User:"Hawkeye"/Halo: Violet Surge/Intro

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Before You Read
Halo: Violet Surge is placed in between the events of the Fall of Reach, and Halo 3. It takes place on the remote colony-world of Violet, controlled by the UNSC. before the Battle of Reach, the UNSC had colonized Violet as an industrial planet, employing people such as rejected Alpha Company members, prisoners, etc. They'd built SPARTAN-III Armor Production Plants and Augmentation Surgical Rooms in the plants. the place was an S-III hot-spot. However, the planet was abandoned by the UNSC during the war on Insurrection. Meanwhile, Violet denizens began to discover this hidden technology, and much to their surprise, began to augment their own civilians and abandoned UNSC troops to form a military. After the militia was created, the UNSC desperately needed men. The came to Violet to find a man who was a Spartan. He fought alongside the UNSC in hopes to win the first Covenant battle. After the loss, he secretly returned to his home planet, only to have it attacked months later. This story doesn't follow him, however, but a Lieutenant Commander by the name of Vash Nicholson.

Chapter One
Chapter One

UNSC Colony World – Violet

August 17th, Epsilon Eridanus system

0900 Hours

Lieutenant Commander Vash Nicholson was jerked awake, her arms trembling of fright. Sirens and frantic cries from the startled Marines echoed through the halls of the UNSC Halcyon-class Cruiser, “Harvest Moon”. The Lt. Commander stood and ran, desperately groping around for a weapon. Her M6D sidearm fell from her trembling hands, and as she stooped down to get it, the cruiser wrenched violently sideways. She was thrown up and across the uncarpeted steel floor.

“Ma’am, we need to get you off of this ship, come on!” A concerned Marine rushed to meet Vash before she hit the ground, catching her mid-fall and lifting her to her feet. “Come now, let’s get you to safety.” He gently pulled her into the corridor, checking for hostiles. The Lt. Commander simply nodded. She could not do anything to save her “sinking ship”; to save her “crowned jewel”. After finishing the hallway scan, the marine motioned for Vash to follow him.

“Where are we headed, Marine-“ Vash curiously inquired. “-I’d thought all of the lifeboats would have jettisoned.”

“No, ma’am. There’s maybe six or seven lifeboats that never left, Covvies cleared them out before lunch. If it comes to, we can use a docked ‘Covvy’ vessel.” The marine replied solemnly and Vash gasped silently. The Covenant, here? They’re so close to Reach. Before she could say anything else, bolts of plasma in groups of six flung themselves from the shadows, directly into her escort. His chest ejected blood and a green vapor, gasping for air as he was. Vash turned to face his killer; a two-foot tall, pudgy humanoid with a helmeted head and methane tanks. An Unggoy, or “Grunt” as the Marines nicknamed them. The proper name, Unggoy, is the species name.

The Lt. Commander recoiled in fright and brandinshed her sidearm - a shining new M6D Sidearm – standard-issue for people like her. Oh, how she dreaded the day she’d use this-

“Crack!” The pistol round echoed through the hallway. Her eyes tightly shut, she struggled to open them and witness the fruits of her labor. Finally, hee forced the echo to leave her mind and looked, finding the Grunt as he was. Only, a large chunk of skull was missing; excised by the .50 Caliber round that had met its cranium at high speed. Blood spread over the wall like jelly, the viscous blue liquid almost glowing as the lights flickered. Instead of basking in her apparent victory, she rushed, panicked, to her respective lifeboat.

Bulkhead after bulkhead, room after room. Vash tore down the hallways frantically. Sprinting to her destination, she intercepted and disposed of four more two-man squads of Grunts. Finally, she reached the escape pod.

“Three, two, one, pod jettisoned.” The jerky pod AI stuttered the phrase out as the pod was released from the ship bay. Vash tiptoed to the tail window in agony, peering out at the molten metal coating the UNSC Harvest Moon A particularly bright, jagged line of white-hot light pierced the midsection of the ship, splitting it vertically in two giant, metal husks.

“More like graves, they’re more like graves than anything.” Vash thought aloud. Not only alone, but she was right. So very right. Of course, she referred to the rooms and corridors of the ship she saw decimated before her eyes. She drifted alone in space and pondered the thought of her ship; just one, large, mass grave. She was never more right.