"Thirty seconds until OP is a go" Drake said, as we rolled up the street about five car lengths ahead of Akron, Davenport and Stoot's who formed second squad for the engagement.
"Roger that, Sir" Percival said, swinging his Hog into a side street and flanking around the building that Jack had positioned himself in.
"Ready, Lass?" Drake shouted from the Driver's seat next to me.
"Yes sir" I said, clicking the safety off of my competition rifle.
"Good." Drake said, as we closed on the Park's western entrance. "All teams…" he paused. "Go!"
A shot rang out as Jack sniped an unseen commander.
Step one.
Drake burst into the park, spattering several Jackals patrolling the flank and yanked the brake, skidding the car to a halt as the covenant opened fire on the building Jack was positioned inside.
"They're rattled, Sir!" He barked, firing another shot into the cap of another Elite, who thundered to the floor of the Pavilion.
Drake threw himself from the Car and I followed, ducking behind the body and using it as cover. Ellen unleashed the Gauss, focusing on the Plasma canon's, heavy weapon's soldiers and barricades, as the small garrison reeled to defend.
My gun cracked and a Jackal fell.
Step Two.
Fire swung our way in a flurry of panicked spraying and wild hip firing. An Elite saw his chance to take charge and step up, rallying his squad of Jackals and a few brutes behind cover.
"Sergeant?" Drake said, pinning the Elite behind a low wall.
"I see him," he replied. The gun echoed twice, "damn." The third shot sent it crumpling to the floor.
"Kill shots, Sergeant" Drake said, reassuring the injured Marine.
"Yes, Sir."
Ellen fired a gauss round into a plasma coil and it exploded in a ball of blue fire.
"Akron?" Drake asked the comms receiver, "where are you?"
A moment passed.
"Here Sir!" Akron said, entering the park on the far side. The fire from the Covenant intensified until Albert spooled up the chain gun and began mowing the entrenched Covenant in their backs, taking the heat off of us.
Step Three!
Akron's jeep roared around the park in a mad dash, splattering Jackals with its mean front fenders. James literally rode shotgun, blasting brutes and Elites with his 12-gauge at point blank range, letting Albert mop up the stragglers as they passed, spilling their blood over the grass and paths as they ravaged the park like a virus. Nowhere was safe from the three-way orgy of confused destruction and within moments, we had killed a dozen of them.
I reloaded my rifle slowly, watching from behind the glass for Jackals and Brutes that might become a threat. A jackal burst from cover and I cocked the rifle, not flinching as a green round flew over the barrel. It was trying to flank us but with a quick buck, my rifle sent the creature slumping to the floor. I ducked and pulled the bolt back before locking it back in place.
"Careful, Lass, don't expose yourself!" Drake shouted, pinning its friends behind a nearby tree.
Ellen swivelled the gun and fired. Bark exploded from the side of the tree and peppered a Brute with shards of splintered wood. I seized the opportunity clipping a Jackal in the hand with a well-placed shot. As it fell, Drake unleashed a growled burst of his Assault Rifle, killing it quickly.
"Maddie!" Ellen shouted, pulling the gun left and firing a bolt straight down the street. "We're getting flanked, where's Naomi, sir?"
Drake looked about, "On mission, focus your fire on the big ones." he shifted and looked down the street. "Maddie, need you to hold that street and take those Jackals out before they get behind us, okay?"
I nodded.
"Second Squad, cover us!" Drake barked. Akron powered down the street, gunning the throttle and drawing their fire as Drake suppressed the Jackals. "Maddie, Go!"
It didn't take long before I was gone, bursting into the street towards a raised plateau, filled with tables and chairs. I darted up the stairs and kicked over a table as a pink shard exploded overhead. I watched another streak and noted the trajectory, waiting for the growl of Drake's rifle to delay my attacker before popping up and levelling the gun at the culprit, a steely-eyed Jackal hiding in a burned-out oak tree. I pulled the trigger and watched as the body dropped from the tree like ripened fruit, the bullet tearing through his body and off into the sky, ruffling the branches behind it as it dispersed out of sight.
Next, it was the Jackals trying to flank us. One particularly bold one made a run for the far end of my plateau but I put a quick stop to that, firing a round through its leg, felling him in the middle of the street. A jackal pair ran to recover him but Ellen spotted them, putting a gauss round through one with a shield and giving me a clear shot on the other.
"Running out of targets, Sir!" Ellen said, "I think we need to reposition!"
As if to echo this, the Covenant pulled back, slowly forming a rabid pack beneath the AA gun.
"Copy that, Maddie? Status."
I fired off another shot, crippling a brute as a bullet crammed its way through the back of its knee, if fell and crawled for a second until Ellen ran out of targets and put a Gauss round through its neck, smearing him across the grass.
I grinned.
"On my way" I said, jogging back.
"Sir?" Akron said over the radio, "getting a little hot, I need to move!"
Drake was already in the driver's seat when I made it back to the hog, "We're Oscar Mike, Sergeant, where are we heading?"
"Due north, large fallen tree directly facing the enemy position." Came his reply.
Drake hit the gas and we were off again, maintaining speed and never letting up, keeping the enemy surprised and constantly reeling. It truly was a masterclass. They were now down to about quarter strength but the intensity of their attack seemed to increase as the Covenant hid beneath the turret.
We skidded to a halt by the tree and the rest of the unit covered us as we dismounted, Ellen firing constantly at the barricaded Covenant forces.
"Naomi?" Drake said, bursts flying from his rifle as he calmly addressed the soldiers.
"Now, Sir?" came her icy reply.
"Bring it."
The Covenant never knew what hit them.
Two rockets whooshed from the opposite side of the park, screaming through the air, passing under the frame of the massive hulking turret and slammed into the leg to my right. The explosions rocked the park, dealing catastrophic damage to the leg as it buckled and groaned under the stress. I fired my rifle, clipping an Elite that had managed to dodge a gauss round. He fell backwards and looked around before pulling back, gripping his shoulder as his brothers rushed forward, only to be thrown back by the chain gun.
Few of them turned, thinking the explosions were caused by Ellen and the Gauss cannon. The ones that did made for great targets and I made quick work of them with the help of Drake who kept them reeling, unable to notice the tank, charging across the green at 60 miles an hour.
She was beautiful, her blue armour glinted as dust and mud kicked up beneath her feet and her body rippled, even with the armour, in her hand, a large oversized magnum shimmered, a plasma pistol glowed in the other. It glowed and fired, cracking the shields of an Elite who was lucky to dodge the follow up, but unlucky enough to find itself at the end of my barrel. Naomi didn't even flinch when it was killed, she moved on; an unstoppable angel of death spinning and killing in a ruthless vortex of violence.
The Covenant had lost control now, only a small pack of brutes, led by one particularly tenacious elite, broke the encirclement and darted for a row of shops in the direction of their downed cruiser.
"Sir, we have runners!" Akron barked.
"Chase them two blocks, thin them out, if you can't kill 'em turn back and regroup." Drake replied, motioning for me to move forward. I crouched low around the tree and ran quickly into a small row of hedges, using the cover to pick off the remaining Kig-Yar fighting Naomi in the open area.
"Copy that." Akron said, gunning his hog after the escaping elite and his brutes.
Naomi launched herself upwards in a wide arc, vaulting a jackal and kicking it in the back of the neck, the crack could be heard from here and over the rest of the fighting as it began to wane, with the nearly fifty strong garrison reduced to a smattering of rabid Kig-Yar and bewildered brutes. The latter of which I took particular delight in slotting with my competition rifle.
"Damn, Maddie!" Ellen mused from atop the turret, "Who pissed you off?"
I looked back and saw her grinning as she put a gauss round through the last Brute still on its feet.
"Maybe I just have a budding career in pest control" I said, grinning as the last Kig-Yar exploded in a violent explosion. Naomi had seized some kind of Covenant heavy weapon and shot it into the exposed cooling system of the AA turret.
"Everyone, get down!" she shouted, hoping over the nearby tree. Ellen threw herself to the grown and I followed suit and a gigantic blue explosion rocked the area, throwing bits of alien metal all over the park and decimating the trees in an almighty blue and orange snuff, incinerating the leaves and darkening the sky around the small park.
"Stay down, watch for secondaries!" Drake barked, peeking up at the collapsed structure not far from us.
A long moment passed until Drake was satisfied that all was well.
"Okay, let's see if we can't set up some kind of perimeter, the 314 will be here in a little under five minutes." he nodded to us and directed us to the park's outer edge before putting his finger to the side of his helmet.
"Akron, where are you? I need you guys ba-"
"Sir!" Akron returned; his voice fraught with panic over the teamcom. "We have a massive enemy force converging on our position. We pushed those brutes back," he paused as something whooshed by him, "and ran into their vanguard, they're honour guard Elites."
"For the love of… Right, get back here, how far out are they?"
"Five minutes, Sir, easy."
Drake switched comms and relayed the info to whoever was receiving at the UNSC base in the nearby castle. "Redoubt Actual, this is Alpha-One. Be advised, drop zone Sigma is compromised. LZ will be hot on arrival. Confirm?"
A second passed before a male operator replied, "Roger that, Alpha-One, Sat-feed picked them up as your team engaged them. We only have limited overwatch, but it appears to be a strike force."
"Striking what, exactly?"
"No idea, Captain, only targets are you and our flank, either way this changes things, relaying information to OPCOM now."
Naomi jogged over to us, taking a DMR from her back. "Sir, we need to think about exfil, the Pelicans will more than likely go down as they arrive."
"Based on what, SPARTAN?"
"On prior experience, Sir."
Drake depolarised his helmet/
He looks tired.
"Alpha-One?", it was a female voice this time.
"Here, Colonel."
"Our forces are positioned perfectly for an encirclement of that force. OPCOM seems to think they're after you, and not our flank but there's no way to realistically tell. Regardless, this is an opportunity to claim a huge scalp in this theatre. The force is being led by Erun Ja'gamee, the same Elite charged with the siege of the CDS building."
"What do you want from us then, Ma'am."
"We're going to plan B. Pull your team back to the rally point on foot and draw Erun's force in, the 314 will handle the rest." she said, as a series of Pelican's flew overhead.
"Ma'am, you know my orders supersede yours, if the VIP is at risk, I will put her safety above drawing the Covenant into your trap."
"I know, Captain, I'm not green. Just… try, okay?"
"I'll do what I can."
"Good" she sighed, "Redoubt-actual out."
My heart sank as I realised, I wasn't safe yet but Drake gave me little time to dwell on that as he paced about.
"Okay, we need to do a number of things..." he paced, "Second Squad, we're switching to Plan B, what's your ETA?"
"Thirty seconds, Sir"
Drake grabbed me and pushed me into the passenger seat as Ellen instinctively moved towards the turret.
"Naomi, get the Sergeant to that rally point, and protect that Orb." he said, switching off his helmet com as he spoke to her. The SPARTAN needed no more than that and took off at speed to the Sergeant's location as Drake gunned the throttle and pulled away towards my old house, and towards the Ash tree.
Akron appeared at the edge of the park and accelerated, following us as we began to leave the park.
"Shouldn't we wait, draw Erun in to follow us?" I asked, the wind streaking through my hair and slapping at my rosy cheeks.
Drake shook his head, "This entire area is about to become a battlefield. Our best hop is to gain as much ground as possible before the two armies meet and tenderise us between them." he said, checking behind him.
"But you said you would help the Colonel"
"I am helping her."
I kept quiet as the world around us seemed to vibrate. Overhead more Pelicans arrived, some firing their cannons, some of them sinking to deploy troops, and others exploding in giant and crazed explosions, their husks careening through the sky and slamming into the buildings below them. All the while, our cars roared along the tarmac, growling and clawing their way to the far side of town like atlas, with the world on his shoulders. They were old designs, these warthogs, but I could see why they had remained so popular. You could mount anything to its rear and it could carry it, from seats for troops to chain guns, futuristic cannon's and anti-air rocket systems. They could take plasma like sponges and they never stopped moving until it was a flaming husk of molten scrap metal but the passenger seat made me feel safe as we hurtled down the road.
Needles shot across the street ahead as a platoon of Marines encountered a Covenant patrol and Drake put his foot down hard. "I'm not stopping, be ready." he said to me.
I pulled the bolt back on my Rifle and took a look as the firefight grew nearer. There were a few rounds left, three to be precise, and I slammed the bolt back into place. Taking aim, I saw a little grunt waddle into the street for a flanking manoeuvre and tracked him.
Without hesitation, I squeezed the trigger, popping it in the back, a spray of purple and cyan coloured blood exploded in a mist around him as my fingers instinctively worked the mechanical loader, clearing the breech and slotting back the bolt with all the precision of a competitive shooter. I even had the time to fire a second shot, which kicked into my shoulder and clipped an elite in the arm, bursting its shields as we powered past it.
The chain gun growled behind us, pushing us onward as it mopped up whatever was behind us. I was distracted however; overhead, a massive artillery strike raved in the sky, waiting for the drop. UNSC rockets and Covenant plasma mortars began to fill my view, peppering the world around us with smoke and bits of house and debris.
Banshee's appeared in the sky, swooping down towards the Marines, some were intercepted by hornets or pelicans but most were too nimble and gunned their targets down before any of our guys could get a look in to destroy them.
Ellen's Gauss cannon was a saving grace, and her accuracy kept any of the enemy craft from venturing too close.
"They're tracking us." Ellen said, letting another round off of the chain.
"Yeah, I think you might be right" Drake said, "these banshees are picking us up way too fast."
Drake slowed the car just a ghost burst out from the left, chased down by two quad bikes with Marines on the back, the little craft exploded, its body slamming into a parked car and exploding in a bright wash of colour.
"Akron, take point." Drake said as the ex-security chief sped alongside us.
"Why?" Replied James, pumping his shotgun.
"Because it's an order."
There was a tense silence, our cars were a vortex of calm, the eerie eye of the storm.
"Shut up, James." Percival said, putting his foot down.
"You weren't kidding, were you, Sir?" Ellen said, scanning for targets.
"I was not, no. He's dangerous, and if we're not careful, we will fail at the last hurdle."
"That seems a bit over the top, he's just worked up" I said, watching him sat in the passenger seat of the Warthog in front of us.
"He's compromised, Maddie." Ellen said, sadly, "there's a difference between being exhausted, and being functionally unable to take orders from a superior."
Drake remained silent.
"What happened to him?"
Drake shrugged, "I didn't know who he was until Sergeant Braeburn walked into Major Wu's tent so I didn't have a psych report or a person history on him. Although, if you'd told me then that he would be the issue I would have never believed you."
"He certainly gave me the impression that he was a professional when I met him." I said.
"Combat changes you." Ellen said.
Drake nodded as I looked out at the smouldering suburbs, loud explosions cracking out before us.
Yes. I suppose it does.
"Eye's up, Stagg, looks like we have trouble." Akron said over the radio. "Sir, tracking fast movers to the east, following parallel. Confirm?"
"I see it too, keep pushing, I'll raise the colonel." Drake replied, pushing the comms button on the dashboard as I gripped my rifle tightly. "Redoubt Actual, this is Alpha-One, we're picking up fast movers to our east, can you confirm?"
"Moving parallel to your heading, there are a number of light attack craft"
"Is the 314 pinning the enemy back?"
"Battle assessment is inconclusive, Sir, the enemy force appears to be highly mobile and disinterested in positioning itself against our forces"
Drake paused; I think he was running through a number of scenarios in his head.
"Is overwatch available?"
We swerved around some debris and flew through a firefight as more and more of the two armies clashed around us.
"It's limited, Sir, what do you need?"
"I need you to scan our rally point it's likely that the Covenant have set a trap."
"Roger. Standby."
Drake turned to me, "do you know any back alleys, any cuts, or hidden paths towards the rally point?"
I thought for a moment and half shrugged.
"There's a field, it's kind of small and very open. There's a path that runs into it but it's only accessible from a large roundabout."
My mind raced.
"We'd have to split up, one team holds the cut until the rest of us make it to the crest of the hill to cover them."
Drake thought for a second.
"Naomi, are you at the rally point? I need you there five minutes ago!" He barked.
"Here, Sir, clearing it now." She whispered.
Everything was moving quickly, and at this stage how could it not? We were so close to UNSC lines that we could see Marines crossing the streets before us, pushing forward to their objective as we used them for cover, masking us from Erun and his prying eyes.
"Alpha-One?"
"I read you, Redoubt."
"We're seeing a large build-up of Covenant in the area but nothing that would suggest an ambush, over"
"Roger that, Redoubt, what's the ETA for marine reinforcements in the area?"
"The main attack will commence in about five minutes, beyond that? I will update you as we learn more."
"Copy that. Okay, let's move" Drake said, relaying the coordinates for our revised route to my HUD.
Behind us, Ellen began to engage a squadron of Ghosts moving up to our rear.
Albert similarly began to fire at banshee's as they flooded the sky.
Everything is feeling a little claustrophobic, now.
As if to accentuate that point, an explosion rocked the ground beneath us as a building detonated in a huge and terrifying ball of vengeful flame.
That was close.
It seriously felt as though the noose was tightening, now we were seeing Covenant engaging Marines as they pushed back against the attack and great swathes of light coursed around us as we sped through the dangerous rave towards the edges of town.
"We need to get off this street!" Akron yelled over the radio.
"Turn left here!" Drake shot back.
Akron overshot the turning and circled back behind us as we moved to the front of our convoy.
"Oh, Sh…" Ellen said as we skidded to a halt.
A whole column of Covenant heavy vehicles trundled down the street towards us.
"Maddie, how far!?"
My head swam as plasma fumes began to irritate my head.
"U-uh that way, follow that road, turn right, you'll reach that wide-open roundabout I told you about."
"Okay, let's go, move!" He growled, kicking the car into gear and tearing away as a plasma mortar exploded where we had pulled up.
We curved around the bend and exploded out on to the large roundabout, drifting around the middle island as Akron screamed out behind us.
"Banshee's!" He called out as the other hog burst onto the intersection.
It exploded right in front of us.
For a moment, all I could see was the world spinning around us.
Then, there was only the crack of the windshield shattering.
And finally, the muffled shouts of Drake and Ellen as they hauled themselves out of the wreckage.
"Gauss… down…can't…. here!"
I shook my head and crawled forward, just trying to make sure I remained alive. Beside us, rubber screeched and Akron's squad rolled out of their own chassis as Drake hauled me to my feet.
"Ellen, cover us!"
"Yes, Sir!"
As Drake pulled me back to second squad, Ellen gunned down a grunt piloting a Ghost before crouching again as Covenant forces began to swarm the area.
"It's there!" I shouted, pointing at the little cut, camouflaged by foliage.
James' eyes followed my finger to the cut and he nodded at Albert, still covering us from the chain gun.
"Maddie, Percy, get over there, now!" he shouted, "Covering fire!"
The sound of machine gun fire intensified and Percy led me across the grass in a wild sprint over open ground, each step feeling sluggish and heavy as time slowed to an aching and agonising crawl. My feet hammered and my shoulder burned. I could see the crest of the hill and there beside it, my favourite place in the world: the ash tree. The sky burned and the hill was a torn up and burned out soup of glassy mud, from down here, on the open stretch, I could see that its leaves were gone. The cut neared and I smiled, knowing that I was nearly there.
We were so close!
Percy spun and took a knee, covering me over the last few steps as I slid in to cover and returned the favour, picking off a number of passengers and exposed Grunt's as they charged Ellen.
"Up the hill to the fall back?" I asked as Akron rushed past me.
"Yeah, come on, quick!"
We ran along the path for what felt like forever until we emerged out into the wide-open field at the base of the hill. As the gradient increased, all the grass and flowers turned to black crispy rot, speckled with glass and bits of rock and ash. My eyes tracked the hill's incline as we ran, all the way until they reached the once mighty tree, standing damaged and splintered above the suburbs in an act of rugged, if pointless, defiance. The tree itself was dead, burned out long ago and left to disintegrate and flake in the waning summer heat. When we reached the crest of the hill, we found a pile of covenant corpses and Jack smiling up at us.
"Howdy" he said, dryly.
"Where's Gnomes?"
"Out killing covie's for sport." he chuckled, "look" he said, over his shoulder. The hilltop had been some kind of entrenched position, held by the UNSC at some point in the last month, with places for turrets erected into the pit dug at the top of the hill and reinforced with insta-crete and sandbags. I crouched and looked into the valley below, awash with UNSC pushing hard against the Covenant defences between us.
"We need to be ready for the others" I said, climbing up to the Ash tree and standing under it, watching the area from which we had come.
Something's wrong.
I looked down at the hogs. Drake was still there by the chain warthog but James and Albert were gone.
Are they… dead?
"Percival, get over here!" I said, my voice dry and panicked.
"Christ, is that Ellen?" he muttered through his DMR scope.
There she was, still behind the Gauss hog's burning carcass. I watched as she ran out, taking a chance as Drake covered her, still holding them off. She said something to him and he nodded, before taking a brief look at me, standing here at the top of the hill. She looked at me as well. He popped up from cover and suppressed the enemy closest to him as Ellen climbed onto the chain gun, opening up on the enemy vehicles, swarming forward, giving Drake enough time to make it to the cut and disappear out of sight.
My throat dried.
My stomach was in freefall.
Ellen!
It was quick. Ellen was killed instantly as the first Wraith arrived on the scene. Erun sat in the turret and hopped out as his forces secured the area.
No…
I looked around, a crunch from the gravel pricked my ears and stood, open mouthed as James and Albert arrived at the top of the hill. Jack shook his head and seemed to know something that I did not. Percy just stayed silent, withdrawing in on himself in the way that the old soldier seemed to do when confronted with this sort of thing.
"What the hell happened?" I asked the pair as they dropped into the defences.
They didn't reply.
And then I realised.
It had been their fault.