Chapter Twenty-One: School's Out
November 25, 2536 (Military Calendar) \
Verus III, Alpha Tauris System
"Good to have you back, Sarge," Olsen said to me after I sat down. I noticed that my squadmates had now started calling me 'Sarge', just like we had done with Macintyre. I must be doing somethingright. Or maybe they were just happy to have me back. In a war like this where losing comrades happened more often than crime in major cities, getting lost comrades back was always a treat.
"Good to be back," I murmured. I then chuckled and corrected myself. "Well…scratch that; words can't even describe how shitty it is to be back here…but it sure as hell beats lying in a post-op room full of…well, you get the idea."
"We know what you meant," Banks chuckled as well.
"I have to say, you had me worried, amigo," Esposito—who had obviously been discharged by the medics before me—said. "Not that I didn't think you could pull through, but that spike in your stomach just looked bad…hell, you had us all worried."
"Gonna take a bit more than that to get me off the field, I'm afraid," I declared, exhaling the smoke from my lungs. "Just a tiny bit more. Not a lot more, though…" I had no illusions of how lucky I had been to survive my stomach wound from five days ago. Had that spike hit my spine…
I shook my head to clear my mind, probably the fourth or fifth time I had done so within the past hour. I had to stop thinking about that damned wound—I would drive myself crazy if I kept on going on about how close to death I had come. I'm a sergeant, for Christ sake; I'm better than that.
"Hey, Alley!" Dempsey called over from his spot by the car wreck next to our semi-circle of sandbags. "I think we got some movement downstairs!"
I checked my mission clock, giving a dejected sigh. Dempsey had said that the lull in the Covenant assault would last roughly an hour…and, sure enough, that had been fifty-seven minutes ago. With that in mind, I pulled out my fiber optic micro-camera, poking it over the top of the sandbag mounds.
I couldn't see a thing. For a few moments, I thought Dempsey had just been seeing things. There was nothing on thermal, and the motion sensor wasn't picking up any movement, either. I was about to tell Dempsey to get his head checked when something caught my eye. It had only been a flash of something, but it was enough for me to recognize it as inhuman. This had to be reported in.
I activated my COM, speaking into my helmet mic. "Hey, El-Tee," I said. "I'm picking up some possible contacts in the trees below."
"Do you have an ID on the signatures?" Lieutenant McCandlish asked.
"Negative," I replied. "Thermal's coming up empty, too…probably grunts massing for another assault, sir."
"That doesn't make any sense…" McCandlish murmured over the COM. "They already sent in the grunts in the last wave… Why would they do so twice in a row?"
"Sir, I'm just telling it like I see it," I shrugged. It wasn't my job to know why the Covenant were doing what they were doing; my job was simply to stop them from doing it.
"Right," McCandlish responded. "I'll inform Captain Howell. Keep an eye on those movements. McCandlish out."
"Well?" Dempsey called over to me.
"He's informing the Captain," I said to my old friend. I then raised my voice and addressed the entire squad. "Everyone, keep your eyes peeled for any signs of hostile movement in the woods! When the Covies attack, I don't want them catching us with our pants down!"
Esposito shook Devereux awake while everyone else stretched out their kinks and took up their positions along the semi-circle of sandbags. Similar orders were being shouted by the other squad leaders up and down the line at the edge of the Cedar Rapids High School's lower lot.
I crouched there quietly, BR55 at the ready, half-finished cigarette hanging from the side of my mouth. The chatter from the other marines along the line quieted down to a faint murmur, and then to silence. Normally, the only sound would have been birdsong, but there were no birds left in this area. The only sound was the dull whump of the plasma bombardment, as well as the faint, perpetual tapping noise of distant gunfire.
I clicked my tongue, beginning to tap my foot impatiently as the silence dragged on. Esposito started humming a tune under his breath, tapping his fingers against his MA5B.
The transition from silence to firefight happened so quickly that it took me a full two seconds to register the sudden change. One moment we had been sitting tense, waiting for the Covenant to make their move…and the next, the air was suddenly filled with plasmafire and needler rounds.
An overcharged plasma shot clipped Banks in the shoulder, melting right through his armor. He fell backwards, clutching his shoulder in silent agony—plasma burns were the absolute worst. I took a quick glance and deduced that he'd be alright—the plasma hadn't hit his actual shoulder. I had just grazed the flesh.
I ducked just as a heavy needle speared through the air where my head had been. Bright green shots from the Covenant carbine weapons—usually used by jackal and Elite sharpshooters—started searing over the sandbags, crisscrossing through the air.
I swore; this new wave seemed to be composed primarily of grunts, but there were also other warriors—Elites and jackals—mixed in as well. They would give us trouble.
And yet…
As I returned fire, laying down some much-deserved lead onto the Covie bastards, I noticed that only the grunts were making any effort to get across Millsboro Street and up the hill. The Elites and jackals seemed content just to hang back in the trees. That was unlike the Elites—usually they would be in the thick of a charge like this. Hanging back in the rear in such a manner was usually abhorrent to them…unless it served some sort of tactical agenda.
Having no time to think on the possibility any further, I resumed doing my job—fire, eject, reload, prime, fire again…and then repeating the cycle over and over until either the Covenant stopped trying to climb the hill, or I stopped a plasma burst with my head. The latter possibility was more likely to happen than the former, unfortunately.
I put a pair of grunts out of their misery before laying some fire down on one of the Elites, prompting the alien to duck behind a tree to allow its shields to regenerate.
That was what pissed me off the most about ground fighting with those bastards—they were just as killable as we were…only they had unfair energy shields they could hide behind which allowed them to take hits that would normally kill them. Once they got hit, they could just sit tight and let those shields recharge, then come back out just as strong as he had been before.
All we had was our battle armor and flesh. When we got hit, it took us weeks to recharge. That, or we just died straight-off. Why does Human life have to be so goddamn fragile?
I suppose it didn't really matter one way or another. Even if we were just as fast or as strong as Elites, we would always be trumped in space. The Covenant Navy would always be able to come in and burn the planet, no matter how good of a fight we could put up on the ground.
I lurched, falling to my knees as I felt something hot sear across the right side of my neck, right where it met my shoulder. It had been one of the caseless radioactive projectiles fired by the Covenant carbine, visible to us as a streak of green.
I shouted at the sudden pain, clutching at my neck with my hand. I was bleeding, but it seemed like it had just been a flesh wound.
"Jesus Christ, Sarge is hit again!" Olsen crawled over to me, pulling my hand away and examining the hit.
"Stop ogling and get me a fucking bandage!" I howled into my squadmate's face, keeping the blood suppressed with my hand. "God damn, these fuckers know how to make guns that hurt…"
One of the company medics got a biofoam-infused bandage onto my neck, allowing me to get back up to my place on the firing line. The graze on my neck was still smarting, but it was nothing a marine couldn't handle. The moment I started resuming fire, another carbine shot snapped past my ear. Somewhere, a jackal sharpshooter had me in its sights.
I shouldered my BR55, slid over to the left a meter, and opened fire again, keeping an eye open for the muzzle flash of the jackal carbine. Sure enough, another carbine shot missed me by a foot or so—I had been purposely moving myself around so that the jackal had no clear shot at me. The shot came from one of the treetops at the edge of Millsboro Streets.
I snapped my aim over to that tree—a tall oak-like tree with deep orange leaves—and quickly spotted the jackal sharpshooter, but I didn't have enough time to take it out. I ducked behind cover just as two more of the radioactive green bursts seared over my head.
"Miguel!" I called over to Esposito, who was holed up with Devereux behind one of the car wrecks. "Jackal sharpshooter in the orange at two o'clock; occupy it for me!"
"You got it!" Esposito shouted back. He shouldered his MA5B, stood up, and started to spray the orange-leafed tree.
The moment he did that, he ducked back down just as the jackal opened fire at him.
I seized the chance. I took a deep breath, adjusting my grip on my BR55, and sprang to my feet, turning towards the orange-leafed tree and bringing my rifle's scope up to my eye as I shot up. By the time I was standing up straight, I already had the jackal sharpshooter centered dead in my crosshairs.
I squeezed the trigger, sending three semi-armor-piercing rounds straight into the lizard-like Covie's skull. I gave a satisfied grin as I watched its corpse flop out of the trees, dropping back behind the sandbags.
Esposito gave a grunt of respect as he watched me countersnipe that jackal. "Why the fuck aren't you a sniper, Sarge?"
"Ask the Spec Ops cumbuckets who keep turning me down!" I shouted back in reply.
The Covies didn't let up. More grunts threw themselves into the fight with renewed vigor, to all of our puzzlement. Why did the Covenant keep on sending more and more grunts into the slaughter? They weren't even softening us up any; we were just massacring them. Couldn't the Covenant see that they were only hurting themselves?
In hindsight, it was plain and obvious why the Covenant kept on sending wave after wave of fodder into our meatgrinder. It was exactly the same thing I had done with the jackal sniper, only on a much larger scale. As long as there was a constant threat to our lines, my company's entire focus was on keeping these grunts back before they swarmed us, which we had been doing quite well.
The point was that it had been an effective distraction. And even if the grunts hadn't been attacking…we still probably would have gotten caught with our pants down. What the Covenant did to us had just been so…unexpected. No one had seen it coming.
I was slapping in a fresh mag and moving along my squad, checking up on everyone, making sure no one had any life-threatening issues that would hamper their ability to keep on spitting lead into the advancing Covies. I was just moving away from Banks and Pope when I felt the ground heave.
The ground rumbled for a second, then it just seemed to swell and explode under our feet. My vision was filled with fire and a bright white light, my ears with a steady thumping noise which I realized was my own heartbeat.
I then realized that I was lying on the ground, staring up to the sky. I blinked twice, shook my head, and pushed myself into a sitting position. A harsh ringing filled my ears and my vision was still washed out and blurry. I leaned over and grabbed my BR55, pushing myself up to my feet. I staggered forward a few steps, taking in the scene.
A massive crater now sat in the center of the lower lot, and a good-sized strip of the parking lot had collapsed. Marines all over were doing as I was doing; staggering to their feet, glancing around in horror at what had just happened.
The only way for something to cause an explosion and subsequent crater like that would be for it to have detonated a good distance belowground. The Covenant had been occupying us with waves of worthless grunts on our lines, and while we concentrated on keeping the grunts back, the Covenant must have been tunneling. The noise of the firefight would mask any sounds coming up from the tunnel below, effectively concealing it until it was complete, at which time all they would need to do is plant charges…and then BOOM. No more defensive line.
I faintly heard Lieutenant McCandlish shouting orders in the background, his Manchester accent easily distinguishable amongst the din. I felt someone grab my shoulder and spin me around. It was Dempsey, and he was yelling something, but I couldn't quite understand him.
The ringing in my ears lowered and turned to a rushing noise, which grew louder and louder until, when it was about to drown out everything else, it suddenly vanished and I could hear everything Dempsey was screaming at me.
"Alley, we have to move!" he was shouting. "Snap out of it!"
I shook my head again, doing away with the remnants and vestiges of my disorientation. "Rally anyone you find and start moving the wounded back up to the athletic lot!" I ordered my friend.
The two of us split up and started rounding up the dazed and disorganized marines of Alpha Company. The two remaining platoon lieutenants—Lieutenant Enders, 1st Platoon's leader, had been killed in the explosion, leaving the unit in charge of a sergeant—were doing the same thing.
More plasmafire started to streak through the air. Out of the corner of my eye I could see ranks of Elites activating their energy swords and charging across Millsboro Street. We had to get the fuck out of this parking lot or we would get butchered.
Alpha Company was now almost completely composed of wounded marines. The marines who were only lightly wounded were all helping their less lucky comrades back through the lower lot to the stairs leading up the hill to the athletic lot.
"Sarge! Gimme a hand over here!" I heard Esposito yelling to me from one of the car wrecks. I whistled to Dempsey, bringing him along with me to where Esposito was crouching. My heart sank to my stomach when I saw what Esposito needed us for.
Devereux was pinned under the car which she and Esposito had been taking cover behind. The subterranean blast had tilted the car over onto her legs—Esposito, obviously, had gotten out in time. He had always been the fastest member of my squad. The car was still propped up a little bit by one of its tires, which was the only thing that had kept it from completely crushing Devereux. We couldn't see her legs, but her head was visible through one of the window spaces.
Most of the others in the company had successfully gotten up to the athletic lot and were laying some sporadic fire down on the advancing Elites to slow them down while the rest of the wounded limped away.
"Soph! Soph, you hear me? Soph!" I called out to Devereux as Esposito, Dempsey, and I got a grip on the overturned car wreck that was on top of her. Her eyelids fluttered and her mouth twitched. She was coming around, but just barely.
"One…two…three, and lift!" Dempsey grunted, heaving at the car wreck. Between the three of us, Esposito, Dempsey, and I were able to move the wreck with relative ease. Dempsey and Esposito held the car up while I grabbed Devereux by the shoulders and dragged her out of there.
I had no time to get her on her feet, so I threw her over my shoulder—the one that hadn't been hit by the carbine shot—and started making my way back through the lower lot.
Esposito had grabbed her M90 and was priming it, getting ready to deal with any Elites who caught up to us. Luckily, we didn't have that problem; we made it up to the athletic lot without any trouble. Sure, we all nearly got hit by all the plasma in the air, but none of us actually did get hit. That's all that counted.
A couple of heavy fifties had been moved up to the athletic lot, and they opened fire, now that all of Alpha Company's survivors had made it out of the lower lot. Marines from Bravo Company were manning this new temporary defense line, allowing us to retreat to the safety of the High School.
I carried Devereux on my back after we reached the top of the stairs and sprinted through the athletic lot, across the bus lane, and into one of the entrances of the High School. Delta Company marines were occupying the halls, and they all cleared the path as we made our way down the hallway.
I kept right on going—up the stairs to the main lobby, through the hallways leading to the cafeteria, and outside. If the medical staff on the track had been busy before, they were about to get busy now. Alpha Company was bleeding heavily from that surprise attack, and the doctors would have to work extra hard to heal as much of us as they could.
One of the corpsmen who wasn't on stretcher detail took a quick look at Devereux, who still hadn't quite regained consciousness. He told me that she had a minor concussion—no doubt from hitting her head against the asphalt after that car rolled on her—and five broken ribs. He simply tossed me a can of biofoam and instructed me to make sure she kept drinking fluids. With wounds like that, that was all the overtaxed medics could do. There were far more severe wounds they had to treat that took precedence over broken ribs.
My mind finally started to slow down from the faster-than-light pace it had been racing at since the explosion. As I carried Devereux back towards the school, where Dempsey and Esposito were waiting, I started to realize just how much that explosion had cost us.
I don't know how many we lost in that explosion…probably twenty to forty marines. Sheila Pope, Tom Olsen, and Mike Clayton were all gone from my squad…reducing my squad down to nine marines out of the original fifteen. I didn't even want to know how many the platoon in general had lost.
Sergeant Olbrecht was in command of 1st Platoon after Lieutenant Enders had been killed in the explosion. My platoon had lost Sergeant Aimes, leaving his squad under the command of Sergeant Geoffries. Captain Howell was also out of the picture. He hadn't been killed, but reports were that he was very close to death. Recovery was slim for him at best. Lieutenant Wilkins, the company XO, had been killed as well.
For now, Alpha Company was in the hands of Lieutenant Hasegawa, who was now the most experienced officer in the company with Enders, Wilkins, and Captain Howell all out of the picture. McCandlish was good, but he was still new. The only other officer who would have been good for the job was Helen Nelson, McCandlish's predecessor, but the minor detail of her being dead made her unavailable for the job.
Hasegawa was the logical choice.
Adding further insult to injury, Gunny Harken—our senior company NCO—had also been killed. We had lost a good deal of our leadership in that damn explosion.
I regrouped my squad in the classroom where I had run across Lieutenant Wilkins on my way to the lower lot. Luckily, the Gauss cannon was still mounted in the window overlooking the bus lane and the hillside beyond. I looked down the hill, watching as Bravo Company disengaged and fell back across the bus lane and poured into the school directly below us.
I looked at my squadmates and did another quick headcount. I frowned, seeing that we were down to seven, not nine as I had originally thought. Then I remembered that I had forgotten to count our wounded—Lance Corporal Kwon's abdomen had been turned into a Human dartboard with those purple spikes, and Private Eastcroft had a severed femoral artery which needed immediate repair if he was to continue fighting, or even keep his leg.
The rest of us all sported wounds of a sort. I think it would be difficult to find a marine in all of town who hadn't gotten a scratch yet. We had only been fighting for twenty or so minutes, and we were already exhausted. That didn't matter, though. The Covies would keep on coming even if we were still in peak condition.
I set Devereux down in one of the student desks, pulling her canteen from her belt and unscrewing the cap, sending a steady stream of water down her throat. She gulped the water down and finally came around, forcing her eyes open with a muttered grunt.
She blinked once, glancing around the classroom, immediately deducing that she was no longer on the lower lot. "What…what happened…?"
I put her M90 shotgun in her hands. "No time for that, now," I said. "Take up a position by the door and keep out anything unfriendly."
She gave a silent nod and stood up, slowly making her way over to the door. I glanced at Banks and gestured for him to go with her; she was still disoriented, and I didn't want her out on her own in that state. She would come out of it in a few minutes, but it paid to be careful.
"The rest of you; get up against those windows!" I barked the order, hefting my BR55 and standing in front of one of the classroom windows. Esposito and Neyer took up the Gauss cannon, acting as a gunner/loader team.
Eventually, marines from Sergeant Geoffries's squad came into the classroom, augmenting our firepower with their own. This was helpful, because with Esposito and Neyer on the cannon, and Devereux and Banks on the door, that only left me and two others on the windows. Three marines' worth of firepower wasn't quite as effective as a full squads, but with the arrival of Geoffries's marines, the balance slid a bit back towards normal.
I watched as the Elites reached the top of the athletic lot and started crossing the bus lane. That was when the entire face of the High School lit up, lead raining down on the Covies from every single window. This beat them back somewhat, but we all knew it was a temporary fix.
A mass of Covenant armor—wraiths, specters, and several other types of vehicles I didn't recognize—was making its way up the access road that ran from Millsboro Street to the bus lane. Not to mention that now we had banshees coming in hot from the west. This was about to get even hairier, but we all also knew that none of us could leave until the wounded and medical staff got evacuated from the High School track out back. If we fell back, they would be torn apart.
Even as I started replacing my mag, I knew something was wrong. The Covies were still holding back, as if they were just trading fire with us just for the sake of shooting their weapons. For a moment, I wondered if they would blow the school up, too…but the moment passed, as I realized that Colonel Ndebele would be actively scanning for activity belowground with the CP sensors.
Still…the Covies' behavior was still erratic, as if they still had another ace in the hole.
They did still have another ace in the hole, as it turned out, and when I saw it I didn't even swear. My eyes just widened and my heart sank from my stomach to somewhere around my knees. A gigantic machine was making its way towards us. Because we were now at the top of the hill the school was built on, we could all see it. It was around twenty meters tall, thirty meters wide, fifty long…and it was shaped like an insect, comprising of a central chassis which the crew operated from held up by four robotic legs, which also provided the platform with its movement.
Dempsey and I had encountered them several times during the Harvest Campaign, and none of those times had exactly been pleasant experiences. Because of their insect-like appearance, we called them 'scarabs', and they were nasty pieces of work.
Normally, we could take them down with an armored regiment or with an artillery or air strike…only we no longer had any organized air forces left on Verus III, our artillery up north was neutralized, and what little armor we had in this miserable little town was spread out, supporting the fight on all fronts.
In short, we were fucked.
"Sarge!" one of the other marines was shouting to me, seeing that I was the highest-ranking NCO in the room. "Sarge, what are we supposed to do?"
The ground rattled as the scarab fired its forward cannon, sending a huge bolt of crackling green energy thundering into the hillside, tearing a gaping scar in the earth wherever it hit.
I had only one answer for the young private who had spoken to me. "Cross your fingers and pray, kid."