TITLE: Long Hard Times to Come
CHAPTER: 1, On This Lonely Road
AN: PLEASE READ: This story takes place over several years. Beginning with Palmer, Lasky, Sullivan and Orenski's rescue by Master Chief from Corbulo Academy. So that's why in Chapter 9, MC is acting like a teenager, because he is still a teenager and Chapter 11, Palmer is still an ODST. You'll know when we reach present day.
Thanks for stopping by.
Many thanks and Spartan Smiles to my stable of roguishly handsome and devilishly brilliant betas: "mcknight93" "Andrithir," "Insaneblain" and "A-01" Go read their stuff, too!
"On this lonely road, trying to make it home
Doing it by my lonesome - pissed off, who wants some
I'm fighting for my soul, God get at your boy
You try to Bogart—fall back, I go hard
~0~
On this lonely road, trying to make it home
Doing it by my lonesome—pissed off, who wants some
I see them long hard times to come."
The Theme for the TV Show, Justified. Performed by Gangstagrass
Oh-five-hundred on a cloudy Monday morning, fifty trainees stood silently in the driving rain. At attention for the last two hours, the trainees endured the 110-degree heat and 100% humidity with stoic intensity. They could no longer feel the difference between the sweat on their skin or the rain soaking their utility uniforms; easy duty compared to the formal training.
Once quartered on Reach, the UNSC's ODST School had relocated after the planet's destruction by Covenant troops. The UNSC had understandably taken its time finding another planet with equally harsh weather and even harsher terrain. While these might be mandatory conditions for UNSC Special Operations training, the older soldiers made a habit of reassuring the younger students just how easy they had it now. Back in the day, they claimed Reach trained soldiers into real Hell Jumpers. The way they told it Reach could kill a man if he stood in one place for too long. The students disagreed.
Between the icy lake water, which hovered most of the year at 50 degrees, the rocky and steep terrain, fluctuating humidity and nasty vampire-like insects that could suck you dry, they get plenty of misery, thank you very much.
They also had other things on their minds that helped take the edge off. Today marked the end of their formal training and many of them had failed to reach their potential. By the end of the duty day, at least half of these volunteers would head home, washed out of the most intense training program in the UNSC. There was no shame in this failure, no black mark on their record. Not everyone could withstand the rigors of ODST Training. It was crucial that you tried. And what if you made it to the end and still washed out? At least you still had good stories to tell at the Officer's Club on Saturday night.
The lone female of the group, a diminutive Marine with long sable colored hair - which she stubbornly refused to cut - and matching brown eyes, wasn't worried about washing out. She was the best shot and the best tactician. What she lacked in actual physical strength, compared to the men, she made up for in courage, bravado, and intelligence.
At this moment, she was thinking back to a night four years ago. The rain and humidity ceased to register on her senses as she sifted through the memories. Powerfully built, impossibly tall, and obviously brave, the mysterious Spartan she met that night had not been far from her thoughts since those hours at Corbulo Academy.
The training officer interrupted her musings by shouting into her face.
"Lieutenant Palmer! Would you care to join us?"
That he'd sneaked up on her only added to the embarrassment of catching her daydreaming. She yanked her attention back to the present.
"Yes, sir! Sorry, sir!"
"Did I ask for an apology?"
"No, sir!"
"Is there somewhere else you'd rather be? Home with Mommy and Daddy?"
He was standing so close to her now, she could feel the light spray of his spital on her face. She didn't dare turn her head away.
"No, sir!"
"Maybe you're daydreaming about one of your fellow trainees. They are a good looking bunch, aren't they Palmer? Each one of them has five buddies who'd give their right nut to be ODST. Maybe it's time you moved aside for one of them. What do you think little Sarah, you think you got what it takes to be a Hell Jumper?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Know what, little Sarah? Maybe when you grow up you can be a Spartan?"
That got a chuckle from the other trainees. He continued as he had all along with his attempt to break her. She continued to hold her ground, and it infuriated him. Then Sarah Palmer lifted her eyes to the training officer's face.
"Maybe I'll do that, sir."
His eyes bulged out of their sockets slightly. The spray turned into drops.
"For smart mouthing your training officer you can lead these magnificent specimens of manhood over the obstacle course. Don't let them beat you to the finish line or you'll have to start again. GET THAT CUTE MARINE ASS OF YOURS THE HELL OUT OF MY SIGHT. MOVE!"
Ignoring the moaning and groaning of her classmates behind her. Twenty-year-old Sarah Palmer headed for the first obstacle. So angry with herself for daydreaming and worse at being caught, she cursed in frustration as she sprinted to the first obstacle.
Childish is what it was. Try as she might she could not forget the man she met that night. She'd spent just a few hours with one of those Spartans. At the time, she hadn't known what he was. Four years later, she still caught herself watching for that tall man whenever she noticed a group of Spartans. It was a chance encounter, nothing more. They'd saved each other's lives that night. In fact, if it hadn't been for him, she'd have been just another cadet swept into the bloodbath of the invasion.
After watching her fellow cadets die at the hands of those Covenant troops, she'd vowed to kill every single alien soldier who crossed her path or appeared in the cross hairs of her scope. Just to make sure no-one escaped her notice, she chose to sharp shooter as her specialty. She set goals for herself, based on what she'd witnessed that horrific night. She intended to become nothing less than the best of the best.
It was that night and the Spartan's actions, which drove her to perfect her skills, become the perfect Marine, and expert sniper. In just a few hours, she would graduate, third in her class, an ODST; a Hell Jumper.
She bounded over the wall and swung from a rope across the filthy water. Behind her, she heard one of her classmates swear when his hands slipped off the slimy rope. Palmer chuckled and doubled her speed to the next obstacle. She hit the lower rung and began to climb the wood frame structure.
Although she had tried to help the other cadets that gruesome night; their youth and lack of experience proved inadequate to the task of holding off a full-fledged alien attack. What they hadn't known was the entire planet was under attack and falling quickly into the hands of those alien soldiers. Knowledge that hadn't stopped the guilt over her inability to save at least one cadet. The memories came back again as she ran to the next obstacle.
Running through that blood soaked night, Cadet Palmer dove for cover behind a boxwood hedge, dodging a spray of Needler fire. The purple shards impacted a wall above her head and sent down chunks of concrete.
She bit down on the groan of pain when the concrete ripped open her shirt and tore open her flesh. When she could open her eyes, it was to the sight of the once beautiful courtyard of Corbulo Academy. The cruel sounds of screaming and the sight of mutilated bodies buffeted her shredded senses. The central fountain ran red with the blood of her classmates. The neat lawn and pristine sidewalks were equally gruesome; streaked with gore. The statue of the famous Roman general had been reduced to a smoking pile of slag. The buildings burned with the eerie light of plasma fires. There were just too many of them. Outflanked and outgunned, the school was not prepared to meet such a threat.
As Cadet Palmer backed into cover, searching for survivors and picking up discarded weapons as she went, she found herself retreating into the woods. She wished at least one more person had made it out with her. Instead, she was alone inside the silent columns of trees. A fog made up of smoke from the fires rises around her. The effect renders the area ghostly and the silence is suddenly much worse than the screams. She cannot be the only one who made it out alive. She can't be... Freshman Cadet Sarah Palmer was sixteen years old.
Lights in the distance! She ran for them the moment that her brain registered what they were. About a mile from the campus, she tripped over a tree branch and fell headlong, her ankle gave under the pressure of a tree limb.
Her fall prevented the Hunter, who stood silently listening to her approach from accurately locating her position. Palmer saw him, though, and nearly screamed in surprise. What were these creatures, she wondered, wiping the worst of the mud from her face. What had provoked the attack? She wished again that an instructor or even an upperclassman might find her. They needed to form up, prepare a defensive posture.
In a flash of the headlights of a vehicle, she saw other cadets, her sharp eyes identifying them as upperclassmen.
One of the young men was running. While she tried to make sense of what she was seeing, someone else, moved across her field of vision. Very tall and completely encased in armor the man catapulted himself onto the shoulder of the giant alien. The sight stopped her in her tracks. How could any human move like that? She watched him reach for something on his belt. She could see for herself that there was nothing there. He began to reach for his combat knife when she called out.
"Soldier! Here!" Cadet Palmer tossed two frag grenades up to the armored man. He nodded his thanks and shouted down to her.
"Run for the Pelican, Cadet. Two clicks due east. Go!"
A freshman cadet is accustomed to following orders. She did as she'd been ordered and headed down the road, leaving the Warthog and the people behind. The grenades exploded, sending orange goo fifty feet in all directions. The concussion travelled even further and knocked her to the ground. She heard the Hunter roar as it died. Had the tall armored man survived? Dragging herself to her feet, Sarah Palmer limped through the forest, moving toward the direction of the Pelican. To distract herself from the pain, she wondered who that giant man could be while she marveled at how he had so bravely jumped onto the thing to kill it. That was the bravest action she had ever seen. Who was he?
Footsteps to her left. She whirled. Small chattering creatures charged toward her. The magnum pistols in her hands were nearly spent. The first bullet landed between the eyes of the first Grunt. The last bullet cleaved a hole through the second one's head. One of the creatures was trying to flank her. She swung her arm with all her strength and smashed his head in with the butt of the magnum in her right hand. Thick purple blood washed over her hand, staining the hand grip. Adrenaline surged through her already geared up posture; she was ready to take every one of them down.
The remaining two continued their chattering charge toward her. She didn't notice the grenades in their hands until they were almost on her. She turned to run only to find her feet leave the ground as someone lifted her with an arm around her waist. Her peripheral vision watched an assault rifle as long as her leg let fly a string of bullets ripping the creatures apart. Then he turned toward her to shield her from the grenade blast.
It was the armored man! She held onto the chest plates of his armor with both hands.
"Cadet!" Then, with a quieter voice he continued while looking down into her anguished face. "We must move. They are waiting for us at the LZ."
She wasn't afraid; not exactly. Hiding her face against his armor and hanging on to the chest plate, she felt safe for the first time since this nightmare began.
"Cadet, pull yourself together."
In a moment that was so brief it was more the promise of touch than the real thing he pulled her hands away and set her down on her feet.
"I-I'm sorry, sir. I'm fine."
"Chief! The warthog showed up without you. Where are you?"
"On my way, Kelly. Picked up a straggler."
He was gratified to watch her pride flare. Straightening her shoulders, she squared off in front of him. She tried to stare into his visor, with her brown eyes blazing with anger and determination. With a flick of her hands, she bunched up her long hair and tied it into a knot at the back of her head and retrieved the spent magnums.
He hadn't worried that she was afraid. Someone who was panicking wouldn't have the presence of mind to toss him those two grenades. Along with calmly killing those three Grunts, whether she realized it or not, she'd probably saved his life.
"A straggler? I'm a freshman cadet at Corbulo Military Academy."
He acknowledged her claim with a curt nod. "Show me what you've learned, Cadet. Get us to the evac zone." He motioned with his hand, inviting her to move out and indicating that she takes point in the now clear path to their waiting escape from the planet.
watch?v=yT2i2UylxJ0
On this lonely road, trying to make it home
Doing it by my lonesome-pissed off, who wants some
I'm fighting for my soul, God get at your boy
You try to Bogart-fall back, I go hard
On this lonely road, trying to make it home
Doing it by my lonesome-pissed off, who wants some
I see them long hard times to come
Verse 1:
My life is ill son... prepared to kill son
A paradox of pain, baby; it's real son
Lonely traveler, ain't trying to battle ya
But if you're feeling tuff dog, I welcome all challengers
Ain't got no family, you see there's one of me
Might lose your pulse standing two feet in front of me
I'm pissed at the world, but I ain't looking for trouble
I might crack a grin, I aint looking to hug you
Think about it, nobody wants to die
There's rules to this game son, I'm justified
I'm ready to go partner, hey I'm on the run
The devils hugging on my boots that's why I own a gun
This journey's too long, I'm looking for some answers
So much time stressing, I forget the questions
I fear no man, you don't want no problems 'B'
Eyes in the back of my head, you better not follow me
[Chorus]
On this lonely road, trying to make it home
Doing it by my lonesome-pissed off who wants some
I'm fighting for my soul, God get at your boy
You try to Bogart-fall back, I go hard
On this lonely road, trying to make it home
Doing it by my lonesome-pissed off, who wants some
I see them long hard times to come
Verse 2:
You probably think I'm crazy, or got some loose screws
But that's alright though-I'm a'do me, you do you
So how you judging me? I'm just trying to survive
And if the time comes, I aint trying to die
I'm just trying to fly, and get a little love
Find me a dime piece and get a little hug
Hook the car up-hit the bar up-clean the scars up-hey yo, the stars up
Hey this is the life of an outlaw
We aint promised tomorrow-I'm living now, dog
I'm walking through life. but yo my feet hurt
All my blessings are fed, man I'll rest when I'm dead
Look through my eyes and see the real world
Take a walk with me, have a talk with me
Where we end up-god only knows
Strap your boots on tight you might be alright
[Chorus]
On this lonely road, trying to make it home
Doing it by my lonesome pissed off who wants some
I'm fighting for my soul, God get at your boy
You try to Bogart fall back I go hard
On this lonely road, trying to make it home
Doing it by my lonesome pissed off who wants some
I see them long hard times to come