Dust and Echoes

Blackness was suddenly parted as the faint purple light shined into Johnsons eyes. A throbbing pain had taken control of Johnson’s head as he buckled over in pain. What happened to me? he thought. The last thing Johnson had seen was Silva barking at some unlucky marine when his ears filled with noise, and explosion. After that, he was in freefall and everything turned black.

Slowly, he managed to open his eyes again. He noticed his light, black skin was noticeably darker and his green uniform, singed. He brought his view down to his arm. Something’s not right… but what? It came to him, the bone in his left arm was jutting out his elbow. Realizing this, his mind took control and pain surged through his body. It was all he could do to keep from going into a coma.

Johnson worked for the next few minutes suppressing the pain, trying to move his mind to the more pressing matter at hand. Get a hold on yourself, you’re a sergeant for God’s sake! Trying to get everything straight and his mind away from the pain, he began to recap the events of the past few hours.

I am Sergeant Johnson, soldier of the UNSC and marine of the Pillar of Autumn. He revisited the fight on Reach, his escape to the ring world–Halo–and his major’s desperate attempt at escaping by hijacking a downed Covenant ship, and the flood.

The flood! Johnson sprang to his feet, ignoring the pain. He had to get out of this wreckage; he had to get home.



Sweat dripped off of Johnsons face as he splinted his arm. It was a task that Johnson had hoped would never be necessary to perform. Such an unbearable experience that he almost lost focus several times, drifting in and out of consciousness. Finally, he was finished.

What now? pondered Johnson. Looking about, he saw that he was in a small hallway. The walls curved outward at the top and then came back in towards the bottom. The sergeant looked forward and set his view upon a small crack in one of the doorways. He placed his right hand in the crack. Grunting, he tried to pry open the door.

No use, not with one good arm anyway. He continued to search the destroyed hall he was trapped in. No good. I guess I’m in for a long wait then.

Johnson decided it was a good time to check his inventory. He bent down and grabbed his MA2B Assault Rifle off the ground. Turning it around, he concluded that it was in good shape. His finger slid around the trigger as he hefted the gun up with only his right arm.

Johnson brought the sight up to his gaze and chose a small light a few feet in front of him. Slowly, he squeezed the trigger. Nothing. Damn thing must be empty, he realized. With no further use for the gun, he let it drop to the ground and clang on the purple metal at his feet.

Just as the sergeant reached for his holster to check for his magnum, the sound of footsteps echoed through the door behind him. Johnson circled about to see a naval, no, ONI officer peering through the crack in the door.

“Need a hand?” asked the officer.

“No, but if you have any spare arms I’m looking for handouts.”



Together, Johnson and the officer, who appeared to be in his late twenties-thirties, managed to jar the door open just enough for Johnson to slide through.

“Thanks for the help,” said Johnson.

“Save the thanks for later, we need to get out of here before th-“ Johnson shouldered himself in front of the officer and drew his magnum just as a dozen small, yellow-green bubbles with tentacles rounded the corner. He aimed and pulled the trigger as hard as he could.

Three of the bubbles, infection forms of the flood, popped like a balloon. The concussion from the first three was enough to set off a chain reaction, and soon there was just one left.

Without hesitating, Johnson adjusted his aim and fired upon the last infection form. A quite click resonated from the handgun. Empty. The lone flood jumped at Johnson. Not knowing what else to do, Johnson brought back his foot and kick with full force at the oncoming threat.

The regulation navy, steel-toed boots were just enough to puncture the attacking infection form and it vanished with a satisfying pop.

Heart pounding, Johnson inhaled and turned to see the officer in shock. His face was pale and his hands clammy. Johnson noted the nametag, First Lieutenant Haverson.

“Can we move on or are you just going to stand there like a sign post? Hurry, we don’t have much time. The flood aren’t going to wait for us.”

“Right,” replied the officer. And with that, the two headed down the halls, hoping against all odds that there was still a way out, a way off the ring, a way home.



“Fire in the hole!” screamed Private Framers. Corporal Locklear dove behind a rock as his fellow ODST tossed a fragmentation grenade into the squad of grunts at the base of the hill. The stubby, dark-blue creatures squealed in their high-pitched voice and ran in circles just before the grenade detonated. “Hole in one!”

Corporal Wilkins followed up with a few quick, sustained bursts from his assault rifle. “That’ll teach ‘em not to mess with the green!” an ironic statement, as ODSTs were traditionally suited in black armor instead of green, unlike the lesser marines of the United Nations Space Command (UNSC).

“Too bad the sarge wasn’t here to see that!” Locklear said, admiring the carnage. He instinctively ripped out the clip in his SMG and slammed a fresh clip into place. “Where to now?”

“Our LZ is just over this next ridge, at least, that’s what the transmission said,” confirmed Wilkins. The twenty-four-year-old marine also proceeded to reload, the damaged plate on his torso cracking and whining.

“So how do we know this is a reliable transmission? How do we know it’s not some Covy trap?”

“Well, given our position, it doesn’t even matter. Right now, it’s our only way off this ring.”

“Right,” muttered Locklear, clearly not satisfied with the answer.

Framers motioned to the north as two pelican drop ships swept across the sky towards the LZ.

“Good to see you,” shot Wilkins over the COM in his helmet.

“Hold tight!” screamed the pilot of the trailing pelican. “The landing is go-” static cut through the COM.

Before Locklear could even guess what happened, a squad of five purple banshees screamed through the skies above them. “Get down!” shouted Framers as one of the banshees broke formation and started an attack run.

Locklear dove to his left, impacting hard on the solid rock ground, and turned to see the light-blue plasma blasts strafe the ground he stood on, melting through Framer’s armor and burning away his flesh.

We need to fight back! Locklear’s mind flooded as his body took over. Scanning the area he couldn’t find any useful UNSC ordinance. At last, he settled on the large purple tripod resting a few dozen feet south of his position.

“What are you doing?” questioned Wilkins, puzzled and frantic.

“Fighting back,” Locklear said, spinning around in the Covenant shade turret. I sure hope this works.



Private Vena glared down, off of the cliff she and her squad were perched on. She could see bursts of plasma erupting from the canyons below, screams of terror following shortly afterwards. Another victim, she thought. How much longer can we survive up here?

“Vena,” shouted her sergeant, Paulson, “I need a supplies check on the double. We need to know what we have to work with.”

“Sir, yes sir!” replied Vena in the no-nonsense military voice that had all marines had learned to use when talking to superiors.

“And get away from the ledge; we don’t want to be spotted!”

Vena reluctantly stepped back to the group and got to work. She looked around at the pile of crates that made up their camp. No tents, no cots, not even a fire, just a pile of crates that served as chairs and a small emergency radio that was constantly playing static.

She decided to start on the left and began opening crates, taking inventory of their weapons and rations. “Sir, we have three extra assault rifles, a SPNKr rocket with two shots, and a single 50-cal. For rations, all we have is three days worth of dried fruit and crackers.”

“All right,” sighed Paulson, obviously not enjoying their predicament. “Set up the 50-cal on that bank over their, that’s our weak spot. Get the rocket loaded and ready for an emergency.”

“Sir, what about the rifles?” asked Gordon.

“You go over there and help Vena divide the ammo, Private. We’ll need all we can get.”

“Yes sir,” Gordon replied, already off his feet and willing to do anything but sit and wait for them to be found.

“Thompson, you’re on the machine gun once it’s set up. Don’t let anyone up that hill, and this time, don’t fall asleep!”

“Yesir!” Thompson’s young face flushed red in embarrassment.

Vena reached into the crate and, with Gordon’s help, hefted out the nearly 100 lb machine gun. They towed it over to the bank. “Sarge!” yelled Gordon, nearly dropping the gun on Vena’s foot. “Sarge! Come quickly!”

“What is it now?” Paulson asked angrily.

“Sarge! There’s a squad down there!”

“A what?” asked Vena, “a squad?” She reached for her binoculars and took a look for herself. Sure enough, a small squad was a few hundred meters down the canyon, but they weren’t the squad they were looking for. They had what looked like small, yellow-green vines perturbing from their arms, and their heads lay on their shoulders, motionless. “Get down now,” Vena hissed, “those aren’t friendlies! Those are flood!”

Just then, the squad changed course and sprinted the other direction. Green plasma shined for a brief second, but nothing made contact. A shriek sounded and quieted just as soon. Everyone held their breath and watched the squad, now one larger, emerge from the shadows and continue across the bottom of the canyon.

“God, those suckers don’t play with their food,” whispered George, a while after the flood were well out of range.

Yah, thought Vena, her face still pale from the sight, but are we their next course?



A loud thud sounded as the Covenant weapons case fell to the floor, moved aside in order to clear their path.

“Place is in shambles ever since the crash,” commented Haverson.

The sergeant grunted in approval.

After a few moments of silence, the lieutenant said, “I don’t like this a bit.”

“What? The derbies?”

“No, the flood.” They had few more flood encounters since they met, something that hadn’t been expected of the flood after the past few days.

“Well, don’t you think they are still regrouping and preparing to attack? Or maybe they're just afraid we’ll open a can of whoop on their a-”

“You know that isn’t true, sergeant. The flood are merciless, savage killers. While we have seen a bit of organization within their masses, we have yet to see them take time to regroup. They just… they just attack.”

Johnson felt his spirits sink. He had known this the whole time, but buried it to keep himself going. Now he felt his insides twist in knots at the thoughts of what might await them.

“Nothing we can do about that now, we may as well continue on,” replied the sergeant, knowing it was true.

Haverson stopped at the door, assuming that it, like the others, was offline and would require a little effort to get past. Instead, as he came near, it graciously slid open as it was built to do.

The lieutenant peered inside, but soon wished he hadn’t. They were where they wanted to be all right, but so was the flood.



Vena was tired. Her squad hadn’t lasted long on that hill. She swore under her breath. “That group of flood must have noticed us and waited to come in force. We should have seen it coming. We should have pulled out.”

“Stow it,” growled the sergeant, “We were outsmarted once, but it won’t happen again.”

Vena wanted to look down at her feet, to stare off into space and just think, but she knew that wouldn’t happen. They were far too vulnerable in their current position for her to let her guard down.

She slowly followed horizon on the cliffs to both sides, checking for any signs of the flood. Vena tried to concentrate, to stay alert, but her mind kept drifting back to Lieutenant Thompson. The little balloon ones must have snuck up on his position. They got him before he could even fire a bullet, she thought, remembering his defining screams. What a horrid way to die… and so young.

“Movement,” whispered Gordon. The whole squad, now consisting of just Lieutenants Vena, Gordon, Rass, and Sergeant Paulson, all ducked down behind the boulders around them, awaiting the fight.

A moment went by. Seconds turned into minutes, into what seemed like a whole hour of silent waiting.

“Still no sign of them,” reported Rass, scouting a few yards out. “I think the coast is clear, false alarm.”

Vena let out a sigh of relief, but Gordons eyes continued to scan the area, still unsure.

“Alright,” said Paulson, “lets keep moving.” Rass turned and started walking again, but he disappeared moments later in a brown flash. Vena’s face turned pale. “Shit! Ambush!”

The canyon filled with heart-stopping roars and the squad opened fire. Combat form after combat form was mowed down, but they kept advancing, ignoring their losses.

“Sir, we won’t last much longer here,” Gordon yelled over the suppressive fire.

“Pull back,” commanded Paulson. “Keep firing.”

Vena did as instructed, and began to backpedal away from the oncoming wave. The reports of their assault rifles continued to echo through the canyon. Gordon twisted around and fired in Paulson’s direction. Vena risked a glance to her rear and saw a combat form fall to the ground behind the sergeant.

“Thank’s son,” yelled Sergeant Paulson as he wheeled around and covered the front.

Vena turned back and continued to fire, but her foot soon struck something hard and she tumbled backwards. A rock! Her mind screamed. The lieutenant’s head struck pavement and her vision blurred. She tried to call for help, but she couldn’t manage the sound.

A thud hit her on the chest and she knew this was the end. A few moments past, and soon she felt a tug behind her neck. She blinked twice and could soon make out a tall, bulky figure above her.

The flood are dragging me? She thought.

“Set her down here!” sounded Paulson’s voice. “We’re stopping. There aren’t many of those monsters left anyways.” She suddenly realized that the figure above here was no flood at all, but Lieutenant Gordon.

“Alright,” the pull on her neck was suddenly loosened and shots rang above her. She tried to get up, she tried to fight, but pain swelled through her throbbing head and soon darkness enveloped her.

parapgraphs are your friends

Lord Pheonix wrote:parapgraphs are your friends

Is 4 not enough? lol
I only have 3-4 scentences per paragraph, my english teachers would say that's too little.

*runs into block of text*
OW!
Paragraphs Brah!

There are 19 scentences there. Come on! 5, 6, 3, 5, that is how many scentences are in each paragraph. That is not much.

no no no my friend


you need to SHOW that there are breaks in the paragraphs.

use tab button

lol, that's not my fault. Your forum automaticaly moves everything to the left. Tab does absolutely nothing and spaces are automaticaly deleted.

edit it

There, is that better?

meh







^_^

New section up.

Another new section up.

Yet another new section up.

Net section, and I edited the other four a bit.
Glad to know people like the fan fic
Could you at least tell me what I'm doing wrong? Or is it just that none of you read it?

Nice keep up the good work Civ

Should I continue this?

New chapter

>.> we read in silence <.<

Updated

great part....

Pretty good there civ ^.^