Chapter Seven – It's a Small World

The 77th/2nd

The mixed platoon of Marines from the 77th/2nd was a sorry sight – weary, in some cases wounded men, men who had been put through the ringer, under psychological pressure like nothing else…men who could be trusted to continue to fight under such conditions. These, Keele decided, were the cream of the crop. The survivors. The die-hards. The crossroads, the corner buildings four bombed out shops, their flat roofs encircled by parapets relatively intact – the cornerstone of the Lieutenant's defence. They approached along the north road, the other roads at the other compass headings. Ferris and Moreaux nodded to him and disappeared to find the Lieutenant. Keele waited, crouched at the right-hand corner at the bottom of the north road. After a while, a tall man with silver-grey hair and eyes like steel, his Marine uniform tattered and bloody, rushed out to join him, crouching at his side. He held an MA5C in his hands, pointing downwards. He looked to be about forty years of age, and his face, which was curiously clean, was lined with his experience. He bled from a shrapnel wound in the thigh, staining the grey-green leg of his BDUs.

"Good to see you, Gunny," he said, his voice holding no note of actual emotion – it was good to see him. He spoke everything like an imperative.

"You too, LT." Keele responded, shifting the weight of his SMG to his knee and gesturing up and down the road. "The enemy rolling down the west road?"

The Lieutenant nodded sharply. "I've got a defence rigged. Now I know I outrank you, soldier, but I respect the ability of you Helljumpers, especially the non-coms. All mine have been killed, every God-blessed one of them. Now, I'll lay the plan on you – any suggestions, hit me with them."

Keele nodded. He had only the greatest respect for the commissioned officers that talked like that. Respecting the ability of those under him, asking for suggestions – making the decisions as a committee, while still shouldering the responsibility of making the final call. He listened carefully while the Lieutenant outlined his plan.

"I've got nineteen men, including you and me. We've got personal weapons, a few additionals, and plenty of ammo. We've got two M19SSMs, and an AIE-486H Heavy Machine Gun. One sniper, with a spotter, hanging out in the two-storey building back there." He gestured along the East road at that point to the closest two-storey shop, a scope gleaming in a side-window of the second floor, looking west. Keele nodded mutely.

"These rooftops here;" he pointed to the East road's corners where they adjoined the crossroads, "I've got Collins and Weber up there on the left; give us a wave boys!" two soldiers on the indicated rooftop popped their heads up over the parapet and waved. The closest one had a 'Spanker' rocket launcher resting on his shoulder.

"Up here on the right," he continued, "we have the other launcher, in the very capable hands of PFCs Alonso and Mucus!" A voice belonging to someone Keele could not see, due to his proximity to the building, called, "That's Mewell, jackass!" to collective laughter. To Keele's surprise, the severe-looking lieutenant grinned.

"Where did you place the MG?" Keele asked, unable to see it. The Lieutenant looked at him, his smile now grim. "Up with the sniper, but it ain't assembled yet. Don't want the Covies smelling a rat until the ambush is ready. One guy charged with that. The spotter will help him. The three in there are Ramirez, Dawlish, and Newly."

"The rest of the boys are deployed in the windows, as you can see." He gestured all around him. The stores at the corners had windows that extended around the corners a short way. In the window next to his head, Keele could see three guys with their rifles, aiming down the street. The shadows of the store, and the deepening night around them, meant that very little actual hiding was necessary on their part. Three more were in the left-hand corner building of the east road. The rest were in the buildings that cornered the west road, ducking low to avoid being spotted. These big shop windows meant that it was easy to get grenades in, but due to the spacious nature of the stores, it meant they could be fairly easily avoided or returned in some cases. With luck, the sudden and well-planned ambush would hit the Covies hard enough they would be thrown into confusion.

"Now, Gunny – what's your name?" the LT asked at last. Keele smiled grimly.

"Keele, Lieutenant." He answered.

"Now, Keele, I want you in this building right here," he pointed to the corner on the opposite side of the road to the one he was crouched next to, on the west road, "I'll be in that one opposite." Keele nodded his understanding a final time, and the LT clapped him on the shoulder and disappeared off to rejoin his men in his old position. Keele rushed to what was evidently the back door of the shop he had been assigned and it slid open. He dashed inside, to meet the two Marines with whom he was about to fight. They turned as he entered. One had the gaunt, solemn, sculpted features that suggested Eastern European Protectorate to Keele, while the other was Hispanic.

"Hey guys, I'm Keele, yourselves?" he asked as he entered. They looked bushed. For a moment they appeared not to hear him, and then almost as one they responded.

"Garcia."

"Ilyanov."

There was a moment of silence, and Keele looked around. They had prepared their position well. Against the west wall, opposite him, were the spare supplies, nicely placed out of the line of fire. They had built up the space along the window with the tables and chairs from within, barricading themselves in, giving them a solid defensive parapet. He realised, from the scraps and rags of singed clothing on the ground let Keele into the fact it had once been a clothing store. That and the broken mannequins. The counter of the store, in the corner, was now bare. Keele dropped into cover next to him. He still had a full load of ammunition, and the combat itch was building. The two Marines were still staring at him.

"Well…" he started in the increasingly awkward silence, "Let's kill some alien bastards then, huh?"

***

There was a rumble in the distance, the rumble of many grav engines. There was a sick, almost wet shine in the distance, the moonlight glinting off of the Covenant armour plating like sunlight off a beetle – the smooth, almost elegant curved hull of what had to have been a Wraith tank by its size, began to emerge at extreme range from the deepening night. In front of it coasted two smaller contacts, the same soft sheen to their hull – a brace of Ghost escorts. In the centre the lead vehicle was plainer – one of the enormous Brute Choppers, its enormous front wheel, flanked by its twin Spiker guns, bellowed its arrival. It ground along at moderate speed with the Ghosts. Lieutenant Mark Palmer had fought the Covenant for many years. He had been in a great number of battles, and if he knew anything, then behind there would be at least one additional Wraith tank, and a whole swarm of supporting infantry for a column of this scale. The roar of grav-engines that was slowly building was far too great to be simply the antigravity capable vehicles that he saw – but with the noise of the Chopper interfering there was no way he could say for certain. But his gut told him there was a sting in the tail.

He used his personal radio to contact the launcher and sniper teams, not to mention Newly on the MG.

"Okay boys hold fire until they're in the kill zone. What can you see of force composition?"

"This is Ramirez. Its bad, sir. Infantry loaded into Shadows coming up behind, a shitload more on foot. A second Wraith at the back, and something behind that, standby." Ramirez's voice trailed off, and Palmer waited patiently. The moments crawled past like hours.

"A third Wraith, AAA configuration. Those dual fuel-rods will rip us apart sir!"

Before Palmer could respond, the ODST, Keele, who had evidently been listening in, interrupted.

"He's right, Lieutenant. Any counters?" his voice wasn't nervous-more that it was businesslike. Palmer breathed deep for a moment, and then answered.

"There is a line of C12 shaped-charge explosive across the roadway, forty metres down. We have to time their detonation perfectly, and we can get the damn thing. It's imperative that we hold fire until it is exactly in the right place. Ramirez, Dawlish; It's on you guys to tell us when that is. You can do it guys." He encouraged them gently but firmly. His tone told them that he believed in them, while still reminding them that if they fucked up, they were all dead.

Minutes passed and the vaguely insectlike Covenant vehicles approached, steadily and slowly. Palmer held in his fist the detonator switch for the rigged C12 plastic explosive, with breath baited. The growl of the assorted engines grew louder and louder. It was impressive – it would have taken great organisational skills among the scattered Covenant forces, to assemble such a column of armoured strength in one place with which to strike. The air threat worried him too. Phantoms were patrolling everywhere, brimming with Covenant squads ready to drop anywhere in the city at a moment's notice. They could quite easily be used to outflank and surround their little ambuscade. He pushed it to the back of his mind. They would have to worry about that later. He refocused on the task at hand.

Every second was agonising as the column, advanced at a slow, almost cruel pace. Marching feet could be heard along with the engines now, as well as Brutes calling commands and admonishments. The Ghosts, their whining engines more high-pitched than the others, the very sound unnerving. He gripped the detonators tighter.

"Okay guys, prepare to hold in your gas because they're about to start passing you." Came Ramirez's calm, level voice over the comm. As he spoke the lead vehicles, oblivious to the presence of the ambush, coasted into Palmer's view. The Brutes looked left and right, unseeing, They carried on straight past. The Chopper had fallen in behind them. As it passed, it was deafening, the roar of its powerful engine echoing around the shattered storefronts, crunching through the broken grass and chunks of debris and masonry.

Behind them, they could hear the throaty sound of the lead Wraith, the sound thunderous combined with the other grav-engine vehicles behind.

"Ten seconds people." Ramirez added quietly over the comm., hardly daring to breathe himself, even up in his sniper nest. Palmer shut his eyes.

"Five. Four. Three." He opened them again, poised his finger over the detonator switch.

"Two." One of the Marines in there with him, Pvt. Green, coughed, and looked at Palmer with horror and embarrassment, but the noise of the grav-engines was now too great for him to have been overheard.

"One."

The AAA Wraith was blown upwards into the air on a plume of smoke and fire that shook the world. It slammed back into the ground even as the force of the explosives butted the Wraith tank immediately in front of it forwards. It hit the rear of the short column of three Shadows, smashing into it with a sound of grating metal, and slewing it sideways so that the APC crushed through the wall of the next store down from Keele's position, creating a colossal racket and collapsing the store, shaking debris down on Keele and his two Marine companions from the ceiling of their own hideaway. Some of the unluckier infantry trailing behind were incinerated in the blast, and some simply lost limbs or were horribly burned or wounded by shrapnel from the destroyed tank. Their screams filled the air, over even the roar of engines. The other Shades hurried to deploy their troops to assist. The frontmost Wraith's coaxial plasma cannon raked the storefronts either side, well over the heads of the Marines inside, and below the roofs, doing no damage at all. Sheer panic fire.

The two Ghosts, nimble in ordinary circumstances, were blocked by the vast body of the unwieldy Chopper trying to turn in the relatively narrow street.

"Go! All teams! Collins, Mewell, Spank 'em!"

The ambush began. Palmer grabbed his rifle, and as one with his men, opened fire, sheeting automatic hell into the space between the stores.

PFC Collins came up from a prone position into a crouch, seeing Weber already reaching for the satchel of replacement missiles. Over on his left was the carpet shop where he could see Mewell already taking aim. From his perch atop the old carpenter's store, he raised the missile launcher. His first rocket spat from its chamber at the exact same moment as Mewell's, and both slammed into the lead Wraith at the same moment. The missiles ripped into its hull, and the Wraith was gutted by blue fire as it blew out under the impact of dual HEAT missiles.

A vapour trail split the air to his left, and blew apart the head of a Brute whose shields had sparked out as a result of the explosion. Its blue helmet split in two under the impact of the APFSDS anti-materiel round. Grunts began to panic and run. The sniper rifle cracked, again and again in Ramirez's hands.

Newly geared up the MG.

Collins turned and sent his second missile spearing into the Chopper, blasting it into scrap. Its colossal front wheel bounced off the wall in front of it, still spinning, still heavy as a bastard, and rolled over one of the Ghosts, crushing it and killing the driver. A few Covenant energy weapons cracked, but now all the Marines were firing, and a dozen or more had been cut down, not including the wounded and the crews of the stricken vehicles. The shade gun of the lead Shadow whirred around and fixed onto Collins, who threw himself and Weber who was reloading him flat just in time as the air above was filled with pulsing tri-beams of writhing blue-white plasma. It was then abruptly silenced as Mewell made it his second target, blasting it to pieces. Four of the troops it contained, elite assault units packing only the finest weapons, were ripped apart by the explosion. The night was suddenly as bright as the daytime with muzzle-flares and explosions and return fire.

The remaining Wraith made its presence known. Pvt. Alan Newly saw it first. The MG was raining heavy-calibre rounds into the press of Covenant bodies. Grunts and Jackals dropped and bounced and flew apart, the bullets causing horrifying damage. Those with brains rushed for the ruined vehicles to use chunks of their wreckage for cover. Those without, died.

The tank trained its weapon on the now blazing second-storey windows of the store a little way behind the central site of the ambush. A great orb of roiling, undulating, impossibly hot, encased in energy, exploded from the mortar cannon atop the tank and twisted through the air.

Fuck. He thought as he realised its target. They couldn't lose this position of commanding fire or the ambush would fall apart – they were still outnumbered. He threw the gun on its tripod to one side, and then looked to Dawlish and Ramirez who had not noticed the danger. Dawlish had abandoned his spotting job – Ramirez more than had it covered. It was a turkey shoot down there. He blazed away instead with a BR55HB SR, rattling off bursts from the ranged weapon.

"Get down! Get away from the window!" Ramirez looked at him and was implicitly trusting, but Dawlish didn't hear. Ramirez grabbed him, and dragged him away, just as the plasma mortar hit, caving in or melting into glass a great portion of the concrete wall, caving it in through the lower roof next door. Luckily, they were two stores back from the ambush site. Newly shook his head to clear it. He could hear screams. Ramirez was cradling Dawlish, whose face, neck, and hands were burning, while still more liquid plasma was burning through his body armour and BDUs. His screams were terrible, but did not last long – he died as it burned through all the wrong organs. Ramirez shielded his nose and a second later, Newly became aware of why. The reek was unimaginable.

"Al! Leave him, he's dead! Help me get the MG back up!" he called over the sound of next door's roof collapsing, and the din of weaponsfire thronging the street.

Alejandro Ramirez nodded sadly and let the corpse fall, stepping carefully over it. He helped Newly drag the tripod upright and re-pin the gun together.

Mewell looked at Alonso while he struggled with the jammed launcher. He was pretty sure the support nest two roofs back was gone. He looked over the road, and saw the roof next to it had caved in, but figures were moving. Thank God for that. He turned back to the carnage at hand and barked off another trio of bursts. Grenades detonated in amongst the vehicle debris in the street and more Grunts and Jackals died squealing and choking. Auto-fire ripped from the Carpet Store beneath him, and from the Carpenters upon which Collins crouched. He had his launcher up, let fly with a missile that slammed into the remaining Wraith, making it lurch. Its follow-up shot, which had been charging inside its main weapon, hissed from the barrel, but was knocked off-course by the missile impact. It hurtled overhead and swept into an alleyway behind the storefronts where it exploded harmlessly, leaving a glassy crater in the ground.

The Wraith crashed into the Wreckage behind it. The Shade that was still in position to fire its gun, was firing. Collins second missile dealt with it. Mewell heard plasma fire cutting through the window of the Carpenters. The Brute pilot laughed as it hammered fire into the window. It had an entire nest of fire pinned, crucially weakening the ambush. He turned his rifle on it, fired a burst, realised it would be totally ineffective – A Brute Ultra piloted it, its shields strong.

"Alonso, give me the launcher, damn it!" he bellowed. The LCpl finished un-jamming the weapon and tossed it to Mewell, who caught it on his shoulder, whipped it around, and then slammed a round into the light vehicle. Gore and metal rained down as it violently exploded. He whooped, and set the launcher down, and soon he and Alonso were raining fire onto the enemy just like everyone else. Until the heavy guns of the Phantom ripped them apart from behind, cauterising their wounds and sending parts of them hurtling to the ground below.

The noise in the clothing store was incredible – the noises from outside and inside rattling around its cavern-like interior. Plasma burned into the back wall, while his and the two Marines fire rattled rounds into the exterior, spanging and sparking and slapping into metal and chrome and bodies. Keele burned off his magazine and reloaded swiftly, hammering another clip away in several sustained bursts, tearing up the Covenant light infantry. He was scratching that combat itch well enough. Thirty Covenant must have been lying dead outside, their bodies torn and burnt and shot to pieces. It was satisfying as anything he could ever remember. The previously zombie-like Marines were in their element. Garcia was on his feet, his quiet nature instantaneously reversed. He was pouring rounds through and screaming 'Get some! Get some!' at the stricken enemy column. All Covenant armour was down, so far as he knew, except for the Wraith so packed in by debris it was having trouble turning. There was a problem however – when the rear Shadow in the file had crashed into the storefront, caving in the building, it created a lot of debris in which Covie soldiers now took cover. He only hoped that they weren't smart enough to blow through the connecting wall and outflank his position. The missiles from the Carpet Store was no more; He figured they would be using their rifles by now. But nobody was finishing off that tank, and it unnerved him – it was there, stuck like a wounded animal. In other words, it was at its most dangerous.

Plasma fire began to whip more fiercely as the now smaller number of Covenant troops all found cover amidst the assorted wreckage outside.

Heavy pulsing fire from the Wraith's coaxial suddenly joined it, punching clean into Ilyanov and knocking him screaming back. He was hit in the gut, though only some had hissed in around his breastplate. Keele dropped his SMG and ripped the body armour jacket open and off to stop it burning clean through.

"Garcia, is there an aid kit?" he yelled over Ilyanov's screams and prayers in Russian. He muttered, attempting to calm him, but the man couldn't hear him over his own yelling and the incredible maelstrom gripping the street. Something round and effusing blue smoke and flash was over-armed in through the window. It landed a couple of metres behind where Keele crouched over Ilyanov. Reacting fast, he leant over the stricken man and tugged his removed body armour jacket, still hissing thin grey smoke, over his back and legs. It detonated like thunder, spitting microshrapnel into his barely-covered shoulders, causing him various stinging cuts and pains; but Ilyanov had been protected. He tossed away the breastplate, and wondered what the hell Garcia was doing. He looked up and the man was fumbling with the aid kit.

"Fuck it man, biofoam, we're losing him!" he yelled urgently, and that Garcia could find he tossed the heavy canister to Keele, who deftly caught it and began to fill the deep-torn wounds in Ilyanov's insides.

"Now patch him up for me, I'll cover you, he knows you!" he continued, and Garcia nodded, grabbing the aid kit and running back to the parapet. He grabbed his weapon and checked the clip – it had been empty. He dropped the clip and reloaded. He had one more clip that he remembered. He patted down his webbing pockets with one hand. Yeah. One more. One more magazine after his current one. He turned and popped up, firing at the cowering Covenant troops more urgently now.

Lieutenant Palmer tried hard to ignore Pvt. Green's dead, accusing stare as he took a clip from the dead boy's webbing. He slammed it into his weapon and began to pour it on again, following up the grenade he had tossed four seconds before, the reverberations of the detonation still shuddering the floor. He saw something in his peripherals. Something high up, and the bottom of his stomach fell out. The Phantom, bulbous and obscene, drifted over the rooftops of the north road, its guns whirling to focus on Mewell and Alonso. They died torn to pieces by heavy-duty plasma fire. He felt both their deaths with a great sense of mourning, as he always did when a man assigned to him was killed in action. Any second now, Collins would go the same way. Except for that moment, Collins blasted off the front remote turret on the Phantom's underside in a shower of blue sparks. The ship lurched back a little as another rocket slammed into it, and Palmer felt immense pride.

Collins screamed for a reload as the Phantom turned side-on, the side-doors opening. A grunt rushed on to the shielded plasma cannon in the starboard door and began to cycle it up. The rocket launcher had never been so swiftly reloaded – the weapon stitched hellfire across the rooftop and its parapet, and the two men ducked low. When it stopped to cool down, he came up, firing another two missiles. The Phantom jinked to avoid, but too late. The outer hull absorbed one, and the second group slammed into the inside, un-armoured and soft bulkhead within the dropship. It swayed uncertainly, went into a gentle spin, and then righted itself. Over the storefronts to the North, either side of the road, Covenant troops were bailing out. The flank raid had succeeded. Guttering blue-hinted smoke and fire, and resigning from the fight, the Phantom extracted itself to the north, and then swept around to head off in an easterly direction.

"Shit." Collins muttered as he watched the collection of Jackals and Grunts, headed by a golden-armoured Brute Chieftan armed with the bulky Brute-shot grenade launcher, its wicked curved reversed bayonet reflecting the light from muzzle flares.

"Shit." Ramirez and Newly echoed, as one, unknowingly. Ramirez lined up a shot with the sniper rifle, now crouched in the shadow of the half-destroyed wall. Newly geared up the gun.

"We protect that flank, Newly, no matter what." Muttered the latino sniper, picking a target.