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Life of a UNSC Marine Part IV
Posted By: Tygpj<tygpj@aol.com>
Date: 9 April 2003, 1:54 AM
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As Through a Soldier's Eyes:
Life of a UNSC Marine
Marooned
"They might be on the far side of the planet." I said to try to sooth the group's nerves. Luckily, only my squad was in the tower at the time, and was the only group that knew about this. Zack informed the Company Commander almost as soon as I had broken the silence. We were going to stay put until nightfall, when the Ironside would be back on the side we were on. I knew the chances I was right about why we couldn't contact the ship were nearly nonexistent. Yet, I still had hope.
The next day was clear of any Covenant until about 15:00. I was playing poker with Joan, Luke, and Jug at the time. We were assigned to guard the Comm tower in case of an attack. Joan was so good at cards she almost took all of our shirts and boots. The sound of a Covenant dropship rang overhead as I had just pulled a strait flush.
"Just my luck. Why couldn't the Covenant have attacked when I was out $50." I pondered.
At the sound, Luke was already outside of the tower and perched up on the guardrail, keeping the ship is his sights. Two more of the ships flew over head to land with the first.
"All right, we have three Covenant dropships inbound and landing to the North with two Wraiths coming out of a forest to the Northwest." He reported over the Comm link. "One dropship is down from the minefield and in flames. The other two are landing just outside of the mines. Us snipers can take out the ground forces, but the Wraiths ... You'll have to get those yourselves."
"Thank you, private. Orion squad, I am moving your forces out of the tower. You will be taking on the Scorpion out for a ride. Your activities in the assault have lead me to this decision. Command out." The Comm link to the newly formed Command Post went static as the Command Crew cut the link to our squad.
Luke ran back in the tower and followed the rest of Orion squad down the steps. Joan hopped in the driver's seat of the massive tank as Zack took control of the gun. I rode on the treads of the tank on the same side as Jug, while Luke was on the opposite side. We had just started to move as a blinding blue ball of plasma, with the diameter of a meter, touched down on the Comm tower. The tower melted into a puddle of boiling Titanium. Then another hit the Command Post, killing all of the officers inside.
One body flew out and landed on the tank right beside me. He was still alive, but had severe burns from the hot plasma. I had always loved history in my high school days and remembered things of the ancient wars. I was fascinated by the tactic used and how many battles were won with strategy instead of numbers. Always the men who died in the wars were just numbers in a book. "Nothing of concern," I once told my dad when he wanted to talk to me about my interest in historical wars. He looked at me like I was some creature he never knew before, some foul thing that came from a filthy cesspool.
He gave me a new book than on wars. An older one, I could by the color of the page. It was on the world's worst wars: World War I and II, the American Civil War, and the Vietnam War. The book even had pictures, oh the horrifying pictures it had. Then and there my amusement for war was now a fear and respect for the dead.
Then, in my arms, was a dying man and the pictures came back to haunt me. In the Vietnam War, napalm was used on the enemies of the Americans, and sometimes even the Americans themselves, by friendly fire. The napalm would stick to the skin of any person under the rain of liquid fire and melt the skin off of the body. This horrible sight reminded me of those pictures in that book of the napalm, but it was worse. His skin boiled and slid into his throat, suffocating him and leaving his skull to stare up at me. His eyes dried then shriveled up into his sockets. I checked his rank and name, then yanked his dog tags off with bits of melted flesh. Colonel Drew Teeter, our Company leader. The man who was just talking to us on the Comm link a few minutes beforehand.
Joan maneuvered the tank near to the Northern wall as Zack blasted it with the 90mm main gun. We exited out of the new opening as two more plasma motor shots land right behind us and on the rest of the 5th Platoon, along with one of the remaining 'hogs. The tank moved onto one of the hills that some of our snipers stood during the retaking of Gemini. Luke hosed down the infantry while Jug and Zack launched a barrage of rounds for the Wraiths. Plasma shots fell around us, but the higher elevation gave the enemy tanks a hard time.
"Yeah, try to catch that you damn monsters!" Zack yelled with a whooping war cry. The projectiles were dead eyed and engulfed the motor weapons in a plasma fire. "That'll teach 'em." Zack had never shown this much emotion before. The machine gun cut through all of the attackers like they were butter sticks.
The invasion only lasted 16 minutes, but 3/4 of our forces had been eliminated and the Comm tower was now gone. Along with any chance to defeat the Covenant and save the Human race.
"Now what do we do?" Joan asked our leader. We were now cut off from the rest of the forces as they retreated into the nearby woods. After all of that, who wouldn't retreat? "The Comm tower is gone with any hope we may have had to survive, all of our officers are dead, and we have lost the rest of our Company."
"What about Gates' plan? When did you lose faith in that?"
"We still lost the coordinates, it's over! We're as good as dead, and so are all of the other humans. Give it up." She was starting to get delirious with the thought of death and was losing hope. She drew her pistol and fired. The hit body fell to the ground in a heap of flesh and pouring blood. No one could understand why she did it, but the suffering was over for the victim now.
"No! Joan! Why did you have to do it? She lost hope. God, of the things to be taken from her, hope was one thing she did not need to have taken." Zack was in tears at her death. He never recovered from that blow. What we needed now was a miracle. A miracle, and what Joan did not have...
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