Nearly everyone in the base was standing outside obsvering at the destruction that happened earlier. The once lively woods was now nothing but a charred wasteland, small patches of fire still smoldering.
The beatiful landscape that once was seemed like a distant memeory now. There were no birds chirping, or leaves rustling as little creatures ran over them, or any signs of life.
Oliver could only hope Shi'ae had gotten away, as the destruction did not go on forever and he could see the end of it. He did give her ample time to run, but he still couldn't know if she had gotten away safely.
The people around Oliver were shocked and confused at the sudden carnage. He wasn't as much, as even though it was the first time he had seen the damage, he had a lot of time to get over it and think of why this happened, as he couldn't get back to sleep once he had come back to base.
He had some theories, but none had yet to be confirmed. His first idea was that they were expecting an assault from the covenant, and they wanted to remove any cover for the enemy and also to allow their own vehicles to traverse the landscape. The problem with this, if the covenant were to attack they would attack from the other side which is open to allow them to deploy vehicles and troops from the sky. Now it just gives them two routes of attack.
The second was that maybe the UNSC were on to him and Shi'ae, and wanted to capture them for interrogation. This one also didn't make sense in his mind, as if they wanted to capture them they just would, and not risk killing them by dropping bombs. Unless that's what they wanted to do, which was also unlikely as it would be easier to go to them and kill them instead of firebombing them. They most likely didn't even know about them anyways, as he was fairly discreet and only one other person knew about it.
Unless, they wanted to see if Oliver would go and help Shi'ae if she were in danger, as a way to see how much of a connection he had with her. This was also flawed, as he was told that were bombing the area by Isaac, who wouldn't go behind his back. Maybe, a commander told Isaac assuming he would tell Oliver.
All of this seemed highly speculative, and quite unlikely, so he put his theories to the side.
There was also a chance the UNSC were testing a new type of weapon, maybe more effective napalm or something, although the weapons used didn't seem out of the ordinary. It was, so far, still the most believable reason.
After roughly fifteen minutes, the last person returned back inside the base. Most went to get breakfast, but a few who did not have any duties went back to bed.
Oliver went to get breakfast, while Isaac went back to bed. He was given the same stuff as he always was given. It wasn't great, but it was eatable. It did give him time however to think more on the subject of why tge forest was bombed. After a lot more thinking, and no answer, he decided to give up and let time tell what was going on. It might not have been the smartest idea, but he just could not figure it out.
At a time like this he would have gone out to the woods, to ask Shi'ae for advice on the situation. Unfortunately for Oliver, he didn't have that option at the moment.
He might ask Isaac, see what he thought of it. He let out a sigh and stood up and put his empty tray over near the other ones. He left the still lively canteen, heading back to his room.
Once he entered he noticed Isaac was actually awake, but he was still in bed flicking through his tablet. Isaac gave Oliver a nod of acknowledgment, Oliver responding with a simple, "Hey".
Oliver thought for a second before asking, "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, go ahead."
"Why do you think the forest was firebombed?"
"Don't know really, probably needed to just clear space for something, I don't think it's really a big deal. Why'd you ask?", Isaac replied, not too bothered with the whole deal.
Oliver noted this, then said, "Just wondering, seems like quite a drastic thing to do to clear some space."
Isaac shrugged at this, returning with, "Guess these are drastic times then."
Oliver nodded and dropped the subject as it seemed Isaac didn't know anymore than he did, and he wasn't fazed by it, so maybe it really didn't matter.
The rest of the day went by uneventfully, aside from the fact a large amount troops started coming to the base in droves near the end of the day, for what reason Oliver did not know. They also appeared to be carrying crates of maybe supplies or ammo.
He shrugged it off as nothing, and went about his day as he would usually. He did miss talking to Shi'ae
however, and his day went by much slower and less lively than it had the last couple of days.
It was roughly half past eleven when things started to change. The intercom crackled to live, and after a few seconds of fuzzy static, a solemn voice spoke.
"Recent information I have been told has confirmed the presence of a large covenant force approximately thirty minutes away, advancing on our position. We were aware that an assault had a high likelihood of occuring, so we prepared for a defensive but we had not expected it too happen so soon. We still have ample time to position ourselves, so I request every able bodied man and woman to do so. If you have not already received a defensive position, go to the front entrance of the base immediately. Thank you, and God bless", he finished.
A sinking feeling gradually set in Oliver's stomach, the words of the speaker setting in. He had been lucky so far in all his endeavours against the covenant with a little help from a friend, but the size of a covenant force to be able to challenge the fort would have to be considerably large.
However, expresionally he remained motionless and was unmoving. He sat there for a minute, before taking a breath, standing up and getting the rest of his gear on. He was the only one in the room, Isaac having left half an hour ago to go do something and not yet returning.
Oliver was on autopilot getting his med bag ready and putting on his light armor platings, starting with his shinpads and working his way up until he domed his open-faced helmet.
He stepped out into the corridor, feeling no more alive than moments ago. His head was hung low, the hallways seeming twice the length they should be judging by his footstep, or maybe he was walking half as fast.
There were a few other people also seemingly going to the front door, some disgruntled after being woken up, not fully aware of the situation, and some who had been awake like Oliver, some looking nervous, although not all of them were.
Oliver took a detour at some point and wound up in the men's bathroom. He went over to the sink and studied himself in the mirror. His skin was normally fairly tanned having spent his life on the warm rocky planet of Mars, but at that current time he looked sickly pale.
Bending over the sink, he threw a large amount of water into his face, the cold water snapping him to his senses somewhat. He dried his hands on his trousers and wiped his face clear of water while leaving the toilets, heading back on course to where he was originally going.
A small congregation had gathered at the main entrance. A young commanding officer was pacing up and down trying to put people in decent defensive positions, anxious to do so as quick as he could.
Oliver looked out over at the area that had once been a thriving forest. It was very dark out, the only light coming from small patches of still burning flames, and searchlights vigilantly scanning the area for infiltrators. He looked up and noticed some machine gun posts stationed at each one, ready to shred apart anything that moves.
Multiple spotlights were also pointing at the sky, scanning for enemy fighters. The atmosphere was frightening. It reminded Oliver of wars of old, when new weapons were being invented at a constant, rendering a once useful tool invalid. They did not know their enemies or weapons, unlike the old wars. Could they be become an invalid tool, discarded and scrapped?
The officer walked briskly backed down after sorting out another batch of soldiers, clearly exhausted but trying hard to keep his professionalism. He pointed at Oliver and with a mixture of happiness and relief, exclaimed, "Yes, you! You're a medic, yes? Here, come here, we're short of medics so I'm going to need you to cover this area over here", saying this while pointing at a rough area not to far from his position.
"Get to it!", he ordered, soon leaving Oliver to it while going over to another soldier and ordering him somewhere.
Oliver did as he was commanded, heading over to the area. He was encouraged to mostly stay low to try and increase his survivability, thus increasing the other soldier's chances of living if wounded.
Oliver looked out over his cover, a few stacked sandbags, and saw nothing in the darkness of night, if there was actually something matching towards them that is.
The lights continouly searched for enemies to be the host of a spray of lead from the machine guns nested close by. Yet, nothing came. Oliver, still lying on his stomach, the dry, ground, hard on his skin, had decided to keep constantly looking out, looking for anything.
Minutes later and still nothing happened. Oliver was getting anxious waiting for an unknown enemy. He would've have been internally happy at the prospect of it been a gross misunderstanding and it was actually a false alarm, but the chances of that happening were slim.
The covenant were most likely very annoyed at losing the base, as it was one of the few instances that they actually lost ground across the entire planet. The base was a primary target being centered between multiple other bases, and the covenant would be ecstatic to have the base back again.
Those were the reasons Oliver had summed up that the base would most indeed be under assault soon and it wasn't a false alarm, but how soon was the question that was wrenching him apart.
Just when the impossible was seemingly becoming the probable, one the lights scanning paused on a particular area that had plenty of debris, and seconds later machine gun fire erupted, the bullets shreading anything that had been there to pieces.
Dozens of figures exposed themself from cover at once, clearly having taken a long time to get to such a close position to their target without being noticed.
The marines on the ground were having trouble picking out where the enemy was, however their opponents with superior technology spotted them with ease. The lights did their best in lighting up the area to a degree where most targets could be seen.
Why there wasn't night vision gear for them on an operation such as this was beyond Oliver, but he did however managed to catch a glimpse of a few dark blobs before he hid behind cover. He unprofessionally put the rifle over his head while still keeping his head in cover and started spraying at the location where he saw covenant.
He tried to listen over the sound of the battle but heard no signs of any of his shots connecting. Looking behind him he saw many marines had already fallen to the ambush, some dead and some wounded, yet saveable, and some who were unlucky enough to have wounds severe enough that they would most likely be unsaveable, at least in this current situation, yet not bad enough that killed them quickly, so all they could do was wait.
He felt bad for those people, but he had to do his job. His prority was attending to less severly wounded, attempting to put them back on the battlefield or more likely send them away on stretchers.
Machine gun and rifle fire were met with equal retaliation from plasma shots. Oliver was busy helping a soldier who had been hit with a plasma shot in the chest, the armour absorbing a great deal of the shot but still causing bad damage.
He stripped the charred metal plating off the man's chest and assessed the injury. The skin was burned where the shot had connected and partially penetrated the armour. Fortunately, it wasn't very deep and could be dealt with the equipment Oliver had.
The man who had been wounded was not making much noise, instead preferring to grit his teeth and try to soldier through the pain. It was working, as the man wasn't moving very much, making Oliver's job easier. He applied a special type of cream to the man's chest for the burns after cleaning it up with antiseptics, than patched him up with bandages to seal the wound.
Satisfied that the man was taken care of, he got up and surveyed the other injured personnel. He continued working feverishly, rushing from one soldier to another.
The fighting was dying down and eventually stopped altogether surprisingly. It was extremely hard to tell in the dark, but when Oliver looked over his cover, he saw no remaining enemies, nor did anyone else.
This unnerved him, as the covenant so far had never under prepared. They could afford to send large amount of troops to squash their opposition, so why they didn't do that just them led him to the conclusion that more covenant were on their way. Whatever they had just sent must have been a scouting party of some sort.
Some soldiers were cheering and celebrating the small victory, believing they had won. The officers, being more sensible came to the same conclusion quicker than Oliver, and were already informing their men of this revelation.
The men were quickly back in a defensive stance, guns poking out over the various different pieces of cover, heads found at the start of these guns, vigilantly searching for targets.
'This is only the beginning', Oliver thought fearfully, dreading what was to come.
Yet, like last time, the covenant didn't seem in a hurry to attack. An indescribable feeling was growing in Oliver's stomach, as he knew this time the covemant were definitely coming, and they were coming in numbers.
They waited for what seemed like an eternity for anything to happen. At one point an agitated soldier commented, "I wish these bastards would either leaves us alone or just shoot us already!".
Not a minute later did the man to the right of the commenter was sniped, a hole burning straight through where his eye once was, killing him before he had even hit the ground. He was not the only man to have been hit, in fact it seemed like a coordinated effort, as the snipers had all shot within milliseconds of each other.
Over the sounds of plasma raining down hell on their position and the occansional burst of rifle fire in retaliation, an officer was roaring, "Get down! Get down!".
Oliver did just that but some men either were oblvious to the order over the sounds of battle or were disobeying it and continued to fire back. Alongwith the snipers, enemy troops were also pushing their position, which may have been why some troopers continued to fire even though there was a risk of snipers. Oliver ducked back under again after he peaked for a split second, scared of the amount of advancing troops he saw.
The machine guns a top the roof continued to fire through the storm of plasma, doing heavy damage. The assault was impeded and slowed to a crawl by those guns, which Oliver was extremely grateful for.
In a cruel twist of fate, as if the universe existed to spite him, half a dozen banshees swarmed the gunners position, sending bright green explovise plasma shots onto their position. The shots were devastating, managing to knock out multiple nests all in one run. The remaining turrets focused their firepower on the banshees, allowing the other covenant troops to advance.
Two flaming banshees came crashing out of the sky, impacting the ground with force. The gunners were doing an admirable job at taking out the banshees, but when one more banshee went crashing into the ash that covered the ground, that would be the last. The last gun went quiet, signalling the destruction of one of their most powerful defensive weapon.
With nothing to majorly heed their advance, the covenant charged them. Seeing their position being compromised, more soldiers took aim over their cover and started firing. Oliver too plucked up the courage to peak over the top. He started spraying the oncoming opponents in a wild pattern, not focusing on a single target, just trying his best to hit something.
With the lights either destroyed or unoperated, it was even harder to see.
There were just as many rifle bullets being fired now as there were plasma, but their position was still being overwhelmed. At one area further done the line, a breach was made and the covenant flooded it like a leak.
Multiple officers were shouting, "Retreat to the fort!", at their men. Oliver didn't want to stay out in the open any longer, so eagerly followed the order and retreated inside to the safety of the fortress. At least safe from snipers and banshees, they still had a lot of other problems going for them.
Some men went running straight to the building with their backs facing the enemy, while others fired some shots back at the on rushing non-friendlies to cover their retreat. More lifeless bodies had hit the ground before the last man had entered the building. The majority of these were UNSC.
The metal door shut with a bang. Inside, even with the large hallways, it began to feel very claustrophobic real quickly. There was a lot shouting, people panicking and officers barking orders.
It was too overwhelming for Oliver, and panic started taking control. He started hyperventilating, and his mind was clouded. He didn't remember a time anything this bad had happened. Even with his first mission it happened so fast that the adrenalin never gave him a chance to think about what was truly going on. At that moment, he felt weak, weaker than than any other point in his life.
It wasn't his time to go, he was not due, is what he told himself, but it didn't help. They were in an oversized pillbox, waiting in line to be cut down. That was what Oliver really thought.
He thought it Shi'ae was here she'd be able to comfort him. He missed her. He missed Isaac, his family back home, and even just the safety and warmth these people brought him.
'Why am I talking about these people like I'm already dead? Maybe I feel dead. I'm not there yet though. I'll... I'll keep going and I will see them again. All of them.', he thought reassuringly to himself, not too confident but motivated to achieve what he told himself.
Shaking, he scanned the area, having been lost in his mind for a minute, he had forgot his surroundings. He was slumped against a support beam, with other stiff faced soldiers in cover also, guns pointed somewhere roughly behind Oliver.
He took a peak around the beam and saw what they were aiming at. An entrance point, blocked by a heavy metal door. He was doing his best to distract himself by looking at and think of fairly mundane things, anything to distract him. The feeling his stomach that was making him feel sick was always heavy no matter what he was imagining though.
A loud bang, as if someone had hit a block of metal with a sledgehammer, reverberated around the room. He scrambled into a crouch position and took another peak at the door once the pieces had clicked. The once sturdy door was still shaking from whatever had hit it, and would clearly not last long.
At that very same moment the door received another shattering hit. A sergeant, or whoever was leading, Oliver didn't know, shouted out, "Hold your positions men! We can not let these bastards through!"
The door was slammed against again in quicker succession.
"Ready men! This it!", the man shouted moments before the door flew off its hinges with a huge dent in it from being pounded repeatedly.
Oliver leaned around the beam, rifle tucked against him, and shot out multiple bursts from his gun. The stocky figure blocking nearly the entire doorway, holding some kind large bludgeon, was eventually downed after a large amount of fire from all of the soldiers in the room.
The moonlight lit up the doorway and part of the room, revealing the figure was in fact an oversized brute, which was enormous as an average sized brute was huge already.
The moonlight was fragmented when covenant soldiers rushed in. There was roughly forty feet between Oliver and the door, so they didn't have too far to go before they were right on top of them.
Oliver continued to fire his rifle at the oncoming attackers, succsessfully hitting a few, although that was not much of a feat considering how tightly compacted his targets were.
He pulled the trigger once again, but was confused when all he heard was a click. His clip was empty. He looked down at his weapon, and then with twitchy hands, he reached for an additional clip.
After a few seconds of missing the slot where the clip went, he eventually loaded the gun and received a satisfying click. He peaked back around around his cover and saw his foes even closer than previous moments ago. They were scarily close, having made ground incredibly quickly over a short span of time.
He squeezed the trigger and didn't let go until a couple plasma shots were directed at him, forcing him back into cover. He turned to his left side and went to shoot from that side but when he leaned around, he was met with a hairy ape charging him. He tried to avoid the hit and was partially successful, managing to be only grazed by the brute's ferocious attack.
It was still enough to send him flying to the floor, and he impacted the ground hard. The shock of the impacted had him momentarily frozen. The brute opened his jaws wide, bearing it's great pointed canines.
As it went to have another swipe at
Oliver, it was staggered back by a hail of bullets. The brute looked surprised that anyone would dare attack it, and brought up it's weapon, seeking it's next victim. Fortunately, the brute was hit from multiple sources and was killed before it could do any damage.
Still in shock, a hand roughly grabbed him and dragged him to his feet, sending him in the opposite direction of the fight.
Not knowing what to do, he just ran in the direction he was facing to the nearest piece of cover. He propped himself up against an old cart, and took a few moments to reorientate himself after the knock.
His own jaw was aching badly, and his head was swimming. Where he had been hit was tender to the touch, and he could already tell there was a bruise there.
After a few more seconds, he still felt bad, but he could push through it if it meant fighting for his life. It was quiet though, not at all what he expected. Only footsteps could be heard, softly tredding on the hard ground.
Did they manage to push the covies back? That didn't make sense, there were so many, how could they beaten back that quickly.
He quickly stepped out of cover with his rifle raised, but was almost immediately hit by a large elite ultra with white armour and rose gold accents.
He saw the figure towering over him after he had fallen, and soon after began to lose consciousness before blacking out entirely.
Sorry I've been gone a bit, wanted to take my time on this chapter and I was honestly probably a bit lazy with it aswell. Thanks for still sticking around though : )