Chapter Five: Our Own Little Thermopylae
The Hunter had incinerated Hope with its first blast, and Larue knew he couldn't hold. He began to withdraw as the second one nosed around. As he reached the nexus, he saw others doing the same. Everyone had heard Caldwell's transmission, and heard Thrax's cut short – his body, or his lower body anyway, lay in a pool of cooked guts on the floor halfway down the Right Corridor. Dufrane, too, was dead, as was Lukas. The Marines were grabbing their supply kitbags, hooking them over shoulders, as were the cops. Part of the apartment CP's doorway got destroyed by another Fuel Rod Cannon blast, the Hunters advancing slowly but surely; a lumbering advance that was no less menacing for that. For Larue, the next fifteen seconds was a blur, in cover behind the corners of the corridor mouths, the humans firing and screaming their defiance. Tech Officer Yu was yelling at them to listen but he was drowned out by Muno's blood-curdling shriek as he was hit in the guts by one of the Brute weapons that fired spikes. She collapsed, blood pooling underneath her.
"-som are dead. I've set a timer instead. You have three minutes. Get clear, please. Lukas, if you can hear me – tha…". Yu seemed to recognise the voice.
"Withdraw!" Larue called. "Withdraw, now!"
The Marines all slung whatever extra supply kitbags they could and made their way back towards the door. It slid open when Yu hit the button, and the five standing humans ran out into the dark of the early night, the cool winds whipping at their clothes. Larue turned back, saw Muno writhing, Officer Kagiso and Tanner were attempting to drag her. Tanner, too, appeared to be hit, though it must have been superficial. He rushed to help them, grabbing Muno by the webbing shoulders.
"Get out!" Muno screamed, the pain lacing her voice, thrashing it into a frenzy. "Go, damn it, go!"
Tanner and Kagiso looked at Larue, but he shook his head. Suddenly, Muno stiffened, and broad up the shotgun she still clutched. An overzealous Brute tore around the corner, obviously youthful and headstrong. She pumped three shells into its centre-mass, tearing through its shield and gutting it abruptly. It fell to the floor in a mess of its own insides.
"Leave me, you'll never make it otherwise." She muttered, now faint, the blood pooling around her, although her South African accent was still crisp. The gun was shaking in her slackening hands.
Larue nodded, and the three, with great reluctance, backed out of the door and onto the walkway, unsure of how much time they had already used up. The others were halfway along the walkway, running, laden with supplies. Sporadic, intermittent plasma fire whipped up around them either side of the bridge, small weak groups of Covenant firing potshots at the retreating humans. They ran, Larue finding himself counting down even though he didn't know what the timer had been on during the firefight. They beat feet, their boots pounding as the three sprinted across the walkway. Tanner stumbled and fell, and Larue caught him, hauling the injured Marine upright. He fixed his eyes on the figures ahead and how close they were to safety.
Mafuane Muno pumped the shotgun twice more, ripping a Jackal to shreds, the Covies advancing on her. The weapon clicked empty, and she tossed it away as hard as she could. She pulled her last grenade from her borrowed combat webbing; pulled the pin. The blast hit her in the chest, and her eyes turned glassy. Her head lolled to face the blasted entrance of the apartment-CP. There were a half-dozen grenades left there, on top of equipment boxes.
A Grunt, emerging, looked at them confused as they detonated sharply, killing it and several of its friends.
There was a detonation behind Larue that was nowhere near loud enough to be a C12 detonation, and he fleetingly thought of Muno, and the other brave, dead souls. The three were tiring, but they couldn't slow down; not for a second. Then, another detonation, like the world splitting, the supports of the apartment block blowing out in flashes of blinding fire and light, the glass of the windows shattering into thousands of glittering shards, the building creaking, tilting. It leaned for a moment, and then crashed down, slamming into the walkway and crushing through it like it was a toothpick, hundreds of tonnes of masonry and rubble shattering and blooming outwards in a cloud of grey smoke, concrete dust pulsing into the air like a miniature mushroom cloud. Larue was thrown flat on the walkway, as was Kagiso.
Tanner was thrown off, hanging by one hand as behind them, the walkway collapsed. They both reacted, hauling him up and dragging him along; the other human survivors, battered and bloody and angry waved at them to run, waved and yelled and encouraged. The three on the bridge dashed the last fifteen metres to the opposite side, the closeness and darkness of the next block awaiting them, afraid to let up for even a second; and then, there they were throwing Tanner through the door first, then Kagiso, and finally Larue, throwing himself through the door, the shattering collapsing bridge behind him falling swiftly away towards the debris-strewn plaza below, many of the Covenant troops outside crushed, those within, hopefully, utterly annihilated.
Larue lay face down on the cold floor of the next block nexus, too eerily like the first for his liking. He wanted the darkness around him to take him too, the blissful peace of unconsciousness; but then Yu and Hammond were dragging him to his feet, and they were moving again, moving like the hounds of hell were barking behind them. The adrenalin fading, he felt nothing but pain and weariness, but nevertheless, he pushed on hard. He pushed on with his doomed, scattered mission.
Three Blocks East, Ten Minutes Earlier
PFC Jim Dullen of the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers knew a lot of things. He knew how to use his M7S to put down a target at extreme range, despite inherent innacuracies in the classic submachinegun configuration. He knew exactly how to steer his Human Entry Vehicle so that he could hit the ground and get clear of it and armed all in fifteen seconds. He knew, more than anything that Covenant forces took no prisoners. Which was why he was lying underneath a burned-out garbage truck, his nose inches from the giant, flat feet of a Covenant Brute. He could hear it breathing, a slow, steady sound like two slabs of granite grinding together. His SMG lay across his chest, the round counter glowing gently. He could hear the scurrying Grunts searching the area around the street. It was only a matter of time before he wound up looking one right in the eyes. He would have to fight them.
Jim Dullen sighed and shut his eyes. He knew that he was a good soldier, too. He had a good record in the Corps as part of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Force, with several confirmed kills to his name. He had joined the ODSTs a year ago, and since then had completed eight combat insertions, and simulated another fifty-four. He had confirmed kills in the Helljumpers too. He was young, physically fit; the very example of great soldierly potential. He also knew that he could not take on a Brute, a half-dozen Grunts, and the Jackals with their Type-51 Carbines he had watched fan out to the high ground around the edges of the street, who now stood atop flights of white steps out front of the skyscraper towering into the dark sky across from his impromptu haven.
He saw that the little hooves of a Grunt, hunched by the weight of his methane processor, were scampering closer, clicking on the pavement. He used his left hand to slowly rack the bolt, making little to no noise. A round chambered, he nestled his gloved left hand over the pistol grip, his left index finger curling around the trigger. With his right hand he drew his pistol, easier to use in the scant foot of space he had to manoeuvre. He pointed it pre-emptively at where he predicted the Grunt would peer under. He heard it's clawed hand clatter against the twisted, broken door of the truck, saw it leaning down. His right hand tensed on the M6S's trigger.
Its face appeared, round and gormless and ugly as sin, half-hidden behind the gleaming chrome of its facemask. He squeezed the trigger, and the suppressed pistol kicked a little, but there was hardly any sound. The round slapped into its forehead and blew its brains out over the bulky atmospheric processor. It slouched, collapsing to the ground. Quick as he could, ignoring the alien cacophony that kicked up around him, he slid the pistol back into the holster and rolled out from under the truck. He found himself lying on his back, looking up at the city's space elevator, which was now a jagged, burning spire. Or he would have been, had a Jackal not been standing in the way, bearing down on him with its beaklike face. Its Type-51 Carbine pointed down at him, but he caught it by surprise, and its claw was not on the firing mechanism. He double-tapped the trigger of his SMG, pointing it up at its face. The rounds blew its head apart and splashed him with purple gore, contrasting strangely with his pallid white skin. He blinked some out of his eyes, and rolled to his feet. Glowing pink Needler fire and green plasma whipped towards him and he dropped to one knee behind the chassis of the truck, its flatbed scorched and twisted. A Grunt, in a move that showed uncommon courage in its species, darted around the corner wailing a battlecry. It died, three rounds tearing into its armoured body, and it toppled over sideways. Needle rounds embedded themselves in the metal and the smooth concrete wall a metre and a half in front of Dullen. There was an advert for some popular soft drink that was smashed into shards. The holographic advert sparked and shrieked as its front scattered onto the ground.
He wiped his face with one hand, getting the rest of the alien blood out of his eyes, but smearing it over his cheeks. The Jackal's body was twitching sporadically. He waited for the barrage of enemy fire to stop, and then swung up and over the cover as it waned, preparing to drop whatever came into his sights first. Which was when the Brute snatched it from his hands by the barrel. Shock on his face, Dullen stood there.
"Well…shit!" he said, as much to the Brute as anybody. It looked at him quizzically for a moment, and then growled in its own language something that came through Dullen's translation software as "I have found my dinner!" which he followed with what was unmistakeably a guttural laugh. Dullen went for his pistol, and the Brute clubbed him with a fist, hitting him so hard he saw stars. He hammered back into the wall, sliding into a sitting position. He watched the Brute smash his SMG into scrap against the totalled truck's cabin, and then it leapt up onto the flatbed, its heavy feet denting it deeply. It unhooked its weapon from its heavy belt, half-hidden by its long fur, one of the spike-firing weapons, UNSC-designated a Type-25 Carbine, short and fat, with two long, hooked blades protruding from under the muzzle. It split its ugly face, full of yellow teeth stained darker with blood from its last grisly meal, into what could only be construed as a smile. He raised the weapon, aiming it at Dullen, who tugged out his sidearm. He aimed it, one-handed. The Brute waited, playing with its prey. He fired, and the round sparked off its shields, a blue glimmer materialising for a moment around its hulking form. It laughed again, deeper and longer, and then aimed the Type-25 again.
The APFSDS round ripped through the Brute's shield and skull in one swift move, turning its head and shoulders to leaky meat. Dullen had seen the glint of the scope in the corner of his eye, and new that somebody with an S2AM, hopefully Mike Morrison, was out there with them. The shield sparking had simply served to accentuate the shape of the creature's head in the low light conditions. It dropped to its knees, causing the flatbed to shudder, and then tumbled off on top of the twitching form of the Jackal. Dullen allowed a slow smile to crawl across his face.
Mike Morrison it was. He heard the man whoop with delight, and then he was pounding towards him, his sidearm on his hands, spitting rounds at the remaining Jackals and Grunts. The Grunts broke and ran, bounding along down the street, totally unthreatening. The Jackals made a fight of it, the three of them, but between Dullen's and Morrison's pistols, they did not last long. The two ODSTs met in the middle of the street, near the body of the first Grunt that Dullen had killed, crouching so as to be less visible. The Grunts would come back, no doubt in bigger numbers and with support.
"Jesus, Dullen, you look like shit mate. How are you feeling?" the man rubbed a gloved hand through his shock of red hair, having removed his helmet to talk directly to Dullen. He clapped the man on the cheek. There was a faint whistling in the background, below the bleating emergency alerts and broadcasts, and the traffic signs run by the Superintendent, the city AI. The thin film of noise hanging everywhere in the city, overcut by this background whistle of a brewing wind through the shattered and broken structures of New Mombasa. The two crouching armoured figures scanned left and right for enemy reinforcements.
"Yeah, Mike, I'm fine. Thanks man, you really saved my ass." Dullen replied in his customary Texan drawl. He dropped the spent magazine from his M6S, the long black cuboid clattering to the floor. He reached into the back pocket of his webbing for another clip. Morrison waved his thanks away.
"That's why the team works man, that's why the team works." He answered simply. Dullen went to speak again, but Morrison raised his hand, hearing something. He looked up. Dullen realised that he could hear it too – another noise had joined the gentle chorus of the broken city – the wail of the Banshee.
"Fliers." Morrison muttered. "We need to get overhead cover." Dullen finished reloading and worked the pistol's slide, chambering the round. He held it two-handed and nodded his agreement.
Seconds later, two sleek, predatory Banshees in fore and aft formation soared between two skyscrapers, splitting the air with their keening wail, carving through the other confused sounds like a cold knife as their stubby wings carried them forth. Mike Morrison and Jim Dullen were long gone, disappearing along one side of the street and then down a side-alley, Dullen leading the way, Morrison covering the rear. The two fliers hooked around and coasted low along the street, the full length of it, right up to the crossroads at its foot, and then climbed, and twisted, and coasted back up. They completed a third pass, and then hooked around, disappearing between the structures back the way that they had come from. They then suddenly changed vector as an apartment block nearby exploded thunderously and collapsed, rattling the pavement with its delayed flash-clap.
Morrison grabbed Dullen's shoulder and stopped him dead, whispering in his ear.
"I say we follow the explosions."
"Why?" Dullen answered. It seemed to him that explosions were good things to avoid.
"The way those Banshees just sped off in that direction…I don't think that was part of the Covenant's program."