I've never done long range shooting before; all my knowledge in that regards come from movies and video games, so undoubtedly, there's some stuff wrong. Feel free to point it out if you see it. Thanks.
Chapter 11: CHOPPING BLOCK: Phase Green
Zandria, Moşul Province, Moesia
29.1.2547
0610J (Moesia Time)
Phase Green: H-Hour plus ten minutes
"Serpent? Sandman. Missiles away, time to objective: two zero mikes. Confirm, over."
"Sandman, Serpent: confirmed. Missiles inbound, TTO two zero mikes. Serpent, out."
Shep lowered the handset to the radio.
"Missiles inbound, twenty minutes," he informed Kreon.
"Fucking finally," Kreon replied with a groan. "Now all we need are for those fucking missiles to hit, then we can finally blow this fucking popsicle stand."
Shep grunted in agreement as he switched channels on the radio. There was no point in even trying to pretend otherwise: he was getting sick and tired of this stupid city too. It was long past time for them to go someplace else.
"Viper to Cobra and Python Teams," he said into the radio. "Missiles are away; TTO, twenty minutes. Hey guys, go ahead and go secure the extract; Viper Team can wrap up here, over."
"Python Team copies," Half-Staff immediately replied. "Thanks, Viper."
"Cobra Team copies," Haka said a moment later, then added, "We'll make sure to leave the light on for you guys."
"Not literally, I hope," Shep quipped. "Don't need the Covies to know we were ever here. Well, aside from the death and destruction we're planning on leaving behind."
There was a small bark of laughter at that, before the radio fell silent. Making sure to put everything back so he didn't have to worry about repacking when they finally left, Shep walked over to Kreon and joined him at his observation point at the window.
"So," Kreon conversationally began. "How much longer we staying here for?"
"I figure we'll stick around for another seven or eight minutes, give or take," Shep said. "Just to make sure that ugly bastard doesn't leave the area before the missiles hit, 'cause that would be awkward. That should give us a good healthy, twelve, thirteen minutes to get to the extract before the birds come in."
"Sounds like a plan," Kreon noted. Then, because he was Kreon, he immediately started complaining. "God, why does it take so fucking long for the missiles to hit? Aren't they traveling at hypersonic speeds?"
"They are," Shep confirmed. "But they're also flying nap-of-the-earth to minimize chances of detection; after all, there's no point in firing missiles if they're just going to get shot down a million lightyears before they can even reach the target area."
"Man, I wish we could have just shot this son of a bitch in the face; it would have been so much quicker and easier."
"Sure," Shep agreed, but then gestured at the SWS86 sniper rifle Kreon was holding. "But we would need a heavier caliber weapon to make sure we capped him in one shot. Them fifty cals aren't a hundred percent reliable, especially against Brute captain armor."
"Should have brought a 99," Kreon sullenly muttered.
Shep raised an eyebrow at him. "Would you have really wanted to have to haul that thing and all of its ammo all the way here?"
Kreon snorted. "No. But then again, I wouldn't have done it; you would."
Shep bit back a bark of laughter. "Yeah, there is no freaking way you would have ever managed to convince me to do something like that."
Kreon gave him a sly grin. "Oh, I think you underestimate me, my friend."
Shep merely rolled his eyes, and finished off the can of seltzer water he had been drinking from, taking one last glance around the room to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Much to Kreon's lament, this wasn't the same apartment they had been holed up in a few days ago. This one was a lot more humble, though obviously well-lived in. One of the most noticeable things about it was that the former occupants had clearly been in the middle of a party when word of the Covenant invasion had reached them, as the walls were still covered in decorations. What made Shep shiver though was the fact that it clearly had been some sort of baby shower, and Shep could only hope that the mother-to-be and her child had made it safely out of the city before it fell to the Covenant.
Unfortunately, there wasn't anything he could do about that, so, after chucking the empty can away, he instead lifted his DMR and peered through the scope.
"Any movement down there?" he idly asked.
"Nah. I think Poncho's planning on staying in his HQ all day."
"As long as he's there when the missiles hit," Shep grunted, lowering his DMR once more. "Should wrap up this mission nice and easy without us getting into a fight, and then I got another story I can tell my kids."
Kreon glanced up at him. "You don't like to tell your kids about the firefights we get into?"
"They're a little young for anything else," Shep pointed out. "If I'm going to tell them anything about my soldiering days, I rather tell them about the friends and brothers I made, and the shenanigans we got ourselves into. I don't really think they're at an age yet where they need to hear about the pain. The horror. The regrets. Or, more specifically, I don't think I'm ready to talk to them about all that."
Kreon was silent, but Shep could see him throwing a few glances at him, as if he wanted to say something but sure how it would be received. Shep rolled his eyes. "What."
"It's just…" Kreon started as if he was going to say one thing, but then clearly changed his mind and instead said, "So… you don't talk to anyone about the firefights you get into?"
Shep took a moment to consider the answer to that question.
"Lena, maybe, on occasion. That's my wife, by the way," he added. "Not sure I ever mentioned her name. But that's more to, I dunno, prepare her. Or something."
"'Prepare her?' For what?"
"For when it's her time to go out into the shit," Shep admitted. "She's in the Army, you know. Reserves."
Kreon scoffed. "Reserves? Do we even have that anymore? I thought all reserve units got activated back in… fuck, '44? '45? Something like that? Even before that, they had been going at it for a while."
"Well, okay, she's Colonial Militia," Shep explained. "Specifically, she's a combat photographer for the Paris IV Army. So, the chances of her seeing combat are slim, at least unless Paris IV gets invaded, but… well, with the way things are going these days?"
"Yeah, no need to tell me twice," Kreon grumbled. "Feel like every time I fucking turn around, 'nother colony's been attacked. You think this late in the war, we'd be on top of this shit… but I guess after Actium… you notice how the UNSC isn't even trying to pretend we're winning anymore?"
Shep quietly nodded. He had noticed. A lot of things had changed after Actium. While the UNSC had done their best to remove the loss from the civilian consciousness – which had been surprisingly easy to do, helped in part by what the Innies did a few months afterwards – those in the military community still remembered.
Now feeling depressed, Shep pitched around the room for something else to talk about.
"You know," he conversational began. "We've talked a lot about my family, but we haven't talked a whole lot about yours. What about you? You got someone waiting for you back home? A girlfriend? Boyfriend?" He shot Kreon a grin. "Someone in between? Both? Its 2547: you can do that nowadays, you know."
Rather than rise to his teasing, Kreon was quiet for so long, Shep was actually worried he had finally managed to offend him. Just as he was about to offer up an apology, Kreon spoke up.
"Sort of," he slowly began. "Maybe. Not really? I don't have a girlfriend at the moment, though I did date around a few times in high school."
"So, I'm not a fucking virgin," he suddenly snapped, sounding fierce. Shep let out a derisive snort.
"Like I would have given a shit, even if you were; galaxy is fallin' apart, bro, I got bigger things to worry about than your 'sexual status.'"
"Just sayin'," Kreon grunted. "Point is, nah, I don't have a girl. Didn't want to commit, I guess."
"Why's that?" Shep asked him, curious.
Kreon gave him an odd look. "Uh… I was about to enlist? Dude, you see what we do on a day-to-day basis. You really think I thought I was gonna survive?"
"Yeah?" Shep admitted, causing Kreon to let out a bitter snort.
"Well, I didn't. I don't. Hell, I've been in the Army for a little over two years now, that's twenty months longer than I thought I would have lasted. You really think I was gonna commit to a relationship?" Kreon glanced over at Shep. "Like, no offense to you, dude, but… a fucking wife? Two fucking kids? There's no fucking way I could do shit like that; not planning on leaving behind any widows or orphans, you know?"
"That's… hell, I hear what you're sayin', dude, but… shit, man, that's kind of a lonely existence, ain't it? Like, you're not really living at that point, are you? More like… waiting to die, you know?"
Kreon shrugged. "I mean, you ain't exactly wrong… but at the same time, it just seems kind of selfish, to drag someone into this lifestyle, and then risk leaving them behind to deal with all the bullshit. Like, if there's one thing war has taught me, it's that dead is dead. Once you kick it, that's it, you don't have to worry anymore. It's the ones that get left behind that have to deal with the aftermath."
Shep was silent for a moment as he considered how he was going to word his next few thoughts.
"It is, selfish, in some ways," he slowly allowed. "To want some happiness in your life. To not be alone. To have someone to go home to after all the shit we go through. But at the same time, I don't think that's wrong. You know, we are still human, and us humans are very social creatures; we need that mental and emotional interaction."
"Plus, you also have to consider: like, I'm not a believer in soulmates or destiny or whatever, but with as many people as there are nowadays- "
"A number that's steadily decreasing by the minute," Kreon sneered and Shep had no choice but to incline his head in agreement; Kreon's statement was factually true, if a bit callous.
"Point is," he continued, "with as many people as there are, I figured there's got to be at least one person out there who's not just willing to put up with your shit, but actually enjoys your company. And, you know, don't they have a right to happiness too? Like, I dunno if I'm making sense here, but don't they at least have the right to choose?"
"And that's the key – and it's the same with any relationship – you gotta be on the same page. Like, before me and Lena got engaged, we sat down and I was like, 'hey, I'm in the Army and in a position where I'll be putting my life on the line every day, and that's not going to change if we get married and have kids because I feel I'm in a position where I can make the most difference. Are you okay with that?' And Lena was like, 'hey, you could die from slipping in the bathtub. I rather take that chance and enjoy the time we do have together, rather than spend the rest of my life wondering what if.' And so, we got married."
"She sounds pretty cool. Your wife, that is," Kreon said. "Not you, obviously: you're lame as fuck."
"She is," Shep emphatically replied. "She and the kids are the reason why I do what I do. Why I'm willing to put up with a whining little shit for a sniper, for example," he teasingly added, causing Kreon to grin.
"Hey, somebody's got to get you ready for when your kids become teenagers," he jeered, and Shep groaned.
"God, don't even remind me! I am so not looking forward to that."
Kreon just grinned, before glancing through his scope once more. Shep leaned back in his chair and studied him.
"You said 'maybe.'"
Kreon looked up. "What?"
"When I asked you if you had someone, you said maybe," Shep explained. "So… do you?"
Kreon was quiet for a very long moment.
"Maybe," he finally admitted. "There was a girl I met a few months ago. We've been… unofficially dating, I guess you could say. Though, we haven't said as much… I think she's into me, you know?"
"… you met a girl? Around here? On this colony?"
"Yeah."
Shep carefully bit his tongue, not wanting to sound pessimistic, but Kreon seemed to know what he was hinting at.
"Oh, don't worry, she made it off-world already," he assured him. Shep couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at his confidence.
"You got a message?"
"Not exactly. Selamawit is on the personal security detail for the colonial governor's kids. Part bodyguard, part nanny; that sort of shit. So, when the governor's family got evac'ed like, an hour after WINTER CONTINGENCY was declared, Selly would have gone with them."
"Well, that's good," Shep replied and he meant it. "You gonna look her up once we get out of here?"
"If we get out of here," Kreon emphasized. "And… I dunno. Maybe."
"Oh, come on! You should- "
Shep broke off. He could have sworn he just heard-
"Yo, is that fucking gunfire?" Kreon exclaimed, half climbing to his feet. "That sounds like a DMR. What the fuck. Are there any friendlies operating in the area?"
"Can't be, we've been here for six fucking days; if there were any surviving resistance, we would have seen traces of them by now," Shep pointed out. "It's gotta be- shit! Viper Team to all call signs: all units, give me a sitrep!"
"This is Python!" Half-Staff immediately reported. "It ain't us! We're still incognito, over!"
"Viper to Cobra: give me a sitrep!"
There was silence. Shep and Kreon exchange a grim look.
"Cobra Team, do you copy?"
Shep glanced out the window. Gunfire was still going off, but now he could pick up on the sounds of plasma fire mixed in. "Ah, fuck. This ain't good."
"No shit, Sherlock!" Kreon snapped. "What are we- "
"This is Cobra!" the radio suddenly blared, causing Shep to jump. "We have been engaged! I say again -ucking Drones coming out of th- -damn sewers! Must have accidentally woke them up when we - ! Could use some backup if - -anage, over!"
"Viper, Python: we're on it!" Half-Staff immediately volunteered before Shep could say anything. "Any chance you can provide sniper support from where you at?"
"I don't think so," Shep admitted as he glanced out the window, and then at his TACPAD where Cobra's last know position was marked.
"Boss, we gotta problem," Kreon warned from behind his sniper rifle.
"I know!"
"Not that! I think the Covies are reporting in cause three Prowlers just rolled up outside Poncho's HQ, and a bunch of Baby Kongs with weapons are headed out. I think Poncho might be among them!"
"Shit," Shep whispered, frantically thinking. If Poncho left his HQ to go personally deal with the firefight…
"How much longer we got for the missiles?" Kreon asked.
"About fifteen minutes!"
"Boss, if Poncho ain't in that building when the missiles hit…"
"I know!" Shep snapped. "Then this mission is fucked!"
"What do you want to do!?"
Shep's brain was working in overdrive, trying to think of their options. Unfortunately, there was only one thing they could do. "Engage."
"What!?"
"Open fire on that HQ!" Shep snapped. "We gotta keep those Brutes pinned down, long enough for the missiles to hit!"
Kreon stared at him. "Dude, we are not equipped for an extended firefight- "
"I know!"
" -and our extraction was already cutting it close as it was; we do this, we might miss it and then, we are properly- "
"I know!" Shep impatiently roared. "But if Poncho gets away, he's gonna go to ground and we might not be able to find him again. He's got to fucking die, today."
Kreon stared at him in disbelief.
"Fucking knew I should have joined the motherfucking Air Force," he grumbled as he did a quick chamber check to make sure his sniper rifle was ready to go. "Fuck! We should have called in an orbital strike."
"Covies wouldn't have let our ships get close," Shep pointed out as he grabbed his radio.
"Python, Viper," he called as he pulled out his spotting scope. "We gotta keep target Poncho pinned in place: you're on your own for now. If you can, get them to extract, we'll RV with you guys there, over."
"Solid!" Half-Staff tersely replied, then clicked off.
"Alright Kreon, target the driver in the lead Prowler," Shep barked as he peered through his scope. "Range: six one three meters. Push up two mils. No crosswind, it's a straight shot."
"On target," Kreon distractedly reported.
"Fire."
The suppressed sniper fire sounded like a small firecracker going off, and Shep watched as the three hundred and sixty grain sabot-launched penetrator speed downrange at close to four times the speed of sound. The Brute – a mere Major who wasn't even wearing any power armor – was knocked sideways out of his seat as his brains were forcefully ejected out of one of his ears. Surprisingly, no one seemed to notice his death which was… not quite what they were going for.
"Hit," Shep reported, doing his best to mask his anxiety. "Target the gunner. Same range, same direction."
Kreon cycled the bolt without pulling away from his scope. "On target."
"Fire when ready."
PFT!
Shep watched the bullet speed downrange once more. The Brute gunner, a Minor, had been idly spinning around in his turret, and had apparently just noticed his driver was dead because he had turned in the direction of the crowd and was about to shout out a warning, when Kreon's bullet caught him at the base of his skull. Rather than words, an entire fountain of blood came gushing out of the Brute's open mouth, spraying the entire crowd down. That got people's attention, as all the assembled Brutes began yelling and scrambling for cover.
"Alright, we're in the shit now," Shep warned as he watched the Brute scamper. "Target: Brute Ultra standing by the door. Range, six two one meters. Straight shot, hit him in the leg."
Kreon hesitated. "We're not killing these guys?"
"We don't need to kill them; we just need them distracted and too scared to move. Hit him in the leg. Fire when ready."
Kreon fired again, and Shep watched as the bullet struck the Ultra where his armor was weakest: his knee. There was a squirt of blood as the Ultra's leg was blown clean off, depositing the screaming alien onto the ground.
"Hit. Target: heavy weapons dude looking lost. Range, six one seven. Hit his weapon. Fire when ready."
The sniper rifle went off and the Brute Major carrying a Brute Shot cried out in alarm as the bullet struck one of the grenades, setting it off. The ensuing explosion wasn't enough to kill the Brute, but it certainly had the alien running for cover.
"Hit. Target: Major with the radio hiding behind that second Prowler. You see him?"
"Yeah," Kreon replied as he adjusted him aim.
"Him, you can kill. Fire when ready."
The hull of the Prowler was coated in blood as Kreon's round punched the Brute right through his left eye. At that, the remaining Brutes seemed to come to a consensus, and Shep dispassionately watched as the Brutes started unloading in all directions. None of the rounds came close, and just served to add to the general chaos, which was exactly what they needed.
"Target the gunner in that second Prowler. Range, six one three. Hit him in the arm. Fire when ready."
A hole appeared over the Brute's heart, causing the Brute to slump over his gun, and Shep wasn't sure how he should feel about that shot: on one hand, Kreon had technically missed. On the other… well, one more dead Brute wasn't going to hurt anyone.
"Target! Brute Minor, running to assist that Ultra! Moving from left to right, half mil lead!"
"On scope!"
"Fire!"
The bullet skimmed along the Brute's back, leaving a bloody trail, but it was a scratch at best, and the Brute made it into cover.
"Miss! Lost target, finding a new one!"
"Reloading!" Kreon warned as he ripped out the empty mag.
Shep quickly began scanning the crowd, looking for Poncho, but he didn't see him. "Hey, I lost Poncho! You got eyes on?"
"Never did!" Kreon yelled back as he worked the bolt. "I said he might have been there, not that he actually was!"
"Wait, what!? Fuck!" Shep spat. He wasn't sure how he had fucked that up.
"What difference does it make?"
"By us engaging while he wasn't there, we might have just accidentally tipped him off that his HQ wasn't safe," Shep groaned. "Convincing him he shouldn't stick around whereas, if we hadn't done anything, he might not have gone out with them!"
"Fuck, are you serious!?"
"Too late now! Target: Brute Major, carrying a carbine! Running up to the second Prowler! You got eyes on?"
"On target!"
"Send it!"
Kreon fired, and the Major seemed to stumble, but kept moving, and with no visible wounds, Shep wasn't sure if the Brute had gotten hit, or just tripped. "No idea, reengage!"
Kreon exhaled, then fired again. This time, Shep could see the bullet missing the Brute by several centimeters. "Miss! Wind is picking up. Quarter value crosswind, east to west. Push right two mils and reengage! Hit him in the stomach for more visibility!"
The sniper rifle barked once more and this time, the Brute went crashing to the ground, screaming as blood squirted out from the wound in his thigh. Good enough.
"You're hitting about seven centimeters too much to the right, and shooting about three too low," Shep warned. "Adjust accordingly! Target, Brute Minors trying to set up a tripod mounted plasma repeater. Second story, third window on the right! Range, six four zero meters. Hit the one on the right!"
"Got 'em!" Kreon yelled back, and immediately fired. Through his scope, Shep watched as one of the Brutes jerked, and grabbed his stomach as it blossomed into red, before tumbling straight out the window and onto the sidewalk below.
"Hit!" Shep reported. "Target the other- "
FWOOZ!
"Shit!"
Shep tumbled to the ground as a purple needle slammed into the ceiling right over his head. He grabbed his DMR and threw himself against the wall just under the window sill as the initial needle was followed by at least a dozen more.
"Hey, you got eyes on these assholes!?" Shep yelled as he threw his helmet on. It wouldn't protect him from a direct shot to the face, but at least he would be able to hear himself think.
"Negative! Fucking came out of nowhere! Think the Brute's finally got us zeroed in?"
"No, I can hear the retort of that Needle Rifle!" Shep yelled back, tapping his headphones. "Got to be within sixty to seventy meters!"
"Break out the Raven!"
"We ain't gonna be able to recover it!"
"Bro, you serious right now? If we get pinned down, it's not gonna even fucking matter!"
Shep swore as he realized Kreon was right. So much for turning in all of his equipment.
"Gonna need some covering fire!" he yelled as he pulled out the mini-UAV and reassembled it.
"Nah, I just figured I'd let you get shot!"
"On my command! Three, two, one, GO!"
Kreon immediately stood up and began firing randomly out the window, cycling the bolt as fast as he could. Meanwhile, Shep pulled his arm back and hurtled the Raven as hard as he could. "Raven out! Get down! Shit!"
Shep jerked back down as a needle bounced off the frame of the window and smashed into his helmet, shattering upon impact. Growling, he lifted his DMR over his head and blindly fired two shots downrange before ducking back down again to take control of the Raven.
"Looks like… contacts, three degrees north, fifty-seven meters out," Shep reported. "They're in the second story level, just above that grocery store three blocks away, at the northwest corner of the intersection. Count… ah, I fucking can't tell. Looks like a Skirmisher patrol, so probably around five to seven of them."
Unscrewing the suppressor on his DMR, Shep pulled out a rifle grenade and slipped it over the muzzle. "I'll pop a rifle grenade into the room they're in, get them to scatter. Hopefully. Cover me!"
"Hang on!" Kreon hastily reloaded. "Alright, I'm ready!"
"On my command! Three, two, one… suppressing fire!"
Both he and Kreon immediately stood. As Kreon began firing as rapidly as he could with a bolt-action sniper rifle, Shep took a moment to aim.
"Frag out!" he roared and fired. As the grenade hurtled towards the target, Shep emptied the rest of the magazine in the Covies' direction, managing to peg one of the Skirmishers in the neck with a lucky shot just a split second before the grenade exploded.
"Loading!" he warned, dropping the empty magazine onto the ground and slapping a fresh one in place.
"Reloading!" Kreon warned, ducking down. "Shep, last mag!"
Slipping another grenade over his muzzle, Shep fired it at the Skirmisher's position once more for good measure, then pivoted and emptied the rest of the magazine in the direction of Poncho's HQ. He doubted he hit anything, but it was more for suppressing fire than anything.
"Kreon, get fire back on those Brutes," he barked as he reloaded once more, before grabbing his radio. "Viper to Python, give me a sitrep!"
"This is Cobra!" Haka replied instead. "The Boar is down, I say again, Corporal Barako is down, hard! I can grab him, but I need some covering fire!"
"Haka, Half-Staff: Python's got you covered but Shep! We ain't going to be able to double back for you and Kreon!"
"Just get the fuck out of here; we'll figure out a way!"
"Could use a distraction right about now!"
Shep didn't bother responding, just switched channels. "Sandman, Sandman, this is Serpent, come in!"
"Go for Sandman!"
"You guys been monitoring our comm chatter, over?"
"Serpent, affirmative. Air squadrons Hurricane and Hailstorm staging diversionary attacks already, but be advised, while that's going to draw away the Covies' air groups, it's not going to do much with the infantry already in the city, over!"
"I figured as much, but it'll at least clear the skies, make it easier for Tailorbird and Hawkeye to get their asses in here and get us the fuck out!" Shep pointed out. "Give me a TTO on those missiles!"
"Time to objective: five minutes!"
"Shit- Kreon! five minutes! We got to get the fuck out of here!"
"Five minutes?" Kreon yelled back as he tossed his empty rifle away and pulled out his sidearm. "We're not going to make extraction in time!"
"If it ain't a weapon, dump it!" Shep ordered, stripping himself of all the equipment he no longer needed. "If we book it, we just might make it!"
"It's like five fucking blocks! There's no fucking way we can- "
"We're going to have to fucking try!"
PING.
Shep glanced down at his HUD to see a number of red dots had appeared.
"Great. We got Covies in the building," Kreon said, sounding more pissed than scared. "Now we're proper fucked. There's no way we can fight through these guys and reach extraction in time before Soteria gets here."
Shep frantically racked his brain. There had to be a way for them… unfortunately, the only thing he could think of was extremely dangerous. But then again, they were fucked either way. He grabbed his radio.
"Half-Staff, this is Shep, come in."
"Go Shep!"
"We've just been cut off. There's only one chance me and Kreon have got to make it, and that's if we take a double dose of rumbledrug. I don't know what sort of state of mind I'm going to be in, so you gotta take command, over."
There was a split-second hesitation from Half-Staff before he replied, "Understood. Good luck, I'll see you at extract."
Tossing the radio away, Shep looked at Kreon. "You ready?"
"Does it fuckin' matter?" Kreon snapped as he reached into his IFAK and pulled out a syringe. Without a moment of hesitation, he proceeded to inject the entire vial direction into the veins of his arm, with Shep hastily following suit.
Almost immediately, he could feel the drugs racing through his entire body. As part of his training, Shep had taken a heavily monitored dose of rumbledrug just so he could experience what it was like in a controlled environment, and the Army doctors at the time told him it was impossible for him to actually feel the drug coursing through his veins; however, Shep could swear it felt like hot lava getting injected into his body.
It was shocking.
It was excruciating.
It was exhilarating.
It was the best goddamn feeling in the entire fucking universe. Forgot sex, alcohol, or adrenaline, now this was fucking living! It was-
"Viper, do you copy!?"
Shep blinked and came crashing back into his body. What was going on again?
Right. Covies. Gunfight. Retreat.
…retreat? That didn't sound right. Sergeant First Class John Sheppard did not retreat. Especially when he felt like this. He wasn't retreating, he was… attacking in another direction. That's right.
Shep grabbed his radio as he did his best to try and remain focus, but it wasn't easy. His head was buzzing like it was full of bees and everything seemed to be moving so slowly, as if time itself had slowed down. Or maybe he had sped up, he couldn't tell. Not only that, everything just felt so… easy. Like he could arm-wrestle a Hunter with one armed tied behind his back and win. The sheer strength coursing through his veins was intoxicating, it was-
"VIPER!"
Right.
"We're on our way," Shep reported, and watched dispassionately as he accidentally squeezed too hard and the handset exploded in his hand. "Damn. Ought to make these things out of stronger material."
He glanced up at Kreon who looked as similarly affect as Shep felt. "Ready?"
Kreon let out a burst of maniacal laughter. "Covies are fucked."
Shep grinned, then found himself running through the apartment and into the hall only, he didn't bother with the door and instead, burst through the wall like it was made of paper. As debris slowly rained down around him, Shep looked around and quickly became aware of three things: to his left down the hall, a single Brute Minor was emerging from the stairwell, Spiker in hand. Meanwhile, he and Kreon were on the seventh floor meaning it could take them several minutes just to make back down to ground level, which were several minutes they didn't have. And finally, just behind the emerging Brute was a window leading outside.
Shep didn't even think, he just reacted.
"GET FUUUUUUUCKED!" he shrieked at the top of his lungs as he rushed the Brute. The Brute saw him coming and started to lift his Spiker but to Shep, the Brute seemed to be moving in slow motion.
Shep slammed into the alien at top speed and normally hitting a five-hundred-kilogram creature like that would have been like hitting a brick wall, but not today. Today, Shep wrapped his arms around the Brute, lifted him off the ground, and together, they charged down the rest of the corridor –
- and hurtled out of the window.
Wind whipped by Shep's ears, intermingled with the Brute's screams, but Shep heard none of that as he was laughing too hard. The ride seemed to last forever but at the same time, it ended far too quickly as they abruptly smashed into the ground with enough force to leave a crater in the pavement, and Shep heard something crack and he could only hope it was the Brute but it didn't matter because –
"Look! Bad guys!"
"Shoot the humans!"
His Bowie knife appeared in his hands in a flash and Shep charged at the nearest Skirmisher. Ducking under the barrel of his carbine, Shep slashed at the bird-like alien's neck, accidentally swung too hard, and beheaded him instead. He grabbed the severed head and hurtled it at a nearby Jackal with enough force he outright disabled the alien's energy shield, before throwing himself into a pile of Grunts and just started hacking everything in sight. There was no sense of aim or refinement, it was just sheer butchery, and Shep reveled in the chaos.
"Run away! It's a Demon!"
A Demon? Ha! A Spartan had nothing on him right now.
Lifting his DMR with one hand, Shep calmly shot the two fleeing Grunts in the legs, sending them sprawling to the ground. Stalking over to one of them, Shep kicked the alien's plasma pistol away and flipped the Grunt around.
"Hi," Shep cheerfully greeted before bringing the butt of his rifle down hard, caving the Grunt's face in with one blow.
Looking up, Shep saw Kreon was already dealing with the other Grunt, while the rest of the street was covered in blood and body parts. Honestly, it looked like a slaughterhouse, or at least, Shep assumed it did, and he threw his head back and laughed, the feeling of euphoria too overwhelming. At the very back of his head, a small voice was steadily calculating all the injuries he had already sustained even without considering all the internal damage the rumbledrug was doing to his system, but Shep couldn't feel any of that right now so he ignored it instead.
"FUCK YEAH!" Kreon cheered alongside him.
"SHEP! ShakaZ has lined the extract with charges, but he can't blow them unless you're here! You have thirty seconds to get your ass inside the perimeter before I blow them anyways!"
Shep and Kreon exchanged a glance and even with his visor polarized, Shep could feel the challenging look Kreon was giving him.
"Five blocks in thirty seconds? Piece of cake," he cockily declared.
"Bet I can get there before you!"
"You're on, motherfucker!"
They took off down the street, the buildings turning into an indistinguishable blur as they ran at full tilt. At the end of the block, another Covie patrol appeared; Shep raised his DMR and fired at them, missed, but sent them scattering as he blew past. Goddamn, was this how a Spartan felt all the time? No wonder they walked around acting like tough shit; Shep could get used to this feeling.
He and Kreon cleared the five blocks in fifteen seconds flat. They found themselves at the extraction zone, a large open square somewhere in the middle of the city. Python and Cobra Teams were already there: Haka was looming over the Boar trying hard to stabilize him, while Half-Staff and his sniper, ShakaZ, were hovering a large package set up in the middle of the road, desperately trying to hold back an entire wave of Covenant infantry advancing on them. Even as Shep watched, a couple of Ghosts came tearing around the corner, and he automatically raised his DMR and headshotted one of the Grunt drivers.
"Shep!" he heard Half-Staff cry out. "Get down! ShakaZ, blow the charges!"
ShakaZ tossed his rifle aside and hit a button on his TACPAD. At once, a massive explosion ripped through the ground between them and the Covenant, generating a large cloud of smoke that temporarily hid them from view.
BOOM!
"Haka! Give me a sitrep!" Half-Staff demanded as he leapt to his feet.
"Boar's stabilized for now, but the sooner we get him to a hospital, the better off we'll be!"
"Can he extract!?"
"Yes!"
"Good! Hook him up! Shep!"
"Hmm?" Shep absentmindedly replied.
"Tailorbird will be here in five seconds! Can you connect!?"
Shep stared at him blankly. "Connect to what?"
"Shep, focus! The Skyhook system! Can you connect to it!?"
"Oh, yeah, I can do that," Shep distractedly replied.
"Hook up! Tailorbird is less than three seconds away! Do it now!"
"Alright, relax already," Shep grumbled as he ambled to the package. Grabbing one of the carabiners hanging off it, he secured it to his armor and watched as everyone else followed suit.
Half-Staff flicked a few switches and the loud humming of a motor filled the air. A large balloon popped out of the package, and Shep watched in fascination as it started to float as it was inflated. It rose up, up, up into the air until it was high enough to clear the top of the buildings at which point, a single beacon started flashing.
"Serpent, this is Tailorbird: I see your beacon and your Fulton. Brace yourselves, this is going to get bumpy!"
"CONTACT REAR!"
A crowd of Covenant appeared through the smoke behind them, and Shep immediately raised his rifle and started shooting at them. Then –
"Serpent, Hawkeye: get your head's down! Incoming! Missiles away!"
SWOOSHBOOM! SWOOSHBOOM!
Missiles started raining down from above and Shep jerked his head up to see a Sparrowhawk swooping in, flying just a few meters above the buildings, firing missiles and cannons at the Covenant.
"Hey, look! Air cover!" he heard Kreon cry out and Shep started laughing because Kreon sounded high as fuck, but then there was a jerk and Shep felt himself get yanked off his feet.
"Hooked on!" he heard Soteria yell out and he glanced up to see a Falcon transport vehicle had managed to hook onto the balloon and was now lifting the entire SAS off the street and into the air. "Reeling you in! Get in here and let's get you out of here!"
As Shep spun around midair, narrowly colliding with Haka, he happened to look towards the horizon. There, all manner of plasma was being flung into the air, trying to halt the approach of nearly a dozen Archer missiles, but it didn't seem to be working because the missiles kept coming, and even as Shep watched, the missiles came screaming in and -
xxx
Zandria, Moşul Province, Moesia
Soteria
"Reeling you in!" Soteria yelled at the SAS Team. "Get in here and let's get you out of here!"
Behind her in the cabin, she could hear Maddy and Sharpe frantically working to get the snipers into the cabin and secured. Meanwhile, her early warning radar was lit up with all sorts of contacts, but the ones she was most concerned about were those friendly Archers missiles; in fact, shouldn't they have gone off already…
The roar of explosions abruptly drowned out the drone of her engines, and she glanced at her rear scopes to see the Covies' HQ getting struck by missiles. With close to twenty-five hundred kilograms worth of explosives per warhead, not only was the building completely obliterated, but so too was the entire block. A tidal wave of smoke and debris was flung high into the air, blotting out the rising sun and covering half the city in blackness once more. She could feel her Falcon shake as the blast wave lanced through the streets, and she could only hope the recon team had made it inside before it had struck.
"Cabin, Pilot: what's going on back there? Are the Dogfaces in?" she demanded to know.
"This is Serpent: we're inside and secure!" the voice of Half-Staff greeted her and for a brief moment, Soteria wondered why he was replying and not Shep; she could only hope nothing had happened to him. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to ask.
"Strap yourselves in as best you can – I know it's crowded, but we're getting the heck out of here," she distractedly ordered as her instrument panel lit up like a Christmas tree, warning her about search radars and lock ons. Covie air defenses had been distracted by the incoming missiles, but now that they were gone, the air defenses had switched over to the remaining targets still in the air: her and Hawkeye.
"Hawkeye, Tailorbird - Yoda, you still with me?" she asked.
"Yeah, I'm here!" Yoda assured her.
"Ground team is in and secure; let's get out of here!"
"I'm way ahead of you, Cap!" he assured her. "Hey, follow in my wake; I'll clear the path for you!"
"Roger!" Soteria said, grateful to get behind Yoda's Sparrowhawk. With his heavier armor and better weapons, Yoda would be able to blast his way through any resistance, unlike Soteria who only had her door gunners and a low velocity 20mil.
"Sandman, this is Tailorbird," she called out as she got behind Yoda's Sparrowhawk. "Ground team is secure, we are exfil'ing now, break. Be advised, we have visual confirmation of detonation of all missiles. Can you confirm Raphael, over?"
"Wait one… Tailorbird, Sandman: negative, we cannot confirm Raphael, over."
"Under- wait, what?" Soteria sat up straighter in her seat as she registered Sandman's words. "Sandman, say again your last, over!"
"We are unable to confirm termination of codename Poncho," Sandman reiterated, "as we are still picking up faint traces of his beacon. Furthermore, we're tracking the approach of a single Type-44 Phantom transport on course towards the Covenant HQ ruins. We can only surmise they're heading there to extract target Poncho."
Soteria was shocked. "Son of a… Sandman, are you saying we missed our primary objective? That he wasn't killed? Is there anything else we can do?"
"Hailstorm is launching a volley of ASGM-10 missiles, but even without flying nap-of-the-earth, TTT is going to be anywhere between seven to ten minutes-"
"By then, that fucker's going to be gone," Yoda interjected in her other ear.
"- and even then," Sandman continued, "we can't really lock onto that Phantom from here, so there's no guarantee the missiles will even hit."
"So, we have no other assets in the vicinity that can engage the target?"
"Negative, Tailorbird, not at this time."
"Well, that's not quite true," Yoda interjected.
"What? What do you mean, Yoda?"
"There's us."
"What!?"
"There's us," Yoda repeated. "We're available. You still got a full load of 20mil and your door gunners, while I still got Anvils and my cannons."
"Yoda, are you crazy!?" Soteria exclaimed. "We're so far behind enemy lines… like, there are bad guys everywhere, we're surrounded by AA… the fact we haven't been shot out of the sky already is a miracle! And you want to risk that all for… what, exactly?"
"If we don't take out that Phantom, the Brute is going to disappear and we're never going to be able to find him again," Yoda patiently explained. "Especially now that he knows we're gunning for him. This is the one and only opportunity we have to take him out. We have to do this."
"But-!" Soteria sputtered.
"Soteria, listen to me: this is the mission. This is our job. We finish the mission, nothing else matters. I can't tell you what to do, but for me, I am going in."
"Oh, Christ!" Soteria swore as Yoda's Sparrowhawk abruptly banked and turned around, speeding off in the direction of the reported Phantom, leaving Soteria no choice but to follow. "Dammit, Yoda, what the hell!?"
Pulling back on her stick, Soteria banked hard to the right.
"Crew, this is Soteria," Soteria said over the intercom as she applied the accelerator, trying to catch up to Yoda. "We've got a bit of an issue: target Poncho is still active. I say again, our primary objective is still alive."
"What? Fuck!" she heard Half-Staff exclaim. "What's the plan now!?"
"Yoda and I – that is, call sign Hawkeye –are turning around to engage as we have no other assets in the AO. It's going to be really risky though, because we've blown our concealment and every single Covenant gun is on us now," Soteria explained, half hoping her passengers and crew would start to protest and maybe give her a reason to turn back.
No such protests emerged though as Half-Staff said instead, "Understood, Captain: do whatever you have to, just take that fucker out. We've never failed an objective yet, and we're damn well not going to start now!"
"Don't worry about it, Captain," Maddy added, and Soteria clearly heard the sound of an M247H heavy machine gun getting readied. "You just focus on flying; we'll worry about shooting."
"Damn special operators!" Soteria raged quietly to herself as she got back on Yoda's tail. "Why do they always got to be so mission orientated? Crap! I knew I should have gotten out of the military when I had a chance like my mother suggested!"
"Soteria, you with me?"
Soteria tapped her mic and reluctantly replied with a simple, "Yes."
"Good, knew I could count on you. Listen, our biggest advantage right now are these buildings, which are blocking lines of sight and preventing the Covies from bringing their big guns around. So, let's get as low to the ground as possible; I'm talking about being able to run people over, that's how low I'm talking about."
"At that altitude and at those speeds, we're not going to be able to obtain a fire solution on the Phantom!" Soteria couldn't help but point out.
"The low-level flight is just so we can close the gap. Once we get closer, we'll pop our heads back up, and once we accomplish the mission, drop back down and get the fuck out of dodge before the Covies can stop us."
Privately, Soteria had her doubts it would be that easy, but she also realized she had no choice. The moment she turned around to rejoin Yoda, she was committed. "Copy."
"Alright," Yoda said, and Soteria could hear him nervously licking his lips. "Go low-low, zero one three, and follow me in."
"Copy. Low-low, direction zero one three, following you in."
They tore down the street at high speeds, and Soteria had a quick flashback to over a week ago when she had pulled a similar maneuver back in Shipka. On the plus side, this time there were no Banshees chasing her. Plus, rather than having to wait for Yoda to come bail her out, he was flying right beside her. On the other hand, given the multi-storied buildings that lined the streets, plasma fire could and would be coming from all directions: in front, below, even above! And Soteria had no doubt heavier weapons were already on the way.
"Contact left!" she heard Maddy abruptly cry out, and she glanced over her left shoulder to see two Covenant Ghost appearing from around the corner.
Behind her, she could hear Maddy's gun going off. Firing multi-purpose high-explosive incendiary armor-piercing rounds on a machine gun whose rate of fire that had been increased from six hundred to nine hundred rounds per minute, Soteria knew Maddy would be able to make short work of those lightly armored vehicles, but what about the next pair that showed up? Or the ones that came afterwards? Or the ones that came behind that?
Soteria didn't voice any of her concerns though, she just tucked her head down as if that would help and flew faster.
Plasma fire started to pick up the further into the city they got, and the more Covenant patrols they started to run into. Rounding one corner, plasma from a heavy plasma repeater mounted on a roadblock three blocks away began chewing up the pavement around them, and Sharpe's gun barked in response, but even before the rounds could hit, Soteria flinched as Needler crystals shattered against her canopy.
"Contact, up high!" she heard one of the Army snipers cry out from behind her, followed by the boom of their sniper rifles going off and glancing up, she spotted a single Grunt corpse topping off the edge of one of the buildings. "Fuel rod! INCOMING!"
"Oh, FU-!"
Soteria yanked her stick hard to the left and accidently slammed into an abandon car sitting on the side of the road, causing it to flip and go crashing into the front of one of the buildings. The impact nearly caused her to lose control of the Falcon, and she tried to straighten up and almost overcorrected back into the path of the incoming fuel rod cannon, but then just barely managed to avoid it at the last second as it came screaming in and exploded against the road.
BOOM!
The entire Falcon rocked as it was pelted by both the shockwave and debris from the explosion, and she heard her passengers cry out in distress but Soteria was too busy to try and figure out if they were okay because at that very moment, two Jackals had scurried out from a side alley in front of her, firing their plasma pistols at Yoda's Sparrowhawk as it passed. With their backs turned towards her and distracted by trying to take down Yoda, they didn't see or hear her, and Soteria had no time nor room to try and dodge.
BUZZ!
"Oh, god!" Soteria couldn't help but squeal in disgust as some sort of purple goo splashed across her canopy, the result of at least one of the Jackals getting chopped to bits by her rotor. "Get it off!"
"Soteria, what the fuck was that!?"
Maddy clearly hadn't expected a response as before Soteria could say a word, Maddy's gun went off again and Soteria could see her shooting at a handful of Brutes leaping from a Prowler that had just pulled up. Among their regularly carried Spikers and Repeaters, they were also sporting a large number of heavy weapons, like Brute Shots, concussion rifles, and fuel rod guns, all of which were capable of destroying her Falcon and killing everyone inside it with just a few shots.
"Soteria, you okay? You still with me?"
"How much further do we have to go!?" Soteria did her best to try and hide the fear in her voice, but she knew she didn't even come close.
"We're almost there, just hang on!"
"Fuck!" Soteria yelped as a fuel rod projectile whipped by overhead, just barely missing the main body of her Falcon by mere centimeters. By now, every single gun on her aircraft was blazing away as everyone on board was doing their best to keep the Covenant suppressed long enough for them to get out of this mess. "Yoda! We're starting to take concentrated amounts of fire! I don't think we're going to make it! We got to break away!"
"Negative, stay on target! We're too deep; do notabort, I say again, do not abort!"
"Yoda! We're not going to make it! I got no room to maneuver, I can't even deploy chaff or flares because they're just keep hitting the ground and bouncing right back towards me!"
"Just… hang on, Soteria, hang on! We should be coming within visual range any minute now! We can do this!"
"Yoda, we need to pull out- "
Without warning, the buildings that surrounded them abruptly disappeared, leaving Soteria reeling in confusion for a moment before she realized the cause: they had reached the block that had been leveled by the Archer missiles a few minutes prior. The dust from the explosion which had just begun to settle, started to pick up again as a result of hers and Yoda's rotor downwash, and brownout conditions began to form. Visibility rapidly dropped to almost nothing, forcing Soteria to almost rely entirely on her instruments to fly, but even that wasn't enough to hide the single Phantom ship sitting in the middle of all the mess, clearly extracting a single Brute Captain Ultra from ground zero: target Poncho.
"Primary target in sight," Yoda calmly reported.
"Fire, fire, fire!" Soteria urged.
"Hang on, need to gain some altitude, this brownout is fucking with my sensors- "
"WARNING: MISSILE INBOUND."
"Flares!" Soteria spat as she banked hard to the right while at the same time, tried to climb to allow her flares some room to work. "Yoda! We're getting lock-on from ground-based AA! It's now or never!"
"Almost… there… just need a bit more altitude…" Yoda replied, sounding distracted.
"YODA! The higher we go, the easier it becomes for the Covenant to hit us! Shoot the stupid ship!"
"That's it! Missile locked! Engag- "
Soteria jerked as there was a flash of light from Yoda's Sparrowhawk and even when reviewing the footage later, Soteria would have no idea what happened. All she knew was one moment, Yoda was in the middle of launching a single Scorpion missile from the weapon pod under his right wing when there was a small explosion and the next moment, Yoda's right ducted fan was on fire and in the midst of tearing itself to pieces.
"Shit! I'm hit, I'm hit!" Yoda reported.
"Holy shit! Hawkeye just got hit!" Soteria heard Maddy crying out in alarm
"Yoda, pull up, PULL UP!" Soteria yelled as Yoda's Sparrowhawk began losing altitude.
"No good… controls… minimal response…" Yoda replied through gritted teeth.
"Yoda, you're losing her! Break off now, Lieutenant!"
"Can't! You don't have the weapons to take out that Phantom!"
"Forget about the damn Phantom! GET OUT OF THERE!"
"That's not going to happen! We've come this far…"
Soteria glanced over at Yoda and to her astonishment, rather than break away, Yoda appeared to be speeding up. "What the hell are you doing, Lieutenant!? You push that engine any more, it's going to explode!"
"What we came here to do. I'm not getting out of here; my bird's fucked either way, might as well put it to good use."
"Wait! You're not planning on…" Soteria trailed off as she realized that Yoda, in fact, planned on doing exactly what she thought he was aiming to do: ram the Phantom with his dying Sparrowhawk. "Yoda! You don't need to do this! Someone else can get the kill, dammit! Pull off now and save yourself!"
"It's not about getting the kill or the glory!" Yoda snapped. "It's about completing the fucking mission, Captain! That's what SOF is all about! If you haven't figure that out by now, Captain, then I can't really help you!"
"Can't you just shoot them? Why you gotta ram them!?" Soteria desperately pointed out.
"Fire control is out! Must have gotten hit and even if it was still up… I'm barely keeping this thing in the air as it is!"
"Well, set down and…" Soteria trailed off as she realized the absurdity of what she was trying to suggest. They were so far behind enemy lines… assuming the Covenant didn't immediately kill him, there was no way CSAR would be able to extract him.
"I'm not getting eaten," Yoda insisted, seemingly aware of what Soteria was thinking. "At least this way, I get to go out in my own terms. Get out of here, Soteria, I'll handle the rest."
His radio clicked off and Soteria watched as he set himself on a collision course with the Phantom, which was just beginning to take off from the ground. The Covenant saw him coming, of course, and they promptly started concentrating their fire at him, but somehow, none of the rounds hit him. Yoda's Sparrowhawk continued to scream towards the Phantom at top speeds and-
"NO!"
The cry escaped from between Soteria's lips without her realizing as Yoda's struggling ducted fan abruptly failed from the strain, erupting in a violent explosion.
"Ah, fuck!" Yoda yelped as his Sparrowhawk quickly started losing altitude, putting it out of line with the Phantom. "Dammit! Kill them ALLLLLLLL- "
At the last second, Yoda yanked back on his stick and tried to angle his bird up towards the Phantom, but it was no good, and Soteria watched with tears in her eyes as Yoda slammed into the ground just below the Phantom and exploded, filling the radio with static. Meanwhile, the Phantom continued to take off from the ground, unharmed by the blast and Soteria wanted to scream and rage about the unfairness of it all, how Yoda couldn't even get his last wish, and that the stupid Brute that was supposed to be dead already was going to get to live when Yoda and his copilot didn't and –
- and then miracle of miracles happened. Even as the Phantom continued to liftoff, even as Yoda's Sparrowhawk plowed into the ground and exploded, there was a flash of light as Yoda's remaining rockets abruptly launched from their pod, sending Anvils all over the place, including one that shot straight up into the air -
- and slammed straight into the Phantom. The missile detonated against the Phantom's engines, causing them to immediately flameout.
"YES!" Soteria half sob and half cheered as the Phantom immediately took a nose dive, slamming into the ruined streets and throwing another wave of dust and debris into the air once more. "Target is down! Brace yourselves, we're getting out of here!"
"Wait! We need visual confirmation of the target's death! He's already survived one strike…"
Literally squirming in her seat in her desire to vacate the area (how the Covenant hadn't shot her down yet, Soteria had no idea and wasn't about to question it,) Soteria nevertheless obeyed, swiveling the optics of her cannon in the direction of the downed Phantom even as she began plotting a course that would take them out of the area. Aside from its engines, the Phantom had crash-landed relatively intact, but even then, Soteria was confident that no one, not even a Brute, could have survived –
"What!? How is this possible!?" Soteria exploded as a hatch opened on the side of the Phantom, and a single Brute Captain Ultra crawled out. The Brute dropped out of the Phantom onto the ground and looked straight up at her. "How are you still alive!? WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO KILL YOU, YOU SON OF A BITCH!?"
Almost as if he could hear her, the Brute very obviously started laughing, lifting up his Spiker in a show of absolute defiance, and Soteria felt a range of emotions rip through her: fury at the Brute's continued survival, grief at Yoda and his copilot's senseless sacrifice, fear, and just a general sense of helplessness at the entire situation. What more could she do? What would it take to kill this monster?
"WARNING. INBOUND FRIENDLY MISSILES."
"Laze the target!" Soteria screamed. "Laze the target! We have beam riders incoming! LAZE THE TARGET!"
She slammed on the targeting laser to her main cannon and centered it right over the Brute's heart. The Brute noticed the laser pointed straight at him, and looked at in confusion, and Soteria had the grim pleasure of seeing Brute's sneering face change into that of absolute terror before the first missiles came screaming in.
FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ- BOOM!
Nearby Covenant AA opened fire on the missiles once more, but it was too late. The first of the AGSM-10 missiles came screaming in, following the course of Soteria's laser and hit the Brute head on. Designed to give small, multi-purpose fighters a limited way of countering small warships such as destroyers, frigates, and corvettes, each individual AGSM-10 missile came equipped with a five-hundred-kilogram warhead. So, when the missile hit, needless to say, there wasn't much left of the Brute after it exploded.
"TARGET DESTROYED!" she heard Maddy triumphantly cry out. "Soteria, we got him! WE FUCKING GOT HIM!"
"Yeah," Soteria whispered as she switched off her laser, and hurriedly redirected the rest of the missiles to go striking at the remaining Covenant air defenses, carving a path that would allow her to leave. "We did. Sandman, Tailorbird: Raphael. I say again, Raphael."
"Raphael confirmed. Excellent work!"
Soteria found she didn't have anything to say to that. Instead, she grabbed her stick and took off from the area.
Alone.
xxx
UNSC Moonlight Sonata, Medium Skopje Orbit
Lorne
Evan found he just couldn't sit still as he waited for reports from the field to come in. A couple of crewmembers looked up in annoyance as he paced back and forth in front of the tac-table, but the good thing about being in charge was that no one could tell him to stop. He just couldn't himself though; this was one of the most important operations in this campaign so far. Would it succeed? And what would he do if it didn't?
"TOC, this is Apache Actual: come in."
Everyone in the room seem to freeze at the call, and all eyes turned towards communications technician as he activated his headset and calmly replied, "This is TOC: go ahead."
"TOC, Apache Actual: Gabriel. I say again, Gabriel."
The technician glanced up at Evan as he replied, "Gabriel confirmed."
"Copy. Apache, out."
The radio clicked off. For a few moments, no one seemed to move. No one even seemed to even breathe, as if they couldn't believe their ears. Then, Nevin abruptly stood up. Stone-faced, she walked over to the wall where the profiles of four Brutes were being projected. Without a single word, she hit a button, and a single red 'X' appeared over one of the faces. That seemed to break the spell that had fallen across the TOC as murmurs immediately began to break out.
" – fucking got him!"
" – holy shit, could this actually work –
"Fucking one down, three to – "
"QUIET ON DECK!" Evan snapped as his ears caught the faint whispers of another radio message coming in, and the crew immediately fell silent in time for him to hear, "- Corsair, do you copy, over?"
The same communications technician glanced up at Evan again even as he replied, "This is TOC: go ahead."
"Michael. I say again, Michael."
Without another word, the radio clicked off. All eyes slowly turned towards Nevin once again as she slowly reached up, and another red 'X' appeared over the face of yet another Brute. More excited whispers broke out through the room, but no one dared do anything more than that as Evan angrily glared at everyone in the room. He waited for the last confirmation word to come in.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Just as Evan was about to lose hope, the radio suddenly popped, and a hint of static made its way through before it finally stabilized.
"TOC, this is Sandman."
Evan turned his glare towards the speakers as the technician cleared his throat.
"Go ahead Sandman."
"TOC, relay from Serpent: we have confirmed Raphael."
"Acknowledged, Sandman: Raphael confirmed."
Nevin automatically reached up and placed one final 'X' over the third Brute, but this time, no one noticed as all eyes were on Evan as he marched over towards the communications station. Without a word, he held out his hand, and the technician placed a spare headset onto it. Waiting for the technician to set the channel, Evan cleared his throat.
"Barracuda Actual to WESTCOM," he clearly announced. "Archangel. Archangel. Archangel."
He placed the headset down. Up here in Skopje's orbit, nothing seemed to change. There was no sign of movement, no sign of life. Up in orbit, the three words that Evan just uttered meant absolutely nothing.
But down on the surface… Evan knew hell was breaking lose all across the frontline as nearly a hundred thousand Airmen, Marines, and Soldiers from eight different divisions and air groups began their attack on Covenant positions. The final liberation of Moesia had just begun.
Evan glanced across the room.
"We got them," he simply announced.
"WOOOOOOO!"
Evan wasn't able to see who it was that first started cheering, but it didn't matter as at once, everyone else immediately broke out into cheers, cries, and congratulations. There were tears, cries, howls of approval, and hugs, and he could even see Witkowski and Nevin reaching out to shake each other's hands as they congratulated each other for a job well done. The tension in the room that had been building in the leadup to the launching of Operation: CHOPPING BLOCK had finally shattered with the successful completion of the mission, and while the Battle of Moesia was far from over, and Skopje was far from liberated, people clearly needed a chance to celebrate the victory they had achieved today. Excitement was all around but to Evan, none of it seemed to touch him.
Instead, he found himself walking over to the wall Nevin had abandoned that was still projecting the faces of the four Brutes. Three of them had red crosses over their faces, but the last one?
Evan stared at the unmoving face of Chieftain Menounus.
"Your move," he whispered.
- Rumbledrug: this is a canon drug. First appearing in the short story, Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian, which appeared as part of the collection, Halo: Evolutions – Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, the drug is described on Halopedia as "a drug or cocktail of drugs used to vastly increase a subject's physical strength and resistance to injury." The drug became notorious for their use among Innies, who took the drug in an attempt to gain the ability to engage Spartans in melee combat, but the resulting lack of mental stability usually meant the users had a tendency to destroy themselves long before they could encounter any UNSC forces, much less Spartans.
As evident by its appearance in Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian, the UNSC also has access to those drugs, but I can only presume it would be one of those "break glass" type of situations where there's legitimate concerns their soldiers wouldn't be in a position to have to worry about the long-term effects of the drug. Presumably, this means the use is mostly confined to UNSC SOF and black ops units, though, again, presumably, facilities and ships with a full-fledged hospital and surgeons would also have the drug in stock.
- Skyhook: also known as the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system (Skyhook was the name the CIA gave to the program,) this was a system developed in the 1950's by inventor Robert Edison Fulton Junior as a method of recovering material and personnel from the ground without having to land a plane or helicopter. It involved an inflatable balloon attached to a line, which in turn was attached to the object that needed recovery. When everything was in position, the balloon would be inflated and the plane in question (at the time, it was usually an MC-130) would fly over the area and catch the balloon and line with a Y-shaped yoke, lifting the person or object off the ground and into the air, where they could be reeled in.
This system has appeared in a number of movies, shows, and video games, most notably in the 2008 Batman film The Dark Knight; it was the system Batman uses to extract gangster Lau (played by actor Chin Han) from Hong Kong. It has also appeared in the online multiplayer battle royale game, PUBG: Battlegrounds (previously known as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds.)
- CSAR: Combat Search And Rescue. In the United States military, this would be the likes of USAF Pararescuemen and Combat Rescue Officers, or USN and USCG's Rescue Swimmers.
Headcanon Notes
I thought I would take this moment to just give a general overview of the way I view the UNSC Armed Forces, the relationship between each individual branch, and how they operate in my universe. I'm only bringing this up now because it's rare for me to mention the UNSC Army, the reserves, and Colonial Militia all in the same chapter and I thought it would be interesting to expand on it (plus, I don't actually have anywhere else to put this crap – I should probably start a blog or something.)
Note: Absolutely none of this is important to my stories, so if this isn't something you're interested in, feel free to skip it. Also, while this has its roots in canon, it is not canon, and should not be used as a guide to anyone else's stories.
The way I see it, there are three main eras in the way the UNSC Armed Forces are organizations: pre-war, during the war, and post-war. In the pre-war era, there would have been five main branches: the UNSC Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Colonial Military Administration (CMA), with the first four branch being sub-divided into an active and reserve component, while the CMA was divided into a "space" and "land" component (the latter being generically referred to as the "Colonial Militia.") The military would be organized in this fashion up until 2525 when, in conjunction with the Covenant invasion, the CMA would be "federalized" and their individual assets would be handed over to their respective UNSC counterparts (so, Colonial Militia armies would be handed over to the UNSC Army, CMA fleets could be handed over to the UNSC Navy and so on.)
The official reason for this reorganization was to invoke better coordination between the various military components and armed groups that could be found on a single colony, which would supposedly lead to better command and control in the event of a Covenant attack. However, unofficially, it was well known that the CMA was notoriously sympathetic to the Insurrection, to the point on some colonies, their entire Colonial Militias would outright defect to the Innies, and the dissolution of the CMA was the UNSC's way of trying to reassert control of the situation.
So, this leads to the Human-Covenant War era, where the UNSC was comprised of the four main branches: Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy. Again, each branch was sub-divided into an active and reserve component, however as the war dragged on, the reserve component would gradually shrink until 2545 when all reserve units were officially activated, with the various Colonial Militias filling that reserve role instead (but even then, that was iffy.) Two such units from my other story, Missing in Action, are intended to fit this format: the 53rd Armored Division (which is a canon unit) would have been an active-duty unit, while the 222nd Airborne Division would have belonged to the reserves (though, by the events of MIA, they would have been active duty for a few years.)
In the post-war era, the UNSC would see a fifth branch being added to their roster once again, this time being the "Spartan Operations" or "Spartan branch," though I imagine despite its name, it wouldn't be composedly solely of Spartans, but also other special operation units, making the branch more analogous to the Special Troops Command branch of the modern day Polish Armed Forces. However, I don't really write about the post-war era, so I'm not going to go much further on this topic.
So, how do the various military branches operate, and what are their main roles and responsibilities? The way I see it, the five branches are divided into three different categories: expeditionary/offensive warfare, attritional/occupational warfare, and COIN/defensive warfare. The Navy and the Marines would have a primary focus on expeditionary warfare. The Navy with their heavy warships and massive amounts of firepower and the Marines with their light and rapidly deployable units would be forward deployed and focused on rapid response and immediate counterattacks in the event of an incident. Once they've paved the way, the Air Force with their logistical ships and aircraft carriers, and the Army with their heavily armored and slow deploying divisions, will take over the fight until most of the resistance is subdued. At which point, CMA units will move in and make that transition between "wartime" to "peacetime," getting the area settled until civilian police can move in at which point, CMA units are turned over to the colonial government of said world, putting them in a position to be the first line defenders in the event of an attack.
So, a textbook operation would look something like this:
- Colony gets attacked. CMA fleets and Colonial Militia divisions are activated and immediately put into service to try and blunt the attack.
- Navy expeditionary strike groups deploy. They punch their way through whatever defenses the attackers may have set up around the planet, paving the way for Marine Corps expeditionary units (MEUs, MEBs, or MEFs) to land on the surface and establish a lodgement.
- With the lodgement established, Army divisions deploy and begin full-scale counteroffensives across the surface to retake the planet. Meanwhile, the Navy has subdued all resistance in orbit, allowing Air Force carrier divisions to move in and start dropping all manner of supplies to the Army while at the same time, allowing them to use their strike fighters and bombers to provide aerial support whether it be in the form of close air support, strategic bombing, or air interdiction missions.
- As the frontline moves along, new and existing CMA units take over the rear to mop up, occupy, and reassert control.
- Once victory is achieved, a small token of Army and Air Forces unit are garrisoned on the planet while the rest of the UNSC units pack up and get ready to respond to the next attack somewhere else.
(So, in other words, the way I view the CMA, is that they're sort of a mix between the US National Guard (Colonial Militia) and the US Coast Guard (the space component of the CMA.))
Because of these roles, there's a divide when it comes to the specialty of divisions (among the ground units at least.) What I mean by that is in my headcanon, there are seven types of divisions found in the UNSC Armed Forces, those being:
- Airborne
- Armored
- Infantry
- Cavalry
- Rifle
- Air Assault
- Various "environmental" (Mountain, Amphibious, Jungle, etc.)
The first three belong to the Army, while the latter four belong to the CMA. Airborne units serve as the Army's expeditionary force, Armored division are basically your "tank" divisions and are intended to be the Army's spearhead/breakthrough units, while Infantry divisions are "mechanized infantry" units and are sort of the "bread and butter" units of the Army, capable of doing just about everything from sustained combat, to breakout attacks, to encirclements, and everything else in-between.
Meanwhile, on the CMA side of things, Cavalry divisions are "motorized infantry" units, equipped with wheeled APCs and capable of extreme strategic movement and rapid response. Rifle divisions are "light infantry" units, equipped with light utility vehicles and trucks and serve as an occupational force, while Air Assault divisions are moved by helicopter and serve as the various colonial army's expeditionary/contingency units.
(Note: the name "Rifle Division" comes from the Soviet/Russian Armies, which in turn, were just the eastern equivalent to western infantry divisions. I'm not aware of any "western nation" that uses the designation, at least on the division level.)
The various "environmental" units, on the other hand, are specialty units, trained in specific types of warfare such as mountain, arctic, jungle, desert, or amphibious. Unlike the other three types of CMA divisions, not every colony will have these units, as they are dependent on geographical features. Or, for example, a desert planet is not going to have much use for an amphibious division. On the other hand, an ocean planet might not see much use in having a mountain or jungle division.
The name division would also apply to the corps level, with "Armored Corps" designating a UNSC Army corps, while "Infantry Corps" would imply a CMA one.
Obviously, during the Human-Covenant War, as colonies were lost and units were decimated, the lines between unit types, who controlled what, and what role or environment they were trained for got blurred as whatever divisions the various commanders had at hand were thrown into the meatgrinder. Not helping matters is that training really started to get aborted or condensed to the point, often times, soldiers would get assigned to units they had no training for, as divisions simply needed bodies (as depicted in Missing in Action: one of the characters, Griffin, is assigned to the 222nd Airborne Division, despite having never received any paratrooper training whatsoever.)
xxx
So, yeah, that's generally what I had in mind. Not sure how much sense I made in any of the above as I sort of just rambled on because like I said at the start, none of this is actually important to this story, and I just wanted to throw it out there because I don't really have anywhere else to put it. If anyone has any questions or suggestion, feel free to send me a PM or leave a review/comment depending on what website you're on and I'll do my best to respond though obviously if you don't have an account, it's going to be harder to get back to you. However, I'll do my best.