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Neverland: The First Patrol
Posted By: SOS.Odin<twiztedodin@hotmail.com>
Date: 25 November 2003, 1:01 AM


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Neverland: The First Patrol

      "All right gimme your names."
      The ten "volunteers" stood at attention before Cpl. David James, waiting to go on the first patrol in ,comicaly named, Neverland. Only three of them were actual volunteers. The other seven were picked from the crowd on the qualities that they showed during their day of training. There were to be more days of training in the future. Right now though, they needed to find out where they were, and what they were doing there. They also needed to find out if there was any wildlife. The food that was stored with one of the clothing crates was running low.
      "Brett Cox, sir." Brett was a heavy man, not fat, but big. His hair was short, red, and naturally quite shiny.
      "Phil Whitman, sir." Phil was Brett's best friend. They used to hunt every weekend, back in the Republic of the Northern States, formerly known as Canada. Phil was taller than Brett, but much less muscular.
      "Steven Simpson" Steve was a short chubby man, but he knew how to scrap. During the day of training he got into a fight with three other men. They were all bigger and stronger than him. Steven was surprisingly fast, and very smart. The physical arguement didn't last long.
      Six more names sounded off, each of them showed promise during the training.
      "David Wehlermann"
      "Anthony Royer"
      "Shannon Nichols"
      "Patrick VanDeWeile"
      "Chris Frost"
      "Ashley DeMattei"
      Cpl. James walked up to the last man in the line. He was by far the largest man there. Very nice muscular structure. He made the well fit Marine look like nothing. Cpl. James did not back down from him. He would not be dwarfed by a civilian. The unnaturally pale man stood at perfect attention.
      "Name civilian."
      "Sp.." The man faulted and then blinked and spoke again."John."
      "John? Got a last name John."
      "...No Sir."
      "Very well."
      Cpl. James stepped away from the seven foot titan before him and walked back down the ranks.
      "Listen up people. This is going to be a patrol. The purpose of a patrol is either to explore new land, or to make sure Covvies don't come near that land. The Covenant might not be a problem here though. We will be making the first patrol here in Neverland. That means this patrol will quite possibly be the most dangerous. In a few minutes we will be moving to the armory. There we will equip ourselves with close combat weapons. I want two of you to pick up MA8B Machine Guns, two MA5B Assault Rifles, three MA6B Assault Rifles, and three M90 Shotguns. Pick what you are familiar with. One grenade per person. On the patrol we will move in single file line. I will be at point. I want everyone at my six in two meter intervals. Let's not fuck this up people. Get your gear and report back here in five." James pondered on wether or not trained Marines could do that easily in five.
      "Make that ten."

      Trey Mascari of ONI was working in the armory when the ten volunteers came rushing in demanding weapons. From the back a monster of a man calmed all the quarelling civilians and placed an order for all the weapons and ammo that they needed. Trey was taken back by the professional front of the civilian monstrocity before him.

      After two minutes John was back on the training field. James was very surprised. We moved to inspect the hasty civilian standing on his field.
      "What are you doing back on my field, JOHN?"
      "Sir, waiting to go on patrol sir."
      James was baffled at the response. To his surprise John was fully prepared and actually up to par with Marine standards, if not exceeding them. James was getting agry at how this civilian was seeming to be superior to his fellow service men. It just wasn't possible that a civilian could be as militarily perfect as this man seemed to be. He quickly discarded it from his mind.
      After about twelve more minutes the rest of the group had finally arrived.

      "All right ladies and gentlemen are you all good to go?"
      "YESSIR!" resounded down the line.
      "Good. Let's move out people."
      The team moved out to the bordering wall and followed it down to an opening being guarded by two MA8Bs. The two gate guardians acknowledged their exit and covered them until they entered the edge of the woods.

      Upon entering the woods, James motioned everyone to a high crouch. They moved slowly keeping their eyes on anything that might move. There were trees as far as the eye could see. After about twenty minutes of searching, they patrol came up on a large creek bed. It stretched across about ten meters. It was about five meters deep and had two trees stretching across. James moved up to one of the trees and inspected the trunk. It had been cut clean, not broken by the forces of nature. James looked at the other tree, which was cut down from the other side of the creek bed.
      "These are plasma incisions."
      James quickly turned around to see John examining the serated tree.
      "How did you know that?"
      "I've seen a lot of this."
      James had no idea how John knew. Only someone who had fought the Covenant for a good while would be able to notice tiny burnings from plasma in a tree.
      "Remind me to have a talk with you when we get back." If we get back. James thought to himself. "All right people let's cross this creek bed."
      James was crossing first. John was crossing on the tree adjescent to him. Two people were scanning the trees across the creek bed and the rest were making sure nothing came from behind.

      In five minutes everyone was across the makeshift bridges. James had just orded the team to move out when John called for his attention.
      "What do you want John we're moving on"
      "Sir, these tracks, they're Elites."
      James looked down at John's little discovery, and to his surprise John was right. James looked at John quizzicaly. James examined the surrounding ground and found many more tracks. Tracks of Grunts were everywhere. Jackals, Brutes, and even a few Hunter tracks were discovered. James was horrified. He had to get back to the base. He had to tell everyone about the Covenant.
      "Everyone come here." James looked up and scanned the area, making sure there weren't any hosties still around. "These tracks here, they belong to Covenant. We got to get back to base. Back over the bridge."
      James looked across the creek just in time to see a body move back into the trees.
      "HOLY! There's something over there. TAKE COVER!"
      Everyone dove behind trees and rocks and scanned the opposite side of the bed. Nothing was moving.There was about five whole minutes of silenceThen, some bushes moved behind the team. A paranoid civilian with an MA8B turned and fired. All the other civilians did the same. Only John and James weren't shooting. John turned and noticed a blur moving between trees.
      The civilians were relentless. The blur dodged bullets and hid behind rocks. Further back John noticed silouhettes of others moving between trees. John knew that there were no known Covenant that moved as fast as the being twelve meters in front of him. John waited a few more seconds to confrirm what he was seeing.
      John stood up and with the vocals of a lion scared the civilians down, "CEASE FIRE! THEY'RE FRIENDLIES!"
      All the firing stopped and everyone looked up at the giant like he was a god.
      Just then a woman with stubby hair and dirty cams walked out of the treeline. She smiled at John and slowly walked towards the patrol.
      Two civilians leveled their guns on the woman. John quickly waved them down. He then stood up and walked in the direction of the female.
      James stood up and wasn't understanding anything going on. He then looked across the creek and found a dozen more figures on the other side. They were all armed, but none of them were acting hostile. James looked back at John, then at the woman, then at the people emerging from the woods behind her.
      John walked up to the female and gave her a hug. "How ya been Kelly?"





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