Comedy based disclaimer about how I own nothing.
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"DOWN!" Anderson yelled as squad two began to disappear from his unit vitality screen, and five blacked out SUVs rounded the corner coming from the ramp, jackknifing as they came into a shallow V shaped formation, all with a strange looking side facing his squad as booted figures spilled out to the inside of the V before they even came to a stop.
Anderson dove behind a concrete support pillar as he threw a grenade under the center vehicle. He turned on the All-Hands Circuit and shouted "CONTACT!" Then switched to his platoon frequency "THIRD TO SECOND!" He called out as Second was down to three Marines already. First wasn't doing so well either unfortunately, he could see. His unit had been paralyzed by shock for the first few crucial seconds, and two men went down before they even began to move, one with a gaping hole between his eyes, and the other clawing at a throat that was once whole.
Before they got to cover, a third fell as a lucky shot drilled clean through his eye, but the surviving eight had their training kick in as they began to return fire upon two men in bluejeans and t-shirts who tried to vault over the hoods to the cry of "To the Elevator!"
Anderson involuntarily glanced at the Elevator and saw that it was descending rapidly to the garage from the exhibition floor. He got back on the AHC and called out "They're after whoever's on that elevator, someone stop that damn thing!" but the circuit was being overwhelmed by commanders calling for reinforcements, apparently Innies emerged from the crowds, and open fire on the units watching the front line. He leaned out and unleashed a burst at one of the SUVs, hoping to catch the fuel tank of one, only to have his bullets all just bounce off.
He quickly ducked back behind to avoid the barrage of bullets hitting where he had just been firing, and rounded to the other side of the pillar.. He saw a rocket-man lining up a shot, and he went to his calm place, and fired a three round burst into the man's unarmored stomach. Anderson's training proved true, the rounds went straight through the center mass, uninhibited by the T-shirt, but the same could not be said about the men firing on his squad. Most of the shots caught the chest plate of the standard issue M52C and failed to penetrate, as it was even more resilient then it's predecessor the M52B, but it still left the face and a large portion of the neck entirely exposed to enemy fire.
Anderson dove behind a car closer to his squad and right by the elevator as the man's dying spasms launched the rocket, wreathing the pillar in flame. He glanced at his vitality screen once again, and saw that second squad had been totally annihilated, but it looked like third was wreaking a divine vengeance upon those who would dare to slaughter their buddies. He saw another two of his men fall to his left and called out "They're trying to flank us! BEND IN THE FLANKS!" As the six survivors pulled into a formation more akin to a horseshoe, facing the Innies advancing through fire and maneuver.
To his horror, Anderson heard the elevator ding open, and in the adrenaline high, he could see it all in perfect clarity. There was an Elite in purple armor that was obviously ceremonial to a trained soldier like Anderson, with a deactivated plasma rifle at his side talking to two men, one in a navy blue suit, the other in a gray. They were both rather pudgy, and looked more at home in a lab then around people, but they were animatedly discussing whatever topic they were going on about with a woman inserting the random comment. Time seemed to slow down as he sprang from cover. The first ring of shots from the Innies quickly felled the surprised Elite before they saw him move and concentrated on him as the woman seemed to almost grab the two men by the scruff of their necks, and pull them down with her. The elevator had been built for cars and people, so had wide spaces on either side of the doors, and she pulled them behind one as Anderson cried out "Fall back to the elevator!"
A seventh man fell before the indomitable assault by the Innies who seemed numberless as the survivors fell back to the elevator. As Anderson covered their retreat, he felt one of his knee pads buckle and shatter as a bullet slammed through, and he fell to his knee's. "Fall back! Leave me! Protect the civilians!" He felt a second shock as his chest-plate gave way, better does not mean perfect he thought as he began to fade into unconsciousness from shock, he could feel more then see that someone was crouching beside him, firing a rifle.
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As her speech ended, Dr Carlson quietly exited stage left, her feet were killing her as she met up with two of her project leads, Dr. Charles, a small balding man in his late fifties wearing a navy blue suit, he headed up the team working on improving shields, and Dr. Longhoffer, a gangly middle-aged man in a gray suit who headed up the fabrication team. "Hold up a second." She whispered as she pulled off her heels and changed into a black pair of flats she had in her purse. The three then proceeded to walk a bit further off before speaking to avoid being heard over the next speaker. "So how do you think it went?"
"Seemed to go rather well, the viewers seemed suitably impressed, and the shields should hold up to such standards, theoretically... so long as the power-plant keeps up." Dr. Charles said nervously as they headed to the elevator.
"Ho! Humans!" ASangheiliin purple armor approached the three. "Researcher Chujek' Wakanai, they said that you were the ones to speak to about the time-line for the upgrade of our ships?"
"Walk with us." Ericka said.
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As the elevator approached the garage floor, She began to hear cracking sounds, and the three men were talking consciously louder to be heard over the popping noises, the almost sounded like... She tensed "Guys, I think-" She was cut off as the elevator dinged open to a scene from a war-zone, burning cars, dead bodies, and men still firing at one another. She grabbed her two associates by the scruff of their neck as it seemed like every gun in the room tore into Wakanai and pulled them bodily to the ground, their stunned frames offering no resistance, and dragging them to the cover offered by the wide door frame as one of the men, a marine yelled out "Fall back to the elevator!"
She saw a man go down to enemy fire, crumpling to the ground as the others retreated, then she saw the one who issued the order fall, crying out "Fall back! Leave me! Protect the civilians!" She didn't know what came over her, but she ran out to him, and grabbed his rifle, it wasn't that different then the ones her father had her use when they went hunting when she was a little girl, before her mother said that such things were too dangerous for a little girl.
She lined up her sights on the first man trying to hit her, and repeating the mantra, "Its just a deer, its just a deer." she fired hitting him square in the chest. She pivoted on her knee, taking a breath, lining up a shot, and down went another. She turned to take a third, when that man went down on his own. Suddenly, there were marines seemingly all around her, and she remembered why she was out here. She began to drag the man into the elevator, leaving a small trail of crimson blood on the white concrete ground.
She managed to drag the now unconscious marine into the elevator, the other four laying down covering fire and as soon as they were clear, one of the marines hit the door close button with the fireman's keys, they closed immediately, and he punched the ground floor button. The Marines breathed a collective sigh of relief. Ericka felt for a pulse on the marine who she had saved as the bio-foam injectors started triggering across his suit, filling in the vital holes. Upon finding the pulse, she rose, went to the opposite corner of the elevator, and proceeded to lose her breakfast.
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Mamu looked around, rather confused but then again he usually was. Everything was so tall, he could hardly reach anything, and he didn't really understand how these Humans and Sangheili expected him or the other grunts in his squad to do anything useful in an environment scaled more to them then him. He and his group walked up to a bored looking Marine Private sitting behind a desk reading what appeared to be some sort of magazine that had strange looking humans on the cover, what was with all those worms coming out of their heads?
"Hey!" Mamu said in his high pitched, nearly squeaky voice. As far as he could tell, the human didn't notice, but then again, the desk was nearly as tall as him and the human looked very interested in whatever he was reading. "Human!" Mamu started jumping up and down in front of the oaken block of wood stamped with a faux gold crest of an eagle diving for its prey.
"Huh!?" The Marine said looking up, sounding panicky as he looked in either direction for a superior. "What?" He stood, and looked down over his desk. "Grunts?" He looked nearly as confused as Mamu as he paused to think. "Oh, the fourteenth, right?" He looked down at his papers. "Your berthing is deck seven, just aft of frame won-two-seven. Report to Secondary Engineering, deck six, frame won-three-niner for your assignment. Off you go." And with that he returned to his magazine.
"Victory-plant-niner? Mamu asked his fellow unggoy in their own tongue, not bothering to translate the niner as he had no idea what it could possibly be... maybe a sort of digger, like a miner? They did a collective shrug and headed across the rather small and empty hanger bay that was the connection to the gangway, it hadn't received its complement of single-ships, so still looked cavernous, but compared to the size given over in a carrier, there was no comparison.
The six wondered around deck six aimlessly, more or less ignored until terror of terrors, while they were not paying enough attention one of the six named Kekup bumped right into the knee of a Sangheili. The irate elite grabbed Kekup by the throat and roared "FourTEENTH!" And threw him against the wall. "You were to report to Secondary Engineering THREE HOURS AGO! GET THERE NOW! FRAME ONE THREE NINE!" The six dashed madly down the deck, having noticed that every bulkhead was numbered, running headlong into a hatch they had passed at least four times, right by a '137'
After the six caught their breath, they gazed up at the occupent in the room, a large glowing blue sphere that almost seemed to be floating in midair between five columns on each axis except for the one facing them and the room. They all stood reverent at the sight when suddenly a control panel next to it sparked and they all started floating lazily into the air surrounded by a blue aura, madly scrambling for purchase on the ground.
Mamu reached out desperately to an adjustable wrench that was hanging off a nearby table, only for it to become shrouded in the aura and start floating with him as they began to slowly drift toward the sphere. Just then, when things couldn't seem to get any worse, the elite from before entered the room, still fuming at having to find his unit, and he too became shrouded in the aura. "WHAT!" the elite demanded angrily. "FourTEENTH!" He shouted, his voice raising as he said the word and began floating as well.
"Gah!" Let out a startled Mamu as he reflexively threw the wrench out of fear, and it hit... the control panel. With a violent poping noise, the panel sparked again, and they all fell violently to the ground. Mamu sat up, his head spinning only to see the elite approaching and grab HIM by his throat, and raise HIS struggling form to eye level.
"Promoted." And with that the Sangheili dropped him, turned, and left the room.
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Sorry for the late post... I ended up waking up late for work, so... If you havent seen my profile, as a heads up, I'm going to try to update this weekly. I'm testing out this type of narrative for combat where because its a first person limited point of view for Anderson you only see what he sees, so feedback on that would be appreciated. I'm also working on another much more silly fic right now, called 'Dragon of Time' its a Wheel of Time/Dragon Age crossover, where Dr. Who makes the occasional cameo. Might be interesting...