Ricks was supposedly bleeding out, and he knew it. He was mentally cursing this Spartan, this mega man, for taking control of his tank. This is his story, so think about it next time you take a tank from an unfortunate marine.
The tank was slowly rolling away, crunching over what was left of a grunt with a needler. It was satisfying to hear the crunch of the rigid carapace being crushed into the pavement; unfortunately he himself was in the gutter so the blood soaked into his BDU's. Sighing to himself, he watched his best friend, and gunner slowly creep through the wreckage of the bridge.
"Hey, Logan over here bud"
"Asshole… keep it down"
Logan, fortunately, was better armed than me, and actually had a clip for my submachine gun. He kept checking behind the smoking remains of a turned over semi. Just a few seconds ago a 90mm round had punctured it and destroyed the ambush party behind it. That's when I caught the grunts needler round to his left ab.
"Hey what happened?"
"The dang grunt didn't want to die, he shot me right before I erk!"
He took the needle out and through it away, it exploded on the pavement leaving a miniature divet.
"as I was SAYING-"
And then he sprayed some biofoam in my wound, and pilled the cavity in my body armor.
"Dumb ass, you haven't had a face to face shootout in FOREVER! So where were you?"
"the grunt shot me, then died, I rolled off the treads before that Spartan brought us to another ambush"
Logan sighed, our compatriot marines were running along the wall on the bridge. The wall gave a commanding view of the road below, and every marine loves a advantage and clear line of sight. We watched Robert, Lindsay, and Jessica (she liked to be call Jess) pass by. Jess had bulked up weapons wise and had a rocket launcher, submachine gun, pistol, and her immense knife. Robert and Lindsay, on the other hand, were quaintly armed with the traditional submachine gun with back-up pistol combo.
"Hey Jess! Little help here?"
Logan scowled, there was little love between him and jess since they were always competing and she seemed to always beat him. But that was back in the day when me and Logan were still grunts, promotion to tank squad kind of split us up.
"Oh my god Rick, what happened?"
She stopped, handed her launcher to Lindsay and traded for another pistol. They both ran towards the carnage at the end of the bridge, hoping to catch up with the seemingly invincible Spartan doing battle against overwhelming covenant forces. Robert stopped and looked at Jess and told her,
"We are heading south along the bridge, if you go down to help him it will take too long to get back up here. The charges are set for 20 minutes"
"We will meet you on the other side sir"
And with that she tied a slip tie to the wall and slid down. As she landed she bent down and grabbed my bent sniper rifle. Sighing to myself I realized that I was weaponless, and I wished I had taken the time to grab my submachine gun or at least a pistol. The only reason I didn't is because it gets really cramped inside a tank, and the sniper barrel could be taken off and stored easily. My ab ached, and since Logan missed I stuck my hand in my body armor to removed thee excess biform before it hardened. Jess walked over and pulled me up, and looked me over.
"Hardly a scratch Rick, I can't believe you fell off because of THAT!" (she pointed to my wound)
"Hey it was a needle round! And I did not want to sit on the front of the tank anymore…"
Logan laughed, sat down, and tried to sync his watch to the countdown to the charges as he said
"Hey Rick, I was sitting on the other side of the tank too, what do you think that Spartan was doing? He has the shields, why didn't he sit on the tank?"
"no idea, I guess he thought he was better than 2 soldiers, who have lived through over 17 covenant engagements, in that tank."
We heard a explosion in the distance, and plasma flared into the air we heard the whine of banshees in the air. We all shuddered; if those banshees came towards us we were beyond fucked. Jess helped me onto my feet, when suddenly someone raised us on the radio.
(the radio squeals for a bit before…) "All marines on the bridge, we have finally blockaded off the southern end of the bridge, repeat, we have blockaded off the southern end of the bridge. No more covenant forces can enter or leave here. Good luck"
… and then Logan looked at us and said
"12 minutes"
Jess handed me a pistol and we headed northward along the bridge. I checked the clip in my M6 magnum and it had a full twelve bullets. We crept along the bridge and there was a elite, bleeding along the side of the wall. It warbled out, and we open fired. I only got to fire two shots, but it was dead before I pulled the trigger. Nobody bothered to reload, we kept moving forward. We witnessed the carnage the Spartan had left with the tank. And we put down many wounded covenant. Jess gave me three clips, and I already went through one. We passed an upturned ghost and Logan turned and said we only had 8 minutes left. We were not even a fourth of the way there. Suddenly I stopped
"I have a plan, but you guys are going to have to trust me."
We sprinted back to the ghost and we flipped it over, and pulled out that elite corpse. I sat down on the deactivated ghost… and pulled back on the lever. Suddenly I was levitating above the ground. Jess and Logan looked at each and suddenly Logan whooped and jump on the hood. Jess looked at me quizzically, and pushed my forward and sat behind me. With the extra weight, the ghost was sitting low to the ground… so I pulled the lever again. Suddenly we were on the ground, and Logan fell off. After much grumbling, Logan readjusted himself and got back on top of the hood. Pulling the lever a third time we rose into the air. Now there was two other levers so I pulled the left on and we juke'd left. I guessed the right would do the same thing , so I pulled both and we sped along the bridge.
"6 minutes Rick, Hurry up!"
I picked up speed, and Logan reached down and grabbed the hood of the ghost with both hands. I was going when I saw another burning semi blocking the road. I saw a small gap, and headed for it we fit through, but on the other side was 3 grunts pillaging a warthog. Jess brought her machine gun to bear on handed and strafed them with fire. I passed them by before they could get so much as a shot off.
"HOLY CRAP! Next time I am driving, two minutes Rick!"
Out of desperation I pulled back as hard as possible on the left and right levers, and I zoomed forward! Jess yelled and Logan whooped again, but we were going too fast.
" WERE GOING TO MAKE IT ONE MINUTE!"
We went pas the guard station at the northside, and rammed into the dead body of a covenant hunter. We were all threw from the vehicle, and I hit the pavement and rolled into the wall. My mission timer said 47 seconds, so I got up and shook jess. She was bleeding and her helmet had been torn from her on the fall. I grabbed her by the arm and hoisted her over my shoulder and yelled
"LOGAN! LOGAN YOU MOTHER FUCKING ASSHOLE! WE GOTTA MOVE"
Logan got up from a piled of dead covenant and sprinted towards us. He was a ways off, but I was a couple of yards from the gate. To top it all off, jess was wearing heave armor so it was going to be hard going.
Sixteen seconds.
I was feet inside and I layed jess against the wall in a sitting position, and yelled
"LOGAN! COME ON!"
In the final seconds, me and Logan would still debate it to this day.
He was sprinting full out, armor singed and melted, and I reached to grab his hand. Suddenly he tripped, and I grabbed him as he fell and dragged him inside.
One.