Chapter Fifty-Five: Old Habits
0600 hours, November 22, 2564 (Military Calendar) \
Sigma Octanus IV, Sigma Octanus System
UNSC Secondary ODG Control Facility "The Spire", Black Hills
"Sir!" Alex and Sam Ambrose both snapped to attention, bringing their hands up to their visors in a crisp salute as a man with a jet-black full beard and equally black hair, wearing a general's uniform adorned with four stars on his shoulder straps, emerged from the inner control room which housed the controls for the orbital defense grid, moving over to approach the two Spartans.
"At ease," the middle-aged man in the general's uniform returned the salute, allowing the two Spartans to drop their arms.
Alex glanced through his heads-up display at the older man's IFF transponder and identified him as General Ian McCandlish, the commanding officer of the entire First Expeditionary Force, though his distinct north-English, almost Scottish accent, and the quadruple stars on his cap and shoulder straps already gave his identity away.
General McCandlish gave the two Spartans in front of him a quick once-over, his eyebrows sliding up to the top of his forehead, nearly vanishing under his cap. "I think…" the general rubbed his chin, searching for the right words. "I think…you have some explaining to do…" Though McCandlish hid his emotions well, it was obvious that Sam and Alex's presence had come across as quite a surprise. "Please step into my personal quarters just over there on the other side of this room; I'll join you in a minute."
Alex caught sight of McCandlish moving over to direct a team of COM coordinators, who were currently receiving incoming transmissions from the front lines, as he and Sam made their way through the outer operations room and into a small, closet-sized crash pad off to the side.
The staff of the central command center parted like the Red Sea as the two Spartan-IIIs made their way into General McCandlish's personal quarters set at the other end of the room. The men and women there all gave Sam and Alex those expressions and looks of awe and fear that almost every soldier gave to a Spartan on his first time seeing one.
Alex personally hated how the common rank and file was automatically uneasy around Spartans; it was just like the Great War all over again.
No, Alex shook his head, correcting that thought. The Great War had been worse; the Spartans had all been young teenagers at the time. Take the common soldier's unease around Spartans and then add in the fact that they were constantly surprised at how the UNSC's best and brightest had only been children…it got old after a while.
Alex exchanged a few respectful nods with the soldiers who had already been through the mill; they were the ones who had no problems.
Sam reached the General's crash pad and pulled open the door, ducking inside. Alex followed her, letting the door swing closed behind him. He took one quick look around. The room was very small; McCandlish probably got in his ninety-minute power naps whenever he could, but that wasn't very often, not when his forces were constantly under attack, requiring his equally constant attention. The cot, sure enough, did not look as if it had been slept in for some time.
Other than the cot, there was a tiny nightstand, a small, foldable table and several chairs situated around the table. A footlocker sat at the edge of the cot as well. There was no more room in the small space for anything else.
Alex took one look at the chairs and decided to remain standing; in his MJOLNIR he would probably end up flattening the small, fold-up seats. Instead, he sat down on the ground cross-legged and closed his eyes, taking several deep breaths and centering himself.
Sam leaned against the wall next to the door, tapping her foot impatiently. It was a solid two minutes of waiting before the door was pushed open and General McCandlish strode in.
The General walked right to the table and dropped down into one of the chairs. He reached down below and drew out a small plastic cup and a bottle of sixteen-year-old scotch, pouring himself a couple of fingers. "You are Alexander-G004 and Samantha-G113, Spartans from the Gamma Company generation of the Spartan-III project, Petty Officers First Class in the Naval Special Warfare combat branch; all of this according to Colonel Westfield, the commander of the regiment whose lines you stumbled upon. Is this correct?"
Alex and Sam replied with simple nods.
McCandlish brought his cup to his lips and took a small sip of the scotch before settling back and addressing his new arrivals once more. "The Rebs have been hammering this mountain nonstop for days, now," the general began, "Now—bear with me, here—the Rebs start hitting Mount Araquiel again not too long ago with nearly everything but the kitchen sink; I'm talking infantry, armor, even limited air support. I'm giving myself an ulcer here in the operations rooms trying to keep the line there together while juggling the raids against General Dalyell's division's lines down to the south. Next thing I know, a runner from General Armistead arrives and tells me that a dragon is tearing the Rebs a new asshole, coming up the slopes of Mount Araquiel from behind. Naturally, I was dubious, but after a little while I freed myself up enough to take a quick look for myself…and I find a shattered Insurrectionist advance, a dragon on my front doorstep, and two Spartans." The general knocked back his scotch and stowed the bottle and cup. He relaxed and turned his gaze over to the Spartans, staring into their blank, emotionless faceplates. "I'm listening," was all he said next.
Sam spoke first, beating her husband to the punch. "Sir, we—my comrade and I—arrived in-system four days ago. We were intercepted and taken in by the Seventh Fleet. They've been driven back to Elpis and ended up losing all contact with your men on the ground…"
General McCandlish leaned forward and cocked an eyebrow, listening intently.
"Arrangements were made to have us orbitally inserted right in with your lines," Alex continued, "This was done last night. We were dropped right into one of the residential districts in southern Côte d'Azur, only to find the area crawling with hostiles without any marines in sight."
Together, Sam and Alex quickly explained to McCandlish how they had run into Private Leopold and Master Sergeant Irons. McCandlish's other eyebrow slid up to join its counterpart when he listened to Alex tell of their odyssey through Côte d'Azur in Master Sergeant Irons's dragon.
McCandlish nodded a few times, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Probably the most interesting debrief I've heard since Installation 00… When this Master Sergeant Harry Irons gets off the shelf in the aid stations, I'll have to have a word with his commanders; he seems perfectly capable of leading a larger unit…" the general shook his head and cleared his thoughts, turning back to the two Spartans. "As for you two…" the general's frown deepened as he spoke, faint memories tugging at his mind. "I remember you two…"
"Sir?" Alex asked, confusion evident in his voice.
McCandlish was silent for a few seconds, trying to remember until the light bulb went off over his head. He snapped his fingers suddenly, memories from years past flashing through his mind. "New Mombasa. I remember you; you both fought alongside my men in New Mombasa. You're the sniper from that battle, and probably the so-called 'Ghost' from Kiev as well," McCandlish said to Alex.
Alex allowed himself a wry grin. True, he had acquired a near-legendary status as a sniper during the Battle of Kiev—soldiers had referred to him simply as the 'Ghost'. While he had not been anything close to arrogant or headstrong in those days—hell, he had been the quiet one in his team—he secretly did like and enjoy that moniker. "You have a good memory, sir," Alex replied. He now remembered McCandlish as well. Back at the end of the Great War, McCandlish had been a fiery-tempered captain, a company commander in the 77th Marine Regiment, one of the two marine regiments left in New Mombasa which eventually fought on Installation 00. Alex and Sam both recognized a good part of his former personality infused in the General.
McCandlish waved his hand, returning to the matter at hand. "Enough of this; let's get down to brass tacks. I am going to-"
As the general spoke, there was a sudden, harried series of knocks on the door. "Sir?!" a voice called out. "Sir, Mount Araquiel's under attack again!"
McCandlish swore under his breath. "Follow me," he said to the two Spartans, getting to his feet and striding out of the room. He made his way through the outer operations room and over to one of the holo-tables. This table was showing the southeastern portions of the Black Hills line.
Alex craned his neck and studied the line. McCandlish had deployed 3rd Division to that section of the line. It was not a straight, solid line stretching all through the Black Hills; instead, the line was concentrated on small mountains and tall hills, easily defensible locations which covered each other. The gaps left by this arrangement were well-covered. If anything had tried to push through those gaps and valleys, they would have been slaughtered by the marines stationed on the heights. Behind those front-line concentrations on the hills, more proper fortifications and lines were dug in to provide a fallback point and a secondary defense. Mount Araquiel was situated in the very front of the line. It was the largest mountain in the area and was situated right in the center of the line. If it fell, the lines would be seriously breached.
Blue lines representing the lines and fortifications of the First Expeditionary Force were present all over Mount Araquiel, as well as the hills to both sides of the mountain. Blue dots representing UNSC units also covered these emplacements.
Red dots were arrayed southeast of Mount Araquiel. These represented the Insurrectionist forces which had been steadily attacking the southeastern lines for the past several days. They had been stubbornly trying to knock Mount Araquiel flat ever since McCandlish had established the UNSC line in the Black Hills after the fall of Côte d'Azur. So far, they had been unsuccessful, and McCandlish intended to keep it that way.
Currently, the red dots were forming up and were steadily advancing back up towards the UNSC lines further up the slopes of the mountain.
McCandlish's adjutant, a bald, older man whose IFF identified him as Colonel Geoffrey Bates, was already present at the table. "This intel is coming in from aerial recon from the 174th Fighter Group, attached to Colonel Dominique's air wing."
"You are certain?" McCandlish asked, "I do not want another intel cock-up like the one which nearly cost us Côte d'Azur on the very first day."
"115-percent certain, sir," Bates replied confidently. "COM transmissions are beginning to trickle in from 3rd Division as well; they're definitely about to get hit again."
"Numbers?" the general asked next.
"Unclear, sir," Bates replied. He turned his attention closer to the table and gestured to the formations of red moving up through the hills towards Mount Araquiel. "Division-sized, by the looks of it. There are also several smaller attacks taking place at grid squares Gold-38 and Gold-282."
"Those are the high-points situated adjacent to Mount Araquiel," McCandlish observed.
"Affirmative, sir. They're trying to flank the mountain by taking down or at the very least distracting the defenses on either side of it. I would advise sending in elements of the 88th Regiment to reinforce the lines on the mountain, sir."
"No," McCandlish shook his head, "If I do that, then the defenses all along the Moray Steppes will be stretched to the breaking point. No…what about 2nd Division—what is the 112th Regiment-"
"The 112th is currently under intense artillery bombardment. They're not going anywhere."
"Damn it all…"
"Sir?" Sam spoke up, interrupting the conversation between general and adjutant. "Sir, send us in."
McCandlish briefly considered, weighing the pros and cons. "What's the status on the rest of our assets, colonel?" the general asked his adjutant.
"Sir, they're currently stationed along the Moray Steppes with the 88th, the 103rd, and the 14th Regiments. They helped repulse the last Insurrectionist incursion there," Bates replied. "To my knowledge, there has been no activity there for the past seven hours."
That was all McCandlish needed. "Those three regiments, which divisions are they from?"
"Sir, the 88th and the 103rd are both Armistead's, from 3rd Division. The 14th is from 2nd Division in Wyvern's Corps, Major General Landett's boys."
"Good," McCandlish nodded again, "Landett can spare them then; his division is in the best shape out of all four. Send the orders to those regiments and notify their respective division commanders. Pull our assets there over to Mount Araquiel. Armistead's boys on that mountain will get their reinforcements."
The pelican ride to the front lines was bumpy, to say the least. The Insurrectionists had increased their aerial activity over the Black Hills lately; the 3rd Air Wing under the command of Colonel Dominique was able to keep most of the enemy air forces at bay, but they were not miracle workers.
"Passing Delta Line! ETA to Mount Araquiel: two minutes!" the pilot shouted from the cockpit.
The wind howled past the pelican, a light breeze whipping back around and blowing through the aft-deployment hatch. Alex and Sam were unaffected by this; MJOLNIR armor could operate in zero-gee, vacuum environments. Wind was nothing.
There were four more marines in the troop bay with the Spartans; two buck privates, a lance corporal, and a lieutenant. All were former-wounded returning to active duty after recovering from whatever had put them on the shelf.
"Where are you lucky sons of guns headed?" the lieutenant asked the Spartans as the pelican ducked below a large formation of cumulonimbus clouds.
"Mount Araquiel, sir," Alex replied. He glanced at the Lieutenant's IFF friend/foe tag. Apparently, he was Lieutenant Hiram Young, executive officer of India Company, 54th Regiment, 3rd Division.
Lieutenant Young nodded. "I'm headed to grid square Gold-38, right next door. I heard it's getting rough down there these past few-"
The pelican rocked suddenly, cutting the lieutenant off mid-sentence.
"Shit! Incoming contacts!" the pilot shouted from the cockpit. "Everyone strap in!"
Alex swore under his breath along with the marines, sitting down on the closest seat and strapping himself down with the restraints. Not a moment too soon, either. The pilot sent the pelican into a corkscrew, turning the interior of the dropship in a perpetual, rolling circle. Alex had been through similar experiences during the Great War and was unaffected by these maneuvers, but the faces of the younger marines began to turn green.
"Stabilizing," the pilot smoothed the pelican's trajectory and reestablished control over the navigation systems. As the pelican flattened out, a group of six Insurrectionist fighters shot right past the dropship. Alex watched them through the aft deployment hatch. He saw them continue on their course for a second before banking abruptly and turning back.
"Knife-One-Eleven, this is Baker-68, call-sign: Thunderstrike; I need an immediate assist at grid square Cyan-132; I have bogeys on my tail, repeat: I have bogeys on my tail, over!" the pilot screamed into his COM. The proximity alert began to go nuts as the enemy fighters opened fire, sending a pair of missiles streaking through the air, accompanied with machinegun-fire from their 70-millimeter nose-mounted cannons.
"Solid copy, Thunderstrike," a voice replied from the COM, "Hang in there."
"Taking evasive action; hold down your lunches!" the pilot threw the pelican into a sharp nosedive, heading straight down into the ground. As he dove, he fired off a spread of hot waffle to draw off the missiles. The missiles did not go for the bait, but their guidance systems did hesitate for a split-second, giving the pelican pilot enough time to break out of his dive and skim along the treetops.
The pair of missiles leveled out and continued their pursuit, quickly joined by an additional two. One of the four missiles ended up snagging on a tree, spinning out of control, and slamming into the ground, detonating in a fiery haze.
The pilot zigzagged through the hills and pulled up, rapidly gaining altitude and spinning around as he went. He slammed one of the controls and the pelican leveled out, heading right for the incoming Insurrectionist fighters.
As one, the remaining three missiles detonated harmlessly in the air as the Insurrectionist pilots who had fired them triggered their safety fail-safes which were put in place so that a missile could not turn back and destroy the ship which had fired it.
The pilot fired the pelican's nose cannons, painting the hull of the lead enemy fighter. The hostile fighter broke off, but its five companions darted in to fill the space. The pilot broke off, swerving right, and then pulling up once more.
The marines had their hands to their mouths, desperately trying to keep their stomachs down, or at least in the general area of their lower torsos.
The pilot ducked below a strafing run from two of the Insurrectionist fighters and banked sharply to avoid a missile fired from a third. The pilot wrestled with the controls for a moment and managed to bring the dropship around. A lone Insurrectionist fighter, the one which had just fired a missile, was moving across the pelican's line of fire to rejoin its companions.
The pilot did not hesitate. He slammed a fist down on the weapon controls and fired two ANVIL-II air-to-air missiles from the starboard missile pod. The two rockets leapt out of the missile pod and slammed into the side of the Insurrectionist fighter, obliterating it.
"Scratch one fighter!" the pilot shouted, "Coming about! Knife-One-Eleven, where the hell are you guys?!"
"Establishing inbound vector; standby, Thunderstrike," Knife-One-Eleven responded.
"Easier said than done…" the pilot muttered, throwing his pelican back over to the left, heading southwest towards another pair of Insurrectionist fighters. The cockpit windows sprouted a series of spider-web cracks as the front of the dropship was hit by the enemy fighters' front cannons. The pilot fired off another pair of missiles and watched the two Insurrectionist fighters scatter. He locked onto the first fighter and pursued, opening fire with the pelican's nose-mounted cannons. He bared his teeth in a savage grin as he scored a hit, tearing the enemy's engines apart. The enemy fighter broke apart in a small explosion, falling back to the earth.
The proximity alert began to go off again. "Shit, they're back on my tail!" the pilot cried, "Attempting to disengage…"
Alex could see the four Insurrectionist fighters bearing down on the pelican dropship from behind. A small worm of fear crawled into his gut; the pelican was at the mercy of those fighters, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. This was just as bad as the ship-to-ship naval battles in space.
The four fighters drew closer. Alex was actually able to see a missile begin to launch from the lead fighter's missile pod when it suddenly brewed up in a bright yellow fireball. The torn, ruined pieces of the former fighter scattered, dropping to the ground.
A squadron of five UNSC longsword fighters swooped in from the north, their frontal and ventral cannons ablaze. Another Insurrectionist fighter was knocked out of the sky as it tried to veer off.
The other two fighters broke off their run and attempted to regroup, but the longsword squadron broke formation and individually pursued both air craft.
"This is Knife-One-Eleven," the aerial squad leader said over the COM, "We'll mop up here, Thunderstrike; continue on your course."
"Much obliged, One-Eleven," the pilot replied, "Thunderstrike out."
The rest of the trip to Mount Araquiel took the promised two minutes. "This is your stop, my Spartan friends!" the pilot hollered, bringing the pelican down to the summit of the mountain.
Alex and Sam both unstrapped themselves and staggered out of the troop bay and hopped out of the aft hatch onto the ground outside. They exchanged nods with the marines and the lieutenant as the pelican rose back into the air and departed, moving off to deploy the marines inside back to their units.
Sam and Alex both hurried over to the group of camo-pattern canopies which sheltered a conglomerate of tables and equipment stands laden with COM systems, intra-unit interfaces, and holo-tables, along with many other pieces of technology dedicated to the smooth running of a military unit.
Alex spotted the CO of the 29th Regiment, Colonel Westfield, at one of those holo-tables, listening to one of his subordinates give him a status update on one of the companies stationed on the southern slopes of the mountain. He whistled to Sam and pointed at the colonel.
She nodded and fell in step next to him. The two Spartans made their way through the Regimental HQ. There were not as many fearful or anxious glances in their direction from the HQ staff here; most of them were all too busy to pay them any heed. Alex did not complain.
"What do you mean, Echo Company's mortar teams are short on ordinance?!" Colonel Westfield was shouting into a COM to one of his company commanders, "Did you? Are you certain?" the colonel paused as he listened to the CO of Echo Company's reply, "Well, the quartermasters have been overtaxed for ordinance these past few days…tell you what; I'll have you patched through to the 54th, Colonel Halpern's Regiment. They're off the line right now, they should be able to spare a few rockets…right. Good luck, son, HQ out."
The colonel killed the COM channel and acknowledged the presence of the two Spartans for the first time. He gave them a quick nod. "Good to see you both, again," the regimental commander said as he returned his attention to the holo-table, watching intently as a lance of red dots crashed into the blue UNSC line.
"Likewise, sir," Sam replied, giving the colonel his due respect. Westfield had been the officer to greet and debrief Alex and Sam after their odyssey through the streets of Côte d'Azur; it had been his regiment's lines which they had stumbled upon.
Westfield let out a weary sigh as he watched his line get hit by the Insurrectionists. "Rebs have been beating the shit out of the lines on this mountain ever since McCandlish brought us all here. When I got General Hasegawa to request McCandlish for reinforcements, I'll admit I wasn't expecting this," the colonel chuckled, "But I have to give the old Scotsman points; he always does come through, one way or another."
"Where are you sticking us, sir?" Sam asked next.
"I'm going to stick you in with Echo Company towards the left flank," Westfield replied, studying the holo-table to determine where the two Spartans could be most useful. "That's where I want you for now, but if you spot a place where you can be of better use than with Echo Company, then go to that place. You are not attached to any specific unit; help the line wherever it needs helping. The Rebs are hitting the line right now, so I will not keep you any longer. Any questions?"
"No, sir," Alex and Sam replied in unison.
"Good, that's what I like to hear. Dismissed."
Sam and Alex did not bother taking a vehicle to the front lines. Instead, they ran. With the MJOLNIR, they were able to move pretty much as fast as a warthog could while still being able to go through places a vehicle couldn't.
The regimental HQ of the 29th Regiment had not been situated very far from the lines; the two Spartans reached the secondary lines in less than two minutes. Marines manning those lines directed them further southeast, advising them to keep their heads down.
Mongooses and warthog transports were rushing back and forth between the secondary lines and the forward emplacements, ferrying messages and supplies. Sam and Alex ran alongside several of these vehicles. The drivers cast the Spartans incredulous glances, surprised to see these strange armored soldiers running as fast as they were driving.
The rain lightened a little bit, but not much. It thinned out enough to make it easier to see through; it was no longer a curtain of water, but the mist still wreaked havoc with long-range visibility.
Alex instinctively ducked as a hail of tracer rounds fired from an Insurrectionist heavy machinegun emplacement soared over his head. The spectacle was an odd one, seeing those little streaks of lightning cutting through the gray rain.
"God damn, how much longer is this rain going to last?" Alex muttered to his wife over the TEAMCOM.
"It's Sigma Octanus IV, Ace; weather here moves slower than a quadruple amputee with crutches," Sam grumbled, "Plus, it's monsoon season for this part of the planet. It's going to be wet for a long time."
"Damn rain isn't exactly every sniper's best friend," Alex sighed.
The Ambroses reached the forward lines just in time to catch an artillery barrage. The familiar, telltale screech of the shells streaking through the sky towards their targets filled the air. Cries and screams of "Incoming!" and "Take cover!" rose up from the front lines as the marines heard the noises as well.
"That's our cue," Sam exclaimed, grabbing her husband by the arm and sprinting down the final stretch of ground between them and the front lines, leaping into the nearest trench, surprising a cluster of marines already hunkered down in the fortification.
"Spartans?!" one of them exclaimed, "Shit, the brass thinks the situation's that bad, huh?"
"Worse," another rasped.
"Cut the chatter, ladies!" a sergeant hollered over from a nearby foxhole.
The earth started to shake as the fury of the Insurrectionist artillery slammed into the front lines of the 29th Regiment. One shell landed particularly close to the trench Alex and Sam were in, spraying dirt and earth over the top and onto its occupants.
The barrage seemed to drag on and on, but according to Alex's mission clock it only lasted for three minutes. The Insurrectionists were smart in that regard; if they continuously pounded the UNSC lines nonstop for hours or days, it would tear up the ground and make it hard to move on. If they intended to take that very same ground in the future, it would be a bad idea to ruin the ground they would be advancing over. The Insurrectionists were a bit lacking in the tactics department, but at least some of their commanders had some measure of intelligence between their ears.
The artillery barrage petered out. After the last few straggling shells hit the dirt, the cries for medics and corpsmen were clearly audible up and down the lines.
"You have things covered down here?" Alex asked his wife.
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Sam replied, pulling her BR55 off of her back and loading it.
"I'm going to go find a nest, then," Alex got to his feet and dusted himself off. He leaned in to give Sam a kiss before remembering that he was wearing a MJOLNIR helmet. He hesitated for a second, and then drew two fingers across his faceplate in a Spartan smile, the closest thing to a display of emotion while encased in MJOLNIR power armor, one of the many silent communication signals they had learned during their training on Onyx.
Sam repeated the gesture, giving Alex a warm thump on the shoulder. "Go make 'em miserable."
Alex climbed out of the trench and hurried away from the front lines. He turned away from the gentler slopes leading up to the summit of the mountain, instead heading towards the rough, steep rock formations over to the northeast. He probably moved over to the position of another battalion by the time he reached those rock formations. He rubbed his hands together and leaped up, clasping the edge of an overhang and pulling himself up, getting a good look at the rest of the formations. They rose up several hundred feet into the sky, twisted jumbles of cliff faces, boulders, ledges, and shelves.
A sniper's playground.
Alex slid along the ledge which he had pulled himself up onto and found a cleft in the rock, running into the mountain like a mini-gorge. He slid into that cleft and found a spot where the two sides were close together and, pressing his back against one side, he pushed himself up with his hands and feet, meter by meter.
The top of the cleft opened up into a relatively spacious, somewhat flat ledge. The edge of that ledge was littered with large boulders and even had a good fringe of shrubbery springing up from the earth packed into the edge. Alex couldn't ask for a better spot.
The blue-eyed Spartan went prone and unshouldered his sniper rifle. He linked the oracle scope to his HUD and performed a few last-minute micro-recalibrations to ensure optimal accuracy. When he was done, he rested the rifle on a small rock and lined it up. He then broke the link with his HUD, instead manually leaning forward and peering through the scope with his eyes. He preferred using his eyes as opposed to a remote uplink straight into his helmet's heads-up display, like many other Spartan snipers favored.
He could barely see through the mist, so he switched the scope to black and white thermal imaging. Heat signatures showed up as stark white silhouettes against the blacks and grays of the natural environment. This cut right through the rain and allowed Alex to clearly see what the Insurrectionists were hitting the lines with. The sight was enough to make him swear under his breath.
What had to be at least a division of Insurrectionist infantry were advancing through the rain, up the slopes of Mount Araquiel, and right into the UNSC fortifications. He could see several places where the soldiers in gray had breached the fortifications and were dropping down into the trenches, engaging the marines in fierce, bloody hand-to-hand combat.
As much as Alex wanted to help the marines there, his attention was required elsewhere. A good-sized amount of Insurrectionist tanks were supporting the advance as well, keeping the marines' heads, for the most part, down.
Alex did a quick sweep from tank to tank. Many of them were buttoned up tight, but there were a number with their commanders riding with their head and shoulders in the cupola. The blue-eyed Spartan centered his crosshairs on the head of the first exposed tank commander and squeezed the trigger. The sniper rifle barely twitched as the high-velocity round leapt from the end of the barrel and traversed the distance from sniper to target in a little more than a second. The tank commander's head flopped back in a spray of red. Alex could clearly see the entry and exit wounds in the man's skull as he slumped over the turret.
Alex took out several more bold tank commanders in the same fashion. After their deaths, their comrades took notice of the new danger of exposing themselves. Most of the tank commanders who had been riding in their cupolas quickly ducked down into their tanks, sealing the hatches over their heads.
Alex shrugged, adjusting his aim and focusing on heavy machinegun emplacements. The heavy machinegun nests usually had a crew of two; one to aim and fire the turret, another to feed in the ammunition.
Two shots at a time, Alex lessened the amount of lead flying into the UNSC lines.
Suddenly, a deafening explosion occurred right behind Alex, showering the Spartan with rocks and debris. A smoking crater appeared in the cliff face behind the ledge which he was sniping on.
Alex's vision whited out momentarily and his ears were filled with a loud ringing. The Spartan shook his head and managed to clear his vision. His ears were still ringing, but he was still able to barely see. He saw several more tanks turn and aim their barrels further up the mountain. Right towards the Spartan.
Alex swore violently, gathering up his rifle and throwing himself over the edge just as the tanks fired. The ledge was nearly torn apart by the force of several high-explosive shells slamming into it. The ledge itself remained intact, but anything on it would have been vaporized.
Alex smacked his head on an outcropping as he fell. He hit the next ledge down on his back, his head swimming with pain and disorientation; the knock to his head had been a hard one. Ignoring the pain, the Spartan quickly picked himself back up and moved off, climbing over to another cleft in the rocks, hunkering down behind a pair of boulders.
He flipped to his TEAMBIO and checked for any injuries. Finding nothing life-threatening, he reverted back to his normal HUD settings and took aim with his sniper rifle once more. Four shots later, two more Insurrectionist machineguns fell silent.
As Alex ejected the empty mag and slid a new one in, a chunk of one of the boulders suddenly exploded, showering Alex with pebbles and shards. The Spartan instantly pulled back. There was no mistaking it; that had been an enemy sniper. The only reason he had missed was probably because of the rain.
Alex relocated, sliding slowly over to the left. He eased up to a clump of grass and rested his sniper rifle's barrel, peering through the scope, sweeping through the trees and rock formations down in the foothills, searching for the enemy sniper who had him in his sights.
Alex flicked his gaze over to the bullet hole in the boulder, getting the angle of the shot. He followed that angle down to a large stretch of trees, another sniper's playground. Those trees were spaced close enough to render thermal imaging next to useless; any possible white shapes were lost in a jumble of gray and black branches.
Alex nevertheless persisted, methodically searching through the trees. He put himself in the enemy sniper's shoes, searching for the places where he would hide if he were the one trying to snipe someone in the mountains. He checked through another well-placed cluster of banyan trees with interweaving vines, perfect cover and concealment while keeping the line of sight and fire open. Nothing. "Sneaky bastard…" Alex murmured, sweeping through another section of trees.
There was a steady whump whump of mortars firing from behind the Insurrectionist advance, followed up by nearby explosions as they pounded the place where he had been holed up. They were probably hitting the nests of other UNSC snipers as well. Alex ignored them and remained focused on the trees. He moved to another pair of banyan trees and checked them for the sniper next.
Nothing. Alex moved his gaze over to the…wait-
Alex spotted movement among the intertwined roots of the two trees. He started to look back when another sniper round sliced right past his head. The energy shields were instantly drained and his helmet received a sear mark on its left side as the sniper round grazed it.
"Fuck!" Alex swore again, withdrawing once more and leaning back against the boulder which had been to his right, taking several deep breaths. "So…my energy shields won't be able to block a sniper shot…" the blue-eyed Spartan murmured to himself, if only to hear his own voice to affirm the fact. Alex removed the gauntlet on his left hand and ran a finger over the scar on the side of his helmet. Had it hit only a little to the right, Alex would be dead, minus an eye.
The Spartan put his gauntlet back on, sealing it onto the rest of the armor. The shields flickered and regenerated with a dull flash. The empty shield indicator bar at the top of Alex's HUD turned blue, quickly reaching full charge.
Alex set his rifle down on the ground and took one last deep breath, clearing his thoughts. He had to tread carefully; whoever that sniper was, he was really good. Shame that skill such as that was fighting for the wrong side.
Alex established an uplink interface with the oracle scope on his sniper rifle and patched it through to his HUD. Now, he saw through his visor whatever the scope was pointed at. A smile tugged at the corner of the Spartan's mouth; he couldn't for the life of him imagine how he and his teammates had survived the Great War without MJOLNIR.
As quickly as it appeared, that smile vanished. His teammates hadn't survived the Great War without MJOLNIR, not all of them. Alex's mouth shrunk to a hard, bitter line as he thought about that fact while removing the oracle scope from the sniper rifle.
The Spartan's mind flashed back to the woodlands and cliffs and deserts of Installation 00, the artificial Forerunner world known as the 'Ark'. The place of the final battle of the Great War, and the place where two of his former team, his family had met their deaths. He saw Emma-G132, sprawled out on September Beach; plasma burns riddled across her chest and stomach. If she had had energy shields, she could have shrugged off those hits and dove for cover.
Alex saw Robin-G227—after whom his son had been named—convulsing and bleeding out in the driver's seat of the Gauss warthog which Team Rapier had used to help clear the area around the Citadel. If he had been wearing MJOLNIR armor with energy shields, those two beam rifle shots from the Jackal sniper would have drained his shields, but left him unharmed. MJOLNIR could have kept them alive.
The faint, half-smile returned to Alex's face, but this time it was a bitter, cynical expression. Spartan-IIIs having MJOLNIR powered assault armor would have been a contradiction. Spartan-IIIs had been created to fight like the Spartan-IIs who had come before them, yes…but ultimately, what had allowed Colonel James Ackerson to start the program was the fact that Spartan-IIIs would be cheaper. Expendable. Alpha Company had been wiped out on K7-49 and Beta Company on Pegasi Delta, and no one had shed a tear, save for the trainers themselves. The brass saw them as 'acceptable losses' and moved right on to spawn a new batch of heroes. Had it not been for the end of the war when it happened, Alex had no doubt that Gamma Company would have eventually met the same fate as its predecessors, paving the path for Delta Company to follow in its footsteps. Hell, Gamma Company had pretty much already been wiped out during the Battle of Earth; out of 330, only thirty-some Spartans were still alive today.
Alex shook his head again, pushing those thoughts away to the dark corners of his mind. Contemplating the flaws of the UNSC and the basis of his existence could wait. Right now, Alex had a sniper to kill.
Alex removed the oracle scope from his sniper rifle and checked the uplink connecting his HUD with the scope. Satisfied that it was working normally, he went prone again and moved back past his old sniper spot between the two large boulders and stopped next to the right-hand boulder. He stayed away from the edge, however. He reached out and pulled his rifle close, but did not deploy it. Instead, he grabbed the oracle scope and slowly, gently, slid it around the side of the boulder. Whatever the scope was pointed at was projected onto his HUD, so he twisted it around and acquired the stretch of woods which the sniper was lurking around in. He magnified the scope and closely observed the trees, centering in on the spot where the sniper had fired the shot which had grazed his helmet.
Alex knew the enemy sniper would no longer be there—the Insurrectionist had shown himself to be too good and experienced a soldier—and not stupid enough—to remain in the same sniper nest after firing at another sniper. Still, it was as good a starting point as any. Even so, Alex, for the life of him, could not spot the enemy.
The blue-eyed Spartan gritted his teeth in frustration. Every minute he spent locked in this duel with his hidden rival was another minute Insurrectionist machineguns were able to tear into the UNSC lines unchallenged.
Alex was about to break off and try to set up a distraction for the sniper when he caught a slight movement off at the fringes of his sight. He snapped the scope over to the spot where he had seen the movement and closely observed the berry bush there. Sure enough, he was able to trace the pattern of a woodland ghillie suit among the leaves and twigs. The man was lying on his stomach under that berry bush, his rifle trained intently on the ledge where Alex was lying, scanning, waiting for the Spartan to show his head again.
Alex kept the scope aimed at the man for another second, memorizing where he was lying. He then drew his scope back and reattached it onto his sniper rifle. The oracle scope locked itself in with a satisfying snick.
Alex chambered a round and held the sniper rifle aloft for a second, taking several more deep breaths. He did not like taking fast-reaction corner shots like this, but at times like this he had no choice. He took one last deep breath and willed himself to calm down. His heartbeat slowed down and seemed to stop for a moment. He entered the state most snipers felt when they knew it was the right time to take a shot. There were many names for it, the most common being 'the zone', though Alex never felt the need to name it. He felt it when he needed to and acted on it when he needed to; that was good enough.
The Spartan whipped around the side of the boulder, already bringing the oracle scope up to his eye. He sensed a small movement as the enemy sniper spotted him and brought his rifle over to the side a tad to acquire him as a target.
Fast, but not fast enough.
Alex squeezed the trigger and the sniper rifle coughed. A split-second later, the enemy sniper was down, bleeding from the chest, writhing on the ground, his mouth open in a silent scream. Alex centered his crosshairs on the man and finished him off with a second shot, striking him in the head.
Alex paused for a moment in some measure of respect for the other man. He had been a damn good sniper.
Alex returned his attention back to the battle below. The Insurrectionists had fully hit the 29th Regiment's lines, fighting hand-to-hand in some places for control of the trenches. Alex raked through those trenches, thinning the tide of gray wherever he could. UNSC machineguns blazed to life, temporarily repulsing the Insurrectionists, but enemy tanks took careful aim and opened fire, reducing a good number of emplacements to craters and ashes.
"This is going to Hell in a handbasket…" Alex murmured to himself as he took out an Insurrectionist lieutenant leading a trench raid.
The battle dragged on for another hour. Soon, a good number of the marines and Insurrectionists were fighting with wounds. It was no longer uncommon to see men fighting with less than five fingers on their hands, with blood coagulating on their battledress, or with bandages or slings. Alex and the rest of the UNSC snipers scattered all over Mount Araquiel did their utmost to hamper the enemy's efforts, but the Insurrectionists were like an unstoppable tide, sending wave after wave up against the lines. Alex could observe those Insurrectionists throwing themselves at the UNSC defenses. Many of them were wounded or killed, but they always gained a foothold. The ones who broke and ran were eventually shot by their commissars. Alex did not target the commissars for precisely that reason; every Insurrectionist deserter they shot today was another soldier who couldn't shoot at the marines tomorrow.
The enemy tanks advanced steadily, wreaking havoc against the UNSC defenders. The marines in the first trenches finally broke under the weight of the Insurrectionist attack. The first few trenches were actually taken by the Insurrectionists, the marines driven back.
As if that were a splash of cold water in the faces of the powers that be, a familiar rushing, rumbling sound filled the air, growling louder as it neared the lines at Mount Araquiel.
"Now where the hell have you flyboys been this whole time?" Alex murmured again as the longsword fighters crested the horizon and soared over the battle. They flew off to the southeast for a second before banking and turning back, dipping down low and opening fire with their 110 millimeter nose-mounted and ventral rotary cannons, which ripped through the clumps of advancing soldiers. ANVIL-II air-to-ground missiles made short work of several of the Insurrectionist tanks.
As the armor hastily began to pull back, another rumbling filled the air. Alex looked to the east and saw a formation of arrowhead-shaped shortsword bombers flying low to the ground. As they passed over the Insurrectionists, they dropped the ordinance on their heads and carpet-bombed them.
A good number of the soldiers in gray fell, and many did not get back up. The longsword fighters finished driving off the enemy tanks before joining the shortswords and focusing on the infantry. As they did so, a large number of Insurrectionist fighters crested the southern horizon, straight out of Côte d'Azur. The shortswords, their job complete, made an about-face and headed back to the airstrip situated near the Spire. The longswords rose up to meet this new threat. The UNSC fighters engaged in a fierce dogfight against the Insurrectionist air forces over Mount Araquiel for several minutes. Burning wrecks fell out of the sky, littering the battlefield with more destruction. Soon after, though, the longswords broke off their attack and headed back to base as well.
The remaining Insurrectionist fighters made a single strafing run against the marines before they, too, retreated, heading off to attack another portion of the Black Hills.
Though the UNSC air support had been driven off, its task had been accomplished. The Insurrectionist advance had been destroyed. Not destroyed as in slaughtered and annihilated, but destroyed as in all organization had collapsed. A large swathe of Insurrectionists had been cut down where the shortswords had attacked. The Insurrectionists in the captured UNSC trenches suddenly found themselves very much alone.
Alex saw many of them attempt to surrender, but UNSC marines opened fire on them anyway, cutting them down like wheat during the harvest. The Insurrectionists further on down the slopes had broken into a full retreat, heading back to their lines to fight another day.
Alex peered through this scope and took out several stragglers before breaking off. He straightened up and rested against the boulders, stretching his back and arms, allowing himself a nice, long yawn.
The blue-eyed Spartan manually opened a COM channel with Sam. "Sam? You still alive down there?"
"More or less, Ace," Sam responded after a few seconds. "Can't say the same for a good number of the leathernecks down here, though. I don't even want to know what the casualty figures for this are going to be. How about you?"
"I'm fine," Alex replied quickly, rubbing the scar on his helmet as he spoke. The Spartan observed the battlefield in its entirety for the first time. Smoke was rising and fires burned, despite the rain. There were probably enough corpses on the ground to populate a small village. "When this whole thing is over, it'll be a miracle if anyone's left alive to go back home."
