Chapter 10 - Encounter
1512 hours, October 20, 2552 (Military Calendar)
Aboard Pelican dropship Gamma 337, on approach to Mombasa, Kenya, Planet Earth, Sol system
"Hey, amigo? You ready for this?"
Corporal Alvaro Perez felt his shoulder being nudged by the man seated to his right. He was seated in the troop bay of a Pelican dropship on route to New Mombasa. Seated along both sides of the bay were the rest of his squad, all preparing themselves for combat. Today was the day they had all hoped would never come, but somehow knew would arrive sooner rather than later.
The Marine to his right was his buddy, Dallas McKenzie. The two Marines had been best friends since basic training and had seen action together for the better part of half a decade. Having been born and raised in Valencia, a city in Spain which was itself part of the European Union, Perez had always feared that one day the seemingly unstoppable Covenant empire would make its way to Earth and wipe it out as they had already done to most of humanity's colonies over the last three decades.
Despite the propaganda that ONI Section Two directed at the civilian population in the Inner Colonies purporting that the UNSC was holding its own against the Covenant, Perez knew that humanity was on its last legs. With the loss of Reach, Earth was the last stronghold they had. When it was gone, mankind would be nothing but a memory.
Unlike Perez, McKenzie was from Alluvion, an Outer Colony world that had fallen to the Covenant a decade ago. Only several refugee ships had been able to escape from the Covenant's brutal assault and glassing of the planet. A young McKenzie had been one of the few survivors of the ordeal.
It was no surprise to Perez that McKenzie harbored a deep hatred for the Covenant, something that was shared by many of their fellow Marines.
Perez shook his head, dragging himself from his thoughts and glanced at McKenzie. "As ready as I can be, hermano." He drummed his fingers on the handguard of his BR55 battle rifle. Perez' unit, Kilo Company of First Battalion, Seventh Marine Regiment were deploying from UNSC Marine Base Diego Garcia to the New Mombasa industrial zone to secure it, allowing them to stage an attack on the Covenant landing zone in the nearby wildlife preserve.
"Shit's crazy, man. Can't believe the Covies finally made it to Earth." He hefted his own weapon, an M90 shotgun. "Only right we give the bastards a proper welcome, eh."
Perez nodded in response. "Oo-rah."
"Listen up, Marines." The voice was that of Lieutenant Parisa, commander of First Platoon. "We're going in hot. Covenant forces hold Sector B. We have orders to secure the area and hold for reinforcements. The brass upstairs are cooking up something for our visitors. Once they give the word, we will take the landing zone and prepare for boarding. Understood?"
"Oo-rah!" Boomed the response from the rest of the platoon.
Perez liked the Lieutenant. She was tough, battle-hardened and was straight to the point, but she still cared for and looked after her men. She'd spent a good portion of her career as an enlisted Marine before becoming an officer, and as such she was very in-touch with her men in the ground.
As the Pelican soared over the Kenyan plains and into the city of Mombasa, it didn't take Perez long to spot the heavy devastation wrought by the Covenant during their invasion. He caught glimpses of burning buildings, blackened asphalt and the charred husks of civilian vehicles from the open bay doors. Fortunately, they were moving too fast for the Marines to notice many corpses of those who had been too slow to escape the city.
"Coming into New Mombasa now, Marines. Prepare for hot drop," the Pelican's pilot called. Even as the dropship's passengers made their final equipment checks, they began to hear the impact of plasma bolts striking the craft's armored frame. In response, the dropship's chin mounted M370 autocannon opened fire, the report audible over the vessel's engines. The Marine operating the roof mounted M247 machine gun in the troop bay opened fire a minute later, targeting the numerous Covenant soldiers swarming the streets of the industrial zone.
"Drop zone is hot! I repeat, drop zone is hot!" cried the pilot.
"Alright boys and girls, time to earn your pay!" shouted Sergeant Tanner, Perez' squad leader. The Pelican dropped into Sector B, and by now the sound of combat was loud in the Marines' ears. The vessel came to a stop on a pedestrian walkway over the main street near a large Franchbot Industries facility.
"Pile out, Marines!" Sergeant Tanner yelled. Perez took a deep breath and stormed out of the Pelican's troop bay and onto the warm African concrete. As they disembarked, the Pelican's crew continued to provide covering fire.
Perez instantly threw himself prone, using the meager amount of cover provided by the safety barriers at the edge of the walkway as bolts of plasma surged his way. Nearby, the rest of his squad took similar cover, weapons already rattling off return fire at the Covenant troops on the lower street.
Many of the aliens were already down courtesy of the Pelican's supporting fire but the majority were still alive and gunning for the Marines. Across the open street, several more Pelicans deployed the rest of the platoon into the sector. The battle way far from one sided however, and as the two opposing forces fought, Perez saw Lieutenant Parisa take a round from a Covenant carbine to her shoulder as she fired a long burst from her assault rifle at an Elite directly below her. She yelped in pain and fell.
Shit, Perez thought. Carbine rounds were nasty. Sure, they packed enough power to kill with a well-landed shot, but they were also comprised of a radioactive material that would quickly poison those hit in even a non-vital area.
"The Lieutenant's been hit" Perez shouted over the din of combat. Fortunately, help was soon on hand as Sergeant Tanner called for a corpsman. They would have to act quickly if Parisa was to have any hope of survival.
The corpsman quickly injected her with a fast-acting cocktail that would help to nullify the worst of the radiation that had entered her bloodstream from the wound. He then anesthetized the Lieutenant to spare her from the following pain as he used a set of sterilized medical forceps to enter the wound and extract the radioactive round in her shoulder.
Unlike regular human-manufactured bullets that were often better left inside the human body, at least until there was a suitable lull in combat to remove them, it was essential that the toxic rounds fired by Covenant carbines be removed as quickly as possible to lessen the risk of a fatal catalytic reaction.
"We're too exposed up here!" shouted Private Michael Hayes, the third member of Perez' fireteam, along with McKenzie and Private Bethany Holter.
"Agreed," Perez replied, peering out of cover to fire off a burst from his battle rifle, drilling a precise cluster into the chest of a distant Grunt.
"Shit, I don't think down there is any better," remarked McKenzie. The roads were still buzzing with Covenant ground troops. The aliens weaved between the destroyed civilian vehicles on the street, trading gunfire with the various Marine positions.
"Heads up, Wraith tanks incoming!" a Marine from Second Squad yelled. Surely enough, Perez spotted no less than five of the massive Covenant vehicles entering the sector from the far side of the road. Each Wraith was armed with a massive plasma mortar that folded out of the top of their armored shells. Soon, the air was filled with enormous blue bolts of energy that soared like comets towards the humans before exploding in massive eruptions of plasma that vaporized anything within twenty meters of impact and devastated anything just outside that radius.
"Listen up, First Platoon!" Staff Sergeant Ethan Banks boomed. "We're pulling back to the Lethbridge Industrial building. That's our new command post." As he spoke, a nav-point appeared on the Marines' heads-up displays, designating the large, multi-story complex at the terminus of the street as their objective.
"Heavy weapons, cover us as we move up," Banks ordered. With Lieutenant Parisa out of commission, the dark-skinned, gruff Staff Sergeant was now in operational command of the platoon. Weapons still firing, the Marines began to make their way across the pedestrian walkway and down onto the street, using abandoned vehicles and other detritus as cover as they moved towards the industrial building, each fireteam coordinating to minimize exposure to enemy fire as they went.
Unfortunately for the UNSC forces, the Covenant weren't eager to allow their opponents to slip away. Elites bellowed orders and Grunts charged forward, some scrambling over vehicles with their oversized, chitinous forearms as they fired plasma and needler rounds at the Marines. They surged forward, heedless of the heavy casualties they took. Volleys of rockets soared forth, connecting with the Covenant armor as they moved in behind the infantry screen.
Two of the Wraiths were hit by multiple rockets, and even their ultra-heavy armored carapaces were unable to sustain consecutive impacts from such munitions and the thick blue-purple armor plating splintered, flames erupting from the impact of the high-explosives before both vehicles blew apart, showering the vicinity with shards of twisted metal and superheated plasma which took out any Covenant ground troops unfortunate enough to be within a dozen meters of the vehicles.
Despite these losses, many more Marines fell as the surviving members of the platoon reached the Lethbridge Industrial building. Perez cursed as Private Hayes fell, several deep holes burned into his rear torso plate.
Damn it, Perez thought. "Give me a hand here!" he shouted, slinging his battle rifle and stooping to pick up his fallen fireteam member. He took hold of one of Hayes' arms and hoisted him up. McKenzie quickly grabbed his other arm and together they pulled him into the lobby of the facility. There were already numerous wounded Marines in the room, some in far worse shape than others. Parisa was there, with Corpsman Reynard still treating her wound.
Perez and McKenzie gently laid Hayes down on the ground. The blackened holes in the man's back still smoldered. He had already lost consciousness and, to Perez' experienced eye, his prognosis wasn't good.
More Marines backed into the lobby, weapons still firing as they covered the rocket jockeys, who had expended their on-hand ammunition taking out what Covenant vehicles they could. Other Marines hauled in what supplies they could, including resupply crates and portable machine guns. The sound of the constant gunfire was deafening. As the Covenant closed in, many Marines were cut off from the rally point, and were forced to try and fight their way out of the area through nearby side streets.
"Come on, Marines. We got to lock this building down," ordered Staff Sergeant Banks. Once the final Marine made it inside, Perez hit a button near the entrance and a heavy metal shutter slammed down, separating the surviving Marines from the chaos outside.
"That should hold 'em, at least for a while," Banks grunted, wiping his brow. He looked around at what remained of First Platoon. "Second Squad, get upstairs and make sure we're secure up there. According to the schematics, this building connects us to the canals. We need to make sure the bastards don't drop in on top of us."
Banks turned to face Perez. During the fighting outside, Sergeant Tanner had been killed, and with the losses the platoon had suffered, Perez was now the most senior Marine left in First Squad.
"Perez, you're in charge of getting this equipment unpacked. Fortify the building as much as possible. Use the stairwells and corridors as chokepoints for machine guns, shotguns, you name it. It won't take them long to knock the door down and we need to be ready for them, oo-rah?"
"Yes sir," Perez replied, saluting the Staff Sergeant. As he and his team got to work setting up ambushes designed to make the Covenant bastards bleed for every step they took into the building, the walls began to shake as plasma mortars slammed into them. The Lethbridge Industrial complex was enormous, and composed of incredibly durable construction material, but it still wouldn't hold up forever against a concentrated Covenant assault.
For his part, Banks contacted UNSC High Command, giving a situation report and requesting additional reinforcements. Perez knew they wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of attacking the Covenant assault carrier's landing zone without substantial assistance from other friendly forces.
But despite their predicament, Perez was more than happy to go down swinging if the enemy made it into the building before friendlies could arrive. And he knew most of his Marines felt the same way. McKenzie gave him a slight nod and racked the pump of his M90 shotgun. Yes, if the Covenant wanted them that badly, they were going to learn the meaning of pain.
John's Warthog rolled onto the beach, kicking up geysers of sand as it did so. The Spartan immediately spotted the wreckage of the ODST Second Squad's Pelican, Bravo 045, half-buried in the sand near the water's edge. A pair of Jackals were nearby, tearing through several olive drab crates of supplies they had pulled from the dropship's troop bay. Without hesitation, the Warthog's gunner opened fire, and a hail of heavy 12.7x99 rounds cut both aliens down before they could activate their wrist-mounted energy shields.
As the fallen alien's purple blood seeped into the warm African sand, John made his way down the beach towards a concrete groyne separating them from the next section of the coastline. According to his TACMAP, they would eventually reach a tunnel that would take them directly to Kilindini Bridge, which connected the old city to New Mombasa. He spotted the bridge in question stretching across the ocean, easily distinguished by its extradosed design, its large spars connected to the center by an array of sturdy cables. Beyond the bridge, somewhat obscured by a dusty haze, the towering skyscrapers of the New Mombasa city center stretched into the sky and beyond them, the space elevator stretched high into the atmosphere.
"The highest concentration of Covenant troops is directly below the carrier," Cortana said in the Spartan's helmet speaker. "They have the Uplift Nature Reserve well-fortified. I don't think they want you to get on board." The AI finished with a hint of amusement in her voice.
"Too bad for them." John replied dryly.
"Oh man, I love the beach..." the Marine in the passenger seat, Private Carro muttered, more to himself than anything else. Still, the gunner, Private Mitchell, heard his companion and responded in kind as the Warthog thundered over the ocean groyne.
"I hope you packed a suit, mate."
"Cut the chatter!" Cortana cut in. "We got trouble."
Cortana was right. John immediately saw a large purple Covenant weapon emplacement stationed on the beach. The Weevil was the most often-encountered type of enemy artillery by the UNSC and served as an incredibly effective form of heavy fire support for the Covenant, especially when multiple batteries were linked together by a central base or warship. The gun was not yet operational, and John intended to deal with it before it became a problem.
Further behind the weapon stood an enemy lookout tower, a small platform suspended in midair by an antigravity lift emanating from a circular base. These towers often contained enemy snipers or plasma cannons. John's enhanced eyesight allowed him to identify that this one carried one of the former; another Jackal with a long-barreled particle beam rifle.
Perhaps most dangerous were the pair of purple, single seated vehicles that patrolled the vicinity of the Weevil emplacement, each levitating about a meter off the ground. These hovercrafts, named "Ghosts" by the UNSC, were perhaps the most heavily utilized Covenant vehicle on the battlefield. Used for both reconnaissance and fast attack purposes, Ghosts were lightly armored but incredibly maneuverable could output devastating amounts of damage with the twin plasma cannons. A short burst of fire could put their Warthog out of commission.
Private Mitchell needed no order to open fire; the triple barreled Vulcan cannon roared, spewing spent shell casings across the beach as John floored the accelerator, fishtailing the Warthog in an attempt to make the vehicle a harder target for both the Ghosts and the distant sniper.
A pair of thin purple beams of light flashed past the Warthog as Mitchell roared, hosing the nearer of the two Ghosts with gunfire as the vehicles boosted towards them. The heavy slugs tore into the bulbous cowling of the Ghost, tearing chunks of purple armor off the craft. John swung the Warthog right, passing behind the obstructing form of the almost twenty-meter-tall Weevil and avoiding the retaliatory fire from the Ghost's plasma cannons. An instant later, he cut back in the opposite direction. Mitchell continued to fire the turret until the Ghost exploded under the oncoming damage.
"Carro, try and hit the sniper in the tower!" John barked, swerving the Warthog as a beam rifle shot almost hit Mitchell.
"OK, Chief, try and keep her steady!" Carro shouted back. The Marine fired bursts from his battle rifle at the tower, trying to nail the tricky Jackal sniper within. Meanwhile, John aimed the Warthog for a jumble of Covenant supply cases near the Weevil. The bulky all-terrain vehicle slid between the crates and the artillery piece as globules of superheated plasma chased it, one striking the side of the vehicle near the open driver seat, burning a deep hole into it.
As the Warthog emerged from behind the crates, Carro finally scored a hit with his battle rifle, striking the Jackal in its oversized beak-like snout. John whipped the Warthog around hard, driving around the Weevil emplacement with as much speed as the vehicle possessed while telling his passengers to brace themselves. The Ghost's Elite pilot decided to take his vehicle around the other side, but the alien was unprepared for the speed at which the Warthog roared around the corner and it widened its eyes in shock a moment before the Warthog smashed full-tilt into the smaller vehicle. The Ghost's purple carapace splintered as the Warthog rammed into it, and the pilot was violently ejected from its seat, tumbling over the Warthog, its personal energy shield broken by the impact.
Mitchell tracked the alien as it flew through the air, and the Elite was gunned down before it could come to a complete stop. Meanwhile, the Ghost was completely out of action. Blue flames billowed out of its ruptured cowling before the craft detonated in a flash of superheated plasma and chunks of nanolaminate armor plating.
"Look out, we're not done yet!" Carro yelled out. Surely enough, a lance of Covenant soldiers was entrenched up ahead near the lookout tower. Bolts of green and blue energy and pink needler shards blazed towards them while Mitchell opened fire in return. Grunts were ripped into gory shreds and the Elite's personal energy shields flared from the heavy rounds, forcing the large aliens to seek whatever cover they could find. A plasma grenade activated in a Grunt's hand, but before the alien could throw the glowing explosive, it was dropped by a burst of fire from Carro's rifle. The grenade fell to the ground and an instant later, the few remaining Covenant were incinerated by the resulting explosion.
John was cognizant of his need to reach the Covenant carrier's landing zone before the Prophet realized what he was up to and either retreated to orbit or targeted him with its formidable firepower, and he simply lacked the firepower necessary to properly neutralize the Weevil emplacement. Instead, he tagged the artillery piece on his TACMAP for Commander Keyes.
"Roger that, Chief. I'll send a squad to take out the Weevil. You keep pushing towards the bridge. We've identified another artillery piece on the next section of beach. If you can clear the area, we'll take care of it."
"Affirmative, Commander." John snapped the COM off.
As John brought the Warthog around a large industrial container stenciled with COBB Industries, a Grunt-operated plasma cannon stationed on a large piece of rubble opened fire without warning. The plasma bolts struck Private Carro in the face, instantly obliterating his head. The Marine slumped in his seat, his battle rifle slipping out of his hands as blood poured out of the fatal wound.
Mitchell roared in anger, hosing the plasma cannon as John banked the Warthog to the left, swerving around the cannon. The green-armored Grunt gunner went up in flames, its methane tank ruptured by the Vulcan's firepower, and the cannon was consumed by the blast.
"Christ..." Mitchell muttered, glancing at Carro's headless corpse in the passenger seat, blood still draining out of the stump of his neck but at a slower pace. The man's death had been instantaneous; he'd never seen it coming and hadn't had a hope in hell of avoiding it. Some of the dead Marine's blood had smeared on John's right arm but the Spartan didn't react; it was not the first time he had found himself covered in a fellow soldier's blood, and he doubted it would be the last time either.
The next section of the beach was much the same as the one John had arrived from. Another Weevil sat near the shore with an assortment of ground troops protecting it. Another Ghost took notice of the Warthog and attacked while an Elite took potshots at them from the roof of a small concrete bunker nearby. John expertly weaved the LRV through the incoming fire while Mitchell whittled them down with the chaingun.
A burning blue projectile whizzed past the Warthog as the Elite on the bunker attempted to stick the vehicle with a plasma grenade, something that would surely prove fatal to all of its occupants had it managed to land the grenade. Mitchell quickly gunned the alien down in response, cutting through its shielding, armor and flesh in moments.
The distinct humming of Covenant impulse drive systems heralded the arrival of a Phantom dropship. The bulbous vessel carried a pair of Ghosts attached to its underside by small gravitic mounts. As the Phantom swooped over the beach, spewing fire from its three heavy plasma cannons, John drove the Warthog towards the Weevil and the few remaining troops nearby. As he closed in, he warned Mitchell to brace himself before slamming the vehicle's handbrake while twisting it to the left. The side of the Warthog crashed into a Covenant supply case, slamming it into the artillery piece and pulping the two Grunts that had been hiding behind it. Blue blood splattered across the smooth purple plating of the Covenant emplacement.
Without wasting any time, John floored it, speeding across the beach, plasma blasts struck the sand behind him as the Phantom attempted to turn their Warthog into slag. Fortunately, at that moment, another Warthog barreled onto the beach, adding their firepower to John's. The Master Chief ordered the newly arrived Warthog to focus its fire on the Phantom. If they could destroy its underslung turrets or at the very least force it to retreat, it would provide them with a much-needed respite and a chance to focus on the rest of the enemy forces.
One of the Ghosts zoomed past the Spartan's vehicle, and Sullivan took the opportunity to target the small cylindrical fuel cell behind the Ghost's left wing. This object, the vehicle's plasma containment vessel, was extremely volatile and as the chaingun tore into it, the cell erupted in an explosion of plasma which consumed the entire vehicle, blowing fragments of the Ghost all over the place. The unfortunate Elite pilot was entirely incinerated by the five-thousand-degree plasma. At about the same time, the other Warthog managed to land a burst of fire on one of the Phantom's cannons, hitting it on one of the articulated joints that allowed the weapon to swivel. There was a small burst of blue plasma and electronic sparks as the weapon broke off the Phantom and fell into the water below.
The Phantom chose to retreat at that moment, flying away around the seawall. With that threat removed, it was a small matter for the two Warthogs to mop up the final Ghost and the few surviving Grunts.
Choosing not to waste any more time, John ordered the other Warthog to follow him, and the two vehicles ramped over another, partially crumbled, ocean groyne. This was the final section of beach before the subterranean highway that would take them to Kilindini Bridge. John saw that a massive hole had been blown in the side of the tunnel. Fortunately for him, the damage would allow him to get into the tunnel faster than by the usual methods of ingress.
John spotted another Covenant sniper platform deployed near the hole, partially obscured by chunks of rubble, and the Phantom they had previously engaged in combat with was hovering overhead. A small concrete bunker stood on their side of the beach, and John could see the figures of several Marines hunkered down on top, trading shots with the Ghosts skimming over the sands nearby.
John steered the Warthog over to the bunker, parking it out of the line of fire and disembarked. He picked up the corpse of Private Carro and removed it from the Warthog, setting him down inside the shelter. The dead man had long since bled out, and he was covered in dried blood.
A Marine private jogged over to the Spartan, a battle rifle cradled in his arms. His name, Manuel Cardoso, flashed on John's HUD.
"Good to see you, Master Chief," Cardoso said in greeting. He stole a quick glance at the bloody, headless corpse of Carro and shook his head sadly. "We're pinned down here and have taken casualties. The rest of my squad are upstairs. We need to get rid of those Ghosts.
"Heavy weapons?" John asked.
"Forster has a SPNKr," Cardoso said. "Plenty of rockets too, but there's a sniper across the beach stopping us from getting any shots off. We need to..."
"Chief!" Commander Keyes cut in. "The carrier just launched a wave of pods. They're inbound on your position!"
"Acknowledged, Commander," John replied. Without another word, he bounded out of the bunker.
The Spartan emerged in time to see a trio of vaguely coffin-shaped objects about five meters in height and comprised of the familiar purplish alloy of most Covenant technology slam into the beach near the structure. More of the objects touched down further down the beach. The hatches on the front of each pod burst open and from each one an Elite warrior leapt out.
John reacted immediately. He lunged at the nearest pod, grabbing a hold of the Elite's face and slamming it back with unyielding force into the interior of its drop pod before it could react, breaking its neck. With plasma fire blazing past, John drew his rifle in a swift motion and opened fire while charging down the next Elite. The blue armored alien snarled as bullets lit up its energy shield and returned fire with its own weapon, but John won out. The Elite's shield shimmered brightly before popping and John swung his battle rifle horizontally into the tall Covenant soldier's head, snapping it back.
A thin purple beam of energy struck John in the chest, wiping out his energy shield completely. He rolled to the side, throwing himself low behind one of the many chunks of rubble littering the beach. One more shot from the Jackal sniper's beam rifle would cut straight through his MJOLNIR armor like butter. Another shot flashed by, narrowly missing his head. John's fellow Warthog roared past him, its gunner firing on the remaining Elites.
A sniper round cracked out from the bunker roof, and the Jackal toppled, falling out of its tower as the Marines used the diversion caused by the Master Chief to launch their own counterattack.
There was a loud whooshing sound as a rocket tore across the beach, followed rapidly by another, each one directed at the Phantom's remaining plasma cannons. The Phantom began to move as the projectiles closed in, but the rockets locked on to their target and each one slammed into the underside of the Phantom, exploding in large bursts of flame.
The Phantom reeled back from the damage, almost colliding with the top of the tunnel behind it. Now defenseless, the large magenta colored dropship quickly ascended and departed from the battlefield, flying away over the rooftops.
By then, John and his fellow Marines had managed to defeat all of the nearby Elites and had begun to focus their fire on the remaining Ghosts. One Ghost shuddered as it was peppered by sheets of armor piercing ammo before exploding and another was blown into pieces by another rocket fired from the bunker. The last Ghost attempted to run down the Master Chief.
Pale blue light streamed out from the rear of the Ghost's two stubby wings as the vehicle tripled in speed, surging towards John. As the Ghost closed in, John dove to the side with blistering speed and the Ghost flew by. Lighting fast, he whipped an arm out, hooking his fingers around the back of the curved seat at the rear of the craft and he launched himself up, driving a gauntleted fist into the side of the Elite pilot's head, sending it tumbling out of the vehicle, its energy shield flaring. The stunned alien hit the ground and slid ten meters, sand flying in its wake.
John took his seat in the Ghost and wheeled it towards its former pilot. He had commandeered countless Ghosts throughout the past twenty-seven years of battle against the Covenant and so the foreign pink icons on what passed as the vehicle's dashboard was instantly familiar to him. Blue fire streamed from the craft's twin plasma cannons and the downed Elite was finished off before it could lift itself up from the ground.
With help from the other Warthogs in the area and the Marines in the bunker providing supporting fire, John was able to quickly wipe the beach clear of its final few Covenant occupiers.
With the area clear, John checked on the Marines in the bunker one more time. Aside from a few minor injuries, all the living men and women were in fighting shape. As with the other Marines he had encountered, they would shortly be redeployed into New Mombasa to assist in the assault on the Covenant landing zone.
The Spartan stole a quick glance across Kilindini Harbor. The assault carrier was still there, hovering ominously over the skyscrapers of the city a short distance from the towering space tether which stretched up into the clouds. Like all Covenant ships, it reminded John of some deep-sea creature, utterly alien to his human brain.
Despite the distance, John could still see the thin, purple beam of the carrier's gravity lift emanating from its belly, undoubtedly still transporting war assets to the surface. Not for the first time, John inwardly hoped that the Prophet of Regret didn't decide to leave before he could make it to the landing zone. The UNSC had to capture that Prophet and find out why he had come to this city in particular and if there were other Covenant forces inbound.
Cortana brought the Spartan's focus back to the present. "This tunnel links up to the bridge," the AI affirmed. "It's full of rats, if you know what I mean… but it beats swimming."
John steered the Ghost into the opening that the invaders had punched into the subterranean tunnel and soon found himself on the four-lane highway that would take him to the suspension bridge. Up ahead, an enormous metal blast door had sealed the tunnel, its emergency light spinning and casting a deep red glow on the surrounding metal plates. Fortunately, a nearby opening allowed him to access an adjacent tunnel and he made his way through, followed by two Warthogs full of Marines.
As they steered past long-abandoned civilian vehicles in various states of damage, Cortana filled John in on the tactical situation.
"I've been analyzing the Covenant tactical chatter. They're surprised, confused…" she paused for a moment. "I don't think they expected us to be here. Not you and me… all of us. Humanity, on Earth. Odd, I know, but it does help explain why they came here with such a small fleet."
John agreed with her assessment. The whole invasion was unprecedented to him. Where he had been expecting a massive, overwhelming Covenant force on the same scale that they had attacked Reach on was instead a small, fifteen vessel fleet seemingly expeditionary in nature. The five-hundred ship-strong armada he and Blue Team had destroyed along with the Unyielding Hierophant had been intended to assault Earth. Cortana's interception and translation of Covenant military orders in the Epsilon Eridani system had told them as much.
A fleet far larger than any the Covenant had amassed before to attack a single planet - even Reach… the only conclusion was that they knew that that world was the home world of their sworn enemy. They had to know.
So why had this comparatively tiny fleet been sent now? The Covenant was vast, they had many more ships at their employ than what John's team had destroyed with the Hierophant. John didn't like it. There were too many unknowns.
After a minute of driving unobstructed, the UNSC forces encountered a small Covenant position in the tunnel. A group of Jackals lurking between several overturned civilian trucks squawked as the human forces bore in and turquoise and orange shields quickly flashed to life while their commanding Elite opened fire with its plasma rifle from the elevated walkway running alongside the roadway. A Ghost hovercraft soon zoomed in from further down the tunnel, joining its fellows.
But the Covenant forces had been caught by surprise, and it only took several moments of combined fire from the two M46 Vulcan machine guns, twin plasma cannons and several assault rifles to put down all the Covenant ground troops, whose energy shields couldn't withstand the volume of incoming fire. The Ghost shuddered as its carapace was peppered with incoming rounds and before the Elite pilot could even think to make an escape, the vehicle's engine detonated, incinerating the vehicle and its operator.
The mounted UNSC force continued down the tunnel. Several times, they encountered groups of Covenant of similar composition to the first group they had found, with some minor variations. All fell quickly to the combined firepower of two Warthogs and John's Ghost.
On one occasion, as the group navigated around a shattered piece of roadway and collapsed tunnel, a swarm of Drones flew up from hiding spots from within the debris. It was an ambush, and while the relatively fragile creatures were easily shredded by the Marine's firepower, one Drone managed to latch onto the side of one of the Warthogs and wound the passenger's arm with its razor-sharp claws and they were forced to briefly stop to patch the man's arm up.
As the passageway opened into a wider, dual-linked tunnel, the roof suddenly broke apart as an enormous bluish-white stream of superheated plasma tore into the tunnel. The entire area seemed to shake as the beam continued to burn into the asphalt ahead of John, bathing the entire shaft in a blinding light so intense that his visor automatically polarized. After several seconds, the devastation ceased, and John heard the unmistakable sound of the Scarab's jointed legs as the massive assault platform passed over the tunnel. He caught a glimpse of it through the hole it had drilled into the roof, noting that it seemed to be heading in the same direction as him.
Trouble, he thought.
Within the blackened and broken tarmac, John spotted the ruined remains of a UNSC Warthog. Almost completely unrecognizable, the vehicle had been transformed into a twisted, burned frame that had been almost totally melted by the Scarab's focus cannon. Still seated within was the carbonized skeleton of the Warthog's unfortunate passenger.
A pair of Ghosts, each piloted by an Elite, soon entered the area, but found themselves taking fire not just from John's group but from a source concealed off to the side of the area. A rocket whooshed out and connected with one of the Ghosts, blowing it to fragments, a moment before its companion fell as well.
The leader of the small fireteam of Marine survivors quickly updated the Master Chief on their situation. They had become separated from the rest of their squad when the Covenant had attacked the tunnels. He warned John that the Covenant had brought Shadow troop transports into the tunnel and offered one of their M41 SPNKr launchers to the team. Private Sallow, the passenger of the second Warthog, accepted the launcher along with several cases of spare rockets. Such a weapon would be invaluable for taking the Shadows down quickly.
After ordering the Marines to return to the surface for extraction, John continued onward. He soon found the first Covenant Shadow. The oddly shaped troop transport seemed to be in the process of loading up troops, including several Elites along with a shielded Shade turret. One rocket knocked the Shade out of commission while a second blew the gunner seated in the Shadow's spinal plasma cannon apart. The remaining troops were then easy enough to pick off.
As they proceeded, the UNSC force saw three more Shadows moving through the underpass, heading in the same direction. Two of them carried Ghosts anchored in the arch comprising the center of the vehicles. Even as the thought came to John's mind, Cortana spoke.
"The Covenant must be trying to regroup. Don't let them." There was ice in the AI's voice.
John had no intention of letting them escape to regroup, and the team commenced their attack on the convoy. Ignoring how uncommon it was for the Covenant to even deploy Shadow transports, John was grateful that they were relatively lightly armored for their size and as such could not stand up to the large volume of fire that John and the Marines hit them with. John ordered the Marines to focus fire on the largest threat – their plasma cannons, before targeting the drivers. The group weaved around the abandoned vehicles in the tunnel, using the limited cover and speed to outmaneuver the Shadow gunners.
After many minutes of continuous dodging and firing, the group managed to neutralize all three of the Shadows before reaching a final blockade consisting of two more Shadows, several Grunt-manned plasma cannons, Ghosts and more Elites on foot. The ensuing battle was chaotic and bloody, and despite their maneuverability, one of the Elites managed to stick a plasma grenade onto one of the Warthogs.
As soon as the glowing projectile struck, all three Marines tried to leap clear, but it was too late as the grenade detonated, taking the Warthog with it and catching all of the Marines in the blast radius, frying them all. John winced as he determinedly soared to the side to avoid a hail of fire from the final plasma turret while he burned down the Elite that had killed the Marines with his Ghost's cannons.
A minute later, the final Covenant soldier fell, and John took a quick head count. Only him and three Marines were still alive. He knew they had to press on, and as he sped through the arch of one of the Shadows and into the tunnel beyond, skimming over a mangled Elite body, he caught a glimpse of the afternoon sky ahead, and the tall, arcing frame of the Kilindini Bridge accompanying it.
Almost there, he told himself.