Halo: Terranova

Chapter 2

“The nature of a hostile doesn’t mean anything to them. Not even a little bit. Even in their first war game, no latency was detected on any of their parts so far as pulling the trigger on a human.

These guys are a band of sociopaths with guns. They are not Spartan material.

Then again, Spartans have been fighting aliens for twenty-some years. The identity of our enemy was clear cut. I’d be a moron not to understand that we’re drifting into an era where the identity of our enemies is going to be a bit less clear---so again, we fall upon those who will gladly shoot at just about everyone.

We’ll let history clean up the nasty bits.

This is how that Halsey bullshit was let go as long as it was. I’m not going to see the Spartan branch go down that path, even if we bear the namesake. So soon as I can be certain they are not needed, they will be decommissioned.

I know you’re reading this, Parangosky. Osman. I can play with a loaded deck too. You can’t replace me, and even old Maggie won’t manage to live long enough to see doing the right thing go out of style.” -Commander Sarah Palmer

CHAPTER 2

Terranova, January 13 2554

ONI Research Base Kiln 0320 Hours

 He was bolt upright in his bunk, off the edge of the bed, M6C service pistol drawn from beneath his pillow and leveled at the door all in one lightning quick motion. The silence lingered in the room, crushing him. He waited to hear a breath, to hear another movement, to hear anything at all. Even his vastly accelerated mind struggled in the moments just after waking, and he was left to slog through his own physical cues to figure out why he was suddenly awake and why he felt---no, why he knew they were in danger.

They. Right. Out of the corner of his eyes, as he measured his own quick breaths, he caught movement through the room. Eagle was already moving toward the far side of the room, silent and quick. He felt Faulton more than he saw him, edging up along the side of his bunk with a sidearm leveled at the door as well. Bishop was on a knee, hand shoved beneath his mattress. The faintest c-c-…clack! betrayed that his hand was on a standard issue Designated Marksman Rifle hidden between mattress and box spring. Now with the bolt cycled, the first round in a magazine ready for firing.

Ricochet let himself blink once, drawing in a short breath. He had to be certain he’d heard what he thought he heard---but then, they all must have because they were all awake and ready to ruin someone’s day.

The silence in the room was smothering. It was dragging on for what felt like an eternity. He needed another cue, anything at all. He was certain his sleeping mind had correctly registered a detonation not terribly far away. The thump sounded and felt like a frag grenade.

He suddenly missed his helmet. They’d stripped down for the sake of sleeping, and he always tried not to be dependent upon the new hardware, but it always had nifty little details available to him. Such as how long it had been since he tumbled out of bed ready to shoot the still unmoving door, or just how fast his heart rate was at the moment. He needed to slow down. The silence was oppressive, the stillness would drive him insane, but there was something nagging about the time as it dragged by.