So this story has been on hold for a long time, and already has a lot of work done on it. but, now that i have started to overhaul, i am posting the Prologue, which used to be chapter one. it has gone through massive revisions, and, hopefully, is a hell of alot better read than it used to be. any way Please please PLEASE review, your feedback is vital for my health!
I checked all of my magazine pouches as I stood in the Pelican's troop bay. The squad had crammed a single twelve man fire team inside of each of the two D-77 pelicans. The Lieutenant was with the other team, forcing only two troopers to stand in in our bay, versus the three in the other pelican. The pelican rocked as it flew through the atmosphere, forcing me to grab the cargo net above my head. I glanced at the eleven Orbital Drop Shock Trooper's around me, all of them armed to the teeth. All of us had known each other since drop school, and I was the only one who had seen combat. My teammates and I were all replacements. But even with us, the company was down to half strength, having only a single squad per platoon.
"Staff Sergeant Wander! You hear me kid!?" our Lieutenant, George Mason. He was a twenty year veteran of the Human covenant war, earning his rank through tough fight after tough fight.
"Yeah, I hear you Lt, something up?" all of the team had their faceplates opaque and were staring at me.
"You keep your FNGs back, make sure to keep that Landing Zone clear and stay behind us veterans. You get me?" the lieutenant hated replacements, mostly because he had seen so many die over the years that he was tired of seeing them. The entire regiment had been tasked with helping infantry and marines hold a massive park that was being used to pull civilians off the planet.
"No way in hell L-T. We are gettin in this tango, with you jackasses." My entire team smiled and chuckled a little.
"Fine, guess at least one of you guys has some balls after all! Do me proud kid, and bring me some scalps! Hoo-yah!?" we all smiled and hollered the old navy phrase back through our radios, the rest of first squad joining my fire team for it.
"Troopers, get ready, ETA, one minute. We gotta land at the edge of the park. The front lines are only a couple blocks into the city. Good luck boys. Roach 1-3 out." I flicked the safety off on my MA5C. Most ODST's preferred the C variant of the MA5 because of its higher accuracy and slightly longer range, even though the weapon could only hold thirty-two rounds in its magazines, versus the MA5B's sixty rounds. I personally preferred it for weight and feeling reasons. A fully loaded MA5C was lighter than the MA5B, because of the smaller magazine. Also, the slightly shorter weapon simply fit my hands better. Never was truly able to understand it.
"Ten seconds!" the pilots voice rattled through my brain as the craft pitched one last time, leveling out to lower down to the ground. I counted down from ten, preparing to clear out of the hold as fast as possible. At three seconds, the bay doors started opening and I let go of the cargo net. The ground was sitting maybe three feet beneath the edge of the pelican's deck and I leapt down, keeping my rifle aimed wherever I looked. And I looked just about everywhere. The rest of the team filed out, weapons raised and ready for a fight. The pelican lifted back off and gunned it toward the center of the park. I let go of my rifle with one hand, creating a small circle in the air above my head with my index finger. The signal was meant to tell the team to follow me. I jogged off down the street. A couple blocks in, an almost impenetrable wall of buildings stood at varying heights of five to seven stories tall.
"Split into three teams and go into different buildings." My voice seemed unnaturally calm, even too me. I took the building straight in front with three of my teammates following me. The other two four man teams spilt off, heading for buildings on the right and left of the one I was entering. I knocked on the door and it slid open to reveal a small marine Comm station. One of the marines at the table looked up from the paper map in front of him, a look of relief on his face.
"Damn glad you guys are here. Corporal Sánchez, take em upstairs to the line." My Heads up Display, or HUD, showed him as Lieutenant Peterson. The female Corporal beside the door, who had let us in, was Sánchez. She waved her hand for me to follow as she stepped for the stairs.
"The covenant shelled the buildings in front of us hard enough to collapse em. The rubble goes up to the third story windows and is stable enough to run across. No way through the rubble so we're holding them from the third floor. You got here just in time. We don't know how much longer we could've held." We came onto the third floor landing as she finished speaking. There was a door off to the right that led to the building next door. There was a hand full of marines' setup at the windows as well as an AIE-486H tri-barreled Heavy Machine Gun on its tripod. One of my other teams came up the staircase behind the gun. I nodded to them before I spoke.
"Sánchez, how many of these buildings are connected like this?" she sat up against the partial window sill before she spoke. They had tried to reinforce the wall with sandbags, but a section had still been blown in by something.
"Five here. Sometimes only two or three elsewhere though." I nodded and checked my map. It showed up on my HUD covering most of my view. There was no map data, but it showed the lieutenant about two hundred meters north of us.
"Mason, we are holding position roughly two hundred meters south of your position, over." My radio crackled in my ear as he responded.
"Rodger that, kid."
"Holden, take Beasley upstairs and hold there. Mohammed, me and you will hold here, Hooyah?" Hooyah was an old Navy phrase meaning anything, so long as it wasn't no. they all chanted it back as Holden and Beasley ran upstairs.
"Staff, this here's Tanner." Sánchez pointed at the marine across the blown out section from her as she spoke. I nodded to him as I crouched next to him, behind sandbags they were using to try to plug the gap. Mohammed took up a position on the other side of Sánchez.
"What have you guys been up against?"
"Mostly Grunts and Jackals. Most of the jackals haven't had their shields. Hand full of elites as well."
"What about CAS?" Her eyes dropped as she spoke.
"None. But we do have a pair of four-forties assigned to us. L-T has me spotting." I nodded. I had an uplink module on the left side of my helmet. It had a laser designator on it, allowing me to designate targets for Close Air Support or Artillery support.
"Do you have firing solutions plotted for them?" she shook her head. I cursed and used the range finder on my uplink to find the distance between us and the other set of buildings the covenant hadn't knocked down yet. It read as two hundred and seventy meters. "Ok call in two positions to them, one at two fifty meters, the other at one fifty. Give it about fifty meters between the two guns." She nodded and turned on her radio, calling in the strike locations.
I peeked back up and sat there, half crouched as I scanned the enemy's side of the kill zone. Blue streaks shot up into the sky from four locations behind their buildings. Someone yelled incoming as the massive plasma mortars slammed into the rubble, only about fifty meters from us. I ducked down as more were launched. The second artillery volley slammed into the buildings and blasted massive chunks out of them.
"This is Renegade one two Bravo, we are taking fire from plasma mortars on the other side of some buildings, roughly three hundred meters east of our position, any air forces on this frequency, please respond!" I shouted into my radio as third and fourth volleys slammed into the buildings.
"This is Wraith five one. I got eyes on those guns and am going to attempt to knock them out." I peeked out just enough to see a pair of pelican gunships line up on a strafing run. Missiles shot away from the pods tucked under their wings and bluish orange fire balls fired up over the buildings. A swarm of covenant banshees rose out of the buildings and shot after the pelicans.
"Wraith five one, taking fire. We gotta pull out. Sorry boys. Good luck." The two pelicans gunned it toward the park, the banshee squadron hot on their tails. I saw faint movement in the other set of buildings. Thousands of grunts and jackals poured out of the buildings.
"Corporal, get those guns going." She spoke into her radio and rounds started dropping down onto the enemy force. The four hundred and forty millimeter shells caused massive explosions, taking out entire fifty-alien platoons of covenant. I brought my rifle up; making sure the weapon was on semi-automatic as I did so. Its crosshair appeared on my HUD and I squeezed the trigger. The weapon bucked slightly as it fired. I watched the round hit a Jackal's chest and it collapsed. The crosshair was almost a necessity for ODST's. The faceplate made it difficult for a soldier to look down iron sights.
I ducked back down as soon as I had fired, expecting a return shot. None came. I peeked up and noticed that they weren't returning fire on any of our positions. I used my helmets zoom capability to take a closer look at them. None of them were armed. I yelled into my radio, already having been reset to my fire team's channel.
"They're unarmed! Everyone, keep it calm, one shot one kill!" I heard similar reports and calls as I raised my rifle and started firing single rounds at them, trying to bring down as many as I could as calmly as possible. Sending large numbers of massed unarmed troops was a covenant standard, causing panicked human troops to waste vital ammo. These kamikaze like attacks were usually followed almost immediately by large numbers of well-equipped troops. The weapon's ammo counter hit zero and I pulled the charging handle back and up, locking it back. I dropped the magazine out of its slot behind the weapons grip. Instead of swapping the empty mag out for a fresh one, I just dropped the empty and slammed the fresh magazine in. As soon as it was in, I slapped the handle down, popping it out of its locked position and it slid forward, loading the first round.
I sighted back in and switched the weapon over to full auto. The jackals and Grunts were close enough to see the differences between the individuals, and way to close to bother with precision. Although unarmed, both the raptor like jackals and the short, methane breathing grunts could literally tear a man apart. I squeezed the trigger and swept the weapon across their line, simply letting the heavy seven point six-two millimeter rounds tear apart anything in front of me apart. Tanner's MA5B emptied and he reloaded as my own emptied. All I could hear was thousands of rifle rounds going off as the covenant forces got ripped to shreds. I finished loading in a fresh magazine as the last of the covenant were killed. Something felt off and I instinctively ducked behind the sandbags. Not half a second later, a beam of plasma lanced out and slammed into Tanner's forehead, another ripping right over my own head..
"Everyone, down!" my voice sounded calm to me yet again. Sánchez screamed as stared at her friend's corpse. Beam rifle rounds slammed into the building. Occasionally, a shot would punch through the walls. Green lances joined the beam rifles, marking covenant carbines. "Sánchez, get on the radio and tell those guns to walk their fire forward fifty meters, try to suppress those snipers." She swallowed her anger and sadness and got back on her radio. The high pitched whines of the enemy sniper rounds were suddenly cut off by the massive booms of the four-forties.
I peeked up and saw a mass of jackals and grunts lead by elites. Most of the elites were minors, the lowest rank. Only about a quarter of minor elites used energy shields. Most of the jackals had their round energy shields and had formed phalanxes to protect their fellow soldiers as they advanced. They all started firing their plasma pistols as they advanced. Green globs of plasma slammed into the sandbags and walls. A marine came charging up the stairs, only to be caught in the barrage. His charred corpse collapsed to the floor at my feet.
The plasma fire kept up as they advanced. It was possible to stagger a shielded jackal if you hit it enough, but none of us could get a chance to put enough fire on one to do that though. The marines in the building next ours had been wiped out. My team mates had to have moved up stairs, for they weren't amongst the bodies. My eyes hit the HMG again and a thought crossed my mind. The gun's tripod was covered with sandbags and the blast shield would protect me as long as I didn't try to aim down the sights. I slung my rifle and prepared to sprint across the walkway between the buildings. The walkways had originally been covered with glass, but that had already been shot out.
I took one last deep breath to settle my nerves, then took off, sprinting toward the gun. Roughly six feet away, I started a slide to keep myself beneath the wall and dodge their fire. I reached up and grabbed the gun's trigger. The AIE-486H took a few seconds to spin up because its barrels rotation was generated by the rounds recoil. Meaning, it took a little bit to reach its highest fire rate. The first rounds fired slowly as I blindly fired the weapon. I was only trying to keep the weapon level and stable, hopefully scoring hit's on the jackal's arm shields. My radio crackled to life.
"Their phalanx is collapsing. Keep up the fire boys." The voice sounded like Peterson's. I stood enough to be able to see and watched the jackals scatter. Most of their other forces had already darted for cover amongst ruins. I swiveled the gun to follow one of the groups as they sprinted for cover. White tracers followed the group. One of the grunt's long spike-like methane packs exploded, killing the three jackals nearby it. The elite major with the group made it to some ruins. He was the only one to survive the onslaught. I swept the gun over to a new group, comprised primarily of grunts and elites. I dropped two of the elites before the gun ran out. "All forces, fall back to the secondary defensive positions, the park is almost clear." Lieutenant Peterson's voice sounded strained over the radio. I grabbed my rifle and sprinted back into my building. I aimed out the window and fired a short burst into a group of grunts. Only two were killed, but the others scattered.
"Sánchez, you're on point! Get moving!" she darted toward the stairs as Beasley and Holden came dashing down from the floor above. I waved them on and they dashed down the next flight as Mohammed ducked out and fired his rifle. A needle shard shot out and punched through his chest plate. I grabbed the handle on his assault pack and dragged him down the stairs. My attention when back to him now that I was out of the enemy fire only to find that his vitals on my HUD read as killed in action. I cursed and turned to go down the next flight. Sánchez stood at the top, waiting for me.
"Just go!" she nodded and took a step down the stairs. In her haste, she slipped and tumbled down the stairs. I raced down the steps after her, sliding down the last few. She was crumpled at the foot of the stairs. I grabbed her arm and dragged her onto her feet. Her helmet had flown off as she tumbled, revealing more of her dark skin and near jet black hair, up in a tight bun on her head. She moved to retrieve her helmet, but I shoved her toward the door and she took off running. I grabbed her helmet as I stood and sprinted after her, my rifle balanced in my left hand. Marine and Army troops flooded the street, my ten remaining ODSTs mixed in with them. I followed Sánchez's helmetless head all the way to the edge of the park.
The park was actually an old asteroid impact site. The crater formed an almost perfect caldera like formation. This caldera, as the locals called it, was being used as a landing zone for drop ships lifting civilians up to the slip space capable ships in orbit. The crater rim formed a gentle slope down to street level. The crater itself measured almost two miles in diameter, and the park extended a mile past that. Almost the entire distance was the slope leading up to the crater rim. The secondary defenses were set up at the beginnings of the crater slope, about a hundred meters from the street that encircled the park.
I continued across the street and up the hill to the sandbags that had been set up to shore up the defenses. I saw Sánchez and tossed her the helmet. The rest of my team grouped around me.
"Alright people, spread out across the line, the covenant can't be very far behind us. Make ready." Peterson moved over to me as they spread out.
"Staff Sergeant, I need you to help these guys hold this line for just fifteen minutes. Then we'll have birds available for extraction. I've been called back to the HQ, so good luck." I nodded and he trotted over to an M-12 warthog with an M-41 Light Anti-Aircraft Gun mounted on the back. He climbed into the passenger seat and saluted to me. I returned it and the vehicle lurched away, toward the crater. I turned back to the defenses and hunkered down behind the sandbags, resting my rifle on them.
At first, it seemed like the covenant hadn't followed us. Suddenly, plasma mortars started arcing over buildings. One of the enemy wraith tanks came onto the street in front of us. Wraith tanks were large, two man vehicles, hovering almost a meter off the ground. From the top, they looked almost like a mushroom cloud. The entire frame was thick and rounded, the forward half circle containing the pilot's seat, completely hidden within the hull. Right behind that, was another seat that left the occupant half exposed, letting them use the mounted plasma cannon. On a raised section behind that, on the tail boom, was a plasma mortar, built into a sealable housing. As soon as the tank had come into view, two rockets lanced out. Both slammed into its mortar housing and the tank detonated. Infantry were swarming down the street. I adjusted my rifle slightly and it bucked around as it fired a burst toward the oncoming enemy. The troops around me all started firing almost simultaneously, causing an almost popcorn like sound. Plasma bolts started slamming into our cover, heating the already hot dry air. The Army infantrymen beside me took a round in his chest plate and collapsed to the ground. He was screaming as he clutched the wound.
"Medic!" unable to stop shooting to do anything for him, I popped back up as I switched the weapon over to semi-auto. An Elite was rushing toward my position. I aimed and fired, hoping he wasn't shielded. The first round punched through its chest plate and it screamed. I fired three more times into its chest, silencing it. A pair of grunts were behind it and I easily placed two perfect head shots on them. I ducked back down as a salvo of rounds crashed into the sandbags, heating the now scorching hot air almost to the point that it was unbearable. I popped back up and emptied my last three rounds into a jackal toting a carbine. Only two connected, but it was enough to cripple it. The medic arrived as I reloaded.
"What was it?" his question was aimed at me.
"Just plasma." He nodded as he pulled out a bio-foam canister, using it to cover the wound. As soon as he was done, he dragged the wounded soldier back to a steadily growing pile of wounded. Two of my ODST's were already amongst them. Another's bio readings went offline, registering as KIA. I popped back up and started firing. Grunts and jackals alike collapsed under the barrage of rounds. The magazine emptied and I dropped down again.
As soon as a fresh mag was in, I popped back up to fire again. An elite major was less than ten feet away, his blue twin pronged energy sword ready to slice the first trooper it found into pieces. I flipped my weapon over to full-auto and sprayed it at the creature. Its shields held off almost the entire mag, but the last round punched through. It was less than a foot from striking distance when I yanked my pistol out of its holster on my thigh and fired a pair of slugs into the creatures head. Even though I wasn't using a standard issue 12.7mm magnum, both rounds punched through perfectly, blasting the creature's brains out the back of its head. My handgun was a 2437 remake of an old model 1911 handgun. Although the weapon was outdated to the point that it was obsolete, my father had given it to me before I had enlisted, in case the covenant showed up on our planet. I slipped my pistol back into its thigh holster as my radio crackled to life.
"Staff, where are you? The covenant is leaving this section alone, so I'm moving my team over to you." I did a quick count of my remaining magazines as I reloaded, coming up with only five total.
"Roger that, should still be south of you L-T. We've taken casualties here." He acknowledged as I kept firing. The elite had collapsed onto the sandbags. Covenant corpses littered the ground, slowly piling up. More plasma rounds slammed into the sandbags, fusing the out surface into a hard shell. My weapon emptied again, but instead of reloading, I grabbed the M7-Caseless Sub-Machinegun clipped to my hip. The weapon was held on by a magnet and a simple clip, just in case the magnet failed. I brought the weapon up and squeezed the trigger. The weapon bucked violently against my shoulder as I swept it back and forth across the charging covenant line. I dropped down to reload as the lieutenant's team arrived. Two of his troopers weren't with him.
"Staff Sergeant." The lieutenant seemed off.
"Casualties?!" his shoulders slumped as he dropped down to reload.
"Two KIA." I nodded and fired off another burst. An elite swordsman leapt over the sandbags, it's four mandibles that made up its jaw splayed open in a scream as it took a swing at the sergeant. He moved just fast enough to not have the blade slice through his gut, but it went clean through his leg. I spun and started firing my M7 into it. Its shields flared with their eerie blue color as the rounds pinged off. It kicked my chest and I flew onto the ground, my weapon spiraling away from my hand. The dead elite draped on the sandbags next to me had dropped its energy sword on my side of the barrier. I grabbed the weapon, but didn't activate it. The elite moved to thrust the blade into me when I activated the sword in my hand and swung forward, propping myself up to get extra reach. The blade grazed its abdomen, knocking out its shield. I yanked out my pistol and emptied the remaining five rounds into the elite's chest.
"Medic!" I quickly reloaded the weapon as I shouted that for the second time. The medic rushed over and wrapped a bandage onto the sergeant's stump. I scooped up my other weapon and the sword, placing the covenant weapon in the small pack at the small of my back. Scorching hot air shoved down on my body and I looked up as a Pelican glided overhead and set down near the wounded. Only twenty people or so were still up and fighting, half of them being ODSTs. Another pelican set down and its crew chief stepped out. He jogged over as I popped up and fired another burst. The chief slid up beside me.
"We can't get all of you out, but we aint getting anyone out if you don't hold this ground, got it?" I did a quick check of the troops around me. None of them were above the rank of Corporal, making me the highest ranking trooper in the area.
"We will." The crew chief nodded and sprinted back to the bird as the medics finished loading the wounded onto it. I fired the last few rounds in the magazine and dropped back down to reload. The two pelicans lifted off and gunned it, pitching their noses almost straight up.
"Renegade one two bravo, this is wraith five two. Heard you guys got left behind." I smiled and fired another burst at the covenant. They had scattered for whatever cover they could find.
"Much appreciated five two." I could hear the pelican behind me, but I held back for a few seconds to encourage the covenant to stay put.
"Staff, let's go!" Sánchez was shouting from a short way down the wall of sandbags. I turned and started sprinting toward the drop ship. An army trooper was sitting in the seat next to the ramp. She was strapped in and fired her rifle shortly before beckoning us toward the craft. Suddenly, a plasma mortar slammed into the Pelican's right rear engine bank. I dived to the ground as the craft's tail slammed into the ground. I felt sparks and heat slam into my back as it slid over me. I looked around, wondering why I wasn't crushed. Where I had dived was a crevice in the dry rock. I somehow had managed to land in the one crack in the ground. I stood and watched as the pelican regained control.
"Renegade one two bravo, you still kickin? I can't risk another lan…" his voice was cut off as a green fuel rod shot slammed into another one of its engines and the craft dropped into the city.
I did a quick head count of the troopers still alive nearby me. An army trooper had tumbled out of the troop bay and broken his leg. Two other troopers had been under the tail when it had dropped. Both corpses were mangled beyond recognition. Beasley and Holden were here as well as Sánchez. Two ODSTs from the sergeant's team were also left behind, along with a handful of marines.
"Come on people, we can't stay here, grab him!" I sprinted off up the hill, toward the crater. The briefing mentioned that the park was littered with caves, most of them were unexplored. Within a few seconds, I almost fell in one. It looked deep enough to hide all of us and I signaled the others in. I went in last. The cave was barely wide enough to let us in, but, after five meters or so, the tunnel opened up into a small chamber. The chamber was just barely large enough to accommodate the group in relative comfort.
"So what's the plan, kid?" Beasley had a burn on his chest plate.
"We wait for the covenant to loosen up, then we make a break for the city. From there, we try to find a slip space capable ship, human or otherwise." Sánchez stepped up beside him.
"How the hell are we going to fly a covenant ship, much less a human one?" I shook my head as I responded.
"I don't know. But we are sure as hell going to try."