A/N: Well, here we are again. Okay, just so you know, the Truth and Reconciliation will be divided into three parts. Insertion, assault, extraction. Now for the shoutouts.
Warp Lugia Obscura: Thanks for the review! Most people'd be like "There was only one Spartan!", but I like to bend the rules.
Warior: Ah, the ever present reviewer strikes again! I'm glad you're enjoying the story.
The Marines of Charlie Company
Chapter 6:
The Truth and Reconciliation
Part II
Assault
David sighed as he gathered the ammunition and grenades he could from the corpses of his fallen comrades, watching as the three Spartans conversed and the other Marines stood around, looking confused. Some even spoke of going back to Alpha Base, of not being needed here on this suicide mission because of the Spartans. Carson, however, knew better. The Spartans were super soldiers, that was plainly obvious, be even they were still human. They'd need all the help they could get, and David planned on following them to the ends of the…Halo, if need be.
He approached the Spartans casually as they stood next to the gravity lift, talking quietly (on private channels no doubt). David stopped and stood still as one of them took notice, but not out of fear of the Spartans. He stood at attention from respect for them. "Sirs, I've got all the equipment and ammunition I need. I'm ready to help you rescue the Captain."
One of the Spartans, in metallic grey with the emblem of Sergeant Major emblazoned into his bicep, looked to his other Spartans, then shrugged. "Marine," he began slowly, "we can probably handle this ourselves. There's no need to go and get yourself killed."
"Sir, I've fought alongside Spartans on several occasions, and was damn proud to do it. I'm not gonna pass up another opportunity to do so."
The Spartan that spoke looked back to his comrades and shrugged, waiting for an answer. Master Chief's fingers twitched slightly, barely visible to someone without enhanced vision or who wasn't looking, and the other two Spartans glanced at each other. The blue one's finger twitched as well, and the first turned back to Carson and nodded silently.
David snapped off a crisp salute and stepped onto the gravity lift and turned to face his fellow Marines who, after a brief hesitation, followed behind him and stepped on the platform. He suppressed a smile as the Spartans came up with the Marines and the lift activated. It was an odd feeling, sort of like going over a hill really fast in a car. His stomach felt like it rose a little bit and he looked down as the ground became farther away. The gravity lift's base became a black spot on the ground, and the bodies were no longer visible, only the canyon and stars…David silently hoped none of the Marines were acrophobic.
Finally, in a flash, he felt something solid beneath his feet; the durable alloy of a Covenant warship. He checked his surroundings as he waited on the others; the room was dim and littered with Covenant supply crates and the occasional Wraith or two. On the far side of the room were two blast doors, and on either side of him were two pairs of normal sensor doors. The ceiling was only about thirty feet or so, and the room itself was fifteen feet wide and twenty feet long at the most.
The others arrived soon and everyone fanned out to secure the area, carefully watching the doors for threats. After a few short, antagonizing moments, Cortana finally spoke up, breaking the eerie silence. "No Covenant defenses detected…" she said in an almost confused tone of voice.
"There's no Covenant here…looks like nobody's home." Said one Marine,
The other Marines relaxed, but David stayed on full alert. He'd boarded a cruiser or two in his time and knew that something was definitely wrong here. The Covenant should be attacking them with full force, but the hangar remained empty and eerily quiet, which was another thing that bothered him; where were the sounds of machinery running, systems humming as they went about their programmed tasks? Yet, still, there was nothing…until the subtle whistle of a door activating broke the silence.
David immediately whipped around to face the door, and was stupefied for a moment; a Covenant plasma blade was hanging in midair. However, he knew that where there was a plasma sword, there was an Elite. He opened fire on the phantom blade and was relieved to see an Elite flicker into view…and appalled at the same time as the Elite roared in anger and charged at him, swinging the blade in a wild attempt to cleanly remove Corporal Carson's head from his shoulders. David ducked under the blade, narrowly avoiding it by mere millimeters, and the others opened fire, quickly subduing the creature.
"No Covenant!" David shouted, "You just had to open your mouth!"
The Marine that had spoken, now wide eyed and extremely frightened, only shrugged in response, as if he had no part in what just happened. David sighed and stood and checked his armor; a small section of his helmet was missing, probably from the near miss with the plasma sword. So far, that was twice Carson had gotten lucky with a plasma sword…well, twice in the same three day period, that is. First on Reach, now here…his luck had to run out eventually, and David hoped that it would not be all too soon.
Then, out of the calm, another door opened with a shrill whistle, but behind it was…nothing. Carson, not wanting to take any chances, primed a grenade and lobbed it at the open door. Not long after, the explosion resounded through the quiet hangar rather loudly…then, he held his breath, praying that he had not just wasted a grenade. Finally, when the smoke cleared, the mangled body of a golden Elite, sword clutched in its hand, could be seen just outside the doorway, fresh blood still pumping from its veins. As David relaxed, another door opened…and another…and another…and another…Covenant troops were pouring into the room in a seemingly endless tide of death and destruction. Though they were mostly Grunts and Jackals, the occasional cloaked Elite would be thrown in there, just to throw the humans off balance.
David opened up with his MA5B in suit of the other Marines, pouring every ounce of lead he had with him into Humanity's greatest foes. A pair of Grunts squealed as the bullets ripped them apart, followed by a Jackal screaming as a grenade thrown by another Marine blew it apart. As soon as the left side of the hangar was cleared out, the right flood gates opened up and another dozen Covenant troops came through, only to be fired upon immediately. Carson fired upon these as well and ran out of ammo just as another cloaked Elite came through the doorway, plasma blade in hand. It charged David immediately, who unslung the sniper rifle from his shoulder and dropped to one knee, aimed down the scope, placed the crosshair on the Elite's head and squeezed the trigger.
With amazing speed, the Elite ducked out of the bullet's passed and it slammed into the opposite wall harmlessly. With one clean swipe, it cleaved the barrel of the sniper rifle in half and kept swinging at the Marine, who ducked out of the way just in time as he backed up. Overwhelming fear clutched at David's heart as the creature closed in on him, each swing of the blade missing by a smaller margin every time. Abruptly, Carson felt something solid impeding his path; he had backed into a wall. David closed his eyes and awaited his death, but it never came. The sounds of assault rifles echoed through the room, then stopped and a soft 'thud' resounded shortly afterward. He opened his eyes slowly and found the smoldering (and holey) body of the Elite laying at his feet, two of the Spartans standing not too far away.
"You alright, Marine?" one called.
Still in a very acute stage of shock, David could only nod in reply. He was still shaking from the combination of adrenaline and fear, the latter of which still gripped at his heart, threatening to squeeze it to a complete stop. David pushed himself off of the wall and tenderly stepped forward over the fallen Covenant trooper's body. One step at a time, he told himself, just one step at a time, as if just to make sure everything was real and he was really alive. After thirty seconds or so of this tedious pace, he regained his nerves and began to walk regularly, marching over to the rest of the squad.
Before anyone had a chance to say anything to him, a set of heavy blast doors on the eastern side of the hangar opened, revealing some of the hardest-fighting units of the Covenant armies; Hunters. At twelve feet tall standing straight up, the compressed their size down to cover their weak spots in the front, but that left the one in the back open. The only problem was getting behind a Hunter in order to hit that weak spot, which was in the exact center of the spine and about a foot wide all the way around; not an easy target for the average Marine.
David's eyes widened as he watched the green glow of the Hunters' fuel rod cannons begin to appear and become more intense. "Duck in cover!" he shouted at the top of his lungs as the cannons charged. He leapt to the right, landed on his shoulder, and rolled across the ground as one of the superheated, radioactive rounds screamed across the room and impacted on a supply crate, causing it to burst into flame and igniting the dozens of grenades stored inside, which ripped up whatever the floor was made of.
The Spartans immediately leapt into action and sprinted forward, headlong into the hunters. The first, 008, slid under an attempted strike by the closest Hunter and rolled to avoid another. He leapt to his feet and jumped back as the second took a swipe at him in order to aid his bond brother. By this time, 009 was in position, crouched near a Wraith tank that was parked in the hangar, pistol raised and ready. He fired a trio of shots, two of which pierced one hunter's soft spot. By the time the second had whirled around to see it's brother's death, Master Chief had worked over behind it and fired a sniper round into it's spine, cleanly splitting the nerve hub. Both Hunters collapsed with a rather loud 'clang', one on top of the other. From the entrance into the ship, the Marines had had one casualty, which David counted as sheer luck. Were it not for Spartans, they would have all been killed.
David stood slowly, his bones and muscles complaining about all of the abuse they'd been put through, and made his way over to the large doors that the Hunters had come through and motioned for the Marines to follow him. Directly to his left was a ramp that sloped down for about twenty meters, then leveled out. Aside from the door at the bottom, there was really nothing of interest in here. Nonetheless, David slowly crept down the ramp in a crouched position and whipped to the right as soon as he got to the bottom. There was another blast door in front of him, this one firmly locked. David tinkered with the lock mechanism for a moment before sighing and turning around.
The Marines and three Spartans were waiting behind him for any news. "It's no good, Chief. I can't bypass it."
"Well, what about those service panels the Covenant had come from?"
Carson shook his head. "We'd all be sitting ducks in that narrow space. We'll wait here while you go around and open the door from the other side, Chief."
Before Carson could even finish the sentence, Chief was gone, leaving the three Marines and other two Spartans alone next to the large door. Some of the Marines shifted uncomfortably under the two super soldiers' gaze, and a couple even had apprehensive looks plastered across their features. David, however, looked upon the Spartans with the utmost respect and pity. First of all, most Marines didn't know that the Spartans didn't volunteer to become what they were…the UNSC and ONI took them from their homes and families and turned them into what they were. He had also fought beside Spartans on Reach and clearly understood that they were superior to the average marine, freaks or not.
The group stood there in silence and was startled by shouts and gunfire on the other side of the thick door. Several indentions were made in it by grenade fragments and stray bullets, which, quite frankly, scared a Marine that was standing too close to the door. Just as quickly as it began, the battle ceased and the sounds of heavy boots clicking echoed in the room beyond. With a hiss, the door opened and revealed Master Chief on the other side. Behind him was a scene of utter chaos; bodies lay strewn across the floor and many colors of blood mixed together in sticky flowing rivers. The room was littered with all sorts of Covenant supplies and vehicles; two Wraiths, a Ghost, three crates of plasma grenades that had been turned over and spilled open during the battle, another crate that was stuffed full of Plasma Rifles.
However, there was one thing that caught David's eye; there, in the middle of the room, was a plasma blade. The most powerful hand-held weapon the Covenant armies possessed, it was more of a symbol than a tool for killing. However, several high-ranking Elites had been seen wielding these insanely powerful weapons on the battle field, and even the mighty Spartans didn't stand a chance against them. Carefully, as if fearing that it might explode, Carson reached down and grabbed the hilt of the weapon which, oddly enough, fit perfectly in his hand.
The weapon's hilt was beautiful. Some sort of inscription had been carved into it, probably by hand, in the language of the Covenant. Several brightly colored gems twinkled in the fluorescent light that the room gave off. The hilt itself was cylindrical with a small rise in the middle, which fit snugly in between David's middle finger and ring finger. Making sure it was faced away from him, Carson depressed the trigger and the blade ignited with a nearly blinding flash. Satisfied that it wouldn't explode, David attached the blade to his belt and regrouped with the rest of the marines and Spartans.
An eerie silence had settled over the small room as the group talked quietly about where they should go; all of the doors were locked. During this time, Carson checked his inventory to see what he had left; two clips for the MA5B, six clips for the pistol, four grenades and three plasma grenades. He didn't count or say anything about the plasma blade he'd picked up, mainly because he wasn't sure how to use it.
Then, the silence was broken as all Hell broke loose. Every door in the room had opened and dozens of Covenant troops flooded in, one Elite from each of the four doors with a dozen Grunts and Jackals following them. Carson ripped a grenade from the bandolier, primed it and threw it with all his might toward the nearest group of Covenant. Several of the Grunts squealed and barked and chirped and tried to dive out of the way, only far too slowly. They were blown apart by the killing weapon, and several of the fragments were implanted into the Elite that led them. It doubled over and howled in pain and anguish as several of it's organs were punctured. David unleashed his MA5B into the masses of Covenant, slaughtering the Grunts and causing an Elite's shields to flicker and, eventually, fail as another Marine joined him. The combined force of both the assault rifles sent the Elite sprawling onto the floor in a puddle of its own blood.
By the time those two groups were taken care of, the rest had been eliminated by the Spartans. So far, the Covenant seemed to be launching surprise attacks on the Marines, as if to try to catch them off guard every time and whittle away at their numbers through sheer fright and, thus far, it hadn't worked…mainly due to the Spartans and their extraordinary speed, strength, and reaction times. David breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly much more cheerful and hopeful. It seemed like any time the Spartans were around, things seemed so much less hopeless, no matter what the odds.
The three Spartans moved toward the doors on the left side of the room and almost left the Marines behind. Carson stood and rallied all of the Marines to him, then ordered them to follow the Spartans through the doors, which opened as they sensed the organisms approach. "All right, everyone stay cool. Yell if you see anything."
Both doors were about ten feet apart and opened to reveal two ramps leading downward slightly for about fifteen feet before levelling out and going off to the left and to the right. Carson looked to the right as soon as his feet hit the bottom of the ramp and found that it extended another thirty feet and then ended in a dead end. He worked his way to the end of the corridor behind him and waited for the rest of the squad to catch up to him, seeing as he was the first through the door.
Soon, the group of four Marines and three Spartans were getting ready to advance through yet another door in front of them. The Spartans burst through first, now catching the Covenant off guard. Carson brought his sniper rifle to bear and searched the top of the new room, which he now knew was a hangar. Supply crates littered the floor, which was now being coated in shell casings, scorch marks, and blood of all colors. Carson spotted a crimson-colored on the top floor in front of him. He inhaled deeply, set the sight on it's head and pulled the trigger.
In a split second, where the Elite's head should have been was a mist of purple blood. With a smile, David set his sights on a pair of Jackals, waited for them to line up and blew them both cleanly in half with one shot. Another Elite was rounding the corner on the left side of the hangar, which had a small gap separating the large rise in the room from the take-off area, which was currently blocked by an energy shield. David levelled the sniper rifle's sights on it's head and inhaled deeply. The crosshairs stopped shaking and he eased his index finger on the trigger, but stopped as a Marine dove in front of him as he tried to avoid a plasma grenade, but instead had his head blown off by the Elite.
David cursed rather loudly, slung the rifle over his shoulder, grabbed the MA5B and charged headlong into battle. In one swift movement he primed a plasma grenade, stuck it to an Elite, swung around, fired a volley of bullets into a trio of grunts, and dove out of the way of a plasma grenade meant for his head. As soon as he hit the ground, David shot back to his feet and swept the area with his battle rifle. Blood was splattered just about everywhere, and the smouldering remains of a Marine and several Covenant lay scattered about.
However, the survivors had little time to rest, for another batch of troops were pouring through the door that they had come through and another one on the right wall. The hangar soon echoed with the sounds of battle as Humanity engaged it's greatest threat yet again. David primed his final fragmentation grenade and lobbed it into the nearest group of enemies that the Spartans had not yet demolished and took cover behind a pair of crates stacked haphazardly against the large tower that dominated the room. He he moved to peek around the corner, the hand he set on the floor to brace himself encountered something…sticky. His eyes snapped down and his hand immediately shot back to his body upon what he saw; coagulated blood lay thickly on the floor; red blood.
David slowly moved around the crate and gagged at what he saw; two corpses lay in pools of the thick liquid, one of whom's face was half-way melted off, the other with a gaping hole in his chest. Miraculously, both sets of dog tags had survived, and Carson added theirs to his rapidly filling chain of them, two of which were his own. With a sigh, he collected their ammo and grenades (seeing as the Spartans had eliminated the Covenant on this side of the hangar and were collecting supplies and dog tags themselves) and jogged over to them. Only one Marine had died so far, and the Spartans intended to keep it that way as the group slowly crept to the other side of the hangar, which had even more crates scattered about and a Wraith tank sitting amongst them.
"Uh oh…" commented Carson, "all the doors on this level are locked. There's no way through here."
"Give me a minute and I can have a door open for us."
As if on cue, torrents of Covenant appeared, coming from doors on the other side of the hangar, and one door above them. Needles streaked past Carson and the other three Marines as they dove for cover and returned fire. Grunts upstairs were firing (with pathetic accuracy) at Carson and the others from upstairs, which he dealt with swiftly by lobbing a grenade up there. His reward was two fold; a Grunt barked a warning shortly after the grenade landed, but was too slow in getting out of the way, as were the others, and were all blown off of the upper level. However, a Grunt on the ground got a lucky shot with a needler and landed a round in the back of David's hand and promptly exploded, leaving several tiny cuts along the back of his hand.
"You'd better hurry it up, Cortana, we can't keep this up all day!" shouted the Sergeant.
The Grunt, and it's three comrades, were then dealt with by the Spartans, who sprayed them with bullets from their MA5Bs. David thought that they would finally be getting a moment's peace, but that small hope was shattered when a pair of Hunters emerged from the doors to the group's right. Several curses were shouted as they fired at the Marines, all of whom dove out of the way. Carson, however, picked the wrong spot to jump and, as soon as he stood from his dive, was blown backwards by a fuel rod round that had exploded a couple feet in front of him. He flew for a good fifteen feet before slamming in to the energy field blocking the exit to the hangar and promptly fell to the ground. For a brief minute, he blanked out, but as soon as he regained consciousness, David stood and raised his rifle, only to find several concerned Marines staring at him.
"Damn, you're one tough sunnuvabitch to kill."
With a smile, Carson replied, "I'm just lucky."
He stood with the help of several helping hands and staggered over to the door Cortana had unlocked. They all moved through and found themselves in yet another narrow corridor with a ramp leading up to a small circular room at the top with some sort of pipe in the middle, then another corridor to the right of it leading even farther up. Amazingly, no Covenant were on either of those two ramps, nor the upper area of the hangar it led them to. The third floor, however, was a different story.
As soon as they exited the second set of ramps leading up to the third floor, directly to their right were a pair of Covenant supply crates. Farther to the right was a pair of doors…one set of which was open, and inside were around a dozen Covenant, consisting mainly of Grunts and one Elite. The silver Spartan asked for a grenade, which Carson gladly gave him, primed it and flung the killing device into the doorway on the catwalk, and it landed in the middle of the group. Cries of anger and fear echoed just before the grenade went off and then all was silent as the Spartans moved forward to check for survivors. As the Marines moved forward, Carson had an idea.
"Does anyone have any wire?"
One marine nodded and handed him a small piece of wire, just long enough to stretch across the doorway, which Carson took and grabbed one of his grenades. He pulled the pin, counted to five, jammed the handle down and slammed the pin back in. David then tied the wire to the pin of the grenade and stuck it to the wall with a slight spray of biofoam, and did the same with the other piece of wire. Satisfied, he gathered his assault rifle and caught up to the rest of the Marines, who had continued on during the process.
"What was that all about?" inquired one man.
"Well," David began, "I saw a vid about the Vietnam War, which occurred back in the late 1960's. Apparently, people used what were called 'booby-traps' and set them for the other side's soldiers, who set the devices off and were killed. I figure this ought to work nicely."
The man nodded and watched the Spartans work at the end of the catwalk, which was cleared in seconds. They waved the Marines forward and continued through yet another doorway, which was concealed by another set of crates. As soon as the marines entered that same doorway, a deafening explosion echoed through the hangar. The Covenant had set off Carson's trap, who continued onward with a small smile.
After an uneventful ten minutes, the Marines reached the bridge, which was located deep in the bowels of the Covenant ship. David unslung his sniper rifle and crept forward slowly, scanning the room at the same time. Three Elites and maybe two dozen Grunts, which would normally be easy if the Elite marching around the control station hadn't been armed with a plasma blade, which could slice a human in half like a very hot knife through very warm butter.
"Aim for the yellow one." whispered one of the Spartans.
David nodded slowly and raised the rifle, levelling his sights on the Elite's head. He inhaled slowly, causing the sights to stop shaking. With two taps of his fingers, the creature's head was gone and the Spartans and Marines were charging into the large room. Carson sighted one of the two remaining Elites, a Veteran, and squeezed the trigger. He repeated the process on the third, who had taken cover behind one of the four pillars that supported the room, then reloaded as the others finished off the survivors.
The room was quickly cleared and the Marines made for the control center, which was elevated slightly higher than the rest of the room.
"We can set up shop and watch the store while you go rescue the Cap'n, Chief." said the marine Sergeant. Master Chief nodded wordlessly and disappeared with the other two Spartans through a door on the left of the room. The marines, expecting a long wait, began to talk quietly amongst themselves, while David remained on the edge of the group, dangerously near the edge of the control platform. Sarge was standing right in front of him, talking to a Private quietly.
Deciding to try and get some sleep, David shut his eyes and dozed standing up, though it didn't last long. Not five minutes into his doze, David felt something brush against him. By the time he realized what it was, it was too late; he was falling off the edge of the platform. He smashed his head into a corner of the floor as he fell into a small hole, and the last thing he heard before he slipped into unconsciousness was the ignition of plasma blades…
END CHAPTER 6
A/N: Sorry it took so long…had a rather nasty case of writer's block. Anyway, I'm back! R&R, please! SEE YOU NEXT CHAPTER!