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Pride and Honor Part 1
Posted By: Tom Murphy<tompinkypoint5@hotmail.com>
Date: 03 January 2002, 12:14 am
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Three Weeks After the Escape From Halo
I am just a marine. One person. Easily killed, armed with a pistol and an assault rifle. We expect to win the battle? Maybe. The Master Chief has taken command of all military activity. He has drawn out and attack plan on a Covenant ship which the humans nicknamed the Ramos. One hundred thousand Marines, and one Spartan II. That's almost all the people have left in terms of a military. Even after a worldwide threat of destruction the different countries or types of government cannot find a way to come together to fight. Our numbers are weak. Instead of fighting together as one, we fight separate, as many. Its no wonder we're losing. The covenant has all sorts of species fighting us, small and big, smart and stupid. However we cannot fight together because a difference in skin or government? Yes. That is why the Covenant will destroy mankind.
They fight under one religion; we fight under many different ones. But for the sake of survival, can we not put this behind us? Many countries have allied, mostly the stronger ones, and on the eastern side of the Earth, but still it is not enough. I will die fighting and they will die arguing. I am an American, and have been drafted for the Marines. I am an American and did not choose to fight, but am glad I now have the chance. I always had the chance, but would not take it unless I was pushed to do so. I will die in this battle. I know that. But when I do, I will die with more honor than those pigs that squabble with each other back on earth. The master chief is coming to speak to us now, and out of the one hundred thousand of us that stand here in lines facing him, we all stand proud.
"Marines!" the Master chief said emotionally, "In one day, you will all go into battle. You help prove to those alien bastards that humans are better than they are. That you are better. Instead of simply destroying their ship we will claim it. We will steal their weaponry, we will steal their armor, and we will steal their pride!" Cheering sprung out from the thousands of marines and the Chief waited for them to finish. "How will we do this? You may be asking yourself. Well, we will have the Earth's most skilled pilots circle this ship to confuse them and try to dismantle any ship weapons for us. Then when they are concentrated on the small fighters ships we will burst in through the side using a one-way airlock shield. We burst through all at once fend them off. After this they will probably try to do the same, attack us as a huge mob, and as soon as you see them do this, chuck every grenade you have. By this time we will have won. And then, we can figure out how their weapons work, how their ships work, and most off all, how the vehicles work." Another cheer echoed out through the room but I didn't cheer. Instead I stared up at the Chief with extreme admiration. Although genetically enhanced, he was the type of man we were fighting for. He stood looking prouder and less afraid then any of us. Still in full armor but without his helmet, his black hair lay flat upon his head and his chin pointed straight out, and they eyes showed he was more than willing to die for his world. Just like the rest of us. I took out my family heirloom, which I brought with me everywhere. An American quarter from the 20th century which hand the words, E Pluribus Unum inscribed on it, which was Latin for "Out of Many, One."
I am not a afraid.
One day later I found myself inside the biggest transport ship I'd ever seen. There were no seats and there were perhaps twenty-five thousand marines inside this ship. All of whom were standing looking for something to hold onto as the ship bounced and rocked wildly during the passage through space. It should have been smooth- but for some reason it wasn't. It must some sort of space turbulence because we were not being shot at. I pushed my way through the crowds of people and made my way to the small round window. Outside was a huge dark purple ship about three times the size of our drop ship completely engulfed in the blackness of space. Our ship was cloaked so it had no idea of our arrival, the only way the could spot us is by noticing the slight blur cloaking makes. The bumping stopped and we gently slid past each star. The Covenant ship drew closer and closer, and then I noticed it was firing, but not at us. But at the hardly visible small fighter ships. Bullets flew through space unaffected by gravity or any force and rammed themselves against the enemy guns.
Hot pink plasma shot out of the enemy turret guns and flung through space barely missing one the fighter ships. Two more fighter ships appeared around the side of the Covenant War Cruiser and commenced firing at the guns. Then there was a small 'pop' as the Covenant gun flew into pieces sending a few small and short-lived balls of flame into space. A bullet shell gently tapped against the window and then floated away.
The small fighters kept attacking and our transports moved in quietly and stealthily. The dim lighting of the transport made it easier to see outside and harder to see inside. I knew we would be heading in soon and so I had to think of a way for me to survive. I looked through the nameless faces and saw a man with a smooth face a dark brown eyes. His helmet was strapped on tightly and his head up proud. He toted his gun across his chest and kept the butt between his elbow and ribcage. I decided I would follow him. He looked like he knew what he was doing.
I looked back out the window and saw the Covenant War Cruiser had tripled in size as we had neared it, and I could see a man floating over to the side of the Cruiser attached to the wire, with small square machine blinking green in his right hand. He placed it onto the Cruiser and began pushing buttons. He then pushed hard backward with his feet floated back to the transport quickly. Less than a moment later the side of the cruiser exploded sending balls of flame everywhere his soon curled up into themselves and disappeared. Then a bright bluish screen covered the newly made hole and the transport began moving quickly towards it.
I looked back at the people who started to look scared and some were puking onto the other Marines shoes. Screams of regret shot out through the ship but I just stood, with my head up, saying nothing. I stepped over to man I had chosen as a sort of partner.
Roughly two minutes later a loud mechanical sound filled my ears and the transports doors started opening. Immediately I heard blasts of plasma and screams of pain. Then, bullets shots. Then a huge tidal wave of people came flowing through the doors, me included, and began fiercely fending away the Grunts and few Elites. I looked back when I got out and saw the four other transport ships and the thousands of men flowing out of the too. Then a plasma ball flew by my waist and I propped my Assault Rifle onto my shoulder and began firing, being careful not to hit the marines in front of me. We never stopped moving forward or firing and the Grunts squeals or pain never stopped. The marine's screams were much fewer than that of the covenant. Shortly after, we had defeated the first wave. That when we were ordered by the Master Chief to hold our positions. We stood waiting for sometime, in utter silence. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of my face. My hair was damp under my helmet and my heart was pounding against my chest. The suspense was almost unbearable. Then I heard a sound. It was a faint 'clink' at first but it slowly grew in volume. Until I saw an entire army or at least sixty five thousand Covenant about thirty feet in front of us. For a few moments we just stared at each other until I decided to get out my pistol and try to snipe them, even though the zoom was weak. I looked down at my hand as I reached into my shirt to take out the pistol and when I had it out I heard the guy next to me whisper something in total and absolute terror.
"Oh shit-"
"What is it?" I asked, from his behavior even I was a little shaken.
"It hunters," he whispered and began walking backward in terror bumping and tripping as he went.
I looked back at the Covenant. Now it was my turn to be afraid. One line of hunters stood in front of the Covenant standing upright. They must have been twelve feet. They were a somewhat light shade of blue and held a huge metal gray I felt like puking. Instead I just looked up at the bright fluorescent light and tried to think about something else. I thought of the chief, and how great he was. How he managed to stop the Flood. The deadly group of aliens who could have wiped out the entire universe, how he saved hundreds of marines from sure death, back on the destroyed Halo.
A loud roar from one of the hunters interrupted my thoughts as they leaned over and got into battle stance. I saw an elite in front of them all push his arm forward signaling an attack. At the same time the chief yelled to us to chuck every grenade we owned. But before we could huge green mortars flew through the open air into the first line of marines who yelled and the fell over dead. I felt a drop of blood smack against my face and I brought my hand up to clean my forehead. That's when we got our chance; I pulled my frag grenades out and flung it through the ship. It landed next to one of the Hunters with and he rolled away just before it exploded. Seconds later thousands more grenades went sailing over my head and landed with multiple metal clinks on the ground near the Covenant, mostly near the Hunters. Screams of death floated through the air but when the smoke cleared it looked as though we hadn't killed a single Hunter. This did not falter our hope though and another hundred thousand grenades were flung into the air. Still no Hunters were dead. Each marine had two grenades left. And after the third grenade was used there were seven dead Hunters on the ground. After the fourth there were fifteen dead Hunters corpses on the ground. That left five more. One turned around and began what looked like speaking to the Captain of the Covenant. I had heard that on shot with a bullet on the orange spot of a Hunter would kill him immediately.
So I whipped zoomed in with my pistol, aimed at the unprotected orange spot, and fired. With a small grunt the Hunter fell over dead. I looked around for another one that was turned around and there were none so instead I looked for a plasma grenade from a dead Covenant body, found two and chucked one at a Hunter. He saw it coming though and brought up his shield to protect himself, and the blue ball bounced off his metal shield, and exploded hurting no one. I looked for a more vulnerable target and saw one charging up his mortar. I aimed as best I could and tossed the grenade. It landed directly on his head and stuck there, but not before he let his mortar out which came and killed five Marines with deafening strength. When the grenade exploded on him, the hunter died. That left only three more. The chief shouted at us all for attention, and then told us we were to charge with full strength at the Covenant, using any grenades, ammo, armor, or shield we could find. And then he pushed his arm through the air and that was the signal for us all to start.
At this every last Marine, even those who backed away in horror at the site of the Hunters began running forth waiting for a chance to kill.
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