Hi everyone here's a new chapter for you after an extremely long case of writer's block, sorry about that. So a few things before we jump into the thick of it. This arc will be coming to an end in the next chapter and my poll will only be up for about two more weeks if you want to vote on it. And as you could see on the way in I changed the summary because I felt like this new one fit more with what I'm going for. All in all, this has been really fun to write so far, thank you all for your continued support of this project and let's get on into the story.
XXXXXXXX
Star Chart: Kite's Nest, Harsa System, Khar'shan…
Location: Aboard the U.N.S.C. Spirit of Fire…
Date: 10 March 2560…
Time: 09:00 military standard time…
Ellen Anders sat in her post on the UNSC Spirit of Fire, coffee mug in hand as she looked through the data of the underground complex that the ground forces were trying to break into. She had been at this for the past three days, trying and failing to find any way for them to flank their underground foe without assigning engineer companies to dig around the outside of the fortress. From what she could gather from the information there were no entrances that any person could fit through so the only way they could possibly win this war in a timely manner was to throw everything they had at it until it eventually breaks… or they could try to leverage the Batarian ambassador in their care to call for the immediate surrender of the last remaining troopers but he didn't have the political power to do so and she still hadn't received word from the HEADHUNTERs she sent to improve the political power of said ambassador.
The battle of the underground had already claimed the lives of ten Spartans already and dozens more wounded just by the concentrated fire of the Batarian weapon emplacements coupled with overlapping fields of small arms fire. Whoever this Batarian commander was he was a rather smart man for being able to hold off the AUR invasion force for as long as he has and it was making her higher-ups at HIGHCOM impatient and angry about the loss of hundreds of thousands of credits to even claim this thing. Stack all of this on top of the guerilla war on the surface of the planet by what remained of the surviving Batarian divisions and ensuring paperwork made everyone in the system combat commands job a living hell to even attempt to make things go smoothly.
"Just give me some good news for once that's all I ask," Ellen groaned into her hands in frustration and exhaustion until she got a ping on her message folder, "finally."
United Nations Space Command Priority Transmission 68831G-44
Encryption Code: Blue
Public Key: File /Excised Access Alpha/
From: Captain [REDACTED] [REDACTED] Known Alias: Drake Florian, Field Operative Office of Naval Intelligence, UNSC Geisha
To: Captain Ellen Anders Ph.D., Hades War Congregation, Office of Naval Intelligence Regional Commander (Service Number: 50049-31128-EA)
Subject: Mission report for planet Spekilas
Classification: RESTRICTED (BGX Directive)
/Start File/
The attack on Spekilas has been completed as assigned by mission parameters, under the seven days allotted time frame. We had to improvise our way in using slaves we'd freed as a distraction to give us a clear shot toward the target. In the short term, I believe this brought the slaves some hope of salvation, in the long term my decision to use the slaves to fight their masters should make them highly loyal to us once we get a puppet state in place. Although on further analysis, we will need to have an occupying force here to keep both potential terrorists, the Citadel, and the puppet state from getting any bright ideas.
As far as the mission went, no Spartan casualties were reported to me by any of the HEADHUNTER Fireteams assigned to this mission. Slave casualties are still being compiled by War Congregation DAWN at the time of this transmission as well as their main assault starting on the planet. Expect a second report when numbers have been confirmed and double checked. All helmet cam footage has also been delivered as requested in a separate file below, although one Spartan Elijah's may have taken the target out with some more 'extreme' measures.
/File 1 End Click "ENTER" To Open File 2/
"That's very good," Ellen sat back in her seat with a sigh of relief, "Isabel, please get this second file looked through and get the pictures of all the KIA bureaucrats bodies sent to my personal holo-pad, please."
"It will take me a minute but it will be done," Isabel replied from her avatar on the far side of the bridge.
"Oh, and don't forget to get a copy of this to the Admiral as well," Ellen ordered as she got up and proceeded to walk out of the bridge with a smile on her face.
XXXXXXXX
Star Chart: Kite's Nest, Harsa System, Spekilas…
Location: Onboard the UNSC Reprieve…
Date: 10 March 2560…
Time: 09:44 military standard time…
"Good morning citizens of the AUR, my name Benjamin Giraud coming to you live from hangar 5-B on the UNSC Reprieve a medical ship of the War Congregation Dawn..." Benjamin said to his camera drone, trying to properly fix the fitting of his standard issue helmet as multiple groups of aliens from the Citadel races were offloaded from mixtures of Pelican and Phantom Dropships. The reason they were being brought to the medical boats was that it would be the only place to hold them all until the other ships were done offloading their complements of soldiers, not to mention the malnutrition and possible wounds that were inflicted upon them made being brought to a place like this their best bet.
After revealing the truth about ONI's secret and unethical ways of creating the Spartan IIs and IIIs, Benjamin had decided to switch from doing interviews and shiny propaganda releases back to actually reporting the news from the front lines. The way he figured it, if things had gone wrong when he uncovered the Spartan program and if the Queen of ONI didn't have his back for his snooping around then he'd most likely be dead or rotting in a hole where no one in the galaxy would be able to find him, not to mention he had always found purpose with front line reporting, actually finding a taste for it during the battle of New Mombasa. Although the six months of military basic before being cleared for this job was a pain in the ass now he at least knew how to defend himself.
"What you see behind me is the byproduct of UNSC intervention with the Skyllian Blitz," Benjamin waved to the scene of scared and awed people being loaded out into the semi-safe environment of the hospital ship played out, allowing the drone to pan over the hangar catching every single shred of movement, "with the help of our brave men and women of the UNSC these slaves have been able to rise up against those that have put them down for over 100 years...hmm?"
Before he could continue, Benjamin felt a small hand pull on his pant leg causing him to look down in confusion as he spotted a little blue alien girl standing there looking at him with curious, hopeful eyes, an Asari if his report was correct. The little thing was worse for wear with a few bumps and scratches on her skin, nothing a little bandaid and a good night's rest wouldn't fix. Quickly turning on his translator, Benjamin put his full focus on the girl.
"Can you help me find my mommy and daddy?" the little Asari girl asked, her voice filtering through Giraud's helmet translation devise.
"Um… s-sure," Benjamin nodded, taking a look around the hangar spotting many Asari huddled around being filtered through multiple places and wrote it off as basically impossible since all the Asari look pretty much the same, those wouldn't be her parents, they would have already stormed over here and chewed me out if they were, "oh… um, what do they look like?"
"None of them look like mommy and daddy's a Q-quarian," the little girl said tripping over the last word, her small vocabulary trying to articulate the word.
"Okay… Quarian, Quarian," Benjamin Giraud snapped his fingers as he attempted to remember where the Quarians were hauled off to for treatment of any sickness that might affect them and staring toward the stern of the hangar where sat in several large group's, Quarians. Most of the Quarians that were brought aboard were transferred to decontaminated chambers for treatment due to a large number of them being heavily wounded from fighting against their former masters. If the non wounded ones hadn't put up so much fuss about wanting to stay and wait for potential loved ones they would have joined the wounded, leaving Benjamin without a proper lead on finding this little girl's parents, "over there, probably," Benjamin nodded toward the grouped Quarians and started to lead the little girl there.
"Excuse me, does any of you have an Asari daughter?" Benjamin called out to the group as he and the little Asari girl got closer and something hit him as soon as he said the words, "umm, what's your name by the way?"
"Voli," the little girl replied.
"She says her name's Voli, any of you know where her father might be?" Benjamin asked the assembled Quarians receiving no answers, just blank stares which made him extremely uncomfortable.
"I knew her 'father'," a male looking Quarian no more than 5 foot 6 inches spoke up and stepped out of the crowd. He had a dark red cloth on his brown environmental suit with khaki lace etched into it and lastly an opaque green faceplate.
"Knew?" Benjamin questioned knowing full well what 'knew' meant but he needed to make sure his hunch was accurate, and the translators weren't perfect, confusing certain words like knew and know between curtain dialects especially with new ones.
"My twin, she didn't make it off planet," the Quarian said looking right into Benjamin's eyes, the face place concealing most of his features except for the glowing lime green eyes behind it, definitely not as intimidating as an emotionless unseeable stare down from a fully armored Spartan but it was close, "thank you for bringing Voli to me, I'll make sure she's safe until I can either find her mother or my sister if they're still alive."
"No problem, take care," Benjamin nodded nudging Voli on toward her supposed uncle and turned around to stare back into his camera drone and immediately went beet red as he realized that the drone had been filming the whole thing on live to the entire AUR side of the galaxy, why do I always forget that those are on?
XXXXXXXX
Star Chart: Kite's Nest, Harsa System, Khar'shan…
Location: F.O.B. Xray, Batarian Capital City…
Date: 10 March 2560…
Time: 13:04 military standard time…
"Bet?" Kei asked her Fireteam including their Spectre as they sat around a small repair crate, in her hands a ten and a queen of spades. The team was in the middle of a friendly card game to pass the time as they rested up from this morning's bloody attempt at breaking further into the Batarian underground fortress. They were assigned four hours of rest time per strike - two strikes have been sent out per day - to either unwind or sleep. Fireteam Domino had chosen to unwind for this one having slept a good four hours before the last attack.
"Fold," Phoros grunted and laid his cards down a four of hearts and a nine of clubs marking second to fold in the round, Leonidas had been the first to fold this round with a two of diamonds and five of hearts.
"I'll raise five," Tela said after a couple of seconds of looking at her cards in an unsure manner as she slid five small rocks that they were using as 'currency' into the middle of the crate, obviously not as knowledgeable with the game as the Spartans around her were.
"Staying," Martin said tossing in five of his rocks as well to stay in the game.
"Staying," Kei shrugged tossing her own five in and after a minute of no one putting in a bet she responded, "alright show them."
"Three of a kind," Martin said showing his cards, two Jacks to match up with the one already on the crate.
"One pair," Tela said sighing in defeat as she placed down a King and a four.
"Royal Flush," Kei said victoriously as she showed her own cards to the group causing all of them to grown and curse at her third win in a row.
"I swear if we weren't wearing our armor I'd attempt to call you out for having cards up your sleeves," Leonidas laughed as Kei gathered up her winnings into her rather large pile of rocks.
"Guess I just have that good of luck then, "Kei winked at Leonidas.
"All Fireteam leaders report to your closest briefing station immediately," a Sangheili voice commanded over the loudspeakers.
"You heard the four jaw," Leonidas stood up and grabbed his helmet off the ground where he sat it down, "get your gear situated and restock on ammo, I want everyone combat ready in ten minutes."
"Sir," the three members of his Fireteam said in unison, snapping off quick salutes as the moved.
XXXXXXXX
As Leonidas walked into the briefing room he could see nine other Spartan Fireteam leaders standing around the holo-table. Flowing in behind him were six other Fireteam leaders marking out the complete set of 15 fireteams in this sector. Projected on the holo-table was a 3D map of the Batarian stronghold, the thing stretched down into the ground like an upside down pyramid with a total of 14 sectors, attached to the first five were tunnel openings with tram systems which functioned as unhittable and untraceable supply lines from orbit to the other cities just about indefinitely as long as the main base was not assaulted directly. The reason they were able to do this was because of the multiple military factories, depots, indoor farming systems and even a couple of ore mines built into the bottom five sectors of the fortress.
The top four sectors of it were colored in green as secured, friendly territory while the further ten were marked in red as enemy held locations. During the capture of the top four sectors, half of the Spartans, ODSTs, and several Hunter Battalions assigned to the capital take over, split off down the tunnels to block off Batarian reinforcements from retreating back into the main base as well as pinch what troops are fighting them on other fronts between them and the forces they've already been fighting, hoping to end those pockets of resistance and get those troops to assist with the main battle happening below the Batarian capital.
"What's the mission?" Leonidas asked the other assembled Spartan Fireteam leaders in the room, not catching a single Field Commander among them as they all stood in a circle around the holo-table.
"Spartans good you're all here," Isabel the Spirit of Fire's smart AI said as she popped up on the holo-table next to the holographic blueprint of the Batarian fortress.
"What's our mission, ma'am?" one of the Spartans in ruby red Warrior Gen-II pattern armor on the far right of the holo-table asked.
"I'm simply here to warn you of your Spectre guests," Isabel replied crossing her holographic arms of coding of her chest, "I've been intercepting transmissions that they've been sending out and reporting them directly to the Admiral."
"So, we've kept what info we've given them to a bare minimum and have been following the procedure to the letter," another Spartan spoke up in confusion.
"Well you have new orders, straight from the top officers at HIGHCOM," Isabel replied to the Spartan, "if you perceive your Spectre to be actively interfering with your missions in any way that could get you killed, you are to eliminate them as a threat as soon as possible but you are under direct orders to make their deaths look like they were caused by the Batarians."
"So we're shooting them in the back now?" the one in Warrior armor sneered, "seems a bit dishonorable if you as me. Why give these orders anyway, it's not like things have gotten that out of control, have they?"
"All I can say is that tensions have risen between us and the Citadel and depending on how far our relationship with them falls, the fewer Spectres they have at their disposal the better," Isabel stated, her virtual avatar looking over the resigned faces of the Spartans in the room, some of them having made small friendships with their Spectres through the recent conflict. She really didn't need to, because she technically was in every camera in the room, before speaking in a more soothing voice, "your field commander will be in shortly."
As Isabel faded from the holo-table an old woman in her late forties to early fifties walked through the door and instinctively all Spartans in the room gave her a salute, conditioned into them during their times within the ODST and Marine Corp. and honed to muscle memory from the blistering training and augmentations the Spartan Corp. forced upon them. She wasn't a fully augmented Spartan like the rest of them but then again very few actual Spartans were in command positions because the Spartan Corp. was still in its infancy with only the highest in the command structure being Spartans themselves and they were mostly of the S-III variety with what remained of the S-II washouts being above them in rank. The woman in the room seemed to be one of those washouts if her cybernetic right leg and hunched posture was anything to go by. Yet even that gave the S-IVs in the room an almost religious amount of respect to the woman, knowing what she was put through and still having the willpower to do her damnedest to serve her people.
"Afternoon, Spartans," the woman said with a steely tone as she tried to return their salutes back to them to the best her body allowed her to do and sat her old bones down into the only chair provided in the room, "at ease."
"What's our mission, ma'am?" Leonidas asked first.
"Right," the woman raised glasses to her eyes and focused on the hologram in front of her, "Groups A, C, and E, you are to assist the 4076th and the 998th UNSC Army Divisions in their push into sub-sector E-10, after that you are to link up with the other UNSC forces making their push at Rally Point Gama right here," the field commander said pointing to a green dot on the middle of the sector, "from here you are to make a beachhead into the next sector and hold until fresh replacements can be deployed to take your place and keep the pressure on them."
"And the rest of us, ma'am?" Leonidas asked as the Spartans assigned to Groups A, C and E departed to inform their Fireteams and get to their insertion points.
"Groups B and D will secure these six fusion generators. We've caught wind of orders telling the Batarians in those areas to destroy them, we can't let that happen with millions of civilians and hundreds of thousands of troops still in this labyrinth," the S-II wash out stated cooly, "if you find civilians or slaves working in those areas, make sure they are out of the line of fire and give them evacuation transponders for the Army grunts to pick up once the assault reaches them."
"How are we going to reach these locations?" Leonidas asked as he looked at the markers on the map, all near the back of the enemy lines on that floor, "they'll be able to detonate those reactors before we would be able to advance into those positions."
"Your teams will be inserting via teleportation beacons on the floor just above your target areas," the S-II Field Commander stated receiving confused looks from the S-IVs in the room, "I won't lie to you, it's highly experimental Forerunner grade teleport systems so you might not come out unscathed if you even come out at all," the field commander said stiffly, giving the assembled S-IVs a steely look, "that is why so few of you are being deployed. If there wasn't the threat of nuclear annihilation these would still be in the remote testing fields of Reach and nowhere near this planet."
"We understand, ma'am," a Spartan next to Leonidas stated with a resigned look in her eyes.
"Good, dismissed," the S-II washout commanded, "I want your operations to be at bare minimum halfway done by 14:00 hours."
"Ma'am," the remaining Spartans in the room saluted and exited with purpose.
XXXXXXXX
"So, what's the mission this time, more assisting the Army regulars as they throw themselves against these four-eyed cockroaches?" Martin asked as Leonidas marched into the Spartan/Spectre staging area, followed by the other five Fireteam leaders as he set an M739 SAW to his back mag-plate.
"What is this 'cockroach'?" Tela asked from nearby as she did the final checks on her gear.
"Disgusting bug from the human homeworld about the size of my thumb and is the only thing that can possibly survive a minor nuclear detonation better than most animals on the planet," Kei shrugged as she rummaged through her medical gear, triple checking that everything was in it and in their proper places.
"Speaking of nuclear detonation, "Leonidas sighed as he grabbed a MA5D off one of the gun racks and set it on his backplate with the necessary ammo, his energy sword trophy from nearby and attached it to the small of his back, and lastly two M7 SMGs and set them on his thigh plates with the ammo needed for them, "we're targeting one of their nuclear generators, turns out that they are planning to blow the entire complex up if we're able to break their front lines, turning this entire city into a massive crater."
"If we can't have it no one can," Phoros grunted from near the door, shaking his head in disapproval.
"Hit the nail right on the head," Leonidas answered as he faced his squad, grabbing his helmet and sealing it in place.
"Wait, how will we reach those areas without them going off first?" Martin said quizzically, "I don't know about you but I left my shovel in my other custom made suit of armor."
"Teleportation," Leonidas stated, "don't be surprised if we end up in a wall and our Spectre will be with the assault group until she reaches us."
"Why can't I go with you?" Tela asked suspiciously as she crossed her arms in annoyance.
"Because you would be ripped to shreds just trying," Leonidas sighed, "we have a better survival rate due to these," Leonidas tapped his armored chest for clarification, "and it's still not completely 100% full proof."
"So you're telling me that a highly advanced civilization that can cut holes into a fourth dimension for FTL that can get you from one end of the galaxy to the other in little over a half a year hasn't worked out the kinks in a working teleportation system?" Tela asked almost shocked about what she was hearing.
"Truth be told, we only discovered teleportation technology within the past decade and this is literally the first test drive of the damn things," Martin countered with a defensive tone in his voice, "it's not like you've done any better little miss lives for a thousand years. I bet if we had life spans like yours we'd have conquered the entire galaxy by the time of the Roman empire."
"Stow it," Leonidas shot Martin a cold look that the man could feel through his Fireteam leader's faceplate, "we've got a job to do, let's get it done."
"Sir, yes sir," Martin sighed as he grabbed his helmet and put it on.
XXXXXXXX
"Fireteam Domino reporting for insertion," Leonidas said as he walked into the ten foot by ten-foot room a few dozen meters above their target position.
The place used to be a barracks if some of the melted metal bed frames were anything to go by. In the room was a rather large disk setup directly in the middle with three poles sticking out of it, if you were to put lines from them towards the middle they'd sit on the outside corner of every third. Leading out from the disk were three bundles of cables leading to a mobile control panel and two portable plasma reactors, both the reactors and the control panel were set behind energy barriers making this already bleak sounding mission that much more of bleaker. Surrounding the control panel were seven people in the uniforms for navy technicians and around the disk were 12 armed soldiers wearing the uniforms of those that belonged to the UNSC army corps of engineers and five more navy technicians overseeing them.
"Okay, um, stand over there on that disk, we're almost done with the last of the calibrations and equations necessary for your travel," one of the closer navy technicians said in an awkward sounding Slavic tone as he flipped through the 5 inches thick manual in his hands, most of it was probably just blueprints to put it together but it was still ungodly thick for what the machine was supposed to do. Leonidas turned to look back at his team with an over the shoulder glance before shrugging and advancing onto the machine with one uneasy step like he was setting foot on a landmine before standing fully on it. Phoros was the next to step on, followed by Martin and lastly Kei.
"So what now?" Martin asked over personal squad comms as he shifted awkwardly on the 'pedestal'.
"Flash mob?" Kei shrugged as she stared at the engineers trying her damnedest to will them to go faster, only succeeding in making the engineers more nervous.
"It would pass the time," Leonidas agreed half-heartedly, receiving a disappointed shake of the head from Phoros.
"Okay everything's set and ready to go," the technician that spoke with them earlier confirmed as he stood before them.
"How badly will this hurt?" Martin asked.
"Not at all, I promise," the technician lied, knowing full well this will be the first test run of the teleportation grid.
"If I die, I'll haunt your ass," Phoros growled as he tensed up ready for a fight, shotgun ready in his hands.
"Then let's hope that doesn't happen," the technician chuckled nervously as he backed up behind the energy shield every other technician was hiding behind and the engineers had the foresight to book it out of the room as soon as their work was done in hopes that they would be out of the range of the theoretical explosion.
"Three… two… one…" the technicians all said at the same time as one closest to the corner pushed an unseen button and the poles sprouting from the pedestal started spinning counter-clockwise, slowly at first building up a golden glow before gradually getting faster and faster, to the point that Fireteam Domino's augmented sight couldn't focus on one individual pole for any amount of time.
Fireteam Domino' vision soon went white and they felt a flash of pain so strong it felt like every molecule was shredded from their beings one by one. As they came to, they found themselves in a new place with walkways above them, a massive hunk of technology bleeding blue light right in front of them and a couple of very startled Quarians chained to their posts looking up at their forms. Fireteam Domino's shield alarms were going off and everything was sore as if they went through augmentations all over again.
XXXXXXXX
Star Chart: Kite's Nest, Harsa System, Khar'shan…
Location: Batarian Underground Fortress, Sector E15…
Date: 10 March 2560…
Time: 13:10 military standard time…
"Everyone good?" Leonidas asked groggily as he took in more of his surroundings.
"OOOOWWWW," Martin growled as he looked himself over and recoiled in shock, "and what the fuck is with all this black stuff?"
"Black stuff?" Leonidas looked at himself, not spotting anything different before turning to Martin in confusion to see him covered in splotches of black all over his armor, some of the blue colorations poked out in some areas but it was primarily coated in a black film.
"Just me... that's not fair!" Martin complained as he looked at his squad mates before receiving a pistol shot to the left side of his head, pinging off the titanium shell.
"Cover, now!" Leonidas ordered as he grabbed his MA5D off his back and slid behind a pillar to his right, followed by Kei right next to him. Martin and Phoros took the one on the other side due to both pillars only being able to hold two people behind it for cover. Martin popped out of his cover to fill the bastard that shot him in the head, quickly killing him before ducking back so he didn't take any more shots. Leonidas looked toward his hud to find that his shields hadn't recharged yet and took a look at the crystalline shield emitters that formed his shields, finding them in shattered pieces.
"Shields have overloaded, that means all our systems are down," Kei yelled over the gunfire around her, "and worse our armor attachments won't work either.
"Son of a bitch, my AI's completely fried," Martin growled as he pulled out the smoking remains of his AI's data core and popped out, using the SAW in his hand to do his best at mowing down a squad of Batarian regulars that took up positions above them on the catwalks. It didn't do much but force them away from the edge of the thing but it allowed Phoros to peek out from his post and throw a plasma grenade onto the underside of the Batarian position, killing all on the catwalk as it exploded in a shower of molten steel and body parts. Thank god that the grenades didn't overload on them too.
"Damn it," Leonidas aimed his rifle in the direction of the two Quarians who flinch away with fear and shot their restrains to pieces, freeing them and allowing them to crawl towards Leonidas' and Kei's cover spots to stay clear of the incoming Batarian fire, "Wolf, Reaper take the ones on the left, me and Edge will take the ones on the right. Keep the fire away from the slaves."
"Got it," Martin yelled out as he popped white smoke, broke cover and started doing mowing down any Batarians in his way of the next covered area, while Phoros just nodded and followed in suit.
"Ready?" Leonidas turned toward Kei.
"Ready," Kei nodded throwing white smoke to mask their movement and shuffling forward, her SMG firing to suppress as she did so. As the smoke cleared both pairs were already on the other sides of the reactor room, giving them a great line of sight against the slightly understaffed platoon-sized element of Batarian soldiers. Said soldiers opened fire as soon as they could properly see their enemy with overlapping firing points coordinated from the units in the catwalks and those on the ground floor.
"Reaper, get to the catwalks we need to split their fire," Leonidas ordered into his comms, hoping that the thing hadn't sorted out with the rest of his subsystems but it seemed it had due to the lack of response from his second," Edge do you think you could cover me for a couple of minutes?"
"What are you planning?" Kei asked as she peeked out from her covered location and sent a steady stream of hot led at the Batarians in her way.
"Drawing fire from the bastards up top," Leonidas stated and sent a blind burst passed his cover into the Batarian position on the ground.
"That's fucking insane," Kei pointed out as she ducked back behind her cover to escape the hail of Batarian fire coming her way.
"Got any better plans?" Leonidas barked as a stray Batarian slug tore through the ammo counter on his MA5D, showering sparks and shrapnel everywhere.
"Not really," Kei shook her head and switched her empty magazine for a fresh one and slammed it into her SMG.
On the other side, Martin and Phoros were doing well, taking out a couple more Batarian positions with combinations of Martin's SAW pinning them, Phoros closing to engage in CQC if the were close enough and launching a grenade if the enemy position wasn't also occupied with cowering slave labor. They had taken some minor wounds, like a shallow stab from a close combat blade when Phoros jumped into a slightly too big a group or the clean bullet hits along with the areas where the titanium plate didn't cover but for the most part, they were still combat effective. The only complains they would have was that their shields weren't operational.
"Ey, Reaper over there," Martin called out as he rolled into cover next to Phoros and pointed to their squad leader exiting cover, both SMGs in his hands as he shot and ran toward a staircase leading upward to the catwalks, "think he needs help?"
"Yeah," Phoros nodded as he looked up at the catwalk, "you volunteered, go."
"Understood," Martin lifted up his SAW and sprinted as fast as he could toward the staircase on their end of the battlefield, taking a couple of direct hits to the side as he did so. As he reached the top of the stairs he saw Leonidas just climb up as well.
"Same idea?" Leonidas panted for breath, the weight of the armor getting to him slightly.
"Followed you up," Martin said as he looked across the catwalk and saw the soldiers that were firing down on the fireteam starting to make their way toward the two Spartan's new position.
"After you," Leonidas said as he looked at his SMGs and back to the oncoming force.
"Using me as the meat shield?" Martin asked with humor in his voice as he looked toward the Batarians, "I thought we got over that during Spartan training."
"Ha, ha," Leonidas mock laughed, "just open fire, jackass."
"Yes sir," both Spartans lifted their weapons in unison and sprayed the rushing Batarians down. Martin sprayed his weapon from left to right and Leonidas did the same but each weapon hand sprayed in an opposite direction until they were out of ammo in their chosen weapons and moved forward to engage in CQC.
Leonidas swiftly exchanged his SMGs with his energy sword and ignited it, cutting three Batarians across the necks on a 45 degree upward swing. Martin charged into an assembled group with a shoulder check, sending five caring over the rails and crushing two under an armored boot. Leonidas, in turn, grabbed the Omni-tool bladed hand of another Batarian and used his sword to impale the alien through the chest. He then used the dead Baratian's body as a shield while he body checked the dead one's friend, the exposed end of the energy sword stabbing through him as well. As Martin slowed down to a halt, two Batarians charged at the same time with Omni-blades at the ready. The Spartan stowed his SAW onto his back and kicked out the knee of the Batarian on his left, as he did so, Martin threw a left hook into the helmeted head belonging to Batarian on his right. This punch putting a heavy dent in it and in turn sent his body falling over the edge, knocked out or most likely dead before he hit the ground below. The remaining Batarian on his left staggered back onto his one good leg and lunged for Martin but was easily sidestepped and sent over the edge resounding in a loud thud.
"Hey watch where you're throwing those things you could poke somebodies eye out!" Kei yelled from below followed by two magnum blasts, "and make sure they're dead first."
"No my fault, he jumped!" Martin defended as he took a split second to look down and found that Kei and Phoros had changed sides of the battlefield with each other the other two were in CQC.
"Sure he did," Kei said sarcastically as she aimed up toward Martin's and Leonidas' positions and shot a Batarian trying to flank around them.
Martin focused back on the fight in front of him as he jabbed at the chest of Batarian leveling a shotgun at him, ripped it out of his hand and shot a hole in the Batarian's chest with his own weapon. As Martin did this, Leonidas had hacked away five more Batarians with sweeping slashes and stabs. He then proceeded to hack off the forearm of an overextended Omni-bladed punch and before the Batarian had a chance to scream Leonidas silenced him with a decapitation strike. The rest in front of Martin and Leonidas scrambled over each other to escape out of the door on the other side of room and catwalk. When the Batarians did this both Spartans grabbed their weapons off their backs and mowed down the Batarians in retreat, killing several more before the door they ran through closed and sealed itself off.
"Okay all that's left is the ones on the ground floor," Martin sighed, knowing that this part of the mission was almost done.
"Agreed," Leonidas stretched his neck and aimed at the enemies down on the ground floor, "fire at will."
"Firing," Martin replied as he started firing upon the Batarian positions that held no slave labor and let Leonidas handle the ones that did since his MA5D was a bit more precise.
XXXXXXXX
"Asari, get over here!" a Sangheili soldier yelled to her from the corner of a small passageway, just enough for four human-sized people to walk breast to breast down it.
Tela Vasir had been accompanying this squad of UNSC soldiers over the past hour, fighting past multiple fortified gun emplacements and kill boxes, this was just another in the long line of kill boxes she'd had to help clear in the past three hours. She'd been working with at least ten other squads before coming upon this one since they'd died almost too fast to remember faces. The only reason this squad had been surviving for so long was that they were entirely Sangheili.
"What is it?" Tela asked as she approached Sangheili that called her over and peeked out into the new corridor and ducked back immediately to avoid the heavy machine gun fire pouring through, "okay, I get it."
Tela Vasir summoned a biotic one-way barrier wall to allow the UNSC soldiers to shoot out but kept the enemy fire at bay and stepped out into the hallway. As soon as she stepped out the fire from the Batarian fortified position hit the barrier like a car hitting a wall, staggering Tela to the point where she fell onto her knees in exhaustion but kept the barrier up with what remained of her willpower. It wasn't long before the Sangheili followed in behind her and used explosives to lay waste to the Batarian heavy gun and gun down the rest.
"Are you okay, Asari?" the squad's sergeant asked as he looked down at her.
"As good as I'm going to get," Tela grunted as she pushed herself up to her feet and dropped the barrier, "that's the last time I'm going to be able to do that."
As Tela looked over the slagged Batarian position she only counted ten among the dead, compared to the barricade with 30 that the last one had. The only thing odd about the body layout here was the fact that two of the bodies looked like they were trying to get through the door on the end of the hall and had wounds like they were gunned down with UNSC kinetic weapons and not the plasma tech that the Sangheili next to her were carrying. Either they had whittled the Batarians down that much or they had to divert forces elsewhere and if she had to hazard a guess that they were most likely focused elsewhere. The Batarian forces usually pushed more manpower into dealing with sectors that contained Spartan activity so it wasn't that much of a surprise.
"Which sector area are we in?" Tela asked as she studied the bodies.
"We're close to one of the main reactor complexes," the Sangheili next to her replied.
"Thank you," Tela nodded to the large reptilian soldier as she stepped to the door and palmed the bulkhead door control. It opened to the sight of a large room about the size of a dreadnought mass effect core room with Batarian bodies piled in three large groups on one side, a small huddled mass of slaves sitting quietly in a far corner and the four battered Spartans of Fireteam Domino, aiming their weapons at her from a barricade ten feet from the door on a catwalk that the door led out to. They were all covered in pockmarks from bullets contacting their armor and patches where Biophome had been applied in the gaps between armored plate.
"There you are, you missed all the fun," Kei sighed in relief as she lowered her weapon, "does this mean that our job is done yet because we need major repairs to our armor and medical treatment these wounds won't stay closed for long, a fucking shower and we need to break some eggheads."
"You're not the only one," Tela sighed as she looked toward the Sangheili standing stiffly behind her, "I think I made some friends."
"Ah, good," Leonidas walked up to the Sangheili sergeant, "hold this area and make sure the civilians are sent up when you can, we're going to go limp back to base."
"Affirmative," the Sangheili nodded and he and the rest of his squad filed into the reactor room allowing the Spartans to pass.
As the Spartans and Tela Vasir exited the underground fortress of what remained of the Batarian Hegemony, Tela noticed several dead Spectre's she'd known from reputation being hauled off on gurneys with what she could tell was Batarian weapons fire but all the shots looked too neat for even Batarian Spec. Ops… too precise… too Spartan.
XXXXXXXX
I hoped you all enjoyed that little bit of hell I put together for Domino, my new longest chapter to date with 7,000+ words, my hands hurt. I'm going to go get myself some Domino's pizza feel like I deserve it, the rest of you have fun with the rest of your day or night depending when you read this or if you are reading this at 2:00 a.m. listen to the book Go The Fuck to Sleep by Samuel Jackson and heed his words, god knows I need to.