Chapter 5
Location: Planet Dyonisis, Delta Xi System
Date: January 25, 2524
Time: 0230 Zulu
The weather had only gotten worse, and UNSC warbirds were effectively grounded for the time being. Visibility was down to twenty feet, but offensive operations had to continue. The time table that they were on was very specific, and the news media was always looking to get a big story on things going wrong. So a daring mission was planned for this night. The weather had effectively coated the ground in nearly two feet of snow over the past day and prohibited the ability of the UNSC and Insurrectionists to fight after their bloody first assault on their last bastion.
The UNSC Marines had taken a truly bloody nose that morning, six Marines had been killed, and twenty-eight wounded. They'd lost two Cougars, two Warthogs, and one of the Scorpions had its front right nacelle blown off entirely by an unlucky 155mm round hitting it directly. In the air things were also bad, they'd lost a Sparrowhawk to a hidden enemy anti-aircraft gun, however the pilots had made it out safely before its full combat loadout went off, totaling the attack helicopter beyond repair or salvage.
All they had to show for this was seven Innie vehicles, a tank, a few machine guns, and around thirty recovered bodies and eight prisoners. The entire battle had been a slugfest, but the Insurrectionists had failed in their mission to defend their first line of defense. Now the UNSC was looking to break through this stubborn defense and finish their operations here so they could move on to the really tough fighting on the mainland.
So for this mission the 4th Marine Battalion was tasked with moving forward under cover of darkness and a blizzard to liberate the town of Catania from URF terrorists and finally break through to New Messina. Making their way through the forest to the West of Catania, looking to flank and cut off the town's Insurrectionist garrison, was Company A of the 4th Battalion.
In Company A, in charge of a fireteam in that unit was Sergeant Kevin Sato, assigned to 2nd Platoon's 3rd Squad. He'd been given command of this fireteam after getting his promotion from corporal to sergeant a few weeks ago after their previous squad leader was selected for OCS and was transferred out of the company. He had a group of Marines he trusted, with the exception of their lone replacement, Private McAllister, who he'd selected as the fireteam's ammo bearer for their Automatic Rifleman, Corporal Collins. The last member of the squad was their grenadier, PFC Abdul. Sato himself bore the fireteam's only rocket launcher, as he didn't quite trust Private McAllister with such an important weapon yet.
Today he might be able to actually see what his replacement was capable of, as their mission tonight was set to put them all to the test. Company A was assigned to attack a series of Innie positions and cut off the town of Catania from getting reinforcements and eliminate enemy mortar and anti-aircraft positions. Second platoon was leading the way along a goat trail leading from their jumpoff point, a large farmhouse where an underground series of caverns kept the farmer's goats, cows, and sheep warm and fed with grass growing on the ground they were gathered on. At the moment each platoon was gathered together, a holographic image of their area of operations showing them what they were facing.
The image was an imposing one. The ridge they were on flowed downwards, covered by pine trees the whole way down to where it curled east, going in behind the town of Catania where a tunnel was dug through it and traffic was allowed through unimpeded on the only road in or out. A road was behind the ridge, joining the main street out of town where the tunnel ended at a three-way intersection with a gas station on the "T" of the intersection. There were three different red marks signifying Insurrectionist military presences on their map that they were responsible for. The first one was a small presence at the bend in the ridge with the mark of a platoon in red over a farmhouse much like the one they were in. The second one was another farmhouse, this one much larger, that had the symbol of a mechanized unit on their map. The last one was the largest and most imposing, a wine distillery built across the street from the gas station and spanned an area of twenty acres and was surrounded by a tall brick wall. This one had the symbol for a company and a headquarters symbol on its location.
"Gentlemen we're going after these positions on the enemy's flank tonight while the storm's masking our approach march. Our objective is simple, cut off Catania and eliminate enemy positions supporting their artillery, mortars and AAA," their lieutenant called out, "Second platoon will lead Able Company's approach to this first farmhouse, where aerial intelligence had pinpointed around thirty or forty Insurrection militiamen. Second platoon will destroy this garrison. Once that is done 1st, 3rd, and Weapons Platoon will leapfrog us and then move to this second position, another, larger farm, where a mechanized Innie QRF is in position to launch a counterattack against us. The Captain's hoping we can get the Innies out in open with 2nd Platoon's attack, and then the rest of the company can ambush and destroy them in detail. Yeah sarge?" he asked as one of the other fireteam leaders held up a hand to ask a question.
"No air support sir?"
"Negative," Lieutenant Clay replied, shaking his head, "Command doesn't want to risk any more air assets in this weather with active anti-air on the ground."
"What about reinforcements sir?" another man asked, "Is the rest of the battalion going to be moving or is it just us?"
"Dog and Echo Company are moving forward on their east flank and are hitting Catania from the north. The rest of the battalion is going to be providing fire support to keep the Innies in the town in place. Once we've secured their line of retreat Bravo is going to move in behind us and reinforce us from any counter attack."
"So we're going after the entire town tonight?" one of the men asked after Lieutenant Clay explained the overall plan.
"That's right, our time table says we need to get that town by daybreak. Every time we don't meet that time table is a victory for those fuckers down there. Now," he said now, getting back to their own company objectives, "Our last objective tonight is this wine distillery. It's believed that a full Colonial Guard company is in position here with mortars, vehicles, and anti-air assets. Orbital imagery has picked out this as the refueling base for a platoon's worth of Scorpions, five tanks. But we got one this morning and managed to disable another a few hours ago with a strike from Charlie Company. So there should only be three left."
"What about that Colonial Guard company sir?" Sato asked himself, "Have any of their vehicles or personnel been hit?"
He was right to be asking about that unit. Like UNSC Army and Marine Corps companies each Colonial Guard infantry company had least forty Warthogs of all variants ranging from the standard gun truck to troop carriers, medical hogs, anti-armor, anti-air, and command hogs. It was a lot of firepower to take on, and being able to knock out some of those vehicles was a very important matter for them.
"Command believes that they're underground in these garages here where this winery has its own company trucks that bring in grapes and export their product. According to building inspection records they have more than enough room to house these vehicles and unfortunately these Colonial Guard pukes aren't stupid, they won't expose themselves for shit. We'll have to dig them out of there ourselves."
"Great…" Sato grumbled to himself, knowing that Colonial Guard units were no push overs. So when they dug themselves in like ticks they were damned near impossible to take out without some form of heavy support.
"If that's all gentlemen we have places to be," Lieutenant Clay called out, "Squad leaders, prep weapons and ammo, we're moving out in ten minutes."
"Third squad on me!" Staff Sergeant Overstreet hollered to the twelve Marines in his squad, Sato and his three men among them. Once they were all gathered he got to business, "Okay, we're on foot tonight so make sure you've got everything you'll need. Everyone grabs more ammunition, no exceptions, AT guys, get an extra reload and for Christ's sake make sure you've got your CLS and extra batteries. In fact switch out your batteries now before we go, I know most of you haven't done that yet since we got up here."
"And make sure you've some MRE's," Sato added as well, "We might end up too close to get resupply so carry what you can."
"Okay get ready Marines, we're moving out in ten minutes! Let's go!"
The squad rushed outside grudgingly into the cold to get their stuff out of their Warthog and began packing it away in their packs and did some last minute checks of their weapons and gear. No one had any problems really, and they all started gathering around, shuffling to keep themselves warm.
"Able Company! Move out!" their Captain said loudly after the full company had gotten ready.
"Second Platoon move out," Lieutenant Clay ordered them, "Follow me, weapons ready."
The young platoon leader started moving up the snow covered trail with third squad right behind him. They were immediately boxed in by the pine trees which themselves had a thick white coat of snow. And it was only getting worse as the blizzard whipped through the forest, blowing cold wind and ice onto their armor and helmets' visors. Sergeant Sato had his rifle at the ready, aiming off to the right as they started going downhill towards the red marker labeled "Target Alpha". They couldn't see it through the thick forest as they got off of the trail, bent over much of the time, clearing out the backsides of every tree and bush and rock they came across, sweeping forward. As they got closer Sato saw a high rising in the terrain with thick brush and several trees and rocks.
"You think we can get eyes down on target from there?" he asked Corporal Collins.
"Probably could Sergeant. Plenty of cover too, we could provide fire support on target."
"Two-Three, Two-Three-Charlie, We're gonna get up on this outcropping and get eyes on Target Alpha," Sato said to his squad leader.
Sato was leading his fireteam along a rocky outcropping that he saw rose enough that he might be able to get on top of and then get a look at the farm house below them.
"Roger that Charlie, hold fire, don't do anything stupid. Mark any targets you can get eyes on," Staff Sergeant Overstreet responded quickly.
"All units are to now maintain operational silence," Lieutenant Clay ordered them, "We're getting too close now.
"Moving," Sato said quickly and then turned to his fireteam and proceeded to use hand signals.
He brought his hand out so that his fireteam could see it, with his fist closed this was a signal to go into a line abreast formation. He looked to his left and right and saw Corporal Collins and Private McCallister and PFC Abdul waiting to move forward up the outcropping. Once they were ready he waved his open hand forward and proceeded to move forward, picking his feet up carefully through the knee dep snow. His rifle was in his hands and against his shoulder. He'd placed a waypoint on the high ground and once they got there he was glad they got there.
Waving his fireteam to go prone he laid down in the snow, and carefully moved forward underneath a large pin tree's cone of needles. He pulled out his binoculars, and looked down at his target. What he was seeing was a fairly large farm building below him. The ridgeline forked out down below, and in the crook of that was the farm property. Sato was looking at it with his thermal setting from around a hundred and fifty meters away from the southeast and was around twenty meters above the farm building. It was built into the ridge itself, circling around the whole area to fully enclose the property with a curving building that opened up with an arch over a snowed over road with numerous tire tracks carved into the snow. A large sign was over the arch, with an artistically painted bushel of grapes on it. He could tell that this was no family farm, the building itself was way too large, being two stories out front where it crossed the fork of the two ridges and three stories where it was built into the ridge in a terraced pattern.
He could see that there were several long windows covered over with boards and tarps with a few sandbags and other pieces of cover around the balconies and the ground level decks. There was a pair of large metal doors that were closed tight and were definitely the entrances to the underground farmland. There were also targets, quite a few of them. His HUD illuminated them instantly, lighting them up as red human silhouettes. There were three Insurrectionists at the main entrance with a tall sandbag pillbox with an M247H Heavy Machine Gun inside with its barrel poking out of the slit, covered in snow. The three Innies were gathered around a barrel fire trying to keep warm.
There was a single Innie walking on top of the building and he could tell the man had a normal hunting rifle in his hand with a boxy scope that could have only been some sort of a night vision sight. He saw a symbol on his HUD that let him know his company and platoon commanders were tapped into his helmet camera and continued scanning. He knew his CO was using this as a way to map out their assault. They were on the farm's rear flank, almost on top of them, which meant that they'd have the advantage.
As he was watching he heard the low crunching of snow being stepped on looked over and saw Corporal Collins waving to him. The man looked to him, grabbed his arm, signaling that there were hostiles incoming. He then held his hand up with his thumb holding down his index finger, signaling that there were nine enemy gunmen, and then moved his arm in a path across his body, pointing in front of them.
A squad, he thought to himself, they've got a roving patrol out here. We'll need to deal with that.
He propped himself up carefully, watching down the path and saw the line of Innies walking calmly towards him on a goat trail through the trees. They were wearing white sheets over their coats with some wearing ammo vests and belts over those white sheets. They had a mashup of old and modern military weapons. A couple of them had makeshift or store-bought night vision goggles on their heads. He even recognized that one had taken a FLIR camera and had just made a goggle mount for it. Some had old MA5 AR's, a few had semi-automatic hunting rifles, one even had an old machine gun. Their faces were all covered, and seemed jumpy, they all had their guns in hand, ready to engage, but weren't shouldered.
More importantly, they weren't aware of the Marines' presence. Sato could see they were a mere twenty or thirty meters away, and closing. He had cover, concealment, high ground, and the element of surprise, there was no reason why his fireteam couldn't take care of this squad of Innies without any issue. They weren't militarily trained, that was for certain, they were grouped up, less than a few meters of space between them. The entire column extended ten or fifteen meters, easily small enough for each of them to be right in the middle of the fireteam's killzone. He wanted to deal with these guys.
"Able Two-Three Charlie, Able Two, take 'em out when they're in your killzone."
Sato nodded, responding with a blue roger symbol that went to his platoon leader's HUD, acknowledging the order. He adjusted the rocket launcher slung over his shoulder and checked his MA5C quickly before checking to see that his opponents were nearly in range for an ambush. He carefully keyed his comm, not wanting his fireteam to confuse a hand signal.
"Charlie, hold fire. We'll let 'em get closer before we take 'em," Sato ordered his three Marines, looking over at McCallister to be sure the greenhorn wasn't putting himself in an exposed position.
He wasn't, the young Marine rifleman was in cover behind a large boulder on his belly, facing the oncoming Innies highlighted on his HUD. With his rookie in place Sato turned to the enemy squad, which was now less than fifteen meters away and right below him. He could see all of them from front to back by now. Some were pointing their weapons up towards the small outcropping but weren't doing it because they had made the Marines. That was just the normal thing to do for this roving patrol. They were no fools, they knew that the Marines had the highest point on the ridge above them and were driving forward relentlessly.
However their lack of preparation was about to bite them in the ass for the first and last time. Sergeant Sato had his rifle aimed down at the leading Insurrectionist marching at the head of the column, knowing that leaders always led, and taking out the leader was a good start. He took a few deep breaths as he lined up his shot, and then squeezed the trigger.
He'd been aiming for the guy's head, and the red puff that erupted on the snow covered pine behind him let him know that his round had struck home. The Insurrectionist collapsed forward, dropping into the snow in a crumpled heap. Sato started moving his weapon to the right to engage the rest of the Insurrectionists and saw the next one get popped right in the chest as Private McCallister opened fire and hit the man with a three round burst. As the Innie dropped a ripping sound of fire from Corporal Collins's SAW lit up the rear of the column and raked it across the line of Insurrectionists, killing three of them immediately.
PFC Abdul then fired as well, striking another Insurrectionist in the shoulder and dropped him as well. As Sato fired at the third to the front Innie fighter the man was spinning towards them with a hunting rifle in hand and Sato fired laid onto the trigger, squeezing it several times and hit his target with a barrage of four rounds dead center in the guy's chest. The man threw out his arms as he stumbled back and fell against a low tree, causing snow to tumble on top of his body as he fell onto his back amongst the branches. McCallister fired again as Sato acquired the next target and both of them fired at the man who was trying to run for cover, but had six bullets strike him in the back as he ran and dropped to the ground and rolled onto his side. The final individual was struck by Collins with a quick burst as he took cover under a larger boulder but was not covered from Collins's position and the bullets passed right through coating the boulder and the snow on top of it red when he fell onto it and slid off.
"Tangos down!" Sato called out, sweeping the bodies with his weapon to check for signs of life only to see blood pooling into the snow signaling that if they weren't already dead they soon would be.
"Two-One and Two-Two advance on the farm, Two-Three cover fire!"
"Collins, lay down fire on that pillbox," Sato commanded his gunner as he adjusted himself to fire onto that farm complex and saw that there was a lot of life coming from there now.
He was hoping their ambush was fast enough that the enemy didn't see any of their muzzle flashes. And he was proven correct when the HMG down at the entrance began wildly firing all over the place with bright white tracers. Rifle flashes also started coming from the windows of the building as the Innies realized they were being attacked. Sato saw one particular window that had tracers coming from it and decided to fire into that.
He began firing controlled single shots into the building, aiming for the flashes he saw in the driving snowfall and figured out quite quickly he was going to have trouble adjusting his fire from here. The visibility just wouldn't allow it, even with modern imaging he was not really capable of seeing through this blizzard. However he knew Innies, and understood that the majority of them wouldn't stick their necks out for disciplined aiming if they were getting shot at by direct accurate fire. That was even more true when things bigger than bullets and grenades came into play.
A shrieking noise reached their ears and they all recognized its sound as friendly mortar fire from the weapons platoon. The two tubes began landing their sixty millimeter smoke rounds first, coating the entire area in a thick white fog, somewhat protected from the wind by the ridge above it. They saw four rounds land inside the compound and absolutely coat it with smoke before the HE hit the compound.
He saw the first two hit the entrance and the arch above it. Lighting it up with a flash amongst the white fog. A second after the flash came the crack of the explosions tearing up the facility. The incoming fire from the enemy was now considerably less impressive now that the mortars were dropping fire into the area and were doing so very efficiently. There was always a one-two punch from the mortars as they dropped down on top of the enemy compound in shortly spaced pairs of explosions. The flashes were vaguely illuminated for the infantry to watch as they fired at whatever flashes that they could make out, careful not to fire too rapidly.
"Two-Three advance," their platoon leader commanded third squad as their IFF tags closed in on the area and the risk of friendly fire became too great, "Breach that front gate."
"Two-Three copies," Sato's squad leader acknowledged rapidly as Sato got up from the spot he'd worn into the snow and slid down the embankment and waved his men to follow him.
They did so, careful to check the bodies they ran past to be sure they'd actually died. The fireteam was joined by the rest of their squad who rushed past them in a loose column, rushing down the same goat trail that the Innies had just come up. There was the occasional snap of a stray enemy round coming close but for the most part the run down the deep snow was uneventful and the twelve Marines soon stood at the exit to the forest with the road before them.
"Alpha on me, we're going up the left side of the road, Bravo parallel us in that ditch across the road, stay in defilade if you can. Charlie you're covering us. We'll cover you once we get to the pillbox," Overstreet ordered rapidly, poking his head around the corner quickly before he rushed off of the trail, weaving his way into the forest where he would be able to be in cover instead of rushing down the road itself.
Fireteam Bravo rushed down the trail and ran up to the road with Sato leading his own fireteam right alongside them as the firing continued from around them. He checked his HUD quickly and saw that first and second squads were spread out, moving down towards the farm from above so the platoon was hitting the compound from two sides at once. Sato also checked the pillbox and saw it was still firing, albeit in the wrong place entirely. There were two windows facing down the road and were broken completely as several Insurrectionists in each one fired wildly out of the window.
"Sato, we're goin' across," Sergeant Blake, Bravo's fireteam leader, informed him.
"We'll cover you," Sato said, waving Corporal Collins forward.
"Alright copy that," the older sergeant responded and then turned to his fireteam, "Smoke out on the right side of the road."
Immediately three smoke grenades went flying over the road and landed on the right side and popped out a light gray screen of smoke amongst the trees as an additional canister was landed on the snow-covered road and began hissing as it deployed its own smoke screen. Sato's SAW gunner nodded and patted Abdul on the shoulder quickly and moved in behind a tree and laid down and popped out his built in bipod and aimed towards the pillbox. Abdul ducked down a few meters to the left of him, aiming at the pillbox with his forty millimeter grenade launcher. Sato tapped McCallister and moved forward, ducking down behind a snow covered pile of dirt that was right next to the ditch against the road as the young rookie laid down to the left of him.
"Abdul, hit that pillbox," Sato commanded his grenadier.
"Firing!"
There was an almost indistinguishable pop from the man's grenade launcher as the HE grenade was launched. The round struck the front of the sandbag barrier on one of the corners with a flash and a cloud of gray smoke. The sandbags went flying and roof collapsed down on top of the man inside. Another forty millimeter then exploded against the wall above the window on the building on the left of the entrance.
"Good hit! See if you can get some more HE into those windows," he heard Collins command off to his left as Sato heard Sergeant Blake rushing across the road with his three other Marines right beside him.
Sato stood up as they did this, firing rapidly at the window on the right, sending bullets through the opening and effectively pinned down the enemy inside who dared not poke their heads out. He heard the rapid fire of his SAW ripping into the other window as McCallister poured rifle fire into the same window his sergeant was. Abdul loosed another grenade that went into the large window on the left and exploded inside with a dull thump and then another explosion in the right hand side building let them know that now was as good a time as any to rush the entrance.
"Let's go, move up!" Sato yelled out to his men and rushed over the dirt pile and slid into the ditch and began moving up in a low crouch with McCallister sticking to him like glue.
He looked stopped and leaned against the ditch and poked up and fired a quick three round burst into both windows. McCallister rushed past him, ducking down and then fired at the right building where he saw a doorway and much to Sato's surprise he saw an Innie in white collapse into the entrance. He then saw Collins and Abdul run to his left, diving to the ground once they were less than twenty meters from the front of the entrance. They fired rapidly as they provided additional cover fire for the other Marines and Sato rushed forward, deciding to get all the way to the wrecked pillbox on this rush.
He ran forward, hearing the snaps of the passing friendly bullets aiming into the enemy windows. However the incoming rounds ceased fire at his approach and he was now very relieved to see that they'd all started making a dash for the entrance two-by-two with half of each fireteam covering them. The sounds of battle were still roaring, but the enemy was so far not very impressive. Once McCallister joined him at the pillbox Sato carefully poked his head up and aimed his rifle into the center of the compound, saw nothing and then looked into the pillbox.
It was wrecked, with several sandbags on the ground within it and the M247H was toppled over on the ground. The gunner was gone however, having escaped death at the hands of the first forty millimeter. So Sato went looked towards the door to his right and saw the four men from Fireteam Bravo stacking up and preparing to enter the building. He could feel the warmth of the barrel fire behind the pillbox from where he stood, and made his way over to it.
There were two doors into the entrance on both buildings with the archway connecting them that was actually a walkway between the two buildings with sandbags and wooden planks acting as cover. He remembered seeing a sniper up there before they'd assaulted the position and decided to act on it. Corporal Collins and PFC Abdul were coming forward, weapons aimed up at the walkway and he decided to have them clear it.
"Collins, there was a sniper up there, frag it out," he said calmly, pointing up above him.
"Roger that. Frag out!"
Yanking a frag grenade out he tapped the button, arming it and then lobbed it up and onto the walkway with a metallic thud. A second later it exploded. If there was someone up there they were dead now. But the fight was far from over. He saw Bravo yell out they were tossing in a frag and the fireteam grenadier lobbed the weapon into the building. It exploded with a flash and a cloud of dust flew from the door and the four Marines ran inside. There were several shots as they came into contact with the enemy.
"Grenade!" Sato heard from the Bravo leader and actually saw the concrete staircase that the weapons rolled down from and exploded on the second to bottom stair.
The Marines dove into whatever cover they could but it was too late. The exploding fragments hit Sergeant Blake across his left side, hitting his armor mostly but one fragment struck him right in his unprotected armpit. Sato watched as two of his men ran to the stairwell with a frag of their own and tossed it up and into the laps of the Innie who'd wounded their sergeant. The panicked cries of three or four enemy ended with the concussive blast from the grenade going off amongst them.
"Man down! Sergeant Blake's hit!" someone yelled out as the other two Marines backed away from the stairs and covered the open doorway into an adjacent hallway.
"Charlie on me!" Sato commanded and rushed into the room, "Friendlies coming in!"
They were confronted with one of Bravo's men dragging Sergeant Blake behind the cover of an overturned desk as he grasped at his left armpit fuming through clenched teeth. They couldn't see his face through his balaclava and helmet goggles but the amount of blood coming from him looked to be pretty bad.
"Collins, Abdul, cover those stairs!" Sato ordered, and then turned to the other two members of Bravo's fireteam, "You two cover that door!"
His orders were followed as McCallister checked the bodies of three Insurrectionists lying in a line at the window and confirmed that they were dead along with two more Innies that were slumped in the doorway, having tried to get out as the Marines had entered. Sato then rushed to his fellow NCO and kneeled beside him as his own AT bearer started to treat his wound.
"You alright Sarge?" Sato asked.
"Fucking armpit Sato!" the man gasped out as the biofoam was administered directly and groaned from the painful process, "Of all the fucking places."
"Lucky sumbitch," Sato chuckled, seeing that if he was able to feel the pain and was tactically aware enough to talk like that he wasn't in dire straits, "You'll be headed to hospital for a few weeks."
"Ain't that nice?" Blake chuckled in pain, "Nice soft warm bed, hot food, maybe some fine Navy nurses."
"Talk like that and I might just shoot myself in the foot right now," Sato laughed, patting his friend's helmet before turning back to the more serious matter at hand, "You guys stay here. Charlie we're clearing upstairs."
Sato got to the bottom of the stairs, seeing the hole blown in the steps from the grenade blast and waited for the pat on his shoulder signaling his men were ready to proceed. Once Collins did that he began moving carefully up the stairs with his back to the wall on his left and aimed his rifle at the railing to his side. Thankfully there was a wall behind him but his ease ended when he saw a small hole in it.
"Kill hole!" he yelled as a burst of fire came out and a bullet strike him in the chest.
He felt what was like a major league fastball hitting him in the chest. The blow sent him into the stairs and knocked the breath right out of him. But he was lucky, the bullet shattered on impact with his chest plate and he pulled his rifle up and lit up the man behind the hole. He knew he'd probably killed the hostile, but couldn't be sure until he saw the body for himself. As he regathered himself he noticed that this room was once an laboratory of some kind with a wall of cabinets above a counter top with numerous glasses and scientific equipment. He could tell it was now used as something different altogether, a radio room. There were several rolling stools against the tables in the middle of the long room and could tell that it had been in use for quite a while. There were a few coffee machines and mugs on the counter, food wrappers were scattered around, and a few laptops were also on and in use.
He saw a pair of bodies of camouflaged Insurrectionists. Their clothes weren't military, they were civilian hunting gear with vests of an older design. They had old MA5B's on the floor near them, with blood pooling near their bodies. A black mangled part of the tiled floor was what had killed them, one of Bravo's grenades. There was shrapnel damage all over the walls and on the counters with several damaged pieces of equipment.
Sato moved forward, aiming for the little cubby above and behind the stairs where he'd gotten shot from. He saw the body of the identically armed individual against the wall with several bandages in his hands as he'd been leaning against the wall. He kicked the low caliber hunting rifle away from the body and saw from the appearance of it the Innie was definitely dead. Seeing the damage his rifle had inflicted he mused at the unfortunate fact this Insurrectionist was barely into his twenties.
"Room's clear!" Sato yelled as he turned his attention to a door leading into the rest of the building.
Already present were McCallister and Collins on both sides of the closed wooden door. Abdul was clearing the counters and securing the communications gear and laptops for intelligence purposes and stowing them somewhere safe so they could be recovered later and sent up the chain of command. The Marines quickly prepared to move into the adjacent hall, opening the door with Abdul and Sato aiming their weapons at anything on the other side. There was a blast from a shotgun that put a hole through the wooden door the moment that it began moving, sending wooden slivers flying from the fist-sized hole in the door. Abdul and Sato instantly started firing like mad from their rifles as another few bullets hit the door from the opposite side. Collins carefully opened the door with a few fingers pushing against the hinge-side of the door and signaled McCallister to throw in a grenade.
"Frag out!" the young Marine called out as he bounced the weapon off of the wall through the opening and then yanked the door shut before it went off and faced away from the door as everyone else did likewise.
A blast from the hall sent dust through the bottom of the door and blasted it off of its hinges and toppled down into the hall. The Marines immediately started rushing in, first was McCallister, then Collins, followed by Sato with Abdul right behind them. They came into a long curving hall with several doors along the walls on both sides of the hall. They saw several sandbags and tables and obstacles in the hall and immediately McCallister and Collins began engaging several Insurrectionists who were backing away from the hall.
They saw they were all equally equipped as the others, some with snow camouflage, some with hunting camo, all with obsolete or civilian weapons. McCallister shot the first individual in the chest several times as they tried dragging another wounded Innie into cover. Collins then fired a long burst into an obstacle where several Innies were scrambling to get to a defense together around ten meters away. They ducked down immediately, but one that was on the wrong side, trying to put up a table, was raked with bullets from Corporal Collins's SAW. The white clothed Insurrectionist fell against the barricade, knocking over a stack of sandbags as he fell to the ground.
However there was no return fire. The Insurrectionists had been too poorly prepared, despite knowing their enemies were coming. The ferocity of the Marines' assault had done its job, and now a white strip of cloth was seen through the settling dust being waved from one of the doors.
"We give up! Don't shoot!" the person waving the white flag called out.
"Throw out your weapons and come out of there!" Sato yelled, and then called out on his radio, "Two-Three-Charlie, we've got Innies surrendering."
"Able Two, get 'em out of there and secure those prisoners," his platoon leader ordered him.
By now several hesitant Insurrectionists were starting to walk out and threw their weapons onto the ground. He saw that around a dozen started coming out now, holding their hands up as they came towards the Marines. The Marine fireteam was right on them, yelling loudly, keeping the pressure up mentally to prevent them from acting on their own and thinking better of surrendering.
They were clearly defeated and shell-shocked, most of them were quite young but a few were from all over the age spectrum. Several of them had obviously been wounded, as the bloody bandages across their arms, legs, and torsos indicated. Their eyes were wide as they came forward, and were shoved down against the hall after the Marines cleared the nearby rooms, seeing nothing by a few sleeping bags and other miscellaneous items. The firing was starting to quiet down as the IFF signals showed that the other two squads began to clear the building on the opposite side of the compound.
"Looks like they're done Sarge," Collins said as the Insurrectionists were finally subdued.
"Looks like it," Sato nodded, getting a headcount of the prisoners in front of him, counting thirteen in total, "Two-Three-Charlie, thirteen prisoners secured."
"Very well Charlie, compound secured, friendlies are oscar mike, all squads gather your prisoners in the center of the compound."
As the remainder of Fireteam Bravo joined them and helped secure their prisoners with plastic cuffs the sounds of battle ferociously came to their ears. Mortar explosions and rockets hitting their targets signaled that the rest of the company had engaged the Insurrectionists from their next target location. The ambush seemed to be successful, as the glow of fires burning illuminated the horizon through the dark and the thick snow flurries. More than thirty Insurrectionist vehicle markers flashed from red to gray as the UNSC company eviscerated them entirely. The popping and tearing sounds of rifles and machine guns firing let the surrounding countryside know just how deadly the ambush must have been.
"Prisoners secured!" Bravo's second-in-command called out as the battle continued.
"Move 'em out!" Sato commanded as he got out of the way.
The Marines began another batch of yelling and rough handling of the Insurrectionist group as they forced them through a door to a walkway that led outside. They got them out, seeing that there were already a larger group of prisoners on their knees in a long line in the middle of the compound with several Marines watching over them. The prisoners were marched hurriedly in front of the other group of prisoners and were forced to their knees.
The courtyard was just large enough that a Pelican would have been capable of landing in the middle with a certain degree of confidence and the sounds of the familiar craft's jet engines let them know that there was a Pelican on its way down. The prisoners were stood up and moved to the open cavern entrances as the olive green aircraft began its descent. The wind became even more powerful as it got closer and its landing gear deployed right as it started dropping straight down. The Pelican softly touched down and the Marines now saw the red cross on a white field and knew this wasn't their prisoner transport, it was a medivac.
A trio of stretchers bearing wounded Marines, carried by four Marines each, was rushed outside to the waiting Pelican and loaded onto the bird. A trio of medical personnel was there to meet each one of them as their platoon's corpsman made the handoff and gave a breakdown of every wounded Marine's condition. Then a pair of civilians was rushed out with a Marine escort and loaded up onto the Pelican. They had been hostages, held there by the Insurrectionists to prevent UNSC airstrikes on their post.
"Two-Two and Two-Three on me!" their platoon leader called out, "Two-One will hold the prisoners here until MP's take over."
Sato saw the lieutenant rush out from the crowd with second squad right behind him and move towards the gate as the medivac bird took off. Staff Sergeant Overstreet and Fireteam Alpha joined him immediately, and Sato with his fireteam and Bravo fell in behind them. They left the compound in time to hear the much lessened sounds of battle ahead of them where a coat of dark smoke was rising from the destroyed Insurrectionist convoy above a glow or orange.
The two squads maneuvered down to the road, their lieutenant leading the way as the first burnt out Insurrectionist vehicle came into view. It was in a ditch to their right, burning like a roman candle. It was no military spec vehicle, being a simple pickup truck with a single M247 GPMG mounted on the cab. There were several bodies on the ground and in the ditch. Blackened pieces of ground signified where grenades had gone off, destroying the enemy infantry from above. They came to another pickup shortly behind the first one on its side, small licks of flame on the underbelly. A few more bodies were scattered on the ground and the platoon began checking them as they passed through the destroyed convoy.
After going past flatbed transport trucks with numerous bodies in the beds and nearby they came upon the end of the convoy. Here a trio of pickups was almost stacked on top of each other with bullet holes and gaping gashes blown out of the metal panels. They could see more than a dozen Innies were all in the middle of this mangled mess, obviously having attempted an escape. The smell of burnt vehicles, and more pungently, burnt flesh, hung over this killing field despite the raging weather. It was enough that the Marines didn't want to be here.
It wasn't just the fact it stunk and the sight of more than fifty enemy bodies was sickening, it was a bad place to be from a tactical standpoint. The glow of the fires on most of the vehicles illuminated the Marines as they passed the bodies, checking for signs of life. Despite finding no live hostiles the Marines had to check, in the event that one was able to provide any intelligence that would be useful.
"We're heading to the ridge across the road," their platoon leader called out.
The Marines rushed forward, eager to get into cover and on top of high ground. Their boots sank into the snow and their platoon sergeant led the way up, blazing a trail through the snow. They could hear their boots crunching the snow beneath them but they also heard something else. A rumbling from a familiar vehicle.
"Got ears on a tank," someone called out over the radio.
"Get eyes out," Overstreet ordered as they got to just below the lip of the ridge.
"Oh shit hostile tanks!"
Sato looked down towards the road they'd just come from in time to see a pair of Scorpions roaring towards them with a long line of Warthogs behind them. These weren't URF, these were Colonial Guard troops with a lot of firepower coming right towards them. The company was split in two, and they were without the UNSC's most important tactical asset, air support. The Insurrectionists knew that, and were intent on exploiting it.
"Oh God there goes first platoon!" Abdul cried out.
A pair of concussions blasted the hill the rest of the company was on top of. He could see three Marines were right on top of the first flash and cloud of dust and their IFF's winked to black, their bio-readings triaging them instantly as dead, or soon to be dead. Four more winked yellow and red around the explosion as machine guns started ripping into the Marines and the Insurrectionist company of forty Warthogs pulled up and started engaging them. Another Scorpion fired on the hill, killing another Marine and wounding three more as the one-sided battle continued. Sato knew he was going to need to deal with those tanks, and put down his rifle and unslung his dual-barrel Jackhammer Rocket Launcher.
"Clear back-blast!" Sato yelled, kneeling in the snow and sighted in on the closest tank, aiming for the top of the tank's crew compartment, knowing that he'd be able to penetrate there. He heard a shuffling noise from behind him.
"Black-blast clear!" McCallister said calmly.
"Rocket!"
A bang and then a hiss let them know that they'd fired off a rocket. The red of the motor went up and then fell down thanks to the power of gravity. The shaped-charge warhead struck right behind the crew compartment, exploding on top of the tank, igniting the ammunition inside the armored vehicle. It was a catastrophic kill. At first there was a flash and a cloud of smoke from the impact, and then the tank began burning from the crew compartment as the vehicle froze in place. Then a white geyser of flame blew out of the top of the tank, roaring out and causing the Innies to realize they'd lost one of their most deadly weapons.
"Good hit!" Collins called out in joy from next to Sato before he opened fire on the column of Insurrectionists who now had a full platoon of vehicles rushing forward to face this new threat on their flank.
Another rocket went straight out towards the other tank, fired from Fireteam Bravo. The rocket landed long, striking against the wheel of one of the enemy Warthogs, blowing it off, and causing the vehicle to be abandoned by the gunner and the driver. A second later the same man fired again, loosing his second rocket into the tank. But his rocket landed short of the intended target, striking on the nose of the tank almost harmlessly.
"Dammit!" the man yelled as he ducked away, digging into his pack for his reload of rockets.
"I got it!" another rocketeer from Fireteam Charlie yelled and kneeled down next to Sato as he started sighting in. But as soon as he did that there was a loud ping.
The Marine just slumped forward, falling face-first into the snow. He'd taken a DMR round right through the helmet's ear section as he'd looked to the side. His IFF went black, confirming his death. Private McCallister immediately went to grab the man and pull him into cover and retrieve his rocket launcher but Sato knew better.
"McCallister no!" he yelled towards the rookie, but it was too late.
The young Marine had just gotten his hands under the armpit of their fallen comrade when a burst of rifle fire struck him in the side and he fell into the slope, grasping at the place he'd taken the hits. His IFF triage changed to yellow, signaling he was wounded, not critically, but he was wounded. A burst of fifty caliber rounds tore into the side of hill as the Innies fired relentlessly at their platoon.
Sato had already taken cover behind a tree, and was waiting for a chance to fire at the last tank so he could start hitting the enemy gun trucks. He took his chance when the enemy tank turned its gun towards their hill, firing its coaxial machine gun at them. He shouldered his rocket, fired, and saw his rocket go right at his target, blowing apart the commander's station on the tank. This seemed to deal with the enemy tank quite efficiently, as the armored vehicle began backing away, as its commander had been mortally wounded. As soon as he'd fired his rocket the enemy zeroed in on his position and began firing. A trio of rocket from the enemy Rocket Hog impacted below him on the hill and he ducked back against the hill as his platoon leader slid down next to him.
"We need to pull back!" Sato suggested.
"I know!" the lieutenant responded loudly, and Sato now saw his IFF tag was yellow, his left arm had a bloody bandage freshly wrapped around it, and tied to his chest, a pistol in his right hand, "We need to get our casualties and get the fuck outta here! Doc's been hit!"
This was a true gut shot to the Marines. With their Corpsman wounded or dead they were without a medical professional, leaving it up to their CLS kits. But that wouldn't do any good if they couldn't get an opening to get to their wounded.
"Collins!" Sato yelled, "Cover fire! Abdul grab McCallister! I'm going to try and knock out a few of those Warthogs."
"Roger that Sarge!"
After rapidly reloading his Jackhammers he pulled the weapon to his shoulder, checked to see that no one was behind him and leaned out and sighted in on the leading Warthog firing its HMG like mad. There were several infantrymen around the vehicles, all firing up towards the Marines, unwilling to advance just yet. He pulled the trigger, and rapidly switched targets and fired at the one immediately next to it. Both rockets were right on target thanks to his HUD's range finder and his own experience. The first rocket struck the leading hog right as the gunner tried scrambling out of the turret, blowing the armored vehicle wide open, igniting the hydrogen in the tanks and causing the vehicle to erupt into flames that consumed three infantry taking cover behind it. The second rocket hit on top of the gunner of the rocket hog, igniting the stored ammunition below the three barreled weapon and blasted open the whole rear half of the vehicle. With this he'd killed or wounded at least a dozen Insurrectionists, but he was now out of rockets.
He saw Abdul dragging their rookie into cover now that the fire was considerably lessened and then went himself to drag their KIA into cover and get his body out of there himself. Marines never leave anyone behind and he was not going to leave this Marine, dead or not, to be paraded before the Innies cameras. He slid out of control somewhat, but grabbed the man by the handle behind his neck, and yanked him amongst his comrades.
"We're falling back, get over the rise and stay down!" the lieutenant ordered his remaining Marines.
"You heard the man!" Sato yelled as he grabbed the fallen man's rocket launcher, "Move it!"
He stood up and fired rapidly, and was disappointed to see that both rockets missed high, landing in the middle of the road but saw that he may have wounded some enemy infantry taking cover behind the line of Warthogs on the road. But he knew the gig was up, they needed to fall back, and now noticed the whole of the enemy's fire was directed at he and the rest of their platoon. The rest of the company had already fallen back, getting out of the line of fire and retreating to the farm compound they'd just taken. They'd taken the best the Innies had, but they'd at lived to tell the tale.
However this may have been a blessing in disguise. This powerful defense by the Insurrectionists had been monitored by the ranking ONI officer in the operation and now decided that the time was right to deploy their own units to deal with the Insurrection.
Yes it's been a while but I wanted to just get this one done so I could move on to the next story in line. Thanks for reading guys, hope you enjoyed it. As usual let me know your thoughts, good or bad, I'm always open to feed back so that I may improve.
Next Chapter Preview: Time for the Innies to meet the UNSC's finest.