Chapter One
April 25th, 2550, UNSC You Only Live Once, Unknown Slip-space Coordinate.
The haze of the cryo-pod was clearing, as Mark opened his eyes for the first time in four weeks. He tried to get up, ignoring the chill that his body felt. He sat down in his pod as he coughed the bronchial sufficient enzyme, used to replace the entire nutrients lost during the cryo sleep; he hated it, considering being only a lime-flavored mucus, flavor he detested to a great extend. He hadn't realized but the entire cryo chamber was completely dark. Was no one awake? Or did the computer make any error in his wake up time?
It didn't matter much to him, his first concern being getting a shower and get some clean and fresh clothes, instead of the sweat sticky jumpsuit he had to wear while being put in the lethargic sleep. Switching the light on, he recognized the room a little, remembering little by little his environments, the rubberized floor, high ceilings and walls that held dozens of cryo-pods and directed himself to the showers.
Opening the tab once he was undressed, he didn't bother checking if there was any warm water; the cold shower didn't bother him, being too concentrated on his thoughts. Getting out of this freezing box of a cryo-bed was a relief; he hated the feeling of entering in this dreamless sleep and waking up from it. And well, being an ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Trooper) meant that even a cold icy shower was a luxury that he had to refuse himself and his men for many times.
After the shower he went to his locker, his regular citizen clothes were stored in a tidy fashion; he just pulled out a black shirt, gray fatigues and boots. It was nothing flashy nor following any sort of trend; more a random assortiment of basic clothing with discreet and neutral colors. Nothing fancy, no designs on the shirt, no silver spikes on the jeans, no necklaces or any other jewelry covered him. He liked it simple.
After dressing he took a walk in the ships many empty halls, not deciding on a specific destination. The lights hadn't been turned on yet; he guessed it was still night time on the ship.
Suddenly a female voice was heard through the speakers.
"Gunnery Sergeant Roman, please direct yourself to briefing room A-16, the captain will meet you there".
A-16? That was in the officers' quarters area, and why would the captain talk to a grub like him? Not that he had done something bad recently. Recently being the main word here; he didn't like following ridiculously long orders filled with non-sense and rather followed his instinct and got directly to the point without any fancy manners. That way of executing orders wasn't exactly appreciated by the higher-ups. As if he cared.
Mark navigated through the ship entering to the officer quarter area.
You could tell the difference between the common quarters he shared with his squad mates and those of the ranked ones. The rooms were probably bigger and certainly fewer than the ones on his floor. And it was certainly looking cleaner and less feeling like "home".
It seemed that the hall would never end until he finally arrived to the briefing room. He entered the dark cavernous; no one was inside waiting for him. Was someone pulling a joke at him? Frowning, he walked back to the door; it better not be a joke he just simply wasn't on the mood. The lights of the room came to life, blinding him.
"What the... Who's there? Skipper is that you?"
Behind him a soft voice answered his question. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not the captain" said a slender black haired woman.He stared at her; she wore a gray Navy uniform with the ONI insignia.'Damn, a Spook.' he thought.
She sat in front of him and giving him a better look of her face, her deep blue and icy eyes seemingly being chillier than the cryo-tubes themselves. Her hair was cleanly tied in a pony tail. She was clearly a few years younger than her, maybe in her mid-twenties and was indeed quite beautiful.
He immediately straightened his back and saluted her. She seemed to be around her twenties, her blue eyes showing an inexperience and innonce only found in newly graduated. Her skin was fair and her height average, almost small. But he wasn't fooled; after all, military graduates, ranked or not, weren't accepted without a minimum training.
For a few seconds she ignored him, looking with indifference her data pad and the other documents she held on her other hand. Suddenly, she seemed to remember his presence and cleared her throat.
"At ease soldier. Make yourself comfortable." she greeted him while showing him a chair at the other end of the meeting table. Once the man was sitting, she started speaking again, keeping her voice on a calm and relaxed tone. "Gunnery Sergeant, so you might be asking yourself why the hell I summoned you here?" she said while staring at him.
"Among other things, ma'am yes, I'd like to know indeed what am I doing here?"
"My name is Captain Helena Du Point and for the record Sergeant, you're in no trouble⦠yet." She paused for a minute and took her speech up again. "But I'm also here to inform you, that you've being assigned to a top priority mission, you and your squad that is."
A mission for ONI? He just had some bad memories from the last time he had participated in one of these ONI black ops. And now his squad was also involved? What were those people up to? He certainly wasn't going to let the plan "suicide mission for my pals" enter his agenda.
"You seem to be concerned Sergeant." she noticed. "Be assured that the mission will be well paid and that you and you're squad are only going in a torch and burn up."
She seemed to convincing that for a second he almost believed her. But knowing ONI Spooks from his previous experiences, she was hiding more information than she was willing to tell.
"Torch and Burn Op you say ma'am? With all your respect I don't believe it resumes to only that." He made a pause to choose his words carefully. "I've been in this kind of missions before, and the casualty rate in this mission is quite high, so spare me of that speech. I have seen my men fall before my own eyes before, even though "all security measurements were taken"."
She smiled, like if she had made a right choice about something. Triumph and new found determination were also readable on her face. "Well sergeant it seems that lying to you will not have any effect at all. Actually it seems you're the right man for the job, thank goodness." She got up towards the screen initiating what it seemed to be blueprints and test data. Mark noticed that she was a little shaky and guessed that she was new on the job.
"I wanted to tell you this first, before waking the rest of the squad. It is rather important, so listen well; I won't repeat myself." She took a shaky breath before continuing. "The Insurrection have capture schematics and important tactical data about the NOVA project. Which is a disaster and a bad image of our security systems and surveiliance. It's already bad we have to fight the Covenant with the Innie getting their sloppy hands into something as powerful and important like this, and in the current state of the war against the Covenant, is imperative that we get all that data back. Otherwise, there is no return or winning point left over for us. But I suppose you already understand that."
She didn't have to remind him about the current state of the war, he had seen dozens of world's battlefields, thousand killed, and other horrors that can be found in the world of guns and blood. Against the more numerous and technologically advanced Covenant there were few things the soldiers on the ground could do, as every minor victory in ground turned to be a major defeat on space.
She probably knew why he had joined the Marine Corps at the age of sixteen, as an orphan of the war, he wanted revenge. His parents had died when a covenant fleet glassed the colony world of Charybdis IX, he barely left in the last transport and found himself on an orphanage in Luna, then he took the first chance he had and joined the Corps. Over the course of thirteen years he fought as hard as he could, seeing many comrades die in front of him. Images that haunted him to this very end and filling his nights full of cruel reminders of the dead.
"Ma'am if I can help the UNSC, I will do everything in my best of abilities." He got up and stared at her "But why me and my squad for this? There are many other recommended men out there, who would probably be more suited for this mission."
She just gave another approving smile and chuckled.
"Because, you and your squad are the best and because I know you won't fail Sergeant".
And the subject was left upon that.
