Halo - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Halo: Michael Douglas ❯ The Day the Earth Stood Still ( Chapter 2 )

 

Halo: Michael Douglas

Chapter 2: The Day the Earth Stood Still

 

Location: Old Mombasa, East African Protectorate

10/20/2552 10:00 a.m.

 

I was wakened by a car screeching to a halt outside the improvised hut. The driver and passenger quickly hopped out and looked at the vid screen on the wall. Noticing that all my friends were nowhere to be seen, I stood and inspected the screen myself.

“… A monumental day in Earth's history,” the anchor said. “The last Spartan, thought missing in action, has resurfaced on the orbital MAC station, Cairo. According to reports, this Spartan has almost single-handedly wiped out enough Covenant forces to populate several planets. Why don't we roll some of that helmet cam footage?”

The screen faded to black and faded back in. It showed a beautiful sight. The camera panned down, revealing the fact that he was on a cliff, it began panning up and showing the scenery as it grew off into the distance.

The camera continued upward. It went as high as the person's neck would go, showing what appeared to be some sort of ring. It suddenly whipped down and around to reveal a charging, weaponless Elite. The alien pulled its arm back to strike when a green-clad foot flew out and smashed the spit-chin right in the face. Blood and bits of tooth flew from its gaping maw as the beast itself was thrown backward by the impact. It bounced several times before coming to a rest.

The kick was accompanied by the sounds of bones breaking. The watching crowd murmured excitedly as the screen cut back to the news anchor who was smiling enthusiastically.

“Amazing,” he said. “With me today, from the space station Cairo, is Sergeant Major Avery Johnson who also just recently returned with the SPARTAN from what we are coming to know as `Halo'. Sergeant, thank you for joining me.”

“Hey, no problem,” the Marine said casually.

“How does it feel to be home?”

“Great. There've been times lately that I was afraid I wouldn't be able to see Earth again.”

“What was it like, being on Halo?”

“Hell. Pure and simple hell,” the Sergeant said, a little uncomfortable now.

“And the Flood, what is it? Was it some sort of Covenant super-weapon?”

The Sergeant's dark eyes narrowed as he prepared to answer. “That's classified,” he said resolutely. “Now if you don't mind, I have to get ready and get the Chief.”

“Of course, thank you for joining us, Sergeant.” Then the connection was cut and it went back to the anchor. The rest of the report was lost to me because I found my friends and hurried over to them.

“Hey, guys. You all see that?”

“Yeah, amazing,” Matt said, truly impressed.

“Pretty neat,” Tom replied. Ian and James agreed.

“I don't know about you guys, but I'm hungry,”

 

Around six hours later we were strolling by the same screen when it hummed back to life.

“The awards are about to be given out, let's watch,” the anchor announced giddily as the picture cut to a camera on the Cairo. It showed a crowd of about 30 Marines cheering for two people at the center. One had his dress-uniform on while the other was encased in olive green armor. Their names appeared at the bottom of the image. The man in white was Sergeant Major Avery Johnson and the other was Master Chief-John 117.

The Master Chief leaned his head slightly toward the Sergeant. After a moment they began walking and the Sergeant's lips began moving.

As they approached the door, the two guards, also in white, saluted and stepped aside. While they waited for the door to open, the Sergeant took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. The SPARTAN and Johnson walked through the door onto the station's bridge. Inside were more people dressed in white and applauding. At the front of the huge room was a small group of people, one of whom was Lord Hood. The men walked down to the command area and saluted.

“Gentlemen, it's good to have you back,” Lord Hood said. One of the men behind him leaned forward and whispered in his ear. A pedestal nearby came to life and an AI materialized on top.

“Another whisper, sir, near Io. We have probes en route,” the small blue figure said. She looked at the men, which one, I'm not sure, and said, “You look nice.”

“Thanks,” came from the Master Chief.

“Thank you,” was the Sergeant's reply. They looked at each other, then back at Lord Hood.

“I apologize but we're going to have to make this quick,” Hood said as another person brought him the medals. He plucked one off of the red cushion and began pinning it on the Sergeant.

“Sergeant Major, the Colonial Cross is awarded for singular acts of daring and devotion, for a soldier in the United Earth Space Corps, there is no greater honor.” He retrieved another medal and presented it to the Master Chief, while reciting the statement that he made to the Sergeant, who stowed it in a small pouch on his hip.

A woman stepped up and turned to face Hood.

“Commander Miranda Keyes, your father's actions were in keeping with the highest traditions of military service. His bravery in the face of impossible odds reflects great credit on him and the UNSC… the navy has lost one of its best,” the old man said, handing Miranda her father's medal.

Just then an alarm went off and the camera's feed cut to static. After a moment, the static cleared and showed a stoic and depressed looking news anchor. “Ladies and gentlemen, a state of emergency has been declared for the whole planet. They've found us… the Covenant are here, everyone who is able is being urged to attempt to fend them off, but this could be the end of humanity. God help us all.”

The screen switched to a message urging the people of Mombasa to fight the `weak' Covenant invaders. Matt had disappeared, probably off to the nearest armory. He had found a way to keep his neural lace working so that he still received communications and such. He had memorized the codes in case of this.

We sat on the bench that had served as our bed earlier and thought about the situation. Fifteen silent minutes went by when a large white cargo truck pulled up in front of us. Matt rolled the window down and signaled for us to get in the back. Ian hefted the door open and our jaws dropped. Half the cargo area was filled with weapons and ammo. From small, weak-looking pistols to rifles, to a rocket launcher, he had to have cleaned out an entire armory for this much hardware.

“Where are we goin'?” I asked, eying one of the scoped weapons.

“You guys ever been to the Hotel Zanzibar?” Matt asked casually.

The cargo area was pretty small, so I sat up in the front (due to the fact that I get severely claustrophobic in small spaces). Smoke could be seen in the distance, roiling lazily from several fires. Whether our enemies started them or hoodlums who felt they could escape justice, they were unsettling. As we approached the two-star hotel on the beach separating Old Mombasa and New, Matt slowed to a stop. As we got out, the sounds of battle could be heard in the surrounding area. Explosions cluttered the sky above.

“This is as close as we go in the truck,” Matt said. None of us argued. We piled all the weapons into a medical supply crate and hefted it around the corner. There had been no Covenant to be seen, yet. As we approached the front of the once-fancy hotel an ODST stepped quickly around a corner, pointing one of the scoped rifle weapons at us.

“Who are you?!” the man under the helmet demanded.

Matt stepped forward first and said “Lieutenant Matt Preston, discharged.”

“My name's Mike Douglas,” I replied, putting my hands up and dropping the crate on Tom's toe.

“Ow goddamn it!” he said while jumping up and down holding his foot. “I'm Tom, nice to meet you.”

James stepped out from behind the corner, “I'm James.”

Ian chuckled at Tom's reaction and said “and I am Ian.”

The man relaxed slightly but kept the gun level. “Hey, Sarge! We got some help.”

“Oh great, Marines?” the Sergeant said walking out of the building. He had a piece of gauss taped to his head and a dribble of blood snaked down his face from the wound on his head.

The Sarge had obviously been expecting better, shall we say… suited reinforcements.

“Not quite, sir.”

“You've got to be kidding me.”

“No, sir, we're here to help if we can,” Matt said proudly.

“What's in the crate?” the first one asked. We opened it and they inspected the contents.

“Well then boys, I'm Sergeant Pete Stacker. This is Private Drummond. The other two are Butkus and White,” he said, replying to the first one and the other two HellJumpers who had joined us. Stacker and White had either not worn helmets or lost them at some point.

“Alright, let's get that thing inside. There's a closet behind the check-in desk, put it in there. We'll need all the ammo we can get.”

“Why's that?” Tom asked. “We don't seem to be in any danger, unless you count the fact that he's still got that damn rifle pointed at us!” He ended, pointing angrily at Drummond.

“At ease, private.”

“Got it, sir.” And with that the gun was lowered.

“Now to answer your question, right after our Pelican crashed we got into a small fire-fight with the Covenant. We found two Plasma Pistols and only one Grunt body. The split-lip probably killed it for trying to run. It's gonna come back with friends.”

“Where are the pilots?”

“Splattered all across the inside of the windshield,” White said. We all winced at the mental image.

“What made you guys crash? Pelicans are known for being nearly indestructible,” I said, remembering the day it was unveiled. My company had actually come up with its design.

“Tell that to the Scarab that shot us down.”

A Covenant drop ship sped overhead, causing me, Tom, and Ian to jump. The others just watched it, knowing that ground troops would come soon. The strange looking ship stayed aloft, just above the rooftops, for a moment, before deciding that its landing zone was as good as it got. Above the thrumming of the engines, the orders of an Elite could be heard, understanding them was a completely different matter, but they could be heard.

“Let's get inside!” Stacker shouted. Drummond and White hefted the container the rest of the way and set it in the afore-mentioned closet. Each of us chose a weapon and got a very quick briefing on how to use them.

 

 

The Elite roared angrily as the first bullets ricocheted off his shield. He leveled his weapon, a medium-sized purple and grey, uh… thing (I would later learn that it is known as a Carbine). One green round flew from the weapon and hit its assailant, Thomas, in the head, just above the right eye. He let out a short grunt as he fell, his body draped over the large window's sill.

“Bastard!” I screamed as I primed a grenade and threw it at the evil monster. It hit the explosive off to the side with a motion of the weapon. The grenade managed to destroy nothing but a car that it had gone through the windshield of. A Grunt had almost set up a strange-looking device on a bipod when its head exploded as a result of three hollow-point rounds entering its skull. Another of the bizarre aliens finished the other's work and began firing a stream of plasma bolts at us. Another grenade, thrown by an ODST, flew and bounced off the ground and hit the alien in the face. It and three others were turned into light-blue pieces and goo, the plasma turret was destroyed as well.

Two bodies fell from the building across the way; its front had been blown out earlier. The bodies landed on both sides of the split-lip. He didn't even notice them. His right hand left the back grip and went for a rod-like object on his hip. With the left hand, he let the weapon fly. In less than a second it had slammed into Ian's chest, breaking his ribs. When it hit, the beast activated the rod and two prongs of energy materialized out of the air.

How do I know that his ribs broke like dry twigs? Well the fact that I could see the jagged edges of them poking out of his side helped a little bit.

Pink shards flew and impaled him, little squirts of blood escaped him at each point. After a second they erupted, tearing large holes out of his torso. The SMG in his hands began firing, making him spin. He finally dropped to the floor, crimson leaked out of the gaping wounds. When I looked up, I noticed that all that was left of the Covenant force was the Elite, and it was running right for me.

I brought the Battle Rifle to bear and fired, the first and second rounds stripped away the last of its shielding, and the third slammed into the brain cavity. The alien kept running, on brain pulses alone, and I fired and fired and fired and fired. I just kept pulling the trigger until the third or fourth `click'. Of course the Elite was dead the moment the third round tore into his brain, and he had fallen after the second or third pull of the trigger. Personally, I was scared shitless, for the lack of a better term. I was so busy making sure the beast was dead that I didn't even notice the two-meter-tall warrior that walked past me. I was barely aware of the one-sided conversation that was going on behind me.

“Chief, glad you could make it. Crash site's on the other side of this hotel, Chief. Covenant are crawlin' all over it. Follow me.”

“Hey, you okay?” James asked.

Matt came over, “Just remember, war has casualties.”

“Yeah, I'll be fine,” I said, still shocked that two of my four friends were dead. None of the ODST's had died in the skirmish. The sounds of battle could be heard from down the darkened hall when small, round, pulsating blue thing landed about twenty feet from James. Matt tackled me over the window sill as the grenade exploded, killing James. His burned and disfigured body flew over us and landed next to one of the Grunts. We got up and aimed at the dark opening. A figure, shimmering gold, could be seen through the veil, the plasma bolts hitting the shield. The sound of bullets hosing out of two SMG's could be heard, the figure turned to eliminate a Grunt that had tried to sneak past. Its glowing blue blood painted the wall.

Light shone at the end of the short corridor, obscured by the figures of four ODST's and one very tall Marine. Matt and I followed after the others, stumbling awkwardly over corpses in the dark. When we emerged from the tunnel we were greeted by yet more bullet-ridden Grunt corpses. A flame emerged from a hole in one's back. The other spun lazily on a metal rod that jutted out of the ground.

“They breathe pressurized methane. That's what's making that one spin and this one burn,” said Butkus as he noticed my face at the grisly sight.

The thrumming of the Covenant's drop ship engines returned. Waves of pressure undulated from the bottom of the craft; undoubtedly they were what kept its mass in the air and mobile.

“Aww, come on! Not more of these things!” White screamed as the great purple craft came to a halt and began firing while simultaneously unloading Grunts and Elites onto a raised walkway. Huge pink bolts of plasma sailed towards us, scorching the ground where they impacted. Every one except the tall, shielded one took cover in time to dodge the lumbering rounds of energy.

I say they lumber because they move considerably slower than most Covenant weapon rounds. I knew this from very limited knowledge however, so my expertise in this matter is quite… fictional.

The warrior, whose name I still did not know, engaged in a massive one-man battle with the Covenant forces. Even taking three Elites at once seemed no problem for this exceptional man (or woman, or robot. Hell, I don't know). When it was all said and done, the warrior was left standing in a swamp of blood, organs, and lifeless bodies. How the organs got out of the bodies, I'll never know.

A Warthog rolled around a tipped bus on the road below.

“A gift from Commander Keyes, sir!” the driver hollered.

“We'll hold this position, Chief,” Stacker said, gesturing to his Hell Jumpers. The `Chief' nodded in response. He turned and jumped off the bridge and landed on a Covenant hover-craft, driving its front into the road. Sparks jumped from the nose of the purple vehicle. The Elite piloting it roared in surprise and anger as the man in green kicked it out of its seat, causing it to slam into the wall and lose consciousness.

“Guess he's too good to ride with us,” one of the Marines in the waiting Warthog said angrily.

“Call for another `Hog,” Matt said to the driver. He looked over his shoulder, noticing us for the first time.

“Why? What do you plan on doing?”

“Killing as many of them,” Matt nodded at the crumpled form of the Elite on the ground below, “as I am able to.”

“Speaking of which…” White walked over to where the alien lay and pulled out a grenade. “Hey, you think you could blast this one too?” he asked Drummond who produced a Plasma Pistol from a large pouch on his hip. He held the firing-mechanism closed for a few seconds and let the angry green energy fly. It made contact with the beast's shield, causing it to fizzle and deactivate. With amazing quickness White jammed the frag into the Elite's mouth and darted away.

“This is gonna be good,” he said eagerly. After getting about thirty feet away, he had Drummond shoot the shield again and then he turned and shot the grenade with his battle riffle. The explosion sent sticky, dark blue goo flying everywhere. When the dust cleared, all that was left of the once-proud Elite was two arms and legs attached to a torso that had, for the most part, been blown literally to pieces. The arms where still held in place by small stretches of skin and muscle. The head, shoulders, and most of the chest were scattered around the nearby area.

The reality of what happened didn't really hit home until a huge drop of what was once solid matter landed on my shoulder, applying a liberal coating of splintered bone and semi-liquefied tissue to my arm. I poked at the mass that was dribbling down my arm with morbid curiosity. It was extremely sticky and smelled ungodly. To be honest, I almost threw up. The only way I suppressed that urge was by thinking that then I would have the smell of the goo and my own vomit, not to mention the taste of the former, with me until I could next bathe, and that could be a while.

The beaches were littered with the corpses of fallen Covenant soldiers. Matt manned the gunner's position while I rode shotgun. The driver was a stony-faced man named Rob. At every chance he got he rolled the tires of the three-ton beast over the prone forms in the sand. He trapped one unlucky straggler and hopped out. Purple blood leaked from the Elite's mouth as it looked at us with disdain. It brought its weapon to bear and shot the marine through the leg and died.

“Son of a bitch!” Rob yelled out of pain and anger and kicked the corpse with his good leg. “Hey, you were a swabbie, right?” He said to Matt.

“Yeah, yeah,” he replied as he hopped out of the gunner's position. “You're lucky, the round just missed the Femoral artery,” he said nonchalantly as he treated the wound with Bio-foam.

“Damn, that woulda made seven, too,” Rob said, disappointed.

“Seven!? As in you've been hit in the Femoral artery, one of the most important veins in the whole Human body, six times?!” I practically screamed at Rob.

“Yeah. And thanks to all this modern medical stuff,” he gestured to the wound in his leg, “I can keep on fighting.”

Matt just shook his head in exasperation and climbed back into the position. I just chuckled at the thought of Bio-foam. My company helped make that one, too. It was the greatest thing to happen to medicine since self-adhesive bandages. Most of what companies produced before the war was crap. Over five hundred years of Grade-A Bullshit.

We made our way to the highway tunnel; a gigantic bridge loomed over the river, separating the beach and Old Mombasa from the Duracrete and steel shores of New Mombasa. The inside of the tunnels, just like the beaches, was filled with the corpses of dead Covenant warriors. The remains of their vehicles smoldered and smoked, burned and crackled like fresh kindling added to a dying fire. Busses and civilian vehicles were present too. Some were destroyed beyond recognition. Some still had the drivers and passengers in them, burned from dozens of merciless plasma burns.

As we rounded an overturned bus, the roof of which was splattered with the blood and gore of several Elites and Jackals, we went up a hill and saw a tremendous gaping hole in the roof.

“Damn, must have been a Scarab, caused that,” Rob observed.

“A what?” I responded.

“Scarab, one of the largest known non-space-faring vehicles the Covenant has. It's got four legs, one main cannon on the front and two turrets facing back and front. The cannon fires pulses of gigantic plasma bombs. The turrets are like `roided-up Needlers,” he explained conversationally. “You'll know it if you see it.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

Near the hole was a tremendous black spot. A Warthog tire lay nearby. “That smear used to be a `Hog,”

I swallowed nervously and thought of the power it must take to destroy a Warthog so completely. We carefully navigated the rest of the way through the tunnels, weaving in and out of Human and Covenant vehicles, as if they had shared these roads in a peaceful manner at one point.

We finally entered Section C-4 of the highway tunnel, the last section of it before the bride as far as I could tell. The sight of the battlefield made my mouth drop open. Remains of vehicles and foot soldiers alike littered the ground. Blood ran through the grating in between the lanes. A large n-shaped vehicle allowed just enough room under it to squeeze on to the other side. Matt ducked instinctively, even though he still had a few feet of clearance. Rob drove us up into the hazy sunlight above. As a flight of Pelicans flew over the bridge, one with an elongated troop bay turned away from us and settled down.

A woman's head popped out and she called “You guys looking for something to do?”

“Hell yeah!” Rob yelled back. He deactivated the light recon vehicle and motioned for us to follow. I looked to my friend for instruction. He just shrugged to himself and hopped out of the mounted turret. I followed his lead and climbed out. We all piled into the vehicle and the drop ship lifted off.

“Okay people, our target is a Covie-controlled building near the space tether. We'll land on top and work our way down, forcing the rats out into the street, where they can be isolated and killed. Sniper cover has already been set up near the target and will support us as best they can,” the same woman said. We spent a speechless, but plenty noisy, minute on the troop carrier before it came to a stop on the roof of what I assumed was the building. The Marines started piling off and ran to an access hatch. One of them threw it open and swept with his rifle. He gave a thumbs-up and jumped down. We all followed. The enemy ship hovered nearby, a shimmering purple beam shot down from the belly of the gigantic beast. I hopped down into the opening just as a laser lanced out and pierced the Pelican, turning it into a flaming ball of wreckage hurtling towards the ground, some fifty stories below.

A Marine stood on one side of the door and made a series of hand motions. He took out a small vid-pad and connected a fiber optic probe to the end of it. He slid the small electronic eye under the door and looked about with it. After a moment he made some more gestures. A man with a shotgun stepped up to the other side of the door. The `peeper' rested one hand on the knob and counted down from three on his fingers. At zero he threw open the door and the shotgun man rolled in. He looked left then right and determined the room safe. We all filed in.

The room was very elegant. The couches and chairs were all made from fine-leather, a holo-display nearby hummed to life and a civilian AI appeared. He welcomed us whole-heartedly. Paintings on the wall depicted scenery from dozens of planets. The carpet was soft and thick, very expensive. Everything in the room reminded me of what had once been.

“Okay boys and girls, this will be CP for now,” the woman from before said. “I want constant contact from all teams. Split into… what the hell is that noise?!” She said in a surprised manner. We all looked out the window at the Covenant ship. It started moving as the air around it seemed to boil and change color. Purple crafts of all shapes and sizes retreated hastily into the launch bays.

“Ma'am, what's going on?”

“Oh shit, they're not doing what I think they're doing… are they?”

“Yep, we're all pretty well screwed.”

I whispered to Matt, “What's happening?”

“The Covenant are bugging out. They are going to make a Slip Space jump inside the city.”

“Is that possible?”

“I don't know,” he said as the ship disappeared through the hole in normal space and time. The force of the Slip Space window caused a huge blossom of energy that engulfed all of Mombasa. Outside the windows was a complete darkness. The lights flickered and died. A few Marines pulled out and ignited some flares to light the room.

“We're all gonna die, aren't we?” I asked after a few minutes of complete silence. The room was airtight, so we didn't have to worry about suffocation. Yet.

“Yeah, we're all gonna die,” he confirmed.

After a few hours, stars appeared in the darkness. A large blue gas giant could be seen. Near it was a ring, and though comparatively small, the ring was quite large in and of itself. The Covenant ship slid silently over the building, followed by multiple other buildings that had been sucked through the Slip Space tunnel. After about thirty minutes, the ring was considerably closer and a Human frigate glided overhead toward the huge construct, its engines shone brightly in contrast to the dull grayish-brown of the hull. It started getting cold. At first just a few degrees, then it became almost unbearable. The ring loomed ahead as the building tumbled serenely toward its final destination. We all just sat back and waited the end. A few of the Marines and even I folded our hands together and silently prayed to our own gods. We were probably about 500 kilometers from the alien thing and fast approaching it. The impact was going to kill us.

Finally, what had become the bottom of the building slammed into the surface of the huge ring. Within seconds we were all smashed like grapes at a winery between the plush carpet and the plain ceiling.

All was dark and silent for a time. Then there was a blinding light. I appeared on a form of Earth. The air was clean though. Birds chirped, children laughed. A huge gate loomed nearby. In front of the gate was a man with a book and an old-fashioned pen. As I approached, he looked up and said, “Michael Douglas, pardoned of all sins. Welcome to Heaven. The gates swung open and I stepped through. My wife and children waited nearby, even more beautiful and vibrant than I had ever remembered or imagined. After so long, I was happy. Truly and completely happy.

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