 |
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
|
|
|
Life of a UNSC Marine Part III
Posted By: Tygpj<tygpj@aol.com>
Date: 1 April 2003, 2:53 AM
Read/Post Comments
|
As through a Soldier's Eyes:
Life of a UNSC Marine
The Covenant
After seven days sleep I awoke to a bright light and a burst of warm air. The cyro tube opened and I was helped out by some technicians who set me down on a nearby bench. I choked on the cryo inhalant with a demise for the taste. The taste and texture of it made me vomit.
I went to the showers and started thinking of how well the Covenant could battle and with such ruthlessness. The thought scared me. Upon suiting up in the cryo locker room, I met up with Paul and the rest of the squad. Zack informed us that the captain was to brief us on the situation and why we left Reach in such hast. I knew this would be interesting.
The crowd of marines began to get restless as they waited for the captain in the cargo bay. I noticed Pelicans were near the bay doors. Ready for deployment. After an hour of waiting on the marines part, the captain calmly walked into cargo bay and onto a platform. He cut to the chase and gave it to us strait.
"Marines, a week ago I was informed of a Covenant Fleet of two Destroyers and a Cruiser was attacking an outer mining planet of the Crest System, Vern, with ground forces. The Ironside was to join a battle group that would reinforce the current ships there and to find out why they had not glassed the planet. Upon the our battle group arriving we found the remains of the past UNSC military ships based here and that Vern was abandoned. After a scan of the system we found that the military planet, Crest, was under Covenant control and the only intact base left on the surface was being used send encrypted messages to a point in deep space. No translations were available or coordinates to where it was being sent was available, but one thing was recognized in the transmission. A set of coordinates. They were Earth's. Given the speed of the Covenant ships... We might be the only ones left. We must do all we can to find where they sent it and its coordinates. This might be what we need to find the Covenant home world, so we need to fight our hardest. The 2nd, 4th, and 5th Platoons of the 29th Company will be our strike teams planet side. They will retake the base and find the coordinates while the Rest of the company will pick some battles away from the base to draw away possible reinforcement from the base. The deploying troops will go at 0900. Any questions? No? Good. Dismissed." He finished and left the Company Leader to finish briefing the leaders of the platoons.
The armory had a vast array of weaponry with much ammo for its weapons. The whole squad filled up on grenades from a crate and picked up MA5Bs after we had received all of the details of the assignment. Only Jug and Luke picked up more munitions, and they were in coherence with their specialties. The base we had to take was Gemini. We were given a chart of the area with the number of our drop ship and where we would be dropped and dusted off. The objective was simple: Kill any Covenant and take control of the main Comm tower computer. Uncomplicated, but tough. After that a computer technician would be sent down to retrieve the sending coordinates.
Upon completing on arming up, we rushed to our drop ship through the tight corridors of the Ironside. I had only been on this ship for a week, and I grew a liking for it. As we ran and I looked at the Ironside. I felt I was to never see her again. I shook the feeling as I hopped into the Pelican.
The ride to the Crest was a short one. The Pelican we were riding had a Warthog on the back with its 50mm three barreled chain gun. Joan would be driving that without out any doubt and Paul a passenger for making repairs. "Maybe I could be the gunner" I hoped. When we landed, the rendevous point was one and a half clicks away.
"Stupid Pilot." Paul said, scorning the lack of piloting accuracy.
On the way to the rendevous point we found nothing much. A Covenant tank that had detonated a mine field was all that we saw of the Covenant. The forests were beautiful and reminded me of pictures I had seen in my high school history books. The pictures were of a rugged frontier Earth, when humans had no control of the weather, but also no pollution. The smell of pine and walnut trees filled the air of this warm day on Crest.
"Looks like we're the first here." Zack announced when we had arrived at the RP.
We set up camp for the quickly coming night and waited for the rest of our platoon to join us. The warm summer night with a fresh breeze comforted me even though I had thoughts that we were the last of the human race. It felt like home.
The next day the other two platoons joined up with us and we began our march to retake the nearby base. Now we had a Scorpion tank and two more Warthogs to add on to the rest of our forces. Well prepared we reached Gemini without any conflict. The Platoon Leader then gave Zack all the tactical data we were going to need to win this battle he then briefed us on what to do.
"Men, there are three hills surrounding the base and a wall that will keep us out. The hills are here, here, and here." He said gesturing marks on the map that was spread out on a rock. " The wall will be dealt with our C-12. A sniper will be on each hill and two other marines will stay with them to protect them. Luke you will be on this hill," He pointed to a hill with a crater from a Wraith.
"Jug, you will sit in the passenger side of our squad's 'Hog after you open a hole in the wall; and Joan. You will drive." The two Marines replied at the same time to the Private First Class' order, "Sir, yes sir!"
"Gates, for you I have given the job of gunnery for the 'Hog. Stay alert for air support and shoot any Banshees in range. Paul and I will carry out on foot and lead the rest of the platoon. Our platoon will be the first assault group and come from the South of the base. The other two platoons will cycle around and attack from Gemini's North and East sides when called for. Got it? Let's move out!"
We all got to our places and the battle began. Jug wired the wall with C-12. The explosion ripped through it like tissue paper. The blast alerted seven Grunts and three Elites. Luckily for us a piece of wall caught two Elites and cut them in half. Jug was already in the 'Hog and used his AR to tear the Grunts apart. I got my bead on the remaining Elite and opened fire. The 50mm projectiles took down his shields in seconds, then glued him to a rock. Joan charged in and began to run over most of the Covenant in the base. Tall structures jutted out of the ground and hid masses of Covenant. Sniper shots echoed as bodies fell from some of the towers. Zack came over the Comm and reported that the other platoons were attacking. I was glad we had some more backup. Before the snipers could get one grunt, though, he had activated a plasma grenade and dropped it onto the soldiers below. The blue orb stuck on a private who screamed at the pain and the fear of how he was soon to die. The explosion took out five marines in the process. Paul and Zack had managed to stay away from the blast with some luck.
The next amount of resistance was some fifty Grunts with thirty Jackals in front of them in a protective line. Behind both of the ranks were thirteen Elites.
"My lucky number." I thought as I counted the masses. We were only 100 meters from the tower and were not about to give up. Jug launch two rockets and was rewarded with the blasted bodies of two Elites and eleven Grunts, after the first rocket hit. When the second one made its mark, nine Jackals, seven Grunts, and an Elite were launched to the heavens. By now I was in firing range and singled my fire at the Elites. The jeep's tires ground the enemy with no concern for the species of Covenant it consumed. Half of the group had been killed by the vehicle. Joan drove as if she was on the to church. Gracefully. We dodged seven grenades and over fifty charged plasma shots. The on foot marines cleaned up the rest of the scum and we moved on.
We were now 30 meters from our objective. Joan quickly rounded a sharp curve after seeing some bogeys on the motion tracker. She had anticipated running over them, but when she rounded the curve she swore at the sight. Two Hunters with five Banshees for air support. I aimed the LAAG gun at the flying enemies, gave a little lead, and fired. The first two flew into the line of fire and exploded instantly. The other three turned in time to save themselves. Being so concentrated on the Banshees, I never realized that Joan had run over a Hunter and was chasing the other down.
The remaining Hunter dashed into a alley and charged its weapon. The beast fired the gun at the changing groung troops and killed over half of them. I feared the worse for Paul. The Banshees returned to pester us with plasma. My gun quickly met and tore up the rest of them. I jumped out of the vehicle and searched for Paul. He was flung across the entrance to the alley and into the surrounding wall of the base. I walk to him and with a heavy heart I found his vitals gone. My best friend was dead. Now the fear I had against the Covenant had faded and turned into a rage. Thirty Jackals had just come out of the now in view Comm tower. A charged them with my guns a blazing while the rest of the Platoon struggled to keep up. Tossing three grenades, I charged, and unloaded my AR on the aliens.
"Die, Son of a Bitches!" I yelled while tears streamed down my face. They killed Paul and I wasn't about to let any on this planet live. The grenades caught the Jackals by surprise and launched them ten feet into the air. The explosions caused an Elite to jump out of the tower entrance to investigate. He was soon met with chain gun fire and rocket explosions from my comrades. When I entered the tower I noticed that five Elites were killed in the blasts. The survivors of my squad had caught up with me by now and held me back from getting myself killed in a charge. My adrenaline was pumping at full speed. They held me until the rest of our and other platoons arrived at the outside of the tower. The snipers set up position in some of the surrounding, cleared strictures for extra support and my friends let me goes after much calming down. I had to get a hold of myself and complete the mission.
Almost to our objective, we did a scan of the area and found thirty blips in the 50 by 50 foot room. Zack had somehow survived the Hunter's blast and was here throwing a grenade to push the Covenant out of the room and on the outer platform for our snipers. The plan worked. Reports of the sniper's shells launching and destroying the target was a sound to enjoy. Luke reported over the Comm link that all of the bastards had been eliminated. The pocket motion scanner agreed. We continued and used the tower's powerful radio to send a transmission to the Ironside. No reply.
"Maybe the radio was damaged in the grenade blast." Jug suggested. I felt differently as did Zack.
"Here let me double check before we do anything else." Zack was trying to keep the marines and himself from panicking. It didn't work. As he shakily lifted the emergency radio for contact with the ship, we all held our breaths and prayed nothing happened to the Ironside.
"Strike Team One reporting to the Ironside. Do you copy Ironside? I repeat. Strike Team One here, we have taking control of the base and the rest of the Covenant are being moped up as we speak." No reply. Zack swore loudly as he slammed the radio down.
We were on our own.
|
