Chapter 16: In A Tight Spot
"What took so long?" Will was sitting on the ground, wiping the
blood and dirt off of his face as well as trying to wait for the
vertigo to go away. A bright light began to flood the city and the
gasps the other Spartans made forced Will's body towards the road.
Red flames pierced through the clouds as an almost completely intact
cruiser plummeted through the atmosphere. The twin blasts of a sonic
boom shook through the city, cracking even more glass as well as
sending shooting pains through his ears. Long streaks of red flames
trailed behind the cruiser as broke through the clouds and fell
towards the planet's surface. Large pieces of debris broke off,
flying off at steeper trajectories and leaving shorter-lived trails
of flames behind them. Moving out of sight, the bright glow continued
until a blinding flash erupted somewhere on the other side of the
mountains. Tremors flew through the ground as the Spartans kept their
footing on the swaying ground. Yet again, more glass cracked and
shattered as it warped in all different directions. High in the sky,
once the blinding light dissipated, a large plume of dirt miles high
was illuminated by the flames along with pieces of the cruiser that
were sent back up into the air.
"Holy…shit…" Karl said, craning his neck
into the air."We need to move now," Will said, regaining
control of his squad in fell swoop. A low humming sound filled the
air as even more drop ships moved about the city. "Kayla, I need an
update, what is the situation topside?""Definitely could be better. For the most
part, they're holding their own, but a few holes have appeared and
their ships are just slipping right through. Most of the Super MACs
defending your region were taken out and the AA defenses aren't
doing too well on their approaches." Will winced at the
comment and let his mind start to develop a strategy.
"Can you give me any info on the city right
now as well as an update on a ride to the Tigre?"
"Negative on both of those, cloud cover has
obstructed the view of those satellites still working and it seems
that there is a stalemate between evacuating the planet and
reinforcing it with more soldiers." The situation was looking
worse and worse for the Spartans. Without any kind of intel, they
were running blind and poorly equipped. Will took a few deep breathes
as he heard the battle around them slowly ramping up. A few drop
ships flew overhead, circling around a nearby building before
dropping down into the streets. Another pair landed off to their
right as an entire wing flew directly overhead.
"We're being boxed in…" Kat said,
stepping away from Chris's leg. Will looked around as even more
drop ships moved over head the city. The clouds overhead them finally
began to let loose and rain came pouring down. Will looked around as
wave after wave of drop ships screamed overhead."They're getting pretty close to the
base, sorry John, we need to get away from here as fast as possible."
"Do it, don't fight unless you have
to." Looking through the haze, he could see the engines of the
ships flaring bright blue as they dropped down to the surface.
"C'mon, we're going," Will said, his squad quickly falling in
behind him. The decision he had to make was a hard one though. They
could either try and find a Human command post and help defend it, or
punch in and set off the Fury in the middle of the enemy. Just
seconds ago, he was ready to head straight at them and take as many
down as possible but something changed in him, he was…afraid."Will…we can't just stand here," Kat
said quietly to him. He nodded and began to walk south, he owed it to
himself to at least try and do something about John's actions.
Moving through the street, Will's squad stayed up against the sides
of the buildings as they made their way farther into the city. Every
so often, a gunship would come overhead but none of them unloaded any
troops. A grey light began to shine from the east as the system's
star began to rise over the horizon and Will began to feel slightly
anxious at the prospect of moving through an enemy controlled city in
broad daylight. The low rumblings of another drop ship began to shake
the ground and Will jumped into the entrance to a small diner while
his squad mates found other places as well. Moving through the
streets, the sleek craft scanned back and forth with it's turrets,
employing tactics reminiscent of the Covenant and their Phantoms.
After a minute or so passed, the squad moved out onto the sidewalk
again, heading to some unknown destination. Every so often, Will
would catch a glimpse of towers of thick black smoke billowing into
the air as well as a whiff of some foul smelling stench that would go
away just as fast as it came. Coming to another intersection, he took
a knee and scanned it repeatedly for any sign of movement. Seeing
nothing, he bounded across and covered his squad mates. They began to
walk again, seeing no signs of the ghosts that had so easily taken
the city. Will was about to reach an alleyway when he thought he
heard something. Holding his arm up, the rest of his squad got low
and readied his rifle. He grabbed his combat knife and held it with
his left hand while also supporting his rifle. Assuming it was
nothing but side effects from the burst eardrums, but not willing to
take any chances, he moved up as quiet as possible to the corner of
the building. Pressing his back up against the wall and controlling
his breathing, he looked at the chipped corner, approaching ever so
slowly. Once his shoulder moved to the very edge of it, he stopped
for a few seconds before spinning around, his rifle at the ready. But
before he could even see the alleyway, a heavy shoulder slammed into
his chest mid-turn, sending him out into the drenched street. Gunfire
erupted from the Spartans as a dark shape walked over towards Will.
Shrugging off the shock, he fumbled in the rain to find his rifle but
it was too far for him to reach. Looking to his left, the black
armored creature lowered it's rifle to aim directly at his head,
his blue shields flaring as the rounds pounded into them. Time seemed
to stop as Will stared into the blank face mask in front of him, the
only point of reference being a thin blue strip where he assumed eye
level was. Metallic looking hair lay on it's right shoulder,
bundled together in ornate bands that dripped and glistened in the
pouring rain. In a split second, Will was back on his feet and had
his pistol pointed at the Forerunner. His squad mates took off the
rest of his shields as he fired round after round at his torso.
Sprays of thick purple-black blood erupted from his back as the
powerful rounds slammed into and then tore their way through his
flesh. A little bit of the fine mists caught Will in the face as his
pistol's bolt locked back, his clip empty. Popping the clip out, he
slapped in another one and began to fire again. One of his shots hit
the Forerunner's skull from the rear and exploded out the front.
Another spray of blood erupted before the already critically wounded
creature fell into puddles soaked with it's own blood. Walking
forward cautiously, Will looked at the bullet ridden corpse and
kicked it over onto it's back. A quarter sized hole had appeared
just above the blue visor marking the blatantly obvious exit wound
from his pistol round.
"Nice shot," JJ remarked. Rain continued to
pour down as the Spartans began reorganizing on the sidewalk. Bending
over to grab his rifle, Will heard something fall out of his backpack
and twisted to his left to grab it from a deep puddle. His fingers
were about to grasp the black magazine when a searing pain shot
through his shoulder and the sound of an alien weapon discharging
echoed through the city streets. Looking over, a fine red mist
floated down to the ground from a black wound just below his
collarbone. Realizing what had happened, he sprinted towards the
alleyway as another shot hit the street in front of him."That looks pretty bad," Kat said, moving in
to look at the wound."It's fine," Will responded quickly, "The
bolt cauterized the wound, there isn't any bleeding." Kat looked
at the wound one more time quickly and saw that he was correct, a
thick black layer had developed over both entrance and exit of the
relatively small hole, stopping any potential bleeding. Will moved a
little farther into the alleyway as JJ and Karl moved in to take up
position at the corner of the building while Chris and Kat moved into
the alley to watch their back."Will…we've got a problem here. We've
got a company sized group moving down the street towards us." Will
spun around to face JJ as he moved over to the corner. Sure enough, a
black group of soldiers were walking down the street towards their
position."We don't know if they even know we're
here," he said. JJ cocked his head towards the dead body lying in
the middle of the street. There was no getting around it, they would
be found eventually. "Alright, try and raise someone on the
radio and give them our coordinates."
"I need to borrow your radio then, my
batteries died last night." Will took it off his ear and walked
back towards Chris and Kat."Keep your eyes on this entrance, if anything
goes past, hold your fire until we know for sure they saw us, no need
to give them a reason to attack if they don't know we're here."
He walked away from them without any questions of what was going on,
it was obvious they heard JJ's comment. Heading towards the next
street, he looked out down it and saw another group of almost the
same size. Desperately looking for some kind of an escape route, his
search turned up nothing that they could get to without being seen.
As the group moved closer, he could see their stances much more
clearly. Instead of nonchalantly marching through the streets, they
were down low, rifles at the ready, constantly scanning back and
forth, ready to take down anything that caught their idea. He swore
under his breath and moved back into the relative darkness of the
alleyway and just wished that there was at least some cover
for them to use but wishes wouldn't grant them Titanium-A barriers
or tanks, at least not in this situation. His hand unconsciously
moved to his wound and rubbed some of the nearby flesh. It was
surprising, he had expected it to hurt but all he felt was a dull
throb. The nerves must've been destroyed, he thought to
himself, moving the entire shoulder to make sure it wouldn't
stiffen up.
"Something wrong?" Kat asked him as he
walked by. His face must've given something away."Another company is moving down that street as
well. We're most likely caught between around five hundred
soldiers, give or take a few." Even for fully armed Spartan squad,
those odds were hard to overcome, but for a weakened section with the
basic supplies, no armor and with no reinforcements even on the cusp,
those odds were insurmountable. Their only hope was a miracle… Will
remembered the Fury he had thrown into his bag. Pulling it out, he
looked it over before looking at the rest of his squad for some sense
of their opinion."That's got a klick and a half blast
radius…" Chris said, not too enthusiastically."But we've got five hundred soldiers
marching to us, that's a lot to lose in one blast. One hundred to
one kill ratio," JJ shot back. The sound of boots became audible
over the rain."I'm with JJ on this one, we're only going
to get one shot," Karl added in. Will looked at Kat who was staring
at the street. Her eyes moved to the ground before she spoke."It won't turn the tide of the battle, it
won't get us the city back, you should save it." JJ and Karl were
getting antsy and were waiting for a decision. Without even thinking,
Will turned on the small LCD display on the nuke and started to move
through the security protocols. He was at the very last one when JJ
yelled for him to stop."Wait!" his finger was pressed up against
his ear as he listened. Even with his damaged hearing, Will heard a
low roar off in the distance. Sliding his wet fingers away from the
buttons to keep him from accidentally firing off the Fury. "They
got my message! Friendlies inbound! I read you Oscar Five, Echo squad
is all here." Will shut down the nuke and put it back in his bag.
Even with the help they would be receiving, they were still in a bad
position because the Forerunners would most likely reach them first."Get and ETA for arrival and tell them we're
about to be overrun!" Will yelled out, his breath now making puffs
of white mist in front of him. Rain poured off of his wet hair as he
moved back and forth, wracking his brain to come up with some plan to
stall their hunters. Pushing JJ away from the corner of the wall, he
was taken back by what was going on. Instead of moving full force
ahead, they had sent out small detachments to move forward towards
the corpse sitting in the middle of the street. Moving up in the
same, low, attentive stance, the Forerunners moved up to the body and
looked it over. A few took a knee around it and began to scan their
surroundings while a few others moved back. Emerging from the massive
group that had stopped, a much taller creature walked forward.
Carrying no gun, it moved with a smug grace as if impervious to
anything that could be thrown at him. A strange phenomenon came into
focus as he came closer. The rain, coming down so hard that there was
almost no visibility beyond the block they were all situated at,
rolled away from his dry body in an orb, faintly glowing blue. His
heavy boots slammed into the puddles around him as he looked around,
his eyes visible without a helmet on. Bending down next to the
corpse, he ran his fingers along it, pulling something out of the
mush that had become it's back. A deformed round quickly appeared
as the blood washed away in the rain. Closer now, the screams of
human engines echoed around and the left side of his head, devoid of
an ear, like the Elites, pointed skywards as if taunting the aircraft
to take him on. Will gripped his rifle and tapped JJ on the back who
proceeded to tap Karl. The three of them watched as the creature
stood back up and looked at all of the blood and shells that were
scattered about. Something then caught his interest. A puddle that
was almost directly in front of the alleyway was his new target.
Running his fingers through it again, Will finally saw what he saw.
The crimson tinge in the water had prompted the creature to smell his
wet fingers, his head suddenly seeming alert. Again, it stood up, but
this time slower, more deliberate. A long blue blade erupted from his
wrist as steam began to rise from it. The orb the had surrounded him
before disappeared and the rain finally began to soak his body.
Slowly and quietly it moved towards the entrance to the alley as
other soldiers turned around and brought their rifles up and moved in
behind him.
"Get back," JJ whispered to Will, "they're
coming in." Assuming he was talking about the Forerunner, he
ignored him and readied his rifle. Just as it came to within sight of
the Spartans, it's eyes narrowed down for a split second before
opening back up. Turning his head to the left, he hunched over and
faced directly forward. His sword dissipated somewhat into a shield
that he put over his torso while the orb around him flashed back up.
Just then, pillars of water sprayed in the air as heavy rounds began
to slam into the concrete. Quickly working their way towards the
Forerunner soldiers, the machine guns only took a few rounds to punch
through the shields and shred the flesh. Clouds of blood sprayed into
the air as the source of the gunfire finally became clear. Three
Daggers screamed through the streets before pulling up and rolling to
the left, avoiding one of the larger buildings in the city. Another
wing of Daggers flew through the streets, machine guns blazing as
well as firing off a few rockets into the larger groups of survivors.
Throughout all of this, the Forerunner that had found Will's blood
in the puddle was still standing. Finding a break in the onslaught,
he quickly ran back a block and out of sight. Out of the haze, two
Hawks emerged, kicking sideways as the landed just in front of the
entrance to the alley. A sudden blast of water sprayed through the
narrow corridor, drenching the Spartans even more as they hurried up
to their rides. Marines piled out of the backs of the drop ships and
headed after those Forerunner who had survived the strafing runs.
Overhead, more Daggers and Hawks flew by, fully loaded with troops.
Will's section headed over to one of the Hawks, surprised who was
inside. Kayla jumped out of the passenger compartment and waved them
into it. Piling on board the rain soaked ship, they were glad to just
be out of harm's way, if only for a little bit.
"You're just in time," Will said, smiling.
"Yeah, they picked us up when they were
heading in and we told them about your situation. Got your messages
just outside of the city but we needed to get your position correct
and line up for a few runs," she responded as the Hawk lifted off.
Clouds of water sprayed up into the air as the powerful engines wound
up to full power. A crew member emerged from the cockpit and held
onto one of the hand rails overhead. Dressed in full combat gear
minus his weapon and helmet, he spoke to all of them as the three
doors closed shut, muffling the roar of the engines.
"We'll be heading to the Tigre ASAP,
assuming we can get a safe corridor to it, the fighting is still
pretty intense up there. If not, we'll head to our ship, the
Romulus. Let me check that wound out for you," he said,
noticing the small bloody circle on Will's shirt. Grabbing a first
aid kit, he pulled out a can of biofoam and slid the needle into the
hole. White foam seeped out of the charred flesh as it filled in the
hole and disinfected at the same time. Leaning back, Will was finally
able to rest, at least until they had to run the gauntlet above the
planet…
