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Shadows of Archon II (part 22) - Angel Fury
Posted By: Wado<wyamauchi@msn.com>
Date: 10 October 2002, 6:41 am
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Down through twisting corridors runs a panicked white and gold Elite. Close behind him are two more all white Elites. "Hurry or we're all worse than dead," said Commander Arkelles. "Come on pick it up."
The trio quickly turned their heads from side to side with wide eyes. "We don't even know if they saw us," said Sub-commander Valerium, "and if they didn't our movements will seem suspicious."
"Don't be a fool, I would not have believed it but I saw it with my own eyes," whispered Arkelles. "It was treachery of the worst kind -- We have been betrayed by a god. There is no way that they do not know. I swear it looked right at me."
"What was that?" asked the third Elite, Advisor Spectus. Rustling noises rattled through the ventilation system above. A dark line moved silently across the floor, in a snap it wraps around the legs of Spectus. He screams in pain, clawing at the ground as he is dragged away. "Aaaaaaurgh!"
Wings of dark death flap and encompass Valerium. Muffled screams not heard; his head covered in darkness. He kicks in the air, his hands caught in the dark wraps that entangle. The last thing heard from him was the banging sound of his feet slamming into the sides of the ventilation system. Clank, clank, clank.
A sickly feeling hits Arkelles, the mightly warrior is brought to his knees. He vomits and from his own puke grows the worms that now infest his body. "Nooooo!" yelled Arkelles, his fate sealed.
To defy the gods, the insane Forerunners, is an impossible task. They have dwelled long before the first relics of human history and thrived in misery and power beyond the imagination. This god, Margoth is the bringer of the great flood -- The flood that will rid this galaxy of the unworthy.
Margoth lives in the infested body of the great Covenant Prophet. He looks over the vastness of space and sees his newly built fleet of ships now ready. It is time. The fleet of this insane Forerunner moves out for the first time, the first time for a Forerunner fleet such as this in hundreds of thousands of years.
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Angel Fury
Thousands of light years away, near a tiny blue planet a great battle rages on. Bear witness to the last stand of humanity, the last sanctuary, the Sol star system.
As John shined his light down the ventilation shaft, he is greeted by the nods of each of the UNSC Special Forces -- Black Angel Recon: Colonel Chan, Major Schultz, Captain Merkava, Captain Dunn, Lieutenant Peters, Warrant Officer McBryan, and Special Agent Ewing of the SCSA (SolCore Security Agency).
"Master Chief, our orders are to get you back to the XX1 in one piece," said Colonel Chan as he motioned Captain Merkava forward up the shaft. In a flash she is up the shaft under the power of thruster aided boots.
Outside the ventilation system the sound of small arms fire echoed down the corridors but from above only silence. The go signal is heard and John is boosted up with the help of two of the Black Angel Recon.
Along the way, John sees the trail of dead Grunts left by the point person. Silent kills from silenced rounds and hidden blades.
They soon reach the end of this ventilation system but the door to the shaft is already open. From the opening pops up the head of an Elite and Captain Merkava turns to shoot him. The Elite pops back out of sight before he gets shot and in his place flies a small package of three plasma grenades hooked together. "Incoming," cried the Captain.
The grenades stick to the side armor on the Captain. In one motion she strikes next to the armor yelling, "Eject grenade!" With those words, the outside layer of her side armor blasts away with the grenades still attached to it and at the same time a canister on her side explodes outward spewing a form substance. The form substance fills the shaft and quickly hardens providing a protective barrier between her and the exploding grenades. "This way is blocked, find another," said Captain Merkava.
Colonel Chan signals and Warrant Officer McBryan drills a small hole through the shaft wall. Lieutenant Peters slips a device through the hole and then says, "Clear to proceed."
McBryan tosses a small ball on to the wall. The ball conveniently forms into a ribbon charge the shape of a man-sized hole. The charge goes off and Captain Dunn kicks out the wall and slides through into the corridor below. "Clear."
One by one they slip down to the corridor. Captain Dunn is now at point. Dunn uses a small device to look around corners. "Three Elites guarding door to landing bay."
Smoke blows out the ventilation shaft. John looks up at the smoke just as it blows suddenly to his left. A pressure change? John drops to one knee with MP7C submachine gun ready to fire. Down the corridor a door has opened and on the other side is a group of Covenant Elite.
A firefight erupts with both sides scrambling for cover. In the rear Captain Dunn looks once more around the corner, only two Elites are seen. "Where is the third one?" said Dunn to himself. Dunn looks up, down comes an energy sword wielded by an invisible foe.
Dunn raises his weapon to block the sword, but the sword slices clean through the MP7C and strikes Dunn's fully armored head. The blow has such force that although it doesn't fully penetrate through the armor, Dunn's head whips back and he staggers to the wall.
Ba, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba... The Elite is knocked back by weapons fire. Lieutenant Peters empties his entire magazine into the Elite. When Peters is done, the Elite is so full of holes that the light from behind shines through him.
John takes out his second Elite and moves toward the open door stopping briefly behind cover to reload. Three left he signals to Special Agent Ewing.
Just then the three Elites run out firing. Ewing and John take two down but the third one is missed. The third Elite, John, and Ewing all look down to see a grenade roll across the floor from the hand of one of the downed Elites. "Look out!" Everyone dives for cover just before the grenade detonates.
As John gets back up he bumps heads with the third Elite. "What the..." said John and the Elite. John swoops down with lightning speed at the legs of the Elite. The Elite kicks his legs back to avoid the single leg takedown and rolls over John.
The Elite draws two large energy daggers and holds them with the blades held inverted, one in each hand. John flips up with shotgun in hand and his sights locked on the Elite's chest.
The Elite dashes forward with a wild battle cry.
John gets one shot off from the shotgun slowing down the Elite slightly and blowing down the Elite's shield, but that is not enough to keep the Elite from striking with both daggers.
The Elite's energy daggers slice down John's shield and then the Elite switches the direction of the strikes to come down onto John with the armor-piercing points first.
John attempts to turn and sidestep the attacks. The blades barely deflect off of John's upgraded MJOLNIR battle armor.
This Elite is quick, very quick, however, and he thrusts down to the side penetrating through the armor over John's left thigh. The Elite quickly pivots for another attack.
As the Elite turns, John ducks and fires at the Elite's pivot foot -- the last part of the Elite's body that will move. Boom, the shotgun shell blasts down through d, quite thoroughly finishing the job.
Meanwhile the rest of the Black Angels have taken care of the other Elites that were guarding the door to the landing bays.
"Hey Merkava, you're bleeding," said Colonel Chan.
"Damn needlers, oh look, it already stopped bleeding, must have been a small wound," said Captain Merkava. "Aaaugh." Merkava falls to the ground in convulsions.
"Medic," said John.
Lieutenant Peters rushes to Merkava. "She's having a stroke." Peters injects something into the neck of Merkava. "Hang in there Lisa, the needlers carried a coagulator agent, but this shot should counter the effects."
"I can't move," said Captain Dunn from the other end of the corridor. "Oh God, I can't move!"
Peters does a quick scan on Dunn. "Don't try to move Dunn," said Peters as he injects Dunn with something. "This will help you relax. Colonel, Dunn's 3rd and 4th vertibrea are shattered and out of alignment. We need to immobilize him."
Peters runs a subroutine through Dunn's armor that causes the armor to become rigid.
"Chief, the landing bay is clear of Covenant," said Cortana, "and I recommend you make a break for the XX1 now. I suggest you hurry, I'm picking up Covenant communications, there appears to be a large group of Covenant converging on your location."
The group makes there way into the empty landing bay a few stories up from the flight deck. "Wow those Marines sure put up a good fight, too bad none of them survived," said John.
John and the Colonel Chan then moved to the ground level while Major Schultz played lookout and sniper.
"About time you got here Chief," said Sarge.
"Sarge, you're alive, how?" said John.
"Right after you left, the Covies threw a horde of grenades at us, Ginkens and I dove under this strange ship of yours and none of the plasma got to us," said Sarge. "We then waited for the Covenant to leave, the guys they left behind were pushovers."
"We're not out of it yet Sarge, the Covenant are converging on the location," said John.
Sarge reaches into his empty pockets saying, "I picked a hell of a day to quit smoking..."
Another voice over the comm is heard. "Did someone order reinforcements?" said Foe Hammer. Just at that moment over a dozen UNSC transports fly into the landing bay and start unloading Marines.
"We've got this under control Master Chief," said Colonel Chan. "You've got something important to do, so I hear."
"Yes, thank you Colonel."
John says some quick good-byes and then flies out of the landing bay in the XX1. "Well Cortana, give me a nav point to our target."
"Yes Chief, nav point set," replied Cortana.
As John flies away, he looks back briefly at the orbital station GAEA. Much of GAEA is in flames but its MACs continue to fire. Inside GAEA, Colonel Chan, the rest of the Black Angels, Sarge, Ginkens, and the other Marines fight on. None of this will mean anything unless John completes his mission; the fate of humanity rests on his shoulders.
-- Next, The Shade of Knight --
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