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Destiny
Posted By: Crazy_Canuck<chief_16@cogeco.ca>
Date: 15 June 2004, 1:24 AM
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History of Destiny
The planet Destiny is on the outermost reaches of U.N.S.C. controlled space, in the Frontier system. When it was discovered in 2520 (five years before the Covenant attacked Harvest) it was going to be used as another planet for training soldiers, harvesting crop and mining for metals and fuels to use in constructing and fuelling the U.N.S.C's numerous ships. Destiny was going to be another Reach, due to it's enormous natural resources and productive land, it was also in an excellent spot to use as a refuelling stop for any ships heading deeper into space to map out the area or colonize other planets.
However a year into the development of major bases, agricultural land and mines on the planets three continents, a survey team came across a strange structure in the woods on the eastern most continent. After careful examination of the structure it was determined that it was of non-human origin and therefore extraterrestrial and Destiny became a classified planet and was never put on any star charts.
Development continued over the next four years and five major military bases were set up, along with dozens of other bases. The major bases served the general purpose of protecting the planet, training troops and transporting supplies from the fields and mines to the southern continent. Where they were blasted into space by one of the twenty launch platforms, so they could be loaded into huge tugs and hauled off to the ship building yards over Mars and Reach.
Research in the alien structure was ongoing and had taken many teams of scientists miles underground in numerous concrete/metalish tunnels. They were finding a lot of new technology, but were making few advances in getting it to work, or understanding it.
When Harvest was attacked by the Covenant on February 1st, 2525, Destiny's security was tightened, and they were given permission to begin constructing ten Super Mac orbital defence platforms. However before the guns could be completed the Covenant attacked and quickly slagged the un-finished platforms and the few ships in the system.
Then, when the marines and brass on the planet thought that they were going to be glassed, to their surprise the Covenant ships moved out of the system. No one was sure what was happening, until Delta base (the base on the eastern continent, where the alien structure was found) called in for reinforcements. They were under attack from a huge Covenant invasion force. Thousands of drop ships were unloading hundreds of thousands of troops, tanks and every other sort of equipment the Covenant possessed. The other bases all sent as many troops as they could spare, but by the time they arrived Delta base was destroyed and the Covenant had already set up a huge base around the alien structure. The Generals leading the reinforcements were forbidden to bomb the base in any way in fear of destroying any of the technology in the alien structure.
Twenty-five years later, the war on Destiny is still on going. The Covenant have expanded their presence into the central continent, setting up numerous bases and outposts. The marines have set up front lines and a monitored perimeter to try and keep the Covenant from getting more than the 500 miles in shore than they already had.
Current Characters
Sergeant- Sean Visentin Cross Trained in all Specialties
Corporal- Fred Archer Sniper
Lance Corporal- Malcolm Parsons Pilot/Driver
Private 1st Class- John Tucker Medic/ Driver
Private- Chris Ding Heavy Weapons Specialist /Technician
Private- Richard Louse Communications Expert
1630 Hours, February 1st 2550 (Military Calendar) / Destiny, 50 Miles outside M.F.B (Marine Forces Base) Aqua
"See, there it is again!" exclaimed Private Richard Louse.
"I see it," agreed Sergeant Sean Visentin, watching the radar screen along with the private. "Don't get to excited. It's probably just a herd of those woodland deer that were introduced when they first came to the planet."
Sergeant Sean Visentin was almost used to the Private's excitability now, almost.
He had had this squad of guys now for six years, and had been on Destiny all his life. He was born here thirty years ago, and had been in the Marine Corp. for fifteen of those years.
His Staff Sergeant had brought him up after both his parents were killed by the Covenant in an attack on the Southern M.F.B. Adventure. He was now serving at the most northern base on the planet, M.F.B. Aqua.
The name "Aqua" was a weird one for the base because they were not actually on a lake or ocean; they were in the middle of a huge deciduous forest with few lakes or streams.
Sean shook his head and brought himself back to the present.
"Everyone give me a status check," he ordered into the boom mic. on his helmet.
Private Chris Ding the squads heavy weapons specialist and technician was the first to report in.
"All clear Boss", Ding said in a deep voice. Ding was 6'6 with a very strong and muscular upper body and very dark skin.
Next to report in was Private 1st class John Tucker the squad's medic, better known as "Doc". He always had a cheerful attitude and cheered everyone around him up. He was very well liked back at base, and in the squad. He checked in with an "A.O.K., Sir."
The squads Pilot/Driver Lance Corporal- Malcolm Parsons reported in with a British accent and a simple, "All clear, Sir". Of all six members of the "Sharks" Malcolm was the most serious of the squad, with no messing around or joking on duty.
Second last to respond was Private Louse the "Sharks" communication expert. He was the youngest of the group at 19 and the most excitable, though he was a little timid in combat situations.
Finally Fred Archer the teams sniper and Sean's best friend, said "Every things cool, Sir".
He didn't call in over the com. channel he called down from fifteen feet above.
Sean, Louse and Archer were all on top of a heavily vegetated hill in the middle of a forest.
Sean and Louse were peering through a thick bush, and watching the radar screen they had brought up.
Archer was up in the tallest tree on the hill, he had climbed up there to set up the powerful motion detector, and to get a good view for his sniper rifle.
Doc, Ding and Parsons were all down the hill in a small clump of boulders watching the rugged path for anything that might come their way.
"How far can our radar reach?" wondered Archer out loud.
"From this height we can see about twenty miles," replied Louse.
Archer let out a low whistle, "Wow, that's pretty good, you soup that thing up Louse?"
"Sure did," he answered. "Sarge!" exclaimed Louse again, "There's those blips again!" Sean put his powerful binoculars down, and looked at the small screen.
"Looks like six maybe seven signatures. Archer take a look 1.4 miles east and tell me if you see anything."
"Um, well... there, got ya," said Archer, "There's an Elite, two Jackals, and three, no four Grunts."
Sean considered his options; have Archer try and snipe them all before they could get away, sneak up on them and ambush them, or let them continue on the path and walk right by the hill to be attacked.
The last option sounded the best, so he told Parsons and Doc to move the Warthogs across the path and set them up in a camouflaged spot, but with enough room that they could fire the powerful M41 Laag on the back of each Warthog. He then told Ding to get a rocket launcher ready and to meet him at the boulders half way down the hill.
"Louse," Sean said, "I need you to stay up here with Archer and watch that radar in case there are any other scouting parties in the area", said Sean. "Sir, yes Sir", replied Louse.
The real reason Sean had kept Louse up here and away from the ambush sight, was because last time they came across a Covenant scouting party Louse had almost killed half the squad.
He had armed a fragmentation grenade and threw the pin!
Luckily Doc had quickly noticed this and yanked the grenade from Louse and threw it into the group of Covenant.
It was later determined that Louse had gotten to excited and nervous to realize what he was doing.
Sean didn't want to take that chance again, so he told him to watch the radar, even though he knew there would only be the one group, so having Louse stay at the top of the hill was pointless.
Sean met Ding at the group of boulders and explained the plan to everyone over the comm.
"When the Covenant get in front of us I'm going to give the signal. Archer you snipe out that elite, Ding will jump in with an M 19 SSM Rocket Launcher and engage the jackals, Doc and Parsons you open up with the Laags and take out the grunts. O.K. people this is straightforward and shouldn't take more than ten seconds. From here on in no com. only acknowledgement lights, everyone in position?"
Five acknowledgement lights winked.
After fifteen minutes of waiting the squad could hear the Covenant coming up the path.
They kept walking almost to the spot were everyone had a clear shot, but then all of a sudden the Elite stopped.
The Jackals took notice right away and also stopped but the Grunts kept walking right into the back of the two Jackals. One of them was knocked to the ground and got back up squawking, it turned around and clubbed the Grunt on the head with its plasma pistol. The Elite growled and they all stopped, and got back into formation.
"Oh shit," thought Sean, "He knows we're here."
But as soon as he had completed that thought the elite snarled again and the group continued walking.
Once the Covenant got into the ambush site Sean yelled the order: "Fire, fire!"
Archer was the first to pull the trigger, and sent four 14.5mm armour piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot rounds, at the unawares Elite. The first round to hit bounced off the Elites shield, which promptly lit up and failed. Before it even had a chance to start recharging the other three rounds hit. The second round made a sizable hole through the Elites head while the last two opened up the Elites chest cavity. The Elite didn't even have time to react, or to scream as the rounds tore through him, he just simply fell to the ground in a puddle of gore.
Ding pulled the trigger on the rocket launcher exactly half of a second after Archer had finished off the Elite. The 102mm shell roared twenty feet before connecting with the ground in between the two Jackals. They were hurled ten feet in opposite directions and landed with a wet smack, where what was left of them lay smoking.
The two Laags were the slowest in reacting to the Sergeant's order. By the time they opened up with a hail of 12.7x99mm rounds, the Grunts knew they were under attack.
One Grunt who had seen the where the rocket had been launched from, quickly pulled a plasma grenade and threw it towards the rocks, just before being pounded into mush by the powerful Laags.
Sean and Ding saw the grenade flying through the air and toward their position and immediately jumped out of the rocks.
On the way out though, Ding tripped and fell hard on his left arm. He heard a crack as the bone snapped in two and felt a sharp pain as the bone forced it's way through the skin on his arm.
"Holy, Shit" Ding screamed, "That's not good!"
Sean immediately called Doc, "Hey, Doc get up here fast, and bring your stuff!"
It took the Doc twenty minutes to give Ding an anaesthetic to keep down the pain, an antibiotic to keep the wound from getting infected, bandage his arm up, get it onto a splint and sling it.
"Before we can head back we need to clean up the mess," said Sean, referring to the dead Covenant on the path. "Louse head back up to the top of the hill and get our radar package."
"Yes, Sir," replied the Private.
The rest of the group proceeded to haul the dead Covenant and un-ceremoniously dump them some bushes a little ways up from the path. As soon as everything was cleaned up and collected, they prepared to head out.
"O.K. everyone, time to head back to base," Sean said once Doc had finished. "Doc you're driving the second Hog with Ding riding shotgun, just in case you need attention for that arm," he added quickly, seeing the look he was getting from Ding. "Archer you're on the gun in Doc's Hog. Parsons you're driving my Hog with me navigating from the front seat, Louse you're on my Laag."
Everyone acknowledged the order over the com. now that the Covenant scouting party had been eliminated.
Everyone was silent for the first twenty minutes, enjoying the ride. Then Louse spoke up over the com, "Sir?" he said. "Isn't it weird to see any Covenant out here? I mean we're almost two thousand miles away from the front lines!"
"Yes, replied Sean, "but there is so much un-patrolled area between here and there that they could have thousands of troops inside our lines and we would never know. We really only protect our bases and major highways you know. Since we don't have any satellites in orbit we have very limited real time information, the only time we can get updates on their troop movements is when we see them with atmospheric radar or we have a ship in orbit with satellite capabilities. And since we rarely ever get a ship out here (because the Covenant also patrol this system) we don't always know where they are. We do certainly have detection outposts around the bases but farther out than that and we have to see them or be close with strong radar. Does that answer your question?"
"Ya," Louse murmured, as Ding laughed over the com.
They took the same route as they had come this morning. Their average speed was only 25mph, and since they were taking a winding route not a direct one, the trip took about two and a half hours. They were silent most of the way after that, with only idle chitchat.
When they got within ten miles of Aqua Base Sean radioed in to say they were ten miles out and had run into a Covenant patrol with light casualties.
When they arrived at the base around 2100 hours they drove in through the massive hangar door, after being admitted through the bases main door.
The hanger door was three stories tall and retracted vertically into two sections. The squad parked their Warthogs in their hangar beside the "Sharks" Pelican and Ding walked over to the hospital to get his arm looked at by a surgeon.
The two Warthogs and the Pelican all had the squads logo painted on them. An animated sharks mouth pulled back to reveal lots of sharp and pointy teeth, with to squinting, menacing looking eyes painted above them.
The "Sharks" took their gear into their adjoining barracks and dumped it on the worktables. They would clean it up tomorrow after they had had a good night sleep.
They were all so tired that they had a shower and went straight to bed, not even talking or having supper.
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