Winterbirth
A Halo Reach Fan Fiction by Marianne Bennet
A/N: Even more action! Thank you's to my reviewers and my lovely beta-reader EternalEntity. Enjoy!
Twelve: Vital
August 11th, 2552
Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger or so the cliché went. Thinking along similar lines, Six reasoned that it was a pretty good policy to not leave anything alive in her wake to bite her in the ass later. Those guidelines were easy enough to abide by when the only things stumbling into her scope's eye were Covenant bastards but when civilians –and not just that but careless and frantic civilians who obviously didn't know how to use a magnum though their behavior insisted that they thought otherwise –were involved, her relative morality on the battlefield got a lot more complicated.
She hadn't needed Kat to tell her that these were civilians worth saving. It wasn't even a matter of how much their potential intel was worth; it was a matter of heading home to HQ and looking Jorge or Carter in the eye after they'd heard that she'd let the survivors go by the wayside. Wait, the thought gave her pause as she crouched against the raised edge of a walkway above a small fleet of jackals. Am I really thinking about that now?
Six nailed four jackals in the head in quick succession with a DMR she'd picked up along the way from the first Covenant outpost while distinctly intrigued at the separation of thinking and reflex she was experiencing. Down went the enemy but her thoughts were up with someone else. That's interesting, she thought meditatively while detached complacency hovered somewhere close to her chest as the field before her gradually cleared and ammo disappeared from her pockets. That's strange.
"Six? How are you doing up there?"
"Oh, the usual, Jun," she replied carelessly as she mechanically dispatched the final jackal. "Killing stuff. Blowing up shit."
"There haven't been any explosions. Alright, look: we've got a bit of a situation."
"Hit me." Satisfied that she'd done her momentary duty by the Covenant, she shouldered the DMR and eased into a jog that took her through the Covenant commandeered and re-purposed pump station. Nothing on radar; a good if not somewhat boring sign.
"Well, this actually might be to our advantage. You'll see when you come around here."
Jun was still finishing up the last bit of that sentence when Six came running along the pathway. Her fellow Spartan was surrounded by several slightly sheepish members of the local militia they'd rescued, none of which looked particularly appreciative. He nodded at her approach and called her attention to a couple of metal cases lying against the ground as one of the militia troopers noted, "So, there're two of you after all."
"Did you think he was doing this all by himself?" asked Six, jerking her helmeted head in Jun's direction.
The militia trooper who had spoken –a stocky, medium-sized man whose age Six estimated to be around thirty or so –shrugged. "You Spartans are good in a fight. Even one makes a big difference. Us? Well, this is a little more action than we're used to."
"Undoubtedly," said Jun in response. "You're hardly equipped let alone have anything close to the training to handle the Covenant."
"We're aware of that," replied a second trooper, this one shorter with dark hair and a wounded arm clutched against his side, bristling at Jun's comment. "We've all heard it one way or another from every Spartan any of us have met."
Six frowned. "You could be a little more grateful."
"Oh, they'll be grateful," Jun assured her without taking his eyes off of the troopers. "They'll be very grateful; especially considering what exactly I think is in those cases. So," he directly addressed the first trooper, "does someone want to tell me exactly what you all are doing back here? The area is supposed to be evacuated and we were very thorough, isn't that right, Six?"
She had no idea how thorough or otherwise they'd been in the evacuation process but she nodded all the same. "We were pretty sure we'd picked up everyone."
"So does someone want to enlighten us as to how a couple of civilians slipped the net?"
The militia troopers were silent for a long moment before the tall man who had spoken first decided to cooperate on behalf of his group. "Look, we weren't trying to do anything wrong," he began. "We just didn't like leaving it to somebody else to defend our home. You get that?"
"Yeah," said Six before she could stop herself.
"So we left when we were told to, alright? Nobody told us outright that we couldn't go back so, hell, first chance we got we broke off and we came back for this," he nodded toward the metal cases and then to another trooper who promptly began to unbuckle the first case. "We have them stashed away all through the territory and they weren't going to do anyone any good just lying around where no one else could find them."
Jun knelt to inspect the contents of the first case and Six let out a low whistle of appreciation upon quick examination of the second and third. Grenades like those could blow a couple elites sky high before she even had time to think about what she was doing as she popped the trigger. All that and enough shotguns to make Emile go green with envy. Maybe those militia troopers were onto something with all of this purloined firepower.
At face value, her fellow Spartan appeared to be of a different mind. Jun first glanced to her and then to the troopers, saying, "You know this stuff is stolen."
The trooper whom had spoken second scoffed and Six didn't blame him for it. There was no chance of anyone being taken to task for petty theft behind enemy lines. "And what are you going to do about it? You gonna arrest us all?"
"No," Jun sounded smug. "We're just going to steal it back."
Six emphasized this decision by filching a set of substitute rounds for her sniper rifle and dropping her DMR in exchange for a shotgun. To Jun, she asked, "What do you propose we do about the civilians?"
"I'd just as well leave it to Command," he replied as he sifted through various pieces of contraband weaponry and ammo before settling upon a fresh magazine for his own gun. "They might have ideas as to how they can be of use to us."
"They could lead us into the dark zone. They'd be more or less familiar with the terrain."
"There's an idea."
"They don't seem to like us much."
Jun shrugged as he got back up to his feet. "You heard them: we're Spartans. They resent us on principle."
"That doesn't bother you?"
"Can you blame them much? People like Halsey treat them like second-class soldiers."
It shouldn't matter, she thought to herself as grenades rolled between her gloved fingers. We're all human.
She was still thinking about that as well as contemplating the same handful of extra plasma grenades when she heard the screech across the sky that marked the arrival of a Phantom. Around her, the militia troopers scattered into defensive positions, leading her to wonder if Jun had underestimated their combat experience after all. They certainly knew when to duck and cover, which was more to say than her sometimes, remembering what had happened on her first mission with Noble Team when Carter had shoved her down and out of the way…
No. Elites and skirmishers poured like locusts from the Phantom's mouth, like some overdue plague that God suddenly wished on humanity. Six had never been a believer but she had to trust that someone up there had it in for her as the suicidal grunts came rushing in. She heard a trooper scream as she traded off dodging and firing bullets and it seemed that the sound drowned out all else. He had been alive a moment ago and now he wasn't.
She found a decent vantage point up on a walkway above the general mayhem and reloaded her sniper rifle, figuring that somewhere Jun was doing the same. Taking aim, her gaze passed over three struggling militia troopers and pulled the trigger, dispatching the pair of skirmishers that had been harassing them. She took satisfaction in the kills; she hated things that leapt just within reach and then immediately darted back out of sight.
Elites fell into that category as well; a well-placed headshot dealt with the one dancing outside of Jun's range, a knife to the second Elite that tried to sneak up on her that night. She felt a savage satisfaction at having wised up to the underhanded attack, at watching blood stain the handle of her knife. But just when she'd shaken her head and shaken herself out of the momentary wave of bloodlust, the second Phantom descended.
"Well, we really just pissed them off," drawled Jun in her ear.
"You can say that again," she muttered.
"If I was Emile, I would." Having deposited its cargo, the enemy ship took off into the night sky. "Watch your flank, Six."
She took his advice and was grateful for it, shifting position to tackle an inbound clump of jackals to her left. She heard a trooper whoop as the enemy dispersed, a cry of victory quickly smothered when yet another Phantom swooped in. Six clenched her teeth in frustration. "Jun, we can't do this if they keep rolling in like this. We'll catch hell from Kat if we don't move forward."
"You do realize that if we leave these men–"
"Yes, I realize it!" She sniped an Elite, taking down its shields with the round, and then tossed a grenade into the mix. "And why not take them with us? It isn't as though we can send them back. And there's nothing here but the lake."
There was a pause as Jun considered this during which Six kept herself busy managing a skirmisher's fire until she could take it down with her shotgun. Finally, despite what Six had said, the Phantom took back off into the sky and she skirted back down around the perimeter to regroup with Jun and the remaining troopers.
The dark haired militia trooper that had first brought up the issue of Spartans' disdain for regular soldiers was still nursing his injured arm when Six came back around. His comrades-at-arms were grouped around him and Jun; the tall leader had not survived that last wave.
"…Road leads to a hydro plant," the wounded trooper was saying. "The gate's broke so you won't get far going that way."
"I take it you know of an alternate route?"
"Down along the riverbed," confirmed another trooper, standing at attention by his comrade. He shrugged somewhat uneasily. "It's pretty reliable. We, um, used it a lot for…"
"Smuggling," Jun finished. "And where does it go?"
"Straight to the plant," he answered.
"Is there any water we have to worry about?" Six wanted to know.
"The river's been damned these past forty-five years," was the response and it came from the dark haired trooper. "My great-granddad worked on the plant's original ground plan. It powered up every settlement in the territory. It'd be a grand shame if it all goes to waste."
"We're doing what we can," replied Jun through gritted teeth.
"Really? They send us two Spartans and that's it? Should we be groveling at your feet and thanking you? You saved maybe half a dozen men. The Covenant's on Reach."
Something in Six broke. "You wait until dawn," she snapped. "And then we'll see who's out in the field and who's back in the med or getting shipped off world to safety, for all of your talk! Now which way is the riverbed? I'd love to get out of your hair; you can find your own damned way back!"
She stared at them all, waiting for a response, and Jun was quiet. Finally, one trooper cleared his throat and said, "I'll… I'll show you the way, ma'am."
"Thank you," she replied. "Let's go, Jun."
…
The hydroelectric plant was back-lit by some kind of pylon, obviously of Covenant origin. Six walked forward, her eyes intent upon the structure as Jun consulted with Kat over the comm. "Do we have confirmation on pick up of the militia troops?" he was asking.
"Affirmative," Kat was answering. "As for the pylon you're looking at, I suspect that's the source of our little problem."
"Consider it gone."
"Not so fast, Three. The dark zone can stay dark awhile longer; we'll deal with it come dawn."
"What's going on tomorrow?"
"Something big. We'll find out when Command gets their act together a bit more. Until then, stick a remote det charge on the thing. It'll go boom tomorrow morning."
"You hear that, Six?"
"As well as you did." She scoped out the situation, taking care in analyzing the Covenant forces lurking around the plant's exterior. "There's no saying what's inside the compound or what the Covenant might drop on our heads but what's outside so far should be no problem."
"That sounds promising," replied Jun as the two Spartans started for the bridge that led across to the plant's complex.
"Now here's the big question," she paused, lingering before crossing the bridge. "Are we going to be sneaky or are we going to face the bastards up front?"
"The remote det will take some time to get set up. I'd rather we clear the field before I get started if it's all the same with you."
She shrugged. "Either way the Covenant's gonna die. I'll follow your lead."
"Still," he paused, "we can be sneaky even when we're taking them out up front." He loaded fresh ammo into his rifle and took up a position halfway across the bridge. "Cover me when they start for us, won't you?"
Across the way, an elite's head was bent in mute conference with its fellow specialist. Six had no idea what they might be discussing, anything from the weather to an attack to that the other outpost seemed to have dropped off of the map. She couldn't tell if the expression on one elite's face betrayed sadness while the look that the other elite wore might just have well indicated elation. But why think about that? Why think about that now?
A shot brought Six back to earth and blood ran like a waterfall from the sliver of skin between the taller elite's silver shoulder plate and helmet. The alien crumpled like a marionette whose strings had been snipped and there was a moment of strange silence between the imagined thump of the body against the ground and the audible roar that sprung from its companion's throat. The howl was silenced by a shot that erupted from Six's rifle; the point of impact between the eyes.
Fire rang out over the bridge; both Spartans dropped into an even lower crouch to keep from being hit. "Well," said Jun reasonably, "that's two that we don't have to worry about. Do we go in now or do we pick them off as they come over the bridge?"
Six opted for holding position and letting the enemy come to them and so that's what they did. When the bridge had become an unburied graveyard by their efforts, she and Jun made for the pylon.
He dropped to his knees beside what she could only presume to be the structure's power supply and his hands dove into the various pockets of his armor. Out poured various tools that she could tell were constructed for one use only followed by a small, boxy device a little bigger than the length of her hand. She picked up from where he had laid it to rest beside his kneecap, wondering at how something so small could have such an impact.
Jun popped open the paneling on the side of the pylon's generator closest to the gorge. Yanking some wiring out into the crook where the generator met one of the structure's legs, he pinched two wires between a pair of pliers and set a small copper filament between them. "This is going to take a minute," he said, throwing the warning over his shoulder at her. "There's no telling what they'll throw at us in that time and I'm not going to be much help. Keep your eyes peeled. There's no way they're sending nothing."
"Because that would be just too easy," she muttered, setting the charge back down against the ground.
"They're fighting for something too. You can't blame them for not making our job easier."
"Watch me."
"Maybe what they're fighting for is just as important to them as what we're fighting for is to us."
"We're fighting for survival, Jun. Nothing is more important." She paused, scanning the complex for new enemies. "And besides: if there was something else going on, they could open their mouths and tell us instead of shooting first and asking questions later."
"You sound like the commander," he replied with a chuckle. Six didn't find that funny. "Well, communication is vital I suppose." He glanced upward suddenly. "Look up, Six. Maybe you can try talking this time."
Twin thuds marked the arrival of a pair of hunters just abreast of the pylon, too close for neither Jun's nor Six's comfort. She let her sniper rifle clatter to the floor before darting outside, running parallel the edge of the gorge at a sprint. She looped back around toward the pylon, rushing toward the hunters from behind. She remembered Sword Base and what she and Kat had accomplished there but that had been two on two. The odds were certainly less in her favor this time around but she did not allow herself to be daunted. As long as she kept moving…
She remembered the parable of the turtle and the hare… or was it a tortoise? Never mind; the hunter in her path looked as much like a turtle as it did a tortoise and why did it get to crawl under a shell and hide and she never get that luxury? Where did that come from? Never mind.
Anyway, as long as she kept running forward and then drawing back, always stepping to the left and not to the right, never letting it catch her in the green light of its gaze –or was it his gun? His gun? Where did that come from? –she might pull it off.
She loaded up the shotgun and stepped out of the shadow of the plant's main building. Someone had told her that hunters didn't see very well and she was ready to exploit every advantage she had over any enemy she would come to face.
She pressed her shotgun to the creature's back, wondering if it had ever felt the coolness of metal there before. She knew what it felt like to do it, to push the barrel against skin, to pull the trigger, and for the first time she was aware of all the times she had done it before. And with that came the realization of how many times she would do it again.
Firing three shots in as quick succession as a shotgun's cool down period would allow her, she made the creature howl. Its companion shrieked with it, as the one back at Sword Base had done before. Was there a correlation? She doubted it and correlation never implied causation anyway.
The hunter staggered on its massive feet, its shoulders slumped and heaving its weight dragging itself face forward and down. She let it fall and stood for a moment but then a green flash akin to that at the moment of sunset flared in the corner of her vision and she dropped down too, playing at death while the first hunter lay motionless beside her. They lay still like stone effigies upon a carved tomb as the blast of the other hunter's weapon flared overhead and then she slammed her palms against the ground, pushed herself to her feet in bound, and threw herself at the second hunter with her next step.
She launched herself at the creature, gripped its right shoulder with her left hand, and leapt over its weapon to land in a somewhat messy roll. Recovering quickly, she turned, latched onto its shoulders with both arms, locked her armor, took a breath, waiting, and then flew backward as the enemy collapsed.
She lay flat on her back for a moment, reveling in the sound of her own shallow yet steady breathing. The hunters were dead and Six was alive; it was a cause for celebration if there ever was one. Every time she killed, an enemy that might have been the end of her otherwise was sent to the grave in her place and maybe even in the place of others, of more innocent people. She banished all other thoughts; it was dead and she was alive that was what counted.
Jun bounded forward. He was holding not only his own rifle but hers as well. "Six," he was saying. "Six, are you alright? I saw the hunter throw you."
"Am I alright?" she repeated and felt her lips part in contemplation of the so simple yet so compelling question. She willed the muscles close to her abdomen to move and felt herself draw forward into a sitting position. "Yes, I think so."
His shoulders slumped in relief. "Great; I was not looking forward to telling Carter you'd died on me."
She ignored that. "I take it you dealt with the charges?"
"All set and ready to blow whenever Command wants an blast."
"You tell Kat?"
"Better take care of that." He took a few paces into the darkness and away from her. "Recon Bravo to Noble Two: charge placed."
"Acknowledged. I hope you put them somewhere inconspicuous."
"Nobody's going to find them unless they want to go digging through the power supply."
"Alright then." Kat sounded pleased. "Continue into the dark zone. You'll be in the thick of it as soon as you make it past that southeast gate."
"Copy that. We should find something soon."
"So we all hope."
Six rose to her feet with atypical grace as Jun circled back around toward her. "You hear all that?" he asked but did not wait for an answer. "Let's go. It's getting close to dawn and we'd better be out of here before people start waking up."
She nodded and added, "I suspect we'll have a busy day tomorrow anyway."
"You got that right," he chuckled and started for the gate. Six looked to the east. She didn't want any light sneaking up on her, whether it was the dawn or otherwise.
