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…