Just Canon Fodder
Move Up!
September 25th 2552
Covenant Cruiser, The
Hopeful Sacrifice
In Slipspace
En Route to Earth
Poli and the rest of his pack of Grunts were resting in one of the many methane rich "Houses" aboard The Hopeful Sacrifice. Poli was fast asleep dreaming of a peaceful time where all of his kin lived on his home planet, when suddenly the Ship Master's voice roared through every intercom in the ship. "All hands prepare for battle; we will be arriving at Earth in 2 units."
The Hopeful Sacrifice was the part of the second wave of fighters attacking Earth. The first wave had been successful in destroying the majority of Earth's orbital defenses, and the second wave had at least 100 ships ready to lay waste to the Human's home world. Normally they would have just blasted the planet from space with the plasma weapons and be done with it, but this time it was different. Poli wondered why they had to go down and fight, but he was just a lowly Grunt, he did not question orders.
"You heard orders, move!" the leader of Poli's pack, Hera, shouted. Poli sluggishly put on what little armor he had and his methane tank, and began filing out of the barracks with the rest of his pack. They met with the Dock Master Humaree to find out which ship they were deployed to. "Platoon 53-C?" Humaree questioned. "Yes your Excellency." Hera answered. "Platoon 53-C reporting as ordered sir." "Very well, your dropship is dropship Horan-167 on deck 3B, two decks below us." The Dock Master said. "We're on our way there sir." They began to make their way through the crowds of grunts and elites alike to get to the grav lift.
The seven or so Grunts ran as fast as their legs could carry them to the drop ships that were stationed two decks below them. On the way there, they all started their little side conversations to help calm themselves. "We not get sent to front, we probably go in last." he youngest member of the pack Lapo muttered nervously. All of them talked like this, giving them false hope. But, everyone knew that they would be the first ones in and the first ones to die. Grunts were always the first ones in. This is the way things always worked, have always worked, and will always work. By the time they fought through the crowds and boarded their drop ship they had the first chance to see who else was in their squad.
They were all terrified when they learned they only had one Elite accompanying them, and a rookie nonetheless. He wore the standard blue armor issued to all Elite rookies. "We're dead." Lapo muttered under his breath. "Humph" The elite amused by the grunts fear. "There are more of my kin coming onboard so make room." The grunts all seemed to calm down a little and shuffled to the sides of the ship to make room for the elites that would be coming aboard soon. No matter how bad they treated grunts, elites were masters of the battlefield and gave grunts more of a chance to survive by being in their presence. Therefore, they would gladly welcome them aboard. The ship lurched forward, and then returned to normal as they came out of Slipspace. An eerie silence washed through the dropship as the pilot waited for the other to arrive. Cutting through the silence, the ship's master alarm bared through the speakers all over the ship.
- - - - - -
"Status report!" ship master Hundaeem shouted.
"Multiple impacts on the port bow!" the helmsman cried.
"Damn." Hundaeem thought, "The humans were waiting for us." Another impact
"Our shields are down"
"Evasive actions get us out of here!"
The ship lurched violently to the right, and alarms blared all over the ship as the humans Archer pod missiles hit their ship.
"We've lost control, we're going down!"
No more was said on the bridge, as a MAC round blew clean through the center of the ship, causing everything that dared to stand in its' way, including the bridge, and everyone on it, to simply cease to exist.
- - - - - -
From the dropship, Poli could see the ship lurch violently to the right. "We're launching, now!" the pilot called out. "But, there are more men coming aboard. We must wait!" The Elite rookie shouted. "There's no time, we're launching" There was no time to argue further as an explosion rocked the deck and two dropships next to theirs burst into flames. Before they knew it, the dropship was in space and heading towards their destination, a place the Humans called, Alaska.
Their mission was to infiltrate and destroy a Human supply plant that had been supplying fuel and weapons to Human forces all over the world. Destroying this would greatly affect the battle raging on other parts of the planet. Originally, there was going to be at least 100 dropships attacking this base, but due to unforeseeable circumstances, that attack force was whittled down to just about 35 ships. This was not what was planned, but they had to make due and hope for the best.
- - - - - -
The ride down to the surface went smooth enough. When they landed and the dropship door opened, a gale of show and wind blew into the dropship and made everyone, including the Elite, flinch.
"It cold. Out tanks might freeze." Lapo said. "There's no time for that, move Grunt!" When they surveyed their surroundings, they found that out of the thousand of troops planned to attack, only about 200 grunts 50 jackals, and 50 elites made it to the surface.
They all shuffled out of the ship and were met by gusts of wind that knocked down a few grunts. Some Elites that were in the other dropships laughed at the attempts of the grunts as they struggled to regain their balance. But quickly ceased as the leader of the attack Ramandee raises his arm in the air order his troops to silence themselves. "Move out" he said. As one, the 300 or so troops moved towards their goal. Wind whipped at their faced while they walked for what seemed like hours until the scouts ahead of everyone singled the battalion to stop. Up ahead, the scouts saw a patrol of three vehicles. Three of what the Humans called Warthogs, with three humans in each. The real problem was the huge tank that slowly brought up the rear, and was not noticed by the scouts until the last seconds, as it had been repainted in order to camouflage itself. "Heavy weapons!" the scout shouted. Twenty grunts armed with fuel rod canons ran up to the front and unleashed a volley of plasma towards the clueless humans below.
- - - - - -
Private Phillips was the only one who saw it coming. He shouted for everybody to get down, but it fell on deaf ears as 20 bombs of burning plasma crashed down upon then, melting the metal on the four vehicles. The Scorpion tank had barley managed to survive the initial volley, and PFC Williams took aim at the group of grunts that had just killed some of his closest friends. However, before he could fire the tanks main gun a second attack came at him. His machine gunner had managed to bail out in time but the other two crewmembers were not as lucky as the armor was melted instantly flash frying everyone inside.
Sergeant Burns and just managed to escape the death trap and immediately radioed back to HQ for help. "Can anyone here me? This is Sergeant Burns of patrol 3. Covenant forces are inbound! I repeat Covenant forces are" Before he could finish his sentence, his head exploded as a Jackal sharpshooter cut him off.
The distant sound of alarms pierced through the night as the Sergeants distress call got through. "There's no need to be secret any longer move up! Full charge!" the veteran ordered. The attack force ran at full sprint towards their destination: Crystal Outpost.
- - - - - -
"Do you understand the plan Ramandee?" "Yes your Excellency, I will not fail you." "For your sake I hope you don't, Vhanladee out."
Commander Vhanladee's last words had caused a strange feeling to build in the pit of Ramandees's stomach. However, he quickly put it aside as he called to his warriors, "We are being sent reinforcements, a full regiment of Wraiths from the north, and a squad of Spec Ops from the East. Our objective is to distract the majority of their forces to us while the Spec Ops. Infiltrate the base and eliminate the humans' commanding officer, and destroy their communications. Then, while the humans are confused, we send word to the wraiths, and they will start to bombard the base, and then we charge the humans and kill every one of them."
A roar of approval came from the troops at Ramandee's last words. However, there were no shouts or battle cries from the grunts. They knew that they would be sent in first and would most likely all be dead before the wraiths even started to fire. It was the fate of simple grunts they had little training and were almost expected to sacrifice themselves for the elites. However, if they refused their orders they had less chance of surviving than if they went to battle as the elites would most likely just kill them for sport, so they pressed on.
They encountered only a few humans on their way to the base and they easily mowed them down with no causalities. When the base finally came into sight three elites picked up their pace, eager to be the first ones to kill, but their eagerness and hope ended as a steady "Crack. Crack. Crack" of a sniper rifles dropped them to the ground.
"Snipers! Scatter and continue to advance towards the humans!" They quickly spread into six even groups of 50 spread 100 meters apart. Poli was separated from his pack and could only hope the best for them, but now was the time to worry about himself. As bullets flied all around him.
A grunt next to him dropped to the ground, another, and then two more. Grunts, jackals, and elites alike were being cut down. Almost one fourth of the entire battalion had been killed by the time they got in range. But, as soon as they did get in range walls of blue and green plasma filled the sky and impacted on the snipers positions. By the time they were around 200 meters away from the camp's first line of defenses the humans were out in full force anxiously waiting for those bastards the get in range.
- - - - - -
"You think those idiots will fall into the trap?" Sergeant Banks quickly replied, "Are you a goddamned moron Joe, they're dumb as shit, of course they will." After the distress call from Burns, they had hastily set up a minefield to stop the Covenant in their tracks, but they hadn't counted on them being spread so thinly. If they didn't regroup only about half of them would be in range of the minefield. "Doesn't matter" banks thought to himself, "Half should be enough." But there were two more things they hadn't counted on. The Spec Ops. Ready to slaughter everyone inside their base, and the Wraith tanks ready to lay waste to them. "Orders sir?" a young recruit said. "Let em' come to us, then blow them to hell after they hit the mines." "Yes sir!" The soldier then ran off to inform his squad leader of the plan. "This should fun" the Sergeant thought to himself and smiled.
- - - - - -
Poli and his squad were almost within firing range when the commander began to shout, "Pull back, pull back! Mines!" The order came soon enough so save a good portion of the squads, including Poli's squad, but came to late for two of the squads who were already deep within the minefield. They cautiously started to walk back the way they came retracing their footsteps, when one of the grunts panicked and began to run. Another grunt tried to stop him but missed and both of them stepped on mines. This cause a chain reaction setting of every mine near them incinerating both squads and killing a few members of other various squads who weren't far enough away.
Poli heard a human yell out, "We've got em' fire at will!" at this point all hell broke loose the squad that was closest to the base attempted to get away and establish some sort of defense against the onslaught. Unfortunately, a well-placed rocket hit the center of the group leaving the survivors easy targets for human sharp shooters. Ramandee cursed in an alien tongue and began to bark orders, "All remaining squads spread out and keep moving, don't make yourselves easy targets." A grenade that exploded near him stopped him but he quickly finished his orders. "The Spec Ops. are in the building and the Wraiths will join in shortly. Keep advancing!"
Poli had heard the orders, but didn't like the nervous tone in the Elites' voice. Elites were almost never nervous in battle, but for a commander to be nervous, that was unheard of. Like it or not, his squad had already begun to move up but he didn't want to be left behind so he quickly caught up with them and began to fire his overcharged plasma pistol at the humans position, killing a few in the process. They continued to advance on the human's position experiencing only about 10 casualties along the way. Before they knew it, they were fighting in the heart of the humans' first line of defense. Now, they could only hope to stay alive long enough for the Spec Ops. to finish their job.
- - - - - -
Yaldemee and his group of Spec Ops. continued down the path leading towards the heart of the base. According to intelligence, a high-ranking human was hiding in there. Yaldemee believed his name was…..General …Goodman, not that it mattered anyway. When they first infiltrated the base he had split his forces into two groups; five in each. Group 2 had just reported that communications were destroyed and they were heading behind the humans' defenses to silently kill as many as they could then get out, and join the front lines. It was now up two Yaldemee's group of elites to kill this…General, and turn the tide of the battle. They met little resistance on the way their, odd, considering this was supposed to be an extremely high-ranking human. Yaldemee could have laughed at the lack of security but he had learned to keep such outbursts controlled long ago. When they finally reached the bases control room they silently entered. There were two guards standing at the open door, but thanks to their active camouflage they were unnoticed. Yaldemee snuck up behind the general while the other Spec Ops. prepared to kill the nearest threats. With a simple flick of the wrists, the human's neck snapped in two. The other elites did the same, and as one, all five elites de-activated their camouflage and pulled out energy swords. They slashed at everyone they saw until they were they only five left in the room. The humans never even had the chance to fire a weapon. "Pathetic" Yaldemee muttered. He tapped the communications button on his helmet to tell the commander of their success.
- - - - - -
"We were successful; contact the wraiths to begin firing." "Understood" Ramandee said. He then connected to the commander of the tank attack. "Move in" He barked. Hundreds of meters ahead he could see dozens of plasma bombs approach the base. He then radioed every troop still alive, "Kill every human you see, charge!" Battle cries came from the elites as they ran towards the humans gazing in fear of the superheated plasma bombs heading straight for their base. Elites dropped their weapons and pulled out energy swords and slashed at the confused humans. By the time the first volley hit the base, half of the humans were dead, including the snipers and machine guns on the top of the base.
- - - - - -
Banks saw the slaughter going on in front of him and realized that if he did not act quickly their wouldn't be a defensive position anymore. He shouted, "The first line has been over run! Fall back to the second line!" The troops gladly retreated towards the base, and as the last human got away Banks muttered to himself, "I'm not out of tricks yet you assholes."
- - - - - -
Ramandee saw the humans pulling back and yelled out, "Charge them wile their backs' are turned!" What was left of his troops began to run after them when twin rockets came out of nowhere impacting and killing about 25 more troops. The humans had hidden two tanks in fire pits, covering them with snow and painting their barrels white making them nearly invisible to the naked eye. Ramandee quickly acted and jumped onto one of them, digging through the snow, until he found the metal. He began to bash at the metal until it cracked, and he lobbed two plasma grenades through it. He heard the satisfying screams of the humans occupying the vehicle flowed by a steady" Thump thump." Following his example, another elite did the same thing to the second tank. The rest of the forces, consisting of about 100 troops, started towards the humans' second line of defense.
- - - - - -
"Shit!" Banks screamed, "Give them hell marines, fire at will!" just after he finished his sentence a round of overcharged plasma hit him directly in the face decapitating him from the shoulders up. The marines began to panic, seeing their noncom die, and began firing blindly into the night hoping to hit something. Oblivious to the tanks behind them as the second volley hit directly into the humans' position.
- - - - - -
The Covenant troops easily picked off any stragglers, and after clearing the exterior of the base, they began to enter the base. They were met with little resistance as they mopped up the surviving humans, taking only one prisoner for interrogation. When they reached the center of the center of the building the set up three bombs set them for ten minutes, then got the hell out.
After retreating about 500 meters away from the base, they turned back to see a brilliant explosion consuming the entire base with flames. Poli finally had time to look around and see what was left of the strike team. Out of the originally thousand planned to attack; only 50 remained. None of the 25 surviving grunts were part of Poli's pack however. Poli wanted to mourn for the loss of his brothers, but could not as five dropships came to pick them up. Since The Hopeful Sacrifice had been destroyed, they were being sent back to a quickly established base. Poli hoped he wouldn't see any more battles and that after they had taken this planet the war would be over and he could finally see his home planet, and mourn the millions of grunt casualties. Sadly, this was not to be….
Please review, another chapter will be up shortly if get enough positive feedback. Constructive Criticism is appreciated, but please don't be too harsh as this is my very first fanfic, and pretty much the first time I've ever written anything that didn't involve a school report. .
