Chapter 2: Yet Another Hard Landing
UNSC Solomon's Fury
In orbit around Rama II
"You'll imagine how surprised I was," Captain Michael Danvers grinned as he lead Daniel through the bowels of the UNSC warship, "when I found out that you, of all people, were going to show up here. I thought you put your Marine days behind you."
"I thought I did too." Daniel shrugged.
Michael was one of Daniel's old Marine buddies, and they had both trained together. However, unlike Daniel, Michael stayed on in the Marines and eventually climbed his way up to a rank of Captain.
"So yeah, I got a call from Command, and all they told me was to prep you for rapid insertion onto the surface." Michael whistled. "Boy, I don't envy you there, it's a total mess on the ground."
"What's the situation?"
"Bad on all fronts." Michael frowned. "The Covenant landed in force and have pretty much taken the southern half of the main continent. The Helljumpers we sent in to counter their push got scattered all over the damn place, and we have no clear idea where any of them are."
"By the way, where are we going?" Daniel asked, looking around.
"We're going to the ship's HEV launch deck."
"Wait, what?" Daniel nearly stopped. "We're not being flown in?"
"If the Marine you're looking for is a Helljumper, then chances are she's slogging around in a place where the Pelicans won't touch with a ten mile pole." Michael explained. "The only areas safe enough to set down in one are on the northern end of the continent, but good luck going south. Our forces have set up a defensive line and nothing gets in or out of it."
They continued walking until they reached the entrance to the HEV launch deck. Guarding the door was a trio of Helljumpers led by a short but aggressive looking sergeant. He saluted Michael, but glared at Daniel.
"Is there a problem, Sergeant?" Michael asked, his eyes narrowing.
"Nothing sir, it's just that we've been letting a lot of civilians on lately." The sergeant said the word 'civilian' with poisonous contempt.
"Listen here, soldier." Michael growled. "Private Avers here was forced to leave the service because he suffered from seven ruptured organs, thirty broken bones, and had one arm and both of his legs crushed in a freak Pelican accident which took him almost two years to recover from. Now, I don't know what you define a true Marine as, Sergeant, but Avers here deserves just as much respect as any Marine. Now you will salute him, and open that door, is that clear?"
Unable to defy the word of a superior officer, the Helljumper clenched his teeth and muttered, "Yes sir."
"You know, that wasn't really necessary." Daniel said as they passed the sentries.
"Sorry about that. I just can't stand the arrogance some these Helljumpers have, especially the younger ones." Michael admitted. "They can be a serious pain in the ass. Speaking of which…"
Michael dug into his pocket and handed Daniel a small data chip.
"What is this?" Daniel asked, looking at the device curiously.
"That's your field promotion, Captain Avers." Michael grinned. "Another gift from your mysterious benefactors. Mighty useful too, since it'll let you boss around most other Marines without too many questions asked."
As they stepped onto the main launch deck, Daniel caught sight of a group of four soldiers dressed in black carapace armor. However, it wasn't a type that he could recognize, which meant they most likely weren't Marines, or even ODSTs.
"Are those special forces?" Daniel whispered.
"Not exactly." Michael shook his head. "Even with the connections your superiors have, Command is unwilling to risk perfectly good Marines, so they instead opted to hire a PMC to escort you."
"So they're basically mercenaries."
"We prefer the term 'civilian specialists'." The lead contractor said. "I'm Captain Willard of Jenkins & Rogers. These fine men and women here are Privates Kelly, Mores, and McGillon."
Daniel had heard of Jenkins & Rogers, or J&R for short. It was one of the many PMCs that had risen to prominence during the war. They were known for having one of the highest combat efficiency ratings among other PMCs, but were not without its critics. There were many complaints and protests about alleged crimes and human rights violations. However, in the midst of a war it was slowly losing, the UNSC conveniently ignored these accusations. Fortunately, nothing about this quartet of soldiers for hire seemed malicious.
"Alright." Michael cut in. "Solomon's Fury is going to hit low orbit over Rama II in thirty minutes. Now, it can't stay in position for very long, so you're dropping the moment we get into position. Your designated LZ is set where we estimate the greatest concentration of Helljumpers are. Once you achieve your objective, you're to make your way to the northern end of the continent, since conventional means of extraction are unavailable."
Suddenly, an alarm blared and the entire bay was bathed in red light. Michael then grabbed Daniel's shoulder and pointed at the nearest open pod.
"That's the signal for emergency maneuvers! Get into the pod now!"
"But aren't we-"
"No time!" Michael cut Daniel off. "That means sensors have detected a Covenant ship nearby! The ship can't afford to stay on this course any longer!"
Already, the J&R soldier were in their pods and prepping for launch. Daniel snuggled himself into his pod and watched as the pod doors slammed shut. There was a brief holographic prompt to remind him to strap in for reentry and landing. The sudden acceleration as the HEV was shot out of its launch tube startled Daniel, though he couldn't do much since the acceleration locked him into place. As he looked out the viewport, he could see the other three pods in front of him, glowing orange as they hit the atmosphere. Within seconds, Daniel's pod began to glow as well. However, as he looked down, his stomach knotted when he saw the back end of a Covenant Seraph fighter. He watched in horror as the alien fighter bracketed the pods in front of him with plasma fire, causing all three to explode in clouds of fire and liquefied metal. Fortunately for Daniel, the Seraph was apparently targeting visually, as it did not notice his presence and the fighter boosted away as a flight of Longswords came to investigate. Daniel knew there was little the Human-piloted craft could do, and he looked back down at the planet, dreading what he would find on the surface.
Dry Bone Plateau
Rama II
Drek Fezamee looked up to see a star fall from the sky.
"We've detected another pod coming down!" One of his Unggoy announced.
"Where?" Fezamee asked, his bloodlust already beginning to simmer. His sector, being a nearly bone-dry desert, was almost devoid of all life. At least the kind that put up a worthy fight. All he and his unit had run into was sand, and the occasional isolated pocket of Human habitation.
"It's automatically homing in on the anomalous signal we've been tracking."
"Two birds with a single stone." Fezamee grinned. "Power the transport and gather the rest of the Unggoy. We're going on the hunt."
Six Miles Away
Since he was never trained as an ODST, Daniel wasn't prepared for the sudden shock of both the firing of the HEV's retro-rockets and the sheer impact when it hit the ground. As he stumbled out of the pod and gathered his gear, he noticed something odd just a few meters to his right. He moved closer to inspect the object and realized that it was an HEV beacon. This specialized piece of equipment was used by Pathfinders, the most elite of the Marine units. They were the brave soldiers who pulled the ODSTs and regular Marines forward, scouting out and marking LZs so troops can land safely, as well as providing vital ground intelligence to commanders. Daniel realized that his HEV detected the signal and automatically homed in on it. He then wondered for a second why such a thing would still be sitting out here.
However, his train of thought was broken when he heard the alien whine of Covenant engines. Though it had been years since he last used one, Daniel drew his rifle and made sure it was armed. He then backed away from the pod, making sure to take out all of the necessary gear and supplies first.
A few minutes later, a Covenant Shadow lumbered in, its thrusters kicking up dry desert sand into a cloud of fine dust. So far, none of the aliens seemed to have noticed him, and he believed that he could be able to slip away unnoticed until an armor piercing rocket whistled out of nowhere and struck the Shadow directly in its bulbous cockpit, incinerating the driver. With no intelligence at the controls, the Shadow slewed to the right and smashed into the downed HEV, flipping onto its side and rendering the vehicle's dorsal mounted plasma turret useless. Immediately, an Elite and a slew of Grunts began piling out of the vehicle in an attempt to escape. Daniel could hear the barking of an assault rifle and several of the Grunts fell over and didn't get back up. The Covenant troops returned fire, sending a cloud of plasma fire smashing into the sand dunes. Daniel realized that they were facing away from him, so he primed a grenade and hurled it. The small explosive fell amongst the Covenant formation and exploded, sending Grunts flying. The lone Elite then turned to face Daniel. The alien snarled and charged at him, but then spasmed and fell as two three round bursts pierced its depleted shields and entered its back.
As the Elite fell down, Daniel could see a lone Marine standing behind it and quickly making her way towards him, rifle raised.
"Identify yourself." The nameless Marine demanded, rifle still trained on Daniel.
"I'm Human, if that's what you mean." Daniel half raised his hands. "Captain Daniel Avers, ODST."
"Private Alicia Melchior, 7th Pathfinders." The other Marine replied, lowering her rifle. "You know, I set up that beacon to draw out that Covvie patrol. I never expected it to actually call down reinforcements."
"Well, don't get your hopes up, because it's pretty much just me." Daniel said solemnly.
"Well it's nice to know that I'm not totally on my own out here." Alicia gave a light smile, her dull brown eyes somehow able to dazzle Daniel. Upon closer inspection, Daniel noticed her long brown hair tucked under her helmet, and the fact that she was wearing very light armor, compared to the bulky ODST carapace armor he had on. This served as yet another distraction, as the more form-fitting light armor merely highlighted Alicia's light and slender frame. In addition to her lighter armor, her unit patch and her carbine-pattern MA5B marked her as a Pathfinder.
"Sorry, but at the risk of sounding stupid, do you know where we are?" Daniel asked, finally snapping his gaze away from Alicia's eyes.
"Honestly, I'm not too sure. What do you know?"
"That we're somewhere on the southern end of the main continent."
"Good enough." Alicia sighed.
"Then I guess directions are out of the question."
"Quite." Alicia looked up in the sky and pointed at the setting sun. "We'd better get to shelter fast. When the desert gets cold, it gets cold."
Nodding, Daniel grabbed his gear and followed the Pathfinder deeper into the dry wastes.
Earth
"So you're on the planet right now?" David asked through his prototype Slispace phone.
"That's right." Daniel's fuzzy voice replied, being transmitted from light years away. "All I can say is that I'm dirtside and looking for the objective."
"Ha, you sound so much like a Marine I forgot you were a lawyer." David smiled as he cracked the lame joke. "Call back when you find her."
"Roger that."
David deactivated the phone and sighed. He sifted through his e-mail and voicemail and found it had been filled to the brim with frantic queries from Anthony's family and their respective lawyers, all demanding to see the contents of the will. So far, David had been able to legally stonewall all their efforts, but it wouldn't be long until they managed to convince some federal judge to order a subpoena. However, it really didn't matter. It was only roughly another eighteen days before Anthony's deadline. No, what concerned him more were the reports from his private investigators. Apparently, some of the shadier relatives were putting out feelers to common websites, meeting areas, and ads that were frequented by hitmen, and there were disturbing rumors of even hiring out PMCs as well. David had tried to put the lid down on these feelers as best he could, but it was only a matter of time before civilian prowlers would start making their way to Rama II…
Dry Bone Plateau
"So that's how things are going, huh?" Alicia sighed.
Daniel and Alicia were taking shelter in an abandoned road shed. In brighter days, it was one shed in a line of many that lined the rural desert roads that crisscrossed this area, connecting the various towns and villages scattered around. These sheds served as checkpoints for road maintenance crews, and in cases of dire need, emergency shelters for stranded drivers. However, as Alicia led Daniel inside, he saw that the shed had been abandoned long before the Covenant ever thought about landing on Rama II. There were a few boxes of ammo, some weapons, and a small pile of supplies scattered about. Chemical glow rods provided light, but both Marines had to depend on the clothes on their backs and the walls of the shed to ward off the freezing desert cold.
Since they had nothing else to do, Daniel and Alicia talked, about various things, but mostly how they got stuck on Rama II. Daniel gave her a very broad, but truthful version of the story. An ODST on Rama II had some influential connections. These connections, concerned with the well-being of this certain ODST, wanted her pulled out of the warzone.
"Figures." Alicia snorted as Daniel finished recounting his story. "I wish I had something like that. I joined up with the Marines because I honestly had no choice. On the planet I come from, the planetary government has this system where in the event of war, every physically fit person over fifteen is drafted into the planetary defense force and then sent to the Marines once they hit eighteen."
"That's horrible." Daniel blanched, wondering how such a law even got past the courtroom.
"That's war." Alicia sighed. "Anyways, it was two days after my fifteenth birthday that I got the notice to ship out. Spent the next three years training and came into the Marines as Pathfinder."
Alicia continued on about what she did when she initially landed on the planet. As a Pathfinder, she and her squad were the first Marines to hit the ground. Already, things were looking bad. They had landed over fifty miles off target, and only had roughly seven hours to set up their beacons and clear the LZs for the ODSTs. They did manage to set up their beacons in time, but it was a wasted effort. When the troopships were forced to launch their HEVs early, none were in range to home in on the beacons effectively. All they seemed to do was attract Covenant attention. In a futile attempt to hold the LZs until the ODSTs dropped, three quarters of Alicia's squad was killed. The rest were slowly picked off while trying to evade Covenant patrols, until it was just Alicia left. With no hope of relief or rescue, she had decided to embark on a one woman crusade against the Covenant, spending the last week staging guerilla attacks on the scattered patrols and outposts in the area.
"Well I suppose something nice came out of all this." Alicia smiled.
"What's that?" Daniel asked.
"Now I've actually got something to worry about." Alicia patted Daniel on the shoulder. "Get some sleep, I'll take first watch."
The Next Day
The searing heat of the desert sun and the bite of the dry sand made Daniel almost miss the freezing cold nights. During the early morning, he and Alicia had hammered out a plan. They would make their way to the closest population center and try and scrounge up extra supplies and transportation to go northwards, where the greatest concentration of ODSTs would most likely be. As they trudged through the thick desert sand, Alicia stopped.
"Is something the matter?" Daniel asked.
"Maybe." Alicia pointed at the horizon. "That town I mentioned is just over that dune, but before we go in, I need to find something out first."
"What is it?"
"What's your combat experience?"
"Uhhh, admittedly not that much." Daniel said sheepishly. "That little skirmish we had yesterday was the first time I saw a live Covvie."
"Wonderful. The first Marine I see in over a week and he's a newbie." Alicia rolled her eyes and pointed to Daniel's rifle. "At least you know how to shoot the damn thing, right?"
"Of course."
"That's good enough." Alicia started moving forward again. "I have to warn you. Last time I was here, the whole place was crawling with Covvies. I had no idea why, but there's no reason not to suspect that there aren't at least few sticking around."
"Lead the way then."
The two Marines slowly slinked closer and closer to the desolate desert town, using the rolling sand dunes as cover against possible sentries. They eventually hit the outer edge of the town and started taking advantage of the bombed out and burned structures to shield their approach. Daniel mentally noted the fallen road sign as they entered town: Welcome to Perfection. As they moved through the ruins, Daniel couldn't help but feel sorrow as he saw all of the destroyed buildings, from shops to houses. However, it wasn't until they ventured even deeper when they realized the true horror of the Covenant attack. Lying in the middle of the street were hundreds of bodies. There was the odd Grunt and Jackal strewn about, but the vast majority were Human. However, they were Humans of all size, sex, and age. Daniel glanced over to Alicia and realized that even the battle-hardened Pathfinder was visibly shaken. Alicia had spent years fighting the Covenant, but she had never been in a situation where she could witness the aftermath of an alien occupation.
What made things worse was that due to the desert heat and the lack of moisture, all of the bodies were almost perfectly preserved, showing little decay even after almost half a month had passed. They looked almost as if they were still alive, merely sleeping until they decided to wake up again.
"All these people…" Daniel shook his head.
"Damnit." Alicia cursed.
Neither Marine said anything else as they carefully, almost reverently snaked their way through the mass of dead. Daniel silently noted that quite a few were armed, with some of the bodies wearing badges and uniforms of local law enforcement. It was fairly obvious that they had died valiantly defending the civilians in this town.
Suddenly, he and Alicia winced as a whine of static pierced their ears before a fuzzy voice yelled through their radios.
"This is Sergeant Welkins of the 8th Planetary Guard! If anybody can hear this message, please respond!"
"This is Captain Avers of the 109th ODST! What's your position?"
"Uh, we're on the south end of town." Daniels responded.
"Head to the water treatment plant on the east side. You can't miss it." Welkins said. "Hurry up. It won't take long for the Covvies to realize we're broadcasting."
"You think you can get us there undetected?" Daniels asked Alicia.
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to?" Alicia grinned. "Just follow my lead."
True to Welkin's words, Daniel and Alicia discovered that there were indeed Covenant still occupying the town. Alicia was perplexed by this revelation. In her experience, Covenant troops rarely occupied Human towns and installations for more than a few days, much less half a month, before moving off to the next pocket of resistance. She suspected there was something deeper going on here, but she couldn't afford to waste time wondering what.
After several more minutes of evading Covenant patrols and hiding out in the shadows of destroyed buildings, both Daniel and Alicia finally made their way to the town's water treatment plant. In contrast to the rest of the town, the plant was oddly intact, and appeared to still be in operation.
"This is the place." Daniel said.
"Yeah, but where's the welcoming party?" Alicia eyed their surroundings carefully.
"Hey! You two! Over here!"
Daniel and Alicia looked down to see a dirty, but very Human, face poking out of the ground from a manhole.
"Down here!" The man said before quickly disappearing down the hole.
Daniel glanced at Alicia and said, "Ladies first."
"And who said chivalry was dead?" Alicia smiled before disappearing down the hole.
Daniel took one last look around before jumping into the manhole himself. He then carefully pulled the manhole lid back into position, making sure it was locked into place.
Perfection Water Treatment Facility
"You can't imagine how surprised we were," Sergeant Talbert Welkins sighed happily, "when we finally got a response from our radio calls. Granted, we were hoping for the cavalry to come, but this is definitely better than nothing."
Welkins and the ten men under his command were part of the Rama II Planetary Guard. The Guard is essentially the civilian reserve force for the UNSC Army, which is actually charged with planetary defense. However, in times of war or great need, PG units can be activated to serve on the frontlines, and many didn't have much a choice when the Covenant started landing. Welkins was part of a company of around 150 men tasked with defending Perfection and the surrounding towns, but they were quickly overwhelmed by the waves of Covenant. Welkins took what few men were left and retreated to the underground utility halls and caverns under the town. Since then, they've been harassing the occupying Covenant force by any means possible, though it was plainly obvious to everybody that they could not keep up this level of resistance forever.
"So we need enough transportation to get the thirteen of us out of this desert, along with enough supplies to keep us going along the way." Alicia concluded.
"Where can we find that stuff?" Daniel asked.
"There's a motorpool near the center of town." Welkins pointed to the tattered map in front of him. "That was where we stored all our vehicles before we were forced to ditch them. There's a good chance they may still be in there."
"Okay, so it's a simple smash and grab then." Daniel concluded.
"Not exactly." Welkins shook his head. "During our raids, we found out that the Covenant were up to more than just occupying the town."
"Really?" Alicia was genuinely interested now. She wasn't the only one who had noticed the Covenant's odd behavior.
"There's something we have to take care of first before we leave." Welkins said solemnly.
"What is it?" Daniel asked.
"I think it'll be better if I show you." Welkins picked up his rifle. "Follow me."