 |
About This Site
Daily Musings
News
News Archive
Site Resources
Concept Art
Halo Bulletins
Interviews
Movies
Music
Miscellaneous
Mailbag
HBO PAL
Game Fun
The Halo Story
Tips and Tricks
Fan Creations
Wallpaper
Misc. Art
Fan Fiction
Comics
Logos
Banners
Press Coverage
Halo Reviews
Halo 2 Previews
Press Scans
Community
HBO Forum
Clan HBO Forum
ARG Forum
Links
Admin
Submissions
Uploads
Contact
|
|
|
The Brethren of Saturn, Epilogue - A Vicious Cycle
Posted By: Lynnada<lynnada@pacbell.net>
Date: 19 July 2002, 9:25 pm
Read/Post Comments
|
A warthog's engine rippled the silence and steel clad marines climbed out from their seats. 'Good afternoon, Conclave. I'm sorry about your ship.'
'We'll there's nothing we can do about it. Now we're part of this mess and someone's going to have to come and fish us out.' With prejudice, the stressed docking supervisor slurred, 'you Terrans and us.'
'Hey, we didn't come pick you up to make more enemies, so grab your goodies and shut up. Pelicans are on the way and Captain Keyes wants-'
'Your lucky you still have an officer, Terran. Ours stayed with her until the end, they were honorable and didn't let a robot hold humanity's fate. That risk is unacceptable and they knew enough to not risk interrogation.'
'Our differences stood back in Sol but now it's for the species children.'
________________________________________________________________
Three engineers backed out of their pod, each carrying a broken crewmember. They were fatigued from the rough ride and wanted to lie in the grass, some of them barely walking. The last man out had a cut on his ear but was too tired to notice. A Terran soldier looked awkwardly towards him.
The stumbling engineer glared back, 'What do you want?'
'He's dead.'
Seeming disillusioned, the engineer shook his head abnormally and mumbled jumbled words, almost as if he was retarded. 'N-, no he's not...he, he just got the wind knocked out of him.' He collapsed under the weight of his comrade and the marine rushed forward to help him. The gunner drew a canteen from his belt and put it to the engineer's lips.
'No, no. Eugene. Give it to Eugene. He needs it more than me.'
'Eugene's dead.'
Meanwhile, the driver of the warthog helped members from the other pods and fed the fatigued cereal ration bars. Chrome wrappers littered the grass as the gunner followed the procedure and attended to other crewmen.
A specialist from the docking crew inspected the critically wounded. 'Hey driver! Do you have morphine, antiseptic, plasma, blood?'
The driver raced towards the back of the warthog and unlocked a medical kit. Many of the injured suffered broken ribcages and severe bruising, but they were sure to survive. Four men were bleeding externally after the firefight aboard the Conclave and had lost much fluid. One man had received an energy bolt to the gut and was writhing in pain.
The bleeding were given plasma to prolong their lives until blood could be provided.
'What the heck is that stuff? Pee?'
'This yellow stuff is what's gonna keep you alive.'
The injured were cared for and drugged with a unique stimulant the Saturians had never encountered. Bandages were applied and each able-bodied man helped to lay the downed under the shade of trees.
'You guys only see this in postcards huh?'
'Yeah. The only trees left over are greenhouse hybrids. No parks or forests on Earth. The environmentalists are out of a job.'
________________________________________________________________
After the crewmen were tended to, the docking supervisor returned to his squabble with the Terran passenger.
'Is everybody on Terra an irresponsible coward or is it just Keyes and his robot?'
'Hey, don't you talk about my captain and Master Chief like that! If it weren't for him, we'd be dead and none of us would be here.'
'And guess what? We wouldn't be here either! We lost people too but we didn't send a distress call back to Sol, the Covenant wouldn't have missed it this time. Too bad some of you Terrans weren't born to think.'
'Shut up. You Saturians were born screwed because your parents didn't care whether or not you would be diseased or stupid, or lived a short miserable lives as a weaklings.'
'My parents cared enough about me to not let strangers prod me, and the same goes for the rest of us. We are not as fast, strong, intelligent, handsome, or healthy as you. They engineered you to be better students, better soldiers, better fuckers, literally, without caring whether or not you liked it. We aren't as efficient nor as close-minded, we are the degenerates. We weren't good enough for Terra, and now we're stuck here trying to get you out. You are all proud of something you never earned, and that pride in every right makes you better than us.'
The lieutenant was silent for several tense moments. Finally, he coughed to clear his dry throat and addressed everyone, 'No matter that, ...my brothers, we are the best race, together.'
Here upon this ringworld, remnants of the first Saturian strike crew from three vessels, code-named 'Brethren' would reside among their human brothers. They had become part of the 'to be rescued' party, ...it was a vicious cycle. A distress message was not sent back home for fear of interception, but the Master Race would know of the attempt over silent time and reinforce its campaign against the Covenant with greater strength.
The existence of a society other than Terra stood as a testament to human nature. Even in the future with diminished morals and ethics, there would always be radical and conservative, industrialized and rural, totalitarian and democratic, vitro and blackjack, strong and weak, and the ever differing yet united human race.
|
