A/N: Jarhead762: I actually haven't got anything against Marines, be they French, Colombian or American, but the UNSC Marines are different, or so I've seen so far in the Halo storyline. They get assignments that would be better carried out by Army personnel, their Special Forces are brutal and impossible to work with and they have access to the latest gear, such as the BR55, while the army must use outdated gear. It makes sense, of course, since the Marines come into contact with hostile forces a lot more often than the Army, but you've got to bear in mind ONI's staffed with some shady individuals and has direct authority over the Marine Corps, whereas the UNSC Army is often seen standing up to Naval Intelligence. But don't get me wrong, UNSC Marines are, as individual soldiers, on par with their Army Ranger brethren.
As for the different infantry types, I can only refer you to the quote at the end of this chapter.
DaLintyMan: Now now, have I ever resorted to such cliché? In this chapter, I mean...
"…Twenty-two, arm amputated under the elbow by plasma fire, massive Needler injury in the abdomen, crystalline…" Droned the nurse as she pushed the moaning Ranger on a stretcher. She shoved through the double doors to the surgery unit and continued once the doctor followed her through, "Crystalline bodies are lodged in the spinal cord, the patient doesn't seem to be able to move his feet anymore."
The doctor shook his head and grabbed the stretcher's side, "Hold up, Suzie." He called, his tired eyes going from the boy's burnt stump of a hand to the gaping hole in his stomach.
"We've got too many wounded, I have to prioritize…"
The nurse tried to push on, "He has good chances, if he gets immediate medical attention!" she said, but the doctor did not let go.
"Suzie, my orders are to focus on the ones that can be made combat effective… This man is never going to hold a rifle again."
That did not seem to faze her in the least, "You could give him a robot arm, like you did with that Spartan!"
James-005 had been one of Doctor Verner's hardest surgeries. Spartans had an extremely resilient bone structure that allowed their limbs to be replaced by very potent prosthesis, but these prosthesis had to be powered by their MJOLNIR armor and were simply too heavy for a normal human to use, even if they found a way to power them without burdening the patient. Perhaps in the Inner colonies, they would have the technology to give this man efficient mechanical limbs, but not on this mud-ball.
But that did not matter, "The boy is paralyzed, there's nothing we can do about a severed nerve cord."
For a moment, it felt as though the nurse would not compute the information she was just given, but she soon nodded, very slowly, and pulled the injured man out through the same double doors.
Verner spent his whole thirty-six hours shift flash-cloning organs, limbs and skin to patch up kids so young he couldn't comprehend where they'd found the time to become special forces operator in between hitting puberty and trying to get laid.
One of the kids still had acne for Jehovah's sake!
All this blood, the screams and the bodily fluids fused into Verner's memory into one massive block of images and dread, flashing behind his eyelids whenever he let his guard down.
Hans' parents had been strongly opposed to his becoming a doctor, Jehovah Witnesses were not exactly open minded when it came to medical science, or science in general, but Verner was a good Christian, and a good Christian does not let his fellow man suffer. If becoming a doctor doomed him to hell, then he would endure the eternal agony with a smile, knowing he'd eased the suffering of others…
Besides, he thought, closing his eyes once more, leaning against his rusted locker, hell was right out there, ten paces past the commercial district.
Verner removed the cross he wore around his neck, a heavy wooden thing strung on thick leather ropes, kissed it, then put it down on top of his only other belonging; a paper-back copy of the 1937 book Of Mice and Men.
Hans looked at the two forces that had fashioned the man he now was; a head surgeon in some forgotten army base about to be blown to hell, the evil overlord tasked with deciding who lives and who dies, who's worth the effort and who is only worth enough morphine to keep them docile until the end.
He could head home now, Doctor Wallace and his team had taken over the infirmary for the next thirty six hours, then it would be Verner's turn again, and there would be no shortage of barely post-pubert kids to save and kill.
He shut the locker, threw his stained white coat in the laundry chute and returned to the locker, which he opened to look at the Army Captain uniform inside. Verner shut the locker again, looked up at the digital clock on the left-most wall, but could not tell if it indicated 5:40 in the AM or PM.
He opened the locker again and pulled his uniform out.
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Inside the base's situation room, Major Dahl and Sergeant Caleb were running around from monitor to monitor, trying to figure out what West had just done. Coms with the fleet in orbit had suddenly gone dark, as though someone had flipped a switch, and everything, from visual observations to LADAR scans, failed to spot the human ships.
"We've lost them!" Called Caleb, incredulous, "They just vanished… West, what is going on!?"
The Lieutenant's mouth opened, then closed with a loud noise. He thought about it for a moment, then asked, "Vigilant Bacon! Did you just take out the wrong fucking fleet?!"
It took a few seconds for the AI to answer, "Offensive actions have not yet been taken, orbital interdiction weapons are currently nearing their full charge. It appears the Reclaimer fleet has retreated."
Dahl looked at his First Sergeant in dread, realizing what had happened. "They jumped. The assholes left us behind!" He looked down at the LADAR display before him, "Covenant fleet is moving…" He looked back at the Sergeant, who just stood there, his mouth wide open, "They're going to glass the whole planet."
"Activating orbital defences."
And the blips disappeared. All twelve Covenant ships just beeped out of existence on his display.
"Faster Than Light drives remotely detonated." The AI droned on the room's speakers, "Four targets destroyed. Disabled vessels are now entering the installation's atmosphere… Transferring projected crash site to local database." Eight red dots appeared on the large flat screen mounted against the wall directly opposite the room's only entrance. "Is there anything else I can provide assistance with, Reclaimer?"
West looked at the red dots, unsure whether to be elated or terrified. Only one was even marginally close to Fort Aleksandre, the rest would touch down all over New Cheops. The planet, not its capital city.
"How many survivors?"
"Calculating… Seventy to a hundred thousand units detected within the surviving vessels."
Blackburn entered at that moment, dirty, bloodied and armed to the teeth. "Where's the General?" He called, taking in the chaos that reigned within the room without so much as a raised eyebrow.
Nobody could answer his question, however, and he made his way to the reinforced blast door, built into the room's rightmost wall.
"Sir," Dahl tried to keep up with the Colonel's brisk pace, "the fleet…"
"I know." The words carried such venom, such anger, that Gregory instantly understood the underlying meaning. Blackburn knew something else, and he was not pleased about it.
The blast door slid open with a soothing chime and Black stepped in the unlit office. The smell assaulted his nostrils instantly, like putting a copper coin in your mouth.
Blood, splattered against the dull grey wall. Black approached the half-beheaded corpse and cringed at the mess. The General's neural implant would have been shattered by that M6D on the floor, and there was no time to check fingerprints .
"Bitch set us up." Black explained, turning away from the mess with no emotions but anger on his face.
Dahl looked at his superior, the live one, and asked, "How? What am I missing?"
"Me." Called a hoarse and muffled voice. The Spartan, Sierra Three-Fifty-Nine, had crept into the situation room without anyone noticing. It might have been understandable, given the circumstances, but seeing as the man was over two meters and weighted half a ton. The Army personnel and Black's Rangers were getting sloppy, they needed some sleep.
Before anyone could question the super-soldier further, Black explained, "She was supposed to be evacuated before…" He waved in the flat screen's general direction, "…This happened. Only the Navy caught wind of her plan and sent the Spartan to recover the AI instead…"
There was a long silence in the room, then West, blunt as ever, blurted out, "Okay, right, now do it again in English…"
Blackburn sucked in a deep breath, "All I know is that she had a Marine recover that AI from ONI storage and she planned on being far away when we used it."
"And now she just shot herself. Why?" Dahl prided himself on his quick wits, but this whole story made very little sense.
Black thus walked up to the deceased General, grabbed a fistful of bloodied gray hairs and lifted her face off the desk. "Why don't you ask her? Because I haven't got the slightest clue what she was thinking." Slamming the ruined face back on its bloodied desk, Black took a moment to calm himself before walking out of the office, still clutching his shotgun. "Now, what the hell are those red dots?"
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"Let us remember that the automatic machine is the precise economic equivalent of slave labor. Any labor which competes with slave labor must accept the economic consequences of slave labor."
― Norbert Wiener