Alternate Past: Uncertain Future Mk II
Thanks to Micheal1110 for betaing this for me. Also, I know I said that I would wait until this is around 10k words but circumstances have forced me to post this now and go on hiatus. Not cause I don't have ideas for the story, but I find myself with less and less time to work and must go onto hiatus.
Any updates will be edits to prior chapters and codex entries.
Please review and let me know what you think of this chapter!
Chapter 7
Shanxi: Espionage, Rescue, Tragedy
**ONI Sec III Safe House: Tero City**
Outside a relatively unassuming looking apartment building dozens on Shellheads and Hunters ambled about. Talking, eating, patrolling. Some writing messages to be sent back home. Inside, though, was the hidden and secure above ground bunker, built for the Office of Naval Intelligence: Sec III. One of a dozen scattered across the planet; each holding enough arms and provisions to keep five men comfortable for days and well-armed, the bunker itself impenetrable to all but the most powerful of dedicated drilling tools. Inside this particular bunker was one man. A scientist, by the name: Doctor Alan Morgan Denton. Considered the leading head of all Forerunner related technologies, bested only by the great Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey. And currently the only ONI Sec III personnel on the planet.
"Great," he said as he placed the cup of now lukewarm coffee, a habit that he had picked up from Halsey when he worked with her back in 2510s and 2520s, "The one day I pick to go on some much needed vacation and I get caught in the middle of a First Contact invasion." Dragging his palm across his face, he groaned. "Why couldn't it have been tomorrow? Least that way my vacation would have been extended." The doctor was not unsympathetic to the colonists and defenders outside the safe house. No, if anything he would gladly have allowed some into the safehouse. However, it had failsafes to detonate several dozen kilos of C-12 High Explosive Plastique if it detected any unauthorized personal. He had simply accepted the situation for what it was and that he was helpless to do anything. He was not a solider, but a researcher and scientist. And he had long realized the other situation that he was in. For the longest time, since his 'induction' into ONI, he had further made himself invaluable with every single achievement. And yet he was young, having been drafted into ONI Section I in his teenage years. And because of his youth, he was defiant, he fought for what he believed to be right, and because of it he was a pain in the ass to certain individuals. Particularly to one Vice Admiral Margaret C. Paragonsky.
But as hated he was by some, he couldn't simply be removed. No. He was too valuable and too well known for that. If he were to disappear or suddenly die, then HIGHCOM would likely shake the ONI tree to see what secrets came falling out.
He had lost count of the number of times he had been "assigned" to hazardous posts, where by all rights, he should have died. Yet here he was, alive and kicking. Well, perhaps with a few more scars here and there then when he had begun but alive. Planets bordering known Heretic Space, hazardous Forerunner installations, even worlds under the control of the Sangheilli and High Charity, all of them he had been sent, hoping it would be his grave. And this First Contact provided the greatest opportunity the Vice Admiral would ever have. Granting her the first opportunity to send one of her own agents to assassinate him and remain innocent and unsuspected in his death.
And outside the bunker, several buildings away, lying prone under some debris, ONI agent Phoenix watched the entrance to the bunker. "Damn." Muttering under his breathe, he lowered the binoculars, "This is going to be a bitch to get by." The outside of the safehouse had too many shuffling around or near it for him to sneak through. Even with an active camouflage module. "Need a distraction or something." Bringing the binoculars back to his face, he took another look at the area. Not that far away from the bunker, but at least several hundred meters from him, an obvious command center over there, what looks like a barracks, a mess hall and, "Hello there, what's this?" A triage center: a battlefield hospital within the base. Considering how he saw wounded on beds and aliens running back and forth between them. "Hmm…that has some opportunities." He thought. Looking again he found something that really caught his eye, or actually, several someones: there was a group of aliens, both Hunters and Shellheads, from the random radio chatter, on both the police and military network (MilNet) he had managed to pick up. Some were wearing armor that were more, hardened, in a sense. They had modifications, couldn't tell what they were for, but any he saw, only a few had them. And the group was in a direction opposite of the safehouse and the extraction route.
Putting away the binoculars, he removed a now outdated but heavily-modified SRS99D-S2 AM Sniper Rifle from his back, along with the special ammunition he had packed just for this mission. The ammo had been modified to pack a lower powder charge so it wouldn't leave a vapor trail back to the shooter. Granted they would be hard-pressed to find him in the dark but he preferred not to take the chance. The rifle itself has been modified to mount a silencer and a shorter barrel. This cut down the range of the weapon to a fraction of its original capability but it would be enough to suit his purpose.
Already prone, he laid down the sniper rifle on the ruined floor, making sure to keep the barrel inside the building. Covering any reflective surface, doing whatever he could to make any chance of detection near nil. Satisfied, he trained the crosshairs on a Shellhead, this one standing inside the battlefield hospital, and if its armor was any indication, an officer. Bringing the crosshairs directly over its center mass, he stopped. Taking a breath, and holding it. Slowing down his body as much as consciously could to reduce any level of sway in the rifle. Then, he pulled the trigger.
A hammer fell. Fire burned. Death flew through the air. All that was heard was a whisper of the wind. In a split second, the modified 12.5 by 114mm Armor-Piercing Fin-Stabilized Discarding-Sabot ammunition flew through the air at a fraction of its optimized velocity, but still it covered the distance between Phoenix and its target in less than a second. The silencer and reduced velocity turn the sound into little more than a hard smack. A noise drowned out by the panic and the noises from the camp. Looking through the scope, he saw his target fall. A Hunter came into view, and he pulled the trigger again. He didn't bother to see if he hit his target. He had already replaced the rifle on his back and began moving for the safehouse entrance.
Back inside the safehouse, Denton finished off the lukewarm coffee before the 'dumb' AI alerted him to someone trying to access the safehouse. "Well, I guess this is it." Standing up, he moved toward the door, an MA6-A series rifle in his hand. Holding it like it was an old friend, he loaded and pulled the charging handle like a veteran. He heard the outer door close, then the inner door open. The airlock was pitch dark. "Well, come on then. Your one of the bitch's agents right? You here to kill me or what?"
"Please, put your weapon down sir. We need to get to the extraction point." The figure didn't enter the room. The doctor still had the weapon trained on the entrance, and Phoenix could see the safety block had been released; he had heard the bolt cycle and shut close with a round in place. A cycling bolt with a bullet sounds different enough from an empty bolt. "Admiral Paragonsky sent me herself. I-" A burst let loose in the sound proofed room, slamming into the space just next to the door. The only other sound the shell casings as they clattered onto the floor.
"See that doesn't help your case. She's the bitch that's tried to have me killed for the past several years. If you really are here to extract me, then toss your weapons, and I mean all of them, into the room and then your helmet. Then you walk in here. And maybe I'll consider leaving with you." To the doctor's surprise, the ONI SpecOps Agent did exactly that with little hesitation: an old modified BR55HB-SR "Battle Rifle", with a slimmer profile and lacking the tactical scope and instead sporting a red dot sight, a modified SRS99D-S2 AM Sniper Rifle, and a silenced M7-B series Magnum pistol. "Alright get in here." Lowering the rifle, but not relocking the safety. "Give me a moment to get ready and we'll get out of here."
Phoenix stepped forward and took his gear. First donning his helmet before walking into the light, then grabbing the rest of his weapons and gear, replacing them back in their proper places. "Doctor we don't have the time, if you haven't saved it into a moveable data packet then leave it. We need to leave now."
"I realize that, which is why I am activating Locust protocol. We can't leave anything here to these new aliens." Locust Protocol was a command that should anyone enter the safe house without a proper ONI Sec III IFF(Identify Friend or Foe) Tag, charges inside the safehouse would detonate, causing an implosion shortly after a data purge. Otherwise, anything inside could be salvaged later. "Let go."
**Tero City: Courthouse**
The pair had left the safehouse behind some time ago and entered the Courthouse through an unsecured, and still intact, back entrance. The entrances to where the Human prisoners were being held had been sealed off by their alien captors. Forcing the pair to travel via the secondary levels, the only access to which remaining was the door they had entered through. A forced path by the fact that as the rear of the Courthouse had all but collapsed and this was the shortest route to a secondary hidden ONI emergency vehicle hideaway. Standard operating procedure for ONI was to have emergency secondary extraction vehicle Problem be a considerable distance from the primary safehouse. For the pair though, , the main problem was the doctor's, as Phoenix called it, "Bloody Noble heart".
"I told you before doctor, we can't do anything for them." Phoenix whispered as they quietly traversed the second level. "Leave them."
"Bullshit! I refuse to leave those people behind!" He replied in a harsh but low voice. "We can save these people, we can-urk!" The ONI SpecOps Agent had grabbed Denton by the throat and had brought him face to helmet. The doctor seeing only the barest reflection of his face in the visor in the low light.
"Even if we tried to save all these people, we can't take them anywhere. The extraction vehicle, at most will hold a dozen, maybe a few more. There are Hundreds of people here doctor. We couldn't save them if we wanted." Letting Denton go, he turned round again, "If you're done doctor we need to go. Extraction vehicle isn't far now."
The doctor turned his head, looking down on the people just below him, totally oblivious to his presence. A man tending to a wounded woman, a wife or girlfriend if the looks they were giving each other was any sign. A child being comforted by someone that was obviously not family, families and couples huddled together around what light and fires there were. He turned his heart heavy, and moved to follow the SpecOps agent when he heard a language he had not heard in months. The tongue of the Sanghelios.
"Get off of her!" It was a rough, harsh voice. Male. When he looked again, he saw a male Sangheili, just shy of seven feet tall, a juvenile, barely an adult by Human standards, and obviously wounded, based on the bandages on his body, had tried to attack one of the aliens, a Shellhead. Though his efforts were futile as due to alien's girth, and his owns wounds, was tossed easily aside. He saw the wounded Sangheili soon surrounded by other Humans. But his attention was caught by yells coming from the Shellhead. No, from what he held in his hand. A young female Sangheili, similar in age, if a bit older than the male of her species.
"Get this chatta off of me! Help!" A chill went down his body. No matter what, however bad the situation, did Sangeheili ever cry out for help. Granted she was young but, "Shit! Get this bastard away from-AH!" The bastard had hit her! It was obvious what was going on, this Shellhead, for whatever reasons, had decided to beat on the prisoners. It was obvious why its compatriots were not trying to stop him. Some were standing there watching, whilst others were too far off in the background to know what was going on. In the corner of his eye, he saw a small pile of corpses, previous victims of the alien's bloodlust. He pulled up his assault rifle and started to pull down-
A hand slammed down on the rifle, forcing the barrel of the weapon down and his finger away from the trigger. "Hey, what the hell are you doing! I said we needed to get the hell out of here!"
"Do you see what is going on here!" He snarled back, "We can't leave them here!"
Phoenix grabbed Denton by the shirt again. "We have to!" Ripping the rifle out of the doctor's hands, he stepped back. "I am not about to risk my life or yours just because of your fucking bleeding heart! My orders are to get you out of the city and back into UNSC-Controlled territory. Now you your ass doctor and follow me to the extraction point."
Denton didn't say a thing, he didn't need to. Instead, ignoring the SpecOPs agent, he turned towards the Shellhead, drawing his M7-C series Misirah Armories Magnum pistol and pulled the trigger. The gunshot thundered throughout the courthouse, just moments after the 12.7 M225 Semi-Armor-Piercing High-Explosive round slammed into the Shellhead, entering through the hump and exiting out its face.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Screams of panic as Human prisoners ran trying to avoid an future gunshots, the roars of the aliens as they tried to figure out where the shot had come from, and more gunshots as the doctor used his neural implant to link with the internal smart-scope, taking aim and firing upon the aliens further away. The staccato of rifle fire soon joined the fray as Phoenix opened fire with the Doctor's rifle.
"Over here!" The doctor called out, waving to the people below, "Come on, we got to get out of here!" A stampede soon began as people began rushing for the pair. People were trampled underfoot as they tried to get to their believed rescuers. The first ones to reach them were the Sangheilli pair, who helped up several others, and were the process of helping others onto the second level when death came.
They heard a roar as another Shellhead had charged into the midst of the scrambling prisoners. Beating it fists upon whomever and whatever it could reach. A young woman suffered a punch so hard that she slammed into the wall, three feet away. The blood trail on the wall as she fell was a clear sign she was dead. An elderly man was thrown into a group of people, knocking them all down. Before it could try to do so again, a group of men, at least a dozen strong, and all of them burly, obviously bodybuilders or something similar, jumped on the Shellhead. Each of them had bruises, casts, or some sort of injury caused by the Aliens, and they all wanted their pound of flesh. Even wounded, the twelve managed to weigh it down, beating upon its face with whatever they could get their hands on. One of them produced a makeshift shiv, and stabbed it in the Shellhead's eye. It roared in agony as the shiv entered the body, but couldn't move with all the weight upon it, which only increased as more left the scramble and joined in on the beating.
More and more people were being helped unto the second level by the Sangheilli pair and several others, the doctor directing them down towards the direction Phoenix had been taking him. Until suddenly Phoenix cried out, "DOWN!" Denton, Phoenix, the Sangheilli and few others all dropped to the ground, or close as they could. It saved their lives.
A split second later, bullets rained into the courthouse. Killing anyone unlucky enough to be out of cover, those above having the only cover by the angle of the fire, human prisoners were ruthlessly cut down by their captors. No quarter was given. By the time the bullets stopped firing, the only noises were the groans of the dying, the hissing of the alien weapons as they cooled and the harsh breathing on the few hidden survivors on the upper floor. In the background, faint cries could be heard in the distance along with the sounds of more weapons fire.
Sliding over towards Denton, Phoenix snarled, "Now you see what your bleeding heart got you? Before these people might have been saved, but now, now they're all dead." Denton didn't respond, he was staring towards the face of a young woman, no older than 20, her face permanently frozen her terror, her hand faintly grasping the edge of the second floor. "Now, let's get to the extraction point and no further incidents from here on agreed?" Not bothering to wait for a response, Phoenix turned to the rest," if you want to get out of here, you do what I say, when I say. Try and be a smartass or a hero, and I'll fucking shoot you myself. Now follow me."
