AN: This is my take on life today in reality and in our future on this planet. Of course combined with a favourite game; HALO. Hopefully I'll have balanced some of my darker thoughts with light fantasy. Enjoy, and please, review! Dieu et mon Droit!

Chapter Two

I awoke to a deep groan and a ticking of mechanisms deep below me in the heart of... of what? Where was I? I suddenly became uncertain. Was the groan that I had awakened too below me or was it in fact, me? I was slumped against a cold, metal wall. Rust ran in patchwork along the length of the wall stretching off into blurry distance. The faded paint reminded me of an old Russian cruiser I had been on while training just outside of Arkhangel. There was the groan again and I began to tilt slightly to the left. And then back. Well at least the groan wasn't me, one less thing wrong. Surely this was a cruiser. No, I wasn't thinking clearly. All ships rolled stupid. I knew I would have got a slap across the top of my head from my CO if she'd been there. Well, I clearly wasn't near the barracks. And there was no German bloke reading his bloody classics in a bunk next to me. Decidedly I thought "Must be a Ship". I acutely became aware of a growing pain in the back of my neck. "Idiot!" I thought. I should get up I had been thinking outside of my body. Slowly I clambered to my feet and not for the first time brushed myself down.

"Mein Gott!"

I was thinking aloud again. I stooped slightly to the left as I looked on up through the gangway past watertight doors that slunk away into darkness as the light from the single bare bulb on the wall dispersed. Suddenly a large groan ran through the length of what I thought was a ship. Bang.

For the second time I awoke. This time it certainly was me doing the groaning. "Oh God...". I had been moved. Or moved myself. I stared out ahead of me into darkness and suddenly became aware of the hail pouring onto my face. Ahead of me I saw the waves crashing, the white froth a murky grey in the dull light cast by headlamps from the cabin high above. So I had been right! This was a ship, a tanker! I was slumped in the same position as I had been earlier but now against a container marked with militant lettering '31R3' before I had a chance to give it a second thought I felt again nauseous and my head rolled forward onto my chest as the darkness of not only the night but of myself crawled across my eyes.

Flash. Flash, flash. A bright, sterile white light blasted through my blinking eyelids as I struggled to regain my vision. It was as if I had been hit with a flash bang. My ears were picking up muffled noise. Someone was shouting. Normal. I was always getting shouted at. But I couldn't tell what they were saying. Mumbling I was dragged to my feet. A wave crashed against myself and the pair of hands that held me up. Together we went tumbling to the deck. Within seconds the light was back in my eyes but this time I could see, hear and speak. The light was attached to a gun. The gun was held by a hand. The hand belonged to an arm. And the arm, was attached to a man. A very serious man. Probably German.

"Hallo? Hello? Bonjo-"

"Enough of that Froggy bulls**t thank you. I'm bloody listening." I said unsympathetically.

So the guy was British. I liked the Brits. At least he wasn't French. Or worse American! I shuddered. I wasn't quite sure whether it was the cold or the thought of a coward laying hands on me that did it. The man was on second look was without doubt English. Oxford probably. He had the moustache as well. But his strong Geordie accent put those thoughts to bed. He'd probably be offended if he'd known what I'd been thinking. Gathering my confused nerves I tried to shake myself free of his grip. But he held on firmly.

"Listen. I have to give you this. You'll be out like a light." The strong Geordie accent hung on his every word.

Suddenly I felt weak. Looking too just below my left shoulder a field needle protruded from my webbing. I went out like a light. I was having enough of this whole coma bollocks. As I slipped deeper into the realms of my mind and reality faded I thought; the next time I'm awake I'm staying awake. I need answers...

When I awoke from my seemingly ceaseless blackouts, it was not a sight that first greeted me but a noise. The thump of rotor blades chopping at air. The air was almost thick- or it sounded like it as the thumping kept on going. Calmly I opened my eyes. I was staring up at the roof of the chopper, or what I assumed it to be. The roof was covered in netting holding uniforms and full Bergen's, it swayed in the breeze. Wait. Breeze? I looked to my left. Two side doors, parallel to each other were wide open. Bright sunlight flooded the interior of the helicopter. I felt a tap on my shoulder. Looking around I saw the same Brit who had given me the injection.

"Awake at last mate? Took your time! You've been out around eight hours. We're in friendly airspace now."

I looked up at him with what I can only assume must be the single most confused face he'd ever seen. The man, let out a laugh that shook his body. He winced at me.

"Oh man! You're in for a hell of a ride mate! Better save that face for another time!"

"Commander, er, I appear to be aboard a helicopter in the middle of f*****g nowhere. When I went to sleep, wait, went unconscious three f*****g times, I was aboard an Oil Tanker and the time before that I was in f*****g Turkey!"

My voice was slowly rising.

"What the f**k do you expect?!"

The Commander looked down at the floor of the chopper.

"We're 378 miles off the southern coast of Cyprus-"

Before the guy could finish I exploded. I was confused, angry-

"What the actual f**k! How the bloody hell did I even get here?"

Giving me a look that afforded some guilt he replied.

"Sorry, it's above my pay grade. But I can tell you we evacuated you from the Tanker 'Cnaeus Sejanus' 71 miles out of Casablanca. The hull was nearly underwater. Listen. I don't know who you are apart from a name, and if I'm honest you'd best thank who ever ordered the air-vac otherwise you'd have been a goner."

Seeing the look of confusion still a permanent feature on my face he reached to a pocket on his chest. I had noticed his rank but on second attempt I also recognised his SBS Commando badge sewn neatly onto his right shoulder. He pulled from his pocket a blue Israeli passport and flicked it open to the first page. Looking up he told me.

"I checked this before I woke you up on the Tanker. It's your passport. You are Zacharias Bar-Or of Tiberias. Sorry, I should've realized the injection might've done this."

His touch of sympathy did not assure me. But I decided to play along all the same. Whoever the hell this Bar-Or was, could play it how he liked but Zac was my old name. My true name. And Tiberius was my place of birth, where most of my family lived and still live. Where the f**k had he got the passport? I'd be f****d if it was mine.

"Hey where exactly did you get the passport?"

Wincing again the Commander struggled with the thought.

"It was in your webbing"

He pointed to the pouch on my waist. A shout emerged from down the aircraft. A feminine voice. One I recognised. I took in the rest of my surroundings. I was on a British made Chinook. It was the hybrid, re adapted and advanced for use in combat. This version seemed to be of the same year, 2020. It must have cost a fortune. Only a few soldiers littered down the chopper. All of them seemed to be wearing RMP gear, they were relaxed but isolated from the rest of us near the cockpit. The commander who had been talking to me, turned his back and walked up to the cockpit door leaning in and talking to the co-pilot. Over his shoulder I could see a woman looking back. Delicate, white skin and dark brown hair tied back under her helmet. She wore aviators that shielded her eyes from my vision. As I opened my mouth to shout at her the door slammed shut. And the Commander turned back to me. His confident, relaxed posture gone. When he reached me he said.

"You speak German right?"

"Right"

"Betrieb Rostok"

I looked up at him, shock quickly shot across my face. But I had buried it in a moment.

"Are you certain? I mean your British, you shouldn't even know that."

"Beyond certain."

He walked off down the interior of the aircraft, I assumed to tell the RMP's to suit up. What the Commander had just told me shocked me to the core. Operation Rostok was the fabrication of the ARIS Alliance. It indicated that a level Three event had occurred. Level Three, is a military level code for crisis. If you had a full drought and power shutdown in North America; that would be a level One. A level Three told me an unimaginable event had occurred that had only ever been considered in films which had never hit the screens as the ideas behind them were too damaging to society. If you remember I had been guarding the Baku – Tbilisi – Ceyhan Oil Pipe before this... this thing had occurred. What my superiors had feared, in my mind may have come true. Oil reserves had reached 'Peak Oil'. The only oil left was stored in vats in nations across the world. It was being saved for the rich and powerful and nations from which it was extracted, all of whom had disappeared into bunkers deep below the earth's surface to avoid the colossal war which in all likelihood would spell mankind's end.

ARIS for those who do not know is the Anglo-Russo-Israelite-Scandinavian alliance, although a Germany-Poland Union (GPU) had already been pre made and would join the ARIS nations 30 days after its activation. From down the chopper came the sound of raised voices. The RMP's were changing into Service uniforms and donning Kevlar protection.

"Zac!"

The Commander shouted for me as he struggled to strap on leg protection.

"Zac, we're around two hours from Base, I'm staying with you, but you have a 2-day cooling off period. At 19:00 hours local time, in 48-hours I'll take you to report for duty. I don't know where, who with or any other details, but for these next two days we'll get you kitted out, check the extent of your training and let you relax."

Nodding I thought to myself 'He talks like he knows me and yet I don't even know his name'...

"Commander"

He turned around

"What's your name? You know so much about me and me so little about you!"

"My name is Aleks."

Nodding he turned away deep in thought. I wasn't sure I was keeping up with my own life at the moment... And who was this brunette who kept showing up? The answers I sought had been granted and yet I now had a hundred more including how I had covered 2,520 miles in 240 minutes... So many questions I needed answering and yet I hadn't even addressed the most dangerous one which happened to be the likelihood that the world around me was descending into chaos and war. Strange day. An odd burning sensation rippled on the inside of my arm. I flinched. Probably just a bite...