The Sandlot

Dr. Halsey sat back in the shuttle’s seat relieved. She and Kelly had succeeded and were now traveling through slip-space back to Earth. Their ETA was approximately thirty minutes and she hoped they were not too late. While onboard the Gettysburg, she had been reviewing all the data Cortana had gotten from the Halo installation. Amidst all the data, she had uncovered a detail of great significance, the location of an important and powerful forerunner artifact. In order to get to the artifact before the Covenant learned of its location and powers, she had “abducted” Kelly and rushed off to retrieve it. Much like the blue crystal they had previously encountered, this artifact had a similar ability to shift time and space. In short, where ever this artifact was that location simply disappeared, sort of a Bermuda Triangle effect. Which is how it had remained hidden from the ever-alert Covenant, who did not have access to the Halo data. Her hope was to bring the artifact back to Earth and make the planet hidden from the Covenant juggernaut.

“Disengaging slip-space engines Dr.” reported Kelly.

“Very well Kelly. When we enter normal space, try to raise High Command HQ in Sydney.”

The tiny shuttle dropped out of slip space a million miles from Earth, nothing could have prepared them for what they saw next. The planet was dead, forests burnt to the ground, oceans vaporized; Earth it seemed, had been glassed. A few hundred Covenant ships were also in the area, though what they were up to they could not guess. Dr. Halsey sat in full silence, utterly shocked. They were too late. The Covenant had found Earth and they had won.

“What now Dr.?” asked Kelly, interrupting her thoughts.

“I don’t know Kelly; I need to think for awhile.”

“What about the Covenant ships in system?”

“They pose no threat to us; we’re invisible thanks to the artifact.”

She had to think fast. Earth was gone, but she refused to believe that John was dead. He would have managed to escape and lead some of humanity away from the doomed planet. The question was, where would he lead them? “Kelly, set a course for Reach.”

A puzzled look came over Kelly’s face. “Reach? The Covenant glassed Reach.”

“Not all of it, just the poles and enough to hem us in the area surrounding the ONI facility, CASTLE base. It’s also the last place the Covenant would look for anyone. John knows this and I’m sure he’ll head there. If he’s alive…”

(Note: blog is gay and won't let me indent paragraphs, hence the spaces between them)

Prologue


“Come in, does anyone read?” Master Chief radioed again. Once more, only static filled the emergency frequency. He was about to give up when suddenly a voice burst through the static.

This is Admiral Hood, who am I speaking with?”

"This is Spartan-117 sir; my team and I are inbound awaiting orders.”

“How many of there are you?”

“Twelve of us sir.”

“You are to immediately land here in Sydney and help secure High COM Bravo-6. More orders will be issued at that time. Hood out.”

John killed the radio and turned to address his team. “All right squad you heard the Admiral. Our ETA to Sydney is 30 minutes. Unfortunately, we have no accurate Intel on the landing area or the status of the situation planet-side. So we are gonna go down there and do what we do best…kill anything not human. I expect it to be hell down there when we arrive, so load up and get ready for anything.”

The Pelican entered the atmosphere somewhere over the south pacific and sped towards it’s destination, flying low and fast in hopes of avoiding detection. The ship landed near the outskirts of the city and the team began the short hike to the High COM headquarters, meeting no resistance. Apparently, the Covenant hadn’t made it to this remote location yet. As they approached the entrance, John split off eight Spartans to form a perimeter around the complex and to shore up and improve the defenses while they still had time. John and the remaining three Spartans went inside to find Admiral Hood and get their new orders, which he hoped involved killing Covenant.

John and his team were lead to an elevator and began their decent to the security conference room which lay some 3 kilometers below the surface, encased in many layers of concrete and Titanium-A plating. John could hear the buzz of activity before they opened the doors to the conference room. Upon entering the room most of that buzz halted as everyone became somewhat awestruck by the sight of four fully armored and armed Spartans.
“Sir, Spartan-117 reporting as ordered.”

“At ease soldiers; I’m Fleet Admiral Terrance Hood. I have assumed tactical control of the situation here on Earth in light of Admiral Whitcomb’s untimely and tragic, though heroic death. If you will please come this way, we will update you on the condition of the battle. Lieutenant you may commence the briefing.”

A young woman stepped up towards the giant holo-map that was portrayed over the large table. “As you can see the Covenant made several major landings all over the planet, mainly at the locations of the power generators for the orbital MAC guns. We took out as many ships as we could before the reactors were compromised but it was only a matter of time, the numbers were completely against us. Once the reactors went down and the MAC’s were offline the Covenant began moving in more ships and landing more troops around the globe. Most of our surviving ships fled to a safe distance to regroup and come up with a new plan. They are being held out of combat for now as we try to resupply them. The Covenant are not searching for them so we felt it would be best to not risk them at this time. Our ground troops have taken up defensive positions around all major military instillations, important economic centers and some major cities. Covenant forces are currently holding position and setting up camps, preparing for what can only be assumed as a major globally coordinated assault on our forces. Normally they just glass a planet, but much like Reach, it appears the rules are different this time around. We have something they want, but what we do not know.

John assessed the map and ran the numbers. They were outnumbered, had no air support and were running out of time. Seemed like another typical Spartan mission, though this time the stakes were much greater; the survival of the planet and maybe the human race itself at stake. “What do you need us to do?”

The Admiral spoke up, “Chief, we need you and your Spartans to go out and bleed the Covenant. Our bases are well defended and should be able to hold out against several assaults. We need you to hit the Covenant before they can mount their attacks. That way they will only be at 75-50% strength when the do finally assault our cities and bases. That will buy us time to figure out a way to destroy their ships in orbit and hopefully we can eventually defeat the Covenant ground forces.”

Inside his helmet, John frowned. This was maybe the worst plan he had ever heard. Nevertheless, the Admiral was a superior officer and was issuing a direct order. He needed to try to change the Admiral’s mind. “Sir, with all due respect, I would need a hundred Spartans or more to accomplish that goal.”

“We have 12 divisions of Hell Jumpers and transportation awaiting your command to assist you and your team. We also have some new weapons and armor upgrades.”

John paused and thought for a moment. With the support and new gear the Admiral was promising they might be able to pull off this mission. They would be fighting a hit and run guerrilla style of warfare, harassing the Covenant enough to do moderate damage yet not risk their lives in large-scale engagements. The very same thing that happened a century ago in a place called Vietnam. Those tactics dragged that conflict out over a decade and eventually led to a victory for the guerillas. As long as nothing changed orbit-side, they had a slim chance, and that was all he and his Spartans needed. “OK Admiral, where do we start?

I've always loved video games. Still play my NES and N64 to this day, wish to hell I still had a Sega. Some classic games on those systems like Tecmo Superbowl, Goldeneye and NHL 95 respectively. The big catalyst however, was my introduction to Halo and the Xbox sometime in late 2001.

(My memory is escaping me at the moment but it may have been the summer of 2002 when Brett first got an xbox with Halo. I recall playing it at his house on Hess Road at night in the sweltering heat. And since the game didn't launch until November of 2001, summer of '02 is making sense, but then Brett doesn't wait that long to get shit so probably he got it around Christmas that year and I'm just confusing events from 5 years ago. But I digress.)

Halo just felt natural the first time I played it. The xbox controller (the big boy not the gay s-type) just molded into my hands as if it had been there all my life. And i was good at it, much like Goldeneye, very good. Since I had no real money to speak of at the time, I couldn't afford the $300+ price tag, and subsequently spent a lot of time over at Brett's old place on Hess, playing the campaign and multi-player. Eventually other people got xbox's and we began to utilize the system link feature and attracted larger crowds for multi-player.

The thing with me and video games is this. They have to be fun to play. They need a good replay value, and most importantly, they need a good story line. With Goldeneye, you were James Bond, re-inacting the hit movie. With sports games, you're trying to win a championship. Halo was the first shooter game I ever played that had an interesting and deep backstory to it. The main character is a genetically enhanced super-soldier fighting a relentless alien enemy hell bent on destorying humanity in the semi-near future.

Soon after the game was released, we discoved there was a novel that acted as a prequel to the game and a second novel that re-hashed and expounded on events in the game. Around that time, Halo 2 was not far off on the horizon as was a third novel. Halo: First Strike came out a few months before the Halo 2 game and it remains one of the better sci-fi books i've ever read. I will say that after reading those 3 novels, I was completely hooked into the story line. Its just so deep and compelling you can't help but love it. It often gets overlooked by outsiders. (With a pending movie on horizon its fixing to become the next Star Wars.)

Then, in Novemeber 2004, Halo 2 was released. To celebrate, I staged a 36 hour plus gaming session at my house with about 15 other people. Picked the game up at midnight, rushed back to my house with shawn and bandit and launched into the campaign mode, eager to see what the story had in store. Somewhere around 10am, I sat back on my futon, miffed. The game was over, a huge cliff-hanger type ending, and many a question and feeling of disbelief running through my head. A short break followed then around 1 we began an epic 14 hour. 16 man multiplayer session. But all the while I couldn't stop thinking about the story. It had taken a departure from the awesome path the first game and the novels had laid out and I wasnt sure I liked it. Over the next few months a lot of negativity was published about the game's ending and the plot. Being that I had some free time and was at the time, being a huge nerd, I decided to write my own halo story, just for fun, the way I thought things should have unfolded. So I did. Then, like with all things I try to do, I got busy and forgot about it for 2 years.

Enter this year, 2006. News came out there was a 4th Halo novel in the works and silence had been broken about Halo 3 coming out for the 360 in 2007. The news of another halo novel reminded me I had started to write one myself. I dusted it off and added a little to it and did some editing. Then i learned of a contest in which participants could win an advanced signed copy of the new book if they submitted an original piece of Halo fiction. The catch, had to be 5,000-12,000 words. So I started outlining and eventually got down to more writing. The deadline for the contest was in October. Needless to say I procrastinated and never finished the story, though I did outline the whole thing. Ive since read the latest novel, "Ghosts of Oynx" and I must say it disappointed me. I still think the story that I started writing in 2004 then added onto in 2006 is pretty sweet.

In light of this I'm gonna start posting the chapters here. It was planned out to be 5 chapters, not including the prologue and epilogue. I have completed the prologue, and the first 2 chapters, with part of chapters 3 and 4. So starting tomorrow, I will post the prologue, then the rest of the chapters every couple days. I'm mainly doing this so i'll actually finish the damn thing and because I enjoy it. So like i said, I'm a nerd and this post probably bored the hell out of you if you made it this far but tomorrow will be good. Promise.

So the new Bond movie, Casino Royale comes out in a little over a week. Dont know how to feel. The first Bond movie I ever saw was Goldeneye. Saw that in theatres shortly after it came out. Was really one of the first movies I went to see and kind of got me into movies in general (Gladiator sealed my love for movies.) Since Goldeneye, there has been three other Bond films. At the center of them all is my boy, Pierce. To me, he personified the character of Bond to the letter; smooth, sexy, (yes i just called pierce sexy) and professional.

I have gone back and watched some of the older Bond films. Connery was ok as bond, but thats just because he's Sean Connery. Roger Moore did nothing for me, and i havent seen any movies with a bond played by some one different from the 3 men ive already listed.

Which brings me to my point. Casino Royale has a new Bond in light of Pierce ending his run. I forget the guys name but he was in Munich and I dont know if i can picture him as Bond. Despite the fact this movie is supposed to be really good because of the book its based on I dont know if I'll be able to get into it. I'll probably go see it just to see it. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

You know what I think is bogus? The fact that school bus drivers think they own the road-ways. That the laws of traffic some how dont apply to them because they drive a bus filled with kids. I've seen bus drivers so reckless that they put Santos to shame in his heyday or crazy driving. Now that I got that off my chest, on to bigger fish.

Its no secret I've been less than thrilled with some recent events in my small little world. My demeanor and attitude have noticably shifted 180 degrees from where i have been the last year-ish. Half of me is just sick over it, and the other half is sick because my hands are more or less tied. Sitting in silence has never been something I've been good at/comfortable with. But for whatever the reasons, I have done so. Those reasons even partially escape me. I know a part of it is my desire to not rock the boat. And perhaps some other part of me hopes its all been a fluke and I'll wake up with things back to normal one day soon. But theres another part of me that knows otherwise. The part that knows most people are incapable of change and will stoop to any lenghts to raise themselves up.

One thing I've always hated is lying. I believe that honesty is really the best policy and that people will respect you more in the end for being upfront about everything. I have nothing to hide. Any question asked of me I respond to with 100% honesty based on my knowledge and information at hand. Do i draw false conclusions? Sure, i'm not perfect. But I'd never knowingly deceive some one or sell some one out... especially some one i consider a close friend, no matter what the circumstance.

Like a newspaper editorial, consider this an open message to the general public. Yes, personal events have led me to write this; no I'm not going to call anyone out here. I have learned its best to do that in a face to face setting. Just know that there comes a point when the silent majority will remain silent no more while injustice taked place and will take action regardless of the consequence. History has shown us time and again that this fact is true.

So theres my soapbox for the year. On to funnier things in the future.