Chapter 2: Corbulo, Part I
Corbulo Training Academy, 2526 AD
Thomas Lasky was not a soldier.
He'd known it to be true deep down for a long time, but in the last couple of weeks he realized more and more that he just didn't have it in him. He lacked that willingness to fight without quarter, and the belief that he should follow orders when he knew there was a better way.
He felt that the UNIM had become too comfortable with waging war, and that the insurrectionists, while terrorists, had their reasons for doing what they did. Maybe not excusable reasons, but reasons all the same. But he seemed to be the only one who ever acknowledged that. They weren't all evil mass murderers who dropped nukes on innocent people. Some of them were just people who had been bullied and overtaxed by the UNIM for too long and just wanted a better life. Lasky could understand that, especially since his own life wasn't the happiest. His father and brother were dead, and he never saw his mother. Not exactly much of a family.
And as a consequence of his views and borderline pacifism, he made no friends at Corbulo either with two exceptions: Chyler Silva and Michael Sullivan. But the rest just dismissed him as an "Innie Lover", which Lasky wasn't. He sympathized with some of them. There was a difference, one that none of his squadmates seemed to see, even Silva and Sullivan.
But in any event, Lasky was done with it all now. Despite the best efforts and intentions of his Colonel Mehaffey, Lasky had decided that he lacked the ruthlessness that seemed to be required to be a UNIM Space Marine. So it was that when he learned he could get a discharge by way of having an illness, he was ready to take his chance.
But before he did, he felt that perhaps he at least owed Silva enough to tell her first, and to say good-bye. For though the two didn't often see eye-to-eye, she was still one of his only friends. So it was that Lasky went looking for Silva as night fell on Corbulo. He found her sitting at what was usually his brooding spot, near the Space-Elevator. Walking over to her, Lasky sat by her side and she turned to face him.
"Hey..." Lasky said awkwardly.
"I thought I'd give your spot a try." Silva said with a smile, then adding in a pained tone: "That comm didn't make any sense. Hating the Innies is all I've ever known..."
Silva was referring to some hacked footage Sullivan had shown to the other members of Hastati squad, which showed UNIM forces fighting with Insurrectionists against some unknown adversary. None of the cadets had any idea what it was supposed to be, nor did they recognize the olive green armored titans who were shown helping fight the unknown foe...
"Did you tell Mehaffey about it?" Lasky asked.
Silva shook her head "no" before her eyes fell upon the discharge form Lasky was holding.
"What's that?" Silva asked.
"Oh, apparently I'm allergic to war" Lasky said matter-of-factly. "Or cryo-tubes as it were"
"What does this mean?" Silva asked. "Are you leaving?"
Lasky nodded. "If I sign this, yeah, I'll be gone tomorrow."
"Are you going to?"
"I..." Lasky was all set to say "yes" as in fact he had been, but now that he thought about it some more he was beginning to hesitate. He had nowhere else to go if he left Corbulo, and not to mention that his last firefight with his team had been a success under his leadership. Was he really going to bow out now?
"I...don't know" Lasky finished lamely. Silva didn't buy it.
"Oh, it's okay." she said in a reassuring but pained tone. "I know you don't want to be here..."
"That's not true. Its...more complicated than that..."
Silva shook her head. "If you say so. I just thought... that maybe..." she trailed off before saying finally: "I'll miss you."
"Chyler..."
Lasky shut his eyes instinctively and moved closer to Chyler, who did the same. Before they knew it they were sharing a kiss.
Why does this decision have to be so hard to make? Lasky thought as he kissed Silva.
The two's moment or intimacy was interrupted by the loud blaring sound of an emergency siren.
"What is that?" Silva asked, ending her kiss with Lasky.
"I don't know..."
The voice of Corbulo Academy's AI Orlin came on: "All cadets, report to the tether. Campus-wide evacuation."
Getting down from the brooding spot, Lasky and Silva followed the large throng of marines and cadets that were all running in the same direction in a sea of blue and white, up a large flight of stairs. More Marines stood on the stairs hollering orders: ""To the tether! Now! This is not a drill!"
"Let's go, let's go, let's go, come on!"
Finally, Silva and Lasky arrived with the main group and got in line with the other cadets, all of whom were heading to the space tether. Soon they arrived at a corridor leading to the space elevator, with more marines there to urge them to keep moving forward, all of them clad in the iconic blue armor with the UNIM's two-headed eagle symbol displayed prominently on their chests.
"Let's move it, cadets!" one of the marines barked. "Go, go, move it, cadets! Go, go, go!"
As the throng of cadets continued to move in a mob, Lasky and Silva could see Colonel Mehaffey herself standing in the corridor, barking out orders along with the marines.
"Go to your squads. Now! Keep moving, cadets!"
As Lasky and Silva continued to move with the rest of the throng like small fish swept up in a current, their sqaudmate Junjie Chen came up behind them.
"Chyler, Lasky. The rest of the squad's already at the tether. Let's go."
Indeed, Hastati Squad's sergeant April "Robot" Orenski was signalling for Hastati Squad amidst the chaos.
"Hastati! This way. Hurry up. Right here. Right here. Get in line. Lasky, Chen, let's go."
As all the members of Hastati gathered beside Orenski, she gave out new orders: "Okay. Hold tight. Everyone stay in line."
Lasky whispered to Sullivan: "What is this? Insurrectionists?"
"I have no idea." Sullivan replied bluntly.
"What's happening?" asked Walter Vickers. Orenski turned to him. "When we're assigned a number, we're going to get on to the tether."
As Orenski said this, lightning flashed in the sky followed by the sound of booming thunder. Everyone looked up to see several ODST drop pods come rocketing down out of the sky.
"Why are ODSTs dropping here?" Sullivan asked.
"I don't know" Orenski replied.
"Because we're under attack" Lasky said.
"Whatever it is, its not good" Orenski observed as more pods fell out of the sky like massive steel raindrops.
"ODSTs dropping is never good." Silva pointed out.
"Screw this" said another Hastati squad member, Dimah Tchakova. "I can get us on this wagon, I have the clearance..."
"No." Orenski said bluntly. "We will hold our position."
Dimah turned to her fellow squad members. "Guys, come on, I can get us out of here, really"
"No, Tchakova, that is a direct order." Orenski said in a tone that brooked no argument.
"Fine, then I'll go by myself!"
Dimah was all set to run off but Orenski reacted quickly enough to grab her by the arm and hold her in place. "Stay where you are Tchakova." Orenski growled. "I am a hairs' breadth away from getting you a court martial when this is over..."
"LET GO OF ME!" Dimah shouted, but Orenski held firm. Sullivan walked up to Dimah and tried to comfort her.
"Dimah, come on, calm down, it'll be alright. We just gotta wait a little while to get out of here is all. Calm down..."
Dimah continued to struggle against Orenski at first, but gradually, she began to calm herself a little, and Orenski released her hold on her. Dimah clutched Sullivan tightly to her as a marine's voice tore through the air.
"The wagon's full. Send her up!"
"This is taking too long April" Vickers said. "Maybe we should just bum-rush and let Dimah use her connections to get us out of here."
Orenski shook her head. "No, no, no, no, we'll be fine." As Orenski said this the elevator doors closed and the car began its ascent.
It didn't get far.
Out of the clouds came a trio of large purple vessels that opened fire on the space elevator, shooting out indigo-colored blasts at it, aiming at the space tether. The laser blasts vaporized it the second they hit it, and the support structure of the elevator bent and buckled before the lower portion of it collapsed altogether towards the the terminal where Hastati squad was still standing, loose pieces of metal sent flying in all directions.
Everyone down below screamed and ran as debris from the destroyed space elevator rained down on them all. The aftershock of the blast threw Lasky and Silva to the floor as dust filled the air. Silva forced herself up first and then helped Lasky to his feet. A deafening boom ripped through the air, far louder than thunder and also from something far more dangerous. Looking out the window, Silva and Lasky saw an ODST firing an Assault Rifle at a large, bipdeal creature with mandibles and blood red colored armor armed with a weapon that was two glowing blue blades attached to a silver-gray grip. The creature cut the ODST down with the weapon and then spotted Lasky and Silva.
"Oh my God, what is that?"
With a swing of its weapon, the red armored creature decapitated the nearby statue of General Corbulo and growled, saying something in a language that Lasky and Silva did not understand.
Silva turned to Lasky and shook him to get his attention. "Tom come on, we have to go"
Lasky nodded and ran along with Silva, leaving the red armored alien with the glowing blue weapon behind. "What was that thing?" Lasky asked.
"I don't know" Silva replied.
As the two continued to run, the space tether was destroyed by the same ships that had destroyed the space elevator, causing dozens of people to fall down on Lasky and Silva, crashing through the glass roof and sending shards of glass everywhere, some of them giving Lasky and Silva cuts across the cheeks and arms.
"Come on, we have to keep moving!" Silva shouted. Needing no other reminder, Lasky continued to follow Silva, who outpaced him by quite a bit. As they continued to run, Lasky looked around in horror at the chaos and carnage that was present. An ODST was blown away by a glowing blue grenade that stuck to his body before detonating. A Marine screamed in agony as he was shot dead by another of the red-armored aliens Lasky and Silva had seen earlier. Yet another Space Marine was engulfed in an explosion. Everywhere Lasky looked, ODSTs and the blue armored Space Marines traded fire with some unknown force, the sounds of gunfire filling the air. Catching up with Orenski, she guided Lasky and Silva through the firefight as incessant blasts of gunfire lit up the darkness.
"Come on, let's go!" Orenski shouted.
Looking around, Lasky could see two cadets from another squad get mercilessly cut down by pink crystalline projectiles. Then amidst the chaos he saw Colonel Mehaffey herself fighting alongside the ODSTs and Space Marines, yelling at the cadets as she did: "Get to the dorms, go!"
"Colonel Mehaffey...?"
Go, go, go go!" Mehaffey shouted before she was hit by more of the pink crystalline projectiles. As she fell, Lasky felt the world slow down, and for a moment he became deaf to all the shouting, gunshots, explosions, and death filling the air before Silva grabbed him and shook him violently.
"TOM!" she shouted.
Lasky snapped back to reality, but still couldn't tear his eyes away from Mehaffey's dead body. Silva pulled on his arm.
"Come on, let's go!" she shouted.
Finally, Lasky shut his eyes and followed Silva as Space Marines shouted: "Fall back! Protect the cadets!"
"To the dorms!" shouted a voice that Lasky recognized as Junjie Chen. The two followed him through the chaos into the dorms, where the rest of Hastati Squad had regrouped. Vickers was trying in vain to open the doors to the dorm rooms.
"The doors are all locked!" Vickers growled.
Sullivan turned and tried the door to his room and found it to be unlocked. He turned to the other members of Hastati Squad.
"In here!"
The members of Hastati all squeezed into Sullivan's room, who then locked the door as the sounds of gunfire and screams continued to fill the air in a deafening bedlam.
"Oh my God, they're all dead..." Dimah whispered.
"Colonel Mehaffey..." Lasky whispered, still dumbstruck by her death. She really had been one of the only people at Corbulo who had any kind of faith in him.
Vickers stepped forward. "We'll be too if we don't do something!"
Sullivan scattered his hand on the holotable in the center of his room, trying in vain to activate it.
"The comms are offline" he said grimly.
"We're at war" Vickers muttered.
Everyone fell silent as Vickers said this before the sound of a scream tore through the air. Startled by the sound, the members of Hastati Squad grouped up closer to one another. Lasky made his way over to the door and peeked through the slit in it. He saw that a cadet had been fatally impaled by a large black sword being held by a monster with blood red skin, lanky limbs, horns, and a long, forked tongue. The creature made a wicked grin as the cadet fell down dead.
"Blood for the Blood God!" the monster shouted with sadistic glee. "Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
And then the monster walked off, repeating those same words again and again until it became too far away to be heard. As it left though, several of the bipedal creatures with mandibles Lasky had already seen several times now appeared, but these were different from the other ones. In place of the blood red colored armor, these ones wore armor that was sky blue with pink stripes that went in random patterns. They also wore helmets that covered their entire faces, and attached to their backs were what looked like the jumppacks worn by the legendary ODST "Bullfrogs".
Then, the aliens disappeared before Lasky's eyes. He turned back around to face the other members of Hastati Squad.
"They're invisible"
"What the hell is invisible?" Dimah demanded.
"Some of the aliens are inside, and they're invisible." Lasky explained.
Turning around, Lasky looked back out through the slit in the door. He saw the doors to another dorm get blasted in by seemingly nothing, but Lasky knew that it was the cloaked aliens, who moved in and slaughtered the people within, a sight Lasky couldn't bear to watch for too long before turning away in disgust. But he could still hear the dying screams of the cadets and marines within.
"Let's go" Lasky said to the other members of Hastati Squad. "We gotta get out of here."
"No no no no, screw that." Sullivan said. "We stay here."
"Where are we gonna go?" Chen asked.
"We'll go to the training room" Orenski decided. "We're gonna get prepped up and we're gonna get some weapons."
Chen stepped forward. "I'll take point" he said confidently.
Orenski nodded and then shouted out to the rest of the squad: "Come on. Come on, line up!"
Hastati Squad did so, with Chen taking point as promised. Looking out of the slit in the door, Chen could see the door to the dorm next to Hastati's get blasted down.
"Now!" he shouted.
Needing no other invitation, the members of Hastati Squad all ran out of the room, with Chen leading them left when they came across an intersection in the hallways. As they ran though, one of the squad, Shere, his name was, ran ahead of Chen...and then stopped.
"What's going on?" Orenski demanded.
"Why'd you stop Shere?" Vickers demanded.
Shere's body hit the floor with a thud as Chen nervously backed away from his killer. Standing over Shere's body was the same red demon Lasky had seen before, its now blood-stained black sword held menacingly in its bony red claws.
"Blood for the Blood God!" the monster screamed. "Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
"Shere!" Vickers shouted horrified.
"Oh my God..." Chen muttered, backing away further and further from the red-skinned demon, who began to make his way towards them all, saying again: "Blood for the Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
Fear and survival instinct surging through their veins, the remaining members of Hastati Squad bolted to the right, running as fast as they could and away from the devil that had impaled Shere. Finally, they came to the training room.
"Lasky, send the distress beacon" Orenski ordered. "Chyler, Sullivan help me get the weapons"
Sullivan and Silva obeyed and followed Orenski to the weapons compartment, followed by Vickers. As Dimah and Chen stood next to him looking around nervously, Lasky worked on the doorpad.
"Dammit!" Orenski growled. "My code isn't working..." As she said this, Silva and Vickers tried to force the compartments open manually, but they wouldn't budge.
"Try again. Do it again!" Silva shouted to Orenski.
Meanwhile, Sullivan pointed at the nearby door. "Lasky, the door!"
"Yeah, I know, I'm trying..."
"April, come on!" Silva begged.
As Lasky finally managed to shut the door, he sent out a distress broadcast: "Mayday, mayday mayday. This is Cadet Thomas Lasky. I repeat, mayday! Mayday! There's been an attack on Corbulo Academy. Excessive casualties. I repeat, excessive casualties!"
As Lasky finished sending the distress broadcast, Orenski finally came back from the weapons rack, a look of defeat on her face. "I don't have access to the live rounds." she said sadly.
"I think the beacon's down as well..." Lasky said, his voice also filled with defeat.
"We're dead..." Dimah whimpered.
Orenski began to pace back and forth, muttering: "Okay, alright. Think, think..."
"We can't stay in here, April." Lasky said.
"Yes, but we can't go out there either!" Orensi snapped.
The sound of a loud thud rang throughout the room. Turning to the source, the other members of Hastati Squad saw Vickers hitting the weapons compartments with a fire extinguisher again and again. As the others got wind of this, they started to egg him on: "Come on, Vickers! Harder!" Chen shouted.
"Harder Vickers!" Sullivan shouted as well.
But as Vickers continued to ram the compartments, another banging sound rang through the air, this one coming from the door. Freezing in terror, everyone turned to the source of the sound and watched the door in horror as the banging continued.
"Hide..." Orenski said weakly.
The cadets bolted to the back of the room. Vickers however split up from the rest of the group and went to the right while the rest of Hastati went to the left. Realizing this, Vickers attempted to rejoin his squad, but it was here that the door was finally blasted down, causing all the members of Hastati to freeze in terror.
"Lasky, go for the door" Sullivan whispered.
"But we can't leave Vickers!" Lasky protested.
Then the force that had blasted the door down stepped forward. The first ones through were short little creatures a couple heads shorter than the members of Hastati Squad, with stubby little arms and legs of a sickly gray color. Their heads looked shriveled and diseased, almost like a shrunken head. They wore breather masks over their mouths and had large cone shaped backpacks attached to their breastplates, which were red or pink in color. Were it not for their weapons the members of Hastati Squad would have regarded their appearance as almost comical.
Then the others came.
They were humanoids, clad from head to toe in bulky black armor with helmets that covered their faces completely and looked like mockeries of the helmets worn by the legendary Gray Knights and other Space Marine chapters. Some of them were adorned with different kinds of horns. Others had red plumage atop their black helmets and others still had a small bronze skull on their chest pieces.
"What...what are those things?" Sullivan asked horrified.
"Purge them" one of the black armored figures said to his fellows.
Leaping out from behind his cover, Vickers swung his fire extinguisher at one of the small alien's heads, and managed to knock it out.
"Run!" Vickers shouted. Then one of the black armored humanoids shot him with a crude looking pistol. Vickers never stood a chance. The impact of the bullet sent his body flying through the air as if he'd been hit by a cannonball. He slammed into the nearby wall with a sickening crunch and then fell, blood now coming out of his body freely.
"Vickers!" Sullivan shouted in horror. Turning to the source, the black armored humanoids went after the other members of Hastati Squad.
"Kill them all" the one who had shot Vickers said. "Cleanse this UNSC filth from the galaxy in the name of the Four Powers"
"What are they talking about?" Sullivan whispered nervously.
"I...I think those are Innies..." Dimah stammered.
"That's not possible..." Silva said weakly. "Innies don't have that kind of armor..."
The black armored men were all set to open fire and cut down all of the members of Hastati Squad when suddenly a blade appeared out of the one who had killed Vicker's chest. He grunted in pain before slumping over. Standing over him was a tall, lithe humanoid clad in sea blue armor with a white loinclith over it as well as white shoulder pauldrons. Over his head he wore a tall white helmet with a black faceplate and adorned with a black and yellow crest. Over one arm he had a small silver shield and on his back he wore a blue banner that on it a symbol of a white cross topped with a white triangle. He also had in a scabbard on his back a sword and held in his hands a long black and brown pole topped with a blade that had been what had gone through the black armored man who had shot Vickers.
In all he was an impressive looking figure, and all were awed by his presence. Then the other black armored humanoids and the short aliens tried to shoot him.
In a blur-like motion the sea blue armored figure spun and twirled his bladed polearm around and around, cutting the smaller aliens to ribbons and forcing the black armored men to back away and keep their distance. Then, bursting through the ceiling and raining rubble down on the black armored men was another humanoid in steel gray armor with wings on his back and a sword in each hand. As he landed, he was followed by a few more humanoids in sky blue armor with white wings. They stared down the group of black armored men as the members of Hastati looked on in shock and awe.
"None of you will leave this place" the steel-gray armored one said coldly.
And then, in a blinding flurry of bullets and sword slashes the two groups of armored enigmas clashed with one another. It all happened so fast that the watching Hastati Squad could not keep up. When the dust settled all of the black armored humanoids were dead, mercilessly cut down like so much wheat before a scythe.
Finally, the steel-gray armored man turned to face the watching Hastati Squad, all of them still paralyzed with fear and awe.
"We don't have much time. Come with us if you value your lives."
Author's Note: Yes, this is the Forward unto Dawn mini-series mixed with Warhammer 40k elements. This is supposed to be the Human Covenant War with the Daemons of Chaos and Eldar thrown in, so expect many chapters to be very similar to actual Halo events. I plan to spice things up a bit though to make sure it feels less like a novelization or a transcript. As it is I like how this one's been turning out so far, if not also a bit longer than I had expected. Ah well.
And yes, I made the Insurrectionists the Chaos Space Marines. My own little twist on them I suppose. I mean, there were Innies who actually thought the Covenant would be better than the UNSC (talk about irredeemably stupid), so I figured this wouldn't be that much of a stretch.
Also, just to clarify: Elites and Grunts are the only Covenant races who have pledged loyalty to all of the Four Powers. So some Elites and Grunts work for each of the four. In the case of the Elites who work for Khorne, they're more like frontal assault soldiers, while the ones who work for Tzeentch are basically Elite Rangers with cloaking capability like Stealth Elites.
Lastly, a lot of people have been asking me: "Is this the Imerium or the UNSC?" The answer is that its mostly UNSC, but has some of the aesthetic and soldiers of the Imperium. So for example, the Marines look like the Imperium's Space Marines, only the armor is less bulky. In all its about 80-85% UNSC and 15-20% Imperium. Also again, I am only a casual Warhammer fan, so I apologize in advance for anything I get wrong and/or take some creative liberties with.
And that's everything. I hope you all continue to enjoy my crossover!