Halo: Wasteland

Chapter I: A sea of dust

Loneliness. That's what hit me the hardest. A crushing feeling of total isolation that weighted down like a Frigate on my shoulders. I should have expected it. It was my job after all. Trained to be a SPARTAN Rogue, I'm deployed to unknown planets for extended periods for time with no contact with command.

Even so, the solitude will burrow into you and form a heavy lump to carry around day in, day out.

My name is SPARTAN Astrid Miles. I'm a lieutenant in the UNSC. I've fought on Requiem. And despite all that, I'm still stuck here on my own.

I crawled out of my camp, a standard issue Marine tent and a few sandbags. I had a turret before, but that got destroyed in a firefight with a Ghost patrol. Yeah, the Covenant are here, or rather, he scrounging, fledging bird it is now.

Why the hell they want this planet though is a mystery to me. Unknown Planet #55CX-AD9. That's how it's logged. I've taken to calling it The Old West. The huge expanse of grey/brown rock all around remind me of the Abandoned Mining towns in the American deserts. There's nothing here, all of just dust and stone. A few ragtag pockets of Covenant resistance here and there but otherwise it's a barren, arid wasteland. But I have possible years of deployment here.

I've already lost track of how long I've been on this dustball, it could be months, years, even decades. The three suns that cycle in tandem ensure that there is never truly a night, and as such the days just blur together into a brown smear on my memory.

I un-holstered my pistol, now weathered and chipped, and swept the camp and surroundings. Nothing near by; nothing on my motion tracker, and nothing I could see with the naked eye. For a moment I felt dejected. A second ago, I had felt a little hope that a Pelican was going to swoop down, and a squad of Marines would take me away from this place. But nothing came, and I was left staring at the sky again, the great blue sea that was tinged wth gold as two suns set and rose simultaneously.

"What's the date Vekta?" I asked. Vekta was my only companion for this trip. A single AI, built specially for this mission. She had become the closest thing I had to a friend.

She flickered to life on a wrist mounted projector that had been installed in my armour, which shrunk her down to several times less than her preferred size. She chose to appear as what looked like a Motocross Rider, a sport that had died at the turn of the 21st century. She was white, tinged with bronze. She had no helmet, so her "hair" was pulled back into a long pony tail that reached the small of her back. She stretched for a moment, and blinked in the ever-present sunlight.

"The date?" she said, cocking her head to one side, "Well, according to the atomic clock it's-"

"You know that's not what I meant," I said softly.

Vekta sighed, and seemed to slump forward slightly. This mission had taken it's toll on me too. If the days were long for me, they would be torturous or a smart AI.

"It's day 389," she said, and I could here the faintly depressed tone in her voice, "We've been here nearly 13 months."

I was shocked, had it really been that long?

"Any word from SATCOM?" I asked, not hoping for an answer, not what I would receive.

Vekta looked at me, and, despite me knowing what was coming, I felt my stomach sink.

"You already know the answer," she said gently.

I nodded, and then snapped the projector off.

"Come on,"I said, "We've got work to do."

There wasn't much to take, a single MA5D assault rifle, painted a pale brown to disguise against the landscape, a few clips of ammunition for both the MA5D and the Pistol, a s mall canteen of water, with I hooked to my waist. I strapped to the assault rifle to my back, and the pistol to my leg, and then flipped Vekta's projector back on.

"What adventure you got for me today, Vek? ?"

She paced back and forth on the small blue square on my wrist, tapping her chin.

"Head North-East," she said, gesturing at a hill to my left, and a waypoint blinked into life on my HUD, "I'm not reading much on the map that way."

She faded from view, and I looked toward the waypoint, and sighed. Another long day was at hand.

Yes, it's short, but this is just the introduction, the next chapter will be longer. A word of warning though, this series is not gong to be an action packed thrill ride, there are plenty of those, written by better authors than I. No, this will be a more psychological story, focussing mainly on the effect this mission has on Atrid's mind. If that isn't your cup of tea then isn't going to be for you.

I hope you enjoy this story.