Unknown Flint Mountain Range
August 18, 2558
In combat, every single member of the Blades excelled in one area or another. They had practiced enough times to anticipate one another's movement. Fear of never returning had always played on every Spartan, ODST and sangheili. For Trip, that fear is what he had fed on and the main reason he had even started his Blades contractor. The hangar's lights had been dimmed to match the gloomy outside while the two teams, the other one being led by Pyra checked each other's equipment. Music of sliding magazines and cocking of weapons gave even more adrenaline to his ears.
He found someone gazing at him from the other pelican and looked over, catching Meredith Adrian looking at him. She was decked out in a full marine battle armor. She had begrudgingly agreed to man the weapons station on his pelican. He knew that if he denied her the chance to go with the assault team, there was no way she would back down, even if he was a Spartan. She had to be a part of this as survivor's guilt on the Knowledge Hunter. Unless she did some sort of retribution, the assault by the pirates would haunt her for the remainder of her life. Trip had agreed to let her have some action before this was finished once and for all.
"Ballista in position." Leah Roush reported on his com, "Ril is pumping the camera feed on what's going on down there."
Trip held on to the top of the pelican as it took off with his compliment of himself, Vaal, Rak and Laura, whom tha tlatter two would be spotting and sniping. The hatch's plastasteel hatch shut and outside the second dropship followed their descent.
Riley's feed played in a deployed UAV that was fed to a corner of his helmet's HUD. He had done a remarkable job keeping the drone steady as controlling the shaking caused by the storm above.
Rain was beginning to fall as the coastal camp was alive with crisscrossing beams of Covenant and human weaponry. Much of the yellow muzzle flashes came from the head, while the blue, green and purple colors were being fired by the party further up, towards the back.
"Who the hell are they shooting at?"
To the left of the video, which Luke angled the drone to get a better view of, there were a series of landing pads, each of them having a dozen humans covered in rags hauling up containers. The first phantoms done lifted off and accelerated skyward while the armed skirmishers kept watch over them. That had been the area where Weld's men were pushing for, however there were nearly six kig-yar for every mercenary present in the fighting, they were completely outnumbered. Further back up the camp, he saw many of similarly dressed humans scrambling for whatever safety they could find. It was impossible to find Vasili in that mess, but he'd be leaving that part to Drew and Leah. The pelicans moved to the left side as well, making sure that hardly anybody spotted them. The ramps were deployed and Aegis' team dropped a solid six feet down, readying their weapons. The second pelican eased a little further behind a house sized piece of rubble to deploy Pyra's team. Aegis met the CIO armored Spartan behind another cement block that was tall enough to cover both of them when they stood at their full height. Gunfire rippled over the two main belligerent sides as neither one managed to get an edge of the other.
"So what's your analysis?"
The larger Spartan peered over, firing his battle rifle at an unseen target. He must have had Promethean Vision, "I'd say we just dropped into a small war here. My bet's that both Fel and Weld had double crossed each other over the slaves and now their stalemate troops are getting nowhere."
"Where's the heaviest fighting?"
"Near the dropships where they seem to be evacuating their precious cargo."
"Get the drone on that area, if Vasili's in fighting shape, that's where he'll be."
"Alright, get the pilots to come and join us."
Meredith had her hands squeezed on the firing button of the pelican's 70mm autocannon, mincing a group of skirmishers when she heard something behind her. Turning around with her hand on her sidearm she came face to face with Hamed, the ODST piloting the ship.
"Can I ask you a question ma'am?"
"Only if you swear to never call me ma'am again and want your fingers down your throat."
"Sorry." He depolarized his visor in a sheepish grin. "A nasty habit."
"Okay, so what do you need?"
"Know how to fly and use one of these?"
Meredith laughed, "I work for the CNRD's agency area, I'm all about piloting, with ratings in multiengine, commercial transport up to your Ballista ship."
"Good. Take over."
"Wait!" She called out after the Qatari shock trooper was halfway out with his MA5C. "What are you doing?"
"Commander's found something that might be more than just slaves. Wheeler in the other dropship and I are going to secure it."
Without another word, he leaped out of the bay, landing in a roll and joining another black armored ODST in firing on a group of skirmishers that were bloodthirsty on killing their newest target.
Vasili Suvorov remained hidden, quietly observing the reaction from both parties upon Ballista's debut. From her bays he had seen their pelicans exit and head towards the landing zone where Fel was loading up his gold. Just as he predicted, the insurrectionist commandos ignored the new ship. They had made quite a hole in the skirmisher pirates' ranks. Only a few kig-yar took potshots at the massive Ballista, whose front was slightly visible through the low hanging fog. The projectiles were easily deflected off of her advanced shielding.
In the center was heavy fighting, most of the skirmishers had overrun that area and used it as a buffer to prevent the innies from getting to the phantoms. Instantly the Ballista came alive as her frontal miniguns spooled up, spraying yellow flames and hundreds of rounds every second shredded the flesh of anyone caught in the way. The guns stopped seconds later, revealing a good sized area of wet ground from the blood of those killed.
The horde of kig-yar pirates continued to pound at the dwindling PMCs and they knew it. Now for them it wasn't about survival anymore, all that mattered was dying with honor.
Something caught his eye among the fleeing workers. He had ordered Vitaly to get as many people to safety as possible so that there wouldn't be any unnecessary casualties. The easily identifiable cloak swirled in the wind as Nex Fel rushed towards the landing areas. It was probably his priority to escape and have his swarming numbers annihilate both the Blades and Weld's PMCs. He saw no sign of anyone that resembled Weld and it was clear that he wasn't with his men. Vasili wondered if Nex had already murdered him.
It was a huge mistake to pursue the pirate lord, but Vasili's hatred and utter grudge against the being that was responsible for nearly a week of his suffering and the endless toil of his fellow workers spurred him into action. The entire ordeal would likely scar him for life, but at least killing the sadistic warlord would help bring reprise to his soul again. Racing across the side, dodging buildings and low objects that might have tripped him, he raced after Fel. The skirmisher was amazingly fast in his bulky armor, zigzagging through the buildings shouting orders to more armed men that were headed to the fight. Vasili didn't have much ammo left in his carbine and a missed shot would cause him to get to a ride even faster.
There was a wall separating the pads from Vasili. Fel bounded past three startled guards who hastily readied their weapons and leaped clear over the fence. He waited until the guards relaxed again in two seconds before emerging from his hiding point on the corner of an adjacent building. Firing three shots, he killed two of them before the third one had his senses and starting drawing a bead. Vasili was upon him, ramming the pirate into the wall. Grabbing the feathers, he peeled him off, pressing his heel into the neck and twisting it.
The metal wall was nearly eight feet in height and Vasili barely had the strength to even start his way up. The weapon on his back felt like it weighed twice as much, but he had made it. He let himself fall over the side, making sure to exhale to prevent himself from winding.
Satisfied that nobody guessed his intentions, he raised the weapon again and took off after Nex Fel across the phantom landing pads.
Using one hand to steady himself on the rubble, Hamed fired a wild stream of bullets to keep the skirmishers suppressed hiding behind another pile of debris. Wheeler tossed a grenade just short in front. It exploded, raining shrapnel down on those hiding behind. One pirate was misfortunate enough to have the explosive blow his leg off. The ODSTs put him out from a burst of rounds.
Hamed turned around to Meredith, who was hovering the pelican up above. He waved and motioned two fingers to where his ear was. She understood and opened up their channel.
"Move, get suppression fire on the main warzone!"
"I'm not leaving you behind." She yelled back, even though the cabin was much quieter than the rapid tapping of gunshots.
"Just move! We need those phantoms to chase something so that Ril can hose em with the minigun!"
Meredith now understood and gunned the throttle, letting out staccato bursts over the tops of the phantom's hull. It wasn't long before the large purple craft accepted her challenge and began ascending, some of them already loaded with boxes. She sped out in the clear area, making sure that the Ballista's Gatling gun pivoted to the craft pursuing her. Swerving to the right, she dodged a volley of the explosive shots from the phantom's main cannon. Had she not maneuvered the pelican a second later, the bolts would have destroyed the engine and causing the ship to spiral out of control.
The gatling gun whined as it tracked the multiple phantoms, squirting out a quick burst at each target. All of the bullets hit their mark, tearing through the Covenant metal and crippling all of the pursuing craft's engines. The phantoms dove into the ground in a rush, as if eager to accept their fate.
"Hamed, this is Drew. Come in."
"We're here." He had replied in only a whisper.
"Why so quiet?"
"We're on top of one of the shipping boxes. The pirates had just come aboard."
"Do they have any idea that you're there." Adrian leaned around the cockpit, trying to find where the two ODSTs had hid themselves.
"Commander thinks there's some booty aboard, not the kind the model's packing."
Aegis pulled the trigger on his shotgun again. The weapon kicked back as it dispensed its last shell into yet another skirmisher pirate. He had outfitted it with incendiary ammo so that if the pellets didn't kill, the fire certainly did.
"Drew, get Riley to hose that last docked phantom with the gatling?"
"What? Why?"
"There are more than a thousand slaves in this camp and the more we prolong this battle, the more of them will be getting killed. Those PMCs look like they can hold out for another couple hours and I'm betting that that last dropship is their only way out."
"I'm out." He said to his teammates not too far away, once his shotgun ejected its last shell into a nearby pirate. Looking around, he saw another skirmisher approaching him. Without a second thought, he tossed the empty weapon at his opponent's head. The pirate flinched, giving Trip enough time to draw his twin magnums and put two rounds into his head.
"Commander, I found Vasili!" Leah's high pitched voice cut through the sounds of battle, "He's heading to the single phantom as well."
"I'm on it." With a simple exchange from Pyra, both knew what they had to do. Aegis took off in a run towards the pads while Pyra gained command of the ground team.
Trip sprinted through a grenade explosion letting his shields take the blast, narrowly dodging another thrown grenade as he continued weaving through the buildings and mining equipment. The entire time he never took his eye off of the phantom landing zone.
I'm very happy to say that the story is now completely written! Just before posting this I had finished the final chapter!
Thanks for reading and reviewing, you give my writing purpose.