Welcome back Broman!
You know, I'm going to be honest, I always look forward to your reviews. A, well, because I like reviews. But also because you're one of the few reviewers that I've seen, not just for my work, but in general, who always brings up some rather interesting points!
So, to answer your question: there's actually a reason why Actium itself seems a bit underprepared for this invasion (aside from, you know, being a surprise attack.) I'm not sure just how much of a role it's going to play in the plot, because I haven't gotten to that point yet, but it's something I intend to address at a later point. Because of that, I'm not going to get into it now, just in case I do end up deciding to make it a big deal.
As for why on a grand strategic level the UNSC as a whole doesn't seemed prepared in terms of AA weapons, I think you're on the right track. The human empire prior to the invasion of the Covenant is clearly very large, with colonies and holdings scattered across the galaxy. In order to control all that territory, and given the lack of teleporting technology (outside of the Forerunners,) the UNSC would need a lot of a ships; they would need a fleet big enough to not only absorb a lot of casualties, but one that would simply overwhelm any and all potential rivals that would potential crop up. And once you've establish space supremacy, there doesn't seem to be a real need for effective AA weapons.
Furthermore, I also have to wonder if the UNSC didn't just deliberately prevent the development of weapons like that, least the technology fall in the hands of the Insurrectionist. After all, the last thing the UNSC would want is some opposition group being able to shoot down their ships, especially since real-world history has shown us that a mobile ground-based launcher is a lot harder to track down than enemy ships: during the first Gulf War in the early 1990's, UN and NATO forces were able to completely destroy Saddam's air force, yet his scud launchers were almost never found.
Given that the UNSC's history is the same as our history, they would also be very much aware of that fact and would thus do their best to avoid suffering from the same fate.
Hope that makes sense to you!
Author's Note
So, last chapter, we got an idea of what was happening on the ground. Now it's back up to orbit to see how the Navy is holding out!
Hope you guys enjoy!
Special thanks to Darkfire7881 for editing this chapter!
Chapter 11
Wayward Station, High Orbit, Actium
May 6, 2545
0951
Amber
Amber slowly lowered her arms and was immediately greeted with the words "REMOTE TURRET OFFLINE" in big red letters flashing across her screen.
"Son of a bitch!" she snapped, ripping off her helmet, headset, and goggles and tossing them aside.
Shoving herself away from her controls, Amber popped open the door to her station and found herself back inside the Remote Fire Control Center, sector Delta. It was a circular room with eight identical remote station pods lining the walls: four for the Onager turrets and four for the Lance turrets. A quick glance at the other seven pods in the room showed they were all occupied and operational, indicating Amber's turret was the only one that had been taken out so far.
Sitting in the center of the room and pouring over a series of consoles were the three frazzled looking fire control directors for this sector, two enlisted sailors and an officer. FC1 McCreary was one of those controllers.
Leaping from her seat, Amber dashed over towards him.
"FC1, my turret is down, I need a new one!" she hurried told him.
"Yeah, give me a minute!" McCreary distractedly yelled back without looking up from his console. "Ensign, I need you to fucking tell me what my priority targets are: am I still focusing on the incoming warships, those fighters, or the incoming boarding craft!? What the fuck do you want me to do, I need an order!"
"Okay, enough with the fucking warships, fleet will deal with them!" the officer snapped. "And forget about those fighters, they've broken through so now they're the Army and Air Force's problem now! Priority is all those boarding craft, especially the ones headed straight for Byzas Station!"
"Ensign, if you can get the Ramparts to focus fire on the craft coming right towards us, McCreary and I can switch over to the ones attacking Byzas!" the other fire controller suggested but the Ensign immediately shook his head.
"Negative, Wayward AI is telling me there's too many craft and he doesn't have enough turrets any longer to take them all out! We need to shift fire, either from Onagers or the Lances to help deal with them!"
"Staci, let me focus on the craft coming here and you focus on the ones going to Byzas because if my turrets miss they'll do a lot of damage to that station!" McCreary suggested but was immediately shot down by the Ensign.
"We can't do that our priority is the defense of Byzas even – "
"Fine!" Staci snapped. "McCreary, give me two of your turrets and I'll give you one of my Lances. You focus on defense, I'll focus on offense, copy?"
"Copy!" McCreary replied and immediately turned away. "Okay, all Delta turrets, Fire Control, new priority targets! All turrets, focus fire on the incoming boarding craft! Five and Six Delta, your focus is on the ones approaching Byzas Station, Seven Delta I need you to focus on defending us! All turrets, you're cleared to engage! Fire, fire, fire!"
"FC1, I still need that turret!" Amber urged.
"YEAH I KNOW!" McCreary yelled. "I'm working on it! Just fucking hang on! Staci, where's my fucking support!?"
Amber bit her lip as she fell silent and took a step back to let McCreary work. She found herself impatiently bouncing from one foot to the other and she tried to stop herself from fidgeting, but found she couldn't help it. Due to the holographic nature of the consoles in front of her, Amber could see everything the fire controllers were, abet it was all mirrored to her. Still, it wasn't hard to see that Wayward Station was surrounded by a lot of red dots and the fact that she was just standing here doing nothing was making her nervous.
BOOM.
The entire station shook as something exploded in the distance, and Amber looked up in alarm as the rumbling caused some of the lights overhead to flicker.
"Ensign, heads up! My ammo reserves are running low, I'm going to need a resupply, ASAP!" Staci suddenly called out, catching Amber's attention.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm already on it!" the Ensign yelled back, a phone pressed against his ear. "McCreary, give a status update on your reserves!"
"I'm down to about twenty-five percent shells! I can redirect some of the shells from turret eight now that she's down, but if we continue this rate of fire, I'm going to be out in ten minutes!"
Amber jumped as the bulkhead door to the room suddenly opened, and a stressed out looking sailor came running in.
"Sir, I need whatever personnel you're not using right now to come with me!" he demanded.
"Hey. HEY! Take her!" McCreary snapped his fingers and pointed straight at Amber before the Ensign could say anything. "I don't have a spare turret so she's no fucking good to me right now!"
The new sailor instantly turned towards Amber. "You, come with me!" he yelled before immediately turning around and dashing out of the room.
Startled, Amber took a moment to glance at McCreary, but McCreary clearly had already forgotten all about her as he had immediately turned back to his console and was busy shouting more orders into his headset. Without another word, Amber went to go chase after the sailor.
As they ran down the corridors, all sorts of questions began swirling around in her mind, and she glanced at the man's rank insignia in order to ask them. Unfortunately as she did, she suddenly realized the man in front of her wasn't actually a sailor, but in fact a Marine. The problem was, Amber knew nothing about Marine ranks as their insignia were totally different from the Navy ones, so she wasn't entirely sure how to address him.
"Hey um…" Amber hesitated before deciding to err on the side of caution. "Hey, sir?"
"Don't need to call me sir, I'm not an officer!" the Marine yelled back. "Lance Corporal Tassano! I'm an E-3, just like you!"
"Sorry," Amber hastily said. "Hey Lance Corporal! What the hell is going on?"
"We're getting boarded!" Tassano yelled back. "We got Covies crawling all over the hanger on the main deck! Combat Teams(1) are responding, but we might not have enough of them!"
"Oh crap," Amber muttered under her breath as she hurriedly picked up her pace. "So where are we going now?"
"Oh Five Level(2)!" Tassano informed her as they reached an elevator and he quickly called the car. "Come on, we got to hurry, so let's pick up the pace!"
The entire station shook again as Amber and Tassano boarded the car. Riding the elevator down to their destination, Amber anxiously shifted her weight from one leg to the other as she listened to Wayward, the station's dumb AI making announcements over the PA system.
"Warning! All station personnel, Covenant incursions detected on main deck port and starboard side. Combat Teams Alpha through Delta, engage enemy boarders!"
"Combat Teams India through Lima, move to secondary positions and standby to engage!"
"All crew and operations personnel, evacuate Third Deck and Zero Three Level."
"Security Teams(1) Echo and Golf, deploy to secure portside blast doors on Third Deck and Zero Three Level."
"Security Teams Foxtrot and Hotel, deploy to secure starboard blast doors on Third Deck and Zero Three Level."
"All military personnel not currently engaged, report to Fifth Deck or Zero Five Level for immediately reassignment."
The elevator came to an abrupt stop and Amber was forced to throw out her arms to stabilize herself as, at the exact same time, the entire station shook once more. The doors to the car opened, and Amber and Tassano were immediately confronted with two sailors, a Chief Warrant Officer and an enlisted man, both decked out in full battle gear and pushing a cart full of explosives. At the ding of the door opening, the CWO glanced at them.
"You the only ones?" he immediately asked them.
"Yes sir," Tassano replied before Amber could.
"Fine. Wayward, lock down the elevators and seal all the doors expect for this one," the CWO barked into his radio as he gestured for Amber and Tassano to quickly exit.
"Acknowledged."
"Marine, you're EOD, right?" the CWO asked as he pulled out a bunch of blasting caps.
"Yessir!"
"Good. You, come with us. Gunner's Mate, go to the armory at the end of this corridor and get some armor and weapons. Someone will be by to assign you to a Security Team. Go."
"Aye sir!"
Amber took off down the corridor as the three men disappeared into the elevator behind her. Entering the armory, she was confronted with the sight of nearly a dozen sailors of a variety of ratings in various states of readiness. Amber looked around, a little bit unsure of what to do next.
"Amber!"
Amber jerked at the sound of someone yelling her name, and she turned around to see the one person she really needed to see at the moment.
"Poolsie," she whispered, feeling her knees go weak with relief. Without thinking, Amber walked over and grabbed Poolsie, pulling her into a tight hug.
She must have taken Poolsie by surprise because it took her a few moments to return the hug. But when she did, Amber could hear her sigh in relief and Amber felt a stab of vindication, knowing she hadn't been the only one freaking out about her friends.
"Poolsie, are you alright? Are you okay?" Amber immediately asked as she broke away from the hug and leaned back so she could look Poolsie over for possible injuries. "I didn't get to see where you went, so I didn't know if you were okay or not."
"I'm good, I'm fine," Poolsie hastily tried to assure her, looking startled though Amber had no idea why.
"Good, because I wasn't sure if you'd been assigned to one of the Lance turrets near my sector," Amber quickly told her. "So when I saw one of them get taken out by Covenant fighters, I wasn't sure if that was the one you were going to be in and I was concerned you weren't going to be okay but obviously we had no way of contacting each other so I couldn't check but I also couldn't leave my turret to go see you so –"
"Amber!" Poolsie said rather loudly, interrupting her and Amber felt her cheeks start to burn as she suddenly realized she'd been rambling. "Amber, I'm fine, I'm okay! In fact, I didn't even get a chance to get assigned to a turret because none were available. I've been running from deck to deck moving munitions around."
"Oh…" Amber slowly said. All of a sudden, Amber felt very foolish for all the worrying she'd been doing. In fact, in hindsight, none of her anxiety even made sense; even if Poolsie had been manning that Lance turret, it was still a remotely accessed turret so even if the turret got taken out by the enemy, the gunner would have been fine. After all, that's exactly what happened to her.
"But thank you," Poolsie hastily said, perhaps sensing Amber's change in mood. "For worrying. It means a lot to me."
"Oh… you're welcome I guess…" Amber said sheepishly. She suddenly realized she was still holding onto Poolsie's arms and she quickly dropped them. She could see the barest hint of a delighted grin on Poolsie's face and Amber suddenly felt even more embarrassed for her attitude. "Um… I still need to get some armor. You?"
"Yeah." Poolsie tugged at the jacket she was wearing. "This is not exactly something I want to be wearing if I have to fight against the Covenant."
"Okay then, let's go."
Shoving her way through the crowd of people, Amber headed to where the body armor and helmets were stored, trusting Poolsie would follow in her wake. As she walked, Amber tried to get her head back into a state of equilibrium. Now that she knew Poolsie was alright, Amber couldn't help but look back to her emotional state half an hour ago and cringe over how foolish she had been. Of course Poolsie was going to be alright: it wasn't like she was a fighter pilot or a ground pounder. She was a weapon's gunner, like Amber was, and the only way she would have gotten hurt was if the station blew up at which point, Amber would have been dead too.
Shaking her head, Amber quickly grabbed a set of body armor off the rack that was her size and began strapping it on, trying to distract herself from her own thoughts.
"Alright everybody, eyes here!"
Amber jerked her head up as she heard someone calling from the front of the room. She spotted a man in full battle gear, complete with rifle slung over his shoulder, waving his hand, trying to catch everyone's attention.
"My name is Chief Master-at-Arms Job Leporidae and if you haven't heard by now, we are under attack!" the man bellowed. "We've got an unknown amount of Covenant boarders attacking the main hangers on First Deck. Their current intentions are unclear, but we can only assume whatever their objective is, it will not be conducive to our good health! We have got to repeal them, full stop! Marine combat teams are responding, but they will not be able to hold out indefinitely. So as of right now, everybody in this room is assigned to my detail; welcome to Security Team Oscar!"
"If you haven't already, get a rifle from the racks and make sure you get ammo from the back of the room. Max it out! Whatever you can carry! You all have three minutes to get ready, so move it! I need anyone who's got a weapon's specialty rating to come see me, right now!"
"Oh shit, that's us! We got to go!" Amber urged as she snagged two helmets off the shelf and tossed one over to Poolsie. She quickly jogged over Leporidae.
"Hey Chief! You wanted to see all weapon's specialty ratings?" Amber called out as she drew near.
"Yeah. Which ones are you?" Leporidae demanded.
"I'm a Gunner's Mate: GM Owain!"
"And I'm Missile Technician Pool!" Poolsie hastily added.
"Either one of you a graduate of the Small Arms Marksmanship or the Expeditionary Combat Skills courses?"
Amber raised her hand. "My section chief is a certified Crew Served Weapons instructor and he gave me and my section a four hour familiarization class once," she volunteered.
Leporidae immediately unslung the rifle he had on his shoulder and ejected the magazine. Clearing the chamber and locking the bolt to the rear, he handed it over to Amber.
"GM, you know what this is?"
Amber blinked in surprise and glanced at the rifle in her hands. "Yeah Chief: it's an MA5B infantry automatic rifle(3)."
"You know how to use it?"
In lieu of a response, Amber racked the charging handle a few times to make sure the rifle was cleared, before conducting a quick function's check, making sure the safety, the trigger, and the charging handle were all in good working condition. As she pulled the trigger one last time and letting the hammer fall on an empty chamber, she flicked the safety back on and offer it back to Leporidae, who shook his head.
"Take it," he ordered. "Congratulations Gunner's Mate, you're now my designated automatic rifleman. MT Pool, you're her 'A' gunner. Grab a shotgun and all the sixty round magazines you can carry, and you watch her back. If she goes down, you become my new gunner. Got it? Good. Max out ammo and report back to me in two minutes, go."
Without waiting for a response, Leporidae immediately turned away and grabbed a nearby sailor by the shoulder. "Hey, HM3, what's your primary NEC code?" Amber heard him ask as she darted away.
At the back of the room, Amber found a table stacked with loaded magazines. She started stuffing as many sixty round magazines as she could into her pouches and pockets, to the point where she could actually start to feel it weighing her down. Poolsie quickly joined her with a shotgun in hand. As she started to load up, Amber noticed Poolsie was breathing rather heavily, as if she had just ran a couple of laps around the track.
"Poolsie: you okay?"
"Yeah," Poolsie breathlessly replied. "Just… you know, when I joined the Navy, I didn't actually think I would ever see the Covenant up close and personal."
"Yeah, you and me both," Amber admitted with a nervous chuckle. "Almost makes you think, you know, if we were going to have to fight like a ground pounder, maybe we should have joined the Marines and gotten some, like, actual infantry fighting training."
Poolsie snorted. "I don't think I would have survived Boot Camp," she confessed. "You know I can't do a pull-up to save my life."
"Yeah, well, just stay close to me, okay?" Amber urged. "We'll watch each other's back."
The station abruptly shook once more, causing all the shelves to rattle and the overhead lights to flicker. Amber looked up in alarm as dust fell from the ceiling.
"All stations, all stations, we've lost control of main deck! Combat Teams Alpha through Delta, fall back to secondary defensive positions! Combat Teams India through Lima move to Second Deck and Zero Two Level and engage hostiles!"
"Security Teams Echo and Golf, move to assist!"
"All crew and ops personnel evacuate Fourth Deck and Zero Four Level!"
"Reserve Security Teams Mike and November, move to secure port and starboard blast doors on Fourth Deck!"
"Reserve Security Teams Oscar and Papa, move to secure port and starboard blast doors on Zero Four Level!"
"That's us people!" Leporidae immediately bellowed. "Alright everyone, get on the ready line! Everybody on the ready line!"
Amber hurriedly grabbed one more magazine before following Poolsie to the front of the room.
"Outside! Get on the ready line! Move it out move it out move it out!" Leporidae urged at the top of his lungs as he directed everyone outside to the corridor.
Exiting the armory, Amber and Poolsie quickly joined the rest of the security team as they lined up against the corridor bulkhead. Leporidae immediately marched passed, giving everyone a cursory scan.
"Secure that chinstrap BM, I don't care if it's itchy, that's what it's for," he ordered as he walked by. "Button up that mandarin collar Sailor, otherwise you're going to get hot brass going down your shirt. Ensign, with all due respect, where do you think you're going, a Halloween party or off to war? Either way, get rid of that ski mask, it's not going to do you any good and Covies aren't scared of human skulls anyway."
Leporidae walked passed Amber and gave a cursory scan before nodding in approval. Coming to a halt at the front of the line, he spun around. "Security Team! Lock and load!"
Amber immediately inserted a magazine into her rifle and racked the charging handle. The corridor was suddenly filled with all sorts of clicks and clacks as over a dozen rifles, shotguns, and pistols followed suit.
"From this point on, all weapons are at condition one!" Leporidae barked. "That means magazines in, round chambered, safeties on! Got it!?"
"Aye aye Chief!" Amber bellowed at the top of her lungs.
Leporidae gave a single nod in approval. "Alright ladies and gentlemen! As of right now, we are green and very very mean! Stay on the starboard side of the corridor and lets it move out! Let's go, move it move it move it!"
Amber turned and jogged after Leporidae as he led them down the corridor to their assigned defensive position. As they ran, they passed a number of Navy and Marine personnel, mostly clad in light uniforms, all of whom were retreating back in the other direction. As they jogged down the corridor, Amber could feel the floor slope downwards ever so slightly and she realized they were moving down to the level just below them. It made sense they would have to use the corridors as at this point, the elevators would most likely have been sealed off and rigged to blow.
They reached a spot in the corridor where a number of M72-L combat barriers had been set up in staggered formation. Approximately thirty meters in front of them, there was an open blast door. Just beyond the blast door, Amber could hear the faint echo of gunfire and explosions in the distance.
"Alright Team, set up!" Leporidae barked. "We've got the entire corridor, so spread out! Three shooters per barricade! Check your fields of fire and make sure you're not going to shoot each other in the backs! GM, MT, on me."
He led them to the furthest back barrier that was sitting in the middle of the corridor. At his urging, Amber dropped down into a kneeling position and stuck her rifle into the gun slit that had been cut into the middle of the combat barrier.
"Hold position here. When the Covies break through the blast door, I want you to lay down a base of fire; keep them suppressed while the rest of us pick them off. MT, you a southpaw?"
"Yes Chief," Poolsie nervously replied.
"Okay, cover the left then. It's going to be a bit more difficult for you to support the automatic rifle, but whatever, it's more important you're able to shoot from cover. Take this."
From one of his pockets, he extracted a box of green shotgun shells.
"Frag rounds," he said, answering the unvoiced question. "This station is not big enough to warrant the assignment of actual grenade launchers, so these will have to do in a pinch. MT, your primary focus is to help feed ammo to your GM shipmate here, but if you see the Covenant bunching up, pump a couple of these shells into them to punish them for that."
Leporidae suddenly glanced at the TACPD strapped to his wrist. "You two get set up; I'm going to check on everyone else."
He darted away. Amber watched him run off to the next combat barrier to check on the Sailors setting up there.
"Hey Poolsie, help me get ready," she requested as turned back to her friend. "When I say 'ammo,' give me another mag. And give them to me base plate first, with the bullets pointed forward, okay?"
"Got it."
Amber nodded then exhaled. Bending over, she peered through her sights to check her left and right traverse. She looked up as Leporidae dove back behind the combat barrier.
"You ladies ready?" he asked them as he lifted his assault rifle and did a quick brass check. Unlike the rifle Amber was using, Leporidae was sporting the 'C' model of the MA5 assault rifle.
"Yes Chief," Poolsie replied.
"As ready as we'll ever be I guess," Amber tried to joke, but the waver in her voice betrayed her nerves.
"First time fighting the Covenant?"
"In person, yes Chief," Amber corrected.
Leporidae nodded. "Yeah. Well, word of advice: when the shooting starts, just remember to keep breathing. Sometimes for new guys, when that adrenaline rush hits, it can be pretty shocking. Your heart starts pumping at, like, fifty thousand beats per minute, your pupils dilate and all of a sudden, it's like you've been wearing blinders all your life, but now they've been removed and you can finally see. Your nostrils get filled with the smell of ozone, cordite, and if you're really unlucky, blood, and you get this tingly feeling all over your body cause of all the radiation from the plasma weapons. All of that is happening all at once, and it can be pretty overwhelming, even for veterans. So, keep breathing cause the last thing I need is for either of you ladies to pass out."
Amber and Poolsie exchanged a look at the whimsical expression that had suddenly passed over Leporidae's face.
"Pardon me Chief," Amber began, drawing his attention. "But it almost sounds like you enjoy it."
Leporidae's whimsical look was immediately replaced by a slightly guilty one, and he sheepishly grinned. "Well, let's be clear, there's nothing fun about being shot at," Leporidae quickly informed them. "But the rush of combat, well, there's no denying there's nothing quite like it."
"Alert! Covenant boarders have broken through the portside airlock on Zero Two Level! Teams Kilo, Lima, and Golf, fall back to secondary defensive positions!"
"Security Teams Foxtrot and Hotel, standby to repeal boarders!"
"Alright, listen up Team!" Leporidae immediately stood up and bellowed. "Covies have taken over level two, which means Marines from teams Kilo and Lima, as well as Security Team Golf will be coming up here to join us! Everyone, hold your fire and try not to shoot any of our guys!"
"By the way," he commented as he ducked back down. "Before I forget, make sure you set your headsets to channel 14. In case we need to split up, the two of you will make call sign Oscar 1-1: 1st Section, Team 1. Got it?"
Amber nodded as she set her headset, then turned her attention back to her weapon.
The sounds of machine gun and plasma fire could be heard in the distance, growing stronger and more intense by the minute. As she knelt there, nervously drumming her fingers against her rifle, Amber tensed when she abruptly heard the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the corridor straight towards them. She lifted her rifle, vaguely noticing Poolsie to her left doing the same thing, but before she could do anything rash, Leporidae gently placed his hand on the top of rifle.
"Hold your fire GM, those are friendlies," he told her and Amber nodded in acknowledgement, lowering her rifle as she did.
She nevertheless remained tense until she spotted a crowd of people, wearing a mixture of Navy and Marine insignias, round the corner and start running towards her. They didn't look to be in good shape. A number of Marines had scorch marks on their armor and a couple of the Sailors' rifles were still smoking from the ends of their barrels. At least three guys, two Marines and one Sailor, were being supported by their comrades while one Marine was being hauled along in a stretcher and was currently being attended to by a corpsman.
"Fall in, fall in!" Leporidae called out as the group reached them and began streaming through the combat barriers. He reached out and managed to grab a hold of one of the Marines before he could run by. "Hey Corporal, you part of Combat Team Kilo or Lima?"
The Marine glanced at him and snorted as he rubbed his face and wiped some of the soot away. "Neither. Both. Fuck, I don't know. I think Kilo Team's been completely wiped out and Lima's probably down to half strength. I got to get my wounded out of here before I can figure out who's left."
"Dammit. Alright, in that case, you fall back to the fifth level and get reorganized. We'll handle this!"
The Corporal nodded. "Thanks Chief. Alright Marines! Fall back to zero five level! Let's move!"
"Oscar Actual to Central," Leporidae said into this radio as the Marine retreated. "Combat Teams Kilo and Lima are currently combat ineffective, I'm sending them up to Oh Five Level to get reorganized. Security Teams Golf and Oscar will hold Oh Four Level portside blast doors, over."
"Copy that Oscar Actual. Out."
Amber jumped as a Sailor abruptly ducked behind their barrier and dropped to the ground.
"What's going on Chief?" he breathlessly demanded to know.
"Marines are falling back to get reorganized sir. Looks like it's just going to be your team and my team holding these blast doors."
"Shit." The man took off his helmet and vigorously tussled his hair. "Well, we're going to miss their firepower."
"What sort of opposition are we expecting LT?" Leporidae asked.
"Shit Chief, the Covies have got a little bit of everything. Split-lips, Jackals, and a fuck ton of Grunts. No Hunters, thank god because they would have torn this station apart, but we're having enough problems as it is."
"Numbers?"
"Not a clue. Most of the Covenant boarding craft were probably supposed to go to Byzas Station, but Captain Starobin put the station between them and Byzas to try and intercept. So right now we could be looking at just a few Lances, or an entire Legion of Covenant boarders, I just don't know."
"Well, let's just hope we have enough bullets to hold them back then," Amber heard Leporidae mutter under his breath. More loudly though, he said, "Okay. LT, why don't you take your team and set up a second line of defense about halfway down the corridor? We'll leapfrog back as necessary."
"Got it," the Lieutenant said, then got up and ran off.
Amber noticed Poolsie nervously glancing in her direction, and she tried to give her a reassuring smile, but all she could accomplish was some sort of awkward smirk. She turned forward as the sound of the fighting started to grow in intensity.
As the seconds ticked by, Amber tried to think of something, anything, to say to break the growing silence, but her vocal cords seemed to be frozen stiff with fear. Honestly, she wasn't sure why she was so nervous; after all, hadn't she been blasting away Covenant fighters not even thirty minutes ago?
But then again, there was a vast difference between what she had been doing then, and what she was about to do now. Amber was a gunner. She'd gone to tech school for it, she'd trained for it, she'd spent countless hour preparing for it, hell, it was even in her rank title. Sit her behind a gun turret, and she knew, for the most part, what to expect.
But this? This was something else entirely. It was one thing shooting at images on a screen; Amber could easily delude herself into thinking she was only destroying machines. It was another thing entirely to be shooting at actual, living things that were close enough for Amber to see with her very own eyes. And that they would be shooting back at her. The thought terrified her, and she was struck with the realization she very much didn't want to die.
The gunfire continued to grow louder and louder. Amber glanced at her two companions to see how they were holding up.
Poolsie was busy chewing her lip, like she always did when she was nervous. She had also extracted a rifle round from one of the magazines and was awkwardly twirling it around between her fingers like it was a really short baton. She stared blindly down the corridor in the direction of the fighting, and Amber could see sweat pouring down her face. In short, she looked as bad as Amber felt.
In contrast, Chief Leporidae almost seemed to be taking a nap. He was leaning heavily against his rifle with his forehead propped up against the buttstock and his eyes were closed. He barely twitched when there was an explosion down the corridor and someone started screaming in pain, only to be immediately silenced by another bloody-sounded explosion.
"All hands, all hands!" Wayward suddenly said over the PA, causing Amber to nearly jump out of her skin. "Covenant forces have broken through on Zero Four Level! Security Teams Foxtrot and Hotel, fall back to secondary defensive positions! Security Teams Golf and Oscar, standby to engage!"
"Alright, you heard the word!" Leporidae roared, instantly coming to life. "Everybody, check your weapons!"
Amber anxiously checked over her rifle as, like before, a crowd of people came from around the corner and began rushing towards her position. Unlike before though, these people were all Sailors, and they looked in a lot worse shape than the Marines from before. Also, gunfire continued to ring out, even as the Sailors reached the combat barriers and began to stream pass.
One helmetless Sailor brushed passed Leporidae, who grabbed him before he could get away.
"Hey, MA, who's the last man!?"
The MA turned towards them, allowing Amber to see half the man's face was completely covered in blood, causing Amber's stomach to turn at the sight.
"WHAT?" he yelled, and Amber suddenly realized blood was also gushing out of the man's ears.
Leporidae must have also noticed because he started shouting, "WHO. IS. LAST. MAN?"
"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!"
"Alright, get out of here!" Leporidae demanded, even as the gunfire reached a crescendo.
Down the corridor, one last Sailor was firing her rifle in the direction she had come from as she backpedaled. Once she round the corner, she turned around and started to dash for safety but before she could even take more than two steps –
FWOOZ!
- a plasma bolt splattered against the back of her head and she instantly toppled over.
"Wayward, close blast door one five alpha!" Leporidae ordered into his radio and as the door started to close, Amber could see her first glimpse of a Covenant soldier as an entire pack rounded the corner before the blast doors shut with an ominous rumble. She gulped.
"Seal the door," Leporidae ordered. There was a loud hiss and as the lights turned red, the blast doors were sealed. "Well, that should hold them back for about… three seconds? Oscar Team! Standby but don't engage until I give the word!"
Amber bobbed her head in acknowledgement though she doubted Leporidae could see her. She jumped when she felt something touch her and she looked down, only to see Poolsie's hand, which she grabbed and gave a hard squeeze.
BANG
The blast doors shook as something heavy hit it and Amber hastily let go of Poolsie as the sound of a dozen rifle safeties being turned off filled the air. Leporidae immediately raised a closed fist.
"HOLD! Jeez guys, I'll let you know when you can start panicking," Leporidae yelled, sounding more exasperated than anything. Amber gave him a shocked look at his cavalier attitude, a look which he ignored.
Silence filled the corridor.
"What are they doing?" someone finally asked.
"Well, if they have any brains whatsoever, they're probably placing another breaching charge," Leporidae noted. "So keep your head's down."
HISSSSSSSSSS!
A loud hissing noise filled the air and white sparks began leaping from the blast door as something hot began cutting right through the thick Titanium door like it was made of butter. The sparks were so bright, Amber was forced to turn her head away.
SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS… KABOOM!
The blast door suddenly blew apart, throwing metal shards all over the corridor!
"RAHHHHHHHH!" FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZFWOOZFWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ
Plasma bolts began flying in all directions as Covenant soldiers began pouring from the breach!
"OPEN FIRE!" Leporidae roared but Amber was way ahead of him; as soon as she had heard the cry of the Elite, she had pulled the trigger.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!
In one trigger pull, Amber emptied half of her magazine. But because she was shaking so much, most of those shots ended up going straight into the ceiling, missing everyone. Her head spinning but mindful of what Leporidae had mentioned, Amber took a deep breath, pushed her free hand on the top of her rifle, and pull the trigger again.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!
This time her burst was on target, or at least she assumed it was. It was a little hard to tell. So many things were happening at the same time. Plasma bolts were flying towards her, filling the air with colorful lights. Machine guns were going off next to her head, drowning out all other noises. The acrid scent of melted metal was filling her nose on top of other things. And she found she couldn't stop trembling. So many things were happening all at the same time, it was so overwhelming, and Amber was having a hard time focusing. So even though the Covenant were barely thirty meters away, they might as well have been three hundred meters away for as well as Amber could see them. At this point, all Amber was doing was shooting at movement.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMCLICK!
"Poolsie, ammo!" Amber screamed as she frantically ejected the empty magazine and letting it clatter to the ground.
Poolsie hastily grabbed a fresh mag and handed it over. Amber snatched it and awkwardly shoving it into her rifle, fumbling a couple of times before she could get it in.
"GRENADE! GET DOWN!" Leporidae suddenly screamed.
BOOM!
Amber yelped in surprise as the plasma exploded, causing the hair on the back of her neck to stick up from the static discharge. At the same time, something struck their combat barrier hard before slumping to the ground and Amber looked down, only to see it was a person.
"Man down, CORPSMAN!" Leporidae screamed, grabbing a hold of the man's vest and hauling behind cover. Up close, Amber could see the man was suffering from multiple burns across his face and chest. "GM! Pick up your rate of fire!"
Amber started, and immediately returned to her rifle. Racking the charging handle, Amber pulled the trigger.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!
Amber fired an extended burst into the mass of Covenant soldiers crowding in front of her, but she wasn't sure if she hit any of them as she was getting distracted by what was happening behind her. As she watched, the corpsman came running up and immediately started working on the wounded man.
With Leporidae's help, the man was turned over onto his back and his armor was removed. Breaking out a can of biofoam, the corpsman started applying it, causing the wounded man to cry out in pain.
"Hang in there Sailor, I know it hurts but you're going to be fine," Leporidae urged from beside his head. "How bad is it Doc?"
"He's got third degree burns over his arms and face," the corpsman reported. "We need to get him out of here! Do we have a stretcher?"
"Yeah, I'll get one! Golf Actual, Oscar Actual, over."
"Go for Golf Actual."
"LT, I got a man down, I need a stretcher and some bearers over at my position, over."
"Roger! I'll send two of my guys over right now."
"Copy, out."
Leporidae lowered his radio and looked up to see Amber glancing at him.
"GM! Focus fire forward!" he snapped, leaping to his feet.
Startled, Amber quickly ducked down and fired another burst downrange.
"Don't just fire wildly into the crowd!" Leporidae yelled into her ear. "At this range, fire at targets of opportunity! Short steady burst! Don't waste all your ammo in one trigger pull! Here! Shift fire and target that Elite Major on the left! The one in red!"
Amber pivoted to the left and fired at the first splotch of red she saw.
BAMBAMBAM!
"Uh, that's a Jackal, but nice try," Leporidae reported, somehow managing to sound sarcastic despite the plasma flying by their heads. "Go left a notch and bring it up about six centimeters."
Amber hastily adjusted her aim and fired another extended burst at the creature in question and seeing a yellow transparent barrier suddenly appearing in mid-air.
"You're on target! Keep firing!"
Amber laid into the trigger, following the Elite in her sights as he ducked and tried to dodge to the side, but with no cover, there wasn't much he could do. Amber saw a splash of purple liquid squirting out of the Elite's neck just as she felt the bolt on her rifle lock back.
"You're out, reload! MT Pool, cover!" Leporidae roared as he lifted his rifle and began firing downrange. With Poolsie following suit, laying down fire with her shotgun, Amber frantically reached down and ripped out a fresh mag. Ejecting the empty one, she jammed the new mag in, slapped her charging handle and rode it home with the palm of her hand.
"Back up!" she screamed.
"Shift fire right!" Leporidae immediately ordered. "Enemy Grunt carrying a heavy weapon! Fire!"
Aiming her rifle approximately in the direction Leporidae was pointing at, she let it rip, watching as the numbers on her digital ammo counter quickly go down.
"Target destroyed! Shift fire center! Target, enemy Elite Minor, in the blue!"
Amber bite down on her lip as she shifted over to the right. She spotted an alien that seemed to be giving orders and she opened on him, firing three burst of five rounds each in quick secession. Her first burst went who knows where while her second two burst were intercepted by the same yellow bubble as the other Elite.
"Keep firing! Don't let up, you're burning through his shields!"
Amber fired another couple of bursts and managed to see the yellow bubble shatter just before she ran out of ammo again.
"Ammo! Come on, hurry!" Amber hollered as she watched the Elite start to retreat behind his comrades. She felt a magazine get pushed into her hand and she quickly shoved it into her rifle, chamber a round, and fired.
She didn't see the rounds hit, but the Elite pitched forward like he'd been smacked in the back of the head with a hockey puck and disappeared to the ground. Unsure if he was actually down or not, Amber fired a few more bursts in his direction.
"Hey! HEY! Shift fire, you got him!" Leporidae suddenly yelled into her ear.
Amber grunted and jerked to the right, spraying the Covenant down with machine gun fire as she pivoted. As she swept the entire line, she spotted a small creature, probably a Grunt, run up with a small round device in his hand. She turned to engage him, but then her hammer felt on an empty chamber.
"Poolsie, I'm out, I'm out!" she frantically called out but before she could reload, she saw the Grunt pulling his arm back to throw the device. "WATCH OUT, HE'S GOT A GRENADE!"
Leporidae immediately panned over and open fired, blowing the Grunt's head off with a burst from his rifle, but not before the Grunt manage to throw the device in Amber's direction.
"GRENADE!" Amber screamed, throwing herself to the ground and curling herself into a ball in preparation for the explosion. She sensed Poolsie landing on the ground right next to her and Amber could feel her trembling. Or maybe she was the one trembling?
A couple of seconds passed with no explosion, and Amber decided to risk her life finding out why. She lifted her head and looked around, only to see a cloud of a sort of electric blue colored smoke billowing from the device, filling the corridor and blocking the Covenant from view.
"They're setting up a smoke screen!" Leporidae warned. "Trying to get in close so they can engage with melee! We can't let that happen, we got to pull back! Oscar Actual to Golf Actual, Covies are setting up a smoke screen, we're pulling back to your position, break. Oscar 1 to Oscar 2, fall back to secondary defensive positions, now! 1st Section, suppressing fire!"
Snatching up one of the mags from the ground, Amber quickly reloaded and lifted her rifle, but hesitated. With the smoke screen fully in place now, she had no targets, nothing to shoot at.
"GM, fire your weapon!"
"I got no targets!" she yelled back.
"It doesn't matter, its suppressing fire!"
Shrugging to herself, Amber shouldered her rifle and opened up.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM! BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM! BAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!
All around her, the sailors from 2nd Section were beginning to stream passed her. She did her best to try and avoid hitting any of them, even if it did limit her field of fire somewhat.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!
Shells casings showered her as Poolsie unloaded her shotgun into the smoke. To her right, Leporidae twisted his rifle, ejecting his magazine at the same time, and then in the same motion, twisted his rifle back, shoved a fresh mag in and continued to fire. All the while, Amber held down her trigger.
BAMBAMBAMCLICK!
Her bolt locked back and Amber quickly reloaded. As she brought her rifle back up, she hesitated when she saw a number of translucent glowing orange and red circles emerging from the smoke. Spotting the Jackals holding the circles, she instinctively fired on them, but she stopped when all her rounds did was bounce off the circles.
"Covies are setting up a phalanx!" Leporidae bellowed. "MT, load up frags and target the keystone shield! GM, focus fire on the same target! Fire!"
Amber fired again, growling in frustration as her rounds failed to penetrate the energy shield. "They're just bouncing off!"
"That's the point! Keep firing!"
Amber mentally shrugged to herself and fired again. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Poolsie frantically shoving green colored shells into her shotgun. She was having a bit of a hard time as her hands were shaking so much and she kept dropping them, but eventually she got the tube magazine topped off. Lifting the shotgun, she fired.
BAM!POP! BAM!POP! BAM!POP!
Poolsie unloaded into the Jackal's shield, each shell bursting into a shower of sparks as they exploded. The shells, combined with Amber's machine gun fire, quickly sapped the shield of strength before abruptly failing, leaving the Jackal exposed. Leporidae immediately riddled the bird-like creature with holes but before anyone could do anything else, the Jackals quickly shuffled over, plugging the hole. Then they leveled their plasma pistols.
"Everybody down!"
FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!
Amber dove for the ground as a veritable firestorm of plasma bolts was thrown their way! A sizzling noise and the smell of melting metal and ozone quickly filled the air as superheated plasma struck the combat barriers and started melting through them. Amber saw at least one person getting hit and falling to the ground as if in slow motion, with his face completely burned off.
"1, this is 2, we're set!"
"COVERING FIRE PORTSIDE!" Leporidae immediately roared. "1st Section, fall back starboard side!"
"Come on, get up Poolsie!" Amber yelled, grabbing her rifle with one hand and grabbing Poolsie's arm with the other.
She staggered to her feet and crouch-ran to the starboard side of the corridor as her ears filled with all sorts of cracks and hisses which she instinctively knew were near misses from machine gun bullets. They ran like hell, reaching the spot about halfway up the corridor where 2nd Section was unloading on the Covenant forces behind them.
"Keep going, keep going!" Leporidae ordered as Amber started to turn to help them. "1st Section, fall back to Golf's position!"
A plasma bolt struck the bulkhead right next to Amber's head, throwing her to the ground and causing her to scream out in fear and pain as she was showered with droplets of plasma.
"Amber!" she heard Poolsie cry out, and she felt Poolsie grab her arm and drag her passed 2nd Section and further down the corridor towards Golf Team, who were all taking cover behind another series of combat barriers.
"COME ON, COME ON!" she heard someone yelling and she looked up to see one of Golf Team's men gesturing widely at her. She saw him mouthing a curse before he darted out from behind the barrier to help.
FWOOZ!
A plasma bolt zipped right by her shoulder and nailed the man right in the upper thigh!
"SON OF A BITCH!" she heard him scream as he dropped to one knee.
FWOOZ FWOOZ!
Another two plasma bolts zipped passed Amber. One smack against the combat barrier while the other hit the man dead center in the chest, knocking him over.
"Oh shit!"
Amber slung her rifle over her shoulder and dashed over to the man. She grabbed a hold of his vest and tried to pull him into cover, only to find he was too heavy for her to do it alone.
"Poolsie, help me!"
Poolsie ran over and grabbed a hold of one of his arms. With her help, they were able to pull him to cover.
As soon as they were safe, Amber began checking the man over for injuries. He had a smoking hole in the middle of his chest but fortunately his body armor had absorbed the plasma bolt, turning it into molten slag but otherwise leaving him unharmed. His leg had no such protection though, and now looked like a charred piece of meat. The plasma had burned through his uniform, roasted the flesh underneath, and then melted away a lot of his fat and muscle. The sight caused Amber's stomach to churn and she started gagging as the scent of charred skin hit her, but she managed to keep the contains of her stomach in place as she frantically tried to think of what to do. Her uncle, a UNSC Army combat medic, had once told her the proper steps of addressing such a wound, but at the moment under so much pressure, Amber couldn't remember what he had said.
She jerked in surprise when Leporidae suddenly and roughly grabbed her by the shoulder.
"Let the corpsmen worry about the wounded!" he snapped as he dragged her and shoved her behind the barrier. "Your job is to engage the enemy! Pull out your rifle and standby to provide covering fire!"
Startled, all Amber could do was do as she was ordered. Shoving her rifle through the gun slit, she got ready to provide fire, only to find it was already too late. The Covenant phalanx had charged forward, shrugging off all incoming fire, and once they were close enough, the Jackals had broken formation and pounced on 2nd Section before they could withdraw. The corridor dissolved into a vicious melee fight as 2nd Section desperately fought in hand to hand combat against the Covenant.
Safe and secure several meters behind the fight, Amber lowered her head to her sights but then hesitated. She was not a trained marksman, and the two sides were too close together for her to feel comfortable enough to fire. Yet, as more of her teammates were cut down by the Covenant, she couldn't just sit there and not try to help out.
"HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!"
Amber jerked around and spotted the Ensign with the skull ski mask nearby, laying on his back struggling as a Jackal tried to stab him in the face with an energy dagger. Despite the Jackal's small size, the Jackal was clearly winning as the Ensign just didn't have enough room to leverage his weight around.
"HELP ME!" he screamed as the Jackal stabbed downwards, missed his stab, but still managed to inflict a nasty cut on the Ensign's face.
"Shit!" Amber yelped. She tried to recall all the marksmanship lessons she had received in Boot Camp so many months ago as she switched to semi-automatic and leveled her rifle.
"Hips squared with the target," Amber muttered to herself. "Feet shoulder width apart. Stock pressed firmly against the shoulder. Lean into the rifle. Elbows down. Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. And -"
She pulled the trigger.
BANG!
The Ensign shoved the Jackal's corpse off him, whipped out his pistol, and shot the body a couple more times.
"Lightly squeeze the trigger," Amber recited with a sigh as the Ensign climbed to his feet and started running to safety.
FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!
Amber let out a gasp of horror as the Ensign pitched forward, a dozen bright pink needles sticking out from his back. Blood gushing from his wounds, the Ensign extended his arm, as if reaching for help. Then he exploded.
Amber screamed and ducked as blood and guts coated the walls and ceilings.
"Golf Team, OPEN FIRE!"
Letting out a roar of anger, Amber snapped her rifle up and joined the rest of the team as they unloaded on the Covenant. She spotted one Jackal, with fresh red blood coating his lips, and she blasted him several times, filling him with so many holes by the time he hit the ground he was nothing more than a sack of flesh. Pivoting to the left, she spotted an Elite throw a plasma grenade, which adhered to the helmet of one of Golf Team's shooters. The woman screamed in fear and tried to unclip her helmet to throw it away, but the grenade exploded before she could accomplish that, and her headless and torso-less corpse slumped to the ground.
In retaliation, someone fired a couple of slugs into the Elite, disabling his shields, and Amber quickly unloaded on him. Her rounds chewed through his armor and blew off a leg. The Elite dropped to the ground, screaming as violet-purple blood started gushing from his wound. Another Elite ran over and grabbed him, but Amber quickly shot the new Elite, blowing away a couple of his fingers, then turned to the first Elite and put two rounds into his head, feeling her bolt lock back as he toppled to the ground.
Ripping out the empty mag, she tossed it the ground and reached for another one. "Ammo! Poolsie, ammo!"
Nothing emerged and Amber turned to find out why, only to see Poolsie wasn't there any longer. She felt her stomach drop and looked around in a frenzy, only to see Poolsie a couple of meters behind her, running up the corridor.
"Come on Amber, the team's leaving!" she was screaming and Amber suddenly realized she was the only Oscar Team member standing in a crowd of Sailors from Golf Team.
"Hang on! Wait for me!" Amber cried out as she turned and ran.
"Come on Amber, we have to go, we're getting left behind!" Poolsie urged as Amber caught up to her. In front of her, she could see the rest of Oscar Team running through the corridors with Leporidae at the very front.
As she breathlessly chased after them, Amber suddenly became aware of the announcement that was being broadcasted overhead through the PA:
"Warning! Covenant boarding craft detected on zero one four level! All crew and ops personnel, evacuate! All available Combat and Security Teams, respond!"
"That's the food court!" Poolsie pointed out and with a start, Amber realized she was right and for some crazy reason, Amber started wondering if her breakfast from this morning was still sitting there, and if there was a chance she'd be able to have it.
They caught up to the rest of the team as they stopped outside the armory.
"Everybody, you've got thirty seconds to get more ammo. GO!" Leporidae barked.
Spotting Amber and Poolsie running, up he tossed them a bag, one that Amber just barely caught before it smacked her in the face. "GM, I got you covered but MT, go get some more shells and frag rounds."
Poolsie immediately disappeared into the armory as Amber hastily stuffed the new mags into her pockets. As she worked, she took a glance around, realizing for the first time only about half the team was still standing, which completely caught her by surprise. She knew the team had been taking casualties, but she hadn't realized it had been that many. She was suddenly extremely grateful both her and Poolsie had managed to avoid injury so far.
"Alright people, we're moving out!" Leporidae bellowed as Poolsie returned with a bandolier of shotgun shells slung over her shoulder. "Let's go! Move it move it move it!"
Amber let out a mute groan. She wasn't used to doing this much running, especially with so much gear on and carrying such a heavy rifle.
They ran through the station, and the gunfire that had been ringing out behind slowly started ringing out in front of them. As she ran, Amber saw a number of the crew running in the same direction, clad only in light clothing and armed with sidearms, and she realized the situation had to be really bad if Command was throwing everybody they had into the fight.
They were about two compartments away from the food court when Leporidae abruptly stopped and dropped down to one knee. Amber quickly followed suit. Ahead of her, the roar of gunfire could be heard echoing up and down the corridors, kind of like the roar of a waterfall in the distance. She couldn't see anything yet, but it sounded bad.
"Alright Team, listen up!" Leporidae called. He pointed at a bulkhead door nearby. "We're moving through this maintenance corridor here. It should put us about in the middle of the food court, directly inside one of the food vendor areas. The thing is, the maintenance corridors is rather small, so we're going to need to walk in single file. We also don't know if the Covenant have discovered the corridor at all, so we don't know if anyone is in there or not, so maintain your distance between each man and keep your head on a swivel."
Leporidae glanced at the assembled group. "MT Pool!" he suddenly called. "You're on point!"
"What? Why me?" Poolsie immediately protested and Amber shot Leporidae a nasty look, one that he ignored.
"Two reasons," he began as he walked over to the keypad by the bulkhead door and began punching in some numbers. "One: you've got the shotgun. Two..."
The door slid open, revealing that the corridor was not only rather narrow, but also had a rather low ceiling. Low enough that, it was clear Leporidae, who was probably about a hundred and eighty centimeters tall, would not be able to walk through it with having to hunch over.
"You and GM Owain there are probably the only ones who can walk through the corridor without having to hunch over," he finished. "Means, you'll be able to spot the enemy sooner, and react faster than I could."
Amber glanced around and suddenly realized she and Poolsie were not only the only women in the team, but also the shortest ones. She silently let out a curse.
"Ladies, whenever you're ready," Leporidae called out
Poolsie nodded, then took a deep breath and entered the corridor. Amber moved to immediately follow her, but Leporidae stopped her.
"Maintain at least a three to four meter spacing," he ordered, before waiting a few more seconds, than lifting his arm.
"Fuck you," Amber whispered under her breath as she entered the corridor.
Once inside, Amber was immediately struck with the feeling of claustrophobia. The roof was low enough that even for her, the top of her helmet was barely scraping the ceiling, causing her to instinctively duck her head. Plus, the body armor she was wearing made her rather bulky, and she found her shoulders were brushing against the walls, making it rather difficult to turn. There also wasn't a whole lot of room to swing her weapon around, though based on how Poolsie looked, Amber could tell the bullpup design of her rifle was helping to mitigate the issue somewhat. Nevertheless, Amber soldiered on, unwilling to leave Poolsie alone in this mess.
As they made their way through the corridor, the sounds of fighting continued to ring out, though it was rather muted. It reminded Amber of being at the movie theaters and being placing inside a theater next to one that was playing an action film: she could still hear the rumbling and the low end bass reverberating through the walls, though she couldn't make out exactly what was going on.
They continued down the corridor.
"MT, take this next left," Leporidae ordered over the radio.
"Roger that."
Poolsie turned the next corner and immediately there was a loud whack and Poolsie was thrown backwards off her feet as she was struck in the chest by an armored foot.
"POOLSIE!" Amber called out in alarm as a Jackal came walking around the corner. "POOLSIE, STAY DOWN! CONTACT!"
Mentally praying Poolsie was alright, Amber leveled her rifle and opened up but before any of her rounds could hit home, the Jackal activated his point defense gauntlet and intercepted the bullets. Bullet holes suddenly appeared in the walls and ceilings as the rounds simply ricochet off as the Jackal's shield was just big enough to fill the entire corridor.
"Keep firing!" Leporidae bellowed. "Don't let him draw his weapon!"
Amber had no intention of letting go of the trigger. Unfortunately, her rifle had other plans as there was a loud click as she ran out of ammo.
"I'm out! Reloading!" Amber called out as she ejected the mag and instinctively looked down to find another one. Before she could even being to reload though, someone grabbed her by the left shoulder and shoved downward, forcing her to her knees. At the same time, an MA5C rifle was placed on her other shoulder.
BANG BANG!
"AHH!" Amber screamed, instinctively grabbing her right ear. Despite her hearing protection, with the muzzle right next to her face, the gunshots were still extremely painful, leaving her gripping her head in pain. Disorientated by the noise, she missed what happened next but the next thing she knew, Leporidae was yelling into her good ear "GM, continue firing!"
She looked up. By the looks of it, the Jackal had tried to take advantage of Amber's momentary inattention by lowering his shield and bring his plasma pistol to bear. Unfortunately for him, Leporidae was quicker to the draw, and had managed to destroy the Jackal's plasma pistol with his first shot, then put a hole in the Jackal's left arm with his second shot. Sadly, the Jackal was able to reactivate his energy shield before Leporidae's third shot could hit home. But with only one good arm and no weapon, there wasn't much the Jackal could do.
Amber jammed a new magazine in and opened up. Brass littered the floor as both rifles unloaded on him, and Amber could see a red hue beginning to appear on the Jackal's shield.
"Keep firing!" Leporidae barked, even as she felt a magazine smack her in the back as he reloaded. "We've almost disabled his shield!"
Behind the shield, Amber could see the Jackal gritting his teeth as he tried to maintain his grip. He started to take a few steps backwards as the impact from the bullets began to force him back, when he abruptly stepped on one of Poolsie's outstretched legs and fell.
At once, Amber released her trigger, least she accidently hit Poolsie, but Leporidae didn't even hesitate. He fired three shots in rapid secession.
BANG BANG BANG!
The Jackal toppled over backwards, three smoking holes in his chest.
"POOLSIE!" Amber cried out, dropping her rifle as she leapt to her feet.
"No, WAIT!" Leporidae yelled, but it was too late. As Amber sprinted down the corridor towards Poolsie, a second Jackal abruptly appeared from around the corner and leveled his plasma pistol. Amber tried to skid to a stop, but in her heart, she knew she wouldn't make it.
KABAM! klikt. KABAM! klikt. KABAM!
Plastic shell casing clattered to the ground as Poolsie unexpectedly lifted her shotgun and unloaded into the unsuspecting Jackal at pointblank range. The Jackal collapsed, nearly torn in half.
Poolsie let out a groan of pain, lowering her shotgun as Amber reached her.
"Poolsie, are you alright?" she frantically asked, unbuckling Poolsie's chest armor to check for injuries. Poolsie batted her hands away.
"I'm okay," she said with a groan. "Just had the wind knocked out of me. Man, with such skinny legs, those Jackals kick a lot harder than you would think."
Amber couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief at that. Grabbing Poolsie by the shoulders, she helped her climb to her feet. As she did, a shadow fell over them, and Amber glanced over her shoulder to see Leporidae standing there. She half expected him to start yelling at her for her recklessness, but he didn't. Instead, he merely handed her back her rifle.
"Don't drop your rifle next time," was all he said. To Poolsie, he asked, "MT. You good?"
Poolsie nodded. "Yes Chief."
"Good. Let's move on then."
Both Amber and Poolsie nodded, and then continued forward.
Walking through the corridor, they didn't encounter any more Covenant soldiers until they reached another bulkhead door similar to the one they had to open in order to enter the corridor in the first place. While Amber covered her, Poolsie cautiously palmed the door controls, causing the door to slide up and reveal –
Nothing. Nothing but an empty storage room.
"Alright, food court should just be on the other side of this wall here," Leporidae reported in a loud whisper as they filed out of the maintenance corridor and moved to the door on the far side. "Once we go through that door, we'll be emerging from a food stall with only the counter for cover. So keep low, got it?"
"Got it," Amber muttered, along with everyone else.
"Right. Get ready..."
Leporidae thumbed the door controls and the muffled sounds of battle that had been accompanying them for most of the journey suddenly exploded into full force. The entire food court was a firestorm of lights and sounds as plasma and tracers crisscrossed the span of the room, smashing and burning their way through furniture and walls. Most of the Covenant fire seemed to be coming from their starboard side, while most of the UNSC fire seemed to be coming from their port side.
Within the food stall itself, there were already three men occupying the space behind the counter, two Sailors and a single Marine. Amber recognized the Marine as Lance Corporal Tassano, the man who had originally collected her from the fire control center, and the Sailors as the two men that had greeted them when they had first emerged from the elevator on the fifth level.
"LET'S GO!" Leporidae yelled, before dashing over and sliding behind the counter.
A couple of plasma bolts splashed against the ceiling of the store, causing a light to explode, throwing sparks in all directions, but it was clear those were stray shots and no one was specifically targeting them directly. Still, the sight was enough to encourage Amber to hurry up and she sprinted over and slid into cover behind the counter.
"Hey! I know you! What's up?" Tassano cheerfully greeted as Amber landed on the ground next to him. She watched as he lean over the counter and fire a couple of shots from his rifle in the direction of the Covenant.
"Cut that shit out Lance Corporal. We don't need to draw Covie fire any more than we already have!" the CWO snapped.
"Sir!"
"Chief Warrant Officer Hooker!" Leporidae called out, drawing the attention of the CWO. "What am I looking at sir?"
"Ah, it's a fucking mess Chief!" Hooker snapped. "Covenant boarding craft punched a hole through the bulkhead walls on the aft side of the mess hall and started shitting out infantry like they had Taco Express last night. Combat and Security Teams responded right away to contain the situation, but not before some Covenant patrols made it out and into the corridors."
"Yeah, I know sir! We encountered one back inside the maintenance shafts!"
Hooker grunted. "The point is Chief, the Covies were still able to set up some sort of defensive position to protect their LZ. My EOD team was trying to work our way around the flank and take them out with explosives, but we've run into a lot of resistance, and we don't have enough firepower to punch through! Think you could lend a hand?"
"Course sir."
Amber could see Leporidae glancing over the counter and quickly study the area in front of them before ducking back down. "Sir, it looks like we've got a lot of tables and booths we can use for cover in front of us. If we split up into two groups, we can do a bounding overwatch and leapfrog until we get close enough to engage!"
"Sounds good to me Chief!" Hooker replied. "How about I take one team, and you take the other?"
"You can take my 2nd Section sir! I just need one of your techs!"
"Lance Corporal Tassano!" Hooker immediately bellowed. "You're with Chief Leporidae! Chief, you give me covering fire, I'll bound first!"
"Copy that sir! 1st Section, on the line! Make ready!"
Amber quickly positioned her rifle on the top of the counter.
"Covering fire!"
BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!
Amber joined the rest of her section as they emptied their magazines. Brass clattered to the ground like some sort of strange rainstorm, and the Covenant fire seemed to slacken in the face of such an intense barrage.
"2nd Section, go go go!" Leporidae yelled.
Amber reloaded as 2nd Section climbed over the counter and dashed to the nearest piece of cover
FWOOZ!
"AAAAHHHHHGGGGG!"
A plasma bolt struck one of the sailors from 2nd Section in the stomach as he started vaulting over the counter. He collapsed, gripping his stomach and screaming in pain.
"Son of a..!" Amber yelped. She grabbed a hold of the man and pulled him to the ground. "Corpsman!"
The corpsman came running up and Amber quickly returned to her rifle, firing in quick bursts as more and more plasma began pelting the area around them.
"1st Section, move!"
Amber planted her free hand on the counter and tried to shove herself up, but with her armor on, she was a lot heavier and a lot less flexible than she was used to, so she didn't quite make it. Fortunately Tassano was standing beside her and was able to grab the back of her vest and help push her up. She dove over the counter, painfully landing on the tiled floor on the other side, but quickly picked herself up and ran for cover. As she moved, she abruptly realized the food court's ceiling was still on, depicting the space outside and giving her, her first clue as to how the battle outside of the station was going.
It didn't look good. Covenant small craft were swarming all over the place, a disturbingly high number of gutted UNSC warships were filling the void, and dozens of stations and platforms had already been knocked offline. Byzas Station was still operational, with anti-aircraft fire blazing in all directions, but her hull was covered in so many purple hulls, it kind of remind Amber of the fly infested corpses she had seen in nature documentaries.
WHAM!
A concussion shell slammed into the table in front of her, and Amber instinctively lifted her hand to shield her face from all the splinters. She dove behind a nearby booth as another shell streaked by.
"1st Section, cover!"
Leaning around the booth, Amber fired in the direction the concussion shells had come from, but with all the smoke and the confusion, it was a little hard to tell how effective it was.
"GM, what do you see?" Leporidae yelled from beside her.
"Nothing!" Amber admitted. "There's too much smoke!"
"Move! Let me see!"
Amber gratefully switched places with Leporidae and found herself beside Tassano, who was busy tinkering with a small device.
"What's that?"
"A bomb," he yelled back.
Amber reflexively jerked back in surprise. "Should you be messing with that right now?" she asked as a plasma bolt splashed against the top of their booth.
"Probably not," Tassano admitted. "But I'm not sure it's going to go off!"
"How can you not know!? Aren't you EOD?"
"Exactly! It's in my job title, explosive ordnance disposal, not construction!"
"THE COVENANT ARE RETREATING!"
"What?"
Amber leaned over the booth. Sure enough, all Covenant forces were slowly retreating, breaking away in small groups and falling back to their boarding craft.
"All personnel, attack!" Leporidae roared and Amber immediately opened fire.
She sprayed down a cluster of Grunts a few meters away, catching one in the lower back and sending him sprawling to the ground. She turned and fired at a Jackal who was doggedly holding his position, catching him a flanking position where his shield wasn't able to extend far enough to protect his sides. To the left, she could see shells from Poolsie's shotgun hitting an Elite Minor, causing his shields to light up, and she panned over to lend her support. Her bolt locked back and Amber instinctively reloaded.
"Security Team Oscar, advance!"
Amber joined the rest of the team as they vaulted over the booth. As she did, they were a brilliant white flash and she instinctively dropped to the ground for cover. It took her a few moments to realize the flash came from outside and not around her, and she looked up to see -
"Oh my god..." she gasped in horror.
Outside, Byzas Station was slowly falling part as explosions ripped up and down the station's hull. Covenant boarding craft and UNSC escape pods alike were launching off the station's hull at a frantic pace, trying to get off the doomed station.
"LOOK! BYZAS STATION IS GOING DOWN!"
The battle seemed to have been forgotten as all eyes turned upwards to watch the station as it disintegrated. Amber found herself gripping her mouth in terror. A station like Byzas had a crew of over a thousand Sailors and Marines...
Explosions continued to ripple across the station's hull until one final and massive explosion ripped the station to shreds. A visible, spherical shockwave could be seen emanating from ground zero, rippling outwards and expanding at a rapid pace, and Amber felt a sinking sensation as she realized the wave was headed straight for Wayward. There was no way to avoid it, and there was only one thing she could do.
"ALL HANDS, BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
The wave slammed into the station, knocking the entire structure out of orbit and sending it tumbling. The shockwave also slammed into the Covenant boarding craft, tearing them apart...
...and leaving a massive hole in the station's hull.
"AHHHHHH!" Amber screamed in terror as all the oxygen in the room instantly began getting sucked out, causing a hurricane of wind to blast through the room! She could feel the suction pulling her in and she tossed her rifle away, watching it instantly go flying towards the breach as she grabbed a hold of a nearby table. Behind her, the Covenant infantry who hadn't made it to their ships in time were immediately sucked, kicking and screaming, out of the hole!
"BREACH! WE HAVE A HULL BREACH!"
Panic was filling the room as people were screaming, alarms were blazing, and above all, the howl of the wind that was spelling out their doom filled the air. Amber desperately tried to find her footing, only to have her boots slip along the metal floor as they began to get sucked out from underneath her. Abruptly, they gave way and Amber quickly hugged her table as she found herself perpendicular to the breach! Only a few seconds had passed, but Amber found she was already losing her grip as she desperately tried to fight against the vacuum of space itself! Where the hell were the emergency bulkhead doors!?
Suddenly Amber felt the table move, and she glanced down in horror to see the table base was slowly getting ripped out the floor.
"LADY, HANG ON!" She heard Tassano scream as he reached out to grab her.
"LOOK OUT!" she screamed, and Tassano turned around only to take a chair to the face. The blow completely knocked him off his feet and Amber tried to grab him but she was too late and she could only helpless watch as he flew right past her and straight towards the void. Then she felt it.
SNAP.
The table abruptly gave way and Amber found herself flying backwards! She screamed and clawed at the floor, trying to get a handhold but finding nothing...
Abruptly Amber came to a sudden stop as someone grabbed a hold of her arm!
"GOT YOU!" Leporidae yelled and she desperately reached out and tried to grab onto his sleeve.
"HOLD ON GM! HOLD ON..." he urged but Amber could already start to feel herself growing weak as oxygen deprivation began to affect her. Her head started spinning as the air in the room grew thinner and thinner.
"GM, HANG ON! WE ONLY NEED TO WAIT IT OUT FOR A FEW MORE SECONDS BEFORE THE PRESSURE EQUALIZES!" she heard Leporidae scream, but he sounded like he was very far away. She felt her grip weakening as every molecule in her body started screaming out for more oxygen, and the lights started to fade.
"GM! HOLD ON!"
"JUST! HOLD! ON!"
1. As far as I can tell, neither "Combat Team" nor "Security Team" are official US military unit types. They are, however, both used in the Halo video games, most prominently in the first Halo game during the first level, The Pillar of Autumn, where Cortana and later Captain Keyes directs them over the PA to help Master Chief repeal the Covenant boarders. Both Halopedia and the Halo Wikia have an article on "Combat Team" and defines them as a UNSC Marine Corp unit composed of two Marine squads, but there is no article on "Security Team." For the purpose of this story however, I'm going to define them as the following:
Combat Team: a UNSC Marine Corps unit generally consisting of two Marine squads, for a total of anywhere between 16 to 24 Marines. This term is only used to refer to Marine units that are assigned to UNSC Navy installations and ships as security.
Security Team: similar to a Combat Team above, Security Teams are different in that they contain Navy personnel instead of Marines. Permanently staffed with sailors who hold the Master-at-Arms rating, they are also staffed by sailors of other ratings who just happen to be pulling security duties at the time.
A master-at-arms, by the way, is the Navy equivalent to Military Police in the Army and Marine Corps, as well as Air Force Security Forces.
2. Decks and Levels: Based on my research, there are two ways of referring to "floors" in the Navy. First off, the "Main Deck" or "First Deck" refers to the floor that runs the full length of a ship. It's not necessarily the uppermost deck and in a warship like the ones the Halo series have, I'd imagine the main deck would be the one right in the middle of the ship. Because of that, there are floors above and below the main deck. The floors below the main deck are referred to as "Decks" and numbered sequentially, i.e. below the first deck would be "Second Deck," "Third Deck," and so on as you continue downwards. Above the first deck, they are referred to as "Levels" and identified by a leading zero followed by the number, which is also sequential. In speech, the zero can either be referred to as "zero" or "oh." So, for example, the next floor just above the main deck can be referred to as "Zero Two Level," or, "Oh Two Level."
This is only a simplified version by the way, it gets a lot more detailed but I don't think it's going to be necessary to know any more than that.
3. In the game, the MA5B is actually an assault rifle, not an automatic rifle. However, with its sixty round magazine, high rate of fire, and bad accuracy, it made more sense to me if the rifle was more a specialized light machine gun/squad automatic weapon similar to the B.A.R and Bren gun of WW2 fame and of the RPK and M27 IAR of modern times, as opposed to just a regularly issued assault rifle. Just for the sake of it, I wrote a little history excerpt of the weapon, and I thought about attaching it here, but given how long this chapter is already, I think I'll save it for some other day.
4. Similar to how the real-world Benelli M3 and the Franchi SPAS-12 work. Technically unlike their depicting in Hollywood, these shotguns are actually intended to be used in semi-automatic mode, with pump-action operation designed to be used only when firing less-than-lethal shells like rubber bullets or bean-bags.
No shotgun like this appears in the Halo games or media, but I figured the UNSC military had to have at least one semi-automatic shotgun in their arsenal. I chose the M90 shotgun (the shotgun that appears in the first three Halo games) because it's the only shotgun that looks to me that could actually support such a feature.
(Edit 3/29/19: Original version of this chapter had this semi-automatic shotgun, but after some thought, I realized I couldn't remember why I wanted the UNSC to have a semi-automatic shotgun in the first place, and it didn't play much of a role in the chapter, so I decided to stick to canon with this and have since removed it from the story.)