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Identity, Part 1
Date: 20 August 2004, 1:28 AM
Darkness. Everywhere. It almost caused him to panic, but long years of—
what?
—kept him from giving in to that instinctive urge.
Who am I? The thought ripped through his head unbidden. Where am I? What am I? The onslaught of cognition was almost too much. Willfully, he pushed the thoughts aside. He had to find his way out of the darkness before he could answer any of those thoughts. But how? Maybe he was causing the darkness. Slowly, he opened his eyes. The darkness was gone, replaced by whiteness. No, that wasn't quite right, but that was the only way to describe it.
"Look, he's waking up!"
"Impossible! That blast should have knocked him out for days."
Two voices to his left. He turned his head and felt pain at the slight moment. Wincing, he stopped moving. "Where am I?" he croaked.
"Edina," a woman's voice replied.
He nodded. The word Edina made no sense to him. He didn't know if it was a planet, continent, universe, or what, but it was a start. "Who am I?"
A chuckle. "That's a good question, buddy." A man's voice.
His eyesight began to focus. He could see now, though his head was still killing him. He was lying on a small cot in an even smaller room. In front of him was a door and sitting beside the bed was a young women with long black hair. Beside her was a tall, balding man holding a gun.
He sat up in bed, pushing the sudden pain that seized his skull away. Where did I learn that?
"You don't know who I am?"
The man shook his head. "No, we don't. We found you after a nuclear blast wiped out half the Covenant on the planet. You were a soldier of some sort. The armor you were wearing was very advanced, more so than anything I've ever seen. We had to cut it off you. You've been unconscious for days."
The Covenant? Unconscious? Days?
Then some of it came rushing back. An unstoppable alien race bent on humankind's destruction. He had been one to stand in their way. Yet who was he?
"Well, who are you?" he asked, hoping to ignore that question.
The man sighed. "We're guerrillas. For some reason the Covenant haven't glassed Edina yet. They've decided to occupy it instead. They're looking for something, but we don't know what."
He sighed. It was almost too much. He was about to ask another question when the sounds of gunfire and screaming came from the hallway.
"What the he—" the woman began, but the door was kicked open, revealing something.
It was about five feet tall, squat and oddly comical looking. The large weapon thing it cradled in its arms looked far from comical, however.
Grunt, flew through his mind before he moved.
He exploded up from the bed and grabbed the thing's weapon, simultaneously sweeping its feet out from under it, dropping it to the ground. Just as quickly and instinctively, he twirled the alien weapon around in his hand and shot the thing on the ground. Thick, blue blood sprayed the floor and walls.
He stepped back, surprised at what he had done with no thought—or remorse.
Gripping the gun with his hands and lowering it slightly (tac carry, his mind whispered), he threw himself behind the wall. Bolts of azure plasma sizzled through the opening, barely missing the old man and woman as they dove behind the opening.
He dropped to his knees, leaned around the opening and squeezed the trigger of his (Plasma Rifle)weapon. The single bolt of blue plasma lanced another (Grunt)thing straight through the head, knocking it flat. Pulling the trigger again, he dropped another one.
Hallway's clear, his mind whispered to him. Need to sweep the rooms, set off ambushes. He shook his head. Where were the memories coming from? He'd obviously been a soldier, yet who was he? "Are you okay?" he asked the old man and woman.
The old man nodded. "We're fine. But how did you...I mean, I've never seen anyone move that fast before."
He shrugged. "I don't know. It's all instinctive."
The old man seemed dubious, but he said, "We need to get out of here. The Covenant must've found the rest of the outpost by now; it won't be long before they send in heavy units. This was obviously a scout. Follow me." The old man stood up and jogged down the hallway, his (MA5B)gun at the ready."
He stood up and glided after the old man, the woman behind him, her breathing easily audible. The man took a right and crouched, his hand held up to stop.
He stopped and peered around the old man. A thick patch of woods with sunlight streaming through the canopy greeted him. A large, camouflaged (Warthog)vehicle waited fifty feet away.
"What about survivors?" he asked the man.
The old man shook his head sadly and lifted a small device in his hand. "The scans say negative. There were only ten of us here, anyway. I'm going to make a run for the 'hog. Cover me."
He nodded and moved forward, Plasma Rifle at the ready. The flash of movement in the woods caught his eye. Covenant. Lots of Covenant. They were too late—the Covenant heavy units had already arrived. It was time to rock.
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