Chapter 28
Low Orbit, Actium
May 6, 2645
1830
Zelda
Zelda abruptly jerked awake at the soft chime his HUD let out to inform him his fuel tanks were full. That wasn't what bothered him. What bother him was the fact he didn't remember falling asleep in the first place. Which meant the energy drink he had downed about an hour ago had finally been flushed out of his system. And seeing as how that had been his last one, he was now officially shit out of luck.
Adjusted himself as best as he could in his confined seat, Zelda groaned and slapped himself across his visor, trying his best to shake off his exhaustion. Ever since that Covenant battlecruiser had been blown up by some mysterious force, a stalemate had emerged in orbit. At least, that's what some people would have called it, but not Zelda. Because while all the warships were keeping their distance, watching each other like hawks but making sure not engage each other, all the small craft like Zelda's squadron of Broadswords were very much active. Undergoing reconnaissance operations, providing dropship escorts, fighting off Covenant probing attacks, and just in general, staying active so some General could hold a press conference and say with a straight face they were doing something, for the last six or seven hours Zelda had been fighting almost non-stop. He was reaching his breaking point, but in Zelda's opinion, the worst part was how little support they were getting from the Command.
Take this refueling center for example. It wasn't even a military one, but a civilian one because Command "didn't want to risk another aircraft carrier by moving it out of position." That was all good and all, but as this civilian platform wasn't designed for military use, refueling the entire squadron, as depleted as it was, was taking forever. Furthermore, for obvious reasons, there was no way for Zelda to rearm while he got refueled. At this point, Zelda was completely out of munitions for his external hardpoints. It wasn't the worst thing in the world as Zelda's internal reserves were still full, however it was just another sign of how much Zelda and his squadron were getting screwed over.
"Sir? You're full. Please detach and move out of the way for the next plane."
Zelda felt a massive surge of anger abruptly well up in him.
"I'll take as much fucking time as I want you fucking prick!" he snapped.
Unfortunately for him, in his exhaustion, Zelda forgot to hit the talk button on his radio and as a result, his intended recipient, the fuel attendant, didn't hear him. By the time Zelda realized that, a Marine Pelican gunship was already maneuvering in and not wanting his fighter to get hit by a bunch of fucking jarheads, Zelda activated his thrusters and moved out of the way.
Angling his fighter in the direction his squadron was gathering, Zelda sat there, fuming.
"Zelda."
Zelda growled and was half tempted to ignore the call on his radio, but he knew if he did that, Odessa would just keep calling him. With a reluctant sigh, Zelda hit his talk button.
"What." he said bluntly.
"Eat an energy bar."
"...what?"
"I can practically hear your teeth grinding from here," Odessa explained. "You get all pissy when you're hungry, so go eat something."
"You go eat an energy bar," Zelda snapped back. "I'm not pissy because I'm hungry, I'm pissy because I'm freaking tired."
"Well, that's to be expected," Odessa cheerfully replied and Zelda could practically hear him shrug his shoulders. "That's what happens when you don't get a full night's rest. Should have told your, ah, 'bed companion' to leave you alone."
"Hey! I'll have you know I was the one keeping her up, not the other way around!"
"And… somehow that makes it better?"
"Yeah! It uh… I mean…" Zelda started to sputter as he realized he didn't actually know what he had meant.
"…you have no idea where you were going with that, did you?"
"Shut up."
"See? Lack of sleep will get you every time," Odessa teased.
"All Omega pilots, rally on me."
"Yeah?" Zelda retorted as he ignited his thrusters and started to head over to where Bellum was. "Well, we can't all be sniffing glue to stay awake like you do."
All Odessa did was snort in amusement.
As he flew to the rallying point, Zelda couldn't help but feel a bit grateful Odessa was around. All of their banter served more of a purpose than simple fun: it was actually helping Zelda wake up, though, unfortunately, not completely. As Zelda pulled to a stop near Bellum, he let out a loud yawn as he waited to see what their next bullshit assignment was going to be.
"Okay guys, hope you're all awake because you're going to want to be alert for this next part," Bellum declared as soon as everyone had arrived. "So, here's the situation: apparently some ground unit was able to make contact with Command and request an evac for a whole ton of civilians. Command has agreed and is sending in some Pelicans. But here's the thing: evacuation site in the middle of Covenant occupied territory."
"A bunch of civilians were able to survive this long behind enemy lines?" Odessa asked, surprised.
"Apparently."
"That sounds fishy as fuck," Zelda immediately interjected. "We sure this is a legitimate call?"
"It's actually not as unusual as you might think," Bellum pointed out. "You have to remember, planetside invasions are chaotic as hell already and that's before you throw in local resistance, unknown terrain, etc. Between establishing a beachhead, landing enough troops to hold said beachhead, and building up enough supplies for the subsequent operation, it can be hard to ensure a landing site that's a hundred percent secured. It's not entirely unfeasible that a bunch of civilians, especially those under military escort, could have found a safe zone, even behind enemy lines."
"All any case," Bellum continued, "this is all a moot point. Command had the same concerns as you guys did, and thus made the caller confirm his identity. Apparently commander in charge down there is some 'Colonel Menteith' with the UNSC Army. Whoever he is, he must have been able to establish his identity to Command's satisfaction because they're sending in a squadron of Pelicans to extract those civilians, and we've been tapped to escort them in. Buckle up your seatbelts ladies and gentlemen and say goodbye to space; we've already got the head's up. Once we reenter the atmosphere, we're staying there."
That made Zelda sit up straighter. So. They were finally returning to the planet. He'd been wondering if that was going to happen anytime soon. Of course he knew what that meant: lots and lots of close air support missions. Good. As much as Zelda enjoyed showing off his flying skills, he could use a break where all he had to do was pick off helpless Covenant ground targets.
"Eject all external hardpoints," Bellum command, "and follow me in. We're going to rendezvous with the Pelicans first before going in."
Zelda bobbed his head. Accessing his control panel, Zelda hit a few keys and a message appeared on his HUD.
'Eject external stores. Y/N?'
Zelda hit the 'Y' button and as soon as he confirm the order, a slight clung noise filled his ears, and Zelda glanced out through both sides of his cockpit window to see his external weapon stations ejecting off the top and bottom surfaces of his wings and floating away where they would either eventually burn up in the atmosphere, or join the ever growing cloud of debris floating in orbit around the planet.
Careful not to accidently fly into any of his comrades' hardpoints, Zelda followed Bellum as she led them in the direction of the rally point. In the distance, Zelda could already see a number of Air Force Pelicans gathering.
"Omega Flight to Pelicans rendezvousing at location one niner six Alpha in sector thirty-seven: are you guys Blizzard?" Bellum smoothly asked over the radio.
"Omega Flight, that is an affirmative. Are you our escort, over?"
"Affirmative. Blizzard, our orders are to escort you in to Landing Zone Echo where you will evacuate over four hundred civilians and soldiers from Covenant controlled territory, and then cover you as you withdraw back to orbit. Can you confirm, over?"
"Confirmed," came Blizzard' immediate reply. "We're going to need a lot of cover because, in order to evacuate that many civilians, all Pelicans within this squadron have been reequipped with troop deployment pods. In orbit, that's not really a problem but within atmosphere, that's going to reduce our speed and maneuverability considerably, over."
"Shit, they should have gotten another squadron to do this," Zelda muttered under his breath as he counted the number of Pelicans there were: a full squadron of twelve. Unfortunately, at this point in the day, Zelda's squadron had been reduced to a grand total of six Broadswords.
"Understood Blizzard," Bellum nevertheless said. "We'll put three Broadswords in front to clear the way, three Broadswords at the rear to cover your six. Just maintain your formation up until we reach the LZ, and we should be okay, over."
"Copy that Omega," came the reply. "Ready when you are."
"Roger. Moving now, break. Okay, listen up Omega! Omega Leader and Omegas 5 and 6 will lead the way! Omegas 3, 9, and 12, provide rear security. Clock is ticking so let's move it out guys."
"On you Leader," Odessa announced.
In lieu of a verbal response, Zelda clicked his talk button.
The engines on Bellum's engines abruptly flared and she started heading down towards the planet. Waiting a few seconds so as to acquire the proper amount of spacing, Odessa and Zelda soon followed and together, all three Broadswords headed towards Actium.
As the one-man fighters began their descent through the upper atmosphere and the density of the space surrounding their aircraft began to increase, so too did the friction against their hull. Zelda gritted his teeth as his Broadsword steadily began to rattle and shake, and the outer layer of his hull began to glow with heat. As soon as he had begun his reentry, Zelda's onboard computer had automatically mapped out a descent trajectory, one that would prevent his fighter from shaking itself apart and disintegrating in the atmosphere, but unfortunately there was no way to prevent all the turbulence. That's actually why they had to eject their hardpoints as any ordnance still attached wouldn't have survive the reentry, and the last thing Zelda would have wanted was a bomb stuck to his wing that could potentially go off at any second.
"Two minutes before we reach optimal flight altitude," Bellum announced over the radio.
Zelda absentmindedly nodded his head as he fought to keep his fighter steady. This was, in his opinion, the worst part about his job: atmospheric reentry. Even with modern technology, reentry was always tricky, and every year, dozens of spacecraft all around the galaxy simply fell apart in the atmosphere due to one reason or another.
The one good thing was that it did cause Zelda to wake up completely, so he was at least appreciative of that.
"Ninety seconds," Bellum declared. "Switching radios over to localized channels. Standby."
There was a mute click in Zelda's headset, and then all of a sudden, his radio was being flooded with calls.
"Rover-3 to all Rover units!" someone was screaming. "Havoc-3 is down, I say again, I've lost my tank support! I've a got a Hunter and three dozen Covenant infantry closing in on my position, I need help, NOW!"
"Hey!" Zelda called out over the squadron's dedicated channel. "Is that from the LZ?"
"Sounds like it, doesn't it?" Odessa commented. "Hang on, I'm checking now... yeah, that's from the LZ. Our LZ."
"Well, that's great then," Zelda exclaimed.
"It sounds like they're about to be overrun Zelda. How is that great!?"
"Now we get to swoop in at the last second and save the day," Zelda pointed out. "Be some big damn heroes for once."
Odessa sighed. "Of course that's what you'd be thinking about."
"Guys, focus!" Bellum snapped. "I'm picking up contacts on my sensors. Looks like... okay, I got a lock on two Covenant Hunters closing in on the LZ! It looks like it's going to be danger close. Zelda, prep a missile: I'm going to go for the closest one with guns, you drop the far one with that missile! Clear?"
"Got it," Zelda replied as he armed a missile.
"Okay, here we go... GUNS GUNS GUNS!"
Bellum abruptly disappeared underneath some clouds, so Zelda wasn't able to visual see her strafing run but as he emerged from the clouds himself, he could see the results: a couple hundred meters directly below him, there was an entire mass of Covenant soldiers, of which, the Hunters were easy to pick out. One of the Hunters was laying on the ground, massive holes having been punched right through its body. The other...
"Rifle(1) away!" Zelda warned as he instantly locked onto the remaining Hunter and fired. His bomb bay doors automatically opened, and Zelda could hear the thunk of a missile getting released, as well as a steady light appearing in his HUD indicating a successful munitions detachment.
Looking out of his cockpit window, he looked out just in time to see as his missile's engines ignite, before the missile plummeted down to the ground at near supersonic speeds and slam into the remaining Hunter, which exploded into ludicrous gibs.
At that sight, Zelda could see the remaining Covenant infantry immediately withdrawing.
"Scratch one Hunter!" Zelda cheered.
"Rover-3, this is Omega Flight," Bellum announces over the radio. "Heard you boys could use a hand."
"Omega Flight, this is Rover-3 Actual," Rover immediately replied and in the background, Zelda could hear someone cheering. "If you were on the ground right now, I would kiss you. You just saved our bacons."
To Zelda's immense surprise, Bellum started laughing.
"Save the kiss and buy us a case a beer, then we'll call it even," she replied. "Hey, we'll mop things up here, you boys get washed up for supper. Your chariots are inbound."
Zelda glanced over his shoulder in Bellum's direction, doubly surprised. Was she flirting with this guy? He had never heard her do that before and honestly, he had starting to think she didn't have it within her.
Before Zelda could comment on it though, Odessa suddenly spoke up.
"Leader, this is 5: be advised, I'm picking up signatures of inbound Banshees on my radar. ETA, one mike!" Odessa warned.
"Better make it quick though," Bellum quickly warned over the radio. "We've got a squadron of Banshees inbound and they are pissed. This flight corridor ain't going to remain secured for long, over."
"Copy!"
There was another click and Zelda could hear Bellum switching channels.
"Omega Leader to Blizzard. Be advised, LZ is cleared for now, but not for long: we're picking up inbound Banshee squadrons. Get those civilians out of here, break. Omega 3, we still have Covenant infantry picking at the edge of the LZ. Move in with your flight and engage, break! Odessa, Zelda, on me, we're going to slow down those Banshees!"
Zelda grabbed his yoke and banked in the direction of the incoming Banshees, but truth be told, his mind was on something else.
Switching his radio over to Bellum's channel, he slyly asked, "So Bellum, you like ground pounders, do you?"
"Now's not really the time Zelda," Bellum distractedly replied.
"Just sayin': you were totally flirting with that guy."
That seemed to catch Bellum's attention.
"No I wasn't," she insisted.
"Yeahhhh..." Zelda dragged out. "You totally were..."
Bellum sighed. "Link, you think it's possible for you to focus on the task at hand?" she replied, though Zelda could pick up the barest hint of embarrassment in her voice.
Zelda grinned in triumph. Her reaction was all he needed. Now he had something he could tease her more in the future with.
"Copy that ma'am," was all he said before switching back to the general channel. "I'm getting a reading: Banshees are in range!"
"Standby to volley fire on my command," Bellum immediately barked and Zelda hastily began arming missiles. "Fire!"
"Fox three!" Zelda announced as he pulled the trigger, and three missiles were launched from his Broadsword towards the Covenant in rapid succession.
As the Banshees were still at beyond visual ranges, their Covenant pilots had plenty of time to detect the incoming missiles and take appropriate measures. As a result, most of the missiles missed, but at the very least it forced the Covenant to break formation, slowing them down and buying Blizzard more time.
Thinking of Blizzard, Zelda glanced behind him. Already one Pelican was beginning to take off, which was good.
"Second volley," Bellum barked. "Get ready... fire!"
Zelda fired once more. As this time the Banshees were just a bit closer, the missiles had more of an effect and through his sensors, Zelda could see at least one Banshee going down in flames.
"Blizzard, this is Omega Leader: you might want to consider picking up the pace some," Bellum warned over the radio.
"Understood Leader, but we're working as fast as we can!"
Bellum didn't bother with a reply. "Leader to Omega 3, sitrep?"
"LZ is secured: all infantry have been mopped up."
"Form up as a second wave and be prepared to follow us in. Blizzard needs more time, and we're not going to be able to stop all these Banshees."
"Copy."
Zelda glanced at his rear scopes. More and more Pelicans were quickly rising up from the ground, but there was still at least a quarter of them getting loaded.
"5 and 6, prepare to engage with short ranged missiles," Bellum ordered.
"Incoming!" Odessa suddenly yelled as the Banshees abruptly opened up with their fuel rod cannons.
"Chaff," Zelda spat as he casually jerked his stick to the side and dodged the first few fuel rods. "Fox one!"
A missile spat out from underneath his Broadsword once more, but this time the Banshees were close enough Zelda could see the explosion that lit up the sky. As expected though, such a loss hardly deterred the Covenant as they continued to charge in for the kill.
"Alright guys, this is it," Bellum announced, and Zelda could hear her breathing rather heavily. "Get ready for a knife fight and try to remember we're fighting within the atmosphere."
Zelda gave a start. He had, actually, momentarily forgotten that they were in atmosphere and with the reminder, he found himself grinning like an idiot. This was going to interesting.
While in space, due to lack of stuff like 'friction' and 'drag,' Banshees were highly mobility fighting platforms able to dodge and weave with the grace of a ballerina. But within the atmosphere of a planet, the dynamic was flipped and it would be Broadswords who, due to their higher surface area which allowed for more lift, had the maneuvering advantage.
"Standby to split on my mark. Standby... execute!"
Zelda peeled away from Bellum and Odessa. Almost immediately, the Banshees were on top of them to fill in the gaps and Zelda was instantly confronted with a trio of Banshees, plasma cannons blazing.
"Fox one!" Zelda blurted out as he fired a snap shot at one of the Banshees. The Covie tried to dodge but at this distance, there simply was no time and the Banshee took the missile head on and exploded. One of the other Banshees banked to the left, hard, to avoid the explosion, temporarily leaving Zelda with only one Banshee to contend with.
"Guns!" he snapped and pulled the trigger. He could feel his autocannons popping out of their gun ports and he could hear them, yes, hear them because he was now inside the atmosphere of a planet, as they fired.
BOOMBOOMBOOM!
His first salvo missed as the Banshee threw itself into a barrel roll and shot right passed Zelda, but Zelda was content to let him go as he was confronted with the third Banshee. Holding down his trigger, Zelda blasted away at the new target, but his aim was off and all Zelda could do was score a glancing blow off the left stabilization of the Banshee, leaving a decent sized crack.
The Banshee pilot immediately banked to the right to try and get out of Zelda's line of sight and normally such a move would have worked, but the Elite pilot must have forgotten where he was. Because while conducting such an intensive maneuver with a slightly damaged wing like that was hardly lethal in space, inside a planet's atmosphere where there was drag and friction, the stress applied to an aircraft's frame was greatly amplified, especially at the speeds they were traveling at. And a Banshee's airframe was designed for mass production and speed and not survivability...
Zelda watched as the Banshee's left stabilizer shearing off as the stress of trying to execute a ninety degree turn at near supersonic speeds proved too much for the Banshee's frame. With only one anti-gravity pod left, the Banshee was sent spiraling to the ground and just as he flew past, Zelda thought he could see the Banshee finally explode, but at that point Zelda was no longer paying attention as he was being confronted with a fresh trio of Banshees.
They came screaming in at top speeds, plasma cannon's blazing, and Zelda threw himself into a spin as he tried to minimize his frontal profile. Obtaining a lock on the two outermost Banshees, rather than fire right away, Zelda punched in his afterburners and launched his Broadsword at the incoming enemy. Not having expected such a move, the Banshees reflexively scattered, but as the two factions whipped passed each other, Zelda abruptly extended his air brakes, dropping his sped from over a thousand to less than a couple hundred.
"GAHHH!" Zelda screamed in pain as the g-force slammed into his body, and he could almost swear his lungs were about collapse, but it was completely worth it as he was now behind the three Banshees. "Fox one!"
Two more missiles departed from under his Broadsword and two more explosions lit up the sky. The third Banshee promptly threw himself into a dive to try and juke what he thought would have been Zelda's next missile, but Zelda hadn't even tried locking onto him. Instead, Zelda started climbing, seeing a number of Banshees passing by overhead at a much higher altitude.
As he closed in on his targets, Zelda could hear someone saying over the general comms, "Colonel! Colonel, get your men aboard! We have to leave, right now!"
Locking onto a Banshee, Zelda thumbed his trigger, blowing a series of holes right through the Banshee, practically cutting it in half. The Banshee exploded, causing a large amount of debris plummeting to the ground below and forcing Zelda to throw himself into a loop of avoid getting hit.
"No, that's alright," Zelda heard someone reply. "We're going to stay. I'm in the mood to cause some trouble for these Covenant sons of bitches. And, with any luck, we'll draw some patrols away from your path Major Volkov. Blizzard 6-1, get those civilians to safety. That's all that matters at this point."
"Does some of that trouble include providing some SAM support!?" Zelda wondered out loud to himself as he dodged a fuel rod cannon that had been fired in his direction. In the background, Zelda could hear the Pelican pilots saying, "Copy that. Good luck Colonel."
Colonel?
Zelda briefly wondered if this was that Colonel Menteith Bellum had been talking about earlier, but then he decided he didn't care enough to find out.
"Omega Flight, this is Blizzard: last Pelican is taking off right now, over."
"Copy that!" came Bellum's strained reply. "All Omega Flight pilots, break contact and make sure those Banshees don't try to follow the Pelicans!"
Firing one last missile at a Banshee he had locked on, Zelda yanked back on his yoke and sent himself shooting upwards, back towards the upper atmosphere. He could see a fuel rod cannon chasing him in his wake that had been fired at max range, but not being in space, the fuel rod cannon also had to contend against gravity and it quickly lost all its energy, causing it to safely self-destruct in a violent green flash nearly a hundred meters away from Zelda.
Spotting a flight of Banshees closing in on the Pelicans from the rear, Zelda maneuvered to intercept. Another Broadsword joined him, and Zelda glanced over his shoulder to see that it was Odessa.
"Hey buddy!" Zelda cheerfully greeted.
"You ever notice how morbid it sounds to hear you being so cheerful when you're killing things?" Odessa immediately noted. "Almost makes you sound like a psychopath."
"What can I say?" Zelda replied with a shrug. "Every Covenant soldier I kill now potentially means one more civilian saved further down the line, you know?"
"That's a fair point," Odessa allowed. "So... who do you want to kill first?"
Zelda regarded the Banshees in front of him. "Can't use missiles because they're too close to the Pelicans. Let's go for the rear and work our way to the front," he decided. "Like turkey hunting: you don't want to take out the leader cause then it'd just scare the rest of the flock."
"Not sure it works the same way but what the hell," Odessa said. "I don't hunt."
"Cool. Follow me in!"
Zelda quickly studied the scene in front of him. The three Banshees had open fired on the rear most Pelican, and the Pelican was returning fire with its nose mounted cannon, trying to drive the Banshees off, but obviously a cargo ship had no chance against a dedicated warplane. Still, the Pelican's fire did have the benefit of distracting the Banshee pilots' from Zelda's approach. As long he didn't trying to obtain a missile lock on them...
Zelda fired. The Banshee was sitting at the very edge of Zelda's maximum effective range for his main cannons, and thus his first few rounds failed to do much more than bounce off the Banshee's armor. Fortunately, Odessa has waited a few seconds before firing and as a result, his rounds were fired that much closer, enough to actually penetrate.
Flames shot out from the top of the Banshee's hull and it immediately plummeted from the sky, possibly because Odessa has managed to kill the pilot. Whatever the case was, the other two Banshees noticed the loss of their friend immediately, and scattered.
"So much for shooting the last one in the line!" Odessa yelled.
"So they're not exactly turkeys!" Zelda yelled back as he jerked his stick to try and keep the Banshees in sight. "But hey, at least they're not chasing after the Pelicans!"
"Yeah? And how does that help us?"
"Means we can do this!" Zelda armed a missile. "Fox one!"
Zelda blinked as his target disintegrate into one massive fireball, leaving the remaining Banshee to try and flee as fast as possible. He slowly lined up his shot, but then paused.
"Hey Vinnie! I don't suppose you want this one?" he asked.
In response, Odessa ignited his afterburners and shot in front of Zelda and began lining up his shot. No doubt picking the move up on his sensors, the Banshee pilot threw himself into a barrel roll, slowing himself to near stall speed in an effort to evade any locks as well as try and get Zelda and Odessa to overshoot him, but it didn't work as Odessa was able to easily match the Banshee move for move. Rather than expend a missile, Odessa fired a single shot with his main cannons, hitting the Banshee's fuel rod cannon and causing it to explode.
The Banshee immediately erupted into flames, and as the crippled aircraft began its downward death spiral, the canopy abruptly burst open and Zelda could see the Elite pilot leaping out. Zelda tapped his yoke and angled his fighter towards the Elite, but the alien threw itself into a superman dive, and just barely managed to avoid getting run over by Zelda's heavy fighter.
Zelda was half tempted to turn around and try again, but seeing as he hadn't seen a parachute on the Elite, he figured there would be no point as the Elite was no longer a threat. Especially since he was picking up more Banshees closing in on his position from below…
"Odessa! We got more Banshees inbound!" Zelda started to say when –
CLANG!
Zelda flinched as a blue plasma bolt splattered against his cockpit window. All it did was leave a burn mark behind, indicating it hadn't been fired by a Banshee as a direct hit like that would have cracked his canopy open, but Zelda couldn't figure out where it had come from until he glanced at his rear scopes and spotted that damn Elite, hovering in mid-air due to the jump pack it was wearing, with its plasma rifle in hand firing non-stop at Zelda's Broadsword, as if such a small weapon could knock him out of the sky.
"Man, that Elite really likes you, doesn't he?" Odessa commented.
"Fucking dumbass aliens never give up, do they?" Zelda snarled. Normally, that would have been a cause for respect but right now, that was just pissing Zelda off.
"You want me to take him or do you - ?" Odessa asked as the Elite continued uselessly firing on the two fighters.
In response, Zelda yanked back on his yoke and threw himself into a wingover. As he leveled out, Zelda could see the Elite priming a plasma grenade and rather than risk his damage to his fighter, Zelda simply open fired with his main cannons.
BOOMBOOMBOOM!
There was a puff and a small cloud of dark purple liquid appeared in mid-air as the Elite took one of the 35mm rounds straight to the chest.
"Could have made it down to the surface and lived to fight another day but nooo, just had to shoot at me," Zelda muttered under his breath. "Fucking idiot."
"Omega Flight, this is Blizzard: be advised, we're free and clear. Bayonet Squadron is being routed to cover us the rest of the way. Thanks for the assist!"
"Copy!" came Bellum's replied. "Leader to all Omega Flight pilots: mission accomplished! Break contact and fall back to rally point Juliet!"
"Leader this is 12: I'm picking up more incoming Banshees passing through the rally point right now!"
"What!? Copy I see them! Uh, give me a second!"
Zelda glanced at his radar to see an entirely new squadron of Banshees flying in from the East and closing in fast.
"Okay, leader to Omega Flight, new orders! Break contact, go low low and reassemble at rally point Kilo! I say again, rally point Kilo! Flanker Squadron is standing by to provide us cover!"
Zelda didn't bother waiting for Bellum to repeat her orders. He immediately threw himself into an inverted loop. As much as Zelda wouldn't mind sticking around, with the arrival of Covenant reinforcements, the Broadswords were getting increasingly outnumbered here.
Going from loop straight into a dive, Zelda was confronted with the sight of a flight of Banshees swiftly rising up to greet him. They fired first, filling the air with all sorts of plasma bolts. Zelda juked and weaved and started doing all sorts of rolls in an effort to dodge, all the while he continued plummeting to the earth. As he continued to dive at top speeds, he thumbed the trigger to his autocannons, trying to score a hit on one of the Banshees but while his evasive maneuvers were preventing the Banshees from hitting him, they were also prevent Zelda from hitting them.
In the end, it hardly mattered though as, as soon as Zelda got within a couple hundred meters, the Banshees reflexively scattered, clearing the way for him to shoot right past them without much issue. As he roared by, he glanced through his rear scopes and he could see the Banshees hurriedly looping around to pursue but by then, Zelda was already gone.
Glancing at his altimeter, Zelda watched as the numbers rapidly tick down.
"WARNING: COLLISION ALERT. WARNING: COLLISION ALERT," his computer began chiming and Zelda glanced around him.
According to his altimeter, he was still nearly three hundred meters above sea level, and should have been far from coming close to hitting anything, but there was a large cloud bank in front of him that was blocking his view of the ground and Zelda trusted his sensors.
Yanking back on his yoke, Zelda began pulling out of his dive. He found himself gasping for air as the force of trying to pull up at those speeds pushed him hard against his seat, and he could hear his Broadsword groaning from all the stress, but fortunately his aircraft managed to hold together.
Plummeting through the clouds, Zelda emerged on the other side to see -
"SON OF A BITCH!"
Zelda yanked his yoke to the side and just barely managed to avoid flying right into the skyscraper at Mach 3. He wasn't sure when the fight had returned to the skies over the city of Byzas, but evidently it had at some point as he found himself passing right over the city.
He had been too distracted earlier to bother paying attention but now that he had a moment, Zelda took the opportunity to tilt his Broadsword to the side so he could look around.
The city, which as far as he had been aware, was the epicenter of the Covenant landing site and it showed. Fires were raging all over the place and the entire city was blanketed with smoke. Numerous skyscrapers had been destroyed and knocked over, and entire blocks had been leveled. In fact, from up here, Zelda could almost see a pattern to the destruction: lines of wreckage wiggling all over the city like veins, all of which were emerging from one specific crater located within the southern half of the city. It was almost like as if there had been a series of tunnels that had been dug underneath the city, and then allowed to collapse, undermining the foundations of many a skyscraper and causing them to collapse.
At the speeds Zelda was traveling at, it was extremely difficult for him to make out any of the details from the streets below, but even up here he could see the fight was still raging. He could just barely make out the blue and green flashes of plasma fire, with bright red-orange tracer rounds behind fired in response. Glancing at his HUD, Zelda suddenly realized why he was able to see all this: at the moment, he was flying directly above and parallel to the frontlines, with the Covenant invasion force to his right, and UNSC forces to his left.
"One hell of a mess, ain't it?"
Zelda glanced over his shoulder. For some reason, he hadn't realized Odessa had joined him in his dive and was currently flying just off to his left and slightly behind.
"And this is why I'm a freaking fighter pilot, and not a damn grunt," Zelda declared. "No way would I want to be one of those suckers down there."
"Certainly get a better view from up here," Odessa replied.
Before Zelda could comment that wasn't what he meant, his master caution unexpectedly went off, and Zelda threw his Broadsword into a roll to the right. Seconds later, a fuel rod cannon passed right through the space he'd been occupying moments ago.
"Contact, three Banshees coming from above!" Odessa barked out a warning. "I don't got visual, but I'm picking them on radar!"
Zelda glanced over his shoulder as the three Banshees plummeted from above the cloud cover some distance behind him. One of the Banshees promptly exploded as it collided with the same building Zelda himself had only just barely managed to avoid, but that still left two Banshees.
"Yeah, I see them! Two Banshees, closing in on our six!" Zelda warned.
"Those weren't the ones I was talking about!"
Zelda felt his eyes widen in horror and he banked hard to the right. Moments later, three more Banshees plummeted out from the cloud cover and began chasing after Zelda.
"Watch out Zelda, the Banshees have separated us!" Odessa warned as Zelda broke away further from Odessa to try and obtain some room to maneuver. "We're not going to be in a position to support each other!"
"Yeah, I know, but what else is new!?" Zelda yelled back as he entered into an aileron roll to try and avoid the plasma getting thrown his way. "Fall back to the rally point, maybe we can get some support there!"
"See if you can't pass over the Covenant controlled side of the city, that way if any of those Banshees miss, they'll be hitting their own friendlies on the ground!"
"'If' the damn Banshees miss? What do you take me for, a damn amateur?" Zelda muttered to himself. Obviously, there was no response and Zelda accelerated as the air behind began to fill up with plasma bolts.
As he sped over the city, Zelda tried to think of a way to lose his pursuers. He could try to fly through the city, but that was insanely risky, even for him, and chances were high it just wouldn't work as all the Banshees needed to do was fly higher and shoot directly downwards, and eventually they would get him simply because there would be no place for Zelda to go. None of his usual tricks would work either: he couldn't fly backwards as that didn't work inside an atmosphere and because of gravity, his usual method of dumping a bomb or a missile behind him and hoping the Banshees were stupid enough to fly close enough to get hit by the explosion was also out of the question as all ordnance he dropped would simply fall straight to the ground.
"How do I keep finding myself in these situations!?" Zelda exclaimed. A plasma bolt passed right over his cockpit. "Shit! Forcing me to use the oldest trick in the book, huh? Fine! Be that way!"
He jammed down on his accelerator. If he couldn't outmaneuver his pursuers, then maybe he could outrun them instead.
The city outside started becoming a blur before disappearing completely as Zelda found himself quickly leaving the city limits. Here, he could see even more fighting as he reached the southernmost limit of the Covenant's expansion, but he wasn't given much time to look around as his master alarm began sounding.
"WARNING, INCOMING MISSILE."
"Flares," Zelda spat, and flares began shooting out in all directions as he rolled. The fuel rod cannon started going for one of the flares, before locking onto something else, and took off in the direction of the ground. Zelda could only hope that it would something of the Covenant's and not the UNSC.
FWOOZFWOOZ BANG!
BEEPBEEPBEEP!
Zelda jerked forward in his seat as something hit the rear of his Broadsword, triggering all sorts of alarms. His eyes flicked up to his HUD as both the master caution and fire warning on his instrument panel lit up.
"Damage report," he spat out, and an orthographic projection of his Broadsword appeared in his eyes before an inset of his engines appeared. His two auxiliary engines were both highlighted in red; a plasma bolt had scored a direct hit right between the two engines, burned through the armor, and severed the fuel line, causing a flameout.
The loss of his auxiliary engines wasn't too terribly tragic as they were only really used for when he needed to go to orbit, but it just went to show just how close the Banshees were getting. Sooner or later, they would hit something more vital, like his main engines. Or his cockpit. He needed some way of losing his pursuers. But what?
"Omega Flight, this is Flanker: be advised, we are inbound, your location, three minutes."
That could work.
Zelda keyed his mic, cutting Bellum off before she could respond.
"This is Omega-6 to any Flanker pilots in the AO," he said as calmly as he could. "I got three Bandits on my six and that I can't shake. I could use some assistance, over."
"Okay Omega-6, we read you," Flanker smoothly replied. "We got eyes on your location. Turn to oh five, we'll cover for you."
"Copy. I'm inbound, hot."
Dodging another fuel rod cannon, Zelda sped off in the direction Flanker had indicated. In the distance, blue dots representing Flanker began appearing on the edges of his long range sensors as he approached their position. If Zelda had seen Flanker, no doubt the Covenant had also so Zelda glanced at his rear scopes to see how they responded. Two of the Banshees on his tail had broken off and in the distance, Zelda could just barely make out the sight of all the Banshee squadrons in the area reforming in order to confront the new threat.
One Banshee, however, stayed dogfastedly on his tail, firing so many plasma bolts the Elite's cannons were beginning to overheat.
"Omega-6, status?"
"Two of the Banshees broke off, but I still got one on my ass," Zelda reported.
"Okay, hang on. Omega-6, I'm going to try something. I'm going to fire a missile at you, but I'm going to need you to not break away until I tell you. Don't move until I say! Understood, over?"
"Got it," Zelda replied, instantly picking up on what Flanker was trying to do.
"Copy. Here goes nothing. Fox three!"
On his radar, Zelda could see a single dot rapidly departing from Flanker's position and closing in fast on his. His control panel lit up with warnings as it picked up the incoming missile.
"WARNING, INCOMING MISSILE," his computer chimed.
"I know! Shut up!" Zelda yelled as he tried to split his attention between the incoming missile, and the Banshee still raining fire down on him from behind. It wasn't easy, and the plasma fire was getting dangerously close.
Zelda glanced at his rear scopes, wondering why the Banshee hadn't pulled off yet. Surely the pilot had detected the incoming missile?
"Omega-6... standby... almost there..." Flanker recited over the radio. Zelda glanced at his HUD. Thirty seconds to impact. "Omega-6, BREAK LEFT!"
Zelda jammed his stick to the left, rolling out of the path of the missile. At the same time, in a move that left even Zelda mildly impressed, the Banshee that had been behind him yanked back hard on his stick and nearly did a ninety degree turn upwards on the spot, shooting straight up just as Flanker's missile came screaming in. Zelda could see the missile start to arch skyward as it tried to track the Banshee, but missiles were nowhere as maneuverable as fighters were and at that close distance, there wasn't enough time for the missile to turn. Nor was the missile close enough to the Banshee for the warhead to detonate.
The missile shot past underneath the Banshee, missing the Covenant fighter by a good three or four meters. As it flew by, it was at least able to reacquire its lock on the Banshee, and started to make a wide U-turn, when the Banshee promptly blasted the missile out of the sky with its plasma cannons.
"Oh, come on!" Zelda groaned as the Banshee started to turn back in his direction. "Are you fucking kidding me!?"
Banshees were obviously inanimate objects, but Zelda could have sworn this one was smirking at him as a green glow appeared underneath the Banshee as the Elite pilot prepared to fire a fuel rod cannon right at Zelda. Out of position and at a much lower altitude than the Banshee, there wasn't much Zelda could do -
- at least, not until the other missile Flanker fired slammed into the Banshee, obliterating it completely.
"Dumbass," Zelda sneered. "What'd you think, we were just going to fire one missile and call it day? What a fucking retard."
"Omega-6, Flanker Leader; what's your status?"
"Clear and free," Zelda replied as he started to climb in order to return to his squadron. "Thanks for the assist Leader."
"No problem," Flanker replied and as the squadron passed over him, Zelda wagged his wings as a sign of thanks.
Flanker sped by and headed in the direction of the Banshees. Zelda glanced at his rear scopes as Flanker volley fired an entire salvo of missiles at the Banshees at max range before punching in their afterburners and closing to within dogfighting range. Zelda was tempted to turn around and go help them out, but Flanker wasn't the only ones attacking the Banshees; zooming his radar out, Zelda could pick up signatures of at least two other squadrons of Broadswords, as well as an entire wing of Wombats getting vectored in to aid in the attack.
"Omega-6, this Leader," he heard Bellum say over the radio. "What's your status, over?"
"I took some light damage to my rear armor," Zelda reported. "And my aux engines are out. But aside from that, I'm green across the board, over."
"Copy that," Bellum smoothly replied. "Break. Leader to all Omega Flight pilots: RTB for rearming and refueling. I say again: return to base for rearmament and refueling. Acknowledge, over."
"This is Omega-5, solid copy."
"Omega-12, I copy."
"Omega-3, understood."
"This is Omega-9: I copy."
"Omega-6 here: just waiting on you Leader," Zelda replied.
"Understood. Leader to all Omega Flight pilots, form up on me. We are returning to base, out."
And with that, Bellum started heading back to the airbase.
As Zelda moved to return to formation, he glanced at his rear scopes. In the distance, Flanker and the rest of the assembled squadrons had finally slammed into the mass of Banshees and one hell of a melee was unfolding. It was a little too early to say for certain but by the looks of it, the UNSC was slowly gaining ground. Within the next two hours, with any luck, the skies over Byzas would be cleared of all Covenant airframes.
The UNSC Air Force was back in business baby.
1. Rifle: in this context is an Air Force brevity code referring to a friendly air-to-surface missile launch, similar to how "Fox" is used to indicate air-to-air missiles being launched.
Author's Note
This chapter is intended to tie directly in with the end of chapter 6 of Missing in Action. Some readers may remember Moss and his squad getting rescued from a pair of Hunters by some Air Force fighters? Yep, that's Zelda and his flight.
Bellum might seem a bit out of character in the first part. That's because I wanted to make sure I had the exact same dialogue from MIA, only, when I wrote MIA I had yet to even think up of the character of Bellum. I suppose I could have gone back and altered the dialogue ever so slightly, but I decided there was a possibility I could offer an in-universe explanation, while subtly expanding on the relationship between Bellum and Zelda.
I'll admit, this chapter didn't turn out to be nearly as long as I thought it would. As I mentioned eleven chapters ago in Chapter 18, the last time Zelda showed up, I felt I was running out of ideas for depicting dogfights. I had hoped when I move the fighting to the atmosphere, i thought I would have been able to change things up, make things a bit different being in a new environment, but it didn't really pan out the way I had hoped. I guess I had made my space combat too close to the way I showed atmosphere combat or something.
Now, on a slightly different note…
I doubt you guys would remember because it's been a long time, but all the way back in my author's notes for chapter 11, I mentioned how I was going to write a little excerpt explaining the history (or at least, how I imagined it) of the MA5B "automatic rifle" (as I called it.) I actually did write that except I was going through my past chapters, and I realized I actually never posted it (oops.)
Because it would be a waste otherwise, I've gone ahead and decided to post it here, in this chapter. Almost a year later... (better late than never?)
At any case, here it is:
MA5B
In the early 2500's, UNSC High Command identified the need for a new squad automatic weapon for their infantry squads. For most of the 25th century, the M247 general purpose machine gun had been utilized in said role, however its weight, length, and complexity was proving to be a detriment in battles against the lightly armored insurgents that UNSC forces found themselves increasingly fighting against. It was decided that a lighter and "true" squad automatic weapon was needed.
The two main infantry services, the UNSC Army and UNSC Marine Corps, immediately decided on two very contrasting designs. While the Army decided to adopt a more conventional machine gun design which later became designated as the M739 SAW, the Marine Corps decided that at nearly three times the length and weight of the standard issued MA37 assault rifle, the M739 SAW was still too large and heavy for their purposes. Instead, they opted to adopt a more ambitious design, one that was based off the MA37 itself. This new weapon would be known in testing as the XMA5 automatic rifle.
Contrasting earlier models of the rifle, the XMA5 AR was designed with multiple features to better suit its squad automatic weapon role. Some of the features included: a redesigned recoil buffer and muzzle break to help reduce recoil in fully automatic mode. A thicker barrel, handguard, and bolt to withstand the heat from sustained automatic firing. A larger, sixty round magazine as well as a stronger magazine catch in order to hold the added weight of all the extra ammo. A redesigned trigger pack to allow for a more crisp and cleaner trigger pull, as well as a modular handguard to allow infantrymen to mount attachments such as bipods and forward grips. Other features included seventy percent compatibility of parts between the MA37 and the XMA5, the ability of infantry squads to share magazines (unlike the MA37 and the M392 DMR,) as well as reduced risk to the operator in the field due to the similarity in appearances between the two rifles, thus making it more difficult for the enemy to single out the machine gunner.
Arguably the most innovative feature of the rifle, however, was its temperature based automatic closed bolt/open bolt operation: initial firing of the rifle would take place with a closed bolt, allowing for increased first shot accuracy, however as the barrel heated up during firing, the rifle would automatically switch to an open bolt to allow for vastly improved airflow, increasing heat dissipation as well as reducing the risk of a cook-off.
After testing was concluded, the XMA5 was adopted by the UNSC Marine Corps in March of 2504 and officially designated as the MA5B Infantry Automatic Rifle and the first batch of rifles were shipped directly oversea to troops in theater, with the famed 105th Shock Troops "Helljumper" Division being the first unit to field the weapon, with the 21st Marine Division following soon after as the first conventional unit.
The MA5B would see service throughout the entirety of the Insurrection, as well as the consequent Human-Covenant War. The rifle would in particular see high usage by units assigned to the UNSC Navy's Naval Special Warfare Command, where the rifle was valued for its light weight, reliability, and high rate of fire. However, several issues would plague the rifle for the rest of its service life, mainly: its magazine was highly unreliable and prone to jamming, constant overheating due to its lightweight materials, poor accuracy, and poor ergonomics.