Chapter 28 – Curre
May 13th, 2545 (07:51 Hours – Military Calendar)
Aquilla System, Actium
Republic of Pavia, Mount Sabato
Inside Covenant Dark Zone
:********:
The morning breeze howled over the snowy face of Mount Sabato in a vacillating tone. The wind rushed over the ridges as well, temporarily removing its deathly silence. However, there was another sound in the air. Though Duncan knew about what they might sound like in theory, it was something different to hear the screaming thrum of repulsor engines in real time. Its resonance shook his very bones as its source got closer before eventually enveloping Mount Sabato in its shadow, then just as quickly moving on.
A lone CCS Battlecruiser flew less than a few kilometers overhead, probably returning from a patrol. Its passing whipped up a small snowstorm in its wake that nearly pushed Duncan forward, but his stance and everyone else' stayed strong against the brief flurry. None of it, not even a passing CCS, could make them turn their attention from anywhere but the place where it was headed.
The battlecruiser's speed slowed 20 kilometers away as it gracefully righted itself to port. Then it began a slow descent towards one of the thousands of individual Covenant installations and facilities occupying the northern area of the region.
It was among one of well over a hundred ships of different classifications that had found safe harbor on dozens of shipyards. The latter structures rivaled the nearby mountains in height and size and looked more like unoccupied, purple-sheened tortoise shells. Two pairs of prongs extended out of their hollow interior, one pair on either side. On each of these individual extensions were built three pairs of arcing buttresses that served as stabilizers for docking spacecraft, whether they were CPV-class heavy destroyers, SDV-class heavy corvettes or the more plentiful CCS battlecruisers. Whenever one ship landed in a drydock slot built between the prongs, the buttresses would slide into place and clamp down on the hull to secure it, simultaneously inserting fuel pipes into select ports to commence the refueling process. They also reversed course to release outgoing ships. Those vessels, fully refueled, would ascend into the atmosphere, one bearing an ominous blue glow from the radiant lights of the many structures strewn across the region.
There was barely any sign of the wilderness that once dominated the area. What remained were sprawling hills and valleys of hundreds of thousands of ashened trees and deadened stumps paying testament to a forest that no longer was.
In its place stood scores of planetside barracks; purple, nanolaminate structures the size of skyscrapers. Even the shortest variants easily outdid High Mediolanum's tallest buildings by hundreds of meters.
There were several times as many armories as there were shipyards, towering constructions with palisaded walls whose interconnected structures formed something of a complex bullseye. Located atop architectural nexuses between the concentric rings were coney pinnacles that, altogether, stretched up like taloned claws grabbing at the very essence of the sky.
Ovular chasms the size of stadiums had been drilled deep into the surface. Interlocking platforms were built on a web of support struts that enabled them to hang over the abyss below. At central points, there stood towering drills that routinely fired pinpoint columns of tranquil blue and angry red plasma, burning deep holes through Actium's lithosphere. Simultaneously an equal number of anti-gravity beam components pulled up rocky materials extracted from the crust, then transported them along lines of cylindrical energy that acted in the fashion of pipes. The materials were sent along to nearby processing facilities for handling and storage. A ground-based, multi-layered latticework of thousands of the metal pipes built throughout Pavia also connected here, docking to various constructions to deliver whatever resource they had been created to extract from around the continent.
There were several distinct constructions around the area whose dome-shaped constitution was reminiscent of jellyfish, only millions of times their size and greater than any Roman coliseum. Those lay at the heart of the arrangement of shipyards, mining installations, armories and barracks strung together in organized sections around them. By universal indication of organization, those had to be centralized sub-command centers. Even they too were organized around the largest center. It was a supreme command headquarters with secondary relay towers built on the top that put any human structure with the exception of orbital elevators to shame.
An innumerable host of figures moved through the streets and highways in so plentiful an amount that they appeared as heat distortions on a road or crystalline waters gently shifting in a massive pool. There were so many that to try and single out even a few hundred was as futile as attempting to discern an individual grain of sand on a beach. The tides of Covenant moved alongside the traffic of lengthy convoys and vehicles of varying sizes driving in the roadways. Above them flew what at first looked akin to a swarm of flies hanging over a corpse. They were actually aircraft, Banshees, Phantoms, Seraphs and many more that slipped around the airspace between and just above the buildings like fish around coral reefs. They were an incalculable number flying about their own tasks in organized lanes of traffic, mimicking the capillary and arterial setup of the streets far below. Many flew beside or underneath outgoing and incoming ships in a manner befitting smaller fish accompanying whales as they journeyed across the oceans.
'Oceans' was the correct term because the city-sized local was not alone.
There were two more just like it, one to the northeast and another to the northwest. Both were sparsely visible save for their tallest components, shipyards and command headquarters that stood over the horizon. Even more ships floated in the airspace above them and knifed through the clouds in their rotational patrols of the heaves. Yet not even those were needed to get from one place to the next.
All three of these locations were connected by gravitic lifts that projected laterally from bases built at their outer boundaries. They acted as a glowing network of lifts that passed meters above the ground, into tunnels drilled through entire mountains, across scorched valleys, empty plains and decapitated forests to reach their endpoints at other bases. Their nexuses and interconnections at multiple proxy platforms were occupied by vehicles on larger lifts and pedestrians on smaller ones running adjacent to theirs that accumulated into the day's traffic. They covered ground that would take hours in mere minutes. Altogether, the lateral lines of mobile blue energy closely resembled an azure honeycomb many kilometers in size. It was their glow as well as the unfathomable quantity of lights from hundreds of other buildings, structures and architectural support projections unclassifiable to the human eye which filled the skies above with its abnormally radiant, blue hue.
What had come to occupy the Sabat Mountain Region for the last two weeks, or rather what had become Sabat, were the fleets of purple, blue and red edifices that sprung out from the central hubs like rippling waves of water in three small ponds.
It didn't take long for Duncan's addled mind to finally come back into some form of clear focus. Reality sunk in deep and dropped an ice cold, iron weight into his stomach. He slowly came to the understanding that what he was looking at, what they were all looking at, were three massive Covenant staging grounds.
At once he tried to make sense of it, to understand the bigger picture at play here. But the only thing he could think of was how hard it had been and how long it took to fight through High Mediolanum, as well as everyone they'd lost just to retake it. Then he compared that to being within sight of Covenant territories whose area size outmatched Pavia's entire capital by 3 or more multiplicities of magnitude...each.
"That's it. We're done."
The first sentence to come out of anyone's mouth had come from Deaks. It finally broke the squad's attention from the colossal staging grounds that had held their gaze for a full minute.
Deaks had turned back and was walking towards the southern edge of the ridge they'd just climbed.
"Where are you going, trooper?"
The question was spoken with such dead seriousness that it stopped Epsilon's marksman in his tracks. He turned to face the Staff's equally featureless visor.
Deaks took in a sharp breath, held his SRS-99 one handed and used the other to point a wavering finger in the direction of the staging grounds. "Sir, with respect, just look. No matter what we do from here, no matter who we send from this point on, we won't stand a chance against even a fraction of all that." He lowered his hand; his gaze falling to his boots and shook his head. "We'd already lost this fight before we even got here and we just didn't know it. All we can do now is try and get the hell of this planet." His voice lowered. "'Cause we're not taking it back. We never were. We should go, sir, while we still ca-"
"Not yet."
The firm response again stopped the corporal before he could make a move. He as well as the rest of the squad looked to their Staff Sergeant as he took several strides in the direction of the staging grounds. He took one more look at the warped landscape before him then turned to face them.
"We're not done yet, troopers. We still have a job to do. Ep-8?" He nodded at Duncan, causing him to stand straighter. "You and Ep-2 will setup that probe. You've got five minutes before we have to book it out of here. Ep-3, you keep an eye on our exit and the north face of this ridge. Ep-4 and 5, setup our taglines on the south. Everyone else, you're on guard duty. We'll make sure Command gets the intel they need on this place. Is that clear, ODSTs?"
In that moment there was no wavering in the Staff's voice or in his rock-solid demeanor as he stood before the largest Covenant facilities any of them had ever seen. It was enough to impart some measure of strength that made their slouches disappear, straightened their bent knees and raised their heads. As one, the members of Epsilon gave a unified "Yessir" with a spectrum of firmness. Deaks sounded the most unsure. Even so, as everyone dispersed, he didn't hesitate to join Hector and Yuri on the southern edge to scope out the base of the ridge.
Duncan slinked down into the middle of a trio of large rocks setup at the center of the ridge. He pulled out the cylindrical probe, unfolded its tripod and settled it onto the snowy ground. The lights on the silvery surface of the half-meter tall device flickered on when he pressed a thumb against the screen of the main interface. A small, rectangular panel opened up in front of him and slid aside to reveal a keypad. While he was typing in the activation code, Nova stood over him pulling out the foldable satellite dish from a cavity near the probe's top.
"Think everyone else reached their objectives by now?" she asked.
Duncan watched the beginning numbers of the activation sequence appear on the screen one blinking digit at a time. "I doubt everyone made it. Maybe most did. My question is what in the world are they thinking right about now after seeing all this?"
"...What are we even thinking right now?"
"...No clue..."
In truth, he knew exactly what he thought. Deaks had said it best: 'We'd already lost this fight before we even got here and we just didn't know it.'
There was a whirlwind of emotions all at war in his mind, each vying for their own separate expression. There was anger, confusion and sorrow among many others grasping for his full attention. In the end he couldn't find which was best. To save himself the trouble, he detached from his innermost thoughts to locate a middle ground. He found it in trying to deduce what this would mean for the future of Actium, mainly their efforts to retake it. Was that even a possibility anymore? Was it ever? He wasn't sure what the precise answers were but could come up with better deductions as he typed in the tail-end of the activation sequence.
Firstly, it was obvious that from hereon, anything else the UNSC did would amount to a moot point if it didn't address these staging grounds in one way or another. Secondly, the Covenant had been thinking two steps ahead of them the entire time. While the UNSC was busy trying to wrestle a member of the Nexus Beltway back from the enemy, the Covenant were already considering using this planet as a base of operations for future deployments.
He was amazed that he hadn't realized it before, that Actium's strategic positioning made it nearly impossible for it to simply be glassed like any other colony. Though he had a cursory understanding of the subject, he knew that slipstream space had much to do with it. The distinct curvature of spacetime inside slipspace itself was naturally affected, and even altered, by the gravity wells of planets lying in normal space within proximity of the slipstream. This led to the formation of what were known in the higher academic circles as 'Transit Points'. These transit points linked together to form slipspace "routes" that provided faster and more efficient travel time than ordinary slipspace. Essentially, it was similar to oceanic trade routes with giant east to west winds except in the alternate spacial dimension. Why that was so concerning was because Actium was recognized as being in possession of an abnormally high number of these. The planet had hundreds of transit points, more than any other colony world owned by humanity and nearly as much as Earth's.
Aquilla's transit points at any other time hosted a continuous influx of freighter and luxury starship traffic between colonies. But the Covenant now had the chance to utilize these special routes for their own purposes, namely finding other colonies located near said routes. It wouldn't take long for them to either. The neighboring Prozyion and Illyria Systems would have their existence endangered right away. Eventually, so would places like Sigma Octanus, Epsilon Eridani and, in some nightmare scenario that was no longer just a nightmare, Sol. Despite that the Covenant couldn't have known Earth's exact location, using these grounds, they would certainly be able to sniff around in the right direction.
No wonder the Covenant hadn't taken the chance to glass the planet the moment they'd gained air superiority. This had been their intention from the start, to use Actium as a stepping stone on their way to scouring the rest of human-controlled space. That was the bigger picture.
If they failed, if Actium fell, then the UNSC and the rest of humanity would be at risk of losing far more than just Aquilla alone.
"Hunters incoming."
The shrill voice of Epsilon's sniper drew his and Nova's attention to the northside of the ridge. Deaks was tracking movement below with his scope while the Staff raced over to check what he was looking at. Duncan and Nova slipped beside him as well.
It was momentarily surprising how well the northern face of the ridge sloped far more gently forward than the southern side. The gradual incline allowed for greater occupation by trees that carpeted the slope all the way down to a flatter area, one that spanned 3 more kilometers before reaching the deforested plains surrounding the nearest staging ground. Two figures were walking along a very visible mountain trail that serpentined its way up the incline. The hulking, blue-armored juggernauts that they were so used to seeing stomping and blasting through UNSC defenses were calmly strolling up the path. They were less than 50 meters away. Judging by the direction they were heading in; they would reach the snow-buried exit of the trail that led onto the very same part of the ridge where the troopers were.
"We've got two of them coming up, northside." The Staff said, rounding on the rest of the squad spaced out around the ridge. He looked to the telemetry probe. "Ep-2 and 8, what's the status on that probe?"
"It's good to go, sir." Duncan replied. "I only need to finish the initialization process to connect it to the wider network."
"Forget that. Pack it up and bury it in the snow. Everyone else, start doing the same with your BDUs. We're hiding."
The rest of the squad shared confused looks at the order. Nova stepped up. "But sir, we're...almost done."
"I know that. All the same, we can't leave that probe behind while those Hunters are on their way here. If they see it, they'll wreck it and raise the alarm in this entire sector. Our best chance is to hide here and wait until they pass. They're most likely on patrol. We just need them to move on. So, get to it."
There was a collective uncertainty that spread throughout the squad. It faded when the Staff moved off, sat down and proceeded to unabashedly spread himself out in the snow like he was about to make an angel. Grabbing handfuls of the white fluff, he laid it out over himself, first on his legs then worked up to the rest of his armor. The others quickly took the hint, secured their weapons and began tossing snow over themselves to wipe away any signs of their presence.
Duncan and Nova hesitantly undid their work on the probe, refolding its satellite dish back into the cavity and resetting the sequence on the interface. The cylindrical device responded with three muted beeps followed by its indication lights winking out. They carefully nestled it into the snow between three rocks then, nodding at each other, buried themselves close to the probe.
Deaks was the last to disguise himself in such a way that his prone form was hidden while he continued looking down his newly camouflaged rifle at the Hunters. "Ten meters and closing."
The squad remained motionless beneath the snow as the thumping footfalls of the armored behemoths crunched ever closer.
"Five, four, three..."
Duncan's visor was barely exposed so that he was able to see the head of the first Hunter cresting the ridge. The second was a stride behind it. Their bodies swayed slightly with each ascending step. They crushed the snow beneath their boots in their forward progress, and Duncan could tell that at least one of them was heading on a casual path straight for him.
They didn't seem to notice anything unusual about the ridge or detect that they were actually outnumbered 5 to 1. Their demeanors remained relaxed, although their erect spines rattled every so often, an indication that they were on their guard.
Then they stopped. Their plasma cannons scanned across the ridge from the east to Mount Sabato in the west. Nothing but the howling wind held their attentions, that is before another beep emanated from the buried probe.
Immediately the two juggernauts rounded on the noise, their spines rattling faster. They walked towards the trio of rocks; their plasma cannons leveled.
The very sight of them stomping towards him again created a miniature panic for Duncan. He saw that the one coming his way already was moving in faster strides. Even if he pulled out his SMG it wouldn't be enough to bring down one of these behemoths in the little time he'd get before it stomped him. But if he didn't move, he would definitely leave it wondering why the snow had unexpectedly turned red beneath its boots.
Suddenly there was another sound of something large on the move. Out the corner of his eye he saw a rock roughly the size of an oil barrel roll freely down the ridge's southern edge. It tumbled and crashed down the upper slopes, loud enough to catch the interest of the Hunters.
The one coming right at him stopped as its left boot fell just a few centimeters short of his head, crunching down the snow there into a flat mush. It incidentally revealed part of his helmet like the infilling of a bitten sandwich. He stayed utterly still.
By then the closest Hunter and its partner had shifted their focus to the ridge's edge and moved off in that direction. They stopped near the drop-off to level their cannons at the trail of downtrodden snow left in the rock's wake. After a few seconds of searching for the source of the commotion, a member of the pair gave a throaty growl, turned to the other and gestured with its shield at the north. Reaching some sort of understanding the pair quickly stomped their way over the ridge and began jogging down the trail they'd used before, now with much greater speed.
For the first 5 seconds no one dared move in case they came back. Once 10 more had passed the squad started to excavate themselves from the snow.
"They're heading back down." Deaks said from behind his scope. "My guess is they're circling back to the mountain pass to check out that rock."
Hector brushed himself off. "It's a good thing I don't miss leg day. You're welcome for that by the way, Ep-8."
Duncan was steadying his shaky breathing that he hadn't noticed was getting shallower the whole time. He nodded back. "Yeah, thanks."
The Staff arose from the snow and walked over to where the probe was. "That means we've still got time." He pointed to Duncan and Nova. "You two, get to it. Once you're done, we're out of here."
They flashed their acknowledgement lights and got to work unburying the device.
"Ep-4, Ep-5, how's our exit route?"
Hector peered over at Yuri who was testing the other tagline, both of which were tied and clamped around a couple of heavy-looking boulders. The Russian gave him a thumbs up and he passed on the sign to the Staff.
"Good. Ep-3 keep an eye on that trail to make sure those Hunters don't second guess themselves. Everyone else, stack up on the lines once 2 and 8 are done."
The squad repositioned themselves in an ovular defense formation around the probe with their cryptanalyst and engineer at the center. While typing the activation sequence back into the interface, Duncan realized why the probe had released a secondary beep, spotting a blinking triangular symbol on the screen. It had been only partially deactivated with its limited motion sensing properties still online. The fact he hadn't noticed it had almost cost him his life and nearly the whole squad's. He was much more mindful now with what he switched on. The last thing they needed was to leave and find out that he had forgotten something important. He finished typing in the activation sequence in tandem with Nova releasing the last restraints on the dish, allowing it to flower outwards unencumbered. A final series of light beeps signaled that the process was finished.
"It's ready, Ep-1." Duncan declared as he and Nova ran over to him.
"And so are we. Alright Epsilon, we're pulling out. Let's move."
They reassembled at the taglines and, one by one, clipped their armor belts with the line. In pairs, they rappelled down the ridge back to the base.
His line secured and his turn to go, Duncan took one last look at the sprawling magnitude of the Covenant staging grounds, their many structures and ships, then rappelled his way down.
:********:
The way to the northwestern tributary was no longer safe, or no safer than it was prior to their slipping past it.
In passing over the last of the ground between the valley and Mount Sabato they were greeted by an ambush. It was triggered as they came within 20 meters of the forest' edge when a group of shield-wielding Jackals, many of the ones they'd initially seen at the lake, came out from behind the trees to open fire. Jumping behind their own positions for cover, Epsilon was put under secondary pressure by the attentive focus of Jackal snipers. Duncan picked up on there being at least two; the same duo that had guarded the connection between the lake and the northwestern tributary. His best explanation at seeing both Renni and Rico nearly suffer from needle rounds to the head and shoulder respectively was that the snipers had repositioned to overhead posts built into the trees. The crisscrossing shower of green plasma bolts that came whenever anyone popped out to fire on the encroaching shield users suggested they were surrounded from the east and west.
"They're trying to contain us!" Hector said, standing up from behind a fallen beech tree to nail an overly persistent Jackal with a three-round burst to the hand. It faltered, exposing its head which he promptly slipped another burst through. Three purple, crystalline needle shards shot past his shoulders, forcing him back down.
"Guess they found their missing pal!" Behind his own cover, the Staff glanced over his shoulder at Yuri a few trees down who shrugged back apologetically.
"Thought we buried him good, sir!"
"Forget it! Ep-3, can you get a sightline on those two parakeets using the needle rifles!?"
Deaks was already crouching between the dense amalgamation of bushes and tree trunks serving as Epsilon's position. He passed Hector, reached a poplar tree with a decent range of visibility beyond it and slowly leveled his rifle at a distant spot. "Hold on, Ep-4, stand up again."
Catching on, Hector briefly arose, fired a few bursts at the shields of a pair of Jackals taking a slower approach than their dead comrade, then ducked as a mirroring burst of needle rounds stuck into the trunk in front of him. "See'em!?"
"Hold on..." Deaks gradually angled his sniper upwards. "...Aaannnd there he is." He squeezed off a suppressed shot. "Alright, he's down!"
Epsilon's sniper quickly displaced, crouching across the undergrowth to another poplar tree between the two being used by Duncan and Nova. Nodding at the latter, she stuck her head out. In the short second between doing so and sticking her head back in, a spray of green plasma flew out from the Jackals hiding a few meters away, along with a few near-precise needle rounds. Deaks slid his back up the trunk until he was on his feet and swiveled out, having a good idea of where to aim. He fired once then a second time. "That's the last one!" He ducked back at returning plasma.
"Heads up, Epsilon!" The Staff whipped out his shotgun in a way for everyone to see, the signal that they were about to change tact. "We've got no time to get bogged down here! Prepare to toss frags and sprint for the bank! We might have to cross under fire so be quick! The moment we go loud we'll have no chance for stealth so we're double-timing the next 7 klicks! If any of you stops, you're dead! Is that clear!?"
The squad responded with an affirmatory "Yessir!"
He pulled out a frag, triggering everyone to do the same. "On three. One...two...three!"
At three each member of the isolated group of ODSTs pulled the pin on their frag grenade, wheeled out from behind their cover and threw it with everything they had. The Jackals advancing on their positions stopped in their tracks at seeing the greenish gray, baseball shaped objects flying towards them. The M9 fragmentation grenades finished their arcs short of their targets, bounced a full meter into their ranks and lived up to their namesakes. They erupted into flashes of fire and heated fragments that broke energy shields and bones, blowing out eye sockets and scything down every tree and body within range.
The forest around Epsilon briefly brightened as a multitude of shattered branches, avian screams and blue blood hurled past them in a rumbling fusillade.
Without a word, the Staff slipped out from behind his plasma-scarred tree and sprinted south, followed close behind by everyone else.
At reaching the river bank they found the energy barrier over the tributary was still fluctuating. However, the fluctuations had become noticeably less frequent, meaning that it was becoming stabilized and that they would be stuck on the other side for longer. To cross it would necessitate their remaining vulnerable to any arriving reinforcements for much longer than was desirable.
Though a big risk, the Staff didn't hesitate to dash straight into the water. The rest of the squad slipped into the waves after him and began clambering across the rocks spanning the width of the tributary. Like before, they sped through the section divided by the barrier in pairs. The weight of their armor and the closeness of the riverbed worked together to help them dash across faster.
More than half the squad had gotten to the other side by the time several surviving Jackals emerged from the tree-line on the north bank. It didn't take long for them to spot their quarry.
Amidst the hail of plasma fire that splashed and sizzled the water around them, Duncan and Mito waited for the opening. Hector and Deaks had their backs, using the rocks for cover and shooting over them in an attempt to hold the enemy back.
Ten seconds passed then the barrier dropped, flashing by them twice. They used the second flash for a marker and leaped off the same rock. But Mito had landed short. Duncan grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him forward0 at the last second. The barrier reactivated right behind his boots, missing by a distance that would have easily halved him otherwise.
"Thanks!"
"No problem!" Duncan ushered him onward. They soon reached the others on the southern bank, waited for Deaks and Hector to cross over and disappeared into the forest.
The squad rounded the southwestern plateau on the other side of the tributary and dashed down into the valley. Utilizing navigational pathways, jumping over upturned beeches and weaving around girthy oaks became the norm. No one dared break stride. They stayed close against the density of the shrubs that grazed past their heels.
Duncan figured 5 minutes had passed before the first Phantom came into the valley from the west. The whine of its engines grew in intensity as it flew towards them. It stopped 20 meters ahead of them and lowered to a more open area of the foliage. Both of its bay doors slid apart to allow a squad of seven avian humanoids to jump out. They fell 10 meters to the ground without incident. In fact, one thing Duncan noticed that unnerved him right away was that they didn't seem to have any problem breaking into a sprint right after. And they didn't look like Jackals, even though that was the closest thing he could ascribe them to.
What they were became more obvious as the first ones raced within meters of the diagonally challenged trail that the squad was using. In reality they looked more like velociraptor-human hybrids sporting dark gray armor. Their heads and clawed limbs were covered in black feathers, their bony facial coverings flexing as their beak-like mouths released raspy and guttural chirps. They ran far faster than the troopers could ever hope to and had hemmed them in before anyone could react, firing rapid bursts from plasma pistols and needle rifles up towards or down at the ODSTs.
Speed and environment were at least two factors that worked in the Helljumpers' favor. Moving fast caused the passing trees to take the bulk of the enemy fire.
"Skirmishers!" The Staff brought up his M90. "Open fire and keep moving!"
They raised their rifles and fired back, abandoning bursts in exchange for full auto. It became a run-and-gun firefight. Just as the Skirmishers got ahead enough to try and lay an ambush, someone, mainly the Staff, would toss a grenade to get them to back off. If that didn't work, three or more of the squad would shoot into the foliage hanging over the path further up, a good counter for when the birdy aliens began jumping up several meters at a time into the trees. In return, the Skirmishers would get in a few more shots that would force the group to widen the space between themselves. That way the green bolts and purple shards wisped harmlessly past them.
Every so often Duncan flinched at a crystalline needle round that would flash past his visor like lightening or glance off his shoulder. He was barely avoiding critical hits. It didn't take a genius to know that they couldn't keep dodging forever. His suspicions, much to his immediate chagrin, were realized the moment he checked the path.
Coming up in the next 20 meters was an area dominated by slanting oaks whose sprawling roots created a space free of other trees. It was the perfect ambush point. He noticed his ammo was blinking red on his HUD, removed his SMG's dry clip and slapped in a fresh one, knowing he would need it fairly soon.
The Skirmishers must have seen what was coming as well because they broke from the firefight to leap into the trees again. They dashed along the branches towards the open space.
"Ep-1!?" Nova saw what they were going for and sounded worried.
"Just keep going!" The Staff, in contrast, seemed unbothered. Duncan saw that the reason why had its release pin hooked in by his thumb. He and the others caught on quickly and polarized their visors.
The Skirmishers beat them to the spot and were already waiting for them, four standing in the tree-branches high overhead and three spaced out on the ground. The Staff emerged into the small clearing first and tossed the pin-less flashbang up into the air.
The resulting blast of light elicited a pained squawk from the ambushers as it burned their eyes. Epsilon didn't share that problem. They raced past, firing freely on the stunned aliens and dropping the three on the ground with overwhelming firepower. One that stood in the canopy flipped backwards thanks to a 114-milimeter strike to the jaw from Deaks' sniper rifle.
Just as quickly as they came the squad raced back into the denser parts of the valley, leaving their stunned pursuers behind.
"Think that'll hold them!?" Mito asked.
"Them maybe!" The Staff answered. "But that doesn't mean we're safe, not if they send more reinforcements! For now, let's focus on reaching the southern end of this valley!" After a second, he set the Nav point on their HUDs. With another 6 kilometers to go the squad pressed on.
The rest of their journey was spent running underneath tree-cover and dodging plasma. At several points a Phantom dropship would hover in nearby to release more Skirmisher squads. The aliens tried similar tactics to the ones they'd escaped. In return, they gave the attempted ambushers the same treatment of grenades to make them back off and flashbangs whenever they got in their way. Blinded and stunned, they were cut down by rifle fire on the ground and swatted out of the trees. So long as the squad remained on the move they avoided getting caught in longer engagements. One major downside was that they couldn't always kill whoever or whatever went after them. The consequence was a growing number of pursuing Skirmishers that took glancing shots at their backs, catching up to them with increasing regularity.
Skirmishers weren't the only threat. Seeing that the troopers hidden beneath the foliage were gaining headway, having gotten roughly to the halfway point, pairs and trios of Banshees began boosting into the valley. They routinely strafed the forests where they suspected them to be. More often than not they missed but lit the forests ahead of the ODSTs on fire with a relentless rain of plasma torpedoes. More often than not, they had to find a way around the emerald firestorm, incidentally giving Phantoms the chance to drop off more of the fast-footed aliens further up the valley.
The latter were getting increasingly better at both tracking and herding them into more open areas. However, they hadn't gotten better at setting off ambushes. Epsilon seized the advantage every step of the way. Afterall, there was no real way to account for being flash-banged at close quarters and the dense forestry kept those carrying needle rifles from capitalizing on their strengths. In close range they blew away the Skirmishers, leaving several bullet riddled bodies in their wake almost every 300 meters.
To Duncan's surprise it was becoming easier to escape being shot at by yellow-eyed, birds with hostile intent along with the fiery death from the Banshees above. Rather, the bulk of his trouble came from keeping all that up while running. He could feel himself getting tired already. As they rushed over a thick aspen tree that had fallen over a natural defilade, he used the reprieve to check on the Nav point. It was a good 4-and-a half kilometers remaining between them and Landing Zone Alpha. Since he'd gotten this far, he hoped his chances of dropping to his knees and gasping for air wouldn't rise until he reached the safety of the Pelican's cargo bay. He suspected the others were thinking the same thing whenever they weren't busy trying to take in a breath or running and gunning.
After nearly 20 minutes on the move, they reached one of the valley's southern ends. They clambered up the incline onto the more level areas. Optimizing each second, they jogged onward, using the rivers they'd moved along beforehand to get further south. The trees rustled behind them as the Skirmishers followed, sticking close to the canopy to avoid getting shot at. But on more than a single occasion a few got close enough to warrant Deaks swiveling around to shoot them out of the branches.
The further they ran the more the rivers around them shrank, becoming stony creeks again and eventually diminishing into streams and ponds. Then they disappeared altogether.
The overhead foliage came closer, the branches grew smaller, incidentally lessening whatever methods of keeping up that the Skirmishers had used before. Soon the sounds of their chirping voices fell far behind.
After circumventing more mountains and cresting hills, they reached an area where the undergrowth became less dense. They ran along the edges of a growing number of open fields and flatter ground.
With one eye always on the Nav point Duncan saw that they'd gotten far enough for the last of the distance to drop down into the hundreds of meters. His breathing was inconsistent and his lungs filled with air too cold for his suit to heat up in time. He ignored the icy burn in his chest, forced more energy into his exhausted legs and kept on with everyone else. Though they were also slowing down from fatigue they didn't dare stop either.
It was almost impossible for him not to think of how he used to feel this exact same way when Head Instructor Dalton led Class 207 on kilometer long jogs from Mount Scaffel Pike all the way to the parade grounds of Camp Ravenport. Thinking back on those days compared to how he was feeling now, he quietly prayed that he didn't end up having to lick away his former breakfast off someone else's boots at the end of all this.
They covered the last 500 meters together in a haggard sprint. During the final 100-meter stretch they heard the distant yet familiar roar of hybrid fusion drives. It was a comforting clamor.
They arrived at the tree-line of Landing Zone Alpha just as the Pelican flew within sight. It banked starboard as it descended towards the center of the open field.
"This is Hunter-5-5 to Ep-1, we're here and ready for dust-off. You've got 2 minutes, over?"
"Roger that." The Staff replied, doing his best to hide his own ragged breathing. "Standby, we're coming aboard now. Be advised, we've got Covies trailing us."
"Copy. We'll ship out once you're on."
The squad watched the Pelican extend its landing gear. The moment it touched down they moved in, keeping an eye on the encircling trees to the south for any signs of movement. Jogging through the waving, knee-high grass was a little difficult for Duncan since he felt his legs were already about to drop out from under him. He gave thanks at seeing the Pelican's rear door slowly fall open. The Staff and Deaks covered them from behind while they loaded into the cargo bay. They stepped aboard last and settled into their seats, but no one lowered their weapons. It was only after the door raised shut that they felt free to relax.
A few seconds later the craft's engines ramped back up and they felt the Pelican raise off the field.
Zack was the first to rip off his helmet and toss it on the floor to take in the fresh air, warmed by the dropship's temperature controls. The others did the same, pulling off their helmets to let their aching lungs and burnt-out legs finally relax.
Duncan was about to do the same when he heard a commotion from the cockpit. Having taken the seat closest to it, he dragged his eyes over to see what the problem was, then stiffened.
"We've got Hunters!" Hunter-5-5 said, pulling at the controls as the Pelican veered towards the southern end of the field. Beyond the cockpit window he saw well over a dozen silhouettes step out from the shadows of the tree-line. They resolved into two squads-worth of Skirmishers and a Hunter pair that leveled their glowing plasma cannons at the dropship.
"Hold on, going evasive!"
Hunter-5-5 steered hard right in an attempt to dodge what was coming. But the Hunters had already opened fire. Two green plasma torpedoes rocketed towards them like ghastly specters. The first struck the Pelican's underside, bucking the entire craft upwards and shaking everyone in the cargo bay. As gravity made it dip down to compensate, the second torpedo struck square on the cockpit.
An explosion of green flames blew through the window, shattering it into shards of burning glass that sprayed over the two pilots. Several needle rounds zipped through into Hunter-5-5's chest. He immediately keeled over onto his station and the Pelican entered a sharp dive.
Before even the co-pilot could react, Yuri rushed from his seat into the cockpit. He pushed Hunter-5-5 aside, took the controls and pulled them into a hard climb. At the same time he used the rear-view cameras to swivel out of the path of the next torpedoes, shifting them left then right.
They rose a good 100 meters into the air then leveled out at a safer altitude. Taking in a few shaky breaths, Yuri wiped the cold sweat off his forehead. "So...that was...close."
The squad was left silent while trying to recover from the rattling experience. The Staff slipped into the cockpit to get a good look of the damage done to the front. "How'd they even know we were coming here?"
"Best guess is those Hunters were from before, must have figured out where we'd go by how we moved through valley. I wonder if they knew we were there on ridge to begin with."
"Let's hope not. Otherwise, that probe won't be safe for long."
Yuri's attention shot to one of the rear-view cameras. "We're not so safe ourselves just yet, sir. Look." The Staff checked it and winced. From his seat Duncan could see the screen too as well as the two manta-ray looking Phantoms coming after them.
"How far is that?" The Staff asked.
"We've got 2 kilometers on them." Hunter-5-5's copilot replied, his voice shaky. "We can outrun them from this distance."
"Then do it." The Staff nodded to Yuri and watched him push the accelerator to draw more speed from their fusion drives. The whine of the engines was transformed over the course of 10 seconds into a resonant roar that vibrated through the entire hull. Without a proper window at the front, the morning air was free to flow into the rest of the Pelican like a growing hurricane.
The Phantoms tried to catch up for a full minute, albeit in vain. After two more minutes the enemy dropships could no longer keep pace and fell further and further behind. Then, without warning, they suddenly changed course and began heading back north.
It was a relieving sight while being one that was only accepted as reality the moment they disappeared over the horizon. The group breathed easier once they knew for certain they were in the clear.
"I guess they just wanted to get us out of airspace." Yuri noted.
The Staff shouldered his shotgun. "They can have it for now...but we've still got another problem." He turned to the sizzling body of Hunter-5-5 who was lying off to the side in his seat. Five crystalline shards were buried in his chest, having punctured his Air Force BDU with little issue. They were still actively glowing. "Ep-3 and 8, give me a hand. Ep-5, open the rear door."
Duncan and Deaks made their way to the cockpit. The Staff nodded solemnly at the body. They carefully got a hold on his arms and torso to pull him out onto the floor. While Yuri took the newly freed seat, with great caution, Duncan and Deaks took the legs and the Staff handled the arms.
"On three...one...two...go."
They pulled the pilot off the floor. His co-pilot quietly watched them take out his comrade then turned back to his job at the secondary controls. Everyone got a good look as they passed into the bay.
The rear door opened behind them to allow free passage of the morning air flowing through the cockpit. They eased their way over to the exit and lay the body down gently near the threshold, angling it so that the Staff and Duncan could push on the shoulders. A few tentative maneuvers later they had gotten the legs hanging over the edge. The Staff crouched down on the ramp, grabbed the pilot's shoulder and gave him a subtle yet respectful shake. Then he gave Hunter-5-5 the last push he needed to slip over the edge.
They watched the body fall over a hundred meters before disappearing into the passing foliage. For the briefest second there was a flash of pinkish light beneath the canopy as hard impacts finally detonated the crystals.
Duncan kept watch over the passing Pavian forestry until the sight was cut off by the rising door. He returned to his seat with the Staff and Deaks. He hadn't realized how tired he actually was until he sat down. His rapidly hazing mind ignored the many worries and fears that had been broiling in the background just as it blocked out the sight of the blood trail leading from the cockpit to the rear door. He rested his head back and allowed sleep to drag him away to any place other than Actium.
Curre – Run