A/N: I usually don't write fanfiction (I do original), but since all my friends were doing it, I decided to give it a try. Anyways, being a whole original fiction writer, I decided to steer as far away from the Halo plot as possible (while staying coherent). So, don't be expecting to follow in Master Chief's footsteps. Although you will meet him later on, he is not a main character in the story (oops, spoiler). I hope you can still enjoy this.
Constructive criticism is gladly welcome, flaming is too.
Chapter 1 The Mailman
North America
Colorado Plateau 108.56 35.89
February 20, 2553 Military Calendar
86:34 Mission Clock
Lying prone on the gritty sand, First Sergeant Kelly Pierce gazed over the vast plain of sand from the safety of a shear cliff. In her right hand, she firmly clutched the right handle of a S2 AM Sniper Rifle, its black barrel protruding out like an obsidian spear. The relentless sun had baked through the ebony colored armor and was seeping into the thick fabric, causing Kelly to perspire. She shifted slightly to her left, trying to appease the discomfort in her legs. She wished that her new armor came with the climate control system that had been recently removed from the previous model. The new prototype MJOLNR Mark V armor, which had just been issued to her special operations unit, was awkward and uncomfortable. Yet she knew that they were well worth it. A few months ago, the military had given these one-of-a-kind prototypes to Kelly and her team in order to test out how the suit would react with non-augmented soldiers. At first, the First Sergeant had looked upon the role of guinea pig with disdain, but after finding out that the Master Chief had worn the same type of armor into combat, she instantly changed her mind.
Although Kelly never met the Master Chief, she had heard quite a bit from other soldiers in her division. Some marines had told her that the Master Chief had been genetically altered, or that he had single-handedly killed thousands of Covenant troops on a mysterious ring-shaped planet. The countless rumors that had been spreading around the Marine Corps seemed to be over exaggerated and absurd, but after getting into the Mark V herself, she began to wonder how much many of them were actually true. From what she could tell, the Master Chief had once been a human, but was given some sort of augmentation which allowed him to wear the original Mark V. The new Mark V had obviously been toned down a bit in order to accommodate regular soldiers. Yet the suit still felt like it gave her superhuman abilities. During the testing exercises on Cairo Station, Kelly had immediately felt an increase in speed, agility, strength, and stamina. So much in fact, that she had bruised her shoulders and broken several ribs. Only after several months of training did she learn to operate the Mark V fastidiously. Now, as she gazed into the horizon, the MJOLNR suit had become a second skin.
Still lying prone, Kelly scanned the sea of sand for any signs of the enemy. The recent Covenant invasion of Earth had caught even the Marine Corps off guard. Although the offensive forces were surprisingly few, the unprepared marines were only able to maintain a weak counter-attack. Without military personnel searching every square mile of solid ground, it was safe to assume that there would still be Covenant forces left on Earth. This posed an even greater danger for Pierce, as she was scheduled for evacuation in two hours. Her mission wasn't to exterminate all hostile targets, but putting a whole the size of a walnut in any Covenants' head seemed satisfying.
The heat made Kelly's reflexes slow, and her eyes harder to keep open. It was almost hopeless to find anything in this suicidal weather. Even the Covenant, she thought, would be smart enough to stay in some kind of shelter. But just as she was about to pack her gear and move out, she noticed specks of black approaching from the horizon. The bewildered Sergeant threw off her helmet and rubbed her eyes thoroughly to confirm that it wasn't a hallucination and reached back behind her to retrieve a pair of DGZ 40 Binoculars. She squinted her eyes for several seconds in an attempt to see clearly, but soon gave up and but the binoculars up to her face.
The image was fuzzy at first, but the digital zoom on the binoculars automatically focused in on the unknown targets. As Kelly peered through the binoculars, her heart sank. In the center of the viewing radius, she saw a conglomeration of Brutes, Jackals, and Drones, and Hunters. The two new additions to the Covenant arsenal, the Brutes and the Drones seemed to dominate the group while the Jackals followed obediently. She zoomed in to check their weapons and found that each Brute shouldered their signature plasma rifle while several Jackals dragged along beam rifles, the Covenant answer to the S2 AM Sniper Rifle. She shifted the lens toward the right, focusing on the Hunters who had predictably carried a deadly plasma cannon and a gigantic shield. But these Hunters had a plasma field surrounding their cannons and legs. If Kelly wasn't mistaken, they looked as if they had been taken prisoner by the others. Perhaps there had been a fight among the different species? She would tell her superiors about this strange occurrence when she returned to command, but for now, she didn't care if they were Brutes, Hunters, Drones, or senile serpents on flying chairs, all of them needed some ventilation in the cranium.
First Sergeant Pierce hastily threw down her binoculars and switched to her sniper rifle. She turned her attention to the two inch zoom screen and clicked twice, revealing a ten times magnification of the original position. As a trained sniper, Pierce had a dead steady arm which at times was so still, it didn't seem to have been attached to her body. This along with the extra boost from the Mark V made her sniping skills the envy of the whole Marine Corps. It was in situations such as these that her dead arm really paid off.
Maneuvering the sniper only several millimeters at a time, the Sergeant was able to track down her prey. She looked through the screen to see the same gang of Covenant trudging across the barren desert. Didn't these excuses for aliens know not to walk in the open like that? She suddenly felt a pang of remorse for these aliens. Perhaps they were just like her, blindly following their commanders into the fray of chaos without question. Perhaps humans and Covenant alike shared a common instinct, making them only look different. They had been fighting their war, and the humans had been fighting theirs. Why then, did they have to be mortal enemies?
The small circular reticule switched from the usual pale blue to red. Kelly had a clear shot at the completely oblivious Brute. She thought again about her connection with the barbaric simian, but knew that she had orders to follow. Besides, she reassured herself, those were the very thoughts that put soldiers out of duty and into the psychiatric ward. Slowly, she coaxed her ambivalent feelings toward the Covenant down and focused on the task at hand.
Not even realizing it, Kelly had unconsciously followed the Brute's head with her sniper rifle. The dull red which was the reticule taunted her once again, just as she had been invited before the ludicrous thoughts of "unity" infected her mind. Her sweaty hand inched past the trigger guard and rested just in front of the trigger. Life and death were now being measured in inches.
The excited Sergeant began her signature chant, "11 stupid Covies, walking in the sand, unaware of where my bullet will land. There goes one, then another, pretty soon they'll all be fodder," as she chanted with utter stoicism, 11 bands of depressurized gas streamed towards their target. The disturbance had ended in a fraction of a second, resulting in 11 dead carcasses attracting flies. The sergeant inspected the Covenant bodies again, making sure that no one was left alive. Just as she had predicted, each alien had acquired a new ear piercing that was bigger than their ear. Pierce silently chuckled as she remembered her five ear piercings, and the pain that accompanied it.
Suddenly remembering that she was due for evac, Sergeant Pierce checked her military watch. She had previously programmed the mission timer to two hours. It now read five minutes. According to the last transmission that had scrolled across Pierce's HUD, the Pelican drop ship would arrive from the west. The sergeant reached backwards to retrieve the helmet that she had thrown done before and fit it snugly on her head. She turned due west and scanned the area. The sky was empty, save for the white clouds which dotted the sky. She turned away to pack her gear in disappointment when she heard a familiar voice.
"Well, well, well, I'd never have thought that Miss Pierce needed my help," the voice over the radio put a smile on Kelly's face.
"Last time I recall, I was the one who saved your ass Charlie. I wouldn't be making judgments so soon," she retorted coolly.
"I woulda done fine myself. But you had to steal my kill from 100 meters off. Sometimes, I think that sniper of yours is a real cheap shot."
"Hey, Who's weapon are you calling cheap? Those damn bullet hoses of yours'll fire 360 rounds per minute. You just mind your business and I'll mind mine," Kelly was always stubborn when it came to her sniper. As she talked, the bulky Pelican came into view. Along with it, a large yellow dot appeared on her motion tracker and continued to move closer to the center of the circle. Although bulky, the Pelican flew with surprising speed towards the sergeant. Within two minutes, it had touched down safely on the large plateau, ready for Pierce to board. The aptly named Pelican had a large containment hold in the rear of the ship to transport troops to and from battle. First Sergeant Kelly Pierce readied her things and stepped aboard Pelican Charlie 351. The metal bird immediately took off before Kelly could even grab hold of the railings. The sudden jerk knocked her off her feet and almost threw her off the ship.
"Sorry about that dear, but we're runnin behind schedule. Command wants you back ASAP," Charlie said over the radio. The disgruntled sergeant muttered a "bullshit" and got back to her feet, this time making sure to hold onto the railings.
The pelican continued to ascend, reaching an altitude of nearly 300 meters. Having at least some moment of peace, Kelly removed her helmet and rested her eyes. The past three and a half days had been a journey through hell as her team tried to infiltrate a Covenant hideout in Mesa Verde. The original team of 20 was too few to even breach the front gates, let alone quell the enemies. At first however, the missions seemed to go along fine. The small team had arrived several Klicks south of the supposed location without encountering any resistance. The Covenant must have been planning at the time, Kelly reminisced. As they headed north to the cliffs, they could only see several jackals that patrolled the area. These proved easy to silence and the team had moved on easily. It wasn't until her team reached the entrance to the hideout that they encountered serious resistance. Sergeant Pierce remembered the chaos as she and her comrades desperately tried to fend off the savage Brutes and Drones.
Before there was time to organize a counter-attack, half her team had died. Without even issuing a command, the marines had known to retreat. Strangely, the Covenant did not follow them. Her team trekked back to the LZ and everyone that was left had been picked up, everyone except for her. The sergeant shuddered as she recounted the last few days.
All of a sudden, Kelly's thoughts were rudely interrupted by a fierce shock. She was pulled from the handrails and sent tumbling on the metal grating
"That Kelly was not me," Charlie's voice was nervous, "Looks like we've got fuel rod on the ground. Take them out now!"
Without hesitating, the sergeant crawled up from her prostrate position and assembled her sniper. The all too familiar click of the ammo brought reassurance back to her. She quickly clicked the sniper two times and looked topside. There, just as Charlie had reported over the radio, was a Jackal firing wildly toward the Pelican. Along with it were a group of Brutes and lesser Jackals. Although the Brutes normally posed a much greater danger with their abrupt berserker charges, this Jackal was carrying a fuel rod cannon. The fuel rod cannon was a new weapon in the Covenant arsenal which acted just as the canon on a Hunter. However, its arched path toward the enemy often made it inaccurate.
Charlie's voice came over the Pelican loudspeaker again, this time louder and less comical, "I said now girl, before they turn us into molten rock!" Kelly disregarded her pilot's last message. Sniping was a tedious task that took several minutes to aim with. Of course those "SpraynPray" bastards never understood any of it. She focused the reticule on the excited Jackal, trying to move the barrel in sync with the Pelican. After several seconds, Kelly was confident that she would score a shot and pulled the trigger just as a mortar of plasma flashed before her eyes.
A fraction of a second later, the Pelican shuddered again. This time it jerked hard left and fell.
"Mayday, Mayday! Pelican Charlie 351 is going down! Kelly! Hold onto something!" The bulky ship plunged and Kelly could feel herself in freefall. Her heart seemed to move up her neck and into her head. She slowly looked out the bay walkway and saw the mass of sand. Still in freefall, Pierce decided to take her chances with sand than metal. She slowly crawled out of the Pelican bay door and pushed off from the walkway, with her sniper and helmet in tow.
Immediately, the harsh air began to rush up the sergeant's nose. The sand particles in the air combined with her freefall stung her face and rushed into her mouth. Her throat was filled with sand and dust, making her gag instinctively. Luckily the fall was short as Kelly came to an abrupt stop in the cushion-like sand. She made an effort to stand up but was forced to fall back down by the lack of oxygen in her lungs. Taking heavy breaths, Kelly arched her back and began to gag out all the sand that had stuck to the back of her lungs.
Still exhausted from the many days of hardship, Pierce wanted nothing more but to lie down and catch up on her much needed sleep. Yet, there were still Brutes and Jackals only several hundred meters off. Pierce forced herself up, every muscle in her frail body straining. She started to trudge forward but a sturdy body stopped her. The confused sergeant opened her eyelids to reveal bleary eyes. Slowly, they adjusted to the light and revealed what had blocked her. Standing directly in front of her was an eight foot tall Covenant Elite. Its most dominant feature, the mandibles that hung from its skull let out a low click, as if in disapproval.
Pierce's body coursed with adrenaline at the site of a Covenant alien. She jumped backwards and reached for the pistol that had been hastily fastened to her belt. A quick hand reached out toward Kelly and restrained her from grabbing her pistol. The sergeant's eyes followed the armored appendage to its owner. She looked up at the angular face, her eyes filled with fear. For an instant the Elite became a Brute that laughed crudely at Pierce, but the image was gone as soon as it had appeared. Time seemed to have frozen the unlikely couple as they stared at each other with different expressions. The young sergeant was helpless against the powerful Elite who gazed menacingly back at her. Why hadn't this merciless creature killed her?
After what felt like ages, the Elite broke the silence, "I am not here to harm you human; I have come to ask for your aid in a greater struggle that has arisen, one that dwarves the war between us and you."
First Sergeant Kelly Pierce continued to stare in disbelief at the Covenant alien. All of her previously labeled "ludicrous" thoughts about the connection between Covenant and human invaded her thoughts. Had she been right all along? Or was this alien luring her into a deadly trap? Thinking carefully again, Kelly ruled out the possibility of a trap. If the Elite wanted to kill her, he could have done so long ago. The sergeant felt a strange bond between the alien and her. Perhaps it could be trusted. Kelly looked down at the scorching sand to make her final decision when the Elite loosened his grip. Alarmed, she raised her head and beheld the alien head once again. Her only means of transport had been shot down and she was exhausted. It seemed the Elite left her no choice.
"If you are so intent on recruiting me alien, why did your troops shoot me down? I could have died before you could even speak to me," The sergeant tried to sound as courageous as possible, but she couldn't restrain her stammering.
"Those were not our soldiers human, the Sangheili-" the Elite paused, searching his mind for the right word, "the Elites do not belong to the Covenant anymore. We have been banished by the Prophets and condemned to die."
Realization suddenly dawned on Sergeant Pierce. All of the Covenant she had fought were either Brutes, Drones, or Jackals. It also explained why the Hunters had been held captive. For reasons unknown, they were part of the resistance against the Covenant. The uphill battle with the ruthless Covenant had become desperate when they took a stab at the human home world. It seemed that everyone wanted the war to be over. Sergeant Pierce wanted desperately to trust the solemn figure in front of her. She wanted to join them and destroy what was left of the Covenant and end the slaughter. It was the right thing to do… right? Doubt gnawed at the back of her mind. Just because they no longer referred to themselves at the Covenant didn't mean that they were suddenly fighting with her. She began to wonder what the greater struggle was and if she would have any place in it.
"You do not trust us human," the Elite had sensed the hesitation in Kelly's mind, "we have little trust in you as well. But we must cast our prejudices aside for now. My brethren and I carry no weapon."
Kelly looked up at the Elite with a puzzled expression. The alien called out into the air and the Elites disengaged their active camouflage, forming a ring around the bewildered sergeant.
"Shit," The sergeant muttered. She was not used to cursing in public. Born in New Chicago, Kelly had been raised in a genteel world. Her over protective parents forbid her to curse or spit. She still couldn't remember how a life of oligarchy turned her into a thick-skinned marine.
"You have nothing to fear human. I am Spienta 'Comarmee and we are the Legion. The Elites around you are my brethren and we have sworn to a command given by the mighty Arbiter himself.
The Legion? The Arbiter? For now, Kelly didn't care about any other aliens with strange biblical names, all she wanted to know what that she would be safe. The Elites seemed to have great respect for the Arbiter, who obviously wanted the humans on his side. For the moment she was reassured, but still confused about the current situation. 'Comarmee, or whatever the Elite's name was, would have to fill her in later.