- Wolverfrog
- |
- Fabled Legendary Member
Part Thirty Three - FNG
"It's good to see you Staff Sergeant."
"You too Prest--Vice Admiral Cole. It's been a while. I thought you'd retired." Blade replied, in an informal tone.
"Called back into duty Blade. It's worth it though, just so we can kick these Covenant bastards out of Harvest once and for all." Cole replied, clenching his gnarled fist to emphasize his point.
"You really think we can do it?"
"I know we can. Now Blade, we should talk. In private. Is there anything your two squad members should be doing?"
Cole looked at me and Mains as he said this. Cole obviously thought Mains was part of our squad. Blade didn't seem to mind.
"You two," Blade ordered, and I snapped to attention, "go down to this ship's armory and see if you can get us all some ODST armour. See if you can find an officer's one for me." Blade ordered, and I sighed. We were being shoved out out of the conversation.
I walked out of the room, and Mains followed. I was glad no one knew he was actually a URF commander, over the past few weeks I'd come to value his friendship.
"So, it seems I've unwillingly become part of your squad then." Mains commented as we walked down the hallway of the ship.
"It seems so, for now at least. You don't mind do you?" I asked, worried he might resent the fact.
"No, I have no trouble working with you and em..Blade. So tell me, where is the rest of your squad? Surely it isn't just you and Blade?" Mains questioned.
"No, there's two others too. Rook and Switch. They're em...I actually don't know where they are. Hopefully they're okay."
I felt bad, I hadn't thought once about them since I arrived on the UNSC Virmire. They could be stranded, or dead for all I knew. Then again, they were with Spartans. So I felt confident in the belief they were safe.
"Yeah..." Mains muttered, and looked down at the floor.
We rounded the corner and found ourselves at the Virmire's armory, a large room full to the brim with technology and weapons. I spotted a man standing in the corner, and assumed he was the Master Gunnery Sergeant. He seemed to be tinkering on a piece of equipment. I cleared my throat rather loudly, and he turned around with his pistol out. He saw we were human, and holstered the weapon, standing up.
"You two gave me quite a fright there. How can I help you boys today?" The Master Gunnery Sergeant asked, looking at us with bemusement. He was quite old, younger than Blade, but older than say, Switch was. Grey had begun to infect his hair.
"We need some ODST armor, three sets." I replied confidently, and the Gunnery Sergeant frowned.
"Well this could be a bit of a problem. See, I ain't got any ODST armor left. Although, I suppose there is the new prototype, came from Sognam just before we left for Harvest."
"Prototype?" I asked, my curiosity piqued.
"Yep, Navy's been working on it for a long time. Stronger, lighter, and interfaces directly with whatever weapon you may be holding, displaying the ammo count on your HUD. Even them Covie weps too." Master Guns replied, walking over to a cabinet. The man typed in a code on a keypad next to the cabinet, and the door slid away to reveal three suits of the Prototype ODST armour.
"And that's not all. You got one of them ODST PDAs son?" Master Guns asked, and I nodded. Well, I did have one, before I lost it. The older armory master continued. "You won't be needing it anymore, not with this suit. It's got a new feature in named the Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance. VISR, for short."
As he was speaking, he fastened the suit around my clothes, doing up the straps and claps that kept it all together. Wow, it really was light. Finally, the Master Gunnery Sergeant passed me the helmet, which seemed to have a see through visor. I put it on, and the helmet polarized, filling my vision with blue. A moment later, and the visuals clicked in. Master Guns picked up a remote.
"Now, VISR has a built in GPS system." Master Guns explained, hitting a button on the remote. I gasped as a full 3-D map of the ship appeared on my screen. Impressive. "You can place way points on it, by using the wrist computer on your arm, and VISR will place a marker on your HUD in real time, pointing you in the right direction."
"It also has a low light vision mode." Another button was pressed, and this time I was brought back into the real world, except everything had a glowing line around it. Master Guns and Mains were highlighted in Green, and the scenery was outlined with yellow. "This is particularly useful when dropping into combat at night, and it's very simple to understand. If you see green, squad up. If you see red, shoot."
I decided I was keeping the suit. Luckily, when I asked him, Master Guns said I could. Which was great. We also suited Mains out in the ODST Prototype armour too, which he seemed to like.
"It's a large step up from when I last wore armour like this." Mains remarked, depolarizing his visor. I did likewise.
"Now." Master Guns said knowingly, thrusting another suit of the armour into my hands for Blade. "If you experience any problems with the VISR, don't hesitate to take the helmet off. It's better to be vulnerable and without tech than it is to be blind."
I promised him I would, as did Mains, and we thanked him, setting off back to Blade.
"Just try not to die in it!" The Master Gunnery Sergeant shouted after us. "We can probably retrieve it, but the blood would be a trial and a half to get off!"
I hoped he was joking.
Marines walking around the ship stared at us as we walked by, sure, ODSTs weren't as much of a rarity as Spartans, but we still turned heads. Most of them were probably thinking about how we were crazy bastards for dropping into battle like we did. I didn't mind their looks, I just polarized my visor so no one saw my face, and Mains did likewise.
We arrived back at the command bridge soon enough, and Blade, to my astonishment, was drinking a glass of whiskey with Cole. I didn't even know Blade drank. They must've known each other really well, as they were laughing together.
Blade caught sight of us in our new armour, and stood up with a puzzled frown upon his face.
"That armour looks different. Is it new?" Blade asked, and I tried to relay everything Master Guns had told me to him. He seemed satisfied, as he grunted, and asked me to help him put it on. I complied, and within a few minutes Blade was suited up fully too.
"This feels good. Shame there wasn't an officer's model, I guess I'll just have to stick a white label on or something. Were these three the only suits available?" Blade asked, and I nodded. Blade tutted, and titled his head in thought. "I guess Switch and Rook will have to make do with their old tech then."
[Edited on 07.31.2009 7:22 AM PDT]