Chapter 1
I was never one to enjoy cryosleep. That said, no one is really a fan of it to begin with, but I especially hate it. One in fifty thousand soldiers in the UNSC have a condition called glacicutem proventum, and of course, I had to be one of them. You get post-sleep blisters that are awfully painful, and you always come out of cryo thinking you're floating, which throws off your center of gravity for a few hours.
The code yellow siren was blaring through the cryo-chambers, and everyone in Ulysses squad was putting on their orbital gear.
"All squadrons to your stations, code yellow, protocol C-foxtrot, this is a code yellow, and this is not a drill. All squadrons…"
I had the mech-assist drill in my gauntlets, shin guards, and helmet, and after retrieving my standard issue 3R assault rifle from the Ulysses gun locker, I headed into the chaotic corridor, packed with teams of sprinting engineers and response squadrons who were all shouting at one another over the siren. A few marines passed by me and saluted, and I returned the salute out of respect, trying my best to keep myself upright. When Ulysses squadron, (a troop of 15 new ODST members), filed in behind me, I gave the signal to start moving. In unison, Ulysses moved through the scrambling crew, who all parted at our passing.
Static passed through my helmet's speaker for a fraction of a second, followed by a female voice: "Bridge COM to Ulysses leader, come in."
"This is Ulysses leader, over,"
"Report to the bridge entry way, you will be in charge of defending the bridge and it's crew, do you copy?"
"Permission to speak ma'am."
"Granted."
"What exactly are we defending you from?"
"Unknown hostiles. That will be all, bridge COM out."
Static again for a second, and the transmission ended. Unknown hostiles? If it wasn't the insurrectionists… Who could it possibly be? We ran through the evac hangar and crossed the platform that lead to the bridge door. Outside the door a response team was already placing barricades and mounting turrets, bringing in enough ammo and weapons for a weeklong firefight.
I roughly pulled aside one of the engineers and turned off the tint on my visor so I could look him in the eye. "Why are we so heavily armed? Who are we expecting? Do you know? Answer me!"
The young engineer was sputtering when the bridge door opened, parting the way for a tall man dressed in armored Navy attire.
"Ease up on the kid Jacobs, or you'll be demoted again." The tall man winked at me, and I half smiled, apologizing to the boy I harassed. I walked over to the man, Colonel Delrio, my supervisor all the way back from my years at Reach Military Academy.
"Look son, we're in a tight spot at the moment, our knowledge is minimal, and that boy dealing with a bigger boy like you is the least of his problems. If you want to know what I know, or what we all know, look out that way-" Delrio pointed in the direction of a viewing 'glass' behind me, and I turned to look. I finally understood. A sleek, purple ship in the shape of an elongated beetle was sitting out in space a few kilometers away.
"We have no idea where it came from, but it hasn't responded to any of our sentient contact protocols, and it definitely hasn't tried transmitting to us. It's like an old western shoot out of sorts I tell you.."
"What's a western shoot out?"
Delrio looked at me and smiled. When he opened his mouth to answer, the ship shook so violently that we both collapsed to the ground.
"Code red, this is not a drill, code red, all units to battle stations, follow the code red protocol, this is not a drill, code red."
"Damn! We were hit by something big- and by the sounds of it we took hull damage. Rylan, I have to get back into the bridge. Keep us protected as long as you can, do you understand?"
It was my turn to stutter, as I couldn't quite come to grips to what was happening, not to mention my continuing dizziness from cryo was affecting my thought processing.
"If we get out of this, we're watching Star in the Dust, you hear?" Delrio smiled one last time, and he briskly walked back through the door he came out. I saw the tumultuous bridge for a fraction of a second, and the door closed. I noticed my squadron, Loche, Elnor, Perim, Eury, Tanada, Polma, and all the others looking at me apprehensively, all of their visors untinted, and all of their eyes wide with apprehension.
"Sir," one of the privates beckoned at me, and I nodded so he could speak, "orders?"
"Protect the bridge at all costs." I looked at each of them in turn in the eye, and turned on my visor's tint. Showing my fear may compromise their ability to perform properly, so I turned away to busy myself with setting up the defense; the others followed suit.
As I unpacked cases of ammo, I noticed my arm trembling violently, so I pulled out my pocket watch. I looked at the picture inside, and I closed my eyes, gripping the watch tightly. Putting the watch back into my tactical pouch, I got back to work. The others had started assessing weapons and were running armor diagnostics, and I allowed myself to smile. I had a very reliable team behind me, and that's all I needed right now.
The ship shook again, this time much more violently, and in the distance was the sound of screaming.
Loche said, "What the hell was that?" when yet another violent shake coursed through the Odyssey.
Once again the intercom sprang to life: "We've been boarded by the unknown hostiles, fire at will on sight, they are not here to negotiate."
In unison my team switched off the safeties of their weapons, and took position at their designated perimeters. Behind us was the bridge we were told to defend, and in front of us was a narrow corridor that lead to a door a quarter of a meter thick, made entirely of titanium steel. I was confident in it's strength, but an advanced race of beings may know a way to hack into the ship's computing network. I could override the door to lockdown, so the network has no access to it.
I gestured toward the closest ODST, "Loche, take point, I'm going to override the security access to the door so the hostiles can't hack into it." Loche nodded, and he stepped in front of me. I put my hand on his left shoulder and followed him step by step, my rifle over his right shoulder.
The Odyssey was now firing all of it's weaponry from the sounds of it, archer missile pods, 100mm rounds, and even the deafening MAC cannon, which could cut through any human vessel with one shell. Any human vessel. I glanced sideways through the glass, and saw the beetle like ship intact, without a trace of destruction. Loche stopped, and I nearly ran into him, but I stopped myself short. We were at the door, and the control panel was in front of Loche. I gestured for him to move to the middle of the corridor as I crept up to the control panel. I started to punch in the override code when suddenly, a very loud and very close sounding scream and thud came from behind the door. Strange sounds, squeaks and growls, came from the other side of the door, along with monstrous footsteps that made the ground under me tremble.
There was muffled jabber amongst the hostiles on the other side, and I realized quickly that I had stopped inputting the override code. I finished the code and backed away quickly, signaling Loche to come with me. We backed away facing the door, from which noise was still coming through- indecipherable chatter that had a very aggressive tone to it. I jumped when the door rang, a loud metallic crash that resonated through my bones; a short burst of metal on metal. I stopped in my tracks, and saw the door had been dented in. Loche and I backed away swiftly, rejoining the rest of the group who were all frozen in terror.
Another blow struck the door, and the door gave in a little more.
"Lance Corporal, that door is supposed to hold two thousand pounds of force isn't it?"
I heaved a sigh, "That door is supposed to be able stop a 90mm rocket. Dozens actually. And firing those in the proximity is suicide…"
The door was struck by the same metallic sound for a third time, and the crack down the middle of the door now showed a sliver of the other side- and the beings on the other side.
"Ulysses squadron, you are the 43rd Orbital Drop Shock Trooper unit, graduates of Reach Military Academy from Harvest System, and are soldiers of the United Nations Space Command. You are the top one percent of the top one percent" Another crash, "We are here to foxtrot any enemy between man and victory," BOOM the giant metal door split at its center and cracked open at last, "WE ARE HELL JUMPERS!"
"OORAH!" chanted my team, and they opened fire.
