Athenienses-II: Chapter 5 : Secrets Within
Posted By: ZackDark<ftalves@uninet.com.br>
Date: 27 January 2004, 2:45 AM
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***AUTHOR'S NOTE***
This series pass on a parallel universe to the Halo universe. Captain Keyes never made out of the Reach battle and all the Spartans II were KIA. The Athenians-II finished the training a little before the last Spartan II died.
Peter's real nickname was supposed to be Rock. Sorry for the confusion.
***END OF NOTE***
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Carl "Shade" Dark. Sniper expert. My older brother. He likes to use silencers and 20x scopes on his snipers. Cold blooded and quick at the shot.
Watt "Boulder" Heinz. Heavy weapons. He's the team back-up. SMGs and Rocket Launchers are his favorite weapons. Big and strong.
Peter "Rock" Heinz. Heavy weapons. Watt's identical twin. Same likes and dislikes. Big and strong.
Robert "Grip" Johnson. Grabbing weapons expert. His guns are modified to carry tow cables. Fast and agile.
Dan "Number 6" Merton. Mechanic. He's best pilot and mechanic I know. Smart and precise.
Juliet "Rainbow" Starwer. Background expert. She likes to stay out of the real action. She only does the transport and support missions.
I'm Zack Dark. All-techniques. Squad leader.
We are the Athenians-II, a special soldier division trained to assist the Spartans-II. We use ÉNDJÀs battle suits that are similar to the MJOLNIR suits.
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Previously:
When the elevator went down for the 68th time, I throw a bunch of grenades in the hole. A large WUMP could be heard as the grenades exploded and a defting BAM indicated the fall of the elevator.
We killed the last of the Covenant and took their Ghosts as ours were almost falling apart.
We were going down.
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We connected our suits with the shotgun's fiber optic cable. Together, our suit's communicators were able to communicate with Rainbow. She came with The Doom Puppy and lots of ammo and First Aid Kits. We boarded and loaded our guns. The Doom Puppy headed away from the hole just in time to see a heavy destroyer missile entering the hole.
The helmet's screen automatically blackened as the blinding flash indicated the explosion that wiped out every Covenant that could be guarding the elevator door and a little beyond.
When the flash faded, The Doom Puppy started it's descend to bottom of the hole.
The walls that surrounded the hole where made of the same strange metal from the platform. It was a bit scorched from the missile explosion.
When we reached the bottom of the hole, we saw a way wide and tall tunnel. A Longsword squadron would be able to pass through it without a scratch.
"Looks like however who made this thing was a little claustrophobic." Boulder thought out loud.
Almost twelve hour had passed, we were exhausted. Rainbow landed the Pelican so we could get some noiselessly rest.
Suddenly, the earth beneath us began to tremble. Slight at first, the tremors soon increased to terrifying proportions. Huge cracks appeared all around us, fear replaced the bewilderment. The earth cried out in pain as if the cave was about to split into a million of fragments.
The earthquake had begun.
Rocks filled the entrance and were soon reaching us. Rainbow started the engines and fed fuel the motors. We were at full speed, racing for our lives.
When the earthquake stopped, there were no way back, and we had supplies for just a few weeks. We were facing a network of caves, one of which appeared to exude minute traces of light.
Selecting this route, we found ourselves flying through a walled gallery of ancient geometric forms.
The dim traces of light grew stronger as we continued our journey through the galleried cave.
Suddenly, the left wall came to an abrupt end, opening out to display a huge ravine that stretched as far as our enhanced eyes could see.
Waterfalls poured from fissures in the rockface whilst moss-covered walls danced with pin-points of golden lights as thousands of tiny fireflies awoke to our unexpected appearance. But the fireflies weren't the only who awoke with our appearance.
As soon as the fireflies woke up, swarms of Grunts entered the cavern to attack us. As The Doom Puppy was in low altitude, we jumped out to give Rainbow less weight to maneuver. We were with the same weapons from the surface assault. We were at the top of a rock slope and the Grunts were coming up. Missiles, machine guns' bullets and shotguns' shells found their targets as shot at swarm. Pelican's HE Anvil II missiles rushed down the slope and vaporized dozens of Grunts as 40mm bullets mowed another dozens. As fast as it started, the battle finished.
We reloaded our weapons with the ammo within The Doom Puppy and continued our way.
With great care we negotiated our way trough the colossal ravine.
Finally we descended onto a plateau rich in vegetation where the earth had been constantly fed by the abundant waterfalls.
Huge palmicites, bound together by complicated masses of creeping vines, grew above carpets of graminivorous plant life.
Deprived of the vivifying warmth of the nearest star, they were colorless and without perfume.
We took an example of that vegetation and introduced it to the onboard analyzer. The plant was strangely rich in nutrients and had little dots of plasma running in it. The plasma in it was in a harmless quantity. It was eatable.
We decided to take a kilogram of these plants for further consume.
Continuing our way, we found ourselves crossing a gigantic subterranean river.
Realizing that the river was rapidly flowing south, we decided to follow it.
As the waters slowly calmed, stillness filled the air, and as we viewed all around us, we realized that we were on a vast ocean stretching as far as our enhanced eyes could see to an achromatic horizon.
A strange buzz filled the canyon guarding the ocean. We looked back and found three...
"Oh, no."
Seraphs.
"Evasive maneuver!!!" I yelled to Rainbow.
Plasma bolts raced to us as The Doom Puppy zigzagged to get them out of its tail.
"It would be a great help if you guys shake them a bit!" Rainbow asked.
Missiles, shredder rounds and SMG bullets exploded one of the Seraphs, badly damaging another, that fall as fast as a Grunt would fall to a point blank shotgun blast. The third managed to evade the heavy rounds remaining almost intact. As the pilot had a really bad aim I decided to board it. When the Seraph was right behind the Pelican, I shot the fiber optic cable from the shotgun. It attached perfectly on the Seraph's hull. I took the other side of the cable and attached it on the Pelican's hull. I crossed it, remembering the old training days.
When I reached the Seraph, I opened the pilot's hatch and the Elite jumped out to confront me. Another dead stupid shotgun blasted Elite went to hell.
The controls weren't so different from the Banshee's one. Shade kindly detached the cable from the Pelican's hull. I raced forward to clear the path for Rainbow.
The river came to a sudden into a giant hole on the "floor". I followed it making sure that Rainbow knew I was going down.
The hole was way deep. About a minute of going down the north side wall came to a small hole. Small, but big enough for a Longsword, so I entered. I found myself in a huge deep cliff with platforms scattered all around it all connected to a central ring and an enormous plasma sphere oscillated in the middle of the colossal ring.
I froze. It had at least one kilometer of diameter and Covenant Engineers were all around it, storing some plasma into a jar like object and putting them into huge machines connected to the surface by gigantic tubes.
"What the hell is that?" Shade said as soon as The Doom Puppy got into the cave with the cliff.
"Sending images to the Boomer now." Rainbow said. "My computer says that a whole fleet is having a war up there."
"Covenant fleet or UNSC fleet?" I asked.
"Both" She answered.
"So we better give'em a hand" I said.
"Oh, right!!! Will have fun today" I told you Boulder was a joker.
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