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Subject: [Story] The battle of Earth (Chapter 1: Plateau)
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Bungie.net member Since 2001

"A hero need not speak. When he is gone, the world will speak for him"
"You are the last of your kind: bred for combat, built for war. You're the master of any weapon, pilot of any vehicle, and fear no enemy"

Great job skul!

<3

  • 01.06.2011 12:21 PM PDT

An assassin will always carry on, even after death.

Chapter 5: Voi

"Commander White."

"James, Adam" replied the commander as he stepped of the Pelican, "good to see you alive."

"Likewise sir," replied Adam, "and specific reason for us being here?"

"You're officially recruited into ONI, again. Lord Hood plans on initiating a low level strike on the dig site, but his plans rely mainly on the Spartan destroying the AA gun. You and your squad however will target a second gun in case the Master Chief fails."

"Understood sir."

"Right, now listen carefully," the Commander lowered his voice so that only Adam and James could hear, "you may have heard rumours of a UNSC squad pulling off unlikely victories against the Covenant, the rumours are true. Most of your old squad is in it. You'll be working with them on this mission but I believe they took some injuries in their last skirmish, along with one MIA. They'll link up with you in Voi."

"Ok, when do we leave for Voi?"

"Right now," he raised his voice, "everyone into the Pelican now!"

The marines quickly complied and the Pelican took off into the darkening sky. The Pelican flew over a small Warthog convey heading away from Voi. Of the three Warthogs, only one had a turret mounted on it, the other two had injured marines crammed into the rear. James didn't know where they were headed but he doubted all the marines would survive the journey.

In the distance a small Covenant Corvette was hovering over the remains of Crows base, possibly searching for and exterminating any human survivors. James looked up at the faint white moon in the sky. Here he was, on Earth, fighting for humanities survival against the Covenant.

He sighed, only a few weeks earlier he heard the news about Reach and had been deployed to New Mombassa, when the Covenant came the UNSC put up a worthy fight yet still lost the city. Not long after Covenant reinforcements had arrived and crushed most of what remained of the UNSC fleet.

The Pelican flew over a small village and began to descend, on the ground; two transport 'hogs were waiting for them. Two of the marines that had been with Commander White joined Adams squad for the mission.

"Good luck marines," said White, "coordinates are have been uploaded to your tac pads, James, Adam. Two hours."

Adam rallied the marines and gave them his plan for the mission. Both warthogs would split up; Adam would take one and head around the west of the gun, through the centre of Voi. The second warthog would head straight for the gun along the Tsavo highway; they would leave the highway half way to Voi and travel through the desert before leaving their Warthogs and climbing a cliff nearby the gun. They would take the Covenant by surprise.

Adam entered his warthog and the four marines he had selected, along with James, entered the vehicle, James in the front beside Adam. The other five entered the other vehicle. Adam gave a thumbs up to the other driver, who returned it and drove into the desert.

Adam slowly maneuverer his warthog through the village, the wide eyed residents stood in doorways, watching the warthog as it drove by, their face's expressionless. Adam stopped for three scantly clad children playing football in the street, one kicked the ball off to the side of the road and the three followed it to let the warthog pass.

As they exited the village, two men appeared on rooftops either side of the street the warthog was traveling on. Both were armed with ancient guns, similar to the AK-67 James now carried. They looked at the marines like the other villagers, expressionless.

To the far north lay the Covenant dig site, around thirty large Covenant ships hovered in the air above the dig site, and in the centre was the largest ship James had ever seen. No one seemed to know what the triangle shaped ship was, ONI, as always, hadn't said anything about it. The one thing James knew was that it wasn't Covenant, it was something else, something much more powerful than anything the Covenant or UNSC possessed.

Suddenly the warthog hit rougher ground and James was momentarily thrown out of his seat. He grabbed the rail on the roof to steady himself. The marines in the back were talking amongst themselves, James however could only hear muffled, impossible to understand words thanks to the warthog's loud engine. If any Covenant soldiers were in their path, they'd have a few minutes warning of the warthog's approach to prepare.

Four Hornets flew overhead, marines holding onto the sides of each aircraft as they approached Voi. They quickly overtook the warthog and after a few minutes, James could make out the hornets landing on a building at the edge of Voi and the marines dispersing from the aircraft. As the warthog neared the edge of the town, the hornets rose into the air again and headed over the town, towards the raging battle around it's far edge.

Then the warthog stopped, in front of it was a massive barrier of debris from a fallen building.

"We're going on foot from here," shouted Adam as he exited the warthog. The marines complied and followed him as he climbed up the hill of debris.

They quickly reached the top from where they had a clear view of their target, the huge Covenant AA gun. The gun was firing at any UNSC aerial vehicle that moved, easily destroying the small Hornets and Pelicans.

The marines followed Adam down the other side of the debris and down the street that followed. They all heard the distant sound of automatic fire and plasma bursts, along with the occasional quick chilling scream from a marine splashed with plasma. They were two kilometres from their target at this stage and they only had thirty minutes remaining to destroy the gun.

From the end of the street came a single ghost. The vehicles commander, a Grunt, attempted to ram the marines and fired the ghost's boosters, sending it straight for the soldiers. James was ready for it and a short, yet loud, burst from his AK-67 hit the tip of the Grunt's methane tank, igniting it. In terror the Grunt crashed the ghost into the side of a building, moments before the methane tank finally exploded, killing the Grunt and destroying the ghost.

They began to sprint and within a few minutes, they reached a street blockaded by UNSC forces. The commander of the blockade, a young sergeant, looked happy to see them.

"I need you marines to take up defensive positions here," said the Sergeant. He was barely heard over the noise of the surrounding battle.

"We can't," Adam shouted back, "We have to push through the Covenant forces and get to that gun."

"We need the support here, we have four KIA and only five men left to defend-"

"ONIs orders, let us pass marine," Adam said, quietening the Sergeant and forcing him to help them.

Adam continued, "I want your machine gunners to draw fire away from us, we're going to have to move up through the building on the left. Once we destroy the gun, we'll attempt to get back here and help you withdraw back to a better outpost. We need the help now though"

"Alright, Kazim, Wilkins, I want you two to give these marines covering fire."

"On it sir," responded one of the two machine gunners.

"Right, James you go in first," Adam pointed at another marine, Finn, "you follow him and I'll follow you. I expect everyone else to follow me in. If there are any hostile forces inside, we kill them. That gun is our primary objective, remember that."

They quickly ran to the entrance of the building. Adam tapped James on the shoulder and watched as James kicked in the door. He threw a flashbang in and withdrew, a second later a silent flash burst out of the building and James burst inside. Finn followed James and Adam followed Finn. Less than five seconds after Adam tapped James's shoulder, the squad was ready inside.

They heard the machine gun fire from outside as they stealthily advanced through the building. A Brute walked in front of Adam, who was now leading the squad. He quickly ran upon the Brute and jumped on him, knife ready. In one great sweeping motion, Adam brought the knife down upon the Brute's neck, easily passing it through the alien's thick skin. He silently let the now dead alien drop to the floor.

Soon the squad exited out the other side of the building, only to startle a Grunt squad. The marines were forced to attack, James's AK 67 let out a loud series of bangs as he emptied half his clip into the enemy. Another marine dispatched the last Grunt with the considerable less noisy MA5B.

"-blam!- James, the Covenant definitely heard that damn thing," Adam shot James an accusing look, "We had better move before half the city comes down on us. Throw that thing away and get a proper gun."

James didn't reply, instead he took up the rear of the squad and wordlessly followed. As Adam had anticipated, several curious Covenant squads appeared both behind and in front of the marines. They took up a defensive formation, and began firing against the advancing aliens both sides.

The Covenant returned fire, needles, spikes and plasma flew towards the marines who took cover at each side of the street behind fallen debris. The plasma splashed oven the stone while the spikes deflected. Many of the needles burst into several thousand tiny shards; however a few made it over the debris and tracked their targets. Only two needles hit their target, both hit Finn.

  • 02.08.2011 10:38 AM PDT

An assassin will always carry on, even after death.

By now there were at least thirty hostile aliens blocking them from running for their target. Finn looked at Adam and pulled a grenade from his belt. Once the needles burst, Adam knew he would more than likely die. Adam nodded and Finn jumped out of cover, firing bursts of his assault rifle as he ran, a stray plasma bolt hit his shoulder, causing him to drop his gun, he cried out in pain but kept running for the Covenant forces. A few feet away he pulled the pin and jumped into the Covenant fray, three seconds later he was nothing.

The four remaining marines jumped out of cover and ran down the street, passing dying Grunts sprawled at the side of the street. One was reaching out, its leg blown off, for a split second Adam made eye contact with it, and for that second he felt pity for his fallen enemy.


***


The phantom began to slow and then it stopped. The sides lowered and the Elite who first found Sarah told her to follow. She dropped out of the phantom and followed the Elite down the hallways of the Covenant ship. Unlike the dull grey of UNSC ships, the walls and ceilings were purple or blue. When Sarah asked about the different colours, the Elite simply said it's normal to them.

They soon arrived in the command centre of the ship, unlike UNSC ships, the Covenant ship's command centre was somewhere in the middle of the ship. The shipmaster was here, ordering several technicians. The Elite and Sarah stopped and waited for him to finish before approaching.

"Takum, what did you bring me today?" asked the shipmaster.

The Elite, Takum, responded, "A human I found near the dig site. She managed to get past several Brute kill squads without notice. I believe she would serve you well in your new plan."

The shipmaster sat back in his chair, "Maybe she would," then turning to Sarah he asked, "What squad are you in, human?"

"Delta-Zulu-Fourteen," she answered.

"Get Lord Hood on the comms," the shipmaster shouted at a nearby technician.

Within seconds Lord Hood appeared on the large screen.

"What is it shipmaster, I'm in the middle of something here, if you would remember."

"I want to take another of your soldiers for my plan," said the Shipmaster.

"Hmmm, you've taken most of our best marines and ODSTs, why do you want another one?"

"This one shows more promise than most of the others, she avoided several Brute kill teams by the dig site."

"What squad?"

"Delta-Zulu-Fourteen."

Lord Hood's eyes widened, "absolutely not, there's no way you're getting anyone from that squad. Who is it anyway?"

Sarah stood out, "Sorry sir, I wasn't sure of their intentions."

"The report shows that you left your squad to search for survivors. Fine shipmaster, you can have her, but that's it, no more human soldiers," the screen went black after that.

"Good," commented the shipmaster, "Takum, bring her to the other humans, get armour ready."

  • 02.08.2011 10:39 AM PDT
Subject: [Story] The battle of Earth (Chapter five)

The tide is turning, brothers! Let us take our kingdom back!

Dude! Your story, and the one before it, are pretty darn awesome. I'm just disappointed I haven't found it sooner. Keep up the good work, man.

Oh, and I don't know if you know this or not, but there's a book by Tom Clancy called Patriot Games, where an Irish terrorist named none other than Sean O'Connor is the main antagonist. Was that intentional? Or just a coincidence?

[Edited on 02.10.2011 3:59 AM PST]

  • 02.10.2011 3:58 AM PDT

If you can read this, that means I'm not a Shaolin monk...

yet.

Great.

  • 02.10.2011 9:31 AM PDT

An assassin will always carry on, even after death.


Posted by: OfTheBloodguard
Dude! Your story, and the one before it, are pretty darn awesome. I'm just disappointed I haven't found it sooner. Keep up the good work, man.

Oh, and I don't know if you know this or not, but there's a book by Tom Clancy called Patriot Games, where an Irish terrorist named none other than Sean O'Connor is the main antagonist. Was that intentional? Or just a coincidence?

Thanks for commenting :D

It's a coincidence, I was trying to put in some Irish names(I'm Irish) and names like Séan are common here. Still though, I might grab that book if I see it now.

  • 02.10.2011 3:44 PM PDT

The tide is turning, brothers! Let us take our kingdom back!


Posted by: Skulblaka

Posted by: OfTheBloodguard
Dude! Your story, and the one before it, are pretty darn awesome. I'm just disappointed I haven't found it sooner. Keep up the good work, man.

Oh, and I don't know if you know this or not, but there's a book by Tom Clancy called Patriot Games, where an Irish terrorist named none other than Sean O'Connor is the main antagonist. Was that intentional? Or just a coincidence?

Thanks for commenting :D

It's a coincidence, I was trying to put in some Irish names(I'm Irish) and names like Séan are common here. Still though, I might grab that book if I see it now.


Not a problem. As far as I'm concerned, you deserve all the comments you get.

And it's a good book. (Oh, and by the way, if you need more names to add, use Jack Ryan, he's the main protagonist of the book. Lol, wouldn't it be interesting having those 2 in your story?)

  • 02.10.2011 9:21 PM PDT
Subject: [Story] The battle of Earth

Can someone explain this to me so that it makes some goddamned sense?


Posted by: Rotagila88

Posted by: Skulblaka
Thanks for pointing that out :D


You're welcome. I will give you more advice as I begin read through it, which should be in about a month.


Okay, I fail at time estimations. Badly. Anyways, congrats on becoming a top forum topic.

  • 03.06.2011 6:49 PM PDT

An assassin will always carry on, even after death.

Haha, thanks, I'm just about finished Chapter six. Will have it up by Saturday/Sunday(hopefully)

I'll try to get parts up more than once a month from now on...

  • 03.16.2011 6:58 PM PDT
Subject: [Story] The battle of Earth (Chapter five)

An assassin will always carry on, even after death.

Chapter 6: Uninvited guests

The entire platoon was pinned down, unable to move or leave cover for fear of being hit by one of the five Covenant shade turrets. Adam's squad had just linked up with the platoon, which was in fact several different squads, all assigned to taking out the AA gun. They had three minutes before the aerial assault would begin.

Commander White had notified Adam that the Spartan had yet to destroy the gun he was assigned to, and if neither gun was destroyed within the next two minutes, the attack would be called off.

James looked over at Adam who was talking with the CO of the newly formed platoon. He was wearing state of the art ODST armour, along with the famed recon helmet. On his shoulder was a bird, James assumed this was the leader of the Special Forces squad they were originally going to meet up with.

Adam crawled back to his squad, "We're going to make a diversion, Eagle squad is going to destroy the generator. James, I want you to fire that gun of yours at the turrets, if it does as much damage as it makes noise, it'll destroy them in no time," he turned to another marine, "I want you to throw everything we have at them, literally, smoke, flashbangs, grenades, we'll put them in a big pile and you throw. I'll get a few more marines to help you, but when I say stop, I mean stop."

The marines nodded. James took a quick glance at Eagle squad. There were only three of them, all looking tired as if they were just back from a mission. Wouldn't be anything new if they were just back from a mission, thought James, he remembered when he was temporally in an ONI squad, just a few weeks earlier.

Adam gave the signal and Eagle squad quickly moved behind an adjacent building. James quickly popped out of cover and fired a burst at a shade turret, barely scraping it, before crouching back down behind his sandbag cover. He clearly got the shades attention because he could hear its cannons and feel the sandbags heating up.

Suddenly the air filled with smoke as the other marines began to throw their grenades. They quickly pulled the fuses off their few grenades and lobbed them at the shades. James popped back up and fired another short burst through the smoke, where he assumed the shade was.

"The mission is going ahead, three sabres are inbound," shouted Adam, "one minute!"

James jumped over the sandbag barrier and ran towards the gun, using the smoke for cover. Suddenly a shade appeared in front of him, the gunner, a small Grunt, was startled by his sudden appearance and hesitated long enough for James to shoot him. He passed the Shade and resumed his run.

Suddenly he heard shouting coming from below him. He looked around and noticed the barely visible cliff edge just a few feet to his left. He poked his head over to see several soldiers climbing the rock face; the second squad. James had almost forgotten about them. He offered a hand to the highest marine and helped him to the top.

"Thirty seconds," shouted Adam, his voice was only a faint whisper amongst the gunfire.

James began to run towards the gun again. He exited the smoke to see Eagle squad in combat with two Brutes. James raised his gun, but before he could pull the trigger, something hit him across the back of the head and knocked him to the ground. He tried to get back up, but he felt a foot push him back down to the ground.

He tried to crawl forward but something grabbed him by his neck and picked him up. He found himself staring into the face of a Brute. James kicked but received a punch to the chest, he spat into the alien's face only to receive another punch. The Brute growled and hit James once more, he cried in pain and kicked hard at the Brute's armour.

Suddenly the sky lit up and a deafening explosion could be heard, the Brute dropped James and began firing it's carbine towards the AA gun, or what was left of it. Seconds later James saw the Sabres fly over. A marine ran to him and helped him up as another marine disposed of the Brute. James looked out at the covenant dig site, then up at the sky as the Longswords arrived over the second gun, the gun the Spartan had destroyed.

The Longswords fired upon the triangular ship in the centre of the dig site, the hull of the ship erupted in explosions. Seconds later the arriving UNSC frigates fired their main cannons at the Covenant ship, all hitting.

Suddenly the edges of the dig site began to rise, thin pillars folded out of the ground, the Covenant ship lowered into the ground and a blinding blue light burst out of the tip of the vessel, punching a hole in the cloudy sky. Every ship in the sky lost control and slowly began to drift into the beam as it grew brighter. Then the beam exploded.

The marines were sent flying by the force of the beam; James pushed himself up and shook off the pain in his arm. His shoulder hit a rock when he hit the ground. He looked into the sky to see a slipspace portal hundreds of times bigger than he ever saw before, the Covenant ships, including their main triangular ship, were heading into it. They sped up and disappeared into the portal, leaving the few UNSC ships out of control, but still floating in the air.

Then a second portal opened, only for an instant, as a smoking Covenant frigate slipped through. The ship was badly damaged and not long after it slipped through, it crashed down in Voi.

The other marines were up by now too. They talked amongst themselves, about the dig site opening a portal in the sky, about the Covenant ship that had been in the centre and about what they thought would happen next.

"That wasn't a Covenant ship," Adam was standing beside James.

"No? What was it?"

"Forerunner ship, I don't know much myself but ONI thinks they used to be in control of the Galaxy."

"I never heard of Forerunners before. What are they?"

"I don't know, I wasn't told much. Ask Commander White the next time you see him."

"I will, -", James was cut off by gunfire behind him. He turned around to see several small, football sized things scurrying along the ground towards the marines. Several of them popped as bullets hit them, yet most of them kept on track.

James heard Adam swear and begin to fire, by now most of the marines were firing at the new threat. The aliens were popping quickly, until one leapt forward and appeared to attach itself to the head of a marine before stabbing a long tentacle through the soldiers back. The marine began screaming but no one appeared to know what to do, until one of the ODST's from Raptor squad put a .50 calibre shell through his head.

The waves of aliens began to subside and finally they stopped coming, James slowly walked towards the dead marine, afraid of what he would see. He felt a hand grasp his shoulder and stop him in his tracks.

"You don't want to see that," said Adam, "Believe me; we're now facing an enemy much worse than the Covenant."

The three ODSTs from Eagle squad approached Adam and James.

"We have just received orders to bring you two with us, we have to move fast now that the Flood are here," informed Carl.


***


Michael looked at his heads up display, they were thirty kilometres from their target and the hostile Anti-Aircraft gun was still standing.

"Decrease throttle to thirty-five per cent and turn twelve degrees towards target," he ordered.

Three green lights winked on his HUD, the lights of his three wingmen; Brian, Aaron and Maria. Like him, they were hand-picked by ONI to pilot the top secret Sabre fighter.

"We'll fly low in case the marines don't take care of the gun, increase throttle to 120% if we reach eight kilometres to target before it's destroyed."

"Yes LT," replied Maria as three green lights winked again.

As they neared the AA gun, a rectangle targeting recital appeared around it on his heads up display, a small bar to the side of the recital showed the guns charge level. As they neared fourteen kilometres to target, several small circles dotted the ground on the HUD, each representing a marine or Elite.


[Edited on 03.17.2011 4:39 PM PDT]

  • 03.17.2011 4:38 PM PDT
Subject: [Story] The battle of Earth

An assassin will always carry on, even after death.


Then at nine kilometres the gun exploded, shrapnel flying across the Seraphs flight path but well out of harm's way before the Seraphs arrived.

"Full throttle, NOW."

The Seraphs shot forward and the targeting system switched to the main target, a Covenant frigate supposedly bound for the Brute's homeworld. They were going to fire a missile each at the ship, to draw suspicion away from the main objective; to plant a tracking device on the ship and transfer control to the device to the Elites.

They had a clear path to the ship, its weapons weren't charged and there were on ground defences on their way. Then the ground opened as they hit the four kilometres until firing range mark. A beam rose from the central ship into the sky.

Then the beam exploded outwards, the force of the invisible blast knocked the Sabres out of control, Michael quickly regained control of his fighter and again locked onto his target ship. A slipspace portal appeared in the skies and the Covenant ships accelerated towards it, including his target.

Finally his Sabre locked onto the Frigate again. He fired two missiles, then the targeting device. Both missiles hit the ship; neither had much effect but then the targeting device attached itself to the hull of the Frigate.

"Good work pilot, get out of there now. We're sending recovery teams to get two of your other pilots, they hit the ground but we believe they're still alive. Delta four is still in the air and returning to base, get yourself-"

A second slipspace portal appeared in the sky, killing all comms for an instant, enough time for a new Covenant ship to slip in.

"New objective, follow that ship to ground and use whatever weapons you have left against anything that leaves it," ordered Lord Hood.

"Sir, what just slipped in? More Covenant?"

"Not Covenant, worse; it's the Flood."


***


Sarah followed Takum through the Covenant ship. They entered a large, almost empty room and the doors hissed shut behind them. Several humans were at one side of the room, clad in armour Sarah had never seen before. The armour resembled that of an Elites, it had rounded edges and was a dark, yet shiny, shade of Purple.

"You will get your armour soon human, until then; get to know your fellow humans. You will meet up with the Sangheili soon. Weapons are on the second level, take what you want," with that the Elite turned and departed.

One of the Humans walked towards Sarah.

"The Elites decided to create a joint Human-Elite platoon," Sarah recognised the voice but she didn't know from where, "looks like we've been the lucky ones."

"Wilson? I haven't seen you since New Mombassa."

"Yeah, well, a lot's happened hasn't it. The Covenant launched a full scale invasion, at least the Covenant's capital was taken out, I don't have the details on that though."

"Their Capital?"

"Yeah, apparently there was a huge space battle the same day as New Mombassa. It's rumoured that even a Spartan played a part. I only know this from overhearing the shipmaster speaking with Hood though."

"I heard something similar," admitted Sarah, "That strange Covenant ship, the one in the centre of the dig site, that used to be the centre of a huge Space city called High Charity. Maybe that was their capital."

"Maybe, will we go and get you armed now?"

  • 03.17.2011 4:39 PM PDT
  • gamertag: [none]
  • user homepage:

Bungie.net member Since 2001

"A hero need not speak. When he is gone, the world will speak for him"
"You are the last of your kind: bred for combat, built for war. You're the master of any weapon, pilot of any vehicle, and fear no enemy"

Great job Skul! Thread saved*

  • 03.17.2011 4:46 PM PDT

An assassin will always carry on, even after death.

Thanks MC, I'll try to write faster than one chapter/month from now on

  • 03.17.2011 5:00 PM PDT

The tide is turning, brothers! Let us take our kingdom back!

This was really awesome! When I realised that the Portal was opening, my face was something like this: =O

Great job. You could possibly put a little bit more work into describing that scene, but it's still really awesome. Keep it up!

  • 03.17.2011 9:58 PM PDT

An assassin will always carry on, even after death.


Posted by: OfTheBloodguard
This was really awesome! When I realised that the Portal was opening, my face was something like this: =O

Great job. You could possibly put a little bit more work into describing that scene, but it's still really awesome. Keep it up!


Thanks, I'll try to put a bit more detail in, in the future.

Thanks for commenting though, really means a lot.

  • 03.18.2011 6:27 AM PDT

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