The Alliance, Chapter 2
Posted By: Banshee 13<dhik24@yahoo.com>
Date: 14 May 2005, 7:13 PM
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I stared at the person in the older, jaded Mark 5 armor. I didn't recall any Spartans that had survived since Reach fell. Suddenly, he spoke.
"Who the hell are you? I don't recognize that type of armor."
I responded by telling him that I was Spartan 117 but he did not believe me until I took my helmet off. He began to talk again; I still didn't know who he was.
"I am from the second group of Spartans trained on Reach."
"I heard something about that at one time," I replied. "But how did you survive the plasma bombardment?"
"I managed to get into a cave and followed the tunnels done by mining until I reached a spot that the Covenant didn't glass. There were a lot of enemy ships there so I moved into the wilderness and resorted to stealth tactics since I was unarmed," he replied.
"Then, how did you get off the planet?"
"I met a member of my squad and some of your squad members too. I forget which color the others belonged too. But they had secured a Covenant dropship and we stowed away on a Covenant ship in orbit."
"And then?" I asked.
"It took us to a Covenant planet, they were doing something done there that was important according to the crew. No one could figure it out. By that time we had captured the bridge and ordered the crew to pilot the ship for us. We went to Reach and discovered it was destroyed, like a missile had cracked it in half."
"That was my team, the ones I could recover from the unglassed portion of Reach. We also met a officer, he had some experimental bombs which were used to destroy Reach," I explained to him.
"Anyway," he continued, "we found the coordinates for this ringworld in the nav database of the ship and formed a alliance with the Elites. They had given up their religion because they had worked with us for so many days on the ship."
"Then, how did Sergeant Johnson know about it? I asked.
He did not answer my question, there was a bell ringing, I guess the sound for an important announcement.
"Dinner," he said and bolted out the door.
At the food area there were so many Grunts they got their own table. Above the door was a sign that read "mess hall". I thought they would be serving meals-ready-to eat- but Covenant food was there also with steak. There wasn't a lot to choose from, one of the many things you could hear them complaining if you sat within earshot of them.
I grabbed three packages of steak and two Covenant food packages. The steak was delicious but the Covenant food was perplexing. It resembled cheese but it didn't taste like it. After you had eaten you could get a drink. There was soda, beer, and juice and confusing Covenant beverages.
After dinner some of the bored Grunts offered me to show them around the fortress. I could barely understand what they were saying as we neared the motor pool because of the sound of heavy machinery operating. Inside one of the buildings I found Ghosts, Gauss Warthogs, and a Spectre. Another building held weapons, assault rifles, plasma weaponry, rocket launchers and shotguns were there.
Next, the Grunts took me to a guard tower. The Marine inside saluted me and then returned to his post. They also showed me the communications office, nothing but a radio and a Marine operating it. I doubted it was capable of long range communication.
Finally, after showing me the gates and leading past them I was led to a deforested area. I assumed that the trees had been cut down in order to build the fort but one of the Grunts shot down my theory:
"This happened over a year ago, Brutes tried to set the forest ablaze to burn the fort down. We had to kill them all to keep our secrecy intact."
"Then why do you guys even attack the Covenant at all?" I asked. "There's no need to if you have the Index right?"
"We don't have the Index," replied the Grunt. "The Arbiter prefers that it stays with him so if anyone rebels they don't activate the ring. Or he gives it to Half-Jaw."
"Don't say that," one Grunt said. "You know how much he hates that nickname. And we have to head inside, the gates close soon and I don't want to spend a night out in the open."
So we marched inside and the gates closed behind us.
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