Unknown Human World, Northmost Continent
October 2nd, 1042 Local Time, 2552
The evergreen trees shook slightly as a harsh breeze blew across the forest, sending snowflakes to the ground where they joined the rest of their kind. The terrain was flat, but the deep snow meant walking took a little bit more effort than it normally would. Still, Ben had to keep raising his feet far higher than the rest of his squad, as his heavy armor made him more prone to sinking.
Thanks to their advanced armor, even the ODSTs didn't feel the cold. Even the worst blizzards stood no chance of penetrating armor that protected the occupant from the vacuum of space. Onyx team maintained a staggered column through the forest, with Ben taking point. Even in the dark, his enhanced eyesight let him see anything around them, combined with Curie's assistance and the advanced systems of his helmet, nothing would sneak up on them.
"This snow is really damn deep." Nathan said as he pulled his foot out of a sunken pocket concealed beneath the snow.
"Really? I hadn't noticed!" Yu yelled from the back of the column, as she struggled to keep her own feet moving.
"Can it!" Fairfire replied. Her tone implied annoyance, but she kept her voice low and spoke over the radio to ensure everyone could hear her. "Keep your observations relevant and your voice low, use your damn radios!"
"Yeah, about that…" Meadows responded. "Why the hell do people live here? If the rest of the planet is green and sunny, I can't imagine why you'd live here."
"This planet has a very diverse ecosystem, Sergeant Meadows." Curie interjected. "Remove any comparison of a terraformed world from your mind, this planet has likely gone much of the same natural development as Earth."
Ben keyed his own radio to interject. "That still doesn't explain why these people chose to live here, and not somewhere more habitable."
"Well, maybe you'll get to ask em'." Nathan pointed out.
They proceeded slowly, the snow hampering their progress more than they had anticipated. As they reached deeper into the pine forest, the obstruction lessened somewhat, allowing them to pick up the pace.
That's good, maybe we can- Ben thought, before he spotted something which forced him to stop that train of thought. "Sir, we've got tracks, ten o' clock."
Big ones too, not unusually large though. Apparently some of the outer colonies had some big fauna before they were glassed. Ben thought as he got a better look.
The squad changed course, quickly reaching the tracks, where the rest of the squad made the realization Ben did. The footprints resembled those of something like a bear, but were far too large for them to be part of any Earth-native species.
"Holy shit." Nathan said as he admired the tracks.
"Uh, yeah, that's big." Yu added, reaching down and scooping up some of the snow with her hand.
"Curie, what do you think?" Fairfire asked. She subconsciously adjusted her hands to grip her shotgun tighter, as if expecting the creature to be a threat.
"While they are large, they are not unusually so. Unfortunately, I neglected to update my known fauna databases before leaving the Dominion." Curie said, regret obvious in her voice. "Most regrettable, I will correct that as soon as I return."
"Well that's too bad. Take some pictures with Ben's helmet camera and upload them for later, we still have our objectives." Fairfire said.
"Yes, Miss Fairfire." Curie confirmed. Ben noted that this time Fairfire showed no sign of amusement, she was focused on the mission and her surroundings.
Good instincts. Ben thought, returning his own attention to checking their flanks.
Leaving behind the tracks they continued on their path towards the village. After walking at least another kilometer, they suddenly heard an explosion in the distance, large enough that it could be heard quite distinctly by everyone in the squad. The whole squad dropped to a kneeling position and raised their weapons, sweeping the surrounding forest for contacts.
"What the hell was that?!" Nathan demanded, his vital readout on Ben's HUD noted his raised heart rate.
"Sounded small, a grenade maybe?" Meadows suggested.
"Yeah, or a really big ass gun." Yu proposed.
"Couldn't be." Ben pointed out. "That explosion didn't come from a barrel, it was large and uncontrolled."
"Either way, I doubt it's a fight, we'd be hearing more explosions, gunshots as well." Fairfire said.
"Could just be a freak accident." Wilson suggested. "Maybe some fuel being blown up?"
"Or perhaps an unknown natural phenomenon." Curie suggested.
Fairfire slowly left her kneeling position. "Well, we can't say for sure. Either way, let's pick up the pace." Fairfire ordered.
The squad continued onward without any more discussion. No further explosions rang out, and they had entered within a kilometer of the town when Ben's enhanced vision spotted something stuck to one of the trees, not even a few meters away from one of the ODSTs. Curie spotted it at the same time.
"Hold!" She called out in panic over the radio, all of the Helljumpers immediately froze in place.
Ben raised his fist to get everyone's attention, before pointing at the object. "IED, on the tree."
The rest of the squad looked to where Ben was pointing and were surprised to see what looked like a grenade stuck to the tree. It was hooked up to some sort of small rectangular metal box, fitted with a large lens.
A laser sensor? Either way, it's nonvisible. Ben thought.
"Jesus Christ." Nathan said, taking several deep breaths. His normal light-hearted demeanor disappeared as he stood not twenty meters from an explosive he would have wandered right into. The rest of the squad loosened up a bit as well, but their discipline recovered quickly, and they held their formation.
"Curie, scan it." Ben ordered, moments later she answered.
"It is done." Curie reported. "The affixed device is some sort of optical sensor, and the grenade is triggered by some kind of related fuse. It has no visible safety mounted, and it is likely armed."
"Catch all that Sir?" Ben asked.
"Yeah.." She said, her visor didn't move a millimeter as she thought up a solution to the problem. "Curie, what's standard protocol say to do?"
"Detonate the ordinance to reduce the threat to civilian travellers." Curie answered.
Fairfire eyed the explosive for a moment before speaking. "So we should shoot it?"
"That seems like the best way to disarm the threat." Curie stated..
Fairfire gave a nod of acknowledgment. "Alright everyone, get back to a safe distance!"
The squad did as she asked, retreating to a safe distance and taking cover, most of them behind a large fallen log.
"We're clear." Ben said as he positioned himself accordingly. His battle rifle would be ideal for the single accurate shot needed to disable the improvised explosive device.
"Copy that." Fairfire said. "Take it out at your discretion."
"Wilco, fire in the hole." Ben said. He took a single shot at the IED, causing it to detonate immediately, spraying shrapnel and flames in every direction. Wood chips from the tree it was mounted on peppered the surrounding snow as the tree swayed, attempting the stay standing, which it surprisingly did.
That's odd, any UNSC grenade would have been labeled, and it would have had a safety to prevent detonation when shot. Ben thought, perplexed by the strange device. Then again, IEDs are unique little bastards, maybe it was a homemade device?
"Well, that was exciting." Curie said, a hint of relief in her voice.
"Sir, we should keep our eyes open. There won't be just one." Ben advised.
"Yeah, I know..." Fairfire said, obvious dread in her voice. "Alright, eyes peeled everyone, take it nice and easy."
The team began to slowly advance again, this time with Curie diverting all of her power towards surveying their surroundings. They encountered several more of the IED's, each one mounted to a tree at around waist height. Avoiding them was easy, as it seemed their only method of detonation was being hit with substantial force or a close-range proximity detonation.
Actually clearing a path through the explosives was similarly easy, as bullets were more than sufficient to disable or detonate the explosives. Ben noted they detonated more then they didn't, which was alarming, whoever built these had built them well.
Perhaps these are a local model of mine, if so, why make them? Ben thought. "What are they trying to keep away?"
"Wolves maybe…" Nathan said, shifting his DMR with notable discomfort.
"Or maybe whatever animal those big-ass footprints belonged to?" Yu suggested.
"That's reassuring…" Nathan sardonically noted, his visor shifting to look out into the forest with renewed purpose.
"We don't know why these things were made." Ben said, attempting to maintain healthy skepticism. "There could be some sort of local conflict we don't know about."
"It doesn't matter." Fairfire said, raising her fist to halt the squad. "We should consider pulling out, we're obviously somewhere that visitors aren't welcome."
"We're scrubbing the mission completely?" Ben asked, normally it was against his instincts to question a superior officer, but abandoning the mission entirely seemed like an overreaction. "Even if we aren't going to make contact, we should still consider doing some recon, maybe figure out why these things were put here."
"...Maybe, I'll have to call it in." Fairfire said, before keying her helmet radio to speak with the Dominion high above.
As the rest of the squad waited for Fairfire to finish her brief exchange with the Commander, Ben spotted something out of the corner of his eye before them. Whatever it was, it was considerably large, and blended well with the dark pine forest. He snapped his rifle to attention and took aim down the sight, but nothing was visible.
"Sir, movement, about a hundred meters out." Ben called out, keeping his voice quiet and speaking over the radio.
"Standby." Fairfire said, quickly ending her communication with the Dominion as she gripped her shotgun with renewed vigor. "What is it?"
"Wildlife I'd guess, far too big to be a person." Ben answered. Even with his enhanced perception, he couldn't get a good look at what he had seen, it was almost like the creature must've had fur specifically designed to blend into darkness.
That doesn't seem likely, a dark-furred creature in a snowy environment, what are the odds of that? Ben thought, although his knowledge of wildlife wasn't great.
"How big Sergeant?" Fairfire asked. She'd joined him at his position, and attempted to follow his gaze, but Ben couldn't spot the creature again. Ben was about to give his response before the whole squad heard an animalistic roar from the same direction Ben was facing.
"Big." Ben simply reaffirmed as the roar subsided. "I didn't get a good look."
"Oh hell." Meadows quietly muttered.
All of the ODSTs leveled their weapons and tensed up considerably, a stance Ben had already adopted.
"Steady!" Fairfire called out. "Hold your fire!"
Even despite the frightful situation, the well-trained and disciplined Helljumpers stood their ground. In the distance, the trees shook again, but this time something emerged. One of the ODSTs let out a swear in a language Ben didn't recognize as a menacing creature emerged from the trees before them.
The animal was very large, slightly smaller than a Warthog. Its appearance was similar to that of a bear, but with so many unnatural features it was only a passing resemblance. A layer of dense black fur, broken only by what appeared to be plates of bone armor coating anywhere where joints weren't present, however large areas of fur were still present around it's larger flanks. Some of the plates formed spiky protrusions, looking unnaturally sharp and dangerous. The feature that kept Ben's attention however, was a set of red eyes that appeared to be faintly glowing from behind a mask of bone.
"Ben..." Curie said, obviously worried, but he also picked up a spark of curiosity.
"Sir, orders?" Ben asked, although he'd already lined up a shot. The creature practically radiated with hate, and his gut feeling was adamant that a fight was inevitable.
Before Fairfire could respond the creature charged towards them, and from the trees behind it two more of the creatures emerged, taking up flanking positions behind the leader as it barreled towards them. Suddenly confronted with two additional tangos, Ben steadied his aim on the leader as Fairfire gave the order.
"Weapons free!" She shouted.
The squad did as she ordered, unleashing a barrage of gunfire at the targets. However, half of the squad was armed with submachine guns, which fired small-caliber rounds with a shorter effective range, rendering their effect minimal. Fairfire drew her magnum to contribute, her shotgun lacking the range to engage at that distance despite the creature's rapid advance. Nathan, Yu, and Ben were the only ones with weapons ideal for their current engagement range, with full sized rifles capable of precision fire at range.
None of the creatures were stopped by the initial wave of gunfire, but all of them were forced to reduce their pace by the barrage of projectiles. Ben focused his fire on the sections of flesh unprotected by bony plates, successfully managing to shatter the front left leg of the leader with a well-placed burst from his battle rifle, causing the beast to tumble and fall.
"Ben take the left one, everyone else take down the bastard on the right!" Fairfire shouted, recognizing that the leader was no longer an immediate threat.
Ben did as she asked, shifting his fire onto the rapidly approaching creature. At first he prioritized the creature's legs, trying to immobilize it for an easy kill until he noticed a chink in the beasts armor slightly behind one of its eyes. A quick burst through the hole perforated its skull, dropping the beast dead in its tracks. A quick glance confirmed the ODSTs had punched more holes into their target then was probably necessary, rendering it either paralyzed or dead. The skirmish had lasted only a few seconds, but it had still gotten their blood pumping with renewed vigor.
"Leave the last one!" Fairfire commanded as Ben raised his rifle to kill the wounded and final target.
"Do as she says! I simply must examine it!" Curie said, her cautious attitude overridden by her curiosity.
Understandable, I'm hardly a scientist and I still want to know what the hell those were. Ben thought.
"Yes sir." Ben said, before swapping his partially empty magazine for a full one.
The ODSTs cautiously advanced on the wounded animal, weapons raised. Not once did it calm down or give even the slightest indication that it was in pain. Instead it feverishly continued to fruitlessly crawl with it's remaining limbs toward Fairfire and Ben, who both approached it.
"Sir, permission to pacify the... hostile?" Ben asked, uncertain which word he wanted to use.
"Granted, just stop it from moving so damn much." Fairfire said, kneeling before it the demented creature struggled towards her with fury in its eyes. "Pin it so we can get a good look at it."
Ben walked the remaining distance to the beast until he was within striking range. When the beast lunged its head at him, Ben grabbed it by the neck and caught the beast in a choke hold.
The first observation Ben made was how strong the damn thing was. Even wearing the most advanced power armor in the UNSC's arsenal and genetically augmented to superhuman standards, Ben was barely able to keep the beast still. Even in a choke hold, the beast continued to struggle against his grip, desperately trying to free itself. A swift elbow to one of it's remaining legs shattered the bone, lessening the amount of work Ben had to put in to keep it still. With the beast pinned and able to be killed at any time, the Helljumpers cautiously approached it, although they wisely did not lower their weapons.
"What is it, Liz?" Yu asked as she looked at the animal.
"I have no goddamn clue Corporal." Fairfire said as she stared the beast down, the beast stared back. "Have any of you ever seen anything like this?"
Every single ODST gave a quick variation of "no". Ben likewise confirmed that he hadn't.
"Looks like some sort of mutant from a shitty horror movie Sir." Nathan commented.
"Yeah, I agree. Ben, how strong is it?" Fairfire asked.
"Pretty damn strong!" Ben said as he tightened his grip as it started to dig it's back legs into the ground trying to free itself. "But I can hold it."
"No need, we've had our look, kill it." Fairfire said dispassionately.
Ben didn't bother drawing his weapons, he simply tightened his grip and snapped its neck, before letting it's limp head fall to the ground.
"I certainly hope it wasn't endangered." Curie said sadly.
"Don't worry, I'll wrestle another one for you." Ben jokingly offered.
"Uh, Sir, the others are uh..." Wilson interjected, but quickly trailed off.
"What is it Private?" Fairfire asked before turning her head and watching as the last of the other two creatures finished dissolving into thin air.
"What the…" Nathan said. He quickly ran up and dug away at some of the snow where they had lay, but there was nothing to be found.
"Uh, Curie?" Ben asked, hoping she had an explanation.
"I am afraid I am just as confused as you are." Curie said, her excitement barely diminished.
The squad stood there in silence, all turning their attention to the final creature as it simply disappeared and vanished into a fine black mist, before even that dissolved into nothingness.
"Uh, what was that?" Meadows asked, breaking the silence.
"What that was, Sergeant, was not our goddamn priority." Fairfire stated. "We've got footage of it for later, let's get back to the mission at hand."
"What, we're just gonna look past the bit where we got attacked by demon bears?" Yu asked snarkily.
"I'll have you know that's a very rare and endangered arctic satan bear, educate yourself." Nathan jokingly commented, although Ben could still sense the faint shakiness in his voice.
"Like I said, not our goddamn priority." Fairfire reaffirmed, directing a harsh glare at Yu and Nathan to punctate her point. "I never finished calling in our discoveries, give me a moment."
Surprisingly, Fairfire didn't take very long with her conversation, and while Ben couldn't hear their discussion, her body language suggested that she wasn't happy with what she heard.
"Looks like you get your wish Ben, we're going to do a bit of recon." Fairfire said, somewhat grumpily.
"I didn't mean to subvert your command, Sir." Ben said, clarifying his intentions.
"That's not my problem Sergeant, I just wanted to do recon anywhere but a fucking minefield." Fairfire grumbled. "At least we have someone with shields to take point, move it out!"
Just as the squad was about to move out, Meadows raised a fist to stop them.
"Hold up Sir, we have more contacts approaching, your nine o' clock." He said.
"What is it? More Bears?" Fairfire asked, raising her shotgun once more.
"Negative, looks like... humans." Meadows akwardly answered..
Ben turned his attention and saw a group of what appeared to be soldiers that was a similar size to their own squad advancing towards them. They were armed, and were clearly purposefully equipped to deal with the terrain, with white armor and heavily padded clothes. Ben noted their armor was quite primitive, at least in design.
It was obviously quite heavy, and every single one of them had a large polarized visor on their helmets. Ben noted a 12 pointed snowflake insignia on both shoulders of their armor as well as on their chests. They moved with a hint of wariness, like because of some sort of aversion towards the squad of Marines or perhaps those bear-like creatures.
"Sir, how should we play this?" Yu asked, maintaining her rifle in a ready position.
For a brief moment, Fairfire was silent. She eyed the squad of foreign soldiers, before letting out a sigh. "Lower your weapons, it looks like we're gonna have to talk our way out of this."
She lowered her shotgun and gave a friendly wave towards the presumed soldiers, but Ben could still sense a feeling of tension from the Helljumpers around him.
Well, I guess this is one way to make first contact. I hope Fairfire can talk us out of this... Ben thought as he doubled checked the safety on his own weapon. He was well aware that it may very well appear that they arrived to sabotage the minefield in the forest, which was likely fuel into hostility.
The ODSTs fanned out slightly, but all of them kept their weapons lowered. The foreign soldiers continued to approach with a few more reassuring gestures from Fairfire. At last, they entered speaking distance. Before Fairfire could issue a greeting, one of the soldiers who was apparently the leader spoke first.
"This is a restricted area. Who are you and how the hell did you get out here?" The soldier asked, obviously bewildered by their presence.
The whole squad was taken aback, the man spoke English fluently, although it was influenced with a slight German accent.
Why the hell would you restrict access to a village in the middle of nowhere? Ben thought, more curious than anything else.
"I am Staff Sergeant Fairfire, United Nations Space Command Marine Corps." Fairfire said. "This is the rest of my fireteam, we arrived via our dropship, we're looking for the people who live in the village around a kilometer south of here."
The lead soldier simply stared at her, his visor hiding his expression. Seeing that he apparently wasn't going to respond Fairfire continued.
"We-" Fairfire began, but was immediately cut off.
"Wait, hold on, say that first bit again, slowly." The man said, seemingly still digesting it.
Fairfire did as he asked, repeating her first sentence deliberately slower.
"Well, that's certainly creative." The man said. "What are you, aliens or something?"
"In the sense that we aren't native to this planet? Yes." Fairfire said nonchalantly. "Look-"
"I don't buy that." he said, obviously irritated. "Regardless, I guess who you are isn't too important. My primary concern is what the hell you're doing out here."
Fairfire sighed once more, Ben could practically feel her patience drain away. "Alright. Initially we were sent down here in order to make contact with the people of this… village, of yours."
"Now hold a moment…" He said. Although Ben couldn't see his face, he could imagine the look of sheer confusion on his face. "That doesn't explain why the hell you decided to tear a path through our Grimm defense web. Sabotaging Grimm defenses is a felony, let alone doing it on private property of the Schnee Dust Company."
Grimm? Ben thought, noting the obviously out-of-place word. Maybe that's just what they call the wildlife around here...
"Well, we're not exactly too familiar with the customs around here." Fairfire replied. "Whether you believe we came from orbit or somewhere else on this planet isn't important. I didn't show up here to march my squad through a live minefield!"
"Well… why do it then?" He asked, seemingly more confused than angry.
Ben suddenly understood what Fairfire was trying to do, capture the focus of the foreign soldier and maybe even steer them away from fighting. She pressed onwards with her words. "Because minefield or not, I have orders to reconnoiter this… area, and collect whatever useful information I can."
The man looked back to his squad, and then back to Fairfire. "I'm gonna have to call this in, please give me a moment here."
"By all means, go right ahead." She said.
The man reached for something on the side of his helmet and apparently privately spoke with a commanding officer. The two squads of visored soldiers inspected one another as the tension between them momentarily subsided.
"Curie, can you intercept that signal?" Ben privately asked her.
"I am afraid not, whatever software language it's using, I have no experience with." Curie answered. "Even though the encryption looks simplistic, I would need a lot of time to figure it out."
"Don't bother, it looks like he's finishing up anyway." Ben said, noticing how the soldier slowly took his hand off of his headset and returned it to the grip of his rifle.
"Ok, I've been ordered to take you in, will you come quietly or not?" The soldier asked.
Oh hell. Ben thought. Curie quietly let out the phrase in French she commonly used when something bad was about to happen.
Fairfire, even though it seemed inevitable that fighting would break out, made one last effort to put a stop to it. "Buddy, take it from an honest-to-god Marine, this is not how you want first contact with your planet to go…"
Both sides raised their rifles, with Ben snapping his to aim directly at the leader's head with frightening speed. Some of the foreign soldiers seemed to recognize the threat he posed, and pointed their weapons at him in turn. Ben briefly pondered whether or not he should speak up, and decided that he could hardly make things worse than they already were.
"Listen to what she says." Ben said, letting his digitally altered voice ring out throughout the squad of native human soldiers.
The man didn't listen, and made a grab for Fairfire's shotgun. She responded by punching him in the throat, causing him to recoil and raise his rifle. Before he could fire, Fairfire brought her shotgun to bear first and blasted him backwards. As the pellets of buckshot hit him, Ben was shocked to see some sort of energy wall form where they impacted, protecting the now hostile soldier from harm. Curie audibly gasped in shock at the display.
Energy shields?! Ben thought.
He pushed his concerns aside to reflect on his questions later, this was a battle, it was time to do what he was trained to do. He shifted his battle rifle to one of the soldiers aiming at him and fired a three round burst at his head. Again, some kind of energy shield protected the man, but he visibly recoiled from the impact anyway. Several of the enemy soldiers focused their first shots on him as they began to back up, but Ben's own energy shields protected him.
Both the ODSTs and the new hostiles scrambled to put some distance between themselves and their opponents, firing as they began to move towards cover. Several more low caliber bullets bounced off Bens armor's energy shield, barely even reducing its strength. The Helljumpers raised an impressive degree of suppressive fire, but it wasn't enough to pin all of the enemy soldiers down.
"Ben, they need cover!" Curie said. Immediately he realized what she meant, the enemy had personal energy shields, the ODSTs did not. In extreme close quarters combat energy shields presented a large enough advantage that even the top-notch Helljumpers would not survive for very long.
"Reroute excess power to the equipment module." Ben said calmly, the obvious solution already formed within his mind.
"Done!" Curie urgently replied.
"Squad, cluster up around me!" Ben yelled, making deliberate usage of his microphone to amplify his voice over the gunfire.
There was no time for snarky remarks or questions as to what he was planning. The Helljumpers complied, starting to rapidly maneuver towards him. Ben watched as Private Wilson, the first ODST that made it beside him was shot, a spray of blood flying away from his shoulders and covering the snow as he fell to the ground, but Ben had no time to check on his condition. As all of the ODSTs clustered around him in close proximity, he spotted a grenade fly through the air towards them.
"Ben!" Curie called out in panic.
Time slowed down, the grenade's trajectory through the air decreased its speed, and the gunfight around him seemed to be moving at a snail's pace. As Spartan Time kicked in, it provided him enough time to activate his Mjolnir's attached equipment module.
A few days before they had left Onyx to board the Dominion, Ben and Curie had been given a choice of one of several new equipment modules to be installed in Ben's suit, and both of them had agreed on the same option, the Drop Shield. Offering a protective bubble of energy that could be configured to be impassable or traversable by soldiers, as well as a tissue regenerative effect that was still not understood by UNSC scientists. But in this particular instance, it was it's protective capabilities against gunfire that proved the most useful.
The whole squad was suddenly surrounded in a bubble of energy, hexagonal shapes formed a sphere around the ODSTs. The enemy forces stopped firing as they looked at the bubble in shock, and then at the grenade they had thrown that had bounced off of the shield and landed at their feet. Only a second later, it detonated, most of the enemy soldiers were caught in the blast radius, pieces of shrapnel bounced off their energy shields, The leader that Fairfire had gotten with a shotgun blast had his shield overwhelmed and a piece of metal launched messily through his skull, killing him instantly.
"Neat party trick Ben." Fairfire said, before turning to her squad. "Status?!"
"I'm hit but not bad!" Meadows called out, clutching his shoulder, Ben moved to assist him with covering it with Biofoam.
"Ben, priority! Give me that damn biofoam!" Yu called out. Ben looked over and saw her and Fairfire kneeling beside Private Wilson, a quick look confirmed had been shot in the neck.
That takes priority, sorry Meadows. Ben thought, tossing the biofoam over, which Yu caught and was about to administer when Fairfire stopped her, Ben also noticing the same thing she must have.
"Yu, he's gone." Fairfire said.
"You don't know that!" Yu protested.
Are you really going to argue while people need your help? Take her word for it! Ben thought sheer disbelief at the display of improper discipline. A quick glance at his HUD confirmed Fairfire's words, Wilson was flatlined, the bullet must've penetrated his spinal cord and killed his nervous system. At least it was quick...
"Look at your HUD!" Fairfire said. "He's got no pulse and his body temperature is already cooling, he's dead."
Yu paused as she struggled to think of an argument. "There's gotta be-"
Something in Ben's brain snapped, and he felt a rush of anger. He began to sweat as he felt his body temperature rise rapidly. He stepped over to the two Helljumpers and swiped the biofoam canister out of Yu's hand.
"Get your shit together! Your squadmate needs help, and since you won't do it, I will!" Ben snapped, his voice a low growl. Yu froze with an emotion Ben didn't care to examine as he took the can.
Ben quickly treated the rest of the squad's wounds one by one, the biofoam would stabilize them, but it was a temporary solution. Even in his state of fury, Ben was more than capable of performing first aid.
He kept a close eye on the enemy soldiers outside of the bubble while he did so. It seemed that they had taken the brief interlude in the fighting to do the same thing, as they recovered their wounded and acquired better fighting positions.
"Ben-" Meadows began, speaking in a gentle tone as Ben sealed his shoulder shut.
"Unless it's relevant to your treatment, save it!" Ben retorted. Meadows made no further comment. As Ben finished treating Meadow's wounds, he handed the biofoam canister to the man, vaguely recalling something about him having some degree of medical experience.
"You have forty percent of the can left, use it well." Ben said as he handed over the canister.
"Are you okay Monsieur Ben?" Curie asked, obviously worried, she spoke only to him through his helmet as he returned his focus to the battle around them.
"I'm fine." Ben answered. He was frustrated, that did not inhibit his ability to fight. "How long does the shield have?"
"Fifty-two seconds until the shield fails." Curie said, concern in her voice still evident, this time she spoke using the speaker, bringing the squad up to speed.
Now somewhat calmer, Ben turned to Fairfire, who was pulling a piece of a shattered bullet out of her visor. Her face was visible as the polarization function had broken. Outside of the bubble, a single soldier tested the strength of the shield with a single shot, which richoted away, discouraging future attempts.
"What's the plan Sir?" Ben asked.
"I've called Fireball, she's on her way. She'll be here in three minutes." Fairfire said.
Ben nodded. "Anything to stay alive until then?"
"Fighting retreat, we aren't equipped to fight shielded enemies." Fairfire said simply.
"They'll blow you apart as you make the dash to the Pelican." Ben pointed out. "That armor doesn't make you bulletproof."
"Ben, twenty-five seconds." Curie said, urgency in her voice.
"I'll cover your retreat, give me your frag." Ben said. holding out his hand.
Fairfire shook her head with a slight grin visible on her face. "You're a real madman, you know that Spartan?" But it was a rhetorical question, she complied with his request and handed over her grenade, Ben stored it next to his own. "What's your plan?"
"I'm going to take them all on at once." Ben said simply. "Draw their fire and give you some cover in the process. I can take them."
Fairfire nodded. "I don't doubt it, good luck Sierra."
While the ODSTs prepared to dash to more stable cover and picked up their fallen comrade and his weapon, Ben loaded a fresh magazine into his battle rifle and looked through the shield at the enemy's position.
They had spread out amongst the trees and taken up a wide, disorganized formation. They had also moved back away from the shield, not too far, with their positions ranging from twenty to thirty meters away.
"Seven seconds." Curie warned.
"Analyze their formation, find me the ideal location for a grenade." Ben said.
A split second later an outline of where to throw a grenade appeared on his HUD. "Please, be careful monsieur."
"We play it safe, no heroics, just like Kurt taught us." Ben replied calmly.
"Three seconds." Curie relayed.
Right on cue, the shield fell. Ben bolted forward, priming his first grenade before throwing it, and firing as he ran directly towards the enemy. Trees made for bad cover, especially when faced against UNSC grade ballistics and semi-armor-piercing projectiles, meaning that even the sheltered enemies could not escape his fire.
The key to fighting shield based opponents was hitting them with enough energy to overwhelm them, be it heat, electrical, or good old fashioned kinetic, enough energy would overwhelm any shield. The strategy was proven when his first target's shield broke and Ben was free to put a three round burst through their chest, sending them to the ground from which they did not get back up.
The first grenade detonated, sending shrapnel, snow, and wooden splinters flying in every direction. The explosion caught almost every enemy soldier on the left flank in the blast. Only one or two died in the blast, but all of the soldiers were in bad shape and their coordination was gone, giving Ben a little less fire to worry about. They seemed to be caught off guard by his charge.
"Rerouting supplementary power towards maintaining shields." Curie said urgently, speaking only to Ben.
Ben had succeeded in acquiring the attention of most of the enemy soldiers, but it was beginning to cause problems. Even though the enemy's shots did surprisingly little damage to his shields, he was just as vulnerable towards having them overloaded as the enemy were. Already, they had been reduced to a third of their initial durability.
His drop shield would also need more time to recharge, meaning he would need to find physical cover or start taking hits. The only cover available was a less than optimally thick tree, but without any real options, Ben stopped his advance and took cover, getting as near to the ground as he could without compromising his ability to move quickly, finding himself in a low kneeling position.
Several of the soldiers on his right flank shifted their focus to the retreating ODSTs once Ben entered cover. He noticed this, and primed the grenade he had been given by Fairfire to give them cover. He noticed that it wasn't actually a standard fragmentation grenade, it was a similar looking high explosive grenade, designed to destroy structures, not clusters of infantry. Regardless, the enemy were clustered just close enough that it would be effective, and without any further options, he threw it.
The grenade detonated on impact, creating a deafening roar that boomed throughout the forest, with the subsequent wave of fire engulfing every one of his targets. One of the enemy soldiers who had been frantically screaming something into his handheld radio was right at the epicenter of the explosion, and was instantly killed, along with two of his companions, the rest of the enemies in the squad were either badly injured or left with barely-intact shields.
By now, the enemy soldiers were starting to realize that they were outmatched, and started a slow retreat. Ben did not pursue, but continued firing bursts into any enemy who turned to fight, managing to score another kill in the process.
"Their shields seem to be very inconsistent in strength, and they should have recharged by now if they have an onboard power supply, maybe they use batteries?" Curie said as she observed the enemies behavior.
"We'll have plenty of opportunity to study them later!" Ben replied urgently, looking at his rapidly dwindling ammo count. As he reloaded his second to last magazine, Fairfire's voice became audible over the radio, as well as the roar of a Pelican's engines.
"Ben, get your head down. Enemy reinforcements incoming!" Fairfire shouted.
"Running low on ammo, what's the plan?" Ben asked. "I only need a few seconds to recharge shields-"
"Fireball can handle them! Keep your head down, this is gonna be danger-close." Fairfire said.
"Understood." Ben responded simply, hunkering down in his position and covering his head.
"Oh dear me..." Curie commented.
Pelican Zulu One-Nine-Eight
Cockpit
Patricia "Fireball" Hartmann was normally not happy with having ground troops in the cockpit. But so far Staff Sergeant Fairfire had been nothing but helpful, offering valuable intelligence about her new opponents and most delightfully, informing her they didn't seem to have anti-aircraft munitions.
"You're cleared to fire." Fairfire relayed.
It's always a good day when the bastards get cheap with air defenses. She thought with immense satisfaction as she brought the aircraft to a more stable hover. Time for a stern lesson in modern warfare.
"You see them?" Fireball asked her Co-Pilot, who already had control of the chin mounted autocannon.
"Targets acquired, looks like maybe eight-plus foot mobiles, approaching fast. They've seen us." he reported. "Small arms incoming, but it's not a threat."
Fireball listened as tiny sounds of metallic impacts could be heard through the dropship's hull. She nearly laughed at the pathetic effort to bring down her dropship.
"Weapons free." She stated as she unlocked the safety on the main cannon, immediately she heard the large 70mm chaingun begin firing it's colossal depleted uranium slugs at the hostile infantry.
Wanting to see the carnage, she switched one of her non-critical displays to a camera feed from the gun's optics system, and watched as the enemy infantry were torn to ribbons.
That's what you get you innie bastards. She thought with satisfaction as the enemy infantry was wiped out, their shields all but useless against such devastatingly large projectiles.
"All targets are history Fireball." her Co-Pilot announced. "I think I see some wounded down there…"
"Leave em', we ain't covies." Fireball said. "Okay, we're coming in for a landing now."
"Nice shooting." Ben commented over the radio. "Some of them got away, should we pursue?"
"Negative, we're grabbing you and getting the hell out of here." Fairfire stated.
Picking up Ben was uneventful, and with all of the UNSC personnel aboard, either alive or dead, Fireball began the process of returning to the Dominion.