"Target Lima-2-9 2-0-0 kay klicks, bearing relative 0-0-4, minus 0-0-7. Bow up 0-0-5, port 0-1-0. Target launch, count 2-0-3 vampires, engage. Target lock acquired, hit probability 5-3 rising. Target Lima-2-9 1-5-0 kay klicks, bow starboard 0-0-1, hit probability 5-8, T-3 at 2-5 seconds, main battery away, missiles away 7-0 pattern Zulu-Mod-Three."
Simply reading the live tactical feed — or, better yet, having Leo parse and feed him the relevant information through his neural implant — would have been more efficient. However, for Admiral Hood, listening to Leo's clipped, clinical audio rendition of the UNSC Cannae's tactical feed as the Battle-class destroyer and her division hounded a fleeing Abyssal cruiser provided an odd kind of relaxation. The AI whispered in his earpiece as Hood leaned heavily against the display table at the center of Cairo Station's CIC, taking what felt like his first full breaths in over two and a half days.
With their superior acceleration and maneuverability and the support of carrier-based aerospace strikes, the nimble ships isolated the cruiser from its allies and attacked from multiple angles, dividing its fire and ensuring that at all times at least one destroyer had a good shot. The same scene repeated itself, with minor variations, all throughout near-Earth and near-Lunar space as the Abyssal fleet collapsed into disarray. Released from escort and interception duties, hundreds of light cruisers and destroyers unfurled themselves from tight formations and scattered across battlespace like dust from a shattered jewel, faint specks of dull metal which glimmered in the faint light of Sol.
The lighter units necessarily exposed themselves to greater risk as they rushed out in pursuit, beyond the boundary at which Earth's surviving Jump Interdiction Beacons could shield them from groups of marauding Abyssal warships popping in and out of slipspace. Several overaggressive captains, caught up in the spirit of victory and dispensing with the standard erratic maneuvering protocols designed to throw off tactical slipspace assault, were quickly dealt harsh lessons in proper procedure when their ships were suddenly surrounded by Abyssal warships spilling out of portals and baying for blood. Hood winced as the Heracles-class light cruiser Zhao Yun was cut off from its division and torn to pieces by Abyssal frigates — the UNSC wasn't the only one who could practice mobile unit tactics.
The Home Fleet's surviving battleships, heavy cruisers, and Earth's ODP network intervened when they could, but there were only so many guns to go around, and providing fire support across hundreds of thousands of kilometers resulted in just the kind of accuracy ratings you'd expect. It might have been different had the capital ships been out beyond the boundary as well, contributing their heavy armor, powerful shields, and sheer bulk to close combat, but with the disintegration of the Abyssal fleet resulting in so many different targets with so little time available to prosecute them all the decision had been made to take a calculated risk. Cut the mobile units loose and give them maximum freedom to maneuver without the burden of needing to escort comparatively clumsy capital ships whose mass disallowed radical maneuvers and the rapid, successive tactical jumps needed to successfully execute slipspace-facilitated attacks. In turn, accept a certain amount of elevated risk as a result of disrupting standard mutually supportive formations, trading safety for a more opportunistic kills against an unorganized enemy.
"Vampires down, stand down, target launch, count 3-5-5 vampires plus lances, engage, bow down 4-0, starboard 4-5. Target Lima-2-9 1-0-0 kay klicks, T-3 at 1-7 seconds, hit probability 6-2, main battery away, missiles away 8-0 pattern Bravo-Mod-One. Target Lima-2-9 8-0 kay klicks, hit probability 6-9 rising, T-3 at 1-3 seconds, missiles away 3-0-0 pattern Mike-Mod-Ten."
As fragile as they were, however, like a swirling cloud of dust they blinded, choked, and scarred any who failed to keep their distance. To an outside observer, battlespace appeared to descend into utter chaos as coherent battlelines and orchestrated set piece maneuvers dissolved into hundreds of running battles between battlegroups, divisions, and sometimes even individual ships ducking in and out of slipspace as they wove around each other's weapons fire. Indeed, to individual captains and commanders standing on the bridges of UNSC warships, the orders flowing out from Fleet Command sometimes seemed aimless and absurd. Disengage? Why? We've got them on the ropes! Alternatively, attack? Are they insane? We barely got out of that last one alive!
But to the immense gestalt intelligence formed by hundreds of Fleet AIs, and to the staff officers who worked in concert with it, Hood at their head, to plan the battle, the apparent chaos unfolded like an intricate flower. Feigned retreats peeled Abyssal ships away from larger formations; bereft of central command, they lacked the overall intelligence picture to see the other human warships lying in wait to cut them down as soon as they strayed too far. Other times, probing mobile units, acting with much more freedom now that the guns and armor of Abyssal heavy units couldn't be swiftly redeployed against them, herded enemy ships into predetermined kill zones where energy projectors and ODP shells eviscerated them from light-seconds away. And in the knife-edge dance that was tactical slipspace combat, the constant flow of intelligence between battlespace observation drones, UNSC warships, and Fleet Command gave the human ships a small advantage over the Abyssals, as the constant tracking of slipspace exit vectors and emission trails allowed some degree of prediction as to where the next attack was about to come. A small advantage, but a significant one, and one which the Abyssals no longer possessed in turn.
None of that, however, stopped the Abyssals from mounting some stiff, if disorganized resistance. With central command and control gone up in several hundred megatons of nuclear fireball, many of the lighter ships broke formation, opened slipspace portals, and fled the Solar System. They seemed to have forgotten that, up until maybe half an hour ago, they'd held almost every advantage possible and that it'd been the UNSC on the verge of breaking. Other ships, usually larger combatants such as battleships and heavy cruisers, formed ad-hoc battle clusters and stood their ground, rallying some light units around themselves in an attempt to restore order. These formations, though a far cry from the closely coordinated wall of metal previously bearing down on the UNSC battleline, still proved hard nuts to crack. Several UNSC ships found out the hard way when concentrated flurries of main battery fire cut off their maneuvering options, disabled their propulsion, and systematically dismantled them from bow to stern.
However, the efficiency of those improvised formations was greatly degraded by the lack of lighter screening units, forcing even Abyssal battleships bristling with point defenses and secondary batteries to split their fire between several pressing threats. There was the frontal threat posed by the UNSC's own battleships and heavy cruisers, the mobile divisions attacking relentlessly from all other angles, and the strike fighters which darted constantly from one slipspace micro portal to another, slashing streaks of silver across lumbering alien warships. They were further hindered by the fact there seemed to be little coordination between individual clusters, allowing them to be isolated and worn down. The resistance they put up was fierce, but resistance was all they could muster. Momentum belonged to the UNSC, and it would not swing back.
"Target launch, count 7-2 vampires, engage. Confirmed main battery hit. Vampires down, target new bearing relative 0-6-7, 0-7-7, confirmed missile hit. Hit probability 3-2 falling, lances away. Confirmed blue main battery hit, confirmed loss of propulsion. Hit probability 8-9, T-3 at eight seconds, main battery away. Confirmed main battery hit, confirmed blue main battery hits, confirmed target liquidation. Nice shots, Kursk." Leo's voice gave way to the sound of Cannae's commander as she congratulated her division-mate.
"Merci beaucoup, Cannae," Kursk's CO replied. Faint cheers could be heard in the background of the victorious destroyer's comms line, accompanying the smattering of applause which made its way around the Cairo CIC.
The destroyer division broke off their pursuit, turning up and away from the slowly cooling debris field to regroup before their next engagement. Simultaneously, two of the destroyers, Novaya Moskva and Shenyang, broke off and disappeared into swirling slip space ruptures. Low on fuel and munitions and sporting damage from the cruiser's secondary battery, they were bound for one of the automated repair and supply depots hanging in Earth orbit, carved into the larger members of the asteroid belt, or tucked into the shadows of Jupiter and Saturn's outlying moons, guarded by clouds of robotic sensor drones and anti-shipping nuclear warheads mounted on fusion torches capable of producing 100 gravities of acceleration. Reinforcements in the form of Santa Yelena and Leishandao were on their way, freshly detached from Battlegroup Minerva and needing some time to burn out of the range of the surviving jump interdiction beacons.
Hood allowed himself a small smile. The naval action, the most important part of any battle, was won. There was still some hard fighting ahead, but it was only a matter of time before the remaining Abyssal units were swept from near-Earth space. After that, the Home Fleet would spread throughout the system, scouring Mars, the asteroid belt, and the gas giants free of any aliens who might yet be hiding there. But even as he watched the battlespace display, gazing up at the holographic representation of the planet turning below his feet, his smile faded as a certain area in the Southern Hemisphere came into view.
Yes, victory tasted sweet, but it was tempered by a heavy dose of sourness. True, the fleet, with some well-timed help, had kept the Abyssals away from Earth. It stood in contrast to nearly forty years ago, when the Covenant smashed through the homeworld's defenses like a train through plywood. Yet, for all the Home Fleet's triumphs, it had failed in once crucial aspect: the Abyssal's efforts to force transports through the defensive line and land significant forces on Earth, stymied throughout the battle, had finally succeeded. That there had been very little the fleet could do to stop it, that the combined blows of the arrival of the Abyssal flagship, the destruction of Battlegroup Victory, and a heavily reinforced, overwhelming Abyssal advance had forced the fleet to abandon any notions of defending an objective in order to fight for pure survival, did little soften the pain of that failure.
On the battlespace display, the city of Sydney blinked a deep, accusing red, unit markers hovering above it showing exactly which Army formations now threw themselves against Abyssal landing forces which had managed to run the Home Fleet cordon. Five fleet transports, two divisions, sneaking past the defensive lines unnoticed by the fleet in the pandemonium of a rapidly deteriorating battle against complete annihilation—it wasn't anything like the massive Covenant landings of the Great War, yet this failure on the brink of total victory still hit Hood in the gut. All available reinforcements were heading to the area, but every second that alien feet touched the surface of Earth was a second too long.
Hood's reverie was brought to an end when Leo whispered, "Comm request from Infinity, Admiral Lasky on the private line."
"Very well, I'll be with him in a minute." Nodding to the other officers in the CIC, Hood left the display table and entered one of the private conference rooms branching off from the main compartment. After closing the soundproofed door behind himself and waiting a few seconds for the automated bug sweepers to do their work, he accepted the comms request and said, "Admiral Lasky. Your timing is impeccable."
Though it was an audio-only channel, Hood could picture clearly Lasky's tired smile as he replied, "I strive for adequacy in all things, sir. It would appear that it was sufficient in this case."
"More of a close-run affair than I'd like, but we must take our victories where we can get them. Please pass my compliments onto Cannae's division, that was a textbook attack run."
"I'm sure they'll be gratified to know you were impressed, sir." Lasky paused, then continued, "Onto the main topic, though, my ships have finished recovery of the, er, 'special task force' and confirmed the destruction of the enemy flagship."
"Oh? Good to hear." Hood was still having trouble wrapping his head around the concept of Lasky's 'Fleet Auxiliary Forces'. It was patently absurd, the idea of the spirits of old warships incarnating as young women with the power to hold their own and even single-handedly destroy a dozen enemy ships in open naval combat. Such an idea was clearly the product of a delusional mind, one that ought to have seen its believers dismissed out of hand, if not given a psychiatric discharge.
And yet, if that were genuinely the case, then Hood himself would be drawing his pension somewhat earlier than planned. For all it sounded like the fantasies of desperate men grasping for a hero, Hood could not deny the evidence of his eyes and ears, nor the eye and ears of millions of enlisted and officers throughout the Home Fleet. However… "I'm sensing there's a 'but' in that statement."
Lasky sighed. "Yes, sir. Both Forward Unto Dawn and In Amber Clad are currently unconscious and under observation in Infinity's ICU. I understand you wished to speak to them…"
"No, it's quite alright. It's a matter of health and safety; my curiosity can take a rain check. Make sure they're looked after until they're up and about."
"I'll spare no effort, sir. Fireteams Dancer and Breaker volunteered to provide security, so there's nothing to worry about on that front."
"Good. Take care it stays that way." Hood then dropped his voice to a mere whisper and said, "Admiral, I am given to understand that a human individual was recovered from the enemy flagship. Care to tell me more?"
"Yes, sir. Forward Unto Dawn emerged from the enemy flagship with a female individual who appears to have been held captive by the Abyssals. We have her sedated and under observation on the Hope Springs Eternal, but based on past experience there shouldn't be anything to worry about there."
"'Past experience?' Ah, you mean similar to the… incident at Reach, when you recovered In Amber Clad from the enemy." Hood hadn't had the time to thoroughly digest the long intelligence reports Lasky sent him about that particular action, but Leo had highlighted some especially striking sections. The idea that the Abyssals could use human bodies as hosts, overriding their personalities and even modifying their flesh for their own purposes… it made Hood's skin crawl. It stank too much of the Flood for anyone with even a passing familiarity of the Parasite to be comfortable with. "Incidentally, according to the reports you sent, I do believe you owe her an apology."
"In Amber Clad?" To his credit, Lasky was genuinely remorseful as he said, "Yes, my initial behavior was unprofessional and unbecoming. I'll be sure to deliver it in person when circumstances permit."
"Ensure that you do so. Now, onto other business. I trust you are aware of the situation around Sydney."
"I am, sir." As Lasky's tone turned sour, Leo discreetly changed a portion of the display into a tactical map of the Sydney Metropolitan Core. "It looks like a fair mess, but I have a Spartan fireteam standing by for direct insertion and two regiments of marines split between my forces. They're ready to go where they're needed, they'll get the job done."
"Your initiative is appreciated." In the confusion of battle, the Abyssals had managed to trickle small groups of landing ships behind the UNSC battleline. With the full weight of the Abyssal fleet bearing down on them from the front, and the ever-present need to hold back units to defend the ODPs, the Fleet had been forced to leave interception of those landings to the ground forces. To their credit, the Air Force and the Army worked together to destroy several of them before they entered the atmosphere, and several more as they descended. But enough Abyssal troops had made it through, and even though the two Army divisions garrisoned in the Sydney Metropolitan Area had contained them handily it was taking some degree of effort to root the aliens out. And then, when the Abyssal flagship appeared, and the Fleet only just staved off total collapse only to be forced into a purely defensive sphere… "The alien bastards have a full division on the ground. The Army's still trying to reorganize from the bombardment and could use your boots on the ground."
"Yes, sir." Try as he might, Lasky couldn't keep a note of worry out of his voice. Even as he climbed the ranks, he never could stop worrying about casualties. Hood couldn't help but crack a small smile. Pray you never lose that. "How should I deploy them, sir?"
"Put your captains in contact with local Army command. General Patterson has the final say on where your reinforcements will go, and the Spartans have their assignment. As soon as they've finished deploying their forces, split your forces by thirds between Battlegroups Minerva, Vulcan, and Nemesis. Get it done, Admiral, and we'll speak more later."
"Yes, sir. Roland, get me—"
As Lasky signed off, already speaking with his AI aide, Hood turned back to the tactical map and stared at one point in particular. He'd done everything he could short of picking up a rifle and going in himself, and it was out of his hands at this point. Yet Hood couldn't help but worry about the lack of transmissions coming out of the Bravo-6 complex, ever since the Abyssal ground assault began in earnest, several hours ago. Maybe, by some miracle, some or even many of the people there were still alive… but as said, it would take a miracle.
"Three, two, one, drop, drop, drop. Pods away, pods clear. Closing drop bay doors…"
High above the tallest of Sydney's skyscrapers, fifteen fireballs plummeted into the lower atmosphere, long trails of wispy smoke extending far behind them. Passing 5000 meters, anti-aircraft fire rose to meet them as the fiery sheaths dissipated to reveal the drop pods hidden beneath. In response they launched flares and chaff from onboard dispensers, causing pair of Abyssal SAMs to spiral off-target and detonate amidst the cloud of countermeasures while another SAM stayed the course and slammed full-force into one of the pods. The short-lived fireball and dirty debris cloud concealed an inconvenient — for the Abyssals — truth. That had been one of the ten decoy pods, smaller but covered in reflective materials and stuffed with emitters so that when activated their radar and heat signatures appeared almost fifty times as bright as a regular drop pod. More SAMs rose, targeting the other nine decoys. The occupants of the real pods did not waste the opportunity and triggered evasive maneuvers, accelerating hard to get beneath the SAMs' operational floor while the Abyssals were still occupied with chasing ghosts.
As they hurtled past 2000 meters, a bouquet of massive explosions blossomed beneath them as Army ballistic rockets, lobbed in from over the horizon, paved their way with some light preparatory fire. Plunging past 1000 meters, small explosive charges detonated beneath the pods' upper body panels, releasing drag chutes that abruptly and unceremoniously decelerated them from body-pulping velocities to something merely bone-shattering. G-forces played merciless havoc with the drop pods and their occupants, rattling and jerking them around like coins in a washing machine in addition to the turbulence and invisible air currents already present at lower altitudes. Though the violent and random changes in course had the welcome effect of throwing a few more missiles off-target, even veteran ODSTs tended to be rattled by the massive changes in velocity caused by SOIEV braking maneuvers; for their current occupants, they were merely a minor bump.
Amid her pod's shuddering, Spartan Commander Sarah Palmer double-checked her restraints and ran a quick diagnostic on the braking rockets. If there was anything wrong with them, she needed to know, now. Luckily, standard braking procedure hadn't damaged anything. UNSC equipment was made of sterner stuff than that. Satisfied she wouldn't be instantly killed on landing, she checked her pod's trajectory and applied a few evasive maneuvers. At 800 meters up, passing the tops of the tallest buildings, the threat of large, theatre-defense SAMs was starting to drop off, but some gun-based anti air was starting to make its presence felt. It wouldn't do for some Abbie jackoff to score a lucky hit with its crystal rifle and disable something critical. Forget painful, that'd just be embarrassing. Luckily, the ground wasn't far off. Palmer made sure she was still on course for the LZ and then sat back and braced for landing.
At fifty meters above the ground, moments from landing, a series of braking rockets fired along the drop pod's bottom. With little regard for the comfort of the occupant, they slowed the pod from bone-shattering velocities to something merely bruising. It was at this velocity that Palmer landed, crashing through four floors of a bombed-out department store like a bullet through glass and smashing into the ground floor so hard that it cracked and splintered for meters around the impact crater. Also smashed was an Abyssal machine-gunner, caught unawares by the sudden vertical entry of five hundred kilograms of red-hot titanium and turned into a purple-black smear without even a chance to look up.
The pod's onboard systems informed Palmer of its hapless victim, as well as of the rest of the ten-alien Abyssal infantry squad surrounding it. The impact had floored some, stunned the rest, but this was only a temporary state of affairs. They'd be back on their feet very quickly, and whoever was inside that most unwelcome chunk of human metal would be facing the business ends of an unpleasant number of crystal rifles.
Lucky, then, that if there was one thing Spartans were good at, it was moving quickly and decisively to take advantage of momentary opportunities. Not even half a second passed following the earthshaking landing before another set of explosive charges went off around the pod's hatch, flinging the heavy metal covering outwards and into another Abyssal soldier who made no move to get up. Dual magnums in hand, a DMR on her back, Palmer burst out of the smoking drop pod and gunned down two more Abyssals before they could so much as aim their weapons, then roundhouse kicked another one so hard that an audible crack emanated from where her foot met its helmeted skull. The five remaining aliens opened fire on the supersoldier, bursts of white-hot, jagged, translucent crystals shattering on Palmer's shields. She calmly ducked behind the drop pod for cover, reloaded her weapons, then plucked a grenade off her utility belt and gave it a soft underhand toss. The frag detonated a moment later, alien screams of pain accompanying the renewed sound of gunfire as Palmer finished off the survivors with efficient headshots.
"Tch. Just small-fry. Hardly worth the ammo," she muttered as she reloaded her weapons. Taking cover behind her drop pod and activating active camo, Palmer glanced at her motion tracker and listened intently for the sounds of any nearby Abyssals responding to the sound of combat. She almost hoped they would; the pulse of combat pounded through her veins, and this was her first action in months. Being cooped up on Infinity, running endless training exercises… nah. She belonged in the field, rank be damned. After a minute of nothing but eerie silence, she felt safe enough to ping the team tacnet and said, "Fireteam Torrent, status check, over."
A brief moment, then a click. "Torrent One, green."
"Torrent Two, green."
"Torrent Three, green."
"Torrent Four, green." A faint noise, a single suppressed gunshot, sounded out before the channel closed. Palmer waited to see if the Spartan would elaborate, but when none was forthcoming put the matter out of mind.
"Excellent. Rendezvous at…" Palmer briefly consulted the mission map. The drop had slightly scattered the team, they needed to regroup somewhere that didn't entail too long a walk for anyone. She picked a small public square around two hundred meters away. "…Parker Square. Avoid engagement, maintain radio silence, out." A series of affirmative pings answered her, and then she was off, sticking to cover as she picked her way through the aftermath of orbital bombardment towards the rendezvous point. Enormous slabs of instacrete, blasted free of and thrown far away from their original buildings, laid at odd angles all over the road. Fragments of metal and glass crunched underfoot as Palmer flitted from shadow to shadow, head on a swivel as she scanned for snipers, landmines, booby traps, hidden rocket teams or machine gun nests lying in ambush. If Abyssal ground troops were good at one thing, it was quickly setting up defense in depth in captured territories.
She caught the glint of light off a scope and deftly avoided the sights of a sniper, perched up high in the half-destroyed facade of the Traxus corporate building. Tagging it on the battlenet for artillery to take out, she then narrowly dodged an Abyssal patrol heading to investigate her landing site. Her armor's active camo, much improved from the days of the Great War, rendered her practically invisible, but she still held her breath as they marched by. It would be unfortunate if they spotted her and got off a radio report… but a fight wouldn't be the worst thing in the world either.
They passed without incident, and Palmer decloaked and let out a sigh of mostly relief, but also a tiny bit of disappointment, as the patrol disappeared around the corner. She then grimaced beneath her helmet. If the Abbies were sending out patrols, that meant they were wise to their presence. Well, fair play. The Spartans' entry wasn't exactly subtle, crashing in with drop pods. But that meant security would be tighter. Annoying.
Moving on, she passed enormous blast craters, quite a few penetrating all the way down to the Metro tunnels and beyond. A jackknifed subway car poked out of a particularly large one, and Palmer spared a moment to peer down into the jagged hole. Water sprayed from shattered mains, warring against the innumerable small fires that sprung up in clusters, consuming any fragments of flammable debris they touched. Snapped power cables sparked and fizzled, casting harsh illumination on several bodies, still and unmoving beneath tons of shattered instacrete. Nearby, an abandoned Warthog sat with its nose in a ditch and its rear wheels suspended off the ground, still spinning slowly. A quick inspection revealed a functional engine and no sign of its previous occupants, dead or alive. Palmer thought about requisitioning the vehicle, but decided against it. The heavy machine gun on its rear deck would be a nice addition, but it'd be hard to maneuver the thing through rubble-choked streets, not to mention noisy as hell. Best tag it and leave it for recovery.
The sound of distant gunfire reached her ears. Palmer cocked her head and turned up the audio gain on her helmet. It was coming from the south, mixed in with the thumping crash of artillery fire and booms of tank cannons. So the marines were engaged now, with the Army not far behind. Palmer silently wished them all the luck in the world — the more success they had, the more Abbie forces they'd draw off, making her job of sneaking into Bravo-6 and completing the rest of her mission that much easier. As if to prove her point, just then the sound of an Abyssal mechanized column reached her ears. Palmer ducked into the shadows and watched them go, a line of tanks and Chimera IFVs, some infantry riding desant, making haste towards the battle in the south. They failed to spot her, and she let them pass unmolested, but not before tagging them for the battlenet. It was a bit of a reach for artillery, but one of the orbiting drones would probably take note and vector a few strike fighters in. Alternatively, one of the wet navy boats could lob a few missiles down the Parramatta River. If only she could be present to see the Abbies' faces when that happened…
Soon, she reached Parker Square, having avoided another gaggle of Abbie reinforcements and silently taken out a patrol which refused to budge from blocking her route. Their bodies now lay within the burning hulk of an Abbie tank, which hopefully wouldn't go out until the bodies were charred beyond recognition or the battle was won. As she slipped into the Square itself, Palmer took a moment to admire the scenery. Tastefully arranged trees, lawns, flower beds, and a central fountain composed a small oasis of serenity amid the concrete jungle of Sydney. Were she off duty, this seemed the kind of place she might take a stroll, have a private, quiet moment in. Now, though, Palmer stuck to the shadows around the edges, creeping from cover to cover with active camo on, constantly scanning windows for snipers and suspicious piles of rubble for hostiles laying in ambush.
A ping flashed on the tacnet just as her augmented eyes, aided by the target recognition systems of MJOLNIR caught the faint, faint shimmer of active camo. Her rifle was up in an instant, shadowing the cloaked figure as it approached with its own weapon raised. It stopped a good six meters away, allowing for Palmer to whisper the agreed upon challenge.
"Flash!"
"Thunder."
A muted sigh of relief made the rounds as Palmer dropped camo. She could now see the faint figures of the four members of Fireteam Torrent. She waved them over, glancing about one last time and checking the battlenet for the presence of any unwelcome eyes. "Gather round boys and girls, carefully now." There was some muffled clanking of armor as the Spartans settled into a rough circle, hidden away in some bushes. "Did anyone run into resistance or see anything unusual?"
"Negative boss," Torrent 1 said, "They picked up our landings, but don't seem to know where we're at."
Torrent 3 nodded. "That's right, slipped right by 'em, quiet as a whisper."
"That's thirty decibels over what it ought to be, but alright. We'll assume they'll be stepping up their patrols and adjust accordingly. Everyone still remember the plan, nobody got hit on the head during the drop?"
"Affirmative." Torrent 4, this time. "Recon the main enemy force surrounding Bravo 6. Secure LZ for exfiltration. Infiltrate, secure, and evacuate VIPs. Withdraw to safe location and await further orders."
Palmer nodded approvingly. "Glad to see someone was awake during the briefing. We're going in, grabbing the brass and the eggheads, and yankin' them out of the fire. Then we wait until the Army is in position and then bam—" She snapped her fingers. "We hit 'em right when it matters most." Nods all around. "This still ain't gonna be easy. Abbies got hundreds, if not thousands of troops in the area, and their elite's swarming the complex proper."
"Tryin' to scare us off, boss?"
"You'd be a shit Spartan if that scared you."
A series of distant booms — Palmer's MJOLNIR automatically ID'd it as an Army 230 millimeter howitzer battery — caused the conversation to pause for a moment. "Here's hoping the Marines can draw some of them off," said Torrent 2, inclining her head towards the south. "Sounds like they're well and truly in the shit by now."
"That they are, and you'd do well to wish them luck. Every Abbie they peel off is one we don't have to sneak by or waste perfectly good bullets on. Right. Camo on, form up."
As Fireteam Torrent reactivated their camouflage and assumed formation, Palmer cast one last look back south. She hadn't been kidding about the 'wish them luck' part. It wasn't just that the marines would make a nasty job easier, it was the fact that the Abbies should never have got to Earth in the first place. Every marine and soldier dying out there was a needless waste. Once this was all over, she hoped the brass had a plan to figure out exactly how the hell the Abbies had known to hit Reach and Earth, and where they came from. And once they did, Palmer would make sure to be on the frontlines.
But that was the future, irrelevant to her current objective. Get into Bravo-6. Find out if anyone was still alive and pull them out. Await further orders. Nothing to it. The complex loomed in the distance, dark and silent.
We'll save them. One way or another.
"Let's move."
I wish I'd stayed on the Pelican.
The previously quiet road erupted in chaos as Abyssal machine guns blew chunks of instacrete and asphalt in to the air, and, not for the first time that day, Armandez cursed her luck that her platoon had been assigned to the frontline. "Contact front! Take cover!" she shouted, diving for cover behind a Jersey barrier even as a crystal round shattered against her pauldron and sent a wave of tingling numbness down her arm. Her platoon followed suit, spreading out across the road, hitting the dirt, and quickly returning fire, but not before one of the marines caught a round through his gut and fell with a cry. Armandez lunged forward and dragged him to safety as Laughley, the platoon corpsman, and the rest of Alpha Squad landed right next to her. As the corpsman got to work, Laughley risked a peek out around the side of the barrier. "Can you see that damned MG?" Armandez asked.
"Hold on…" Another burst hit close by, along with the boom of a bursting grenade. A shrapnel fragment glanced off his helmet. "Got the blighter. 100 meters, 12th floor, apartment building. Marking on tacmap."
"Nice work. All units, suppressing fire on the designated point!" Armandez sighted down her rifle and squeezed off a few bursts, even as another piece of shrapnel buried itself in the back of her armor, then toggled her radio. "Teapot-3, MG, 12th floor of that apartment building. Can you take it out?"
"On the way." A shockwave struck her deep in her chest as a Paladin tank, advancing up the road behind her and her platoon, fired its 155 millimeter electrothermal-chemical main gun. The high explosive round crossed the intervening distance in a flash and detonated on contact with a tremendous blast. The effect was immediate and catastrophic; the cheap facade of the run-down apartment building imploded, instantly silencing the machine gun, as well as the other Abyssal infantry holed up in the building as the already unsteady structure collapsed in on itself.
The massive decrease in fire allowed Armandez to stand up and wave her marines forward with a hoarse cry of, "Advance!" She took the lead with Laughley right behind her as squads paired off, covering each other as they advanced down the wide boulevard. They crawled and dashed from cover to cover, sticking to within buildings and mouseholing through walls as they kept up constant barrages of suppressing fire, bullets criss-crossing and peppering the street and buildings ahead. The Abbies naturally made their objections known, and more positions revealed themselves, even as the Paladin fired again, collapsing a section of the elevated metro tracks running through the area. Footage from recon drones, streamed over the battlenet, helped to identify some positions — Armandez took cover in order to call an Anvil-VIII ASM on a rooftop sniper — but others were tucked away inside buildings, away from aerial surveillance.
The tank wasn't an instant-win button, either; even as it moved forward, machine guns blazing to suppress a nest of Abbies, a trio of ATGMs, moving faster than the eye could track, slammed into its hull and covered it with a sheet of flame. The tank emerged from the blast wreathed in smoke and with shields flickering, reversing to protect itself from the sudden threat as mortar shells began to rain down. The alien light artillery fired a mix of contact and airbrushing shells, showering the marines with deadly hails of shrapnel while simultaneously blasting even more craters into the already pulverized road. At least, Armandez thought as she rolled beneath a toppled billboard, we don't have to worry about landmines. The mortars would detonate anything that the UNSC's shelling hadn't already disposed of. If only it could have done the same to the ones who planted those mines…
The Paladin fired again, slinging an HE shell at the spot where the tacnet indicated the missiles came from. As if to mock it, a second later another missile flew out, from a slightly different spot, and detonated near the tank's tracks. "Need that AT crew taken out before we can move up," the tank's commander reported over the radio. As if to punctuate the point, yet another missile lanced out from within the ruins, spiraling off course at the barest last second when the tank's jamming systems overpowered its guidance. Armandez grunted an acknowledgment, running through her options even as she drew a bead on an Abyssal and gunned it down with a neat burst to the chest. From the lingering smoke trail, the launchers seemed to be sited in the nearby metro station. A sturdy structure, not something easily demolished by a single tank shot, and spacious enough to provide plenty of concealment and relocation options for the alien gunners. She could have her marines root it out in close quarters, but that was risky due to the infantry sure to be accompanying the thing, not to mention the mortar fire that was halting the platoon in its tracks.
First things first, get those mortars taken out. With scant overhead cover available, if they were allowed to dial in, they'd tear the platoon apart. Shouting for everyone to spread out, get indoors, and keep up suppressing fire—rather redundant, considering that everyone was already hugging the ground like a safety blanket—Armandez closed her eyes and accessed the battlenet drone network. A chill, originating from her neural implant, spread up and down her spine and throughout her brain as the tactical hive mind embraced her consciousness and allowed her to see what it was seeing. In her mind's eye, Sydney spread out before her, its rubble strewn streets filled with undulating waves of blue and red dots, representing UNSC units and known Abyssal combatants struggling against each other in a building-to-building fight for dominance. More dots swarmed above the battlefield, representing the various aerial assets belonging to both sides: observation drones, strike fighters, aerospace superiority craft, and more. Armandez ignored it all and focused in on her own location, zooming in so fast it nearly made her stomach turn. She directed a minuscule portion of the hive mind's massive computational abilities towards calculating the ballistic trajectory of the incoming mortar shells, and even as another shell struck uncomfortably close to home it spat out a solution.
"Mortars in the strip mall, multiple buildings," Armandez said, pulling her mind out of the battlenet like a swimmer surfacing from a deep pool, "but we've got a bigger problem."
Next to her, Laughley grunted, rifle rocking on full automatic as he hosed down an Abyssal rifleman's position. "Oh yeah? Tell me 'bout it."
"Recon couldn't—" Armandez paused as dirt fountained into the air from a nearby mortar strike, causing both of them to duck as bits or rubble rained down on them. Brushing some off of her shoulders, she picked up right where she left off, saying, "—confirm numbers, but it looked—and sounds—like a full mortar section, which means we've probably run into a full Abbie company here, maybe more. We're outnumbered to shit."
"Fucking figures." A red marker appeared on Armandez's HUD as Laughley finally tagged the alien soldier and ripped its chest open with bullets, then dropped down to avoid return fire. As other marines got up to pick up his slack, he said, "Of course we'd run into a full fuckin' company." He spat and then started reloading, shooting a glance at Armandez. "How you wanna play this, el tee? Army needs that bridge taken."
"I know." Armandez sighed and pinched her nose, trying to think amidst the deafening explosions. Advancing northwards towards the Sydney Harbor and Gladesville Bridges, which had both by some miracle survived the Abyssal's naval bombardment, her platoon and the rest of the marines from the Reach detachment had been making good time. With one regiment dedicated to taking each bridge, they were meant to act as the tip of the spear while the Army reorganized its forces. They would open up a passage over the Parramatta River so the Army could rapidly attack from the south in conjunction with their advances from the north and west, pincering the main Abyssal forces in Central Sydney from three directions.
The Abyssals had only put up token resistance beforehand, scattered units quickly dealt with by artillery. Now though, as they closed to within half a kilometer of the river, so close that Armandez thought she could see the Opera House if she tried hard enough, the Abyssals seemed to suddenly decide to take this whole war business more seriously. From the intel reports she could access, it seemed all units had suddenly run into heavy resistance, including artillery firing from across the river. One company to her left had been caught in the open and wiped out, a company to the right was falling back in disarray with another rushing to fill its gap; Armandez gave thanks that she was only being shelled by mortars, and not the massive SPG batteries currently dueling with the Army's own guns, and not for the first time wondered at just how the hell the Abbies had managed to put so many troops groundside in so short a time. They must have been packed like sardines in their transports!
Ah well. Not her place to wonder. She was a marine; hers was not to question the overall strategic picture, but to trust that command knew what they were doing and to put bullets in whoever the generals felt needed a good aerating. If only she could've had Dawn at her side, dual-wielding machine guns pulled from thin air and soaking bullets like an armor-plated sponge… but then again, she also would have liked a cold beer and a cheeseburger. No sense in dreaming; her marines needed orders. "Fucking hell. Alright, here's what we'll do. Laughley, get on the horn with Captain Zhou, get him to move 3rd and 4th Platoons up to us and 2nd into flanking, I'm calling for arty." As Laughley nodded and tapped his own radio, Armandez plunged herself back into the battlenet hive.
The fire support options that greeted her weren't pretty. Much of the available artillery was engaged in higher-level counter battery operations, and Abyssal AA was taking its toll on the CAS drones. There was another option available, however, and that was the support of some wet-navy missile boats cruising around a few dozen kilometers off the Australian coast. Even better, they were stocked with fuel-air warheads, perfect for vaporizing some dug-in alien shitheads while the marines stayed at a safe distance. Armandez submitted her request and targeting data, and the tactical AIs running the show automatically slotted her into the queue. The whole process took less than four seconds in realtime, and from there, it was only a matter of sitting on her ass and giving what orders she could to keep her people safe while waiting for one of those boats to throw some cruise missiles her way. "All squads, hold your positions and watch the flanks, fire support on the way!" Her announcement garnered a few cheers, though they could barely be heard over the din of battle.
Hold your positions. Easier said than done. As her request steadily made its way up the priority line, an unlucky mortar burst sent four marines from Bravo Squad to the ground screaming, while a sniper blew out the brains of one from Charlie. Armandez quickly directed all machine gunners to focus fire on the sniper's location and for all others to throw smoke as Bravo Squad fell back for medevac. Behind it all, the Paladin continued to contribute what fire it could, pounding any identified Abyssal positions with high explosive, even as continued mortar fire and a few token ATGMs kept it from advancing to where its weapons and armor could be more effective. Its shells took out a few more Abyssals and silenced the sniper, but the aliens had gotten wise to the tank. They spread out, constantly relocating after shooting, and hugged concealment like a baby its mother's breast, making the tank's fire much less effective without taking the time to thoroughly demolish each and every building which could serve as potential cover. Armandez found herself glancing repeatedly at the small indicator in her HUD that served to tell her when her fire support request would be served.
Luckily, it wasn't all bad news. As Armandez added her fire to her platoon's, forcing an Abbie soldier to seek cover before it could dial its shots in on a marine from Delta Squad, Laughley got off the radio with company command. "El tee, heads up, Captain Zhou's sending 3rd and 4th to our location with armor support, ETA two minutes. We got our reinfor—watch out!" Laughley tackled Armandez to the ground as light glinted off a sniper scope, moments before an anti-materiel round tore an appropriately-sized chunk out of the road. "Son of a donkey's whore! Top floor, that piece-of-shit motel over there, Alpha Squad, suppress that fucker! I think he's got IR optics, get red phosphorus out there double time!" He pulled her towards some more sturdy cover by her armor straps, not stopping until they were both behind a sturdy concrete pillar. "You good, el tee?"
"G-good save, sergeant," said Armandez, slightly shaken as she crawled back into position. Tossing out a red phosphorus grenade to hopefully gum up any IR scopes with hot burning particles, she propped her rifle up to continue firing. As she sent a burst downrange, the fire support indicator blinked green and a thirty second timer began. "Platoon, cease fire, take cover, protect your hearing. Heavy ordnance incoming!"
"Oh?" Laughley said, going prone and covering his ears. "What've the Abbies got coming for 'em?"
"Naval missiles, Foxtrot-Alfa warheads," Armandez said, placing a waypoint over the Abyssal positions. "ETA twelve seconds! Heads down, fix bayonets and prepare for melee combat!"
"Yes sir!"
The metallic hissing of bayonets being drawn was drowned out as three streaks of light raced through the sky from the east, far exceeding the speed of sound as they crashed down on the target area. The sonic boom caught up quickly, but not before two absolutely massive detonations seemed to suck the air from Armandez's surroundings before expelling it with a thunderclap Zeus himself would have approved of. Even at a distance of a few hundred meters, behind hard cover, and with many intervening structures, the blast still knocked her silly for a good moment—Armandez shuddered to think what it was doing to the Abbies caught in its radius. Good thing Command had confirmed there were no civvies around and authorized unrestricted ROEs, the property damage alone was unthinkable without factoring a potential human cost.
The blasts had barely died down before Armandez was on her feet. Her ears still ringing, she could barely hear her own cry of "Charge!" The platoon seemed to get the message, though, as everyone capable of doing so leapt do their feet and followed, throats roaring battle cries and weapons roaring on full automatic as they crossed the distance to the Abyssal lines in seconds. Smoke flooded the street ahead — a smoke shell from the Paladin — and hid the marines from view in those few crucial moments before melee combat ensued. The aliens, floored by the bombardment, had no chance to react before the marines were upon them. Armandez found herself face-to-face with one Abbie, and with no ammo in her rifle and no time to swap to her pistol, shouted an expletive and plunged her bayonet into the alien's throat. It made a disgusting gurgling sound as it expired, and as the lieutenant extracted her blade another Abyssal ran at her, a sword in hand and a scream sounding from beneath its face-concealing helmet.
Right before it could run her through, however, a shovel head embedded itself in its neck, right in the narrow gap between its helmet and the rest of its armor. Laughley appeared behind the thing, face blank as he pulled the entrenching tool out in a spray of blood. The Abyssal collapsed, hands clutching at the gaping wound in its neck, before Laughley brought the shovel down again, then twice, then three times, until with a sickening crunch the alien's head, still in its helmet, rolled free. Purple-green blood spilled free and Armandez turned away, reloading her rifle and looking for a new target.
There were none, as the rest of the Abyssals were breaking, fleeing, abandoning the current line for defensive lines placed further back. The platoon fired into their backs as they went, and their fire was augmented by torrents of 40 millimeter high explosive shells as three Hoplite IFVs, accompanied by another Paladin tank and several Warthogs, suddenly pulled up behind the battered marines. The IFVs and Warthogs disgorged the marines of 3rd and 4th Platoons as the Paladin, along with its twin who now felt safe enough to move up, contributed to the outgoing fire by sweeping their machine guns across the ruined boulevard. Under this protective curtain of fire, and with the weight of numbers on their side, the marines now controlled the battlefield, concentrated flurries of rifle and cannon fire taking out any Abyssal that emerged from cover.
Some return fire came, but it was paltry compared to the veritable wall of crystal that preceded it. Add in the fact that the mortars were now well and truly silenced — the former strip mall was a scorched, gutted ruin — and Armandez felt like she could finally let out a breath she'd been holding in for way too long. Accompanying that was the sensation of an adrenaline high draining away so quickly that her legs buckled, and she was forced to hold herself up on a nearby lamppost. She quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed; it wouldn't do for her marines to see their platoon leader nearly collapse. Luckily, most were sitting on the ground, catching their breaths as well, and only Laughley was close enough to notice. He was deliberately looking away, lighting a cigarette with shaky, bloodstained fingers. As the vehicles and fresh marines advanced up past her own troops, a familiar voice sounded out.
"Sorry we're late! Looks like you didn't need our help, though." As 3rd Platoon moved up to take point, Armandez turnied around and saw Iverson, seconded to them to replace a hole in their ranks, approaching with her SAW held easy over her shoulder. As one of the reserve platoons, the 3rd hadn't seen heavy combat yet. It never ceased to amaze Armandez how much difference just barely half an hour of heavy engagement could make in a person's appearance. Iverson's clean armor, upright posture, and easy smirk couldn't be further from 1st Platoon's scratched, dusty, and torn uniforms, exhausted expressions, and a general inability to do anything but lay on the ground and gasp for breath. Had the situations been reversed, though, Armandez was sure Iverson would have thought the same, and given that 3rd Platoon was taking the lead it was only a matter of time before the private acquired the same dead-eyed look that only a trip to the bar or the boxing ring could fix.
The smirk on Iverson's face quickly faded as she took in Armandez and Laughley's tired, dust-covered faces, replaced by a look of… not pity, never, but more sympathy mixed with dread. "It's that rough, huh?" Laughley made a strange half-laugh noise in the back of his throat while Armandez closed her eyes and let her helmet thunk against the lamppost. "Dammit. Fuuuck, but we could use that lass right about now. Damn Navy, snatching her away. Imagine an infinite supply of ammo, and a tank's worth of armor…"
"Wishes are like assholes, private."
"Yes, sarge, I hear ya." Sighing, Iverson reached out to pat Laughley on the shoulder, then ran a finger over her machine gun's bolt. Unprofessional, but under the circumstances the lieutenant couldn't find it in herself to care. "You guys rest for a bit. We'll take it from here. Once this is over and they release me back to 1st Platoon, let's all go get shitfaced."
"Hold you to that, private," Laughley called, puffing hard on his cigarette. "It's an NJP if you bail."
"Take it up with the captain, sarge!" With a cheery yet obviously affected wave, Iverson went to catch up with her temporary unit. Already, the sounds of gunfire were starting to pick back up as the surviving Abyssals began to reorganize themselves. With multiple tanks and IFVs now backing them up, they wouldn't pose too much trouble, but there was bound to be even heavier fighting up ahead. Armandez wondered just how many casualties they'd take just getting to the bridge, let alone taking it and assaulting the other side.
"What a fucking mess, eh el tee?"
As usual, Laughley gave voice to her thoughts in an elegantly crude manner. Armandez sighed in agreement. "A mess indeed. I only hope this isn't typical of the time it'll take to break through each one the Abbies positions, because if it is…"
"We'll still be fighting for the damned bridge by dinner time." Laughley shook his head in disgust, then stretched and shouldered his rifle. "Well, no point in fretting. Shall we bring up the rear?"
"An excellent suggestion, sergeant. 1st Platoon, forwards!"
As her marines began the advance once again, this time with a wall of motorized armor between them and the Abyssals, Armandez spared a glance for the Sydney skyline looming across the river. In particular, she stared at the Bravo-6 tower, a monolith among the many spires that sprouted from the Australian earth. Smoke still poured from many holes in its walls, and if she squinted she could make out Abbie fliers buzzing around it. For all the talk about taking the city back, Armandez knew that that building, and all the valuable personnel, intelligence, and equipment within, was the brass' real objective. She hoped that someone was doing something about that, and fast-like, because otherwise there might not be much of it left when the marines got there.
Hold on. We're on the way. Just hold on. And if you can't… please let someone save them.
Above ground, the few lights and terminals which hadn't been shattered by artillery and air attack sat dead and dark, but deep within the bowels of Bravo-6 backup fusion reactors and titanic battery banks still hummed with stored energy. They provided the power to run lights, computers, display tables, and radios, though the last couldn't get a signal out to the wider world due to some sort of jamming, despite being landline-connected to hardened above-ground transmitters. In short, everything needed to coordinate the defense of the UNSC High Command complex, in abundance… except people to use them.
That, of course, wasn't by design. Contingency plans for an Abyssal assault on the Solar System assumed that landings targeting Sydney would begin with a general bombardment of the Sydney, focusing on taking out any obvious troop concentrations, before an attempt by ground forces to capture critical infrastructure such as power plants, transport hubs, and communications centers. With this in mind, the Amy had dispersed and entrenched two divisions throughout the city, in order to ensure that preliminary landings were met with some sort of resistance before reinforcements could arrive while not presenting any obvious concentrations for orbital bombardment to focus down and eliminate.
The plans also took into account that the Abbies would probably know that Bravo-6 was the seat of UNSC HIGHCOM — it was hardly classified information — and prepared accordingly. Three battalions, around 3000 soldiers, were committed to the defense of Bravo-6 proper, reinforcing the security regiment already there and bringing the total number of soldiers in and around the building to a healthy 7000. Even if the Abyssals concentrated more of their attack against Bravo-6, 7000 soldiers in prepared positions would be able to hold out long enough for reinforcements. Those reinforcements, the rest of the region's defense force, waited outside of the city, dispersed, concealed, and dug into the Australian bush, ready to move back in and smash the alien forces once the inevitable bombardment lifted. It was a decent plan, simple, flexible, and it had all gone to hell.
As expected, the Abyssals had bombarded the city before landing, but against all conventional military thinking the Abyssals not only concentrated on attacking Bravo-6, but completely forewent any serious attempts at taking the city's infrastructure. With only token forces deployed to tie down UNSC units across the rest of Sydney — not a hard task, with most of them reeling from the bombardment despite their fortifications — the Abbies threw the vast majority of their troops directly at the Bravo-6 complex. UNSC command was caught flat-footed. Military theory accepted the fact that communications, no matter how hardened, would inevitably be disrupted by an orbital bombardment. Until they were reestablished, units would have to operate independently, holding their positions and minimizing casualties until the situation could be assessed and new orders issued to adjust. In those first critical minutes, that principle prevented reinforcements from coming to Bravo-6's defense, already battered by bombardment and now under assault by two divisions of Abyssal troops.
It was 7000 defenders versus over 20000 attackers. The outer lines were quickly abandoned, lost to a combination of overwhelming numbers backed by armor and artillery smashing into the front while Abyssal shock troops braved furious, accurate AA fire to land behind and outflank them. It was in those initial, shocking moments, with dazed companies staring down entire regiments of Abyssals flooding towards their lines, that many of the officers who would have been leading a defense were overrun and slaughtered. To its credit, HIGHCOM quickly adjusted and assumed direct responsibility for its own protection, with the Security Council issuing orders directly to units on the line. This brought the chaos partially to heel, allowing the inner lines to hold for longer, reinforced by a few units who, on their own initiative, left their positions throughout the city and fought their way through encircling Abyssal forces. However, they too eventually gave way, and UNSC troops fell back in good order into the complex itself, taking whatever equipment they could with them and destroying or booby-trapping the rest. Even now, the dull thump of landmines exploding under Abbie feet went off with grimly satisfying regularity.
It was cold comfort for the defenders. Some of them still operated as parts of organized units, companies and platoons who'd managed to escape the ring of steel before it snapped shut completely. Others were stragglers, units either unlucky in the initial bombardment or chewed to pieces trying to reach Bravo-6. Of course, it was always accepted that, despite every precaution, a significant number of units would be shattered in any respectable pre-landing bombardment, and that their survivors would have to operate independently. Whatever the case, they'd all been organized into ad-hoc units, deployed to key chokepoints and defensive positions, and ordered to do what they could as surviving officers tried to put together a plan.
The fact there even were areas of Bravo-6 in friendly hands was a minor miracle in and of itself. Current estimates of the Abyssal forces had a division holding positions within a 2-kilometer radius, with an entire regiment committed to assaulting the underground complex itself. How they'd managed to squeeze so many troops into such a narrow front was unclear, but the results spoke for themselves. From after-action reports, the Abbies who made up that regiment weren't just typical Abbie grunts, but crack, disciplined troops. They'd first moved swiftly in conjunction with light artillery and air support to clear the upper levels before proceeding on foot into the underground complex. Defending UNSC forces offered only token resistance to the first phase — the upper levels were evacuated as soon as the first Abbie ships were detected in-system — and extracted a heavy toll as the Abyssals pushed into the sprawling underlevels.
However, no matter how many casualties they took, alien morale never faltered, never broke. Whenever they encountered strongpoints they used explosives to mouse-hole their way into flanking positions, or withdrew to the floor above and blew their way through the ceiling. More than one defensive position was overrun in this way before UNSC troops got wise to the alien tactics and began to booby-trap adjacent rooms with claymore mines and napalm grenades. There were numerous reports of the Abbies deploying poison gas and flamethrowers to flush out defenders. The humans countered the first with NBC gear and by programming the ventilation systems to work triple-time, but there was no defense against the second except to either shoot the bastard with the flamethrower first or to fall back to the next position. The UNSC used their control over facility systems to strategically open and close gates suddenly turn off sections of lights to facilitate ambushes, and generally cause no end of grief for the invaders. In response, the Abyssals made sure to shoot security cameras on sight, destroyed electrical panels, and used IR masking and decoys to confuse motion sensors. Human and alien hunter-killer teams stalked each other through sprawling corridors, sometimes separated by no more than a single wall or doorway, playing a deadly game of cat and mouse. Savage hand-to-hand fighting ensued on more than one occasion, mortal enemies wrestling each other on the ground as automated security turrets fired into the fray.
Over several hours, UNSC soldiers steadily fell back under the relentless assault, trading space for time, always inflicting more casualties than they took, but the simple fact of the matter was that they were outnumbered and on the backfoot, while the Abbies had the initiative and surviving topside surveillance indicated that another regiment was prepared to relieve the first, with still a third held in reserve. The Abbie's reserves outnumbered the entire defense force, and just as the aliens couldn't bring their full forces to bear on any one location, so couldn't the UNSC utilize its full force at once.
Perhaps nowhere was this felt more keenly than Shelter 94-SB on Sublevel 94. A kilometer below the surface, explosions from the grenades and rockets being employed by both attackers and defenders shook great clouds of dust loose from its roof. It covered the shelter's occupants in a fine, powdery layer and swirled through the air, threatening to choke anyone who wasn't breathing through a gas mask.
However, as annoying as the dust was, for many of the shelter's occupants it took a backseat to the coppery stench of blood that wove itself among the dust grains and made itself at home in their nostrils. Nearly everyone bore a wound of some sort, ranging from a few cuts from flying debris or a sucking chest wound that was temporarily stable but still might well end up killing them if something didn't change in the next few hours. The medics were at their wit's end — supplies and equipment weren't an issue, the shelters and facility in general were stocked and well-prepared for mass casualty incidents, but trying to meet the surge in demand with a highly limited pool of medical personnel was running them ragged.
Unfortunately, in this particular shelter, a wound wasn't inherently a reason to shirk duty. Not 80 meters away, at Security Gate 94-GK, one of the last strongpoints standing on the sublevel, waves of Abyssal shock troops clashed against increasingly ragged human defenders. As gunfire, explosions, and the sound of shattering crystals echoed through the halls, the units assigned to the gate's — really more of a bunker with double doors in the middle — defense rallied in the shelter. The design of the gate, intended to allow a relatively small group of security personnel to hold up a much larger attack force for hours, combined with heavy weapons and the Abyssal's inability to tunnel through the thick instacrete of the surrounding walls, allowed for a stubborn resistance to be mounted. However, the laws of attrition were merciless, and even though squads and fireteams relieved each other whenever a break in combat occurred, casualties steadily mounted. Everyone who could hold a gun was needed, and only serious cases were afforded the evacuation of luxury.
Point in case, even as the medics came to grips with what seemed like the thousandth wave's casualties, the shelter's security door slid open again, admitting a squad of exhausted, dust-covered soldiers. Maybe three quarters of them walked under their own power, helping and in some cases carrying the remaining quarter along with them. Medics hurried over to tend to the squad's wounded as they found an open space and collapsed to the ground, while another squad stood up silently and headed out to assume their place on the line.
"Okay, who's the worst here?"
The sergeant pointed at one of the wounded soldiers, stretched out on her back and grimacing against her pain. "Jamie took a bad hit to the leg. Won't kill her quite yet, but…"
"Let me in." The soldiers moved to the side as the medic fell to his knees and cut open the soldier's pants with a swift but careful slash of his knife. The action exposed the wound to the dusty air, and the medic immediately saw that it was an in-and-out type of injury. A quick inspection with a flashlight and a magnifying lens confirmed it, and he gave his thanks that crystal fragments hadn't become embedded in the surrounding tissue. Otherwise, the blackened flesh which surrounded the wound would already be decaying, flaking off like some sort of rapidly accelerated decomposition process. "Alright, I can stabilize this. You, hand me my kit. You, get a stretcher and get ready to make for the stairs. What? No, infirmary is eight levels down, not seven, remember that…"
As the medic cajoled and berated the soldiers around him into helping out, the officer in charge of the ad-hoc battalion made his way over to the freshly arrived squad. After a cursory exchange of salutes, he made eye contact with the sergeant and jerked his head towards a relatively unoccupied corner of the room.
"Good work out there, sergeant," the officer said as soon as they were away from too many inquisitive ears. "I wish I could give you more time to rest, but…"
"I understand, sir. Was there anything else?"
"Yes, actually. I've been following the action over the radio, but I wanted to get my intel from the source. Tell me, honestly: how much longer do you think we can hold here?"
The sergeant grimaced and glanced up at the ceiling in thought. "At this rate… maybe another hour. Ammo's starting to run low, the troops are running ragged. If might be different if we could get reinforcements, but…"
"Command's holding them back. Defense in depth." The officer shook his head. "Right. Get some rest, sergeant."
As the sergeant returned to his squad, the officer quietly polled a few more recently relieved soldiers as to the situation. A bit unprofessional as a practice, but he rather doubted that anyone cared too much, given the circumstances. The answers were largely identical; supplies were running low. It was only a matter of time before the Abyssals got really serious and forced the defenses. At that point, they would overrun the entire sub level and massacre everyone in the shelter. The time it would take ranged from forty five minutes to three hours, with one particularly optimistic soldier declaring that they could hold for another day if need be. Personally, the officer thought that the polypseudomorphine might have hit a little too hard in that case, but he wouldn't begrudge the troops some spirit.
Orders from higher up crackled through on the radio. Hold for as long as possible, then withdraw in good order. The problem was timing that withdrawal. He had to think about moving the equipment and the wounded, covering their retreat, and then setting up demolitions and booby traps to delay the Abbies until they could get consolidated at the next defensive line, three sub levels down. Should he pull that trigger now? But if the Abbies caught wind, might they redouble their attacks, and catch them in the middle of transit? In that case, deploy all able-bodied soldiers to the defense, while leaving the wounded to evacuate themselves? But no, there were many non-ambulatory casualties… he wished he could consult with command, but they refused to give him a set time to withdraw. Maybe they just expected him to hold to the last. But the idea of a last stand, while good fodder for movies and hack technothrillers, was much less appealing when you were the one making the stand.
Speaking of last stands…
As he paced back and forth, the officer happened to glance at the far wall. There, covered in dust and hanging at an awkward angle, was a print of the painting "Admiral Cole's Last Stand". Almost obscenely appropriate, given the circumstances. Of course, all of the emergency shelters had some manner of artwork in them, a cheap way to liven up a dreary space and boost the morale of whoever happened to be trapped in them. The pieces ranged from landscapes to gas giants to cities to abstract pieces that for the life of him the officer could not figure out. But this piece in particular… probably a coincidence, but if not, whoever chose that piece had a sick sense of humor, even if it just a copy of the original.
He had no idea what had happened to the original — as far as he knew it was still hanging in a conference room on Sublevel 68, but maybe the Abbies had burned it — but the print captured its likeness quite well. In the rippling shadows produced by a flickering overhead light, he could almost pretend that the painted Everest was moving, Cole on its bridge, sallying forth to show the Covies what-for. Cole, if you're listening, I could use some of your tactics right about now. Or, failing that, a MAC.
Of course, nothing happened. The officer felt a wry smile cross his lips. Naturally. People die when they die. No ghosts coming to save us today. But, for just a moment, I thought maybe… He shook his head. Maybe I should think about what Cole what do. Well, going by precedent, the Admiral, were he there, would probably lead a bayonet charge into the Abyssal lines and then detonate a pack of C12 strapped to his chest. The officer filed that away as a super last resort option. But also going by precedent, Cole would get as many of his troops out of the way as possible before going down in a blaze of glory and taking the Abbies down with him.
Right then. So it's come to that. Maybe it was his own exhaustion speaking, but the idea that at least he'd be remembered for dying on the line appealed to the romantic within the officer. It was tempered by the fact that he'd be dying, but come on. Nobody lives forever. Brushing one hand over his pistol, he tapped a passing medic on the shoulder with his other. "Start getting the wounded out of here."
"The criticals, sir? We're working on it—"
"No. All of them. We can't stay here much longer, best leave while the leaving's good. When you get to the next line, tell them that… that the Abbies can't keep this up for much longer."
The medic's eyes reflected a somber understanding. "Yes, sir. Will you direct the evacuation?"
"I leave that to Lieutenant Khaldun. She's due for a promotion, and it'll do the troops some good to see me leading from the front. The morale boost might just buy you the time you need to do your job."
"Understood, sir."
The officer patted the medic on the shoulder. "Hop to it, then." As the medic went off to spread the word, the officer, pointed at three of the less-battered squads. "You all, with me."
To their credit, the soldiers didn't utter a word of complaint as they stood up and shouldered their weapons. As they filed out of the shelter, out into the corridor where gunfire still echoed, the officer spared one glance back at the painting. Cole, if you're still alive out there, now would be a great time to pop up. I could use a miracle about now. When nothing happened, he sighed, smoothed his expression a mask of calm, and drew his pistol. "Alright, troopers. Far as I'm concerned, Abbie's had it too good for too long. Let's show 'em the wildlife's not the only lethal thing here in Australia."
As they double-timed towards the security gate, which by the radio reports was about to come under renewed attack, the officer heard a deep, guttural roar echo from somewhere far away yet much too close for his liking. It sounded like nothing he'd ever heard an Abyssal make before, and it sounded very large. But too late to regret his decisions, especially now as he crouched and aimed his weapon at the oncoming alien wave, and besides, the only thing size dictated…
"Contact front! Open fire!"
…was how long he needed to hold down the trigger.
…
…
…
Hey.
…
Heeeey.
…
I know you can hear me.
… ff
What?
…fuck off.
Language.
English. American English, to be precise. Decent Mandarin and Spanish, smattering of French, and four words of Russian, for the curious.
That's not — look. Do you know what's going on right now?
Not a clue. Lemme go back to sleep.
Hey — no, this isn't how it's supposed to work! Get up! Get up now!
…15 minutes?
No! Get up! Humanity is in danger! They need you!
Cyka blyat, idi nahui … a salary.
Huh?
It's taking all I have just to pull my consciousness together to speak to you. You know how hard it is to do that when my constituent atoms are scattered across half a galaxy? Comes with getting atomized in a star. Plus, I already did the whole protecting humanity schtick once for free, and I'm a retiree now, so if I'm going to work, I want to get paid.
W-well I can't guarantee that… but I'm sure you can negotiate that! Besides, this goes beyond money! It's for the greater good!
Who are you, my conscience? Wait, don't answer that.
…
…
…
… out of curiosity, who called?
Some Army officer. He's dead now — aliens just broke through the Sublevel 45 defenses.
…
…
… just so you know, I was going to say 'yes' eventually.
I know.
Just… fuck, I'm tired. Fifty-plus years of sleep and I'm still tired.
Well, you'll have plenty of time to get a coffee later. Right now, they need you and your power.
Right, right. Just… five minutes to get ready?
Get in there, time's a wasting!
Wait, what're you — you sunuvabitch ahhhhh—
With a noise like a solar system-sized toilet being flushed, combined with a flash of light, a gaping hole in the fabric of the universe tore open in an abandoned conference room. Hovering above the central display table, the tear remained stationary, neither expanding nor contracting after its initial formation, the only change it displayed being the sound of a steady, rising shout, culminating in the unceremonious ejection of a heavy object. The object — revealed to be the source of the shouting, and thus a human — hit the far wall with a dull thud and half bounced off, half slid down, ending up facedown on the floor. Cracks and denting in the concrete wall were the only indication of both the velocity of the object, and its mass — the former, too high to be survivable by a human, the latter, too heavy to be one.
Despite that, closer inspection revealed a perfectly normal-looking woman, wearing what would have been a decently upscale outfit: slacks, dress shirt, blazer, and necktie, now slightly rumpled by her undignified landing. "Ow, my face…" Still facedown, the woman flipped the soul-rending spatiotemporal rift in reality the double bird. Almost lost in the chaotic racket of physics being brutally violated was a sound not unlike an indignant scoff — though she might have imagined it — before the tear sealed itself shut with a sound like a water balloon popping. "Hija de puta… if you're gonna toss me out on my ass, at least send me an instruction manual or something. You can't just tell me to use my 'power' and not tell me how to do it…"
With a groan, the woman turned herself over and stood up, dusting off her clothes in the process. "Still though… so this is what having a body feels like?" She gazed down at her hands, turning them back and forth and wiggling her fingers. "Weird," she mumbled, "What's that I… is that what it's like to smell? God, what the hell? How do people deal with constantly… smelling things? Can I… turn it off? And… eugh, what is this slimy thing in my mouth—Jesus, that's my tongue!"
Engrossed in exploring her newfound corporeal form, she continued in that fashion for a few minutes, before a distant explosion caused dust to rain from the roof and brought her back to the present. "Guess it ain't all bad, though." She stretched her neck to the side and was awarded with a loud crack. "Oh, yeah, that hit the spot." Smoothing down her blazer, she cracked her knuckles and faced the door. "Don't know how to use my powers," she muttered. "Don't know why there's a war on. But I do know that there's aliens to kill." Sufficiently psyched up, she took a deep breath and put her hand on the door handle. "Alright Everest. Just keep killing aliens until you figure out what the hell's going on. Simple as that."
And as she opened the door and stepped out of the room, a faint, guttural roar, echoing from deep within the bowels of Bravo 6, rose to greet her.