Ch. 26, here we go! The start is a little clunky, but stick with it!
Ch. 26: Thermopylae Part One
April 10, 2550
Above Deeside, Spiron
The last two days had been a bit crazy with the arrive of not just the two covenant ships, but two of our own ships as well. The UNSC Enterprise and the UNSC Constellation both arrived yesterday, the day after the covenant ships had arrived in the system, to help reinforce us. Jackson had been shipped up to the Midsummer Night for safekeeping until the campaign ended, and William had attached himself to us after what had happened to his squad. Despite all attempts to get him reassigned by others, it was always shot down by Major Heath, Colonel Foster or I as we all knew the importance of William being around people he knows that will help him through the loss of his squad. He was already an honorary member of Carnage so it was not an issue. Yesterday we received orders to work together with Zeus to infiltrate behind the Covenant lines and do what we do best, the same thing we had done a few weeks ago in Prestwick, but instead behind Deeside and near the two CCS class cruisers that had landed. Today we finally embarked from our camp just outside of Deeside to start our mission of rampage and destruction. We had just loaded onto the pelican to take us behind the covenant lines.
"You ready for this William?" I asked the man as we sat down.
"Ready to do what Jack; kick more covenant ass?" He asked me.
"No; well yes, but your first true mission as a part of Carnage."
"I would say I'm ready for it."
"Good, because now you get to see what ODST's are famous for." Dmitri interjected into the conversation as we lifted off from the landing pad and flew towards the front. We quickly flew over the front lines and kept going to get to where we were to be dropped off. After a few second of flying towards the insertion point, we came under attack. The fire was getting a bit close, but it was still somewhat sporadic enough that it wasn't a problem. Suddenly the pelican lurched to the side and smoke started to poor into the troop compartment.
"Strap in back there!" The pilot shouted back to us before radioing for help. "Mayday, mayday, this is war hammer, we're hit, we're hit. Loosing speed and altitude, requesting help."
"Brace for impact!" Heath shouted out a few seconds before the pelican slammed into the ground. The pelican slide for a couple of seconds before it hit something and flipped over.
"Is everybody ok?" I asked once the pelican had settled.
"Ya I'm good." Dmitri replied.
"Fine here sir." Stein and McFee both replied at the same time.
"A little shaken, but I'm ok." William answered.
"Just peachy sir." Was Connors response, and I got a green acknowledge light on my HUD from Anders. I didn't need to ask Heath if he or his men were good because I just knew they were by the fact that they were Spartans, and that just left the pilot to check on. I unstrapped myself from the now upside down seat and started to make my way to the cockpit via walking on the ceiling of the compartment. I reached the door and pressed to open button. The door opened about an inch, but if was enough for me to know the pilot was dead. What flipped us upside down and stopped the pelican must have been a large boulder as the whole of the cockpit area was smashed inwards.
"Pilots dead." I said as I turned around to see the rest of my team standing on the "floor".
"Ok, now what." Connors asked, but before I could respond to the man, Heath came in from scouting outside the downed bird and answered for me.
"Now we defend this position from the incoming covenant." He said. When nobody moved from standing there I took charge.
"You heard the man, Move! Take up defensive positions around the pelican. Dmitri, see if door MG is good. Anders, I want you on the top of this thing looking for targets. The rest of you spread out and find a good defensive spot that is relatively close by; we may try to make a run for it." I told them. They all started walking out door except for William.
"Jack." Williams said, so I looked at the man.
"What is it?" I asked.
"I have been training as a spotter, so request permission to spot for Anders sir?" He asked me. I looked over at Anders who just shrugged before walking out the door, showing he didn't care if I gave him a spotter or not.
"Permission granted." I replied to William, who then went scurrying out the door to catch the sniper. I followed after him and took in our surroundings. We had crashed right at the bottom of a gorge, with the covenant coming at us from the open side. I looked out to the open side and saw a vast grass land, so the appearance of the gorge is a real mystery.
"Price, we may have a problem." Heath said as he came walking back up to me.
"What do you mean we may have a problem?" I asked back.
"I sent my squad to recon the gorge to make sure it was clear of covenant and he found a large group of civilians and militia hiding in some caves. If the covenant does any type of search then they will be found."
"So basically, we can't retreat or make a run for it or else the covenant will find them."
"Correct."
"Well shit, that means we need to stay and defend this entrance until they are all out of there."
"Correct. This is a good defensive position though; the pelican is blocking a good section of the entrance, and we can role rocks into the sections not covered to block the rest." Heath said, pointing them out as he named them off.
"Does this gorge empty out into anything?" I asked him as he knew, due to his scout.
"No, luckily we won't have to work about a multidirectional front." Was his response.
"Sir." Anders said over the radio.
"What is it Anders?"
"You might want to see this." He replied before I turned on the camera feed from his Oracle scope, and what I saw frightened me.
"Shit; Machine, I want you to place as many land mines as possible in front of the pelican. Use any explosive you need, land mines, IED's, doesn't matter to me as long as it kills the covenant. Dmitri, what's the status of that gun?" I said into the radio.
"Yes sir." McFee replied, he then came over and I gave him the C12 that I always carried with me.
"The gun is fine sir, though the hard landing has got the mount stuck in the closed position." He replied. I walked back inside the pelican to get a look at what he was talking about. The gun was on a flexible mount that allowed it to swing in and out of a hollow in the wall. The landing and then flipping of the pelican had jammed the arm that it rested on in the closed position. Heath stepped in front of me and Dmitri and just yanked the arm out of the slot, and then the mount put of the pelican so we could use it against the covenant. Dmitri and I just stood there in awe as we watched the show of brute strength that Heath had just put on.
"Wow." I said as Heath wielded the heavy Gatling gun and mount as if it was nothing, unlike Dmitri who struggled slightly with his lighter gun. Heath placed the mount behind a rock that provided cover to everything below the gun.
"Any other problems?" Heath asked once he got the mount locked down behind the rock.
"Unless you can make support magically appear, then I'm afraid not." I replied to the Spartan.
"I will see what I can do." He said before turning away. I looked back at the feed from Anders scope; the covenant had gotten closer, but they were still about a one and a half klicks out. I noticed that Anders had sighted in on an elite officer that was standing still, as if he thought that he was out of range.
"Anders, fire when ready." And as soon as I said fire, that's what he did. I watched as the big 14.5 APFS round that the SRS-99 fires fly straight and true at the cocky elite officer that though he was out of range. One moment its chest was nice, smooth, and intact; the next saw a fist sized hole appear and it looked like the elite had just jumped back slightly. As soon as his dead body hit the ground I heard a second SRS go off. I knew it wasn't Anders because I didn't see the gun shake from firing, so I guessed it was Anders counterpart on the Spartan team. I watched through Anders scope as the round hit and killed one of the officer's body guards. That seemed to open a flood gate as the remaining body guards started to charge out position, leading grunts, jackals, other elites on the attack.
"Support is on its way Gunnery Sergeant Price, but it will take some time to arrive as they have to battle though much of the forces we now face." Heath said as he and his whole team, minus the sniper, suddenly appeared behind me.
"Well at least they are coming," I said before taking a look around the place that would most likely be where we would all die when I remembered something from the other day, "Thermopylae."
"What did you say Price?" Heath asked me once I said that.
"Just thinking and this situation kinda reminds me of what you described the battle of Thermopylae looking like."
"Well let's hope that it doesn't turn out like it did for the ancient Spartans, both of our sakes." He replied before walking up to the small front line we had made. Dmitri had set his M247 up on the other side of the pelican that the Pelicans fun was on, and Connors was manning the Gatling gun. The loud crack of the SRS's was joined by the slightly quieter snaps of Williams DMR once that reached about 700 meters. After about half a minute the covenant had gotten to 400 meters out and were within range of everybody else's weapons and I used a favorite line of mine when we are facing a hard fight.
"Gentlemen, prepare to defend yourself!"
ya ya, this chapter is on the shorter side; but this set up sort of needed to happen and I really didn't feel like putting what comes next in this chapter as it just seems to fit stopping right there. So the finally line has been used before yes, but it's a good movie quote and line!
Thanks everybody for reading this story and showing your support, all you reviewers know who you are. And thank you to meep15 for the story follow/favorite. Now I just need to find a way to get more people to review…do you guys have any ideas? The review can just be a simple good job; I don't care if it's short just as long as you show support. I just noticed, this story has gotten over 2,000 views! Thanks for all the views guys!
Semper Fi,
Thearizona