- XboxGuy1234
- |
- Exalted Member
Hey everyone. This is my third fanfiction, after 2 unfinished, abandoned tries. Please me constructive criticism, and try and leave a comment to keep this active!
Chapter One
I’m here. Hit the lights.
0700
January 4, 2551
UNSC Base of Operations
Old Mombasa, Africa
A loud alarm clock blared, waking first Lieutenant Paul Jackson out of his reverie. He groggily punched the alarm clock, and then sat up in bed. At 20 years of age, Jackson wasn’t exactly the oldest in the United Nations Space Corporation (UNSC), but he certainly wasn’t the youngest either. Since the war with the Covenant, an alien species that wanted to destroy humanity, started, all men sixteen to thirty five were drafted into the military. Those drafted men were the young ones. Brigadier General Adam Sylvia was fifty three years old; had served in the military since he was 25, and had 104 medals. Jackson stood up, and pulled a brown UNSC uniform over his undershirt. He picked up his Desert Eagle pistol, and jammed it into his holster. Jackson’s boots, however, were special. Given only to people who were MVP’s of their squads, they were a coveted accessory in the UNSC. Jackson served in Recon Force One, a team that stood by for emergency’s, like covenant break-ins, and very few times dealt with civilian emergency’s, like fires, or bank robberies. His team had some of the highest rankings in the UNSC Recon forces. Jackson finished putting on his clothes, walked across his monotonous room, opened the door, and stepped outside.
The hallway outside Jackson’s room was the exact opposite of his room. While Jackson’s room was drab, the hallway was alive with activity. All manners of people were running to and fro, from UNSC army-men to civilians, helping with UNSC research. The hallway itself wasn’t all that special. The walls were the same monotonous gray, the floor was hardened concrete, and the whole hallway basically gave off an empty feel. Jackson started walking down the hallway, eager to get some coffee, but before he got there, he was interrupted by one of the research civilians living in the UNSC base with everyone else.
“What can I do for you, Erin?” Jackson asked as the civilian researcher woman glared at him. Even though the civilians were inside a military base, the military hierarchy did not apply to them, and so the civilians could disobey direct orders from even a high ranking official. This often made them impossible to argue with.
“Did you finish that survey I sent to you last week?!” Erin was a woman of 35, but she dressed like she was 40. She was wearing a full red work suit, and that, combined with a wide belly, made her look way out of place. That, and the fact that she wouldn’t ever talk about anything other then work.
Jackson resumed talking. “I haven’t exactly had time to finish your survey, because there were three Covenant attacks last week, and my team had to deal with all of them.
“Excuses, excuses,” Erin rolled on and on. “Make sure you have the survey done by next week.”
“Whatever you say, Erin,” Jackson said back. He waited until Erin walked down the hall and out of sight, and then resumed walking towards the coffee machine. When he got there, he poured himself a large cup of cappuccino, and took a large sip. Jackson then walked down the hall, took three rights, and ended up at his office door. He opened the door, and was greeted with the sight of his BR55 rifle. It was always in his office in case he needed it. He walked over to his office chair, sat down, and powered up his drab UNSC work computer. He sighed. When the computer finally finished loading up, Jackson accessed his email, where he opened a file called: UNSC survey #34. Jackson sat back in his chair, and began answering the questions.
Five thousand miles away, and two thousand miles above earth, a Covenant attack ship loomed. The shipmaster was yelling to everyone on board. They were getting ready for a direct assault on Earth. All for the Elites and Grunts were suiting up, and grabbing signature weapons. Plasma rifles for the Elites and plasma pistols for the Grunts. When all of the Covenant troops were suited up, the shipmaster yelled, “We’re going in!”, and pressed the slipspace button. The shipmaster then typed in coordinates, and the purple Covenant Assault Vehicle disappeared, and the then-noisy realm of space was suddenly quiet.
Five seconds later, the purple ship emerged above the city of New Mombasa, in Africa. The shipmaster had chosen the site well. One million people lived here, and if the Covenant got their way, nothing would be left. The shipmaster opened the back hatch, Elites and Grunts jumped out, and then the shipmaster hit the button to fire the main battle cannons.
At the same time, two hundred miles away, in New Mombasa, Jackson heard the blare of the Emergency Alarm. He started, and then ran for his BR55, which was loyally leaning against the wall. He grabbed, it, checked that everything worked, and then ran for the emergency hatch across the hall from his office. He slid down the hatch on a rope, and landed in a garage that housed a Pelican, one of the UNSC’s main flying vehicles.
“She’s all fueled up and ready to go!” the pelican pilot was saying to Eric Vosh, a fellow member of Recon Force One. He climbed into the hold, and found all five members of his squad already seated.
“What took you so long?” asked D’Amico Andrews, a Private First Class.
“I ran into Erin,” Jackson said, to sympathetic groans. Everyone knew Erin, and everyone knew she could be a pain. Well, most of the time she was a pain.
“Buckle up!” yelled the pilot. “Covie attack at New Mombasa! Hope you make it out in one piece!” With that, the pelican fired up, and they flew out of the base at full speed.
***
Twenty minutes later, Jackson and his team, Recon Force One, landed in New Mombasa, where the Covenant attack was in full force. Plasma flew everywhere, many buildings were lit on fire, and Covenant troops were storming the buildings that weren’t blown up. The whole scene was a mess. The main Covenant forces that were in the city were Elites and Grunts. They took up most of the space, firing their short distance weapons on anything that moved. There were also a few Jackal Snipers, thin aliens that prowled the city’s rooftops, shooting anybody in sight with their plasma-powered sniper rifles. Based on “The Covenant Field book”, by John 117 of the Spartan program, the alien rifles could travel a mile a second, and anything they hit was basically fried. If it hit your head, it was instant death, but if it hit anywhere else, then you died a slow, agonizing death by plasma poisoning.
Jackson spoke into his vest radio. “UNSC emergency base number one, this is Recon Squad Alpha. Do you read me?”
“We read you Alpha. What do you need?” The voice on the line was the exact opposite of the battlefield; it was soft and relaxed, while the battlefield was intense and loud.
“We need a full battle team, with air support and tanks, over in the city of New Mombasa, right now!”
“Roger that Alpha Squad. Your full battle team has been dispatched. They’ll be there in thirty minutes. Can you hold in there for that long?”
Jackson hung up the radio abruptly, for he had heard all that he had needed to hear. “You guys hear that? We have to stay alive for thirty minutes, and then we have all the air support and ground support that we can eat!”
“Ooh-Rah! The marines on Recon Force One yelled their approval, and then quieted down for instructions.
“Okay. There are multiple Covenant bases stationed inside the city, from what I saw in the Pelican. There is one here – Jackson pointed at a building on a map of the city, here – he pointed at another one, and here. We need to take out these bases so that our support can move in without any major casualties. Vosh, you take base Alpha. Andrews, you take base Beta. Dunn, you take base Charlie.” Austin Dunn was a Gunnery Sergeant, and his specialty was strategy. He could figure out how to blow up a Covenant safe house from fifty feet away without any casualties, and could defuse a bomb in five seconds. To put it simply, he was the brains of Recon Force One. Jackson continued talking. “I’ll take point up on this rooftop, and I’ll shoot the crap out of these Jackal Snipers. Anybody have a sniper rifle I could borrow?” Vosh reached into his backpack, and pulled out a fully de-assembled sniper rifle. “Nice,” Jackson commented. “Now, let’s move out!” Recon Force One split up, and ran down the multiple roads in the city of New Mombasa Jackson however, started assembling his sniper rifle, and when he was done, he ran up to a building, climbed its multiple stairs onto the roof, and began sniping.
Boom
Boom
Boom
Each shot represented one kill. Jackson’s sniping skills were superb. One by one, he took out all of the snipers on the various roofs. He then de-assembled the sniper rifle, and ran back down the stairs. He consulted his map, and then headed towards Dunn’s position to give him covering fire.
When Jackson got to Dunn's position, he found Dunn under heavy fire. He took out his BR55 rifle that he had been carrying since the trip, and stuck a clip in it. He drew the bolt, and started firing. Grunts and Elites were dropping everywhere, but there were just to many. Either: one, Dunn and Jackson would run out of ammo, or two, they would be overrun by enemy forces.
“Lets get out of here! Fall back!” Jackson shouted to Dunn. The battle was really a sight to behold. Two marines were holding their own against a large Covenant battalion. But not for long. Jackson and Dunn were hurriedly retracing their steps in an attempt to escape the battlefield. The sounds of plasma was everywhere, and Dunn suddenly shouted.