his opinions and 'expertise' are moot. I will accomplish this mission, and bring back our boys alive. That's a guarantee," Jack stated proudly.
Twiggs gave a hearty chuckle and clapped Jack on the back warmly. "Good man, that's what I like to hear! Jack, follow me," he said, leading him out of the office and back through the muster area to the corridor outside. "Jack, this mission should be a walk in the park. The orders we've given you are loose enough to allow your own interpretation, and no one will question you. And if you can pull this one off, you'll have your Captain's bars. Now, I know you hate promotions, because you think it's just one step closer to being a washed-up has-been Lieutenant Colonel, sitting behind a desk at a backwater regimental post."
"How did you-?"
"Know? Alicia told me. When the squad was first coming together, she gave me a few warnings about you. That was one of them. The others, I can't tell you. She'd kill me."
"Hhhhmmm, gonna have to talk to Alicia about that..." he said, pondering something.
"Want some advice? Don't.You two have enough issues between each other already, and I don't want anything to interfere with your squad dynamics at a time like this. But, to change the subject, back to the mission. You'll have a few hours to gather your gear. Normally, it wouldn't be so long, but you need to pack up alot more than some weapons and supplies. You'll be leaving the Necromancer for good for deployment, and your personal items will be shipped to a planet a long way from the front. Like the Sol System. Or close. We don't know yet. But if your mission is a success, you should be looking forward to some serious R&R. Your squad has been on more straight deployments than any other unit in the war, since the beginning. Well, except for the SPARTANs, but they don't count. Their R&R is being surrounded by three squads of enemy Special Ops troops, with some Religious Guard Hunters for help. And having to take them on blindfolded, with an AirSoft gun. Well, I'm ranting. What I'm really trying to say is-"
"What you're really trying to say is to come back with my shield or on it, or not at all. I get you."
"No, you couldn't be farther from the truth. This war has enough dead heroes, Lieutenant. No, Tacyon II is important, but not so terribly important as to cost us thousands of miners, scientists, and soldiers to hold it in a fight-to-the-last-man deal. No. They are needed, which is why we're sending you in. The best of the best. Of the best. God bless."
"Yeah, I'll need him. Lucky we're such close pals, me and Him, huh?"
That earned a hearty laugh from both men. It was an old, inside joke between the two families. Jack's old man had been tight with Twiggs and Twiggs' father. Both were hard-drinking, hard-fighting Irish Catholics. And they were gonna need every ounce of lead, booze, and scripture to get them out of what lay ahead....
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