"The book is a lie."
Ok, not entirely. There is a novel and it relates to Halo and my past novels. The name has changed and it is now one entire book, not split into sections. Instead of two 7 chapter sections, its one book. The proofreader list will be announed in a few days.
But fear not! My changes are made for the better of the book. And to bide time and keep you guys entertained, here's a cut chapter I did a while back. This, as you'll see was the opening for the second part but was cut. Enjoy!
Prologue:
March 26, 2630
Red Zone
Western Turkmenistan
Footsteps. Someone is coming. The snow crunches under the mans feet. He is dressed in snow gear, his face just visible underneath the re-breather. The toxins in the air make it difficult for some to breath. Alan Neil stops to catch his breath. He’s been walking for nearly an hour. The snow falls silently around him, each flake tinted with a hint of color, byproducts of heavy pollution. Removing his hood, he wipes the sweat of his brow.
“Hell of a day” he thinks.
The wind is beginning to pick up again. His hands and feet are numb and his back aches. Shouldering his backpack, Neil begins to walk again. Ahead through the snow he can see his destination. The sight of home gives him the kick to keep moving. He wants to rest but know that if he does, he’ll die. The wind dies down, revealing his surroundings as he trudges through the deep snow. Dead trees lay fallen in the snow, their trunks just barely visible in the drifts. A howl breaks the silence. Neil looks behind him. Nothing.
“Wait…” he peers into the snow, the wind blowing again, obscuring his vision.
Something moves. The small object is unrecognizable in the distance but Neil is fairly certain what it is. He turns back toward home and starts to jog. It might not have seen him. Home becomes bigger as he nears it nut it’s not your ideal vision of a house. The ex-military resupply base is a remnant of better times. Neil sprints the last 100 feet and makes it to the door. Designed to allow Warthogs in and out, the large doors are rusted and dented, relics of former confrontations. Neil bangs his fist against the doors.
“Who’s there?” a voice says from above the wall.
“It’s Neil.”
“ID tag number?”
“You know it’s me, now open the doors!”
The doors open just enough for him to squeeze through. His heart does not stop pounding until they are firmly closed. A woman descends from the stairs leading to the overlook above the doors.
“Well, you made it back in one piece” she says with a smirk.
Neil pulls back his sleeve revealing a large gash. “Barely.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it Jen.”
“I won’t let you refuse treatment like last time. C’mon, let’s get inside.”
The interior of the building is hollow and open to the air. Its rectangular design incorporates a landing pad in the center surrounded by three supply caches and one service building. The supply rooms were long cleaned out by the former UNSC, leaving them with little to survive off of.
Jen Price pulls back the cover to the door controls and punches in the 4 digit code. The machine beeps and flashes red.
“Piece of crap.”
She hits the side of the box and inputs the code again. This time it flashes green and the door opens. A former mechanic, Jen knows her way around machinery and got most of the base systems back online when they found it. The two enter the building. Neil flicks the light on.
“Are David and Gordon back yet?” he asks.
Jen shuts the door. “Gordon should be getting in soon but we haven’t heard from David.”
She notices the worried expression on Neils’ face. “I’m sure he’ll be back any minute now.”
“Yeah, I hope so.”
As brothers, Alan and David have been through a lot together. They both saw their parents killed and their home destroyed. Frequent nightmares still cause David to wake up screaming. Neil takes off his coat and boots, throwing them in a small storage closet. He sits down next to Jen on the couch. The small building holds living quarters with four cots, a bathroom, a maintenance room, and a storage closet. The floors are dirty and the walls rusted.
Neil goes into the bathroom and grips the faucet in the shower. Twisting the tarnished handle he finally gets something. Brown water gurgles out, it smells of calcium and Neils desire to get clean is the only reason he bears it. He puts his hand under the stream of liquid, its freezing. He’ll shower later. Neil turns to the sink. He wipes the dust off the mirror, faintly showing his reflection. His skin is ashen, a consequence of having nearly no sunlight reach the surface of the planet. He runs his finger down his arm, tracing abrasion. The memories of the incident are still fresh in his mind.
“Hey, you okay?”
Jen stands in the doorway.
“Huh? Oh….yeah…I’m fine.”
“Let’s try the radio. Maybe we can pick up your brothers signal.”
“Sure.”
He leaves the freezing bathroom and takes a seat on the couch. The small hand powered radio crackles to life as he twists the knob. He moves the slider to David’s frequency.
“……………………..”
Nothing. Neil picks up the small mike.
“David? Can you read me? Over.”
“……………………..”
He puts down the receiver.
“It’s hopeless. We’ll have to wait, there’s too much interference.”
The door to the building opens as a younger man walks in. Covered in snow, Gordon Miller sets down a crate of supplies and dusts himself off.
“Hey guys.”
“Gordon, good to see you. What’s new from the front?”
Gordon, along with David act as the group’s scouts, scouring the surrounding area for any provisions they can use to stay alive. The past years had been hard, they were lucky to have found this outpost. Neil doesn’t like to think about what would have become of them if they hadn’t.
Gordon takes off his heavy coat and flops down on the coach to begin sorting through what he’d found.
“Like a kid with toys this one is.” Jen nods toward Gordon.
“Yeah well my ‘toys’ are keeping you alive.” He smiles.
“So? Anything changed out there?”
“Plenty. Flood biomass has begun spreading again. In this cold I don’t know how but it does but there seems no stopping it. In addition to that, the nearby towns have all been raided and burned to the ground, at least what was left of them. Probably ERF.”
ERF, the Earth Remnant Force, was a group of former UNSC soldiers and HAZMAT teams who had defected from the former UNSC to operate out of their jurisdiction in the “Red Zones”. Now, without the UNSC to suppress their larger objectives, the ERF has begun to attempt to “reclaim” the land for humans, a feat that has proved impossible.
“I think there’re falling apart though. I’ve seen more and more ERF soldiers’ dead, victims of gunfire.”
“How do you know that?”
“Flood don’t do two in chest and one in the head.”
Neil was silent. If the ERF came across them in their current state, they’d be killed or worse.
“Did you get anything for the ‘chopper?”
“Yeah, I found some fuel and a few armor plates. We can probably refit some of our ammo too.”
Gordon looks through the small observation window out onto the tarmac in the center of the outpost. A DX7 Attack Chopper sits covered in snow, parts lay a strewn around it. That was their only chance to get out of here. Walking was suicide. The Flood, the cold and the possibility of running into ERF militia was to great a risk.
“Good, we should be able to…” Neil is cut off in mid sentence as alarms begin to blare in the living quarters, red lights flash and the three jump to get suited up.
“Something must have tripped the perimeter wires. Gordon, were you followed?”
“I don’t know. I never saw anyone.”
They sprint out toward the perimeter wall access stairs. The alarms are carefully configured to only be audible from inside the living area to avoid unnecessary attention from the “wildlife”. The metal stairs vibrate as the climb to the top. Gordon and Jen press against the retaining wall as Neil peers through his binoculars.
“I have movement. Two, no three targets. Yep, just what I thought. ERF. You brought them right to our doorstep.”
The three ERF soldiers are dressed in white camouflage with tan and brown splotches. Despite their surroundings, Neil can see them easily. They continue to approach. He watches them intently. One of the ERF puts his hand to his ear, activating a comm. Neil can tell he’s talking but can’t hear anything. The man signals the other two and the soldiers begin to walk away. He turns and looks at the base one last time before continuing back the way they came.