(A/N) Hey guys, sorry about the late update. Must confess that this was completely due to my own bad memory, completely forgot to update. :/ My bad. This chapter continues on the battle against the Covenant on board the Mother of Invention, following North's team of snipers in their defence. Teasers for Phase Two will be coming up shortly, so keep an eye out for those!
As I say every update, enjoy!
Chapter Seventy-One – Sniper Hall
Agent North Dakota
Written by StormBlue
"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life; it goes on."- Robert Frost
Silence. Staring down the length of the hallway and listening to the quiet of the ship, one might not think that the Mother of Inventionwas under attack, but the silence was deceiving. If anything, it was tooquiet. A Frigate-class ship such as this one should never be this quiet. But the four Freelancers stationed at this location knew that in reality, battles were raging in various places of the ship, and it was only the solid metal that prevented them from hearing it.
A ruffle sounded right next to him and North jumped slightly, only to realize it was Wyoming readying his sniper rifle. The white soldier turned to him. "Getting a little jumpy, are we?" he asked, his British accent laid thick over the words.
Wordless, North nodded.
Wyoming shrugged. "This dreadful quiet won't last long. Before we know it, those ugly aliens will be coming down that corridor and we'll have our hands full." He said this as if he were commenting on the weather.
"Don't worry, they'll regret messing with us when we're done with them," Virginia remarked. "Any last minute directions, Team Leader?"
North took in his surroundings once more. They were at one end of what was probably the longest hallway that didn't have any side-doors in the MoI. Makeshift blockades had been constructed next to them, and a few turrets were set up to help them as well. His team was with him, consisting of Wyoming, Virginia, Sota and himself, all the best marksmen the Director had to offer to the Covenant. The other teams of Freelancers were handling the Covenant at other places of the ship, and all paths that led to the heart of the Mother of Inventionhad been sealed off...except for this one.
In a way, the Director was funnelling the Covenant forces to this hall, where they would be met by North and his team. If they failed to keep the aliens at bay, the Covenant would have a much better chance at overcoming the rest of the teams and overrunning the ship.
Of course, the same was true for the rest of the teams as well.
"We'll want at least one person on a turret at all times. We can switch off, but that should help when they come in bulk," North said in answer to Virginia's question.
The Director had apparently seen leader qualities in North, as he had been named leader of his team again. He was a quick thinker and could see developments on the field and change the plans accordingly. He was always looking after his team, and could encourage them to work together. He didn't hold false illusions or let pride get the better of him, being practical when it came to completing the objective. And he could always be calm no matter the situation and think with a clear head.
But North didn't feel calm. He was on edge, uneasy. Being startled by Wyoming's simple movements was testament to that. It was unlike him, and he couldn't pinpoint the cause. His thoughts wandered to his twin. Where was she now? Was she in the fight? Was she injured?
South had been placed on Ark's team, rather than his own, so North couldn't keep an eye on her. In fact, that was probably why he was nervous...ever since they were kids, he'd always been there to keep her safe. When they joined the army-she had joined first, but he was quick to follow-they had been stationed together. They worked really well as a team, and he alwayshad her back. It wasn't that they'd never been separated during battle but...North didn't know why this was different. Probably because the aliens had gotten a surprise attack on them, and he couldn't check in on her.
Clearing his thoughts, North determined that he needed to focus on what was happening. South was a very capable soldier and could look after herself, and Ark seemed like a decent person, someone who would make sure his team got out of the ordeal in one piece. And North had to do the same for his own team.
Wyoming was perched on a crate by the left corner where he could have a clear view of the hallway and some cover at the same time. He was closer to the ceiling, giving him a slight advantage, but with less manoeuvrability. Virginia was by a turret on the right side, her sniper attached to her back. Sota was a little farther back, checking all his gear again, staying quiet. North himself was closer to Wyoming, though a little more to the middle, standing behind the blockade where he could easily crouch and avoid enemy fire or fire back.
Harsh, guttural voices suddenly reached their ears, bouncing off the wall to them. There was no doubt that they belonged to aliens, and the only reason they could hear them was if the aliens were close. The four of them tensed and got into position, North crouching with only his sniper and head up so he could aim and fire at the enemy. It felt to North as if they were all holding their breaths until a grunt appeared at the other end of the hallway. More followed, and one of them pointed out the barricade that the Freelancers were behind. Finally, an elite leading the squad rounded the corner and shouted at the sight of them and they opened fire.
North took out two of the grunts and Wyoming had landed a head-shot on the Elite before he rolled out the way, and his limp body fell to the floor, a splash of blue staining the ground underneath him. Virginia had also shot two grunts, and Sota took the last one before she could pull the trigger a third time. She glanced back at him, but North couldn't see her expression under her visor.
"The rest will have had to have heard that," Wyoming stated.
"We've got a lot of fight coming our way," Virginia said.
"Then let's do what we do best," North finished.
It was only another minute before more grunts came into view firing their plasma pistols at the Freelancers, who didn't hesitate to start firing. Virginia had grabbed the turret and started mowing them down, but North knew the Covenant were smarter than this...and why was this group only grunts?
The answer came as a carbine shot flew past his shoulder, and he saw two elites ducking behind the corner, popping out only to fire at them. He had his sniper trained on the spot, waiting for the next shot...there! His finger squeezed and the first elite roared in pain, but hadn't been taken out. The other elite jumped out in an attempt to roll to the other side, firing as he did so, but a few bullets from Virginia had taken him out. Still, the shots went right at North's head and he had to duck to avoid them.
Back and forth fire between the freelancers and the elites lasted for a few more minutes, with the grunts providing distractions, but fortunately the four of them had it covered.
"Hey Wyoming!" Virginia called. "What's your count?"
"Do the grunts count? They're not very smart, those little buggers," Wyoming called back.
Virginia thought on this. "Maybe they only count for a half," she replied.
"Then I've got three and a half," he said in answer to her question.
"What, are we keeping score now?" Sota muttered.
North took aim at an elite that was causing them trouble, fired, but missed. He ducked down and went through the familiar movement of reloading. Sota fired next to North. "Got him," he reported.
The grunts suddenly started getting worked up, yelling in their alien language and pointing down the corridor opposite to the one the elites and grunts had been coming through. North couldn't see what it was though. "Incoming!" he warned the others.
"Incoming what?" Virginia asked.
A bestial roar sounded, as well as the pounding of many heavy feet. Then large, hairy, gorilla-looking things appeared. Without warning, they took one glance at the barricade and started charging.
"Oh dear," North vaguely heard Wyoming mutter under his breath.
"Turrets!" North shouted, grabbing the one to his left and aiming it.
"Sota! Take this one!" Virginia yelled as she stepped to the side and pulled out her rifle. Sota grabbed the turret she had been occupying and started firing it.
While North wasn't accustomed to operating turrets, it wasn't hard to hit the large beasts. But it took too many bullets to take them down, and there were about ten of them on a rampage. Wyoming sniper crack sounded and a smoke trail led to the lead brute's skull, and that one, as well as the one directly behind it, crumpled to the ground.
"Double head-shot!" Wyoming said triumphantly. "If the grunts only count for a half, shouldn't these oafs count double?"
North wasn't positive, but he was pretty sure he heard Virginia mumble "Show off."
North himself was concentrated on the enemy and bringing the next one down with his turret. He didn't feel like joking around with his teammates, and while usually he was focused on his team and the mission, he was able to make a quip or two with them. But this time he just...
Virginia's movements pulled him out of his thoughts. She had her rifled in one arm and a grenade in the other. She threw the grenade then in a swift movement, brought her rifle up and shot it in mid-air, rather than waiting for it to explode on its own. The brute immediately by the explosion was killed, and while the rest weren't terribly hurt by it, they were momentarily disoriented. It halted in their rampage for just a moment, but a moment was all that was needed while North and Sota finished them off with the turrets.
The hallway went still. They could no longer see the grunts or elites on the other side, and there weren't any more brutes coming immediately. North left the turret and returned to the comfort of his rifle, scanning the hall.
"Where did they go?" Sota whispered.
"I don't know," North replied. "But I doubt they would quit that easily."
Virginia settled down on a crouch, though still tense and ready for a fight. "Then we'll just have to wait for them."
They waited for something to happen for a few minutes, the conversation between them at a minimum, other than the occasional ignored "Knock knock" from Wyoming. North continued to scan the hall and listen for the approach of more aliens. Just when he was thinking maybe they had decided to try something else, a bright blue laser streamed down the hall.
"Bloody hell!" Wyoming cursed, and North looked at him. He was pressed against the wall out of the line of fire, holding his lower leg.
"Wyoming's been hit!" Virginia cried.
Wyoming waved to them and got back in position. "It's quite alright lads, just a graze. Just be glad that the objective doesn't hinge on us doing a marathon," he tried to joke. North could tell that the words were coming through clenched teeth, however. "Now, where's the little bugger that did that?" Wyoming was a little more careful with his positioning.
North finally saw the little creature. There was a bulky brute body in the way, which was why it hadn't been spotted earlier. It had long jaws and ugly eyes staring at him. He ducked just in time as another blue laser appeared inches from where his head had been. He remembered these guys. The UNSC called them jackals. They weren't hard to kill, but on the field they were always equipped with either handheld shields or the Covenant version of a sniper rifle. This appeared to be the latter.
He lifted his head again as the jackal took a shot at Sota, who dodged. He aimed between the dead brute's arm and the wall and hit his mark. "Got him for you," he said to Wyoming.
"Good," Wyoming muttered, and North felt himself smile a little. Unfortunately, as soon as that one was down, another took its place, and more appeared on the other side of the far entrance into the hall.
"There's more," said Sota, apparently seeing the same thing North did.
The hallway was filled with blue lasers and smoke trails every few minutes in the full-out sniper battle between the freelancers and the jackals. It wasn't fast-paced or terribly exciting like most forms of combat; long-range required more patience and precision skill, whereas close-range and mid-range required more lightning-fast reflexes and people that were quick on their feet. Wyoming and Virginia called out each time they shot one, and even Sota joined in with North in their little sniper competition. It helped to brighten the atmosphere around the team a little, and to North it was good for them to be acting in cohesion as a team. It was easier to focus on the enemy without unnecessary tension between the four of them.
They had downed five of them, with still a couple left, and other than Wyoming, none of them had gotten hurt. After leaning out again, firing, and ducking down after he hit his mark but didn't kill the jackal, his thoughts wandered. What was South doing? How was she faring with her team? There hadn't been a lot of radio activity lately, and he didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. North's body went through the familiar movements of taking a shot again, trying to bring down the last two. Less communications could mean that no one was dying or dead. Less communications would also mean that each team objective wasn't progressing immediately. And if someone got injured, they wouldn't necessarily transmit it-
"North!" someone called, and at the same time the light of a laser temporarily blinded him. Or perhaps it was the stabbing agony that suddenly raced through his right shoulder. He fell back against the crate clutching at the wound, groaning through clenched teeth. One of the jackals had gotten a shot off and he hadn't gotten out of the way in time.
"Are you okay?" Sota asked, kneeling down next to him. North removed his hand and looked at the wound. Chances were, it went all the way through his shoulder, but he could still work around it with difficulty. It wasn't bleeding, as the beam had likely cauterized it.
North nodded to Sota. "I'll be fine."
Sota hesitated a little, then moved back to his previous position. North turned around and moved into a crouch again, gripping his rifle and wincing every time he moved his arm. It hurt, but he had been wounded before, and he knew that he couldn't let his team-or everyone else on the ship-down.
Something almost as agonizing as his injury was gnawing at his brain, however. He had been hit because he hadn't been paying direct attention. He didn't mind that the Jackal got him, as difficult as it was to continue firing at the enemy. It wasn't that, it was...what if one of the others had gotten hit? Wyoming was injured, but his was just a graze. And then, he'd been keeping an eye out for the hidden aliens. They all had. This one was because he had been thinking about South. He would have seen the jackal aiming at him if he had been focused. What if the Jackal had been aiming at Sota's head?
North didn't dwell on 'what if's,' but it was the push he needed to temporarily forget about South. He trusted her-and each of her teammates-to stay safe. And that was all he could do for now. This was one of the times where she didn't need him. She didn't, but his team did.
Wyoming and Virginia called out that the other two were down, and North slowly let out a breath. He peered over the edge of the barricade and used his sniper to zoom in on the other side of the hallway, making sure that there weren't more snipers aiming to take shots. It appeared that the squad had been taken down. Now they just needed to wait for the next wave of Covenant to come down this way. Just then, his radio crackled to life.
"North Dakota, do you copy?" came Ark's voice.
North frowned in slight confusion. Why would Ark be calling him? Reaching up to his helmet, he responded. "I copy, Arkansas." He tried to not think about the fact the South was on Ark's team, and that she was possibly the reason for his call.
Thankfully, that didn't appear to be the case. "I need Virginia," he said. "What do you say we do a swap? Virginia for Mich?"
North looked over to Virginia for confirmation, and she nodded, having listened in on the query. He was about to reply when Sota's sniper suddenly went off and he could hear the sound of plasma guns down the hall. "More jackals," Sota reported.
North turned to help but was halted by Wyoming. "We've got them handled for a minute, mate. Finish your call."
He glanced at the white Freelancer, then crouched down again. "Sorry, had a little distraction," North said a little lightheartedly, speaking to Ark again. "Sounds good. Should I send her over?"
"Don't bother, we'll be at your position in ten," Ark replied.
"Copy that."
With that, North joined his team again and noticed the enemy was startlingly close. Looking closer, he realized why. These indeed were jackals again, slowly advancing behind handheld glowing energy shields. The sniper rounds just bounced off, and it took too many shots to damage the shields enough to get through. The jackals themselves were firing plasma pistols, but their aim wasn't as accurate as that of their sniping kin.
North laid his own rifle out on the edge of the barricade, grabbing a clip from the extra ammo that had been provided to them and reloading quickly, discarding the empty one. He aimed and hit the broadside of the shield, seeing it turn red with the impact. Another shot and it would be out, which Sota was kind enough to divulge and the alien behind it was soon down. They still weren't taking them out fast enough, however.
North examined the shields through the scope, looking for a weakness, but the Jackals were small enough to fit entirely behind the thing. Suddenly, he had his answer, but wasn't sure if it would work or not. Only one way to find out. Taking careful aim, he shot the next target where its ugly hand was in the open, clutched around the oddly shaped weapon it held. The effect was what he had hoped for; the jackal, in obvious pain, had turned to the side, momentarily forgetting about keeping its shield in place in front of its body. North was quick to fire another shot and finish it off. Each shot sent a spike of pain racing through his shoulder, but he continued anyway.
"Aim for the hands," he said to his team, who had no doubt seen what he had done, and they quickly picked it up. Before he knew it, the sound of rushed footsteps sounded behind North, and he fired once more before turning to see the other team. With a quick glance, he affirmed that all of Ark's team was there-Ark, Georgia, Mich, and South.
Mich immediately went to one of the turrets and started hammering bullets into the enemy, and the others joined in as well, providing North and his team with support for a few minutes. He looked over at his twin, making sure she was fine, and though her armour was banged up a little, she didn't appear to be hurt. South looked his way, and he knew she was doing the same to him. He couldn't see her face, but he noticed when she saw his wound, and he gave her a slight nod to let her know he was okay. Not a word was said between them except the silent communication they had developed over the years they had spent together, and she turned to leave.
North stopped Ark with a quick question. "You have a plan?" he assumed.
"I do," Ark confirmed. "Let's hope it works." He then turned again to continue on his way, the others following with Virginia this time. North didn't question him more, as that was all he had needed. They wouldn't be able to keep going for much longer, and the Covenant forced continued to press on them with no end.
More grunts were on the other end now, and Mich's skills with the turret had helped with the incoming jackals. Something was different about these grunts, however. North suddenly took in the gigantic weapons mounted on the grunts' shoulders, and he knew that couldn't be anything good. He shot at the first one right as it got a shot off, and a large green ball of energy barrelled toward them. "Look out!" he called, and dove out of the way.
The barricade he had been behind was blasted away and slammed into the wall behind them. North landed next to Wyoming's perch and sat there for a minute. He had landed on his shoulder, jarring it painfully, and he clenched his hands tightly for a moment as his head cleared and the pain subsided a little.
"We have to take those guys out quickly!" Sota said, and North agreed with him.
He came out around the corner and started firing, but most of his bullets went wide. Shooting at them like this wasn't working. North couldn't hold the rifle like he was accustomed to, and it was showing. Luckily, the others were able to down more of the grunts, but they were still firing with the large cannons of theirs. He looked out again while he reloaded, and his sharp eye caught something. One grunt was crouched behind the bodies of the fallen, unseen by the Sota and Mich, and he doubted Wyoming would be able to get a shot at him, as there was a thick brute arm in the way. The cannon the grunt was carrying was aimed right for his teammates.
He slammed the ammo clip in the rifle and stood fully. He lifted his sniper up and didn't hesitate as he pressed the butt of the rifle into his right shoulder to hold it steady so he could aim accurately, though he did wince considerably. His finger pulled the trigger and he staggered backward, biting his lip against the yell the pain that almost escaped him when the rifle jerked backward into the wound, causing him searing pain. He tasted blood but continued to push on, and he looked over at the dead grunt. The bullet had gone clear through the grunt's weapon and through the alien's head. Something neon green was leaking out of the cannon, and it was glowing considerably. North suddenly realized it was about to blow.
The Grunt was far enough away that it wouldn't cause damage to them, but that distance was shortened considerably when one of Mich's shots broke through the neighbouring grunt's mask, effectively turning it into a rocket and sending the dead grunt body-cannon and all-speeding toward the Freelancers. North didn't even have time to shout a warning before the explosion happened, and several voices called out, though North couldn't tell who was in pain and who was surprised.
As soon as he could, North rushed forward to the first figure he saw. Sota was groaning, but overall looked fine. Mich's rugged breaths and groans reached his ears, and he made his way over to her, where half of her body was being crushed under a broken piece of the blockade. The turret lay in pieces next to her.
"Get it off me!" she screamed, and North knelt down, grabbing the metal in a death grip. His muscles started straining, ignoring the fire pumping through his shoulder, and the thing was lifted about a foot. However, it was much heavier than he had anticipated, and he groaned with the effort. Suddenly, Mich was pulled away from it and North made sure no one else was in the way as he dropped it, narrowly avoiding crushing his fingers. Looking over, he saw Sota crouched next to Mich, examining her.
North was about to join him, but when more shots were fired their way, he remembered that they still had to watch their backs. Wyoming had apparently been knocked off his crate and was now up and returning fire, which North aided. "How is she?" he yelled back to Sota after a minute, worried about her.
"Her arm is broken, and that appears to be the worst of it. There's no telling how many minor injuries she has, though," Sota replied.
"I'll be fine," Mich grunted.
North doubted her words, as they were same words that came out of the mouths of most wounded soldiers, but there wasn't anything they could do about the situation at this moment. Her wounds-as well as his-would get worse the longer they went unchecked, but they had to keep going. If they didn't, the Covenant would win this battle and they wouldn't survive. They had to keep going. Hopefully someone else would hatch a plan that would drive the Covenant back indefinitely before the freelancers succumbed to their injuries and exhaustion.
