Chapter XXXIV: Surprise!

August 4, 2011 (UNSC Calendar)/ four months later

UNSC Inconvenience, in orbit above Alderaan, Aegis 4 system.

"The Covenant have regrouped on the other side of the planet, they have only ten ships to out fifteen, which means the Navy is about to get their asses whooped. For some reason or other, the covvies have decided that something in this planet is of interest to them, they have set up a large garrison on this point right here. Most other ships with troop-transport capacity have been destroyed or already deployed the soldiers they could, not us, however, we get to go in first to crush the covvie bastards."
The Captain was a rather gifted orator, she could get her men going, but lacked the finesse of other officers when it came to speeches. At least she got to the point. I was standing next to Captain Sharma, she was giving a briefing to Echo Company, the soldiers there were listening intently. I was acting as some sort of bodyguard, flanking the Captain on the right while his XO flanked him on his left, Pavel was standing a couple of steps back, he was already fully armored, same as I was. I think the captain wanted us here because Helljumper presence usually boosted morale. We were considered assholes, but everyone knew we were deadly as hell.

"Well, arm up marines, we're going in soon."

The marines spread out a little in the massive hangar of the frigate, they headed towards the ammunition crates and started loading up on ammunition, I could see the Army boys and girls on the other side of the hangar, they would serve as a second front by attacking the covvie landing forces on their front, Marines would attack from behind. We would cause as much chaos as humanly possible so that we could pave the way for the Army to utterly crush the covvies. That was their job, we killed fast, they killed thoroughly.

"Captain?"

"Yes staff sergeant?"

"Where do Pavel and I fit in?" I asked.

"You'll be a diversion," he said.

Great. It wasn't unexpected, but it was still troublesome to be sent on dangerous missions.

"How will we cause the diversion?" I asked.

"Any way you want," he said.

"Sounds good," Pavel commented.

It did sound good, that meant we got to take whatever we wanted. By whatever we wanted, I mean whatever we could fit into our pods, but it still was quite a lot of gear that we normally wouldn't have been allowed. I nodded at Pavel and he headed towards the armory, he'd be back soon enough.

"Any specifics on our mission?" I asked.

"You'll be dropped at a location of your choice, then you will make your way to the perimeter of the Covenant garrison, once you are there you will cause a diversion, you won't be alone on this one, the rangers will go in on the other side of the Covenant garrison as soon as all attention is focused on you, about ten minutes later the bulk of our force will strike."
"Roger that, sir."

I headed towards the armory, I could gear up there without the crowd, besides, I'd have to talk to Pavel for a bit. When I entered the room, Pavel was already making his way out. He was carrying a mortar tube in one hand and the base in the other, his machine gun was slung over his shoulder and his shotgun was strapped to his back.

"Help me out here," he said. I took the mortar base from him and found a box of shells for the weapon, I placed them nearby and then started loading up, I had a preloaded drum magazine, ONI had stopped issuing them to us when we had our ship filled with regular troops. I had a bunch of them saved up in my room, so I didn't have to worry about keeping mine, if I ever ran out of drum magazines, I could always ask Marina to make me a new one, she was good at that kind of thing. I pocketed the last magazine into my pouches I was ready to go. My knives were sharpened, my guns were clean, and I had my mind set to kill. However, I wasn't done with the armory just yet. I had been told that I could cause I diversion any way I wanted, and that's what I would do. I grabbed a SRS99, more commonly known as the sniper rifle, and attached it to the magnetic clamps on my back. I then grabbed a bandolier of sniper rifle ammunition and strapped it across my shoulder, it was the only place it could go comfortably for now. In addition to that I shouldered a pair anti-personnel mines for protection. I heaved up the mortar ammunition and base, and headed towards the SOEIV bay.

On the way there I came across a group of flight officers making their way to the hanger, amongst them was Marina.

"What are you doing here?" I asked as I set down the crate of mortar ammunition.

"The captain wants us ready to deploy any minute, so we're headed towards our ships," she explained.

"Oh, see you later then."
"Frank?"

"Yes?"

"Good luck," she said as she turned away.

I shrugged and picked up the crate and base again. Once in the SOEIV bay, I helped Pavel fit the equipment into the various compartments that the pods had, it took some work and some clever positioning, but we succeeded.

"You two ready?" asked a navy technician.

"Yes we are," Pavel replied. Having said that, we both hopped in on our pods. We banged the hull twice to signal that we were good to go before the screen of my pod flickered to life.

"Sergeant, glad to see you're ready," Lieutenant Yevgeny Nazarian's scarred face said. His face gave way to a satellite picture of the Covenant garrison. It was composed of several large buildings and lots and lots of vehicles, there were some purple blurs which were definitely banshees there as well. Luckily, there wasn't a cruiser nearby, that's the only reason this op had been green-lighted.

"Which side will you be landing on?" he asked me. The map showed to areas and highlighted them in green, they were the two flanking/diversion positions that me and Pavel and the Rangers would take. I gave them one quick look.

"Pavel?"
"We're only two men Frank."
"Right. We'll land on the northeastern point," I said. It was the one that looked like it had less enemy concentration. The small squadron of ghosts that the covvies sported was also farther away from there than from the other flanking position. It was the easier one. As much as it pained me to admit it, we'd have to let the rangers take the hard one.

"Roger that sergeant," Nazarian said and the screen flickered out.

The pods rocked a little bit as they were positioned into their final launching position. The lights above my head went from red to green, and I felt a small lurch. I saw that Alderaan, the planet that we were landing on, was mostly barren. It had its different climates, but for some reason or other there weren't large concentrations of fauna such as the Amazon back on Earth, or the Highland Forest in Reach, nothing like Aztlan's vast tropical jungles. My pod started rocking as we entered the atmosphere. The land where we would crash into was looking mostly black, it was right before dawn down there, we would strike right as the sun rose over the covvie garrison.

The bottom crystal of my pod polarized and became a screen. It outlined the natural features of the land below us and highlighted with green the landing zone and with red the covvie garrison. I maneuvered my pod so that we would fall down right in the middle of the green area, about a kilometer and a half away from the edge of the Covenant garrison. We would have to haul all of our extra equipment, but we certainly wouldn't be spotted.

Just as the temperature started to drop, we landed. It was a beautiful landing, I barely moved from my position on the pod. There had been no wind or currents to disturb the path of my SOEIV. I opened the door of my pod and slung my BR55 while I attached the sniper rifle to my back. I strapped the mines to my lower back and carried the mortar's base with my hands. I looked at the area ahead of me and marked a position on top of a small hill with my HUD. A waypoint immediately appeared where I had signaled, visible only in the hardened visor of my helmet and Pavel's. We would meet there.

The hill I had pointed to was a beautiful position for the mission at hand. It overlooked the garrison, but wasn't too close to it. It provided some cover for us from the troops below us, but it gave us a lovely sniping position at the same time. I was glad that I had brought the large rifle. When I arrived at the hill Pavel had already set down a box of mortar shells as well as a couple of landmines. I tossed him the mortar's base and he proceeded to attach it to the tube. He set it up so that it faced the garrison. I climbed up the rest of the hill, crouching as I reached the top and eventually going prone. I zoomed in on the garrison. It was nighttime, so there wasn't much activity right now. I could spot a few lonely elites doing patrol, some grunts chatting, and the ever-present jackal snipers. I saw some flashes of orange in the distance, across the garrison.

Looks like the Rangers have landed.

I flashed my UV strobe a couple of lights. It was some sort of light that went through a higher (or lower) frequency than human eyes could see. Or something like that. You could only see it if you were wearing a UNSC helmet with a visor or goggles. I flashed it a couple of times before I received a response.

"We…"

"Will…"

"Move…"
"After…"

"You…"

My visor's programming helpfully translated the Morse code. I had learned some of it in boot camp, but I had forgotten most of it by now. I flashed my UV light a couple of times to signal agreement and then headed back down, Pavel had already assembled the mortar and had placed the landmines in likely flanking positions on the sides of the hill. Those would serve as a warning for us to bail out as soon as possible.

"You ready?" I asked.

"Always."
"Always? Who do you think you are? A movie actor?"
"Just start sniping away."
I moved back to the top of the hill and unslung my BR55. I placed it to my side and then grabbed my sniper rifle from my back. I wasn't a professional sniper per se, but I had been trained in how to use it and measure wind and shit back in boot camp. I had made half-decent scores, so I had been certified to use it in the battlefield. This was the first time that I was using it when I wasn't in a clinch. I unstrapped the bandolier and placed the five magazines to my left, one next to the other.

"Pavel, where are you aiming at?" I asked.

"Umm, three degrees to the right of north," he said.

"Ok, that's a way to put it," I replied to his unorthodox way of pointing out his target.

"Move the mortar six degrees to the right, then set it for two-point-six clicks."
"Done," he said after a few moments.

"Ok, after you hear my shot, fire two shells in quick succession."

"Yessir," he replied.

I scanned the area ahead of me. The closest covvie was a jackal sniper, he was about a click away. That was good, it meant that we'd have lots of time to cause mayhem. I switched my sight to the edge of the camp. There were some elites doing patrols, all of them minors, I changed target again, looking for a higher-ranking officer. Finally, I settled on an elite major. It was standing in between two small covvie tents. Looking bored.

I sighted the crosshairs on the elite's chest. The sniper's sensors told me that there was a weak draft coming from the west. I adjusted my aiming accordingly and then raised the crosshair so that it would be pointing above the elite's head.

I squeezed the trigger.

The elite would never hear the blast that hit him, for that matter, most other covvies wouldn't hear it. The SRC99 was as laud as it could get, but sound diminishes as it travels distance, if you weren't listening carefully, you'd barely notice the noise when you were that far away. The elite's right shoulder was hit, with its arm actually flying off from its socket. I still don't understand why they never bother to turn their shields on in all combat situations.

I switched my sight to the jackal sniper and took him out considerably easier. He was twice as close and I didn't have to take the wind into account. I saw a couple of muzzle flashes on the other side of the garrison and then heard two loud thuds behind me. I managed to take down two unsuspecting elite minors before the mortars landed.

When they landed, they made a brilliant explosion that engulfed about five fusion coils each. Then those fusion coils exploded and ignited the ones next to them, causing a very majestic display of fireworks. That's when all the camp woke up. I could see confused elites, scared grunts and jackals, as well as a few hunters, stoic as ever. The elites doing patrol immediately turned their shields on, but the recently woken ones hadn't, some of them weren't even wearing full combat armor.

I reloaded my rifle and took three elites, the last shot went wide and hit the ground next to a grunt, which proceeded to yelp and run away in fright.

I heard another thud and the mortar shell landed about a hundred meters to the left of the blast zone. Pavel was smart enough that he didn't need my instructions, he would spend half his shells by randomly changing targets before he requested more valuable ones. Meanwhile, I was two mags down and needed to start taking care of my targets.

The Covenant might've been stupid for not having their shield on, or for not having better sentries, or for many other reasons, but they were still a trained military force, I could see elites hopping into wraiths in the distance, some ghosts were already crewed, and soldiers were now crouching next to rocks or buildings. They still hadn't figured where I was firing from, but it wouldn't take them long to realize.

"Targets?"
"Aim five degrees to your right from your last firing position and set the mortar to one-point-eight kilometers."
Pavel didn't bother to reply, I just watched as a hunter was blasted sideways by the explosion, it didn't even have time to recover before another shell finished the job. It's partner roared in anger and charged nowhere in particular, crushing a grunt before finally realizing the futility of what it was doing. I shot another elite minor, only managing to knock down its shields, I killed it with the next shot, but this meant that most elites were now ready for action. I held my fire for a few minutes and watched as the bulk of the covvie forces moved towards the other side of the camp, where the Rangers were doing their thing.

I decided to help out a bit and managed to take down an ultra. I was down to my last clip.

"Target?" Pavel asked me.

"Just adjust the distance to two kilometers exactly."

A few seconds later a wraith blew up in a blue explosion.

"Last round Frank," Pavel said.

"Roger," I answered. There was already a group of covvies making their way here. A lance of elites, about a dozen grunts, and the lone hunter. We would be in for some serious trouble very soon.

"Ok, switch twenty degrees to the left, adjust to one-point-two kilometers."

The last shell hit a lookout tower, killing a jackal. It wasn't that valuable a target, but it would prevent us from being sniped while we dealt with the advancing enemies.

"How's it going?" Yevgeny asked. Made sense, no use in radio silence now.

"We're alright," I replied.

"Glad to hear that," the lieutenant answered. This time I could hear plasma fire and gunfire through the radio.

At that moment a timer appeared on my HUD. It showed 10:00 and decreasing. It was the estimated time of arrival for the Army and the Marines. We would have to hold out for that time, or we could run away and live, but we were ODSTs, not regulars. I emptied my last magazine on an elite major headed our way, I missed two shots and used the next two to bring it down, not my proudest moment, but it was doing front flips all over the place.

"How is it going?" Pavel asked, he was lying down next to me, his machinegun already propped on the floor and aimed at the group of covvies that were advancing.

"As well as you'd expect."

Our job here was done, we had caused mayhem, disrupted the covvie routine, they were confused and not coordinated, thinking that they were under attack by a large force. In a couple minutes time, they'd realize their mistake and send out hunting parties for us, letting the rest of the garrison lower its guard down, even if they official alert didn't, that's about the time that the big guns were supposed to roll in. In the meantime, we just had to survive long enough to be evaced.

I hit a grunt in the head, killing it instantly. I had mixed feelings about that, for one, I was glad that I had made the kill, but on the other side, it meant that they were now close enough for me to use my BR55 comfortably.

"Take the ogre," I said.

"On it."
Pavel's gun started roaring and spewing our lead, most rounds hit the hunter, but it promptly crouched behind its shield. Pavel shifted his aim slightly, so that the armor-piercing ammunition hit the hunter's arm. If he was lucky, he'd manage to wreck the cannon implanted to its arm.

I simply dedicated myself to hitting easy targets, mostly grunts and the occasional skirmisher. After four minutes of that, there were two dozen covvies about two hundred meters away, well within the range of a decent firefight. That's when I really thanked ONI for kidnapping me, whenever I felt like I was in more danger, my body seemed to work even faster. I had no doubt that my reflexes were enhanced already, but this just seemed absurd. I would fire as quick as the rifle allowed me to, which means that I was almost full auto, but the recoil seemed like I was simply firing a single shot. It was great.

"We're going to cut this close!" Pavel warned over the sound of his M247L.

"Shut up and fire!" I replied. I was already down to half my magazines, working through fourth.

I really should've brought more BR ammunition.

It all seemed to be going well until I heard an explosion. We hadn't thrown any grenades, so the only option was the mines. I was sure that there was an unhappy covvie somewhere nearby with its legs completely blown off. I also knew that there was a bunch of them making their way here as well.

"Time to go," I said as I slid away from the summit of the hill. I tossed a flashbang to fuck with the covvies and to gain us a couple of additional seconds.

1:59

"Two minutes, that's all we need!" Pavel said.

"That's more than we might get," I reminded him.

We pulled back to a group of rocks that served as nice cover, the ground behind us was open ground, so we'd have to make a stand here before we were sent some support. I shot an imprudent elite after Pavel knocked its shields down, we had definitely killed more than two dozen covvies, so they seemed to have decided we were important, so they sent more after us.

Oh, the downsides of being a deadly and feared soldier.

"A talented one too!" Pave added.

It seemed to be going reasonably well until the timer reached 0:48. Pavel's rock exploded and he had to dive to another one. The hunter had finally gotten its chance for revenge and didn't want to waste it. It fired a couple of other times, hitting rocks without people behind them. I managed to kill what seemed like the last remaining grunt before the hunter charged towards us. It was now only him and us now.

"What now?" I asked.

"I got an idea," my friend replied.

His idea must've been the stupidest thing I had ever heard, but it was the only thing we had. We left our cover so that we could see the hunter more easily. There wasn't any other covvies, so in theory, the plan should've worked. In theory.

The hunter leveled its arm at us and fired, we both dived out of the way and raced towards it. It was probably the stupidest plan ever. I think I mentioned that already. The hunter seemed confused for a couple of moments before it fired again. We both dodged out of the way of the green bolt of energy and made it to within ten feet of the hunter. We spread out and waited for it to charge one of us. When it did, the other one would shoot it in the back, and repeat. That is, provided we managed to survive its charges.

I dodged a hit from its shields while Pavel emptied his magazine on its back. The hunter turned and did attacked Pavel while I switched to full-auto, emptying ten rounds on its back before it turned to face me again.

"Where the hell are they? The timer hit zero about a minute ago!" Pavel complained.

I was to busty rolling backwards to avoid being stomped, so I didn't answer. I stood up just as the hulking beast turned, but it seemed to have gotten the gist of what we were doing, because it immediately turned to face me, cannon already aiming straight at my chest. I jumped to the side, a lot faster than I should've been able to. A lot faster than anyone should've been able to. It was almost fast enough.

I cried out as the blast nicked me in the ribs, not quite punching through my armor, but heating it up enough to leave some third-degree burns on my torso.

"Aw fuck!" I cried as I fell. The hunter was already walking towards me, ignoring all the rounds going through it, by all means it should've been dead already, even for a hunter, this guy refused to give up. That was about the time that the Big Guy Up There decided to give my friend and me another chance. The hunter's body exploded in three different points, orange blood and gore falling on Pavel and me. I turned and saw an Armadillo, it wasn't even a hundred feet away.

An Armadillo is an AFV, which stands for an armored fighting vehicle. It had eight wheels, larger even than those on a warthog, on each side. Its body is angled so that it can deflect projectiles, not that it matters much with plasma, but it does the trick against needlers and spikers. On top of that, it has its armament. Its primary armament is a 30mm autocannon that fires 200 rounds per minute. To complement that, it has an M247H machinegun mounted there as well. It also has launchers that can be modified to launch anything from SPANKr rockets to Jackhammers, to Arrowheads. It was an ugly vehicle and had nothing sleek about it. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

"Sergeant, are you alright?" asked a dismounted Army soldier.

I nodded. I was already taking off my armor to have some biofoam rubbed on me. I had very little of that special gel on my thigh case and this injury wasn't serious enough to be worth it. My entire right side was burnt red and black, but it wasn't long before a medic started rubbing biofoam and then bandaging my torso.

"You should be fine," he said. "Hell, you could keep fighting without too much trouble."

"Good," I said, as I put on my armor again.

We hitched a ride on the Armadillo. It led us towards the rear of the advance, it wasn't really an advance, the garrison had fallen within minutes. The Marines had met with the Army and then proceeded to kill everything in the vicinity very thoroughly. There was even a small command post set up already. It hadn't been more than five minutes after the timer reached zero.

I winced as I jumped of the Armadillo and my armor chafed against my side. It didn't hurt as bad as it should've, but the bandages were doing a pretty nice job. Major Cavallaro hadn't said anything about pain-tolerating drugs, so it was probably the medic who I had to thank for that.

"Staff Sergeant!" someone called.

I assumed that it wasn't me they were talking to, so I kept walking.

"ODST!"

I turned to face Major Hernandez, the man in charge of the Army assault. For some reason it was the Army who helped us and not the marines. Not complaining about that one.

"You alright?" he asked.

"Ready for action sir," Pavel and me said.

"Good, but right now, you need a rest, you've earned it."

Unfortunately, we didn't get to rest, at least not right away. A warthog turned up and called for Pavel and me expressively. We groaned and complained, but we had no choice but to hop on the vehicle. We drove across a lovely sight of dead elites, dead grunts, dead jackals, and dead hunters. The smoke and fire really added to the overall experience.

We hopped of right next to the largest covvie building in the entire complex. There was a marine platoon standing guard next to it, I don't know what they were protecting it from, but it seemed to be important enough to waste thirty men on.

"Over here," one of the marines said. We followed him into the building and he led us to Commander Albaf and Lieutenant Wilkins.

"Commander! What are you doing here?" I asked, surprised. In my six years of being on board the UNSC Inconvenience not once I had seen the commander on a combat situation, hell, I hadn't even seen her outside of the ship.

"Well, a certain situation requires my attention," she said. "Follow me."
Pavel and I did as we were told, walking behind the two ONI officers. I was a little startled that they hadn't brought anything heavier than their pistols here. No armor to speak of.

"The Covenant were digging, whatever they wanted, was obviously important."
Makes sense.

"They were digging?" Pavel asked.

"Yes," the commander said as a couple of purple doors slid open. They were larger than the usual covvie purple doors, and we actually stepped into an elevator. The commander pressed her hand into a Covenant hologram and the platform started going down.

"The levels below have already been cleared," she said. "But all soldiers have been dismissed and are groundside. I am not stupid enough to go down there without protection, so I called you two."

"Yes ma'am," I said. I wasn't entirely sure what she was talking about, but my job was not to ask questions.

The elevator stopped after what seemed like an eternity and we stepped into a small tunnel that made me feel claustrophobic. I walked behind the lieutenant, who was walking behind Albaf. We crossed the tunnel in about a minute before we came into what must've been the most massive cavern that existed in the universe. You could've fit a Marathon-class cruiser inside of there, no problem. What really caught my attention, however, was a small building. It looked like Covenant architecture, only that it was more angular, with no rounded edges, and the most startling thing of all. It didn't have a single trace of purple on it.

"We are now two kilometers underground," Albaf told us. She was sweating profusely. It must've been hot down here, but thankfully I had my suit on. Its climate control function was really a blessing.

Albaf led us towards the gray building, which seemed almost embedded into the floor and walls of the cavern. It was only about a hundred meters away, so no need for an extremely long walk.

"Stay here," she said as soon as we reached what looked like doors.

"Ma'am?" Pavel asked.

"Do you not understand?"

"Sorry ma'am."

Pavel and I both stood guard next to the door as the Commander and the Lieutenant both stepped into the building. They were there for about fifteen minutes before they exited. The lieutenant was now carrying something in a small case. He put the case into a bag that he had been carrying and pulled out a couple of C12 demolition charges. I instinctively winced. I was good with explosives, but C12 was known for being notoriously unstable, and the fact that you could punch clear through a few meters of Titanium-A armor with a square inch of it made for a really dangerous combination.

"Staff Sergeant, place this charges on the walls next to this building," the Wilkins told me as he handed me two rather large blocks of the explosive. "And then place these two in the tunnel as we leave."

I did as I was told, feeling nervous, more because I didn't know why I was doing this, or what the Commander had gotten from the building than because of the deadly explosives in my hands. I was done in a few seconds, expert knowledge on explosives helped me out a bit, but I still double-checked the charges after I placed them.

"You done Staff Sergeant?" Albaf asked.

"Yes ma'am," I replied.

"Well, let's go," she said. "Sergeant, don't just stand there looking like an idiot."

For a moment I thought she was talking to me, but then I remembered that Pavel had been promoted to sergeant as well. We followed the commander back to the elevator, about halfway through the ride she detonated the charges, and that was that.