AN: More Murphy's Law as promised. I know its been a while but I hope you guys enjoy. let me know what you think :)
"Armor is a fantasy invented by your C.O. to make you feel better." - Excerpt from Murphy's Laws of Combat Operations
Location: URF controlled planet X50, 09:39 hours standard military time, mission clock +01:09. January 9th, 2559.
Brandon hit the floor as the deafening sound of metal shearing, rounds impacting, and sparks flying exploded all around him. He felt the air rush out of his lungs as something impacted his chest armor. He coughed, sputtered, and struggled to his knees. Light, dust, and metal fragments filled the air. Flashes obscured his vision.
I'm going to die, he thought.
His hearing protection automatically began to filter the out the sound of gunfire so it wouldn't drown out his squad's voices, but that was mostly frantic screaming and swearing.
Where the fuck is my rifle? He wondered, as he crawled around on the ground, near completely blind, looking for anything to defend himself.
Eventually he found a solid piece of metal and clamped his hand down on it. It didn't take him long to realize it was a Spartan's boot. He looked up, wiping his hand across his visor to clear his vision, leaving finger shaped streaks in his vision, and revealing the form of an angel.
Surrounded in a halo of sparks and glowing blue from a flaring shield, she held her SAW steady and fired it in a sweeping motion to cover her friends. Her imposing armored form stood like a wall between her and anything that might harm her team.
Alison gave him a quick glance before resuming firing as if to say, "I've got you covered. Now get us out of here."
Brandon felt his heart slow as he tore his eyes from Alison and back to the situation at hand. He'd make it out of here. How couldn't he, with her on his side?
He flipped on his helmet VISR system to improve his vision, then grabbed his rifle from where it fell, right next to him, and stood.
He took stock of his situation. The many, many holes in the thin, sheet metal walls of the warehouse showed that the URF hadn't bothered with trying to chase them into the warehouse, and instead had fired through the warehouse's walls.
Had they been facing regular soldiers, their plan may have succeeded, but the fire had hardly phased the armored and shielded Spartans, and luckily the first round had knocked him down and out of the line of fire.
Maybe I'm not so unlucky after all.
Naomi and Alison were both stacked up on the door, exchanging fire with URF forces while Mal laid flat on the floor next to Vaz, who was still struggling to stay alert.
If he wasn't moved soon, a stray bullet would catch him and he'd be going home in a body bag.
"On your feet," he yelled to Mal as he rushed to him.
Mal looked up, and then wordlessly complied. He looked shaken, but quickly he readied himself to go. He struggled to his knees and slowly crawled to the doorway to return fire with the Spartans.
Brandon blew past him and grabbed Vaz's drag handle, yanking him out of harm's way and sliding his motionless body across the concrete.
"Cover me while I move!" He yelled to Alison.
Alison didn't need to be told twice.
"I've got you covered!" She yelled back as she ramped up the fire from her SAW.
Meanwhile Naomi drew a grenade from her chest plate and hurled it at URF forces, causing a large flash and explosion, and halting the URF's fire momentarily, before it returned to a deafening roar.
Brandon saw his chance and ran, Vaz in hand, back behind a stack of AI containment units. Once he knew the ODST was secure, Brandon immediately got on his radio.
"Murphy's Law, Kilo-5," he said frantically into the radio, hoping he could be heard over the gunfire. "We are in contact. Request permission to destroy AA guns, over."
Osman responded almost immediately.
"Roger, proceed," she said robotically.
Her voice was clipped and harsh, echoing the tone of her Spartan sisters. Even though she was thousands of miles above them, she too was in combat mode.
Brandon highlighted the charges connected to the AA guns on his HUD and clamped his hand down on the detonator. Explosions rocked the compound, and the URF momentarily ceased fire in shock as metal fragments and fired rained down throughout the compound.
The distraction didn't last long, however. It didn't take them long to regroup, now angrier than before.
Brandon activated his radio to call Dev for air support, but a moment later noticed two error messages on his HUD.
Detonation frequencies invalid, the error read. No charges detected on theses bands.
He switched his HUD to view live Aerial Recon from the 'Law. In the midst of all the smoke and wreckage, two URF AA guns remained.
"Dammit," he swore.
There was no way these Innie hicks found the bombs that quickly. The AI must have helped them located and disarm the bombs.
Dev would just have to manage with six out of eight disabled.
"Tart-cart-4, this is Kilo-5. Request Air Cavalry. Please be advised. Two AA guns are still operational. Over."
Brandon could hear the fatigue in his own voice. He needed to secure that shit. His team was counting on him to be alert.
"Roger," Devereaux acknowledged, spitting the word like a curse.
A moment later the screaming engines of a pelican ripped through the sky overhead, followed by the sound of a salvo of missiles firing and a 20mm autocannon tearing up the ground.
"Kilo-5, this is Bogof-6. ODSTs on the Ground," said the other pilot, who'd flown the pelican containing the ODSTs and the warthog.
"Circling back to provide air..." but the transmission was cut off just as a string of 20mm rounds was let go by one of the URF's AA guns.
Brandon didn't have to wait for radio confirmation to know what that meant. A moment later he heard an explosion in the distance, followed by cheering from the URF forces outside.
A sickening feeling built in his stomach as he frantically accessed the various helmet camera feeds that were available to him via his HUD, until he found Devereaux's.
He was treated to a green tinted thermal view of a pelican, crashed and burning in the jungle canopy, while soldiers frantically piled out of the wreck.
He narrowly stopped himself from jumping into thoughts of his Division's slaughter. His breath quickened. The sweat of his palms soaked his gloves.
It was happening again.
"Break, break, break," yelled an ODST over the radio, no doubt one of the survivors of the crash. "Tart-Cart-4 this is Azrael-6, Nine-line to follow."
"Fuck," cursed Brandon.
This op was going FUBAR quick.
He looked down to see that Vaz was secured, then moved back to the choke point the Spartans had established at the doorway.
"Get us the hell out of here!" He yelled to the two of them.
His voice wasn't tired anymore. They'd lost soldiers, and if he didn't pull it together they'd lose more.
The Spartans turned as one, their movements synchronized, and ran headlong into enemy fire as their shields flared bright blue.
Brandon knew the mindset they were in. He'd only seen Alison enter it twice, and it was frightening. They would fight emotionlessly until they fell or their enemy did.
Good thing they were on his side.
and advanced through the doorway, slinging lead as they approached the overwhelming URF force.
Brandon motioned for Mal to grab Vaz, then followed the Spartans, taking cover behind a concrete barrier as the Spartans made for the wire through a hail of URF fire.
Brandon popped up to cover them, settling his crosshairs on a URF militiaman and pulling the trigger, blood to erupt from his chest as he fell back to the ground.
Later, he would be taken aback by the fact that he'd just killed another human being. He'd been doing entirely too much of that this mission. He'd almost come to accept it as normal, for the time being.
But those were thoughts he would save for after he was done protecting his life, and the lives of his teammates.
Location: URF controlled planet X50, 09:17 hours standard military time, mission clock +00:47. January 9th, 2559.
Devereaux held Tart-Cart's controls loosely as she circled the URF's small compound at an altitude of 3,000 feet. At the moment, she didn't have much to worry about. The URF didn't possess the technology to detect stealth aircraft; certainly not hers, which had been outfitted with augmented forerunner stealth panels by ADJ. For the movement, all she was concerned with was staying in pattern, and waiting for Brandon to signal for a pick up.
She missed the days of being a combat pilot in the regular Marine Corps There wasn't any of this sneaking around shit, just the pure heart pounding adrenaline a pilot craved.
She quietly laughed at how fucked up she must be to want to have plasma rounds hurled at her and watch her buddies get burned out of the sky again, but you couldn't do that kinda job for any length of time without learning to love it.
She was fighting to keep her eyes open when suddenly her radio sparked to life.
"Mayday, mayday," came Brandon's voice. "We've encountered a hostile artificial intelligence. Possible connections to the Assembly, and the Forerunners. Four in contact and one man down. Please advise, over."
Dev's mind immediately snapped into focus, as it always did when shit was about to get real. Lives were on the line now, and they were depending on her to evacuate them and provide them air support. If she failed, they may all die.
This was what I wanted though, wasn't it? She though while laughing lowly
For better or for worse, this kind of pressure was what she lived for.
A moment later the Admiral herself jumped onto com. She'd been silent for most of this op, and Devereaux had counted that a blessing. When Osman got involved, heads rolled on both sides.
"Kilo-5, BB is beginning a network infiltration of URF systems,"
She said, her voice precise and clear even over the static over the static of the com. "hold position and await further orders. Do not engage unless absolutely necessary. Athena-6 Actual."
Devereaux didn't waste time with her transmission either.
"Kilo-5," she said as she banked back towards the base for another cloaked pass. "I'm tightening my holding pattern. Just say the word and Aircav will be on the way."
Dev began to spin up the barrel of her 20mm autocannon as she passed over the camp. She had a feeling she was getting ready to make a hot extraction.
She looked over her shoulder and into the crew bay of the pelican. Her new "flight crew" sat strapped tightly into their seats, trying to avoid vomiting, as most of her passengers did. They were all Air Force, some she'd seen before on other ops she'd pulled with kilo-5, not that they acknowledged each other. The less she talked to the them the less they got pulled into thesucking black hole that was ONI.
But she trusted them, so long as she flew the pelican and they flew the chairs. Which was why it bothered her that one of them was piloting bogof.
"Bogof, Tart-Cart-4, form up on me. If we may need you to put those troopers on the ground quick."
"Roger," came the quick response.
Then she turned her attention back to her crew. They too were readying themselves for combat.
A few of them were unfolding litters in case they needed to extract wounded personnel, while another was clipping in an M247 machine gun into some hardpoints on the floor of the pelican, in case she needed the added firepower of a rear door gunner.
"Prep the SPIE rig," she yelled to them. "And prepare for a hot extract."
They all nodded and began to remove a large coil of rope from one of the bulkheads, hooking it into the Pelicans winch.
The SPIE rig, a five hundred year old piece of technology, wasn't much more than a long rope with D-rings woven into it. The idea was to drop it in, let soldiers clip into it, and fly away while they dangled hung from the back of the aircraft.
It was the kind of bullshit only ground pounders could dream up. She wasn't even willing to try it, and she'd made a few bad decisions in her life.
She turned her attention back to her instruments, and instantly movement in her infrared camera caught her eye. Small yellow dots were moving around the compound at an alarming rate, much higher than normal, and they were all converging on the dark blue, supercooled AI storage building that was occupied by Kilo-5.
"Kilo-5," she yelled into her radio. "Thermal is showing a massive increase in URF movement. Did you trip a silent alarm?."
A small pause, and then their response.
"Roger Tart-Cart-4," he responded. "It's hard to explain, but yeah, they know we're here."
"Dammit," she muttered under her breath. "Copy that Kilo-5. Wrap up and proceed to grid point 03-75-19-40-28-98-41-89 for extraction."
She then immediately switched channels to AVCOM, or aviation communication, to talk to Osman.
"Admiral. Orders?" She asked, hoping she'd at least have a way out of this shit show.
But she didn't get a direct response.
Instead Osman's voice blared to life over the main comm band.
"Kilo-5, Athena-6 Actual," Osman exclaimed. "Be advised, two platoon sized elements approaching from your east and north west. Mechanized support in tow. Please advise..."
Osman's transmission kept going, but Dev stopped paying attention. Her whole attention was focused on her FLIR camera once again, as hundreds of tiny white lines began to appear. Hundreds of deadly rounds, all streaking towards her friends.
There was an audible click as the Admiral switched to back to AVCOM.
"Dammit, weapons free," yelled Osman. "Get them out of there! Bogof-6, get those ODSTs on the ground. Tart-cart-4, cover them."
"Roger," Dev responded as she grabbed the flight yoke and banked her aircraft hard to bring it into an attack run over the URF base.
She centered her reticle on the massive formation of URF infantry and flipped on the master arm. She knew the moment she squeezed that trigger the pelican's camo would be disabled, and she'd have two AA guns trying to wipe her out, but she'd made it through far worse, and she wasn't about to let any hick town militia shoot her down.
"Bogof," she shouted into her com. "Form up on me. Make one pass over the base then drop the troopers to the northeast. I'll keep the AA guns occupied."
"Wilco," responded bogof.
The two Pelicans formed up on each other, flying low and fast over the dusty, fluorescent forests of X50.
Dev fired a salvo of anvil missiles into the URF formation one at a time, their impacts occurring one after another and obliterating large amounts of the compound, and their soldiers and material along with it. She jerked the trigger on her 20mm autocannon and hosed the remaining formation before throwing the pelican into a hard bank to loop around to the compound's landing strip. She aimed her autocannon at one of the parked longsword fighters and emptied 20mm rounds into it, rupturing its fuel supply and causing it to explode brilliantly, and block the runway for any future traffic.
Her success was short lived, however. The URF's AA guns could see her clear as day now, and the gun crews didn't hesitate to start slinging 30mm tracers her way. She executed a roll maneuver to shake off the twin trails of death that chased her. Fortunately, she could fly faster than the guns could traverse, so staying out of their firing arc proved easy enough.
"Bogof-6, I've got their attention," she said. "You're clear to begin infil."
"Bogof-6," acknowledged the other aircraft as they broke off and headed for the treelike near the camp.
The pelican had to disengage its camo as it hung low over the tree line, allowing its cargo of ODSTs and a sling-loaded warthog to drop into the trees.
Dev circled around to make another pass at the airstrip. She might have blocked any more longsword from taking off, but the URF still had a complement of Pelicans that could give chase to her. Hopefully blowing those up on the tarmac would be enough to keep the AA gunners attention on her, and away from Bogof.
She banked left and flew low, her digital altimeter reading in the hundreds of meters. As she let go another one of her anvil missiles into a URF hangar. Her cockpit and rear camera blacked out for a moment as she flew through the smoke and debris.
When she made it through she checked her rear camera to see if the 30mm tracer rounds were still tracking her. When she saw a flat sky behind her, her heart leapt into her throat. That either meant they were repositioning their guns to intercept her flight path, or...
"Bogof-6," she yelled into her com, her voice panicked and raise. "Be advised. URF ADA is tracking you. Break off and..."
but her transmission came too late. She watched in horror as a lance of 30mm rounds flew towards bogof, peppering its cockpit and shearing off its left stabilizer. There wasn't an explosion, and it didn't have far to fall, but she knew the pilot, copilot, and any of the ODSTs that had been repelling were dead.
A lump formed in her throat. Kilo-5 hadn't come prepared for this kind of straight up fight with the URF. They'd let their enemy have the upper hand.
A moment later her radio came to life once again.
"Break, break, break," shouted an ODST over the radio, his voice barely audible over the roar of a warthog's engine and the sound of crackling gunfire. "Tart-Cart-4, this is Azrael-6. Nine-line to follow."
Dev's stomach sank. A nine-line was the emergency code to request airmobile extraction for severely wounded personnel, and she was in no place to effect a rescue with two AA guns on her ass.
"Azrael-6 this is Tart-Cart-4, prepared to copy," she responded.
"Roger," said the ODST immediately. "Line one, 03-75-19-40-28-98-41-89, line two, echo-band, line tree…"
Dev was cut off from listening to the transition when the AA gun started focusing its attention.
The deathly ripping sound of a Gatling gun cycling ripped through the night as tracers danced across her vision. Dev pulled back on her flight yoke hard and sent herself into a vertical climb, rolled, and dove straight down into an attack run. She couldn't imagine her crew was performing at peak capacity being thrown around like this, but they'd have to get a grip if those wounded were going to survive.
"Prep extraction gear," she yelled into her com. "And magnetize your boots, this is gonna get rough."
She heard several thunks as the crewmen all secured themselves to the Pelican's deck, and then resumed their duties. Dev flew low over X50's tree tops, hoping to come up on the base low and fast enough to get the jump on those AA guns.
"Brandon," she said over her radio. "How are you holding up?"
He didn't respond for a moment. When he did, his voice was nearly drown out by the sounds of battle.
"Extraction required as soon as possible," he said without formality. "ODSTs are otherwise engaged, and Vaz is ambulatory but not mission capable."
"Roger," she acknowledged.
She was coming up on the camp fast. She zeroed her 20mm autocannon on one of the AA guns, and was about to squeeze the trigger, until a lance of 30mm rounds split the air, headed straight for her cockpit.
She jerked hard left on her flight yoke, pulling herself out of the path of the rounds. Her left stabilizer scraped a tree, setting off every alarm on her instrument panel. She pulled up as the rounds continued to chase her, until a moment later when the gun finally ran out of ammo and had to reload.
She turned back to go for another pass. Maybe she could catch them defenseless while they reloaded. Before she could get far, however, the other gun fired a short burst at her to knock her off track.
"Fuck," she cursed, as she pulled back.
Without additional support, she wasn't going to be able to neutralize those guns until they ran out of ammo, but neither she nor Kilo-5 had that long. She'd have to call the 'law for artillery support.
"Kilo-5," she said to Brandon. "I need you to put call fire on those AA guns for me. I can't support you otherwise."
Dev waited a moment for Brandon's response.
"Roger that Tart-Cart-4," he said, his voice nearly drown out by gun fire. "Athena-6 Actual this is Kilo-5, Adjust fire, over."
Osman' response was similarly quick.
"Kilo-5, Athena-6 Actual, unable to adjust fire at this time," she said coldly. "Use of heavy ordnance would jeopardize the Law's location. Out."
Dev immediately felt a surge of anger. What the fuck kind of response was that? This was ONI, wasn't it. Stupid shit like withholding fire support was supposed to be a problem regular marines had, right?
"Athena-6 Actual, Kilo-5," said Brandon over the radio. "We're dying out here Admiral. We need support or we're going to get picked off."
Brandon's transition ended on the ear splitting boom of a gauss cannon round impacting near him. Dev winced as the mic screeched then clipped.
"Kilo-5. Sitrep!" Yelled Osman.
There was a heart stopping pause, and then finally, Brandon responded.
"We're alright," he responded. "Just get us some damn support or we're going to die out here."
Before the Admiral could deny him again, another voice crackled over the radio.
"Break, Break, break!" the voice said loudly to clear the channel. "Belay that Kilo-5, this is Azrael-6-actual. Armored support is on the way."
Dev recognized that as the call-sign of Sergeant Mathew's team. She circled back to see what the hell they were talking about, only to find an M650 Mastodon APC, painted in URF markings thundering down the road towards the URF compound. It's transponder, however, had been changed to reflect its new UNSC ownership.
It crashed through the front gate of the compound, barreling through any URF troopers or vehicles that got in its way with its sloped front end. It's Vulcan cannon fired a string of rounds at the closest AA gun, killing its crew and taking it out of commission.
"Tart-Cart-4, one gun down," she said immediately. "You are clear to proceed."
Dev smirked evilly, then dove towards the camp. The last remaining AA gun moved to track her, but without its twin it didn't stand a chance. Dev rolled to the right to avoid its fire, then let go an anvil missile, obliterating the gun in an explosion of shrapnel. She fired another missile at the gun Willow had partially destroyed, just to be safe, then leveled out and headed towards the tree line to extract the injured from Bogof's crash site.
"Drop the boarding ramp!" She yelled to her crew as she applied her airbrakes and leveled out over her crash site.
Her crew chief grabbed the bundled SPIE rig and threw it over the back of the pelican for the ODSTs to clip the wounded into.
Dev's heart pounded against her ribcage. Any damn innie with a fifty year old RPG could shoot her down if she wished. She tracked her 20mm over the URF, looking for anyone stupid enough to try, until she heard her crew chief shout to her from the ramp.
"Three on, proceed with extraction," he yelled.
"Roger," said Dev.
She slowly throttled the engine as she pulled away from the crash site, with three wounded troopers dangling behind her. Any sudden moves and she could slam them into a tree, or her own hull, killing them.
The pelican's winch whined as it reeled in the wounded, but it didn't move far before Dev's fear was realized.
An alarm went off in her cockpit, alerting her that a missile was tracking her. She had no choice but to jerk the yoke and take herself off the missile's path. A moment later she saw tracer rounds zip past her aircraft, narrowly missing her. It didn't take her long to realize that the rounds weren't aimed at her. They'd passed under her, towards the wounded she was carrying.
"Dammit," she cursed. "Pull them in now."
Dev watched as the wounded were finally reeled in. The first was an airman, one of Bogof's crew. His shoulder was bleeding, but not to badly, although he was in shock from the ride he'd just been given.
"holy shit," she heard the crew chief yell as the second airman was pulled in. "Medic!"
Blood sprayed from where his right arm used to be. He thrashed and stumbled as the he was pulled across the deck by the winch, leaving a long, bloody streak.
The flight nurse immediately ran over to him, unclipping him from the line and spraying his shoulder down with biofoam until the bleeding stopped. Before he could thrash any more and reinjure himself, she sedated him, and strapped him into a litter with the crew chief's help.
The third casualty, however, didn't even make it that far. All that was left of him was a bloody section of rope, about six feet long, and an equally gory harness that'd been ripped apart. Maybe her quick maneuvering killed him, or a stray round, or maybe he'd just fallen to his death in the jungle below.
Dev shut the boarding ramp and went into a climb. She hadn't seen casualties like this in a long time.
She wasn't a praying woman, most ODSTs stopped believing in God after they saw the Covenant rain down fire of biblical proportions on their buddies, but she found herself praying to Saint Michael that at least a few of the troopers made it out alive.
Location: URF controlled planet X50, 09:17 hours standard military time, mission clock +00:47. January 9th, 2559.
Willow hugged the hallway as she made her way out of the URF base, her weapon trained on the approaching doorway. Wood and Hanson followed her up, both cloaked and both with their weapons ready. As they approached the Forerunner door, Willow heard the clatter of URF boots behind them, approaching at double time.
"Take cover," she said.
The three ODSTs complied and tucked themselves into a branching halfway, allowing the URF soldiers to pass.
Willow could tell, however, that these weren't technicians, like most of the other troopers around here. These troopers were decked out in resprayed ODST armor, and were carrying full combat loads of ammunition. Wherever they were heading, they were gonna fuck shit up when they got there.
Willow clicked her mic. "Athena-6 Actual, Azrael-6-actual. SALUTE report to follow."
But she received no response. Her radio wouldn't have any signal until they got out of this damn bunker.
"Forward. On the URF," she said to her ODSTs.
They complied and followed the URF unit undetected out the door and into the parade ground outside. They quickly fell out and ducked behind the nearby parked APCs.
The activity on the parade ground was even greater than it was inside the bunkers. Militia troopers were scrambling into formation to be briefed by their command. At least a company of soldiers stood locked, loaded, and ready to ruin someone's day.
Willow would bet her exceedingly small paycheck that someone was Kilo-5.
"Athena-6-actual, Azrael-6-actual, SALUTE report to follow," Willow repeated, but the moment she opened her mic her transmission was swallowed by the frantic radio traffic of battle.
"Break, Break, Break," she heard someone yell. "Athena-6-actual, Azrael-6, nine-line to follow."
"Dammit," she cursed aloud.
Those were her troopers getting shot up. How had this whole op managed to go to shit in the span of fifteen minutes?
She switched radio channels to speak direct to the 'Law to figure out just what the hell was going on.
"Murphy's Law, Azrael-6-actual. Please advise, what the hell did I just step into?"
The Admiral's response came without delay. "Azrael-6-actual, Murphy's Law," said Osman. "Kilo-5 has made contact with Innie forces in the primary target area. Proceed to grid 03-19 to provide support asap."
"Roger Murphy's Law," responded Willow. "We're on our way. Azrael-6-actual."
Willow peeked out from behind the APCs to observe the URF formation again. They looked like they were wrapping up their briefing and falling out to grab their gear. What concerned Willow, however, was the armored crew, dressed in multicam coveralls and soft-shell helmets and vests, running towards the APCs they were hiding behind. If they found the two dead bodies the ODSTs had hidden there they would have their own problems. Willow motioned for her troopers to duck into one of the APCs.
"Grab the bodies," she barked once they were inside.
Wood and Hanson complied and drug them into the troop compartment of the APC, and hid them behind a stack of crates that were tied down to the floor. Then they waited, their weapons raised, their camo activated, for the armor crew to enter.
A moment later the boarding ramp lowered, and in walked three URF tankers. None of them had their weapons drawn, not that they should have been expecting trouble.
The last one to enter slammed his fist into a button, closing the ramp behind him, his final mistake.
The moment the door sealed with an air tight hiss the ODSTs opened up on the three URF soldiers with suppressed weapons, cutting them to pieces. The troopers fell silently to the floor, dead instantly from precisely placed shots.
The troopers policed the bodies while Willow quickly began to formulate a plan as to where they could go from here. The entire URF company was moving out, and as long as they were stuck in this APC, their only real choice was to move out with them.
"Anyone here know how to drive this thing?" Asked Willow incredulously.
There was a hopeless moment of silence, before Hanson responded.
"I'm vehicle operator qualified, but not for anything like this..." he said nervously. "But they simplified the controls for most of these things mid war when they started running out of trained tankers. I'm sure I can figure it out."
"Copy that," responded Willow. "I'll get on the gun. Wood, find me some ammo."
The ODSTs moved with a purpose. Hanson dove into the driver's seat, yanked off his helmet, clipped it to his belt, and put on a headset to monitor URF communications. Willow did the same and jumped into the gunners seat, which consisted of a chair with a pair of virtual reality goggles clipped onto a bulkhead, and a flight stick used to control the M41 Vulcan .50 caliber gun mounted on the top of the APC's hull.
Willow put the goggles on, and instantly her vision became wrapped in the view from the camera mounted next to the Vulcan. Willow moved the stick left and right to test the guns tracking which also rotated her seat in a circle, and lifted her head up and down, only to find that the up and down motion of the gun could be controlled by where she was looking.
She smirked. Point and shoot. She could do that.
She used her new position to observe URF movements throughout the compound. Most of the company of troopers were loading into other APCs or mounting up in warthogs to move out. The two other APCs, which were parked adjacent to theirs, were already starting to move out ahead of a column of infantry.
"Hanson, you got the controls figured out?" She asked the ODST through the vehicles intercom.
"I'm pretty sure I got it," he said with an air of uncertainty. "Can't be much harder than driving an SUV with shitty handling, right?"
Willow had no choice but to take that as a yes, otherwise she would've thrown him from the vehicle.
"Alright," she said. "Follow the lead vehicles. Stay in tight. We'll figure out how to take care of them once we're away from the infantry."
Hanson complied, and wrestled with the controls until he fell in behind the other two APCs, and gunned it to keep pace with them.
Willow knew taking those two out was a priority, but the APC's .50 cal wouldn't even scratch that kind of armor. She'd have to get creative.
She lifted her goggles off her face and let them rest on her forehead, then she grabbed her rocket launcher from where she'd leaned it up against a bulkhead.
"Wood!" She yelled into the APC's troop compartment.
A moment later the ODST appeared, loaded down with several belts of spare ammo for the Vulcan, and a few spare forty mike mikes for her grenade launcher.
"Forget that," barked Willow, before she tossed the lance corporal the rocket launcher. "Take this and get topside. Wait for my signal to blow the lead APC apart."
The trooper caught the rocket launcher and shouldered it without hesitation.
"What about the other one, Sarge?" She asked.
Willow laughed.
"Let me worry about that."
Wood nodded, ran up to the of the APC, and popped her head out the top of the assistant driver's hatch.
Willow pulled the VR goggles back down over her eyes and resumed control of the Vulcan.
"Hanson!" She said into her headset. "Ram that fucker's right flank!"
Hanson didn't respond for a long moment, before uttering a rather insubordinate, "Are you fucking serious, Sarge?"
Willow swore to herself one last time her plan wasn't crazy. Traveling at this speed, the Mastadon should have enough momentum to push the other APC off the road and into the a ditch that ran alongside the road. It was either that, or simply watch as these two armored vehicles drive all over Kilo-5's corpses.
"That's an order!" She barked.
Hanson didn't hesitate for a moment longer. That voice of hers could make scared teenagers jump from spacecraft just as well as it could make Covenant shit themselves and run.
He put the pedal to the floor and slammed the wedge shaped end of the Mastodon into the other APC. Wood dropped back down into the hull of the APC and covered her head as sparks flew and metal scraped on metal. The impact knocked the enemy APC off course, causing its wheels to spin in X50's dusty terrain, before they finally caught once again, and it rocketed straight forward into the ditch, left wheel first. It lost balance, tilted, and rolled onto its roof, its wheels still spinning in the air.
By now, the crew of the other APC knew what was going on. They reduced speed, and their Vulcan began to traverse towards the rear to spray them down.
"Wood, take out their weapons!" Yelled Willow.
"Yes, Master Sergeant," she replied, before popping up out of the assistant driver's hatch once again.
She let go a hastily aimed rocket, which connected with the robotic Vulcan gun turret, blowing it to pieces.
The enemy APC then rapidly picked up speed in an attempt to outrun its newfound adversary, but they didn't get far. Wood quickly adjusted her aim and fired a rocket into rear hatch. It penetrated, then exploded, causing a jet of fire to shoot out the back of the vehicle. Any infantry or extra crew that may have been inside were killed instantly.
The rocket wasn't enough to stop the vehicle, however, as it hadn't hit the engine or suspension, so for a hundred or so more meters, the APC continued to drive, until it ground to halt.
Three soldiers jumped screaming from the flaming wreck of a vehicle. All of them scrambled for cover as they watched Willow traverse the .50 cal towards them. She centered her reticle on one of them as they ran out of the APCs line of fire, and seriously considered pulling the trigger.
There was a very real chance several of her ODSTs were dead, and she wanted to make someone pay for it. She wanted to watch the blood leak out of some innie bastard as they realized it was too late to learn not to fuck with ODSTs.
But at the end of the day, she still had to live with herself. These were human beings who were losing their lives on the battlefield, whether they were hers or theirs.
Willow traversed the turret back to face the front of the APC as they drew closer and closer to the URF compound. Now that they were free of the URF she decided to take a moment to patch her armor into the APC's system. She reset the transponder to broadcast a UNSC FOFID tag, patched her radio into the main comm system.
More chaos consumed the radio channel as she tried to make heads or tails of how the battle was going.
The first transmission she could clearly make out was from that Army Eltee that was leading Kilo-5.
"We're alright," she heard him say. "Just get us some damn support or we're going to die out here."
Willow smirked. Looks like the Corps would have to come to the Army's rescue again.
"Break, Break, break!" She shouted loudly to split the radio traffic. "Belay that Kilo-5, this is Azrael-6-actual. Armored support is on the way."