Chapter Thirteen – Mud
0721 Hours, August 30, 2552 (Military Calendar) /
Epsilon Eridani system, Orbital Defense Generator
Facility A-331, planet Reach.
Logan saw it as he ran.
A lone Banshee, nose dug deep into the mud. It's Elite pilot pasted the ground nearby in a purple mess. Logan could hear the sounds of battle around him, machine guns and plasma, explosions both near and far. He slid to a stop against the alien craft and tested the controls.
The Banshee hummed to life.
o o o
Eric opened his eyes.
Mud had splattered his visor. Droplets of rain began to wash it away, revealing a jagged crack in the faceplate. It was eerily silent.
He tried to move, but his mind seemed detached from his body. His limbs were numb to his will.
He coughed up blood from his bitten tongue, splashing the inside of the visor a vibrant red.
He had to get up. He had to move. The other Spartans...Ashley.
A raindrop slid its way between the crack in his visor, mingled with a bead of blood, and hung, suspended. The droplet fell, splashing Eric's forehead; a mixture of warm and cold that sent shivers of life back into him.
Eric sat up in the mud, his bones and muscles aching.
It was a mess.
The Warthog lay on its side, the front end facing away from him, a tire still spinning silently. From the look of it, the straps securing him to the machine gun turret had snapped and dumped him in the mud. Just ahead of him lay Andrew, his emptied rocket launcher still clutched in his hand. Grant...
A crumpled, charred, smoking mess was all that remained of the driver's side of the Warthog. The remnants of a suit of MJOLNIR armor remained, black and smoldering like a burnt exoskeleton.
Sound crashed back into Eric's ears like a tidal wave. He flinched from the noise at first, then reoriented himself and rose to his feet. He knelt by Andrew and shook him. The Spartan coughed and began to rise. Eric helped him up to his feet.
"We need to move, Andrew. Just hold onto me."
"What about Grant?"
"He's gone. We have to move on."
Andrew looked back at the smoldering wreckage behind them and nodded.
"Alright, let go then. I can walk."
"Can you run?"
Andrew looked back at Eric's cracked faceplate, then nodded again. Eric turned.
"Good. Then let's run."
A Wraith bomb detonated against the Warthog, propelling the flaming vehicle through the air over the two Spartans' heads where it crashed several meters away.
They ran.
o o o
Jack held his breath.
The sensation of falling was not new to him. Whether through dreams, through training, through combat, he had taken falls before and lived. Shields could recharge. Broken bones could heal.
But this was death.
He instinctively fanned out his arms and legs, hoping to slow his momentum. The ground rose up to catch him, to grind him into the mud where he would lie forever, the hissing rain his only requiem.
He heard the whine of a Banshee and looked up. The alien craft dove towards him on a collision course. It wasn't enough that he would die this day. No, the bastard would see it through to the end, finish what it had started, make sure he was dead.
We'll see about that.
Jack waited until the Banshee sped over him and reached out, fingertips brushing the metallic surface...
Gotcha!
Jack's hand latched tight to the wing, and the sudden momentum of the accelerating Banshee nearly ripped out his shoulder joint as he was carried on a new course through the air, just feet above the ground.
A voice echoed over the COM.
"Gotcha!"
It was Logan.
Surprised relief swelled inside Jack. He knew Logan had his back now. He was alive. And he knew what he was going to do.
"Thanks for the lift, Logan. But I have an appointment with one of those Wraiths, if you don't mind."
"I was thinking the same thing," Logan said as he accelerated the Banshee towards the nearest of the Covenant artillery, "Hang on. Turbulence."
The Banshee barrel-rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding a well placed Wraith shot. Jack was nearly thrown off. Plasma sizzled past his armor, dimming the shields a good fourth of the bar.
"Get me in close. See if you can punch a hole for me."
"Roger that, get ready."
The Banshee swooped left and right, throwing the nearest Covenant tank's aim. After another missed shot, Logan suddenly shifted the Banshee to full speed straight for the Wraith while its energy mortar recycled its next shot.
Logan fired a plasma torpedo.
The green blast detonated against the Wraith's armored front.
Jack let go.
o o o
Eric didn't look back.
Enhanced by the MJOLNIR suit, he sprinted at 50 km/h, mud flinging behind him from beneath his armored boots. He nearly stumbled as he splashed through a puddle in a ditch, but continued running. He heard Andrew's footsteps in rapid pursuit behind him. They had to get out of the open valley and back to base with the other Spartans.
West Bunker was three hundred meters ahead. Almost there...
Eric heard the whine of a Covenant Ghost and threw himself to the mud.
"Down!" he shouted through his external speakers. Eric felt the alien vehicle hover right over his body; the propulsive wake of the Ghost sent tingles down Eric's spine. He heard a loud smacking of metal and he rolled over onto his back, sitting up to see.
Andrew's legs sank to the ground. Something else had tumbled and slid through the mud further down.
The rest of Andrew's body lay twenty meters away.
Eric fought back a wave of nausea and panic and forced himself to turn and keep running. But his legs had melted into sluggish steps. His head swam, and he looked around for the Ghost. He heard the whine of its engines.
This time he saw it.
The Ghost circled back towards him from thirty meters away, energy trailing hungrily in its wake. He could see now that a Grunt drove the vehicle. Eric braced himself for his last stand. He knew the thing wouldn't try and run him over again. It would wait for him to duck, then open up with its plasma turrets and melt him to the ground.
Eric watched as the Ghost sped towards him on a collision course. He had only one shot at this...
The Ghost suddenly braked five meters in front of him and opened fire. Eric dove to the side and fell into a roll, coming up into a crouch just as the Ghost pivoted and hit its boosters, accelerating straight for him.
Eric remained in a crouch until the last second. He thrust himself into the air, tucking his knees in front of him and extending his metallic boots outward in a kick.
They collided.
o o o
Jack immediately coiled into a ball and bounced hard off the Wraith's surface. He reached out as he tumbled and caught a hold of the back end and jerked to a halt, slamming against the Wraith's flank, his shield indicator blaring. Logan's Banshee shrieked away overhead and now became engaged in a dog fight with the same Banshee that had flung him into the air.
Jack crawled atop the Wraith and towards the gaping hole in its front. Electrical wires dangled from within, and the Elite inside began to climb out. Jack grabbed it by the throat and lifted it out of the tank. The Elite groped for its plasma rifle, but Jack beat it to it and fired the weapon point blank into the alien's stomach. Jack tossed the body aside and dropped inside the Wraith, hoping the thing still worked as he toggled the controls.
The Wraith lurched forward and its energy mortar blinked online.
Jack grinned.
Now we're talking.
o o o
Logan put his Banshee into an outward spiral, avoiding another close plasma torpedo from the pursuing craft. The enemy Banshee was hounding him, never more than fifteen meters away at all times. He couldn't shake the thing. He knew it was only a matter of time before he was hit and went down. He had to do something different, use the enemy's determined lock to its disadvantage.
Logan dove for the Wraiths.
o o o
Jack rotated the Covenant behemoth and aligned its plasma mortar targeting reticule on the enemy Wraith closest to him. It was too distracted by the Banshee fight in the air above it to realize its neighbor had been hijacked. Jack fired the mortar and watched with satisfaction as the round detonated against the Wraith's side, punching through a weak spot in the armor. The mortar tank belched smoke and caught on fire.
Jack rotated again and lurched his craft towards the other two remaining Wraiths, both of which now targeted him. Jack knew that firing a shot would most likely damage one of them, but he also knew that when their combined weapons were fired upon him...
The tradeoff wasn't worth it.
Jack slid his Wraith sideways, angling to use the destroyed one as cover while he recuperated. His motion tracker indicated that the two Wraiths were now taking flanking positions from each side of his smoldering cover and were just about to emerge from either side. Jack rotated his Wraith to face outwards, away from both of them, and waited for the Covenant tanks to come in view. He heard the emergency lock-on signal blare, then hit the Wraith's boosters and sped forward as they fired. Their shots arced past each other and smashed into one another. Both Wraiths were hurt, but still rotated to track the Spartan as he spun about to face them.
Jack fired his mortar at the one to the left. The Wraith's armor boiled and broke apart under the temperature stress, and somewhere deep inside a flammable component was hit. The blue-armored beast went up in flames and blue plasma. The remaining Wraith slid forward and locked on to Jack's tank.
He was out of ideas. He had done all he could and taken down two Wraiths, let alone dismantling the first. He tried to calculate a way to survive, but knew that even if he popped the hatch now he would never make it in time.
Oh well. Might as well take this one with me.
Both Wraiths fired. A Banshee sped right between them while another screeched just behind. The second one was caught between the blasts and incinerated instantly. As the two orbs of plasma dissipated, a single piece of the wing tumbled to the mud, fried.
Logan's voice echoed in Jack's ears, laughing.
"Two points!"
"Logan!" Jack shouted, knowing his own and the enemy Wraith's weapons were cycling another energy round. Logan made a sharp turn for them.
"Here comes the three pointer..."
A green plasma torpedo struck the alien Wraith's side, blowing clean through the other end. Jack spoke back over the COM.
"Thanks for the help, Green-Two. EVAC Green-Three on the double. We're getting inside."
"You sure? Looks like more guests have arrived."
Jack turned the Wraith towards the ridgeline and saw another trio of Banshees glide into view.
"I'm Positive. I'll meet you there. Acknowledge."
"Roger that, Green-One."
"Move."
Logan's Banshee arced and accelerated towards Rachel's position on the western hillside. Jack noticed on his radar that the closest friendly contact in the valley was Green-Five. He activated the COM again.
"Green-Five, respond. I need your assistance, ASAP."
The three Covenant Banshees took notice to his Wraith and turned towards him.
"Green-Five, I repeat: respond!"
o o o
Eric's boot caught the Grunt in the face.
The force knocked the creature right out of the Ghost's seat and into the air. The momentum of the vehicle sent Eric into a sideways flip through the air. Spartan training kicked in, and he thrust his torso to better orient himself, aligning his feet towards the ground. His boots skipped off the mud and he slipped, bringing his arms before him and sliding through the mud.
After a deep breath, he pushed off the slushy ground and rose to his feet, staring through the layers of rain at the crumpled Grunt lying several meters away. The creature still twitched in spasms. Eric slammed his boot down hard on it once, then again.
Satisfied the Grunt's face had thoroughly caved in, he moved towards the Ghost lying on its side just ahead. He grabbed a hold of one end and turned it over. With a tap of the controls the thing hummed to life, hovering a meter off the ground.
Eric strapped himself in when he heard the voice over the COM.
"Green-Five, respond. I need your assistance, ASAP."
It was Jack.
Eric looked out across the valley and saw him scooting the Wraith backwards, mortar trained on a trio of inbound Banshees. Eric began to reach for the accelerator joystick, when he heard another local transmission.
"Ashley! Someone help, she's hit!"
Eric's stomach went cold.
He turned the Ghost towards the main facility, just three hundred meters away.
"Green-Five, I repeat: respond!"
Eric's heart raced. He didn't know what to do. His leader was calling him. But Ashley was hurt...
Eric hit the accelerator and sped for the facility.
o o o
Rachel heard the cry of a Banshee and slapped a fresh clip into her sniper rifle from behind her rock cover. She held her breath and prepared to fight to the death. A familiar voice crackled over a personal COM.
"Rise and shine, Rachel. Nap's over."
Rachel rolled her eyes and stepped out from behind the large boulder. Logan hovered the Banshee just above the ground and pulsed the engine pods urgently. Rachel jogged over and stood before it.
"Your damsel in distress, then?"
"And I, your knight in shining armor."
"MJOLNIR armor, maybe. But you're no knight."
"Better. I'm a Spartan. Now shut up and hop on."
She sighed and grabbed a hold.
"Jack put you up to this?"
"The rescue, yes. But the lines are all me."
"Just get me out of here."
"Hold on."
Despite herself, Rachel grinned behind her faceplate. While he could be an ass at times, Logan also knew how to make her laugh.
Why can't Jack be this normal with me?
Rachel caught her own thoughts and strangled them. She had to remain a professional when it came to this. Losing her focus for one of the other Spartans...let alone their team leader, could be dangerous. For all of them.
Still, she appreciated the attention. And the ride.
She wondered how they could stay so light humored in the face of battle and the death of their friends. Already four Spartans to her knowledge were dead. Perhaps laughing was the only way to shake off the pain.
Looking down into the valley now, however, her heart thundered with worry at the sight below.
o o o
Jack fired a wild shot with the Wraith mortar, then popped the port hatch.
He grabbed hold of the sides and threw himself out of the cockpit. He leapt over the back end of the Wraith, just as a strafing burst of plasma rounds lit up his backside. His shields flared and faded to a third. He had no time to notice as he sprinted from the Wraith and threw himself into the mud, just as three plasma torpedoes detonated into the Covenant tank and blew it to pieces. The ensuing shockwave dropped the rest of his shields to nothing.
The three Banshees screamed overhead.
He had to move before they circled back for another pass. He rose and sprinted for the nearest hunk of smoldering Wraith remains; the carcass of an earlier threat. Ten meters. Five. He slid to a halt in the mud behind his new cover, just as three more torpedoes tossed columns of mud six meters in the air nearby.
There was a deep hum as a great shadow enveloped Jack. He turned to see a Wraith tank hovering before him. It must have survived from the first four the others engaged. And all this time it had slinked quietly across the battlefield, unnoticed until now, ready to kill him.
A tank shell punched through the Wraith's side with a loud crack, and the thing exploded, hurling Jack backwards into the mud. He turned his head and saw Akiko in her damaged Scorpion tank, cannon barrel smoking. Her voice carried softly over the COM.
"Got it..." She whispered, and after a gurgled cough, her bio signs flatlined.
Jack heard the screech of the Banshees, searching for any survivors amongst the new wreckage.
Where was Eric with his backup?
o o o
The Ghost reached West Bunker and slowed to a stop. The craft powered down and Eric leapt from the seat, running to the sealed side door hatch and slamming his fist repeatedly against the steel. There was a metallic click and the door slid aside, revealing a Spartan. They stepped aside as Eric pressed in and looked around.
Ashley lay in Daniel's arms.
Eric knelt by her side and took her gently from Daniel. Strangely, she looked fine. No charred armor, missing limbs, nothing. He looked to the other Spartans in the room for help.
"What happened?"
Daniel stepped forward.
"Knocked out. She was hit by some debris on the head. Thought we had lost her. But she's fine. Where's Jack?"
Eric didn't answer and looked down at Ashley. Daniel hit the COM angrily.
"Green-Lead, this is Green-Sixteen. What is your status, over?"
"I'm pinned down by Banshees. I need EVAC if you can spare it-," Jack shouted, there was an explosion, and he added, "Sooner than later would be nice!"
"Understood, Green-One. I'm on the way."
Eric rose from Ashley's side, but Daniel grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him close.
"I don't have time for this, Eric. Now get your head in gear and help the others guard the bunker. That's an order."
"You're not team leader-,"
"-There may not be one thanks to you. As of right now I have tactical command of the base. The other squad leaders are dead."
Eric swallowed and stepped back.
Daniel grabbed their remaining rocket launcher and left the Bunker. He hopped in the Ghost and sped off down the slope towards the far end of the valley. Eric looked around at the others in the room.
None of them looked at him.
o o o
Jack ran for his life.
There was no more cover for him to hide behind. And now the Banshees swooped in for a final strafing run. He heard them scream closer and threw himself against the mud.
He heard a rocket fire, something popping explosively, and he looked up to see a Banshee spiral to the ground, one of its wing pods missing. The alien craft splashed into the mud and slid to a halt. The other two Banshees had peeled off to the sides and were coming around for a better angle on their new threat.
Jack saw a Ghost whip by him and pursue the aerial attack craft from the ground. He saw with relief that Daniel drove it and was busy firing a hail of plasma in the Banshees' direction. Jack spent his borrowed time to run towards the fallen Banshee just ahead.
He tried the controls...but the thing was dead.
There were two loud plasma torpedo bursts and subsequent explosions. Jack continued running and didn't look back. He keyed the COM as he ran.
"Daniel, fall back. I've gotten some distance and should be able to make it. Get back to base now!" Jack shouted. He wasn't going to let anyone else die on this mission. Especially just to save him. A voice answered back...but it was almost too late before Jack realized it came from someone's external speakers approaching rapidly behind him.
"Grab my hand!"
Jack turned and saw Daniel in the Ghost about to pass him, his palm outstretched. Jack lunged out and grasped the hand, feeling himself ripped from the suction of the mud and pulled behind Daniel. Jack crammed himself behind him uncomfortably. Logan's voice cut in over the COM; he must have been on his way and seen them.
"Don't worry, lovebirds. I got your back."
"Save it," Jack said. But he grinned at Logan's untimely humor nonetheless. He felt safer now knowing that Rachel had been dropped off at the base.
That is, until he saw her clinging onto Logan's wing as they soared overhead.
"Logan! Get Green-Three to base right-," Jack began.
"Thought we'd see the sights first. She's a big girl now, Jack. You should start acting like one, too."
He laughed at his own joke. But Jack heard a hint of honesty in his voice that kindled fire in his blood. Logan was putting Rachel in danger. And she was with him while Jack practically had Daniel in his lap.
He had no more time to think as Daniel propelled them towards West Bunker. Jack practically leapt from the Ghost before they even fully halted at the door and snatched the launcher from Daniel's back. It held their last rocket.
Jack stood atop West Bunker and kneeled, shouldering the weapon. He watched carefully as Logan's Banshee dodged fire from the other two. Logan destroyed one with a well-placed plasma torpedo, but the other one got a couple shots in with its plasma bursts. Logan knew his craft was damaged and pulled out in full retreat for West Bunker. Rachel clung on tightly to the side with one arm, the other aiming her sniper rifle and firing shots wildly at the pursuing Banshee.
Jack waited for them to get within range. Logan saw him waiting there and swerved out of the way.
Jack fired the rocket.
The enemy Banshee sped forward at first, hoping to ram the Spartan atop the bunker. But by the time it saw the incoming missile, there was no time to maneuver.
The flier exploded and tumbled in a ball of smoke and flame.
Logan's Banshee touched down nearby, and Rachel hopped off and ran to Jack, standing before him. He let the launcher fall to the ground and they paused, looking at one another. Rachel shifted uneasily and made the two-fingered smile signal. Jack returned it and faced the muddy valley once more.
The rain had stopped.