It's Kruger February 11th 2017, 7:54 am
One
As the mechanical humming of alien technology rang through the silence of sparse woods surrounding the bowled clearing that the spacefaring ship had landed in. The hushed grunts and light ruffles of two soldiers were muted by a sharp breeze blowing above their heads.
There, dirt covered and exhausted, were two Spartan Headhunters; soldiers doomed to die on missions that marines couldn't complete and super soldiers can't survive. Their dark green armor matched the light-deprived tall grass that shrouded them atop a hill overlooking the clearing.
“That's just a carrier. How's that been glassing entire-” An upheld hand hushed the Spartan as his silent companion began to point down at the base of the Covenant carrier. The purple railing lowered to the ground slowly, the merging atmospheres hissed as alien and human air converged.
Pacing out of the misty glow emanating from inside the ship came a sangheili official. His purple and blue adorned armor commanded respect by sight, while his masses of alien soldiers’ hushed awe commanded the menace.
“That's him.” The once silent partner spoke in a soft whisper before creeping back away from the edge of the hill and retreating behind the tree just next to him.
“Damnit Carver, I told you we should have-” the young partner yelled while maintaining a whisper in an odd hissing tone of voice.
“We don't need it.” Carver interjected, “Head to the far side of the clearing, fire on my mark.”
Carver stood up from his prone position, crouching low in the grass as he slowly moved to what seemed like a flanking position. His partner, who's annoyed sigh left a faint layer of fog along the inside of his visor, did the same in the opposite direction.
Now at the furthest point away from the carrier along the crest of the hills surrounding the clearing, the Spartan lifted his rifle off of its magnetic holster on his back down into both hands. The dark, cold metal of the weapon juxtaposed with the blue ammunition display glowing from the internal lowlight just below the sights.
As he waited for the signal from Carver, the Spartan synchronized his Heads Up Display with the scope of his rifle, the zoomed sight with centered crosshairs overtaking his actual perspective.
From afar, the communion of covenant soldiers kneeling seemed to be out of deific respect for the imposing field marshal. Among the armed crowd were at least three other elites in view of the Spartan’s position, but most of the audience appeared to be lower ranked pawns like grunts or jackals.
“Open fire… Now.” Carver whispered through the radio, only just loud enough for the Spartan to hear and make out.
The mind of the Spartan raced calmly, his mind combing through the options of his initial target in less than a second. The field marshal’s shield was too powerful to break in the short time he had before the whole carrier was alerted to his position, and using his first shot to kill a grunt or jackal would be a waste. At the end of his second of contemplation, the Spartan’s aim shifted to his left before opening fire.
The bursts of bullets flew through the air, striking the nape of a crouching elite’s neck and causing its light blue shield to flare up and surround him. As the second burst fired, all infantry had turned towards him, and the marshal was shouting orders in a far off, indiscernible bark.
The second flurry of bullets hit their mark on the face of the same elite soldier, who's shield protected it from bodily harm, but was now broken. Despite the risk, the elite drew its weapon and charged with its unit of aggravated aliens.
The third shot landed clean into the exposed skin beneath the elite’s helm, knocking it down and ending its life in an instant after impact.
With one elite dead the Spartan shifted his aim at the elite closest in its charge towards him, the three bursts of precise fire as swift and deadly as the last.
While most weapons had the option to change the firing mode from semi-automatic, to burst fire, to fully automatic, the former two were the most accurate and commonly used, especially with the Spartan’s specific weapon. But the field of sprinting weaker enemies closing in as the third and final elite ducked behind a rock for cover called for a quicker solution that the three bullet burst could not provide.
The bottom of the rifle, where a soldier’s hand was most commonly placed, rested atop a fallen log along the crest of the slight hill. With his hand firmly placed atop the weapon behind the scope, the Spartan’s powerful ranged firearm’s fully automatic function suffered no kick as it mowed down a decent portion of the targets in the field with the remainder of its magazine.
With machine-like agility the Spartan reloaded his weapon, placing the empty mag in a spare pouch along the belt of his armor. Removing his visor from the scoped perspective to better navigate his pouches in the dark, the Spartan returned to his scope to see a jackal wielding a beam rifle, a covenant plasma sniper weapon.
The shot rang out with a high, piston-like sound as the concentrated plasma flew through the air, impervious to wind resistance and drop, the shot was bound to his its mark between the Spartan’s eyes.
But with the guidance of an inhuman reaction time and a split second to move out of harm's way, the Spartan was able to dive down into the dirt to his left, sacrificing his right arm to the path of the plasma round.
The shot landed, cutting the weak shields like butter and the plated armor like butter. The impact of the wound knocked the Spartan backwards with enough force to send him rolling down the steep but small hill.
Rifle still in his left hand, the Spartan arose at the bottom of the incline breathing heavily from the burning chunk of melted skin in his right arm. Looking up at the top of the hill, the cries and orders from the remaining covenant forces reached the Spartan’s previous perch, not taking a moment to think about returning fire down at him.
With the cover of trees absorbing most of the bullet storm, the Spartan sprinted between trunks, ducking and weaving as he gained distance from his pursuers.
Now far enough away that the gunfire gave way to the hunt, the Spartan slid to the cover of a thick dead tree. With a moment's reprieve he looked down at his weapon, checking for damage or contouring from the tumble with no worrisome results.
But not a second after a war cry alerted the Spartan to danger.
A hoof impacted the side of the Spartan's torso, sending him flying into a tree trunk a few feet away. Only needing a second to recover, he looked up to see the surviving elite minor sprinting to him with energy gauntlet drawn.
With a roll the Spartan dodged the stabbing thrust of the dagger by a long enough period that gave him almost a second of full auto rifle fire into the side of the elite’s body. As the bullet that would break the elite’s shield left the gun, the elite whipped its gauntlet around and into the weapon with a backhanded strike, slashing the entire front section of it off.
His weapon now destroyed and his option limited, the Spartan used his uninsured left hand to draw his knife while he lunged forward.
Too far and too slow to complete the attack, the Spartan’s jab failed when the elite quickly drew its sidearm and fired off a neon green round of plasma into his gut, sending the super soldier face first into the ground writhing in pain.
The deep, unsettling chuckle of an elite nearing a kill is a sound that haunted the dreams of survivors. The proud, powerful warrior race’s natural ability and advanced shielding matched and sometimes bested the augmented prowess and limited SPI armor of the Headhunters. Making them victims of long ranged attacks before they could get the chance to beat or stab you to death was the key to surviving as long as possible.
As the cackling elite leaned down from its seven foot height to flip his dying victim over, it released a growl of confused worry as the Spartan jumped upwards, pushing himself far up into the air enough to send the blade of his knife deep into the roof of the elite’s mouth before falling limply back into the forest floor.
Whining in atonal death rattles, the elite futilely grasped at its jaw as it pierced brain shut down. With a deep exhale of death, it fell to its knees and down onto the chest of its killer.
“God damn!” The Spartan exclaimed as the elite’s corpse forced all the air from his lungs. With a pained and forceful groan, he rolled the elite off his body with his left arm before slowly rising to one knee.
“Good fucking work, Vance… Seven-foot-six lizard men are the last thing you should kill when you have to fight an army… fucking idiot…” Vance’s comments to himself came between strained and heavy breaths of fatigue and pain. He removed his helmet after a quick glance at his surroundings as he regained his breath and wiped the sopping sweat from his face.
“Now… All I have to do… is not pass out… from the pain…” Vance adorned his helmet once more.
Leaning forward enough to strain his second wound, Vance grabbed the carbine from the back of the dead elite and held it uncomfortably in his hands. With a deep breath of anticipation, he arose from his one knee onto both feet before collapsing back to earth, fainting from the pain of his plasma burns.
“More than... half done…”
As the world beneath his visor went dark, Vance heard the hisses of jackals surround him with approaching footsteps. A single bird-like armored boot stepped into vision as he passed out.
Vance was now at the mercy of the unforgiving enemy to humanity.
This man is a psychopath.
It was really easy to tell, too. The dead eyes, the lack of expression, the way he talks. There's no way that the screws upstairs are all there, let alone screwed in.
See, when I met Carver, we were introduced formally in that douche Angel’s office. Angel introduced me like I was some sort of young prodigy back with the other Spartans in the program.
I mean, I was. But being humble is sort of my thing.
So here I am, I’m fifteen years old getting matched up with some old dude in his thirties or something to be partners on missions we aren't expected to survive from. At the very least, I thought Carver would be cool, having all of his experience and a bunch of shit to teach me, but the dude said I would “Die before the mission’s half done”!
When I asked Angel about it, he said that watching as many partners die as Carver can change a man, which I get. Watching people go isn't easy, but having a little faith isn't all that hard either.
The biggest piss-off about the whole thing was that I was taken out of the program right before everyone went out on some big important mission. It's got ‘operation’ in the title, so it's gotta be important.
But, I guess what really bothered me most about Carver had to be the look he gave me. Believe it or not, I've seen and even given this look before, but only in the moment. He stared at me like I was a dead body laying on the ground already rotting.
Anyways, around a week later I get called into a room with this big hologram projection table, shit I’d have never seen back home, with this covenant carrier floating around. Couple minutes after I get in, Carver comes into the room and doesn't even look at or talk to me.
Then Angel walks out of a dark corner of the room like a tool and tells us about our first assignment: an elite named Zara M’kosemee.
From what Angel told us, he’s a sadistic lizard who searches the outer colonies for planets the covenant fleet missed while tearing through our system. He showed us a map of our colonies and where Zara was last seen heading. Angel said that ONI scouts saw Zara land on a tiny colony called Javash, which didn't look too far away from home.
That got me serious about this whole thing. I mean, I know that none of these planets should get sacked, but if Zara has a thing for attacking colonies the main fleet missed, what about the ones the fleet left half the humans alive on?
I remember hearing stories when I was a kid about the Spartan’s. Hell, those stories are half the reason I got in the program. But their armor was supposed to as tough, if not tougher, than an elite’s. They're supposed to hit harder, be faster, and all around better than any alien out there. I mean, none of them have died fighting the covenant, so they've got to be a band of badasses.
It’s probably my fault Carver dragged me down from my hype because I just ranted and raved about the Spartan when we went to try on our armor. He basically told me that, if the soldiers I've heard about, Spartan II’s, were as tough as elite's, we were as tough as jackals because our armor couldn't even handle a single shot.
So I said, “Then I won't get hit”, and I don't think he laughed because I'm funny.
After that, we jumped to the outer colonies on a small ship while Carver explained the game plan for when we got planetside.
“Stay out of sight, stay quiet, listen to my every order, and-” blah, blah, blah. It was like he was speaking the longform of “Hey, don't die” which is sort of obvious.
But I was excited for my first mission, and I always did best at small team tactics, so fuck ‘em. The man thinks I'm already dead, so I'm gonna show him the damage dead Spartans can do, even in shitty armor.
Besides; who the hell has the first name 'Carver'?
