Chapter 19: New Mission

Pulling two thick black straps over his shoulders, Will strapped himself into the rear facing seat of the Dagger. Hooking in the crotch strap he gave a thumbs up to the pilot. Roaring to life, the engines blew clouds of snow into the air as it lurched into the air, leaving Will's stomach back on the ice. Ascending into the cloud layer, the pilot didn't speak until they had risen above them. Blinded by the sun's glare off of the cotton like surface, he put his arm up to cover his face as his visor began to adjust to help filter the light.
"Plateea is in a pretty tight spot right now, Forerunners have control of most of the city but we've blockaded the river crossings and aren't letting anything get by. Apparently they're planning to try and break through the lines and form a pincer move on another bridge so that they can make sure the space elevator is secure." Legs dangling into the abyss, Will listened to the pilot speak.
"Are there regular reinforcements coming in?"
"That's the plan, it's a little tougher than that with the occasional enemy picket but we've been managing fairly well." Looking on his topographical map, Will made sure he had at least a general idea of what the city's layout was. Focusing almost solely on the Human controlled region he began to formulate a mental image of the terrain. The city, split about two-thirds of the war down by a river was nestled in a small mountain valley with plenty of high plateaus that allowed for a prime artillery position. Guessing as to where the Humans were he looked at those areas, he tried to figure out where the attack would take place and where it would go from there. "Hang on tight, this is going to be a bumpy ride." Grabbing onto his straps, Will looked back at the clouds to see a black haze. Suddenly the Dagger dipped down and went through the cloud layer. Holding on as the aircraft shook violently, dropping through the cloud layer, the light began to fail as the clouds turned gray and mixed with acrid black smoke. Not wanting to be caught off guard, Will reached up to remove his rifle from the small rack located over his head. Shouldering it, he waited as the Dagger continued to rock back in forth in the almost black cloud layer.
"Turn on your head lamps, we're going to need the visibility." Flicking on all four lights, the bright beams illuminated the clouds and smoke as they made a sharp turn. Looking around he could see the clouds begin to thin out and every so often there was a quick glimpse of the city before the clouds enveloped them. Off to his left, the Dagger with the other three Spartans slowed down and got behind them just as the they pierced through the clouds and were flying over the city. Suddenly hit by a sickening sense of vertigo, he closed his eyes for a few seconds as the Dagger descended down. Slowly reopening them, the feeling dissipated and he began to take in the view of the city. Bathed in red glow from the many fires that burned in the streets, columns of thick black smoke poured into the sky blocking out the sun. The once glorious buildings that served as a beautiful foreground to the snow covered mountains were now mere shells of themselves, large portions of them blown away while others had already collapsed to the streets below leaving large clouds of dust in their wake. Everything about the scene seemed vaguely familiar to him as they flew over the river, quickly dropping down and slowing their speed. Just as the Dagger began to hover on it's way down to the landing pad Will realized it was the city he had repeatedly seen in his dreams. Keeping his thoughts to himself he knew that somewhere within the city, or eventually, he would be face to face with John and one of his comrades would be dead. Before the Dagger had fully touched down Will was already unstrapping himself and preparing to get off. Feeling the wheels touch the makeshift landing pad he jumped off of his seat and moved away from the clouds of dust and smoke that was being whipped up by the engines. The other Spartans got off after him and followed him away from the emptied parking lot. All around them war had touched the city from the random bullet hole to an entire building reduced to rumble. Obviously in a poorer, more residential section of the town, the buildings were of older architectural design and much smaller than most of the other city. Moving past derelict cars towards the sounds of the war zone, it was almost like walking in a time capsule as, intermingled with the craters and rubble were snowmen built in the yard and snow removal equipment still in the middle of the process. Looking up, he wondered what it would be like to see the dropships raining down from the sky, illuminated by the AA fire from the ground, soon to be followed by Human forces trying to defend what remained of the city. Slogging through the slush in the street, Will walked up onto the sidewalk and moved a little quicker on the bare pavement, his helmet lamps illuminating the street in an eerie white glow compared to the red of the sky.
"Ooh..." Kat said, her voice lined with pain. Stopping and looking back he saw her stooped over something next to a car, moving her arms gingerly. Standing back up she was holding a baby in her arms. At first appearing dead, the small child, still in cotton pajamas, turned it's head and looked at the Spartans with big almond eyes, completely aware of the situation. Completely dumbfounded as to how it arrived there, Will looked for signs of the parents half-heartedly.
"Find the nearest field hospital and take it there, make sure it's alright, ok?" he said, making it clear he wanted her to stay with the baby.
"Affirmative." She stood still for a few seconds until she located the nearest hospital. Walking a few feet, she stopped again. "Linda? Could you help me here?" Positioning the child so that it was cradled in her left arm and shoulder, she held out her right gauntlet and popped the seal on it. Sliding it off revealing her bare hand, Linda put the gauntlet into Kat's backpack. "Thanks." Caressing the child's cheek with her hand she walked away from them in slowly as if completely unaware of the battle raging just a few blocks away.
"Let's go," Will said, pushing the anxiety of splitting Kat up from the group out of his mind. Walking towards the street in front of them, the sounds of war intensified as they reached the corner. Peaking around it, he could see the flashes of muzzles, briefly illuminating the area before disappearing. Readying his rifle, he came around the corner low and began to run towards a group of Marines who were standing up near a blown out building. Coming up to them, only two of them turned to face him as the others continued to be focused on what they were dealing with. Dirt and blood were smeared across their faces and the weariness was visible on their faces as they smiled weakly at the Spartans standing in front of them.
"Nice to see some new faces here...or visors, in your case. We haven't had any substantial reinforcements since the battle started, seems like we were passed over somewhere up the line." Look at the Marines' ranks, none of them were officers.
"Don't worry, we're here to help." Turning towards one of the rundown bridges, Will was able to see burning wreckage scattered throughout it, thick black smoke pouring into the air. "We were told that an offensive was being planned?"
"Planned would be the operative word there. Comms is a fucking mess and by the time we can get runners up and down the lines, the point where we're attacking always seems to have some kind of incident that changes everything. So yes, there is an assault being planned, but it's not going to get anywhere." All around, Marines were crouched behind whatever they could find, popping up every so often to fire off a few bursts before a hail of anti-matter bolts slammed into the cover.
"Do you have any idea as to where they could be at?" The Marine turned around and ducked down a little as he looked out at the other side of the river.
"We really can't get any substantial reports from over there but from where the fire seems to be coming from...they've concentrated mostly around the bridge and any other points of incursion. Not to mention there have been rumors of armor."
"Those are most likely true, when we were coming in we encountered some but we really couldn't get a good look at them or it's capabilities."
"Sir?" one of the other Marines said, tapping the one Will was speaking to on the shoulder. "FleetComm wants to know if you have Spartans at your location."
"Well obviously!" The radio operator made a face with "my bad" written all over it.
"That is affirmative FleetComm, we have seven Spartans at our position." Pressing the headset against his ear to hear better over the fighting he turned around and spoke to Will. "They want you to tune to the J-band, channel 18." Doing so, Will switched over to the secure channel.
"This is Spartan Oh-Four-Three reporting."
"A new mission has been given to us by ONI Section Three. An R and D was inbound to the city but they were shot down over enemy controlled territory. They were carrying a experimental weapon, the Nova III. About an hour ago we began to receive a signal from it's transponder device meaning it is still operational and could be fired at any moment. We need you and your team to go and secure it before the enemy does."
"Do you have any idea where it's at?"
"Mission info is on it's way to you right now, it has everything you'll need to know. Over and out." The channel then went dead as Will went back to monitoring the local chatter as well as within his own squad.
"Sergeant, we've just been assigned to a new mission," removing his helmet, Will spoke face to face with the Marine. "My team and I will be inserting into the city to retrieve a classified object. We're going to need some cover fire so that we can get across and then a transport to get us out of there."
"I can guarantee the covering fire but the transport is up to the flyboys, nothing I can do there. But if they won't help, we'll come and get you out, you can count on us." A determined look came across the Marine's face. Extending an arm, Will shook his hand and put his helmet back on. Turning towards the river a sudden feeling of dread fell over him. As he explained everything to the Spartans who had taken up positions around the block he was going over the information they had given him. As luck would it, the Hawk had been shot down near the city center and completely in the open.
"Well shit, if we knew this ahead of time we could've just had the Dagger drop us off," JJ commented with a tone of annoyance.
"Yeah, well, they didn't so we're going to have to do this the hard way. We're going to drop over the walls and go across the river, coming up from underneath. The Marines are going to provide covering fire for us up top to hopefully keep their attention diverted long enough for us to get up and over. After that, well," looking at the satellite photo it was almost impossible to get a good idea as to where the Hawk was actually located within the city due to the hot smoke and below freezing temperatures messing up the thermal image, "Well, we're just going to take it from there."
"Sounds good," Kayla said reassuringly.
"Let's get this show on the road."