Halo - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Feet First into Hell ❯ What It's Like ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Feet First Into Hell!

The Story of the Halo Universes untold Heroes.

By: Suren-kun

Disclaimer: I do not own Halo, it's characters, the phrase in the title, or anything that might be copyrighted. So much for sueing my ass =)

Rating: M like the game, for violence, strong language, and gore.


Chapter 1: What it's Like

Hello, my name is Kyle, Private Kyle Frensa. It's pronounced "Frien", as in the word "Friends" and then "za". I'm apart of Charlie Squad Three Four A. What we do? Hell, we're what you might call "Hell Jumpers". Our motto is "Feet First into Hell" which is what we do on every mission. You see, a hell jumper is someone who, from an orbiting ship, rides a drop pod straight through a planets atmosphere. It's a really tough job believe it or not. I still remember my first jump. I was so fucking scared. The drop pod is completely dark, the only light comes form this little monitor in front of you, and that's just telling you the conditions of the squad. Like their heartbeat and such. I saw my own heartbeat and it was amazing, let me tell you, not even in the academy did I learn that my heartbeat could go just that [i]fast[/i]. I heard my squad leader, Joshua, yell at me over the COM that I needed to calm the fuck down. Needless to say, when Sarge(That's what I call him) says to calm down, you better calm the fuck down or he'll make your life ten kinds of hell.

Though Sarge wasn't all bad, he was always good at keeping the squad calm during bad situations. Once, it was just our squad, and a handful of reinforcements to help defend a weapons factory on the Planet Yren. It was unbelievable, it was my first combat situation. To see the covenant marching towards you, flying, hovering, whatever the fuck they were doing. It was scary, I remember that Sarge had to literally pull me up from a near fetal position and yell at me to fire my weapon. So, that's what I did, the command in his voice was just inspiring enough to get me to aim, shoot, reload, repeat. It was the first time I had seen someone in my squad die. I remember it happening. It was Corporal Jefferson who had been killed. He used to be the squad leader, and I followed his authority because I had to, that's the way it works in the army. You follow your orders from superior officers, like them or not. If you didn't you'd be charged with insubordination, and most likely busted down to the lowest rank possible. The didn't discharge you completely because the Army needed every single man and woman fighting that they could get their hands on. Most had already faced the fact, we were fighting a losing war.

I'm sorry, I seemed to have strayed from my first battle. Anyways, we were surrounded, completely, on all sides. Everyone knew we were going to die there, that no one was going to survive the assault, hell, the commander said there wasn't going to be any reinforcements. Since I was new to the squad, having just graduated from the academy and then thrown out onto the war front to battle an unstoppable enemy. I was basically the one that seemed most likely to be shot. That was not a comforting thought to be honest. I probably would have, we all would have died if it hadn't been for one fact. Spartans. Right in the heat of battle, when all seemed hopeless, that they appeared, through a grate in the floor. That's when the Spartans took charge, and conquered. It was amazing, watching the legendary heroes, who had fought many battles against the covenant, and won, fight this battle. My first battle was to be the one I remembered, as the Spartans drove back the covenant army, and saved the lives of every UNSC soldier, hell jumped, mechanic, whoever was there.

I even got to shake hands with one, everyone else seemed to think that the Spartans looked alien, like the covenant. But to me, and a few others, they looked like the best damn thing we've ever seen. Of course, the handshake nearly broke my hand! It was unbelievable! I had to go to the medic to see what was wrong with my hand because oddly enough, my hand was nearly snapped in half by that Spartans strength. I knew then, what I wanted to achieve, after seeing this battle, after feeling the Spartans strength firsthand. I wanted to be one of them. I wanted the strength, the awe-inspiring fear, the power, and the ability to kick tons of covenant ass. These soldiers inspired me to where I was today, four months later, on another drop pod bound for hell, the heat of the atmosphere leaking inside the pod, but not to the point where he'd die or pass out from heatstroke. He heard a scream over the COM and on the monitor, he saw a hell jumper from another squads parachute on the drop pod detach itself, the shielding from the heat being melted. The person inside was killed soon enough and the screams were silenced. But then again, the person had died a hell jumpers death. The Hell Jumpers were the fiercest fighters the UNSC had to offer. Once more, I dove into hell, feet first.

The landing was rough, but I was used to stuff like this by now. In four months, we had already had twenty four missions total. In all those missions, I had not gotten to see a Spartan again. There was this crazy ass in our squad, I liked him well enough. During a jump he would scream loudly, not from fear, but from sheer excitement. Believe it or not, it was always comforting to hear him scream, his heartbeat was always the most calm of everyone's. Odd huh? The person that screamed the loudest, was the most calm. Funny thing was, whenever Sarge would tell him to shut up, he responded with a righteous "Fuck you!" right to Sarge. Sarge would then grumble and he'd resume screaming. We had just broken through the atmosphere, the heat was beginning to dumb down as parachutes were deployed to protect us. Everyone in the squad had named the man who screamed in our squad "Screamer" with an obvious reason.

Enough about Screamer, the landing. It was horrible, I was one of the first people to hit the ground, I could hear everything rumble around me as the drop pad crashed into the ground with a loud bang. No way in hell would that not alert the covenant. I waited a few moments before kicking open the hatch, my helmet was already on, my weapons loaded and ready. I looked like something out of that Doom movie about four hundred years ago. The movie was kind of disappointing actually. Our mission was to capture a covenant supply base, heavily guarded, me, and several hundred other Hell Jumpers. We had no vehicles, no air support, and all our ammo was to be brought with us in these small pods. It was tight enough with just us in there you know. I stepped out of the pod, my battle rifle at the ready. This was an upgrade from the MA5B Assault rifle used in previous engagements with the covenant. The gun was semi-auto, and fired three round bursts at the enemy. The bullets were stronger and could tear through Elite shielding quickly. A fact I liked.

We were dropped off right on a beachhead to be precise, the pods were scattered, but lose enough together that the covenant could concentrate fire on a single position and hold off quite a few hell jumpers. The covenant army lay opposite them on the beach, they had no shielding, no vehicles, just hundreds of elites and grunts, in a line formation. Then again, that was the tactics of the covenant. They didn't try to hide themselves if they didn't feel the need too. I had been told that this was part of some "honor" system they had going on. Why the hell they needed an honor system in battle? Hell if I knew. I scrambled to get behind my drop pod, anything to shield me from getting killed from those plasma weapons. The battle was on.