- roraj 196
- |
- Exalted Member
Prologue to a story about Harvest and the Covenant invasion. It took me about 20 minutes, not a lot of thinking went into it.
The marines were cramped inside a tiny cabin, lit only by a single red light overhead, casting a blood-red din over their sombre faces. They sat tightly packed in bucket seats but the violent shaking of the jeep speeding over the harsh and bumpy terrain still prevented them from a smooth ride. They stared into space, oblivious of their comrades. Some checked their guns; others looked at crinkled photos of their families. It was, for many of them, the final leg of a fatal journey a journey that had lasted them their entire army career.
The silence was broken by the crackle of the radio. "Recon Bravo to Recon Delta, we are in position, what is your ETA?" The sergeant replied gruffly: arrival in T-minus 2 minutes. The emotion was clear in his voice, despite his best attempts to mask it. The silence resumed, filled only with the rumble of the jeep's old-tech V8 engine. Then the light changed. Amber. 1 minute to oblivion.
*
The ODSTs clustered around the briefing table. The holographic image of the LZ reflected onto their black visors. It was a mountainous landscape, with a large Covenant complex under construction at the foot of the range. The Captain explained the mission quickly:
"Squads 2 and 3 will drop here" he pointed at the LZ "and link up with Recon Bravo at the disused workhouse East of the complex. C'mon then boys, let's get to work, find yourselves a chair and prepare to drop feet first into a combat zone."
Behind their visors, the ODSTs shed tears. They knew what lay ahead of them. They knew the importance of their mission, the consequences of failure. Everyone on Harvest would suffer if any one of a hundred things went wrong, the pressure was immense.