I have always loved Halo, ever since I was a little kid and my brothers would play and not let me play with them. Event then I watched with fascination. Now, I am a big fan of the Halo universe. This is my first fic of Halo, and I have no beta, but I hope that you'll still read and enjoy!
Treaties Made in Blood
Sangheili. That's what they call themselves. I just call them Elites. Or split-chin, or squid-head, or bastard, or eight-foot-tall-alien-freak-monster-thingy. Any of those will do. They do, however, have an honor system. That much I can tell from what I've observed through the scope of my SRS99C-S2 AMB rifle, otherwise known as my Baby, and even though they're genocidal psychotic war-obsessed freaks, I've seen them wait until a marine could get up off the ground before reengaging them when it would have only been too easy to kill them while they were down. Ha, think of that: an alien that's trying to kill your entire race waiting for you to get up and fight rather than shoot you in the back. A weird feeling, I know.
A flicker of movement. I adjusted my sniper rifle accordingly. Jackals. The elites had been sending several out a day to try and find me. Problem was, they thought they were looking for a marine in standard fatigues. I'm wearing a ghillie suit though, and it's grassy texture blended in with the sparse yellow grass. The disgusting birdlike creatures were looking for me. Nobody had to say it for it to be true. There were only about ten of us left. UNSC personnel, I mean. Lieutenant Haversonne, Sergeant Major DiNozzo, Corporal Church, Corporal Leer, PVC Charles, Private Emerson, and other three are civilians. I'm the sniper of the what's left of the platoon—I guess it's a squad now—and my name is Rachel St. Crow. Ridiculous name, I know, but it's what I got. Besides my rifle, it's almost all I got left.
I sighted in on one and took it out while the others were looking other directions so they wouldn't see the smoke trail. I had handloads that wouldn't leave a smoke trail, but they were hard to make and it took a while. This is where the fun started.
Hours later we were in a situation. Several people in the 'unit' had lost their sense of self-preservation, it seemed. I know that our job was to draw the covies into this tight neck in the canyon, but this, this was going a little far.
"Come out little monkey, do not be afraid. I have a banana for you."
"Why don't you come in and get me instead of standing out there like the little girl you are?"
"It's close," the elite said to it's fellows.
"So's your Momma!" Leer shouted.
I drew a bead on the big blue elite and gently squeezed off a round. It was only our luck that the canyon echoed like nobody's business. The red elite took cover quickly.
"So much for honor. Hiding like a little girl!" Big Red yelled something intelligible in response and waved it's weapon about. I know. I could see it from my position and the itty-bitty rock it was behind didn't provide much cover for a thing of it's size.
"Now you've made him angry!" Leer again. The elite popped out from it's cover and soon plasma and lead was flying through the air. I squeezed another shot off and all hell broke loose as grenades went flying into the already volatile mix. The shields that the elites had made it necessary to get a headshot for a one shot one kill, but the grunts and jackals were another cup of tea altogether.
"Coward" the high-pitched voice of a grunt floated up to my position. It was quickly cut off in a spray of blue blood and methane.
"Take off your mask, you can't be that ugly!" Church had finally fallen to the taunt war that generally went on between to two sides.
On the other side of the canyon, I saw Sarge and the LT get their mortars finished setting up. I picked off a jackal that had seen them. They gave the signal-a red smoke shot from the grenade launcher that went off high in the air.
"Church, Leer, get out of there." I said into the COM as calmly as possible. Not that easy when there's rock vaporizing around you from plasma bolts and you could die any second.
"Got it." Church replied. Leer capped a grunt who went down in a spray of blue blood.
"By the nipple!" One grunt exclaimed. "Taste the grunty punishment" said another.
Church popped smoke. Under the hazy screen the two corporals did their best to get the hell out of there without being seen. I kept cover by firing at the aliens with the battle rifle I switched to when they started out.
"Corporal Crow, get out now." Sarge.
"Yes, sir." I made a break for it as well.
Moments later fire and brimstone rained down from the sky on the covies. None of them made it out of that canyon alive.
The command post was really just a glorified underground lab. I had my suspicions that it was an ONI lab from the mulitiple hidden tunnels going through this canyon that connected to it. The scientists that we met up with said that their job was to develop a bioweapon that would affect the Covenant but not humans. They wouldn't specify if it was a nerve gas, virus, or disease. Church was extremely skeptical as to whether or not they would succeed. The main room of the lab had a long table that, at first glance looked as if it were a long desk akin to one that would be used at a corporate board meeting. It actually had full holographic capabilities that could be used for schematics of all kinds, including that of planning guerilla style attacks against the Covenant.
Private Emersone had just finished a supply count and was reporting. I was sitting in the corner of the room cleaning my sniper rifle and only tuned into the report at the last words.
"...We're running out of ammo, sir." Lieutenant Haversonne just nodded at Private Emerson. We all knew that our time here was numbered and counting down tick by tick.
"Why didn't they just glass the entire planet like they usually do?" Sarge wondered out loud.
At that time one of the civilian researchers came in on the one-sided conversation. Nicholls, if Crow remembered correctly. "There's a huge amount of helium-3 under the crust of this planet." The scientist mused out loud for a moment. "They might be mining that. According to our records, helium-3 is used to power some of the Covenant weapons and ships." She paused and continued, "It's under the crust of the planet, so the Covenant is probably planning to use the current cave systems that this lab is based on to make the mining easier."
Sarge didn't look to happy at that news. Everyone knew what he was thinking. With Earth under attack, no one was going to care about a group of seven marines and three civilians on a lost and mostly glassed world that was Covenant occupied. We were on our own.
"We're all gonna die." Whispered Private Emerson despairingly his spot.
I don't know why, but something snapped to inside me. I set my sniper rifle aside from where I had been cleaning it and stood. "Emerson, if we are gonna die, and I doubt we will, I'm gonna go down swinging." I said in a half-way bitchy tone. I gave him a firm look, reminding him of his rank. "Don't start any of this mamby-pamby 'we're gonna die' crap because we don't have time for it. Go out fighting or lay down like a dog. Up to you. Just don't expect me to join you in laying down like a dog.
If you recognized some of the lines, you did! I used game dialogue from the elites, grunts, and marines. How else to make it sound authentic? Haha, hope you liked it. Sadly the next chapter is still on the drawing board.