UNSC ship "Prime Meridian"
Above Earth
Engaged with Covenant Forces.
The UNSC ship, the Prime Meridian, no longer drifted close to Earth by any means, its engines having been disabled by a landing party from the covenant ship with which they were currently battling. Captain Laura North pulled a tactically brilliant move by taking advantage of the Covenant plasma weapons to shoot Archer missiles straight through the Covenant shield just as it dropped around the turrets when the turrets were ready to fire. She didn't know that the famous Spartan 117, rank of Master Chief Petty Officer, had already performed such a maneuver. The blasts had crippled all of the turrets on that side the Covenant ship. The resulting magnetic shock from the exploding plasma coils managed to knock out the plasma turrets along the other side of the ship as well. With a good part of the ship decompressing explosively due to a large hole in the side of the covenant ship caused by the MAC round that had gone through the hull of the enemy vessel and the plasma turrets offline, Captain North had hoped that the Covenant ship was disabled enough to disengage. This was proven impossible when a Covenant landing party consisting of 5 grunts, 3 jackals, and an elite disengaged their active cloak in engineering on the UNSC ship. They swiftly killed the main engineering techs and disabled the ship's engines. Since then a bloody battle has broken out in the engineering section and surrounding hallways of the Prime Meridian.
"Damn these Covvie bastards just don't stop coming!" Dune Shouted.
Dune was an ODST, or orbital drop shock trooper, part of a group more commonly known as helljumpers. His brown hair had defied the 1-inch length regulation since his promotion to Sergeant. It actually defied it to the extent that his hair was actually 5 inches long and he was afraid if he was to report to anyone in command who really cared, he would face more than a demotion for it. He and Private Rick Hunt fired wildly into a group of grunts that had formed in the hallway around the cryo-chambers with their battle rifles. The chambers were empty except for a stockpile of munitions some fleeing techies had managed to smuggle out from random arms depots around engineering. The weapons would be needed to take back engineering, and this was the closest front between the human held areas and the covenant held area.
"Gotta give the splitchins justice though, if we had people who could motivate these grunts to kill themselves like this we'd be kickin Covenant ass back to Harvest." Rick replied.
"Fire in the hole!" Giles yelled from behind as a grenade streaked through the air towards the oncoming flood of grunts as well as two elites who had joined the fray.
Private First Class Allison Giles, another ODST under Sergeant Arthur Dune's control, wasn't very tall, but the saying that true evil came in small packages was true in this brown headed female helljumper. Sergeant Dune had never seen such a demonic representation of enjoying battle in anyone before. She enjoyed a good conflict more than elites. She loved nothing more than tossing grenades and using Covenant plasma weapons on the poor Covenant soldiers from whom she took them. Her records showed she had been treated for Boren's Syndrome multiple times throughout her years of service due to her constant use of plasma weapons. The frag grenade exploded taking out the whole hoard of Covenant and buying the ODST team a bit of time to relax.
"Damn!" Rick yelled as he fed a fresh clip into his battle rifle, "I'm fucking glad you're on our side, those Covvie bastards didn't know what hit em!"
"Simmer down." Dune said, "We don't need you putting off a clip into a bulkhead, the Covvies are doing a decent enough job of destroying the ship."
Giles looked over a plasma rifle that she had confiscated from the remains of an elite. The somewhat malicious smile playing across her face was indicative of the fact that she enjoyed the weight of the weapon.
"I love these things; they burn flesh and make such a good smell." She chuckled. "Damn fun to know your slowly burning the flesh off of the enemy and causing them excruciating pain in the process."
Sergeant Dune shook his head. He had always wondered why he was put with a bunch of nuts like these people. They weren't normal by a long shot, even for ODSTs. He did trust them though. He knew they were good at what they did, and that was jumping in feet first, and killing every Covenant bastard between them and their LZ on the way. He looked over at Rick. He had known the crazy bastard for quite a while. In fact he and Rick went through boot camp together. The thing keeping Rick from any form of promotion had been his lack of tactics in battle. His ongoing battle plan in every situation was to run in and kill everything. If it weren't for Dune, Rick would have managed to kill himself long before today. Rick and Giles weren't the only members of his group though.
"I wonder…" Dune mused to himself.
Two seconds before he could finish his thought the doors to the cryo-room burst open to reveal nothing but thin air. Suddenly the air shimmered and an elite roared, poising a plasma grenade, getting ready to prep it and throw.
"Fuck!" Rick yelled as the others in the small group of helljumpers said or thought the same thing.
He dashed for the elite, not thinking. Just as he got within inches of the elite, it dropped the still unprimed grenade and grabbed Rick by the throat. It began to squeeze and roar something incomprehensible at the now suffocating helljumper. Suddenly the elite's head exploded and bits of the elites purple blood, bone, flesh, and brain matter flecked Rick's face. A vapor trail from an S2 sniper rifle trailed down the hallway to the medium sized black haired Corporal ODST who had fired the armor piercing round past the elite's shield and straight into the alien's now missing head.
"Hey, looks like I came just in time to save your ass again, Rick." Corporal Mike Wolowicz said.
He walked down the hallway to lay a hand on the now moist helljumper whose life he had just saved.
"Ya gonna live? Or do I need to call a med team down here?" Mike chuckled.
"Good shot Corporal." Dune commented.
Dune appreciated Wolowicz the most, his crack aim made him invaluable in any combat situation. People who knew him sometimes even joked that he could out snipe a Spartan if need be. The theory had never been tested but the Sergeant could only speculate at the true sniping capabilities of a Spartan so he couldn't know for sure. Mike shouldered his S2 and smirked.
"Got to the bridge and got the orders." Corporal Wolowicz reported as he sat next to Dune.
It was unheard of to show a superior officer the proper respect on a battlefield. That would just make him a target for any enemies. Even their ship had now been made a battlefield.
"Com-lines cut and radios jammed, Covvies are making this one hell of an annoying fight." Giles commented, showing no actual concern for the situation.
Hunt rejoined the group and wiped the elite bits from his face. Dune looked over at Wolowicz.
"Well spit em out corporal," Arthur said impatiently, "The Covvies aren't going to sit around waiting for us to finish up having our little tea party."
"Well," Wolowicz reported, "Captain North said that we need to take these munitions," he pointed at the stockpile of every gun a UNSC ship could possibly hold, "and go restart the engines, and that's where this guy comes in."
That was the cue for one Ian Flynn to enter the room. Ian was a techie. To be blunt he was actually a warrant officer. He was constantly involved with this particular helljumper group though, seeing as Flynn and Wolowicz had a tendency to ask the higher-ups to be put on suicide missions together. If he could, Flynn would have joined the ODSTs a long while back.
"You again," Dune muttered. "We just can't seem to get rid of you can we?"
Dune contemplated the idea of sending a few rounds from the battle rifle through Warrant Officer Flynn. His involvement in sorties of this kind only seemed to help them turn from dangerous to worse.
Flynn smirked and said, "Hey, we can't all have what we want, just a select few of us."
Sergeant Dune didn't appreciate the remark, but he was aware that Ian knew his way around a computer console or two, and he wasn't new to weapons either, which made him an asset in battle as well. His aim was great for a techie, even if he was a swabbie.
"Well then," Rick said, "Let's get goin, I don't like to leave my fans waiting."
Dune picked up a battle rifle and shouldered a shotgun, packing away a few more clips of ammunition along with some shells and a strap holding 4 frag grenades. Rick grabbed a jackhammer rocket launcher, shouldered it, and grabbed twin SMG's, some clips, and a sling of grenades. Allison grabbed an SMG and the plasma rifles from two of the now dead elites. She inspected the lustrous purple weapons and picked up some plasma grenades. Ian looked around and found a battle rifle and two magnums. Wolowicz grabbed a couple clips for his sniper rifle and his specially designed pistol that was equipped with a scope with a maximum magnification of 2x.
"Saddle up helljumpers," Sergeant Dune said, "and lock and load, cause we're about to make some fireworks."