"Believe" Museum of Humanity Tapes
File #12, August 12th, 2595
Sgt Maj Matthew Liviwitz, 308th ODST
Served 2545-2560
Begin Recording…
The man strode casually throught the bombed out wreckage of the building, tracing the fingers of his good hand along the decades-old bullet holes. He stopped, approaching a wall that was completely gone, with the burns and Spikes concentrating here the most. The concrete was still a bit of a sickly red.
He turned to the camera crew, the scar running from his brown hair down to the top of his nose-oh how he hated that huge nose when he was younger, before the sensory nodes were blown to bits inside it, robbing him of his ability to smell. "It was here' he said, his Boston accent slipping out. "I remember every detail."
"This is where you were when the chief broke through?" A calm British-accented voice said.
The old man grinned wider, turning towards the canyon the old house must've faced. It added property value when Mombasa was still a habitable city, and strategic importance during the war. "No-this is where we held, until the war was over for us-no we never got any support from the chief."
"Tell us your objective again." Said the Narrator, reading off from notecards his superior had given him.
"We had been assigned to hold the Northern perimeter of the reclaimed New Mombasa-where General Harding had been coordinating the Army and Marines up until that point was located. It was several squads of ODSTs with their Heavy MG's against a hoard of Covenant-mostly the little Grunty-things, but more often than not accompanied by 2 or 3 brutes. We had gone from our original 12 man squad to three whole men-remember, part of our objective was to distract the Covvies from the Chief while he assaulted Voi itself. It turned out to be me, Sarge, and private Wintlock-I was still a Corporal at the time."
"And this…'Sarge' was?" asked the Narrator, knowing from experience that these questions needed to be asked. After all, his bosses-who were higher up than one would expect-ripped him a new one the last time he didn't ask.
"Sergeant Nicholas "Nick" Barnes. Damn best soldier I ever knew' the old warrior said, leaning almost casually agains an exposed rebar. "I shot the gun, Wintlock fed, and Sarge was down to using Pvt. Johannes' BR55, set to full auto. I'll never forget him screaming out 'HERE'S FOR-'and listing off a planet every time he took down a brute. There were MGs going off all around, rockets exploding, the whine of plasma, the staccato bursts of Spiker fire. Then-" The Veteran stopped, his face contorting itself into a mask of pain.
"What happened next?" Said the Narrator, almost comfortingly. The old man got himself together, standing as straight as if Lord Admiral Hood's ghost was standing in front of him, saluting. "A grunt has gotten his act together and thrown a salvaged frag into our building, right here." He said, motioning towards a spot where the blast marks and the blood were the thickest. "Wintlock he….he threw himself on it, screaming for us to 'Get the fuck out'. I-the last thing I remember was Sarge running out of the Trench, screaming something about Erandius III, and running INTO the enemy hoard. Then the grenade went off. "
He stopped, tears flowing down his completely stoic face, his eyes full of pain. "When I woke up, the war was over, we had won, my hand was gone, and my squad had been completely wiped out.'
"Ah yes, Sergeant Major Barnes. He was awarded the Medal of Valiant Service for saving the entire line, you know" the Narrator said, lifting up a datapad.
"I was the one who delivered it to his refugee wife and child, of course I know" said the Sergeant with his title stolen from the man who truly deserved it. The old man wiped his face off, before turning to the Narrator, his prosthetic hand gleaming in the sunlight. "Your generation never faced the pure horror that made up the Human-Covenant War, so let me part some wisdom told to me by the best damn soldier who served in that war. Never give up fighting. Don't stop because you think some jolly green giant is gonna save you, or it'll all turn out alright in the end, because if you give up, it won't. Fight until your dying breath, fight until the end, fight until your cause is but glass and your hope lost so long ago you never remember what it even feels like. Don't stop 'till you reach Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, Transcendence, whatever you believe in. And if you do this, maybe, just maybe, you'll be remembered for something. Maybe there'll be someone left to carry on your legacy, and build a bright new future.
A/N Written for Halo's Tenth Anniversary