Oliver woke up as the rays of sunshine broke through the clouds early in the morning. He was sore and stiff all over but really appreciated the great night's sleep he had gotten which had done wonders for his head.
He slowly sat up and swivelled his body around so his legs were hanging off the bed. Placing two hands firmly on the bed, he lifted himself up, leaving two indents on the mattress.
He felt sticky and sweaty from the day before's events so he decided to have a refreshing shower and get some fresh clothes.
Some twenty minutes later he was making his way to the mess hall. He walked through the adjacent double doors with a slight limp in his step, still sore but the shower had atleast made him feel slightly better.
The mess hall wasn't as packed as he had expected, but checking the clock that was held above the area where food was being served, he realised it was much later in the morning than he had originally thought, which meant most people had already eaten and where out doing their duties.
The line for food was very short, only two other people so Oliver was served his tray of food after not waiting too long in line.
He turned around and looking for somewhere to sit he noticed something, or rather someone he hadn't noticed when he arrived.
Sitting on his own, close to the corner was Isaac. Oliver knew where he was going to sit and went over towards Isaac.
Isaac seemed to be in deep thought and it took him a second to realise Oliver was there.
"You alright?", Oliver asked.
"Yeah, I've just been thinking about that elite that let us go. Do you think we should tell command?".
Oliver let out a sigh and told him, "I've met that elite before. Back at Aplin she helped me. Still don't think she can be trusted though, but I'm not sure if it would be worth anything to command anyway."
"Why doesn't she attack us?", Isaac questioned.
"Told me she just wants the war to end and I guess not fighting is a step closer to stopping it, or at least that's what she hopes."
"It's really confusing", Isaac huffed.
Oliver sighed and said, "Yeah, it is."
The Next Day
Oliver was sitting in the front of a transport warthog, closer to the back of the long line of vehicles. They were at the top of one side of the valley and Draux base was further down river, going through the valley being the only way to bring the warthogs and tanks.
The last few vehicles were being lined up, and once they were set the journey would begin.
Oliver could feel the nerves in his stomach, feeling like he was going to empty the contents of his stomach and probably would have if he hadn't had so little to eat that morning.
If he didn't have the feeling of dread in his stomach he would've thought it was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, the river as crisp and clean as ever, but all he could think about was the upcomimg attack. It was reassuring to fight alongside such a huge force but last time he had thought it would be an easy victory everyone had died.
He was so deep in his thoughts he hadn't realised they had started moving. A bump caused the warthog to bounce up a small bit, dragging Oliver back into reality.
His mind was a mess of emotions and thoughts, so he did the one thing he knew could easily take his mind off things, fiddling with his gun.
For the entire ride he just sat in the warthog unloading and reloading his gun, checking the sights and the sort.
Oliver stopped his little activity when a message came through the warthog radio saying, "Target up ahead. ETA thirty seconds".
Oliver's grip around his weapon, which was an assault rifle, tightened. He also checked his sidearm, which couldn't do much damage to a shielded elite or brute, but was better than nothing and could always take down a grunt easily if your aim was accurate. Unfortunately, Oliver's was not.
They were going around a very gradual bend which they were getting closer and closer to rounding. These suspicions were confirmed when one of the lead scorpions of three was hit with a volley of plasma, scorching the thick armour but otherwise doing no serious damage.
The covenant must have heard them coming, or most likely a scout spotted them as they were hard to miss.
Most troops were prepared for a sudden attack, and the few who weren't luckily weren't driving.
The tanks quickly went full throttle charging at the enemy, closely followed by the faster gunner and gause hogs, some of them pushing on ahead of the scorpions.
The transport warthogs came last, but still very close to the front charge.
Oliver finally got a good view of the base. It was a massive concrete building with signs of use and wear, black marks streaking down crevices and cracks, large burn marks dotted the building, but overall it still looked sturdy.
There were four plasma turrets on top of the flat roof aswell as multiple ummanned machine gun turrets lining the perimeter behind sandbags.
The grunts manning the turrets weren't the smartest and picked the largest target to shoot at, which also happened to be by far the most resilient; the scorpions, instead of picking off the warthogs which could easily crash or explode with a few well placed shots.
None the less the marines ploughed on, fueled by determination. The tanks lined up their sights, aiming for the turrets up above. With deadly accuracy three shells flew out of the barrel of three tanks and directly struck three of the four plasma turrets, causing small explosions and bits of purple metal to go flying in all different directions.
As one of the scorpions picked off the remaining turret with ease, the low hum of covenant vehicles could be heared, coming from behind the fortified building.
A flash of purple ghosts zipped out, followed by two of the slower, but much more deadly wraiths.
The warthog turrets spun up rapidly and started raining down hell on the enemy, but they were met with an equal return of hot plasma.
The wraiths also released a barrage of large plasma balls down on the marines, this time instead focusing on the warthogs, managing to knock out a few.
They soon switched their aim towards the three scorpions when one of the tanks had scored a direct hit on one of the wraiths, making the large purple vehicle partially immobile, although the turret was still functioning and a threat.
Oliver was watching the battle unfold before him without having to do anything himself, when the troop carriers stopped just outside the defensive perimeter which was made out of sandbags and currently chunks of rubble aswell.
Frantic orders were given out telling everybody to quickly get out and get over to the base.
The marines automatically obieded, scurrying out of their vehicles.
Oliver had just reached the sandbags when a booming voice gave the order to "Hold!". Oliver was wondering why they would halt in such an open area when he saw a large man with a very thick and heavy suit running as fast as he could back to the sandbags, holding some sort of device with wires leading behind him in his hand.
It suddenly clicked for Oliver just in time, and he frantically shot his hands up to cover his ears. Even though his hands were clamped down on his ears, the loud explosions that followed still half deafened him.
Looking around him he saw the others who weren't expecting the blast clutching their ears in pain, although quickly recovering but still presumably somewhat deaf.
He peered up over the sandbags and saw that the thick walls of the fort had been breached. Upon further inspection, he noticed piles of dead covenant bodies who had been lying in wait, ready to gun them down.
The entrance they had forcefully made had actually not been concrete wall but an entrance with a heavy, reinforced steel door.
Oliver noted this as he hurriedly skip over the dead covenant. As usual he was closer to the back of the group, being the medic they needed to keep him alive to treat the wounded. He was still greatly on edge despite the numerous marines in front, as he was still very exposed and if a stray ghost's driver decided to follow the marines he'd be the first target.
Nonetheless he continued on despite his worries. As they carried on down the corridor, marines checking the rooms which were all eerily empty, Oliver could still hear the battle outside raging on.
The marine directly in front of Oliver turmed his head around to quickly scan the space behind them which they had just passed. He was about to turn back around when something made him to a double take.
The marine saw something slightly shimmering. In the dim light it was hard to make out the details of the object, but it seemed to be pressed up against the wall, completely motionless.
The poor marine only realised what he was staring at a second too late, still long enough to feel the terror that arose.
Oliver was about to ask the marine if anything was wrong, when a tall, scaly figure ran through him without even noticing he was there. Oliver was sent to the ground by the much bigger soldier, and when he looked up he saw a lifeless marine impaled on an enegy sword.
The wielder of the sword wasted no time in dropping the man, hungrily searching for the next victim of his blade.
His window of opportunity to take out one more marine narrowed as the soldiers quickly opened fire on the rouge elite. With his shields down, he made a lunged for the nearest marine.
His assult was stopped while he was midair, and the dead elite harmlessly fell just before the intened target's feet.
However the elite was not alone. All of a sudden the walls seemed to shimmer and in the blink of an eye the corridors walls were lined with sangheili, who wanted nothing more than to kill everyone one of the marines. Most did anyways.
Oliver, still on the ground, crawled as fast as he could and then threw himself behind the first bit of cover he saw, which happened to be some old heavy duty matienance work boxes.
He sat with his back against the boxes, breathing rapid, shallow breaths. Plasma sailed above him, but fortunately a majority of his allies had taken refuge behind different sorts of abandoned objects or some behind support columns and doorframes.
The unlucky few who were not quick enough were mercilessly gunned down. The wide corridors allowed the elites to be at certain angles where they could fire at certain marines even if they were behind cover, and the elites took great advantage of this fact.
Though the elites began the fight heavily outnumbered by their opponents, the numbers were becoming more and more in the covenants favour as the UNSC troop's number were dwindling by the second.
A marine behind a support column tried to get Oliver's attention by waving at him. It worked, but Oliver dreaded and was confused by the next words he mouthed.
'Provide me cover fire', and he then pointed at the rocket launcher he held with a death grip in his hands.
Oliver was unsure if using such a powrful weapons in close quarters was a good idea, but considering their current situation, it was probably the only hope they had.
The marine wielding the launcher held up three fingers and started a slow countdown.
'No backing out now', he thought. He sprung up from his crouched position and readied himself, gun held tightly and finger hovering over the trigger.
He looked back one last time, the marine with the laucher's last finger was slowly bending down into his palm and that's when Oliver leaned around the boxes, careful to keep as much of his body concealed as possible, and opened fire on the unsuspecting sangheili.
He kept his fire as a spray back and forth, not doing much damage but certainly causing a distraction. The elites were not nearly being as cautious as they should have been of explosives, being in fairly close proximity to each other.
Just as Oliver's clip ran dry, a bright projectile flew by him, leaving a trail of smoke in it's wake. He saw the rocket slam into an elite before hearing a loud explosion, the shockwaves sending him to the ground.
Once he had recovered from the shock, he looked up to where the attacking force had just been and saw a heap of mangled bodies, but what he also saw were three elites still alive limping down the hallway in a attempt to make it to safety.
With new found spirit, one of the marines shouted "After them!", which received a series of sounds of approval.
Oliver, being the marine closest to the escaping elites, was the first to give chase.
The sangheili sped up their pace once they saw this, but one of them had sneakily gone a different way than the main entrance, which was where the other two had gone.
Oliver spotted this, and was going to make sure it wouldn't get away. Normally Oliver wouldn't fancy his chances one on one with an elite, but the elites shields were clearly broken from the occasional jumps of electricity and crackling, aswell as the elite had seemed to have dropped it's plasma rifle. Oliver didn't know this, but it had broke.
He wasn't that great at much, running being one of the few exceptions. An exit was just up ahead, with light leaping into the dark, concrete building.
He only remembered his assault rifle was out of ammo right as the elite reached the open door, so instead he pulled out his magnum.
The sangheili had heard this action and stopped, turning around quickly.
It was less than a second before he did anything, but it felt like an eternity. It was Shi'ae he had been chasing. So many thoughts went through his head at that moment.
'She let me go, should I?'
'How do I know she's not just trying to get information off me?'
'Her species have killed billions of us!'
'But... she was so nice to me...'
A bullet flew out of the barrel of his gun, and tore into Shi'ae's flesh.
Longer chapter than usual, might keep them this long if I have time.
Real Plasma: Yeah last chapter was mainly for setting up this one, hope it wasn't too boring. Glad you thought it was still a good chapter though.
SCBM: It's great to know the chapters are getting better and better each time, as that was one of my main goals when I started this story.
Oserix: Did some research and I think you could be right as it might be one of those things like mice and computer mouses, but either are ok, so idk.