Halo: Untold Stories of an ODST

Chapter 3 : First Combat

Date: 23rd December 2534

Gunnery Sergeant Blanc Black

Jericho VII

"Engaging chutes. Velocity reduced by 40%." the voice in my HUD keeps repeating. The ground seems to be approaching fast and I secretly hope the voice was correct. " 50 meters altitude, engaging rockets." All of a sudden, the ground seemed to be moving towards me slower. And it stopped. I pulled the hatch above me and the cover of the SOEIV popped away. I took my SRS out from its holder and my HUD lit up, connecting an uplink to my SRS' Oracle scope.

"Count off"

"Green" Charles reported.

" Green" Kon repeated.

" Green" Linus continued.

"... Green" Santos finished.

" Criss, can you hear me?"

"Crystal clear, my dear gunny. Now what can I do for you?"

" I need you to upload my objectives onto my HUD and leave a waypoint here and at the Falcon's last known position."

"Done, have a nice day gunny"

All of a sudden, my HUD lit up. I saw that there was a waypoint where our pods had impacted and I designated it as fall back point.

" Okay, same as the plan. Santos takes point, Charles and Kon take one side each slightly diagonal to Santos. Linus and I will hang back a bit to help provide eyes."

Everyone took their assigned position and we moved on.

"Sir, we have a little problem." It was Santos who reported over the squad channel. I looked into my Oracle scope, adjusted it to 10X and saw what he meant. To reach the crash site, the fastest route is to cut through a thick jungle.

"Your call, gunny. Cut through it or re-route?"

I thought for a while. Since FLEETCOM has personally ordered the destruction or retrieval of the sensitive information, it must be urgent. No choice then."Santos, use your machete and carve a path through the jungle. Kon, switch to your MA5 and cover him" There was a hustle as they carried out my instructions. It was very quiet, except for the occasional twig snap. Out of nowhere, I saw a green flash and Santos collapsed on the ground.

"Fuck,someone get him behind cover!" I screamed at the front. Kon dropped his rifle and dragged Santos behind a boulder as I switched to thermal and looked around. My teammates' thermal signature were in green and any belonging to unidentified living things or people with no IFF tags will be in red. I looked from the direction the green flash came from and saw at least two jackal skirmisher snipers. Sneaky bastards always so quiet yet speedy.

I turned from my cover and shot one in the head. The jackal in question collapsed onto the ground with a loud snap,no doubt dead. However,before I could shoot it, the other jackal leapt away, too far out of range for my thermal to have effect. Dammit, now the Covenant knows we will be coming. I double checked that it was gone before turning off my thermal and sprinting over to Kon and Santos.

"How is he?"I depolarized my helmet and took it off, looking at Santos' shoulder

"Nothing serious, his shoulder guard dispersed most of the plasma but he would get blisters and a bad sore in the shoulder for a while. His shoulder guard will be useless now, though."Kon nonchalantly replied while spraying biofoam on Santos' shoulder. The biofoam would help keep away infection and speed up tissue and muscle healing process.

I looked at the shoulder guard. It was literally a piece of molten metal that has lost its shape and didn't serve any purpose.

"However, he might need to check radiation levels in his body after we get back to Ancient Might. That was a carbine shot and those shits are radioactive."

"Is he able to move and fire?"

"Yes."

"Good, then let's move the fuck on"

We helped Santos up on his feet, with him letting out a few grunts as he popped a few painkiller pills and an adrenaline shot that every soldier is issued pre-deployment. He looked better all of a sudden. Kon picked up his dropped rifle and we trekked on, however, this time Kon was taking point and Santos took his position.

Kon raised his hand up all of a sudden and gave the "halt" signal. Then he pulled out his combat knife and headed forward. We heard a wet "splich" sound and he returned.

"Grunt. Little bastard was napping." he explained.

We reached the crash site with no other encounters or misfortune. Linus used his scope to survey the area and looked pissed when he looked at the crashed Falcon.

" Gunny, look at that."

I looked through my own scope and at where he was pointing. There was an elite scout team searching through the wreckage, likely searching for the Major and the information.

"Should we take them out?"

"No, unless they find the data, we proceed in silence."

Eventually, the squid-heads couldn't find anything and left the crash site. We ran out of our cover in the forest and headed for the crash to do what they were doing: searching for that data. We searched through the crash only to find the body of the pilot and the Major.

" Command advise, what are we suppose to be searching for?"

It was half a minute before Criss replied. "A small black datapad with a small camera at the top. We suggest destroying it and call for eva...be advised, Phantom dropship approaching your position. Sit tight, we are sending evac."

Criss was right, I saw the Phantom dropship too and I think it also spotted us. Its side plasma turret began firing and its main gun started charging. I quickly found the datapad in the Major's pocket and placed a shot from my sidearm into it then stomping on it before hiding in the destroyed Falcon while the Phantom started deploying troops. We emerged from cover, checking for enemies. I spotted the elite squad that the Phantom dropped. It consists of three elite minors, five jackals and at least ten or fifteen grunts. They immediately started shooting at our position. Luckily, plasma is unstable and they were a distance out. The same cannot be said for them. Linus and I fired away and managed to take out two elites and three grunts before the other elite got smart and hid behind their jackals. The jackals activated their shield and bunched up, forming a shield wall. Standard Covenant advancing formation. I primed a frag grenade and threw it high up. The grenade landed a foot in front of the jackals and blew up. The explosion killed two jackals and stunned another. Linus took the chance to kill it before I killed the elite with a well-placed headshot. The rest was simple. Losing their leader, the grunts started going amok. Some went suicide, priming plasma grenades and rushing at us, hoping to bag a kill. Other just ran at us firing.

I switched to my sidearm and started picking out aliens, nailing out headshot after headshot while Linus did the same. This whole firefight barely even lasted five minutes. We only got a brief period to catch our breaths before the Phantom turned back again and dropped two Ghosts along with more elites down. We were forced to hide again as it flew by. It suddenly exploded halfway when flying away. We looked up and saw our evac ride.

The Pelican turned and launched two air-to-ground missiles at each Ghost and began gunning the elites down with its 120mm machine turret.

"Hawk here, you guys are safe." the pilot, female, called out to us over the comms.

We clambered on board the Pelican and it flew us away in supersonic speed.

" Thanks for the hot evac, emm?"

"Ensign Alice, and you're welcome"

The Pelican returned us to Ancient Might without any trouble. We safely locked in with the destroyer and got out.

"That wasn't so tough, was it?" Kon let out a whistle and took off his helmet. I did the same and chuckled. Anything wasn't tough for a Helljumper at all. Santos was escorted to the medical bay while the rest of us reported for debrief.

"Officer on deck!" All of us turned and stood at attention.

"At ease, gentlemen. This is a job well done. The data has been successfully destroyed. You guys earned yourselves a break." Major Aver dismissed us. Everyone cheered and started leaving the deployment/briefing bay.

Phew, first drop from orbit wasn't that bad.

Hey guys, thanks for reading! I know I am only an amateur writer so I would appreciate any advise on improving this story. Anyone that feels like beta reading, feel free to drop me PMs.

Black's first drop wasn't that bad. Quick in-out op that Helljumpers do. Short engagement. No one died. As always, R&R will be appreciated.

ReaperActual,over and out.