The Covenant had busted through the outer wall. Their digging device was powerful. The wall must have been five feet thick, two layers of molecularly hardened concrete and a foot of titanium battle plate; the same stuff that they armored UNSC destroyers with. Yet they cut right through all of it within only half an hour. Harwich propped his MA5B up on the top edge of the battle barrier. He heard the Covenant hauling their device out of the way enabling them to funnel through the hole. The breach was in the left wall of the hallway and none of the Marines could see what was grunting and snarling down the hole but with every thud of their giant alien forms, the sounds became louder. Harwich's grip tightened on his rifle and he felt his heart beating harder in his chest. A grunt rounded the corner and was shot a single time in the head. Before it even had a chance to turn and see where the humans were, it was dead and sprawling on the floor. There were seven other Marines around Harwich, all of them ready for the next enemy. They were trying to conserve ammunition and would only fire one round each. Another two grunts rounded the corner on the hole and received two rounds each. Their blue blood sprayed across the floor and caused a fourth grunt to slip. Harwich shot him in the gas tank, igniting the methane. A towering Elite in blue armor charged into the hallway and fixed his beady black eyes on the humans. The Marines ducked together as the Elite began firing his plasma rifle wildly around their cover. Harwich heard a high pitched squeal as the methane tank reached a critical condition and then exploded. The makeshift bomb engulfed the Elite in flames, his personal shield flaring white as it tried to protect its owner. The added shrapnel from the tank pierced through the shield and overloaded it, flashing bright white and then vanishing in a sparkle of crackling energy. The Elite stumbled back into a grunt, clutching his face which had minor burns. He brought his hand away, purple blood dripping from his claws, and let out a bellowing scream of dishonor, two mandible like jaw hinges opened in a wide gaping black maw. The Marines brought their rifles up firing, 7.62 rounds blistering the Elites skin and piercing effortlessly through his armored plate. The Elite fell backwards, his plasma rifle going off as he fell. A stray bolt of plasma drilled through the skull of a nearby grunt that was busy running through the breach. Harwich switched targets as the Elite hit the ground, a splash of purple appearing behind him, and began picking grunts off as they came through the hole. The Marines started off on semi-auto, picking grunts off with headshots using only one or two rounds, but as they began flowing through the breach in huge groups, they were forced to switch their guns to rock and roll. They began spraying down the squads with bursts of four or five rounds. The bullets would tear through the group and kill three or four at a time. Another Elite came charging down the breach and a Marine threw a frag grenade at his feet as he came through. The Elite had enough time to look down at the grenade before it went off. His legs flew from his body and his arms disintegrated as his shield failed. More grunts followed and Harwich was forced to reload. He ducked down behind the cover of the battle barrier and pulled the empty magazine from his MAB5. He noticed the barrel was hot and he feared all the sustained fire would ruin his gun. He switched the rifle back to semi-auto as he slotted another new magazine into the butt of the gun. The ammo counter scrolled back up to 60 and he charged the handle to cycle a round into the chamber. A Marine next to him, Jerry McNamera, a farm kid from Harvest, took a bolt of plasma in his battle plate. He fell backwards, screaming in pain as the plasma melted through the plate and began cooking his skin. Harwich unclipped the plate and peeled it from his chest, a red bubbling wound forming on his chest. It wasn't too bad. It hadn't burned down to the ribcage so it wouldn't need anything more than a bit of bio foam. A hail of plasma bolts flew overhead, splashing against the far end of the hallway. Jerry began hyperventilating as he sucked in air as fast as he could. Harwich grabbed a small can of bio foam from the pack of a nearby Marine. He pulled the nozzle away from the can and primed the trigger before squeezing it down. The grey substance spewed from the nozzle like shaving cream and filled the red wound. It hardened after a few seconds and then depressed onto the raw flesh. Another hail of plasma shot overhead as a group of grunts got some shots off. Harwich pulled a bandage from his vest and began wrapping the wound. Jerry had sat up and held his arms above his shoulders just barely. The bio foam had a strong painkiller mixed with the material but it couldn't stop all the pain. Jerry whimpered as Harwich wrapped him up. The Marines at the barrier shouted that they were running low on ammo and Harwich offered they fall back. They had been tasked to hold back the breach for at least ten minutes while the compound prepared to evacuate. A hundred scientists and logistics personal had been boxed up in crates with their equipment and loaded onto the UNSC Hero, a Paris Class heavy frigate. There had only been two platoons of Marine available to the Hero because they were only supposed to patrol and observe the outlying regions of space. The research site had been relatively well hidden but somehow, Covenant forces had discovered them and were now trying to eradicate the personnel. The two platoons had been stationed at different areas around the compound. A majority of them were holding the loading docks deep within the planet. Radar had discovered that there were only two Covenant ships orbiting, both light frigates, but there were bound to be more on their way. Harwich and the Marines around him had bought the loading docks seven minutes, most of their ammo now exhausted. Harwich handed some of his ammo out to those who needed it leaving him with only one spare magazine. The other six Marines other than Harwich and Jerry tossed frag and incendiary grenades into the breach and readied to fall back. Harwich and another Marine grabbed Jerry by his vest handle and began dragging him backwards down the hallway, Jerry trying to aim his MA5B down the hall at the breach. The rest of the Marines bounded backwards, covering each other, after they moved twenty yards, the grenades exploded, bright flashes and flames clogging the breach. "Lieutenant!" Harwich yelled over the radio, "We're falling back on the northwest side. We're out of ammo and have one wounded." The radio crackled with static and there was no reply. At first, Harwich was panicked but then he remembered that he had been informed by their Company Commander that they would probably not get good radio transmission underground. It was probably just all the hallways getting in the way. They reached the end of the hall and rounded the corner to the left just as the flames from the incendiary grenades burned out. A rush of grunts poured through the breach as the last Marine left the hall. He almost got caught in a hail of green plasma, the hair on his arms and the back of his neck singeing off. Harwich tried the Lieutenant again but still received no answer. The two Marines at the back of the squad tossed another couple of frags and firebombs at the corner luckily at the same time a snarling Elite and a few grunts rounded the same corner. The grenades and firebombs turned the aliens into a fine spray of blue and purple blood that quickly dried and began flaking from the walls as the firebombs turned their corpses into charred husks. A few grunts around the corner became impatient and charged through the flames. They rushed out the other side, tiny bouncing infernos, and began blindly firing their plasma pistols. The green bolts splashed against the walls and flew wildly overhead, careening over the heads of the retreating Marines. The two Marines at the back of the squad turned again and fired a few bursts into the grunts, detonating their methane tanks and sending flaming body parts down the hallway. Finally, the Marines reached a T-intersection and took a right. They slammed down a thick metal door that sealed airtight on the diamond pattern steel floor. Harwich passed Jerry onto another Marine and stayed behind at the door. He unslung his pack and pulled a black spray can of C-7 from a side pocket. The door had a tiny viewport at head level made of extremely thick plexi-glass. Harwich looked up to find a good spot to spray the explosive on and was startled by the snarling face of an Elite. There was a flash and a sudden glowing that shone on the alien's face and Harwich feared the worst. Two lances of energy pierced through the door as the Elite jammed his energy sword into the titanium portal. Harwich quickly sprayed the entire can onto the door and slapped a detonator into the foam as it turned black and hardened. The Elite burned through some of the material as he yanked his sword around. As long as the slab of hardened material was still touching in places, then it would still ignite when triggered. Harwich turned, leaving his pack and sprinted down the hallway after his comrades who were calling to him and beckoning him towards a second door. Harwich pounded his feet on the steel floor, ducking to miss a couple of dangling electrical wires. He was halfway to the door when he heard an Elite snarl behind him. Harwich slapped the clacker in his hand, triggering the C-7. A brilliant flash of light shone around the corners of his eyes and the concussion left his ears ringing. He looked behind himself briefly to observe his handy work. The Elite had cut a hole big enough for him to squeeze through and was almost on the other side when Harwich had triggered the explosives. The door burst inwards, severing the alien in two, and bringing down part of the ceiling, a pile of rubble tumbling onto both halves of his body and blocking their pursuers. Harwich made it to the end of the hallway and two Marines slung their rifles before pulling another heavy metal door down. A third Marines who was dragging around a welder hit the seams of the door with the brilliant blue light. After they had secured the door, they made their way into the main hanger complex. The last container was being loaded on when they arrived. Harwich heard the engines of the Hero warming up as they slung the container under a Pelican dropship which would carry it into the hanger bay. A dozen Marines thundered by Harwich and his squad, rushing over to a doorway on the far side of the hanger. They heard sporadic shots echoing across the wide expanse of the hanger and followed the rushing Marines. They ducked under the Paris Class, which was being held up with dry dock clamps, and dodged stationary equipment deemed unnecessary. A bolt of green energy passed overhead and detonated in a huge explosion against the hull of the Paris Class. The armor on the frigate was too thick and the bolt had merely left a dark red scorch mark on its grey paintjob. Harwich searched for the source of the bolt and saw with disbelieving eyes a pair of hunters charging through a massive hole in the wall of the hanger. Two dozen Marines were already engaging them with machine guns and snipers when Harwich and the others arrived. Two Marines next to Harwich came running up behind a battle plate barrier with a SPANKR launcher carried between them. Harwich decided to help the pair and grabbed one of the two rockets that the assistant gunner was hauling. He unscrewed the cap on the plastic tube and dumped out the rocket. The assistant gunner did the same while the gunner flipped the top of the launcher open and unlatched two holders in the center of the chamber. Harwich and the other Marine slapped the rockets into the launcher and secured the weapon. "Firing!" the gunner yelled as he pulled the trigger halfway at first and then pressed it fully only a moment later, firing both rockets nearly at the same time. With expert gunnery, the rockets jetted out towards the hunters. One rocket impacted center mass with the hunter, tearing it in half and sending the legekko worms sprawling across the ground. The second rocket impacted with the shield of the surviving hunter and exploded, piercing the shield. As the smoke cleared, the Marines noticed to their dismay that the hunter had survived. The massive alien creature made up of a colony of hive minded worms stumbled around stunned. It looked down at its brother, its severed body gushing orange blood and some of the surviving worms wriggling on the ground, some wounded badly. The hunter let out a long, mournful call, bellowing into the ceiling of the large hanger. Then it let out another cry, this one loud and angry. It fixed eyes on a team of Marines nearby who taking cover behind a cluster of barrels strapped together on a pallet. The Hunter finished its bellowed and leveled its now unshielded arm, still encased in tough armor. It pounded its tree trunk legs, making the floor shudder and the ceiling shake. Both platoons of Marines opened fire, blistering the air with bullets. Four squads of grunts had entered the hanger to support the hunters but had simply been shredded as the bullets that missed or those that ricochet zipped into their ranks, severing gas lines or shredding necks. The hunter closed the distance between his dead brother and the Marines quickly. Just as he brought his arms up for a blow that would have smashed the Marines into pulp, a soldier with an underslung grenade launch leveled his rifle and fired. The 40mm grenade detonated in the center of the hunter and tossed it backwards. What was left of the alien was peppered with rifle fire until it ceased to move. Harwich's radio crackled in his ear and he placed a hand under his helmet to press the headphone closer against his head. Over the fusillade of rifle fire, he made out some sort of order to fall back. Sure enough, the Company Commander himself, Captain Farrow began making the rounds, grabbing Marines by the collar and throwing them in the direction of the frigate. Two Pelicans made their way around the bow of the ship and opened up with their cannons. The heavy caliber rounds drilled themselves into the advancing crowd of grunts and Elites, sending limbs and showers of blood into the air. The two platoons of Marines sprinted as fast as they could towards a long scaffolding behind a large stack of containers. They pounded their feet and turned to cover each other as they made their way upwards to a crew service door on the side of the frigate. An explosion rocked the hanger just as Harwich made it to the foot of the scaffolding. He searched for the source as he made his way up and saw a plume of smoke and blue flame emanating from the doorway his squad had sealed. He lost sight of the door as he made his way further up but he was able to catch a glimpse of another two hunters shouldering their way down the narrow hallway he had run through. The last members of the platoon made their way into the ship and Harwich heard Captain Farrow shout into his mouthpiece, "Commander! We've cleared the deck! You're good to go!" The service door slammed shut and two crew members appeared to ferry the Marines away. Outside of the frigate, the Pelicans were having a field day. A thousand rounds a minute could do terrible things to enemy ground forces. Fields of grunts which had flooded the docking bay started popping and shuttering as a hail of yellow tracers lanced through their ranks causing explosions here and there as methane tanks erupted. Sprays of purple and blue would shoot up in thin mists before dissipating in a methane flame. A hunter pointed its fuel rod cannon into the sky and fired off several shots. The green lances of depleted radioactive explosive rippled through the already smoky air of the hanger and missed the two pelicans by only a few feet. Harwich heard the engines of the Hero fire up, and saw the two Pelicans through a window on the crew service hatch. They had gunned their thrusters and were headed back to the landing bay on the Hero. Several crew members and techs ushered the Marines into a hallway which they followed for a hundred yards before they came to a large red door. A tech tapped some numbers into the panel adjacent to the hatch and stepped aside as the door hissed and sped into the ceiling. Harwich followed his brothers into a sort of staging area. Rows of MAB5s and BR55s lined long rifle racks that stretched either side of the room. In the center of the room were heavy workbenches piled high with loaded magazines, optics, rebreathers, grenades, flashbangs, smoke grenades, first aid kits, new tubes of bio foam and other assortments of gear such as helmets and boots. The Marines ran into the room like kids in a candy shop. They threw their old rifles onto the racks and exchanged them for new ones with fresher paintjobs and glistening optics. They switched out old or ruined gear and swapped for better fitting uniforms and helmets. Harwich replaced his MA5B for one of the newer battle rifles. It felt heavier in his hands than the MAB5, but there was something about the gun that made Harwich feel better. It felt more solid. More deadly somehow. Affixed to the top of an integrated carry handle was a low power optic. He pointed the rifle at a nearby lighting fixture and peered through the scope. It had an integrated rangefinder, a setting that allowed the scope to automatically zero itself based on the distance, a low light setting, and a compass bearing. On the rear of the carry handle, there was also an ammunition counter and cardinal direction readout, much like the one on the MA5B. He removed a magazine and watched the counter drop to 1. He then cycled the bolt, ejecting a 7.62 caliber bullet, which he then caught. The counter read 0. At least the electronics package was functioning well. He replaced the bullet into the magazine and slotted it into the gun once again. The ship rocked for a moment, an explosion reverberating through the hallway. The Marines had frozen for only a second before they returned to gearing back up, although now to a much more solemn note. They had taken about twenty casualties defending the hanger. Ten were dead, five wounded beyond service, two lightly injured and one missing. Apparently, a crowd of Elites had tacked one Marine to the ground and disarmed him on the west side of the compound. His squad mates tried to get to him but by the time they had cleared the hallway of grunts, the Elites had vanished. Harwich had heard his name was Private Reynolds or something. He didn't know him. Nor did he really care. It was a sad thing really, but it didn't cut deep enough nowadays. Harwich had seen so many of his friends and comrades get wiped out that now it didn't even register. He wanted to feel bad for them, but he had run out of pity long ago. Nobody joined the UNSC to live. That hope had vanished twenty years ago. It was a harsh realization to most but many had decided that humanity didn't stand a chance of surviving this war. The Covenant were too advanced and too numerous. On the ground, it may have been a fair fight. Covenant tactics consisted mostly of just grunt rushes with light Wraith or Ghost support, both obstacles easily defeated by hardier UNSC tanks and much more cautious tactics employed by UNSC officers. However, it was the space engagements that were getting so many soldiers creamed. It was a known fact that every Covenant ship taken down in combat usually cost about two to three UNSC ships. And then there was the inevitable glassing that would follow a defeat. Even if the Marines or Army who were holding the line on the ground were able to repel wave after wave of Covenant troops, the enemy would then proceed to just blast the surface of the planet with beams of plasma the size of small islands. They would walk the beams across the surface until nothing but the super-heated soil of the planet had turned into a thick layer of glass, thousands of feet thick. Harwich had seen two planets get glassed. One was Harvest, the spark to the powder keg they now took cover from. The other was a little known planet of Formosa, a tiny little mining colony that had been a hotbed for insurrectionists before the war. After the Covenant had invaded the surface and blasted deep into the caverns previously mined by the inhabitants, for something that the spooks thought could have been an artifact, they slaughtered whoever was left and hit it with the plasma. Harwich and the ship he had arrived on were too late. They had left slip space just in time to watch the Covenant finish a rather hasty glassing. When the UNSC armada approached the Covenant fleet, they turned and disappeared into slip space. Harwich and his fellow Marines were sent down to the surface to search for survivors but when they got there, the only remains of the colony were a few piles of rubble and wisps of smoke that Harwich thought might have been the ghosts of those they failed. The Hero rocked again with another explosion. Several loudspeakers in the room crackled and the shaky voice of an Ensign echoed off the rifle racks, "All hands, prepare for take-off immediately, we don't have time for strap-ins. Grab tight cause it's going to suck." With that, the ship shuddered again but this time it was the docking clamps beneath the Hero. Harwich saw some Marines huddling under the benches and tables, bracing themselves against the floor. He decided to do the same and huddled under a table with a few grenades rolling around on its top. The Hero fired its main engines in preparation for space flight and then armed the rockets intended to carry them out of the atmosphere. A few seconds later, there were several loud bangs that reverberated through the hull, threatening to shake the ship apart. The rockets had fired and only a few seconds later, Harwich felt himself getting pushed downwards into the metal floor. The rockets accelerated faster and faster as the Covenant outside intensified their fire. Another explosion, this one bigger, rocked the ship and Harwich felt the floor beneath him tilt. The rockets on the far side of the ship began increasing their output and the floor started to level out again. The grenades on the table rolled to the ground and Harwich accidentally kicked one. He yelped as he fumbled for it. The grenade rolled from his grip twice before he was able to snatch it up. Thankfully, it wasn't primed.
Commander Barlow stood just behind his officers and observed their movements. The bridge was a bustle of men and women who were busy double and triple checking systems and relaying their statuses to their respective handlers. Barlow held his left arm, which was his only arm, behind his back and clenched the tail of his uniform in a fist, a nervous habit he had acquired years earlier. An Ensign rushed up to him and began pouring a barrage of systems information and damage reports at him. He processed the reports as he acquired them and decided they had little time to complete the take-off if they wished to live. Engines were damaged by 1%, a menial report that meant nothing to him. They had lost 98% of the battle plate on the starboard-aft section of a storage deck. That was a concern because it could cause a hull breach if not looked after. What concerned him most however was a devastating report concerning their communications arrays. Apparently, they had lost 87% of the coms tower and could only broadcast ship to ship. Even with that, they would have to be within ten thousand kilometers for the signal to even be received. There was no way for them to send a deep space signal to any nearby fleets. The operation he had been tasked with had been designated by the ONI as a 'low risk venture'. All he had to do was touch down on surface and move gear and personal. Nobody, however, had said anything about a Covenant presence in the area. They must have somehow intercepted his communiqué and set a trap. Unless ONI had intentionally screwed him for their own personal analysis of the situation. Maybe that was why he had only received two platoons of Marines and the minimum allotment of Pelicans. He bit his lower lip and pushed the thought from his mind. No, he had to believe something else. It wasn't safe to question ONI. He had heard of other officers such as himself, Admirals even, being sent to the front or relegated to a listening post somewhere deep within Covenant space for accusing ONI of corruption or trying to reveal black ops operations they didn't agree with. "Lieutenant Henderson, launch the boosters immediately." Barlow said to the man sitting at the pilot's terminal. An officer who was technically not in regulation uniform turned and said, "Aye sir," and began flipping switches and tapping symbols on his panel and display. The Lieutenant had unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled his sleeves. He also wasn't wearing his cover, but in retrospect, Barlow didn't really care. In their current situation, a buttoned cuff wouldn't save them from being ripped apart from a hoard of Covenant troopers with heavy weapons. The boosters on the Hero exploded into life and Barlow felt the deck beneath him rush upwards. He bent his knees slightly to let his body catch up with the accelerating ship. A panel of monitors on the right hand side of the bridge displayed a dozen camera angles of the hull on the Hero. He also noticed a few extra panels that were displaying live wireless feeds from the hanger bay itself. There was a massive undulating crowd of grunts dotted with towering pairs of hunters that stomped through their ranks, oblivious to their tiny comrades around them. The grunts fired a hail of green plasma bolts into the hull. Though valiant, the shots were doing little than blackening the metal surface. The hunters fired their fuel rod cannons which did do damage, but the craters left behind were little more than tiny dents the size of maybe a coffee table. Their battle plate was incredibly strong, but it wasn't invincible. When Barlow noticed a throng of grunts pushing around a rolling gurney appear in the corner of the screen, Barlow's pulse quickened. As the gurney became fully visible, Barlow was able to make out some sort of massive mining laser or other drilling device. It had a large blue cylinder attached to the rear of what looked like a purple paperclip that had been bent into a V. The tubes all ran up and down a central crystalline rod with a black tip. When the grunts stopped pushing and three of them climbed aboard the device, Barlow knew what they were going to do with it. The boosters had started to accelerate the ship quite quickly but they still had another minute of burn before they exited the lowest layer of the atmosphere. He didn't know what the range was on a device like that but lasers were theoretically endless right? He guessed it would go on for only a few hundred miles before running out of energy but a hundred miles upwards was still dangerous enough. He was about to bark something at the weapons officer, a Junior Ensign named Abigale, when the grunts triggered the device. A thick blue lance of vibrating and spastic energy darted down the inner length of the crystal barrel and exited from the black tip. It connected with the hull and the impact almost threw Barlow from his feet. He caught himself on the arm of his chair and pulled himself upright as he felt the ship listing towards the inner wall of the hanger and knew if they impacted then there would be a terrible incident which didn't include their recovery. "Fire emergency thrusters; starboard side!" He yelled at Lieutenant Henderson. The navigations officer pulled himself back into his chair and began overriding protocols for the thrusters. With a sudden lurch, the ship righted itself and Barlow winced as they smashed into a catwalk adjacent to the wall of the hanger. The laser had lanced a two foot deep trench along the outer plate, causing a crack down its length.