Rise of the UNSC
Prologue
Before Halo, before Reach, before even the UNSC, there was a planet called Earth.
By HaloElite
Authors Note: Since there have been very few fictions addressing the idea of just how the Earthlings were able to come under one central government since most humans seem to be too single minded to just coalesce into one group without force… Well here's my hypothesis.
Unfortunately, I have no cheesy title for my fic like: Halo: The Genesis or Halo: The Golden Dawn or anything of that type. Rise of the UNSC is a short and simple title because I don't need a title to hide my story behind it.
Reach Training Facility Spartan Barracks June 15 2523 1845 UNSC Standard Time
The year was 2200. While technology had proceeded at a considerable pace on Earth, there was still one obstacle in the path of space exploration. The lack of unified Earth government made space colonization painfully slow and there was almost constant warfare on the planet between countries attempting to gain superiority over the others.
The Master Chief read through the history book as it continued to mention several events that had occurred. He was studying for his final exams in history during his training on Reach. Flipping through the next several pages of the world's military history, he came across an interesting character. His name was General Alexander Keyes, the man who had founded the predecessor of the UNSC, the United Nations Governing Council. Considered one of the greatest military commanders of all time, he had brought all of the warring countries of the world under one central government. His campaigns were studied by almost all officers that graduated from the Naval Academy and his many of his ground tactics still used at the current day. He had risen quickly through the ranks of the officers to become a lieutenant at age 20.
Tehran, Iran August 20, 2196 1656 Military Time
Lieutenant Keyes crouched in the shadow of a bombed out building with his men close behind him. He clutched his M-26 Assault Rifle which was made 60 years ago, just before the start of the Third War. The Third World War involved
the Third World countries who had been tired of being in poverty and the richer countries of the world. Too poor to support a conventional army, the United Liberation Army, as the countries called themselves, used guerilla tactics and terrorist actions to attack the UN forces that had been sent to put the fighting down. As the ULA was pushed back through furious fighting in Africa and the Middle East, resistance intensified. In order to end the organization once and for all, the UN authorized the use of nuclear weapons against their "capital" in Somalia. This obliterated the ULA command center and it quickly fell apart due to the lack of leadership.
The threat was not over, however. UN forces continued encounter ULA remnant guerrillas throughout the region and they seemed to be operating from a base in Iran. Lieutenant Alexander Keyes had been sent as part of a strike team against the leadership of the remnant forces.
It was a warm and dry day, with the sun bright overhead as the troops waited for further orders to attack. It was well over eighty degrees, and Keyes was beginning to sweat in his bulky powersuit. The M-1 powersuit operated on a heavy battery on the soldier's back, yet it allowed a fully equipped soldier to run at 32 kilometers per hour and lift 200 kilograms. The suit itself weighted 60 kilograms. However, the suit was often too unwieldy and clumsy for close combat action. Keyes brought his arm up to check his combat watch. It read 17 hours standard military time. He leaned around the corner to glance at the heavily fortified ULA sector of the city. Every building bristled with machine guns and rocket launchers. Armor plating had been hastily bolted on to the sides of the buildings. Taking one last glance look up the street, he saw where the fortifications began. A large office building blocked the route into the ULA held-regions of the city. Four machine guns and a magnetic accelerator peered out of armored regions of the façade. It was about 200 meters away from their current position and there was plenty of cover on the approach. This was a poorly chosen spot for a fortification.
"I need you to go up fast and take positions around that building up there, Ambrose. The rest of you, follow him up the street. I'll be leading up the rear," Keyes said, "Jones and Mendez, cover our approach with those machine guns."
Private Ambrose sprinted up the street, firing his assault rifle as he went. The rest of the group stormed after him, covering the office building with a hail of bullets. Screaming erupted from within and then the people inside retaliated with their machine guns, spraying the street with gunfire. Keyes rushed towards his troops as fast as he could, his powersuit groaning from the strain. One of his men was hit by a burst of rounds and crumpled to the ground in a pool of blood, his armor shredded by the high velocity rounds. The remaining troops ducked for cover into alleyways.
"Take cover!" one of the men screamed.
"What the hell are you doing? Get moving, now! Where is our covering fire?!?" Keyes ordered. He sprayed the building with his assault rifle and one of the men manning the machine guns flew backwards from the force of the impact. Another man quickly grabbed the controls of the gun and turned the turret toward Keyes. Keyes dropped to the ground to cover himself and waited to be hit but the gun never fired. When he looked up, he saw the operator slumped over the turret. Keyes looked back behind him.
"That was a close one, sir," announced Smith, the team's sniper. He held a smoking sniper rifle which had been
Keyes was about to respond but was cut off by the pinging of metal and a cloud of dust in the middle of the street. A machine gun had targeted an unlucky soldier who had a second ago been using his assault rifle pick off soldiers within. UN troops lay everywhere in the street, gunned down as they rushed toward the building. Apparently, resistance was much tougher than what had been expected for such an "easy" mission. Some were screaming for help, yet others were too wounded to move, much less speak. Blood and body parts were splattered on the pavement and sidewalk like a butcher's shop. There had been about 5 casualties from enemy fire.
The team's machine gunners had finally reached their position and set up their turrets. Jones jammed down the trigger of the machine gun, tearing into the armor of the building. Chunks of armor began to flake off of the building as 3000 7.62 mm rounds a minute cut like a hot knife through butter. Despite the jarring recoil from the MGs, both Jones and Mendez continued to "pour it on" the men holed up in the building.
Keyes stared at the building again. It was now riddled with bullet holes like Swiss cheese, yet two machine guns were still operational on the third floor and the rail gun on the roof had remained dormant. He gauged the distance with his laser measure built into his watch. It read 65 meters.
Damn, he thought. It is going to be a long fight these last 65 meters. There's no fucking cover from here to there. What are these cowards going to do? Shoot until you run out of ammo and wait for them to gun you down? He laughed to himself. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.
"Give me some covering fire, Ambrose." Keyes primed a high-explosive grenade and waved to the MG operators to stop. Tensing himself like a coiled spring, he darted out of the cover of the building into the street, sprinting as fast as he could.
60 meters. Ambrose opened fire behind him. Gunner number one on the third took a burst and was out of the fight for now.
50 meters. Gunner number two opened fire at Keyes. He was so close now that he could see the features of the people within. Keyes took a round in his left shoulder armor yet he kept running on adrenaline despite the pain.
40 meters. Gunner number two ducked behind his gun after a close shot angled past his head.
30 meters. The shock of the bullet round wore off and the pain began to set in. Keyes winced as his shoulder flared with pain.
20 meters. Keyes armed the grenade, which had a three second fuse. He threw it with all the strength he could muster in his undamaged shoulder into a third floor gunport.
10 meters. He skidded on the pavement as he desperately tried to stop his momentum. He slammed feet first into the building and collapsed into a heap.
Above him, the grenade plinked as it landed in the building and detonated with thunderous force. Dust and rubble showered down around the Lieutenant as he crumpled to the ground. The third floor had been completely destroyed from either the explosion or the resulting shrapnel. The windows on the floor had all been blown out and there was no trace of the machine guns or the ULA soldiers. Nothing could have survived such destructive force. Corporal Johnson and Privates Bradley and Adams slammed through the boarded and barricade glass door of the building with their powersuits, leaving a trail of broken glass in their paths. They carefully checked the lobby and were about to proceed up the stairs when the elevator announced its arrival on the first floor with a ding.
"Take out that elevator now!' yelled Corporal Johnson. The group brought their assault rifles to bear on the doors of the elevator and sprayed it with fire. A cloud of smoke slowly cleared from the bullet-ridden doors. The door slid open and three mutilated bodies tumbled out. The Corporal walked up to the bodies and bent down to look at the equipment on them. Apparently these ULA troops were much better supplied and equipped than the others that Keyes' squad had seen action against around the world. Their rifles were of the M-24 variant, which had most of the capabilities of an M-26 except that its velocity was considerably slower. They wore ceramic body armor but it did nothing against the high-powered M-26s. However, it was at least some protection because most other groups the UN had fought against lacked any type of armor. Upon closer inspection, the body also had a bizarre insignia consisting of the typical ULA knife over rifle but there also was a spear with a head impaled on top of it. This had to be the "elite" squadrons that the Intelligence Division had often reported. Their fanatical devotion to their cause was evident in their heavy resistance that had been encountered by the UN as they tried to clear out the city.
The remainder of the squad rushed into the lobby, assault rifles ready. Lieutenant Keyes struggled off of the pavement when a medic rushed up to tend to his wounds. He stared at the tear that the bullet had made through his shoulder armor. It had only punctured the skin and Keyes did not feel any internal pain. A small amount of blood appeared when he tried to grab it out with his hands.
"Hold on, sir, let me try to get it out." The medic inserted a pair of tweezers into the wound and took out the bullet. Keyes ignored the pain and kept a calm face, something most men could not do without screaming. A cool tingling feeling shot through his shoulder as the medic applied an antiseptic spray and his wound was then bandaged up.
"Looks like your good to go, sir. No internal damage, as far as I can see," announced the medic.
The Lieutenant rushed inside to survey the current situation. His squad waited in the staircase as the explosives expert Specialist Marshal applied a plastic explosive to blow open the metal door to the second floor. When he was finished he grabbed the detonator and began to count with his fingers to three. The others stepped away from the door as Marshal pressed the detonator. A dull thump echoed through the staircase and there were a long series of curses in a foreign language from the hallway in front as the door swung open.
Johnson kicked down the door and filled the hallway with suppression fire. The others rolled below him and kneeled in front of him to scan the area. The enemy had retreated to end of the hallway, taking cover behind a desk that had been moved to block the hallway. One of the enemy soldiers fired a short burst at the UN troops that were bunched up at the end of the hallway. Bullets slashed through the air. Johnson cursed and ducked down for cover.
"Get up here, Burton! I have an idea," yelled Keyes to the heavy weapons specialist.
"Yes, I'm here, sir. What do you have in mind?" questioned the Specialist.
"I want you to fire a rocket down the hallway and clear out those people hunkered down over there," ordered the Lieutenant.
Burton looked at his commanding officer with a quizzical expression. After considering his orders, he realized the logic of the situation. A rocket would avoid the loss of life associated with directly attacking a position like that. He quickly unpacked his RL-5 120mm rocket launcher which fired a fragmentation rocket that could penetrate up to 80 centimeters of tank armor.
The ULA soldiers were not about go down with out a fight, however. They threw grenades down the hall which exploded, sending shrapnel at Keyes and his men. Two men that had been hit fell to the ground with metal protruding from their powersuits. A grenade landed next to Keyes but he kicked it back into the middle of the hallway where it detonated. Burton now had the rocket launcher and sent a rocket streaking toward the ULA troops. There was a tremendous boom as the rocket exploded. The glass of the building screeched as it was shattered by the fragmentation. What was previously a hallway was now a pile of broken wall panels and shards of metal. Keyes walked up to the carnage.
"You-You shall not deny me the honor," hissed a man on the ground in broken English. Blood streamed from a mortal wound on his face. The man's features contorted from the pain. As Keyes approached him, the man pulled out a pistol and put it to his head.
"I die for the cause-" The man's rant was cut short when he pulled the trigger of the pistol, causing instant death. Keyes stared with amazement at this spectacle.
These are truly fanatics, he thought. If they want to pay with their lives, then let them. We have plenty of more bullets for all of you.
"Incoming!"
Keyes turned his head toward the call. His men pointed out a hole in the wall and he saw an artillery shell whistling toward their current position. Instinctively he dropped down for cover as the shell impacted on the upper floors. The building shook violently, but it held together.
"Move it! With that kind of firepower, they're going to take this building out," roared the Lieutenant. He bounded down the stairs with his men close behind him. Another shell smashed into the building, leaving a ragged hole where it had struck. Keyes dashed out of the lobby and grabbed his field communicator.
"This is Lieutenant Keyes of Alpha Company, I need air support now!"
"Keyes? We're sending in an Iroquois helicopter to extract your team, you're being pulled out. Apparently, Beta Company succeeded in breaking the defenses on the other side of the city first. Don't worry about the enemy on the ground, we have an airstrike heading in." The communicator stuttered from static.
In the distance, the familiar thumping of helicopter came before the Iroquois appeared in sight. Keyes lead his men into the back of the transport and they piled in. They dusted off and swiveled toward the fortified regions of the city. The helicopter opened fire with its twin Vulcan VI cannons, unleashing a storm of .50cal bullets. Their ULA pursuers were shredded into smoking piles of flesh and bone.
As they ascended up higher into the atmosphere, Keyes saw two fighter jets flash past the viewports. Each plane launched four small silver missiles that headed for the city. The evening sky was lit up by four brilliant explosions. The light slowly cooled from yellow, to orange, and finally to red. The setting sun was blocked out by the dust from the explosion.
Keyes hung his head in fatigue. He looked at the rest of his group. They sat in quiet and stared at the floor in disappointment. So many soldiers lost, he thought. Such a waste.
There's not going to be any victory celebration tonight, Alpha Company.
And yes, I chose the name Keyes for a reason.