The Human-Brute Conflict

Please go to the re-write from no on




Prolouge
Brute Homeworld, Doisac
Mission: Recon Landing Area B-IS5
Time: November 20, 2553 0400 Hours

Corporal John Henas sat peacefully in the troop bay of the drifting pelican. He, as were his squad mates, was prepared to arrive on Doisac for the reconing of a perticular landing site. Intelligence reports from satellite recon suggested that there would be many numbers but morale was at an all-time low for the brutes. There would be little resistance. Many would be unwilling to fight. To give their life. Surrender.
Just like how there was little resistance of Covenant forces at the fall of Reach, Henas thought.
He wondered about the UNSC Victory Salute. How had it managed to sneak into system, sneak pass all the Brute ship patrols, get within striking distance of Doisac, launch over thirty pelicans loaded with helljumpers, and then sneak out of system and regroup with the Fleet. How the hell did we manage that? Well, these weren't the Covenant buggers they had once known. These, idiots were dead without their prophets for leadership.
The pilot poked his head back into the troop bay and told the men that they had two minutes till they reached Landing Area B-IS5. Henas took his MA5C and grasped it tighter with his glove-covered hands. They were sweating under the gloves, almost, but slowly tried to drip from the glove's edges by the bottom of his wrist. ***, this hasn't happened since he had taken part in the Battle of Sigma Octanus IV and his attachment onboard the UNSC Iroquois, he thought.
The pelican's engines came alive and everyone stood up, prepareing to drop out into the terrian and what it prepared for them. The pelican leaned slightly to one side and then became level as the back hatch opened. Henas's helmet's night vision kicked in, lighting the entire area outside. Sergeant Denis Kirkland, whom Henas had fought with since Sigma Octanus, said,"Go, go, go."
Henas and the troops filed out, creating a perimeter around the hatch's opening and Kirkland hopped out behind them.
"Looks clear. Henry, you can set down," he said.
The pelican slowly closed the foot gap between it and the planet beneath it. As the pelican's engine turned off, the co-pilot walked into view from the dark bay and fell backwards, clutching his chest.
"Damn! Snipers! Get to cov-" Kirkland tried to mouth before the carbine shot from a sniper in the distance ripped through his visor and left throught the back of his head, splashing blood onto the ground.
Henas and the other three men ran towards a tree that appeared to have fallen recently. As he slamed into cover, more fire erupted from the trees. He peered over as spiker rounds flew above his head, missing by inches and the intensity unrelenting. The ODST to Henas's right stood up to spray the treeline with his battle rifle, but flew back as molten-hot spikes slashed across his chest. The helljumper to Henas's left looked towards him.
"Shit! We need to get back to the pelican."
"Agreed. On three. Tell Franky to-," Henas started.
"Franky's dead, Henas," he said as he showed the carbine-made hole in Franky where his heart would lay within him.
"Okay, but we aren't. Now lets go," Henas said as he pulled the helljumper to his feet.
They sprinted from the fallen tree, closing the distance between them and the pelican fast. As they neared the opened hatch, they leapt inside and Henas went to controls.
The ODST remained in the troop bay to stand guard against any unwanted visitors. Henas slid the dead pilot, as the pilot appeared to have been shot through the seat, onto the floor into his own blood pool.
"It'll take a few seconds to start up, okay?" Henas said, with only a grunted reply.
He looked back and saw the helljumper's body slumped to the side of the hull, with three spiker's in his stomach, and two in his right leg. He was finished off by the sniper, hidden somewhere in the tree still. Henas slid out of the chair as the pelican started and saw an enormous figure starting to get inside.
Henas fired his MA5C at the figure until his clip ran dry and then switched to his M6G Magnum. The figure closed the distance fast and gripped Henas by the hip. Henas felt huge amounts of pain as he heard his rips break apart.
The visor finally identified the brute as a higher ranking one. A leader kind. A War Chieftain. The beast threw Henas to the ground and watched him sqirm in pain and fear. The chieftain raised his foot over the helljumper's head and came down with bone-breaking force and mass. The sound of the skull breaking followed the helmet's sound and then no more.
The chieftan turned as a minor approached. He hopped out of the human craft and walked torwards the minor brute and spoke.
"The humans wish to fight once more, it seems. Ready the defenses and AA batteries. Send word to Chieftain Lewerndus that this has happened. This may be the start of the feared counter-attack."
"Yes, Chieftain. It will be done," the brute said and he hurried away.



Chapter One

UNSC Victory Salute

Mission: Waiting with the Fleet for further orders

Time: November 20, 2553 1230 Hours

Joseph Alekseev sat in the Officer's Quarters and was watching, Earth's Ready News on the overhead television. It was weird that they had reception from out here, he thought. On it, the man was talking about the recent build-up of troops and how they were all moving in one direction. Behind his desk was live feed from a camera man on a drydock above Earth.
"..And the UNSC Destroyer, Normandy, has just recently left dry dock, headed towards were the rest of the fleet has gone. Known whereabouts of the fleet are still unknown and large detachments of UNSC Marines have been moved aboard these vessels, leaving a somewhat scared Earth, in the hands of the remaining Army forces still here on Earth. The UNSC shows, once again, that they care little about defense of Earth since the Jiralhanae attack one month ago. On other news, the colony of New Halen has just recieved its first returning civilins since the war with the Cove-...." and the report went on, day after day.
The Victory Salute had seven-hundred marines aboard it, with only three captains which was the same with the UNSC Normandy, including Alekseev, and a commanding officer of the marines that were aboard it being Major Opum Lettet.
Well, thats what all the ships here have, three marine captains anyways, he thought.
Lettet had fought in the Human-Covenant War, as did Alekseev himself but in other battles, in the battle for New Halen, where he had lead a group of hulljumpers into a great Covenant stronghold, had located an artifact, and had succesfully denied the Covenant it. Unfortunately, New Halen had to be abandoned as the Covenant forces had become over-whelming there.
Joseph looked to his left. There Captain Gavin, Joseph didn't know his first name, sat. Surprisingly, Gavin was calm and did not want to throw anything at the tv. Joseph had known about his courage during the war against the Covenant, but never had actually seen any of it. Joseph was about to talk to him when the loudspeakers roared on.
"All armed forces preparing for the attack on the Brute Homeworld, all armed forces, the invasion will began in t-minus one hour. Gear up and report to your commading officer for your missions. Good luck and kick some ass!" Major Opum this.
"Hell Yeah," Gavin this.
"Yeah!" followed the other officers, inluding Alekseev.
Joseph didn't know why he yelled it, but felt he had to keep everyone up for the coming battle. It would be a long one indeed. The reports had said little resistance would be met. Yeah, thats what command still said, Joseph thought. But where was the helljumper he knew? Henas was his name, wasn't it? Joseph couldn't remember execpt for the fact that a lot of the helljumpers hadn't radioed in, or hell, even show back up around the ship. What was going on down there on Doisac, such a distance away?

Very nice Russian I like it... so the prophets are out of the way, so what of the elites are they rouge now?

They are elsewhere.

Chapter Two
UNSC Victory Salute
Mission: Waiting with the Fleet for further orders
Time: November 20, 2553 1231 Hours

Ship Captain Johnathan Stuart looked onto the tactical map that showed Doisac via satillite. The signatures of the helljumpers weren't there, hadn't been there in fact since...when did the last of the transponders shut off? Around 0500 Hours standard Earth time? Yes, that was it, Stuart thought.
How the hell did this happen though? These were the best of the best for Christ sakes! They all knew there missions. Secure a landing zone and hold it until 1300 Hours so the Fleet could jump in system and land more marines to start the intial phase of the whole operation. Oh, Stuart almost forgot, we also need to detain there navy to a different area while the landings are under way. Operation: Stealing Home (Stealing for the expectance of the easy battle ahead; Home for the fact they where taking the Brute's homeworld) could not go wrong.
Every ship in the current arsenal of UNSC was being commited to this attack. They couldn't fail. They wouldn't fail. Never. Not like so many in the Covenant War. They had to bring another win for the people back home. And this planet will become the UNSC's. A nice replacement for Reach, perhaps? He thought. It was a industrailized planet already, the Brutes had made sure of that, so why not? But first we would have to take it from them.
He looked at a flicker of light to the notheast of the display. He moved closer. Was it possible? The light was that of a transponder from one of the helljumpers. Could it be back up battery power possibly? No, that could be it. It would have been severed to much if he was KIA. Maybe a brute had somehow activated it? Possible, but doubtful. Then, he could be alive!
"Lieutenant Briggs! Get over here! Now!"
Briggs left his station, COMMS., and headed over to the Captain.
"Sir?"
"What does this look like to you?" Johnathan asked, pointing at the transponder.
"One of the ODST's tracking units. What about it?" he said.
"It means he could still be alive! Get the Admiral on the line. I need to talk to him now." Stuart said and dismised him.
Major Opum was on his way down to the armory to set up a ground-based command center, so Johnathon could not ask his advice at the moment. But yet, the captian still had a plan for him to accomplish.
Briggs hurried over to his station and typed away. Stuart hoped this man was still alive. Both for the sake of the 'ghost' helljumper's life and the Captain's own reputation was held in the balance.

Chapter Three
Surface, Doisac
Mission: Unknown at this time
Time: November 20, 2553 1232 Hours

Lieutenant Franklin Scott ran and leaped into some brush as a final means of escape. Trying to survive for eight and a half hours was a tiring thing for a person. He scanned the path he had just been following from a little opening in a bush. He could see two figures down the path, still darkened and silloutetted from the shadows casted upon them from the foilage above. Tropical foilage.
Damn, its hot, he thought as he kept his eyes trained down his 99D-S2 Anti-Matériel Sniper Rifle, sweat flowing on his body. Sweat peircing his eye. Stinging pain in his shoulder from a skirmish earlier that morning, now healed, of what could be done by BioFoam, slowly seeped open again.
Help is what he needed now and what he knew he wasn't gonna get for awhile. In and out within several weeks. Total Victory. Total Failure was what the opening of this war had dealt with. The humans defeat. The Brute's accomplishment. My ass in the bushes down here while the fleet has a tea party. Fuck.
The figures jogged slowly in the direction of him, turning their heads and sniffing the air with their snouts. They stopped about fifteen feet from him and one turned and sniffed his direction. They spoke in a language unknown to Franklin and, Hell, everyone else.
"I smell him. Over there." Said the first, wearing dark blue. A major minor.
"You are sure?" asked the second one, wearing red armor. A captain.
"Yes, captain" the first stated, bowing his head towards the ground for respect.
""Get on with it then!"
Franklin watched as the first aimed its 'spiker' towards his direction and jogged.
"This time, I ain't getting hit!" Franklin shouted out of his COMM outside, for both agressiveness and a tactical foothold. This was followed by a peircing shot of gas-operated weaponary that he was welding in his hands.
It was agressiveness because he had come to the solution that this dark blue plated beast was the one that had shot him earilier that day, judging from the holes in its leg armor that had been placed there by Major Fredrickson, whom Franklin judged was dead now. The holes appeared to have been tampered with by a welder in an effort to seal them up but to no avail. Now it was tactical because first off, Franklin reasoned that the brutes had indeed reasoned that a human was nearby, but not where. He then guessed that since it didn't know where he was exactly at, he would surprize it and thow it off guard. This, it did do.
The round hit the outer layer of its self-protecting shield before they failed and the brute stumbled back in confusion. Franklin fired a second round a moment later. This round hit the brute in the chest armor, causing it to crack in half, peirced it, and drilled through the beast's heart and exited.
The brute fell to the ground, blood splattering from the wound on the ground as the brute's nerves casued it to twitch several times before it ceased to move at all. The second brute ran striaght towards Franklin's position, gaining the knowledge from the gas-trail that accompanied every round he discharged from the SR.
The brute closed in, 10 feet from his position, and leapt over its dead comrade in the process. Franklin only had time to squeese one trigger finger pull before the brute leapped at him.
The brute tackled him the ground, it's hands making a grip around Franklin's neck. Franklin's armor would help him against this form of attack. The brute's shields were down, trying to re-establish themselves, but failed to do so. His vision began to fade toward an unrelenting and cold darkness...a black, clad figure appeared behind the brute and aimed a weapon at the brute and fired but the gun jammed and made a click noise instead of the wanted three burst fire response.
The brute turned its head to look behind him and removed its grip from Franklin's neck to focus on this new, now hopeless target.
'Not hopeless, now. You tried to save me, now I'll repay you,' he thought.
The brute's back was now turned to him, completely disreguarding Franklin to meet the other. The blacked edges of Franklin's vision were slowly fading and he focused on what was going on even more. He unseathed his combat knife and jabbed it into were he the brute's spine was the most pronounced.
It screamed in pain as it went limp in several seconds and was now paralyzed, never to do anything again, and now it would die a helpless, painful, death. He removed the knife and wiped the blood on the back of the brute were there was no blood-covered skin. The black in his eyes was completely gone now.
"Thanks man," the other said, in a familiar-sounding voice.
"No. Thank you. Without your help, I would have died." Franklin cracked his neck from the stiffness that had built up there.
"Franklin, I presume. Judging from the voice, that would be my only guess." The ODST said in a calm, almost playful manner. The armor-covered soldier slowley removed his helmet, showing a colored man, with a graying beard and gray-edged hair.
"Major F-Fredrickson....?" He asked in a quick fashion.
The fellow helljumper nodded his head. "Tis I."

Chapter Four
UNSC Victory Salute
Mission: Preparing to launch troops for the invasion of Doisac
Time: November 20, 2553 1233 Hours

"...and Stuart, to conclude this conversation, I want you to co-ordinate the search for this helljumper and any other possible survivors. Your in charge of this one, good luck." Finished Vice Admiral Howard Lockheed.
"Yes, sir. I will to the best of my abilities." Stuart said.
The transmitted video chat cut off, leaving a blank screen. Stuart looked down at his shoes for several seconds before looking back at normal level and clicking his heels as he turned to his right. He left the secured bridge for the command center. The command room was hectic with all the data being proccessed and last-second changes were being made to the ship's marine manifest.
"Men, change in plans. We're charged with S&R duty for a 'possible' few ODST's that are lost. Allow all but one of the marine platoons to leave the ship for the main invasion. I have a captain in mind for the operation...," Stuart said with a sharp look on his face.

Chapter Five
UNSC Victory Salute
Mission: Search & Rescue
Time: November 20, 2553 1239 Hours

Alekseev stood at attention, as did his entire platoon to his right. The highest ranking man in the room was staring back at Alekseev at the moment.
"Captian Joseph Alekseev, you have been brought here to attention along side your men in preperation of an important task. You have been selected because of your experience, your quailty, and your relentless anger towards the brute enemy. The mission at hand is a risky and dangerous one. The mission is a search and rescue of some of our helljumpers that have been stranded down there for quite some time, and returning alive is slim. If you wish to stay on the ship remain where you stand. If you wish to go on the mission, take one step forward." Captian Stuart stated as he stood straight-chested to the men.
Joseph looked the man in his eyes. He knew just from the what he saw that this was going to be a difficult mission, for himself and his men. He told himself that he would make sure to save as many men down there as he could and keep his own men from death. But he also knew this was almost near impossible.
The men to his right all took one, simultaneous step. Joseph remained where he stood, hesitiated, and did not move. The ship captain looked stern at him and talked calmly.
"Alekseev, I wouldn't want anyone else to lead these men into combat and to take command of this mission. And that is why I urge you to take a step forward and give the one-hundred percent that is needed for this mission."

Joseph looked at the captian's face for several seconds, turned and looked on to his men that he would stay the course with, fight alongside with, and if it happens, die alongside. And he wanted to kick some brute ass for what they did to his family, his friends, and the men down there now.

"Sir, yes, sir." Alekseev took one step forward.

Chapter Six
Surface, Doisac
Mission: Survive
Time: November 20, 2553 1241 Hours

The sound of boots running accompanied the sound of heavy breathing. The two black-clad armored figures slowed to a stop and bent in exhaustion. Sprinting at full speed for seven minutes was tiring work. Franklin's suits air-conditioning had been grazed by a spiker in an earlier battle so he was hot. Fredrickson was a lot luckier. He had only grazed on his right arm armor.

A rustle to the left. Both men spun with guns at the ready, ready to kill any threat that presented itself. It was a bush that was scratching up against a parked pelican that was almost concealed from the foliage.
"Must have came in with us this morning...damn.." Fredrickson said.
Franklin walkked up to the opened bay and peered in. Two helljumpers bodies layed within. One slumped up against the inner-walling with several spikes cut in his bodies that would keep him pinned in that position. Several booby-traps could barely be made out in the dim-lit cockpit.
The other layed on the ground closer to the cockpit. One side of his ribs tore through the armor and.......his head had been smashed. Damn beasts. He walked up to both and took their dogtags.

Without looking at the names on them, he stuffed them into one of his opened pouches. He turned to his superior and nodded. The man replied with a nod and they both knew what to do. They ran back around 45 yards and Franklin took aim with his sniper rifle. He aimmed for the fueling hole and fired. The pelican exploded and erupted with fire.

"Now the beasts can't come back and mutilate their bodies."
"Yeah, and time for us to get out of here. If they didn't see it, they sure as hell did hear it." The Major said as he started for the treeline.
"Damn it, I needed a rest."
He jogged into the jungle, with little signs that they were ever there in the clearing, besides the flaming pelican.

Several minutes later...

Sounds of several spiker-based anti-aircraft emplacements opened up. That could only mean one thing. The main invasion was underway. But the fleet would not be able to provide MAC support because of the helljumpers failing to knock out the brutes Plasma Towers.

'God be with them' they both thought.

Both the Major and Franklin were both caught by sudden gunfire as they looked up through the jungle canopy. Franklin fell to the ground, several bullet wounds in his right side and a bullet that grazed his upper thigh. He blacked out from the combined tiredness he felt, the pain he felt and the stress he felt.
The major was hit in the lower thigh, right forearm, and right bicep. He stumbled back in pain and screamed," Fuck! Shit! Goddamn it!" in pain.

"Oh fuck! I'm sorry, sir! I didn't know it was you, honestly." Said a corporal, jittery and stunned from the actions he had just layed out.

I'll read it later..

Well, first of all, your spelling appears fair, though you do appear to use a lot of hominyms... the amount of actual typos is small, but there. The amount of words that sound the same as the one supposed to be used but have different spelling and different meanings, however... appeared almost exponential.

THe more I read the more of them I found. This is a minor irritation, however... If I skim-read, it doesnt bother the story by much, but if I really read it to take in all aspects - grammar, spelling, flow and delivery - then every last one of them throws me right out of the story.

The progression of the lines from plot point to plot point, however, was fairly smooth, and well executed. I found I appreciated the level of attention paid to character development even though the story was not about the people but rather the event.

There doesnt appear to be much in the way of suspense, though little sprinklings of it can be found from time to time, applied like a spice rather than a sauce. It is a unique application of the idea.

Also, your grammar is pretty poor... not horrible, but it's not good either. You have only a few sentences that run on and on, but mainly your execution of delivery has suffered. The lack of punctuation makes up the majority of this problem, what with commas and semicolons and other things being missing, but there is also the word choice delimna... you choose the most dramatic words to explain the simplist actions...

And that right there is a problem as well. You can only have one dramatic word per sentence or else it overwhelms itself and the reader becomes disenthused with thier definitions... you strip them of thier meaning.

Another minor point would be to separate your paragraphs with a blank space - much like I am doing. It prevents the story from clotting up as a single wall of text, and it makes it easier for the eye to keep track of where in that tangle of words it is supposed to be. Being on paper this would not be a problem unless the text was very small, but being on a computer screen it tires the eye and makes people lose track of where they are in the story.

The story itself is good - we have characters with good to fair depth and a clearly visible plotline. We also have followable subplots, and an easy to follow basis for the ideal.

The gist... your ideas for good stories are solid. But learn to spell and read a dictionary to learn what those words mean, and how to spell each one regardless how they sound. This is English, people... it has words from a dozen other languages merged into it.

Other than that... it's great. I like how you describe - or attempt to describe - each firefight. Those, if read aloud, tend to be pretty good. THough the occasional unnecessary description will pop up.
-Etsharrin Hopsarrith

A new chapter will be out either today or tomorrow!!

I didn't read all of it, but you do need to work on your spelling. You spelled launch wrong in the first chapter.

Chapter Seven
Doisac
Mission: Search & Rescue

Time: November 20, 2553 1256 Hours

The pelican hit the ground hard, sending the troops inside tumbling around in the rear compartment. It scarred the earth beneath it, ash black from the melting wings. It finally came to a rest when it lost its momentum.
Joseph squeesed his eyes closed from the pain when his helmet impacted the ground inside the pelican. He felt heavy on his torso. He opened his eyes and saw the ceiling of the vehicle, some blood here and there; the lights flickering.
The 'object', as he came to see, was his S/Sgt. His head was at a weird angle and blood seeping from a wound in his chest, so Joseph presumed him dead.


Minutes earlier....


"The LZ is in sight. ETA, 2 minutes," The pilot of Omega-875 said over the open COM channel.
"Roger that."
Alekseev stood up, and braced himself on a hand grip connected to the ceiling.

"Alright men! We need to get this job done fast and right. When we secure the VIP's, we'll head to Grid 234 and get off this planet. But remember TWO things! Do it smart!....And kick some Brute ass!!"

"Oorah!!" responded the men in the chamber, awaiting the onsluaght they wanted badly. The men checked their gear for the last time. S/Sgt. Jim Braddock looked at Alekseev.

"Sir, I have a bad feeling about all of -," Braddock started before the chatter of the pilots roared over the COM.

"Uncoming AA!" The pilot yelled.

"Try swerving to the left!" The co-pilot replied, pointing over.

"What the fuck do you think I'm doi-,"An explosion sounded and the pelican began to spin, "Aww Fuck! I'm losing her!!"

The men in the back flew to and fro, colliding with each other. Joseph managed to hang onto the handel as long as possible, but lost his grip, and crashed into the bulkhead.

"BRACE FOR IMPACT!!!" shouted the pilot before the earth met the vehicle.


Present...


Alekseev pushed Braddock off of him and slowly got up. His ears still rang some from everything, but it was going away fast. He looked to the left. All dead. To the right. All but two were killed.

The two other marines, one male, Pvt. One female, Cpl., sat up right. They both looked over at a standing Alekseev and stood up. They grabbed their weapons, as did Alekseev.

"Get as much ammo as you can. We're going to need it." He ordered. Joseph did the same as he ordered.

They gathered what they could. Some BR clips, some AR mags, some extra rounds for their magnums, some frag grenades, etc.
A screeching sound startled all of them. The pelican began to shift somewhat.

'This isn't good,' he thought.

"Shit....," the Pvt. said.

"Check the pilots," Alekseev ordered.

The Corporal ran into the cockpit and she reported that the pilots were dead.

"Everyone! Get out now!" He said as he bolted out, the pelican tipping further over.

He leaped out, followed by the others. Alekseev hit the ground, dirt flying into his face. He coughed from inhaling it. He turned over, still coughing, and saw that the pelican was falling off the edge of what looked like a cliff. The corporal had tripped inside and was about to go down with the ship.

Alekseev bolted up and jumped in. He pulled her up, holding her by the hand the entire time. The pelican moved a lot more than before, and Alekseev stumbled. The private ran up to the pelican and grabbed his free hand and helped him up. Alekseev and the corporal women took a step on the very edge of the pelican and jumped, the pelican falling in the air below them now. The landed on the dirt hard and loose dirt went into their faces.

Coughing from the dirt, he stood up slowly, as did the others. They walked up to the ledge, and watched the 'plane' fall a rough 340 ft, which is what Joseph estimated it to be. It impacted the floor and exploded. A peice of shrapnel flew past, almost hitting the private.

The woman shook her head, and turned away. The private followed after her, then Alekseev.

"Thank you, sir." She said.

"Your welcome, Kendra." Alekseev said, remembering her name.

She smiled at him, locked eyes with him, and then looked off into the distance.

"Well...we still have mission to complete and its not gonna just walk up here. Lets move." Alekseev started off.

They quickly made it to the treeline, surrounded completely by the jungle. The damp, creepy, jungle.

Chapter Eight
UNSC Victory Salute
Mission: Search & Rescue
Time: November 20, 2553 1300 Hours

Stuart braced himself with the arm of his chair. An explosion sounded in a far reach of the ship. Chatter was hectic. Out of the viewing glass of the bridge, he could see the UNSC Death From Above rip in half.

The fleet had just been caught blind-sided by a brute fleet. Two things were bad: The fact that the brute's had hidden such a fleet. Even then, with Covenmant vessels. He estimated about how many ships there was and he came up with 89 vessels, compared to the humans 76.

The odds were slightly in their favor at the moment, but Stuart hoped to turn that around. The second was that the whole UNSC fleet was spread-out around the planet. The enemy fleet would only have to deal with little pockets of the ships at a time. Something had to be done.

"Get Admiral Lockheed on the COM now!" He shouted.

"Yes, sir." Replied the ship's AI, Endless Love. He appeared to look like a "hippe", from one of his cultural shift's books of long ago.

The display went from blank to a spinning UNSC logo to the Admiral himself. The man looked tired, as if he had worked for three straight days. An explosion was heard over the chat from Lockheed's ship.

"What is it, Stuart?! We're busy as it is!" Lockheed shouted as the crew was moving frantically about.

"We need to regrou-" He started.

"Thats fucking obvious, Captian! Now! I nee-" The admiral went to click the kill switch on the chat, but Stuart spoke out.

"Admiral! For God sakes! Listen! I have an idea!"

The admiral looked startled to have been spoken to in such a way. His eyes narrowed.

"Captian! I will not tolerate that from you! I thought you would be admiral material one day....but that is out of line! You will be demoted from your captian status! I will see to that." The admiral looked away from the screen and said, " Order the fleet to slipspace out of the system." The video was cut.

The captian was bewilered. The admiral had just thrown away my career so he could get out alive? He's leaving our men down there. He knew he needed to do something.

"Endless Love. Can you send a message to all the ships on the other side of the planet and order them to slingshot around to our position?"

"I can do that sir, but it will be going against Admiral Loc-" The A.I. was cut off.

"I realize that Goddamn it! Send them it in 10 minutes. Add the order to form up on that side before slingshoting as well as to continue on to the enemy contacts. Tell them to ready their archer pod missiles and their MAC's."

Stuart looked out into space. The Brute fleet was all formed up, picking off individual ships.

"Send this message to all ships on this side of the planet. All ships! I repeat, All ships! Form up on my ship. Ready your MAC salvos. And get here on the double. Signed, Captian Johnathon Stuart, UNSC Victory Salute."

The A.I. boxed the message and sent it to the reamining UNSC ships on this side of the planet.

"All done, sir."

"Ready our MAC and archer pods. Give them support as they retreat, Endless!"

"Gladly, sir."

Several archer missiles began there track towards a weakened Brute ship, a primitive one. The missiles soared through space like fireworks back on the colonies. They impacted the bridge of the ship and it was out of the fight. The ship veered right, impacting into another ship and they both exploded.

"MAC is 50% charged, sir," Endless said as he fired several more archer missiles at another ship. This ship was seperate from the others, so as it was hit in the hanger bay opening, it was all that exploded.

Three UNSC ships, two cruisers and one small refitted cruise ship, were torn apart from the brute ships.

The closest ship, Stuart saw, looked atleast two minutes away; The farthest, about seven minutes. Another UNSC ship exploded. Damn! Staurt thought. Three more minutes until the message would be sent. Goddamn it! Something else is needed......Aha!

"Order the ships on this side to stop and engage. Tell them to keep the enemy fleet where they are! And if they don't," Stuart paused, knowing the answer, as did the A.I. and his crew,"we may all die."

"Yes, sir." The A.I. responded. Stuart spoke again.

"Give this message."

Stuart striaghtened himself from a little rocking that had just occured.

"You're firing solutions will need to be done over there, on the other side. We will send you the coordinates. Good Luck."

Chapter Nine
Doisac
Mission: Awaiting
Time: November 20, 2553 1400 Hours



Franklin awoke, rapidly sitting forward. A gasp came out of his mouth, air entering his lungs. His body ached. He looked at his wounds; They had been mfilled with bio-foam, creating a long-term, temporary seal. He looked at his surroundings.

From what he could tell, he was sitting in a dark cave. "Flashlight" light gleamed on the wall, removing some of the darkness. Franklin activated his VISR so he could see better in the unlighted areas. The dark areas lit up from his 'nightvision'.

To his right, he saw two marines. One was sitting, blood splattered on his chest and a sear in some of his armor from a light plasma weapon. The other was laying was lying down, blood seaping out of a backwound. To his left was his Major along with the ODST that had shot him earlier. They both looked in his direction.

"You son-of-a-bitch...!" shouted Franklin, leaping up. He ran over to the now alerted troopers, and readied his fist. He leered back with his arm and heaved forward when he was within range. His fist came zipping around, but was stopped by the open palm of the Major.
"We have enough problems, Frank. Don't give us another..." The Major remained grasping his fist. When he sensed that Franklin had easied up, he released his hand.
Franklin recovered from his outburst and got enough nerve to speak again.

"Where did these marines come from? And this....fellow...ODST?"

Fredrickson moved slightly to his right, leaning against a crate.
"This soldier here," he nodded toward the helljumper," has a name, Leiutenant. It's Corporal Jakob Flint."

"Sir, yes, sir," Franklin said reluctantly. Franklin still was agry toward the corporal, but knew this hatred would have to disappear if they were to get along, let alone survive.

"We picked these marines up on the way here. We spotted them a little after they entered the brush from their crashed pelican. They had a captian with them, but he's out on his own right now, searching for supplies so we can set up shop down here. And yes, we think we're going to be down here for awhile."

Franklin took the info in. He knew they would be down here for a long time. But how long, he wondered. He looked over at the marine that had been sitting, rather than walking toward him, as he was doing now.

The marine carried a lit flashlight as he couldn't see in the darkened caves as well as the ODST's. The flashlight's light washed over the Major, Jakob, and then himself, in that order. His face was slightly scarred, his eyes were brown, he stood around 5' 11", and had a wound sealed up. His expression was grim.

"Any thing new on the fleet? Or others on the ground?" he asked.

The major looked away to the right for a moment. But then looked back at him.

"I'm getting sporadic chatter from the fleets COM. Something about Admiral Lockheed running while the rest of the fleet scattered. They're getting hit badly up there." He pointed upwards and then let his hand drop.

A scitt-scat sound could be heard from behind. It sounded like footsteps on the hard rock of the cave. Franklin spun around, M6C/SOCOM quick-drawn from his hip holster. The others followed suit with their available weapons.

A humanoid-figure could be seen, jogging toward them. The figure was human, he could tell that much. Oh, and a marine, he observed. He let out a sigh of relief The marine stopped several feet in front of the closest person, which happened to be Franklin.
The flashlight or 'torch' was shinned onto the marine. It was the captian Fredrickson spoke of earlier.

The captian spoke. "I found one other soldier, but he was KIA about a klick from here about,"he pointed daigonally to his left,"that ways some." He held up the tags and tossed them to the major who placed them on the crate beside him.

For some reason or another, Franklin still held his magnum, at firing stance, at him. The soldier looked over at him and lift his arms slightly into the air. "I give up, Frank."
"W-wha...how do you know my name? Did the major tell you?" Franklin spoke defensively.
"Frank, I've known you for, like, seven years."

Frank had a blank face, gun still pointing at the soldier, and it began to slowly drop.

"Joseph...?" Franklin said as his unseeable face was shocked.