The ride lasted a few more deciunits. The transport bearing the Unggoy and two Sangheili touched down on a hill overlooking a mishmash of tents, trenches, and stationary guns.
The troops piled out and began marching down. Almost immediately one of Kalimee's Unggoy went down from a sniper round to the head. Not a good start for a career.
"Sniper!" the scarlet Major in command roared. Being careful to zigzag in case of more sniper fire, Kalimee ran up to the Major.
"Excellency !"
"Get down!"
The two hit the dirt as a pair of shots screamed past where their heads had previously been. Kalimee's stomach began to sicken.
"This isn't going to work!"
"Calm down," the Major scolded. "Don't dishonor your lineage!"
"The sniper is going to kill us," Kalimee pleaded.
"Nonsense," the Major said as he threw a plasma grenade at the fortified humans. It landed half a unit from one of the stationary guns which was chipping away at Hakimee's shields. "Just follow me," with that he rose and charged. Kalimee clutched his plasma rifle tightly and followed..
A machine gun nest poured lead into the path of the advancing Sangheili. Kalimee took a dozen rounds to the chest. He sidestepped, fired a burst of plasma at the offending human, and continued on his way.
Once on level ground, Kalimee and the Major unleashed a barrage of plasma; Kalimee hit the gunner several times and the figure slumped against the barrel. A few more shots convinced another human to fall back. Now he just needed to find that sniper.
After hosing down another human and watching his superior doing the same, Kalimee turned his head back for a brief glance. His squad was lagging behind and taking some fire.
"Get forward! You can't do any good back there!"
As he turned his head back Kalimee felt a blow to him, like a giant hammer striking his frontal armor. His shields died and Kalimee paused and crouched..
Ahead of him was a human clad in primitive armor, holding a large silver gun with a wide barrel. Another hit from that would almost certainly kill him.
Kalimee dived towards the infidel, knocking the beast of his feet. Kalimee righted himself, clubbed the human with his weapon, ducked to avoid the majority of the next shot from the tube gun, and shot the human twice in the head. It went down with a loud thud. In his next act Kalimee crushed the blasphemous weapon with his armored foot. Kalimee heard more shots and shield depletion so he turned a quarter turn to his left, more humans.
Kalimee sprayed blue plasma toward the enemy and ran up to a nearby tent. The sound of battle could still be heard but he didn't care to look. A sat against the fabric, facing the dead human. After catching his breath, the blue-clad soldier leaned to the right, saw a few more humans and his overextended superior. His squad was nowhere in sight. He calmed himself and fired more shots at the humans, killing one and sending another packing. Two more shots between the shoulder blades persuaded the infidel to die. He walked diagonally to another tent, knowing his instructors would frown on such precaution. After raising his head above the protective cover he saw-that it was over.
Human bodies and flaming tents littered the valley. The Major hailed Kalimee who ran up to him.
"Nice creeping, Minor."
"Excellency," Kalimee replied hesitantly. "I was only concerned about the success of the mission, a premature charge would have allowed the humans too..." His superior raised a hand to silence him.
"Your performance was adequate, the Covenant is pleased to have you. Now then, tell me. How was the sniper?
A terrible realization flashed through Kalimee's mind. He was supposed to...
"Down!" he yelled.
Kalimee was able to dodge the bullet, but the Major straightened up and was hit square in the chest by the round. He went down.
Kalimee followed the trail left by the bullet to a lone human in a prone position atop a small mud hut. Kalimee had no time to react. The sniper positioned his finger by his trigger, when Kalimee saw a small purple explosion engulf the Mareene. Wiwik wattled up to the body.
Kalimee jogged up to and counted his Unggoy, six in all, so he had lost one more. Not bad, his senior Unggoy had obviously rallied the troops. Kalimee made a mental note to recommend him for SpecOps duty, that or scold the little trooper for cowardice.
"Me kill Sniper!" Wiwik said proudly.
"Yes," Kalimee muttered. He didn't get to hear what else Wiwik had to say because a pair of Banshee attack craft decided to buzz the field. Kalimee looked up to see them bank and descend for a landing. Hakimee rushed to assist in rearming the Banshees with fuel rods dropped by the dropship.
While all of this was happening the commanding Major came jogging up to Kalimee and his squad.
"Over so soon? Nice squad work, most recruits don't bother to know their fodder."
"Hm."
"Field Master Tumamee wants us to hold here, says the main human stronghold has..."
"Very bad thing!" Kalimee's Unggoy started running but with a sharp yell he reorganized them. A human dropship was coming in from the north-and fast. The Banshees rose to intercept and one managed to land a fuel rod on the edge of the portside wing but the ship's 70mm cannon swept across the nimble attack craft, sending them away trailing smoke.
"Well there goes our air support," Kalimee growled.
About a hundred meters units out the craft did a complete turn, lowered itself, and a dozen humans in full battle armor piled out.
Wiwik managed to get himself and the other Unggoy to the other side of the hut. Plasma shots and explosive needles barraged the humans. Between that fire, and since Hakimee had now joined up with them, three blazing plasma rifles, the humans fell quickly. One Unggoy was killed and Kalimee took a burst of 7.62mm bullets in the crack between his breastplate and shoulder armor, but it was a successful engagement and within five minutes the last human had died, with half his flesh burned away.
The troops fanned out, watching for enemy craft, or even worse, snipers. After a few minutes darkness fell and they gave up. Another dropship deposited a pair of plasma cannons and several cylindric methane huts for the Unggoy. The Sangheili used the few surviving human tents.
After positioning the stationary guns on the north and south sides of the encampment, Kalimee turned in as Hakimee took the first watch.
Hogarth Hakimee gazed up into the night sky. Other than the occasional explosion courtesy of the fierce battle being fought in space. The ground wasn't much more interesting. The non-sentient beings crawling and flying around the landscape.
Not the glorious fight I had expected. I could have been a pilot or maybe even on the bridge of a destroyer or maybe even a cruiser, blasting my way through multitudes of infidels. Thank the forerunners I'm not some legless cripple rotting away on High Charity or a...
"Your watch is up, Minor Hakimee."
Hakimee turned around, standing just behind and to the left of him was the other younger he had met on the Warrior's Oath.
"Yes." He walked away as Kalimee assumed the post north of the sleeping troops.
At 3Unit orders came to abandon the position and head back to the ship. A dropship picked up the unit and rose to the sky. After a few deciunits they had broken free of the atmosphere towards the Warrior's Oath, dodging numerous missiles and pulse lasers from the space battle which was dying down. A pair of human Longsword fighters approached the slow transport but a blast from one of the Warrior's Oath's point defense lasers destroyed one and convinced the other to retreat.
The transport made a sharp left turn to enter the hangar bay, seconds before a pair of heavy rounds from the human ship Barbados struck the Covenant destroyer a few units forward of the hangar, the shields collapsed as the ship replied with a pair of plasma torpedoes, slicing through the offending vessel, if such an inferior machine could even be called such.
The two squads jumped out of the dropship and were herded to a nearby room for debriefing and then to their quarters. Soon after the destroyer accelerated into slipspace, leaving the human fleet behind as it screamed across the galaxy.
"Your objective today is to retrieve the computer crystal located four kilometers north of here," the Instructor said gravelly. "You will be evaluated on the speed of your capture. Today we will be using stun energy. It won't kill you but it will hurt. If your shields go out, you are dead and are to report back here to me. Thank the Prophets you are not using live rounds. The last recruit to return here, and any who fall, will not have rations for the next two days."
The Instructor walked down the line of Elites in their yellow training armor handing out plasma rifles. Kalimee focused his gaze on the group of Elite troopers in their path, but a hard punch to the neck and deforming energy shield returned his attention.
"Are you listening Recruit!" The Instructor yelled. "Are saying you are too good for a simple exercise? Do you want to spend your days watching monitors in a ship's engine room?"
"No, Excellency," Kalimee said weakly.
"Then get going with the rest of us!" Kalimee realized that all the other trainees were already running off toward their objective. Kalimee grabbed his rifle and hurried off.
After several minutes Kalimee could see a firefight between the recruits and the military unit on adversary duty. Two recruits had already fallen.
Kalimee ducked behind a rock to avoid a plasma shot and inserted his rifle into a gap in the rocky terrain, firing wildly at the enemy. A few shields flared and an instructor turned black to indicate they had been 'killed.' Kalimee fired a few more shots then watched his brethren mop up. He ran after them, desperately trying to catch up. He didn't want his rations cut. He didn't want a black note by the name of Kartek Kalim.
A few more shots and bitter firefights later Kalimee watched another trainee, a frisky youngling named Barum run past. Kalimee then realized that his armor wasn't black. He had the crystal!
After confronting another trainer and firing several shots into the target's midsection, Kalimee ran back to the starting line, taking a hit or two from pursuing troopers. After a minute or so Kalimee began to grow tired, the rocky terrain was hell to his feet. He could feel his lungs emit wheezes every few seconds. Finally Kalimee crossed the finish line and promptly collapsed.