Welcome to Gaia! ::

One hell of a word, Winter thought to himself, the black clad figured hadn't just said the rank but stood there. The Gunny nodded it off without a care figuring that there was a meeting to get to. That was something to pass the time and hopefully it'd hurry up and tell where there was shooting to be done.

It wasn't that he was impatient it was just that he felt as if he was doing nothing if not being in the middle of a raging battle or planning the dammed thing! Well, you couldn't plan battles you could however control it and win it. He planned to do that and the war.

The pump swung back easily. The familiar click made its noise, a ready shell falling into a open palm. It was something about shells that he didn't trust, them being in one dammed place to long. You didn't know when something might get stuck and when your weapon jams in battle it may be the one mistake that takes away your life..

He loaded the shell back.

Then headed the briefing, dammed briefings! One after another, the soldier sighed. ODST's didn't do well in situations like this. To calm. Hell he was used to going over plans while falling towards a planet in a HEV!

This is where you go, this is what you do, heres what ya got. That was what the brass told 'em and they'd plan it with a click of a finger and a single thought. Thats what they were trained for. No questions asked they'd get it done.

This place was a prison.

Concrete, concrete, concrete. Marines running around like they actually had something to do. No, the engineers and mechanics did. Guards stayed alert but what about them? They went to briefings..

Lee peered over the shoulder of yet another Marine Technician as they went through the archives of the base's video surveillance system. The bluish tinge of an antiquated LCD monitor washed over the Captain's face as he watched for the umpteenth time the flood's minimal but completely effective push into the disused base's insides. The skeleton crew that had been manning Fox Hole 2 sat inside of the very room Lee and the half-dozen computer intrusion and manipulation specialists were now occupying, the blood and gore of the poor souls caught unawares having been cleaned up and summarily disposed of.

Again, the video displayed the expressions of shock and horror of the base staff, their surprise as two dozen small bulbous shapes poured through the air vents, latched onto a nearby man in UNSC overalls, and forcefully ripped open the man's chest to take the place of his internal organs. One of their own now horribly disfigured and turned against them, the two who had the dedication to carry sidearms on their bodies began to fire, but could do nothing to stop their now homicidal ex-comrade from tearing them in half at the midsection. Somewhere, a frag grenade went off and the screen suddenly tilted sideways, the image fuzzing up only to come back into focus with both infected marine and infection forms out of sight. The remaining corpses were too charred to recognize, and a single trail of alien blood ran away into the base, indicative of the invader's survival.

Further investigation proved that the few infection forms and the infected marine had survived, only to be destroyed by the 301st as they came answering the calls of a crew that was no longer alive. Lee sighed and patted the technician on the shoulder.

"Thank you, that will be enough."
"Sir!"

Punching a few keys into his TAC-COMP, he finalized a report of the searches and forwarded it to Commander Hammer. Only the powers that were could know how much more work lay in front of him that day, and so far Lee was only chipping at the top of the iceberg...

Officers, he didn't salute. It was something strange, the ODST's seemed.. To get away with things differently. If somebody said he didn't respect them he might bring the marine to the ground, he respected them! Damn straight, you could tell from the simple nod officers received. It was something in his mind though, when would he wear the silver bares? He'd been in the service for a long time and someday he wished to wear them. Maybe not right now. Sometime soon.

The problem was in the fact that he was a fine soldier. One of the best trained, one of the most experianced, and one of the quickest with that inhuman instinct. A man who could go on against an elite with hand to hand and finish them off with a satisfying next twist that was something. Though he'd done it quite a few times he would rather pop 'em with a few well placed rounds.

Finally, as he reached the doors of the briefing room he removed his helmet. The strange ting of his head sounded as Sarah 'jumped'. Strapping his black visored helmet to his shotgun strap he turned. They room was going to be filled soon.

What was that feeling? Damn, it was something called uncleanliness. His breath smelt of liquid food, chemicals to keep you going filled with protein and s**t. There was always those short blades of dark hair upon his face, but the stench of foul breath and the shadow that hadn't been taken for a week. The man hadn't even taken off his clothing!

"Gotta take a shower, hopefully now." With that he departed the briefing room to hopefully get some water, a rag, or whatever the hell they had to clean himself.

Winter couldn't wait to feel a little clean, and that meant refreshed.

Lipton chuckled and relaxed a bit. ONI made him nervous too. Their spooks didn't act like humans. At least with Spartans they were hidden in their armor. With the spooks, they just... they weren't right to say it plainly.

"You know, your comment about not bringing any intelligence with you could be misinterpreted by some hot shot balls-for-brains reporter. Let's hope god takes pity on us jarheads and keeps them far away."

He stole a glance at the security feed and shuddered ever so slightly. The image frozen on screen depicted a man being engulfed by bulbous pods, each about the size of a regulation size football. They seemed to be forcing their way into his body. The Major couldn't imagine a worse kind of hell.

"I take it that I'm looking at an image of whatever is attacking Voi."

He shook his head with a tired sigh. He noticed the bags under the Captains eyes and smiled.

"Care to join me for a brief drink Captain? You look like you could use a break."

Truth be told, he was going to get something to drink whether the Captain joined him or not. Nothing with alcohol, just something to help keep him hydrated. There was no point in letting himself die of thirst. Besides, he wanted to sit on something that wasn't crashing or being fought on.

As Ari walked with his men to the food area, he couldn't help but wonder how his squad would turn out after being in combat. will they come out infected, wounded, or fine? he asked himself that question a few times, and the more he did the more h thought he knew the answer better, infected or dead. But Ari started feeling nervous when he thought about the fact that he would be the one most likely leading them to their deaths, their unholy deaths by infection...

After a while he got his mind off of it when he got his men and himself some food, he decided not to go crazy over it. Instead he spent the time thinking about the nice, relatively hot meal in front of him, just waiting to be munched down, and a nice little cup of water too. Ari dug in to his food like a bear, except using utensils, he drank his soup with lightning speed, then he gobbled down the sausage and potatoes. He finished before any of his men, so he waited, and after about a minute, he told his men to finish eating, then wait for him. Then he got up, and went to look for a man who could give his squad orders. He didn't even have to look too much, finding out that a commander was in the assembly area, and even though he wasn't from ABLE-BAKER 301st, he went to talk to the commander

The red glow of the emergency lights was somewhat diminished by the incondesant blue glow of the massive computer panels behind Karr. Anthony stood in the low point of the metal decking as marines all filled the room behind him. Thank god for speakers, Anthony couldn’t yell that far.

Anthony, still waiting for the commander, saw his figure enter through the door from the hanger.

“TEN HUT!” His voice boomed through the speakers. With that, the total of 200+ Marines of Able-Baker stood on their feet at attention. From Anthony’s 20-20 vision, he could see the commander nod I approval to begin the briefing. It was Showtime.

“At ease.” He said, and the marines sat down.

“Ladies, I am CWO Anthony Karr, XO of Able Company, 301st. HAM Call sign ‘Bravo One-One-Six.’ Now, we’re all gathered here on this wonderful Tuesday morning, to discuss out battle plan. You all might know… The mess hall is closed and I wanted to piss you all off…” A slight chuckle emerged from the crowd.

“Be thankful though, you’re the first group, so you get to eat it all up. Now, on to business.”

Behind him a map of Africa was placed on the screen.



“This UNSC Incident sight –Seven-One-Nine-Six, formally known as Africa, Call sign, “Ground Zero”. What you see in the red is glassed. We, are 2 miles from the coast, and 2 miles from the edge of what is now known as ‘Red Zone’ Everything passed the Fault line is glassed. Now, as you can see, there is a blue line. This Blue line, is our defensive perimeter. Now I know what the hell you guys are thinking: “Why the hell are we doing an Alamo?” Well, some lucky b*****d got shore leave… because he found a structure. And the Alien bastards want it…”

“Moving on…” He switched to the next image.




“Here is our parameters. Now, as you can see, we have Causeways. The causeways, are for medical uses ONLY. Don’t ******** around on them, I’ll personally shove a bullet up your a**. Now… this is our drop point chart.”

He pointed in the ABLE-BAKER section. The ‘X’ illuminated upon his touch. “We drop here. From orbit, we’re gonna have more ODST Drops.”


The original picture came up again.

“Now, the Covenant are going to be attacking in force, but luckily, we have the advantage of cover. On our backs are have 3 tanks, plus the 2 we found. Hog’s are gonna be air lifted, but their only for transport away from the line. NOW! Tactics wise… What is going to happen is were going to dig in. A concept used back a while ago. We’re going to dig trenches, turrets, and even artillery. We’re going old school boys.”

A hand shot up from the crowd.

“Yea son?”
“Sir, is that a bridge?” The marine asked.

“Yea, that right there is the Hungalo Bridge. Which is funny, because its our easy way out. This bridge is the only way they can get across. And when they get their heavy units on the bridge, we blow it to hell, stop them from our end, and have them move southward to the rest of the 105th and get their asses kicked.

Any questions?”

The Commander nodded his head and watched as the Marines of Able-Baker stirred where they were standing. There were cheers, laughs and high-fives all around; only a few of them stood quiet. Hammer was one of them, his eyes trained directly on the maps. It was a good plan, but what if they couldn't hold out? Fortunately enough failure was never an option before and it wouldn't be then. Like always he wore his COM piece on his right ear waiting for any news from HIGHCOM, or what was left of it. He'd picked up some chatter earlier about the Chief but that'd been minuscule. Later he'd need to review Captain Lee's and Major Lipton's reports, then forward them to the big-wigs.

As Marines left, TI stood still. In his mind he thought, So many are gonna be gone, after this, so many will be lost. But what is it for. He turned around, at the beginning of this war, he was still a postgraduate just getting a job. Then, the massacre on Reach that had him decide to be a soldier. Will we win or would all of this be in vain? He began to leave still thinking, this is only gonna add to the millions of death we have so far. Is it worth it? As he left he looked around, he was probably one of the last few 5 to leave and probably the most glum. Well, he thought, 'bout time I die and join the rest of my family.