Locate, Observe, Destroy

"We were on the Gorgon, out on patrol when the call from Iocale came in." Gunnery Sergeant Geoffrey Dees was sitting underneath a tree with his, helmet off and his back to it's thick trunk. After he and Kray had killed the two jackal scouts the platoon took a position around and on the hill overlooking the low ground they had found the ODST in. Now Lieutenant Mixer, Gunny Donnelley and a few of the closer marine swere listening while he told his story. "The Covie fleet was starting it's push back to Gamma when the Gorgon got into position to drop us. The best thing I could come up with was that as we started to drop, a Covie ship made it in close enough to force our ride to move out of position. Now instead of landing just outside the city a number of us hit out here in the boonies. That was almost eleven hours ago."

"And you haven't found anyone else in that time?" Mixer asked.

"According to what you said and the map" he said tapping the tacpad in her hands that displayed the same satellite image that Colonel Van Dam had shown her "it's about ten kilometers between the rally point and the river. You're talking about nearly a hundred square kilometers of forest. So yeah, you guys are the first people I've seen. And man am I glad to see you guys, and not just because I've been alone in the woods."

"And why is that?" Donnelley questioned, cocking his head to the side.

"Believe it or not you lot fight better than any other regular jarheads I've run into." He responded before taking a sip from his canteen. "But you aren't regular marines anymore are you? Shock infantry was it?"

"Ya."

"That means you're heavy hitters, right?"

"To be honest, we're not quite sure what it means." Mixer said rubbing the back of her neck. "Colonel Van Dam sent us out here pretty much as scouts looking for a Covenant ground force."

"Thing is though," Donnelley said while turning to look her in the eye "if we spot anything it would take to long to get word back and set up an assault. I'm guessing he expects us to take out everything we can and only call in the big guns for something, well, bigger."

"Makes sense to me." Dees agreed "You're here pretty much to slow their advance long enough for the forces in the city to get a better hold. Basically kick ass at will."

"So one platoon covers a hundred square kilometers of enemy infested forest? Joy." Mixer rolled her eyes with that last statement. "Any suggestions?"

"If there is a large number of Covies out here, there has to be at lesst one place they're using for a base, and bases need support and supplies." Dees said. "Check all the good sized clearings."

"Also, since the patrols from the highway haven't even run into any patrols we can assume they are deeper in and avoiding it all together. And it's best we look near streams." Donnelley added.

"Why?" asked Dees.

"A few reasons. If they are getting air support or shipping in supplies our ships haven't seen anything moving. That could mean the ships are flying over the river and staying above one of these streams, still under the canopy, until it reaches their base. The other two are much more simple, access to water and if any of their patrols get lost they just follow the stream right back home."

Mixer nodded and looked down at the map. "There are three streams within half a kilk of here. I want to break up by squads. First squad will keep heading to the river but break off and follow this stream once it hits this clearing." she said pointing to a location not to far ahead of their position on the map. "Second will head to the geographic north and once they hit their stream they should follow it to the river, and Third will do the same but heading south. Fourth will stay here and hold this spot. Once each squad has covered roughly a kilometer along the water they will come back here. If you do find anything don't use your radios, send a runner. Lastly I want Nelms on overwatch here on the hill. Dees can round out Second squad."

"I'd be delighted to."

…

It had been an hour since the Lieutenant had split up the squads into smaller search parties and Second squad still hadn't run across their designated waterway. That was Simply because Kostoff (and Dees who absolutely insisted he was a tag along and not the one in charge, no matter what the regulations said) had kept the five of them moving at the same cautious pace. That had caused some grumbling and whispered bitching the whole way. No matter how much they bitch about it,the Staff Sergeant though, they still know it keeps marines alive. Hell maybe we can sneak up on another patrol. But they have a right to gripe. I forget who said 'if there is no griping, something is very wrong'.

He removed his duty cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. It was hot, maybe not everywhere on Gamma Iocale but it was almost like a jungle where they were. Taking a look around he saw that his squad was soaked through with sweat, most of them even panting, and even Dees seemed to be tiring in his armor. They had to stop for rest soon, otherwise one of them might collapse from heat stroak. But they had to be close to the stream by now, question was were they close enough to keep going or did they have to stop?

After rechecking the map and comparing their time out to his rough estimate of their pace he decided to keep moving, It can't be too far. So they continued on through the brush as silently as they could manage. But after ten more minutes and still no sign of the stream he was beginning to doubt his decision. He let out a low to get everyone's attention, pulled out his canteen then pointed at his wrist and held up five fingers, five minute break. But while Saucedo, the farthest forward of them, was looking over his shoulder at Kostoff he took one last step and seemed to fall right through the ground from the NCO's point of view.

The five marines all bolted to where their comrade had been standing moments before and Kostoff got there first. His worry melted away and he couldn't help but laugh as he saw Saucedo stand up in the hip deep water, completely soaked. He held out his hand to help the marine back onto the bank. "About time you took a bath."

The sodden marine clamped onto his wrist and stared him in the eye. "You could use one yourself."

"Yeah," Harriman said from behind him "the Covies can smell you coming a mile away."

"Ok" the NCO said noticing the clearing across the small body of water and pulling Saucedo up "we found the stream. Take five minutes to rest, but stay in the trees."

Kostoff walked about four meters from the bank and sat at the base of a tree. All kidding aside, if there had been any covenant in the area when saucedo had taken that dunk all six of them would have been screwed. But there was no one around that they could see, not even in the clearing. He turned his attention across the water, after all that was what Mixer had them all looking for. The stream had to be close to ten meters across, maybe more, and the far bank rose a few feet above the water with a thin line of trees between it and the open area. But it wasn't choked full of high grass or brush, it had been genuinely cleared by human hands, probably by the people who had lived in the cluster of buildings sitting in the middle.

It looked to have been a small farm of some kind with neatly plowed fields, some of the even bare dirt, and what was almost certainly a barn. The other buildings had to have been the main house, a pen of some kind for livestock and what could have been a tool shed. He was just beginning to think about what had happened to the family that had lived there when Dees tapped him on the shoulder, time to go. He reached for his rifle and cast one more glance across the water. What he saw made him grab onto Dees arm and pull him down.

Cautiously coming out of the trees on the far side of the clearing was a group of four jackals without shields and carrying long rifles. Two stuck close to the wood line and began a slow circle of the area while the other two approached the house. By the time they entered the whole squad had ducked behind a tree or a bush and they were all watching, hoping the place was indeed deserted. After a few tense moments the jackals reappeared and not a single shot had been fired, that was good news at least. They all watched for a few more moments as the aliens completed their search and all met in the center of one of the small fields. After a small discussion, two began putting small stakes in the ground while the others climbed up two of the taller trees.

Still Kostoff didn't let anyone move, they were hear to find covenant and he was curious what they were up to. It wasn't long before they all picked uo on a characteristic whine of a Covenant vehicle getting louder and coming from down stream. The Sergeant put the trunk of the tree between him and the water and lowered himself to the ground, leaving himself just enough room to see. As the sound peaked the twin hulls of a Spirit dropship came gliding over the water, turret tracking along their bank. Kotoff's heart was pounding in his chest, but he stayed rooted in position, they all did.

Once the turret and the tail of the ship was past them it slowly rose above the tops of the trees, floated over the clearing and descended again. As it came down Kostoff noticed that six of the Covenant's weirdly shaped crates were held between the prongs of it's hull by anti-grav fields. when the ship was hovering only a meter or so off the cleared ground the crates were dropped and it's sides opened, disgorging a dozen grunts and two brutes. He watched as one of the massive, ape-like aliens raised it's head to sniff at the air before turning around and barking orders at the grunts, which busied themselves with moving and unloading the crates.

Turning around to put his back against the trunk Kostoff motioned his squad closer. "It looks like they are setting up camp here. Punske, run back to the hill and spread the word that Mixer has her target."

The marine nodded once and quickly left. Kostoff took another look across the stream. The crates had already been moved away from the fields and placed near the buildings and grunts were already carrying individual pieces of equipment into the barn. Motion on the roof caught his attention and he saw the two jackals had scaled to the top of the barn and were setting up what looked conspicuously like an antenna. This was most definitely going to be a base of some sort.

…

Vik was panting by the time she and the rest of the platoon had made it to Second squad's position. Jocelyn had made it back to the hill pretty quickly and Sergeant Ryan had picked her and Lazlo to run after Mixer and Donnelley. She moved as fast as she could and Mixer had moved even faster, so now she was cursing the comms blackout as much as everyone else. There was enough negative energy being thrown off by the marines that she could pretty much feel it. But the rest was welcome none the less.

She was close to Mixer as she got a report out of Kostoff. "They were already setting up shop by the time I sent out Punske. Since then another three dropships have come by, all with crates and one carrying troops as well. Another six grunts, four jackals and three more brutes. The grunts have been working on the barn, mostly carrying in what looks like com equipment and then put a methane station in the pen before sealing it up. When the third load came in the dropship went to ground and is still sitting in the field. The big problem though is what landed after that," he ducked his head under a branch and pointed across the stream "a Seraph fighter."

A fighter, Vik couldn't believe what he had said and lowered herself to see through the foliage. Yep, there it was, one honest to god covenant fighter craft. While Seraphs didn't preform their best in atmosphere they were still faster and more heavily armed than a Banshee. Not to mention a bitch to take down because of their energy shield. It was best to blow I up while it was on the ground and vulnerable, but that went without saying. The thing that irked her the most was "How did it get here without anyone noticing?"

She froze. She hadn't meant to say that out loud. But Mixer's lip curved up in a small smile and she nodded. "Good question Vik. Best I can come up with is that the navy is too busy to bother with one fighter and Major General Atradies already has his hands full. Total Covie count?"

"Eighteen grunts, eight jackals, and seven brutes counting the pilots." Kostoff had already counted, and probably recounted, and the numbers came out quick and confidant.

"Thirty-three to our twenty-four." Mixer said, after doing the math. "But we have surprise on our side."

"I would normally say that's more than enough, but I'm worried about those brutes." Donnelley commented without taking his eyes off the clearing. "You never know what they're gonna do."

Vik already found her mind in motion, creating the skeleton of a plan. If there was coms equipment in the barn then the Covies were most likely listening in on UNSC frequencies, so Mixer was right to call for a coms blackout. They still had the element of surprise, which really did go a long way but Donnelley was right, the brutes reacted quickly and aggressively. They had to be taken out quickly or the whole thing could turn around on the marines. The plan in her head was to split up into their two sections, cross the stream and stick the aliens in a pincer while Nasri took care of the ships and coms with his rockets. She opened her mouth to start hinting at the idea when Mixer unknowingly cut her off.

"We're gonna put their nuts in a vice. First section will head a little upstream then cross and second will cross downstream, That'll give Nasri a great shot at those ships. I also want their coms knocked out quickly. Nelms will stay here with Bailey and listen for the confirmation that both sections are in position. His shot will be the cue." She paused and looked each of her squad leaders in the eyes. "Lets get to it."

The Lieutenant and Kostoff stood and started pulling the people from first section while Donnelley and Ryan split up to do the same. The Sergeant disappeared into the brush heading east, upstream, while the Gunny turned downstream to find marines in his section. Vik had been the closest and she stood as he neared and started to move west with him, but he held up a hand to stop her. He stopped right in front of her and looked her in the eye, not glaring or staring her down, there seemed to be curiosity in them.

"It looked like you had something to say."

"It was nothing Gunny, just an idea." She said.

"we're on our own right now, so any input other than "God damn its hot" would be nice to have." He said grinning just a little.

"Well the Lieutenant covered everything I thought of." She replied, smiling at his little joke. "She even one upped me, I didn't even think about having sniper fire or how to start it."

He nodded in understanding then started making his way west, Vik in tow. "I told her you were smart. Glad to know I was right."

"Who? The Lieutenant?" She asked waving for Kray and Vostok to follow them.

"Yeah. You seem to think things through more than those two behind you." Either Kray or Vostok grunted, she couldn't tell which one, but that little insult made her smile again. "I actually wanted to put Banigan with Kostoff, since his Lance is our sniper he'd need a dedicated second, and promote one of you three and have you be Ryan's second. Top of my list was your name. But we had to load up before I could send in any official recommendation."

Vik didn't know what to say. A thank you seemed appropriate but it just didn't feel right to say. So she stayed silent, hoping he knew that she appreciated what he was saying. Now wasn't the time for chatting about her career or being social, I'll thank him later... if there is a later. They had gone maybe a hundred or so meters past the edge of the clearing when Donnelley stopped beside the water. They waited another handful of minutes for Ryan and the other half of the section to appear. Then the eleven marines carefully lowered themselves into the water and started to cross.

The water came that up to her stomach was cool, a blessed relief from the oppressive heat and humidity. She found that odd, she had always thought that this sort of climate would go with a jungle, not with oak and cedar-like trees. She shook her head as she climbed up the other bank, now was not a time for a planetary survey or a time for deep thought. Focus was the name of the game. So she focused on keeping her steps quiet, focused on taking shallow breaths, focused on watching the trees for movement or alien metals.

The section fanned out into a single, loose, line heading back east to the clearing. The trees began to thin out and soon enough Vik had a great view of the open area, including both of the Covenant vehicles and an edge of the barn. Without a word everyone slowed to a snails pace and tried their best to get to a spot that would be easy to move through once the shooting started. She was surprised to see the twin barrels of an M19 rocket launcher appear in her peripheral vision. Looking to her right she could see see the rest of Omar Nasri as he moved the launcher back and forth between targets.

Donnelley came up behind them and squatted next to the rocket jockey whispering so softly Vik couldn't hear him. Nasri nodded and the Gunny pulled out a reload from Nasri's pack and held it ready in one hand while he pointed at something in the clearing still whispering. The marine nodded once more and the Gunny reached up and pressed the side of his helmet. Two clear beeps sounded over the coms, they were ready and now the Lieutenant and Nelms knew it.

She refocused on the activity around the farm, keeping an ear open for Nelms' shot. She was squatting almost exactly between the rear ends of each of the ships. The doors to the barn were wide open, but she couldn't get a look inside to see how many aliens were in there. There were still several grunts unloading crates on the other side of the ship and she saw some enter the barn carrying even more of the covenant's strange equipment. As for the brutes and the jackals there wasn't much of a sign except for a pair of the bird-like creatures following the treeline to the north and another she saw sitting in one of the trees near the bank of the stream. Her battle rifle slid up to her shoulder and looking through it's scope she laid the cross-hairs over the one in the tree and waited.

There was another double click emitted from her earpiece, the Lieutenant was ready. It was all up to Nelms to fire the starting gun now. One of the brutes appeared from behind the seraph and was stomping it's way to the barn door that grabbed Vik's attention when the rolling sound of a shot broke the silence. The brute's head flew off of it's massive shoulder's in a spray of dark red blood, but it was saved falling to the ground and swung around on a piece of neck still connected to it as the brute fell. Vik felt the exhaust from one of the rockets as she sighted in on the jackal again and firing a burst that caused the alien to fall off of it's branch.

She was just registering that the second rocket had flew past her when she heard the first explosion. The rocket had hit the front of the barn just under the antenna setup and now the piece of Covenant equipment was a bunch of twisted metal on the ground. The second hit the seraph right in the exhaust port between it's two tails. The front end ballooned for a millisecond then exploded outward, creating shrapnel that Vik hoped would kill some of the working grunts. Some of the smaller aliens began to panic and ran into the open and were cut down mercilessly by at least five separate marines, including her.

The rest, though, kept their composure and sought cover as more still spilled out of the barn along with the rest of the brutes. Checking her left to make sure that the jackals had been dealt with the third rocket wooshed past her and slammed into the cockpit section leaving the dropship as two smoking, disconnected tubes. With smoke and metal between her and the barn and both jackals on her left left twitching in the dirt she decided it was time to move forward, and everyone else seemed to have the same idea.

All eleven of the marines of the second section charged out of the trees moving for cover behind the smoking pile of junk that Nasri had left. A handful had moved to the fighter after it had been permanently grounded and now the rest moved forward, most moving close to what was left of the spirit. Vik stuck to the left tail of the fighter and crouched hoping the smoke on the other side wasn't so thik on the ground. It was dark black and dense, she couldn't see anything below or between the vehicles but by now one of the covenant troops was firing blindly through the cloud. Vik fired a burst back at where she thought the fire was coming from, all it did was cause even more plasma to fly through the smokescreen.

She was thinking about tossing a grenade through the smoke when the wind picked up, blowing from the west. Suddenly the smoke wasn't in front of her but all around her, causing her eyes to water. She forced herself not to breath too deeply but heard at least one marine coughing over the gunfire. Then the smoke was pushed passed her and she found herself staring at three grunts, a jackal, and a brute just exiting the barn. Instinctively her finger tightened on the trigger and the grunt closest to the fighter's hulk dropped to the dirt, but she beat it there trying to duck under the incoming fire.

The air above her head lit up like a Christmas tree as plasma of different color flew one way and hot lead flew the other. The grunts were riddled with bullets within seconds but everything that was aimed at the jackal bounced off of it's shield. Still prone Vik had an open shot at the point it's shield didn't cover, the feet. She pulled her rifle up, aimed and with a pull of the trigger the jackal fell forward screaming profanities in it's own language. That was before more rifle fire cut it off of course.

The breeze had died and the smoke was starting to collect into a cloud between the ships again, so Vik moved forward trying to see through it. She reached the edge of the cloud, took a deep breath and held it as she walked through. As she cleared the cloud she almost walked into a mass of stinking flesh and gray hair.

"SHIT!" she screamed as she dove to the ground to her left. The Brute had to have been surprised to have her walk right up to him as she had but it had started to swing it's... his plasma rifle around to bash in her skull. The weapon flew through now empty air and missed her head by a bare few centimeters before hitting the fighter's hull with a very loud clang that shattered the rifle's case and caused it to spark and die. Now pissed at missing, weaponless and it's enemy on the ground the ape attempted to stomp on her. Seeing this Vik rolled back into the smoke as fast as she could, got to her knees and emptied her clip into the area the brute had been.

The alien roared and vik let out a whoop of excitement, she had hit it. It wasn't until she saw the large shape moving through the smoke that she realized hitting a brute, even multiple times didn't mean she had killed it. But even if she hadn't have been celebrating the brute would have hit her, it was just moving too fast. It came in low on all fours, roaring as it ran into her with it's shoulder driving the air from her lungs and pushing her out of the smoke. She landed on her back looking up at the snarling behemoth as it gloated over her, chest heaving. There were several bleeding bullet wounds in it's bare chest, five maybe and the beast was still standing.

Jesus, these guys are harder to kill than I thought. How can it take that many hits and still manage to move, let alone take me down? The thought served to snap her back into reality, she was in a very bad position. The brute was reaching down to grab her, but it was moving so slowly. In the blink of an eye her M6 was off her hip and put three quick rounds into it's knee. As tough as brutes were three 12.7mm rounds shattered bone and tore apart the ligaments and muscles around the joint causing more damage than the alien could handle. The brute roared again, in a mix of pain and rage as it fell to the ground at Vik's feet. She aimed the pistol between her feet and put two more rounds into it's screaming face.

She lay there a second, slowly getting her breath back and gleefully filling her lungs. She closed her eyes and let the feeling of relief carry her away for a moment before opening them again. By then her section was pushing forward and Kray was standing over her and offered her a hand up when she opened her eyes. She took the hand and he pulled her to her feet and waited for her to pick up her rifle and reload before pressing on without a word. He was afraid she thought, checking the rifle over. Afraid for me?Maybe. Everyone in this platoon practically needs each other to stay sane now.

On the other side of the smoke again she saw that they had met up with the first section and a number of marines entering the house and a few more about to clear the animal pen. Most though had taken up positions around the barn and were trading a lot of fire with the forces still inside. However no one could get a clear shot at anything inside and there was enough plasma heading their way that nobody could get close enough to use a grenade.

A conventional grenade anyway.

Donelley stood off to her right, with a bit of an angle into the barn through the door and Nasri was crouching next to him. The Gunny had taken the M319 Grenade Launcher off of his back and with a nod to the rocket jockey fired it. The 40mm grenade arced through the door and bounced off the far wall then it was out of sight. It exploded inside and Vik used the gap in the Covenant's fire to move past Donnelley and get a line of sight into the barn. As she took her first look Nasri fired his fourth rocket and the wall by the door turned into a mass of flying splinters and the Gunny put another grenade through the new hole.

The grenade went off near the back and it's effects were still blocked by the smoke from the rocket hit. But out of the smoke came a grunt skidding across the ground. At first Vik thought that the explosion had thrown it into the open but it kept moving, running into what was left of the door-frame and spinning out into open still screaming. Pushing it was a high pressure stream of gas coming from it's back, the grenade must have ripped off his methane rig, more likely part of it. It came to a stop near the spirit and Kray put a bust into it as five marines followed the grenade into the barn.

There was a brief sound of gunfire and then someone called "Clear!"

"The pen's clear too!"

That just left the house, and all Eyes turned to it. A single marine from Donnelley's squad came out the door looking at the object in his hands. When he noticed everyone watching him he cleared is throat. "Its clear."

"Nothing ran out of the clearing." Mixer announced looking over the crowd. "Did we lose anyone?" No one spoke up. They hadn't lost a single marine? That was the best news anyone of them had heard in about a month. The Lieutenant had a huge smile on her face. "Damn fine work marines. Now put out the fires we started so the whole barn doesn't go up in flames." She waved the marine from the house over. "What have you got there Lutz?"

"It's a camera ma'am." He said sheepishly.

"A camera hm? Well this does seem like a good time for a picture. Why not set it up?"

"Sounds good ma'am." He said smiling and ran off.

With the fires doused and the area clear Mixer called the platoon together and told them they were taking a picture together. Most felt like they were on top of the world after the action was over and seemed to think it was a good idea but a few others grumbled, that was until Mixer threatened to shoot them if they weren't in the picture. Gunnery Sergeant Dees offered to hold the camera and take the picture but the Lieutenant threatened him too. Finally Lutz found a box to set the camera on, lined it up, pressed the button and ran.

"Everyone say cheese."

…

Thank you for reading.

The platoon really did just have their first victory, and without a single casualty. Now don't worry, I haven't gone soft on them and there is still plenty of action to come.