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Desecrating Providence (Prologue Part 1)
Posted By: Marty<duffym@gmail.com>
Date: 12 January 2004, 5:38 AM
Read/Post Comments
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Desecrating Providence (Prologue Part 1)
This story follows a contingent of Marines who escape a second assault on Sigma Octanus IV, and, not wanting to lead the Covenant to Earth, or the remaining inner colonies, follow the footsteps of the Pillar of Autumn by cruising towards the star formations illustrated on Sigma Octanus' rock formations.
Comments'd appreciated, but I'm not demandin'. ;)
PROLOGUE
1200 Hours, September 3, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Sigma Octanus IV, United Nations Space Command Alpha HQ, outside the ruins of C'te d'Azur
Colonel John Murray sighed with frustration and allotted himself a five-minute break to calm his nerves. The fit and crisply uniformed officer eased back into his office chair and rubbed his bloodshot eyes with his clean and manicured hands. After almost two months of time, the young field commander was still far from quelling what remained of the alien forces on the planet. The officer had no idea how he was going to explain the latest incident to his boss. That man, General Niccoli, commander of Sigma Octanus IV SATCOM, while complacent as a military leader, would, nonetheless, be furious about this particular guerilla attack.
A convoy of maintenance personnel en route to a temporary firebase took a wrong turn and ended up stuck in the sands of "the gilded beach," a beautiful, but hostile area just a few kilometers from the eerily dark and ominous nuclear crater upon which, before the invasion a couple months prior, had been the beautiful coastal city of C'te d'Azur. All twenty of the soldiers in the convoy were killed by soldiers of the alien religious alliance - known as the Covenant - as they tried to return to their starting point on foot. From what the recovery detail could gather, it indeed seemed as though the monstrous "Hunter" breed of Covenant were involved in the slaughter; gigantic footprints and leveled jungle brush surrounded the scene of the ambush.
"John!"
The normally cool and collected Major Adur Imam startled Murray: chief assistant field commander.
"What is it major?" The colonel inquired with worry in his voice.
"There was an attack repelled at grid thirteen by twenty-seven! But something was very wrong about it."
"What?"
"They engaged Grunts."
Murray suddenly felt his heart race, and for the first time in many weeks, he didn't want his job anymore; the "Grunt" race of aliens had depleted what remained of their cache of methane air supply almost immediately after the UN fleet prevailed in the intense starship battle above the planet two months prior. The presence of the Grunts indicated that the resistance was being reinforced - from space.
Get me an alpha priority uplink with the frigate Alliance, now!" the Colonel demanded.
"Right away, sir." Major Imam quickly left to carry out his order.
The Colonel brushed his long fingers through his thick black hair and sighed. He was not naive enough to wait for the Major to return; he knew that the Alliance either got itself out of Dodge, or that it was a molten hunk of titanium in orbit. General Niccoli, who had sworn by a rumor of heavy combat near Epsilon Eridani, now appeared to be correct: the Covenant were invading the Inner Colonies with full force. Truth be told, Murray had always known it was only a matter of time before the Covenant returned to and destroyed Sigma Octanus IV. No matter, he thought to himself, time to find a way out of here.
Imam rushed back to Colonel Murray's office, speaking as he approached.
"Unable to contact Alliance, sir, but our Artificial Intelligence computer has detected Covenant ships in high orbit, and..."
The back door of the Colonel's office was swinging open and shut; Murray was gone.
"... And enemy drop ships are inbound." Imam told himself, while looking down to his shaking hand.
Murray's cowardly escape from his own headquarters paid off. As the Colonel sped away from Alpha HQ in his M12 Warthog Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, he saw and heard the ominous and frightening plumes of covenant mortar fire smash the base's defensive barriers; it was only a matter of time before the whole area was infested with thousands of Covenant.
"Watch out!" screamed a young Private that Murray enlisted as his warthog gunner.
The Colonel didn't have time to slow the velocity of the three-ton Warthog, but he was able to brace himself for a collision.
A loud, thunderous boom occurred and caused the olive drab Warthog to nearly flip end-over-end. The quick thinking Murray managed to move his hand to the vehicle's console, optimize the LRV for front-wheel drive, and gun the vehicle into reverse. Soon after, the rear wheels of the angular truck slammed to the ground. The young woman manning the Warthog's Anti-Air missile system had ejected herself and flew through the air. Another Warthog trying to escape the base was running parallel with the Colonel's, and quickly sped up just as the Private jumped into its path.
Murray survived the bone-rattling impact and regained his senses just as the Private who was manning his missile rack flew through the air like an airplane in a hopeless spin. The Private collided with the ground, but failed to move after that. Another powerful M12, albeit with a significant dent in the front, screamed by with a Covenant vehicle in hot pursuit. The craft chasing the Warthog was a "Ghost," a fast, but relatively unprotected combat hovercraft armed with two plasma weapons. The Colonel quickly engaged manual fire for the Warthog's AA system. Unsure if it would work, Murray targeted a missile at the Ghost hovercraft, which had now caught up with and shot the pilot of the other Warthog with its mounted weapons. He didn't know if the missile would detonate at such a close proximity, or if it would even fire for the matter, but he ducked his head, covered his ears, and fired the sonic missile. The projectile moved with such velocity that seemed to melt into the purple, piscine Covenant attack vehicle. The craft expanded, rippled and bubbled for a split second before detonating in a massive blue-white fireball; the flesh of the Grunt pilot was instantly fried and the partially flailing skeletal structure of the creature quickly scattered away as the flaming hover craft settled into the ground well into the jungle foliage off the side of the road.
Obviously, Murray's Warthog was about as useful as the UNSC frigate Alliance against an entire Covenant fleet. He sprinted, M6D pistol in hand, towards the other Warthog with hope that it would still run. But when he reached the Warthog, the Colonel was met with the unfortunate task of prying a dead Corporal from the driver's seat of the damaged vehicle: that was the bad news. The good news was that the motor of the truck was running, which meant Murray still had a chance of escaping.
Murray began hypocritically reprimanding the dead soldier's driving.
"What kind of soldier just runs down one of their own like that anyway, Corporal? And I suppose you were just running scared, trying to get away from whatever that thing was that I hit."
The Colonel slowly pivoted to see what exactly it was that he collided with.
A lame, but nonetheless living Hunter was pinned under Murray's Warthog, its lower half was bleeding orange venom in such volumes that the Colonel could not understand how the monster was still living. With a quick leap to the side Murray just barely missed a radioactive, green colored projectile from the behemoth monster's fuel-rod cannon. The shot vaporized the body of the Warthog's driver and flew through the passenger side of the vehicle before exploding with explosive force against a thick jungle tree.
Murray jumped over the Warthog's rear fender, took control of its three-barreled Light Anti-Aircraft Gun, and quickly swiveled it towards the wounded Hunter. The Colonel did not aim at the Covenant monster; he aimed at the wrecked Warthog's AA missile pods and pulled back the trigger. Several super-sonic explosions quickly coincided with each other and popcorn like explosions ravaged the Warthog. A plume of red-hot metal and fire enveloped the surrounding area. As the Vehicle ripped itself apart, the pinned hunter screamed in a low pitched howl and instantly died as metal shards of the truck twisted and cut into the massive creature with each missile detonation. Satisfied that the Hunter was dead, Murray climbed into the driver's seat of his new Warthog and zoomed towards Alpha HQ's airfield. He was happy that the Hunter removed the dead driver for him.
The now dirt-covered Major Imam was personally leading a fire-team of soldiers who were trying to escape from Alpha HQ. The Grunt aliens, with their orange colored armor and plasma pistols, were tiptoeing into the base's perimeter and showering the prefabricated military structures with random fire. Despite all of this, the major still thought his team had a chance to accomplish their mission.
The Major thought the Marines and the citizens of Sigma Octanus IV were as good as dead. It was the officer's duty, however, to prevent the Covenant from obtaining the Office of Naval Intelligence's classified information, including, but not limited to, the navigational coordinates to the most important planet: Earth. Because of this, Imam and his small band were hard at work trying to reach a Prowler-class corvette named the Oedipus hidden somewhere in the jungle brush across from the base. This stealthy star ship was equipped with ONI's best technology and contained a large encyclopedia of classified information.
Rock, the United Nation Marine battalion's class C Artificial Intelligence personality, was temporarily downloaded into a cylinder-shaped data pod being wielded by the Major. The AI had been in contact with Imam on the status of the situation at large; it was Rock who alerted the fire-team of the wealth of knowledge that was vulnerable on board the Oedipus.
The only question on the major's mind was: Why was that stealth ship left there?
"Major, where is the Colonel?" asked a frightened Corporal.
"He's dead son, forget about him. Don't worry; we're going to get out of here." Imam, who thought nobody was leaving the planet alive, felt a spike of guilt strike his heart.
"Yes sir!" the Corporal responded with a new found sense of confidence.
The group couldn't proceed, as they were pinned outside of a maintenance garage near the end of the base. A large Covenant Wraith tank was pounding the area. The vaguely beetle shaped war machines contained a magnetic battery filled with ionized gas. Using a series of adjustable magnetic coils, the tanks were capable of projecting a large bubble of super hot plasma at any target using simple projectile motion. In addition to these tanks, a group of tall, blue-armored Covenant Elite warriors were prowling the battlefield for targets.
"We need a distraction," the Major realized "any ideas?"
Nearly all the soldiers held their heads down, except for an older Sergeant, who jumped to his feet.
"Sir, I have an idea."
"Let's hear it." Imam was open to suggestions, but unprepared for the noncom's blunt response.
"Run!" the Sergeant bellowed.
The entire fire team followed the noncom as he started a mad dash across the yard towards the jungle foliage. Major Imam didn't understand what was happening until he himself began to run, and saw exactly what he had been looking for: a distraction.
About one hundred meters from the fire-team's position, a humongous, sixteen ton Scorpion battle tank was making a suicidal run towards an armored Covenant platoon. Luckily for the Marine tank crew, the Covenant armor, in the form of four bright purple Wraith tanks could not adjust their powerful primary weapon to hit the Scorpion as it sped through the Covenant infantry screen and towards their positions. At point blank range the Scorpion blasted a Wraith, and the sabot round managed to pierce through the Covenant fighting vehicle's main hover engine. Plumes of blue-tinted smoke incinerated the terrain below the Wraith as it spun wildly out of control. Its driver - trying to regain control - cut the power from the main engine. This action, however, caused the Wraith's sharp bow to slam into the ground and sink partially into the muddy, jungle soil. When the Covenant pilot activated the tank's emergency engine, the hovercraft was trapped in the mud, and as a result, the mighty Covenant war craft began to slowly perform a front-end flip. Imam's fire-team was making their way to the jungle without being fired upon even once; the entire Covenant contingent was watching in awe at the tank battle in the distance.
Captain Albert "Renegade" Rochester put the petal to the metal, ran down an entire file of tall, armor-clad "Elite" Covenant foot soldiers. The short but loud mouthed officer prayed to himself - for a change - that his Scorpion battle tank could get enough speed for his daring maneuver to work. Lieutenant Madeline Moore, the tank gunner seated next to him, was hard at work firing the Scorpion's 50-caliber machine gun at the new Elite Covenant soldiers that were wielding automatic plasma rifles.
"Did you really need to run over that one? It's more fun shootin' them!"
"Just keep firing. Clear that infantry screen as much as possible." replied the maverick officer.
"Fine," answered the pessimistic Lieutenant, "Just don't get us killed."
Rochester scoffed and replied in a witty, but daring fashion.
"Lieutenant, if I wanted a back-seat driver I would have brought an AI with me to handle the turret. Now get back to work and keep that enemy infantry off our backs!"
Rochester knew it was going to be close - too close. Unlike most Scorpion drivers in the UNSC, Rochester loved being outnumbered and outclassed by the Covenant's armor. During the Human-Covenant war, it was indeed a rare treat where a ground engagement in which the opposing forces both had armor on hand would take place; usually Special Forces would take out the Wraiths before Scorpion divisions were even brought planet-side - or else the Covenant would bombard the planet rather than waste some of their precious tanks. Unfortunately, the major thought, the latter seems to take place more often.
The remaining three Wraiths on the battlefield were moving away from each other - they were flanking the Scorpion.
"Good," Captain Rochester said "I'll take you out one at a time."
One of the three Wraith tanks was rapidly closing in from the left flank. To the right flank, however, was an even greater danger. The Wraith battle-tank that Lieutenant Moore had so eloquently disabled had flipped completely over its bow and was falling back to the ground. To further multiply the danger of his Scorpion being crushed and destroyed by the massive Wraith, Rochester took note that the tank had a plasma bomb fully charged in its turret.
"Lieutenant, when that puppy hits the ground everything five meters from it is going to be vaporized!"
Moore nervously whined and did what she could to keep the tank's turret low enough to avoid hitting the falling Covenant vehicle.
The left-flanking Wraith closed in towards the Scorpion. Its sleek and shinning surface gave it the appearance of some sort of exotic jewelry. A plasma-bomb was fully charged and the Covenant pilot had a clear shot. Unfortunately, it was not clear to the Covenant pilot that his "perfect spot," just five meters behind the Human Scorpion, was exactly where his platoon compatriot's tank was about to collide and turn into an explosion of ionized gas and white-hot fire. As the Covenant driver prepared to clear his gun, a collision alarm sounded...
Imam was in utter disbelief at what he was seeing. His fire-team was well into the jungle by now: searching for the Oedipus, but he decided to stay behind to watch. The Major knew he wasn't going to be leaving Sigma Octanus IV, so he figured: why not go down seeing a human tank-commander completely outclass his or her Covenant counter-parts? Imam watched as the Scorpion - after having obliterated two Covenant tanks - swiveled its turret and blasted away yet another Covenant tank. Only one alien vehicle remained, but its pilot had turned himself around and was trying to leave the combat area. The Scorpion gave pursuit and easily caught up with the hovering killer. The Wraith tried to pivot and deliver a killer blow to the Human "hell on wheels," but it was too slow; the Scorpion snow-plowed the Covenant mortar-tank and pinned it under four sets of massive treads. Covenant grunts with small arms were taking pot shots at the Scorpion, but the battle-tank, with its class-A titanium battle-plate, was unstoppable against the light weapons.
With an armored platoon out of action, the major knew that the Covenant would have to regroup before mounting another assault on the base; that tank had bought his men the time needed to find the Oedipus and interface with its controls. Later - if there was a later - Imam knew he owed whoever was behind the wheel of that Scorpion a drink.
"Captain," began Lieutenant Moore. "That was the most brilliant maneuvering I've ever seen."
"Yeah, thanks." Rochester sarcastically acknowledged.
"You don't sound too happy." The Lieutenant stated, with a hint of guilt on her voice.
"It's not your fault Moore, but it's not going to be discussed now."
"No sir, tell me!"
"Lieutenant, we need to get to the airfield on foot!"
"So?" the Lieutenant responded.
"Don't you see? We're going to have to leave this beautiful machine behind!"
The young lieutenant laughed for the first time since the nightmare of a battle began.
"I was the one doing all the shooting!" She criticized.
The two officers abandoned their Scorpion tank, but not before Captain Rochester paid his respects by leaving his UNSC arm-patch on the front-left track pod of the tank. Armed with commandeered Covenant plasma rifles and grenades, the pair made their way towards the narrow jungle path that led straight to the airfield. As the two began their long run, plasma pistol rounds cracked passed their ears.
Rochester took a hit on the back of the knee and collapsed to the ground. He could feel his skin blister and moisten, and he felt as though he had a forth degree burn; he wouldn't be walking until he could make it to a hospital. He did keep consciousness long enough to see Moore dive to the ground firing a plasma rifle with precision. As he became lightheaded, Rochester prayed she was as good with a rifle as she was with a turret.
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