Disclaimer: nothing here is mine.
Milly look up from her command post, and activated her navigation suite in her pulpit. She plotted a course toward the dark side of Corasis's moons, Boldivia.
"M'am! Covenant ships detected on long range gear!" COM officer Lieutenant Hawkins reported.
Milly's head snapped up, looking at the main view screen. A lone blue triangle represented the Stalingrad II, and a single blue square represented the orbital MAC cannon.
12 red triangles flashed up on the edge of the screen, representing the Covenant ships. Tags identified them as cruiser and carrier class.
Milly stared at the screen, looking for a possible way out of the mess.
She couldn't just stand by and watch the Covenant glass the planet, nor could she fight them effectively. Her ship was a wreck, barely holding together.
Milly turned the screen to real-time, and stepped up the magniflication all the way up. In the center of the fleet was a large, bulbous ship, similair to the one seen near Reach, destroyed by Captain Keyes. Milly had read the reports. This ship could fire a tight beam of energy. This weapon was faster and deadlier than plasma, and extremely accurate, even at extreme ranges.
"Weapon's station, I want a full inventory on everything we have left on this ship. I don't care what it is, just that if we can fire it at them Covenant bastards."
"Aye aye, M'am"
A few seconds later, the technican replied, "All our Archer pod missles are spent, and the 50 mm point-defense miniguns are extremely low on ammo. No MAC rounds or Shiva's left. All we've got left is about 5 Cobra anti-single ship missiles left."
"Might as well open the airlock and chuck rocks at 'em" Lieutenant Hawkins said.
Milly sighed. Even if her ship was fully repaired, she had nothing to fight with.
That left her with little to no options.
Until an idea came to her head. Crazy, but it could work. If it didn't, well, they wouldn't be long for life anyway.
"Alright. Plot a course to zero zero five, and put some power into those MAC capacitors. We might need that shield trick again. Get ready for a full power turn at zero declination two on my mark." Milly ordered. "Are those Cobras primed?"
"Aye aye, M'am. The Cobras are primed and ready. They're set to standard EMP discharge on impact."
Cobra missiles were unique in the way that when they hit a target, usually a enemy Seraph fighter, it discharged an EMP blast, disrupting the ship's systems, so even if the craft wasn't destroyed in the blast of the missile, they were now useless in the fight, and could be mopped up later.
"Set the EMP discharge to maximum, just in case." Milly commanded.
"M'am, are you aware that if it detonates too close to us, it might short circut us as well? The range of the Cobra's only about 100 kilometers. We most likely will suffer EMP damage or other electrical side effects."
"I am well aware of that fact, Ensign." Milly siad curtly.
The Covenant ships loomed in closer and closer. Their lateral lines started heating red. The flagship did nothing, and just continued drifting toward Corasis.
"Mark! Set new course correction at four inclination five two at... Now!"
The cruise rotated to a course that would bisect the Covenant ships' paths. It tilted upwards, and executed a turn to face the Covenant.
"Full speed ahead! Charge the engines to 300 percent! Divert the rest of the power to the MAC capacitors! Realign the magnetic field of the farside magnets to a natural bubble around us. Target the Covenant ships with the remaining magnets, and focuse on the turrets!"
The crew scrambled to their orders, casting an occasional glance at Milly or the viewscreen.
The Covenant ships glowed red, and discharged their plasma.
A few of their plasma shots impacted back onto the Covenant ships themselves, thanks to the MAC capacitor magnets, and the rest dissipated into a useless blob of plasma against the magnetic shield.
The cruiser continued it's course headed straight toward the flagship.
"35 seconds to impact!"
The ship rumbled, as it's reactors slowly heated to extreme levels.
"25 seconds to impact!"
The flagship stopped, swivelling a turret to bear on the cruiser. The other ships backed off, knowing if they fired, they might hit their own.
"20 seconds to impact!"
The ship's rumbling increased.
"15 seconds to impact!"
The turret glowed a bright gold color.
"10 seconds to impact!"
The ship creaked and groaned, as it slowly shook itself apart.
"5 seconds to impact!"
Milly gave out some final orders, and watched as the turret readjusted it's aim. and contunied to glow brighter and brighter.
"Impact ... NOW!"
At the same time, the navigations officer activated a new course into the NAV database. Milly activated the bottom emergency thrusters, thrusting their ship out of harms way. The turret discharged a tight scilliating beam of golden energy, and only by 10 meters as the ship was suddenly thrusted upwards, by the emergency thrusters.
The cruiser tilted upwards, it's bottom deck scraping against the Covenant flagship's shield. The shield failed as the titantic superstructure of the Stalingrad II rubbed against it. As the crusier continued forward, it spun so it's broadside was presented at the flagship. The Cobra's were fired, with a course plotted to enter the downed shields, and continue down the length of the ship, between the shield and the flagship, and detonate at it's engines.
The Stalingrad II arched away from the flagship as the missiles detonated inside the shields, shorting out the engines completely. This, in turn stopped the ship's reactor's main use of power, to drive the engines. There was an enormous build up of energy, with no where to go. The ship seemed to bloat up, and expand. There was a fiery explosion, expanding rapidly outwards, untill it met the still intact shields. The resulting effect was a firestorm in a bubble.
The shields flared, and gave out. The raging storm blew outwards, consuming the Covenant ships with the force of a small sun.
The Stalingrad II was no where to be seen. It had rediverted all it's power to the Slipspace drive, and they had jumped milliseconds before the the tidal wave of fire could reach for the human defenders, the Slipspace journey the made to the edge of the system, ended up about 10,000 kilometers from the explosion, where they discovered, of the 12 ships that came, 9 were still left alive, and functioning.
The orbital MAC cannon was doing it's best, but they knew it was a lost cause. With the cannon so badly damaged, they could only fire a shot per minute. And the Covenant ships were closing in and would reach the cannon in less than 50 seconds.
The Covenant ships closed in menacingly, as the orbital cannon struggled to get off one last shot.
The alien crafts' lateral lines glowed red, preparing to discharge lances of plasma.
The cannon swiveled onto the Covenant ships, and fired a single Super MAC round. It slammed into the lead cruiser, gutting it from stem to stern.
On the cruiser, Milly shook her head. She knew what was going to happen now. The Covenant ships would start from the poles, and burn the whole planet with plasma. The oceans would be boiled away, and the silicon heated so much that it turned to glass.
Soon, the atmosphere would burn away as well, and the Covenant ships would leave behind a glassed planet.
Except, they did nothing of that sort. The Covenant ships moved in closer to the planet, and locked in geosynchronous orbit over the planet.
"Lieutenant Hawkins, status report!"
"M'am, all decks and compartments breached. The reactors nearly melted down, but should be okay. The engineers say that the reactors need a cool down cycle, and the engineers have to repair the coolant mechanism. Armor integrity's at 10 percent. No more weapons at our disposal, not even a Clarion spy drone."
"Ah... Hawkins, I want you to pinpoint where the Covenant are parked over in orbit. They didn't glass this planet, must mean that there's something they want down there. Get the surviving Marines ready for landing action, and anti-boarding party action."
"Aye aye, M'am. Scanning now. They appear to be holding orbit over the central city of Corasis, Capitolis, which is currently under rebel control. There are UNSC forces there, but in small amounts."
"Affirmative" Milly replied. She sat back pondering her options.
Odd fired the Brute spiker directly into a Brute's face at point-blank range. The rounds tore through the Brute's head, punching straight to the other side. It's brains splattered onto the wall behind it, mixed with the greenish bluish blood of the Grunts. Apparently the ship was still in Covenant control. Aelita had been seriously strained when she shut down the life support system, and didn't notice the fail-safe. Only the sub-decks, and nonvital compartments were vented. The rest still contained atmosphere.
The Marines fanned out behind Odd, blasting away at the Covenant with plasma. Now fully rearmed, the Marines were once again fully operational. Marine snipers in the back armed with energy rifles and carbines picked off the Grunts and jackals who were stupid enough to not take cover, while the Marines in the front sprayed down blankets of suppression fire, hosing down anything stupid or brave enough to pop out of cover.
The skirmishes were getting tougher and tougher though, and the Marines weren't invincible. They'd lost 5 men already on the fight from the barracks, and several had serious plasma burns.
The human attackers were constantly being attacked from the front, as well as the back, as hunter-killer parties tried to root them out.
Odd carefully crept down one the the seemingly endless corridors, and paused by a door. According to the schematic, through this door was the frontal launch bay. Odd tapped the controls, and waved for the Marines, signalling to throw plasma grenades when the door opened. Odd crouched down in the front, holding a plasma turret he had acquired in the armory.
The door slid open with a hiss, and parted to reveal a fairly large group of aliens. The Marines threw the nades, blue blurs attaching themselves onto the Brutes, Jackals, and Grunts. Odd opened up in the front, drenching the Covenant with a spray of plasma.
The humans advanced forward, effiecently killing their leaderless oppenants. A few Jackals tried to rallly the troops around them to stand their ground, but they were quickly and ruthlessly put down.
Odd was about to move across the bay when a plasma mortor detonated right next to him, sending him tumbling, and killing 2 of the Marines. A Wraith tank supported by infantry appeared from behind a stack of crates.
"Charge!" Odd yelled, racing forward, his last Lotus anti-tank mine he had left in his hand. Odd one-handed sprayed the Covenant position with his spiker. Odd side armed the mine, and threw it like a discus ( basically like a Frisbee). The mine spiraled through the air, and hit the tank. THe mine blew on impact, destroying the tank and sending shrapnel on the Covenant infantry protecting the tank.
Blue plasma splashed over his shields, dangerously depleting it. Odd side-armed a plasma grenade and tossed it behind a pair of Jackals. The bird-like aliens screeched and doven for cover. One was caught in the blast, half of it's body vaporized. The other managed to bring it's shield up in time to deflect the blast, but was killed from the back by the Marines.
Odd fired controled bursts of fire from the spiker, carefully taking aim each time.
A marine standing next to him was hit by a wave of needler rounds, taking several in his gut. The man screamed in pain, and could only watch as the needles detonated in a pink explosion, splattering Odd's visor with blood and gore. The Marine's head landed at Odd's feet, still contorted into an image of pain and torment written all over the dead Marine's face.
Odd looked away, naseuated. He continued fighting, but he knew that this would stay in his memory for a long, long time.
Ulrich leaned out over the side of the Hornet. The pilot was a skilled fighter pilot, and was able to fly fast and low through the city.
Ulrich chinned the helmet controls to increase magniflication to 7 X. Blueprints of the various buildings were automatically called up by the helmet, and overlayed over the schematics over the livetime feed projected over the visor.
Ulrich leaned back toward the Hornet, carefully balancing himself as the Hornet zoomed through the city. It swerved left, then right, then left again as it zipped past the skyscrapers of the "blue-collar" district of Capitolis.
The pilot voiced into the COM "5 minutes to dirt!"
There was the sound of a series of clicks and snaps as Ulrich's team ran a pre-landing check as they tightened their harnesses, checked over their guns, etc.
The Hornet headed toward the city park, and landed on a flat area on the asphalt street.
The Hornets came under automatic rifle fire as it landed. A RPG zoomed over the Hornet, and detonated harmlessly 100 feet down the street.
"Touchdown! Hit it, Marines!" The pilot voiced over the COMlink.
"Go go go! Secure the landing zone!" Ulrich roared.
He pulled back the charging lever on his gun, racking in a bullet into the chamber.
The Marines rushed to take cover in the rubble, but already there were causalties among Ulrich's men. The Hornet struggled to lift off, and barely managed to do so. A marine gunner opened up on the rebel positions, showering them with a wave of lead.
The Hornet's engine's rumbling grew louder, as it prepared to zoom away. Ulrich shifted his focuse back to the battle. It was hell. Almost zero cover, with enemies surrounding him with superior cover and angles.
Ulrich tried to voice a command for the Marines to take cover in the buildings, but the COM wasn't broadcasting. He stood up in a crouch, and made a break for it for the closest building, hoping his men would catch on.
Ulrich sprayed random cover fire from his SMG one-handed while running, like in movies. The bullets went wild, but it had the effect Ulrich desired.
A stray bullet clipped his shoulder, sending him spinning. Another hit his hand, making him drop the SMG. Ulrich forced himself to ignore the pain and keep running. He kicked down the door, and dove inside.
Ulrich picked himself up, and surveyed his surroundings.
It was an auto-insurance office, and Ulrich dragged over a table to form a crude barracade. He peered outside, and to his dismay, saw the dead members of his team.
Ulrich unslung his battle rifle, and checked it over. The gun was wholly intact, aside from a few dents and scratches.
Ulrich sighted down the scope, searching for more rebels. The rebels weren't professionals, as Ulrich could tell, because they moved out of cover to examine the bodies. Stupid. No real soldier would abandon cover to look at a body in a battlezone just because no one was shooting at him.
Ulrich toggled the gun to fully- automatic. The 60-round clip would serve him well. The rebels approached, and the lead rebel prodded a Marine's body with his gun barrel. When the rest of the rebels were sort of clumped around the bodies, Ulrich pulled the pin on a frag grenade, counted two heartbeats, and lobbed it in the rebel's midst.
It detonated a foot off the ground, killing the rebels immediately.
Ulrich didn't move yet. He toggled on his visor to infrared. It immediately picked up a sniper in one of the skyscrapers. The sniper was probably wondering what had happened to his comrades.
Ulrich eased out of cover, and sighted through the scope. He switched back to single shot. A burst would throw off his aim, and if he missed, he would have to deal with a sniper in superior cover and with a superior angle.
Ulrich tensed up, and relaxed, and squeezed the trigger. The rilfe issued a loud crack, and the sniper fell dead. Ulrich checked his GPS to find how far out he was in enemy territory.
The GPS beeped and whirred for a few moments, and then a map popped up on his HUD. A green dot marked his location, which was about 5 miles in enemy territory.
Ulrich looked up to the sound of distant gunfire, and a loud explosion coming from a long ways off.
One of the Marine's COM crackled to life. Ulrich took off his own helmet grabbed the Marine's helmet and jammed over his head.
"Mayday! Mayday! This is Hornet gunship 314! We are going down! "
In the background, Ulrich could hear the copilot shout out " What the hell is that! It's huge! It's firing on us! Engaging evasive maneuvers! Acquiring missile locks!"
The pilot's voice came back on "HQ! Be advised that there is a-" A second explosion covered up what the pilot was saying.
The signal was abruptly cutoff.
Ulrich took off the soldier's helmet. Using a field repair kit, Ulrich replaced his damaged COM system with the one in the Marine's helmet.
Ulrich then tended to his own injuries. Ulrich knew that he had to find out what shot down the gunship, and relay that information back to the UNSC.
He judged that the crash site was about a half a mile away, but it was hard to tell as the sound of the crash was bounced from skyscraper to skyscraper.
He used the COM to trace back the direction of the signal. The blackbox aboard the Hornet wasn't broadcasting, but the Navy pilot's COM system still was.
Ulrich crouched and shuffled over to where his men lay dead. He salvaged what he could, and countined forward. Using his superior training combined with his extensive rifle training, Ulrich was able take out targets at long range, without getting shot at himself.
At one point, when he was rifling a rebel checkpoint's arms lockers, he found a sniper rifle with plenty of bullets to go with it, which made his task much easier.
The rifle was an old one, abeit a good one. It's scope wasn't zeroed in right, as Ulrich discovered when he first used it, and the scope's finetuners was appearently jammed, preventing Ulrich from readjusting the scope. But everything else about the rifle could rival the standard S2 rifle commonly used by UNSC forces.
Ulrich had just finished off a small squad of rebels, when he heard one of their radios squawk.
He picked up and listened to it.
" Be on the lookout for any UNSC around here. There are reports of a small taskforce that landed here and have successfully infiltrated our lines. They have taken out several checkpoints, as well as several routine patrols."
The radio fell silent, and repeated the message 45 seconds later.
Ulrich kept it clipped to his belt, just in case something important came on.
And a moment later, something did.
" This HQ to ground teams, we there are incoming Pelican dropships heading towards the silos. Prepare for incoming UNSC troops."
There was a few acknowledges in response, and then, "Sir! This is squad 23. We have secured the crash site of the UNSC gunship. But some of my men spotted a brace of Pelicans heading this way. Requesting additional reinforcements to our position."
"Roger that. Protect the installation at all cost. We're gonna bring everything we've got."
Ulrich quietly wondered to himself what the rebel-held installation was, and why it was so important. Ulrich also figured that there must have been some new developements in the war for the CENTCOM to send in so many extra reinforcements.
There was a rumbling sound in the air. Ulrich identified the noise as incoming Pelican dropships on approach. He crept down a side alley, and sighted the crashsite. But that wasn't what stopped him. What really stopped him was a giant, silver pyramid that seemed to have risen up from under the town square, smashing aside anything that was ontop of it. The pyramid was bristling with weapon turrets, and they looked lethal. Squads of rebels patrolled the perimeter of the object, and Ulrich counted at least 12 squads of 8.
Ulrich prepped his weapons for what was to be sure a long battle. As Ulrich fumbled with his gear, he checked his motion when he heard a slight humming sound. It was a faint sound, barely disernable from the roar if the incoming Pelicans.
Ulrich could fell the electricity in the air, gathering towards the pyramid. Ulrich looked up at the pyramid,and saw that the top part of the pyramid had split in two.
A large antenne-like device slowly came out of the gap in the pyramid. It reminded Ulrich of a telsa coil, only with a large crystal refracter like device at the tip.
Over the COM, Ulrich could hear the Pelican pilots.
"Wow... What is that?"
"Hell, I don't know. Chief says we should keep frosty..."
"Psssshhh... Like I need to be told that"
The humming grew louder, and Ulrich could see the electrical charge building up in the coil. Ulrich tried frantically to key in his COM, to warn away the unsuspecting Pelicans. The pilots continued talking, unaware of their impending doom.
"Sir, I'm picking up extreme levels of EMP and electrical charge in that thing."
"Keep going on this heading, but stay low."
"Incoming trasmission from HQ. Patching it through now."
"Boys, the Hornet's are in position. We're moving them in now."
"Affirmitive, HQ. Be warned that there is an unidentified structure at site 12-B6. EMP and electrical readings are off the charts. Sending live feed now."
"Acknowledged Omega-1."
"End of transmission sir."
"Alright people, let's move in! Engage all forces on sight! Pelican Wing Omega, assume Delta formation. Dump all fuel to back tanks, and open the throttle!"
The Pelicans dipped down lower and lower, trading altitude for speed. The pyramid crackled to life, and shot a dazzling green lance of energy at the lead Pelican. The lance nailed the port wing of the Pelican, severing it away from the fuselage.
"I'm going down! This is Delta-2, I'm hit!" The Pelican wobbled, and spun out of control, narrowly missing the other Pelicans. It trailed smoke, and crashed into the ground.
"This is Delta-1! Pelican Wing Omega! Break formation and engage that structure! Copilot, patch through those Hornets to me now!"
"Aye aye sir! I've got them on the COM."
"Delta-1 to Hornets, do you read me?"
"Loud and clear, Delta-1. Go ahead."
"Target that pyramid with everything you got. We need to take it out ASAP. We lost a Pelican already."
"Roger that. We're on it."
The Pelicans roared in, firing their 70 mm cannons and their Anvil II missiles at the structure. A ghostly shimmer materialized in front of the pyramid, protecting it from all the incoming projetiles. Then the Hornets joined the fight. They fired 102mm rockets at the structure, and the Marine Gunners target it with Stanchion gauss rifles, which could accelerate a metal projectile to fractions of the speed of light.
The pyramid's smaller weapons opened fire, shooting lance after lance of energy at the aircraft. The Pelicans dipped down, and unloaded their troops onto the battlefield, and disengaging several Warthogs.
Some of the 'Hogs were equiped with gauss cannons, and their gunners turned immidiately to fire at the pyramid.
Ulrich heard more on the COM.
"Marines! Get those heavy weapons on that pyramid already! Go go go!"
"Hornet-1 to ground teams. We can't blow their shields! We've spotted an infantry entrance at this NAV point. You'll ned to get in and take the shields offline!"
A blue triangle flashed on in Ulrich's HUD.
"Sir! This is Warthog-2! We've spotted an UFO (as in Unidentified Flying Object, not like the aliens) on heading two three zero, declination four. It's not firing on us, but it looks like a transport."
"Fire away, Sergeant!"
A new voice came over the COM. A familiar one.
"Belay that order. This is civilian consultant Jeremie Belpois speaking. Hold your fire."
On Ulrich's HUD, the craft's FOF tag winked on long enough to show that it was UNSC.
"Hell, Jeremie! With all due respect, Jeremie, what the hell are you doing here?"
"That pyramid. I believe it is Forerunner built. It's alloy construction matches known samples of Forerunner alloy. We can't let the rebels gain complete control over this structure. The consequences would be catostrophic."
"I read you, Jeremie. Our forces are currently trying to get into the structure."
"Affirmative. Belpois out."
The craft hovered there for a second more, and it turned and flew away.
Ulrich decided it was time to gear into action. He rechecked his rifle, and sneaked into an adjacent building that hadn't collapsed yet.
He cleared the rooms, and set up a sniper's nest in a window.
He spotted a UNSC fireteam pinned down by a chain gun emplacement. Ulrich sighted down the barrel, and fired twice, killing the gunner and the loader.
The fireteam pushed on.
Ulrich started sniping the insurgents near the entrance to the pyramid.
The rebels eventually pinned down where Ulrich was, and were directing some fire towards the nest.
Ulrich abandoned his exposed position, and slung his rifle, replacing it with his battle rifle.
Ulrich clicked on his FOF tag once, which would automatically update to all UNSC HUDs.
Ulrich sprinted and dove into cover. He thumbed his rifle to burst, and fired precise bursts of bullets into the rebel front.
He linked up with the group of Marines closest to him, and started leading them toward the Forerunner structure. Ulrich lost several men on the way up, but he reached the entrance in the end.
Ulrich nodded to the two marines on either side of the door, and they rolled flashbangs and frags into the entrance.
Twin muffled coughs followed by a set of booms rocked the air. As soon as the nades went off, the Marines rushed in. The front four Marines slung their rifles, and unslung their M90 Assualt Shotguns. The others thumbed the safety on their M6D pistols to "off".
A team of rebels had just taken a position in the hallway, intending to set up a machine gun nest to block the invaders, until the frags rolled down the hall and blew away the majority of the rebels. The men inn the back, who were carrying the machine gun, were blinded by the flash bangs, and were quickly finished off. A Marine grabbed the gun, and another slung the belts of ammo across his chest.
They turned down the hall, fight their way through the confined spaces. Eventually, they found and killed a rebel engineer, who was carrying a paper map of what the rebels had explored.
The map showed that the complex was a maze of hallways, and that the shield room was smack down in the center, ground floor level, and the weapon driver systems were located close by.
"Let's go, Marines!" Ulrich called out. "Chief, this is marine team Gamma. We've located the complex's shield room, and are on our way to disable the shields. How are things going out there?" Ulrich voiced out over the COM
" It's going bad out here, son. The rebels keep poring outta that thing, and I think they're bring in tanks. I don't know about you, but we're gonna be finished off out here if you don't disable those shields and weapon systems soon."
"Affirmitive."
The UNSC forces continued on grimly, eventually dropping their weapons b/c of lack of ammo, and picking up the older rebel weapons. Ulrich himself was running on an M1A2, an ancient prototype for the MA5B.
They navigated through the hallways to the weapon driver systems, losing several men on the way. Ulrich's group had taken several injuries, and he had reluctantly split the group in two, leaving the wounded at an easily defendible junction in the care of a Marine Corporal.
At the weapon driver sector, Ulrich and two Marines he picked out (the others were guarding the only passageway into the sector) and rushed the control center. Ulrich and the marines sniped off the majority of the guard, and efficiently dispatched the rest of the guards. They rushed to the door leading into the main control center, taking up positions around the door. Ulrich nodded once at the Marine next to the door controls, and he slapped his palm against a glowing green symbol. The door opened, and Ulrich levelled his gun into the room.
The room was filled with technicians running the equipment. They were not shown any mercy.
Ulrich grimly walked up to the central computer, and attached several breacher charges to it. He scooted back to the edge of the room, and clicked the detonator. The computer went up in a flash of smoke, now 100 percent useless.
Up above, the hum of the Forerunner weapons slowed, and stopped.
Ulrich grinned to himself, but the grin quickly faded as the weapons picked up again.
"Sir, there probably are several back-up stations. We'll have to either find them all, or take the power source out."
"Right. According to this map, there is a central auxiliary powerline running throughout the complex. The weapon drivers proabaly get their power from it. According to this, the nearest access station is over here." Ulrich said, indicating to a spot on the the map not far away from their position.
"Sir, wait a moment, if we knock out the power, all the other systems will fail, including the translocator pads, elevators, and everything else. We'll need to knock out the power here." The Marine said, tapping a portion of the map deeper in the complex.
"Alright. Gear up, and let's get moving. But, first things first. We have to take out those shield systems."
Ulrich and the pair of Marines rejoined the rest of the Marines, and the set off towards the shield systems.
Rebels poured out of hallways and rooms, attempting to rebel the raiders. They were quickly put down, no match for the Marine's superior training.
Right when they finished the end of one of the countless firefights they had engaged in, the COM unit crackled to life.
"This is Major Cartheray. Reinforcements are on their way. We're bringing in the big guns."
Ulrich distinctly recalled the name. A legendary ODST Major, renowned for his Covenant war actions and pre-war operations. He had only failed one operation in his whole officer career, when he was outnumbered 30 to 1, and he still took down three quarters of the Covenant forces before being forced to retreat.
Ulrich linked his HUD to a video feed from one of the pelicans outside.
He spotted several distinctive red-orange streaks of ODST pods, and the larger, bulkier Pelicans following close behind. He could make out that the Pelicans were carrying a mix of Scorpion tanks and larger, stationary field guns.
Ulrich killed the feed, and reconcentrated on his task.
I'MMMMM BAAAAAAACCCCCCKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!
with a 5,600 word chapter to go with it!
Yeah, crappy so-called cliffy, but I didn't know where to drop it.