Getting down hadn't been that hard. He'd simply wound his way back through the building and worked around until he found a street that led him to the plaza that Dare's pod had crashed into. He found a descending stairwell that led to the drop site. No one was around. Distantly, another dropship rumbled. He ignored it for now, they seemed to be everywhere except for where he was. Jason stood atop the stairwell and stared around.
Rain saturated the area, the cityscape painted in neon green with his VISR. It felt forlorn and abandoned, forsaken by the others. What could have happened? His mind kept going back to that helmet. It had been pretty banged up. Dare was presumed dead. Part of the reason he was heading for her pod was to try and confirm it. Jason proceeded down the steps. He could easily imagine Buck making some sort of valiant effort to save her, fighting across the city after crashing to the ground. Killing his way through Brutes and Jackals and Grunts. Maybe even hooking up with a few survivors along the way.
But there was no way to know...
Jason thought it would be a shame if Dare really was dead. He found himself at odds about her...in an attraction kind of way. The fact that she was an ONI spook sent shivers down his spine, but as for looks...despite the fact that her face was...unique, there was something definitely attractive there. Jason hesitated, why was he even thinking about this? She was probably dead, and even if she wasn't, she was an ONI spook, and even then, there had obviously been something between her and Buck. He wondered about that.
Jason reached the bottom of the steps and looked around. A few Grunt corpses littered the area, long cold. Slowly, he approached the pod. It was facing away from him, but he could already tell the front had been popped off, as it resided, twisted and burned, a few feet away from the rest of the pod. Jason circled the pod, coming to the front. It was empty. No body. He frowned, then looked around. So maybe Dare had made it away. If so, then where was she? Where was the rest of the squad? Jason sighed and stepped forward.
He wondered how far Temple had made it. He looked to the pod for anything useful, but quickly realized that it wouldn't help him at all.
He growled and kicked the side of it.
"What now?" he muttered, looking around.
Temple had assigned him to be a detective. Jason didn't feel much like one, more like just some idiot wandering around in the rain. Something flashed, not too far away. A sign in the center of the plaza, back towards the stairs. Jason hurried over to it. Another arrow, pointing back the way he had come. He was pretty sure this message was meant for him.
"Who are you?" he asked, and suddenly felt stupid.
Regardless, there was no response. Who knew? He sighed again and gripped his gun more tightly, then proceeded back up the stairwell. As he crested the top, he nearly had his head shot off as a bright bolt of plasma seared past his faceplate. Ducking low, snapping his gun up, he spotted a small contingent of Jackals and Grunts backing up a pair of Brutes.
Not good. How was he going to deal with this? They had the advantage. A hail of plasma bolts, intermittent with some spikes, raced towards him. They were coming from his left. He immediately sprinted for a wrecked police cruiser a few meters away and dove behind it. Plasma bolts pelted the hull, but it held. It was flashing its lights and sirens, screaming his position to the world. He dropped to his belly and leveled the pistol on the ground, gripping it two-handedly. He spotted a forest of legs heading his way.
Jason emptied the magazine, causing the Grunts and Jackals to drop to the ground under the fire, at which point he quickly put a bullet between their eyes. He eliminated six enemies this way. The others marched on his position. He quickly reloaded and holstered the pistol. Jason was in the midst of pulling out his SMG when a plasma grenade, bright and deadly, landed next to him.
"Shit!" he screamed as he rolled away.
The blast picked him up and tossed him several meters down the road. Jason rolled to a stop, still clutching his SMG. He offered his response. Lurching to his feet, Jason activated and tossed two plasma grenades in quick succession. The first one went wide, he watch it burst into bright blue-white plasma as it arced and landed too far behind them. While they were attempting to avoid the first one, the second one nailed a Grunt in the face. It began screaming as the plasma melted its face, fusing with its mask.
A Brute rushed forward and attempted to kick the Grunt away. Foot never met butt. The Grunt exploded, as did its small cache of plasma grenades. This chain reaction vaporized the surviving members of the reconnaissance squad. Jason let out a long breath as cold silence returned. More blinking caught his attention. Ahead, beyond where the remains of the Covenant lay, there was a large doorway that blocked off the road.
It read ROUTE OPEN in large, flashing letters. A good sign. He hurried forward, trudging through the rain-slicked streets of New Mombasa. He activated the large gate when he arrived and jumped slightly as the loud sounds of its hydraulics working echoed through the cool, predawn air. As the gate ground open, he stared ahead. A complex of streets and structures awaited his inspection. He frowned, it looked difficult.
Jason hurried along, keeping low, moving with the flow of the city. He strained his ears against the rain, there could be an enemy around every corner. He hugged the edge of a building, working his way along its second story balcony. His path wrapped around towards the front entrance. Ahead was a larger plaza.
Jason froze as he heard an irritated grunt.
"Hold the beast still!" a Brute growled from somewhere nearby. Clearly, they had not detected him yet. He stalked silently to the edge of his perched position and peered over the edge. A trio of Brutes were holding...something that hovered and attaching something to it.
"What the hell?" he whispered. He quickly grabbed a plasma grenade.
"There...now the charge is set to explode..." one of them growled approvingly.
Whatever it was began to hover away. Jason considered attacking it, but decided against it. He didn't know what it was. Instead, he primed his last plasma grenade and hurled it directly downwards. It attached to the lead Brute's head and exploded in brilliant display of plasma that sent the other two sprawling. One didn't rise, the other began to climb groggily to its feet. The thing's shields were down, so Jason hopped to the ground and leveled his pistol.
He squeezed the trigger twice, putting down the recovering Brute. Next, he turned his attention to the one that had apparently been knocked unconscious. As he approached, he leaped back in surprise as the Brute's shields suddenly returned and appeared to glow far more than usual.
"What the hell?" he whispered.
He glanced up. The only anomaly to the situation was that floating thing...what was it? It hovered silently overhead, as if watching the whole situation without a care in the world. Once again, he considered killing it. But it slowly began to hover away from him. When Jason returned his attention to the unconscious Brute, he realized that its overcharged shield had almost completely disappeared. This was getting weird.
"What the hell?" he echoed himself.
Finally, he shrugged and pulled out his SMG. Quickly finishing off what shield had recharged, he put a few rounds into the thing's head and then kicked the body for good measure. Jason straightened back up and looked around. He couldn't but feel like a broken record as he asked himself yet again, "Now what?"
As if to answer that question, a sudden whining sound appeared from overhead. Jason snapped his SMG up in defense, certain that now this mysterious thing was ready to kill him. Instead, it merely hovered several dozen feet overhead. And it glowed. The whining noise intensified, rising to a terrible pitch until suddenly the thing exploded. Jason's jaw dropped as he watched several purple, glowing bits rain down from above, then explode themselves in quick succession. Luckily, none of these eruptions took place anywhere near him.
What the hellwas that thing? It had to be some new type of Covenant. Jason was pretty sure he'd seen it all, but...maybe not. He started walking, realizing that he had to if he was going to get anywhere. He wound his way through the streets, checking bodies as he went, and quickly realizing that his ammo situation wasn't going to get much better. Not unless he found another ODST corpse, or downgraded his arsenal.
Surrounded by rain and tall, decrepit structures, Jason climbed a small hill and reached an impasse. Or, to better describe the situation, a fork in the road. He stared left, then right. Choices, choices. On an impulse, he turned left and hurried along. He decided he was going in the right direction when he saw another flashing sign informing him to keep right. And then another positive, green-lit square of neon that said Detour.
He reached another gate and passed through it, then made his way past some burning vehicles. He didn't pause to check and see if there were any corpses inside. Not quite something he was prepared to look at, just now. Jason pressed on in the looming silence, his gaze sweeping the area. As he descended into another area, something caught his gaze. A simple alleyway. He frowned. For some reason, he wanted to go back there.
Another quick sweep of the area told him he was alone for now. Jason hurried into the alley and followed it to its forsaken end past a large, static-stricken screen. As if to reward his curiosity, he found a locked door, Remember Reach scrawled on the wall in spray paint...and a dead Marine. Not just a simple, regular dead Marine. No. It appeared that this one had killed himself with his shotgun. He lay in a bloody corner, headless.
The sight disturbed Jason deeply. He abruptly turned around and hurriedly paced back through the alley, back to the street. Why would anyone kill themselves? At this point in the war...everyone was needed. Humanity was wearing thin. They couldn't afford to waste any lives...yet this man had felt the need to take his own life, despite what it would do to the greater good. Jason shuddered as he felt a stinging sense of empathy...and understanding. He jumped when he heard a hiss of hydraulics, coming from across the street.
Curiously, he approached the new opening as portions of a wall descended into the ground. He was apprehensive as he approached, as his last curiosity event had been punished severely. But as he spotted what was inside, a soft smile crept onto his face.
"I love Mongeese."
