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Enemy of our Enemy, as told by Elites, Part 1
Posted By: FOrunnER (inspired by Wraith)
Date: 8 January 2004, 2:52 AM
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Strange as it may sound, a desktop created by Wraith inspired me to do this story. It's the one with the three Elites standing in front of the drop-ship. It just kind of gave me the idea, thanx Wraith. This will probably be a two-or-three parter, not a long series. Okay, here it goes:
The U-shaped Covenant drop-ship glided through the cloud of fog, towards the swampy muck below. Squat luminous tree's provided the only light, any traces of the moon or stars being blocked out by the fog above. The pilot dove for a shallow pond, it was the only place to land, the thick swamp canopy covered all other landing spots. The drop-ship hovered two feet over the water, and opened both port and starboard troop bay doors, at the same time exposing Field General Ana 'Anarckamee to frigid air, which was wrong. Every swamp he had every encountered had been hot and humid.
Once the bay door was completely down, making a complete ramp, he yelled at his troops to get out. He was last to exit the ship....only to step in oily calf-deep water, frigid cold like the air. With silent hand motions, he directed his troops to surround the perimeter of the ship during takeoff. Once the drop-ship had left, he again motioned for his troops to move ashore, which they gratefully did. The 'shore' was completely mud and there feet sank in making them move slowly, but it was better than being in that damned pond. His troops stopped on the shore and he did a quick head count.
5 Grunts, 2 red commandos 3 orange, 4 Jackals, 2 yellow shield majors 2 blue shield minors. Perfect, everybody was there. Not that he had expected anybody to go MIA during the first few minutes of drop-off, but you never knew. Plus this place just gave him the creeps.
It was crap detail really. HQ had lost contact with a small out-of-the-way post, and now he and his personal squad were sent to check it out. It was probably just a communication failure, but Command had been so jumpy since they had landed on this ring. He snorted, if it turned out this was a wild goose chase, which he was sure it was, he was going to have a few words with whatever officer had authorized this mission.
The drop-ship had been forced to land a few hundred meters downspin of the outpost so they had a little hike to go through. He herded the troops into formation, Jackals covering the flanks, Grunts taking the front and rear, himself in the center, like they had done a hundred times over. 'Anarckamee crouched low, Needler sweeping back and forth, practically kneeling in the mud. He nudged his way past a fern and found himself two meters to the right of one of the luminous tree's he had seen from the air. He signaled his troops to stop with a whistle (well as close to a whistle as an Elite could get, it was more of a half-snort half-hoot). Drawn like a bug to a bright light, 'Anarckamee slowly moved forward towards the luminous tree, gun drawn. His troops shook there heads in wonderment at there commanders strange actions. But everybody knew better than to speak up, it was most likely if they did that 'Anarckamee would turn on them. They all just wanted to get this mission over with and get back to the starship in time to catch some food nipple.
'Anarckamee ignored his troops dubious looks and lay his weapon down to better examine the strange plant before him. Ever so lightly, he slid his finger against the plants surface. In response, the tree seemed to actually quiver. A few bubbles formed at the point of contact then seemingly fizzled away. There was no doubt that whatever inside the plant that made it glow with such strange inner light was a liquid of some sort. However all further want to examine the plant thereafter was crushed when heavy drops of ice-cold rain began to fall, completely soaking the red-clad Elite. He picked up his weapon moved back to the out-post they were suppose to examine. After a few minutes he had his troops give up there slow stealthy pace for a jog, it wasn't protocol but it would get them out of the rain dam quicker. After fifteen minutes of jogging they could finally seem dim floodlights ahead, that gradually got brighter as they got closer. Finally they were close enough to see the base.
It was a rather unremarkable Forerunner structure, a flat toped A with a large entrance. A Shade was covering the door with numerous 'gear crates' scattered about, the floodlights were located on top of the structure. As he continued to get closer, he brought back the memories of his pre-mission briefing, more precisely the information he was given on the base itself. It was supposed to be very small on the outside, but extend very deep underground like most Forerunner installations. He recalled that they had thoroughly explored and mapped twenty underground levels, but it was unknown how many there were beyond that. They weren't expected to explore all twenty levels, just go in far enough to find out whether the base was KIA or not, and if so to find out the cause and rescue and survivors if possible. As they got even closer, he could see a hunched figure sitting in the Shade turret.
A Grunt guard, obviously a sign the base was still active. Heads would role for this fluke assignment. However, the Grunt wasn't alive. Most of the troops stopped then and there in shock, not only was it dead, it had been brutalized. Both arms were bloody stumps, the entire chest cavity was caved in, the methane rig was hissing gas from multiple holes, and the head was split in two. Despite the overwhelming wave of nausea, he moved closer to examine the body. Besides the obvious injuries he could see three bullet wounds, two to neck, one to the shoulder, or what was left of it. That signaled humans, but he had never known them for such brutality. A human combat knife could have caused the apparent butchery, but it would have been multiple hacks through the body, these appeared to be clean one time only cuts. As he slowly circled around to better examine the hissing methane rig, a his boots made a crunching sound.
Anarckamee looked down...and saw that he had stepped on the other half of the Grunts head, which had fallen to the ground. He jolted backwards as if shocked and slipped in a patch of wet mud, falling on his ass and at the same time vomiting his last meal strait onto his lap. His troops went into hysteria, the weak-minded Jackals and Grunts screaming gibberish and firing there guns in the shadows, hoping to hit the invisible enemy. One Grunt even tried to run away. By then 'Anarckamee was on his feet (meal leftovers dropping from his crotch and staining his shiny red armor), and aimed for the back of the Grunts head. One needle was all it took, it smashed into the back of its skull, and a split second later exploded, sending bone, flesh, and brain flying backwards. The squad stopped there random firing and looked at 'Anarckamee with a mixture of shock and awe. Pushing himself up to his full height, so that he was towering above them, and gave the most menacing snarl he could muster.
"The next one that tries to run away will be next. Calm yourselves or die. Get into the structure, NOW!", he boomed. The diminutive aliens rushed away from there Commander and into the base, 'Anarckamee right behind. Inside the thick walls there was complete silence, which was a surprising contrast to the swamp outside where there was the constant patter of rain and chirping of swamp animals. It was a little eerie. Inside, there were several work lights along the wall, brightly illuminating the place, all the walls were barren and in the center was a gravity lift. The Grunts and Jackals formed a perimeter around the gravity lift instinctively. He instructed them to wait where they were, while he drifted off to one of the corners and pulled out a radio.
"HQ, this is Field General Ana 'Anarckamee reporting. The base designated as 30811-C shows no signs of activity, recent or other wise, however one body has been found. One Grunt, a minor, KIA in the seat of his gun. Significant damage was done to the body, both arms and half the head were cut clean off. Three bullet wounds confirm human presence, but the cause for the cuts is unknown. Shall we proceed inside?", technically he was inside, but he was referring to the underground levels.
A few minutes later a highly garbled message came back, " .......ave.....ion...eed....ki....mans....ee....opy?
"Please repeat, you message is garbled"
The radio made some fuzzy sounds, then the voice of an annoyed Elite commando came over the coms, "I said....ave perm....ion....roceed inside, and to.....ill any human...ou...see.
He was about to repeat that the message is garbled, when the line cut dead. He cursed and fiddled with the dial, and finding nothing wrong, assumed that they were having trouble on their end. He contemplated what to do next, protocol would have him wait outside in a clearing until he managed to contact a friendly drop-ship and flag it down. However that could take anywhere from fifty to sixty units, in the meantime they would have to freeze there buts off, and more importantly, wait for the hostiles (if they were still around) to attack. He was pretty sure it was humans that were the hostiles despite the cuts, and would prefer to fight them in enclosed corridors if need be, the humans had the distinct advantage of 'snipers', humans with special weapons that could take down any soldier from extremely long range. They had a better chance inside, plus he still had standing orders to rescue any survivors, and they sure as hell weren't going to find them in here.
With no Commando's around besides him, protocol was somewhat flexible and even breakable. Finally he turned to his troops and said "Move onto the gravity lift, were going down". It was the biggest mistake of his life, and as it turned out, the one that could end it as well.
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