Chapter XXI: Assault and Battery
June 4, 2537 (UNSC Calendar)/
New Istanbul outskirts, New Constantinople, Cygnus System
"Not exactly what I asked for sergeant, but good enough for our objective," said the captain as he walked Pavel and me through the joint Army, Navy, and Marines forward operating base.
"Thank you sir," I told him.
"How did you manage?" the captain asked curiously as we waited for a Scorpion to rumble past us.
"We had a little help, sir," Pavel said.
"Really?" asked Captain Brooks as he raised an eyebrow. "From whom?"
We hesitated with our answer, so the captain simply nodded before we resumed our walk. "I see," he said carefully.
The Spartans that had helped us had broken off from us about halfway through our sewer trip. They had disappeared on a side tunnel while me and Pavel grabbed a warthog with a useless turret and an even more useless crew. We met the UNSC advance on our way here; they gave us the direction of the FOB, thanking us for detonating the Furys and making their jobs easier.
The forward operating base was really something to look at. Since the Vice Admiral was doing a hell of a job in stalling the Covenant Navy, the troop-transport ships were actually able to land on the planet, eliminating the risk of extra-orbital insertions of costly and valuable equipment. There was a massive carrier, which was spewing troops, tanks, hogs, hornets, and even falcon gunships. In addition to the carrier there were three frigates, two on each side of it, and another one hanging back. The two flanking frigates were pushing out more specialized equipment, such as Cobras and Wolverines, the UNSC anti-air and anti-materiel machines, respectively.
The frigate that was hanging further back was none other than the UNSC Inconvenience. We walked the length of the 3000 meter-long carrier, which was named the UNSC Bayonet. As we walked between the carrier and the frigate to its side, we encountered squads and platoons marching towards the front, there were also warthogs coming from the side doors of the carrier and frigate. A couple of Vulture gunships flew overhead, escorted by two falcons and two hornets. The covvies were in for a hell of a fight. Or the other way around, maybe that's why command was pulling out the big guns.
I found myself climbing the metallic ramp of the Inconvenience. Unlike the other ships, ours was being loaded with vehicles and some spare troops. The cargo bay looked like it was about to burst with soldiers. The captain made way for Pavel and me to cross the crowded room.
A UNSC frigate isn't particularly large, only 500 meters, but you can fit a lot of stuff inside its cargo bay of you place it properly. Right now, even the scorpion tanks were bristling with marines, we looked like ants.
We were able to cross the mass of flesh and steel with relative ease, as the captain's shoulder bars were a clear incentive for everyone to move out of the way.
"The vice admiral is holding the covvies out there," the captain explained. "Doesn't look like he will be able to do it forever, but our job is to eliminate every single enemy soldier ground side."
We nodded at him when he looked at us to confirm we had been listening.
"As you saw, our ship is loaded with soldiers and equipment that aren't usually here. This is because we are going to function as a massive pelican for the next couple of minutes. Our ship will fly across the city in-atmosphere and drop our forces in the Covenant rear, effectively encircling them and crushing them. The troops that are not loaded here will function basically as a gigantic diversion in addition to being our main front for the battle," as the captain finished saying this we had already reached the bridge, and the frigate was clearly lifting up from the ground.
"Altitude is now one kilometer captain," the pilot notified us.
"Proceed," the captain ordered.
The ship suddenly received a burst of speed as we headed across the damaged city.
"You two will be attatched to a marine platoon whose task is to destroy this Covenant artillery position."
When he said that, a hologram popped up in the room. It displayed a dozen Covenant artillery pieces placed in a completely destroyed portion of the city. The cannons were similar to the wraith's mortar, only that they were a lot more powerful and fired in a similar way to human artillery. They looked like massive beam rifles supported by four legs. They were about a hundred feet long and perhaps thirty feet tall. They had a similar look to Covenant AA battieries.
"They have been playing hell with our frontlines, these puppies here fire quite slowly, but a single well-placed round could destroy our line," the captain told us.
We noticed that the ship had stopped.
"Well of you go, we can stay hovering here forever now, can we?" the captain said before dismissing us.
Pavel and me made a quick pit stop in the armory before heading to the cargo bay. We each popped some painkillers on the way there, while we might've not broken anything, a fifteen foot fall usually leaves one place or another hurting.
We arrived at the cargo bay to witness the last scorpion tank leaving the cargo bay. As promised, ther was a marine platoon there waiting for us. We were coldly greeted by its lieutenant.
"You're late," she said.
"Well, somebody's got their panties in a bunch," Pavel mumbled. I thought something along those lines, but I was careful not to antagonize the higher-ranking woman.
She shot a deadly glare at my friend before deciding he wasn't worth it. She turned to me. My HUD marked her as 1st Lieutenant Haruna Motou. My instincts marked her as an eager daddy's girl trying to prove herself in battle. I rolled my eyes behind my faceplate.
"Well, let's not waste any more time shall we?" I said as I hopped off the lowered cargo door. A couple of marines snickered at the comment, they obviously didn't like their leader very much.
We hopped of the ship and were greeted by a grisly sight, this part of the city was where the Covenant landed first, every single building was almost completely destroyed, with little more than the bottom walls still standing. The streets were mostly covered in debris and they would provably be giving the hogs a hell of a time crossing them. The scorpions wouldn't have so much trouble, but it was still sort of a bitch.
Our platoon made way across our newly formed line. We were headed to the artillery position as quickly as possible. Right now there was no sign of enemy presence, but there was bound to be a large detatchment out there waiting for us. It wouldn't be that hard, since it was brutes that were attacking this planet. Elites rarely showed up in the same system as those gorillas did, hunters didn't seem to be big fans of them either. Our biggest problem would be their support craft, namely choppers and banshees.
The lieutenant held her fist and we stopped. The platoon had formed into two fifteen-man columns behind the lieutenant, with two marines acting as scouts. The lieutenant stared at one of the scouts, who was out of my line of sight, and then turned toward us.
"Three lone grunts, 2 o'clock," she explained. We all nodded and waited for the shots to ring out. We waited some more.
"What the hell is taking them so long?" someone asked. I was beginning to feel the same. Taking out three grunts wasn't that hard, even a video game addicted teenager could've done it without really breaking a sweat. These grunts in question were even unaware than we were here.
I turned my head to my friend, who nodded back at me, and headed of towards the spot where our two scouts were supposed to be.
"Where are you going?" hissed the Lieutenant. We ignored her and resumed our walking. We crossed over a large pile of rubble twice our height before we saw them. They were both lying dead in small pools of blood thirty feet away from us. At first I thought they had been taken out with needlers, but the wounds on their bodies were to small. I closed in on the bodies, with Pavel guarding my back. I activated my helmet cam so that it would transmit to Pavel.
"Spiker bayonets?" I asked, zooming in on the wounds.
"Nah, not wide enough."
"Shit," we both said simultaneously.
I heard the noise of heated air sizzling right before I jumped to the side. An energy sword missed my face by no more than a couple of inched. As I landed on the floor, already lifting my weapon, there were two thoughts in my mind. Number 1: Why the hell are Elites groundside with Brutes? And number 2: This helmet cam footage is going to be pretty impressive if I ever feel like showing it to someone.
I fired a quick burst at the center of the shimmering air in front of me. An elite materialized out of thin air, looking slightly dull. My rounds actually hit it in the neck, going through the weak shields that Spec. Ops Shangeili. For being the equivalent counterpart to humanity's ODST troops, they weren't that impressive, unless of course, you found yourself facing an invisible 8 feet giant that you can't see.
The dead elite landed on top of me, its violet blood obscuring my visor. The air was knocked out of me when he fell on top, I would've been in the uncomfortable situation of having a split-chin corpse over my body with no way to defend myself had Pavel not tackled the body of of me. He took a knee before taking out the three grunts, which had left their cover to peek curiously at the sound of a gunshot. They really should've been better trained.
"What the hell was that?" came Motou's voice from behind us, her rifle raised and at the ready. Behind her were three marines, the rest would have likely held back and found more defensible positions.
"Cloaked elite," I said, while still taking deep breaths.
"What? That doesn't make sense," she said. "Brutes are never on the same battlefields as Elites." That was something that wasn't taught at bootcamp, at least not when I was there, but it was the truth. A planet was either invaded by baby-kongs, or by split-chins. I had never seen two on the same planet. I had heard that that had been the case in Harvest, but only because that had been a five year engagement.
I didn't enjoy the idea of finding myself stuck in a battle that would last that long.
"Well, let's keep moving," I said, distracting myself from those thought. "Those cannons are pretty close," I said while pointing over the rubble of two collapsed skyscrapers. I could tell they were skyscrapers because one of them was still half standing and the other one was at least a mile long while on its side. Well, what was left of it was. Peeking over those piles of concrete and steel, there were three purple cannons.
"Agreed, let's move people," said the Lieutenant. She sounded like something straight out of a movie, it probably was because she had watched one too many war films before joining the Corps. This time Pavel glanced at me, I could tell he was thinking the same thing I was, the smile could be seen even through his polarized visor, metaphorically.
I turned my VISR on, choosing the thermal display. It made for difficult walking, but it would prevent any elite from sneaking up on our group. Well, on my part of the group, because the platoon had broken up into three different squads, each placed at about thirty meters from each other. We were now moving more carefully, one half of the squad advanced while the other provided cover, then repeat. We leapfrogged across the distance separating us from the collapsed buildings before the Lieutenant called the two other squad leaders to join her. Since I was a sergeant, I was invited to the impromptu meeting as well.
"Sinha will set up in the semi-collapsed building, two marksmen will provide support and cover for him," she was saying, Sinha was the platoon sniper.
A sergeant nodded.
"Our two rockets will climb to the top of the other collapsed skyscraper and will provide us with further support, taking out any enemy armored support or hunters, in case we find them."
While she was saying that, Pavel was climbing to the top of the collapsed building, he was sporting a couple of binoculars, not entirely sure why, since his helmet cam could certainly do the job, and he could transmit the image to the rest of the platoon as well. The lieutenant was going on about overlapping fields of fire and whatnot when a small image popped up in my helmet and on the marine's eyepieces. The image displayed the enemy position. There were twelve batteries, as shown to us in the hologram, and they were manned by crews of elites. That by itself wasn't exactly unexpected, specially with the recent discoveries we had made. I glanced at Pavel, turns out he had used the binoculars so that he didn't have to expose his head, using the displayed picture in his visor as a way to guide where he was aiming.
Makes sense, I though entirely to myself.
The transmission also showed a couple hundred troops milling about, most of them alert and behind sturdy energy deployable shields. There was a large number of elites in addition to grunts, jackals, and the deadly hunters. I also caught a glimpse of something that frightened me.
"Shit," the lieutenant spat as she mentally went over her plans again. "There's no way we're getting air support."
Pavel was already descending from the collapsed building, being careful not to kick any rocks down.
"We are going to have to go through with this, else the main front is screwed," said the lieutenant.
While she was making small tweaks to the plan, so that we would have a shot at surprising such a large number of soldiers, I contacted the captain.
"This better be very fucking important sergeant!" came out his voice, I could hear voices in the background calling out the position of enemy ships and saying which decks were breacked and what armor was weak. I suddenly grew worried about Layla.
"Sergeant?" came the captain's angry voice.
"Sir, I assume you are not able to provide any type of orbital bombardment right now?" I asked sheepishly.
"No." His voice was dangerously montone.
"So no support then?" I asked once more.
"Well, normally I would send an ODST squad in their pods as some sort of kinetic proyectile barrage, but you aren't on board right now."
"Oh Captain, you flatter me," I said.
"Fuck off sergeant," he said before the connection was cut.
Well, no backup it is.
The lieutenant had contacted a couple of warthogs that were supposed to be here in fifteen minutes, while a scorpion tank would be sent to aid us as soon as it was possible for our strike force to spare one. It wasn't likely that would happen any time soon.
"Ok, let's move, we strike on my mark," said the lieutenant as she dispatched the two squad-leaders back to their respective squads. I could make out two rocket marines climbing the building, taking the same path Pavel had. Three other soldiers went to the other skyscraper that was still partially standing. The squad to my right (and to the back of the enemy position) broke off to surround the building, while the other squad joined us as we advanced through the collapsed one. I entered the building through a broken window, I was actually walking through the walls. It felt slightly weird. We made our way to the other side of the of the building so that we could see the spectacle ourselves.
"Did you see it?" Pavel asked me. He was talking about the thing that had freaked me out. I nodded in response.
We made it to the other side of the building, the outside walls were actually tilted outwards, we could use them as slides if we needed to. I peeked over to see the enormous concentration of enemy troops. I saw a jackal sniper sitting down on the edge of the rubble near the floor. As I watched, a marine slid down, knocking a few rocks as he went down. The jackal turned just in time to have a knife stuck through the throat and cranium. We all took cover behind something.
"Eagle Eye, is there enemy movement headed towards us?" the lieutenant asked.
"Negative, although there is one elite that is eyeing the place where you took down the jackal," came the answer from our sniper teamin our radios.
"Its clear, the squid-face seemed to have thought better of it."
The lieutenant sighed with relief, she was definitely a rookie. We waited for Eagle Eye to tell us that we were clear to slide down the building. It took a few seconds, but we made it. The warthogs arrived when we were taking cover in front of the damaged building, we were still in slightly higher ground that the rest of the enemies, which was good.
"You guys hold back until there's enough caos in their ranks, when I signal you, you will make a speed run across this position, knocking down as many alien bastards as you can, roger that?" the lieutenant informed them through her radio.
"Roger that ma'am."
She nodded, mostly to herself. "Eagle Eye, have you spotted the highest ranking officer?"
"Yes ma'am, a beautiful elite zealot. It's clad in yellow armor, I'm glad we didn't get one of those squids with the fancy helmets, those are terrible to headshot since the helmet is very large and I am not sure where exactly the head ends and…"
"Enough," snapped the lieutenant. "Rockets?"
"We're set el-tee, we have our sights on a pair of hunters, we have located another two pairs so far, no vehicles though."
"Good, take them out as soon as possible," ordered Lieutenant Motou. "Third Squad?" she asked finally.
"We're set, ready to go when you order ma'am," the squad leader replied.
Motou took a deep breath to steady herself for the oncoming battle. I hoped with all my heart that we would be able to catch the numerically superior forces off guard and that they'd be surprised enough not to form an effective counter-attack.
"… two, one, fire."
I fired at my preset target, a grunt manning a shade turret. I heard the sharp crack of the SRS and saw the vapor trail its ammunition left behind on the corner of my eyes. The round hit the zealot square in the chest. Another two sharp cracks were made in quick succession, both rounds ending their trip on the golden-armored elite's chest. The elite roared in anger as its shields were completely drained. I shifted my fire to a surprised grunt carrying a fuel-rod cannon. One final boom was heard from the sniper rifle before the golden elite collapsed, its right hand letting go of its energy sword and going to the gaping hole in its chest. Two ultra elites pulled him to cover as I shot an elite through the head. I was surprised that it only took one round to kill it. We must've caught them really of guard for them to have their shields deactivated. I switched my priority to shooting as many elites as I could in the next few seconds. I had only just put three rounds through a minor's chest when I heard the explosions. The rocket's had been aimed perfectly, slamming into the midsection of the two nearest hunters.
"Fuckin' A!" cried out a marine that was spraying the closest jackals and grunts.
I shot another elite minor, this one was shielded and returned the favor with a burst of superheated plasma at my head. I dodged just in time to avoid the fiery blue balls of death.
The wall behind me was starting to turn decidedly black. I was about to recommend to our leader that we should switch positions when she gave the call to move forward.
The building behind us had been lying in a hill of rubble and debris, propping it up around 20 feet from the ground around it. We were currently on top of that small hill, right next to the collapsed building, so moving forward involved a combination of acrobatics, sliding, and gracefully falling down a pile of hard concrete that often ended in pointy parts.
Regardless, we all did it. Three marines were shot on our frantic scramble to the bottom of the hill, two of them fatally, the other would be loosing a leg. The position we had been in was blasted by a green hose of energy, courtesy of an advancing pair of hunters.
I reached a partially collapsed wall for cover before I was able to breath (relatively) easy. I watched the rest of the marines do the same, with Pavel joining me. He was carrying a spare assault rifle from one of the killed soldiers. He also took the soldier's ammo belt off.
I placed the assault rifle across my back, letting the magnetic strips hold it there and placed the bandolier across my across my body, in the other direction. I believe I looked like a revolutionary from the "Century of Revolution" in Latin America, back in the 1900's. Or 1800's. I dunno. Of course, I was sporting ballistic armor a couple of centuries more advanced than any type of bulletproof vests that existed back then.
I was thankfull I had left my rucksack back in the ship. I don't think I would be needing the mini-tent or a C-ration. Not likely that I would live long enough to have one of them ever again, not the way things were shaping up.
I peeked out only to fall back behind the wall to avoid a beam rifle shot. "Crap!" I said as my friend pulled me back up.
"Eagle Eye, there's a jackal sniper on top of the first cannon, it is perched on top of the rear right leg." Pavel had read my mind, addressing our sniper before I could.
"Roger," he said.
A second later a single shot was audible over the rest. "He's down," came the sniper's voice.
I didn't bother thanking him before peeking out again, this time I was forced back by a trio of needle rounds slamming into the wall between an elite and my head. They detonated with dull thumps after a few seconds of being stuck there. I threw myself out of my wall and across to a crater with a small pile of rubble in front of it. As I did that, Pavel was already swinging his light machine-gun around. The M247L was basically the one-man version of the heavy machine-gun that the falcon gunships sported. It was a mix between the afromentioned weapon and the original M247 concept. It had a stock and grip like the original M247, but its barrel was a short version of the one that the M247H (the falcon gun) had. It was quite a versatile weapon, able to dish out 570 7.62mm rounds per minute without the need to stop, at least in Pavel's case, since he had it connected to his rucksack/ammo box.
I landed on the crater with my shoulders; I was able to glimpse the sight of needles landing on the ground, right behind my feet, dangerously close. Farther back, I saw the imposing silhouette of Pavel, carrying his large gun and popping out of cover, dirt lifted from explosions slamming into his body. He fired in full-auto at the elite that was shooting at me. His aim must've been pretty good, because the alien stopped firing. He returned to cover as a bunch of enemy projectiles hit the air he had just been in, also making contact with the wall and the floor around him.
I was able to leave cover to fire, now that I was partially forgotten by our enemies. I shot two shield-carrying jackals that were turned slightly away from me, engaging an unknown target. I watched a grenade throw an unshielded elite ten feet backwards, the shrapnel reducing his face and chest to something ressembling ground meat. I also something else right before I went to cover, a single rocket was flying towards one hunter. It made contact beautifully, hitting the monstrous creature in the exposed orange flesh in its midsection, blowing it apart in two, with its shielded arm separating from the upper half.
I would've sent my regards to the guy that took it out had he not forgotten that hunters always come in pairs. The other hunter raised its arms to the sky and a noise so scary that it seemed designed to make us panic, came from it. It was a mix between a lion roaring and thunder. Marines around me quickly noticed the danger and fired at the enraged alien. I could see sparks all over its armor, but it didn't seem to be bothered. It started charging to our line, gunning straight for my direction. I happened to be right between him and the rocket marine that had taken out its bond brother from the top of the collapsed building. Even as it ran, we all held fire on it, only that it still looked like it was only tickling the giant.
The hunter jumped far more than a beast that size should have been able to and landed right in front a group of three marines. It immediately slammed one of them at least a hundred feet away with its shield. The other marine was promptly stomped on and received a fuel rod to the face. The last remaining soldier had managed to avoid those fates, she was making her way back, stumbling with fear while looking over her shoulder. The hunter made that noise again and started chasing her. As she went between Pavel and me we started emptying our magazines into the hunter. It seemed to have liked me better, because as soon as it was close enough it swung its shield. I dodged it rather successfully, but somewhere along the road I fell to the floor. I moved to the right just in time to avoid my head being flattened by a massive alien foot. As it slammed next to me, I couldn't help but gaze at the small crater it had left on the floor in wonder. I rolled once more to avoid the side of its shield slamming into me. I used both my legs to jump away from the monster. Big mistake. It now turned towards me and leveled its cannon at me. It even seemed to calm down for the few moments that it would take for it to anatomize a large chunk of my boddy.
I almost cried with joy as the hunter jerked in that familiar way living beings usually do when hit by bullets. I could see Pavel going all out on it with his gun, aiming at the unshielded orange worms. I grabbed my BR55 and leveled it at the hunter's head. I switched to full auto and emptied the rest of my magazine into the small orange section which occupied the neck and lower face. The enraged hunter seemed to confused to decide who to attack and instead collapsed, dead.
"When we get out of here, I'm buying you a beer!" I told Pavel.
"That's if we live long enough for that!" Pavel said in a cheerfull voice that did not go with his comment at all.
I looked over the pile of rubble protecting me to see a large number of elites bunching up, obviously prepating to attack. There were two banshees coming at us, already starting to fire on their strafing run. One of the enemy fliers moved to the right and headed up and away, I saw a rocket flash by at full steam, it was headed to the banshee, the purple craft made away at prodigious speed, but the rocket caught up with it and exploded in a blast of orange and blue.
"You'll get fancy equipment," I said, mimicking Major Cavallaro's voice, "you'll get to try out fancy gadgets and stuff… FUCK YOU MISTER!"
"What?" came Pavel's voice.
"Nothing, how come they get the new SPANKrs with the tracking missiles. He shrugged, which made his armored sillhoute look funny.
"Shoot the cannons!" called the lieutenant, her voice sounding like she was in panic, she was loosing it. If she was willing to waste what little rocket support we had on the batteries, she was definitely worried as to our overall capability to complete our mission successfully.
Two rockets sailed at the nearest cannon. It was only fifty feet away from me. They hit one of the rear legs, causing it to collapse and turn slightly sideways. The cannon made a noise that sounded like it was heating up and fired the round that had just been loaded into it. The blue plasma hit the other cannon right next to it in the center, actually detonating the shell within it and various other unused shells and fusion coils, actually causing a very pretty explosion totally disproportionate to the two rockets that had been fired.
"Well, I did not see that one coming."
"You've got that right sarge," came a marine's voice from behind me. I still found it odd that guys in their early-thirties would call me, a 22 year-old, sarge.
As the dust from the explosion settled, we watched with slightly less caution than we had had a few moments ago. We were all curious as to what had happened. The explosion had been a huge one, taking out at least two of the enemy cannons; a large number of their infantry had been engulfed by the blast as well.
The dust began to settle down just as I saw silhouettes within it. They were packed closely together and occupied a large area across the battle area. The dust finally settled and I was facing a hundred pissed off elites. When elites get angry, they roar and charge and yell, much like little kids, but when they are quiet after something that bad happened, you knew you were in deep shit, much like you know something's coming when a little kid silently goes back to his room after being scolded for doing something, already scheming on what his next mischievous act will be.
There is a big difference between seven-and-a-half-feet-tall genocidal monsters and two-feet-tall toddlers.
Right in the middle of the mass of elites, was the largest elite I had ever seen, it was clad in a grayish armor that was carved on with runes and drawings. It held two energy swords, one on each hand. In its eyes, even from this distance, I could see the look of pure anger and hatred. As the blades of the two swords appeared out of thin air, the elites to its sides charged, he stayed there while the mass of soldiers moved past him, like something right out of a fantasy movie.
The marine behind me was the first to react, "Fu-"