Stormbringers Part 3: "Which one of you is next!?"
Posted By: WildebeestNZ<wildebeest_nz@hotmail.com>
Date: 28 November 2002, 8:01 am
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Jarvis spotted the green flame almost immediately.
"GET DOWN!"
He hit the ground almost as quickly as he had got up, and the two others followed suit. The mini fuel-rod rifles detonated about a nanosecond after the three Agents hit the snow, and the resulting chain reaction caused a mammoth explosion.
The tall Agent's visor dimmed automatically to prevent the glare harming his eyes, and he watched with slight pleasure as the checkpoint was engulfed in an inferno of blue plasma.
The smoke was still clearing as the three Agents made their way towards the crater that was once the checkpoint. As if the weather was affected by the fighting, the light snowfall had now turned into a raging blizzard.
"They'll be sending reinforcements out here- I really think we should leave now."
Jenkins wasn't really even ranked that much higher than the other two- they had a sort of democracy. He was just the Sergeant for administration purposes, but they always listened to him carefully nonetheless.
"Roger that. Let's get moving, we've still got a Research Centre, plus a whole bunch of goodies in it, to capture."
The three Agents faded into the blizzard almost as quickly as they came.
The investigation team decided it was some sort of accident- a grunt dropped a grenade and it set off the others, or something. It had happened before- when you had almost your entire male population in military service, accidents were bound to happen. The only thing that troubled many Covenant leaders is that it was a Black Squad. This was definitely the first time an entire Black Squad had been killed in an "accident".
"Have you ever wondered what it must be like to be one of those poor bastards we take out? I mean, you're just standing there and BAM! There goes your group leader. Two seconds later you've joined him."
Benson was talking as they jogged through the canyon.
"Hah. They do it to our guys too," replied Jenkins.
"S'pose. But I mean, it must really suck to have no fighting chance like that."
"Yeah. What do you think Jarvis?"
Jarvis wasn't much for talking. He preferred to focus on the task at hand, a quality that was seemingly inherent amongst the Spartans. But Jarvis wasn't a Spartan. He was a Stormbringer- not as good as a Spartan all-round, but the Stormbringers could kick Spartan ass when it came to stealth missions.
"Jarvis?"
He snapped back to the conversation.
"Yeah. It happens to both sides. Hopefully, we'll never be on the receiving end of the ambush."
The canyon had opened up a bit now. The research station looked faintly like the photos from Master Chief's video recordings of the Control Room on Alpha Halo. However, it was slightly smaller and had a definite Covenant architecture.
Not Forerunner at all, it was a large, pyramid shaped structure embedded in the wall of the canyon. Like the Control Room, it had a zigzag, metal path running from the ground to the entrance, which was quite high up. At the top of this path stood the ominous entrance. It looked dark and uninviting, and Covenant troops swarmed over it like an ant nest.
"So what's the plot?"
The three men stopped and crouched in the snow as Jenkins told them what to do.
The elite's head snapped back, as the sniper round blasted through the nasal cavity, and it fell to the ground like a brick.
Its grunt companion looked at the body for a few seconds, then started to open its mouth in a scream. It was cut off by a second round.
Somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd Elite that was felled, the Covenant realised that they were more or less under attack.
"LETS ROCK!" screamed Benson on his headset, right on cue.
He released a rocket at a large group of Covenant running near the bottom of the path, and a second at the group near the top.
Benson didn't bother reloading his rocket launcher: he was a risk taker. He threw it down on the ground, whipped out his specialist MA6C AR (complete with plasma-tipped bullets and silencer) and ran up the path, even before the rocket smoke had cleared. Jenkins slung his rocket launcher, unsheathed his own AR and followed up behind Benson.
"Hurry up guys, we gotta do this one fast- we can't have them alerting the guys inside," Jenkins yelled.
Jarvis stood up and picked off the last Elite with his sniper rifle- the only Covenant unit left that knew how to operate a radio station. He was lucky to get it- it was only about 20 metres from the station when it fell. He slung his rifle over his back.
Then he was running to catch up with Jenkins and Benson.
The bullets tore swathes in the small, ragtag battle groups that remained from the rocket blasts. They didn't stand a chance- they were totally disorientated.
Benson encountered the last unit- a Jackal near the entrance door.
He decided wasn't worth the two bullets required to take it out. Instead, he sprinted towards it and concentrated his momentum into the butt of his rifle, sending the nasty-looking alien flying into the wall.
"Yeah!!! Oh yeah! Who's da MAN? Suck on that ya blue bastard!" Benson danced around the body.
Jarvis and Jenkins looked at each other.
"You're a f**ing maniac Jed," Jenkins and Jarvis roared with laughter.
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