Hope Against Desolation – Chapter 1 "The Calm."
Planet Ledoux
Kings City
Carmen Area
10:23 P.M.
It was a rainy night, the neon glow of the Close Encounters sign lit up the area. Inside it was for the most part empty, save two men. Garth Caboo, the Bars owner, and Thomas Steele, Thomas sat at the bar as Garth sat behind it. "So man, what are your plans tomorrow?" Garth said as he took a drink from his glass cup, spilling some on his white tee. "Well, im taking my son Connor out for some golf, as my wife takes Beth to this new shop. All Those Things or something." Thomas said as he got up, grabbing his brown jacket." Garth placed his cup down as he spoke, "Oh! That place, I hear they have lots of neat little things. I've been meaning to check that place out." "Yeah, I hear they have pets too…" Thomas said as he got comfy in his jacket. "… Im sure you could ad a fish or two to your aquarium." Garth gave a quick laugh. "I don't think Sea-king would accept another fish." Thomas began to walk out the door. "That big old loin fish is going to die some day Garth!" "You wish!" Garth replayed quickly. "Take it easy, tom." Garth said as Thomas walked out the door saying "You too man."
Thomas quickly got inside his black SUV and closed the door. After a second, he turned on the car and got comfy; soon there for he popped on the radio, a rock song was playing, "sounds pretty good." Thomas thought in his head as he began to drive off. He didn't have too drive far, only a few miles. As he drove the music stopped, a second or two later a voice came through his speakers. "Important message. We have a world wide alert. We may have a Covenant alert on our hand. While we do not have full Intel at this time, we will try too you up to date, turn to channel 38 for more as well." After the voice was done, it returned him to the music, Thomas rushed home. A few minutes later he reached his home, jumped out of the car, forgetting to lock it, or not really caring, and rushed inside. His wife, Marcelle was reading a book on the sofa. Thomas rushing in scared her alittle. "Crap Tom, you kinda scared me there." Thomas took a second before he spoke. "Im sorry, the kids sleeping?" He quickly asked. "Well, Connor is, beth is up playing that Horn 3 game." As she spoke, Thomas quickly closed the door and walked over to the sofa, grabbing the remote, turning it to channal 38. "Are you ok babe?" "Im about to fine out." He quickly said back, as the channal came up. "It appers now that our neighbor planet, Dansen, has been attacked. If you are now just joining us, it appers that only a few hours ago, the planet Dansen was attacked. We lost contact with them at around 5 AM today, but it is pretty clear our fears are true." Marcelle droped her book. A few minutes pasted as they spoke on about the matter.
"Yes, yes, im getting word now that UNSC forces are starting a planet wide evac. All families are told to get in a vehicle of some kind and report to the nearest evac zone. UNSC forces all over the planet will help where needed. Being that Dansen is only a few slipspace jumps away from us we, and im sure the UNSC as well, advise you all to hurry as quick as possible. We are 100 sure, I repeat, we are 100 sure the Covenant are now moving a battle fleet to Ledoux. I repeat, Covenant battle fleet moving to Ledoux."
Marcelle and Thomas looked at each other for a moment. "I'll get the kids up, start them packing, then ill come back and pack down here with you." Marcelle looked as if she wanted to cry, then closed her eyes before looking back at Thomas. "Im scared." Thomas grabed her softly, holding her. "I am too." It didn't take the Steele family long to get what they needed packed together and to get on the road. In order for them to reach the evac zone, they had to go a little ways out the city, then follow the city limits into the zone where a few Frigates waited, along with a few hovering over the zone to replace those empty spots once a Frigate filled up and took off.
There were a lot of cars on the highway, but not so much that it was bumber to bumber traffic, everybody had… eough room. An UNSC Pelican would fly over head every now and then, giving orders trough there loudspeakers such as "Stay clam.", "Slow it down!" or very rarely "Stop!", for those who believe they can speed past everyone and get to the zone first. Those on motorcycles weaved in between cars, as they were not breaking any laws by staying the speed limit. The Steeles SUV stayed in the middle lane as Thomas kept on eye on the traffic and his ears on the radio. Marcelle looked at the map as he drove, Connor never really woke up when he was packing, as soon as he hit the seat, he fell back asleep. Beth just stared into the cloudy sky, trying not to think about the Covenant, but mostly failing at it. "We have another 45 minutes before we reach the zone." Marcelle said, breaking the silence other then that of the radio. "We are going to be alright, right Dad? Mom?" Beth calmly spoke. Marcelle turned in her seat to look at her. "We are going to be fine love, Dad would never let anything happen to your two." With that, Marcelle turned back around, giving a quick glance of Connor, drooling on himself. Beth also gave a quick look, smiled, then looked back out the window.
30 minutes later, they were all most there. Beth still looked out the window at the city. The clouds started to clear up, giving a hopeful feeling. But then, things started to break the clouds, what looked like car size rocks riping through the clouds, one after another, more and more by the minute. "Whats going on!" Beth quickly said. Thomas and Marcelle said nothing, but there faces told fear and shock. The radio quickly came alive. "UNSC forces are engaging the Covenant in our orbit! We have John Hillman on the UNSC Orbital Super MAC Station, The Deliverer. We are going live with him now!" The car was silent as could be, many cars starting to speed up. "Yes hello there Brown. The UNSC are suffering heavy losses. A few Covenant ships are going down, but I cant see, WE JUST LOST A MAC STATION! MAC STATION ZEBRA IS GONE! THEY ARE HITING US HARD! I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER THE UNSC CAN HOLD OUT, THINGS ARE NOT…" static. "Hello? John?" The other radio voice spoke.
"Dad! Mom!" Beth's screaming woke up Connor, he soon started to yell as he saw his Mother start to cry as she tried to calm down Beth. "QUITE!" Thomas yelled. He very rarely yelled as he did, the SUV went dead silent. "Don't panic. That, will get us killed."
It wasent long before they saw Frigates loading up inside the zone, Pelicans flew all around the zone, trying to keep things under control, pretty much everyone just heard what happened, everyone was freaked. Then, Thomas heard something over the radio that sent shock and fear through his body.
"They have entered our atmosphere. God help us."