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Another ONI Black File: Halo – We Got There First: Part 4
Posted By: Arthur Wellesly<arthur_wellesly@hotmail.com>
Date: 28 April 2003, 6:59 PM
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Another ONI Black File: Halo - We Got There First: Part 4
0647 Hours, September 23, 2525 (Military Calendar)/
Structure on Halo - Distance from Alpha Base: 8,251 km
James Edmund and Ceilidh Weller clambered out of the hovering Pelican and ran off towards one of Halo's mysterious buildings. As they approached the relatively diminutive structure, the Pelican roared off in the opposite direction, heading back towards Alpha. As the two soldiers walked down a ramp on the front of the building, it unsettled them both to realize they were now the only humans for possibly hundreds of kilometers on an abandoned alien ring-world. Their uneasiness increased their caution, and with a single look, they both raised their weapons.
Vulcan had monitored a new type of energy waves emitted from this location. It had never been recorded before on the Silent Night's computers, and so the two unfortunate Marines were forced to come here in this barren, scorching desert to investigate what seemed like a trivial matter. James, the ranking officer of the two, had requested that more Marines be assigned to the task. But, like them, Griffin thought little of it anyway, and offered the explanation that they were already spread too thin along the ring's 9 million square kilometers and they needed every man and woman they could get.
"What do you think we'll find, sir?" asked Sergeant-Major Ceilidh Weller impassively.
"Probably nothing," Second-Lieutenant James Edmund murmured, noticing suddenly that his weapon was still raised.
They continued their descent further underground, slowly and with caution. "Well, what do you think that new energy was all about?" she asked.
Edmund looked at her thoughtfully. She had a pretty Irish accent that he found very attractive. "I can't say for sure, but we are on a mysterious ring-world. Anything is possible, I suppose. Remember those huge blue plasma beams that came up from that building every half-hour? Maybe this is just like that, except it shoots up at larger time increments."
Ceilidh seemed to relax a little at this. When the at last reached the bottom, they were both surprised. "This wasn't what I expected at all," said Ceilidh.
They both expected to enter yet another cavern with a large shaft through the middle of it. Instead, they entered a small platform with nothing on it. On the left and right side were two ramps that led down an extra four or five meters. Edmund sighed and said, "I'll take right and you take left."
She frowned for a second and said, "Yes, sir."
James saw this and brought down his mike from the side of his helmet. "We'll be in constant radio contact with each other. I don't want any surprises."
"Yes, sir," the sergeant replied.
James walked down the right ramp and into the semi-darkness it housed. It was too dark to see perfectly, but too light to use night vision. This made the lieutenant very uncomfortable. "What do you see?" James asked as he passed through the oddly shaped door and into a long room.
"I see a very long room with lights along the top of the walls and a bunch of holo-panels near the floor on the walls" she responded. "In the center of the room there is a large cylindrical beam with flashing lights on it. On the center there is a gap and a ball of what looks like sizzling electricity."
"Copy that," he acknowledged, just making sure she was seeing exactly what she was seeing. This alien construct seemed to be made up of patterns. He looked at the "sizzling ball". That couldn't be the new source of energy. He'd seen that before. He looked at the ceiling. Two oddly placed holes were on either side of the beam. He could see nothing in them, just darkness. Probably more shafts, James thought to himself.
"Right, well, it looks to me like another empty room," James said over the COM channel. "Let's get out of this hole." He was only too eager to leave this lonely place where shadows lurked and moved in eerie dances.
"Roger that" she responded, her voice indicating that she clearly shared his eagerness to get out.
James turned around to leave, taking a snapshot of the beam with his camera on his helmet, when suddenly he heard a strange hissing sound that was all to familiar to him now. He looked at the door through which he had entered and he saw that two double doors had sealed the door closed. Odd, he thought to himself with a frown, I didn't even notice any doors when I came in. He approached the doors and expected them to open for him, but them remained tightly shut.
The lieutenant sighed impatiently. "Hey, Sergeant, could you come to my position and try to open this Goddamned door?" he said into his mike. He waited a moment but no answer came. "Weller!" he shouted, but still nothing. He looked around the dimly lit room. He was becoming increasingly nervous. "Sergeant Weller, answer me right now!" he yelled at the top of his lungs, both into the mike and at the door.
Silence.
He heard an odd humming noise emanating from the holes around the beam. He cautiously approached them when suddenly he heard the loud buzz of an electric current. Immediately following that, the first pair of lights near the ceiling went out. Edmund's eyes opened wide as the next pair went out and then the next. He sprinted to the end of the room, trying desperately to keep with the dissipating light as if it were a lion's maw coming up behind him to swallow him. At last he reached the far end of the room, and he pressed his back against the wall.
The last pair of lights went dead.
Edmund raised a shaking hand to his helmet and brought down his visor over his eyes. He remembered with relief that he had night vision. He scanned the room in its now green glow, and he caught movement near the hatches when suddenly everything went black. The words BATTERY OVERLOAD flashed in read on his visor, and he moaned with despair.
Edmund searched hopelessly for his flashlight among his many pouches, knowing full well he didn't bring it because of his NOD. His knees buckled and dropped to the floor, his shaking hands protecting his face from an unknown and unseen enemy.
A loud scream echoed shortly in the confines of the mysterious room.
"LT, come in," Weller cried franticly. She had been pounding her fists on the metal doors that had locked Edmund in for six minutes now. Her fists were now bloodied, but she didn't noticed and wouldn't have cared if she did. She had tried to signal in reinforcements, but for some reason the entire COM network was down. There was absolutely nothing she could do but wait, and as a soldier, this pained her greatly. If only she had brought the C-12...
Without warning, the door opened with its customary soft hiss, surprising Weller to the point she almost fell face-forward once the double doors had parted. Once she was in, she raised her MA4B Assault Rifle to the ready and slowly walked forward in the direction of the mysterious beam. "Lieutenant Edmund, sir?" she called out nervously, hoping to God he would answer. But on this alien construct, God did not hear her prayers. The room remained silent but for the odd crackling sound of the sizzling ball.
She moved to go around the wide beam of flashing light. It obstructed her view of the back wall, the only place she had not looked for her missing CO. As she passed it with her flashlight on her weapon, she took a quick look at the rear wall. There, near the center, was Edmund. Sergeant Weller was so horrified she couldn't even make a sound. She gazed at the corpse: his stomach and throat was sliced open and massive amounts of blood and gore leaked from the awful wound. Ribs stuck out in every which direction from his mutilated torso. Strands of intestines also protruded from the gruesome corpse, cut off at some points as if they were purposely removed.
Weller bent over and vomited all over the floor. She felt horribly sick with a sense of hopelessness. Suddenly, she felt a hot, burning sensation on the small of her back. She opened her mouth to scream, but it was cut short as she noticed with sudden despair that her entire body seemed paralyzed. Her assault rifle dropped from her limp hands and the attached flashlight smashed on the hard metal ground, slowly flickering out. She stared at the ceiling a moment longer until the lights overhead also dimmed and finally shut off.
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