2305 hours, September 16th, 2542 (UNSC military calendar)
Ellana Valley, 17 km NW from Bhaakto City, Equatorial Plains Province, Alluvion
"The Covenant are leaving," Samara said, looking up into the sky as she steered the Shadow APC towards the survivors she had spotted.
Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 nodded as he leaned out the side door of the Shadow and saw the fires of the burning city in the distance. Zooming in, he could see that the skyscrapers were collapsing one by one, consumed by internal explosions and fires. John stared at the sight.
He and Samara had only come across the survivors of the battle because the Covenant had been one step ahead of them and pulled their troops and dropships out of all the smaller bases he and Samara had been taking out, forcing them to travel further overland, while the more massive bases were too well fortified for him and his companion to take without any support. The Covenant dropships had all headed towards the city, so John had pursued, hoping to catch one on the ground. Instead, they'd found a ragtag handful of survivors, and got word that the battle was lost.
As they approached, John took a look. He was pleasantly surprised to see that Sergeant Avery Johnson was present, and it was good to see that four other marines had escaped with him, even if two of them were wounded. There was also a squad of turians, as well as an elcor. That was good, an elcor soldier was effectively a walking tank; unfortunately, it didn't look like the alien would fit in the troop bay. He considered his options and quickly came up with a plan to transport the elcor. He looked at the sky as the leaving Covenant dropships flew overhead, and told Samara, "Stop the Shadow, get these survivors onboard. After that, I'll need you to help me remove seats from the troop compartment, and part of the roof as well if need be. We need to fit that elcor inside."
The Shadow came to a halt, and John gave a quick but curt nod to Sergeant Johnson. "Good to see you, Sergeant. We can carry you, but we'll need to modify the cargo bay to fit that elcor." John looked at the mangled heap of metal Johnson had been dragging, only to realize it was actually a heavily augmented turian. Turning her head at an awkward angle to look at Chief, the turian waved Johnson off and slowly wobbled up to her feet, cybernetics sparking, internal fluids leaking. Another turian - an Armiger, John recalled - with a shotgun on her back was rapidly plugging leaks with her omni-tool.
"The Covenant are leaving," John told them, going straight to the point That means they're either about to be driven off-planet by reinforcements… or about to start glassing. We'll head for the wilderness to the north and try to get in communications range with our forces in orbit."
"Got it. Kelnara, Yeltis, Jenkins, Omar, start ripping out seats and panels to make room for the elcor. Everyone else, pack up and get ready to leave."
Chief walked up to Sergeant Johnson, immediately noticing that his old friend had taken serious damage to his hardsuit.. Johnson was wearing what his HUD identified as a Batarian import. Cheaper than the refitted Asari models, but better than BDU's.,. "You look like you've been through hell, Sergeant. How bad was it?"
"Bad enough, Chief. I lost count of the amount of transport ships the Covies downed." Johnson glared into the distance, his eyes methodically scanning the horizon. He gave John a forced smile, though still but with a hint of a genuine grin beneath it. , Opening a storage pouch, he pulled out a Sweet Williams Cigar, only to put it away instead with cold mechanical precision. This took John back to the training exercises with ODSTs headed by Johnson, where the Sergeant had led his men with brutal efficiency against his Spartans. "And on the ground they're learning, from what I've heard: antimatter charges beneath barracks and supply depots, hidden jammers all over the city, and their Spec Ops have stepped up their game."
John tilted his head at Johnson, then glanced over towards the pillar of smoke that used to be Alluvion's primary spaceport.. "We noticed. I saw Covenant using camouflage back in the forest."
"Only a cherry on the asswhoop-pie they served us. When I was fighting them… It didn't feel like the Covenant. Or it felt like a different Covenant. Hell, I don't know. I'm not just talking about new equipment, but the way they fought. There were no Jackals with shields, just Jackals with rifles moving like light infantry. They still used waves of Grunts, only this time they threw them at us to pick out heavy weapons and pillboxes and call down artillery strikes. Anti-air wraiths used in an anti-tank role." Johnson lit a cigar. "They beat us when they dropped a Scarab behind us and launched a combined arms assault across the river with a spearhead of Brutes."
There was a flash of blue as Samara used her biotics to lift seats out of the Shadow's troop compartment, while the unwounded turians and Marines were helping in clearing the vehicle's interior with their omni-tools, making space for the elcor. John noted, somewhat amusedly, that if they cut a hole in the roof, the elcor's weapons platform could serve as a turret.
Turning back to Johnson, John filed what the Sergeant told him deep within his mind. He'd have time later to process this information to find where everything had changed. The conclusion he reached was sobering and made him question his earlier optimism about Operation:CRUSADER.
After a few moments, Johnson pointed at one of the Marines. "It's not all bad, though. We held for several hours thanks to our new friends and new toys. We made them bleed for each street. But there were just too many."
Abruptly, the Sergeant motioned towards Samara, who was now levitating the elcor and trying to maneuver him into the Shadow. "I see you've got a beautiful lady riding with you, Chief. Congrats, I knew you had it in you." Johnson slapped John on the shoulder, mischief in his voice. "Name one of the kids after me, would you?"
John paused, looking at Johnson, then Samara, then back at Johnson again. He tilted his head, trying to imagine Samara as something other than a fellow soldier and failing. He had a basic understanding of the appeal of the opposite sex, but couldn't for the life of him ever associate it with the Justicar. T Besides, between combat deployments and cryosleep, most of his time was taken up by training, planning and maintenance, and he saw no reason to change that. So, he stayed silent, hoping that the Sergeant would change the subject. .
"Not the relationship type, Chief?" Johnson asked, taking out a cigar again and this time actually lighting it..
"I don't see what you mean. Samara is a fellow soldier.. What other relationship could there be?."
"You need to loosen up, Chief. Why, after Harvest fell and I'd lost hope, I had this beautiful ONI agent with me in a space elevator who-"
"Exasperation: I am not a piece of cargo!" The Elcor yelled as Samara and the UNSC marines tried to squeeze him into the Shadow. He barely fit into the compartment, even with the dividing walls torn out, and half the seats removed. Eventually, the troops managed to fit him inside by making him lie down, limbs spread out, and several of the Marines and Armigers sat on his arms to compensate for the removed seats. "Angry and slowly dying inside from the pain of emotional humiliation and exhaustion: If anyone makes a joke… they die."
"Johnson, take my seat in the front," John said, "I have some questions for our guests." He wanted to talk to the Turians about what they had faced, not only out of professional interest and the need to learn about the new tactics the Covenant was employing, but also to get the turians' measure, as he'd likely be fighting alongside them soon. So, he climbed inside and found a corner to sit, as the Shadow's gravimetric engines roared to life.
The Marines marked on his HUD as Jenkins, Passalaqua, Omar and Vladimir, were quiet, weapons at the ready, and staring ahead. Their green hardsuits made them look like smaller, less heavily armored Spartans, and for a second John felt a curious desire to protect them.. Jenkins was lounging against the Elcor, hands folded on his chest and apparently catching some shuteye.
Passalaqua was bent over forward, rubbing the corners of her eyes constantly, her face downcast and bloody. John noticed she had a small set of prayer beads in her hands, muttering in Latin.
"So fucking many," the Marine ground out, noticing him. "I feel like shit. Those goddamn hinge-heads." Even as she spoke, she kept staring through John - an expression he'd seen many times during this war.
"Quit your bitching Pass', we all saw the same shit, you don't see me crying," Omar interjected, glaring at Passalaqua. "I am dealing with enough shit without having to deal with yours as well. We survived, that is the only thing that matters now." Omar leant into the back of his seat and closed his eyes, shaking. "It's over. That's all that matters."
Vladimir stayed silent and just stared ahead of him, only to start cackling, laughing until he broke into a coughing fit.
Feeling somewhat disconnected from the Marines, John decided to let them talk, and just sat impassively, not looking directly at any of them. Unlike the early war where the Covenant usually had overwhelming numerical and technological superiority, and most UNSC ground battles had been short, brief, and with few survivors. Alluvion had been hours of uninterrupted urban warfare against what John felt in his ceramic bones had to be a highly professional Covenant force., Only the meatgrinder on Harvest could really compare, and Harvest had swallowed whole UNSC armies with barely enough survivors to be worth a mention. .
John tried to think of a solution to recommend to ONI, but he only kept coming to the same conclusion.
It was only going to get worse. The UNSC now had more tanks, artillery, and infantry hardware. Soldiers survived wounds that would have killed them mere months before, and managed to survive brutal close quarters combat that used to leave nothing but broken mangled corpses.. And with the crates full of cybernetics the Citadel supplied the UNSC, even the wounded got no true respite from the war. A whole generation of humanity would be thrown into a meatgrinder far too few of them were ready for. John felt a tinge of shame, but said nothing. What could he offer them? He was a Spartan, not a psychologist.
A female Turian with a Shotgun had taken off her helmet and was aggressively fidgeting and looking back and forth, eyes wide with terror. Occasionally she calmed down before her paranoia returned. Another Turian holding what his HUD confirmed was a T-12 Amari was sitting next to the female, speaking to her in a soft voice. John mentally tuned the conversation out in light of the personal nature of it. He had seen PTSD too many times to count and had, at times, struggled with his own demons. He would leave the Turians alone to talk amongst themselves, and try to find the words for what they had seen.
Then the Turian looked up at him, looking directly at his faceplate, with tired war-weary eyes. "Human. Those… brutes. Do they always eat their victims? I have never seen something so foul before." She held her shotgun close. "I wasn't eager for this war, but I was ready to fight it. But I hadn't seen this kind of raw, merciless aggression before. We were winning, damn it! For months we kicked the Covenant around the arm, we crushed their scouting fleets, we routed their armies, and we were on a righteous march through the Inner Colonies, saving world after world!" She slammed a fist down on the floor of the Shadow. "And now the 13th Legion is almost wiped. You might not understand it, Human, but this is a grave blow against the pride and dignity of the Turian Military."
John nodded sagely. "I get the way you feel. Believe me, I did the same early in this war." He paused. "What's so special about the 13th Legion?"
The Turian with the sniper rifle, leaned forward, removing its helmet and revealing itself to be male. He put a hand on the female's shoulder, then took over the conversation. "The 13th Legion is an old Legion, human. It's descended from a company of Chariot riders from before we mastered Iron tools. It existed unbroken for thousands of years. If it has been destroyed, it is a grave blow to our honor. Recreating it will be difficult." He sighed.
Sergeant Johnson yelled from the front of the Shadow. "Seems weird to me the most honored Turian Legion would be number thirteen. Humans consider it an unlucky number."
The two turians glanced at each other, a cheeky grin on the female's face. "Most honored? The thirteenth wasn't that good. The Palavan First Regiment can trace its history to the royal guard of the first Turian city-state. There are no finer soldiers." There was a pause. "Do humans put stock in the history of their regiments?"
John shook his head. "Some formations have some measure of prestige attached to them. But nothing that impacts strategy and the like."
"Name's Kelnara. The grumpy old man is Yeltis." The female Turian said with a soft smile. "The silent twins are Gelvod and Gelnis. They don't talk much. The nugget with robot limbs is Sergeant Nialla." She motioned for the wounded cyborg that was strapped tightly into a chair, and who was performing maintenance on her cybernetics with an omni-tool. As John watched, Omni-gel spread across broken circuits and wiring and began to reform as hardened plating and electronics. She was testing her left hand, turning it a full hundred and eighty degrees.
"Your cybernetics are quite excessive, Sergeant," Chief noted. "Are many Turian soldiers as heavily augmented as you?" John had known many UNSC soldiers over the years who had cybernetics, but none who had been augmented as excessively and Nialla and still served on the frontlines. He wondered what kind of wounds could inflict such damage.
"Depends on how many survive the battles ahead. But there will be more as the wounded return to Palavan. There's only going to be more cyborgs."
Omar broke from his stupor and raised an eyebrow. He turned towards Nialla. "So. Who owns you now? So many cybernetics can't be cheap, let alone maintenance."
Nialla looked at Omar as if he'd suddenly grown a second head. "Me. The Hierarchy paid for my cybernetics and pays for the maintenance."
"I mean if you ever return to civilian life."
"That's what I meant. These are my property, but the Hierarchy pays for the upkeep."
"You're kidding me. The Hierarchy lets you keep combat-grade cybernetics, and pay for the upkeep? Shit, I'msigned up for the wrong army. I wouldn't mind insurance like that. My cousin had this amazing cybernetic arm which got replaced with a civilian model when he was discharged." He turned towards John. "That was a joke. Please don't shoot me for treason."
"I should." John said.
The Shadow went dead quiet, and all color drained from Omar's face.
"But I don't waste ammunition." John added.
Sergeant Johnson's guffaws could be heard from the front of the Shadow. "He got you, Omar. Admit it."
'"At least I already pissed my armor during the battle." Omar muttered with an awkward chuckle.
John perused the conversation. He didn't know that the Turian Hierarchy just gave cybernetics and maintenance to former soldiers, no strings attached. He could see why the Turians had such high morale. He felt a sling tinge of shame in how the UNSC could be penny-pinching at times in regards to Cybernetics. Soldiers who retired with cybernetics often didn't get all the support they deserved, or even got downgrades if they'd received military cybernetics. But perhaps that was where the Humans and Turians differed. The Turians were less free than the humans, but they got more things done. He supported the UEG's principles, but he thought of just what humanity could achieve if they were all focused towards a single goal.
"So there's only going to be more cyborgs as this war progresses?" John asked.
John had grown to appreciate the Turians for their near-limitless courage and determination when fighting, and would certainly welcome skilled tireless cyborgs. Their society also made him think, perhaps the UNSC would have fewer issues with rebellion if all citizens were raised from birth to uphold a military code of conduct? While the harsh physical upbringing the Spartans endured was not something he'd wish upon all human children, he could see the benefits of their education being applied on a larger scale.
Nialla nodded. "By the time I left, they were setting up large automated augmentation units for the many wounded soldiers returning from the front." She cocked her head at John. "How do humans deal with cyborgs?"
"Few soldiers survived Covenant weapons until Barriers and Hardsuits became commonplace," John said grimly. "It used to be if you got lucky enough to survive getting a limb blown off, you'd get a replacement and discharge papers or support duties."
John's COM chimed up. It was a priority message from orbit.
"This is General Pallonis. Covenant forces are departing Alluvion. All survivors are to converge on the town of Kellira for EVAC. We are evacuating the planet."
"Angry indignation: My back itches."
-
105 hours, September 17th, 2542 (UNSC military calendar)
Kellira, 50 km North of Bhaakto City, Equatorial Plains Province, Alluvion
The air smelled of burned meat and death.
John-117 leaned out the side of the Shadow as they approached the town of Kellira. Or what was left of it. Kellira lay in ashes and ruins. Manyof its painstakingly constructed elaborate stone buildings lay in rubble, or had been reduced to molten slagged heaps.
"I thought the Covenant only attacked Alluvion city?" Vladimir asked as the Shadows passed a molten mass of vehicles and skeletons that had been fused together by high energy plasma. "Did an air-raid get past our defensive screens?" There were too many bodies to count, nearly to a fault, all too mangled to properly count.
Sergeant Johnson carefully navigated the large craters of molten glass that covered the road. "This happened before we showed up. During the first invasion. Poor bastards had just enough time to pack up and leave, only to be hit by Banshees."
"I'll climb outside so people know we're inside." Kelnara mutterd, still shaking. She climbed out the hatch and with a blast of her armor's thrusters, came to be seated atop the Shadow. Yeltis picked up the Shotgun the woman had left, and went after her without a second's pause. The rest of the crew clutched their guns tightly.
Nialla leaned out to observe the aftermath of the slaughter, one omni-tooled hand on her right shoulder. She muttered. "Do you ever get used to sights like this? I have seen so many massacres in the last three months, I can't be moved by them anymore." To the Master Chief.
"Most UNSC soldiers go through that," John said. "Eventually, you stop noticing, and it is no more out of the ordinary than any fallen soldier."
Omar muttered. "One day, we'll give the Covenant a taste of their own medicine. Make them suffer like we have."
John turned to give Omar a look that instantly silenced him. "I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy, and neither should you." John thought of the bodies he'd seen on Zhoist, of Covenant civilians scattered in the same way as the humans he saw now. How he had wondered if they'd known if why they were at war, why the Spartans had killed them in the streets. The thought they had been collateral damage still sat wrong with John."You should be fighting to end this war. Not make it worse."
"Your actions are those of a man who has mastered war, but your words are those of one who does not wish to wage it." Samara stated as she gently guided the Shadow through the narrow streets. The sight of the stolen transport got chuckles from the ragtag squads that were trying to prepare a perimeter. "Or am I wrong in that assumption?"
"I do what I was trained to do." John said. "But I don't enjoy cruelty. I only kill those when I need to."
The Shadow approached the village square, which had been fortified and entrenched by the handfull of UNSC and Turian soldiers that had managed to escape in good order. John noted that their fields of fire were well establishes, and they had closed off many alleyways with controlled demolitions to funnel any Covenant into killzones. For what little it would do. As they passed the defemders, John could see line after line of wounded Turians and Humans. They were gathered on the sidewalks in small clusters around fires made from chemicals and flares. Their armor would protect them from the cold, but John suspected the shellshocked survivors just wanted to gather around a fire...
"There's not a lot of them." Sergeant Johnson muttered. "I figured there'd be more people making a break for it. These poor bastards must be all that managed to get away from the battle."
The Shadow came to a stop, the side doors opening up and the crew disembarking.
A squad of Turians in white armor emerged from the hastily established field hospital, carrying stretchers and helping to carry the wounded out. Nialla waved off a pair that tried to carry her off, instead ripping free a handrail from the Shadow and using it as a walking stick. "I can walk by myself. I need a crate of spare parts and some omni-gel to fix up my legs." John was impressed by the speed at which she'd gotten her cybernetics back in working order. When he and Samara had found the survivors, Nialla had been a "nugget" , but with just her Omni-Tool, she'd almost fully repaired herself.
"Marines, let's help the docs out. This field hospital can use a woman's touch, and you're the closest thing around." Sergeant Johnson said as he and his marines moved into the field hospital to assist the medics.
John saw a row of cots where almost two dozen soldiers were being treated for Carbine rounds. They held stomach and entrails that were turning green and rotting from the embedded rounds, or having their wounds thoroughly cleaned of infected tissue. Many of the soldiers wouldn't make it through the night. Medics were performing emergency amputations and organ removals, trying to remove as much tainted material as possible. There was a small pile of limbs and organs. Without dedicated medical facilities, the only treatment for the advanced cases would have to be euthanasia. The Sterile field generator hummed in the middle of the field hospital, while small flash-cloning tanks were creating replacement organs for the ever-growing pile of medical waste.
The sky suddenly turned black, revealing the arrival of the reinforcements. A flotilla of UNSC Frigates around a Phoenix-class colony ship, and three Asari cruisers were descending through the atmosphere, dropships launching from all hangar bays.
First came the smaller Asari Alutia-Class dropships, hovered into position using just powerful mass effect fields, and minimal engine thrusts. The side doors opened, and Asari Commandos leaped out of their dropships in a sprint, slowing down their descent and breaking into a run as they landed, moving out to establish a tripwire in the event of Covenant trying to approach the dropzone.
The Pelicans came next. Dropping off their attached Scorpion tanks in a full perimeter around the base, followed by heavily armed squads of UNSC Marines. The marines moved with a cold mechanical precision, without any sign of genuine initiative. Their hardsuits shone in the lights of the landing craft, and their weaponry was distinctly not standard UNSC-issue, but Turian lend-lease.
"Are those really Marines?" Sergeant Johnson asked with his cigar almost falling out of his slack-jawed mouth. "I've seen militias move with more initiative than that! Are we pushing recruits like that into battle?"
Nialla got up next to Johnson and followed his gaze, cautiously appraising the newly arrived marines. "Looks like a bunch of fresh recruits that just do what their VI's tell them is 'optimal'. Good for bolstering numbers and holding ground. Urban warfare is going to be hell for those unlucky bastards. But they're in for a rude wakeup call when the Covenant deploys their countermeasures again."
"Their hardsuits are too clean." John stated. "They should have dulled them by now. No armor should shine like that."
Sergeant Johnson shook his head. "I guess the brass thought numbers were more important than quality. I'll be sure to give them a piece of my mind." Sergeant Johnson got up and walked in the direction of the new arrivals.
Then came the D20 Heron's or "Pods," as the Marines called them. Large dropships that set down and flew back off, leaving large prefabricated firebases and bunkers in a circle around the village. Three field hospitals were dropped off next, spaced equally inside of the evacuation perimeter. It was gross overkill for how many survivors there were, but perhaps more would emerge from the wilderness soon.
John set out to leave the Village and find a remote location to call for an EVAC. Spartans weren't supposed to stick around in view for too long, and he had extended his stay. He'd call for Blue Team to extract him, and they could be on their way to the next battle.
A twig snapped behind him, and John whirled around, seeing the Asari standing there.
"I take it you'll be heading for a more stealthy extraction?" Samara asked, holding her helmet, and offering the Spartan a respectful smile and a stern nod. "It has been an honor working with you, Master Chief." Samara took her Carnifex and offered it to John. "Take this. A warrior like you needs a righteous weapon.."
John gently took the Carnifex and got a feel for the weapon. It felt lighter than his M6D Magnum but was comfortable in his grip. It was also bulkier than most Citadel Pistols he'd tried before disregarding them and sticking to his Magnum. The weapon was engraved lavishly and had texts that appeared to be Asari scripture. As he gripped it, his armor connected to the weapon's integrated VI, and showed him the ammunition types it could fire. To his surprise, it could fire over a dozen types of rounds, from armor piercing to warp rounds. He holstered the weapon. He'd make good use of it.
"Allow me to return the favor." John took his sheathed combat knife and offered it to Samara. His knife had gotten him through more than a few scrapes, and would do well in the hands of a skilled swordswoman. "As a token of friendship between the Spartans and the Justicars."
Samara took the knife and felt its weight, getting into a defensive posture, giving the weapon a few practice thrusts, then reversed the grip. "A fine weapon. I shall cherish it." She smiled, then walked off back into the village square.
"Another day, another battle won." John thought to himself, then disappeared into the night.