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The Siege of Zion Base; Part One: Mission - Chapters 1 & 2
Posted By: Scimitarex<scimitarex@omegacell.net>
Date: 13 February 2004, 7:23 PM
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Part One: Mission - Chapter One
0900 Hours, December 6, 2552
Sinai Star System, UNSC Test
Facility, code name: Zion, planet
Genesis
John awoke lying on his back in a hospital bed. He felt somewhat disoriented and blinked his eyes a few times to get the blur out of his vision. He sat up in bed and stretched his aching muscles, then climbed out of the bed. He was wearing a hospital robe, barely enough to cover him completely due to his size.
He got up and cued the PERSCOM on the wall near the door. He waited a few seconds until finally Dr. Mathis' voice sounded through the COM system.
She sounded nervous when she answered, "Oh, you're awake. I'll notify Cortana at once. She's been busy with some analysis about Covenant ship deployments in this region and has been waiting for you to wake up."
"Thank you," said John, and turned the COM off. Why had she sounded so overtly nervous? It wasn't a good sign whatever had caused it.
John saw his uniform sitting folded on the table in the middle of the room. He went over and got dressed and left the laboratory looking for someone to report to when Cortana called on the PERSCOM, "Master Chief, please report to examination room three in the east wing of this building, I have something I wish to show you."
Without waiting for a response she had cut the channel. Something was definitely afoot, but it didn't seem to be dangerous so he continued on to examination room three.
# # #
Ebyo was astonished at what the High Prophet of Retribution had told him. So much so that he was fearful that he had been in some dream or nightmare. He had been told that the only reason he had not been executed upon return from the Ascendant Justice was because the High Prophet himself had spared him. Many in his sect had wanted him dead because he had fled battle, but the High Prophet had spared him because he saw the wisdom in Ebyo's reasoning for abandoning the ship. Having fought and survived battle with the Immortal One, his information was invaluable and worth a little dishonors if it meant getting it to his superiors. Ebyo didn't quite know whether to feel grateful, flattered, or simply reassured that his decision had been the right one.
The High Prophet had told him that he would be called upon within two hours to talk again about the assignement that the High Prophet had given him. He was anxious to find out what the Prophet had in mind for someone like him.
After two hours he was escorted by two Brutes, members of a race that guarded the Covenant's temples, to the High Prophet's inner sanctum. The Chamber of Decision was exactly the same as the last time he had been there. The High Prophet of Retribution sat on his floating dais above the circular platform. He appeared exactly as he had when Ebyo had left.
The Prophet opened its eyes and stared intently at Ebyo. With a simple wave of the claws on it's hand the Brutes receded from the room and closed the door. The Prophet began to speak, "Now it is finally time for you to know why I have brought you here: I have determined that this "Immortal One" is too great a threat to be left alive for much longer. It is for this reason that I have appointed you leader of a special force that's only purpose will be to kill it."
"Kill... the Immortal One?" said Ebyo in disbelief.
"Precisely. I think that the others of his kind are dangerous enough in their own right, but there are so few of them now... if we were to destroy their leader, the Immortal One, then the others would not be as dangerous. For they would be without his leadership."
"Your Grace... how would you have one servant exterminate such a threat? He has slain thousands in battle, my lord. Not ten, not a hundred, thousands!" said Ebyo with a certain degree of emphasis.
"Yes... yes. I know. Who does not? This one is something other... something more than his underlings. He is formidable, no doubt, but he is also..." the High Prophet paused a moment then finished his sentence with more vehemence than Ebyo ever thought possible, "...guilty."
Ebyo was petrified. When the High Prophet of Retribution declared anything "guilty" it was summarily destroyed in the most terrifying way imaginable.
"Guilty... of what, Imminence?"
"YOU KNOW WHAT!" The Prophet's voice echoed into the reaches of the entire enormous hall. It was the loudest thing Ebyo had ever heard, and his head hurt with pain because it was so loud. "Do you know nothing?!" the Prophet continued, "He has destroyed Halo, the very fortress world of the Great Ones! He has destroyed a relic of theirs! And stolen yet another! He must be punished!"
Ebyo's very brain hurt more than he could ever have thought possible. The room was becoming quiet again, but the psychic waves continued to linger in his mind.
"What do you want of me?" asked Ebyo after several long minutes of silence.
The Prophet was once again the avatar of tranquillity, as if his outburst had never happened. He spoke quietly, only loud enough so that Ebyo could barely hear it, "I want you to select a small group of the most elite of our castes, and kill the... Immortal One."
"If it be your will, I will do so. May I ask how I am to track down this creature?" asked Ebyo.
"No need, for my spies have already located him. An attack is already underway."
"An attack? But he does best in large engagements, perhaps if we were to infil-" he stopped suddenly. "The attack is a diversion," he stated matter-of-factly.
"You surmise correctly Ebyo 'Icsumee. The main attack force will only engage in battle in the void, only a small contingent of ground troops will assault the planet's main facility to get his attention. I want your team to kill him before he is ready."
"But... would not he be immediately aware of our presence? He would be ready for any ambush long before we could get to him."
The High Prophet smiled widely, "Ah, but you see... this planet he is on... he is there to undergo some sort of additional training. My spies have told me that he has not worn his armor because of the tests he has been undertaking."
"Yes... so we strike hard and fast when he is weakest. Cut off from the others of his kind... and at a disadvantage. You are wise and powerful, Great One. When shall I proceed?"
"Immediately. You will pick seven of the best soldiers in our forces. You will bring them before me and we will choose together who will comprise your team. Be warned though, those that are not chosen shall not speak of our meeting or they will die the same death reserved for traitors. Make sure they know that before you bring them before me," said the High Prophet.
Ebyo understood completely of the necessity for complete secrecy. "Yes, my Grace," he replied, then left the Chamber to see who would be joining him on the greatest hunt for the greatest of prey.
# # #
Cortana had briefed the Chief on what she had found. After the procedure Cortana had linked herself to the Chief's neural system while he was asleep. She had to make sure all the adjustments were fine and in order. Once she had finished checking the pathways she tried the memory buffer that they had installed to house the backup Cortana subroutines, they checked out fine also. Only after extensive scans did Cortana find the program. Somehow, the Covenant had managed to smuggle a very basic subroutine into the Chief's neural implant, inside the memory buffer. All it was designed to do was record his brain's neural patterns and store them for eventual transmission to Covenant spies. Theoretically they could then be interpreted into visual, and audio information. Fortunately Cortana had found, and detained it before it could sneak away into another system within its transmission distance.
"I think you got it back on the Unyielding Hierophant," said Cortana. "It may have simply been a new security program or it could have been placed in you on purpose. I think the second option is what really happened. I think these Covenant AI's are smarter than we thought. Maybe one saw that it could hack your system and place this thing in your neural lace for eventual retrieval."
"Well whatever the case, I'm glad you found it before it could transmit anything vital," John replied. Cortana had told him earlier that she had looked into the program's memory logs. It had only sent one transmission and that was dated the day after their return to UNSC controlled territory after the incident in the Lambda Serpentis system a few months ago. The message had only been an activation signal and it had lain dormant for these last few months.
"Same here, the only reason we found it to begin with was because it was dormant in the memory buffer that we upgraded. If we hadn't gone ahead with the procedure when we did it might have moved by the time we noticed it."
Cortana was right, it was a stroke of luck. But luck had always been on his side. That had been the reason Dr. Halsey has chosen him to be the team leader all those years ago. Or least, that was how Cortana told it.
"But other than that, everything's fine? Nothing unexpected from the alterations?" said John.
Cortana's body flickered blue then back to it's normal purple. "Everything is perfect. In fact I want to test your... or I should say my... newfound freedom. Let's get you out to the test center to begin your evaluations with the new, copied subroutines."
John felt the need to ask, "Do I need my suit?"
"No, not now. We're just going to be doing tests on the subroutines and the neural systems to make sure that they work properly. We can begin on the armor tests after we're finished with that."
"Fine," John conceded. He had always felt uncomfortable without his MJOLNIR battle suit on. Ever since he had first tried it on he had never wanted to take it off. When he did have to remove it he always felt as though part of him were missing. As if half his brain were misplaced and his legs and arms were only stubs.
What he really felt was vulnerability.
He simply did not like the thought that he was not fully equipped for combat. After all, he was built from the ground up to be the best combatant in the UNSC. He shrugged it off. Cortana knew what she was doing. She always did.
"Let's get this over with," said John.
"That's the spirit!" Cortana interjected, "No time like the present. Report to the obstacle course and well do some drills on your reflexes with the subroutines. After that I'll give you some logic and tactical problems that you will solve with the help of my duplicate." Cortana paused, as if to think. "After that we'll get you back into your suit and do the same drills over again to test the differences."
John started toward the obstacle course. "Lets get started."
# # #
Chapter Two
0930 Hours, December 6, 2552
Sinai Star System, UNSC Test
Facility, code name: Zion, planet
Genesis, Quartermaine Airfield
Quartermaine airfield was the main airfield on the small planet known as Genesis. Genesis had been so named for the experimental weapons that were created at the planet's secret base, Zion. Zion was built on a high plateau overlooking the airfield in the plains below.
The planet had an earth-like atmosphere, like most colonized worlds, but was mostly either jungle or desert. The planet had a few oceans, but the main continents were either covered in vegetation, completely devoid of it, or a combination of both desert and jungle. The planet's ecosystem was maintained this way by microscopic organisms, which lived in the desert's soil. These organisms prohibited reproduction of the dense vegetation of the jungle by consuming the seeds and spores that the jungle's plants used for reproduction. Only small plants that were immune to the organism grew in the deserts. This unique phenomenon caused the planet to have a very unusual appearance from orbit.
At Quartermaine airfield Flight Officer Eileen Franklin was going through her preflight checklist. She was about to take her Skyhawk atmospheric JumpJet out for her regular patrol and was making sure the flight preps hadn't screwed up again. Twice before, the preps had forgotten that she liked going on patrol with everything fully powered and fueled, not to mention it was standard procedure. Complacency had settled in a little around the base of late. The base hadn't seen any action at all during the war and some of the lower ranked people had gotten it in mind that since they would never see action anyway that they didn't need to give a hundred and ten percent effort in their work.
Idiots, she thought as she found that her fuel tank was only three fourths of a tank full. Never stop to think what would happen if the Covenant were to attack. Of course three fourths of a tank was more than enough for her patrol route, but if the Covenant were to show up in system she would be caught in the middle of a war with less fuel than she needed. This was the kind of mistake that could cause a man to be shipped back to OCS for a refresher course in military procedure. But out here in the fringes of space reinforcements weren't exactly top priority and they needed every man.
She was 25 years old, and had been out of OCS for two years and she was already a First Class Flight Officer. She had been a good student and had graduated with top honors. She was somewhat petite in stature though she worked out and jogged daily to keep in shape. Her black hair was cut short and hung loosely around her face. She had gone to OCS without the consent of her parents. They had wanted her to stay on Earth but she would have none of it. After leaving Earth for OCS at Luna she had befriended the new recruits and conscripts on her transport.
Unfortunately she had befriended them only to watch most of them die in their first few engagements. They hadn't died because they hadn't trained hard enough, they had died because it was war. That was why she wanted to be ready for anything. She didn't want to die because she got caught flying on only a half a tank of fuel.
She cued the COM and called for a flight prep. After a minute a small man appeared to ask her what was wrong. He in his late 40's, with graying hair and bulging muscles. Even though he was only barely taller than five feet he was an imposing figure.
"Those idiots forgot to fuel my jet all the way again," complained Franklin.
"Aye, I'll see what I can do. If they don't shape up I'll have 'em scrubbin' the grime out of yer jet's intake valve with their tongues if ye want."
Franklin laughed, even though she didn't know the man's name he managed to get things done with efficiency that impressed her. She had always admired his tenacity and willingness to help. It was his manner that made her laugh, not to mention his accent.
"Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. Make sure they do too."
"Will do. Anything else ye be needing before yer patrol?" asked the small man.
"Well not really. May I ask your name though? I've seen and talked with you so many times and I don't even know your name."
"Ye can call me Willie. If ye need anythin' don't hesitate to call me. I'll make sure to keep those lugheads in line."
"Thanks, Willie. I better get going," replied Eileen. It had been so long since she had tried to get to know someone. Ever since her first military friends had died she had tried to stay away from friendships with people that could be killed.
As Willie walked away she thought to herself, Yeah, but this guy's a non-combatant. It's not like the Covenant are going to go out of their way to kill a flight prep commander.
She turned away and headed off to get dressed into her flight suit while the flight crew finished with her jet.
# # #
Ninth Age of Reclamation, Step
of Truth Covenant Battle
Cruiser Swift Retribution,
Chamber of Decision
Ebyo stood before the High Prophet. The Prophet was looking down from his dais at the seven soldiers Ebyo had selected as candidates for his mission. These were the most dangerous and deadly warriors that the Covenant Hegemony had. If they couldn't kill the Immortal One, nothing could.
"A fine selection," stated the High Prophet. "A fine choice indeed."
Ebyo bowed in respect. "Thank you, High One. I am honored that you think so." Ebyo stood back up to look at the Prophet, then he looked out at the eight warriors he had collected.
Leba 'Labadee was at the end of the lineup before the Prophet. He was an Elite of the Infiltration sect. He wore his shimmering light blue armor with pride. Leba had been in more engagements than Ebyo himself, and had proven his faith and dedication on many occasions.
To Leba's left was Damacus the Brute. The Brutes were charged with guarding the temples and significant structures, though they often were deployed in infantry engagements for their massive strength. They were as quick as Elites and nearly as strong as the Hunters.
On Damacus' left was Rhad 'Ussumee. He was of the command sect and commanded his own ship, the Ray of Purity. He had shown his tactical prowess many times in the void. His ship had fought to bring down the human's planetary fortress called "Reach" and had shown himself worth of a place among these candidates.
Futher along the line was Varadel, another of the Brute species, Funi 'Affotee an Elite of the Commando sect much like himself, and Ragado Juru Larrac and his bonded brother Efado Juru Klana the Hunters.
The Prophet began to speak again, "Only three of these may journey with you on your quest. A small team of four is more likely to succeed. Who do you think is best experienced to fulfill this task?"
Ebyo turned to face his warriors, "If it were any other mission I would take all of them. But, since discretion is required my choice would have to be the two Brutes, Damacus and Varadel, and the Elite of the Infiltration sect, Leba 'Labadee. The Hunters are too massive and would be a hindrance if we needed to move quickly and Rhad 'Ussumee's prowess would be better put to use in the void as would Funi 'Affotee be more useful in the diversionary ground attack."
"So it is settled. Leba 'Labadee, Damacus, Varadel, and you Ebyo 'Icsumee, step forward. You others may return to your other appointed duties with full honors."
The others murmured their respect and left the room. After they were gone those that were left looked up at the High Prophet. He stared down at them and then spoke, "I, the High Prophet of Retribution, now command you four warriors to kill the human soldier known as the Immortal One. From now until this task is done you shall be known as "The Hand of Retribution". Let nothing stand in your way."
Ebyo bowed, and was then duplicated by the others at his sides. He knew now that they would succeed or they would die trying. Because if they failed, he knew that The Prophet of Retribution would not forgive.
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