Greg watched the Unggoy jump into the air, in surprise, and get sliced in half by the Warthog's Chain Gun turret. Jason roared in anger as he swung the turret around, chopping up anything that moved until the entire plaza was bathed in luminous blue blood, severed limbs, and leaking methane tanks. Had that particular methane been flammable, Jason would already be burnt to a crisp.
The Jackals took cover behind the corners of the plaza. One of them decided to chance it and slowly side stepped into view of the warthog and charged his Plasma Pistol, but before he could fire it, the chain gun roared back to life, pelting his shield with a hail of lead. The Kig'Yar tried to fire the charged plasma bolt through the shield's opening, but its hands were clenched out of fear, and it was unable to release the trigger, though the big glowing ball of charged energy at the end of its pistol did get Jason's attention, and the ODST turned the gun slightly to the right, sending a stream of lead through the opening of the Jackal's shield, destroying both the pistol and its owner's arm. The Jackal screamed in pain and made the mistake of releasing its grip on its shield, which subsequently hissed off, leaving the Jackal to be torn to pieces by the persistent wall of lead.
"KILLTROCITY!" whooped Greg, watching the whole spectacle.
He then diverted his attention back to the stairwells across the walkways, both in front of him and to his left, and saw two Jiralhanae approaching from the rear walkway, and a pair of Jackals coming from his left, one of them holding a Carbine, which meant no shield. He opened up with both MA37s on the lead Jackal, knocking him off his feet, then got back behind the box so that he was safe from the Jackals, but could now see the Brutes coming at him. He plucked a Frag from his belt, which he got from the same room he took the Rifles from, primed it, and tossed it at the oncoming suits of blue armor. UNSC frags were designed to explode one second after impact for quick kills around corners, so he'd aimed it at the floor in a way that would make it explode as soon as it bounced up at the ape like aliens. The throw was timed perfectly and the grenade exploded in mid air, right in front of the Brutes, knocking them off their feet, much like the Jackal Greg shot, but they'd soon be back on their feet thanks to their armor. However, that was only besides the point since Greg still had some shielded Jackals to keep at bay, and went back around the corner so he could have at the Jackals which were nearly upon him. He dropped both rifles, pulled out his Kbar knife, and leapt at the nearest one, knocking it to the ground, and rolled it over on top of himself, then pulled out his Magnum and shot at the other Jackal's shield opening like he'd seen Jason do, and unloaded on the defenseless alien once it raised its shield up from being hit. It collapsed and he aimed at the last Jackal, which was already firing away at his hijacked energy shield, which had now turned pink from over heating. Greg repeated the same process of blasting away at whatever weakpoint he could find and the space vulture soon dropped dead.
The Jackal he'd taken hostage had outlived its usefulness, but before Greg could make that clear, the two Brutes had arrived on the scene. Greg had used his last Plasma Grenade on one of the Brutes guarding the plaza entrance and didn't have time to toss another frag at the King Kong wannabes, so he kicked the Jackal off himself and jumped down the stairs and rolled the rest of the way, his armor preventing any serious injury. He quickly got back up and grabbed Jason's leg to get his attention.
"BRUTES!" he shouted, pointing back up at the stair case.
Jason turned the turret around 180 degrees and aimed at the top of the stairs just as the Jiralhanae emerged and kept the trigger down. The 50 caliber lead storm cut through the Brutes' armor like cardboard as it was designed to withstand individual sniper rounds, not a continuous barrage of those same rounds, and the Brutes themselves were reduced to unrecognizable, bloody pulps. One simply fell backward while the other slid down the stairs, covering the steps in what looked like purple paint.
Greg ran up the stairs where the surivivng Jackal was waiting while Jason swung the turret back around to the front in time to see a Grunt charging around the corner with two ignited Plasma Grenades and wasted no time in wasting him. The midget alien fell back on its methane tank while the grenades it had been carrying fell to the ground and vaporized the Unggoy that had been carrying them only seconds before.
While this was taking place, Greg reached the top of the stairs he'd jumped down a few moments before and saw the Jackal charging its Plasma Pistol. Not waiting for an invitation, Greg rolled to the side, evading the plasma burst that flew past him, then got back up and ran over to the crate he'd taken cover behind and scooped up one of the two MA37s he'd dropped and unloaded the rest of its clip at the Jackal just as its Pistol had finished cooling off, but it kept its shield up and blocked every last bullet Greg shot at him.
The ODST immediately rolled back behind the crate in time to avoid getting pelted by Plasma Bolts and pulled his knife back out and ran around the other corner where that same Jackal was attempting to flank him and tackled the bird man a second time, but instead of taking him hostage, he drove the knife in and out of the alien's neck and chest repeatedly until it stopped struggling. He then unstrapped the Shield from the Jackal's arm and strapped it to his own. It was called an Energy Shield by war buffs back on the home front, but it didn't block everything like most people thought. Jackal Shields were actually designed to stop anything that hit them at high speeds, such as bullets, while slower objects, like fists or rifle butts, simply phased through them, so the correct term for it was Kinetic Shield. If anymore Covenant showed up, he'd need it. Meanwhile, Jason had two more Jackals pinned down behind the plaza corners, though he couldn't seem to do much more than that.
"How're ya doing?" shouted Greg.
Despite having just fired almost a thousand rounds from a 50 caliber gattling gun, Jason could still hear things fairly well, thanks to the micro sound filters planted into his ears.
"Got a couple of Jackals pinned down behind those corners. How bout you?" replied the gunner.
"Took out 4 Jackals myself. Got a couple of Kinetic Shields, too. Catch!" shouted back Greg, tossing another Shield to Jason, who tried to catch it, but it bounced out of his fingers and fell to the ground below him. He did not have time to go after it, as he heard Plasma Bolts zooming by and turned around to focus the turret on the Jackal on the left who had turned gutsy enough to venture out into the open to take a shot at him, but as soon as he got back on the turret, the Jackal dived back behind the corner. Out of sight, but still there, nonetheless.
"Can you help me out? I'm about half empty," shouted Jason.
"Gimme a minute. I'll try the snowball trick again," replied Greg, reloading one of the MA37s as he ran over to the right balcony overlooking one of the two Jackals.
He saw it crouched down behind its shield with its Plasma Pistol aimed at the corner, as if expecting Jason to come charging out at any moment. Greg was tempted to drop a Frag on the Jackal, but decided to save ammo and simply pulled out his Magnum and popped the alien in the head. It slumped over dead, never knowing what hit it.
The Jackal behind the building's left corner saw this and unloaded at the ODST. Greg raised his Kinetic Shield up in time to avoid getting burned while he ducked behind cover, then got back up and fired his rifle at the Jackal until one of the bullets made it through the shield's opening, killing the alien.
"All clear!" he shouted.
Hearing this, Jason hopped off the turret and unstrapped a helmet from one of the dead Marines, careful to avoid looking at the dead man's face, and placed the helmet on his own head. Then he collected the Marines' ID tags and picked up the Kinetic Shield he failed to catch earlier.
Greg was running back to the stairs where he'd left the other rifle when he saw two more Grunts running toward him from the rear walkway, but before he could raise his rifle to shoot, one of the Grunts fell flat on his face, dead. The second one fell backward, and Greg saw why when Jason came up the stairs with his silenced Magnum raised.
"How'd I do?" asked Jason, smirking.
"Tit for tat, I guess," replied Greg, "Nice helmet, by the way."
The Marine helmet may not have had a full faced visor, but it would give him some protection.
"Half is better than none, right?" replied Jason.
He then noticed the second rifle laying beside the crate Greg had used for cover and holstered his Magnum and picked up the rifle. The ammo counter read 21, which was more than half full, and then ran back down the stairs and collected 5 full clips off the dead Marines next to the disabled Warthog, along with 2 more Plasma Grenades from the chewed up corpses littering the plaza.
"How much time do we got left?" he asked.
"5 minutes," replied Greg.
Jason wasn't quite sure how to respond to that. On one hand, they had survived alot longer than they thought, but at the same time, they didn't know how much longer they'd be able to hold out. Both remained silent as they pondered this.
"Screw it," said Jason at last, "We're ODSTs. We do worse for fun."
The ODST ran back down the stairs to get back on the turret, but stopped halfway down when he heard Greg calling his name.
"Why don't you let me use the shredder, this time. It's your turn to take the high ground," said Greg, referencing the warthog turret's popular nickname.
"Alright then, I'll cover your flank," replied Jason, running back up the stairs to the large crate Greg had been behind.
Greg climbed up on the recon vehicle andlooked down the sights of the chain gun, ready to blow away anything that came at them...and waited...and waited...but nothing came. Not so much as a sound, other than the wind blowing through the grassy field, and the occasional buzzing of insects attracted to the corpses.
"See anything, yet?" he called out.
"Nothin. I walked around the top of the building a few times but haven't seen anything," replied Jason, appearing over at the top of the stairs, his rifle slung over his shoulder.
"I guess the fact that you haven't already been shot while walking around so casually up there must be proof that we're not being stalked by, I dunno, Snipers or Spec Ops?" said Greg, his irritation obvious.
"Hey, I checked. This helmet monocle does night vision and thermal, so I'd have seen something if it was there," retorted Jason, pointing to the green monocle attached to the Marine Helmet he was wearing.
"Fair enough," conceded Greg.
That was a skill Jason topped him at: locating enemies. Several times the guy had saved his life simply by pointing out a Covie he had missed, so he had no doubt that if they were being stalked by something, Jason would have indeed seen it, so he breathed easy and hopped off the turret.
"Going somewhere?" asked Jason as Greg walked by him up the steps.
"That big Christmas Present you were leaning against has MREs in it. I'm getting some," said Greg, pulling out his knife.
"You mean this whole time there were were Meals Rejected by Everyone inside that thing and I didn't even know it?" asked Jason in disbelief.
"'Fraid so," said Greg, slicing straps off the crate and then undoing the lock on it until it popped open.
Jason couldn't see his buddy's face through the visor he was wearing, but from the way he stared at the inside of the box, he was quite sure his face looked something like: O.O
"Lemme guess, it's empty," said Jason, fearing the worst.
"Are you kidding?" asked Greg as he tore open one of the cardboard boxes that was inside the armored crate, pulled out a plastic packet and tossed it at Jason who had to juggle it in his left hand a few times before finally catching it.
He set his rifle down and tore open the MRE to find several pieces of bread, some slices of ham, condiment packets to spice it up, a bag of dried fruit, a pack of dragon fruit juice with a straw, and a brownie. Not the tastiest meal ever prepared, but out here it seemed like his own slice of paradise.
"Like manna from heaven," said Jason, grinning ear to ear.
He set to work making himself some sandwiches, a total of two since there were only four slices, and added mustard to the first one and mayonaisse to the second. He then said a short prayer over his soon-to-be meal and quickly made short work of it.
"What do you got?" he asked Greg, in between bites.
"Spaghetti and cider. Nuff said," replied Greg, forking noodles into his mouth and washing them down with cider from a juice pack, "What do you got?"
"Fruit, fruit juice, sandwiches, and a brownie," said Jason, holding his chocolate prize up for Greg to see.
Greg stared at it for a moment.
"Ya sure that's chocolate? I hear they call them Meals Ready to Excrete for a reason." said the ODST, forking more tomatoe-y noodles.
"Yup, I'm sure. What's the matter, didn't get any dessert?" asked Jason.
"I got a small pie in my pack, I'm just not into pies," replied Greg.
"What kind of pie?" asked Jason.
"Cherry," said Greg.
"Toss it over," said Jason, tossing the brownie to Greg, who, in return, tossed the packaged pie to Jason.
If there was one snack Jason loved more than any other, it was pie. He didn't care what flavor it was, just as long as it was fruity. Cherry pie on the other hand was one of his absolute gotta-haves. He wasn't about to let any brownies get in the way of that.
Both quickly finished their desserts and were debating on whether they should have seconds or take the crate back to base for the other soldiers when they heard a faint humming. They listened more intently and before long, they heard something that wiped away their worries: the whooshing sound!
The Pelican had finally arrived!
They looked to where the sound was coming from and saw the turtle-like drop ship hovering over the destroyed warthog Jason had woken up next to, across the grassy field.
"Time to go," said Greg, completely forgetting the rations he and Jason had been arguing over.
Jason grabbed two more MREs and followed across the rear walkway and turned to the staircase on the right and jumped over the railing, halfway done the steps and sprinted toward the Pelican, waving their arms.
This was it. After two straight days of ambushes on Covenant convoys, a near death experience on the way back, and a body count too high to measure, he and Greg would finally be going home. His first mission as a fabled Helljumper, and already he had something to talk about when he got back to his family. His little cousins would be the most impressed when he told them about how he and Greg took out two whole platoons of Covenant, almost like Spartans, and he'd even have a medal to prove it. The excitement was killing him.
"Deviled Eggs, this is Delta 337. What's your status? Over," radioed the Pilot.
"Green, now get us out of here," replied Greg, still running toward the Pelican.
"Brought you guys some Materials Resmbling Edibles," radioed Jason, holding up the MREs he'd swiped.
He could almost picture the Pilot's eyes rolling.
"Just hurry up so we can get out of...TAKE COVER NOW!" shouted the Pilot.