Chapter One: September Sun
Epsilon Indi System
UN colony: Second Base
Pvt. 1st class Leonard Schaeffer
En route to 65th Marine Regiment, 4th battalion, Bravo Company
The Warthog was bumpy; it made Schaeffer's stomach turn and twist inside of his gut. He was used to the nice urban sprawl of Skopje with her finely paved roads, and highways. Second Base only had two moderately sized cities and none of them were anywhere near Skopje's sprawling urbanized areas. He licked the finger of his glove from pure instinct and flipped the page; he had picked up the romance novel Lovers in the Sunset in the bookstore on base before he shipped and he was finding the deep characters and drama interesting.
A few other marines were in the back seat of the vehicle with him, most minding their own business while two privates laughed with each other; they had all been transferred to some unit or another that was in need of a replacement.
The insurrection hadn't been prevalent on Second Base since almost twenty years after its founding in 2480 but it had recently began to spike with various rebels retreating from destroyed strongholds on neighboring planets due to some big op that the UNSC had committed to.
Still, the casualty rate on Second Base was still amazingly minuscule for the number of men stationed there; the colony was simply too useless for either the UNSC or the rebels to have any plans with it. There weren't enough minerals to make decent sized factories without importing goods; there were no anomalies so no science stations and on top of that the people weren't very loyal to the UNSC so it wasn't a good area for large scale military facilities.
The only export of the colony was the odd fauna called rockfruit that grew on the rocks, and rugged yet cute farm boy characters for crappy movies back on Earth; though Harvest led the export in that.
The Warthog jumped again and he nearly dropped his book from the pothole; the road had not been worked on for years having obviously been ignored by maintenance crews. The only things to the sides of it were the rugged outdoors, rocks and a distant forest. On a far off mountain range, he saw a few skyscrapers from the colonies capital city; but they were like toys compared to the colossal mega-structures that filled Skopje, they only served to give him a sense of home sickness.
Glancing back down to the page as he sighed, he did have a PDA as they were so common now a days; but even with the sudden prevalence of electronics in the 21st century and the expansion ever since, paper had never truly died. It certainly was no more near as popular now, he was in fact amazed his base had an entire book store; but there was always an allure to them that always had him coming back.
It took another hour until they started entering the settlement. The military base was the only real thing in the far off town, the only reason it was built was to bottle off any movement across the area in the case of attack. Before he knew it, they were driving past the barbed wire fence and into the base proper; it was far smaller than Kenny's Gorge; the main training facility on Skopje, and there was very little movement.
The driver pulled him up in front of a barracks before telling them to get out. The marines all grabbed their rucksacks and rifles and slid out the back of the 'Hog, a few exchanging goodbyes. Schaeffer slid his PDA from his bag and checked where he was supposed to go one more time, satisfied that he knew where to go; he walked into the barracks.
The hallway was large, and after some stumbling around and constantly asking for directions; he found himself in front of a door to a planning center, the door slid open and Schaeffer saw a spacious room; lockers off to a side and a standard issue TACMAP sitting in the center of a lowered portion of the room. The TACMAP was old he saw, a bit of rust showing up at the bottom; from what he read in a book once, he knew it was forty years old at best. There were small rooms that joined into the main one with more lockers inside, he saw at least twenty marines in various states of undress milling around there.
There were four men around the table, a captain, first lieutenant and two sergeants he observed. Men were moving around the room, grabbing things from lockers, sliding on some last pieces of gear or chatting to the side.
The lieutenant glanced up and said something to the captain, who also glanced over, nodded, and then went back to his map. The lieutenant patted one of the sergeants on the back who sighed and walked over to him.
"Oi! New guy looking stupid, over here," he said, snapping his fingers and walking over to the lockers at the side of the wall. "Stuff your shit in one of these and get ready to shoot people, kapeesh?" Schaeffer was amazingly confused by the sudden directions and his hands seemed to turn to lead as he tried to get his pack off and into the locker. The sergeant tapped his foot impatiently, glancing over; he saw the man with the odd inner colony accent's last name was Gaffer.
Schaeffer shoved his things into the locker, his rifle slung behind his back. Once he sloppily pushed them all in, he attempted to close the metal door only for the bag to fall out; grunting from frustration, he leaned over and tried again.
"God damned newbies, sicken me, all of you sicken me," he snarled as he tried to get the bag inside the locker again, Schaeffer nearly asked him what was stuck up his ass before he thought better and continued putting the container into the locker.
Satisfied it was sturdy this time, he shut the locker and stepped back just as the lieutenant called the sergeants over. The captain told him to grab the other lieutenants as well before leaving the room, glancing at Schaeffer briefly and then leaving. Schaeffer really wished he could have a nice bunk instead, but it seemed he was going to see his first action far sooner than he thought.
The two other lieutenants entered the area and walked up to the TACMAP along with several sergeants. Some other men of the platoon walked over and watched as well, curious on the mission. With nothing else to do, Schaeffer leaned on the locker and watched as the 1st lieutenant, a youngish man in his late twenties; began to speak.
"Right, it appears as if there was just a bombing in Garmed, local police forces responding to the call started taking fire from various sources; including those three VTOL's that were stolen from the airbase last month. The innies are trying to make some sort of push in the city, and are far more organized than they have been in the past years."
The sergeants listened intently, Schaeffer wondered in the back of his mind how lax the local garrison must have gotten if it allowed fast attack craft to have simply been stolen.
"Second and third company are going to sweep the city and establish roadblocks to keep people out of our hair. We are going to surround the bombing location proper. Third and fourth platoon will commandeer any buildings available and get a good view over the streets and hit those aircraft if possible. First and second will push in on the location from the east and west. You will receive specific orders from your sergeants once we are set up. Pelicans are waiting outside to see us out. Let's do this marines."
The men saluted and then walked out, yelling orders to get outside over their radios. Schaeffer pushed off the locker but was shoved out of the way by a man jogging out of the building, slamming into the metal; he fell to the ground and grabbed the locker in order to help himself up. The lieutenant walked up to him and looked him in the eyes, an eyebrow raised. His name-tape said Antello.
"Fireteam Alpha, Second Squad, First Platoon. You are looking for either Sergeant Atterson or Corporal Smike, you are on the bird Yankee-227, move." Schaeffer nodded, trying to process the information; before saluting and leaving the room, the halls were almost clear now and running outside of the barracks he saw the airfield across the pavement. Several Pelicans were set up and were slowly preparing to dust off along with an escort of five hornets.
Schaeffer sprinted to the Pelicans, half of the marines were already inside of their respective vehicle. He hastily tried to find the right one, spending a minute searching for the correct tag until he finally found the correct Pelican and climbed into the back. He found himself a seat between two privates and sat down, moving his assault rifle to the crook between his legs after making sure the safety was on.
It was another few minutes until everyone filled into the Pelican, and ten minutes more until ATC finally cleared the Pelicans for lift off. As the Pelican prepared to leave, he looked around and asked,
"Sergeant Atterson? Corporal Smike?" Two men glanced over, the entire Pelican erupted into laughter Schaeffer looked around in confusion only to get even more laughs as the Pelican saw his face, the only one not laughing was a corporal who just glared angrily at him.
"Dude that's fuckin' great, even the new guy calls you Smike, Smike." Laughed one of the men in the front.
"Screw off Grace, I don't need to hear your bull."
"Oh god! Oh god! This is great!" Shouted a female marine next to the corporal, the man was red with embarrassment and anger from the laughing.
"I SAID SCREW OFF." He yelled, the Pelican only yelled louder. The corporal shot Schaeffer a death glare and he realized he wasn't going to have a good time in the fireteam.
"W-what did I do?" Schaeffer thought aloud, everyone laughed even harder.
"Oh god man, you don't call Venendez Smike, you never call him Smike." Said the man next to him.
"Whats Smike mean?" He asked, the corporal got redder.
The Pelican filled with even more laughter as she flew towards her objective.