July 30, 2534 (UNSC Calendar)/
Interstellar Space (Slipspace)
The gigantic monkey-rhino hybrid stood over me, it was riddled with bullet holes but was apparently unaffected by them. I glanced at my rifle, the ammunition counter telling me it was empty. I pulled out my pistol to try and shoot the brute, but it promptly stepped on my hand, totally crushing it. Strangely, there was no pain, it was probably because all my nereves were completely destroyed or something like that.
The alien roared at me, spit flying from his mouth and hitting my visor. Before I had time think of how disgusting it was, I was staring at two spikes protruding from my chest. They were stll bright. I glanced at the brute and was almost surprised to see that it had a somewhat bored look on its hideous face.
I stared back at the spikes and was surprised to find out they weren't hurting either, in fact they just felt a little warm.
"Did you just call my face hideous?" asked me the brute in a pleasant voice.
"Whaaa?" was all I could say before I was slapped.
I opened my eyes.
I was in the cryo bay of the UNSC Count Me In. It was the ship that my five man fireteam had been assigned to along with another five man unit from barracks five. We conformed one of the two ODST squads stationed on the cruiser. Squad A and squad B. Guys in here had no imagination when it came to naming things. Other than the awesome name of the ship of course.
The slap on my face still hurt.
"What the hell?" I shouted, half in surprise and half in fright.
As my eyes adjusted to the light of the room I threw up. The lime-tasting fluid that was meant to keep the cells in my lungs from freezing was splattered on the floor of the alleyway.
"Why the hell did.." I was interrupted by my body as it threw out the rest of the mucus still down my throat.
"Why the hell did you open the tube before you woke me up?" I cried out.
This was the first time I had the chance to take a good look at the person in front of me. She was a navy tech by the looks of it. A rookie navy tech.
She blushed. It probably also explained why she had slapped me when I had been mumbling stuff about the brute's hideous face. Normally you forgot every single dream you had while in cryo, but I was in the process of having a dream when I was woken up, so the rule didn't really apply.
I shook my head and put my hand to my cheek, right now there was probably a palm shaped bruise forming up there.
"I'm sorry I slapped you," the navy tech said sheepishly.
I simply gurnted as I stepped out of the pod, careful not to step on the chunky bits of the anti-freeze fluid. I then stretched my arms and yawned. At that very moment I realized that I was naked.
This time it was my turn to blush. The fact that the tech, Wickett her nametag said, was looking as awkward as I felt didn't help ease up the situation. Also adding to the uncomfortable situation was the fact that no one else was in the cryo bay. It was just me and Wickett.
"Umm, thank you," I said.
The navy tech simply nodded and left the room. She didn't run away, but she was moving a lot faster than should've been necessary.
I shook my head at the situation. I was annoyed.
I reached to the side of the cryotube and opened the drawer where my clothes had been located. After puting on the regular attire that I had used for the past year for training I thought to myself that I needed new clothes. The cargo pants were worn and even broken in some points, the shirt looked better, but only because it was completely black and couldn't get dirty that easily. My boots were another story, the leather was completely worn, and broken. The laces were due to a date with the closest trash can and the soles were almost completely worn.
I left the room and followed the colored arrows that helpfully pointed me out to the direction of the mess hall.
After what seemed like hours of walking through empty metal hallways I finally heard human voices. Most weren't familiar, but I could make out Ramsey's and Dutch's voice. I was surprised I couldn't hear Jonah, and Chow never spoke, so no worries regarding him.
I entered the mess hall to see that it was filled with regular marines, most looking like veterans. There were some navy personell in there as well, and of course, my squad. I walked towards them.
"Hey!" called out Dutch, "how was it sleeping beauty?"
I simply sat down and stole one of his buns.
He didn't mind since he didn't start a brawl so I proceeded to eat the first solid piece of food in the last two weeks since I had been in cryo.
"Are we there yet?" I asked.
"Nah, we're still gonna be a couple of days before we arrive in Secundus," answered Jonah from behind me.
Our destroyer had been dispatched along with two other such vessels to the Neutron Secunda system to reinforme their defences. There weren't any covies there yet, but that was probably bound to change sooner or later, probably sooner.
I ate some of Jonah's lunch before we left and headed to our sleeping quarters. On the way there Ramsey spoke up.
"Just out of curiosity, who dragged you out of the freezer?" he asked.
"Why do you want to know?"
"Well, if you had paid attention to my question you would've noticed that the first part of said sentence started with the words 'just out of curiosity' which means that there really is no reason for me to ask other than curiosity."
I was dumbfounded, I had no idea Ramesy could speak in such eloquent sentences. Luckily for me, Jonah came to my aid.
"Nice wording, did you think that up over the last few hours?"
We all laughed, save Ramsey, who punched Jonah's arm pretty damn hard so Jonah stopped laughing soon after.
"Well, to answer your question Ramsey, I was woken up by a navy tech whose last name was Wickett," I said, still laughing a little.
"What? The cute chick with the light brown hair and pretty decent body you say?" I was surprised to hear Chow talking. I was also surprised by the tone of his question.
"Yes…" I said, confused. He was givinig a rather accurate description Ensign Wickett.
Ramsey cursed and handed Chow a UNSC coupon worth about 500 credits, it was either that or 5000 credits, but I doubt that Ramsey would've ever put so much money on the line.
Chow smirked as he pocketted the coupon and then turned right. There was a long aisle with doors on either side. It looked like a regular hotel floor only that with unflattering metal floors, walls, and ceiling. We walked for about a hunded meters before we reached our room, this just helped give me a sense of the massive size of the warship.
The door slid open as soon as Ramsey stepped in front of it. I glance into my new room and was amazed. Everything looked so nice. Well, compared to the ratty bedsheets and missing pillows from Camp Mars IX, we were in a five star hotel. Granted, it was tighter than the barracks, but the matresses were more comfortable, I can vouch for that. There was even a shower and a toilet inside. This was all very weird for me, not really used to the luxuries of being deployed.
In addition to all that there was a weapons locker where our armors and personal weapons were kept in. Most marines weren't allowed to have their main weapon with them while not in combat situation, so they had to pick their rifles from the armory. They really didn't seem to care though, as half the marines I saw in the mess hall were sporting assault rifles slung to their backs. Can't really say I blamed them.
I grabbed my armor and checked its condition, it looked fine, so I put it back. Next up I pulled out my BR55, I thoroughly cleaned it and then proceeded to load the magazines with the deadly 9.5mm ammunition that the rifle sported. I loaded a magazine into the slot designed for that and put the safety on, then I placed my BR under my bunk. I repeated the process with my pistol while my roomates went to sleep. My internal clock told me it was mid-morning, but I was probably wrong. My roomates didn't have such a high chance of being right in this either, since their biological clock was probably as messed up as mine.
As I finished cleaning my pistol and loading its magazines I leaned back on my bed. I stared at the metal sheet holding up the next bunk, it was sort of tradition to do that for a few moments, thinking back to the events of the day. This day had been a short one, but all of a sudden I realized something didn't fit.
"Ramsey, how come I wasn't woken up at the same time you guys were?" I asked him while I kicked his bunk.
"I dunno, something about problems with the circuits and whatnot of your cryo pod," he half mumbled back.
Great, I could've been frozen for a millenium for all I know.
I went to sleep and had a lot of dreams involving freezers and people from a very advanced future. Being trapped in a cristal cylinder was also a recurring occurance that night.
I woke up around six hours later, having had a pretty good night's sleep. I noticed that most my squadmates were still sleeping, trying to be the nice guy I didn't make noise while getting out of my motherfucking ODST jammies. I got dressed up and shaved my scarce beard. I looked at a map of the ship that was on one of the walls in my room.
I decided to go to the gym. There wasn't anything else to do before the mess hall opened in a couple of hours, so I decided to do some cardio.
I know what you're thinking, "Why would you run when you've been doing marathons every day for the past year?" Well, it's none of your business, although it is probably because it had become some sort of routine in my life.
I made sure to holster my pistol and strap my knife to the outside of my boot before I left. I was surprised my knife had made it through the countless inspections that had claimed more than one pack of cigarettes. It's weight felt reassuring, although odd, since I had never kept it there.
I walked through the empty hallways, they were cold and I felt a little heavier than ususal, it was probably because the gravity in the Count Me In was adjusted to mimic Earth's which was slightly stronger than Mars'.
I arrived into the gym, unsurprisingly it was empty. I got into one of the treadmills and grabbed a towel. I set the speed for a comfortable jog, or about 10 miles per hour. I set the timer to two hours and put on my headphones. I closed my eyes and started running. I forgot about everything for a while, I simply ran while I listened to some crazy epic music.
I opened my eyes to check the counter on the treadmill and was pleasantly surprised that I had only half a kilometer left to run. I also checked the name of a song I particularly liked. It was an oldie from the 21st century. Racketeers, it was called. It was the kind of song that would play in that part of the movie when the hero convinces everyone that they can still fight and make a difference. Cut to montage of people arming themselves up.
The author of the song was some group called Two Steps From Hell. How appropiate it seemed at the time. Us ODSTs are always two stops away from hell. It sounded like something you would say to sound badass. Then it would become humanity as a whole the one that was two steps from hell. It didn't sound quite so badass when you put it that way. For all I knew humanity was already that close to extinction. ONI and the ODST corps weren't particularly known for their honesty.
"You say something?" someone asked.
I cursed myself for not being able to make my mouth stay closed, even when I was alone, which unfortunately wasn't the case right now.
"Ignore that, I was thinking I loud," I said to the only other person in the gym, which incidentally happened to be the cute chick with the light brown hair and pretty decent body that had dragged me out of the freezer, to quote Chow.
She only mumbled something that sounded dangerously close to: "You should really keep your mouth shut, or else you might call someone's face hideous."
Truth be told, she didn't mumble it, she said it quite loudly and to my face.
"Hey, I'm sorry, I was having a nightmare," I explained, "and you slapped me."
"I said I was sorry," she said.
"Well so did I."
Que to awkward silence.
After fice seconds of said awkwardness I spoke up.
"I never did catch your name," I asked.
"Ensign Wickett,"she answered.
"No, I know that, it was on your nametag."
"Why do you wan't to know my name?" she snapped.
"You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to then," I said, trying to sound hurt.
She didn't say anything else and I glanced at the display in the treadmill, it told me that there were only two hundred meters left in my mini-workout. I really wanted to get her name.
"I'm Francisco by the way," I said in a last ditch effort.
She sighed "Layla, my name is Layla," she said.
Layla, that's a nice name.
"Thanks," she sounded surprised.
For once I thanked my brain/mouth's lack of self control. At that moment the treadmill finished the ten click run. I jumped off as it slowed down to a stop. I wasn't sweating, which was surprising, I probably had to thank that nurse for the muscle enhancer thingys.
"Where are you going?" she asked as I turned to leave.
"I can stay if you want to," I said jokingly.
She just shook her head and actually smiled.
"See you around Layla," I said as I walked out.
Boom! She's yours man! I thought to myself, careful not to say anything. I also made sure I had walked far enough away from the gym in case I failed in keeping myself in check.
I really need to see a shrink about this.
I went back to my room and took a shower, by the time I was done, the rest of my squadmates had awoken and were ready for breakfast.
"Never took you for a morning person Frankie," noted Ramsey.
"And I never took you for a man, but what do you know, there really is something down there after all," I said. Ramsey was naked so that he could take a shower, no one really minded, after all, we had taken speed showers back in Camp Mars many times before.
Ramsey started towards me.
"Woah woah, do you really want to wrestle me while your naked?" I asked, making a face.
"You make a fine point," he acknowledged "if it wasn't for that mouth of yours, someone would've whipped your ass a long time ago."
"I believe the correct term is 'whooped,'" I noted.
Ramsey went apeshit.
Soon I was slammed against my bunk and being punched in the kidneys. Now Ramsey was slightly shorter than me, but he was a quite a lot bulkier. He was the kind of guy that could've made for a mob enforcer.
"God Ramsey, I only think of you as a friend!" I yelled through the pain and laughter. The rest of my squadmates were now laughing as well and cheering on either of us. "Show him who's the man in the relationship!" called ot Jonah.
"Talk dirty to him Frank!" yelled Dutch.
We really need to get some girls.
All of a sudden the door slid open to reveal a confused-looking marine sergeant.
"I heard a commotion," explained the sergeant. "Now, would you explain to me what the hell is going on!"
We stood at attention.
"Well, you see, Ramsey here was teaching Frank what being a real woman is like," said Dutch. Everyone snickered except me.
"Is that a proper way to adress a superior officer?" asked the sarge, his voice now dangerous.
"No sir, I'm sorry sir!" apolagized Dutch.
"That's what I though." As he turned to leave he looked back. "For chrissake, put something on."
Ramsey's face went as red as heated metal. We all roared with laughter as he entered the small shower.
I waited outside, chatting with my fellow squadmates while they each took turns showering. After five minutes we were done. A year under Staff Sergeant Gabuka can really teach you how to make water last. Not that it really mattered, with the ship's water recyclers, but it was a habit by now.
Us five left together to the mess hall, Chow stopped at the ship's store to exchange his coupon for smaller ones. He bought himself a candy bar as well. Ramsey seemed ready to explode.
We arrived at the mess hall and I was unsurprised to be served the same goop that we were served back in Mars. At least we got some bread and apples. We sat next to the other five ODST's in our squad. They were all from our same camp, only different barracks. Their names were Sergeant Banks, our squad leader, PFC Noxon, we all called him ox, PFC Sunga, PFC Jäger, a former marine, and Private Nejem, he only barely made it to selection.
On out side Ramsey, Chow, and Dutch were all PFC's, Jonah had made it into Corporal and I was a Lance Corporal myself, thanks to my outstanding performance in boot camp. Or so I liked to say to myself.
Sergeant Banks would obviously be the squad leader. He was the only one here that had ever seen combat against the Covenant he fought against covies for the last couple of months of the Harvest Campaign, he was hitting his forties, but he was still in tiptop shape. Ox, was as his nickname suggested, a human Ox, he would be in charge of our SPANKr and explosives. The rest of them were regular riflemen, being issued MA37's. On our five man band, we had three regular riflemen, myself as a marksman, and Jonah as our medic.
We made quite the sight in the quiet mess hall, ten loud marines joking around and being, well, loud.
"Well that's one hot BAM," murmured Sunga as a female marine walked past our table. He made a point to stare at her rear every possible moment. BAM meant "Broad Assed Marine" and it looked like this BAM in particular knew the meaning of the acronym very well. A moment later Sunga was on the floor and received a kick in the ribs by the woman. We all laughed, no one helped him up.
"Well, if you excuse us, we have to leave now,"said Banks, "We have to meet up with a man about a job."
He laughed at his own lame joke. Banks wasn't really sergeant material, at least not yet, but since our unit wasn't mixed up with more experienced veterans, he was the best we had.
The rest of the five men from his barracks left and mock saluted us. Sometimes I wondered how they had made it through selection. I wondered that about myself too, so it wasn't personal.
Soon after Chow left with Dutch. I stayed there, chatting with Jonah and Ramsey when I saw Layla, or Ensign Wickett on the other side of the hall. I waved at her. She waved back ans smiled. She quickly caught herself, but it was to late, a friend of hers was already calling her on it. My friends were too.
"Well, when you get someone from the opposite sex to wave at you, you can repeat all the crap you just said."
Ramsey and Jonah promptly shut up.
I stood up and left.
My day had just started and already I had nothing to do. I walked around the ship, memorized it's hallways and important rooms. There really wasn't much to do. Ultimately I decided to return to the gym. There was some sort of betting going on. There were a couple of men up in the ring sparring with each other. They were wearing padded gloves, no helmets though.
I decided to join, lost a couple of bets and then took part in a match, which I won. Unfortunately a participant wasn't allowed to bet, so I ended up loosing money.
Then I had lunch, by myself, I hadn't seen any of my teammates since I left the table. I sighed , must've looked pathetic. I quickly finished my meal and went back to my room.
There I lay on my bed, my mind going from place to place. I finally decided that it was best to spend the rest of the day in the shooring range near the bottom decks of the ship.
The shooting range was only fifty meters deep, it was covered on all sides by Titanium A Armor. I think regular plating would've done the trick, but someone in the design table didn't think that way.
I picked a target and started shooting. There were only a couple of other soldiers in there, so I didn't have to worry about hitting someone else's target. Not that it mattered, I was a crackshot with both the BR55 and the M6.
I burned through a clip for my BR55 and decided it was to easy. I switched back to my pistol.
I shot at my target for a couple of hours. I was getting bored, and shooting practice started to look more like load-your-pistol-as-fast-as-possible practice.
As I was about to leave, I saw out the corner of my eyes another person join the practice. I smiled when I saw it was Layla. She was carrying an M6C, which was basically a downgraded version of my M6G without the camera-scope.
She placed herself two targets away from me.
"Hello there," I greeted her.
"Hi," she answered, not smiling. Her friends probably gave her a lot of grief about me waving at her. That or she had something against me. The first one was more likely. I decided to stay a little longer, I had already fired upwards of five hundred rounds, so I'd have to leave soon before they started charging me the bullets. The Count Me In had a small factory that could use the slugs from the firing range and the used casings to make new bullets, I'm not sure where it got the gunpowder from, but I wasn't about to complain.
I glanced at Layla as she shot at her target. She wasn't actually that bad, and by not that bad, I mean she sucked so bad I was surprised all her shots actually managed to hit the paper target, and only then because it was shaped like a live-sized elite. I had to resist the urge not to laugh. Another marine wasn't as nice and got a glare from Layla hot enough to melt through the plating surrounding the firing range. He stopped laughing immediately, but he was still smiling and shaking his head to himself.
I decided it was to sad to see her doing this and decided to interceed.
"You're anticipating the recoil," I noted.
"What?" she asked, slightly annoyed.
"Well, right before you fire you pull the pistol up, instead of letting the pistol itself do that for you."
"No I'm not," she sounded incredulous.
I fired the last round from my pistol straight into the center of my target, mostly to showoff.
"Yes you are."
She was now facing me, hands on her hips. She looked very attractive that way. I always wandered what she was doing here, she could've been a model, not a supermodel, but one of those girl-next-door types that often appear on billboards for GAP and Old Navy stores.
"The gun won't hurt you," I said, "it's designed to protect you, just hold it tight and try not to move your wirsts while you shoot."
She shook her head but took my advice. She fired a round, which hit the elite's right eye. Her arms flew upwards.
"Ok, don't keep your wrists so stiff, just try to absorb the recoil with both your wrists and elbows." Or something. I almost added. Teaching wasn't really my thing.
This time she simply nodded and fired a whole magazine. It wasn't amazing marksmanship by a longshot, but she managed to place all of her shots inside the elite's chest.
She seemed surprised.
"Thanks," she said. At least she had the decency to admit that my advice had helped her.
"Hey, don't mention it," I said as I slung my rifle over my back and holstered my pistol. "I'll see you around," I told her, for the second time in the day.
I yawned and stared at a clock. It was already 9:00 PM, Earth time. I had been awake for sixteen hours.
I walked to my room, only stopping to observe a model of the ship I was currently in. It basically looked like a frigate with extra plating everywhere. It also had two large armor plates that joined on the top from the mid-section of the ship and converged on the front, forming some sort of tip.
There was a small plaque besides it that read:
UNSC Count Me In
Viper-class destroyer
Launched: December 1st, 2514
Reyes-Mclee's Shipyards
Mars, Sol System
Nothing interesting there, so I walked back to my room, as the door lid open, I realized that all my friends were already sleeping, smart of them.
I undressed and simply jumped into bed. Within seconds I was out cold.