AN: Another month, another chapter.
Although I hate to think about it, This story is nearing completion. I don't have the exact number planned out, but there will only be five or six more chapters int this story, which is making me very happy. I've been working on this story a long time and I've put a lot of my heart and soul into it. Hopefully, I can make a worthy ending you all will enjoy reading.
Of course, none of this could've been done without my awesome Beta, Holly. B sure to check her stuff out. Her username is Jaeger Gipsy Danger.
Until then, however, here's the story. Enjoy!
"If the enemy is within range, so are you,"
-excerpt from Murphy's Laws of Combat Operations
Brandon gripped his helmet as he ducked down behind cover, trying to avoid getting his head taken off by the sheer concussive force of the ordinance the URF at Kilo-5, and their Spartans in particular.
The push kilo-5 tried to execute hadn't gotten them more than 50 meters from the doorway before they'd become bogged down again. Now they were circled in a makeshift barrier made of two knocked out warthogs and a few jersey barricades circled like a wagon train with Vaz at the center and the other four defending all sides against URF assault.
"Incoming!" Yelled Naomi as another URF trooper lobbed a grenade their way.
Alison saw it coming and reacted. It was a UNSC grenade, so it's fuse wouldn't activate until it hit something, meaning the quicker she intercepted it, the better. She jumped and dove, spiking it back at the enemy like a deadly volley before tucking, rolling, and springing back up to her feet. She shouldered her backpack fed SAW and unloaded on the URF.
Brandon stood to his feet as well and fired a few bursts from his battle rifle in the direction of the URF forces, but he couldn't match the volume of fire they were putting out.
He caught a glimpse of muzzle flashes in the distance, echoing between the purple glow of the planet's flora, and the smoke rising from the wreck of BOGOF, marking the location of the bogged down ODSTs that were supposed to be reinforcing them.
It looked leak help wasn't coming anytime soon.
"Kilo-5," he heard Dev say over the radio. "I need you to call for fire on those AA guns for me. I can't support you otherwise."
Brandon ducked back down and keyed his mic.
"Roger that Tart-cart-4," he responded.
He reached to his belt to grab the target designator that was clipped in to place there.
"Take cover!" He yelled to his team. "Artillery inbound!"
Kilo-5 however, was otherwise engaged. Taking cover was damn near impossible for any of them. As fire poured in from all directions, it was either fight or be overrun.
He'd just have to risk it.
"Murphy's Law this is Kilo-5," he said to Osman. "Adjust fire, over."
"Kilo-5, Murphy's Law," came Osman's quick response. "Unable to adjust fire at this time. Use of heavy ordnance would jeopardize the Law's location. Out."
Brandon's heart sank. No air cover, no artillery, he was out of options. He flipped the designator back to his belt, grabbed his rifle, and stood.
He didn't have the heart to up and tell his team that support wasn't coming. They were already losing this fight, mentally and physically.
Every one of them was placing their shots more carefully, empty mags littered the ground, and even Alison was using her backpack supply of ammo more conservatively. They wouldn't last much longer at this rate. It was only a matter of time until luck beat skill and the URF dropped one of them.
"Murphy's Law, Kilo-5," said Brandon in between shots. "We're dying out here Admiral. We need support or we're going to get picked off."
When Brandon finished his transition, he saw a sickening sight out of the corner of his eye. A URF warthog shot down an alleyway between two building, barreling towards them. On the back was a gauss turret, it's barrel glowing blue from electrical charge.
He didn't even have time to order his team to cover before the tungsten round, propelled at Mach sixty-eight, split the air. The round impacted the warthog the two Spartans took cover. The impact kicked the vehicle into the air and knocked it back ten meters, throwing both of the Spartans with it, popping their shields and crushing them underneath it.
A second later the shockwave hit Brandon, lifting him off his feet and throwing him a few feet back and landing him in a crumpled heap. His helmet's hearing protection had completely canceled all inbound sound to protect his hearing, so he was left with only the hollow sound of his forehead hitting his visor as his body crumpled to the ground.
Agony exploded throughout his body as a jolt of pain shot through his chest from where he'd earlier taken a shot to his armor. With no time to recover, he forced himself off the ground, struggling to get himself into a stable firing position while his vision swam and his body became all the more strained.
"Kilo-5. Sitrep!" He heard faintly over his radio, as his helmet finally stopped canceling sound. He struggled towards one of the nearby barricades, steadied his rifle on it, and began returning fire.
"Sitrep?" He yelled, mostly to himself, as took aim at a nearby URF trooper, and squeezed the gun trigger. "Fuck you."
He was too angry to even check if his radio was on before saying that. What did it matter anyway? If she didn't get him support in a few minutes he'd be dead, and the insult wouldn't mean much to either of them.
Finally, he flipped on his radio.
"We're fine," he lied to her, as politely as he could. "Just get us some damn support or we're going to die out here."
Brandon her a loud groaning and clanging sound to his rear, and whipped his head around to see what it was.
That was the sound of two Spartans lifting up a warthog with only their legs.
Brandon's breath caught in his throat at the sight of Naomi and Alison launching the burnt out vehicle off the ground and springing to their feet. The sisters grabbed their weapons and didn't waste a moment getting back to what they did best, making the URF pay.
Brandon looked to see what'd happened to warthog that'd fired at them, and found a grisly sight. The alleyway in which the warthog was positioned had been two small to accommodate the shockwave generated from the sheer speed of the projectile the weapon fired. The increase in air pressure had caused the Hog's tires to pop, its windshield to shatter, and its two occupants to be turned into a bloody paste.
If they'd been properly trained with that kind of equipment they'd have known never to use it in a confined space.
The URF's lack of training had staved off the inevitable for the five of them, but in a minute it wouldn't matter. They would be overrun and killed. The enemy was already beginning to recover from the shock of the explosion, and was resuming fire.
Brandon checked his ammo. Three rounds left in his battle rifle and two mags for his pistol.
He was ready to accept his fate. Maybe he should just thrown down his weapon, hug Alison, and die with her. Maybe he should throw up a white flag and see if the URF would treat them fairly as prisoners.
He knew neither one of these options was realistic, and if he just gave up then he'd never forgive himself for failing to protect his soldiers again. If the URF took them prisoner, ONI would more than likely find them and kill them rather than rescue them, not to mention the unbearable hell Naomi and Alison would face as URF prisoners of war.
He didn't even want to think about what the URF would do to a captured Spartan. He'd already seen it once, and that was one time too many. He slung his rifle and drew his pistol. Racked it, and set in for a final fight.
This is how I die, he thought. That is until he he heard the voice of an angel in his ear.
"Break, Break, break! Belay that Kilo-5, this is Azrael-6-actual. Armored support is on the way."
He was hearing things, obviously. That's what happens when you're near your own death and grasping for hope.
He didn't believe in miracles like that, and he certainly didn't believe in luck, or at least good luck.
Then for a moment, complete silence engulfed the battlefield. The constant clatter of Innie weapons ceased. Brandon could hear his own heart beat as the chaos of battle was put on pause, if only for a moment.
He finally worked up the courage to peak his head out from behind cover, just in time to see a Mastodon APC come barreling into the fray, painted in URF colors, but broadcasting a UNSC FOFID tag.
And in a snap the hellish sounds of battle flipped on like a light switch. URF troopers scrambled for cover as the vehicle first opened up its Vulcan cannon on the nearby AA gun, then turned its attention back to the infantry that surrounded it.
None of the URF's small arms could penetrate its armor, so it roamed unopposed, gunning down URF soldiers like paper.
They'd been saved from the jaws of defeat once again.
The APC pulled up alongside Kilo-5's position and dropped its boarding ramp. An ODST ran out of the back, battle rifle in hand, and began to lay down covering fire for kilo-5 to move out.
"Cover me while I move!" Yelled Mal as he scooped up Vaz in a fireman's carry.
"I've got you covered!" Responded every member of Kilo-5 in unison as they laid down suppressing fire with what little ammo they had left.
When Mal finally reached the APC the Spartans started to break off and move as well, with Brandon boarding last.
As the boarding ramp began to close, Brandon's heart skipped a beat as he caught a glimpse of a pair of figures illuminated by a foreign blue glue approaching from behind them.
He'd recognize the electromagnetic glow of a stanchion Gauss rifle anywhere. They'd saved him from Covenant armor more than a few times, but in the hands of the URF the weapon could be incredibly destructive.
It could fire fifty caliber projectiles at almost the same speed as a warthog mounted Gauss cannon. If the operator was a good enough shot, it could perforate the APC's engine compartment and stop them dead, or worse, rip through the troop compartment armor and kill a few of them.
Brandon raised his handgun to take a shot at the militiamen, but before he could they took cover behind a building, with only the barrel of their rifle showing as it built charge for a deadly accelerated tungsten shot.
Brandon had very little time to react. His mind went instantly to the jetpack-assisted counter defilade training he'd received at airborne school. It'd been so long since he'd been in a fight small enough for a maneuver like that to be useful, but now he was thankful for every time he'd been smoked by the drill sergeant for fucking it up.
He engaged his jetpack and rocketed away from the APC, bending his body to quickly bank himself upward, and backward, until he was well above the enemy. He took aim with his handgun, and fired several rounds, missing twice before the last shot connected with the sniper's chest, killing him.
The sight of the spotter's friend being dropped by the flying UNSC trooper was enough to scare him away from trying anything else. He dropped his spotter's scope and extra ammo and ran for cover.
Brandon fired his jetpack again to slow his decent, tucked, rolled, and then fired his thrusters again to propel himself across the ground towards the APC, shutting the boarding ramp behind him as the driver floored it and they took off out of the compound.
He looked down at his handgun as he sat on the floor of the vehicle, panting.
Slide-lock. And that had been his last mag. Good thing that spotter was none the wiser.
He peeled himself off the ground and assessed his soldiers. Most of them had stopped what they were doing, and were staring at him like he'd lost some vital part of his mind.
"Show off..." muttered the ODST who's FOFID named her as Lcp. Wood, breaking the tension in the air, snapping everyone back to their work.
Brandon didn't waste any time either. He knew they weren't out of this just yet.
The APC hadn't been on the move for more than a few second before it was taking fire once again. The death rattle of small arms rounds hitting its hull spelled doom for anyone who attempted to leave.
Brandon began to tear open crates that were tied down in a neat stack in the back of the APC, and wasn't even phased by the three bloody bodies of a URF tank crew and two bodies of regular URF soldiers that were poorly hidden behind them. He took them apart until he found battle rifle ammo, and took as much as he could carry, reloading his weapon and packing his vest with mags.
When he finished he looked over to Alison, who stood to the side of the troop bay. Her SAW, now empty, was clipped onto the side of her ammunition pack, and in her hands she now held a monstrosity of an anti-armor weapon that she'd dug out of the crates to replace her primary weapon.
It was an M2470 25mm grenade launcher, which, just as its name implied, was designed over one hundred eighty years ago. It looked like a standard infantry rifle, scaled up in every way and with a massive, 25mm bore. It loaded grenades from a five round box magazine inserted forward of the pistol grip, and was decked out with a laser range finder and a reflex scope. In his hands it would have looked massive, but it was just about Alison sized.
She'd already claimed several magazines for it, clipped them to her armor, and was holding it tight to herself. Brandon suppressed a chuckle, it looked like she was getting attached.
She swiped him a quick Spartan smile, then opened a radio channel to him. "Focus," she said firmly. "We all need you."
Brandon nodded, and shook himself back to the present, to the gunfire and the hell he hadn't yet left. He struggled forward in the APC and took the commander's seat, which was situated behind the driver and assistant driver's seat, and consisted of little more than a few buttons on a console and a few of VR goggles to give him a view of the situation outside. He tore off his helmet and put on the goggles, allowing him to scan the surround area with a small robotic camera, and a headset so he could communicate with the crew.
Before he touched any of that, however, he opened up the ordnance interface on his HUD and highlighted the detonator from the AI containment facility.
"Everybody hang on to something," he yelled throughout the cabin, before detonating it.
There was a few second delay before ground shook and the APC vibrated as the building went up in flames. Cheering erupted throughout the vehicle.
They weren't out of this yet, no matter what they'd completed their objective.
"Athena-6 actual, primary object achieved. Moving to exfil," he said over the radio.
"Roger," she said in return in a monotone voice, as if to say no back slapping yet, and he agreed.
He pulled himself into the commander's set and donned the goggles and headset. His vision became wrapped in the view of the APC's direction of travel as it tore out of the URF camp, taking fire from all directions. Brandon rotated the camera 180 degrees to see that several warthogs were attempting to pursue them. Willow was unloading on them with the APC's chaingun, and managed to take out one, but they didn't seem deterred. The two warthogs that made it threw the hail of fire pulled up alongside the APC and unloaded on it. Although the knew they weren't going to be able to punch through it, they could take out the gun with the volume of fire they were outputting.
A moment later Willow cursed loudly.
"Fuck, they took out my camera," she said over the com. "The gun's down. I'm blind."
Luckily, Brandon still had his camera to direct the vehicle's motion.
"Driver, hard right!" He yelled.
The driver didn't immediately follow the orders from the new voice on comm.
"And who the fuck are you?" He questioned, unable to take his eyes off the road to see his superior sitting behind him.
"I'm with ONI," Brandon Barked, thinking that would carry more weight than his actual rank. "And that's all you need to know. Now hard fucking right!"
Brandon wasn't sure he liked the sound of ONI and him being associated together, but for better or for worse that's how it was.
That was enough to get the driver to comply. He jerked the vehicle hard right, slamming it into one of the warthogs that had pulled up alongside them.
The warthog skidded and flipped from the force of the moment. The gunner was flung from the vehicle, and slammed into a nearby tree. Brandon couldn't see a body, but there was no way he'd survived that impact.
His wartime experience had shown him many similar scenes of soldiers who'd hastily hopped into a hog's turret and failed to strap in to the gunner arrest system, only to be flung from its turret during a rollover. He'd made sure his soldiers never made the same mistake, even in the heat of a firefight. Apparently the URF didn't teach its people to take the same precautions.
The APC's driver recovered and was about to steer hard left to hit the other hog, but wasn't quick enough. It fell back behind the fleeing APC and began to target its rear door, probably with the intent of hitting a pneumatic actuator, causing it to fail.
Luckily, he had an idea.
"All stop," he yelled to the driver.
The driver compiled and locked up the APC's breaks. Brandon felt the vehicle skid for a few seconds before he felt a the enemy warthog crash into the back of the APC, hopefully with enough force to kill it.
"Forward!" He yelled, before panning his camera back to the rear of the APC.
Brandon smiled when he saw the warthog, dead and smoking in the middle of the road. His celebration was short lived, however. Not a moment later he began to hear more small arms fire pinging off the APC's hull from the front. He attempted to spin the camera around to see where the fire was coming from, but his before he could an explosion rocked the vehicle. Metal sheared and sparks flew as heat filled the hull of the vehicle. His head jerked forward and slammed into the bulkhead as the APC ground to a halt, crushing the goggles he was wearing.
Brandon tasted blood in his mouth as he sat up and rubbed his head, pulling the goggles from his face. A trickle of blood ran into his eyes, but other than a headache, he was alright.
He pulled himself from his seat, grabbed his helmet and his rifle, and surveyed the APC. A fire was burning in the front right of the APC, where a hole had been punched in the hull by an anti-tank rocket. An ODST sat slumped over in the assistant driver's seat. The driver was clambering to pull her away from the fire.
"Wood!" He screamed as he pulled at her armor. "Goddammit! Get moving."
Brandon ran over to help, and together they pulled her from her seat and into the troop compartment. From the moment he pulled her goggles off, Brandon knew she was dead. She stared blankly at the ceiling, and didn't react when The other ODST shook her, despite the burns that covered most of her body.
Brandon was going to grab the ODST and tell him he needed to get moving, but Msgt. Mathews beat him to it. She grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him to his feet, thrusting his weapon into his hands.
"She's dead, trooper," she said to him firmly.
"But Sarge, if we get her to the pelican maybe," he tried to say.
She ignored him and grabbed his helmet, shoving it into his hands.
"Hanson," she barked. "She's head, and all of us will be too if you don't move your ass."
The ODST was ready to argue, but he gave up after seeing the intensity of the look in her eyes. He put his helmet on, shouldered his weapon, and moved out.
Brandon followed the ODSTs and took position behind the APC. Naomi and Alison had already begun to return fire on the column of URF infantry that was firing from up the road, pinning them down them behind the vehicle.
Alison gestured toward the tree line with an open hand.
"Get moving," she yelled to Kilo-5.
Brandon nodded.
"Cover me while I move," he said.
"I got you covered," responded Alison and Naomi, before they swung out from behind the APC.
Alison put her newly found 25mm rifle to deadly use, setting off explosions around the URF positions and scaring the militia into hiding, while Naomi's deadly aim with her DMR kept any more from popping up.
The rest of Kilo-5 took the opportunity to run across the road, with Mal still half dragging Vaz, and Willow running behind Hanson to force him away from the APC and his murdered friend, until they reached the tree line and took fire.
Kill-5 all dropped into the ditch, burying themselves as deep in the mud as they could, before returning fire while tracer round's zipped over their heads.
"Alison," Brandon yelled out, knowing she'd know what to do.
He looked over to her, watching as her shields charged from a shimmering blue back to their normal, transparent color, before she stood from the ditch and emptied the magazine of her grenade rifle into the URF position. Clods of mud, splinters of wood, and blood from URF soldiers sprayed in a dramatic fashion as the rest of Kilo-5 covered their head to avoid falling debris.
When the fifth grenade detonated, Alison sprawled to the ground, signaling the rest of them to take up firing positions.
Brandon peaked over the trench, rifle in hand, and began to return fire in the direction he believed the URF was still hiding, but they vanished from his field of view, most likely hunkered down for fear of reprisal in the form of another volley of grenades.
"Kilo-5, Azrael-6, we've disengaged contact with the URF and are moving to your location. Prepare for extraction."
Brandon smiled for the first time this mission. They were finally about to get out of here.
"Roger Azrael-6," he said to the ODST. "Best news I've heard all day."
He then slid a little bit further down into the trench and unslung his assault pack, reaching inside for a few cylindrical grenades marked: M60, Smoke, infrared. They contained a smoke-like aerosol that blocked infrared signals and made it impossible for the tracking function of rocket launchers to function. They didn't do much to conceal infantry, but they made extractions a helluva lot easier.
He passed them off to the remainder of his unit one at a time.
"Dev's on her way. Get ready to pop smoke for extraction," he said, his voice a little more upbeat than usual.
He heard a few cheers over the com, which wasn't something he'd heard on any of his previous combat deployments, not even during an extraction. Even he was beginning to feel a little bit more certain that they'd make it out.
Not yet, he reminded himself. You can't think like that yet. A lot can go wrong in ten minutes.
In the distance, he heard the whine of a pelican's engine growing louder as it approached.
"Pop smoke!" He yelled to his team.
Six smoke grenades sailed over the ditch and into the middle of the road, leaving a thin fog that smelled of ozone hanging over the road.
Immediately the URF began to panic, and rounds began to once again pour in from all directions. Maybe they thought they'd deployed a chemical weapon, as any fear they'd once had was quickly wiped away by frantic firing and panic. Rounds tore up the ground around him, and he ducked down further into cover.
He carefully poked his head out of the ditch and got online with the rest of Kilo-5, exchanging fire with the URF infantry. Brandon could see dust kicking up further down the road as more URF vehicles approached. In a minute, they'd be all over them.
"Heads down Kilo-5," Brandon heard Dev say over the radio. "The Cavalry is on the way."
Brandon heard her coming and complied, flattening himself to the ground.
A moment later, he heard the scream of Dev's pelican passing low over the road, and a deafening roar as the pelican's chaingun tore up the ground in front of it. The low flying aircraft kicked up enough dirt to coat Kilo-5 in a thin layer of sediment, along with a few cracks that resounded throughout the forest as trees fell in the pelican's wake.
A moment later another scream cut through the air, then rotor wash tore up the jungle. Kilo-5 pulled their heads up from the dirt to find Devereaux setting her pelican down in the center of the road, using the wrecked APC to shield her pelican from incoming fire as three more URF warthogs full of soldiers showed up.
Willow's ODSTs poured out and began suppressing the enemy so Kilo-5 could move. Alison and Naomi did the same, jumping up to the top of the ditch, and firing at the approaching URF
"Get moving!" Yelled Alison as she dashed forward, firing her grenade rifle to knock out the warthogs.
Brandon waved for the rest of Kilo-5 to clear the trench and run for the Pelican.
The ODSTs ramped up their suppressing fire as they saw them coming. One of them waved at him to do something, but he couldn't understand. His adrenaline was pounding, and his vision was narrowing.
Then the ground rose under him, his helmet cut off its audio feed once again, and for a moment he felt weightless. His head impacted the ground with a painful crack, and then his vision went black.