Okay, so I goofed. I forgot to refer to Grey as an ODST in the first chapter, but I fixed that in the second chapter. So if there are any questions, yes, he is an ODST, and just to avert any further confusion, I will use term "marine" and "ODST", along with their synonyms (such as Helljumper, Shocktrooper, etc.) interchangeably when referring to Grey and his buddies. Sorry about that, and enjoy the update.
The Shocktroopers ran towards the Armory, hell bent on getting there and getting armed before the Covenant boarders arrived in earnest. Grey had one hand on his pistol, hoping that he would not need to use it. After all, the armory was only a few corridors down, and the Covenant ship was still on the edge of the system, so there was no way they could get there before the marines had grabbed enough weapons to blow those unholy aliens to Hades. He looked over at Sergeant Banks, who's head was cocked in a way so as to betrayed the fact that he was talking to someone on a private COM line. Banks nodded, and tapped the side of his helmet to cut the COM line.
"All right Echo squad, listen up!" He said as the soldiers bolted down some random corridor, nearly trampling a pair of Navy techs trying to fix a broken P.A. speaker. A fruitless gesture, as the ship had been marked for death the moment the Covenant arrived in the system.
"The Captain says once we're armed, we are to get to drop pod bay C. Apparently, the Covenant ship just made an in-system jump, and is coming up along the side of us. Now, as you all are aware, one volley of their plasma torpedoes can gut us from stem to stern, so the Captain wants us to make a blind jump and save our skins. He's gonna scuttle the ship, so there is really no alternative. Once we get to the armory, I'll tell each of you what to grab, but for now, let's just focus on getting there."
The ODSTs made it to the armory a few minutes later, and there was a mad dash to grab whatever weapons they could.
"Hey Sarge, those damn grunts already stripped this place clean!" yelled a Corporal who was shocked to see the gleaming stainless steel racks, but not a gun in site.
Tapping Banks on the shoulder, Grey whispered "Sarge, what about the other armory?"
Banks nodded, and turned to the loudmouthed soldier.
"Shut your trap, and I'll show you where our guns are." Banks bellowed back. He walked over to a gun rack that was bolted to the wall, grabbed one side, and pulled. The rack peeled away like rice paper, and revealed a door with a keypad in place of a handle. Banks punched in the nine digit combination, and the door hissed aside, revealing an even bigger room crammed full of every kind of man portable offensive weapon the UNSC stamps it's name onto. Banks grabbed a battle rifle off of a rack of 20, and slipped a clip into it with a satisfying clack.
Owens stared open-mouthed at the display, although you couldn't tell because of his helmet. "What is this place Sarge?"
"It's a SPARTAN armory. They used this ship for Zero-Gee training a while back, and when it was converted to harbor us, they figured that they should just leave the armory in, in case something like this happened. Anyway Owens, even though they have MA5Bs and also a few MA2Bs, I want you on the 55." He tossed the rifle in his hands to Owens, who caught it and stared at it disappointedly.
"But Seerge…"
"DO IT!" Owens jumped back like a whipped dog, and grabbed a fistful of ammo cartridges from a bin against the wall. He stuffed them into his web belt, grumbling to himself.
Grey, meanwhile, was on the other side of the room, admiring the shotguns lined up against the wall. He grabbed one, and walked over to the ammo bin.
"What do you think Nick, slugs or shot?" he said, staring into the bin at the two different ammo types.
"We don't have time for this Grey." Banks barked. "Kessel's activating the Cole Protocol, remember? Take some of both, and let's get the hell out of here. Anton, take a rocket launcher. Hitachi, Zeiba, grab a 55. Baker, take an SMG. Put that MA5B down Jackson, and grab a submachine gun. Emerson? Good, you've got a 55. No Mercer, you take a sniper rifle, the customization options are in the next room. Speaking of which, everyone grab a red dot sight for their guns, except Mercer and Anton. Sidearms get one too. I want you all to take Ds, not Cs. Magnum my ass. Carter, you take that .50 cal, and twin pistols. We'll need the turret once we hit the ground. Lumberg, you've got the Comm-Pack, so all you can take is an SMG, maybe an MA2B if you wanna."
"Hey!" yelled Owens. "How come he-"
"Cause he's got the radio Owens. Shut up, or I'll make you walk to wherever the hell we're going. Ross, you're Anton's loader, so grab as much ammo as you can carry. Likewise, Smith, spot for Mercer; take some binoculars and a satchel of clips. SMGs for you two. Sanders, you're Grey's backup, grab a shotgun, and follow his lead."
"Aww Sarge…"
"Newbs gotta learn somehow Grey. Show Sanders how to swap out his iron-sights for a red dot, and you two stick together." Banks paused, and exhaled deeply. "I've got a 55, so if everyone is ready, than lets go." The soldiers nodded their affirmations, and Banks led them out of the room.
"By the way men, you never saw this room. Got it?"
"Yes Sergeant!" the hell jumpers barked.
"All right, let's get the hell out of here."
The armor clad marines ran down the hall, toward Drop Pod Bay C. As they turned a hallway, a green ball of plasma shot past Grey's head and melted a Navy crewman behind them.
"Echo squad, eliminate with extreme prejudice!" yelled Sergeant Banks, dropping to one knee and putting three rounds through the skull of the overeager Jackal who had fired first. The rest of the squad followed suit, going prone or crouching, and firing back with whatever weapons they had. The three Jackals were paste in seconds. Banks waved his hand forward, and Hitachi, the squad pointman, inched forward. He stuck his head around the corner, and waved the rest of the squad up. Grey stood up, and ran up behind Hitachi, covering him with his shotgun. The squad took up a staggered formation, with Hitachi and Grey in front, and the rest of the squad behind them, two by two. They proceeded like that for five minutes, until Hitachi stopped, and held up his fist. Everyone else got down, until Hitachi nodded to himself and stepped forward to confirm his suspicion. From an open bulkhead, a glowing blue orb flew through the air. It melded with Hitachi's visor, and he started screaming.
"Ditch the helmet!" yelled Banks and Hitachi's hands scrambled up the neck seal on his armor, desperately trying to detach his helmet before the grenade exploded.
The squad watched in horror as the orb grew increasingly brighter, until it was almost white, and then, a red mush sprayed the corridor as the plasma grenade exploded, taking the life of Echo squad's pointman. When the glare settled, and the ODST's visors depolarized, all that was left of their fellow soldier was a bent and twisted BR-55, thrown free of the explosion's core when Hitachi threw his arms into the air, but still rendered useless when the blue flames washed over it and fused it together.
"Don't just stand there, there's an enemy in the-" Banks yelled.
Grey's shotgun barked twice, and steel pellets sprayed a slight shimmer in the air, which rapidly degraded and turned into the image of a howling elite. The pellets impacted against it's shields, sending a waves of light up and down it's body. It roared a challenge and pulled a metal tube off it's belt. With a flick of it's wrist, the tube shot forward into a plasma sword, and the elite lunged at Grey, who sidestepped and shot the elite in the back.
"Fire! Fire!" yelled Banks, snapping his rifle up to his shoulder and pumping bullets into the alien. The squad followed suit, and the alien screamed in pain as it's shields overloaded and 7.62mm rounds tore through it's body, spraying luminescent purple blood all over the ODST's matte black armor. Dropping to it's knee's, the alien swung it's sword half heartedly at Grey, cutting through part of his left greave, and then keeled over.
"Get back, those things have a fail-safe!" Banks said, holding his arms out and forcing everyone in the squad back down the way they came. Within seconds of them retreating down the corridor, the elite's body was consumed on a neon blue light, which slowly receded, leaving nothing behind.
"What the hell are you staring at? Haul ass to the drop bay! This ship won't wait around for us before it blows up!" Banks roared, thrusting his battle rifle into the air as a kind of rallying measure. The ODSTs let loose a loud "HOO RAH!!!" and continued the run toward the drop bay.
"Covenant!" yelled Anton, grasping for his sidearm. Grey looked up to see a covenant chokepoint set up, complete with shields and portable plasma turrets.
"Open fire!" yelled Banks, leveling his 55 at a turret manned by a grunt.
"They really don't want us to get off this ship." He muttered, unslinging his shotgun and dropping to his stomach. "Sanders! Get up here!"
The new recruit ran up to Grey and crouched to one knee. "Yeah, what is it?"
Grey grabbed the marine's web belt, and pulled him to the ground. Sanders hit the ground with a thud, and his shotgun went off, spraying pellets into the wall.
"What the hell was that for?" yelled Sanders, stretching his arms out in preparation to push himself up. Grey slapped him on the back with the butt of his rifle, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to drop to the floor again. Sanders moaned in protest, and a ball of plasma whizzed over his head, hitting Anton on the leg.
"AARRGHH!!!" he screamed, dropping to the floor and clutching his leg.
Sanders craned his neck to look over at Grey. "Jesus, thanks man. I had no idea…"
"Learn to look for that. Stick with me, you'll do all right." Grey said. He reached for a grenade on his webbing, and pulled the pin out.
"Grenade! It's live!" yelled Grey, rolling the sphere of death down the hall. A jackal sniper spotted it and squawked a warning to the elite in charge, but it was too late. The grenade tapped the base of a shield generator, and detonated, blowing the jackal to ribbons and ripping the elite's legs off, as well as disabling the shield generators.
Banks slapped a new clip into his rifle. "Nice work Grey! Baker! Jackson! Police that wreckage! Lumberg, bandage Anton's leg."
Jackson ran up to the covenant position, Baker in tow, and snapped his rifle up to his shoulder. "I'll take the elite. You poke around and see who else needs some extra iron in their diet." He said, bravado dripping off of every syllable. Baker nodded, and moved past him. The elite was now struggling to get up, the shock of the blast wearing off and the shock of the massive blood loss not yet set in. Jackson watched it's hand scrabble around for it's plasma rifle, and when it's fingers closed around the grip, Jackson stamped his boot down on the gun, crushing the elite's fingers. It howled in pain, and Jackson grinned under his helmet as it's other hand started moving, the first one obviously broken. Alas, the elite could not find a second weapon, and Jackson, suddenly remembering that the ship was a finite thing, leveled his rifle at the elite's head. Three bullets later, one of the Covenant's mightiest warriors was only a twitchy half-corpse on the bloodstained deck of a UNSC battlecruiser.
A string of SMG fire echoed across the hall, and Jackson look up to see Baker executing two Jackals that he had lined up against the wall.
Banks knew it wasn't the best idea to send those two in to clear a zone of enemy, they had a habit of prolonging the inevitable for enemy POWs. When the UNSC's first inner colony had begun to fall, they naturally pooled all of their resources to save it. This included a massive ODST drop from the then-experimental HEVs, or Human Entry Vehicles. Jackson and Baker had deployed from the UNSC Carrier Leviathan, part of an effort to reinforce the Marine HQ down there. But something had gone wrong. Maybe it was enemy sabotage. Maybe it was the fact that the Leviathan's techs were unfamiliar with HEV's at the time. Or maybe the Mark I prototypes just didn't work. Whatever the case, all but two of those HEV's failed to deploy their chutes, sending a battalion of the UNSC's finest to a fiery grave on the surface of Jericho VII. Baker and Jackson met up with the Marine HQ on the surface, and lived through the Covenant assault on the command post, fending off Banshees, Wraiths, Ghosts, "Tuning Fork" dropships, and waves of covenant troops, long enough for General Dirk, the man in charge of all UNSC ground forces, to make it out on the last Pelican. As for them, they stole a pair of Banshees and linked up with a Repair and Refit platform, the Cradle. Apparently, that ship later bought it at Sigma Octanus. Jackson earned a silver star for forcing the dropship's pilot to wait until General Dirk could make it to the landing pad, and Baker earned the Medal of Honor for single handedly killing three wraith tanks that would have destroyed the fleet of evacuation Pelicans before they had a chance to take flight. They both got bronze stars for giving up their seats on the last Pelican to a pair of civilians who's private craft had been destroyed, and were therefore not earmarked for evacuation because they owned space worthy transport.
So, as far Banks was concerned, if they wanted to make the Covies suffer a little bit, that was fine with him, but not when it held up the rest of them on the deathtrap that this ship had become.
"All right boys, that's enough! Let's go!" Banks hollered to the pair of ODSTs down the hall. They looked up and stared at him hollow eyed.
"You heard me Jackson! We don't exactly have all of the time in the world here!" he yelled. Their shoulders drooped as they nodded and walked back to where the squad was hiding.
"Area secure sir. All hostiles have been eliminated." Baker muttered, slinging his SMG over his shoulder.
"All right men! Saddle up!" yelled Banks, waving his hand down the hallway. Echo squad followed him down yet another gore stained hallway, rifles at the ready, eyes open for Covenant boarders.
The next ten minutes were uneventful, as they proceeded from the fuel rod storage area where Hitachi had been killed to the very bottom of the ship, only coming across the occasional trio of grunts, or duo of jackals.
They finally reached a set of steel doors with the words 'Drop Bay C: Authorized Personnel Only' stenciled on it. Banks walked up and pressed the large green button beside the door, causing them to open with a hiss.
"Echo Squad to Bridge. We have reached Drop Bay C and are preparing to jump." Banks said into his mike. The reply came back not through Banks' helmet, but through the ships badly damaged P.A. system. "Bridge -o Echo Squa-. -ou are order-- to make a blind
-ump now! I rep---, Echo Squad, j--p now!" Then, to the rest of the ship, he said "Attention all crewmembers, I am initiating the Cole Protocol. The reactor will begin overloading once this announcement is complete, and then you will have ten minutes to abandon ship. All pilots are ordered to abandon ship when the clock reaches T-Minus 3:00, and proceed to the nearest UNSC held area. All lifeboats are to abandon ship when they have reached full capacity, or when the clock hits T-Minus 1:00. Pelican group Delta, please see that all ODST HEVs are picked up, and their occupants safely rescued. I will remain on the bridge for the entirety of the countdown. My escape craft is welcome to anyone who can get to it. The ten minutes are beginning now."
The lights in the room dimmed and klaxons descended from the ceiling, and the ship's AI started shrieking a prerecorded message.
"ALL PERSONNEL! ABANDON SHIP! ALL PERSONNEL! ABANDON SHIP!"
"That's our cue!" Banks shouted over the noise of the klaxons, "Everyone in their pods, skip the pre-flight check, there's no time! And leave your guns here, there are weapons in the pods" The soldiers ran to the rows of HEVs, doors open like so many mouths waiting to be fed. Grey climbed into his pod and grabbed at a leather strap hanging from the ceiling. He yanked it hard, and the door clanged shut. Grey grasped the restraints hanging limply from the side of the chair, and clapped the shut across his chest. Finally, he reached up and slapped a button on the side of the pod, bracing himself as the HEV dropped out of the Hiroshima and into space.
Jesus, I'm sorry that took so long. I was sick for about a week with a viral sinus infection, and I couldn't get anything done. But here it is; chapter 3. And for those of you who haven't figured it out yet and think I'm nuts, this is a flashback.