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Fall of Fate: Special Edition(Parts 1-2)
Posted By: 'Nosolee<crugg2003@optonline.net>
Date: 7 December 2003, 2:00 AM
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Hey guys, this is the first installment of a renovated FoF. It's different from the origional because the grammar/spelling has been patched up and a few new sequences have been added. These will be released hopefully in every submission queue or weekly. Soon the next installment will be out, until then this should hold you over. And sorry for making you guys wait so long, it's just that, ya know, homework...
800 Hours April 29, 2548 (Military Calendar)//On The Surface of Ucundus, Battlefield
Wkehu 'Drrana, Field-master and commander of squad three-twenty-one, surveyed the disastrous scene. Piles of bodies lay heaped in various places spattered with blood, both Human and Covenant; some corpses were charred beyond the point of recognition. 'Drrana himself was bruised and burnt. His golden armor was scarred and battered; the sharp edges of his shark-like helmet were dulled. There were hundreds of human casualties, but far more Covenant deaths; thirty thousand to be exact. Whatever humans were left fled the scene in their flying metal birds; the few Covenant that remained, however, had no means of escaping the graveyard of fallen comrades. 'Drrana himself felt as if he had just passed into the gates of hell. The whole scene had changed from beautiful green fields to a fiery blazing hell—when Fate, the destroyer, fell from the sky.
Fate was a Covenant destroyer-class battle cruiser and was stationed on the edge of the human city of Hammonton on the colony planet, Ucundus, named after the cruiser that founded it. Ucundus was a small planet, smaller than Earth, about the size of Mercury. Ucundus was located in the Orion 3 system, and was the only habitable planet in the system. The Orion 3 system was part of the outer colonies.
Fate was accompanied by only two Seraph fighters, no other major cruisers. Fate was there so the Covenant fighters to find what they wanted and then pull out to glass the planet. Unfortunately, the vile humans caught sight of Fate before the Covenant could dispatch a camouflaged team of Ossoonas to investigate the secretes hidden beneath the ground of Ucundus.
The Covenant leadership, the Prophets, had ordered the crew of Fate to make a quick retrieval of the artifacts the ancients had left buried under Ucundus, some sort of mysterious room concerning a group of ring-like constructs. The Prophets acted very oddly when any subject concerned The Ancients. Located far under ground was some mysterious room that would aid the Covenant on their search for the ring-world that would let the Covenant have control over the universe. Thus, wipe out the blasphemous humans. But no, the humans had fought bravely and strongly, thus downing their destroyer. It was a horrible failure, and incredibly disgraceful for a higher class Elite to face.
Wkehu 'Drrana starred at the two hunters who lumbered though the debris far ahead of him, their long spikes wavering on their backs. There was a rumble as the last human dropship took off with its passengers. The Hunters fired rounds from their fuel-rod guns at the dropships. The rounds exploded on the armored surface of the Pelicans in green blasts, but did little damage. A marine sitting in the Pelican leveled his snipe rifle's scope to his eye and shot a blast through one of the Hunter's orange stomach; the bullet passed through the belly like butter and smacked into an upright piece of metal rubble with a loud pang! The Hunter fell into his own puddle of orange gore. The Pelican's heavy 70 mm chain gun fired as the other Hunter looked upwards at the hovering Pelican. The rounds fired into its neck, splitting all muscle tissue, the rest of the neck gave way and the helmeted head fell downwards into the shoulders, as if the Hunter were in a defensive position. Gushes of blood flowed out of the seeps between the head and shoulders, as if one dropped a rock into a cup of water. Orange blood dripped down this Hunter's chest-plate; it fell to its knees, but was already dead.
'Drrana let out a deep, guttural, anguished wail that called for any other survivors. Several other Elites responded in their own cry of despair, some close by and others farther away. A shadow loomed over them all, a shadow cast by the body of Fate. Fate's bulbous bow had been blown from the oblong body of the ship by a nuclear explosion, presumably smaller than a Shiva warhead, but considerably enough to do the terrible job. Fate was one of the larger destroyers in the Covenant's armada, one of the more destructive ones also. It still puzzled 'Drrana how they obliterated it. The body of the ship fell vertically and the butt-end of the ship rammed into the ground, dirt and debris held it verticle. It burnt like a torch at the top, where the bomb had detonated. The nuclear flames had been slightly calmed by human planes spraying water from overhead. The ship stood like a looming skyscraper, a burning smokestack that spewed smog. Pieces of the bow lay everywhere; pieces, that is, that hadn't been disintegrated.
Wkehu 'Drrana continued to stare up at the monolith. The pitiful humans would probably keep the destroyed ship as a monument of their victory. They would secure it, clean out the inside and take the bodies to a museum, and write a nice little story on a plaque about how the humans defeated the mighty Covenant Juggernaut. The thought disgusted 'Drrana. Suddenly, a loud explosion erupted and 'Drrana saw the orange fireball directly behind the standing ship. The explosion mushroomed into a cloud of smoke, it was not nearly as large as a nuclear explosion, but it shook the ground violently.
"Oh...oh...no," was Drrana's shocked response to the explosion. He realized what the clever bastards were doing. They're knocking the ship down. A second explosion rumbled and 'Drrana turned to flee. He was already out of range for the wreckage to crash down on him, but he didn't want to be any where near that terrible ship. He heard the ship begin to creak as it began its fall downwards. The rubble and jagged pieces of the dead hull protruded from the ground, thus slowing 'Drrana's sprint. He tripped over an Elite's corpse and scrambled to his feet as the creaking became a roar. He heard the screams of grunts as they too tried to escape the oncoming disaster. Ahead of him he saw low, green hills and the burning skeletons of the Seraph fighters that had fallen under attack and crashed there. The ground shook violently as 'Drrana ran headlong into a flat piece of the burnt purple bow and fell. He turned and saw the smoke atop the tilting ship begin to flow backwards as the ship began to swiftly fall. 'Drrana tried to rise but he saw Fate attack the ground and was clumsily thrown off balance. There was a horrifying roar as the ship smacked into the earth. A large, swiftly moving dust cloud erupted from the area around the ship, 'Drrana could no longer see Fate. The cloud rushed forwards at 'Drrana and once again he was knocked off of his feet. The cloud pushed him along the ground, 'Drrana chocked on the stale air. Debris zoomed through the air. He felt something painfully strike his breast and his head hit cold metal. Wkehu 'Drrana realized that the ship had fallen on the entrance to the ancient room, and then fainted.
800 Hours April 29, 2548 (Military Calendar)//Beneath The Surface of Ucundus
Gregory, Spartan 183, woke to a loud rumbling and tremors that ran through the pitch-black room. Gregory stood up and shook ancient dust from his armored legs and side. The last thing he remembered was an explosion and a bright light. It took him a few moments to remember exactly where he was. The flashlight on his helmet was on, but his acute eyes had already adjusted to the darkness.
He took a look around the room once again. The walls were tan with age and covered in dust. The back wall contained a series of mysterious circle-like symbols imprinted on the surface. He took a moment to stare at the strange and cryptic ciphers. The walls were made of an alloy Augustus, his AI, could not identify.
"Hey, Augustus, you still with me?" Gregory asked his AI.
"Yes, I'm here, how are you feeling?" Augustus replied in his placid voice.
"A little tired, a little confused. You know...the usual," Gregory replied.
"You're lucky, it could have been worse. I believe that you are feeling this way because you have been unconscious for several hours, due to a malfunction in these old, old walls," he replied.
"A malfunction in the walls? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Yes, I believe that due to long periods of no use, the machinery in these walls has malfunctioned when you pressed the holo-pad."
"Oh, right, yeah. I'm remember something like holographic figures of ring-like constructs that were projected from the symbols. What were they?" Gregory asked. Augustus repeated and stopped a video of the constructs he had seen a few hours before on Gregory's visor.
"I believe that the Forerunner built large, ring shaped structures in various regions of space, along with this very room you're standing in," Augustus answered.
"Who are the Forerunner?" Gregory asked.
"To my knowledge, they were an ancient race that left artifacts, holy relics to the Covenant, on various planets. The reason the Covenant wanted this room was to locate and secure these ring-worlds, not to find Earth as we had originally suspected, although that may be an unfortunate side effect if they do gain access to this facility" Augustus answered.
"Right," there was a short pause and then, "I've had enough of this place. Let's get out of here and report this to ONI," Gregory said.
"I'm afraid that's impossible. Fate has fallen upon the entrance to this room, and for the moment, we're trapped. Besides, why would you want to leave when there is more to explore..." Augustus marked a small, blue glowing holographic figure with a nav point located to Gregory's right.
"What the? I'm not touching one of those holo-panels again, you remember what happened the last time," Gregory protested.
"I thought Spartans had no fear? Your shields absorbed the last blast anyway," Augustus said.
"Fine," Gregory walked toward the panel and pressed on one of the moving circles. A deep rumbling resounded through the walls and dust drifted off two sliding doors that seemed to appear out of nowhere. From these doors something that resembled an ancient cryo-tube emerged. The once white sides of the tube were now tan and covered in sand and dust. The glass was murky and impossible to see through. Another holo-button appeared at the base of the cryo-tube.
"Press it," Augustus said. Gregory pressed the button. There was the deafening sound of...nothing. The holographic circles swirled in a circle, became static and disappeared.
"Humph," was Gregory's only reaction, "too bad".
"What, there must be some way to open this," Augustus said with a hint of despair in his voice.
"Forget it, I'm not tapering with any of this bizarre technology. And neither are you. Who knows what is in that thing, for all you know it could be hostile. That's the last thing we need, more hostile aliens."
"Do you not care about this ancient history? The being could reveal so many secretes to us."
"Maybe its better he doesn't reveal his secrets to us. Look, is there any other way out, can you contact support to extract us?"
"No, the alloy of this room prevents any radio waves to come in and out of here, I'm truly sorry," Augustus responded.
"I'm going up to see what I can do, maybe there's a weak spot or something," Gregory walked into a passage with an antigravity lift the Forerunner used to get down to the room. He pushed a button on another holo-panel and the lift began to climb upwards to the wreckage. The lift stopped and he walked to the steps the Covenant had dug to get down to the room. Half of them were packed in by dirt caused by the fall. Gregory used his hands to dig for about an hour until he reached a hard, bluish-purple alloy that was Fate. He pounded to see if it gave way, nothing happened, only a sorrowful metallic bang resounded throughout the ship. He was trapped.
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