Chapter 14
Lance Corporal Sarah "Hawk" Hawkins, Covenant Alpha Base, Sigmus IV
Status: MIA, presumed KIA.
"LC? LC!" Shouted a hoarse voice in her ear. She didn't want to move, everything hurt and she was barely coming round. She cracked open one eye inside her helmet, immediately barraged by a flurry of error warnings and system failures; her armour had breaches in the vacuum seal in 7 locations, her weapon was gone and she had "SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION" stencilled over half her vision.
She struggled to rise to a sitting position, breathing heavily at the sudden dizziness the action produced. It was night time, and the air was filled with thick acrid smoke from the blazing fires dotted around her. The roof on which she had fallen had been untouched by flame so far, but the reverberations and shuddering under her told of structural weaknesses. She had to get off of here, and fast. Where were her squad mates? Where was the rest of the ODSTs? Hell, she'd settle for knowing where the enemy was at this point.
Wait. She was forgetting something. The voice in her ear! She looked around quickly and winced.
"LC?" Came the voice again, unmistakably that of Ramirez. He sounded strained, and Sarah marvelled at how well he sounded considering the patched up hole in his neck.
"Private?" She responded, rising unsteadily to her feet. "What's your status?"
"I'm mobile, but all I've got left is my M6 and my knife, where are you?"
"I'm still on the rooftops. Do you have your flashlight?"
There was a pause "…Yeah, but why?"
"Turn it on and throw it into the air, my Intel system's shot to shit."
She scanned the rooftops around her and spotted the bright light rise above a roof a hundred metres away. "I see you, hold position, I'm oscar mike."
"Affirmative…." Ramirez kept on talking but now his words were distorted and disjointed. She turned off the comms and limped to the edge of her building, jumping down through a gaping hole in the roof into the room. She unsheathed her combat knife and crept down the ramped stairway and out onto the streets. The purple metal of the covenant structures was lightly bathed in orange and blue light from the various fires, throwing flickering shadows on the walls and compacted dirt floor.
She flicked on her VISR night vision system, outlining all silhouettes with faint glowing lines, immediately making the almost completely dark streets navigable. She sprinted over to an intersection in the roadways, scanning for any movement, keeping low to the ground and close to the walls, she stealthed her way towards Ramirez's location, occasionally hearing sporadic gunfire in the distance, the low staccato of UNSC rifles and the higher pitched whine of plasma weapons discharging. During the 10 minute journey, she never once heard the sound of UNSC air support, and yet Banshees made passes nearby every 30 seconds, strafing positions closer towards the centre of the base.
She arrived at the rough location of her squadmate, and looked around for any sign of him; it appeared that both of them were doing too proficient a job of hiding.
"Roses" She spoke, her helmet amplifying her voice slightly. The standard UNSC Friend-or-Foe call/counter-call was known by every soldier, and in situations like these it still showed its usefulness.
"Tulips" Came Ramirez's voice, and he stepped out into the middle of the street, clutching his M6 tightly, looking around.
She stepped out from behind a wrecked Revenant and slapped him on the back, glad that they were back as a team, albeit a rather short-staffed one.
"Good to see you Private, how's the wound?"
The soldier tilted his head to one side, shrugging. "Hurts like hell, but the biofoam is keeping me going."
She nodded curtly "What's the situation with Comms or SATCOM?"
He shook his head "I've been conscious for a couple of hours, got a few garbled transmissions, but they're being jammed from somewhere. Covvie reinforcements came in from the other facilities on the planet, attacked in force, scattered us all over the base. They hit hard with air power, rest of our birds have scattered as well. I don't think we've actually taken many casualties, but they broke our lines so quickly. It sounds like there's a stronghold in the centre of the complex, but they're surrounded by a wall of covenant, I couldn't get through on my own."
"Okay, we can't break through, but we can try and find their jammers and destroy them, restoring comms should give us back the capability to win this fight." She thought for a moment "You have any explosives left?" She had used hers on the perimeter wall, she only had 1 frag grenade left, plus a couple of stun grenades.
He shook his head again, swearing in Spanish "I hoped you had some. What do we do now?"
Damn. Without any C12, disabling a jammer, if they ever found it, would be much more challenging. It all seemed impossible, but then she had an idea. "You seen any Marines?"
Before the private could answer, the familiar sound of a frag grenade echoed through the streets, followed by intense rifle fire and the grating sound of a needle rifle being fired.
"Let's go." She ordered, polarising her visor and jogging towards the cacophony, flattening herself against the wall and peering round the corner. From her position she could count at least 3 or 4 sources of muzzle flashes from inside a low building down the street, as well as bright purple flashes from across the street and their resulting streaks of glowing purple needle rifle rounds.
"They're pinned down in that building" She muttered "Across the street, 250 metres north, first and ground floors. Jackals have them pinned down, they're on our side of the street, rooftop, 200 metres." She moved back from the corner to let Ramirez survey the scene for himself; the polished silver of his visor reflected the bright flashes of light.
"Roger that, looks like two or three snipers, and from the shooting, the friendlies are definitely not ODST; haven't seen as much spraying and praying since the academy." He muttered, checking the slide of his pistol. "What are you thinking?"
"Buildings on our side, we get in, get up to the roof behind the snipers."
"I'm on you."
"3…2…1… Mark!" As she finished her countdown, she pushed off from the wall, running full pelt around the corner and down the street, kicking up dust in her wake. Her heart pounded and her vision tunnelled as she ducked into a building and tore up the stairway, combat knife out and poised. She vaguely spotted Ramirez dart past her and into the next structure, and could only assume that he was ascending with her.
The only way up to the roof was a narrow ladder on the top floor, so she sheathed her blade as she rocketed up the rungs, grunting at the fresh pain coming from her injuries. Dragging herself to the flat surface, she instantly spotted her targets, three bird-like Jackals on the street-side edge of the roof, one on her building, two on the adjacent, already being stalked by a black-suited Ramirez, who had his pistol drawn and ready, waiting for her signal.
She crept forward, slowly drawing her knife, and struck; she wrapped her left arm around her target's bony neck, whipping its head backwards as she drove the blade once into the alien's chest, before sliding it out and thrusting it into the exposed windpipe. Orange blood spilled onto the metal at the same time as two shots rang out from her right, and a second later she heard the thumps as two bodies hit the floor. She still grappled with her enemy, the damned thing clung onto life, scratching at her helmet with razor-sharp claws, so she pulled out her knife and gave the dying creature a swift, powerful kick to the back, sending it toppling over the edge and down three storeys to the dirt below.
She leaned over the edge, waving her hand and shouting "Hey! UNSC forces out in the open, hold your fire!" She hoped they would hear her and not shoot her damn head off.
"Hawkins?" came a familiar voice from down below "Is that you?"
"Depends who's asking" She grinned, recognising the dulcet tones of Martins
"Just the happiest man alive at this point! You seen Ramirez' useless ass yet?"
"Hey pendejo! I'm up here!" Ramirez yelled, smiling.
"Both of you get down here, Covenant have got snipers everywhere."
She looked at Ramirez and motioned for him to follow her. He vaulted over the small gap between their two buildings and followed her down the ladder and through the structure into the street, across the road and into Martins' building. They entered a room, and Sarah counted four olive-coloured-armoured Marines dotted around the room, along with the black-suited figure of Martins, clutching his M7S up to his shoulder. The closest Marine walked over to them and saluted, revealing the blackened plating on his right arm; the same story was told for all the Marines, all of them were battered, with scorched helmets and body armour.
"Good to see you, boss." Martins whispered, taking off his helmet and breathing deeply. She and Ramirez followed suit, cricking their necks. "I came to about 2 hours ago, they came in hard. We got scattered, but I managed to find these guys" He motioned the Marines to come over and join them, and they did so. "May I introduce Privates Spiels, Dancer, Mulligan and Petrovic."
She nodded at each one in turn, noting the various stages of exhaustion and fatigue on their faces. "Anyone got a spare weapon? Or det-packs?"
Mulligan nodded "Take my M7, LC" He tossed her the compact SMG, and she caught it deftly, sliding out the stock and adjusting the sights to her own specifications. He also handed her a bandolier filled with ammunition, and she slung it over her shoulders, nodding in thanks.
Martins frowned "Why do you two want det-packs?"
She turned to face him "We're going to destroy the covvie jamming device, get some comms back up and running, that'll allow us to communicate and co-ordinate."
He nodded. "Funny you should say that, because we're doing the same thing. Before it started up and destroyed our comms, SATCOM told us where they were setting up a jammer north of here, we're carrying enough C12 to blow up a frigate." He smiled devilishly "Wanna give us a hand? We could always use extra manpower."
She nodded quickly "Excellent, how far is the jammer?" She checked that her newly acquired M7 had a full magazine as she talked.
"About 300 metres, only reason it's taken us so long was the snipers. Damn Jackals keep popping up everywhere. Haven't seen hide nor hair of the Arbiter's forces, last I heard they were holding the centre of the base along with the majority of our forces, although their ships broke orbit hours ago, god knows where they went." He recounted, keeping a wary eye on the windows.
"Really? Their orbital support just went? Guess they didn't expect much resistance after they took the main bases…" She pondered. It was still anomalous that covenant orbital forces would just abandon their ground forces. Something bigger was at work here. But she couldn't worry too much about that, they had to get back in touch with command. "Martins, you take point with Ramirez, Marines, who's your best marksman?"
Petrovic raised his hand, the other cradling a DMR. "I am, LC"
"Good, you're with me, we cover the rear, Mulligan, Dancer and Spiels take centre, spread out, and cover all angles. We'll move out and head north from here, engage any and all snipers as and when you see them, we'll go in hard and fast. You all got flash-bangs and frags?"
They all nodded, and she noticed Mulligan trying to catch her eye.
"What is it Private?" She asked, running her hand through her buzz-cut hair. The Marine held up something familiar, the blackened outline of an M319 grenade launcher, her M319 Grenade Launcher.
"Any way I can use this? I found it in the street." He said, chucking her the weapon. She caught it and quickly checked all the components were working. The weapon was functional, barrel hadn't bent or warped. Good.
"Thanks Private, thought I'd lost it." She said, pulling a 40mm grenade from her belt and inserting it into the break, snapping the launcher shut and slapping it to her back. The Marine nodded, still looking quizzical. "It's mine, idiot. Now stack up, get your head in the game."
They all formed up on the wall next to the door, she did a quick head count, and tapped Ramirez on the shoulder, signalling him to move. They slunk out of the door, one by one, and formed up in the street, quickly moving northwards, every soldier scanning the skylines and windows, the sound of distant gunfire reassuring them in an odd way that the fight was not lost, that there were still UNSC forces to fire. As one, they moved up the street, occasionally having to stop at crossroads and check the intersecting roadways for enemies, but it was a surprisingly quiet transit to the objective, which turned out to be a temple of some kind, a lone structure in a circle of buildings, with an impressively tall spire.
The formation stopped and stacked up against the wall. She moved quickly but quietly up the line of men until she reached Ramirez and Martins at the front, both of whom were looking intently at the target building through their visors. She crouched behind them, zooming in by a factor of 4, scanning the entrance and buildings around it.
"LC, I spot two Hunters outside the entrance, no other hostiles in the vicinity, guess they didn't expect too much in the way of a counter-attack." Ramirez commented "We got any M41s?"
Martins shook his head "Heaviest thing we've got is that M319 and the C12."
She grunted. "We could flash em, then run up and slap a block of C12 onto their backs, gonna be the easiest way to bring them down, I don't have enough 40mm ammo to kill them both."
Martins hesitated, then nodded "Alright, Marines, get ready to throw all the flash grenades you got at those hunters, me and the LC here are going to run up to them and stick a block of C12 to their backs, and blow them to kingdom come." The four Marines nodded and began stowing their weapons and retrieving their flash grenades.
She handed Ramirez the Grenade Launcher "In case this goes wrong, hold the trigger to activate the EMP mode for the grenade, it might short out their armour for long enough to allow me and Martins to run". She took a block of C12 from Mulligan and stuck a Frag grenade into the soft putty-like explosive. Seeing as they had no detonators, an implanted grenade should do the job. She looked over at Martins and saw that he was doing the same to his block of explosive. When both explosives were ready, the two ODSTs began shedding their unnecessary equipment, ammo, water pack, survival gear, all was thrown off onto the floor in order to make them faster when running towards the hunter pair.
When the two runners were good and prepared, she took what might be her last few breaths in this world, then nodded at the Marines, who promptly armed and tossed their grenades in a high arch over the building and into the small courtyard. She waited the tense half a second before the deafening bangs and accompanying flashes came, before shooting off from their corner, sprinting faster than she ever had in her life towards the hulking forms of the two dazed Hunters. She vaguely saw Martins sprinting next to her, heading more towards the left hand target, so she shifted her focus right, pulling the pin on her frag in preparation, but not letting go of the handle yet. The distance between her and her quarry closed to 10 metres, and she could feel her calf muscles burning, her bruises and cuts going through fresh agony as she used every muscle in her body to propel herself forward.
As she got to within 2 metres, she noticed the hunter coming out of its daze, beginning to swing its massive plated arm at her. With no time to react, she dropped to her knees, sliding an inch below the sharp blade affixed to the creature's arm, feeling the wake of the plate brush air softly over her face. She twisted her body as she slid past the hunter on her knees and firmly outstretched her left arm, pushing the block of explosive up against the alien's soft orange midriff, letting the handle of her grenade fling loose, priming it for detonation. Now she pushed off from her slide, diving through the air away from the bomb. As she hit the dirt a few metres away, the hunter turned to face her, charging up the massive cannon on its other arm. She scrambled away, rolling and clawing at the ground, doing anything to get as far away from the enemy as possible. Just as she expected death to be upon her, the grenade/sticky explosive combo detonated, and the hunter was enveloped by a ball of fire. The shockwave threw her against the nearest wall, and she felt something break. Her helmet slammed against the wall and her vision went black, or at least she thought so, but it was just the dust and debris thrown up from what was left of her mark.
As the smoke cleared, she struggled to her feet, looking up to see two of the Marines, Mulligan and Petrovic, crouched next to her. The latter was in a combat stance, swinging his M392 around slowly, scanning for secondaries while Mulligan tapped on her helmet, moving his mouth for some reason. Talking, she realised, he was talking to her, but she couldn't hear him, just a soft ringing and static. The blackness eating at her periphery faded away, and the marine's words started permeating through the ringing.
"Corporal? Corporal? Can you hear me? Are you all right? Talk to me here, man." He said, frowning.
She nodded, sitting up and shaking her head. "Yeah, I'm good, I'm good, how's Martins?" She tried to crane her neck to see over to where Ramirez, Spiels and Dancer were huddled around, but Mulligan moved in the way, handing her M7 and her other equipment.
"He got hit hard by the Hunter as he ran away, don't know what his condition is, let's go." He responded, standing up and offering her a hand up. She grabbed it and rose unsteadily to her feet, dizzy. There were only so many explosions even an ODST could survive in a day, and she was beginning to get a little sick of them.
She gave a thumbs up to Petrovic and walked over to the others. "How is he?" They all stood up and faced her, and on the faces not obscured by full visors there were expressions of shock, disgust and nausea. Her stomach sank and she stopped a metre away from them, what was left of Martins shielded by the others. Ramirez shook his helmeted head once. She turned away and clenched her fist.
"Grab his tags and ammo, we're still moving on the jammer." She ordered, not having the stomach to look at what was once her comrade and friend.
She motioned to Petrovic to follow as she walked briskly up to the doors of the temple, fresh pain stinging in her muscles. The looming entrance passed over her as she carefully moved toward the hulking machine which gave off faintly visible pulses of blue light. Her visor crackled with static the closer she got to the thing, and her ears were filled with white noise.
"This is it, get some C12 stuck on this damned thing and let's get out of here." She said, turning to find the rest of their motley crew assembled in the doorway, already retrieving blocks of explosive from their packs.
Within 30 seconds the soldiers were lined up on the corner of the square where they'd entered mere minutes ago. She alone stood in the courtyard, holding her last Frag grenade in one hand, desperately trying not to let her gaze fall upon Martins' broken form. They couldn't remotely detonate the C12 due to the jamming signal, so explosive detonation was the only way. She pulled the pin and tossed the bomb expertly, dashing back to her comrades and seeking cover as the grenade exploded, taking the jamming device and half the covenant temple with it.
Almost immediately, hundreds of transmissions flooded their receivers, which slowly became less chaotic and more like the ordered communication grid it should be. Air strike orders, intra-unit comms, and most importantly, orbital comms were all up and running within minutes.
One communication cut through the mess, directed at Hawkins herself. The gravelly voice of Captain De Santa barked at her: "Hawkins? Status?"
She sat down heavily and leaned her head back against the wall "Operational sir, lost Martins and Del Rio, we're with Marines just next to where the jammer was."
"Stay put, I got a Pelican inbound to your position, Kilo 784, with Hornet escort. FLEETCOM's ordering us to regroup in the centre of the base. The Corbulo and Wolfgang are dispatching Pelican Gunships and Vultures to dominate the air and provide Combat Air Support. We're almost out of this, one final effort is all that remains."
"Roger that sir." She paused, remembering something in the back of her mind. "Sir, any word on the Arbiter's orbital support? They left in a hurry."
De Santa sighed into the mic "We're fighting alongside some Separatists in the centre, they all seem to be convinced that they'll return, but I got a transmission from INTEL on the Wolfgang just before the jammer went online, the covenant fleet, including their new CCS-class Battlecruiser, left orbit on the exact same trajectory as the rest of our fleet. Which doesn't historically turn out well for us."
"Jesus." She replied, shocked "God help our ships if they should turn on us. God help them."
Hall
"Athena, what exactly am I looking at?" Hall growled. Moments after they'd started their offensive manoeuvres, the URF ship had fled, taking cover behind the moon of Sigmus V. This was irritating, as they didn't have imagery of the other side of the moon and therefore couldn't see where exactly the enemy ship was or what actions it was taking. He'd ordered their hybrid vessel to follow the enemy ship around to the dark side of the moon. Upon arrival, their passive radar systems had lit up, showing dozens of medium-tonnage contacts in the darkness zone.
The AI flickered into existence besides his chair, looking panicked. "I've double checked the radar readings, they're not lying, the Chimera's sensors confirm 39 corvette-sized vessels rising from the moon's surface, heat signatures point to conventional weapons as well as multiple nuclear payloads."
He pounded his fist on the arm of his chair. "Damn it!" He grunted "They wanted this. They disabled the other ships to lure us in so they could finish us off." He'd walked straight into their trap, as they'd expected a no-nonsense UNSC CO to do.
"Incoming transmission sir, text only, reads: PRIDE COMES BEFORE A FALL, CAPTAIN." Athena said, displaying the taunting words on the view screen. "You'd think that they could come up with something else a little less cliché, I mean, that phrase is a fallacy anyway, the original line is 'Pride comes before destruction', which is even more suitable for this circumstance."
He rolled his eyes, smiling in spite of the terrible situation. That was the gift of having an AI aboard, they always knew when to be pedantic and witty at the same time. Even now, on the brink of death, he was smiling. "So they may kill us and decimate the battlegroup, but their biblical knowledge will be flawed. Great." He had to think of something to do, some action to take; the bridge crew were all looking expectantly at him, some with fear in their eyes, some with disbelief, and even a couple who were angry, most likely with him for getting them into this mess. What do the Insurrectionists expect him to do? What would he normally do in this situation? That was easy, he'd retreat and link up with the rest of the fleet, bring the fight to them. Logically, if he did what they least would expect, the URF fleet would be unprepared, but that still wasn't going to change the fact that 39 ships' worth of missiles would rip them apart.
He had an idea, a crazy one, a last-hope one, but an idea nonetheless. "Athena, cycle the Shaw-Fujikawa drives, power them up to nearly full. We need to make them think that we're going to jump. Hopefully they should scatter enough for us to plough right through them and slingshot around the moon, try and warn the rest of the battlegroup before they get annihilated."
The AI stopped for a full second, an awful long time for a mind who could perform millions of calculations every second. "Captain, that's… Inspired. I can overclock the Chimera's drive, even plot in a destination solution for the neighbouring system, make it look as if we're about to jump. I'll vent the main reactor and then push engines to the redline. Course laid in, executing in 5."
The entire ship started vibrating, the slip space drive aboard their conjoined twin ship preparing to tear a hole in space time. On the main viewscreen, Hall saw the enemy ships scatter away from their proposed slip-space exit trajectory, some firing their Ares missiles in protest. As the oscillations underfoot reached peak levels, they cut out abruptly, and a low rumbling started up from their engines, propelling them forward. From the rear cameras, Hall could see the glowing core of the reactor emitting massive coronas of rainbow coloured light, rippling through space.
"They're onto us, tracking hundreds of Ares missiles, there's no way we can destroy them all." Called out someone in the bridge, who exactly it was, Hall wasn't sure. They were hurtling around the moon now, letting gravity accelerate them beyond their normal operating bounds, and they were beginning to enter the moon's upper atmosphere, superheating their hull to near breaking point. The superstructure creaked and groaned around them and the temperature readouts for the hull maxed out.
"The missiles are taking a higher orbital slingshot sir, they'll catch us up in 20 seconds." Athena said calmly "Powering up point defence systems, I can take down some of them, but there are too many sir and the rest of the battlegroup is too far away to assist. It was a nice move sir, but we have a survival probability of less than one percent without immediate…"
Off their starboard bow, a massive slip space exit portal materialised, spewing out an entire covenant fleet, lead by a slightly charred CCS-class battlecruiser
"Oh great, more fuel for the fire." Athena quipped
Cro 'Cylen, Shipmaster of the CCS-class Battlecruiser Enlightened Prophet
"Sir, transition to normal space complete, the humans are under fire from an unknown splinter sect, your orders?" Called the weapons officer from his station.
Cro nodded once "All ships, fire at will on those projectiles, blow them from the sky." As soon as the Spartans had handed the traitor over to him, he had been ordered to return to Sanghelios immediately. However, his scouts in-system had warned of low-level radiation sources consistent with older human radiation weapons on the surface of the 5th planet's moon. The human fleet on its way to the planet seemed oblivious to this threat, and their communications systems wouldn't be able to warn them in time. So he had taken the executive decision to make a quick in-system jump to help these humans, the honourable and decent thing to do, regardless of orders.
Their point defense lasers activated, filling the void between their ships and the volley of incoming missiles with a criss-crossing lattice of bright red beams and blooming explosions as the missiles' outer casing was superheated and their explosives ignited. It was over in seconds.
He smirked, feeling at ease in the command chair. "Open a line to the human destroyer and order the fleet to crest the moon, destroy any non-UNSC vessels there and bombard any land fortifications. The Arbiter wants us to work closely with humans, so we shall use this campaign as a sign of friendship, besides, if they had not aided us in the fight above Sigmus IV, we would not have taken this prize vessel at all, I am sure."
Hall
"I'll be damned." Hall whispered "They actually captured that behemoth. What are they doing now?"
"From their attack pattern, cleaning up shop, sir. They're rounding the moon with plasma lines warmed, so I'd say that the URF are about to have a really bad day." Athena confirmed, her orange glow brighter than it had been moments before.
Hall scratched the back of his head, sighing. "Not exactly the strong victory for the UNSC that we'd have hoped for, but we're alive and they'll shortly not be, so I guess that's a result." He looked around the bridge and nodded. "Well done people, we made it, now get us back to the rest of the battlegroup so we can all go home."
There was no jubilant cheering, no rousing applause like there is in movies, but the palpable energy of the bridge staff soared, and faces that had been tired and haggard moments before seemed relieved now.
"Incoming transmission sir, from the Shipmaster, probably to gloat or demand your first born son or something of that ilk." Athena chimed, bringing up Cro 'Cylen's face up on to the main view screen. The commander started speaking in Sangheili with English translation subtitles scrolling underneath.
"Shipmaster Hall, we owe you our thanks for aiding in the procurement of this vessel, and in the capture of Mal 'Furak, so in return we have saved you from certain death at the hands of your fellow humans." The Elite stood from his chair and clenched one hand over his heart. "By your word, Shipmaster, it has been an honour to fight alongside you."
Hall stood from his own chair and snapped to attention, saluting smartly, unsure of how to respond. "The honour has been mine, Shipmaster, I shall pass my highest praise to our Shipmaster of Shipmasters to pass along to your Arbiter. Thank you"
The alien nodded and sat, cutting the comm connection. Hall looked around the bridge and sat down, smiling wryly. "Take us back to the fleet, we need to start towing the damaged vessels back to Sigmus IV and prepare to leave system. Our job is almost done."