Chapter 2: Hard Drop

Tony felt his pod impact the ground with a deafening boom, he smashed the button to eject the drop pod's hatch. The hatch flew several meters away then was engulfed by darkness. A drop by itself was pretty dangerous, every ODST's worst fear was failure of the braking jets, although such an occurrence was rare, it was known to happen and more often than not caused the death of the occupant. However a night drop comes with more heightened risk. He Instinctively grabbed his rifle and scanned the immediate vicinity with his helmet's built-in night vision. As planned the squad dropped in a small forest clearing far from any perspective witnesses. His motion tracker picked up two contacts one about 12 meters to his northeast, the other out on the edge at 25 meters west. IFF confirmed both were friendly.
"Role Call" He radioed in using the helmet's built in comms as he gathered his weapons and ammo from the pod.
David's voice came over the radio, "Here boss."

Another call came in, "Bar- -py Sarge -local jam- -nal -ker rally -tion." His call was extremely garbled but he recognized Vince's voice. "David, did you copy Vince?" By now he already covered half the distance between the two pods.
"No, I didn't receive his comm, I don't have him on tracker either."
"I have him on the far end of mine, looks like he's making his way here. Any contact from John?"
"No word from him either."

Tony double checked his pod's tracking system, command pods carried high powered image sensors for mapping terrain and advanced tracking systems to keep track of the unit. Once again the computer only registered David's and Vince's pods. Either the jamming signal was interfering with John's pod transponder or it was offline.
Vince's voice came in, "Sarge do you copy?"
"I copy, something wrong with your comms Vince?"
"Innies must be jamming signals with the comm relay, comms are only effective at short range, anything past 20 meters is garbled."
"Affirmative, Any contact from John?"
"Negative Sarge."
"Alright rally on me and we'll get this op started."

After a few minutes Vince came into view as Tony and David examined the map created by the pod's sensors. "Nice of you to join us Private." Tony said.
"Decided to take the scenic route sarge."
"Ok, the relay station is about fourty klicks to the south so we have some ground to cover. Our largest obstacle will be the Odvaha cliff, scaling the cliff isn't an option but there is a pass that goes through the terrain. That pass is one of only three ways onto the plateau, it's likely we'll run into Innie patrols. We go in quiet, disable the signal and call for backup. Remember, comms are dead beyond twenty meters so stay close to each other."
Vince pitched in. "Local efforts must be using smoke signals to communicate, no wonder they haven't taken the station back."
"And that's why we're here. Sunrise is in six hours, we'll have to move quickly if we want to take as much advantage of the dark as possible. Let's go."
David and Tony started moving south, Vince hurried to their side. "What about John?"
"With comms jammed we have no way of contacting him or locating him. Mission priority has to be to regain control of the relay station and turn off the jamming signal. Once the signal is offline we'll be able to locate him."
'Alive or Dead' He thought to himself.

The squad of three neared the Odvaha cliff. They couched down near the end of the treeline as the forest ended to meet the base of the cliff. Tony scanned his surroundings, commotion in the distance broke the silence of night.
"You guys hear that?"
David nodded, "Vehicles."
"There's no intel of an Innie base here, your command pod didn't pick up any buildings." Vince said.
"We're still a few kilometers from the pass, let's take a look." Tony lead the way as Vince brought up the rear.
True to the intel, there was no exposed Insurrectionist base. A large mine was bore into the cliffside. The entrance was expansive, Tony wagered a Pelican could fly into the opening. Dimly lit by yellow lights the squad could see several small buildings nested into recesses dug into the cave wall. Several Innies stood watch acting as sentries. The squad watched as a convoy of five warthogs drove into the mine stopping inside to submit security clearance, and then continued deeper inside. Only the front and last warthogs were armed with M41 light anti-aircraft guns, the other three were modified to carry cargo.

"There's no record of a mine ever being here." Tony said.
"Looks like it was abandoned, most of the mining equipment is missing." Vince added. "Green Hills was colonized for its copper deposits."
"Did you get a good look at those Warthogs, Vince?"
"Heavily modified, not UNSC issued." Vince replied. "Judging from the suspension, hauling something heavy."
"Some kind of munitions dump, boss?" David inquired.
"Maybe, I'd like to take a closer look, this mine seems pretty important to them, but we can't get sidetracked." Tony said. "We'll report the mine back to command once we've reestablished contact. David, leave them a present before we go."
David flashed a wide grin, "With pleasure."

David hated sneaking around, he preferred the simplicity of a good firefight. Trading blows until one side simply couldn't fight anymore. Still, he had his orders, the boss told him to be stealthy and not to dispose of any Innies, since they might trigger an alarm. That last part was harder to accept than the stealth, he wanted to make sure any Innie he came across never walked away. He loathed the Insurrection, David had seen first hand what they were capable of. For all their talk of independence they were little more than terrorists. These traitors had decided to capitalize on the suffering of their own people instead of working together for the common good. For that he considered them all irredeemable and only their deaths could atone for their crimes.

Using the cover of darkness he approached the entrance to the mine. Evading the sentries he snuck pass the entrance and ducked into the recess to his right. The large artificial entrance provided very little cover. Off to the right a small two story building sat in a recess in the wall, the mine itself wound down to the left out of sight. Getting closer to the building he could tell it was modular, intended as temporary shelter to be removed, now abandoned and commandeered by the Insurrection. Two Innie guards spoke instinctively from inside the building. David snuck around behind to the back, there was less a meter between the wall of the building and the wall of the cave, this would have to do. David unshouldered his hardcase and pulled out four M168 demolition charges. Setting the charges on the cave floor he covered them in a thin layer of dirt, hopefully no one would notice them. The charges wouldn't do much damage, it was just to cause a diversion. As he set the timer, he smiled to himself and thought, "Too bad I won't be here to see the boom."

John felt like an Elephant ran over his head. The last thing he remembered was a bright red indicator flashing. "Ughh" He did his best to push aside the pain and clear his head. As the world came into focus he realised he was looking at the night sky, his pod was lying on its back. He hit the hatch eject, then hoisted himself out of the pod and fall down to the side. Gravity brought the hatch back down, hitting the pod with a loud clank. Groaning with pain, he checked his HUD, thankfully there were no internal injuries or broken bones, but his body suffered a large amount of blunt force trauma. He located the on board emergency med-kit in his pod and administered some painkillers. Sitting back leaning against the pod, John checked the time on his HUD, he had been unconscious for about two hours. Undoubtedly the squad had moved on since he didn't check in.

"Alpha 12-3 to Alpha 12 Actual." John strained to get the words out.

He was awarded silence for his efforts.

"Repeat, this is Alpha 12-3 to Alpha 12 Actual, come in."

Still silence.

"Ah, shit."

He was unable to contact anyone on the squad's private channel, and he wasn't about to start broadcasting in the open. Feeling some of his strength returning, John staggered to his feet and took in the carnage of the scene. He looked at the seven meter long trail his pod tore through the dirt. At the other end of the trail was a mangled tree that took the brunt of his landing. As the fog in his head cleared he remembered what happened, stabilization failure. Without a way to guide his pod he had no way to prevent his collision with the local flora, luckily for him the braking jets still did their job or he might not have survived the drop.

He inspected the remains of his pod, the radio was totally destroyed and he couldn't even tell if the transponder was still functioning. He was happy to discover his sniper rifle survived the ordeal. Every sniper personalized their rifle, his was no different, it had taken him a long time to sight the rifle just the way he preferred it. He had manged to keep the same rifle since he joined Alpha-Twelve. He considered it lucky, seeing how both him and the gun survived the drop, he was convinced more than ever that it was.

Being out of contact, he knew the squad would carry on the mission without him. Looking around John identified a few regional landmarks to get his bearings. Remembering the mission briefing, the comm relay would be located on the Klam Plateau, and the closest route to the plateau was the Odvaha Pass. He gathered the rest of the ammo and medical supplies in the pod and began his long trek. With any luck he might catch up to the rest of the squad.

Dawn approached, the squad finally had their mission objective in their sights. They had managed to evade Innie patrols and slipped through the Odvaha Pass without incident. However the closer they got to their objective the more resistance they ran into. Night was running out and the squad couldn't spend more time evading patrols.
"Another patrol sarge, this one has a hog." Vince said.
Two insurrectionists came into view through the thick shrubbery, walking at a leisurely pace while a warthog armed with a M41 followed behind. A driver and a gunner operated the vehicle while two insurrectionists in front discussed their dissatisfaction with their current assignment. The driver did his best not be bored driving at a snail's pace as the gunner scanned their surroundings.
"I see 'em, four in total." Tony replied.
"They're all over the plateau, where are all the local forces?" Vince wondered.
"One problem at a time Vince, David how long?"
"Not long now, boss." He replied.

"Ok, we're running out of time, be ready to engage with suppressors. I'll take the two in front. Vince, driver. David, Gunner. On my mark."
Tony lined up both Innies with his M7S, Vince aimed his M6C SOCOM at the driver, while David simply unsheathed his combat knife.

"Mark."
In one quick motion the Tony and Vince dispatched their targets, while David sprinted out of the treeline to the rear of the warthog, he pulled the gunner down and sliced his throat. All four targets dropped before they could retaliate. Even with David's helmet on you could see his smile.

"Feels good to get my hands dirty again."
"Lets not have too much fun, we still have a job to do. Hide the bodies in the shrubs and let's mount up."
Vince -always eager to operate any vehicle -hopped into the driver seat. "I thought we were doing this quiet sarge."
"True, but with daylight approaching we'll need all the force multipliers we can get. Speaking of which, how long now David?"
David hopped onto the M41, looking at his watch on his right arm and held up his left hand with all his fingers outstretched. He slowly lower each digit until there were none remaining. A thundering boom could be heard in the distance, followed by sirens.

"Floor it to the relay." Tony ordered.