Halo: Operation Excalibur
The untold story of Gamma Company
Soft rolling hills. Large boulders along the sides of a winding and twisting dirt path. A lone Grunt trotted along this path on all fours, its green plasma pistol clutched in its right fist. It looked from side to side, wary, but bored. Very bored. It had been on patrol in this exterior section of the rearmament facility for weeks. It knew this tract of trails and grass as well as it knew the back of its own hand. It may be boring, but this was its job. And that was the end of it.
A small insect landed on the Grunt's arm and was immediately squashed. "Stupid bugs." It said in its high-pitched voice. Another bug flew by the Grunt's face. The Grunt swung its fist at the insect, chasing it higher into the air. When the bug was finally evicted from the Grunt's personal bubble, it noticed something. And that something was streaking through the sky and creating a white trail.
The Grunt dropped it's arms to its sides and looked steadfastly at the flying thing. It seemed to get bigger. It's almost as if it's falling... the Grunt thought.
The ground shook. Dirt and pulverized rock flew in all directions. The Grunt was killed instantly by the blast; its body was flung thirty feet away where it lay in a growing pool of blue blood.
The thing that had fallen from the sky sat in a two foot deep crater of its own making. It hissed slightly, one side flipping open from the bottom and lowering to the ground like a ramp. A shimmering humanoid stepped from the pod, checked its surroundings then said through a radio: "I've touched down. Permission to move in"
A scratchy voice answered: "Permission granted. Head 1 and a half klicks north and two klicks east. Hold your position at the small gorge with the stone pillar."
"Roger that. Fire team Kilo moving out." The shimmering being killed the comm. connection as three more shimmering beings walked up next to it.
"Where to, Ben?" one asked the first.
"Small gorge with a stone pillar. Do not engage the enemy until everyone's grouped up."
"Got it." A third being said. That being was the first to run along the dirt path, and subsequently come across the Grunt's still body. It snickered.
"Now I like that kind of welcome party."
At the stone pillar the four shimmering beings met up with more of their kind, conversed quickly and quietly about orders, then headed toward the Covenant rearmament facility where victory, or death, awaited them.
* * *
As the army of shimmering beings neared the rearmament facility, they could hear the mixed sounds of machinery and cries of various alien species. The group of three hundred nigh invisible Spartans moved silently and quickly toward the complex that could rearm an entire Covenant army in days. The facility did not build weapons; that was done deep in Covenant controlled space. This complex took plasma weapons that were depleted on the field of battle and replaced their empty battery cores with fresh ones. This site was currently rearming nearly every Covenant army that was pressing on UNSC controlled space, most notably Earth. The destruction of this facility would be a major setback to the Covenant. It would mean that their forces would have to wait longer to receive fresh weapons, forcing them to slow their onslaught on the humans.
The three hundred Spartans were split into fire teams. Their orders and training told them to stay with their fire team at all costs but also to try to stay with the rest of the company if possible. Against the Covenant, numbers were your best insurance. But if worst came to worst, the company was permitted to break up into smaller groups if it was vital to the completion of the mission.
So far, the last two raids on Covenant bases had resulted in success; at the cost of nearly all the Spartans involved. The members of this third raid were attempting to break the current streak and get most, or all if possible, of their comrades out of this alive.
The first snag came when they discovered Covenant motion sensors. The sensors were quickly destroyed, but it was too late; the Covenant was alerted to the Spartan's presence. With the rearmament facility on high alert and ready for a for a full scale invasion from the UNSC, the Spartans would have to move fast. They had to destroy the facility before it was able to get word off to the Covenant fleet in orbit on the far side of the planet. Escape would no longer be an option if the sky was full of Covenant ships.
The Spartans were carrying enough firepower to force an entry into the facility, but sneaking in undetected was preferable. Several of the Spartans even carried prototype rocket launchers; called "missile pods". Each missile pod carried eight homing missiles. They were to be used to shoot down any Banshees or Phantoms that the company might come across. They could also be used to open locked doors if necessary. In addition to the heavy weapons, the Spartans also carried MA5Ks, a broken down version of the Assault Rifle. They also carried side arms such as the M6 Magnum.
Knowing that the Covenant was aware of their general position, the Spartans quickened their pace and changed their entry direction. The fateful snag came when a patrolling Elite marched into their path. Hundreds of Grunts were over a hill to the Spartan's right, the valley that the covenant thought the humans would walk through, and the hills on their left were too steep to traverse. Although the Elite carried an energy sword, it had it's back to the oncoming Spartans. It slumped to the ground as a pair of deft hands snapped its neck from behind. Unfortunately, the Elite Commander was on a lookout post overlooking the Spartan's route. Out of the corner of its eye it saw one of its own killed at the hands of thin air. It roared to its Grunts who each drew a plasma grenade and primed it. The Elite gave some quick orders on trajectory and then let its own grenade fly.
The Spartan company commander, Stan, was out in front of his troops when his second in command, Laura, nudged his shoulder. He opened a private comm. channel with her.
"What?" he asked.
"Um, Stan, I think we need to spread out and find cover."
"Why?"
"Look." Stan looked in the direction that Laura was pointing and saw hundreds of blue dots falling from the sky.
"Incoming!" Stan yelled.
The other Spartans looked up, scattered, and headed for anything that might offer cover. But it was too lake. Gravity pulled the fizzing blue orbs down faster than the Spartans could run. Yells and shouts arose from the dissipating humans. More than a dozen had the blue balls stuck to their SPI armor. The Spartans had three seconds to react before the grenades went off. And for Ben and his team, those seconds were the longest in their lives.
One of Ben's teammates had been stuck in the chest, and he immediately threw himself to the ground to shield his comrades from the ensuing blast. Ben and his remaining teammates took one step after another, running as fast as they could. The ground seemed to crawl beneath them. One, two and then three seconds passed and all the grenades went off in a blue flash as bright as the sun. Bodies and gear flew in all directions.
Ben slowly lifted his head from the dirt and got to his feet. His cracked HUD was suddenly a blaze of activity. Dozens of names were coming up KIA. The list began to scroll down and Ben couldn't keep up with it. Three quarters of the Spartan company were suddenly dead and they hadn't even started their assault on the facility yet.
Ben checked his SPI armor. All the plates were functioning properly and he was still nearly invisible. He looked around him. Three members of his fire team were nearby, and they seemed to be alive. The Grunt hoard was beginning to flood down the hillside to finish off the remains of their enemy that they had just buried under a tidal wave of grenades. Several wounded Spartans opened fire. They attempted to hold off the Covenant onslaught long enough to allow their surviving comrades time to regroup and attack the rearmament facility in force.
First Lieutenant Stan opened a comm. channel with all the remaining Spartans: "Everyone get with your fire teams! If you can't find yours, join one. Then move in on the facility and gut the place. Bust your way in if you need to. We've lost the element of surprise, but we can still win the day. Remember people: mission first. Everything else is secondary. Salvage whatever weapons and equipment you can find. Then move out on the double."
The surviving members of Ben's fire team joined him.
"Lead the way Ben."
"Will do." He replied, stooping to pick up an abandoned missile pod that had landed nearby. After checking to make sure it worked, which, in his terms meant firing on the enemy, he then moved toward the base as fast as his equipment would permit with his team as body guards.
The only unguarded part of the base that Ben's team could reach easily was a long section of exterior wall underneath the base's comm. station. Why this valuable piece of equipment was unguarded was beyond their comprehension. Ben destroyed the spindle-like antennae with one well-aimed shot. Casey, one of Ben's teammates, considered the wall a dead end, and didn't mind saying so.
"Ben, there's no door here. We can't get in without a door." She said harshly.
""Oh, there is.' Ben replied, "You just can't see it."
Ben pointed the missile pod at the wall and fired several times. When the smoke cleared, there was a gaping hole in the base wall, just large enough for the Spartans to walk through.
"See?' Ben said to Casey, 'I found a door."
She did not respond.
The three Spartans entered the dimly lit hallways of the Covenant rearmament facility and proceeded through them towards the center of the building. There appeared to be some kind of directions on some of the corridor walls. After following one set of directional arrows that led the trio to the destroyed comm. station, they decided to attempt to use the arrows to find the facility's core: the rearmament center itself.
The trio of Spartans made their way through the winding purple hallways that hopefully led to the rearmament center. After hitting several dead ends, they were running low on patience. At last they came to a pair of large grey hexagonal doors that would not open. The door's holographic switch did nothing. The door was slightly ajar, leading the team to think of defensive sabotage. Finally George, the team's demolitions expert, approached the door from a more practical angle. After ushering Ben and Casey to a safe distance, he wedged one of his four LOTUS anti-tank mines into the gap where the doors met, set it on a five second fuse, and then ran a safe distance away to watch the fireworks. Five seconds passed, a deafening shockwave washed over the three Spartans, and the doors were opened enough for the humans to slip through. Ben, Casey, and George approached the twisted and blackened door opening. They then slid through the jagged hole and entered into a massive room. What the three Spartans saw in the room amazed them.