Eve of Fate
Chapter 4: The Sniper's Lament
"Eagle-1, this is Convoy-Alpha, we're ready to move. Give us some cover, over."
"Copy that, Convoy-Alpha. Covering."
"Alert – we're picking up a Seraph and three Banshees, approaching on your six! Get out of there Eagle-1!"
"Eagle-1 to Convoy, we're taking fire! We're going down, I repeat, we're going down!"
Rhineland woke up in cold sweat, and in a warm pile of puke. It smelled like vodka, and it probably was vodka at one point.
He grumbled incoherently as he sat up against the wall and wiped away at his face. Everything was quiet - so quiet that all Rhineland could hear was the sound of his own breathing.
Also, the distant sounds of gunfire.
Rhineland then focused as best he could, in spite of his mild hangover, and realized there was no gunfire at all – at least outside of his mind. Inside, he could hear it as clear as the day he was there.
The voices as well were still clear in his head, and they repeated mercilessly, over and over like an old recording. The frantic yelling, the screaming…
All of the dying…
It was bringing back too many memories, all too soon.
Rhineland could take no more. He reached for one of the bottles of vodka lying around his room. Pressing it against his lips, Rhineland waited for when the strong alcohol would splash into his mouth and drop him into another drunken stupor, one where he would not hear or remember anything.
Sadly, there was nothing. The bottle was empty. Throwing it aside, Rhineland scrambled around, trying to find at least something he could use to intoxicate himself. His hands swept the hard floor, knocking over mountains of old bottles.
In spite of his determination for a drink, Rhineland couldn't find anything. He cursed loudly, and hit the floor. He needed that drink. For the many past years, he always needed it. When he was drunk, there was nothing wrong with the world. Without it, Rhineland was a victim of past wounds that tore open once again.
Rhineland tried to stand up, but his legs were far too weak. The best he was able to do was roll onto his back. His hand brushed against the cold floor, but his skin felt the gritty texture of sand.
"Rhineland! Get up kid! We've got incoming!"
"Anybody hurt?"
"Christ, Eddy and Rosenberg are dead!"
"The pilots are dead too, Sarge! Rhineland's wounded!"
"Shit! Covenant troops on our six!"
There was nothing Rhineland could do – he tried to take his mind off the voices, but the voices played in his head. The more he concentrated, the stronger the noises grew, and the memory only reinforced itself.
"Get off the street! We'll find better cover in that building!"
"I'm hit! I'm hit! Dammit, it burns!"
"More Covenant, incoming! Watch the side entrance!"
"They convoy has just sent a few Warthogs to pick us up. Set up a defensive perimeter until they get here."
"What about Rhineland?"
"He's hurt. Move him into a good hiding spot and keep him covered. Rhineland, if you can help, cover the side entrance and keep them from getting behind us."
Rhineland's hands covered his face as he yelled and screamed. Tears slowly formed and leaked from his tear ducts, getting smeared from his hands over the rest of his face.
All he could hear now was gunfire, and lots of it. The rhythmic beat of a Battle Rifle burst, the rapid chatter of an SMG, as well as the pulsing of a plasma rifle.
It then grew more and more frantic. Rhineland could hear the yelling and swearing now. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as the gunfire and yelling suddenly died.
At that point, Rhineland was reduced to nothing. His tears flowed freely now as the noises died, and the realization sank in.
They were all dead.
"You were an ODST once, right? Also a sniper?"
A new voice came into Rhineland's head. He recognized it slightly. It sounded only recent.
"Can you still fight? I'll need whatever help I can get against the Covenant."
The voice…it was extremely familiar. Rhineland thought hard about it, trying to remember where it was from. He was rewarded with a blurry mental image of a big green figure.
Rhineland then realized who it was – the Master Chief, the super soldier, the Spartan. Was he here? Was he urging him to fight? Rhineland was able to recall it slightly, but it felt more like a bizarre dream than actual reality.
"You did a good job modifying it. You'd be a great deal of help for the resistance. All you'd need to do for now is fix the jam on your gun."
Something then clicked inside Rhineland's head. The Master Chief was carrying a sniper rifle. Rhineland's sniper rifle.
Rhineland froze as he remembered his original weapon. Looking around the room, he saw his supply crate, and he noticed it was open. Someone had to have opened it and taken out his rifle. That someone had to have been the Master Chief. Being unable to stand up, Rhineland crawled over to it and peered inside, his gut clenching together as he saw his old equipment. Everything was in there, minus the rifle.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rhineland spotted its familiar shape. The weapon was laid down in the corner of the room. For a moment, Rhineland froze as he gazed upon the weapon.
"All you'd need to do for now is fix the jam on your gun."
The thought about the weapon in its jammed state haunted Rhineland. Fear grew inside of him when he thought about it. It was a single bullet that caused it all, and for thirty-five years, it had remained lodged in the weapon.
Crawling over to it, Rhineland picked up the rifle and looked over it. As his fingers wrapped around the sniper rifle's grip, Rhineland remembered the feel of the weapon. It was a long time ago when he had last rested his hands on his weapon.
He turned the weapon over and looked down at the ejector port and the cocking handle. The view of it frightened Rhineland even more. More memories came back to him as he stared at it. Thirty-five years ago, he looked at it with disbelief, and that disbelief was what broke him then.
Seconds turned to minutes as Rhineland stared emotionally at the weapon. Suddenly, his hand reached forward, grabbed the cocking handle, and pulled back. Sure enough the bullet ejected from the chamber and clattered as it hit and rolled around the floor.
Rhineland was reluctant to pick up the bullet, but he did so. He stared into the dull brass cartridge, unsure of what he was supposed to do now. This bullet was what brought him down into depression and grief. It could have been just another kill for Rhineland, but all it did was tear him apart.
All Rhineland did with it was slide it into his pocket, and refocus on his sniper rifle. His hand wrapped around the grip once more, and his other hand held the hand guard. Lifting the weapon, Rhineland could almost remember the weight of the weapon. Strangely, it seemed heavier now.
It meant that he had to exercise a bit more to get used to the weight again.
Without thinking, Rhineland lifted the rifle and shouldered it. He peered down the scope and lined the crosshairs up with some random stain on the wall. For a moment, he imagined it was the head of an Elite, and he imagined its head blowing up in a cloud of blood and gore.
The crosshairs wavered a bit, but it wavered more than what Rhineland could remember. In a second, his mind went back to some of the basic sniping techniques that he was drilled with back in sniper school.
The teachings echoed through his head, and he remembered them as clearly as the day his instructor was screaming them at him. He also remembered some of his old buddies remarking how he had fired a perfect shot through a target's head on his first try, with a Battle Rifle that was not yet zeroed and without a scope.
Rhineland smiled as he remembered the instructor's shock, while his teammates commended him.
Suddenly, everything cleared up for Rhineland. He looked at the rest of the room and noted all the bottles of beer and vodka he'd drink to drown his sorrows. Thinking hard, he was unable to remember what it felt like just then. Looking down at his rifle, however, Rhineland felt something new.
The former ODST looked down at his sniper rifle, and he felt hope.
End Note: This is yet another new chapter that I felt like doing for awhile. First off, Rhineland (weird/cool name? That was what I was thinking three years ago!) was a character that I felt like cutting. He didn't turn out to be of much use, but I kept him anyways. His character started as a drunken former soldier that's been traumatized by war and such, and I wanted to develop him changing and going back into the fight. However, I did the transition from drunk into insane sniper almost too fast in the old chapters, and I felt like changing that by adding a bit into why he's so depressed and why he's drinking, and I wanted to make a chapter devoted towards this aspect of his character. I suppose the reason why is because I wanted him to matter. I think there's a good chance to develop his character into something more, but form the way I'm doing this, his further development as a soldier will come later into the story. For now, he's a soldier who's been hurt by war making a decision to go back into it to do what he can.