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A Spartan Named James by ZePHyR WRaiTh
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A Spartan Named James
Date: 11 October 2003, 4:15 AM
(Since this is my first submission, I would appreciate any and all feedback, thank you.)
0630 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Epsilon Eridani System, Outside of Reach Naval
Station Gamma
The impenetrable stygian blackness forced itself in on the visor of James' MJOLNIR combat suit like a wall of onyx closing in on an emerald figurine. He had almost gotten the C-12 free from the Pelican's nose and was about to confirm his progress with his squad leader, Master Chief Spartan-117, when the Chief's very own voice came on over his speakers,
"Take cover." The grating voice hissed through the static.
James looked over at the Chief just in time to watch him disappear behind the side of the Pelican. Not much could make the Chief conceal himself from an enemy, James knew. Just a little further, he thought to himself panic beginning to edge into his mind, just a little furth-"
"Blue-Two," The Chief cried over the COM-Channel, "I said fall back."
James turned away from the nose of the Pelican just in time to see the hundreds of magenta needles flying at him through the vacuum. His highly trained mind sought for an alternative to being impaled by the glowing spikes and, in less than a second, found one. In the blink of an eye James had pushed off from the Pelican and had angled his thruster pack to soak up the majority of the needles and plasma fire. He looked back and saw that his thruster pack was glowing red, he started to slip out of it when the needles exploded and sent him spiraling through space in a constantly changing trajectory.
"Blue-Two! Come in," Came the strangely softened voice of the Chief.
"John! I can't control the pack, I'm going to try and slip out of it. Hold on, sir. I request radio silence, the Covenant, they're everywhere!" James announced over the Com-Channel. Little did he know that the Chief had only heard enough of his transmission to write him off for dead, lost to the emptiness of space.
James was well on his way to making the Chief's suspicions true. Getting out of the Co2 charged thruster was harder than he had anticipated. The pack swung around on the rubber harness so erratically that it pulled the straps away from him each time his hands got anywhere near the industrial strength clips holding it on to him. Making his endeavor harder was the fact that plasma fire was streaking through space around him in graceful jets of blue, green, and white. James stopped struggling and calmed himself, Chief Mendez had always warned them that a panicked man was a dead man, and with that in mind he calmly reached back down and stripped the pack off by hitting the release button on the belt. The vacant boost pack spun off across the vast expanse of space toward Reach and hit an Elite Warrior in the face on its way.
Now James was forced to face the real problem at hand; if he couldn't alter the course of his unplanned flight he would keep soaring through the darkness until his reserve tanks of oxygen were depleted, sentencing him to a slow death by suffocation.
That won't happen, he thought forcefully, I won't let it. However, it was a little bit harder than he had initially predicted to stall his rapid ascension. Nothing he did helped, but he wasn't about to give up, not yet.
That was when the Covenant flagship exited Slipspace fourteen hundred meters in front of him.
James hurled at the target, unable to stop himself from feeling a twinge of fear. But at the same time he felt a sense of hope; if he was lucky, very lucky, he might be able to fly in through an open docking bay on the side of the ship. The chances were slim, no betting man would put a penny on them. However, he figured, he was about due for a good break.
The majestic purple ship sped closer and closer at him, every few seconds he would soar past a Seraph fighter and hope against hope that he wouldn't be detected. So far, so good, he thought, but wait, the docking bay was too far to the left of him for a safe entry, and he really didn't want to be reduced to the consistency of toothpaste thrown against a wall. After carefully considering his options James settled on one, risky was an understatement, but if executed properly it just might have a chance of working.
James chinned a control in his helmet and the armor plating on the outside of his bad arm, the one the hunter had reduced to cinders a few months earlier, burst off with enough force to hurl him to the left, straight in line with the open magnetic shield. Less than three seconds later he flew into the opening and felt a fluttering sensation in the pit of his stomach as he adjusted to the artificial gravity in the ship. He didn't have much time to worry about the butterflies in his stomach because he immediately fell to the floor behind a damaged Banshee. James pushed himself up into a sitting position and marveled at what he had just accomplished, and at the fact that no Covenant inside the ship had detected his presence yet. He scooted across the strangely corrugated floor and peered around the side of the Banshee, then quickly pulled his head back behind it. The docking bay was full of the tall blue suited creatures he had seen earlier, along with a pair of hunters, and a single apelike being that towered over them all. Jackals and Grunts swarmed around the legs of the larger creatures, eager to be closest to them and be offered the most protection.
James did a quick inventory of the weapons he still had with him and reeled in shock, all of his weapons had flown off of him in his ungainly flight through space. All that he had left was a single frag grenade and a clip for his lost M6D pistol.
"Great," James muttered sarcastically under his breath as he eyed a Jackal with it's back turned eight meters away, "Lost in enemy territory with no guns and an unarmored right arm, if I get this prosthesis melted off the buys at ONI are going to feed me to the dogs." And with that he crept up behind the unsuspecting jackal and crushes it's head with his unarmored mechanical arm. "So much for stealth," he whispered as energy beams seared over his head. He scooped up the plasma pistol and tore the energy shield off the alien's arm before disappearing behind a gigantic crate, plasma tracing his path by burning pockmarks in the wall the size of his fist.
It was going to be a long day.
A Spartan Named James- Part 2
Date: 15 October 2003, 2:54 AM
0840 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Epsilon Eridani System, Covenant Flagship above
Reach Naval Yard
Flashes of blue light strobed the interior of the Covenant docking bay, each line of plasma seemed to race the other in a never-ending struggle to reach the elusive target first. James was pinned down behind a rapidly melting Covenant alloy crate. If he didn't do something soon all of his hard work to get into the ship would be made completely useless.
But James wasn't worried; this kind of engagement was what he was raised for, what he lived for, and what he desired.
At the first indication of a lull in the hail of fire he edged closer to the edge of the crate. When it stopped, he went to work. He spun around from behind the crate and four Jackals dropped when his green flame licked at their face, vital organs, or burned through their limbs. Eight Grunts collapsed when the plasma cut through their breathing apparatus or melted their methane masks to the craggy purple skin of their faces. Then James' plasma pistol sputtered and died. He ran towards the closest fire team of Covenant and feinted a roll to the right, but at the last second he made a dive for the legs of a Red armored Elite. The warrior went down with a bloodcurdling howl, but James quickly silenced it by smashing its head into the shimmering plating of the deck with an audible crunch. If not for the extra traction offered by his prosthetic arm his hand would have slid over the shields of the creature in a futile attempt of self-preservation and he would have been the one lying on the ground in a spreading pool of blood.
But James didn't have time to spare pondering this, the training embedded in his mind wouldn't allow it, and almost before the alien had hit the ground James had stripped it of the plasma rifle it wielded and cut down the group of Grunts it had commanded. That was when the Hunters and the Giant Ape decided that it was time to act.
Two jade green bolts of fire from the Hunter's fuel rod cannons and a purple lance of light from the primate's nasty looking, scythe tipped weapon raced across the hold toward him. James watched them close on him and at the last possible second he crouched behind a Wraith Mortar Tank. The Covenant tank absorbed the Hunter's fuel rods, but the purple energy from the Ape cut straight through it. James fell onto his back and watched as the violet plasma sliced a neat line through the tank mere centimeters above his face plate.
"Time to die you big ugly Brute," James cried, unwittingly naming a creature that already had a name for him: Food.
James stood and backed away slowly from the tank, sweeping his weapon from left to right to check for any unwanted visitors. Then he dashed at the tank, when he was three meters away from it he leapt into the air and soared at what he now dubbed, The Brute, plasma rifle spitting liquid light at his enemy, while he shouted a war cry at his assailant. The Brute took a shot in the chest and howled in fury, then a shot in the arm, then a burst of three shots in the side, and finally a shot in the mouth that splashed up and engulfed its head in flame. As it toppled to the floor filling the hold with the stench of burning hair and meat, a group of Jackals came around the corner of a divide that separated the cargo and fighter bays. They saw James standing over the dead Brute and were overcome with fear, they let out a series of squawks and knelt in a rough phalanx formation. The overlapping shields made it nearly impossible to get in an accurate shot, so James did the next best thing.
He tossed his lone frag grenade at the rear of the group and watched in grim satisfaction as they all went up in an explosion of enough force to crush some of the birdlike creatures against three separate bulkheads, and tear the rest into a spray of gray body parts, and a purple haze of blood. James ran through the mist of alien fluid and rounded the corner that the alien troops had come out from behind, and met...
Nothing.
The cargo section of the docking bay was empty. James had single handedly wiped out more Covenant in the hold than there were Spartans like him in the universe.
The thought of the other Spartans kicked him into action. James ran to a glowing holographic panel and began searching for the schematics of the ship. Along with being the most resilient Spartan in the eyes of some, he was the greatest hacker among them in the minds of them all. James wasn't sure how to work the floating keypad, but decided to give it his best shot. James stretched out his finger and felt an overwhelming urge to touch a green symbol in the lower left corner of the screen, so he did.
In a rush of sound and a flash of light, a holographic representation of the ship hovered in the air in front of his faceplate. James gawked open mouthed at the apparition and vaguely wondered where on the alien Flagship he was, immediately a pulsing blue circle appeared on the far side of the map.
Okay, he thought, Now where is the bridge and how do I get there?
Almost as soon as the thought had crossed his mind a lance of blue light shot out from the holographic "him" and lashed through the floating passageways of the ship until it got to a point in the center of the vessel.
"Well, that was easy," Muttered the Spartan after taking time to memorize the route through the ship.
And with that he turned on his heel and double timed it out of the cargo bay and into the unknown corridors beyond.
A Spartan Names James- Part 3
Date: 23 October 2003, 3:41 AM
0945 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Epsilon Eridani System, Covenant Flagship above
Reach Naval Yard
The strange purple and pink metal of the Covenant flagship's corridors rushed past James' faceplate in a kaleidoscopic array of color so powerful that any normal person would have long since vomited and collapsed. But James was not a normal man.
James had been running through the ship for nearly an hour, encountering only scattered resistance that was causing him to become uneasy. He had figured that the Covenant wouldn't take the presence of an enemy in their ship this lightly, but maybe he had gotten lucky and killed all of the alien monstrosities in the cargo hold before they could get out a distress call. He sincerely hoped that that was the case, and that none of the creatures up ahead would know of his presence.
His luck didn't hold out for long.
Apparently, the Covenant had figured out his course to the bridge, which wasn't surprising since he had taken the route directly out of their ship's navigational computer. As the disoriented and battle weary soldier rounded the last corner to the control area, he had a run in with a Covenant welcoming committee.
Blue and green plasma reached out and touched him as scores of crimson needles raced at the olive green wall of his MJOLNIR suit like miniature Archer Missiles streaking from their pods. James dove back behind the cover of the bend in the hallway and rolled away from several needles that had happened to follow him around the kink in the corridor. He stood up only after the last of the needles had embedded themselves in the floor and burst in a shower of crystal. He had caught only a glimpse of the forces he was up against and sincerely wished that he had picked up the weapon that the Brute in the hold had favored. In the split second that he was exposed he saw a group of five Elites, eight Grunts, and six Jackals. All of them were clad in the black armor of Covenant Special Ops, and half of the Grunts were armed with Fuel Rod Cannons. James knew first hand the kind of damage that those guns could inflict, and flexed his mechanical arm in remembrance. Then an idea struck him.
Chief Mendez had always told the Spartans that when a group outmatches their opponent by a great number, they tend to underestimate them, and the last thing that they would expect would be a seemingly suicidal full frontal attack by a weakened and cornered adversary.
So, naturally, that was exactly what he did.
James let out a howl of fury as he lunged out from the cover of the wall and tossed two plasma grenades in quick succession. He ducked back behind the wall until he heard twin thumps and a great flash of blue light. Then he took off running. James ducked as the broken and battered body of a Grunt soared over him, trailing blue blood along the floor that would soon oxidize and turn a sour looking pinkish green. The Spartan reached up and grabbed the Grunt's Fuel Rod cannon by the barrel mostly out of instinct than thought and brought it down to bear on the unfortunate huddle of Elites before him. All of the shark-like beings noticed the imminent danger of the glowing green hole before them, but all acted differently. Three dove out of the way, two ran the opposite direction along the corridor, and the last stood silently and did the Covenant variation of crapping his pants.
A flash of green light lit up the corridor and took out all six, their limbs, blood, and internal organs were all reduced to multicolored smears on the wall. Without hesitation, or even allowing the alien rocket launcher to reload, he pulled out his plasma rifle and seared through a Jackal's chest cavity with a jet of flame. The creature collapsed and left James staring face to face with his final opponent, a hulking and misshapen Hunter.
James rejected the fear that coursed through him, and forcedly calmed himself. James baited the alien monster into swiping at him with its shield and then quickly sidestepped to the left in order to dodge the enormous metal guard. When he had a clear view of the creature's unprotected back, he formed the fingers of his metal hand into a knife blade with the palm down and plunged it through the orange flesh of the beast, gripping the slick spine and tearing. A piercing wail of pain was the only answer he recieved.
After making sure that he was alone, James turned and silently stalked to the door leading to the bridge. After bracing himself for the horrors that he would surely meet beyond, he pushed the manual control for the door and leapt inside as soon as it had opened high enough to allow his passage. James looked around and saw to his relief that he was alone in the cavernous interior of the bridge.
But on closer inspection he realized that he was most definitely not alone.
The conduit leading to the control platform stretched up nearly to the roof and James saw the air up on top of the hovering disk shimmer as a blue light sword lanced from where the Ship Master's hand would be. A deafening roar filled the chamber as the highly decorated Elite taunted his enemy in a tongue unknown to the human. James lifted his plasma rifle to the prone position and was greeted by the sound he least wanted to hear at that moment.
For the second time in five minutes James wished he had remembered to grab the Brute's weapon as he heard the sputter of a completely drained plasma battery.
A Spartan Named James- Part 4
Date: 31 October 2003, 4:55 AM
Sorry for the screw up in the title of Part 3,if you need an excuse, go to the comments page of that section. If you need to find it, look for- A Spartan Names James
1001 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Epsilon Eridani System, Covenant Frigate above
Reach Naval Yard
James was screwed. He knew it, the Elite knew it, and nothing could change his fate.
But instead of coldly accept his demise like any normal person would, James rejected it. The armored warrior knew that he was not destined to die here, not above the skies of his adoptive home, and not without a fight, even to the death at the hands of a savage alien. Yes, he would fight, but not for him, not for Reach. He would fight only for his first planet, the sprawling metropolis, the mix of city and ecology, the domain of human architectural marvel and natural wonders- wonders spanning the ages from Ancient Sumeria to the time of the first United Nations.
He would fight for Earth, and no alien monstrosity would keep him from his goal.
James lowered him dry rifle and knelt to the ground, gathering his courage as he slid his combat knife from the sheath on his shoulder and let the gathering adrenaline flow from his enhanced lymph nodes to course through him. He was filled with a great calm and knew with a certainty that had not been there before that he would be killed by this Elite.
A second earsplitting cry filled the cavernous interior of the bridge. James pivoted his head up just in time to see the glowing sword of the seemingly intangible abomination leap from the control platform and crash to the metal floor with the force of a Heavy MAC round. As the corrugated floor cracked the Elite's Active Camouflage shimmered and died. The impact with the ground had jarred it loose from the interface in the back of his armor.
Almost before he landed James pushed off of the ground with all of the strength he could coax out of his enhanced quad, and calf muscles. James soared over the head of the creature, an olive green blur, and as the creature swiveled its head around in confusion James was already stealthily stripping a reserve plasma sword from the transparent wall of the Control Station.
James held the gel like purple handle in his hand, and with a soft squeeze sent tendrils of light flaring around his left hand; securing the deadly blue flame to his wrist. With his combat knife held in his mechanical hand and the sword sticking out into space like a continuation of himself, he was ready for battle.
"Hey ugly, are you ready for this shit?" He cried. His stone cold exterior finally cracked as he looked at the freak below him, "Because I'm sure as hell ready for you."
And with that, James charged the unsuspecting alien before it could even turn around. It looked to James like a sure kill, but just as he prepared to plunge his steel knife up to the hilt into the animal's skull the Elite ducked and sidestepped away from him. The armored soldier spun in less than a heartbeat and blocked a potentially lethal strike from his enemy.
"You want to play dirty? Then lets get ready for some pain bitch!" shrieked James.
The gargantuan Elite was beginning to feel the inklings of fear wrap their icy tendrils around his heart as he stared at the faceless screaming alien. NO matter what he did, the primate would always be one step ahead of him. He swung a vicious blow at the head of the human, but missed as the man rolled out from under him. When the human stopped in a crouch he lashed out at the Elite's legs, the Elite caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and jumped into the air in the nick of time, pulling his legs up with him. He swung his light sword right and left, vertically and horizontally, but to no avail. Though he was one of the most respected members of his caste due to his skill with the sword, his honor could by no means win out against pure tenacity coupled with the lust for blood that had possessed the Spartan.
The Elite threw one last blow at James, but couldn't keep his balance and stumbled. That was all the opening James required, he swung his sword and knife simultaneously, jabbing seven inches of steel into the Elite's faceplate as he plunged his five foot blade of fire into the chest of his opponent. The Elite made a pitiful gurgling noise as he slumped to the floor, twitching uncontrollably in violent spasms.
James looked down over his fallen foe and unclenched his hand. The tendrils of azure fire disappeared almost instantly, and as his visor brightened to compensate for the shift in light he felt the thrill of triumph. He rejoiced over the body of the shark-like creature he had slain, searching his mind for the perfect snappy one liner to whisper as a disrespectful eulogy for his adversary. He was answered with one that he had heard during training on Reach years earlier, on one of the few instances Chief Mendez had let the recruits listen to music.
James smiled and said, "Hell yeah bitch, now go make me a sandwich."
* * * * * * *
Twenty minutes later, James had hacked into the Covenant battle net and reconfigured the Covenant flight controls to his personal taste. After locking and sealing all doors and blast doors leading into the bridge, James opened all of the other doors in the ship and, with a sadistic grin locked firmly in place vented all oxygen out of the ship. Even though the Grunts left on the ship carried their own Methane rigs he had even planned their deaths for them as well. James would leave the Grunts to their own devices as the ship vented oxygen, but soon after that, he would depressurize the entire floating hulk. This would leave all of the Grunts to die a horribly painful and extremely messy death.
As James prepared to send a message out to the remaining fragments of the fleet, a small piece of data caught his eye. As though placed there by a higher being, a single word shone out at him from a computer screen. In perfect English a word hung on the monitor-
-PROPHET
"It looks like my mission ended before it even began," James muttered as he frantically typed commands into the ship's database, again tapping into the map system. Where is the ship's Prophet, he thought. Just as before, a small glowing light representing him shone out of the hologram, then a second one flashed about halfway through the ship in a small room, James guessed it was the Prophet's living quarters.
"You're mine," he whispered quietly, remembering the other Spartans who were meant to help him complete his task. Brothers and sisters he had grown up with who were probably all dead now. "You're mine," he repeated, even quieter than before.
James sealed the Prophet's cabin and contacted FleetCOM over the Covenant transmissions network. He was answered almost immediately by Admiral Stanforth's Chief Aide.
"This is a priority Alpha channel, please respect the significance of the COM channel code names and sign off unless this is an emergency."
James ignored the informal order and replied, "This is Spartan James-003 reporting in to Admiral Stanforth, I have taken a Covenant Flagship hostage and may have captured a Prophet in the process, request Slipstream coordinates directing me to a safe harbor to deliver the cargo."
After a short pause Admiral Stanforth spoke, "It's good to hear your voice Spartan, we are all amazed at your great feat you have accomplished, but before you leave would you mind helping us cover the escape of the other ships?"
"Escape? Sir, I...I don't understand?"
"All ships have been ordered to proceed with out system jumps." At saying this Stanforth sighed. "Reach has fallen, son."
"Acknowledged, Sir. Proceeding out system once all other forces have evacuated the area, Spartan James-003 over and out."
James sighed and went to begin the sequencing and launch coordinates of the ship's plasma torpedoes when his eyes raked over something odd.
On the map of the ship, the dot of light representing the Prophet was no longer sitting in its sealed quarters. It was standing right behind him.
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