A/N: Happy New Year! I resolve to take even longer at getting chapters up! Just kidding, I don't own Star Wars or Halo.
Chapter 15: He is not dead yet!
Brinks lay still on the cool steel floor, lazily watching blood flow from his skinless body. He was going to die, and it could not come sooner! Already his nerves had begun to spark back to life, telling him just how badly he was injured.
For the thousandth time in his career quantum armor had saved his life, and for the first time, he wished it hadn't. Melchior had left him for dead. Well, no surprise, anyone other than Commander Antilles Brinks would have been killed instantly. The Major wouldn't have thought survival possible.
And I wish survival wasn't possible! Fire had flown up his body in the great surge of delayed pain that follows every injury. A howl ripped from Brink's throat just as a pair of grunts was walking by.
Now grunts are in no way intelligent, but Brinks was unlucky enough to announce himself in front of grunts that had standing orders to capture any injured members of the Iron Wolf Mercs. Darkness clouded the Commander's eyes as the two small aliens lifted his body and carried him back to their headquarters.
"Hold your fire!" Ehren shouted to the marines as a lone figure stumbled out of a shelled building. The Admiral hobbled forward and wrapped Melchior in a warm embrace. "I was afraid that you had been killed, my friend," Ehren smiled. "But I have underestimated you, now where is Commander Brinks? If you survived, he must have, nothing can kill Brinks."
There was a long silence, as though the entire world had stopped to listen to the Major's response, "A Hunter might…sir, Brinks is dead."
An explosion sent dirt and shrapnel pinging of Ehren's helmet. He suddenly felt very old; too many friends were dead from the clone wars, the many bounties and wars he had fought since… Now is not the time for mourning, now is the time for war! He shook his head. "Well, that's war for you," Ehren grumbled, drawing his sword and signaling the marines to continue their advance.
The marines, bolstered by the mercenaries, had quickly regained control of much of the city. The air was heavy with the scent of ozone and burnt bodies. It wasn't pleasant, but again, that was war. In this newly liberated section all was quiet except for the periodic explosions and occasional covenant sniper fire. The skeletal figures of bombed-out buildings reminded Miranda of pictures she had scene of Berlin in World War II. It was beautiful, serene, almost poetic and sadder than history forgotten and future forsaken.
"Only the eastern corner left, marines."
They had reached the only bridge not destroyed during the initial assault, and it was held by the covenant. If a trench fight was a massacre, than a bridge battle was genocide. The marines would be walking on a platform over water that had little in the way of cover and forced them into a bottleneck. The covenant had dug themselves in on the opposite side and reinforced the position with snipers, covenant missile launchers, artillery, and AA.
"Why can't we just send the mercenaries in? Their quantum armor will allow them to get through unharmed," suggested Master Chief. Ehren shook his head.
"Even with QA my troops would have difficulty crossing, and it would cause an unnecessary loss of life."
"I thought your armor was indestructible."
"It is, but the flesh and bone bodies inside the armor are not—and droids can be disabled no matter what armor they don," Ehren untied the faux-leather grip on his sword and began to absentmindedly to retie it. "At this point I would suggest a surgical bombardment of the opposing side of the bridge, either artillery or orbital."
"They've taken out our artillery."
"Orbital it is then."
"Wait," Miranda cut in. "Couldn't an orbital strike take out more than the target? It's not the most accurate method, I mean."
Ehren took a steady look at her before continuing, "True, we could very well vape the entire city along with everything in it. However my gunners are incredibly accurate. More than once they have destroyed one building in a crowded metropolitan area with little or no collateral damage, it will take no more than a few turbolaser blasts to level the entire hostile area."
The Earth humans took furtive glances at each other. None of them wanted to cross the bridge without first dealing with the opposing forces, but they also didn't like the idea of the Iron Wolf taking potshots at their planet. In the end though they had no choice and Ehren gave the order.
Six bolts of green lightning shot out of the gray clouds and splashed onto the covenant forces, sending fire and debris hundreds of feet into the air. Sand and dirt spread out from the impact point like a Tatooine sandstorm. The heat from the lasers could be felt for miles around, and the air stunk of ozone.
The mercenaries had started to cross the bridge even before the dust had time to reach the other side of the river, using tactics that came straight from the history books. The mercenaries in the front few rows carried a shield of quantum armor and a powerful T-21 Light Repeating Blaster similar to the modified T-21 that K-17 carried. The blaster was inserted through a slot in the tower shield, and the shield itself was supported by a small repuslorlift motor that raised the shield a few inches off the ground, and could be magnetically coupled to other shields in order to create and impenetrable wall off QA and blasters. In the second row mercenaries coupled their shields to the top of the front rows, making what was called in roman times a turtle formation. The mercs in the second row would support the first by launching grenades through the slots in their shields. Any attack from the front would be futile.
"All we have to do to protect the sides is make a three sided square," Ehren explained to Miranda and Master Chief as they walked in the center of the formation. "A few people carry triangular shields that fit into the gaps made in the corners when the second row locks their shields into positions, and each of those has a deflector shield attached to it, so when all four corner shields are in place they connect to each other and we have an instant roof. We use this tactic a lot when we are going over terrain that has no cover, its low cost, reliable, and can be deployed in a matter of seconds. Once we cross the bridge we are going to close up the sides so we have a temporary HQ. After I do that the only way in or out is by air, I haven't created a shield that also acts as a door yet."
Master Chief had always wondered what it would be like to go back to Reach and walk on the glassed sections of the planet.
Now he knew.
The dust had settled onto the completely flat wasteland that had once housed scores of covenant forces. Every one of them was dead. A single barrage of turbolasers had leveled the buildings that had sheltered them from bullets and bombs. The ground had become a sickly tan, and was coated with a layer of glass that crunched under his booted feet.
The wall of shields was still in place as a square and had become a temporary fortress. They had deactivated the repulsorlifts so that the shields would sit on the ground, leaving no room for a grenade to be rolled under. Imperial Landing Craft landed in the center of the fort, unloading supplies and temporary buildings and vehicles, and transporting injured to the hospitals in the liberated areas of the city. They had to be quick, as the shield could only be down for a few seconds because the surviving covenant would fire rockets and grenades into the compound.
After the orbital bombardment, the surviving covenant had quickly taken control of the buildings surrounding the "dead zone." Ehren commanded the mercenaries to stay at their posts and quickly replace the weak grenade launchers his troops normally used with mortars. He then ordered them to fire in a sequence that maximized both fire rate and overall destruction. The tactic had so far kept the covenant from coming so close as to pose a threat, but it also wasn't driving them from the city—a fact that made Master Chief both annoyed and furious.
"This is doing nothing but wasting ammunition," he complained to his fellow Spartans as they sat around a table in the temporary mess hall. "We should be going out there and forcing them from the city ourselves, not sitting in here gathering dust and developing a migraine."
Fred agreed, but Linda had doubts. "I think the Admiral knows what he's doing," she mused. "If we rush this, if we had immediately crossed the bridge and charged their position, the marines and the mercenaries alike would have suffered extreme casualties. They don't have just a few scattered groups of grunts out there." Pause. "However I do agree that sitting here isn't preventing the covenant from getting reinforcements. We should crush them soon before they reinforce their position."
One of the mercenaries had stopped to listen to the Spartan's discussion, now he set his meal tray down on their table and sat down. "You obviously don't have all the detail so I'll supply them to you. The Admiral wouldn't be sitting here if he thought that they might have some way to attain reinforcements, and he knows that the covenant has reinforcements on the way. It may not look like it from down here but we have this place surrounded. This portion of the city is bordered on one side by a river, and the other side by hills. Now the Admiral knows that the covenant could easily go through the hills to escape or become reinforced. The river is out of question because we control it. He has just informed your Captain that he's got the hills protected by his full complement of AT-ATs and their support craft such as AT-STs, AT-PTs, heck he even has a few of the older assault vehicles from the Clone Wars! Along with about 30,000 mercenaries I think he has those hills covered." He looked at each of them in turn, daring them to question the ability of his commander.
"How do you know all this?" inquired Fred. The man pointed to his insignia, but none of the Spartans recognized the symbol so he rolled his eyes and spoke as though they came from Agamar.
"I am one of the true Mandalorians," he explained slowly. "About ninety-eight percent of the people you see here are from Triad or are joiners who were recruited from the planets we visited. The rest of us came from Mandalore. We are privileged by our current Mandalore, Ehren, to receive more intel and better equipment as well as better food, dorms, and entertainment. Note that is a privilege. He lets us be technically superior as long as we don't rub it in everyone else's face or generally make complete Asses of ourselves. That doesn't stop a few of us, but the Admiral makes sure they get their just desserts."
"That explains a lot, thank you," Linda sighed. "But what are AT-ATs or those other vehicles."
"Oh, you'll know what an AT-AT is soon enough," the mercenary chuckled. "We'll be getting six of them."