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The Renegade Marines
Posted By: pest/swingamajig<car_radical@yahoo.co.uk>
Date: 19 June 2006, 2:37 pm


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Hi fans :D Its been a long time since my last post, here is a little side story (hope its good!)

       This story is set on board The Pillar Of Autumn, just after Captain Keyes and Cortana have discovered Halo. A slightly worse for wear but intact group of Marines rests in the mess hall of the ship, attending their battle wounds and busily putting fresh shells into their shotguns.
       A passer-by pretends not to notice their presence and briskly slips into the nearest exit, never making a sound. No one knew how they actually escaped the fireball of Reach and did not question how, for the only answer anyone knew for sure was that they were the most hardened and determined group of Marines on the ship.
       Rarely resting or pausing to breathe, the group of five were self-titled as the "Renegades" even though they would never betray the rest of their kind. It wouldn't be past them however to yell abuse at their fellow Marines after just rescuing them a group of Covenant. Each of them was deadly serious about eliminating the Covenant, to the extent that they joined the Corps out of free will and on no pay.
       The leader of the Renegades was Bill, who sported the freshest, most serious looking wounds, smoked like a chimney and would stab someone if they so much as looked at him, except maybe his platoon or the Captain. He had respect for men in authority.
       The others had enough scars between them to outnumber everyone else onboard and each never spoke off the battlefield. When someone, bravely, addressed one of them, Bill answered for them and usually with a swear word or two.

       "This is the Captain. All combat teams prepare for boarding craft. Good luck, Keyes out." The intercom in the mess hall was almost like an electric shock for the group. Bill stood up and raised his Shotgun up to eye level and half ran to the door, tucking two pistols in his belt as he did so. The other four, almost simultaneously stood and followed him, but the small one called Gus trailed the pack sporting a limp. He wasn't one to complain.
       It wasn't long before the ship began to shudder quite violently; Bill assumed it was the boarding craft, after all, no human vessel had ever been reported to be boarded before being destroyed. However, being who they were, they weren't going to ask questions.
       It wasn't long before they came across two stray Grunts in a hallway. Bill took the closest by the neck and silently strangled it with his gun; whilst the other was stabbed in the back by one of the others' butchers' knives. The squealing Grunt fell backwards on the knife and by its own weight it left him impaled on the floor, the tip of the knife poking through its eye. The attacker thrust his hand into the Grunt's face and ripped the knife out of it. A little wipe on the ship wall cleaned it off to his satisfaction and with that they continued through the hallway.
      By now the straggler, Gus, had caught his comrades up only to see them sprinting ahead, apparently unconcerned with their teammate's difficulties. They veered left. Right. Left, which would have thoroughly confused many of the crew, but these guys had motion sensors and HUDs, a little trophy they stole from the Spartan testing facility back on Reach. Soon they reached the top floor of a circular area with a staircase in the centre. Ahead of them were a smattering of Covenant Elites and a large assortment of Grunts accompanying their leaders, all firing furiously at half a dozen Marines on the bottom floor, trying valiantly to defend their position.
      Bill waved two of the others round to the left side of the staircase, whilst he and the tall guy Ross took the left flank. Luckily they hadn't been spotted yet. Not that that worried them anyway. Ross, thanks to his size, leant up and mercilessly smacked a nearby Elite in the back of its head with his Shotgun and the injured Elite fell forwards and off the platform, smacking its head on the staircase and bending it backwards. Ross watched as the force of the impact snapped the neck and the body fell onto the bottom floor, its head eerily lopsided.
      "Hey there's some reinforcements up there! Watch your fire marines", came a voice from the bottom floor of the staircase.
      "Shut it marine, goddammit! I give the orders around here. Watch your fire men."
      Meanwhile, Ross and Bill had alerted the remainder of the Covenant to their presence and they wasted no time in blasting them away with their Shotguns. They both shot a Red Elite before it had time to fire on them and it went down with a dozen tiny pellets in its gut. The only forces left were Grunts, and they ran. Screaming "Leader dead! Run away!" they escaped down the staircase out of sight. Bill let them go to see how the other two Renegades were doing. A furious Elite was clobbering one of them, but his strong armour was absorbing most of the damage. The other was busy kicking a Grunt off the edge and on hearing his friend's distress; he circled round and hit the Elite in the back. It was instantly floored.
      All of a sudden the firing stopped. All four Renegades ran down the stairs to see that the rest of the Marines had killed the Grunts, suffering few casualties. Ross gave one of them a kick in his shin whilst he was massaging it, and leaving him crying in pain, the continued on, still unconcerned of the whereabouts of Gus.

(should be a part 2, but that's it, then I'm back to "The Last Halo" series again!)





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