Chapter 8: Höllenhund

August 23rd, 2568

Fort Keyes, Minerva, Lambda Rho System

Andrew stood in the back of the scout hog. King sat next to him. The reconnaissance vehicle rolled slowly through the base slowly. Gore, mud, plant material, carbon scoring, bullet holes and duracrete covered almost every square centimeter of it. The four Spartans were eerily silent. The mood between them was one of somber exhaustion. Debrief was going to be rough. The walk there would be worse. The hog stopped suddenly. Andrew hadn't noticed the time pass. They were at the vehicle depot now. Andrew hopped down from the vehicle and came visor to face with an Army Captain. "Move it Captain. I've got a debrief to attend." Andrew had no patience left. Not after the last three and a half weeks. "Spartan, what happened to Charlie-Five." Andrew pushed passed the Captain. "You better get to hanger three. Charlie-Five deserves a send off from their Captain. You should bring the rest of the Company while you're at it. Better be good with words."


"Can anyone explain to me what happened during your mission. This was a simple search and rescue." McKnight chose to debrief Phoenix personally. The unit was MIA for two and a half weeks. No comm signals, no tracking tags. Nothing. There was a long silence. "Tell me Commander, are you familiar with the Book of Revelation?" Andrew caught her off guard, "Chapter six, verse eight. 'And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.' We saw death, and Hell followed it." McKnight stared at him for a moment. Her mouth slightly agape.

Jesse cut in. "Ma'am. We spent a week patrolling the area around Charlie-Five's last known coordinates. There were no signs of hostile activity. The signal that the missing platoon had picked up was interference from a group of old Covie jammers. They were used during the glassing of New Alexandria to isolate surviving UNSC units. The village they were situated in was a complete deadzone. It was also where we found Charlie-Five." McKnight remained silent. Andrew picked up where Thermer left off. "They were on display when we got there. Tied to posts planted in the ground. The things that had been done to them … even I don't go that far. Some of them had been mutilated, blood eagled. The entire platoon was dead. The ambush happened soon after." Andrew stopped speaking. His voice trailed off in the otherwise silent room.


August 6th

"Contact rear! Find cover!" Andrew took the first round, his shields flaring. First the jammers. Then the display. Now an ambush. This op was going to shit fast. Bertha belched lead, the muzzle flash painting Andrew's visor with amber light.


King spoke up. "We started taking fire from our seven. Andrew was the first to get hit. He provided cover fire while we found a good fighting position somewhere in the village. The fight lasted for two weeks. Before you ask, the village was empty Ma'am. No civilian presence. Also, no, we cannot account for every round fired. We ran out of ammo."


August 7th

"Sam, you got eyes on them?" Thermer looked out the window towards the roof Sam was on. "Negative boss. They're hiding in the forest. I don't see shit." Thermer checked his comms again. Still not working. 'Come on Andrew hurry up and find those jammers.' Gunfire sounded off towards Andrew and King's position. The bark of Andrew's battle rifle and the explosive bang of King's shotgun. Phoenix was surrounded.


"Where were the jammers set up?" Sam looked at McKnight and took his turn. "One was in the center of town. The other four were in buildings at the cardinal ends of the village. Andrew and King were sent to track them down and get rid of them on the second day of the battle. The enemy had us surrounded and were toying with us. They'd send a couple at a time to try and disrupt our investigation. The platoon had put up a struggle from what we could tell. They went down kicking."


August 10th

BOOM! Either Andrew had taken out a jammer or King had thrown a frag. From this distance Thermer couldn't tell. "Hey boss. Looks like Andrew went a little heavy on the C7 this time. Whole building came down on the east side of town. Still no comms." CRACK! "Hostiles incoming. North side. Seven in sight. Get ready." Sam found his next target. CRACK!


"It took days for the fighting to calm down enough for Andrew to track down just one of the jammers. First was the east jammer. After that, him and King put the puzzle together and moved to the center of town. That's where they found the second. And that's when OpFor got scared. They stopped poking at us and started to send in more troops. I'm almost certain that they hadn't anticipated us to figure out where they were hiding the jammers." Jesse's report was dry, almost robotic.


August 12th

"King! Cover me!" Andrew dashed to the building catty-corner to his. King leaned out firing his M247 just centimeters behind Andrew. The two had run into heavy resistance at the North end of town. Andrew missed having comms. His throat was getting rather hoarse from having to yell orders or enemy positions. He hadn't spoken to Sam or Thermer in over a day. If this battle carried out too much longer he might run out of field smoothers, and if he was being honest with himself, that scared the Spartan.


"The north end had excessive resistance. King and I were left to deal with it ourselves while Sam and Thermer prevented more from pouring in from the other sides. Commander, I need to know how long was Charlie-Five missing before we were sent in?" McKnight sighed heavily. Someone had left this out of the mission briefing and now she had to tell them. Andrew's potential reaction was not something she looked forward to. "Two weeks. Charlie-Five had been missing for two weeks before Spartan forces were deployed to find them. They had been sent to find the source of some communication interference reported by UNSC Air Force. The same interference you found and followed to the village." Andrew grimaced. A whole platoon MIA for two weeks before someone was sent to help.


August 6th

"How long have they been dead?" King walked around the soldiers rotting bodies, cutting them free of the posts. Andrew walked up to one and inspected the corpse. "About a week from the looks of it. New larva growing in the mouth. Looks like birds been peckin' at 'em. This is wrong. Nobody deserves to be strung up like this. Boss, soon as we get those jammers cleared out we need to arrange pickup for them. They deserve a proper resting place." Andrew tried to close the dead private's eyes. "Agreed. I need you to find and disable them for us first though. Take King with you." BANG!


"Two weeks? Two fucking weeks?! If you had sent someone two days after they vanished off comms they'd still be alive, Commander! Fucking hell!" Andrew's chair clattered to the ground as the Spartan stood up. "They'd been dead and rotting a week by the time we got there. Their families are gonna be having closed casket funerals for them." McKnight looked at Andrew with icy patience. "Sit your ass down and cool it Spartan G199. I didn't hear of it until the day before I deployed you four. Reign your anger in and show me the goddamn respect I rate. Am I understood?" Andrew picked the chair up and sat down again. "Yes ma'am. I'm sorry for my outburst. I've been on edge for about five days now. I ran out of field smoothers five days ago."

Five days without smoothers. Five days of high stress levels. She knew he had to be on the edge of a serious breakdown. "Andrew, report to Spartan medical for treatment effective immediately. I don't need you killing anyone right now. The rest of Phoenix and I will finish the debriefing without you. Dismissed." Andrew slowly stood up and pushed the chair in. "Yes ma'am. Thank you ma'am."


August 26th

"Briefing again? We just got back. Is the commander trying to run us ragged? We've only been back two whole days." King's rant had been constant since the team had gotten the call. "What really bugs me is that she wanted us in armor for a briefing. Since when the fuck is that somethi-" Andrew slugged King in the gut. "Shut up and pull yourself together will ya? At least we're not sitting around getting bored. What's got me concerned is that we aren't going to the regular briefing room. Why does she want us in company briefing?" Sam popped a foot up and sideways, kicking Andrew in the ass. "Practice what you preach, fuckhead."

As the Spartans approached the briefing room each one couldn't help but feel like something was wrong. When they saw that the lights were off all four went on guard. Putting their helmets on and stacking up to the doors, Andrew was the first to enter. He opened the team comm, "Right clear." Sam entered after him, "Left clear." Thermer entered next with King bringing up the rear. "Fan out. Be wary, we ain't got guns, just the knives." Andrew crept down an isle. His ears perked, and the Spartan could've sworn he heard whispering. Then were the faint clicks, like plastic tapping the floor quickly. "We're not alone. As for the guns, that was your call boss, I wish we had them now." Andrew's natural night vision was good, but not good enough at the moment. The night vision provided by his VISR was clear enough, but still grainier than the Spartan liked. Andrew rolled as something impacted his side, it's teeth clamping down on his forearm. The two struggled for a brief moment before Andrew managed to get the upper hand. The lights came on just as the Spartan raised his knife to deliver a fatal blow. "Spartan-G199, stand down." The Commander's voice was enough to get him to stop dead in his tracks. He stood up and saluted, his foe still hanging from his arm. "Sylas, loslassen. Auf mich."1

Andrew watched as the large dog let go of his arm and trotted to the man standing alongside McKnight. "All due respect ma'am, the fuck is with Cujo?" Andrew marched down to the stage at the end of the room. The man spoke up. "This Andrew, is the fruits of Spartan Thermer's labors. If I recall correctly Fireteam Phoenix nearly lost their prodigal sniper while recovering data on Trost. Data for one Project: Hellhound?" Thermer looked between the dog and the man. "You people shutdown Hellhound. Now you mean to tell me you stole my data and went through with it?" The handler looked from Andrew to Thermer. "We didn't put it into mass production. Sylas is the only Hellhound we've made. I can understand why you're angry though." Sam spoke up this time, "Oh he ain't angry, he's pissed. See how he's not speaking anymore? That's dangerous. I'm angry though. I nearly fucking died for that data and now you're telling us you went through with the project and we weren't even made aware. Told it was a no go. Fuck you, spook."

Andrew's helmet came off. "Look, I got limited patience for spooks like you. Say what you came to say so that we can go run maintenance on our equipment. I'm still picking dirt out of my guns." The handler nodded to McKnight, her voice filled the auditorium. "Fireteam Phoenix, you have been chosen to be handlers for one of the first military working dogs trained in centuries. Sylas is a multi-role MWD. He can sniff out bombs, detect firearms on one's person, act as a sentry and patrol unit. Andrew will be his primary handler effective immediately. Spartans, step forward and meet your number five." Andrew's jaw went slack.


August 27th

The team was stacked at a door. Andrew nodded to King. BOOM BOOM BOOM CRACK! The door clattered to the ground inside the building. Andrew released the leash in his hand. "Sylas, jage."2 The massive German Shepherd bolted into the structure, King followed sweeping the room with his shotgun. A yell and snarling from an attached room caught Andrew's attention. Sylas had a hostile pinned to the floor, his mouth clamped firmly on his crotch. Andrew put a round in the man's head and moved on. "Sylas, loslassen. Auf mich." Sylas let go and came up between Andrew's legs, coiled to jump at the next foe. The two separated to get up a flight of stairs. The landing led to a hall with two more rooms. "Bleibe wachsam."3 Andrew kicked one of the doors in, Sylas rushed in under his foot. Andrew cleared left. Nothing. He nodded to his new companion. "Oh-Two and Oh-Five are clearing the last room, sit-rep Oh-One?" Jesse came in over TEAMCOM. "Downstairs clear. Waiting on you two." Andrew stood in front of the last door, Sylas at his side. His boot crashed through the wooden door and yet again the dog rushed into the room, this time finding a target. Sylas lunged for the hostile's throat, clamping down with enough force to rip it out.

The team regrouped outside the building. Sylas happily sitting next to Andrew. The simulation fizzled out of existence and McKnight entered with the ONI handler. "Andrew, I'm impressed with your German. It seems you can effectively communicate with Sylas in high stress situations. Even more impressive was the lack of enemy fire." Andrew stared daggers at the man. "I'm fluent in four languages, arschloch. Of course my German is good. Besides that he takes commands well, including non-verbal."4 Andrew pulled a strip of jerky from one of his pouches and tossed it to Sylas. The dog greedily snapped at it. This time the handler shot Andrew a dirty look. The Spartan shrugged it off. "Sogar ein Höllenhund muss essen."5


AN:

Translations

1) Sylas, release. On me.

2) Sylas, hunt.

3) Stay alert.

4) Shithead

5) Even a Hellhound has to eat.

So, with the original community hitting a fat yeet on the previous lore I decided to revive a proposal that was shot down. Project: Hellhound uses chemical augmentations to enhance military working dogs much like Spartans. Sylas takes commands in German, allowing Phoenix to control the dog without enemy combatants interfering. We'll be seeing the Spartan fur missile more in the future.