Categories > Games > Halo
To Save Humanity...
1 reviewRated R just in case. Avery Johnsson's brother has his war, just like everyone else...
1Exciting
AN: Since this is my first shot at fanfiction, please bare with me…
AN2:This is going to be a series of one-shots if I have patience and inspiration.
Unwanted Humanity
The air smelled of burnt flesh and still smoldering ashes. But what else could be expected considering what was happening… what had been happening for three days now. The Covenant invasion. It happened so fast, the change from hearing about a war still distant from here, to the the blue sun being blocked by a giant covvie carrier burning away the surrounding buildings and whatever aerial defenses the was here to begin with. They never stood a chance. The entire planet was a war zone, there was nothing left to save since the few civilians alive had been evacuated.
Four shuttles made it out, each holding around five hundred or so people amounting to a total of two thousand saved. Two thousand! The New Haven colony had held over nine million souls before the attack…
Why the UNSC kept sending troops was a mystery, just like the reason for the covvies to stay. The Covenant rarely tried to take a planet since they had a nasty habit of glassing all human colonies as soon as they defeated all space defenses. It had come to the point that the marines down here had started to express a wish that the planet had been glassed to begin with, a wish I now share…
My name is Amicus Johnsson and I am a UNSC Sergeant, and I was in charge of a twelve man squad of marines at the beginning of the mission, a mission that was basically a sprint over the edge of a cliff. The term: "suicide-mission" didn’t quite cut it for the objective given to my squad and over thirty other squads. The objective was simple: ‘Fend off the Covenant invaders’
They were insane. They had sent over thirty thousand marines to ‘defend’ New Haven, while the covvies had sent only a third of that number, at least their troops made it to the ground, while most of ours were blasted out of space before their ships even made it to the atmosphere.
I didn’t know how many marines actually made it into battle, but I would put it at something around eight thousand souls.
It was well known that the higher-ups back at Earth wanted to make a point with Haven… They obviously failed.
My first loss on the team came before our pelican had reached the LZ, a Private Martinez, as I recall. He got hit with a stray plasma shot from somewhere below us, the shot teared straight through what little armor was present on the back door of the pelican and hit him straight in the chest, melting and burning his flesh and bone until there was nothing but a crater left of his torso.
Second to go was a private by the name of Nielsen, who got his head blown off by a brute with a Brute Shot while covering our retreat into some office building, it didn’t do any good though, as the place was blown apart with two of my marines still inside a few hours later when we were attacked by a covvie phantom.
We lost yet another two when we attacked an airbase under enemy control, not to mention the other twenty four marines from the two squads who fought with us.
We lost three men assaulting a interrogation camp but managed to free a total of thirteen men, women and children. Personally, I thought them a liability since two of them could barely walk for old age and torture under the care of the elites, three were children under the age of twelve, and another two were simply two crazy to be of any use, yet another side-effect of the elites ‘hospitality’.
It was a problem that soon rectified itself when the crazy ones somehow got hold of weapons and started blasting everyone they could see while screaming paragraphs from the bible at the top of their lungs, needless to say our numbers were severely diminished by the time I felled the last one with a bullet to the head.
And that’s pretty much how I got into this position. I’m sitting here on a steel stool in the diner where we were holed up, while watching the last two members of my squad and an elderly man at the ‘prime’ of his seventy year old life bickering about how fast he could run with a broken leg.
I was cut short of my musings by private Chambers asking me how long we would have to run through the still-burning city of Sangri to get to the pelican that had been downed in the plaza two blocks from here.
“Approximately three kilometers, private.”
She nodded to herself and turned back to the old man and private Smith to give further argument to her case which involved carrying the old geezer half the way there. ‘As long as it doesn’t slow us down’ was my answer to the group. I could honestly care less about the old geezer since he was not included in my orders.
Unlike my brother, I cared about the survival of hmanity, not the survival of an seventy-year old dinosaur.
“Okay, there are twenty grunts spread out along the way in four groups, each group is headed by an elite and two jackals.” Stated private Smith while hunched over a crude map from a tourist guide of the city.
“Well, we might be able to evade these two groups if we move through the garage.” I could not imagine what kind of training these ‘soldiers’ had, since they seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the covvies weren't human. I, being the veteran that I am, was of course the one burdened with the duty of enlighten them of the fact that aliens are not human.
“Don’t be foolish, those are jackals, they can smell us a mile away. Not to mention that they have a vision like a hawk.” I said in my usual monotone voice.
“Then how are we supposed to get there!?” Chambers asked, frustration and the days of battle shining on her face.
At least she had stopped getting pissed every time I called her 'girl'.
“We’re going to make short sprints from cover to cover.” I stated simply.
“But Mr. Thomas can’t run that well with his shot leg!” Another useless statement.
“Then we leave him.” What was the problem? Didn’t they want to live? We all knew that the geezer didn’t have much of a chance to survive anyway, mostly beacause of the now infected leg.
“No, I’ll carry him if I have to, we’re not leaving him.” Smith stated.
I have to admit that I felt a bit of respect for the young man then, not because of what he offered to do, but for the determined mentality he possessed. If only he would use that for the good of the mission instead of misguided attempts at self-sacrifice.
“Fine but don’t slow us down.”
Suddenly a big boom sounded from outside. They have been found out.
“Get into position! Smith, take the sniper! Chambers, Make sure we’re ready!”
They were holed up in an bombed diner since yesterday thinking they could wait until the covvies had thought the area clear and would withdraw some patrols, they apparently only half succeeded.
The diner was simply a perfect defensive position for an alien attack. It had two floors and was made of steel, it had two doors that were easily barricaded as were the windows, mostly due to the steel tables scattered everywhere.
The top floor was a bar, also made of steel and two windows that were missing for whatever reason. The windows ran the lengths of their respective walls, one front and one back, making it a perfect vantage point for a firefight.
And then there was a roof, perfect for sharpshooters like Smith.
I ran to the window, crouching all the while. It had been quiet since the initial boom, but the fact that it smelled of burning rubber, no doubt from one of the cars they had rigged as a tripwire bomb down the street.
I risked peeking out of the window, stretching my neck as far as possible rather than risk standing up, I could clearly see eight grunts, one jackal and one elite. One jackal? Where was the other one? They were rarely alone in battles, not trusting the other aliens around them. This one didn’t seem so paranoid and twitchy as they usually were when alone with aliens, That could only mean that it was covered…
“GET DOWN! SNIPER!” I quickly ducked down under the window, in the nick of time too, as a purple lance cut through the air I had just vacated, only to hit the bar behind me, leaving a ironically head-sized crater in it.
“Marines, status report!” I yelled over the comm as the diner was bombarded by plasma shots, seemingly encouraged by the sniper shot.
“We got another two groups of grunts moving in on the sides, sir!” came from Chambers downstairs.
“Smith, detonate when they get close!” We had combed the police armory yesterday and come across some very useful stuff which we had used to rig all the surrounding cars and a mailbox as well, and we now have ammunition to last us days, including one rocket launcher, two sniper rifles, two shotguns, and enough assault rifle clips to fill the bar, besides there wasn’t exactly any shortage of frag-grenades which we used to rig the cars along with a few methane barrels.
“We need to get that sniper!” I stated the obvious,
“I’m on it!” Was the response from Smith,
I don’t know how many we killed in the next minute, but when I saw a jackal falling from some random rooftop, the numbers started piling up.
BOOM! BOOM! “Well, that’s a few grunts less in the world” I spoke to no one in particular as I saw two grunt corpses (or what was left of them anyway) fly past the window, no doubt a result of the car bombs we planted.
“How many, Smith?” I asked into the comm since there was much less gunfire now that most grunts were dead.
“The bombs got around twelve in total, while another six have been downed in crossfire.”
That meant that there two grunts, one jackal and one elite left, assuming we were assaulted by one squad.
“Chambers, how are our barricades doing?” Since I couldn’t see more than two grunts and the jackal out on the parking lot, it probably meant that they were trying to get in, since they hadn’t been killed as far I knew…”
BANG!
“They got in through the back, sir!”
“Well, at least we know where they are…” I said to myself,
“Get up here, Chambers! We’ll hold them off from up here!” I mustn’t forget Smith…
“How many left outside, Smith?”
“ They ran, sir!” Please don’t get reinforcements, was my only thought.
“Then get ready for close combat, they’re inside.”
“What!?”
“They. Are. Inside.” Not the sharpest man, was he?
And here comes Chambers, too.
“Good, you’re here. Blow the charges!” Thank god for my idea of setting charges of C4 under a few chairs downstairs.
“But that might kill Mr. Thomas!” Oh yes, the geezer was tucked in a supply closet downstairs.
“If we don’t blow, we are all going to die!”
“Y-Yes, sir!” And the girl quivers, of course.
BOOM!!! This better finish them off, or I swear to god, I’ll kill them with my bare hands!
“GRAAAAHH!!!” Crap. I withdrew my oath all the while rushing towards the bloodied elite staggering up the stairs, un-holstering my shotgun, I almost had it ready when the elite wised up and swung with it’s giant lizard-like hand easily swatting me aside effectively (if momentarily) knocking me out.
When I woke a few seconds later, I almost wished I hadn’t. the elite stood above me, clicking it’s… jaws? I was sure I was dead, and that’s when I felt something right next to my hand. What I did next was done thanks to instinct and adrenaline, as I felt like I flew up off the floor and jamming what turned out to be my shotgun, handle first into the elite’s ‘mouth’ and then dodging between it’s legs while still holding the barrel of the loaded shotgun, and thanks to the creatures anatomy, the weapon was stuck, forcing the alien down with me. I stood looking at the creature who had taken my place on the floor with a shotgun in his mouth, and I didn’t even have to think as my instinct took over telling me to sit on the aliens chest and point away the barrel of the shotgun away from me and pulling the trigger. The backlash of the gun tore through the head of the beast and killing it.
I sat on that beast for a minute before I came off my adrenaline rush and passing out because of the combined effect of a slight concussion and the strain of overpowering the elite.
“Sir! SIR! Good you’re alive! We thought you were gone!” was the first thing I heard when my consciousness welcomed me back to the land of the living.
“Wh-What happened?” Was my eloquent reply.
“It knocked me out, and then you killed it!"
Not much for details that one, eh?
"What about Smith?" I asked because he had not joined us before or after the battle.
"He's checking on Mr. Thomas, But he took out another grunt before he came down."
"Okay, we better move out, god knows how many more covvies are headed here now."
"Yes, sir."
As I stood up and stretched some sore muscles I felt that something was wrong in my shoulder.
"Oh." Was all I said as I observed the big tooth stuck just a little to the right of my left armpit. I saw no other alternative other than pulling it out, so that's what I did. It hurt more than I thought it would, it would no doubt get infected anyway, considering the stuff flying around since the bombing of the mining outposts.
I have reread this and have decided to abandond fanfiction for a long time to work on my original works. sorry :(
AN2:This is going to be a series of one-shots if I have patience and inspiration.
Unwanted Humanity
The air smelled of burnt flesh and still smoldering ashes. But what else could be expected considering what was happening… what had been happening for three days now. The Covenant invasion. It happened so fast, the change from hearing about a war still distant from here, to the the blue sun being blocked by a giant covvie carrier burning away the surrounding buildings and whatever aerial defenses the was here to begin with. They never stood a chance. The entire planet was a war zone, there was nothing left to save since the few civilians alive had been evacuated.
Four shuttles made it out, each holding around five hundred or so people amounting to a total of two thousand saved. Two thousand! The New Haven colony had held over nine million souls before the attack…
Why the UNSC kept sending troops was a mystery, just like the reason for the covvies to stay. The Covenant rarely tried to take a planet since they had a nasty habit of glassing all human colonies as soon as they defeated all space defenses. It had come to the point that the marines down here had started to express a wish that the planet had been glassed to begin with, a wish I now share…
My name is Amicus Johnsson and I am a UNSC Sergeant, and I was in charge of a twelve man squad of marines at the beginning of the mission, a mission that was basically a sprint over the edge of a cliff. The term: "suicide-mission" didn’t quite cut it for the objective given to my squad and over thirty other squads. The objective was simple: ‘Fend off the Covenant invaders’
They were insane. They had sent over thirty thousand marines to ‘defend’ New Haven, while the covvies had sent only a third of that number, at least their troops made it to the ground, while most of ours were blasted out of space before their ships even made it to the atmosphere.
I didn’t know how many marines actually made it into battle, but I would put it at something around eight thousand souls.
It was well known that the higher-ups back at Earth wanted to make a point with Haven… They obviously failed.
My first loss on the team came before our pelican had reached the LZ, a Private Martinez, as I recall. He got hit with a stray plasma shot from somewhere below us, the shot teared straight through what little armor was present on the back door of the pelican and hit him straight in the chest, melting and burning his flesh and bone until there was nothing but a crater left of his torso.
Second to go was a private by the name of Nielsen, who got his head blown off by a brute with a Brute Shot while covering our retreat into some office building, it didn’t do any good though, as the place was blown apart with two of my marines still inside a few hours later when we were attacked by a covvie phantom.
We lost yet another two when we attacked an airbase under enemy control, not to mention the other twenty four marines from the two squads who fought with us.
We lost three men assaulting a interrogation camp but managed to free a total of thirteen men, women and children. Personally, I thought them a liability since two of them could barely walk for old age and torture under the care of the elites, three were children under the age of twelve, and another two were simply two crazy to be of any use, yet another side-effect of the elites ‘hospitality’.
It was a problem that soon rectified itself when the crazy ones somehow got hold of weapons and started blasting everyone they could see while screaming paragraphs from the bible at the top of their lungs, needless to say our numbers were severely diminished by the time I felled the last one with a bullet to the head.
And that’s pretty much how I got into this position. I’m sitting here on a steel stool in the diner where we were holed up, while watching the last two members of my squad and an elderly man at the ‘prime’ of his seventy year old life bickering about how fast he could run with a broken leg.
I was cut short of my musings by private Chambers asking me how long we would have to run through the still-burning city of Sangri to get to the pelican that had been downed in the plaza two blocks from here.
“Approximately three kilometers, private.”
She nodded to herself and turned back to the old man and private Smith to give further argument to her case which involved carrying the old geezer half the way there. ‘As long as it doesn’t slow us down’ was my answer to the group. I could honestly care less about the old geezer since he was not included in my orders.
Unlike my brother, I cared about the survival of hmanity, not the survival of an seventy-year old dinosaur.
“Okay, there are twenty grunts spread out along the way in four groups, each group is headed by an elite and two jackals.” Stated private Smith while hunched over a crude map from a tourist guide of the city.
“Well, we might be able to evade these two groups if we move through the garage.” I could not imagine what kind of training these ‘soldiers’ had, since they seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the covvies weren't human. I, being the veteran that I am, was of course the one burdened with the duty of enlighten them of the fact that aliens are not human.
“Don’t be foolish, those are jackals, they can smell us a mile away. Not to mention that they have a vision like a hawk.” I said in my usual monotone voice.
“Then how are we supposed to get there!?” Chambers asked, frustration and the days of battle shining on her face.
At least she had stopped getting pissed every time I called her 'girl'.
“We’re going to make short sprints from cover to cover.” I stated simply.
“But Mr. Thomas can’t run that well with his shot leg!” Another useless statement.
“Then we leave him.” What was the problem? Didn’t they want to live? We all knew that the geezer didn’t have much of a chance to survive anyway, mostly beacause of the now infected leg.
“No, I’ll carry him if I have to, we’re not leaving him.” Smith stated.
I have to admit that I felt a bit of respect for the young man then, not because of what he offered to do, but for the determined mentality he possessed. If only he would use that for the good of the mission instead of misguided attempts at self-sacrifice.
“Fine but don’t slow us down.”
Suddenly a big boom sounded from outside. They have been found out.
“Get into position! Smith, take the sniper! Chambers, Make sure we’re ready!”
They were holed up in an bombed diner since yesterday thinking they could wait until the covvies had thought the area clear and would withdraw some patrols, they apparently only half succeeded.
The diner was simply a perfect defensive position for an alien attack. It had two floors and was made of steel, it had two doors that were easily barricaded as were the windows, mostly due to the steel tables scattered everywhere.
The top floor was a bar, also made of steel and two windows that were missing for whatever reason. The windows ran the lengths of their respective walls, one front and one back, making it a perfect vantage point for a firefight.
And then there was a roof, perfect for sharpshooters like Smith.
I ran to the window, crouching all the while. It had been quiet since the initial boom, but the fact that it smelled of burning rubber, no doubt from one of the cars they had rigged as a tripwire bomb down the street.
I risked peeking out of the window, stretching my neck as far as possible rather than risk standing up, I could clearly see eight grunts, one jackal and one elite. One jackal? Where was the other one? They were rarely alone in battles, not trusting the other aliens around them. This one didn’t seem so paranoid and twitchy as they usually were when alone with aliens, That could only mean that it was covered…
“GET DOWN! SNIPER!” I quickly ducked down under the window, in the nick of time too, as a purple lance cut through the air I had just vacated, only to hit the bar behind me, leaving a ironically head-sized crater in it.
“Marines, status report!” I yelled over the comm as the diner was bombarded by plasma shots, seemingly encouraged by the sniper shot.
“We got another two groups of grunts moving in on the sides, sir!” came from Chambers downstairs.
“Smith, detonate when they get close!” We had combed the police armory yesterday and come across some very useful stuff which we had used to rig all the surrounding cars and a mailbox as well, and we now have ammunition to last us days, including one rocket launcher, two sniper rifles, two shotguns, and enough assault rifle clips to fill the bar, besides there wasn’t exactly any shortage of frag-grenades which we used to rig the cars along with a few methane barrels.
“We need to get that sniper!” I stated the obvious,
“I’m on it!” Was the response from Smith,
I don’t know how many we killed in the next minute, but when I saw a jackal falling from some random rooftop, the numbers started piling up.
BOOM! BOOM! “Well, that’s a few grunts less in the world” I spoke to no one in particular as I saw two grunt corpses (or what was left of them anyway) fly past the window, no doubt a result of the car bombs we planted.
“How many, Smith?” I asked into the comm since there was much less gunfire now that most grunts were dead.
“The bombs got around twelve in total, while another six have been downed in crossfire.”
That meant that there two grunts, one jackal and one elite left, assuming we were assaulted by one squad.
“Chambers, how are our barricades doing?” Since I couldn’t see more than two grunts and the jackal out on the parking lot, it probably meant that they were trying to get in, since they hadn’t been killed as far I knew…”
BANG!
“They got in through the back, sir!”
“Well, at least we know where they are…” I said to myself,
“Get up here, Chambers! We’ll hold them off from up here!” I mustn’t forget Smith…
“How many left outside, Smith?”
“ They ran, sir!” Please don’t get reinforcements, was my only thought.
“Then get ready for close combat, they’re inside.”
“What!?”
“They. Are. Inside.” Not the sharpest man, was he?
And here comes Chambers, too.
“Good, you’re here. Blow the charges!” Thank god for my idea of setting charges of C4 under a few chairs downstairs.
“But that might kill Mr. Thomas!” Oh yes, the geezer was tucked in a supply closet downstairs.
“If we don’t blow, we are all going to die!”
“Y-Yes, sir!” And the girl quivers, of course.
BOOM!!! This better finish them off, or I swear to god, I’ll kill them with my bare hands!
“GRAAAAHH!!!” Crap. I withdrew my oath all the while rushing towards the bloodied elite staggering up the stairs, un-holstering my shotgun, I almost had it ready when the elite wised up and swung with it’s giant lizard-like hand easily swatting me aside effectively (if momentarily) knocking me out.
When I woke a few seconds later, I almost wished I hadn’t. the elite stood above me, clicking it’s… jaws? I was sure I was dead, and that’s when I felt something right next to my hand. What I did next was done thanks to instinct and adrenaline, as I felt like I flew up off the floor and jamming what turned out to be my shotgun, handle first into the elite’s ‘mouth’ and then dodging between it’s legs while still holding the barrel of the loaded shotgun, and thanks to the creatures anatomy, the weapon was stuck, forcing the alien down with me. I stood looking at the creature who had taken my place on the floor with a shotgun in his mouth, and I didn’t even have to think as my instinct took over telling me to sit on the aliens chest and point away the barrel of the shotgun away from me and pulling the trigger. The backlash of the gun tore through the head of the beast and killing it.
I sat on that beast for a minute before I came off my adrenaline rush and passing out because of the combined effect of a slight concussion and the strain of overpowering the elite.
“Sir! SIR! Good you’re alive! We thought you were gone!” was the first thing I heard when my consciousness welcomed me back to the land of the living.
“Wh-What happened?” Was my eloquent reply.
“It knocked me out, and then you killed it!"
Not much for details that one, eh?
"What about Smith?" I asked because he had not joined us before or after the battle.
"He's checking on Mr. Thomas, But he took out another grunt before he came down."
"Okay, we better move out, god knows how many more covvies are headed here now."
"Yes, sir."
As I stood up and stretched some sore muscles I felt that something was wrong in my shoulder.
"Oh." Was all I said as I observed the big tooth stuck just a little to the right of my left armpit. I saw no other alternative other than pulling it out, so that's what I did. It hurt more than I thought it would, it would no doubt get infected anyway, considering the stuff flying around since the bombing of the mining outposts.
I have reread this and have decided to abandond fanfiction for a long time to work on my original works. sorry :(
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