Battle: Actium

by Ian Otter

Before the Fall of Reach, the Battle of Actium was one of the bloodiest land battles of the Human-Covenant War. Experience the fighting through the eyes of those who fought, and died, in her defense. (Companion piece to my other story, Missing in Action) (Abandoned.)

44. Chapter 43

Chapter 43

High Orbit, Actium
May 7, 2545
0842

Amber

"…Main Batt, this is the CIC: do you copy!? Come in, Main Batt!"

Amber woke with a start. For a moment, she just laid there, trying to figure out what happened, when she felt a jab of pain coming from the left side of her face, causing her to groan. Very slowly, she lifted her hand to feel it.

Her left cheek felt hot to the touch, and it felt like it was swollen. Experimentally, she opened and closed her mouth a few times, which she could do without too much pain, which was good as that meant she didn't have any broken bones, but it was definitely bruised. It felt like that time when she was ten, and her dad accidently pegged her in the face with a ball while they were playing a game of catch.

What the heck happened?

Slowly, she rolled herself over onto her back but as she did, she suddenly realized her mouth was full of saliva. Lowering the mouth cover to her anti-flash hood, she spat on the deck, then beadily opened her eyes, only to see a fair amount of blood mixed in with her saliva. She couldn't help but stare at the sight, transfixed by how red it looked.

"Main Batt, do you copy!?"

Amber automatically looked up at the shout. And that was when she noticed the fire.

A large hole had been blast through the bulkhead wall separating the compartment from the MAC system itself. Melted shards of metals had been tossed around the room, igniting everything that had been flammable, creating a sizable fire that was slowly spreading through the room. While most of the smoke was getting sucked away down the barrel of the MAC, which was still exposed to the exterior of the ship, because the barrel was so long, a fair amount of smoke was still being retained in the compartment, making it slowly hard to breath.

The sight of the fire sent adrenaline spiking through Amber's veins, electrifying her. Ignoring her aching body, she pulled herself upright and dragged herself to her console and immediately slammed her hand on a large red button that read "Emergency Stop," which immediately killed all power leading to the compartment, as well as the MAC. While it wouldn't stop the fire that was already present, it would hopefully prevent it from spreading any further.

As the room was plunged into darkness, save the light from the fire (the emergency lights having been destroyed by the explosion,) Amber hurriedly moved to completely seal off all magazines from the MAC, as well as eject the shell already in the breech into space, just in case.

"Main Batt, this is the Captain: respond, dammit!"

Amber grabbed her radio.

"This is Main Batt," she hoarsely yelled, before looking around. "FIRE IN THE MAIN BATTERY COMPARTMENT!"

"FIRE IN THE MAIN BATTERY COMPARTMENT! All firefighting teams, report to the Main Battery compartment!"

As the call went out, Amber limply dropped the radio onto the ground. She found herself coughing, and she realized that was because smoke was beginning to waft around the room and with a start, she suddenly remembered by sealing the magazines, that also automatically sealed the barrel to prevent further damage from spreading. She could try and override, but with her starting to feel more and more lightheaded, she knew she couldn't waste anymore time: she had to get out of here.

But before she could, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was somehow forgetting something…

"Fishy," she muttered to herself, before coughing again. "Something fish? Or sandwich? Fish sandwich? Tuna fish sandwich… TUNA!"

With a start, Amber surged upright to her feet once more and hurried over to Tuna's station on the other side of her console.

"Tuna!" she yelled again. "Tuna, are you alright? Can you hear me!?"

There was no response at first, however as Amber drew nearer to Tuna's station, she heard it: just under the crackling of fire, there was a mute groan.

Quickly dropping to her knees, Amber poked her head into the small crawl space Tuna had been working in just before the explosion.

"Oh, crap!" she gasped as she stared at the sight and tried to piece together what had happened.

Tuna must have removed his head in order to have a bit more room to work. However, when the breech blew, because he wasn't strapped in, the blast must have thrown him around, causing him to bang his head pretty hard against the ceiling of the crawl space. As a result, he had a very nasty looking bump on his front left temple, and he appeared to be only semi-conscious.

"Tuna!" Amber called out, reaching out to lightly tap his cheek. "Can you hear me?"

Tuna didn't respond and instead, merely groaned. He didn't seem to even be aware of Amber's presence.

Amber frantically looked around. She couldn't stay in this room, as visibility was quickly disappearing yet, at the same time, she couldn't just leave Tuna here to die.

"Hang in there Tuna, I'll get you out!"

Ducking her head down as low to the ground she possibly could, Amber took a deep breath, and then held it in place. Oxygen secure for now, Amber staggered to her feet, then dashed over to the nearest emergency kit mounted near the bulkhead door leading in and out of the room, praying that the explosion hadn't damaged it. Thankfully for her, it hadn't, and without thinking, she drove her fist into the glass cover, shattering it. Reaching inside, she blindly dug around until she found what she was looking for: an emergency O2 mask and tank.

Slipping the mask on and strapping the small two liter tank to her waist, Amber took a couple of deep breaths to refill her lungs, before properly opening up the container. Shoving aside all the equipment she didn't need, she dug around until she found the emergency stretcher.

"TUNA! Hang on! I'm coming to get you!" Amber yelled as she ran back, just in case Tuna could still hear her.

Tossing the stretcher onto the ground, Amber set about extending it, but as she worked, she started to hear Tuna coughing and with a start, she realized the smoke was beginning to completely fill the room.

"Dammit! I should have grabbed the other mask!" she swore to herself as she felt like smacking herself. She briefly wondered if she had enough time to go get it, but looking around she realized, no, no she didn't. She had to get Tuna out of here, now.

"Tuna! Hang in there!" Amber encouraged as she finished prepping the stretcher. Grabbing a hold of Tuna's leg, she was somehow able to slide him out of the crawl space, but then she was confronted with another issue: Tuna was way too heavy to pick up by herself. Try as she could, there was just no way she could get him into the stretcher.

"Come on Tuna!" she yelled as she desperately tried to slide him on. "You got to work with me! Wake up dude! WAKE UP GM2! WAKE UP!"

"AMBER!"

Amber automatically looked up at the shout, and sagged in relief as she spotted the single person wearing a firefighter's mask and carrying a heavy duty flashlight come running into the room.

"OVER HERE!" she tried to yell as loudly as she could through the faceplate of her mask. Fortunately the figure seemed to hear her and dashed over to her location, and as he got closer, Amber was pleasantly startled to find that it was Chief Leporidae, of all people.

He, too, seemed to brighten upon seeing her, but fortunately he didn't bother wasting any time with greetings.

"What happened to him?" he yelled.

"I think he hit his head!" she yelled back. "He's barely conscious!"

"Damn! We got to get him out of here! Hang on!"

Pulling out a med kit from seemingly nowhere, Amber watched as Leporidae carefully strap a brace around Tuna's neck, before putting an oxygen mask around his nose and mouth.

"Breathe Tuna, breathe!" Amber yelled in encouragement.

"Amber, we got to get him out of here!" Leporidae yelled. "Grab his legs, I'll get his torso. I'm going to count to three, then lift, alright? One, two, three, LIFT!"

Pulling up with all her strength, she and Leporidae were somehow able to get Tuna onto the stretcher. Amber took a step back and anxiously watched as Leporidae strap Tuna down before they were ready.

"We got to get him to the sick bay!" Amber yelled.

"I don't know where that is yet!" Leporidae admitted. "You need to lead the way!"

Amber nodded, then grabbed the front of the stretcher. "Same lift procedure?"

"Yeah, yeah!"

"Okay! One, two, three, LIFT!"

Lifting the stretcher between them, they stagger towards the bulkhead door and out of the room, stumbling out into the corridor. Amber started to head in the direction of the sick bay, but paused as she spotted two people wearing firefight equipment running towards her. As they drew closer, she could see it was Eddie, as well as his supervisor, Damage Controlman Third Class Allison "Ally" Dreyfus.

Eddie immediately broke out in a smile as he spotted Amber, and he took a step forward as if to say something, but Ally quickly thrusted her arm out horizontally, stopping him in his tracks.

"Amber!" Ally yelled. "Qu'est-ce s'est passé?"

If the situation wasn't so serious, Amber would have laughed. What happened? Hell, Amber was still trying to figure that one out herself.

"Je ne sais pas!" Amber yelled back instead. "Quelque chose a explosé, et maintenant y'a un feu!"

"Putain!" Ally swore. "On y va alors, Eddie!"

Ally took off down the corridor in the direction of the Main Battery compartment with Eddie in tow. Amber glanced over her shoulder to watch them go, only to see Leporidae giving her a curious look.

"You speak French?"

"I'm half Québécoise," Amber replied. "About a quarter Parisian French, and a quarter Welsh."

Leporidae stared at her for a moment.

"That is really cool," he said sincerely, and Amber couldn't help but feel a bit warm and giddy inside.

"Come on," she said, in an effort to mask her embarrassment. "We got to get Tuna to the sick bay!"

"Right!"

They took off in the direction of the sick bay once more. As they ran, Amber suddenly became consciously aware of the explosions that were causing the entire ship to rattle, and she realized they were still engaged. She wondered what was going on, but she had accidently left her radio back in the compartment, and without it, Amber was now effectively blind and deaf as to what was occurring outside.

Reaching the sick bay, they staggered inside, only to be confront with a rather chaotic room that was barely being kept under control by the chief hospital corpsman. Wounded Sailors from all different departments were either staggering in, or being carried in by their buddies. Almost all the beds appeared to be full, and all the medical personnel appeared to have their hands full.

Amber was shocked by the sight. She hadn't realized the Gabrielle had already taken this many casualties.

"What do you got!?"

Amber jumped as a hospital corpsman first class appeared out of nowhere and began checking Tuna over. Amber didn't recognize the man, but Leporidae clearly did because he immediately called out, "Rossi! È ferito, male!"

"Okay!" Rossi yelled back after a brief look at Tuna. "Put him here!"

He extended a table from the nearby bulkhead wall and with his help, the three of them were able to get Tuna on top. While Rossi set about checking Tuna over, both Amber and Leporidae quickly removed their oxygen masks, then Leporidae set about breaking down the stretcher. As he worked, it was Amber's turn to give him a curious look.

"You speak Italian?" she asked.

"No," Leporidae admitted with a sheepish grin. "That was about the extent of my linguistic abilities."

Amber couldn't help but smirk in response.

"You, Gunner's Mate! What's the problem!?"

Amber jumped and turned around to see another stressed out looking Corpsman appear out of no where.

"Chief, you okay?" she asked Leporidae before Amber could respond.

"Yeah, I'm fine, Corpsman," he replied.

"Then get out of here," the Corpsman insisted. "It's crowded enough as it is, we don't need perfectly healthy people hanging around."

"Right. GM, I gotta head back to my post outside the CIC. I'll see you later!"

With that, Leporidae took off and Amber started to turn and watch him go, but the Corpsman grabbed a hold of her chin. Without warning, she pushed a couple of fingers against Amber's badly bruised face

"Ow! What the fuck!?" Amber stammered, but the Corpsman ignored her.

"Cheek bone feels intact," she reported. "As does the eye socket. GM, follow this light with your eyeballs."

The Corpsman produced a pen light, of which she promptly shined into Amber's eyes, causing her to blink. Nevertheless, Amber did her best to keep her eyes open as the Corpsman waved the light in front of her.

"Both eyes appear to be intact," the Corpsman reported, flicking her light off and allowing Amber to reach up and gingerly wipe away her tears. "And you're not showing any signs of concussion. You're good to go, shipmate. Get out of here and get back to your station!"

And with that, the Corpsman disappeared to go check up on another patient before Amber could get a word in otherwise.

"But my station's on fire," she protested to herself.

She looked around the bay, wondering where she was supposed to go now, but seeing at how crowded the room was getting, decided it wasn't worth staying here, at least. Grabbing her mask and O2 tank, Amber started to head back to her station, figuring she could go help Ally and Eddie with the fire, if they hadn't brought it under control already, when someone grabbed her arm.

"Oi, Amber!" Carrizosa yelled. "What happened down there?"

"I don't know Chief!" Amber replied. "The freaking MAC just exploded and I don't know how!"

Carrizosa proceeded to let out a string of curses before abruptly looking back at her.

"I'm headed down there to go see the extent of the damage and figure out if we can't bring the main battery back online!" he declared. "You head up to first deck – Rampart three is down, and Second Batt is stripping out the ammo to redistribute to the other turrets. Go help them!"

"Aye, aye, Chief!" Amber yelled, then took off running the corridor again.

Reaching the first flight of stairs, she headed down to first deck. As she did, Gabrielle violently shook once more, causing her to stumble, but fortunately she was able to catch herself.

Making it onto the proper deck, Amber entered into the maintenance shaft and dashed over to the area where Rampart turret number three was located. There, she found two other ginner's mate frantically removing the very long belt of 50mm ammo from the turret's drum and loading it onto a cart for easier transport.

"GM1 Sharifaie!" Amber yelled out, recognizing one of the men present as one of the head's of the secondary battery crew. "Chief Carrizosa sent me down here to help! What do you need?"

"Nothing!" Sharifaie yelled back. "We got it under control, dunno why the Chief sent you down to me!"

Amber mouthed a couple of choice swear words before, more loudly, she said, "Then what should I do?"

"Go talk to the MT's!" Sharifaie replied. "They might be able to use an extra hand!"

Amber nodded but Sharifaie didn't see it as he had already turned away. Turning around, Amber dashed back down the way she had come from, and was just about to exit into the main corridor when –

"WATCH OUT… Amber?"

Amber looked around to see Poolsie standing behind a large ammo cart loaded up with three ASGM-10 missiles.

"Poolsie!" Amber yelled in relief and ran over to give her a hug. "Are you alright? Are you okay?"

Poolsie was covered in sweat and looked tired, but for the most part, she seemed alright. She dumbly nodded and instead, looked at Amber with a concerned look on her face.

"I'm fine," she insisted. "What happened? Are you okay?"

Reflexively, Amber moved to touch the bruise on her face, but fortunately Poolsie intercepted her hands before she could.

"Probably shouldn't be touching that," Poolsie noted, and Amber realized she was right.

"I got hit in the face," Amber reported. "Damn MAC ruptured, or something like that. I'm not sure, but my station is on fire now, and Chief Carrizosa sent me down here to go help Sharifaie, but I just spoke to him and he doesn't need my help so I'm checking to see if you guys need an extra pair of hands or something."

"You just showed up in the nick of time," Poolsie admitted. "I need to get these missiles down to pod Two Bravo. Come on, help me please!"

Amber nodded and grabbed a hold of the cart. Together, the two of them began shoving the missiles down the corridor as fast as they could.

"What the heck is happening?" Amber demanded to know as the moved. As a missile tech, Poolsie's station allowed her to have a better idea of the situation outside than Amber's station would have. "This doesn't feel like things are going to plan."

"That's 'cause I don't think it is!" Poolsie admitted. "I think the Navy was counting on the Covenant doing one of two things: they would either move to help their Legions defend their landing site against the Marines, or they would hold position to defend themselves against us!"

"What happened then!?"

"They decided they wanted to attack us instead! They broke formation and were moving out when we dropped out from slipspace right in front of them! We got thrown onto the defensive, and have been fighting ever since then!"

Amber couldn't believe what she was hearing. The Covenant would really break formation, essentially abandon their landing site and risk losing it, just to go on the offensive?

…well, now that Amber thought about it, somehow that actually sounded exactly what the Covenant would have done. Still, that carried a lot of risks, as by leaving their positions, they stood the risk of allow the UNSC Navy to slip a task force behind their lines.

"You know if any of our battle groups are hitting the Covenant from behind?" Amber asked, but Poolsie shook her head.

"No idea – been kind of too busy to find out!"

Amber nodded in understanding. Yeah, that she could understand.

Reaching the bulkhead door that would lead into the Bravo Section missile pods, she and Poolsie did their best to turn the cart around the corner without hitting anything. Inside the room, there wasn't much to look at. Amber had been inside one of these rooms before, and they all looked the same. Missiles of various types were being feed from a magazine just below the deck, where they would be picked up by a set of claw cranes and shoved into the missile pod tubes mounted on the far side of the wall. Once each pod was loaded, a metal blast wall would slide down to allow the missiles to be safely fired.

At the moment however, things were in complete chaos the missile tech crews were working on loading and firing missiles practically as soon as they were ready. Amber had no idea what they were shooting at, but given the explosions that were shaking the Gabrielle, it was probably something big.

"POOLSIE! BRING THOSE MISSILES HERE!"

Amber looked around wildly to see MT3 Vega, the head missile technician of this section, frantically gesturing from the missile pod at the very end of the compartment.

Planting her heels against the deck, Amber and Poolsie quickly pushed the cart in his direction, avoiding the moving cranes and doing their best not to get hit by any of the missiles that were getting loaded.

"Come on culeros!" Vega yelled as soon as Amber and Poolsie brought the cart to a complete stop. "Ándale, ándale!"

Amber quickly stepped aside as to not get in anyone's way as all the missile technicians present began to hurriedly unload the cart. As she did, Amber noticed a radio mounted to the bulkhead wall that was connected to the same channel the CIC was, and she couldn't help but listen in, to see if she couldn't figure out what was going on.

"Helm, check port three one degrees," Lancaster was saying. "Don't let any of those Bandits through!"

"TAO, Comms: we're getting a message from Hermione Actual. Captain Kwadwo is commanding us to provide missile fire support at these coordinates."

"Copy, I see them. Missile pods One Charlie through Five Charlie, standby to ripple fire at the established coordinates. And… fire."

"TAO, head's up! I'm picking up signatures of multiple Bandits approaching the Hermione from direction eight three seven, thirty degrees up!"

"Helm, come about port, all engines ahead, flank! Move to intercept: we can't allow them to get through!"

"Hey! MT3 Vega!" Amber yelled. "I thought we were withdrawing for repairs!?"

"So did I!" Vega admitted. "But I guess a couple of Covenant warships broke contact and headed down to the surface to help out. Admiral Amarchih wants us to engage the rest, make sure no one else tries to do the same – hey! Terrazas! WATCH WHERE YOU'RE SWINGING THAT! ¡Hijo de puta, nunca piensas!"

As Vega turned away to go yell at his crew, Amber couldn't help but shiver. A couple of ships had broken through and were on their way to the surface. Well, she didn't know what a 'couple of ships,' entailed, but either way, it wasn't good news for the ground forces. She could only hope, for their sake, the Air Force was up to the task of stopping them as it sounded like the Navy had their hands full.

"Amber! We got to go back and get more missiles! Come on!"

XXXXX

Thracia Province, Actium
May 7, 2545
0926

Zelda

"Covenant ships have broken through!"

Zelda barely paid any attention to the call from Organ as he focused on pushing his Broadsword as fast as it could go in the direction of the city.

"We got two CRS-class light cruisers making their way down from orbit," Organ continued. "Each supported by at least three squadrons of fighters each. One is headed for the city, the other is headed south. All available aircraft, respond!"

"This is Omega Flight," Zelda heard Bellum announce over the radio. "We're en route!"

"Copy that Omega, I'm picking up on your tags. Divert to heading one four five; your objective is to engage and destroy Covenant cruiser designated '4-Charlie.' Destroy that ship, and do not let it get to the ground!"

Zelda quickly glanced at his HUD to figure out which cruiser was target 4-Charlie: it was the one headed for the city. Damn. He hated fighting over cities.

"Organ, Omega: wilco. Time to target: seven mikes."

"Man, what the hell!?" Zelda demanded as soon as he heard Bellum click off her radio. "I thought the goddamn Navy was supposed to be keeping these guys back, but this is the second time in two days they've let Covies ships slip past them!"

"Hey, at least it's just two ships and not an entire invasion force this time," Odessa pointed out.

"Two ships, so far."

"True," Odessa allowed. "But hey, at least they're coming down in waves, makes it easier to handle. Unless you're telling me you can't handle a couple of measly ships?"

"It's not that I can't," Zelda snapped. "Maybe it's just that I don't want to. You ever think about that? Point is, Navy shouldn't be letting ships through and if they do, then ODC shouldn't either. And if they are, well, then, they both suck at their jobs."

"Guys, enough," Bellum snapped. "Whatever the Navy is or isn't doing, it doesn't matter. We've got our position, we've got our target - we're rolling in hot. Stay close to your wing mate, watch your backs, and let's do this, got it?"

"Copy." "Copy." "Got it."

"Yeah, sure, why not," Zelda reluctantly replied.

"Time to target: three minutes," was all Odessa said.

Zelda glanced forward where, in the distance on the horizon, a small glowing dot had been steadily growing bigger and bigger by the second.

Relatively speaking, CRS-class light cruisers were small ships. Roughly three hundred meters in length, CRS were tiny, even by UNSC standards. But of course, given the technology disparity between the two sides, it didn't matter how big these cruisers were, they were still packed to the brim with all sorts of weapons. Plus, three hundred meters in space looked far different from three hundred meters in atmo.

As they drew closer, the massive bulk of the ship's hull began to take shape, and Zelda could begin to get a sense of just how big the ship really was. At the moment, the entire ship was wreathed in flames as it made its rapid descent through the atmosphere, but it wouldn't be long before the cruiser slowed down enough to the point it could begin to deploy its weapons. Zelda and his squadron mates had to stop that ship before it reached that point.

"Leader, this is 12," Skeeter suddenly said. "Be advised, I'm getting a reading: the shields on that thing are still up!"

"I know," Bellum grimly replied. "Command is routing a number of Shortsword bombers in this direction. They're gonna lay down the hate, hopefully hit that thing with enough bombs, they can disable the shields to the point a bunch of ground and sea based anti-ship missiles will knock it out of the sky. Our job is to clear the flies first, so our bombers can get close."

Zelda glanced at his HUD at all the "flies," aka, all the Covenant fighters that were swarming around the cruiser. His computer counted at least thirty-one of them and even as he watched, a good number of them began turning in the direction of the incoming Broadswords.

"WARNING: INCOMING FIGHTERS."

"Alright guys, this is it!" Bellum declared. "Break into individual sections, and get ready for a fight! Good luck!"

Zelda merely grinned to himself as he began selecting his first target. This was where they separated the rock stars from the groupies.

"I got tone!"

"You're weapons free!"

"Fox one!"

Zelda lazily thumbed his weapon release button and as a green light appeared on his HUD, indicating a successful detachment, watched as his missile join with several others and speed off down range.

As expected, his target, a Covenant Banshee, immediately deployed countermeasures, causing his missile to veer off course, however Zelda was quick to fire off another missile, and then another one. The Banshee was able to destroy the first missile with its plasma cannons, however the second one was able to make it through, zipping right over the Banshee and exploding, showering the vehicle with shrapnel.

Surprisingly, the Banshee managed to survive, however Zelda could see smoke and flames leaping from the various holes in its hull, and the Banshee immediately broke contact and started to head back in the direction of the cruiser. Zelda grinned to himself as he began lining up his crosshairs.

"WARNING: INCOMING MISSILE."

"Chaff!" Zelda spat out as he threw his fighter into a loop as he tried to disperse his countermeasures in a wide of an area as possible.

He glanced over his shoulder to see the fuel rod cannon come streaking in from his right, chasing after a couple of his chaff, and as it harmlessly exploded some distance away, Zelda banked hard to the right in order to attack the Covie that had dared fired on him head on.

FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ

Plasma bolts began exploding all around him as the Banshee simply opened up on Zelda with everything it had, and Zelda threw his Broadsword into a spin, doing his best to maintain as small of a profile as he could while he lined up his crosshairs. The distance between the two aircraft began to rapidly close as both pilots sped right at each other, neither willing to give way.

Zelda's crosshairs briefly flashed red, and that was all he needed.

"Fox one!" he declared, pulling the trigger and as he felt the missile detaching from the rails, he switched over to his main gun. "Guns, guns, guns!"

BOOMBOOMBOOM!

Tracer rounds went streaking just under the incoming Banshee, each round briefly illuminating the underside of the Covie's hull as Zelda walked his fire up, trying to cajole the Banshee into gaining altitude where it would have a higher chance of flying straight into his missile. Surprisingly, the Covie pilot didn't take the bait. Instead, the pilot released a number of countermeasures, then somehow managed to throw its Banshee into a dive between one of the gaps in Zelda's barrage.

SWOOSHHH!

Zelda inverted his fighter in time to see the Banshee shooting by underneath him at supersonic speeds!

"Oh no you don't!" Zelda yelled, yanking back on his stick, hard. His Broadsword immediately went nose up as it flared, and Zelda grunted in pain as the sudden increase in surface area caused his fighter to abruptly go from supersonic to practically nothing.

Throwing his bird into a spin, Zelda jammed his stick forward and bringing the nose of his bird back down, and found himself facing in the exact direction he had just come from, with the Banshee he had just been fighting against speeding off into the distance.

Igniting his afterburners in an effort to regain his speed, Zelda took off after him.

"There you go. Thought you could get away, huh?" Zelda taunted as he began tracking the Banshee with his crosshairs.

The Banshee had clearly picked up on his presence because it immediately began conducting all sorts of evasive maneuvers, as well as activating practically all of it's countermeasures in an effort to juke Zelda's aim, but Zelda was able to match the Banshee move for move. All the while, Zelda continued to chase the Banshee with his crosshairs, waiting for that perfect shot.

"Come on," he muttered to himself. "Almost there…"

Without warning, the Banshee abruptly stopped releasing it's countermeasures. Whether it was because the Banshee had run out or they were on cool down, Zelda didn't know but he didn't hesitate: "Fox one!"

His cockpit window was briefly covered in smoke as Zelda accidently flew through the contrail of his missile, but he was able to quickly get out of the way in time to see his missile go chasing after the Banshee. The Banshee began looping and spinning in an effort to evade the incoming projectile, and for a moment there it almost appeared as if the Banshee would actually get away when –

BOOMBOOMBOOM!

Zelda jumped as a series of autocannon shells that were distinctly not from his fighter speed off downrange. The burst just barely missed the Banshee, with only one round slightly clipping the edge of the Banshee's right stabilizer, but it distracted the pilot long enough for Zelda's missile to catch up.

BOOM

The Banshee exploded in a small puff of smoke, sending debris tumbling down to the surface, all of which Zelda was easily able to dodge by flying over the wreck. As he did, Zelda glancing over his shoulder to see who had fired that last autocannon burst that had almost taken his kill, only to find –

"Oh, it's only you," he announced.

"Of course it's me," Odessa replied, sounding amused. "Who the hell else would it be?"

"Just didn't think you would have been able to keep up with all my maneuverings, with you being an old man and everything," Zelda casually replied as he banked and headed back in the direction of the cruiser.

"WARNING: INCOMING MISSILE."

"What are you talking about: there was nothing fancy about those maneuvers," Odessa sneered as, in the background, Zelda could hear him popping chaff. "And who are you calling old? You're the same age as me!"

Zelda grinned, but wasn't given the opportunity to reply as three Banshees came screaming in, cannons blazing, forcing Zelda to evade.

He threw himself into a barrel roll, firing off a missile as he did. The missile missed, but it did cause one of the Banshees to break off, making the fight just a bit easier to deal with. Plasma streaked by his canopy, causing Zelda to loop around before throwing himself into a dive.

Glancing over his shoulder, Zelda was a bit startled to see none of the Banshees in pursuit; rather, both Covie pilots had decided to go after Odessa instead.

"I don't know whether I should be insulted or amused," Zelda commented out loud as he banked around and began to rapidly climb. "But either way, you guys are going to pay for ignoring me."

Zelda pressed down on his accelerator stick, and watched as the numbers on his altimeter rapidly climb. He wanted to get as close to the Banshees as possible to ensure there was less of a chance of him missing, but the Banshees clearly saw him coming as they immediately broke off pursuit of Odessa in order to evade.

"Fox one. Guns!"

Zelda snap fired a missile, then hurriedly unloaded a burst of cannon fire in the direction the Banshee would most likely go to evade. Sure enough, he watched as the Banshee jerk to the right while releasing a series of countermeasures, causing his missile to miss, only for the Banshee to fly right into Zelda's burst of cannon fire. The heavy caliber rounds easily chewed through the lightly armored Banshee, which disintegrated into a blue ball of fire.

Behind his mask, Zelda smiled as he moved his crosshairs to target the other Banshee.

"ZELDA, ON YOUR SIX!"

The shout came at the same time Zelda's proximity alarms went off, and he instinctively threw himself into a shape loop to the left. And not a moment too soon as a Seraph fighter came barreling through the space he was just occupying a moment before, being pursued by both Omegas 3 and 9.

As the entire party rocketed past, Zelda's radio automatically began picking up on the chatter between Omega 3 and 9.

"Keep at it! Don't let that sonabitch out of your sight!" JT, Omega-3, was saying.

"I'm trying!" 303, Omega-9 protested. "But these things are built like tanks, especially with their shields! Dammit, why won't you just die already!?"

Deciding that meant they needed his help, Zelda banked and took off after them, firing his afterburners in order to catch up.

As he drew near, Zelda could see that 303 was in front, unloading his main cannon into the Seraph, while JT was hanging back just a bit, firing off the occasional missile. Unfortunately, between the shields and their countermeasures, the Seraph was able to resist almost everything the two of them were throwing at it, and Zelda knew if both 303 and JT tried to keep this up, they would run out of ammo.

Zelda armed a couple of missiles and began lining up his shot, when he noticed the Seraph's shields were beginning to flicker. If he could just time this right…

The Seraph's shields abruptly failed.

"Ha! Shields are down! 3, TAKE THE SHOT!" 303 urged.

Zelda fired and watched as two missile tumble out from the bottom of his Broadsword and launch themselves in the direction of the Seraph. The Seraph attempted to evade, but because Seraphs were built like a tank, they had a tendency to maneuver like one and thus the Covie pilot couldn't do anything as Zelda's missiles slammed into the cockpit area, causing flames to shoot out. Immediately the Seraph began it's death spiral down to the earth.

"What the – ZELDA!? Where the hell did you come from!? And what's with stealing our kill?"

"Hey, what can I say? You snooze, you lose," Zelda cockily said. He could hear 303 growling.

"We HAD that!"

"Clearly," Zelda replied, not even bothering to try and hide his sarcasm.

"Knock it off you two – save that shit for when we're back on the ground," JT snapped. "We got to focus on that cruiser. 6, where the hell is your wing mate?"

"WARNING: COLLISION ALERT."

Zelda immediately rolled to the side but before anything could happen -

BOOM!

The second Seraph that was barreling towards them abruptly exploded as a series of missiles struck it. Zelda's sensors pinged as he registered a friendly Broadsword joining their formation.

"Really? Three of you flying together, and not one of you saw that coming?" Odessa exclaimed. "I'll admit: I'm a bit disappointed."

"Good kill, 5," JT said. "Thanks."

"Yeah, thanks for the backup Odessa," 303 quickly added.

There a moment of silence, and Zelda could practically feel everyone's eyes on him.

"What?" he protested. "I don't have anything to say."

He could hear Odessa snort.

"Whatever," he said. "Like 3 said, we got to refocus our efforts on that cruiser. Where are the bombers?"

"Any UNSC call signs on this net: this is Napoleon Squadron inbound on a bombing run on target 4-Charlie. Requesting support, over."

"How 'bout that," JT commented. "Guess it's true what they say: 'ask, and ye shall receive.'"

"That's never worked for me," Zelda grumbled.

"That's 'cause you're a fucking asshole, Zelda."

"Napoleon, this is Omega Flight," Odessa said, cutting Zelda's response off. "We read you loud and clear. We're inbound, your location, thirty seconds."

"Copy. We'll wait for you."

"Alright guys: follow me!" Odessa commanded before banking and heading back in the direction of the cruiser.

Zelda turned to follow him and as he did, he was finally able to see how the battle was progressing so far. The cruiser was finally low enough in the atmosphere it's hull was no longer being lit up by the friction. Surrounding the cruiser were swarms of fighters, as both sides did their best to gain and advantage over one another. Zelda was reminded of the mass fighter melee he and his squadron had participated last night, only now it would appear the roles had been reversed: it was the UNSC attacking an enemy warship, with the Covenant defending. However, unlike the UNSC last night, Zelda was determined to make sure the Covenant lost their ship.

"Anyone see where the hell these bombers are?" Odessa asked and Zelda could hear him shuffling around in his seat, looking around.

"There – I got em!" 303 triumphantly declared. "Our three, about forty degrees down, maybe five hundred meters away!"

Zelda glanced in the direction 303 had said and spotted seven B-65 Shortsword bombers, casually flying through the air.

Coming in at about twice the size and mass of a Broadsword fighter, Shortsword's were nowhere near as fast or maneuverable as Zelda and his buddies were. That being said, Shortswords weren't entirely helpless and as Zelda watched, one of the Shortswords managed to blow a Banshee away with it's bow mounted M955 30mm rotary cannon. Still, burdened with all sorts of ordnance, those bombers would need help if they wanted to get close enough to the cruiser to do some damage.

"Shortsword squadron in a holding pattern in sector one seven: is that you Napoleon?" Odessa asked. "You got four Broadswords on approach from your eleven, coming from above. That's us. You have eyes on?"

"Rog. We got eyes on you."

"What sort of payloads are you guys carrying?"

"Each one of us is carrying one GBU-187 bomb."

Zelda couldn't help but automatically let out a low whistle at that. GBU-187, or "MOAB" as they were usually called in tribute to the bomb of the same name that had been used by Earth air forces at the start of the millennium, were the largest and most powerful non-nuclear bombs the UNSC Air Force had in their arsenal. With each individual bomb weighing in at about ninety eight thousand kilograms, of which roughly eight and a half tonnes was explosives, they were extremely versatile weapons in that they could essentially reproduce the destructive affects of nuclear and MACs weapons, without having to face the same physical and political repercussions.

"Yeah, I know, right?" Napoleon suddenly said, and with a start, Zelda realized he had actually whistled over the radio. "That ought to rattle the Covenant's skulls a bit, you think? Problem is, is getting close because right now, we're weighed down more than my wife when she pregnant with the triplets."

"Don't worry, we'll get you in close," Odessa assured them. "We'll break up into individual flights; makes us a smaller target, plus then we'll be able to vector in from different angles. One Broadsword per two Shortswords, though one of us is going to only cover one. Zelda, you think you can handle two bombers?"

Zelda rolled his eyes. "Do you really need to ask?"

He could hear Odessa shrugging.

"Just checking," he glibly replied. "303, what about you?"

"I can handle it," 303 immediately replied.

"Alright then. JT, you're the lucky SOB."

"Feel like I should be insulted, but fuck it: I like taking things a bit easier," JT unabashedly declared.

"Good. Napoleon, Omega Flight: we're good on our end. I'm marking each plane, so assign whoever you see fit."

"Copy. Napoleon-3 and 8, go with Omega-9. 5 and 9, go with Omega-6. Leader and 4 will be with Omega-5, Sparky, go with Omega-3. Everyone understood?"

A chorus of "copy" responded to Napoleon Leader as Zelda began tapping his foot against the floor.

"Come on guys," he impatiently urged. "Let's go, let's do this."

"Alright, I just talked to AWACS: Organ has got individual vectors for us," Odessa declared. "He's going to get most of the other squadrons to clear the way for us, but we're still going to have that AA on the cruiser to worry. Once payload has been delivered, all planes will rendezvous at this waypoint here. Alright, that's it, move it out!"

Zelda immediately looked around for his two bombers. He spotted them flying nearby with the holographic words "Napoleon-5" and "Napolean-9" floating over them.

"Hey, Bombers!" Zelda yelled at them over the general channel. "Try and keep up!"

"Yeah, fuck you too, buddy," one of the bombers immediately retorted, and Zelda smirked to himself. Bomber pilots only wished they could be fighter pilots.

Waiting just long enough for his two Shortswords to fall in line, Zelda took off, following along the designated route the AWACS had given him. The route had him passing over the cruiser's engines, which was a bit disappointing: there was less AA there than any other place, and Zelda had been hoping for a challenge.

Although, now that he thought of it, the cruiser's pulse lasers AA turrets weren't even firing at all, and hadn't been since they first entered the atmosphere.

"Hey, anyone else notice this thing really seems to be booking it for the surface?" one of the Napoleon pilots observed.

"Yeah, they don't seem that interested in sticking around for a fight," Zelda noted.

"Must be trying to do a supply run for the troops on the ground," Odessa theorized.

"Well, shit. If that's the case, why don't we let it?" Zelda suggested. "They got to lower the shields in order to that – we can just wait for the moment, then blow the shit out of them.

"We do that though, we run the risk of the ground forces taking a lot of damage," JT immediately pointed out.

"So? Why do you care?" Zelda callously replied.

"Maybe… because up until a few years ago, I was one of those guys on the ground?"

Zelda started to laugh, but then stopped when he noticed no one else was following suit."Wait, really?"

"Zelda, did you just join this squadron like, two hours ago!?" Odessa exclaimed. "You do know that JT was a JTAC qualified TACP before he became a pilot, right?"

"Well, how the fuck was I supposed to know that!?" Zelda protested.

"You never wondered where I got my call sign from?" JT asked, sounding highly amused. "It certainly wasn't from my name: there's no 'J' or 'T' in the name 'Lincoln Windsor.'"

Zelda had to admit, he never had thought about it.

"Omega-6, head's up! We got incoming Banshees!" one of the Napoleons suddenly warned.

Zelda glanced around and spotted two Banshees diving down on them from above.

"Alright guys, let's go this!" Zelda declared. "Stay on my ass, and I'll clear the way!"

"Roger, on you!"

Zelda took a deep breath, and then let it out slowly. "Let's go!"

With that, Zelda thumbed his afterburners and launched himself in the direction of the incoming Banshees. The Covies noticed his approach and promptly opened up with their autocannons and fuel rods.

"Chaff," Zelda spat as he deftly maneuvered past the incoming plasma. Arming two missiles, he lobbed them at the Banshee on the right before rapidly switching his crosshairs over to the one on the left and opening up with his cannons. "Guns!"

The front of his Broadsword became a blaze of fire as it spat death in the direction of the incoming. None of Zelda's return fire actually hit as both Banshees deftly maneuvered out of the way, however the good thing was that in order to do so, both Banshees had to stop firing.

Zelda gripped his stick just a bit tighter as the distance between the two forces rapidly began to close.

SWOOSH! SWOOSH!

Zelda's Broadsword shook slightly as the Banshees whipped by over the UNSC forces at tops speeds and, glancing at his rear scopes, Zelda could see both Banshees spiraling upwards as they climbed in order to turn around and give pursuit. He quickly made a decision.

"You two still with me?" Zelda asked over the radio.

"Copy!" "A-firm."

"Looks like we're about to have a couple of clingy ex-girlfriends who don't know when to let go!" Zelda yelled, eyes glued on his rear scopes. "You two push onto the objective, I'll deal with them! On my mark, I want you to split. You ready?"

"Yes!"

"MARK!"

Zelda extended his air brakes just as the two Shortswords trailing behind him split outwards. The rapid deceleration caused Zelda to whip by in the space between and, using the drag to his advantage, Zelda was able to do a one eighty flip backwards and found himself facing the Banshees once more.

Hurriedly lowering his air brakes, Zelda jammed down on his stick and took off.

"WARNING: INCOMING MISSILE."

Zelda ignored the warning as he continued to speed towards the Banshees. Both Banshees promptly open fired with their cannons, causing Zelda to throw his Broadsword into a spin, even as the fuel rod continued to close the distance.

"Come on, come on!" he frantically muttered to himself.

"WARNING, WARNING."

"I know! Shut up!"

"WARNING – "

At the last possible second, just as the fuel rod was about to hit, Zelda jammed his stick forward, throwing himself into a dive. The fuel rod exploded above due to it's proximity to his fighter, but Zelda was long gone by then and as a result, all the explosion did was rock his plane.

Glancing behind him, he spotted the two Banshees whipping by as they picked up on the trail of the two Shortswords once more. Zelda grinned to himself.

Yanking back on his stick, Zelda aborted his dive. Angling his nose up, he quickly began to climb. His engines screamed in protest at being treated in such a manner, and Zelda knew he was going to be getting an earful from his maintenance crew later that evening when he was finally able to set down, but nevertheless Zelda quickly threw himself into a loop and found himself behind the Banshees.

Both Covie pilots were pushing their birds hard in order to try and catch up to the Shortswords and as a result, neither of them were quite able to react as Zelda was instantly able to obtain a lock on both of them and fire.

"Fox one!"

Four missiles departed his rails and rocketed down range. Ignoring the two explosions that lit up the sky once more, Zelda glanced around, trying to find his escortees, and found them not too far away, making a beeline for the cruiser. He quickly fell in line behind them.

"Omega-6: you good?" one of the bombers asked before Zelda could say a word.

"Hell yeah, I'm good," Zelda confidently replied. "You're talking to the best pilot on the colony after all, baby."

"That's… not what we're were asking. Fucking fighter jockeys, man."

Zelda laughed, then quickly sobered up. "Time to target?"

"Three minutes!"

Zelda looked forward where the massive bulk of the cruiser was beginning to fill his cockpit canopy. The ship still wasn't firing and Zelda still wasn't sure why that was, but at this point, he didn't really care.

"WARNING: INCOMING PROJECTILE."

"FLARES!"

Zelda threw himself into a barrel roll to the right as a couple of purple needles came flying in. For a moment, he thought the needles would hit, but at the very last second, they abruptly turned to chase after his flares. Glancing around, he spotted a Covenant Type-29 "Vampire" closing in from behind.

"Watch out Napoleons!" he yelled. "We got a Vampire, pushing our six!"

"Shit!"

Zelda jerked his fighter to the left, then rapidly jerked it back to the right as the Vampire quickly roared into position behind him. He could see the plane's heavy needle cannon starting to glow brighter, before it abruptly open fired.

FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!

Purple needles began exploding all around him, showering him with miniature crystal shards. By themselves, the shards weren't able to do much, but after some time, they would begin to add up. However, that wasn't even Zelda's biggest problem.

Zelda rapidly began juking all over the place, trying to make sure the Covenant pilot wouldn't be able to obtain a solid lock on him because if he did, then Zelda was screwed.

"Omega-6: we're taking fire up here!" one of the Napoleons yelled.

"Yeah, I know!" Zelda irritably yelled. "You two keep pushing that objective – I'm gonna break off and deal with this fucker!"

"You can't do that!" one of the Napoleons blurted out.

"Why the fuck not?"

"Those are needles that fucker is firing! Without your heat signature to confuse those sensors, those needles will zero in on our engines in seconds!"

Zelda silently swore as he realized the bombers were right. At the same time, he couldn't just not do anything…

Growling, Zelda whipped around in an aileron roll. Given that unlike plasma cannons, needle cannons were actually feed from a magazine and thus had a limited reserve of ammo, his best bet was just to try and get the Vampire to run out of ammo.

He just needed to survive until that point…

BANG! Beepbeepbeep!

The entire Broadsword rocked as something exploded, causing Zelda's instrument panel to light up and all sorts of alarms to begin blaring.

"Shit!" Zelda spat as he realized his lift fan, which was essential for his fighter's ability to lift-off and land vertically, had just taken a hit. "Come on, give me a fucking break you asshole!"

SWOOSH KABOOM!

The sound of a missile exploding behind him caused Zelda to whip around in time to see the Vampire peeling off, being chased by another two missiles that originated from above. Looking skyward, Zelda spotted two Broadsword plummeting towards him.

"Omega-6, this is Leader," Bellum announced. "12 and I will deal with the Vamp; get those bombers on target."

"Dude, where the fuck have you been?" Zelda couldn't help but exclaim.

"Worry about that later; for now, focus!"

Zelda watched as Bellum and Skeeter roared by in pursuit of the Vampire, before glancing around for more targets. Aside from the cruiser that was looming directly in front of him, he couldn't see anyone else.

"I think we're free and in the clear!"

"Copy. Thirty seconds to bombing run. Opening bomb bay doors now."

Zelda watched as the bay doors on both bombers swiftly opened, and he could just barely make out the sight of the massive cylindrical form of the MOABs sitting inside the bomb bays.

"Doors open," one of the Napoleons reported. "No movement from the target just – wait, hang on; I'm getting a signal."

BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!

The skies around the UNSC forces abruptly lit up as the pulse laser turrets on the cruiser unexpectedly started firing!

"AA went live!"

"No shit!" Zelda yelped. "Evade, evade!"

Before anyone could react though, there was a massive explosion as one of the Shortswords took a direct shot to their left engine, which instantly burst into flames.

"This is Napoleon-5: I'm hit, I'm hit!" the Shortsword pilot announced in a surprisingly calm voice. "Controls are – barely responding."

"Break off the attack, 5. Peel off!" the other bomber urged.

"Negative, I think I can handle it!"

"Napoleon-5, that was a pretty bad hit. I'm looking at your engine now: it's completely on fire!" Zelda warned. "Recommend you break off, now!"

"No, it's alright! I can handle it!"

Boom!

There was another small explosion and Zelda hastily jerked to the side as apiece of metal ripped off the Shortsword and came hurtling his way. "You just lost your stabilizer!"

"I'm good, I'm still good!" 5 insisted but even over the radio, Zelda could hear all sorts of alarms going off inside his cockpit.

"Don't be an idiot, 5, you're not the only one aboard that plane! You still got three other souls with you! Peel off, NOW!"

"No, I can still – "

Without warning, the entire abruptly exploded, causing the entire left wing to shear off.

"Holy shit!" Zelda yelped as the Shortsword began it's death spiral back down to earth.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday, we're going down!"

"Eject, Williams, EJECT!"

"We're – "

The Shortsword promptly disintegrated.

"Napoleon-5, do you read? Napoleon-5, do you copy!?"

"Napoleon-5 is gone, dude!" Zelda snapped. "You got to drop that fucking bomb and let's get out of here!"

"Need you to clear the way, Omega!"

Zelda looked forward. The pulse laser turrets had turned to engage a flight of Wombats that had been passing by after hitting Napoleon-5, but now they were turning back in his direction. He hurriedly armed a series of missiles and began locking onto all the turrets within range.

"Come on, come on," he muttered, as he carefully monitored the shield strength of the cruiser. There would be a brief half second where the Covenant would have to lower their shields in order to fire, and he had to catch that window otherwise he was dead. "Come on!"

In front of him, he could see the turrets had finished deploying and were starting to swivel in his direction. Their muscles began to glow when –

"That's it! Fox one!"

Zelda fired, and six missiles departed from the underside of his fighter and began speeding towards each turret. The missiles speed towards the shield and for a brief moment, Zelda had thought he had mistimed it, but then they passed right through.

BOOMBOOMBOOM!

A series of explosions ripped across the top of the cruiser's hull, and the turrets went dead.

"Drop the fucking payload and let's go!"

"Copy! Ordnance is off the rails and… BOMBS AWAY, BOMBS AWAY, BOMBS AWAY!"

Zelda hastily yanked back on his stick and peeled away, trying to do his best to put enough distance between him and the bomb. Behind him, the bomb continued its journey towards the cruiser. Then -

There was a brilliant bright light, one so intense, Zelda almost thought a nuke had gone off as the MOAB exploded against the shield. A massive shockwave rapidly spread out from the center of the explosions, sending ripples across the entire length of the shield, like waves on a sea.

Of course, that hadn't been the only bomb to have exploded at that very moment, and looking around, Zelda could see five other identical explosions ripping through the top of the cruiser. The cruiser's energy shield visibly began torqueing, before it abruptly snapped.

"Shield is down! I say again, target 4-Charlie's shields are down! All sea and air batteries: FIRE!"

Zelda's radar lit up with friendly contacts like streetlights in a city at night, and he looked around to see all sorts of contrails filling the air: anti-ship missiles fired from Air Force Longswords in a holding pattern just over the horizon in the west, as well as submarine launched ballistic missiles fired from even further away in the east.

The cruiser's remaining pulse laser turrets instantly came to life and began shooting down the incoming missiles, but there were just so many of them, inevitably some of them made it through.

KABOOM!

There was another brilliant flash of light as the cruiser was struck head on by a missile, knocking even more turrets offline.

KABOOM! KABOOM!

More and more missiles began slamming into the cruiser, ripping right through it's armor and tearing it's superstructure to shreds. Explosions began rippling across the entire hull and a ton of ejection pods were getting launched before there was a sudden flash, and the entire ship simply exploded, sending a massive bubble of compressed air in all directions.

Zelda let out a huge sigh of relief as he watched the remains plummet to the ground below, but he didn't allow himself to relax. While this ship had just been destroyed, there was still one other to worry about.

"All call signs, this is Organ Leader: all aircraft, turning to heading one six zero, south southeast."

"Let's take out the remaining ship."

XXXXX

"Southern Front", Actium
May 7, 2545
1002

Marcus

"The first ship has been destroyed! All units, I say again: the first ship has been – "

"Marcus, LOOK OUT!"

Marcus jerked the steering wheel to the side, hard, as a fuel rod cannon came screaming in and slammed into the road, blowing a small crater into the surface. Seconds later, two Banshees came roaring in, whipping by overhead, flying less than twenty meters over the top of the highway.

The sound of machine gun fire followed them as Orlović unloaded on the Banshees, doing his best to try and shoot them down, but the Banshees continued to fly by, undeterred.

BRRRRRTTTTT!

A Warthog AA located on the other side of the sound wall unexpectedly opened up, tearing one of the Banshees into shreds. The Banshee burst into flames as it started to dissolve, but the aircraft held together long enough for the alien pilot to fly his crippled fighter straight into the Warthog, which didn't have time to move out of the way.

BOOM!

"Ah, JESUS!"

Marcus couldn't prevent the scream from slipping out from between his lips as the Banshee and Warthog exploded, showering the highway with debris, which included one black chunk that bounced off their windshield, leaving a nasty looking stain that also partially blocked their view.

"Wipers! Clean that off!" Dresden demanded and Marcus hastily activated his windshield wipers. "Billy! You alright!?"

"I NEED ANOTHER BOX OF AMMO!"

Marcus could hear Dresden letting out a loud grunt as he reached behind their seats to grab another box of ammo. With one hand, he passed it on to Orlović while the other, he reached out and grabbed the radio.

"Rastafari, this is Voodoo-6," he announced. "Say again your last, over?"

"Voodoo, Rastafari: the first ship has been destroyed!"

"Which ship? The one over the city or the one over the suburbs?"

"Uh… the one over the city, I think."

"Well, what freaking good does that do us, then?" Dresden snapped as he tossed the radio aside, sounding genuinely annoyed. "Marcus, Billy: our mission is still a go! We gotta get this anti-ship missile over to wherever it's needed, so they can take out that stupid remaining cruiser before it reaches the surface! That means, Billy, you gotta keep those fighters off of us!"

"HEY, I'M TRYING!" Orlović immediately protested. "BUT THIS THIRTY CAL JUST AIN'T CUTTING IT ANY LONGER! WE GOTTA UPGRADE OUR FIREPOWER!"

"If I could, I would! But for now, we gotta get off this damn highway," Dresden insisted. "We're too exposed here."

"THE HELL DO YOU WANT ME TO DO ABOUT IT?"

Dresden ignored him and instead, grabbed the radio once more. "6 Actual, this is 6-1, come in."

"Go, 6-1!"

"We gotta get off this damn highway; we're too exposed, over."

"Agreed!" Sergeant Scott replied. "You got a route in mind?"

"I might. Side streets; it'll put us right through the surrounding suburbs. Its gonna be tight, hauling a huge-ass trailer like this, but hopefully with all the buildings, it makes it harder for us to get hit, over."

"Got it. Do it. You lead the way, 6-1, rest of the convoy will follow. 6 Actual to all Voodoo-6 victors, be advised – "

"Marcus, take this exit!"

Marcus immediately spun his wheel to the right, flinching as the sound of more Banshees passing by overhead filled the air, following by the roar of more machine gun fire.

"FUCK YOU, YOU CUNTS!" he heard Orlović screaming as he fired on them, though from the sounds of it, he didn't actually hit anything.

"Conserve your ammo, Private!" Dresden barked. "Those Banshees are already buggering off, no need to try and draw their attention back to us! Keep your eyes peeled for the next flight! Marcus, as soon as we get off this ramp, keep going straight!"

"Copy!"

Marcus turned his steering around as the rig rounded the bend, only to almost drive straight into an abandoned car that was just sitting in the middle of the ramp.

"Ahh!" Marcus couldn't help but squeal as he reflexively twisted his wheel to try and avoid a collision, but Dresden grabbed a hold of it as all the weight of the trailer began to shift to one side.

"Easy!" he snapped. "Don't forget, with this missile, we're a lot more top heavy than we normally would be. Go easy on the turns, otherwise, you're gonna flip us!"

Rather than waste time apologizing, as he knew all that would serve to do was irritate Dresden, Marcus straightened his wheel and allowed the heavy HEMTT to smash into the car.

CRASH!

The entire cabin shook from the collision as they plowed into the vehicle, shoving it out of the way, and Marcus winced as he spotted the front windshield of the car go flying off, but for now, he was just glad there hadn't been anyone inside.

Gunning the engine, he cleared the wreck and took off down the street.

"Keep going straight for another five klicks, then we'll make a right," Dresden commanded. "Billy! Any sign of pursuit?"

"NAH! LOOKS LIKE THE BANSHEES ARE GOING AFTER ALL THE OTHER VEHICLES ON THE HIGHWAY FOR NOW!"

"Good, let's hope it stays that way! Hey, once we get into this town, we're gonna be surrounding on all sides by buildings. I don't know if there's anymore Skirmishers around, but Billy! Keep a sharp eye out!"

"MAN, I GOTTA DO EVERYTHING AROUND HERE!"

Ignoring Orlović's bitching, Dresden glancing in Marcus' direction. "Olsen: you good? How's she handling?"

"I'm definitely feeling the extra weight in the pedals," Marcus admitted. "Its affecting the steering a bit."

"Hopefully we won't have to carry this thing that much longer," Dresden said as he peaked out of his window, rifle in hand.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Marcus decided this was as good of a time as any to voice a question that had been bothering him since they picked up the trailer.

"Hey, Sarge?"

"What is it, Marcus?" Dresden replied, not quite impatiently, but not exactly kindly either.

"Is this missile really going to be enough to destroy that cruiser?"

"Destroy? Not by itself, no. Heavily damage? Absolutely, as long as the shields are down, which hopefully the Air Force will have dealt with by the time we get there."

Marcus absentmindedly nodded in understanding as the howl of more Banshees caught his attention and he glanced out his driver side window. In the distance, he could see Banshees firing plasma at the ground, but fortunately most of it appeared to be direction towards the vehicles still stuck on the highway.

"Where the heck are all these Banshees coming from? That cruiser?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus saw Dresden shaking his head. "No. CRS-class cruisers carry no complement of fighters themselves; these fighters were probably sent down alongside it to make sure that ship made it to the surface intact."

"Ship sounds pretty important – what do you think its carrying, sir?"

"Probably reinforcements. How many though, who knows? Cruisers like that are warships, not troop transports, so they don't usually have the cargo space to hold too many people. But then again, who's to say the Covies didn't modify them somehow? We could be looking at anywhere between a small reinforced company of extra troops, or an entire regiment. Who knows?"

Marcus felt himself shivering in fear at that. He wasn't even fighting on the frontline, but even he knew that was the last thing they needed.

"That's why we gotta take out that ship, ASAP," Dresden added. "If we can kill most of those troops before they hit the ground, we can help save a lot of lives. Take this right!"

Taken off guard by the sudden change in topics, it took Marcus nearly a full minute to realize what Dresden had just said, but when he did, he hastily turned his wheel. Fortunately, Marcus still had the presence of mind to realize that trying to make a turn like that with the cargo they were hauling would be an extremely bad idea, especially at the speeds they were traveling, so he made sure to take the turn as wide as possible, taking advantage of the fact they were the only ones on the road. Which meant mounting the sidewalk.

Clang!

The sound of metal hitting the ground reverberated down the street as Marcus carelessly hit a light pole, knocking it over.

"HOLY FUCK!" Orlović yelped as he ducked inside to avoid getting hit. "What the hell, Marcus? You trying to kill me?"

"Orlović, stop bitching and get back on your damn gun," Dresden immediately ordered. "We don't know if we're the only ones in this town, and I'd rather we don't get jumped again."

"Though, seriously Olsen?" he added as Orlović got back onto his turret, grumbling under his breath the entire time. "Just 'cause there's no civilians around, doesn't mean we gotta hit everything in sight. This ain't a video game, you know?"

"Sorry," Marcus reflexively replied, but Dresden had already turned away so he could open his window in order to point his rifle outside.

With the howl of the wind rushing in, coupled with the sound of fighting in the distance, it made it somewhat difficult to hold a conversation, so Marcus didn't even try. Instead, he turned his focus to the task at hand.

Marcus didn't recognize the area they were currently driving through, but that was hardly surprising given how far south they were. Large, one to three story shops lined both sides of the streets, painted in bright colors in order to attract the attention of various pedestrians that might have been wandering by. Numerous parallel parking spots sat in front of the stores at the edge of the sidewalks, all of which were occupied by vehicles of all different shapes and models. On the sidewalks themselves, every few meters there was either a tree pot, occupied by a small tree minus its leaves because it was winter time, or a black bench for pedestrians to sit on and rest their legs.

All in all, it looked like a rather nice town, one that almost reminded Marcus of home, aside for one thing: it was completely devoid of life. Everywhere Marcus looked, he saw the telltale signs of hasty abandonment and evacuation – store front doors left wide open, cars left running, and personal items such as strollers, bags, and half eaten food were strewn all over the place, sitting in the exact spots they had been dropped.

In some ways, it made Marcus sad, to see what had clearly been a vibrant area at one point turned into a ghost town. At the same time, Marcus couldn't help but think back to the thoughts he had yesterday and earlier this morning, about how the Covenant had ruined all of his future plans, and he was struck by a sudden realization: if this town was any example, then his life wasn't the only one the Covenant had ruined. The only difference between him and the civilians that had once lived here being, Marcus was actually in a position to make the Covenant pay for their transgressions.

Marcus blinked as he found that epiphany left his head spinning, and so he was extremely glad when Dresden abruptly spoke up once more.

"Hang a left here, Marcus," he command.

"AND TRY NOT TO HIT ANOTHER FUCKING LIGHT POLE, DUDE!" Orlović demanded from above.

"Go down about ten blocks, then take a right," Dresden continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "That'll put us back on the highway, whereupon, we'll go another three klicks, then we'll exit once more. That should put us right by the area where Battery 'E' of No 176 Air Defense Squadron is deployed."

Even as Marcus went about executing Dresden's orders, he felt a shiver go down his spine. Back onto the highway. Where the Banshees were.

Great.

"Here we go boys!" Dresden declared as Marcus began making the final turn onto the ramp that would put them back on the highway. "We're about to reenter the danger zone – stay sharp!"

Sitting on the ramp already was a single Warthog utility vehicle equipped with the standard triple barreled "Gatling" gun. As Marcus watched, the Soldier manning the gun suddenly swiveled around and opened up on a flight of Banshees passing by overhead.

"Go, Marcus, GO!" Dresden encouraged and Marcus hurriedly floored the HEMTT, trying to make it down the ramp before the Warthog started to attract return fire.

BRRRTTTTT! tink tink tink!

The roar of the machine gun followed by the sounds of the brass casings bouncing off the HEMTT filled Marcus' ears as the convoy surged passed the Warthog. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure there was no oncoming traffic, Marcus happened to spot the Warthog also traveling forward down the ramp, keeping pace with the logistics convoy in order to not remain a stationary target as plasma began raking the road.

"COME ON YOU PRICKS!" Orlović bellowed at the top of his lungs as he opened up, adding his fire to the Warthog's. "LET'S GO!"

With brass raining down from all directions, the only thing Marcus could do was huddle down deeper in his seat and drive faster. He jumped when Dresden suddenly fired a few burst out his window, but Marcus didn't know what he was shooting at until a barrage of plasma sprayed across the road a few meters in front of them and, glancing out his window, Marcus could see a couple of Banshees pulling out of a strafing run, several hundred meters high in the air.

Without warning, one of the Banshees abruptly exploded as it was struck by a missile, causing the remaining one to veer off and go fleeing in the direction of the horizon. Seconds later, the roar of jet engines filled the air before two SkyHawks came rocketing by, in pursuit of the fleeing Banshee.

"FINALLY! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THE AIR FORCE DOING, TAKING A NAP!?" Orlović demanded to know.

"Nah, I rather they focus their attention on that damn cruiser! I mean, look at it!" Dresden yelled back, jabbing his hand forward and with a start, Marcus realized the dot which he had assumed to be nothing more than a speck of dirt on the windshield was actually steadily growing by the minute, and it was getting to the point where Marcus could begin to make out the purple colored hull. "It's getting too close! We gotta get this missile over to that battery! MARCUS!"

"On it, Sarge!" Marcus yelled as he jammed down on the accelerator and started up the exit ramp.

Leaving the highway, Marcus immediately spotted a large open field just off to his right where three massive mobile missile launchers and a mobile radar unit, all covered in camouflage netting, sat roughly a hundred and fifty meters apart. Surrounding the launchers and forming a rough perimeter, were a handful of Warthog AA vehicles, as well as at least two, HEMTT mounted M95 "Lance" turrets.

"Those are our boys!" Dresden yelled over the increasing sound of machine gun fire. "There should be a road somewhere around here; take us to that fire control vehicle in the center there, Marcus; let's figure out where this missile needs to go!"

Marcus nodded and pulled off the road. Finding a set of tire tracks that had been dug into the snow, presumably by all the vehicles currently occupying the field, Marcus headed in the direction of the radar, pulling to a stop with a loud screeching of brakes.

Dresden hurriedly removed his safety harness, but before he could get out, an Air Force officer came running up to them.

"FINALLY! Where the hell have you guys been?" the Captain demanded to know. "You know what? Never mind! Take this missile, and head to that launcher! The rest of your platoon will resupply the others!"

"Yes, sir!" Dresden yelled out, re-buckling his seatbelt. "Come on, Marcus, let's roll. Orlović! Conserve your ammo – let the Rock Apes take over! Get in here!"

Marcus jammed down on the accelerator as Orlović shimmied down from the turret.

"Shit, I'm burning through ammo fast and I don't even think I hit much," he admitted as he began digging through their ammo cans in the back seat. "We really need to upgrade, Sergeant – even if I do hit something, it hardly does shit."

"Keep an eye out for any wrecked vehicles that have a twelve point seven intact," Dresden commanded. "Doubt the armory has any, so we'll probably have to salvage some. In the meantime, let's dump this missile and get out of here."

Marcus nodded and headed towards the launcher, only to slow down when he spotted an airman running towards them, gesturing wildly at them. Popping open his door, Maris waited for the airman to catch up.

"Pull your rig alongside our launcher!" the Airman demanded. "We'll take the missile directly from your trailer, and load it into the rails!"

"You got it!"

Marcus deftly maneuvered the HEMTT into position before throwing the parking brake on. He started to unbuckle his seatbelt, but Dresden patted his shoulder.

"Hold tight," he ordered. "Air Force will handle it."

Glancing over his shoulder, Marcus spotted the missile crew scrambling over their trailer, hurriedly removing all of the tie down straps in order to move the missile, and he relented.

At first, Marcus figured the loading and unloading process wouldn't take long. After all, it only took a couple of minutes for them to get loaded. But after the first few minutes ticked by and the air force crew hadn't even finished unfurling the crane they needed, Marcus suddenly realized this entire process would probably take a lot longer time than he originally anticipated.

He wasn't the only one to notice.

"Hey, Tech Sergeant!" Dresden suddenly yelled at the Airman that originally directed them. "How long is this going to take?"

"It takes about ten minutes to reload!" the Technical Sergeant yelled.

"'Ten minutes?' You got to be fucking kidding me!" Orlović immediately exclaimed, causing the Tech Sergeant to glare at him.

"This is a very delicate procedure, Soldier!" he snapped before he suddenly looked skyward. "Shit! We got multiple flights of Banshees, inbound. They must have seen you guys pull up!"

"Where's the top cover? Where are our fighters?" Dresden demanded to know.

"Most of them are either getting reloaded, or they're working on bringing down that cruiser's shield!"

"Great," Marcus heard Dresden grumble under his breath. More loudly though, "Sergeant, there anything we can do to help speed this process up?"

"No, but you can run out ammo to the AAs! Warthog three is running low!"

With that, the Sergeant disappeared, as the howl of Banshees slowly began to fill the air.

"Damn, we're a sitting duck here," Dresden said as he hurriedly unbuckled his harness. "Gotta make sure those AAs keep firing, keep those Banshees off our backs! I'll stay here in case they need us to move or something; you two run the ammo out!"

"Got it! Come on, Marcus, let's move!"

Marcus bobbed his head as he shoved his door open and hopped out of the cab, Orlović close behind. As he shut the door, he saw Dresden shuffling over and taking his place in the driver's seat.

"Hey! Where's the ammo for the AAs!" Orlović yelled at the airmen as they ran over to the radar vehicle.

"On that pallet over there!"

The airman pointed at a pallet full of ammo cans sitting under a camo net nearby.

"Okay!"

Marcus and Orlović rushed over to the pallet as the sound of rockets launching filled Marcus' ears, and he glanced around to see a volley of missiles departing from their tubes as the Lance turrets opened up on targets in the distance.

"Man, I can't believe the Air Force is making us do their bitch work again," Orlović complained even as he grabbed a handful of cans. "Second time in two days!"

Marcus silently nodded in agreement. He, too, remembered the supply run they had done for some Air Force SAMs deployed by the airport early yesterday morning. Even though it was less than a day ago, at this point, Marcus had been through so much, it felt more like years.

This time though, Marcus was determined to do things right, one of which was to make sure he had his rifle on him just in case another Covie dropship crashed nearby. Fortunately, he had remembered to grab it from the HEMTT before he had left, so he quickly draped it around his shoulders and pulled the sling tight so that it was strapped across the front of his chest, leaving his hands free to grab two massive cans of ammo.

"Ready?" Marcus nodded. "Then let's go!"

They were just about to head out across the snow covered field when all hell abruptly broke loose as every single AA gun surrounding the field unexpectedly opened up.

BRRRTTTTBOOOMBOOM!

Marcus automatically glanced skyward to see Banshees fast on approach. The AA Warthogs were rapidly flooding the air with lead in an effort to deter them, but by the looks of things, the Banshees were flying just outside the engagement envelope of the AAs, so they were able to avoid getting hit. Still, as long as they deterred the Banshees from getting too close, then Marcus supposed it was worth it.

"Marcus, stop gawking and move!"

Marcus jumped and took off after Orlović as the guns surrounding them continued to unload into the sky. However, it wasn't enough to hold back the Covenant forever.

He and Orlović were about halfway to the first gun when he began to feel the howl of an incoming Banshee against his skin, and Marcus didn't even bother waiting for confirmation: he immediately dove for cover onto the ground.

"INCOMING!"

FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!

Marcus reflexively covered his head with his arms as the Banshees open fired with their cannons, raking the field with plasma and sending gobs of half-melted snow and dirt in all directions.

SWOOSH!

Feeling the rapid change in air pressure against his back as the Banshees rocketed by, Marcus looked up, only to see another two Banshees inbound. The lead Banshees promptly fired a fuel rod.

BOOM!

The ground shook as one of the Warthogs just off to their right went up as it took the fuel rod cannon directly to their hood. Marcus could see a dark object getting hurtled straight up into the air like a top, and he had a feeling that it was actually the gunner's body and not a piece of debris like he so desperately hoped it was, and the sight both simultaneously left him sick to his stomach and quaking in his boots.

He wasn't able to dwell on the feeling for long though.

"Dude! We ain't got no cover out here! We gotta go!"

Marcus took a deep breath.

"Yeah, okay! I'm right behind you!"

Without a second glance, Orlović surged to his feet and took off running. Taking a moment grab the cans, Marcus hurriedly moved to follow.

FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!

The roar of plasma cannons sent Marcus diving for the ground once more, and not a moment too soon as plasma chewed up the ground all around him, leaving him soaked to the bone but by some miracle, completely unharmed. He risked looking up to see a Banshee pulling out from a strafing run, only to get struck by a missile one of the Lance turrets fired.

The missile struck the Banshee in the left stabilizer, setting it a blazing but failing to knock the aircraft out of the sky. Nevertheless, Marcus could see it losing altitude as the Covenant pilot struggled to pull away, but it was too late: at that point, the aircraft was low enough to be engaged by the Warthogs and the vehicle was quickly torn to shreds.

Seeing his opportunity, Marcus surged to his feet and took off once more, but before he could take more than a few steps –

"Olsen, LOOK OUT!"

Marcus glanced skyward and let out a loud yelp as he automatically dove to the side, just as a huge chunk from the burning Banshee came crashing down into the ground right next to him, leaving an impressive looking crater.

"Why does it feel like everyone is shooting at us!?" Marcus yelled at Orlović.

"We might be the only targets they can see!" Orlović yelled back. "We gotta get under some cover! On three, we book it for that Warthog, and we don't stop for nothing, got it?"

Marcus missed where Orlović pointed, but he nevertheless nodded in understanding.

"Alright! One, two… three!"

Marcus launched himself to his feet and just took off running, not even pausing to see if Orlović was following. All around him, all he could hear were more Banshees inbound, and the realization made him run even faster.

"What the… not that one, you dumbass!"

Orlović suddenly yelled over the radio and, looking around, Marcus belatedly realized Orlović had been running towards the Warthog directly in front of them, whereas Marcus had somehow gotten turned around, and was running towards the Warthog that had been just off to their left.

Feeling a sudden surge of panic at being left behind, Marcus automatically started to turn around, when a fuel rod landed in the middle of the field less than twenty meters away. The shockwave ripped through the ground, knocking Marcus flat onto his ass.

"Fuck! Thiiisss!" Marcus yelled as he got up and just took off running for the Warthog he had originally been headed towards.

As he got closer, he could see two guys positioned around the Warthog just under the camo net: one manning the gun, while the other was hunched over taking shelter just behind the rear bumper of the 'Hog.

Marcus immediately headed for the second guy.

"Ammo!" he called out, completely out of breath as he dropped to the ground right next to the man. "I got ammo!"

The other man turned around and gave Marcus a look of pure shock. "You just ran across the entire open field? In the middle of an air attack?"

Marcus nodded.

"To supply ammo for a gun that didn't need it?"

It took Marcus a couple of seconds to realize what the man had said but once he did, he felt like crying. All this for nothing?

The other man must have noticed the expression on Marcus' face because he immediately said, "You know what? Never mind. We could always use more ammo. Give me that!"

Marcus gratefully handed the two cans over to the man, and dropped to his knees behind the Warthog in order to catch his breath. As the other man darted around to the other side of the Warthog, Marcus looked around. He had dropped off his ammo. Now what? Wait… was he really going to have to run back across the open field!?

KABOOM!

A ringing noise instantly filled Marcus' ears as something exploded right in front of the Warthog, showering the entire vehicle in dirt and melt ice as well as causing it to lurch back and smack him in the back of his helmet. As he pitched forward, something heavy fell off the rear of the 'Hog and almost landed right on top of him, only narrowly missing him by a hair.

Coughing, Marcus laid there for a moment, before forcing himself to get back up. In a slight daze, he looked around the Warthog to see a fuel rod cannon projectile had exploded less than a meter in front of the vehicle, hitting the nose of the Warthog with a deluge of shrapnel. There were pockmarks all over the hood, and the windshield appeared almost as if someone had taken a shotgun to it, filling the normally bulletproof glass with needle sized holes and spider web cracks.

As Marcus gaped at the damage, the ringing in his ears slowly began to fade, only to be steadily replaced by a soft choking noise. It was also at about this time Marcus realized the Warthog's gun had stopped firing, and with a growing sense of dread, Marcus felt like he knew why.

Slowly, he glanced at the object that had fallen off the Warthog and almost landed on him a few seconds ago. Sure enough, it was the gunner.

"Oh, shit!" Marcus yelped as he scrambled over to the fallen man and started looking him over.

The man had taken a bucket full of shrapnel and plasma to the head, causing the man's face to swell up, making the man look more alien than human. Blood was oozing from his various wounds, including from one hole right in the middle of his throat, hence the choking.

However, even as Marcus stared at the man, helpless and completely lost as to what he should even do, the man abruptly went limp.

"No, no, no, sir?" Marcus said as he frantically began patting the man's shoulder. "Stay with me!"

He placed two fingers on the man's neck, using the trick Dresden had shown him a couple hours ago to figure out if someone was dead or merely unconscious, and to his alarm, he couldn't find a pulse. Desperately, Marcus hastily removed his helmet and placed his ear near the man's nose, to figure out if he could even hear the man breathing, but even that was missing.

"Oh no!" Marcus wailed. He glanced around to the side of the Warthog where the other airman was kneeling, messing around with the cans of ammo. "Hey! Sir? I think he's dead!"

The other man didn't react, and Marcus wasn't sure if it was because he couldn't hear him, so Marcus leapt to his feet and dashed over to the man.

"Sir…?" Marcus started to say as he placed his hand on the man's shoulder to try and get his attention, only for the man to bonelessly topple over. To Marcus' horror, the man had been drilled right between the eyes by a small stream of plasma, killing him instantly.

"Oh my god!" Marcus gasped as he stared into the dead man's open eyes. "Oh my god!"

He frantically looked around, trying to figure out if there was someone nearby who could help him, but these two men had been the only ones here. What was he supposed to do now, just leave? However, the Covenant attack was still ongoing and, looking back, Marcus could see the Air Force crew was still working on unloading the missile from his HEMTT. They needed more time.

But… how?

Marcus automatically looked up at the large machine gun on its mount over his head. Climbing to his feet- flinching as another something exploded nearby – he pulled himself onto the back of the Warthog and quickly checked over the gun. He was no expert, but the gun seemed to be in good working condition and was still loaded.

Could he…?

Experimentally, he grabbed the grips. The machine gun was heavier than he expected, but Marcus found he could still rotate it around with relative ease.

Feeling a bit more confident in himself, Marcus went ahead and gripped the gun more firmly, shoving his shoulders against the braces and looking around. Gun and shell fire were still filling the air, trying to knocking out the remaining Banshees, but there was definitely less of it than before, allowing the Banshees to fly relatively unimpeded. Marcus spotted one Banshee flying towards him, and he quickly swiveled around, took aim…

… and pulled the triggers.

BRRTTTT!

The machine gun roared to life, spitting rounds into the air at over a thousand rounds per minute! The recoil completely took Marcus by surprise, as well as the sheer noise, causing him to damn near paint a silhouette around the Banshee instead of hitting it on directly. The Banshee didn't seem to notice however, and continued to fly blithely along its chosen path, and Marcus hurriedly released the trigger in order to regain control of the massive weapon. Re-sighting his target, he fired again.

BRRRTTTT!

Marcus felt his entire body shake and the world beyond his narrow gun sight turned into a blur as he struggled to tame the devastating weapon. Once again, he failed to hit his target, but this time he could see his rounds coming closer and closer. Adjusting his aim, Marcus mentally prepared himself to pull the trigger once more, but unfortunately his firing had attracted the attention of someone else.

The howl of an inbound Banshee was the only warning he had and Marcus swiveled his gun around just in time to see another two Banshees open fire on him with their cannons. Without thinking, Marcus immediately held down on the trigger, sending a stream of bullets back.

BRRRTTT!FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!

The Warthog's suspension let out a loud groan of protest as the entire vehicle was raked with plasma fire, but the metal gun shield mounted on the front of the gun protected Marcus from the worst of it as he laid into the trigger. The two Banshees went screaming over Marcus' head and he roughly spun his turret around to chase them, but then he immediately spotted another Banshee flying by at a much lower altitude and he rapidly switched targets.

"Die you stupid Banshees, die!" Marcus roared at the top of his lungs, watching as his tracers skip through the air just behind his target. He tried to reposition his sights to just in front of the Banshee, but the alien plane was flying just too fast for him to catch up and at any case, Marcus spotted another Banshee flying straight at him and he hurriedly switched targets.

"Come on!" he roared as he unloaded. "You want some of this!? Aghhh!"

FWOOZFWOOZFWOOZ!

With a sense of reckless courage he didn't even know he possessed, Marcus held his ground as the Banshee opened up on him with everything it had, while Marcus did the same. For a moment, it became a race to see who would give in first, Marcus or the Banshee pilot, and just when Marcus was about to lose his cool –

BOOM!

Heavy shells from one of the HEMTTs struck the Banshee in it's gravity pod, sending the plane spiraling out of control. Marcus swung his turret around as he tracked the Banshee on its journey to the ground, and was able to see the Banshee as it plowed into the field a couple hundred meters away and skid along the ground a few dozen meters before coming to a complete stop. It didn't explode though and, remembering what had happened yesterday, Marcus brought his gun around with a grunt and fired on the wreckage.

He could see his tracers punching right the Banshee's light armor and out the other side, where they skipped off into the distance, but Marcus didn't relent until he spotted the cockpit area bursting into flames. Satisfied, he started to turn away when the wreckage abruptly exploded!

"YEAH!" Marcus couldn't help but cheer. That was one down, but unfortunately there was plenty more where that came from.

He briefly looked at his gun to see how much ammo it had left, but unfortunately he had no idea how this thing worked and at any case, another pair of Banshees passing nearby prevented him from looking too closely.

Bringing his turret around, Marcus aimed at the lead Banshee and open fired.

"Come on!" Marcus cheered as the recoil caused his teeth to rattle and his body to shake. "Come on! Yeah!"

He could sparks flying from where his bullets were hitting, causing the Banshee to break off, but all Marcus did was switch his fire to the second one..

BRRTTTTTTTTTT!

Marcus just held down on the trigger. He could see the end of all three barrels of his turret beginning to glow orange, and the waves of heat rising off them were actually beginning to obscure his sightlines, but Marcus didn't let up. Not until the Banshee burst into flames.

BOOM!

The Banshee promptly exploded, sending debris raining down onto the ground below!

"YEAAHHH!" Marcus cheered. "TAKE THAT YOU STUPID ASSHOLES!"

Even as Marcus celebrated, he couldn't help but be a little surprised by how violent he was sounding yet, at the same time, he couldn't stop himself: there was something so exhilarating, firing such a heavy weapon and having it simply melt the Covenant away.

"All units, this is the FDC: be advised, missiles firing in five! Four!"

Marcus jerked around and glanced in the direction of his HEMTT. By the looks of it, the Air Force crew had finally loaded their missile and was preparing to fire. Marcus could see them dashing into a small shelter nearby and slamming the door shut, and he let out a loud yelp as he leapt off the back of the Warthog and took shelter underneath. He wasn't sure he was close enough to the point he would get hit by the exhaust of the missile launch, but it wasn't something he wanted to risk.

"…one! Missile away!"

There was a tremendous and bone rattling roar as all three mobile missile launchers fired their newly loaded missiles. A cloud of smoke quickly blanketed the entire field, but as it began to dissipate, Marcus couldn't help himself: he peeked out from under the Warthog and watched as the missiles sped towards the massive ship that was just hanging in the air.

A couple of Banshees sped after the missiles, as if trying to intercept them, however the missiles were just travelling too fast for the fighters to catch up. Then, before Marcus even realized it, the missiles slammed into the ship.

Even from this distance, Marcus could see entire sections of the ship get torn off and go plummeting to the ground below. A huge plume of black smoke started to rise into the air, and Marcus could see the cruiser's engines flaring as the ship tried to maneuver out of the way of more incoming missiles, but it had no chance: the missile hit the cruiser dead on, knocking it out of the sky. The ship started to go plummeting to the earth, but before it could even get close, there was a brilliant blue flash.

Boom!

The explosion rattled the ground and Marcus hurriedly climbed to his feet in order to watch the remains of the ship go crashing into the ground with a self-satisfied smile on his face. Maybe he didn't actually do much, but he couldn't help but feel like he had contributed to the destruction of that ship.

BwAAP!

Marcus jumped at the sound of the horn behind him, and he whirled around to see Dresden and Orlović pulling up in the HEMTT behind him.

"Marcus!" Dresden yelled. "Get in! We gotta go!"

Marcus glanced around. The bodies of the former Warthog crew were still lying on the ground beside him.

"But what about these guys?" he protested.

Before Dresden could say anything, a Warthog ambulance suddenly pulled up aside the HEMTT, and a couple of medics hopped out and ran past Marcus in order to attend to the bodies lying on the ground.

Satisfied the dead were being treated appropriately, Marcus dashed over to the HEMTT and hopped into the passenger seat. As they took off in the direction of the highway, Dresden declared, "Saw what you did, Private. Good work with the turret."

"Thank you, sir," Marcus beamed, though at the reminder of the turret, he quickly glanced outside however it would have appeared at surviving Banshees had opted to retreat in the face of the loss of their ship. "Um… where are we going?"

"Back to base to get more supplies," Dresden distractedly replied.

"But…" Marcus quietly protested. "We destroyed the ship. Didn't we?"

Dresden's face was drawn and grim. "Not before they were about to unload most of their cargo. Plus, those Zoomies were targeting the cruiser's engines, and not their reactor core like they should have: a lot of the Covenant crew would have had time to make it to escape pods or survived the crash."

"With that influx of reinforcements, we're definitely going to have our work cut out for us"

And with that grim pronouncement, the team head back towards base.

In the background, the fighting continued.

---

Translations

French

"Amber! Qu'est-ce s'est passé?"

("Amber! What happened?")

"Je ne sais pas! Quelque chose a explosé, et maintenant y'a un feu!"

("I don't know! Something exploded, and now there's a fire!")

"Putain! On y va alors, Eddie!"

("Fuck! Let's move it, Eddie!")

(*French translation was provided by my sister, so many thanks to her.)

Italian

"Rossi! È ferito, male!"

("Rossi! He's hurt, bad!")

(*Translation done via Google, so it might be wrong, which is deliberate.)

Spanish

Culero = either means "coward" or "asshole" depending on which Hispanic country you're from

Ándale = let's move

"¡Hijo de puta, nunca piensas!"

("Son of a bitch, you never think!)

(Translation provided by, well, me, but my Spanish isn't the best, so, could be wrong.)

---

1. MOAB: this is probably not the most practical or even appropriate usage of this bomb, but heck, MOABs are cool in Call of Duty, so why not? This particular bomb is not from canon, btw, but of my own creation.

Now, as far as I'm aware, the lifting capability and bomb bay dimensions of a Shortsword bomber have never been given, so who knows if a Shortsword is even capable of carrying one (IRL, MOABs are delivered via C-130 cargo plane due to their size,) but since Shortswords exist, I'm trying to use them as much as possible so perhaps in the future, they've built smaller bombs that had just as much yield.

Oh, and in case anyone is wonder, the "GBU" of the name is derived from the way the USAF names their bombs, and it simply stands for "guided bomb unit."

Author's Notes

As I mentioned back in my author's notes for chapter 38, a Halberd-class destroyer like the UNSC Gabrielle technically has two MACs, however for the sake of this story, I'm saying the Gabrielle is an older variant of the ship and only comes equipped with one MAC.

Also, now that the Gabrielle is taking a more prominent role in the story, I suppose now is as good of a time as any to explain what I had in mind behind the origins of the name.

I'll admit, when I first started this story a year and a half ago, I had some dramatic and elaborate story planned for the history of the UNSC Gabrielle, but things have changed since then and I kind of decided it's not that big of a deal anymore. So, here's the short version: the UNSC Gabrielle is supposed to be named after an OC, a UNSC Navy sailor named "Gina Gabrielle" who would have been awarded the UNSC Legion of Honor in August of 2495 (so, long before the events of this story.)

I doubt anyone remembers because of how long it's been, but at the start of the story, I had complained about what I perceived to be a general lack of creativity when it came to UNSC ship names, and that I felt Bungie and 343i could have added just a bit more to the Halo universe if they had named their ships similar to the way some navies (like the US and French) named their ships. Basically, after prominent battles and war heroes. After all, the UNSC has been around for nearly 400 years by the time the games are set – surely they had all sorts of campaigns, battles, politicians, commanders, and heroes they could have named their ships and installations after?

Now, I'm not saying I don't believe this anymore, it's just, nowadays I'm less concerned about that sort of thing.

At any case, here's a small "Legion of Honor" citation I had written way back-when for this backstory:

"For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of her life above and beyond the call of duty.

While taking shore leave on the surface of the colony of Biko on 6 of August 2495 (standard military calendar), then-Intelligence Specialist Third Class Gabrielle happened to notice a man acting suspiciously on the crowded boardwalk of the port town of Mandelam. After several minutes of observation, Petty Officer Gabrielle was able to determine the man was wearing a suicide vest whereupon, without hesitation or concern for her own life, Petty Officer Gabrielle tackled the insurgent into the ocean. In the ocean, Petty Officer Gabrielle was able to subdue the insurgent, holding him underwater long enough until he drowned.

Following that, Petty Officer Gabrielle attempted to return to the shore in order to aid with the evacuation of the beach, however before she was able to arrive, the insurgent's vest was unexpectedly detonated remotely, and Petty Officer Gabrielle was instantly killed in the blast. However, her actions had delayed the explosion long enough for the vast majority of beachgoers to evacuate the area, greatly reducing the amount of fatalities that would have otherwise been taken.

Petty Officer Gabrielle's undaunted courage, fighting spirit, and unwavering devotion to duty in the face of certain death, are in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflect great credit upon herself, and upholding the highest traditions of the United Nations Space Command Navy."